"Please Be My Third Eye", by La Sera.
It takes about five seconds for me to know that I am going to love this song. Sometimes I don't even have to turn my brain on. Sometimes?
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Idiot songs of the day
In which we say "yah boo" to political correctness.
1. "How Sweet To Be An Idiot", a song by Neil Innes. Who is no idiot.
2. "Idiot Friends", by Mr Spongebob Squarepants and his little pink pal, Patrick.
3. "Walk Idiot Walk", by The Hives, as performed live on Mr Letterman's television programme. The Hives are notable for their sharp dress sense and killer guitar lines.
I can't think of any others. Probably because I'm such an idiot ...
1. "How Sweet To Be An Idiot", a song by Neil Innes. Who is no idiot.
2. "Idiot Friends", by Mr Spongebob Squarepants and his little pink pal, Patrick.
3. "Walk Idiot Walk", by The Hives, as performed live on Mr Letterman's television programme. The Hives are notable for their sharp dress sense and killer guitar lines.
I can't think of any others. Probably because I'm such an idiot ...
Monday, March 12, 2012
Song of the day
"Joseph Cornell", by The Clientele.
Joseph Cornell was an American artist best known for his "boxes", containers that he built himself then filled with, well, stuff. There are a few of them in the collection of the National Gallery in Canberra. You should check them out. I associate him with another American artist, Alexander Calder. They both made things that your uncle might have made. But whereas Calder's work is whimsical and inherently likeable, Cornell you could maybe have arguments with people about, along the lines of is this or is this not art. (Calling something art is like calling something jazz. The dividing line is both invisible and always moving.)
The Clientele are (or were, as might be suggested by their web site) a British pop group with a very distinctive, understated sound. All their songs are either in a minor key or feel like they are. The rain-refracted evening (or early morning) lights on the album cover of "Suburban Light" are about right.
Whatever may be the connection between the artist and this song, it says all that needs to be said, in two minutes and 24 seconds. How do they do that?
Joseph Cornell was an American artist best known for his "boxes", containers that he built himself then filled with, well, stuff. There are a few of them in the collection of the National Gallery in Canberra. You should check them out. I associate him with another American artist, Alexander Calder. They both made things that your uncle might have made. But whereas Calder's work is whimsical and inherently likeable, Cornell you could maybe have arguments with people about, along the lines of is this or is this not art. (Calling something art is like calling something jazz. The dividing line is both invisible and always moving.)
The Clientele are (or were, as might be suggested by their web site) a British pop group with a very distinctive, understated sound. All their songs are either in a minor key or feel like they are. The rain-refracted evening (or early morning) lights on the album cover of "Suburban Light" are about right.
Whatever may be the connection between the artist and this song, it says all that needs to be said, in two minutes and 24 seconds. How do they do that?
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Dad joke of the day
Q. Which science fiction writer goes snap, crackle and pop?
A. Edgar Rice Bubbles.
Ahem.
A. Edgar Rice Bubbles.
Ahem.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
YouTube of the day
I am a (the?) person for whom modern music starts and, perhaps, ends with Television's "Marquee Moon". It first captured my attention as a night-time listener to Sydney's 2JJ, where it was on fairly regular rotation back around 1978-9 but, owing to the vagaries of long-distance AM radio reception, I never once managed to catch the back-announcement (by, let's say, George Wayne or Mac (actual-dad-of-Jarvis) Cocker) and so had no idea what I had been listening to. It wasn't until some years later, after I had forgotten all about it, that I heard it again, on 3RRR, and I was very, very careful then to catch who and what it was.
Fast-forward probably not actually all that far, but well after I had picked up and absorbed the original two Television albums ("Adventure" on stunning red vinyl, fetish fans), and there in Missing Link Records, lost amongst the bottom-feeding punk and hardcore 7" singles, was a copy of Television's debut single, "Little Johnny Jewel", from 1975. This being in my estimation something like the Philosopher's Stone, I assumed it must have been a bootleg, but such was my determination to own a copy of it in any form that I happily forked over the ten-dollar asking price.
We now have the internet, and Discogs in particular, and I can confidently say that what I bought looks exactly like it says here, right down to the "white die-cut paper sleeve", so I am inclined to the view that what I bought is in fact the thing itself, in all its monaural glory. (A spruced-up version now appears on the CD reissue of the "Marquee Moon" album, no longer split into two parts, and it gets closer every day to rivalling "Marquee Moon" itself in its epicness. Note also, as an irrelevant aside, that the version of "Marquee Moon" on the reissue has a much longer fade-back-in section than appeared on the original album. All in all, this one of the most necessary CD reissues in the history of mankind.)
