Earlier today at the noontime hour, lucky denizens of the city of brotherly love got a treat from Ryan Adamsand the Cardinals, sounding fantastic and amiable on NPR’s World Cafe. From a friend who was there, the report comes in that “Ryan had on a suit and tie and black sunglasses the whole time, a very John Cusack look.” He also is still not playing guitar due to a torn ligament — but definitely not as bad as that broken wrist from falling off the stage in Liverpool. Check out this fine little setlist, and for those of you who have heard Easy Tiger — whaddaya think? The album is out June 26th from Lost Highway.
And in related news (via . . . the fact that they’re pals, and last time I saw them in concert it was together) – who else is in for Jesse Malin tonight at the Bluebird? He’s playing with Acute, who I featured on a previous Monday Music Roundup, and it should be a good show. I keep thinking of this; I’m excited.
I’ve been enjoying this video and this song recently. In case you hadn’t seen it yet (it splashed on the scene a few weeks ago, and I’m slacking), it’s essentially an inventive short-film story with director Michel Gondry, who also made the excellent Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind:
PAUL MCCARTNEY, DANCE TONIGHT
This is probably my favorite track of the new Macca album (wait, I didn’t just say that – I meant off the new Paul McCartney album). All summery and stompy, mandolins and oooh-oooh-ooohs . . . It’ll be part of my upcoming summer mix (that is called foreshadowing).
Here are some thoughts from Sir Paul himself on both the video and the new album. He says the album art is supposed to make the album a desirable object that we will want to pick up from off the shelf. For me, an armchair just ain’t doin it. It kinda makes me want to knit. Or maybe nap? I think he could have done better. He says:
I actually started this album, Memory Almost Full, before my last album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard (released September 2005). The first recording session was back in the autumn of 2003 at Abbey Road with my touring band and producer David Kahne. I was right in the middle of it when I began talking with Nigel Godrich about a brand new project (which became Chaos And Creation In The Backyard).
When I was just finishing up everything concerned with Chaos and had just got the Grammy nominations (2006) I realised I had this album to go back to and finish off. So I got it out to listen to it again, wondering if I would enjoy it, but actually I really loved it. All I did at first was just listen to a couple of things and then I began to think, `OK, I like that track – now, what is wrong with it?’ And it might be something like a drum sound, so then I would re-drum and see where we would get to.
I took it from there and built it up. I went through, track by track, making changes as I went along. I fixed things I wasn’t too keen on and it just evolved from there. Without me knowing, or really trying, it started to get its own theme, a sort of thread that holds it all together. So I suppose it’s about half new stuff and half old stuff from 2003.
In places it’s a very personal record and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone. The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can’t really sum it up in one sentence.
There is a medley of 5 songs towards the end and that was purposefully retrospective. I thought this might be because I’m at this point in my life, but then I think about the times I was writing with John and a lot of that was also looking back. It’s like me with `Penny Lane’ and `Eleanor Rigby’ – I’m still up to the same tricks!
I know people are going to look at some of the songs and interpret them in different ways but this has always been the case. The thing is that I love writing songs, so I just write and write. I never really get to a point where I start thinking I’m going to write about specific subjects. Inevitably though, what I am thinking is going to find its way into what I’m doing.
The opening track of the album is `Dance Tonight’. I recently got myself a mandolin and I was just playing about with it and came up with the basis of this track. A couple of weeks ago we made the video, which was great fun. It’s directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) and stars Natalie Portman and Mackenzie Crook. I’m not going to give the plot away. You’ll have to go and watch it for yourself, but we had a good time doing it.
The album title came after I had finished everything. For me, that’s when they normally come, with the exception of maybe Sgt. Peppers, otherwise I don’t think I have ever made an album with The Beatles, Wings or solo where I have thought of a title and a concept. I was thinking about what would sum the whole thing up and `Memory Almost Full’ sprung to mind. It’s a phrase that seemed to embrace modern life; in modern life our brains can get a bit overloaded. I realised I had also seen it come up on my phone a few times. When I started bouncing the idea round with some friends they nearly all got different meanings out of it, but they all said they loved it. So the feedback helped solidify the title.
After completing the album I then started thinking about the album artwork and how I’d want it to look. I really wanted to make the CD a desirable object. Something that I know I’d want to pick up from the shelf, something that would make people curious. I hope our final concept has done that. The album sleeve itself includes an etching by a friend of mine, Humphrey Ocean. As with the album lyrics, I’m looking forward to seeing how people might interpret the artwork.
Currently I’m just starting out on the promo trail and beginning to get the first bits of feedback about the album and so far so good! It’s interesting now as I’m getting to hear what other people are making of the songs and what their feelings are. I’m also talking about the album myself and I’m really enjoying the discovery process.
