I first heard Franklin Bruno when I picked up an album from his band Nothing Painted Blue (ØPB). I'm not sure what led me to the purchase; perhaps a good review in a fanzine or simply the visual appeal of the album cover, but it was a fortuitous purchase. A Baby, A Blanket, a Packet of Seeds started what has been a 20-year streak of dependably outstanding releases.

My look back was precipitated by Bruno's own. He just released a collection of his solo odds and ends from 1992-98, dubbed Local Currency. Listening to all of these songs in one place rather than on the scattered pieces of vinyl or compilation albums, I'm struck not by the consistency, but rather by the variety. While there are plenty of pop gems like those Bruno has sprinkled throughout his career, I had forgotten the noisy, more obtuse experiments. Just when you think you have a guy pegged, he surprises you.

This trip down memory lane had me pulling out a lot of Bruno's back catalog, and I was glad for the excuse. Too long had elapsed since I had spun some of the earliest ØPB releases, and they deserve to be back in rotation. The band broke no new ground musically, but the territory it traversed it did very well, melding a very slight punk attitude (though more in the "let's make our own records" vein than anything sonically) with pop smarts and the most erudite lyrics around. Bruno cites the Go-Betweens as an influence, and I'd bet that Stephen Malkmus would cite Bruno and ØPB as one, too.

It has been difficult to keep up with Bruno's output, released as it has been on albums, 7" singles, cassettes (long live Shrimper!) and various compilations. Thankfully, Local Currency helps to fill in some gaps and makes listening to some of his less readily available work note quite so arduous. In addition to his work with ØPB and his solo recordings, he has worked with the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle as the Extra Glenns (whose lone disc, Martial Arts Weekend is superb) and with Jenny Toomey (of Tsunami, et al) on the disc Tempting. A new group, Human Hearts issued the disc Civics on Chicago's Tight Ship Records a couple of years back as well.

In addition to the music, Bruno is an accomplished academic and an insightful music critic. He has kept a handful of blogs, Nervous Unto Thirst being the latest (his recent look at Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night" shows you how entertaining the reports from an enlightened critical ear can be). He has written for many publications, including the Believer, which in its November/December 2009 issue published a great interview Bruno conducted with musician/artist Peter Blegvad. He wrote a book on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces for Continuum's 33 1/3 series and, in the first thing I read that showed me his talents beyond music, he wrote a scathingly funny (and spot-on) review of the horrid indie rock novel Our Noise that ran in Matador Record's shortlived newsletter, Escandalo!

Bruno reports below that there is more in the works. So, catch up with Local Currency, then get ready to dive back in.

TIRBD: Any surprises or revelations when you heard all of the material gathered on Local Currency?

FB: I always had in my head that that group of songs -- especially the one on my first 3 7"s -- were a kind of album-by-other-means. (That's part of the reason there were four or five short songs per single/EP.) So I knew that they would hang together, somehow. That said, on going back to the original recordings, I was surprised that so many of them include some "experimental" element, whether it be low-rent sound collage or some kind of noisy intrusion (or alongside) these formally tidy little songs. I guess my ideas about recording were a little stranger than I realized at the time. Beyond that, I'm pleasantly surprised that some of my guitar playing still seems interesting, to me at least, and less happy to find that I could have taken more care over the vocals. I shouldn't apologize too much -- that diffident attitude towards getting certain things "right" could also be heard as a kind of immediacy. Either way, that approach was part and parcel of the '90s indie scene. Also, since I've been playing some of these songs live again for the first time in many years, I'm relieved that some of them stand up -- with a rhythm section, "Cat-Scratch Fever" (not a Nugent cover) has turned into a full-on Smiths pastiche.

Any thought of putting out more of your hard-to-find material on CD or digitally? Your Shrimper cassettes and the first Nothing Painted Blue LP in particular...

I'm more interested in my current projects (see your later question), so it isn't a priority. There are also practical problems: I've never been a good archivist, and there may not be "master" versions of the material from the Shrimper tapes, in particular, that would merit digital release without a lot of clean-up work. We still have the half-inch masters and multi-track tapes for the first ØPB album (all-analog as matter of necessity, not ideology), but that record was pretty under-realized owing to our lack of studio experience. It's a document of where we, and I, started, but I'm not sure I'd make people spend money to hear it. (The other side of this is that I don't object if that material is distributed, ahem, unofficially.) All that said, there's probably a CDs worth of post-Emotional Discipline ØPB singles/compilation tracks/unmixed songs dropped from other records that I wouldn't mind assembling at some point -- we were fairly prolific in out day, and there are some buried songs that (perhaps) deserve a wider hearing.

I've always found your music criticism and analysis fascinating but I wonder, does the penchant for thinking so deeply about music have an adverse effect on your ability to listen for pleasure? Can you turn it off?

I don't find that it's a matter of "turning it off." I don't experience myself as having any trouble marveling at the music that I love, whether that's realized in composition (songwriting) or performance or both, and I think it's possible that my analytical side opens me to an appreciation of craft and structure, which I think have as much aesthetic potential as, say, "intensity." (I suppose I'm often looking for the place where mere craft and skill transcend themselves, if that makes any sense.) Generally, I've never held with the idea that critical analysis "destroys" what's valuable in aesthetic experience. First of all, I'm not sure what the metaphor is supposed to convey. I mean, what's there is still there whether someone purports to account for it or not, so I don't see what's actually "destroyed." And also, if you truly believe that there's something genuinely ineffable or inexpressible about how a piece of music (or poetry or film or what have you) works, then all the language in the world won't touch that. (I'm sorry if this is the kind of "intellectual" sounding answer that people might expect from me, but there you go. Trust me, this answer could be longer.) On the other hand, having been around for a while does probably make it harder for me to be enthusiastic about some new bands -- a revival of some style (neo-psych-folk or angular dance-rock or whatever) is less exciting when you were around for what's being revived. (Though there are always individual remarkable exceptions.) None of that is a function of being a critic as such -- it's just a matter of age.

Do you put the same thought into your own music, or rather, do you become your own harshest critic? Does that ever limit what you are willing to release?

These are tough questions, John. Given some of what I've seen written about myself, I'm pretty sure I'm not my own harshest critic! And, while I'm certainly aware of the failures of craft or execution on just about everything I've released, I can't believe that most artists don't feel the same way, and what I find dissatisfying in my own work is probably not the same as what outside listeners, critically inclined or not, might find lacking. As for "thought," I do sometimes have critical or mildly theoretical ideas that guide a particular recording. For example, on the Human Hearts album I'm working on now, I've decided not to use any strings (even though I'm friends with some wonderful players and arrangers), as a kind of push-back against the tendency in indiedom to use "orchestral" instruments as a signal that something is to be taken more seriously than a "mere" rock band. (I find the implied hierarchy here a bit undemocratic, or undemotic -- even though I have this rep as "brainy" or "quirky" or whatever, I'm still much more interested in music that retains some tie to vernacular traditions.) I could go on (I'm more interested in horns), but it's just an example.

I do think that being a critic, or at least trying to be a widely-informed listener, does make it harder to be a "true believer" about one's own music. When you're, say, 20 and involved in a tight-knit local scene, as I was, it's easy to have the conviction that you and your friends have found the way, and to reject other possibilities out of hand. (Consider the asceticism of Fugazi, which wouldn't really be possible if they had been "open-minded.")

Lastly, while I certainly drop songs or recordings for various reasons (like, they suck, or they're too evidently derivative), I'm not a perfectionist -- no one working in any artistic medium who actually intends to put something into the world more than once a decade can afford to be. (Okay, I'm a perfectionist, or nearly so, about one thing -- though it works when the Minutemen or Stereolab do it, I mostly can't abide lyrics that violently distort the conventional syllabic stress of a word in order to fit a melody, and avoid this at all costs.)

Are the people in the academia side of your life aware of your musical career (and vice versa) and what is the reaction from those who are?

My sense is that the criticism and journalism puzzles academics more than the music does. And I suspect other musicians may not care one way or another what I do outside of that realm. But, ultimately, you'd have to ask them.

Your entry in Continuum's 33 1/3 series is on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces. Could you imagine a book-length look at one of your own releases, and if so, what might be the approach?

It would be flattering, but I'm too close to the records to imagine how (or why) someone would do this. What made it possible for me to do the EC book was my interest in connecting the record to the political context of its moment (Rock Against Racism, the National Front, the run-up to Thatcherism) and some of its deeper roots in earlier British fascist movements, and also as a way of working through - though not to any kind of final conclusion - some of the thorny issues around, well, rock and race, using the so-called "Columbus incident" and EC's subsequent career as a case study. I hope all that gives the book a richness that wouldn't be there if it were all just formal commentary on the song-structures and performances. It's not clear that any of my records could be convincingly tied to their social context in a similar way -- but then again, it's not clear that they couldn't. From my own perspective, the second Nothing Painted Blue album, Power Trips Down Lovers Lane, was very much affected by being in Southern California at the time of the uprising following the Rodney King case, and by reading Situationist polemic (especially Raoul Vaneigem on the earlier Watts riots -- he's quoted on the back of the "Swivelchair" sleeve) while watching the riots go down. (I recognize that it's perverse to filter all that through a musical vocabulary that rests more on the dB's and the Go-Betweens than on, say, Public Enemy.) And then those concerns were connected in vaguer ways to ideas about architecture, the suburbs, and my own experiences doing white-collar temp work. (And, yes, all of these things recur on later records.) But how someone should go about writing about these connections, or how they relate to their musical realizations, isn't for me to say.

What is the status of your various projects (Nothing Painted Blue, Extra Glenns, Human Hearts and your solo work)?

Nothing Painted Blue: We're all still friends, so there's never been an official breakup, but we're geographically dispersed, so there's nothing on the horizon. I've played with both Kyle and Peter separately in the last few months -- Peter is on the Human Hearts album-in-progress, and I played a duo show with Kyle in L.A. last November. Never say never.

The Human Hearts: I'm playing under this name around New York, usually with drummer Matt Houser, and whoever I can rope in for a few songs for a given show. (We've also gone to Boston and D.C.) I wouldn't mind finding a more permanent bass player, but it's intended to be more of a fluid "project" than a stable band. There will be a 7" on Fayettenam later this year, and I'm about halfway through recording a new album with various guests, which will be done when it's done. I'd say the next record after that is at least half-written already.

The Extra Glenns: John Darnielle and I have changed the name to The Extra Lens (for private reasons I won't go into), and we've finished a new album that should come out late 2010/2011. That will probably be the next thing to see the light of day. Pretty sure we'll tour a bit -- possibly just John, myself, and Peter Hughes (who's releasing his first solo record in years soon). I'm excited -- John and I sometimes manage to be more than the sum of our parts.

Solo -- Well, I still play under my own name when it's genuinely just me and a guitar, but I don't really plan to release new material "as" Franklin Bruno anymore. As much as I admire many artists who use "bandonyms" for their one-person projects, I've always felt uncomfortable with the practice, probably because I don't attempt to construct a performing persona distinct from the one I project in day-to-day life.

I should also mention two other projects: My partner/spousal equivalent/squeeze Bree Benton performs a cabaret/theater act as "Poor Baby Bree," doing vaudeville and parlor songs from the late 19th c. through the 30s, and I'm the pianist/arranger ("musical director," in theater parlance) for that. We just did our first shows with additional musicians, a fantastic violist and trombonist, and we should be doing more later in the year. Also, Jenny Toomey and I have just started talking about doing something new in the vein of Tempting -- that record had her covering some old and new songs of mine, but this one we'll probably co-write.

Labels: books, Monday Interview, music

For any number of reasons, I'm not a big fan of memoirs. Take your pick: too much information about childhood, too little insight to leaven the recounting of exploits or tales simply too tall to be true. In the case of Patti Smith, add in the flake factor, as well as my lack of knowledge (or, I'll admit, interest) in Robert Mapplethorpe and his work, and the result is a curious but reluctant reader.

All of this is by way of saying that Smith had a considerable barrier to scale when it came to winning over this reader. But win she did. Just Kids is a fantastic, fascinating book. While the hook for most will be the recounting of Smith's relationship with Mapplethorpe -- it began as a romance and then, after Mapplethorpe discovered he was gay, an intense friendship and artistic partnership -- the way she chronicles the creation, nearly from the ground up, of two of the late-20th century's most enduring artists, is the real draw.

Smith's fans likely know some of the story already, and anyone who watched the illuminating documentary Dream of Life, has seen Smith tell some of these stories. But the bulk of this was new to me, and it was conveyed in such a clear-eyed, detailed and passionate way that it inspired at the same time it informed. Smith and Mapplethorpe were ambitious kids who had the fortune to run into each other in 1967 New York, and the tenacity to hook up with and cultivate the right people to push their dreams forward. Each ended up somewhere they didn't expect -- Smith as a rock 'n' roll star and Mapplethorpe as a revered photographer -- and without each other, it's unlikely either would have been more than a footnote.

The reader has the value of hindsight, knowing that Smith would be a star, that Mapplethorpe would die before his time from AIDS, that some of those they rubbed shoulders with would soar and others would fade. Smith knows this too, of course, but it rarely intrudes on her story. It's clear that the William Burroughs in the book is the William Burroughs, for example, but elsewhere, casually mentioned acquaintances like Janis Joplin or Sam Shepherd are rendered contemporaneously, their eventual starpower not overshadowing their pre-stardom selves.

While the focus is on Mapplethorpe, a thread running through the book is how Smith aligns herself with men that help propel her forward. There is never the sense that she is an Eliza Doolittle with a series of Henry Higginses, but rather that each man teases out something within and sends her further along her journey. It begins with Mapplethorpe, but Shepherd, Blue Oyster Cult's Allen Lanier, Todd Rundgren and others each seem to give Smith a valuable nudge.

Speaking of the men in her life, it's fitting, given that Smith writes often in the book about his influence, that her's is the best book about the creation of art since Bob Dylan's Chronicles vol. 1. Writing about the debut of the Patti Smith Group with drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, she says of learning that Dylan was at the show, "It seemed for me a night of initiation, where I had to become fully myself in the presence of the one I had modeled myself after."

In the end, the book made me want to listen to all of Smith's music, read all of her poems, look at all of her sketches and watch ever frame of film taken of her. The same goes for others in the book. I long to read Burroughs and Gregory Corso, thumb through Mapplethorpe's work and even listen to Joplin. For what Smith has done with Just Kids is to make art come alive, to give it a pulse. Hers was a life lived immersed in art. Late in the book, she writes about Mapplethorpe on his deathbed, asking, "'Patti, did art get us?' I looked away, not wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.' Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art."

Labels: books, music

OK, I'm going to pull together some disparate thoughts about Autechre, the Album Leaf and Midlake to make a bigger point about the validity (or lack thereof) of album reviews.

I'll start with Midlake because this whole thing started with Pitchfork's trashing of the band's new album, The Courage of Others, saying it "is a step down on songcraft, atmosphere, and apparently, even self-awareness." Writer Paul Thompson said the album "just feels so monochromatic, so flatlined, even the tiniest signs of life have no power to resuscitate."

I had heard the album early, finding a download back in December that I was eager to cue up. I liked it a lot, the songs reminding me of what I liked best about The Trials of Van Occupanter, the band's breakthrough sophomore disc. The review surprised me. I was expecting the typical fawning Pitchfork "best new music" tag, but instead found a dismissive 3.6 rating.

The review made headlines elsewhere. Stereogum commented on it, saying "Forget what you've heard: The '60s Brit folk-nodding The Courage Of Others is a beautifully downcast, pleasingly oddball trip." Of course, the only thing a Stereogum reader would have "heard" about the album was the Pitchfork review posted earlier in the day.

So, who is right? No one and everyone, of course. Music appreciation is subjective. That's clear even within the confines of Pitchfork. While one reviewer can't get past Midlake's consistency and monochromatic sound, another is willing to tolerate it in the Album Leaf. A day after the Midlake takedown, Ian Cohen gives Album Leaf's new A Chorus of Storytellers a 6.3. This despite the fact that "the beauty LaValle conjures is effortless but ultimately less impressive for not having any sort of contrast" (that's another way of saying "monochromatic, kids) and that "Album Leaf should never have to apologize for not rocking enough" (could that be something akin to "flatlined?").

Pitchfork can't even agree with itself on Midlake. Van Occupanther, the album that The Courage of Others is seen as a step down from, earned a 6.8 upon its release. Does that mean that Courage is only half as good as Van Occupanther? Of course not.

This brings me to Autechre. I have been getting into some electronica (or IDM or whatever else it's called), and have been grabbing everything the local library has in a bid to make up for a lot of lost time. I've read a lot of praise for Autechre, including comparisons between its work and that of Radiohead at its glitchiest. OK, I'm in. So, I picked up Quaristice, the band's latest album. I'll admit, the 7.5 rating on Pitchfork intrigued me. What would I give it? Maybe a 3.6. It just did nothing for me. And I can't fault anything more than the rating in Mark Richardson's review, for he was spot on: "Even while Quaristice is in some ways the most listenable album they've created in a decade, it's ultimately no easier to parse, and can be very rough going indeed if you're not in the mood for their peculiar world." Count me among those not in the mood.

So, what's the point? If you've read reviews at all, you already know it: They're the opinion of one listener, nothing more. A handful of people were disappointed by the Midlake album, giving it a negative review in part, it seems, because they expected a leap forward instead of a look back. Others of us really like it because it's more of what drew us to the group in the first place. My worry is that the negative reviews are shouted much more effectively than the praise. There is value in reviews all along the spectrum, no question. Here's hoping that people are savvy enough to take them as one input in the decision-making process and not ascribe them the power of arbiter.

Labels: criticism, music

A member of the Iowa legislature has proposed a bill that would make it unlawful to advertise or produce a concert by an act claiming to be a classic group if it didn't have at least one original member.

Bob Dvorsky said he introduced the legislation after talking about the idea with Jon "Bowzer" Bauman, a former member of Sha Na Na, during a recent tour stop.

Similar bills have passed in 33 other states. The bills differentiate between "performing groups" and "recording groups," with the latter being seen as legitimate because at least one member appeared on a recording under the group's name. All bets are off if the performing group has a right to the name through trademark.

The Iowa bill would block performances that don't meet the standard and administer a civil penalty of up to $40,000 per incident.

That's all well and good, and from a legal standpoint it makes sense. But it in no way ensures a level of quality even in groups that pass that test. There are many bands on the road with just one original member, or even less in the case of some, where a latter day drummer or bassist carries on under the name. Having covered my share of fairs, holiday celebrations and such as a newspaper critic, I can assure you that plenty of acts would be deemed legal but yet be criminal in the court of taste.

One of the worst offenders I have witnessed is Creedence Clearwater Revisited (pictured above). Yes, they altered the name to indicate their "tribute"status, but original CCR drummer and bassist Doug Clifford and Stu Cook give the group a cachet that leads listeners to expect something special. It's not just that the group's singer does a sorry impersonation of John Fogerty, but that the band doesn't understand its own music. Introducing Fogerty's poignant anti-war song, "Who'll Stop the Rain," Clifford said, "This is one that goes down smooth, like a good brewski." Such cluelessness ought to be against the law, but sadly, it's not.

Then again, if these acts were forced off the road, every county fair in the country would be left with little more than karaoke as an entertainment option (unless, of course they ponied up for the real thing... highly unlikely). So, we're destined for festivals with marquee acts anchored by the third drummer or second bassist of an act we once knew and loved, pale imitations of the real thing.

Still this bill and those like it already on the books are a start.

Labels: concert, legal, music

While I love checking out the hundreds of best of the year lists (and Largehearted Boy is the best aggregator I've found), all of that pales in comparison to the rush afforded by release of the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll. I have voted in the poll the past couple of years, and find it interesting to see where my pick fall on the overall list, and what kind of support my favorites garnered from other critics.

This year's list was topped by -- surprise, surprise -- Animal Collective's Merriwether Post Pavilion. The disc seemed to top everyone's list... but mine. It didn't even make my top 20, mostly because initial listens did little for me and I never spent much time with it. Lately, spurred by its appearance on so many other lists, I decided to listen more carefully to see what I was missing. This time, it clicked, and would definitely have found a place in my top 10 (though I'm not sure what I would displace to get it there).

My ballot can be found here; it is identical to the top 10 I selected back in December here at TIRBD (so read that post if you're curious why I picked what I did).

Much of my ballot aligns with those of the rest of the critics. My No. 2 disc, Neko Case's Middle Cyclone, was No. 3 overall, while six of my picks were in the Top 20 of the P&J list. The rest of my picks were somewhat spread out. U2's No Line on the Horizon came in at No. 32, while the rest were in the lower reaches. Deer Tick's Born on Flag Day, which topped my list, was at 188 (only seven other critics picked it at all, and only a few of those put it in their top 5). Nirvana's Live at Reading placed at No. 111, while DJ Spooky's The Secret Song, was all the way down at 1,586 (I was the only one who voted for it).

Seeing the cluster of groupthink at the top of the list, it's amazing that 1,934 albums could be nominated. But for every Animal Collective or Neko Case that caught so many ears, there are albums like DJ Spooky's that caught only one or two. With 697 critics participating, if each has a pet favorite or two, that expands the list significantly very quickly, allowing for mass consensus at one end and complete diffusion at the other.

It's a great way to learn about what might have been overlooked (or in the case of Animal Collective, avoided) during the year. When I see an artist on other ballots that include albums that I loved, it makes me want to seek them out. Am I missing something? There's no better time to find out.

Labels: lists, music, Pazz and Jop

I'm not a fan of OK Go. That's not backlash against the band's impossible-to-avoid videos from a few years back, but rather a reaction to the band's music, which I find cloying, and it's stage presence, which is annoying. A slot opening for Fountains of Wayne several years back left me aggressively hostile toward the band.

But this week it offers another of those benchmark moments in the shift from tangible plastic to intangible bits in the world of popular music. This might not hit the history books the way Radiohead's pay what you want model did (or even OK Go's viral marketing model did), but it's certainly instructive.

In an open letter on the band's message board, singer Damian Kulash explained why the band's new video for the song "This Too Shall Pass" is not embeddable on blogs and other web sites. At least, why the version on YouTube is not. That's strange, given that the very act of embedding YouTube videos for "A Million Ways" (the backyard dance) and "Here it Goes Again" (the treadmill dance) is what made the band big enough to deserve making a third album in the first place.

It comes down to money, of course. The band's label, EMI, has a deal with YouTube, as do other labels, to pay a fee each time one of its videos is played. The catch? The plays aren't tabulated on embeds, so EMI wants everyone to watch on YouTube. Kulash understands, enumerating the various ways the label has funded his band's efforts, but also is frustrated because its success is largely predicated on the band's own actions and the way fans spread those actions around the globe.

Kulash finds a workable solution that does undercut YouTube and EMI, but adheres in principle to what both parties want: He sends fans to Vimeo, where they can find a legit embed code. So, they end up with a higher-res version that cuts YouTube out all together, and the whole thing might just help the band to duplicate -- on a much smaller scale -- its success with the previous two videos.

You can see the video below. The song is catchy, showing the band making some real strides (literally, as you'll see, and figuratively). The problem is that the video version of the song is altered to mesh with the marching band theme, and that version is significantly better than what the band came up with for its album. The marching band drums, the swelling horn section... it's an inventive tune. On record, it feels like the same old thing.

Labels: label woes, music, video

Surprise, surprise: album sales continue to drop in the U.S. Industry folks will blame illegal digital downloads, and there is certainly a case to be made. But the real culprit is likely the abundance of free and legal ways to hear music coupled with the disposable nature of what is produced. When you can hear a bad song once, you've no need to drop money on the right to hear it again and again.

According to industry figures, album sales dropped for the eighth time in nine years, falling 12.7 percent to 373.0 million units in 2009. Want to know why? Michael Jackson, whose sole appeal during the year was that he died, was the top selling artist. He didn't release new music during the year, which means the rest of the world's artists couldn't compete with someone whose music is already in many, many collections. Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle also were in the upper reaches. I'm sure Swift is a nice girl, but I haven't heard a note of her music and can't say I feel any detriment from that lack. And Boyle is a novelty who was guaranteed to sell. No one else singing that kind of material will ever sell like she did, so that's an anomalous blip and nothing more.

While Internet piracy is blamed, it's interesting to see that in a recessionary year, spending on concerts actually increased. Could it be true, as often stated, that getting music into peoples' hands, however it is done, can create fans willing to spend money on other experiences? That seems to be the case.

Legal downloads continue to climb, with sales rising 8.3 percent to 1.16 billion tracks. Most amazingly, some tracks sold more than 4 million digital copies. That's an amazing statistic that shows people are engaged with music, they're just choosing to get it in different ways. Has a single in any past format -- 7" vinyl, cassette or CD -- ever come to 4 million in sales? It seems as if the era of ubiquity in pop singles is over, but I'm probably wrong, chalking it up to the fact that I'm old and haven't listened to anything but NPR on the radio in a decade.

One report on the sales figures from the Chicago Tribune's Gret Kot points out "one of the more delightful oddities of the digital era, vinyl album sales continued their recent resurgence. Though representing only a small fraction of the overall market, vinyl is the one physical product that continues to defy trends, with sales up a whopping 33 percent to 2.5 million."

That's no surprise, however. People willing to spend money on music are passionate about it. The most passionate are those willing to spend money on vinyl. While a digital download is an afterthought, a vinyl purchase is a declaration of intent: I like this artist and want the most permanent artifact I can acquire to cement that fact. There is more great music being made than ever before, it's just not selling worth a darn.

Labels: commerce, music

A new Spoon album is a big event, so I carved out time to give the stream up on NPR this week a listen. The verdict? I'd say it's not what I expected, but with Spoon, it's difficult to know what to expect. It feels like both a logical progression from the last two albums and a retrenchment of sorts to the sound of the two before that. Somehow, it is all of those things, and yet what it most resembles is the new Spoon record. How's that for circular logic?

Here is a track-by-track first impression. Listen for yourself here.

1. Before Destruction - A keyboard that sounds like something lifted from Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan anchors the beginning of this track, with that giving way to rather lo-fi vocals from Britt Daniel as the song builds (or rather, deconstructs). This sounds like a demo that was used as the base of a finished track. Given Daniel's acumen and the fact that the band produced itself for the first time here, that's entirely possible. It's a slightly odd opening track, because it isn't immediately gripping, but as a scene setter, it may very well be the perfect introduction. Some nice backing vocal effects as the song progresses add some beneficial texture. I may be humming this a couple of weeks from now after a few spins, but for now I'll file it in the "grower" category.

2. Is Love Forever - Ah, much more Spoon-like, with Daniel's stabbing guitar chords driving things from the get-go. A slightly out-of-sync doubled vocal track gives this a spacey, out of focus vibe. I keep waiting for the drums to fully kick in and propel the song into a more dynamic chorus, but so far, no go. Again, not much to latch onto here. It'll click eventually, but Daniel's typical sticky melodies are absent here.

3. The Mystery Zone - Even more Spoonesque. If you seek a first single, this could suffice. The beat is more traditional, the melody more conventional and the sound more fleshed out. This could easily appear on any of the band's last three albums, though it does hark back more specifically to Kill the Moonlight. That's the dilemma, however; because this sounds most familiar, it has the most appeal now yet will probably be one of the tracks that wearies most readily. There's a nice long unadorned Jim Eno drumbeat that would make a nice sample for a future rap single. Heads up, Kanye.

4. Who Makes Your Money - This is a strange one with an odd little keyboard line driving it before Daniel starts singing in a restrained, almost pained way: "Japanese John, his slight face fur/Still just as confused, still just as sure.” The chorus finds Daniel singing the title in a phased way that brings to mind the old hit "Crimson and Clover." Then, about half way through, a slight guitar riff pushes the song, both rhythmically and sonically before fading to let the keyboard figure back to the surface. After a couple of albums where Spoon added layers back to its sound after the spartan Kill the Moonlight, this feels like an about-face back toward the stripped-down aesthetic.

5. Written in Reverse - The first song made available as a stream (not counting "Got Nuffin," which anchored an EP last year) has a bit of a Paul McCartney vibe, with the 4/4 drums and a pounding piano as a complementary rhythm instrument. It, too, recalls past Spoon albums, but this time out it's Girls Can Tell, the album that found the band's reach and grasp aligning to produce a clutch of wonderfully off-kilter pop songs. Daniel sings with conviction here while the guitars slash and dive. It has a nice false ending, too.

6. I Saw the Light - The tempo doesn't shift much between these two tracks, with the beginning of "I Saw the Light" almost feeling like an extension of "Written in Reverse." Then, about halfway through. The song morphs into a double-time instrumental propelled by piano and bass. Guitars again slash through as the song builds, but it never feels like a part of the same song.

7. Trouble Comes Running - Lowest of the lo-fi, at least for the first few second, with a creaky strum replaced by full-on rock. Daniel sings what sounds like "I was in a functional way, I had my brown sound jacket, queen of call collect on my arm." While the backing continues to sound lo-fi, as if cut on a four-track, the vocals and guitars sound hi-fi, giving them prominence in the speakers. The song is a kick, with some nice mid-60s Who backing vocals on the chorus and a generally ramshackle stumble of an arrangement.

8. Goodnight Laura - If memory serves, the first true Spoon ballad. Over nothing more than a piano, Daniel sings what amounts to a lullaby. There is nothing crafty or obtuse about the lyric; it's simply telling Laura, whoever she may be, that everything will be all right and that it's OK to go to sleep. A sweet song that shows more range than Daniel has revealed previously.

9. Out Go the Lights - A bit of normalcy after some more challenging (by mainstream standards, of course) tunes. This is the most straight-forward song on the album, though it is still spare and, thanks to its mid-tempo beat, will rely on multiple listens to reveal its charms. Daniel seems to be doing more with backing vocals on this album, and the oohs and ahhs that buttress his main vocal here are a good example of their effective use. This staggers to a close more than ends, with instruments falling away to leave only Eno's drums to carry things to the conclusion.

10. Got Nuffin - This is the oldest track here, and it fits well with the album. Given Spoon's penchant for non-LP releases, I'd have preferred leaving it to its namesake EP to make way for another new song here, but it does give the album a needed boost of energy in the penultimate spot. Along with "The Mystery Zone," this is the most Spoon-like track on the album, a propulsive rocker with a solid hook and well-placed guitar lines. It's also the only track that makes use of Daniel's unique spelling, with past song titles like "Don't You Evah" and "Rhthm & Soul" earning the scorn of English teachers.

11. Nobody Gets Me But You - The burbling bass and drum machine make this sound like an outtake from a 1980s DeBarge record, but Daniel clearly makes the song his own in short order. Could this be a paean to the listener: "No one else gets what I'm doing," he sings. Of course, given the band's rising profile and growing commercial footprint, that's not such an exclusive club. This is a strange closer, but, like much of the album, that obtuse nature makes me want to listen again to figure out all of the angles, and that's not a bad trait for an album to possess.