This YouTube clip, again thanks to Dangerous Minds, is of Television in the office of the impresario behind Ork Records, playing something that might be "Little Johnny Jewel"* but the sound is so bad it's kinda hard to tell. Actually, both sound and image are way beyond lo-fi, and it might be deemed "for obsessives only", but, well, what are you waiting for?
* UPDATE: Now that I am somewhere where I can actually hear the thing, it's clear that it's not "Little Johnny Jewel". What it is, I have no idea. It sounds like an amalgam of the Velvets and the Stooges, which, given that the year is 1974, and the place is New York, is probably not that surprising.
Fast-forward probably not actually all that far, but well after I had picked up and absorbed the original two Television albums ("Adventure" on stunning red vinyl, fetish fans), and there in Missing Link Records, lost amongst the bottom-feeding punk and hardcore 7" singles, was a copy of Television's debut single, "Little Johnny Jewel", from 1975. This being in my estimation something like the Philosopher's Stone, I assumed it must have been a bootleg, but such was my determination to own a copy of it in any form that I happily forked over the ten-dollar asking price.
We now have the internet, and Discogs in particular, and I can confidently say that what I bought looks exactly like it says here, right down to the "white die-cut paper sleeve", so I am inclined to the view that what I bought is in fact the thing itself, in all its monaural glory. (A spruced-up version now appears on the CD reissue of the "Marquee Moon" album, no longer split into two parts, and it gets closer every day to rivalling "Marquee Moon" itself in its epicness. Note also, as an irrelevant aside, that the version of "Marquee Moon" on the reissue has a much longer fade-back-in section than appeared on the original album. All in all, this one of the most necessary CD reissues in the history of mankind.)
This YouTube clip, again thanks to Dangerous Minds, is of Television in the office of the impresario behind Ork Records, playing something that might be "Little Johnny Jewel"* but the sound is so bad it's kinda hard to tell. Actually, both sound and image are way beyond lo-fi, and it might be deemed "for obsessives only", but, well, what are you waiting for?
* UPDATE: Now that I am somewhere where I can actually hear the thing, it's clear that it's not "Little Johnny Jewel". What it is, I have no idea. It sounds like an amalgam of the Velvets and the Stooges, which, given that the year is 1974, and the place is New York, is probably not that surprising.
Song of the day
"Know Me", by Frankie Rose.
You would think that the first place somebody whose pedigree consists of Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls would look for the sound of their solo record would not be classic 4AD. You would, it seems, be wrong.
The combination of that sound and her innate sense of pure pop goodness is, shall we say, irresistible.
You would think that the first place somebody whose pedigree consists of Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls would look for the sound of their solo record would not be classic 4AD. You would, it seems, be wrong.
The combination of that sound and her innate sense of pure pop goodness is, shall we say, irresistible.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Virtual vinyl artefact of the day
"Shallow" / "Lessons", by Beach Fossils.
Ah, the seven-inch single. A small, flat, circular piece of vinyl, with one song on the A side, another song on the B side. They often come in a nice cardboard sleeve, with a picture on one side and some scant biographical details or product information on the other. You can play one side as many times as you like, as long as you don't mind getting up (or stopping dancing around the room) to put the needle back to the start of the record again. And then, when you get tired of listening to that song, you can turn the record over and -- lo! -- listen to the other song. (Perhaps the analogue, tactile nature of this exercise is a part of the particular sense of attachment one gets with singles. Even album tracks, in the days of vinyl, didn't quite carry the same sense of immediacy.)
Of course, I haven't actually bought one of these things for many a long year. So why this sudden outburst of nostalgia? Because, notwithstanding I acquired these two songs as MP3 files, and can play them one after the other on an endless loop, wirelessly remoted to many devices and/or parts of the house, they seem (to me) to epitomise the very essence of seven-inch-singleness. Both songs are under-three-and-a-half-minute slices of pop brilliance, and both make me want to get up, turn the record over, and play the other one.
