The record shops have closed and the used bins that once collected dust are now collecting pretty pennies on eBay. With rare, out-of-print and lost classic discs just keystrokes away, it's time for idiom idiots like us to upgrade. This is genre-wise crate digging 2.0.
Though most of it is little known in the States, French pop has cultivated a number of often exciting and occasionally brilliant exports since the dawn of the rock and roll era. From balladeers like Jacques Brel to sleaze-pop pioneers like Serge Gainsbourg, much of French pop bears the influence of cabaret--both in its sexually charged ethos and its willingness to embrace the avant-garde. Gainsbourg's lust-filled Histoirede Melody Nelson is a compulsory rock snob listen, but equally good, if not better, is the 1971 psych-pop masterpiece Polnareff's by Michel Polnareff. Polnareff's is an astounding achievement by any measure--a record that combines symphonic pop with soul and funk to form a wholly unique and compelling listening experience. Take the first track "Voyages": it sounds like the New York Philharmonic playing a blaxploitation concerto with Herbie Hancock on the keys. "Le Desert N'est Plus En Afrique," on the other hand, sounds like Jacques Brelsings the Serge Gainsbourg songbook--grand vocals and blaring trumpets over thick rhythm guitars that ooze cosmopolitan cool. "Monsieur L'Abbe," with its electronic wa-was and effects-heavy guitar solos, sounds like an aural blueprint for Stereolab's career. Truly a one-of-a-kind album, Polnareff's shows that at its finest, French pop can reach American listeners with nothing lost in translation.
Hear high quality clips of all tracks from Polnareff's at Michel's website here. Select discographie, then pick Polnareff's (third from the left) out of the lineup.
Flamboyant. Excessive. Superficial. Glam rock was all these things, and yet it was also entertaining enough to establish itself a secure niche in the rock and roll firmament. The primarily British genre pioneered by Marc Bolan of T. Rex with his classic Electric Warrior in 1971 reached its peak with what is indisputably the greatest glam rock album of all time: David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Along the way, the glam rock aesthetic found its way into the such acts as Queen and Roxy Music, and a few of its practitioners--the New York Dolls, in particular, influenced the development of punk rock. The glam ethos was all glitz and glitter--swooping pop hooks and triumphant guitar and piano licks set to androgynous words and visuals. Liberal use of makeup, effeminate male vocals, huge wigs, and drag outfits were all commonplace in the context of glam.
It is therefore not surprisingly that glam, of all genres, proffered the first pop artist to market himself as openly gay: Jobriath. Posthumously lauded by the modern sexual chameleon of rock music, Morrisey, among others, Jobriath is today usually either excessively lauded as an early gay-icon in music or unfairly dismissed as little more than a historical artifact. Jobriath is an amazing historical figure. The extent to which his label Elektra Records tried in vain to promote him into stardom is remarkable: the label reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars advertising his debut album on billboards and in magazine ads. But Jobriath also left a musical legacy that, when given a fair shake, reveals him to be more than just a historical curiosity. That legacy is chronicled on Lonely Planet Boy, a compilation put out by Sanctuary in 2004. A crass dismissal of Jobriath's two LPs--Jobriath (1973) and Creatures of the Street (1974)--might read something like: "All the excess and grandeur of Bowie with none of the tight pop songwriting." This is a valid critique, but I think it goes to far. True, Jobriathis a poor man's Ziggy Stardust--he delivers epic piano ballads with anthemic pretentious but few memorable hooks. On the other hand, the sheer musical spectacle can be delightful, and Jobriath occasionally delivers a ballad worthy of its Meat Loaf-esque arrangement. "Be Still," at least, has an irresistible refrain: "Be still, I love you!" Jobriath shouts, in the shrillest, most impassioned voice he can muster. If Queen had done it, it'd probably be a karaoke anthem by now.
Hear Jobriath's "Blow Away," which sounds a bit like how I imagine Cat Stevens would sound, on platform heels and in drag.
I Am Robot and Proud The Electricity in Your House Wants to Sing
Composing one's thoughts during spring break is no easy task. With that in mind, I've decided to use today's post to revisit a review I wrote roughly one year ago, while I was experiencing the same sort of vacation-induced writer's block I'm feeling at this very moment. The review should give the reader a good sense of what IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) is, but just in case it doesn't, here's a simple memory devise: Intelligent Dance Music = IDon't Move. In short, IDM is dance music you can't dance to. (N.B.: I'm not so lazy that I haven't taken the time to pen a few new thoughts about this old review. You can find this commentary at the end of the post.)
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It's Saturday morning, the last day of my Spring break. I'm up earlier than I'd like to be, but I'll need as much time as I can find today. I've left a week's worth of work for a day, and suddenly all the time I've wasted is magnified in the Saturday sun. Nick Drake was right: it came without warning. Alas, here I sit at my laptop, cranking out words when I'd really like to walk outside and soak up the dew spots from last night's shower. Tiny raindrops on my window that have yet to evaporate tell the story.
Everything feels a bit too serene this morning; the clothing, papers, books, and magazines scattered about my floor seem arranged by design, props in some art-house coming-of-age flick. Morning has a way of sentimentalizing, and a refreshing sleep can make consciousness less jaded. On this morning, to be sure, I feel a certain lightness of being. Mostly, it's due to a record I'm supposed to be reviewing with these very words.
I'm a newcomer to I Am Robot and Proud, but from what I've read, The Electricity in Your House Wants to Sing is the third proper album released under that mechanical-sounding moniker. I've also learned, from my key-stroke research, that 26-year-old Toronto native Shaw-Han Liem is the automaton. A quick background check reveals that Liem is that distinctly turn-of-the-century being known as the IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) creator.
Yet it requires listening to Liem's music, as I am now, to know that I Am Robot and Proud is a name that is at once fitting and misleading. Electronic music often has a robotic quality. It can sound stilted, mechanical, and distinctly not human. Indeed, there is such a processed quality about The Electricity. What resonates most strongly with this listener, however, is how human the album often sounds. The Electricity is warm, bright, and often downright effervescent. Like Stereolab, Liem seems to have an unlimited supply of sonic bubbles that bounce and sprinkle about his compositions, playing joyful motifs that soothe the ears. Liem combines these sounds into sonic tapestries that ache with the subtlety of humanity.
