Road to Ensenada

A friend of mine recently returned from a visit to California, which included an unhappy side trip into Baja, Mexico. It reminded me of a trip my wife and I took to that area a few years ago, which was not a hell of a lot of fun either. (Although we didn't get pulled over by the Mexican police like my friend did.)
The one good memory I have of that trip was of driving on the all-but-deserted highway between Rosarita and Ensenada at dusk. The stark and lonely landscape, broken every couple of miles by a decaying farmhouse, was like a Tom Waits version of a Wyeth painting. The Baja Peninsula seems particularly evocative of all kinds of existential despair.
Lyle Lovett's "Road to Ensenada," from his 1996 album of the same name, and one of my favorite songs from the happy-go-lucky '90's, perfectly illustrates that. Sadly beautiful, beautifully sad.
Lyle Lovett - Road to Ensenada
Purchase Road to Ensenada on Amazon.

World (Music) Turned Upside Down

I've never been a huge fan of what the New York Times loosely refers to and fervently reviews as "world music."
But I recently discovered a band that is, in its own twisted way, a true representative of world music.
Dengue Fever is from Los Angeles. The story goes like this: Cool LA musician named Ethan Holzman goes to Cambodia with a friend, falls in love with a style of pop music with roots in '60's American garage punk. Cool LA musician comes back to the States, gets other LA musicians involved, forms Cambodian pop cover band. Eventually meets a Thai woman named Chhom Nimol, who was an actual Cambodian pop superstar, before emigrating to the Little Phnom Penh area of Long Beach, California. Convinces her to become lead singer. Band switches to original material with roots in '60's Thai pop and 21st century American indie pop. What could be better?
When I listen to their album, I imagine I am walking down a crowded alley in Bangkok, with the music blaring out of cheap speakers hanging in the doorways of seedy dark bars. At the same time, the dynamics and textures of the music are very knowingly American, spanning the 60's, 70's, 80's, '90's - right up to the present.
I love the way music can go from it's crude source (60's American punk), get reinterpreted and adapted by a foreign culture, and then come back here and get reinterpreted yet again.
Dengue Fever - Sni Bong
(I do not have any idea what the lyrics mean.)
Purchase Escape From the Dragon House, Dengue Fever's latest album, on their website.

Five Songs that American Idol Contestants Should Consider Covering

I am a not-so-closeted American Idol fan. I know it's cheesy, I know that no musician I respect would ever make it out of the prelims, I know it's manipulative, crass, cynical, feed-the- money machine commercial television, but I love it.
However, I will say that, week in and week out, the song choices made by the contestants are so uninspired and insipid that I sometimes find myself itching to see what the Knicks are doing.
So, in the interest of improving the quality of my American Idol-watching experience, and at the same time guaranteeing the wise contestant who takes my advice at least one more week of national exposure, I would like to offer the following alternative song choices. (Note: None of these songs are at all left field. In fact they are all pretty mainstream. They have all previously been covered by mainstream artists. They are just a little more interesting than the usual Tuesday night fodder.)

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
This is a Leonard Cohen song made famous by Jeff Buckley, but also covered by K.D. Lang and John Cale, among others.

The Left Banke - Walk Away Renee
This was a hit back in the '60's and has been covered countless times. It deserves to be a hit again.

Patty Griffin - Mary
This is a Patty Griffin song covered very badly by Bette Midler, but nevertheless a truly gorgeous, moving song.

Blue Rodeo - 'Til I Gain Control Again
This is a Rodney Crowell (meaning c&w) song that has been covered by everyone from Van Morrison to This Mortal Coil (one of the best cover bands of all time). This version is by a great Canadien band called Blue Rodeo.

This Mortal Coil - Song to the Siren
This is a Tim Buckley song, covered here by This Mortal Coil (featuring vocals by Elizabeth Fraser, lead singer of Cocteau Twins). I actually like this version better than the orignal.

All these songs can be purchased on Amazon.

Speaking of Paris 1919...

John Cale's Paris 1919, released in 1973 and re-released last year with some additional tracks, is one of my favorite albums of all time. The gauzy beauty of the songs and the sophisticated, complex arrangements make it impossible not to be drawn into the world Cale creates.
Over the years several artists have covered songs from the album, notably Alejandro Escovedo, Yo La Tengo and Hope Blisters.
Here's a new cover of "Hanky Panky Nohow," by Miracle Fortress, from Montreal.
Miracle Fortress - Hanky Panky Nohow

Check out some more of Miracle Fortress' fine music on their MySpace page.
Purchase Paris 1919 on Amazon.

Road Test

Several weeks ago, on an extremely cold Brooklyn morning, at the far end of Red Hook, where Henry and Hicks Streets meet the New York Harbor, I took my automobile road test. Because of some bad luck and a couple of bonehead moves on my part, I had been without a license for several years. Thanks to the wonderful bureaucracy that is the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, I was forced to go through the whole process, from permit through driver's ed through the road test, as if I was a 16 year old kid. It took me a while, but I finally did it. And since I didn't fuck up the parallel parking or run a stop sign, I passed the test, and now I am an officially licensed New York State driver.
To celebrate that fact, I am posting one of my favorite car songs, Tom Robinson's "2-4-6-8 Motorway," a song that was pretty popular when it came out in the punk heyday of 1978, but is rarely heard anymore. I promise to play it at very high volume as I drive at a very high speed over the cracked, potholed surface of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
Tom Robinson - 2-4-6-8 Motorway

More Monsterbuck news

Monsterbuck's album, Land of Make Believers, is finally available via their website. I recommend it highly.

