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Labor Day weekend marks a cool time to slow down on the work and take few days of recreation with friends and family. I’ve been feeling the winds of heavy change and need a break before getting back to the “heavy lifting” of 2010.
When I started thinking about what the concept of the word “labor” meant to me, I couldn’t help thinking about a couple of must see bands blowing through town last week. I saw Black Mountain play a killer set at the Bootleg Theatre. The band’s new LP sounds amazing and they have been consistently (along with side project Pink Mountaintops, Blood Meridian, etc.) one of my favorite new bands of the last 5 years.
On Saturday, rock n roll impresario Sean Carlson throws his annual Fuck Yeah Festival,whose line up is incredible and diverse. Sean’s got a bill of who’s who on the indie circuit. Indeed the day will be heavy for “heads.”
The two bands that I’m really looking forward to are OFF!! and the musical muse for this week’s Idelic Hour, the legendary Sleep from San Jose Califonia. OMFG these two will crush….
When it comes to the blog you're reading at the moment, we've often felt that a rummage through someone's record collection and a first-person narrative is far more interesting and worthwhile than a standard Q & A or what have you. We thank John Davis for proving us so very right this week.
Catch John this evening as he plays "The Songs of John Davis" at the Writer's Center in Bethesda as part of the new season of Story/Stereo. The night kicks off at 8PM and is free and all ages.
The Kinks – David Watts “Nice and smooth.” "David Watts" is the lead track from The Kinks’ 1967 album, “Something Else” (which is my favorite Kinks record). A relative stomper for the otherwise pastoral phase that The Kinks were easing into at the time, “David Watts” is Ray Davies’ ode to an ideal classmate and it includes all of what made the band so good. The wry lyrics, the indelible hooks and the sense that you’re listening to a band that sounds like no other. I listened to “Something Else” a few weeks ago when I was lucky enough to find an original copy of it on vinyl and I was surprised with a memory of how much I was trying to ape them when Georgie James first got started a few years ago. I had kind of forgotten how crucial this record was, along with The Zombies’ “Odessey and Oracle” and Richard & Linda Thompson’s “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight,” when we were writing those Georgie James songs. Of course, our record doesn’t really sound much at all like those records that were trying to imitate, which is probably best for all concerned. Anyway, another day and another song blogged about that The Jam also covered. Not quite as good as The Kinks’ original version but The Jam’s is pretty great, too. Plus, you get a Bruce Foxton vocal.
Mark Eric – Take Me With You If you’re a Beach Boys fan, you should hear Mark Eric’s lone record, “A Midsummer’s Daydream.” I think it came out around 1969 and I have to imagine it was fairly out of step with what was going on in music at that time. It sounds a whole lot like “Pet Sounds” but there’s also a very slight hint of softer groups like The Vogues, The Association and Spiral Starecase. I can’t quite explain why but maybe it’s in Mark Eric’s somewhat croony voice? No matter, as this record is a certified lost classic for fans of lush, Wilsonian pop music. “Take Me With You” is one of the ballads on the record and its minor-key verses give it a much-needed hint of something being amiss, considering the abundance of wistful sunniness otherwise. He brings it back together for the warm, breezy chorus and resolution is had.
Orlann Divo – Voce E Paz Sweet and smooth bossa/samba with touches of jazz from this 60s-era Brazilan singer. This track is a little subdued compared to the rest of the album and it does suffer a bit in comparison to irresistible, upbeat tunes like “Paralelo” and “Deixa O Vento Levar.” Orlann Divo’s voice is kind of like what I imagine Chris Montez wanted to sound like on all of those (great) records he made for A&M in the late 60s. Vibrant and loose but totally in control. In the liner notes for this record (“Samba Em Paralelo”), Orlann Divo takes a few shots at the bigger stars of bossa nova, implying that they’re dour, humorless nerds, essentially. I love the idea of a war of words between people trafficking in some of the most relaxed, soothing music in existence. It was a long way from Joao vs. Orlann to Biggie vs. Tupac.
The Undertones – Billy’s Third The first Undertones record is in my all-time top 10, for sure. It’s hard to believe that all of these incredible songs come from ONE band. “Here Comes the Summer,” “Get Over You,” “Jimmy Jimmy,” “Teenage Kicks,” “Girls Don’t Like It” … I mean, we’re talking about nearly every song on this record being a complete classic. An impossible act to follow, each record that followed provided diminishing returns, but when you make a record as perfect as their self-titled debut, you’ve gotta be happy to have an accomplishment like that. Feargal Sharkey’s tremulous voice blended perfectly with the backing vocals of the O’Neill brothers and were propelled forward by the non-stop hooks in every one of these brief, totally righteous songs. Funny that the iPod chose “Billy’s Third,” ‘cause it’s one of my least favorite songs on the record. Still, it’s pretty damn good. If you don’t have this record, please correct your error. It’d probably be a drawback for some that the young, fresh-faced Undertones remind me of mixing The Ramones with the cast of “Leave It To Beaver.” That sounds kind of horrible but I think that’s part of their appeal to me. All of the hooks and brevity and power and joie de vivre of the first few Ramones records are present in the Undertones but minus the image and surly attitude. Of course, image and surly attitude are what we love about the Ramones but the absence of it is somehow part of what makes the Undertones so great. Simple concerns (girls, cars, friends, candy), simple songs and no pretense whatsoever.
