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Friday, July 29, 2005
GOT TO LEARN HOW TO DANCE
Fatback band
Yum Yum
Polydor : 1975
[Buy it]
THE DANCE MASTER
Willie Henderson
12" Single
Available on
Willie Henderson & The Soul Explosions -- Funky Chicken & More
[Buy it]
Gotta Learn How to Dance: (turn up your sound)
The Numa Numa Dance
The Vin Diesel
The Breakoff
The Dance of the Korean Boys
The Hamstring
The David Brent
The Most Awesome Robot Dance
The Trombone
The Dancing Snapdragon
The Steve Ballmer Monkey Dance
The Ear Cell
The Foreigner
The Dangerman
The Moonwalker
The Google
posted by James
LINK |
Thursday, July 28, 2005
GONE DEAD TRAIN
King Solomon Hill
1932
GONE DEAD TRAIN
Randy Newman
Performance OST
Warner Bros. 1970
[Buy it]
GONE DEAD TRAIN
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse
Reprise 1971
[Buy it]
In that great train race, the Gone Dead Train done lost out to that Mystery Train by more than sixteen car lengths (not to mention the Night Train). Penned by a Junior (Parker), that upstart young'un Train (glimpsed in 1953) got all the sponsorship and endorsement deals: its Jim Jarmusch cinematic ode to Elvis and Memphis, its Greil Marcus book-length spiel to the same pagan gods, and it continues to tunnel deep into both the vernacular and the subconscious mind. Just don't board the one that has Bon Jovi as the conductor.
Perhaps its the tenor of folks who wind up covering that train. If The Band and The King are gonna sing about the "Mystery Train" how can gin-sopped covers by second-tier acts Nazareth and Izzy Stradlin make the "Gone Dead Train" less gone? I myself worked my way backwards on that ghost train, moving from the caboose forward. Crazy Horse, before just being Neil Young's backing band, before Danny Whitten was just another lost soul booked out and bound to go on that Southland line, made it choogle lazily on the tracks, powered by powders and Jack Nitzsche on the piano bench.
Lo and behold, Nitzsche's soundtrack for the Nicholas Roeg-James Cammell movie, Performance, features Randy Newman doing a furious turn on the same song (his punk mewl and sneer flashed for but an instant before hiding back behind that LA demeanor). According to Nitzsche, the lyrics he wrote with Russ Titelman were cobbled from obscure blues tunes, and there are nods to Charley Patton and Lucille Bogan, to jelly rolls, squeezed lemons, demon eyes, and of course, coke dick (before the days of 'erectile dysfunction'). But behind it all looms this demon train as described by Mississippian King Solomon Hill.
Climbing to the front, into the conductor's car, Hill's version is the oldest mention I can find. I'll be damned if I can parse what he is mumbling about over the furnace's roar though. There is some advice: "Boys, if you out and runnin' around in this world this train will wreck your mind" and this helps parse them words, as if you need any more encouragement to dig a song played with a picked-clean cow bone as slide or enjoy such a ride, be it on a ghost train or that even more mysterious one-eyed object.
posted by beta
LINK |
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
DESCARGA A
Cachao
Master Session, Vol. 2
Sony : 1995
[Buy It]
EL TEPETZINTLECO
Trio Regional Huasteco
Antologia Del Son De Mexico
Corazon : 1995
[Buy It]
CALYPSO WAR
The Mighty Terror & His Calypsonians
Trojan Calypso Box
Trojan : 2002
[Buy It]
When I started this post, I didn't know shit about Cachao. His name was Cachao, he was Cuban, he had a son named "Cachito" - no mas. I learned more in a recent IM exchange:
what does "descargo" mean?
in spanish?
to fire?
like, to discharge?
could it be "jam session"?
hmm. it literally means "unload", like when you get fired from a job. and online it means "download" like download an mp3. I also think it can mean to take it out on someone? or to free someone from jail to escape? or even to take money out of an ATM: "i liberated my money from the ATM."
spanish is loose that way.
Whatever the fuck "descargo" means; I know even less about Trio del Huasteca. But the Mighty Terror is definitely declaring war on bootleg calypso singers: If you're not a Trinidadian you're not a calypsonian? Harsh.
posted by Alex
LINK |
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
OUTDOOR MINER
Wire
Chairs Missing
Harvest : 1978
[Buy It]
THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT US
Tracey Ullman
You Broke My Heart in 17 Places
Repertoire : 1983
[Buy It]
HOLOCAUST
Big Star
Third/Sister Lovers
PVC : 1978
[Buy It]
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
Dolly Parton
Jolene
RCA : 1974
[Buy It]
I have been jumping up and down for months about the epidemic of New Yorkers shutting out of the sounds of the city, people not moving out of your way because they can't hear "excuse me," the ubiquitous white cord. This perfectly fit in with the other thing I like to jump up and down about: the uselessness of the generation behind me, the twentysomethings (except Brian Howe) who seem to not really be working or doing much of anything but shopping and fiddling with electronic items. I have worked since I was nine. Paper routes! Babysitting! Walgreen's! Never mind the fact that in MY twenties my friends and I began our path toward total world domination. What have these people been doing?
I had a Walkman. Walkwoman. I rode the bus with Wire and New Order. Later I skied to Mountain Song. I'm a great skier. The only sport I'm actually good at, aside from swimming, which always seemed less a sport and more something you do in order to enjoy the water and not die. Fucking hell, I took that far. I was a lifeguard. Never for oceans, I wasn't strong enough, but for pools and lakes. I saved small children by reaching out a hand. Adults by saying "stand up (the water is three feet deep)."
I love computers, I love Macs. And when they came out I was fully supportive of the endeavor. I even sort of wanted one. I just didn't have the money. And as it evolved I even went through the entire thought process about the amount of memory on the regular one versus the Mini and how stupid Mac was that the Minis were the cute ones in colors and for a feminine but tech-oriented person like me it was all just a huge conflict that left me feeling broke and tired. Color against space. This time around, I wanted a Shuffle. It's tiny, I'll wear it at the gym. But then it has no screen and hardly holds any songs and if you're going to spend $100 you might as well spend $200. Really? I think that's still twice as much.
