CD Odyssey Disc 634: Beck

Earlier this week I was thinking about giving up the guitar since I rarely find or make any time to practice. But then as I puzzled through Springsteen’s “Tougher Than The Rest” with my teacher, Josh, I realized that it isn’t just about being able to play well that draws me to the guitar. It is also about having a deeper understanding of all the music that I love. That alone kept me going. Learning an instrument is doing for music what getting an English degree did for poetry; it is making me appreciate it more.

So on to an album I definitely appreciated.

Disc 634 is….Morning Phase

Artist: Beck

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? Beck’s hat against the dappled morning sun gives him a kind of black halo. Groovy.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve been a Beck fan for a long time, and this was just me buying his latest record.

How It Stacks Up:  I have nine Beck albums (I’m missing a couple of his early obscure ones). “Morning Phase” is his best album since 2005’s “Guero.” I rank it 5^th, just behind “Midnite Vultures” and bumping lesser albums like “Modern Guilt,” “The Information,” “Odelay” and “Mutations” all down a slot.

Rating:  4 stars

With its simple melodies, atmospheric reverb and stories of heartache “Morning Phase” is a natural sequel to Beck’s 2002 album “Sea Change”. The main difference is there is an acceptance in “Morning Phase” that adds an element of cheer to the record that the deeply morose “Sea Change” never manages.

Like “Sea Change” the songs are about the breakdown of relationships, and how sometimes the people you know best are the very same people you have a hard time communicating with. Instead of the hopeless lack of understanding that can happen when love collapses, these songs have a refreshing self-awareness in them.

Beck is not blaming anyone other than himself here, and yet the songs manage to avoid straying into self-loathing. Instead this is a mature record from an artist that understands that all you can do when something has gone wrong is look in the mirror and see what you can salvage in terms of a lesson.

There is a sliver of hope on “Morning Phase” that supposes that somehow at the end of the darkness there is a chance the two doomed lovers could once again be together. On “Morning” Beck sees the natural world collapsing around him:

“Mountains are falling

They don’t have nowhere to go

The ocean’s a diamond

That only shines when you’re alone.”

Yet the song asks goes on to ask “Can we start it all over again?” Maybe it is impossible, but Beck nevertheless holds onto that hope, without feeling like it is the only thing he has to cling to. On “Unforgiven” he sings “somewhere unforgiven/I will wait for you” suggesting he’ll stick it out for a while and see if love comes back to him. It never feels desperate and he refuses to use his grief as a weapon. Instead, he simply says he will hold onto hope, come what may. If only we could all experience loss with such grace.

This quality of grace is reinforced by the music, which is soothing and reassuring. The production is thick and dreamy, with layered effects that give Beck’s vocals a choir-like quality. The melodies are simple, and Beck plays around inside chord structures to evoke a lot of different emotions all at once – exactly the type of thing the heart feels when it experiences loss. On “Turn Away” the vocal effects are so seamless it reminds you of the sixties harmonies of Simon and Garfunkel or the Mamas and the Papas.

Even at his darkest, on a song like “Wave” where Beck sings about isolation, the isolation feels more like a warm bath in the sea than a man alone and adrift.

Beck’s guitar work is particularly pretty throughout the record, with lots of slow chord strums broadening the sound. Beck employs a large string section as well, adding depth where the guitar alone can’t hold the mood.

The album’s best song, “Heart is a Drum,” is a perfect example of how Beck pulls hope out of an album that is essentially about a lack of communication. Musically, it has a simple picking pattern on an acoustic guitar that had me thinking strongly of the quieter moments on Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” particularly “Goodbye Blue Sky.” Even as the heart sinks with the setting sun, even as grief threatens to pull you under, Beck reminds us that we are strangely united in in our isolation, or as he puts it:

“Your heart is a drum

Keeping time with everyone.”

Walking to work listening to this song I felt I could just reach out and hug everyone I passed. Since I didn’t want to be arrested I refrained, but the thought was there.

“The Information” and “Modern Guilt” are both good records, but on “Morning Phase” Beck has returned to his finest form by somehow softening even love’s hardest lessons.

Best tracks:   Morning, Heart is a Drum, Say Goodbye, Unforgiven, Turn Away, Country Down

CD Odyssey Disc 633: Steve Earle

As is my tradition on A Creative Maelstrom, when I go and see a concert I will usually review the new release of the album the tour is supporting. I’ve seen this next artist on his last four tours but that particular rule didn’t exist for the first three so this is the first time I’m getting a chance to invoke it for him.

Disc 633 is…. The Low Highway

Artist: Steve Earle

Year of Release: 2013

What’s up with the Cover? Not content with one of Tony Fitzpatrick’s paintings, Earle has opted to go with four of them.  Since Fitzpatrick’s paintings aren’t my bag, featuring four of them instead of one is not what I’d call progress. They were also featured on the tour shirt, so I had to forgo that as well.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve known Steve Earle since his very first record back in 1986. This was just me buying his latest offering, as I always do.

How It Stacks Up:  This album was new and I had to do some reconsidering of previous albums to figure out just where it fits. I could go on about how I like all of Steve Earle’s albums for different reasons, but what the hell – let’s just make the call. Of the last three Steve Earle records, I’d say “The Low Highway” is the best of the bunch. I’ll put it 10^th best out of his 15 studio albums (excluding “Townes”, which is all cover songs). This bumps 1990’s “The Hard Way” down to 11.

Rating:  3 stars

From the opening notes of “The Low Highway” you know it is going to take a slow meandering path into your heart, just like Steve Earle criss-crosses North America bringing audiences whatever his genius has dreamed up recently.

