Music Notes

Hey look at me, getting a music notes column out on time.

I recently read Alex Harvey’s Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles. Focusing on Waits’ early years as a musician, up to the making of Swordfishtrombones, I thought it a very informative chronicle of his development. I don’t know that the book completely changed my mind on much about Waits, but I did learn a lot of details. It reinforced what I already knew about one thing, which was the best thing that ever happened to Waits was meeting and marrying Kathleen Brennan, leading to one of the great musical partnerships in modern music. What I didn’t quite realize though is that she completely opened him up to new music, which he had largely resisted before as he did his louche lounge thing. As he later stated, his musical tastes before he met here were “Republican.” But she had him listen to this all this weird global percussion and everything else and he ingested all of that. Of course, she also provided stability, but he wasn’t really that unstable before. For all this somewhat put-on embrace of the underworld and all the drinking, he mostly did have his shit together. In fact, the main reason that the white hot love affair between him and Rickie Lee Jones blew up is that she was a heroin addict and he was not down with that, despite all the many other things they had in common. One thing that I had not realized is just how much Waits hated hippies and especially the Laurel Canyon folkie-country-rock scene. He despised the Eagles, even though he didn’t mind making money on their cover of his early song “Martha.” When the punk scene came to LA in such a fertile way, Waits loved it. He didn’t really bring that much of it into his music, but he loved the scene. In one of the all time great quotes, he stated, “I’d rather listen to some young kid in a leather jacket singing ‘I want to eat out my mother’ than hear some of those insipid guys with their cowboy boots and embroidered shirts doing ‘Six Days on the Road.’”

Ha!

Anyway, a quite worthy book.

Other than the Newport festivals I discussed briefly last week, I haven’t seen a lot of music this summer. The good bands and my schedule did not overlap well. I was supposed to see Sleater-Kinney in New Haven, but then right beofre the show, it was cancelled because Carrie had a respiratory infection or something. She has written of often getting sick on tours. So that sucked. But at least the opening act, Die Spitz, came out and did their set. I have seen Die Spitz before and these young women fucking rock. I mean, this is what a punk band should sound like. The last time, they were opening for Amyl & the Sniffers and that’s a very hard act to equal and by God they did. Then this, with the lead singer climbing onto speakers and screaming from the top while the good bassist hammers it out and, well, I gotta listen to some of their albums.

The only other major show I saw was Jason Isbell on my anniversary in late June, which was fun because my wife is an even bigger Isbell fan than I am. I mentioned last week when discussing her album that Courtney Marie Andrews opened and she was fine but that’s not a great scenario for a solo songwriter doing softish songs. It’s just hard to open in that way. Farley saw Isbell last night and Alejandro Escovedo opened and I bet that was great. I do like Andrews though and was happy to finally see her, even if it wasn’t the most ideal scenario. Anyway, Isbell has made his band better and better and it’s just a fantastic set of musicians now. Adding Will Johnson from Centro-Matic on everything, but especially as a second drummer has transformed the band and even made “Cover Me Up” sonically interesting, which given that I am beyond sick of that song is refreshing. Everyone loved Jimbo Hart on bass because he was with Isbell forever, but when Isbell moved on last year, I don’t recall anyone saying they would miss his bass per se. That’s even more obvious now that Anna Buttress has taken over, who is astonishing good. I mean, they are even dropping some stand-up bass solos in a rock show and when do you see that? Totally improved the band big time. That’s a hot set of musicians now.

Anyway, I have a couple of shows this week so my drought will pass.

Probably the biggest death in the music world over the summer (that I can remember anyway) was John Mayall, who someone mentioned last week. I don’t know Mayall work that well really, but two things. First, it’s remarkable that of all the big young hotshots who got their start with the Blues Breakers–Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor–I don’t really care about any of them. I mean, Green and Taylor are alright, nothing against those guys. Clapton is of course the most overrated musician in rock history and was clearly the 3rd best musician in Cream, not to mention he had no actual musical vision, unlike both Baker and Bruce. The second thing to note is the remarkable if kind of bizarre 1969 album The Turning Point, which I bought back in the mid 90s when I started exploring this era of music and was like, what are all the flutes doing on a blues album and I kind of like this a lot better than anything else I’ve heard from him? In fact, I still have that album and while I probably haven’t listened to it all the way through in a decade, I do still enjoy it when a song comes up on a shuffle. Anyway, I am sure a lot of you have more to say about Mayall than I do.

I almost must note the passing of the great Sergio Mendes the other day, one of the finest musicians to ever come out of Brazil. He was a Covid death and it’s easy to forget that these still happen.

One music film I watched was Les Blank’s 1976 Chulas Fronteras, about the conjunto scene on the Texas-Mexico border. I love Blank’s musical documentaries so much. The fact that he continued to do these–and there are so many–demonstrates his intense love for traditional American folk music in all its forms. Most of the time, it’s his blues docs that get the most attention and those are great too, sure. But damn if that border conjunto is not great music. I have a few of the Smithsonian discs collecting this stuff. Recommend watching this film and exploring this scene.

I also wanted to mention our commenter Burning Ambulance’s new book on Cecil Taylor, which I really, really want to read. BA can talk about it all he wants in the comments. The Wire has an excerpt, so check that out!

I will note here that there are a lot more queer country musicians than you’d think.

Album Reviews:

Julia Holter, Something in the Room She Moves

Holter is always an interesting listen and she moves in an interesting direction in her new album. It’s almost a deep listening exercise, at least for indie folk music. Holter is a constantly shifting artist and I respect what she is doing here. Her mind always takes her music to where she is personally at a given point in her life and this is where she is now. But is this something that I see as having repeated listens? That I doubt.

B+

serpentwithfeet, Grip

Lovingly sung modern queer R&B, a church kid and then a club kid who brings all of this into his life and music. Not super crazy beat heavy and with a lot of upfront declarations that if you are going to be with serpentwithfeet tonight expect the bedroom.

A-

Melissa Aldana, Echoes of the Inner Prophet

Aldana is a saxophonist from Chile and she fits a very specific kind of jazz for me. That is the extremely skilled player who really wishes it was 1963. There is nothing wrong about this album. It’s superbly played, especially from Aldana and guitarist Lage Lund. That it is on Blue Note is perfect, as the once pioneering and groundbreaking jazz label mostly now releases stuff that sounds like it did in its heyday. Also on this album is Fabian Almazan on piano, Pablo Menares on bass, and Kush Abadey on drums. If you don’t want to listen to Adam’s Apple but want to listen to something new that sounds like that era of Wayne Shorter, this is a good choice for you. Me, I’d rather listen to something moving the music in new directions, which for me is the actual definition of the spirit of jazz.

B

Arlo Parks, Collapsed in Sunbeams

Oh, OK, I see why people like Arlo Parks so much. This is very good pop! Released in 2021, this maybe didn’t break a ton of new musical ground, but it really checked the marks on what a smarter than average indie-ish pop record should provide. There was a lot of hype around this album, and I don’t think this exactly lives up to it, which means it is a solid and completely acceptable piece of work that many of you will enjoy a lot, assuming you haven’t already heard it and I bet a lot of you have.

A-

X Ambassadors, Townie

Overwrought and oversung boring mid pop, yucky. Ithaca band, so seems right.

C-

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.