Music Notes

Meant to get this out last Saturday. I did not get it done. So this is good enough I guess.

I saw Parquet Courts at the Royale in Boston last Thursday. It was good, though not great, and I think that has a lot to do with the changes in the music the band is making. I really like Parquet Courts. They are definitely one of my favorite bands of the last decade. Albums such as Human Performance and Sunbathing Animal are just excellent. I love the hyperactive, literate slightly poppish punk that they do so well. Half the time they sound like they are on amphetamines and while I hope that is not the case, the music sounds that way and it’s a lot fun. It’s also not surprising I would like this band–when I think of my favorite bands these days–Drive By Truckers, Wussy, The Paranoid Style, Parquet Courts, Sleater Kinney, even Old 97s to some extent–these are bands by very well read people and that comes into the music. When they played some of this older material–“Human Performance,” “Freebird II,” “Light Up Gold II,” and especially their best song ever, “Stoned and Starving”–it really works. However, the last couple of albums have moved them more toward something like a dance band. Now, I want to be clear, this is fine. I appreciate bands where the sound changes over time. And some of the songs do work well live, which is why I listed “Freebird II” up there. But a lot of the new material hasn’t translated over very well to the live show. I think they have to figure this out. There’s just moments where the show lacks the energy that you would expect here. Again, not being over critical. Still love the band and Sympathy for Life is a totally fine album. But it’s also hard to argue that something isn’t lacking from the translation of these songs into live rockers. The band did have one of the best lighting displays I’ve seen in a long time; clearly someone put thought into this.

There’s not a ton of music news this week, so it’s time to do another deepish dive into one of my favorite albums. This time it is Jessi Colter’s 1970 album A Country Star is Born. If anything, Colter is known for being Mrs. Waylon Jennings. In fact, she pretty much sacrificed her career to take care of that crazy bastard. But they married in 1969, after her divorce from Duane Eddy, and he helped her get a contract with RCA Victor, leading to this, her debut album and her only album until 1975. It’s an underrated masterpiece of country music. You may have heard some of this before, if you ever picked up the compilation album Wanted: The Outlaws, that combined releases from Waylon, Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Colter into a single release. Steve Earle oversaw an expanded 2-disc version of this about 20 years ago or so. All of the Colter songs on this, both the original and expanded versions, come off A Country Star is Born. I heard this shortly after the Earle release and of course eventually picked up the original album.

There are some good covers on this album, but most of the best songs are mostly hers, with songwriting credits listed as “Miriam Eddy” reflecting her given first name and then her married name. The album starts with a cover of Harlan Howard’s “Too Many Rivers.” You can never go wrong with Howard, but it’s not one of the album’s stellar tracks. Then you have two originals, the superb “Cry Softly” and the uptempo and kind of pissed “I Ain’t the One.” Both of these demonstrate Colter’s power as both a writer and performer. “Cry Softly” is the kind of country ballad that is at the heart of what country music really means.

I like “Cry Softly” a lot, but “I Ain’t the One” is a near masterpiece of a song, a duet with Waylon which certainly doesn’t hurt given his rich, deep voice. This is also classic country material, someone putting her distance between her asshole partner.

If you’re lookin’ for someone who’s got it all to give
If you lookin’ for someone who won’t care how you live
If you’re lookin’ for someone who’s only lovin’ you
I ain’t the one I ain’t the one

If you’re lookin’ for someone to dry your tears when you cry
If you’re lookin’ for someone to turn his back each time you lie
If you’re lookin’ for someone to walk on then walk by
But I ain’t the one I ain’t the one

I ain’t the one to let you do what you want to
I ain’t the one who sits still and let you be untrue
I ain’t the one who’ll go on lovin’ you no matter what you do
I ain’t the one I ain’t the one

Just keep lookin’ further down the road
You might find yourself someone who likes walkin’ alone
Someone you’ll play with and leave dead by the road
I ain’t the one I ain’t the one

I ain’t the one I ain’t the one
I ain’t the one I ain’t the one

The album’s first side then has with a couple more completely decent covers in Frankie Miller’s “It’s Not Easy” and Harlan Howard’s “He Called Me Baby.” But the real highlight of the album is the last song of the first side and the start of second side. She ends the first side with a cover of Mickey Newbury’s outstanding “Why You Been Gone So Long.” Then the second side starts with her own masterpiece of a song “If She’s Where You Like Living” followed by Willie Nelson’s “Healing Hands of Time.” And remember, Willie was a very minor league player in 1970 so it’s not as if she was covering someone everyone knew at that time. Let’s check out these three songs consecutively:

These are all outstanding songs. Newbury was such a classic country songwriter and “Why You Been Gone So Long” is one of his best. Same with Willie. “Healing Hands of Time” has been done by a lot of people and it remains one of the classics. But I really want to focus on “If She’s Where You Live Living,” which has two versus and the chorus. We can do this with just the first half of it.