The Electricity sounds better than just a collection of Postal Service instrumentals because it's sweet and unwaveringly lighthearted--both qualities that could never be used to describe a Death Cab spin-off. More impressively, Liem sustains a relaxed, dreamlike mood from start to finish, without sacrificing complexity. The Electricity is buoyant but not hollow; paradoxically, the music is busy but also spacious. "Good Sleep," for example, consists of layers of synthesized chimes atop a steady atmospheric pedal that carries an emotional undercurrent. "Save Your Neck, Save Your Brother" begins with woodwinds that sound culled from the soundtrack of a French new-wave film from the 60s, then it picks up a rounded bass line and a back beat, transforming the track into something closer to a Boards of Canada production.
As immediately accessible and endearing as is Liem's latest effort, praise for the record must be qualified. As is frequently the case with electronic pop, the tracks on The Electricity quickly begin to blend together. This helps contribute to the consistent mood of the record (and its trance-like quality), but it quickly makes the music function as pleasant background noise-- muzak, or indie-pop elevator music. It's the perfect soundtrack for ambling through a half-awake morning, but The Electricity won't power me through a cynical afternoon.
-Ben Ewing (Delusions of Adequacy, 04/06/06)
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Sometimes when read old reviews I've written I cringe at the thought of key ideas I missed in my preliminary analysis and arguments I would, with the benefit of hindsight, subject to wholesale revision. This is not one of those times. Reading through this review, I can't help but think I was pretty much dead-on with everything I had to say. And if given a chance to rewrite it, I'd probably just kill the vibe of earnestness I cleverly cultivated to match the music by adding some pithy wise crack about the whole notion of IDM. Because let's face it: dance music you can't dance to is a pretty hokey idea? Isn't it? Maybe so, but I imagine some say the same thing about a world without irony.
Enough robotic earnestness to make your cold, post-modern heart thaw just slightly.
The phrase "old school" gets thrown around a lot, in reference not only to nearly any less-than-current hip hop, but also to oldies but goodies in a plethora of other contexts. If you're under the age of 30, chances are you've more than once heard someone use the term to modify such nouns as video games, pants, cars, glasses, hats--hell, even something as mundane as a rotary dial telephone! Frankly, this sort of co-opting is a shame because it has turned what was once a meaningful, complimentary distinction into a phrase so horrifyingly cheesy that it almost mocks that which it seeks to praise. It's as if anything one might call "old school" must be embarrassingly out of step with the zeitgeist simply because so many of the people who abuse the phrase seem to be trying too hard not to be.
Let me clear, I believe there is seldom, if ever, a good reason to call anything other than hip hop from the late 70s and early 80s "old school." When in doubt about the applicability of the term, use the Kurtis Blow rule: if (a) Kurtis Blow probably doesn't know who or what it is you wish to call "old school" or (b) you don't know who Kurtis Blow is, then you should refrain from uttering those two words. For the edification of those in the (b) category, Kurtis Blow was the first major solo rapper, a man whose history as a breakdancer, DJ, rapper and hip hop historian makes him a landmark figure in the development of hip hop culture. "The Breaks," Blow's best known track, is a bona fide hip hop classic, and two of his other cuts--"If I Ruled the World" and "Christmas Rappin'"--were turned into massive hits for Nas ("If I Ruled the World") and Next ("Too Close"), respectively. One of the first hip hop albums, Blow's self-titled debut LP from 1980 is an important historical document, full of great grooves, and without question worthy of the designation "old school."
An older but still active Blow doing "The Breaks."
One of the lesser-known, great British punk groups of the late 70s, the Adverts are generally remembered, if at all, for the songs "One Chord Wonder" and "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" or for the fact that they were one of the first acts to feature a female punk rock star, bassist Gaye Advert. Indeed these are excellent reasons to keep the Adverts in mind. On top of the fact that it cleverly plays with the "one hit wonder" adage and a knowingly references punk rock's harmonic simplicity, "One Chord Wonder," assaults the listener with pounding percussion, blistering guitar work and snarling vocals that perfectly match lyrics such as "The Wonders don't care (We don't give a damn!)." "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" has an even more memorable hook; the short line "Looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes" is repeated over and over again until it plants itself firmly in your brain. The Adverts also deserve to be considered gender innovators in the context of a hyper-masculine genre that, in its early going at least, was almost the exclusive domain of anti-social men.
To leave the Adverts legacy at that, however, would be unjust, because they also left a magnum opus of British punk rock in the form of their debut album Crossing the Sea with the Adverts. Hard-edged but still melodic, the Adverts were raw but accessible; a shade less pop-oriented than the Jam, the Undertones, and the Buzzcocks, they were also aesthetically similar to the Damned, whose guitarist, Brian James, was an early fan. Crossing the Sea with the Adverts is one of those tightly packed punk records that clocks in at about 35 minutes or less and doesn't waste a minute. In addition to the aforementioned "One Chord Wonder" and "Gary Gilmore's Eyes," Crossing the Sea includes such anthemic numbers as "Bored Teenagers" and "No Time To Be 21." The lyrics to the latter track exemplify the class consciousness and conflict implicit in British punk, which helped distinguish it from the punk coming out of New York, Boston and L.A. at the same time. "No chances, no plans...we'll be your untouchables, we'll be your outcasts," lead singer T. V. Smith yells. Maybe England in the late 70s really wasn't a good setting in which to come of age, but it sure had a hell of a soundtrack.
Encompassing much of the jazz played and recorded from the mid 50s through the 60s, hard bop is a fairly broad designation whose umbrella covers works by many of the all-time jazz greats: a few records by Miles ('Round About Midnight,Miles Ahead) and Trane (Blue Train, Giant Steps), but also many others by such artists as Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers (Moanin'), Horace Silver (Song for My Father) and Cannonball Adderley (Somethin' Else). Hard bop emerged in the wake of bebop as a subtler, more soulful idiom; the new mode of expression continued to value virtuosity but sought to reconcile it with other virtues, such as greater rhythmic fluidity and flexibility, and sustained mood. Hence, slower, more lyrical melodic lines were mixed in with feats of strength and endurance and bass parts were given more breathing room.
