Shelf Life

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 5 Mar 2011

2011-03-10T21:18:00.002-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

The Beatles, 1962-1966
Just picked up the red album at Beautiful World for $5; quite a steal. Granted, I have most of these tracks already on other records, but I was missing a couple of the early singles.

Side one is absolutely mind-blowing. Granted, the Beatles' career got of to a bit of an inauspicious start: "Love Me Do" is bland, lethargic and derivative. But from there the next half a dozen singles are just amazing.

The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
I like both of this band's records a lot. I've had them at the apartment for a while now and I just brought this one home. Another one of those Canadian bands with like eight-plus members. I have a theory that they all do that to save on heat in their rehearsal spaces. Y'know, with body heat.

David Bowie – Hunky Dory
His last hippie record, before he went glam. Mark Spitz considers this the most essential of the bunch, but I'd put at least three before it. Not that it's not great, mind you. Is that a double negative?

Tim Buckley – Starsailor
Supposed to be his furthest out-there record, but I think Lorca's much weirder.

Alice Cooper – Love It To Death
Fucking awesome. If you don't know about early Cooper, it's time to learn. I'm talking Alice Cooper the band, mind you, before the singer went solo and kept the name. This is the one with "I'm Eighteen" on it. It also has "Long Way To Go" and "Sun Arise", which are even better.

Daft Punk – Discovery
I'd really love to cover this album in its entirety with a three-piece band. I think the first several songs would all translate really well. Problem is, this one crashes hard toward the end. Probably just could have been shorter.

Marvin Gaye – What's Going On
Supposedly Berry Gordy hated this record, partly because he didn't know what "ecology" means.

Glasvegas
New one coming out in April. They look a little glammed up in the photos. Not sure how I feel about this.

Guided By Voices – For All Good Kids
Bob and the boys are pleasantly hammered for this one, circa 1995 or so. Includes some song from "Clown Prince" I've never heard before.

Hüsker Dü – Land Speed Record, New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig
Just picked these up along with Andrew Earles's new bio. Probably read that next. Working on Nick Kent's memoir now.

God bless SST, by the way, for keeping these in print on vinyl. They deserve some kind of citation for that invaluable public service.

Led Zeppelin – [runes]
I've listened to this record a million times and I still can't tell you what "Four Sticks" sounds like. Most useless filler track on a great album ever?

The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll
Just ran into P—, whom I hadn't seen in about 15 years, at a funeral the other day. I asked him if he was still collecting records. He said yes, occasionally, and had just picked this one up on eBay. Good find.

The New Bomb Turks – !!Destroy-Oh-Boy!!
P— recommended this one to me the other day while he was reading the lead singer's new book. P— rarely steers me wrong.

The Only Ones – Special View
I had this on CD years ago and just picked up a vinyl copy a couple weeks ago. Man, does this hold up well. I remembered it being just the hit and a bunch of lesser tunes, but there's a ton of good tracks on here.

Syd Barrett – The Madcap Laughs/Barrett
If you wrote a song called "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives", you'd probably go to jail too.

The Pretty Things — S.F. Sorrow
The first rock opera! Pre-dates Tommy! So they say. Reputed to be a lost classic. Might be.

The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street

Steely Dan – Can't Buy a Thrill
S— brought a date to dinner last week, and he was way into the Dan. I think he was pretty pumped when I pulled this one out. He also recommended I check out Lou Reed's Street Hassle, but I haven't found a copy yet.

1969 Velvet Underground Live With Lou Reed
The one with the butt on the cover. There was a request for some Lou at the party, and it turns out MMM is the only one I have. This sufficed.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 20 Feb 2011

2011-02-23T23:09:00.002-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Depeche Mode – Music For the Masses
Reputed to be a lesser effort, but I rather like this one. Peters out a bit towards the end, but the first half is excellent. "Never Let Me Down" really needs a guitar-heavy cover. Smashing Pumpkins did a version years ago for a Mode tribute album that reinvents it as quiet and menacing, but I think you can play this pretty literally, with booming drums and power chords for the main synth riff and it would really rock.

Fishbone – The Reality of My Surroundings
Definitely their masterpiece, and a flawed one at that. Fishbone never made a great album, but this one came closest. I just realised I keep writing two-clause sentences with "but" in the middle. The muted power chords, crisp production and super-pro rhythm section sound very dated and very L.A., but the energy and manic ideas shine through.

Buddy Holly – The Crickets 20 Golden Greats
Did I say last week that this one really needs an apostrophe in the title?

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
I love that there's a song on side two with the exact same intro as "Just Like Honey". They found a riff that worked, so why not use it twice? These guys did not give a fuck. Shameless and brilliant.

Janelle Monáe – Suites II and III: The Archandroid
All the hits are frontloaded, but it doesn't flag a bit in the second half. Solid.

OutKast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Now that Chico Dusty has met with universal praise, can we all just come out and say what we've been thinking all along but were afraid to say for fear of seeming like we just don't get it? Speakerboxxx slays Love Below.

R.E.M. – Up, IX
IX is a lot better than I expected, with a few real standout tracks. The title's still the best part, though. Get it?

Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band – Night Moves
Buckets of hits on here, plus a terrific back cover photo. I don't know who did their wardrobe, but s/he deserves some kind of special citation.

Swirlies – They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days In the Glittering World Of the Salon/Strictly East Coast Sneaky Flute Music
Is it cheating to reissue two old albums as a double-LP in order to claim the prize for longest album title? If not, then I think they passed Marnie Stern, but I'm pretty sure Fiona Apple still has them beat.

Wild Youthful Days, by the way, might be the great forgotten indie rock album of the 90s. That or August Revital. Doesn't even have their best song on it, but it's astounding start to finish. Still in print, too!

Times New Viking – Dig Yourself
I wonder if Bob Dylan's heard this record. He's on the cover, presumably without permission. I bet he'd like it.

Stevie Wonder – Looking Back
A triple album of early hits from before he even peaked, and it's still unstoppable.

Neil Young – Le Noise
I feel like this one got kinda overlooked last year, and it's his best in a long time.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 13 Feb 2011

2011-02-20T00:15:00.001-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Alien Sex Fiend – Too Much Acid?
"Totally live: no overdubs"

I have no idea if these guys are still around, but I can't imagine what else they might be doing. What else do you do if you're Nik Fiend other than make this music?

The Cure – Kiss me Kiss Me Kiss Me
Robert Smith really is such an underrated guitarist. The solo in "The Kiss" stands alongside anything by the great British rock guitarists of the sixties (Clapton, Page, Green).

The Flaming Lips – Clouds Taste Metallic

Godspeed You Black Emperor! – lift yr skinny fists like antennas to heaven
It should be "antennae", really. They're French.

Guided By Voices – Under the Bushes, Under the Stars
K— recently defended Mag Earwhig! to me by saying that this album is sonically akin to that one, and that this one really represents the first album in the next phase of GBV. Not sure how I feel about that. Perhaps I'll listen to Mag next week. I've actually been considering putting it on the block.

Buddy Holly – The Crickets 20 Golden Greats
This is the one with the cover photo of a brick wall with the graffito reading "BUDDY HOLLY LIVES". Basically all you need. Totally unstoppable.

Elvis Presley – Elvis' Worldwide 50 Gold Award Hits, Vol. 1
I challenge anyone who says Elvis's greatness began and ended in '56 to listen to this and try to resist "Little Sister", "Kissin' Cousins" and "If I Can Dream". And like a dozen others. Elvis rules.

Primal Scream – Vanishing Point
One of the weird things about being a fan of both vinyl and experimental electronic music is that sometimes I don't know the correct speed for certain 12" singles. And I have so many that aren't marked either way. I actually own a couple of records which I honestly cannot figure out whether they are supposed to be played at 33 or 45 rpm. This album is clearly labeled as a 33 rpm pressing. It's right there on the record label. And it's a 45. Fuck you guys.

Prince and the Revolution – Around the World In a Day
A lot of people don't realise that there's actually a Prince song called "Paisley Park". It's not just his label/studio name. These people also, for obvious reasons, don't realise that it's a seriously awesome song. Their loss.

Linda Ronstadt – Greatest Hits
Her vocal performance on "Different Drum" is so sexy it hurts. Have you seen photos of her in the 70s? So hott. Think about this: at one point Jerry Brown was the governer of California and he was banging Linda Ronstadt. Simultaneously. What have you achieved in your life?

Spacemen 3 – The Perfect Prescription

Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies
Off topic, but I just scored a copy of Pure Phase and I'm thrilled. Actually, I got an email alert saying somebody had posted a copy on GEMM and I ordered it right away, but a few more have come up since, so I think it may have just been reissued. About time.

Van Halen II
Not a great album overall, but it has "Dance the Night Away" on it, so the whole thing's worth it.

The Who – Live At Leeds

Neil Young – On the Beach

Zoroaster – Matador

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 6 Feb 2011

2011-02-09T22:09:00.003-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond

Dirty Three – She Has No Strings Apollo
I remembered this one being not so great, but I had never listened to it much, so I pulled it out. Yeah, not that great. The songs don't really go anywhere, and a lot of the performances just feel really uninspired.

Explosions In the Sky – The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
The new one comes out in April, and I've got high hopes even though the last one was kinda weak. This one remains their masterpiece, the only one on which they found their own sound and mined it for all it was worth.

Guided By Voices – Crying Your Knife Away
Where the fuck is Mike Hummel?

Jimi Hendrix – The Cry Of Love
The frustrating thing about Hendrix is that his best work was the stuff he really worked over in the studio, adding layer after layer of psychedelic effects. The outtakes just don't cut it because, after you've listened to Ladyland enough times (properly altered), everything else just sounds unfinished.

Iron Maiden – Powerslave, Somewhere In Time
So the other night after the Super Bowl party B— and his new girlfriend Br— stuck around late after the game to rip a few more beers before hitting the road. At one point someone asked the time and I looked at my watch and it said 23:58 so I said, "Almost midnight. Two minutes to midnight, actually." Then I realised what I'd just said and was like, "Yo, do we need to listen to "Two Minutes To Midnight" by Maiden right now?" and Br— was like "Hell yeah." So I ran down and grabbed Somewhere, ran back up and realised it was the wrong record, then ran back down and grabbed Powerslave and we rocked out. The next day, since I'd already brought it up anyway, I listened to Somewhere while tidying the house.

Maiden rules.

Kool Keith – Matthew
Keith must have been going through some really bad shit with his label when he made this one, because all the lyrics are really pissed-off rants about the music industry. But whereas the similar stuff on First Come is much funnier, here he just sounds angry. Decent record, but the attitude kinda wears you out as a listener.

Kyuss – Welcome To Sky Valley
P— and I were talking about this record at work the other day, and we agreed that it transcends love of the band or even genre: every household really needs to have a copy of Sky Valley. It's just necessary.

Lightning Bolt – Hypermagic Mountain
Probably the weakest Bolt record (although I've never heard the first one with the vocalist from Black Dice), and it's still pretty strong. Are these guys even capable of making a bad record?

Led Zeppelin – [runes], aka IV
I went to see Green Hornet in 3D the other day. Yeah, yeah, I know. Is being a Gondry completist a valid excuse? Anyway, after the regular trailers the screen told me to put on my glasses and then they showed the 3D trailers. The first one was for some weird teenage-chicks-kicking-fantasy-monster-ass movie called Sucker Punch, and the trailer opened with "When the Levee Breaks". Then the next two were for Thor and something else I can't remember, and they both had an "original" score that was clearly written to sound like "Kashmir" without having to pay rights. Don't know what this means, really.

Some great songs on this album, but too much filler for it to really be their best.

Meat Puppets – "Huevos", Monsters
I know the first couple Pups records are supposed to be the keepers, but I think these two are awesome. Monsters in particular is wildly underrated; so many great tracks on here.

Do you think the quotation marks in the title of "Huevos" are an intentional reference to Bowie's "Heroes"?

Charles Mingus – New Tijuana Moods

OutKast – Stankonia
Still haven't picked up the Big Boi record yet. Yet.

Pink Floyd – A Nice Pair
Cheapo repackaging of their first two records, complete with naughty cover art to complete the titular pun. I just got a copy of Clinton Heylin's book about Sgt. Pepper's in which he apparently argues that Piper is more historically important that Pepper's. Looking forward to reading it. I really like the contrarian revisionist streak Heylin's been mining recently. Check out Babylon's Burning to see what aspects of accepted punk history he thinks are bullshit. Long, but a good read.

Sparks – No. 1 In Heaven
I went through a phase a few years ago where I was listening to this record obsessively, several times a day, back to back to back. Completely addictive record. I love that these guys didn't just a make a token disco record, they went through a several-album-long disco phase.

The Stone Roses

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 30 Jan 2011

2011-02-04T23:55:00.002-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

The Beatles – Early Years (1), Please Please Me, Hey Jude
Just started reading the Bob Spitz bio from a few years back, so I'll be going through a lot of these in the next few weeks. I had the weirdest revelation looking through my Beatles records the other day: I don't have a copy of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" on any album. I don't even know what it's on, other than probably the red album. WTF?

Catching Up With Depeche Mode

The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Just had occasion to listen to "Do You Realize?" a bunch of times in a row the other day. Brilliant single, but I think the rest of the album's a little overrated. Some interesting arrangements by Drozd, but Coyne kinda phoned a lot of this one in.

Fleetwoof Mac – Tusk
Has a strong cult following that considers it some sort of misunderstood masterpiece (including, but not limited to, members of Camper Van Beethoven), but I'm not buying it. This is just a self-indulgent mess.

Ghost – Lama Rabi Rabi

The Housemartins – London o Hull 4
I love that a jangle pop band with overtly communist lyrics and a gay lead singer titled their debut record with a reference to a soccer rivalry. Ah, England.

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
Gave this one another shot since it made just about everybody's year-end top ten list, but I'm still not convinced. This is just not a great album, and this is coming from a thirty-something ex-New Yorker aging-hipster-type, clearly Murphy's primary demographic. Weak year overall for critic-oriented records, sure, but still. The first two are better.

Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Please, please, please let this actual-singing by metal bands catch on and become a new trend. I just don't know how many more four-band bills I can sit through with one doom-growler after another. This could be the album that helps metal reinvent itself for the new decade, and I really hope it is. Oh, also, sick riffs, sick drumming. Just a fantastic album all around, one of my favourites of the past several years in any genre.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – I See a Darkness
Why the fuck is my copy of this record so worn out? Did I really listen to it that much? Do I need to just break down and find another copy? The title track is so crucial, and it's really quiet and thus highly susceptible to vinyl wear. Best lyrics about platonic friendship-love between two men ever written.

Pink Floyd – Meddle

Santogold
I bought this because the wife really liked the single, but I put it on the other day and she didn't comment. Wonder if she recognised it, or if its appeal has faded already. Whatever, I think it's holding up quite nicely.

Saviours – Into Abbadon

Public Image Ltd. – Second Edition
Every time I've ever gone into the studio with a band in which I'm playing bass, I always tell the recording engineer I want my bass to sound like the second PiL record, even when it's completely inappropriate to the music. Most of the time they have no idea what I'm talking about. What a damn shame. Look, if you're an engineer and you're reading this, go listen to this album right now. Now. Now. Pay attention to the bass.

Silver Jews – American Water
I've been listening to a lot of Stones records lately, and I think Jagger's a terrific, underappreciated and really under-examined lyricist. Keef thinks so too, based on what I read in his new book. His lyrics seem simple and obvious, and I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean like they seem to have just been born with the song, like they're perfect and nothing else would fit there, so natural. When I listen to them, I think, "Man, I wish I could write like that."

On the other hand, when I listen to the Jews, I don't think that at all, because I could never, ever write like that. Instead, I think, "Man, I wish my brain worked that way."

Smog – Wild Love
Oh Prince, you are so alone...

TV On the Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
I really hope these guys don't stay on haitus too long. Indie rock needs them. Needs more of them and fewer Arcade Fire knockoffs.

Terrific title, by the way.

The Velvet Underground – The Quine Tapes
Sundazed Records really deserve a special Congressional commendation for releasing this set on vinyl. I know it's $100, and that's a pretty penny, but this is truly a valuable public service.

You can talk all you want about how much more avant garde they were with Cale in the band, but this phase is where they peaked as a live act. Even the 17 minutes of "Follow the Leader", which is barely even a song, are awesome.

The Yes Album

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 23 Jan 2011

2011-01-26T23:10:00.002-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Bad Brains
It's amazing how fierce this sounds. It's thirty years old this year. The Brains top my list of bands I would go back and see in their prime if I had a time machine.

The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
Finally brought this one back to the house after a long and successful run as a going-to-bed favourite at the apartment. One of my current I'll-preorder-anything-they-put-out bands, and that list gets shorter all the time.

Bee Gees' 1^st

Dom – Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP

Envy – Insomniac Doze

Guided By Voices – Jellyfish Reflector
I love live GBV recordings from this era. It's amazing to listen to a show from start to finish and see how they seem to get tighter and more in tune as they get drunker.

Krallice

Lightning Bolt – Ride the Skies

Franz Liszt – Eine Faust-Symphonie (Leonard Bernstein, Conductor)

Nirvana – Nevermind
This is the 2008 European reissue from Universal's "Back To Black" vinyl series. I got it to replace my 2009 Simply Vinyl issue because I read that the mastering's better (and because I have the "Back To Black" edition of In Utero and it's awesome), but I wound up keeping both. Why? The Simply Vinly one has "Endless Nameless" on it; the Universal one doesn't.

But the Simply Vinyl one doesn't have "Lithium". This makes no sense whatsoever. I understand why "Elephant Stone"'s not on the recent The Stone Roses reissue; it wasn't on the original UK version, and that's the real album. But what version of Nevermind ever came out without "Lithium"? If it wasn't on early European issues then I've never seen one.

To make things weirder, Simply Vinyl's done more than one pressing of the album, and some of them have "Lithium". Was this a mistake? Anyway, I have the song now on the Universal version. Oh well, whatever, never mind.

R.E.M. Live
For a contract-closing greatest-hits-live album with little or no surprises in the setlist, this one's actually pretty good, assuming you like recent R.E.M., which I do. Live albums seem especially unnecessary from bands that don't improvise much, but here the band is tight and energetic, and the appreciative crowd really adds a lot.

Interesting note about buying R.E.M. albums: generally speaking, if you want stuff on vinyl, nowadays you have to buy it within a year or two of its release (or in the case of certain very annoying metal labels, within about a month). The market is resilient but small, and very little catalogue is kept in print. Once the album is gone, its value rises on the used market and you have to pay more for it.

Not so with R.E.M. While their core fan base remains loyal, demand for their work on vinyl must be pretty minimal, because they're the only band I can think of whose vinyl tends to devalue over time on the used marketplace. New releases can be quite expensive, but if you're willing to wait about two years, R.E.M. records can usually be had for two-thirds to a half of their original retail value. Peter Buck, a known collector, weeps, I'm sure.

But hey, works for me. Their more recent monster live set (also, curiously, recorded in Dublin) was about $90 retail when it first came out, but I've seen it hovering in the mid-$50s recently. I'll probably pick it up soon enough.

The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, Exile On Main Street
Just about done with the Keef book. Not bad, not great, too long. Kind of worth sticking it out because the parts about what a douchebag Mick is are all towards the end, and they're pretty funny. Actually, scratch that, Keef's assessment of Mick's solo work is downright hilarious.

It's weird, Keef (predictably) goes on about how awesome Exile is, as he's been doing for years. Most of the Stones diehards I know consider that album to be Keef's triumph. And Mick's expressed some skepticism about its greatness over the years. But after reading this Ben Ratliff piece, written on the occasion of the album's recent re-re-(re-?)issue, it starts to sound more and more like Mick is the one who really holds this one together. As strong as the material and overall momentum are, the individual arrangements can be pretty meandering. When I listen closely to "Shine a Light" it sounds disorganised and underrehearsed, like everyone's kind of soloing at once. But it doesn't sound that way to the casual listener, and I think it's Mick's powerful performance that pulls it together and makes it sound like everyone's on the same page. There's a bunch of songs like that on there.

Of course, what makes the album truly great is that this debate could go back and forth for days. Everyone does a great job here, and it all just happens to fit together just right. You can't make an album this perfect on purpose; it just happens.

Run-D.M.C. – Raising Hell

Roni Size/Reprazent – New Forms
Once jungle started turning into drum'n'bass on its way to IDM, everybody had to make their double-CD magnum opus. And of course it has to get stretched out on vinyl to about a song a side. New Forms checks in at nine records, all 45 rpm, most of them two songs each. Was this necessary? Were DJs really going to buy this set, or were they going to buy the 2x12" set of "Brown Paper Bag" remixes? I'm going with the latter here.

This was a point in the development of the style when a lot of artists were talking about making music for listening and/instead of dancing. Lots of talk of "from the dancefloor to the living room", lots of invoking jazz as an inspiration in a very non-specific manner (as in, I never read interviews where dudes were like, yeah, early 70s Miles, "On the Corner", that's my jam). So if that's the case, why not format the vinyl for the listener rather than the DJ? Even a double CD could fit easily on four records at the most, maybe even three.

Sonic Youth – Sister, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star
So psyched that Sonic's 80s LPs are all getting reissued, finally. So psyched that my Sister's on black vinyl (the purple's actually more expensive!). A little bummed that it's the censored cover art with no Mickey Mouse, but I guess Disney's lawyers don't miss a trick.

Listening to Sister has been an interesting experience, because I hadn't heard it in many years. I always thought of it as Sonic's first accessible, sort-of-approaching-pop album. But that's mostly because what stuck in my head through the years were the vocal melodies in songs like "Schizophrenia", "Cotton Crown" and especially "Tuff Gnarl". But when you go back and listen to it, the guitar sounds are still really harsh. "Stereo Sanctity", for instance, barely even has any notes in it, just rhythmic noise. Even an anthem like "Tuff" devolves into an atonal noise jam that must have been off-putting to all but the most open-minded listeners back in 1987.

Still, it's the balance that makes this one such an important breakthrough. Just when the noise starts getting you down, another great vocal melody cuts through to pull you back up.

Justin Timberlake – Futuresex/Lovesounds
Look, say what you will about Will.I.Am; I like a few of the BEP's pop hits, but not enough to passionately defend them from the legions of haters out there. They're not that bad, but I could take or leave 'em. But the guy's got some terrific production work for other artists on his resumé. "Damn Girl" sticks out like a sore thumb on this record, mostly because of the organic drum sample contrasted against Timbaland's plastic-sounding rhythm machines on all the other tracks, and it's terrific. Shoulda been a hit. Definitely shoulda been picked as a single over "What Goes Around".

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
OK, first things first: yes, it's that good, believe the hype, etc. The occasionally juvenile and vulgar lyrics (sorry, I'm old) can't hope to derail the majestic production here. It's amazingly solid start to finish, and doesn't even flag toward the end.

Now that we've covered the music: this is probably the worst vinyl mastering job I've ever heard. Right from the start, when the third layer of vocals comes in in the opening seconds, it sounds like there's a chunk of lint the size of a golf ball on my stylus. It sounds like it got mastered for CD in classic loudness war fashion, and that version just got pressed to vinyl. This is, and I can't say this firmly enough, unacceptable.

One of the reasons vinyl has grown so expensive in the past ten years is that albums have to be mastered separately for the format, and with fewer copies being sold, the cost is passed on to a smaller pool of buyers. Fine, I accept this and I pay it. But if you're not going to bother doing it right, just don't put it out. Don't release a vinyl version with special packaging (which, by the way, looks fabulous), charge me the usual vinyl premium for it, and hand me a shitty-sounding copy of the music. The sound is the whole reason I'm buying this format; the elaborate packaging is just gravy.

And the worst part is I keep listening to it anyway. I can't stop myself; the music is that good! But the sound quality will probably keep me from going back to it over the years, and that sucks. I expect better from you, Kanye. Surely a guy who uses that many old-school samples can appreciate the sound of vinyl. Have you even listened to this?

03:00am Eternal

Macro Dub Infection – Volume One
I can't tell you how thrilled I was to finally find this one on vinyl. This might be the defining album of a certain musical moment in the mid-90s when electronic music and (post-)rock were discovering both dub reggae and each other at the same time. It's ostensibly a survey of the far-reaching influence of dub into all musical styles at the time, but it's really just a survey of all cutting-edge electronica and post-rock of the era. Because, let's face it, none of it was left untouched by dub.

I've actually been looking for a vinyl copy for several years now, and it's always over $30. By chance I came upon a cheap copy for sale on discogs.com from a seller called "philadelphiamusic". So I emailed them to find out if they had a storefront and it's Beautiful World, about a dozen blocks from my front door. So I went and picked it up and didn't even have to pay shipping. Score!

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 15 Jan 2011

2011-01-19T23:20:00.002-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Acetone – York Blvd.

Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Get Happy!
My fave Elvis record after the big three? This one or Blood & Chocolate. Kind of a toss-up.

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bayou Country
Such a tasty opening riff. Just four notes, but with just the right touch of discordance. Wish I could come up with something so simple and so perfect.

The Decemberists – The Hazards Of Love
It's growing on me. A little late for that now, I suppose; they've got a new one coming out soon. I may or may not buy it.

Explosions In the Sky – All Of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
Wow, so did these guys just flat run out of ideas or what? The formula was clearly wearing thin on this one, and it hasn't aged well, in case you were wondering. I guess we'll always have The Earth Is Not...

By the way, I was going to note how long it's been since they released any new material, but I looked over everything and can't find a copyright year anywhere on the packaging.

Girls – Album
They've got a new one out and I haven't heard it yet. I'll probably get it. This one holds up great so far, and I've heard good reviews for the EP.

Led Zeppelin – Physical Grafitti
Weird record. You'd think that if any act from their generation had what it took to sustain a killer double album it'd be these guys, but this thing is a mess. The first record is awesome, and even includes one of their few extended blues jams that I actually like ("In My Time Of Dying"). The second record is a mess; every track sounds underdeveloped and half-baked. Really, considering the roll they were on at the the time this should have been a pantheon double, we're talking Exile-level greatness, and they blew it in such a strange way.

Charles Mingus – Mingus At the Bohemia

Mogwai – Young Team
Hadn't listened to this one in a while. Awesome. Interesting to note how many songs I recognise from seeing them every few years when they tour the States, but forgot which record they were on. They're all here. I tend to think of CODY as their masterpiece, but maybe it was this one all along.

Pavement – Westing (by musket and sextant)
I used to bag on people who said they stopped liking this band after Slanted, then invariably proceeded to reminisce about how they heard the early EPs when they first came out. I think a lot of people who might have really liked them in their heyday resented Pavement's hipster shibboleth status and never really gave the band a chance. But really, this stuff is absolutely amazing. Had I heard it before all the other stuff, would I have forever pined for the early years too? Impossible to say.

"Perfect Depth" remains my single favourite Pavement ballad, maybe favourite song overall. And "Internal K-Dart" is the best pure guitar riff Malkmus ever stumbled upon. Eat your heart out, Kurt Cobain.

Photek – Modus Operandi
Holds up better than you might remember. This seemed directionless and overblown when it first came out, and was reviewed as such, but it sounds much leaner now. This guy's stuff was all deceptively minimal. He made it sound like complex "scientific d'n'b", but it's really simple stuff with just a tricky rhythmic turn here and there to keep you on your toes. Not to go all Wes Welker on you.

The Rolling Stones, Now!, Aftermath, More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies), Sticky Fingers, Metamorphosis
Yup. Readin' the Keef book.

Souls Of Mischief – 93 'Til Infinity

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 8 Jan 2011

2011-01-13T01:17:00.001-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Ferruccio Busoni – Doktor Faust (Ferdinand Leitner, conductor)
Busoni died before completing his final work, leaving notes from which an assistant would finish it. Faust is reputed to be one of the more surprisingly minimal of the major works of this period of Italian opera, which... I don't really know anything about opera, that's just what I've read. This is intriguing, but far to dense for me to get much of an impression of after just a few listens with other things going on in the room.