If she’s where you like living
You won’t feel at home with me
She tells you lies looking into your eyes
She laughs but you don’t see
She knows just how to make you bow
And you fall down on your knees
How could such a man be crushed in her hand
I don’t believe I see

But if she’s where you like living
You won’t feel at home with me

I think why I love this so much is the playing with language, where it’s not her house where he likes living, it’s literally her, whether that means being with her or it’s an actual reference to the act of sex when he is in her. Of course, this woman feels jilted and is pissed. Why would her man fall for this stupid bimbo? What a fucking dumbass. But she’s also not going to put up with this asshole either. Leave her or get out. The song has such a great attitude and of course sounds great too.

The album closes with an OK cover of Jackson King’s “That’s the Chance I’ll Have to Take,” and then two more originals, “Don’t Let Him Go,” which is fine but relatively minor and then the strong closer in “It’s All Over Now,” another of her excellent man fucked up relationship songs.

Years after first hearing this album, it remains a pretty central of my country music listening. It’s one of the great “what if” albums. What if she had continued putting her career as equal to Waylon’s? What if she had top flight songwriters working with her while also continuing to write great songs of her own? Sadly, these things didn’t happen. Her next album didn’t come until 1975 and she had some success in the mid-70s, though at the very least I don’t think 1976’s Jessi is very good, although it was well-reviewed at the time. Interesting, this album was not particularly noticed in 1970. It’s a bit before his time. Remember that at this point, Nashville was controlling what Waylon and Willie could do, very much to the detriment of both. This is not a rant against the Nashville Sound–producers such as Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins and Billy Sherrill did amazing work with Patsy Cline and Marty Robbins and Ray Price and George Jones and many other people. But it flat out did not work with Waylon and Willie. What makes A Country Star is Born interesting to me in context is that it sounds like something Waylon would record in the mid-70s, when he finally asserted control over his career. It’s pretty raw. It’s fun. It’s emotional. It kicks ass. But it received no attention at the time and did not chart.

Now to the notes:

Bill Fries, who you know as C.W. McCall, writer and singer of “Convoy” is dead at 93. Not the highest moment in country music history, though the overall fascination with truckers that began in the mid 60s and lasted until about 1980 is definitely one of the odder cultural phenomena of recent decades.

The reggae group The Mighty Diamonds, lost two of its three members in one week, one from a gunshot wound and the other from illness. Ugh.

Very nice essay on the interconnection between music and memory, from a writer who lost her father as a small child and associates him with a single song.

People listen to so much old music that it’s destroying the market for new music. I listen to more than my share of old music. As the album reviews suggest though, I also listen to more than my share of new music. LISTEN TO NEW MUSIC YOU DAMN AGING HIPPIES, THINGS DID NOT END WITH THE STONES AND THE DEAD! Seriously. Listen to new music. Ted Gioia wrote this and takes on directly the idea that old music is simply better than new music, which as he points out is just drivel and laziness from people not bothering to listen to anything new.

In case you actually care about the Grammys, here’s the list of winners.

Jay-Z had a post-Oscars party at a picketed hotel. Of course all the invited “liberal” stars didn’t care and just crossed it to party.

Album Reviews:

Kacey Musgraves, Star-Crossed

I’ve never been a huge Musgraves fan, at least in the earlier part of her career, largely because it seemed to be pretty standard Nashville fodder except she sings a lot about smoking weed and she cusses a lot. Now, I always love a good divorce album–in fact, the breakup is probably the single most important subject in the history of popular music. From Shoot Out the Lights to Sea Change to Blood on the Tracks to Phases and Stages, breakups have created a number of astounding albums. Musgraves went through a divorce and this is her take on the genre.

Musgraves provides a typically minor entry into the genre. Building the relationship in the first half of the album doesn’t lead to the best songs, which includes a particularly indifferent if catchy straight pop song in “Cherry Blossom.” It picks up a bit on the second half with some solid breakup songs, but in the end, this remains just pretty tepid music.

In the end, I just don’t think Kacey Musgraves is an interesting artist.

B-

Erik Carlson & Greg Stuart, Eva-Maria Houben: Duos

Deep listening projects are never exactly easy with their slow repetitive notes by the German composer Houben. And let’s be honest, that kind of repetition on a violin can become….kind of painful on the ear. It’s a high note! But these projects have a contemplative value that I respect if not revere.

There’s nothing from this on YouTube, but this gets close enough,

B+

Artsick, Fingers Crossed

A fun, light indie rock album. Not overly substantial, but a set of solid tracks. I think….that’s about all one can say here.
B

Joe Lovano/Marilyn Crispell/Carmen Castaldi, Garden of Expression

Another ECM album that sounds like an ECM album. This is a nice set of music from some of the top musicians working today. I will say however that it does not really transcend the ECM genre (and really, the label is a genre in itself at this point). It’s a completely fine set of jazz music that would fit pretty comfortably into the early 60s, even as some of the rhythms are more modern than that. One exception is the title track, in which Crispell takes us into space with her otherworldly piano. Not the kind of thing that super excites me, but it’s a more than respectable release.

