Music Notes
By 
Shows! Shows! Shows!
After a long time without seeing a show because I was in Mexico, I’ve seen three in a week in a half. The most important to me of course was Drive By Truckers, at the State Theater in Portland, Maine. I had not been to the State before and it’s a nice enough old theater. This was my 32nd DBT show so as a general rule, there’s not a lot new to be seen, but this was the first time I had seen them in almost a year and I had not seen them touring on playing the entirety of Southern Rock Opera, their epic 2001 album. Of course this doesn’t include the songs from the other guitar player at the time, who was perhaps the world’s worst singer among other things. This is SRO expanded, as there’s not enough songs for a whole show and the band wanted to balance Hood and Cooley songs. But the added songs are well chosen. When Hood has some of his political songs on the first side, Cooley adds some of his later political songs in “Ramon Casiano” and “Surrender Under Protest.” He plays “Primer Coat” as he wrote as the character from “Zip City” 20 years later. Hood adds a few songs too. Lemieux notoriously hates his early song “Buttholeville,” but I think it works in the middle of a bunch of songs about living in shitty Alabama in the 70s. One thing I did appreciate was Hood changing up his usual chorus of “the duality of the Southern thing” to “the duality of the American thing” given the revival of Trump and his Wallaceite politics. Hood, very angry about Trump, also lead a “FUCK FEAR” chant which I think was good for everyone in there.
I still don’t really care for bands playing entire albums in order. Fan service is very Trumpy in my view, playing the lowest common denominator of everyone. But I got to see about 4 songs I had never seen live before, which on the 32nd show isn’t bad. And some of the songs they never played for years such as “Life in the Factory” and “Greenville to Baton Rouge” really should stay in the rotation, as they are total bangers live.
The next night, I drove back from Portland and stopped at the Narrows Center in Fall River to see Chuck Prophet. The superb songwriter and California rocker’s latest project is with a Salinas-based cumbia band called Quiensave, and brought a couple of those guys on tour to join his regular band. It was great and also my second Prophet show. Chuck’s style works so well with cumbia, more than I thought it would honestly. The cumbia guys were super and can play anything and the rest of the band adjusted just fine. He played a lot off the new album and then a few of my favorites of his from other albums such as “Killing Machine” and “Jesus Was a Social Drinker.” Definitely check this out if you get a chance.
Now, before any of this, I went to the Berklee School of Music to see Dafnis Prieto and his Si o Si Quartet, which includes Martin Bejerano on piano, Ricky Rodriguez on bass, and Peter Apfelbaum on sax and flute. This was a show I chose to go to in part because I just wanted to see some live music after all my time in Mexico. I like Prieto’s Cuban but not too Cuban style to jazz and he’s a pretty sick drummer, but he’s not a complete favorite or anything, Maybe at a different time, I would have prioritized other shows, but the timing worked great. It was totally worth it, filling that post-Shorter Latin jazz itch.
In other news:
I was really excited to see Susan Alcorn play at Big Ears. Alas, she died at the age of 71. Alcorn is perhaps the only known steel guitar player in jazz. I loved what work of hers I had heard. She was doing such a rare thing. Sadly, she is the second person who was supposed to play at Big Ears this year who has died, along with Zakir Hussain. I guess when you have a big focus on older musicians, this can happen. But it’s a good thing the younger generation is producing some great music, because we are going to have a lot of sad days over the next few years as our greats pass from the scene.
Stop listening to music on a single speaker! This is a call I can get behind.
Kendrick is course playing the Super Bowl halftime show tomorrow. What, no Drake? Speaking of Drake, here’s a good piece about how his constant doucheiness is finally hurting his career.
Alabama Shakes are getting back together and releasing a new album, so that ought to be cool. Though I don’t see how it can beat the recent Brittany Howard solo shows I’ve seen….
If you want to read a racist piece of shit bitching about Beyonce winning the Best Country Album Grammy, here’s one. Fuck you buddy.
Marianne Faithfull and the secret history of rock.
This week’s playlist:
- Elizabeth Cook, Welder
- Willie Nelson, Phases and Stages
- Kate Davis, Fish Bowl
- Van Morrison, Hymns to the Silence, disc 1
- Bomba Estereo, Deja
- U.S. Girls, Heavy Light
- Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee
- Mitski, Bury Me at Makeout Creek
- Townes Van Zandt, Flyin’ Shoes
- Tom T. Hall, New Train Same Rider
- The Sound of Siam – Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz & Molam in Thailand, 1964-1975
- Artemis, self-titled
- Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp, Cosmic Lieder
- Dewey Redman, Soundsigns
- The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Old 97s, Satellite Rides
- Ray Price, Night Life
- Herbie Hancock, Speak Like a Child
- King Crimson, Red
- Wussy, Ghosts
- Chuck Prophet, Wake the Dead
- Willi Carlisle, Peculiar, Missouri
- Tammy Wynette, 20 Greatest Hits
- Gram Parsons, G.P.