Grooverider – Mysteries of Funk
I can remember reading a profile of Grooverider written by Simon Reynolds for some magazine (The Wire, maybe?) back when this album was just coming out. It was his debut after a few killer singles and a lot of hype, and Reynolds, as is his wont, was ready to anoint yet another subgenre with which to classify Grooverider and the maybe two other artists who sounded like him. Reynolds proceeded to spend a significant chunk of his given column inches explaining the subtle differences that distinguished "neurofunk" from dozens of other subgenres within the larger spectrum of drum'n'bass, seemingly spending quite a bit of energy trying to get the term to catch on. My reaction at the time was something along the lines of "Nice try, Reynolds," figuring this one would never stick.

So the other night I'm cruising eBay for lots of used DJ records, and I come across a listing for a couple dozen described as jungle, drum'n'bass, breakbeat and, wait for it...

Neurofunk. After all these years. Score one for Reynolds.

By the way, it sounds like I'm bagging on Reynolds here, but it's more like a good-natured ribbing. Let me add that Rip It Up and Start Again is one of my favourite music history books of the past few years.

Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye

Lightning Bolt – Earthly Delights

Mono – Walking cloud and deep red sky, Flag fluttered and the sun shined
This or the one after it is probably the Mono record to own. You don't need too many. Very proud of myself for resisting the urge to buy the new triple live LP.

Pavement – Wowee Zowee
Holds up nicely. No longer seems as weirdly dated as it did five years ago or so. I know that seems illogical, but back then we were in the grip of this wave of overt sincerity in indie rock, and this one just seemed so detached.

Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet
There really ought to be an apostrophe in that title. Unless they're eating beggars.

History Of Rhythm & Blues Volume 1: The Roots 1947-52
Any comp with "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" on it is OK in my book.

Headz

We Are Reasonable People

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 1 Jan 2011

2011-01-06T21:30:00.002-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Sunday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

The B-52's, Wild Planet
Just picked these up recently (at Cheapo in Cambridge), figuring I might as well check 'em out. The big singles from each ("Rock Lobster" and "Private Idaho", respectively) hold up remarkably well, both boffo new wave dance numbers that make you wanna shimmy.

But the rest of the albums didn't blow me away. I think the most surprising and disappointing aspect was how low-energy they felt, in particular the debut. These guys are supposed to be like one of the all-time great party bands, but I kinda wasn't feelin' it. Maybe I need to listen to 'em some more.

Both albums recorded in the Bahamas, incidentally. Maybe they shoulda just done a live EP in Athens to start with.

History of Eric Clapton
Pretty solid comp that stretches from the Yardbirds through the Dominoes. The Delaney & Bonnie tracks are particularly good. I think Clapton's at his best when he's in someone else's band, rather than out front. Don't get me wrong, he's got a few great solo tracks, but the overall body of work favours his sideman stuff, whether he's in a band with another frontman (Cream) or just a hired gun (Delaney & Bonnie).

What's really weird about this record is that it's a double LP with sides one and three on the first record and two and four on the second. I don't think I've seen another album like that, and it makes no sense whatsoever. You have to switch records after every side to listen to it in order. Even the more common 1-4/2-3 split makes some sense, because you can just flip the whole stack on a multi-record turntable. Heck, that Sinatra box I have is six records, and it goes 1-12/2-11/3-10/etc. But this one's ridiculous.

Culture Club – Kissing To Be Clever
The wife was a Boy George fanatic in their heydey, and has all the albums. She even has an old VHS tape on which she used to tape any and all of their TV appearances. Anyway, when I put this on she said it doesn't really hold up that well. I think I was even more disappointed than she was. I can't really say why. I hate listening to stuff I loved when I was a teenager and realising it's just mediocre.

Flying Saucer Attack – Chorus, The Third Eye Foundation – Ghost
"Feedback Song" still totally pwns, and remains FSA's finest moment.

The liner notes say it's the end of FSA Phase One. The next couple albums were indeed pretty different. Lots of drum n' bass beats. Basically sounded more like Third Eye.

Isis – Wavering Radiant
Kind of unnecessary. If you have Oceanic and Panopticon you're pretty set with these guys. Another one of those bands like Mono, where I like their general aesthetic enough to keep buying their albums, which inevitably feel extraneous upon listening.

Jay-Z – The Black Album
How come no one's ripped off this idea yet? This is basically a compilation of the dozen-or-so hottest producers in the game each contributing a track and Jigga rhyming over them. It's terrific, was an instant classic when it came out that still sounds great now, and an idea just waiting to be replicated.

John Kongos
So psyched I finally found this. I only knew the two songs the Happy Mondays covered, but the whole thing's pretty solid. Drags a little on side two, but closes strong with "He's Gonna Step On You Again".

Mastodon
Pulled out the box to listen to Leviathan. One of my daughters was pretty into it, and into headbanging in general. Maybe she'll be a metalhead.

Radiohead – OK Computer
My copy of this is pretty worn down, which is weird because I certainly own other albums I've spun more times that sound fine. It's a bummer because it's such a great album and I know I'll keep returning to it for years to come. Still, it's hard to justify dropping $25 on a new copy when this one's not that bad.

Saint Vitus – The Walking Dead EP
These guys are famous for being one of the first slow-metal bands, but I actually like the faster stuff on here. They hadn't really perfected their doom sound this early, so the slow stuff just sounds like a regular metal song played way too slow.

Sigur Rós – Međ suđ í eyrum viđ spilum endalaust
Quite a workout for the ol' character map on that one, but we pride ourselves on our accuracy here at the Shelf.

Sonic Youth – Murray Street
Holds up well. Give it a listen.

Tanner – Ill-Gotten Gains
So psyched I found this one on vinyl, and it's just as strong as it was when I used to listen to it back in the 90s. They sound like most San Diego bands from their era, but the vocals and guitar work give them a melodic edge that still sticks out. No idea why they never caught on, they were a great live act as well. I think the frontman wound up in Hot Snakes for a while. If you see this one, pick it up, it's great.

Tortoise – TNT
I always think I haven't listened to this one enough, then I throw it on once a year or so and am surprised to find that I recognise just about every song.

Grenadine – Goya
Sorry Jenny Toomey, but I'm filing this one under Unrest.

Wire – Object 47/Read & Burn 03
Wow. I can't get over how awesome last decade's Wire output was. Between this album and the three EPs (one of which is packaged together here) they didn't have a single weak release. These guys can reunite as often as they like and I'll be listening.

XTC – Go 2
This is one of those bands I always read was good but I never got around to checking them out. I knew them from their late-80s/early-90s stuff and wasn't crazy about it. So I finally got this one and... not so into it. Maybe I need to listen to it more, but I can't foresee making time for it. I've got a lot of records. The one after it's supposed to be really good, so maybe if I see that I'll pick it up.

Return Of the DJ Vol. I
Hadn't listened to this in a while. Surprised to see how many names I recognised. This really was an impressive all-star lineup.

Metalheadz Presents Platinum Breakz II

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 26 Dec 2010

2010-12-29T23:08:00.003-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Beastie Boys – Check Your Head
I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and say this might have been the defining pop album of the 1990s.

It was the last decade before the rise of iTunes, file sharing, mp3s, etc., and therefore the end of an era in which the music to which one listened functioned as a prominent self-defining factor socially. Nowadays kids listen to all kinds of music, partly because it's all free anyway if you want it, and partly because you only have to buy individual tracks, and partly because you can hear whatever you want without having to buy it first. Before that you were an indie kid, you were a hiphop head, you were a jam-band hippie, or you just listened to whatever mainstream alt-rock was on MTV that week. MTV used to play music back then.

The Beasties, specifically with this album, transcended all that. Everybody liked the Beasties. This was the album that rescued them from the fate of eternal one-hit novelty status to which their massive breakthrough album and its poorly-selling follow-up had seemingly consigned them. All of a sudden they were at the forefront of popular culture, and not just musically. I don't think any other album from the era, not even Nevermind, galvanised as wide a swath of America's youth. It wasn't some important generational statement, everybody just dug it.

Also, it holds up really well. It's a little long (a byproduct of the CD era), but remains a delight from start to finish.

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Dandelion Gum

Dan Deacon – Bromst
The best album since the first Black Sabbath album on which all the songs basically sound the same.

Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
I continue to be amazed at how much I keep returning to this album. In the last couple years I've found myself pulling this one out even more often that the old SST ones when I feel like listening to J shred. Beats out the Read & Burn EPs as best reunion album ever, and they're pretty damn good.

Fennesz – Endless Summer
Just reissued by Warp in the UK and the first time I've been able to find it on vinyl. If you can find a copy of the original issue, believe me, you're a bit more resourceful than I. Also, this version's got all the bonus tracks from the 2006 reissue.

This album stands as a terrific example of how important separate sides can be in understanding an album. First off, I'm not arguing that sonically this album is "supposed to be heard on vinyl, man"; it's clearly a CD album. But it's a difficult album, and hearing it broken up like this really helped me wrap my head around it. I had it as mp3s and could never really get into it. It's too subtle, and I would get distracted and miss a lot of detail. But just the action of having to flip the record after every few songs forces me back into it, and I've come to appreciate it on a level I never could before. If you've heard of it but never listened to it, the answer is yes, it really is a masterpiece.

The Flaming Lips – Telepathic Surgery

Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea

Saint Etienne – Foxbase Alpha
How come last year's reissues of all the early Etienne albums aren't coming out on vinyl? I've had a hell of a time trying to find a copy of Tiger Bay.

Frank Sinatra – The Sinatra Touch
You can probably guess what I'm in the middle of reading right now. Believe the hype, it's every bit as good as you've heard.

By the way, reading this over before posting I just caught a funny typo: I wrote this title as The Sinatra Tough. Frank himself would probably agree, but by most accounts that's bullshit: he was all bark and no bite, no matter what Lee Mortimer would have told you.

Squarepusher Presents Shobaleader/One – d'Demonstrator
Not sure how to categorise this one. Oh, who am I kidding, it's a Squarepusher record. But apparently he really has a "band" now. He plays bass, natch. Not sure how much creative input the other guys had on this one.

Look, God bless Jenkinson, I'll continue to buy everything he puts out for as long as he keeps releasing stuff, but it's reached a point now where every like fifth album or so is any good. Still, they're so good that I do't mind slogging through the other four or so. I've listened to this a bunch and really tried to get into it, but, to return to my old habit of drawing debatable career analogies, I think this might be his Tin Machine.

Swell Maps – A Trip To Marineville

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 12 Dec 2010

2010-12-18T02:04:00.003-05:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

I was away for the better part of a few weeks, so this is about three weeks worth of in and out of town for a day or two at a time.

Cat Power – What Would the Community Think

Cheap Trick – In Color, Heaven Tonight
Picked these up a few weeks ago at Turn It Up! in Northampton. I have a bunch of early CT records now, all pretty good but none of 'em are great. I really like the production, though. Great drum sound, great mix. A couple other observations:

The original studio version of "I Want You To Want Me" stinks. Really flacid arrangement, limp tempo, nothing like the swingin' rocker they would turn it into on Budokan. I can see why it wasn't a hit until the live version came out.

"Surrender" has a terrific chorus, but the lyrics are absolutely baffling. If you can figure out what's going on there you're one up on me.

DJ Swamp – Never Is Now
This guy makes great battle discs, but I'm not so high on his album. Too much rapping, not enough scratching.

Eluvium – Life Through Bombardment

Grand Funk Railroad – Live Album
Believe it or not, this is a concert recording. And believe it or not, there are excessive guitar solos. There's even a track with an extended drum solo. It's just full of surprises.

It's also really early, so they're still pretty young and hungry performers, but there aren't any well-known hits on here. Solid record overall.

LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
The best of a spotty three, as far as albums go. Murphy's a peerless singles artist, but his albums will probably always be a little inconsistent. Still, this one comes closest, and it's got the highest highs.

Lo Fidelity Allstars – Kool Roc Bass 12", Ghostmutt EP
I wonder how these guys would have turned out had they stuck around. The early singles were pretty strong, but half of them quit right after the first album came out, and, based on the results, the others probably shouldn't have bothered trying to press onward.

Misfits
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say best best-of-type compilation of all time. For the casual 'Fits fan, this one's really all you need. The consistently high quality here is just phenomenal.

Pretenders
This is one of those bands I always read I should like and never bothered. Their hits just never really blew me away. So I picked it up recently for a few bucks and it's terrific. I was surprised at how many songs I knew from it (I didn't know any of the titles), and by how much better they sounded in context. This is one of those bands of actual musicians that got inspired by punk, rather than artsy amateurs, and their skills really take the songs to another level. Hynde sounds tough and unapproachable, so you listen from afar in awe as she mutters "Fuck off." Awesome.

Queen – A Dat At the Races, News Of the World
I think that we as a society often underestimate the awesomeness of Queen. Yes, the first five albums are excellent, but beyond that? News is best known for its two big sports anthems (if you don't know which songs I'm talking about you probably don't know who Queen is), but have you listened to "Spread Your Wing" lately? Unstoppable.

Spank Rock – YoYoYoYoYoYo
As much as I'm strongly in favour of reforming copyright law in order to accomodate sample-based artists like Girl Talk, Spank Rock are an interesting example of how more restrictive laws can actually foster creativity. The band, inspired by a Baltimore club sound that relies heavily on flagrantly illegal sampling, had a minor underground hit with "Put That Pussy On Me", which features the unauthorised accompaniment of both the Beach Boys and Snoop Dogg. While the track appeared on this album's advance copies, it's not on the official release. And instead of pop samples, the album is full of completely original and extremely phat analogue synth riffs. Would this have happened if the band were allowed to simply sample whatever they pleased? Impossible (for me) to say, but the results are nasty. Necessity, once again, the mother of invention.

Kanye West – Late Registration
The new one hits vinyl next week. Mine's already pre-ordered. Super psyched.

Hank Williams – Country & Western Classics
A three-LP box set from... Time-Life Music! And it has everything the casual Hank fan wants.

Zola Jesus – Stridulum EP, Valusia EP

We Are Skint Sampler2 EP

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 31 Oct 2010

2010-11-04T12:57:00.003-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Black Flag – The First Four Years
Best pre-Rollins Flag singer? I'm going with Ron "Chavo" Reyes, who was with them when they filmed Declined Of Western Civilization. Sorry Dez. I think what hurts Cadena's candidacy the most is that he sings a couple of songs Henry would later sing better, especially "Damaged I".

sunn0))) & Boris – Altar
I'm filing this under Boris because I have a bunch of Boris records, and they're why I bought it, and I don't have any sunn0))) records. Not sure why I don't have any sunn0))) records. This album's awesome, by the way.

Cat Power – The Covers Record
Just got a copy of the Residents' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" single, so I pulled this and a few other records out to listen to other versions of "Satisfaction". This one's good but... do the Residents win? Close, but no. Winner below.

The Church – Gold Afternoon Fix
Not a huge Church guy. Not sure why I pulled this one out. I hadn't listened to it in years. I really like the amount of attention they pay to their guitar tone. It's different in every song. And it's subtle, not like they just crank a different effect pedal all the way up for each song. It sounds like they spend hours EQing the lead guitar for a slightly different sound to fit each song.

Having said that, their songs aren't that great, and I probably won't listen to this again for another ten years. Want it? You can have mine. Seriously.

Circle Jerks – Group Sex
Awesome. It's kind of amazing how well this album holds up. My copy's pretty worn down, but who cares? It probably sounded like shit brand new. I got on a real hardcore kick one day last week. Good times.

Devo – Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Another version of "Satisfaction". Probably the most famous, but also probably my least favourite. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome, the others are just even better. I don't think you can do a bad version of this song, it's just bulletproof.

By the way, Terry Gross interviewed Keith on Fresh Air a week or two ago and it's great. The way he interacts with her is hilarious. It's also funny hearing him talk because he's fucking Keefe, this totally raw dude, but he's gut this upper-class English public school accent.

Bob Dylan – Blood On the Tracks

Otis Redding/The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Historic Performances Recorded At the Monterey International Pop Festival
And we have a winner. Otis's cover of "Satisfaction", hands down. Everything on this record by both acts is fantastic. It turns up in used shop all the time for like five bucks. If you see a copy, do yourself a favour.

Hüsker Dü – Zen Arcade
I hadn't listened to this in a while and was surprised at how well I remember every song. I think I used to listen to this a lot in high school. I'm not sure I really loved it so much as I was in awe of it and really respected it, but it scared the shit out of me, and I think sometimes I was forcing myself to listen to it. Does that make sense? What the fuck, I was a kid.

By the way, the difference in sound between the CD and the record is immeasurable. I had the CD in high school, and it sounds like shit. The record is so much better. It's still in print, too. You can order it from SST for like $15.

Minutemen – Double Nickels On the Dime
There's a great story about the sequencing of this record in the 33¹/₃ book about it (which, by the way, is one of the best in the series). Supposedly they each took a side, then held a fantasy draft where they took turns picking songs for their side. The leftover stuff went on side four (labeled "side chaff"). Then they put the songs in the order they were picked, figuring the better songs should be toward the outside of the record because the grooves sound better there. Cute story, but "History Lesson - Part II" and "This Ain't No Picnic" are both near the end of their respective sides, so I'm not sure it's entirely true. In the book, Mike Watt makes a big deal about how the other two couldn't believe George Hurley picked "You Need the Glory" first, because the other two thought it was just a throwaway. All the stuff on George's side is kinda weird. George is kinda weird.

The Ramones – Leave Home

The Rolling Stones – Hot Rocks 1964-1971
Had an urge to listen to "Jumping Jack Flash" after listening to that aforementioned Richards interview. Great arpeggiated guitar riff in the chorus.

Frank Sinatra – The Sinatra Touch

Sly & the Family Stone – Dance To the Music

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 24 Oct 2010

2010-10-29T23:53:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Ozzy Osbourne – No Rest For the Wicked
This is his first one with Zakk Wylde, his best guitarist since Randy Rhoads. It's not a great album overall, but it opens with "Miracle Man", one of my favourite Ozzy songs. Also one of my favourite public feud dis-tracks, a nyah-nyah at long-time Ozzy naysayer Jimmy Swaggart after the preacher-man got busted with a prostitute. Sick talk-box work by Wylde here.

Bowery Electric

The Flaming Lips – Embryonic

The Third Eye Foundation – You Guys Kill Me
I'm not sure if I should really be filing this guy's stuff with Flying Saucer Attack, because I'm not sure he was really a full-fledged member. They were always pretty vague about their membership.

The cover, by the way, is hysterical. It's a medieval-looking portrait of Jesus. Read the album title again. Get it?

The Grateful Dead – Anthem Of the Sun
I listened to this one repeatedly last week, and it's awesome. Maybe my favourite thing the Dead ever did, and I've listened to a lot of those hallowed boots. This one has a reputation as being one of the ones Deadheads don't really like, because it's early, dark psychedelia, before the band became good-timey hippie jam rock. Maybe that's why I love it.

Robert Pollard – Not In My Airforce
This album holds up so well, and almost justifies Pollard's arrogant belief that he and he alone was the Voices, and everyone else in the band was just along for his ride. I'd rank this right alongside the big three.

On the other hand... I'm still really looking forward to the classic lineup reunion tour, because the drop-off in quality of GBV albums after he fired them all is palpable.

Howard Jones – Human's Lib
The wife's copy; I had it on cassette. One of the first tapes I owned. I can remember him "performing" "Pearl In the Shell" on Top Of the Pops when he played the lone snare drum at the beginning.

I think Jones is underrated and unjustly lumped in with other one-hit synth-Brits from his era. Talented songwriter, played all the instruments on his records, had at least a half-dozen hits over two albums, definitely more than just one. In fact, I think if you were to argue that he's just a one hit wonder, you'd have a hard time nailing down which one is supposed to be his one hit.

Janelle Monáe – The Archandroid: Suites II & III
This one's worth buying for the liner notes alone, which explain that Monáe is a time-traveler who escaped from a future mental hospital. No kidding. OK, the music's awesome too.

Pink Floyd – The Final Cut
Both Kurt Loder and Chris Ott think this might be the band's best album. Might be the only thing they agree on. Definitely the most overlooked of their prime.

Radiohead – Kid A
Definitely their Zooropa. That's a complement.

The Residents Present the Third Reich 'n Roll, Fingerprince
I think it means something that the Residents, Negativland and Kid 606 all come from San Francisco, I just can't figure out what. Third Reich is definitely the spiritual precursor to all things Girl Talk/2 Many DJs, and I mean that in both a good and bad way. If you love mash-up culture, you'll love it, or at least be morbidly fascinated by it. If you hate that shit, you'll probably hate Third Reich. Nothing wrong with that. It's not for everyone. I love that shit, and I think this album is genius. If you asked me to rank my favourite albums of the 1970s, this one probably makes the top ten these days.

Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band – Live Bullet
This is probably Seger's biggest selling album, and it contains none of his hits. Oddly enough, this one was the big breakout that made him a star, after which he recorded classics like Night Moves and Stranger In This Town. That's how you did it in the 70s: made your reputation as a live act, then built on that with record sales. In a way, this album is akin to Frampton Comes Alive, except that it's awesome. Have you listened to Comes Alive lately? Doesn't really hold up. Live Bullet does.

Smog – Red Apple Falls
I was never a huge Smog fan, but I have like three or four of his albums. This one's nice and quiet, good for putting the girls to bed. I don't think they'd be so into the earlier ones, but those are the ones I really like. Can you read a bedtime story to your kids while listening to "Prince Alone In the Studio" or "Your Wedding"?

Sparks – Big Beat
As much as I love this band, I can't hum you a single song off this album, and I just listened to it last week. It's not bad, just kind of forgettable. Maybe that's worse than being bad.

Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On the Edge Of Town
So the big retrospective box set commemorating the release of this album is set to come out this month or something. Just in time for the holidays, I guess. I always thought of this as lesser Bruce, maybe his first not-so-great album, but popular opinion seems to face very much in the opposite direction.

The basic story is that Bruce hooked up with Jon Landau (Mr. "I have seen the future of rock..." himself) and decided to break with his old manager. Legal shenanigans ensued and Bruce didn't release a new album for three years. When he re-emerged, Darkness was the new Bruce: shorter songs, more fully realised working class hero persona.

I used to leave the inner sleeves on my records turned up, so they had to be slid out in order to access the record. At one point, I came around to the idea of inserting them sideways, so the record can be slid out without the sleeve coming out. If a record on the Shelf has the sleeve turned up, it means I haven't listened to it in a long time. Darkness is one such record. I think I bought it, listened to it a couple times and dismissed it. So obviously it's due at the very least for a reappraisal.

It's definitely better than I remember, a strong record, but I still can't help but think of it as a negative turning point, the album where Bruce became "BROOOCE!", a parody of himself. The songwriting just seems so less ambitious that that on E Street Shuffle.

And so after several listens this week, I still reach the conclusion that it doesn't touch the first three. I understand he wrote something like seventy songs in order to whittle it down to these ten, and the box set will have demos of all those other songs. Yes, I'm intrigued, but if dreck like "Candy's Room" and "Factory" made the final cut, are the outtakes really gonna be that good?

Of course I'm gonna find out. It's Bruce. I'm a sucker.

Stevie Wonder – Songs In the Key Of Life
My copy is really worn out and I'm super bummed about that. It still has a $10 price tag on it, and when am I gonna find another copy that cheap with the booklet and the seven-inch?

Neil Young – Young Man's Fancy
Bootleg of a solo live show frok 1971. Utterly amazing. This record's so good I can't even write about it. This post is going up late because it took me forever to tackle that Springsteen record, but this one I'm not even gonna try. Neil was fucking untouchable in this era.

Zola Jesus – Valusia EP
What the fuck are you waiting for? Yes, it's that good!

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 17 Oct 2010

2010-10-21T14:32:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Acetone
The death of Kurt Cobain hit me pretty hard because it happened when I was still a teenager. But I think in hindsight the rock suicide that bums me out the most to this day is Richie Lee. I don't know anything about the guy, but it just seems so random.

Also, why isn't Mark Lightcap still making music? Most underrated guitarist ever that I can think of offhand right now.

Tim Buckley – Happy Sad

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
Can't beat those first few notes. As iconic an opening as "London Calling".

Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline

Failure – Fantastic Planet
I call bullshit on this one.

In a blog post on the Voice's website a few weeks ago, some writer listed ten alternative bands from the 90s that still haven't reunited, and included these guys. The name rang a bell, but I couldn't remember ever hearing their music. Apparently they were a space rock band.

So I looked up this album, reputed to be their masterpiece, and lo and behold, it was reissued on vinyl about six months ago. So I ordered it sight unseen.

A quick note in advance to any of this band's defenders who might be tempted to post a spirited flurry of you-don't-get-it-mans in the comment section: I did listen to it more than once. And it still stinks.

Who decided that this music is space rock? I've actually read that description in more than one place, and you have to be kidding me. There are a couple of points on the album when they just turn on all their guitar pedals for about a minute between songs, but otherwise this is just third-rate post-Nirvana also-ran grunge. Right down to the asinine non-sequiteur titles like "Sergeant Politeness" (so 90s, right?). And it blows. And they're from LA and sound like it.

I don't even think I would have liked this band when I was in college, and I fell for a lot of alt-rock crap back then. But even in those days I could tell that Dig stunk.

So fine, I got fooled by the hype. It happens. It's not gonna stop me from buying albums without hearing them first, that's just too much fun. I will not, however, be buying any further Failure LPs. And if anybody wants this one it's in like-new condition, only been played a few times.

Carole King – Tapestry
The wife's stepmother was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually own a couple albums that she (a) has heard of and (b) likes.

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Still trying. I think I need to sit and listen to it start to finish with the lyric sheet.

She gave an interview to somebody a while back where she shit-talked a bunch of more mainstream acts. It was unexpected and pretty funny. She called Lady Gaga "Arty Spice", which I thought was a pretty good line.

Will Oldham – Joya, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – I See a Darkness
I never realised how much I used to listen to it, but my copy of Darkness is worn out almost to the point of being unlistenable. I might need to get another copy for the sake of the title track alone.

Also, I file all of his albums under Oldham, despite the fact that I think Joya is the only one he's released under that name. Should they be under P? B? Separate? Definitely not separate.

Sigur Ròs – ()

Spiritualized – Let It Come Down
I may have mentioned this before, but I think this one is really J Spaceman's masterpiece. I know most people will say Ladies and Gentlemen, and certainly that's a fantastic album, but I think this one as has more assured songwriting and more confident arrangements. Really, there's not a low point anywhere on this record.

Neil Young – Harvest

Zola Jesus – The Spoils, Valusia, LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus
Yes, the new EP is in fact every bit as awesome as you thought I was going to say it is. She is just unstoppable right now. I think the next full-length blows up. Seriously.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 10 Oct 2010

2010-10-14T01:22:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star
Had a house guest who was raving about a Talib Kweli show she saw recently. I was psyched to pull this one out. She was psyched I had it. Ah ,the Shelf.

Boris – Pink

David Bowie – Aladdin Sane

Broadcast – Work and Non Work
This was the one I bought based upon their initial media hype. Better than I remember. The rock crit shorthand on them at the time was Stereolab melodies with Portishead beats, which still doesn't jibe. The beats just aren't there, at least on this record. As for the Stereolab part...

My initial assessment was that this was a band that was doomed to be labeled Stereolab knockoffs simply because not enough people had heard Pram to realise that they're actually Pram knockoffs. I understand now that this is kind of unfair, as they don't display the same Theremin fetishism that marks Pram's signature sound. Still, this stuff doesn't knock me out.

Tim Buckley – Blue Afternoon
Even on his lesser efforts this guy can slay angels with that voice.

John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman

The Flaming Lips – In a Priest Driven Ambulance

Land Of the Loops – Bundle Of Joy
So I'm changing my daughter the other day and I notice she's wearing a onesie that says "bundle of joy" on it. And I think, "Y'know, I've got a record called that." So I listened to it. Fun little album. More Stereolab influence, if you're into that. With the beats to match this time.

Led Zeppelin II

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Interesting to note that this album had, at the time, an analagous cultural effect to that of the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. It briefly brought bluegrass music into the mainstream by highlighting some of its brightest lights, who promptly receded back into the shadows as soon as the hype died away.

Still, the band were respectful enough that they downplayed their own name on the album packaging, simply listing themselves alongside the Nashville luminaries they had invited as guest performers. This was a big deal at the time, as plenty of California country-rock acts were getting back to their alleged "roots" in the wake of the success of the Byrds Sweetheart Of the Rodeo album. These guys went and found the originators and dragged them into the harsh light of the mainstream. They waved politely, played a few numbers, and retreated.