B

Jon Durant & Stephan Thelen, Crossings

I didn’t know either of these guitarist before listening to this album. In fact, I’m trying to expand my knowledge of contemporary jazz out of the New York scene around people like William Parker and Mary Halvorson and into some of the other niches of the genre as it presently exists. Glad I did in this case. That these are both excellent guitarists goes without saying; you basically can’t even record in this genre without being close to a master of your craft. Durant uses a fretless guitar that he processes through a series of electronics, creating some really unusual sounds that merge well with a guitarist using more traditional methods in Thelen. Moreover, their different styles allow them to have a lot of rhythm on a guitar that lacks a traditional rhythm instrument, which I great appreciate. Very much worth a listen.

A-

Jenny Hval, Classic Objects

I did like this mostly, but some of it also reminded me of Laurie Anderson, who I really don’t like. In other words, it’s very intentionally artsy in a way that I often find put on. At least it’s not about her dead dog, which Anderson released a whole album about a few years ago. In any case, this is a very self-conscious album about what it means to be an artist, which can be a pretty tiresome subject, but really isn’t here and Hval is a good songwriter with interesting and honest takes about herself and her world. At the very least, she is honest that marriage was a compromise with the patriarchy (true enough though I wonder what her husband thinks about that), that it’s one thing to think you are an independent artist and another to realize that you are constrained (or protected I suppose) by myriad laws around copyright, and just the general ambivalence of trying to make change in a capitalist world. At the very least, such subjects do require a listen. How you deal with the artiness of the presentation is up to you.

B+

The Harmaleighs, She Won’t Make Sense

I saw this lesbian indie band made up of a former couple who are now just good friends open for Lilly Hiatt a couple months ago. Really enjoyed the live show so thought I’d check out their album from a couple years back. It’s good, not quite great. Some of the songs are a lot of fun, others are a bit too subdued or hushed than they could be. But this is a smart band and well worth your time.

B

Yumiko Morikoa, Resonance

This is the only (mostly) solo recording, from 1987, by the Japanese pianist Morikoa, who later moved to California and raised a family. It was re-released in 2020 to quite a bit of hype. Not sure I see why as it reminds me very much of background music with a New Age patina. Even goes so far as to use lapping waves in the background of the first song. Just feels like I’m in a clinic awaiting an appointment and wishing the doctor would get here so I could stop having to listen to this cheese. Did not like.

C-

Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba, Routes

An interesting and solid collaborative project from 2018, one that had been on my list to listen to for a long time. I do have to wonder whether the choice to record quite a bit of this with English vocals was more of a commercial decision to try and sell more in the American market than it was about the artistic merits of it. The English vocals did feel a bit out of place to me but are also part and parcel of was an intentional cross-cultural project between the U.S. and Senegal. At the very worst, there’s never anything bad about having a kora master do his thing. Some of you may love this, I thought it was pretty alright.

B+

Paris Texas, Boy Anonymous

Despite the name, this is not a Wim Wenders project, but rather a Compton-based hip hop duo, though one assumes they probably like the movie. Or perhaps they went to Paris, Texas and were amazed at the half-size Eiffel Tower with a red shiny cowboy hat on top. It’s….something. Anyway, there is something of a mystery about just who these guys are, or at least there was when they released this debut album last spring. Anyway, it’s an interesting if not amazing album, with plenty of pop hooks as well as hip hop and generally smart lyrics. Will be interested to see where these guys go.

B+

Rosalia, Motomami

Wow is there a lot going on here. It’s been amazing to watch Rosalia to become the next international superstar by doing exactly what she wanted. For a flamenco artists to become this big is unusual enough but not she is integrating as many bits of pop music as she can into her increasingly complex work. This is a remarkable album, one worth every bit of the accolades it has received. It’s not that common that pop music sees something entirely new and when it is, it is a revolutionary event. That’s what Rosalia is–a revolutionary who brings a truly global perspective to pop music and continues to sing mostly in Spanish while doing it. Of course, Shakira and others have sang in Spanish while becoming international pop stars too, but it’s hard for me to remember anyone as utterly new in the world of pop music since….Madonna maybe?

A

Pal Hwang Dan, A Length of Line, Written by Ee Yeoro

Every now and then I like to check out a release from the remarkable Chinabot label, which specializes in new and experimental music from Asian bands. Pal is a video game composer who on the side engages in experimental composition, often around the spoken word. Here he collaborates with Ee Yeoro, a Korean writer, to create texts that combine all sorts of things, not only Ee’s work but also Paul LeMan, ancient Chinese texts, local signs, and whatever. Of course it’s all in Korean so for me, it could from one text and I wouldn’t know any better (though if you buy the album on Bandcamp, you get a text with an English translation). Where this works for the non-Korean listener is the fascinating soundscapes Pal creates around these texts which combine classical, electronic, pop, and video game music. This is so textually based that it can get a little much, but it’s a quite interesting listen, at the very least.

B

The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Wild

This is just good solid, maybe not exceptional, roots rock and roll from this Canadian band. It follows a pretty typical formula for this kind of band, but is also certainly equal to many who have a higher profile than they do. Highly enjoyable listen, probably worth a purchase for those of you into this sort of thing. And really, who knew Canadians could play rock and roll?!?

B+

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