But then the real rationalizations began. I'm feeling sad. Music makes me happy. Getting rid of my anti-iPod feelings will alleviate some of my day-to-day stress. I live in Williamsburg. It's a lot of work getting mad at the kids all day. I can use it in the car. I can use it for work to record interviews. Though I publish fiction and poetry and have never done an interview in my life. But the musician interviews I start doing for moistworks will take me places I've never dreamed of and of course pay back the $259 in minutes. I am on my way to becoming a new person, and there is only ONE WAY for the new Joanna to even begin to emerge.
YES! Please, yes, yes. A pink one.
I tried it this morning on my way to work, listening to Dolly Parton and Big Star. I was getting into it a little, making sure not to sing aloud. A woman across from me had hers on. She was about five years older than me, a little frumpy, but nice looking. She smiled. Women smile at me all the time. I smile back. It's something we do. Either about an outfit or shoes or good hair or just, "you look like a nice person." This woman may have been doing any of those things, yet all I could think was, she's smiling out of iCamaraderie, something I am in no way ready to participate in. I gently removed the buds and pulled out a magazine, making sure to make another eye-smile at her. There was no need for hostility.
-by Joanna YasLabels: big star, dolly parton, ipod, joanna, shuffle, subway, tracy ullman, wire
posted by Alex
LINK |
Monday, July 25, 2005
Buick MacKane (acoustic demo)
Metal Guru (acoustic demo)
Is It True (home demo)
Saturation Syncopation (All Alone) (outtake)
Rock On (rough mix)
Pepsi Jingle
Over The Flats (home demo)
Marc Bolan Interview
Marc Bolan & T. Rex
A Wizard, A True Star
Edsel Records : 1996
Out of Print
[Buy it]
I've always loved everything I've heard by Marc Bolan, but never really got around to buying his records. Giving myself a proper Marc Bolan education was one of things I always thought I should do, like starting a website called moistworks or learning to use tools. So I just got this ridiculously great box set, A Wizard, A True Star. It came out about 10 years ago. It's not really a greatest hits type package, which is good, since I had greatest-hits smarts already. Instead it's filled with a broad mixture of everything Marc Bolan from 1972-1977, the period Bolan operated his own label, Hot Wax. Interviews, poetry, radio jingles, outtakes. I listened to it all. I read the extensive liner notes. I googled stuff. I know things now.
I know that they called him the "Bopping Elf".
I know that he loved Hobbits.
He first met Tony Visconti in 1967 . "I offered to produce him and he was on my doorstep the next day," recalls Visconti. "We got on great. We had identical taste in music. One thing I didn't know about was The Lord Of The Rings, which Marc was very much into. He bought it for me and said: 'You have to read these books if you want to know what I'm about.'
I know that he named his son 'Rolan' Bolan.
"You can make fun, you can do this and that but it's my f***ing name and I love it."
I know that his friends liked Hobbits, perhaps tragically so. (And is there any other way?)
Steve Peregrine Took was one half of the duo Tyrranosaurus Rex before a shortened name and a change of musical styles brought its founder Marc Bolan incredible fame. At 18 Took answered an ad in a London underground paper... placed by a young hippie named Marc Bolan. Bolan was fascinated by mythology, particularly J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the duo they formed, Tyrranosaurus Rex, payed heavily to the hippie mysticism of the day. While Bolan sang about elves, magic and the days of old, Took added exemplary percussion, bass, piano and harmony vocals. Took and Bolan released three albums together and built a small cult following... Yet, drug addiction and bizarre acts of violence onstage, such as whipping himself with a belt until he bled, led Took to fall out of favor with Bolan and... Took was asked to leave the band. He went on to play with the Pink Fairies for a time before leading a somewhat more subterranean lifestyle in London. He died in 1980 after choking on a cocktail cherry.
The best thing about this compilation are the acoustic demos. Stripped of the Visconti glam sound, they reveal a talented songwriter trying on his influences with the ease of a narrow-waisted hipster in a Williamsburg thrift shop. Especially evident is Bolan's affection for '50s rock melody and rockabilly. And how about that unplugged funk of "Buick MacKane"? Somebody please tell Prince that this is exactly the sound he needs to pursue as he moves into middle age.
But the real reason I posted these songs is so I could talk about the movie Billy Elliot. This movie came out a few years ago. Everyone loved it. The best thing about this film was that it had loads of great TRex music in the soundtrack. The worst thing about this film - in fact the worst thing perhaps in any movie ever - is the piano bnurning scene. If you haven't seen it, here's the set up. A young boy in County Durham loves to dance. He REALLY likes to dance. Not in a gay way, but not in a particularly straight way either. Billy's mom is dead. When she was alive she used to play this beautiful old piano for him. The family was happy then. Now they are sad and poor. His Dad and older brother were poor when they were coal miners, but now they are even poorer because they are on strike. They drink and get agro and don't support Billy's dancing ways. Then winter comes, and they are so poor and cold, that the Dad smashes his dead wife's piano, the family heirloom, with an axe, and uses it for firewood. It's a big teary moment, as they sit around enjoying the bitter warmth.
Now I know the gritty charms of Britain's working class have been a hot sell in Hollywood recently, but this is waaay over the line. Not only is it nakedly contrived, but its just stupid. It's insulting to the British. These people defeated the Spanish Armada for christsake. Though they did cut down every single tree in England to build the ships to do it, which, one could argue, in turn set the scene for willynilly piano burnings... But even so, there are 100 things a real Billy Elliot could have done to raise money for a wood allowance. He could have gathered crayfish or ginseng root. He could have sold sex to local polticians in a lorry, or dealt inhalants to kids in his dance class. He could design websites.
