Song of the Week – Name For You, The Shins

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

The first time I ever heard (or heard of) The Shins was on the soundtrack for Garden State. The 2004 rom-com’s soundtrack included 2 songs by The Shins but the one that made an immediate impact on me was the memorable “New Slang.” I had a little catching up to do.

By the time their third album — Wincing the Night Away – was released in 2007, I was a solid fan.

This year the Portland, OR based outfit (basically James Mercer and some sidemen) has released its 5th album, Heartworms, its first in 5 years. And it is pretty damned good.

Today’s SotW is the album’s opener, “Name For You.”

In an age where “grabbing pussy” has been normalized by our commander-in-chief and celebrities from Bill Cosby to Bill O’Reilly are accused of serial sexual assaults, it’s about time that we have a song (written by a man) that addresses women’s empowerment. In a recent Mojo interview, Mercer said of the song he was inspired to write because he has three daughters:

“I don’t want women in general to have to put up with frat-boy bullshit. I think I’m more sensitive to the issues because of my family life, but douche-baggery has always pissed me off. I think everyone should own their own sexuality and not be reliant on the society around them for some sort of approval.”

The serious nature of the song is offset by the catchy melody (a Mercer trademark) over a reggae-ish rhythm and effervescent guitars and keyboards.

Enjoy… until next week.

Obituary: Chris Cornell (1964-2017)

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Chris Cornell, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and driving force behind theband Soundgarden, and one of the leaders of the grunge movement in music has died.

Cornell had a fantastic voice, and his band was certainly a rock band, but they played with form and time much in the way the Allman Brothers did, using some jazz progressions and signatures to establish and develop the band’s sound.

I was a big fan of the album Superunknown, from which I drew the clip below, but Cornell, who was just 52, also played a bit part in Cameron Crowe’s lovely film, Singles, which also boasts a great soundtrack. Soundgarden were also featured in the film.

A sad loss. If you don’t know the band, check em out. They were good.

Song of the Week – Follow Me, lyme & cybelle; Outside Chance, The Turtles; He Quit Me, Leslie Miller

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In the past I’ve written posts on the early, pre-fame songwriting of Cat Stevens and Elton John. Today’s post continues that theme, this time examining the initial work of Warren Zevon.

In the mid-60s Zevon teamed up with Violet Santangelo to write, record, and perform as the folk/rock duo lyme & cybelle (sic). The group recorded for the White Whale label and had moderate success with their single “Follow Me” – produced by Bones Howe who is most well-known for his work with The Association (“Windy”) and the 5th Dimension (“Up, Up and Away”) and later with Tom Waits.

“Follow Me” (co-written with Santangelo) is sometimes cited as one of the earliest psychedelic rock records, an elevated status that allowed it to be included in the Nuggets boxed set.

The connection to White Whale and Howe led to the opportunity for Zevon to present some songs for consideration to label mates The Turtles. “Outside Chance” (also co-written with Santangelo) was released in 1966 but didn’t dent the charts despite the opening guitar riff that borrowed from the Beatles’ “Taxman.”

Another Zevon song, “Like the Seasons”, was the b-side to the Turtles biggest hit, “Happy Together”, that booted the Beatles’ “Penny Lane” out of the #1 chart position in the spring of 1967.

Zevon’s “She Quit Me” was included on the soundtrack to the 1969 Academy Award winning film Midnight Cowboy. It was given a gender switch since it was sung by Leslie (sometimes spelled Lesley) Miller.

Miller was married to MGM record producer Alan Lorber who was partially responsible for the promotion of the “Bosstown Sound” that featured Orpheus and the Ultimate Spinach (yes, that was a real band’s name!) and released several singles on that label.

Zevon put out a full album of his own material in 1969 — Wanted Dead or Alive — that was produced by impresario Kim Fowley. The album went nowhere so Zevon did a career pivot and spent the next 5 years writing songs while working as the band leader for the Everly Brothers touring band and, when he tired of that, moved to Spain and entertained at a bar called The Dubliner.

By the end of ’75 he was back in LA, making friends with the singer/songwriters in David Geffen’s Asylum stable (Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Eagles) and the rest is history.

Enjoy… until next week.

Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives

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25 years ago I had a pair girlfriends, back-to-back, named Debbie, whom, in retrospect, I refer to as the “Deb-aucle.”

I guess the best way to describe the sensitivities of Debbie I, would be this little tale. I liked this woman, who was quite pretty, and who never seemed to feel acknowledged. So, I wrote a couplet for her that read:

“She is not the Deb you taunt,
That would not be fair.
She is just the Deb you want,
She’s so “Deb-o-nair.”

My beloved’s response to this epithet? “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Well, Debbie I was a Top 40 girl of the highest order, although when we went together–and ashamedly I admit I endured a year with her–Debbie was seriously into country music. And, the worst shit in my view: Reba McIntire and Toby Keith and those kind of flag waving Jesus loving knuckleheads.

