Reverberations

Plimsouls - Beach Town Confidential (Alive Records)

2012-02-23T11:29:00.001-08:00

Peter Case of the Plimsouls never cared much for the power-pop label. And while the Plimsouls were contemporaries with bands lumped into the punk category the band never self-identified as punk. Of course among their late Seventies/early Eighties peers in the Los Angeles scene there were bands as diverse as X, the Zeros, the Dils, the Germs, and the Alley Cats – all of whom were categorized as punk, only begging the question: what is punk anyway? And its corollary: who cares?

After a decade that spewed forth everything from prog-rock to Malibu singer-songwriters to disco, all the above were rock ‘n’ roll bands. Their shared commitment was to high-energy performance and direct, concise songs. And if energy and succinct songs were the criteria, few bands did it better than the Plimsouls. Their sub-genre inspirations ranged from Merseybeat to rhythm ‘n’ blues to freak-beat. I suppose they got the power-pop label laid on them because they had raw drive (power) and they didn’t sound like unskilled, unschooled half-asses (pop). So, there you go.

They had all the classic elements necessary for rock stardom (songs, looks, etc.), except the Seventies shifted that celestial alignment (see prog-rock, Malibu, disco …) forever. The dream of a universal rock language, the one that cemented the popularity and the legacies of everyone from the Beatle and Stones to the Kinks and the Who had already collapsed into a tower of FM-babble by the time that Big Star, the Flamin’ Groovies and the New York Dolls had all (relatively speaking) flopped.

But the Plimsouls ignored the memo. In their short, sweet life they recorded a stripped down ep (Zero Hour), and two full-length albums – 1981’s self-titled record and Everywhere at Once from 1983. All of them are good, and they have moments of greatness. But generally, fans were of the opinion that they didn’t quite capture everything that made the Plimsouls a great live act. As if to prove this point, since their disbanding in 1983/4 we’ve seen the release of three live Plimsouls recordings, equaling (exceeding, given that their first record was an ep) their studio output (omitting 1998's reunion release Kool Trash, which is pretty darn good). Two shows featuring recordings from 1981, One Night Alive in America and Live, Beg, Borrow and Steal did a fine job of establishing the Plimsoul’s live authority. Beach Town Confidential, a 1983 show recorded at the Golden Bear Club in Huntington, California, newly released on Alive Records, is even better.

These live tracks are from the 13^th of August in 1983. The April release of the film Valley Girl had included the Plimsoul’s “A Million Miles Away” from Everywhere at Once, and the band was probably as popular as they had ever been as a consequence. Yet this performance was close to the end of the band’s road. You’d never know it from these performances; they crackle with a defiant energy that asserts not only the band’s claim to a stardom they were denied, but also a claim to the power of rock itself as a cultural force.

Whether or not this music is “power-pop” is beside the point, but if a case could be made for that as an ideal, the renditions here of songs like “Zero Hour,” “Magic Touch,” “Now,” “How Long Will it Take?” and of course “A Million Miles Away” make that case better than anything by more popular contemporaries like the Knack or the Romantics. This isn’t smarmy or condescending like the former, or skinny-tie packaged like the latter. This is rockin’ music with great pop song values that transcends the finite specifics of era or genre.

Peter Case sings with the foursquare authority of an American John Lennon. The rhythm section, drummer Louie Ramirez and bass player David Pahoa, is solid enough to drive AC/DC, but too supple and swinging to be limited to that. Lead guitarist Eddie Munoz moves from folk-rock jangle to Dave Davies-like assertion to sharp blues licks seamlessly and always in touch with the intent of the songs.

I get a special kick out of their selection of covers for this set. “Jump, Jive and Harmonize” is the only carryover from either of their previous live releases, homage to Thee Midnighters and the band’s Chicano roots. The band’s sensibility is exemplified by two songs with very different expressions of 1967 - Moby Grape’s “Fall on You” and Creation’s “Making Time.” The first is high-octane Cali-rock, bordering on country, while the latter is pounding British rock with a hint of psychedelia. The Plimsouls play them both like they own them. The Fleshtones’ Keith Streng, contemporary and East Coast fellow traveler, joins the band for a spirited romp through the Flamin’ Groovies “Jumpin’ in the Night,” while their pals the Williams Brothers lend their voices to the Everly’s “Price of Love.” The final cover, and the set closer is Willie Dixon’s “You Can’t Judge a Book,” a tune that innumerable rock bands have had their way with.

Arguably, Beach Town Confidential is as compelling a representation of the Plimsouls power (pop or otherwise) as anything released under their name, and it’s indispensible to anyone who considers themselves a fan.

Reverberating: 8.7

Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny - Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose (Mute Records)

2012-02-18T18:03:00.000-08:00

People who don’t think like critics sometimes assail them for their obsessions with comparison and reference. They make a point, a marginal one, but a point. If the search for a box to put an artist’s work in sabotages the ability or desire to hear the work itself for what it is – Houston, we have a problem. As someone whose mind works critically my beef is more with people with cloth ears who make facile comparisons based on limited experience, shitty taste or received information … so there. I also don't think the wrestling between Apollonian and Dionysian impulses requires a winner, just a good match.

Okay, that preface was provoked by my experience with Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose, the debut full-length album from a twenty-one year old artist from Newcastle, England named Beth Jeans Houghton. She and her band the Hooves of Destiny make music that forces you to hear it on its own terms. Comparisons I’ve read of Houghton’s music to artists like Nico and Laura Marling left me wondering if I was listening to the same record. Houghton's soprano, by turns breathy, piercing, sweet is an altogether different instrument compared to Nico or Marling's altos. Nor are her songwriting and arranging tendencies especially similar. Another frequent comparison, to Joni Mitchell, makes some sense. And that presented a bit of a conundrum because I’m not much of Joni Mitchell fan, and I really enjoy YTCN. Proving only that art I’m not nuts about can inspire art I dig.

I enjoy Beth Jeans Houghton’s work as pure musical pleasure. Her lyrics are obtuse – imagistic, but not always communicative – but her songs are richly melodic and she and her band adorn them with varied and imaginative instrumental support. The Hooves are especially valuable as harmony singers, and while they do a nice job in live performance (if YouTube is any indication), their role here is a little marginalized by the sheer volume and variety of parts that Houghton herself plays – for she is at the heart of the execution of this music, beyond simply writing and singing the songs. At twenty-one she’s already an auteur (she’s even responsible for the artwork for YTCN). Producer Ben Hiller ably assists Houghton – his credits include production for Blur’s Think Tank.

On album opener “Sweet Tooth Bird” alone Houghton plays acoustic guitar, ukulele, piano, organ, timpani, and vibes, as well as singing lead and backup vocals. “Bird” and the following track “Humble Digs” feature a consistent thread in Houghton’s arrangement sensibility; she loves short, focused interludes, some of them bridges with vocals, some of them simply instrumental segments connecting verse and chorus. But these interludes are never gratuitous; they have natural grace and integrate seamlessly into the arrangements.

“Dodecahedron” borrows some of the phrasing from David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans” – Bowie’s Hunky Dory era music informs Houghton’s aesthetic throughout, as does the chamber pop of Vashti Bunyan and the orchestral flourishes of early Kate Bush. But Houghton is not hemmed in by any style, era or idiom. On “Atlas” she sinks into a groove not unlike the Dirty Projectors. Driven by the double drumming of Hooves Ed Blazey and Dav Shiel, “Atlas” is part Afro-pop, part Bo Diddley meets Bow Wow Wow propulsion. The lyric suggests that “red wine and whiskey are no good for me” while contrasting Houghton’s travels with those of an older intimate.

On “Nightswimmer” Houghton sounds ready to dismiss a lover (“I can only hope he’ll go out with the tide”), while the accompanying music evokes vintage Cocteau Twins. There’s something of the Velvets’ “Stephanie Says” in the lilt of the rhythm guitar on “Liliputt," which also demonstrates the sonorous beauty of the string quartet (cellist Ian Burdge, violist Bruce White and violinists Sally Herbert and Everton Nelson) Houghton employs with some frequency on YTCN. The strings blend beautifully with Houghton’s jagged, guttural electric guitar and spectral, romantic piano fills on “Franklin Benedict.” Houghton’s proclamation of love is at once reluctant and spirited; her lyrics court the absurd and the evocative like vintage Marc Bolan.

‘Carousel” evokes the compositional sensibility of Stephin Merritt. Wary of betrayal, Houghton issues a restless farewell as the string players stir things to a conclusion. A “hidden” track, actually something of a snippet, emerges after a few silent seconds - kissing the program goodnight with a jolt of Pogues-like folk-punk. It’s an appropriate end to an album that’s full of twist, turns, and enchanting surprises throughout.

Reverberating: 8.5

Cate Le Bon - Cyrk (The Control Group)

2012-02-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

The palette of Me Oh My, the debut from Cate Le Bon, was stark and to the point. Its appealing, if rudimentary, production values allowed the songs to speak for themselves, and they ranged from the whimsical (“Sad Sad Feet”) to the apocalyptic (“Terror of the Man”). For her follow up, Cryk, the Welsh born singer-songwriter adds layers of instrumental texture and embellishment, making her austere and sturdy songs even more transfixing. Ultimately, though, it’s her sheer self-possession as a singer that makes it hard to divert your attention, rather like the aural equivalent of not being able to take your figurative eyes off of someone.

Much has been made of the Nico influence, so let’s consider that. First, Le Bon’s vocal range is higher; her dynamic range more extreme, and her reliance on and comfort with harmonization are greater (including plenty of self-harmonization). Where the comparison works is with respect to a shared melancholy affect, a certain precise diction (rooted in English perhaps being a second language – Le Bon is also a Welsh speaker), and a tendency to enter and accent just behind the beat. The specter of the Velvet Underground also extends to Le Bon’s musical sensibility. It’s the sound of loud, bright guitars and dissonant keyboards parts, as well as a certain rhythmic lurch, you can hear it in the galloping syncopation of the album’s opening track “Falcon Eyed,” with its “Sister Ray” lurch.

But this is a post-Velvet vision distinctly informed by Le Bon’s roots in Welsh music and culture (and after all, John Cale was a fellow Welshman). Her art just sounds rooted in the Welsh culture. You’d almost have to have visited Wales to understand. It’s something to do with their mixture of hospitality and reserve, welcoming and insularity, the way some greet you warmly in English one moment only to switch languages conspicuously when entering conversation with a nearby friend. I love the Welsh. Part of my bloodline is Welsh. It’s a fascinating place, and some of the best Welsh artists (Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci … Cate Le Bon) have a natural Welsh aura that somehow conveys the country’s curious cross between the connected and the remote. Le Bon first came to prominence as Gruff Rhys’s collaborator on the Neon Neon project. Recorded in Wales and featuring an all, or almost all, Welsh cast, including Meilyr Jones and Gwion Llewellyn from the excellent, if little known, band Race Horses, Cyrk is a distillation of that national sensibility, told through the eyes of a very individual and bohemian female artist.

“Falcon Eyed,” beyond the Velvet touch, also sounds like Le Bon and crew draw from sounds that were ‘freak folk,’ before the genre had a name, the Incredible String Band in particular, and from a stack of Seventies Kraut-prog records that might have Faust at the top of the pile. “Puts Me to Work,” like most of Le Bon’s lyrics, suggests more than states, but seems to concern domestic dissatisfaction; it features bashing drums and stratospheric harmonies, stacked at one point into a “Twist and Shout” style build.

Sometimes Le Bon’s plain poesy recalls the reserved acquiescence of Nick Drake, as on the title track – Le Bon quietly insisting that “now is not a good time to leave me all alone,” a sentiment full of portent, delivered unsentimentally. The sweetly discordant guitar and keyboards, and those Mike-Robin-Rose-Licorice harmonies, all add to the quiet, but roiling delivery.

“Julia” and “Greta” both suggest a kinship with Elliott Smith, and more particularly with a shared Beatles (acid Lennon) fixation. These songs have a “Strawberry Fields Forever” vintage saturation, best evidenced in “Greta’s” blossoming orchestrations, as horn lines veer and sway between a bluesy take on Salvation Army Band mournfulness and free jazz ecstasy – all in support of lyrics like “you existed in moonlight before you were born.” Thanks to Le Bon’s exquisitely reserved delivery, the patchouli factor is present, but kept in check.

The sweet clash between musical elements runs throughout Le Bon’s sensibility. “Fold the Cloth,” starts with limpid guitar, slips into Stereolab sensuality before Syd Barrett-spitting guitar goes toe to toe with Le Bon’s angelic vocal, until the song bangs away into a sudden, abrupt, and Beatlesque conclusion. “Man I Wanted” sounds as much like warning as profession of affection. Le Bon glides from conversational delivery to an eerie soprano, professing her desire to be the beloved’s “greatest host.”

The slightly creepy mood continues with “Through the Mill,” a rather bestial tale embellished by what sounds like some mental patient playing scales on a piano that’s tumbling slowly down the stairs. In a good way.

Cyrk (Polish, off all things, by the way, for circus) ends with a two-part extravaganza called “Ploughing Out.” Implicitly connecting to her rural roots, part one of “Ploughing” concerns melancholy and self-acceptance, as she compares her emotions (“on the last day of the year I’m just happy to be here”) to her beloved’s (“and on the worst day of his life, he’d still love more things than I like. Taping melodies of times in his mind”), contrasting his voracious appetite with her need for discretion. It commences with a beautiful guitar figure, reminiscent of the Velvets’ “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” sounding like something Wes Anderson might easily plumb for a future film; an inventory of small blessings and difference, it resonates charm. Part-two executes a barely detectable shift in downward fidelity for jarring and excellent effect. The refrain, defiant and resilient, repeats “when it goes off we’ll be the on the last boat out of here; you’ll be the ringing in my ear, still we never say die.” The jolly end-time mood extends to the instrumental coda that ends the song – a feast of dueling themes, rather like the fade to “All You Need is Love,” includes a saxophonist doing his best Albert Ayler against what sounds like Terry Riley arranging for crumhorns and sackbuts. And it’s all capped off with what sounds like the guitar chord that ends … well, “The End,” by the Doors. Nice touch. Like that chord, Cyrk lingers, compelling you to return.

Reverberating: 8.8

Howler - America Give Up (Rough Trade)

2012-01-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

Howler sounds a little – okay, a lot – like the Strokes. And the Strokes sounded like late period Velvet Underground mixed with a roughhewn take on Television. I got news for ya; this is how influence works. Bands cut their teeth on other bands. Strangely enough, they resemble those bands. But if a band exerts too much influence or sustains too much popularity this makes hipsters uncomfortable, so they tend not to like bands that betray such influences. Oh, you know, it all makes the music too common for them. Fine and dandy – until you realize that it was the same mentality that consigned the Beatle embracing Big Star to the margins while the so-called underground celebrated Jethro Tull and Yes. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

On their Rough Trade debut America Give Up Minneapolis’s Howler go with their Is This It inspiration and personalize it with salacious aplomb. Nineteen year-old singer Jordan Gatesmith shifts personae, engaging an Iggy –informed aggression, Julian Casablancas’s slur-shout, Jim Reid’s behind the beat croon, and Bradford Cox’s sleepy drawl. Guitarist Ian Nygaard has the Valensi-Hammond, Reid Brothers, and Johnny Ramone style sheet under control. Kids are pretty deft.

Aged between nineteen and twenty-four, Howler isn’t knocking you over with fully realized genius. But that’s not really the point. Even the insouciant supernova that was the Fab Four took two years to get to Rubber Soul, three to Revolver (okay, that was pretty amazing). But the point is – enjoy what these kids have done already instead of anticipating either the full flowering of their artistic glory or the dull repetition of formula. Get Zen, baby, live in the moment. And at this moment Howler have assembled a thirty-two minute collection of short, sharp, rockin’ tunes.

Their inspirations, beyond the obvious Strokes similarities, include the Jesus and Mary Chain (really pronounced on “Back to the Grave” and “Too Much Blood”), Sonic Youth in certain (a)tonalities, Deerhunter, and a dash of “old school” that reflects Echo and the Bunnymen’s mythic mock-pomp-pop. Throw in a little Stooges anima, really strong on “Pythagorean Theorem,” which also features a nifty stripped-down break with guitars that suggest a Gun Club or Cramps record lurking on the band’s IPod, and you've got the basic picture.

