Music Notes
By 
It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these–three weeks I think. Just got busy, lot of traveling, these posts take a lot of time, etc. So let’s get back on the wagon here.
The main event in my musical life of late has been attending the Newport Folk Festival in late July. So that’s a lot right away! I will keep this as short as I can.
Friday: The blazing heat in the long line to get in really dominated the day. It was hoooottttttt. Like very hot. By the time I got through the line, about an hour, I was already a little zapped. Add to this that for me anyway, this was clearly the festival’s weakest day, and it was a day that more OK than great. There were really two acts I was excited to see. The Beths are one of my favorite bands, from New Zealand. Just great indie rock and roll. They were super fun live as well. But the lead singer actually nearly passed out from the heat and had to take a few minutes. She came back strong and finished the set, but it did make me wonder how a festival like Newport will continue as climate change ramps up. Still, super fun set. Then it was Mdou Moctar, who is just sick. I saw him in a tiny Providence space just before he blew up. I went because I had heard something good about him and figured, how often do you get to hear west African music in Rhode Island. And….Jesus! It was a revelatory experience. So while I now knew what to expect, seeing Moctar a second time still just completely ruled. He’s probably the best guitar player I’ve even seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them, from Bill Frisell and Mary Halvorson to Tony Rice and Doc Watson. Just wow. The rest of the day was fairly whatever. I caught some of the Maggie Rogers set and it seemed cool, but I was far less than 100% by that point in the day so my mind wasn’t quite right. Nickel Creek was completely fine, but like when I first saw them over 20 years ago, I just don’t feel the songs really match the potential of the band and so I end up being left just a touch cold by them. Certainly didn’t mind seeing them in a festival setting though.
And then Noah Kahan, who I don’t even know, had to cancel because his voice was shot. So Newport announced this and said that they had a famous replacement. I didn’t know who it would be and was about to go home because I was tired and didn’t care about seeing My Morning Jacket and then dealing with the traffic. But I figured I’d better wander over. Well, it was James Taylor. He lives across the bay with all the other boring rich white people in Portsmouth, so he just took his guitar and boat and showed up. And I can confirm in person what I have always thought–Taylor is literally the most boring singer of all time. James Taylor is what happens when you literally have zero Black influences on your music. I made it for one song (“Something in the Way She Moves”), heard where the second (“Fire and Rain”) was heading, and went home. Too boring for me.
I just really, really don’t like James Taylor. And it was interesting. I was talking to my friend at the festival with me and then a bunch of other music people and….none of them like Taylor either. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever known a single James Taylor fan who wasn’t at least a generation older than I am. Maybe they exist. But I don’t know them.
Saturday: Didn’t get there quite as early as I wanted, but I was able to grab a lobster roll and check out the last few songs of Danielle Ponder’s set, who sounded great and is clearly someone I need to check out more. Then it Bartees Strange, a Black songwriter from DC but originally from Oklahoma. He is supposed to be a killer guitarist, but he had a broken finger. So he just sang. The band was more than fine in filling in and I was quite impressed with his set. Another person to check out more thoroughly on album. Then it was The Hold Steady. I thought about checking out part of Indigo de Souza’s set, even though I had just seen her a couple months ago. But we had such a sweet spot under the tent and with a great view that decided to stick it out.
Now, I am a Gen X guy who likes rock and roll but despite everyone telling me to check out The Hold Steady, I never actually had. And….wow, that’s a great live show! Craig Finn has a ton of energy and such a nerdy mentality around him that works so well in this setting. Band is funny too in that half of them dress to the nines–bow ties even–and the other half, Finn included, are wearing t-shirts. Anyway, as the last Gen X rock fan to get this band, I have to give credit to all the other people who did before me. I should listen to them more.