In 1961, arranger, composer and alto and tenor sax player Oliver Nelson brought together an all-star cast to record one of the finest records in hard bop history, The Blues and the Abstract Truth. Featuring legendary pianist Bill Evans at his peak (1961 was the same he recorded both Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby!), a young Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on flute and alto, Paul Chambers on bass, Roy Haynes at the kit, and Nelson himself on alto and tenor, the sessions were destined for greatness, and The Blues and the Abstract Truth never fails to deliver on the promise of its stellar cast. The opener, "Stolen Moments" is aptly named: it steals the show. Evans, Chambers and Haynes provide a spacious and graceful backdrop that often hearkens to that most pristine modal masterpiece, Kind of Blue, and the solos are at once masterful and emotional. "Yearnin'" betrays an even more obvious relation to rhythm and blues about a minute and half in: a start-stop rhythm section and soul-styled melodic motif are almost Staxian.
"Stolen Moments" set to some unrelated video imagery.
You don't have to be easily susceptible to claustrophobia to appreciate ambient music, but it helps. It's surely a cliche or rock crit conceit by now, but when I feel like the noises of the world are closing in on me, there's no better escape than the ethereal soundscapes of a Brian Eno or a Harold Budd. It should come as little surprise then, that when those two masters of atmospheric music collaborated, the results were heavenly. 1984's The Pearl was particularly successful. The album is so serenely beautiful that it makes allegations that ambient music is inherently boring or hokey "new-age" seem superficial and foolish. My favorite ambient record outside of Eno's seminal masterpiece Ambient 1: Music for Airports is at times comforting and at other times haunting, but never less than engaging. Ambient music has often been compared to visual art in that it can be the subject of active appreciation, yet may also easily be pushed to background and still greatly enrich a setting. The comparison is an apt. Before I began writing this entry I was focused intently on the minute details of Budd's faint piano and Eno's production; as I write these words, on the other hand, I am a passive listener. Yet the mood has sustained itself--The Pearl still glistens.
Music from another Eno/Budd collaboration, The Plateaux of Mirror.
Various Artists 25 All-Time Greatest Bubblegum Hits: The Ultimate Collection
Rarely, if ever, can an entire idiom--however narrowly defined--be adequately encapsuled in a single disc compilation. "All the (insert genre name here) you'll ever need" compilations are rarely all you'll ever need. In the case of that infectious-to-the-point-of-cloying late-60s phenomenon known as bubblegum music, however, painting with such a broad stroke is not only be acceptable but even desirable. Bubblegum was the perfect name for a body of music utterly devoid of any nuance or sophistication. It reflected the instant appeal of the lightweight and catchy singles but also the short lifespan of their sugary sweet flavor. Like the chewy treat from which it takes its name, bubblegum is best taken in small dozes.
Perhaps sensing the possibility for a compilation that could be at once an introduction to, and also a comphresensive survey of, the bubblegum genre, Varese Records released the collection 25 All-Time Greatest Hits Bubblegum Hits: The Ultimate Collection in 2000. Collecting just over two-dozen bubblegum essentials--from the Ohio Express's "Yummy Yummy Yummy" to the Archies "Sugar Sugar"--25 All-Time doesn't miss a beat--one would be hard pressed to find any inexcusible omissions. At its best, bubblegum could be blissful, and 25 All-Time captures the genre's naive enthusiasm with such classics as the Monkees' "I'm a Believer," Crazy Elephant's "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'," Dawn's "Knock Three Times," and Tommy James & the Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now."
Prior to 2000, Varese had released a five-disc series, Bubblegum Classics, but this was clearly overload; the only people who can stand much more than an hour of bubblegum in one setting without getting sick are not old enough to purchase CDs. Likewise, even individual artist "best ofs" are largely superfluous in a realm where such acts as the 1910 Fruitgum Company reign supreme. Bubblegum was inarguably a singles genre and as such, it's best remembered by its singles. For the two minutes and forty five seconds of "Bubble Gum Music" by the Rock 'n Roll Dubble Bubble Trading Card Co. of Philadephia-19141, I can't help but swear by the lyric "More, more, more, of that bubble gum music makes me feel so good, Oh I never want to lose it." But if by choice or force, I were to find myself listening too many times--or worse, exploring that back catalogue of that most cumbersomely named band--the sugarfreeze would probably send me straight to the nearest whole grain
A bass and groove-heavy funk sound that found a niche in the late 70s and early to mid 80s as disco gave way to early hip hop, go-go music developed in D.C. at nightclubs and neighborhood parties. One of the idiom's greatest artists was Chuck Brown, a D.C. scenester whose success helped pave the way for such acts as Trouble Funk, E.U., The Junk Yard Band, and Rare Essence. Chuck Brown & the Soul Searcher's 1979 debut Bustin' Loose is arguably the definitive document of the D.C. go-go scene. It's title track was an R&B hit eventually immortalized when rapper Nelly sampled it for his anthem "Hot in Herre." Like most go-go tracks, "Bustin Loose" is a rhythmic wonder that features sparse, MC-style vocals--mostly just Brown pattering such lines "Bustin' loose in the meantime, Bustin' loose make you feel fine, Talking 'bout bustin loose." Like a lot of funk, it's also very horn-heavy, and a cursory listen to its infectious, looped trumpet line makes me think (a) claims that Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" is go-go influenced are legit and (b) I may have to eat my past words of criticism for Ms. Knowles. (Giving "Crazy in Love" another chance, I realize that a "where's the melody?" critique doesn't hold up; melody's not the point--a bonkers groove is. However, I am still free to take or leave Beyonce--it's dance-pop producer Rich Harrison who deserves credit for the track.) Interestingly, Chuck Brown's first LP isn't entirely in the go-go style. The lush, sultry textures of Philly soul dominate two of the albums seven extended cuts: "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Could It Be Love." On these more than competent ballads, Brown shows that he can actually sing, but perhaps even more surprisingly, that ballads can actually make sense in the context of the rest of the album. As a result, Bustin' Loose manages to define, yet also transcend the narrow sub-genre that is go-go.
