Coming soon... Big Dipper review (Crashes on the Platinum Planet) for Paraphilia magazine.

My review of  Big Dipper's rather wonderful reunion record Crashes on the Platinum Planet will appear in the upcoming edition of Paraphila magazine (http://www.paraphiliamagazine.com/).

In the meantime, check out the video for their homage to their friend (he 'did' Crashes' album art) Robert Pollard.

Enjoy!

Beth Orton - Sugaring Season (Anti-Epitaph)

 

 

I have yet to write a review of Sugaring Season by Beth Orton, but as a music fan and writer I would be doing it and you a disservice not to give it Reverberations highest recommendation.

It has grown on me with every listen. While always a fan of Orton's I've never been struck as true or deep as by this record.

I could draw parallels to the work of Van Morrison, Sandy Denny and Nick Drake without being unfair or inaccurate, but like all great records Sugaring Season has a passion and identity that is singular. Like Astral Weeks or Five Leaves Left, for instance, what makes Sugaring Season so powerful is the the total impression its collection of fine songs makes. Good albums have good songs. Great albums have good songs that complement one another, sequenced in such a way as to make the listener feel that the flow of the record was ordained, inevitable.

If you haven't listened to this record, please do yourself a favor.

 

Enjoy this song from Sugaring Season:

Bettie Serveert - Oh, Mayhem! (Second Motion) Visit blurt-online.com for a new review.

  Hello, Reverberations readers, your humble scribe is branching out some and contributing to various and sundry reputable journals. One such is Blurt. Blurt is both online and on your newsstands. This is a review just posted online with Blurt. The generous editor, Mr. Fred Mills, is cool with linking from Reverberations.  Everyone wins.

This review is of Bettie Serveert's Oh, Mayhem! on the Second Motion label.

 From here we direct you to the estimable Blurt:

http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/4343/

Richard Thompson - Electric (New West) Visit blurt-online.com for a new review

 Hello, Reverberations readers, your humble scribe is branching out some and contributing to various and sundry reputable journals. One such is Blurt. Blurt is both online and on your newsstands. This is a review just posted online with Blurt. The generous editor, Mr. Fred Mills, is cool with linking from Reverberations.  Everyone wins.

This review is of Richard Thompson's Electric on the New West label.

From here we direct you to the estimable Blurt:



http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/4340/

Tyvek - On Triple Beams (In the Red) Visit blurt-online.com for a new review

 Hello, Reverberations readers, your humble scribe is branching out some and contributing to various and sundry reputable journals. One such is Blurt. Blurt is both online and on your newsstands. This is a review just posted online with Blurt. The generous editor, Mr. Fred Mills, is cool with linking from Reverberations.  Everyone wins.

This review is of Tyvek's On Triple Beams on the In the Red label

 From here we direct you to the estimable Blurt:

http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/4327/

Allah-Las - s/t (Innovative Leisure) Visit blurt-online.com for a new review

 Hello, Reverberations readers, your humble scribe is branching out some and contributing to various and sundry reputable journals. One such is Blurt. Blurt is both online and on your newsstands. This is a review just posted online with Blurt. The generous editor, Mr. Fred Mills, is cool with linking from Reverberations.  Everyone wins.

This review is of the self-titled debut from the Allah-Las on the Innovative Leisure label.



From here we direct you to the estimable Blurt:

http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/4303/

At No. 15 ... The Men - Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)

The end of the old year and the beginning of the new one provide a rare, but appropriate time to look back. That means doing something Reverberations doesn't do a great deal, re-posting previous reviews. We did so, of course, throughout the Top 10 Countdown; three of the top 10 (okay, eleven technically) required new reviews, but eight were previously reviewed. 

Why do this? Two reasons: first, these are really good records, deserving of a second look and a extra bit of love; second, it allows Reverberations a bit more love, attention and traffic for engaging in reason number one. You know?

Over the coming days we'll take a look at albums 11-20 (counting up after counting down!), the ones narrowly missing the Top 10 Countdown.


At No. 15, from a previous published review (April 2012), here's ...

The Men - Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)

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? 

