Music Notes

I was in Chicago last weekend for a conference and so naturally, there was music to see. In Chicago, there’s always amazing music to see. Wish I had lived there so I could have just engaged in nightly wonders, but it never happened and in fact, I don’t really know the city super well. So I went to see Alejandro Escovedo at City Winery. This was probably my 9th time seeing him over the years, but the first time since 2010. Back when I lived outside of Austin, he used to play at the Continental Club most Tuesday nights and sometimes I’d go and it was almost always great. I’d see him before I moved to Texas three times–once in Denver, Santa Fe, and Seattle. So 9 seems about right, though I wasn’t keeping track back then. That still keeps him 4th on my list, though people such as Mary Halvorson and Waxahatchee are creeping up to that level. Anyway, he has definitely aged a lot in the last 15 years, though haven’t we all.

It’s a good show–if you aren’t assuming it’s 2008 at the Continental when Escovedo was really rocking it. He’s now very much an old man telling stories and playing some songs between them. He’s certainly lived it–he nearly put himself into the grave from his lifestyle in the early 2000s. Then he came back and the albums weren’t quite as good as Gravity and A Man Under the Influence and Bourbonitis Blues, but he was still awfully fun to see live. So overall, the show wasn’t exactly great, but it was cool. His voice is still decent, though again, not what it once was. A group called Cash & Skye opened. They were young retro people, with the Flying Burrito Brothers era type clothes to boot. But as the guy said, the audience sure looked old to him (and it was; I’m 51 and was easily in the youngest 5% of the audience, which was kind of weird) but he hoped everyone stayed alive since what albums they sold were also to old people. They sounded good and came out at the end to back Escovedo on “I Was Drunk” and “Rosalie” to end the show, which was pretty super.

One thing I have not gotten around to discussing here is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees. It’s an interesting group that shows what the Hall can be and what is really wrong with it. They are a few obvious choices out of the nominees. Joy Division/New Order are together as one and that’s a clear choice. I thought it is great that Maná was nominated; they were never that popular in the U.S., but are easily the most important and popular of all the Latin American rock bands. Outkast is beyond obvious. I’d be happy to vote for White Stripes or Soundgarden or Cyndi Lauper. I suppose it’s inevitable for Oasis to get in someday, but whatever. Same for Phish, which is more whatever. There are some annoying choices though. Bad Company? Is every fucking 70s guitar band going to get into this thing? Is there no quality control here? Billy Idol, I’m sorry that is not a deserving choice, and I don’t hate Idol or anything really.

But the one that really bugs me is The Black Crowes. Again, I do not hate this band. They are a perfectly fine band. But there are two arguments to make such a Hall. The first is that they were super popular and the second is that they are super influential. But the Crowes are neither. Other than The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, they never really sold that much and they most certainly weren’t super influential in the bands that came later. So what’s the justification here over Sleater-Kinney or Sonic Youth or another 50 bands? There isn’t except for one thing–they sound like they are a 70s guitar band that Jan Wenner likes. And that’s exactly what is going on here, whether it is Wenner or the other Boomers who still dominate the thing.

A few pretty big deaths this week. I had mentioned Michael Hurley last week and the Times finally crafted a pretty good obit. Tracy Schwarz of New Lost City Ramblers died at the age of 86. LGM Central got an outraged email this week–WHY HAS THIS TOP 100 POLITICAL BLOG NOT HAD AN OPEN THREAD ON THE DEATH OF BLONDIE DRUMMER CLEM BURKE?!?!?!?!?! Well, Blondie was a great band, but I’m not totally sure we need an open thread here on him. But sure, RIP. Finally, and for me the biggest loss, was the death of Amadou Bagayoko, half of Amadou & Miriam, the blind married couple from Mali who crafted a very accessible version of west African music that hit it big on the world music scene. Notably, Miriam went blind because of untreated measles and the U.S. is lacking blind musicians these days so thanks to RFK for creating a new generation of unnecessarily blind people who maybe can support themselves playing music….

Other news and notes:

This is fun–a new collection of unreleased Patsy Cline live recordings has come out.

Rewatching The Sound of Music in the age of fascism.

A playlist from the Chilean rock scene.