Then it was Angel Olsen, who was super fun to see live, though I haven’t checked out the new album yet. I didn’t quite get to see all of it because I had to get to the Jason Isbell show, but I can’t wait to see her do a full show in a club one of these days. Just a great singer. As for Isbell, it was my 10th show (I think) and one of the best I’ve seen. That’s because Weathervanes is just a great album. He disposes of “Cover Me Up” with the first song and then got down to playing most of the new album. Nothing else. It sounded great live. For one, he has added Will Johnson from Centro-Matic to the band as a full time member. Good call, because Johnson can play anything and they have played together on and off together for the years. In fact, the first time I ever saw Isbell solo, in a little club in Denton, Texas in I think 2007, Centro-Matic opened and Isbell just sat in on the entire set on guitar. Moreover, the Isbell song “To a Band I Loved” is about Centro-Matic. So yeah, this is a relationship that goes back aways. Because Johnson plays drums as well as anything else, it creates a two-drum backng on some songs, including “Cover Me Up” that works great. And the new album, I mean it just rocks. This was a real rock and roll show in a way that Isbell had moved away from for a long time. Moreover, Evan Felker from Turnpike Troubadors (more on them shortly) came out and did the vocals on “King of Oklahoma,” turning that into a full-fledged country song. Really was a great set.
Then to close the evening, I saw my second ever Turnpike show. The first time I saw them, just as they were getting big in Texas in the late 2000s when I was there, Felker got sick in the middle of the show (his voice was just gone) and so they had to stop. I had kind of forgotten about them but evidently they have played a lot in recent years. And goddamn it, it was great to see some goddamn full-fledged country music. Not country rock. Not country by someone who really wants to be Stevie Nicks (like Margo Price). Not country inflected folk. Some pure 100% country music. Just a fantastic show. Plus Tyler Childers came out for a couple of songs and I had never seen him play before. I was at least kind of interested in what Jon Batiste was going to do with his closing set that night, but again, was so tired and plus the traffic. So went home.
Saturday was the best day at the festival, hands down, but Sunday was very fine too. Sadly was just too late to see the Jupiter & Okwess set, which was a real bummer. But it’s a long day and I knew I would have to stick it out to the end that day. Oh well. So we caught a tiny bit of Abraham Alexander’s set while eating some BBQ. Sounded pretty good. Then we went to see the Black Opry Revue folks. This is a great project. It is a collective of Black country musicians who appear at festivals like this and they all just do a song or two. It is an openly political attempt to get country music fans to accept Black musicians and they really ran the gamut of styles, from old-school honky tonk to newish style pop country, but from a Black women’s perspective, which makes it totally different. Some sang songs with a social bent, others were more personal, all were at least pretty good, some were great. You should check out their website and the artists listed, see if you can check out one of their shows.
Then we checked out Los Lobos, the 4th time I’ve seen them. This was a fun one. I still think Los Lobos is an overrated live band for the most part. How many times can you see “Saint Behind the Glass” in the exact same way over the years? But they are a fun band at the very least. This is their 50th year together and they are showing their age. Conrad Lozano needs a cane to walk out to the stage at this point. But hey, whatever, they are still doing their thing. The fun thing about this set was that they had some friends to help them, which is common at Newport. Neko Case came out and sang a few tunes with them. John McCauley, lead singer of Rhode Island’s own Deer Tick, came out and played some guitar and bouzouki. And then Nels Cline came on to rip it up on the band’s long-running cover of “Bertha.” So that was a good time. I maintain again that this is about what Los Lobos is–a good time.
Now, Lana del Rey played Newport this year and this just brought a different vibe. There were young people there who sat through all these acts by old people they hated just to be at the stage for her show and they could be kind of rude. In fact, there was some arguing between two groups of youngish women over this, as one group was pumped for Los Lobos and they were kind of pissed that the other, perhaps slightly younger group, were so disinterested. I was kind of interested in seeing her, but I also didn’t have a lot of patience for the insanity around it, so we went and got a beer, relaxed in the shade, and took a break. No regrets.
