Monday Music Roundup

So, back from a long snow weekend with the gals, I am wishing you all a Happy First Day of Spring! Unfortunately, Colorado did not get the memo, and this is what I awoke to this morning:

As gorgeous as the falling snow is, I think I am ready for the ice to be gone. Over the weekend I was sitting in the hot tub with my friends (looking at the beautiful and dramatic mountains in the moonlight) and as I tried to run back into the lodge barefoot (it was freezing once you get out of the water! and I was wet!) I did an elaborately choreographed (and almost comical) fall down a few steps after I slipped on the copious ice. So I am all scraped and bruised on the skin that was bare. No more ice! Bring on the Spring, says me! Egad, if I keep pulling these slip & fall deals, what will happen to your musical consumption? For the love of all things holy, I think I need to be more careful. Ghastly bruises.

And, sorry, we are temporarily goin’ ole school today with uploads to Savefile (right click, open in new window for most links) since EZArchive bastards seem to be taking the morning off. 3pm: It’s fixed now, they are direct links.

Crack The Whip
The Spinto Band
Pitchfork’s description of this song, by current Arctic Monkeys tour opener The Spinto Band, caught my attention: “Four-on-the-floor ‘Crack the Whip’ lashes the make-up alternapop zeitgeist, whippin’ the Killers at their own neu-dance-wave game before ascending to a gates-of-heaven Beach Boys chorus like this was the Biblical, non-DFA Rapture.” That is one of the best-written music review sentences I have read in a while, and I am digging the song in a big way. These guys just rocked SXSW from what I hear. Check out their 2005 release Nice and Nicely Done.

Skinny Boy
Amy Millan
The female-vocals half of fabulously harmonic & smooth Canadian pop band Stars, Amy Millan is releasing a solo album May 30 called Honey From The Tombs. Any album title with the word honey in it is apt for Ms. Millan, since that is usually the word that comes to mind when I hear her lush voice. This song treads familiar Stars ground, with a bit more acoustic touch. I like the way she wraps her voice around the lyric “You’ve got lips I could spend the day with.”

Futures
Zero 7 Featuring José González
The layered electronica sound of Garden-State-darlings Zero 7 (“In The Waiting Line”) meet the breathy vocals and gently plucking guitar of Argentinian folkster José González in this pleasing track off the vinyl 7″ and 12″ limited-run single. The song is from the upcoming Zero 7 release The Garden. Thanks to Connor for tracking this one down, I really like it. Downtime bliss.

The Shining (Capitol K Mix)
Badly Drawn Boy
Funny, I just accidentally typed “Badly Drawn Boi” instead of Boy. No, that would be Avril, who we don’t support here (sorry grrrls). I wonder if I hate the word “boi” or “grrrl” more. Tough call. ANYWAY, so this is a sonic assault best listened to on headphones as the remix takes you through dark layers of this song, a thousand miles from the relaxing orchestration of the original. Fascinating. It sounds like the soundtrack to a jerky David Lynch-type film vignette meets Sigur Ros-type atmosphere. From the 2000 remix EP Once Around The Block, Pt. 1.

Always On My Mind
Iron & Wine with Calexico
So, I just “found” this on my iPod, although I’ve had it for a few months (from their excellent appearance on NPR’s All Songs Considered). I somehow hadn’t listened to it yet. So I was quite excited to hear this lapping-ocean-tide reinterpretation of the classic made popular by Elvis and Willie Nelson. A touch of slide guitar, Sam Beam’s soft and relaxing vocals, and it’s an earnestly-sung treat. I think I originally got this off the excellent So Much Silence blog, which, paradoxically, is always giving me good gems to fill the silence.

And you, lucky reader, you get THREE bonuses this morning. First off a kind reader ripped me this mp3 of Brandi Carlile singing Hallelujah from that KCRW stream. So now you can have it on mp3. I got a great response to my posts about her, seems like many of you have been as blown away as I was by this talented gal.

Also, Chad has a simply lovely cover of Norah Jones singing Patsy Cline (with a hot bass line addition), and Aquarium Drunkard has a hilarious post with a little love advice for the non-slick (and a stomach-turning tounge-kiss photo of everyone’s favorite ex-VP).

