The Feelies

Was there ever a time when the Velvet Underground was unappreciated? Of course. Certainly during the period when they actually existed. I'm sure that, outside New York, Los Angeles and Boston, they were booed as much, if not more, than they were applauded. I personally remember having to lock the door of the dj booth in college when I played "Sister Ray," because the program director wanted to come in and turn it off.
But somewhere along the line, the boos turned into cheers, Lou Reed had a hit single, a million bands claimed the Velvets as an influence, a box set came out, and finally, I think, they even made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
If you are pining for a band to love who suffers from the same lack of appreciation as the Velvets suffered for so long, may I suggest the Feelies, a band from the same fertile new wave crescent of Northern New Jersey that produced the Bongoes and the Individuals, but with a much more lasting impact.
There is a reason that I led this piece with the Velvet Underground. The Feelies unabashedly borrowed the rhythm guitar style of the Velvet's "What Goes On," (not they were alone - check out many of Brian Eno's tracks on Another Green World) combined it with great Television double leads and Beatle-esque harmonies (not to mention exquisite tastes in covers ) and created a new pop sound that was loved by the bands who got into clubs for free to hear them but not by the record companies or the masses who were meant to buy the four albums they put in their lifetime.
Part of the problem was that the Feelies never seemed that interested in being a band, much less rock stars. They were like a college student who would finish one year of school and then drop out for two or three or five. They put out their first record Crazy Rhythm, on Stiff Records in 1980, but they had already been together since 1976. (I actually met them in 1977 at Terry Ork's loft, when they played percussion for my band Jack Ruby, when we were auditioning for Ork.)
They then broke up, but got back together to put out The Good Earth (my favorite of their records) in 1986. That is probably the record that should have made them stars. It was accessible and warm and full of hummable melodies and intricate pop arrangements. But it did not make them stars.
It only took two years for the Feelies to put out their next album, Only Life, the album which makes clear their debt to the Velvet Underground by actually covering "What Goes On."
Finally, three years later they put out their last album, Time for a Witness, at which point Bill Million, one of the two writer/singer/guitarists, moved to Florida, neglecting to mention to the rest of the band that he was leaving.
As I said, I knew the Feelies slightly back in the late '70's. They were part of the very vibrant post punk scene that coalesced around Maxwell's in New Jersey. But I wasn't a huge fan of Crazy Rhythms, and I lost track of them after that. (Honestly, I lost track of most music for the next eight or ten years.)
When I finally rediscovered them, it was too late to appreciate them in the flesh. However it's still possible to appreciate them on their records, which sound as fresh today as they did when they were released. Some reviewer called them the first alt/indie band, and if you want to talk about powerful rhythms, strong melodies built into the vocal harmonies and the guitar parts, and obscure, hard-to-decipher lyrics - then I would agree. But what I always come back to is the rhythm. I said earlier that they co-opted the Velvet's rhythm from "What Goes On," but really the Velvets smartly stole that rhythm from Bo Diddley and that rhythm is part of the original dna of rock n roll.
The Feelies - The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness (from Crazy Rhythms)
The Feelies - On the Roof (from The Good Earth)
The Feelies - Higher Ground (from Only Life)
The Feelies - Waiting (from Time for a Witness)
The Velvet Underground - What Goes On (Closet Mix)
The Feelies - What Goes On

Great Songs and Great Songwriting #2 (Story Songs)

I am not a huge fan of story songs. Actually, let me rephrase that: I've never found the fact that a song is a story song a reason in and of itself to love the song. I know there is a tradition in American folk music that has certainly shown itself in pop ("Honey"), soul ("Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," Slick Rick's "Children's Story") and country (a million examples, everything from "Ode to Billie Joe" to "Goodbye Earl"). And many of those songs are great. But they aren't necessarily my cup of tea. (I am partial to Dennis Linde's "Goodbye Earl.")
But I'm posting the two story songs below not only because they build suspense like good old fashioned short stories, but their twisted endings reflect a cynicism and bitterness on the part of the writers that I find very attractive.
John Hiatt - Tennessee Plates
Robert Earl Keen - The Road Goes On Forever

Rock's Backpages

Rock's Backpages is an English website that republishes English and American music criticism from the rock era, dating back to the mid-60's and continuing into the present. It has managed to collect over 10,000 articles from most of the rock press - everything from the major magazines, like Rolling Stone, Spin, Creem, NME and Melody Maker - to more obscure but equally influential magzines like Zig Zag, Fusion, Trouser Press, New York Rocker (my fave) and No Depression. It features pieces by literally thousands of writers, from early mainstream media rock critics like the NY Times' Mike Jahn, to hall of famers like Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Greg Shaw and Nick Kent, to obscure geniuses like John Mendelssohn, to passers-through like Chrissie Hynde, Kim Fowley and Nick Hornby. It costs a few bucks a year and it's is totally worth it. I've been subscribing for five or six years. Every Monday I get an email with a list of 10-20 new articles they have added to their database. They are extremely well-organized and articles are accessible by artist name, genre, writer or magazine. Please check it out.

