I had no intentions of an Independence-Day-themed post, but I actually Googled over and started reading the Declaration of Independence (whose signing we celebrate today) and looking in my iTunes library for related tuneage, and I couldn’t resist. We’re having a BBQ later today, and there’d probably be some fireworks if it weren’t so darn dry and hot here. There will, however, be Fat Tire (that’s American) and burgers.
One of my favorite records so far this year is actually an actor-turned singer, which usually spells disaster but in this case spells y-a-y. Jason Schwartzman is Coconut Records (see my previous post here for all the specs) and his Nighttiming album is irresistible. I’ve gotten this update I thought I’d share, for those of you who like to hold physical copies of your music:
Coconut Records is super-serving fans who want a physical copy of the record. A single pressing of 2,000 discs will each come with a one-of-a-kind, individual Polaroid of Jason. But the rest of the world is going to have to go digital . . . this is an indie rock digital success story.
[PS] Jason’s brother Robert is about to release the new Rooney record. A good opportunity for an “if you like X you might like Y” promotion. For those of you working in digital music, “X” is Rooney and “Y” is Coconut Records. “X” can also be any other great record you love. “X” cannot be David Hasselhoff.
Order Nighttiming through Young Baby Records, and while you’re over there, check the new video for the song “West Coast” with skateboarding Germans. Doesn’t get much better than that.
It was reported by The Playlist blog yesterday (unverified source) that Ed Vedder is working on composing an entire album of solo material to soundtrack the new Sean Penn-directed movie Into The Wild. Here’s the trailer:
The movie is based on the true story explored in the book by Jon Krakauer. We previously knew that Vedder was collaborating for this project, recording songs in a Seattle studio with American bluesman Charlie Musselwhite, but we didn’t know the extent until this report. Vedder is also rumored to have a small part in the film.
This is essentially a solo album (due Sept 18) for Vedder, although the songs will thematically be grouped for a movie, so it’s not quite the same as a true solo endeavor. I can see it coming, but a pox on the houses of those who will say this heralds the beginning of the end of Pearl Jam as a group. I can’t see them breaking up anytime soon. When I’m 50 I’ll go see them in Japan or something, and I love it even though that’s just a little bit depressing.
Pearl Jam has a long and luscious history of contributing some great gems to soundtracks (some original, some borrowed from other albums). Here is a sampling:
For my money though . . . the best Vedder role (from one of my all-time favorite movies) is in Singles. “…Other than that, he was ably backed by Stone and Jeff, and drummer Eddie Vedder. I mean, that’s good — that’s a good review.”
“A compliment for us is a compliment for you!“
The soundtrack to that movie also gave us two of my favorite Pearl Jam songs (as well as a bunch of other amazing songs from folks like Paul Westerberg, who allegedly composed his contributions in a hotel room in less than 30 minutes, Chris Cornell/Soundgarden, and Smashing Pumpkins). Depending on the day, I might even say that State of Love and Trust is my favorite Pearl Jam song — just listen to that marvelous opening riff:
I can’t wait to hear what Vedder is envisioning for this new soundtrack, which seems ripe for artistic harvest (escaping the “civilized” world as we know it, a solo journey of survival and discovery, etc etc).
So I learned how to play the game of Cornhole this weekend.
Seriously, don’t ask. (I don’t know if it was more fun playing the game or just making endless jokes about the name of it).
The End Of The World Ash Irish band Ash has opened for bands like U2 and Weezer, and collaborated with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, but chances are really good that you’ve not heard of them if you aren’t British. Well, listen up. This is my new favorite song today, a soaring tune that I want to sing along with and be listening to if it is, indeed, the end of the world. Tinglingly good, I love the epic feel of the key changes (I am a sucker for those); for some reason this line gets me: “Can’t hardly see the stars, there’s too much light pollution . . . That’s the catch, it’s such a beautiful confusion.” Their 5th studio album Twilight Of The Innocents is out in the UK this week, and they say it shall be their last proper album (then moving to what Mason Jennings considered, and releasing only singles). Ash plays at London’s KOKO for a run this entire week, and then they hit the festival circuit this summer, including Asia, then Reading and Leeds festivals.