Amongst the teeming, bottomless morass of "Brooklyn bands" (many of which probably don't even hail from Brooklyn, except in the sense of Brooklyn as a state of mind) only three have ever really caught my ear: Real Estate, Woods and Beach Fossils. (This might not actually be true: do Emeralds and their countless offshoots count as "Brooklyn"?) These three groups are quite different from each other, but what they have in common is their ability to breath new life into the always potentially moribund form of guitar pop.
When I listen to Beach Fossils, even now that the novelty of their sound has long worn off, I hear strong echoes of the venerable, distinguished, still vibrant Postcard sound (even if it is now showing signs of gray hair around the ears): a singular, effervescent jangle. That they combine this with a flat, affectless, I-might-be-singing-about-love-but-I-don't-really-give-a-damn vocal style doesn't detract from the songs' sparkle. (It might turn out to mark them as part of the class of 2011-12. But we can leave that to the hystorians.)
Now turn to side A:
Now turn to side B:
That's the other thing about the perfect seven-inch single: you can never decide which song you like better.
Ah, the seven-inch single. A small, flat, circular piece of vinyl, with one song on the A side, another song on the B side. They often come in a nice cardboard sleeve, with a picture on one side and some scant biographical details or product information on the other. You can play one side as many times as you like, as long as you don't mind getting up (or stopping dancing around the room) to put the needle back to the start of the record again. And then, when you get tired of listening to that song, you can turn the record over and -- lo! -- listen to the other song. (Perhaps the analogue, tactile nature of this exercise is a part of the particular sense of attachment one gets with singles. Even album tracks, in the days of vinyl, didn't quite carry the same sense of immediacy.)
Of course, I haven't actually bought one of these things for many a long year. So why this sudden outburst of nostalgia? Because, notwithstanding I acquired these two songs as MP3 files, and can play them one after the other on an endless loop, wirelessly remoted to many devices and/or parts of the house, they seem (to me) to epitomise the very essence of seven-inch-singleness. Both songs are under-three-and-a-half-minute slices of pop brilliance, and both make me want to get up, turn the record over, and play the other one.
Amongst the teeming, bottomless morass of "Brooklyn bands" (many of which probably don't even hail from Brooklyn, except in the sense of Brooklyn as a state of mind) only three have ever really caught my ear: Real Estate, Woods and Beach Fossils. (This might not actually be true: do Emeralds and their countless offshoots count as "Brooklyn"?) These three groups are quite different from each other, but what they have in common is their ability to breath new life into the always potentially moribund form of guitar pop.
When I listen to Beach Fossils, even now that the novelty of their sound has long worn off, I hear strong echoes of the venerable, distinguished, still vibrant Postcard sound (even if it is now showing signs of gray hair around the ears): a singular, effervescent jangle. That they combine this with a flat, affectless, I-might-be-singing-about-love-but-I-don't-really-give-a-damn vocal style doesn't detract from the songs' sparkle. (It might turn out to mark them as part of the class of 2011-12. But we can leave that to the hystorians.)
Now turn to side A:
Now turn to side B:
That's the other thing about the perfect seven-inch single: you can never decide which song you like better.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A few words about "Autoluminescent", a film by Richard Lowenstein
1. Rowland S Howard was fond of cats and worshipped Lee Hazlewood. What's not to like?
2. Listening at close range to Rowland's trademark Birthday Party guitar squall is like mainlining wasabi.
3. If the Pope is listening, can we please have Mick Harvey elevated to the sainthood?
2. Listening at close range to Rowland's trademark Birthday Party guitar squall is like mainlining wasabi.
3. If the Pope is listening, can we please have Mick Harvey elevated to the sainthood?
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Song of the day
"Off The Wall", by Lee Ranaldo.
The evidence is mounting. First, Thurston Moore releases a solo album that, unlike previous dispatches, isn't experimental wotsit but rather sounds like Sonic Youth Unplugged crossed with, say, Beck's "Sea Change" album. Then, Kim and Thurston announce one of the least expected splits in showbiz history (at least, from this distance). Then, if I recall correctly, Kim says she's working with some other folks (although she's done that before).
Now, we have a Lee Ranaldo solo album, this time not a collection of locked grooves and/or etched vinyl, but what promises to be an actual collection of songs.
If Sonic Youth haven't split, they are pulling off a reasonable approximation.
