Music Notes
By 
My big music news was seeing John Moreland at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland last week. It was my 4th time seeing Moreland, but the first time since 2017. He’s so great live. It’s just a man and his guitar, but my god those songs are astounding. It’s not super surprising that he still centers the work from his earlier albums In the Throes and High on Tulsa Heat, as those are not only A or A+ albums, but his later work has never quite reached that level. That’s OK–the pain one has to feel to write songs like that is probably not a position where people need to reside. More unfortunately, he ignores his album Birds in the Ceiling entirely, which his fans got pissed about because there are–gasp!!!–electronics on it. He did plenty from his new album Visitor, which is very good, but he’s not getting the attention he did pre-pandemic. Back then, The New Yorker was profiling him. Now, AllMusic doesn’t even bother to review his albums. It’s frustrating. But he continues on, singing these astonishing songs. The Wonder Ballroom is a converted church and I will tell you one thing, I believe in the Gospel of Moreland more than I’ve ever believed in any religion. A guy named Justin Bloss opened and I need to hear more of his music, he seemed really quite good.
Other News:
A few passings. I don’t think I knew Benny Golson was still alive, but in any case he was one of the living jazz musicians from the 50s and is certainly well worth remembering. He’s really best remembered for his compositions, which includes most of Art Blakey’s Moanin and all of Lee Morgan’s Volume 3. Also, we lost Billy Edd Wheeler, who most of you probably have never heard of, but who wrote “Jackson,” which Johnny and June Carter Cash recorded so memorably. He also wrote “Coal Tattoo,” one of the many powerful political songs recorded by Hazel Dickens. “Coward of the County,” on the other hand, is one of the worst songs of all time, but Kenny Rogers had a huge hit with it. Speaking of bad songs, J.D. Souther, who wrote several Eagles songs, died. I dislike that entire LA country rock scene and the Eagles aren’t the worst of it. But Souther certainly was a skilled songwriter, at the very least. Also, Tommy Cash, Johnny’s younger brother and a man who had an alright country career of his own, died at 84.
On the electronic scene in Myanmar. I love Bandcamp for stuff like this. I also know nothing of Swedish thrash metal and I probably don’t want to, but here’s an overview of that scene.
Ten great Fender Rhodes jazz albums. Greatest electronic keyboard ever?
JFC, of course Diddy’s arrest for a lifetime of sexual misconduct leads to an increase in his streaming and sales. It’s a true wonder that Trump might win again.
The Cure released its first new song in 16 years.
Hong Kong’s first openly transgender singer-songwriter.
Some unknown Mozart discovered in a German library!
New Yorker profile of The Meridian Brothers. I saw them at Big Ears in 2023 and that’s some next level future of salsa (despite their name, they are Colombian).
This week’s playlist, which I am going to try and bring back since I’m keeping these posts a bit shorter overall.
- The Band, Music from Big Pink
- Duke Ellington, Far East Suite
- The Rough Guide to the Music of Ethiopia
- Stevie Wonder, Signed, Sealed, Delivered
- Jerry Lee Lewis, The Knox Phillips Sessions
- Herbie Hancock, Headhunters Live, Boston, 1973
- Big Thief, U.F.O.F.
- Julia Jacklin, Pre Pleasure
- Bonnie Prince Billy, I See a Darkness
- Ray Price, I Fall to Pieces
- Jose Gonzalez, Veneer
- Ray Price, Another Bridge to Burn
- Neil Young, Harvest
- Waxahatchee, Out in the Storm
- Billy Joe Shaver, Old Five and Dimers (x2)
- Hayes Carll, You Get It All
- Elizabeth Cook, Welder
- Plains, I Walked With You a Ways
- Lydia Loveless, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again
- Richard Buckner, Dents and Shells
- Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking
- Janelle Monae, iTunes Festival, London, 2013
- Ralph Stanley, Hills of Home
- Marty Robbins, Saddle Tramp
- Guy Clark, The South Coast of Texas
- Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On
- Sleater-Kinney, The Hot Rock
- John Coltrane, Giant Steps
- Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
- Steve Earle, El Corazon
- Morgan Wade, Reckless
- Sam Rivers, Fuchsia Swing Song
- Iggy Pop & James Williamson, Kill City
- Drive By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera, disc 2
- Wayne Shorter, Super Nova
- Purple Mountains, self-titled
- Old 97s, Too Far to Care
- Robbie Fulks, Bluegrass Vacation
- The Tubs, Dead Meat
- Lucy Dacus, Home Video
- Angel Olsen, All Mirrors
- Emmylou Harris, Luxury Liner
- Father John Misty, Chloe and the Next 20th Century
Album Reviews:
Steve Lacy, Gemini Rights
I’ve generally been a bit mixed by Steve Lacy, the modern neo soul/R&B guy, not the jazz saxophonist. Like everyone else associated with The Internet, it feels like a lot of the projects are hurt by too much weed. Existing in that stoner’s haze so often means that nothing really happens, which is also my critique of Frank Ocean’s Blonde album. But when they do get above the smoke for something to happen, it can be really great and in that world, this is right there with Internet’s Feel Good as the scene’s top album. Lacy got pretty well known there, then released Apollo XXI in 2019, which was pretty good, though not great, but which sold well. He got pretty famous from that album and that has only grown. So I was a little slow to get to 2022’s Gemini Rights, not because I didn’t want to hear it, but because it just wasn’t a super top priority. Well, I finally did and, again, it’s impressive. Finally, he created some goddamn songs instead of being a cut and splice man with brilliant snippets but half-assed ideas. He also finally just sings loud and clear instead of muddling his own voice in the mix. In short, a smart talented person decided to do the work to showcase all he can be.