In fact, he could have gone on craigslist, and swapped the piano for 5 cords of wood AND an iPod.
posted by James
LINK |
Friday, July 22, 2005
RED LIGHTS
The Marbles
Ork : 1976
Reissued on The Great N.Y. Singles Scene
ROIR : 1992
[Out of Print]
WESTERN STAR
Frank Black & The Catholics
Pistolero
SpinArt : 1999
[Buy It]
SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK AND ROLL STAR
The Byrds
Younger Than Yesterday
Columbia : 1967
[Buy It]
SIX-SIXTY-SIX
Frank Black & The Catholics
Frank Black & The Catholics
SpinArt : 1998
[Buy It]
ROCK AND ROLL FRIEND
Robert Forster
Warm Nights
Beggars Banquet : 1999
[Buy It]
We Americans love people, places, concepts, and things: Cars and kids, Cleveland, and the 7th-inning stretch. In Moistworks' Astoria bureau, we love American music the way other Americans love the American flag. We love American music so much that four of the five songs we've posted today are by American bands, with an Australian thrown in, in part, because Australians love American music at least as much as we do. We love American music because the first thing we ran into during a visit to Australia was an Elvis impersonator. And we love Australia because Melbourne, in particular, is a moist and welcoming place, where the restaurants are better and cheaper than American restaurants and the water swirls in other directions.
Australian or not, today's songs have one thing in common: They, too, are love songs - though not necessarily of the marrying kind. And so, with stars in our eyes and dollar signs in lieu of bullet points, we present:
$ Red Lights
in which one singer moves a block down from another and jumps quickly (singer #1 does) from a "voice in the stairwell" who "makes the girls cry" to a "dressed up" Elvis-type who's "shakin' at the knees" and putting crowds "in a rage." The guy, who's "better than big" and "bigger than wow," always has "red, red, red, red lights in his eyes," and midway through the song, singer #2 offers to "sell my mother/for a chance to play guitar in his band." ("We're still playin' all the old songs - in the garage," he explains. "But it's just a mirage," he admits.) As for the chorus - my girlfriend and I used to drive around Queens, singing it at the top of our lungs. To top that off, Moistworks has it on good authority that William Vollman set "Red Lights" on permanent repeat whilst working through galley proofs of The Atlas.
$ Western Star
Moistworks can provide you with recorded conversations that prove "Western Star" to be one of Sam Lipsyte's favorite Frank Black tracks - and if that doesn't seal the deal, it also gets Moistworks' own stamp of approval. We can't help noticing that a lot of Black's lyrics are variations on themes that Long Islander Lou Reed limned in his own, epic "Candy Says": The shape-shifting of "Caribou" ("This human form/Where I was born/I will repent"); the Marbles-like dream-projection of "Western Star" - all signs that, like a lot of us, Black would feel a lot more comfortable in someone else's skin. As for the chorus - apparently, Black pronounced Bowie's name this way when he himself was an actual kid (a state of affairs we have difficulty imagining for two entirely unrelated reasons).
$ So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star
The Byrds shift into mariachi mode for this tres of-the-moment anti-Monkees tract, which doubles as a somewhat dated variation on a few of the subjects you'll find explored above. "So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star" made an especially deep impression on West German novelist Gunther Grass, who had this to say about it: "Das Byrds gab den Weißen ihren Körper zurück!" As for the chorus - it's pretty unremarkable, n'est pas?
$ Six-Sixty-Six
In the midst of the war/He offered us peace And he came like a lover/From out of the east With the face of an angel and the heart of a beastHis intentions were six-sixty-six He walked up to the temple/With gold in his hands And he bought off the priests/And propositioned the land And the world was his harlot/And laid in the sand While the band played six-sixty-six We served at his table/And slept on the floor But he starved us and beat us/And nailed us to the door Well, I'm ready to die/I can't take any more And I'm sick of his lies and his tricks He told us he loved us/But that was a lie There was blood in his pockets/And death in his eyes Well, my number is up/And I'm willing to die If the band will play six If the band will play six-sixty If the band will play six-sixty-six
$ Rock & Roll Friend
What Robert Forster's cover of his own Go-Between's song has in common with Frank Black's aforementioned cover of Larry Norman's "Six-Sixty-Six" is that listening to either one'll make you question Jonathan Safran Foer's injunction that "no kinds of love/are better than others." Here, Robert Forster puts himself in the shoes of his own, abandoned lover: "I have my use/I used to have a lot more," s/he sings. When Franklin Bruno's band, Nothing Painted Blue, covered this song, Bruno changed the "angry" in
Ancient, angry motions now
All lovers have to do their laps
to an "urgent." Moistworks likes the change, and wishes you all an urgent weekend.
posted by Alex
LINK |
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
KING OF THE CARROT FLOWERS PART 1
Neutral Milk Hotel
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Merge : 1998
[Buy It]
PAULINE
The Minders
Hooray for Tuesday
spinART : 1998
[Buy It]
DIMES MAKE DOLLARS
The Lilys
The 3-Way
Sire : 1999
[Buy It]
I'm married, but recently a guy posted this on Craigslist: "When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers/And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees/In holy rattlesnakes which fell all round your feet."
I was having a hard time in my marriage. My husband had gone to LA for a month to "think about things." He was falling apart, I had no time for this. I wanted a baby. I wanted someone who loved me so much that his own problems ceased to matter. When my husband was gone, I went out with friends, drank, sometimes flirted, sometimes moved the ring. But mostly I spent many nights at my laptop with wine and cigarettes, thinking about what "for the rest of my life" and "thinking about things" meant. Sometimes that brought me to Craiglist, to Missed Connections, to see if someone was looking for me.
