#pig week

We talk to a breeder and importer about this wild and wooly breed that’s become a favorite with farmers and eaters.

Expert butcher Tom Mylan talks pork with Modern Farmer — walking us through the commonly sold cuts of pork from nose to tail.

Ernie has plenty of more recognizable material, but this is Pig Week and we are all for pork, bacon, and ham.  This time it is pork chops, one of my favorite meals, and the Southern staple mustard greens.  This tune was an Imperial 45" from 1951 featuring the tune "Forget About the Whole Affair".  Anyway, if you are not salivating by the end Pork Chops and Mustard Greens end, then I just don't know.  But I suspect for most of you, this is the perfect brunch pre-game song.

Never mind the hats though, this is one of my all-time favorite jazz songs and one of my favorite covers.  In fact, for many years I thought this was a Jeff Beck tune until I started getting into jazz in my later college years.  Rather than a let down though, I was even more impressed by how Beck was able to interpret the song, making not just the best song off of his Wired album and one of his most famous songs ever.

That story has nothing to do with today's song, which continues our musical adventure into all things pig.  Pork and Beans was lead singer River Cuomo's way of telling Geffen Records to screw themselves after telling the band they needed to record more commercially acceptable material.  I am no record executive, but I am not sure telling one of your more successful bands to be more commercial is a winning argument.  Much like people telling me that you can't have breakfast for dinner.  They are so missing out.

March of the Pigs was the first single released and relatively early in that descent down the spiral.  It speaks of fame and fascination and the tearing down of our icons and heroes.  We love something until we grow bored and move on.  The cycles have only grown sharper and more vicious especially with viral fame and 24 hour news cycles and the massive voraciousness of the digital mob to consume and eviscerate everyone and everything.  We are all the pigs, but we can all sleep soundly.

Peppermint Pig was an early EP of the band's back when Will Heggie was on bass.  He left shortly after its release at the point in time when the band started to gain wider recognition for their distinctive ethereal sound.  Funny enough, Robin Guthrie has stated that this EP was "shit" and was the first and only album recorded by an outside production company.  I happen to think it is pretty decent for what it is though, and plus it is about pigs.