Maybe Lee's album is not all like this song. But my hopes are high. A lot of my favourite SY songs bear his hallmarks. And you can hear those at the start of this song. The more surprising thing is how, as the song goes along, it morphs into what might be the best song REM weren't able to come up with in the last, say, 25 years of their own distinguished career. Heck, Ranaldo is even sounding like Michael Stipe.
Which is interesting. The two bands must have been in some ways in orbit around each other for much of their careers. I wonder how much either of them might at times have wanted to be the other. (The trajectories of the two bands were quite different, but parallels are certainly there. Both peaked in about 1986. Both lasted a similar time (again, assuming).)
The legacy of the last few SY albums is curious. Any one of them is as listenable as any of their crowning eighties / early nineties albums. And yet, because they came later, they will probably never command the same reverence. Which is not to say Sonic Youth were ever just treading water.
It's weird to be old enough to have lived through the entire cradle-to-grave stories of two long-lived, significant bands. I suppose people older than myself had that sense about The Beatles (who got through it all, don't forget, in less than a decade; imagine that).
Excuse the scattered nature of these thoughts. It's Saturday morning. Just enjoy the song.
The evidence is mounting. First, Thurston Moore releases a solo album that, unlike previous dispatches, isn't experimental wotsit but rather sounds like Sonic Youth Unplugged crossed with, say, Beck's "Sea Change" album. Then, Kim and Thurston announce one of the least expected splits in showbiz history (at least, from this distance). Then, if I recall correctly, Kim says she's working with some other folks (although she's done that before).
Now, we have a Lee Ranaldo solo album, this time not a collection of locked grooves and/or etched vinyl, but what promises to be an actual collection of songs.
If Sonic Youth haven't split, they are pulling off a reasonable approximation.
Maybe Lee's album is not all like this song. But my hopes are high. A lot of my favourite SY songs bear his hallmarks. And you can hear those at the start of this song. The more surprising thing is how, as the song goes along, it morphs into what might be the best song REM weren't able to come up with in the last, say, 25 years of their own distinguished career. Heck, Ranaldo is even sounding like Michael Stipe.
Which is interesting. The two bands must have been in some ways in orbit around each other for much of their careers. I wonder how much either of them might at times have wanted to be the other. (The trajectories of the two bands were quite different, but parallels are certainly there. Both peaked in about 1986. Both lasted a similar time (again, assuming).)
The legacy of the last few SY albums is curious. Any one of them is as listenable as any of their crowning eighties / early nineties albums. And yet, because they came later, they will probably never command the same reverence. Which is not to say Sonic Youth were ever just treading water.
It's weird to be old enough to have lived through the entire cradle-to-grave stories of two long-lived, significant bands. I suppose people older than myself had that sense about The Beatles (who got through it all, don't forget, in less than a decade; imagine that).
Excuse the scattered nature of these thoughts. It's Saturday morning. Just enjoy the song.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Song of the day
"666.66", by Weird Dreams.
The guitar at the start of this song sounds so much like The Durutti Column that it's almost a shame when the song proper starts. "Almost", because if this turned out to be my favourite song of 2012 I wouldn't be at all surprised. It's a welcoming, breezy take on post-C86 pop with a gentle shoegaze-y fringe. At least, that's what I'm hearing. Kids are getting such great sounds out of guitars these days. Not original, necessarily, but great.
The guitar at the start of this song sounds so much like The Durutti Column that it's almost a shame when the song proper starts. "Almost", because if this turned out to be my favourite song of 2012 I wouldn't be at all surprised. It's a welcoming, breezy take on post-C86 pop with a gentle shoegaze-y fringe. At least, that's what I'm hearing. Kids are getting such great sounds out of guitars these days. Not original, necessarily, but great.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Song of the day
"When I See You Again", by Shimmering Stars.
What happened while I was away? The Jesus and Mary Chain revival.
I found this song at a blog called Sounds Better With Reverb. And, you know what? It does!
What happened while I was away? The Jesus and Mary Chain revival.
I found this song at a blog called Sounds Better With Reverb. And, you know what? It does!
