Category Archives: general

covers, general

Rob Dickinson covers Hush Little Baby

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Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Rob Dickinson, former frontman of (The) Catherine Wheel and a favorite in these parts, is returning to Arizona for a Jan. 26 show at Anderson’s Fifth Estate, where he played acoustic exactly one year ago to that date (a show I recorded – Parts I and II – though mp3s are no longer active).

That means he’s been on the road for the better portion of the past year to promote his solo debut Fresh Wine for the Horses, an album that, despite its unfortunate cover, has found a comfortable spot with me as I continue to come to grips with Catherine Wheel’s dissolution. In situations like Dickinson’s, it seems easier to cling to the nostalgia, but I’ve found Fresh Wine seriously enjoyable when I’m able to separate it from the Catherine Wheel days.

Of course, that’s hard to do when the latest issue of Filter offers a somewhat random retrospective on Catherine Wheel, including an interview with Dickinson and recollections from Tim Friese-Green (of Talk Talk and CW’s producer) and Belly’s Tanya Donelly. A nice Q&A with Dickinson offers some valuable insight:

“As I’ve been touring for my solo record, I’ve been really gobsmacked with the longevity of the music … These people have reignited my pride in what we did. We made some really good music and that’s what I remember first.”

At any rate, I swung by Dickinson’s newly designed Web site after hearing the news of his upcoming Arizona stop, and in the downloads section is an mp3 of him covering the children’s lullaby Hush Little Baby, which only seems fitting as we will be welcoming our third little niece into the world on Saturday (congrats to my bro and Linds).

For more on Dickinson, go search the Chromewaves archives, where Frank’s exhaustive work is always appreciated here. Dickinson’s site even uses some of his photos, which is just freakin’ cool.

Filter also filmed Dickinson doing an in-office performance, which is posted here.

  • Rob Dickinson | Hush Little Baby
  • Rob Dickinson | Heal (Live on WOXY Lounge Acts, 8/16/06)
general

Barton Carroll: Love and War

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As 2007 begins – happy new year, by the way – I’m frantically digging into the depths of my e-mail inbox (deleting all along the way) to see what I missed in 2006. One name I swore I’d come back to was Barton Carroll, if only for his connection as a former member of Crooked Fingers, the band of Eric Bachmann, whose fabulous solo LP, To the Races, I stupidly forgot among my list of favorites for 2006. (Yeah, pretty sure that qualifies as a run-on sentence.)As the title of Carroll’s record might suggest, Love & War (available on eMusic) considers the human element and emotions of war. Admittedly, you won’t see me staging anti-war protests or being terribly vocal about it, but we’re seeing a byproduct (unfortunately so) of these world events. Off the top of my head, I can think of Josh Ritter’s The Animal Years, Michel Franti’s Yell Fire, The Coup’s Pick a Bigger Weapon and Neil Young’s Living With War as thoughtful and meaningful ways of protest, and music’s ability to teach another audience to take a stance.

Where Carroll’s album fits, I’m not quite sure. But listen to Small Thing, a story about a young woman living in Berlin during Soviet occupation in 1945; it’s based on a book co-written by his mother. It’s hard not to feel engaged by a line like this:

“War sleeps deep in a man /
long after guns are gone /
he loses care for small things /
and I, I was a small thing.”

  • Barton Carroll | Small Thing
  • Barton Carroll | Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still
general, year end

Favorite album of 2006

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By the time I first saw Band of Horses this year in March, I only barely recognized their name and had little to no clue if going to that show, a last-minute decision, would even be worth it. Three live shows, a digital album and vinyl purchase later, Everything All the Time (Sub Pop) was pretty much a shoo-in as my favorite album this year.

I’m not sure I’d put it on the same pedestal as my pick from last year (The National’s Alligator), but Band of Horses bring something so needed amid the disaffected and mopey masses of indie rock: a genuine affability. Their music is as approachable as the guys are likable. A live show only supports the point. Frontman Ben Bridwell’s dude-man personality is charming and a welcome change from performers who take themselves too seriously.

Then there’s the small matter of the album, which seems an honest reflection of the group’s engaging attitude. Put simply, these are songs that are easy to like. They are not pretentious nor do they try too hard. In June, I wrote for Mars Needs Guitars that The Great Salt Lake had “a bit of grandeur in the sound.” Really, the same could be said about the entire album. Comparisons to My Morning Jacket and the Shins make sense but shouldn’t be taken too literally. Band of Horses strikes a balance between the Shins’ fragile guitar tip-toeing and MMJ’s cumbersome jamming.

