Discography - Week 20

We will be hard-pressed to match last week's brilliance, but this group never fails to amaze me.  Last week's unofficial theme was pain; this week I think we're taking a break from all the angst.  As the Drive-By Truckers remind us, It's Great to Be Alive.

Gary Beatrice

Bottle Rockets, Welfare Music

I love The Drive-By Truckers and Uncle Tupelo and debating which band is better and which was more responsible for the advent of alt.country, Americana, roots rock, No Depression, whatever it is... But there is a third band that should absolutely be in that conversation: the pride of Festus, Missouri, the Bottle Rockets.

Part of the reason that The Bottle Rockets are criminally overlooked is that their albums tend to have their share of filler. I'd stack "The Brooklyn Side" up against anything in the genre, but even it has three or four songs that I never need to hear again, unlike, say "Anodyne". On the other hand, a playlist of the Bottle Rockets 15-20 best songs would stand up with any band's over the past couple decades.

Fans and critics credit the band for their ability to channel Merle Haggard one moment and Crazy Horse the next, but I believe Brian Henneman isn't given enough credit for his song writing. His style is very direct story-telling, and in many ways it reminds me of Tom T Hall, another vastly underrated song writer. Henneman's forte, and he displays it best in Welfare Music, is twofold: first he has the ability to establish characters that listeners to relate to with just  a lyric or two. Secondly he can present the characters, warts and all, and typically still leaves the listener sympathizing with these flawed, but real Americans.

John Hiatt has covered Welfare Music. If that doesn't convince you that Henneman's a great songwriter than nothing ever will.

Dave Wallace

The Kinks, I'm Not Like Everybody Else

I've been a Kinks fan for decades, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I'd somehow missed this song until about ten years ago.  My teenage self would have completely related to Ray Davies's ode to individuality, and the song still resonates with me.  Plus, it's a great example of early period Kinks, which is a fantastic, fascinating part of the British Invasion.

Dave Kelley

My choice was actually inspired by a post from last week.  Now Nate's post caused me to spend much of Saturday afternoon listening to Irish music and pondering lost causes and those evil fucking English.  I am just starting on a binge of listening to Van Morrison and James Brown thanks to GB and DW.  But it was Mike's comments that are behind my selection. 

I do not work in academia, but damn did I spend a lot of years in school.  College, grad school, and law school meant that I had completed the 21st grade by the time it was all said and done.  Unlike the academics on the blog, I do not think of the start of school in terms of New Year.  I think of it in the way that many think of spring.  A new start, a rebirth of sorts.  It ushers in my favorite season of the year, baseball is reaching its climax, college and pro football are beginning, and literally every product that is sold in America suddenly become available with pumpkin spice!!!!  I especially enjoyed college and was happy when it would begin in August or September.  New classes, new experiences, new possibilities, and a new crop of co-eds with whom to fail miserably. 

That started me to thinking about the music that was popular in the early to mid eighties.  Not only is a lot of it just amazing, but it reminds me of a specific time in my life that was generally happy and trauma free.  REM and The B-52's jumped into my head immediately, but I went with a different band that captures that time for me.  

Take a quirkily charismatic lead singer who comes across like Norman Bates had he chosen music over hotel/motel management, a kick ass husband and wife rhythm section, and post-punk, new wave music that also incorporated world music.  What do you get?  Correct ladies and gents.  The Talking Heads!!!!!   I was never really certain what much of their lyrics meant.  Who cares.  The music was great, the lyrics were memorable even if you didn't know why, and everything just went together.

The Talking Heads, Life During Wartime

"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around."

I really have no specific comments about the song other than the fact that I love it.  Check out the attached live footage from the Stop Making Sense tour.  They supplement their four person lineup with an extra guitarist, an extra keyboard player, and two fucking amazing back-up singers.  This performance is just filled with joy which is not something that immediately leaps to mind with this band on record.  They play and sing the hell out of the song and burn many many calories while doing so.  I love bands that take it to a different level on stage.  I find this live version life affirming. 

So, "Why stay in college?  Why go to night school?"  Well obviously so you can meet others who did the same and form an awesome music blog of course.

Miranda Tavares

Miranda's Pick, a three-fer: Reverend Peyton and His Big Damn Band, Raise a Little Hell and Clap Your Hands (yes, all kinds of cheating, two bands, and even two songs from one band); The O's, Outlaw

Dave Kelly posted about Darrell Scott a couple of weeks ago. I was at that show, and I absolutely second everything he said. However, he left out the thing that struck me the most about that show. Scott spoke to the crowd quite a bit, in a very natural, totally anti -"you make me want to shout 'shut up and play music'" way, and one of the things he spoke about was his guitar. He had several, but the one that riveted me was his baritone acoustic. I am not a musician, and literally all of my knowledge of playing music comes from seasoned (and un-seasoned, I guess) musicians enlightening me for the 17 seconds in between songs during shows. He said his guitar was cobbled together from various other guitars by a guy in L. A. who was a genius who taught other geniuses who just happened to also be misspent youths to cobble together guitars for a living. The result was...physics-breaking? I am not up on my science terminology, having left all that behind during my years pursuing various degrees of the soft sciences, but I have no other word for it. Simply put, it seemed as though there was no earthly way all that rich, complex sound could have come from one man, let alone one instrument. Let's pause a moment here and all hail the baritone acoustic built by L.A. juvenile delinquents. Seriously. Please do it. Dave and I would be less complete without those yutes.