Do you feel like bustin' loose? Seriously, Chuck Brown wants to know.
Though a number of solo singers charted highly at the time, the Brill Building era was undeniably the era of the girl group. The note-perfect pop songs of Barry and Greenwich, Mann and Weil, and Goffin and King, and the parlor-symphony productions of Phil Spector found no better collective voice than that of the girl group. Even a cursory search of the Billboard charts from the early 60s turns up a smattering of hits by the Shirelles, the Ronettes, the Chiffons, the Shangri-Las, and the Dixie Cups, to name just a handful of these acts. In addition to the many girl groups that hit it big, many others recorded handfuls of wonderful sides that, for whatever reason--bad luck, bad timing, lack of promotion--never became radio mainstays. In 2005, Rhino Records brought many of these records to the public's attention with it's stellar box set One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found.
This writer's vote for best overlooked girl group goes to the Cookies--specifically, their second incarnation. The initial lineup recorded in the 50s and eventually became Ray Charles' backing group, the Raelettes. Later, in 1962, a revised version of the Cookies emerged retaining Earl-Jean McCrea as the sole holdover from the original group. That second lineup started singing backup for such Brill Building mainstays as Neil Sedaka and Tony Orlanda and recorded under its own name for Dimension Records, the label founded in 1962 by Don Kirshner, co-founder of the successful publishing company Aldon Music. Aldon was home to many of the greatest songwriting teams in Brill Building history, in particular, Sedaka and Greenfield, Mann and Weil, and Goffin and King, the team that provided most of the material for Dimension recording artists. Released alongside solo recordings by Carole King and Little Eva, the Cookies records achieved only modest success, though a number of the songs they performed were among Goffin's and King's finest. The Cookies biggest hit was "Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby," which charted at number seven in early 1963, but the song that cemented their place in pop history is undeniably "Chains," if only because it was later recorded by the Beatles. Still, their best song was neither of the two, but rather, "I Never Dreamed," an utterly gorgeous mid-tempo ballad with lush harmonies that provide ecstatic release when they eventually border on classical counterpoint.
Sadly, The Complete Cookies has gone out of print. Serendipitously, Rhino decided to include "I Never Dreamed" on its aforementioned girl group box set.
Oscar Peterson Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook
The golden age of Tin Pan Alley during the 1920 and 30s culminated in a combination of words and music that was insouciant, sophisticated and urbane. Even the idiom's finest practitioners, however, occasionally lapsed into sentimentality. Perhaps no songwriter better epitomizes the golden age than Cole Porter, a tunesmith and lyricist who wrote dozens of remarkably witty numbers such as the list song "You're the Top" yet also had a self-professed desire--which he at times acted on--to write schmaltz like "I Love You." (The latter was reportedly written in response to a friendly wager that regarding Porter's ability to write a song in which the three-word phrase was repeated on end.) Not all Porter's overtly melodramatic tunes were throwaways however; indeed, some of his best creations, such as the classic "Night and Day," mixed intelligence with heavy dozes of emotion to great effect.
Given the somewhat complex relationship between wry detachment and embellished feeling in the songs of Cole Porter--and indeed Tin Pan Alley itself--it's not surprising that pianist Oscar Peterson--a player who, for all his dazzling flourishes, was rooted in a lyrical style--proved an adept interpreter of Porter and the American songbook. Music producer/impresario Norman Granz, founder of Verve Records and a major proponent of the Great American Songbook, managed both Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson and orchestrated songbook series for both artists. While Fitzgerald's songbooks were so successful that they arguably played a pivotal role in entrenching the Tin Pan Alley cannon, Peterson's are today less well known, though they are invariably tasteful. 1959's Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook is one of the best of Peterson's 19 songbook records, 10 of which were made between 1952 and 1954, and nine of which were done in 1959. Peterson's renditions of "I've Got You Under My Skin," "Night and Day" and "In the Still of the Night" are so easy on the ear that they might be accused of bordering on elevator music were Peterson not so careful to accentuate Porter's melodies. It is level of attention that ensures that even with lyrics absent, Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook--at once virtuosic and also a tad bit sappy--is a worthy representation of Porter, in sum and total.
To here audio clips of Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook, click here.
Fancy Nuggets and Pebbles? Think the 13th Floor Elevators are "bloody" brilliant? If so, you might be more than just British. You might be a freakbeat fan in the making.
Freakbeat refers to the sound of obscure, collectible, British Invasion records in the blues rock and garage rock idioms. Depending upon the collector you're talking to, a particular artist might or might not be far enough below the radar to qualify for the designation, but perhaps the best-known act whose freakbeatcredentials are virtually beyond reproach is the Creation. Known for the scorching "Making Time" which kicked off the second Nuggets box set, appeared in the movie Rushmore, and most recently, provided the soundtrack for a football scrimmage in a Nike commercial, the band never achieved the mainstream success in its day that British Invasion historians today believe it deserved. Other freakbeat cause celebs include the London-based Smoke (not to be confused with the American group of the same name whose self-titled record from 1968 is a west-coast psych-pop rarity), and the Birds, whose spelling ability should prevent any confusion with the American folk-rock group.
For my money, the best band worthy of the freakbeat designation is the Action, a group signed to the Beatles' EMI label in 1965 by the same man who signed the fab four: George Martin. Originating as a mod group covering such soul sides as "Land of 1000 Dances," the Action evolved into a sophisticated British rock band on the cusp of psychedelia. By late 1966, the Action sounded a lot like the Small Faces: literate, stately, melodic, and rocking--with psych flourishes thrown in for good measure. Indeed, Rolled Gold--a collection of fully-formed demos from the band's peak that reconstructs what it's debut album might have sounded like had the original tapes not been scrapped by EMI for being too arty--is as close a rival to Ogden's Nut Gone Flake as one is likely find. For starters, "Something to Say" is flat out incredible, with its emphatic refrain and its simple yet triumphant echoed guitar line. Elsewhere, the psych-tinged "Brain" is as soulful as most of the American R&B repertory covered by the Action's mod contemporaries. The list goes on: the Kinksian opener "Come Around" is built on a chord progression--eerily similar to the line that begins "Waterloo Sunset"--with the grandeur of inevitably and "Love is All" somehow makes a flute sound perfectly natural on top of bass-heavy, garage rock. In short, Rolled Gold is an absurdly good album. You can call it a lost classic, but I think it's too good for such a rock-crit fallback.