Prince – Controversy, Around the World In a Day, Lovesexy
I threw on Around the other day when we had company over for dinner. D–, it turns out is a big Prince fan, and when I asked if anyone had any requests for the stereo as the Wife served up dessert, he asked whether I had a few other items from the deep catalogue. Naturally, I was more than happy to oblige.

R.E.M. – Out Of Time
This one came up primarily because "Losing My Religion" was featured on Glee last week. Not one of R.E.M.'s better records, in my opinion, but I don't want to get to into that now because I'd like to do a full review of their career á la my Neil Young series on of these days.

Meet the Residents, Duck Stab/Buster & Glen
Yes, I read a Residents biography this week. The Ian Shirley one, which is the only one of which I'm aware of the existence. A bit thin, primarily because he doesn't speak to any of the actual notoriously anonymous Residents themselves, but I think he unwittingly unmasks them anyways. I mean, come on, their sound engineer? That has to be one one of them right?

The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
Still my favourite Stones LP, primarily because of Jagger's vocal melodies. "Sway" and "Dead Flowers" are particularly unstoppable. Seriously, this guy could have been in Big Star.

Sigur Ros – Međ suđ i eyrum viđ spilum endalaust, Jónsi – Go
I just got the Jónsi album last week, and it made me want to reëvaluate the last Sigur Ros LP. Both are excellent. I think I dismissed the Sigur Ros one based on the single, which is different from their previous stuff, and I respect that blahblahblah, but not as good. Upon further review, most of the tracks hew to the signature sound. I hate to sound like one of those I-like-their-old-stuff-better blowhards, but that's really what they do best.

The Jónsi record, on the other hand, is where he does a terrific job of taking the band's signature sound and pushing it in interesting new directions. Is his solo work the better bet for the future here? I hope not. I like bands.

Morrissey – Vauxhall and I
The argument over best lyricist of all time is one of the few closed debates: it's Dylan, like it or not. The argument over second best is wide open. Stephin Merritt and I would like to nominate Morrissey.

You are well within your rights to hate Morrissey. I used to dislike his solo work, but excused my love of the Smiths based on the terrific guitar work of Johnny Marr. No sense kidding myself anymore: Morrissey is a genius. And I really think that, Dylan excepted, he's the greatest rock lyricist of all time.

I hadn't really considered him that way until Merritt referred to him as such in a New York Times piece around the time that Mozza's comeback album came out a few years ago. Merritt called him out for setting his undeniable lyrics against a backdrop of hackneyed, unimaginative music.

Here, Merritt and I disagree. I think that Morrissey has always been conscious of avoiding trends in popular music in the service of making his music sound timeless. Think about it: of all their contemporaries, the Smiths sound the least like an 80s band.

But the praise holds up: Morrissey is an absolutely brilliant lyricist. The key, which I didn't understand for so many years, is this: it's supposed to be funny.

I could go on, and on of these days I will.

Spacemen 3 – Sound Of Confusion, The Perfect Perscription
I've been waiting so long for these to get reissued. Taang! was supposed to put them out last March but it never happened. So apparently Fire stepped up and filled a massive void on the Shelf.

Stereolab – Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
A hard-fought eBay find inspired by Doug Wolk's essay in this book.

Iggy and the Stooges – Raw Power
I pulled this one out because the Spacemen cover "Little Doll" on their first one, which the Wife recognised while I was playing it. Of course, she recognised it as a Sisters of Mercy song, but that happens a lot, or used to before I began setting her straight. That song's not even on here, by the way, but it's the only Stooges record I have, so I figured I'd play it anyway.

Swell Maps – Sweep the Desert
Inarguably the greatest shitty band of all time. I mean, all of their music is mildly crappy, but it's all joyous enough that it ranges from acceptable to awesome. As a result, they have a ton of cheapo outtake comps, and they're all pretty good. This is one of them.

Neil Young & the Bluenotes – This Note's For You
Holds up remarkably well. I mean, this album has no business being even halfway good, and it's excellent.

Zoroaster – Matador
I came to a sad realisation when I saw these guys a few weeks ago at the Knit in Brooklyn: I'm over doom. I'm just over it. I've heard enough slow power chords and growled vocals for now. I said this to P— when we were hanging out outside between bands. To get me going nowadays, a metal band needs to either really sing (which is why Crack the Skye is my favourite metal record of the last five years at least) or boogie, like the west coast stoner rock bands of about ten years ago. Nebula, where art thou? Then these guys came on and played doom with a funky drummer. That's all it takes. I bought their record, and I like it.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 3 Oct 2010

2010-10-06T16:55:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Bad Brains – I Against I

Clinic – Internal Wrangler
Japan's a weird place to go record shopping. It's also an awesome place, with a seemingly bottomless selection, but I'm talking about price here. Most stuff is comparably priced to the US used market, some a little more, some a little less. But if you look through the bargain bin at any shop (and they all have one), you come across stuff that's way undervalued for no clear reason.

I found the first two Clinic records for the equivalent of about $3 each. I actually found their first three, but I didn't buy the third. Why? No idea. I guess Clinic just never caught on over there. Maybe they never toured the far east (Far East?).

The Decemberists – The Hazards Of Love
Not sure why I'm not head-over-heels for this one. I think Meloy's a terrific songwriter, and I love the conceit of the album-length story, the songs flowing together, etc. I just think the individual songs aren't his finest work. Sometimes it seems like the lyrics are being forced into measures and melody lines where they don't quite fit, which I suspect may be the result of trying to make the story hang together. Still, solid enough to hold up to multiple listens, just not enough to keep me yearning for more every time.

Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home
I realise that it's total filler, but "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" is one of my all-time favourite Dylan tracks. Great performance by the band, and some of the punchlines in the lyrics never get old. I think it just shows that in this period Dylan was so on-fire as a writer that even his tossed off afterthoughts are brilliant.

Fugazi – The Argument
I was never wild about Fugazi in their heyday, and I regret that now. I never saw tham live, and they probably top my bummer list of acts I actually could have seen (unlike, say, Hendrix). Them or the Grateful Dead.

Guns N' Roses – Use Your Illusion I
At our fantasy football draft a few weeks back we listened to Dr. Dre's The Chronic in its entirety for, for me anyway, the first time in many years. The music holds up remarkably well, but what really struck me was the appalling misogyny of the lyrics. I really don't think hip-hop is nearly as bad now, as a whole, as it was twenty years ago in that regard. One would expect something like that to grow steadily worse, but it hasn't. Sure, most of my favourite hip-hop albums of the past few years have their token explicit sex rhyme, but it's not nearly as bad as "Bitches Ain't Shit". Even the Ying Yang Twins' (admittedly awesome) "Wait" was shocking when it came out precisely because we don't hear lyrics that explicit as often as we used to. And I don't think that track would have cause nearly as much of a stir had it come out ten years earlier; it would merely have been one of many.

I felt the same way listening to "Back Off Bitch" which, it bears mentioning, is musically excellent, with top-notch lead guitar work. But the lyrics are just awful, in a way that, again, you just don't hear these days. Of course, metal's evolved even further from this point that hip-hop, mostly because no one's written a metal song about women in the past ten years, let alone recorded one with coherent vocals.

My point is that I don't think this is just a matter of me getting older, or having daughters. I think lyrics like this are more shocking nowadays because we don't hear as much of them anymore. And not to sound like a prude, but good riddance. Of course, younger-me would tell now-me to relax and not take it so seriously, but fuck him, what did he know anyway?

Jesu – Conqueror
Makes great bedtime music for the girls, but only when Mommy's not around to complain about it.

Henry Kaiser – Those Who Know History Are Doomed To Repeat It
Not only did Henry Kaiser record a Grateful Dead cover that takes up one whole side of a record, he also got SST to release said record. Not all that surprising if you're familiar with some of the more "deep catalog" items in the SST annals, but pretty weird if you just know it as Black Flag's label.

Kaiser may have the most interesting where-are-they-now story out of any 80s American indie musician. He's a SCUBA diver doing scientific research in Antarctica. Or was as of a few years ago, when he (barely) appeared in Werner Herzog's Encounters At the End Of the World. And scored it to boot.

Love & Rockets – Seventh Dream Of a Teenage Heaven

Mercury Rev – Snowflake Midnight/Strange Attractor

The Misfits – Walk Among Us
The girls weren't as taken with this one as I expected them to be. They seemed a little agitated. Maybe in a few years they'll be more susceptible to the charms of the young Glenn Danzig.

By the way, if you haven't read "Henry + Glenn Forever" yet, go buy a copy before Danzig sues it out of print.

Out Hud – Let Us Never Speak Of It Again

Rage Against the Machine – Renegades
I was never into these guys in their heyday, but I bought this one on a whim when it came out after hearing the lead single and kind of liking it. It's their covers album, and was released shortly after they broke up. I hadn't listened to it in a while, and it's not much different than I remember: great song selection, inconsistent execution. Still, enough high points to make it worth a listen every few years or so.

Royksopp – Melody A.M.
The first time I listened to this I was surprised to hear a commercial jingle on side four. The GEICO ad where the caveman is on one of those moving walkways in an airport.

Underworld – Oblivion With Bells
Meh. They weren't very good before Karl Emerson joined, they weren't very good after he left. Ah, but those glory years...

The Velvet Underground & Nico
Do I have the bolding right in the title? Is this a self-titled album by a band called "the Velvet Underground & Nico" or is it an album of that title by a band just called "the Velvet Underground"?

The Who Sell Out/A Quick One (Happy Jack)
Said it before, I'll say it again: love those cheapo reissues. Just give me the music, I don't care about the packaging.

By the way, I turned on B—, who's a big 'Oo fan, to Patra Haden's full-length a capella cover version of Sell Out a few weeks back. He's into it. You should be too.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 26 Sep 2010

2010-09-29T17:42:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

AMP – Stenorette
AMP were apparently late-comers to the whole droney post-rock party in the 90s; Kranky put this one out in 1998, but I had never heard of them until a few years ago. I have another album by them that's just two records of straight-up ambient drones, but this one has beats and vocals as well. Kind of indistinguished. If I had first heard this in 1997 I probably would have thought it was awesome, but it wasn't out yet.

Bowery Electric – Beat
...aaand speaking of 90s droney post-rock acts on Kranky, here's Bowery Electric. This one did come out in 1997, and I did hear it, and I did think it was awesome. Everything about this band holds up except their curiously unimaginative beat selection once they ditched the drummer and went with just loops. Cool guitar sounds, though.

There's now a bar/club called Bowery Electric. It's on the Bowery, about a block or two from where CB's used to be. I wonder if it's related. I think the band was primarily a couple, so maybe after they quit the music thing they settled down together and opened a bar. Total speculation, I have no idea.

Broadcast – Pendulum EP
This band got some buzz when Drag City put out a comp of their early EPs, but I didn't like it. So I kind of ignored them, but everything I've heard by them since then I've liked. This one's no exception.

Interesting to note that their inarguable best song isn't on any of their albums, it's a Warp compilation exclusive called "A Hammer Without a Master" from the Warp 100 comp. Okay, not that interesting.

Cheap Trick – Dream Police
Terrific artwork. I don't think bands have costumes designed specifically for their album cover shoots anymore.

Stormcrow/Coffins split EP
I'm filing this under Coffins because theirs is the better of two sides by bands I've never heard of otherwise, but neither is particularly good. Coffins may even be more disappointing because they appear to be Japanese. I always expect better from the Japanese. Heavier, louder, more extreme, whatever.

Fluke – Six Wheels On My Wagon
Trancey ambient house from a few years before the whole electronica thing. Actually some really good stuff on here.

godspeed you black emperor! – lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven
Where'd these guys go? I guess this one will always remain their masterpiece.

Grand Funk Railroad – Closer To Home
Now that's more like it.

Incidentally, this one has "Sin's a Good Man's Brother" on it, which might be the single best riff Farner ever wrote, but I don't even think their's is the best version of that song. Check out the cover on Suck's seminal Time To Suck.

Jamie Lidell – Multiply
Eat your heart out, Amy Winehouse.

Mercury Rev – Deserter's Songs

Willie Nelson – Country Willie

Pavement – Wowee Zowee
This album holds up remarkably well, but I have no idea whether or not it's purely a product of its time. I remember it seeming that way when it first came out. I have no idea what someone hearing this album for the first time today would make of it. Probably the same thing I did, really, which was, "What a fucking mess." It took a while for this one to make sense. Would someone hearing it today be willing to give it sufficient time to sink in? I guess it would depend on whether they were already Pavement fans. The albums before and after this one in the catalogue are far more accessible, so perhaps if they liked one of those first.

G— saw these guys in Central Park last week and loved it, said it was one of the best reunion shows he's seen. I had curiously low expectations for the whole tour, but what do I know. It must have been pretty great, because if there's anybody who loves looking for reasons to hate shit, it's G—.

Primal Scream – Screamadelica
It's almost amazing how well this album holds up. This should the be the most dated slab of also-ran hackery on the Shelf, yet somehow the years do nothing to tarnish its in-the-moment freshness. What's more amazing is that the Scream, who collectively have little discernable talent other than an ability to spot trends early and impeccable taste in producers, have managed to make multiple excellent albums over the course of their wildly inconsistent (and still going) career. Never two in a row, but that's part of the fun, really.

Quasi – The Sword Of God

Wilco – A Ghost Is Born
Had this on in the backkground the other day with the wife, kids and parents all hanging out in the living room. Reasonable volume. Made it all the way through that long drone on side four without anyone saying a word about it. It was all I could hear the whole time, I couldn't concentrate on anything else, but no one else even seemed to notice. I have no idea what this means.

Wire – Chairs Missing
The label on side two of my copy is so far off-center that it partly covers the last song ("Too Late"), so the record makes hideous static noises as the needle runs over paper while the song winds down. It's a 4 Men With Beards reissue. I wonder if they'd replace it. I've never asked.

By the way, is it possible this album is even better than Pink Flag?

LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus
I'm filing this with my other Zola J records because I don't have any LA Vampires albums and because she's the reason I bought it. Not as great as her solo stuff.

By the way, she's got a new EP out on Sacred Bones and it has "Sea Talk" on it, which is the most fantastic song I've heard this year other than Roll Deep's "Green Light". And maybe Robyn's "Hang With Me". Maybe.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 18 Sep 2010

2010-09-22T23:18:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Sunday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Oh, and one other weird note: apparently I now have a reader. Welcome to the shelf, K—.

Panda bear – Person Pitch
Because he gets filed with Animal Collective, that's why.

Blur – Modern Life Is Rubbish
A good album, but not a great one. If we're going to get into Radiohead analogies (and we are), this is definitely Blur's The Bends. The first album was the one-hit work of a group of also-rans clinging to the coattails of someone else's scene, while the second the unexpected work of a mature band with a distinct sound of their own. It announced them as a band to be watched, with the potential for greatness in the near future. As with The Bends, it came on the next album.

Incidentally, Blur is their Kid A and 13 their Amnesiac, but Radiohead doesn't have a The Great Escape.

Grand Funk Railroad – Grand Funk Lives
Not a live album, as the title seems to imply, rather a comeback album from the early 80s. Not especially good. Reportedly a great album if you were a major GFR fan in the 70s, and every bit the comeback it was intended to be. Not sure why I have this. Nor why I listened to it last week. Lord knows I have some far better Grand Funk records than this.

Guided By Voices – Bee Thousand
My brother was in town last week, and I happened to be listening to a pile of 7"es. He asked, "So they all just have one song on each side?" I said yes, usually, but showed him an exception: GBV's Fast Japanese Spin Cycle EP, which packs eight songs into seven tiny inches. I played it and he thought the band was (a) hilarious and (b) pretty good. So I threw on this one.

What I love about this album, and what I think you can't truly understand the greatness of without knowing the context of the album in the band's career trajectory, is the way the band kicks in on the first song. The band had by that point spent nearly a decade self-releasing about a half-dozen albums that were roundly ignored. Then came Vampire On Titus, which got them a little bit of fanzine buzz, but not much more.

So they go to record the follow-up, knowing that at the very least someone's going to listen to it. They've got a bit of momentum from the last album, so they have to know that if this one's any good, the groundwork's already been laid for strong word of mouth.

So they're recording a number called "Hardcore UFOs", the arrangement of which consists of a verse and chorus accompanied only by a guitar, followed by the band kicking in full-strength for the second verse. But at the moment the band starts playing, the guitar cuts out completely. It sounds like it just came unplugged by accident or something. So do they do another take, try to get it just right? No. Not only do they keep that take, they make it the opening cut on the new album, their one and potentially only shot at the big time. God bless GBV.

Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye

Justice – †
If you're using Windows, it's Alt+[Num]0134.

Led Zeppelin – Houses Of the Holy
Used to be my favourite Zep record, now I'm not so sure. M—, the biggest Zep fan I know, hates "The Crunge" and calls Houses the first Zep album with filler. I think he may be giving III too much credit.

Incidentally, the title track appears on a different album (Physical Graffiti). I can't think offhand of any other title track-album title disconnects like that.

Massive Attack – Protection
Massive's one of those acts whose first album was so amazingly great that they wound up setting the bar too high for themselves, so all subsequest records are seen as not living up to some impossible standard. Nas is like that too. He always gets bagged on for never matching Illmatic, but I mean, who could?

Minutemen – What Makes a Man Start Fires?

Monster Movie – Everyone Is a Ghost

Queen

Radiohead – Hail To the Thief
This, inarguably, is their Hail To the Thief. Or is this one their The Great Escape? Actually, both albums are their makers' respective Human After All.

Silver Jews – American Water

Spacemen 3 – Playing With Fire

The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of the Lid

The Stone Roses

Times New Viking – Dig Yourself
Two notes about this one:

I ordered this direct from Siltbreeze and had it delivered to my office in New York, since that's the most reliable address I have for receiving packages. But I didn't realise how near my house in Philly is to Siltbreeze. Same ZIP code, in fact. So I had a bunch of records shipped from an address about a ten minute walk from my house to my office a hundred miles away, then brought them back to my house. I wonder if the Siltbreeze guy would let me just come pick up my next order. I'm told he works at the PREx on 5th Street.

The production credits include the line "Lovingly fucked with by Mike 'Rep' Hummel". On the Guided By Voices live album Crying Your Knife Away, Bob Pollard at one point drunkenly (natch) asks the crowd, "Where the fuck is Mike Hummel?" Both bands are from Ohio. Same guy?

U2 – Zooropa
I was completely dismissive of this album when it first came out even though I loved Achtung Baby. I just found it on vinyl recently and must say I was completely wrong: this is an excellent album at best, a flawed but intriguing experiment at worst.

And it's also... their Kid A. Seriously, I was listening to this last week when this occurred to me. Then I got an email from K— saying he had read a bunch of old posts on this site and was taking issue with my characterisation of the Flaming Lips' Embryonic as "their Kid A". Funny coincidence.

But really, you can probably apply that tag to a lot of albums by a lot of different bands, and Radiohead's was both so shocking and simultaneously so good that it's become the gold standard for that sort of daring, potentially career-killing aesthetic move. But before there was Kid A, there was Zooropa.

The analogy works on a couple of levels. Both bands were at the height of their careers both in terms of commercial success and critical praise, having just released game-changing albums that would challenge their audience while standing the test of time as daring yet accessible artistic statements (Achtung Baby and OK Computer, in case you've forgotten, which you probably haven't, which, like I said about standing the test of time...). So they both release albums on which they subvert conventional songwriting by basing their songs around sounds rather than melodic hooks. The albums are greeted with skepticism at first, but ultimately come to be viewed as one of the best in each band's catalogue. There's further analogies you can draw here, but it's late and I don't feel like going on too long.

One other oddly coincidental note: both the previous albums were so iconic that they inspired other bands to parody their titles. David Bowie's Tin Machine have a live album called Oy Vey, Baby, and TV On the Radio's first demo tape was called OK Calculator.

Wire – Pink Flag

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 12 Sep 2010

2010-09-15T17:50:00.001-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Beck – Modern Guilt
I hadn't bought a new Beck album in probably ten years when this came out. I really liked the single and was intrigued by Danger Mouse's involvement, so I picked it up. It's solid, but not great. Not as much hip-hop elements as you'd expect given the producer, more psych-pop over all. The single's still the best song, and I'm not sure I could hum any others. I guess the fact that I pulled it off the shelf says something, but perhaps it says that B artists are filed at eye-level.

Black Mountain – In the Future
Ordered this on a whim without ever having heard of these guys because they happened to be promoting it on Jagjaguwar's website when I went to order an Oneida album. It's pretty solid 70s boogie rock with a spacey edge. I didn't remember how good side three was until today; the shorter songs on the first two sides had been the ones that stuck with me. Love that Hammond B3.

M83 – Saturdays=Youth
Anthony Gonzalez, for as much time as he spends getting lost in his own ridiculously overwrought album concepts (a lot), still makes beautiful sounds and occasionally knocks out a killer single. "Graveyard Girl": best neo-shoegaze song of the previous decade? Or was it "Ageless Beauty"? Discuss.

Mercury Rev – Deserter's Songs

Portishead

Rachel's – Selenography

Royksopp – The Understanding

Russian Circles – Geneva

The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs

Squarepusher – Go Plastic
Not his best album by a long shot, but "My Red Hot Car" is easily his best single, perfectly balancing all the 'Pusher signature sounds: painstakingly programmed Amen beats, slick fretless bass work and juvenile humour.

Spank Rock – YoYoYoYoYoYo
Amazing how well this holds up given Naeem Juwan's obvious limitations as an MC. Goes to show just how far attitude can take you. Attitude and a fetish for killer old-school synth noises.

Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Forever
I've probably never listened to all eight sides of this in one sitting, but I know all of the songs because when I do listen to it I always pick a random side and throw it on. This time I tried starting at the beginning and going all the way through. Think I made it through side three. What can I say, I'm a busy man. Hadn't listened to side one in years. It's terrible. Side three remains awesome.

2010-09-02T12:30:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Black Sabbath Vol. 4
B— asked me the other night to name my favourite Sabbath record. We both agreed it comes down to this one or Masters Of Reality. I give the edge to this one based solely on "Supernaut": best riff evah!

This led to an argument over whether "Changes" rules or is wussy bullshit. I say Ozzy's never written a bad ballad, so you can guess where I stand on this one. I even like "Dreamer".

Cat Power – You Are Free
Probably my least favourite CP record, although C— insists that it's her best, I'm an idiot, blahblahblah. That latter sentiment he expresses a lot.

I played this one hoping it would be a good "go to bed, girls" album, but it's not particularly gentle. I guess since it's my least favourite I hadn't listened to it much. Or is it the other way around?

Cornershop – Woman's Gotta Have It
The opening/closing track on this one holds up really well. I remember seeing them open for Superchunk and playing like a fifteen minute version. The crowd was nonplussed, to say the least.

Del the Funky Homosapien – Both Sides Of the Brain
I was listening to this the other day and heard a guitar sample that I couldn't place and was killing me. It took me over an hour to figure out it's the Velvet Underground. Awesome. And that one's not listed on WhoSampled yet. Must rectify that.

Missy Misdemeanor Elliott – Da Real World

Gang Gang Dance – God's Money
This one's supposed to be their masterpiece, but I think I prefer Saint Dymphna. I've only played this one a few times, but it has yet to leave much of an impression.

KMD – Mr. Hood
Know who was in this band? MF Doom. Seriously, he's Zev Love X. Little trivia for you there.

Krallice
The closing track is maybe my favourite black metal song ever. Is that bullshit if it's American second wave stuff? Does it need to be old school Norwegian to be the best?

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
I've always liked Murphy's stuff no matter how cooler than thou he gets. I don't know anyone who likes his music that's not an over-30 New Yorker, but I am, so I like it. It speaks to me and maybe just me. I also think that, since that demographic must include well over half the country's pop music critics, that's why his media coverage far outweighs his sales.

Anyway, sadly, while I liked his first two records, I've listened to this one a few times and I'm still waiting for it to grow on me. I have a feeling it might just stink.

Main Source – Breaking Atoms

Oneida – Rated O
Too long? I have a feeling an Oneida album can never be. This one's s'posed to be part two of a trilogy. I hope the finale's a quintuple.

Shinichi Osawa – The One

Procol Harum – Shine On Brightly

The Rolling Stones, Now!

Souls Of Mischief – 93 'Til Infinity
Finally got reissued. I've been waiting for this one forever. And it holds up really well. Not a weak track on there.

Spacemen 3 – Playing With Fire

Wavves – Wavvves

Wrath Of the Weak – Alogon
This is one of those records I bought without having any idea who the band is, just because I was ordering something else from their label (Profound Lore, but it looks like they're already out of it, chumps). I still have no idea who they are but this album is awesome. Think a cross between black metal and straight up noise. Like Horrid Cross but not as lo-fi. It's almost too monochromatic to really be brutal, it more trance-like. No copyright date, by the way, so I don't even know if it came out this year, but if it did then it'smy favourite album of the year so far.

X-Ecutioners – Built from Scratch

Yeasayer – ODDBLOOD
Bitterly disappointing. Sounds completely different from the first one, which is admirable in it's own way, but not a good album. And I really liked that first one, anti-Brooklyn backlash be damned. I think they really should have replaced the drummer instead of going with the programmed beats when the old one left.

Oh, also, that video with Kristen Bell sucks.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 26 July 2010

2010-08-01T13:37:00.003-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile. We've been out of town for the last couple of weekends, so this is really three abbreviated weeks' worth.

Cabaret Voltaire – The Crackdown
Some interesting ideas here, but man, those 80s drum machines sound so dated. Even after the nostalgic revival we were treated to just a few years ago they still leave an unmistakeable mark wherever they're used.

Cheap Trick

John Coltrane – Giant Steps

Coltrane, Jaspar, Sulieman, Young – Interplay For 2 Trumpets and 2 Tenors

Bob Dylan – Blonde On Blonde

Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music For Airports, Before and After Science
Eno struggled for over a year to complete Science, and considered it a major disappointment. He was refuted by the critics, who generally lauded it as yet another triumph for Eno. I think I side with Eno on this one; nothing particularly memorable here.

The Flaming Lips – Clouds Taste Metallic
The Flaming Lips considered this one something of a disappointment as well. Frontman Wayne Coyne in particular felt his lyrics were too whimsical. Here I disagree. The lyrics are... fine, the drumming, guitar sounds and vocal meodies terrific.

Isis – Panopticon

Mercury Rev – Deserter's Songs
When it's time to feed our daughters one last time and get ready to put them to bed, the wife always insists that we dim the lights and put on quieter music to get them in a bedtime mood. Usually this means an awful CD of synthesized xylophones programmed to ruin Pixies songs, which the wife likes and assures me that the girls enjoy as well. This is because she's quite convinced that the girls' tastes in music match hers exactly, and that most of Daddy's music is too loud and/or annoying. In an effort to avoid having to once more suffer through the ritual castration of "Debaser" by digital glockenspiels, I'm constantly trying to come up with quiet music from the Shelf that we all might enjoy together. Deserter's has been a (quietly) roaring success on this front.

Great Moments With Charles Mingus
The collectors' desire for things like original pressings has always eluded me. I have no problem with cheapo reissues, as long as I get the music. This has been a spot of good luck as far as my fanhood of Mingus goes, as I have managed to gather no less than three dubious double-LP compilations which consist of little more than two whole albums repackaged as one under a new title, cheaply priced to bilk the unenlightened. Thus I now own the seminal Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and Mingusx5 albums in one convenient package with a 7.99 price tag still affixed to the cover. An original press of either of this albums alone can rarely be found for less than triple that price, but who wants a shitty reissue version? This guy, that's who.

Pink Floyd – A Nice Pair
See above. First two Floyd albums in one convenient package, and with tasteless cover art to boot. Not quite as great a bargain at 19.99, but still cheaper than both albums individually.

Pixies – Doolittle
Sounds significantly better with loud guitars and screamed vocals, since you asked.

The Residents Present the Third Reich 'n Roll

The Rolling Stones – Aftermath

Phil Manzanera – Diamond Head
Seemingly out of alphabetical order because he's getting filed with the Roxy Music LPs. Sorry Phil, but you'll always be the dude from Roxy. Not like Eno.

