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Monday, January 30, 2006
FREAKY PUMPS
Fat Lip
The Loneliest Punk
The Lab : 2005
[Buy It]
360 DEGREES
Grand Puba
Reel To Reel
Elektra : 1992
[Buy It]
ONE MORE CHANCE
The Notorious Biggie Smalls
Ready To Die
Bad Boy : 1994
[Buy It]
WHY YOU WANNA GET FUNKY WITH ME?
Del The Funky Homosapien
Future Development
Hieroglyphics : 1998
[Buy It]
Writing about music is like talking about fucking.
-John Lennon
It's no secret that pretty much the best thing two or more people can do with each other is fuck. And, judging by the sounds that sometimes come out of the alley just outside of MW's Astoria Bureau's offices, there's been quite a bit of fucking going on in, among other places, public.
Now, Americans are a fairly voyueristic lot but, to be honest, we at MW don't especially enjoy listening to our neighbors fuck. Other people's moans and groans lose their appeal by six in the morning or so, and there's something, well, gauche about letting the block know you're about to come, that you are coming, that you're still coming, and that you finally fucking came. Invite us over, mate. Or shut the fuck up.
But songs about fucking? Go figure, 'cause they get our hearty support. After all, if getting up on the stage is a fancy way of saying "LOOK AT ME," why shouldn't America's entertainers go the extra inch and say "LOOK AT MY DICK"? It's a moot point, since looking at dick is more or less what America's listeners have been doing since 1952, when Bull Moose Jackson recorded his "Big Ten Inch Record":
Got me the strangest woman
Believe me, this trick's no cinch
But I really get her going
When I whip out my big, 10-inch
Record of a band that plays the blues
Well a band that plays its blues
She just love my big, 10-inch
Record of her favorite blues*
(Those so inclined might take this moment to seek out Bessie Smith's "I Want Some Sugar In My Bowl," which Nina Simone cleaned up considerably just as the sexual revolution was nearing its peak, or Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong's duet on "Sweet Hunk of Trash," in which Louis stays out so late, it sure makes Billie ma.........d to wait. On a related note, here's what Little Richard will never forget about Buddy Holly:
Buddy and I were real good friends. He was a nice guy and he used to idolize my music. He'd go out and do my songs before I came on. He would sit there and watch my stage act. Every show that I would do. And when I got ready to have an orgy, Buddy would come up too. He was huge! I'd never seen anyone that big in my life!
Buddy liked Angel. He was a wild boy for the women. One time we were playing at the Paramount Theater and Buddy came to my dressing room while I was jacking off with Angel sucking my titty. Angel had the fastest tongue in the West. Well, she was doing that to me and Buddy took out his thing. He was ready, so she opened up her legs and he put it in her. He was having sex with Angel, I was jacking off, and Angel was sucking me, when they introduced his name on stage! He was trying to finish and went to the stage still fastening himself up. I'll never forget that.
And what John Lennon really thought of Hunter Davies' "authorized" Beatles bio:
Well, it was really bullshit.... And I wanted a real book to come out, but we all had wives and didn't want to hurt their feelings.... You know, I mean the Beatles' tours were like Fellini's Satyricon.... Such a heavy scene it was. They didn't call them groupies then, they called it something else. But if we couldn't have groupies we'd have whores and everything, whatever. Whatever was going.)
In any case, the songs you'll find above aren't the best of this, the first of the other, or overly representative of anything in particular - just tunes we might play whislt feeling especially fuckish. Songs like the ones you'll find on Fat Lip's solo debut, which hit a high point with the Humpty-Hump/Shock-G collab. "Freaky Pumps," and signaled an improvement, of sorts, over the standard sex rap's misogynistic tendencies:
Whatcha do with them?
Hit'em and quit'em,
'Less they got a brain up in them
In which case I charge them with felony freaking....
and then I quit'em.
"360 Degrees" isn't as sexy, but does feature some swordsmanship on Puba's part. And the Notorious B.I.G.'s "One More Chance" isn't a record so much as a Homeric ode to the male member - it's the sine qua non of sex raps:
When it comes to sex, I'm similar to the thriller
In Manila
Honeys call me Bigger the condom filler
Genius rapper Del The Funky Homosapien's "Why You Want To Get Funky With Me" concerns a social disease which might finally get some public attention, now that it's hit the Ivy Leagues. It's not a sex rap, either, but not for lack of trying on the artist's part.** (Del's cousin, Ice Cube, is far more confident, and fares somewhat better in the bedroom, on "You Can Do It," which features "dick for days," and "ass for weeks.") Let's not even get into 2 Live Crew, Method Man's star turn on Raekwon's "Ice Cream Man," or the many lady rappers who can more than hold their own, in and out of the bedroom. Instead, let's all admit that writing about music is a bit like talking about fucking, but that, depending on the circumstances, talking about fucking is almost as good as the act itself.
* Obsessive googlers might note that the quote-unquote first rock-and-roll song - Ike Turner & Jackie Brenston's 1951 single, "Rocket 88" - was followed, a few months later, by Todd Rhoad's "Rocket 69."
** Incidentally, She shook me off/Like a moth is an especially agile, startling image: Is she shaking him off as if he were a moth? Or is she shaking - fluttering - like a moth herself?
posted by Alex
LINK |
Friday, January 27, 2006
DI DOO DAH
Jane Birkin
Di Doo Dah
[Buy it]
TEENIE WEENIE BOPPIE
France Gall
1968
1967
[Buy it]
DOMMAGE
Graeme Allwright / Claude Nougaro
Graeme Allwright
Mercury : 1966
MON COEUR D'ATTACHE
Enrico Macias
1966
available on Chanter
FRANCIS FORTESCUE
Richard Robbins
Soundtrack: A Soldier`s Daughter Never Cries
1998
[Buy it]
Back when I worked in the production dept. at the Washington City Paper, each month the music critics would bring a big plastic tub of unwanted promo CDs up to the reception desk and someone would open-page the offices and we would all run over and desperately scour through it like orphans at a Kinshasa landfill. This was before the days of the digital revolution and 100 gig hard drives and a free CD was a big deal. Almost all of the stuff was unremarkable indiepop or unlistenable neo-soul. The few keepers I found always ended up being weirdly eclectic independent film soundtracks. The CD for some Debbie Harry mob film called Six Ways to Sunday featured Yiddish jazz, Schooly D's song "Mister Big Dick", Blondie remixes, and original compositions by this kid Teddy Shapiro who I think I went to High School with. But my hands down favorite was the soundtrack for A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. It was a lesser known Merchant/Ivory film loosely based on the family of writer James Jones (From Here to Eternity, A Thin Red Line.) Kris Kristofferson plays the Jones character, a somewhat famous author, a gravelly drinker but loving patriarch of a family of bohemian expats (incl. Leelee Sobieski and Barbara Hershey, back when she was old) living in late 60s Paris. In the second half of the film, the family moves home to early 70s USA where "beautifully observed" poignancy ensues.
The soundtrack reflects this split in space and place. The first half is heavy on french pop, especially the bubblegum sound popularized by "Ye Ye Girls", while the latter tracks are mostly lively 70s guitar rock. Making the soundtrack even more schizoid are a dozen or so moody pseudo-classical interludes by composer Richard Robbins.
My girlfriend used to listen to this CD everyday while she did yoga for like a year. Her whole routine became synchronized to the track list. It got so I'd be in the other room and would hear a song and know exactly what position she was in. When Tito Puente came on, I knew she was Saluting The Moon. Deep Purple's "Fireball" signalled Rocking Of The Cradle. (I found this particulary impressive. Id like to see Gwenyth Paltrow do yoga to Deep Purple.) By the time David Bowie's "Fame" kicked in, I knew she was winding up and would be shortly in front of the TV, Accessing The Hollywood before I joined her in The Receiving Of The Shiraz.
