We all agree that great rock songs don’t need great lyrics. But sometimes I’m sucked in by a singer/songwriter who is clever and fresh lyrically, even if the music isn’t particularly distinctive or original or rocking.
Courtney Barnett is a bit of a critic’s darling right now, which is how I learned about her. Her lyrics are funny and probing, revealing and cleverly opaque, with enough pop sense to suck one in if one listens enough. Which I did, and now I’m a fan, even though as I listen I can’t help but hear the drone of Lou Reed in her delivery. And hearing that drone, I can’t help but think about the way Reed dressed his songs up in surprising and hard hitting ways, which Barnett doesn’t.
That puts her more in the neighborhood of all those 90s alt-rock bands, who didn’t really alt that much while not really rocking that hard. Bands/artists who lived on the sharpness of their lyrics.
Noah Wall has spent some time at the Guitar Center, using hyperdirectional mics to record people trying out their instruments. I haven’t listened to all of it, but what I have listened to has beens surprisingly listenable in an ambient kind of way.
Lou Reed’s sister tells the story of their childhood together, when some mistakes were made. It’s a gripping story told directly, sweet but awful, too.
And it’s hard not to come away with a different conclusion than she does. Or at least a bit of reservation about her sureness.
Last week, in my post on Simple Minds (Waterfront) I alluded to this song, which seems to have ties to Jim Kerr’s (Chrissy Hynde’s ex) song.
Waterfront is from the album Sparkles in the Rain, and I mistakenly made the connection to this song, referring to “diamonds, sparkling in the snow.”
Doesn’t matter. This is still a lovely song, showing the softer side of the great Ms. Hynde (I will revisit her with some crunch) in a sort of Christmas song/homage to Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott, the late bass and guitar players for Pretenders.
A great songwriter and performer, with a social conscience and the conviction to speak out, Earle has had his demons, a la Johnny Cash.
Like Cash, Earle had his issues with drugs and the law, including spending time behind bars.
However, like Cash, that seems to have bound the singer to the working class in a way most performers of substance (not talking Toby Keith, here) might simply wish for.
This song, from the album of the same name–which happens to be my favorite of Earle’s catalog–just rocks it with words and attitude and even a sort of contextual prohibition sense of history. Did I say it rocks, too?
Earle has indeed produced a fabulous, and somewhat varied body of work, be it this early sort of alt/country rock, his work with Del McCoury, or his fantastic anti-Middle East war tome, Jerusalem.
It is high time we gave some space to Mr. Earle (and I don’t care what his friends call him!)
Lately I’ve been listening to Blake Mills’ second album, Heigh Ho (released September 2014), on heavy rotation.
Mills is a hot new guitar slinger, vocalist, songwriter and producer. He’s an “in demand” musician that has worked with a who’s who of popular artists. He’s toured with Jenny Lewis, Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams and Jackson Browne. He’s recorded with Weezer and Kid Rock. He’s produced albums for Conor Oberst and Alabama Shakes. He’s also worked with Beck, Norah Jones and Band of Horses. And he’s only 28 years old!
Producer Rick Rubin holds him in high regard and was quoted saying “Blake’s musicality is limitless. He happens to be a breathtaking guitar player; but his real talent lies in what he chooses to play and how.”
I might make the same comment but with a slight twist. I think his real talent lies in what he chooses NOT to play.
Take, for instance, today’s SotW – “If I’m Unworthy.”
Mills and his bandmates – Don Was on bass and drummer Jim Keltner – approach this song with a minimalist arrangement. Less is more. It’s all the empty spaces they leave that make the music so compelling. But then, about 2:25 into the song, things get noisier with a fuzzy, reverb drenched guitar solo that builds into a George Harrison sounding slide solo, then abruptly stops.
In an article in Premier Guitar Mills explained “I wanted the basic tacks, those live performances, to have a lot of space in them, so sometimes we would whittle down and simplify, but there weren’t a lot of ‘parts’ to begin with.”
