Franz Nicolay

“organ grinders and other street nuisances”

YouTube video by drcossnuevoleon Flaco Jimenez - En Vivo (1976)

RIP to Flaco Jimenez, one of my early accordion inspirations. Here's a chunk of Les Blank's film "Chulas Fronteras" with Flaco making music in the Tex-Mex borderlands in the 70's. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXrw...

YouTube video by CHANGES - A BOWIE ODYSSEY Mike Garson - Aladdin Sane (Isolated Piano Track)

here's to Mike Garson at 80. One of Bowie's essential musicians. The isolated piano track of "Aladdin Sane": www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOcy...

Shit I better head to the platform

For a euro more I’ll tell you it’s big

I wrote a little more about musicians’ unions outside North America, and outside the capitalist world, here: open.substack.com/pub/pianofig...

I wrote a little more about musicians’ unions outside North America, and outside the capitalist world, here: open.substack.com/pub/pianofig...

But it’s one of those matter-of-taste binaries, like people who believe production is “record/reproduce the artist exactly as they sound live” vs “you can see them live so many times but this is the one chance to do the ur-version of the song, w choirs and strings and whatever”

Obviously it can succeed while only accessing one, but I do often feel the sense of a missed opportunity

In that songwriting has the unique capability of combining the musical and the literary

With immense respect for Ray and Michael I feel exactly the opposite

This turned out to be incorrect

Unprecedented

I don’t want to jinx it, but I might have brought exactly the right number of books on a family trip

The questions “why were the Nazis bad” and “who was Morganna the Kissing Bandit” posed within an hour and with equal intensity and seriousness

Had to have The Talk with the kids today—explaining Morganna the Kissing Bandit

Thx @carlzoilus.bsky.social and I agree w your suspicion

carlwilson.substack.com/p/not-with-a...

Omg

YouTube video by Minor Compositions Band People with Franz Nicolay

Minor Compositions Podcast Episode 28 Band People with Franz Nicolay
youtu.be/PACXNnWph_s
@franznicolay.bsky.social

Then I encourage you to explore the Chumba catalog!

The "current moment appears to offer what hasn’t been seen in generations: an opportunity to close the long-standing breach between the unions and independent musicians, harnessing the institutional power of the former to the newfound energy of the latter."

I’m as surprised as anyone to have ended up at “maybe it’s time to give the AFM another look,” but here we are

Franz is one of the most insightful chroniclers of music labor from the ground level. Always worth engaging with his insights, especially when they challenge your assumptions.

I wrote about musicians’ unions and what is “new,” or what could be new, about the “new music labor movement”

I would listen to a supercut of all the ways the words “New York City” have been sung

Come on how sick is this look

Found your textbook

It’s a start

Weirdly only exists on the internet on this random comp

Sweet Mountain, by American Spring from the album Late Night Tales: Franz Ferdinand

While we're sharing great Brian Wilson tracks, I humbly submit this deep cut

latenighttales.bandcamp.com/track/sweet-...