I really enjoyed making this album with David Kahne and I’m proud of all the songs. We had a great time. I hope that the fun we had will communicate itself to the people who are going to listen to it.
Hey guys, the music server seems to be down, has been down all morning. Usually it goes right back up, so keep trying! In the meantime, read my scintillating commentary and just imagine the songs in your head.
UPDATE: I’m good now. The server’s back — go wild.
Bob Schneider (former frontman for The Ugly American and The Scabs) is a singer-songwriter from down in Austin, Texas who is quite the funky little mofo. He’s got a hard-strumming goodtime acoustic sound, incorporating rootsy beats and funk: he calls this style “frunk” (n.b.: not to be confused with crunk).
I am just getting more into his tunes recently, and to help me with this enjoyable process a pal made up two mix CDs for me with hearty doses of his music, both album stuff and rare/unreleased/bonus tracks. The range is broad, from these achingly doubting, intimate bedroom ballads (“Things My Head Heard” demo) to headliners for your next party mix (the fantastic “Assknocker”) and salutes to your workplace as you drive out of the parking lot on a Friday afternoon (“Fuck It”).
I’ve compiled my favorites into this little Bob Schneider mix. I left off songs from his two most popular albums, Lonelyland (2000) and I’m Good Now (2004) except for some bonus tracks, because you can (and should) get those albums. A few tracks from lesser-known albums made it on (the danceable “Mudhouse” and “Boombox” from The Californian, “Candy Man” and playful “Ooey Gooey Chocolate” from the self-released Galaxy Kings, “Drinking Song” and “Over The Rainbow” cover from Songs Sung And Played On The Guitar At The Same Time). The rest are unreleased/demos/live stuff. Overall, the castoffs tend to be a bit more playful and mischievous than the album stuff, so if you just listen to the biggie albums, you might have a slicker adult-alternative impression of him. This mixtape will be awesome for summer.
Get to know Bob Schneider. He’s on tour now (always), I hear the live shows are impressive and FUN.
The new Contrast Podcast is up with my contribution to their very cool and intricate Song Chain feature. I also, somewhat lamentably to my ears this morning, sing.
My thinking was such: Song chain = Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools (a characterization my fellow contributors may eschew) = me having an urge to bust out “chain chain chaaaain . . .” while I was recording my intro. So that’s what happened. For posterity:
Make sure you listen through the Rodeo Clowns tune by G. Love to hear this really funny cast-off line by contributor Tim from The Daily Growl, as he tried to pick a follow-up song: “I know nothing about G. Love and . . . I really don’t like clowns.” I always enjoy hearing the variety of contributors, their song choices and reasons — and their accents. This creative topic is especially fun, resulting in a podcast that’s stuffed with songs I dig.
Since I’ve previously posted the song that I contributed, I want to share this unreleased Weezer song that I had to connect in to. Love it, lov-er:
And the intro+song following mine is pretty funny too — although if we’re gonna talk about females being deadlier than the male (don’t believe it!) then I am going to hear this tune echoing in my head:
This morning I was up dark and early to attend a non-profit community breakfast for our local chapter of Drinking Liberally, at the behest of one of my readers. It was held at some posh digs that are usually outside my sphere of reference in the lovely waaay-south side of the city. As I cruised down the vacant freeway in the early morning darkness, I reveled in my favorite bootleg maybe ever — some fantastic live U2 from (arguably) my favorite U2 era: Achtung Baby. Attention:
These are some 1992-era live performances of songs from the alternate “Outside Broadcast” bootleg. According to this page:
Released to promote the Achtung Baby album and the Zoo TV tour this promo for radio was produced by B.P. Fallon in 1992. B.P. was the opening DJ for the Zoo TV tour in the US. Two versions of this CD were said to have been produced, the version that made up this promo disc, and an alternate version which was not released, featuring additonal live material and less studio material. A bootleg of that second version has appeared in trading circles under the name “Outside Broadcast”.
This version of “Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World” is one of the best things I’ve ever heard (SUCH A TERRIFICALLY SEXY SONG, made even more so with the resonant shining guitar notes here). This whole thing is excellent.
I had a hard weekend. But notably, there were some new releases and musical gems that made me happy, and I also (frickin finally) finished Bill Bryson’s dry and uproarious book about Britain, Notes From A Small Island. I enjoyed it so much that it almost feels wrong. I’m talking ’bout laughing (really, kinda chortling) out loud on every other page, plus really enjoying reading about places I’d visited in the UK that I hadn’t thought about in 5 years; places like this little gem, or here. I wrote a few thoughts about the book for Bruce’s Some Velvet Blog, part of a series on summer reads, and that’s up now.
