Discography Year Two - Week 2

It is the second week and life is good and the music is extraordinary, and everyone is reveling in the beginning of a new Discography cycle and hopes are high (except for my buzzkill post, but this too shall pass).  We had two mentions of the band Husker Du, which was timely, all things considered, but I'm pretty sure a first for the Discography.  With so much great music and commentary this week it's hard to pick a winner, although I'm going with the esteemed Kevin Andrews, mainly because of his great musical choice (featuring multimedia excellence), his respect for copyright laws, and the fact that it's his birthday.

Gary Beatrice

Gladys Knight and the Pips, Midnight Train to Georgia

Many of the pop songs I fell for in my childhood were overly emotional, saccharine sweet weepers. I guess that is the nature of pre-teen fan hood. Midnight Train to Georgia was a favorite of little precocious Gary, and if anything aging-gracelessly, should-recognize-saccharine-when-he-hears-it Gary, appreciates it even more.

Lyrically the song is your standard girl loses boy but vows to get him back fare. But it's the vocals that make this song shine. Gladys Knight is mesmerizing, the Pips are soulful and professional, and their interaction exceeds the sum of their parts. While soul music often features back up singers who interact lyrically with the lead singer (do more than repeat the lead singers' vocals), the Pips enhance Knight's story, adding color, and thereby enhancing her sadness at perhaps losing her man and strengthening her determination to keep him.

"Midnight Train to Georgia" sold boatloads of records and scored on multiple charts, back in the day when that meant something. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the popular songs are also the best songs.

Dave Wallace

Todd Rundgren - For Want of aNail 

A fantastic white soul number from Todd Rundgren.  He brilliantly uses the old parable about the want of a nail ultimately leading to the loss of a kingdom as a metaphor for the importance of love in our lives.  (Can you use parables as metaphors?  I may need linguistic help here.)  Terrific stuff! 

Kevin Andrews

Here we come

Walking down the street

Get the funniest looks from everyone we meet.

When I was young, and I suspect the same could be said for many of you, there was an annoying trend of taking musical artists and making Saturday morning cartoons around them. (We will look back on this someday as the beginning of The End Times) Some were already cartoons – The Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, The Osmonds. Some were legitimate acts – The Beatles, Jackson 5. And some were created out of thin air like The Monkees. This open audition style of creating bands became popular later to create the so-called boy bands and Coldplay.

We’ve been driving around.

From one end of this town to the other.

But no one’s ever seen us driving our Econoline van

And no one’s ever heard of our band.

Enter this week’s submission, The Mesopotamians by They Might Be Giants. I’ll spare you the sales pitch on TMBG except to say that much of what they do is experimental and to entertain themselves. Most of their recorded material rarely if ever gets played on stage. This however was meant to be played on tour and is rollicking fun.

I’m not a fan of music videos in general. They’re a distraction from the music and have created a visual focus on an audio format. They suck. All right-thinking people™ know that. But in this case the video is as awesome as the song. Try to pick out the references to other bands, cartoons or otherwise.

Miranda Tavares

P, I Save Cigarette Butts

I am writing this immediately after spending a leisurely hour and a half reading this week's posts and listening to the selections. I thought I had fully understood my appreciation of this blog and you amazing people, but I was wrong; I had forgotten the giddy feeling of a list of new music being effortlessly (on my part, anyway) delivered to my inbox. Even including GB's list of disco songs, the vast majority were new to me. Compared to the people I talk to on a daily basis, I have an eclectic and diverse taste in music. But then I spend a Sunday afternoon with you guys and I'm humbled. 

This week's pick is my trying to give back some of the joy I got from all of you last week. That joy of listening to the opening chords of a song and knowing you're about to hear something you've never heard, or being reintroduced to something you've forgotten, or hearing something you thought you knew well as if for the first time, through someone else's ears. And, whether the end result is a love affair with a new artist or an affirmation that, yeah, that's not really your kind of music, you know that just for clicking that link your mind has been opened just the tiniest bit more. 

Most of you, indeed, most of the country, has not heard of the band P. For those who have, I'm sure you have forgotten them.  P only had one album, which is initially surprising when you think of the band's line-up, which includes Johnny Depp (yes, the actor) and Gibby Haynes from Butthole Surfers, but is more understandable when listening to the band's live tracks, which are...underproduced, at best. The album is overall solid, and, while I would not pay to see them live, I would spend actual money on an actual CD, should they ever put out a second one. Although the album is best known (and I use that phrase lightly) for the track Michael Stipe, I Save Cigarette Butts is my favorite song off the album. It's a cover originally by Daniel Johnston, who I had never head of until just now when I did a search for a youtube link for the song and realized it was not a P original. The Wikipedia page on Mr. Johnston (above link) makes me feel fairly justified in not knowing this song was a cover (although, Cyndi, I would not have been embarrassed if I "should have" known; why participate in this most excellent discussion if I already knew everything there is to know about music?). It also makes the lyrics of the song a bit clearer...and sadder. Regardless, the P version is far more palatable, eclectic yet catchy, weird yet accessible. Love it, hate it, or indifferent, I hope it opens your mind just the tiniest bit more.