Great Songs and Great Songwriting #1

I've always been fascinated by songs, and what makes one song great and another not so hot. There is so much that goes into a great song. Obviously, you have to have both a memorable melody and meaningful lyrics. And the song has to be constructed in such a way as to please and surprise the listener over and over again.
Great songwriting is a craft as well as an art. I love that place where the craft and the art meet.
This is the first in a series of posts in which I hope to explore different facets of songwriting and also post some examples of what I consider great songs. And eventually, come to some conclusions about exactly what elements go into a great song.
The first song I'm posting was written and performed by Michelle Shocked, on her 1992 album, Arkansas Traveller. Ironically, I chose it not because it illustrates any particular premise about songwriting. It's just a song I find myself listening to a lot. And aside from the catchy melody and propulsive pace of the song, the reason I love it as much as I do may have more to do with the fact that it's structurally a travelogue about Los Angeles circa 1988 (a few years before I moved there) and therefore personally interesting.
Michelle Shocked - Come a Long Way

Nu-Soft Rock

Looking for something easy to listen to on your way to work, something that won't insult your intelligence or threaten your musical integrity? Check out the Silent League, a celestial-sounding pop band founded by Justin Russo, formerly a member of Mercury Rev, whose MySpace page proudly proclaims, "Soft rock is not a guilty pleasure."
Incorporating influences from artists as disparate as Bowie and Bread, (not to mention amazing Richard Carpenter-like horn arrangements) Silent League's album, Of Stars and Other Somebodies, (available here) will make you forget, at least for a moment, the rush hour traffic, the crowded subways and the horribly petty humiliations of your pathetic existence.
The Silent League - Out of Reach
Silent League will be at Mercury Lounge in Manhattan on September 28, and at Luna Lounge in Brooklyn on September 29. Another great nu-soft band, Maps, is also on both bills.

Two New Discoveries

Besides the Okkervil River album, there are two other artists I have discovered recently that I've been enjoying a lot.
One is a guy I discovered on Pitchfork, named Christian Kiefer, who lives in Northern California and is a fiction writer as well as a musician and songwriter.
Kiefer has put out several albums that are stylistically all over the map, from avant-noise to blues to folk. His new album, Dogs and Donkeys, (available here) is what I would have called alt-country ten years ago. (It actually reminds me of one of my favorite albums of all time, Son Volt's Trace.)
The album features guest appearances by Nels Cline (currently in Wilco), the legendary Garth Hudson and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker from Low.
Here is the first track on the album:
Christian Kiefer - Pretty White Clouds

The other artist I'm really enjoying right now is a DJ from Oakland, CA, called the Sorcerer. (Real name, Daniel Judd.) He has a new album out called White Magic, on Tirk Records, available here.
It's a lovely West Coast example of neo-disco, one of my favorite genres at the moment. (See my post on Sally Shapiro a few months ago.)
The Sorcerer - Hawaiian Island
There is also a great Prins Thomas remix of "Surfing at Midnight," from the same album, floating around the blogosphere.

Okkervil River - The Stage Names

Okkervil River, from Austin, Texas, and led by singer/writer Will Sheff, just released their fifth album, The Stage Names, and it may be the best album I've heard all year. The album careens between genuinely driving rock and roll songs and indie ballads that border on prettiness. The lyrics are as dense and full of puns and tricks as early Elvis Costello. (Case in point: The song "Plus One," with lyrics like, "No one wants to hear about your 97th tear," and, "You would probably die before you shot up nine miles high..." You get the point.)
The music is complex and layered without ever sounding processed or artificial. The playing is self-assured and the arrangements are consistently surprising.
The album has totally passed the listen-all-the-way-to-work-without-switching-to-shuffle test. Here is the opening track from the album, kindly provided by Jagjaguwar.
Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe

Find out more about Okkervil River here.
Order The Stage Names from Emusic.

The Best Velvet Underground Cover EVER!

Detroit, featuring vocalist Mitch Ryder, released their self-titled debut album on Paramount Records in 1972. Besides Ryder, the star of the album was guitarist Steve Hunter, who had played on a couple of Alice Cooper records and would go on to ((fleeting) fame as one of the guitarists who, along with Dick Wagner, gave Lou Reed's Berlin and the live Rock & Roll Animal their signature sounds. (Many people believe Rock & Roll Animal is the best live rock album of all time. I wouldn't go that far but, having attended the concert at which it was recorded, I will say it kicked ass.)
At the time of Detroit's release, the Velvet Underground's impact on rock music was still pretty much under the radar. David Bowie was performing live versions of "White Light White Heat" and "I'm Waiting for the Man" and Mott the Hoople covered "Sweet Jane," on the Bowie-produced All the Young Dudes, but at that point there was very little mainstream acknowledgement of their influence. (Of course, that would change drastically over the next couple of years as punk took hold and the cliche that the Velvets never sold a lot of records but everyone who bought one started a band came true.)
Listening to Detroit's version of "Rock and Roll" it's as if Grand Funk or Foghat or Dust had decided that this was their chance to define rock music circa 1972. It's a big hunk of Michigan metal that perfectly captures everything that was great- and execrable - about mainstream, pre-punk blues-based hard rock.
Detroit - Rock 'n' Roll

Harry Potter and the Smiths

My friend David Lee told me that he had spent the weekend reading the latest (and final) Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, while listening to the Smiths. And even though there are (obviously) no overt references to the Smiths in any of the Harry Potter novels, it makes a lot of sense to me that you could make a connection between the two. After all, even though the Potter novels are fantasy, they are as steeped in English-ness as Twinings Breakfast Tea, fitting very comfortably in the literary genre of the English schoolboy novel. And is there any band in the last 25 years who has so clearly been "English" as the Smiths?
Also, at least according to what I know about author JK Rowling (which is not that much, I admit) she is the right age, with the right kind of sensitive/rebellious college student mentality, to have listened to a lot of Smiths music in the '80's. And while there are no explicit Smith references in the novels, they are infused with the sense of romantic tragedy and outrage that defines the Smiths.
The Smiths - The Boy With the Thorn in His Side
The Smiths - There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

Three Songs About Rock Stars

Two comments on superstardom and a 30-year-old plea that seems to have worked.
Russian Futurists - Paul Simon
Chin Up Chin Up - Fuck You Elton John
Nils Lofgren - Keith Don't Go

Lee Hazlewood

Lee Hazelwood, who had been battling renal cancer for some time, passed away last Saturday, at the age of 78 . I posted a piece about him last January, and I am reposting it below, along with an mp3 of the song, "Summer Wine."