The legacy of Lillian Hardin Armstrong.

Nate Chinen’s review of Big Ears is very useful; though we weren’t at too many of the same shows, he was also at the Immanuel Wilkins show with the cook on stage and provides a bit more context than I had last week. He was also close enough to smell the food. I hope it stayed hot for the band to eat it. I’m not sure I shared any shows with Mark Adams and here’s his review of the festival.

Burning Ambulance with a great review of Joe Maneri’s career.

Good list of the best country albums from 1985.

Oh great, yet another Boomer music biopic, this time Sam Mendes on the Beatles. WHEN DO WE GET THE STEVE MILLER FILM!?!?!?

The subcultures of Coachella.

This week’s playlist:

1. Father John Misty, I Love You, Honeybear
2. Doc Watson, Riding the Midnight Train
3. Wussy, Cincinnati, Ohio
4. Wussy, Ceremony
5. Margo Cilker, Pororylle
6. Wednesday, Rat Saw God
7. Algiers, The Underside of Power
8. Richard Davis, Epistrophy & Now’s The Time
9. Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On?
10. Guy Clark, The South Coast of Texas
11. Johnny Paycheck, Modern Times
12. Matthew Shipp, Matthew Shipp’s New Orbit
13. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Live at the Fillmore East
14. Steve Earle, Exit 0
15. Neko Case, The Worse Things Get….
16. Tropical Fuck Storm, Deep States
17. Screaming Females, Rose Mountain
18. Touch My Heart – A Tribute To Johnny Paycheck
19. Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen
20. Justin Townes Earle, The Saint of Lost Causes
21. Joe Ely, Live @ Antone’s
22. Matthew Shipp, Pastoral Composure
23. Patricia Brennan, Breaking Stretch
24. The Band, Music from Big Pink
25. Neil Young, Comes a Time
26. Marianne Faithfull, Broken English
27. Iron & Wine/Calexico, In the Reins
28. Allison Russell, Outside Child
29. Alejandro Escovedo, More Miles than Money
30. Radney Foster, Del Rio, TX, 1959
31. Frank Ocean, Channel Orange
32. The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital of the West 1940-1974, disc 6
33. Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman’s Women
34. Kate Davis, Fish Bowl
35. Marty Robbins, Saddle Tramp
36. Illegal Crowns, Unclosing
37. Julia Jacklin, Crushing
38. The Feelies, Crazy Rhythms
39. Ashley Monroe, Like a Rose
40. Lyrics Born, Now Look What You’ve Done, Lyrics Born! Greatest Hits
41. Reyna Tropical, Malegria
42. La Santa Cecilia, Amar y Vivir
43. Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers
44. Rosalie Sorrels, If I Could be the Rain
45. Rhiannon Giddens, You’re the One
46. Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City
47. Robert Glasper, Covered
48. Jenny Lewis, The Voyager
49. Eric Taylor, self-titled
50. Chris Acker, Famous Lunch
51. Sad 13, Slugger
52. Material, Live in Japan
53. Ralph Stanley, Hills of Home
54. ¡Conjunto! Tex-Mex Border Music, Vol. 3
55. Black Saint Quartet, self-titled
56. Butch Hancock, Own & Own
57. Jerry Lee Lewis, The Knox Phillips Sessions
58. Tom T. Hall, In Search of a Song
59. Tacocat, Lost Time
60. The Rough Guide to World Party
61. Richard and Linda Thompson, Pour Down Like Silver
62. Miles Davis, Live in Europe, 1967, disc 2
63. Smog, A River Ain’t Too Much to Love

Album Reviews:

Bodega, Endless Scroll

This band, or at least this album from back in 2018, is basically a slightly offbrand Parquet Courts. I mean that both in a good and bad way. Their songs immediately remind you of Parquet Courts. The lead singer sounds like those guys and the songs are the same kind of shouted rhythmic hyper thing that they did early in their career, before they went more full dance band. So part of me is “why don’t I listen to Parquet Courts instead” and the other part of me is “I could use some slightly off brand Parquet Courts in my life.” The riot grrl style singer, who sounds quite a bit like Katie Alice Greer formerly the lead of Priests, mostly does backup and rhythmic work here and is a nice touch. There’s also a kind of interesting politics here that reminds me of a lot of contemporary politics in recent art, which is a combination of being really outraged and then just forgetting about it to go on social media, topics that are both covered here. In the end, I actually really liked this project.