Personal vs Public

There is some music I like that I have no doubt the rest of the world will like too. It seems like a no-brainer, and if I discover it before it becomes a hit, it's only a matter of timing. Lily Allen and Voxtrot come to mind as examples. And if other people seem slow in discovering that kind of music, I will campaign hard for it, whether that means talking to friends or blogging about it or ramming it down people's throats on mix cds.
But there is another kind of music about which my feelings are much more private. It is music that means a great deal to me, but which I'm not necessarily interested in sharing with others. It's not that I want to hide the music or keep it from becoming too popular, it's just that I don't really care if other people like it.
I think that what makes the music personal for me is the impression I get that the music is personal to the artist. My sense is that Lily Allen and Voxtrot are making music with the audience in mind. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, and not to imply that they are pandering in any way.) But there is music I hear which I believe the artist has made for himself or herself, and for which the audience is secondary.
Every artist wants an audience, on some level. But I do feel like certain artists are more inward-looking, and the music they create is made more for their pleasure than for that of any other listener.
This kind of music hits me on a personal level, divorced from the criteria by which I usually decide if I like something (interesting lyrics, great melodies, distinctive vocals).Case in point is a band called Lewis & Clarke, from Delaware Water Gap, PA. Lewis & Clarke is really one guy, Lou Rogai. His music is ethereal and acoustic and sometimes downright pretty, but is always anchored by self-possessed vocals and long, drone-based, meditative guitar lines.
I was introduced to his music when someone posted a cut from a live album he released last summer from a radio show in Philadelphia. I downloaded one of the songs on a Friday afternoon, and then downloaded the rest of the album (WPRB Live) from emusic.com, and listened to it on my Ipod over and over again on my way to the country that night. I found myself encased in Rogai's world, with one song sliding into the next as if each was an extension of the last.
Later, I bought both the American and European version of Bare Bones and Branches (also available from emusic.) And while listening to Bare Bones may not be quite as powerful an experience as my initial experience of listening to the live ep, the music continues to sustain me in a deep and rich way.The point is, I love the music, but I don't have a stake in others loving it. (If this is a characteristic of Rogai's music, that's too bad, in a way. It would be a shame if his music was defined by the fact that the people who loved it had no urge to pass it on to other people. It's possible that, all over the world, there are isolated individuals, unaware they share this passion, listening to Rogai's songs in solitude, with no desire to share them with other people.)Having said all that, I should note that I put this song on a bunch of mix cd's at Christmas time, (before I realized I didn't care if other people heard it) and it turned out that one of the people I gave a cd to, my friend Dannette, loved it so much that she put it on a Valentine's Day mix. So much for the purity of isolated experience.
Lewis & Clarke - Before It Breaks You

I'm trying to think of other artists to whom I have responded like this. Off the top of my head, what comes to mind is Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, John Cale's Paris 1919, and just about everything by Townes Van Zandt.

Visit Lewis & Clarke's website.
Purchase Lewis & Clarke's music on emusic.

Miscellaneous

I haven't posted anything recently because I haven't felt that excited about anything I've heard. I like the new Arcade Fire album, Neon Bible, a lot, but so much has been written about the band and the album, both online and in the mainstream press, that there hasn't been much to say. (Although I found it interesting that Win Butler went to Exeter, the prep school I attended, for better and worse, in the '60's. Exeter was where I was first exposed to a lot of great music, everything from the Seeds to John Mayall to Jimi Hendrix. It was also where I first played in a band - the Psychosomatic E Train, a Mothers of Invention rip off that featured the New England Prep heavyweight wrestling champion playing stand up bass as if it was a Fender, and also featured Benmont Tench, later a member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, on keyboards.)
The only other comment I would make about Neon Bible concerns the Prefab Sprout references on "No Cars Go." Horns, strings and harmonies are all strongly reminiscent of Jordan: the Comeback, Prefab Sprout's 1990 double album. I've never been that enthusiastic about Prefab Sprout. (I've always associated them with late '80's, early 90's English bands like Deacon Blue, Blue Nile and Everything but the Girl, that I've actually liked a lot more.) But this is the second musical reference I've noticed in the past month, so I'm starting to pay more attention.
Prefab Sprout - Carnival 2000

Other things I've heard recently that I felt like playing more than once: a cover of Love's "Message to a Pretty" by an English band called the Duke Spirit. I have never heard a Love cover I didn't feel was worthy of posting. Love rules, and I applaud any band that seeks to carry that message. This one reminds me of Mazzy Star's cover of "Five String Serenade."
The Duke Spirit - A Message to a Pretty
Click here to purchase Duke Spirit's ep "Covered in Love."

There is band from Wales that I've been enjoying a lot, called Los Campesinos! They sound like a cross between Arctic Monkeys and Camera Obscura. Very hyper verses and very sweet boy-girl harmonies in the chorus.
Los Campesinos! - We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives
Los Campesinos! website: www.loscampesinos.com/

The Grammies were lame, what else is new. I'm glad the Dixie Chicks won a bunch of awards, even though I think Taking the Long Way Home is their weakest album. But in honor of all those trophies, I'm posting a version of Townes Van Zandt's "Snowing on Raton," sung by Pat Green, a country singer/songwriter very popular in Texas and unknown everywhere else, and Natalie Maines, the Chicks' lead singer.
Pat Green and Natalie Maines - Snowing on Raton

Also on the Grammies telecast, Mary J. Blige sang a song I hadn't heard in a long time, Barbara Ellison's "Stay with Me, Baby." The first version of that song I ever heard, back in the late 60's, was by Terry Reid, the English singer who was supposedly offered the job of singing lead in Led Zeppelin, but turned it down to pursue his solo career. Good thinking.
Terry Reid - Stay With Me, Baby

Sunday Post #2

Joao Gilberto - Aguas de Marco

Paper Moon

One of the first bands I discovered on MySpace was Paper Moon, from Winnipeg, Canada. I have probably put their song. "String of Blinking Lights," on more mix cd's than any other in the last nine months. And their album, Broken Hearts Break Faster Every Day, is entertaining, jingle jangle pop of the highest order.
Besides making great music, the members of Paper Moon are very charming, at least as far as I can tell from reading their periodic blog postings on MySpace. Here is the latest example:

After wending our lazy way through the lush meadows of Q-94's Top 30, running up and then gleefully rolling down the grassy hills of the Top 20, and finally finding ourselves riding the Zipper and eating greasy, sugary treats at the glorious carnival of the Top TEN, it's time to go home. The rides are shutting down, the barkers have stopped ceaselessly urging you to show how much you love the "little lady" by winning her a giant stuffed penguin, and Samson, who runs the travelling show, is telling the rousties to "shake some dust".