The Men aren't remarkable songwriters. The singing of guitarists Mark Perro and Mick Chiericozzi is generally a tune-wobbly bray. And they don't sing much. Fully half of the ten songs on Open Your Heart are instrumentals or near-instrumentals. Damned if it isn't pretty great.

Like fellow Brooklynites Endless Boogie, The Men follow the dharma of a certain groove. It's not a funk groove. But hey, there are all kinds of grooves. Bo Diddley had one. John Lee Hooker. Hell, the Velvets did. The Men don't really inhabit the same groove paradigm as Endless Boogie. The Boogies are more blues-based, T.S. McPhee-worshipping stoner-rock (Canned Heat, Humble Pie, Exile era Stones minus arrangements) than the Men, whose idea of an endless jam is about one-third the length of an Endless Boogie excursion. Plus, the Men's 'jams' are actually pretty composed, structured, almost surgical. And their longest is just over seven minutes. 

"Country Song," the third track, and first of the "instrumentals," is a slow-down, chill pill, or so it functions after two raucous opening cuts. Taking Terry Reid's "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace" riff (or part of it) into Children of the Future vintage Steve Miller Band space cowboy jam land, it's zoned out late-night driving music. Slide guitars swoon, when Rich Samis’s drums fall in they swing as much as they rock (nice touch) and gradually you're driving down that "Moonlight Mile" into a land of pure tremolo, light show heaven. When you start the car in the morning your ears bleed, remembering just how high you had this shit turned up.

"Country Song" follows the opening, one-two party salvo of "Turn it Around" and "Animal." The former is a "Ramblin' Rose" style mosh pit solicitation, all blazing MC5/Blue Oyster Cult guitar riffery and a lyric so simple it follows the ninth-verse-same-as-the first formula that's grown out of the Ramones school of say it once why say anything else. 'Animal" is all growling proof of its' title, suggesting that your pretty face is going to hell ... on the F train.

"Oscillation" follows "Country Song" - segues right into it. At about 2:50 guitar lines spiral into shades of Tom and Richard (Television, that fluttering bell-like sound), or Explosions in the Sky. Of course the twin specters of Spaceman 3 and Sonic Youth are all over these sounds, especially Jason Pierce's reverb/echo/delay/tremolo heavy guitar sound. "Please Don't Go Away" surges with Hawkwind over-drive and a dash of the Edge's guitar chime; Beach Boys/Four Season's "oohs" drown out what passes for a lead vocal. And the sound moves forward relentlessly.

The title track, as has been widely observed in the rock writer fraternity, is a stepchild of the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love." Nice call, kids. Of course y'all have missed that instead of Diggles' tart, terse, single-note fills the Men juxtapose the basic rhythm guitar with the roiling, arpeggiated sound of Keith Levene's playing on P.I.L.'s brand name song ("Public Image"). "Open Your Heart" is palpably tense and as close to pop as The Men get, at the same time.

The lads break out the acoustics for "Candy." You can hear the lyrics once the band unplugs. Heck, they're practically verbose for this song, suspecting I suppose that they should say something since their finally being heard. Evocative lyrically of "Before They Make Me Run" and "Lonely Planet Boy" (basic atmosphere), "Candy" is about a guy who's been "to the darkest places ... and been a total mess." But his solution isn't a job on Wall Street, apparently. Nope, he also sings, "I just quit my job and I can stay out all night long" - maybe a little older and wiser this time. Here in relative repose you hear where the Men are coming from. They are guys pushing (or pushing past) thirty, making a racket for a (almost) living and happy to have the calling to do so.

The calm breaks with "Cub," a pummeling tour de force of hard rock concept. Swirling, aggravated guitar lines, reminiscent of the Manic Street Preacher's Holy Bible, played with the crystal jag thrash of Bad Brains. Phased harp leads to splenetic guitar leads to a near-metal turnaround straight outta Sabs and into a wah-wah solo. All this in about two minutes.

"Presence," title notwithstanding, is more Street Hassle than Zep. "Ex-Dreams" culminates Open Your Heart - the most Sonic Youth-like cut on an album saturated in Thurston and Lee-isms. Built for performance with two, separate "put your hands together" drum breaks, it's a transcendent study in rock guitar noise, and a fit ending to the album.