Trusty – Capitol Hill There was some confusion amongst Dischord fans in the mid-90s when a new crop of bands began appearing on the label that had seemingly no musical connection to Fugazi or Jawbox or Soulside or any of the quintessentially “D.C.” bands that helped make the label’s reputation as source for kinetic, serious, slightly arty punk rock. The new additions: Smart Went Crazy provided a brainy, self-aware blend of dark pop music; Branch Manager was an odd mix of guitar jams and other instrumental wankery; and Trusty was a sharp, honest pop-punk band. I don’t mean pop-punk in the way that it was practiced primarily at the time. In those days, pop-punk veered wildly away from its roots in bands like The Buzzcocks and The Undertones and towards a more unfortunate strain that looked to “snotty” groups like Screeching Weasel and NOFX for its cues. Trusty wasn’t quite as angular as, say, the Buzzcocks, and that lack of edge, combined with the general confusion that greeted their joining the label that had Fugazi as its flagship band meant that Trusty never got a fair shake. Their first record for Dischord, 1995’s “Goodbye, Dr. Fate” has a slew of great songs. The singles and compilation tracks in the couple years leading up to that record (“Kathy’s Keen,” “Wish It Were Me,” “Bus Stop”) were even better. One of those comp tracks is this one, “Capitol Hill.” It was on a compilation of D.C. bands put together, strangely, by a label from Arizona called Third World Underground. “Echos From The Nation’s Capital” (that’s right, no second “e” in “Echos,” for this compilation!) included this Trusty song, along with The High-Back Chairs (a definite fellow traveler for Trusty), Tsunami, Edsel and a few more. I still love “Capitol Hill.” You can’t mess with that chorus. In the legacy discussion, none of the bands from that mid-90s Dischord era are spoken of much anymore, though Smart Went Crazy certainly left its mark with a small but fervent band of followers. Still, I hope people don’t sleep on Trusty too much. There are nuggets of pop brilliance in there.
"I've been lucky enough to record two Ardent sessions (one solo, and one with Two Way Radio) in studio A, record most of an album in studio C, as well as hang out there on several occasions in my now long and illustrious music “career.”
I honestly tell you that I've never been in a more professional environment – even when producing a simple live recording for a podcast, the folks at Ardent go all-out. And it's almost uncomfortable for me on some level, because I'm so used to recording in less than ideal spaces that don't come with tech support, or an overflowing gear and supply closet. Tidy, perfect-sounding rooms that come with so many perks are a rare luxury.
Unfortunately, the thing that sticks out most in my mind about doing the solo Ardent session – aside from being lucky enough to talk Tim Regan (of Snowglobe) into sitting in with me, and that Klaus Voormann was there for some reason – is how dreadfully, painfully sick I was.
Looking back now, I'm honestly not sure why I didn't try to postpone, as I could barely talk, much less sing on key. It just never occurred to me to try and reschedule. So, with a fever over 101, a ragged voice and a borrowed acoustic guitar, the show went on.
It actually didn't turn out so bad. I drank lots of tea with honey and barely spoke for two hours before the gig, saving it up for when the red light came on. (That's fancy recordist talk for when the show started. And truthfully, I don't even think there was a red “we're recording now” indicator light. If there was, I was too sick to remember.)
I did my thing, Tim and Jason Pulley (my new bandmate in the Near Reaches) got up and did theirs in support, and I went home and collapsed. I still cringe a little when I hear the shape of my voice on the playback (more pretentious recordist speak), but perhaps you, the average and likely unfamiliar-with-how-my-voice-should-sound-listener can be more forgiving. I truly hope so.
P.S. - when I say “average” listener, I am by no means implying that I am somehow “above-average” by being able to decipher the musical imperfections of my own voice, I was simply suggesting that casual listener might not even notice or care to make such nit-picky observations. Except, now I've pointed them out. Gosh, I'm a dick." —J.D. Reager
Enter to win J.D. Reager's LP "The Repechage" by simply leaving a comment, your name, and a contact email address in the comments to this post. We'll choose one winner each Friday for that week's giveaway which ALSO includes the entire Ardent Music catalog. (That's just 2 artists at this point, but hey, who's counting?)
To hear more great Ardent Sessions please visit Ardent Presents.
Our special Story/Stereoeventcontinues with the first five random tracks pulled from John Davis's ipod:
Big Boys – Sound On Sound The Big Boys were one of those bands that I first heard of ‘cause I loved a cover of one of their songs. When Jawbox signed to a major in 1993, they released an EP shortly before their major label full-length debut came out at the beginning of ‘94. On that EP were some excellent non-album tunes (all of which were included on the recent reissue of “For Your Own Special Sweetheart”), one of which was a faithful cover of The Big Boys’ “Sound On Sound.” Around that same time, Touch & Go released two CDs worth of Big Boys songs (“The Skinny Elvis” and “The Fat Elvis”) both of which had a big impact on me. Songs like “Nervous” and “Apolitical” were this brilliant middle ground between Gang of Four and Minor Threat. “Sound On Sound” was a different kind of song for them, though. Moody and slow, with a slightly ominous sing-song feel and a solid hook for a chorus. One of this band’s high points, for sure. I’m not quite sure why The Big Boys were overlooked when the history of American punk was written and the saints were canonized. They get a bit of attention but not enough, in my opinion. They were daring and funny and smart and could majorly throw down.