The album opens with the title track, another excellent road song from a man who long ago perfected the art form. The tune has the nice easy pace of a tour bus, and you might expect it to be about nothing more than scenery passing by. Instead, Earle infuses the experience with a social commentary about what he sees across America:

Travelin’ out on the low highway

Three thousand miles to the Frisco bay

‘Cross the rivers wild and the lonesome plains

Up the coast and down and back again

Saw empty houses on dead end streets

People linin’ up for something to eat

And the ghost of America watchin’ me

Through the broken windows of the factories

Naked bones of a better day

As I rolled on down the low highway.”

For Earle the passing scenery of America, with all its grandeur and scale, is nothing without the people in it. Almost forty years into his career, he has delivered another masterpiece to help us see the underbelly of the American dream.

This theme asserts itself throughout the album, notably on “Invisible” another low-key rumble tackling the issue of homelessness.

My personal favourite on the album is “Burnin’ It Down” a song told from the perspective of an arsonist musing about burning down a Wal-Mart before it wrecks his small town. I’ve only been to Wal-Mart once, and I watched in mild horror as people wandered trance-like up and down the aisles loading plastic carts with cheaply made junk they didn’t need. That said, if you want to defeat Wal-Mart it is as easy as making the decision to shop local instead – no burning necessary.

The album sticks with this loose theme of what Earle calls the “Low Highway” off the top. Here you’ll find the forgotten and marginalized folks just scratching out a living as best they can. The album lacks a little in painting specific characters to write these larger tales, but it makes up for it with sparse, small arrangements that keep the record intimate to their struggle.

Earle’s love of New Orleans (partly rekindles through his involvement on the TV show “Treme”) is evident again on this album. “After Mardi Gras” directly reference the city, and “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way” and “Pocket Full of Rain” have a heavy New Orleans feel to them. “Pocket Full of Rain” is also Earle’s first serious foray into playing piano.  Like his efforts on the banjo, it isn’t nearly at the level of his guitar playing, but he plays with heart, and you have to admire his willingness to put himself out there and learn new instruments, and how they impact songs.

As I noted earlier, social commentary is a big part of “The Low Highway” and while it can seem grim, the record shows Earle’s growing optimism with the world. My favourite song for this is “21^st Century Blues” a rock/country cross over that starts out listing all the things that we didn’t get (colonies in space, flying cars, transporters) and then gets into the broken dreams of what we thought the decade would bring, but for Earle has fallen short.

However, by the end Earle turns the disappointment on its head, basically noting that this century is just like any other, capable of being whatever we make it:

“We stand now on the verge of history

The world can be anything we want it to be

Where there’s a will there’s a way where there’s a fire there’s a spark

Out in the streets downtown in the park

Maybe the future’s just waitin’ on you and me

In the 21^st century.”

Fittingly, the record ends with “Remember Me” about Earle’s newest child, and his leaving some advice behind in the hopes it will help when he’s gone. The song serves as a bookend to “Little Rock and Roller” a song about his first child off 1986’s “Guitar Town” a song about a father on the road and missing his son. “Remember Me” holds the more poignant viewpoint of an aging father who will miss a large part of his young child’s life. Yet for all that “Remember Me” is a reminder that for all his dark and dystopian views of the present, Earle is at his core an optimist – ready to leave the world to a new generation in the hopes they’ll make it better.

Best tracks:   The Low Highway, Burnin’ It Down, Invisible, 21^st Century Blues, Remember Me

The Concert – June 24, 2014 at the McPherson Theatre, Victoria

I’ve seen Steve Earle’s last four trips to Victoria, and I’ve never been disappointed. Despite a rocky start, he delivered a quality show once again last night.

Earle always brings it hard, and he always earns his pay, whether he is cranking it up with the help of a DJ (the “Washington Square Serenade” show in 2008), is a one-man guitar act (the “Townes” tour in 2009) or a full helping of Dukes and Duchesses backing him (2011’s “I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive”).

This tour was about mid-way between, with two old hands (bassist and original Duke Kelley Looney and long-time drummer Will Rigby) and a couple of new additions (fiddler Eleanor Whitmore and guitarist Chris Masterson). Notably absent was Earle’s wife Allison Moorer, as they’ve recently split.

This show was at the McPherson Theatre. Like the Royal Theatre, the McPherson is an old playhouse, although it lacks the former’s charm and inspiring architecture. It does share the Royal’s legacy of having been built for non-amplified sound, and as a result it needs a delicate touch on the soundboard.

Unfortunately, the opening salvo of the show did not benefit from such a soft touch. The opening track, “Low Highway” is a mostly acoustic number, and it came off alright, but when Earle plugged in for rockin’ numbers like “Hard Core Troubadour,” “Calico County” and “21^st Century Blues” it was a garble of distorted sound. This particularly bugged me on “21^st Century Blues” because I love that song so much.

Fortunately after a bit of stink eye from the musicians on stage and a bit of yelling from a woman seated to my left, the sound engineer got the message, and things quickly improved. The McPherson will never be as graceful on the ears as the Royal, but they managed to wrestle things into pretty good shape within 20 minutes.

The show had a bit of a harder edge than previous Earle concerts, and Moorer’s absence was notable. I felt bad for Earle, who was clearly heartbroken singing tearjerkers like “I Thought You Should Know” and “My Old Friend the Blues” but willing to put it out there and let us feel it with him.

One of the great things about going to a Steve Earle show is the ever-changing set-list, and this was no exception. The majority of the new album made it on (although not my favourite song – “Burnin’ It Down” – c’mon, Steve!) and I liked hearing these tracks.