Cyndi Brandenburg

The Lone Bellow

Walk Into a Storm 

Deeper in the Water 

Staying true to my commitment to post only what is new (new to me, at
least), this week I am offering up two songs from the latest Lone
Bellow album which I just listened to today. They are both beautiful,
but the first is slow and heartfelt and speaks to an unconditional
devotion, while the second has the urgency of a desperate, dangerous,
irresistibly uncontrollable feeling. I love them both, because
together, they represent way more than just a small slice of how we
all find ourselves loving each other.  Plus, The Lone Bellow ranks
among the best (if not THE best) groups I have ever seen perform.
Being together with them is an emotional, physical, sensory, sensual
experience, guaranteed to elicit goosebumps and tingles,
heart-pounding excitement, and the occasional tear.  When the show is
over, you'll want to bring them all home for more.

The studio album version of Walk Into a Storm linked to here is
absolutely and perfectly gorgeous, but as proof for how compelling
they can be in concert, I linked to a live version of my second song
choice, Deeper in the Water.  Buy your tickets now...they will be
performing here in Burlington in November.

Kathy Seiler

Thelonius Monk, Monk’s Dream (Take 8)

I know I will catch crap from Scudder (he already knows I’m not “right-thinking”), but Thelonius Monk rivals Miles Davis for top jazz excellence. Monk is more experimental jazz than Davis, but the music itself is pure genius. Monk’s Dream is the title track for the album and in my opinion, a great blend of traditional and experimental jazz with some notes that you don’t expect while not offending the highly sensitive jazz lover. I love how the piano almost sounds like the player is making some mistakes, or is being sloppy while playing, which makes the song all the more interesting, and humanizes the music. The drums are subtle and the saxophone sublime. The song always leaves me hanging when it’s over… the notes just hang there, acting like they will continue, and then they don’t. I highly recommend the whole album for jazz lovers if you don’t already have it in your collection.

Phillip Seiler

Grant Hart "2541"

If I am honest, this is not the best version of this song. Check out Marshall Crenshaw's cover for that. Still, this is a masterpiece of songwriting. And it deserves to be recognized as such.

This week we lost another of the great Minneapolis musicians from the 80s, Grant Hart. As half of Hüsker Dü, he was a pioneer of American Punk. He had a gift for melody and song craft that was uncommon for his genre but he never gave in to the temptation to temper his angst with cliche. Hüsker Dü, and Grant Hart, were nothing if not raw and honest, even when they were melancholy.

Again, if I am honest, I always preferred the Hüsker Dü tracks penned by Bob Mould. But there is a beauty in Grant's work that deserves inspection. I find it most evident in the solo track I chose this week that immediately follows the band's demise: 2541. It was released on an EP on SST records directly after the band called it quits. 

"It was the first place we'd ever had to ourselves

I didn't know it would be the last"

I actually don't know how you capture both the joy of a relationship and its subsequent loss in any fewer words than this. Bravo, Grant, and may you always have big windows to let in the sun.

Alice Neiley

Discography post #2 (I swear mine won’t all be long-winded. Pinky swear):

In Defense of The Carpenters

Yes, I unabashedly adore The Carpenters. Cringing yet? Hiding your eyes for fear of contracting the smooth white suburban purity muzak disease? Well, this installment is especially (though not only) for you: a potential pocket of Carpenters redemption in which you can survive.

First of all, I’ve never been able to resist an exceptional alto voice, and Karen Carpenter’s sounds like the feeling of sliding under cool water when you were sweltering just a second before:

 (vocal isolation!)

Also…(to use a phrase frequented by my students) when it comes to lyrics here, I can’t even.

Talking to myself and feelin’ old
Sometimes I’d like to quit

Nothing ever seems to fit

On top of Karen’s vocal depth, those lyrics make me cry. While I can’t give credit to any Carpenter for that (words were written by Williams and Nichols), the melody, harmony, and rich voices were all Carpenters, and the magic for me is how that combination has always made me feel like someone finally understands my inner life. In short, it’s beautifully, even uncomfortably, human.