All told, this isn't the album I expected from Spoon, nor is it necessarily the one I wanted. But Spoon has succeeded and thrived precisely by delivering the unexpected, and Transference will likely be no different. If this feels like a retrenchment of sorts, it's at least a return to a time when Daniel and his band found very fertile ground to explore. While certain tracks could be considered growers, the entire album feels that way when one takes a step back. While "The Mystery Zone" and "Got Nuffin" offer immediate rewards, tracks like "Who Makes Your Money" and "Nobody Gets Me But You" surely will offer the highest yields over the long term. Transference is a good record that, with enough dedicated listening, promises to be a great one.

Labels: first listen, music, Spoon

2009 was the year that I "got" the Knife, thanks to the marvelous solo debut of Karin Dreijer Andersson under the name Fever Ray. That led me back to 2006's Silent Shout, which placed high on many best-of lists that year but which eluded my ears.

With that background, I'm primed for whatever the duo has to offer from here on out, and it seems as if I'll be handsomely rewarded with their next effort. The pair, in collaboration with performance artist Mt. Sims and and musician/visual artist Planningtorock, will release the Tomorrow, In A Year, a work commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma for its opera based on Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species. It will be available by digital download on Feb. 2, and in stores March 9.


There are certainly elements of opera in the first track released from the set, the 11-minute "Colouring of Pigeons," but it is even more interesting for the revelation it provides about the Knife and where it is capable of traveling. There is more warmth and space in the music than on past work from the duo, easily absorbing the operatic elements to create a unique and captivating hybrid. The learning curve to get there was steep, according to Dreijer:

"We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do."

To hear "Colouring of Pigeons," visit the band's web site.

Labels: music, opera, the Knife

Is a pending greatest hits disc from Pavement the final sign that indie rock is all grown up or that it's dead? However you see it, Quarantine the Past will signal that event upon its March 9 release.

The obvious thing for a blogger to do at this point is to nitpick and/or parse the tracklisting. Alas, the folks at Matador have turned that exercise into a game. Or rather, a contest. The collection will feature 23 tracks, the first of which is "Gold Soundz." If you're the entrant who comes closest to picking the correct order, you'll win a pair of tickets, with flights and hotel rooms, to see Pavement at Central Park Summerstage on Sept. 21. Not a bad prize. A few more hints, via the Matablog: "3 pre-Matador tracks are included, plus one song that originally came out on a compilation. Every Matador album is represented, plus Watery, Domestic."

That means "Box Elder" and two more from the Westing (By Musket and Sextant) collection, as well as a smattering of "hits." I'll certainly give the contest a shot. How much might that package net on eBay?

In other news, Matador reports that it's biannual release of a deluxe version of one of the band's albums will culminate this fall with the band's swan song, Terror Twilight.

Labels: greatest hits, music, Pavement

2009 was a very good year to be a Big Star fan. Rhino graced us with a boxed set that gathered up seemingly every stray sound recorded by the band, while a limited-edition two-CD version of Chris Bell's lone solo album (the posthumous I Am the Cosmos) rescued every scrap he laid down.

But, strangely enough, the best Big Star-related thing wasn't something you could listen to, but rather something you read. Bruce Eaton's entry in Continuum's excellent 33 1/3 book series dealt with Big Star's Radio City, the band's sophomore outing. In the book, Eaton offers not only the most complete history of Big Star during that period, but he actually gets the notoriously difficult Alex Chilton to talk about that era. He places the album in its proper context both in terms of the work of the musicians involved and its place on the music continuum in general. In doing so, he does what the best 33 1/3 books do: He gives new life to an album that rabid fans likely thought they had completely absorbed. I came away with a much better understanding and appreciation of a favorite album, hearing it in a completely different -- and superior -- way.

Eaton knows of what he writes. He backed Chilton on some concert dates in 1979, has promoted concerts and written about music. All of this experience is brought to bear on his subject. Any Big Star fan worthy of the name has or soon will acquire the boxed set and the Bell release. But to really appreciate what you're hearing, getting a copy of Eaton's book is essential.

By the way, that's Eaton in the photo above, performing with Chilton on June 23, 1979, at McVan's nightclub in Buffalo, N.Y. Eaton keeps a great blog where he writes about the book, the band and his other experiences in the world of music.

TIRBD: Why Radio City and not #1 Record or Third?

BE: A few reasons. It's the Big Star record I heard first and spent about six months absorbing it before I could track down a copy of #1 Record. Also, given that I could only write about one record, Radio City encompasses the range of Big Star the most of the three records. You can relate #1 Record to Radio City and Radio City to Third, but Third doesn't really connect to #1 Record unless you're familiar with Radio City. I thought it would provide the broadest platform for the living central members to discuss. It would be hard to write about #1 Record without Chris, and Third wouldn't include John Fry much, let alone Andy Hummel (or even promo man John King). So it was the best of the three to explore Big Star and tell a good tale in the process.

You spend a lot of time with John Fry, which was illuminating. Why do you think other analyses of Big Star's sound have given him short shrift, and how important is he to that sound?

John was everything to the classic power pop Big Star sound. He built the studio, chose the equipment, taught everyone how to use it, gave them the time and space to experiment, and laid down the standards for how things were recorded at Ardent. And he by all accounts was an exacting genius at recording and mixing. Listen to a Raspberries album back to back with Radio City. The difference is 99% Fry. And as Richard Rosebrough said, Radio City was his zenith.

I think John has been overlooked for a few reasons. First off, he retired from working behind the board fairly soon after Big Star so he didn't really build up a significant body of work over decades. A lot of what he did wasn't really high profile in terms of big credits on albums (Stax) or big hit records. You really have to read the fine print on albums to pull together his resume. It happened over a relatively short period of time over 35 years ago. Also, John doesn't fit the image of a rock and roll guy. He looks and dresses like an engineer working in the business world. He's a fascinating, down-to-earth guy. I thought his personal story was really fascinating. Those teens in the 50s doing all those grown-up things -- recording, broadcasting, setting up businesses, flying planes... really amazing. Getting to know him a bit was for me a major highlight in writing the book.

Listening to #1 Record, Radio City, Third and some early Chilton albums, I'm struck by how clear the evolutionary line of his sound is. Why is the common story that he radically changed, and why is Radio City seen as being of a piece with #1 Record when it's clearly a transitional record between chiming power pop and atmospheric oddity?

I think the main reason for this is the change in producer/engineer from Radio City to Third. I've sometimes tried to listen to Third imagining what it would have sounded like with Fry behind the board and doing the mix I think then that the three albums would have seemed more to be part of continuum rather than Third being a sharp left turn.

You got more out of Chilton than anyone else in a long time. Do you think you understand his motivations and goals for Radio City now in a way you perhaps didn't before?

Great question and, yes, I do see it all a bit differently. I think that Radio City represented at the time a natural progression for him. He had been in the Box Tops, a band over which he had little creative control, if any. He had fooled around with solo material and recordings but probably realized he had a way to go. He had joined Big Star as an already existing artistic platform and a step up from the Box Tops as they were a "real rock band" and he would be allowed to contribute freely. So when the suggestion was made to make another record (Radio City), my guess would be it seemed like a natural and easy progression. When he joined Big Star, he was a co-pilot to Chris's vision. Now he would be the pilot more or less and free to follow his muse in terms of experimenting with song structures and recording. I think he probably saw it as yet another way to grow as an artist within a band and environment that he felt comfortable with. He liked all the people involved, it's all right around the corner from where you live: why not give it another try?

I also think it was probably the last time he allowed himself to be optimistic about the commercial potential for a project in any serious way. After the failure of Radio City, I think he makes records as musical statements and moves on. I doubt he's ever looked at a copy of Billboard or any sales chart for any record he's made since then.

There have been a lot of bands over the past couple of decades that are compared to Big Star or cite the band as an influence. Is there anyone who really captures Big Star, either in sound, attitude, songwriting or in some other way?

I think there are bands who are reminiscent of Big Star (or obviously imitative) but, as with any great band or artist, there isn't anyone who really captures them because that's really close to impossible. Everyone has influences. But the great bands are able to transcend their influences and become something unique, usually fairly early in their careers. When someone tells me that a band sounds like "X meets Y with a little bit of Z" I'm not really that intrigued. I'm far more interested in bands that sound totally like themselves (if that makes any sense). Think of any number of great bands from the 60s or early 70s. Whether it's the Stooges or Santana (and you could spend all evening making a list), they started almost right off with a fully formed sound that transcended their influences. So while there are a number of really good bands that are influenced by Big Star that I can appreciate and who can even make for enjoyable listen or night out hearing live music, in the end I don't think anyone captures the band. And I think that's sort of the nature of the beast...

Labels: Big Star, books, Monday Interview, music

Perhaps it's the fact that I turned 40 this year, or that my job was busier than ever, or that playing with my kids takes up a lot of the time I used to devote to music. Whatever the case, I found my tolerance for challenging music that required multiple listens before I would "get it" was limited. At the same time, I probably listened to more albums all the way through than I have in years. It was a case of constantly seeking out the new thing and being disappointed. So many bands were hyped this year (which is, of course, nothing new) that were good but nowhere near as great as promised. Woods, Dan Deacon, Fuck Buttons, Memory Tapes, Real Estate... the list goes on and on. I liked something on all of these, but none were anywhere near the best thing I've heard all year.

I found that what it came down to, the thing that put something on this list more than anything else, is that I enjoyed listening to it. Now, that may seem obvious, but any look at a usual end-of-the-year list proves that it is far from it. People often populate their lists with challenging music, either because they want to impress readers, or because they truly spent the time to figure out what was going on and want a pat on the back. I have certainly been guilty of that in the past.

Not this year. In 2009, if you didn't captivate me right out of the gate, you were tossed on the one-and-done pile. That's not to say there isn't challenging fare on the following list, but rather that even the most perplexing albums at least had something that immediately grabbed me and made subsequent spins seem worthwhile.

With that, I present the Things I'd Rather Be Doing list of the best music of 2009. Following is a short list of great reissues and collections.

1. Deer Tick - Born on Flag Day - If fun and enjoyment are the bellwether's of a great disc, then Deer Tick wins hands down. Born on Flag Day is the most rousing, irreverent goodtimin' disc I've heard in a long time. John J. McCauley III succeeds despite the fact that his reach does not exceed his grasp; one feels like he has much better stuff in him, but what he's doing now is still awfully good. Live, the band puts on the most entertaining show I've seen in years, and you can just tell that as good as songs like "Easy" and "Smith Hill" are, this is only the beginning.

2. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone - Neko Case has such an identifiable sound that one fears she'll run out of ways to excel. No such worries yet, however. Middle Cyclone may well be her best album (and that's saying something), because it finds ways to push her sound forward while making it clear that we're still listening to Neko Case. Her songwriting, a pleasant surprise on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, is in full bloom here, proving Case to be a formidable multi-talented performer.

3. Fever Ray - s/t - I never really saw the appeal of the Knife, the band of Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson, but for some reason her similar solo work smacked me upside the head and forced me to listen. Where Silent Shout seemed unremittingly cold, the Fever Ray disc used that icy tone as simply one of many tools. The songs seemed more fully formed, and despite the chill, they were still a pleasure to listen to. Andersson's gimmick of altering the pitch of her voice to add menace to the proceedings, deployed on the Knife's music, worked even better here. The most revelatory thing I heard all year.

4. Flaming Lips - Embryonic - The F'lips last, At War with the Mystics, was awful, one of the worst albums from a beloved band I've ever heard. I had hoped Wayne Coyne and Co. would retreat somewhat, but never expected they would regress so far. Had this album come after the majesty of Zaireeka, no one would have been surprised. That this swirling cloud of cacophony and blissed-out beauty followed the band's first true dud was the most pleasant surprise of 2009. There were no real singles, and it essentially stopped the band's commercial momentum in its tracks. But it proved that the band has much more up its sleeve, and makes the future seem very bright indeed.

5. Grizzly Bear - Vekatemist - The Grizzly Bear backlash has begun, and it is not without merit. The band, while making gorgeous music, does so in a largely soulless, rather mechanical way. Vekatemist has its share of absolutely stunning music ("Two Weeks" is among the five best songs of the year without question), but it is music made seemingly without passion. That missing ingredient kept this disc away from the upper reaches of this list. Here's hoping they find it in years to come.

6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t - Ah, sweet nostalgia. Had this been issued in the late 1980s on Sarah Records or K, it would be seen as a classic of the college rock era. Instead, it comes 20 years later, proving that at least someone who was listening to their big brother's record collection was absorbing the lessons on display. This is a fun, raucous disc that sounds a bit like Belle and Sebastian had that band been formed in a garage instead of a college rec room.

7. St. Vincent - Actor - Annie Clark is a wildly talented woman: a singer, songwriter and guitarist who puts all of those skills to work on her sophomore outing to create a bracing rock album. It's hard to point out any one thing and say, "this is St. Vincent." Instead, Clark has (not so) simply assembled a disc of great songs that make the best use of her strengths.

8. Nirvana - Live at Reading - Truth told, this may be the best album of the year. It's hard to award a nearly 20-year-old live album from a band that stopped making music more than 15 years ago the title of album of the year, however, so instead it sits here in the bottom of the top 10. There's little that can be said that hasn't been said before. This is one of the best bands of its generation playing its strongest songs in a take-no-prisoners performance before a powerful, adoring crowd.

9. DJ Spooky - The Secret Song - When I first popped this in, I was intrigued. As it continued to play, I was continually blindsided. Is that a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused"? At times this sounds like the great lost Beastie Boys album, at others it rivals the best of DJ Shadow or the Jurassic 5 or Springheel Jack. Translation: this is a little something of everything. By the end of its 20 tracks, you feel spent, but it isn't long before the desire to cue this up again takes over. That's a good thing, because it'll take several spins before it all sinks in.

10. U2 - No Line on the Horizon - This pick will surely earn me some catcalls, but hear me out. "Get On Your Boots" is a fairly awful retread. "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" is Bono the old man trying so hard to connect with the kids and failing so miserably. "Unknown Caller"'s lyrics peppered with computer terminology are inane. That would be enough to sink most albums, but not this one, for the rest of it is as accomplished and flat out stunning as anything U2 has made since Achtung, Baby 20 years ago. "Magnificent" is the kind of anthem you wished the band had cranked out instead of by-the-numbers tunes like "Vertigo" and "Beautiful Day," while the title track is a perfect blend of the band's pomp and producer Brian Eno's circumstance. And for the band to be able to craft something as beautiful as "What as Snow" at this point is remarkable.

11. Love Language - s/t
12. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
13. The xx - s/t
14. Joe Henry - Blood from Stars
15. Bonnie Prince Billy - Beware
16. Gomez - A New Tide
17. John Wesley Harding - Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
18. Ike Reilly - Hardluck Stories
19. The Dead Weather - Horehound
20. Boston Spaceships - The Planets are Blasted


Reissues/Collections

Nick Lowe - Quiet Please
Emitt Rhodes - The Emitt Rhodes Recordings 1969-1973
Tin Huey - Before Obscurity
The Jayhawks - Music from the North Country
Big Star - Keep an Eye on the Sky
Richard Hell - Destiny Street Repaired
Close Lobsters - Forever Until Victory

Labels: lists, music

It's a shame that it took Chris Knox having a stroke to lead to this, but the new 2-CD tribute to Knox, Stroke, is a fantastic collection of songs from the New Zealand songwriter performed by 34 simpatico artists. The proceeds from the set go to help Knox, who suffered a life-altering stroke on June 11 of this year.

Albums like these are usually a bit spotty, but the participating artists all seem to not only understand Knox and his music, but are able to approach it with the same wild and wooly spirit he brought to his songs.

The disc is a who's who of New Zealand pop, with luminaries like the Chills, Peter Gutteridge, Shayne Carter (Straightjacket Fits), Alec Bathgate, the Bats, David and Hamish Kilgour and others in the fold. Several U.S. indie acts also contribute, from Bonnie "Prince" Billy to Bill Callahan to, most marketably, Jeff Magnum.

You can purchase the set right now digitally from Merge Records for just $11.99 ($14.99 for FLAC files) or spring for the limited-edition 2-CD set for $19.99. That one will be mailed in late February, but you'll get the MP3 version right away. Do the right thing and spring for this. All of the money goes to help Knox with his recovery.


I saw Knox perform a solo show in the mid '90s, and it was one of the most captivating, enjoyable shows I've seen. His energy made it all but impossible to remain passive, and his knack for strong hooks made each song a singalong despite my never having heard some of them before. To know that this energy was bottled up because of the stroke and the resulting health woes is saddening; to know that Knox seems hell-bent on recovery and that this 2-disc set might help in some small way to speed that process, makes it doubly good.

To learn more about the disc, go to its web site, which features information about each track and contributing artist.

Disc 1:
1. Jay Reatard – Pull Down The Shades
2. The Checks – Rebel
3. The Bleeding Allstars – Ain’t It Nice
4. Peter Gutteridge – Don’t Catch Fire
5. The Chills – Luck Or Loveliness
6. David Kilgour – Nothing’s Going To Happen
7. The Crying Wolfs – All My Hollowness To You
8. Stephin Merritt – Beauty
9. Portastatic – Nostalgia’s No Excuse
10. The Mint Chicks – Crush
11. Jay & Sam Clarkson – I’ve Left Memories Behind
12. Sky Green Leopards – Burning Blue
13. Shayne Carter – The Slide
14. Pumice – Grand Mal
15. Hamish Kilgour – Knoxed Out

Disc 2:
1. Boh Runga – Not Given Lightly
2. Red & Zeke (Feat. Bill Doss and Neil Cleary) – Bodies
3. Jeff Mangum – Sign The Dotted Line
4. Bill Callahan – Lapse
5. Genghis Smith – Growth Spurt
6. Yo La Tengo – Coloured
7. AC Newman – Dunno Much About Life But I Know How To Breathe
8. Alec Bathgate – Glide
9. Don McGlashan – Inside Story
10. Sean Donnelly – The Outer Skin
11. Lambchop – What Goes Up
12. The Mountain Goats – Brave
13. The Tokey Tones (and friends) – Round These Walls
14. The Bats – Just Do It
15. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – My Only Friend
16. The Finn Family – It’s Love
17. Jordan Luck – Becoming Something Other
18. The Verlaines – Driftwood
19. Lou Barlow – Song Of The Tall Poppy
20. The Nothing – Napping In Lapland
21. Tall Dwarfs – Sunday Son

Labels: Chris Knox, music

I'm not sure why I first picked up Anders Parker's music. The first time I heard him was on a Space Needle album, but that's about as far from indicative of his sound as you could get. Perhaps it was the appeal of that disc, however, that led me to the debut of Parker's other band, Varnaline's 1996 album Man of Sin. The disc was appealing, but because it was essentially four-track demos, it didn't feel like the unadulterated voice of the artist. Not yet. That came soon enough, however, with the band's self-titled sophomore album and the contemporaneous A Shot and a Beer EP. From then on, it was clear that Parker was someone I was going to follow as long as he kept making music.

Varnaline kept cranking out good-to-great music through the '90s, capped by 2001's Songs in a Northern Key. After that, Parker transitioned to releasing music under his own name, and now has three solo LPs and an EP to go with the four Varnaline LPs and EP. All of it blends elements of alt-country, rock and folk, with Parker's expressive vocals and cinematic lyrics atop it all. His discography is rounded out by Death Songs for the Living, a collaboration with Jay Farrar under the name Gob Iron.

With that recap, we're up to the boldest move in Parker's career, Skyscraper Crow. The double album gathers two of four new collections of songs Parker has completed. He recorded a quiet folk album, an all-electronic album, an atmospheric instrumental guitar record and a full-band rock album. The Skyscraper part of the new album is the electronic album, the Crow part is the folk record. Together, the represent poles in Parker's sound. While Skyscraper is the most jarring, it is also the more interesting of the two. Anyone doubting Parker's songwriting chops need look no further, because despite the fact that he limited himself to sounds he could make on his laptop, the result is an organic, beautiful collection of songs. There are a couple that sound a bit forced because of those constraints, but by and large it is a collection of good Anders Parker songs that just happen to have been made on a computer.

Crow, on the other hand, is of a piece with much of his back catalog. Perhaps a bit quieter, but solid top to bottom.

The other two discs in this four-album burst of creativity await release. Parker says he hopes to release the instrumental album digitally sometime in early 2010, while there are no concrete plans for the other.

If you're a fan, you'll happily add these to your collection. If you're new to Parker, this might not be the best place to start, but you'll certainly find some gems that will hook you and lead you deeper into his catalog. Sample two of the new tracks below:

"72nd St. Horses" from Crow
"Calling Out to You" from Skyscraper

TIRBD: You've recorded four albums that all are very different from one another, and chose to release these two first. What was the thinking behind putting out a stark acoustic album and a wholly electronic record at the same time?

AP: The short answer is that I thought that they made interesting companions. They're different, but complimentary. I'd been meaning to do a very stripped down acoustic record for a long time, but circumstances were not ripe for working on that record in my old apartment in Queens, so I started fiddling around with various programs that I had on my computer and the seeds of Skyscraper were sown. Crow was written and recorded last of the four, and it was kind of way to wind down from all the work that preceded it, if that makes sense... low-tech and intimate after all sorts things that weren't.

I didn't really envision Skyscraper Crow as a sprawling Beatles White Album type of double record, but more as two extremes of things that I do. The tether between the two is my voice and songwriting.

Do you envision a similar pairing for the improv guitar instrumental album and the "rock band barn burner" record?

No. The so-called "band" record is on the shelf right now. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet.

The instrumental guitar record is entitled Cross Latitudes. I'm releasing that as a digital download record via iTunes, Amazon, etc. soon. I may do a very limited run of hard copies next year.

I imagine you seeing these albums as the components of an exploded view of your sound. Is there any accuracy to that, in that these are the isolated components that comprise the whole found in your past work?

Yes, generally speaking I'd say that's accurate. If anything I'd say that these are even more distilled elements of things that I do. (Although Skyscraper doesn't really relate to anything that I've done before as far as using technology to that extent in the creating of the music.)

The idea for the parameters of the projects evolved as I was working on them. There's something about creating strict guidelines that can be freeing... Counterintuitive, but true, in my experience. The reduced possibilities forces you to be creative within the structure.

Was there a shift in your songwriting or recording process when you dropped the Varnaline name and started working under your own name?

I don't think there was a conscious shift in my songwriting... more of an evolution (hopefully!). The decision to drop the Varnaline name was more about the dissolving of the touring band and wanting to mark the change.

How has geography played a part in your music, particularly these new collections of songs?

Geography always plays a part in the songs I think. Consciously or unconsciously. And after I move to a new place I always seem to write a whole lot.

Are there things you'll take away from this process that will affect the way you make music from here on?

Well, I think the next project/album will be totally boundless... But I don't know what it's going to be. I'm just writing with no agenda right now. I wrote a lot this summer and in the past weeks I've been writing a lot again.

I think learning different recording programs that I used for Skyscraper will be helpful in the recording process. It's always good to have different tools. And each album is a learning experience unto itself.

Labels: Anders Parker, Monday Interview, music

For a moment, I thought Deer Tick was doing more with its new EP, More Fuel for the Fire, than offering a stop-gap between albums. After opener "La La La" faded out on iTunes (the only way to get the EP at the moment), a slinky guitar came in and the rhythm section sounded like something out of an early Santana track. What was this? Then came the vocals, which found John J. McCauley sounding like... Captain Beefheart? OK, so I unknowingly had the thing set on shuffle, and it was indeed Beefheart's "Low Yo Yo Stuff" cranking through the speakers.

Thing is, this didn't seem outside the realm of possibility. I guess I'll just have to give it a few years. For now, Deer Tick, while capable of more, is content to have fun and offer up bar band delights with a ragged smile. I'm willing to wait. The band's Born on Flag Day promises to show well on next week's Top CDs of 2009 list (watch for it Dec. 9), and its live show is the best thing I've seen in a long while (I'm already looking forward to an April date here in Iowa City).

So, what do we have here? Two long-time live staples in the trifle "La La La" and "Dance of Love," a slight song sung by guitarist Andrew Tobiassen. Both are fine, but nothing special. The third track is the keeper, "Axe is Forever." Sounding like an early Creedence Clearwater Revival, the band offers a swampy boogie that seems to be an homage to Axe Body Spray (JJM, correct me if I'm wrong).

The EP closes with a live version of "Straight into a Storm" from Born on Flag Day. It's a rollicking rendition, though inessential given how much live material is available from the band (including a run through that track on the band's Daytrotter session).

So, yes, this is a stop-gap with no signs of artistic growth, and that's fine. But there will come a day where McCauley and Co. will surprise listeners, as they have the ability, should they choose to embrace it, to make Beefheart seem like a peer, if not an early influence left on the side.

Labels: Deer Tick, EPs, music

What's the bigger surprise: That Warner Brothers records is duplicitous at worst, callously ambivalent at best, or that Too Much Joy has an active web site?

For me, it was the latter. No knock against the fellas in TMJ; just haven't heard about them in a decade or more. I was surprised, then, to see a link to the band's blog where leader Tim Quirk shares the band's most recent royalty statement to highlight the laughable digital sales tally listed. And not just a month, or a quarter or even a year, mind you. But five years' worth. The total: $62.

The New York indie joke rockers signed to Warners for three albums in the late 1980s, and as is clear from the royalty statement, they never came close to making money on the deal. -- they still owe the label $395,000 17 years after the release of their last for the label, Mutiny! So it's not as if Quirk and Co. are looking for a late payday. They simply want an accurate accounting of things.

What makes this all the more sad/funny is that Quirk works for Rhapsody, so he knows exactly how many times the band's songs have been streamed and downloaded, and from his, um, accounting of the matter, it's clear that Warner's is lowballing this to a tragically comedic level.

As Quirk points out in the blog post, consider this a digital-age addendum to Steve Albini's famous anti-major label screed for the Baffler back in the 1990s.

Labels: music, record labels

Two giants took the unusual step of releasing Christmas albums this fall, and the surprise is who did it better. Was it the sentimental fool with a sweet pop croon who knows his way around traditional music, or the craggy voiced Jew whose music seems to eschew sentiment?

Surprise! In the battle of superstar Christmas albums, it's no contest: Bob Dylan bests Sting.

The intent of these two discs is different. Dylan surely hopes his disc will bring Christmas cheer, while Sting probably imagines his ideal listener in front of the hearth of a stone castle's main room sipping a glass of port. Each artist includes 15 songs, and one need look no further than the tracklistings to tell the difference. Dylan includes "Here Comes Santa Claus," "Winter Wonderland" and "Silver Bells," while Sting's tunes come from the likes of Praetorius, Schubert and Bach.

If Sting is good for anything these days, it's subverting expectations. Solo career tailing off? Cut an album of ancient lute music. Making inroads as a classical artist? Reunite the Police. Fans eager to hear the next thing from that still vital band? Go back to classical music and make the world's first completely joyless Christmas album.

Sting was sliding down a slippery slope toward irrelevance when he decided to reunite the Police. It was his most purely commercial and calculated move of the last two decades. After that triumphant return, he could have done just about anything. Fans would have loved to see the Police go into the studio, but there was little chance of that. A big rock album from Sting was a possibility, or at least a return to the airy pop he was making in the early 1990s. Instead, he returned to the contemplative, mannered music he was making before the reunion. The result, If On a Winter's Night..., is an impressive collection of music both new and old (mostly old), but as a Christmas album, it's a complete dud.

Even those of us who cringe at any bit of treacle in our music can at least tolerate a bit of goodwill and cheer (and sappiness) when it comes to Christmas music. Sting takes the opposite tack, however, offering the perfect soundtrack for the ascetic atheist winter carnival of one. It is at times beautiful, but it doesn't seem to have a place.

Bob Dylan's Christmas in the Heart, meanwhile, is the sign of an artist who gets it. No one expected this from Dylan, of course, particularly given the creative hot streak he has been on over the past decade-plus. But, like Sting, Dylan is one who seems to revel in subverting expectations.

Perhaps it is the charitable intent behind the disc (all proceeds go to charity) that steered Dylan in the right direction, or, more likely, it is simply his affection for classic songs. Whatever the cause, he offers spirited and silly takes on some of the best-known (and best-loved) carols. His jaunty performance fits well with the material. The swooning strings and jingle-ready backing singers are a bit much, but Dylan clearly had a vision here, and he executes it to the fullest.

Labels: Bob Dylan, Christmas, music, Sting

I'm listening to Mojo Nixon for the first time in probably 20 years, and I have come to one conclusion: A little Mojo can be an amusing, exhilirating listen, and a little Mojo goes a long, long way.

The reason for this blast from the past? Nixon is making eight of his albums available for free download on Amazon.com. On offer are six studio albums, one rarities collection, one live show, one best-of and a new disc. All free. The new disc is Whiskey Rebellion, "a variety of songs left off of previous albums, songs from movie soundtracks and television shows, sports themes, alternative versions of previously released songs and demos." That's a strange way to relaunch a career, but then again, who even knew Nixon has been in retirement (can you still call it that when its a factor of people no longer requiring your services?).

I never owned any Mojo Nixon albums, but it was hard to avoid him for a while. He was near-ubiquitous on MTV, and songs like "Elvis is Everywhere" are simply a part of our popular culture. The one song I did have was "Burn Down the Malls," on an Enigma Records compilation. That seemed sufficient for me, but I must admit that the notion of free music was too tempting. I downloaded Unlimited Everything, a sort of best-of of the Skid Roper era. Hearing it now is conjuring false memories, because this is the first time I've heard most of these tracks. They just seem so familiar, perhaps because Nixon is such a singular performer.

“Can’t wait for Washington to fix the economy,” Nixon stated in a press release announcing the deal. “We must take bold action now. If I make the new album free and my entire catalog free it will stimulate the economy. It might even over-stimulate the economy. History has shown than when people listen to my music, money tends to flow to bartenders, race tracks, late night greasy spoons, bail bondsman, go kart tracks, tractor pulls, football games, peep shows and several black market vices. My music causes itches that it usually takes some money to scratch.”

Nixon's music may cause an itch, but it's the kind that usually requires antibiotics to contain. I'm glad there's a Mojo in the world. To be more specific, I'm glad there is one Mojo in the world. That I could get a couple of his tunes for free? That's a bonus.

Labels: Free, music

It was another eclectic month of music listening here in September, with a wider selection and a greater number of discs spun. Starting in August, I decided to keep track of every album I listened to in its entirety. The rules: Only an album heard in its entirety, even if it is spread over several days, will count. Repeat spins, partial listens, EPs, singles and background music don't count. This had to be active listening of a full album. I could listen in the car, at home, at work or even on headphones while mowing the lawn. Every completed album was added to the list.

I listened to 47 albums in August, and 52 in September. As with August, it was easy to pick out some patterns. I paid more attention to new music this month, listening to fresh releases from Jay-Z, Noise Addict, Polvo, Yo La Tengo, the Clean, Lou Barlow, Boston Spaceships, Girls, Track a Tiger, Monsters of Folk, Ben Allison, The Clientele, Flaming Lips and Volcano Choir.