Friday, February 03, 2012
A Summer Place
Well, that was fun. Four nights at the coast, as a kind of farewell to the school holidays. We did it last year. Then, it was hot and stormy. This time, it was just cool and damp, not at all boogie-boarding weather, and only barely pool weather. Still, we gave it a go. The place we stayed at was in receivership last summer, and we got a really good deal. This year, it turns out, it is under new ownership, and we were somewhat surprised (not pleasantly) by the rates, and by being forced to pay extra for two children and four continental breakfasts, none of which (ie the breakfasts) we really needed. (Four days of mini-croissants and assorted Kellogs (tm) cereals is, I now know, about my limit.) Since we were there last year they have fenced the pool out from the bar area, which just seems wrong (although we would have missed it more if it had been pool weather). They have also forgotten how to make coffee. In fact, all in all I think I preferred the place when it was being run by the receivers. That can't be good.
Still, the setting is magical: cabins that face right onto the beach, bushland behind. Kangaroos wandered onto the deck, looking to stroll right on into our cabin. We took a few walks, with and without geocaching objectives (kindly researched by friends of ours, whom we convinced to come with us). (One of the caches was, apparently, the first ever "earth cache", which took us to various geological formations that we had walked over previously without even noticing, and a fossilised colony of bryozoa, or something, like I would know.) We found a snake curled up in a hole in a rock, not entirely in a location that I would have expected to find a snake. I had walked right past it; it's a wonder I hadn't blindly stuck my hand in the hole for grip. Snap.
Wednesday night we drove into Batemans Bay for fish and chips. As you do. The last week of January is a good time for this, as New South Wales is back at school and the ACT isn't, so you can get a table at the fish and chip shop, and look out at the boats or down at the many fish that are swimming around below you (and a stingray, which, I swear, waved to us).
With the weather being as it was, there was time for other things.
Like watching DVDs. And T20 cricket. And "QI".
Or like playing some of the games we had picked up at CanCon the previous weekend. Unbeknownst to me, Adrienne had bought a game called Monty Python Fluxx, which was fun while also being head-splittingly confusing (the game keeps changing), and which might well lend itself to long, boozy evenings, if such a thing were possible. She had also, while I wasn't looking, bought another game, called Escalation, mainly for the cover image of a granny wielding a machine gun. (If I'm honest, I would have bought it if I had seen it.) It is fun, and simple, and fast. These are not always things you are looking for in a game, but sometimes they are just the ticket. The other game, Elfenland, is neither fast nor simple. It may well be fun, but that is a conclusion that will only be reached with further understanding of how the damn thing works.
Or like fighting through my reader's block (it's like writer's block, I think, except from the other side of the page: I have for some time been unable to pick up and start a novel, presumably in some not small part as a result of having very little time or energy (on account of the nature of my day job) for reading. So to make a start on Ian McEwan's "Solar" was a bit like finding a favourite old jumper in the back of the cupboard. (Actually, an old jumper would have come in very handy, given the weather. Did I mention the weather already?)
Lesson learned: if you are going to take your Bialetti on holidays with you, make sure you take a trivet for balancing it on the stove. There is nothing sadder than coffee that is on the floor instead of in the cup.
The dolphins we had seen last summer seemed to have deserted us this year. But this morning, as we were packing up to leave, I noticed some smaller fish jumping through the surface of the water. This, last year, had seemed to be a signal that the dolphins were about. So I said to Jules, who is useless at packing up (fact!), to go out (in the rain) to look for dolphins. Whereupon he said, within a couple of eye blinks, "There are dolphins." And there they were. Possibly (but probably not) waving us goodbye. We loaded the car, in the rain, walked over to our final continental breakfast, in the rain, brushed the sand off the boogie boards, in the rain, and drove back to Canberra, in the rain. We passed a still-fresh car accident on the way back, which is always a sobering thing to see.
Georgie the cat was pleased to be brought home from her own summer holiday adventure at the local cattery. Two issues of the New Yorker awaited us. The house was cold. There were 28mm in the rain gauge.
And thus normal life returns.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Song of the day
"Moondance", by Blondes.
Nothing whatsoever to do with Van Morrison.
You would think I would be totally sick of that arpeggiated blissed-out space disco shit by now. Apparently not.
(Admission: I sat on this for too long. I had lumped them in, unheard, with any number of Brooklyn lo-fi indie bands with interchangeable names. My bad.)
Nothing whatsoever to do with Van Morrison.
You would think I would be totally sick of that arpeggiated blissed-out space disco shit by now. Apparently not.
(Admission: I sat on this for too long. I had lumped them in, unheard, with any number of Brooklyn lo-fi indie bands with interchangeable names. My bad.)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Song of the day
"Leave It", by Mike McGear.