It's less brittle and distant than the band's earlier work, but Open Your Heart is hardly compromised. It's the sound of an urban rock outfit committed to the performance idiom, reaching out to its audience.



Reverberating: 8.5

At No. 14, Nude Beach - II (Fat Possum)

The end of the old year and the beginning of the new one provide a rare, but appropriate time to look back. That means doing something Reverberations doesn't do a great deal, re-posting previous reviews. We did so, of course, throughout the Top 10 Countdown; three of the top 10 (okay, eleven technically) required new reviews, but eight were previously reviewed. 

Why do this? Two reasons: first, these are really good records, deserving of a second look and a extra bit of love; second, it allows Reverberations a bit more love, attention and traffic for engaging in reason number one. You know?

Over the coming days we'll take a look at albums 11-20 (counting up after counting down!), the ones narrowly missing the Top 10 Countdown.
At No. 14, from a previous published review (April 2012), here's ...

Nude Beach - II (Other Music/Fat Possum)

Their name stinks. 

Nude Beach?

But Nude Beach they are. And their second album (yup, II) is one damned entertaining piece of work.

They come from the Brooklyn scene; maybe they thought their name would look good on bills with Passion Pit, Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear (okay, maybe Nude Beach isn’t so bad). 

 

It’s for damn sure that nothing about Nude Beach fits in with the rest of the Williamsburg sound. The above bands sound like trustafarians plotting new directions in pointless obscurity. When Grizzly Bear performed recently on “The Colbert Report” the song they played was shapeless, meandering, and lacking a distinct chorus. This foolishness passes for innovation among the self-select in America’s largest post-graduate ghetto. Snore. 

 

Instead, Nude Beach seem to have swallowed the Seventies whole – and the good parts mostly. Among the icons pictured on their inner sleeve are Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, and Dee Dee Ramone – indicative musically, and even more in terms of affinities.

 

The band’s debut album is not widely available or distributed. I’ve heard bits and pieces on YouTube videos, and it smacks a bit more of post-punk and grunge leftovers than II’s trimmer, coolly classic rock approach. Nude Beach’s music demonstrates that innovation and novelty are not necessary qualities for rock pleasure. For Nude Beach it’s more about choosing inspirations judiciously, working on craft and performance, projecting energy and just enough individuality to make something familiar sound fresh again. 

To be honest, nearly every time Chuck Betz opens his mouth I find myself thinking of Tom Petty. Listen to the way he sings the line “so hard to believe” in “Walkin’ Down My Street.” Okay, it’s obvious he loves some Tom. But that’s not such a bad thing. Betz, in particular, recalls the steely, pissed off Petty that the FM rockers mistook for punk. “Street” also recalls Springsteen’s “Sherry Darling,” and a time in the Boss’s life before the mantle of sobriety was heavy upon him. There’s also a wound up quality to Betz’s delivery on a song like “Some Kinda Love” that captures David Johansen’s raw edge and the urgency of a young Paul Westerberg. 

 

Betz’s songs are mostly about girls - bad girls, good girls, obtainable girls, distant girls – okay, girls. When they’re not they’re about direction, identity, destiny; it’s standard rock lyric stuff. Not too many lines leap out or grab you by the poetic neck, but his sentiments are expressed intelligently and with a passion that’s believable and idiom appropriate. Musically, they’re complete songs. You know, the kind with verses, b-parts, bridges (where necessary), and hooky choruses. 

Betz is also a good guitarist. He manages to slam a quick solo into every short song here. Frankly, it’s refreshing in an era when too many bands seem to lack a real instrumental voice. He’s a gritty player who balances kinetic flair with melodic phrasing. Betz sounds like he’s absorbed Mike Campbell, Mick Ronson and Springsteen to be sure, but there’s also a touch of Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd in his biting, lyrical lines. 

 

Jim Shelton on bass and drummer Ryan Naideau are a powerful, propulsive rhythm section, complementing Betz’s guitar and keyboard work. Together they keep things rock simple, but not without a refreshing variety of ensemble touches. “You Make it So Easy” evokes the subtle Latin feel the Beatles employed so well (it also features one of Betz’s best lines – “I’m tired of all your believing you’ve seen into the depth of my soul”). “Keep it Cool” borrows reggae rhythms reminiscent of Television’s Jah-twist on “Prove It.” “Cathedral Echoes” is folk-rock gone thrash, like vintage Dils. “Didn’t Have to Try” shoots for soul balladry; Betz’s vocal approach relaxed a little, a bit evocative of Chuck Prophet. 

