Me and my wife and her friend Miss J will be heading to her first My Morning Jacket show this New Year's Eve, one that will be my first show at Madison Square Garden (say, maybe the Rangers will have a game the night before?). Anyways, in order to indoctrinate her into the band that is just moving full speed ahead with new converts, even with a very risky new album that combines doo-wop, Prince funk and straight ahead, almost (gasp) Aerosmith-ish rock (the good, 70s Aerosmith, now, hear?), I made this mix, with the help of Archive.org:
1) One Big Holiday (from It Still Moves)
2) The Dark (1-29-2000, Antwerp, Belgium)
3) The Way That He Sings (from At Dawn)
4) I'm Amazed (from Evil Urges)
5) Bermuda highway (from At Dawn demo disc)
6) Off The Record (from 7-4-2006, Philadelphia)
7) Heartbreakin' Man (from 12-14-2000, Louisville)
8) What a Wonderful Man (from Z)
9) Cobra - my personal favorite (from 3-10-2007, Langerado Festival)
10) O Is the One That Is Real (5-28-2004)
11) Lay Low - another big favorite, as you can see in my first-ever entry (from Z)
12) Highly Suspicious (from Evil Urges)
13) Lowdown (from 12-1-2006, Philadelphia)
14) Golden (from It Still Moves)
15) Run Thru (from 9-26-2003)
16) They Ran (from 12-1-2006)
So, there it is, and I call it "MMJ for Beginners," giving a good cross-section of their nearly 10-year career through both live and studio recordings. You can make this mix, too, if you have their albums (or I-tunes, where you can get the studio stuff song-by-song), along with the great treasure trove on Archive.org's Live Music Archive. I was just listening to their 2008 Bonnaroo set the other day there - great stuff, especially "Steam Engine" (16 minutes long, including a drum solo by Pat Hallahan), and their second set-opening cover of James Brown's "Cold Sweat."
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Cool new studio series on Pandora
Hey, you've read me harping on Pandora and what a great service to music they've done these last couple years or so. And, of course, a Pandora employee is the only person so far to have left a comment for me, so I guess I'm fishing for comments here, but anyways, you have GOT TO check out their new video series on recording studios. So far, I've just seen the Record Plant in Sausalito, Ca docuvideo. You can find it here at http://blog.pandora.com/show/. I hope to see them do more of these as they go on, but I'm not holding out hope that they'll do one on the little Fairhaven College studio where I learned my recording chops. Watching these videos - MAN, how I want to get back into a studio and get a refresher course.
I'll never forget waking up at 5 a.m. on a Monday morning, getting the keys from the college security office and going over and setting up for a good six hours of studio time to mix a project for class. I'd end up spending sometimes up to two hours just mixing down the drums, then usually an hour for every other instrument, including vocals. Then, there'd be time to combine it all together and put it on a DAT. I assure you it's all very different now with computers - I was probably one of the last few classes before computers started to take over studios. I was in that little window between analog and fully computerized - the simply digital era, I guess you can call it, I don't know.
I got an A on that Audio Recording 2 class from my wise instructor Kevin Bressler (who's apparently now working for Seventh Heaven Studios in Everson, Wash.), but I could never find an avenue after my time at Western/Fairhaven to keep up with it and to this day, the long hours spent in the first floor studio out in Fairhaven College is my only time behind a mixing board. Shoulda woulda coulda, right? I have no regrets with my life right now, but I do miss studio time some days. That is all, for now.
I'll never forget waking up at 5 a.m. on a Monday morning, getting the keys from the college security office and going over and setting up for a good six hours of studio time to mix a project for class. I'd end up spending sometimes up to two hours just mixing down the drums, then usually an hour for every other instrument, including vocals. Then, there'd be time to combine it all together and put it on a DAT. I assure you it's all very different now with computers - I was probably one of the last few classes before computers started to take over studios. I was in that little window between analog and fully computerized - the simply digital era, I guess you can call it, I don't know.
I got an A on that Audio Recording 2 class from my wise instructor Kevin Bressler (who's apparently now working for Seventh Heaven Studios in Everson, Wash.), but I could never find an avenue after my time at Western/Fairhaven to keep up with it and to this day, the long hours spent in the first floor studio out in Fairhaven College is my only time behind a mixing board. Shoulda woulda coulda, right? I have no regrets with my life right now, but I do miss studio time some days. That is all, for now.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Musical beginnings
Hey there -
I know, it's been a while again. Almost a month. Life gets in the way. I'm a working stiff, what can I say?
Anyways, in my CD player in my car lately has been The Who's 'Tommy.' This is really what I consider to be my introduction to rock and roll, period. My parents owned the album. Mostly, my parents are soft/schlock-rock fans - they always kept the radio on easy listening stations, prompting me to know all the words to 'Summer Breeze' by the time I was 10. But for some reason, they hooked on to 'Tommy' and I had it around to look at. Now, that's a fairly mystical album right off the bat. The sounds seem to come from some parallel earth - they're just guitars, drums and a few other odds and ends (kettle drums, tambourines, 12-string acoustics, The Ox's french horn). It's the production - well, and the songwriting - that makes it come from some place where sound is meant to be touched. And where feeling is as obtuse as the odd angles of faces of ancient Egyptian statues. You know it's still a face, but the way it's viewed is through an exaggerated sense of curves and perception.
Growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s, even as a kid less than 10 years removed from Tommy's release, it seemed like some ancient artifact. The music at the time of the late 70s-early 80s was some of the worst mankind has produced over one era. Overproduced, oversweet and aimless. Not that there wasn't some bad music in the 60s (hello, Sonny and Cher). But it takes a lot to imagine 'Tommy' as being a 1969 album.
There's not a hint of 'psychedelia' - well, maybe 'I'm Free' can be waved as a flag by the LSD crowd. But otherwise, it's a Pete Townshend album - that's the only way to describe it. A who's who of obscure chords and voicings. Listening to 'Underture' today, I love the layering - the studio was definitely the fifth member here - you've got that 12-string going, the regular 6-string acoustic and a syrup-thick electric guitar without much distortion.
A note must be made of the art in the sleeve. A near Daliist surrealism pervades every painting by Mike McInnerney - and it isn't just fanciful. It's stark, it's empty, it's unnervingly similar to Frank Kelly Freas' killer robot on the cover of Queen's 'News of the World' (another album my parents happened to have around the house in the late 70s).
Take the art for 'Sally Simpson' for example - those two hands in front of these ghostly hypnotized faces sitting like stoned mannequins - that type of hollow, lifeless image (and that's a compliment to the artist, by the way) sticks with a 4-year-old. The Star Wars-ish dome in the 'Tommy's Holiday Camp' drawing - that just had to be some future Martian-Earth civilization/cult. Then, you've of course got the calliope organ and the toothless, mentally sick, menacing Uncle Ernie (a very different vocal sound for Pete) character chanting in his thick cockney accent. That all adds up to an unsettling alternate reality - a genius mixture on Townshend and McInnerney's parts.