Earle did little mini-sets of songs based on common themes. There was a Civil War stretch (“Ben McCulluch” and “Dixieland”) a New Orleans section, and my favourite – an “I’ve gotta get outta this town!” list with “Someday,” “Down the Road” and “Guitar Town.” Earle also played “Copperhead Road” but he seemed disinterested in it, and it might be time to retire this chestnut for a few years while he reinvigorates his interest.

The first of Earle’s two encores had a fun collection of covers, including Ian Tyson’s “Summer Wages” and a Levon Helm song I couldn’t name. Notably missing was the sing-a-long favourite “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” but Earle has done that enough times now that I was OK with it getting a rest for a while (see “Copperhead Road” comment above). The second encore delivered a kick-ass version of the Trogg’s “Wild Thing” instead, and was just as fun.

Driven in part by Masterson’s amazing guitar work, the show had a stronger rock edge than Earle has had in concert in recent years, and when things did lighten up we were treated to Whitmore’s amazing fiddle – which to my ear had a distinctive East Coast flavour.

Whitmore and Masterson also form a folk duo called “The Mastersons” which was the opening act. They were very good and I’ll be getting one or both of their discs soon (trying to cool it after some large CD purchases of late).

In addition to performing well, the Mastersons were delightfully frank about how they would bad mouth any town that didn’t give them some love at the Merch table and Chris Masterson possessed a potty mouth that rivals my own. As a band, they write good songs that fall somewhere between Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris and the Rankin Family. I didn’t buy their record that night but I will soon.

This wasn’t the best show I’ve ever seen Earle play, but would I go next time Earle comes to town based on it? You’re damned right I would.

CD Odyssey Disc 632: The Smashing Pumpkins

It was a fun weekend, starting off with drinks with my coworkers, and morphing into my first community theatre in a decade (a performance of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” at Langham Court Theatre). Then it was a friendly game of Ultimate Frisbee, an evening with a good friend preceded by a day spent decorating our newest addition – our hidden bookshelf door!

I could write an entire entry about how happy I am with the new door, and the great work that John of “A Cut Above Joinery” did, but why bother when Sheila has already done a fine job of it. To check out the Hidden Bookshelf, visit the entry on her blog, Sheilaephemera! If you also would like some great woodworking, check out The Cut Above guys on Facebook.  These guys are amazing!

And if you are wondering why we would build such an elaborate door, the answer is partly to dampen sound but also because it was fun! Life should have some adventure in it, and why can't that adventure start in your own home?

Disc 632 is….Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Artist: The Smashing Pumpkins

Year of Release: 1995

What’s up with the Cover? I assume it is an artist’s rendering of our title gal, Melon Collie, experiencing her sadness in the infinite vastness of space. You know, Melon, the universe may already be contracting, which means your sadness is not actually infinite.

I guess I’m a “universe half-full” kind of guy.

How I Came To Know It: My old roommate Greg put me onto the Smashing Pumpkins but we were already in our own places when this came out, and I only heard bits and pieces of it for years. Then maybe ten years ago I spotted a used copy on sale at a local record store (Lyle’s Place, I expect) and took a chance on it.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two Smashing Pumpkins albums – this one and 1991’s “Gish”. I might one day get “Siamese Dream” but I’m in no hurry. Of the two I have to put “Mellon Collie” tops.

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4

“Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” is a hard album to classify. It has the thick crunch grooves of stoner metal, but it also has that melodic fuzz of grunge. At times it is sweet and sad. At other times it is angry and shout-y.  I guess you could say it is proto-Screamo – I’m sure front-man Billy Corgan would love that. Don’t judge the Smashing Pumpkins for the horrors that came after, though; they can only answer for themselves.

On that front, there is a lot to recommend “Mellon Collie,” which shows the range the Smashing Pumpkins have as a band at this point of their career, both in terms of the songwriting and the many styles they incorporate into a single record. Some songs are crushing metallic grooves and others are symphonic pop numbers that are light and airy. Despite this the album still feels like a cohesive whole.

The problem isn’t one style or the other, it is that there is too much of both. Like so many double albums before it, “Mellon Collie” is just too damned long. At over two hours of music and 28 tracks this record shows a band that has come off some commercial success and given a bit too much free reign to do what they want. I hate soulless record execs as much as the next guy (maybe more) but one was needed here to tell these guys to tone it down.

Still, any album that can have the smoldering stoner rock of “Zero” alongside the uplifting symphony of “Tonight, Tonight” nail them both, and then later combine the two styles into the nine minute opus “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” is getting something right. Hell, getting a song called “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” to live up to its pretentious name is a feat in and of itself.

My favourite song on the record is “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.” Few bands do angry and disaffected as well as the Smashing Pumpkins, and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” is the biggest, shiniest jewel in their golden crown of gripe. The song gets its angry on early, opening with:

“The world is a vampire, sent to drain

Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames

And what do I get, for my pain

Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game”

Before launching into a churning and irresistible guitar riff as Corgan spits the chorus:

“Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.”

As much as I often want Billy Corgan to just lighten up, if he did he wouldn’t be able to write classics like “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.” Unfortunately, writing this stuff requires you to be at the edge, and it is inevitable that other songs like “Fuck You (An Ode to No One)” fall off the edge of Anger Mountain and become directionless frustration.

The album experiments freely, and for the most part it works. Not so much, the excess distortion of “Love.” Some would say the distortion – which is so bad it almost prevents you from hearing what Corgan is singing – is a sign of the times. I would reply that this may be true, but that doesn’t make it good.

Despite all their rage, the Pumpkins are more than a rat in a cage, and on “Mellon Collie” they prove it with genuinely tender songs. The oddly spelled “Galapogos” is an introspective mood piece that has an emotional core to it that rings true despite lyrics that are slightly overwrought.