I love music, but sometime after the whole high school "I'm an outcast and I hate Black Flag but I want to go out with skaters so I'll pretend to like Youth of Today" thing, I got lost. I briefly came to my own a bit with Siouxsie, and then there was the Pavement phase of college where everyone around me had gone through what I'd been through. But then I was in real life, without roommates, without boys from bands sleeping on my couch, and I got lost again. In 1998 I realized there had been a void. I like the Beatles, I said. I like melodies. Come on. All that fucking Sonic Youth was just a put on. Except, maybe, Sister. So they started recommending these bands. "They" meaning my friend at a record store called Rocks in Your Head. Unbelievably, the store is still in business, sitting among all the SoHo-ish-ness - Aveda, Dolce and Gabbana, and eurotrash bistros - selling records. A friend - a rich one - wanted to buy it, way back then in 1998. But there was nothing to buy - they were renting, and we gave up on the project.
I saw that post, lyrics by one of those Rocks-in-your-Head-bands, and thought about how, just at that moment, I wanted someone who was thinking exactly what I was thinking. And I responded. I actually wrote to him. But not before creating a new, slightly fake, email address: "You got me," I wrote. "But then I don't know who you were looking for."
He wrote back:
So....
Me: 26, smart, athletic, 5'11", blue eyes, and brown hair.
I was born in England but grew up in Austin, Texas. Studied English and
History in undergrad and just graduated from acting graduate school at Yale.
People are usually surprised to find out that that is what I do though.
I'm definitely the artsy, indie type. Spend way too much time alone in
movie theatres. Love going to live shows and theatre and music. Love going
for walks in Central Park, getting hot apple cider and watching the dogs run
around Union Square. Eating breakfast out on the weekends. Museums. You
know, all the cliche stuff.
I loved yoga and danciing, and & hhave to go out dancing at least once a
month. I'm in great shape, but not the beefcake type, sorry. I write a lot
and read a lot.
I'm the kind of guy that can stay in with wine and movies, but could just as
easily stay out at the bar until four in the monring. i'm adaptable like
that.
I often don't feel like I belong in the city. People seem closed off and
very selfish here, and I've hadd trouble meeting people with similar
interests and values. I got totally played by someone a few months ago, and
never saw it coming. I guess I haven't been beaten down by life to the
point of others yet.
What else? Here's a picture. My friends say I look better in person, but
they are probably just being nice because they are my friends.
Hope to hear more about you.
R
And here's my response:
R,
You're adorable and you sound great. And I'm an editor and a writer, so I of course love the mention of reading and writing and the photo of you with a book...
I just have to tell you some things. First, I might be too old for you. I'm 31. I know your age was revealed on craiglist initially but I was so drawn in by my love for the band that I didn't register it. And, this is more significant, I'm not prepared to think about a relationship (for a variety of serious reasons that I'd tell you if we do ever meet). When I responded to your post (not something I've ever ever done before) I was more swept up in the romance of the song and wasn't totally thinking straight. But.
Would it be weird to say that we should meet up for a drink and think of it as a way to meet a new friend? If you want someone who's 100% or even 80% focused on looking for a relationship, then I'm absolutely not your person. But it is possible that we have some things in common and could talk, have a fun drink--I don't know. If you're open to a new friend let me know.
I'm not sending a photo right now, as I think it might be too online-dating-ish for me right now. I am cute and a real person and quite interesting, I think. But I'm sorry to be confusing and not ready for what you were looking for.
But but.
J
He never wrote back.
-by Joanna YasLabels: craigslist, joanna, lilys, minders, missed connections, neutral milk hotel
posted by Alex
LINK |
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
FESTIVAL
Dungen
Ta Det Lugnt
Subliminal Sounds : 2004
[Buy It]
POX
Xiu Xiu
La Foret
5RC : 2005
[Buy It]
CHICAGO SEEMED TIRED LAST NIGHT
The Hold Steady
Separation Sunday
Frenchkiss: 2005
[Buy It]
I just returned from the Pitchfork-sponsored Intonation Festival in Chicago last night, and as much as I'd like to write up an extensive recap, I'm a bit too lamed out - what began as a head cold that only slightly hampered my rockitude all weekend has, upon returning to Chapel Hill and shedding excess adrenaline, blossomed into something resembling a full-bore flu, and my head's thick as a brick. Short version: I can't imagine how it could have come off any better. Some label dudes I talked to told me that it was the best-run festival they'd ever attended, and it's true - while Union Park was sold out and it was hot as hell (conditions not usually conducive to order and peace), the environment was comfortable, the bands stuck to the schedule like clockwork (it helped that there were two stages, so one band could set up while another was playing and making the lag time between one set and the next a matter of minutes), there was no violence I'm aware of, the tickets were cheap (the gate for either day was what you might pay to see the Decemberists or Broken Social Scene by themselves), there was plenty of food, water and beer, and everyone seemed to be have had a blast. These three songs are to commemorate some of the high points of the festival: Swedish psych rockers Dungen, although their set was slightly marred by guitar problems (some incompatible voltage issue caused the lead guitar to drop out during the last song), turned in a wonderfully melodic, soulful set; Xiu Xiu raised an unholy racket with an autoharp and the gamelan you can hear on "Pox"; and the Hold Steady, well-suited to the festival environment, had even Craig Finn naysayers grudgingly admitting they rocked total face. I got to meet a lot of the Pitchfork staff, catch up with old friends in Chicago, and spent the day after the festival taking in the incredible Toulouse-Lautrec / Montmartre exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. There'll definitely be another Intonation Festival and I'm already looking forward to it. But now I've got to try to screw my head on straight and plunge back into the ... ick ... real world. If you attended the festival, please leave comments with your impressions here as to prolong the afterglow for a little longer.
posted by Brian
LINK |
Monday, July 18, 2005
IT'S A NEW THING (IT'S YOUR THING)
De La Soul & The Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers: Taken To The Next Phase (Reconstructions)
Legacy : 2004
[Buy it]
IT'S YOUR THING
Dennis Coffey
Hair And Thangs
Maverick : 1969
Out of print
available on
Deep Covers
[Buy it]
IT'S MY THING
Marva Whitney
It's My Thing (Import)
1969 : 2000 (re-issue)
[Buy it CD] [Buy it LP]
avail on James Brown's Original Funky Divas
NOBODY BUT YOU BABE
Clarence Reid
Dancin' With Nobody But You Babe
1969
[Buy it]
IT'S YOUR THING
Alton Ellis
avail on Arise Black Man, 1968-1978
Moll-Selekta : 1999
[Buy it]
Quick song notes:
A review of the Isley brothers 2004 "reconstruction" record here.