I couldn't find many links to McInnerney's interior art, except for this one that shows the art for 'Christmas' and 'The Acid Queen.' And, of course, his iconic cover. It reminds me of a rose trellice, but with the space in between the trellis being nothingness and the trellis itself being the world at large, possibly fractured, possibly frozen in place like an ice sculpture - the theme being 'nothing is entirely together' - the least of all, Townshend.
You almost feel guilty for taking joy in his music. From all I've read (which, to say, isn't a ton) about the man, 'Fiddle About' is more than just an upbeat, silly song about a weird old man - it's an altogether too true reflection on child sexual abuse. As some of you well know, Townshend was arrested some years ago on charges of child pornography - he did have a charge on his credit card from a site that sold child pornography (how do they live with themselves?), and said that he was researching the matter for the autobiography which he has not yet written. He was cleared from any charges of downloading images, as he never got that far - not surprising for someone who had been there - why would he ever want to go back to that hell?
'Tommy' has been seen as many things, but I see a writer creating a character who has just had too much to deal with as a child and shuts down, and when he emerges from his 'darkness' - which he sees more like a light to escape to, a sensation magnified by mirrors - he is all of a sudden a celebrity.
A celebrity like a young Pete Townshend, who came out of a personal hell as a youngster to emerge as a much-followed musical figure and 'rock god' who was looked up to for his musical, writing and other creative talents. I see it as an autobiographical fantasy on Townshend's part.
Okay, there's my spiel for today - what do you think Tommy is about, and what are your thoughts on McInnerney's haunting, frigid art?
I know, it's been a while again. Almost a month. Life gets in the way. I'm a working stiff, what can I say?
Anyways, in my CD player in my car lately has been The Who's 'Tommy.' This is really what I consider to be my introduction to rock and roll, period. My parents owned the album. Mostly, my parents are soft/schlock-rock fans - they always kept the radio on easy listening stations, prompting me to know all the words to 'Summer Breeze' by the time I was 10. But for some reason, they hooked on to 'Tommy' and I had it around to look at. Now, that's a fairly mystical album right off the bat. The sounds seem to come from some parallel earth - they're just guitars, drums and a few other odds and ends (kettle drums, tambourines, 12-string acoustics, The Ox's french horn). It's the production - well, and the songwriting - that makes it come from some place where sound is meant to be touched. And where feeling is as obtuse as the odd angles of faces of ancient Egyptian statues. You know it's still a face, but the way it's viewed is through an exaggerated sense of curves and perception.
Growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s, even as a kid less than 10 years removed from Tommy's release, it seemed like some ancient artifact. The music at the time of the late 70s-early 80s was some of the worst mankind has produced over one era. Overproduced, oversweet and aimless. Not that there wasn't some bad music in the 60s (hello, Sonny and Cher). But it takes a lot to imagine 'Tommy' as being a 1969 album.
There's not a hint of 'psychedelia' - well, maybe 'I'm Free' can be waved as a flag by the LSD crowd. But otherwise, it's a Pete Townshend album - that's the only way to describe it. A who's who of obscure chords and voicings. Listening to 'Underture' today, I love the layering - the studio was definitely the fifth member here - you've got that 12-string going, the regular 6-string acoustic and a syrup-thick electric guitar without much distortion.
A note must be made of the art in the sleeve. A near Daliist surrealism pervades every painting by Mike McInnerney - and it isn't just fanciful. It's stark, it's empty, it's unnervingly similar to Frank Kelly Freas' killer robot on the cover of Queen's 'News of the World' (another album my parents happened to have around the house in the late 70s).
Take the art for 'Sally Simpson' for example - those two hands in front of these ghostly hypnotized faces sitting like stoned mannequins - that type of hollow, lifeless image (and that's a compliment to the artist, by the way) sticks with a 4-year-old. The Star Wars-ish dome in the 'Tommy's Holiday Camp' drawing - that just had to be some future Martian-Earth civilization/cult. Then, you've of course got the calliope organ and the toothless, mentally sick, menacing Uncle Ernie (a very different vocal sound for Pete) character chanting in his thick cockney accent. That all adds up to an unsettling alternate reality - a genius mixture on Townshend and McInnerney's parts.
I couldn't find many links to McInnerney's interior art, except for this one that shows the art for 'Christmas' and 'The Acid Queen.' And, of course, his iconic cover. It reminds me of a rose trellice, but with the space in between the trellis being nothingness and the trellis itself being the world at large, possibly fractured, possibly frozen in place like an ice sculpture - the theme being 'nothing is entirely together' - the least of all, Townshend.
You almost feel guilty for taking joy in his music. From all I've read (which, to say, isn't a ton) about the man, 'Fiddle About' is more than just an upbeat, silly song about a weird old man - it's an altogether too true reflection on child sexual abuse. As some of you well know, Townshend was arrested some years ago on charges of child pornography - he did have a charge on his credit card from a site that sold child pornography (how do they live with themselves?), and said that he was researching the matter for the autobiography which he has not yet written. He was cleared from any charges of downloading images, as he never got that far - not surprising for someone who had been there - why would he ever want to go back to that hell?
'Tommy' has been seen as many things, but I see a writer creating a character who has just had too much to deal with as a child and shuts down, and when he emerges from his 'darkness' - which he sees more like a light to escape to, a sensation magnified by mirrors - he is all of a sudden a celebrity.
A celebrity like a young Pete Townshend, who came out of a personal hell as a youngster to emerge as a much-followed musical figure and 'rock god' who was looked up to for his musical, writing and other creative talents. I see it as an autobiographical fantasy on Townshend's part.
Okay, there's my spiel for today - what do you think Tommy is about, and what are your thoughts on McInnerney's haunting, frigid art?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Two months away! Sorry!
Hey, folkses - I've been a long time away from this thing, so I apologize for that. Not much new has been going on musically, as I've been working my ass off and then taking vacations - that happened two months in a row - March and April - I work without regard for anything else going in life, get a week off, then I'm back to working without regard for life for three weeks, in order to prepare for my next vacation, then it's back to relaxation. The vacations were nice, but that's not the way to live. I don't usually take that many vacations in a row, either, but it had to do with company policy and that stuff and that's dry and boring.
Musically, I have my tickets and I'm ready to rock out on June 30 at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Mass., for Pearl Jam (and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - I'm going to have to listen to them on MySpace or something, see if they're worth getting to the show on time for). That's certainly a big show, so far my 'big show' for 2008. Bonnaroo was my 'big show' for 2006, and come to think of it, I'm not sure if I even went to a 'big show' in 2007 - those were probably the two free outdoor Cat Empire shows in Portland and Boston last year.
As you know from any previous writings on this blog (yeah, like I've got readers!), I've found My Morning Jacket to project the most original music with a great mix of high instrumental skills and imaginative songwriting - i.e., I'm a big fan. Their new album Evil Urges hits stores (and hopefully iTunes) on June 10, and it seems to be a good one. If you go on YouTube, and type in My Morning Jacket in the search bar, there will be some videos by a guy calling himself 'breakfastontour' and those were filmed in Houston in March and feature several of the new songs. They're not hi-fi recordings, but they hold up, and you can get a sense for the sound of the new songs - Sec Walkin, Highly Suspicious, Smokin from Shootin are three that I've gotten to like early on here.