This led us to the last show, Billy Strings. Now, to be clear, Strings is a great guitarist and his band is awesome. The show was excellent. I could do without some of the overlong jams, yes. The one that went 15 minutes was a bit much for me. But look, I know that’s what this guy does. What I don’t get is some of the fans who think they are listening to something that is different than bluegrass music. Nope, this is pure bluegrass, no question about that. This is a man so deeply influenced by Doc Watson that he talks about him between every third song. Moreover, while, again, he’s great, I don’t see the worshiping of him as the sun and moon combined. Maybe it’s the stoned hippies actually hearing something interesting at their festivals, don’t know. In any case, it was fun to see something like this. It had really been a long time for me. Most of the great old bluegrass bands are gone now and not much has risen to replace it that isn’t really just some bluegrass-inflected something else. Interestingly, while Newport had gone all in for spectacle to close the festival in recent years, not this time. It was just Strings and the band tearing it up for 75 minutes.
Then we sat on the grass for 90 minutes to let the traffic go and went home. All in all, a great time. Another thing I loved about the festival is that other than Isbell and Los Lobos, I didn’t see a single act I had seen more than once before and the majority I had never seen. Love it. Here’s Rolling Stone’s writeup of the festival for a different perspective on some of this and a lot of the acts I didn’t see.
Great New Yorker piece on the wonderful Sudan Archives.
Another outstanding New Yorker profile, this time on Noname.
On the long lost Connie Converse, who has been getting more attention lately even if no one has still discovered what happened to her.
Fun piece on Tom Waits’ mid-career trilogy that changed his trajectory in the 80s. Rain Dogs is, unquestionably, one of the greatest all time albums. Frank’s Wild Years has never quite moved me in the same way, but obviously it’s an important album too.
You wouldn’t think there would be anything interesting left to say about Dark Side of the Moon, or Pink Floyd period, but I enjoyed this discussion of the album.
Cecile McLorin Salvant and Darcy James Argue sound like a great combination to me.
A partial playlist of the last three weeks
- Johnny Paycheck, Modern Times
- Townes Van Zandt, Flyin’ Shoes
- Willie Nelson, Shotgun Willie
- Steve Earle, Guitar Town
- Jon Dee Graham, Full
- Bonnie Prince Billy, Ease Down the Road
- Wussy, Ghosts
- Curtis Mayfield, Superfly
- Rodney Crowell, The Houston Kid (x2)
- Neil Young, Tonight’s the Night
- Joanna Gruesome, Peanut Butter
- Meridian Brothers, Salvadora Robot
- Jane Weaver, The Silver Globe
- Julia Jacklin, Pre Pleasure
- Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, Foggy Mountain Bluegrass
- Johnny Paycheck, The Lovin’ Machine
- Stevie Wonder, Talking Book
- Cat Power, Sun
- Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, Balance
- Drive By Truckers, The Unraveling
- Bruce Cockburn, Salt, Sun, and Time
- Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth, Epicenter
- Tony Malaby’s Tamarindo, Live
- Soccer Mommy, Clean
- Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse
- Pavement, Slanted & Enchanted
- Outkast, Idlewild
- H.C. McEntire, Every Acre
- Greg Brown, The Poet Game
- Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Nigerian Blues
- Ben Goldberg, Good Day for Cloud Fishing
- Chelsea Wolfe, Abyss
- Miguel, Wildheart
- Drive By Truckers, Welcome to Club XIII
- Tom Russell, Blood and Candle Smoke
- John Hartford, Aereo Plane
- Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
- Johnny Cash, The Essential, 1955-1983, disc 2
- The Postal Service, Give Up
- The Waco Brothers, Going Down in History
- Boubacar Traore, Kongo Magni
- Guy Clark, The South Coast of Texas
- Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue
- Illegal Crowns, self-titled
- Neil Young, Harvest Moon
- Kris Kristofferson, The Essential, disc 1
- And This Is Free: The Life and Times of Chicago’s Legendary Maxwell St.
