Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Cuckoldry, late-'80s style

In answer to the impressive escape velocity of Flynn's track yesterday, I offer one about a sad fool whose girl is running around on him and yet wraps his bewilderment in a sweet groove and a triumphantly dumb lyrical conceit. He's family man alright. But you know, there's loving your family and then there's putting your naked child on your album cover. An Awkward Family Photo, to be sure.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

If you came back as the deep sea


I have an overwhelming fondness for intriguing song titles, and I like to guess what a song will sound like based on its name. I also know that "It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful" sounds exactly as I thought it would. Naturally, it's a breakup song encased in joyful harmonies, and naturally the rhymes are a little bit cute and a little bit biting. This is perhaps my favorite sort of breakup song, because this is actually what such an occasion feels like: a little too witty, a little too liberating, and a little bit too mean.

Some songs are handclap songs without even needing handclaps, and that's exactly what this is.


Monday, March 29, 2010

Watch me jumpstart

The other day a co-worker remarked that if you've got a song stuck in your head, the way to dislodge it is to start humming "Private Dancer." Preferably the verses, which have an almost medicinal way of blocking the mental desire to loop a tune. I've found that any part of "Careless Whisper" has a similar effect, although its mechanism of action is more like the mighty sun rising up to burn away the threat of any competing melody. No really, that's how it works.

And yet, neither of these strategies has been able to get today's song out of my head. Regular readers know I'm pretty into Bill Nelson these days, but this one just keeps hitting the spot like sweet devil
candy. Enough so that even the dorky saxophone can't stop my Pavlovian response of jumping around the room when it comes on. I only hope my enemies don't get their hands on this kryptonite.

Bill Nelson - White Sound

Friday, March 26, 2010

Seduction in space

If yesterday's song was about building from the ground up, this one defies gravity. I came across it on a mix recently, and memories of childhood public service announcements flooded my head. I think this track was used in one of those 'Just Say No' spots. Which is also weird because this song makes tranquilizers seem really appealing. I can only hope that some adventurous astronauts have played this while getting busy on the International Space Station.

Art of Noise - Moments In Love

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Tower of sound

OK, you're gonna need to give this track a little time. Like 11 minutes. It's worth it. If only to behold the magic of artful repetition. Layering a bunch of simple ideas on top of each other may be an old trick, but if you give yourself over to the momentum and slow building shapes, the effect is overwhelming. This one sounds like the ascent of a civilization, from microbes to globe-spanning cities. Mang.

Roll The Dice - Undertow

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

King of the bongo

In the hot summer of 1999, my first in New York, my friend Peter came to visit, armed with a bunch of records I've since forgotten. The one I remember was Manu Chao's solo debut Clandestino, which had yet to invade lefty coffee shops and dinner parties everywhere. It suited the heat perfectly and we left it on repeat hanging out in my smoky, shabby living room, friends coming and going, as often happened in those days. A bunch of us took it to the roof and eventually fell asleep up there. I remember the precise discomfort of waking up on the hot tar. Nothing extraordinary about any of that, but the memory has burned itself in my brain as a snapshot of those first days in the city.

A while later, I stumbled onto Mano Negra—Manu Chao's multi-culti, Clash-inspired, righteous punk band (album cover notwithstanding). Aside from soundtracking whatever political rally you've got planned, it's great for keeping awake when you're bleary-eyed on the highway at night. I think he's singing in Arabic here. Translation anyone?

Mano Negra - Sidi H'bibi

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Parallelograms of light


They say you never forget your first kiss, and they say you never forget your first crush. I can't remember either of those things, but I will never forget my first New York crush: at eighteen, he had pink hair and a huge smile and a David Byrne obsession. He was a punk kid, and I was painfully Midwestern, and sooner or later I realized that he wasn't at all into me and then we became the best friends we were meant to be.

Before that, though, he gave me a copy of The Weakerthans' first album, and it reeks so strongly of crushes to me that I still blush and feel gooey a little every time I listen to it. This is the feeling I associate with this band, who are smart and literate and endearing in all of the right ways. They have a new live album, Live At Burton Cummings Theater, out today, and it perfectly captures the band's essence and naturally contains all of their best songs. Here's a newer one that manages to get me singing along without the embarrassing blush factor.