For those who live west of the Mississippi River, especially, I just wanted to say that someday you should take a copy of the The Samples' 1993 album The Last Drag and drive out to the most open landscape you can find. The sound of the album echoes around the Great Plains like a coyote howl. In my humble opinion, I don't think they ever 'caught it' again like they did on this album. Their pre-1993 stuff, songs like Giants, My Town, Feel Us Shakin, Another Disaster, Seany Boy, are all good stuff, but the songs from after 1994 fell into a mid-tempo, uninteresting slump - I don't take it as much of a surprise that they're back to playing bars now. I think only Sean is still left from the original lineup anyways. I almost sued them for damages when they re-recorded some of the Last Drag songs and re-tooled them, mostly for the worse, on their 1997 double-live/studio mix set Transmissions from the Sea of Tranquility.
I can easily say that The Last Drag is one of my 10 'Desert Island Discs' as the old saying goes. It just has a mystique thread throughout the album that few artists can conjure. MMJ did it on 'Z' and, after listening again last night to it, Blind Melon hit it on their self-titled debut. The Melon has a new singer and a new album out, and from their MySpace samples of it, it's not too bad. It's on my 'to be considered' list for buying, I suppose. Anyways, I'll come up with something interesting at some point in the future. I just wanted to basically say 'Hi'
Musically, I have my tickets and I'm ready to rock out on June 30 at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Mass., for Pearl Jam (and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - I'm going to have to listen to them on MySpace or something, see if they're worth getting to the show on time for). That's certainly a big show, so far my 'big show' for 2008. Bonnaroo was my 'big show' for 2006, and come to think of it, I'm not sure if I even went to a 'big show' in 2007 - those were probably the two free outdoor Cat Empire shows in Portland and Boston last year.
As you know from any previous writings on this blog (yeah, like I've got readers!), I've found My Morning Jacket to project the most original music with a great mix of high instrumental skills and imaginative songwriting - i.e., I'm a big fan. Their new album Evil Urges hits stores (and hopefully iTunes) on June 10, and it seems to be a good one. If you go on YouTube, and type in My Morning Jacket in the search bar, there will be some videos by a guy calling himself 'breakfastontour' and those were filmed in Houston in March and feature several of the new songs. They're not hi-fi recordings, but they hold up, and you can get a sense for the sound of the new songs - Sec Walkin, Highly Suspicious, Smokin from Shootin are three that I've gotten to like early on here.
For those who live west of the Mississippi River, especially, I just wanted to say that someday you should take a copy of the The Samples' 1993 album The Last Drag and drive out to the most open landscape you can find. The sound of the album echoes around the Great Plains like a coyote howl. In my humble opinion, I don't think they ever 'caught it' again like they did on this album. Their pre-1993 stuff, songs like Giants, My Town, Feel Us Shakin, Another Disaster, Seany Boy, are all good stuff, but the songs from after 1994 fell into a mid-tempo, uninteresting slump - I don't take it as much of a surprise that they're back to playing bars now. I think only Sean is still left from the original lineup anyways. I almost sued them for damages when they re-recorded some of the Last Drag songs and re-tooled them, mostly for the worse, on their 1997 double-live/studio mix set Transmissions from the Sea of Tranquility.
I can easily say that The Last Drag is one of my 10 'Desert Island Discs' as the old saying goes. It just has a mystique thread throughout the album that few artists can conjure. MMJ did it on 'Z' and, after listening again last night to it, Blind Melon hit it on their self-titled debut. The Melon has a new singer and a new album out, and from their MySpace samples of it, it's not too bad. It's on my 'to be considered' list for buying, I suppose. Anyways, I'll come up with something interesting at some point in the future. I just wanted to basically say 'Hi'
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A great run on Pandora
Hey, folks - Just checking in again today. I was very excited this afternoon when I got a great run of songs on Pandora, and I just had to tell the world. By the way, if you don't have radio stations set up on Pandora, go do it now, then return here and read.
I set up a Pixies station on there, so I could get Pixies, Frank Black and all other similar type of music. But here's the order of (mostly first-time played) songs that came on between about noon and 1:10 p.m. today. Tell me this isn't kick-ass.
Manta Ray - Pixies (from the B sides collection); Teen Age Riot - Sonic Youth; Pat's Trick - Helium; I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone - SleaterKinney (don't you just love those hard-rocking, sweaty girls?); Wheelchair Epidemic - The Jesus Lizard; Stars - Hum (this started out kinda dumb, but it has a good, energetic middle to it); Heart-Shaped Box - Nirvana (demo from their box set); For Your Lungs Only - Alkaline Trio; Sound of a Gun - Buzzcocks; Cactus - Pixies; 53rd & 3rd - Ramones; Fake Tales of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys.
That's a hell of a run right there, all thumbs-upped! Again, go to Pandora.com, get your own radio stations going and boycott FM radio (and American Idol) - they're killing music as we know it!
I set up a Pixies station on there, so I could get Pixies, Frank Black and all other similar type of music. But here's the order of (mostly first-time played) songs that came on between about noon and 1:10 p.m. today. Tell me this isn't kick-ass.
Manta Ray - Pixies (from the B sides collection); Teen Age Riot - Sonic Youth; Pat's Trick - Helium; I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone - SleaterKinney (don't you just love those hard-rocking, sweaty girls?); Wheelchair Epidemic - The Jesus Lizard; Stars - Hum (this started out kinda dumb, but it has a good, energetic middle to it); Heart-Shaped Box - Nirvana (demo from their box set); For Your Lungs Only - Alkaline Trio; Sound of a Gun - Buzzcocks; Cactus - Pixies; 53rd & 3rd - Ramones; Fake Tales of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys.
That's a hell of a run right there, all thumbs-upped! Again, go to Pandora.com, get your own radio stations going and boycott FM radio (and American Idol) - they're killing music as we know it!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
It's been a while, sorry. Nothing but a boring Shuffle, either...
Hello, folks (if there are any folks out there...).
I haven't written in about three weeks, so I wanted to stop in and basically say Hi and hope that eventually one or two people will see and be entertained by my Blog. But it's just a guy and his opinions, so it's more for my fun than anything else, I guess. I'm fine with that... for now.
1) Bogus Reactions - Circus Devils: I bought a Guided By Voices album years ago, and really enjoyed it, and then their albums after that (2003's Universal Truths and Cycles) I sampled and didn't find quite as good and far-out, nor have I gotten a great feeling from Robert Pollard's solo stuff. But Circus Devils is just a completely different animal. There's like 32 songs on there and they're all short and they're all zany and they're all fun. Buy this record and enjoy it.
2) Planet Earth - Prince: Have had this since the fall of 07, but haven't been able to 'absorb' it, but this is a cool, classic Prince rock/funk ballad. It's nice to hear him step out of his 'Little Bitch' box and get 'serious' for a few minutes and put together a cool little composition like this title track from his 2007 album, another good one.
3) Society - Eddie Vedder: From the grandiose soundtrack to the grandiose movie 'Into the Wild.' I read the book many years ago (thanks, Marc V for the gift), and my wife read the same copy years later and we went out and saw it the same day she finished it. It was tough, though, because we had to chase the movie around the state of New Hampshire a little bit to find it showing at the Wilton Town Hall, a really cool place to see a flick. Eddie, you're great on this whole album, good ideas, captured the movie great and I hope you have a great time at Bonnaroo! Still thinking about it.