 

“The Endless Night” manages to mix Supergrass with Springsteen, Betz pulling off a serpentine dual-lead. For all their fealty to classic rock values, Nude Beach is brash and driven in a way characteristic of New York bands. It keeps them out of Seventies-Satin-Tour-Jacket hell. They will occasionally put you in mind of early Mink DeVille, and inevitably the Velvet Underground, especially on the surging “VU” vintage inspired “Loser in the Game,” the band rocking it “Foggy Notion” style.

 

I’ve been listening to II steadily for the last two weeks, half anticipating that its charms would subside. But they haven’t. Nope, it’s a sharp, satisfying rock ‘n’ roll record that sticks with you, even after repeated listening. 

 

 

 Reverberating: 8.6

At No. 13 ... Dr. John - Locked Down (Nonesuch)

The end of the old year and the beginning of the new one provide a rare, but appropriate time to look back. That means doing something Reverberations doesn't do a great deal, re-posting previous reviews. We did so, of course, throughout the Top 10 Countdown; three of the top 10 (okay, eleven technically) required new reviews, but eight were previously reviewed. 

Why do this? Two reasons: first, these are really good records, deserving of a second look and a extra bit of love; second, it allows Reverberations a bit more love, attention and traffic for engaging in reason number one. You know?

Over the coming days we'll take a look at albums 11-20, the ones narrowly missing the Top 10 Countdown.

At No. 13, from a previous published review (April 2012), here's ...

Dr. John - Locked Down (Nonesuch)

Every music lover has moments of revelation. I still recall vividly the first time I heard the Animals riveting (yes, it was riveting – I know it’s the critical cliché to end all critical clichés, and I don’t care) take on the American folk chestnut “House of the Rising Sun.” It was playing on the car radio. I made my mom leave the car running as we pulled into a parking space in front of my bro’s jewelry store in downtown Lawrence. Never in my sweet, short life had I heard anything like it. I was a pre-teen. My exposure to black music was limited to Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte; suffice to say Charley Patton wasn’t playing on WHB. The Animals’ singer, Eric Burdon, was from Newcastle, England, but that voice, and its amazing conviction and intensity stemmed from his adoration of the American blues tradition. I didn’t even know it yet, but I was hooked.

The mise en scene of “House of the Rising Sun” was New Orleans. When you’re a white bread kid in the sixth grade from Kansas your impressions of New Orleans came from Al Hirt and Pete Fountain (okay, Louis Armstrong might cross your radar occasionally, but almost as a novelty). That’s what you saw on television. No knock on those dudes, but they represented a commercialized, somewhat sanitized version of the music of New Orleans. That sound occasionally seeped into the pop mainstream of the Sixties. Fats Domino may have been past his chart prime, but songs like “Iko Iko” by the Dixie Cups and the odd hit from Lee Dorsey (especially “Working in a Coal Mine”) gave a hint what was cooking in the Big Easy. Aaron Neville had a hit with “Tell It Like It Is” but its rhythm n’ blues sound was not especially Nawlins-centric.

For me, another revelatory moment was the first time I heard Dr. John – on a short-lived Kansas City underground FM station called KCJC. The tune was “Mama Roux” if I recall correctly. I’d never heard anything quite like it. Heck, most of America hadn’t. The gumbo of styles, representative of New Orleans, that became available to anyone receptive to it in the Seventies, was still underground culturally in 1968. The Meters first album didn’t drop until 1969. Professor Longhair, after recording for several labels in the Fifties with marginal commercial results, was working as a janitor throughout most of the Sixties. The aforementioned chart hits by Dorsey, Neville and the Dixie Cups only hinted at what was going on in the diverse neighborhoods of the Crescent City. 

 Dr. John, the Night Tripper was a persona created by a Los Angeles based New Orleans ex-pat named Mac Rebennack. Rebennack had played on many recordings as a very young man in New Orleans. He moved on to Los Angeles where he was a go-to session man between 1963 and 1968.

