Plimsouls Plus--How Long Will It Take---For The Reissue?

Holy Grail From LA

From the moment the needle hit the groove on the Zero Hour ep, I was a fan of the Plimsouls. The combination of great songs and raw and immediate studio recording made for an exhilirating listen. I played that record to death. How Long Will It Take? is the classic song here, but Great Big World, Hypnotized, the title track and the raucous version of Otis Redding's I Can't Turn You Loose are completely fantastic. That cover is emblematic of the bands style. These days they are regarded as one of the great "power pop" groups, but as far as I am concerned they are a garage rocking band fronted by a soul singer. Or in some ways resembling the early formative r n b Beatles. Peter Case is a great singer and the band is dynamite-- Eddie Munoz is a riff monster--The ep has a real live in the studio quality, and I'm told they were one of the best live acts in L.A. in their heyday.

Prior to Plimsouls, Case was in the legendary Nerves, with two power pop legends, Jack Lee and Paul Collins. Only recently have these recording been available on cd (except for two songs included in Rhino's DIY punk series), originally having been released on a small label. Lee's Hanging On The Telephone famously became a hit when it was covered by Blondie. Paul Collins formed his group the Beat and has penned a number of memorable songs such as Walking Out On Love and Rock N Roll Girl. His first album is a classic of the genre.

But back to Case and company. I was very disappointed when I picked up their album Everywhere at Once. I was expecting more of the music that I heard on their original ep. After listening to the album enough I realized that it is by no means a bad album. It suffers from overproduction and the energy level is muted a bit. There are excellent songs here. However, the slightly toned down nature of the recording is what made this album a very good album instead of an extraordinary one. It sounds like someone tried to commercialize their sound a bit with a bigger budget and wound up wrecking what made the band so terrific. The record still beats most pop groups at their game though so what I say is only in comparison to the Zero Hour ep, recorded for roughly $300. A perfect illustration of what I am saying is How Long Will It Take?. I think the original from Zero Hour is much superior to the album version. But A Million Miles Away, I'll Get Lucky, and Everywhere At Once are one this album, so understand that it is a matter of degree for me.

One day I saw a Plimsouls cd in a used record store in White Plains that I had never seen before. I saw on the back cover that it included the Zero Hour ep. So I picked it up for 7 bucks. I had no idea that they had made another album prior to Everywhere at Once. And the album picks up where Zero Hour left off. Now is another classic--when I heard it for the first time it completely bowled me over. It might be their best song, and it has radio ready hooks that should have made it a nationwide hit. They should have had success like the Bangles, or the Knack. But as we can see, fame is often elusive in the music business.

Hush Hush is another great rocker here, with its tough vocals and sing-along chorus. Also included is a live cut of this song, and it smokes. There are a few live tracks here, notably a raveup version of Dizzy Miss Lizzy a la McCartney. Shows you how great they must have been in clubs. Another of my favorites is the Byrdsy poignant gem Memory. I always assumed that the opening song, Lost Time was a cover song from a 60's soul group. But it is an original. I think that if you can make a retroish song that is comparable to the groups who you are influenced by, you are really doing something great.



No One Even Knows What I'm Talking About In This Town

 There is no shortage of good music on this disc. In This Town, Everyday Things are also standouts. Another high light is the soulful slow groover Mini-Skirt Minnie with great vocals by Case. He really sounds like he is enjoying himself here. I Want You Back is a great lightning fast raveup tune also. Its hard to believe that this disc was released in 1992 and never subsequently reissued. In the power pop guide Shake Some Action by John Borack, this is listed as the 35th best album of the genre for what its worth. Since the Nerves have now been anthologized on Cd I assumed that someone would follow suit with Plimsouls Plus. Even the Fleshtones have their music from their IRS years finally reissued. After nearly 20 years its really time to make this available again.

Peter Case has had a long and respectable career. He began his career busking in the streets and he has had a journeymans career as a folk/traditional artist after the Plimsouls split, though with many critical accolades. He has been nominated for Grammys for his albums Avalon Blues and Let Us Praise Sleepy John. He has created an estimable and deep body of work since his stint with the Plimsouls well worth investigating.

On a serious note about a year or so ago however, he underwent emergency open heart surgery and was in serious financial distress from the medical bills, as he was without health insurance. Friends and fans came together to try and help him through this difficult time, with a charity fund created plus benefit concerts. There is even a three Cd tribute album of his songs performed by a variety of friends and well-wishers, including Dave Alvin, Victoria Williams, Steve Wynn, and John Prine. The good news is that he is doing well today and has recently recorded a new album Wig!, on YepRoc, which is supposed to be excellent. Currently he is out on tour in the US playing venues of varying sizes, including Hoboken, NJ, Long Island City and Larchmont, NY. I've never seen him live, but I think I'm going to--very shortly.

Sand Dancer from "Up the river": Jazz Pioneer Sonny Sharrock And Highlife



We Miss You Still

 What an amazing guitar player Sonny Sharrock was. He was from my neck of the woods on the Hudson River, in Ossining, a town that most people know because of the notorious prison, Sing-Sing, that has dominated the downtown of the village for over 200 years. They have a museum in the local community center where they have a replica of an electric chair, and a whole collection of weapons made by prison artisans out of ordinary correctional facility items. There is a nostalgia about the place because of movies, just like San Quentin or Alcatraz. People remember the Rosenberg trial of the 50's and the phrase of being "sent up the river". I wish the place wasn't there; it doesn't seem right to have a prison smack in the middle of a downtown and taking up such a great amount of space, but I guess it is a historical fact. People should recognize Ossining as the birthplace of the first free jazz guitarist.

The legend is that Sonny was a great admirer of saxophonist John Coltrane and wanted to follow in his footsteps. Unfortunately he had asthma, which forced him to switch to the guitar, and history was made. And for many years he carved out a career as a sideman with many jazz greats, such as Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Herbie Mann, Byard Lancaster. After a long tenure with Herbie Mann, he formed his own group with his first wife Linda and produced three albums.

Before I go any further let me say that musically, Sonny Sharrock is not the typical jazz guitarist. He did play in a variety of styles, but I would say that overall his playing is a lot louder and more aggressive than any jazz guitarist up to that point, and beyond. He took the power of the instrument and used its capabilities to great effect, just like any other forward looking jazz great would do. And it was very common to hear the loud volume and to try to lump him in with rockers, with people often making comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. But they were misinformed---he was a jazzman first and foremost, and he was having no part of those comparisons-he found them insulting. A lot of his music was complicated, and he would acknowledge no kinship with the Eric Clapton's of the world. That being said, people who love guitar but who are not jazz aficionados should love and admire his work.

After a hiatus from the music business, Sonny began working in earnest in the 1980's, performing in Bill Laswell's Material, and in the extreme free jazz improvisational supergroup Last Exit, with Laswell, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, and german sax player Peter Brotzmann. He also began putting out his own work starting with his overdubbed solo album Guitar in 1986. He followed with Seize The Rainbow (now with band) and a live album. The next album was Highlife, and on this album he tried some new things, mostly for the better. But overall, it was still that glorious guitar.

I would have to believe that he had heard been listening to African or Calypso music at this time, at least because of the opening track No More Tears and the eponymous fourth song. The guitar riffs and the rhythms on these songs seem a little bit outside what people deem jazz, but frankly I don't get worked up about those things. Whether his guitar creations are wrapped in a taco, or a pita, it doesn't matter--I just like it when musicians try to be expansive and the quality of the music is the real litmus test. Some think that this album was a commercial move, but I'm not so sure about that, and not just because it didn't work. On a superficial level, the backing sounds a little more pristine here, and there is a lot of keyboard here. The keyboard playing itself is well done, but the actual sound dates the album a bit. The guitar is completely fierce buzzsaw in many places, and in others quietly and beautifully transcendent. There is great passion here. I just think he was a thoughtful guy who was interested in pushing the envelope and evolving his art.