Dream Brother (alternate take) Jeff Buckley Reading a recent review by a friend of mine, I realized that I never weighed in on the new So Real: Songs from Jeff Buckley collection, which was released in May to commemorate ten years of his absence. While it’s a bit disorienting to hear a rearranged Grace (no Mojo Pin starter? No Lilac Wine following Last Goodbye?), I like the overall effect here, and would recommend this addition for any Buckley fan who already loves his studio debut album front to back, as I do. The compilation adds some excellent songs of Jeff’s that surfaced after Grace (such as the sexy swooner Everybody Here Wants You, or The Sky Is A Landfill), as well as alternate takes on favorites. These new versions are interesting in the different vantage points they offer (Eternal Life slays like the best Zeppelin tune, there are some new lyrics here in Dream Brother), and while I wouldn’t say that I prefer any of the new versions more than the originals, this collection offers an apt and different take on the talent we lost.
The Night Starts Here Stars The new album from Montreal, Canada’s Stars isn’t even out until September, three long months away, but this newly released mp3 is already burning through the blogs (thanks Arts & Crafts!). In Our Bedroom After The War will be the newest album from this melodic, dreamlike, deftly-harmonizing band that I quite enjoy, and the first single continues where 2005′s Set Yourself On Fire left off – lots of turntaking in the verses between honey-voiced Amy Millan and incisive Torquil Campbell, over a backbeat of synths and layered orchestral pop.
Apeman (Kinks cover) The Format In honor of the one year anniversary of the release of Dog Problems, charismatic Arizona pop band The Format is offering that entire album free for download on their website, no catches, until July 16th. That’s a whole lot of goodness, gratis. The Format remains one of the most exciting live shows I’ve seen (very high on the list) and I recommend catching them on this current tour if you can. They love covers like I do, and have put their unique stamp on everything from Harry Nilsson to Bruce Springsteen. Here they take on the Kinks’ Apeman very faithfully — but it’s fun.
Come And Get It (demo) Paul McCartney Last week I got an email from my friend Tony wondering, hypothetically, if I might have enough frequent flyer miles to be his accomplice in the Paul McCartney private show at Amoeba Records in LA. On less than 24 hours notice, I could not swing it, but oh, how I need a private jet. This demo recording of the McCartney-penned Badfinger megahit (Paul laid this down one day at Abbey Road when he arrived early for a recording session) is something I’ve been listening to a lot recently. Posting it today is just an enjoyable excuse to link to Tony’s review of his ultimate fanboy experience. (Oh, and I think we can call Lefsetz a fanboy too).
Eric said it best about halfway through the 80+ responses to the question, “What’s your favorite Ryan Adams lyric?” when he wrote: “You know, no matter who wins, I’m tickled by these responses, as I’m sure Heather is, too.”
Reading these responses was just fantastic for me — kinda like my favorite hypothetical situation which has not yet occured for me in real life: a bunch of us all sitting in a bar together, each taking a turn to share our favorite lyric and our reasons. Your entries made me spend the last, sheesh, two hours listening to Ryan Adams with a depth I haven’t done in far too long. Thank you for taking the time to share if you did.
Many of my favorite RA lyrics were represented in the contest entries, from Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part (the whole song pretty much slays me), the line from Hard Way To Fall, “I could find her in a thunderstorm by the way that the rain would fall” that always gives me chills, the lyric from Oh My Sweet Carolina where he bitingly notes that “sunset’s just my lightbulb burning out…”
Then there was mjs who compared a line from My Winding Wheel to a favorite poem around these parts, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Jozef gave me ten sets of lyrics (including that excellent one from Halloween that always makes me smile a secret half-smile: “and the secrets that she’s keeping, they are really only dangerous to her“) and Stefan submitted a poem he wrote in NYC while listening to Ryan. There are stories of moving and missing, doubt and lust and drinking in a darkened room.
Several of you quoted the debated line that people either seem to hate or love (I love): “I would’ve held your mother’s hand on the day you was born” (from How Do You Keep Love Alive), and the perfect small Dear Chicago got a few deserved nominations (I always ache at the offhand way he tosses off the line “I been thinkin’ some of suicide…). Nathan‘s a sucker for girls who can sing and play the guitar (a common lament).
Jimmy Diggs quoted the fab unreleased Monday Night, and the best part was the way he wrote it out:
All I want is to roll through your fingers All I need is to make it alright All I want is to be your connection Win your affection, be your reflection On a Monday Ni-hi-yi-hi-yight On a Monday Ni-hi-yi-hi-yight
If you’ve heard the song . . . that’s funny.