Get the album while you can--I have no idea how long a generous fellow blogger will keep it posted here.
Don Rich & the Buckaroos Country Pickin': The Don Rich Anthology
As country music in Nashville in the 1950s was converging toward a slick, string-laden pop sound, a rawer sound influenced by rock and roll was developing across the country in Bakersfield, California. Characterized by sharp, clean Fender Telecaster guitar and high pitched fiddle and pedal steel, the Bakersfield sound begins in earnest the man who popularized it: Buck Owens. A Bakersfield transplant, Owens parlayed performances at the Blackboard night club into session work at Capitol Records. In 1957 he began recording under his own name for Capitol and with "Second Fiddle" in 1958, began a string a modest hits that eventually culminated in 1963's "Act Naturally," a song later covered by the Beatles' on Help! Owens' first number one and the song that catapulted him to stardom, "Act Naturally" started another, far more impressive streak: it was the first of 15 consecutive number one singles. Owens' extraordinary success brought national attention to what came to be known as the Bakersfield sound, shining a light on such mainstays of the idiom as Tommy Collins, Wynn Stewart, and Merle Haggard, who achieved enough artistic and commercial success in his own right to earn a spot alongside Owens as one of the two most important proponents of the sound.
One of the men who has yet to be properly recognized for his role in the Bakersfield scene is Don Rich, with whom Buck Owens formed his band the Buckaroos in 1961. In the late 50s Rich played fiddle alongside Owens in Tacoma WA, but when the two reunited in Bakersfield he took to the guitar and by 1962 he was playing lead in the Buckaroos. Rich's magnificent and pioneering lead guitar became of the trademarks of the Bakersfield sound. During his time as a musical collaborator with Buck Owens, Rich occasionally sang and also worked on the records the Buckaroos released on their own. The significance of Rich's role in Owens music is clearly evidence by the dearth of significant output from Owens in the wake of Rich's death by motorcycle accident in 1974. Aside from the wealth of Buck Owens recordings, the best place to hear Rich is Sundazed's 2000 compilation Country Pickin': The Don Rich Anthology, attributed to Don Rich and the Buckaroos. The collection amasses 24 songs that Rich sang with Owens or played with the Buckaroos. Just ten seconds into the opener "Buckaroo" one can already hear Rich's pristine electric picking in all its glory and understand a great deal about the Bakersfield aesthetic.
Before he was a blues singer and pianist, Champion Jack Dupree was a professional boxer. This bit of history, which is reflected in his stage name, is not hard to believe given his style of performance. Dupree, who grew up in New Orleans at the same Colored Waifs' Home for Boys that once housed Louis Armstrong, learned a style of piano playing known as "boogie-woogie" or, alternatively "barrelhouse," that was characterized by an ostinato bass in the left hand and a trills and ornamentation in the right hand. On his Atco debut from 1958, Blues from the Gutter, Dupree takes things at a slower pace than barrelhouse, but his roots are nevertheless perceptible, particularly in his right-hand technique. Rhythmically, Blues from the Gutter is characteristic of Louisiana blues, meaning it has a laid-back, plodding feel that lacks that the heavy backbeat of say, Chicago blues. Dupree sings and plays like a heavyweight; he is gruff and powerful and his movements are unrushed. Produced by Atlantic records legend Jerry Wexler and featuring Pete Brown on alto saxophone and Larry Dale on guitar, Blues from the Gutter takes on eight Dupree originals and two traditionals, "Frankie and Johnny" and "Stack O'Lee." While the latter two tracks have an R&B lilt in this context, other songs, such as "TB Blues" are back-alley, down-and-out blues. The sparse, "Bad Blood" features a wicked guitar solo before Dupree returns for the last stanza: "Well I am your doctor, you can call me on the phone, and any time you need the doctor, said the doctor's comin' on." Let the healing begin.
What follows is the text of a review I wrote in September of '05 for Delusions of Adequacy (www.adequacy.net), a music zine for which I have been a long-time contributor and with which Idiom Idiots recently partnered. A DOA Exclusive of the Idiom Idiots column will now appear on DOA each week.
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“It was the record that you needed to complete your pop collection. It was everything you wanted – it was some source of affection.” So begins “Stowaway,” the effervescent triumph that kicks off Tullycraft’s new record. From the opening guitar line, the sound is so blissful, energetic, and charming that anyone who has even flirted with the idea of twee-pop saving the world will know instantly that Disenchanted Hearts Unite is the very record about which Tullycraft sings with such reverence. This is not brash arrogance. This is the kind of inability to contain one’s enthusiasm that can only result from a good group all too aware that it is touching upon greatness. How delightfully postmodern!
For those who must sheepishly admit that Tullycraft has until now escaped their radar, some exposition is in order. Tullycraft, a cult-band itself, was formed in 1995 by members of Crayon (singer/bassist Sean Tollefson and drummer Jeff Fell) and Wimp Factor 14 (guitarist Gary Miklusek) - two Harriet Records cult-bands. That year saw the group release the singles “True Blue,” and the impeccably titled, Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend’s too Stupid to Know About. In the years to follow, Tullycraft released three solid full-length albums (1996’s Old Traditions, New Standards, 1998’s City of Subarus, and 2002’s Beat, Surf, Fun) and assorted tracks for singles and compilations.
Since its inception, Tullycraft has also experienced several lineup changes. Keyboard player and guitarist Chris Munford (of Incredible Force of Junior) signed on in 1998, and Gary Miklusek left in 1999. After Miklusek’s departure, the group took what it refers to as an “extended layoff” – during which the future of the band seemed uncertain. In 2002, the group returned with guitarist Harold Hollingsworth who had previously toured with the group, and recorded Beat, Surf, Fun for Magic Marker Records. Coming three years later, Disenchanted Hearts Unite features a further revised lineup that now includes Corianton Hale on second guitar and Jenny Mears on vocals.
