Discography Year Two - Week 41

As we enter into the last quarter of this year's Discography discussion I find myself in a reflective mood - or, as my friends would doubtless point out, I continue to find myself is a reflective mood or an especially reflective mood.  Part of it is purely personal in that I've passed through another Ramadan (which is an odd marker because, unlike New Year's or Graduation, Ramadan advances across the calendar; essentially, it's nine days earlier every year).  Some of it is more communal and happy, in that close friends of mine, in this case Bill Wixon and Mike Lange, have recently gotten married. Some of it is communal and not so happy, as in we began this year's Discography with GB and we're finishing it without GB.

Dave Wallace

Lou Reed - Satellite of Love

I recently realized that I've made it through nearly two years of this blog without a song from either Lou Reed or the Velvet Underground.  Somewhere, Gary Beatrice is shaking his head in disappointment.  Starting with Lou as a solo artist, Satellite of Love is an obvious choice, but it's still one of my favorites by him.  Part of a long list of classics by Reed.

Kevin Andrews

Blake Mills is a producer, songwriter, and deceptively talented guitar player. Eric Clapton revered to him as “the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal.” He’s produced Alabama Shakes, Conor Oberst, John Legend and worked with Lucinda, Don Was, Mr. Clapton, Fiona Apple. An impressive list for a 31 year-old. He seems to be a musician’s musician.

This is the opening song from Heigh Ho, If I'm Unworthy  This video has the lyrics which may be hard to understand. Like many of his songs they’re deeply personal, and beautiful. There are some live versions of this song if you poke around the YouTube. You can find the entire album too.

There are two good NYT write ups on him here and here if you’re interested.

Phillip Seiler

Nada Surf

Clear Eye Clouded Mind

 Nada Surf is best known for their mid-90s song "Popular". They've grown beyond that and have produced some good, mature music while not losing their rocking roots. Their 2012 album The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy is a gem from start to finish. I choose the lead track because it sets the tone for the album and is just a pure power rock jam.The bass in this track is relentless driving the piece forward even while front man Matthew Caws explores some interesting themes in the lyrics. It's hard to capture the depth of a person struggling with their place in a larger universe in a pop song but he succeeds here. 

The stars are indifferent to astronomy

and all that we think we know

Mars will salute your autonomy

But he doesn't need to know

The little layered harmony on top of this chorus is just gorgeous and the song's final notes hit with conviction and then just left to fade...as we all must.

Dave Kelley

"Sweet Old World"     Lucinda Williams

I admit that Anthony Bourdain's suicide hit me much harder than it should have considering that I never met him.  I was a huge fan of his shows.  Food was featured, but it was never a cooking show.  He traveled everywhere, but it was not a travel show.  To me, he was just a smart, opinionated, empathetic, curious  guy who traveled the world rubbing shoulders with every day men and women finding out what mattered to them.  He emphasized both the differences in different cultures and the similarities in all humans.

We can never know what is going on in someone else's mind.  That is why the credo of Patton Oswald's late wife, "it is all chaos, be kind" strikes me as one of the truest things I have ever heard.

This is a classic Lucinda song in which she lists some of the beautiful things this world has to offer that the person who killed himself left behind.  The only flaw is that she neglected to mention bacon.

Gary Scudder

Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, In A Sentimental Mood

This is just about a perfect song, and one that is impossibly beautiful.  It's difficult to improve upon Ellington's original from 1935, but I think this re-imagining did.  It's drawn from a 1963 collaboration album which is just wonderful.  It's one of a series of collaboration albums that Ellington did late in life, and right before Coltrane went completely off the rails musically (his later music just takes a lot more work and patience and study from the listener).  I was thinking about why I liked this version better than the original, and I think it is because it is more stripped down, more simple.  This is something I've been thinking about a lot generally, and when I was putting together the different covers of NY's Only Love Can Break Your Heart inevitably the simpler versions were the ones I liked the best (even more than NY's original).

Ellington did not record this with his band, but instead with Coltrane's quartet. It reminds me, not surprisingly, of Young recording Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam and how it changed the vibe for the better.  The Ellington/Coltrane collaboration is required ownership.