Technically, we're still IN the top ten (as we are currently #10), but we knew this time would come eventually, and three concurrent weeks in the Top Ten was more than we hoped for. I wonder what the next "single" will be?

SXSW is fast approaching. All you Austin friends, be sure to make it out to the Co-op Bar on March 14. We're also playing an industry BBQ on Friday at 5pm, but I'm not sure if that's open to the public or not.

I would certainly be at their show if I was going to SXSW, and I strongly recommend that, if you are in Austin, you go hear them.
Buy Paper Moon cd's on the band's website: http://www.papermoon.ca/
Visit their MySpace site.

And check out "String of Blinking Lights."

Sunday Post #1

The Postmarks - Goodbye

(Photo by Tina Barney)
The Postmarks available at amazon.com

No I Was Wrong - This Is the Flavor of the Moment

Forget it, Donovan. it's all about Three Dog Night, the most successful cover band of all time. (And I mean that in a good way.) For two nights this week, Three Dog Night was all over the tube.
Wednesday night, the hills and valleys of the Lost island were alive with the sound of "Shambala" as Hurley and Charley careened crazily down an impossibly steep hill in a beat-up VW bus. Then on Thursday night, those crazy kids from American Idol did a cheesy Up with People version of "Joy to the World."
Can SXSW be far behind?
Three Dog Night - Shambala
The Best of Three Dog Night is available at Amazon.com

Mott the Hoople - Brain Capers

Mott the Hoople achieved its greatest commmercial success after David Bowie "discovered" them, gave them the song "All the Young Dudes," and produced the album on which that song was included. But I believe Mott was at its best on the four albums prior to that, culminating in Brain Capers, released in 1972, an album that is, in my opinion, a hard rock classic. (Hard rock was a genre, not a casino hotel in Vegas, in those days. I don't remember exactly how it was defined, except that hard rock meant good rock, and plain rock could mean anything from America to the Grateful Dead. I don't think the term soft rock had been invented.)
Mott was never a band that could be easily classified. Their first album, called Mott the Hoople, came out in 1969 on Atlantic Records, and I suspect that the record company thought they were getting the next Humble Pie or Spooky Tooth. However, one could see that Mott was anything but the standard issue English blues rock band ( even if they did do an instrumental version of "You Really Got Me"). Their albums were chaotic and messy, with instruments and vocals flying all over the place, sometimes out of tune, sometimes buried in the mix. Their frontman, Ian Hunter, was a sunglass-wearing keyboard-playing Bob Dylan wannabe with a punk sneer. Their choice of covers reflected a post modern sensibility years before anyone but Lou Reed had the right to lay claim to that term: Sonny Bono's "Laugh at Me!" Doug Sahm's "Crossroads!" Melanie's "Lay Down!" Plus, their bass player's name was Overend Watts!
(I saw Mott at the Boston in the summer of 1970 at the Boston concert venue, The Ark, opening for Ten Years After. Of course, Mott blew them away. I remember I had to dodge Hunter's piano, which fell off the small stage during "You Really Got Me.")
Brain Capers captured all the joyous chaos of their previous albums, and yet rocked even harder. The vocals were more intense, the guitars shrieked with more urgency, and the rhythm section pounded away with more fire and assurance.
More importantly, Brain Capers also marked the maturing of Hunter as a songwriter. The obvious Dylan references were there, but they were clothed in truly great pre-punk rock music.
Brain Capers, like the previous three Mott albums, was produced by Guy Stevens (who appropriately enough produced the first three Clash albums). His ability to communicate the sense that the music was this close to flying completely out of control, and yet never allowing that to happen, was one of the reasons the Brain Capers may be one of the hardest rocking albums of all time, unmatched except by a few classics like Raw Power and The Clash.
"The Journey" is the centerpiece of Brain Capers. It is over nine minutes long and is, in some ways, a classic power ballad, with a long intro, slow build-up and several big crescendos. But one of Ian Humter's songwriting gifts, clearly evident in this song, was his ability to stay very personal even when the power chords were flying. That's why the song still sounds fresh.
Mott the Hoople - The Journey

Brain Capers is available from Itunes and Amazon.com

Story of a Band Chapter 2

A few months ago I posted a note about my nephew Robby Miller's band, Mister Loveless. Mister Loveless just recorded a new song called "Good Story," and posted it on their MySpace site. As good as their first album was, I think this song shows amazing growth in Robby's singing and songwriting. It's also a great showcase for the maturing of the band as a whole.
I feel like Mister Loveless exists for all the right reasons. It is made up of people who got together to play music because music is the only thing that makes sense to them. It is the only thing worth being passionate about. I believe they would walk through fire to be heard, and yet at the same time, they would shut it down overnight if they didn't feel like they were growing both as individual artists and as a group.
It is fascinating to watch this band grow; I can't wait for the next chapter.
Mister Loveless - Good Story

Mister Loveless' MySpace site

Flavor of the Moment

In the space of five minutes, I saw two commercials featuring songs by Donovan. One was for Fruity Cheerios ("with a touch of real fruit flavor") and used the song "Happiness Runs." I switched channels and came upon a GE commercial that used "Catch the Wind." There was nothing terribly original about either choice, but they both worked well in context. Is it time for a Donovan revival?
Donovan - Happiness Runs
Donovan - Catch the Wind

Feist and A Girl Called Eddy

It's hard not to like Leslie Feist, dba Feist. The most prominent member of Broken Social Scene, she released a great record two years ago called Let It Die that was post modern pop at its most assured and sophisticated, featuring covers as disparate as the BeeGees' "Inside and Out" and "Tout Doucement," a song best known (at least to me) for the version by Blossom Dearie. Before that, she collaborated with Peaches, Gonzales and Kings of Convenience.
Lately she seems to be focussing more and more on the blues. I recently heard her kick-ass live version of the Nina Simone arrangement of "See Line Woman," and the download she has made available from her soon-to-be-released album, The Reminder, is very bluesy as well.
As cool as Feist is, and as much as I like her, I need to remind you of A Girl Called Eddy, who shares many traits with Feist, and released an absolutely brilliant self-titled album a year or so earlier than Let It Die came out, an album I would describe as "Dusty Springfield Sings Truly Sad Songs by Burt Bacharach, Produced by Scott Walker." (In fact, it was produced by the great English singer-songwriter, Richard Hawley.) There is a deceptively languid sadness to her songs that draws you in and then spits you out, leaving you emotionally spent. (That's what music should do, right?)
Perhaps because I feel like A Girl Called Eddy hasn't received the recognition that Feist has, I have a deeper appreciation of her music.
Feist - My Man, My Mountain
A Girl Called Eddy - Tears All Over Town
(Check out the little lift from Prefab Sprout in the middle of "Tears All Over Town," it's awesome.)

