The Wednesday Review

Groove Evolution: Spoon's Transference

2010-01-13T20:32:00.011-05:00

Spoon
Transference
(January 18, 2010 – Merge)

Somewhere in the Bible, God said He’d rather we be hot or cold. The lukewarm, He cautioned, would meet the indignant fate of being “spewed” from His mouth. Bad visual, but luckily we’re no longer in “Bible Times.”

Spoon’s new album Transference is an object lesson in the benefits of being lukewarm. In the tepid ground between hot funk and cool rock lies the groove. And it’s the groove that Spoon reinvents on these eleven tracks. The downside is that you won’t get “yr cherry bomb” or “camera on” this time around. But the upside is a masterful balancing act.

Gilding the groove are attractive tonal textures, including (but not limited to) chalky lead vocals, flush harmonies, reversed instrumental tracks, strings, and wowee-zowee space-organ. Jarring edits occasionally cut off the vocals mid-note. And at least once, the entire tail end of a song gets docked. Little tricks to keep us alert, lest a groove coma -- a yummy groove coma -- ensues.

“Before Destruction” opens the album with a spare rhythm concocted of hi hat, floor tom, and acoustic guitar strapped together with organ and swirling vocals. A perfect example of not burying the lead, and a great argument for why you shouldn’t.

The most blatant groove comes three songs later with “Who Makes Your Money?” It leans trippy with delayed organ hits, volume pedal guitar swells, falsetto, and an excellent opening lyric guaranteed to be misheard by the millions. (For the record, I’m pretty sure that Britt Daniel is singing, “Jack Benny’s drawn his slight face first…” or is it “his sly face-fur?”)

“Trouble Comes Running” makes a play for the obvious pure pop hit. But it also makes production waves, as the ultra-low-fi treatment is applied, obliterating any hope of pure pop acceptance. I mean, virtually the entire trap kit is panned left! I love it when bands pull this shit!

Whether accidental or by design, Transference subtly melds funk and rock (two elements that ordinarily should be kept far, far apart) into a sturdy new brand of groove music (a genre that typically smacks of laziness). In fact you may feel quite lazy, yourself, after your first listen. But keep at it, because just like studying the Bible, you discover something new every time.

Ain't It Funky Now: Back To The Boutique

2009-12-30T07:59:00.015-05:00

Beastie Boys

Paul's Boutique 20th Anniversary Edition

(2009 - Capitol)

It's hard to believe that Paul’s Boutique was a commercial failure upon its initial release. Even now, looking at this twenty years on, who would have thought a bunch of snotty Brooklyn Jewish kids (who formed originally as a hardcore band) could realistically cash in on the latest bad boy street rap trend and become trendsetters?

Now, like then, Paul's Boutique is a hard-core love letter to 70s funk. Its boogie is on the dance floor (or possibly the dirt floor, according to the 15 second banjo romp “5 Piece Chicken Dinner”), and it also doesn't shy away from heavy-hitter samples from the likes of Mountain, The Ramones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Costello, and Johnny Cash. The sound is a mish-mash of rhymes, scratches, and bass beats courtesy of the West Coast’s Dust Brothers and Mario Caldato Jr. who seemingly toss in whatever might have popped out of their heads at the moment while still keeping that consistent and constant groove throughout. The 40-minute album also maintains its beat and lyrical muster by dropping funky guitar and bass riffs into the mix before snatching them back, simultaneously contemplating the serious and the snotty and sometimes even the ridiculous:

Fear and loathing across the country listening to my 8 Track…

Bust a Travis Bickle when I feel I’m getting pushed…

Droppin’ science like Galileo dropped the orange….

The standout tracks are easy to remember: "Hey Ladies," "High Plains Drifter," and "Johnny Ryall" to name the obvious few, but then again, there's nary a stinker in this bunch o’funk. Songs such as "Shake Your Rump," "Egg Man," and "Car Thief" act as perfect companions to the above-mentioned rap-a-long singles and keep the overall momentum flowing, sometimes even eclipsing the individual standouts themselves.

The down note in an otherwise triumphant re-release this year is Beastie member Adam “MCA” Yauch's recent cancer diagnosis. Fortunately, it was found early enough for successful treatment, but not soon enough to avoid postponing the release of the Boys' 2009 album, Hot Sauce Committee Part One, and canceling their upcoming tour. So, raise a glass of Brass Monkey in toast to The Beasties’ new album and to MCA’s health, and to this truly one of a kind dance platter that is as necessary to your ears as gravity is to your own sweet moves.

-Blake Rainey

Ed: Blake Rainey is a singer/songwriter based in Atlanta. He has two excellent solo record albums available for your musical pleasure, as well as several brutish punk recordings with his famed bandmates in the Young Antiques. Check out all them groovy dudes HERE! And HERE!

Free All Music: A Tale Of Two Henrys

2009-12-23T00:18:00.008-05:00

This was supposed to be about Henry Flynt. And I swear I’ll get back to Henry Flynt in due time. But just before I settled down to tell you about this fascinating fiddler from North Carolina who in 1961 made his musical debut in Yoko Ono’s famed New York loft, then proceeded to blow the ass-end out of the Greenwich Village avant-guard scene, I got a little email from Free All Music.

I signed up for their emails a month or so back. And it’s been radio silence ever since. Then suddenly, GAME ON! Free All Music says that I’m one of 250 beta tasters (sic), and hell fire, ain’t I flattered? Hell yes, I am. Wouldn’t you? Be?

Free All Music aims to change the way we acquire music online. Heretofore your options lay in theft (Bit torrent) or rental (Rhapsody streaming audio) or some hacked up, quasi-legal concoction of the two. FAM basically said, “Let’s make it so stupid, it’s simple!”

The result is a twist on the old terrestrial radio model where listeners hear some songs for free, then enjoy “a few words from our sponsor.” FAM flips the model, requiring you to first watch a thirty-second commercial before you download a song. The upside is that once you’ve fulfilled your obligation to watch (users can choose their commercial) the downloaded song is yours to keep forever. No copy protection, no embedded advertisements, no strings attached…anywhere.

To be perfectly clear, I think this idea is Tha Shit! Advertisers cover the costs; artists GET PAID! And you get a quality, virus-free, spy ware-free, LEGAL copy of your favorite song! That’s free enterprise, baby. But, as my man Axel Rose said, “every rose has its thorn(s).”

Right now, users are limited to 5 downloads per week. At that rate, snagging Pink Floyd’s The Wall will take nearly a month. Look for a more liberal weekly tab in the future.

I haven’t confirmed the bit rate on FAM’s downloads, but a song-to-song, headphone comparison between Rhapsody’s streaming audio and FAM’s downloads left me with the clear impression that you get what you pay for. Through five songs, Rhapsody consistently delivered a richer, more “real” sound, while FAM was slightly – and I do mean slightly – hyped on the high end. Not enough to quibble about, especially considering the cost. Rhapsody is about twelve bucks per month. Free All Music is…uh, free.

And with Free comes the Tale of Two Henrys. The issue is catalog, and I shall know thy catalog by searching it. My search for Henry Flynt rendered a list of twenty (standard for FAM) discombobulated hopefuls. Henry Flynt, being as obscure as an iceberg off the coast of Cuba, didn’t show at all. In fact, nineteen of the Henrys on the page meant nothing to me. But there was one Henry that rang a bell: Henry’s Dream, the 1992 album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. That’s a damn good record. I’ve mashed up its front cuts with a few from our original subject, Henry Flynt. Flynt’s Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Vols. 1 & 2 are simply not to be missed.

Sorry I didn’t really make a case for either Henry. Each is well deserved.

Here’s hoping the mashup plays well, late at night, on a Christmas Eve, 2009.

Merry Christmas.

The Musical Concern

2009-12-08T23:30:00.007-05:00

Arms
Kids Aflame (Bonus Version)
(October 27, 2009 – Gigantic Music)

Welcome to the “Shitty Little Disco” and Morrissey karaoke! That might come off as a putdown. But wait, there’s more! How about fleeting vocal imitations of Grant-Lee Phillips and Gordon Downie? Let’s throw in some lyrically adroit John Vanderslice. What’s an unabashed crooner to do?

Todd Goldstein, a.k.a. Arms, has been patiently cultivating his musical life outside Harlem Shakes, the band in which he plays guitar, since 2004. The result is a debut LP that keeps growing longer legs. Originally released in the UK in 2008, Kids Aflame has recently been re-released in the US with three bonus tracks.

Skip the bonus tracks. If they were indicative of the original release, then this would be a one-spin record -- the kind of stuff you nod at, shelve, and eventually forget. It’s the other thirteen that make Kids one of the best of 2009.

Ukulele and finger snapping on the title track highlight Goldstein’s commitment to dynamics; whether between songs or within them, there’s never a lull. Moving from quirky, acoustic musings on biology (“Eyeball”) to the Glassvegas-meets-Walkmen, guitar blizzardry of “Jon The Escalator,” Kids plays through seamlessly. And yes, that includes chorus-perfect mimicry of the Tragically Hip on “Pocket.”

The brilliant little trick is that when you listen you’ll come up with your own list of sounds-likes, and it won’t matter in the least. Arms has scraped together a unique collection that won’t crumble under the weight of the repeat button.

Good for us.

The Shitty Little Disco is open all winter.

The Gulf Coast Dispatch

2009-12-08T15:51:00.006-05:00

MySpace Shafts Imeem Users

Just like that, Imeem was gone. I hit refresh a few times and waited for the playlists to pop up (here on The Wednesday Review). Nothing doing. Then it struck me, MySpace was buying Imeem. But that couldn’t be it, could it? I just uploaded a featured list, checked it, cleaned up some stray tunes… They wouldn’t just…

They would, and they did.

News Corp., parent company of MySpace, literally shut down Imeem while I was working on a review! My suspicions were confirmed only after I “Googled it.”

