Elijah Foxface Maxwell

This cartoon from The New Yorker is one of my favorites. All hail Bruce Eric Kaplan for coming up with what I feel should have been the vanguard of pretentious baby names.

Sadly, I keep forgetting to scan in last week's playlist. I'll have to scan them both in after tomorrow's show. I can tell you this, though: I plan to play more of OK Jones and will revisit a few songs from Rilo Kiley's newest album.

Now, onto one of my obsessions. The Making of Aja by Steely Dan is one of the most fascinating music documentaries you can own, especially if you really like Steely Dan. If you merely respect them, but don't particularly love them, you'll still love this DVD. I was blabbering about my love for Bernard "Pretty" Purdie in this video earlier today.

One of my favorite parts of the DVD is when Purdie demonstrates the Purdie Shuffle (which he used when playing drums on the song "Home at Last"). I've found a video of him demonstrating it on YouTube here. Find me a cooler man. Go ahead. Try. "Don't worry about those ghost notes! Ain't nothin but rebound. Ta make it sound... and feel... good."

My other favorite part of the video is when Donald Fagan and Walter Becker discuss and deconstruct "Peg." See the video below or click here to see the Peg deconstruction on YouTube. At about 4 minutes and 55 seconds, you'll hear the guitar solos that they rejected for Peg (played by musicians other than Jay Graydon, who ultimately did the solo used on the recording).



This same Peg YouTube video [above] will also remove any possible lingering doubt that Michael McDonald is, in fact, a shiny, glistening robot with razor-sharp mandible pincers and a neck filled with buzzing, sparking electricity where vocal cords should be. Listen to his hauntingly lovely and undeniably eery backing vocals on the above Peg video at about 6 minutes and 20 seconds in. Again, one of my favorite car-trip pastimes is trying to imitate Michael McDonald's singing voice. "Minute by Minute" by The Doobie Brothers is my favorite and I'm not bad at doing it. Of course, it makes sparks shoot out of my throat, but it reduces me to giggles shortly thereafter.

Darnit, I have to rush off to a meeting. Oh, WVUD.