I also got into degrees-of-separation listening. I picked up the new version of Richard Hell's Destiny Street (which didn't count on this list because I listened to it in August), so I listened to the old version for comparison. That led me to an investigation of Robert Quine, which led to a listen to his duo disc with drummer Fred Maher, which led to a spin through Lou Reed's The Blue Mask, which features Quine's guitar. Reading about Big Star (more on that tomorrow) and priming myself for the Keep an Eye on the Sky boxed set led me to listen to a lot of Alex Chilton, while reading the book Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records led me to pull out a lot of old Merge stuff.

How does this compare to your own habits? Do you have the patience for full albums? What sparks you to pick up a disc and give it a spin? Let me know in the comments.

The list:

Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3
Husker Du - Flip Your Wig
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life
Steve Wynn - Sweetness and Light
Richard Hell - Destiny Street
Noise Addict - It Was Never About the Audience
Lou Reed - The Blue Mask
Robert Quine and Fred Maher - Basic
Robert Gordon - Is Red Hot
Ben Neill - Night Science
Gutterball - s/t
Superchunk - Come Pick Me Up
Matt Suggs - Golden Days Before They End
Polvo - In Prism
Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
Soulsavers - Broken
Anders Parker - Skyscraper
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
The 6ths - Wasp's Nests
The Clean - Mister Pop
Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown
Rolling Stones - Between the Buttons
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
Evan Parker/Matthew Shipp - Abbey Road Duos
Emitt Rhodes - Mirror
Superchunk - Foolish
Bill Fay - Time of Last Persecution
Alex Chilton - 1970
Alex Chilton - Bach's Bottom
Emitt Rhodes - Farewell to Paradise
Big Star - Live
Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Cardinal - s/t
The Feelies - the Good Earth
Boston Spaceships - Zero to 99
Girls - Album
The Minus 5 - I Don't Know Who I Am
David Grubbs - Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange
Jim Carroll - World Without Gravity
The Clientele - Bonfires on the Hearth
Track a Tiger - I Felt the Bullet Hit My Heart
Stephen Stills - Manassas
Monsters of Folk - s/t
R.E.M. - Document
R.E.M. - Monster
Ben Allison - Think Free
Jenny Scheinman - s/t
Stefon Harris - African Tarantella
Flaming Lips - Embryonic
Peter Laughner - Take the Guitar Player for a Ride
Volcano Choir - Unmap

Labels: lists, monthly list, music

I came to Ben Neill's Night Science disc with half the knowledge I probably needed to fully understand and appreciate it. I know plenty about jazz and the melding of that sound with electronica (mainly thanks to the groundbreaking work of others through Thirsty Ear's Blue Series), but knew nothing about dubstep. Night Science, however, blends these elements to create something the label describes as "a dubstep masterpiece, a jazz classic, and something altogether unfamiliar."

I still don't know anything about dubstep -- though I can now at least identify the beat when I hear it, a stuttering, click clack that feels like a glitchy dancefloor call to arms -- but I know that Neill blends electronic instrumentation, a jazz feel and that insistent beat to create songs that convey darkness and menace despite their sprightly tempos.

Neill accomplishes this with an instrument called the mutantrumpet, which melds a regular trumpet with electronics. "The new mutantrumpet uses technologies from (a previous version) as well as a new ergonomic design which now includes 8 continuous MIDI controllers and 8 momentary MIDI controllers in addition to the acoustic note and volume control from the instrument’s natural sound. The instrument connects directly to the computer via USB." While I'm a huge fan of acoustic jazz, performers who experiment with electronic instruments and textures within the framework of jazz have long caught my ear.

With Night Science, Neill does just that, perhaps even more organically than most. The ability to alter his electronics with the touch of a finger while playing an admittedly greatly altered instrument allows him to subtly shift the sound in the moment. If there is a knock against electronic-driven jazz, it is its pre-programmed, static nature. Neill avoids that trap here.

That said, I can't point to any one song as say, "This is the one that will hook you." The hooks are few and far between here. This is a mood piece, and while each of the 10 tracks is separate and distinct, it also would succeed as one long, uninterrupted track (in fact, it does when I put it on while at work, allowing it to seep into the subconscious).

So, is this the great "dubstep masterpiece" as advertised? Far be it from me to say. I can say it is a very worthy entry in Thirsty Ear's fantastic Blue Series, a disc that will appeal to open-minded jazz fans and perhaps help pull at the boundaries of what they consider the genre to be.

Labels: jazz, music, review

It seemed for several years as if Richard Davies was going to be another casualty of the music business: A wildly talented performer with a rabid cult of fans but little commercial success, forced to take a day job to make ends meet. No one can fault a guy for wanting to be able to make a living, but the loss to the creative world is a blow.

He left behind as strong a back catalog as any artist recording in the 90s, from the work of his Australian band the Moles to his bliss-inducing (and list-topping) album with Eric Matthews as Cardinal to his more challenging but no less rewarding trio of solo albums.

And then, nothing. Davies, who moved from his native Australia to Massachusetts, earned his law degree, opened his own practice and seemed to put his guitar and four track on the shelf.

Lately, however, it seems as if we Davies fans, the few, the proud, have a lot to giddily anticipate. The first new music from him since 2000's solo album, Barbarians, came in the form of a collaboration with former Guided by Voices leader Robert Pollard. The disc, Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks from Cosmos, found Davies and friends creating song beds over which Pollard sang his own lyrics and melodies. Unlike most such Pollard collaborations, four of the songs includes Davies' vocals, for all intents and purposes solo tracks. It's an album that blends Davies' twin sounds: stripped-down acoustic beauty with more fleshed-out pop (Davies' "Hail Mary" and the Pollard-sung "Nude Metropolis" are two of the best).

Even more exciting was word that Davies and Matthews had come together again after 15 years to work on a follow-up to their self-titled Cardinal debut. The four completed songs, while a bit less majestically produced that the first album, still fulfilled the promise of this long hoped-for re-pairing. Word was that the pair couldn't get along, however (which seems to have been the problem with Cardinal in the first place) and that the project had been shelved. As you'll read below, however, it seems the two realize the fruit of their troubled labors is worth the effort and plan an album in 2010. Keep your fingers crossed.

Finally, a long-gestating fourth solo LP from Davies seems to be in the offing. An album cover for something called Night Music is found on Davies' quasi-official fan site, and Davies reports here that something under his own name also is tentatively due next year.

Add to this the fact that Davies seems to be crawling back into the light via the Internet. He has a more active MySpace presence these days, shares news occasionally via the above-mentioned web site and, most interestingly, has a blog where he shares thoughts, old reviews, correspondence and photos. It all whets the appetite for more music, and finally, it feels like he has the time and inclination to deliver.

TIRBD: After earning critical acclaim with Cardinal, you issued three solo albums and then, for all intents and purposes, vanished from the music landscape. I know you got a law degree and started practicing. Was there a conscious decision, or perhaps a need to leave music behind to focus on law? Did you keep writing and playing even though you weren't necessarily recording or performing?

RD: I was 34 years old, and somehow had managed to ride the music industry from being in a good but unpopular band (the Moles) in Sydney to the point where I owned a house and had a wife and dog. lots of touring at that time and long stretches away from home helped make the decision easy - despite my eccentric music, I have a fairly balanced brain, and I always liked the law, I love my practice. I never stopped writing or recording for my own amusement though.

You have returned with the Cosmos project with Robert Pollard. How did that come about? Does this signal a re-emergence for you musically?

I'd always liked Bob s music and I knew David Newgarden, the guy who manages him, from when I first came to America. Bob and I wrote some letters back and forth and the album grew out of that. I had to take on a different role with Bob, by doing backing tracks for him etc, which was a real challenge and a lot of fun.

It seems like I'll be playing at CMJ with a band made up of a shoegazer-loving bass player and Bob Fay and his buddies the Whyte Kastles, a husband and wife team who specialize in weird soundscapes from Easthampton, Mass.

I'm working on some Cardinal stuff - four songs are done and recorded, and I have a solo record kind of finished - they may be coming out in early 2010.

How did Cosmos turn out compared to your initial expectations? Do you see a future for that project, or was it a one-off?

Cosmos is just out of the loop - it might have a future - I have done some ideas for any possible Cosmos recording. I love the way it turned out, like Bob said, its strangely beautiful, which is exactly what we were shooting for.

You have had some strong collaborators, but also done a lot of work almost entirely on your own. Do you prefer one or the other? What does each scenario provide, beyond the obvious, that the other does not?

I like collaboration the most because its the most fun to see what other people do with your ideas. That said, I like the challenge of finishing a song on my own too. I like that my collaborator collection includes Cosmos and Cardinal, because while they haven't sold a lot of records or filled stadiums, the music is mostly on target, but even more fun, I don't think Eric Matthews likes Bob Pollard and vice versa.

People got very excited by word that you and Eric Matthews had gotten back together to record, but it seems as if that project has been permanently shelved. Having heard the four finished songs, I'm surprised, and assume it's more a matter of personalities than music. Would you care to address that at all?

Well, we're back together, man, for the time-being. I think the music is uniformly strong that we managed to patch together, and there is more good stuff in the pipeline, but you are spot-on with your observation - we might come up with an album's worth of material, but our personalities are extraordinarily different. To be in Cardinal is to drink of the poisoned chalice, but if you have a strong constitution, you'll be perfectly fine.

The accolades heaped upon your music must be flattering and empowering, but are they also stifling or limiting in terms of the pressure or realization that new directions might not be tolerated?

I think that's the same for all creative types, writers, painters, etc. I simply don't care what people approve or disapprove of. I tired that for a while (e.g. see Telegraph, my attempt at a VH1 album - that one didn't work, although it has good music in there). Ultimately, its been surprising that the energy I put into music has made a few people here and there react to it. That's always rewarding. Ask Mick Jagger - his last solo album sold 900 copies, but it won't stop him doing another.

Is your outlook on music -- including as a listener, writer and performer -- different now because of the time you've been away from the grind of trying to make a career of it?

Yes, very different. A lot less grind is way for the better. I have a house, children, a dog that escapes and chews my important papers, but I still have music friends, Bob Fay I've known for 15 years, Bob Pollard, people like that.

With the music stuff these days, I just come to the canvas and have at it, let it pile up, then if it looks like somebody is going to want a show or a record, I dig in and finish that *h&t up.

Will we ever hear the unreleased music you've been making over the past several years? How does it compare with your three solo albums?

Chapter Music, a label out of Melbourne Australia, run by Guy Chapman, is set to put out a solo album in early 2010. It may be vinyl only, . They also will be putting out a Cardinal record of some description.

The unreleased stuff is pretty hi-fi for the most part, at the same time more on the front-foot (meaning more aggressive, or savage) than some of my other solo releases.

You mention having to play a different role in Cosmos with Robert Pollard because you had to provide him backing tracks. Do you take anything away from that experience that will affect your own music?

Oh, I think so. The stuff I've been writing in the last few months has been a mixture of either solo, Cosmos, or Cardinal. It all starts out at the same place, piles of lyrics on scraps of paper and mounds of musical ideas made with whatever comes to hand, then a period of sifting, winnowing and contemplation. The difference I think this time is the volume of stuff I have lying around because it tends to just pour out on a Friday or Saturday night and accumulates, then gets seized upon if there is a need to beat it together for a project.

Labels: Monday Interview, music

After a flurry of quick digital releases in 2008, Paul Westerberg has been quiet this year. Until now. Tuesday brought the release of another digital offering, an EP titled P.W. + the Ghost Gloves Cat Wing Joy Boys The EP title derives from one word from the titles of each of the six tracks. As with last year's releases, there is no supporting information. It sounds like another one-man-band affair, though the fidelity is higher than on those recordings. Has Paul invested in a home studio?

As with much of what he has released on his own through Amazon.com, this is strong material. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is his strongest release since Stereo/Mono in 2002. He has released good songs since, of course, but everything since has had its share of filler. Here, he offers six strong tracks that cohere very well as a whole.

One difference in this vs. 2008's releases: You can get this one on CD. The cost is $6.98 vs. $3.89 for the digital download, but you do get different artwork (the CD artwork is on the right above).

His output during 2008:
--49:00. One 43:55 track with more than 20 song snippets. July 2008
--"5:05." A single (whose time, when added to 49:00, actually equals 49 minutes). August 2008
--3oclockkreep. Two-song EP, with a 20-minute mash-up (the title track) and the track "Finally Here Once." August 2008
--"Bored of Edukation." A single. September 2008
--D.G.T. A three-song EP: "Always In A Manger," "Streets of Laredo" and "D.G.T. " December 2008

Here is a track-by-track look at the EP:

1. Ghost on the Canvas - An acoustic guitar-driven mid-tempo ballad. Some nice guitar lines and a bit of channel separation give his a, well, slightly ghostly timbre. Westerberg's drumming often gives his songs a shambling, reckless quality, but here a bit steadier beat would do wonders. Still, the sound of this offers a clarity that makes it considerably satisfying.

2. Drop Them Gloves - From the opening cry of "Hit it!" this feels like the kind of by-the-numbers rocker Westerberg has been cranking out in varying degrees of fidelity since his solo debut. This would fit snugly on Stereo/Mono thanks to the chugging beat and right hook of a riff. The mournful harmonica is a nice touch, and the entire track has a tough defiance that perfectly echoes the lyric about fighting back.

3. Good as the Cat - Westerberg has really established a sound. As this song kicks off, any number of past tracks come to mind, all thanks to the acoustic shuffle beat. Consider this a slowed down "Dyslexic Heart" with a similar wink-and-nod lyric: "Baby, I am what I am. Don't hate me for that. Lately, seems like you don't give a damn, just treat me as good as the cat." Songs this effortless lead one to believe that Westerberg could crank out tunes like this all day.

4. Love on the Wing - The EP's longest track, at 5:27, is a piano ballad that feels like a Suicaine Gratifaction outtake that evolves into a peppy acoustic pop song that keeps the piano as it progresses. That instrumental variety is a nice touch, and shows that Westerberg could stand to offer a bit more in these basement concoctions.

5. Gimme Little Joy - Another acoustic pop number. It's solid, if unremarkable, which is probably a fault of the sequencing, if anything. If it replaced "Ghost on the Canvas" at the start of the EP, it would have set a better tone and would seem a bit fresher than it does here after three solid tunes.

6. Dangerous Boys - A perfect closer, a rattling little tune that adds a jaunty gait to Westerberg's arsenal (which up to this point was limited to a full-out gallop and a tasteful shuffle). The percussion begins as a lone handclap in an echo-laden room, which is strange, but works. Drums and bass come in on the second verse, giving the song a nice bit of momentum.

Labels: music, Paul Westerberg

The folks at Algonquin Books generously provided me with three copies of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records to give away to TIRBD readers. To enter, leave a comment on this post sharing your favorite Merge release and why you like it. Do so by midnight, Friday, Sept. 25 to be eligible. Three commenters selected at random will receive a copy of the book.

I finished my copy of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records (Algonquin, $18.95, 294 p.) weeks ago, but haven't found a way to jump into a review. It's a massive book full of interesting information, surprises, fond reminiscences and a true indie rock vibe, and I kept waiting for divine inspiration. Barring that, I realized I just needed to dive in. That's fitting, I suppose. Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance did just that 20 years ago when they started the label to put out 7" singles from their own and other bands.

The book, written by Gawker writer John Cook with McCaughan and Ballance, seemed at first blush like the kind of thing I would skim. I left Superchunk behind many albums ago, and never picked up the likes of Pipe, Breadwinner, Butterglory and the like. I was interested in how the label formed, how it grew and how it worked its way into what is without question the best indie label in the country. But did I need to know everything?

Turns out, I did. Casual flipping through the first chapter led to more intense reading of the next which led to my picking it up at every spare moment, sad when I finished. Credit goes to Cook, of course, for assembling a coherent narrative from the disparate bits of oral history gathered from nearly every major player in the label's history (only Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Magnum, unsurprisingly, declines to participate), but the real credit goes to the label and everyone behind it for creating such a compelling story over the past two decades.

The book can be read any number of ways. I found it to be several books in one: A Superchunk bio, a label history, a treatise on the state of indie rock and indie distribution as the 1990s gave way to the 2000s, and a collection of short profiles of Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Magnetic Fields, Spoon and Lambchop. Perhaps the best testament to Cook's skill is that I read chapters about acts I'd never heard a note of (Butterglory/Matt Suggs) or admire much more than I like (Lambchop, Magnetic Fields).

The book, the label's 20th anniversary and all of the attendant hoopla surrounding both make it a great time to be an indie music fan. Mac and Laura have done several interviews, and you can see them perform at some in store appearances, including here and here. Converse.com has some videos from the label's XX Merge 20th anniversary concert series. Lastly, Merge has a second book forthcoming, the Merge Companion, a limited-edition, 350-page book that features every album, CD, single and DVD cover released by the label over the past two decades.

The takeaway here is that the label survived because it put out music that it liked. Sometimes (often) that meant small sales or losses, but occasionally its tastes and that of the masses aligned and it ended up with something like Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts.

"Whatever the future holds for the music business, Mac and Laura aren't too occupied with trying to figure it out," Cook writes. "Merge didn't get where it is by planning for the future, or concocting growth strategies, or trying to get out ahead of its competitors. It simply tried to find music that Mac and Laura loved, and sell it to people who also loved it."

Labels: anniversaries, books, contests, Merge Records, music

I suppose it was sparked by a desire to establish a defensive position; when yet another CD arrived in the mailbox to be added to the thousands already crowding the office-turned-music room, I felt compelled to justify the acquisition. Do I really listen to all of this stuff, or, as I feared, do I limit myself to a spin or two of a new disc before filing it (alphabetically, of course) on the shelf?

So, on Aug. 1, I decided to start keeping track of every full album I spun. Because this was my obsession, I made the rules: Only an album heard in its entirety, even if it is spread over several days, will count. Repeat spins, partial listens, EPs, singles and background music don't count. This had to be active listening of a full album. I could listen in the car, at home, at work or even on headphones while mowing the lawn. Every completed album was added to the list.

The result? I listened to 47 albums in their entirety during the month. With some, I listened to at least part of them more than once, and I certainly heard a handful of tracks from dozens more. Then there were the afternoons at work spent with the iPod on shuffle, or time spent in front of the computer listening to MP3s or YouTube clips, ensuring that I heard hundreds more songs over the course of the month.

What the list reveals is how streaky my interests are. I'm going to catch the Steve Wynn/Minus 5 tour in a couple of weeks, which accounts for the five Wynn-related discs I spun during the month (and the new Minus 5, as well). Hearing a Moby Grape song on shuffle led me to the Skip Spence album, Oar, while slowly paging through Rob Jovanovic's Big Star bio,Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop, led me to that band's catalog and the Alex Chilton disc, Set (which was surprisingly good, and reminded me, despite its being released 25 years later, of Big Star's ragged live recordings from the early 1970s).

I do listen to new things when I get them, as indicated by the many August releases on the list. Will I listen again soon? We'll see.

It's an eclectic set, I suppose, if one can look past the preponderance of white American men past the age of 30. OK, it's not eclectic at all, but it is a fairly accurate representation of what I like. Seeing the list is both interesting and instructive, and I think I'll do it again this month. September promises to be more varied already: I spent the morning listening to a leak of Jay-Z's imminent Blueprint III just to see what all the fuss is about.

How does this compare to your own habits? Do you have the patience for full albums? What sparks you to pick up a disc and give it a spin?

The list:

The Dream Syndicate - Days of Wine and Roses
Six Organs of Admittance - Luminous Night
Wye Oak - The Knot
Robert Pollard - Elephant Jokes
Brendan Benson - My Old Familiar Friend
Anders Parker - Crow
The Bats - The Guilty Office
Joe Pernice - It Feels So Good When I Stop
Steve Wynn - Live in Brussels
Stephen Duffy - Duffy
Woods - Songs of Shame
Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Emitt Rhodes - American Dream
Emitt Rhodes - s/t
White Rabbits - It's Frightening
Neil Young - Fork in the Road
Blitzen Trapper - Furr
Steve Wynn - Fluorescent
Cosmos - Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks
Skip Spence - 0ar
Robert Pollard - The Crawling Distance
Deer Tick - War Elephant
Dead Weather - Horehound
Deer Tick - Born on Flag Day
Lemonheads - Varshons
Scud Mountain Boys - Pine Box
John Cunningham - Happy Go Unlucky
Antlers - Hospice
Minus 5 - Killingsworth
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware
Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall
Bap Kennedy - Domestic Blues
Pronto - The Cheetah
Avett Brothers - Emotionalism
Holsapple & Stamey - Here and Now
Big Star - No. 1 Record
Big Star - Radio City
Chris Bell - I Am the Cosmos
Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
Paul Kelly - Words and Music
Grizzly Bear - Veckatemist
Alex Chilton - Set
The Church - Starfish
Steve Wynn - Dazzling Display
Steve Wynn - Steve Sings Bob
Joe Henry - Blood From Stars
Died Pretty - Using My Gills as a Roadmap

Labels: music

Why Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White? If you're going to make a feature film about guitarists, and you seemingly have access to dozens, if not hundreds of players, why would you settle on these three? I raised this question when I first heard about "It Might Get Loud," and by the time the film was under way, I had my answer.

All three are or were innovators. You could argue that Page invented heavy metal (or commercial hard rock or AOR or any number of other formats. The Edge has done as much as anyone to alter the sound of the guitar with electronics and effects, and White has somehow forced the music of 1930s bluesmen onto the radio with an aesthetic that eschews the very things that the Edge advocates. Name three living guitarists who offer as much (and whose commercial success could guarantee that the film would be made. Maybe next time we'll get Thurston Moore, Bill Frisell and Curt Kirkwood).

It's easy to knock the film: the summit among the three is the most contrived part of an otherwise enjoyable film, and what little it yields in interplay among the three is disappointing. It allows these artists to create and nurture their own myths rather than push them to reinterpret themselves. It is laudatory where there is plenty of room for critique. But what it does offer is solid, fascinating and revelatory.

The set-up is simple: These three were brought together for an afternoon in early 2008 to discuss the guitar. Each also is followed in what amount to mini 20-minute career overview/documentaries that are intercut with each other and with footage from the meet-up. These segments are the best part of the movie. The Edge revisits the school where U2 first got together. Page gives a tour of the manor house where Led Zeppelin recorded it's fourth album (clapping to show the reverberations in the foyer that made John Bonham's drums on "When the Levee Breaks" so monstrous) and White shows off his early work when he was still making a living as a reupholsterer.

Each offers revelations. Page chats about the soul-sucking nature of his session work, saying he was essentially creating Muzak before he finally decided to quit and pursue his own music. In an amusing aside, the Edge shows the riff for "Elevation" with and without effects. With, it's a shimmering concoction that sounds like several guitars at once. Without, it's a simple two-chord figure that someone could master in a matter of minutes. White offers the most self-analysis, stating that the black, white and red color scheme and childish ornamentation of his band was a cover that diverted attention from the fact that he wanted to recreate the music of Son House for the masses.

The so-called summit seems promising, but either director Davis Guggenheim didn't want to go in that direction or it yielded so little that he was forced to use other footage. When the three interact, there are interesting exchanges. The Edge asks Page about a chord progression, while Page seems shocked that the Edge plays a certain chord in the seemingly simple intro to "I Will Follow." "So, 'at's a C? You sure about that?" He asks. The three jam a bit on each other's songs, from "I Will Follow" to "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" from the White Stripes (which could earn a killer solo from Page if offered) and "In My Time of Dying" from Led Zeppelin. Much more of this, as each looks for ways to integrate their own sound into the work of the others, would have been fantastic, as would the discussions of guitar that, in the finished film are fleeting. Perhaps we'll need to wait for an extended DVD package for such outtakes.

The film ends with the three playing "The Weight" from the Band. It's an odd choice, a song that is easily mastered and offers little challenge for players of this skill. But it's charming, too, and shows that these three would probably be sitting around doing just this even if they weren't iconic figures of rock.

Overall, it's a testament to the value of taking time to more fully explore a subject in documentary form. There is no shortage of information about these three -- one could surely make a compelling documentary from extant footage alone -- but by allowing these artists to talk about the thing they love most at length, Guggenheim has created a treasure. A flawed treasure that doesn't fulfill its promise, but a treasure nonetheless.

Labels: movies, music

Though it didn't start out as such, Wilco has sort of backed its way into being a supergroup. The lone holdout thus far had been keyboardist/programmer Mikael Jorgensen. Before him there was John Stirratt and Pat Sansone's Autumn Defense, the Nels Cline Singers and Glenn Kotche's solo work (as well as his work with Jeff Tweedy in Loose Fur).

Jorgensen has now joined them with Pronto, his own side project that has one disc under its belt (All is Golden from March) and another on the way with The Cheetah, out Sept. 8.

Jorgensen is an East Coast guy who came to Chicago earlier this decade to help John McEntire (Tortoise, Sea and Cake) build his SOMA recording studio. He joined Wilco in 2004, and has had a clear influence on the band's music since. But it wasn't clear until now just how solid his chops are.

Things get somewhat confusing from here, however. Pronto's first disc, All is Golden, is a poppy delight, a disc full of songs that could have served ably as B-sides to Wilco singles from the Summerteeth and A Ghost is Born eras. Tracks like "When I'm on the Rocks," in fact, would not be out of place on a Wilco album. Jorgensen's voice isn't the strongest in rock, but it works within the context of his solid, at times transcendent pop song constructions.

The band's new disc, however is a big sonic curve ball. The Cheetah is a mostly instrumental batch of electronic glitch-pop actually recorded before All is Golden. This isn't Four Tet -- Jorgensen's pop roots and adherence to classic song structure prevent anything too out there from emanating from the speakers -- but it's long way from All is Golden. Find a happy mid-point between these two poles, however, and you begin to see why Jorgensen fits so well in Wilco, and look forward to a future where Pronto finds a way to fuse these two aesthetics together to create something fresh and new.

Jorgensen is joined in Pronto by drummer Greg O'Keeffe, guitarist Erik Paparazzi and bassist Tunde Oyewole.

The sounds of All is Golden and The Cheetah are so different as to be completely different bands. Did you give any thought to issuing the latter under a different name?

Not even for a second. I enjoy, and expect, that Pronto will change and shift with whatever musical direction that we become curious about exploring. It's more interesting to me that a name can act as a container than a brand.

If I read things right, All is Golden was recorded after The Cheetah, but released before it. Is it safe to say that the sound of the current and future Pronto will more closely approximate that sound, and if so, will that confuse listeners who saw the shift between AIG and The Cheetah as indicative of that future direction?

Yes, All Is Golden was recorded well after The Cheetah, yet released before. AIG was a challenge I posed to myself: to make a pop /rock record. The synthesizers and laptop textures didn't really seem to have a natural place, except for a few moments, notably the beginning of "Mrs. Bruford" and the swirly outro of "I Think So."

The writing for The Cheetah is much different than for AIG. AIG was, in a way, easier because you can hold a guitar or sit at the piano and make modifications to a song very quickly, and then record it, and at that point your practically done. With The Cheetah, there seemed less conventions to rely upon, (i.e. verse, chorus, bridge) and the arrangement and musical decisions were based solely on repeated listening and applying our intuitions whilst sitting in front of the computer. The process is akin to abstract painting rather than portraiture.

In the light of AIG, perhaps a few people might be confused by The Cheetah, but my hope is that it will be exciting for folks to hear this considerably different side of what we do and plant a seed of expectation for what surprises may lay ahead.

How is your work as a studio engineer brought to bear on your own music? Do you find yourself trading hats and looking at things as an artist vs. engineer?

More often than not it's a total benefit. Knowing the different flavors of microphones, pre-amps, effects etc... and understanding the vocabulary in the studio, it's very helpful and speeds up parts of the recording process. My fear is that this understanding can act as a limitation by preempting experimentation. You do the best you can.

Because I know how to do it, I usually do all of the engineering and mixing, with the exception of tracking. When we're in full band mode, it's much better to have a talented and competent person managing all the knobs and levels rather than me trying to both play and worry about the technical side.

One of my goals with Pronto is to eventually remove myself from the technical/engineering aspects altogether and collaborate with an engineer/producer type.

You must juggle your Wilco schedule with other pursuits. How does that juggling affect the music you create, thinking particularly of having to perhaps leave things incomplete or do things piecemeal as opposed to conceive of and create something as a whole?

That's certainly a big challenge. We have a rehearsal/recording studio space in Brooklyn where we try and record as much as possible while I'm home. If we can crank out one relatively fleshed out idea every month or so, that feels like progress. By the end of a year, that's 12 or so songs. All the recording is done into the computer and then I have my laptop and can wiggle things around and make changes and then upload them for the guys to listen to. I have a hazy idea of how we're going to approach Pronto LP02, but for now, it remains an intriguing mystery.

At what point will there be an all-day Wilco festival with the band headlining a show featuring Pronto, Glenn Kotche solo, Loose Fur, the Nels Cline Singers and Autumn Defense?

Ha ha! I love it! I'll blue-sky this proposal to the Wilco Brass and see what sticks!

Labels: Monday Interview, music, Wilco

In the past two months, I went from knowing Deer Tick by name only to being a fanatic for the band's music. Credit the quartet's live show, which is a raucous, fun affair. Knowing they were playing in town, I listened to a couple of songs online, and was intrigued enough to give them a shot. I left with a copy of the just-out Born on Flag Day in my hands and memories of one of the best live shows I've seen in a long time.

The band's roots are found in the person of John J. McCauley III. This Rhode Island kid began playing and recorded solo under the name Deer Tick, blending old-time country, folk and classic rock to create a stew flavored by his somewhat meek vocals. That evolved as he surrounded himself with musicians to record his proper debut, War Elephant. The eclectic disc included finger-picked gems like "Ashamed" and "Art Isn't Real (City of Sin)." McCauley's voice took on a raspy tone that seemed to signal living and experience well beyond his years. The disc was uneven, but contained plenty to like. It felt like what it was: a collection of songs from a singer-songwriter willing to try anything.

Along the way, McCauley formed a band around himself, joining with drummer Dennis Ryan and bassist Chris Ryan. With these accomplices, McCauley seemed to realize how much fun it is to really rock out. Grabbing new guitarist Andrew Tobiassen, the newly minted quartet finished a sophomore disc, Born on Flag Day, and hit the road. A lot. The new songs were much more raucous, maintaining McCauley's finger-picked guitar and wild melodies, but pushing them through the speakers with force rather than a sly subtlety. From the opening blast of guitar feedback on "Easy" it's clear this is a band, not a one-man project.

The live show drives that home. These guys are young, and it shows. Sure, there is a lack of polish that gives it away, but that's not a detriment. it's a blessing. These guys have fun, and the audience can't help but join in. More than willing to celebrate their influences, they play a big batch of covers, hitting John Prine, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp before a rousing, set-closing run at "La Bamba." This is still clearly McCauley's band. He occasionally dismisses his bandmates from their instruments, sending them off to gather around a microphone to blanket his vocals with blissfully ragged harmonies while he picks out what is essentially a solo song or two. But despite his talents, McCauley is a stronger artist with this version of Deer Tick at his back. As good as the band's first two albums are, the truly enticing thing about the group is thinking of how good the next one will be.

TIRBD: Born on Flag Day are much rowdier than your previous work. Is that a function of having a band performing them, or were they already headed in that direction before the band got a hold of them?