Neil Young – Philadelphia Neil Young knows how to write a devastating song and this is one of them. In my mind, it’s fairly betwixt with the eponymous movie that it was commissioned for and its inclusion in that final scene of old home movies of the main character that just died is, though a little maudlin, really affecting. Neil’s odd voice never sounds better or more appropriate than it does on this wrenchingly sad ballad. How hugely impressive is it that a guy can keep writing great songs for more than 40 years? Every album that he makes always has at least one notable moment on it, even now. What I like is that he made stinkers in every decade but was always able to rebound with something that was fierce and alive and still mattered. Some of the production touches on “Philadelphia” are dated (I’m mainly looking at those synth washes that also left their stain on the Boss’ “Tunnel Of Love” album and other records of the late 80s/early 90s era) but no misstep can blunt the emotional impact of a song like this.
The Cryan Shames – (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave When it comes to versions of “Heat Wave” that populate my iPod, this is probably the weakest one. It’s hard, though, to compete with The Who and The Jam and The Vandellas. Still, The Shames’ version is interesting. The chiming, Byrds-y 12-string guitar is a nice touch and I can imagine how fun this must have been to hear when they played it in some basketball gym in the Chicago suburbs of 1966. When it comes to the Cryan Shames, I think they’re a pretty underrated group. Their version of “Sugar and Spice” is my favorite of them all and some of their other songs, like “I Want To Meet You” and “We Could Be Happy” are really great. Plus, I’ve come to really love that cadre of suburban Chicago bands of the 60s (Ides of March, Cryan Shames, The Buckinghams, The American Breed, New Colony Six, Shadows Of Knight).
Lemonheads – Rockin’ Stroll (Demo) I first got into the Lemonheads when their 1992 album, “It’s A Shame About Ray,” became a big success on the heels of their cover of “Mrs. Robinson.” Initially, when I heard that cover, it set off some sort of bullshit detector in my mind and I decreed that the Lemonheads sucked. As with so many other bands that I hated at first, something intangible changed and I started to like them. Soon, not only was I listening to “It’s A Shame About Ray” all the time but also the earlier records, like “Hate Your Friends” (especially that one) and “Lick.” I think the influence of The Lemonheads on Title Tracks is pretty obvious. I stood by them for the rest of their tenure, even with “Car Button Cloth,” which didn’t go over well at the time, for some reason. I think there are some excellent songs on that record, however. Anyway, I’m glad the Lemonheads are back together, per se, and Title Tracks got to play with them last year. Not that we interacted with Evan Dando at all … well, I did let him in the door to the backstage when he showed up from the hotel minutes before their set. That was about it, though. It was funny how good their set was, though, considering the ennui that Dando emits in person and onstage. You just can’t step to those songs, though. It was one classic after another. This song is a demo version of “Rockin’ Stroll” that was included on a recent deluxe reissue of “It’s A Shame About Ray.” It has acoustic demo versions of most of the songs from the album, which are nice to hear if you’re a serious fan. If not, you should still hear the standard album as its one of the best records of the 90s, Ithink.
Alemu Aga – Keto Aykerim Motu I could listen to Alemu Aga records all day. It’s really, really difficult for me to discern the difference between the separate tracks but there’s something that I like about that. I almost crave the dynamic homogeneousness as I listen to his records. Who is Alemu Aga? He’s an Ethiopian musician who plays the begena, aka The Harp Of David, a sacred instrument to Ethiopians. The begena looks like of like a big lyre and boasts a deep, droning kind of sound with an intermittent buzz that creates thoroughly hypnotic and enveloping tones. Even better is when Aga begins to gently sing over the quietly insistent begena drone. His voice is mixed in a way so that it sounds like he’s right next to your ear, like some benevolent ghost. I remember going off to sleep in a musty basement during a particularly contentious stretch of tour once and being completely transported to a better place by a long batch of Alemu Aga tracks on a small set of portable speakers. I do think I have an easier time than most people completely being able to disconnect from where I am and slip back into my mind but I think everyone would find it pretty easy, too, if they had some Alemu Aga recordings to help them.
We've got a pair of tickets for tomorrow night's garage rock throwdown at the Black Cat in exchange for your request for them in the comments to this post (with a contact email address!)—and we've got The Blackberry Belles' Tony Ferrari on why you should put down that Nuggets box set and see it all happen live:
On Friday, September 3rd, my band, The Blackberry Belles, has the pleasure of sharing the Black Cat Mainstage with two amazing garage rock outfits, Mondo Topless and The Electric Mess. If you enjoy psychedelic garage punk infused with primitive R&B this is the bill for you.
Opening the show are The Electric Mess from New York City. I have come to believe that Esther Crow's time travel experiments in a dank makeshift basement laboratory in mid 1960's Brooklyn are paying off in dividends. Beyond inspired, The Electric Mess are the embodiment of 1960's psychedelic rock'n'roll lunacy. Check out the video for their single "You've Become a Witch" and be prepared to lose your mind.
Headlining from Philadelphia are Mondo Topless. These guys are in my opinion The Real Deal when it comes to keeping the torch lit for the artists found in the Nuggets collection. This is garage punk at its grimiest. Their stage show is a frenzied, beer fueled onslaught of R&B madness with a sight to behold and a sound to shake your very core. They just put out their 5th record "Freaking Out" on Get Hip Recordings.