Jane Birkin's "Di Doo Dah" was a big 60s hit. Birkin was famously married for many years to Serge Gainsbourg. I presume Serge wrote this song. Jane's still getting it done. And she still has a thing for scrawny European musicians: she performs on French TV next month with Franz Ferdinand.
France Gall was another big pop tart of the time. She also hung around with Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote this song and many others for her. I wonder if Jane and France had a jealous friendship? Maybe she was like Nicole Richie to Birkin's Paris Hilton. If so, does that mean that France's famous singer dad Robert Gall was his generations Lionel Richie? If he was a French singer in the 50s, odds are pretty good that he at least shared Lionel's relish for wearing yellow cardigans tied about his shoulders.
Graeme Allwright was born in New Zealand but after losing patience with all those "So, how's Graeme doing today?!?" jokes, moved to France where he became a popular singer/songwriter. If anyone speaks French good, could they tell us what the lyrics to this song are? I'm not sure what it is I don't trust about this google translation:
Richard was a boy who was covered with chips
To get rid some it had found an easy way
It put a sock on the head and in water was inserted
The chips are assembled in the sock but Richard drowned.
Too bad.
So true Graeme. So true.
Enrico Macias is an Algerian Jew who has made a remarkable and workmanlike career as a French/Italian singer.
According to this slightly annoying website, Kofi Anna recently named Macias "Roving Ambassador for Peace and the Defence of Children." How great is that title! I have this image in my head of a kid playing with matches and Enrico jumping out from the bushes to confiscate them. A young girl slips off the monkey bars and her mother looks on in horror but out of nowhere comes Enrico and catches her and softly places her on her feet and turns to her and in a kind but firm tone says:
Per rischio giocano con il puill della vita, dato che quello non siamo mai abbastanza vecchi*
Then he walks her to the grateful mom and says:
"She is good girl. I tell her she must have repsect of gravity. She knows now. Do not punish the bambina, she will be fine. I was just thankful to be nearby when this happens. I must go now. Ciao."
* "To chance whimsy and play with life's pull? For that we are never old enough."
posted by James
LINK |
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
JESUS
Page France
Hello, Dear Wind
Fall Records : 2005
[Buy It]
ANNOTATED WEB TRAWL : PAGE FRANCE
I. Shut up, you've got one too
II. Aversion calls us out, no one hears:
Hello Dear Wind
Page France
Fall Records
(4 out of 5)
Hang on kids, before we get started, would someone mind sending a memo to Pitchfork? I'm pretty sure their contact info is on the page somewhere - I'd e-mail them myself, but I'm fairly certain they've figured out how to block my IP by this point. (I mean, I like Devendra as much as the next overly pretentious indie critic, but if I have to see that unwashed beard one more time I'm going to gouge my eyes out with my promotional-CD opener.) That Chicago's gift to online rock journalism hasn't come to your house and tattooed Page France's name on your indie-rock-buzz-loving ass while you were sleeping in anticipation of the Maryland group's slightly delayed sophomore record is a damned crime.
Hello, Dear Wind holds the nostalgia-inducing power for which The Arcade Fire's better tracks are lauded. The group sings the phrase "clap your hands" at least two dozen times and after repeat listens the ever-strengthening suspicion (unconfirmed at press time) lurks that the group has some fairly strong pro-Christ leanings, which anyone even remotely acquainted with the Danielson nebulae can tell you is quite hip these days.
Granted, none of these aspects necessarily hold the power to save the record from the slush pile of life - what should, however, is the fact that Hello,,Dear Wind contains not a single weak track out of 14. It's just the sort of stunningly solid record that should, by all rights, make the group a dorm-household name. The xylophone-and organ-friendly, childlike acoustic folk is the product of kids who sound like they still get a good deal of joy out of producing music, a product that gets a little better with every listen. Here's hoping Page France will get all the ears they deserve.
- Brian Heater
III. Me, anyway, on Pitchfork, somewhat lathered:
Page France
Hello, Dear Wind
[Fall Records; 2005]
Rating: 7.8
Christian music continues to steal into the secular world in the guise of elegant folk-pop, led by Sufjan Stevens' definitive document, the masterful Illinois. It doesn't diminish Stevens' accomplishment to say that it took me a long time to warm up to it. It was so utterly poised that it came off with a certain sterility-- the seamless contours of its surface held the listener at a remove. Page France's warm and inviting Hello, Dear Wind has the same striking imagery and deft arrangements with none of the remoteness. Michael Nau's earnest voice sweeps achingly over subtle folk-pop crescendos. Simple acoustic chord progressions accumulate deft touches of glockenspiel and burbling organs, swooning harmonies and majestic percussion, lurching gracefully toward the sublime.
Nau is a true prodigy-- at age 21, he's writing songs with uncommon theological complexity. Let's spell it out in no uncertain terms-- in 21st century America, Christianity has been hijacked by evil men. Jesus said that it's easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven. But in an age of mega-churches that lavish money on high-end AV equipment and contributions to PACs that would undo every social program designed to counteract uneven wealth distribution, Jesus' central teachings of compassion, forgiveness, and charity have been forsaken. His national face has become that of a cruel tyrant, peering down upon humankind with the miser's disdainful grimace.
Hello, Dear Wind accentuates the common traits of Christian music that is able to penetrate the secular world, with an unfettered joy that would scan to conservative Christians as almost pagan. It deploys Christian tropes poetically and not pedantically, brimming with reiterative Biblical imagery -- angels and burning bushes and trumpets, but also circuses, kings and crowns, wind, trees, and fruit. Here's an excerpt from "Chariot", Nau's take on the Rapture, locating all of its poetry in hallucinatory animation, not dread: "Dance like elephants as he comes to us through a fiery golden rain / With a violin and a song to sing as he brings for us our wings/ Now he's one of us, plays the tambourine, breaks the bread for us and sings."
Nau's Jesus would rather sing and dance than condemn. He "will come up through the ground so dirty/ With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy"; he "will dance while we drink his wine/ With soldiers and thieves and a sword in his side." Nau also prefers celebration to judgment, and he eschews Christianity's frustrating certainty along with its guilt. On "Dogs", he sings, "I'm not sure what happens when everything here ends/ But I hope it's like they said, and I hope it never ends." It's a statement of inward belief, not of outward censure. Nau understands what so many conservative Christians can't or won't: That to hate God's human creations, whatever their lifestyles or religious beliefs, is an affront on God; that to distort Jesus' teachings for personal and political gain is the gravest sin of all. "Praise to you, praise to me," Nau sings on "Glue", restoring a measure of spiritual generosity to a faith that's losing its confidence in humans.
-Brian Howe, November 18, 2005
INTERJECTION: Obviously I was really taken with this record. I kind of hated to compare Page France to Sufjan (because sure, Christian indie whatever /= Sufjan ipso facto) but the sonic and thematic similarity is just too blatant to ignore. I'm not a Christian, but I was raised Baptist, and so that cosmology will always color my lens - the burning bushes, golden trumpets and low-swinging chariots that populate Hello Dear, Wind have a built-in resonance for me (and for much of Page France's young, suburban, Protestant-by-birth audience, I'm willing to guess). I'd also been reading about the suppressed Gospel of Thomas, which excised the miracles, the biography, and the emphasis on sin & redemption from the New Testament, retaining only Jesus' aphorisms, chewy little paradoxes that are more like Zen koans than didactic parables. The Jesus that emerges in Thomas' Gospel encourages deep contemplation, charity, forgiveness, compassion, an appreciation of the flesh, and the imperative to create the kingdom of heaven here on earth instead of waiting for it in the afterlife - all of which values are mostly absent, if not completed corrupted, in today's crass, materialistic mainstream Christianity, which teaches salvation through personal gain, fear, unthinking compliance, and imminent damnation. What really impressed me about this record was its blend of deep faith and humanitarian joy. Its conviction.