- Sun Ra, Concert for the Comet Kohoutek
- Man of Somebody’s Dreams: A Tribute to Chris Gaffney
- Harlan Howard, All Time Favorite Country Songwriter
- James Brown, Star Time, disc 1
- Neil Young, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
- Johnny Paycheck, Someone to Give My Love To
- Doc Watson, Doc Watson on Stage
- The Louvin Brothers, Satan is Real
- Ralph Stanley, Classic Stanley, disc 2
- Buck Owens, Together Again
- Al Green, Call Me
- John Zorn, Bar Kokhba, disc 1
- The Hacienda Brothers, self-titled
- Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn, Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man
- Iron & Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog
- Townes Van Zandt, Live at the Old Quarter, disc 1
- Emmylou Harris, Pieces of the Sky
- Alejandro Escovedo, With These Hands
- Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, self-titled
- Vijay Iyer, Break Stuff
- Rodney Crowell, Ain’t Living Long Like This
- The Highwomen, self-titled
- Camera Obscura, Desire Lines
- Father John Misty, Pure Comedy
- Tom Russell, The Long Way Around
- Daddy Issues, Can We Still Hang
- Peter Oren, The Greener Pasture
- Angelica Garcia, Cha Cha Palace
- Daptone Gold: Volume II
- Robbie Fulks, Bluegrass Vacation
- Drive By Truckers, English Oceans
- Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose
- Bobby Bare, Great American Saturday Night
This week’s album reviews:
Rodney Crowell, Triage
Another excellent for the veteran country legend. Crowell only had a blink before the 80s came and released one of the all-time great albums in Ain’t Living Long Like This. Then came the 80s and questionable production values. But the 90s were great for him with its return to roots sounds and he has been chugging along ever since. This is a pretty serious album. He’s getting older so mortality is entering into his songs. A lot of this was written during the pandemic, so, well, yeah. He is also trying to make amends for all the people he feels he’s screwed over in his life (I think Crowell is usually seen as a pretty nice guy, but we all have regrets). Just very solid music.
A-
Yaya Bey, Remember Your North Star
Really thoughtful and smart tour through contemporary Black music. Bey is a songwriter really more than anything else, but the songs come through hip hop, through soul and through R&B and through jazz. She actually considers this album a thesis on how a Black woman can work through a break up dealing with both misogyny and racism. To the extent that succeeds depends on how many listens you give it I suppose, but I found the idea at least reasonably compelling. No shortage of Erykah Badu here. Good.
A-
Rempis Percussion Quartet, Harvesters
Not an easy listen but an interesting concept, where the saxophonist Dave Rempis riffs, blurts, and bleats over a bassist and two drummers. This isn’t your real accessible jazz, no, but it mostly works, especially on the song with the guest trumpeter Jean-Luc Cappozzo. Interestingly, this music was initially developed at a workshop for refugee kids from Africa and the Middle East. I suppose that’s where the percussion heavy idea came from. I wonder what the kids thought.
B+
Radiator Hospital, Can’t Make Any Promises
Solid enough DIY pop from this Philly band. Very 90s, very indie, very ambient. Wouldn’t say it sticks to your bones though.
B
Ivo Perelman/Ray Anderson/Joe Morris/Reggie Nicholson, Molten Gold
Kick ass free jazz right here. These guys are all total legends and in this case, playing more within the Coltrane/Sanders subgenre than going out to deep experimentation. Although this is long, clocking it at about an hour and a half, it is worth your time. One of these cases where four geniuses still find a lot to say to each other and therefore to us.
A
Som Imaginário, Banda da Capital
Released this year but recorded back in 1976, this is some classic Brazilian music and a very worthy archival release. Originally, this band was formed in part to back Milton Nascimento, but they were well worth their own recordings and they made quite a few of them. I don’t know if this is the greatest of them, probably not really, but it is certainly worth your time and if you like the Brazilian scene of the 70s, I don’t see why you wouldn’t check this out.