And the groove and the emo come together nicely for the mid-tempo, “1979,” the Pumpkins most famous song. This song is a bit too perfect to fit on a double album so full of misfit anthems, but I found it refreshing for Corgan to write a song where the outcasts feel one with the night, instead of awkwardly trapped inside it.

The album was flagging by the second half of disc two. This could be that the songs lost some of their quality, or it could be I was just fatigued with hearing so much of the same music. This record could easily be a four star masterpiece if they had just edited it down a bit. Everyone likes a little sadness, but no one wants it to feel infinite. For that reason despite the classic greats on “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” I’m bumping it down to a three.

Best tracks:   Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Tonight Tonight, Zero, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Galapogos (sic), Porcelina of the Vast Oceans, 1979, We Only Come Out At Night, By Starlight

CD Odyssey Disc 631: Guru

I’m in the middle of reading Steve Earle’s novel, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” Those who read this blog know I think very highly of Earle as a singer/songwriter and he isn’t a bad novelist either. It gives me hope that I can have a second career as a novelist as well. For now, I’ll just do another blog entry.

Disc 631 is….Jazzmatazz 3: Streetsoul

Artist: Guru

Year of Release: 2000

What’s up with the Cover? Guru looking cool out on the street, his pencil-thin hipster moustache ten years ahead of its time. Fun fact – if you could pan the picture up and to the right, you’d see Pink Floyd’s floating pig above that factory building in the background. OK, maybe not.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Casey originally put me on to Guru’s Jazzmatazz series – this was just me buying another entry in the catalogue.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Guru albums, all from his ‘Jazzmatazz’ series. “Streetsoul” is admittedly my least favourite.

Rating:  2 stars

The introductory track to Jazzmatazz 3: Streetsoul bills itself as “One of the hottest blends of hip hop, soul, R&B and jazz ever.” This would apply nicely to Guru’s first Jazzmatazz album released back in 1993, but it is an overly bold claim the third entry in the series.

Guru (short for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal) is one half of the amazing rap duo “Gang Starr” and also one of the most insightful vocalists in music. His intellect shines through on Gang Starr albums and he carries that through easily to his collaborations with other artists on all the albums in the Jazzmatazz series as well. The first in the series, which came out in 1993 was a classic album, ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, “Streetsoul” doesn’t stand as tall. Guru’s efforts to fuse jazz into his music is muted here, replaced with collaborations with various other hip hop artists. There is nothing wrong with hip hop collaborations, and “Streetsoul” has some exceptional artists (among them Macy Gray, Donell Jones and Erykah Badu) but the only true jazz musician that I could identify was Herbie Hancock.

By 2000 it feels like the whole ‘Guy X featuring Girl Y” thing was well on its way, and while it can make magic moments (think Eminem and Dido on “Stan”) often it just feels like empty pop music.

I will give Guru credit for rarely letting his lyrics descend into empty pop territory. In fact, he is typically very good at using his slow conversational rap style to deliver important personal and social messages. I wish there were more rappers taking risks like Guru, and I wish he hadn’t been taken from us so soon (dying of cancer in 2010).

That said, talking about important topics is not enough – you need to have innovative raps, and songs that hold my attention, and there just aren’t enough of these on “Streetsoul.”

There are some highpoints, among them the Angie Stone collaboration on “Keep Your Worries” which has a funky “late night at the private club” groove coupled with a “keep my name out yo’ mouth” message. Half of most people’s problems would evaporate if they took this simple advice.

“Hustlin’ Daze” is also a cool track, with a downtown New York horn flourish and some funky scratching. I wasn’t familiar with Donell Jones, but I like the way he adds a melodic touch to the chorus with his high and (dare I say) pretty vocals.

However, a lot of the other tracks while well produced and performed just didn’t grab me. They just felt like a lot of generic hip hop out there these days. The interesting way that Guru rapped over top of jazz arrangements on the first album are either missing, or buried so far down I can no longer pick them out.

The final song, “Timeless” elevates the record again. It features Herbie Hancockand listening to him noodle his keyboards around Guru’s melody is a joy to the ear, but it comes a little late to restore my faith in the record.

There is nothing wrong with “Streetsoul” – the music is good and the performances strong. They don’t speak to me sufficiently, however, and I think I’m going to bid a fond and generally favourable farewell to this album. It will no doubt make someone very happy.

Best tracks:   Keep Your Worries, Hustlin’ Daze, Timeless

CD Odyssey Disc 630: Public Enemy

I didn’t get to the gym again today and my body is starting to notice. Lack of gym time plus two straight weeks without a game of ulti and I need some exercise bad. I can feel my mid-forties body starting to fall apart. As my friend and gym-buddy Chris is fond of pointing out, “entropy’s a bitch.”

Disc 630 is….Yo! Bum Rush the Show

Artist: Public Enemy

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? The band gathers around a turntable, looking serious, although about what is unclear. There is a harsh light glaring down and with Chuck D dressed in white, it looks a bit like an operation room. The other band members need to scrub up though – it doesn’t look like a sterile environment to me.

Then again, the glaring light also seems to imply an interrogation. I like to think they are interrogating their music. All art needs to be interrogated a bit by the person taking it in – that’s how it reveals its secrets.

How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan of Public Enemy so this was just me buying another album of theirs on spec.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Public Enemy albums, and while “It Takes a Nation of Millions” is easily my favourite, it is a close call between this album and “Fear Of A Black Planet.” Despite “that album’s critical acclaim I’ve got to put “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” in second. If nothing else it accomplishes in twelve tracks what it takes “Fear of a Black Planet” twenty to get done.