Purchase cd's by Feist and A Girl Called Eddy at Amazon.com.

Another Excuse to Mention Asobi Seksu

Asobi Seksu, Brooklyn's 21st Century answer to the Ronettes, and the only band whose t-shirt I own, are on tour and playing Bowery Ballroom tonight (2/21) at 8:00 PM. Their album, Citrus was one of my favorites last year.
They are offering a live cd at their website.
Asobi Seksu - Then He Kissed Me

Jonathan Lethem's Article in Harper's Magazine

Jonathan Lethem, author of the very fine novel, Fortress of Solitude, has a fascinating piece in this month's Harper's, called Ecstacy of Influence. In it, he explores the nature and morality of appropriation of artist's work by other artists.
I think we are all inherently appalled by the idea of plagiarism, in any form. Yet, as Lethem says, there are many acts of plagiarism that are, in fact, works of art themselves, and that (in his words) ultimately "make the world larger."
As Lethem points out, many art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries embraced plagiarism in one form or another. Surrealism, Dada and pop art all borrowed freely from the real world, in ways that could easily be interpreted as stealing.
Writers like William Burroughs (and, up in the ivory tower) Pound and Elliott championed the lifting of quotes from other sources to make double points, contextual and symbolic.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of appropriation in both classical and popular music. As Lethem says in his article, blues and jazz are part of an "open source" culture, in which new ideas develop directly out of old.
Pop music is, by its very nature, plagiaristic. There is undoubtedly a totally original chord sequence out there, but it is rare. "Sweet Jane" is an amazing song, one of the greatest songs ever written, in my opinion. Yet it's basic chord structure can be found in hundreds of other songs. And that does not detract in any way from the beauty of "Sweet Jane." If anything, it magnifies it.
In the early '70's, I was living in Albany, New York, working in a record store. I became acquainted with a group of SUNY Albany music students, and one day I went with them to a music lab on the campus. Someone there was painstakingly splicing audio tape together, and when he played it back, I heard a wonderful collage of drones, sound effects, voices and, buried deep in the mix (although it wasn't called that at the time) a snippet of Tommy James' "Mony, Mony." I had never heard anything like that before, but it instantly made sense to me. The idea that you could put together a bunch of already existing sounds, including a piece of a pop song that was, certainly at that time, something barely worth listening to, to create a totally new piece of music, was exhilarating as hell. It was simultaneously high art and pop culture, composition and commentary.
A year later, after I had moved to New York City and started a rock band called Jack Ruby with one of those Albany music students, my principle contribution to the group's first magnus opus, "Bored Stiff," was the line "I couldn't hit it sideways," which I lifted whole from the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray." I didn't (and don't) see that as plagiarism at all, because I felt that by singing that line, I was sending a message to people who would hear the song: those who recognized the origins of the line got Jack Ruby (and Jack Ruby got them), and those who didn't weren't worth our time.
Today, technology has made it possible to create entire songs (whole albums, actually) out of samples and splices of other music. (Listen the The Avalanches, posted below.) There is no question in my mind that the composers and musicians employing this methodology are expanding the definition of art.
Lethem's article explores all this, and many other things. It's thought provoking and provocative, entertaining and educational.
(My only objection is to his unnecessary epilogue, which is a Rick Moody-esque list of footnotes in which he proudly demonstrates that much of the article was written by lifting sentences and paragraphs from other writers.)
The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatry
Jack Ruby - Bored Stiff (1974)
(Please note: I appropriated the "ivory tower" reference from Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row.")

Oh Sweet Nuthin'

A friend of mine told me recently that he thought I was posting too many medium tempo songs on Be Hear Be Now, that it was getting all "Morning Becomes Eclectic." This post is not going to change his mind, since it is based on Sweet Nothings - Love Is a Mixtape, a sweet, medium-tempo Valentine's Day mix of love songs from artists on the Nettwerk label.
There is some stuff that's a little iffy (Barenaked Ladies) but there is also the Submarines, the Weepies and Great Lake Swimmers, a Canadien band with a new, already heavily-blogged album coming out in May called Ongiara.
I'm posting "Your Rocky Spine" by Great Lake Swimmers, partly because it's a great song, but also because Great Lake Swimmers recorded a song last year called "I'll See You on the Moon" for a an anthology of kid's music by indie bands (called I'll See You on the Moon), and it is one of my family's favorite car songs - it's the place where my taste meets my son's taste.
Great Lake Swimmers - "Your Rocky Spine"

Babies

I am posting this song in honor Johan Agebjorn, the producer of Sally Shapiro's sparkling Italian-Swedish disco pop records, who just had a baby girl, my friends Lew and Ina, who are now in China adopting a two-year old boy, and my wife Sara and our little Nemo, due in June.
Lovin' Spoonful - Younger Generation