Santana – Abraxas

Sigur Ros – Agætis Byrjun, ()
More ammo in the war against digital xylophones.

Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies
Why yes, the Ladies and Gentlemen show on Friday was fantastic.

St. Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart 12"

Steely Dan – Can't Buy a Thrill

Superchunk – No Pocky For Kitty

T. Rex – The Slider

Talking Heads – Fear Of Music

U2 – War, Under a Blood Red Sky

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Zuma, Live At the Fillmore East
It kind of pisses me off how Young's constantly extolling the virtues of analogue recording and vynil LPs, then turns around and charges $32 for single albums. Screw you, Neil. Thankfully I picked up Fillmore on sale, so it was still expensive but at least within the realm of reasonable. $20, maybe? It was a good sale.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 5 July 2010

2010-07-05T15:33:00.005-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Acetone

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us

OOIOO – Armonico Heva

David Bowie – Low, Heroes

The Byrds – The Notorious Byrd Brothers

Elvis Costello – Trust

Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music For Airports

David Byrne-Brian Eno – My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts

Method Man & Redman – Blackout!

Charles Mingus At the Bohemia

The Popguns – Landslide 12"

Psychic Ills – Catoptric

Quasi – The Sword Of God

Talking Heads – Remain In Light

U2 – The Unforgettable Fire

The Velvet Underground

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 28 June 2010

2010-07-01T17:16:00.007-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile. By the way, last weekend I was out of town.

The Beatles, The Alternate Revolver
Apparently there's a whole series of these Alternate bootlegs made up of outtakes of each track from a particular album. None of these are particularly revelatory, but as a Beatles fan, they're kind of all you've got. I mean, they quit touring in '66, so it's not like there's a near-infinite number of live bootlegs out there like you've got with the Dead, the Stones, Springsteen, etc. As for these versions? They're... not as good as the album, but interesting.

Blur – Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife

Eno – Another Green World
Credited only to "Eno", not "Brian Eno". As was all of his work in the early 70s, even the credits on the first couple of Roxy albums. The first one credited to "Brian" was... I can't remember, and I just read it in that bio I've been reading.

Fripp & Eno – No Pussyfooting
He also always takes the second credit on duo collaborations. Not something I read, something I noticed.

Ladytron – Velocifero

Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle, Part I
That pun in the title sucks.

The Pretty Things – S.F. Sorrow
How did I miss this one? I was way into 60s psychedelia in college and I never heard this record. How is this still flying under the radar to this day? Great record, by the way.

The Refused – The Shape Of Punk To Come
This might be one of the most accurate album titles of all time. It really does sound like nothing else that came out at the time, but sounds exactly like tons of hardcore bands ten years later. It's fucking uncanny, one of those albums that basically single-handedly invented an entire subgenre. So how does it hold up? The riffs still kick ass, but the electronica interludes sound dated and really kill the momentum. Overall grade: B.

Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure
The most surprsing thing about listening to the first two Roxy records today is that the coolest moments are the extended guitar and sax solos. Not Ferry's songwriting, not Eno's synth shit, just the old-fashioned arena rock.

Sigur Ros – ()
This is either the best or worst album title of all time, but it's nothing in between.

Sonic Youth – Dirty [box set]
This remains (a) the most underrated Sonic LP, and (b) the best sellout album of all time. It sounds like contemporary grunge rock, they got Butch Vig to produce, but there's still some pretty harsh, uncompromising elements (the opening seconds, for instance).

I think it's one flaw has always been that it's too long. Not that there's bad songs or a lot of filler, but some great ideas get repeated more times than necessary. The box set sequence, which restores some outtakes, only exacerbates this problem, good as those outtakes are. One of the earliest examples of the CD age producing albums that are about ten minutes too long. Forty-five minutes was just right.

U2 – Achtung, Bbay
It baffles me that U2 haters (and there are, understandably, many) could actually listen to this masterpiece and not compromise their stance. Still fresh, possibly even better now than it was twenty years ago. Actually nineteen years; expect a 20th anniversary deluxe reissue next year about this time.

The Velvet Underground – The Quine Tapes [box set]
Yes A—, you're right, it costs too much. But it's the fucking Velvets, and it's awesome, and it's worth every penny, because it's twelve sides of vinyl and five of those sides are entirely "Sister Ray".

The Wedding Present – Brassneck EP
This is the one with the Pavement cover. Also their first time working with Albini.

Wierd Compilation Volume II: Analogue Electronic Music 2008
Not as jaw-droppingly awesome as Volume I, but what could be?

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 14 June 2010

2010-06-14T15:43:00.005-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star

DJ Shadow – Endtroducing...
Yeah, it's a little long and there's some filler, but the strong stuff holds up really well. Impressive for a genre that tends to date poorly.

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
The wife like "Summertime Clothes". She says it's the first track she's heard by them that sounds like more than just a bunch of hype. She doesn't even let herself get sentimental about "My Girls", an angle I've tried to push more than once. Shameless, I know.

The Beatles – Let It Be

The Bee Gees – Idea
Title track opens with the sickest piano riff, I can't believe it hasn't been sampled yet. Has it? Anyone?

Daryl Hall and John Oates – Bigger Than Both Of Us
Philly massive. It's the one with "Rich Girl" on it.

Jesu – Heart Ache

Mogwai – Come On Die Young

Van Morrison – St. Dominic's Preview

Pixies – Doolittle
M— and D— gave us this wretched CD of Pixies songs played as lullabyes. Ugh. The wife loves it. I'll stick with the originals, thanks. Hopefully the girls will follow suit. I can't imagine ever liking children's music. So pandering.

Psychic Ills – Mirror Eye
Not as good as Dins. I just got it, maybe a few more listens.

Saviors – Into Abbadon
This album rocks. Super stripped down no-frills riffage, old-school heaviness start to finish. Saw these guys open for High On Fire a couple years back. No idea if they're still around.

Sonic Youth – Bad Moon Rising
Picked this one up for around $12 in Tokyo last year. Possibly the highlight of the trip. That or the beer girls with kegs strapped to their backs at the baseball game.

Spiritualized – Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
Just got tickets for this show at Radio City this summer, taking the wife, got Mom lined up to babysit. What more could you ask?

Trans Am – Surrender To the Night

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 7 June 2010

2010-06-06T00:24:00.005-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

The Bee Gees – Odessa
Yes, plenty of other bands have released two-LP concept albums. But how many have had red velvet sleeves?

Brian Eno – Here Come the Warm Jets
Just started reading a new Eno bio, so I'll be hitting a bunch of these in the next couple of weeks.

The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
The Lips are one of my favourite acts of all time, but I'm still trying to figure this one out. The songs are slippery, tough to grasp, tough to remember after they end. They seem to be built from riffs and sounds rather than vocal hooks, which is a big shift for this band. I think this is their Kid A.

I've just started noticing themes repeating from one song to another, so I know there's a grand plan at work here, I just haven't fully sussed it out yet. Hard work, but fun work.

Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna

Jay-Z – The Black Album

King Crimson – In the Court Of the Crimson King
M— picked this one out the other night when he come over to hang out and see the girls. Nice choice. I had just grabbed Warm Jets. M— didn't even realise that Fripp and Eno had collaborated, so it was just a coincidence. That could probably happen with Eno and about half the records I own. OK, a third, but still.

Krallice
Finally saw these guys live last week and they were awesome. Too short, but great while it lasted. It's weird how trancey black metal can be when it's really loud.

By the way, Profound Lore, hurry up and put their new one out on vinyl. And the last YOB album. And everything by Cobalt. Get on that shit. Who the hell still buys CDs anyway?

M.I.A. – Arular, Kala
Honestly, I really don't think the Lynn Hirschberg piece was that harsh. There's a few digs here and there, but really, who among us didn't already know that M.I.A.'s revolutionary schtick is bullshit? And when you get down to it, what popular artist's schtick, from midwestern Jewish nerd Robert Zimmerman to posh English business student Michael Jagger, isn't bullshit? The music holds up, and whether or not she's the one doing the creative heavy lifting, she's clearly the one whose vision is in charge.

And another thing: I pronounce it "MY-uh" and no one's telling me otherwise. It's her first name, for sobbing out loud.

Saint Etienne – Foxbase Alpha, So Tough
The Tiger Bay reissue's finally out, but I don't know whether they're doing the vinyl or not. I'm not sure that one ever came out in the first place.

Uncle Tupelo – Still Feel Gone/March 16-20, 1992

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 31 May 2010

2010-05-31T15:02:00.004-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

The Beatles – Help! (US), Help! (UK)
My dad picked these out of the stacks, wondering about the difference. He grew up with the US versions of all the old Beatles records, so he's always surprised by the CD reissues. "I've Just Seen a Face", for instance, which is on the UK Help!, is one of his favourite songs on Rubber Soul.

He pointed out that he used to have a copy of the US Help!. I pointed out that my copy is, in fact, his old one. It still has his name written on the cover.

Paul McCartney – Ram
It's interesting to see how a shift in contemporary critical zeitgeist can prompt reëvaluation of a long-held consensus. For instance, as critical appreciation shifted over the past ten years from the grand statement of the rock album to the compact joys of the pop single, Revolver seems to have accordingly surpassed Sgt. Pepper's as the de facto Greatest Album Of All Time, or at least the best Beatles album.

This shift in tastes naturally benefits the talents of Paul McCartney who, after decades spent listening to critics praise the bold experimental spirit of John Lennon's work, now at last is just beginning to experience true appreciation of his own perfectionist craftsmanship. And the most obvious effect of this shift is the way in which Ram, its dashed-off pop nuggets neatly presaging the indie 4-track boom of the 90s, seems to have surpassed both the triple-album ambition of All Things Must Pass and the soul-bearing honesty of Plastic Ono Band as many listeners' choice for best Beatle solo album. Perhaps in another 20 years Ringo will have his turn in the spotlight.

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us

Delta 72 – The R&B of Membership
Unjustly forgotten. Surfaced in the wake of Jon Spencer's faux blues minstrelsy in the mid-90s, but with a more traditional line-up and without the in-your-face personality up front. Seek it out.

Devo – Freedom of Choice
Hard to tell at such an early age, but my infant daughters seem to really like this one. Kind of makes sense, if you think about it.

Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
Best reunion album ever? Not a particularly crowded field of nominees, I'll grant you, but an accomplishment nonetheless. Really, picks up where Bug left off and sounds like what the first major label album should've sounded like had Barlow not left/been kicked out/whatever.

Brian Eno – Another Green World

Girls – Album

Carole King – Tapestry
One of my dad's all-time favourites.

Mercury Rev – Deserter's Songs
There are a lot of great breakup albums. There aren't a lot of great pre-breakup albums, the ones you listen to by yourself when you know and dread what's coming sooner or later.

Monster Movie – Everyone Is a Ghost
Bought this on a whim because Graveface offered it at a discount in a package deal with the new Black Moth Super Rainbow, so I figured what the hell, the more the merrier. Pleasantly surprised. Similar to BMSR but poppier and more accessible. I've listened to it a bunch the past couple of weeks and it's really strong.

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
It seriously took me, no exaggeration, about 20 years to fully appreciate how awesome the full scope of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" really is. For a long time I just thought it was too long and formless. Now I finally get it. I think hearing the Flaming Lips cover of it on Nick Harcourt's show on KCRW helped me come around by showing me the song stripped down to its basic essence.

By the way, interesting comment at the end of the Trouser Press review of New Order's discography: How come they've never made their Wish You Were Here? Funny to chuckle over at first, but actually a good question. Unless you count "Perfect Kiss".

Psychic Ills – Dins

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Saint Vitus – Mournful Cries
Odd that I'd never heard this until recently, as I was really taken with whole stoner rock fad in the late 90s. Just picked it up recently, listened to it a couple times, not so into it just yet. A few more listens, maybe.

Sly and the Family Stone – Fresh
Just grabbed this one to play my wife that version of "Que Sera, Sera" when it came up in conversation. It's the version that plays over the closing credits of "Heathers".

Swell Maps in "Jane From Occupied Europe"

Talking Heads – Remain In Light
Just got a new Eno bio, about to start it next week, gearing up for a full-on Eno kick. I was never a huge Heads fan, but I picked this up just in the past year and was blown away by it. Definitely better than anything else I'd ever heard by them.

The Velvet Underground – Loaded
I was listening to Del the Funkee Homosapien the other day when I heard a sample that just killed me for like an hour. Finally realised it was a guitar lick from the intro to "Train Comin' Round the Bend", sped up and repeated. Awesome.

Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
As great as this album is, the inner sleeves might even be the best part, and I say that in no way intending to put down the music. They're just the funniest album art I've ever seen.

Wierd Compilation
Yes, it's spelled that way. A collection of underground acts from the past few years slavishly imitating the early-80s synth-pop sound. Remarkably high hit-to-miss ratio for a triple LP, with a few true gems scattered throughout.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 24 May 2010

2010-05-27T15:40:00.002-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Whoops, forgot to re-file and post on Monday, so I'm putting them all away today and starting over as usual.

All This and World War II Original Sound Track
There's a good reason you've never heard of this. The horribly-titled movie is a montage of WWII newsreel clips running over a strange variety of musical artists performing Beatles covers. Just as awful as it sounds. I've made it through one of the four sides so far.

Nice packaging, though, and honestly, for $4, this was just one of those weird finds I just couldn't pass up. I mean, I just had to know. Also I've seen it on eBay for way more, so in a way... no, that's not a valid excuse. Never mind.

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us

David Bowie – Young Americans, Low, Lodger, Scary Monsters, Let's Dance
Finally finished that Spitz bio. Decent read. Really enjoyed rediscovering the music. Low really is that good. If you've never heard it, believe the hype.

Guns N' Roses – Chinese Democracy
Most underrated album of the last twenty years. I'm quite sure I'm the only person I know who's listened to it more than once. Absolutely top-notch writing, arrangements and performances, with just enough embarrassingly shitty moments sprinkled throughout to turn off anyone looking for an easy out.

Mercury Rev – The Secret Migration
I hate to keep harping on the same point but... Dave Fridmann, Producer of the Decade, 2000-2009.

Elvis Presley – Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden
'72 is about the last good year for Elvis recordings, and this one's pretty hot. His band is so good for that '69-'72 era, and Elvis was still in top form before the drugs and cholesterol really started to take their toll.

Psychedelic Horseshit – Magic Flowers Droned

Queensryche – Operation: Mindcrime
My sister-in-law's favourite album of all time, so she sent a copy on vinyl to make sure my daughters would have it. I hadn't listened to it since P— had a copy (on cassette!) during the album's heyday, and it holds up better than I expected. I don't care much for Geoff Tate's vocal style, but that's just a matter of taste. The guitar tone only really sounds dated during the solos, whereas the rhythm stuff sounds really cool. Biggest surprise: the drumming is excellent, tight and inventive, but with a subtlety rarely on display in this genre and era.

Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St
Another decade, another Exile reissue (the last one was in 1994), another chance for Jagger to tell interviewers that he really doesn't see what the hype is all about while Richards tells the same folks about the magical voodoo of his dank-ass French basement (where at least half the album wasn't even recorded). Best of the many articles I've read about it for this round was in last Sunday's New York Times, in which the writer (can't remember who) makes a compelling case that the album isn't really that great. He's wrong, of course; the album is that great. His problem is that he focuses on the album's admittedly many flaws, whereas what rewards repeated listens is hearing how the band overcomes those flaws.

Russian Circles – Geneva

Squarepusher Presents Selection Sixteen

Stuff I Listened To Last Week, 17 May 2010

2010-05-17T15:32:00.005-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP
Now that I know the sample's really saying "Whoa I walk, sky," I can only hear it that way anymore.

The Besnard Lakes - "Casino Nanaimo" 12-inch

Between the Buried and Me - Alaska
Holds up quite well a few years down the road. Not sure what I'd think of this if I heard it for the first time now, as in hindsight it's kind of a good record in a bad genre. But I heard it then, I liked it and I still do.

I've actually gone to see this band twice, once in NY and once in Philly, and both times I didn't bother buying a ticket in advance, only to find the show sold out when I got there. So I've still never seen them. Apparently they're quite popular.

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Eating Us
Said it before, I'll say it again: Dave Fridmann, Producer of the Decade 2000-2009.

David Bowie - The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Alladin Sane, Pin Ups
Yup, still reading that Spitz book. I'm a couple albums past these in the book, but I'm taking the time to listen to each one multple times. Pin Ups is the most revelatory find here, it's terrific.

Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle, Part I
Some website called this the best metal album of the year a couple years back, so I bought it without ever hearing them. Good, but not holy-shit great. Or maybe it is and I'm just not ready for it; after all, my biggest complaint is probably that it's not extreme enough. Still, certainly the best saxophone solos I've ever heard on a black metal album. And only.

Pelican - The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw
Why isn't Pelican better? What's missing here? On paper this is a great band, but I keep buying their stuff and thinking, "Oh, well this must not be one of their better ones." I think I'm finally ready to admit that they're not that good. I mean, points for trying, they really switched up their style on City Of Echoes, and I admire them for it, but I just don't think they have made or will make a truly great album. Beautiful packaging, though, for what it's worth.

Pet Shop Boys - Disco, Disco2, Introspective, "Always On My Mind" 12-inch
Just watched their bio-doc A Life In Pop. Decent talking-head-style doc, nothing special, but a very inspiring story from an artistic standpoint. What a fantastic band. And I don't even own some of my favourite albums of theirs. Need to get on that.

Neil Tennant makes an interesting comment at one point, observing that "West End Girls" is a classic one-hit wonder song, and he feels lucky they're still going. I think most musicians wouldn't be smart enough to realise that, but that's the kind of self-awareness that comes from being a former pop music journalist.

Elvis Presley

Wilco - A Ghost Is Born

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 10 May 2010

2010-05-10T13:44:00.004-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Acetone

David Bowie, Images 1966-1967, Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold the World
Been reading Marc Spitz's new Bowie biography (Boi Bio?), so I've been going through and listening to all of the old albums in order. A few interesting surprises here and there, but this is still the early stuff. The real glory years are just about to begin. The plan is to write about each album on this site the same way I did a couple years ago with Neil Young.

Elvis Costello – Goodbye Cruel World, King of America
Just picked these up at the Marvelous in West Philly last week. I'm pretty sure I now have all of Elvis's Warner Bros. albums. The latter is every bit the confident, mature album it's reputed to be, the former every bit the overproduced 80s studio rubbish it's reputed to be.

Eluvium – Life Through Bombardment

Willie Nelson [box set] – a box containing repressings of no fewer than nine vintage Willie albums, one of them a double, so ten records in all. Picked it up years ago at Reckless in Chicago for a mere $50. Best $50 I ever spent. Or up there, anyway. Pulled it out this time to listen to Willie & the Family Live, the best double live album of the 70s in any genre, and Tougher Than Leather.

The latter includes the song "A Little Old-Fashioned Justice", which features one of my favorite Willie lyrics: "Little bit a' sowin', little bit a' reapin'/Little bit a' laughin', little bit a' weepin'/Just a little old-fashioned justice comin' 'round". Brilliant.

Random thought: Willie Nelson has a lot of concept albums. Seriously. This one, Red-Headed Stranger, Phases and Stages, Yesterday's Wine... And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more.

Neil Young – Decade
Picked this one up the other day for $7 solely for the purpose of filling out the collection. This one, on CD, was what got me into Young's 70s work back in high school. A completely unnecessary purchase, but I now have every Young album through Weld, with the exception of the Eldorado EP. Pathetic, I know. But I think I ditched the CD during the Great Purge a few years back, and hopefully my kids will want to listen to this.

Cold Waves + Minimal Electronics – Fantastic compilation of forgotten synthesiser acts from continental Europe in the early 80s. Never heard of any of these bands. The compilers couldn't even find some of them; the credits for some of the tracks ask that the copyright holders please contact the label.

Came out recently on Angular Records in the U.K. Not sure if it's out in the States, although it seems to have been compiled by the people who run Wierd [sic] Records, which is New York-based. Yes, I ordered the import. Paid a pretty penny, too, with shipping. Worth it.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 3 May 2010

2010-05-03T16:30:00.006-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

Panda Bear – Person Pitch

The Beatles

David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust Original Soundtrack
For an artist as talented and creative as Bowie, it's amazing just how many shitty double live albums he managed to churn out in the 70s. This one is a recording of the show featured in D. A. Pennebaker's Ziggy Stardust concert film. Other than Mick Ronson, whose solos are pretty insane, the band really drags this one down.

Cat Power – Moon Pix
Hadn't listened to this one in a while. The one thing that really jumped out at me was how much slower the tempo in the opening number is than what I remembered.

The Best Of Freddie Hubbard, Live and In Studio
Bought this primarily for the track "Red Clay", which A Tribe Called Quest sampled on Midnight Marauders.

Jesu – Conqueror; Opiate Sun EP
I realise it's a pretty limited formula, but this guy really doesn't have a bad track in him.

Low – The Great Destroyer
Dave Fridmann: Producer Of the Decade, 2000-2009.

Moon Duo – Killing Time EP
Ordered this based on the description alone because I was already ordering the Zola Jesus EP from the same label. Good, Krauty, worth hearing.

Randy Newman – 12 Songs
I was watching the Kentucky Derby with my brother-in-law when Costas said that the band plays "My Old Kentucky Home" before the race every year, and I was like, "The Randy Newman song? For real?" So I pulled it out to look at the credits. Nope. Different song. Then I had it out anyway so I listened to it.

Will Oldham – Joya
I'm pretty sure this is the only Will Oldham album, as in not by Palace or Bonnie Billy. Neat packaging on the vinyl version.

The Pink Noise – Birdland
Another one from the Sacred Bones haul that I ordered without ever hearing them. This one not quite as good. The willful-incompetence schtick works better if you've got the songwriting to back it up.

Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
My browther-in-law seemed pretty stoked on this one. He'd never heard it, but knew the Scream's older stuff, which brought on a conversation reminiscing about the likes of the Happy Mondays and the Farm.

Sigur Ros – ()

Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped
I was wearing a Sonic tee and my 16-year-old neice asked me who they are. I chose this one to demonstrate. Right choice? Her tastes range from Mylie (sp?) Cyrus to the High School Musical soundtrack.

Zola Jesus – Stridulum EP
So good. So good. Last song on side one is devastating. The whole thing is good. Go buy this now.

Stuff I Listened To Last Week – 26 April 2010

2010-04-26T16:38:00.006-04:00

Every time I listen to a record, I leave it next to the stereo. On Monday, before I go back to work, I re-file them all. Below are the contents of this week's pile.

With the Beatles
My dad picked this one thinking it was their first, because the cover has the same photo as the U.S.-only Meet the Beatles.

Bob Dlyan – Desire
Overcome by a raging desire to listen to "Hurricane", soundtrack to one of the finest uses of pop music in cinema history: the slow-motion, entering-the-pool-hall scene in Dazed and Confused. The rest of the album's OK but a little overrated, I think because it followed Blood On the Tracks, and there was still a strong residual "Dylan is back!" feeling in the air when it came out. Other killer track: "One More Cup Of Coffee".

Eluvium – Life Through Bombardment
Listened to almost the entire seven-LP set Saturday evening while brewing up a batch of chocolate oatmeal stout. Missed it by the last side of record seven.

Incidentally, I think the Grammys are stupid and I generally look down on anyone who complains about not winning/getting nominated for one, but in this case I took exception. How does this set not get nominated for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package? Because they can't afford to send out a bunch of free ones, that's how. And probably because it's vinyl only. Still, highway robbery, man.

Envy – Insomniac Doze
Finally watched the Transfovista DVD in its entirety. Pretty exhausting.

Isis – Panopticon
Odd though this may sound, one of my favourite records for reading a book. Can't really explain why.

M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

Mono – You Are There
Mono's a frustrating act, because I like their sound, but you really don't need more than one of their albums, two tops. I have like five or so. Totally unnecessary. And yet they've got a new one out and I kind of want it. It's a triple live set with an orchestra. Hard to resist.

Willie Nelson – Country Willie

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Completely impenetrable. I've started listening to it a half dozen times, finished it maybe once, still can't get a handle on it. Sprawling. Absolutely the least background album I've heard in a long time. Demands attention. Demands work.

R.E.M. – Up

The Rolling Stones Now!, Out Of Our Heads, December's Children (And Everybody's)
I've really been into these early Stones records lately. Remarkable hit-to-miss ratio.

Space Needle – Voyager

Zola Jesus – The Spoils
She's got a new EP just out and it's mind-bendingly awesome. Go buy it and tell all your friendss that you're way more neo-goth than they are. Seriously, it's fantastic.

Radioactive Goldfish – "L.S.D. Is the Bomb"

2009-05-04T23:22:00.003-04:00

I think one of my favourite things that happens while digging through the bins of a used record store is when I come across some weird-looking record I've never heard of that's just too cool to pass up. This is one such record.

I found this one upstairs at Louisiana Music Factory in downtown New Orleans a couple weeks ago. It was five bucks and I mean, come on, man, like you coulda put that one back? A cursory attempt at research turned up little information on the perpetrators, whose name, incidentally, appears nowhere on the packaging other than the record label itself. Their music appears to have made scant lasting impression. Easy come, easy go.

I found the record in the hiphop section, so I assumed it would be hiphop. Then again, I also found a Hall & Oates record in the same section, so I wasn't that surprised when it turned out to be an old-school rave track. Really, with that title, could it be anything else? The song is basically a bunch of repetitive synth bleeps over your basic house beat, pretty cool but nothing to write home (or blog...) about. Still, the vocal sample's a killer find. It's sounds like some anti-drug PSA, and is taken from a larger rant about the danger of drugs. The speaker seems to be insisting that LSD is the worst drug of all, as destructive as a nuclear bomb. According to the notes posted with the video on YouTube, the sample is from an old episode of Dragnet. Poor Joe Friday; little did he know that "da bomb" would someday become street slang for "good". Now he's stuck in an endless loop, unwittingly recommending psychedelic drug use for all eternity.

Still, hard to argue with the sentiment being conveyed, whether Friday intended it or not: LSD is the bomb.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Radioactive Goldfish – "L.S.D. Is the Bomb"

The Roches

2009-04-22T00:43:00.003-04:00

I have a very vague memory of this song, from what age I have no idea. I'm at my grandparents' house on the Cape, I think. It's probably a holiday, because most of my mother's family is there. My aunt K— and another aunt, either D— or S—, are singing this song a capella.

This doesn't happen a lot; we weren't one of those musical families that sits around singing songs at every gathering. In fact, I can't remember this happening any other time.

In my memory their voices are beautiful, the harmonies perfectly practiced and delivered . I can still hear the closing lines, and could recall them years later effortlessly. The song is sad, but my aunts are having fun with it, with each other.

Because of that, this is one of those records I used to pick up and mull over every time I would see it in a bin somewhere, but I never took the plunge until this past weekend, when I found it in Northampton's own Dynamite Records for the irresistable price of $2. As a result, I had never actually heard the original version of the song until this week. I suppose I could have found it online, but it never occurred to me to do so.

As it turns out the record was produced by none other than Robert Fripp (and features Tony Levin on bass, no less!), but apart from the occasional brief and busy guitar solo, he basically stays out of the way and lets the three Roche sisters' unadorned voices carry each other. Multiple acoustic guitars blend into a somewhat formless backdrop on most tracks, this one being the blurriest.

It's a terrific song, and the refrain melody sounds just as I remembered it. The singers are top-notch, their voices technically spot-on every note. But even though I only heard it once many years ago, and even though it probably wasn't quite as crisply executed as I recall, I think I prefer my aunts' version. Memory is a funny thing.

Buy it (scroll down)... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Roches – "The Married Men"

NOTE: Pardon the crappy recording, by the way. I tried to clean up the record as best I could, but you get what you pay for, and this one was two bucks.

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Mirror Man

2009-03-22T19:55:00.002-04:00

I participated in my annual fantasy baseball draft yesterday and did it online, partly because I didn't feel like dragging my butt to Queens, partly because I wanted to go to this later that night. I've been playing fantasy sports for about ten years now, and it was the first time I drafted alone, rather than at a draft party of some sort. This meant that (a) I could focus more on those crucial mid-round picks, and (b) I could choose my soundtrack rather than spend the day at the mercy of P—'s iPod (which, in the interest of fairness, I should note is generally chock full of excellent selections; this year he bragged of rare Weird Al bootlegs). Not wanting to waste valuable last-minute research time looking through the shelves, I just grabbed something off the haven't-listened-to-it-yet pile and threw it on.