IV. Brooklyn Vegan picks up the thread:
Page France has some really good songs, and there were a lot of times during their relatively short set at Sin-e in NYC Tuesday night (Nov 29, 2005) that I was really enjoying those songs. Other times I was a bit distracted by the Jesus-retreat-campfire-like aspect of their performance. On the other hand, "Jesus" is one of the best songs live and on album. Listen to it at their PureVolume page. I was about to compare their religiosity to Sufjan Stevens, but then I noticed Pitchfork already did in their 7.8 review of Hello, Dear Wind.
V. "Well, thanks to Pitchfork I found you guys out!"
VI. Touche, Nerve:
Page France
Hello, Dear Wind
Fall
For all you swingin' freak folk lovers, Page France presents some 14 variations on a two-chord acoustic guitar pattern, and much vaguely biblical imagery in the form of Sunday school clap-a-longs. Personally, I'm disgusted by its willful naivete, and would sanction shutting down all religion during this time of WAR. Intriguingly, there's a possible reference to 'The Finders' in track six. The Finders is an alleged CIA protected network of pedophiles who steal and traffic children, as Hunter Thompson fearfully revealed not long before they offed him. After plowing through thousands of online documents, I've discovered actual proof that I spend way too much time on the internet. I've also come to believe that the hordes of Pitchfork readers that dig this horseshit are responding to a morphogenetic, osmotic, unconsciously received suspicion that the apocalypse has already arrived, and we're in it. Hello, Dear Wind isn't going to help you.
- Adrian Mack
INTERJECTION: OK so good, word is spreading. But then I get a strange email from Page France's publicist, one which also went to my editors. She says that Nau is uncomfortable about being pigeonholed as a Christian artist. She asks if we would run an interview with Nau to let him set the record straight. Never mind the fact that this could be nothing more than a gambit for extended coverage, and that it would eventually pay off, sort of. I am pissed, and disappointed. I'll admit I get a little snippy. I advise the publicist that if Nau doesn't want to be pigeonholed as a Christian artist, then maybe he should write a couple songs that aren't about loving Jesus. If somebody records a record where every song is about ham, I'm not going to ignore ham to talk about the string arrangements. I tell her I thought he had more conviction. There is backpedaling, intrigue, mutual smoothing of brows. I can understand somebody not wanting to be pigeonholed. But I had imagined that Nau would be gratified to see a writer trying to really explore the themes of his record instead of making some sort of embarassed apology for them (see supra, Brooklyn Vegan). Anyway, Chris Dahlen actually does pick up the interview request for an article on the Christian indie music.
VII. Get That Out of Your Mouth
Get Behind Me Jesus
by Chris Dahlen
I don't know why hipsters hate Jesus. I'm not here to explain how the guy behind the Sermon on the Mount turned into a symbol of our blue- and red-state divide, or to narrow down why it's desperately unhip to admit you're a Christian and then get on stage at a rock club. Almost no strain of music is as secular as indie rock: It's quaint when old men on 78s sing spirituals, and a rugged legend like Johnny Cash can pray however he wants, but if you're a scrawny songwriter with a 4-track, siding with Jesus makes you a leper.
A couple of years ago, you couldn't even find many indie rockers who identified themselves as religious. The Danielson Famile were always far out anyway, and 16 Horsepower almost count as a country band. But then came Sufjan Stevens. After Seven Swans' moving piety and his breakthrough with Illinois, Stevens became "the Jesus guy." New fans shared stories about how they learned to get past his faith and enjoy his music, while bloggers like Pitchperfect cracked that she likes "a little less God in [her] rock." And the journalists couldn't get enough of the God angle, until, as Nick Sylvester reported on his blog, Stevens' publicist started asking reporters not to bring it up.
The genre of Christian rock long ago split off of regular, Satan-friendly rock, so you could argue that dyed-in-the-wool faith rockers have segregated themselves. Yet the secular bands that pick up those themes run the risk of getting thrown into the same ghetto. It happened to Page France's Michael Nau, when critics-- including our Brian Howe-- focused on the religious symbolism in his album Hello, Dear Wind. The song "Jesus" celebrates a Lord who's all too mortal, clawing his way from the dirt to come back to us instead of hovering in the sky in a clean, white robe. And the album's blissful tone never sounds mushy or dreamy: It's confidently ecstatic, as if Nau has been tipped off to how it's all going to end.
It looked like Page France would be dumped in the "Christian band" bin-- but once again, a publicist stepped in to save the day, writing to tell us that Nau's not comfortable being pegged as a religious performer. So I contacted him to get his take on it.
If you get past the first impression of his music, Nau's take on religion is conflicted. "My immediate family, as well as the majority of my surrounding family, was always spiritual-- not necessarily conservatively religious, but everyone possessed strong beliefs," says Nau. "I was raised in the midst of it all, so I was able to view the positive as well as the corrupt aspects from more of an 'insider's perspective,' so to speak. I've since chosen an outside, unattached perspective. I see myself as a seeker, but I doubt more than I seek."
Religion "is definitely a theme in the record, but I don't feel like it is the record," says Nau. "People would be missing out on much more if that's the main focus. At the same time, I realize that there's a lot of spiritual imagery in there. But a lot of times, that spiritual imagery represents unspiritual things."
And, ironically, "Jesus" has earned Nau criticism from both sides of the fence. "I've gotten letters from Christian folks or Christian radio stations who were just like, 'What in the hell are you talking about, this is complete blasphemy.' And then at the same time, other folks will be like, "Why did you say 'Jesus', it really detaches me from the song." Today, he shies away from saying that it's strictly a song about the Messiah. "That song was just about an untouchable thing or being-- something that I couldn't relate to, but severely wanted to be able to. I used Jesus as the subject, simply because it was the first thing that came to mind. Maybe I should have used one of my close friends instead."
But the shame here isn't that people made the wrong assumptions about Page France, but that they would ever have dismissed him over his beliefs in the first place. Even a religious performer can convey doubt and conflict. Sure, the bands that rocked the Christian festival at your local speedway stick to celebration and sin, but consider the work of people who are described as "thinking Christians"-- a term that's about as patronizing as "intelligent dance music," but let's go with it for now. Take the quest for spirituality on Talk Talk's Laughing Stock, or the piety and humility of Sufjan Stevens' Seven Swans, or to widen the circle, the furious morality of the abolitionist preacher in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, or the scene in Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me in which the reverend asks Mark Ruffalo's drifter if he considers his life important. If we shun the religious content of these works, we're missing their emotional and intellectual power.
You can disagree with the church of your choice, but to dismiss religion altogether-- and to write off the best ideas, the best people and of course, the best indie rockers-- that come out of it, seems pointless. Why shoot the messenger just because you're scared he has a message?
MOTHERFUCKING INTERJECTION!!!: Gah! Religion is the theme of the record, there's just no way around it! "Spiritual imagery represents unspiritual things?" Michael Nau, stop making me use all these exclamation points with your maddening equivocations! It's okay to mean stuff! A-hem. Sorry. Anyway, I don't really buy this Christian rock bias that seems to be the subtext here, Nerve.com notwithstanding. Blind quote from another Forker: "I'm not sure I understand this idea that indie-rock is wary of Christians: did I miss the part where Malkmus and Martsch and Mascis and all those other white guys converted to Islam?" Yeah, no shit. The claim that there's a bias against Christian acts in indie music sounds eerily similar to right-wing claims of liberal media bias or general mainstream Xian oppression, when right-wing Xian values dominate the landscape. I mean the metaphor falls apart at the end cuz Christian indie isn't exactly dominating, but it's widely accepted, the writers might cringe a little and the indie kids might make sarcastic comments about it b/c it's too remindful of the banality of their own Protestant upbringings but they're still pumping the shit hardcore. I really don't get the persecution narrative, when the same press that's "misunderstading" a band is the one that's selling their records.