I landed on this post from All Things Digital, and blew my stack.

News Corp. had time to better handle this. If not in the days leading up to the acquisition, then certainly for some reasonable period thereafter. An explanatory email with a time window for transition should have been sent to Imeem account holders. Baring that, the site should have been supported until MySpace had some inkling of what to do with it.

Right now, my Imeem bookmark lands on a page that reads like a ransom note: “We have your playlists. No harm will come to them if you join our old, bloated, irrelevant cult. Resistance is futile. Wait for further instructions.”

Well guess what, News Corp. You oughta kiss folks before you fuck 'em. It's just good business.

My lists are gone, and I’m moving on. I have an old MySpace account, and I’m deleting it today. I encourage anyone who possibly can to jump ship. Drop MySpace, especially if you haven’t built your life or your band around it.

Digging Up Bones

2009-12-02T10:08:00.017-05:00

Spoon

A Series Of Sneaks

(May 1998 - Elektra Records)

Since it’s now legally required by the FCC that every network television series include a Spoon song, I thought it might be fun to look back at the record that got them shit-canned from Elektra in 1998.

A Series of Sneaks is a breathless run of slobberknocker, guitar pop, opening with “Utilitarian” (think the bones of Muddy Waters fronting the Clash) and coming up for air six songs later in the stripped down, do-it-yourselfer, “Metal Detektor.” While the first half of the album is plenty peppy, it’s the diversity – especially production-wise – of the second half that makes Sneaks more than just a major label debut.

In “June’s Foreign Spell” the guitar is held back in the mix, presumably to be let loose later. But the expected never really happens. The drums and vocals command to the end. A nice touch. “Staring At The Board” sounds like a boombox demo and clocks in at a crisp 54 seconds. Excellent.

The only real hint of Spoon’s funky punk future (Kill The Moonlight, Gimme Fiction, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga) comes twelve songs in with “No You’re Not.” And the album finishes strong with the medium tempo benediction “Advance Cassette.”

The whole thing – all 14 cuts – clocks in at a punkish 33 minutes, making it perfect for driving around looking at stuff, sitting, or scraping something off of a surface.

Sneaks sold poorly, and Elektra wasted no time is dumping the band. Now, a decade later, with marquee acts dumping their labels and cd sales on life support, Spoon, after charting top ten with 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, is looking more and more like “the one that got away.”

Their new album Transference comes out in January.

2009-11-25T18:03:00.005-05:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Music To Roast Turkey By

The surprising thing about putting together this Thanksgiving list is how often the turkey is the subject of song for so many Obscure Delta Blues Men. My favorite has to be “Turkey Leg Mama” by Doctor Ross. Or maybe it's "Turkey and the Rabbit" by T-Model Ford.

“Turkey Donuts,” as the title implies, is a weird little piece of nonsense that’s so silly you may wake up humming it tomorrow.

George Foreman, yes that George Foreman, gives thanks to Jesus in “Thank You Jesus Part 2.” And, yes, there is a part one… and a part three. It’s four minutes of your life that you’ll never get back, but the payoff (in the last few seconds) is worth it.

Anyway, we’ve got plenty of weirdness here, coupled with some guilty pleasures just to keep aunt Edna away from the jukebox. So pour yourself another wine, gather ‘round the kitchen table, and whistle while you roast (the turkey).

Happy Thanksgiving from the Gulf.

2009-11-18T21:59:00.005-05:00

The Musical Concern
The National
Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers
(October 6, 2009 – Brassland)

There’s an old line about Great Writers having the courage to pen the thoughts that mere mortals dare not speak. We see those thoughts on paper and flinch for a millisecond, and then we cheer them on. “Yeah, that’s it! Way to lay it out there!”

Take away the buffer of the page, though, and rather quickly things get considerably more uncomfortable. Imagine Cormac McCarthy at a dinner party…reciting passages from Blood Meridian. An esteemed author upon arrival, reviled misanthrope by party’s end.

In Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, The National’s fifth album, singer/lyricist Matt Beringer continues to mouth words more comfortably left on paper, and this time with less satire and general humor than on the band’s 2005 breakthrough record, Alligator.

The Dessner brothers and the Devendorf brothers (four fifths of the band) provide a diverse musical tapestry ranging from drum machine and acoustic guitar to wall-of-sound, noise rock. Whether meandering fiddle or electric piano, the backdrop is spot-on and expertly fitted to Beringer’s ever improving baritone vocal.

Overall, Sad Songs is a step beyond its predecessor, The Boxer, but a step behind the phenomenal Alligator, on which we have well-drawn character pieces, self-deprecating jabs, and evocative, historical snapshots full of romance and color. While it’s well worth a listen, it’s also hard, from a lyrical perspective. With so little of the whimsical to guide you, it’s not unreasonable to mistake your ironic troubadour for a stalker as he sings “You own me, there’s nothing you can do/Lucky you.”

Beringer cites Leonard Cohen among his influences, and he does the Grand Old Crooner proud. But remember, Cohen has been known to write a novel when he’s not busy with songs. In Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, he plumbs the depths of addiction, depravity, and love. It’s a fantastic read, but I wouldn’t want to hear him sing it.

Or would I?

2009-11-18T21:41:00.003-05:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Should We Talk About The Government?

Should we talk about the weather?

Goodbye endless summer! Hello early winter. Yep, fall never showed here on the coast, as morning temps dropped from the mid 70s to the low 40s, seemingly overnight. On the upside, we had no hurricanes this season. Even tropical storm Ida played nice as it passed directly over the Terri!

Wow! That was some boring shit. I sound like that chick from The Onion who goes on and on about her “hubby.” But, seriously, it was 7 degrees colder on the Gulf Coast than in N.Y.C. this morning. Must be somethin’ afoot in the world. Oh, I know…

My NY pals, Faith and Tony (a.k.a., Todd), got involved with some weird NPR Scam over the weekend. The creative result is an original tune name’o "Japan," a most welcome return to the recording world after Faith’s tussle with a taxi a few months back. After Round One, it was a draw. But I’m betting on that “l’il ole pea picker from Pennsylvania” to lick ‘em real good from here on out!

I’ve listened to "Japan" -- Faith’s signature bong-n-jangle guitar is back, plus some autobiographical taxi-wrestling lyrics… You can hear it at Myspace, or (pirated) above in this week’s Soundtrack to Wednesday playlist.

"Japan" on Myspace

NPR Scam

(Note: “Scam” is a term of endearment. I have no idea wtf this NPR thing is.)

Adios,

2009-11-11T10:26:00.006-05:00

The Musical Concern
Grant-Lee Phillips
Little Moon
(October 6, 2009 – Yep Roc Records)

My online jukebox categorizes Grant-Lee Phillips as “Adult Contemporary.” And that’s uncool. See, back in the day – around the time the AC label was invented and offered up as a radio format – it represented the bland, tepid, throwaway music that your parents, who were indeed adults, might listen to if they thought they were hip.

As a new dj at the time, I was cue-burning vinyl copies of Olivia Newton-John and Billy Ocean while naively fighting for Tom Waits and Roxy Music adds. Naturally, I never won those fights. But I did begin to develop a healthy disdain for labeling things, especially music things.

No wonder I cringe at the sight of Grant-Lee Phillips standing beneath such a macabre banner. Better to call him “Americana.” And if that doesn’t fit, how about the old fallback/catchall, “Singer/Songwriter?”

Singer/songwriter Grant Lee Phillips has redefined adult contemporary music and made it okay for me to listen to. On his latest, Little Moon, Phillips is decidedly upbeat and digging the family scene. I mean, you gotta be in a good mood to open your album with “Good Morning Happiness,” while the unemployment rate plays footsy with 10%.

Anyway, Phillips’ “wife (and) little girl” are undoubtedly the muses at play in this set covering life’s wonders (“Violet”), hopes (“One Morning”), and the occasional nuclear threat (“It Ain’t The Same Old Cold War Harry”).

While the chord progressions are standard, there are plenty of well-placed strings, tubas and trombones, and a little ripsaw guitar here and there. Slightly muffled, yet curiously flabby, drums are a pleasant surprise. Otherwise, the record is long on lullabies, punctuated with John Phillip Souza stomp (I know!), and melodies that hang around for days.

Ultimately, Phillips’ vocals distinguish him. Stretching the crap out of a vowel, or running-on a lyric to fit a rhythm means there’s seldom a dull moment, even when the lines turn average. And when the lines stand out you get stuff like this:

I don’t feel sad when Cash wears black

I hear the train…coming

A good thing’s down the railroad track

You gotta believe in something

If that’s “Adult Contemporary,” then that’s cool.

2009-11-04T07:23:00.013-05:00

The Musical Concern
Daniel Johnston
Is And Always Was
(October 6, 2009 – Eternal Yip Eye Music)

Every mind is an island - a landlocked island surrounded by walls: knee walls, great walls, or middling, porous walls that filter the stuff of daily life. It’s the last one that most people are born with (or build up). This one renders “balance,” “normalcy,” “functionality.” In short: sanity.

An abundance of trouble awaits either side the wall too thick, too low, or too high. The island will dry out, flood, or whither in darkness, and might, over time, become boring, manic, or menacing. Eventually, the tolerance of neighboring islands is exhausted and upheaval ensues. At length, this is insanity.

In the hour or two before sitting down to write, I listened to an interview with a “teacher” who espoused all sorts of nonsense regarding the “human condition.” The talk was broadcast on a reputable national radio network, yet I hazard a guess that not a handful of fellow listeners recoiled from the following packaged insanity:

“(Y)ou are…pre-biological. To find yourself you remove yourself from the identity as a body by stopping thinking. In the sweetness of silence, silence is realized to be always here, always available. Silence is here in noise, it is here in thoughts, it is here in confusion, it is here in anger, in sorrow, in life and in death. Always present. Then realize that silence is your own self… You are always present as silence.” --Eli Jaxon-Bear

There’s much to be gained from a smooth speaking voice and a calm demeanor, not to mention the careful indexing of mad thoughts and faux logic. But imagine, if you will, the preceding passage spoken in fits and starts by an agitated or angry speaker who pauses too often and too long to gather his sentences.