On the other hand, my love and respect for The Carpenters doesn’t just stem from my being a total sap, but also from the fact that despite, or perhaps because of their starchy clean image and consistent richness of sound, The Carpenters were sometimes a huge surprise, and therefore, a huge influence. Richard Carpenter once said in an interview for TIME magazine in 1976: “Our music shouldn’t be compared to rock. It’s pop…but we’re not your average ‘easy-listening’…Easy-listening artists will only record what has already been done.”

Precisely!!

1. Karen Carpenter (again): a voice to swim in but also an unarguably kick ass drum talent: (start at 1:30)

2. Searing guitar solos. In boppy-pop songs. Like a shot of whisky suddenly oozing out of your vanilla ice cream cone! It was as close to innovative as pop got, and Richard Carpenter started it all with “Goodbye to Love” in 1972. Side note: he was inspired by a Bing Crosby movie called Rhythm on the River. How cool is that? But there was one choice Richard made with Gb.T.L. that changed everything.

Did ya hear that guitar solo in the middle there? Did ya? As far as I can tell no one had ever tried to toss some rock (the ‘serious’ popular music) into a slow, low-vocals, song you’d listen to in the car with your mom before. The Carpenters’ mockable image was pretty solidified, but Richard knew the impact of that shocking electric guitar, and the important people knew it too. What happened afterward, you ask? (Pretend you asked). Well, there was Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” in 1976, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” in 1982, (if I dare say) Prince with “Purple Rain” in 1984, “Faith” by George Michael in 1987, “Black Cat” by Janet Jackson in 1990, and on, and on, and on…all containing fizzing guitar solos, rock style.

Anyway, whether you love them or feel a little nauseated listening to them, they were an inspiration in at least one way for a musical trend that still exists in spades on the pop scene. And as far as the rest of it goes, embrace the sap. Weep. Sigh. Because, as Gary Beatrice proved last week with his impressive disco top-ten, there is always room for more delicious cheese. If not for dancing purposes, than for wallowing, I say.

On that note, a swoony Carpenters cover by Ron Isley and Lauryn Hill.

Dave Mills

Song: Hanuman

Artist: Rodrigo y Gabriela

Rodrigo y Gabriela are an extremely energetic guitar duo who primarily play flamenco music, albeit inflected by Metallica, Zeppelin, and the titans of other genres of guitar rock. The result is a powerful sound and an energetic live performance. (Speaking of the latter, I'm selecting one of their tracks this week as a heads-up to my fellow Burlington-area discographers. They'll be playing Higher Ground November 2nd. Rebecca and I will be there. Hopefully, several of you will as well.) It's astonishing how much sound just two people can make, and how textured and complex that sound can be, coming from just two guitars. The youtube video here includes some nice close-ups on their fast-flying fingers and percussive techniques. It's physically demanding, to the degree that they had to quit touring for a while so Gabriela could recover. This track is the first track I heard from them, back in 2009, and I was hooked immediately. This track's album, 11:11, is constructed as an homage to the guitarists who've influenced them. (And yes, in case you're wondering, Pantera's Dimebag Darrell makes this list, with track #10). What's unclear to me is how Rodrigo and Gabriela chose to name the tracks. This specific track is dedicated to Carlos Santana, and is titled Hanuman. If, perchance, a scholar of the Ramayana were to stumble across this discography (I know, what would be the odds?), said scholar would no doubt recognize this as the name of the monkey god sidekick of Rama. Perhaps such a scholar could theorize the connection between that monkey and Carlos Santana. Perhaps the link is found in the fact that in Sanskrit, "Hanuman" means "one with disfigured jaw." Could be a reference to the way Santana's face contorts during his epic riffs? Who knows? If only one could find a Rama scholar... In any event, with or without scholarly guidance, this track rocks. Enjoy!

Dave Kelley

"If There's a Hell Below"   Curtis Mayfield

Early 70's funk music is absolutely one of my favorite genres. and Mayfield is a giant in that field.  His work with the Impressions and on his own were outstanding.  He is probably best known for "People Get Ready" which was one of my selections in the Music Blog version 1.0.  Today's selection is the mirror image of the hopefulness and redemption which were the subjects of 'People Get Ready".  I had forgotten about this song until it showed up as the theme for the new David Simon series "The Deuce."  Written during the 1st Nixon administration (One sign of how unbelievably horrid the current administration is, is the fact that I would crawl across glass to have previously despised presidents like Nixon and W replace him.), Mayfield is not letting anybody off the hook.

"Brothers and the whities

Blacks and the crackers

Police and their backers

They're all political actors."

"Everybody praying

and everybody saying

But when it come time to do

Everybody's laying."

"But they don't know

There can be no show

And if there's a hell below

We're all going to go."