A
Blonde Redhead, Sit Down for Dinner
I gotta admit, I liked this 2023 release more than I thought I would. Not that I’ve minded the past occasional Blonde Redhead album, the last of which came in 2014. But mostly they are fine. This was slightly above that. There’s some fantastic songs and some kind of boring ones. But if you need some venerable dream poppers to provide you a new dose, hey, there’s no shame in buying this album. I don’t think I will, but if you played it for me again, I’d be cool with it.
B
John Cale, Mercy
I someone missed that Cale had a new album out last year. But then the thing is that I don’t really like John Cale albums very much. For all the love it gets from others, I find 1919 pretty boring. There are some great songs, I grant you–“The Ballad of Cable Hogue” would make my all time 100 songs actually. But I’ve never really gotten the love for his overall solo work. Well, I figured I’d at least check out his latest album. One good thing–a greater use of modern electronics gives more ballast to his work. One bad thing–every song is 7 minutes long, unnecessarily. So you end up with a 71 minute album that could easily be 45. If you are deeply committed to Cale as a Major Artist, you will probably find a defense for it. Me, I think it’s a minor album. Not bad, no. But minor.
B-
Brennan Leigh, Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet
I just discovered Leigh recently, going to see her Wonder Women of Country act with Kelly Willis and Melissa Carper. She sure seemed worth further exploration from her songs in that show.
Well, there’s so damn much good country music being played this way and you can hear almost all of it on Bandcamp. You can hear none of it on country radio and none of it makes the CMAs or whatnot. But country has always been a songwriters’ genre and today, the songwriters can just put it all out there. So you get someone like Brennan Leigh, who not is an excellent songwriter, but who also has a great voice and, if this matters to you in your country music, excellent progressive politics. I certainly appreciate that, though I don’t listen to country music for political lessons. That said, a lot of these songwriters, especially the women, are really progressive people. So why does she not get more attention? It’s so frustrating! Country music can be smart and well-written and have songs about feminist truck drivers! And in this age of unprecedented access, the public doesn’t care.
So check this album out. It’s maybe not a perfect album, but it sure as hell is an exceptionally listenable country album, and let’s be honest, is better than most Merle or Jones or Loretta or Tammy albums, if for no other reasons that the industry doesn’t require people to release 4 albums a year anymore so there’s no filler.
A-
Feeble Little Horse, Girl with Fish
Pittsburgh indie band that I thought was pretty excellent. Good noisy rock, more than a little Wet Leg, a lot of punk, plenty of guitar. It’s a bit messy–they recorded this for about $100 it sounds like and I guess it was just recorded in their various apartments in town–but it works for them. Lydia Slocum provides the quality vocals this kind of project really needs and I am again struck that well over half the young bands I love either have a female lead or are just all women bands. I think it comes down to a reaction against my youth and everything that came before me where rock and roll was a dude thing and, like, sorry, but it’s more interesting when being sung by women, who tend to have a lot more good reasons to be pissed off than some white guy. And the 28 or 29 minutes is perfect before moving on to another women-led rock band. Turn it up.
A-
Jenny Don’t & the Spurs, Broken Hearted Blue
I figured with this band name, this would be a somewhat silly country nostalgic act and it is, but it isn’t as much as you might think. The singer going as Jenny Don’t doesn’t so much want to be Patsy Cline as Margo Price, in other words a rocker with country roots. Unlike Price though, the main influence here isn’t Stevie Nicks so much as it is Kathleen Hanna. So it’s country garage rock of the Northwest variety, which makes it a bit different than a lot of acts of this type. Didn’t love it, but would totally listen again.
B
Jeff Tweedy, Warm
There’s nothing really wrong here. It’s….fine. Even a bit more than that. But I’ve never cared for Wilco and I don’t much care for Tweedy’s solo work. I think this is because I don’t care that much about the obvious reference points for this always nostalgic guy–the Beatles, Big Star, Tim Buckley. Or at least that’s who I really here in this album. It’s nice enough, like a guy next to a campfire plucking out a few tunes for a friends. But to me it doesn’t rise much above that. For Tweedy fans though? Sure, I’d recommend it. The title works.
B-
Mdou Moctar, Funeral for Justice
Friends, Mdou Moctar is good at the guitar. Like, there’s no other. If anything, what makes this album different from his previous ones is that he is somehow even better at the guitar! The basic formula remains the same–take the desert blues thing and turn it into rock and roll with political lyrics about the continued exploitation of Africa by the French (even if none of us have the language to understand them). What changes is the astounding capacity of Moctar to continue improving his craft.
A
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.