I scored this copy of Mirror Man a couple months ago at The Sound Garden in Baltimore when I stopped there on my way to a Glasvegas show in DC. I've never been a huge Beefheart fan, but his records are usually twenty bucks or more, so I figured seeing one for ten, and with an early recording date at that, made it worth picking up. Why I put off listening to it for so long I have no idea.

I proceeded to spend the next five hours of the draft basically just listening to side one of Mirror Man over and over. That's not entirely true; I flipped it over and listened to side two a few times, but it was mostly just side one all day. Needless to say, it's awesome.

Don Van Vliet intended the second Captain Beefheart album as a double, but the label just put out one record of it, prompting the disillusioned Van Vliet to retire from music for a second (but by no means final) time. He was lured back by high school chum Frank Zappa, who had just been granted his own label by Reprise and promised Van Vliet complete control, which inspired Van Vliet to write and record Trout Mask Replica. A few years later, his original label released the remaining songs from the truncated second album as Mirror Man. So it follows Trout Mask in the catalogue, but the recordings predate it.

It's far less difficult than the notoriously challenging Trout Mask, but of course, accessibility is in the ear of the beholder. The record opens with the Magic Band (v2.0, I think) vamping on a one-chord blues riff for just under twenty minutes, while the Captain yammers away and occasionally unleashes the odd harmonica solo. Given the quality of the recordings, one can sort of sympathise with his label. That distortion on the harmonica track in the intro? Part of the record (don't worry, it clears up). That bit where the left channel drops out for a second at around four and a half minutes? Again, not a transfer error on my part.

I can't figure out when this edition of the record comes from. It's on Buddah Records, the original label, and bears the original catalogue number. But it's in perfect condition, and must be a reissue of some sort. The cover is printed on thin white cardboard, whereas I think just about every album from the era has the cover art pasted over thicker brown cardboard. On the other hand, the notes on the back still have the original typo listing the recording date as 1965 (it's from 1967); why wouldn't that have been corrected on later editions? Authenticity? Laziness?

No matter, really. It's a great record and I've got a pristine copy of it. The file will take forever to download because it's eighteen and a half minutes long, but believe me, it's worth the wait.

Buy it... on vinyl.

NOTE: Supposedly Rhino is putting out a deluxe double LP of the expanded version this year, but I don't know when.

From my deck to you: Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - "Tarotplane"

The Wedding Present – "Falling"

2008-08-15T22:47:00.002-04:00

I picked up Hit Parade 1 on the same trip I picked up Seamonsters, so that makes a natural pairing. Here's the story:

In 1992, the Wedding Present released a new 7" every month, with a new song on the a-side and a cover on the flip. Seems outrageously prolific, but if you think about it, that's one twelve-song album in a year, plus a twelve-song covers LP to boot. Not unreasonable. Incidentally, all of the singles charted, so they wound up tying Elvis Presley's Guinness record for most chart singles in one year. Go Weddoes!

The individual singles no fetch ridiculous collector prices on the open market, but the band were thoughtful enough to issue the whole shebang as a pair of standalone albums, one for each half of the year. HP1 includes the contents of January through June's singles, the a-sides on side one, the b-sides on side two.

The a-sides are decent enough, but to be perfectly frank, the Weddoes weren't really the ideal band to undertake a project like this; David Gedge's hit-to-miss ratio as a songwriter just isn't high enough. The covers, on the other hand, are a delight, and full of neat surprises. The best one is a cover of Julee Cruise's "Falling", best known as the theme song to David Lynch's short-lived surrealist TV drama Twin Peaks. The bad does a fine job of distilling a rather elaborate instrumental arrangement down to parts for two guitars and a bass, and the big kick-in at the end, while rather predictable, is thrilling nonetheless. The fact the Gedge has no business singing a song like this only adds to the charm of his gruff vocals.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Wedding Present – ~~"Falling"~~

NOTE: I guess I should like to the 7", since HP1 is really a comp, but it's what I've got. If you wanna search for the single, it's number for in the series.

I'm outta town right now, so I won't have a chance to tape new songs, so no posts next week. Back next Monday.

The Wedding Present – Seamonsters

2008-08-13T22:55:00.002-04:00

OK, before you read any further, scroll down and play the track. See if you can guess who produced it. Should take you about five seconds, ten, tops.

The Wedding Present first worked with Steve Albini in 1990, when they re-recorded the opening track from 1989's Bizarro for a single/EP release. So pleased were they with the results on Brassneck that they decided to work with him again for the next full-length.

Which wound up being great timing, because shortly thereafter guitarist Pete Solowka left the band to play Ukrainian folk versions of Smiths songs full-time (seriously!). Solowka was responsible for the hyperspeed strumming that defined the band's early sound (cf. "Kennedy" from Monday's post), and without him the band were just a middle-of-the-road BritIndie guitar act. Albini's pummelling treble schtick gave the band a new sonic identity, and they give themselves over to it fully on Seamonsters.

I picked up a copy just recently, but I'd listened to it many years ago. The track "Suck" always stuck with me for some reason. I think it's the way the lead guitar comes in after such a spare start in the rhythm section. I like David Gedge's voice in here as well. He clearly has no business being a pop singer, but here he really uses his ragged vocal qualities to fine effect, imbuing the lyrics with a bleak sense of hopelessness. Not a very happy song, but quite an effective one.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Wedding Present – ~~"Suck"~~

The Wedding Present – "Kennedy"

2008-08-11T23:33:00.003-04:00

I got a couple Wedding Present records recently, plus I got this 7" a while back, so what the hell, I'll do a week of 'em.

While quite popular in their native England in an underdog/cult faves kind of way (the weeklies called them the Weddoes), the Wedding Present never quite caught on in the States, even among indie/Britpop fans. "Kennedy" was the first song I ever heard by the band, having seen the video on 120 Minutes. I was intrigued, and watched a tape of the video over and over. It was all the guitar strumming at the end, definitely.

After wearing out a cassette copy of Bizarro in high school, I picked up this 7" of may favourite track many years later. Not sure why, but it was cheap and seemed like a cool thinkg to have. Plus, the few copies of Bizarro I've seen on vinyl were pretty expensive, even in the UK.

Bizarro, incidentally, was the first place I ever heard a song called "Box Elder". I later found out it was a cover.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Wedding Present – ~~"Kennedy"~~

Spacemen 3 – "Big City"

2008-08-08T18:22:00.002-04:00

Well, since I put up that Spiritualized cut a few days ago and I just picked up a Spacemen 3 12" in Scotland a couple weeks ago, I guess I may as well post that as well.

By the time they got around to recording 1991's Recurring, the Spacemen were as good as broken up already. Indeed, many who followed the band were surprised the album ever got made. While I've never heard it, it's reportedly a breakup album in every sense, and a Spacemen album in name only. Kember wrote side one, Pierce wrote side two, and they both seem to be warming up for their respective post-Spacemen careers. In fact, the only track on which both actually play is a Mudhoney cover.

"Big City", the lead single, is a Kember track that consists of little more than him messing around with a sequencer for ten minutes. It's pretty cool, and works as an incremental step on the way to his work as Spectrum, in which he would finally remove the rhythm entirely in favour of formless synth noises.

The b-side is a non-LP track by Pierce. He seems to be experimenting with a sound he would employ with Spiritualized when applied to actual songs. But here it's just some wordless vocal harmonies. So if you're about a minute and a half into it and wondering when it's going to start, it isn't. It's just that for the whole track, plus a little guitar solo towards the end. A true b-side if I've ever heard one.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Spacemen 3 – ~~"Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)"~~ and ~~"Drive"~~

"True Love Will Find You In the End"

2008-08-03T02:00:00.005-04:00

Back after a long delay! I got really busy for a while, then kind of lost interest. But I've picked up a bunch of new stuff recently, so I'm gonna start posting regularly again, although maybe just once a week for now. And what inspired me to start again was this:

You probably knew that there's a new Spiritualized album out. If you didn't, well, you're welcome. I still haven't heard the album (it's in the mail as we speak, God willing), but I picked up the single because the b-side intrigued me.

The single, by the way, is fantastic, the same sort of Spector-esque overwrought psychedelic gospel J Spaceman kind of perfected on Let It Come Down. But if you wanna hear it you can find it elsewhere.

The b-side is a Daniel Johnston cover, and features some of Johnston's most moving and heartfelt lyrics (and that's saying a lot). It piqued my curiosity because the same song was used in the Ordinary Theater's adaptation of Finnegan's Wake at Trinity College last fall. (T— sings it in this scene.)

I've posted Johnston's and the play's versions as well here because it's fun to hear how J Spaceman and T— each deal with Johnston's odd phrasing. It's worth noting that the singer and guitarist were in different rooms for the play version, so have a little sympathy. Like Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan before him, Johnston sees no reason that every measure should stop at four beats; where's the fun in that?

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Spiritualized - ~~"True Love Will Find You In the End"~~

Bonus (not from vinyl): ~~"True Love Will Find You In the End" (from Widow Of 18 Springs)"~~ and, of course, Daniel Johnston - ~~"True Love Will Find You In the End"~~

Naughty By Nature – "Hip Hop Hooray"

2008-04-07T03:26:00.001-04:00

OK, so I don't really have anything ready to post from the Frisco spree, so I'm just gonna reach deep into the archives and pull out a few random old hiphop 12"s to post this week.

First up is Naughty By Nature's unstoppable "Hip Hop Hooray", surely one of the finest singles of its era. Infectious beat, relentlessly catchy chorus and killer flow on the verses by both Treach and the underrated Vinny G. Seriously, listen to the way they keep trying to one-up each other throughout the song: masterful. There may be hiphop/pop crossover singles as good as this one out there, but are any of them really better? Plus, you can't beat the bucket drummers in the video.

The 12" has five tracks: LP, extended and instrumental versions of the title cut, and LP and instrumental of the b-side, a little number entitled "The Hood Comes First". The extended version of "Hip Hop Hooray" is precisely twenty seconds longer than its LP counterpart; the extension appears to be in the delayed start of the beat at the beginning of the track. Good enough. I've also posted the LP version of the b-side, a decent song in its own right that suffers only in comparison to one of the great singles of all time.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Naughty By Nature – ~~"Hip Hop Hooray [extended version]~~ and ~~"The Hood Comes First [LP version]"~~

The Grace Period – "Et In Arcadia Ego"

2008-04-04T16:12:00.001-04:00

And the Grace Period 7" I found in the bins of Rasputin in Berkeley brings us to five singles I've acquired in the last couple months. I was looking through the G bin for an old Guided By Voices 7" when I stumbled upon this nice surprise and decided to call it a day.

Quick word about Berkeley: I'd never been there before. When I was in High school I applied to Cal and got in, but I never visited. Y'know how that's where all the student movements in the sixties started? The history of the place is really cool, but those student radicals are all still there selling incense on the sidewalks and having hare krishna parades. I think if I'd gone to Cal I would have strangled a hippie at some point. Or maybe I woulda turned into one. Yuck.

I think between this one and the one with the samples of that British mod kid I now have the complete collection of Grace Period singles. This one's got three tracks; I'm posting the two from the b-side. The forst one's downtempo with a few teasing drum'n'bass breaks thrown in as the "fills". The second is faster and has a bunch of 8-bit-sounding video game noises and is awesome. Interesting to note the title: the GP not so fond of Wednesday's post, perhaps?

Full disclosure, by the way: I know this guy. Knew him before he'd even heard Joy Division, in fact. But that's not why I'm posting this, I genuinely like his music. He's supposedly working on a new album, but apparently his desire to emulate Kevin Shields encompasses release schedules as well. ZING! Who knows, maybe he's holding out for Mr. Pibb to make it worth his while.

Buy it... on vinyl. (Scroll down; it's at the bottom on the left.)

From my deck to you: The Grace Period – ~~"Do You Believe In Vitamins?"~~ and ~~"Fuck Amen"~~

Northern Liberties – "Easter Island"

2008-04-03T03:22:00.004-04:00

So Northern Liberties is this freaky band I saw a couple weeks ago at Circle of Hope when I went to see British Lit play. They were awesome. Both bands, actually, but NoLibs also had a 7" for sale so lucky you.

They were a three-piece consisting of a drummer, bassist and singer/percussionist. Sometimes the singer would scream and get in the crowd's faces, sometimes he would strap on one of those marching band tomtom thingies and just start pounding. Oh, and they brought their own smoke machine.

So yeah, they ruled, and if they're ever playing in your town make sure you go see 'em. They played a Nirvana cover, too ("Dive")! The only thing I'm on the fence about is their name. I think it only sounds cool if you're not from Philly. But that's most people, so I guess it's OK.

The single is a couple years old and consists of intense noise and yelling. Not too heavy on the extra percussion on either side, unfortunately, but intriguing nonetheless. I'm posting the b-side because it's the one that grabbed me more. And I'm posting only the b-side because if you like it you should go buy it. Mine's numbered four hundered something out of 500 so like, time's runnin' out. Get on that.

Buy it... on vinyl. (Scroll down.)

From my deck to you: Northern Liberties – ~~"Chromosomatic"~~

The Winstons – "Color Him Father"

2008-04-02T06:20:00.002-04:00

YEAH! Got my own Amen break!

I picked this up a couple weeks ago on a whim. In a way this record is one of the last possibilities for bargain-hunting in the era of Internet-induced liquidity in the used record marketplace. If you search for it on GEMM, you'll still find a couple of people who don't know what it is selling it for about two bucks. Then there's a couple dozen other copies for like twenty. Get it while you still can.

What we've got here, quite simply, is arguably the most oft-sampled drum break in the history of recorded percussion. It leaves the more well-known Funky Drummer in the dust. If you've ever spent much time listening to 90s jungle, you'll recognise the beat immediately, particularly that jarring cymbal crash in the fourth bar of the breakdown. In fact, the entire jungle/drum'n'bass genre is based almost entirely upon this beat and some reggae basslines.

It's not worth trying to explain in too much depth here because it's been done so much better by others. The Wikipedia entry is a good place to start, but the definitive history remains Nate Harrison's 2004 audiodoc Can I Get an Amen? There's a video of it here, and if you're in any way interested in the history of dance music, the legal implications of sampling or the dissemination of creative ideas, it'll be the most productive 18 minutes of your day.

You can even download your own copy of the break here. Now go make a remix.

Oh yeah, and the original song's a b-side. The a-side is a terrific little slice of classic 60s soul featuring a touching lyrical tribute to a caring stepfather. Oddly enough, while this track turns up on a bunch of compilations (and deservedly so; it was a big hit at the time), I can't find the b-side available anywhere. Go figure.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Winstons – ~~"Color Him Father"~~ and ~~"Amen, Brother"~~

Red Monkey – Kill Rock Stars Mailorder Freaks Singles Club

2008-04-01T04:34:00.002-04:00

This one I got free from Kill Rock Stars when I ordered a few records from them a couple months ago. It's part of the (defunct?) Mailorder Freaks Singles Club and it came out in like 1998, so I guess they just had a bunch of copies lying around. I can't even find a picture of it for this post.

Needless to say my expectations were low, and first listen didn't do much to change that. But I listened to it a couple more times in the process of recording it for the post and it really grew on me. It's pretty simple, but I like the energy. Plus they're British so they know how to fuckin' spell.

Red Monkey are apparently still around and currently in the process of trying to put together a compilation of tracks off old 7"s which will presumably include these. I'm posting the two tracks from the b-side; they've posted the a-side on their MySpace. I'm not sure if you can still buy this from KRS; it's listed in the discography (scroll down; it's KRS305), but if you click on the retail link you just get a blank page. So I guess if you want it you gotta download it here. Or wait for that nebulous compilation to come out.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Red Monkey – ~~"Make a Mess"~~ and ~~"The Exact Geographical Centre of Me"~~

Snakes/1-800-BAND split 7"

2008-03-31T15:18:00.002-04:00

Picked up one single 7" in the whole haul of records in Frisco last week, which brought the total number of 7"s I've acquired in the past couple of months to five. So I'll post one a day this week.

I hardly ever buy singles. I tried to get into them in college, but other than picking up ones by bands for whom I had a completist urge, the habit never stuck. B—'s got a shitload of 'em, like stacks of boxes like, but he's more of a punker than I am. Punk's all about the 7".

So Spaghetti slipped me a copy of this split Snakes did with somebody called 1-800-BAND. Their side is pretty straight-up Snakes, dirty fuzz, inebriated guitar, Spaghetti's raspy vocals. Raw.

1-800-BAND is kind of an odd fit for this split, more poppy garage stuff. Killer organ sound. Cool song title. Little else. There are actually two songs on 1-800-BAND's side, but I'm only posting one. Can't have it all; go buy the single if you like it. Support these hardworking bands. Or just download it from the label's MySpace page. There's nothing exclusive going on here, I'm afraid.

No idea what circumstances brought these bands together; they must both know whoever runs the label.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Snakes – ~~"Fakeyed Heartscrew"~~ and 1-800-BAND – ~~"Tropical Meds"~~

Ozzy Osbourne/Randy Rhoads – Tribute

2008-03-29T14:05:00.001-04:00

So I was outta town all last weekend which is why I haven't posted in a couple weeks. Yeah I know, excuses excuses, but I bought a shitload of rekkidz out on the coast so I got a tonna new material an' it all starts with a big fat five-post blowout week on Monday. Yes, Monday to Friday, every day, sweartagawd, even though I'm goina the Boredoms show in NY on Sunday.

Meanwhile, I had another couple tracks taped for Friday of Ozzy n' Randy week but I never posted 'em so here goes. In 1987, a few years after Rhoads had died and following a couple of Jake E. Lee records, Ozzy finally opened the vault and released Tribute, a collection of live recordings of the Rhoads line-up. He even credits the album to Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads, and the sleeve includes liner notes by Randy's mom. Totally killer album; you should get it.

First up is "Crazy Train", which I know is an obvious choice but this version is special to me. P— had a copy of Tribute in the Camry so we used to listen to it while we drove around getting grilled and we always pumped "Crazy Train". For me it's the definitive version of the song, just because I've heard it so many times. The studio version is fine, but just seems to lack that extra bit of energy the crowd provides. Can't beat an Ozzy crowd.

And I'm posting "Goodbye To Romance", another one from the first album and the first of Ozzy's many great power ballads. This version kills the one on Blizzard, even more so than "Crazy Train". The studio version always felt way too stiff, and the bass is mixed too high (a problem shared, oddly enough, by "Tonight" on the next album). Rhoads solo on this one is just tremendous.

Eddie Van Halen is commonly credited with inventing the flashy, warp speed guitar style that came to dominate mainstream hard rock in the 80s, but Rhoads really shares that honour. I wonder if he'd be more widely recognised for it had he lived. Keep in mind that "Diary of a Madman" was just the beginning of his new direction. One can only imagine what might have been.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Ozzy Osbourne – ~~"Crazy Train [live]"~~ and ~~"Goodbye to Romance [live]"~~

Ozzy Osbourne – Diary Of a Madman

2008-03-12T07:04:00.002-04:00

I think this one's my favourite Ozzy record. And Diary is all about Randy Rhoads.

This is where he started creating some truly ambitious compositions, especially the title track. The song is built around the Wagnerian main riff and lurches through various parts with numerous time signatures. It often seems as though Ozzy is simply along for the ride; the lengthy instrumental gaps between his verses make it impossible for him to biuld any sort of momentum with the lyrics.

Sadly, what could have stood as the starting point of Rhoads's artistic peak was instead his swan song. He was killed in a plane crash shortly after the release of Diary.

But that's not even my favourite track on the album. One of the most overlooked aspects of Ozzy's music is his absolute mastery of the power ballad. He puts one on almost every album but, until the success of "Mama, I'm Comin' Home", never released them as singles and rarely played them live. I think if I listed my ten favourite Ozzy songs, at least half of them would be ballads. Maybe.

(Oh, OK, fine. Off the top of my head, in no particular order: "Crazy Train"(duh), "Flying High Again", "Tonight", "See You On the Other Side", "Miracle Man", "So Tired", "Mama", "Bark At the Moon", "Mr. Crowley"... that's four. Put "Goodbye to Romance" anywhere on there. Or "Dreamer".)

In fact, "Tonight" might be my favourite Ozzy ballad, maybe even my favourite Ozzy song, and it's not on any of his numerous double live or greatest hits packages. Why not? Listen to that chorus, people! Listen to that fade-out!

I think the ballads are so great because this form is where Ozzy's melodic sensibility as a singer works best. Just, like... wait till Friday, man. Seriously.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Ozzy Osbourne – ~~"Tonight"~~ and ~~"Diary Of a Madman"~~

NOTE: And if you do buy it on CD, make sure you get the 1995 reissue, not the more recent one with the bonus track; see Monday's post for further details.

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard of Ozz

2008-03-10T22:48:00.007-04:00

Ozzy week on the Shelf, people. Know why? 'Cause OZZY ROOLZ, that's why.

I wrote a pretty extensive career overview of the man a couple years back when he put out that godawful box set. But a buddy of mine at work recently picked up his first two on CD and got me thinking about the Rhoads years. So it's really more Randy Rhoads week than Ozzy week.

Funny thing about those early Ozzy albums is they've been re-released a couple times, but the most recent ones are pretty scurrilous. See, M—'s a real audiophile, and a CD devotee to boot, so he's always into the latest remastering jobs on all manner of classic rock reissues. The only reason I know about this reissue skullduggery is because of his research into which editions of these Ozzy albums to buy.

Turns out the last round of reissues, from the mid-90s, are the ones to have, if you're into that sort of thing. They all have the same cover layout pictured here, with the original artwork surrounded by a faux-satin patterned frame. The newest versions, from just a few years ago, restore the full-size artwork but feature re-recorded rhythm tracks. Ozzy's then-current drummer Mike Bordin (dude from Faith No More) and bassist Rob Trujillo (used to be in Suicidal Tendencies, now in Metallica, plays without a pick therefor certified badass excepting his participation in this little travesty) went into the studio and re-created the original beats and basslines. Double-you tee eff?

The completely unsubstantiated rumour I've heard is that it's the result of a royalty dispute with original band members Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake. Not only did Daisley and Kerslake play on the original album, they also received a production credit and several co-writing credits. The Osbourne camp may have retaliated against a demand for a larger share by attempting to cut them out of the spoils altogether. It's easy to blame Sharon for this sort of underhanded scheme, but really, Ozzy's gotta take responsibility for this shit.

And it's not like he's replacing inferior performances, like Zappa thought he was doing on that awful We're Only In It For the Money reissue. Check out the bassline on "Steal Away". There's stuff like that all over the original album (albeit mixed too high).

But this is about Randy Rhoads. M— says he prefers this one out of the two Randy albums because it's more about the songs. And it's true that this one's got more hits, but I think the highs are higher on the next one, mainly because it's much more of a showcase for Rhoads. "Mr. Crowley" is sort of a preview of the direction in which Rhoads would take Ozzy's music on the next album, both in the use of sythesisers and the melodic and rhythmic complexity of the composition. Which will bring us to Wednesday.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Ozzy Osbourne – ~~"Mr. Crowley"~~ and ~~"Steal Away (The Night)"~~

NOTE: If you're looking for the CD, make sure they specify that it's the 1995 remaster; it's not the one with the bonus track.

Hiatus

2008-03-05T21:17:00.005-05:00

So yeah, taking the week off, you may have noticed. I meant to post a bunch of videos all week, but lo and behold YouTube has officially been blocked at the office. And there was despair amongst the workers.

Back on track next week. In the meantime, go listen to this kickass new Does It Offend You, Yeah? track from their forthcoming debut. Not quite as earth-shatteringly brilliant as "Let's Make Out", but terrific all the same. My most anticipated album of this year. That and the Ashlee Simpson one, if it ever comes out.

Weekend video – Ultra Vivid Scene

2008-03-01T19:46:00.006-05:00

Here's the video for that Ultra Vivid Scene track I put up on Friday. It's an edited version for single length, so you lose that whole intro, but no big loss, the song's still there.

And yes, that's none other than young Richard Melville Hall on rhythm guitar, someday to be known to the world as Moby. Hard to recognise at first with all that hair, but when he smiles at the end you can tell it's definitely him.

I'm pretty sure he's not actually playing on the song, though. Kurt Ralske was basically a one-man band for the first album. Still, strange that his time with UVS, brief though it may have been, goes unmentioned in both his official bio and his Wikipedia entry. He may not have done much more than play a few shows with them, but I mean come on, his website lists all his childhood public schools. Surely this would be a more pertinent detail?

There are some pretty great videos of Ralske's recent video art installations here, by the way, but I don't know how to embed Quicktime files in html, so you'll have to click around and check them out yourself. Try the Times Square one, it's cool.

Ultra Vivid Scene – "Mercy Seat"

2008-02-29T22:55:00.002-05:00

So one more smoke-break track from the DJ days here, this one the 12" of a track from the first Ultra Vivid Scene record. Good tune, great guitar sound, nice little slice of early (as in pre-Loveless) proto-shoegaziness. A little tight time-wise because of the long intro before it kicks in, but you still get a good five-plus minutes of break time.

Frontman Kurt Ralske basically gave up on music after a few albums and moved on to visual art, where he's made a bit of a name for himself. In fact, I had no idea about this work until J— told me about it while he was studying computer art. I recognised the name, but J— had never heard of UVS, so I guess Ralske has made a pretty clean break. Just as well, I suppose. UVS was showed some promise, but never really made the leap from good to great. He seems to have found his true calling with the visual stuff.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Ultra Vivid Scene – ~~"Mercy Seat"~~

Sabalon Glitz – "Ufonic (17 Years Gone Mix)"

2008-02-27T07:43:00.005-05:00

Now this is a true smoke-break classic. It's spacey, it's got a good (though frustratingly not great) rhythm, it plays at a consistent volume, it's not too repetitive and it's really long. Forget cigarettes, you could smoke a cigar during this one. This one was always my number one go-to when I had to feed the monkey, a DJ's best friend if there ever was one.

I bought this single on kind of a whim years ago after first hearing Sabalon Glitz on the mighty Monsters, Robots and Bug-Men comp. Yes, this is indeed the third week in a row I've mentioned it. It really is that good.

Anyway, one side of the record contains the title track from Sabalon's only album. It's basically just a bunch of effects pedals making noise for a few minutes; cool enough, but nothing you haven't heard before. The flipside contains the "same" song remixed by San Francisco-based rave/hippie duo Dubtribe Sound System. Dubtribe have basically built an entirely new song simply by laying a beat and a bassline under the original, then topping it off with some additional random noises (see the label credits in the photo). Now we have a monster.

There's a weird postscript to the Sabalon Glitz story. They made one album and broke up, but it was enough to get frontman Chris Holmes a major label deal. So he put together a new band called Yum-Yum and recorded an album of middling overproduced pop. The album flopped, the band was dropped, and Holmes moved on the the next trend by putting together a failed electronica act. Buried by the dusts of history, neither Holmes nor Yum-Yum even rate a Wikipedia entry (n.b., the guitarist from W.A.S.P. is a different Chris Holmes).

But several months after the band and its marketing apparatus had faded away, seemingly for good, the always gullible Harper's magazine published a rambling feature by an old friend of Holmes, who "explained" that the entire Yum-Yum project had been an elaborate practical joke by Holmes that exposed the fallacies of the music industry to make an ironic point about them.

The logic isn't worth summarising here; suffice to say anyone with a passing knowledge of popular music who read the article called bullshit. The whole thing is now just a footnote in Yum-Yum's pointless history.

And speaking of which, Holmes was last heard from getting arrested for trying to bring brass knuckles on to a plane. The website he set up to accept donations for his legal defense is still up, and his explanation of the whole misunderstanding is mildly amusing (as is his claim not to have created the site). Nice to see he's still slinging shit, I suppose.

Buy it... on vinyl. (If this track's on a CD anywhere, I don't know about it.