A-
Sabrina Carpenter, Emails I Can’t Send
I can’t say I had hugely high hopes for a mainstream white pop breakup album by someone who came out of the Disney machine, but this is actually really quite good, at least for what it is. She’s a smart enough artist to have a pretty good sense of what works for her and what doesn’t, or maybe is the rare artist to actually be getting good advice from her managers. Sure, of course this is mostly about failed relationships, but done right, you can mine that forever (hello Richard Thompson!) and she really has something to say here. I don’t think this is a great pop album, but it is at least a good one. Probably 13 songs is about 3 too many.
B
Tommy Prine, This Far South
Lovely little album from the son of the great John Prine, engaging in the nearly impossible task of following in his father’s footsteps. But Prine is a nice artist on his own, maybe not the greatest voice in history, but that certainly never stopped his old man. Like his old man too, he’s probably dabbled a bit too much into drugs and that makes up a lot of this albums. I think he could define his sound a bit more–this kind of screams a slightly bland “Americana” but the songwriting mostly carries it and I look forward to seeing where he goes.
B+
Tim Berne/Matt Mitchell, Spiders
I admit that this kind of duet free jazz can leave me a little cold because it can be so arch. It feels like an art experiment more than something that comes from the soul. It definitely exists well in the chamber music part of contemporary jazz, much of which I like, some of which I find slightly frustrating. It’s hardly my place to make such evaluations, but to me at least, I think this duo really could use a third to fill out the sound a bit, whether bass or drum or even a second horn to add some additional interplay. But that’s nothing more than a personal predilection and who I am to tell these two greats what to do. We are all going to like some projects more than others.
B
William Parker, Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
So in early 2021, the great William Parker decided to release a 10-disc set of new material to the world. That’s…..a lot. Not to mention a lot of money to buy it, which is why I haven’t yet. However, he did release a 10 song sampler that clocks in at a more reasonable hour and ten minutes, which is what I am discussing here. And…….wow man, this is a lot. Parker is just operating on a different level than anyone else and has been over the past two decades or so. The theme of freedom is what Parker uses to tie all this together. One of the songs (and thus discs) is nothing more than the pianist Eri Yamamoto playing Parker’s compositions. Others are in huge bands. Much of this is openly political, with powerful radical vocals about racism and social change. Some of it is incredibly dense and complex material that almost defies description. Some of it is effectively gospel music. It’s just a lot. I need the whole package, whatever it costs.
A
Anthony Braxton, Quartet (Standards)
Another gargantuan jazz release that I am only touching the borders of. This was a 13 disc(!!!!) set of the great experimental saxophonist doing the Great American Songbook (as he sees it) on a European tour from January 2020. Being Braxton, the 67 songs on this release contain not one repeat version of a song. Nope, 67 different tracks entirely! Honestly, this is some of the best Braxton I know. I did not listen to all 13 discs. But I did listen to a good chunk of this, probably about 5 hours. It’s super fascinating how he can combine his incredible improvisation system and apply it to these tunes in a way that is so, so different than his sometimes arid solo albums. Really fascinating material.
Would I spend the $95 for this whole set? I mean….yeah? I just might. And that’s the best thing I can say here
A
Modern Studies, We Are There
Completely acceptable but also pretty uninteresting indie folk-rock. Couple of good songs (“Mothlight” most notably) but this is mostly the kind of album that goes in one ear and out the other without making a meaningful impression, for good or bad. It’s just kinda there.
B-
Horace Andy, Midnight Rocker
I honestly didn’t know Horace Andy still lived. I’m not really a dub person, but Andy is a total legend and one who I have enjoyed a good bit in the past, especially his legendary Skylarking album. So I was interested in this release and really quite impressed. Certainly a lot of credit goes to the producer Adrian Sherwood, who I don’t know, but is evidently a legend himself in these circles. This combines six new tracks with some re-recordings, which usually has some limited appeal, but in this case, I found it worked very well for a really quite compelling release that I look forward to buying.
A
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.