Have fun, champs.

All the redemption I can offer girl is beneath this dirty hood

I am an admittedly late convert to anything having to do with Springsteen, and I am still far from a hardcore fan, but I do deeply appreciate a well-written lyric and this man practically drowns in well-written lyrics that just make me ache. I had kind of dismissed him from a dim memory growing up from the Dancing in the Dark video (you know, that one with Courteney Cox) and just left it at that.

UNTIL I really listened to this amazing, amazing live version of Born to Run that I accidentally downloaded on iTunes when I meant to get something else. It’s stripped down with a haunting harmonica and words sung like he feels every ounce of the sadness and the madness. Man alive, I understood what my friend meant when he said it was a song with funeral playability. Something about the lyrics and the way they capture the passion and the hot-bloodedness of being young and feeling the fire & desperation in your veins.

Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
(off Chimes of Freedom)
If you’ve written Springsteen off in the past, please listen to this. Eyes closed is best. And the lyrics? Ridiculously evocative, especially the way he sings them here.

“Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims
strap your hands across my engines.”

or

“The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in the mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss.”

or how ’bout,

“Together we could live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul.”


Nick Hornby says exactly what I want to say when I listen to certain gorgeous Springsteen songs that just focus on the incredible imagery and songwriting and the sense of a shot at redemption. From Hornby’s excellent Songbook (required reading):

“…Sometimes, very occasionally, songs and books and films and pictures express who you are, perfectly. And they don’t do this in words or images, necessarily; the connection is a lot less direct and more complicated than that. . . . Some time in the early to mid-eighties, I came across another version of [Thunder Road], a bootleg studio recording of Springsteen alone with an acoustic guitar (it’s on War And Roses, the Born To Run outtakes bootleg); he reimagines ‘Thunder Road’ as a haunting, exhausted hymn to the past, to lost love and missed opportunities and self-delusion and bad luck and failure . . . In fact, when I try to hear that last line of the song in my head, it’s the acoustic version that comes first. It’s slow, and mournful, and utterly convincing: an artist who can persuade you of the truth of what he is singing with either version is an artist who is capable of an awful lot.

. . . One of the great things about the song as it appears on Born To Run is that those first few bars, on wheezy harmonica and achingly pretty piano, actually sound like they refer to something that has already happened before the beginning of the record, something momentous and sad but not destructive of all hope; as ‘Thunder Road’ is the first track on side one of Born To Run, the album begins, in effect, with its own closing credits. In performance at the end of the seventies, during the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour, Springsteen maximized this effect by segueing into ‘Thunder Road’ out of one of his bleakest, most desperate songs, ‘Racing In The Street’, and the harmonica that marks the transformation of one song into the other feels like a sudden and glorious hint of spring after a long, withering winter. On the bootlegs of those seventies shows, ‘Thunder Road’ can finally provide the salvation that its position on Born To Run denied it.

Maybe the reason ‘Thunder Road’ has sustained for me is that, despite its energy and volume and fast cars and hair, it somehow manages to sound elegiac, and the older I get the more I can hear that. When it comes down to it, I suppose that I too believe that life is momentous and sad but not destructive of all hope, and maybe that makes me a self-dramatizing depressive, or maybe it makes me a happy idiot, but either way ‘Thunder Road’ knows how I feel and who I am, and that, in the end, is one of the consolations of art.”

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
(acoustic, off War and Roses)

**************************************************************
Anyway, so the impetus for this long and rambling post came from a reader from the lovely campus of Stanford University (the less well-known ugly stepsister to the illustrious Santa Clara University just down the road) who asked me if I had any other good Springsteen covers to post (following the Stars one and the Pete Yorn one).

Why yes, yes I do.

You’re Missing – Cowboy Junkies
From their really good 2005 album Early 21st Century Blues out on Zoe Records. This is a collection of reinvented covers from original artists like John Lennon, U2, Springsteen, and George Harrison. I very much like their reinterpretations, with the evocative strings and lazy vocals, which still pack a sadness-drenched punch.

Mansion On A Hill – David Gray
Live from 4/14/2001. Enough said about David Gray – except I love him. But you knew that.