Disenchanted Hearts Unite is the culmination of years of fine-tuning from a group talented enough to spark a cult following from its earliest creations. To say that the record will likely go down as Tullycraft’s magnum opus is not to diminish its prior or future works. After all, this is a group whose lead singer once boasted “Fuck me, I’m twee!” on “Twee” from Beat, Surf, Fun. Still, one would be hard pressed to recall or even imagine a record on which Tullycraft or any other twee-pop outfit might sound as tight, joyous, or vital.
Musically and lyrically, Disenchanted Hearts Unite is the pinnacle of twee-pop preciousness. Combine playfully earnest lyrics with keyboards, jangling guitars, boy-girl harmonies, trinket-like percussion, and addictive hooks and you’ve got not only an apt description of this record but also a fairly accurate definition of the genre of twee. There are no weak songs here, but the group is undoubtedly at its best when it cranks up the volume and the tempo. Aside from the opener, “Stowaway,” the finest example of Tullycraft’s pulsating power is “Rumble with the Gang Debs.” This tour-de-force is replete with shimmering guitars, jittery, start-stop rhythms, and enough ‘Bap ba’s” “Ahh ah’s” and “Woo hoo’s” to fill a New Pornographers album (the group must also really like this song because they’re even selling “Rumble with Gang Debs” t-shirts on their website).
As is customary on twee-pop records, the lyrical themes here are as light and bubbly as the music. Tullycraft has always seemed very conscious of its own aura, but here the group’s lyrics seem especially self-aware. This postmodern aesthetic makes even the few songs that don’t conjure Valentine’s Day and candy hearts seem precious. On “Molly’s Got a Crush on Us” (originally recorded by the BMX Bandits as “Kylie’s Got a Crush on Us”), the group proclaims “Well we’re the best band you never heard / We took the song and simply changed the words...Molly got a crush on us.” The group also discusses indie rockers on “Secretly Minnesotan,” which tells of a man named Ricky who “works in a record store on the weekends / Between Vincent and Second Street / Writing songs on a VS840 8-track / Using Midi to push the beats.” If that’s not enough, the listener is later informed that “Ricky says that my band’s [Tullycraft’s] just a Sebadoh rip-off / And I can’t disagree.”
If all this seems a bit too precious, remember that such is the defining characteristic of the genre in which Tullycraft works. Moreover, Tullycraft’s wit, charisma, and musical ability make it hard to not to fall under the spell of Disenchanted Hearts Unite. Thus far, it is without question the best twee-pop album released this year. And it’s among the best of any genre.
-Ben Ewing 09/01/05
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Click here to read an interview I conducted with Tullycraft following the release of Disenchanted Hearts Unite.
Hear "Stowaway" superimposed over some concert footage.
Sure, any band that could be rightly placed in the "pop underground" could be called indie pop and few would bat an eye lash. The problem is that the term "indie," has been so often used and so often abused, that it (a) no longer functions with any precision, and (b) now has a pejorative connotation in many circles. There is perhaps no more reliably easy way to dismiss a "next big thing" band than to raise one eyebrow, sneer, and say "Pssh, that's just some indie rock bullshit." In short, "indie rock" and "indie pop" have come to stand more clearly for "hyped by hipsters" than for any underlying musical aesthetic.
Fine. But what about the acts that are part of the pop underground--genuinely below the mainstream radar, and yet ignored or unendorsed by the tastemakers of the day?
What about the Pernice Brothers? They're six albums deep and yet Joe Pernice--easily one of the finest pop composers of the past 10 years--and his current band have yet to release a single record to universal acclaim among the indie institutions. Instead, each album's share of high praise (which comes mostly from the scattered mainstream publications that take note) is dampened by an equal share of lukewarm reviews that regurgitate the same stupid cliche that Pernice's songs are either too depressing (this from Ian Curtis worshipers of all people!) or too impeccably crafted to be any good. This is the kind of nonsense that makes me almost sympathesize with the great Tin Pan Alley scholar Alec Wilder, who has been quoted as saying "after 1955, all the amateurs took over." It also may help explain why, when I saw Pernice perform at a dive bar in Buffalo last summer, he was playing to a crowd of locals who came to get drunk, not Pitchfork readers who came to be seen.
In 2000, Pernice issued a set of his songs under the monikor Chappaquiddick Skyline that wasn't reviewed frequently enough to get much of bum rap. While it lacks the incandescent hooks the songs he has penned for the Pernice Brothers, the record is nevetheless stunning in its ability to sustain a melancholy mood without overwhelming or boring the listener. "I hate my life," Pernice says in the opening line of the first track, pretty well summing up the emotional state of the set. The sadness is so gorgeous, however, that it allows for no ill-will or bitterness. Slow-burners like "Solitary Swedish Houses," and "The Two of You Sleep" use simple acoustic guitar strums, lullaby-like melodies and Pernice's pristine voice to bare a man's soul. Pernice never loses his focus, and when the instrumentation picks up--as on the stirring New Order cover "Leave Me Alone"--the mood only intensifies.
Conclusion: "indie pop" doesn't even do Pernice's side projects justice.
To hear audio clips of Chappaquiddick Skyline, click here.
Original Soundtrack Jackie Brown: Music from the Motion Picture
Unlike most of the idioms explored in this blog, "soundtrack" isn't a genre or a style. The soundtrack is, however, a significant mode of musical expression, and for that reason, it qualifies for discussion. Since 1955, when Blackboard Jungle became the first movie to feature rock 'n roll music--technically just one rock song, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his Comets--American vernacular music has played an integral role in film. It's no coincide that nearly all of my favorite directors--Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Wes Anderson--have paid close attention song selection for their movies, noting the precise effects different songs create. Many of the soundtracks to these auteurs' films are worthy of examination, but I will touch on the music from Tarantino's Jackie Brown for two reasons: first, I previously referenced the soundtrack in my post on Major Harris ("Day 13: Philly Soul"), and second, I happened to watch the movie this past weekend.
