TerryB's MixTape

Catching up with MMJ on ACL from DVR.

2009-06-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

At first I wasn't sure about 'Evil Urges' but in this live setting especially I dig the 70's pop / Shuggie Otis blues-soul they bring to their indie jam schtick.

Jay Bennett, R.I.P.

2009-05-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

Jay Bennett, ex-Wilco, has been dead for days now. It's kinda shaken me up a tad. I admit to minimizing his impact on Wilco's music in the past, as I wrote a year ago in this music forum thread:
Been a fan since Being There, wasn't too into A.M (or Uncle Tupelo for that matter, whose final tour I caught). Bennett was a great addition to the band as a sideman and production assistant. Left to his own devices he puts too much crap into the mix, as is evident on his unlistenable solo albums. Palace at 4 AM is brilliant, but consider that it was done again with a collaborator (Edward Burch) and with some co-writes from Tweedy. As for the live band, I've seen every tour since BT, and none have disappointed. However, since cleaning up Tweedy has taken on a more relaxed, affable stage presence, and the latest outfit does the best ensemble/jam thing of any. Any time I saw them with Bennett he acted like the superior rock-star prick, spotlight stage left, thank you.

I'm a big Wilco fan, they may rank second only to the Kinks as my top act ever. I've been revisiting the Bennett-era albums, not that I don't play them anyway, but in particular this week. Just now I popped on their first post-Bennett release, A Ghost is Born, which gives a better assessment of what he brought to the party when you don;t hear his contributions. Simply put, the man was a musical master, a pop architect. It is undeniable that his contributions to Wilco took them from pretty-good alt-country territory to best band going right now. Yes, he was a little ADD in his approach, and may have cluttered things up a bit when left to his own devices. He may have been hard to deal with...so can Tweedy be. None of that overshadows his impact on some of the greatest records recorded in the past twenty years. And Jay's solo/collaborative record with Edward Burch (Palace at 4 AM) is a lost pop masterpiece.
Cause of death is still unknown, but anyone dying at 45 is a shame. Live every day as if it were your last, one day it will be. And try to make nice with those you have loved, because one day you may not be able to say "I'm Sorry".

An Outtake from I am Trying to Break Your Heart, Jay's tune "Cars Can't Escape":

The Jay composition "My Darling" from Session at W. 54th:

Jay's contributions the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

21 Reasons Why Jay Bennett Should be Back in Wilco

R.I.P. Jay.....

Thinking Outside The Box Store

2009-04-07T05:27:00.000-07:00

From Magnet, 2006:

"So you’re leafing through the ads in the Sunday paper and what to your wondering eyes should appear but the new Cat Power CD for $7.99. At Best Buy. This, you figure, is a great thing. Cheaper than iTunes, way cheaper than the $12.99 they’ll probably be charging at the local record store. And look: You can pick up Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire and a couple other titles at the same ridiculous price. It’s almost free, and therein, gentle indie rockers, lies the problem......"

Read it all here, then go out and buy a record from the locals.

Record Store Day

2009-04-07T02:20:00.000-07:00

April 18. This annual event will take place at your local independent record store. Lots of promos and exclusives and just a good reason to support these guys in down times. C'mon folks, how about picking up a real, tangible album (or cd) rather than send all your cash to Itunes or worse??

http://www.recordstoreday.com

John Mellencamp on the state of the music 'industry'

2009-03-26T12:31:00.001-07:00

From Huffington Post (also on his website)

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We've read and heard about the "good old days" and how things used to be. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements. Artists and their music flourished in back alleys, taverns and barns until, in some cases, a popular groundswell propelled it far and wide. These days, that possibility no longer seems to exist. After 35 years as an artist in the recording business, I feel somehow compelled, not inspired, to stand up for our fellow artists and tell that side of the story as I perceive it. Had the industry not been decimated by a lack of vision caused by corporate bean counters obsessed with the bottom line, musicians would have been able to stick with creating music rather than trying to market it as well.....

Read the whole piece

The Amazing Saving Grace of Neko Case

2009-03-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

I tend to be a year behind all the cool trends, and I like it that way. I tend to peruse end of year best-of lists and use them to get the music I missed. It's a good strategy; the fluff may get sorted out a bit better, some records may be available in the used bin or finally on vinyl. As I was going over this Hype Machine Music Blog Zeitgeist list of the best of 2008, I was amazed with not only the shittiness of a lot of it, but that this is what the kids think was the best of the year. This blog polls other music blogs for their best-of's, so it's weighted towards techie/hipster stuff that the smart white kids listen to. Now there is some great music on their; Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark, Sun Kil Moon's April, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Dig!!! Lazarus Dig, and Deerhunter's Microcastle come to mind. But a lot of this stuff is crap, blippy disco-dance fluff recorded and mastered with that terrible compressed and tipped fizzy-treble sound. Come on... MGMT? Cut Copy? M83? Hot Chip? This shit is the best of the year?