- Johnny Paycheck, On His Way
- Miles Davis, Live in Europe, 1967, disc 1
- Aretha Franklin, Today I Sing the Blues
- Curtis Mayfield, Superfly
- Ornette Coleman, Complete Science Fiction Sessions, disc 2
- Dave Douglas, Bow River Falls
- John Zorn, The Circle Maker: Issachar
- John Coltrane, Coltrane Time
- Albert Ayler, Lorrach, Paris, 1966
- Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise
- Tanya Tucker, Delta Dawn
- The Beths, Expert in a Dying Field
- The Stooges, Funhouse
- George Jones, A Picture of Me (Without You)
- Torres, What an Enormous Room
- Ana Tijoux, 1977
- Jimmie Dale Gilmore, self-titled
- Tomas Fujiwara, Pith
- Angel Olsen, Forever Means
- Paul Simon, Graceland
- Ginger Baker Trio, Falling Off the Roof
- Da Cruz, Eco do Futuro
- Fela Kuti, Best of the Black President, disc 1
Album Reviews:
Jerry Joseph, Baby You’re the Man Who Would Be King
Joseph is too great a songwriter to not release at least solid work. And almost everything I’ve ever heard from him has been significantly better than solid. This 2023 release is another example. He’s just a next level songwriter. Not a great singer, stylistically, but he does have the attitude to pull it off. He basically has a punk mentality to singer-songwriter American music. There’s almost been plenty of crossover between these two genres anyway, going back to at least the early 80s. Joseph has been around for most of that time too, though his youthful musical days were spent on heroin. Long clean, he’s long awesome too.
A-
Jazz Funk Soul, Forecast
Despite some misgivings about a band name that is just a description of influences, I thought I’d check out this 2022 album. Thoughts? Complete and total cheese. Not brie either and certainly not some of that good blue cheese. Nope, American. Melty. Flavorless. Perhaps useful for people who don’t like spicy food or music. If they wanted to accurately name themselves, it would be “Kenny G but Slightly Less Bad.” As for funk and soul, well, broadly defined…..Maybe.
C-
Kurt Vile, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV
I’ve long been mixed on Vile, enjoying his guitar while not so much enjoying his slow-jam slacker hippie tendencies. I saw the tour and he and Courtney Barnett did several years ago and admit not thinking much of it, except when he did “Pretty Pimpin,” probably the best song he will ever write. But a 5 song EP is a good way to limit his excesses. This also is his tribute to John Prine, released toward the end of 2020. They also recorded a version of Prine’s “How Lucky” together shortly before Prine’s death and it appears here. So it’s really quite nice. Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness” is a great cover, not only is that a classic Prine cut but Vile both makes it his own and keeps it in the Prine tradition. So sure, as a Prine tribute this is real nice. It’s a bit limited in overall vision because of this, but it fits the project itself perfectly.
B+
Drop Nineteens, Hard Light
OK indie rock from this Boston band. But not much more than OK. As with too many indie bands, it sometimes feels that they are afraid of just screaming what they want to say and hold back vocally in ways that might work with the music, but keeps this at a simmer when it seems to require a boil.
B-
Bonnie Prince Billy, The Purple Bird
Perhaps the best Bonnie Prince Billy in a long time. He went into the country music world this time, with Nashville A-Team level backing musicians and assists from country legends such as John Anderson and Tim O’Brien. The lush production works great, the backing singers are perfect, and the songs really ring on this album. Never thought I’d hear a BPB political song either, but “Guns Are For Cowards” is, well, pretty straightforward. It’s also a fairly funny song. Overall, this collection is pretty close to I See a Darkness and Viva Last Blues, which are two of my favorite albums ever. I don’t think this maybe quite reaches those levels, but does it reach the level of other super albums such a Superwolf and Master and Everyone? Yeah, I think it does and that’s great.
A
Girl and Girl, Call a Doctor
This album from last year was the Sub Pop debut for this Australian band. Interesting approach here, not quite like, well, much of everything. Kai James is an unusual vocalist, both emotional and a bit didactic at the same time. He sings about the deepest of emotions and also the end of the world thanks to climate change. Anthemic and intimate at the same time. I’m not sure it always works, but I am sure that it’s more interesting than a lot of albums and I wish more vocalists wore this few influences on their sleeves. “What does this fucked world want from me” anyway?
B
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.