VIII. This is getting weird:
Mike: Pause this episode for a second, open up your nearest web browser of choice and do a google search for reviews of Page France's album "Hello, Dear Wind." You will find an infinite amount of mentions regarding Michael's understated vocals, the groups mastery of multi-instrumentation, the cohesion that takes the album to new levels and many other descriptions of the sounds contained within the album. However, the review at Pitchfork Media focus' on the issues of faith and spirituality that worked their way into the lyrical content on the album. I must admit, I hadn't picked up on any faith-based themes until I read that review, but standing at the show the night of the interview and experiencing the songs from the album in this different setting, I saw where that reviewer was coming from. Still, there was plenty of room for interpretation from the listener's perspective, interpretation that could lead in many different directions.
M/PF: I consider 'Hello, Dear Wind' a spiritual album, in a sense, but never a Christian band or a religious band. There's some sort of spirituality to that record definitely, just a time that I was going through, but no, I would never call Page France a Christian band or religious band. It's such a derogatory term, it feels. Strangely enough the term Christian even in biblical days was a derogatory term. If somebody was a Christian it was just a racial slur at the time. I don't know enough about the Christian movement to really classify Page France as it, I wouldn't feel right about doing that. We do get it a lot though, obviously from the record. I'm into a lot of spiritual music, I'm a big fan of the Danielson Famile and Sufjan, but I don't even view that as Christian music. Personally, I don't think any of us as a band felt that people would read so much into the spirituality. It is really hidden, not even so much intentionally, I just feel like some songs aren't even supposed to be that - if it works for you, it works for you, and same with us. I feel like the record as a whole is, like I said it has a very spiritual feeling and sense to it, even in just the celebration - like an end-time wedding feast celebration. I enjoy hearing that people are getting something out of it if it is spiritually, if it's effective in any way, whether that was my intent or not. That's what's always affected me, if I hear a record the way that it speaks to me could be different, obviously, than the way it speaks to you. I think that's very imperative that that is there in a record, that that's left open and it's not all cut and dry, and I feel like we accomplished that. We hear the Christian references and spirituality and we'll talk to the next guy and he got something ... he knows there's a song named 'Jesus' in it. We're having a good time with it. - Excerpted from a 75 Minutes interview, December 7 2005
WHATEVER: You "hadn't picked up on any faith-based themes"? What were you listening to, you sycophantic, pleonastic ... Fine, Page France. I fold. You are not in any sense of the term a "Christian band." I would hate to racially discriminate against you (PS - WHAT THE FUCK). You are a totally bitchin' secular band who just happens to sing about the Rapture and Jesus and Heaven all the damn time. PS I still think "Junkyard" is a really kick-ass song.
posted by Brian
LINK |
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
KING OF THE BEATS
Mantronix
available on Mantronix: Best of 1985-99
[Buy it]
FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY
Disco Dub Band
1975
Available on compilation:Jazz Funk Session
POP POPCORN CHILDREN
Eldridge Holmes
Atco : 1969
Out of Print
Sorry folks too busy to type. For now some more sweet funky filler. If you feel like reading, there's an intense article about the roof dogs of Gowanus in the New York Press that I read while waiting for nachos at a local Chi-Mex takeout that we call "Fuzzy Taco".
posted by James
LINK |
Monday, January 23, 2006
UNDIU
Joao Gilberto
Joao Gilberto
Polygram : 1973
[Buy It]
CEGOS DO NORDESTE
Baden Powell
Canto on Guitar
MPS : 1970
[Buy It]
AOS BAROES
Lo Borges
Lo Borges
Bomba : 1972
Out of print
O TREM AZUL
Milton Nascimento
Clube de Esquina
EMI : 1972
[Buy It]
MANTRA
Nelson Angelo e Joyce
Nelson Angelo e Joyce
Odeon : 1972
Out of print
TODA ESSA AGUA
Lo Borges
Lo Borges
Bomba : 1972
Out of print
While I had threatened to post more about Tropicalia last time around, that's the aspect of MPB that's always getting recapitulated, and with the recent Soul Jazz one disc overview (not to mention plenty David Byrne-funded discs on Os Mutantes and Tom Ze as well as their explicit influences on Beck, Redd Kross, Tortoise, Arto Lindsey, Animal Collective) well within reach on the shelves, instead here are a few choice cuts of early 70s output, post-Tropicalia. Rather than recapitulate the Western and avant-garde clashes that the movement embraced, and still deep in the grips of a censoring dictatorship, the songs here opt for something more effervescent, exquisite, poppy, while also containing a kernel of haunting melancholy.
There's the legendary Joao Gilberto, who is so low-key here as to almost be pure alpha waves, as well as Baden Powell, whose hypnotic playing seems slightly less Brazilian, more Arabic, and yet it really exists on its own plane. As does the collaboration between Joyce and Nelson Angelo. Spikiest of the bunch is the tightly knotted music of teenager Lo Borges (both with Milton Nascimento and on his first solo album), who reaches such rarefied air casually, a kid Icarus mixing Beatles pop, razor-tipped funk, dazzling polyrhythmic patter, and sweeping baroque moves in punk-length outbursts.
posted by beta
LINK |
Friday, January 20, 2006
MERCY, MERCY
Don Covay
b. 1938
Rosemart : 1964
[Buy It]
YOU'VE GOT MY MIND MESSED UP
James Carr
1942 - 2001
Goldwax : 1966
[Buy It]
PEOPLE SURE ACT FUNNY
Titus Turner
1933 - 1984
Soulville
Collectables : 1990
[Buy It]
A NICKEL AND A NAIL
O.V. Wright
1939 - 1980
Back Beat : 1971
[Buy It]
CUTTIN' IN
Johnny "Guitar" Watson
1935-1996
King : 1962
[Buy It]
ONE MONKEY DON'T STOP NO SHOW
Joe Tex
1933 - 1972
Dial : 1965
[Buy It]
OH, HOW IT RAINED
Eddie Floyd
b. 1935
Stax : 1970
[Buy It]
NINETY-NINE AND A HALF (WON'T DO)
Wilson Pickett
1941 - Yesterday
Atlantic : 1966
[Buy It]
My singing doesn't have one source. I'd certainly have to tip my hat to Little Richard. But it's sort of a composite guy, because I love Wilson Pickett, and there are a few guys who have that sort of high, edgy thing.... Wilson even screamed in tune.
- John Fogerty
posted by Alex
LINK |
Thursday, January 19, 2006
HIPPY-SKIPPY MOON STOMP
Moon People
Single
Roulette : 1969?
Out of Print
WHY DID YOU DO IT
Stretch
Elastique
1975
[Buy it]
FIGHT THE POWER (Powersaxx Mix)
Public Enemy feat. Branford Marsalis
Brothers Gonna Work It Out Maxi CD Summer Slammer
Def Jam/Columbia : 1990
Out of Print
THE KUNG FU
The Lords of Percussion (Mort Garson)
Single w/ Geisha Girl
Old Town : 1974
Out of Print
TRAMP
Lowell Fulson
1967
available on The Tramp Years
[Buy it]
posted by James
LINK |
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
2/1
Brian Eno
Ambient 1: Music for Airports
EG : 1978
[Buy It]
ICEBLINK
Pass Into Silence
Pop Ambient 2006
Kompact : 2005
[Buy It]
NEVER LOSE. NEVER REALLY.