When I’m sure The Funeral or The Great Salt Lake are the album’s high points, Monsters makes me rethink it all. These are big, sprawling songs, but they never threaten to burden the album with an overwrought sense of self-importance.

It’s very possible, and I’m no musician, that Everything All the Time is not a marvel of technical musicianship. But sincerity is the great equalizer. How does an album make you feel? Warm and welcome or distant and indifferent? I can’t imagine feeling more invited and comfortable than I do when I listen to this album.

Ten more albums I also really enjoyed (in no particular order):

general

Rob Crow: I Hate You, Rob Crow

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So, yeah, there’s the title to that song, the new single from Rob Crow’s solo album Living Well, due out Jan. 23 on Temporary Residence. It’s either a healthy dose of sarcasm or some serious self-reflection by Crow, frontman of Pinback and member of other assorted side projects (including the unfortunately named Goblin Cock).

Living Well is Crow’s ode to his family and the birth of his first child, his musical equivalent of a little couch time. Even if the lead single is ironically self-referential, I Hate You, Rob Crow is brilliant in its efficiency. At two minutes and nine seconds, I Hate You concentrates Crow’s knack for a sing-songy vocal hook and instant impact. And this is the “single version.” The album version apparently is 1:13.

Rob Crow | I Hate You, Rob Crow (single version) (mp4)

covers, general, vinyl

James Brown: Handful of Soul

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As previously mentioned, James Brown made eight albums for Smash Records, five of which were instrumental. Handful of Soul, released in 1966, was the fourth (via). The album features covers and originals.One of the covers is a pretty interesting take on When a Man Loves a Woman.

Even if you’ve tired of the song (thanks, Michael Bolton), Brown puts a great twist on it. Female backing singers hold down the familiar chorus, but Brown’s organ takes the place of a lead singer, almost as if he’s doing a call and response between the backing vocals and the organ.

And if my elementary research is correct, Percy Sledge came out with the song in 1966, which means Brown’s cover likely was one of the first.

James Brown (at the organ) | When a Man Loves a Woman

Also, thanks to Covert Curiosity for pointing me in the direction of this Detroit News remembrance of James Brown, which includes this great tidbit:

“There was a reason Brown’s band was so tight: Brown was known as one of the strictest bandleaders ever. He didn’t wait until the end of a show to dock someone’s pay if their shoes weren’t shined or if they played something he didn’t like.

“[Allan] Slutsky, who worked on ‘Standing in the Shadows of Motown’ with Bootsy Collins, who was a bass player for Brown, says if a trumpet player hit a bad note, Brown would dance over to the musician and, with his back to the audience, flash the fingers of both hands at the player. ‘That meant he was fining the guy $10,’ he said.”

general, samples

James Brown: The Payback

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I can’t recall the year, but if memory serves, it was the third bout between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe. Bowe won the first, Holyfield the second. I’m watching the introductions, filled with the usual pomp of the sport, when Bowe emerges from the curtains and walks out to James Brown’s The Payback. Whoa. I really didn’t have a rooting interest in either boxer, but I can remember thinking that had to be one of the coolest (and most appropriate) song selections for the situation.

The title says it all: a down and dirty vow of revenge and payback. Released on the LP by the same name in 1973, The Payback feels more like Brown is preaching than singing. He talk-sings in fragmented bits in between the rhythmic guitar strumming and funky bass. And he employs the call-and-response tactic, name-checking trombonist Fred Wesley for emphasis: “Hit ’em Fred, hit ’em!”

The lyrical freedom Brown gives himself in the song lends to its greatness: it’s not seven minutes of structured verse-chorus-verse boredom, but a tirade of one pissed-off dude. I’d hate to be the guy who inspired this anger.

The equally testy wah-wah guitar and daunting bassline make an obvious foundation for sampling, which EPMD did extensively, though the use of it by En Vogue and L.L. Cool J (mp3s below) probably gave it more commercial appeal.

James Brown | The Payback

As sampled by …

L.L. Cool J | The Boomin’ System
En Vogue | My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)

UPDATE: Oliver at Soul Sides has started to share his thoughts – and music – of James Brown.

general, year end

Favorite song of 2006

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By about August, I had begun formulating year-end lists in my head. I was mentally shuffling songs and albums up and down and back and forth when it finally hit me earlier this month: Who cares? The overwhelming volume of year-end lists (Largehearted Boy is keeping track: A-M and N-Z) has watered down the process, although I still kept tabs on lists from bloggers and writers I especially admire (Chromewaves, Gorilla vs. Bear, Marathonpacks, Bows + Arrows, for starters).