Dennis Coffey bio here. Dude goes at it with a buzzsaw. Rack him.
The Deep Covers compilation was put together by fellow music blogger DJ O-DUB from Soul Sides. A great disc all the way through. Go buy a few copies, they make great gifts.
Marva Whitney's It's My Thing reviewed at Soul Strut.
Hey David Brendel: you were talkin to me on Saturday about Blowfly? Clarence Reid is him, before he became the Weird Al of porn rap. I don't know if Reid's "Nobody But You Babe" is officially recognized as a cover, but it is by my brain.
Blowfly recently in Willamette Week.
Blowfly's official page.
And no mix is complete without an Alton Ellis cover. A review of Arise Black Man, 1968-1978 here.
posted by James
LINK |
Friday, July 15, 2005
TROPICAL LOVELAND
Martin and the Moondogs
MY LOVE MY LIFE
Bike
ON AND ON AND ON
Tall Dwarfs
KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU
Superette
from:
Abbasalutely: A Flying Nun Tribute to the Music of ABBA
Flying Nun : 1995
Out of Print
Abba are much better than Green Day, Offspring, American Music Club, The Cranberries & Graham Brazier because they had good tunes and an effortless ability to encase 'em in pretty damned stunning pop arrangements. Sure, they had some stinkers, not as many as Alex Chilton or Syd Barrett, much much less than Paul McCartney or The Muttonbirds, far far far fewer than Michael J. Presely and his good wife and perhaps about exactly the same number as King Loser & The Dead C combined. Plus Bjorn played the coolest electric guitar in the history of rock - a white ovation electric just like mine (& Colin Newman's & David Cassidy's), Agnetha had a voice in a million & they sold alot of records. That they were hugely popular in Australia is unfortunate & "Abba-The Movie" is ossum! I would not be seen dead on a Gram Parsons tribute album.
-Chris Knox, Tall Dwarfs
I'd actually agree with most of that, but really, who the hell would put The Cranberries ahead of Abba? Fuck the Cranberries. And not because that Linger song is the worst shit I ever put in my brain, but because lead singer (and otherwise pro-lifer) Dolores O'Riordan wants to see public hanging reintrodcued to Britain. No really she does. And that was before the bombings. Shes going to go nuts now, like post-9/11 Ron Silver nuts. I digress.
I'm not normally a fan of tribute albums. They are usually stale, all form, no content. But Abba songs are tamper-proof. No one could suck the life out of an Abba song. Except The Cranberries. And I couldn't think of a better label to trust such a project with than New Zealand's legendary Flying Nun, who in 1995, still had some amazing horses in the stable. This is a pretty fantastic compilation, though there are definitely some misses. Most of these misses are by the bands with female lead singers. The sheilas come across far too earnest, but then these girls all grew up wanting to be just like Agnetha. Not too many guys grew up wanting to be just like Benny, and if they did, they aren't saying. But the bulk of the covers here are creative and without sarcasm. Maybe its because Abba's music makes people do silly, happy things. Like The Tall Dwarf's Chris Knox singing "On and On and On" from the point of view of a man, creating something blissfully homoerotic in the process:
Over in the corner I could see this other guy
He was kinda flirty, he was giving me the eye
So I took advantage of the fact that I'm a star
Shook my hair and took a casual stroll up to the bar
And as sure as hell this guy was coming up to me
He said, "Who am I and who are you and who are we?
What's our situation, do we have some time for us?"
I said I was not exactly waiting for the bus
He said, "If you're going somewhere can I come along?"
I said, "Keep on rocking baby, 'til the night is gone"
Bike's Andrew Brough (ex Straitjacket Fits) works "My Love My Life" into a lush but bristling valentine. Superette get kudos for making "Knowing Me Knowing You" even more preposterously self-serious ("Memories... memories, good days... good days, bad days... baaaad daaays..")
But I pin the blue ribbon on Martin Phillipps and The Chills (aka Martin and the Moondogs). His cover of "Tropical Loveland" is the only effort that actually improves on the original song.
Other noteworthy efforts:
Breast Secreting Cake's hilarious all-in take on "Ring Ring" ,
Chug's goth interpretation of "Money Money Money" ,
Shayne Carter (ex Fits again) trying his hardest to make "The Name of the Game" high-strung and grimey,
and Robert Scott and David Kilgour of the Clean (showing up as Cloth) performing "Waterloo"
The CDs out of print but you can probably pick one up online for $20 or $30.
The Tall Dwarfs tour New York in a few weeks. Dates here
posted by James
LINK |
Thursday, July 14, 2005
TIGER RAG
The Mills Brothers
Brunswick : 1934
Available on The 1930's Recordings, Vol. 1
[Buy It]
LOVESICK BLUES
Emmett Miller
Okeh : 1928
Avilable on The Minstrel Man from Georgia
[Buy It]
A LAST STRAW
Robert Wyatt
Rock Bottom
Virgin : 1974
[Buy It]
MONTEREY
Tim Buckley
Starsailor
BIZARRE/straight : 1970
[Out of print]
PORTRAIT OF LINDA IN THREE COLORS, ALL BLACK
Sonny Sharrock
Black Woman
Vortex : 1969
[Buy It]
As a stone-cold, gravel-throated MC put it to me once,""It's mostly tha voice that makes you buck." That holds true for things other than hip-hop. (On the other hand, I'd love a Jon Caramanica version of this thread devoted to beat-boxing and the like, as well as a 4 CD box of Biz Markie outtakes from "Ah One, Two"). Sure, it's the original instrument, the infant cry for attention, the intimate vibration of a lover whispering in your ear, the familiarity of your grandmother's breathless drawl, asking you to speak slower on the line. In the case of an annoying old roommate, her voice was of such an enervating timbre and frequency that any utterance from her mouth put me on edge. (It recalls the time I lent a copy of Yoko Ono's ascerbic, yowling Plastic Ono Band record to a married friend, who responded that he didn't need it, since he already had a wife and two young, screaming children.)
