Randy Newman- Shame

No more shame.

I love The Driftwood Singers. The vinyl fetishists at the eclectic music blog are funny, smart and kind of creepy. Lefty, one of the site's contributors, recently suggested that Randy Newman's Bad Love is his second-best album. It's easy to scoff at that silly assertion, but "Shame" is certainly one of his best songs. The deranged narrator attempts to woo back his "pretty little baby." "Do you know what it feels like to have to beg a little bum like you for love?" he cries before falling apart at the 3:50 mark. Making matters even more absurd, he quarrels with song's background singers. While the pathetic narrator's clearly a self-centered, materialistic pig, Newman's brilliant portrait forces the listener to identify with him anyway.

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Brett Dennen fought the crowd and the crowd won. The rising star attracted a couple hundred people to a bar in my town last night, About half of them knew the words to every song and sang along with impassioned conviction. Unfortunately, they also gabbed with one another as if a year-long vow of silence was going into effect at midnight. The big redhead was clearly rattled by the raucous carnival atmosphere. I took this photo during one of his failed attempts to capture the audience's attention. His band offered a dance-oriented reggae-based lilt that his fine new album So Much More only hints at.

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Kansas City Click: The Record Bar pops with Apples In Stereo.