B+

Gaby Moreno, Dusk

Moreno has been around for 15 years as a Latina singer songwriter, but I had totally missed her. So I thought I’d check out her album from last year. Not bad! She’s a very fine singer. I do think this tends toward a kind of mushy middling mid sort of production though that really challenges no one and thus works perfectly on an NPR podcast. The songs are all super professional and….are fine. The production fits the songs, though is pretty predictable, from the guitar licks to the Memphis style horns and the gospel influences. The cover of Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” is exactly what you expect. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. But nothing really quite stands out to make this much better than a lot of other pretty good songwriters who have budgets for production.

B-

Total Hell, Killed by Evil

“Hey Erik, why don’t you make one of your occasional attempts to listen to a metal album, try to get what it’s all about again.”

“Hey Erik’s obsessive brain, good idea.”

Turns on Total Hell.

OK, well, this is listenable. The vocal style isn’t as annoying as some metal. Certainly these guys can rock, as so many metal dudes can. The lyrics are so dumb though. And that’s another problem I have with metal–the lyrics are almost as cliched as mainstream country lyrics. It’s all the same Satan stuff. Titles include “Nuclear Satanic Warfare,” “Banished to the Tombs,” “Unholy Liar,” “Blood Sacrifice,” I dunno, it all seems very silly to me. The professional wrestling of music. I did listen to the entire thing though, so I guess I didn’t hate it that much.

C

James Brandon Lewis Trio, Apple Cores

At first, I felt this Lewis recording–featuring the astounding Chad Taylor on drums and Josh Werner on bass and guitar–was just kind of an average Lewis album. Which is still a good album, but still. But as it went on, I learned to really love the interplay between Lewis and his band and the funky sounds Werner was getting on both instruments and what Taylor was doing behind it all. Might not be a top album of 2025 for me, but as the first jazz album released this year I have heard, it’s certainly a good enough one.

A-

Pernice Brothers, Who Will You Believe

Here’s another band a lot of people love that I have completely ignored over the years. Until now. [Cue excitement from readership] And this is nice. It’s a melancholy album reflecting the emotions people my age (well, Joe Pernice is 57 so he’s got 6 years on me) have when we realize we are getting not just older, but outright kinda old. What is death really like? Do I really have to go through that? What about friendship as your buddies come and go through the years? It’s easy to get self-indulgent on this stuff and a song about the undertaker handling your body draws awfully close to the line. But I don’t know; I probably think about death every single day now and it’s both pointless and weird and sad and inevitable and that seems like something people would make art about.

B+

Laura Veirs, Found Light

I missed this Veirs release from 22 so I am glad to pick it up here. She’s been on a journey of exploration and fulfillment since her divorce from her long-time husband and frequent producer Tucker Martine and she has taken over her own sound. Taking over your own sound isn’t necessarily a positive, but I think it has been for Veirs. She takes risks that Martine didn’t, including a broader sound palette than he generally used with her. Shahzad Ismaily co-produced this with her and his jazz background really works here, with electronics and just an overall more spacey feel, as opposed to actually jazzy, which probably wouldn’t work as well. So there’s a lot of good production decisions to go with her typically excellent set of songs. Her songs definitely benefit from repeat listening and since I bought the album yesterday (as a matter, I bought four albums yesterday, since I think it is important to support artists AND ANYONE WHO TRUSTS CORPORATE AMERICA TO KEEP THEIR ART FOR THEM IS NOT THINKING), I will be getting those repeated plays that will likely keep this in the rotation for a long time.

A-

Sunny War, Armageddon in a Summer Dress

First, this is a fantastic album title. And it’s a very solid album. I’ve been meaning to get to Sunny War for a long time. I had the chance to see her at Big Ears in that incredibly brutal Thursday evening bracket when I chose Marissa Nadler over her and Yo La Tengo and other good choices. I have no regrets about my choice, but I am sure seeing Sunny War would have been great too. What a singer. She has plenty of great special guests here too–John Doe, Tre Burt, Valerie June. This is deeply political music and of course her version of R&B folk lends itself to that, from Nina Simone to Woody Guthrie in the influences. And those are good politics. But honestly, even if she did a collection of love songs, I’d want to hear her voice do them. I hesitated on giving this even higher marks because I’m not sure she stuck the whole album. But I bought it too yesterday. So we will see.