Along comes this week a little salvation in this world of shit, Neko Case's latest Middle Cyclone. Miss Case is this amazing singer, great songwriter, and just plain wonderful artist. Call her thing alt-country if you want but her sound is way more varied than the usual twangers, and her involvement as singer with the New Pornographers, not to mention her old punk n' twang days with cub, Maow, and others gives her hipster cachet. This latest album is easily her best, taking the lush, orchestral sounds of her recent releases and finally putting them to slightly less abstract songs that dodge around and demand interpretation while offering a touchstone to start from. Listen to her rather oblique yet excellent last album Fox Confessor... and you'll get my drift.

There are enough full/'professional' reviews out there ( here, here, here, and here to start) that I won't waste anyone's time with my own. Suffice to say though that this record starts off (in March no less) 2009 on a great foot. The music is great, the songs are great, and that voice...that voice.

Here's an excellent interview from the NY Times on the making of the album and all, and one from NPR. Since she's apparently moved to Vermont, I think I'll hit her up to sing at my summer barbecue for all the free cider she wants.

Obama's Secret Record Collection

2009-01-27T09:10:00.001-08:00

from Rolling Stone....

When Barack Obama moved into the White House on January 20th, he gained access to five chefs, a private bowling alley — and a killer collection of classic LPs. Stored in the basement of the executive mansion is the official White House Record Library: several hundred LPs that include landmark albums in rock (Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed), punk (the Ramones' Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols), cult classics (Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin) and disco. Not to mention records by Santana, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Isaac Hayes, Elton John, the Cars and Barry Manilow.

During the waning days of the Nixon administration, the RIAA, the record companies' trade group, decided the library should include sound recordings as well as books. In 1973, the organization donated close to 2,000 LPs. The bad news: The selection was dominated by the likes of Pat Boone, the Carpenters and John Denver. In 1979, legendary producer John Hammond convened a new commission to update the list for the hipper Carter administration. "They felt they needed to redress some of the oversights that might have taken place the first time around," says Boston music critic and author Bob Blumenthal, who was put in charge of adding 200 rock records to the library.

At the commission's first meeting, Blumenthal brought up Randy Newman's thorny dissection of Southern culture, Good Old Boys, to determine what restrictions the panel might face. "That was exhibit A," Blumenthal says. "And I was told, 'Oh, the president loves that album! Go ahead!' " So Blumenthal and his advisers — including Paul Nelson, then Rolling Stone's reviews editor — compiled a list to reflect "diversity in what was going on in popular music." They picked the Kinks' Arthur for its "theme of empire," and Blumenthal snuck in favorites like David Bowie's Hunky Dory.

On January 13th, 1981, the LPs — each in a sleeve with a presidential seal — were presented to Jimmy Carter at a White House ceremony. But the collection — placed in a hallway near the third-floor listening room, complete with a sound system — didn't remain upstairs long. When Ronald Reagan took office that year, the LPs were moved to the basement. Depending on the source, the reason was Nancy Reagan's distaste for shelves of vinyl, or the edgy choices themselves. A spokesman for Obama said it was too early to comment on whether the president would revive the library. But Obama may be pleased to learn that at least a few of his favorite albums — Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run — are there if he wants them on pristine slabs of vinyl.

[From Issue 1071 — February 5, 2009]

2008 Recap, #1 Music Together Now!

2009-01-22T04:33:00.000-08:00

By far my favorite musical moments this year came from the Music Together class that we enrolled Alice in. Every Saturday morning we head over to the All Together Now compound in East Montpelier and sing and dance around with other kiddos and parents. It's been such a joy to watch Alice open up, have fun, and sing along, and I expect we'll keep up with the program for some time. Anyone with kiddos ought to check it out.

2008 Recap- #2 Ray Davies

2009-01-22T04:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'll finish my 2008 list and put it to bed.