From my deck to you: Sabalon Glitz – ~~"Ufonic (17 Years Gone Mix)"~~

Tortoise – "Galapagos 1 (remix)"

2008-02-25T03:55:00.006-05:00

I mentioned in Friday's post that I used to play that really long Bowery Electric track during my DJ sets when I needed a smoke. For those of you who don't live in a major American city, a little background. California banned smoking in bars years ago. New York followed suit when Bloomberg got elected, and Philly just started it about a year ago, right after I moved here; I can't catch a break. And Boston did it some time ago as well.

Anyway, I've learned to live with it, to the point where I now go outside to smoke even if I'm in a city that still allows it, but when I was DJing it was a little trickier. I had responsibilities, after all, so I had to time it right. That's where this week's smoke-break classics come in. The trick is to roll one ahead of time so you're ready to go (if you're a cheap-ass who rolls his own smokes), then figure out in advance what you're going to play after your smoke-break record. When the long one starts playing, you throw the next one on the other deck, cue it up to the first beat and run outside. That way you can just run back in and hit play at a moment's notice. If you're vigilant, any song over six minutes should suffice.

I wasn't a club DJ, I played hang-out music in a bar, so most of my records weren't 12"s filled with ten-minute dance remixes. I played a mix of shoegaze and triphop and anything head-bobbing in between. But there were still remixes.

In the 90s it became common for rock bands to embrace dance, hiphop and other emerging electronic styles. For a while, rock bands putting out dance remixes became de rigeur, at least among the hipper ones. The band that arguably kicked this trend into high-gear was Chicago post-rockers Tortoise, who released an entire remix album after only their first studio album.

Following their second album, they released a series of four 12"s (numbered 1, 3, 4 and 5, for some reason) featuring celebrity remixers screwing with tracks from their most recent release; this would shortly become common practice in indie rock. This track is from the third, numbered 12.4, in the series.

I always liked Spring Heel Jack, so much so that I once mistakenly purchased a CD by ska band Spring Heeled Jack; what can I say, the cover looked techno-y enough. Maybe it was the rock pedigree; one of them was a guitarist in Spiritualized, though I didn't know this when I first heard them. As a young guitarist/rock loyalist, I hated electronic club music until I was about 21, and what brought me around to it was jungle. Spring Heel Jack were responsible for the first jungle track I really dug, a song called "Double Edged Dub" on the seminal Macro Dub compilation.

They keep it pretty simple here: you've got a bowel-rattling synth bass; some mellow, but standard, Amen breaks; and the song's primary guitar hook, just enough of the original to make it recognisable. In fact, I played this once between sets at an Unlove gig and C— came up and asked me if this was some Tortoise remix or something. So there you go.

Buy it... on vinyl. (The original 12" is apparently titled Rivers, though there's no indication of this on the label.)

From my deck to you: Tortoise remixed by Spring Heel Jack – ~~"Galapagos 1"~~

Weekend video: Zappa in the Crossfire

2008-02-24T23:17:00.001-05:00

Apropos of nothing from this past week's posts (I couldn't find any interesting Bowery Electric videos), I'm posting this video of Frank Zappa on Crossfire debating rock censorship in 1986. I would have to assume that there are people ten or so years younger than myself that know Tipper Gore only as the First Lady who should have been, not as the Washington housewife who once instigated congressional hearings on Prince lyrics. But believe it or not, kids, Al Gore's wife was once the default villain for rock fans of all stripes.

Two things really stand out about Zappa in this clip: one, his utter contempt for John Lofton from minute one. It's not like he grows to hate Lofton throughout the segment; he refuses to even look at him from the beginning. And two, Zappa's meticulous preparation for the show. You just couldn't spring a tough question on this guy. Watch toward the end when Robert Novak brings up the teenaged protesters outside the Annapolis courthouse during Zappa's testimony. Not only does Zappa know exactly who they are and where they came from, he cites specific examples of absurdity from their reactionary pastor's literature.

I've said it before, I'll no doubt say it again: God bless YouTube. Think about it: somebody taped this twenty years ago, kept the tape, dug it out, digitised it, and uploaded here for your edification and mine.

Bowery Electric – "Floating World/Lush Life"

2008-02-22T02:49:00.001-05:00

Bowery Electric put out a remix album following Beat, then disappeared for a few years before finally releasing a follow-up in 2000. Lushlife is essentially a continuation of the direction the band established with Beat: more ambient guitar soundscapes, more reliance on sampled drum loops.

It's a decent enough record, but it's easy to see why there's been no further output: they lost their identity. While Beat was an interesting fusion of experimental rock and triphop, Lushlife is little more than a generic triphop album. The song structures and guitar and vocal sounds are pretty much the same from track to track. The beats are easily recognisable; there are no long-lost rare grooves here.

I don't actually own a copy of Lushlife, just a promo 12" of two of the album's tracks. They're both basically the same, but one of them (the title track) is longer, which made it a treat back in my DJing days because I could put it on and go out for a smoke. Neither of them is bad, but they're both pretty undistinguished (and indistinguishable).

Incidentally, the copy I have has the labels pasted on the wrong side of the record. The track labeled "Lush Life" is really "Floating World", and vice versa. Other than that, not much to say here.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Bowery Electric – ~~"Floating World"~~ and ~~"Lush Life"~~

Bowery Electric – Beat

2008-02-20T22:04:00.010-05:00

Beat was the Bowery Electric album that was recommended to me by an anonymous commenter last week, and I think it was the first full-length I owned by the band. No idea where I got it, but I'm sure it was new.

By 1996 Bowery Electric had given up on the idea of a permanent drummer and decided to forge ahead as a duo. Beats on the their new album would be split between loops and a session guy. The result is predictably less rock, more ambient, electronica, post-rock, pick one. The guitars are turned down, the arrangements are even sparer and more repetitive. This is isolation tank music.

My buddy G—, incidentally, saw them live around this time and said they sucked. Apparently unable to choose between a temporary drummer or canned beats, they went with both: a live drummer playing along with a drum machine. G— hates drum machines anyway, so I guess he took this as the ultimate insult to live drums. I've never been able to get him to listen to Bowery Electric since, despite my repeated assurances that the first album has a real drummer. Shame, too. I think he'd like it.

Beat has basically two killer tracks on it: the title cut and "Fear Of Flying". The rest is all pretty good, if a bit same-y, but those two really stand out. I chose the latter figuring it would be the less well-known, but lo and behold, a quick check over at the Hype Machine shows that "Flying" is still posted periodically, whereas "Beat" is all but forgotten. My bad. I'd switch it up, but I'm at work now and the mp3's already recorded. Maybe I'll post "Beat" as an update tomorrow. "Flying"'s still a killer tune, so it stays.

The other track I'm posting is the real treat here: Beat's vinyl-only bonus-track, which takes up all of side four. No kidding. It's basically a seven-or-so-minute drone with little variation. This one took me a few passes to get a decent recording because I kept hearing excessive surface noise on the record. Or at least thinking I did. I bought the album new, and I can't have played this side more than a few times, so how worn could it be? On the other hand, could the vinyl noises be an intentional affectation? I can't check, because the song's only available (to my knowledge) on vinyl.

Also, if you listen closely, you can hear a drum beat fade in about halfway through, then fade out a minute later. Believe it or not, the liner notes credit a real drummer on this track. Other than that, it doesn't really change. But still, hey, y'know... bonus!

Buy it (scroll down; it's KRANK 014)... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Bowery Electric – ~~"Fear Of Flying"~~ and ~~"Low Density"~~

NOTE: 100th post on the Shelf! That counts the weekend videos when I've bothered, so I have no idea how many actual tracks I've posted. Nice to know I've been able to stick anything out this long, I suppose.

ADDENDUM 22 Feb 2008: Here it is; decide for yourself which is the keeper: Bowery Electric – ~~"Beat"~~

Bowery Electric

2008-02-18T22:09:00.004-05:00

So somebody posted a comment on Friday's post in which they recommended an old Bowery Electric album. I have it. In fact, since (a) I'm so gassed that somebody actually read this thing and (b) I own exactly three Bowery Electric records, I'm making this Bowery Electric week.

The band's first album was released on the post-rock/dream-pop label Kranky in 1995. It's credited to a three-piece, the principal pair plus a drummer.
I think I first heard them when a track from this album turned up on the Monsters, Robots and Bug-Men compilation, making this the second week in a row I've referenced it. It's really good if you can find it.

The track was "Slow Thrills", and it's similar to the rest of the album. You've got a simple bassline, plodding drumbeat and a guitar playing a three-chord progression with so much reverb you can't hear where one note ends and the next begins. It's a terrific formula because it's exceedingly simple, it works, and you can milk it quite a bit. The whole album sounds like that and it's great.

I've posted the opening track, or rather first two, and well, you get the idea. The division is curious. It's listed, with track times, as two tracks on the sleeve; "Sounds In Motion" is the first 1:55, "Next To Nothing" the remaining 7 minutes and change. But the times listed on the album's allmusic page list the first track length at 3:01. Is this how it's tracked on the CD? I have no idea. I guess it doesn't really matter because it's clearly the same song. I guess it changes over somewhere around when the drums kick in.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Bowery Electric – ~~"Sounds In Motion/Next To Nothing"~~

NOTE: To order the CD from Kranky, you have to either mail them a cheque (?!?) or follow a bunch of links to their Paypal page. Click here for the catalogue page, then scroll down. The albums are listed in reverse order by catalogue number; Bowery Electric is KRANK 007.

Weekend video: Matt Elliot

2008-02-16T19:46:00.002-05:00

So, um, anyone out there wondering just whatever happened to Third Eye Foundation? Yeah, so was I, and look what a little Internet digging turned up: turns out Matt Elliot's left his samplers and distortion pedals behind (way behind) and re-invented himself as a folk singer. This tune is the title track on his 2007 album, apparently the second in a trilogy. I understand all his stuff now has this sort of eastern European-inflected sound.

Not half bad, actually. And certainly a bold new direction. How come Beirut gets all the hype and I've never even heard of this until now?

Portishead – "Cowboys"

2008-02-15T21:18:00.002-05:00

As promised, a third Bristol rarity. Portishead weren't a part of the FSA/Third Eye/AMP scene, nor the Massive/Tricky axis the city produced in the 90s. Instead, they forged their own combination of hiphop rhythm moves (right down to the turntable scratches) and dark cabaret lounge pop. Why they never got tapped for a James Bond theme is beyond me. Sheryl Crow? Seriously?

Following the success of their groundbreaking debut, the band released a self-titled follow-up three years later that was similar but way weirder. The formula remains basically the same, but the beats are harsher and distorted, the samples atonal and eerie, the vocals menacing. They announced their new developments with the lead single, the first track on the album and one of the most extreme in this regard.

I'm not really sure how I wound up with this promo 12". I think it belonged to a roommate of mine who used to work at Kim's and left it behind when we moved out. It has no information on the label, and contains only the single on one side and an instrumental version on the other. It was released, apparently, in an edition of 3,000.

And after that, silence. The band released a well-received live album a year later and then disappeared. They were recently announced as one of the headliners for this summer's Coachella festival and reportedly have a new album coming out in April. Welcome back.
Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Portishead – ~~"Cowboys"~~ and ~~"Cowboys (instrumental)"~~

[The] Third Eye Foundation – "Semtex"

2008-02-13T05:14:00.002-05:00

The Bristol scene in the late 80s consisted of a lot of people playing in each other's bands. Matt Elliot played in Flying Saucer Attack and AMP before getting serious about his own project, Third Eye Foundation.

The best way to describe Third Eye's sound is lo-fi drum'n'bass. Crisp, sterile breakbeats pulse beneath waves of static and distortion. Elliot released four full-length LPs, as well as numerous singles, EPs and compilations thereof. The first album is called Semtex; this track is not on it. In 2006 he released the three-CD set Collected Works which, for some reason, contains three of the four albums.

This single, inexplicably credited to The Third Eye Foundation, features far and away my favourite Third Eye track, and in fact one of my all-time favourites from the era. Only close competition: his track on the Monsters, Robots and Bug-Men comp. It's from some 12" that I got, I think, when it was out (pressing run: 500). It's a bit more straight-ahead drum'n'bass than some of the other stuff, with the standard Amen breaks pushed a bit higher in the mix than usual. But the dense soundscapes over the beat give the whole thing a relentless feel. And the best thing about it? It's ten minutes long.

Unfortunately, the version on Collected is cut in half. (And that comp track isn't on there at all; it's on the first album, which has the same title as this song that isn't on it, and isn't on Collected. Who's in charge here?) So I don't think the full version is commercially available on CD. The 12" contains three tracks; two are posted here. The third is a shorter version of "Semtex", and who needs that?

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Third Eye Foundation – ~~"Semtex"~~ and ~~"Science Fiction"~~

Flying Saucer Attack – "Coming Home/Hope"

2008-02-11T22:11:00.007-05:00

I picked this up without having any idea what it was. The guy at Beautiful World didn't know either. I asked him how much, he said "I dunno, five bucks?" Not really a super-bargain for a 7", but hey, it's FSA. And, as it turns out, the record does trade for a bit more than that.

Turns out the a-side is a cover of a track by some forgotten early 80s English DIY act called Prisoners, of whom I had never heard. Live and learn.

Which explains why the songs sounds so little like FSA, particularly at this point in their history. The single was released the same month as New Lands, the first FSA record without Rachel Cook on bass and a definite step (even further) away from conventional song structures. I mean, at least "In the Light of Time" had something resembling verses and choruses; New Lands is all drum'n'bass beats and experiments with static. Damn good record, too, mind you.

The b-side is a bit more like the FSA we all know and love. Not a great cut, but that's why it's a b-side.

Incidentally, I posted this just because I had it lying around and hadn't listened to it yet, but I actually have enough material to make this week's theme "limited edition singles by 90s acts from Bristol." Check back Wednesday. This one had a run of 1,000, by the way.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Flying Saucer Attack – ~~"Coming Home"~~ and ~~"Hope"~~

NOTE: FSA were hardly afraid of a good singles comp in their day, but I can't find these tracks anywhere but here. If they're on CD, I don't know about it.

Weekend video: BROOOCE!!!

2008-02-09T02:31:00.001-05:00

I posted "Kitty's Back" on Wednesday and described it as a live favourite, so here's a killer live version.

This is from Conan O'Brien's Christmas show a few years ago, and it's one of the best TV performances I've ever seen. in fact, it's one of the only truly great TV performances I've ever seen. I can clearly remember watching this with my brother down in the basement rec room and being blown away. Even my brother, who's hardly a Springsteen fan let alone even a rock n' roll fan, was mightily impressed. I can clearly remember him commenting on how amazing it was.

You see? Now that's why people worship this guy.

BROOOCE!!!

2008-02-08T20:21:00.001-05:00

So I was going to post a few cuts off Born To Run to wrap up Jersey Giants week on the shelf, rounding out (what I consider) the Boss's big three, but there aren't really any hidden gems on it. It's such a monstrous album that all the good songs are well-known. By contrast, his 1995 Greatest Hits contains no songs from the first two albums and three of Born To Run's eight tracks.

Born To Run is also something of an artistic as well as commercial turning point in Springsteen's career. It's the first album produced by Jon Landau, and the first with Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg in the band. And, more than any other, it's the point at which Bruce became BROOOCE!!! The lyrics are simpler, the convoluted wordplay of his early years replaced by the heart-tugging tales of workin' folk for which Springsteen remains best known. And the songs themselves became more anthemic, pushing pretty basic buttons for the listener. It's still a terrific album, every bit the all-time classic its reputation holds it to be, but in a way it's also a break with the past. The transformation from troubadour to superstar begins and ends on Born To Run.

So I figured I'd represent the BROOOCE!!! era with a couple of tracks from the 1986 live box set. Released at the peak of Springsteen's post-Born in the USA fame, Live/1975-85 was the first major box set I was aware of, and started a trend that would peak about ten years later. It's a bloated, excessive, exhaustive marathon of monster hits and sweaty, balls-out performances, just like one of his legendary shows. More than that of any other performer of the rock era, the live Springsteen experience is just too massive to be contained by a simple double album. BROOOCE!!! earned himself a five LP set one three-hour show at a time. It's also, incidentally, the first (only? not sure) Springsteen album to share a credit with the band, and Lord knows they earn it.

For even the casual fan, the set is a treat start to finish, and never feels too long. It sold a whole mess of copies, but I think a lot of people didn't listen to it much; it's quite a commitment. My copy ran me all of ten bucks, and it's in perfect shape. You can find it anywhere.

The set packs in all the elements of a Springsteen show, right down to his famous rambling-bullshit stories about growin' up in Jersey. My favourite of these comes just before "The River", when he yammers away about fightin' with his pop about his long hair and gettin' drafted. The way he starts out sounding somewhat aimless before knocking you out with one touching line at the conclusion shows what a canny performer Springsteen is. The story may not even be true, but he knows just how the blindside the audience with a grab at the heartstrings and here he pulls it off to perfection. Call me a sucker, but I still get goosebumps every time I hear it, even though I always know what's coming.

The box draws from a number of shows through the years, but most of the first three sides all come from the same date, a 1978 performance in a theater (as opposed to a stadium) that must have been a doozy. Even then, "Spirit in the Night" was already an oldie, and the band tears it up here.

Finally, I'm posting "Born To Run" because I didn't post the album version. It's "Born To Run", dude! What more do you want? Listen to how hard the band kicks in after the break! BROOOOOOOCE!!!!!

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – ~~"The River"~~, ~~"Spirit in the Night"~~ and ~~"Born To Run"~~

NOTE: One of the benefits of upgrading my file storage account is that I can now post bigger files, meaning no more lower bit rate on songs over ten minutes. Lucky you!

Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle

2008-02-06T07:34:00.002-05:00

Just a quick reminder that it's Springsteen week on the Shelf as a big shout out to Jersey in honour of David Manning defeating Goliath Brady. Justice is served.

The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle is my favourite Springsteen record by an overwhelming margin, but I wouldn't be surprised if not many others felt the same way. The songs are overlong and overwrought, the arrangements too busy. Springsteen's lyrics, while not nearly as oblique as the ones on his first album, are still needlessly loquacious. The trademark cheesiness that will turn off hipper listeners for years to come has already begun creeping into his performing sensibility.

Okay, enough criticism, I'm just trying to be balanced here. E Street Shuffle is one of the best albums of its era and there's not a weak moment on it. The opening number announces everything about the album. The style has developed into something recognizable, the derivative, old-time rock n' roll elements more fully absorbed into a contemporary sound. The lyrics have become more purposeful, painting characters and telling stories. And the coda, when they kick into to double-time, is the hottest jam of its kind this side of Sly Stone's "Stand".

And I didn't even post that song. There's too many other good cuts. Every song is good. Two of his best-loved long-form concert staples ("Rosalita" and "Kitty's Back") are from this album. "New York City Serenade", essentially a showcase for soon-to-depart pianist/string arranger David Sancious, might be Springsteen's finest ballad.

I'm posting "Kitty's Back" because it's less well-known that "Rosalita" and because the arrangement has more unpredictable turns in it.
I'm also posting "Incident On 57th Street" because the lead guitar in it rules. It's worth noting that on his first few albums Springsteen played all the guitar, lead and rhythm. Little Steven was in the concert band, but the Boss did it all in the studio. And the chorus is terrific. Corny? Screw you, cynic.

Incidentally, my copy still has the price sticker on the cover: $1.99. Yesterday I saw the new Cat Power album on vinyl and was psyched to pick it up: $30.99. Think I'll wait. Nothing against Ms. Marshall, mind you, but what are the odds that album's one tenth as good as E Street Shuffle?. You know when I started buying vinyl in college it was partly because it was just cheaper than CDs? Even new albums.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Bruce Springsteen – ~~"Kitty's Back"~~ and ~~"Incident On 57th Street"~~

Bruce Springsteen – Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ

2008-02-05T20:57:00.008-05:00

Giants win! Evil has been vanquished! There is a lesson in all this, innocent children of America: it may take a while, but cheaters will eventually lose. Always.

So I missed posting on Monday which is ridiculous because I have no excuse. None whatsoever. I even had several mp3s uploaded and ready to go in case either team won. That's right: I planned on the possibility of the Giants actually winning. Seriously. I even won $20 on it.

So in honour of the Giants' victory, a week of Jersey's finest: the Boss. If you're a die-hard fan, Springsteen's never really made a bad album. Some are better than others, but they all have their merits. If you're a casual fan, like me, Springsteen came out of the gate strong, put out three absolute classics, then never made another great rock album after Born to Run. (Arguable exception: Tunnel of Love)

The qualifier rock album is important here. Every few years he takes a break from writing mediocre blue-collar stadium anthems, turns off his amps, and reminds anyone who forgot that he's probably the best songwriter of his generation (acceptable rebuttal: Elvis Costello). Hence Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad, and that Pete Seeger tribute album from two years ago that I thought was the best thing he'd done since I can't remember. Seriously, go listen to it.

But Darkness on the Edge of Town is boring as f—k, The River is a little better but still doesn't touch the first three, et cetera etc. There are theories as to what went wrong (some of them hinging on the influence of superfan-turned-svengali Jon Landau), but I won't dwell on them here. (Okay, I'll give you a brief overview of my three-part hypothesis: the problem is (a) Bruce's ego, (b) Bruce's ego and (c) BROOOCE!) We're here to talk about the good times, and what remains is the music.

It's hard to see how bold Springsteen's debut must have sounded without proper context. To hear it for the first time today is to hear an uneven bar band fronted by an overeager lyricist trying to cram a few dozen syllables into each bar. What made it so different at the time, aside from Springsteen's precocious wordplay, was its classicist bent. Nowadays, this sounds like seventies rock. In the seventies, it sounded somewhat retro. Without resorting to slavish imitation, the band managed to invoke just enough of the past to sound like the entire brief history of rock n' roll unfolding in a single verse. The rhythm section packs the punch of a Stax/Volt session crew. The two-keyboard piano and organ combo recalls Dylan and the Band's rustic Americana. And most strikingly, the once dominant saxophone, a staple in rock n' roll combos before being laid to rest by the ascent of the Beatles, returns triumphantly in the form of Clarence Clemons's simple, growling melodies. Springsteen manages to borrow elements from gospel, folk, R&B and whatever other pre-rock style strikes his fancy and incorporate them into his own signature sound. In the age of dick-swinging arena rock and navel-gazing prog noodlers, he stuck out like a proverbial sore thumb.

What he adds to the mix is his still-developing lyrical voice, and my, what a wordy young fellow! At this point he's still dealing mainly in abstract images. The words are too impressionistic to cohere into anything tangible, but they're thrilling nonetheless. Later, he would learn to sketch vivid slice-of-life scenes and populate them with instantly familiar characters. A few more albums in and he would begin telling actual stories with beginnings, middles, endings, sinners, saints, redemption. But it started out as just a bunch of words.

I hadn't listened to the album in a while before taping these tracks. The hits were "Blinded By the Light" (an even bigger hit for Manfred Mann) and "Spirit in the Night"; you know those already. I picked "Lost in the Flood" because the lyrics jumped out at me and because I liked the build-and-release of the arrangement. I picked "For You" because the band kicks ass on it. No better reason, really.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Bruce Springsteen – ~~"Lost in the Flood"~~ and ~~"For You"~~

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – "Louisiana Rain"

2008-02-01T14:26:00.000-05:00

America's only true national holiday is this Sunday and, if you're like me, you're rooting for a certain band of dirty cheats to lose and teach the impressionable youth of this great land a valuable lesson about honesty and good sportsmanship. Petty's the halftime act, a decent enough choice, but one whom I can guarantee right now will not touch Prince's dominant performance from last year. By coincidence, I picked up a copy of Damn the Torpedoes a week or so ago, so he gets today's post.

Torpedoes is, believe it or not, the only Petty album I own. I never even had Full Moon Fever in its heyday. K— had a copy of the Greatest Hits back in college, and that always seemed like enough. Lo and behold, I may not have been wrong.

Not that Torpedoes is bad, but for an album reputed to be among Petty's best, if not the best, there's a disappointing paucity of hidden gems. Four of the nine tracks (including "Refugee" and "Don't Do Me Like That") are well-known singles that we've all heard before, and they clearly account for the album's reputation. The rest of the cuts are mostly filler, none of them awful, none of them especially memorable.

The closest we get to a lesser-known classic is the closing number, a mid-tempo ballad called "Louisiana Rain". Petty seems to be striving for epic status with this one, but it falls slightly short. I just feel like, good as the song may be, it lacks that album-closer feeling (Would you know it was the closer if I hadn't told you?), and I think of Petty as the kind of guy who needs strong closers.

Having emerged in the mid-seventies, Petty represents the tail-end of the previous generation of old-school classic rockers, the ones being rebelled against by the punks and new-wavers who arose around the same time. For the crowd Petty rolled with, the closing number was key for any album, and had been since the Beatles put out "A Day in the Life" ten years earlier.

Petty's music, like that of his contemporary Springsteen, is characterised (though perhaps not as explicitly as Springsteen's) by a reverence for rock history, an obligation to carry on traditions only recently established. Torpedoes was Petty's third album. Having made the brash debut and the frustrating sophomore effort (both classic rock clichés in and of themselves), his third was supposed to be the mature, confident album that established him as one of rock's staple artists. And it did, in every sense.

But what the album lacks is great songs beyond the singles, songs for the next generation of fans like myself to find when they discover Petty and decide to dig deeper. Springsteen's second album, for instance, is composed almost entirely of those kind of songs. I think a stronger closing number would have gone a long way toward reinforcing this album's classic status. And what "Louisiana Rain" really needs to fulfill that role is a five-minute guitar solo after the second chorus.

Yes, you could argue that the lengthy solo represents a facile shortcut to epic status, that the resulting song would get there by merely signifying epic-ness rather than earning it. I might not agree, but it's a valid argument. But I still think a five-minute guitar solo would carry "Louisiana Rain" from good to great. On the other hand, you can probably say that about pretty much any song.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – ~~"Louisiana Rain"~~

Brian Wilson – "Our Prayer"

2008-01-30T05:11:00.001-05:00

I spent quite a bit of time in Chicago this past month, so I made sure to stop in at Reckless, where I found almost nothing I really wanted. I think this means I'm getting better at resisting blowing money on records I don't really care about. Or maybe I'm just not as eager a listener as I once was.

I did buy one record, though, and not because I really wanted it, more because I would have kicked myself later if I had passed on it. It's a one-sided clear-vinyl 10-inch containing one song. That one song is a dance remix by Freeform Five (of whom I had never heard) of "Our Prayer", the opening track on SMiLE. The record was $11, which is way too much money, but...

If you're not a record hound then you won't understand this, but if you are you'll know exactly what I mean: it was just too weird to not buy. I mean come on, man! Re-read that description! Whose idea was this? Why was it made? Has Wilson ever even heard it?

If you've never heard the original "Our Prayer", it's just one minute of wordless a capella harmonies, five (?) voices singing aah-aah-aah through a complex series of chord changes. It's both beautiful and eerie.

The remix sounds exactly like I thought it would sound. It's not bad, it's not great, it's basically wordless a capella harmonies over beats. Am I blown away? No. Am I disappointed? Not really. I'm too old and jaded to expect anything earth-shattering. I just wanted to hear it. No, that's not it. I just didn't want to not hear it.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Brian Wilson – ~~"Our Prayer (Freeform Reform)"~~

NOTE: By the way, if this track exists on any CD it's not one I know about. If anyone else knows, post a comment and I'll put up a retail link for it.

Swirlies – "Pancake"

2008-01-28T03:37:00.000-05:00

Return of the Shelf!

I took an extended break for the holidays after completing the fall semester's Neil Young course and it wound up lasting a lot longer than originally planned. But the Shelf's back now and I hope to return to the old rate of three posts a week. My work schedule has changed, which might make this a little complicated, but that's the plan for now.

In other news, I've upgraded my Box account so that I can post direct links to the files rather than links to Box pages. This means the blog is now costing me money (in addition to the untold dollars I've spent the past twenty-odd years pissing away on records), so hopefully the added incentive will keep me on schedule. Here goes nothin'.

I wasn't sure what to post for the first day back until I listened to A—'s show on KDU last week and heard him play this old favourite. Decision made.

Boston's Swirlies were often categorised as part of the city's alleged "chimp rock" scene in the 90s, but I certainly couldn't tell you what that means. Swirlies themselves could be vaguely described as sounding like Pavement trying to cover My Bloody Valentine and not getting it quite right, but that doesn't quite nail them.