And that joy you hear on record was so evident in a live setting. I had the good fortune to see him perform twice, once on a sunny day in Central Park, and another time at the Knitting Factory. The gig in the park was one of the great show I've ever seen. He was a complete motherfucker--that was the word I kept babbling to myself as my jaw fell and hit my collarbone during every solo. That's the best and only word to describe it--the albums did not prepare me for this. And he was so happy out there, it was so personal. At that moment he completely loving what he did, and I think the reaction of the crowd and his responses kept building upon each other, like an arms race--complete shock and awe. So much bliss on that stage that day!! I felt like he was wringing out of that guitar a part of himself, succeeding in a way that a trumpeter or sax player would make the instrument an extension of himself.

And at the Knitting Factory I briefly met him. A friend used to have a recording studio in his basement where Sonny would rehearse sometimes. He went down to the show and they chatted a bit. It was another great show, and we were at a table right in front. I kept ducking involuntarily in reaction to Sharrock-he kept whipping his guitar four feet over my head up on stage. He would play in that buzzsaw mode of his strumming rapidfire until his pic broke. He seemed to keep a pile of pics in his mouth like a chipmunk, or a baseball player with a wad of tobacco. He would throw a broken pic out into the audience and then spit a new one into his hand. I got a few souvenirs that night. As I recall another friend (the world's most interesting man from my Brazil post) actually fell asleep in a chair right next to the PA system with that extremely loud guitar blasting. As I've said before, he is truly an amazing person.

I like this album--Chumpy as a free jazz song with a bluesy stomp of a middle section. The heartfelt Kate (variations on a theme by Kate Bush)--the slow burning fuse leading to a molten guitar explosion of Pharoah Sanders Venus/Upper Egypt. Your Eyes is another song in the vein of the opener and the guitar is literally singing here. The album actually ends with a short snippet of Coletrane's Giant Steps. The sad thing is that he died so prematurely back in 1994 at the age of 53. I had heard a lot of rumors that he was signing a huge record deal in the US, that he was getting outfitted with a new band, and even that he would perform on Saturday Night Live. But unfortunately, he did not live to see this come to fruition.

There is actually a nice footnote to this post. It is uncanny how serendipitous things occur when I write a post (though I'm not taking credit). It turns out that this weekend they are actually naming a street in Ossining after Sonny Sharrock (the street he grew up on). And I found this out after I started writing this!! I am very happy that he is getting recognition for his great artistic achievements for his legacy as an influential and innovative pioneering jazz musician. When I think of his legacy I'm always reminded of the song Sanddancer from Last Exit's Iron Path album. Subdued, dignified, passionate and exhibiting his astounding virtuosic abilities.

Stands For Delightful-- dB's Holsapple and Stamey's Mavericks



Smart Like A Whip, Shoots From The Hip

 Mavericks is one of those secret albums that I like that seemed to fall under the radar a bit, as if people needed a Freedom of Information Foil to find out about. I picked it up on the basis of a favorable review in some music magazine, but as it turned out, I dug it far more than I had initially expected. It really grew on me. If you are looking for an album of terrific romantic songs in the style of Simon and Garfunkel, that can be picked up inexpensively, this would receive a high recommendation. It is without doubt the best album that I own that has dogs dressed up in party costumes on the back cover.

Mavericks is a 1991 reunion of dB's alumni Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey after nearly ten years. The dB's were a band from Winston-Salem, North Carolina and made two albums Stands for Decibels and Repercussion, after which Stamey left the group. On this reunion album they pick up where they left off and along with a number of friends put together a top notch collection of songs. And this album is the one I return to time and again, although I do own the first three more celebrated dB's albums. (And they are very very good).

I don't know why they called this Mavericks, as there is nothing very outrageous about this collaboration. Just two guys strumming guitars and harmonizing. Though if a sinister defense contracting corp can be named McLennan Forster (see Go-Betweens) on the TV series 24, maybe there is hope for them yet.  But the proof of this album is in the quality of the songs, not the recording budget. All the songs are originals save for the superb pensive version of Here Without You written by Gene Clark of the Byrds. I like ten of the twelve songs on this album very much--the first nine tunes fly by and then there is Lovers Rock, which I'm not crazy about. It sounds like a bad late-period Alex Chilton castoff.

Mavericks opens with the one of the more energetic songs on the album, the infectiously poppy Angels which was the only dual credited song on the album. That is followed by the shambling wistful I Know You Will.
One of my favorites on this album is Close Your Eyes, which is about as romantic a song as you could possibly concoct.

Even Mona Lisa Would Smile

The confusingly titled I Want To Break Your Heart is another uptempo winner--it means I want to break into your heart, rather than I want to hurt you. She Was The One is a sad lovelorn ballad which is complemented by the wonderful cello work of Jane Scarpantoni. I think its the best thing on the album. The song Anymore is a sad folk song, reminiscent of Richard Thompson's work. Geometry actually sounds like it belongs on a dB's album, happy quirky jangly pop.  The Child in You is a nice summery pop song with the great harmonies that are the backbone of this album. Taken is a nice subdued jazzy love letter of a song, but the countryish final tune You Don't Have the Right to Treat Me Wrong is okay but drags on a bit. Overall a nice record though.

It's always a nice thing to hear people make well constructed songs, with solid musicianship to back it up. There's no dazzle here, no smoke and mirrors. Sweet harmonies, poignant lyrics--an album seemingly thrown together in a casual way, but it somehow seems to succeed pretty effortlessly. A few years ago this album was reissued with a few extra tracks, and it is a good thing to see the first three dB's albums back in print again. And the original Mavericks is available used at a very cheap price indeed. In fact, Holsapple and Stamey released a followup last year, entitled Here and Now, which is currently on my wish list. So far no new dB's records, though there have been some rumors of activity. In summation, Mavericks is a nice record that would definitely satisfy the sweet tooth of any lover of hook friendly acts such as Tommy Keene, R.E.M., or the Go-Betweens.

Os Mutantes---Fab Tropicalia and the World's Most Interesting Man

I did not have any clue about Brazilian music until David Byrne began putting out Brazilian compilations on his Luaka Bop label. The first in the series, Beleza Tropical (covering artists of the 60's and early 70's), was where I got the bug, but it took a while for the infection to spread. Brazilian music is different from what I was used to hearing--in a lot of this music there is a subtlety that I was unaccustomed to. Plus enjoying music performed in other languages seems to be an acquired taste. But you can't go wrong with a compilation with Jorge Ben, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, and Chico Buarque, and I overcame my musical baggage and began to appreciate this great new musical world.

I could not help but love this music, and there is something very special about Portuguese. There is a real poetic languid beauty there that is not in many other languages. Someday I would like to get there as it seems to be an amazing and diverse culture, though I wish that there were some solution to the great economic inequities found in that society. I have a few terrific albums, I've seen the Simpsons episode in Rio and I've been to Rodizio restaurants, but that is about it.

I do have a friend who has made his way down to Rio as a cultural ambassador a few times, and while some people see him as an unassuming sort, those in the know are aware of his greatness. Every time I see the Dos Equis commercials starring "The World's Most Interesting Man". I know that there is a real person who is the

Stay Thirsty Smarty Jones

inspiration for this fictitious character--they "copied" him. Take away the beard, replace the head hair with a NY Yankee hat, and that's my friend. He's a guy who has travelled the four corners of the globe and has the photos to prove it. Skiing in the Alps, cruising the Amazon, on Safari in Africa, buying gourmet olive oil in Bari, rubbing shoulders with diplomats in St Petersburg. Watching the changing of the Scotch Guard in Edinburgh. And of course enjoying the high life in Rio, while being the world's biggest Yankee fan (an honorary Steinbrenner) and a reformed punk rocker who traded in his Doc Martens for a thong. And he really does like Dos Equis!!And if a man of his pedigree is a Brasileirophile, should I be anything less?