And for those with incredibly short term memory, here is the recap since it is my last Public Enemy review pending buying more of their catalogue:

1. It Takes A Nation of Millions: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 513)
2. Yo! Bum Rush the Show: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Fear of a Black Planet: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 480)

Rating:  4 stars

If you’d ever wondered what Public Enemy would sound like if they would just lighten up and rap about sweet rides and fly girls, then listen to “Yo! Bum Rush the Show.”

Public Enemy’s first album is considerably more traditional than either of their next two (and more famous) records, but it would be a mistake to dismiss it on this basis. This is top-tier rap from the late eighties and as good as anything else you’ll hear at that time.

While present, the layers of sampling that Public Enemy is famous for is not as thick here either, but if anything this just lets Chuck D’s rap genius shine through. He is one of rap’s great vocalists and with simpler beats and sparser samples his power comes through that much clearer. Even Flavour Flav is at his nasally best. While not as consistently brilliant on the mic as Chuck D, Flav has his moments. On “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” he generally gets more opportunities to show off his skills, particularly on “Too Much Posse” and “M.P.E.” the latter of which he alternates verses with Chuck D and holds his own.

As I noted at the top, Public Enemy raps about some of the traditional early subjects here, starting with the opening track “You’re Gonna Get Yours” which is a love song about an unlikely car – the Oldsmobile 98 (n.b. ‘98’ is the model, not the year).

If you don’t know, the Oldsmobile 98 is a true full-sized sedan. I’m more of a Springsteen muscle car kind of guy, but for Chuck D his Oldsmobile 98 is like a laden Spanish galleon. It’s a big, bold beauty that’s broad and loose in its handling. It is a ponderous and powerful symbol of wealth. My favourite line:

“I’d rub my boomerang – feeling proud

And I wouldn’t even hear them cause my radio’s loud

Cruisin’ down the boulevard

Treated like a superstar

You know the time so don’t look hard

Get with it – the ultimate homeboy car.”

This song is followed up by the perfect pairing of a rock guitar riff with Chuck’s ‘rolling thunder’ rap style on “Sophisticated Bitch” a song about a man-eater. This song reminded me of Ice T, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn his work would be positively influenced by early Public Enemy.

A lot of “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” sticks to my favourite old school rap subject, namely the “I can rap better than you” game. Thirty years into the art form that is rap music, the “I can rap better than you” game is still the best game in town. Public Enemy lays down a clutch of these songs on their debut album and they’re all good.

 From “Miuzi Weighs a Ton”:

“Accused of assault – a 1^st degree crime

Cause I beat competitors with my rhymes

Tongue whipped, pushed, shoved and tripped

Choked from the hold of my Kung Fu grip.”

And from “Public Enemy No. 1”

“Well I’m all in  - put it up on the board

Another rapper shot down from the mouth that roared.”

Having proved that they can rap about rapping as furiously as any of their peers, Public Enemy still finds a few choice spots to deliver their message of black empowerment. The title track calls out racial inequality on the systemic side, but Public Enemy never sits on their laurels and blames the state; at its core theirs is always a proactive message.

“Megablast” is a cautionary tale about the dangers of getting addicted to crack, and “Rightstarter (Message to a Black Man)” calls for people to take responsibility for their actions, not just blame The Man:

“Our solution – mind revolution

Mind over matter – mouth in motion

Corners don’t sell it – no you can’t buy it

Can’t defy it cause I’ll never be quiet

Let’s start this right.”

As careers go, Public Enemy certainly took their own advice, getting started right and staying strong. For a debut record “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” is ambitious and in your face, and it sets the stage for the career one of rap’s most enduring, influential and important acts.

Best tracks:   You’re Gonna Get Yours, Sophisticated Bitch, Miuzi Weighs a Ton, Rightstarter (Message to a Black Man), Public Enemy No. 1, 

CD Odyssey Disc 629: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Another long day at the office had me home late and tired. At least the music on the walk was good. Second soul album in a row!

Disc 629 is….I Learned the Hard Way

Artist: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Year of Release: 2010

What’s up with the Cover? A working class back alley with Sharon Jones looking like a true badass, Dap-King posse behind her. Sharon has a “don’t even think about messing with me, boy!” look on her face. As ever, band leader Bosco Mann sits farthest back, content to hold down the fire escape and let the glory fall to the front-woman. If she gave me that look, I’d be doing the same.

In addition to Sharon’s badassery, I love the old sixties/seventies vibe this album cover has – all it is missing is a strange bunch of advertising of the songs that you’ll find inside.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Nick and I were browsing around at a local music store (as we are wont to do) and he saw this album featured with a little write up. Neither of us had ever heard of her, but Nick was the braver of the two of us, and bought it.

Later he brought it over to my place and played a few tracks as we drank a couple of beers. It was awesome on all counts.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Sharon Jones albums, and they are all good. However, “I Learned the Hard Way” is the best - #1, baby!

Rating:  4 stars

The first song on this record is “The Game Gets Old” and that is the danger of any genre musician; keeping a style fresh and updated and still true to the original forms. “I Learned The Hard Way” is a masterpiece in how to do that right.

It all starts with a band as tight as any in music right now. When you’ve got nine people in your band you better be tight, because it’ll be quickly obvious if you aren’t. The Dap-Kings are perfectly in sync on this record, giving the perfect foundation for Sharon Jones big voice to fill the songs like a soloist at a church revival. When Jones sings you feel like you’ve come to pray at her altar of romance and heartache.

When you have a talent like Jones you could get away with questionable production decisions, but luckily band leader and bassist Bosco Mann doesn’t make any. He understands how to have the horns and backup singers each play counterpoint to the other two. On songs like the album’s title track, the three of them bounce back and forth off of one another in just the right proportion.