1993's BlonderTongueAudioBaton remains the band's best known album and was for many years the only one I owned. It's a pleasing little gem that holds up quite well to this day, a fine exemplar of the angular noise-pop that was a common indie rock sound at the time. Highly recommended.

Side one closes with the majestic "Pancake", which became the band's biggest "hit" (for lack of a better term). The song starts with a wall of amps suffering through pretty chord changes, topped by ethereal female vocals. After the second verse, the band drops the volume momentarily before tearing back in at a noticeably jacked-up tempo, propelled by a terrific beat (listen closely to and marvel at the kick-drum pattern).

The band obviously realised they had written their best song and proceeded to milk it. The following year's Brokedick Car EP contains five songs, two of which are versions of "Pancake". "Pancake Cleaner" is just the same recording with the distorted guitar tracks mixed lower; I'm pretty sure that's the one A— played. "House of Pancake", on the other hand, is a full-on remix anchored by a decent triphop beat. It predates the remix craze that would later sweep through indie rock by a couple of years, so it's got that going for it, but the original really can't be improved upon. Some songs are just too perfect. Besides, the drumming in the coda is clearly the song's best feature, and the remix doesn't incorporate it. Cute effort, though.

Buy it... on vinyl (CD and vinyl for both are all in the same link; check out those prices!).

From my deck to you: Swirlies – ~~"Pancake"~~, ~~"Pancake Cleaner"~~ and ~~"House of Pancake"~~

Neil Young & the Bluenotes - This Note's For You

2007-11-09T16:00:00.001-05:00

Neil Young was released from his Geffen contract after five albums. The experience could only have been described as a disappointment for both sides. He signed once again with Reprise, his original label, and announced his return to form with... another genre exercise. Credited to Neil Young & the Bluenotes, 1988's This Note's For You is Neil Goes R&B, complete with old fashioned song structures and a full horn section. As with Everybody's Rockin' and Old Ways, all the details are in place.

The difference? This Note is excellent. Seriously! Surprisingly enough, the style fits Young like a glove, raising the question as to why he hadn't tried this sooner.

The album actually gets off to a slow start; the first two songs seem a bit awkward, as though Young is grappling with how exactly to approach his newly-chosen whim, and don't bode well for what follows. Then suddenly, after a pleasantly jazzy ballad, the album really starts to swing. "Life In the City" sounds like the real deal: a swingin' big-band jump blues. The rhythm section stomps, the horns blare, the song is terrific.

The album proceeds to alternate between ballads and rave-ups, and both are equally effective. "Hey Hey" is in the same vein as "Life In the City", but with more elaborate showcase moments for the guitar and the horns, as well as funnier lyrics. "Twilight" is quiet but hardly subdued; the menacing horns and drums threaten to erupt at any moment, but never do. Lucky Thirteen closes with this album's title track (for obvious reasons) and includes a live rarity with the same band, but otherwise ignores the album.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young and the Bluenotes - ~~"Twilight"~~ and ~~"Hey Hey"~~

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Life

2007-11-07T14:13:00.000-05:00

And finally, after four messy albums of genre experiments both old and new, Crazy Horse is back! The triumphant return of the Horse! Sort of.

1987's Life saw Neil Young reunited with his favourite backing band for what should have been a welcome return to form. Instead, he remained mired in trendy 80s production tricks, squandering some fine songwriting on an album filled with gated snares and extraneous synths.

I know I've been fairly charitable thus far to Young's 80s output in these posts, trying to find the good points in each of his whims no matter how misguided. The best I can come up with here is that he made an intentionally bad album and titled it Life. So, y'know, Life sucks. Get it? OK I got nothin'.

Seriously, this album stinks. It's a Crazy Horse album in name only, i.e., the backing band is all there, but this is really just another 80s Neil Young album, only this time without any attempt to mimic a particular style. Instead it's just a generic rock record with bad production. Oh, and to make matters worse, it's also a Crazy Horse album with no extended guitar workouts. The less said about it the better.

So quickly then: Lucky Thirteen includes opener "Mideast Vacation" and "Around the World". Who cares. Neither is particularly good, but both have halfway decent guitar leads, which may have been why Young decided ten years later that they were worthy of inclusion on an anthology of this era.

The two songs I've posted here are both ballads, which isn't really representative of the album as a whole, but they're both good songs. "Long Walk Home", in fact, is an excellent song, easily the album's best, but the production tries its best to ruin it. I don't even mind the cannon fire sound effects, but those synths? Give me a break. Still, a great song shines through, and this is one of the finest ones Young wrote all decade. Listen to the writing overcome the production; you just can't kill a great song.

"When Your Lonely Heart Breaks" is, similarly, a touching song marred by way too much reverb, but the lead guitar work demands some attention, especially considering the paucity of it throughout the rest of the album. The solo is nicely understated. In a way, it's so spare as to sound like nothing he'd recorded before. Beautiful.

Everybody's Rockin' and Landing On Water may have seemed more embarrassing on the surface, but to my mind the sheer generic sound of Life makes it the worst Young album of the era. Thankfully, he would sink no lower. The reconvening of Crazy Horse was, as it would later turn out, a harbinger of better times ahead. Not that you'd know it here.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - ~~"Long Walk Home"~~ and ~~"When Your Lonely Heart Breaks"~~

Neil Young - Landing On Water

2007-11-05T19:22:00.001-05:00

By the middle of the 80s, Neil Young had undergone such an extreme personal and artistic transformation that his younger 60s incarnation would barely have recognised himself. Not only had his musical output found him wandering in a creative wilderness for several years, but his political views had turned 180 degrees. He went so far as to praise the administrative policies of liberal nightmare Ronald Reagan. He had become a landed middle-aged rich guy, and embraced the politics of the rich, as was the style of the day.

Both musically and lyrically, 1986's Landing On Water stands out in Young's catalog as most clearly a product of the 80s. While his three prior records had explored other styles both past and present, Landing was the first Young album since... I guess Harvest to sound like whatever else was on the radio at the time. And whereas in Harvest's day Young was at the forefront of creating that particular sound, by Landing he was simply following trends.

But having said all that, I was surprised to find that, overall, if taken on its own terms, the album is not terrible. Before re-listening to it a few times in order to write this post, my recollections of the few listens I had given Landing in the past were that it was utter shit, but it's not that bad. It's not especially memorable, and certainly pales within the standards of the Young canon, but as a standalone 80s rock album it's... passable. And has a few fine moments.

The initial warning signs are right on the back cover: only three musicians (including Young) are credited, the lists of instruments for each all include synthesizer, and there's no bassist. At least there's a real drummer (Steve Jordan, incidentally, making his first appearance on a Young record here, would go on to drum for and produce several Keith Richards solo albums and to produce one of my favourite major label alt-rock albums of the pre-Nirvana era). The opening track seems to confirm one's worst fears: dated synths, awful canned drum effects, guitar a mere afterthought. It's the 80s alright. Young gets points for stylistic consistency here, and for embracing this style wholeheartedly, but yeah, the whole album sounds like that.

Which is what you need to get past to appreciate the album's admittedly few good points. There's some decent songwriting buried under the questionable production. "Weight of the World" and "Hard Luck Stories", in particular, could potentially benefit from a less digital makeover. And on two tracks Young uses the San Francisco Boys Chorus to fine effect, a welcome curve ball in the monochromatic production.

Fortunately, Lucky Thirteen doesn't use up the album's best song, so I can post it here: "Violent Side" is a fine example of both points mentioned above: well-written song, nice use of the choir. I'm also posting "Hard Luck Stories" because it has the most immediately accessible melody on the album, and I like the way it clashes with the lyrics. Hate that fake-ass slap bass that opens it, but you take the highlights where you can on an album like this. Is it catchy or irritating? You decide.

One track Young did include on Lucky Thirteen (along with the somewhat generic hard-rocker "Pressure"), curiously, stands as his most outspoken rejection of his past, a full-fledged refutation of the ideals of the 60s. "Hippie Dream" is simultaneously angry and wistfully nostalgic. "Take my advice/Don't listen to me," he begins. The refrain opens "But the wooden ships/Were a hippie dream", a fairly transparent reference. Towards the end, he explains his turn from the communalism of the 60s to the individualism of the 80s:

Just because it's over for you

Don't mean it's over for me

It's a victory for the heart

Every time the music starts

The dream is over, but I've still got my music (and, um, untold riches, by the way) to keep me going, he says. You? You're on your own. But he knows "It's so ugly/So ugly" and says so as the song ends. It took Young a little longer to figure it out than most, but when he did, he embraced it with a vengeance.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Violent Side"~~ and ~~"Hard Luck Stories"~~

Neil Young - Old Ways

2007-11-04T03:19:00.001-05:00

This is supposed to be Friday's post; sorry it's a bit late, I've been swamped at work. Hopefully I'll be back on track Monday.

Following the artistic cul-de-sac of Everybody's Rockin', Young continued his playacting ways, this time in a style that suits him a bit better: country. But unlike side one of American Stars 'n Bars, on which Young mined country music's past on his own terms, 1985's Old Ways is pure minstrelsy. Once again, Young strives to create as authentic a product as possible and winds up draining his own voice from the music.

This time around he recorded the album in Tennessee (plus one track each in Austin and somewhere in California: near Bakersfield, perhaps?). The back cover (which is laid out just like a generic 80s country album) lists an absurdly comprehensive who's-who of Nashville talent in the credits: Spooner Oldham, Pig Robbins, Waylon Jennings, even Bela Fleck to name just a few. But whereas one might expect Young to creatively thrive this setting, he sounds out of place in a room full of slick session pros. Old Ways is closest in spirit to the back-to-Nashville experiments of postmodern tricksters like Will Oldham or Ween, and it doesn't seem to fit Young. Like Everybody's Rockin', it sounds just like the real thing on the surface, but lacks substance in the details.

After a decent albiet string-heavy cover of country chestnut "The Wayward Wind" to set the mood, Young immediately begins laying on the corn nice and thick. "Get Back to the COuntry" features a prominent fiddle ensemble between each verse interrupted by an occasional jew's harp. Hyuck, hyuck. Plus wildly predictable lyrics about rediscovering a simpler style (backed, of course, by one of the largest backing ensembles of his career, and certainly the most high-priced talent).

At one point Young seems to express doubts about the exercise: the chorus of the title track admits, "Old ways/Can be a ball and chain". This sentiment would go on to inform (and mar) his next couple of albums, but for now he keeps it straight country the whole way through. To his credit, at least he bothered writing a whole album in this style, rather than padding it out with older outtakes, but most of the songs aren't especially good.

Lucky Thirteen includes the heartbreaking ballad "Once an Angel", far and away the album's best song, as well as the forgettable closer "Where Is the Highway Tonight?" "Are There Anymore Real Cowboys?" is another eye-rollingly corny example of Young trying way to hard, but it includes a guest spot from Willie Nelson, who rules, so that earns it a nod for this post. "My Boy" is another fine ballad, this time sung from the perspective of a father watching his son grow up and wishing the experience could last forever. A bit maudlin, perhaps, but very touching nonetheless.

Buy it... on vinyl... chump.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Are There Any More Real Cowboys?"~~ and ~~"My Boy"~~

Neil and the Shocking Pinks - Everybody's Rockin'

2007-10-31T14:39:00.000-04:00

Fittingly enough for Hallowe'en, Shelf Life presents Neil in his goofiest costume since his Buffalo Springfield-era "Hollywood cowboy" look. After completely baffling his fans by going all futuristic, Neil Young turned around and created yet another incarnation, this time reaching back further into the past than he ever had before. Everybody's Rockin' consists of ten short tracks of straight-up old school rockabilly.

To Young's credit, he goes for it all the way, even adopting an authentic wardrobe and hairstyle for the album's packaging and videos. He rechristens the band Neil and the Shocking Pinks and credits them on the cover, making them the first band other than Crazy Horse to receive that honour. And rather than padding the experiment with leftovers from other albums, his nine originals here all fit the album's narrow archetype to a T. The details are all there, from the lyrics to the guitar sounds to the backing vocals.

And therein lies the problem: Young brings nothing new to the table here, failing to putting his own spin on the style. That leaves Rockin' as little more than a dress-up party with nothing of lasting substance.

His cover of "Mystery Train", which sounds just like the original, highlights the lack of imagination here. Sure, Young pulls it off, but so what? Go back and listen to a Crazy Horse raver like "Sedan Delivery" or "Drive Back". Wouldn't you rather hear that band covering "Mystery Train"? At least they'd put their own spin on it. Or what about covering some other song in this chosen style? On his last album Young had turned "Mr. Soul" into an electro-dirge. Why not do "Barstool Blues" or "Homegrown" as a doo-wop number? It might be awful, but at least he'd be trying something different.

Rockin' isn't an outright terrible album; if you like old-time rock n' roll it's a reasonable facsimile, but it's ultimately pointless. And while I don't for a moment doubt Young's sincerity in the project and love for the the music to which it pays tribute, he can't help but sound kind of funny. And cheesy. It's a decent album if you don't listen too hard, but on closer inspection it's a disappointing failure. The fact that Young skips over it entirely on Lucky Thirteen shows that he knows it, too.

The opener is a promising enough start, but the album doesn't really get much better (or change much) from there. "Payola Blues", a rant about corrupt radio programmers dedicated to Alan Freed, manages the neat trick of being simultaneously topical and nostalgic. It's also notable for its amusing backing vocal line: "Casssh-a-wadda-wadda". But unlike Trans, there aren't really any overlooked treasures here, just a bunch of fair-to-middling tunes.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil and the Shocking Pinks - ~~"Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes"~~ and ~~"Payola Blues"~~... hey, that rhymes.

NOTE: Looks like this one's fallen out of print as well. No great loss there. If you're interested, Amazon "stocks" it as an mp3 download, but I've never bought a music download from Amazon, so I can't vouch for their choice of bitrate, have no idea if they use DRM, etc.

Neil Young - Trans

2007-10-29T18:35:00.000-04:00

This is where things get really weird. In 1982, Neil Young had a brand new record contract with a new label (Geffen), and kicked things off with his most inscrutable album to date, in hindsight perhaps the most challenging of his career.

The standard Young story generally holds that he went really nuts in the 80s, releasing a string of unlistenable genre experiments. This reputation is based almost entirely on Trans. Yes, he followed it up with a rockabilly album and a country album, but those are simply retro role-playing. Trans stands alone in Young's entire catalogue as the one time he attempted to make music from the future, not the past. While generally content to simply sound like himself, the album represents his first attempt to create a new sound since his work with Jack Nitzsche in the late 60s. Trans, believe it or not, is Young's Kid A.

The album, if you've never heard it, is Young's attempt to adopt electronic sounds. Many of the songs feature programmed drums and synthesizers. The lyrics are about technology, computers, robots. Young feeds his voice through a vocoder, at times tweaking it to such extremes that his voice is rendered incomprehensible, the sounds barely even recognizable as words.

Young makes the album's themes explicit right in the artwork. The front cover depicts two cars passing on a road that stretches into the horizon. On the right a 50s-era Cadillac with big ol' tailfins passes a hitchhiking Neil, shabby clothes on his back and a pair of bongo drums at his feet. On the right a futuristic car opens its gull-wing door to pick up what looks like a robot or hologram hitchhiking the other way. Behind Young grow grass and trees; behind the computerised guy rises a futuristic fantasy cityscape. The image on the back (sorry, couldn't find one online) is even more explicit: a human heart, with some of the vessels and chambers opened up to reveal wires and circuitry.

I actually only picked this one up recently, and was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. I'd always heard that the album was little more than an amusing curiosity, but it's actually very listenable. Not quite a triumph, but a solid effort. Whether or not one actually likes the overall robo-Neil sound of it, the album is at the very least an admirable experiment. Plenty of artists from Young's generation were trying to "update" their sounds in the early 80s by slathering a lot of cheesy synths and gated snares over the same tired songs, mostly in a transparently desperate attempt to stay relevant and keep selling records. Young, on the other hand, immersed himself in new music-making technology and wrote songs contemplating it. Trans is a lot of things, but it's certainly not blandly commercial.

Now for the bad. As is his occasionally frustrating wont, Young filled out the the record with older songs he'd had kicking around for a while. While this practice made albums like American Stars 'N Bars and Hawks & Doves sound inconsistent and somewhat watered down, on Trans it's a complete disaster. The opening track(!) is a nifty uptempo country-rock number complete with bongos and slide guitar called "A Little Thing Called Love". It's a cute little toe-tapper, but has no place on this album. Young opens side two with a similarly incongruous song and closes with a lengthy jam that sounds like Santana.

In a way one could argue that these songs function in juxtaposition to the others, highlighting the contrast between old and new, yesterday and today, analogue and digital. Even the lyrics are innocuous and sentimental. But they don't work that way. They just don't work, period, and keep Trans from being the flawed masterpiece it could have been.

Where the contrast really works is within the songs themselves: the way the electric rhythm guitar in the intro to "Sample and Hold" sounds so imperfect and human next to the artificial synth sounds. The vocal in "Transformer Man" is processed beyond recognition, and yet sings the album's most touching and tender melody. Young even recreates one of his earliest songs, Buffalo Springfield's "Mr. Soul", a song about the difficulty of maintaining artistic integrity in the face of commerce. Here he renders it stiff and mechanical, adding yet another layer of irony to the title.

Young has said that many of the songs were inspired by his efforts to communicate with his son, whose severe cerebral palsy limits his speech to such a degree that he needs computers and machines to express himself. Many of the lyrics detail a struggle to maintain control and remain human in a world of machines: "I feel like more than just a number," he sings in "Computer Age". Elsewhere, "You're a transformer man/Power in your hand".

As far as posting tracks here goes, starting with this album we are within the the range of a new compilation. In 1993 Geffen released Lucky Thirteen, a retrospective of the Geffen years compiled by Young himself. The album begins with the excellent "Sample and Hold" and "Transformer Man", so those are out. "Computer Age" is neatly representative of the album as a whole: strong melody, solid guitar playing that fits in nicely with the song's electro elements, and heavy vocoder abuse. Also, when Young recorded his MTV Unplugged set in 1995, he reversed what he'd done to "Mr. Soul" and turned an electronic song into an acoustic one. The performance shows how well the songwriting shines through without the digital decorations. Note the two or three lunatics in the audience who applaud in recognition at the opening line while the rest of the crowd wonders what the hell song this is. Sonic Youth did the same thing to "Computer Age" on the tribute album The Bridge; interesting, although it doesn't hold up through the transition quite as well as "Transformer Man" does.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Computer Age"~~

Bonus (not from vinyl): Neil Young - ~~"Transformer Man (live)"~~ and Sonic Youth - ~~"Computer Age"~~

NOTE: This thing is out of print AGAIN?!? Are you fucking kidding me? Come ON, Geffen! Let it go!

"Mr. Soul"

2007-10-26T04:35:00.002-04:00

Okay, quick interlude here before I get to the Geffen years. Hawks & Doves and Re•Ac•Tor aren't really the start of Young's next phase, they're in-between albums he made while trying to figure out what he wanted to do next. I'm sure of this. It's appropriate that we start in on the really weird shit on Monday.

So today I'm going to post a bunch of different versions of "Mr. Soul", one of Young's earliest songs and one he has revisited and reworked many times throughout his career. The song's instrumental hook (lifted from the Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction") and vocal melody are both easily recognised, but also simple enough to be endlessly adaptable. The somewhat inscrutable lyrics seem to be a wary rumination on the pressures of fame, a common subject for Young in his early years.

Young wrote the song in 1967 and presented it to Buffalo Springfield with the intent that it be the lead single from the band's forthcoming second album. The band rejected it as a single on the grounds that it sounded too much like "Satisfaction", making it the lead-off track on the album instead and selecting one of Stephen Stills's compositions as the single.

Young seems to have devoted quite a lot of energy over the years to proving that "Mr. Soul" is a more lasting and resilient composition than "Bluebird". Actually that's probably not his primary motive in revisiting the song as much as he has, but don't think it hasn't crossed his mind. The perceived slight was one of the first of many that would drive Young to leave the band several times over the following eighteen months or so.

The original version of the song is short and quick, driven by Dewey Martin's insistent snare beat. The multiple lead guitar tracks make the first sonic impression before the main riff comes in, and the vocals begin soon after. Even with the band's energetic performance, the song's dark tone proves impossible to mask.

Posted below is an alternate take of the version that appears on Again, the only notable difference being the guitar solos in the middle. I found this version online somewhere, and have no idea where it's from. The box set I assume, but I can't say for sure.

Buffalo Springfield - ~~"Mr. Soul (non-LP version)"~~

Young first revisited the song just a couple years later with Crosby, Stills & Nash. This recording is purportedly from a rehearsal session preparing the band for their Woodstock appearance. Here Young attempts to slow it down and draw out some of the song's paranoia, but the new rhythm feels forced. The vocals drag and some of their power is lost. Still, his willingness to take a song that works quite well as it is and risk diluting its power by playing it in a different style is telling, especially at this early stage. No idea where this is from by the way, it's just another one I found online.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - ~~"Mr. Soul (Woodstock rehearsal)"~~

And um... I don't want to get too into Trans right now because I'm going to cover it in detail on Monday. Call this a teaser. This is the extended mix, presumably from a 12" single, of Young's most radical reimagining of one of his own songs yet.

Neil Young - ~~"Mr. Soul (extended dance remix)"~~

Following his comeback in the early 90s, Young went through a period in which he revisited his entire body of work several times. He toured with Crazy Horse (and got another double-live album out of it in the process), as a solo artist, and with Booker T and the MGs, all in the space of a few years, each time playing setlists that spanned his career. "Mr. Soul" turned up in a new incarnation on each of those tours, usually in a menacing, bluesy form. The version below is from 1993's MTV Unplugged album, which boasts an impressively diverse set list and some intense, arresting performances. This is the slowest and sparest of all the versions of "Mr. Soul" from that era, and certainly the most powerful. Here Young seems to have finally achieved the ominous tone he may have been aiming for way back at that Woodstock rehearsal. Or maybe he's just getting old.

Neil Young - ~~"Mr. Soul (acoustic)"~~

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Re•Ac•Tor

2007-10-24T16:20:00.000-04:00

Another year, another Neil Young album. In 1981 Young once again reconvened the Horse for a bunch of rousing electric jams. Remember what I wrote about Zuma? About Crazy Horse becoming a comfort zone for Young when he doesn't feel like taking any risks? Re•Ac•Tor is where that trend reaches its nadir.

It's the final album on a contract with a label Young would subsequently leave, and man, it shows. Even the album art is uninspired. Whereas Hawks & Doves at least had Young trying on a new persona, Re•Ac•Tor is old news, start to finish.

The album opens with Young poking fun at his own singing voice in "Opera Star": "You were born to rock/You'll never be an opera star". Cute, but kind of forgettable. Which in a way, makes it a perfect opener in that it sets the table for the rest of the album.

Song after song drifts by, none leaving much of an impression. There are no interludes, no outside musicians, just Neil and the Horse rocking away on every track. Even the Horse sound tired and bored. On a pair of longer numbers they hardly vary at all over the course of nine minutes or so. Young could just as easily have taped the band riffing for about thrity seconds, then jammed over a loop to his heart's content; it wouldn't have sounded much different. "T-Bone" at least has some interesting guitar effects (someone gave Young a flanger for Christmas, apparently) to distinguish it, but the pointless lyrics make clear the track is a throwaway. "Shots" has some cool gunfire sound effects and a haunting message, but again the endless riffing goes nowhere.

I had to post something, and the rhythm on "Southern Pacific" is kind of infectious, so that one gets the call. It's actually a pretty good song, but it's the type of song that would be a lesser number on a better Young album, the kind you could point to and say, "Wow, even the filler is good on this album." When it's one of the best songs on the record you're not looking at a very good record. It's telling that none of these songs ever turn up in Young's later set lists.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - ~~"Southern Pacific"~~

Neil Young - Hawks & Doves

2007-10-22T18:12:00.001-04:00

Today we officially begin Neil Young's difficult years. Fittingly, it's the start of the 80s. Not that he got weird right at the start of the decade; he released a couple of mediocre albums to run out his Reprise contract before his notorious Geffen years. We're also at a point between the reach of the major compilations, so nothing from the next couple of albums turns up anywhere else.

Young didn't miss a beat chronologically, releasing Hawks & Doves in late 1980, same year as Live Rust. But some of the songs date from several years earlier, which gives side one an inconsistent feel.

Hawks is yet another one of those Young albums with a clear delineation between the two sides. Here, side one is filled with quiet, personal songs, opening with two older songs: the barely-there ballad "Little Wing" and the seven-minute "The Old Homestead", the lyrics for which include parts for multiple characters. The album's finest song is at the end of the side, a haunting solo acoustic number entitled "Captain Kennedy". The lyrics tell a vague and troubling tale in a similar vein as "Powderfinger", while the music showcases Young's fingerpicking skills. One of his best songs of the era, but nothing else on the record matches it.

Side two brings out the band, first for a schmaltzy country number entitled "Stayin' Power", then for a series of patriotic blue collar workin' man anthems. "Union Man" is the weirdest of the bunch. It starts out espousing pride in organised labour before the song turns into a dramatised union meeting chaired by Young. A member proposes that everyone be issued bumper stickers that say "Live music is better". The members approve, the motion is passed, the song is lame.

"Comin' Apart At Every Nail" is a decent working-man's lament about struggling to get by. It's not great, I'm just posting it to include something from side two, and it's fairly representative of the overall sound. It's no "Livin' On a Prayer", though, and that's saying something.

The side closes with the album's title track, notable for the repeated chants of "U.S.A., U.S.A." in the chorus. In this day and age, it's hard not to be cynical about overt displays of patriotism, but Young is still an Old Left liberal here; it would be a few years before he would begin publicly praising noted union-buster Ronald Reagan. Still, there's just something awkward and forced about the tone of all of the songs. Maybe it's because he's Canadian.

The music doesn't do much to buoy the bland songwriting. Young's guitar playing is noticeably different than it's been before, with a much cleaner sound than his previous electric work, but most of it gets buried under backing vocals and fiddles. Considering the high quality of Young's previous pair of new albums, Hawks can only be seen as a major disappointment.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Captain Kennedy"~~ and ~~"Comin' Apart At Every Nail"~~

Weekend video: Neil Young, Crazy Horse... and Devo

2007-10-20T03:52:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted a weekend video in a while and man, Neil Young's got some gems out there. First up: Journey Through the Past, Young's 1972 autobio-doc. As I montioned before, it's near-impossible to find, but somebody posted the opening credits and first seven minutes or so on the redoubtable YouTube. I believe this is Young's first use of his alter-ego Bernard Shakey, who usually turns up on film projects.

The film opens with a scene of Young and posse walking in to a radio station, presumably for an interview. Young banters with the DJ for a bit, and the film fades into that Buffalo Springfield TV performance I posted a few weeks ago. The clip cuts off just as the band switches to "Mr. Soul".

Kind of reminds me of Radiohead's Meeting People Is Easy movie: very little context, just disorienting shots of the tedium of promotional work. It certainly makes me interested in seeing the movie; anybody got a copy?

Shakey's next film venture, to my knowledge, was a concert film of the same show as the Live Rust album, entitled Rust Never Sleeps. I was going to post a video from that movie (and found this while searching for it; I think that's Dutch), but you can find that anywhere. I also stumbled on this clip of Young and the Horse playing "Hurricane" in 1976. I think this might be the same footage Jim Jarmusch used toward the end of his Neil Young doc The Year of the Horse, which would make this Young-directed footage as well. Er, Shakey-directed. It's clearly a professional shoot and a multi-camera edit, so it's no bootleg.

"Hurricane" is my personal favourite of the long-form Crazy Horse numbers because of the way Young uses it as a launching pad for so much melodic exploration. The bluesy tonal wails of "Down By the River" are all well and good, but I think it's when he's building on the possibilities of a simple scale that Young really soars as a soloist. Compare that to this version from his famous Berlin concert in 1982. Sure, the 80s seem to have infected his backing band a bit, but once Young gets into the solo it still sounds like classic Neil, and he has yet to exhaust the song's potential.