The former we call “teacher,” but the latter, “lunatic?” It’s crazy what we call crazy.

Too soon, Rimbaud and Van Gough crumbled under the weight of their own lunacy. Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson carried their load to the bitter end. The great masses of manic-depressive genius, however, are trampled under the foot of Time. The odds are against them, Time being what it is. (Given enough Time, any monkey…)

So, it is with something akin to reverence that I come to Daniel Johnston’s latest LP, Is And Always Was.

Time and the odds were not on his side. Not when, in the 1980s, he ran around Austin, Texas passing out homemade cassettes of his homemade recordings. Not during his numerous hospitalizations for “nervous breakdowns.” Not when the crowd grew quiet as he melted down and quit on stage. And not as computer algorithms identified Daniel Johnston as a mere musical novelty, lumping him in with The Shaggs and Wesley Willis.

Johnston, now 48, has lived a mental Hell and suffered the accompanying indignities and hazards, yet here he is with something wonderful, something vital, and for him (and his fans) something new.

Producer/musician Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, Beck, Paul McCartney) has managed to craft an even-keeled, eleven-song album fit for an audience who would have dismissed, if not panned, Johnston’s previous releases. All tracks get the full studio treatment, and there’s scarcely a harrowing moment during their combined 35 minutes. Yet Johnston, in his unguarded glory and casual, raw emotion, is completely present and commanding throughout -- it’s still his show.

Some fans may find themselves wishing for more lo-fi, or less zap ‘n’ blip from the special effects machines. Others may have to relearn how to tap their toes to a consistent beat. But that’s a small price to pay if it buys a broader audience and a bigger stage, if it allows Johnston to stretch Time and beat the odds.

Whether you’re a hardcore fan or a newcomer, I simply wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t love “Queenie the Doggie.”

Queenie the Doggie, who “always had the most fun, most all of the time,” is an instant Johnston classic. More celebration than lament, Queenie scampers through Johnston’s sun soaked memory backed by a half-country, half-calypso soundtrack. A children’s song, if not for the breezy delivery of the lyric that opens and closes the song: “Queenie the Doggie was a friend of mine/If only the money could save her now.” And also this: “Love is an illusion and it plays with your brain/It’s plain and it’s simple, it’s hard to explain.”

In “I Had Lost My Mind” Johnston flips the figurative upside down, and goes in search of his mind, not unlike one would search for a pet. His encounter with the lady at the Lost and Found is straight, sand-up comedy, as his “cute little bugger” is returned. “I said ‘Thank you, ma’am, I’m always losing that dang thing.’”

The quasi-anthemic rocker, “Fake Records of Records of Rock and Roll” disses the music world and lays down the mid-tempo boogie! Johnston isn’t happy with the bands or the fans these days. “Well, it sounds just like shit to me -- Fake records of rock and roll/The ruin of history -- Fake records of rock and roll/Can’t even get down and boogie --Fake records of rock and roll -- Look out!”

And finally, from the spacey, acoustic-driven opener, “Mind Movies,” a few lines for comparison with the above quoted passage from Eli Jaxon-Bear:

“You make a lot of movies in your mind and you sure are impossibly unkind. I am nowhere to be seen. I’m out to lunch. And I don’t want things to turn out wrong. I’m just a psycho trying to write a song. And talk is cheap. I’m just a creep for your love. You never were a zero ‘til you died. You make a lot of movies in your mind and you sure are impossibly unkind. And I love you so. And I can’t let go.”

Which passage says more about the “human condition?” Which teaches or informs? Which one smells of dishonesty? Honestly, side by side, which passage appears the product of madness?

Daniel Johnston

2009-11-04T07:17:00.003-05:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch

Aaand, We’re Back.

After several weeks away from the music typer, TWS returns with a look the new Daniel Johnston record, Is And Always Was.

While away, I DJ’d a doo-wop sock-hop on the coast and a rock-n-roll wedding in Atlanta.

Great fun all the way around, especially in the ATL, where hospitality serves at the pleasure of the smart and funny.

Thank you all, so much.

2009-09-02T07:49:00.005-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Special to The Review

Brian Jones:
Still Dead, After All These Years

A big heart is a desirable human trait, provided it’s not coupled with an enlarged liver.

Brian Jones had been on one hell of a rock-n-roll tear from 1962, when he placed his ad for potential band mates in a music paper, until 1969, when Sussex, England officials pulled his body from the bottom of a swimming pool.

During that interval, via his success with the Rolling Stones, Jones managed to corral enough money to buy the estate of Winnie-the-Pooh author, A. A. Minle, piss off the whole of his band, and grow both his ticker and his liver to proportions large enough to have a coroner comment on them in his official death record.

Over this past weekend, a plethora of news sources reported that authorities were reevaluating the circumstances surrounding the death of Jones, based on “new documents” from investigative journalist, Scott Jones.

The conspiratorial dust-up goes like this:

After three years of Jones’ erratic behavior, plus diminishing contributions to recording sessions, and two drug busts for pot, coke, and smack (resulting in his inability to gain a work visa for an upcoming U.S. tour,) a contingent of Stones came ‘round to give him his walking papers. In a P.R. move worthy of any good corporate giant, the boys gave him the face-saving option of resigning, which he took, citing differences on the past few “discs.”

The Stones, at the behest of John Mayall, snatched up guitarist Mick Taylor as Jones’ replacement. They quickly booked a concert for July 5, 1969 to showcase the new addition. (Instead of canceling the show on the news of their founding member’s demise, the band went on with it, disingenuously, as a quasi-impromptu, memorial tribute.)

In the interim, Jones threw a party at Pooh Palace on July 2. Among the invited, was Frank Thorogood, a carpenter who had been dragging his feet on palace renovations. Jones intended to confront Thorogood regarding his malingering. Late that night, as the party quieted, Jones and Thorogood came to no good in the pool. The resulting tussle ended with Jones at the bottom of the pool, emergency technicians pulling him out, and a coroner reporting on enlarged organs and “death by misadventure.”

That’s the Brian Jones row on a slow news week.

A more realistic view is that Jones was plateauing at exactly the wrong time. According to a friend, he was in a “happy” mood. He was getting off the junk – that same coroner’s report showed less than three pints of beer in his belly, and NO drugs, not even marijuana. Rumor has it, that he was talking to Jimi Hendrix (among others) about throwing together a new band.

While anything is possible, including a violent throw-down with a handyman in the swimming pool that Pooh built, the likelihood of a scandalous murder is duboius. It’s far more likely that an enlarged liver enraged a worn out heart and together the two shut down the whole shootin’ match. Just another sad story of rock-n-roll excess.

Closer to facts, consider these: Brian Jones was the founding member of the Rolling Stones. He was plastered a lot. He became the odd man out because he couldn’t move (with the Stones) beyond the blues of Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters. A mile-wide antisocial streak was the base fuel for the fire that burned him out in every way: publicly, personally, and creatively. He died when his heart stopped.

Scott Jones, the longsuffering reporter, is still with us, and he’s the one with 600 pages of interviews and god-knows-what-all. He’s the one who recently handed the dossier over to the Sussex officials. He’s the one who waited until all of his major players and witnesses died. Maybe it’s time Jones let Jones rest.

For the benefit of those who like to rock, I offer this week’s Playlist, a compilation of Rolling Stones deep cuts, from 1966 to 1968. Three years that, in retrospect, became an ever tightening noose around the neck of Brian Jones. Once the guitarist, now (ironically) the receding multi-instrumentalist. But play his part he did, right through the sessions that were released in 1969 as Let It Bleed (“You Got The Silver” was his final recording with the band).

Apart from his recordings with the Stones (and his apparent lack of compositional prowess) two significant works are accredited to Jones: Mord und Totschlag (A Degree of Murder,) the soundtrack to an avante gard German film, and Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, a production piece showcasing the primative, Sufi-trance music of Morroco. Three cuts from the latter are presented here.

JH

2009-08-25T22:22:00.008-04:00

The Musical Concern
The Postmarks
Memoirs At The End Of The World
(August 25, 2009 – Unfiltered Records)

This is a curious concoction: One part soundtrack to Bond – James Bond, one part dream-pop. A girl named Tim. And a band better suited to the “South of France,” than “South Florida,” their home base. The strange cherry on top is that Tim (Yehezkely) was tapped to be the vocalist after an open-mic performance at a dance club.

If this sounds like a bad idea to you, I couldn’t agree more. However, there happens to be the nagging matter of an opening cut from Memoirs At The End Of The World (their third full-length.) “No One Said This Would Be Easy” is a gorgeous piece of film score that simultaneously manages a commanding pop presence and an indie-folk aesthetic. The bombast of movie music washes into a gauzy vocal, accompanied by acoustic guitar. This song establishes the rules for what’s to come and demands continued attention.

“My Lucky Charm” follows in a bouncy, Supremes vein. Then darkly, plush strings herald the coming of a “Thorn In Your Side,” a trippy, three-minute journey in pursuit of the happiness “at the end of the world.” (Lee Hazlewood, phone home.) In “You Don’t Know Till You Try,” Yehezkely’s mantra, “it’s gonna be fine,” finds an uneasy place atop dissonant (synth) horns that hint at an altogether, different outcome.

