Discography Year Two - Week 42

And this week in hell the US government put children in cages, and eventually relented to to the, in their amoral reasoning, more humane approach of instead putting the entire family in cages.  I've talked to so many of my friends who have opined that simply living day to day in this Trumpian dystopian nightmare is exhausting.  And we folks here in the Discography are not even the truly helpless, the ones that the monsters most routinely feast upon.  I find myself retreating more and more into music, mainly, I suspect, because it is more subjective and I can create a more emotionally sustainable universe to ride out the carnage.

Dave Wallace

Velvet Underground - Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

I've argued in the past that the Velvet Underground is the most important rock band ever.  I'm not sure that I still believe that, but there's a good argument in favor of that position.  It's really hard to overestimate the number of other musicians that VU influenced or the impact that their four albums had.  I remember buying the first VU album in college and being blown away by its audacity, beauty, and diversity.  All of the subsequent albums are wildly different from each other, and each is a classic in its own right.  Picking a single VU song was difficult, but I went with Oh! Sweet Nuthin', the last song on their last album, Loaded.  

Kevin Andrews

During an 8-hour car ride yesterday I came across one of my all-time favorite songs on The Bluetooth. I was reminded that just last week John Prine performed in Burlington. Had the tickets not been about $100 I would have seen him. At 71, this is probably his last tour. In 2013 he survived his second bout with cancer and he’s still out there. This recording of Souvenirs looks like it’s from Austin City Limits circa 1974ish. He’s joined by his friend and songwriting partner Steve Goodman who sang and played on the album version.

It seems appropriate to offer this since I’m in Pennsylvania for my father’s 96th birthday, surrounded by memories and ghosts. 

Phillip Seiler

Ninja Custodian

The Critic

Ladybug

In a just world, this is the band that broke out of Burlington Vermont's late '80s, early '90s music scene. Instead you all got Phish. Our world is not just.

I saw them play Border (now Metronome above Nectar's) and they were a wild energetic unit but tight. Very tight. 

Or I could be romanticizing my fading past. 

I still like their songs.

Alice Neiley

(I know, Scudder, I know, I'm a loser and a terrible person because I haven't posted in a week or two. I'm not even going to argue this time...;)) 

Tis the season of outdoor concerts, and I am in lineup heaven. It's the Ottawa Jazz Festival this week, for which Karen and I often buy passes. As usual with these types of festivals, about half the artistic lineup is made up of true jazz musicians, and the other half headliners of all genres (moneymoneymoneymoney....Monnnneey!). This has never bothered me, however, because the headliners they choose are often people on my personal bucket list AND I get to hear the jazzers. On Thursday night we went to hear the trumpeter Chris Botti, who, while an excellent trumpet player, is most impressive for the people he chooses to perform with. His drummer (Lee Pearson) and bassist (Richie Goods) were out of this world. Totally insane. And later this week Alison Krauss is playing, as well as Chaka Kahn and Bela Fleck/Flecktones. I'm thrilled. 

THAT is not the point, though. The POINT is that tonight Lake Street Dive is on the main stage, appropriately jazz festival material as their genre is unclassifiable. They're not jazz, but there' not NOT jazz...and they're rapidly becoming the type of headliner that will also generate cash for events like this. They will likely play tunes from their new album, which isn't my favorite collection of theirs, but does have some songs I'm straight up obsessed with -- the soul-tugging "I Can Change", for example. 

It's a gorgeous tune, lyrically and musically, especially in these (understatement) troubled times. It accurately mirrors feelings of both hope and hopelessness about our world, the disease of animosity that seems to be spreading even among people who are pushing for love, for inclusion and decency. "Hate casts a long shadow / I know that I lie in it / and let it rule my mind from time to time" sings Rachel Price, the siren, red headed lead singer of Lake Street Dive, whom everyone and their mother has a stage crush on. Upright bassist Bridget Brewing is the real star, though. She writes most of the songs, lyrics too, and bloodies her fingers going crazy on the strings. Anyway, I digress. "I Can Change" moves me to tears nearly every time, and makes me think of one of my favorite James Baldwin quotes from his essay Notes of a Native Son: “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” 

In other words, the song reminds me of what's underneath feelings of rage, on both sides of this country's deep rift, which doesn't exactly make anything solvable, but does make it more human. 