“America” is a weird little parable with references to shotgun weddings and John Wayne, and a “my darling, it’s all over now” refrain that seems to speak directly to the subject of the song. “Told You Once” kicks off with a hard acoustic rhythm, evoking Dramarama’s “The Next Time” and bringing the Beach Boys harmonies. “Back of Your Neck” is a hipster teen slice of life with Cars-styled stop-start rhythms and a guitar break straight out of the Plugz’ acid-surf guitar music on the Repo Man soundtrack.

Me, I’m a simple animal. I click on the mp3, press play on the disc player, drop the needle on the record (all of those) and like the eternal teenager I am I anticipate pleasure. Oh, but gee – how often I am disappointed. But Howler delivers. They deliver smart, snappy tunes, a derivative, but fresh ensemble sound, a variety of guitar sounds that punch my buttons and a singer who traffics in just the right mix of frustration, defiance, seduction, and sloth.

Honestly, I know zip about the boys in Howler and their sibling situations. But I know this much, while alterna-types looking for the holy grail and the ineffable next big thing may not appreciate this, the truth is the spoils go to the guys whose older brother or sister had the coolest record collection. But that’s only where it starts. Then a young artist has to assimilate those influences and put some sort of distinctive twist on them. Howler’s America Give Up shows how this is done. Will they grow into the band of their generation? Will they break up after too many weeks in a bus together? I dunno, but for now I’m going to groove to America Give Up.

Reverberating: 8.8

The Countdown Concludes with No. 1 (hint: it's a tie)

2012-01-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

Here the Countdown concludes. 2011 won't entirely be dismissed yet. I plan on some pieces that discuss certain records that didn't make the Countdown for one reason or another, and I plan on discussing some late year releases that I didn't have time to absorb sufficiently, albums that I may include on 2012's Countdown (Black Keys, Betty Wright, Atlas Shrugged, and others). But still, as the Countdown reaches its end I feel gratitude for this gift called music, an art I can scarcely contemplate living without. My life was indeed saved by Rock 'n' Roll.

Let's take a moment to look at some really fine records, previously discussed during the Countdown - numbers 3-25. In descending order, here they are:

25. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for my Halo (Matador)
24. Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes (Yep Roc)
23. Bass Drum of Death - GB City (Fat Possum)
22. Coathangers - Larceny and Old Lace (Suicide Squeeze)
21. Meg Baird - Seasons on Earth (Drag City)

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

8. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)

7. New York Dolls - Dancing Backwards in High Heels (429 Records)

6. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin' (Columbia)

5. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Vagrant)

4. June Tabor and Oysterband - Ragged Kingdom (Topic)

3. Wire - Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag)

____________________________________________________________________

The number one spot is going to be shared by two artists.

Wow, you say, that’s a copout. To which I would reply, you’re damn right it is. And the countdown, by its very nature, has given me plenty of time to deliberate. I’ll be honest; when I gave my top ten to the Kansas City Star, Lawrence Journal World and other media I provided a list in no fixed order.

But now the time has come to embrace the fact that Lykke Li and EMA were in a real horse race. And they both won.

When I thought it over, in an effort to pick one over the other, it came down to a choice between very good work that engages the mainstream (Lykke Li) and very good work that eschews such considerations utterly (EMA). Both artists made really good records, both have a particular kind of artistic courage. Ms. Li’s courage is to have created a piece of work that’s personal, expressive, and still addresses a potential mainstream audience. While her songs and vision are individual, even idiosyncratic, her production values could engage the average listener, someone who enjoys Madonna, or Lady Gaga. Li records for a major label (Atlantic) and doesn’t back away from the responsibility and potential that suggests. Ms. Anderson’s (EMA=Erika M. Anderson) courage, recording for a small indie label like Souterrain Transmission, lies in having created an intensely personal, all studs showing collection of songs that engage noise and dissonance and all of your alternative-rock values without sacrificing song craft. As women artists both exude confidence and authority at the same time their lyrics speak to human (not just female) emotional vulnerabilities.

In a year that offered a high number of really good, but few great records, Lykke Li’s Wounded Rhymes and EMA’s Past Life Martyred Saints asserted themselves over and over. Two songs in particular impressed me and moved me. Li’s “Sadness is a Blessing,” a majestic ode to romantic melancholia, a song that sounded utterly modern, yet evoked the very essence of Sixties girl group sound and sensibility, is a song that haunted me all year. Anderson’s “Red Star,” a rambling, slow burning song (a power ballad for freaks who don’t like power ballads) builds inexorably toward an emotional crescendo (“But I’m sick of waiting ‘round this birdhouse for enough flesh wounds to make a kill; I know nothing lasts forever, if you won’t love me someone will”), then builds again into a powerful coda as Anderson’s repeats “like a Red Star” and guitars and drums thrash away, and harmonies stack dramatically. Both songs transform me, delivering on a great pop promise that’s rarely fulfilled. Or as David Bowie sang – “Ain’t there one damn song that can make me break down and cry.” Well David, “Sadness is a Blessing” and “Red Star” do the job for me.

The original reviews for both Past Life Martyred Saints by EMA and Wounded Rhymes by Lykke Li are linked below:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/03/reverberations-on-lykke-li-and-wounded.html

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/06/ema-past-life-martyred-saints.html

The Countdown Continues with No. 3, Wire.

2012-01-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Continuing today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year, we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal.

I've reviewed the majority of these selections. In the event that I have I'll simply recycle the original reviews, sometimes with a little new commentary. If it's a selection I haven't reviewed previously, I will dash off a new, brief, introductory review just for perspective.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

8. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)

7. New York Dolls - Dancing Backwards in High Heels (429 Records)

6. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin' (Columbia)

5. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Vagrant)

4. June Tabor and Oysterband - Ragged Kingdom (Topic)

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in January I reviewed our No. 3 release in the Countdown for the Kansas City Star. As I described them in the review Wire were punk by proximity, but their long, oft interrupted career has produced some real milestones. In 2011 they added another, not something you can say about many 'punk' bands from 1977, right?

Here's the link to my review of Wire's Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag Records):

http://backtorockville.typepad.com/back_to_rockville/2011/01/new-music-alert-reliable-wire-and-more.html

The Countdown Continues with No. 4, June Tabor and the Oysterband

2012-01-11T20:47:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

8. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)

7. New York Dolls - Dancing Backwards in High Heels (429 Records)

6. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin' (Columbia)

5. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Vagrant)

And here's a brand new review of Ragged Kingdom by June Tabor and the Oysterband (Topic Records):

Ragged Kingdom, the brilliant new album by June Tabor and the Oysterband, follows on the heels of their excellent Freedom and Rain - none too closely on the heels, of course - Freedom and Rain was released twenty years ago in 1991. Freedom and Rain was a revelation. In keeping with the Briitish folk-rock tradition of combining traditional English and Celtic material with newer songs - a paradigm pursued variously by Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Steeleye Span (or the Byrds, for that matter) – Tabor and the Oysterband’s versions (one hesitates to call them ‘covers’) of songs by Billy Bragg, Richard Thompson, and the Pogues were extraordinary. Their take on the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” a real reach outside of the conventional folk-rock genre, and far from de rigeuer, was all the more compelling for being as unexpected as it was terrific.

Tabor’s more traditional folk recordings, before and since Freedom and Rain, are consistently fine, sometimes remarkable. Also released in 2011, Ashore (a collection of traditional, maritime themed songs) was widely and justifiably celebrated. Still, many fans hungered for a follow up to Freedom; the extraordinary musicianship (acoustic and electric instrumentation) of the Oysterband brings out something especially powerful in Tabor’s singing.

Fans of traditional songs already know that the themes of folk material are full of enough war, rape and mayhem to make gangsta rap sound like Katy Perry. The singer’s first job with such canonical material is to communicate the lyric, using every bit of diction, phrasing and character at their disposal – musicality, while essential is a hand maid to the tales.Tabor’s alto is expressive, but austere – thrilling, but steely in its control. Tabor’s singing always serves the song, if it calls attention to itself, free as it is of melisma or silly ornamentations, it does so to sell the lyric and the message of the song. Frankly, her approach (learned from other great singers, from Annie Briggs to Maddy Prior) present the listener with a master class.

The Oysterband’s supple musicianship is on display from the first note of the folk warhorse “Bonnie Bunch of Roses,” creating a maelstrom of controlled sound, reminiscent of Fairport Convention’s Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick fueled intensity behind Sandy Denny on "Matty Groves” from their seminal Liege and Lief album. And for all the intensity of their backing, their playing remains absolutely in support of Tabor’s grim narrative. The theme of “Bonnie Bunch of Roses,” the unfathomable, inevitable horrors of war, is complemented by Ragged Kingdom’s second track, a pulsing version of PJ Harvey’s “That Was My Veil,” itself a jagged portrayal of romantic betrayal and deception.

The watershed moment on this beautifully wrought collection is a heartbreaking take on Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Where Joy Division’s performance, for all its dark glory, sometimes sounded like the doomed Ian Curtis crying out against an instrumental track, Tabor and the Oysterband’s version seduces every drop of dull ache out of the lyric’s desperate denial. In a gorgeous, but stark duet, Tabor and the band’s John Jones simply break our hearts.

Tabor and Jones also duet to good effect on the traditional “Son David,” with its timeless mother/son conversation and on the album’s closing track, “Dark End of the Street.” The latter, a classic soul ballad of the American south, and the quintessential statement of shamed love, was written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman; it’s been covered plenty, but rarely as beautifully as it is here. Of course the themes of doomed love and ill fate are the pure, dark stuff of British folk song.

There are beautiful, definitive versions of traditional stalwarts like “If My Love Leaves Me” and the American Civil War ballad “The Hills of Shiloh,” and a rocking, fiddle driven workout on Bob Dylan’s “Seven Curses.” A traditionally themed tale involving a fair maiden who gives herself to a corrupt judge to save her father from the hangman, only to be both violated and deceived, “Seven Curses” is Dylan as student of the traditional mystic.Yup, Dylan knows and loves the power and mystery of the world, as beautiful as it is tragic, portrayed in the language of folk song.

Folk music can be an extraordinarily dull, milquetoast affair in the wrong hands. It can be art of undeniable, timeless power in the hands of real artists. June Tabor and the Oysterband are real artists, and together they bring nothing but the best out in each other. Ragged Kingdom yields endless entertainment, musicality, and poetry. And unlike some of the records celebrated in the immediacy of a trend-obsessed world, it always will.

The Countdown Continues with No. 5, PJ Harvey

2012-01-10T21:50:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

8. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)

7. New York Dolls - Dancing Backwards in High Heels (429 Records)

6. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin' (Columbia)

At No. 5 we have PJ Harvey and Let England Shake (Vagrant). This is a timeless piece of work from one of the finest artists or the present era. REVERBERATIONS reviewed Let England Shake in March. Here's that review:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/03/pj-harvey-let-england-shake-vagrant.html

Be sure to enjoy the video featuring PJ and Bjork's rendition of "Satisfaction." It's a stunner.

The Countdown Continues with No. 6, Raphael Saadiq

2012-01-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

8. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)

7. New York Dolls - Dancing Backwards in High Heels (429 Records)

Here's a new (and long-ish) review of our No. 6 selection, Stone Rollin' from Raphael Saadiq, released on Columbia Records:

Reading the wealth of review material on Stone Rollin’, the 2011 release from Raphael Saadiq, I have been impressed by the ability of the contemporary critic to talk in complete circles. Saadiq’s work is categorized variously as new-soul, nu-soul, retro-soul – everything but soul. Well - it’s soul music, people. And let’s face it; most of these categories have more historical and marketing significance than musical. Soul itself was a nomenclature that spoke to a new generation of black artists and their audiences in the Sixties, and how they saw themselves. But there wasn’t one note of soul music that didn’t derive from what chart compilers and music merchants previously called rhythm and blues.

The sad fact is that too much of the music found on the Urban (more tinkering with language - with vague, but miniscule cultural resonance) in the last twenty years has sounded like it was recorded by a lost generation who never heard Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin or hell, even the Ohio Players, but instead mysteriously ingested a cd-r of Roger Troutman’s complete exercises for Talk-Box. Talk-Box’s modern cousin the Auto-Tune has all but destroyed what’s left of contemporary chart music. It’s a wasteland. Oh it’s a wasteland dominated by black performers, but it’s a fool’s paradise – few of these performers build careers. They are pop fodder as surely as the plague of Bobbies (Vee, Rydell, etc.) was in the pre-Beatles landscape of Sixties pop music.

So, of course critics are stymied. Raphael Saadiq’s music derives from a long, strong continuum of black popular music. You can hear mythic strains of Fifties, Sixties and Seventies sounds – great black popular music, a music that built pride in the African-American community and entertained the whole damn world. Call it whatever you will.

Saadiq is no newcomer. As one-third of Tony! Toni! Tone!, Raphael Wiggins made hits and brought the whole canon of Black music to the sounds of a Nineties generation steeped in hip-hop. T3 were of that scene. They could dig what was great about it, but they were too consecrated in melody to sacrifice it. The aptly named Sons of Soul, released in 1993, was one of the classics of the era. When T3 split, Saadiq produced recordings for TLC, Joss Stone, D’Angelo, Mary J. Blige, and John Legend, among others. His fellow travelers in hip-hop soul included Tribe Called Quest and Slum Village. Once he recorded solo, Saadiq became labeled as a ‘retro’ artist because his solo recordings, beginning with 2002’s Instant Vintage, embraced a history that many of his contemporaries eschewed. It was a knowing title, not because it was instant in the sense of being some compromise or short cut, but because it was vintage and still very much of the present (instant).

Stone Rollin’, so named because Saadiq likens his aesthetic strategies to rolling dice (i.e. taking chances), is the best and most diverse representation of Saadiq’s vision yet. It kicks off with “Heart Attack,” a lean, driving performance that obliterates the line between rock and soul. An homage to Sly and the Family Stone (also reminiscent of performers like Charlie Allen from Pacific, Gas and Electric or the Chamber Brothers), it articulates a production template that Saadiq employs throughout Stone Rollin’; originating from a desire to closer approximate the live shows he and his band did supporting his last record As I See It. That record was in part Motown homage, but in live performance Saadiq and his ensemble cut things closer to the bone. “Heart Attack” is, as are many of these tracks, essentially Saadiq as one-man band (guitar-bass-drums … along with a curiously effective use of Mellotron, for shade and segue) with occasional pinch hits from other musicians and singers.

“Go to Hell” is more lavishly produced. Saadiq tends to alternate performances with stripped down instrumentation and those with elaborate arrangements. Emphasizing the pursuit of salvation, in stark contrast to the sheer carnality of “Heart Attack,” “Hell” swells with What’s Going On style string flourishes and Gospel-infused choir singing. The lyrics aren’t your standard spiritual verses, however, they’re closer to the psychedelic poetry of vintage Jimi Hendrix.

Carnality returns with “Radio,” as Saadiq spars with a temptress (played by Mone’t Owens, who provides great back up and response vocals throughout) to a pumping rhythm and blues track that recalls “I Can’t Turn You Loose” vintage Otis Redding.

The title cut is equally blues steeped, the tempo slowed down to a blues grind, and Saadiq’s vocal sounding like a grandchild of O.V. Wright chilled with a touch of Curtis Mayfield. “Stone,” according to the artist was inspired by Howlin’ Wolf. This exemplifies how deftly Saadiq adapts his influences; while the Chicago by way of Mississippi feel is clear, Saadiq likes to throw curves. There’s a New Jack quality to the swing of the song, an odd, but effective Mellotron part runs through the arrangement, and the response vocal (“this girl of mine”) is nothing you’d hear on any Chester Burnett sides. Darrel Mansfield provides South-Side style blues harp wailing.

“Day Dreams” is a Ray Charles informed shuffle. The tempo is brisk, but Saadiq dials back the vocal approach, sounding sly, soothing and assured like Pops Staples, on a lyric that speaks to the gap between expectations and revenue, especially when it comes to the ladies. “Movin' Down the Line” has a Marvin Gaye “How Sweet It Is” swing and Saadiq plays a bass line that would do his hero Larry Graham proud. The string arrangement recalls Leon Ware’s work with Gaye on the I Want You album, Saadiq even giving a shout out to Ware in the lyric.

Several songs feature newcomer Taura Stinson, who contributes as composer and singer, including “Go To Hell, “Just Don’t” and “Good Man.” “Don’t” brings a go-go beat, combined with some Philly soul vibes. “Good Man” fuses reggae and the classic soul of Bobby Womack, and Stinson’s Greek chorus is a key element in the performance.