Os Mutantes were a band starting out at the same time as the groups from Beleza Tropical, and they were also formed part of the Tropicalia movement of the 1960's. There was political unrest and social change in Brazil at the time, as there was in the US and Europe. Tropicalismo, as it was also called, was also a movement that involved literature, poetry, and theatre.  And aside from  merely being an incorporation of rock and roll and psychedelia into Brazilian music, there was also a political component to the new movement, a reaction to the military coup d'etat in 1964, which set up a right wing reactionary government. In many cases dissent was not tolerated and artists suffered reprisals from the new regime.


O Bruxo Do Luxo

 I am flabbergasted that Os Mutantes were teenagers when they put out their first album. They were so musically talented and precocious. It is very easy to remark about their love of the Beatles. It is very clear that they were very influenced by the Beatles and seemingly the sort of rock and roll  seen in American teen films of the era. But they took those influences and mixed them with Brazilian traditions. And on top of that, the music is so eccentric, theatrical, sweet, wacky, and unpredictable. You really don't know what will happen next, but you can't wait to find out. And I'm not talking about so-bad-its-good kitsch. This album is without a doubt a desert island disc, and one of the best albums of the 60's.

Os Mutantes consisted of brothers Arnaldo and Sergio Baptista and Rita Lee. I'm not sure who played what, and there certainly many other musicians who contributed to this album. Panis et Circensis starts the record in predictably eccentric style. The song keeps changing forms like a case of attention deficit disorder. But the musicianship is excellent with nice "Penny Lane" horns and the harmonies are great. A Minha Menina is just a really classic song featuring a great fuzzy psychedelic guitar lick and gogo type harmonies. My personal favorite here. Like a lot of the songs O Relogio starts and ends as a sweet ballad featuring Rita Lee and morphs into a lysergic rave up in the middle. Throughout the record there are sound effects--crashes, laughter, bird calls, whistles. And there are xylophones, clarinets, trombones, flutes, organ, strings. It's nice to see music like this getting recorded, because I could really see a producer or engineer taking these guys aside and asking "why are you doing this? This is a bad idea".

Adeus Maria Fulo is a very percussive Brazilian tune, the sort of thing you might expect on a Brazilian album today, but maybe not the refined Bossa Nova style that they were known for then. The following song is another highlight, the playful sexy Baby. I actually saw Portastatic (Mac McCaughan of Superchunk solo really) sing that song at Maxwell's in Hoboken, and he did a nice job. Gal Costa also does a beautiful version of this. Senor F is cheeky musichall  cabaret, replete with New Orleans horns. It's like modern Western music in a microwave.

Probably the crowning song on this album is Bat Macumba in all its joyous strutting abandon. After this is the cool stoner madrigal Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour. Another highlight is Trem Fantasma, which is a mercurial pop song, changing from droniness to sleighbells to harmony filled chorus with horns. Tempo no Tempo is a cabaret type song, ending with church bells. The album closes with Ave Genghis Khan, another organ filled rave up. What a shame this didn't come out in the US sooner! A crazy and fun album to listen to. made a few  The second album Mutantes is also recommended. And before Rita Lee was out of the band they made a few more. They actually reunited recently and toured the US, though without Rita Lee, unfortunately. If you like 60's rock and psychedelia this album should be part of your life. And stay thirsty, amigos.

Eat, Pray, Destroy--Bailter Space and the War on Eardrums



She's A Brickhouse

 A phenomenon I see more often these days is earplugs at shows by audience members. It probably makes a lot of sense in the long run. Playing in bands and going to shows over the years has taken its toll on my hearing, no doubt. Still, it doesn't feel proper to me somehow, on the same level as me actually asking for directions when I'm lost driving. I mean I do usually wear a blindfold when I go to any art museums but that's a little different. I guess its a guy thing. But certainly hearing loss due to loud music has been publicized in the world of Indie music by guitarists Bob Mould (Sugar, Husker Du) & Mission of Burma's Roger Miller and their plights with tinnitus. Apparently that is a symptom of hearing loss, hearing noises that aren't really there. From what I've read, you have notes or tones that you can get no short term relief from. Consequently, Mission of Burma broke up originally due to this problem, and today it can affect the sustainable length of tours and also limiting the use of guitar on the part of Mould. I've seen my share of loud groups in my day but I have to believe that New Zealand's Bailter Space take the cake. I saw them perhaps half a dozen times and they were definitely one of the great innovative noise bands--and they were doing their thing a lot longer than the bands they are accused of copying. They must have smoking craters where their ear holes used to be. And if you don't think they were all that noisy, it just means you need to turn it up. And that seemed to be the bands basic philosophy for their live shows.

In the beginning, there was Gordons. That was the original band from 1980 and their music was also poundingly loud, albeit more abrasive. The band broke up after an ep and 2 albums and Bailter Space was eventually formed of Gordons guitarist Alister Parker and bassist John Halvorsen along with Clean drummer Hamish Kilgour. Kilgour eventually dropped out of the mix and was replaced by Brent McLaughlin, the original drummer of the Gordons!! So same personnel with a new name, but an evolving new sound. And while they had influences, like all bands do, their end result is actually sui generis.

Vortura is the 4th album by Bailter Space and it is a powerful and dreamlike squall, with textures and tones as much as chords. Projects is a particularly fiery and aggressive throwdown of a song. As the album proceeds the songs have a cumulatively hypnotic effect on you. The vocal are often like background whispers, or like a muffled revealing of secrets behind the wall of sound. The musical tones on this album are extraordinary, often very low end--when I saw them for the first time one of my friends thought they sounded a bit like the British band Loop. Their sound fills the whole room like being underwater. That was at CBGB's--I had tickets to see Kitchens of Distinction--I forget where-- and we discovered the show was cancelled when we got there. So I had heard rumors of Bailter Space and saw that they were playing CBGB's, along with Poster Children, I think. Six bucks admission. Immediately liked them. They definitely sounded like no other band I know of. I got to see them a lot once they moved to New York.

And of course the stage presence. Most of the time they didn't say anything and it was not uncommon for long pauses between songs while they got the sonics right. They struck me as an arena band in a way, because the expansive sounds of their music could have benefited from having an entourage of guitar and sound techs. And it seemed like they would have been happier playing in front of no one, not much of that "thanks for coming out tonight, we love you guys" thing. They just played their stuff and got off. It was almost funny that I would be at a Dead C show, seeing Roy Montgomery, or the Bats, and I would look next to me and it was one of the guys from the band.  (At Dead C, they were on my left, Thurston Moore on my right). And usually I don't notice anything. That show was at Maxwell's--on another night they had a gig there and they were so loud that I think the cops came that night. Parker politely asked them to turn up the vocals. Ok, I thought, he can't hear himself. Then he asked them to turn up the guitar. Then he asked them to turn up the bass and the drums.

Another night I saw them at Brownie's and I they were so noisy I thought that the bricks were starting to pop out of the wall behind the bar. It was a small venue, and it was brutal. I was with a friend who was unfamiliar with the music, and I think the noise was a little too much for him. He cut out early. I saw them in mid-set during the Noizyland Tour for Flying Nun bands at Irving Plaza and Parker was playing the guitar by hammering the strings with the whammy bar. At some point I think the speaker on the bass blew, and they continued on with a loud flatulent hiss from the amp. The last time I saw them they were at the Knitting Factory and they wanted to play one more song. The club said no, that they used up their time. The band was insistent, and the club started playing recorded music over the PA. They broke into the song and started playing the song with the music going. Then the club turned off the PA, I think. Finally most of the people in the club made a ruckus, saying they would leave if they didn't let the band finish, and that included people who had not come to see Bailter Space. Finally the Knitting Factory gave in and let them finish. Never a dull moment with that band.