Listen to this song without context. Without knowing who Mike McGear is. (YouTube spoiler alert.)
You hear echoes of the vocal stylings of both Ferry and Eno, mixed with a pinch of UK Squeeze, and filtered through a Beatles prism. You detect more of 1982 than of 1974.
Then check out the story of Mike McGear. And be amazed.
Listen to this song without context. Without knowing who Mike McGear is. (YouTube spoiler alert.)
You hear echoes of the vocal stylings of both Ferry and Eno, mixed with a pinch of UK Squeeze, and filtered through a Beatles prism. You detect more of 1982 than of 1974.
Then check out the story of Mike McGear. And be amazed.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Wot no album of the year?
2011: it's been and gone. I haven't kept a list of albums that might be considered "of the year", because the passage of time frequently proves my snap judgments to be wrong, and because I am not good at keeping lists. (I am good at starting them.) Most of the records that have caught my ear have been mentioned in these pages. Those I don't think I have acknowledged, but which deserve a nod (and which I have spent actual money acquiring), include the new albums by Kate Bush ("50 Words for Snow") and The Necks ("Mindset"); "Replicas", by Oneohtrix Point Never; "Helplessness Blues", by Fleet Foxes; Gillian Welch's "The Harrow & The Harvest"; "As The Crow Flies", by The Advisory Circle"; David Kilgour's "Left By Soft"; and "Sketches From the Book of the Dead", by Mick Harvey. This last one doesn't seem to have gotten much recognition at all, which is a shame, because it is really very good, in a typically understated way. There is a particular strain of Australian music which I am too close to to be able to articulate sensibly, but which this album, I think, taps into. Nick Cave's loss is our gain. As an example, here is "October Boy":
"October Boy" is, it would seem, Harvey's farewell to Rowland S Howard. The film about Howard, "Autoluminescent", is showing at the Arc Cinema on 11 February. See you there.
"October Boy" is, it would seem, Harvey's farewell to Rowland S Howard. The film about Howard, "Autoluminescent", is showing at the Arc Cinema on 11 February. See you there.
Song of the day
"Walking in the Rain", by Grace Jones.
A wise man once said that you learn something new every day.
I was drawn back to this song by its appearance in the rather glamorous Peugeot ad that is currently appearing during the cricket. What caught my ear in the ad was the voice that comes in at the end: not Grace Jones, but someone who sounded suspiciously like whichever of Harry Vanda and George Young was the vocalist in Flash & The Pan. Which sent me to the internets, who informed me that it was, indeed, a Flash & The Pan original, and in fact the B-side to probably their best-known song, "Hey, St Peter". Who knew?
And I call myself an Australian ...
A wise man once said that you learn something new every day.
I was drawn back to this song by its appearance in the rather glamorous Peugeot ad that is currently appearing during the cricket. What caught my ear in the ad was the voice that comes in at the end: not Grace Jones, but someone who sounded suspiciously like whichever of Harry Vanda and George Young was the vocalist in Flash & The Pan. Which sent me to the internets, who informed me that it was, indeed, a Flash & The Pan original, and in fact the B-side to probably their best-known song, "Hey, St Peter". Who knew?
And I call myself an Australian ...
Thursday, January 05, 2012
A few words about "Bad As Me", by Tom Waits
The same story can be told in two different ways.
One.
Tom Waits has released what might be the least consequential album of his long, stellar career. There is nothing new here, nothing that Waits hasn't done before, better. Almost all of the songs contain echoes, sometimes more than echoes, of earlier, superior Tom Waits songs: the roll call includes, but is not limited to, "Heartattack And Vine", "Blue Valentine", "Walking Spanish", "Time", "Soldier's Things", "Johnsburg, Illinois", "Big Black Mariah" and "Town With No Cheer". The songs are populated with characters the likes of which we have seen many times. The inevitable promotional interviews contain the same (or analogous) similes and digressions as we are used to, but even these have become tiresome. Heck, he has even done the Keith Richards thing before. Waits, who for so much of his career has positioned himself as one part showman, one part ironist, one part junkyard revivalist, and one part sensitive balladeer, is now also one part self-parody. He may not yet have jumped the shark, but he is in the pool with it, and is strapping on his water skis.
Two.