Belong
Ocotober Language
Carpark : 2006
[Pre-Order It]
SUNDOWN6093
Tim Hecker
Idol Tryouts Two: Ghostly International Vol. Two
Ghostly Int'l : 2006
[Pre-Order It]
Some music to mingle with the knives and forks.
posted by Brian
LINK |
Monday, January 16, 2006
BIRMINGHAM
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Birmingham, Alabama : April, 1963
[Read the Letter From Birmingham Jail]
WASHINGTON
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Washington DC : August, 1983
[Read the I Have A Dream speech]
FREE AT LAST
The Soul Stirrers
Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story 1959-1965
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
posted by Alex
LINK |
Friday, January 13, 2006
78 SOLDIER DEAD
A LOOK INTO YOU
RADICAL STUDENTS IN SATIN BOOTS
VIRTOUS GIRL (sic)
STUPID ART
39 Clocks
I am totally in awe of the born-out-of-time German synth-punk duo 39 Clocks, a deliriously and studiedly cool early '80s duo with a broken drum machine (it seemed to have maybe two settings, total) who anticipated the Spacemen Three's obsession with the Velvets and Suicide but in a fabulously wrong, perhaps intentionally fucked-up, ESL-poetry, bad haircut and pleather pants, more than mildly Gothy and very very 'Sprockets' kinda way that seemed both ahead of and woefully behind the times but has never ceased to sound perfect to these ears.
Thirty Nine Clocks used the English language wonderfully; just peep some of their song titles: Twisted & Shouts/ New Crime Appeal/ Shake The Hippie/ 78 Soldier Dead/ Test The Beat/ Psycho Beat/ 39 Explosion Heats/ A look Into You/ Heat Of Violence/ Dom (Electricity Elects The Rain)/ Psychotic Louie Louie/ Past Tense Hope &/ Instant Fears On 42nd Street/ Virtous Girl/ Three Floors Down/ Rainy Night Insanities/ A Touch Of Rot.
I adore them and have since my ex roommate, Uncle Wiggly member and WFMU DJ Bill Berger turned me on to them ca. 1989. I know next to nothing about them, and all I own are two albums and a comp. These songs are from that compilation disc, released in 1993, called The Original Psycho Beat, which collects tunes from their four LPs. It's out of print but should be not too difficult to find.
-Mike McGonigal
posted by James
LINK |
Thursday, January 12, 2006
SHAKE IT ALRIGHT OH NO
and
GO JU JU GO
E.U.
Go Ju Ju Go (Cassette)
1987
Out of Print
[Buy used]
JUST BUGGIN
Whistle
Injection Disco Dance Label : 1986
Out of Print
[Buy it on compilation]
5 MINUTES OF FUNK
Whodini
Escape
Jive : 1984
Out of Print
MY MIKE SOUNDS NICE
Salt n' Pepa
Hot Cool & Vicious
London : 1986
[Buy it]
SO at a High School reunion a few years back I drank too much red wine and agreed to take over the class' alumni notes updates. I went to a small private school in DC. My classmates got good jobs, houses, reproduced. So I quickly realized that the updates weren't going to be the saucy Penny Dreadfuls I had hoped. So now I pretty much make stuff up. I enlisted fellow classmate JJ and we got to work. We invented delinquent offspring. We married my friend Tim M. off to Lark Voorhies.
We launched careers, as in this 2004 update:
I reported here last year that Matt P. was busy penning an authorized biography of neo-soul artist Chico DeBarge. Matt emailed me recently with a typically eloquent update. The book, "The Devil Wears Fubu", was published by Scribner in March, and is already in its third printing. It appears to be a critical hit as well. The New Yorker called it "nuanced, pliant" while Dave Eggers gushed: "Everytime Matt P. writes a sentence, an angel laces up his hoodie." Despite the book's success, Matt writes that at first, Chico was upset:
"Sure, initially he wasn't thrilled with it. I had warned him upfront that this wouldn't be a puff piece, that I was in pursuit of something honest. Still, I wasn't surprised by his reaction. I mean here is a guy who has spent his entire life in the company of sycophants, hangers-on who propped him up, inflated his ego. Is it any wonder then, that Chico cut his fashions from the cloth of self-deception? But then show me a man that doesn't. All of our lives are really just ideas; ideas about who we want to be, how we like to think others see us. Selfdom is an optimistic enterprise, it's the front seat of the rollercoaster; but vanity is a funhouse mirror. The thing that did surprise me about this project, though, was how much it taught me about myself. You go in thinking you can maintain a critical distance, but you can only observe something for so long before you begin to see something of yourself reflected in it. Darwin unlocked evolution's mysteries by studying finches. I unlocked mine last summer in a panel van with a man named Chico."
Occasionally the alumni office would politely omit certain submissions, including:
Max R. is a photographer at the Holocaust Museum, which sounded really great until he let slip that the museum is in his basement.
and
On weekends, Charlie takes his 2 year-old son Harrison to Tenley Mini Mart to buy cigarettes. Charlie still smokes Camel Lights, but he gets Harrison Capri Menthol 120s, which have a slimmer shape and are easier for a young child to hold in his growing lips. Plus the minty flavor encourages brushing.
Anyway, notes are due again in a week or so, and I'm giving the readers of moistworks the chance to pen some updates for me. Make something up about someone in my class and I'll get you published. Or tell me a story about a real kid from your class going places or going off the rails, and I'll swap the name out and get it published. It can be just a few words, a chance encounter, or a continuing narrative that I could weave through multiple installments. It's like you would be sponsoring an African child; a white, wealthy, African manchild who will never awkwardly show up at your apartment one day. Or just get on the comments board and tell us about a weird kid you went to school with.
As for the music here: songs you might have found in my old walkman, or cold-boomin' from Page B.'s Jetta.
The EU tracks are from what I think was a cassette-only release. I ripped them myself from the old tape so pardon the wobbly quality.
A Go Go primer
For the greatest alumni note scripture of all time, scoop up Sam Lipsyte's Home Land at once.
Completely unrelated but very amusing
Extra credit if you can identify the 6 yearbook photos above.
And finally, bear with us the next week or so as we experience some hosting and bandwidth issues. If a song doesnt seem to download, or the site seems down, try again a bit later.
posted by James
LINK |
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
LITTLE GIRL SHOES
Smog
Ex-Con (1997 single, o.o.p)
currently available on Accumulation: None
Drag City : 2002
[Buy It]
LITTLE BOYS
Devendra Banhart
Cripple Crow
XL / Beggars : 2005
[Buy It]
(DO YOU WANNA) COME WALK WITH ME?
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Ballad of Broken Seas
V2 : 2006
[Pre-Order It]
After several weeks of esoteric raving, I've returned to good ol' mother earth to post some stuff about music that isn't coded and freaky. Well, not coded anyway, today's post actually is pretty freaky, aligned around the theme of SONGS THAT I THINK ARE PRETTY DAMN DECENT BUT WHICH ACTUALLY MAKE ME PRETTY UNCOMFORTABLE BECAUSE THEY HAVE WEIRD KIDDIE FETISHES AND I'M LIKE WAIT, WHAT AM I LISTENING TO?