In today's (January 28) New York Times Arts and Leisure section, there is an interesting and entertaining interview with Lee Hazlewood, the songwriter and performer best known for writing many of Nancy Sinatra's hits, including "These Boots Are Made For Walking," "Some Velvet Morning" and "Summer Wine." Hazlewood, who recently released a new album called Cake or Death, has incurable renal cancer.
Hazlewood has been a hero of mine since I was a kid, because "Summer Wine" was the first song I had ever heard where the references to sex were so blatant and explicit that even I recognized them for what they were: blatant and explicit references to sex. (Lee: "She saw my silver spurs and said let's pass the time/And I will give to you some summer wine." Nancy: "Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time/And I will give to you more summer wine.")
In the early 90's, young musicians began to realize that Hazlewood was more than just a kitschy artifact of the pop '60's. (He had been recording and releasing idiosyncratic albums in his adopted homeland, Sweden, throughout the last three decades, but very little of that material got heard in America.) Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth got a record company to release several of his albums in America. A bunch of artists recorded Hazlewood's songs on a tribute album called Total Lee!
Hazlewood's songs have held up incredibly well, because, even though the songs were supreme examples of '60's pop, there was always something weirdly off-the-wall going on. Like Scott Walker, Lee Hazlewood is now generally recognized as an overlooked artist who was way ahead of his time. It is unfortunate that it is only now, as he wrestles with cancer, that he is getting the kind of recognition he deserves.

Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood - Summer Wine

Best of the First Half of 2007

I started working on this list over a month ago, but got sidetracked by the birth of my son Conner.
I wouldn't have said that the first six months of the year had been that great musically - nothing stood out in my mind as singularly mind-blowing. The trumpeted albums - by Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Of Montreal, Feist, Voxtrot - were all good, but nothing jumped out of the pack and marked itself as classic.
However, when I began to put together a rough list of my favorite tracks, I was surprised to find that I was almost overwhelmed with the amount of material I wanted to include - and the high level of enjoyment I got when I played the songs one after another. And frankly, I had a tough time editing the list down to the 36 songs with which I ended up.
Here, then, in no particular order, except that the segues work, is my list (album titles in parentheses):
Feist - One Two Three Four (The Reminder)
Los Campesinos! We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives (We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives)
Twilight Sad - That Summer at Home, I Had Become the Invisible Boy (Fourteen Summers, Fifteen Winters)
Of Montreal - A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger (Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?)
The Clientele - Here Comes the Phantom (God Save the Clientele)
Lucky Soul - Add Your Light to Mine, Baby (The Great Unwanted)
Math and Physics Club - Darling, Please Come Home (Math and Physics Club)
Kuryakin - Take My Hand (Unreleased Demo)
Pelle Carleberg - Pamplona (In a Nutshell)
California Snow Story - Begin Again (Close to the Ocean)
Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica (Person Pitch)
Lewis and Clarke - Blasts of Holy Birth (Blasts of Holy Birth)
Great Lake Swimmers - Rocky Spine (Ongiara)
Magic Arm - Outdoor Games (Outdoor Games)
Miracle Fortress - Beach Baby (Five Roses)
The National Lights - Better For It, Kid (The Dead Will Walk, Dear)
Paul Duncan - Red Eagle (Above the Trees)
Nobody and the Mystic Chords of Memory - The Seed (Tree Colored See)
Hot Air Balloonists - Cosmos (Demo)
Scott Simons - Umbrella (Unreleased)
All Systems Ghost - Misty's Reflection (Virtues of Sleep demo)
Le Futur Pompiste - Sunflower (Your Stories and Your Thoughts)
Au Revoir Simone - Sad Song (The Bird of Music)
The Twin Atlas - Take Your Own Advice (Magic Car Wash)
Ulrich Schnauss - Never Be the Same (Goodbye)
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great (Sound of Silver)
The Charade - My Song to You (A Real Life Drama)
The Mary Onettes - Pleasure Songs (The Mary Onettes)
Explosions in the Sky - Welsome, Ghosts (All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone)
The National - Fake Empire (Boxer)
The Field - Over the Ice (From Here We Go Sublime)
Alsace Lorraine - As We Fight (Dark One)
I Am Robot and Proud - The Catch (The Catch and Spring Summer Autumn Winter)
Patty Griffin - Up to the Mountain - MLK Song (Children Running Through)
The Postmarks - Goodbye (The Postmarks)
Many of these songs have already been posted on Be Hear Be Now. I've posted several more here. I strongly recommend that you buy these artists' albums.