There is nothing wrong with lists (I made two last year). At best they are tangible reminders of a year that was; at worst they are masturbatory exercises of self-importance. They do open up the author to all sorts of criticism (“What? No, TV on the Radio?!?”), although that’s half the fun, I suppose.

For me, the difference between, say, my 13th and sixth favorite albums is probably negligible and hard to quantify. So instead, I’ve whittled it down to one song and one album that moved me or commanded a majority of my attention.

Favorite song of 2006:
Elvis Perkins, While You Were Sleeping
(From Ash Wednesday, self-released in 2006 and due out on XL in February 2007.)

In the newspaper business (of which I’m a part), you’re taught that the lead to a story is vital – it will determine if someone continues to read a story. It’s a good analogy for records, though, in the case of While You Were Sleeping, track No. 1 on Ash Wednesday, I kept doubling back to listen on repeat.

No doubt, the rest of the album is golden. But While You Were Sleeping is something else: insightful, pretty, sad, plaintive. From the first note, when an acoustic guitar gently dives into what NPR calls “midnight ruminations of an insomniac,” the song slowly builds layer upon layer of instrumentation – acoustic guitar gives way to bass gives way to drum beat gives way to horns.

But Perkins’ writing – the imagery – carries the song. He’s singing to someone long asleep, a winding narrative of what is passing this person by in the stillness of slumber: “While you were sleeping, the time changed / all of your things were rearranged.” It’s a simple yet sort of eerie idea: that the world, time, people don’t stop just because you do.

Favorite line:
“While you were sleeping the money died /
machines were harmless /
and the Earth sighed.”

Elvis Perkins | While You Were Sleeping

I also really liked these:
Band of Horses, The Great Salt Lake.
Josh Ritter, Girl in the War.
The Walkmen, All Hands and the Cook.
The Long Winters, Hindsight.
The Roots (feat. Peedi Peedi and Bunny Sigler), Long Time.

Related:
Favorite songs of 2005.
Favorite albums of 2005.

general

Youth Group: Sorry

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In my many trips to record stores last year, my wife kept telling me to look for Youth Group for her. Youth Group this, Youth Group that. Skeleton Jar. Blah blah. Eventually we got our hands on a copy, and, as it turns out, I was pretty happy Annie kept after me about it.

It wasn’t so much that Skeleton Jar was all that awe-inspiring, but it seemed the promise for something better was looming. And the Aussies may have found it on Casino Twilight Dogs, due out Jan. 23 on Epitaph/Anti. The label is working extra hard on this one, too; I’ve gotten two promo copies. Their persistence is worth it. Casino Twilight Dogs is just really … pleasant. I’m not even sure I’ve ever used that word to describe a record. The melodies are sneaky – not so catchy right off the bat but they linger and reel you in until they’ve won you over.

On Sorry, like most of the group’s tunes, the guitars are big and sweeping and enhanced by an attractive string arrangement. We shan’t forget the cover of Alphaville’s Forever Young. And, oh, singer Toby Martin uses the word “infinitesimally” in the song Catching & Killing. That’s gotta count for something, right?

Youth Group | Sorry

general, hip-hop

Money Mark: Pick Up the Pieces

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Money Mark is probably better known as the keyboardist for the Beastie Boys, though he does have an extensive discography, combining both solo and collaborative efforts. Pick Up the Pieces is the first single off his upcoming LP Brand New By Tomorrow, on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records (but don’t hold that against him … OK, that was a snobby thing to say). It’s touted as a break-up album, but if the rest of the songs carry the breezy, jazz-style instrumentation that’s on Pick Up the Pieces, then it may be hard to identify it as a somber affair. Let’s just say you won’t be moved to tears by any of the lyrics here: “You got me pickin’ up all my pieces / put ’em back in my pocket in case I need them.” Still, the interplay between the piano and bass carries the day. And that’s enough for me.

Money Mark | Pick Up the Pieces

ADMINISTRATIVE: Posting in the next couple of days likely will be coming from someone other than me (insert cheers here). We are headed for Chicago for the weekend, and for the first time I’m not looking forward to it. It’s for a funeral of a close family friend. Nevertheless, someone will prevent mold from building up around here while I am away.