Lily Allen

Lily Allen's album, Alright Still, was finally released in the US this week. (It was released last summer in England, and quickly went to the top of the charts.) As many people know, Lily Allen was one of the first MySpace success stories. She dropped a couple of demos on her site and very quickly started collecting friends and hits at a rate that freaked out the mainstream record business, leading to major label envy and then major label success. (Whether she can duplicate that success in the US remains to be scene. So far, her fan base here seems to consist mainly of a few lonely bloggers and and some hipster girls.)
Whatever. Lily Allen has everything going for her: she is smart, pretty, genuinely funny (in an English Sarah Silverman way) and she writes very witty pop songs. Whether she makes it in America is beside the point.
Since everything on her album has been posted and reposted several times over, I'm attaching a mixtape she posted on her own website last year. It contains bits and pieces of her own songs, as well as a lot of her obvious influences.
Lily Allen - Mixtape #2
(Warning: This file is almost 60 mg. That's pretty big.)
It's been interesting to observe the Lily Allen phenomenon at my office. I work at a company that edits television commercials. Last summer I started pushing Lily Allen songs on the editors, trying to get them to use her music as needle drop. Initially, I met a lot of resistance. Most people weren't familiar with her and didn't listen that closely; the people who had heard of her thought she was an English Britney. As time went on, an awareness of her began to seep through. All of a sudden editors are using her music in rough cuts. You can hear her music being played behind closed Avid suite doors. If you took a poll of the editors and their assistants (who are younger and maybe more aware of whatr's going on in the world of music), she has gone from a "Who's that?" to "She's awesome."

Hot Air Balloonists

I came across this band on MySpace months ago, listened to their posted songs, loved them. Also loved their name and their logo (pictured). Periodically, I've tried to find out more about the band, via Google and Hype Machine. No luck. And very few clues on the MySpace site. No band members listed. No other website listed. Once in a while they would post an announcement of a concert. I emailed them via their MySpace email address and asked for more info. No response.The best I could do was listen their songs (and only on their MySpace site, since there is no cd and no other place to find the songs.) Finally, they made "Cosmos" available for download. I love this song. I listen to it a couple of times a day, and still haven't gotten sick of it. It is great dream pop, with a perfect melody and an arrangement that make you feel like you are indeed floating over a small mountain range in Europe in a hot air balloon as the sun comes up.
Hot Air Balloonists - Cosmos
Visit the Hot Air Balloonists MySpace site.

Paul Weller

Paul Weller has been playing shows in New York this week. The first night he did a concert of Jam songs. The second night was dedicated to the Style Council, and the third night he performed songs from his (now quite long) solo career. I liked the Jam a lot back in the '70's. I still remember a show I saw at the Academy of Music featuring the Dwight Twilley, Cheap Trick and the Jam. And I've liked a lot of Weller's solo stuff, although not as much as most critics have, judging from the almost universally positive reviews his albums always get.
However, I love the Style Council, and still listen to them a lot. The moody, neo-romantic redefining of soul music continues to sound fresh, and Weller's voice seems perfectly attuned to the style.
The Style Council - You're the Best Thing
Fred Perry has a Paul Weller line of clothes. That seems very appropriate for the founder of the Style Council.

Two Gifts from the Internet

Ever since I heard Sally Shapiro's cover of "Anorak Christmas" I have been trying to find the original, by a Swedish pop band named Nixon. I looked in all the usual places: Itunes, Emusic, Amp Camp, Other Music, Amazon, but no luck. I kept checking Hype Machine, the music aggregator, but no luck there, either. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found it, posted on a blog called Spiked Candy. The collector in me is very happy. However, as much as I like Nixon's version I still much prefer Sally Shapiro's.
Nixon - Anorak Christmas

I met Adele Bertei back in 1979 or 1980, when she was playing keyboards in the Contortions with my friend and former bandmate, George Scott. I lost track of her when that band broke up, but a few years later, her Madonna-esque, vaguely European disco 12" called "Build Me a Bridge" became something of a hit.
At the time, it felt like the whole '70's New York scene had petered out, without much impact outside of the East Village. The clubs that had supported the scene had closed. No one (other than Talking Heads) had sold many records. Most of the bands, both punk and post-punk, had broken up. Drugs had destroyed a lot of lives (including George Scott's) and AIDS was beginning to destroy a lot more. So to see someone from that scene break out into the more commercially viable dance music scene was something of a novelty.
It's interesting how time changes things. Punk and post-punk are now seen as defining movements in popular music, and '80's dance music 12" records are collector's items prized by people like Sally Shapiro. And it's a lot easier to find Contort Yourself then it is "Build Me a Bridge."
Adele Bertei- Build Me a Bridge
I want to thank Dalton Oxfam Shop for reposting this. Check out this blog - it's fascinating.

Great Lost Pop Masterpieces #5 - Alan Price - O Lucky Man!

There is not much to say about this, except that it's brilliant. Came out in 1973. Title song to a film starring Malcolm McDowell. In any discussion of music involving three or more people, at least one will agree with you if you say that it's one of the greatest overlooked songs of all time.
Alan Price - O Lucky Man!

Yachts - Suffice to Say

Idolator recently posted Bram Tchaikovsky's "Girl of My Dreams ," which reminded me of another pop punk song from around the same time. I don't know what happened to the Yachts, but this song still sounds great. (Great lines: "I never wrote a middle eight, so we'll just have to do without/But there's an instrumental break...just after this!")

Yachts - Suffice to Say
"Suffice to Say" is anthologised on Stiff Singles Volume 1, which is available on Itunes.

NEWS FLASH! MAN LISTENS TO WHOLE ALBUM ON WAY TO WORK...3 DAYS IN A ROW!!!