Vortura is strange because though it is in some ways melodic, it is also a cold shiny metallic beast of a record. And though loud throughout, it burns with a slow fuse. For every accessible song like X, there is a low-end dirty bomb like Reactor or the pounding maelstrom of Dark Blue. I'm not sure what they mumble about in their songs, but I always think about Spaceships, and a pessimistic non-Whig future. I got in an argument one holiday with a science buff who insisted that people were constantly evolving to better things, and that ultimately we would grow giant heads and lose our hair like the aliens you see in 50's films. But I think these guys may be envisioning a different future where things are as uncertain as today, and that maybe we won't find the answers to all the problems out there. But that's just my imagination barking--I don't really know what they were thinking.

The album is worth buying for the final song, Control, which is just amazing, starting loud and just building to huge sheet metal sonic shards and a skull crushing conclusion. I could compare it to maybe something off Primal Scream's XTERMINATR or Ministry doing Stigmata on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. I think that someday this band is going to get their just due, the sooner the better in my opinion. If you are into Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain I think you would like this band. And I can recommend their other albums as well, including their work as the Gordons.

Poem For Today--Cesare Pavese

Landscape (vii)

A little light in the clear pools of her eyes

is all it takes, and anger invades them--

the way sun shows the edges of sunken rocks.

The morning, returning to find her living,

isn't gentle or kind: it sits still amid

stone houses, surrounded by sky, and watches.

Her small body emerges into sun and shadow

like a slow animal taking a look around,

not seeing anything except maybe colors.

Vague shadows drape the street, her body,

the slits of her eyes, barely open, like pools

with shadows that show through their surfaces.

The colors mirror the tranquil sky.

And the steps that tread slowly over cobbles

seem to tread on all things, oblivious to them

like her smile, passing over them like water.

Beneath the surface move threatening shapes.

Every thing here ripples at the thought

that except for her, this street is empty.

I Get Water From Wine--William Arthur and Glide after 10 Years--I Don't Want To Show My Insides Today

Take The Chip Off My Shoulder

I heard about the fantastic Australian alternative band Glide late in the game, via the Big Takeover magazine and greatly enjoyed their final album Disappear Hear, which was released here in the US. His other records were a little harder to pick up. Not to be confused with Will Sergeant (Echo and the Bunnymen) side project. Absolutely great songwriting and exhilarating melodies. Shortly thereafter I was really saddened to learn that singer/guitarist William Arthur had died tragically at the age of 34. I then heard that the bands manager was releasing a Cd of Glide and William Arthur demos, things they had been working on before the untimely loss.

The day the disc arrived, after coming home from work, I put the disc on immediately and listened to the energetic piano driven beauty of Baby Now, the first song. Oh, my god!!! I actually choked up. What a damned waste, what a terrible, terrible thing happened when he left this world. I think I listened to the song three times before I moved on. The music on this disc, entitled Last, was so great that I was sad like Cobain shooting himself sad. As much as I love his earlier music, there is a stripped down intimacy to these recordings, a sadness and searching feeling--maybe in light of his problems you almost feel a connection with Arthur. Listening to this record is almost like a seance-- Even ten years on I feel like he's in the room with me.

Aside from being a very emotive vocalist, I think William Arthur had a real knack in arrangements. I love how his guitarwork compares and contrasts with his melodies. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but I think that he captured lightning in a bottle on his best tunes. I think that even though they are not known very well outside Australia, that they are a musicians band, like Nick Drake and Big Star were before their posthumous popularity. I saw the friends list on MySpace page for the band and there is a big varied list of groups who obviously admire the band, and a lot of them probably never saw them or knew them. So maybe time will tell with their legacy--thankfully most of their music is now available digitally on itunes.

Maybe I make more of these songs because of Arthur's death--purportedly he overdosed. It sounds like he had demons, but I don't know him, and I hope that his death was just an unfortunate accident, and that he was a happy man.But the song I Wonder sounds to me like one of the saddest songs ever, William's raspy lead boiling with frustration and resignation. His voice is definitely higher in the mix on this disc, and you can really appreciate what a great singer he is here. On quieter songs like Show Me, and Spit and Smile he really demonstrates his contemplative side, crooning melancholy songs of nostalgia and loss.

The tour de force here is Always Fall, a beautifully powerfully bitter expression of frustration. But there is still hopefulness here, due to his will, because of his determination not to give up. One of my favorite songs of all time, with great guitar riffs in the chorus. Perversely when I hear it I visualize Charlie Brown trying to kick that football Lucy is holding. Other noteworthy songs here are the scathing You're Welcome, the romantic and sexy Bed For Two, and the more upbeat closer Pull In Your Claws.

I just found out that former members of Glide reconvened to do a few memorial shows in Australia last month. I started this post before I knew about this, much as I did with my post on Plastic Bertrand and his lip syncing scandal. It's like a Wings reunion without McCartney, but I sincerely hope that it helps to promote the bands deserved legacy. They should be remembered and introduced to a new generation. And hopefully these records will be re released in Cd form someday. Today these Cd's are pretty hard to find and are prohibitively expensive. (Open Up And Croon, Shrink Wrapped Real Thing, Disappear Here, Last). But do yourself a favor please, and check these guys out--it really doesn't matter which record you choose as they are all really really great.

Johan--Dutch Classic Pop Perfection---Pergola

It's too bad but the Dutch pop group Johan has called it quits. It seems the band has had hits in Europe but that success has not translated to the U.S., despite favorable reviews and release of their first album on the SpinArt label. I noticed the Pergola album on the website of Parasol Records, who have a bit of a jones about music from Europe, particularly Scandinavia. They claimed that this was one of the best pop albums of the past 5 years (originally released in 2001) and was not at import prices. So I took the cheese--and was pleasantly surprised.

Catch The Morning Rain, Upon Your Face Again

Well the first surprise was the gnome on the cover as shown on the website was a limited edition album cover--the one I received was fairly generic, more like a soup can label. But the music within was pretty terrific. Don't misunderstand me, there isn't a lot original going on here. However the songs are so well done that many of them sound as if they were exhumed from a time capsule from the 60's and could go toe toe with many of the mellower romantic classics of the era. Think early Bee Gees, The Byrds, CSN, The Monkees, Zombies, or Beatles, slightly modernized. If you did not know their origin, you would think these guys were from Rhode Island or San Francisco instead of Netherlands. Great vocals, soaring harmonies, classic arrangements--its hard to be believe their second album was never released in the US.

I don't think there is a bad track here really. Starting with the poignant Tumble and Fall, the strong confident vocals of Jacob de Greeuw dominate the proceedings. The title track Pergola has a bit of an alternative feel with the verses reminiscent of "its the end of the world as we know it". I Feel Fine is also a corker which is more of a 90's rock arrangement. I Mean I Guess sends a lot like a classic Bee Gees song, but with a burbling synth in the background. They reach the very heights of Bee Gee emulation with the lovely Day is Done which has the soaring choruses you might expect. Some of the backing vocals actually sound like they were cribbed from their disco years.

Some of what I am saying does not seem complimentary, but you only have to hear the songs to know how outstanding this album is. The optimistic and nostalgic Paper Planes is just a perfect sweet love ballad. Time and Time Again makes great use of dynamics, starting softly, crescendoing with pizzicato strings to a huge chorus. Tomorrow is a driving pop song which resembles a revved up CSN a bit. Other highlights here are the mournful How Does It Feel?, the tortured Why CP, and the grandiose symphonically arranged finale, Here.

Start to finish an enjoyable album with original songs that could pass for 60's classics. If you love great harmonies and gigantic hooks in your music, you should check this one out. I see that Parasol still sells this at a very reasonable price, and the first album (also very good) can be easily found for pennies. Their biggest hit came from their 3rd album (they made four) Thx Jhn, namely the very romantic Oceans. The video for the song was about a young woman from Argentina who traveled thousands of miles and endured hardships to see her favorite band perform in the Netherlands.