My New Sloop

I have to be honest, I've never been a huge fan of the Beach Boys. But this understated remix of "Sloop John B," by my friend David Mester, really brings into focus how brilliantly they used harmonies to create a Phil Spector-like wall of sound.
By the way, Mester is not only a talented musician and mixer. He is also, among other things, the voice of the "Goat" in certain Aflac commercials.
David - My New Sloop

1995

1995 was a year of many changes for me, mainly because, for the first time in many years, I found myself living alone.
One result was that I spent a lot of time not only listening to music, but seriously exploring music and artists I wasn't previously aware of.
I'm posting songs by three of those artists here:
Grant McLennan, who passed away last year, was one of the co-leaders of the great Australian band the Go-Betweens. Horsebreaker, A True Star was his third solo album. The songs are jangly 12-string pop, very Byrds-like, but with offbeat melodies and lyrics that are either brilliantly surreal or really dumb.Rickard Buckner was (and is) a singer/songwriter from Phoenix, AZ. I first got interested in him because that summer, coinciding with the release of his first album, Bloomed, he was performing a lot at a club on East 9th Street called, Sine, and I would stick my head in the door on the way home from work. Even though I never stayed for a whole set (it was too hard to find a place to sit) I was mesmerized by his high lonesome voice and disjointed melodies. His songs remind me of a romanticized version of Denis Johnson's book, Jesus' Son. Like, maybe the songs Fuckhead would write after he got out of rehab.The reason I was living alone in 1995 was because in January of that year, my wife and I separated. I moved into a furnished studio in the East 40's. On the weekends I would drive out to Amagansett on the East End of Long Island, to stay at the house we had rented a few months earlier, when we first started having problems, in the hope that getting out of the city would help us patch things up. It didn't, we separated, and my wife wanted nothing to do with the house. So every weekend I would pick up the car we still shared and make the three and a half hour drive out to the Hamptons.
My soundtrack for many of those trips was Robert Earl Keene's Gringo Honeymoon. Even though the lyrics didn't necessarily speak to my particular situation, the sense of sweet melancholy in the songs, particularly the title song, refracted through the cocoon of darkness in which I was enveloped the minute I hit the highway, was a perfect mirror for my feelings and provided me with hours of comfort on those long drives.

Grant McLennan -Ice in Heaven
Richard Buckner - Gauzy Dress in the Sun
Robert Earl Keen - Gringo Honeymoon

Clientele - God Save the Clientele

When I first heard to the Clientele's latest album, God Save the Clientele, a few months ago, my thought was that they were plundering genres like the Pirates of the Caribbean, particularly late '60's Beatle-inspired American pop music, best exemplified by the Monkees, but certainly echoed by bands like Tommy James and the Shondells, the Turtles, Harpers Bazaar and the Cyrkle.
But the more I listened to the album, the more I appreciated it - not only for the skill the band demonstrated in producing classic pop music, but also for the genuinely clever lyrics, memorable melodies and complex arrangements.
I've come around to the point that I consider it one of my favorite albums of the moment.
Here's a song that would have been a certain Number 1 in 1968.
The Clientele - Here Comes the Phantom

Just for kicks, here's a Jayhawks song from their 2000 album, Smile. That was the album that lost them their alt-country fan base without winning them any pop music fans. However, I believe this song was used in a Ralph Lauren commercial.
The Jayhawks - Smile

Both God Save the Clientele and Smile are available via Amazon.

J Pop Offshoots

I recently spent a brief period obsessed with J Pop, that genre of Japanese pop music that is the result of Japanese assimilation/interpretation of American and European pop music. My obsession has wained simply because I found most of the music pretty boring.
Ultimately, I did discover a couple of artists I find extremely intriguing.
Color Filter probably does not qualify as J Pop - they seem too serious. But since I discovered them on a Japanese label website (Happiness Records) that featured several J Pop performers, I'm going to call them neo-j pop. Color Filter is led by nuclear physicist/multi instrumentalist Ryuji Tsuneyoshi. Vocals are by Yuki Nishimura. They have just released a new album in Japan called Blueberry. (Doesn't seem to be an American release scheduled, although their earlier albums were released on Darla.)
I am posting a track from their last album, called Silent Way.

Color Filter - Strange Day

Find out more about Color Filter at their website.
Purchase Silent Way at Pointy Records.



I found Sucrette via MySpace, and I don't know much about them (everything is in Japanese). I do know they have a fascinating take on French yeh-yeh pop. This song is from their new album, C'est Si Bon.

Sucrette - Sweet Magic

Check out Sucrette on MySpace
Purchase C'est Si Bon at Amazon Japan



Check out the Itunes Podcast called the JPopcast Show with DJ San Fran & Christine Miguel to hear more J Pop than you'll ever need.
I continue to be fascinated with J Pop's utterly uncritical embrace of other genres of pop music, so, if anyone has any J Pop suggestions for me, please email them. I'm very interested in learning more.

Middle of the road crap or rock classics?

In the early 90's I wasn't listenng to a lot of music, and what I was listening to was all over the map. A little bit of country, a little bit of shoegaze (even though I didn't know that was what it was called) a little bit of whatever was popular on MTV or on WNEW-FM, the New York progressive rock dinosaur radio station.
For me, it was a time of relearning how to listen to music, after a long period of not listening to much music at all.
The three songs I'm posting here are songs I listened to a lot during that period, and which I don't think I've listened to in over ten years. I'm posting them because I'm curious if they hold up.
When the Gin Blossoms released their first album, New Miserable Experience, it seemed like they could be the reincarnation of either Big Star or the Raspberries. Then the band fired their alcoholic guitar player, Doug Hopkins, (he later committed suicide) and they were never able to repeat the magic.
Del Amitri was a Scottish band, in some ways maybe a distant relative of Teenage Fanclub in their ability to come up with memorable melodies, but without the Fanclub's originality or willingness to take a risk.
Hothouse Flowers was another Scottish band. I liked the bigness, the anthem-like quality of their songs. I put "Isn't It Amazing" on a lot of mix tapes, because of its spiritual theme.
Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy
Del Amitri - Be My Downfall
Hothouse Flowers - Isn't It Amazing?
So, crap or classic? I can't tell. Each of these songs meant a great deal to me at a particular moment in my life, and I can't separate the songs from the emotional connections I still have with them. The one thing I will say is, none of them are as bad as Hootie and the Blowfish.