Unlike some modern bands where a lot of instruments result in a hot mess, Mann understands that you need to feature instruments in stages, creating levels of sound and keeping each sound fresh to the ear even in a song that doesn’t have a particularly complicated melody underneath it all. Damn I love your mustachioed genius, Bosco Mann!

There are a lot of standouts on this album, but I particularly love “Money” a song about that crazy paper that is so important for everything else. Sharon Jones’ sings to her money like it is a jilted lover:

“I work like a dog, year after year

Like a ghost when I need you, you always disappear.

Money, where are you hiding?

Money, why won’t you stay awhile?”

There is a cheeky fun feel to this side, but at its core it is a reminder that you can stare down an unfaithful lover, but you can’t stare down your own empty pockets. They’ll be kicking you out on the street a lot faster than an angry lover, my friends.

“The Reason” is an energetic mid-tempo instrumental that shows this band is great even when Sharon Jones is taking a water break.  Before you get too used to her absence she is back with the sweet n’ nasty “Window Shopping,” a song that reminds all of us men that it is OK to take a look now and then, but be subtle out there! On my last review I mentioned the menace of Bill Withers singing “Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?” “Window Shopping” doesn’t have the same nasty edge, but it is just as final with its message: fly right or fly solo.

It was just two months ago I finally saw Sharon Jones live (for a review of that go see my review here LINK) and it had me hoping I’d get to roll another album of hers soon. I lucked out getting “I Learned the Hard Way” which reminds me about why I fell so hard for her from the very first. This may not be part of soul’s first wave, but it is every bit the equal of the old masters.

Best tracks:   The Game Gets Old, I Learned the Hard Way, Better Things, Money, Window Shopping, If You Call

CD Odyssey Disc 627 and 628: Bill Withers

As is my new custom when I roll a disc that is actually two albums repackaged on one disc I review them at the same time, but treat them as two separate albums, since that is what they are intended to be.

Disc 627 and 628 are….Just As I Am and Still Bill

Artist: Bill Withers

Year of Release: 1971 (Just As I Am) and 1972 (Still Bill)

What’s up with the Cover? This combo version has a bad bit of art featuring Bill playing the guitar and some black and white photo that looks like it was lifted from the internet.

The original covers are both shown in miniature at the bottom right. “Just As I Am” features Bill looking like a regular Joe heading to work, lunch bucket in hand. “Still Bill” features Bill looking like the same regular Joe (hey, it is called Still Bill) but this time engaged in off-work activities. Clockwise from left this looks like: 1) lurking in parks 2) going out without a jacket and regretting it 3) standing on a street corner and 4) back in the park, looking awkward. Bill obviously needs a hobby.

How I Came To Know It: Bill Withers is one of those artists you’ve probably heard but never really thought about who you were listening to. He sings “Lean on Me” so I knew that song as a kid. Later he was featured on a Tarantino soundtrack, (1997’s Jackie Brown, Reviewed Back at Disc 30). However, what got me to buy this album was seeing him in the documentary “Soul Power” about the 1974 concert in Zaire. Watching him play “Hope She’ll Be Happier” at that show blew me away. In fact, here it is:

Hope She'll Be Happier Live in 1974

You’re welcome.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Bill Withers albums, these two and 1977’s “Menagerie”. “Just As I Am” and “Still Bill” are clearly superior, and both very close. If I had to choose I’ll put “Just As I Am” just slightly ahead of “Still Bill.”

Disc 627: Just As I Am

Rating:  4 stars

Looking at the picture of Bill Withers on the cover of “Just As I Am” it would be easy to mistake him for just a guy heading down to work a little construction. He just looks so…regular. Then you put this record on and his voice immediately grabs hold of your soul and takes you on a journey.

That journey is a soulful one through the streets of America. These are songs about ordinary people living ordinary lives. Despite the fact that this is squarely in the soul genre, Withers’ delivery, subject matter and down-home feel makes it feel almost like folk at times.

The music is laid back and easy, but Withers vocals are so rich and powerful that even simple topics take on deeper meaning. “Grandma’s Hands” is an homage to his grandmother, seen as a child often remembers his grandmother – through her weather-beaten and expressive hands. In the wrong…er…hands this song could be just a laundry list of grandmotherly things. Withers brings grandma to life: clapping in church, slapping a tambourine, admonishing the boys for running recklessly and interceding to protect her grandson from a beating. Tough and weathered, but gentle and expressive, you feel like he’s singing about your grandma, not his.

“Harlem” paints a similar picture – this time of a whole neighbourhood rather than a single person. This is the Harlem of 1971 of course, not today – both rougher and more neighbourly at the same time. My favourite verse:

“Sunday morning here in Harlem

Now everybody's all dressed up

The hip folks just gettin' home from the party

And the good folks just got up.”

Nothing is so beautiful as Bill when he’s feeling down, and this album has no deeper blue than “Hope She’ll Be Happier.” If you listened to that Youtube clip I linked to earlier, you already know what I mean, but if you didn’t go do so now. There’s nothing more stark than hearing Wither’s tortured testimonial:

“Maybe the lateness of the hour

Makes me seem bluer than I am

But in my heart there is a shower,

I hope she'll be happier with him.”

What makes this song so perfect is there is no artifice in Withers’ delivery. So many songs like this have an element of passive aggressiveness. Instead, we have a man wholly destroyed by lost love, but at his core still honestly wishing the best for the woman he’s lost. It’s hard to hear, but worse to miss. While the studio version lacks a bit from the Zaire concert it still gets the job done more than admirably.

Even the album’s other lost love song, “Better Off Dead” fails to be as stark as “Hope She’ll Be Happier” despite ending with a suicide gunshot. On “Better Off Dead” at least we know the character – an unreformed drunk – deserves to lose his girl. “Hope She’ll Be Happier” offers no such emotional chart markers – it just lets you float in misery, not knowing how or why you came to be there. That’s how lost love feels.