The Best Kind Of Sophomore Slump --Heaven Up Here

As Prospect Diminishes, Nightmares Swell

I still love Heaven Up Here from Echo and the Bunnymen. Though it does not contain songs like The Cutter, or The Killing Moon or Lips Like Sugar, but is in sum a mesmerizing tribalistic trance of an album. It is a gloriously tortuous collection, where the rhythm section of bassist Les Pattinson and late great drummer Pete DeFreitas are really out in the forefront. They drive the album are very much responsible for the greatness therein, not to slag the inventive psychedelic guitar work of Will Sergeant, the emotional crooning of Ian McCulloch, or even producer Hugh Jones' magic. After a while the rhythm section makes me space out, brings my head into another place. Many people consider this to be a little too uniform and dark but I think that is where this band is at their best. And a lot of people don't realize that before Bono ascended to hisSeat Perilous, Echo, Teardrop Explodes, The Sound, and other post-punk neo-psychedelic bands were competitors with U2. In retrospect, I'm not sure that the right band won that reality show.

I've seen Echo and the Bunnymen several times, including the pretty bad tour when they had a go without Ian McCulloch, and when they Ian and Will put out an album as the heavier sounding Electrafixion. But by far they were at their best when I saw them at the Channel in Boston in 1983, with Mitch Easter's band Let's Active. Judging by that gig alone, they were definitely one of the best live bands of the 80's. They were at their musical peak then, McCulloch and Sergeant trading riffs at peak intensity, backed by that dynamic revved up rhythm section. This was of course before the cigarettes and booze took its toll on Ian's voice.They did not have a string section that night, but I don't think anything could have improved upon that night's performance. One thing I remember was coming out of the Venue after the show and seeing the line for the second show. There was long row of young hipsters decked out in long coats and scarfs with hair teased high like their favorite singer just adolescent girls used to do at Madonna shows.

I guess that is a high form of emulation, trying to wear someone's skin. I noticed a lot of this identification at Elliott Smith shows. People want to fit in, be part of a clique, to belong. Wear the t-shirt proudly. Maybe the guy on stage will see you in the crowd and you'll get a big thumbs up. I saw the Dropkick Murphy's at Wetlands on St Patricks Day Eve (they recorded their live album in Boston the next night), and while I was looking around for my friends there were all these phony punks wandering around, kind of aggressive, Mohawks, spiky chokers. I didn't really wear an outfit that night, I went straight from work. It's all well and good--I don't really give a crap what others do--but just stay out of my way. A few times I really thought that I was going to have to get in a scrap with some dickhead, but luckily things were avoided that night. I have to admit that the band had more merch being sold at a gig than I've ever seen, almost like you would expect to see at a Hard Rock Cafe store.

Though Heaven Up Here is a terse grim little record it is the Bunnymen at their creative peak and their most cohesive work. This is the record that critics don't compare to other bands so much. If you had to, maybe the closest match would be The Cure. Show of Strength is a powerful start to the record. Listening to the album now, I can't but think that they sound like they are playing live. The sound on the record sounds very much like how they sound in concert. With A Hip, the 2nd song here is an itchy skittery adrenaline rush that is one of their very best songs. Probably my favorite song is the defiant Turquoise Days, which begins quietly and builds with intensity to the middle and then fades back out.

The centre of the album is the title song Heaven Up Here, a tumultuous psychedelic rave up with alternating choppy and melodic guitar riffing by Will Seargeant, and a live favorite. Other highlights on the record include the Moody Bluesish All My Colours, the grim and moody The Disease, and the percussively dynamic  drumsand marimba-like guitar of the closing All I Want. A hypnotic masterpiece of an album where the songs seem to blend into one another seamlessly. All of the albums prior to their break up and reunion are recommended though. Unfortunately Pete DeFreitas died in a motorcycle accident, and his absence is one thing that can't ever really be replaced. However, the band reunited with producer Hugh Jones and recorded the excellent Evergreen, which is almost as good as the music of their early years. Today people are very quick to make fun of the music of the 80's, but a lot of good music was being made--its a shame the novelty acts are remembered and the gold  often gets buried.

Ornette Coleman--Naked Lunch Soundscape

I just heard that my cousin from the Albany area is taking up the saxophone, so I thought I would put together a post about one of my favorite jazz musicians, the American National Treasure and free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. One of the free jazz holy trinity of sax, with John Coletrane and Albert Ayler he has carved out his own amazing niche in the canons of modern music. So this one is a tribute to her--I hope she sticks with it, or finds an instrument that suits her the best. I still wish I could play 10 instruments.

While at school at University of Illinois I had the great luck to see Ornette Coleman accidentally. He was performing at a small theatre on campus with guitarist Pat Metheny, who at the time was probably a lot better known as a crossover performer to at least college students. Ornette and Pat were taking a short tour to promote their new collaborative album Song X. My roommate was trying to get me to go--he was a journalism major and he was always playing Windham Hill stuff like George Winston. So he wanted to see some nice live jazz. I preferred mostly noisy stuff, Stiff Little Fingers, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Husker Du.

I had heard of Ornette Coleman and for some reason thought he played guitar, possibly getting him confused with James "Blood" Ulmer who was a collaborator and disciple of Coleman's "Harmelodics". Harmelodics I guess is sort of a free form riffing I guess, where you aren't worrying so much about song structure or keys, but you play off of the other musicians and they play off of you--with the music bending, speeding up, slowing down--sometimes it just sounds like playing tag. When he first came out with his first lp, being on the cover with the cheap plastic yellow sax, he was almost universally panned. Critics knew what jazz was, and to them, this clearly was not jazz. Just like the punk movement, when he played clubs he would sometimes get physically attacked because people didn't care for what he was doing--it was outre, beyond their comfort zone.

I had no great desire to see that show--I didn't know his music and I really had no use for jazz at the time. But he pretty much bugged me and begged me and I finally gave in (In his defense later on I did get him to go see The Feelies, or maybe it was Salem 66.) I remember sitting in my seat, waiting for the show to start, listening to these dudes in front me--"oh, I hope this Coleman gets off the stage quick so we can hear Pat play!!" Much to their disappointment, they were on stage together. And it didn't take me too long to realize that I really loved what these guys were doing. And as jazz goes, it was pretty damned loud. Electric guitar, Ornette's son Denardo pounding away on the skins.

Even crazier, it didn't take long to come to the conclusion who the star was here. It became quite obvious to me that Ornette was blowing the younger upstart out of the building. Such an amazing combination of passion, chops, and poise. I just remember watching him improvise his way through a quiet ballad, Kathelin Gray I think, and I was just trying to remember to breathe. I was thinking even then that I was watching a musical icon, like a Mick Jagger, but of jazz. I was an immediate convert to free jazz after this. After leaving the show, my ears abuzz, I asked my roommate how he liked the concert. He said "well, it was a little loud". I thought it was a truly inspired performance and I sought out to find more music like this.

The Naked Lunch soundtrack is just amazing to me--an ominous and beautiful collaboration between varied sources. First of all you have the producer Howard Shore, who has scored numerous films including many others by the director of Naked Lunch, David Cronenburg. He also scored the Return of the King from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He was the original musical director of Saturday Night Live back in the 70's and had actually booked Ornette Coleman to perform on the show. How I wish they would be half as adventurous today, rather than pander to the mass media. Additionally Shore enlists the skills of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Bachir Attar and the Master Musician of Jajouka, a musical group from Morocco. This group had performed with Ornette Coleman many years earlier, but most of that music has vanished or been destroyed. Midnight Sunrise (outtake) from Dancing in My Head is the only existing recorded evidence of this collaboration that I have heard of. Also performing are ECM jazz bassist Barre Phillips, and Denardo Coleman on drums. But as you might expect Ornette rules the roost here.

Whether he is improvising against the backdrop of a 70+ piece orchestra or in counterpoint with Barre Phillips' bass lines (ECM please rerelease his Three Day Moon), or weaving through the glorious cacophony and ululation of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, it is all memorable evocative free form expression. At some points the saxophone playing is just so amazingly poignant. Just listen to Intersong, or the title track, or Simpatico/Mysterioso to see what I mean. There are also speedy percussive free workouts like the concluding Writeman. The mesmerizing Interzone Suite with the Moroccan musicians is just unbelievable. Their music by itself should be a part of any "world" music collection and well worth tracking down as their music is really in a category of its own.