Here's a bonus:
Freedy Johnston - Bad Reputation

A Few Summer Songs

I'm not going to get involved in any stupid arguments about what defines a summer song.
But here are a couple of older summer songs and and two that I've been playing recently. I know they're summer songs because they have the word "summer" in the title. (Check out the cool pop culture reference in the Johnny Rivers song.)
Johnny Rivers - Summer Rain
The Undertones - Here Comes the Summer
The Shermans - Summer In Your Heart
Lucky Soul - One Kiss Don't Make a Summer

The Undertones and The Johnny Rivers Anthology are both available at Amazon.com.
The Shermans' Casual cd is available from Shelflife Records.
Lucky Soul's Add Your Light to Mine, Baby is available from emusic.com.

Lewis & Clarke's Blasts of Holy Birth etc.

Lewis & Clarke's new album Blasts of Holy Birth (about which I posted before it's release) is out now, on La Societe Expeditionaire. I recommend it highly.
As I have discussed before, Lewis & Clarke is the musical vehicle for the singer and writer named Lou Rogai, from Pennsylvania.
I have thought a lot about what makes his music so attractive to me, and last week, as I was walking home from work with the title song playing in my Ipod headphones, I realized that what I like best about the music is the fact that it swings. I hate that word, because it so directly references a type of music that I don't have any particular affinity for, but I figured out a long time ago that my love of music is very strongly related to my belief that there is a definite rhythm to the universe, and that if we can lock into that rhythm and live within it, it's like swimming with the current, and we can live harmoniously. And of course, if we fight the rhythm, as if we were trying to swim against the current, we are going to be exhausted, anxious and discontent.
I have found this applies to everything from physical activities like running to things a simple and basic as breathing. And, of course, it very much applies to music.
The sense of swing begins, superficially, in the rhythm section. Bass and drums. I can't explain technically what makes some musicians swing and others not swing, although I think there may be something about being just the slightest bit ahead of the beat. I do know that Charlie Watts could play the phone book and it would swing. And I remember seeing James McMurtrey at Mercury Lounge back in the 90's and thinking that he was very lucky that he had an Austin rhythm section backing him up, because without it his songs (at least in the arrangements he was then playing) would have been interminable.
However, I think there is a deeper kind of swing, which I hesitate to even try to define. It's one of those "I don't know what it is, but I know it when I hear (feel) it" things. I think there are musicians - artists - who innately and unconsciously swing. (For some reason, my paradigm for this is Duke Ellington. My image of being swingingly in sync is Duke Ellington in a tuxedo, conducting an orchestra as he floats down the river.)
Lewis and Clarke, and Lou Rogai, embody that type of swing.
What's interesting about Lewis and Clarke's music is the fact that there is something meditative - a melodic droning, a relaxed drawing out - that occurs simultaneously with its swing-ness. When I first noticed this, I thought that the two were antithetical, and that it didn't make sense that they were occurring at the same time. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit, in as much as one of the goals of meditation is to find that place in oneself where one is in sync with the universe.
So, in affect, the music is acting as a prod to help us find that place of harmony within ourselves, at the same time that it actually reflects that harmony.
Lewis and Clarke - Bare Bones and Branches (Live on WPRB)

All of Lewis and Clarke's albums are available at the Lewis and Clarke website.
Lewis and Clarke will be performing at a Ballroom Party to Benefit Common Ground
Friday June 15th at the Prince George Ballroom
15 East 27th St (btw. 5th & Madison)
Manhattan, NY
$20.00 (3 Free Beers with every Ticket Purchase [21+])
For more info, go here.

Welcome to the World, Conner Kirkpatrick Hall

Guy Clark - Come from the Heart
White Stripes - Hardest Button to Button

Philip Rambow - Fallen

There isn't much to say about "Fallen." It's a great song by a singer/songwriter who never did anything else as interesting or exciting. You could call "Fallen" a one hit wonder, except it wasn't even a hit.
For a couple of months back in 1979, I played this song more often then all the other records I owned combined. And since I found it online last week, I've been playing it just as relentlessly. (One of the things I have found out about my music listening is that I still love everything that I loved at one time or another. But in addition, I now love a lot of things I didn't like at all at one time or another.)

Philp Rambow - Fallen

You can download the (now out-of-print) album from which "Fallen" is taken - Shooting Gallery - at a great sharity blog call Power Pop Criminals.

Marie et les Garcons - Re-Bop

Over the last couple of weeks I've been incredibly fortunate to find digital versions of several songs/albums that have been on my digital wish list for years.
First and foremost is the Beckies' album, about which I've already posted.
But there are a couple of other things I've found recently, and I'm happy to be able to write about them and offer them up as MP3's.
Marie et les Garcons was a French post-punk group. When I discovered the 12" of "Re-Bop" (in 1978 or '79)) I was working at Bleeker Bob's record store, and I brought it home only because it was on Ze Records and because John Cale produced it. At the time I was in a band called W-2, and we had just replaced out bass player, Shelby, with a guy who I remember only as William. "Re-Bop," which was disco punk overlayed with a thin veneer of Euro-pop, had a lot of elements that I thought were similar the things we were doing in W-2, and I wanted this guy William to listen and learn. So I loaned him the 12" (along with Jack Johnson and some obscure disco records). A week or so later, in the van on the way back from a disastrous gig in Philadelphia, W-2 broke up, and for whater reasons - mostly having to do with my own drug-addled lack of responsibility - I never saw William again, and I never got the records back. And I never replaced "Re-Bop." Every couple of years I would wake up singing the chorus, and that would make me heartsick. I made a couple of half-hearted attempts to locate another copy of the song, with no luck. It wasn't like the song had been a hit and was going to show up on Greatest Hits of the '70's. Finally, last week, I discovered it online.
Happily, it holds up extremely well.
Marie et Les Garcons - Re Bop

Believe it or not, Marie et les Garcons are still around; at least they have a MySpace site.