Hollywood Bass Player Josh Rouse After releasing a charmingly laid-back EP with his Spanish novia, She’s Spanish, I’m American, Josh Rouse will be back in solo long form with a new album called Country Mouse City House (out July 31 on his own imprint Bedroom Classics). This track is toe-tappingly catchy with a fittingly strutty bass line — and for some reason it made me want to sing “My Life” by Billy Joel (aka the Bosom Buddies theme song) all weekend. If you preorder the new disc now, you also get a bonus CD with some cool demos and unreleased songs.
A Long Time Away Howie Payne Lead singer of the now-defunct Liverpool band The Stands, Howie Payne is set to release his first solo LP this year, and has posted 4 new tracks on his MySpace page for your streaming pleasure. What I’ve heard of The Stands has quite a bit more rollicking sound, hailing from the same scene as neighbors The Coral and The Zutons, but these new songs are precisely some of the aforementioned things that made me happy this weekend. They are a bit more wistful and shaded, with a bit of blowing-through-the-jasmine-in-my-mind reminiscence for me.
The National Side Romantica This next tune from Minneapolis band Romantica is different but I like it a lot. A fellow Ryan Adams fan recommended this to me, saying it was a tune that “you absolutely must check out” and guaranteed that it would be one of my favorite songs of the summer. All I can liken it to would be — okay, so Evan Dando moves to North Carolina and finds a backing band of mariachi dudes to play with. Then there’s also some great “buh-bah-buh-dah-dah-dah…”s which you really just can’t go wrong with in most circumstances. I like it. It’s from their forthcoming album America, out on 2024 Records.
Kingston Advice (Clash cover) Camper Van Beethoven Since we’ve already established an abiding fondness on my part for the output of David Lowery, it should come as no surprise that this track is one of my favorites off the new Clash tribute album The Sandinista! Project (out last month on the Megaforce label). As with all tribute albums, there are some questionable stylistic choices amisdt the 36 tracks, but this band is one with the cred to believably cover The Clash in a trippy, inventive way. Maybe I could have done without the fife, but otherwise I dig this.
Staggolee Pacific Gas & Electric I am in love with the quirky weirdness of the new soundtrack from Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, full of hidden gems mostly from the ’60s and ’70s. I just got the soundtrack this weekend, and no surprises – we all know Quentin is a genius at this stuff. I’d love to hang out with Quentin and talk music someday. The man strikes me as borderline crazy, but he’s one of the best soundtrackers out there. This cut is a swampy electric blues harp romp, but the other songs on the album range from campy girl groups, atmospheric Italian film scores, the swagger of T. Rex, and the British Invasion sound of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Fantastic off-kilter kitsch.
I find it a bit humorous and regretful that my first real Doors post (in over a year and a half of doing this? How is that possible?) is really quite . . . inaccessible. It’s not even much music, but poetry instead. But it fascinates me by virtue of being a lost little bit of musical history, which you know I love to read up on.
If you’ve ever had a hankering for poetry about Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding, intense visitations of energy, new hands, and obeying the moon, then you will love this mp3. I’m also pretty sure that it feels really profound if you’re high. Portions of these sessions were released as An American Prayer, but other things off here are a bit harder to find.
In the Spring of 1969 and Summer of 1971 (just weeks before his death), Jim Morrison went into recording studios and laid down tapes of his poetry. This mp3 combines the two sessions into one continuous recording, an uncut 51-minute session in the studio, where you can hear all kinds of background conversations, liquid pouring into glasses (I’m guessing it wasn’t water), messups, tuning, and re-takes. The first 36 minutes are the earlier session (I believe recorded in LA, not Paris), and the last final session of 1971 starts after that.
The final 14 minutes in Paris are Jim with some unknown street musicians (Jomo and The Smoothies), and they sound to be extremely intoxicated (the whooping, difficulty tuning, and gargling kinda gives it away). In the spirit of the day they call each other things like “cat,” and they say “far out” a lot. Around 43 minutes, you can hear Jim’s craaazy song “Orange County Suite,” a wandering piece about girlfriend/common-law wife Pamela Courson, where he forgets the words. Here is some detail on the 14 minute Paris recording, which I found here and here:
The guitarist wore a buckskin jacket, and the singer wore a cowboy hat. They were murdering Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young songs, one after the other. Jim, pretty drunk, loved them immediately. After they performed “Marrakesh Express” and nobody gave them any money, Jim introduced himself and graciously invited them to have a drink. He told them about the nearby recording studio and asked if they felt like walking over with him and doing a session. The two guys couldn’t believe it.