#2- Ray Davies, Working Man's Cafe and 12/11/08 at Higher Ground:

Everyone should know I'm a big Kinks fan, from back when I started listening to music. And even though I missed out on the boys from about 1993-2000 (funny how that coincides with my 'wasted youth' years), they are now again in major rotation in my life. Ray put out arguably one of his best records since the early 80's last spring, Working Man's Cafe. Another wistful look back like Village Green a bit, with his solid publican attitude. Ray also wrote some great stuff reflecting on life itself, particularly "Morphine Song" which deals with his recovery after being shot by a mugger in New Orleans maybe five years ago. In general, a really solid record.
So when I see Ray is making a rare Vermont stop on his short winter tour, I was pretty psyched. I hadn't seen Ray since '91 or '92, missing his local/regional stops while I was in my twenties. In spite of the show's promotion and a really shitty snow/ice storm that night, he nearly packed the house. Starting the set as an acoustic duo, he pulled out some killer material, reaching back to the Kinks' Golden Years for tracks like "I Need You", "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", and "See My Friends", among others. As his touring band members trickled out on stage song-by sonhg the intimate duo morphed into a full band and filed the set with selections from the new albums (including tracks off 2005's Other People's Lives) mixed with older classics. "Celluloid Heroes" was performed so well I damn near weeped, and the only bugger I had was that they could have dropped "Apeman" and pulled out "Shangri-La" which has been played at some other shows on the tour. All in all, a great night and one of my top ten shows ever.

Set List

MissN' Cider

2009-01-08T17:56:00.001-08:00

Pretty creative, I gotta say...

Ron Asheton, RIP

2009-01-07T05:21:00.000-08:00

Stooges massively influential guitarist Ron Asheton found dead.

Sad stuff....

2008 Recap...British Pop

2009-01-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

So I've been doing this recap thing, not really a 'top 10 list' since there's more than ten things and I haven't really ordered them. Well now I'll start the numbering....

3) Yeah, three. There's a bunch more stuff before in my more recent posts that could be called 11 or so through 4. But this is where I rank them. I'm lumping two discovery into one post since it's really the vein of music I'm talking about here, rawky british pop. Sort of.

I first heard the Kooks on XM and was pretty caught by their retro-now sound. Didn't know anything about them, but their hooky guitar pop caught me and I had to remind myself to check them out. This was a year ago, maybe two. I guess they sold a shitload of that first record, which I have yet to hear save for that one radio song I can't remember now. So they put out a record this year called Konk. As in Ray Davies/the Kinks studio. That says a lot, and I picked it up. It is what it is, decpetively simple four guys-with-guitars pop. They don't annoy me like the Strokes, who seem to have no soul. Anyway, this is a killer record, with memorable yet disposable hooks. Love it. Get it on vinyl and like me, 'clean' it on your homemade record vacuum before recording it to digital. That way the super glue residue on the vacuum wand will scuff up the last 1/2 inch of grooves and give the recording that old time scratchy sound.

Locksley, Don't Make Me Wait. These guys aren't British, they're kids from Wisconsin now in uber-hip Brooklyn. They opened on Ray Davies short winter tour last month. Their cd is a bitch to find since they're unsigned, but I guess they have some licemsing deal with MTV and maybe some commercials. They're album is totally fucking derivative and killer. They sound like the Small Faces and the Beatles (pre 1966). They're nice kids. They'll make you dance around the room. Preview the record here, then buy it.