Ze Records deserves at least a post of its own, if not a whole book. In its heyday, it was one of the most innovative record companies in the world. Everyone from Lydia Lunch to Arto Lindsay released records on that label and none of them were boring.

A Couple of Things I Found on MySpace

I've never had much to do with MySpace in terms of interacting with friends, but I've been a big fan of it as a source of music since I joined last spring. The first band I sent a Friend Request to was My Morning Jacket (don't ask me why). Soon after that, I learned about Lily Allen and I've been using MySpace to discover and keep up with music and musicians I like ever since.
In the past few days I have come across a couple of bands I would love to recommend:
My Cloud Mireya is from New York City and is made up of Claudia Deheza (ex- ON!AIR!LIBRARY!) and Guillermo S. Herren (Prefuse 73, Savath y Savalas, Piano Overlord, Zanzo plus the defunct Delarosa+Asora.) I don't know much else about them. I discovered them when I was checking out the "Top Friends" of a band I have been listening to for awhile called Daylight's for the Birds.
A Cloud Mireya - Wasted Time
A Cloud Mireya's album, Singular, is available from Insound.
My Cloud Mireya's MySpace site.


Le Futur Pompiste is from Finland. They were "Top Friends" of the Dreamers, a band I highly recommend and intend to post about more extensively in the near future.
Le Futur Pompiste - Seeds
Le Futur Pompiste's record, Your Stories and Your Thoughts, is available from Siesta Records.
Check out Le Futur Pompiste on Myspace.

Luomo

Now that's what I call music.

Luomo - Let You Know

Buy Paper Tigers here.

Luomo website

The Great Pop Masterpiece

The legend of Michael Brown is pretty familiar to pop music geeks of a certain age. He was a precocious 16-year old music student in 1966 when he formed the Left Banke and wrote, arranged and recorded "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina." Both of those songs were hits, and it seemed like the Left Banke, and Michael Brown, were on their way.
But to those to whom much is given, much trouble is also given, and Brown, never comfortable on stage, and perhaps (unfairly) feeling the band could not keep up with him, soon split, and a year or so later, ended up producing and writing songs for a band called Montage. That didn't work out and the band broke up after making one album. (Despite the fact that it is probably the weakest album with which Brown was ever associated, his signature is unmistakeable.)
A couple of years later, Brown hooked up with a singer/bass player named Ian Lloyd and formed a band called the Stories, who were, in many ways the third point in the pop triangle of Big Star and the Raspberries. But while the Raspberries and the Stories shared an obvious debt to the Beach Boys, the Stories were strongly piano-based while the Raspberries and Big Star were all about ringing guitar chords. And even though all three bands relied on strong melodies and soaring harmonies, the Stories' music was much more firmlyy rooted in Brown's classical training and a love of a frenetic, almost Glenn Gould-like bed of keyboards.
The Stories released two albums in which Brown participated, but then he and Lloyd fought and Brown split again. Shortly afterward, the Stories actually had a hit, with Hot Chocolate's "Brother Louie," but one listen to that song and it's obvious that Brown had nothing to do with it.
Brown dropped off the map for a few years, and then resurfaced with a band called the Beckies, from St. Louis. I don't know how he found those guys. On paper, it was an unlikely match: young fresh faced innocents from the Midwest teaming up with a by-now battle scarred, paranoid New York music veteran.
However - a big however - the album they released in 1976 (called The Beckies) is, in my mind, a POP MASTERPIECE. Maybe THE pop masterpice.
Now, I may be alone in thinking this. Certainly no one has thought enough of it to reissue it on CD. Even when I first purchased it, in the summer of 1976, I found it in a cut out bin for $1.99 in a second hand record store on 12th Street and Broadway in NYC. But the fact that I remember so clearly the circumstances of the purchase says a lot about how important the album has been for me.
I have been listening to this record off and on for 31 years now, and it still sounds as fresh to me as the first day I heard it.
It's a sneaky record, I will admit. It's easy to hear it as a bland '70's pop/rock JoJo Gunne/Crabby Appleton wannabe (especially considering that it came out at a time when so much interesting and edgier stuff was going on musically in New York City.). But listen closely: the subtleties of Brown's writing, arranging and producing soon become obvious. The stops and starts, the bed of keyboards, the string arrangements, the counterpoint in the harmonies, the classical echoes in the solos, are all musical themes Brown had explored before, (albeit never as as successfully.)
The Beckies was the last album Michael Brown worked on. I have no idea what has happened to him. There is a fan website that has downloads of radio interviews with him in 2003, but I haven't listened. As a rock and roll romantic, I don't want anything messing with my image of Brown as the Villonesque artist manque. He is that great tragic figure, the musical genius who could never find a home. I would say that it's a shame, and I can't even begin to imagine what he would have created if he could have harnessed the demons that seem to have kept him from staying active. At the same time, I have to say that the Beckies album is a glorious way to end a career.

