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