My band, The Blackberry Belles will take to the stage in the middle of the night's line up with hopes of mesmerizing the crowd with our brand of primordial rock'n'roll. We're currently working on proper recordings,and we have a rough mix of "Listen Baby" here for your enjoyment. We hope to see you there and we promise to raise a commotion.
Friday, September 3rd, Black Cat Mainstage, 9:00pm $10.00 all ages
Back with Day #3 of our Story/Stereo event in advance of Friday night's unique confluence of words and music at Bethesda's Writer's Center and it's Day #3 with Story/Stereo's musical guest for the evening, John Davis, who returns with the first five random tracks off his ipod—and musings upon each:
Pixies – Dead The Pixies were one of those bands that helped me bide time until I found punk. I heard “Doolittle” shortly after it came out in the late 80s and then I played it to death when I was away at camp that summer. There were five tapes that made the trip with me – that two of them were cassingles demonstrated a tremendous lack of foresight on my part. In my bag I had R.E.M.’s “Chronic Town,” The Pixies’ “Doolittle,” The Who’s “Who’s Next” and the aforementioned cassingles – R.E.M.’s “The One I Love/Maps and Legends (Acoustic)” and The Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man/Into The White.” A bit of overkill on that second cassingle since “Here Comes Your Man” was already on “Dootlittle,” though I really did love that b-side, “Into The White.” I had only recently started to really get into “real” music, abandoning top 40 radio and my collection of hair metal tapes. I don’t know what sparked it but I picked up “13” by The Doors and my musical tastes changed dramatically. A few months later, inspired by raves in Rolling Stone magazine, I got into “alternative” music – The Replacements, The Clash, Elvis Costello and The Pixies. I was about 12 at this point. It was a steady diet of college rock/alternative and classic rock until one magnificent summer where I got into Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Minor Threat, Minutemen/firehose, Dinosaur Jr., etc. I still enjoy The Pixies and they have my eternal gratitude for keeping me busy those few years. For the record, “Trompe Le Monde” is my favorite record of theirs.
Eric Idle – Gibberish When I was a kid, my uncle passed along to me a mix tape that he had in his possession (someone he knew had given it to him). I’m not sure why he wound up giving it to me and I remember very little about what was on it other than a Last Poets track and this, Eric Idle’s “Gibberish,” which opened the mix tape. It’s originally from the “Rutland Weekend Songbook” record and has always made me laugh every time I hear it (as does Idle’s “Fuck Christmas,” which should be a holiday anthem). Idle does a news broadcast in a steady stream of nonsense that is so effortlessly and smoothly administered that it actually starts to make a strange kind of sense. “Machine-wrapped with butter? Machine-wrapped with butter.” That “meanwhile on Rutland Weekend Television, it’s time for music” line at the end totally makes this perfect fodder for opening up a mix tape, for those who still make them. When we were making the Georgie James record, we briefly thought we were going to include something like this gibberish bit on the record, believe it or not. We were struggling to come up with an intro for a song that badly needed one and we thought we might do a pseudo interview back and forth where the question was literal and the response was Idle-style gibberish. I’m pretty sure we got as far as starting to write out a script, as I recall fitting in references to Jim Vance and Arch Campbell in there, for some reason. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t do this, though the song that we intended to append it to wound up being my least favorite on the record so it maybe could’ve used something after all.
Bill Fox – Over And Away She Goes Bill Fox is great. I’ve been hoping that the recent reissue of his first solo record, “Shelter From The Smoke,” will get him at least part of his due. After making some fantastically spiky power pop records with his band The Mice in the mid-80s, Fox went solo and went almost entirely acoustic on both “Shelter” and its follow-up “Transit Byzantium.” An image is easily created in my mind when listening to those two solo records of Fox sitting in a cold Ohio kitchen banging out classic songs into his 4-track tape machine. “Over And Away She Goes” is nearly anthemic with its chiming acoustics and insistent maracas that hiss like sprinklers. Tight harmonies and hooks and a slight glaze of analog hiss combine to make a nearly perfect record. While I’d love it if Fox made another album (it’s been more than a decade since his last one now), I’m happy to even have these two solo ones (and The Mice records, too).
Elizabeth Cotten – Run…Run/Mama Your Son Done Gone I first heard of guitarist Elizabeth Cotten via a mix CD that my Q And Not U bandmate, Harris Klahr, made me several years ago. Cotten’s story is fascinating. After decades of anonymity, working as a housekeeper and only playing her guitar in church, she was discovered in her 60s and soon became a darling of the folk set in the late 1950s/early 60s. A southpaw guitarist who, like Jimi Hendrix, played a right-handed guitar upside down, Cotten’s style is singular. Maybe a bit like John Fahey and his ilk in parts but with a Spartan elegance and deceptive dexterity which give her a clear signature. “Freight Train” and “Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now” are two of her best. This track, “Run… Run/Mama Your Son Done Gone” is not one of her best but it still boasts her fluid fretwork and also features her weathered, papery singing voice -- a charming instrument on its own. A clip exists of Cotten doing a few songs on Pete Seeger’s short-lived, mid-60s TV show, “Rainbow Quest.” Seeger is comically earnest and Cotten’s laconicism makes the scene even more awkward. Still, the thrill of watching Cotten play guitar transcends all of that. It can be found on DVD, if you’re interested.