This week, I found myself doing something I haven't done with any regularity in a long time - I listened to a whole album by a single artist on my Ipod on the way to work. The next day day I listened to another album. And then the next day, I listened to a third album in its entirety.
When I first got an Ipod, four years ago, my listening habits did not change significantly. I played cd's on my cd player, connected to an amplifier, connected to a pair of speakers. I listened to cd's by individual artists in my car. My Ipod was secondary, and when I did listen to it, I did so in the same way I listened to music on my stereo or in my car - album by album. I hardly ever used the shuffle selector on the Ipod wheel.
At some point, this changed. I discovered that, for me, the real attractiveness of the Ipod was in its ability to surprise. It was like listening to a really cool radio station that only played songs it either knew that you liked or that you were planning to like as soon as you could get to it.
Gradually my Ipod (and Itunes), set on "shuffle," became my primary source for hearing music. When we moved last year. I didn't even set up my stereo.
The idea of listening to a whole album began to seem more and more foreign. Once in awhile, I would leave my apartment with my Ipod set to play a new album I had just downloaded, but chances are I would change to shuffle before I even reached the subway stop.
This week that changed. For three days in a row, I set my Ipod to play an album, and i listened to that album (quite happily) all the way to my office. (The trip takes about 45 minutes.)
I've been trying to figure out if this marks a change in my music listening or that I just happened on three albums I really liked. I mean, I obviously liked the albums. (The first day I listened to Malajube's Trompe L'Oeil - see the previous post. The next day it was the Submarine's Declare a New State, which I had never heard of until the day before, when I came across a track of theirs on a blog, and then bought the album on Emusic. The third day I listened to Lewis and Clarke's Bare Bones and Branches, an album I've owned for several months but never listened to all the way through.
As I said, the quality of the music is not in question. All three albums are great. But I've bought other albums I've liked a lot over the past couple of years and haven't listened to them all the way through. So I'm wondering if I've suddenly developed (or rediscovered) a Zen mind music listening consciousness that allows me the patience to listen and enjoy a full album without constantly thinking "What's next?" Or am I just feeling particularly passive and tired this week?
I don't know the answer. I do know that today, after reading a review in Pitchfork, I downloaded The Hammock's Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo and enjoyed it tremendously with my New York Times.
The Submarines - Peace and Hate
Lewis & Clarke - Bare Bones and Branches
The Hammock - Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo

My New Favorite Band

Malajube is a band of musicians from Montreal who record in French and whose music has an intense, hectic kitchen-sink feel that reminds me of early XTC. They play what you might call chaos rock. You feel that, at any minute, their songs might spin out of control. But of course, they never do.
Like Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, they bury strong melodic and rhythmic threads in a maelstrom of disparate voices and crazy instrumentation. The sense of confusion is abetted by the fact that they sing in Canadien French. But slowly, over the course of each song, the melody rides to the surface, all the elements lock into a groove, the craziness suddenly makes sense, we are swimming with the current.
Malajube - La Monogamie
Malajube's latest album is called Trompe L'oeil and is available from Itunes.
Find out more about the band here.

Velvet Underground Tracks

Remember the whole story about the lost Velvet Underground album that ended up selling on Ebay for about $25,000? FM Shades has some tracks from the album (which is an acetate of an early version of the first album) posted here.

New Music

I love the Internet. I love mp3 files. I love music blogs and MySpace and the Hype Machine and yes I love Itunes. I love them all because on any given day I can discover great songs floating in the Internet ether (or on my desktop) just waiting for me to listen to them.
The other day, as I sat at my desk eating lunch and browsing through my Itunes, I came across "Walk In the After Light" by a band called Nobody and the Mystic Chords of Memory, from their album, "Tree Colored See." I had no memory of downloading the song and no memory of where I downloaded it from (although it was probably Motel de Moka.) I liked the name, so I clicked on it, and a glorious pop song, half Moby Grape, half Stone Roses, with ringing guitars, Beatle-esque harmonies and an undertone of anxiety filled my office.

That evening, my wife and I had some friends over for dinner, and I had my Itunes set on Yuppy Shuffle: shuffle-at low-volume-so as-not-to-get-in-the-way-of-conversation. All of a sudden my friend, a musician with excellent taste, interrupted our conversation about the pain of quitting smoking, to ask what was playing. I had to strain my ears because the volume was so low. It was a lovely, guitar-based instrumental, almost but not quite blues, almost but not quite folk music. I had to look at my computer, because I didn't recognize the song. It was a song called "Play Delicate, Desire Quiet," by Grace Cathedral Park, from the album, "In the Evenings of Regret." Again, I have no memory of downloading the song, nor do I remember listening to it previously. But, as with Mystic Chords of Memory, discovering the song felt like the opening of a whole new world with unlimited potential.
Nobody and the Mystic Chords of Memory - Walk In the After Light
Grace Cathedral Park - Play Delicate, Desire Quiet


"Tree Colored See" and "In the Evenings of Regret" are both available from emusic.com

Lost Pop Masterpiece #4: Trash Can Sinatras - Obscurity Knocks

"Obscurity Knocks" came out in America on the "Cake" album in 1990. It's a pop song through and through, with obvious roots in indie pop. Along with a great melody, there are production flourishes that make the song still sound great 17 years later. Check out the doubled accoustic guitars on the intro, the wall of sound vocals on the chorus, and the slightly cheesy but entirely memorable single note guitar solo about 2/3 of the the way through the song. And finally, the line, "Oh I like your poetry, but I hate your poems." What else can you say?
Trash Can Sinatras - Obscurity Knocks

The Departed

I went to see "The Departed" a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. More than I thought I would, as a matter of fact, since, after seeing "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator," I had begun to believe that Martin Scorsese had lost his ability to tell a story.
However, that's not the reason I'm posting about it. About half way through the movie, I heard a Van Morrison song I didn't recognize. That surprised me, because I thought I knew Van Morrison's oeuvre inside and out. When I got home I checked out the soundtrack and discovered it was a version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb," which Morrison had sung as part of an all star ensemble when Roger Waters played "The Wall" live in Berlin in 1990.
I'm not a big Pink Floyd fan, especially from "Dark Side of the Moon" onward. I don't think I'd ever heard "Comfortably Numb" before and I only listened to their version to compare it to Morrison's. However, listening to Van Morrison sing it, I am reminded of: a) how good a singer he is, and b), how much of a difference a great singer can mean to a song. There is so much natural drama in Morrison's voice he invests this fairly lugubrious song with passion and tension and actually makes it dynamic.
Roger Waters Band Featuring Van Morrison - Comfortably Numb

Sally Shapiro Redux

Pitchfork gave "Disco Romance," the fantastic Sally Shapiro album, an 8.5, which is my excuse to post another great track by the pseudonymed-Swedish singer and her producer, Johan Agebjorn.
This is their cover of the the Swedish band Nixon's indie pop hit:
Sally Shapiro - Anorak Christmas