Stone Rollin’ concludes with Saadiq’s version of the kind of ballad that could come from Michael Jackson’s better moments. A song about coming up hard in the ghetto and youth’s need for role models, it could easily collapse under the weight of its conceits. Instead, its ‘takes a village’ theme is inspired and rousing, as the haunting “in my neighborhood” refrain sticks hard in that part of your pop brain that longs for a hook.

Raphael Saadiq has been in the game for over two decades. But if you’ve seen him live you know that his presence (imagine Urkel transformed into the hippest dude on the planet) and powerful performances are timeless. Stone Rollin’ is the most complete and compelling case he’s made yet for his classic, but contemporary rhythm and blues sensibility. Artists as diverse as Anthony Hamilton, Aloe Blacc, Nikki Jean, Mayer Hawthorne, Sharon Jones and others are part of a trend, if not exactly a movement, that’s restoring melody and organic (read: real instruments) sounds to contemporary Urban music. Categories be damned, Raphael Saadiq is a conscious artist, mindful of his place in a remarkable, rich continuum of African-American pop music, and making his own indelible contribution to that continuum. Stone Rollin’ leaves you hungry to learn what other rich veins he can mine in pursuit of his own, singular vision.

TheCountdown Continues with No. 7, the New York Dolls

2012-01-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

8. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)

The number seven selection, Dancing Backwards in High Heels by the New York Dolls, was reviewed for REVERBERATIONS in March.

Here's a link to that review:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-york-dolls-dancing-backwards-in.html

The Countdown Continues with No. 8, Eleanor Friedberger

2012-01-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

The number eight selection, Eleanor Friedberger's Last Summer was reviewed for REVERBERATIONS in August.

Here's a link to that review:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/08/eleanor-friedberger-last-summer-merge.html

The Countdown breaks until the Weekend (plus New York travel tidbits)

2012-01-03T20:51:00.000-08:00

Eight to go. And by golly two of those selections will require new reviews. Since yours truly (the man behind REVERBERATIONS curtain) has been hanging in Jersey and day tripping to the city, and visiting friends, and doing the family thing ... and since I don't have the full credits and/or optimal listening conditions for creating those reviews, we're taking a break in the 'Twenty-Five Faves' for 2011 Countdown. The countdown will resume this weekend. To the world at large this is less than arresting news, but for the brave and astute crowd who follow REVERBERATIONS I feel it necessary to offer this update and explanation.

I hope you have all had a fabulous holiday season.

Attended this exhibit at the United Nations today. Hey, it's not only Rock 'n' Roll, but it's not just Rock 'n' Roll.

Piccolo Angolo remains my favorite spot in NYC for Italian food.

The DeKooning exhibit at MOMA was sweet ...

In stolen moments been reading Kevin Avery's Everything is an Afterthought (Life and Writings of Paul Nelson) - highly recommended.

Alternating that with the new Don DeLillo short story collection, The Angel Esmeralda. Also recommended.

The Countdown Continues with No. 9, Jack Oblivian

2012-01-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

Continuing today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year on December 31st (if my math is right)*, we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal.

* Okay, it will take a little longer.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

At No. 9, check out this earlier review of Rat City by Jack Oblivian (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum):
http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/09/jack-oblivian-rat-city-big-legal.html

The Countdown Continues with No. 10, the Vaccines

2011-12-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

* Okay, maybe it will take a little longer.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)

At No. 10, it's the Vaccines and What Did You Expect from the Vaccines (Columbia). Here's the Reverberations review from earlier this year:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/06/vaccines-what-did-you-expect-from.html

Stay tuned for No. 9 and the rest of the Countdown!

The Countdown Continues with No. 11, Wild Flag

2011-12-31T07:11:00.000-08:00

* Okay, maybe it will take a little longer.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

In a year of very good releases by women artists, here's one more (and it's not the end) - Wild Flag - s/t (Merge). The link is from REVERBERATIONS September review:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/09/wild-flag-st-merge-records.html

The Countdown Continues with No. 12, Jolie Holland

2011-12-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

* Okay, maybe it will take a little longer.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

A link to REVERBERATIONS review of Jolie Holland's excellent release Pint of Blood (Anti) from July of this year:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/07/jolie-holland-pint-of-blood-anti.html

The Countdown Continues with No. 13., Pete and the Pirates

2011-12-26T16:44:00.000-08:00

* Okay, maybe it will take a little longer.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon)

At No. 13 we have a release that never found U.S. release, but I found the British issue of Pete and the Pirates One Thousand Pictures on Stolen Recordings immensely entertaining.

Here's a link to the REVERBERATIONS review from June ...

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/06/pete-and-pirates-one-thousand-pictures.html

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 14, Laura Marling

2011-12-25T16:45:00.000-08:00

* Okay, maybe it will take a little longer.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

At No. 14, a new review of a tremendous record by Laura Marling called A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon Records):

In 2011, at age 21, Laura Marling released her third album. Take note of that, you slackers. They’re all pretty damn good, too. And her most recent collection A Creature I Don’t Know is exceptionally so.

Now, this isn’t going to be one of my more expansive reviews. It’s Christmas, for … sake. And at 6:27 I’m full of wine. But darn it anyway, I listened to Creature a lot over the last several weeks, since its release in September, and with special scrutiny in the last two days. You know it’s a good sign when such scrutiny is only rewarded with continued, even enhanced pleasure.

Creature, at various points, reminds of the following:

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left

PJ Harvey – Dry

The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues

And a whole bunch of shit by Joni Mitchell.

Well now, it’s that last that shocks and disturbs me. Sorta. I admire Ms. Mitchell’s talent, but I’m not a fan. But damn it anyway, Laura Marling is clearly touched by Joni; and Marling is great. Live and freakin’ learn. Some of the resemblance is in composition, some of it in their shared jazz affinity, but mostly it’s that break in a certain place in their range. Oh well, maybe I gotta go back and cut Mitchell some slack. Never the Eagles. That’s sacred territory, the Dude’s and mine.

Marling is associated with Brit-folk, but outside the prominent use of non-amplified instruments, there’s not a lot to it. Sure, she leans sensibly on the some of the Jansch/Renbourn sensitivity that pervades all of British nu-folk, but Marling has learned as much from Led Zeppelin as Bert, John and company. Think I’m kidding? You can hear it in the “Going to California” flow of “Sophia,” with its lyric that echoes Dylan’s “Fourth Time Around,” and on Marling’s Percy-esque phrasing on “Rest in the Bed,” a song also suffused with Jansch (and Paul Simon) guitar phrasings. The tune also features her flattest, most direct declaration of love, love that withstands challenge (“the sirens come, they always will).

Typically, in Marling’s world, love is more complicated thing. In “Night After Night,” it’s “driven by rage.” The most consistent theme/persona throughout Creature is that of the “beast.” Well, it’s not as heavy as the beast of Christian lore, but it’s a cousin. It makes its first appearance in the very first track. “The Muse” speaks of the singer’s “hunger for abuse.” The muse is love, the muse is artistic inspiration, the muse it everything that eats the soul. And Marling sings about it like some Alison Krauss of darkness as banjo plucks away against cello strains (part of the Drake connection). The beast and the banjo pop up again in “Salinas,” a John Steinbeck inspired song with a bluesy tinge and a lyric for fallen angels and heavenly aspirants.

“The Beast” is in full roar on the song of the same name. Beginning with a dry recitation that builds in intensity, “Beast” is an ominous surrender to the light of darkness that’s more reminiscent of Patti Smith and PJ Harvey than anything to do with “folk.”

Other highlights include “I Was Just a Card,” with an arrangement that recalls Donovan’s proto-psych-folk and Van Morrison’s “Sweet Thing,” and “Don’t Ask Me Why,” the most Joni-inclined track here – it’ could have been an outtake from Court and Spark. The song is hymn to justified losers (“it’s not right, but it’s real”). But before we go too nutty with the Joni-cop thing, let’s acknowledge that at twenty-one Marling’s lyrical sensibilities are closer to Sandy Denny than any “rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air” shit. Marling’s singing borrows a toughness from British women of folk, from Denny to June Tabor, who have spines of steel to offset their gossamer flights, who provide a gravitas that the average Mitchell-inspired songbirds lack.

Creature closes with "All My Rage," Marling making peace with the elements as she closes the door on rage ("all my rage been gone"). You can't accept it as face value as a song of grace and transcendence. It works that way. In light of the rage that burns throughout much of Creature it feels like a moment's respite in a long journey.

A Creature I Don’t Know is remarkable for its arrangements and musicianship, for Ethan Johns deft production hand, and mostly for Laura Marling’s songs, singing, and comprehensive, mature vision. Hers is a talent impressive at any age, but extraordinary in one so young.

Apologia: I have not cited any of Marling’s accompanists in this review. I’m in Jersey. I have the music, but not the jacket and liner notes here. Oh, I checked other reviews and articles for references to the excellent players who provide support on Creature. Know what, there wasn’t a damn review that mentioned musicians. I remember when Greil Marcus reviewed the first record I had anything to do with (the first Thumbs album). He mentioned every damned player on the album. And he’s a big rock critic with a big ego. But I think he also understood that bass players have mothers, too. And that big mouth singer/auteurs and lead guitar players wouldn’t be worth two shits without the support they receive from the rhythm section. None of the Creature reviews said one good goddamn about musicians. Granted, it’s not always easy to work in reference to every player, especially in a short review. But hell … give the drummer some – that’s my New Year’s Resolution as a rock writer. For what that’s worth.

The Countdown Staggers, but will continue.

2011-12-23T20:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends:

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go ... whatever. My goal of ticking off the "Twenty-Five Faves" for 2011 on a clockwork, daily basis has been compromised. And boy, it's going to get more compromised. So be it. Life intervenes. Business, Art (others and my own),travel, family, all good ... all distracting from the task at hand. Plus, damn it, I found myself selecting plenty of records that I'd not reviewed previously, and feeling motivated/obligated to discuss them I found myself with w-o-r-k to do. Not complaining, mind. I love this stuff, but sometimes it gets pretty consuming. As does the life going on outside (and inside) all around me (to paraphrase his Bobness).

Some of the upcoming selections will require more, new reviews. Mostly though, once we hit the home stretch the selections will be things I've already covered. Easy.

Lists like this are silly. And I know it. Trying to create hierarchies of pleasure is fun sometimes, but if you think it means much, think again. What I enjoy about this is that crafting a list forces me to think about music I love and respect, music I want to share with my friends. The real difference between No. 8, say, and No. 23 may be jack-shit. So, it's all in fun, all intended primarily, if not solely, to stimulate curiosity and passion about music that moves me. If anything I write is provocative in that simple way I haven't wasted my time.

No. 14 will be posted on December 25th, because by end of Christmas day I will need a distraction from the joys and absurdities of family life in Mahwah, New Jersey.

Peace,

Steve W.

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 15, Tom Waits

2011-12-21T20:30:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

Here's a brand spankin' new review of Tom Waits "Bad as Me" (Anti Records):

Tom Waits. When he’s good, he’s very good. When he’s … well, he’s never really bad, but sometimes he relies on shtick. Let’s face it; when your vocal persona is distinctive enough that it’s imitated (ripped off) for a television commercial it’s either preternatural or affect. Okay, it’s a little of both, but nobody’s born with that voice. And sometimes it serves him brilliantly, other times it’s sui generis, but empty. On Bad as Me, Waits first studio album since 2004’s Real Gone, and the first entirely successful collection since the excellent Mule Variations in 1998, Waits engages the full range of his vocal personae, intuitively matching them to the individual songs.

Waits’ career has certainly gone through phases. In his early years he was a bedraggled, barfly balladeer, long on equal parts cynicism and sentiment. By the Eighties he’d engaged his inner Captain Beefheart and Howlin’ Wolf. Not a bad move, given that vocally he was never going to be Tim Buckley. With Swordfish Trombones he took cues from Harry Partsch’s school-of-the-home-made-instrument, and his lyrics dropped some sentimentality in favor of noir. Waits moved into territory that sounded like Lord Buckley narrating Jim Thompson. And it worked. Leavened with a dash of commercial sensibility for Rain Dogs, he made an album that combined the best of his worlds. The introduction of Marc Ribot on guitar was pivotal to this slight shift. Ribot has remained a consistent collaborator, who has helped shape Waits music since the early Eighties. He remains a vital contributor to Bad as Me.

Like Rain Dogs in its time, Bad as Me is something of a consolidation of approach for Waits. While it retains qualities that suggest his having swallowed Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, Bad As Me relies more on standard blues instrumentation and less on Partsch/Moondog methods. Waits seems rejuvenated by this more orthodox, electric approach, maintaining intensity throughout, evoking the full range of American music (blues, rockabilly, and jazz) without ever sinking to the direr reaches of Americana. In addition to Ribot, Waits gets superb accompaniment from his son Casey on drums, and frequent contributions from Keith Richards, Flea, Augie Meyers (reprising the spooky organ stuff from Dylan’s Time Out of Mind), and Charley Musselwhite, who blows bluesy harp on several cuts.

Partly due to his wife and co-writer/producer Kathleen Brennan’s insistence, these tracks are concise, punchy and to the point. Good call. Focus usually betters sprawl, as it does in this case, even if the brevity of the songs suggests an element of Tom Waits “For Dummies.” So be it. Hell, it works.

Bad as Me blasts off with “Chicago,” a tale that could be contemporary, or could be set in the Fifties, as it chronicles the journey of thousands of African-Americans from Mississippi and other points south to the Hog Butcher City. Waits cries “All Aboard” as the song fades, connecting to Muddy Waters and the song of the same name, Marc Ribot and Keith Richards firing away like Muddy and Jimmy Rogers. Keith also contributes to “Satisfied” – fittingly the lyric makes consistent reference to, well, “Satisfaction.” He take a vocal turn, too, singing harmony on “Last Leaf” (“I’ve been here since Eisenhower”), a not so thinly disguised survivor metaphor that Waits and Richards , as they say, resemble. Richards and Ribot also riff away on the anti-war screed “Hell Broke Luce,” a field song with blistering guitars and sound effects that places the responsibility for the twin wars in the Middle East on guys with “their sorry ass stapled to a goddamn desk.”

The deplorable state of the union seems much on Tom’s mind. “Raised Right Men” is a twelve-bar tribute to a mythic (i.e. gone) America. “Talking at the Same Time” offers a concise, perceptive American economic history, concluding with commentary like “we bailed out the millionaires; they got the fruit, we got the rind,” all fine tuned to a melody that recalls the blues classic “St. James Infirmary,” sung in an unnerving falsetto.

Brennan and Waits celebrate mature love with “Kiss Me,” but the lyric (“like a stranger once again”) acknowledges the difficulty of keeping the old flames burning. If Sinatra was still alive this would be a dandy for him to interpret. “Back in the Crowd” has a Willy DeVille doing Doc Pomus vibe and features, as do several tracks here, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo on guitar. Hidalgo powers the rockabilly rooted “Get Lost,” a song about romantic obsession and retreat.

Bad as Me winds down with “New Year’s Eve,” as Waits interpolation of “Auld Lang Syne” recalls his use of “Waltzing Matilda” in “Tom Traubert’s Blues” for Small Change, closing the curtain with a hymn to forgiveness that serenades drug addiction, alcoholism and romantic betrayal. Just another day at the office for the modern troubadour, I reckon. Albums as good as Bad as Me support the case for Waits, a commercial outsider, as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. But don’t get me started on that, huh – there are some glaring omissions in the admissions department. And some rancid, if inevitable, selections already stinking up the joint.

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 16, Sonny and the Sunsets

2011-12-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red)

Here's a brand spankin' new look at Hit after Hit from Sonny Smith and the Sunsets (Fat Possum Records):

Sonny Smith writes songs. Lots of songs - by way of example, he wrote two-hundred for an art installation called 100 Records, all attributed to fictional artists, all deriving heavily from Fifties and Sixties pop, rock and rhythm ‘n’ blues sounds. His songs are flatly, frankly derivative, but with his retro-sensibility and easy, laconic vocal delivery he puts his own stamp on such idiomatic material. Nowhere is this exemplified better than on the new Sonny and the Sunsets release Hit after Hit.