The synesthetic qualities of the voice appeal to me in the above selections, and in each case, these throats emulate horns specifically. The Mills Brothers, in their original incarnation, were actually four brothers (the death of John in 1936 brought their father aboard), and their earliest sides were somewhat famous for the backing band, but the boys making the music with their mouth biz. Stand-up bass, piano runs, chugging rhythms, horn lines, all from their fraternal lips and gullet.
Emmett Miller, that garish and beguiling hillbilly singer (and Nick Tosches' subject), was known throughout the South as the minstrel singer with the "clarinet voice," the "trick voice," able to stretch out vowels across five syllables, and a precursor to Jimmy Rodgers' own blue yodel (purportedly modeled on Miller's eerie plaint). How much is Emmett the daddy? Hear in that craw and cry of his the roots of Rodgers, Hank Williams, Bob Willis, (heck, even David Lee Roth).
Robert Wyatt, the Soft Machine drummer turned wheelchair-bound Canterbury crooner of grandfatherly import over the last thirty years, looses a woozy warble that emulates trumpet idols like Miles Davis and Chet Baker (and African bandmate Mongezi Feza), as well as the nautical nuances of his fragile, water-colored classic, Rock Bottom.
Tim Buckley, black-eyed and smiling on the back cover of his sixth album, Starsailor, was also a huge fan of Miles. Embracing the exploratory artistic aspect of the trumpeter, both were steely in their intent on eschewing expectations and leaving fans to go "what the fuck is this noise?"
Starsailor, some thirty years on, sounds like nothing else. Sure, there are strands of Ligeti, Penderecki, Coltrane, and Albert Ayler in the mix, and the concepts of Diamanda Galas, This Mortal Coil, and Radiohead (not to mention his own spurned progeny, Jeff) can be found in the dense protein strands and jagged shards of the vinyl, but there's an impregnable darkness here that still sends shivers, and no one can quite encapsulate le bete noir. While "Monterey" starts off within the realm of rock, Buckley quickly moves to brigand territory, at the edge of civilization and light. His baritone throat turns into a horn in the company of Zappa brass players Buzz and Bunk Gardner (who played on that session, but not this track), and then, as he reaches the line about running with the damned, his voice becomes like a pack of gorillas, tearing apart a madman in a moonless night.
As for the music made by Sonny and Linda Sharrock...well, Sonny's unbridled, bludgeoning six-string fury informed New York rock - No Wave, Television, Sonic Youth - more than anything in the realm of jazz, and Linda's voice is an acquired taste, like goat's milk or broccoli, fortified and pungent like Yoko or Patty Waters. (Perhaps as a single man, my perception of a screaming woman differs from that of my married friend?) On the glorious, peaking finale to their stunning Black Woman record, a classic of out sound and unfettered fire, they elevate and crest over and over again for nigh-on nine minutes, buoyed by the polyrhythmic octopus pounding provided by drummer Milford Graves. After a trumpet solo by Ted Daniel, Linda unleashes a wail that blows past human/horn distinctions and into a realm closer to the stratosphere. It makes me buckle more than buck, cowed by such raw power.
-by Andy Beta
posted by Alex
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
THE LONG BLACK VEIL
Johnny Cash & Razzy Bailey
The Best of Johnny Cash
Curb : 1991
[Buy It]
Also available on:
Razzy Bailey
Razzy Unwrapped
SOA : 1991
[Buy It]
LONG BLACK VEIL
The Band
Music from Big Pink
reissue : Capitol : 2005
(original release : 1968)
[Buy It]
LONG BLACK VEIL
Jason & the Scorchers
Wildfires & Misfires: Two Decades of Outtakes and Rarities
Yep Roc : 2002
[Buy It]
This song sounds old. Like something that clambered down from the Appalachian Mountains, an oral tradition gone pop standard. It has that simple grace and timeless power. The story-song. Part American folklore, part ghost story. But it's not that old - just about fifty years. This article by Peter Viney presents an illuminating, if partial, history of the song, focusing mostly on The Band's version. It was written in the late '50s by songwriters Wilkin and Dill. Lefty Frizell recorded it first and it rejuvenated his ailing career. From there it recurs with astonishing frequency in various repertoires. Johnny Cash recorded it as early as 1964. I'm not sure about the provenance of this duet with the country-soul singer Razzy Bailey. It appears on Cash's greatest hits and Bailey's duet collection, that's certain. Cash's baritone is mighty here. But Bailey's nuanced croak steals the show. The Chieftans and Mick Jagger took a stab at it. The Band edged it away from country toward a more complex pop composition, but it still sounds country. Jason & the Scorchers grabbed it at each end, stretched it into an even lazier drawl. The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash covered it, fittingly enough. So did Butch Martin and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts. Dylan has been known to break it out live, and Jerry Garcia and friends played it on The Pizza Tapes. There's a terrible country-rock version by the band Uncle Fucker. They almost ruined it. But not quite.