Thunder Road – Matt Nathanson
Live at the Fillmore 11/7/02. The always fabulous-in-concert Mr. Nathanson has a live album coming out April 4th: Live at The Point. But this song isn’t on it.

No Surrender – Pearl Jam
Live at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City 9/30/05
Okay, one of my favorite covers EVER. It is incrediby pure and urgent and wavering — fantastic. Listen to the crowd start in with the “Bruuuuuuuuce” as soon as Vedder says he wants to play something “appropriate for our location this evening.”

Atlantic City – Pearl Jam
Live at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City 10/1/05

The Promised Land – Pearl Jam with Sleater-Kinney
Live in Philly 10/3/05

Thunder Road – Tortoise and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
From the 2006 album The Brave and The Bold. I don’t understand the naming of the musicians here, but I liked this cover a lot more than I thought I would. The intro is a bit jarring, but the meat of it is grooving and bluesy.

In closing, if there is a nicer mental image than these lyrics (that open Thunder Road), I am not sure what it is:

“The screen door slams - Mary’s dress waves - Like a vision she dances across the porch - As the radio plays - Roy Orbison singing for the lonely - Hey that’s me and I want you only . . .”

It’s always the right time for a little Stones, I say

With spring coming, thoughts universally turn to love (or something like that). My friend says that this is the ultimate wedding song, and gents, good luck trying to convince your lovely ladies you should be walking down the aisle to this -

“Loving Cup” – The Rolling Stones

I have to admit, them’s some hot & lovely lyrics.

Lollapalooza in August

So, the Lollapalooza lineup was announced today (and apparently I missed this news last year, but it is just a three-day festival in August in Chicago now, instead of the touring fiesta that it used to be in the days of yore). It’s pretty dang sweet, lots of acts I would love to see. How’s this for a partial lineup?

Ryan Adams
The Raconteurs
The Shins
Sonic Youth
Eels
Stars
Nada Surf
The Hold Steady
The Redwalls
The M’s
Matt Costa

You can see the full list here. Hoo-wah.

As exciting as this lineup sounds, I jointly wish that I could have gone to the epic, epic 1992 Lollapalooza tour: Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Porno for Pyros, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine…Or how about the year before with Nine Inch Nails & Rollins Band? It’s funny how musical tastes change though. As many times as I have repeated that above lineup over the years with the wish that I could have been there, for where I am right now musically, the 2006 lineup sounds more exciting to me. Maybe because it is fresher & people I largely have not seen before.

I would consider a trip to Chicago, could be a fun early birthday excursion. I got a $400 travel voucher on Frontier Airlines for a cancelled flight last month. But then again, I have seriously learned my lesson of never to travel to see Ryan Adams because it seems like he will cancel everytime. It’s a hex. What is a girl to do? Anyone else going?

World Music Wednesday

A million thanks to my Mexico City reader Mario for sending me some interesting stuff that is going on south of the border (where I wish I was heading for Spring Break like all you wild young’uns still in college). I was surprised at the depth and variety of the stuff he sent me, I will freely admit to having incorrect and one-dimensional mariachi stereotypes of Mexican music. I am now enlightened and am so enjoying this look at the music of the modern Mexican scene.

Mario writes to me:

I would like to recommend some music from our local Rock Scene (well, I have to confess, they are from all Mexico, but our “scene” is still wearing diapers)!

Zoe. These guys are from Guadalajara – Jalisco, a state full of beautiful women and the cradle of all the “charro” culture, but this guys are have more influence from Blur, Placebo or The Pixies!

Peace and Love – Zoe (song links removed)

Austin TV. Originally they were a rock-punk band, but they’ve changed their musical style, becoming an instrumental band. As they say, “We try to create a different style of music, taking as influence all the beautiful music we have the opportunity to listen to.” Nowadays they sound more like a “dream-pop” band.

Ella No Me Conoce – Austin TV
Olvide Decir Adios – Austin TV

Goma. A guy from Culiacán-Sinaloa, he is the spearhead of the lo-fi movement in Mexico. He says, “Goma’s my nick name. In Spanish it means gum or gel or eraser. I’ve been called Goma by my friends since kindergarten. My parents never call me Goma, they don’t like it. They like my name José Gabriel…”

Still I Wake Up In The Morning Thinking of You – Goma
(highly recommended!)

