We've made it to April, and we might, somehow, potentially, theoretically, inshallah, survive the pandemic. It won't be easy, even now, considering that 46% of Republicans say that they're probably not going to get the vaccine, which means that herd immunity is not an option (heavy sigh). Still, we're a hell of a lot better off that we were a year ago, or even three months ago for that matter. It will be interesting to see if the musical mood of our band of intrepid Discographers improves to match better news on the pandemic front. Generally, we're not a shiny, happy crew under the best of circumstances, but maybe we'll rally for a fourth movement Mozart level emotional explosion (yeah, I'm not buying it either - too many Alt Country fans here - but we can dream).
This is one of our regular free form months, so folks are (to quote the esteemed Sanford) just talking about what they're talking about. May will be a theme month, and said theme will be revealed in the fullness of time. It's from Mike Kelly, so you've been warned.
Oh, and we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge and celebrate the birthday of the routinely excellent Cindy Morgan, who is 29 or 39 or some year that ends in a 9 (it's not a prime number so I wasn't paying that much attention).
Dave Kelley
Katie Pruitt. "Look The Other Way"
For George Floyd and a just verdict and countless others whose killers were not held accountable. Nothing else to say that the song doesn't say better.
Phil Seiler
Talk Talk
The Spirit of Eden
I needed to check my notes but it really does
look like for all the posts I have done for this effort, I have never featured
one of the best bands to ever record albums, Talk Talk (they did get a shout
out from me in the desert island disc thing a while back. But that clearly does
not count.) Originally a synth pop outfit from the early 80s, Talk Talk evolved
into a band that surely must have driven their record label insane. Each album
they released became more introspective, more committed to exploring the
boundaries of what pop music could be and indeed how much power in music there
is from the spaces, the silence, in the wall of sound. It's hard for me to pick
a track to write about from their later career as it is all brilliant and is
best appreciated in full album form. In fact, I highly recommend you don't
follow my track link above and instead use this one which is the
full A side of the album (ripped from vinyl!) as the tracks are meant to be
experienced together, as movements of a large piece. But Eden from the Spirit
of Eden album is as good a representative of their work as any so if you just
want one track, here you go.
Get headphones for this and give yourself the
full almost 7 minutes to just listen. Mark Hollis and the band will find spaces
in between the notes to engage you. He will breathlessly tell you of his joy
and pain, building to crescendo and then fading into the ether.
Everybody needs someone to live by
Everybody needs someone
Everybody needs someone to live by
Rage on omnipotent
Just listen to him barely whisper that last line
as everything crumbles into space and air and light. RIP Mark. You left behind
some beauty and truth and that's probably the best any of us can hope for.
Alice Neiley
Ontario just entered yet another
full lockdown last week, so I'm fighting the Covid blues a bit. All the songs I
was thinking to submit and write about were sad, slow, contemplative, and, of
course, lovely -- which, if I'm honest, I'd probably write about anyway, even
if the pandemic blues hadn't struck. There was one in particular that I
stumbled upon called Little Bit of Rain by Fred Neil, which
is so spare and lovely that I sat back, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes
while listening. The low notes his voice hits are almost inhuman, but in an
ethereal, magical being sort of way. The whole tune is grounding and deep, but
those bass notes vibrate and spread through the chest like gongs. It turns out
that the simple beauty of that tune was such a comfort and improved my mood so
much that by the end of the day, I couldn't decide whether to share it, or to
share what I was listening to while mixing martinis for Karen and
myself...so...I'm sharing both.
Par for the course of this
pandemic emotional rollercoaster, the second tune has a completely different
vibe -- a throwback in the best sense of the word -- Leon Bridges's Smooth Sailin'. Now,
those of you who know me know how much I love soul music, motown, etc., and
when Leon Bridges burst on the scene about 7 years ago (yes, in the 2000s, not
1970s, shockingly), he certainly soothed my nostalgic, old soul. This tune is
the most fun on the album, not only musically, but also visually. Seriously. I
mean, there's upbeat and cool, and then there's UPBEAT and COOOOOL.
Lynette Vought
The Big Lazy
After a year of Trouble, The Big Lazy’s ambling
nonchalant nod to it in this song, accompanied by Marco North’s well-crafted
views of New York tough, remind me that life goes on in spite of it all.
I’m not sure which I like better, the music or the film.
Maybe it is the combination that is the best. Some of my favorite moments are
when the film matches the music, like when the geese skirt along the bank in
step or when the rhythm of the song matches the windshield wipers in the video.
But also, there are human moments, when comfort is offered and adversity is
faced head on.