First, let's look at the lyrics to Smog's "Little Girl Shoes", so we're all clear on what we're hearing:
Your little girl shoes
I was attracted to your
Little girl shoes
I was distracted by your
Little girl ways
And that little boy hat
Did you have to wear that
In combination with those
Little girl shoes
Dismantled in the lab
Your shoe is cold leather
Your foot is beastly calloused
Closer to cloven
But...paw plus shoe
Equals I don't know what to do
And does the girl imitate the woman
Or the woman imitate the girl
Your little girl shoes
Kick the dust right out of me
Your little girl shoes
Kicked the dust right out of me
Your little girl shoes
Kicked the dust right out of me
Whoa. That shit is pretty clear-cut, and raises about a million questions I'm unable to answer. Such as: Does he mean it, or is he appropriating a voice? Does it matter? Can good people make morally unsound art and still be good people? And if an utter villain creates a piece of art that I admire, do I become complicit in villainy? Does art even have an obligation to be moral? Is J.C. right ("The avant-garde need not be moral")? Is the other J.C. right ("The avant-garde is ideologically unsound, Charlotte, you need the razor to have Marat")? What about the other other J.C. ("Parents, honor your children etc.")? When dudes sing about digging little girls, should I become irate? If I'd ever actually been molested in any way myself, would I? What about you? When sly white boys with broken four-tracks make transgressive statements, do you tend to view it as some sort of social commentary or satire? But when the Ying Yang Twins whisper about "beating that pussy up", do you take it as literal and toxic? If so, does that make you a racist? When Banhart sings "I see so many little boys I want to marry / I see plenty little kids I've yet to have," should we assume he's a pedophile, even though conflating the art and the artist is a huge fallacy? But so even if it's a fallacy, I mean, does that just make saying whatever cool? Even if you don't mean it? I mean of course saying whatever is cool b/c we don't want to be prudes or facists, but does that mean we just have to open wide and swallow whatever? Do we take Lanegan's "little girl" literally, or as an affectionate figure of speech, and if it's the latter, are we offended by this child-sexualizing figure of speech? If we're offended, is our moral outrage self-serving or deeply felt? And is it mitigated by the undeniable loveliness of images like "There's a crimson bird flying when I go down on you?"
etc etc etc
posted by Brian
LINK |
(and, b/c the comment box is for pussies):
HEY! LITTLE CHILD
Alex Chilton
Like Flies On Sherbert
Peabody : 1980
[Buy It]
posted by Alex
LINK |
(and, b/c ask and you shall receive):
CHILDREN RUN AWAY (THE MAN WITH THE CANDY)
JERRY LEWIS
The Frogs
My Daughter The Broad
Matador ; 1996
[Buy It]
GOOD MORNING LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL
Muddy Waters
Available on: His Best: 1956-1964
Chess : 1997
[Buy It]
posted by Alex
LINK |
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
1. KITCH'S BEBOP CALYPSO
Lord Kitchener
London Is The Place For Me: Trinidadian Calypso in London, 1950-1956
Honest Jon's Records : 2002
[Buy It]
2. MIX UP MATRIMONY
Lord Beginner
London Is The Place For Me: Trinidadian Calypso in London, 1950-1956
Honest Jon's Records : 2002
[Buy It]
3. HEADING NORTH
The Mighty Terror & His Calypsonians
PYE/Mixa : 1958
Available on: Trojan Calypso Box Set
[Buy It]
4. IF YOU'RE NOT WHITE YOU'RE BLACK
Lord Kitchener
London Is The Place For Me: Trinidadian Calypso in London, 1950-1956
Honest Jon's Records : 2002
[Buy It]
5. TURN BACK, MELODY
Lord Melody
Melody's Top Ten
Cook : 1959
Available on: Calypso Awakening: From the Emory Cook Collection
[Buy It]
6. CALYPSO WAR
Lord Invader, Macbeth The Great, and Duke of Iron
Calypso After Midnight: Midnight Special Concert, New York City, 1946
Rounder : 1999
[Buy It]
7. SEVEN SKELETONS FOUND IN THE YARD
Lord Executor
Calypso Breakway 1927-1941
Rounder : 1990
[Buy It]
8. FOUR MILLS BROTHERS
The Lion
Roosevelt in Trinidad: Calypsos of Events, Places, and Personalities 1933-1939
Rounder : 1999
[Buy It]
9. BARBADOS CARNIVAL
Dizzy Gilliespie
Jambo, Caribe!
Verve : 1964
[Buy It]
As promised, a follow-up to MW's New Year's calypso-fest, in which we established that calypso might just be the most interesting, and most neglected, music out there - it, too, deserves a fair hearing. So, getting right down to it:
1. Every book about the British Invasion sets London's trad jazz scene up as a foil for the rough-edged rhythm and blues the Rolling Stones, Beatles, et al would soon be playing. The Brits didn't get bebop, the story goes, and so, they began trotting out one Dixieland retread after another. And yet, the West Indians who arrived in Britain after WWII found that the local jazz scene had quite a bit going for it - to see what we mean, you can (and should) download this track, which goes a long way towards dispelling the stock pre-rock narratives once and for all; eg: Post-war jazz splits into rival camps: A bop camp for all the serious, goateed hipsters who wouldn't be caught on a dance floor, and a rhythm and blues camp the swing kids could appreciate. But was bop really so undanceable? BTW, that's Lord Kitchener in the photo you'll see when you click "link," below. And if you're interested in reading more about calypso's history this is one of the better resources I've found, online or off.
2. RE: How direct and uninflected the politics of calypso's could be - how calypsonians could, and did, say things African Americans were forced to speak about in code. Compare: American fear of miscegenation against Lord Beginner's 1952 plea for outright race-mixing.
3. While we're on the subject, here's The Mighty Terror's 1958 indictment of the American South - with a footnote addressing South Africa - followed by:
4. Lord Kitchener's 1953 take on tensions between light-and-dark-skinned West Indians in Britain:
Your father is an African
Your mother may be Norwegian
You pass me without saying goodnight
Feeling you are really white....
Your negro hair is obvious
You make it more conspicuous
You use all sorts of Vaseline
To make out you are European
You speak with exaggeration
To make the greatest impression
That you were taught, apparently,
At Cambridge University....
You hate the name of Africa
The land of your great-grandfather
The country where you cannot be wrong
The home where you really belong
You'd rather be amongst the whites
Than stick up for your father's rights...
No, you cannot get away from the fact,
If you're not white, you're considered black.
5. A reminder that, like hip-hop, calypso originated as a battle medium....
6. And an example of a live calypso battle, recorded at Alan Lomax's Town Hall calypso concert, in 1946. Nifty (or not), that so many lines from the song pop up again in The Mighty Terror's "Calypso War," which was recorded twelve years later, in London, and which you can hear by scrolling down to the New Year's posts.
7. Like hip-hop, calypsos have never shied away from politics. Here are a few lines from what's supposed to be the first political calypso, which dates back to 1920
Class legislation is the order of this land
We are ruled with an iron hand
British boasts of equality
Brotherly love and fraternity
But british colored subjects must be in perpetual misery
In this colony.
And, like hip-hop, calypsos were often ripped straight from the headlines. Take Lord Executor's remarkable "Seven Skeletons," above.
8. Another early, excellent example of the bleed-through between African-American and West Indian idioms.
9. And - to bookend "Kitch's Bebop Calypso" - Dizzy Gillespie's own, emphatically danceable take on Carnival.
posted by Alex
LINK |
Sunday, January 08, 2006
NINE OUT OF TEN
Caetano Veloso
Transa
Philips : 1972
[Buy It]
MARIA BETHANIA
Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso (1971)
Philips : 1971
[Buy It]
HELP
Caetano Veloso
Joia
Philips : 1975
[Buy It]
NEOLITHIC MAN
Caetano Veloso
Transa
Philips : 1972
[Buy It]
The twin occasions of the Soul Jazz label finally re-packaging the music of the Tropicalia movement into a handy single disc coupled with my remembering that I hadn't read (though quickly remedied) Tropical Truth, an excellent first-person narrative of that frightening and fantastic time in MPB (shorthand for Brazilian Pop Music) by its main mover Caetano Veloso, leads me to revisit the man. Often called the John Lennon of Tropicalia (though I think Veloso shades more towards being its Jean-Luc Godard), save that Lennon never got locked up by military police for his thought-crimes, Veloso's place in the panthenon derives only in part from his music. The book goes into painful detail about his time in prison, the censor of the press (which never once reported what happened to the pop music star), and his subsequent exile to London until 1972 along with fellow musician Gilberto Gil. All for a casual lie told by a nightclub owner, something to always keep in mind come arguments for citizen spying programs and presumed innocence.