JJM: I think its the band's contribution. The old songs off of War Elephant are the same way; when the band plays them they're rowdy as fuck.

You're all young guys who are of an age where most of your peers are trying to separate from their families and prove themselves on their own, yet you offer dozens of family photos on the insert of the new album and thank your families profusely. Is this embrace of family values some strange form of reverse psychology rebellion?

Born On Flag Day is a special album for us. Its the biggest thing I've ever done. Its the highest profile way we could all let our families know that we appreciate who they are and where we came from. And I think, even though we are young, we've been separated from our families and have already proved ourselves on our own. We grow up fast here in Providence.

You also, for a young band, seem very willing to wear your influences on your sleeve. You played five or six covers the night I saw you recently, and all could be pointed to very clearly as influences on your sound. Most artists try to hide such things in a bid for authenticity. Why the transparent embrace?

Its music, man! Nobody's doing anything incredibly original without sucking ass. You like Tom Petty, play a damn Petty song!

There is a real southern sound to your songs, so it's a surprise to learn that you're from Rhode Island. Where did that particular influence come from? Is there a Rhode Island sound that people might otherwise expect?

There's a Seattle sound in our music, too. People like to focus on the country thing though. Like you said, we wear our influences on our sleeve. Its not like we don't have a country radio station here in Providence.

Your voice is among the most distinctive elements of the band, and by the end of a show it sounds like you're gargling gasoline laced with broken glass. Now that you're touring more, are you able to sustain that intensity of delivery without it going out on you?

I made it almost the whole seven weeks this trip, but right at the end I caught strep throat. I had it a few years ago and was able to sing through it, but this time it was impossible. That's the thing that sucks now, when I get sick, I get sick. Sometimes Emergen-C every morning just isn't enough. I've been singing like this since I started playing in bands ten years ago, singing like this never causes me any pain.

What is it like making music in an environment where people are now really paying attention to you and coming to shows with expectations? Has the exposure of things like the Brian Williams interview had an impact on the crowds at your shows? Does that affect the way you approach performance?

I think the attention makes for a better live show. I, for one, started stage diving. Its all very exciting and the four of us are giddy as hell. And I think when you come to see us, that becomes very obvious.

Labels: Deer Tick, Monday Interview, music

A lot of things coalesced for me today thanks to, of all things, a piece in the Wall Street Journal. What it comes down to is that the establishment will always find a cultural boogie man against which to rail, and this will stand in for true societal ills.

The WSJ piece was a reprint of an editorial from Aug. 29, 1969, "By Squalor Possessed," taking offense at the Woodstock festival. It was part of a larger look back celebrating the pending 40th anniversary of the festival. One sentence really hit home, and confirmed my long-held thought that each generation eventually opposes the one that follows, only to see that following generation become the status quo that complains about the next.

"For various reasons it is being suggested that many rebels will not abandon their 'life-styles (the cliches in this field!) and that there are enough of them to assume some of the levers of power in the future American society," they wrote. "It would be a curious America if the unwashed, more or less permanently stoned on pot or LSD, were running very many things."

Of course, this is exactly what happened, and "the unwashed" are now donning power suits and complaining about the violent video games and risque Internet usage of their kids and grandkids. I'll leave comment about the the further-expressed worry that "it will be at best a culturally poorer America and maybe a politically degenerated America" to sharper political minds than my own.

This is nothing new. I recently slogged through David Hajdu's 2008 book, The Ten-Cent Plague, a book about the creation of comic books and the campaign against them waged in the 1950s. Though Hajdu seems to have modeled early chapters on the first books of the Bible (his tedious and exhaustive life histories of each player reading like a he-begat-she-who-begat..." section of the good book), he does eventually get around to describing the hilariously absurd lengths to which Congressmen, parents, teachers and religious leaders went to demonize what were only words and pictures printed on the page.

These people, while winning short-term victories, ultimately failed. Comics persevered, and were quickly superseded at the top of the cultural and societal evils list by films (which by that point already had already been attacked by puritans aghast at the idea of bare flesh on the big screen), television and yes, rock 'n' roll.

But guess what? Each of these art forms outlasted their opponents and took on a depth and breadth and richness that made them absolutely indispensable chroniclers of our time in a way that the most erudite, reasoned opposition to these forms did not. "Today, the young's addiction to rock is at the same time a rejection of classical and the more subdued types of popular music, and considering the way rock is presented it must be counted a step down on culture's ladder," reads the WSJ editorial. Who needs parody when the real thing is so blissfully out-of-touch and funny?

"In any event, opting for physical, intellectual and cultural squalor seems an odd way to advance civilization," the WSJ writes. I wonder what they thought about that squalor as they saw it's celebration become, over the years, a multi-billion-dollar cash cow. That, of course, may be the biggest lesson of all: Where there is a dime to be made, even the most repulsive things will be tolerated, if not embraced.

Labels: commerce, music, Woodstock

What is revolution? In the words of Malcolm X, "Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way." In the hands of artists, revolution represents all of that and much more. So much more, in fact that any attempt to define it based on its usage would be contradictory at best. Better then, to let those artists speak for themselves.

That seems to be the motivation behind a new art project that manifests itself most tangibly as a two-CD set titled Music for a Revolution. It was compiled by UK artist Alan Dunn over the course of four years. It's an ambitious project that found the artist creating endless playlists around the term "revolution," eventually hitting upon this 69-track collection presented in an artfully rendered package in an edition of 1,000 given away to all who ask.

The most famous songs to include the term "revolution" are not here, but each is cited as inspiration. The first, of course, is the Beatles' "Revolution." Dunn writes on the project's web site
that the sound collage created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono that became the separate track "Revolution 9" was an antecedent for his project. "What emerged from that session, an 8.22 collage we now know as 'Revolution 9,' laid the foundations for this collection exploring artists’ uses of the term."

Derek Horton's liner notes also cite the "tacit influence" of Gil Scott Heron, whose "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" looms large over the project, and Horton's notes, which begin, "The revolution will not be digitised." He's wrong, of course. The revolution has been digitized, as anyone moved to action by a YouTube video or an MP3 clip of a rousing speech can attest (or, of course, heard this disc, which comes at the waning moments when music can be both digitized and revolve, as hard media gives way to soft). Horton's own notes feel contradictory. The Malcolm X quote above comes from the notes, as does this: "Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms singing ‘We Shall Overcome’? You don’t do any singing, you’re too busy swinging." "The revolution will not have a soundtrack," Horton writes. "There will be music but (quoting Jim Carroll) "just because there is music piped into the most false of revolutions."

Isn't this very document a soundtrack? Yes and no, and that equivocating means that perhaps Horton's sentiments aren't contradictory at all. While there is plenty of music in this collection based on the idea of revolution, it is the spoken-word material that hits hardest here. Perhaps that's because those snippets are drawn from in-the-moment events, where the fire and passion and rage of revolution is visceral. The music, in contrast, is thought out, less organic, the term "revolution" used as shorthand to evoke an emotion or idea or thought.

"Works of historical importance were collaged and sequenced with newly invited compositions, blind calls for submissions, spoken word, student pieces, anonymous works, YouTube snippets and existing tracks," Dunn writes. The upshot is that most will have heard of few of these artists before spinning the disc. Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices is the biggest name here (for U.S. audiences, anyway), with the track "Headache Revolution" from his band Boston Spaceships. Tracks from Chumbawumba and Paul Revere and the Raiders also make an appearance.

The rest, then, is new to most, but good. Dunn has done an exceptional job compiling and sequencing these tracks. It helps that many are short snippets; it's hard to be bored by something that changes direction every 30 seconds or so. At the end of its more than two-hour runtime, the idea of fomenting revolution is not the first thing that comes to mind; fatigue inspired by the overuse of the term is a more likely reaction. But as for Dunn's stated goal of exploring artists' use of the term, he succeeds. The listener can't help but grasp how fluid and elastic the word is, and have the way they think about it enhanced for the effort.

Labels: art, music

Hearing Dungen perform last night at the Picador in Iowa City, I came away with one goal: To hear everything the band has recorded. No, I wasn't indoctrinated into the church of Dungen, a blind acolyte to the Swedish psych-rock band's sound. But I enjoyed enough of it that I want to hear for myself the depth and breadth of the band's work so I can pick out the parts I did thoroughly enjoy and explore from there.

I went to the show expecting some long, psychedelic guitar freakouts, and while there was plenty of that, I was most taken with the band's piano-based pop songs. With a frontline of two guitars (or one guitar and keyboards) and bass with all three performers singing in sweet harmony, the band was most successful when it dialed down the squalling guitars and focused on hooks. The ability to call on a frenetic guitar solo to juice a song was a plus, but the tunes that didn't rely on that as the sole hook were the most successful. (Sorry for the vague references; I don't speak Swedish, and I don't think they identified any of the songs by title anyway).

The band certainly has reach. Leader Gustav Ejstes broke out a flute for a few songs, giving these tunes a vibe somewhere between Jethro Tull and Herbie Mann. A little of that goes a long way (and Ejstes doesn't need to play it a bunch to justify bringing a flute from Sweden... it's not like it's a contrabass or something). Given the range of sounds -- flute-driven prog, heavy guitar psych and piano pop -- it was hard to get a read on the band. Suffice to say that all of it was good, some of it great.

I had heard the latest album by the openers, Woods, before catching the show, and was surprised at how much they connected. Pitchfork gave the disc, Sounds of Shame, an 8.3, saying it evokes everything from "Guided by Voices to the murkier depths of the Siltbreeze or Flying Nun back catalogs." I hear none of that (save for maybe a bit of the Flying Nun jangle) in the record, and certainly none in the show. Instead, I hear the Velvet Underground in the guitars and VU fans Yo La Tengo in the mix of sweetness and abrasion in the vocals and arrangements. At times, the songs would start sweet and then erupt into a furious blast of guitar, like a Lesley Gore cover band, with guest guitarist J Mascis.

The most striking thing was the voice of singer Jeremy Earl. If you didn't see the bearded youngster on stage, you'd be forgiven for assuming the band was led by a twee little girl. Again, Pitchfork gets it wrong, calling it a "slightly unhinged pitch, sounding something like a muffled Neil Young." There's nothing unhinged about it. Drenched in reverb, Earl's voice is a high, sweet instrument. Perhaps the best comparison is one a friend made last night to Jonathan Donahue, singer of Mercury Rev.

Regardless, I came away really liking the band's set without being able to articulate exactly why. Perhaps it was simply the promise that it's short but potent set held. I'm not going to put Sounds of Shame into heavy rotation, but I will keep a lookout for the band's next release, because I have a feeling it'll be something special.

Labels: live shows, music

This week is one that many alternative music fans thought would never come" "Urgh! A Music War" is officially out on DVD. And thanks to a puzzlingly understated launch, some might never realize it is out.

The film, which captures live performances from some of the biggest and most eclectic alternative bands of the early 1980s, is a cult classic. VHS copies are coveted, and the soundtrack LP and CD (long, long out of print) go for $100 or more on online auction and retail sites.

Now, 27 years after its original 1982 release, the film is coming to DVD as part of Warner's Archive Collection. Good luck finding the disc or anything about it. Save for the listing linked above on the WB Shops site, there seems to be no official information about the release.

That fits with the film's strange journey. It long has been thought it would never see DVD release. According to the film's Wikipedia entry, Police manager (and IRS Records head) Miles Copeland, who produced the film, has the rights, but problems that include the vast number of acts and record labels that would be involved in licensing for a new format have kept it on the shelf.

Whatever transpired to allow its release, plenty of people have been waiting for years for this. Fan sites abound (including those that openly purport to sell bootlegged copies) and petitions have made the rounds as well. Perhaps someone was listening.

So what is everyone clamoring to see and hear? The film captures 1980 performances by 34 bands, from acts that already were stars like the Police and UB40 to still virtual unknowns like John Cooper Clarke and Invisible Sex. I know of no one who saw it in a theater, but have plenty of friends who watched, rented or owned the VHS version. Most of us owned the soundtrack on vinyl as well, though that pared things to just 27 tracks. That was later issued for a moment on CD, chopped again to just 21 songs.

In the time since, I've recorded it off of TV (USA's "Night Flight" seemed to be a common home for it, often airing different versions with extra footage), watched clips on YouTube and downloaded many iterations of the soundtrack from file-sharing sites. Each time, I'm amazed at the intensity and quality of the performances. It's a rare chance to catch live clips of early XTC, Pere Ubu and Wall of Voodoo, for example. It works because the music is all there is: No interviews, no clowning around, no backstage hi jinks. The acts live or die by the 3 minutes they get on stage (save for the Police, managed by film producer Miles Copeland, who get two songs). It can't help but open viewers and listeners up to new acts and broaden horizons.

It's interesting, perhaps, that many of the bands are as much artifacts of their time as is the movie itself. If you haven't heard of the Athletico Spizz 80, The Alley Cats or 999, you're far from alone. But for one brief moment in this film, they shine, cementing their place in history like a prehistoric bug caught in amber. I hadn't heard anything about Au Pairs before or since, for example, but I'll always remember their angular, uncomfortable "Come Again" thanks to this film.

It is unclear what exactly this release includes. The original theatrical release was 96 minutes, while the VHS release was 124 minutes. This DVD issue is 116 minutes. It has been speculated that the rights to performances by Gary Numan and others have reverted back to the artists, who have refused to allow their use. That's a pity, and quite boneheaded if so. No one in this film save for the Police, maybe the Go Gos and Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman (thanks to his soundtrack work) are rich, I'm sure, and any exposure would surely help.

There are no extras on the DVD, so one key question remains unanswered: What's with the title? I suppose the "music war" is sort of battle of the bands aspect of the film. But It's a misnomer, because thanks to canny selection of artists, they all seem to be on the same side (Sting and Co. notwithstanding).

Labels: movies, music, Urgh

The fear with Brendan Benson's membership in the Raconteurs was that he would leave his clearly superior solo career behind.

Lucky for us, that hasn't been the case. In fact, it has meant more Benson music than before. Since his sophomore outing -- 2002's Lapalco, which came six years after his debut -- he has issued 2005's Alternative to Love and the two good-but-not-great Raconteurs albums. Now comes, in what for Benson is a blistering pace, his fourth solo album,My Old Familiar Friend. The album is due Aug. 18 on ATO Records, but NPR is streaming it now.

Gil Norton produced, and his skill at allowing acts to blend quieter, more textured moments with slabs of full-on rock suits Benson well.

1. Whole Lot Better - A solid opening track that sounds like classic Benson and is a fine lead single. A mix of keyboards, acoustic guitars and hard-charging electric guitar fuels this hooky opener. Lyrically this offers a mirror of the Gene Clark/Byrds track "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better;" there Clark wanted his love gone, while Benson wants her around... or does he? "I fell in love with you, and out of love with you, and back in love with you all in the same day."

2. Eyes on the Horizon - Todd Rundgren? Nope, just Benson, with a surprisingly straightfoward pop song that doesn't stomp or swerve or skitter. His treated vocals here are strong, and the hook, while pretty basis as far as Benson songs go, is a hummable delight.

3. Garbage Day - Yes, as NPR and everyone else has pointed out, those are Motown strings (or perhaps more accurately, Gamble-Huff strings), giving this a breezy, soulful feel, surely the breeziest tune with the word "garbage" in the title. Benson is strongest when he is rocking, but songs like this and the later "You Make a Fool Out of Me," he proves he can do tender and sensitive as well.

4. Gonowhere - More retro feel, this time from the pitch-shifting synthesizer line that provides the songs first hook -- paging Keith Emerson! A solid, if unremarkable tune that leads off a somewhat soft middle.

5. Feel Like Taking You Home - A slinky vibe that, if slowed down, could be a Raconteurs song. It lacks the overt pop-pop crunch of the previous four tracks, and feels like a departure from Benson's typical sound. It has almost a mutated disco beat with a pulsing keyboard line to drive things. As things escalate, the hooks become more obvious, though it's far from the strongest track.

6. You Make a Fool Out of Me - A piano- and acoustic-guitar driven ballad that sounds like a Paul McCartney outtake. The swelling strings are a nice touch, and the relatively unadorned arrangement allows Benson's voice to shine through. His voice isn't the strongest in rock (hence the frequent double-tracking), but he uses it well here.

7. Poised and Ready - Back to the rock, but the piano stays, pounding rather than tinkling this time out. This is classic power pop with strong hooks... at least in the verse, which trumps the rest of the song. The cheesy keyboards in the understated chorus seem to leave a lot of energy from the verses behind.

8. Don't Want to Talk - A big beat opens things courtesy of a lift from "Rock 'n'' Roll Pt. 2," but that gives way to power chord heaven. Benson sings some nice echo-laden harmonies with himself here, emphasizing the hooks. This thing just keeps building, becoming this big insistent hook that takes over your ears. A standout.

9. Misery - Do do do do do do... Is Benson going all Beach Boys on us? Not really, but it's a nice throwback touch that immediately grabs the listener on this retro rave-up. This thing has hooks upon hooks, and is real evidence of Benson's songwriting and arranging skills. There are a lot of elements, but everything fits together and enhances everything else. This is the kind of song you'll play for a friend to prove just how talented this guy is.

10. Lesson Learned - A nice down-tempo shift after the manic "Misery." Electric piano gives this a late-night vibe, and there are some interesting layered vocals, but there isn't much here to grab onto.

11. Borrow - From the blast of keyboard and guitar that opens this track, it has "album closer" written all over it. It starts mid-tempo and then shifts into overdrive on the chorus: "you don't care what other people say," Benson sings.

Verdict: This is Benson's fourth album, so he knows by now what he wants and delivers. Though he is wildly talented, it seems that Benson is perhaps too mannered or worried about creating concisely arranged songs to ever deliver a scorcher that demands to be heard. It's a great album, much like his previous three, but there is nothing here that will force you to pull it out a year from now once it has faded from memory. If you do, however, you'll be rewarded with several top-notch songs that show Benson is much more than Jack White's sideman in the Raconteurs.

Labels: Brendan Benson, first listen, music

For some reason, we seem to be suspect of the efforts of an artist that fall outside his chosen field. Actually, we do that with anyone. Remember Michael Jordan's attempt at baseball? But for artists, the judgment can be particularly harsh. You're a good writer? Then don't try to indulge your talents as a songwriter, Mr. Moody. Are you a cinema star? Then keep that novel on the shelf, Ethan.

Even for those with a lower profile, seeing a favorite artist move into another area can be nerve wracking. This new book doesn't mean we'll hear less music, does it? No fear of that, according to Joe Pernice, the latest artist to make the successful crossover from one discipline to the other. Though the success of It Feels So Good When I Stop will surely raise his profile as a fiction writer, he assures us that he plans to continue making music for a long time.

That's a good thing, for Pernice is one of the country's best songwriters. He began in a country vein with the Scud Mountain Boys. Seeming to chafe at the limitations of the genre, he left after three albums, forming the Pernice Brothers, a name under which he has issued five albums of intricately arranged pop songs.

It Feels So Good When I Stop is his first novel, but not his first book. He put his UMass MFA in poetry to work with his first, the 2001 poetry collection Two Blind Pigeons, and was among the first to pen a book in Continuum's 33 1/3 series about albums, with the 2003 novella related to the Smith's Meat is Murder. The success of the latter led to his contract for the new novel.

The book is set in Cape Cod in 1996, and follows the exploits (though that's really too strong a word) of the unnamed narrator, an unsuccessful musician/waiter who bolts from his day-old marriage and heads to the home his sister abandoned when she left her own marriage. There, he interacts with his strange brother-in-law, his two-year-old nephew and a handful of other colorful characters.

He agrees to take care of his nephew, Roy, and that coupled with his attempts to bring a bit of order to his life and the home (which has been stripped of anything of value by his brother-in-law), give him some perspective on his life and what he has done with it. Pernice has created a clutch of damaged, often off-putting characters, but writes them with such a deft touch that you still care about what happens to them. The wit and eye for detail found in his songs is here in spades, along with a real knack for drawing the reader in.

He recorded a soundtrack of sorts for the book that includes covers of songs mentioned in the book, including work from Plush, the Dream Syndicate, Sebadoh and Del Shannon. He also has a new Pernice Brothers album in the offing, which means it's an awfully good time to be a Pernice fan. The

TIRBD: You have an MFA in poetry, but beyond your song lyrics and the Two Blind Pigeons collection, you haven't published much poetry. Does it feel odd to have published a novella (Meat is Murder) and this new novel given what you trained for at school?

Not at all. It’s been over 10 years since I took my MFA, and in those years I have written very little poetry. (Songwriting was just too much fun and I was making a little bread.) Graduate school was a lot less about “training” than it was just affording me time and a small amount of money to do little else than write poetry. Once I stopped doing it (writing poetry all day) it kind of left my system. I got out of shape, so to speak.

Was there an aspect of confidence building from the success of Meat is Murder that played into your decision to write the novel?

Sure. After I wrote the novella, I had a much stronger belief that I could actually pull it (a novel) off. If I had in the past ever thought of writing a novel, the size of the endeavor scared me off.

Do you have a drawer full of other attempted novels, or was this your first?

This was my first.

Will there be others?


I hope so. I’m sure going to give it a go. I really loved writing this book, and I plan on starting another this fall.


Songwriting and novel writing are obviously two very different things. That said, do they intersect at all for you?

Not a lot. As you can imagine, the processes and the time it takes to do each are vary greatly. But momentary flashes of inspiration happen (hopefully) when I’m doing both things. So in that way they are similar. Songwriting has an almost immediate payoff because I respond positively to the sound of music. Holding an acoustic guitar and bashing out a G chord simply feels great. Tapping a computer keyboard does not.

For me, writing a book is to sustain a glow whereas writing a song is like watching a quick, hot-burning fire.

You recorded an album of covers to accompany the book, your first covers, if I recall correctly, since the Scud Mountain Boys' Pine Box. (Ed note: I did not recall correctly. Dance The Night Away does as well) Do you enjoy putting your stamp on the songs of others, and if so, why haven't you done more of that before now?

I do enjoy playing covers while sitting around at home. I never thought about doing a covers album because I always — right or wrong — looked at artists who did covers albums a bit negatively. Releasing a covers record always said to me, “Okay, I need some money and I’ve run out of ideas.” A silly assumption? Maybe yes, maybe no.

I do know that if I hadn’t written this novel, there’s no way this covers record would have come to light. Also, if I did not have a new album of original tunes just about finished, I never would have released a cover record. It’s like I’m smothering it (the cover record) with original work. Not saying that’s right or even healthy….



You left Sub Pop several years ago and have been releasing your own music for longer than you were associated with a label. I know you don't do it alone, but how is it different being more intimately familiar with and involved in the business side of things?

Well, even when I wasn’t involved in the business side of things (because Sub Pop did all the business), I wanted to be. It interested me. I wouldn’t say I’m a control freak, but I sure like to know how my stuff is being handled and sold. I also knew I wanted to make records for a long, long time. I knew doing that would require me to start a label and be intimately involved in its machinations.

I don’t think being a “record company guy” affects the art. I think I’m pretty good at separating the art from the commerce. If anything, owning my label has been liberating for me as an artist. When you sell records or license a song to a TV show or something, and you own your own publishing rights and your master recordings, putting that bread in your own bank account instead of some other label’s sure makes you feel good about your future as an artist. If you make eight-to-10 times as much per record sold, you feel that much more okay about your artistic freedom and smaller sales numbers.

Has becoming a family man had any affect on your songwriting?

It might actually be a bit darker, I’m afraid to say. Babies break much more easily than adult men.

I definitely have to be more disciplined with my time. And luckily I have been able to rise to the occasion. I think I’m actually doing more work than when I had zero responsibility and all the time in the world. There’s an expression: The goldfish grows to the size of the bowl.

Is it a coincidence that you've shifted into books, a vocation that requires much less time away from home?

It is a coincidence, but it’s a nice one. I’m certainly not quitting music, but I sure enjoyed being home every day. My wife and my son are my two favorite people, so…

Labels: books, Joe Pernice, Monday Interview, music

As is often the case with artists I grow to collect obsessively, I first heard the music of David Mead when a promo of his sophomore album, 1999's Mine and Yours, came across my desk when I was an A&E writer for a small Midwestern daily newspaper. It was produced by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, and given my love of that band's first two albums, I decided it was worth a listen. From the opening notes, I was hooked.

The first thing that struck me was Mead's voice, a sweet, soaring elastic instrument in the hands (or rather, mouth) of an artist who knows how to use it. A great voice without great songs is simply a wasted talent however, so it was Mead's crack songwriting that crowded his voice atop the list of winning attributes. The album was slick in the least-pejorative way possible, a crisply produced batch of top-notch pop songs.

The follow-up, 2001's Indiana, was broader and deeper. The hooks were still there, but the songs seemed more lived in, the work of someone who had enjoyed the fun conveyed in those earlier songs and now had to get up the next day to go into work with his head still a bit fuzzy from the excess. Still, any weariness was leavened by a sweet hook and a bit of wry humor, as in this bit from the title track:

I had a couple of drinks in Cincy
And some drugs in Detroit
Then a guy in Chicago said I sing like a girl
So I bought him a round and thanked him;
What else could I do?

Between those two albums, Mead recorded another with producer Steven Hague. Reorganization at RCA Records left him label-less, and it wasn't until 2005 that he was able to release some of those songs as the EP Wherever You Are. The title track is among his best compositions, making me wonder if that business snag kept him from being launched into the big time.

Probably not, and as he says below, that's probably for the best, for he has been able to follow his muse without worry of what the suits will think. That meant 2006's exquisite Tangerine could be followed by his new, Nilsson-inspired follow-up, Almost and Always. Here, the songs are stripped to their essence with no dilution in power or catchiness. Further proof that his songs require none of the studio frills that adorn their original versions is offered by Live at Eddie's Attic, a live show from early this year that finds Mead and collaborator Bill DeMain performing acoustically. The show can be downloaded at Mead's site, and it's a great listen.

Mead self-released Almost and Always digitally late last year; Cheap Lullaby Records reissues it digitally and on CD on July 28. Check out "Rainy Weather Friend" from the disc here.

TIRBD: This is a quieter album than you have made in the past. Was that borne of necessity because you were funding it yourself, simply the presentation these songs needed or perhaps a bit of both?

DM: bit of both, I guess. I was very influenced by the album Nilsson Sings Newman, which is very sparse, just Harry Nilsson's vocals and Randy Newman's piano. I wanted the challenge of seeing if I could do something that powerful and dramatic with little instrumentation. My last album was very elaborately arranged so I wanted to try something different here. And yes, there was no recording budget, so it did turn out to be a good time to try the pared down approach.

You've been candid about the state of your life when you were writing these songs -- recently separated from your wife, broke and living in your father's basement. Can you tell an influence from all of that on the music? In your candor, do you hope that it colors the listener's view of the songs?

I can certainly tell the influence. The failure of a marriage is pretty humbling, and the album sounds like that to me... not really broken or defeated, but a little wiser and less bombastic than some earlier stuff. I don't really want my 'candor' to influence people's experience with it. I think it's a drag when a writer attempts to limit work to one particular interpretation. I suppose I could have exercised more discretion, but I don't Twitter or use drugs, so I thought it might be nice to throw in some sauce for the kids.

It has been a decade since The Luxury of Time was released. Where did you think you'd be in 10 years, and what are your thoughts now about where you are?

If memory serves, I thought I would be dating Jennifer Aniston on and off and doing a lot of kick-boxing workouts. In retrospect, it is easy to see that I could have never handled the pressure and monotony of that lifestyle, however. I think that I would be pretty rudderless by this point if I had already made bags of money. I am very happy that I ended up as a middle class singer/songwriter... It keeps me working a lot and trying new things. I'm not particularly mature or ambitious. Which is probably why Jenny won't return my calls anymore.

You wrote much of this new material with Bill DeMain. How was it different writing with someone instead of by yourself? You mentioned that in a way these felt like covers because you wrote them with the idea that someone else would sing them. Is that enhanced by the fact that you didn't solely write them?

In many ways, the album is a kind of canonization of Bill DeMain's lifestyle. He is a highly unique individual who kind of exists outside of the normal time continuum. His work and his attitude about life have little to do with much that is trendy or whatever passes for 'modern,' which is very refreshing for me. He writes pages of great lyrics, many of which are fully formed before I even touch them. This is great for me because I love writing music and hate writing lyrics. Bill has the gift of plucking the transcendent from the mundane. He also usually makes a mean lunch when we write together.

You self-released this disc digitally, then signed with a small label to re-release it. Now that you're not with a larger label, is commerce playing a larger part in what you do? Does that have an affect on the art side of the equation?

Survival is generally a lot more interesting as an independent. There is a lot more friction and fluidity involved, which always makes for more stimulating art. Not being attached to a corporation is helpful, as well. I think that, during my major label years, I was actually fortunate to work with some great people, but the dark ominous cloud of shareholders and bottom lines is inescapable in those kind of situations. Unless you are mentally handicapped or blissfully ignorant, it is impossible to not feel a certain amount of pressure that is not conducive to creativity. These days, I live month to month, which means I have to constantly come up with a new idea in order to eat. This is good, as food has always been a primary motivator for me.

You seem to have some musical kindred spirits in Nashville. Does the city affect that group in any way, or would these same artists be aligned and making this kind of music if they were living in another area?

Every Nashvillain who is worth a damn artistically enjoys the sensation of being a big fish in a little pond. This is good for egos and also means that like-minded people find each other at lightning speed, often getting down to the business of good work a lot more quickly than in other media metropolae. It is cheap to live here, and the humidity tends to strip us of the will to waste time with excessive social niceties. I doubt this would happen in any other city, primarily for the absence of Prince's Hot Chicken in every other major creative market.

You found real subtle beauty in Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" on Indiana. Do you envision that others might follow suit as people now rediscover his work since his passing? What are your thoughts about losing him from a musical standpoint?

Thank you. I am afraid that we are in for a lot more shitty MJ covers than good ones, but perhaps that's just the Hot Chicken talking. I think that, barring an act of Buddha, he was probably past the point of doing his best work, so, pragmatically speaking, it is not a terrible loss for me on a personal level. The example he leaves, however, is god-like, absolutely brilliant and wholly unattainable. I am unspeakably thankful to have been alive for it.

Labels: Monday Interview, music

With the celebration and attendant excitement surrounding Merge Records 20th anniversary today, I thought it would be fun to go back through the label's catalog to pick out a few highlights and gems. For a label that began as a way to put out the music of Superchunk and then more broadly that of bands in the North Carolina area, the label has become one of the most eclectic and rewarding in indiedom. It's no stretch to call it the strongest indie label if judged by its current roster, and that makes picking the best work to appear under the Merge name quite a challenge.

That said, this is a very subjective list, limited to what I've heard and remembered. That means Ganger, Guv'ner, Oakley Hall, Pram and others are not being slighted; I've simply not had the pleasure.

That leaves an awful lot of great music to sift through, which is a pleasant task. Because it's my list, I get to make the rules.:No reissues, which means great work from the likes of Richard Buckner, Big Dipper, Dinosaur Jr. and Volcano Suns originally released on other labels isn't eligible. And, to add a bit of variety, only one track per act (which means this isn't going to be a Superchunk/Spoon slit greatest hits).

