October was a somewhat quieter release month (and my wallet thanks the record industry for that), but these releases were no less awesome. Here’s a few albums I picked up…
Liam Gallagher, As You Were, released 6 October. Yes, I am still willing to admit I’m an Oasis fan (as well as a Blur fan, but that’s another post entirely), and I’ve followed both Gallagher brothers post-breakup. Liam, the snotty kid brother, is no longer recording under the Beady Eye moniker, and it seems he’s finally shed his Beatles/Jam hippie-mod hybrid leanings. The new solo album is strong and confident, much like post-Be Here Now Oasis.
Hans Zimmer, Blade Runner 2049 score, released 6 October. I’ve been getting into scores lately, which is kind of a new thing for me as an avid listener. Zimmer does a fantastic job updating the sound originated by the classic 1982 SF film, providing a bit of warmth to an otherwise dark setting. [For the record, I had a few issues with the film scriptwise but overall I quite enjoyed it.]
The Church, man woman life death infinity, released 6 October. One of my favorite bands from the 80s is still going strong, and still fiercely independent in their sound. This is one of their spookier albums by far.
Beck, Colors, released 13 October. I can always count on Beck to release one of two kinds of albums: either a beautiful heartbreaking serious album (like Sea Change and Morning Phase or an off-kilter weirdo album (like Odelay and this one). I’ve come to really appreciate his musicianship over the years, and “Dreams” is definitely one of my favorite recent singles of his.
St Vincent, Masseduction, released 13 October. St Vincent finally returns with a new album, and it’s even weirder than her last. This one took me a few listens to get into for that reason, but it’s just as solid as her previous work.
Stars, There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light, released 13 October. I can always count on Stars to come out with a laid back alt-rock album with no pretension or bombast, and they write such lovely melodies. One of my favorite albums of this month.
The Sound of Arrows, Stay Free, released 27 October. This Swedish electronic band is a new find for me, but I love them already. They’ve been described as a mix of Pet Shop Boys and M83, and I think that’s spot on. About halfway through my initial listen I realized this could very well be the style of music to listen to for my next writing project.
I remember hearing The Tragically Hip back in my senior year of college, when Fully Completely came out, just a few days before my 22nd birthday. I was the music director for our AM station, WECB, and I always tried to keep the selection eclectic and interesting. I’d heard of the band, having seen their previous three releases in the music bins (1987’s self-titled EP, 1989’s Up to Here and 1991’s Road Apples), but their third album was definitely their breakthrough, at least in Beantown. I loved that they were a mixture that defied description, other than they sounded really cool. I immediately put “Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)” in rotation and “Fifty Mission Cap” as an extra play.
A year later, I’m living quite skint in the burbs of Allston and for a brief time my roommate and I have cable, and my then-girlfriend and I start watching Canada’s MuchMusic channel in earnest. It’s where I first hear great Canadian musicians like Moist, Barenaked Ladies, and Sloan in regular rotation instead of just occasionally. I stumble upon The Hip’s classic single “Grace, Too” (from 1995’s Day for Night) when I watch their video, greatly amused and fascinated by its lo-fi genius, using only video feedback, reflection, and a shirtless Gord to play off the boasting lyrics. It becomes my favorite song of theirs.
A few years later and I’m back home in midwestern Massachusetts, trying to get my life and accounts back in order, and I’m listening to WRSI and WHMP, two Pioneer Valley stations that weren’t afraid to play the same eclectic music that I loved hearing back in my college days. I hear occasional plays of “Ahead by a Century” (from 1996’s Trouble at the Henhouse) but alas, never get around to taping it off the radio.
By 1998 I’ve got a steady job at the record store and expanding my musical tastes with every new and intriguing release that comes in. So much the better if I can get a promo copy for it! The BMG rep hands me a copy of their 1998 album Phantom Power and I immediately fall in love with it, especially the lovely “Bobcaygeon”.
By the end of 2000 I’d be leaving that job, but not before getting another dose of the Hip with that year’s Music@Work album. I find myself amused once more, this time by the fitting title song:
…as well as one if the deeper cuts, “Freak Turbulence.”
In 2002, I’m writing my trilogy down in the basement on a nightly basis, and hitting up Newbury Comics on a weekly basis, and In Violet Light comes out, another excellent Hip album. Oddly enough it’s years before I actually see the hilarious video for my favorite song off it, “The Darkest One”.
I kind of lose track of the band in the mid-2000s due to multiple moves and personal events, but eventually I catch up and pick up the rest of their catalog. I sadly admit that I don’t listen to them nearly as much as I should, and I never got to see them live.