Jonathan Wilkins (drums) and Christopher Moll (guitar) are the other two thirds of this songwriting trio. (Brian Hill (bass) & Jeff Wagner (keys) are credited with “additional instrumentation” on the band’s website.) They are self-professed cinemaphiles with an uncommon talent for atom-smashing elements that don’t fit. Case in point: “All You Ever Wanted” begins in scratchy ambiance, morphs into breezy groove, then incorporates a brief four-bar suspension, before breaking full into a sing-and-sway chorus. Acoustic guitar serves as a syncopated metronome, a sitar doubles the vocal.

The only thing not to like about this record is that it’s too long. And not by much. “Jetsetters” (the single!), “The Girl From Aglenib,” and the closer “Gone,” drag down the energy, and make for a murky finish. Even so, Memoirs At The End Of The World has to be my pick for After-Party Album of the Year.

Unfiltered Records

2009-08-21T22:46:00.003-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Special to The Review
Jim Dickinson: Americana Master

I did not hear the unfortunate news of Jim Dickinson's passing until Tuesday when I sat in on a recording of the Back Row Baptists. Connor Christian and Jim Barber are co-producing the new album, and they placed a vinyl copy of Dickinson's first release Dixie Fried on the console to respectfully persuade his specter to somehow intersperse with the recordings.

How fitting it was that the Back Row Baptists were laying down a most particular interpretation of Rolling Stones' "Sway" that day. Looking back on it, I wondered if Jim's dancing ghostly fingers helped to ballet on the piano or tweak the console
.
Most folks remember Dickinson for his brilliance in the studio as engineer, producer and sideman. From his work on the timeless Big Star recordings, to the Albert Collins and Ry Cooder albums, Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin, Sam & Dave, Arlo Guthrie, John Hiatt, Betty Lavette, to his own sons Cody & Luther of the North Mississippi Allstars, Jim put his magic pixie dust on many classic recordings.

You know the keys on the Stones' "Wild Horses"? That's Jim.

It wasn't just Dickinson's studio wizardry that caused my admiration for him. I found it very easy to fall in love with "James Luther Dickinson". One of my first experiences with him as an artist was his album Free Beer Tomorrow. From his oscillating drawl on "Well of Love", or his charming look at adversity in "Bound to Lose", he had this magnetic way of explaining the world - he draws you in to his songs with a booming, almost subterranean burr. He sang the way he talked, and talked the way he sang. He was natural.

Fellow music devotee Judson Henry and I saw what may have been Dickinson's last solo show in Memphis at this year's Folk Alliance. They carted in a piano just for him. It was just slightly out-of-tune. Perfect. That's the way Jim liked it. He carried on for over half an hour telling stories, singing songs, playing the piano and painting pictures with his Memphis narratives. Jud and I drank it in - as if it were the last of the best of the good stuff that had been bottled and saved for a special occasion. Little did we know that this would be the last of the best of the good stuff.

Bob Mehr of Commercial Appeal says, "A gifted raconteur, musical philosopher and cultural historian, Dickinson was a veritable treasure trove of pop arcana and profound theory, capable of finding the cosmic and literal connections between deejay Dewey Phillips and former Mayor Willie Herenton, wrestler Sputnik Monroe and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." As a fan of Jim's once marveled, he's the quintessential "maverick badass". And so he was.

Jim was real, and still is. His stories, his music, his memory are all available on hundreds of recordings for us to savor. The epitaph he chose for himself sums it up: "I'm just dead, I'm not gone."

Click a glass to Jim, and go out this weekend and get a copy of his album, Free Beer Tomorrow. You'll be glad you did.

Yer pal,
PETE KNAPP

Ed: Pete Knapp is the Roots Music Association’s Promoter of the Year (2008), and Founder and President of Shut Eye Records & Agency in Atlanta. He’s also a tireless champion of excellent music, everywhere.

More information at http://www.shuteyerecords.com/

2009-08-19T01:24:00.002-04:00

The Musical Concern
Robert Pollard
Elephant Jokes
(August 11, 2009 – GBV Inc.)

Imagine you’re a rice farmer in rural India – a young, second-generation farmer with a family to feed and scary story to tell. Your father told it to you just as his father told it to him. Once every 48 years the gates of Hell swing wide, unleashing an uncontrollable horde of ravenous rats. They appear suddenly, and in the space of a few hours ravage your crop, leaving your paddy stripped clean, your prospects bleak.

As much as it might appear to be a plague straight from the Bible, truth is, it’s all about bamboo. Once every 48 years the bamboo plant makes a grand play at reproduction. The stalks fruit, the fruit drops, and the seeds therein scatter; thus the circle of bamboo life continues. This fruit is abundant; it’s been 47 years since the last drop! And since bamboo reproduction only gets two shots per century, "abundant" may be construed as an understatement.

The rice farmer’s wife gathers a basketful, cuts it into chunks, and boils it in a soup – a soup that is also a powerful aphrodisiac. There’s still plenty to be had, so the rats get in on the fodder. They literally gorge and screw like there’s no tomorrow. With extra-sexy food at the ready, the rodent population sores to a bazillion overnight, and guess what? All the bamboo fruit is soon devoured; leaving a swarming, hungry, flood of vermin to do what they must: eat the rice.

So goes the handiwork of Nature: repulsive, magical, and awesome.

It’s a proven, scientific fact that the natural forces at play in the rice fields of India are the exact same as those swimming in the chemical soup of Robert “Bob” Pollard’s brain. Even so, many would prefer a blind eye in the face of science. Many would love a single-word study.

Prolific.

Now we’re talkin’!

Bamboo, the Pied Piper of Famine (A year ago today)

JH

2009-08-19T00:24:00.002-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Disproportionate Things

Michael Jackson’s passing came damn close to crashing the World Wide Web or the Internet. I’m never clear on what is who when you get down to it. What I am clear on is that things are quite unbalanced.

In the last week Les Paul and Jim Dickinson died. And the Internet didn’t even shrug.

It’s not that you shouldn’t love Wacko-Jacko, to each his own, and there’s no accounting for taste, as the sayings go, but, Jesus Christ, shouldn’t there be a little less cult of celebrity and a little more music appreciation, especially since we can learn so much and venture so far online?

I think of MJ and Quincy Jones in the studio for the Thriller recordings. Theses guys chained a dozen 48-track machines together in search of the ultimate album! The sound was literally so dense that it wouldn’t fit on the vinyl: the pressing plant returned the masters for a redo.

That kind of wild story doesn’t happen without Les Paul, 40 years earlier, in his garage with a screwdriver and a reel of tape…

Jim Dickinson was an American icon, as well. I had the great pleasure of seeing him perform in a Memphis hotel room earlier this year. My friend Pete from Shut Eye Records was in the audience that evening. Pete has a thought or two on Jim that we’ll publish here on Friday, so be sure to check back for his piece and the accompanying playlist. It’s sure to be informative, entertaining, and most important, pertinent.

2009-08-15T22:17:00.007-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Special to The Review
Woodstock Turns 40: Dirty, Stinking Hippies

In a genteel game of word association I’ll say “Woodstock” and you’ll say “Hippies.” I’ll let your response hang in the air for a long, awkward moment, then you’ll add “dirty, stinking hippies,” and follow up rapidly with “Hendrix,” “Star Spangled Banner,” “lighter fluid,” “flaming guitar,” and so on. On another day you might say “Santana” or “Richie Havens” or “Sly & The Family Stone.”

Chances are, we could add a player or two and continue this exciting game forever without anyone ever shouting “Tim Hardin,” or “Sweetwater.” If someone suddenly barked out “Keef Hartley,” then we’d know that time itself had come to an end.

As the "festival-to-end-all-rock-festivals" reverberates into its fourth decade, I wondered if there was anything left on that old rock-n-roll bone. Turns out, yeah. But you’ve gotta forget about the acts that parlayed a drug-addled weekend into superstardom, and look to the ones that time forgot.

Tim Hardin, the ex-marine and Vietnam vet who had a taste for heroin and lazy folk guitar. Sweetwater, a Los Angeles group with about eighty members, who regularly opened for The Doors, traveled in a beautiful, beautiful balloon, and occasionally drifted into preachy social commentary. Keef Hartley, the British drummer who once replaced Ringo Starr in a pre-Beatles outfit. (I include Hartley’s band here simply for their mind boggling ability to roll James Gang guitar, Spencer Davis Group organ, Blood Sweat & Tears horns, and Mountain vocals into a single, 6-minute jam.)

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is here, too. They suffered the indignity of having to open for Sha-Na-Na -- yep, that Sha-Na-Na. And that’s reason enough to give ‘em three of the eight slots on an obscure music blog. That, plus their “Love March” could have just as well been a Sly Stone number.

(Playlist to the left.)

JH

2009-08-14T09:50:00.003-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Special to The Review
Les Paul Dead at 94

My earliest memories of Les Paul are all bad. Back in my rock band days, it seemed that every guitarist had a Les Paul this or a Les Paul that, and never, ever would the damn things stay in tune! This made for embarrassing moments on stage and wasted time and money in the studio. Of course, Les Paul, the man, had nothing to do with any of this. He simply invented that chunk of lumber and magnets that would eventually turn so many kids into guitar gods…as soon as they learned how to tune the ^@#%& thing!

While everybody knows about Paul’s guitar, his inventing the eight-track recording machine is less (no pun intended) widely known, but perhaps just as important.

Here are some more fun facts:

-A teacher once informed Les’s mother that the young genius would never learn music.

-Les Paul was also known by several different stage names including The Wizard of Waukesha & Rhubarb Red.

-After a car accident crushed his left arm, his elbow would become immobile. Les had the elbow set to heal at an angle that would allow him to continue to play guitar.

Les Paul, an American great, died from complications of pneumonia yesterday in White Plains, N.Y.

Long live Les Paul!