Music and Culture

2009-01-01T11:28:00.001-08:00

I went to First Night Montpelier last night with the family, mainly so Alice could dance. As usual at this event there are a ton of performances throughout the afternoon, many focused on non-Western music, for lack of a better term. Last year Alice surprised us when she broke out into a wicked hoe-down during a Klezmer performance, so we headed to see the same folks again this year to start the afternoon off. While Alice didn't bust out as much as last year, due probably to being a bit tired from her recent nap and a venue change to a fluorescent-lit room and all, I couldn't help but appreciate the scene we were taking in. Here was a group of Vermont-transplanted Jews keeping alive their musical, linguistic, and cultural history with an art form that has been passed down all the way back from the home land, or Eastern Europe anyway, for centuries. Some audience members were totally into it, doing that Jewish line dancing thing and all, and a tiny little cultural center popped up for a moment. Considering that Orange County where I grew up is 1/2 hour and fifty years behind Montpelier, it was good to see this. So that got me thinking what music I should be listening to, performing, or otherwise spreading to keep my seven-generation Central Vermont Yankee culture alive.
I can say that music wasn't huge in my upbringing, at least 'traditional' music. My grandmother would tell stories of 'kitchen junkets' back in her youth, when a designated family up on West Hill (or South or East Hill in Williamstown and Brookfield, respectively) would invite everyone over on a Saturday night, clear out the kitchen, and hoe down to fiddle music. I certainly don't carry this tradition on, and it seems the only ones who do are hippies who co-opted contra dancing and old folks who put on museum shows.
So we left the show to see a guy who blows bubbles and get something to eat, then made our way over to see 35th Parallel. Here's an outfit that throws my earlier thinking on its head, two Americans, one Jewish I presume (not that it matters but it plays into the above reference of maintaining one's culture through their music), that specialize in multiple world music styles: "35th Parallel's name comes from the latitude line intersecting the regions that inspire their music - the Middle East, North India, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the United States." These guys pull bits of culture from all over the world and meld it together into their own art form that respects its influences while creating a new sense of wonder regarding non-Western music, culture, and thought.
So now my hypothesis was getting all screwy, and we went home. After dropping off Alice and Julie I shot up to Hardwick to see my brother's band, Dog House Roses play a rare gig at Claire's. These guys play rock music, well-rooted in the 4/4 Western (not Country-Western) aesthetic. No tablas, bouzoukis, fiddles, or dance callers. I then realized that this music, while it seems 'simpler' than all that other fancy stuff, is a legitimate, traditional form for Americans and even Western Europeans from the latter half of the 20th century and beyond. It certainly evolves, as do all traditional art forms, and it steals from others, but in the end it is as important as Raga, Jazz, Klezmer, or whatever.
Now I can appreciate the The Kinks, or The Stooges, or Built to Spill, or Alejandro Escovedo, or Sun Kil Moon, or whatever and know that it is simply the tradition of music that is being carried on. I don't have to worry that I'm not saving my culture from fading away, because my culture and its art evolves with the times while still keeping its distinct identity (those contra dancers still kick up a mean show). And what is really fascinating and deserves it own analysis someday is how we as a species have always sought melodic/harmonic sounds to integrate into our lives. I guess any music therefore maintains Human Culture in that regard.

Oh what the hell am I babbling about, I've been listening to the Misfits all week.

TB

2008 Recap, Chinese Democracy

2009-01-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

I was in Best Buy back in November buying Julie that ubiquitous electronic for wives this year, the Car GPS, when I saw this on the racks. I sort of knew it was coming out but haven't paid much attention, and haven't been tempted to listen to the 'leaks' that have popped up over the years.
The backstory needs little retelling; paranoid whacko Axl holes up for 17 years with gazillions of money to make an album with no consistent band, producer, or even songwriter it seems. When it finally sees the light of day everyone is expected to either laud it unquestionably or pan it automatically. I figure I'll judge it on its own merits.
On first listen I thought, "Holy Shit, this is good!" On second lisetn, too. Amazing, earth-shattering, anything even close to Appetite for Destruction? Hell no. But this sounds like a logical followup to Use Your Illusion. It's basic hard rock with Axl's 'you against me' lyrics and obvious contribution, sound and song-wise, from Robin Fink (Nine Inch Nails) and Buickethead, who plays some pretty solid and even Slash-like solos.
Most amazingly this record isn't overly compressed like so many nowadays, and just plain sounds good. Turn it up, especially on "Better," "Street of Dreams,", and "There was a Time."

TB

Misfits Box Set...

2008-12-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from the 'best of '08' thing, although I guess this would count, so I guess I'm not. I've had this little 'wishlist' on my site far awhile, so long it's outdated and Julie thinks a little tacky, like I'm begging for shit. Since I don't really update it I thought I had de-linked it from the site. So what do I fond from my wonderful wife under the tree this morning but a little item I had placed on there, The Misfits' Box Set. I secretly was thinking I might buy this for myself this Christmas but wasn't sure how to do it and stick to my 'buy local' resolution. And here it is, staring right at me...about the last thing I expected to get from Julie.
This set compiles four discs, about 100 songs, from the bands whole punk-fuckin' rock career. I haven't heard the Misfits since high school, when I borrowed Jason Goodrich's copy of Walk Among Us and eventually got my own. I loved that horror-rock stuff, brilliantly simple and crass comic book lyrics blasted over rudimentarily simple (in the best way, think Ramones here) three-chord punk. What makes this music is Glenn Danzig's amazingly tuneful/melodic/powerful voice. I doubt it was multitracked in the recordings but he has some amazing way of harmonizing with himself in real time. I had most of my cassettes swiped from my car in my senior year of high school, so it's been 17 years since I've popped this on. I just pulled a workout to Disc One, and this shit hasn't lost anything. Highly recommended.