Stylish but also warm, the movie in an underrated piece in Tarantino's oeuvre. By the time of Jackie Brown's release, Tarantino had already built a reputation for himself as a director keenly attuned to the power of music in film with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Music plays a more significant role in Jackie Brown than in either of those films, however, both in terms of creating a general aesthetic and advancing the plot. A number of stirring 70s soul tracks--including Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street," the title track to a movie from 1972, Bill Withers' "Who is He (And What is He to You?)" and Randy Crawford's "Street Life"--set the tone of the film and link it to the uber-stilized blaxploitation flicks of the decades earlier. The musical centerpiece of the film is the Delfonics' "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)" a bona fide classic of 70s soul that perfectly captures the central relationship in the movie--the pseudo-romantic partnership between middle-aged bail bondsman Max Cherry and stewardess/smuggler Jackie Brown. Jackie plays the song on vinyl and the awed Max purchases the tape and plays it on his car stereo throughout the film. The song title alone encapsules both Max's reverence of Jackie, and the way Max eventually surprises Jackie with his own strength, but it doesn't hurt that the song is utterly gorgeous.
The Delfonics - Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) [LIVE]
I don’t care much for most of what passes for rhythm and blues these days. The kind of music that certain snobs and I derisively qualify as “contemporary” R&B or separate from rhythm and blues altogether with the tag “urban,” today finds an outlet via the unceasingly grating tunes of Ne-Yo, Mario, Ciara and Omarian, among others. Had it not been coined by former Motown president Kedar Massenburg in the late 90s, the term neo-soul—or some variant thereof—probably would have emerged anyway, as a necessary means of distinguishing between the slick and shallow flavors of the week and such deeply soulful artists as D’Angelo, Maxwell, and Erykah Badu. Unfortunately, the success of a few genuinely talented neo-soul arts spawned a movement, which in turn led overeager labels and budding artists to co-opt the term and bits of the aesthetic without paying proper musical tribute to genre they claimed to emulate. The neo-soul label thus quickly fell out of favor among those with discerning taste and ceased to be an effective means of elevating a select few modern R&B singers above their peers.
While the label may no longer do it justice, Remy Shand’s 2002 debut album The Way I Feel is neo-soul at its finest. A blue-eyed crooner (Canadian, no less), Shand grew up on R&B and soul and the influence of soul legends Marvin Gaye and Al Green is borne out on his only release to this day. “Rocksteady,” for example, has a prototypical Green groove while the title track sounds like it an unreleased outtake from Gaye’s I Want You. The extraordinarily talented Shand recorded and mixed the entire album himself, over the course of four years at his home in Winnipeg, and with help of US distribution by Motown, the record managed more than respectable commercial success: it spawned three music videos (“Take a Message,” “The Way I Feel” and “Rocksteady”), went gold, and received four Grammy nominations. So what happened to Shand? It’s unclear. Amazingly, the information age notwithstanding, it appears that there haven’t been any public releases of information about him since late 2003, when Shand’s official website stated, as it still does today: “Remy is back in the studio, and you’ve come to the right place to listen to his new song ‘Day in the Shade.’” Here’s hoping the mystery will be solved soon.
Throughout the history of popular music, more than a few record labels have tackled particular styles of music with such singular approaches that their names have become synonymous with their respective idioms. Few, if any of these labels, however, have cultivated sounds as distinct or as wildly successful as the Motown sound during its heyday from the 1960s through the early 1970s. The empire whose timeline begins with the incorporation of Tamla Records in January of 1959, and whose history begins in earnest with Barrett Strong's #2 R&B hit "Money (That's What I Want)" which appeared later that year, eventually developed a house sound like no other. The extraordinary songwriting trio of Holland, Dozier and Holland wrote an inordinate number of Motown's hits, and the Funk Brothers, a select group of studio musicians whose ranks changed somewhat over the course of Motown's history, performed on the majority of records produced at the height of the label's popularity. A number of the early Funk Brothers, such as Benny Benjamin (drums) and James Jamerson (bass) were considered so crucial to the Motown sound that Barry Gordy and other producers refused to record without them. This is the stuff of legend. A Motown hound I met in Memphis last summer told me a story in which Gordy held up a recording session for hours waiting for Jamerson, who Gordy insisted should play even when he was eventually found in an advanced state of inebriation. I don't doubt the veracity of the story--in fact, such events probably happened frequently given that both Benjamin and Jamerson were documented fiends for the bottle.
Though the records of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Supremes, the Temptations, and the Four Tops epitomized the Motown sound, the label continued to achieve significant commercial and artistic successes into the 1970s when artists such as Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder broke away from the hit-making recipe of the 60s. Even as such artists took the reigns of their careers and broke new sonic ground, however, records put out on Motown retained the fundamental element of the formula that intially made the label so successful: an instantly accessible fusion of rhythm and blues and pop songcraft. This duality remained even as Motown began producing classic albums (What's Going On, Innervisions, Songs in the Key of Life) rather than just an endless string of chart-toppers.
One of the great, overlooked Motown albums of the early 70s was Eddie Kendrick's People... Hold On. An original member of the Temptations who frequently sang in falsetto, Hendricks took the lead on the classic "Just My Imagination (Runnin' Away With Me)" before he left the Temptations in 1971 to begin a solo career. Leaving the Temps, who were still enjoying incredible popularity at the time, was a risky move, but Kendricks disproved his doubters by recording not only a number of hits, but also one of the best later-period Motown LPs. Beginning with the funky groove of the otherwise straightforward pop opener "If You Let Me," People...Hold On is a rhythmic tour-de-force with addictive melodies to boot. "Day By Day" sounds like it could have been written by Stevie Wonder though it was actually penned by Terry McFaddin. The album's four Caston/Poree compositions are also extremely successful, especially the somewhat experimental "My People Hold On," which, with its chants and African drumming, may be as close as Motown ever got to roots music.
To hear audio clips of Eddie Kendricks, click here.
The House of Love The House of Love (Creation, 1988)
Shoegaze. Noise pop. Dream pop. To the novice, these labels may function as interchangeable tags. Even knowledgeable critics may use them this way, if only for variety's sake. If one wants to be truly precise, however--and it should be clear by now that this writer does--it's worth noting subtle distinctions. Admittedly, some groups don't fit neatly into these categories, and the distinctions can seem tenuous, but, as I hope to show, a careful analysis justifies itself.