All in all this is good place to investigate Ornette Coleman and even more to the point, a very delightful and creative collaboration of gifted musicians.

 And I again wish my cousin a lot of luck on her new instrument and hope she has within herself the patience to persevere. The benefits are beyond exaggeration.

A Happiness Like We'll Never Know--American Music Club and Everclear

Don't Worry About The Magic Kingdom

In my opinion, Mark Eitzel is America's Gay Bob Dylan. It sounds a little silly--whatever his personal preferences, the salient thing is that he is flat-out one of the greatest songwriters of our era. His best songs are timeless. And while there is very little new under the musical sun, genres and sub genres of classifications are continually being coined. American Music Club and singer Mark Eitzel are the progenitors and leading lights of "Sadcore". And a lot of his songs are pretty miserable, though often beautiful. I always used to notice in reviews how critics remarked that on a particular album or song Eitzel "seems happier". Hopefully so, but I just hope that he keeps producing music of quality and I'm not too concerned about what he does specifically--happy, sad, more cowbell. Apparently he is in a better place today than he once was,and that is good news. People tend to glorify the self-destructive behavior of artists, but history demonstrates that it does not make a very good long term career plan. However, I must admit that I consider the dark intensely tortured Everclear from 1991 to be the high water mark of all his albums, with band or as a solo artist.

While there is no shortage of memorable songs in his lengthy career, the combination of great songs with the exceptional sound quality on Everclear make it stand out above the others. Why Won't You Stay? is such a great song,  a sad sleepy late night echo chamber croon, Eitzel reinvented as Roy Orbison. The instrumentation on this album is almost more an environment than accompaniment as much sonic textures as arrangements. Eitzel's weary vocals on Miracle on 8th Street come dreamily from the deepest depths of human despair. He sounds like he could be singing from inside an isolation tank.

Themes of loss, loneliness,abandonment and disenfranchisement abound throughout the record. Sympathetic character portraits of people down on their luck or who have lost their way. People who need help and keep making the same bad mistakes but just can't be reached. The Dead Part Of You is an open blister of a song about baggage and emotional distress. The outwardly jaunty Crabwalk is a character study done in Honky Tonk country glory. What The Pillar Of Salt Held Up is one of Eitzel's very best songs, a poignant ballad full of vivid imagery. It is spellbinding evocative poetry set to music.

Probably if there is one cheerful song on the album, it is Royal Cafe, with its upbeat Banjo driven melody belieing the typically downbeat lyrics. A pretty good driving song in fact. Ex-Girlfriend is another desperate howl. The backing music on the song sounds more like a soundtrack--it's amazing what textures Vudi manages to wrench out of his guitar. Also kudos to the multi-instrumentalists Dan Pearson and Bruce Kaphan who make this entire album sound so intensely moody and texturally interesting. And in some ways Mark Eitzel comes across as a crazed lounge singer on some of these songs sometimes crooning at other times shouting. Sick of Food is just a song driven so low, like a person just so down that they don't feel anything, that basic human requirements are even too much. But then the songs bridge crescendos to a emotional explosion of frustration. The album finally ends with almost hopeful tune Jesus' Hands, which stylistically sounds like a song that could have been written during the Great Depression.

So What Do I Do With My Time?

One head scratcher regarding the album involves the single that came out to support the album. As unlikely as it might seem for an album of this type, they put out the ep "Rise" to support the full length. It is more uptempo, almost like a Springsteen song, perhaps stylistically the best choice for a single, but by far not the best song on the album. It reminds me of an inferior version of the rollicking Somewhere from their prior album California. What is even more surprising is the exclusion of the awesome Chanel #5 from Everclear. It is another Eitzel tour de force.There is a harrowingly raw version of the song done on his live solo album, Songs of Love. "All over town people lookin' for their little piece of goodnight." The ep adds a good conventional country song, The Right Thing, and ends with an acoustic dirge version of Crabwalk that I don't particularly care for. But the two middle songs make it a worthwhile ep.

There are a lot of other good points of departure for American Music Club work like California, United Kingdom, Engine, or the post-Everclear albums. Mark Eitzel has put out good solo albums like West, 60 Watt Silver Lining, his live Songs of Love. It's not a bet idea to check out their web site on occasion as they sell limited addition recordings unavailable in shops or conventional on-line stores. I know that sometimes his music seems pretty depressing but take the time to listen to the lyrics--they are about as good as you can find by songwriter today. And Everclear was one of the best albums of the 90's, whose complete sum is greater than its parts, fitting together like an unintentional concept album.

Futurism-Umberto Boccioni--This Is Your New Art School

I still remember going to see a Monet retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art back around 1988. The crazy thing is the most memorable thing for me was stumbling into an exhibition by the Italian Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916). I was rushing around and almost blew by the exhibit, but serendipitously, I decided to stop and at least give it a quick peek. Twenty minutes later I was still there, absolutely awestruck, by the amazing kinetic motion embued by his artworks. I had never heard of this artist before, and had not heard much about Futurism except in passing. Perhaps because he was one of the leading lights of the movement and died an untimely death during World War I in horse riding accident, the movement was curtailed. But I was surprised that I did not know about this art that I found so appealing. I think that if he was born today he would be a punk.

Though I appreciate artists from any era, I find some Modern Artists the most interesting generally because they make me think. I like to try to figure out what they are representing, even from simply attempting to interpret the title of the painting. Sometimes I just admire the aesthetic beauty of the colors and patterns. If I was an artist I could appreciate better a painting of a bowl of fruit, or a landscape, or a dark toned Dutch portrait of a merchant. I know sometimes the accuracy and intricacy of these works can be unbelievable. But I just see a bowl of fruit, well done perhaps--but since the advent of photography, it all seems less relevant to me. But whenever I travel I like to hit local art galleries because you never know what you will find. And coming face to face with the great Boccioni was just one example of the benefits of keeping your eyes open and not just trying to check another artwork off the list. Anyway check this one out and see what you think.

THE CITY RISES

Barack Starliner--Culture-Two Sevens Clash

Alone In The Wilderness
2077 Right Around The Corner

Two Sevens Clash is one of my favorite reggae albums. Simply put, a beautiful spiritual record with soaring harmonies and passionate testifying. All the Rastafari themes are here, being thrown out of Zion, being trapped in Babylon, the possibility of future redemption, fighting injustice, and other references to biblical prophecy. Also songs called for allegiance to Rastafari and defiance to those who opposed their beliefs. There was a feeling something portentous was going to happen the year when the "sevens clashed" in 1977. Apparently on July 7 of that year there were many apprehensive people in Jamaica who spent the day in their homes. For me 1977 is also a strong reference to the explosion of the British punk rock movement, which also embraced reggae.

This was the first album by Culture, led by lead singer Joseph Hill and Albert Walker and Kenneth Dayes.
First off is Get Ready To Ride The Lion to Zion, referring to Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who stood fought to maintain the independence of his nation against colonialism. He became a messianic symbol for the Rastafari movement and is revered as such. Black Starliner Must Come is a reference to the boat that would return the lost tribe back to Mother Africa and the repatriation movement of Nationalist Marcus Garvey. The main song on the album is of course the title track the ominous Two Sevens Clash, Joseph Hill's prophetic vision of a pending judgement day. The song was a huge hit in Jamaica. Because the music connects on a personal level, coming from the perspective of an ordinary individual.

Of course recommending this album is a little silly, like me putting my 2 cents in for Rubber Soul, or Highway 61 Revisited. It's one of the greatest reggae discs ever, hope and joy mixing with sadness, suffering, and perseverance. The album is almost like a philosophical treatise or just a state of mind. I'm Alone in the Wilderness is another standout here, as is the defiant See Them A Come, the spirituality of Calling Rasta Far I, and the concluding track I'm Not Ashamed. Of course having Joseph Gibbs is singing lead is a huge recommendation in itself. You will be well rewarded by having this powerfully moving album in your personal collection.