Top 40-radio in the Sixties purveyed plenty of garbage, just as it does now. But not only was the overall quality of hit radio better in that halcyon era, but the sheer variety of styles and sounds was breathtaking. It’s hard for anyone younger than fifty-five to imagine a time when you might hear Count Five, the Who, Martha and the Vandellas and Buck Owens, all in one set, in between commercial breaks. Smith isn’t old enough to remember this himself. But he’s still nostalgic for it. Like many of his San Francisco garage-rock brethren he’s a rag picker, running a shop full of dusty treasures. Many of those peers assist on Hit after Hit, including John Dwyer from Thee Oh Sees and scene mainstay Kelley Stoltz, who plays drums on the album. It’s an insular, but cooperative crew, all of them somehow stuck on retro sounds, yet pushing the envelope of same.

Enjoy the girl group, ska-tinged balladry of “I Wanna Do It.” Dig the head-down rockers, like “Home and Exile,” with its “Wipeout” drums, sounding like a home-grown, hayseed version of the Who circa Sell Out. And hey, how about the Coasters-Ruben and the Jets (and back out again) irony of the doo-wop gone Vato strut of “Teenage Thugs?” I’m digging the chilled out r & b vamp (think Kinks “Nothing in This World Can Stop Me Worrying ‘Bout That Girl”) of “She Plays Yoyo with My Mind.” On songs like “Yoyo” you can hear the subtle arrangement tricks that Smith uses (the drums pick up at 2:00, a shaker part at 2:45 moves things along); throughout HAH he and his merry band devote attention to the little details that give the performances shade and momentum.

Icons like the Stones (“Girls Beware”) and the Velvet Underground (“Reflections on Youth”) are referenced. ‘Heart of Sadness” and “Pretend You Love Me” are lovely mid-tempo pop ballads, the sort of songs that Nick Lowe concocted in his “Pure Pop for Now People” days, the latter with a deeper roots nod to the Everly Brothers.

As a recycler Sonny Smith is an adept. He uses archetypes and forms in fun and inventive ways that elevate his approach beyond pastiche. Someone coming to this music with the kind of sensibilities enflamed by progressive-rock might find it all rather unserious. For me, fun is a serious as it gets.

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 17, Thee Oh Sees

2011-12-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

Today, at No. 17 we have the "carrion crawler/the dream ep" album from Thee Oh Sees. The review from REVERBERATIONS in November is linked here:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/11/thee-oh-sees-carrion-crawlerthe-dream.html

* Okay, Dec. 31st. Maybe. Thereabouts, at least.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records)

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 18, Steve Cropper

2011-12-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

Continuing today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year on December 31st (if my math is right), we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal.

Since Steve Cropper's Dedicated (429 Records)isn't an album I've reviewed previously, here's a new review:

That the 5 Royales have yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is silliness bordering on the shameful. Instead, they are principally remembered by true rhythm ‘n’ blues aficionados. Oh, people know their songs – “Dedicated to the One I Love,” covered by the Shirelles and the Mamas and Papas; “Think,” reworked by James Brown; “Tell the Truth” popularized by Ray Charles are but a few examples. And they were their songs; the majority of them composed by Lowman “Pete” Pauling, somewhat unusual for rhythm ‘n’ blues artists of their time. Not just a fine songwriter, Pauling was an innovative guitarist, whose seamless switching between steady, staccato rhythm comps and sharp blues leads was an inspiration to many younger players. Among them was Steve Cropper.

Cropper’s two recent albums with Felix Cavaliere (Rascals) were pretty naff. Given the talents of the tandem they were disappointingly dull. It’s not like Cropper lacks a pedigree. As guitarist for Booker T. & the MG’s and session man at Stax studios Cropper’s sound defined Southern soul and inspired every guitarist who heard him. Dedicated is Cropper paying his debt to Pete Pauling’s substantial influence on Cropper’s approach to guitar and arrangement. A collection of 5 Royales songs, produced by Cropper and Jon Tiven, Dedicated features vocal turns from the following: Steve Winwood, Bettye La Vette (twice), Willie Jones, B.B. King, Shemekia Copeland, Lucinda Williams (twice), Dan Penn (twice), John Popper, Brian May, Sharon Jones (twice), Buddy Miller, and Dylan Leblanc.

Okay, don’t know what you’re thinking. But hell, I’m thinking, God help us – not another all-star collection of half-ass interpretations of songs (way) better rendered by the original performer. Is there one collection, out of the fifty-three, of Leonard Cohen “tributes” that’d you ever listen to before reaching for Songs of. I didn’t think so. And Lord, examples of this dire phenomenon are legion.

But lo and behold, Dedicated is damn good. Cropper simply knows and loves these songs too much to let anybody butcher them. Not everything here is as great as Sharon Jones’ smokin’ take on ‘Messin’ Up,” or Buddy Miller’s hearty romp through the hilarious “The Slummer the Slum.” But I’ll be damned if most of Dedicated isn’t fine. Cropper and his crack support staff (Miller hangs around on guitar, the bottom end man from Muscle Shoals, David Hood is on bass, and Steve(s) Jordan and Ferrone bring the funky drumming) play with just the right mix of edge and relaxation, knowing how to push the beat when needed and when to slide down to the groove when not. Okay, one song featuring Lucinda Williams semi-appropriate drawl might have been enough. And I’ve never been John Popper’s biggest fan (although he acquits himself pretty well on “My Sugar Sugar,” after all). Still, this is a fun listen from start to finish. Even the lesser tracks fail to spoil the spirited fun of Dedicated, a tribute record that actually does true justice to its inspiration – the undervalued 5 Royales and the songwriting and guitar gifts of one Lowman “Paul” Pauling.

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop)

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 19, Dum Dum Girls

2011-12-14T18:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to my previous review of the Dum Dum Girls Only in Dreams:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/10/dum-dum-girls-only-in-dreams-sub-pop.html

Joining:

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 20, White Fence

2011-12-14T08:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to my previous review of White Fence's Is Growing Faith:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/05/white-fence-white-fence-is-growing.html

Joining:

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 21, Meg Baird

2011-12-13T00:25:00.000-08:00

Fans of music bubbling up from the indie-folk underground first became acquainted with Meg Baird as primary vocalist for the Espers. The Philadelphia ensemble is one of those bands that critics twist themselves in knots trying to categorize. While their sources are traditional, they put their own distinct spin, just as some of their inspirations – The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Pentangle - did in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Of course writers and listeners struggled then to categorize the music of those bands; and they didn’t even have psych-folk or freak-folk to throw around yet.

The Espers cover a lot of ground (psychedelia, shoegaze and Middle Eastern influences, as well as the full range of folk idioms). As a solo artist, Meg Baird steers a little narrower course on her new, second album Seasons on Earth. Conceptually, she betrays the sensibility of her generation when it comes to vocals and their place in the mix; where Joni Mitchell or other singers of her generation might have given pop prominence to vocals, Baird gives her guitar equal value. The results can vary from mesmerizing (it does lend a trance-like, live performance presence to these tracks) to maddening (sometimes it’s really hard to discern the lyrics).

Baird’s a fine guitarist, adept at finger-picking in the vein of peers and influences like the late Jack Rose and her friend Glenn Jones, players who draw from the Tacoma school of John Fahey (mixing Appalachian folk and Piedmont style blues into a new American guitar idiom) and the Davey Graham-John Renbourn-Bert Jansch school of British folk guitar (a style which itself drew as heavily from American influences like blues and jazz as English and Celtic folk traditions). There’s a seamlessness to Baird’s playing that gives these songs a tranquil, hypnotic quality that’s only enhanced by her lithe, gentle singing.

Baird is often compared to Sandy Denny. Her range is similar, and her phrasing borrows from Denny, but her voice is breathier – suggestive where Denny was insistent, airy where Denny was sanguine. Baird reminds too of Jacqui McShee, the singer with Pentangle (which included the aforesaid Renbourn and Jansch), a little of Celia Humprhis, from baroque-folk cult faves the Trees, and more than a little of Vashti Bunyan. Like Bunyan, Baird’s soprano may be breathy, but it still has a certain gravity that gives her performances authority.

Where here first solo album, Dear Companion, was comprised mostly of covers (including only two of her own compositions), Seasons on Earth flips that. Still, as good as her material is, it’s the two non-originals, sequenced in the middle of the album, that anchor the record. And where most of these songs feature accompaniment on Dobro and pedal steel from Marc Orleans, “Friends” and “The Beatles and the Stones” are carried entirely by Baird’s own fingerpicked guitar. The former, written by Jon Mark and first performed by Mark-Almond, is a spare lament for friendship lost and re-imagined. “The Beatles and the Stones” originates with Guy Chadwick and his band House of Love, the lyric an elliptic elegy for youth that wallows in the deliciousness of loneliness. Baird’s versions of these songs are true to the originals melodically, but her interpretations add a layer of melancholy that enriches the material.

Baird’s guitar is at the center of her original songs, but they feature, in addition to Orleans’s dobro/steel work, contributions from several electric guitarists and harpist Mary Lattimore. “Stars Climb Up the Vine” has a meditative swirl that salvages what’s essentially a shapeless tune running over seven minutes. Better is “Share” with Orleans’s Sneaky Pete Kleinow-style pedal steel licks, lending a Sweetheart of the Rodeo (Byrds) feel to the arrangement. With lines like “we just could not get it right” and “we could not keep up with you; what makes you think we wanted to” her vocal opacity becomes metaphor for the lyric’s sense of communication breakdown.

In the raga-tinged “The Land Turned Over” Baird sings, “for ten more drops of stillness I’d tell you anything,” which may be the loveliest way you’ll ever hear someone ask someone else to shut the hell up. “Stream” lives up to its title, being a suite of shifting moods, key and dynamic changes. There isn’t a lot of tune here, but the performance is still compelling. “Song for Next Summer” concludes Seasons on Earth with one of Baird’s shapelier melodies based on a guitar figure very much in the Bert Jansch mold. The song’s false ending reinforces the cyclical implications of the title; it’s a lovely conclusion to the record.

Seasons on Earth is one of those collections, not unlike Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left or Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, that succeeds in creating and sustaining a sweet, certain melancholy. I’m not prepared to say it’s as good as those classics, but I can say it belongs in their company. And that’s no small feat.

Joining:
25. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for my Halo (Matador)
24. Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes (Yep Roc)
23. Bass Drum of Death - GB City (Fat Possum)
22. Coathangers - Larceny and Old Lace (Suicide Squeeze)

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 22, The Coathangers

2011-12-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

At No. 22 it's the Coathangers. Here's a link to my review of Larceny and Old Lace:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/06/coathangers-larceny-old-lace-suicide.html

The 2011 Countdown Continues with No. 23, Bass Drum of Death

2011-12-08T20:31:00.000-08:00

Continuing today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year on December 31^st (if my math is right), we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal.

I've reviewed the majority of these selections. In the event that I have I'll simply recycle the original reviews, sometimes with a little new commentary. If it's a selection I haven't reviewed previously, I will dash off a new, brief, introductory review just for perspective.

This year, like most in recent memory, saw the release of several scraggly-ass garage-grunge-punk-pop records (hyphens, no charge) - new releases from mainstays like Ty Segall, newcomers like Hanni El Khatib, download only entries from fixtures such as Reigning Sound and King Khan (a sign, albeit an ironic one, of the times) – heck, the admittedly loosely construed genre even spew forth reissues and anthologies from the Reatards, Lost Sounds and the aforesaid Mr. Segall, a sure sign of, uh, maturity.

All of them were pretty good, but none resonated from bang one to final decay as records like Reigning Sounds’ Time Bomb High School or King Khan and BBQ Show’s debut had in years past. For me the best representatives of the idiom are those records that have an appeal that preaches beyond the converted. In 2011, one album has kept insinuating itself, despite my initial dismissal; that album is GB City the distortion-saturated opus from Oxford, Mississippi’s Bass Drum of Death on Fat Possum Records.

The product of John Barrett as one-man band, GBC still exudes the feel of a live performance. And where many garage records feature gonzo drumming (powerful until dissolute) and half-baked homages to the Johnny Thunders school of guitar playing, Bass Drum of Death has the maniacal thrum and thrust of the Ramones, as well as a pop sensibility not unlike the darlings of Queens. And like the Ramones, BDOD like throwing in the occasional Beach Boys “ooh-woo-ooh” back up vocals, as they do on the opening track “Nerve Jammer,” the slowed-down Spector beat number “Spare Room” (also reminiscent of Craig Nichols and the Vines), and “Young Pros.”

You can hear echoes of Patti Smith’s “Ask the Angels” in the tribal thud of “Get Found.” “Velvet Itch” sounds like a shotgun wedding of Nirvana and T. Rex with its janitor in a drum reverb – Barrett ranting about talking “to Elvis in my sleep. I guess he’s entitled; he’s from Mississippi. Ghosts of Cobain and co. also haunt “I Could Never Be Your Man” – hey, if you’re Barrett’s age it’s not like you could not be influenced by Nevermind.

Along with the Redneck Ramones thing they have happening, BDOD also approach the bullhead insistence of the Stooges on “Heart Attack Kid,” although here Barrett ingeniously pairs a Ringo-style back beat to a Funhouse guitar. “High School Roaches” sounds like the Gun Club minus the blues obsessions.

Driving, fuzzed-out, drunk on effects pedals, Barrett’s nascent, primitive pop sensibilities keep this music from being run of the mill grunge-pop (for short). It’s a sound he can develop without screwing the pooch in the energy department. Again, the paradigm reminds of the Ramones – start with a fundamentally primitive sound, imbued with pop signals from the cultural ether, then every second guitar, every single note solo, every acoustic rhythm track … sounds like innovation.

The 2011 Countdown continues with Fountains of Wayne at No. 24

2011-12-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Continuing today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year on December 31^st (if my math is right), we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal.

I've reviewed the majority of these selections. In the event that I have I'll simply recycle the original reviews, sometimes with a little new commentary. If it's a selection I haven't reviewed previously, I will dash off a new, brief, introductory review just for perspective.

Here's a link to my review of "Sky Full of Holes" by Fountains of Wayne:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/08/fountains-of-wayne-sky-full-of-holes.html

The 2011 Countdown begins with Kurt Vile at No. 25

2011-12-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

Starting today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year on December 31^st (if my math is right), we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal.

I've reviewed the majority of these selections. In the event that I have I'll simply recycle the original reviews, sometimes with a little new commentary. If it's a selection I haven't reviewed previously, I will dash off a new, brief, introductory review just for perspective.

My introduction to Kurt Vile was as Adam Granduciel’s chief cohort on Wagonwheel Blues a quietly mesmerizing album by Granduciel’s band War on Drugs. With lush guitar atmospheres that straddled genres and generations, Wagonwheel Blues had vocals that sounded like a mixture of Neil Young and Jason Pierce (Spaceman 3). The songs were good enough to emerge from the fog of the music, but sometimes you didn’t care if they did.

Providing continuity, Kurt Vile's War on Drugs pal Granduciel contributes to seven tracks on Halo. Halo crystallizes everything good about Vile's earlier music, casts his aesthetic in superior production, all without taking away it’s worn, melancholy essence. Vile’s is the voice of the down but not out bohemian, aware of his outsider status and trying to dig in. In “Puppet to the Man” he sings “you best believe I am” in a Courtney Taylor Taylor drawl implying both recognition and defiance. The post-Fahey fingerpicking of “Baby’s Arms” drips a similar guarded ambivalence. Vile sings that he’ll “never ever, ever be alone” but it sounds mordantly wishful rather than certain. Throughout Halo Vile makes deals with mortality and God, culminating in the two-chord blast of “Ghost Town,” in which he suggest he was present at the birth of Christ as if here were describing events just outside his window.

Sometimes Vile suggests a less pop Elliott Smith, a kinship with East River Pipe, sometimes a latter day Neil Young, other times he's a descendant of Lou Reed's demi-monde visions. Throughout Halo, he and his band the Violators create and sustain a downcast, but defiant mood and deliver moving performances of Vile's darkly moving songs.

Weary but glorious, Kurt Vile does more than make records; he creates a world for the listener to enter.

Rolling Stones - Some Girls (Deluxe Edition)/(Republic)

2011-11-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

A broad critical consensus has emerged that 1978’s Some Girls was the last great Rolling Stones album. A case can be made. Sure, the Stones have done spotty work for the last, oh, thirty-five years. But Tattoo You – that was pretty good. Personally, I thought Undercover was underrated. And their last record A Bigger Bang from 2005 was about 2/3 great. But back to Some Girls. Yeah, it’s really good. The relative mediocrity of the three studio releases between the venerated Exile on Main Street and Some Girls (Goat’s Head Soup, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Black and Blue) left a still sizeable and devout Stones fan base ready for love. Some of those fans could have given a rat’s ass about punk rock. Others, however, moved by the racket that had blown out of New York and London during the (Sucking in the) Seventies, had a sense that the back to basics blood and guts of punk had thrown down to the Rolling Stones.