So, here's the list. Let the debate begin.

1. Neutral Milk Hotel - Two-Headed Boy (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) I was tempted by "Song Against Sex" from On Avery Island simply because it hasn't been played to death, but this song is still so powerful and so perfect a decade later that it simply won't be denied. Such power and beauty, harnessed. Barely.

2. Superchunk - Cool (Tossing Seeds) This and the Spoon track were most difficult. So much good music. I guess it goes back to initial impressions. "Slack Motherfucker" was a monster of a song, but the rest of the debut was spotty. When "Cool" came out on a single, it felt like this band had limitless possibilities. "I heard this song on the radio once..." If only.

3. Spoon - The Way We Get By (Kill the Moonlight) One of a couple dozen songs that could represent Spoon. This one was elevated, however, because it shows everything Britt Daniel and Co. can do with the most limited tools: A great groove, a fantastic hook and a ear-grabbing lyric. The band would get better, but by boiling itself down to its essential elements, Spoon puts it all on the table here, with remarkable results.

4. Robert Pollard - Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft (From a Compound Eye) I'm an admitted Pollard freak, so I could fill this list with tracks drawn from Pollard's four albums on the label. This, however, is a masterpiece. It's an epic with several strong hooks that prove when Pollard wants to deliver, he can.

5. The Broken West - Down in the Valley (I Can't Go On I'll Go On) This is the best power pop song of the past decade, in part because it delivers mightily on both the power and the pop. The band has taken an interesting left turn into Wilco-like experimentation of late, but here it offers a shambling wreck of a song that is ecstatic and gleeful.

6. Arcade Fire - Keep the Car Running (Neon Bible) A little Arcade Fire goes a long way, but when the Boss gives you a ringing endorsement, you know you've got a keeper. All of the elements that made the band so compelling are here, and all the elements that make it nerve-wracking are in short supply.

7. The Clientele - Since K Got Over Me (Strange Geometry) Listen to this and then guess which decade it first appeared. You'd be hard pressed to guess this one. The vocals, the hushed arrangement, the Tin Pan Alley lyric; it's an exquisite package.

8. Teenage Fanclub - It's All in My Mind (Man-Made) The band's last two albums were pale in comparison to the mighty Songs From Northern Britain that preceded them, but the opening track of the band's last disc was oh so good. A minimalist masterpiece that offers sweet release when the snare kicks in.

9. Lambchop - What Else Could It Be? (Nixon): This dirge-fest is among the band's best albums, and this shorter, (relatively) peppy track has all the hallmarks of a great Lambchop song without getting bogged down in the mire.

10. Portastatic - Black Buttons (Be Still Please) Portastatic has always been Mac's outlet for quieter material, but here he shows real range and some real emotional depth thanks to a completely stripped-down track. It's a beautiful song with some soaring harmonies.

11. Caribou - Melody Day (Andorra) I know little about this one-man band, but I do know that the music Dan Snaith makes is claustrophobic in the best possible way. Here, a strong pop hook is buoyed by a practical wall of sound to create something that doesn't quite fit any given genre.

12. Magnetic Fields - Meaningless (69 Love Songs) OK, so picking one of these 69 songs is like choosing a favorite kid; on any given day, the choice could be different. Stephin Merritt's genius is in full bloom here, and it's hard to go wrong with anything from this sprawling three-disc set.

13. American Music Club - The Decibels and the Little Pills (The Golden Age) It was improbable, and a little unfair, to think a reunited American Music Club would revisit the heights of its earliest work. But by its second album with Merge, the group was turning out music as beautiful and lyrically deviant as anything on United Kingdom or California.

14. M. Ward - Big Boat (Transistor Radio): Ward's music is so hermetic and mannered that it can be a big -- though admittedly beautiful -- yawn. Here it actually as a beat you could dance to, and pushes his raspy voice a bit to reveal possibilities he hasn't explored much since.

15. Imperial Teen - Ivanka (On) I hate Faith No More, so I dismissed Roddy Bottum's other band for a long time. A fortuitous promo of On hooked me on this combo's kitschy take on pop. It's still best in small doses, but when a dose is as sugary perfect as "Ivanka," that's a high I'm willing to chase.

16. David Kilgour - Gold In Sound (Frozen Orange) Kilgour, founder of the Clean, has a sound that doesn't deviate much from album to album. Luckily, those albums are almost uniformly excellent. He does change things up slightly here, forgoing the mad strum for something a bit more contemplative. The hook is as strong as ever.

17. Polvo - Vibracobra (Cor-Crane Secret) This early math-rock purveyor has a rabid following and a low profile. Had it debuted a couple of years later, it's angular guitar attack might have taken it somewhere. As it was, those of us in the know had to be content with scorchers like this.

18. Radar Bros. Rock Of The Lake (And the Surrounding Mountains) This band is one of the lower-profile acts on the label, but it's sweeping songs are breathtaking when they're done well. Blending pastoral acoustic guitars and knifing electrics, the group offers a music that swoons and swells, creating something almost cinematic.

19. She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? (Volume One) I could just as easily hate this as love it, and today, I love it. Sure, Zooey Deschanel's vocals are mannered and precious, but they're also coy and sultry, and M. Ward's period backing shows how far-ranging the tastes of indie kids can be if given proper motivation.

20. East River Pipe - Ah Dictaphone (Poor Fricky) F.M. Cornog is sort of a lost hero of the lo-fi revolution, but for those in the know, the best of his melancholy pop songs are often the equal of anything Robert Pollard or Lou Barlow was cranking out in the early to mid-1990s.

Labels: music, record labels

In the Hold Steady song "Celebrated Summer," Craig Finn sings, "raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer, I think he might've been our only decent teacher." A worthy subject, of course, but I think Finn's list is rather incomplete. Look no further than to Mike Watt for proof.

Over the course of a 30-year music career, Watt has evolved into an improbable leader. He can't really sing, he plays an instrument typically relegated to support status and is more interested in "jamming econo" than turning a buck. Despite it all, I defy anyone to find me an artist who has been involved with more interesting music that consistently over that length of time. All that with more integrity than you'll find in almost any artist.

He came to prominence as part of the trio the Minutemen. The group formed in 1980 and disbanded in December 1985 after the death of guitarist and singer D. Boon. In that short time, they recorded four albums and eight EPs, each better and more accomplished than the last. After Boon's death, Watt and drummer George Hurley formed fIREHOSE with guitarist Ed "from Ohio" Crawford. A major-label contract gave the band, and Watt, considerable visibility. It was a contract he kept until 2005, after the release of his third solo album, The Secondman's Middle Stand.

Since fIREHOSE split in 1993, Watt has kept busy with an increasing number of projects. In addition to the bass duo Dos that he's had for years with (now) ex-wife Kira, he has performed with Unknown Instructors, the Stooges, J Mascis, Porno for Pyros, Funanori and Banyan, among others.

The most recent of these is his work with Unknown Instructors. The group -- former Saccharine Trust guitarist Joe Baiza, Watt, Hurley, poet Dan McGuire, Pere Ubu singer David Thomas and artist Raymond Pettibon. The music is odd, with with the trio of Baiza, Watt and Hurley improvising jazz-tinged rock that heads in unexpected directions. McGuire, Thomas and Pettibon (and occasionally Watt himself) then offer spoken word over top . It's an offbeat but terribly arresting combination. The most recent disc of three from the combo, Funland, is the best yet.

Watt doesn't often look back, but in this case it's worthy: He'll participate in a July 25th event in New York that celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime, perhaps the greatest album Watt has been a part of.

TIRBD: It has been said that you and George Hurley considered continuing the Minutemen with Joe Baiza. Is that true? What might the past 20 years have been like if that had been the case, and what is it like now to play with him on a regular basis?

MW: Me and George have always dug playing with Joe Baiza. I tried out for his (and Jack Brewer's) Saccharine Trust band before we started the Minutemen. The Minutemen though ended when D. Boon was killed. It would be different than Minutemen playing with Joe, it's only natural. That's why us playing with Edward was called fIREHOSE. So we did do some jams, but then Edward came from Ohio and we pursued that. Playing with Joe Baiza now is very interesting cuz I love the style he's developed and try to do my best bass for him, same w/George – two very singular musicians I really appreciate, they really bring their own personalities to our collaborations.

You seem like a natural for something like Unknown Instructors because of the "spiels" you put on records. When do you decide that it's better to speak something rather than sing it, and why don't more people use that tactic?

Well, I've always thought of the words part of the Unknown Instructors was Dan McGuire and so was taking my cue from him there. I have done spiels with other music though, yes. It seems to fit the mood of the piece of music I put it to, just like using different types of bass lines to anchor a tune. To me it's kind of like a "thinking out loud" kind of texture to a tune. It's hard for me to say why others don't use it but then some of my bass isn't that conventional either. I learned from being in the Minutemen to try and wrestle your angle on expression in music – it was something D. Boon was never afraid to try.

You mention in the press material for the record that the process was about “putting me into contexts that take risks, which is scary, but being scared can be exciting.” I was surprised to read that, because it seems as if your career has largely been about putting yourself into such risky situations. What made this more so?

You are right, I have done a lot of that, but whole albums made of flying by the seat of your pants with free-form jamming can be a little intimidating still with all the years of whatever kind of experience music has given me. I try and think of this in a positive light though so I don't coward out in the first place and then attempt some kind of growth by engaging in it, but at the same time, trying to do good for the cats I'm playing with. So I think there's some kind of responsibility mixed into the idea or attempt to ignite some type of "abandon" from a life of infinite "re-runs" like endless repeats of the "I Love Lucy Show" or something.

In the past few years, it seems as if you're starting a new group every month or so. Why this restlessness? Do you ever fear stretching yourself too thin?

New groups are about new musical situations, new places to learn from. I think it helps me keep relevant somehow, keeps the bass from being just a machine and a means to help me keep learning. The different musical situations are like different "classrooms" and I sincerely believe everyone has something to teach me. I'm trying to cram as much as I can in the amount of life I have left. It just drives me, I feel driven by opportunity to try different musical things. Some situations are very stable though – like the band dos me and Kira have had for 24 years. Some though, like this gig I got with Devin Hoff next week in San Francisco, last just one performance! Who knows though; we've been talking about taking things further – sometimes that's how it works, and then sometimes I think up the whole concept before choosing the people... sometimes I'm chosen by someone, right out of the blue! I think about my life... I think, "I'm here to learn!" So it's OK.

You have played with a lot of musicians from different eras -- from the Stooges to David Thomas in the Unknown Instructors to younger musicians in your various recent projects. What differences and similarities do you see in their approaches, and particularly their mindset about music as a career?

Yeah, everyone has their own personal take on this whole music trip, believe me. It's OK though, cuz different perspectives can bring me something I can learn from. I have learned to maybe not make big judgments on folks and their choices on how they work their angle on music and try to act like the bass in a band, sort of like being grout to set tiles. Everyone has something special about themselves I believe. That can help me be a little special along with them – that's what I try for. Music is a trippy kind of field where people can transcend age, I think. I've been very very lucky to play with folks pretty open-minded, whether they've played for a little while or a long time. I try to go with those situations – the technical abilities are kind of secondary to the spirit they bring. To think of music as a career is pretty scary! I was just asked by a dear friend about how to do music for life. Very difficult question! I could only suggest developing a musical identity that's reflective of the inner voice music lets you express and keep pushing, push! If you stumble – get back up and keep pushing!

Your hootpage is a goldmine of information about your life and music in general. You published a short book a few years back with a French press that gathered some writing, but it seems like you have a memoir in you. Ever have any thoughts about ever doing something like that?

That was published in Quebec where French is spoken lots, by l'oie de craven It's a book of my Minutemen lyrics plus a short little tour diary from 1983 I did – my first one. I do tour diaries all the time, for the last 10 years, and have them up on my hootpage where anyone can read them. I am a big fan of literature though, it inspires me much to write music. I really need inspiration – lots of times it's books, lots of time it's people... without inspiration, music for is too mechanical. I have great respect for writing and yes, it's something I wish I could do better myself.

How does technology affect the way that you record, distribute and listen to music now compared to when you started playing? Is it better or worse?

The challenge of trying to be creative has never been solved, and I think maybe it should never be. However, it is more econo to record and there's tools in the recording themselves that can act now like instruments – not just for capturing performances but kind of like "playing" them on another level... sort of like how making films developed. It's easier now to communicate and all collaborate by using the Internet, same with getting the finished works out there. A lot of projects I do now could not happen in the old days, just couldn't, so I'm grateful for lots of the new developments. The idea of finished works changed forms somewhat, but they still are works. It’s easier now to share them w/more folks and quicker. I think this is a good thing cuz maybe folks might wanna see you perform live if they have the chance.

Labels: Monday Interview, music

Once I got over the confusion over a book magazine that publishes only 10 times a year setting aside two of those to cover music and visual arts, I learned to love The Believer's annual music issue. Actually, it wasn't hard. Much as the magazine's usual content offers some of the best, most interesting coverage of books available, The Believer's music issue is one of the sharpest looks at the state of music that you'll find.

The new issue is no exception. In fact, whether it's a faulty memory on my part or an uncanny ability to target my tastes on their part, I can't remember a more satisfying music issue.

The first thing to do when a Believer music issue arrives is to check out the included CD. This one, compiled by Daniel Handler (better known as Lemony Snicket), is a gem. The disc offers some incredible music that, unlike most included with magazines, features songs unavailable elsewhere because they were recorded specifically for this project. The Believer/Handler asked several songwriters to submit acoustic versions of new songs, and 14 did.

One note: If there is a target audience for this disc, I'm it. Which led me to look up Handler on Wikipedia and found what I was looking for: He's three months younger than I am, which more importantly means that he graduated from college at the same time. No wonder this disc seems so good: These are artists that, by and large, were making a name for themselves when we were in high school, college and slightly beyond.

While I know my tastes have expanded since that time, it's also safe to say that the artists I hold closest to my heart are those I discovered in the decade-long window between entering high school and settling fully into the working world. So, acts like Sam Phillips, Robert Scott (The Bats), Mike Scott (The Waterboys), Lloyd Cole, Dave Wakeling (The English Beat), Mark Robinson (Unrest) et al are right in that wheelhouse.

The Scott song, "A Wild Holy Band," is magnificent. Despite it's 10-minute run time, it held my interest from start to finish, a story song worthy of any next-Dylan tag Scott might have been saddled with at one time. The Dave Wakeling song makes me think it's high time for an English Beat revival, while tracks from Stephen Duffy (The Lilac Time), Lisa Germano and Stuart Moxham (Young Marble Giants) make me think I ought to re-evaluate my ambivalence about their work.

Moving beyond the disc and into the issue's pages, I'm again struck by the breadth of what is covered here. In the past, the magazine has been accused of pandering too much to the hipster demographic, but any nods to that corner are more than balanced this time out by pieces about the post-breakup Beatles, Lawrence Welk, jazz guitarist Pat Martino and a look at the costs associated with staging an opera. Sure, there is an interview with indie darling Phil Elverum of Microphones/Mt. Eerie and a Q&A with Thom Yorke, but if anything these are pieces that are likely to put the hipsters at ease with the rest of the content, not the other way around.

Arthur Phillips, who wrote the fantastic new novel The Song is You (which I'll boldly say is the best novel ever written with music at its center), has an interesting (particularly given the success of his doing so in his novel) piece about the constant debate about whether one can accurately describe music with words in Dancing About Architecture.

Joe Hagan, whose article about reclusive singer-songwriter Bill Fox in the 2007 music issue was one of the best things The Believer has published, looks at singer-songwriter Benji Hughes, another performer who doesn't seem to have found the best way to present his music -- or the right partners to help him do so when he does.

All in all it's a very solid issue of one of the best magazines out there, and one any music fan would do well to drop $10 to acquire.

Past Believer music issues:

2008
2007
2006
2005
2004

Labels: magazines, music

The publicist for the Meat Puppets sent a note out today announcing that the band had been picked to open three dates for the reunited Stone Temple Pilots, urging recipients to "Party like it's 1993!" I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

It's great to have the band back in fighting shape after more than a decade in the wilderness, and I for one would like to keep it that way. But to casually invoke 1993 is to ignore why the band went away for 10 years. Bassist Cris Kirkwood's drug habit went into overdrive around this time, and most acknowledge that it was... wait for it... a tour with the Stone Temple Pilots that sent him over the edge.

The result? The band recorded a lackluster follow-up to its commercial breakthrough, Too High To Die, and split up. Cris Kirkwood spiraled down, eventually getting involved in an assault on a security guard at a post office. He ended up shot and spent two years in jail.

Kirkwood seems recovered, and clearly understands that this is his second and perhaps last chance to make the band work. "I wrecked the Meat Puppets," he told Rolling Stone recently. "This thing that we'd cherished, that we'd worked our whole lives for, I fucking wrecked it."

As far as second acts go, this one is a doozy. Kirkwood and his brother, guitar/singer Curt Kirkwood, have crafted a fantastic album in Sewn Together (their second since reforming). It feels like the more logical successor to Forbidden Places, an album jam-packed with hooks, all delivered in that slightly spacey desert-inspired boogie that the Meat Puppets have made their own.

In an interview with Curt Kirkwood last month, he told me that the band was eager to make good new music; the reformation was not going to be an exercise in nostalgia.

“We said, ‘Let’s see what we can do with this, make this thing fly. Not something on its laurels, its past standing,” he said. “We didn’t break up because we had some sort of artistic disagreement. We took a break because he was sick, messed up. When he came back, we didn’t have anything to get over. We just got back to it.”

Here's hoping that everyone involved with the Meat Puppets/STP shows realizes that second chances are rare and is willing to leave the baggage of the past back where it belongs.

Labels: music

Richard Hell's sophomore album, Destiny Street, is being resurrected 27 years after its initial release, but some of Hell's fans aren't happy about the Frankenstein's monster he promises to unleash under the name.

Hell announced recently that he plans to re-release the album, but in a very different format. “At the time of the original recording I was so debilitated by despair and drug-need that I was useless," he said. "The record ended up being a high-pitched sludge of guitar noise. It was a shame because the songs were clean, simple, and well-constructed, but those values were sabotaged by the inappropriate arrangements and production.”

He acquired rights to the album in 2004, then let it go out of print. In 2006, he came across a two-track tape of the original rhythm parts and decided to use that as the basis for a re-recording. “I couldn’t resist trying to use them to fill and patch up the sinking feeling that the thought of the record had always produced in me,” he said.

Hell recorded new vocals and enlisted the help of guitarists Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell and original Voidoid Ivan Julian to redo the guitars. That move has rankled some fans, who wonder why the work of legendary Robert Quine, who died in 2004, needed to be erased. "No one appreciates Quine more than me -- in fact for many years I was just about the only one who fully appreciated him (with possible exception of Lester Bangs)," Hell responded on his message board. "But even Quine needed an appropriate showcase and he didn't get that on the original Destiny Street. My problem with that record wasn't Quine per se, but rather how he was used... If he were still around, he'd be a prominent soloist on this new record, but he isn't around."

Others questioned the wisdom of significantly changing an artifact that endeared itself to fans for nearly three decades. Hell said he isn't trying to permanently suppress the album, though he does say "I did intend to replace it for most purposes with this new one."

While the idea of Frisell and Ribot being let loose on music so different from their own is appealling, Hell does take a risk by tampering with the album. Though it pales in prominence when judged against its predecessor, Blank Generation, the debut of Hell and the Voidoids, it was well regarded and continues to draw fans. Robert Christgau in The Village Voice wrote at the time of its release that "this is no lowest-common-denominator job: it's fuller and jazzier than Blank Generation without any loss of concision," while All Music Guide more recently opined that "Destiny Street sounds looser and more spontaneous than Hell's debut, but it's just as smart and every bit as powerful, and it's a more than worthy follow-up."

Hell long has thought Destiny Street an album that didn't, well, fulfill its destiny. "Destiny St. could use some improving. (The twisting pitted street, the missing guardrails, blasted landscape, criminally cheap and rushed construction--all serve to waken the admiration of the elect among us. Leer.)," he wrote in the liner notes to a 1992 CD reissue. "I remember everyone's heroic patience with me (all the principals -- Naux, Quine, Fred, and Alan Betrock are good and talented people who deserved better)."

The new version of the album -- dubbed Destiny Street Repaired -- is getting the lavish reissue treatment. Insound.com steps out for a rare turn as record label, offering a deluxe vinyl package for $29.99 with a poster and a CD with the 10 original tracks and two never before released tracks: "Smitten" and "Funhunt." These will be in a signed, numbered edition of 1,000. A CD-only version for $16 also will be available that lacks the two extra tracks (which, when you think about it, means each bonus track is $7.50 if all you're after is the music).

It's an interesting experiment, and one we'll likely see more of, particularly from artists like Hell who don't seem interested in recording new material. Hell certainly stands behind his creation: "It's a better representation of the material," he said. "I believe most people will agree with me when they hear it, though doubtless there will be some who won't. Even I will grant that there are a few qualities of the original that this version couldn't better, but they are few, and on the whole the new one is clearly superior."

Labels: music, reissues

A fortuitous browse through the CD rack at the local library brought me to Bryan Ferry's fantastic album of Bob Dylan covers, 2007's Dylanesque, and had me thinking this weekend about the phenomenon of Dylan covers.

What I decided, and what I would be happy to be proven wrong about in the comments, is that Dylan has already written his last great song when measured solely by the stick of cover versions. That song, of course, is "Make You Feel My Love," from Time Out of Mind.Ferry covers it -- and 10 other songs drawn from all along the continuum of Dylan's career -- on Dylanesque, putting him in very good company. From Joan Osborne and Billy Joel to Trisha Yearwood and her husband, Garth Brooks, some very big names have cut the song.

The same can be said, to a certain extent, for other Time Out of Mind tracks. The White Stripes and Duke Robillard have performed and/or recorded "Love Sick," Alabama 3, Steve Forbert and Robyn Hitchcock have tackled "Trying to Get to Heaven," and Jimmy LaFave has recorded "Not Dark Yet."

After that, the significant covers are fewer and farther in between. Some of that can be attributed to time. Modern Times came out just three years ago, and the new Together Through Life obviously hasn't been out long enough to see much cover action. That brings up two points, however. The first is that Love and Theft has been out for eight years, and other artists have sown little interest in covering its songs. Sheryl Crow did "Mississippi," of course, before Dylan did it himself. Maria Muldaur has recorded "Moonlight," and Ryan Adams has attempted "Po' Boy" in concert. But that's pretty much it.

The other point is that in Dylan's prime, artists didn't wait for his versions to come out before cutting their own. His songs were shopped around prior to release, and covers would come out before, during and after the release of his own. Today, that doesn't seem to be happening.

Why? It's certainly not because the quality of Dylan's output has diminished; far from it. I believe it has to do with the kind of songs Dylan is turning out. "Make You Feel My Love," Dylan's endearingly creaky delivery on Time Out of Mind aside, is a classic love song, easily interpreted. "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum," "Thunder on the Mountain" and "If You Ever Go to Houston" would be much more difficult to cover. The right artist could do them justice, but a pleasant voice and a crack studio band wouldn't turn them into hits the way they could earlier Dylan material.

While this has always somewhat been the case, it seems as if Dylan's best interpreter these days is again Dylan himself. Ferry's album seems to offer proof. While the restrained -- and unruffled -- menace of his cover of "Positively Fourth Street," for example, brings something new to the song, it can't compete with Dylan's seething, spitting rage.

Now, as Dylan seems content (or perhaps "energized" is a better term) to use his albums to recreate the sound he spent 100 shows exploring on his "Theme Time Radio Hour" show, other artists are looking elsehwere for cover material.

Labels: Bob Dylan, music

Facebook's iLike is streaming the forthcoming Dead Weather album, Horehound, and what follows are my initial thoughts on hearing the album for the first time. It's due out July 13 on Third Man Records.

1. 60 Feet Tall - This lets the listener know right from the outset that this is not simply a female-led White Stripes. Jack White knows dynamics better than most of his peers, but he rarely does atmospherics quite like this. The song starts slow and quiet, with Alison Mosshart grabbing the song by the horns from the word go. Guitarist Dean Fertita (from Queens of the Stone Age) drops a squall of a solo here that one could easily mistake for something emanating from White's guitar. This is dark, brooding and awfully good.

2. Hang You From the Heavens - A more generic track that, at least in the YouTube version subbed by iLike, gets by largely on one big riff and Mosshart's leering vocals. It's a good riff and a good vocal, but after the inventive opener, this feels a little flat.

3. I Cut Like a Buffalo - The only solo White songwriting credit (the first two were Mosshart/Fertita originals) and his first vocal. This one is built on some nice organ work, from a pulsing low end to a skittering solo line. No idea what it means to cut like a buffalo, but White seems to mean it. His drumming on the first two tracks were fine, as the tempos were rudimentary enough to cover for any deficiencies. Here, with a slinky beat, his bare bones approach leaves me wanting. Someone with some real chops could really drive this song.

4. So Far From Your Weapon - Mosshart's only solo writing credit finds her growling her way through a stripped-down number that explodes into something sounding like a band being shoved down a flight of stairs. Thus far, one-third of the way through the album, it's clear that Mosshart is the band's not-so-secret weapon, and that while she is well-utilized in her day job with the Kills, the slow-boil menace of Dead Weather might be the better fit.

5. Treat Me Like Your Mother - One of three tracks on the album co-written by all four bandmates, this one starts with a wicked guitar line (which could be an organ) that must be fed through a passel of pedals at Fertita's feet. Mosshart stands toe-to-toe with the lick, while White's drums this time drive things just right, his ramshackle beat pushing Fertita's guitar up against the wall. White also contributes some solo vocals that offer a nice counterpoint to Mosshart's feline yowl. A definite standout.

6. Rocking Horse - A Mosshart/White composition that starts with... bass! Yes, Jack Lawrence really is in the band. He is quickly drowned out by Fertitia's spaghetti Western guitars and a duet between Mosshart and White, each singing through a telephone device.

7. New Pony - A strange Bob Dylan cover (drawn from 1978's Street Legal) with a fuzzed-out guitar solo that sounds like White must surely have come out from behind the kit to strap on his six string. If Dylan sang with the ferocity Mosshart brings to the track, Street Legal would have been a real return to form. Blasphemy though it may be to say, consider this a reworking of the level achieved by Jimi Hendrix on "All Along the Watchtower."

8. Bone House - The second full-band composition. A song driven by fuzzed-out bass (or guitar or organ) line with White pounding away on his drums (giving the cymbals particular punishment). Again, White and Mosshart's twinned vocals add some heft and show what is occasionally lacking in their main bands. "Always get the things I want," they sing in a way that conveys that what they want isn't always what they need.

9. 3 Birds - A kind of funky instrumental with some strangulated guitar sounds, a pulsing bass and a few other spacy sounds that keep things interesting for most of its 3:45 runtime. The last full-band composition. Acoustic guitar injects some needed variety about halfway through; still, this could have been trimmed a bit without losing anything. Beware, this feels like something that could be dragged out interminably in concert. I can see it now: Jack White drum solo!

10. No Hassle Night - Another Mosshart/White track, this one lumbers along like a fairly generic White Stripes song, albeit one with a lot of overdubbing. Not doing much for me; luckily it's mercifully short at 2:56.

11. Will There Be Enough Water? - The album ends with its first White/Fertita co-write, and it's the longest track on the disc. One expects a guitar freakout from these two, but things start quietly with some shuffling drums and an acoustic guitar line that sounds like something Keith Richards might cook up while coming off the nod splayed on a couch in a French chateau circa Exile on Main Street. It maintains that loping pace for its entirety, never bursting forth with the expected (and frankly, hoped for) guitar interplay. A bit of barrlehouse piano is as close as we get to a spike in dynamics here. It's a downbeat way to end the album, a real cool down after the heat of the rest of the tracklisting. Given the ho-hum nature of its lead-in, perhaps some judicious reworking of the sequencing could have improved things, but it's not a bad way to go out.

All in all, this was so much better than I expected. I haven't been excited by a White Stripes album since Elephant; this raised the hairs on the back of my neck in similar fashion. The Raconteurs never gelled for me despite the presence of longtime favorite Brendan Benson, so it's nice to see one of White's tangents pay off so handsomely.

One last note: the cover, while arresting, seemed familiar until I finally realized it looks eerily like the illustrated sleeve for the self-titled Fever Ray disc from earlier this year. Fitting, as that's another strange collection of songs fronted by a woman who subverts expectations. Kindred souls, perhaps.

Labels: first listen, music

After the rousing return of 2008, R.E.M. is back in rearview mode in 2009. First up was the deluxe edition of Reckoning, the band's sophomore disc. That package, released June 23, included the original album and a show recorded 25 years ago today: July 7, 1984 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. It's an FM broadcast from WXRT. That show found the band playing all of it's then two-month-old album save for the ballads -- "Time After Time" and "Camera."

Fast forward 25 years to the day, and the band has released another live document of Reckoning songs, this time culled from the band's July 2007 rehearsals in Dublin that preceded the recording of Accelerate. This digital EP, Reckoning Songs From the Olympia, again omits the ballads in favor of the most rocking tracks from the album: "Harborcoat," "Letter Never Sent," "Second Guessing" and "Pretty Persuasion."

That release is being called a preview of the band's forthcoming two-CD release, R.E.M. Live at the Olympia, scheduled for fall release. That's interesting; I've heard bad bootlegs of these shows and must admit I'm curious to see how the songs on Accelerate sounded at that point. But three of the band's last five releases have been archival in nature -- In Time, And I Feel Fine... and R.E.M. Live -- and this seems like a momentum killer for a band reportedly already working on its next disc.

Listen to "Harborcoat" from the new EP.
Hear Mike Mills talk about Reckoning.
Read Tony Fletcher's liner notes for the reissue.

Labels: music, R.E.M.

The public television show Nova Science Now will have an interesting segment tonight on Auto-Tune, the program used by music producers to sweeten the vocals of many performers by putting their warbling notes back on pitch. It's not much of a factor -- I don't think -- in the music I listen to, but in pop, R 'n' B and hip hop music, its use is rampant. Some use it subtly to keep someone who is more pretty than talented from sounding off-key, while others use it blatantly to create new sounds and textures. The first time most folks heard it, however unknowingly, was on Cher's hit, "Believe."

Hip hop artists seem to be the most prevalent users/offenders. Some, like T-Pain, use it consistently to create a new sound, while Kanye West used it all over his recent 808s and Heartbreak disc to "sing." Sasha Frere-Jones with the New Yorker looks at the program's use in a recent essay.

The backlash is already well underway. Jay-Z will have a track on his forthcoming album called "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)," that criticizes those who lean on the program. The song's producer? Kanye West.

The Nova segment will provide some valuable context. How does it work? Why was it created? What is the result of its use? An example featuring some very accommodating Nova staffers and "The Star Spangled Banner" shows how completely -- and spookily -- Auto-Tune can be utilized.