Oh go
Possession of the mind is a terrible thing
Its a transformation with an urge to kill
Not the body of a man from earth
Not the face of the one you love, cause

Well, I turned into a martian
Woah oh oh
I cant even recall my name
Woah oh oh
Times I never hardly sleep at night
Woah oh oh
Well, I turned into a martian today

I walk down city streets
On an unsuspecting human world
Inhuman in your midst
This world is mine to own, cause

Well, I turned into a martian
Woah oh oh
Well, I cant even recall my name
Woah oh oh
Times I never hardly sleep at night
Woah oh oh
Well, I turned into a martian today

Go go

Well, I turned into a martian
Woah oh oh
Well, I cant even recall my name
Woah oh oh
Times I never hardly sleep at night
Woah oh oh
Turned into a martian
Woah oh oh
Cant even recall my name
Oh, wont you tell me what the fuck is my name, martian
Woah oh oh
Woah oh oh

More 2008 tunes

2008-12-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here's some more stuff that I listened to this year:

Equipment, two items of note:
I picked up this fancy car stereo, a JVC KD-PDR80 this summer that plays mp3s right off a USB flash drive. High fidelity? Hardly, but neither is the listening environment in my eight year-old civic. Convenience? Amazing, I can fit some 40-50 albums in high-rate (VBR-0, roughly 200kbps) form on a 4 gig drive. No more shuffling cd's in the car, and I can listen to a lot of older stuff easily without feeling like I'm wasting a cd-r. If only it used SD memory (so I didn't have a thumb drive sticking out of the dash) and played flac files. Ohwell, it's pretty sweet anyway.

I have this old turntable, a Dual 506, that has this ultralight tonearm that's fussy about cartridge mating. The Ortofon OM series is preferred, but they are becoming discontinued and you really want a higher-level stylus (OM 20 or greater, starting at $100 for the stylus) alone to make it sing. I've had a cheapo OM-3e on here since I got it, but the kind folks at Audiokarma.org gave me this little tip. There's this cat on eBay selling these new old stock 'Digitrac 200 NE' cartridges for $20 including shipping. Turns out they were an OEM Ortofon 20 from the 80's that had a crappy motor setup, so most of them are missing a channel. Turns out the stylus is a nude elliptical, grey market vesrion of the OM-20. So for $20 and using the old OM body I had, I have a $180 cartridge that takes this 'table to another level. I've got it set up in the den/workout room and actually put more hours on it than my main rig, a Music Hall mmf-5. No inner groove distortion, smooth highs, solid lows, and decent midrange. Amazing.

Dave Holland Quintet- Burned a bunch of his stuff from a buddy of mine (I know, bad, BAD). This guy is a hell of a jazz bassist and composer but even better bandleader. All these recordings (late 80's to mid 90's stuff) feature player that just fucking rip that shit up. This is rocking jazz, but definitely not jazz-rock. Killer stuff.

Delta Spirit- My Brother and I went to finally catch the Old 97's back in October. Too bad they sucked. They just didn't want to be there, acting and playing all aloof, guitarist out of tune, slack solos, no energy. We were right in front of the stage so I could see the
setlist, which was shrinking with every song change. So they ended the show early and bro got us into the show in Higher Ground's smaller room. This place was packed with college kids, and this band Dr. Dog was playing. I've seen the name around, figured they were some jam band crap. Their 'look' was pretty horrible; fedoras, Ray Bans, white shirts and skinny ties. Why do these kids born in the 80's (90's?) feel a need to relive that era that they never really knew? Anyway, I soon learned that if you shut your eyes and listen to the music that these kids played some killer indie pop, sort of a Guided by Voices by way of Apples in Stereo/Elephant 6 sort of thing. Checking out the merch table I saw this record by Delta Spirit, who I heard of in a promo email from Pure Pop. I guess they had opened for these Dog kids (horrible name, horrible).
Plopping that platter on at work the next day I was amazed. This was rootsy, Americana-sort of folky rock, with great songs. Turns out the members used to be in some up and coming emo outfit but smartened up and moved to the back porch. So to sum it up, bro and I went to the
wrong show that night, and this is easily one of my top 3 records this year.