Like any good musical dilletante, I like classic country. Cash. Hank Williams. Steve Earle, if Guitar Town is old enough to count. But I've got a secret. I've developed a secret jones for modern, mainstream country. I've been covertly watching CMT after my girlfriend goes to bed. I like Kenny Chesney. When that Kenny Chesney video about the old blue chair comes on, I'm rapt. I want to sit in that old blue chair. For my life to be that linear and serene. I love the Nelly/Tim McGraw collaboration. I can't stand that Toby Keith though. Although "What Happens in Mexico, Stays in Mexico" is pretty damn funny. Say what you will about the rote sentiments and jingoism of some country music. For a young liberal steeped in cultural relativism and intellectual abstraction, it can be a breath of fresh air. I listen to it like I read mythology, fairy-tales, folk stories. A sphere in which wrong and right are as clearly demarcated as the black and white squares on a Garth Brooks shirt. Men of clear conscience and swift discernment blazing a trail through the world, getting larger as they go. I don't like this mindset in my politics. I would prefer my president not think in such stark dichotomies. But moral clarity has always been a mark of good fantasy. Of myth. I like myths. They provide clear-cut alternatives to the ambiguous world. "Though the miles lay long behind you / You have still got miles to go," Steve Earle sang. Behind and in front. Life as a line. It tugs at my heart. I want a little piece of this clarity for myself. I can't believe in it. But I can enjoy it for the span of a song. Look at the morality of Long Black Veil. An innocent man would rather go to the gallows than shame his best friend and his mistress. A selfless, moral act proceeding directly from a selfish, immoral one. There's no lesson. There's no judgement. It's a story. Told by a ghost. Everything is so clear here. The murder in the circle of light before the courthouse. A simple frame - a circle of light, surrounded by darkness. There's ambiguity as to who committed the murder. But none in the narrator's action - he knows what he has to do and does it. Keep this mindset out of politics. But let me have it in song. I'd like to live there, if just for a little while.
*****
[plug]I have a new personal blog, Slatherpuss.[/plug]
posted by Brian
LINK |
Monday, July 11, 2005
WE BELONG TOGETHER
Mariah Carey
The Emancipation of Mimi
Island : 2005
[Buy It!]
STAY THE NIGHT
Mariah Carey
The Emancipation of Mimi
Island : 2005
[Buy It!]
For years she relished her face. Its lips pursed, eyes half-closed mid-seduction, cheeks so perfectly blushed, a smile languid and captivating. Her face followed her. Some might say like a shadow, but aside the day's dying hours, shadows trail. Her face led. Led her through velvet ropes, down anonymous hallways, into first-class lushness, to a future beyond her pigtail fantasies.
When she first started — before her face was A Face — a black woman had asked her, "What are you?" in a jokey way in front of a lot of people. And the question scared her, made the uneasy color in her face darken, brought her back to the self-consciousness she was just beginning to overcome, the self-consciousness of being so many things that she was nothing in particular. She laughed because she was taught to laugh but she prayed that she would never get that question again. And she didn't. Being A Face meant that you didn't get asked questions you didn't want to answer.
Her face continued to multiply. People would study it, stare at it, scrutinize the glossy imitations of it that people sold to other people. She knew that this was what was supposed to happen, that she should feel good about it, but it made her uneasy. Could they see inside? If they reproduce you so many times is it like X-rays and it can cause damage? Is it really just a reproduction of your face or is it like some people said, that a camera takes a bit of your soul?
She couldn't ask anyone these questions, of course, because once you say them aloud they become true, and someone would laugh at her anyway. And so she became wary of having her face reproduced, but this wasn't how she was supposed to act and there were consequences and suddenly she was a different kind of Face and things went haywire. She saw her face and saw The Face. She began studying her friends' faces to see how they looked at her: they saw The Face. Even her mother saw The Face. When she made love, men made love to The Face.
And so she hid, as we would all do. She hid in empty apartments and on islands and in cars with dark windows. And after she got tired of those, she hid behind a microphone, because that's where she was supposed to be. She was supposed to be The Voice. The microphone was where she began, the place where her face didn't matter, where she felt that she could actually be heard, that people listened to her words, even though she spoke them melodically, and sometimes religiously, her voice quivering as the Holy Spirit moved through her, even though she didn't believe in the Holy Spirit and He didn't believe in her either.
Then a funny thing happened, the sort of thing that she didn't plan on. That she had, in fact, planned against. People listened and heard. They didn't look. They heard. For the first time in years, they heard. This confused the sort of people who get confused about this sort of thing, but she understood. She knew that people were sick of Faces, that people wanted something else. They didn't know what, but something else. And so even her sad song became an anthem — precisely what it wasn't, but these are things you cannot control — and she no longer saw The Face. She saw herself, finally, and it didn't matter what the people around her saw because the people Out There heard. She didn't live happily ever after — she never would — but she would survive. And as she left her empty house to face the world once again, she glanced in the mirror and smiled contentedly. What's hers was hers again.
posted by Yancey
LINK |
Friday, July 08, 2005
We'll have a music post in an hour or two, I just wanted to take a second to mention a few things:
I WON'T HURT YOU
Pop Art Toasters
Download at Farmer in the City
1. Responding to Tony's Tuesday posting of West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's "I Won't Hurt You," Farmer in the City, a choice mp3 blog, has put up a cover version by the Pop Art Toasters, a "short-lived Dunedin supergroup" that featured Martin Phillipps (The Chills) and David Kilgour (The Clean). Most moist.
2. Thanks to Al MacInnes for his great dancing funsters, the diverting flash movie that now resides in our nav. Have a play with it, and check out Al's site for more advanced funsters maneuvers, as well as other animated splendors. We have featured Al's music before on this site. The Christian Science Monitor describes him as "Nuanceful."
2. Moistworks appears in an LA Times article on music blogging this past weekend. As usual, moistworks plays the role of chump, for being the one mp3 blog to be threatened legally. 20 million people live in greater Los Angeles; thanks to the 5 who visited the site this week. I've also added press links in the navigation.
4. I think our mp3 blogroll pulldown menu is now functioning in more or less every browser. Check out moistworks fav music blogs.
5. My new favorite site.
Can any Australians out there tell me whats up with Gabrielle Reilly?
She appears to be a former swimsuit model, who has reinvented herself as a right-wing pundit and ambassador for world peace. One part Paula Abdul, one part Jimmy Carter, two parts Arianna Huffington. Though I note that her ambassador duties seem to consist primarily of her showing up at political book signings and posing for photos with the authors like she knows them. The video commentaries are particularly special.
posted by James
LINK |
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Tel Aviv photo by Adam Smith
SECURITIES
Tel Aviv
Lay Me Down
self-released : 2005
[Buy It]
WE PREFER TO BE SURPRISED
Affection
N/A
self-released : 2003
TO BUY: For a ten-song CD, send two dollars for postage to:
Lloyd Benjamin
322 Peters St. Apt. 2
Atlanta, Georgia 30313
INSECTIVROID INSPECTOR
The Stranger Steals
The Goals of Misbehavior
Harlan Records : 2002
[Buy It]
LIES A STORY
W/O
N/A
self-released : ???