The Beach Boys – Time To Get Alone This one is from one of my favorite Beach Boys records, if not my favorite, “20/20.” Brian Wilson was already getting deep into his infamous mental funk by the time the Boys’ put this album together in 1969. Still, the record features some quality contributions from Brian and “Time To Get Alone” is one of them. I think that’s Carl singing lead on this, though. My true favorite song on this record, though, is Bruce Johnston’s rapturous “Pet Sounds” ripoff, “The Nearest Faraway Place.” Eric Idle - Gibberish (Mp3) Bill Fox - Over And Away She Goes (Mp3) Elizabeth Cotten - Run…Run/Mama Your Son Done Gone (Mp3)
"My very first recollection of being familiar with any music at all was when I was three and still in Edinburgh. My sister and my visiting cousin would get up early in the morning and rather than stick on cartoons, we whipped out a gatefold copy of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and scare ourselves silly. It sounds pretty cheesy to anyone I play it to now but I just remember the soaring synths, guitars, harpsichords and Richard Burton's voice commanding the imagery and storyline perfectly. It had such darkness and foreboding to it which explains a lot of the “depressing” stuff my sister says I listen to nowadays. It was the artwork that had almost as much of an effect as the music; a big square book that fit in the sleeve along with one of the discs, full of terrifying illustrations of major events in the story; huge Martian tripods destroying buildings, boats and people with the heat ray, the red weed creeping and engulfing the landscape and the final picture of ravens picking apart the Martian's innards. I love it to this day and still play the same copy I did when I was three.
I remember flicking through my parents vinyl collection to find Led Zeppelin II, Alison Moyet, Phil Collins and a Eurythmics greatest hits which had everything on there and must have been my first exposure to those iconic eighties synth sounds that are once again ubiquitous in pop music today. They also got the occasional 7” single, one of which was The Proclaimers' 'Letter from America' and something nobody seems to have heard of although I understand was popular at the time, the Brazilian flavoured 'Lambada' by Kaoma. Those were my final recollections of vinyl when the nineties brought with it audio cassette, then (a little late in my household) compact disc. In spite of vinyl's resurgence through the 2000's, I didn't take to it at the same time as everyone else. For me, it was actually completely by accident.
I asked my aunt one Christmas for the Millionaire album, 'Paradisiac.' Although to her I referred to it as their LP, by which I meant 'album' of course, on CD obviously, but being of her generation she thought LP meant gramophone record so went ahead and got me just that!
Initially disappointed, I had every opportunity to return it... but I didn't. I thought it was so cool; how big it was by comparison to a jewel cased CD which meant the artwork was extra detailed along with the big typeface for the track listing and credits. I retrieved a really nice 70's turntable from my parent's attic and after getting appropriate pre amps and connectors to bring it up to date, it worked perfectly. So I stuck on my new Millionaire LP. I was far more enthralled with the idea that I was playing vinyl than I was with the music that was on it! I loved it. Where there were once small plastic discs encased in larger square plastic containers there was now cardboard stained with ink and at least one big, black, glossy disc inside which had the music physically worked into grooves. And following years of ease, skipping songs on iTunes after you've heard a verse and chorus, playing vinyl is more of an event and there's incentive to listen to it end to end because otherwise you have to get off you're arse, lift the needle, flip the disc... but that's a good thing. And a vinyl record just feels like more of a 'possession' than a CD and especially more so than a download, of which there is nothing for you to leaf through or look at or even just hold in your hands.
Since then I've been getting on eBay for original scratchy copies of Queen's 'A Night at the Opera' and 'Low' by David Bowie along with a few others. However my favourite purchases have been anything I could get hold of by Boards of Canada; my favourite artist bar none. They are utterly penetrating and almost ethereal but in a way that no one else can come close to reproducing. Massive swelling landscapes of synths, beats and the sounds of anything ranging from giggling children, to audio extracts from ancient nature documentaries. BoC are big fans of composing with anything and everything analogue even by way of feeding loops and synths through an old cassette deck or reel to reel so that they wow and flutter. Hearing all of that on vinyl is just... profound. I managed to get hold of a copy of 'A Beautiful Place Out In the Country' EP (my desert island disc) which comes in sky blue vinyl. When the title track rolls on I can't possibly describe how good it sounds; you have to hear it for yourself.
Their vinyl albums are quite elusive under £50, but I live in hope of finding them cheaper!" —Andy Gill
Find TAPE at Myspace the 'Let's Not And Say We Did' EP will be on Spotify, iTunes etc., and available for free download from Monday September 13th!
It's Day #2 of our Story/Stereo event in advance of Friday night's unique confluence of words and music at Bethesda's Writer's Center.
