Saturday, December 19, 2009

A Higher Power


In church on Sunday making out in front of the preacher,
You had a black shirt on with a big picture of Nietzsche.
When we had done our thing for a full Christian hour,
I had made up my mind that there must be a higher power.


Jens Lekman - Higher Power [buy]

lekman's here.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Dave Rawlings Machine - Friend of a Friend


On a rec from an old hometown pal I got the debut Dave Rawlings Machine album Friend of a Friend. Here's a recommendation for you: go get it for yourself, loved ones, and strangers. I can’t stop listening to it to save my life. Full to overflowing with generosity of spirit Friend of a Friend conjures up a world with laughter in the air, possibility around every corner, and a sense that good times are present when good friends are near. Even strangers, like the telegraph man in one of the album’s best tracks, “Ruby”, bring help. Wisely placed in the center of the album is Rawlings’ and long-time musical partner Gillian Welch’s miraculous duet cover of Conor Oberst’s “Method Acting” into Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer.” An absolutely entrancing song, “Method>Cortez” is the one dark room in this house. The abiding joy found elsewhere on the album, while deeply present on the song, is tempered here by a desperate yearning for understanding which seems out of reach. When Rawlings’ sings

I don’t know what tomorrow brings,
It’s alive with such possibility,
But I know that I feel better when I sing,
Burdens are lifted from me,
That’s my voice rising


it’s the pain behind “feeling better” and the weight of those burdens that we register. But that burden can be lifted and the world still sings with possibility.

Rawlings and friends have so many musical textures and colors at hand, and they cover, without any loss in creativity, a large amount of stylistic territory. We are treated to country porch hi jinx with "It's Too Easy" and “To Be Young (Is to be Sad, Is to be High)"; some Michael Hurley silliness "Sweet Tooth"; a dust bowl folk blues "How's About You?" which hits the right notes during our depressing economic moment; a trad folk "Monkey and the Engineer"; and, another highlight, a gorgeous piece of Dylanesque folk-pop “Bells of Harlem.” Really, strangers will thank you.

Dave Rawlings Machine - Method Acting>Cortez the Killer
DRM - To Be Young (is to be Sad, is to be High) [buy]

Coupla videos of Rawlings, Welch, and some members of Old Crow Medicine Show at Grimey's in Nashville performing songs off Friend of a Friend:



Saturday, December 12, 2009

Standing on the corner in twos and threes


There were plenty of good reasons for the USofA to get the hell out of Vietnam. But on this cut from the slightly uneven Does Anybody Know I’m Here? Watson and The Sherlocks advance a unique argument for bringing the troops home.

If Uncle Sam don’t change his policy,
And bring some men home from oversea,
The girls are going to start a revolution,
Cause they need men, that’s the only solution.


Watson and The Sherlocks - Standing on the Corner [buy]

Monday, December 7, 2009

the drinks are on me tonight


Over at Groover’s they’ve got a post about Tom Waits turning sixty today. Here’s a bar-room lament off his live album Nighthawks at the Diner -- from what feels like, musically for Waits, an eternity ago.
Tom Waits - Intro
Tom Waits - Warm Beer and Cold Women

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Singing it for you too


At about the 6 minute mark, during a moment of relative silence in “Lost Someone,” a woman in the audience let’s out a great cry, letting James Brown and the world know that she too has lost someone. Or maybe just got loose enough to let everybody know that she needed to be heard. “Lost Someone,” the centerpiece to Brown’s immortal 1963 Apollo show, is composed of many such moments. Clocking in at over 10 minutes, the song moves at a slow pace, with a crisp horn arrangement for punctuation. The song gives Brown time to employ all those tricks of the showbiz trade he mastered night after night on the circuit. Here he pleads with a lost love to “come on home to me,” allowing, through his own imploring words and gestures, his audience a space to let their pleas be heard as well, if only for a moment.

“Now I want you to know that I’m not singing this song for myself now,
I’m not singing this song only for myself now,
I’m singing it for you too.”

Yeah, it does sound like the churchhouse. But if it is, then this one’s got a bit more Saturday night in it than usual. Ribald laughter, calling people (men) out, and letting Saturday night feel the full weight of your desire and freedom. And James Brown just happens to be the minister.

And then James caps the performance with a comment about the weather.

“I said it’s gettin’ a little cold outside.”

A simple line and the entire building is as one. Where once you mainly heard the foreground of the audience, after that line you can practically hear the doorman of the Apollo sigh and nod in assent. The whole building is present in that moment, in a way that I’ve rarely encountered on any live recording. No wonder he could stop a riot in Boston.

James Brown - Lost Someone [buy]

One more item. Reading about this song on the wiki, I discovered that "Lost Someone" was cut in two and put on the A and B side of the album. Talk about the cruelest cut! One of the greatest live performances ever, with the pinnacle song in some fundamental way, and the damned thing is cut in two! Apparently, DJs would either drop the needle as fast as they could on the B side to finish the concert, or they would, horror of horrors, play a commercial, and then come back to the show. But no matter what the DJs did the folks would call in for more. The album had a long run, 66 weeks, on the pop charts. And in some way marked the real beginning of the James Brown empire. It's as fresh today as it was back then.