New York Times Obit

Chasing Sound

2009-08-12T10:18:00.003-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
Streetcore
(October 21, 2002 – HellCat/Epitaph)

Had Joe Strummer lived to see this release, the outcome would have been different. Since every musician is either a self-flagellating tyrant or a delusional buffoon – and often a combination of the two in any given moment – there’s nothing gained in speculating about how it would have been different. Strummer died unexpectedly of heart failure in December of 2002, and the record wasn’t finished. A gaggle of folks, including a couple of the Mescaleros and a Rick Rubin, saw the production through to its release ten months later.

Strummer purists might have a fit, but I'll have my cake and eat it too. I like to think that Strummer was well on the way to his finest collection since he broke up The Clash with his Mick Jones Communique. Also, I think that he would have fallen short without relinquishing the production reins. (See his catalogue up to Streetcore.) Sometimes you can’t see the barn for the horses. (See paragraph one, line two.)

Did I say there was nothing gained through speculation?

Streetcore opens with an average, pop-punk number, “Coma Girl”. Nothing to get riled up about, but it grows on you in a mindless-fun way. Then the Mescaleros "let that ragga" drop with “Get Down Moses,” a fine drum-and-bass groove with evocative lyrics and plenty of Stratocaster and Hammond in just the right spots. Enter unadorned acoustic guitar and deep, melodic vocals in a tribute to Johnny Cash, “Long Shadow.” The scenery quickly shifts again with a pounding rocker about…well, rockin’ (or rioting) in “Arms Aloft.” “Ramshackle Day Parade,” a plaintive, sing-along, fit for Combat Rock follows. There’s a break for a cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” then Streetcore starts to rumble again…

I’ll snuff the urge to pummel you with notes on notes. Just these: Strummer’s vocals are nowhere stronger, the scope is broad, the lyrics are intelligent, and the production is stellar… and I don’t give a damn who produced it. Streetcore is Clash quality.

2009-07-29T11:07:00.003-04:00

The Musical Concern
Megafaun
Gather, Form & Fly
(July 21, 2009 – Hometapes)

Roots music and noisy experiments hookup in the mashup of the year!

It looks good on paper, but the result is 51 minutes of uninspired meandering.

The opening tracks are steeped in CS&N vocal dalliance, with track three, “The Fade,” proving the strongest byway of early, Wilco style, country-rock. “Impressions Of The Past” follows with a peppy piano intro that morphs into a counter-rhythm hook. The song disintegrates into noise, then crashes…only to be revived… and polished off with an earthy, glee club that laments the past through “shifting colors” and so on. Later, the glee club guides us, with field hand reverie, through more noise, and overwrought, stop-and-go business. See “Darkest Hour” and “Columns.”

On the upside, Gather, Form & Fly is whimsical.

Likely, Megafaun had a real blast making this record. (My guess is that the bong was always packed and within arm’s reach of -- if not sitting directly on -- the mixing console.) They’re sure to be a hit at music festivals, especially among the Iron & Wine crowd.

Megafaun

Hometapes

2009-07-29T10:59:00.006-04:00

Digging Up Bones

Maximo Park
Our Earthly Pleasures

(2007 – Warp Records)

Establish, embellish, stir it up, let it sit, blow it up, then quit it. In a nutshell, that’s a surefire formula for effective rock-n-roll. Add the unexpected cadence. Add the unbalanced repetition (3 or 5 “ooh, ahh baby”s, instead of 4) and the effective starts to become attractive. Now, throw in a turn of phrase, especially at the dramatic beginning of the record. You know, something like, “You’ve been/With me/A year/To the day/Three hundred/And sixty/Five days/Watching me decay.” Now you are turning the attractive into the irresistible.

More words: “The pounding rain continued its bleak fall/We decided just to write, after all.” “Ignorance isn’t bliss/Familiarity still leads to contempt.” “Are you hopeful/Or just gullible?” Smart lyrics bind the guitars and keys to the drums and bass and full-fledged production, while propelling oblique friends and lovers through a gray city.

This, the second outing for Maximo Park, is a straightforward, modern rock record that seldom stumbles and often exceeds the limitations of its form.

It’ll work both ways: bookish and ballsy.

Maximo Park
JH

2009-07-22T00:45:00.002-04:00

The Musical Concern
Nick Lowe
The Brentford Trilogy
(July 21, 2001 – Yep Roc Records)

What the world needs now is Lowe, Nick Lowe! Hot on the heels of 2007’s At My Age, we’re ready for what comes next. Only, this is a box set comprised of the three studio albums leading up to the aforementioned. Okay, the world will just have to make do with bonus tracks, unpolished gems, and the glorious abortions typically found on such audio documents. Only, there aren’t any. The Brentford Trilogy is a straight-up repackaging of The Impossible Bird (1994), Dig My Mood (1998), and The Convincer (2001), plus a 12-page booklet and a handsome box to keep everything in.

With The Impossible Bird, Lowe stepped away from the novel, pub rock adventures he shared with Dave Edmunds and Rockpile, and began a lengthy exploration of Sam Cooke soul, Tennessee twang, and Countrypolitan homage. Along the road (more so on Dig My Mood) he flirted with the orchestrated Americana of Hoagy Carmichael and the vocal styling of Roy Orbison – the crooning, (nonexistent) baritone version of Roy Orbison. Seven years of poking and prodding came together, magnificently, in The Convincer, and Lowe emerged as the country gentleman of singer-songwriters.

Lowe’s appreciation for genre and performance is in itself admirable. But his mastery of vocal timing will make you slap your momma. His prowess as a producer is evident throughout the set, and smartly displayed on “Homewrecker,” the opening track from The Convincer. Other must-hear pieces include the opening three tracks from ‘Bird: “Soulful Wind,” “The Beast In Me” (up for nomination as Lowe’s magnum opus and covered by Johnny Cash in the Rick Rubin years,) and a better-than-the-original cover of “True Love Travels On A Gravel Road.” The smoky lounge piano of “You Inspire Me” followed by a lazy rocking soul number, “What Lack Of Love Has Done,” make for a good stopover on Dig My Mood.

Aspiring songwriters and producers would do themselves, not to mention their public, a great service by making a study of what makes Nick tick. Above all, have some reverence. After that, love the stuff and forget your MyFace page…if only for a decade or so.

Nick Lowe (On Songwriting)

JH

2009-07-22T00:30:00.002-04:00

Digging Up Bones
The Multiple Cat
The Secret of the Secret of the Multiple Cat
(May 16, 2006 – Futureappletree)

“Hey, Review Guy! Why ya favoring a 16-song record, when you’ve pouted and whined about lengthy albums in the past?”

Well hold on a second, smartass; this one’s an anthology, so it’s okay.

Comprised mostly of ‘90s releases, The Secret Of The Secret Of The Multiple Cat explores the musical mind of one Patrick B. Stolley, a self-described “recordist” from Iowa. After The Multiple Cat, Stolley reappeared with The Marlboro Chorus. He’s now running his own studio, Future Appletree Too, in Davenport.

Lusciously out of focus, this collection is perfect for the indie pop historian with attention deficit disorder. Pop progressions from the 70s play tag with new wave rhythms and disco bass lines. There’s pure pop here, punk there. Jazzy chord inversions brush against an occasional acoustic strum, while real horns fight it out with a plethora of guitar textures. I can see Marsha Brady dancing with herself in the mirror as the lightly funky strains of “Nineteen Ten” waft from the beige plastic radio (perched knowingly) on her nightstand.

The temptation is to start listing “sound-a-likes.” But that list could go on for a couple of columns and not do justice. Better to leave it at this: If you gorged yourself on indie pop in the 90s, then what’s a pound to an elephant? Go ahead; enjoy another 16 pieces of indie ear candy, you’ll love yourself in the morning.

Patrick Stolley on Myspace

Future Appletree

2009-07-22T00:25:00.002-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
If You Believe…

A while back, in Amsterdam, I had an occasion to stop by an establishment of questionable repute. It wasn’t one of those places, per say, but… Put it this way: part of the show was a man and a woman making love on a portable mattress. (Mind you, this was a storefront “theatre” on a well-traveled street.)

There was a stage where the couple performed, and a seating arrangement of church pews. That’s what they were. Church pews. No other way to describe it.

Behind my pew, a contingent of Asian businessmen (in suits, no less) enjoyed Heinekens, the native beer. The principles began, and the soundtrack to the act was all manner of completely forgettable pop songs.

All forgettable, but one.

In the middle of the show R.E.M.’s “Man On The Moon” came blaring through the speakers and the businessmen lost it. They got to their feet and, with great zeal, began to sing along. “If you berieve/They put a man on the moon/Maaan on the moon!” Lost in the moment, they (and I) forgot all about the copulating couple and gave themselves over to the most awesome song ever.

Clinking glasses, dancing in the pews, and one (word-for-word) perfect sing-along.

I thought about this on Monday, the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.

Know what? Some humans are way cool.

2009-07-15T01:38:00.004-04:00

The Musical Concern
The Dead Weather
Horehound
(July 14, 2009 – Third Man/Warner Bros.)

Remember a few years back, when Jack White went moon-raking crazy because his latest White Stripes record “leaked” on the Internet? Yeah, it’s hard to recall those indignant days. The new norm is “the leak” first, followed by an “official stream,” followed by the actual release. I recently saw an “exclusive leak” from one of those American Idol shoemakers. Brilliant!

To gain/retain musical credibility these days, smart bands seek out tony digs and respectable neighbors in the leak cum stream community. The fashion is nicely on display at NPR’s First Listen page. There you’ll find a diverse crowd including everybody from Bjork to Wilco…and now The Dead Weather, a supergroup featuring the once irate Jack White. (If you can’t beat ‘em, spoil ‘em.)

