the bouffant boys

I spent about three hours making some CD compilations yesterday for the office (see, I'm settling in) and googling bands and things. As you do. I made four CD's: "funk soul blues" (BB King to Gnarls Barkley - sorry, I kinda like it - via Sly & Stevie), "arty pop" (so called because it has both Madonna and the Dresden Dolls on it), "Ella et al" (self-explanatory; includes Andrews Sisters & lots of Chet), and "country" - which was the most fun to make, actually. Oh, it has Hank & Patsy & Dolly & Loretta... as well as Johnny Cash, & Gillian Welch. (I nearly included Jim White, the so-called "king of hick hop", but thought instead I might save him for my "tortured heads" CD, featuring Portishead, Radiohead and all the other tortured... Nick Cave. You know.) And in the course of googling images of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys - ever heard their fiddling? and they can yodel - I found possibly my new all-time fave photograph.

Isn't it just beautiful? I think it's the picnic table that makes me love it so. Shame about the quality, it doesn't show as well as I'd like. But to me it looks like a cross between a Diane Arbus and the pictures from when I was a baby.

By the way, my dad (I'd call him "Grandpa Baroque," except that I think he'd prefer "your Majesty") still calls a quiff a pompadour. Maybe I get it from him.