Night Music: Efterklang, “The Ghost”

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Efterklang is a Danish rock band. I went with a friend a couple of years ago to see them play at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We had some really expensive and tasty cocktails on the roof before the show (it’s fantastic up there, hovering over Central Park), and then made our way down to a medium sized auditorium with excellent acoustics and sightlines for a fantastic show.

I’d never heard of Efterklang, I was tagging along, but I knew they were playing with the Wordless Music Orchestra, which is a small classical ensemble that seems to create interesting hybrids with non-classical music. The first time I saw Wordless Music they performed a symphonic piece written by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, as well as a fantastic piece by Ligetti. It was a fine show, more memorable for the Ligetti, but you have to give Greenwood a lot of credit for stretching. And for the record, I’m not much of a Radiohead fan, but maybe I’m missing something.

Efterklang (which means Reverberation, which is nice) turns out to be these delightful Danish rock guys, who for whatever reasons decided to extend their range into a world involving strings and woodwinds. And a drummer using brushes. And backup singers. This is not my definition of rock music, but it was a wonderful show, which took this rock band all around the world as they performed with different symphonies of players who usually play the classics in each city.

I’m assuming they were paid enough to not regret giving up their day jobs.

Apart from all the prelude, this song is just great, even if the drummer uses brushes.

Night Music: Vampire Weekend, “Oxford Comma”

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The thing about the Oxford comma is that some assholes will be doctrinaire, and make a big deal about it. They’ll scold you! This is stupid, but at the same time, the Oxford comma is a great weapon for clarity. Use it right, your reader will know.

This video offers no clarity. But this could be the best song about grammar I know.

Lunch Break: Falco, “Rock Me Amadeus” w/Sturmgeist

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During that crazy Mozart fad, back in the 80s, an Austrian toff had a crazy hit that Lawr had suppressed from memory. One of only six Billboard No. 1 hits in a language other than English. Not including Love is Blue and Grazing in the Grass. For the record, here it is. Don’t start with the volume too high.

Like most hits, Rock Me Amadeus has been covered many times. Sturmgeist, a Norwegian black metal band, is neutered by this awful awful song, but brings all their tools, hoping for a miracle.

I’m looking for a death metal version of Dominique.

Breakfast Blend: Country Roads

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John Denver wrote this song, which from his lips is thin and sentimental. Sentiment is a key part of its appeal, but back in the 70s Toot and the Maytals found a delicious reggae groove beating under it’s melodic heart.

Many years later, in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki wrote the great “Whisper of the Heart,” a movie love story in which the protagonists’ dreams all come together with a down home reworked rendition of Denver’s classic tune.

Editing Football: Debaser Edition

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Football is a debased game. But I’m up late editing the Fantasy Football Guide (available on newsstands and online at the end of June), and all I can hear is the Pixies. In other words, I’m glad to have Hanley Ramirez tonight in the two leagues in which I can own National Leaguers. Sweet, but, not enough.

And I’m glad I don’t have a kid who wants to play football. That would be debasing. Hmm, that is enough. Thanks.

Afternoon Snack: “Sukiyaki,” Kyu Sakamoto

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All the Japanese pop some forced this song into my head, and, to quote Lucinda Williams, I Can’t Let Go.

Not that I wish I could.

Kyu Sakamoto was sort of the Masanori Marukami of pop: Sakamoto the only Asian to log a #1 hit in Billboard history, and well, this is it. And, though he was a one-hit wonder here, though “Mashi” (the Giants nickname for Marukami, the first Japanese born in the Major Leagues) was kind of like that too, they at least both paved the way.

I guess it is pleasant enough, and when the song came out in 1963 it was indeed a huge hit (sold 13 million units overall). But, this song is certainly not pop as I think of it, and it is as far removed from rock and roll as Percy Faith and Mitch Miller and even Pat Boone’s obnoxious cover of Tutti Fruiti.

Not sure why it was such a big hit, though? Sort of muzak with words none of us knows, and as I thought about it, I thought about compiling a Steveslist of the six songs not sung in English to hit #1 on the Billboard chart.

But, as I looked at them, they were all really so awful–and I get they may evoke fond memories in some–that I just couldn’t do it.