So that whole experience led to my realization that I appreciate a big sound from a small appearance, which led to this week's post. Reverend Peyton and His Big Damn Band is comprised of Rev Peyton on guitar, his wife Breezy on the washboard, and his brother on the drums. The sound, though, is twice as big. Apparently Rev Payton has gotten some flack for his big sound to the tune of accusations that he has a recorded bass line going during live performances, and as a result during shows he makes it a point to show how he plays the bass line with just his pinky and the guitar with the rest of his hand. Heartfelt confession here: I can't play guitar. Or bass. The idea of playing both at once...mind blown. That may be juvenile, ignorant, basic, whatever, but it's true. I am in awe of this guy. And this band. So much sound, so few people. However, at least they have three...

The O's are a duo out of Texas who unfortunately don't travel much further than Oklahoma. So, sorry guys, no live shows pending within reach. But by some stroke of luck we got to see them in Newport, KY (as a hand-picked opener for our beloved 500 Miles to Memphis). They are a duo. Two guys. With an acoustic, a banjo, a kick-drum, a dobro, a tambourine, and a harmonica. And both do vocals. Here's a big sound for a different reason - these guys are continually killing themselves. I told them they should change their name to Two One-Legged Men in an Ass-kicking Contest, but apparently they jettisoned their sense of humor in favor of more instruments. 

This post is really about these bands, and how much sound they can accomplish with so little, albeit in so many different ways. I chose the two Rev Peyton songs because their sound is so hard to conceptualize, and even harder over youtube, and I thought between these two picks everyone would have a good idea whether this was something they were into. I chose The O's' song (where does the apostrophe go????) because it is representative of their sound, and catchy, and I hope someone can definitively tell me the chorus lyrics. "We hope, we shape, we loathe"? "Revoke, reshape reload"? The difference seems crucial.

Cyndi Brandenburg

Here is the perfect ironic antidote to the ironic saddest song ever.
(Or not?)  And also how one nerdy quasi-music-theory-literate family
laughs and geeks out in a budget hotel room the night before an elite
private college move-in-day.  With so much cognitive dissonance, I'm
afraid it's all I will have to offer this week, and I am not sure that
even 15% of you will have the patience to see it through.

Mike Kelly

Reckless Kelly, Wicked Twisted Road 

Last night, my wife said she wanted to hop a plane and go to her 20th high school reunion at the very moment I was reading a surprisingly well-written student blog post about being sad about leaving his high school girlfriend.  While I stopped short of sending the heartbroken bro this song, the serendipitous happenstance of events made the blog choice an easy one this week.  

The metaphors are simple but they're not stupid.  The stew of first-love experiences described in the song covers just enough ground to capture the relative complexity of high school romance, all with enough critical distance to take seriously.  

However true these things are, here's the most interesting thing about a rather straightforward, good song:  Culturally, we often treat first love stories in two ways- either as nostalgic things to be laughed at by our older and presumably wiser selves or romanticized ideals about something had and lost. I think splitting the difference is between these is the most honest way to write about these moments in time.  Let's hear it from the Braun brothers: 

"My first love was a wild, sinful night/ran out with the big dogs- guess I had more bark than bite" 

Here, there's a jokey humility mixed in the bigger and more complicated idea that sex and love when mixed together create an unrivaled human emotion and for a teenage kid, that messes with you in unexpected ways.  

"My first love was an angry, painful song/wanted one so bad I went and did everything wrong" 

Face it- we've all been that loping, dumb golden retriever dressed up as a potential suitor in bar clothes only to have things sparkle briefly before fading to the black of un-returned phone calls. We learn from these "lessons in reality that come before too long" in hopes that songs like this one remain nostalgic reminiscences instead of the soundtracks to our lives.  

It's a wicked, twisted road. 

Gary Scudder

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Your Precious Love

OK, I've definitely taken a lighter approach this week.  I guess I could argue that it was me giving up on the thought of writing something profound, especially when Miranda would just put me to shame (I already have a fragile self-image [shut up]).  In this case, however, as has been my wont during the Discography discussion, I'm just writing about what I'm thinking about right now.  The other day at the gym I was listening to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and deciding which five songs I'm going to promote, but the album finished up a little early so I just slid into my Marvin Gaye Motown hits album.  Once again, I found myself blown away by the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell version of Precious Love from the United album.  I don't have anything profound to say other than the fact that it makes me happy.  Marvin Gaye was just so fucking cool.  It reminded me of his version of the National Anthem from the 1983 All-Star Game.  It is, along with Julius Erving and Oscar Robertson, the only things of interest ever to come out of the NBA.