I don't pretend for a second to be an expert in Rastafari or Reggae, but I do wonder whether Barack Obama's election as President would someday wind up as part of the tenets of the movement. After all, back in the thirties, Selassie fought off colonialism and oppression. Now the biggest power in the Western World has a man of African descent in charge, the first time this has happened in any First World nation. He's a guy working from the inside. I guess maybe we will just see how things play out. I consider him to be an intelligent man of high principles. This could all be a new omen. If he has the time, the opportunities, and good fortune, who knows, someday our President could one day become a revered figure in the Rastafari pantheon, from Hawaiian to Zion.

Real Men Wear Paisley--The Three O'Clock--Sixteen Tambourines/Baroque Hoedown

From Paisley Underground to Paisley Park

The Three O'Clock were one of the godfathers of the West Coast neo-psychedelic movement known as the Paisley Underground, which included groups such as The Bangles, Dream Syndicate, The Rain Parade, Green On Red, and The Long Ryders. It was a loosely based movement which developed as a reaction to the West Coast Punk movement. The Three O'Clock produced a number of great 60's throwback pop albums, and they are probably best known for the hazey exhilaration of their song Jet Fighter, which I heard regularly on my college radio station in the 1980's. In my opinion, though derivative, their very best albums compare favorably with the music that inspired them. When I was younger, I often wished that my favorite bands had put out more albums than they did, and that they would be just like the ones I liked.  On occasion surprises appear out of the vaults sometimes, but unfortunately, the best we usually can do is to find a band that creates music in a kindred style with a high level of quality, as was the case of the songwriting duo of Michael Quercio and Louis Gutierrez. The Cd I am reviewing includes both their ep Baroque Hoedown and first lp Sixteen Tambourines.

Originally the band was known as the Salvation Army (they recorded a punkier garage album under that name), which the charitable organization took exception to. They then changed their name to Three O'Clock.
But I first became acquainted with the Three O'Clock when I bought their Baroque Hoedown ep in a Strawberries in Worcester, Mass. On a whim. Didn't know anything about them at the time. I liked the cover, liked the album title. And I loved the music immediately. Kind of dark moody psychedelic garage music, with some cool covers. The vinyl I bought was a French import on the Lolita label, which included three songs unfortunately not included on the combination Cd. They did a bang-up version of the Byrds' Feel A Whole Lot Better, and there was an spacey original called In Love In Too.

They also had a great version of Pink Floyd's Sinister Surf Rocking Lucifer Sam. One of my friends played the original for me at college and made me guess who it was. I was stumped, because I was not familiar with the Syd Barrett led Floyd from Piper At The Gates of Dawn. I knew about Dark Side of The Moon and the concept album "The Wall". I had the pleasure of viewing a "Wall Show"  in the gym of my local high school, with a cardboard wall being built as the tribute band performed. Another nearby high school purportedly had as their Prom theme Another Brick in The Wall. Ah, 80's romance.....

I don't know why these songs were not included, but the remaining music from the Cd is pretty great. The hard driving Cantaloupe Girlfriend starts the ep with Danny Benair's propulsive drums, and it is my favorite song on the ep. I Go Wild is the terrific Byrdsy second number. The band really can channel the sixties, with arrangements impeccable throughout, while still expressing their own individuality. Their fierce organ driven rendition of the Easybeats' Sorry is also ace, as is the driving pop of Marjorie Tells Me. The original ep ended with the druggy Alice in Wonderlandish As Real As Real, with singer Michael Quercio's distorted vocals. The cd appends a decent unreleased track, Around The World, which sounds like an old Monkees song.

Sixteen Ben Vereens???

The full length followup, Sixteen Tambourines ups the ante with more accomplished songwriting and production values. The arrangements are much more ornate, and there is a noticeable Sgt. Pepper/mid-period Beatles influence on the songs. The album begins with the aforementioned Jet Fighter, with its infectious opening riff and anti-military military lyrics. This is another instance where all the songs are decent to great, with much more musical variety than the prior ep. Mike Mariano's inventive keyboard parts flesh out the tunes and provide melodic counterpoint to Gutierrez's guitar work. Stupid Einstein, a pastoral acoustic tune, is another surreal hook-filled delight. Fall To The Ground is a piano featured track reminiscent of When I'm 64. A Day in Erotica fuses an 80's synthesizer chorus with Day in The Life/Strawberry Fields-like studio experimentation. Tomorrow is another Lennon-McCartney piano workout while My Own Time is a spot on Bee Gee's cover. And immediately following that, On My Own sounds like their attempt to write a Bee Gee's song (pre-disco). When Lightning Strikes is a horn powered advisory song with a conga line beat. The album ends with more laconic trance like pop, Seeing Is Believing.

I had the good fortune of seeing the Three O'Clock at a club in Northampton Mass at the time of release of their Arrive Without Travelling Album. Considering the complicated arrangements of many of their songs they were very good live. I do remember a choice line, when Quercio was introducing his next song. "This next song is from our last album, Sixteen Tambourines. I wanted to call it Sixteen Ben Vereens". That's one of the funniest and oddest lines I've ever heard in a concert. The other thing I remember was the raffle they had. One of my friends won their album. Then they raffled off a watch, and I had no interest in checking the ticket stuffed down in my pocket. Turned out no one else had the winning number. Finally I checked my ticket and to my surprise I wound up going on stage sheepishly to receive my prize. A yellow banana scented Swatch.

After the Arrive Album they put out another so-so album Ever After. They eventually caught the ear of Prince and ultimately were signed to his Paisley Park label. They actually had an influence on his music in the 1980's (Rasberry Beret) and  he even wrote the song Neon Telephone for them which appeared on their final album Vermillion. Quercio later went on to perform in the worthy Permanent Green Light and Jupiter Affect. But as far as the Three O'Clock goes, the very best albums by them are their earliest ones, including the Arrive Without Traveling album. So if you are a big fan of melodious sixties pop and psychedelia, this particular combination Cd is a necessary pickup.

Darkness Hides A Million Kind of Sins:Waco Bros; Country Clash vs City Clash

Crushed Like Stupid Dreams to Make Cheap Wine

Years ago I took a vacation to cloudy Reykjavik, which sits in the North Atlantic equidistant from Europe and the US. Wandering down the main streets I couldn't help but notice punks, flower children wandering around as though I was in some sort of time warp. Maybe it was timing and there happened to be a revival of Hair going on then. Or maybe it was all those hot dogs I was living on at the time were making me hallucinate. It seems somehow that Iceland is a sort of place where a punk band could decide to do a polka album or have a clarinet solos on their records and people wouldn't bat an eye. I do in fact own an Icelandic language Calypso album. But here in the US crossing the genre streams can be frowned upon, a violation of integrity, or seen as cultural theft. I personally don't overthink these things and try to judge music based on its quality or at least its uniqueness. And I like it when musicians stick their necks out and explore new things.

Waco Brothers are an offshoot of the English Punk/Country/Calypso/Folk Rock collective the Mekons by Jon Langford. I have a great love for the Mekons, who have put out some great intelligent records in their day and also happen to be a highly entertaining (and funny) live act. I saw them in CBGB's about a million years ago about the time of their Country themed Fear and Whiskey album and had a great time. I thought one of my friends met a girl there, but later on I found out what really happened. The bar was packed and someone passed out standing up and he was propping her up, afraid that if he moved, she would have fallen down and cracked her head. I guess it was about that time when they began their Western shift. Eventually that move culminated in the full bore insurgent country of the Wacos and a Chicago residency. The Clash as shit-kickers. West Texas vs West Jamaica (Sandanista!) A neat mix of genre with left wing politics.