Along with White (drums, vocals, guitar) are Alison Mosshart (vocals, guitar, The Kills), Dean Fertita (guitar, keys, Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence (bass, drums, The Raconteurs.) Their rousing debut, Horehound, sports yet another reworking of that Led Zeppelin hustle-n-jive that we all love so well. Verbed out vocals and soul-shredding guitars abound, while a John Bonham thunder of drums provides enough mayhem to drive your kitty under the sofa for a couple of anxious hours.

The downside is Mosshart on the lead vocal. The snotty, bad-girl attitude that she cultivated with The Kills just doesn’t work on this record; it’s eaten alive by the music. Truth is, the album doesn’t wake up until White shows up on track three, “ I Cut Like A Buffalo.” There’s legitimate upheaval during “Rocking Horse” and “New Pony,” before a set of three dance-club hopefuls substantially changes the game. The disjointed and stripped down finale, “Will There Be Enough Water?,” plays out like some wonderful leftover from Van Morrison’s T.B. Sheets – nice touch.

Ultimately, Horehound is about marketing (read fashion + namedropping) and production chops. Jack White has developed superb production chops and a keen nose for marketing. Maybe that’s why he’s less upset about leakage these days; or maybe it’s because the "Seven Nation Army" won the war…on Bit Torrent.

NPR’s First Listen

2009-07-15T01:20:00.002-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Thin Lizzy
Renegade
(September 2, 1981 – Warner Bros.)

“Widely considered their worst…”

Why would anyone begin a review, even a retro-view, with those words? Is the fix in? Is the jig up? I’m guessing, yep. Cat’s gotta hit his three paragraphs and move on to the next “widely considered” victim. (Sorry, I read a review from an “archive site” while prepping my own.)

In fairness to the above-mentioned, this record was not well liked when it came out. My guess is that people missed those trademark, harmony guitars. People were afraid of the cheeze-a-sizers (that today, having heard them so much, seem almost inaudible on this record.) In their confusion they bailed on a solid, hard rock set. David Fricke (Rolling Stone Magazine) at the time accused singer/bassist Phil Lynott of phoning it in. Apparently, Fricke was only aware of “Jail Break” era Thin Lizzy. There is absolutely NOTHING on Renegade that sounds as if Lynott or anyone else involved was disengaged. To the contrary.

The boyzz were trying to map out a new direction for a new decade, so, as one might expect, they didn’t simply continue with “Johnny The Fox Meets The Boys Are Back In Town.” If you dig The Lizz, and have thus far steered clear of this one based on scurrilous reviews “phoned in” by thoughtless media hookers, then I urge you to reconsider and pony up!

Worth The Price Of Admission:

A time traveler bares witness to all manner of human devastation, from the San Francisco earthquake, to World War II, to his father’s deathbed in (the all too obviously titled) “Angel of Death.”

Jazz pianist Fats Waller disses Sigmund Freud in the surprisingly pleasant and (you guessed it) jazzy departure, “Fats.”

Lynott plugs vapid Los Angeles with a big ol’ Johnny Cash middle finger when “Lady Chance…won’t dance” in “Hollywood (Down On Your Luck).”

Marty Robbins’ classic “El Paso” gets a nod and an update in “Mexican Blood.”

There’s more, but ain’t that enough? Enough to avoid the overly harsh and half-baked opinions that differ from mine?

Anyway, if you’re familiar with “The Lizz,” and open to a little hard rock, and interested in finding cool stuff in unexpected places, then throw this album on (in the repeat mode) while you piddle around your horrid excuse for an apartment (Kidding, I'm kidding!). And I’m betting that a little something rubs off. So don’t be embarrassed if you find yourself teasing out hidden goodies from a record “widely considered their worst.”

Fats Waller

Marty Robbins

2009-07-15T01:14:00.003-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Progress And Regress In Any Order

As Tuesday night trickles away, I know that this week’s Concern and Bones aren’t as tight as they ought be. There’s always too much left unsaid, even as the pieces run too long. But just after midnight I’ll hit the “send” key, and for some reason, feel good about the whole endeavor…

An old friend stopped by on Saturday. The two of us sat out by the hoochie-red patio table and sang songs that we had written and sung together a decade ago. He’s still pickin’ the guitar good. His voice is as strong as it was back when. His best songs are as good as I remember, even better.

Me, I had a little trouble hitting the high harmonies…emph.

Late Saturday night, once my guest had packed his guitar and gone, I added a brown paper bag, plus running water with voice to the Make-Do Sounds.

I think it’s done. Maybe mix it this weekend.

Well, that’s it. Soundtrack To Wednesday [07.15.09] is burning. It’ll be up there soon. Oddly enough, this week’s pickings, decades and detractors apart, sound from the same stalk.

Enjoy a beer and a listen.

JH

2009-07-08T02:02:00.003-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Make-Do Arts

There’s an old Native American stereotype of a loinclothed brave coaxing fire from a stick by fiercely rolling the stick between his palms, creating a mighty friction as the sharpened tip bores into a bone-dry wooden slat at his knees. The smoke rises up through the tender, the brave gently blows on it, and – presto – fire!

Now that is make-do art. Creating something (like fire) from what happens to be strewn about (like a stick). It’s not as easy as it sounds; you break out in a sweat and blisters rise on the pads of your hands. The neighbors scoff and spirit their children indoors. The police may be called, especially if the fire gets out of hand.

The process seems better suited to sound recording than to writing (poetry, notwithstanding.) While numerous examples of the former exist (see Digging Up Bones, below), only the cut-ups of W.S. Burroughs come to mind as a widely known example of the latter. So-called “found art” is another example, but the championing of any "painterly" thing may be even more susceptible to trend, celebrity, and backstory than sound and prose combined.

Over the next few months I plan to fiddle around with make-do sounds.

Here’s what happened Monday night:

Preconception: none

Instruments: mop bucket w/ pocketknife, straw broom, Bic lighter in empty pint glass, plastic colander w/ metal teaspoon, voice

Tracks so far: 6

Time: about 6 minutes

Enough sound has been recorded, so the recording itself may now dictate the direction. No electric instruments. No traditional instruments. No manipulation beyond basic mix levels and pans.

We’ll see what happens.

JH

2009-07-07T15:25:00.008-04:00

The Musical Concern
Timber Timbre
Timber Timbre
(June 30, 2009 – Arts & Crafts)

What happens when we are told nothing, or almost nothing?

What if I tell you nothing about the artist; nothing about his hair, wardrobe, hometown, recording environment, record label, influences, intentions, etc…

What if I tell you nothing because I know nothing? Does that pique your interest or turn you off? After all, reviewers are read – or not – based on the quality of the information they provide. Context is established and opinion proffered.

Too often, though, that opinion is formed and subsequently broadcast and re-broadcast with inconsequential ornamentation, with facts impertinent to the concern.

When Timber Timbre came lumbering out of my speakers this morning, my first reaction was to dive for the keyboard and paddle into the swimming hole of “research.” Yet, as the second song (“Lay Down In The Tall Grass,”) rolled into its second minute, I simply stopped.

What if I didn’t know the history or the aspirations of Timber Timbre? What if I didn’t know “the brains” behind the music, or the official list of instruments and players? What if there were no faces behind the voices, no company line to tell me why Timber Timbre is hip or innovative?

What if I ditched all that and simply listened?

Timber Timbre is predicated on muted rockabilly and 50s pop progressions. The understated handling of such well-worn musical themes makes for a collection that scarcely resembles its underpinnings. Too often, even in their heyday, these song structures were used to wallop the listener over the head and stir up (again, too often) makeshift emotions.

Timber Timbre has avoided such a boring recapitulation by holding back. We never hear Chuck Berry guitar or Phil Spector production here. In fact, the approach is so completely detached from the tradition as to cast the genre anew. And this is no simple matter of squelching the tempo.

It’s more a matter of being quiet; and, in this case, being quiet has nothing to do with being at ease. Angelo Badalamenti is in the forest, darting from tree to tree. A sideshow organ plinks and swirls through “Lay Down In The Tall Grass.” A dug up and decomposing narrator menaces his soulmate. After a “late basement séance” he croons, “I’ll be dreamin’ every night of you/I’ll be shakin’ at the sight of you.” The spirit of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is putting a gentler if not kinder spell on you.

In “Magic Arrow” a twangy guitar riff and quick driving bass propell a carefree vocal deceptively along its trajectory, until it strikes: “I was fine ‘til I saw the pale horse ride and open up its gate across the ocean floor/You were fine’ til you saw the white rider take and take some more.”

With less attention, under slightly less care, this collection of eight could have veered embarrissingly off course. (Iron Maiden instead of Edgar Allen Poe.) But an uncanny appreciation for 1950-something has somehow unearthed music that is refreshingly new.

I don’t know anything more about this recdord or the people who made it, and I have no intention of finding out (at least for a while.) Right now, it’s enough that these eight songs are among the most compelling of 2009.

Timber Timbre, one more time…while it’s light out.

Timber Timbre Edgar Allen Poe Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

JH

2009-07-07T15:10:00.005-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Steve Reich
It’s Gonna Rain (Part II)
(1965 – Nonesuch Records)

In a recent discussion about Steve Reich on NPR, it was said that the aim of this Pulitzer Prize winning minimalist is not to hypnotize, but to sensitize. (I’m paraphrasing.) The idea is for the audience to actively listen: focus on phrase repetition and the subtle changes that sneak up, consume, and recreate the soundscape. Then repeat.

In It’s Gonna Rain (Part II) Reich is literally just beginning to explore this philosophy. While repetition, change, and rebirth are in ample supply, we don’t have to wait for things to get going. Immediately, the wrath of God rains down from the mouth of a Christ-possessed, hysteric. (This voice, street noise, and tape rumble are the only instruments used in the recording.) Amid this Pentecostal outburst, Noah closes the gate on his ark, the flood begins, and the unbelievers pound at the gate until their knuckles bleed.

And that’s just the first 40 seconds.