4) Rag & Bone - White Stripes: Another great call-and-response between Jack and Meg, it's always fun when can let her non-drumming voice (you know, the kind of voice for which you need your larynx) be heard. Otherwise, this is a classic, let's play some feel-good rock'n'roll because we're bored type of White Stripes song.
5) Shanaya - Balkan Beat Box: Speaking of Bonnaroo, this is from the festival's own live recording series. This multicultural funk/middle eastern/hip-hop combo came on at about 1 a.m. on Saturday night/Sunday morning. My wife and I had briefly fallen asleep after an otherworldly, senses-draining headlining stint by Radiohead. I wanted to stick around the main fairgrounds for a 2 a.m. show by Dr. John as the Night Tripper, but this band was the one I remember most (besides Radiohead) from that Saturday night. They got us jumping, that's for danged sure.
6) David Bowie - Phish (1993/08/13 Indianapolis, IN): Off the recently released Live Phish Download series. This comes in very quietly and unassuming, with a simple exchange of conversation between bassist Mike Gordon and guitarist Trey Anastasio. John Fishman is in the background rap-a-tapping his hi-hat. After 2:30 of that, it gets quieter and darker (though has Phish ever really been dark? No, not really). At 4:10, they're in the song as it's presented on Junta. This is just the beginning of the trip (hate to sound so hippy-ish there, sorry), as this is a 20-minute opus. I'll stand on a stack of Grateful Dead records, though, and say every day that 'I LOVE LONG SONGS!!' and 'I LOVE JAMS!!' They test a musician's true skill, mettle, talent and ability to create on the spot (which even punk bands do when they're writing songs, right?). Try and do that in front of an audience and keep it tight and sounding like it was rehearsed (really, I'm guessing that Phish worked out a lot of their jams before shows to a slim degree at least). They throw the Picture of Nectar instrumental 'Magilla' in the middle of the jam, which is nice to hear. That was always one of my favorites that didn't seem to get too much live play.
7) The Dream - Miles Davis w/Michel LeGrand: A very calming trumpet lullaby from the all-time master of the instrument from his soundtrack for the movie Dingo.
8) Let It Rain - Eric Clapton - Ah, what to say about this one. An instantly recognizable riff of tenuously assured guitar opens it up, and goes right into a chord sequence that has a grand feeling. No one uses these chords in 21st century music, save for maybe My Morning Jacket or Pearl Jam, but even the latter seems to sometimes settle for mid-tempo rock more than writing classics these days. And I love how things are 'taken down' for the solo, which seems like it's being held back by some unseen force, gurgling through the raindrops. Coming out of the chorus, his guitar is like a new person, recharged and pulling out those 'F$%-YEAH!' high notes. Yeah, just classic classic rock. I love how at the end, all the different ingredients go their own way, giving you a better sense of the layering within the song.
9) Workin' on Leavin'... - Modest Mouse - From Building Nothing out of Something, a recent acquisition. I really like this early, pure, angular Modest Mouse of the '90s rather than the poppier Modest Mouse of the later 2000s. Another sad example of a once-great unknown band whose success watered down their sound.
10) Back on the Chain Gang - The Pretenders - A post-'band apocalypse' of sorts for Chrissie Hynde's group, just recently reformed after the deaths of James Honeyman Scott and Pete Farndon. A very well-known song that I've always loved. A great, jangly guitar riff is its trademark, but I really also love the sound of the guitars during the verses and chorus, drowned in the chorus effect (a little stereo phasing?).
But the glory of this song, the part I always jam up on the volume is the bridge. Tony Butler's bass kicks in, the guitar sounds sharp as a razor blade, and Hynde strips away the charm of the verses and chorus to get down and dirty with an ambiguous delivery.
11) Oye Mi Guaganco - Tito Puente - I added this in making a mix to represent The Cat Empire's roots. The bongos and timbales really echo in this one. In a very symphonic way, the horns move along, very controlled, very brazen. Knowing they've got to kick some serious A to compete with the sweet cacophony of percussion.
12) Champion Sound - Fatboy Slim - A great melange as always from Norman Cook, a great dancehall/hip-hop mix.
13) My Baby's Gone - Blind Willie McTell - The reason I love 'Shuffle Songs' on iPods - look at these last four songs. What a great variety, and now the roots of nearly all of the stuff we've heard except for the Balkan Beat Box and the Titon Puente songs, pretty much.
14) Further On (Up The Road) - Bruce Springsteen w/The Sessions Band - Definitely not the old jump blues from Bobby 'Blue' Bland, but a different, folkier tune that here is presented with a pan flute that makes it sound like you're standing on a Scottish Highlands peak. The mix of brass band and Celtic with a backdrop of 4/4 acoustic rock is a nice mix.
15) Dance - Voicemail: From roots to Jamaican-Urban dancehall, another great Shuffle clash. Tough to just sit here and work while this butt-shaker is circuiting through my 'phones. But that's work... Til next time, always listen to good music.
I haven't written in about three weeks, so I wanted to stop in and basically say Hi and hope that eventually one or two people will see and be entertained by my Blog. But it's just a guy and his opinions, so it's more for my fun than anything else, I guess. I'm fine with that... for now.
1) Bogus Reactions - Circus Devils: I bought a Guided By Voices album years ago, and really enjoyed it, and then their albums after that (2003's Universal Truths and Cycles) I sampled and didn't find quite as good and far-out, nor have I gotten a great feeling from Robert Pollard's solo stuff. But Circus Devils is just a completely different animal. There's like 32 songs on there and they're all short and they're all zany and they're all fun. Buy this record and enjoy it.
2) Planet Earth - Prince: Have had this since the fall of 07, but haven't been able to 'absorb' it, but this is a cool, classic Prince rock/funk ballad. It's nice to hear him step out of his 'Little Bitch' box and get 'serious' for a few minutes and put together a cool little composition like this title track from his 2007 album, another good one.
3) Society - Eddie Vedder: From the grandiose soundtrack to the grandiose movie 'Into the Wild.' I read the book many years ago (thanks, Marc V for the gift), and my wife read the same copy years later and we went out and saw it the same day she finished it. It was tough, though, because we had to chase the movie around the state of New Hampshire a little bit to find it showing at the Wilton Town Hall, a really cool place to see a flick. Eddie, you're great on this whole album, good ideas, captured the movie great and I hope you have a great time at Bonnaroo! Still thinking about it.
4) Rag & Bone - White Stripes: Another great call-and-response between Jack and Meg, it's always fun when can let her non-drumming voice (you know, the kind of voice for which you need your larynx) be heard. Otherwise, this is a classic, let's play some feel-good rock'n'roll because we're bored type of White Stripes song.
5) Shanaya - Balkan Beat Box: Speaking of Bonnaroo, this is from the festival's own live recording series. This multicultural funk/middle eastern/hip-hop combo came on at about 1 a.m. on Saturday night/Sunday morning. My wife and I had briefly fallen asleep after an otherworldly, senses-draining headlining stint by Radiohead. I wanted to stick around the main fairgrounds for a 2 a.m. show by Dr. John as the Night Tripper, but this band was the one I remember most (besides Radiohead) from that Saturday night. They got us jumping, that's for danged sure.