Kuryakin - Quiet pop

Kuryakin is A.G.F.S.P.B. (another great fucking Swedish pop band.) They are: Petter Gjöres (vocals, guitar, computers) and Johan Norberg (guitar, computers), with additional vocals and synthesizers by Kristina Dahlman
They play brilliant quiet pop: lush waves of strings and background vocals, quirky synth samples, a steady restrained drum beat and whispery vocals. Perfect music if you live in New York City or have a child (or both).
Kuryakin - Take a Stand
More downloads at their website http://www.lostminds.com/users/kuryakin/

RIP Dennis Linde

Songwriter Dennis Linde died on December 22, of lung cancer. Linde wrote for country music artists, but many of his songs had a sense of rhythm and energy that was rooted in rockabilly and pop music. Linde, based in Nashville, first came to prominence in 1972, when Elvis Presley recorded his song, "Burning Love," which was, of course, a big hit (and, in my opinion, the best of the later Presley performances.)
Linde stuck around Nashville and had many hits for country artists through the years, enough of them to get himself elected to the Nashville Writers Hall of Fame. But his biggest claim to fame probably came in 2000, when the Dixie Chicks had a huge hit with his witty "Goodbye, Earl."
My appreciation for Linde came about as a result of a song on his 1973 solo album on Elektra Records, called "Hello, I Am Your Heart." It's always been one of my "really obscure but that only makes it better" pop gems. In fact, if I could have found a digital version of it, I would have posted it as a Great Lost Pop Masterpiece. But the album has been out of print for years, and no one ever saw fit to issue it in CD form. It has been covered a couple of times. There is a truly atrocious version by Manfred Mann, and Sara Hickman covered it on the Elektra 40th anniversary compilation from the '90's. The best version I can find is by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, from their 1994 "Acoustic" album, but even that doesn't do the original justice, having neither it's balls nor its pop sensibility.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Hello, I Am Your Heart

SCRAPPY JUD NEWCOMB AT FREEBIRD BOOKS

Jud Newcomb, a singer/songwriter and guitar player from Austin, Texas will be at FreeBird Books, 123 Columbia Street, in Brooklyn, on Saturday, January 6, at 7:00 PM.
Jud (or Scrappy, as he is known) is an ace guitar player who has been winning "Best Guitar Player in Austin" awards since he was a teenager. He was one of the leaders of the Loose Diamonds in the '90's, and also backed up the singer Toni Price for years. He's played with everyone is Austin, and has produced albums for, among others, Beaver Nelson and Mike Hall. He currently plays with Ian MacLagan, the Resentments, Jon Dee Graham and a lot of others he can't remember without checking his datebook.
Scrappy is also a gifted (and probably under-appreciated) songwriter and singer, who uses his encyclopedic, Dylan-like knowledge and love of country, blues, gospel and rock to create beautifully constructed songs, which he sings and plays with restraint and elegance. And most importantly, his songs swing with the grace of Willie Nelson and the swagger of the Stones.
Scrappy is the embodiment of all that is great about Austin and its music.
FreeBird Books and Goods is a wonderful bookstore in "West Carroll Gardens" that is definitely worth a visit any time.

Jud Newcomb - I Think of You

Jud Newcomb - New Location

"I Think of You" is from Jud's latest album, "Byzantine," and is available from Freedom Records. "New Location" is from "Djakarta," which may be out of print. Check that with Scrappy.

James Brown

I was saddened to hear about the death of James Brown although, honestly, I hadn't listened to any of his stuff in a long time. I went through a James Brown phase in the late '70's, after I got my hands on a couple of import compilations that were amazing. (The heighth of my respect and admiration for James Brown came on New Years Eve, 1980, when a couple of guys from the band Madness somehow ended up at my apartment in the East Village, and we played - alternately - songs by Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and James Brown, all the while drunkenly yelling about how they "swung," and how no modern singer could hold a fucking candle to them. Or words to that affect. It was really hard to understand what those guys were saying.)
Eventually Brown's insane, angel dust-fueled behavior, and having to hear people tell me what a fucking genius he was over and over, made me lose interest in him.
What still amazes me, however, is how astoundingly good Brown's back-up musicians were, best evidenced, in my opinion, by the work of Fred Wesley and the JB's. They found a groove that was like the rhythm of the universe, and then they decorated it. Oh yeah, they swung like a motherfucker.
Fred Wesley and the JB's - These Are the JB's
Fred Wesley and the JB's - It's the JB's Monorail (Parts 1 & 1)

Motel de Moka

I want to recommend a music blog I discovered, called Motel de Moka. From what I can tell, it is written and edited by a 21-year old Mexican woman named Moka. The variety of music she posts, the breadth of her subject matter, the striking artwork and even the poetry she uses as leads is always surprising, entertaining and thought-provoking. Her latest post, about her family's plans for vacation, includes mp3's by, among others, Panda Bear and the Poppy Family. Her Top 12 of 2006 is by far the most interesting end of year wrap-up I've seen.
Check it out.

Countdown 2006 - Songs

My list is actually 99 songs long, but I'm only going to post my Top Ten...okay 11.
11. Lewis and Clarke - "Before It Breaks You"
10. Asobi Seksu - "Thursday"
9. Venice Is Sinking - "Pulaski Heights"
8. Camera Obscura - "Let's Get Out of the Country"
7. Sally Shapiro - "Anorak Christmas"
6. Hot Chip - "And I Was a Boy From School"
5. Jason Collett - "We All Lose One Another"
4. Fujiya and Miyagi - "Collarbone"
3. Daylight's For the Birds - "Worlds Away"
2. Lily Allen - "LDN"
1. Monsterbuck - "Arto Monaco"
Please note: These songs have all previously been posted on the web. All the same, I am only going to keep this list up for two weeks. Have a wonderful holiday!