Dave Kelley

2018 has been such a difficult time for our nation and the world.  On a whiny personal note, it has been a very difficult year for me personally.  Too many dear friends and family have passed away or faced serious and tragic situations in the lives.  I know I am not alone in this.  We all lost Gary in January, and the Seilers in particular have suffered a decade worth of loss in just a couple of months.  My heart goes out to everyone, especially those children on the border ripped away from their parents by our cruel, despotic and shameless government.

As I mentioned in an earlier email, Nate, Miranda and I saw a tremendous American Aquarium show this week closed out with a killer cover of "Darkness on the Edge of Town."   Hail, hail, rock and roll.  Like the best concerts it was cathartic, reassuring, communal, and just a shitload of fun.  I use this line too often (Just ask Miranda), but we need to be reminded that "it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."  It was a two hour respite from the death of my cousin and all of the sadness that brought.

I just did an American Aquarium post a few weeks ago, but fuck it right?  This is an older tune called "Burn, Flicker, Die."  It's better to burn out, than to fade away.  Well, maybe.

"We're no different than the neon lights

When you turn us on, we stay up all night

We do what we can, we put up a fight

Then we burn too long, we flicker and die."

And of course, I have to add "Darkness" by Bruce.  This is a live version done for the release of the album's box set years ago.  It was filmed in a theater with no audience along with the rest of the album's tracks.  There is no mugging for the camera or a crowd.  Just focused intensity.  

"Tonight I'll be on that hill, cause I can't stop

I'll be on that hill with everything that I've got

With lives on the line where dreams are found and lost

I'll be there on time, and I'll pay the cost

For wanting things that can only be found

In the darkness on the edge of town."

To me, this is a great, great song about facing our demons, our fears, our mortality, our secrets we lack the courage to reveal.  The singer is planting his feet and readying himself to face...……….everything.  Going forward, let's try and do the same with whatever dark and scary things are slouching towards us (or that might be slouching towards us) with the same resolve and acceptance.  And to quote Bob Deniro, "Fuck Trump!" 

Gary Scudder

Vera Lynn, White Cliffs of Dover

As is always the case, this was not the first or second or even third choice this week (however, on the bright side, my next month of songs is in the queue).  I won't detail the circuitous route that led to this choice, because it wouldn't make any sense and it's irrelevant anyway. This 1942 standard from Vera Lynn is simply one of my favorite songs.  Even after all these years I can't listen to it without tearing up. The line that gets to me - and should get to anyone with a heart and soul (essentially anyone who isn't serving in the Trump administration) - is "and peace everlasting, tomorrow, when the world is free." Is it depressing and humbling and sobering to think what that generation sacrificed to rid the world of Fascism - and to reconcile the fact that Fascism still exists, and on our side of the ocean, and that it is, at least temporarily, victorious.  We have a party, the GOP, which controls every branch of the federal government, as well as the majority of governorships and state legislatures, and has proven itself to be unabashedly and unreservedly racist and anti-democratic.  In between gerrymandering and Russian election tampering and the efforts of Fox News and Sinclair to spread the propaganda and the refusal to hold special elections and the stealing of Supreme Court seats we can chalk some of their success up to cheating, but I spend enough time in the Twitter universe to get a sense of the utterly vile nature of so many of Trump's followers.  However, there comes a time when sadness and disgust and reasoned dialogue has to give way to righteous anger.  For a person possessing a famous/infamous temper I'm actually a fairly gentle soul who has never hit anyone his entire life.  That said, the other night when I watched Corey Lewandowski mock a girl with Down Syndrome all I could think of is that if I were there at that moment I wouldn't have thrown my hands up and said, "How dare you, sir?!" but instead would have gone completely southern Indiana: "Stand up, stand up so I can knock you down.  It's happening here, or it's happening outside, but it's happening." Believe me, that's not me.  I had this instant thought that it's a good thing I wasn't there, because it would be trash TV at its worst/finest, but then I regretted not being there.  It's sad that it's come to this, but it has come to this.  There was a time when that previous generation, equally shocked by the state of world, and in disbelief that the worst of human nature could prevail, had to stop commenting and playing nice, and fight a battle that they didn't want to fight.  Hopefully in the end this will be a battle for the hearts and minds - and the Left can't simply rage against Trump without providing a better vision for a more equitable and fair future for all - and winning control of both houses of Congress in the mid-terms has to be the first step - but we also have to understand that the other side has absolutely no moral scruples (and, as I point out endlessly on Twitter, there are no bigger villains in American history than McConnell and Ryan) and the dying of the American century is not simply rhetorical flourish if we don't care enough to fight for its preservation.