Labels: music, technology

Many people probably left the Church behind sometime around the fadeout of "Under the Milky Way." Given the path the band has taken since, it's members are probably OK with that. And those fair-weather fans? It's definitely their loss.

Thirteen albums after the band's breakthrough with Starfish, the group has issued its best album in a decade or more. That album, Untitled #23, is the band's 23rd, and it is proof positive that acts with a deep enough creative well can continue to make music for years and years that sounds of a piece with its back catalog while mining new territory.

Untitled #23 makes no compromises. There is no single here, no uptempo rocker to throw radio's way. These dense soundscapes don't even necessarily stand out one from another until the orientation afforded by several listens takes hold. But it is a stellar effort despite those challenges. Things begin and end in two places: Steve Kilbey's one-of-a-kind vocals and the chiming guitar interplay between Marty Wilson-Piper and Peter Koppes. Those are the touchstones that let even the casual listener know that this is a Church record.

These songs glide rather than punch, insinuate rather than declare. Kilbey's vocal is still the focus, but Koppes and Wilson-Piper are willing to let their sinewy guitar lines wash over the listener in a gauzy tapestry while Tim Powles' drums nudge things along. Some have stronger hooks than others -- you''ll sing along with "Pangea," for example -- while others are more about setting a mood.

It's a great time to be a Church fan. Never mind that on an album-by-album basis the band is on a roll (2006's Uninvited, Like the Clouds was another fantastic album), but the musicians have been particularly prolific of late. The Church itself has added to the 10 tracks on Uninvited #23 with six extra tracks spread over two new EPs. "Pangea" gets its own EP with three non-LP B-sides (including one each by Wilson-Piper and Koppes, as well as an 18-minute bliss-out called "So Love May Find Us"), while the Coffee Hounds EP includes vocal and instrumental versions of "The Coffee Song" as well as a cover of Kate Bush's "The Hounds of Love."

Kilbey and Wilson-Piper also each have recent, well-received solo albums: Wilson-Piper's Nightjar and Kilbey's Painkiller. In addition, Kilbey is the latest collaborator in Pocket's series of digital EPs, contributing vocals to the track "Hear in Noiseville." The song offers a dancier context than Kilbey usually inhabits, but Pocket's dense songbed offers a warm seam that Kilbey fills with his distinctive vocal. It's on Pocket's forthcoming third EP in the series (the first was with Robyn Hitchcock) and is due July 21.

The band's "So Love May Find Us" tour continues through the second week of July in the U.S. in Canada. Kilbey took time out from all of that to offer a few enigmatic responses to some straight-forward questions. Anyone seeking more of this type of Kilbey-speak would do well to check out his fascinating blog, where you can find it in abundance. For those seeking a look at the band in performance, the group's visit to KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" show can be found here.

TIRBD: Moving soon into your fourth decade, how are you able to keep things fresh when you approach material that you've played for 10, 20 or even 30 years?

SK: good material is always fresh.

By the same token, having created music together for 30 years, do new ideas come from a different place than in the past? Is it an effort to ensure that something that feels new isn't simply a restatement of something that came before?

we build on the past.
who can tell where ideas come from...?
the heart and the mind as always

Untitled #23 feels like a very cohesive statement with a remarkably consistent tone. Were things left in the studio that didn't fit that feel, or did everything come together this week organically from the outset?

we recorded a lotta stuff
lotta stuff still in can
we are very random

Your music is cited as an influence on bands whose members weren't even alive when you formed the band. Do you hear a Church vibe in current music? Are you, in turn, influenced by newer music?

i rarely hear an influence from us in other bands
i doubt a new band would influence me at this stage of the game

You and Marty each have several solo albums to your names, and I wonder how these outlets ultimately affect the work of the Church? Are they a release valve, a way to experiment, or perhaps something else?

my records are what i do on my own
i have no different approach whatever i do
i just do whatever strikes me at the time

You each also excel at the visual arts. Beyond having built-in cover art for releases (Marty's photos and drawings on Untitled #23 and Nightjar, respectively) and your painting on Painkiller), what does this outlet do for you that making music does not? Does one inform the other in any way?

yes visual n musical art come from a similar methodology but have
different physical applications
you gotta get au fait with the visual world
think shadow instead of echo
think background instead of backing track

As you embark on a U.S. tour in support of the new album, what will the set lists look like? With 23 albums to your credit, is it difficult to fit in everything you want to play -- and the fans want to hear -- each night?

impossible to play one song from every album even
we just have to figure out a set that hits all bases

Labels: Monday Interview, music

It's no surprise that Beck has found a way to use technology to communicate directly with his fans and offer some exclusive content. A web site revamp allowed him to focus on a new project he's calling Record Club. It's a straight-forward concept: He gathers some friends in the recording studio, and they cover an album in one day. He'll upload a track to the site once a week. That's it.

First up: The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico (the one with Andy Warhol's banana on the cover for neophytes). Beck and friends --producer Nigel Godrich, drummer Joey Waronker, Brian Lebarton, Bram Inscore, Yo, actor Giovanni Ribisi, Chris Holmes, and "from Iceland, special guest Thorunn Magnusdottir" -- do a fine, reverent job with opener "Sunday Morning" (see clip below).

Beck talks about the process on the site: "An album will be chosen to be reinterpreted and used as a framework. Nothing rehearsed or arranged ahead of time." He also reports that the Velvet Underground album was selected "after lengthy deliberation and coming close to covering Digital Underground's Sex Packets."

Ostensibly this means that we can expect "Waiting For the Man" next week, with album-closing "European Son" the last week of August.

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

Labels: music, video, web

I don't throw something like this around lightly, but Deer Tick may be the band to finally take up the mantle laid down by the Replacements. First things first: the two bands sound nothing alike. There have been plenty of gravel-throated pretenders to Paul Westerberg's throne who fronted grungy rock combos. What I'm talking about here is something more: an attitude mixed with talent to burn that yields a restlessness channeled through a fried microphone and a battered amp.

When drawing the line between the two bands, it probably didn't hurt that singer John Joseph McCauley III invoked the 'Mats during the band's show last night at the Mill in Iowa City. After the quartet took a quick spin through the first portion of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" (the second cover of a young set; the second song was Tom Petty's "Breakdown"), McCauley laughed and said, "We're turning into the Replacements here." The amazing thing is that McCauley, in his early 20s, probably wasn't even born yet when the definitive document of that version of the Replacements, The Shit Hits the Fans -- the cassette of a drunken Replacements tearing through a sloppy set of covers during 1984 show -- was released. That, and subsequent covers of John Prine, John Cougar Mellencamp, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Buck Owens and Richie Valens, show these musicians are old souls wrapped in young bodies. Sound like anyone else you know?

So, what does Deer Tick sound like if it doesn't sound like the 'Mats? The Rhode Island band's own web site seems puzzled: "They have been labeled things like alt-country, and freak folk, which the band finds a little weird. Are things like 'alt' and 'freak' necessary to describe Deer Tick? Deer Tick doesn't think so." At times, McCauley sounds like Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Magnum, his voice having that same timbre and rattle. But his band leans much more south and west, able to conjure a hoedown on a dime, singing sweet, full harmonies all the while. It's an intoxicating mix made all the more potent by the fact that these are clearly kids who are learning every day and getting a kick out of showing off their new chops.

The band's debut, War Elephant, showed promise, but McCauley recorded everything himself and that makes for a somewhat claustrophobic listen. Those songs live had true power, particularly when it came to the vocals. And the new material, on the forthcoming Born on Flag Day (due next week) is even better.

I'm late to the party, but was happy to catch up quickly. For more about the band, you can check out this interview with NBC's Brian Williams:

Labels: Deer Tick, music

So, despite raising more than $166,000 from fans and friends last month Paste magazine is downsizing. Literally. The magazine is about the size of the old TV Guide, though shorter, with only 46 pages. Publisher Nick Purdy writes that the full-size magazine has shifted to a once-every-two-months schedule, with smaller, single-topic issues to "tide you over" in between. "We've designed these mini-magazines to include a surprising amount of good stuff -- because after all, it''s the content that matters, not the size of the paper."

Of course, it is the size of the paper. Though Purdy is right in saying that the issue packs a surprising amount of content into its 46 mini pages, it's a fraction of what it offers in even the most ad-strapped, thin full-size issues of yore. It's a pamphlet, essentially. The magazine started out with a publication schedule not much different that it has now, so I'm unsure about the need for these mini-issues. It can't be advertising; there are only about 13 pages of ads here, which for a 46-page issue is pretty paltry ad support.

As it is, the magazine seems to be pushing subscribers away from print. A huge ad (well, as huge as you can get with 5 1/2"x8" page) for the magazine's digital subscription touts two options: Digital Paste for 99 cents a month, or Digital VIP Paste, for $2.99 monthly. The first gets you the digital edition and the right to download the music sampler, the other offers two samplers, other MP3s, access to the digital archive, a T-shirt and other goodies. Oh, and if you want to get the magazine as, you know, a magazine? "Physical copies of the magazine and sampler, of course, are available as options. More information online." "Hey, caveman, we don't want to print and mail this thing, all right? Just enter a credit card number and save a tree!"

This isn't unique. Good magazine (a non-music title) published a similar-sized "recession issue" this spring to announce it's own reduction in frequency, while Blender magazine decided to go online-only around that same time (while Blurt, which moved online after the demise of Harp, actually moved back into print for at least one issue).

I've never been a huge fan of Paste -- it's a little too NPR, Dad-rock friendly for me -- and this move does nothing to change my mind. If I want to read about music online, there are plenty of places to do so. If I want to read good, long-form music criticism surrounded by interesting photos printed on paper, the number of outlets is dwindling.

Labels: magazines, music

J. Robert Lennon has a new novel out, and it's about time. About time that someone finally stepped up to publish him, that is. You see, he has written books since 2003's Mailman. Four of them, in fact. But for those of us in the U.S. -- you know, his home country -- it has been difficult to read any of it.

First came Pieces for the Left Hand, a brilliant collection of 100 very short stories, each written while his child took a 45-minute nap. Granta in the UK saw fit to publish it in 2005, and those of us lucky enough at the time to score an imported copy reveled in its incisive, hilarious prose. Next came Happyland, a novel deemed too dangerous by Lennon's publisher due to the similarity between its subject and the founder of the American Girl doll company. That was shortened and serialized in Harper's magazine. I've yet to read it, because I want to read the entire book when someone wises up and puts it out. After that came a crime novel that Lennon had yet to publish. Finally, he brought forth Castle, officially his fifth novel, published this spring by Graywolf Press. Graywolf also brought out a U.S. edition of Pieces for the Left Hand, which brings us up to date.

I interviewed Lennon for a piece on CorridorBuzz.com to preview his reading in Iowa City on Tuesday. As usual, I asked about more than could possibly fit in the piece, and planned to run the rest here. But I love Lennon's work, and wanted to give him as much publicity as possible, so I sent a few more questions his way and turned this into a full-blown Monday Interview.

Before we get to that, however, a bit more from the original interview. We touch on many of these points more fully in the Q&A that follows. For example, I asked him about the idea of self-publishing, particularly the crime novel. He said he has considered it, even considered putting it out as an ebook only. But he said he wants to hold out for the possibility of it coming out in physical form from a real publisher.

"I really like working with a publisher," he said. "There's probably some kind of taint to self publishing, if you do that you have succumbed and are perceived as a low-class operation. However, I don’t think most readers give a crap where the book is coming from. They just want it to be good. Still, I want to stay in the good graces of the people I work with in publishing."

We also talked about politics. His novel, Castle, makes reference to the Iraq war, and he has said that Happyland was his take on "Rovian" politics. I asked if the Obama administration would cool the fires that fueled these works. He said politics isn't obsessing him the way it once was, but added that "it's a danger to thinking that the Obama administration is going to be a cure-all. I haven’t totally approved of everything Obama has done, but when I disagreed with Bush, I felt there was a maliciousness, I felt like they were sticking it to me, felt there was malicious intent. With Obama, I really do think he's trying to act in the best interest of the citizens he’s serving."

Castle is set in upstate New York, where Lennon lives. So was Mailman. Other of his books were set in Montana, where he earned his MFA. I asked if setting books in the places he has lived was a matter of convenience, or if the stories he wanted to tell needed to be set there.

"It's not so much a convenience, but I enjoy finding inspiration in the place that I’m at. Upstate New York is not not remote, but it is fairly isolated. If you go for a walk in the woods and you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, but you'll find the remains of a barn foundation. There was someone there before you."

That led to a discussion of the way he proscribes a world for his stories, and whether that makes it easier or more difficult to then tell the tale. He said he loves to create worlds in his work, and mentioned the subculture he created in The Funnies. His second novel was about the son of a famous cartoonist who inherits his father's strip after his death. Lennon said he did some research, but the subculture he writes about was largely invented. "I kind of like that. You narrow the possibilities. It's like writing a sonnet. The fact that you’ve hemmed yourself in a little, you’re free in that space."

Lastly, I asked a question I've never seen asked of Lennon. His name, as it is probably not too difficult to guess is John, meaning he grew up with the name of one of pop culture's most revered artists. I asked if it was difficult to be an artist (and, as we talk about below, a musician) with such an iconic name.

"Not anymore really. The worst thing was that I really liked him and liked the Beatles. I used to have little round glasses. I told myself it had nothing to do with John Lennon, I just liked the glasses." he said. "For the most part I just caught a lot of crap from other kids when I was growing up. I don't think it's made any difference at all."

I asked if his parents every talked about giving him such a charged name. He was born in 1970, at the height of Lennon's fame. He was named, he said, for his grandfather, also named John Lennon. Another grandfather was Robert, which means his pen name allows him to honor that grandfather in the same way the name everyone calls him, John, does.

"Later they told me they thought it might be kind of fun for me, which was a sad miscalculation," he said. "But I’m proud to be named after my grandfather."

On to the Q&A...

TIRBD: We talked a bit about self-publishing before. You have self-released a handful of CDs of your music. Has that experience made you more or less likely to do the same with your writing at some point?

JRL: Perhaps someday, but I prefer working with a publisher. Promotion and distribution are hard, and I would rather spend my time writing. I did put a bunch of obscure writing up on my website recently -- quite a lot of articles and stories, few of which are likely to ever find their way into book form. Maybe I should gin up an e-book. But the last thing I need right now is another geeky project.

You said that you were not very politically active before the Bush administration, but that you’ve since addressed it, however obliquely at times, in your writing. How else has that activism manifested itself?

The usual ways - -donating money, complaining on the Internet, getting into tense conversations with relatives. I've had to find a way to channel my anger and dismay into useful activities, and writing has been the main thing. I'm a little more comfortable now that Obama's at the helm, though, so perhaps I can relax a bit.

You wrote the pieces in Pieces for the Left Hand during your child’s short naps, a lemonade-from-lemons endeavor if ever there was one. Now that your kids are older and presumably have indentured you, how has that affected your writing schedule? Does having kids affect the way you look at the world through your writing?

Oh, sure, the world is very different once you've had kids, or gone through any major life change, for that matter. My kids don't disrupt my writing schedule at all anymore -- they go to school, and are pretty self-sufficient, and have their own interests to work on. Luckily we share some interests, otherwise we'd never see each other! Our family is rather preoccupied most of the time.

How has it been working with a smaller publisher like Graywolf Press as opposed to a larger publisher like W.W. Norton?

Great! They publish fewer books and so have the luxury of caring more about each. Graywolf has been extremely attentive to me, my editor is a superb reader, and the books have gotten more attention than anything I've written in years -- I like this situation a lot.

You clearly get into music recording on a micro level, from creating your own instruments to writing about recording techniques in Tape Op magazine. Is there a parallel between that and the micro level of looking at writing afforded by the teaching you do at Cornell?

Absolutely -- I am a major nerd in all respects, both in my hobbies and of course my writing and teaching. I love getting a new stack of manuscripts and digging in, discovering what kind of conversations I'm going to get to have the next day. I can be a little too proscriptive with my advice, though, as a result -- I have to learn to hint! There aren't many bad student stories that can't be turned into something good; it's like trying to solve a puzzle with the class.

Do you write short fiction at the same time you’re immersed in a novel, or do you need to complete one thing before starting another?

Usually I keep them separate, but sometimes I get a story idea when I'm in novel mode and I have to put everything aside and go for it. This just happened recently. It's a good feeling, actually finishing something when you're in the middle of a two-year project... I should probably do it more often.

Labels: books, Monday Interview, music

Two giants of New Zealand pop will issue new albums this year. First up, the Bats, who follow 2005's wonderful At the National Grid with The Guilty Office. The disc, which was actually issued outside the U.S. in early 2008, is the band's seventh album. It's due June 23 on Hidden Agenda Records.

Next up is The Clean. Mister Pop will be released by Merge Records on September 8. It's the band's first since 2001's Getaway.

Fans of the two bands know there is a deeper connection than homeland. Robert Scott, who fronts the Bats, also plays bass in The Clean. Scott formed the Bats in 1982 when it appeared that The Clean had split. Instead, The Clean became an on-again, off-again concern, which allowed Scott to do double duty (much as his Clean bandmates did with side projects like the Great Unwashed, David Kilgour's solo career and Hamish Kilgour's Mad Scene, among others). Fans of great jangly pop win, because it just means more music to sate our appetites.

The Bats are the gentler of the two acts, though that's a relative thing. Robert Scott comes across like a friendly neighbor performing quiet songs just across the fence. He'd probably turn it down if you thought things were getting too loud. The Clean, in contrast, works more with dynamics, though Hamish Kilgour's insistent beat and David Kilgour's seemingly constant fast guitar strum usually drive the songs in an efficient if at times unhinged direction.

Each has a new MP3 available in advance of the release, and each shows the respective bands in top form. It's good to have them back. Here's hoping they don't wait so long next time to return.

MP3: The Bats - "Castle Lights"
MP3: The Clean - "In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul"

Labels: music

iLike is streaming Sonic Youth's 15th proper album, The Eternal, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on first listen. It's the band's first for Matador as it returns to the indie world after nearly two improbable decades with a major label. The disc is due June 9.

1. Sacred Trickster - This is Sonic Youth, no question. A nice blast of rocking guitars that, while interestingly tuned, are fairly accessible. Oh, there's Kim. I'd much rather hear Thurston Moore or Lee Ranaldo on vocals, but it seems as if the band feels Kim Gordon is its strength, and has leaned on her more on its past few discs. Still, she drops an interesting commentary into the lyric: "What's it like to be a girl in a band/I don't quite understand. That's so quaint to hear/I feel so faint, my dear."

2. Anti-Orgasm - Could this be the band's best album since Dirty? That's premature, I know, but this one-two punch is impressive. (Never mind, looking back at the hyperbole in the last sentence, that I probably declared Murray Street and Rather Ripped as the best thing since Dirty at one point). Here, Thurston and Kim sing together as the guitars swirl, swoop and dive. Two-and-a-half minutes in, it feels fairly complete, and I wonder where they'll take it. As one might expect, this just keeps building, with the occasional break back to the core riff to ground the listener. Wait, now, at 3:30, the song's form has completely broken down and they restate things with some subtle, quiet guitars and light drums. Very nice.

3. Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso) - Thurston and Kim again. This is a pretty boiler-plate late SY track that has tempered my enthusiasm just a bit. It's not bad, but it shows that it's probably not possible for (or fair to expect) the manic energy that drove the first two tracks to sustain.

4. Antenna - This is a live clip from "Later with Jools Holland" on YouTube for some reason, so who knows how closely it hews to the studio version (it does seem to be about a minute shorter). It's a nice, mellow Thurston tune with Kim on third guitar (remembering, of course, that Pavement's Mark Ibold is now on bass). It feels at various points like it wants to take off, but the band keeps a tight hold on things, opting for coiled tension over release. It works, but it leaves me hoping the next track will fly apart a bit.

5. What We Know - Ah, the Lee Ranaldo track. Some furious guitars and Lee's trademark overdriven vocals. It's no "Mote," but it's still a solid track. "I'd drink a case of you," he sings in one of the most visceral lines about lust I've ever heard. As with "Sacred Trickster" and "Anti-Orgasm," riffs reign supreme here, then give way to some interplay between Moore and Ranaldo on guitar. Steve Shelley drums without using the cymbals for quite a stretch here, giving things a tribal feel while the guitarists solo.

6. Calming the Snake - Starts with a snaking bass line, fittingly enough, before giving way to a burst of guitar noise that is itself reined in a bit as Kim starts singing. Her strangulated vocal would calm no beast, snake or otherwise. There's not a lot here that escapes from the piercing tone of her vocal, so if you like Kim, you'll like this. At least it's short.

7. Poison Arrow - Oh, would that it were an ABC cover. Oh well, too much to hope for. Instead we get a minute of standard SY jamming before Thurston comes in with a mannered vocal that reminds me in spirit (though not timbre) or Bob Dylan on Nashville Skyline. "Who shot the poison arrow," Thurston and Kim sing in one of the few vocal hooks on offer thus far. Another good, but not great track.

8. Malibu Gas Station - Luna has a song called "Malibu Love Nest," and as fitting as that title is for that suave combo, "Malibu Gas Station" feels like a Sonic Youth song before you even hear a note. When it kicks in, you'd be forgiven for hearing a Luna vibe, as Moore and Ranaldo weave very restrained, echo-laden guitar lines. Even when the rest of the band joins in, it's pretty restrained for Sonic Youth. Another Kim vocal, but this is breathy Kim, which is much more palatable.

9. Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn - A classic Sonic Youth riff with Thurston on vocals and Kim on supporting "yeah, yeahs." It's a short blast and a nice change of pace after "Malibu Gas Station." Oh, and Bobby Pyn? That's a name that Germs founder Darby Crash went by. Crash killed himself at age 22 in 1980.

10. No Way - Another Thurston rocker that keeps up the pace set by "Thunderclap." There's no transcendent moment here, but things settle into a nice groove and stay there for the song's entirety, which isn't always the case for SY. This would have been a decent album opener, but perhaps is even more effective as a late-album blast, coming as it does before two long songs that close the disc.

11. Walkin Blue - A second Lee song! This starts in pretty laid-back fashion with an almost poppy vibe to it. A nice, untreated Lee vocal. Unlike "Antenna," which was about unreleased tension, this is tension-free, the mellowest song on the album. "Everything we see is clear," he sings. Perhaps the relatively straightforward music is meant to complement that sentiment. The solo does head out a bit, but then things are brought back in for a longish outro.

12. Massage the History - The capstone. If you weren't sure, check out that 9:43 runtime on a disc where most of the songs are 4 minutes or less. Can you say "slow build"? This starts with acoustic guitars and some atmospheric electric washes while Steve Shelley pounds his floor tom. I want Thurston and fear I'm going to get Kim. Ah, there she is. Again, at least it's breathy Kim rather than shrieking Kim. It took nearly two minutes to get to the vocal, though it didn't ever drag. The music doesn't change behind her, however, as the band maintains the stripped-down vibe. This segues nicely out of "Walkin Blue," though I expect things to explode soon. By the 4-minute mark, you can feel the slow build fully under way. By the 6-minute mark, Shelley's cymbals are the only sound, and the band brings the acoustic guitars back to restate the theme. From there, things get even more stripped down, with Kim singing over nothing more than a faint bass line as the song moves into its final minute. Talk about subverting expectations. This ends with a whimper, not a bang.

So, the sentiments expressed as I listened to track two were premature at best; this is a solid, at times quite good Sonic Youth album, but I think Murray Street is still better. That said, it's a very different album, marrying the guitar textures of that album with the shorter, more arranged song structure of Rather Ripped. It's definitely as good a record as any 30-year-old band could hope to make, and one that honors the band's legacy while not allowing itself to be mired in nostalgia.

Labels: first listen, music

A long car trip today afforded the chance to conduct a listening experiment that pitted Green Day's breakout disc, 1994's Dookie, against the new 21st Century Breakdown. The quick takeaway: 21CB is a good, remarkably solid sounding disc from a slick band, the kind of group that the Dookie-era trio likely would have crossed the street to spit on.

In 1994, I probably listened to Dookie every day for several months. It was everything I wanted at the time: soaring pop hooks driven by loud guitars, inventive bass and manic drums. Then there were Billie Joe Armstrong's lyrics. When you're young, living in a crap town with few friends, having troubles with your girl and generally wanting to be anywhere but here, there are few discs better suited than Dookie.

Fifteen years later (!), the disc is still a powerful listen. The hits are as instantly catchy as ever, and even the deeper album cuts have much to recommend them. It tails off toward the end, but the first 10 or 11 tracks are as strong as anything in the band's catalog. I vowed to put the album back into occasional rotation.

Then came 21CB. I'd listened to the disc once, distractedly, and could acknowledge that it had some good songs. Here, held captive behind the wheel, I was able to absorb the entire album in one sitting. It's good -- very good. But I couldn't help but be left a bit cold. This is such an over-produced album that it's hard to feel it's the product of the same band that made Dookie. Gone is the individuality and the blend of those elements that made that earlier album such a bracing listen. Save for Armstrong's vocals, this could be anybody. Of course, in a way, it is. It's not as if the three musicians stood across from each other in the studio banging out these 18 tracks. God knows how many layers of guitars, vocals and keyboard are at play here, but the result is a high-gloss sheen that makes Green Day sound like the very thing its members once rebelled against. 21CB is closer to something like Def Leppard's Hysteria or something from ELO than anything would expect from the snot-nosed upstarts that turned rock radio on its head by finding a way to make the music of acts like the Ramones palatable to the masses.

That's not to say that the songcraft is lacking. If anything, the songs are stronger than anything the band has yet recorded. But even when they take things down a notch, the wall of slick production saps all of the dynamics from the tracks, and the shiny presentation makes it hard to find the idiosyncrasies necessary to truly hook the ear.

Lyrically, though I know Armstrong has moved on from tales of teen angst, I was still disappointed to find that the disc lacked any of the mischievous humor that has been a band trademark. Even the over-serious American Idiot had a few smile-inducing moments. There were none to be had here.

The disc is also overlong. When "21 Guns" hit, I assumed it was the bonus track I'd received when I downloaded the disc from Amazon. It felt somewhat removed from the rest of the disc, but little did I know the band was far from done. Next came "American Eulogy," which really felt like an album closer, only to be followed by "See the Light," one of the strongest -- and most organic sounding -- tracks on the album. Finally, I was done. I can imagine picking up Dookie to hear "Welcome to Paradise" or "Basketcase" again, but I couldn't begin to even pick out a favorite song from 21CB that would lead me to put this on a year from now. I'll give it a few listens in the meantime, but it feels like something that will be filed away, not something that will stay close to the player.

Oh, and that bonus track from Amazon? That would be a live version of "Burnout," the first track on Dookie. It's a recent recording (I'm not sure the vintage), and thus slicker than the original. Still, it showed how powerful these three musicians can be even when shorn of studio trickery. If the band even had anything to do with the choice, it probably saw it as a nice nod to long-time fans. The unintended consequence, however, is a not-so-subtle reminder of just how visceral and alive this band once was, and how studio-bound and corporate it has become.

Labels: music

The great thing about writing a blog is that people will contact you and ask if they can send you their book or CD, with the hope you'll review it. Sometimes that leads to an awkward, "Um, it's not quite my thing" sort of exchange when they get in touch to see what I thought. Those instances are more than balanced by the times when I'm blown away by something about which I'd been unaware.

Such was the case when Justin Stivers got in touch to see if I'd be interested in hearing a couple of albums from his one-man band, Pet Ghost Project. I went to his site, downloaded one of the discs, and loved what I heard. He sent me the other one, and I was floored by the quality and the variety. I'd be hard pressed to say it's the same act if I didn't know better.

For the uninitiated -- a group that's sure to shrink once Stivers' music gets out there -- Stivers is a New York by way of Seattle musician who was a one-time member of The Antlers (more on them later). Having recorded on his own over the years, he decided to leave that band and pursue the Pet Ghost Project full time. These two new releases are the result. It was the right decision.

My favorite of the two albums is Idiot Brain/Genius Heart, an EP, really, at 27 minutes and five songs. Stivers has a sheaf of press clippings that compare him to Animal Collective, Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel, Brian Wilson and Built to Spill, and while at least some of those elements are here, this doesn't feel derivative. The songs skitter and dive, bursts of noise giving way to euphoric blasts of pure pop glory. Stivers is offering a free download of the disc, and I suggest you go get it now.

The other album is no less accomplished, though it is slightly less accessible. The Wordless Conversation is aptly named. There are occasional vocals, but no real lyrics. Tortoise is dropped as a reference point, and there is certainly some math-rock in the album's DNA strand. Again, however, this is noisier and less predictable than most of what is associated with that tag, and that's a good thing. Stivers is offering three of the seven songs on the 36 minute album as a free download, which offers a great chance to check out his range. (Grab "They Built a City in My Country Mind" to get an immediate taste).

Live, if you're lucky enough to live in New York, you can catch Stivers supported by two other musicians. On record, it's just him, an impressive feat.

Meanwhile, The Antlers, another band built on the work of a wildly creative individual -- in this case Peter Silberman -- will see its self-titled album, Hospice, reissued by French Kiss Records on June 23. It's no stretch to see why Stivers and Silberman hooked up; they have somewhat similar musical sensibilities if their latest releases are any indication. Stivers seems more enamored of noise and chaos as vehicles for eventual blissful beauty than Silberman, who, at least on Hospice, strips away extraneous sound to get to the emotional core of his music.

Hospice, an album of songs about caring for a terminally ill patient who may lash out at the caretaker, is a bracing, intimate work. It's an easy album to hear on multiple levels, the music offer a soothing balm that leavens the lyrical content whose power is revealed on repeat listens. (Try "Two"now.)

That's a lot of great music to stumble across in the past few days, and a couple of artists to definitely keep an ear out for in the future.

Labels: music

Big Star has long been like a secret handshake among hardcore music fans. As Paul Westerberg sang, "Never travel far, without a little Big Star." If you don't, your tastes are always a little suspect. The band's Anglophilic mix of Byrdsian chime and R'n'B swagger is oft-imitated but never equaled.

That makes the relative glut of Big Star news and product of late a godsend. First came Bruce Eaton's book about Radio City, the band's second album, as part of the 33 1/3 series. Actually, first came Eaton's great blog, Big Star's Radio City, which not only documents some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the book, but also serves as a sort of Big Star news feed. Next has been the requisite press related to the book that has led to another round of re-evaluation and the unearthing of nuggets. Those include this great piece by writer Bud Scoppa about the band. It was written for Revolver magazine just before it shifted to a metal focus, and has been shelved in the years since.

Next comes the biggest news at all: A Big Star boxed set. Blurt reports that a four-disc set is due from Rhino on Sept. 15. The set is reported to cover 1968-1975, which means material from the band members' pre-Big Star days (such as Chris Bell's Rock City) and beyond. Live material, outtakes and more are expected.

Add to this that Concord plans a July reissue of the long out-of-print two-fer that introduced most of us to the band in the late 80s and early 90s that joined the band's debut, #1 Record with that follow up, Radio City. I was lucky enough to get a later edition that had both albums intact; early issues omitted two tracks. This one has two more, which I'd guess are alternate tracks ("In the Street" from #1 Record and "Oh My Soul" from Radio City are each listed twice).