The Stories - Darling
The Stories - Please, Please

The Beckies - River Bayou
The Beckies - On the Morning That She Came
The Beckies - Fran

(Check out Gooder'n Bad Vinyl, a sharity blog featuring a great selection of out-of-print vinyl downloads.)

Voxtrot

Voxtrot, from Austin, Texas, has released three EPs in the last year and a half, each one more subtly original than the last. In the process, the band built a huge international fan base. (They sold out a week's worth of shows in New York City in no time last fall.)
Consequently, there was a lot of curiosity about what their first full length album (called Voxtrot, and released this week on Playlouder / Beggars Group Records) would sound like. (And quite a lot of pressure to be as good as, if not better than their three EPs, without repeating themselves.)
As the review in the New York Times on Monday said, no need to worry. Voxtrot has outdone themselves in every way. The production, by Victor Van Vugt, fleshes out their sound, adding instrumentation and weight without sacrificing the focus on the songwriting. The performances, by lead singer and songwriter Ramesh Srivastava, Jason Chronis, Mitch Calvert, Matt Simon, and Jared Van Fleet are original and self assured. The songs themselves are idiosyncratic pop gems, echoing everything from early Paul McCartney to XTC to fellow-Austinite Britt Daniels. And yet, there is never any doubt that it is Ramesh who is writing these songs. Melodic without being cloying, lyrically intensive without being pretentious or verbose, they are serious without taking themselves too seriously.
Voxtrot - Kid Gloves
Purchase Voxtrot at emusic.com.
Voxtrot MySpace.

May 21, 1988

Townes Van Zandt - To Live Is To Fly

Miracle Fortress

Miracle Fortress, the brain child of Montreal musician Graham Van Pelt, is streaming their new album on their MySpace site, and it's worth putting up with the crappy MySpace music player to experience it.
The album, Five Roses, will be released next week on Secret City Records, and can be ordered here.
Check it out, it really is brilliant.
PS: I posted a song from the album a couple of weeks ago, and you can still download it.

The National Lights

The National Lights, from Richmond, Virginia, have released an album called The Dead Will Walk, Dear, on BloodShake Records, and it's lovely (in a full moon shining through the pine trees in a lonely forest in Kentucky sort of way.) I have found myself listening to it a lot lately - in the car, on my way to work, on my computer at work. One song flows into another so seamlessy that the album seems to be over in the space of time one song usually takes.
Everything works: the 21st-century folk arrangements, the self-assured production by Chris Kiehne Jr., the background vocals by Sonya Cotton.
What I love best is the way the warm, accessible melodies by group leader Jacob Thomas Berns very sneakily suck you in, and then you slowly become aware that most of Berns' songs are about death and dying. The Dead Will Walk, Dear is an album that wraps itself around you. It's only later that you realize you are being warmed by a shroud.
I am hesitant to post a single song, because, as I said, one of the album's strengths is its cohesiveness. It really should be heard in its entirety. But what the hell, here is the first track.
National Lights - Better For It, Kid
Order the album here.
Learn more about the band here.

Guitars

In the May 14 issue of The New Yorker there is an article about guitar maker Ken Parker by Burkhard Bilger that should be fof interest to anyone who either plays guitar or has tried to play it. Or, for that matter, anyone who has surfed Ebay fantasizing about vintage Gibsons, Martins and Fenders. Among the things I learned was that building a guitar is like building a cathedral - you are always balancing the practical need for support and the aesthetically-driven desire for pure tonal beauty. I also learned that you will never get rich making guitars by hand. Your descendants might, but you probably won't.
In honor of guitar makers and players everywhere, I am posting a song about guitar strings by Guy Clark, a pretty fair luthier in his own right.
Guy Clark - Black Diamond Strings
(The song has an interesting verse about Rodney Crowell and his father, JW, and mother, Causette.)

Listen to audio clips from Burkhard Bilger and Ken Parker

(I Am) Superman

The other day, my wife, Sara, and I were discussing REM, and she mentioned how much she loved the song "I Am Superman." I was happy to be able to point out to her that REM's version was in fact a cover of the original, which was the b-side of the only hit by a '60's pop/bubblegum LA group called The Clique, whose hit, "Sugar On Sunday," was written and originally recorded by the greatest of the pop/bubblegum LA groups, Tommy James and the Shondells. Oh, what a wonderfully tangled web we weave.

The Clique - (I Am) Superman
REM - (I Am) Superman

The Clique - Sugar On Sunday
Tommy James and the Shondells - Sugar On Sunday

Special thanks to my son Walker for finding the Clique cd in our apartment when I was convinced I had put it in storage.

Searching for a second career

No words are necessary:
http://www.billwymandetector.com

Rolling Stones - You Got the Silver

Toni Price

Toni Price represents everything that is both awesome and tiresome about the Austin music scene. She is an amazing singer, with a richly sensual voice, who could easily have a larger career if she wanted to. But she rarely tours, and rarely makes the kind of records that could expose her to a wider audience. She has been content to make records in Austin using local musicians and producers, recording material by little known Austin and Nashville songwriters or obscure blues standards, and she is best known for her long running Tuesday night Hippy Hour at the Continental Club
I am not at all critical of her decision to stay local. I think that can be really healthy. Just like the best restaurants buy local produce from local growers, sometimes the best music is made by local artists who are totally steeped in their own environment.
But the tiresome part is that localism gets worn like a flag, and then it becomes parochialism. Your audience doesn't grow, it just becomes more fanatic. Your choice in material narrows, and you proudly refuse to grow stylistically.
I used to go to Price's Happy Hour gigs a lot when I lived in Austin. Week in and week out, the music was great. She was backed up at the time by three great Austin guitar players, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Casper Rawls and the late Champ Hood. I always had a good time, even though Toni's cult of weird little hippy girls and fat bikers was a little off putting.
Now, out of the blue, Toni Price has announced she is moving to San Diego, so no more Hippy Hours. And even though I left Austin ten years ago, I will miss knowing that, if I was there, I could always find her at the Continental Club on Tuesday evenings.
Toni Price - Tumbleweed
Loose Diamonds (with Toni Price) - Hanging On