There’s little not to recommend this record, which also features an up-tempo remake of the Beatles “Let It Be” (different but just as good as the original) and the slow and sultry “Moanin’ and Groanin’.” I didn’t love “I’m Her Daddy” but even that saccharine paternity anthem entry works with Withers honest delivery.

On one of the songs Withers has a little rap where he admits he wasn’t sure of himself making his debut record, but his mentors just told him to “do what you do, and do it good.” Mission accomplished, Bill.

Best tracks:   Harlem, Ain’t No Sunshine, Sweet Wanomi, Do It Good, Hope She’ll Be Happier, Moanin’ and Groanin’, Better Off Dead

Disc 628: Still Bill

Rating:  4 stars

“Still Bill” is as advertised. It is still Bill Withers, and all the greatness that implies. His rich and steady voice, so perfectly suited to soul music. And it still sings the songs of the people of the street and the routine things they endure to get through the day. Still, it is a slight departure from “Just As I Am” being noticeably more funky, and less folksy. The result is a slightly different vibe, but ultimately just as good.

The album features the classic “Lean On Me” and reminds you that despite that unfortunate remake in the eighties, the original of this song will never be matched. The jump ‘n’ joy in this song, despite the fact that fundamentally it is about troubled times, creates the perfect tension between our darkest times, and the strength we generate when we face them together.

On the other side of the emotional spectrum is “Use Me.” This song takes “Moanin’ and Groanin’” to a whole new level – a girl so bad for you that everyone wants you to dump her but that is so damned sexy you won’t. And the music of “Use Me” matches the subject matter. It is down and dirty music that hits you right where it should – in the pelvis.

Overall, the themes on “Still Bill” have this darker flavour. “Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?” leaves you wondering whether the singer has discovered infidelity or is just jealously imagining it:

“A man we passed just tried to stare me down

And when I looked at you

You looked at the ground

“I don't know who he is

But I think that you do

Dadgummit

Who is he, and what is he to you?”

Whether the guy is onto something or not, there is a menace in this song that lets you know something bad is going to happen before it is resolved. Also, a fine use of ‘dadgummit’. And here I thought it was only Bluegrass singers that don’t like to swear.

And as on the preceding album’s “Do It Good” “Still Bill” features music with some eminently sensible suggestions such as this from “Take It All In And Check It All Out”:

“You can fill up a room with idle conversation

You can stir up a whole darn nation with your mouth

But before you start to show your indignation about a situation

You ought to take it all in and check it all out.”

Good advice, Bill. As for this album, I would recommend you do the same. And with this album and “Just As I Am” available on one disc, it is advice that’s never been easier to take.

Best tracks:   Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?, Use Me, Lean on Me, Take It All In and Check It All Out, It’s All Over

CD Odyssey Disc 626: The Dead Milkmen

My apologies gentle readers, for the delay between this post and my last. I took a week off work and really went to ground. I’m feeling recharged as a result and ready to take on the world.

When I’m done here I’m going out for dinner with a friend who is visiting from out of town – it is like an extension of my holiday!

Disc 626 is…. Bucky Fellini

Artist: The Dead Milkmen

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? The art projects of children, or so we are led to believe. The drawing on the lower left is apparently by ‘Bucky Fellini’ himself, who at age 8 apparently dreamed of stabbing his math teacher. I also hated math, but my last math teacher – Mr. Drage – was actually a pretty cool dude. Hate the math, not the man Bucky Fellini!

How I Came To Know It:  My friend Tony told me about these guys one summer way back in the late eighties when we were working a summer job together. They had a song (“Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance To Anything)” where the Dead Milkmen made fun of club goers. I was intrigued and about three years later I was thinking about the song for some reason and went looking for it. I bought this album on limited knowledge, entirely because it had that song.

Coincidentally, Tony is the out of town friend I’m going for dinner with tonight. Synchronicity!

How It Stacks Up:  The Dead Milkmen have nine studio albums, but I’ve only got this one. I keep meaning to buy a couple more, but never get around to it.

Rating:  3 stars

“Bucky Fellini” is not just surfer punk – it is surfer punk with a Dadaist edge, and that isn’t easy to pull off. The Dead Milkmen sound like a cross between Dick Dale and the Dead Kennedys, with a dash of Weird Al Yankovic thrown in for good measure. Strangely, the whole thing works.

I wasn’t terribly into punk when I bought this record in the early nineties, but fortunately “Bucky Fellini” isn’t terribly hard core as punk goes. It has the basic song construction of punk music, with a couple of chords played angry, and like a lot of punk the band is very talented, despite their efforts to cloak that with reckless playing, but there are melodies buried in there that are quite engaging.

In particular, I love bass player Dave “Blood” Schulthise, who drops some very funky bass riffs into the music. In doing some minimal research about the album I found out Schulthise committed suicide in 2004 at the age of 47. Despite an early end, his work on this album lives on, and I really appreciated his skills on multiple tracks.

The vocal duties are shared by Joe “Jack Talcum” Genaro and Rodney “Anonymous” Linderman. I can’t tell them apart and have no idea who sings on which tracks. However, they have classic punk voices that deliberately avoid holding a pretty note in favour of singing with gusto and energy. They’ll never win a singing contest, but in the context of the music, it works perfectly.

The lyrics overshadow this album, simply because they are so fun and wickedly irreverent. They are not for easily offended. “Take Me To The Specialist” pokes fun at mental illness, at one point degenerating into someone shouting “I hear weasels!” over and over again. It is strangely delightful experience.