A blip of ten or so sixties pop albums within an 18-month period that have proven themselves to be evergreen, inspiring a new generation of songsters (not limited to Talking Heads, Beck, Nirvana, DNA), justice can't really be done to Tropicalia here (unless James and Alex want to give me a few days), but all of the albums from Mutantes, Gal Costa, Gil, and Tom Ze in that window of time are most highly recommended.
To help better understand what he's up to in his native tongue, here are a few tracks of Caetano singing in English, along with relevant quotes from Tropical Truth. The diction and accent are off, sometimes intentionally so, but one can hear the type of subtle wordplay, poetry, and rhythmic nuance that Veloso brings to his muse.
On Godard: "I came away (from Breathless) amazed at the supple rhythm and the poetry of atmosphere...yet it did not seem so rigidly controlled."
"To this day I think that the unbalanced way I handle music...displaying complexity where nothing but the simplest thing is expected, and naivete where one would look for sophistication, comes from having refused to impose a method on myself, all on account of having no faith in my musical ability."
"I thought that since we were being bombarded with [the English language] all the time, we had the right to use it as we could...with our own poorly learned English, making it the instrument of protest against the very usage being imposed on us."
"Even after I fell in love with the lyrics of Cole Porter...with the diction of Frank Sinatra...I could still, during my London exile, find in that childish ignorance of the language a basis for my caricatures of British and American accents as two versions of a dog's voice."
posted by beta
LINK |
Thursday, January 05, 2006
HAZY SHADE OF WINTER
The Bangles
Less than Zero (soundtrack)
Def Jam : 1987
[Buy It]
CALENDAR GIRL
Neil Sedaka
Single
RCA : 1961
Available on Neil Sedaka Sings His Greatest Hits
[Buy It]
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
The Mamas and the Papas
Single
Dunhill : 1967
Available on The Mamas and the Papas Greatest Hits
[Buy It]
I'm depressed. This is my least favorite time of year. Against my better judgment, I love the holidays. The lights, the presents, the vacation days; in particular, that out-of-time week between Christmas and New Year's. I'm half-Catholic/half-Jewish, so this year was particularly acute, what with Chanukah falling where it did. I even made latkes and served them to friends next to my tree.
So. January. Christmas-tree carcasses and rain and work and nothing in sight till Memorial Day, the beginning of summer. I'm a calendar girl, I'll admit it. As much as I try to live life in the moment, I can't help but let seasons and holidays be markers for my happiness.
Am I supposed to be writing about music? I just can't do it. For that we have Alex and epic comments about Sly Stone and James' birth-year (1978) songs (my 1985 post to follow). But that's all very 2005. For now we have me in my mood, post holiday, post transit strike, post post, post post post. It's January, friends. I need you to tell me what to look forward to.
(This is already in the past for me so it doesn't count, but if you haven't read Papa John by John Phillips, run don't walk.)Labels: holidays, joanna
posted by Joanna
LINK |
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
LET'S NOT WRESTLE MT. HEART ATTACK
The Liars
Drum's Not Dead
Mute : 2006
DAWN PATROL
Excepter
Sunbomber
5RC : 2006
[Pre-Order It]
A colleague of mine who has a very deep and intricate relationship with Deerhoof, upon hearing The Runners Four, posted the following on a message board with an endearing breathlessness: "They did it. They fucking did it. Tears in my eyes."
Some bands you just like, plain and simple. Others, you struggle with - the music exerts a gravity that pulls you in, only to bounce you off of its impenetrable surface. It's like kissing someone who's simultaneously pushing you away. This is the sort of record I find most rewarding over the long run, with various bands of resistance in which I become hopelessly entangled; music that isn't content just to be what it is, but seems to exist more as a sort of potential, a dark adumbration of raptures to come. Sometimes, either the listener, the music, or both never make it beyond the struggle; they slog through the mire and sink from view before reaching the sandbar.
The relationship my colleague has with Deerhoof is similar to mine with The Liars. The cowbelled funk-punk of They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top was loads of fun, but barely hinted toward the grinding, doomy textures of They Were Wrong So We Drowned, an impenetrable document at once deeply flawed and endlessly fascinating, haunted and incantatory and repulsive. The music wasn't content to simply inhabit the space it carved out for itself. It defined the boundaries of the space and immediately set about pounding on the door. If it was hard to like, it was harder to disregard, an attenuated vector of transcendence slamming the body of an eleven-foot-tall caveman in a gold lame loincloth against the not-quite-buckling door.
The forthcoming Drum's Not Dead LP doesn't just open that door, it absolutely pulverizes it, shearing the hinges, and beyond it - unbounded space, purling white mist and refractions of light. "They did it," I thought, "They fucking did it," posting on that very same message board a rapturous and probably ill-advised (but deeply felt) comment about the air Drum's Not Dead inhabits becoming "radiant with divinity." Where the last album slogged around in a viscous murk, this one is all light and air, suspended in some profane equilibrium, crystalline, primordial, and terrifying in the beautiful way that a forest fire or tornado is. Some of you are going to hate it; others will glimpse the godhead.
The Excepter track's just a little bonus spooky for you; in my view they're still pounding on their own private door, which creaked open incrementally during certain protracted moments on Throne, but remains for the most part an intriguing impediment. But the tooth-grinding struggle must always precede the wide-eyed epiphany, and I'm going to continue wandering the wilderness with Excepter, confident that eventually, like the Liars, they'll find their way out and go up to the mountain. I'm a pragmatist in many things, but with music, I'm something of a mystic, and while I have to pursue a pragmatic approach as a critic, I cling to my mysticism as a listener - it's about as close as I come to prayer.
posted by Brian
LINK |
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
The fourth and final installment of our new year's mix - all songs will fit onto one cd, and the Otis Redding illustration, which you'll see if you click on the "link" link, below, makes an excellent cover. Scroll down for the other songs.
22) CARNIVAL PROCLAMATION
Lord Melody
Lord Melody Sings Calypso
Cook : 1958/9
Available on: Calypso Awakening: From the Emory Cook Collection
[Buy It]
23) CALYPSO WAR
The Mighty Terror & His Calypsonians
PYE/Mixa : 1958
Available on: Trojan Calypso Box Set
[Buy It]
24) WRITER'S BLOCK
Fat Lip
The Loneliest Punk
Delicious Vinyl : 2005
[Buy It]
25) SAVE THE ROACH
Buck Washington
c. 1944
Available on: Dope & Glory: Reefer Songs Der 30er & 40er Jahre
[Buy It]
26) THIS YEAR
The Mountain Goats
The Sunset Tree
4AD : 2005
[Buy It]
27) THE GOOD THINGS
John Wayne
America, Why I Love Her
c. 1973
Courtesy of: Bad Music
[Buy It]
NOTES:
Track 22) Another, excellent song from the Smithsonian/Folkways Emory Cook best-of. The liner notes read: "Lord Melody portrays the traditional carnival character American Red Indian, and uses him to spread terror in the hearts of his potential enemies," and tell us that the chorus consists of "fake 'Indian' speech." I don't know - sounds quite a bit like Pidgin African to me....
Track 23) And another, excellent song from the Trojan Calypso Box. This time around, The Mighty Terror declares war on bootleg Calypsonians, and will you check out the man's flow?
Is only Terror, Lion, and Lord Kitchener
In Britain are real Calypso singer
All the rest who here they from Jamaica
Each and every one they are imposter
To make a song they can't stand in line
They either singing Kitch' song or they singing mine
So they run, but Jamaica run, plant the banana, run
Leave me and Kitchener
Take for instance England and the West Indies
Not a man to sing on England's victories
Such a thing to England is too unkind
I was sick and that rested on my mind-
I was sick and Kitch in America, not a man to sing
[something/something guitar?]