6) David Bowie - Phish (1993/08/13 Indianapolis, IN): Off the recently released Live Phish Download series. This comes in very quietly and unassuming, with a simple exchange of conversation between bassist Mike Gordon and guitarist Trey Anastasio. John Fishman is in the background rap-a-tapping his hi-hat. After 2:30 of that, it gets quieter and darker (though has Phish ever really been dark? No, not really). At 4:10, they're in the song as it's presented on Junta. This is just the beginning of the trip (hate to sound so hippy-ish there, sorry), as this is a 20-minute opus. I'll stand on a stack of Grateful Dead records, though, and say every day that 'I LOVE LONG SONGS!!' and 'I LOVE JAMS!!' They test a musician's true skill, mettle, talent and ability to create on the spot (which even punk bands do when they're writing songs, right?). Try and do that in front of an audience and keep it tight and sounding like it was rehearsed (really, I'm guessing that Phish worked out a lot of their jams before shows to a slim degree at least). They throw the Picture of Nectar instrumental 'Magilla' in the middle of the jam, which is nice to hear. That was always one of my favorites that didn't seem to get too much live play.
7) The Dream - Miles Davis w/Michel LeGrand: A very calming trumpet lullaby from the all-time master of the instrument from his soundtrack for the movie Dingo.
8) Let It Rain - Eric Clapton - Ah, what to say about this one. An instantly recognizable riff of tenuously assured guitar opens it up, and goes right into a chord sequence that has a grand feeling. No one uses these chords in 21st century music, save for maybe My Morning Jacket or Pearl Jam, but even the latter seems to sometimes settle for mid-tempo rock more than writing classics these days. And I love how things are 'taken down' for the solo, which seems like it's being held back by some unseen force, gurgling through the raindrops. Coming out of the chorus, his guitar is like a new person, recharged and pulling out those 'F$%-YEAH!' high notes. Yeah, just classic classic rock. I love how at the end, all the different ingredients go their own way, giving you a better sense of the layering within the song.
9) Workin' on Leavin'... - Modest Mouse - From Building Nothing out of Something, a recent acquisition. I really like this early, pure, angular Modest Mouse of the '90s rather than the poppier Modest Mouse of the later 2000s. Another sad example of a once-great unknown band whose success watered down their sound.
10) Back on the Chain Gang - The Pretenders - A post-'band apocalypse' of sorts for Chrissie Hynde's group, just recently reformed after the deaths of James Honeyman Scott and Pete Farndon. A very well-known song that I've always loved. A great, jangly guitar riff is its trademark, but I really also love the sound of the guitars during the verses and chorus, drowned in the chorus effect (a little stereo phasing?).
But the glory of this song, the part I always jam up on the volume is the bridge. Tony Butler's bass kicks in, the guitar sounds sharp as a razor blade, and Hynde strips away the charm of the verses and chorus to get down and dirty with an ambiguous delivery.
11) Oye Mi Guaganco - Tito Puente - I added this in making a mix to represent The Cat Empire's roots. The bongos and timbales really echo in this one. In a very symphonic way, the horns move along, very controlled, very brazen. Knowing they've got to kick some serious A to compete with the sweet cacophony of percussion.
12) Champion Sound - Fatboy Slim - A great melange as always from Norman Cook, a great dancehall/hip-hop mix.
13) My Baby's Gone - Blind Willie McTell - The reason I love 'Shuffle Songs' on iPods - look at these last four songs. What a great variety, and now the roots of nearly all of the stuff we've heard except for the Balkan Beat Box and the Titon Puente songs, pretty much.
14) Further On (Up The Road) - Bruce Springsteen w/The Sessions Band - Definitely not the old jump blues from Bobby 'Blue' Bland, but a different, folkier tune that here is presented with a pan flute that makes it sound like you're standing on a Scottish Highlands peak. The mix of brass band and Celtic with a backdrop of 4/4 acoustic rock is a nice mix.
15) Dance - Voicemail: From roots to Jamaican-Urban dancehall, another great Shuffle clash. Tough to just sit here and work while this butt-shaker is circuiting through my 'phones. But that's work... Til next time, always listen to good music.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Neko rocks NoHo
It had been quite some time since I was at my old stomping grounds at UMass-Amherst. So long that my favorite old record store, For the Record, is now a distant memory. When I was a jazz/blues writer for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, I would go to the store there on Main Street and jot down the jazz and blues albums for that week (this is before I discovered ICE Magazine's new releases list, and later, Pause and Play's), and then call up the record companies and get the discs for free. Sounds ultimately cheap, but I was 'working,' and I needed some way to find out what was new. PLUS, those guys at the store would quickly tell you I was a very good customer and bought plenty there in my time at UMass-Amherst. They were my store -- that was where I went for CDs, almost exclusively. Now, it's a soup place. For the Record closed down in, from what I heard from someone at the new tenant, the Souper Bowl, they left in about Spring of '06. I wonder if I'd have gone in there, if the guy would have recognized me - after six years of being away from Bellingham, Wash., the proprietor of Henderson's Books recognized me in 2004 - "Haven't seen you in a while," he said. "Yeah, I live on the East Coast again, which is where I came from originally."
"Oh," he replied.
Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, I had a chance to see on
e of that region's musical treasures down the street (i.e. Route 9) from Amherst, at the Calvin Theater in Northampton: Neko Case. First, a word about the Calvin Theater - you wouldn't think to look at it today, but in my mid-90s day of romping and stomping the Pioneer Valley, the Theater always looked one step away from demolition. But it was saved and very handsomely restored, and on Feb. 2 was a very fun place to see a show.
There's a little bar off to the side for pre-show beverages, and then the place is surprisingly large, based on its small exterior. And what great sound, a perfect showcase for Case's voice. This is a force of nature - her alto is imbued with Patsy Cline's spirit, and she is no 'artsy-girl' - her voice has body, it's the voice of the girl on the basketball team too cool to hang with the rest of the girls; the girl who had a boyfriend and dumped him before the rest of her Middle School classmates even started dating; and the woman who has locked herself in her studio apartment with a bottle of whisky to bemoan the loss of the only man she truly loved, until he comes back from the store with milk and eggs.
The show itself
was an introduction to many of her new songs on a forthcoming album - don't remember her saying exactly when it will hit stores. You knew you were in safe territory, though, when old Neko standbys Kelly Hogan (backup vocals and comedy) and Jon Rauhouse (the strings man - pedal steel, banjo, guitar) came out aside the former grrrl punk drummer, now country-rock-folk-(enter vague categorization here) chanteuse.
She took requests - well, one that I can remember: Deep Red Bells off of 2002's Blacklisted. It's a little slice of throbbing dimness from the backroads of a Canadian country town. Her second song of the set was Favorite, one of my all-time, um, songs that I really like (for lack of a better word, or repetition), which sounds like a church dirge from some hymnal based on Loretta Lynn's songwriting. As part of the encore, she even 'previewed' the appearance of Tom Petty at the next night's disappointing (for us New England fans) Super Bowl by including 'Listen to Her Heart.'