La Live Band. They are noisy, they are nasty, and one of the most energetic live bands I had ever seen!

Baby Baby Baby – La Live Band
(what a great, fun song, slightly retro feel)

Los General Electrics. Yes, I know — they sound like Massive Attack. I like them and they are very easy going guys, as is their music.

Un Minuto Para Evacuar – Los General Electrics
(makes me feel like I am floating)

Muchas gracias, Mario. It’s all eminently listenable, hip stuff. I appreciate hearing something new.

Odds & ends

a) World Music Wednesday is actually ready and sitting on the shelf as I await the recovery of a few songs that I accidentally deleted. Dah! So probably tomorrow.

b) And now, a dispatch from Jerry’s Yeti Cave: Play PONG with The Boy Least Likely To. Yeah, let’s rock it old school style, like it’s 1985. I laughed out loud from the sheer enjoyability factor of this one.

c) It’s like some joke from Strange Brew gone awry. Not that I would complain. Gives new meaning to the words “beer on tap.”

d) Offer a salute to Captain Funk himself with this tribute post to Sly Stone, with two great tracks for download (“Frisky” and “In Time“). It’s Sly’s birthday. Give him a little love.

e) Mason Jennings has a new song which I just listened to a snippet of on iTunes from his upcoming album Boneclouds, to be released on May 16. The first single, “Be Here Now,” is available now at online music stores. I like Mason Jennings, but generally more so when he is upbeat and makes me dance. This song, not so much.

f) And speaking of Jennings, Jennings over at the rbally blog has Blur from 1997 (live at the Brixton Academy) and Futureheads from the Leeds Festival in 2005. So you can jump around and, uh, feel British?

g) Marathon Packs has Devo covering Rolling Stones (inventive and typical Devo – I can almost see them dancing in their matching suits), and Cornershop covering The Beatles in some other language – sorry, my translator is broken.

h) Rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated. Will Ferrell is officially not dead.

i) And finally, many other bloggers have been surprisingly silent on this news story, probably because we are all a bit scared of raising any red flags or drawing attention to ourselves. But in any case, the feds who pressed charges on the Ryan Adams fans should consider this interesting article by Jim DeRogatis, which echoes what my take on the whole issue is.

Pearl Jam album cover revealed, and sweet pre-order deal

So, wow, one of the best things about being a music blogger is that people representing PEARL JAM (who, as you all know are probably my favorite band) send me stuff regarding the new album! I am so excited, this is fab. Here is the cover of the new album. Why is there an avocado? Jury’s still out on that one. But they are a fabulous source of healthy fats in your diet.

A few related tidbits that I’ve found:

• World Wide Suicide debuted on Billboard Modern Rock Audience Chart at number 1 and number 3 overall on the format’s chart. Check out this Billboard article. Go boys!

• There is a sweet pre-order deal goin on right now at the pearljam.com site. If you pre-order the album you get a free DVD of their epic 1992 New Year’s Eve show at The Academy in New York (opening for Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos). Read the SPIN article here about the show, and download the audio file of Wash from that same show (and read more about it). Sah-weet! For $14 bucks you can’t miss.

• Rolling Stone recently had a listen of the album and offered up some more tantalizing details about the music: “The title, Pearl Jam, reflects the group’s most collaborative effort yet: It produced the album together, along with Adam Kasper; each member will receive writing credits; and, for the first time ever, guitarist Mike McCready contributes lyrics, to the album closer ‘Inside Job.’ Gossard’s two musical pieces, ‘Parachutes,’ an island-flavored beauty with acoustic guitars, a Wurlitzer, and shifting time signatures, and ‘Life Wasted,’ which features a bridge reminiscent of Pink Floyd, are among twelve or thirteen tracks that made the final cut.”

Just whap it like this

So I get to make my percussion debut this weekend with a friend’s band who was in need of some rhythm. I am playing the djembe, which is African for “I have no idea how to actually play it.” I have apparently scorched the skins at rehearsals, garnering nothing but accolades, but truth is, I don’t know what I am doing.