It's also Day #2 with Story/Stereo's musical guest for the evening, John Davis, who returns with the first five random tracks off his ipod—and musings upon each:
Velocity Girl – The All-Consumer I first got into punk and indie culture as a teenager, like most reading this blog did. I was also an extremely partisan D.C. fan. I ferociously loved and advocated for nearly all music that was made in the D.C. area with a certain blindness. Looking back, a lot of that music hasn’t stood up for me but more than a fair share has. Fugazi, certainly. Tsunami’s “Deep End,” Unrest’s “Perfect Teeth,” The Nation of Ulysses/Cupid Car Club and a handful of others. Velocity Girl was near the top of the list for bands I loved back then and, happily, most of their output still sounds great to me. The early singles (which I’m hoping are being rediscovered by all of the people who have flocked to the Black Tambourine reissue) and their first record, “Copacetic,” are unimpeachable. The first time I saw VG live was a little late in the game, relatively speaking. “Copacetic” had been out for a few months but, still grappling with the concept of “school nights,” it was hard for me to get out to see bands during most of my early high school sentence unless they played on a weekend. Finally, by senior year, I was generally able to get around at will. In September of ’93, I saw Velocity Girl and Tsunami play a show together in The Tavern, a bar at American University. An incredible show, it remains one of the best I’ve ever seen. Later that fall, I went to a house in Temple Hills, MD, where Velocity Girl practiced, to interview them for my new fanzine. My clear memory was that, save guitarist Archie Moore, they were unbearably snarky and clearly disinterested in talking to me. Archie was game and tried to answer my mediocre questions as best as he could but the interview was a relative bust. Still, the day was salvaged when they let me watch them play a few of the new songs from their yet-to-be-recorded second album (1994’s “Simpatico”). I took pictures which, regrettably, didn’t turn out. “Simpatico,” the album from which “The All-Consumer” is drawn from, proved to be the record that brought Velocity Girl a limited form of indie/alternative stardom. It still mostly stands up to my ears and is loaded down with excellent songs that were able to be catchy without being too cloying. I think people who didn’t grow up with this band might be a bit turned off by some of the squeaky-clean elements that emerged when the band stopped cloaking its tunes in fuzz (the sonic difference between “Copacetic” and “Simpatico” is dramatic) but I think and hope that this band will endure.
The Byrds – Why (Single Version) This is the single version of “Why,” one of David Crosby’s last notable tunes for the Byrds before Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman took a drive up to Laurel Canyon and gave Crosby the boot. A b-side to “Eight Miles High” from the spring of ’66, “Why” shares its single-mate’s affection for the volcanic solos of John Coltrane but also adds a raga element, purportedly due to Crosby’s affection for the music of Ravi Shankar. Certainly, by 1966, pop music has undergone some radical changes. In 1962, number one hits were had by Shelley Fabares, Chubby Checker and Bobby Vinton (no offense to the Polish Prince – I’m a huge fan). By 1966, we’re talking about “Paint It, Black,” “Paperback Writer” and “Sunshine Superman.” So, it’s no surprise that the visionaries in The Byrds were pushing things even further. Their album from the summer of ’66, “Fifth Dimension,” is my favorite Byrds record. “Why” is a bit of a footnote since it didn’t come out on an album until 1967’s “Younger Than Yesterday” and in the form of a fairly different recording. That makes it all the more notable to me, though, since a song of this quality being able to get lost in a group’s canon strikes me as a pretty profound testament.
Astrud Gilberto – Tristeza Speaking of high school, when I was 17, my girlfriend and I used to hang out at her aunt’s house often during the summer. Her aunt was well off and had this amazing house that was lifted straight out of 1964. Naturally, the cool jazz of The Dave Brubeck Quartet and the breezy bossa nova of Stan Getz and the Gilbertos frequently wafted through the house and the yard. There was a pool in the back and it wasn’t unusual to float there in the languid July heat while “Three To Get Ready” or “Corcovado” murmured quietly from the screened-in porch. I’m pretty certain that period will always be a strong memory for me. It’s funny how you know you wouldn’t want to be the person you were at a certain time (Christ, I know I sure wouldn’t want to be who I was at 17 again), yet some aspects from that period still exert such a strong pull of bittersweet memory, despite themselves. I suppose there isn’t a more appropriate music to evoke those feelings than the sweet, sad sounds of Gilberto, Getz, Baker, Brubeck, Desmond, Pepper, et al. “Tristeza” is a fairly upbeat song for the idiom but is still full of the wistful regret that makes this music eternally relevant.
Kitty Wells – Dust On The Bible When it comes to Kitty Wells, I’m mainly a fan of her slightly later work. The 50s recordings, like this one, have a tinny, sub-Hank Williams quality that I find kind of irritating. The squareness and piety of this song also manage to include a touch of hectoring that pretty completes the trifecta of displeasure. Probably time to pull this song from the iPod. If we’re talking Kitty Wells, I love her Jim Reeves tribute album or some of her tunes like “Heaven Says Hello” or “As Long As I Live” or “The True and Lasting Kind.” Those songs’ll rend your soul, if you ask me. So, skip this one and go a little deeper.
Paul Williams – Do You Really Have a Heart Paul Williams is probably best known to people for his ubiquity on 70s television (“The Love Boat” and its ilk) or for his role in “The Planet Of The Apes.” When it comes to movie roles, I wish he was best known for his turn in “Phantom Of The Paradise,” one of my favorite movies of the 70s. Brian De Palma’s rock and roll movie goes into some strange, strange places. The music itself in the movie isn’t that great but the colors and the sass and verve of the film make it a must-see for anyone who liked “The Apple” or “Rocky Horror.” All of that said, Paul Williams was also quite a songwriter. He and Roger Nichols co-wrote a bunch of hits for the likes of the Carpenters and Three Dog Night. Later, Williams gave us “The Rainbow Connection.” In 1970, Williams was still trying to cut it as a singing star in his own right and he released an album called “Someday Man.” The definition of a buried musical treasure, there are so many great songs on this record that it’s hard to believe it was a stiff. I’ve already written about my love of the title track elsewhere but if you haven’t heard it, make it happen. I’d call it a perfect song. “Do You Really Have a Heart” is nearly as good. Williams’ voice is this funny little woebegone thing. The music is an odd yet effortless mix of jauntiness and melancholy, a sensation that runs throughout the entire album. None of Williams’ other records come anywhere close to the “Someday Man” LP and it wasn’t long before he was a Hollywood Square but it’s rare for an artist to hit his mark as fully as Williams did on this song and this record. Velocity Girl – The All-Consumer (Mp3) Paul Williams – Do You Really Have a Heart (Mp3)
(Before we begin, a bit of explanation again about what we do here. We reach into the racks behind us and pull out a vintage slice of vinyl from the '70s. The records aren't meant to represent the best of a particular year. They're simply interesting records, so let's listen to them again together.On to the grooves!)