The ethereal soundscapes of guitarist Kevin Shields and his legendary group My Bloody Valentine epitomize shoegaze, the early 90s genre named for its artists' motionless, eyes-to-the-ground performances. The primary focus in shoegaze is creating lush textures; the craft is in melding drones, distortion, and feedback with melodic guitar lines to create something beautiful. Even the most straightforward pop in the idiom--Ride's "Twisterella," for example--is memorable more for guitar timbres than melodies.
In contrast, noise pop, which was pioneered by the Jesus and Mary Chain half a decade prior to shoegaze, owes a much greater debt to traditional pop songcraft. This is not to say that noise pop is more accessible than shoegaze. A cursory listen to the Jesus and Mary Chain's groundbreaking debut Psychocandy will quickly dispel such thoughts. In fact, noise pop in the purest sense is defined by enough layers of piercing white noise to send moms and dads searching for earplugs. However, beneath the noisy facade are blissful pop songs in mode of A.M. radio and early Beach Boys. "Just Like Honey," perhaps the most famous noise pop song of all, could have been crafted in the Brill Building. Instead of draping the tune in a Spectoresque arrangement, however, the brothers Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain created their own "wall of sound"--a more literal take on the phrase--which would prove equally influential.
Connoting a sound more accessible than either noise pop or shoegaze, dream pop fuses the traditional pop songcraft of the former with the shimmering guitar lines of the latter. Dream pop is seldom as aggressive as noise pop, but the line between the two may nevertheless be hard to find, particularly because the Jesus and Mary Chain straddled it over the course of their great run. While Psychocandy is indisputably noise pop, the group's softer-around-the-edges follow-up, Darklands, could go either way.
One of the finest dream pop acts was the House of Love, a band whose first two albums were every bit the equal of Darklands, but closer to straight-ahead college rock. With more active rhythms, and even bits of jagged, jangly guitar, the House of Love established a sound that was somewhere between the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Smiths. "Christine," the lead track on the House of Love's debut, is the closest the group got to the Jesus and Mary Chain sound and it's also when of finest moments on the album. As a heavily distorted and reverbed guitar line hovers about nearly motionless, the bassline creates melodic interest, preparing the listener for the build up to the epic refrain, wherein "Christine" is repeated many times. At the song's climax, we're even treated to "ba-da-ba-da-ba" harmonies.
"Christine" transitions into "Hope" which is melodic jangle pop at its best. Other standouts include "Salome," on which guitarist Terry Bickers does his best Johnny Marr impersonation, and "Love in a Car" which is a great example of dramatic buildup in pop music. The soft, otherworldly rhythm guitar that begins the track is eventually joined by sprinkles of lead guitar like twinkling stars in a night sky. About two minutes in, Pete Evans briefly pounds the drums for an emotional climax then exits, only to start up again softly and get louder and louder until the music--and all the rock-crit jargon it inspires--eventually fades into oblivion.
Deep soul is more a characterization of a certain type of Southern soul than a genre unto itself, but if anyone so epitomizes the classification as to make it a necessary distinction, it's Southern soul legend James Carr, the deepest of the deep. Deep soul refers specifically to a style of singing that places a special emphasis on emotional expression (even by soul's standards) and is steeped in gospel. The son of a minister, James Carr grew up singing in church and eventually made the R&B charts as a soul singer in 1966 with "You Got My Mind Messed Up." Carr is best known, however, for recording the definitive version of the Penn/Moman classic "Dark End of the Street." A poignant tale of adultery, "Dark End of the Street" has since been recorded by dozens of artists, including Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Linda Ronstadt, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, but no other version holds a candle to Carr's. Among Southern soul fans, Carr's work is held up alongside that of Otis Redding as some of the grittiest, most powerful soul ever recorded. Carr's debut album, You Got My Mind Messed Up, which contains both "You Got My Mind Messed Up" and "Dark End of the Street," deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. The record is loaded with standouts such as the Staxsy groove of "These Ain't Raindrops" and the country-soul of "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man." Anyone taken with You Got My Mind Messed Up shouldn't stop there, however. The Kent compilation The Complete Goldwax Singles is also essential listening, featuring, among other tracks, a stirring cover of "To Love Somebody."
To hear an audio clip of Carr's "Dark End of the Street," click here.
While the label New Zealand rock could theoretically be applied to any rock music originating in New Zealand, it is generally used to refer specifically to a set of groups from the late 1980s and early 90s whose melodicism, literate lyrics, and jangly guitars tied them closely to the college rock underground in America. In addition to the broad phrase New Zealand rock, the terms "kiwi rock" and the "Dunedin sound" have also been applied to music from the country. Whereas kiwi rock may be thought of as merely an informal phrasing synonymous with the more straightforward "New Zealand rock," nitpickers are quick to note that the Dunedin sound has a narrower application--it refers, specifically, to a sound born in the city of Dunedin that fused a minimalist, amateurish aesthetic drawn from punk with the jangly guitars and bright melodies of the Beatles and the Byrds. The best known New Zealand rock groups--Toy Love, the Tall Dwarfs, the Clean, the Chills, the Verlaines, the Bats--all either performed within or were heavily influenced by the Dunedin idiom and they all recorded at one time or another on the seminal independent label Flying Nun Records. For a broad smattering of the label and scene, consult the four-band compilation, Dunedin Double EP, or the Flying Nun sampler In Love With These Times. For a closer look at Flying Nun and the Dunedin sound, click here.
In 1994, Martin Phillips (of the Clean) and David Kilgour (of the Chills) collaborated with three other Dunedin sound musicians to create a short-lived supergroup called the Pop Art Toasters. The group recorded just one five-song covers EP of relatively obscure pop songs from the 1960s, but what an EP it was. From their sped-up take on the charming "What Am I Gonna Do," originally by Nuggets-vintage garage rockers the Dovers, to their slightly more modern sounding version of the West Coast Art Pop Experimental Band's "I Won't Hurt You," the Toasters show that they not only have impeccable taste, but also real interpretive talent. The EP is a true obscurity, so you're having trouble tracking down a copy, post a comment. I may be able to help you out.
Download "I Won't Hurt You" from Pop Art Toasters EPhere.
Michel Polnareff