TO BUY: Album still being recorded, query freakswing@hotmail.com
In my last post I talked about some killer future underground Arkansas rock compilation. Such a comp would have to include at least a couple The Stranger Steals tracks, a band from circa 99-01 that includes a lot of folks who went on to form some of my favorite bands of the last 5 years. "Insectivroid Inspector" is the leadoff song from The Stranger Steals' only album, the frankly amazing The Goals of Misbehavior. Victor Wiley, the lead singer, is one of the most impressive vocalists/front men I think anyone will ever encounter, part Malcom Mooney, part Grace Slick.
Affection, which included the drummer (Lloyd Benjamin) and bassist (Jeremy Brasher) from The Stranger Steals, were only around for a year or so (2003 I think) but in that time wrote some great songs, including "We Prefer to Be Surprised" which like a lot of their music blend elements of bands like The Clean and The Jam into something very tough and extremely smart. Guitarist and vocalist Andrew Morgan casually drops some great lyrics:
I went down to the river
I didn't kill my baby
But I threw her charm
Away and said I lost it
Two of my favorite active Arkansas bands are Tel Aviv and W/O. Tel Aviv just released an EP, Lay Me Down, and will be touring the East Coast this summer. If you get a chance, see them live. Major duende. Their sound is eclectic: "Securities" is about as direct and simple as Tel Aviv gets, a pure adrenaline attack. Other songs suggest an almost Krautrock dimension. Again, great live band. The last band in today's post is Little Rock's W/O with the ridiculously catchy and danceable "Lies a Story" which somehow combines the droning keys of Marley's "Mr. Brown" and some loose percussion (courtesy of Andrew Morgan) and a few great vocal lines from bassist TJ Deeter into a song that should be playing at all the hipster dance parties this summer.
-Tony Tost
posted by Brian
LINK |
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
ESSPLODE
Avey Tare & Panda Bear
Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished/Danse Manitee
Fat Cat / Caroline : 2003
[Buy It]
I WON'T HURT YOU
West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Part One
Reissue : Sundaze : 2001
[Buy It]
BIRD IN HAND
Lee "Scratch" Perry/Upsetters
Return of the Super Ape
Reissue : Cleopatra: 2000
[Buy It]
MR. BROWN
Bob Marley
Kaya [Import]
Reissue : Double Pleasure: 2005
[Buy It]
Meet Tony Tost. Tony's one of my poet friends. He's very good, I'm sorry to say. He has the loveliest beard. I think that gives him the edge. Tony's first book, Invisible Bride, won the Walt Whitman prize in 2003. If you like rather strange and searching prose poems, you should buy it right away. Tony used to co-edit a poetry journal called Octopus. He's been laying low from editing for a minute, but is about to return with a new venture called Fascicle. Clearly it's going to own. You can check out Tony's audio blog, which features poets reading their work, here. You can find his poems everywhere, the Internet is just lousy with them and you know how to Google. That's all from me, here's Tony. - Brian Howe
Hello there, my name's Tony Tost and I'm a guest postman today. Brian asked me to contribute a few songs and a little write-up just in case you're wondering what the obscure poets are listening to these days.
So obsession number one is this Animal Collective number called "Essplode" from Danse Manatee. Am I nuts, or does this sound a little like Prince backed by Sun Ra's Arkestra? No critic am I but let me point to the two things which, in unison, make this an endlessly listenable song: that effortlessly catchy (and sexy!) vocal, and the loosey-goosey almost novelty percussion touches.
Another summer staple is a track that's been one of my favorites since I first found it at a glorious garage sale in Ava, Missouri about 10 years ago while I was working at a grocery store there. I still have dreams about this garage sale: the Nazz, Soft Machine, Pearls Before Swine, along with a bunch of Neil Young, Black Sabbath and so on. Probably there was a lot more stuff there that I just didn't recognize at the time (I was 19). My favorite record that I picked up was the debut album by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band: a great mixed bag, with some subpar Zappa imitations (about as low as rock gets for me), but also some shimmering pop. But by far the best song is "I Won't Hurt You" - minimal, haunting, direct as fuck. I've been trying to match the vibe of this song in my writing for years, sweetly sincere but still somehow uncomfortably off as well.
This is the summer I finally "got" reggae and dub. Is it just part of the aging process? I'm just up to my ankles right now in this stuff, but I'm pretty hooked. For individual songs, my two major favorites are Lee Perry's "Bird in Hand" and Bob Marley's "Mr. Brown." The Lee Perry song, as a composition, I think is stunning: the gorgeous, otherworldly vocal that gradually acquires an increasingly compelling instrumentation that then takes over the track and rides it to a fadeout that really does seem to imply a sweet infinity. Marley's track was introduced to me by my buddy Robert Bell, who placed it on one of his famous seasonal mix CDs. I didn't know Marley was ever this lo-fi. What struck me immediately was the similarities between the droning keys on this track and a lot of what's been of interest coming out of the excellent Arkansas underground music scene. Someday there'll be a killer comp put together of all the great Little Rock and Fayetteville bands that almost no one outside that scene has heard of yet. I'll post a handful of them in my next visit.
posted by Brian
LINK |
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
MARY OF THE WILD MOOR
Dave Pajo
Pajo
Drag City : 2005
[Buy It]
ON LAVENDER HILL
The Real Tuesday Weld
The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid
Six Degrees : 2005
[Buy It]
BELIEVE
Macha/Bedhead
Macha Loved Bedhead
Jet Set : 2000
[Buy It]
Shhhhhhhh...
posted by Brian
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