Toni Price on MySpace

Lucky Soul

Presenting this year's Camera Obscura. Great melodies and arrangements straight out of late 1960's Top 40 radio. People who don't take themselves too seriously. And Ali Howard's glorious voice. Summer is coming.
Lucky Soul - Add Your Light to Mine, Baby

Learn more about the band, purchase the new album, The Great Unwanted, at the Lucky Soul website.

The Math and Physics Club

You could draw a straight line from Belle and Sebastien, through the Lucksmiths and end up at the Math and Physics Club. (And in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that.)
Here is a song from their recently-released first album, on Matinee Recordings.
The Math and Physics Club - Darling, Please Come Home
Check out their page on the web.
Purchase their album at Amazon.

Some More Personal Music

I wanted to post a few examples of music similar to that of Lewis & Clarke. (You can see I'm really living by my words about personal music and the feeling I don't have to share it.)
Here are three more very personal artists:
Miracle Fortress - Have You Seen In Your Dreams
Paul Duncan - The Lake Part 2
Magic Arm - Outdoor Games

None of the albums from which these songs are taken are available yet, but check out their websites for preordering info, tour schedules, artist bios and (possibly) more mp3's.

Miracle Fortress
Paul Duncan
Magic Arm

Madame George

There is an interesting article by Tom Nolan in the Friday, April 13 edition of The Wall Street Journal, proposing that Madame George, the central character in the song of that name on Van Morrison's landmark 1969 album Astral Weeks, was in fact Madame George Yeats, wife (from 1917-1939) of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. (Unfortunately, I can neither post the article nor link to the article, since The Wall Street Journal offers no Internet access unless one is a paid subscriber.)
Nolan makes a convincing argument, based not only on the character's name, but on some key lines in the song that talk about the spiritualist activities of the main character. (Madame George Yeats was famous for her seances.)
When you fall into a trance
A sitting on a sofa playing games of chance
Up to now, the most popular theory concerning the character's identity was that Madame George was a Belfast drag queen. See Lester Bang's fairly famous piece on the subject in Stranded from 1979.
One thing about which we can be pretty certain, Van Morrison is never going to enlighten us. Whoever Madame George is, however, the discussion is a good excuse to revisit a great song.
Van Morrison - Madame George

Dengue Fever Link

Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles-based "Cambodian pop band" I posted about recently, has provided a link on their MySpace site to a website for a documentary about Cambodian pop music. It has a lot of fascinating info about Cambodian pop culture, and includes some great MP3's.
The name of the website is Cambodian Rock. (Duh.)
Here is a track by Ros Serey Sothea:
Ros Serey Sothea - "I'm Sixteen"

Lewis & Clarke Update

There is an announcement on the Lewis and Clarke website that the band's next album, Blasts of Holy Birth, will be released May 15. Lou Rogai, the artist behind Lewis & Clarke, has also made available an MP3 of one of the songs on the album, "Before It Breaks You," which was previously available in a live version on the WPRB Live album.
Check out the website for more info, preordering, and just to enjoy the wanderings of Rogai's imagination.


Lewis & Clarke - Before It Breaks You

Feist Update

Feist's new album, The Reminder, is scheduled to be released on May 1 on Interscope Records, and already there have been several big pre-release articles/reviews, including the lead story in the NY Times Art & Leisure Section today (4/15). Check out Sasha Frere-Jones' piece in this week's New Yorker for the most interesting take on Feist in terms of the dichotomy between her hipster it-girl persona and her obvious potential to become a mainstream superstar.
Among Frere-Jones' more interesting observations is his assertion that the most daring thing Feist has done has been to cover an American public domain standard called "Sea Lion Woman," most famously recorded by Nina Simone the 1960's. Feist records the song on The Reminder, but Frere-Jones is more interested in her live version (He calls the version on The Reminder, "polite," and I would agree with him). I haven't actually seen her perform it, but I came across a live recording a few months ago, and I was blown away. In her performance (and in her band's 60's soul band arrangement), Feist creates an incredibly high level of energy, without ever losing track of the subtleties of the song. It reminded me of Janis Joplin at her less-histrionic best. One of Feist's real strengths is her uncanny ability to communicate rhythm with her voice (I swear she doesn't need a drummer) without ever giving up the melody. This song demonstrates that perfectly.
Feist - Sea Lion Woman (Live)

Photograph of Feist by Greg Kadel.

Twilight Sad

I meant to post about Twilight Sad a month or so ago, and actually thought I had, but when I went to look at what I'd written, I found I'd written nothing.
Twilight Sad is from Glasgow (where else?). They write and perform muscular, bottom-heavy pop songs that belong to the Jesus and Mary Chain/Stone Roses/Teenage Fanclub family tree. They manage to maintain the sense they are talking about personal hurts, fears and anxieties - and small victories - while still sounding like they are standing on the edge of a mountain at midnight, raging at the universe. Play this loud.
Twilight Sad - That Summer at Home, I Had Become the Invisible Boy

Learn more about Twilight Sad on their Myspace page.
Purchase their new album, Fourteen Autumn & Fifteen Winters at Amazon and Emusic.