Labels: music, reissues

Funny how the web-based news cycle works. I'd heard months ago that Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse planned to collaborate on an album. Then, just a few days ago, word of that project was everywhere. Credit a controversy of the sort that sets blogs, Twitter feeds and message boards afire: A major record label was somehow blocking release of a shadowy project featuring the work of some enigmatic, critically adored artists. Whether it's a brilliant marketing ploy or a true case of corporate stupidity, it put the resulting album on the radar of anyone with even a faint interest in non-mainstream music.

That album, Dark Night of the Soul, is a collaboration between Danger Mouse (the producer behind the Jay-Z/Beatles mashup The Grey Album) and Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous). The two created music and then recruited 10 singers to record vocals. They include the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, Jason Lytle from Grandaddy; Nina Persson from the Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, the Strokes' Julian Casablancas and Iggy Pop. They also somehow hooked up with filmmaker David Lynch, whose photographs make up a 100-page book to be released with the disc. He also provided vocals to two tracks. The result is a cohesive yet varied collection of tracks that sounds pretty much like what you'd expect from all involved. It's also quite good.

Details about the project, along with streams of the music on NPR.org, debuted simultaneously with word that it might not ever see release. According to the project's web site, "Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to release the recorded music for Dark Night of the Soul without fear of being sued by EMI. Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night of the Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is."

Further compounding confusion, the set is still for sale, but the book now includes a blank CD-R. One assumes that Danger Mouse, whose The Grey Album project was (and is) widely available on the web, wants fans to seek out downloads and torrents of the project to burn on the included disc. Those purchasing the $50 package are warned, "Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to include music on the CD without fear of legal entanglement. Therefore, he has included a blank CD-R as an artifact to use however you see fit."

Lynch fans will surely seek this out; the rest of us can probably save about $49.95, pick up a blank disc at Staples and have this downloaded and burned before lunch today. It's certainly worth that effort. It's a strong album full of lush, glitchy music and hazy vocals that push these singers in somewhat surprising directions. Each track feels like a slightly out-of-focus tune from the artist's day job, yet Danger Mouse has found a way to make them cohere as an album. (Spin has a nice track-by-track look here.)

Labels: books, controversy, music

You can stream Wilco's forthcoming album, Wilco (The Album) right now at the band's web site. The album is due June 30 from Nonesuch. What follows are my first impressions of the 11 tracks. Spoiler alert: I like it quite a bit. Read on to find out why.

1. Wilco (The Song): Debuted on "The Colbert Report," the song seemed like a goofy lark destined for a B-side. Here, leading off the album, it feels like the past several years never happened, as if Wilco (The Album) was following Summerteeth, not Sky Blue Sky. It's a chugging rocker with its tongue stuck firmly in its cheek. "Wilco love you, baby."

2. Deeper Down: The album shifts gears here, with a sweet, quiet tune with some nice pedal steel from Nels Cline and some burbling background noise from Mikael Jorgensen. During the instrumental passages, this sounds like the kind of ornate, precious tune Wes Anderson would use to soundtrack one of his films.

3. One Wing: A competent track that doesn't do a lot for me. It'd be a standout on a latter-day Ryan Adams disc, but there's little in the way of an immediate hook. Tweedy's vocal and lyric are average, and the song is fairly pedestrian instrumentally, at least by Wilco standards.

4. Bull Black Nova: This is more like it. Pounding keyboards that give way to some interesting guitar lines while Tweedy sings with some nervous urgency. This is the first song on the album that feels as if the band is taking full advantage of its strengths and quirks at the same time, and the first that lets Cline air things out a bit. Most interestingly, it seems that Tweedy is talking about the car, not the celestial phenomenon.

5. You and I: A quiet, acoustic song built on a sweet melody from Tweedy in duet with Feist. It's a straightforward love song, the kind of thing Tweedy would typical twist with a thrown punch, a missed communication or some other romantic foible. Instead, he plays it straight here, and the results are gorgeous.

6. You Never Know: A soaring pop tune with piano tinkling, a full-time strummed acoustic guitar and solid hooks. "Every generation thinks it's the last, thinks it's the end of the world." The vocal harmonies here are pristine, giving this a classic pop feel. A real standout.

7. Country Disappeared: Another tempo downshift, with a tune that would be at home on either of Wilco's last two albums. So much so, in fact, that it feels in a way like a pastiche of past moves. That's not a bad thing, but it seems like a placeholder of sorts. Then again, with a placeholder of this quality, the band can be forgiven for taking a bit of a break on this track.

8. Solitaire: Starts with some nice finger-picked guitar augmented by spacey keyboards... and double-tracked vocals! That's a strange element from Tweedy. Real stripped down, pretty. Fitting, given the title. Some nice images lyrically, too: "I was cold as gasoline." Cline's pedal steel returns here to give the song a spooky yet warm vibe. The arrangement and production on this is fantastic.

9. I'll Fight: Maintains the quiet, acoustic feel of "Solitaire" at the outset, but launches rather quickly into a full-band arrangement. "I"ll go for you... I'll fight... I'll die for you, I will," Tweedy sings. Another laid-back song musically speaking. Shares much of its melody with Sky Blue Sky closer "On and On and On." Wouldn't put it past Tweedy to consider this a sequel of sorts. There, Tweedy pledged that he and his love would "stay together yet." Here, he goes a step further.

10. Sonny Feeling: When I first saw a tracklist for the album, I read this as "Sonny Liston," likely coaxed by the preceding "I'll Fight" and "lasting" part of the following "Everlasting Everything" to make the mistake. I was wrong, of course, and the song certainly suggests nothing of the sort. It's a, well, sunny track that reprises a bit of the stomp of the opener. Cline gets another chance to show off here to nice effect. This is the only real upbeat song on the latter half of the album.

11. Everlasting Everything: This feels like an album closer. It's a slow-building big statement with a big chorus. "Everything alive must die, every building built to the sky will fall." Swelling strings nicely undergird Tweedy's sentiment. Rather than continue to build to a crashing crescendo, the band pulls back, letting Cline noodle around a bit while the other instruments fade out. It's a great way to end a solid album.

Overall, the disc stands well with the rest of the band's catalog. While it is the sound of a band standing in place a bit, the strength of its songs more than makes up for that. This is what Wilco sounds like -- remarkably, Tweedy has had the same band for two albums straight! -- and that's a good thing.

Labels: first listen, music

33 1/3 series editor David Barker has announced the 11 books that will be the next batch published in the series, each covering one album. Thus brings to a close a six-month process during which Barker narrowed the initial list of 597 to 170 (of which, my proposal for a book about the Police's Synchronicity, was one), then to 27 and now to 11.

The books will be published in 2010 or 2011. And they are:

Portishead's Dummy, by RJ Wheaton
Johnny Cash's American Recordings, by Tony Tost
Television's Marquee Moon, by Bryan Waterman
Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, by Gina Arnold
AC/DC's Highway to Hell, by Joe Bonomo
Ween's Chocolate and Cheese, by Hank Shteamer
Radiohead's Kid A, by Marvin Lin
Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me, by Nick Attfield
Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace, by Aaron Cohen
Slint's Spiderland, by Scott Tennent
The Rolling Stones' Some Girls, by Cyrus Patell

That's a solid list of books. It's hard to argue with the marketability of the Rolling Stones, AC/DC or Radiohead, though I do wonder how many copies of You're Living All Over Me they'll move. I know of at least one, however, as I'll be curious to see if Nick Attfield can get more than the grunts and long pauses out of J Mascis that he has frustrated me with in interviews.

For those paying close attention, Barker reports that the Portishead proposal was not on the last shortlist: "I changed my mind on that one, late in the day."

Congrats to Barker and all of the selected authors. A lot of great writing about music is on the way.

Labels: 33 1/3, books, music

I feel like I've been in a cave: Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida wrote a screenplay for a film that was directed by Sam Mendes? That's kind of a big deal.

The film, "Away We Go," is due out June 5. It stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as a longtime couple who are going to have a baby, but whose world is turned on its ear when Krasinski's parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara) reveal that they're moving out of the country, thus taking away the couple's reason for living where they do. This sets the pair off on what looks to be a standard road movie.

Given the film's provenance, it will surely be a big deal. The marketing, complete with cut-and-paste photos and hand-lettered titles, feels like an indie-film greatest hits, conjuring everything from "Rushmore" to "Juno." Who stands to benefit most from all of this? Alexi Murdoch, please stand up.

The Scottish singer's songs make up the bulk of the soundtrack, his pleasant folk-rock clearly a nice way to undergird the story's more heartfelt moments. Most of the songs are drawn from Murdoch's debut, Time Without Consequence, with three previously unreleased tracks sweetening the mix. They are joined by tracks from George Harrison ("What Is Life"), The Stranglers ("Golden Brown"), Bob Dylan ("Meet Me In The Morning") and the Velvet Underground ("Oh! Sweet Nuthin’").

Murdoch's music was heard in the film "Garden State" -- though not on the soundtrack -- one of the best examples of music use in film propelling an act commercially. In that case it was the Shins, another pleasant pop act. Could Murdoch see similar benefits? It's likely. His music seems tailor made for this use, the film will expose hundreds of thousands of people to it and the soundtrack gives them an easy way to sample his wares.

MP3: "All My Days"

Labels: movies, music

Just my luck to get into something just as it comes to a close. Those who have been paying attention fear that Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour program on Sirius satellite radio will end its run now that the third season is complete. Given the title of the final program -- "Goodbye" -- I'd say that's a safe assumption.

If he does bow out, he leaves behind an impressive 100 hours of radio programming unlike anything on the airwaves now or at any point in my lifetime. "Take a trip to the land of radio magic," reads the introductory text on the show's web site. "With music hand-selected from his personal collection, Bob Dylan takes you to places only he can. Listen as he weaves his own brand of radio with dreams, schemes and themes." That's as accurate a description as any.

I've long heard of but not actually heard Dylan's program. I don't have satellite radio and wasn't intrigued enough to seek out the torrents that pop up immediately after each program. But the deluxe version of Together Through Life includes a CD with one show ("Friends and Neighbors" from the first season in 2006), and I was immediately hooked. Yes, the music is great, but what captivated me was Dylan himself, sharing stories and opinions, all in a strangely arresting tone that teeters on the edge of self-parody.

The shows are available all over the place online; CROZ.fm seems to have the best archive (Croz, that's been me sucking your bandwidth the past few days). So it's easy to catch up with what is truly an invaluable archive of music history. Dylan not only unearths some gems, but offers contextualizing stories, quotes and anecdotes that bring the songs to life.

The last episode of season three, his 100th, aired in mid-April, and some speculate that either Sirius or Dylan plans to bring things to a close. If so, it's a shame, but at least we neophytes have 100 hours of great radio to wade through until something else comes along.

Labels: Bob Dylan, music, radio

Things must be quiet in the world of music today: the music blogs are spilling a lot pixels over the fact that Blur and Oasis are not included on a forthcoming Britpop compilation. No one notes that neither group is likely happy with the thought of having its career condensed into a song on a compilation stacked with pretenders and one-hit wonders, but rather that the omission will spark much debate.

What the reports did for me was point out how little I ever cared for Britpop, and how worthless labels like "Britpop" really are. Of the 54 tracks spread over the three discs of Common People (the title is shared with that of an album by Pulp), I own six. None would I call Britpop. Then again, that all depends on the definition, and that is always a slippery thing. Wikipedia simply says Britpop bands had a reverence for the past, but neglects to mention that this reverence was expressed with watered-down, largely tuneless tributes issued under silly band names. (Denim, Powder, Spearmint, Gay Dad, et al).

The six I own are as varied as nearly any six acts in my collection: Elastica, Gomez, Supergrass, the Stone Roses, Super Furry Animals and Cast. Elastica offered female-led angular pop, Gomez is experimental Americana, Supergrass' music is cheeky, punky fun, Super Furry Animals is an eclectic hodge-podge of pop and Cast is retro pop rock with strong hooks. Of these, only Stone Roses strikes me as having a Britpop sound.

What this really says is that no matter how big your movement may be, eventually it's going to come grinding to a halt, and those who success will have long ago shaken off the shackles associated with it. It reminds me of alt-country, a movement abandoned by all but the most diehard fans, and largely ignored by its leading lights such as Wilco and the Jayhawks as they struck out for less-limiting sounds.

Labels: music

With today's post about the Boston Spaceships' track "Brown Submarine,"I've officially hit 250 songs on my Robert Pollard catablog, My Impression Now. Hitting that milestone, I hereby declare myself the king of catabloggers when judged by sheer volume of posts.

Others have completed their tasks, of course, something I may never do given that Robert Pollard releases new songs at a rate fairly close that at which I review that music.

The last time I noted my progress here , I had notched my 100th song ("Glad Girls") in December 2007. At that time I took a survey of the other catablogs known to me. Those behind a few had given up, several others had been dormant for a long time, and a solid number were still going strong.

Fast forward to today, and things have changed (see list below). Six have definitely stopped, 10 have not posted in several months and only a handful of us are still going. Three have completed their task: the Pearl Jam blog More Than Ten, Solar Prestige a Gammon, which covered Elton John's music from 1969 to 1977, and Matthew Perpetua's R.E.M. blog, Popsongs '07-08, which launched this whole movement in May 2007. Perpetua promises to write at some point about Accelerate, the album the band issued late last year after he had finished his project.

I'm surprised all of this didn't catch on more than it did. It seemed like a great idea, both from the perspective of a writer and a reader. What better way to fully immerse yourself in a favorite band's work than to force yourself to write about every note? And what better way to learn about a band than to read such passionate, micro-level criticism?

Thing is, it's a lot of work. I've cranked out just shy of 65,000 words on Pollard's music, and I'm not even a 1/4 of the way through his catalog. The guy behind the Pearl Jam blog (assisted by a few others toward the tail end) wrote 188 posts, while Perpetua wrote 204 (with another seven dedicated to a great Q&A session with Michael Stipe).

I plan to soldier on, if for no other reason than the close listening required of this has made me appreciate Pollard's music all the more. I've been reading Lawrence Block's great memoir Step by Step, which largely chronicles his obsession with racewalking over long distances, and I see parallels to my own Sisyphean quest. Sure, part of the motivation is in doing something that few others can (or, I'll admit, want to), but the rewards along the way are what make this truly worthwhile.

R.I.P.
Robynsongs - Robyn Hitchcok
Chrome Canyons - Wilco
Spring, Sprang, Sprung - T-Pain
Emotional Karaoke - Mountain Goats
More Words About Buildings and Songs - Talking Heads
Ten Thousand Lies - Nine Inch Nails

M.I.A. (including month of last post)
All My Little Words - Magnetic Fields: June 2007
Blursongs - Blur: August 2008
Fridgebuzz/Radiostutters - Radiohead: October 2007
Hyper-ballads - Bjork: July 2007
Paraguay and Laos - Bluetones: October 2008
Separated Out - Marillion: August 2007
So Misunderstood - Wilco: September 2007
Crimes on Paper - Self: August 2008
One Imaginary Blog - Cure: July 2008


Still Going Strong
Fragments of a Cale Season - John Cale
I Can't Sing It Strong Enough - Pavement
Music from a Bachelor's Den - Pulp
My Impression Now - Guided by Voices
Too Many Words - Low

Done
Popsongs 07 - R.E.M.
More Than Ten - Pearl Jam
Solar Prestige a Gammon - Elton John (69-77)

Labels: music, My Impession Now, Robert Pollard

This is why the Internet is so valuable. I'm not sure where I saw the link, but something this week led me to the web site of New York public television station WNET, or THIRTEEN and the program "Soul!"

"Soul!" aired from 1968 to 1973, and was produced at WNET studios: "It was the first program on WNET to be recorded with the then-new technology of videotape, and most of the shows were recorded in real-time—not live, but unedited."

According to the original 1968 announcement posted on the site, the show was "devoted entirely to and aimed at the metropolitan area’s black community. The format of Soul! resembles some of the popular late night programs – segmented, lively, informative and entertaining. Appearing on the show will be top stars and up-and-coming young talents from the black community. There will also be pertinent features dealing with all aspects of the social, cultural and artistic life of the black population."

The best part? Nine of the episodes are available for streaming on the site, and they're a goldmine for fans of jazz, funk and blues from that era. I was drawn to an episode from 1972 that dedicates most of an hour to performance by Rahsaan Roland Kirk and his band, the Vibration Society. And these aren't just any performances. Kirk, a blind multi-instrumentalist who often played as many as three horns at the same time, offers long versions of his own "BlackNuss" and "The Inflated Tear," and spend 16 incredible minutes on "The Old Rugged Cross," playing it straight (or as straight as Kirk could play) before tearing back into it double time in a frenetic performance that inspires Kirk to grab a folding chair and methodically tear it apart while the studio audience applauds wildly.

Other episodes feature performances by Taj Mahal, Earth, Wind and Fire, Black Heat featuring David "Fathead" Newman, Max Roach and more. A full list of episodes reveals even more great artists, though the note at the top that "this list does not reflect the existence of physical tapes of all these episodes. It is for reference only" tempers expectations a bit. Still, if only this fraction of episodes is unearthed, it's still a treasure trove for music fans.

Labels: music, TV

So, Saturday was Record Store Day. Did you make it out? I did, hitting Iowa City's two record stores, each of which was participating. I was late, so I missed out on the Guided by Voices disc (hello, eBay), but did pick up singles from Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan (which were available in quantities that lead me to believe there is little "limited" about them), and the Sonic Youth/Beck split from Matador (the sale of which on eBay, if current prices are to be believed, would fund purchase of the GBV record).

The stated goal of Record Store Day is: "On this day, all of these stores will simultaneously link and act as one with the purpose of celebrating the culture and unique place that they occupy both in their local communities and nationally." So, did it work? According to anecdotal evidence reported by Billboard.com, it did. Several stores reported higher sales and much greater traffic than normal. It didn't hurt that independent and major labels created 82 special releases available that day only, drawing collectors to stores in droves. Did it draw anyone else? Hard to say. Because most of the special releases were by smaller bands and on vinyl, an appeal to the masses this ain't. What it did, I suppose, is show people like me who have largely given up on independent record stores because of sketchy selection, high prices or lack of convenience, that record stores are still happening places.

The most compelling argument for the value of record stores came from Steve Albini. the Chicago Reader blog Post No Bills shared an ad placed by Chicago's Reckless Records that includes an essay from Albini that, in its tortured analogy to a farmer's market, actually makes a case for the value of record stores. To explain it would mean practically retyping it here. Just go read it here.

Labels: commerce, music, Record Store Day

Dale Watson is so country that he can't even use the word "country" to describe what he does any more. Ask the right person what "country" music is, and they'll tell you it's George Jones, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. But too many people would respond with Faith Hill or Carrie Underwood or whoever else looks cute in cutoffs, and that is about as far away from the music of Dale Watson as you can get. So he calls what he does "Ameri-politan."

Watson arrived fully formed with his 1995 debut Cheatin' Heart Attack, and hasn't stopped putting out records since. I first saw the Texan probably 10 years ago when he had just three or four albums under his belt. One of those was The Truckin' Sessions, a loving tribute to the truckin' music made popular by the likes of Dave Dudley, C.W. McCall and Haggard himself in the '60s and '70s. These were Watson originals that captured the spirit of the road, and like the rest of his music, they recreated a moment in time but never felt dated. This was alive, vibrant music, a throughline to the past that skipped all the dreck in between.

Watson's life since has been like a tear-in-my-beer country song come to life. He found love, then lost it when his fiancee was killed in a car wreck. He nearly drank himself to death as he mourned her, but rebounded to put out another handful of solid discs once he had recovered. In the past few years, he has mined the vaults for some unreleased gems (Whiskey or God), recorded with the band that backed Johnny Paycheck and others on so many early hits (The Little Darlin' Sessions), and, with a disc out tomorrow, heads back on the road with The Truckin' Sessions vol. 2.

Gathering some of his trucking songs from earlier albums and surrounding them with several new songs about truckers and trucking, he offers another sympathetic -- and insanely catchy -- batch of tunes about life on the road. Watson took time out from -- what else? -- touring behind the album to answer a few questions.

TIRBD: You've come up with more than two album's worth of trucking song that have a lot of detail. How do you come up with the various scenarios and stories? Do you interview truckers, or hear from them in some way?

DW: Most of the scenarios are true based on my experiences or from what I hear on the CB radio as we drive down the road. CB is still a very integral part of the trucking world.

Why do you think trucking songs have such universal appeal? For most of us, it's just another profession, yet there aren't songs about dentists or investment bankers.

Since the 1970’s when truckin’ music was so popularized and even launched movie after movie ( "Convoy," "Smokey and the Bandit," etc.) truckers have been perceived as modern day cowboys. In part due to the nature of the beast; to be a trucker you had to be fit enough to man-handle the truck and it’s load ( this was before power steering and automatic transmissions) and just as stressful, be okay with living on the road most of the time away from loved ones and missing birthdays and holidays. You can still live a “normal” family life as a dentist or banker, but not as a trucker.

Some say you have to go through tough times to create truly lasting art. You are certainly qualified to respond to that. Can you detect a difference in the quality or depth of your material between your earliest songs and now that would be attributable to what you've faced in between?

Absolutely I can see a difference in my own writing when it comes to depth and quality when compared to my earlier songs but , sometimes life circumstances repeat themselves and I’m able to write about the same subject but from different perspectives.

Though you're as country as they come, I've only ever seen you in rock clubs and never hear you on country radio. How would you describe your spot on the pop culture landscape, and do you see that ever changing?

Most folks are confused by that, because it is true we only tour rock rooms for the most part, but I like it that way. Although I grew up in honky tonks and beer joints, apart from the few and far between in Texas, most have gone the way of Top 40 and fern bars. I don’t see our venues changing because oddly enough our music appeals vastly to the younger crowd that loved Johnny Cash and Hank Williams type music. It’s classic and will be with us forever I think, but you won’t hear that in country bars today, but you will in the seedy original music venues that have replaced honky tonks and beer joints as the new venues to hear roots music.

You've had some interesting projects in the past few years, like working with Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel and doing the Little Darlin' Sessions. Do you take anything away from those when you then go back and work with the Lone Stars on your regular material?

I’ve learned so much from Ray Benson and of course getting to work with Lloyd Green and his Little Darlin’ musicians was like going to college. Ray Benson is still teaching me things, but the biggest lesson I’ve learned from Ray is to surround yourself with people that can hold their own talent-wise. He has a big heart as well which is a personal lesson I took away. As for the Little Darlin experience, there is too long of a list of all the lessons those great musicians taught me. One big lesson during the Little Darlin experience was a business lesson, even though I thought I knew it, never trust Nashville, even when they feed you your favorite meal, there is likely a chopping block around the corner.

People probably assume that you listen to nothing but Merle Haggard, Johnny Paycheck and Johnny Cash. Are they correct? If not, do you listen to much contemporary music? Anything that would surprise people?

I don’t think it would surprise folks, because I feel that if you are influenced by what you are listening to you will hear it in the music. Yes, I do listen to a lot of Merle, Cash, Hank Williams, Paycheck, Ray Price and Bob Wills, but I also listen to Dean Martin, Sinatra and Elvis. The surprise would likely be Chet Baker and Art Farmer, but that is because I am into the trumpet these days and I just love Chet’s voice as well. As far as new music, I am lucky enough to play with bands that I never heard of but knock me out, like Amy Lavere and Hillbilly Casino, I listen to their stuff too. iTtunes has become an addiction for me and my iPod is well on the way to being full. It’s fun to put it on shuffle of songs and hear such diverse music.

Looking at your tour itinerary, you obviously have quite a fan base in Europe. How are those audiences different than those in the U.S.? How does your music translate?

I am very very blessed with my luck in Europe. It was Europe that brought me enough success that it translated to the US. It’s strange how they know more about our musical roots of the US than the general American public. It’s just as diverse a crowd but the venues vary more. One venue may be a 30,000 festival then the next night we play 50 capacity dive, but the enthusiasm is always high. I love Europe but I really dislike airlines. I used to love flying but nowadays airlines make it the worst way to travel.

MP3: Drag 'n Fly
MP3: Truckin' Man

Labels: Monday Interview, music

In the fourth and fifth installments of Bill Flanagan's interview with Bob Dylan to promote the imminent release of Together Through Life, the singer talks about his favorite songwriters, peers like the Rolling Stones, and most interestingly, a key reason why he doesn't try to recreate his recordings in live performance.

The interview, whose first three parts ran on Dylan's web site, has been revelatory. It's a savvy marketing move for the singer, but more than that, like his memoir, Chronicles, it allows him to tell only the parts of his story that he wants to tell, in the way he wants to tell it.

In the fourth installment, he discusses his favorite songwriters: First off the tongue? Jimmy Buffet. After that head scratcher, he lists some more expected artists: "Lightfoot. Warren Zevon. Randy (Newman). John Prine. Guy Clark. Those kinds of writers."

In the fifth installment, he talks about the Rolling Stones. In a widely quoted exchange, he seems to dismiss them:

BF: What do you think of the Stones?

BD: What do I think of them? They're pretty much finished, aren't they?

What has gone unremarked, because it messes with the "one has-been to another" storyline pursued by those who noted it, is that Dylan was simply being playful, and has this to say about the band: "The Rolling Stones are truly the greatest rock and roll band in the world and always will be. The last too"

Back to the fourth installment, Flanagan asks why Dylan, like other acts still touring after more than 30 years, doesn't try to replicate his recordings. He couldn't if he tried, he says, adding that his songs are different. The songs of the Who, the Beatles and the Beach Boys was pervasive, "music for the grand dinner party... They made perfect records, so they have to play them perfectly ... exactly the way people remember them." Dylan says his records were never perfect, so there isn't much point trying to duplicate them.

That's an arguable point, though I suppose the quibble is between perfect and pristine. How do you recreate "Highway 61," when history shows the band itself on the same day couldn't do it? Regardless, I for one am glad he feels this way, for while I'd love to have had the chance to hear the Band rip through a faithful version of one of his classics, the endless reinterpretations ultimately make his catalog that much stronger.

Lastly, he makes this simple yet profound statement: "Anyway, I'm no mainstream artist." There's a doctoral thesis in there somewhere (paging Christoper Ricks!), for you can clearly argue this either way. No one who has sold 100 million albums, as Flanagan points out here, can consider themselves to not be in the mainstream, and yet Dylan is exactly right; save for a brief period in the '60s when his singles charted, he has been well outside the mainstream. What a perfect conundrum for the poet laureate of rock who considers himself just a song and dance man.

Labels: Bob Dylan, music

I'm a big fan of Nick Lowe, so I have been pleased to see the nice career overview he has received in the past few weeks tied to the release of his new best of collection, Quiet Please: The New Best of Nick Lowe. The release of the 49-song set has allowed a lot of journalist fans to tout their fave. One hopes the uninitiated pay attention, though it would run counter to the rest of Lowe's career if he suddenly made it big.

The set does a decent job of covering Lowe's career, though any longtime fan can find plenty to quibble about. My main beef is that his label, Yep Roc Records, leaned much too heavily on its own releases (and the rest of his post-Bodyguard comeback... more on that in a moment). Anyone picking up this set is almost assured of owning those albums, so devoting an entire disc to that material seems redundant. Then again, as a fan who already owned his last best of, Basher, as well as several other albums, I already owned every song on here, and bought it for the bonus DVD that includes a recent live show and some vintage videos. I know, I know, I'm not the target audience, but for an artist like Lowe who has had marginal chart success at best, who exactly is the audience?

One interesting note is the title: Quiet Please. It's an accurate indication of the direction Lowe's music has taken in the past decade, a decided response to (and perhaps antidote for) Basher. After Curtis Stigers' version of Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" on the Bodyguard soundtrack earned Lowe a million bucks, he took the money and used it to reinvent himself musically. The result was The Impossible Bird, a surprisingly mature, dour collection of songs that found Lowe dialing down the humor and manic pop thrills of his earlier work. It was the first of four albums in this vein, all full of great songs. It's possible that fans of this work are unfamiliar with earlier standouts like "Cruel to be Kind," "Cracking Up" and "Little Hitler." For them, I suppose, Quiet Please gathers those and many more from that era.

So, quibbles aside (and they include wishing for some rarities or left field surprises on the set), it's a great opportunity for Lowe to get his music out in front of potential fans.

As mentioned at the outset, the media is doing all it can to help. Here is just a small list of recent profiles:

Vanity Fair
JamBase
MSN Music

Labels: music

Matthew Ryan is back and he's mad. That's a good thing, for us, anyway.

Ryan has a new group, the Dead Satellites, and a new song to debut the group. You can download "Shook Down" here for free. You'll be glad you did.

The Dead Satellites includes Ryan and Wallflowers Greg Richling and Rami Jaffee. According to a post on Ryan's MySpace page, Richling and Jaffee wrote and recorded much of the music, while Ryan contributed lyrics and vocals.

"Shook Down," the first track from the group, is "a song about the economic narcissism of the insiders that lead to our current financial crisis," Ryan says. "The song is essentially calling for a coup, or at the very least, accountability."

"Workers on the news/They take it in the gut/And in the kingdom's view/It doesn't mean that much." he sings. He concludes with this statement after the music ends: average CEO makes 400 times what the average worker makes."

"On a personal note, I've watched my Dad go from a fairly comfortable retirement, to a stressed malaise," Ryan says. " It pisses me off. He worked 35 years, saved every penny, invested what he earned, and is now feeling took."

It's a slow burner of a song that does as much to capture the current economic malaise as anything I've seen or heard since our recent troubles began.

A second song is up at the group's MySpace page, "If I Wanted You, I Could Have You."

"We're doing this for the love of it, there is no label involved," Ryan writes. "So, truth is, we're depended on you sharing it. We want people to hear these songs. We're just gonna add songs to our Dead Satellites MySpace as we complete them."

So, the good news is more Ryan-related music trickling out. The bad news is that it doesn't sound like there will be an album of this music any time soon.

Don't fret, however; Ryan reports that he's also working on his next solo album, the follow-up to last year's fantastic Matthew Ryan Vs. the Silver State (No. 5 on my best of 2008 list). "I'm working hard on writing my next record. I'll be recording it shortly. It's tentatively titled, Exit Music For Last Year's Man. I wanna define some elusive weather with this one. The songs so far among the most beautiful and plain-spoken I've written."

Sounds like a return to the quieter, more introspective sound of From a Late Night High-Rise and Through the Wires. Here's hoping he and the Dead Satellites rock out a bit so we can hear both aspects of Ryan's sound more frequently.

Labels: music

While on the surface there seems to be little new about "The Chris Isaak Hour" on Bio, it is actually a unique entry in the standard interview-format TV show. What's different? Isaak hosts one act each week, mixing a few performance shots with interviews. That means you get the equivalent of a set on the best live music shows like Austin City Limits, as well as about half an hour of in-depth interview conducted by a fellow touring and recording musician. The result is, even when the guest is of marginal interest, one of the most engaging hours of television for music fans.