And reading the excellent review from the Hartford Courant's Eric R. Danton, I'm reminded she also played newer classics like "John the Baptist," and "Maybe Sparrow." They will likely be in her canon for quite some time.
In the end, I wished I wasn't so shy and maybe shouted out some tunes from way back in her catalog, Bowling Green or South Tacoma Way. Or her incredible covers of Dylan's Buckets of Rain, or Lisa Marr's own In California.
All in all, a great show, and I look forward to the new album, Neko. Stay real. Til later.
"Oh," he replied.
Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, I had a chance to see on
e of that region's musical treasures down the street (i.e. Route 9) from Amherst, at the Calvin Theater in Northampton: Neko Case. First, a word about the Calvin Theater - you wouldn't think to look at it today, but in my mid-90s day of romping and stomping the Pioneer Valley, the Theater always looked one step away from demolition. But it was saved and very handsomely restored, and on Feb. 2 was a very fun place to see a show.There's a little bar off to the side for pre-show beverages, and then the place is surprisingly large, based on its small exterior. And what great sound, a perfect showcase for Case's voice. This is a force of nature - her alto is imbued with Patsy Cline's spirit, and she is no 'artsy-girl' - her voice has body, it's the voice of the girl on the basketball team too cool to hang with the rest of the girls; the girl who had a boyfriend and dumped him before the rest of her Middle School classmates even started dating; and the woman who has locked herself in her studio apartment with a bottle of whisky to bemoan the loss of the only man she truly loved, until he comes back from the store with milk and eggs.
The show itself
was an introduction to many of her new songs on a forthcoming album - don't remember her saying exactly when it will hit stores. You knew you were in safe territory, though, when old Neko standbys Kelly Hogan (backup vocals and comedy) and Jon Rauhouse (the strings man - pedal steel, banjo, guitar) came out aside the former grrrl punk drummer, now country-rock-folk-(enter vague categorization here) chanteuse.She took requests - well, one that I can remember: Deep Red Bells off of 2002's Blacklisted. It's a little slice of throbbing dimness from the backroads of a Canadian country town. Her second song of the set was Favorite, one of my all-time, um, songs that I really like (for lack of a better word, or repetition), which sounds like a church dirge from some hymnal based on Loretta Lynn's songwriting. As part of the encore, she even 'previewed' the appearance of Tom Petty at the next night's disappointing (for us New England fans) Super Bowl by including 'Listen to Her Heart.'
And reading the excellent review from the Hartford Courant's Eric R. Danton, I'm reminded she also played newer classics like "John the Baptist," and "Maybe Sparrow." They will likely be in her canon for quite some time.
In the end, I wished I wasn't so shy and maybe shouted out some tunes from way back in her catalog, Bowling Green or South Tacoma Way. Or her incredible covers of Dylan's Buckets of Rain, or Lisa Marr's own In California.
All in all, a great show, and I look forward to the new album, Neko. Stay real. Til later.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
It's the middle of another hectic workday Wednesday, but here's what my iPod just returned to me on shuffle (along with some unsolicited comments, as if you cared...):
1) Tumbling Dice - Rolling Stones (no comment - just rocking out)
2) Rooster - Alice In Chains (I've had the Essential Alice in Chains in my player since last summer, and I suddenly got a flashback while listening to this of driving home from another classic weekend in Hardwick, Vermont and stopping at the Tilt'n Diner in Tilton, NH)
3) Black Dog - Led Zeppelin (All of a sudden, a lobotomized classic rock DJ crawled into my iPod supposedly ... what's next, Aerosmith? Steve Miller? Love the song, but my iPod apparently doesn't care to dig up album tracks - then again, every track off of the '4 symbols' album is pretty much a single - not that I've heard 'Four Sticks' on the radio recently)
4) Nothing's Changed - Chris Isaak (A friend of my wife's moved ALL of her music on to our Mac, and I had to go through and throw a bunch of crap away - no offense, Miss J - but this was one of the few that had enough legs to survive. Not a big Isaak fan, but this is a good track.)
5) Love and Happiness - Al Green (When this was playing, a work friend brought her child in. Children are a direct product of 'Love and Happiness' and the wife and I are working quite often with that chemistry, but still nada ... how are there so many people in the world when it's so tough to get preggers?)
6) Belle - Al Green ( a very rare artist repeat on 'Shuffle Songs,' especially amongst 1,000 tracks to pick from)
7) Autumn Serenade - Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane (no comment - just relaxing in the thick of the workday)
8) Ooby Dooby - Roy Orbison (actually, replace The Essential Roy Orbison with The Essential Alice In Chains above - they're interchangeable as classic summer pickups for me, not long after I received the iPod as a birthday gift from my aforementioned lovely wife).
9) Soul Driver - Bruce Springsteen (This was another one that barely survived the purging of Miss J's catalog - Human Touch generally has a lame, overbright pop tone to the whole album, but this one stands as one of the best - maybe the best - on a weak album from 'Da Boss')
10) Swing Shift - Circus Devils (a great discovery for 2007 for me - an offshoot of Guided by Voices - very Bowie-esque and, what a surprise, very GBV-esque, but a little more slanted, angular than the more straight-ahead power-pop of Rob Pollard & Co.)
11) In California - Neko Case (from Live at Austin City Limits - right away, I remembered she's coming to New England in just weeks - am waiting to hear back from my lady on whether it's OK to get tix for her Calvin Theatre show in Northampton, Mass, on 2/2, the anniversary of our first date back in, what else, '02. This song could be one of the all-time greats, and Neko's delivery just films a movie for you - very somber, yet reflecting of the sun-glazed surroundings. Absolutely love this one)
12) Out on the Tiles - Led Zeppelin (a friend gave me all the Zep albums this past summer, allowing me to restore my collection, which I'd purchased on tape originally. Relax, music lawyers, Robert Plant has long since filled up his Maserati's gas tank on all the money I gave LZ in royalties as a teenager. I even re-bought Song Remains the Same on CD - there, happy?)
13) Rough Alley Blues - Blind Willie McTell with Ruth Willis (refer to Bob Dylan song 'Blind Willie McTell,' and check out the version of that by Elliott Murphy and Ian Matthews on their La Terre Commune album - a lost classic).
14) Run Diddley Daddy - Bo Diddley (from the I'm a Man: The Chess Masters, best reissue of 2007 in my ears. After buying this on iTunes, I was a little bummed to not have background info on the tracks, so I e-mailed the record company and a very kind gent mailed me the liner notes free of charge. Thank you, sir, wherever you are)
15) Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton (still a slap in the face to the soul more than 15 years later - lovely song, terrible tragedy)
I'll do a 'regular' post sometime later (in the week, probably)
1) Tumbling Dice - Rolling Stones (no comment - just rocking out)
2) Rooster - Alice In Chains (I've had the Essential Alice in Chains in my player since last summer, and I suddenly got a flashback while listening to this of driving home from another classic weekend in Hardwick, Vermont and stopping at the Tilt'n Diner in Tilton, NH)
3) Black Dog - Led Zeppelin (All of a sudden, a lobotomized classic rock DJ crawled into my iPod supposedly ... what's next, Aerosmith? Steve Miller? Love the song, but my iPod apparently doesn't care to dig up album tracks - then again, every track off of the '4 symbols' album is pretty much a single - not that I've heard 'Four Sticks' on the radio recently)
4) Nothing's Changed - Chris Isaak (A friend of my wife's moved ALL of her music on to our Mac, and I had to go through and throw a bunch of crap away - no offense, Miss J - but this was one of the few that had enough legs to survive. Not a big Isaak fan, but this is a good track.)