But this entry was the first I thought should win, and I’m gonna stick with that (impossible as this decision was!). Steve emailed this to me, and I related exactly with what he had to say and his explanation of how twisted and backwards Ryan’s head is in these lines. I’ve been there too. So congrats Steve, who wins the lithograph and a copy of Easy Tiger with this:
La Cienega Just Smiled I hold you close in the back of my mind And raise my glass cause either way I’m dead Neither of you really help me to sleep anymore One breaks my body and the other breaks my soul
From reading your blog, I get the feeling that you’re a lot like me in the sense that we’re both generally happy people. Things have gone well in my life and different forms of success have come pretty easily – what I’m trying to say is that I don’t have much to complain about. Yet when it comes to pop music, I find myself being drawn in by the slow and contemplative songs where singers are depressed and at a loss in their life – the sadder the song, the better.
I want to be that character in the song who is at a bar by himself and walking the streets thinking about what could have been. I want to have the love of my life leave me and move away to Paris. I want to be sick and tired of my family and friends and sit alone in my apartment with the lights off looking down at the street I live on. I want to be Rob from High Fidelity (I really don’t want any of these things and that’s why it’s perfect that I can use sad songs and get that feeling for 3 or 4 minutes at a time).
This brings me to La Cienega Just Smiled and the lines written above . . . they just kill me. In four lines he pays a tribute to the girl he loves, and to his other vice, and then shatters them both and perfectly describes how they’re terrible choices for him. He uses the line “I hold you close in the back of my mind” throughout the song and it’s a haunting line. She is constantly there inside of him and he can’t escape her but it’s as if he needs that part of him to always be there or else he loses her forever. It’s a lose-lose situation because if he doesn’t keep her inside of him, then she will no longer exist yet it’s breaking his “soul”. The alcohol, on the other hand, is something that can presently help him and he might as well drink himself into oblivion because he doesn’t have the girl that he needs (either way he’s dead, broken heart or alcoholism). And not only are both the girl and the alcohol unable to help him sleep, one is breaking him down mentally and other is breaking him down physically.
I just love the image of Ryan at home in some NYC apartment at night drinking (not anymore!) a scotch while he’s thinking about his lost love and coming up with these lyrics. Like I said, I always think I want to be living this sort of life so I can be creative and write like this but I am perfectly content just living vicariously through the songs I love.
La Cienega Just Smiled – Ryan Adams fantastic live electric version from Brixton Academy in 2001, listen at 3:37 for the best portion of the song.
And Steve’s entry is really just a longer version of what Brandon said succinctly: “women and booze. my man got it right.” —————————————————————————- Oh and finally, a really close runner-up was Cara (love this gal):
wow, what a bunch of romantics. obviously the best lyrics come from “…Look who got a website“
my favorite: “Kevin Bacon Makin Waterworld 3 They ain’t even made 2 yet Yo that was Costner partner”
I first decided to take a listen to Jesse Harris when my little brother recommended him to me recently. After several years of my brother being heavily into Japanese pop and questionable Final Fantasy music (the game, not the band), I’m finding lately that our tastes are becoming more in-line. Plus I love him, so I try and move his suggestions to the top of the long “to listen” list. On this one, Brian — definitely a good call.
Jesse Harris is from New York City, and is probably most famous these days for being the guy who wrote much of the ubiquitous, breathy Norah Jones album Come Away With Me, and won a whole boatload of Grammy Awards (the year I was there, actually). Feel is his newest album in a string of seven, coming out July 10th on Velour Recordings.
And what an album it is – luminous, fresh, and full of interesting percussion (which is the first thing I noticed). I hear tones of everything from clean Beatles pop, to Graceland-era Paul Simon, tones of the gentle banjo-plucking of Sufjan, to even hints of my beloved David Gray. I think this is a great songwriter album, catchy and nuanced, and it’s getting repeated spins in my car this summer. I highly recommend this one, and I love how the album art looks the way the music feels.
In equally excellent news, Jesse Harris is also the man behind the entire soundtrack for Ethan Hawke’s new film The Hottest State. Jesse wrote all the songs in a continuous suite, which are then sung both by him and also artists such as The Black Keys, Bright Eyes, Willie Nelson, Cat Power, M. Ward, Emmylou Harris, and Feist. That anticipated soundtrack will be out August 7th on Hickory Records.
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.
I had no intentions of an Independence-Day-themed post, but I actually Googled over and started reading the Declaration of Independence (whose signing we celebrate today) and looking in my iTunes library for related tuneage, and I couldn’t resist. We’re having a BBQ later today, and there’d probably be some fireworks if it weren’t so darn dry and hot here. There will, however, be Fat Tire (that’s American) and burgers.
Name: Heather Browne