The National- Okay, sometimes I'm late to the party. I often make new music choices based on 'best-of' lists from the previous year. I kept seeing The National's Boxer listed for 2007, so picked it up along with its predecessor Alligator. While I prefer the earlier record, I really dig these guys in general. Really downbeat stuff with somewhat complex/mid-tempo instrumentation, right up a Wilco fan's alley.

2008 recap, first post

2008-12-21T17:57:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I don't write here too much, and often when I do it's not much of
note. Oh well...here's my little recap of tunes I was interested in in
2008, as well as some sidenotes:

Pure Pop : I love this place, and support it
whenever I can. Great but smallish selection of new records, and these
guys make their picks so well it's like a snapshot of my dream
collection at any one time. Classic hip college town shop with way cool
disaffected clerks and grating tunes playing just a half-notch too loud.
Since my 2008 New Year's resolution was to buy my music locally, I went
here a little more often than previous, and they tend to get my business
over other Vermont shops.

Metal: Neither of these came from Pure Pop; 1) I loved my rediscovery of
these shitty low-rate MP3's I bought back in '00 or '01 of Sacred Reich
and Mercyful Fate. Killer metal, the latter is pretty proggy/heady
stuff while SR are just straight up thrash, nothing pretty. 2) I've been
digging those Warner reissues of the first four Metallica records. Some
people bitch about the sound quality, but it's friggin' thrash metal,
people. For fifteen clams you get a really good copy of some classic
shit. Bought mine at Exile on Main Street in Barre. Given their rockin'
blue-collar roots it only seems right.

Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts of the Great Highway. I went to a garage sale
this spring and got a bunch of pretty mellow but slightly left-field
stuff; Nick Drake, Jem, Kings of Convenience, Ray Lamontagne (blah...).
This record was to best of the bunch. "Carry Me Ohio" rattles around
the dusty corners of my head a lot. Spooky, shattered Americana from an
artist (Mark Kozelek) I need to learn more about.

Alejandro Escovedo, Real Animal. I've dug this guy for a long time,
and got a chance to catch him last November at a corner bar in Austin.
He played a bunch of the songs that would come out on this record, and
their strength lies in that they sounded like classics then, and again
on first listen to this. Al is at the top of his game right now; just a
solid rock-oriented songwriter with wisdom to offer. Not as deep at
Boxing Mirror but after that reflection on near-death it's good to let
down and boogie a bit.

More to come.......

WBKM...what the f@#?

2008-12-11T11:24:00.003-08:00

Ray Davies is coming to town tonight. Yes, the leader of the Kinks, my all-time favorite band. This is going to be pretty killer. What's the problem? The show is being put on by WBKM, and internet-only station based out of Burlington. Click the link to see their really bad website. Just don't click on the 'listen now' icon lest it totally fuck up your browser as it did mine, after installing the crap plugin required. If you're an internet-only station, don't make it hard to listen to your streams you friggin idiots.
Apparently tickets haven't been moving too quick, no shit, these guys have done pretty much zero promotion on it, and their on-air promos go out to a tiny listenership. They have tried hardballing local media outlets for a shot at an interview with Ray, when in the end they couldn't even get him into their studios for an on-air. I actually listened to The Point on my ride in to see if they were running promos, but of course not; it's not their show and WBKM isn't smart enough to buy time to promote on the station that actually matches both the target audience and the quantity of customers needed to pull this off. With the expected snowstorm the Point was actually encouraging people to stay home tonight and watch Christmas Cartoons rather than go to this pretty amazing show. Unfortunately this will leave a bad taste in Ray's management's mouth and we'll be lucky to see him set foot in Burlington again.
I expect that WBKM will have a hard time covering Ray's guarantee and can only hope that it bankrupts them out of business. Thanks for getting Ray to town, but no thanks for the botched promo of the gig, you tools.

Wild stuff

2008-11-18T06:56:00.001-08:00

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total
mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but, the wrod as a wlohe.

Ptetry amzanig huh?

Old 97's, or my foray into album downloads

2008-10-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

So the Old 97's are playing at Higher Ground tonight. My Bro and I will be catching this one, I've wanted to check these guys out since the turn of the century. When I first picked up Too Far To Care that disc as well as some live shows off dimeadozen.org were in my car deck for weeks on end. Since that peak, the 97's may have faltered a tad, slipping into semi-generic alt-pop territory a bit. Where the writing on TFTC was simply amazing ("If that phone don't ring one more time/ I'm gonna lose what's left of my mind' you make a big impression for a girl of your size/ now I can't get by without you and your big brown eyes", "So I sidled up beside her, settled down and shouted, "Hi there."/ "My name's Stewart Ransom Miller, I'm a serial lady-killer."/ She said, "I'm already dead," that's exactly what she said. ", "Just like California was not even there/ Since it's gone I'm so withdrawn/ I ain't got no one nowhere/ Right beside the ocean my darlin' Clementine/ Well the water got high and she never got dry and She was a water sign"), later material was merely pretty damned good, especially "Muder or a Heart Attack" off Satellite Rides.