5) Love and Happiness - Al Green (When this was playing, a work friend brought her child in. Children are a direct product of 'Love and Happiness' and the wife and I are working quite often with that chemistry, but still nada ... how are there so many people in the world when it's so tough to get preggers?)
6) Belle - Al Green ( a very rare artist repeat on 'Shuffle Songs,' especially amongst 1,000 tracks to pick from)
7) Autumn Serenade - Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane (no comment - just relaxing in the thick of the workday)
8) Ooby Dooby - Roy Orbison (actually, replace The Essential Roy Orbison with The Essential Alice In Chains above - they're interchangeable as classic summer pickups for me, not long after I received the iPod as a birthday gift from my aforementioned lovely wife).
9) Soul Driver - Bruce Springsteen (This was another one that barely survived the purging of Miss J's catalog - Human Touch generally has a lame, overbright pop tone to the whole album, but this one stands as one of the best - maybe the best - on a weak album from 'Da Boss')
10) Swing Shift - Circus Devils (a great discovery for 2007 for me - an offshoot of Guided by Voices - very Bowie-esque and, what a surprise, very GBV-esque, but a little more slanted, angular than the more straight-ahead power-pop of Rob Pollard & Co.)
11) In California - Neko Case (from Live at Austin City Limits - right away, I remembered she's coming to New England in just weeks - am waiting to hear back from my lady on whether it's OK to get tix for her Calvin Theatre show in Northampton, Mass, on 2/2, the anniversary of our first date back in, what else, '02. This song could be one of the all-time greats, and Neko's delivery just films a movie for you - very somber, yet reflecting of the sun-glazed surroundings. Absolutely love this one)
12) Out on the Tiles - Led Zeppelin (a friend gave me all the Zep albums this past summer, allowing me to restore my collection, which I'd purchased on tape originally. Relax, music lawyers, Robert Plant has long since filled up his Maserati's gas tank on all the money I gave LZ in royalties as a teenager. I even re-bought Song Remains the Same on CD - there, happy?)
13) Rough Alley Blues - Blind Willie McTell with Ruth Willis (refer to Bob Dylan song 'Blind Willie McTell,' and check out the version of that by Elliott Murphy and Ian Matthews on their La Terre Commune album - a lost classic).
14) Run Diddley Daddy - Bo Diddley (from the I'm a Man: The Chess Masters, best reissue of 2007 in my ears. After buying this on iTunes, I was a little bummed to not have background info on the tracks, so I e-mailed the record company and a very kind gent mailed me the liner notes free of charge. Thank you, sir, wherever you are)
15) Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton (still a slap in the face to the soul more than 15 years later - lovely song, terrible tragedy)
I'll do a 'regular' post sometime later (in the week, probably)
Friday, January 18, 2008
Missed pre-sale for Radio City - darn!
Ok, well, the early birds got the worm. I checked in on the MMJ web site at the judicious time of 5 p.m., and guess what, their pre-sale for their June 20 show at Radio City Music Hall was already sold out. Went on sale at 10 a.m. - Friday is my 'sleep repair' day from living at my work for four previous days, so I missed it. Regular tix go on sale next Friday, so I'll try then, I suppose.
While I sit here amidst freelance hockey work, waiting for calls and e-mails that may never come, I've got possibly the next best live band on the TV. The Cat Empire comes from Melbourne, Australia, and I first heard and saw them at Bonnaroo 2006 (where our
aforementioned heroes MMJ from Louisville, Ky., put on a three-hour set starting at midnight - it's avail
able on Archive.org's Live Music Archive). They have the best and least cheesy mix of ska, pop, rock, latin, jazz you'll hear - check out their stuff on their myspace site. Stay away from the song 'No Longer There' - it's kind of a boring straight-ahead pop song (you guys are better than that!) -
everything else just kicks, though. For now, buy their album 'Two Shoes' from their Web site, but make sure you get the version that comes with the bonus DVD, which I have on as I write this.
After kicking butt at the 'Roo, they came back this past summer of 2007 and put on two legendary (in my mind at least) outdoor free shows in Portland - on my 32nd birthday that one - and in Boston. I'm attaching pictures here from the Copley Square show that my wife Nicole took. Their Boston performance was easily the best musical adventure I had for that year. I have a few minutes of that show up on Youtube right now.
If they come back this summer, and you feel like you just want to shed your skin and dance around in your bones, then the Cat Empire is your answer. Let's just hope they don't play that 'No Longer There' tune, or at least save it for the encore. Or maybe play it first and get it out of the way, but then that might drive prospective fans away. Yeah, maybe just don't play it at all. The world has enough mid-tempo 4/4 pop-rock songs, gentlemen. Again, you're way better than that.
By the way, when you're on their myspace site, check out the video for 'The Car Song' - it's the best video maybe since the 80s, when that old station MTV still played 'films with music.' Hilarious - imagine playing basketball against all your insecurities. Then again, don't imagine, watch the danged video! That's it for now.
While I sit here amidst freelance hockey work, waiting for calls and e-mails that may never come, I've got possibly the next best live band on the TV. The Cat Empire comes from Melbourne, Australia, and I first heard and saw them at Bonnaroo 2006 (where our
aforementioned heroes MMJ from Louisville, Ky., put on a three-hour set starting at midnight - it's avail
able on Archive.org's Live Music Archive). They have the best and least cheesy mix of ska, pop, rock, latin, jazz you'll hear - check out their stuff on their myspace site. Stay away from the song 'No Longer There' - it's kind of a boring straight-ahead pop song (you guys are better than that!) -
everything else just kicks, though. For now, buy their album 'Two Shoes' from their Web site, but make sure you get the version that comes with the bonus DVD, which I have on as I write this.After kicking butt at the 'Roo, they came back this past summer of 2007 and put on two legendary (in my mind at least) outdoor free shows in Portland - on my 32nd birthday that one - and in Boston. I'm attaching pictures here from the Copley Square show that my wife Nicole took. Their Boston performance was easily the best musical adventure I had for that year. I have a few minutes of that show up on Youtube right now.
If they come back this summer, and you feel like you just want to shed your skin and dance around in your bones, then the Cat Empire is your answer. Let's just hope they don't play that 'No Longer There' tune, or at least save it for the encore. Or maybe play it first and get it out of the way, but then that might drive prospective fans away. Yeah, maybe just don't play it at all. The world has enough mid-tempo 4/4 pop-rock songs, gentlemen. Again, you're way better than that.