B+

Albert Beger/Ziv Taubenfeld/Shay Hazan/Hamid Drake, Cosmic Waves

You know what is not a good title for trying to find an obscure jazz album? Cosmic Waves. There a A LOT of albums with this title, many of them not jazz at all, most notably Angel Olsen’s recent project. So I had to work to find this! This is your classic saxophone dominant free jazz blowout, which you honestly don’t see a ton of anymore. For example, I didn’t see a single show that quite was this at all of Big Ears and it’s hard to get a more comprehensive look at contemporary jazz in one place than that.

This reminds me of something that bugs me sometimes in comments in these music posts–when I saw that the point of jazz is “moving the music forward,” people say I am talking about free jazz as the only thing. But that’s not true at all. The point of jazz is indeed moving the music forward–I mean, jazz is inherently not about canonization though one can certainly have standards–but if in 2025 you are just making blowy noises like it was John Coltrane in 1967, you aren’t really moving the music forward either. Bill Frisell has done so much to move jazz forward and he basically plays the spaces between notes like Miles Davis in 1964. Etc. All the electronics, all the influences from all over the place, it’s amazing out there today. This is why I will state strongly that the jazz being made today is as good as any era in the history of the music, including the 20s and the 50s and the 60s. It’s just a great era and people are doing so many different amazing things, from Jason Moran’s Duke Ellington covers to whatever noisy saxophone project you want to discuss.

Anyway, other than the legendary drummer Drake, I don’t know any of these guys, but I am glad I heard this. They are all Israeli guys except Drake. I don’t know much at all about the Israeli jazz scene, but this suggests I should. It is definitely a blow fest and as such maybe doesn’t move me as much as it once did, but they are pretty compelling players as a group.

B+

CEO Trayle, HH5

Good rapper, but sometimes, I just get tired of hearing about the bitches in every song. I get that this is folk music still to some extent and I most certainly don’t care about being crude or swearing a lot (obviously), but it gets repetitive because it’s kind of lazy. But at the same time, this is a talented dude. Evidently this is the 5th installment of an annual Halloween release series about his fears in a given year, which stems from a home invasion some years ago where he was shot seven times and somehow survived. He’s a fantastic technical rapper and there are some great songs here. I just wish he wasn’t so lazy on the lyrics sometimes.

B

Rae Sremmurd, Sremm 4 Life

This brother group out of Tupelo is a great example of a bit less lazy rappers than CEO Trayle. These songs might be a bit less “street” if you will, but they are smarter both lyrically and musically. These guys might be a bit more middle class and they are both fathers now and though they don’t really rap about that, they aren’t making claims to being hardcore street dudes anymore when they just aren’t that. Some cool production, from synths to bass. That it’s certainly poppier than CEO Trayle might make is a little more accessible and some might dismiss this in comparison based on that, but these are really just production choices and while authenticity and hip hop has always been a thing, when you aren’t making that many claims to it, who really cares. Anyway, I liked it. You may feel differently.

A-

Carly Cosgrove, The Cleanest of Houses Are Empty

Another great album title here, though not a great album. A band, not a person, i.e. Jethro Tull. Modern math-rock influenced pretty straight ahead anthemic post-punk. Kinda fun in a loud, jangly guitar kinda way, kinda bland in a waves hand broadly at world kinda way. Just not very memorable.

C+

Edy Forey, Culture Today

Kinda fun and funky soul jazz outfit from England. Piano and vocalist make up the core of the band, with bass and drums in the background, sometimes some sax. This did not need to be an hour though. Some albums really are better at 35-40 minutes and this would be stronger with some editing. Too many oohs and aahs in the vocals with the somewhat cheesy sax, such as in “Eerie Feary,” about halfway through the album. But at its best, it’s nice.

B-

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics. Except for RFK letting people go blind from measles so we can have blind musicians again, I guess.