Together, music and video combine to make something greater than either one alone, one that tells Trouble to bring it on, and the band will still be playing in the back.
Bill Farrington
My submission(s) for edition #4 are
John Barleycorn Must Die (Traffic) and Gallows Pole (Page & Plant / Led
Zeppelin).
The British musicians that
dominated album oriented rock fm stations in the early 70's had an interest in
old english folks songs. I have a number of albums from this time period which
included one song which was their cover version of these folk songs.
John Barleycorn is pretty
straightforward. No other comment on this song.
One comment on Gallows Pole. The tempo of the song increases throughout the song - as the prisoner gets closer to the Gallow Pole. I have read this was meant to represent his blood pressure as his execution became more imminent.
If either of these songs made
you smile, there are other examples from Jethro Tull, and the Small Faces,
among others.
Bill
Gary - for your amusement and bemusement - I discovered a version by Neil Young and Crazy Horse while searching for the spotify links above. It's kind of rockabilly meets old English folk songs. I regret to admit - I didn't make it all the way through this rendition.
Miranda Tavares
There have been many excellent songs from tv shows. Way down in the hole from The Wire comes to mind immediately (the Tom Waits version is my personal favorite); Regina Spektor from Orange is the new Black; fuck, who doesn't still love the Cheers theme song?! Of course, the reverse is also true. The Rembrandts can go fuck themselves with a semi trailer sideways for their Friends theme, and I'll live to see 438 before I forget the theme from The Facts of Life. But I present to you a highly underrated song to accompany a highly underrated show: the Terriers theme song. Performed by a generic soundtrack generator as opposed to a stand-on-their-own artist like Tom Waits or Regina Spector (no I didn't bother to look up who did the cheers theme song, this post comes from the heart, and from the booze, with no room for Google and limited room for proofreading), this song is the epitome of surf rock: catchy yet edgy, nod your head or shake your fist. Highly recommend both the show and the song. Both have appealing layers.
Gary Scudder
Songs: Ohia, Hold On Magnolia
OK, so this wasn't my first song choice for the week, which isn't particularly surprising. In fact, it's probably the norm. While I collect everybody's songs and commentaries in a word doc as they come in and then eventually transfer them, when I write my own I tend to just do it here on the site (which makes sense because I pop in here to write all sorts of trivial stuff during the course of a week). However, this leads to a pretty sloppy process, especially when I change my mind, which I guess mirrors my writing style or, well, my life. The temporarily discarded songs get pushed off until later, with this week's original song now sitting in the yet to be published June edition of the GBD.
This week's song is inspired by a text and accompanying song suggestion sent along by my son: Just Be Simple, by Songs: Ohia, on their great album The Magnolia Electric, Co. Now, I was unfamiliar with the band. Well, actually, I had forgot that the esteemed Mike Kelly had actually introduced me to the band a couple years ago, and somehow it got lost in the thousand of so songs we've featured on the Discography since its inception. The funny thing is that as I listened to the album, and fell in love with it, I immediately thought of MK, and assumed that he must have written about one of their songs - which, of course, he had. Songs: Ohia and eventually Magnolia Electric, Co, the band, not the album (it's a bone of contention exactly when Songs: Ohia officially became Magnolia Electric, Co.), were the brainchild of the prolific singer/songwriter Jason Molina, originally from northern Ohio. MK could no doubt speak more eloquently about his/their evolution (as he could most things). In a text the other day I described Songs: Ohia as some wonderful and dark combination of Mike Cooley, Freedy Johnston, and On the Beach-era Neil Young. I've been listening to the album continually for the last week and I'm appalled that I didn't know about it before (it's understood that of the Discography crew I have by far the most limited musical range; most of my knowledge about music comes either directly or osmotically from my friends). Songs: Ohia has now joined Uncle Tupelo in the Great Bands During My Lifetime That I Didn't Know Were A Thing Until They Were No Longer A Thing Museum. The thing that struck me this week is that throughout the album there is an invisible but still almost tangible Other that is accompanying Molina, and I'm not talking about his band. The album came out in 2003, and while he had a drinking problem before, this is when he began to seriously drink himself to death. Molina held on until 2013, but as early as 2009 he had withdrawn from public life and into an endless series of rehab centers, before dying in Indianapolis at age 39. The album is not your typical rock paean to bad behavior, but rather an elegy to a life slipping away. Opening with Farewell Transmission (which would fit in comfortably on Young's Tonight's the Night) and ending with Hold On Magnolia the album is a mirror of the flickering candle of our mortality. I guess I'm suggesting that as surely as Thomas Wolfe or Marcel Proust or Yukio Mishima were writing love letters to death, Jason Molina was as well.
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