Do You Think About Me? is probably not their best album but is an eminently fun and listenable excursion.
Sometimes the album almost sounds like a spoof, but on closer inspection the songs are real and very personal. The eponymous opener is a big blowsy anthemic sing-a-long country tune and impossible not to appreciate. On this one the rowdy lead vocals are by Dean Schlabowske. Jonboy Langford follows with lead on a passionately aggressive version of Neil Young's Revolution Blues. Probably my favorite moment on the record.

Vote For Me Or I Will Shoot Your Dog, Ya Varmint

Wickedest City In The World is a zany winner, a song that I fantasize is really about my own hometown. (It could be) Feel free to do the same. Mandolinist Tracey Dear does a bang-up job on this tune as he does on the similar Napa Valley. The ten songs here are all top shelf, notably Deano's raucous Hard Times and the pedal steel and blue collar narrative of South Bend. Mark Durante's steel guitar really shines also on You Know Who. Langford's It's Gotta Be Someone is reminds me a lot of the Band--an excellent ballad, as is the plaintive traditional sounding ballad Arizona Rose.

The album concludes with the Dylanesque Frightened. A poignant moving ballad that is another high note on the record. Overall an album with lyrical depth that is also easy to swallow musically. The record is on the Chicago label Bloodshot, which has a lot of cool records for sale that are in a similar vein to the Wacos. It's nice to see this sort of movement away from the glitzy Conservative commercialism of modern country music, looking ahead but also backwards to the great country artists of the past. Definitely worth checking out.

We All Need The Clowns To Make Us Smile!!! Killing Jokes Yellow Album...

Give Me The Courage To Face Another Day

A good friend of mine attended a Killing Joke concert in New York a long time ago. Their singer Jaz Coleman apparently was telling the audience to not spit on them, as the whole spitting on your idols routine was not their cup of tea. I guess they didn't listen because a lucky punk in the front row wound up on the receiving end of a big boot to the face. I have been a fan of this band ever since they put out their eponymous first album back in 1980 and they have always seemed to me to be a band that did not suffer fools gladly. These days there are lots of intense bands creating music like this, and I think people can be jaded to angry alternative rock. Dudes singing through megaphones has become a bit of a cliche. But these guys were originators, and they still do it better than their younger competitors.

When I think about Killing Joke, I always come up literary comparisons, Lord of The Flies, J.G.Ballard's
works, 1984, Clockwork Orange, novels about alternate realities, about breakdowns of society. The music is aggressive, passionate, intelligent, with tribal beats combined with a dramatic use of space and suffused with animal spirits. Geordie Walker plays guitar with crushing overwhelming power on this disc. Their music has anthemic quality, but the anthem, unlike political anthems or commercial anthems is trying to invoke people to use their brains and think for themselves. Killing Joke had amassed an impressive discography only to find themselves to fall off the radar a bit. That changed dramatically with the release of their second eponymous recording, their "Yellow Album" in 2003 a timely album that is not for the faint of heart.

This is one intense maelstrom of an album. Apparently the US invasion of Iraq and George Bush's War On Terror was a major impetus for them to reform and put this album together. I think all the sonic noise technology that was developed since Killing Joke's heyday in the 80's was incorporated in the creation of this album. Perhaps the spaciousness of the early albums is sacrificed,  but the album is an furious, molten, no holds barred assault on your senses that justifies any loss in subtlety, like a sonic train wreck. Even more amazingly, Foo Fighter Dave Grohl signed on to play drums on this album. I think that part of the conditions for him joining may have been the rerecording of the legendary song Wardance for the final track. And in case anyone had forgotten his stint as drummer with Nirvana, he demonstrates here that he has not lost a shred of his percussive thunder.

Coleman takes issues by the throat here, like religion zeal and its uses on The Death and Resurrection Show.
Most of the songs are on a personal level here, sometimes from the perspective of the antagonists or conspirators, of that of the victims of warfare and greed, the same old story recurring again and again from time immemorial. There is a lot of Biblical imagery on this album, a patina hiding and justifying baser  and sinister motivations for the new world order. The album is such a pummeler that I have trouble listening to the whole thing at one sitting. Total Invasion the second track is a scorcher about Imperialism coming from the viewpoint of the dominators. Ironically if you don't listen to the lyrics I could imagine this as the type of aggressive music a fighter pilot would play in the cockpit during a bombing mission.

For me the song Blood On Your Hands is the highlight of the album sounding like a song from their Nighttime Album pumped up on steroids. For all the PR and self congratulations, Coleman makes plain the consequences of rapacity that he feels companies must take responsibility for. The song Asteroid is a sonic blur, more like a song from the mosh pit than a Killing Joke song. You'll Never Get To Me is defiant anthem sounding almost like a soccer stadium chant. Seeing Red is another scorching furious powerhouse, as is the penultimate song, The House That Pain Built. Some songs like Dark Forces are a slower groove more of a smoldering fuse than a speeding juggernaut. As previously noted, the album very aptly ends with the legendary Wardance, a bona fide punk classic, connecting the modern world with an older outwardly animalistic past. You may not completely agree with the bands conspiracy laced cynical view of the people who run the world today, but it is tough not to enjoy such a great furious torrent of music here.

John Cale Unplugged--Meet Me When All The Shootings Over

Not that kind of live album
With Mistletoe and Candle Green-To Halloween We Go

I love the piano, but I hate the players--mostly. For a long time I had trouble finding keyboardists that I enjoyed in the rock pantheon. Of course, I had Thelonius Monk, Don Pullen, Cecil Taylor, and the freakishly awesome Bud Powell to listen to, but Billy Joel, Elton John didn't really do it for me. Since then I've found out about Professor Longhair, Richard Manuel and Sir Ian McLagan of the Faces, and others, but one of the most important to me is John Cale, best known for his stint with the seminal Velvet Underground. As much as I appreciate Lou Reed, perhaps my inner contrarian has led me to becoming a big fan of his viola screeching bandmate. He has been an experimenter, an innovator, who has created a disparate and fiercely intelligent body of work and has produced a wide variety of musical acts. He has remained interested in the development of  rock music, from becoming part of the burgeoning punk rock scene to today working with hip hop artists.

Fragments of a Rainy Season is basically a greatest hits collection. It features live solo renditions of some of his best songs and unfortunately is long out of print. The album is a great introduction to his artistry--an intimate bare bones set performed on piano and acoustic guitar. The piano accompaniment is effortless and expansive, as might be expected from a classically trained former prodigy.

The album starts out with a bang, with the Dylan Thomas influenced A Child's Christmas in Wales, from Paris 1919, one of his best and most accessible recordings. A dark beautiful surreal tune. He also performs three Dylan Thomas poems that were originally recorded on his Words For The Dying album, most notably the famous Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and the stirring Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed. Another highlight on the disc is the laconic cinematic western imagery of Buffalo Ballet.

In addition to beautiful ballads, some of his darkest songs are included here, like the jealousy and murder of Guts, and over the top existential philosophy of Fear (Is A Man's Best Friend), lyrics like a demented Hallmark Card. Like on a lot of his best songs, the sunny instrumentation belies the darkness and dread within.

At the middle of the set he switches to guitar for four songs, most notably the Chanty-like Ship of Fools, and the touching Thoughtless Kind. Toward the end of set he sings the warm nostalgic Style It Takes, from Songs For Drella, his Andy Warhol tribute that he collaborated with Lou Reed on. He also performs the defiant Elvis standard Heartbreak Hotel as a funereal dirge, the arrangement matching the sadness of the lyrics.

Other highlights include the percussive pop of Dying on the Vine, the grandiose exhilarating Paris 1919, and the guarded confessional (I Keep A) Close Watch. The album ends with a tour de force, a fantastic version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which is used in the first Shrek movie (probably where most people have heard him from) but for some reason was not included in the soundtrack. Instead, inexplicably, a version of the song by Rufus Wainright was included. All in all, a great set by an influential and talented performer. My one regret is that he did not perform the haunting Amsterdam in this set. If you can't find this at a reasonable price, the awesome Paris 1919, Vintage Violence, or the Rhino's Seducing Down the Door anthology are also good starting points for Cale's solo work.