The Men are men (well, you never know) from Brooklyn. And unlike your average twenty-somethings from Gotham’s most populous borough they don’t sound like lapsed graduate students trying to justify their career choice to their parents by claiming their new album is a master’s thesis on some obscure aesthetic strategy. Shit, no. They sound like a damned rock band. This is rock as bedrock – elemental, dedicated to the proposition that every dumb ass that queried “is rock dead?” should be hit with a sledgehammer - as if Little Richard could ever die. I’ve heard Leave Home (yes, borrowed from the Ramones, paragons of college rock sophistication). I haven’t heard their earliest music. Their new album Open Your Heart represents gravitation toward what the average rock fan might call listenable. Take that, hipsters!
But really, they don’t sound like they give two shits. Which always makes for great rock and roll. Ya think the Stones agonized over how Beggars Banquet would be received by an audience taught to anticipate lysergic spew? Hell, no. And by God, Open Your Heart is a sort of Beggars for a generation raised on racket. Oh, I’ve heard little college-rocker journalists bring up Husker Du and Black Flag and SST and Homestead and Dischord labels and whatever else. I guess. But mostly I hear the swirling missionary positions of everyone from the Stooges to Jane’s Addiction (and a certain kinship with Icarus Line). And of course the noise monkey grooving of everyone from Spaceman 3 to Sonic Youth to - I dunno, the Swans?
Scott Severin knocked around the New York music scene for years, somehow winding up in Omaha sometime in the past decade. I don’t pretend to know his biography, but if his music is any indication he’s a grown up punk rocker with plenty of Clash, Dylan, Ochs, Waits, Cave, Zevon, Springsteen (his words, actually) in his collection. He recorded a forty-something debut called Unknown Rider upon settling in Omaha, a record I’ve yet to hear. Scott and I were introduced through a mutual friend and I asked him to send a copy of his second release Birdhouse Obbligato when it became available.
Glad I did. Severin’s work honors his mentors and most of it merits same breath mention. “Birdhouse” (the song, but not quite title track) has a Weill-ian menace that reminds me of Steve Wynn’s “My Old Haunts.” Actually, there’s a more general kinship between Severin’s work and Wynn’s. Severin’s delivery has the incantatory rhythms of Allen Ginsberg, but his vocal timbre and range remind me of Eric Anderson (think “I Shall Go Unbounded” more than “Blue River”), something in his enunciation too. “ And “Birdhouse’s” ‘sins that even Satan don’t allow’ suggests Nick Cave’s netherworld.
In the faded romance chronicle of “The Edge is Gone” and on ‘I Won’t Get on the Plane” I hear something of Richard Hell’s Kentucky by way of Lower East Side drawl. “Plane” and “I Don’t Know” would also sound right at home in the revived New York Dolls repertoire, especially the latter with it’s jaded Stones drive. “Even Jesus” links the Christian savior with Everyman, suggesting that like Johnny Thunders “even Jesus was born to lose.”
The enigma that is John Wesley Coleman III … ah, never mind. Enigma, my ass. I don’t know that much about the guy, that’s all. Let’s see, he’s from Texas. He plays in a band called the Golden Boys – don’t know much about them either. He records for the Memphis mavericks at the Goner Records label and had a previous album on the label called The Bad Lady Goes to Jail. I have it. It’s pretty good. But I don’t remember all that much about it … too. Got it on the shelf, where records that I like go (unlike the ones that suck). But I’m going to remember his new record a lot better. It’s called The Last Donkey Show and I’ll remember it because I like it more. I’ve been listening to it a lot. And because I’m writing this damn review.
Coleman is a rock ‘n’ roll junkman. His mind works like a radio receiver that gets random transmissions from the last five decades of rock and country music. Recorded in Oakland, CA and Coleman’s native Texas, Donkey Show is produced by Greg Ashley of the Gris Gris, who’s worked with bands like the Impediments and is clearly Coleman’s kindred spirit.
Coleman is expressive, poetic in a junkman’s way – mostly he comes up with an idea or an image and lets it roll. It works. “There’s a woman looking for me in the dark; she won’t leave me alone” he sings on “My Grave.” It’s sung to a tune that borrows a tad from Roky Erickson’s “Starry Eyes” with an arrangement that calls to mind the Sir Douglas Quintet, Swingin’ Medallions and the Attractions. Coleman likes the sublime sounds of vintage electric keyboards like the Farfisa and Vox Continental, sounds at once majestic and cheesy. That sound predominates on the title cut and “Virgin Mary Queen.” The former kicks off with a ‘dearly beloved’ organ intro, turning into prom-rock with a Ringo back beat, Coleman singing like a charbroiled Peter Perrett; on “Virgin” Coleman engages his inner Iggy, but mixes him with a touch of Kris Kristofferson. With its Flannery O’Connor ambience “Virgin” sounds like the aural equivalent of a William Eggleston photograph, full of that mysterious mix of the banal and the incredible that characterizes the southern American psychic landscape.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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:
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:
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)
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):
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:
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)
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.