The Stones knew it. Mick Jagger in particular has always been, for better or worse, extremely sensitive to trends. Central to the energy behind the hard, fast and rockin’ tracks on Some Girls was Jagger’s own rhythm guitar playing. More square, less syncopated than Keith Richard’s playing, Jagger’s assertive guitar gave the album much of its foursquare thrust.

But wait, I don’t really want to review Some Girls. Been done. In summary, I think it’s terrific, but maybe rated too highly, and primarily by a lot of the same folks who have an unnecessarily dim view of the Stones’ subsequent output. What I really want to talk about is disc two of the deluxe edition of Some Girls.

Following the same formula as the deluxe reissue of Exile on Main Street, it includes an extra disc comprised of tracks from the same vintage that were left, for whatever reason, in the vaults until now. And like the Exile cuts these unreleased recordings are a hodge-podge of original tracking and late-model embellishments, especially Jagger’s lead vocals.

The results on Exile’s leftovers were mixed indeed. That album had such a distinct murk that matching the production values without the dank, sweaty, dope-sick basement conditions that birthed it was a rough task. Many of the more polished performances, like “Following the River” and “Plundered My Soul,” stood in stark contrast to some of the sketchier tracks like the rough draft of “Soul Survivor.” While not without entertainment and historical value, nothing on disc two of Exile contributed to the original recording’s myth.

Disc two of Some Girls is a different story. These tracks expand our sense of Some Girls, reinforcing the original album’s qualities and adding new insight to our picture of what the band was up to in that Paris studio in 1977. What’s more they hang together; they sound organically connected. In other words, disc two of Some Girls suggests that many of these recordings could have made the final cut, but it does more than that, a lot more – it represents a whole and compelling album all its own, and a very different album to the released Some Girls, despite their shared origins.

Disc two, unlike most of Some Girls, which features Jagger’s assertive electric rhythm guitar, finds Jagger sticking to acoustic guitar, harp and vocals. Without his punk fueled approach to rhythm guitar, Richards and Ron Wood lean on the influences and idioms that informed the Stones in the first instance. “So Young,” “When You’re Gone,” and “Keep Up Blues” all shows a Chicago blues influence that was absent from Some Girls. A country flavor, essentially limited to the delightful farce “Faraway Eyes” on Some Girls, is prevalent here on “Do You Think I Really Care,” “No Spare Parts,” as well as two covers – “We Had it All” (a current country hit they learned from Waylon Jennings’s version) and the Hank Williams chestnut “You Win Again.”

“So Young” and “When You’re Gone” are Chess vintage informed rockers. The former is a dirty old man’s diary, the latter a tale of scorn born of pain. Both tracks feature biting, bluesy leads from Ron Wood. He asserts himself on these sessions. Compared to the stodgy Black and Blue, Wood sounds comfortable and fully part of the band. He spars with Keith, solos sharply, and lends his pedal steel chops to several songs.

“Keep Up Blues” is a bon vivant’s lament. Richards and Wood trade lines like Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers while Jagger spins a portrayal of an insecure fusspot somewhere between his own “Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man” and the Kinks’ “Dedicated Follower of Fashion.”

“Do You Think I Really Care” is a country-rocker in the “Dead Flowers” vein, a doth-protest-too-much rebuke disguised as a New York travelogue. “No Spare Parts” is full of geographical detail as well (greasy spoons, western boots, tire changes) that has the flow and specificity of a Dylan lyric (the reggae inflected "Don't Be a Stranger" also hints that Jagger was not stranger to Blood on the Tracks and Desire), set to a progression that echoes “Winter” and “Memory Motel.”

Keith’s vocal turn on “We Had It All” sounds personal. It sounds like a goodbye to Anita Pallenberg, in fact. The song is a little corny, but Richards has always has a penchant for this kind of country balladry. Jagger’s Hank Williams homage on “You Win Again” is almost affect free and the band is terrific in support. My one complaint is that it would be even better if Richards had contributed harmonies; their blend would spice things up compared to Jagger’s overdubbed harmony parts.

“I Love You Too Much” uses a riff that popped up later on Undercover’s “It Must Be Hell.” The sentiments are as banal as the title, and this is the Stones at their most mature and generic. Of course it’s a ton of fun despite all that.

The easy, bluesy flow of these cuts has much to do with the presence of Ian Stewart on piano on several songs. His rapport with Richards, as well as Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts (who are both fabulous throughout) seems to put the band at ease, and here he was free of competition from Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston (and he got along better with (then) new sometime keyboard man Ian McLagan). The instrumental tracks seem to derive primarily from the original sessions, despite a few key guitar overdubs, further lending to the relaxed groove. Jagger is reputed to have recut the majority of the lead vocals, either out of necessity or design. Fortunately, he sounds less mannered and shrill than he did on the Exile outtakes. His re-dos here are better, and much more sympathetic to the original sessions.

The salacious “Claudine” opens things as Jagger lampoons the celebrity murder scandal involving singer-ingénue (and Andy Williams wife) Claudine Longet and skier/instructor Spider Sabich. It’s grisly, mocking and it rocks with a rare, for the Stones, Memphis slap-back sound. In Rolling Stone magazine the very funny, but not especially astute Rob Sheffield, refers to it as a “Chuck Berry-style rocker.” Laaaaaazy! With the Stones nod to the Sun Studios sound being such a rarity in their canon you’d think he’d lay off the Chuck Berry shit.

Sheffield also puts his foot in his pie hole by calling “Tallahassee Lassie” a “rockabilly chestnut.” That’s a stretch. Hailing from Massachusetts, the song’s originator Freddy Cannon made some big beat rock ‘n’ roll sides, but his style leaned more on Little Richard’s whomp than anything remotely hillbilly. The Stones version of “Lassie” is a treat. It makes the Flamin’ Groovies winning take on the song sound tame, as Jagger shreds at the top of his lungs and the boys in the band fire away like punk really was a hellhound on their trail. More than anything, it’s the sound of the Rolling Stones cutting loose, ravaging a tune a tad outside their usual idiom, and flat out having fun.

After a relative creative drought in the mid-Seventies, culminating in Keith Richard’s legal limbo in Toronto, Some Girls was the sound of the Rolling Stones having fun, becoming a band again. The original album also sounded like a band with something to prove. The performances on disc two of the expanded, deluxe version of Some Girls are a horse of a different color – just as engaging, they sound at once focused and relaxed. And like a band with fuck all to prove to anyone.

Reverberating: Somewhere around 9.something (It's the Rolling Stones, and it doesn't suck. Doesn't that make it at least a 9.something?)

Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In The Red)

2011-11-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

Ah, it’s sweet really. The noise generation is meeting me half-way. I remember back in 2003 when a young pal tried to introduce me to Pink & Brown. I try to keep an open mind. Really, I do. My shelves are full of records and discs with music that the average listener would call noise. But I always viewed noise as something that best served as energy and expression tools for … I dunno, songs? From the MC5 to Sonic Youth the racket was seasoning and juicing to rock ‘n’ roll. So, all this Pink & Brown, Lightning Bolt shit left me perplexed. I love a racket, but this was a new kind of racket – primitive, artless, tuneless. Meh. Was I missing something?

Well, the answer is: a) not really and b) maybe a little something.

Which leads us to our man John Dwyer, he’s the prolific force behind Pink & Brown, the Coachwhips, Hospitals, and most recently Thee Oh Sees (among others). The Coachwhips wanted to be the Oblivians but were without the limited skills and lyric sensibility required for such homage. But they were better than Pink & Brown. The Hospitals? I never listened to them enough to have much of an opinion. When I heard Dwyer had yet another band - this one called Thee Oh Sees, I approached them with trepidation.

But from the beginning I kinda liked what I heard. In addition to the annals of noise racket, Dwyer seemed to have absorbed lessons from psychedelia (the kind with spaces between the noises) as well as the urgent, fuzz-toned rhythms of the bands that were featured on Crypt Records Back from the Grave compilations. Thee Oh Sees release something new every four months (okay, close to it). Seriously, they’ve put out about thirteen records in seven years (under various monikers, relying on TOS for the last four or so years), depending on what you count and who’s counting. The band’s latest offering carrion crawler/the dream EP (lower case is theirs’) is an arresting synthesis of the various strains that run through the band’s music, especially a combination of Help’s psycho-trips and Castlemania’s Cali-garage-pop, music that sounded touched by San Francisco garage peers like Ty Segall and the Fresh and Onlys.

Now, lest you think that Thee Oh Sees have gone all Stephin Merritt on your ass, rest assured the lyrics to these fairly fetching ditties still resemble the jottings of a mental patient on the page. But they work on the songs, and that’s what matters. Generally, they convey your standard disorientation and disillusionment. “Robber Barons” anticipates an OWS (Occupy Wall Street) social climate (“we turn our backs on kings and queens”). “The Dream” is a nitrous-mare on the slim edge between dreams and reality. In “Wrong Idea” a wolf kills a dude; it’s short, not sweet, and grisly as it presumes the final indignity of being “forgotten.” Have a beer, kids.

“Crushed Glass” is “Last Kiss” on mescaline, faintly describing a car crash “under tired teenaged eyes.” “Heavy Doctor” paints a nightmare eco-tastrophe in which the singer is “alive but mighty sick I am to be.” Tell it to Cormac McCarthy, dudes.

Fortunately, the thrilling garage-psych murk that supports these portraits from the Cuckoo’s Nest is damn near program perfect. “Carrion Crawler” melds the descending chords from the Amboy Dukes' “Journey to the Center of the Mind” to a Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd riff drive. A Sterling Morrison meets Mike Bloomfield guitar explosion rips out of the Damned “Neat Neat Neat” rhythms of ‘Contraption/Soul Desert.” “Robber Barons” kicks off and sustains a beautifully dumb set of Troggs/Kinks syncopations, while “Chem-Farmer” sounds like the Detroit Wheels at a Kool-Aid test. A Black Angels kinship, generally audible, is especially obvious on the “The Dream,” where Brigid Dawson (mistress of all things cool and creepy on cheap electronic keyboards) takes lead vocal and on “Crack in Your Eye” with its opening downbeat-heavy strobe-throb. Guitarists Dwyer and Petey Dammit coax all kinds of Sixties-psych sounds out of their guitars and amps, from distortion saturated six-string blasts to jangling twelve-string sounds, from garage-fuzz grease to Barry Melton licks from the first psychedelic era in the Haight. The double-drumming that powers these tracks by Michael Shoun and Lars Finberg (on loan from the Intelligence) is sharp, powerful, and never excessive.

The band sounds decidedly Nuggets/Pebbles/Grave on tracks like “Robber Barons” and ‘Wrong Idea,” like the Reigning Sound (if they were full of ‘shrooms instead of bourbon) on “Crushed Grass” and more than a little like compatriots of the Black Lips and Jay Reatard (but the early Young Rascals, too) on “Heavy Doctor,” the latter a bona fide set-closing monster.

So, in other words, Thee Oh Sees … all over the place – but interesting places, well collated. An ear for song construction and tunes, lacking from Dwyer’s earliest music, accompanies the band’s strong arrangements and performances. Along with the Black Angels, Wooden Shjips, the Fresh and Onlys and other current bands with roots in psych, garage and pop, Thee Oh Sees are making the world safe for a new generation of kids hiding behind beaded curtains and the smell of incense.

Reverberating: 8.4

Rocket From the Tombs - Barfly (Fire Records)

2011-11-07T20:01:00.000-08:00

When David Thomas dubbed Pere Ubu “Avant-garage” he did so in a playful, facetious manner, mostly to give rock critics something to chew on. Of course, as Bryan Ferry observed, throwaway lines often ring true. Pere Ubu, especially in the Seventies, combined primitive, aggressive guitar based rock and primal emotional expression with a unique performance (especially Thomas’s vocals) idiom and lyrics that derived from intellectual abstractions not common to the “Nuggets” generation that inspired the band. It’s hard to imagine the Shadows of Knight arriving at lyric conceits like “Non-Alignment Pact” (basically a desperate plea for fidelity built on a diplomatic metaphor … but still) or “Final Solution.” You know?

Ubu, arguably one of rock’s greatest and most important bands to remain little known, was an offspring of another tremendous band. That same band birthed the Dead Boys – a group that had everything and nothing in common with Pere Ubu. That mother of a band was Rocket from the Tombs. RFTT existed for about a year, straddling 1974 and 1975. They played a handful of shows, mostly in their native Cleveland. They never released a record.

But from Rocket From the Tombs' repertoire Pere Ubu took “Final Solution,” ‘Life Stinks,” and “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” while the Dead Boys derived “Sonic Reducer,” “Ain’t it Fun,” and “Down in Flames.” In other words, a chunk of the core repertoire that helped establish two pretty important punk era bands originated with RFTT. And it’s noteworthy that their sound could, pretty easily really, inform two outfits as rocking, but divergent as Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. And you, by God, could call them Avant-garage.

Recorded evidence of RFTT’s fiery eccentricities finally emerged in 2002 from Smog Veil Records. A collection of live shows and radio takes called The Day the Earth met Rocket from the Tombs was a revelation, placing the band squarely in the company of punk anticipators like the Velvets, Stooges and MC5. It was followed in 2004 with a live in the studio recital of the same material called, appropriately, Rocket Redux – recorded by a new edition of the band. This new assembly included three original members – David Thomas on vocals, guitarist Gene O’Connor (Cheetah Chrome of Dead Boys fame to you), and bassist Craig Bell. Able new additions to the band included Pere Ubu drummer Steve Mehlman and guitarist Richard Lloyd, best known for his role in Avant-garage’s (ha, there it is!) ultimate guitar tandem with Tom Verlaine in Television. Redux lacked only a little for The Day the Earth’s … incendiary qualities, and made up for that slight lack with sharply focused performances and better sound.

After a fractious tour in 2004 and a smattering of dates since, the band appeared to be on indefinite hold. Then, assembling at the glamorous Red Roof Inn in Mentor, Ohio (okay, that’s what the band’s press release says) in January 2009, the five members of the rejuvenated RFTT began to massage the material that was recorded in August of last year with long-time Ubu sound associate Paul Hamann. The new album is called Barfly. The cover art and packaging reflect a Fifties vintage obsession with illustrated insect-monsters. My first flash was on James Arness, being a chronological peer of these fellas, and my/their early fixation on flicks like The Thing and Them. It’s creepy, it's fun and it’s also in keeping with David Thomas’s well-founded sense of himself as a rock mutant and outsider.

The songs on Barfly embody this sensibility, being mostly left-field takes on romantic rock conceits. If age has taken a few of the feral edges off of RFTT’s attack this is still vital, dangerous, and distinctive rock. David Thomas sounds like absolutely no one else, but the years have added a lot in the way of depth and nuance to his singing. Nonetheless, while his persona is not exactly meat and potatoes punk rock, he does sound, in his words - “old, loud and snotty” (a reference to the Dead Boys debut Young, Loud and Snotty).

On paper, based on their playing in the late Seventies, the idea of Cheetah Chrome and Richard Lloyd as a twin-guitar attack would have seemed a little improbable. In 2011 it sure works. Lloyd was always the more linear and rocking guitarist in Television. Chrome in the Dead Boys was a straight up rockin’ out monster. On Barfly they succeed simultaneously at playing off and to each other’s strengths – without shedding any personality they often fuse seamlessly into one guitar mind, like the experienced, nuanced musicians they’ve become. To my ears Lloyd’s thoughtful jangle stands out on “Romeo and Juliet” (Thomas inquires: “how come you’re the one that’s left alive?”). I think it’s his bluesy fills that adorn “Six and Two,” a production that echoes Dylan’s Time Out of Mind album with its creepy atmospheres. And it sounds like Lloyd behind the Richard Thompson-esque solo that elevates the album closer “Pretty.” But hey, I’m guessing (and if I’m wrong someone will let me know). “Pretty” is a stab at love song sentiment, but Thomas can’t keep himself from asking the id-y questions in the back of every sweetheart’s mind: “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” and “What are you doing here?” Thomas turns a phone call into something foreboding on “Maelstrom,” a ditty about a “girl call’ with a twist of the Stooges gloriously dumb menace.