The Weakerthans - Sun in an Empty Room

Monday, March 22, 2010

I saw you staring out in space

Well, I guess this wouldn't be a proper music blog if I didn't pay a little tribute to Alex Chilton right about now. As far as Big Star goes, I'm in the camp that thinks Sister Lovers is their masterpiece, if only for the fact that it's kinda really hard to turn bitterness and disappointment into art that resonates without it feeling like audio rubbernecking.

This is the kind of song you put on mixtapes to make girls aware of your wounded depths. You might even think enough of it to make it the lead-off track, proudly offering your damage as a key romantic selling point. I'm mean...you know...that's what I'm told. It still sounds like a beautiful collapse.

And, because everything comes at me in the wrong order, here's a cover version that I actually heard before the original. A more stately reading somehow yields a different kind of ghostliness. The strings amplify the song's big breaking heart.

Big Star - Kangaroo
This Mortal Coil - Kangaroo

Friday, March 19, 2010

March into the sunrise

Every workday, I get out at Grand Central and walk east to my office. It's all towers, traffic, and khaki, but some mornings like today, I walk into a huge, blinding sunrise. It's especially intense when winter finally passes into to spring. Maybe it has something to do with images of New Order beginning to emerge from Joy Division's shadow, but that morning walk has a way of bringing this song to mind.

New Order - Procession

Thursday, March 18, 2010

From a starship over Venus to the Sun

I must admit I was surprised to discover that Shudder To Think—with their jagged artiness—could pull off a note-perfect imitation of Glam's creamy triumphs. Many have tried to channel David Bowie, and the failures have ranged from bland to spectacular. The Velvet Goldmine soundtrack is chock full of the rare successes. These DC boys contributed two home runs, and here's one of them.

Shudder To Think - Hot One

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Sweet Hatchback's sweetass song

Flynn's track from yesterday is uncomfortably resonant with my own worklife (metaphorically of course; my complaints are small relative to the world). My response is total escape—another one from team Windsurf. As much as my actual environs please me, it's a soft neon midnight dreamworld I imagine jogging through, as this song swirls through my head. I took it with me on a walk through a cold Lexington evening for a rare moment of solitude. And I had it going today when I bought my first new pair of running shoes in about a decade.

Hatchback - Midnight Jogger

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Nobody told me it'd be easy


"Nobody told me it'd be easy - or for that matter, be so hard."

The Drive-By Truckers are an American rock band in the purest sense of the word; there's not a whole lot of nuance to be found in their extensive back catalog. Still, with Southern Rock Opera, they turned a corner by making the smartest and somehow most endearing concept album of my time. From that point on, they've been every man's everyman, beating Springsteen at his own game by virtue of simply not being wildly famous. Articulate but forceful, there's something compelling about them as a guitar rock band.

The standout track on today's release, The Big To-Do, seems thematically appropriate for a number of the lives that intersect with mine on a regular basis. It arrived in my Twitter feed at a shockingly significant moment, ensuring that it will be one of the last songs standing when it comes time to make a 2010 mix.

Drive-By Truckers - This Fucking Job

Monday, March 15, 2010

How to be someone else

I have a habit of hurting myself in strange ways—breaking my front teeth by running into a wall, tearing cartilage in my sleep, scratching my eyeball on an apple stem. Rack another one up in the dental category. Last Monday, some karaoke overexuberance resulted in more woes for those poor teeth, though I think the microphone got the worst in the exchange. A couple dentist visits have mostly fixed the problem, and in some ways, improved things. Feels like a new mouth.

I'm not really exaggerating. The difference is slight, but I can already feel new muscle habits forming, new expressions taking shape. They'll add up in time. Change enough little things and it's a new face. The new image gets into your head; your brain changes its ways too. Eventually, you could find yourself turned into a new person altogether. I think it happens a lot. Makes me think of this song.

Talking Heads - Seen And Not Seen

Friday, March 12, 2010

Suckin' my rattle tongue

Driving through Tennessee in the morning en route to a "house party" gig (the house was still being built) in Deliverance country, things just looked funny. Watching the scenery on the side of the highway, the ground looked like it had just swallowed something mean and the sunlight felt equally ominous. One rest stop sold crack pipes and porn videos in solid-color boxes (labeled by ethnicity). Another sold mostly porkrind-related products. A horrible tone hummed incessantly from the fridge. Luckily, the Captain was there to save the day.