When I heard the Isaak was slated to host another show, I was excited at the prospect. In addition to being a fine songwriter and singer, Isaak is a true wit, something that makes his late-night talk show appearances, as well as his Showtime dramedy series so entertaining. The format sounded great: long interviews spiced with live performances. Then I saw the guest list: Smashing Pumpkins, Michael Buble and Chicago? No thanks.

But Isaak is a savvy interviewer, teasing out stories that either haven't been told before, or haven't been told with this level of detail. When a typical interviewer asks a musician about life on the road, the response is usually boilerplate. When Isaak asks, he gleans answers that are offered peer to peer, and the result is refreshing. Another plus: Isaak is reverent without being too deferential. He isn't afraid to ask about tough subjects, from Stevie Nicks' drug use to Billy Corgan's relationship with That means that while his interview with personal favorite Glen Campbell was fascinating, his chats with Chicago and Smashing Pumpkins were interesting, too.

The Glen Campbell interview was the best so far, in part because Isaak is clearly a fan and knows enough about Campbell's career both as a countrypolitan superstar and earlier as an in-demand session player (and one-time touring Brian Wilson replacement in the Beach Boys) to ask intelligent questions. The Stevie Nicks interview also was outstanding, with Isaak teasing out details that were unfamiliar to this casual Fleetwood Mac fan.

The run of eight episodes, which began in late February with guest Trisha Yearwood (a nice tie-in to the release of Isaak's first album of new material in seven years, Mr. Lucky, which featured a Yearwood duet), continues tonight with Yusuf Islam (the former Cat Stevens), and ends next week with Jewel.

Here's hoping the show is renewed, because it's the best music-related show on television. It doesn't hurt Isaak's music career either, raising his profile and allowing him the chance to rub shoulders with some rock royalty.

Labels: music, TV

The takeaway from the Hold Steady show at the Picador in Iowa City last night? You can have too much of a good thing. The lesson was learned at the macro and micro levels. More generally, seeing five shows in seven days is simply too much for me. No matter how hard the Hold Steady rocked, it just couldn't get into it after having been out to see so many shows in so short a span (which means any dreams I have of a return visit to SXSW are probably unwise at this point).

More specifically, it meant that perhaps the Hold Steady should explore the world of dynamics. Save for the mid-set beer/bathroom break interlude "Lord, I'm Discouraged," the only non heavy riff song in the main set, everything was anchored by a monster riff, pounding drums, throbbing bass and Craig Finn's manic TV preacher vocals. Yeah, I know -- that's what they do. But by the end of a 90-minute set, it's numbing. That made a song like "Citrus," an acoustic tune that led the band back to start its encore, a breath of fresh air. More moments like this would make the gargantuan hooks of songs like "Chips Ahoy," "Sequestered in Memphis" and "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" more distinct.

That said, it was a great show, and evidence that the Hold Steady may be the best live band in America right now. It's surely the one having the most fun. Perusing write-ups of other stops on this tour, I see that Finn's show-closing exhortation about the joy of what the band does is more shtick than spontaneity, but I don't doubt its sincerity. Seeing the lead singer of a band pogo-jumping along with the crowd, a grin on his face bigger than that of anyone staring up at him, is a rare thing. In an interview for a piece to preview the show on CorridorBuzz.com, Tad Kubler credited the band's success to playing what they would want to hear, which, luckily, seems to be what a lot of other people want to hear, too: "To be honest, I think it was just being at the age we were, we were just going to do what we wanted to do, and I think that’s part of what people respond to. That kind of humility or earnestness or whatever you want to call it. It’s not really influenced by anything else than what we would want to hear."

Labels: live shows, music

Bob Dylan may be as old school as they come, but he (or rather, his organization) is pretty savvy when it comes to marketing. He has a new album, Together Through Life, coming April 28 this month, and anyone with a pulse would be hard pressed to say they didn't know it. Word is seemingly everywhere, and a lot of it came free of charge.

First, Dylan offered the track "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" for free download, while this week he offers Newsweek the chance to host "Feel a Change Comin' On." In addition, an interview with Bill Flanagan, the first two parts of which were posted on Dylan's web site, now moves to Newsweek.com, where the third installment is now posted. Who could have predicted in 1993 when the Internet began to take off that newspapers would be cast aside in favor of reading on tiny TV screens and an artist busy recording covers of old tunes would be used to draw eyeballs to that new format?

But the marketing doesn't stop there. In a nod to past promotions that allowed you to put your own text on Dylan's cue cards in the video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues," a promotion for "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" allows users to create a "lyrical portrait video" that includes their own text and colors that reflect their mood. Here's mine.

That's a lot of cutting-edge promo for a 67-year-old folksinger. Will it matter? Well, Dylan had his first No. 1 album in 30 years with Modern Times, so anything is possible. His target demographic is certainly of the CD-buying, rather than MP3-downloading type. And early reviews are positive.

Labels: Bob Dylan, marketing, music

Gene Simmons was right, it seems: It was too loud, so I'm probably too old. Or, in the very least, I value my hearing too much. I tried to weather the onslaught that was No Age on Saturday night as the Mission Creek Festival came to a close, but it was too much. I appreciate more than enjoy the band's sophomore disc, Nouns, and hoped that the duo's live show would reveal something I was missing. I get that there are decent pop hooks beneath the fuzz of distortion and noise, and sought to hear those in clearer relief against that backdrop. Instead, the noise reigned, obscuring nearly everything the band seemed to want to accomplish musically.

They kicked of with "Teen Creeps," or rather, with a squalling wall of feedback and abrasion that was ear-splittingly loud. Then they began to play. Dean Spunt began pounding on his drums, then Randy Randall unleashing a torrent of distorted power chords, all atop that initial PA-taxing cacophony. My ears hurt just typing this. Moving way back in the room, using the decent-sized crowd to absorb some of the sound, I was able to pick out more of the actual songs, but as my ears -- foolishly left unguarded by very much needed plugs -- began to ache, I decided it was time to bail out. So sue me for liking hooks over aural assault. I'll stick with the records, where I can control the volume.

No problem with that Friday night, as Simon Joyner, John Vanderslice and Mountain Goats provided a nice singer-songwriter night of angsty folk-rock. I missed Joyner, but Vanderslice and the MG's John Darnielle each offered a tight set of acoustic guitar-fueled tunes. Vanderslice's music, shorn of the usual studio adornment this studio owner usual deploys, took some time to connect, but soon the crowd was fully engaged.

Darnielle, one of the big draws of the festival, had the audience in his hand from the first note (actually, earlier: a cameo on handclaps late in Vanderslice's set yielded the loudest applause of the night up to that point). He cut a wide swath through his enormous catalog, and told many stories as the set progressed. Darnielle spent several years living in Iowa in the early 2000s, and professed his love for the state. In one amusing story, he (rightly) mocked local television news for always seeking out the "Iowa connection" on any national story, saying it was OK to report big news without always seeking a local tie. Now that he lives in North Carolina, however, he joked that he rejects all news there that lacks an Iowa connection.

He closed with a rousing sing-along on Tallahassee's "No Children." He said it was written on an airplane in reaction to hearing Leann Womack's treacly love song "I Hope You Dance" on the way to the airport. In contrast to sap like "I hope you never lose your sense of wonder, you get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger," Darnielle offers "I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us, I hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us." Thinking now of the crowd singing along joyfully, I realize this is how I like my misanthropy: with a dash of humor and a clever turn of phrase rather than a2x4 of noise up the side of my head.

Labels: music

In addition to bringing as much great music to Iowa City in four days as we'd usually get in a month or two, the Mission Creek Festival also has expanded my horizons.

That expansion began Wednesday night with a concert by GZA/Genius, a member of Wu Tang Clan. I've long had a fascination with Wu Tang, more for their non-musical exploits, ideas and marketing, though I have Enter the 36 Chambers and a couple of solo albums from members. I didn't, until recently, have GZA's Liquid Swords, however. That has been rectified and I now have heard him perform it in concert.

GZA's performance led off and headlined the fest. He filled the normally staid Englert Theatre with a crowd full of beer-swilling (and occasionally pot-smoking) fans who chanted along with every word. I was amazed that a guy pacing back and forth across a stage bare save for a platform with a DJ manning two turntables could hold an audience's attention for 80 minutes, but he proved worthy to the task. Though I had listened to the album a handful of times, I didn't recognize much. But the pulse and energy of the music easily hooked me.

The best moment: A young fan at the show with his dad was pulled on stage by GZA early on. He was maybe 8 or 9, and he stood tentatively at first, then got into it, acting as a cheerleader/mute hype man for the star. Transposing that to my world: The Replacements get back together and perform Let It Be in it's entirety and my eldest gets pulled onstage by Paul Westerberg.

Thursday night was less of a stretch, but I nonetheless took in bands I might not have stayed up for had it been a non-festival show. First came Headlights, a band whose web site clips put me in the mind of the Cardigans, but which actually offered rocking, peppy pop full of carnivalesque keyboards and sharp vocals. That was followed by Fruit Bats, a band that on record sounds like the Posies' Ken Stringfellow fronting the Shins (leader Eric Johnson has been a Shins sideman) but that sounded more like a countrified power pop band live. A nice cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (by way of the Byrds' version) was a highlight.

Last came Beach House. I've heard both of the band's albums, and while I admire their craft, I'm rarely in the mood for such a comedown. The live show was very different, an in-your-face wash of echo-laden guitar, trebley keyboards and soaring vocals. It was bracing and made me want to go back to those records in search of that same intensity.

Tonight, I'll catch John Vanderslice and Mountain Goats, and will wrap up Saturday with No Age. Watch here Sunday for a full report.

Labels: Mission Creek, music

My fandom of Gomez is rather improbable. I'm not a big fan of electronic music (as discussed yesterday in my post about Pocket) and I'm even less a fan of the blues. But those are the two key ingredients in early Gomez music, and somehow in a "your peanut butter is in my chocolate" sort of alchemy, the result is much greater than the sum of its parts.

The band released its sixth album on Tuesday, A New Tide, and that title coupled with the production of Brian Deck made me hope for new things. Alas, A New Tide is really an extension of 2006's How We Operate, which took the band in a slightly poppier, more mainstream direction. Perhaps the album titles should be reversed.

I first saw Gomez at SXSW in 1998 at an in-store at Waterloo Records. I'd heard about but never heard the band, and was blown away by the short set. The band was in the U.S. for the first time, supporting it's debut, Bring It On, which went on to win the coveted Mercury Prize. The band's mix of acoustic blues (think Mississippi John Hurt), subtle electronics and folk music was a winning combination. I loved the impossibly gruff vocals of babyfaced Ben Ottewell, and was primed for more greatness from the band.

While each disc has had its moments, and I've regretted none of my Gomez-related purchases thus far -- which include the two-disc live album Out West and the odds and sods collection Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline -- that initial promise was never really met. Instead, the band seemed to settle into a groove. It's a good groove that continues to yield strong songs, if not strong albums, but one that never challenges the band or the listener.

Such is the case with A New Tide. Though producer Deck has helmed many oddball projects -- Califone, Tortoise and and Wheat among them -- his contribution here seems to be as the latest person to inject a hint of anarchy to the proceedings. It's just a hint -- the good-time vibe and carefully constructed songs never let bleeps, blips and other assorted noises do anything more than color the songs.

The band makes me think of Beth Orton, another British act that started promising, and while issuing a handful of good records, never capitalized on a seemingly new direction. At least Gomez has been more prolific, with the above-mentioned output in a decade as opposed to Orton's four albums and handful of singles and EPs in a dozen years.

Gomez performed "Airstream Driver" from the new album on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on Tuesday. Watch it here.

Labels: music

Not being the biggest fan of electronic music, and being even less knowledgeable about the world of remixes, I had never heard of the Burnside Project or Pocket or Richard Jankovich before a press release about his latest project hit my inbox. Suffice to say that I'm going to start paying more attention.

Jankovich's latest effort as Pocket would be intriguing enough without the impressive list of collaborators.He plans to digitally issue an album's worth of singles throughout 2009, each a collaboration with other artists. Each release, an EP, really, will feature remixes from other artists. I'm a sucker for things like this, and will definitely be watching this closely.

Then you get to the collaborators. He starts with a bang: Robyn Hitchcock offers vocals on the first track, "Surround Him with Love." It's a typical bit of dance-y electronic music given personality by Hitchcock, who starts the track repeating the phrase "reptile brain" over a slinky beat. It's not clear who wrote the lyrics, but if Jankovich did, he perfectly dialed into Hitchcock's strange aesthetic.

In addition to the songs for sale, Jankovich is also offering song stems for each lead track for free download for one month to encourage others to remix his work. In the meantime, listeners can get a sense of how others manipulated the track, as this single includes remixes by The Somnambulants, The STEALTH and KKS.

Future contributors will include Craig Wedren from Shudder to Think, Dave Smalley from Down By Law, Steve Kilbey of the Church and Tanya Donelly from Belly. Future remixers include Wedren, Slim Moon, novelist Rick Moody, Glen Mercer from the Feelies, Elk City and the Wrens.

Labels: music

So, word came down Friday night that my Synchronicity proposal for Continuum's 33 1/3 series had been passed over. It made the first cut, one of 170 out of the original 597, but is not part of the next list of 27 from which the final selections will be made. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. The odds were still against me (and everyone else) with 20 picks expected from that very long shortlist.

I did think that commerce was in my favor, however. When series editor David Barker reported earlier this month that "economy related goings-on" at Continuum meant the selection process was on hold, I figured having a proposal about a band that had the highest-grossing tour in the country two years ago -- selling $350 million in tickets -- might be particularly appealing at a time when it's hard to pry money from people.

Alas, it was not to be. Instead, we have these 27 proposals from which who knows how many books will be selected:

AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace
The Beatles - The Beatles
Bob Dylan - Time Out of Mind
The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Dinosaur Jr: You're Living All Over Me
ELO - Out of the Blue
Grateful Dead - Closing of Winterland
Johnny Cash - American Recordings
Kiss - Destroyer
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen
Lil' Wayne - Da Drought 3
Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville
Lou Reed - Metal Music Machine
Neil Young - Tonight's the Night
Operation Ivy - Energy
Paul Simon - Graceland
Radiohead - Kid A
Rolling Stones - Some Girls
Slint - Spiderland
Television - Marquee Moon
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
Ween - Chocolate and Cheese
White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

I could certainly make a case for most of these, though I do wonder about how many people would buy books about Operation Ivy or Young Marble Giants. I'm sure both proposals are stellar -- Barker hasn't really gone wrong yet on his picks -- but knowing the marketplace is a consideration, they are surprising. Regardless, I see a dozen books I'd buy tonight if they were on the shelf, so I look forward to the eventual publication of those selected.

Barker reports that the final selections will be announced by the end of April. So, those who did make the cut have a few more weeks to stew, while those of us who missed out can wait and watch without pressure.

I've read a lot of blog posts about these books and this process, and most folks seem to want to read proposals. So, since mine isn't doing any good any more, you can download it here. I haven't included my bio, but it at least gives you a sense of what I had hoped to do, and gives future prospective writers a look at an idea that made the first cut. Perhaps I'll do something with it someday, but in the very least the research, writing and anticipation were enough of a blast to make the entire process worthwhile.

Labels: 33 1/3, books, music

The rapid transition in the world of print publications hit home today as I picked up a copy of the new Blurt magazine on the same day I learned that another music magazine, Blender, will bite the dust. This could get confusing, so pay attention.

Blurt magazine debuted on newsstands recently, the first title I'm aware of that started online and moved to print. That comes, however, after Harp magazine, which begat Blurt, folded last year. It was purchased by JazzTimes parent Guthrie Inc. in 2003, and in announcing its closure last year, Guthrie CEO Glenn Sabin said, "Unfortunately, Harp's critical acclaim never translated into sustaining commercial success. Harp's lifecycle was ill timed with the precipitous decline of the music software industry, coupled with the consolidation of the consumer magazine newsstand business and rising paper and postage costs."

Those behind the mag, including publisher Scott Crawford, quickly regrouped and launched Blurt, an online magazine/web site. It is essentially Harp online, with a normal daily-updated web presence and a quarterly PDF magazine. That product was essentially a magazine in all aspects but the presence of paper. Instead, users would click through pages in a dedicated web-based viewer.

“Crawford told FOLIO: magazine earlier this year that the company had "gotten to the point of wanting a physical product to help brand the site—we want it to be the ‘soul’ of the web site in print.” At that time, the print product was planned as a quarterly. The premiere issue, however, says it will come out 10 times a year, or roughly as often as Harp.

Aesthetically and editorially, it is Harp in all but name only. I'm glad to have it back in whatever form, for I missed out on nearly all of its online coverage. For whatever reason, if I want online music coverage, a quick-hit site like Pitchfork works better for me. If I want long form journalism and criticism, I'd rather have a print product.

That means, however, that Blender's decision to cease publication and move exclusively to the web means I might actually pay more attention to it. I was never impressed with the magazine, stuffed as it was fully pix of scantily clad "singers" and 50-word CD reviews, but that's just the kind of thing that works online.

The magazine's April issue, on newsstands now, will be its last. Instead, it will limit coverage to its web site. It's as if each publication figured out its strength -- according to my tastes, anyway -- and decided to switch places to play to them.

Labels: magazines, music

Having just grudgingly ordered my third Robert Pollard-related disc of the year -- the Circus Devils' Gringos, which follows the Boston Spaceships' The Planets are Blasted and the solo The Crawling Distance -- I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Pollard has yet another disc set for release. While his recent output has been spotty at best -- I'd go so far as to say there's nothing that really sticks with me since the surprisingly consistent solo album Robert Pollard is Off to Business from way back last June -- this one holds promise. It's a pairing with Australian singer-songwriter Richard Davies, leader of the late lamented Moles and, most importantly for orch-pop fans, one half of Cardinal.

Two MP3s from the project, dubbed Cosmos, were posted today. The first, "Nude Metropolis," can be found at Magnet magazine's web site. The second, "Hail Mary" is posted at Stereogum. According to the reports, the 14-track disc, Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks, is due June 9 on Pollard's Happy Jack Rock Records. As with other Pollard collaborations, Davies wrote and recorded the music and Pollard wrote and sang the vocals and melodies. But four of the tracks, including "Hail Mary," feature Davies alone.

The MP3s are fantastic, and stand in stark contrast with Pollard's recent work. While Todd Tobias, who provides nearly all of the music for all of Pollard's releases these days, is a talented and prolific guy, the Pollard/Tobias collaborations are starting to all sound the same (yes, of course they throw a curveball with the forthcoming acoustic Gringo). From the first note of "Nude Metropolis," it's clear that Pollard will need to step it up; this is majestic pop that requires more than a tossed off vocal. It reminds me of his most successful collaborations, on discs with Mac MacCaughan, Tommy Keene and Tobin Sprout.

Nosing around the net in an attempt to catch up with Davies, who hasn't released a solo album since 2000's Barbarians, led me to something that bills itself as his "official (for now)" web site. Not much news there, save for word that an unreleased disc, Tonight's Music, has been shelved for at least two years, and, more exciting: Cardinal tracks. It seems Davies and Eric Matthews, the men behind Cardinal, got back together at some point during the past couple of years, but only came away with three tracks. That's usually the kind of news met with frustration, but instead, it came with a link: download the tracks here. They're good, if not entirely up to the standard of Cardinal's sole, self-titled disc.

Labels: music, Robert Pollard

Neil Young offers another look at his forthcoming album, Fork in the Road, with a self-directed video for the track "Cough Up the Bucks." It's a chugging Crazy Horse-esque tune that features Young chanting the title over and over and over. That occasionally gives way to some by-now-standard Young wanking. The noise parts every now and then for a pretty chorus: "Where did the money go? Where did all the cash flow?" Later he adds, "Where did all the revenue stream?"Other than another, seemingly incongruous line: "It's all about my car... and my girl... it's all about my world" (which seems a better description of the album itself than this song), that is the extent of the lyrics.

Neil Young - Cough Up The Bucks


The video shows Young in a suit and tie in the back of a stretch limo, talking on a cell phone, reading the Wall Street Journal and pecking at a laptop. That's it. Then again, all of the videos for the album have been self-shot, quickie productions that offer little more than an excuse to see what Young looks like these days and, more importantly, to hear the new songs. He has videos for at least four songs posted on his MySpace page, including the title track, the somewhat incongruous ballad "Light a Candle" and "Johnny Magic." As has been reported previously, the new disc is a concept album about eco-friendly cars. It's clearly a topic inspiring to Young, but the songs thus far haven't really resonated with this fan. The inspiration and execution seem similar to that for Living With War -- get mad, grab a guitar, hit "record" -- though the populist firestorm Young tapped into with that 2006 disc is absent here.

Labels: music, Neil Young

Carl Wilson, author of the 33 1/3 series entry on Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love, acquitted himself well last night on "The Colbert Report." Wilson's book deals with issues of musical taste, and Colbert actually engages him somewhat on that topic. Of course, he cracks wise, but the focus remains very much on Wilson's work. It's a great bit of publicity for the book and for the series. View it here.

Labels: 33 1/3, books, music

I interviewed Gary Louris from the Jayhawks for a story to preview his show with Mark Olson Thursday in Cedar Rapids. It was great to talk with someone who has made so much of my favorite music and learn more about the duo's creative process, but the real treat was this bit of news: The Jayhawks' major-label catalog will see the deluxe reissue treatment this year.

"It’s a good time to be a Jayhawks fan," Louris said, mentioning that the reissues will include DVDs, bonus tracks and more, all through Sony Legacy. The project also will include a best-of, and extended DVD collection and a boxed set.

"I think the Jayhawks' day is finally kind of arriving in terms of getting the attention it deserved," he said.

As for the bonus tracks, he said "There’s a lot of stuff. The problem is being on the road and not being able to sort through it all."

Asked if the band's eponymous debut album might finally see release, he said "I'm going to say yes." The album, called Bunkhouse by fans, has been rumored for release for years (as have, come to think of it, these reissues). It is owned by Lost Highway records, which issued the Jayhawks' swan song, Rainy Day Music. Louris said the label seems to be "freaked out" about putting it out because its not sure it has the rights.

"It will come out, whether it’s next year or the year after that or..."

The prospect of live support for the reissue campaign is good. The Jayhawks lineup from 1994 (Tomorrow the Green Grass era: Louris, Olson, Tim O'Reagan, Marc Perleman and Karen Grotberg) reunited for a show in Spain last fall, and Louris hinted that another show and perhaps more are in the offing.

"We may do those occasionally, as basically a way to make money," he said. "I don’t see anything else beyond that. Making records? I don’t see that happening. It’s too hard to make a living that way. I love music but I need to make a living. I don’t know if it’s financially viable to support five or six adults that way."

That said, he fully expects to continue making music with Olson as a duo.

"This is just kind of our start," he said. When asked if the duo would make future records, he replied, "Oh yeah."

Labels: Jayhawks, music

Word came tonight that my 33 1/3 book proposal for the Police's Synchronicity is on the shortlist under consideration. The original 597 proposals have been whittled to 170. That means my odds have dropped from about 3.3 percent (how fitting) to about 1 in 8. Series Editor David Barker writes that this next step of winnowing the long list to create this round's slate of selections will take six to eight more weeks. So, while it's a relief to make it this far, the pressure remains.

Parsing the list -- which includes many albums that I'd love to read about -- I'd say I'm really competing against 150 or so proposals. I stripped 20 out because there were either two for the same album or for the same group, and they'll obviously not pick two proposals about the same book and aren't likely, given the limited number of books they can put out, to do two by the same artist in the same batch. All just speculation, of course, but it makes me feel better.

In the next few weeks I plan to approach the camps of Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland and Sting to see if I can gauge their interest in participating. If they don't, there still is a wealth of information out there to fuel a book.

I have been Twittering about the band and the proposal process over the past few weeks and will continue to do so. To follow me, go here.

Labels: 33 1/3, books, music

I came late to Bruce Springsteen, so my perspective on the artist is somewhat skewed. Fans who have been with him from the beginning have experienced him in two phases. The first was as ascendant rock star who was guarded and reserved. The second, which we're still in, is as superstar in stasis (or decline) who is effusive, lighthearted and funny.

It is the latter Springsteen who is on display on the Boss' web site now. He has penned (typed?) a Super Bowl Journal, chronicling his performance there during halftime with the E Street Band. It's an illuminating, entertaining and entrancing look behind the scenes of the biggest show of the year.

He discusses his choice of footwear, his pre-concert jitters (described at "Lord Don't Let Me Screw the Pooch in Front of 100 Million People") and the performance itself. He talks about things ridiculous -- the now infamous (though completely overblown) "crotch shot" caused by overshooting the end of the stage on a knee slide ("Too much adrenalin, a late drop, too much speed, here I come Mike…BOOM") -- and sublime -- "Since the inception of our band it was our ambition to play for everyone. We've achieved a lot but we haven't achieved that. Our audience remains tribal…that is predominantly white. On occasion, the Inaugural Concert, during a political campaign, touring through Africa in '88, particularly in Cleveland with President Obama, I looked out and sang "Promised Land" to the audience I intended it for, young people, old people, black, white, brown, cutting across religious and class lines. That's who I'm singing to today."

And at the end of one of the biggest nights of his career, he's just another working guy blowing off steam once he gets home: "By 3 am, I am back home, everyone in the house fast asleep and tucked in bed. I am sitting in the yard over an open fire, staring up again into that black night sky, my ears still ringing…'Oh yeah, it's alright.'"

Labels: Bruce Springsteen, music, TV

Three out-of-print Richard Buckner albums, including his debut, will be digitally reissued by Merge Records on March 10.

The label will bring out 1995's Bloomed, 2000's The Hill and 2002's Impasse. There are many who will argue that his debut, Bloomed, is his best (I'm not among them, preferring the two MCA albums that followed), while The Hill and Impasse were both brave experimental albums that found him putting poems from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology to music (The Hill) and creating a libretto of sorts with each song reading like a short story with no verses or chorus to speak of (Impasse).

Merge got Buckner to say a bit about each disc, and the results are predictably bittersweet and funny. About the recording sessions for Bloomed, he says, "We finished four days later and I flew back to San Francisco, dismembered the band and embarked on a tour that would last about 15 years (or a few days, if you count what I actually remember)." The uncompromising The Hill, which was one long track when it was first released, will now come with normal track breaks: "My thought, at the time, was to have the listener read the poems along with the music as one piece, since some of the characters in the book belong next to each other, story-wise. My demands have lowered with age, though, and the digital re-release on Merge is indexed song by song." He has little to say about Impasse: "Somewhere between tours of the lower 48 and ice hikes to The Black Dog in the Fog, Impasse was finally completed and released in 2002."

No word on whether the EP Impass-ette will be included with Impasse. That release included acoustic versions of two Impasse tracks and three otherwise unavailable songs.

Digital release is probably wise. As good as Buckner's discs are, and as much critical acclaim as he gets, he just doesn't sell. We talked about that in 1999 (pre-The Hill) when he came through Iowa on tour. "I know I don't sell that many records, I know that for a fact," he said. "But I tour so much, and play all these shows, and I just think, 'Where are all of you coming from? You're not buying the records.' "He went on to say that he saw The Hill, originally released on the tiny Chicago label Overcoat Recordings, as an experiment. "So I'll see how many I sell of this. Can I sell 2,000? I don't think so, but I don't know."

There is word of a possible new album from Buckner next year on Merge: "The negotiations are being held up, though, by our lawyers. Evidently, there are a few kinks based on something called “The BBQ Clause” There is a “use of sauce” stipulation that has yet to be worked out (Porky vs. Supreme Court, 1873)." It would be his first since 2006's excellent The Meadow.

MP3: "Gauzy Dress" from Bloomed
MP3: "Emily Sparks" from The Hill
MP3: "Born in to Giving" from Impasse

Labels: music, reissues

When I was 16, I was part of a mission trip to Los Angeles, one of a dozen lily-white Iowa kids headed to the big city to lend a hand. I can't honestly say I recall a single thing we did in a mission sort of way, but I can tell you that we visited several record shops. It was like the gates of music heaven had been opened and I had sprouted wings. I carried with me at all times a list of records that I had read about but never seen that I hoped to buy. At the top of the list was Volcano Suns' All Night Lotus Party. I'm not sure where I heard about it -- my guess is Rolling Stone, which was about the only music magazine I read back in those days -- but I was convinced I needed to hear it.

I found it in the first store we visited -- on vinyl, of course -- and guarded it closely throughout the rest of the trip and the flight home. When I put the needle in the groove, the first thing that I heard was a blast of feedback, followed closely by a jackhammer guitar line that made me fear I'd somehow failed to notice the review's mention that this was a hardcore band. Then the drum beat kicked in, a nicely paced 4/4 that cut the song's pace by a quarter, and Peter Prescott began to sing: "I'm a collector of stuff that most folks ignore, you know that one man's ceiling is another man's floor." I was hooked.

I didn't know that Prescott had been the drummer in Mission of Burma. I hadn't even heard of Mission of Burma. I didn't know there was a previous Volcano Suns album. I just knew I loved this album, which was about as far from what I was hearing on the radio in Des Moines as I could imagine.

Not until I got to college a couple of years later did I find a similar vista of great music, allowing me to go back and grab the band's debut, The Bright Orange Years, and then keep up through Bumper Crop, Farced and the rest.

I wore these albums out -- the first three, anyway -- hoping one day to see them on CD. Now, 20 years later (!) Merge Records has answered the call, reissuing those first two albums on CD (their first time in the format) with remastering and bonus tracks. For the first time in 20 years, I can hear "White Elephant" without the tiny skip that I've heard so many times that I expect it no matter how many times I spin my pristine digital copy.

Most critics prefer the debut, though I'll always lean toward All Night Lotus Party, if for no other reason than that I'm intimately familiar with its every note. Both discs sound great, the remastering by one-time band member Bob Weston maintaining the rumbling fuzz while bringing a clarity that makes the hooks shine.

It's enough to have these albums on CD, but Merge has sweetened the deal with 7" tracks, radio sessions and outtakes. The nine bonus tracks on the debut include the A and B sides to its first single, "Sea Cruise" and "Greasy Spine," an early comp appearance in "Tree Stomp" and the band's manic cover of Prince's "1999."

The 11 bonus tracks on All Night Lotus Party begin with a medley of the Beatles "Polythene Pam" and the band's own "Greasy Spine," which is preceded by Prescott saying, "There isn't room on this tape." The Amboy Dukes' "Journey to the Center of the Mind" and Spinal Tap's "Jazz Odyssey" also are tackled, all sounding pretty much like what you'd expect. A strange bit of studio trickery, "Walk Around Dub" is also exactly as advertised, while three songs that would eventually appear on the band's follow-up, Bumper Crop (Here's hoping these do well enough that Merge will bring it out next) -- "Time Off," "Magic Sky" and "Curse of the Name" -- show up in early form. "The Central" and "Local Wise Man," which appear as bonus tracks on The Bright Orange Years, also showed up on Bumper Crop.

It's an impressive presentation, one that pops open the time capsule on mid-80s college rock for a much-needed history lesson.

MP3: Jak from The Bright Orange Years
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