These somewhat apocalyptic lyrics are backed by a classic 70's funk sound.  Killer bass line, wah wah pedal guitar, strings, and a silky smooth vocal.  If we are going to hell, this song lets us dance all the way there.  Now I am not as pessimistic or fatalistic as the singer in this song, and I am heartened by the real resistance being shown in the face of creeping fascism in this country.  I would argue that this song is even more relevant that when it was released.  Plus, it makes you want to play air bass and shake your ass.  Doomsday lyrics combined with music that makes you feel good.  Oh, the duality of music.

Mike Kelly

Flexible Flyer -- Husker Du 

I'm actually struggling to write this post and try to make an argument for what made Minneapolis bands of the late 1980s and early 90s good. They didn't really know how to play their instruments very well, the lyrics were occasionally wowing but inconsistent and if I played them at a party, they would never pass for Rosewave. However, The Replacements, Soul Asylum and for the purposes of this week's entry, Husker Du remain a staple of my sensibility and that's why I was saddened when I woke up this morning to the news Grant Hart died. 

What these bands taught me to listen for was how there could be a bunch of beauty, both lyrically and melodically, about the kind of punk songs that were purposely inaccessible.  The thing that's striking about Flexible Flyer (and lots of other songs of this ilk) is that beneath the jangly guitars and the crashing drum set is a song about retaining a sense of wonder and excitement that's far from the angry, rebellious, three-pieced middle finger the genre gets misconstrued as being.  

"If your heart is a flame burning brightly

You'll have light and you'll never grow cold
And soon you will know that you just grow
You're not growing old"

The most deliciously ironic thing about Flexible Flyer is how it aged. Now, it's legitimately punk to think the way this song implores us to think as we get older and more cynical about the way things roll day in/day out (n.b. it's actually not very punk to belabor this point so I'll stop here) 

There are two versions of the song- there's a rare acoustic one I found and then there's the original.  I couldn't pick one without the other but either way, they work to celebrate Grant Hart's kick ass work that still comprises the soundtrack of my life.   

Gary Scudder

Uncle Tupelo, We've Been Had

OK, so my good mood lasted exactly one week.  This year for the first time in over thirty years of university-level teaching I'm not getting a raise.  Now, I'm not complaining too heavily because I have a lot of years of oddly great evaluations and concomitant raises so I'm fine, but it is annoying because it's indicative of potentially existential weaknesses in the US educational system.  There are reasons why the costs of a university education have gone through the roof, but one of the most ignored is the explosion of expensive and generally useless administrators.  In the last forty years the college student population has doubled, but the number of tenure tracks full-time slots has risen something like 14% - and the number of administrators has risen something like 400%.  And they're all making ungodly huge salaries and are all almost universally dramatically under-performing.  Sadly, usually the least troublesome ones are the most quietly ineffective, as compared to the energetically inefficient ones who inevitably create a lot of useless and annoying static. That said, one of the other big reasons why the cost of college is insane is the mad rush to make the modern university experience as posh as possible; essentially, the students are leaving one gated community to come to another gated community.  It's really a microcosm of the broader situation in the US, where we are passing into the final stages of an oligarchy of the 1%.  It's been a decades long war, which you can do if you're rich and can afford to plan things on that scale (while the vast majority of the rest of us live paycheck to paycheck).  You gain control of the media, either by standing by while corporations buy up all the media avenues, have at last a couple media outlets be nothing more than propaganda tools, eliminate laws requiring a balance of coverage, gerrymander the hell out of the system so that the folks in power can't be booted out, promote the extraordinary cost of getting elected which means that all politicians are subservient to their rich and/or corporate overlords, diminish the authority of the expert, etc.  Oh, my brothers and sisters, it goes on and on.  This is why I'm always starting arguments with folks on Twitter in regards to my opposition to the hashtag #NotMyPresident.  While I agree with them and loath Trump passionately, let's not pretend that he dropped out of space.  We've been headed to this exact moment for years.  Yes, we've been had.  Uncle Tupelo is a band that I just love, and for a while I had this internal argument (that wasn't so internal because I would inflict it on my friends) over whether Uncle Tupelo or the Drive-By Truckers was the greatest American band (that is, a band from America that sang songs about the American experience).  Since then I've clearly come down on the side of the Drive-By Truckers, because, well, they're just an extraordinary band, and they're more consistently political, and, shit, they're still out there plugging away giving killer shows for $25 a pop at Higher Ground.  Truthfully, and I know I will be mocked by Beatrice and Brandenburg (a most formidable law firm), I've never really warmed to either of the bands, including Wilco, and various solo projects, that resulted from the split (and a plague on both their houses for being petulant children). That said, I think all of the Uncle Tupelo albums are fantastic and display an edge and a sophistication beyond their tender years at the time.