So I saw this spring that a new album was out, on New West Records nonetheless, a killer label that I have high respect for in terms of putting out quality product, both in terms of artistry and sound quality. I heard a track, "Dance With Me" on a promo compilation and was a bit dismayed; it sounded squashed like most new releases today. Having been burned on some new records I chose to sit this one out even though the reviews were really solid. I've seen the LP at Pure Pop, but haven't picked it up. This morning, I decided that I had to hear this album if only to be primed for the show. No time to buy it, needledrop it, and dump to digital so I can play it on my Sansa while driving the tractor, so I did the Amazon download thing. I haven't downloaded an album since my foray into eMusic years ago, and their 128 kbps downloads left a lot to be desired. Well click away I did this morning, and the album was loaded up and ready for the car in about ten minutes.
Sound quality? Not bad at all, and the squashed mastering wasn't there from that one track I had heard. Sure it would be nice to have on vinyl, but after dropping $9 for the download I doubt I'll drop another $18 for the record. I don't plan to d/l my music from now on, and this did break my NY resolution to but my music locally, but in a pinch, when i just had to have it, it worked.
So now I'm just pretty psyched to see these guys live, finally.

TB

Don't know what to say about this one...

2008-10-04T17:41:00.001-07:00

Crate digging....

2008-09-15T04:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a pretty funny blog post about 'crate digging', or the practice of digging through pile of used, dusty, often crap records, in search or that 'special one'...

TB

the 90's...the latest great music era?

2008-09-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

This is a really good time to be buying used cd’s, especially at yard sales. While decent vinyl stocks seem to have dried up a bit in the backyard market, casual music consumers are wither changing tactics or dumping music collections altogether. Thank the Ipod and downloading for this I guess- with some more tech-savvy folks dumping their cd’s onto hard drives, the physical media is often tossed as an afterthought (bad idea, IMO). On the other hand, with the ubiquity of shitty-sounding music out there makes listening no longer special, so folks are dumping cd’s and their bulky packaging for invisible mp3’s and DVD’s. So I’ve loaded up on a lot of stuff at garage sales this year, all for $0.50 – 1.00 each.

I picked up this Carpenter’s tribute last weekend, remembering it a bit from back in the day (and being reminded by its inclusion in “Juno”). Not being a major Carpenter’s fan, my history with their music is simply through its position on pop radio while I was growing up. I will never deny these sibling’s ability to write a great pop song. So this collection, produced in 1994, contains tracks by many bands from that era that were hitting on ‘alternative’ radio at the time (and a good few who should have). American Music Club, the cranberries, Johnette Napolitano, Matthew Sweet, Cracker, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland and Shonen Knife contribute tracks (along with Dishwalla, 4 Non Blondes, Sheryl Crow, and others that may not have been in my playlist at the time). Like any good tribute album, this one is held together by the songs; even those I don’t know have a familiar feel that unites the rather different artists. So listening to it on the way home last night felt like a weird time warp to 1992-1994, when a few of these characters played a not insignificant role in my soundtrack.

Which brings me to my point. I’ve heard it said that one’s musical tastes generally are set during their years from 18-25, and this little window fits in there for me. So many changes in life happen during that shift to adulthood, and those changes are accompanied by music that brings us back to that time when our eventual ‘grown-up’ selves are forming. Certainly I can very specifically identify with the music of Matthew Sweet, the Cranberries, Concrete Blonde, and American Music Club with a very particular slice in my time, and the other bands on this comp are peripheral but certainly contemporary with this feeling. And I find myself buying (and listening to) a lot of cd’s from that window, say 1992-1996, this summer. Maybe it’s that folks my age are growing up and out of their music collections, and dumping them at the garage sales along with baby books and that bike they don’t ride. I’ve been gobbling it up though, and I feel for another reason- this was the last great era of mass recorded music.