Much of what I know about about soul music comes from listening first to AM radio in the early ’70s, then FM radio for the rest of the decade. That left me with a wide but sometimes shallow pool of knowledge. I'm working on it, even now.
I plead guilty as charged when it comes to the Chi-Lites. I long knew this Chicago soul group for only its radio hits, those smooth, gentle love songs—“Have You Seen Her” from 1971 and “Oh Girl” from 1972.
Then, a couple of years ago, I heard “(For God’s Sake) Give More Power To The People” and was taken to school again.
It's a funky, nasty protest song featuring Creadel “Red” Jones’ deep bass voice. I'd thought the Chi-Lites, were just that—lite—and man, was I wrong.
That tune—off the 1971 album of the same name—is done along the lines of the harder-edge stuff done by the Temptations for producer Norman Whitfield at the time, and oh, how I dug those Temptations.
Another of today's tunes, "We Are Neighbors," brings to mind an only slightly gentler "Psychedelic Shack."
(And, yes, just in case you haven't heard the sweet, timeless "Have You Seen Her" in a while ...)
The liner notes suggest you “stoke up your stereo and treat yourself to a generous helping” of the Chi-Lites. So please do.
Kanye West is all over #musicmonday. I want Kanye West to go away.
Can that be all? Am I done for the week?
My frustration with Kanye has grown in direct correlation with his most recent ascendance. If you drew a graph with my Kanye frustration on one axis and Kanye’s popularity post-2009 on the other, it would be a straight line with a slope of positive one. Y=X.
I am a lifelong contrarian, an “I decided in kindergarten that I didn’t like pizza because it was everyone’s favorite food and I continued to insist that I didn’t like pizza until college when I realized pizza is actually both delicious and necessary” contrarian, and pop music was an early target of my obstinacy. I haaaaaaated Ace of Base. And Mariah Carey. I actually Sharpie-markered a t-shirt at camp one year that read “I like Manson, not Hanson”—I was super popular at that camp dance, I’ll tell you what. So now you know how old I am, and also that it’s possible I’m fed up with Kanye because I am easily fed up with the things that everyone else likes.
It’s possible, though, that Kanye West is actually really freaking annoying.
We all know that in September of 2009, Kanye wreaked major havoc on the MTV Music Video Awards and the world of internet memes when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to proclaim that Beyoncé was more deserving of the award at issue. He was appropriately criticized and responded with appropriate chagrin and while his outburst was classless and distasteful, forgiveness requires that the forgiver acknowledge that an action was wrong, so yeah he was wrong, I suppose I forgive him and most of the rest of the world appears to have done the same.
But then there’s his internet presence. Kanye West’s two official websites give me the fantods. I’m exploring them for the first time as I write this column, and I find them impossible to navigate, overly full of pop-up media, and devoid of useful information. I know that complaining about a website makes me a grumpy “get off my porch” person and that the law of the Internet clearly states that anything someone hates, someone else loves (I’m looking at you, Foursquare Twitter update haters—just ignore that particular Tweet from me, ok?), but I crave function as well as form and fail to find the former (that'd be function, not form, despite the word "form" being in "former") in these two (2) official websites.
Also, I fail to find the allcaps shouty text that the Internet has led me to believe dominates Kanye’s blog. Whither the allcaps? All I’m seeing are Interpol videos (what? why?) and obscene pictures of expensive cars, houses, and women.
Mostly, though: Twitter. Kanye joined Twitter earlier this month, and Twitter feeds everywhere were immediately filled with folks retweeting Mr. West’s odder 140-characters-or-fewer communiqués. Retweets don’t really do this Twitter feed justice, though, because the true oddity lies in the juxtaposition. Only on Kanye’s Twitter feed will you see “Do you know where to find marble conference tables? I'm looking to have a conference... not until I get the table though” followed immediately by “Yo why people gotta make they internet passwords so damn complicated???” And only a celebrity of Kanye’s profile could so completely blow up the internet by announcing the release of a new song every Friday until Christmas.
OH my GOD is that annoying. Not only is Kanye not going to go away, he’s going to recur every Friday until Christmas. He’s like a chronosynclastically infundibulated Twitter specter who will haunt my feed with terrible hip-hop for the rest of the year.
I realize I have made it through this entire column merely complaining, without really explaining why I find Kanye annoying. I think it’s a lot of things: his apparent revelry in being a tastemaker, the fact that he seem to think adding one non-hip hop artist to a song makes his music indie or underground, the perpetual God talk mixed with the crassest commercialism…and this: “Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh? I put the pussy in a sarcophagus.” That is an actual line from today’s #musicmonday favorite, “Monster,” which Kanye dropped on Friday and which features Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, and Nicki Minaj. WHY DO PEOPLE LISTEN TO THIS NONSENSE?