Lost Pop Masterpiece #3: The Mighty Gabby - Jack

In the early '80's I took a trip to Barbardos. The song "Jack" was playing in the airport when I arrived. I heard it in the taxi on the way to my hotel, I heard it at the bars on the beach, I heard it on the party boats. Every bar band in every club I went into played it at least once a set. It was all over the place, and everyone loved it. One of my lasting images of that trip is dancing drunkenly down a gangway on the Bajan Princess party boat in a line of tourists as this song blasted out of the boat's Radio Shack-speakers. It's ironic how much we all loved that song considering how anti-tourist it was.
Back then, one of the things that distinguished Barbados from other Caribbean islands was that all of the beaches were public, including the ones in front of the expensive resorts. There were rumors that the government was going to change that, and this song was a protest directed at Jack Dear, an attorney for the board of tourism .
Mighty Gabby - Jack

The great thing about calypso is its ability to camoflage - or at least soften - extremely subversive messages in its sunny, steel drum-based sound. "Jack" certainly illustrates that. So does Lily Allen's "LDN," if you want to check out a current example.
Lily Allen - LDN

Countdown 2006 - Albums

I've been reading a lot of posts saying that 2006 was kind of a blah year for music. For me it was exactly the opposite. I discovered and enjoyed more new music this year than I have in the last ten years combined. I found something new and interesting literally every day.
The result is that my top album list (same goes for my top song list) for the year is a hodge podge of stuff, bouncing between genres and, I guess, somewhat shallow, in that I didn't spend too much time with any one album. But, looking over my Itunes playlists, these are the albums that stuck with me, in an order that seems to make sense:
27. Joanna Newsom - "Ys" - Pretentious overly-long songs. She sounds like she wants to be Joni Mitchell after she discovered Mingus. Van Dyke Parks' strings are so disconnected they sound like they are coming from the studio down the hall. And yet... all this words, and all those notes. As much as I want to hate it, and as easy as it is for me to find reasons to hate it, this shit is just so damn interesting. A year from now I will either blush with shame that I put it on this list or listen to it all the time. I really don't know.
26. Arctic Monkeys - "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" - The album survived the hype. I found that the band's thin angry tone and off the cuff lyrics made for really effective social commentary. Remember when rock was, by definition, angry? These guys get that.
25. Mylo - "Destroy Rock and Roll" - Some kid in Scotland creates an album on a Mac. I think it actually came out in Europe a couple of years ago but didn't make it to the States until this spring.
24. The Lucksmiths - "Warmer Corners "- I'm embarrassed I'd never heard of this band before. Satisfies the twee in me.
23. The Glaciers - "The Moonlight Never Misses An Appointment" - Associated with the Mendoza Line and Essex Green. One of the first bands I discovered on MySpace. Very melodical.
22. Hot Chip - "The Warning" - Spiky electronic music with a melodic sheen.
21. Paper Moon - "Broken Hearts Break Faster Every Day" - Lush melodic folk rock from the Canadian Midwest. I imagine them as a band very popular in Winnipeg, and pretty much unknown outside of that. Although they were nominated for some Canadian music award.
20. My Brightest Diamond - "Bring Me the Workhorse" - Sings back up for Sufjan Stevens. Don't hold that against her.
19. The Weepies - "Say I Am You" - Melodic folk rock from LA. Loved by "Grey's Anatomy." Don't hold that against them.
18.Feathers - "Feathers" - Oddball '60's throwback. Great album cover references the Incredible String Band. Songwriting credits are first name only. Hippies from Vermont. Jeez.
17. Islands - "Return to the Sea" - Pleasant
16. Beirut - "Gulag Orkestra" - Liked it. Then disliked it because of the hype. Now like it. Can't wait to hear what's next.
15. Essex Green - "Cannibal Sea" - Smart melodic folk pop from Williamsburg
14. Fujiya and Miyagi Not Japanese.
13. Final Fantasy "He Poos Clouds" Ethereal intel-pop. Unfortunate album name.
12. Camera Obscura "Let's Get Out of the Country" Brilliant pure pop from Scotland.
11. Dirty on Purpose - "Hallelujah Sirens" - Tough street smart multi-textured pop music. Nick Hornby would love this.
10. Album Leaf - "Into the Blue Again" - New band by the guy from Tristezza. Reminds me of "Music for 18 Musicians." Makes me feel like I'm floating on a cloud.
9. Lewis and Clarke - "WPRB Live" - Probably shouldn't be included in albums, because it was an EP. Amazing folk rock for 2006. Long songs, smart lyrics, interesting arrangements. Made me enjoy long songs again.
8. Daylight's For the Birds - "Trouble Everywhere" - Folk rock with a nasty edge.
7. Band of Horses - "Everywhere All the Time" - Solid
6. Hotel Lights - "Hotel Lights" - A guy I see every five years walked by me at a party. "What are you listening to?" he asked. "Lewis & Clarke," I said, "How about you?" "Hotel Lights, check 'em out."
5. Venice Is Sinking - "Sorry About the Flowers" - Bought this early in the year and it's never let me down
4. Asobi Seksu - "Citrus" - Phil Spector and Blondie recaptured. Best album art of the year. Even though is got an 8.4 in Pitchfork and was constantly blogged, it's the most under-appreciated pop album of the year.
3. Destroyer - "Destroyer's Rubies" - It keeps sounding better and better. A year from now I'll be sick of Number 1, but I'll still be listening to this
2. Espers - "II" - Lie back and enjoy it.
1. The Knife - "Silent Shout" - As soon as I heard it, I knew I was going to love it. It has a sense of familiarity combined with surprise that only the best music has.

Velvet Underground Album (Back) on Ebay

The test pressing/alternate recording of "The Velvet Underground and Nico," which had seemingly been auctioned off for over $155,000.oo is back on Ebay. The winning bid turned out to be a prank bid by someone using a friend's computer.
The new auction has some built-in bidder limits designed to prevent fake bids. Auction ends December 21. Current price: $.99. The perfect Christmas present!

Velvet Underground Album on Ebay

An extremely rare test pressing of an early version of the first Velvet's album is currently being auctioned off on Ebay. As of noon on Tuesday, December 5, the high bid is $124,640.50. Auction ends December 8.
The test pressing was found at a garage sale in the Chelsea area of Manhattan a few years ago. The discoverer paid $.75 for it.
As much as I personally value the Velvets in general and this album in particular, I'm having trouble believing someone would actually pay $125,000 for it.