But The Tragically Hip has never really been a band that I wanted to overindulge in. I like the fact that I’ll throw on Live Between Us or Now for Plan A or even Yer Favourites and think…damn, this is one hell of a great band. I like being pleasantly surprised by just how fucking good a band like that can be.
Thanks Gord. You were one hell of a great songwriter and humanitarian.
When I left your house this morning,
It was a little after nine
It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations
Reveal themselves, one star at time
We weren’t part of the marches or the protests here, though. Had the one in Crissy Field not been cancelled by the Patriot Prayer group on Saturday, we most likely would have made our way through the Presidio to head down there. So instead we drove down to Half Moon Bay, stopped at the Main Street Grill for brunch, did a bit of shopping at the deli there, and then headed back. We spent the afternoon watching various episodes of Time Team and other things. As it happens, the PP guys’ plans fizzled spectacularly, ending up with an online chat and a pathetic appearance at Crissy Field after all (with the reporters and cameras outnumbering them). The rest of the city, on the other hand, turned it into a party and a love fest.
As for Sunday, we knew better than to head over to the East Bay. They’re a bit more hardcore when it comes to protests, and there’s always that small group of outsiders who stop by just to stir shit up and make the more peaceful protesters look bad. The mood is usually much more tense when there are protests there.
Meanwhile, we kept our eyes out for our friends down in Texas. One of A’s friends was actually not in Houston but elsewhere at a wedding, leaving her husband to hold the fort. They’re both doing okay last I heard. They’re on the outskirts of the city on higher ground. The city itself turned into its own Vienna with streets turning into creeks and rivers. Downtown Houston is quite nice, from what I remember of it, having visited there a few years ago when Worldcon was in San Antonio. It was hot as hell, but I really liked the city.
And during all that, The Fuckwit tweeted about Missouri, a book he really liked, that goddamn wall he’s so obsessed about, and hating NAFTA because Canada and Mexico are being mean to him. He may have tweeted about Houston at some point, but as far as I could tell, it was little more than ‘wow that doesn’t look good’ and went on to the next shiny object.
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down.
So I ended up buying the new Golden Earring box set, The Complete Studio Recordings, (at a pretty sweet deal — 28 cds for a little over $100, coming out to about $4 a cd) and I’m quite looking forward to giving it a listen.
They’re a band I’ve always wanted to hear more of, especially since their history reaches way back to the early 60s. Most of you know them from their two US hits “Radar Love” (one of the best 70s bass lines ever) and “Twilight Zone” (one of the most memorable early 80s MTV videos).  I owned their Cut album for a long time and absolutely loved it as a kid. I never got around to picking up more of their albums though, as they were often hard to find and were never a big draw in the US.
Still, they’re considered the Netherlands’ biggest rock band and what I have heard of their early stuff I quite enjoy. Including their amazingly ridiculous yet fascinating seventeen-minute prog cover of The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High”.
It’s going to take me a while to sift through this collection, but I’m looking forward to it!
I’ll be honest, I’ve kind of ignored the origins of rock music for longer than I really should have. I’m quite familiar with rock in the late 70s and 80s, having lived through it, and over the years I’ve read a lot about how the 60s shaped and influenced rock music and vice versa.
The 50s and earlier, however? I have a very thin basic knowledge at best. Of course I’m familiar with the classics everyone else knows…the early Elvis tracks on Sun Records, the handful of Jerry Lee Lewis songs, the usual Chuck Berry riffs, and thanks to the Beatles, the not-quite-hits that got a second life as covers. But that’s about it.
Ed Ward’s The History of Rock & Roll, Vol 1: 1920-1963 is a fascinating read in that it’s not a memoir of that era but a streamlined chronology of numerous events, people and performers that helped shape the music genre we all know today. There’s no concrete starting point to rock music — it evolved over a long period of time, inspired and influenced by all kinds of different regional styles of music. And thanks to radio’s own evolution from providing entertainment (such as the comedies and the dramas, and the aural productions of plays) to focusing more on shorter popular music, these regional sounds were heard nationally, informing and influencing even newer sounds.
If you’re familiar with how current styles of rock evolve within the last twenty to thirty years, this will make total sense; the Ramones begat the UK punk movement begat the moody post-punk sound begat American college radio begat 90s alternative, for instance.
The writing isn’t bland, even though Ward promotes this work as a textbook of sorts. On the contrary, he delights in amusing asides (Screaming Jay Hawkins gleefully admitting to not remembering recording his signature song “I Put a Spell on You” because he was completely drunk at the time), conservative backlashes (label owners creating a ‘good music’ subgenre of Sinatra-inspired saccharine music from the likes of Frankie Avalon), weird moments in rock history (the bizarre popularity of Alvin and the Chipmunks), producers and promoters milking a trend as far as they can (death songs like “Teen Angel”) and so on. His overall theme seems to say that no one in the music business really knew what the hell they were doing half the time, but as long as they made money and the kids loved it, then why complain?