"I Sell Soul” echoes in title and feel the 13^th Floor Elevators “We Sell Soul.” Thomas seethes like he can barely contain himself as Lloyd and Chrome riff viciously. A mature nuance to Thomas’s singing shows on “Birth Day,” a song that suggests that however “Avant” RFTT’s take on rock is, it’s also squarely rooted in the tough post-blues of the Stones and Yardbirds. The lyrics hint at a certain disdain for today’s ironic mustache rock (“it’s the style, maybe a fashion, to get away with so little passion”). “Anna” borrows a Stooges title, as well as a certain Detroit-rock aggression; Craig Bell’s walking bass powers the song nicely.

The anti-utopian vision of “Butcherhouse 4” has a sci-fi vibe, along with a nice dumb intro worthy of the Troggs, and a vocal passage that sounds like David Thomas plugged into the “Uncle Albert” effect machine. The band plays with a slashing, swinging authority – a guitar fanfare blasting as Thomas announces that he “doesn’t live on the moon anymore.” Of course he also demurs that he’s “living a total lie,” keeping the listener nicely off balance. The medley of “Sister Love Train” and “Love Train Express” has an unexpected rhythm ‘n’ soul groove, again with a Seventies Detroit-meets-Cleveland sound hybrid and a jagged break borrowed from the MC5 and the Who’s “The Real Me.” With a nice Beatle ostinato interlude, a dash of Velvet Underground lurch, and hints of Television’s “Friction” - “Good Times Never Roll” rocks hard right up to its abrupt ending.

Barfly is the sound of a rugged band of proto-punk veterans whose historical eccentricities have, while growing no less remarkable, become part of a muscular and hard-won musical authority. David Thomas is a nonpareil voice of internal anguish and quizzical outsider query. There’s no one like him. For all of the rest of RFTT’s musical power and excellence it’s his voice and vision that make RFTT unique. If they have more albums like Barfly ahead of them, long may they rage.

Reverberating: 8.7

Mott the Hoople - Live at Hammersmith Apollo 2009 (4Worlds Media)

2011-10-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

If you blog (and isn’t that a savory verb?), you’re supposed to keep content fresh. You’re supposed to make new entries frequently. Well, it’s been a good two weeks since my last post. I shan’t bore you with tales of the intrusion of so-called real life on my activity. I assure you, though, it’s a factor.

Honestly, I haven’t been that inspired by recent releases. I’ve found plenty to enjoy, but nothing that suggested spending the requisite three or four hours to listen carefully, take a few notes, draft a review, and finally shape into a finished product. Now, I’m not going to name names; after all, some of these heretofore-desultory platters may prove stimulating enough to provoke the above process. Who knows?

Still, I’m reminded of the rhetorical laydown offered by David Bowie in the song “Young Americans:” ‘ain’t there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?’

I’ll tell you what did make me cry. And I preface this by admitting that this dates me and risks making me seem like an enormous sap. What the fuck – I’m strong, really.

I wept while listening to Live at Hammersmith Apollo 2009. It’s a live recording taken from Mott the Hoople’s five-night reunion stand in London in 2009. So, why was I blubbering? I shall endeavor to explain.

Mott came along at a critical time in my youth. Mott was pivotal for me because as a late high school/early college wreck I was a sponge. Arlo Guthrie, King Crimson, Alice Cooper, the Velvet Underground – bring it on. Woefully, I even shelled out hardly earned dough on Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes records. And I’m here to say that if you’re not this open when you’re eighteen you’re either preternaturally mature or a parochial, narrow minded sad sack before your time. Nope, youth is about listening to everything and growing up is about making choices, affirming affections, establishing rejections gradually. What I’m saying is that if you don’t have “skeletons” in your closet you weren’t living, Roscoe.

But Mott’s no skeleton. My affection for their ragged, thinking man’s yob-rock eventually helped determine my predominate preoccupation and esteem for smart, tough rock ‘n’ roll music. The wounded, but hard as nails alienation of “Death May Be Your Santa Claus” (‘how long, how long, before you realize that I’m strange’) came to represent my ‘what can a poor boy do?’ life much more than a bunch of horseshit about “Tales from Topographic Oceans.” It was proletarian. But it was poetic too in a Dylanesque way that plain Vanilla hard rock wasn’t. It suited me.

But I skip ahead four albums. I became intrigued, sufficiently so to shell out my $3.99 for their debut album, by a statement made by producer Guy Stevens (he produced the band’s first four albums and the Clash’s London Calling) in an article about the band in 1969. He claimed to have put the band together in an attempt to form a band that fused Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Damn good salesman, that Guy. I was sixteen. I thought that those two artists were the shit. So, a band that sounded like the Stones fronted by Dylan? That had to be great. That self-titled debut sold me. And Mott was the kind of band you bonded with and preached to people about. It didn’t hurt that initial public and critical reception to the band ranged from hostility to indifference. Heck, that only made me more partisan.

These crude, loud upstarts actually sounded more like a cross between the Kinks gone mental and a deranged, metallic (the) Band than the Stones – but what the hell? Where the Stones swung and were, well, fleet of foot, Mott was a thundering, raging beast of a band. The could play fast, but not swift. Shoot, Deep Purple shared their sonic authority in many ways, but their narrow cock-rock version of rock was no match for Mott in terms of character. Only the Stooges and the MC5 on this side of the pond rivaled Mott's sheer force.

Ian Hunter sang most of the songs, including storming covers of Sonny Bono’s “Laugh at Me” and Doug Sahm’s “At the Crossroads.” But Mick Ralphs, between his lead vocal turns and wrenching guitar work was as much at the head of this raging beast as anyone.

Hunter was a superior lyricist and a more commanding vocal presence, however. As front man he became the face (actually, the shades and hair) of the band. Ian Hunter Patterson was the last to join the group, installed by producer Stevens after successfully auditioning for the band, called Silence until Stevens took it upon himself to rename them, but Hunter was the missing piece of the puzzle that turned a decent, directionless band into a juggernaut.

Releasing four albums in just over two years culminating with the brutal, raging Brain Capers in 1971, Mott built a devout cult audience but barely dented the charts. Burnt and bummed they were ready to call it quits. Then intervened David Bowie. Bowie put the focus squarely on Ian Hunter. For the band’s fifth album All the Young Dudes Bowie’s production delivered a more polished version of the band.. They still rocked, hard. But Brain Capers rage was caged in order to turn Mott into a more commercially viable proposition. The Bowie-penned title track and a glorious version of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” were critical to making a good album great. The self-produced, sixth album Mott built on Bowie’s foundation with even better songs and more assured performances. Ralphs compositions took a back seat to Hunter’s and the freshly departed organist Verden Allen’s songs were no longer baggage. Put simply, making Hunter the center of the band made the band better. Mott remains one of the great albums of the Seventies.

But this came with a price. Ralphs left after the Mott album, forming Bad Company with Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke from the band Free. Rodgers is an expressive singer, but without Andy Fraser’s songs Bad Company were a dull thump of a rock band. And Ralphers would never play anything as perfect as his solos on “All the Way from Memphis” or the gorgeous fills on Mott’s version of “Sweet Jane.” He sure secured a financial future, though, with Bad Company’s meat and potatoes arena-rock take on soul music.

If ever a band was about Bob Dylan’s pressing question (“how does it feel?”) it was Mott. Their songs explored a world of feelings and experiences, but central to their work was an interior dialogue between Ian Hunter, emerging rock star and Ian Hunter, bloke in the crowd, which by extension was a conversation with his audience. When the band dressed for success after absorbing Bowie’s glam influences no one ever confused them for androgynous. They may not have looked as ridiculous as Slade, but their embrace of fashionable gender bending was brazenly tongue in cheek – always a trifle self-conscious, delivered with a wink, as if to say – yeah, we’re talented and we belong up here, but it could be you. And that sensibility did more to anticipate punk in an era of rock star idolization than anything I can think of.

Mott were the rock stars down the pub. A journalist pal once referred to my band the Mahoots, during the glum pallor of grunge and bad Sonic Youth imitators, as “the black t-shirt band for the rest of us.” I guess that’s kind of how their audience felt about Mott in the midst of a rock scene that turned Robert Plant into someone Byronic. I'm not hating on Zep either, merely commenting on the tenor of the times.

It was the kind of identification that led a scruffy kid to jabber endlessly about Mott to one indulgent girlfriend or another. May dear Barb forgive me? I’m pretty sure I prattled without end to her about Mott and the meaning of life. From the perspective of a grown ass man it’s all rather obsessive and perplexing, except for the fact that I just do it all a bit more discreetly these days … truth to tell. Old obsessions die hard, or not at all.

Recalling all this and awash in the sound of a reunited Mott the Hoople I got choked up. There it is. My life flashing before me a bit, I suppose.

As I noted earlier, Verden Allen left Mott after the recording of the All the Young Dudes album. But it was Allen who instigated the band’s 2009 reunion. My guess is that he missed the ride, both the one he made with the band and the one he got off of, perhaps mistakenly. But once Allen put out feelers to the other gents it didn’t take all that long for the idea of a reunion to grow. Once all of the original five members were on board the band booked three nights at London’s Hammersmith Apollo Theatre. The shows sold out and two more were added. With a capacity in excess of 5,000 … you can do the math. 25,000 people ponied up to see a band that hadn’t played together in thirty-seven years. Considering their excellence, influence and enduring popularity perhaps Jann Wenner and the potentates who operate the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should take note.

Live at HMV Hammersmith Apollo 2009 is a two-disc set recorded on the debut night of Mott’s five-night stand. It’s a glorious mess.

If they never play together again, it’s a fitting conclusion to their story. Mott was a band never concerned with or capable of duplicating the sound of their records. An element of suspense accompanied any Mott concert (and I saw two). All these years on, nothing much has changed. Guitarist Mick Ralphs more or less blows the elegant lines that introduce set opener “Hymn for the Dudes.” It makes no difference. As the performance unfolds the band gains its footing. Ian Hunter sells the lyric – a testimonial to aesthetic reverence and humility, with the fervor of the relatively young man who wrote it. ‘Tell the superstars their hair is turning grey’ sings Hunter, the line resonating more than ever as he reminds himself and the assembled not to ‘forget just who you are; you’re not the Nazz, just a buzz, some kind of temporary.’Ralphs follows with a blistering solo that shows he’s shaken his cobwebs quickly. Ralphs also wails on the vehement “The Moon Upstairs,” a scorched earth testimony that sounds as powerful as ever (‘we’re not bleeding you, we’re feeding you, but you’re too fucking slow’). He plays a beautiful solo on “Sweet Angeline,” like “Moon” a track from the band’s still brutally beautiful Brain Capers album. On the album producer Guy Stevens went to great lengths to aggravate an already weary bunch of road dogs into performances that displayed a freakish combination of fury and discipline. It worked. And the mania that informed those performances isn’t absent these geriatric renditions of the songs.

Apollo’s mix is fresh from the soundboard, lacking much in the way of post-production, and favors organist Allen, sometimes at the expense of Ralphs’ guitar. You’d think that a band that could attract 25,000 people to reunion shows might have gotten a more dignified reception from some record label. Apollo is released on the 4Worlds Media label with minimal packaging and a track listing that gets the actual song order on disc one wrong. Something about this bit of snafu fits the band’s simultaneously triumphant and sad sack saga.

Ian Hunter’s voice was always fifty-percent leather, and at seventy years young it’s distressed leather. But rasp and all he hits most of the notes. Beyond that, Hunter’s emotional range, embracing everything from abiding sincerity to withering sarcasm is still marvelous. His investment in this material is untouched by time. “I Wish I Was Your Mother” from Mott was a Freudian marvel, remarkable for its balance of thorny opposition in the verse and unalloyed longing in the chorus. It’s like a pre-history of punk, anticipating a certain ‘Rotten’ persona by a few years. Hunter sounded beyond his years when he sang “The Journey” in 1971, in 2011 he sounds like he’s lived the song. The song’s epic qualities are only reinforced by organist Allen’s Garth Hudson-isms. Hunter’s commanding stage presence vindicates Stevens’ selection and Bowie’s positioning him front and center.

The twenty-song set concludes with “All the Way from Memphis,” the band by now in high gear. Bassist Overend Watts pushes the beat, reminding that he was one of the most propulsive, inventive and musical bass players of the Mott era.

When the band comes back for their encores you hear cries from the audience of “Buffin, Buffin,” as the crowd spots the band’s drummer emerging from backstage. Hunter announces “Ladies and gentlemen, Terrence Dale Griffin … Buffin.” For a fan like me it’s an OMG moment. Afflicted with Alzheimer’s, Buffin (a fabled BBC session producer and nurturer of talent in his second career) was unable to execute an entire evening’s performance. The Pretenders’ Martin Chambers ably filled his throne. But Buffin joins Chambers for the encore, bashing away like he could have played an entire show. It’s a touching moment. Some bands might ditch the disabled dude and move on. Not Mott.

The Spector-esque “Roll Away the Stone” and inevitable “All The Young Dudes” follow. The encore segment concludes with “Saturday Gigs.” The song was originally conceived and recorded as a swan song, a farewell to the band’s fans. It was a perfect closer for these shows – a final bit of history from a band never disinclined toward autobiography. Mick Ralphs delivers one last beauty of a solo – to think that he squandered his talent and made a ton of money with Bad Company after leaving Mott … ah, sheesh. The song’s coda is a fade over a sung “Goodbye,” which the audience sings along with full voice, taking over for the band as they leave the stage at the 4:45 mark. By 5:15 the crowd is clapping in time, as the clapping gradually morphs into full-blown applause. It’s a magical progression and one the band might have anticipated, even designed. But for it to work it required the audience’s participation. Mott’s audience didn’t let them down because in their hearts they knew the band never let them down.

Reverberating: Priceless

Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop Records)

2011-10-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are. Reverberations is fond of the Dum Dum Girls. We’ve covered every release of their short, sweet career except for their initial seven-inch on Hozac. Let’s see, that includes their debut full-length I Will Be, the follow up extended play He Gets Me High, and now the feature length release number two Only in Dreams.

Kristen Gundred (aka Dee Dee) is still Dum Dum Girl number one. But she’ s no longer the whole show that she was on I Will Be. She’s taken her road band, a trio of accompanists who give credence to the band’s plural name, into the studio for Only in Dreams. There were no credits given for He Gets Me High, but the sonic similarities between that EP and the new album suggest that her band mates either joined her on those sessions or have modeled their performance on Gundred’s work from those sessions

Where I Will Be had a gauzy, aural cubist mix, He Gets Me High cut the distortion in half, focusing more on Gundred’s increasingly expressive singing. These new sessions accelerate that shift. Touring has made Gundred (Dee Dee) a more muscular singer. In my review of He Gets Me High I referenced a vocal similarity to Chrissie Hynde, which the new album only accentuates.

Famed producer Richard Gottehrer – the man who wrote “I Want Candy” and “My Boyfriend’s Back,” and produced Blondie, the Go-Gos and Richard Hell, is back for a third set of sessions with Dee Dee and company. Sune Rose Wagner of the Ravenonettes, who share much of the same sonic vocabulary and thematic obsessions, returns as co-producer from He Gets Me High. This time out they’ve focused on capturing the essentially live character of what’s become an honest to God band, not just a nome de rock for Gundred. Sure, she sings and writes the songs. But all the ladies contribute backing vocals (their contributions give added variety and depth to the harmonies and back ups) and their playing is critical to the near verite quality of this recording.

Guitarists Gundred and ‘Jules” play sweetly distorted chords and lines that sound like the Searchers or Hollies filtered through the Jesus and Mary Chain or the Primitives. Never really soloing, they spin off framing line and riffs, most of them soaked in Dick Dale surf-tones, sometimes with a touch of Poison Ivy sting. Bassist Bambi and Sandy (okay, they only use first names) on drums play with authority on Only in Dreams. Sandy’s Ringo-isms and Spector-beat thump especially deliver a real rock performance vibe.

Gundred’s songs betray the anxiety and loneliness of life on the road. Love and its lack have always been her central theme, but Only in Dreams is all about romance. The opening cut “Always Looking,” which echoes in subject and language Patti Smith’s “Looking for You,” is about romantic pursuit and destiny. Romantic longing and separation dog “Bedroom Eyes,’ a song with a reverb heavy take on Sixties rock. Romantic rejection as putdown prevails on “Just a Creep,” with its groovy handclaps and surf guitar licks. Romantic depression haunts “In My Head,” a song with the melodic arc and sweep of classic Carole King or Jackie DeShannon. “Wasted Away” evokes the Ramones with its punk version of two-step and some sweet harmonies that could almost be confused for First Aid Kit.