My #musicmonday pick: Listen to this nonsense instead, if you want something to dance to that involves indie darlings: War Again, by Balkan Beat Box
Note: Yes I referenced both David Foster Wallace and Kurt Vonnegut in a post about being a contrarian. WHATEVER. Some things get stuck in your consciousness, you know?
Story/Stereo, the brilliant (and free!) evening of both words and music at Bethesda's Writer's Center returns for a new season on September 3rd and we're delighted to be joined here all week by the musical guest on the program, John Davis.
John will be performing tracks on Friday night spanning his career to date. It's being called, appropriately enough, "John Davis plays John Davis." Expect to hear material from Title Tracks, Georgie James, and Q and Not U.
In advance of the evening, we've asked John to pull the curtain back a bit on his well of inspiration and rattle off the first five tracks that make their appearance on random shuffle on his ipod. Now, those of you who've been reading the blog for a while know that we ran a similar feature a little while back with uh, shall we say, 'revealing' results—both good and well, ...bad. We're much more optimistic in regard to John's taste level.
So, without further ado, all this week John Davis (and his ipod) are your guest DJs on The Vinyl District. —Ed.
Environments – “The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore” Kind of dumb to have this one come up first when I press shuffle on my mp3 player but the shuffle logic has its own sense of humor. If you’ve combed through thrift stores for LPs, you’re probably familiar with the “Environments” series of soundscape LPs. Very much a productof the 70s, you had one side of an LP with, say, a 25-minute thunderstorm. The other side would be a creaking boat adrift on the sea, as you do. Sometimes they got deep, like “Tintinnabulation” (from Environments 2), which essentially sounds like a Buddha Box that you can’t modify. My personal favorite, as I’m sure you’re wondering, is “Gentle Rain In a Pine Forest.” Make of that what you will. That said, “The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore” is pretty good, too, though 31-minute tracks should not be coming up in shuffle, especially first. Also unclear is what renders this recording “psychologically ultimate.” Still, I can listen to stuff like this ALL day.
Link Wray – “Deuces Wild” Raw, guttural music from an early D.C. musical legend. If we’re naming restaurants after Marvin Gaye here, I think we need something for Link, too. For more on Link's story, read Mark Opsasnick’s interesting overview of the early rock scene in the D.C.-area, “Capitol Rock.” I had no idea P.G. County was such a hotbed. As for “Deuces Wild,” it’s not as well-known as “Rumble,” of course, but it’s a fierce, feral slice of instrumental badness and a good way to start the day.
R.E.M. – "Lotus" This is from “Up,” R.E.M.’s first record without founding drummer Bill Berry (from ’98, I think). Coming off the absurd winning streak that this band ran, essentially, from its inception in the early 80s up through the mid-90s (although 1994’s “Monster” was the first sign that trouble was afoot), “Up” was a disappointment at the time. The loss of Berry was palpable and the record is overlong, certainly. There are some highlights, however (“Daysleeper,” “Lotus” and “Suspicion,” for starters) and the somber vibe is sometimes appealing. Still, when my old Georgie James bandmate Laura Burhenn told me that “Up” was her favorite R.E.M. record, it led to great consternation on my part.
Booker T. And The MGs – "Something" This is from Booker T and The MGs' stupendous record, “McLemore Avenue,” their collection of covers of songs from The Beatles’ “Abbey Road.” I can only imagine how flattered The Beatles must have been to have their tunes covered by musicians the caliber of the MGs. No joke, this band and this record are outstanding. It was a huge thrill to traverse the real McLemore Ave in Memphis the couple of times I’ve been lucky enough to pass through town and check out the Stax Museum that stands on the site. If you’ve never been, please do go. I touched Isaac Hayes’ car there!
Marek Grechuta – "Gdziekolwiek" I can’t tell you how great this song is. It’s a bit like Scott Walker or “Odessa”-era Bee Gees but nowhere near the drama. Grechuta was a Polish singer-songwriter who had a voice that really haunts me. It’s not especially striking in any obvious way but it’s evocative, for sure, and it transcends the fact that I can’t decipher a word (he sings in his native language). Plaintive and direct, Grechuta’s voice and this song will always remain with me. Like his fellow countrymanAndrzej Wajda’s films, there’s a deep current of sadness running through Grechuta’s music but also a resolve and a clarity that keep things from dissolving into the maudlin.
Perhaps it's just me. It's Monday at 3PM and already I'm pining away for Friday, 5PM. Of a long, three-day weekend.
Well, no. I'm of course it's not just me.
And like a carrot at the end of a woefully long stick, we've got a bit of an incentive to trudge through the five day work week in the form of a pair of tickets to check out Hot Hot Heat on Friday (9/3) at the Rock and Roll Hotel.
Touring in support of this summer's new release, 'Future Breeds' an LP Alternate Press spoke of as, "[An] album . . so wondrous, it feels like all of the universe's mediocrity was taken away via some sort of aesthetic rapture.”
Friday can't come soon enough, hm?
As mentioned, we've got a pair of tickets to see the band in exchange for your rapturous entry in the comments to this post. Sell us on the idea of giving you the tickets and the best of the bunch bangs down Friday's door with these in hand.
We'll choose a winner at 5PM this coming Thursday and remember to leave us a contact email address - ok? Seriously.