But, during that time, Marty Stuart released his album, This One’s Gonna Hurt You, and I bought that album and have kind of followed the fine guitarist (who began his career as a teenage guitar player with Lester Flatt’s band) and a guy I just liked.

Marty is now on tour supporting his latest album, Way Out West, and his band was set to play a wonderful little 400-seat venue called The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. This is not a little dump either, but a cool downtown non-profit community supported venue that is modern, has wonderful sound, and killer acoustics.

So, I hit my friends and musicians Steve Gibson and Stephen Clayton up and we toddled off to see Marty and his band Monday night, and all I can say is they were one of the two best live bands I have ever seen.

This statement is kind of bombastic, going back to 1968, and including seeing acts like Pink Floyd, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, The Who,  Jimi Hendrix and Buffalo Springfield and so on. But a lot of bands, and a lot of great ones over the past 50 years.

From, however, the first note by Marty, Kenny Vaughn (guitar), Harry Stinson (drums) and Chris Scruggs (bass, and yep, Earl’s grandson, and a guy who can play every instrument on the stage) came out of the blocks smoking, and just got hotter and tighter with a set that featured new stuff from the new album, old stuff (Running Down a Dream) and a monster cover of Charlie Christian’s, Bennie Goodman’s, and Jame’s Mundy’s Airmail Special, of which I looked for a YouTube link, but none exists.

So, I went for this clip from David Letterman which gives an idea of just how tight the band is and how exceptional their players are.

One of the “oldies” the band played was Marty Robbins incredible El Paso, a song I loved from first listen in 1959. When guitar player Grady Martin was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Stuart and his band were asked to play, and since Martin played the melodic moving part in the song, El Paso was what they performed. The band did cover it Monday, and I did find a link.

BTW, I said one of the two best bands I have ever seen. The other? George Clinton and Parliment (with Bootsie, Bernie, et al).

Song of the Week – Lazarus, David Bowie; You Want It Darker, Leonard Cohen; Jesus Alone, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

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My mind has been unnaturally fixated on mortality lately. Today marks the 39th year anniversary of my father’s passing. A few weeks ago I lost a very dear friend of mine at the far too young age of 61 after a short but very nasty battle with cancer. I was fortunate to have a long conversation with her in February when it appeared that her late 2016 surgery had bought her more time. Sadly, she took a terrible turn for the worse shortly afterward.

2016 was an especially hard year for rock deaths. A number of very important artists died during the year – Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Keith Emerson, Paul Kantner, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Greg Lake and George Michael to name a few.

Bowie was first, on January 10th, just 2 days after the release of Blackstar. He was struggling with cancer but chose to keep his illness private and focused on his work. An example to all of us, he worked right up until has passing and left us with one of the best albums of his storied career – yes, even compared to his iconic 70s and 80s classics.

The song “Lazarus”, released as the second single from the album, has often been cited for lyrics that hinted at the artist’s struggle to deal with his illness and impending mortality:

Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now

In an eerily similar circumstance, Leonard Cohen released his last album – You Want It Darker – on his 82nd birthday, less than two months before his death from complications after a fall.

In an article in the February 2017 issue of Mojo, referring to the title track, Sylvie Simmons wrote:

In his final album, he sang himself back home. “Hineni,” he sang. “I am ready”’, accompanied by the cantor and choir of Congregational Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, the synagogue his great grandfather founded, and in whose cemetery he would be buried on November 10, in a private ceremony, next to his parents.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds also released a superb album in 2016 called Skeleton Tree. The album was initiated in late 2014 but took a much different turn after the death of Cave’s 15 year old, twin son Arthur who fell from a cliff in England in July, 2015. The tragedy initially debilitated Cave but eventually he channeled his grief into a very moving work, the making of which he had documented for a film called One More Time With Feeling.

The album’s opener is “Jesus Alone.”

It includes a line “You fell from the sky, crash landed in a field…” that could only be described as a premonition since it was written before Arthur’s demise.

At least when we have to deal with such sadness, we have exceptional art to help us to process our emotions and feel community with others that have suffered similar experiences.

Enjoy… until next week.

Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter (on Ed Sullivan)

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That ranking of Stones’ tunes I posted about earlier in the week ends, if you get that far, with You Can’t Always Get What You Want edging Gimme Shelter because it’s less of a cliche about the Stones. Happy song wins, dark song finishes second.

Fair enough.

But then there is this clip. The Stones on the Ed Sullivan show promoting Let It Bleed. And they do a version of Gimme Shelter without Merry Clayton! Still a good song, but stripped down, without the fire, is this close to the Stones’ best song?

I leave that for you to decide for yourself. For me the issue is how much does what we love hinge on the tangential, or not the core of the tune or the performance. Is it the singer, the song, or the backup singer and the mix? Each and every cut varies because the circumstances of the performance, the particulars of its creation, differ.

So, why rank them? If something can be both this and that, and something else also, isn’t the ranking of them a narrowing of vision, a squinting (in this case with the ears) that restricts the experience?