For “Heartbeat (Take it Away)” DDG show that they have some Bobby Fuller Four in their collection - Gundred sings like a gal Joey Ramone with a Sandi Shaw fixation. “Caught in One” and “Teardrops on my Pillow” have an Eighties, post-punk vibe – the former, featuring a green monster lyric and shades of Echo and the Bunnymen, while “Teardrops” is Goth-folk narrative that sounds a little like the Go-Gos gone dark.

All of these songs are compelling distorto-pop gems, clocking in between two and four minutes. The lone exception (at 6:29) “Coming Down” is appealing, but the breakdown to drums and voice at 4:50 is the lone relief from the droning quality of what is frankly not one of Gundred’s best tunes.

The Cliff’s Notes version: Kristin Gundred works her familiar romantic obsessions with increased skill as a songwriter. Her singing has grown by leaps and bounds, comparisons to Chrissie Hynde are flattering, but apt. The musicians she’s taken out on the road as the Dum Dum Girls now contribute to the DDG’s recordings in powerful and supportive fashion. Gundred’s blend of girl group, Sixties rock, punk and shoegaze (less emphasized here) is ever engrossing. The looming question for Gundred is what next? Will contemporary listeners, enthralled by the noise quotient of I Will Be, be receptive to the slightly more mainstream sound of Only in Dreams?

My dime a dozen suggestion? I think Gundred has the talent, and the production team to let each and every song suggest a different production approach. Too many albums in 2011 reflect the same sonic agenda from opening note to closing chord. Maybe she’s got a “Forever Changes” or “Pet Sounds” in her future. Who knows?

Reverberating: 8.4

Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum Records)

2011-09-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

Memphis has long been the place where the rural cultures of the Deep South meet and mix. It was surely the case before Sam Phillips put the ignition in the mighty motor of Sun Records in 1952. But Sun does provide the most obvious and optimal example of Memphis’s place in American musical experience. While Phillips first recorded the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, he made his fortune discovering white performers whose influences were reflective of an emerging South where, prior to but anticipating the social convulsions of the Sixties, whites were being entertained by black performers and vice versa. Well before schools and lunch counters integrated, Southerners radio dial and record shop preferences were crossing racial lines.

What’s this got to do with Jack Oblivian? Lots, as it turns out. Oblivian (or Yarber as his ma and pa know him), is a modern day Memphis mixer, putting together stray stands from Fresno blues to Carolina beach music, from the Stooges to Springsteen and the Clash, he’s a working class musical magpie, and in top form on his new release Rat City.

With Greg (Oblivian) Cartwright and Eric (Oblivian) Freidl in the Oblivians, he became an icon of the (re)emerging garage-rock genre by blasting grease pit , r ‘n’ b infused rock ‘n’ roll at punk tempos. As a soloist (and with his nominal ‘band’ the Tennessee Tearjerkers) Oblivian has purveyed a slightly grown up version of the same thing. He’s become a better singer and musician, and it sounds like he’s running his beloved cheap Jap guitars through better amps in better studios (actually, the portability/affordability of good recording gear is probably the bigger change). But he’s still a thrift shop recycler. And his uncanny ear for sweaty hooks and grooves is sharper than ever.

Rat City mixes Oblivian originals and obscure, but choice covers. The title track is a feast of distorted guitar blasts; Oblivian, as one-man-band, dishing out a grinding mix of Junior Kimbrough and what almost sounds like Z.Z. Top before they chained Frank Beard to the click track.“Rat City” ain’t much of a song, but it sounds great; and it sets an edgy, anxious tone for what follows. “Mass Confusion” follows (literally), Oblivian (w/band) blasting out trash-funk like a beautifully dumbed-down Band of Gypsys. “Old Folks Boogie” (a blues chestnut from Al Simmons, written by Slim Green) sounds like more re-fried boogie at first, but Oblivian’s Beefheart/Burnside delivery and a weird assortment of Moog swoops and “Mondo Cane” noises gives it a groovy, disconcerting post-mod edge.

Like all thrift shop junkies, Oblivian takes special pleasure in turning unlikely source material into something that no hipster could refuse. His “Dark Eyes” is prom-rock, not too distant from something fellow Memphian Alex Chilton might have done. As I sung along with the infectious melody I realized that the verse was based on Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas 1964 hit “Bad to Me,” a Lennon-McCartney handout. Such moments abound with Mr. Oblivian.

The Carolina beach music classic “Kidnapper,” originally by Jewel and the Rubies, first copped the riff that laces through Bobby “Blue” Bland’s ‘Don’t Cry No More," and Oblivian sticks with that lift, but energizes the song significantly. John Paul Keith’s stinging guitar solo has all the attack of a young Mike Bloomfield. "Moses and Me” is a cover from Tommy James’s 1970 release Travelin’, and features the same echo-crazy vocal effects that James favored on hits like “Crimson and Clover.” Oblivian’s version has an edge that suggests a kinship with the Eagles of Death Metal.

Oblivian's “Crime of Love” finds him singing in Iggy’s whisper mode and shredding like a southern-fried James Williamson. “Girl with the Bruises” is an Oblivian penned number that would flatter Dee Dee Ramone lyrically – Oblivian spins a tale of an abused girl who excuses her abuser, but his Dee Dee-like solution is expressed thus: “her boyfriend’s a prick, yeah, gonna hit him with a stick.” Beat on the brat, Jack. ‘Girl” also contains another gleeful magpie moment, as Oblivian quotes directly from the Clash’s “Clampdown” with the frequent use of the “what are we gonna do now” line. Hey, everybody steals. And Oblivian makes his contraband shine.

Oblivian even makes his thrift shop-Springsteen track “Jealous Heart” (ain’t hungry, it’s jealous) soulful. Adam Woodard’s piano (he also plays Hammond on several cuts and is an asset to Rat City throughout) is pure Roy Bittan, and Oblivian’s lyric is Beale Street goes boardwalk. Check out the way he drops one random, but cool Spector beat break before the first chorus.

Rat City is a prime distillation of Jack Oblivian’s sensibility. He’s a thief - plain, simple and transparent. But like Memphis greats before him he pulls together threads from all over the place, stamps them with his unique musical personality, and flat entertains your ass. More like him, I say.

Reverberating: 8.6

Wild Flag - s/t (Merge Records)

2011-09-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well before the release of Wild Flag’s debut album on September 13^th, videos of the band began to surface on youtube.com. Live versions of the songs from the album, certainly, but more telling was their selection of covers. I’ve seen their takes on Patti Smith’s “Ask the Angels,” the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden” and “She's My Best Friend” from the Velvet Underground. What these choices said was that Wild Flag wasn’t going to be limited by any parochial notions from the indie-rock world. Nor were they going to pursue any express political agenda. Instead, Wild Flag get that the most powerful statement they could make as women and musicians was to flat rock out. And that’s what they do on Wild Flag.

After all, what can a poor girl do ‘cept to sing for a rock ‘n’ roll band? By the time Sleater-Kinney came to the end of their road in 2006, singer/guitarist Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss had already borne the burden of dreams for a generation of young rockers, especially young women. Mary Timony’s career as soloist and the force behind the group Helium was less visible, but no less connected to the preconceptions that animate the alternative-rock world, i.e. a non-star, one-of-us demeanor, aversion to “hooks” (Sleater-K had already broken that one a few times), and indifference to commercialism and wider popularity. Keyboardist Rebecca Cole from the Minders arrived at the rehearsal studio for Wild Flag’s first practices with the least baggage, and her musicianship and spirit is critical to the success of Wild Flag. Her expressly garage-rock keys signal Wild Flag’s connection to a rock ‘n’ roll world that spans “Nuggets” style Farfisa organ sounds, John Cale’s playing with the Velvets and the late Greg Hawkes work with the Cars. She can suggest the howling growl of “Sister Ray” or the pizzicato whimsy of the solo from the Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard” – as she, by God, does expressly on “Future Crimes.”

Brownstein and Timony make a formidable guitar tandem. Timony’s serpentine Fender lines, reminiscent of Tom Verlaine, contrast perfectly with Brownstein’s Gibson snarl.

As vocalists they alternate and harmonize. The songs Brownstein sings are straight up rockers, Patti Smith the clearest and most striking influence. No longer in Corin Tucker's mezzo-shriek shadow, Brownstein lets her alto wail. The tunes Timony delivers are less bloody and direct, more whimsical and leftfield.

Cole’s robotic, Devo-like keys kick “Romance” off. Brownstein sings “hey, hey can you feel it,” immediately setting the tone. In full swing the band sounds like the Marvelettes jamming with Sonic Youth, one chorus emptying into a chanted “shake, shimmy, shake” playground breakdown, the next into a burst of guitars that resembles early Replacements. Brownstein evokes Patti Smith directly on “Boom” with it’s “you take my hand, you’re in command” lyric recalling “Because the Night,” as Cole’s playing is unabashedly new wave. The Cars curious and consistent mark on these songs is evident on “Endless Talk,” which sounds more than a little like “My Best Friend’s Girl.”

Brownstein sounds like the Motels’ Martha Davis on “Short Version;” Timony’s Phillip Glass influenced guitar spiralling against Brownstein’s Townshend-esque power chords. “Get level with the devil ‘cuz you know that he digs your sin” suggests a decidedly carnal brand of female empowerment.

Timony’s “Something Came Over Me” contends “let the good times toll,” allowing that there’s a price to be paid for good times. Her “Glass Tambourine” is a psychedelic tour de force. “Glass Tambourine” blast off with a blues-rock intro straight outta Cream, then evolves into some guitar explorations that call Spirit or Quicksilver Messenger Service (even) to mind. For “Electric Band” Weiss, a marvel throughout (moving from the most compositional playing to totally Moon-ian outbursts) thumps out a rockin’ intro that triggers a verse with chords that could’ve been borrowed from the Troggs, but transition in the chorus to some delightfully twisted mix of the Velvets’ “Sweet Jane” and the Who’s “Baba O’Riley.” Breaking each line of the verse with a nice move to falsetto, Timony also leads the band into a taste of vocal stacking ala the Beatles version of “Twist and Shout” during the song’s breakdown/bridge.

Wild Flag’s penultimate track is a loose jam called “Racehorse.” Brownstein again channeling Patti Smith, (and the songs’ near namesake “Horses”) as the band segues into an instrumental section where the guitarists spar and Cole plays a heady mix of Ray Manzarek style piano and “Sister Ray” vintage/John Cale organ styling.

“Black Tiles” brings the album home with Timony’s moment of Zen, as she sings “we can only hope for a light that shines after we’re gone.” On this debut album Wild Flag’s light is shining brightly right now. Catch the light live at Kansas City’s Record Bar on Wednesday, October 5^th.

Reverberating: 8.8

Gospel Music - How to Get to Heaven from Jacksonville FL (Kill Rock Stars Records)

2011-09-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

Owen Holmes hails from Jacksonville, Florida. Wow, there’s one place I’ve never wanted to go. Already, I digress.

He plays bass for the Black Kids. They’re okay, I guess; hadn’t really given them much thought. If his (mostly) solo project Gospel Music is any indication, though, Holmes has a solid future as a singer-songwriter. And not one of those boring, self-indulgent ones, but more like an entertaining, diverting, poetic and self-indulgent one – hey, the last goes with the territory. Pretty much.

Recorded at home in the Sunshine state, How to Get to Heaven From Jacksonville, FL is a small treasure for anyone attracted to literate, self-abasing humor and primitive, but musical melodicism. Taking substantial cues from Lou Reed and Stephin Merritt, Holmes writes with pith and wit about romantic mismatch (“Bird/Fish”), romantic despair (“This Town Doesn’t Have Enough Bars for Both of Us”), romantic betrayal (“I Shared Too Much with Her”) and romantic resignation (“Bedroom Farce”). He self-accompanies these little morsels with sharp, spare instrumentation that concentrates on acoustic guitar, toy piano and ukulele, fleshed out with all manner of instrumentation, including the standard bass and drums (he even uses banjo without making me grab for my faux-Americana annihilator … a handy weapon, indeed). With limited chops, Holmes makes the most out of nifty little framing lines on guitar, bits and pieces of melodic guitar-age, stray elements of this and that, from the Velvets to the Ventures.

His vocal foil, Madeline Long, contributes harmonies and alternate leads parts with a musical, delightfully awkward charm. Her girlish voice blends sweetly with Holmes’s gawky, talky baritone. She’s deployed especially affectingly on “Bedroom Farce,” a conversation between two lovers with restless, wandering eyes, each traded verse culminating with this exchange: “I don’t know what you see in her (him).” “Farce’s” kitchen table repartee is Holmes at his best – Magnetic Fields (Stephin Merritt) without the musical theatre artifice. Long also takes the lead for “Apartment.” The song’s a bittersweet take on the social withdrawal and isolation that accompany breakups, and about reconciliation (“if we get back together,” further positing such cost-saving reliefs as “we won’t need clothes”).

But it’s not all bittersweet resolution.Treasure this truly scary line from “I Shared Too Much with Her” – “she put her pup in the pound and stayed for the weekend.” Wow, do you really want to get mixed up with a chick that ditches her pet on a whim? Just saying. Maybe I speak from experience. Beware expedience.

Many of Gospel Music’s ditties chronicle the lovely and ugly lines that certain alcoholic libations weave through our narratives. “This Town...” being the most obvious example, but also on “Apartment,” (where staying in means the “drinks are cheap”), and “You Don’t Have to Be Alone (But You Can’t Stay Here)” with its “we’ve had our last call” theme.

Musically, beyond parlor-folk, Holmes skirts Postcard/Orange Juice influence on “Let’s Run,” holding down a bedroom version of rock motives from “96 Tears” and “Get Ready,” while observing adroitly that “white people running is funny ‘cuz white people run for fun.” Gospel Music also traffics in rock riffage from the “Louie Louie/Sweet Jane” (on uke, that is) well on “Death of the Newspaper,” which laments same and suggests that “democracy will flop” as a consequence. I dunno, Owen, that old girl has many discontents, but maybe changes in the delivery of information are part of the deal.

Not every moment is golden. “No Sharks” is a leaden metaphor, redeemed only by a fetching tune. And “Can’t Be a Man If I Don’t Have a Woman” is almost as hopeless as its title. But hey, mostly How to Get to Heaven … is a refreshing collection of oddball tunes. Gospel Music have their own curdled version of romance (think Jonathan Richman as libertine), but its literary sensibilities and musical inclinations should be welcomed by fans of artists from Belle and Sebastian to Camera Obscura (check out the video – with Camera’s Tracyanne Campbell, recorded prior to How to Get to Heaven), from Magnetic Fields to … well, even Leonard Cohen. Owen Holmes’s tales of bedroom entreaties, duplicity and romantic accommodation are bright enough to flirt with such company.

Reverberating: 8.1

Jim Jones Revue - Burning Your House Down (Punk Rock Blues)

2011-09-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

Jim Jones has been knocking around the British rock scene since the late Eighties. His previous band, Thee Hypnotics, combined blues and psychedelic influences, tending toward long-ass jams that weren’t terribly removed from, uh, stoner rock. And in 2004 he formed the Jim Jones Revue. With the band’s new album, Burning Your House Down, I’m pretty much ready to swallow their Kool-Aid.

The JJR was described by one critic, more or less aptly, as “a car crash between Little Richard and the MC5.” Okay, the imagery is a little violent and jejune. It’s also not that far off.

Instead of Thee Hypnotics’ blitzed jams, the JJR favor short, jagged bursts of maniacal rock ‘n’ roll that pay homage to the primordial intensities of Fifties fathers like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. But Fifties homage this ain’t. Like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the JJR take full advantage of the last several decades’ worth of sonic advances and abrasion. Certainly, among their inspirations, you could include the MC5, Stooges, New York Dolls, and the Sonics. And if that’s stoner rock it’s for much shorter attention spans, as the bug-eyed speed-freak rock of Burning Your House Down attests.