Here is where you come in. I figure out of all of my musically astute readers, there must be someone there who can help with the two things I am looking for: a) some sort of lesson in technique, be it on the internet or just some instructions from you or b) a few good songs I can listen to intently where the djembe is used and get some ideas that way about different sounds I can make. Right now my rhythm is good but kind of one-dimensional.

But did I mention how FUN IT IS?!?!

OK Go to Jail

Damian Kulash, lead singer of OK Go, was arrested last night in Orlando following a show when he apparently disobeyed a police officer’s order to move from the sidewalk in front of the House of Blues while he was chatting with the fans.

You can read the whole (actually humorous) story here, but the classic classic thing about it is that Damian was able to convince the arresting officer to watch the band’s genius backyard dance music video to “A Million Ways” on his computer while Kulash was in custody. Now that’s entertainment.

Seeing David Gray’s spit and sweat

David Gray was amazing last night. My sister Kristy and I got to the lecture hall in the Denver Convention Center last night with our tickets in-hand. These were a birthday present from my sis last August, but then the show was canceled in October, so this was the rescheduled date. We walked in to the ushers, who ush us on our way, pointing to the front section. This was delightful, that they told us to keep moving closer. They keep ushing us forward ’til one blazered chap tells us that our seats are, indeed, in the FIRST ROW. Right in the center. Thank you Ticketmaster! I didn’t know Ticketmaster loved me so much. What a great late birthday present! I haven’t been in the first row of a huge show like that since Pearl Jam in 1995 in San Diego. We kept looking at each other and laughing in disbelief that we were so close!

David Gray absolutely gouges me; his beautiful playing on both piano and guitar, the way he pours his soul into he music (which you can really see up close – he feels it with his whole body), and that *voice,* both the lower register for the verses and then that sweet, affected, honest higher tenor for the emphasis and soaring parts. It was sheerly fabulous. I lack words (yet I keep trying).

And yep, that setlist includes both a Bob Dylan cover (One Too Many Mornings) AND a Tim Buckley cover immediately following (Song to the Siren, which was haunting in its ethereal beauty). I was in heaven. Ain’t No Love (read the lyrics on his site – gorgeous) and Lately were also both show-stopping, as well as one entitled Shine. And as many times as I’ve heard Please Forgive Me, it remains such an amazing song; it could be one of my top ten. I love the lyric, “feels like lightning runnin’ through my veins every time I look at you.”

I was really hoping for Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (possibly my favorite song he sings, although I was shocked – shocked! – recently to find out that it is a Soft Cell tune), but no such luck. It’s okay, I really couldn’t have absorbed any more.

AUDIO FROM THE NIGHT [via]:

Alive (new) – David Gray
One Too Many Mornings (Dylan cover) – David Gray
Song To The Siren (Tim Buckley) – David Gray
Far From Here (new song) – David Gray

VIDEO: Simon also took some video of the recent show in Cinci:

Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3

By the way, these cell-phone pics are all I have to regale you with. Not the best quality, but kind of avant-garde artsy, no? I finally figured how to get them off my phone and it wasn’t as hard as I thought! They were just getting stuck in my spam filter.

***********************************
Oh, and speaking of good shows, if I were in the San Francisco Bay Area tonight, I would be tempted to head on out to Hotel Utah and enjoy me some Newcastle while partaking in a good show with two local band favorites. Santa Clara University’s own favorite good-time band The Otters are playing with 735 Institution at rad historic venue the Hotel Utah Saloon tonight at 9pm:

“Perhaps the most underrated SF institution, the Hotel Utah has outlasted DJ-bar mania, dive-bar revival and every other nightlife trend to hit the city. Since its doors opened in 1908, the hip factor has never been part of the Utah’s organic M.O. This classic saloon showcases 20th-century novelties like a walk-in wooden phone booth, old-fashioned, inner-lit streetlamps and hand-carved mahogany bar back. The Utah packs in a casual and virtually ageless crowd.”

It’s only $6, so if you are one of my readers from Santa Clara, Stanford, San Fran, Palo Alto, San Jose, Oakland, etc. etc. etc., head on over. The Otters are preparing a rockin’ little acoustic set with some original tunes, and I hear there may also be a sexy little number by the Rolling Stones thrown in the mix.

Ooh, bring on that harmonica.