As Dr. John, Rebennack combined the full simmering roux of New Orleans sounds (sanctified church music and Saturday night grind) and mixed them shrewdly and affectingly with the psychedelic wail of the emerging counterculture. Three similarly themed albums cementing the Dr. John cult followed the debut record (Dr. John, the Night Tripper - the album that included “Mama Roux”). Rebennack followed those first four releases with Gumbo, an excellent session that paid homage to hometown piano heroes like Professor Longhair and James Booker, produced by fellow New Orleans legend, Allen Toussaint.

Over the last thirty-some years the Dr. has kept active. As a solo artist he’s responsible for twenty-eight albums. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t had a hit in forty years (1973’s “Right Place, Wrong Time”) and who fought a junk habit until the late Eighties, as I understand it. There’s good music throughout that twenty-eight record catalog; but nothing quite as unique or captivating as those early records – until Locked Down.

Dr. John is pictured in full Night Tripper regalia on the front cover of Locked Down. It’s appropriate. But Locked Down isn’t simply a retread of those four early Dr. John records. It also draws on the funky sounds of his mid-Seventies releases In the Right Place (home of “Right Place, Wrong Time”) and Desitively Bonnaroo. Locked Down’s producer, Black Keys singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach, also introduced West African and Jamaican grooves (dub echoes resound on the track “Getaway”), grooves implicit (as cross-cultural influence) in the New Orleans sonic stew. The results are an updated take on the Gris-gris alchemy that blew my teenage mind back in the day.

Auerbach’s production is detailed, but dense. The sounds is both steeped in tradition and totally fresh. The model for this collaboration – young Turk produces veteran artist, wasn’t unprecedented. Jack White resurrected Loretta Lynn’s soul with Van Lear Rose. Joe Henry made Solomon Burke sound regal again with Don’t Give Up On Me. But those record were produced for artists primarily known for singing and songwriting, Locked Down features an artist with major chops and a singular instrumental vision. All Auerbach could do was surround him with the right musicians and shape his materials. He couldn’t have done a better job. Drummer Max Weissenfeldt knows all the tricks necessary to play this music, having absorbed the playing of Earl Palmer and Ziggy Modeliste (among others), but he plays with a flair and sensibility all his own. Bassist Nick Movshon (Black Keys, Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones, Wu Tang Clan) provides foundation, extemporaneous moments, and combinations of the two - like the percolating funk that bubbles underneath “Getaway.” Brian Olive (solo recordings on Alive Records, where Black Keys got their start) works with Auerbach beautifully, making a great guitar team. They understand that groove is about space. On “Ice Age” they combine the sinew of Leo Nocentelli (Meters) with the Mali-lilt of Tinariwen

Auerbach gets his moments. His blistering solo on the outro of “Getaway” calls to mind the Sixties mind-melt of guitarists like John Cippolina and Henry Vestine (Canned Heat.) The pure, bluesy intro to “You Lie” is R.L. Burnside rendered elegiac. And his blowback solo on the title cut is note perfect, too.

Still, this is Dr. John’s record. At seventy-one his voice is still sly, suggestive and powerful. Among his many vocal models, for me Lee Dorsey still stands out; it’s something in the slur, the slide and the break in his voice. Of course he’s as much leader of this band as Auerbach. He’s also the rhythmic heart of these sessions as much as Weissenfeldt and Movshon, and his solo turns are full of musicality and surprise – check out the Sun Ra meets second line solo on “Ice Age.” 

Locked Down is truly a post-Katrina piece of work from a man who’s none too pleased by the violence and injustice done his beloved hometown. The title track, “Revolution,” “Ice Age,” and “You Lie” all focus an evil eye on the transgressive, abusive powers that be – justice that casts too blind an eye, governments that fail to serve the people in the streets, corporations that rob them blind.

With a chorus that sounds like a drawled John Lennon, the call to arms “Revolution” is driven and punctuated by a doubled bari-sax line that’s straight out of Moondog (not Johnny, but the composer from St. Mary’s, Kansas, y’all). “Ice Age” is a funky workingman’s blues. Even an apparent love song like “Getaway” contains lyrics with references to being “strung out,” and images of a “padded dungeon,” and “jailhouse cell.”