The smartest thing a bandleader can do is find players whose skills exceed his or her own. And Jones is no dummy. JJR’s rhythm section, comprised of drummer Nick Jones and bassist Gavin Jay, is a pile driving marvel. Guitarist Rupert Orton is a brash and biting guitarist; he plays like a Keith Richards from hell – capable of churning out choice blues licks, but just as inclined to go the Johnny Thunders/James Williamson route to beautiful oblivion. He’s on fire throughout Burning Your House Down - from the opening “Dishonest John” to the closing notes of “Stop the People,” pausing occasionally for tasty accents of George Harrison and Steve Cropper, as he supplies on “Elemental.”

In Elliot Mortimer, Jones found an absolute ace rock ‘n’ roll piano player. Mortimer has mastered the Little Richard/Jerry Lee Lewis canon, but he’s also able to supply elegant lines that flatter Nicky Hopkins or Leon Russell. Jones knows how good he is, too. On “High Horse” when Jones exhorts ‘this is how you rock’ it’s followed by a nice shot of Mortimer’s piano; when “Shoot First,” a cooking mélange of Lennon-isms and Fats Domino, breaks down, it’s Mortimer’s piano that kicks the band back in.

Together, Orton and Mortimer play with a dramatic flair that transcends your usual blues and boogie métier. For me, it’s reminiscent of the Zal Cleminson/Ted McKenna dynamic from the Sensational Alex Harvey Band or the Hunter-Allen-Ralphs triumvirate of vintage Mott the Hoople.

If I have a small caveat about the JJR it’s that there is a generic quality to what they do, despite their sheer rocking power. A band like J.Roddy Walston and the Business, for instance, is working fairly similar territory, but with more of a personal stamp.

Which leads me to this: Jim Jones is the weak link in the band. Beyond sounding more than a wee bit like Jon Spencer, Jones also brings singers as diverse as Brian Johnson, Howlin’ Pelle, and Rod Stewart (vintage, that is) to mind. But Jones sounds like the sum of his inspirations, not someone who transcends them. When you hear an Iggy Pop or David Johansen, for instance, they blow away their influences with sheer force of individual character. And lyrically, Jones relies on a well of blues sexual clichés. It’s all very true to the genre, but a little formal sounding. He hasn’t arrived at the personal language of a Nick Cave or Tom Waits. But this caveat aside, he’s a commanding presence and a committed, convincing singer.

What separates Burning Your House Down from the early waaaaaaaaay in the red early recordings from this band is the steady hand of Jim Sclavunos. Sclavunos, drummer for Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds and Grinderman (and he’s played with everyone from Sonic Youth to the Cramps) understands that the impact of speed and noise is greatly enhanced by dynamics, and the occasional silence. Burning still features plenty of blasts of distortion, but you can listen to it at moderate volume levels, whereas the band’s self-titled debut and the catch-all compilation Here to Save Your Soul practically required ear splitting volume to hear, well, anything. Sclavunos gets the balance between capturing the band’s screaming live shows and making a good record just right.

As David Fricke points out it’s an old rock fan cliché to say that some band’s record is great, but you really have to hear them live. I suspect, however, that’s the case with the Jim Jones Revue. It’s a compliment to Burning Your House Down, however, to say that it makes you want to get off the couch and out to any bar these guys are – you know, burning down.

Reverberating: 8.4

Tommy Stinson - One Man Mutiny (Done to Death Music)

2011-08-31T21:57:00.000-07:00

A working musician since the age of thirteen, Tommy Stinson grew up in rock ‘n’ roll. Incredibly, at least for those of us who remember him as the irreverent punk who played bass in the Replacements, Stinson is now a forty-five year old man.

And still very much a working musician. Having watched his brother Bob (Replacements guitarist) and his band self-destruct prepared Stinson for almost anything. How else to explain his having been employed by Axl Rose since 1998 in whatever Axl considers Guns ‘n Roses.

Best known as a sideman, Stinson has a long history as bandleader and solo performer. Between 1992 and 1994 he helmed an outfit called Bash and Pop, whose lone recording Friday Night is Killing Me was a sweet surprise to many ‘Mats fans who figured Paul Westerberg was the only real songwriting talent in the Replacements. Friday was full of rough, but right performances in a loose Faces-Stones idiom and songs sturdy and impassioned enough to stand up to their archetypal moorings.

Stinson’s next outfit Perfect wasn’t. They somehow lacked the immediacy of Friday Night at its best. Honestly, I missed his first truly solo release, Village Gorilla Head, in 2004. Given that I work in the industry and scarcely knew of the album tells you plenty about its lack of distribution and publicity.

Stinson’s newest collection is called One Man Mutiny. It’s a decidedly mixed bag. Stinson’s rock sensibilities remain rooted in the basics of the Rolling Stones and the Faces. “Don’t Deserve You” is an appealing dirty stomp reminiscent of Ronnie Lane. “It’s a Drag” leans more toward the Stones, Emily Roberts supplying, as she does throughout, some fine backing vocals. “Meant to Be” sounds like an Americanized Noel Gallagher; Chris Roberts supplying some excellent George Harrison-esque slide work. Tracks like “Meant” and “All This Way for Nothing” feature understated, rough hewn, but supple melodies. “Destroy Me” has the depth to resemble a vintage Stones ballad, while the title track is Stinson’s take on a “Positively Fourth Street” theme. When, as he does here, Stinson combines a good tune with a committed vocal it’s a bit of a tease. You get a strong sense of exactly how good he can be.

The not so good news? Stinson’s attempts at countrified material, songs like “Zero to Stupid” and “Match Made in Hell” are simply facile, lacking the depth of classic country singing or the arch and audacious parody of Stones’ nuggets like “Faraway Eyes.” “Come to Hide” might have been a charmer if Stinson had emphasized his vocal and acoustic guitar, but the superfluous synthesizer programming is simply distracting.

One Man Mutiny won’t change most peoples’ perception of Tommy Stinson. I would be shocked if it found much of an audience beyond that he’s already cultivated. But for fans of his Richards-Wood drenched rock ‘n’ roll it’s a welcome collection. With Paul Westerberg in semi-retirement, One Man Mutiny is a sweet reminder of the Replacements’ shaggy-dog brand of rock ‘n’ roll.

Reverberating: 7.5

Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes (Yep Roc)

2011-08-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

If Mike Nichols were making The Graduate in 2011, he might well ask Fountains of Wayne to provide music. Listen to “The Summer Place” with its Updikean compendium of the discontents of the highest tax bracket, the opening track on the band’s fifth album Sky Full of Holes. “The Summer Place” features a protagonist who waxes nostalgic for her days as a teenage shoplifter while downing large quantities of ‘shrooms to stave off the tedium of life at forty. Briskly paced, “Summer” even suggest Nichol’s original Greek chorus Simon and Garfunkel with its “Hazy Shade of Winter” syncopated urgency.

For fifteen years, over the course of five albums, Fountains of Wayne have delivered well-crafted pop-rock gems with clever, literate lyrics that don’t necessarily shortchange deeper emotions or social commentary. Their second album Utopia Parkway remains a personal favorite. If I’ve played “Troubled Times” or “Amity Gardens” once I’ve played them five hundred times. Welcome Interstate Managers was a worthy successor, yielding their one truly big hit song, “Stacey’s Mom.” Their last record, 2007’s Traffic and Weather, was a comparatively lackluster affair, but Sky Full of Holes finds them in peak pop form while aging gracefully with their protagonists as well as their audience.

Consequently, nothing on Sky Full of Holes has the adolescent nerd preoccupations of Utopia Parkway’s “Red Dragon Tattoo.” The dilemmas of Sky’s characters are more consequential than tattoo selection. In “Action Hero” Chris Collingwood spares the sarcasm button for an empathetic look at a family man living a Walter Mitty existence. But what at first sounds like a simple escapist fantasy is finally the tale of a father confronting real health issues, strapped to an EKG monitor at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Collingwood’s reedy alto, as always, betrays little in terms of obvious emotional range. But by letting his and Adam Schlesinger’s sharply observed lyrics speak for themselves, Collingwood’s discretion speaks volumes.

“Richie and Ruben” isn’t so much about the two so-named boho-charlatans as it is about the narrator who’s fallen for their schemes since their teenage years. Blown up metaphorically, Richie and Ruben might as well be Goldman and Sachs - as listeners, we share with the protagonist a feeling of betrayal and astonishment, as much for our own gullibility as their treachery. The recording is detailed, right down to the hand-claps and the ascending piano lick on the choruses - Fountains of Wayne sound a little like Steely Dan without the jazz pretensions.

“Acela” is about another c character, this time by love. An anticipated rendezvous with a girl only results in a lonely high-speed train ride from Manhattan to Boston. Densely detailed, funny as it is sad, “Acela’s” is accented by the stinging guitar of Jody Porter. Often viewed as Collingwood, Schlesinger and some other guys, Porter’s Harrison-Clapton-Easton inspired guitar work is a reminder that Fountains of Wayne are a real band, not just a front for two songwriters.

“Dip in the Ocean” is a McCartney-esque rocker that’s a working class version of ‘The Summer Place.” It successfully celebrates and satirizes the modest pleasures of middle class vacationers. “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart” is a folk-punk romp that updates early Nick Lowe. “Radio Bar” is so catchy it’s silly. Thematically, it’s a little closer to the band’s early material; these characters are twenty-somethings wasting away in a bar that plays “The Joker” over and over. Even here, it’s clear the appeals of post-adolescent languishing are fading; as soon as our hero hits it off with a girl he’s gone (“it’s all for the radio bar”). The song’s whacked out combination of Tom Waits perspective and Neil Diamond pop fluff (the horns sound like "Sweet Caroline" gone ska) is crazy infectious.

Workingman’s Hands” melds country and the gorgeous guitar sounds of the third Velvet Underground album to a lyric that captures both the dignity and quiet desperation of working class life. The songs’ pregnant, abrupt musical ending, especially combined with a lyric (“the old iron gate could use some fresh paint”) suggests the cyclical nature of work.

The grown up Fountains of Wayne is also highlighted on songs like “I Hate to See You Like This,” a sincere song about depression (at first I heard a line like “c’mon give me a kiss” as too opportunistic and shallow, only to realize that Eros is just a way we reach out when we feel desperate), or “Firelight Waltz” a Pogues gone Jersey serenade to Mary, residing in a homeless shelter or hobo jungle, who takes a shot of whiskey, hears an old familiar song and is moved to dance.

Even the failures on Sky Full of Holes are fetching. “Road Song” is a cliché within a cliché that can’t quite escape its meta-mess. The tune is lovely, but unless this is an imaginary band Collingwood is singing about (if so, why?) it’s hard to buy that his distant beloved (for whom he’s writing a ‘road song’) would care that he’s “no Steve Perry.” “Road Song” runs out of gas trying to cram too many cute lines into a song.

Musically, fifteen years have seen a slight shift to richer pop production values and acoustic guitars, but basically this is the same band that cut “Radiation Vibe” and “Leave the Biker.” Lyrically, on the other hand, Fountains of Wayne are still clever, but less facile. The younger Collingwood and Schlesinger wouldn’t have come up with “Cemetery Guns.” In unsentimental, reportorial language, Collingwood (“blue war widow, in the gray raincoat, on the green grass down below”) evokes the lonely, personal tragedies our political folly produces.

Sober stuff. All set to one of Collingwood and Schlesinger’s consistently compelling tunes. Fountains of Wayne rock gentle, but never easy. The songs of Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger on Sky Full of Holes deliver with consummate musicality and deceptive ease. That’s how the great ones do it.

Reverberating: (Reverberating is Under Construction: Seeking feedback on the value of assigning numerical values, grades, etc. to works of art. I mean, did van Gogh top himself because "The Starry Night" got a 5.2? - What do you think about this whole paradigm?)

Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge Records)

2011-08-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

First things first, I suppose. This comes from the “there’s a bathroom on the right” school of rock lyric mishearing. The first two times I listened to Eleanor Friedberger’s sparkling new record Last Summer I thought she was singing “you promised to take me to the end of the Seventh grade” on track two, “Inn of the Seventh Ray.” Hey, I know, all I had to do was look at the track listing, right? But by golly, before I came to enjoy the real thing (listening properly to the lyrics and all) I constructed a whole emotional world around Ms. Friedberger reconstructing her life, revisiting some pivotal moment in, well, Seventh grade.

Lord, I digress. Of course the real “Inn of the Seventh Ray” is even better. With quiet, urgent repetition Friedberger sings of a certain someone who promised to take her to the titular destination, but who couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t know the way. The mounting disappointment is musically palpable, and the song could be about anything from the obvious (a desired journey never taken) to a metaphor for romantic, erotic, or existential failure.

Last Summer is like that. With her reflective, eccentric travelogues Eleanor Friedberger tells you plenty, but always leave plenty open to interpretation. Hers is a talent for invitation. And good art does that; it opens, it invites, it doesn’t dictate.

With her brother Matthew Friedberger, in the Fiery Furnaces, Eleanor has already put together an impressive legacy. This isn’t the place for an exegesis on the Furnace’s catalog. Suffice it to say, their 2003 debut Gallowsbird’s Bark remains one of the most striking debuts of the past decade. Their shape-shifting sounds stopped on a dime, reminding of Captain Beefheart one moment, the Jefferson Airplane the next, or Kurt Weill or English folk balladry after that. At the center of Matthew’s weird, but wonderful soundscapes were the self-possessed, dramatic vocals of sister Eleanor. A prolific band, the Furnaces have amassed quite a catalog in a relatively short time. Following their own dynamic and idiosyncratic logic, the band has, if anything, become more (for lack of a better word) direct over their last releases, especially with 2009’s I’m Going Away. In a way it paved the way for Last Summer.

And a good thing that was. From the quirky and engaging opening of “My Mistakes” through the sweet, giddy and revealing denouement of “Early Earthquake,” Last Summer is a pleasure from start to finish. Friedberger incorporates her influences like Duchamp-ian ready-mades. From Dylan Heaney’s blast of Clemmons tenor on “My Mistakes” to the Mind Games plod of “Glitter Gold” or the Motown meets Suicide bounce and throb of “I Wont’ Fall Apart on You Tonight” (of course the title is close to Dylan’s “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight”) Friedberger plugs in moments and memes strategically for just resonant musical and emotional impact.

The almost narrative of “My Mistakes” is no less haunting for its’ rambling quality. In the third verse alone Friedberger condenses the following action – She’s acosted by something like terrorists, speaks to her mother on her cell phone (mom tells her “to run”), finally to be rescued by some Cali dudes in Brooklyn (“I swear they, I swear they, I swear they saved my life”). The whole tale told in 4:29 and with just the hint of intensity that elevates it beyond the implacability of describing a walk around the block. Friedberger’s vocal timbre and diction recall Patti Smith, but without Smith’s abandon and release. Still, Friedberger displays a wide emotional range without Smith’s extravagance (not that I’m knocking Patti’s extravagance).

And lyrically Friedberger’s eye for emotional nuance, domestic detail and landscape is dramatic. In lieu of really reaching the “Inn of the Seventh Ray” she settles for watching “ ‘Footloose’ with the biggest bottle of vodka in the world.” Well, it’s one way to assuage disappointment. “Scenes from Bensonhurst,” like most of her impressions of Brooklyn, roots itself in the timeless and iconic Brooklyn while skirting entirely any name checks of Greenpoint or Williamsburg hipster hot spots.

In “One Month Marathon” Friedberger seeks permanency in ruins and stone masonry - in old, familiar building materials; and at the same time she sings that the marathon in question is “ending on Sunday … and for my last ensemble I will wear nothing at all.” In nakedness, literally and figuratively, is a yearning for truth, and intimacy. All this built on the subtlest foundation of spare, elegant guitar and drums. “Roosevelt Island” finds the artist easing into an effortless alterna-funk, and remarking that “you made me feel like I was more like you than me, and I liked that,” as connection is set against a backdrop of urban pleasures and dislocations.

Most of the playing on Last Summer is by Friedberger (guitar, harmonica, keys, percussion) and Eric Broucek (bass, guitar, keys, percussion). Broucek is credited as producer, engineer and mixer. His work (at Stickydisc Recording - Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn), is largely responsible for Last Summer’s richly varied, but aesthetically consistent sound. Jim Orso and Tim Traynor share the drum throne with excellent support and consummate taste.

In music and lyrics, Last Summer is both rich and economical – a journey through one very sharp woman’s ruminations on love, identity, and cultural landscape. As marvelous as her contributions to the Fiery Furnaces are, it still makes you wonder what took her so long to give free rein to her sensibilities. All things in good time, and at this time Last Summer is a great gift to the summer of 2011.

Reverberating: 8.7