By the way, when you're on their myspace site, check out the video for 'The Car Song' - it's the best video maybe since the 80s, when that old station MTV still played 'films with music.' Hilarious - imagine playing basketball against all your insecurities. Then again, don't imagine, watch the danged video! That's it for now.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
My first blog entry - I'm so nervous
Well, folks, this is my first time doing this, so take my words with a grain of salt. I'm not going to get too technical today. In truth, my 'technical' knowledge is watered down from 10 years of not writing a music piece or being involved in a recording studio (hello, Fairhaven - hey, is Kevin still there?), and quite a while since picking up my guitar or playing my Lowrey organ. So, I'll just say that right now my No. 1 band is My Morning Jacket.
MMJ brought back the theory of a 'guitar band' to rock and roll. Led Zeppelin comparisons are thrown around far too generously, but they have to be mentioned as brethren due to shared song construction and eclecticism. Their 2005 record 'Z' is to be considered an 'indie must-have' and currently holds down my No. 2 spot for albums made in the 2000s - first is Beachwood Sparks' 'Once We Were Trees,' but I'll comment on that later.
Lately, 'Lay Low' has been the song that I look most forward to hearing, and I hear it in different ways just about everytime I hear it. How so? Archive.org's Live Music Archive has a huge store of live MMJ from over the years, but their shows from 2005-2007 are epics. Each one is like an aural journey through some record snob's prized collection. You can hear the aforementioned Zep in there, Hank Williams, AC/DC, Pearl Jam ... you know what? Forget all those guys, they've just got their own thing going right now, and I pray that this new 2008 album they're supposedly recording isn't a let-down.
'Lay Low' - Patrick Hallahan starts in with this seemingly random Pollock-type splattering of bass drum, battered hi-hat and a snare drum figure that's not sure if it's in the right song yet. Once you get the idea of this beat that'll hang around through the verses, you're almost expecting to hear a Beastie Boys rock-rap type song. No, instead Carl Broemel introduces a riff that draws you in by adding different forms in each measure. When singer/guitarist Jim James' words stroll in like the Fonz, you're almost surprised that you are officially 'in the song' - it's not just an intro anymore. This is it. That's really just half-true - it's like you're on the porch of a great house, though.
When bassist Two-Tone Tommy and keyboardist Bo Koster show up in the song with their contributions, it's like that house has a rager of a party and two friends of the host have showed up and you're walking in with them.
The chorus is introduced and you're in a more 'comfortable' 4/4-type rock feel, and noticing the unmasked 'Let's Get it On'-ness of James' lyrics, the type of thing you want to whisper to your girl after a hard day of work: 'Lay low if the feeling is right, I got all i want here in you tonight, and we can pass out on the bedroom floor after going full tilt for so long.'
Then you're back in the verses and what originally seemed strange in a friendly way now feels like an old buddy. The verse, with Koster's ascending triplet, is a feel-good time. It pumps you up, just as you're ready to enter the happening den room of the house party, where everybody's psyched to see YOU, not knowing there's a hurricane that's just popped up ready to tear the roof off the sucker.
James lets out a few howls coming out of the second chorus to let you know this is where he gets serious, and, like turning up a stereo really loud just to hear a guitar solo you want to absorb, James spits out some classic face-melters (as Jack Black so eloquently called 'em in 'School of Rock') from his Flying V. It seems like it's just some random shredding, but it quickly collects itself into the final theme of the song, which is a twin-guitar assault bringing to mind the end of 'Hotel California' as rewritten by Randy Rhoads. Jumping into the fray near the end is Koster's piano, which recollects the harmony of the solo platform saying to the guitarists 'Hey, this is where you were, don't forget your roots.'
Or something like that - go over to archive.org, hit on the Live Music Archive button and search for 'Lay Low' and see what you think. And buy Z.
Lay Low and Dondante - which I consider MMJ's answer to 'Since I've Been Lovin' You' - are guitar epics for THIS generation. And, while we're on the subject, 'What a Wonderful Man' is the most fun 2-minutes-and-change since 'We Will Rock You.' There, I said it.
More, later...
MMJ brought back the theory of a 'guitar band' to rock and roll. Led Zeppelin comparisons are thrown around far too generously, but they have to be mentioned as brethren due to shared song construction and eclecticism. Their 2005 record 'Z' is to be considered an 'indie must-have' and currently holds down my No. 2 spot for albums made in the 2000s - first is Beachwood Sparks' 'Once We Were Trees,' but I'll comment on that later.
Lately, 'Lay Low' has been the song that I look most forward to hearing, and I hear it in different ways just about everytime I hear it. How so? Archive.org's Live Music Archive has a huge store of live MMJ from over the years, but their shows from 2005-2007 are epics. Each one is like an aural journey through some record snob's prized collection. You can hear the aforementioned Zep in there, Hank Williams, AC/DC, Pearl Jam ... you know what? Forget all those guys, they've just got their own thing going right now, and I pray that this new 2008 album they're supposedly recording isn't a let-down.
'Lay Low' - Patrick Hallahan starts in with this seemingly random Pollock-type splattering of bass drum, battered hi-hat and a snare drum figure that's not sure if it's in the right song yet. Once you get the idea of this beat that'll hang around through the verses, you're almost expecting to hear a Beastie Boys rock-rap type song. No, instead Carl Broemel introduces a riff that draws you in by adding different forms in each measure. When singer/guitarist Jim James' words stroll in like the Fonz, you're almost surprised that you are officially 'in the song' - it's not just an intro anymore. This is it. That's really just half-true - it's like you're on the porch of a great house, though.
When bassist Two-Tone Tommy and keyboardist Bo Koster show up in the song with their contributions, it's like that house has a rager of a party and two friends of the host have showed up and you're walking in with them.
The chorus is introduced and you're in a more 'comfortable' 4/4-type rock feel, and noticing the unmasked 'Let's Get it On'-ness of James' lyrics, the type of thing you want to whisper to your girl after a hard day of work: 'Lay low if the feeling is right, I got all i want here in you tonight, and we can pass out on the bedroom floor after going full tilt for so long.'
Then you're back in the verses and what originally seemed strange in a friendly way now feels like an old buddy. The verse, with Koster's ascending triplet, is a feel-good time. It pumps you up, just as you're ready to enter the happening den room of the house party, where everybody's psyched to see YOU, not knowing there's a hurricane that's just popped up ready to tear the roof off the sucker.
James lets out a few howls coming out of the second chorus to let you know this is where he gets serious, and, like turning up a stereo really loud just to hear a guitar solo you want to absorb, James spits out some classic face-melters (as Jack Black so eloquently called 'em in 'School of Rock') from his Flying V. It seems like it's just some random shredding, but it quickly collects itself into the final theme of the song, which is a twin-guitar assault bringing to mind the end of 'Hotel California' as rewritten by Randy Rhoads. Jumping into the fray near the end is Koster's piano, which recollects the harmony of the solo platform saying to the guitarists 'Hey, this is where you were, don't forget your roots.'
Or something like that - go over to archive.org, hit on the Live Music Archive button and search for 'Lay Low' and see what you think. And buy Z.
Lay Low and Dondante - which I consider MMJ's answer to 'Since I've Been Lovin' You' - are guitar epics for THIS generation. And, while we're on the subject, 'What a Wonderful Man' is the most fun 2-minutes-and-change since 'We Will Rock You.' There, I said it.
More, later...
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