There is something unexpectedly refreshing about the new Tom Waits album, "Bad As Me". It sheds the excess that marred his three proper post-"Rain Dogs" studio albums. [Note: this is my own classification. Excluding compilations, live albums, and records containing songs written for other purposes, e.g. theatre, film.] This is a stripped-down Tom Waits, and the better for it. He has called in the old gang, most particularly Marc Ribot on guitar (I never met an album that wasn't improved by the appearance of Marc Ribot, see also Elvis Costello's "National Ransom"), Larry Taylor on bass, and some bloke called Keith Richards on guitar, while Clint Maedgen is an excellent stand-in for Ralph Carney on sax. Thirteen songs in 44 minutes amounts to a nice, concise statement, possibly even a Tom Waits Master Class. It is as if Waits is saying to The Kids, "This is about as much of me as I can squeeze into something your atrophied attention spans might be able to handle. See what you think." Perhaps the best way for those of us who have a close familiarity with Mr Waits' long and diverse career to view this album is as the third in a trilogy that began twenty-odd years ago with "Swordfishtrombones" and "Rain Dogs". (In fact, it goes one step further than those two classic albums, a step that he couldn't have taken back then, on account of lack of distance: several of the songs hark back to the sounds he was making prior to whatever epiphany or crossroads experience he had between 1980 and 1982 that led to the first of them.) They all sound as though they are having a lot of fun, and Waits has all the energy of a kid (albeit a kid who had been chain smoking since he was in the womb) making his first record, with everything still to play for.
The path you decide to take, in this Tom Waits Choose Your Own Adventure, is entirely up to you. I have, after a slightly hesitant start, opted firmly for the second. But you probably already knew that.
Song of the day
"Medicine Show", by The Dream Syndicate.
It is a commonly held belief that the mid-1980s were a fallow time for music. And yet it was a period that gave us a whole slew of great albums, from "Daydream Nation", "Psychocandy", "The Perfect Prescription", via "Treasure", "The Firstborn Is Dead", "Secrets of the Beehive", "Diamond Life", to "Rain Dogs", "The African Man's Tomato", "This Nation's Saving Grace, "Hatful of Hollow"; and that's without really stopping to think.
What there isn't really, in all of that lot, is a defining sound, or look, or gimmick. Perhaps the band least likely to have come from the Decade that Taste Forgot was The Dream Syndicate. Their second album, "Medicine Show", didn't fit many post-sixties moulds, really: this is especially the case with side two, which consisted of three songs, all of them rather long, and festooned with actual guitar solos. You can see from the following clip that they also didn't much look like anybody's conception of 1984:
And hence, by embracing quality over "fashion", they (together with a large number of the albums listed above) justify the appellation "timeless". What I most love about this song, and what is not conveyed by the performance above, are the guitar chords and the backing vocals. Plus the fact that it just plain rocks.
It is a commonly held belief that the mid-1980s were a fallow time for music. And yet it was a period that gave us a whole slew of great albums, from "Daydream Nation", "Psychocandy", "The Perfect Prescription", via "Treasure", "The Firstborn Is Dead", "Secrets of the Beehive", "Diamond Life", to "Rain Dogs", "The African Man's Tomato", "This Nation's Saving Grace, "Hatful of Hollow"; and that's without really stopping to think.
What there isn't really, in all of that lot, is a defining sound, or look, or gimmick. Perhaps the band least likely to have come from the Decade that Taste Forgot was The Dream Syndicate. Their second album, "Medicine Show", didn't fit many post-sixties moulds, really: this is especially the case with side two, which consisted of three songs, all of them rather long, and festooned with actual guitar solos. You can see from the following clip that they also didn't much look like anybody's conception of 1984:
And hence, by embracing quality over "fashion", they (together with a large number of the albums listed above) justify the appellation "timeless". What I most love about this song, and what is not conveyed by the performance above, are the guitar chords and the backing vocals. Plus the fact that it just plain rocks.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Song of the day
"Sa Sa Samoa", by Korallreven.
Here is a band that has given more than the casual nod to New Order. You wouldn't call a song "The Truest Faith", and sounding as it does, by accident.
On "Sa Sa Samoa", though, the pan-African vibe that also permeates their music is more to the fore. I can also hear elements of the classic 4AD sound (or maybe that is just because I have been lately immersing myself in This Mortal Coil).
The dreamlike vocals are by Julianna Barwick, herself responsible for one of the better albums of 2011, and one which I have been remiss in not mentioning here before, "The Magic Place".
Happy new year.
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