In fact, screw it: here's the Rust Never Sleeps version as well. There's just no end to what he can do with this one song. He's even been known to play it at his solo shows on an organ. Far out, man.

But oh yeah, I was talking about Young as a filmmaker. Not always so hot. He wrote, directed and self-financed a narrative film in the early 80s called Human Highway which went unreleased until about ten years ago. It stars Young, a bunch of his aging-hippie neighbors from Laurel Canyon (Dennis Hopper, Russ Tamblyn, Dean Stockwell) and Devo in an incomprehensible technicolour fantasia about... nuclear weapons. And... stuff. Young discovered Devo pretty early on in their career and gave them one of their early breaks. Here he incorporates their song "Worried Man" into his movie as a big production number.

Did you make it all the way through? Almost unwatchable, isn't it? Actually, the only good scene is towards the end, when Young and Tamblyn are dancing on shovels. The song is reprised elsewhere in the film in a performance by the spuds themselves.

Incidentally, wanna see something really weird? At the end of this clip, a segment from a short biographical TV special about Young, there's footage of Young and Devo rocking "My My Hey Hey". Totally awesome. If anyone knows where I can find the clip in it's entirety, hook me up.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Live Rust

2007-10-19T23:20:00.000-04:00

In hindsight, Neil Young released Decade two years too early. While his next two studio albums may have seemed like the start of a brilliant second act at the time, they were really the grand finale of Young's first act, one quiet, one loud, end of the decade. Young followed the release of Rust Never Sleeps with an obligatory curtain call: the double-live LP.

Seeing as it contains songs from the previous two albums and an evenly-distributed sampling of older favourites, Live Rust could arguably be viewed as the definitive summary of Young's 70s work. I say it's not, because it's not nearly as comprehensive as Decade and all played with the same backing band, but to each his own.

Actually, as self-congratulatory double-live albums go, Live Rust is pretty strong. Side one is all acoustic tracks, most of them not radically re-worked, but the harmonica parts on "Comes a Time" are particularly good. Side two consists of lean electric numbers, with one more acoustic interlude ("Needle"). Here things get a bit more interesting as we get to hear a few non-Crazy Horse tracks get amped up by the pummeling Horse. "The Loner", in particular, benefits from this treatment, and is transformed from a studio-crafted pop song into a full-throttle garage stomper. Listen to Young attack those string charts, turning the melodies into snarling guitar leads.

The album starts to drag a bit on the second record, as Young hauls out the warhorses ("Cortez", "Hurricane") and begins to stretch out. It's always nice to hear a couple of those played for as long as Young likes, but "Tonight's the Night" doesn't need to be seven minutes long. And without the subtle touches like Everybody Knows's mournful fiddle lines or momentum shifters like Zuma's acoustic numbers, Crazy Horse starts to sound the same over the course of two records.

The biggest complaint I have about Live Rust, solid though it may be, is the woefully unimaginative setlist. The album contains sixteen songs. Four are from Rust Never Sleeps (including both versions of the album's signature track). Two are from the previous album. Fine, they're the most recent releases. Of the remaining ten songs, nine appear on Decade. Only "When You Dance" (which, by the way, is terrific here) could qualify as a lesser-known song. I mean, I guess the album's supposed to function as a de facto live greatest hits set, so fine. But still, this is a guy who'd already released two entire albums of live recordings of songs the audience had never heard before. Young was known for filling out his sets with all manner of forgotten album tracks and unreleased gems. I have a bootleg of a show from 1976 that includes a song that would later turn up on Ragged Glory, which came out fourteen years later.

I'm not saying he should have filled Live Rust with unknown numbers; that's not the point of the album. Just that, since he had already celebrated his best known work on Decade only two years earlier, why not throw a few more curve balls on the double-live album? I love "Cinnamon Girl" as much as the next Young fan, but I'd much rather hear a version of, say, "World On a String" or "Yonder Stands the Sinner".

Okay, enough bitching. As far as double-live albums go, it is pretty strong overall. And, in hindsight, it would stand as an end-of-an-era summation before Young took some rather strange creative turns. Starting Monday I'll get into Young's sometimes bizarre, occasionally awful eighties material, with which he regularly taunted and tested the loyalties of both his audience and, most notoriously, his label.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Comes a Time [live]"~~ and Neil Young & Crazy Horse - ~~"The Loner [live]"~~

Neil Young - Journey Through the Past and Decade

2007-10-17T19:49:00.000-04:00

Got in late Monday so I skipped doing a post, but that's okay. My plan was to go over some compilations this week before moving on, and these two can be covered together.

Neil Young's first attempt to anthologise his own work resulted in the 1972 film Journey Through the Past and its accompanying soundtrack album. The film was poorly reviewed and lost to history (if you can find a copy you're one up on me). The album, however, while also poorly reviewed, continues to haunt the world's used record bins to this day.

I acquired a copy recently and was surprised to find just how bad it really is. The packaging, while attractively designed, offers little in the way of liner notes, so I have no idea who's playing on most of the tracks. As for the music, it's mostly a hodgepodge of live tracks, rehearsals and studio outtakes. There's a lengthy version of "Alabama" in which the band stops halfway through to discuss the backing vocal arrangement. There's an interminable version of "Words" that takes up the entirety of side three and ends abruptly after fifteen-odd minutes of aimless guitar noodling, as though the band simply got tired and stopped playing.

The record itself is also an object lesson in the danger of buying mail-order used vinyl. The seller was upfront about the record's deteriorating condition, but still managed to understate it a bit; side four is physically caked with debris, and quite literally unplayable. No matter; nothing I could actually hear is worth posting. One song here, "Soldier", turns up on Decade, none on Greatest Hits.

Incidentally, I posted a video a couple weeks back of the Springfield on some TV show playing "For What It's Worth" and "Mr. Soul". That same performance appears here and, presumably, in the movie as well. I know it's the same one because the album opens with audio of the show's host making the same lame joke.

Moving ahead five years, Young responded to his first real creative rut by assembling Decade, a triple-LP career retrospective with a generous helping of standout tracks from each of his albums and a few previously unreleased cuts sprinkled throughout for good measure. You can quibble about some of the individual song selections (indeed, that's been the whole point of these last couple months of posts), but the overall quality is undeniable. This set was my first exposure to Young back in high school, and remains highly recommended as an introduction to his music. I think it remains one of the best compilations ever released by any single artist.

Since my aim here has been to post tracks that don't appear on Decade or other comps, I can't really post anything, right? Besides, I don't have this on vinyl; it's on CD. I considered replacing it just to post a few of the rarities (you can find it for $10 without looking too hard), but decided it wasn't really worth it. Instead, I'll post some covers of some of the rarities.

Of the 35 tracks on Decade, seven don't appear on any of the albums I've covered here thus far. One of them, CSNY's "Ohio", appears on that band's first best-of album, So Far, leaving six actual rarities.

"Down To the Wire", a demo recorded with an early line-up of Buffalo Springfield. Young sounds hesitant and the arrangement is a bit haphazard, but it's decent.

"Sugar Mountain" is a touching acoustic song about fading youth that Young claims to have written on his nineteenth birthday. The song continues to appear in Young's solo set lists and remains one of his best-loved classics.

"Winterlong" had been kicking around for years, turning up in Crazy Horse set lists as early as 1970. It's three minutes of pure pop heaven, and would have fit perfectly on Zuma. I've posted the Pixies fairly straightforward version of the song from The Bridge because Black Francis and Kim Deal's vocal harmonies fit the song so perfectly.

"Deep Forbidden Lake" is a simple acoustic meditation. Pleasant but undistinguished.

"Love Is a Rose" is a simple and beautiful love song, another real lost classic. It was also a big hit for Linda Ronstadt, whose version I've posted here.

"Campaigner" is another solo acoustic number, famous for its line about a mystical place "where even Richard Nixon has got soul."

Buy Journey Through the Past... on vinyl.

Buy Decade... on vinyl.

Buy The Bridge... on vinyl.

Buy Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Linda Ronstadt - ~~"Love Is a Rose"~~

Not from vinyl: Pixies - ~~"Winterlong"~~

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps

2007-10-12T22:27:00.000-04:00

And the hits don't stop. Rather than following his comeback Comes a Time with an acoustic tour befitting the album's style, Neil Young once again swung a hard left in 1979. He reconvened Crazy Horse and mounted an arena tour of half-solo/half-electric sets with a song list filled with new material. He then compiled live performances from said tour of said new material, and released his best-known and most widely-celebrated album since Harvest.

Rust Never Sleeps is one of those albums that carries such an overwhelming reputation that the album itself becomes slightly obscured beneath the weight of its own mythology. Its two most often-discussed artistic devices were both tricks Young had used before: a concert recording of new songs (Time Fades Away), and opening and closing the album with different versions of the same song (Tonight's the Night). In this case, the two versions represent the stark contrast of the albums sides: side one is solo acoustic, side two is the Horse with the gain knobs dimed. They also provide a sense of cohesion to what would otherwise seem like two separate EPs.

The album has come to be viewed as one of Young's loud, electric triumphs, but it's quite the opposite. Not only is half the album not electric at all, but the electric side isn't that great. While side one showcases some of Young's most audacious lyricism to date, side two is about half filler. Granted, the guitar tones are incredible, easily Young's most abrasive sounds to date. But two of the four songs don't hold up well at all; how "Welfare Mothers" continues to slip into Crazy Horse set lists to this day is beyond me.

The enduring strength of the record is in the songwriting on side one. The few simple couplets in "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of the Blue)" contribute further to the album's reputation as Young's supposed response to punk, but the rest of the songs don't bear that out. The next three contain some of the most sophisticated and inscutable lyrics of Young's career. I've posted "Thrasher" because it has my favourite melody of the three, but they each contain a fascinating melange of imagery and allusion.

So after a few down years and a subsequent best-of, Young returns to form with what seems to be a mature album of MOR ballads, then turns arround and reminds everyone that, oh yeah, when he feels like it, he can write on par with the likes of Springsteen, Van Morrison, even Dylan. And on top of that, he pads out the rest of the album with electric jams, just so, if you're not paying attention, you might miss the good stuff.

Which is not to say side two is bad, just overrated. "Powderfinger" is the exception, one of Young's finest combinations of powerful songwriting and soaring guitar leads. Check out the lyrics: Where'd the boat come from? Did the kid shoot them? Did they shot him? I've never figured it out; Here's an interesting attempt if you're up for it.

Then there's a couple of clunkers and the other title track (sort of), notable primarily for the freakish guitar sounds Neil gets out his poor suffering amp. All quite listenable, but a pretty high degree of filler for an album considered an unimpeachable classic. Greatest Hits, of course, gives you the electric version of the hit, and no hint of what lies on side one. Go figure.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Thrasher"~~ and Neil Young & Crazy Horse - ~~"Powderfinger"~~

Neil Young - Comes a Time

2007-10-10T02:38:00.001-04:00

Following 1977's half-finished country experiment American Stars 'n Bars (which, I neglected to mention in the last post, has a fantastic cover), Neil Young released Decade, a ten-year (duh) career overview complete with rare tracks and inscrutable liner notes. The three-record set is often credited as an early example of the rarity-filled box sets that would become de rigueur in the CD era, but at the time it would have simply been viewed as a particularly generous greatest hits package. And when does an artist trot out the greatest hits?

Let's look for a moment at Young's past several years. Following the big commercial breakthrough (Harvest) he released three defiantly anti-commercial albums that established him as a Serious Artist. Then, he re-grouped his favourite backing band for a crowd-pleaser (Zuma); re-connected with the other creative force from his first band (Stephen Stills) for a lackluster reunion album of sorts, and padded out an unfinished album with studio leftovers. Given that lead-up, a greatest hits album might have seemed like an admission of defeat: my best years are behind me, let's take a look back.

With that context in mind, is 1978's Comes a Time a triumphant return to form or the first late-period album by a mature artist past his prime? Both, and neither, sort of.

From a commercial standpoint Comes a Time can be viewed as the long-awaited follow-up to Harvest: a mostly acoustic folk-based album of easy soft-rock. From an artistic standpoint, it's in the same vein as Zuma: a strong album employing a previously-explored style; solid, but nothing new.

It's neither because the details don't fit either paradigm. The liner notes credit no fewer than nineteen studio musicians, more than Young had ever employed on a single album by a long shot. The arrangements are occasionally frustrating, and Young seems to be challenging the listener as subtly as possible with sudden stops and other odd rhythmic shifts.

The album opens with a theme played several times over before the song actually starts, and the song pauses several times to repeat it. "Look Out For My Love" pauses after the first chorus for Young to announce his emotional vulnerability as nakedly as possible. "Peace Of Mind" is a love ballad with an achingly beautiful melody, but again the arrangement refuses to let the listener settle into a steady rhythm. Side two opens with "Human Highway" (the title of Young's strange, long-unreleased narrative film), which seems to revisit "Walk On"'s theme of burying the hatchet. Even on this one, the tempo in the chorus continuously shifts from half-time to double-time, refusing to grant the listener an easy tune.

They're all good songs, but none are great, which made it difficult to pick songs for this post; nothing jumps out as a great lost classic. If anything, that's a testament to the overall cohesion of the songs: you can't just cherry-pick the hits here; it's an album. In a larger sense, the album can't be fully appreciated without an understanding of this point in Young's career. Staring in the face of obsolescence, he created an unabashedly commercial album while still challenging the listener. It's not one of his best from a pure musical standpoint, but it's a triumph nonetheless.

We're past the reach of Decade now, but Greatest Hits includes the title track. The album also contains "Lotta Love", a cover version of which became the defining hit of backing vocalist Nicolette Larson's career. I suppose I could have posted that. But instead, here's a version by Dinosaur Jr. from the tribute album The Bridge. As should be obvious from listening to his work, Dinosaur frontman J. Mascis is one of Young's biggest fans. And so, given the opportunity to pay tribute to his hero, he chose one of Young's most inoffensive MOR hits and urinated all over it. Enjoy!

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Look Out For My Love"~~, ~~"Peace Of Mind"~~ and ~~"Human Highway"~~

Bonus (not from vinyl): Dinosaur Jr. ft. Artie "Are You Ready" Sinatra - ~~"Lotta Love"~~

Neil Young - American Stars 'n Bars

2007-10-08T18:17:00.000-04:00

Neil Young followed up the abysmal Stills-Young Band record with a new solo album a year later; considered together, the two albums must have hinted at a worrying trend: was Young running out of ideas?

Not that 1977's American Stars 'n Bars is a bad record; it's actually pretty good, better than I remembered. But it's more a hodgepodge than a real album.

Side one, recorded that year, is credited to Neil Young, Crazy Horse and the Bullets. That's the Horse on rhythm, Stray Gator Ben Kieth on steel, Carole Mayedo on violin, and Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson on vocals. The side opens with "The Old Country Waltz" which, with its prominent fiddle lead and tear-in-my-beer lyrics, seems to announce the album's direction: Neil goes straight old-fashioned country, Nashville-style. The next three tracks bear that out quite nicely before the side closes with a change-up on "Bite the Bullet", a terrific Horse-y rave-up.

Setting aside whatever misgivings one might have towards artists indulging in genre exercises on the downside of their careers, the music is pretty good, and Young pulls off the style quite handily. The problem is that he didn't pull off enough to fill an album.

Side two is filled out with assorted leftovers from three different sessions over the previous three years. Not that this stuff is without merit: "Like a Hurricane" joins the canon of extended guitar workouts, and may be his finest yet. But "Star of Bethlehem" is pure filler, easily the most forgettable track on Decade; I've listened to it a few times today and still couldn't hum it for you right now. "Will To Love" is a seven-minute acoustic meditation on salmon swimming upstream to spawn; interesting, but way too weird (and long) to take seriously. The album closes with "Homegrown", a pleasant pro-farmer/pro-pot giggler that remains an occasional encore number for Horse shows. Cute, but surely lesser Young.

So what happened here? Side one makes a fine EP, but why didn't Young record a full country album with the Bullets? Conflicts with the musicians? Or did he simply run out of songs? Stars is certainly an enjoyable listen, but if you were a Young fan in 1977, you had to wonder if his peak years were coming to a close.

I don't get why Decade ignores side one, by the way. Considering that it's intended as a comprehensive overview of all of his stylistic twists and turns from the period, why ignore his brief country phase? Granted, "Like a Hurricane" is essential (it even makes the cut as one of only five post-Harvest tracks on 2004's Greatest Hits), but he couldn't have picked one of the country numbers over "Star of Bethlehem"?

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young, Crazy Horse and the Bullets - ~~"The Old Country Waltz"~~ and ~~"Bite the Bullet"~~

The Stills-Young Band - Long May You Run

2007-10-05T04:12:00.000-04:00

Oh, Neil. What the hell happened here, man?

After vowing not to record another Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album until the other three went through rehab, Young nonetheless continued to work with each one periodically; they turn up as guest vocalists in one permutation or another on most of Young's 70s albums. So I'm sure it seemed like a big deal, if not a total surprise, when the work of the Stills-Young Band surfaced. That is, until one heard the results.

The Stills-Young Band consisted of its two namesakes and a bunch of slick L.A. session pros. None of these guys were from Young's circle of regulars; presumably they were players with whom Stills had worked. Stills and Young trade off songs throughout the album, back and forth. Young's bear the distinct traces of a lack of effort, toss-offs deemed unworthy of his own albums, perhaps, while Stills's contributions border on unlistenable.

I actually hadn't listened to the album in many years before pulling it out to write this post; I remembered liking the breezy title track (Young's; it closes out Decade), thinking the Stills tracks were a bit bland, and not remembering the rest of the Young tracks. Upon further review, the album is awful, and has no clear competition as the worst album Young released during the decade. It may even rank as his worst album ever which, if you heard much of his 80s output, is really saying something.

First off, Young's songs aren't even that good to begin with, but whereas Crazy Horse can sometimes elevate less-than-stellar songwriting through passionate performance, most of these songs sound even worse being played by a bunch of soulless studio hacks. Oh sure, the guys are pros, and there's not a note out of place on the album, but is that really what you want Neil Young to sound like?

As for the Stills numbers... wow. This guy really fell off. The songs veer from faux-blues to faux-Latin and are consistently terrible. The lyrics, the vocals, the arrangements: awful. I have to imagine that Young got roped into doing this record and was contractually bound up before he had a chance to hear the new songs Stills was working on.

Out of Young's five songs, there's the aforementioned title track, which is nice, and one more halfway-decent song: "Let It Shine", which opens side two. The performance has a shambling warmth absent from most of the album; it sounds as though Young deliberately kept the band up all night in order to record them sounding tired. And the song itself is interesting as it's the only Young song I know of that flirts stylistically with gospel, a style in which, not surprisingly, the simplicity and sincerity seem to suit Young quite well.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: The Stills-Young Band - ~~"Let It Shine"~~

Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Zuma

2007-10-03T20:35:00.000-04:00

Having at last worked through his devastation over the addictions and deaths of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry and taken his audience on a (to say the least) difficult musical journey over the course of his last several albums, Young reformed Crazy Horse with newcomer Frank "Pancho" Sampedro on guitar and released his most accessible album since Harvest: 1975's Zuma. It's billed as being by Neil Young with Crazy Horse, the first time Young shared billing on the cover since Everybody Knows.

There are a couple of tracks with other musicians (including Crosby, Stills & Nash on the album's closer "Through My Sails"), but for most of the album it's just Neil and the Horse. The familiarity of the musicians contributes to the relaxed and confident tone of the album's performances. Playing with Crazy Horse also seems to have inspired Young to stretch out on guitar for the first time in a while, and side two's lengthy centerpiece "Cortez the Killer" soon joined the list of live staples.

Young also delivers his most hummable batch of melodies since... maybe ever. Tracks like "Don't Cry No Tears" and "Barstool Blues" are downright power-pop, albiet with breezy California-country-rock rhythms underneath.

The result is one of Young's most easily likeable albums of the era. With so many great songs and such strong playing, it seems nitpicky to focus on any flaws. And yet...

The flip side of Young's confident performances with a long-familiar backing band is that Young seems to have settled into a comfort zone with Crazy Horse. He knows he can rattle off six-minute guitar solos in his sleep, and that his fans will eat it up. And the flip side of the album's accessibility is that it's completely unchallenging.

So, fine, it's not Time Fades Away, that doesn't mean it's a bad album, it's one of the best of the era. If anything, the album demonstrates that Young was on such a hot streak in the mid-1970s that even his lesser efforts resulted in all-time classics. The guy just couldn't go wrong at this point. But it's worth noting because in later years, Crazy Horse has become something of a crutch for Young. When he doesn't have any particularly strong ideas, he knows he can always book an arena tour, trot out the same set list, and the fans will still turn out in droves to hear one more fifteen-minute version of "Down By the River". Hey, don't get me wrong, I could listen to the guy solo all day. But it's the diversity of his catalogue and his continued refusal to follow an easy path to commercial success that make Young such a special artist. Zuma is a terrific album, but it's nothing you haven't heard before.

Having said that, there are actually a lot of songs on it you may not have heard before. Surprisingly for such a strong set of short, hummable pop songs, only the epic "Cortez" makes it on Decade, and none of them made the cut for Greatest Hits. "Don't Cry No Tears" is the opener, and sets the tone for side one. Side two is a little darker, and "Stupid Girl" introduces the shift quite effectively with what I think might be some of Young's finest lead guitar work. His mastery of melodic phrasing is on display more prominently here than anywhere else on the album (even "Cortez"), or on most of his other albums for that matter.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young with Crazy Horse - ~~"Don't Cry No Tears"~~ and ~~"Stupid Girl"~~

Neil Young - Tonight's the Night

2007-10-01T18:15:00.000-04:00

So I was out of town all last week; I'll be back on schedule starting today. Also, I finally put that Mercury Rev track up on last week's post.

Which brings us to Tonight's the Night, and if you thought he'd lost his mind for the last two, wait'll you hear this one. The songs were recorded haphazardly in various studios with at least three backing bands, including a new one Young dubbed the Santa Monica Flyers. Granted the memberships overlap quite a bit, but the album still has a larger supporting cast than any Young album before it. The album's Wikipedia page is well worth reading for an introductory overview. And yet, astoundingly, Young managed to create one of the most cohesive records of his career.

The secret, of course, is the subject matter. Whereas other albums find Young drifting lyrically from topic to topic, on Tonight he has only one thing on his mind: drugs, and the drug induced deaths of his friends. Following Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten's passing in 1972, longtime roadie Bruce Berry overdosed and died a year later. While not every song deals with them directly, an air of mourning and exhaustion hangs over every song.

The album opens and closes with two different versions of the title track (a trick Young would repeat more than once on subsequent albums), a half-hearted attempt at a rave-up with lyrics that bluntly memorialise Berry. The band sounds too tired and dispirited to rock out. And yet it's this very shortcoming, be it an unwillingness or inability to muster up much energy, that gives the song its harrowing power. The mood carried through the rest of the album, regardless of who's playing. But unlike Harvest's more somnolent moments, the band(s) still manages to swing. They kick up a little dust now and then ("World on a String", "Roll Another Number"), other times sound as though they may simply give up at any moment and stop playing mid-song ("Speakin' Out", "Tired Eyes").

Young's performances speak volumes; never before or since has an artist managed to convey so much emotion because he basically mails it in, not in spite of it. He barely even solos, letting Ben Kieth, Nils Lofgren and even, in the form of an old concert recording, Whitten take the lead. And in doing so, Young created the ultimate 3 a.m., empty-bottle-of-Jack album of all time. You almost can't listen to it in daylight.

Decade includes the opening version of the title track (renamed "Tonight's the Night, Part 1") and the aptly-named "Tired Eyes"; Greatest Hits ignores the album completely. It's tricky to pick songs off here, though, because they're all good (seriously; Tonight doesn't have a weak track; arguably some filler, but good filler, if you know what I mean), but most of them won't make any sense out of context. "Mellow My Mind" is one of the album's sleepy tracks, and closes out side one nicely. "Lookout Joe" is a rocker (relatively speaking), and one of the few tracks that actually can strand on its own outside its context. Note that both tracks have basically the same ending.

Interestingly, I work with one of the guitarists from longtime New York RnR lifers the Snakes. They're currently working on a year-long project in which they get together once a month and record one song from Tonight. In order. Presumably they did "New Mama" last week. Spaghetti let me listen to a few of the tracks and pick one to post. "Roll Another Number" was the clear winner for its long, lazy intro and inspired vocal performance. As in all the best cover versions, the band managed to stay true to the spirit of the original while making the song their own.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Mellow My Mind"~~ and ~~"Lookout Joe"~~

Bonus (not from vinyl): The Snakes - "Roll Another Number"

NOTE: Did you click on the vinyl link above? Amazon carries it! On vinyl! I didn't even know they had any vinyl.

Neil Young - On the Beach

2007-09-24T02:33:00.000-04:00

Neil Young continued his anti-commercial ways on 1974's On the Beach. The album has some terrific high points, but lacks the consistency of Time Fades Away for one obvious reason: Young once again chooses to work without a steady band. Just as he had established a solid performing rapport with the Stray Gators, he abandoned them for yet another album of shifting permutations of friends, studio pros and guest stars behind him.

Which is not to say that Beach is a bad album; it's better than good, it's very good. But given the sometimes hesitant performances of his sidemen, one can't help but wonder what could have been.

The album opens with "Walk On", which is a story within itself. After the Gold Rush's "Southern Man", a scathing indictment of southern racial history which remains one of Young's best-known electric guitar rave-ups, had inspired a response from pride-of-the-South country rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Sweet Home Alabama," one of Skynyrd's best-known songs, contains the verse:

Well I heard Mr. Young sing about us

Yeah i heard old Neil put it down

I hope Neil Young can remember

A southern man don't need him around anyhow

"Walk On" begins with the lines

I hear some people been talkin' me down

Bring up my name, pass it 'round

Is this pop music's longest running non-hiphop dis war? Might be, but Young seems to be calling for a truce on "Walk On". Too bad they couldn't keep it going for a few more albums. Incidentally, following the tragic 1977 plane crash that killed Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant and several other band members, Young is said to have remarked that he'd rather play "Sweet Home Alabama" than "Southern Man" any day (he hasn't).

As for the rest of the album, side one searches for an identity, while side two settles into a somewhat unsatisfying one. The real lost gem here is "Revolution Blues," an urgent and powerful number dominated by the drumming of the Band's Levon Helm. Helm is a curious figure in rock history. While his drum technique is nothing special on the surface, it's instantly recognisable all the same. Listen to "Revolution Blues", then listen to Mercury Rev's "Opus 40," recorded exactly one quarter-century later. On both songs, Helm's unmistakeable drumming sets the tone. On the latter song, the drumming alters the mood of the song completely following its dramatic intro, imbuing the song with an unmistakable sense of Americana.

On side two of Beach Young finds a groove and settles into it, perhaps too comfortably. "Motion Pictures" is the shortest track, and indicative of the soporific mood throughout. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful song, but the performance lacks energy, as do many of Beach's longer tracks.

Still, all in all a fine album, and a curious gap in Young's release schedule. Like Time, the album remained out of print on domestic CD until this decade. Unlike Time, however, Young chose not to ignore Beach on Decade; the compilation includes "Walk On" and, in a curious and pleasant surprise, "For the Turnstiles". Greatest Hits, on the other hand, ignores Beach entirely. Eleven of its sixteen tracks are drawn from albums I've covered already; depending on how well you know Young's catalog from here on out, you can probably guess the other five.

Buy it... on vinyl.

From my deck to you: Neil Young - ~~"Revolution Blues"~~ and ~~"Motion Pictures"~~

UPDATE: Mercury Rev - ~~"Opus 40"~~

Weekend video - Neil Young solo

2007-09-23T05:48:00.001-04:00

Found a fantastic video of Neil Young live on the BBC from 1971. It's about a half-hour long. His voice sounds amazing throughout.

The opening rendition of "Out On the Weekend" kills the version on Harvest. He introduces "Old Man" as a new song, so I guess all the Harvest stuff was new here. There's even a few songs from Time Fades Away, which was still two years from being recorded, let alone released. My guess is the audience hadn't heard most of the songs he played.

Also, his between-songs banter is rather amusing, in particular the comments about advertising on American television.

Thanks to the Other Side for the heads up on this one.