Lighter shades of Big Easy funk come from “Big Shot,” a friendly bit of braggart’s bravado. Weissenfeldt’s parade drumming is counterpoint to the funereal “Two Steps from the Blues” guitar figure that frames the song. A pretty Fender Rhodes intro(duces) “My Children, My Angels,” a fatherly song that’s both confessional and devotional (“Your pa did a lotta work on hisself”).

While much of Locked Down is spent in protest or secular pursuits, it concludes with Dr. John’s thank you to the man upstairs, “God’s Sure Been Good” (“better than me to myself”). It’s an eloquent expression of faith and gratitude from a man who’s been down some hard roads. As Gods go, I’ll take the Dr. John model. In a world full of people who invoke God to support fear, hatred and sanctimonious judgment it’s good to hear a believer sing about the God of love, even if I don’t know what the hell to think my own self.

Dr. John may have traveled the world, but his heart has never been far from the Third Ward where he grew up. Locked Down is a resounding statement from a master. It evinces rage, provokes laughter and moves you to dance. This album speaks from, of and to the soul of that most unique among great American cities, New Orleans. 

- One of the great things about having a blog is that if you feel like going off into reverie, leaving the constraints of review behind, you can. Sometimes it's good to tighten things up. Sometimes it's good to let it go. This review is dedicated to my late friend, editor and mentor Ranger Bob, who would have l-o-v-e-d this record.

Reverberating: 9.1 (Yeah, it should be less given that it's No. 13. A foolish consistency really is the hobgoblin of  a small mind, though, and mine is bursting. So there it is.)

At No. 12 ... Bob Dylan - Tempest (Columbia)

The end of the old year and the beginning of the new one provide a rare, but appropriate time to look back. That means doing something Reverberations doesn't do a great deal, re-posting previous reviews. We did so, of course, throughout the Top 10 Countdown; three of the top 10 (okay, eleven technically) required new reviews, but eight were previously reviewed. 

Why do this? Two reasons: first, these are really good records, deserving of a second look and a extra bit of love; second, it allows Reverberations a bit more love, attention and traffic for engaging in reason number one. You know?

Over the coming days we'll take a look at albums 11-20, the ones narrowly missing the Top 10 Countdown.

Here is a new review of 

 

Bob Dylan - Tempest (Columbia) - the No. 12 record on REVERBERATIONS Top 10 Countdown for 2012.

“Praise be to Nero’s Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn.”

From “Desolation Row,” from one of Bob Dylan’s truly great albums Highway 61 Revisited.

Honestly, it was probably as much as he needed to say about the god damn Titanic. At thirteen plus minutes, the title track of Tempest is ‘about’ the Titanic.” It’s a trusty Dylan conceit, a concoction of history, narrative, myth, fiction, and darkness, It’s also  a  muddled mess that Dylan defenders are trying to will into being another masterpiece. Meh. It owes no small debt to the New Lost City Ramblers song “Titanic,” by the way.  Shit, by the end of the song I was reminded of John Lennon’s offhand remark concerning some Beethoven symphony (some classical piece, anyway … work with me!) that George Martin played for him. When George asked him what he thought, John replied “I don’t know, George, by the time it was over I couldn’t remember what the beginning sounded like.” What John said.

Speaking of John, “Roll on John” is widely interpreted as Dylan’s ‘tribute’ to Lennon. Well, he does (pointlessly) string together lots of Beatle song titles, lyrics, images of “Liverpool docks” and so forth. But it all adds to not so much. There is no emotional truth, no heartache core. And on this one song Dylan’s vocal is muddy in the mix (and I don’t mean Waters), where it is otherwise front and center throughout Tempest.

The rest of the record … it’s pretty entertaining. Yes, entertaining. The last time Bob illuminated much for me was on Love and Theft, a revealing, lovely piece of work. I love especially the song ‘Mississippi,’ a beautiful song about kindred feeling as has ever been written. Thank God Dylan salvaged it for me after first hearing Sheryl Crow’s insensitive cover, a dopey rampage through its nuanced words. Tough and tender in all the ways that a mean spirited affair like Tempest is not, Love and Theft (released 9/11/2001) remains Dylan’s last great record.

