Uncle Acid’s first album has been floating around for a few years but wasn’t very accessible. They finally remixed it, remastered it and released it properly. (I even saw it at FYE over the weekend, the last-gasp mall record store.)
Music to shake one’s ass to:
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
The War on Drugs was formed after Kurt Vile and Adam Granduciel met in Philadelphia in 2003, bonding over their shared Bob Dylan obsession. Vile left after their first album, Wagonwheel Blues, was released in 2008. The “bigly” talented Vile has established a very successful solo career that is worth checking out (and should be considered for a SotW), but his departure has not resulted in the demise of TWoD.
In fact, their subsequent albums — Slave Ambient (2011), Lost in the Dream (2014) and this year’s A Deeper Understanding – have all received favorable reviews from rock critics despite numerous personnel changes. (Granduciel and bass player David Hartley have been the only constants.)
Today’s SotW is “Holding On” from the new album.
What you will notice immediately is how much Granduciel’s vocal delivery pays homage to his idol Dylan. Sam Sodomsky, of Pitchfork, expounds:
“Holding On” is decidedly action-packed. Buoyed by Meg Duffy’s winding slide guitar and a bouncing synth line, it shifts from hook to hook—dazzling with its intricacy or washing over you with its smoothness, depending on how closely you’re listening. It ends with a glimmering descending melody and pitch-shifted vocal motif, maybe the first moment in a War on Drugs song that could be described as “whimsical.”
Another great song from a great band! Fans of Dylan and Bruce Springsteen looking for something new and fresh should dig deeper.
Enjoy… until next week.
Nice NY Times story about denizenz of the Max’s and CB’s scenes now playing out around town like time never stopped. Their apparent motto: “If I’d have broken big maybe I’d be dead now.”
Biggest play goes to the Rousers, who have a pretty great sound.
Wayne Cochrane might have penned The Last Kiss, and Pearl Jam might have proved its camp essence, but the big hit was from 1964, by J. Frank Wilson. I remember this time vividly as it was the first summer I was sick with what became known as Crohns Disease.
I had been sick for several months, losing weight and unable to keep any nourishment in me when it was determined that I needed to go to the hospital for tests and observation So, on the way to Monterey and the family’s summer vacation, they dropped me off at the hospital and went on their merry way.
I got my summer solace first, not being around them, second with books, and third with my transistor radio which blared Ferry Cross the Mersey, and Bits and Pieces chunks of Brit Pop, but also the maudlin Wilson song.
The Last Kiss, however, belongs to a strange genre of pop song known as death songs. Some of the more prominant?
There are more for sure. The links above lead to YouTube files of the originals. But, J. Frank lurks below.
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British artist Sandy Denny was among the best singer/songwriters of the late 60s/early 70s. If you’re not familiar with her work you should check it out.
Denny started her recording in 1967 with The Strawbs. Shortly thereafter, she left to join the English folk group Fairport Convention that also counted Richard Thompson as a member.
She was with Fairport on the last two of their first three, seminal albums. She also had a key role on the fourth, Liege & Lief, although she had left the band to form a new group, Fotheringay, before its release.
Liege & Lief was recorded in the aftermath of a road accident that killed the band’s drummer, Martin Lamble, and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson’s girlfriend at the time. Other members of the band were injured but Denny escaped because she was in a different car with her boyfriend.
This all leads to today’s SotW, “Late November,” from Denny’s first solo album The North Star Grassman and the Ravens (1971).
It has been said that “Late November” was inspired by a dream of Denny’s that portended the fateful auto accident. Rob Young, of The Guardian, wrote:
She turned all these premonitions and real and imaginary cataclysms into song. “Late November”… encompasses all that’s great about Denny’s music: heaving with a slow, pitching swell, carrying a cargo of weird omens and morbid visions. So many of her songs from this period are set at sea or on wind-battered coasts, reflecting the enduring role the sea has played in British folk song. The folk canon abounds with shanties, press-gang songs, ballads of transportation and farewell, of superstition and of supernatural water beasts.
The song has a gorgeous melody and is sung beautifully by Denny. (As a bonus it contains a Thompson guitar solo!) It is a classic.
Denny is also well known for writing the elegant “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” that was covered adroitly by Judy Collins. Some of you may remember her duet with Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin IV’s “The Battle of Evermore.”
In the spring of 1978, Denny died of complications from bonking her head after falling down a staircase, in combination with drug and alcohol abuse. She was only 31 years old.
Enjoy… until next week.
Last Kiss made me think of Last Caress, which led me to this.
This guy can play my coffee house any day.
Wayne Cochrane wrote and performed the song Last Kiss in 1961. It wasn’t a great hit. But it had legs. Here’s the original recording.
Cochrane is a character in John Capouya’s new book about Florida Soul, which is how I came upon the song.
The funny thing for me is that the original version of the song is catchy, but doesn’t get at the real moral position the young man is in as the Pearl Jam version, even though Cochrane was a preacher (a Florida preacher, but still). What Pearl Jam version?
I liked this song back in the day, partly because of the Bobby Thompson quotes, but it’s also smart and sounds great and has a bit more oomph than many of the 80s power pop tunes did. He went to the same high school as Nils Lofgren, made many records, had no hits and a part of the world mourns his death yesterday.
It was my civic duty to make this post. I was rearranging my CDs over the Thanksgiving days and I ran into Primal Scream’s Riot City Blues, which made me realize how good it is. This is perhaps the best song on the album.
Things:
1) Three chords. All the guitar solos are rock ‘n’ roll cliches. Beautiful.
2) Notice how many posing/cliche rock star moves the players do. When a song causes a musician to launch uncontrollably into a rock star move, that’s a good thing.
3) “Don’t need a knife, don’t need a gun, I got a crown made of human skull.”
4) The chick (I didn’t know who she was either) is the singer from The Dead Weather, among other bands.
5) Jools Holland!
Today the great jazz vocalist, Jon Hendricks, died at the age of 96. You can read his full obituary here:
This SotW post was originally made in April 2009. I’m reposting it in honor of Hendricks’ passing.
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Back in the early 70s, Joni Mitchell – one of my favorite artists – began her explorations into jazz. Long before she veered off to make her most ambitious jazz outings — Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977), Mingus (1979) or her live album with Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius and Lyle Mays, Shadows and Light (1980) — Mitchell recorded “Twisted” (Court and Spark (1974)) and “Centerpiece” (The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)), two songs popularized by the jazz vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.
The influence of LH&R on Mitchell is obvious if you watch this video of Annie Ross performing “Twisted”:
Joni’s vocal arrangement mimic’s Ross’ which in turn was a copy of the tenor saxophone solo by Wardell Gray from his 1949 recording of “Twisted.”
LH&R are fun to listen to. They may be the most important vocal group in the history of jazz. Their influence can be heard in groups like The Manhattan Transfer. They more or less invented the style of singing called “vocalese.” Vocalese is where lyrics are sung as the parts that were originally played by instruments. It’s sort of like scat, but with real words rather than nonsense syllables.
The song of the week is “Moanin’.”
Listen to how Jon Hendricks is able to create the timbre of a saxophone with his voice. At 2:15 into the song, Ross soars to hit notes usually played by a high lead trumpet! If you’re not already, I hope this makes you a fan.
Enjoy… until next week.