Yet you could here them with rotten composition
Fooling the population
Here in Great Britian - War!
Well, if you want to see what I say is true
Just call a Jamaican singer to you
And ask him to sing extemporaneously
You will see he hasn't this ability
But if you call up me or Lord Kitchener
We will sing from January to December
Why?
For we are born Trinidadians, and real calypsonians
Here in Great Britain!
Track 24) Pharcyde fans will remember Fat Lip from back in the day. This song might give you an idea of why it took the MC so long to come out with his first solo album...
Track 25) ....and the only solo release by sometime Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins sideman, Buck Washington.
Track 26) A new year's track, of sorts, from John Darnielle's autobiographical Sunset Tree.
Track 27) It's true; we do hear a lot about wars or hurricanes that hit our shores.
posted by Alex
LINK |
Monday, January 02, 2006
Part III of our new year's mix... scroll down for tracks 1-14, and check in tomorrow for the final installment.
15) TEENAGE KICKS
Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague
Peace Frog : 2004
[Buy It]
16) AN OPEN LETTER TO MY TEENAGE SON
Victor Lundberg
An Open Letter To My Teenage Son
Liberty : 1967
Courtesy of: Bad Music
[Buy It]
17) BROOKLYN PUBLIC
J-Live
The Hear After
Penalty : 2005
[Buy It]
18) STICKS & STONES
Titus "Tee" Turner
c. 1958
Available on: Soulville: Golden Classics
[Buy It]
19) CHALLENGE TO THE HIPPIES
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew Speaks Out
Courtesy of: Bad Music
[Buy It]
20) RHYMIN' & RAPPIN
Paulette & Tanya "Sweet Tea" Winley
Winley : 1979
Available on Death Mix: The Best of Paul Winley Records
[Buy It]
21) FUNKY KINGSTON
Toots & The Maytals
Dragon : 1972
Available on: Pressure Drop: The Definitive Anthology
[Buy It]
NOTES:
15) Teenage Kicks is Nouvelle Vague's take on The Undertones' greatest hit, and a nice set-up for:
16) Victor Lundberg's open letter to his teenage son, and the trouble with libertarians.
17) "Brooklyn Public" is J-Live's autobiographical slice of life in Brooklyn's public school system. I was happy with the segue here, and - as an alumni of Brooklyn's public school system - I'll say that this song is sad-making, but ultimately hopeful: We could do worse than set J-Live loose in America's classrooms. Also, this song reminds me of the guy I met on Black Friday.
18) Franklin Bruno posted this song on MW last June, when I asked him to write something to go along with his excellent abecedary on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces. And guess what? The song kicks ass. Produced by Ray Charles, who also cut a version. But Turner's got a loosey-goosey/tight-as-fuck thing happening - a unique take on the tighten-up, which almost reminds me of some of the Toots & The Maytals stuff you'll find in this mix.
19) They don't make politicians like Spiro Agnew anymore! Or, do they?
20) They don't make them like Paulette & Tanya "Sweet Tea" Winley, either. How old are these girls - 12? My favorite part is when Sweet Tea goes to heaven and all the angels agree that she's "rockin' the whole damned place."
21) Like so many American soul singers, Toots Hibbert was a preacher's kid, who grew up in the church (7th Day Adventist, natch). And, like so many American soul singers, he's not afraid to show it.
posted by Alex
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Sunday, January 01, 2006
Our new year's mix, continued.... scroll below for tracks 1-8!
8) CARNIVAL CELEBRATION
Small Island Pride
Dance Calypso!
Cook : 1956
Available on: Calypso Awakening: From the Emory Cook Collection
[Buy It]
9) IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!
The Qualities
Saturn Records : 1956
Available on: Sun Ra: The Singles
[Buy It]
10) LONESOME TRAIN (ON A LONESOME TRACK)
Johnny Burnette Trio
Coral : 1956
Available on: Rockabilly Boogie: The Classic 1956-1957 Recordings
[Buy It]
11) STORMY WEATHER
The Reigning Sound
Time Bomb High School
In The Red : 2002
[Buy It]
12) IT'S GREAT TO BE YOUNG AND IN LOVE
Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman
Demo recording, available on It's Great To Be Young And In Love
[Buy It]
13) CANCELING STAMPS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA POST OFFICE
[Read about & Buy]
14) TEENAGER IN LOVE
The Wailers, c. 1964
Available on: One Love: Bob Marley & The Wailers, Live at Studio One
[Buy It]
Folks, I had a hell of a time getting back from Brooklyn this morning - apologies for the late post. And right down to business:
"Carnival Celebration" is an encore performance by the afore[read: below]mentioned Small Island Pride. How much do I love this guy? So very, very much. And how striking is this song? The most obvious thing to point out, I'd guess, is the parallel to rap: The fact that Calypso was a battle medium (once the musical accomp. to stick-fights), that it served as a wire-service, that it was revolutionary, and violent, that it valued wit and verbal dexterity - the vocabulary:
"nayga," "old style" - and the ready-to-die finale. It took me a while to work out the lyrics here, so I'll transcribe:
Mastife, Mastife, meet me down by the Croisee
And Cutouter, Cutouter, meet me down by Green Corner
[M&C were notable "badjohns" - and Mastife, in particular, hated this song so much he banned it from his home)
While I waiting for this carnival,
Is to jump up w/these criminal-
I'm going to arm myself w/a big stick
Any man in town I meet, that is real licks
'Cause I done tell Mammy already
Mommy, do do tie up your belly
'Cause is murder, federation, with war and rebellion
When they find me by the junction
I'm going down....
Chorus
Monday morning I waking early
To drink a vat to steam up my body
And I jumping up like a crazy
[Check out the neat Samson Agonistes of this next line!]
I alone gone collapse the city!
With my razor tied on to me poui [a stickfighting stick]
I like a badjohn in the 18th century
And w/my stick in my waist
I chipping in space
Is to spit in ole nayga face
Chorus
Well to show you I aim for trouble
On my right hand is my steel knuckle
My chooker [ie, dagger] in my left pocket
Boys, my pooya [ie, machete] under me jacket
And I jumping up like if I wild
I know they bound to say that is old-style
But if you beat me like a child
I take my licks with a smile
And I pelting war like I wild
Chorus
Well, as man I consult my doctor
To check my lungs and me liver
I done pay off me lawyer
To pay off me undertaker
And as I have no mother no father
They could post me back to Grenada
'Cause I tell Mr Chance, I done paid in advance
To bury me down in Grand'Anse
Man. The way he sings "mother and father" - that, too, kills me.
Track 9: More Sun-Ra produced doo-wop, though calling this stuff doo-wop is doing it a serious disservice. Track 10: The first of a mini-Memphis-two-fer, the rippingest rockabilly track around, and a somewhat appropriate one for this time of year. (NB, John Barr: Johnny Burnette Trio produced by the one & only Bob Thiele! But not this track.) Track 11: Memphis music is alive and well. Track 12: How different this demo of "Teenager in Love" is from the finished song! I'm glad Doc & Mort revised this draft - 'cause how great is it to be young and in love? I could try to answer that, but I just turned 33, so technically, I'm no longer qualified. NB:Special thanks to David "I Reserve The Right To Eat Pussy" Brendel for digging this up! Track 13: I'll leave this to the imagination (it was recorded thirty years ago, but might as well have been thirty years earlier, or thirty years from now), but this is the one song I heard this year that actually brought tears to my eyes. For, like, twelve different reasons. And Track 14: is another, excellent take on "Teenager." More tomorrow, thanks for tuning in, and a very happy new year to you & yours!
love, from
Moistworks' Astoria Bureau
posted by Alex
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