Yeah, that’s a bold statement, and one every generation makes when the new kids come along with their version of the latest noisy racket. But I but a lot of music, not just at yard sales, and feel a little tuned in to what’s playing nowadays. Just a peek at my stack of records here in the office finds The Sadies New Seasons (2007), Drive-By Truckers Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (2007), Band of Horses Everything All the Time (2006), The Kooks Konk (2008)The Cure The Cure (2004), Ray Davies Working Man’s Café (2008), Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights (2002), and Tapes n’ Tapes Walk it Off (2008). Granted these are just the vinyl LP’s I have at my office, and even represent a more adult contemporary/alt-country sensibility than a pop music one, but I do work around college kids. Sometimes they use my computer to charge their ipods. What do I find on them? Bob Marley, Grateful Dead, Phish, moe AC/DC, Aerosmith (and Coldplay, Radiohead, and U2). Yeah, this is UVM, where a good bit of pop music is the music of the previous generations or its recreation thereof. But I also have working for me one of the music directors of the uber-indie college radio station, WRUV. We’ve swapped some music, and I played DJ with the week’s current review discs when he drove me to Maine for a meeting. None of the music stuck- I was just swapping cd’s and skipping tracks.

Much has been written on the indie rock explosion of the early nineties, when the underground hit the masses with sometimes great results. Today’s pop artists don’t seem to have that tension resulting from the dichotomy between these worlds. And that’s not because the underground doesn’t exist, but rather because the mass pop market is in the toilet. I really think that a lot of this has to do with the new digital distribution. I’m not bitching about downloading per se, although that doesn’t help, but rather the switch from listening to music as a social activity to listening in earbud seclusion, where our soundtracks are no longer shared, and memories no longer associated with the music. Add to this the ridiculous mastering bullshit of most modern releases, where the loudness levels make a listener want to shut the music off, as well as the poor lossy compression that listeners accept by default, and our culture is actively discouraged from actively collecting music as a cultural commodity. So the good music that is created tends to either stay in the indie circles, or make it to AAA radio (now that I’ve heard Spoon on The Point), but stay out of the kid’s hands. And isn’t that where new music belongs, playing the theme to our newest generation’s coming of age?

Amazing.....

2008-08-29T01:51:00.000-07:00

I'm just really discovering YouTube a little (now that we have high-speed). Amazing what creatvity and a littleediting can do. This is absolutelyhilariousand yet could be a hit single....

Gear Daddies, Billy's Live Bait

2008-08-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

I forget where I found this record, but it has a $4 price tag on it. These boys were second-tier contemporaries of the Replacements, Soul Asylum, Jayhawks, and others from the late-eighties Minneapolis scene. Playing understated, competent roots-rock, the Gear Daddies pulled a nice one off with this record. Too bad the band name, and album title for that matter, brings to mind some lunkhead covers bar band who finally got a shot at recording an album.

Two things lift this record from mediocrity. First is the production and mastering. While the band doesn’t go out on any limbs musically, their basic sound crackles and snaps with well-recorded authority, and without heavy-handed (nor overly light) production. On “Where Your Crown” and “Time Heals” the rhythm section in particular snap with a crisp authority that keeps the listener interested.

Songwriter Martin Zellar brings the other real highlight to this record, a great batch of tunes that explore the sunless underside of daily life. This isn’t some mopey stuff a la Mark Eitzel or early Cure, but rather focuses on his own self-deprecating outlook. Take “Where Your Crown” for example:
Open your eyes and look around / Then slowly get up off the ground / First figure where you are / Find your keys, your coat, your car / I don’t want to wear your crown / I’ll only let you down

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be / I’ve got a past keeps haunting me / No matter how hard I try / It’s there, it stares me in the eye / I don’t want to wear your crown / I’ll only let you down / Please don’t make me wear your crown / Don’t you know I was born to let you down? / I don’t want to wear your crown / I’ll only let you down

Doesn’t get any clearer than that, huh? How about “No One Home”:

And the clouds move in / Out of nowhere / Then they’re gone again / My hands are shaking and I’m out of cigarettes / My mind turns over fourteen years of regrets / I lock the doors and unplug the phone / Ain’t no one home

This would all be pretty depressing stuff if it wasn’t delivered with such solid and non-downer music. And that explains why this record stands out so well, that dichotomy between lyrical focus and sharp musicianship presents a pretty ironic package that grabs you, pulls you into the story. Too bad these guys didn’t make it. After breaking up in 1992, Zellar went out on his own, although the GD’s have reformed for a few reunion gigs since.