In addition to this, Ward doesn’t completely focus on any one artist for an extended length of time; this is all about the chronology of the history. It puts things into a wider perspective, showing just how many different sounds and events unfolded at the same time. (I did not know that the careers of Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins pretty much started off within a month of each other, for instance; in fact, Elvis befriended Carl early on and helped get him an audition at Sun.) He also includes the other popular genres at the time: country, soul, folk, and jazz. While they weren’t lumped in with the emerging rock genre, they were part of its inspiration and were closely related enough to warrant further investigation.
It’s definitely a fun and very informative read, especially if you’re a music nerd like myself. It’s also inspired me to investigate this period of popular music a lot more closely than I have in the past. I’d like to check out those pop singles of yore, those jazz albums and whatnot, and hear for myself how they informed and inspired the popular music we all know and love today.
On a side note: I still find it kind of mind-bending when I compare this kind of chronology with my own experience. While reading this I was reminded of the Sha Na Na variety show that was on TV in the late 70s; they were essentially covering those old 50s pop songs that were twenty or so years old by then. In modern times: that would be me doing a cover of Oasis’ “Wonderwall”…which I still think of as relatively recent in my own personal timeline!
Oh hey! It’s that time of year again. Time for me to wax poetic about my favorite tunage that came out in the last twelve months. Time to yap about the purchases I’d made, the stuff I listened to in various parts of my universe. Time to talk about things personal, creative, and so on. I figure I’d split it up this time out, over the course of a few weeks, and give you the usual year-end Best-of Lists at the end of it.
It’s been quite a year of change, folks. Some awesome, some good, some not so good, some mindbogglingly craptastic. It’s been…interesting, to say the least. But musically, there were a lot of really strong albums that came out that I’m sure will stay in my rotation for some time to come. Here’s a quick overview of stuff that came out in the first quarter!
David Bowie, ★. Released 8 January. I’ll be honest, I’ve been a slow-burn Bowie fan. It took me a long time to appreciate his music, and I’m quite sure it’s due to the Commercial Radio Disease. You know the one — stations play the same five core songs to the point of torture so the passive listener doesn’t really want to invest in checking out the deeper cuts. It took me until 1997’s Earthling to actually pay attention to his music more. January’s Blackstar was a wonderful final release from him. He knew instinctively that this was his last album, and he wasn’t about to go away without a curtain call. It’s disturbing, fascinating, brilliant, and touching all at the same time.
Shearwater, Jet Plane and Oxbow. Released 22 January. Shearwater is a band you don’t hear on the radio; they’re a band you hear about via word of mouth and the music blogs and magazines. I first heard of them via listening to a streaming of 2012’s Animal Joy. They’ve got a unique indie rock sound that’s hard to pin down, their singer doesn’t really sound like anyone else, and their music is a bit hard to describe. But that doesn’t matter, because they’re just that good.  Jet Plane and Oxbow got a hell of a lot of play for me this year, both as background music during my Day Job and during my evening writing sessions.
Massive Attack, Ritual Spirit EP. Released 29 January. I’ve loved everything Massive Attack has done since I first heard “Teardrop” in 1998, and this quick release was worth waiting for. Tricky is back in the fold once more on a devastatingly dark track — the kind they do exceptionally well. Another release that got heavy play during my writing sessions.
The 1975, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it. Released 26 February. The kind-of-creepy album title aside, I was completely floored by their follow-up to their poppy debut. The album originally reminded me of Primal Scream in their Rocks period — heavy on the Stonesy rock and British flavor — but it really grew on me. “Somebody Else” was consistently one of those songs I’d hear on the radio and think ooh, I like this….who is it? …and be pleasantly surprised when I remembered, and that I already owned it.
Yuck, Stranger Things. Released 26 February. When this band released their debut album in 2011, they had a different singer and sounded like an even messier Dinosaur Jr. Now they’ve turned their fuzz down some and sound a hell of a lot like Superdrag at their indiepoppiest, and I have no qualms about that at all. This is a lovely album worth checking out.
School of Seven Bells, SVIIB. Released 26 February. It’s touching that when guitarist/keyboardist Ben Curtis passed away in 2013, the rest of the band felt it necessary to finish off the album they’d been working on, and it’s a beautiful piece of work full of positive energy. Yet another album on writing session heavy rotation.