Eric Clapton heard the slide guitar part Mills contributed to Natalie Maines’ cover of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.”
He searched out the player and when he discovered it was Mills he invited him to play at his annual Crossroads benefit concert. Later, in a Rolling Stone interview with David Fricke, Clapton called Mills “the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal.”
Last Friday I was making my Passover Cheesecake (see Cheesecake post, in fact), streaming KTKE on the Bluetooth speaker Diane bought me for Valentine’s Day, and Jokerman, from Dylan’s album Infidels, was played.
It is a song I had not thought of for a while, but similarly, it is a song from an album I really dug when it came out, featuring Sly and Robbie holding down the rhythm section, and Mark Knopfler on guitar.
The thing is, Dylan has such a huge and extraordinary body of work that it is easy to simply forget about how many great songs over how many great periods Bobby has produced.
Hearing Jokerman was great in that it is really my favorite vocal period of Dylan’s, voice wise. His singing is so laid back and really sweet, especially on this cut.
I do find it interesting, though as I search through my archives and albums and CDs that as often as not I find myself going back to Bob, who is always so satisfying, irrespective of when and what he did.
Enjoy! Goes great with a cheeseburger and some curly fries, btw!
OK, my love for Family Guy is widely known. I know, too much barf, too many farts, and sometimes there are routines and the producers simply cannot let go (Syrup of Ipecac barfing, Peter fighting the chicken, eg), but when they nail it, Family Guy nails it better than anyone. As in up there with Mad Magazine, The National Lampoon, Monty Python, SNL, you name it.
This particular selection is Stewie’s love video for Susie Swanson.
It’s awful (so is the song).
OTOH, these guys so nail sappy crappy MTV songs and videos in animated form, that what can I say?
Judge for yourself (keep the Syrup of Ipecac hand, however).
Simple Minds are a band I discovered via word of mouth. I had never heard anything of theirs for some reason (this was some time before Don’t You Forget About Me was a hit) so I bought the album, Sparkles in the Rain which is competent enough, however, this song, Waterfront, just cranks.
I remember when I was first learning to play guitar, and my friend Alan Freedman (a tremendous musician and bass player) asked me to pick out some stuff I wanted to play in a small band setting, and Waterfront was one of my requests.
Alan listened to it once, said it was a great song, and then said I would never be able to play it.
I now understand he did not mean ever, but surely vamping on a D sus4 as an A barre chord for five minutes was much too abstract for my simple band of beginners to even try to approach.
In fact, now I actually can play the guitar and bass parts (well, that is not saying much, though the time of the bass player is dead on throughout and since he plays the same riff for five minutes, that is no simple task from Simple Minds) and could probably hold my own, but I completely understand how Alan meant that it takes some musical sophistication to play something so simple effectively.
This is the Minds a year ago, and they blast it out pretty well 25-years after the release of the album.
Speaking of which, lead singer, Jim Kerr, was married to Pretenders head Chrissie Hynde, and her song, 2000 Miles features the line “sparkles, in the rain” so I always wondered who lifted the line from whom, or it was just fortuitous?
Irrespective, we need to give Ms. Hynde some virtual ink here, but for now, here are the Minds. Tell me if this song does not rock the shit out of your speakers?
I had my 12-year-old for the Easter weekend and she turned me on to this song by Arctic Monkeys. I’ve read good things about them in the past, but never dived/dove/deeved in.
This song is so Queensy it’s ridiculous. Did they copy? QOTSA started in 1996, AM started in 2002. You tell me.
Yet whereas (Jack White thinks and I agree), the Black Keys copied the White Stripes and Jack White hates them for it, I’m pretty sure king Queen Josh Homme is good friends with the Monkeys.
In any case, I’m so desperate for good music I don’t already know right now, I’m gonna give it a try. Mary Lou played two other songs for me – one was equally Queensy and the other was T. Rex. (Did you know Marc Bolan was only copied by about a trillion bands and isn’t within 10 football fields of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame? If I’ve said that a trillion times before, please get used to it.)