“Watching Scotty Die” pokes fun at someone being poisoned by a chemical plant next door to their house:

“I know a kid whose name is Scott

He’s going blind and his blood just will not clot.”

Both these songs are fun if you don’t think too hard about what they are about, and if you do, then the experience is that much richer, because it will then make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin (or in Scotty’s, which later in the song turns lime green).

If all of that feels a bit heavy, there are Dadaist forays into crazy parties (“(Theme From) Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern”) and car worship (“Nitro Burning Funny Cars”) that are less socially divisive – although the Milkmen try hard to make them as inappropriate as possible.

Even twenty five years and scores of listens later, though, none are as fun as my first love on the record, “Instant Club Hit,” an indictment of all those people who go clubbing and think they’re cooler than anyone else there with zingers like “80 pounds of makeup on your art school skin/80 points of IQ located within.”

Later, the Milkmen take aim at a laundry list of bands they don’t think much of, including the Communards, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, and Public Image Limited at one point ending in a shriek of “Choke on this you dance-a-teri types” and then playing a completely un-danceable cacophony of sound.

I used to always request “Instant Club Hit” in my own clubbing days because until they reach the aforementioned “choke point” it is actually quite danceable. The boys draw you in before pulling the rug out from under you – at which point you can pretty much slam dance, stand confused or just wander off the floor. I think I even convinced a DJ to do it once or twice, or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

As if to remind us they are more than humorists, the Dead Milkmen give us “Surfin’ Cow” near the end of the album. A mostly instrumental masterpiece, with guitarist Genaro channeling Dick Dale in some powerful and soulful licks, this song reminds you that when they’re not mocking the pale, wan and disadvantaged they can also play pretty damned well.

Best tracks: Take Me to the Specialist, Watching Scotty Die, Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything), Surfin’ Cow, (Theme From) Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern, Jellyfish Heaven

CD Odyssey Disc 625: Rainbow

Ordinarily, today would be my last day off before heading back to work. Instead, I took next week off to recharge my batteries. So far, it feels great. I’ve had drinks with friends, worked in a fun game of Ultimate, played plenty of Arkham Horror with Sheila and generally had a good time – and I’m just getting started.

Disc 625 is…. Rising

Artist: Rainbow

Year of Release: 1976

What’s up with the Cover? A giant fist rises from the deep, clutching a rainbow. I love this album cover, which is exactly as over the top as seventies rock albums should look.

How I Came To Know It:  My friend Spence is an aficionado of all things related to seventies hard rock. He put me on to the band “Rainbow” after he told me that Ronnie James Dio was their lead singer for their first three records. I bought their debut record, “Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow” first and liked it – “Rising” was my next stop as I drilled through their collection.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three of Rainbow’s albums, coinciding with the only three where Dio is the lead singer. Of the three, “Rising” is pretty awesome, but so is “Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow”. Those two albums are so different that it really depends on what kind of mood I’m in in terms of which one is better. Today I’m in a mood to put “Rising” second.

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4

The mid-seventies were a great time for hard rock, and “Rising” is a good example of why that is; powerful, innovative and not afraid to take chances.

The band’s debut, “Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow” came out a year prior and was a mix of progressive rock and Allman Brothers type blues riffs. “Rising” is very different. It is a lot heavier, more akin to the late seventies metal that would follow it than the psychedelic sixties that preceded it.

The album is anchored by the prodigious talent of guitarist and band founder Ritchie Blackmore (of Deep Purple fame) and Ronnie James Dio (of not-so-famous band “Elf”). Blackmore and Dio share writing credits on all the songs, and for the most part I like the result. The songs sound like a combination of the Deep Purple prog-psychadelia and the operatic rock sensibilities that Dio would later bring to Black Sabbath when he joined them a few years later.

Dio is blessed with one of the great voices of rock, and on “Rising” he is allowed to soar and show off. Blackmore’s guitar is restrained where it needs to be, but has a nice bluesy quality to it that keeps the nerdy song topics from becoming too ridiculous.

As with Dio’s later career, many of the songs seem to be right on the edge of being about something really important, but you can never fully figure out just what he is going on about. Apparently there is a “Tarot Woman” and at some point we are invited to “Run With the Wolf” but I can never figure out exactly why.

The album’s best song “Stargazer,” is at least recognizably about something; a wizard that builds some massive tower in the desert, while the people suffer around him. It isn’t clear why he does this, but I am given to understand that wizards like to build towers in mysterious wastelands. It is a thing. Even Dio admits:

“We build a tower of stone

With our flesh and bone

Just to see him fly

We don’t know why.”

Also, this song has at least three killer riffs that build perfectly off one another throughout the eight and half epic minutes of this track. If halfway through “Stargazer” you are not playing air guitar (or drums) then this type of music is simply not for you. Go read about the Beatles. I happen to love songs packed with power chords that are about fantastical landscapes, so I think it is brilliant.

As you may have guessed, “Rising” is decidedly not radio friendly. There are only six tracks, and two of them are eight minute monsters (the other, “A Light In the Black” is OK, but no “Stargazer”).

Don’t look for ballads on “Rising” – this is an up-tempo record with a lot of fury. There is none more furious than “Do You Close Your Eyes” which sounds like an eighties metal song ten years ahead of its time. I love the power guitar, and the thick crunchy sound. Unfortunately, the chorus founders a bit with some questionable chord progressions that saps some of the song’s energy. Also, the chorus “do you close your eyes/when you’re making love” is a bit goofy. The song is clearly about the singer’s girlfriend so…er…wouldn’t he know?

As is often the case with great rock music, it takes two big egos warring with one another to make great songs, and the tension between Blackmore and Dio’s styles is palpable on “Rising” but that tension only makes it better.

Best tracks: Run With the Wolf, Stargazer