Paper Lights, Great Escapes. Released 15 March. I’ve been big on DIY this year, for obvious reasons. I first heard of Paper Lights via NoiseTrade in 2013, where the band had uploaded one of its EPs. I’d ended up on their mailing list, and was pleased to find out they had a new album out this year. It’s a wonderful album of relaxing dreampop.
Hooverphonic, In Wonderland. Released 18 March. I will always buy a Hooverphonic album, regardless. They’ve always been one of my favorite bands ever since I first heard “2Wicky” in the back room at HMV all those years ago. They’ve gone through numerous lead singers since then (the new album features multiple vocalists this time out), but they’ve always written great pop tunes that balance perfectly between alternative rock and synthetic pop.
Bwana, Capsule’s Pride EP. Released 25 March. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen an super-underground release as one of my favorite albums of the year, but this is definitely on that list. [One needs to get a Tor browser and go to a specific website in order to download it, as it’s not available for sale or downloadable anywhere else. That’s how underground it is.] A brilliant mashup of jittery techno and soundbites from the movie and soundtrack of the classic anime movie AKIRA, it not only got me through numerous writing sessions, but also through multiple plane rides!
Others have commented: it’s going to be the Beatles’ solo years next! This one’s gonna be a long series, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be featuring it on specific days…maybe offering it every other Wednesday or something. We shall see. This may take some time for me to build up a backlog, as there are quite a few releases to plow through — and I’m not going to include the multiple reissues that have taken place over the years. One last note: I’ve already decided this is going to be chronological, just like the previous series, so this means we’ll be visiting all four solo discographies at the same time. I will also be featuring multiple releases per post, or else I’ll be posting until 2019!
Until then, I’ll be providing the usual music posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I’d tweeted earlier this week that one of my favorite things about vacationing in London is hearing some of my favorite songs in their original context. By that, I mean hearing songs that were big and important hits in the UK that may not have been even a blip on the US radar.
A year or so ago we were at a bar near Smithfield Market meeting with a friend of ours when Manic Street Preachers’ “Everything Must Go” popped up on the jukebox. It was a top-ten hit in the UK and signaled a new direction for the band after the strange disappearance of their former lead singer months previous.
David Bowie was of course a worldwide success, and his title theme for the movie Absolute Beginners was a very minor hit in the US (hitting #55 on the Billboard chart) but hit #2 in the UK. The movie itself is somewhat based on the British novel of the same name written by Colin MacInnes — a well-loved coming of age novel set in the hip London of the late 50s. Heard this one in a coffee shop just outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral one rainy morning.
The Divine Comedy is well known in the UK as an ‘orchestral pop’ band in the vein of Scott Walker (another musician quite familiar there but not in the US), and they wrote a song about the oversize tour buses one sees all around London. This track would pop into my head every time I saw one of them go by.
I love doing this kind of thing wherever I go, come to think of it. It’s partly to get the feel of the local sound, and partly because I’m just a sucker for rock music history. Whether it’s getting in touch with with Britain’s quirky rock (most of which became alternative rock here in the states), or Boston’s unique mix of collegiate and blue-collar, or San Francisco’s purposely weird sounds, I love being able to not only connect with the music itself, but the context in which it was written and recorded. It brings me closer to the real lives behind the music…it lets me understand why the song exists.
The Jonzbox, acquired Christmas 1983, last used…2004?
So I’m listening to KSCU online this morning, and one of the deejays is playing stuff that’s catching my interest. I have a few titles written down for further research and possible downloading.
And I’m thinking…back in the day, I used to have a blank tape at the ready inside that mini boombox you see above there, Record and Play already down, the Pause button ready to be hit as soon as a cool song comes on. I have a good handful of tapes full of stuff I’ve taped off of college radio shows from the 1988-1989 semesters. One or two of those tapes are almost complete shows.
So after that show finishes, I’m thinking…it’s all fine and dandy that I can write down the songs that I like and download them, but what if I want more than that? What if I want to retain that bit of college radio atmosphere, some deejay patter, and so on? How would I go about doing that? I mean, aside from downloading questionable software that may or many not even work?
So it occurs to me: I could set up a tape deck, just like the old days…plug some wires into the Audio In jack in the back, plug the other end into the speaker jack or the headphone jack of the PC. I think I still have a few blank tapes kicking around, and I know I can still find new blanks if take the time to look for them. And then I can use my audio software to convert the tapes to mp3 later on.
An extremely Rube Goldbergian setup to be sure, but I would actually go that far if I really wanted to. Because I’m that much of a music nerd to go THAT old school to tape stuff off the radio.
[As an aside, there’s one show on KSCU, The 80s Underground, where the deejay records his entire show, patter and all, and puts it up as a podcast later in the day. He’s got excellent taste, knows his obscurities, and it’s well worth checking out.]
Walk In Silence 