We’re frankly not easily impressed by other music blogs since a lot of what’s done in the name of music-love is just re-hashed, cut-and-paste, shuck-and-jive (guilty as charged, your honor).  So when we discovered Said the Gramophone a few years back, we immediately took notice of the calligraphic cant and caliber of the literate writing.  The site’s writers bring new songs to your ears (oft-time legitimate newcomers that even we have not heard of–horrors!), while providing vivid vignettes and imaginative (to say the least) allegories that at least tangentially relate to the proffered songs.

What we also appreciate is that, like us, they refuse to go the way of advertising (though if Apple, let’s say, wanted to run a million dollar ad campaign on The Lefort Report, we’d consider kicking our ethics to the curb–but make it snappy would ya Jobs).  What this backbone necessitates, however, is that once per year (this year from June 13th to July 12th), Said the Gramophone makes “The Big Ask” for donations to enable them to continue to provide their high-caliber content to you, us and the world.  So go to their site at the embedded link provided above to read some of their fine writing and listen to a great song or two you have not heard, and then go HERE to donate to a quality site.  We did.

If you need further motivation to contribute, check out some of their writing excerpted below (found quickly and provided without song context; we’re sure you can find other entries at Said the Gramophone that exceed your needs and desires).

“Please let your guard down for this song. Let it stand in your room, in a beamed-up sun dress with unwashed hands. Let it look at all the stuff on your walls, in your drawers, under your bed and out the door. Let it eat crudités, take texts and smile, let it take showers and wrap gifts and make cards. Let it stay, breathless and grinning, a while.”

“Inside my body there is art waiting to escape. It shows up on the surface of my skin, in ink lines. The marks made on me by people who love me or fuck me over show up like magnet lines, like filings falling into place. As if the very beating of my heart drew patterns of travel and maps for the way back.”

“Teddy was 13 and under the impression that he was much more good-looking than he actually was. He wore his wing-tipped jeans like they didn’t fit like a rotten pear. He walked proudly with his chest sticking out in front, blissfully oblivious to his sinking hunched shoulders and his plunking, swishing gait. He spoke slowly, as if he poshly needed to taste all his syllables, taking no notice of his own condescending whine, nor the splay-toothed spittle that formed at the sides of his mouth. Despite having a voice like a seeping balloon, he enrolled himself in a local youth choir at the Briarcrest Community Center on Thursday nights.

He came into rehearsal for New Voices Youth Choir, always one of the first to arrive. He dropped his droopy satchel bag in the corner near the coat hooks and made his way to a group of three girls, chatting before things got started. “Hello lay-dees,” his voice creeped out of his throat like it were an insect, like it had its own eyes. The girls always dreaded a talk with Teddy, but always seemed to forget that it would happen, the way you only take notice of a leaky shower faucet when you’re actually in the shower; a problem that quickly gets itself forgotten, only to come back every time, with the pall and residue of an untended annoyance. “What-ever are you discussing amongst yourselves? Perhaps the weather?” The girls looked at him like a plate of left-out cheese, a sweaty, sagging, unduly proud pile, edges hardening by the second. “We’re talking about how to get beer this weekend. So…” Two of the girls closed their shoulders together, a gate denying entry, but Teddy stood motionless, his hands perched high up on his waist, pulling his shirt up with his hands placed icky on his bare skin. “Oh. Beer. Myself, I’m more partial to cock-tails.” One of the girls, the oldest, said with eyes firmly rolled, “Oh yeah?” The door opened and the instructor came in, sighed, and Teddy zeroed in on her; he had plenty of suggestions for new songs and special requests for solos. As he left the girls, he spoke without looking at them, “Yes. They certainly do take the edge off the day.” One girl, the tallest, looked lazily at his satchel, sad and dolloped in the corner, and wondered what-ever could be inside.”

“Considering that “When I Paint My Masterpiece” is an ode to all-consuming artistic striving, it’s ironic that my primary ambition in life is simply to listen to it all the time. My parents may worry about my financial security, but when it comes to listening to this song I have a gift, and not to vigorously pursue it would be a gross disservice to me and you. If it’s true that when a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it it doesn’t make a sound, then the very existence of Danko’s astounding bassline, not to mention that of the romantic interplay between Helm’s mandolin and Hudson’s accordion, depends upon a constant listener. I volunteer.”