Reich, around that 40-second mark, begins an arresting cut-and-splice sequence that turns the preacher’s words (Glory to God-God/Had been sealed/Couldn’t open the door/Lord-Lord) into a compositional anchor. Rhythm and phrase emerge, as this cut-up loops. But soon enough the tape machines—all two of them—fall out of sync and conjure up reverb, echo, and a choir from hell. Eventually, nothing recognizable remains of the street preacher. A vengeful God has cleansed the Earth, this time with fire, and all fades into oblivion.

Most fascinating, if not most insightful, is that today DJs, producers, and musicians pay large sums of money for boxes with buttons that do this very thing.

Steve Reich It’s Gonna Rain NPR Discussion

2009-07-01T11:35:00.006-04:00

The Musical Concern
Levon Helm
Electric Dirt
(June 30, 2009 – Dirt Farmer/Vanguard)

When it comes to collaborative duos in the rock era, you can’t get better than Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson. (Please, no harping on Lennon/McCartney or the Glimmer Twins) The creative collaboration between Helm and Robertson was a perfect fit: Robertson was a songwriter who couldn’t sing, and Helm was a singer who sang it like he wrote it.

As their band, The Band, broke up in 1976, Helm and Robertson parted company and bad blood bubbled up. Helm wanted more recognition for his creative contributions, while a cool and calculating Robertson quietly moved on to film scores and solo albums (two of which are quite good, despite his voice.) Increasingly, Helm’s name came up in “what-ever-happened-to” conversations, while Robertson turned rock ‘n’ roll statesman.

The prevalent factor in Helm’s musical disappearance was his battle with throat cancer. Another factor was the loss of a significant creative partner in Robertson. Odds were long that Helm could beat the cancer, even longer that he could save his voice and find a creative stand-in for Robertson. But, his health improved, his voice got stronger, and he happened upon a songwriting producer named Larry Campbell. Campbell, along with Helm’s daughter, Amy, guided Helm though the sessions that became 2007’s Grammy winning, Dirt Farmer.

Now, Campbell and Helm are back at it, leaving the acoustic confines of Dirt Farmer for a bountiful harvest of Dixieland boogie, melancholy gospel, and journeyman blues. Electric Dirt has delightful surprises around every corner: the call-and-response spiritual in middle of “When I Go Away,” the musical humor and political satire of “Kingfish,” and the Helm and Campbell original, “Growing Trade.”

Helm and company considered following Dirt Farmer with a pure blues record. While such a record would have been a lot of fun for Levon, I doubt we would have a lot of fun listening to it. They reconsidered and took a harder road. The end result is an album that stands tall – sometimes, taller – next to Dirt Farmer.

2009-07-01T11:16:00.004-04:00

Digging Up Bones

The Seeds

The Seeds
(1966 – Gnp Crescendo)

If, as the hipsters say, you’re “into” lyrics, then you won’t like what’s going on here. The pangs of love (unrequited, unfaithful, and unfulfilling) have seldom been more uninteresting. Unless, of course, you happen to be a tortured teen prowling the midway at a county fair.

If, on the other hand, you consider lyrics annoying and better offered with guttural nonchalance and pernicious whinnies, then this “platter” (as the hipsters say) just might blow your junk off.

After doing time in the pillowy trenches of doo-wop, Sky Saxon (lead vocals, bass) joined Rick Andrige (drums), Jan Savage (guitar), Jeremy Levine (guitar), and Daryl Hooper (keys) to form the band in 1965.

By 1966 The Seeds had released this full frontal flip-out. Snatches of surf guitar, heavy distortion on both guitar and keys, and manic beats that accidentally morph into brief, polyrhythmic explosions make for big fun in garageland. Bonuses include the blaring harmonica, the pushy tambourine, the bottleneck guitar, and the occasional Tarzan-on-pot backing vocal. But nothing tops Daryl Hooper’s saloon piano, which sounds as if Hooper himself dragged it out of the saloon, beat it senseless, and threw it down a hole.

Sky Saxon died last Thursday June 25th in Austin. He was 63 or 71, depending on which report you read.

JH

2009-07-01T11:09:00.002-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Dogs In The Hood

I thought about listing them all by name, then writing funny descriptions.

Corky
Petey
Trixie

But that’s as far as I got…

I’ve unpacked the recording machine and retrieved the classical acoustic guitar from storage. After the heat wave, I expected to find the guitar warped and melted: useless. It’s okay, though, aside from being out of tune.

I’m thinking of doing something along the lines of Scott Walker’s Tilt. I’ll drone on a single note for forty-five minutes, smash some stuff, and wail. Not that that’s bad…

Until next time,

JH

2009-06-24T11:46:00.002-04:00

The Musical Concern
The Dear Hunter
Act III: Life and Death
(June 23, 2009 -- Triple Crown Recordings)

Caveat #1: Unless you are Guided By Voices please do not attempt more than eleven tracks. In fact, every cut beyond ten compounds the odds of you coming off as a self-pleasuring jellyfish awash in his own doings.

Caveat #2: The Beach Boys are history. They were a pop act with sporadic artistic aspirations, but a consistent drift toward novelty led to mediocrity. Your compositions will not thrive because you think Beach Boy vocals are cool.

Caveat #3: Concept albums are usually for schmucks. Even if you’re a jazz legend (see Digging Up Bones, below), the concept needs –really needs – to end on the final cut. (Google “ZZ Top Trilogy,” check out the earth-shattering tunes that littered that snatch of vinyl.)

Caveat #4: Freddie Mercury was one of the best vocalists in rock history. If you must, channel his voice, but please don’t turn tail mid-stride and revert to prog-emo hollering.

I would like to like this record; there’s so much ambition and musical ability at play, how could you not be drawn to it? The third recording in what is to be a collection of six. A madly prolific songwriter with a vision, who not only conceptualizes a grand, musical monstrosity, but also finds the players to pull it off.

The Dear Hunter is both a band and a boy. The band explores the life of the boy.

Imagine a writer, the best writer, your favorite writer, attempting to traverse six volumes of “the life of a boy”… … …

Okay, I’ve been snarky enough and negative enough, but I do enjoy elements of this record. At some point, perhaps in the next century, The Dear Hunter may distill all these improbable spirits and deliver a masterpiece. (Songs that peak my suspicion are in this week’s Soundtrack To Wednesday. Player in the sidebar.)

Caveat # 5: Never, ever, for as long as you breathe, title your album…(pretentious pause)…Life and Death.

JH

2009-06-24T11:32:00.003-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Charles Mingus
Tijuana Moods
(1962 – Bluebird)

Wow! If confidence were rhythm and audacity were alto sax…

Recorded in 1957, two years before the milestone Ah Um Mingus, Tijuana Moods was finally released in 1962. Ah Um and Moods capture Mingus at the height of his creative genius. Nothing was beyond reach, and the fun was in the reaching.

Tijuana Moods, as the title implies, is heavy on traditional Spanish motifs, but these are the avenues of an afternoon’s dalliance. The opening hard bop number, "Dizzy Moods," signals nothing significantly out of the ordinary. Then the castanets start snapping on "Ysabel’s Table Dance" and you start to wonder where you turned.

This is a rambunctious, dirty piece of jazz that slams through blues interludes in ¾ time, quasi-classical piano, and flamenco guitar (sometimes mirrored on bass!)

Topping it all off: a healthy dose of real live human hollering, shouting, and screaming.

If you’re looking for something to cleanse your “aural pallet,” without question, this is it.

Mingus, ah um, again.

JH

2009-06-24T11:24:00.003-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Hot Hot Heat & The Three- Minute Fiction

There is nothing more boring than talking (or, in this case, writing) about “the heat.” But I do so, ad infinitum, because of its deleterious effect. The hotter the weather, the worse I feel. And since there is nothing to be done about it, I complain. Complaining steadies me, tides me over until I can get past what’s bothering me and move on to something fun or productive. (I might be the first person to type straight through a heat stroke.)

An early-season heat wave began on Thursday of last week, and today is at full boil. I mention it because the heat has shut down the world. Or the world south of Mobile, anyway. Everyone just stays inside, waits. The bank sign read 100 at 1 p.m. Monday, Tuesday was supposed to be hotter… Happy summer!

Point is: there’s nothing going on. Twenty seconds away from the AC, and my plans and ambitions are torn asunder; I become a lame, doddering idiot. Doom is all around. And nothing is more palpable than Doom. Personal Doom engulfs the writer; Vicarious Doom consumes the reader.

Enough, already…

NPR wants your short, short stories: an original piece of fiction that can be read in three minutes or less. The submission deadline is July 18th – so hurry, hurry! After hearing a sample reading (“For Sixty Cents” by Lydia Davis) I decided that the bar was set appallingly high and recused myself on the grounds of incompetence.

Should you (brave soul) decide to pursue it, you might have your story read on air. When it’s all said and done in late July, the king or queen of Three-Minute Fiction will be crowned and he or she will receive an autographed copy of a book…written by the judge…who edits at The New Yorker. Best of luck, and DO check out the sample reading mentioned above. Damn good.

2009-06-17T14:24:00.005-04:00

The Gulf Coast Dispatch
Brand Names & Other Things

The cupboard in the travel trailer, or caravan as the Brits might say, is filling with new brands. They aren’t new to me, actually: just out of mind for most of my adult life. Back in state, I find them amusing and curiously comforting. Red Diamond coffee. Golden Flake potato chips. (Like Utz in Pennsylvania.) Bamma mayonnaise. Piggly Wiggly Bite Size Shredded Wheat cereal. That’s the store brand, f.y.i., and it seems that there’s been no update to the package design since 1957.

Piggly Wiggly was the Kroger or Wegman’s back in the day. Indeed, I’m fairly certain that Piggly Wiggly was THE first supermarket on the planet, founded in Memphis if my memory serves. My granny just called it “Pig’s.”