“Wait, man, hold on,” one said. “You are shitting us, right? Are you really Jim Morrison?” An hour later, they found themselves in the studio. Jim told the engineer it was his own band called Jomo And The Smoothies and paid for an hour of recording. The fifteen-minute tape has survived.
“I get twenty-five percent of everything that happens, right?” he told the musicians. The others tuned their guitars. This took a fairly long time while the tape was running, and it sounded horrible. Jim grinned “They’re tolerating us until we get our asses in gear,” he said.
But the three musicians failed to make decent recordings of songs they knew, although one guitarist suggested songs like ‘Little Miss Five Feet Five’, ‘Three Little Fishes’ and ‘I Wanna Dance With My Indigo Sugar’. Even when it came to his own material, Jim couldn’t quite remember all the lyrics of his ode to Pamela, ‘Orange County Suite’, screaming and yelling the hazy parts. The session ended after only 14 minutes and the engineer cut the tape. Jim and the two others listened to the tape again, but decided not to record more. Jim scribbled “JOMO AND THE SMOOTHIES” onto the box and put it into a plastic bag in which he also put the poetry tape and a few other belongings.
Now maybe I should be cosmically zapped for questioning the Great Lizard King (who has, like other musicians, become an untouchable martyr of sorts in death), but when I listen to some of the impassioned poetry portions of this recording, a part of me definitely pictures the bearded Will Ferrell in the hot tub reading these aloud to his lover.
But there’s also something very vulnerable and lonely about these sessions, the latter of which was recorded only two weeks before he died in his bathtub in Paris. The Paris session is also probably the only thing he recorded during his time in the City of Lights, while the popularity of the Doors was hitting an insane pitch in the U.S., and he was trying to escape it all. Jim was only 27 when he died – that’s my age. He looks a lot older.
(the picture below, also used for that unofficial “album cover” above, was from his personal collection, probably taken by Pamela, on 6/28/71)
Thusly securing Kelly Jones’ place as one of the easiest rockstars on the eyes, this is a recent performance from BBC Radio 1′s Big Weekend. The song is from upcoming Stereophonics album Pull The Pin, due this fall.
I have been listening incessantly to the album Good and Reckless and True from The Alternate Routes these past few weeks (I told you I’d be talking more about them). For some reason it sounds exceedingly good to me here in early June, especially in my car. Although the album swings effortlessly from rollicking to pensive, the common thread that I find appealing is the earnest commitment to simply playing their blessed hearts out.
This particular track is penultimate on the album, and I freaking love it. Over a bittersweet piano melody, it is melancholy, stripped, and a bit ironic (is there ever that one exact time when you are over someone? Or is it usually just a bit of self-preserving delusion? The last verse seems to confirm that bit of wishful thinking) . . .
Well, it’s five of 9:00 and I’m over you I wanna do whatever this empty bottle tells me to And I’m so excited that I feel no pain And finally everything’s right in place in my heart again And there are no ends I can see There’s nothing but the summer in me
Sing hey-la-de-day I come out tonight I look to get lost in the back and the white But the colors in me remembering when I start looking over my shoulder again Over your shoulder
And it’s a holiday weekend Only 12:25 I walk down to this neighborhood place and I’m feeling alive And it’s trapped in the alley and the lighting is fair The bartender’s laughing with strangers I reach for my wallet, I pull up a chair Singin’ luck be a lady, this is where I belong And I know that you’re somewhere singing along
Sing hey-la-de-day I come out tonight I look to get lost in the back and the white But the colors in me remembering when I start looking over my shoulder again Sing over your shoulder
Where there once was a dozen now there’s only a few And it’s just passed 1:30 and I’m over you And there in a crosstown shadow as I steal away I let a Jim shot of whiskey take a good man back to his yesterdays It starts me on thinking that you should have stayed And I think about sleeping tonight in the bed that you made
Sing hey-la-de-day I come out tonight I look to get lost in the back and the white But the colors in me remembering when I start looking over my shoulder again
I’m over your shoulder It’s over your shoulder
Tim Warren: vocals & acoustic guitar Eric Donnelly: piano
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
Earlier today at the noontime hour, lucky denizens of the city of brotherly love got a treat from Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, sounding fantastic and amiable on NPR’s World Cafe. From a friend who was there, the report comes in that “Ryan had on a suit and tie and black sunglasses the whole time, a very John Cusack look.” He also is still not playing guitar due to a torn ligament — but definitely not as bad as that broken wrist from falling off the stage in Liverpool. Check out this fine little setlist, and for those of you who have heard Easy Tiger — whaddaya think? The album is out June 26th from Lost Highway.
These are some 1992-era live performances of songs from the alternate “Outside Broadcast” bootleg. According to 
U2 “OUTSIDE BROADCAST” BOOT
Name: Heather Browne