However, they are:

  1. Nel Blu Dipinto di Bleu: Domenico Modguno, 1958 (My mother loved this song: Bobby Rydell did the American thing with Volare.)
  2. Sukiyai: Kyu Sakamoto, 1963
  3. Dominique: The Singing Nun, 1963 (See how badly we needed the Beatles? Two of these dogs in one year.)
  4. Rock me Amadeus: Falco, 1896 (Proud that I have no conscious clue what this song is.)
  5. La Bamba: Los Lobos (I love the Lobos, and this song, in fact this is the best tune on the list, but why not Richie Valens?)
  6. Macarena: Los Dell Rio, 1996 (Never understood and I guess the only reason I know this song is they played it at the ball park.)

I just don’t get any of these songs, save La Bamba, which is really a treatment of a Mexican folk song, being hits at all. Not that I am trying to be xenophobic, but in general the music is cheesy and most really cannot understand the words. Meaning if we were on Bandstand, and doing “Rate a Record,” we couldn’t say, “I give it a 73, Dick. It had a nice beat and I liked the lyrics.”

OTOH, I don’t get I’ve Never Been to Me or Abba songs (maybe tuneful, but so what?) or even Snoopy Versus the Red Baron (which I hated at the time as much as I hated Incense and Peppermints and In the Year 2525.)

BTW, this video of Sukiyaki is the official publicity one Sakamoto released. And, sadly, in another shot at fame, Sakamoto was killed as one of the fatalities resulting from the JAL air crash August 12, 1985 the worst air disaster in history.

So, on that sobering note, enjoy if you can. If you dare.

 

Song of the Week – Had to Hear, Real Estate

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

One of my favorite albums of 2014 (so far) is Atlas by Real Estate. The 5 piece band was formed in New Jersey in 2008, but is now based in the latest hipster, indie rock mecca, Brooklyn.

The first single from the album was “Talking Backwards” but today’s SotW is the record’s opener – “Had to Hear.”

The most prominent feature of the song, obvious right out of the gate in its intro, is the jangly guitar strumming of vocalist/songwriter Martin Courtney and the simple, shimmering lead fills by Matt Mondanile. REM took it from the Byrds into the 80s and Real Estate has nudged it a little farther into the 21st century.

This music evokes a rural southern longing (though the band doesn’t have southern roots). It ambles along — steady rhythm, precisely arranged and played with mellow, intimate, softly sung vocals. If you like The Shins you’ll probably like Real Estate.

I had to hear you just to feel near you

I don’t need the horizon to tell me where the sky ends
It’s a subtle landscape where I come from

Courtney seems to be using the metaphor of physical distance to deny the need to hear his lover’s voice.

This is a lovely album of Americana. Other songs worth hearing are “Past Lives”, “The Bend”, “Crime”, “Horizon” and the instrumental “April’s Song” (which sounds a little to me like Human Sexual Response’s “Andy Fell”). Check out the whole record on Spotify. You won’t be disappointed.

Enjoy… until next week.

Breakfast Blend: Bob Dylan, “Jokerman”

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After his three-album foray into born-againedness, Dylan eventually decided to make a rock record. He looked for a rock star producer, talked to David Bowie, Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello, but was turned down, and ended up with Mark Knopfler. The result was something of a comeback album called Infidels.

I’m a big fan of the first of Dylan’s Christian albums, Slow Train Coming, but I lost interest in the others, and don’t think I’d ever listened to Infidels until today. I needed something in the background while editing football profiles, if you know what I mean, something to fill the space without making too much noise or too much singing along.

The first song on Infidels is a typical long story song called Jokerman. It’s pretty good, with some cool syncopated drums and a prominent bass line, and some understated slide guitar. You can hear it here.

It turns out that Dylan hired Sly and Robbie as his rhythm section for these sessions, explaining the distinctive bottom. It also turns out that he conceived this record after befriending Mick Taylor, the former Stones’ guitarist, with whom he intended to collaborate. Taylor, Sly and Robbie play a huge part on this album, which after Jokerman loses much of its sense of melody and turns into a series of vamps, with Dylan bleating on top. Well, not really on top, since his voice is mixed behind the music, kind of in the distance.

It turns out that Knopfler had to go on tour before the album was mixed, and Columbia pressed Dylan to turn the sides in in order to make the Christmas season release date. Dylan turned them over to the engineer, who did the final mixes. Knopfler wasn’t pleased. But it isn’t the sound of the album that irks as much as the lack of melody. Good for editing, bad for paying attention to, apart from Jokerman, which is of a little interest musically.

Some months later, Dylan made his first public appearance in a good while, on Late Night with David Letterman. He performed three songs with a band of new wave kids, who chunked up Jokerman, so it was less island and a little more Sunset Strip.

Thanks mostly to Wikipedia for these facts, if they are straight, and this good story otherwise.