On Tempest, Dylan’s merry band traffic mainly in blues idioms, rocking in a pre-rock ‘n’ roll kinda way; which is hunky-dory, Bob has been there for years. Material like “Duquesne Whistle” and “Soon after Midnight” flail a little for me because the loose swing of the band should allow room for a little more flash and interaction between the musicians. Bob has a really hot band on a tight fucking leash. The arrangements that hue closer to blues, especially Chicago blues grooves generally succeed more than the jazzy affairs.

“Long and Wasted Years,” with its courtly central figure is a respite; Dylan letting his confessional hair down, without rancor or recrimination. But rancor and recrimination are soon to come, and brilliantly I admit, on “Pay in Blood.”   Son of a bitch, man, who pissed Bob off this bad? “Pay" makes “Positively Fourth Street” sound like a love letter. This is Bob as biblical reckoner, Western avenger, gunslinger, really fucking Old Testament. But it’s a kick, partly because of its unlikely foundation on Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of my Tears” changes. And because revenge and vengeance bring out the best in Bob’s remaining croak of a voice. Still, as the protagonist (Bob? One can neeeever be sure) sings “I’ll drink my fill, and sleep alone” you realize that being right all the stinking time comes with a price, and is in fact a giant pain in the ass.

 “Scarlet Town” is about the same darkness, if you will, only writ large and on a broader social canvas. (Scarlet follows blood. Got it, Bob.) It’s another Dylan slaughter of vanity, and human hubris. It’s about Washington D.C., the Kennedys, about being lost, distance from God, because after all – “there are no trials outside the Gates of Eden.”

The lyrics throughout Tempest have touched off the typical speculation as to Dylan’s religious convictions. Everyone wants to paint him into their corner. But Bob’s always been elusive. I think Dylan views myth and history as poetically indistinguishable. That for him mythological truth is more powerful than scientific truth. 

As Sly Stone sang “my own beliefs are in my song.” But it’s not as simple as that, because in the case of Dylan I think this means that his belief is literally in these songs. The music is where he finds mystery, love and comfort in dark circumstance. So, remember, if you’re claiming Bob Dylan, you are forgetting that he is Protean, and a shapeshifter, a great modern artist.

“Early Roman Kings,” more Muddy, more blues. “Early Roman Kings” is about flash gangstas – not no Caesars. David Hidalgo’s accordion adds a Latin edge. “The peddlers and the meddlers they buy and they sell, the destroyed your city and they’ll destroy you as well.” Death and decay lurk around every corner.  The “Early Roman Kings” may make look sharp in their sharkskin suits, but they are trouble.

And really, there’s your album. Wherever humans lurk, mischief is at hand; unless we’re talking about those elusive moments with the right woman, in Bob’s world.

“Tin Angel,” is as desolate, violent and unrepentant as any English murder ballad, a form from which the song originates. It’s a grisly tale. But in a venerable ballad like  “Matty Groves,” the young bride of a noble dick defiantly declares her love for the slain poor boy, Matty. Big hearted shit. “Tin Angel’s” characters, though, are part Jim Thompson, part antebellum South, and basically, you know, unsympathetic.

And that’s what I find depressing. Look, the great Bob Dylan, the for sure Shakespeare of the rock era, is in no way responsible for keeping spirits jolly. Death may be your Santa Claus, and all that. But hey, the man has lived. And to find his aesthetic persona so bereft of mercy, so shorn of grace at this age, while so full of anger, and vitriol. Shit, it’s sad. You know? I wanna give the old bastard a friendly punch in the arm.

I’m no idiot. I know the seeker doesn’t always find. Or find what he or she was looking for. Life’s a teacher with a rod a yard long. I get it. But remember the charity and love that fueled Blood on the Tracks,(forget “Idiot Wind” for a moment – and even that conceded “we’re all idiots, babe!”) Or even the dark empathy that animated an accusation like “Jokerman?” Bob, Bob, Bob, at this point you are wearing my ass out. Go fishing, I know you like to. Listen to that first Thumbs album that Martin Keller gave you. That would make you giggle. Peace. 

Reverberating: 8.5 (on the epic Bob Dylan scale - probably a 9.0 in the rest of the world)