As other things go…

Three or four days ago I came home to find my neighbor – the fellow with the lawn tractor – splayed out in his back yard with a pair of holes chucked out, either side of him. It seemed he’d gouged them out with the claw of a hammer that lay nearby.

Owing to his fall from the helicopter back in ‘Nam, he doesn’t get around well.

So there he was on his rump, between these holes, legs spread apart, jabbing at them with a tape measure.

The whole scene was awkward, so I didn’t press him on it. And he, in turn, let me pass in silence.

This morning, he and two other guys assembled to survey the situation. I left for about 45 minutes, and when I returned the entirety of his back deck was gone, its remnants piled in a neat stack, excepting the steps. They had been flung out onto the yonder lawn.

By sundown, four pilings for the new Uber Deck were standing proud, waiting for their framing, decking, and what. The steps remained far-flung, upturned, and friendless.

I imagine the end result will be spectacular.

2009-06-17T14:07:00.005-04:00

Digging Up Bones
Danny O’Keefe
Danny O’Keefe/Breezy Stories
(1971/1973 – Atlantic)

A music business buddy was thinking of doing a "covers" album with a known artist. The concept centered on combining unlikely elements to form something new, unique. The artist (female Americana/New Folk) and label were on board, so it was time to go-a-hunting for the cover tunes. Most would be familiar, but I suggested throwing in a few from left field. A woman singing "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues" popped into my head, and off I went to unearth a one-hit-wonder from yesteryear.

Danny O'Keefe recorded two albums in the early 1970s that turned out to be phenomenal: Danny O'Keefe (his debut) and the follow-up, Breezy Stories. These recordings are gorgeously rendered, impeccably arranged, complex, and daring. They don't always succeed, but when they do it's thrilling. Check out “Drive On, Driver,” for example. “The Road” (a minor hit for Jackson Browne) is another keeper, along with “Magdalena.” O'Keefe took on jazz, psychadelia, and country honk. It amazes me how often he got it right!

The “covers” project is still a dream in the wings, but my music friend still talks about Danny O’Keefe.

2009-06-17T13:53:00.005-04:00

The Musical Concern
My Sad Captains
Here & Elsewhere
(June 14, 2009 – Stolen Records)

I yawned at first. Another jangle-fruit band with a predilection for the California sun. Whoopti-doo. Somewhere along the way though, without any great awareness on my part, things changed.

True enough, the first three cuts lead down an all too familiar beach path. But a closer, longer listen reveals a more adventurous musical stroll.

The opener, “Great Expectations” could very well be an outtake from The Velvet Underground’s Loaded sessions. While the fourth track, “Hello Bears” turns slightly brooding with a tad of David Bowie thrown in for…well, because sooner or later everybody scootches Ziggy.

Through synthesizers, acoustic guitars, the occasional guy-girl unison vocal, and horns (synths again?) we wind up at the end of an exceptionally well done and deceptively subtle debut album. “Building Blocks,” an instant indie-pop classic, turns up in the penultimate slot, as if the Captains are saying, “There you have it; we could’ve done it all along.”

Based in the U.K., the band takes its name from the same-titled poem by British poet Thom Gunn. The opening lines seem to shed light on how this collection of songs unfurls:

One by one they appear in the darkness: a few friends…
…How late they start to shine!

JH

2009-06-10T01:20:00.001-04:00

The Musical Concern
Elvis Costello
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane

(June 2, 2009 -- Hear Music)

Break out the ol’ Victrola, better yet sheet music! Although you’ll be able to listen to this one on something other than the “talking machine,” I bet it would sound sensational on thick-as-asphalt, 78, black vinyl under a needle fit for quilting.

On his umpteenth studio album, Elvis Costello displays a fondness for the ‘50s. And by ‘50s, I mean the 1850s. That’s when music was music and pop singles were delivered by live musicians and singers taking their cues from ink on parchment. Or so I’m told.

While bluegrass arrangements command the spotlight here, four seemingly fish-out-of-water songs (originally written for Royal Danish Opera) ultimately define the collection. These are the “secret” songs alluded to in the title. The “profane” pieces are in the Hillbilly tradition, and the “sugarcane” songs pay homage to New Orleans jazz.

Creative partners, real and imagined, include T Bone Burnett, P.T. Barnum, Emmylou Harris, and 19th century pop star Jenny Lind. The entire collection hangs together quiet well as an exploration of the American Song Book (Ken Burns lurks in the shadows), with the Big E adroitly commanding progressions, melodies, and modulations.

Tumble down lyrics and a cascading vocal delivery put the Costello fan at ease. The tall tales are raucous and the love stories are tender and unsettling. To love is to love; the very nature of this record is familiarity.

Burnett has never been better in the producer’s role. His keen handling of microphone placement renders a sheen that is beguiling, a little raw, and plenty percussive when it needs to be (no drums on this one).

Winding through thirteen cuts, Jerry Douglas (Dobro), Stuart Duncan (Fiddle & Banjo), Mike Compton (Mandolin), Dennis Crouch (Double Bass), Jeff Taylor (Accordion), Jim Lauderdale (backing vocals), and Emmylou Harris (backing vocals) helped to fashion, in a scant three days, a spirited, if somewhat academic, song cycle.

Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane will sit well in the EC canon, somewhere between King of America and The River In Reverse. But, intentionally or not (probably not), this album smacks a bit too much of the didactic. It’s not completely at ease with coffee on a Sunday morning, and there’s zero chance of it being the hit at your next kegger. On the flip side, as the Hot-As-End-Times-Summer encroaches, you could do much worse on a late evening, with the heat burning off and the breeze starting up.

It’ll be all the more enjoyable if you know that P.T. Barnum invented celebrity, and Jenny Lind was the original Paris Hilton.

JH

Digging Up Bones
Bob Dylan
Slow Train Coming
(August, 1979 -- Columbia)

Jesus H. Christ! What was all the fuss about? By 1979 Bob Dylan had already gutted Greenwich Village, told the folkies to go “get bent,” pissed off a sizable part of Europe with his electric country rock, vanished from sight for an obscene length of time, and, finally, joined The Church.

So, did you think he was just horsing around when he dumped you again? Musically?

It’s really funny to revisit the scandal that was Bob Dylan’s conversion to Christianity. It’s funny to hear the audio clips of Dylan preaching the gospel on stage. It’s funny to see video clips of disgruntled and dejected concertgoers exiting a Bill Graham venue in San Francisco – “I want my money back.”

I think of the fable that ends with a venomous snake telling a freshly bitten Good Samaritan, “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”

Of the things I love about Dylan – the sneer, the bad vocals, the mind bending poetry – I love his shape-shifting public persona the most. (Ya gotta revel in what he did to the folkies!)

Anyway, it’s 1979 and Dylan has hooked up with a new age evangelical church that caters feel good Jesus to the Hollywood crowd. Caught up in the rapture of his newfound faith he does what Dylan does – he makes a record that bares witness. The fans freak out. The critics go nuts. And he picks up his very first Grammy.

Slow Train Coming was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and produced by the legendary Jerry Wexler. It broke into the top 3 on both the U.S. and the U.K. album charts. "Gotta Serve Somebody," the opening track, is probably the most familiar to fans and non-fans alike. Beyond that, the title track may jog your memory. The rest of the record is largely overlooked, I suppose because of its “Christian” nature.

Resident nonsense aside, this is strong Dylan record. Indeed, if one straps on the blinders and takes religion with a grain of salt, there is good rock-n-blues to be had. Further, if you listen to music in a broad historic sense, you may well hear this album as a study of gospel, Americana, or, as with the final cut, hymn.

So with a fresh approach…

"Precious Angel" (track #2): Taken as an ode to a loved one, this is a gentle rolling expose of good humans being good to one another. It’s one of those rare tracks that runs 6:29 and still seems short.

"I Believe In You" (track #3): A nice nod to southern rock in the contemplative style. Shucking the sentimental for a flesh-and-blood hero – one that you know, personally.

"Slow Train Coming" (track #4): A slow blues burner replete with political prophecy. Possibly more poignant today than when it was released.

"When He Returns" (track #9): The benediction. A study in the gospel hymn. Vocal and thundering piano, tempting the most hardened atheist.

Dylan pursued slickery Christianity through a second born-again phase with Saved, a record released in 1980 and subsequently buried by Columbia as they succumbed to a steep case of “the nerves.” The first seven cuts are an absolute addendum to Slow Train Coming. As Wexler phones in the production at this point, a new musical freedom rears its beautiful head on Saved, and the outcome is pure Dylan.

Hey, if it all gets too heavy, just substitute a pronoun for the almighty and see what happens.

JH

The Gulf Coast Dispatch:
Heads up from the Gulf Coast, United States

Well, this is what it came to. The economy growled and I spit. Bye, bye Atlanta town, hello Gulf Coast, USA. I retreated to think and write and hang out close to the water.

That was back in April.

I’m settled in now; the fiction is coming along, but I’ve become somewhat detached from music, especially new music. To fix that, I decided to put together a "music weekly." Also, I’ve added this personal notes section to demonstrate my overdeveloped talent for versatility.

So, it's new records, old records, and some slice-o-life stuff every week. I have to keep writing, and it’s good to get away from the nut-job characters that command the "fictive dream."

Anyway, expect newsletters, twitters, facebookings, and my companion listening post on IMEEM.

Also, I’ll work on keeping it short(er).

Meantime, COMMENT! Let me know when I get it wrong. When you disagree. When you’ve heard or read something fantastic. Where you are. What you’re up to. Who you’re doin’. Why your milkshake brings all th’ boys to the yard. Damn right.

By the way, my new neighbor fell three hundred feet from a helicopter back in Vietnam. Now-a-days he trolls the 'hood on a lawn tractor 24-7. I’ll tell you more about him some time.

Peace,

JH