Captain Beefheart - Black Snake Moan
Captain Beefheart - Spitball Scalped Uh Baby

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Joe Meek shall inherit the Earth

Ah, sad under-appreciated genius. Any knowledgeable hipster (or just Wikipedia) can tell you all about the sonic wizardry of Joe Meek, his signature stamp on rock in the early space age, and his tragic demise. I'll just add that it also makes great driving music when you're speeding past small Kentucky towns. It's Hard To Believe It is an excellent comp that you should get your hands on. Pretty well covers the spectrum of his aesthetic with nary a weak moment. Here are a couple of my faves.

Mike Berry & The Outlaws - Tribute To Buddy Holly
Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages - 'Til The Following Night

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Sweet and simple

We were doing an early morning gig at a retirement home (yes, indeed) in Lexington, KY. Playing deep into the previous night, drinking too much whiskey, and getting way too little sleep brought out the most painful parts of the earliness. I felt like I was going to keel over and needed to summon all my stoicism to keep it together. Suddenly, our mandolin player—who always knows his audience—began singing this song, and it was plain old pretty and sweet. The sunshine coming through the window got all warm, and it made sense to want the things that I'm often crudely compelled to dismiss.

While this number should've sounded especially syrupy, given our immersion into Louis Armstrong's classic '20s music, I only heard the light and brotherliness in it. It sounds better with just voice and piano, but hey, I'll enjoy the syrup all the same.

Louis Armstrong - Hello Brother

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Lifted by love in coal country

Here's another revelation from the road. Despite the fact that 'We Are The World' was my first musical purchase, I'd never really gotten into Lionel Ritchie, much less gone back to The Commodores. Maybe it had something to do with the mullet overload in the 'Dancing On The Ceiling' video. Terrible oversight in retrospect, but I guess context is everything.

This jam came on the stereo while we were driving on the Big Ben Bowen Highway in West Virginia, which was an excellent mismatch.
Then we almost got killed by a deer running across the road. I suppose you could do worse than shuffle off to this song.

The Commodores - Lady (You Bring Me Up)

Monday, March 8, 2010

Keep on the sunny side

Hello friends! Great to be back in town and back on the decks. Thanks much to Flynn for keeping the 'blague fires burning.

The Rambler/Dees tour was an exhausting and awesome exercise in burning the candle at both ends. Despite my blistered fingers and the head cold I seem to have picked up in Pittsburgh, it was a great time. Any tour that spans schools, libraries, weddings, dive bars, and the Clinton Presidential Library is bound to be something to remember.

Lots of driving means lots of car stereo fodder. And uncharacteristically, I was happy to defer to my compatriots for soundtracking. I'm glad I did because I got a much-needed
education in early rock and country. And some interesting variations like this.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Missiles to bloodstream


For the past year, I've been inexplicably haunted by Jawbreaker.

It's inevitable that musically inclined people of a certain age and sensibility feel very, very strongly about Jawbreaker; I, by contrast, have always felt a certain ambivalence towards the band. Still, every barbeque this year had a secret but familiar soundtrack, a trip to my favorite bar on what is usually metal night yielded all of Dear You, multiple friends' Facebook statuses have all urged me that "it sounded good, I felt ashamed, I knew every drum fill."

The moment anyone has stopped to be nostalgic about anything, the word "Jawbreaker" is uttered.

For my part, I've never been afraid to embrace the next thing, and when the next thing after Jawbreaker was Jets To Brazil, I suddenly got it. If the next year of my life is filled with thinly veiled references to Orange Rhyming Dictionary, I'm all for it; until then, I'll just take comfort in knowing that these songs have aged as well as I have.

Jets To Brazil - Resistance Is Futile

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

On the surface we swim


The history of popular music in New Zealand is a rich and truly interesting one, and recent posts at Songblague have been indicative of our collective appreciation for what the country has to offer.

From the springboard of Flying Nun's cult success came new efforts at tapping the well of pop in New Zealand, and one of the best and brightest labels to nail down the niche has been Lil' Chief Records. Through hard work and some undeniably compelling bands, Lil' Chief eventually caught Sub Pop's ear in the US, and one of the first bands Sub Pop brought Stateside was the Ruby Suns. Their second Sub Pop effort, Fight Softly, is out today, and it's the kind of thing you need to hear if you're at all into the bright and bubbly soundscaping that's become the norm. I've long thought of The Ruby Suns as a gateway drug of sorts for people who can't quite find Animal Collective accessible, and "Cranberry" puncuates this point with enviable zeal.

The Ruby Suns - Cranberry