Music Notes

I think I should start this edition of Music Notes by saying that I am consistently embarrassed about the low quality of these posts given the many music writers and critics in the LGM community. Elizabeth of course is a great music writer (not to mention guitarist and songwriter and singer and general rock star) and has the shocking ability to sum up entire artists and compare them to other artists in a single tweet. howard and Steven Erickson routinely comment here and are light years ahead of my skill to do this. We have commenters who write at Bandcamp, who write at Pitchfork, and who write many other places. To you all, I am sorry these posts are so bad. I am good at some writing. Writing about music is hard. But I also like to talk about music and spark conversations about music, so even if they aren’t good, it’s still worth it to me. I don’t mind not looking great if we can talk about music! But all respect to you all who really know how to do this kind of writing.

Second, I thought I would start a new occasional feature on these posts. I see enough shows that most of the time, I can lead this off by talking about some band I’ve seen. Some other times, there is a major music story, often a legend sadly leaving the world. But sometimes…there really isn’t anything. So I thought I would fill those gaps by using these occasions–like this week–to write about one of my favorite albums. This isn’t anywhere as good as Elizabeth doing it with her favorite albums, but I had actually written this extremely questionable post before she wrote on Costello, so, well, I’m just going to go with it.

I’m going to start that this week by discussing Wussy’s second album, Left for Dead, released all the way back in 2007. This amazing Cincinnati band has long been a critical favorite–Christgau especially but really far more than that–but that doesn’t mean that more 15 people are going to show up for a random show. In fact, they really don’t tour anymore because why would they? Even before the pandemic, they had cut way back on that. Even Lisa Walker isn’t a spring chicken and Chuck Cleaver is pretty damn old by now and has a cranky back on top of it. Touring in a van like you are 25 is not something you want to do at 60. It’s frustrating to be so beloved by opinion makers only to realize that no one cares about opinion makers. I’ve turned a good number of people onto Wussy, which makes me happy, but in the bigger scheme of things, that might be one person at this show and two people at some other show. It’s something, but it’s not changing their lives. And the members of Wussy deserve all the good things.

Among Wussy fans, the debut album, Funeral Dress, is beloved. Good reason for that. “Airborne,” “Yellow Cotton Dress,” “Don’t Leave Just Now,” “Motorcycle,”–these are awesome songs. But for me, Left for Dead is just as great an album. I think some of this is that it is a more Lisa-centric album and I love Lisa’s voice and her songwriting. The shimmering guitars of both Chuck and Lisa dominate all these proceedings. The drummer at the time was pretty rudimentary but this was not a band that took itself seriously in these early years–figuring no one would care, why not give yourself a piss take name like this and not worry too much about the sound?

But Left for Dead is a damn fine album. Chuck starts off with “Trail of Sadness,” a very solid tune. It fits the nostalgia at the heart of a lot of Chuck’s songwriting, one that isn’t necessarily a happy nostalgia but one wrapped up in the music and popular culture of his youth. Here’s part of that song:

Trail of sadness
Following the breadcrumbs to your door
And I remember
Your family doesn’t live there anymore

I remember
Making faces in the window glass
Mid September
Making fun of us as days flew past
“Light My Fire”
Always playing on the radio
My desire
Always so afraid of letting go

Then you have five straight Lisa songs. “Rigor Mortis,” “Mayflies,” “Millie Christine,” “Killer Trees,” and “Jonah.” I don’t think this would happen today, but she was on a productive streak. These are all very good songs, but the first and last are among the best songs in their catalog. Later in the band’s history, when they had former Ass Pony and all around amazing guitarist John Erhardt (RIP) join, the band could do this noise thing where the overwhelming guitars would swirl around you and then all of a sudden come together in a song. They really only achieved that one time before he joined the band and that was on “Rigor Mortis.” This is for me the platonic ideal of a rock song. It’s bold and loud, typically about a problematic relationship where Lisa attempts to solve it through a nice drive out in the country where you can forget everything. The lyrics are cool, but it’s the interplay between Lisa’s voice and the big rock sound that really works. Once, seeing them live in Boston, they played this song. It was a quite literally transcendent experience when in the middle of the song, out of the noise between versus, they suddenly stop, and Lisa checks in with “We can go out in the country/you can drive my car around” and then the big beat and the noise starts right back in. That was one of the best moments I’ve ever seen at a show, even if it can’t really quite be articulated with words. Plus live it included the vastly superior Joe Klug who had replaced original drummer Dawn Burman, as well as Erhardt. So this is a great song. But if they happen to perform it live, it’s on another planet.

The middle three songs in this group are all really good too, with “Millie Christine” a personal favorite. But then you get to “Jonah,” one of the best songs in their catalog. A slower song, it’s incredibly evocative of a young person’s hook-up and life around that. Some of the lyrics:

Sometimes I like to think about
The stars that cover you
How they burn out one by one
Until another day is through
You came by when I was sleeping
To unveil your newest plan
We could get to know each other
In the back seat of your van tonight

Angels sing around you
In a chorus all night long
And you transcribe their expressions
In the morning with a song about it

I just…really love this song. There used to be a great version of it they did at a radio station shortly after it came out but it seems to have disappeared off the intertubes. So here’s the original.

Finally, Chuck reappears with a co-written number with Lisa called “What’s His Name,” which is fantastic cheating song, with a “you’re in bed with what’s his name” as a chorus that switches versus and thus perspectives. Lisa follows with “Tiny Spiders,” one of the longest songs in their catalog, most of which are her tunes (Chuck is more your 2 minute song guy) and which give her chance to build up tension in the music.

Two songs later, Chuck comes up with my favorite song of his on the album, “God’s Camaro,” which is a weird and funny little song. There are some songs that only one person could write. They are not usually love or relationship or break-up songs, which have a commonality in theme even though they are the ur-song topic. They bring a perspective that is so unique that you hear this and you are like, how did someone put these lines in order. This is a great example of this:

Washing God’s Camaro
With my favorite shirt
There’s silver in the bird shit
And there are diamonds in the dirt
The water is running
Down the hood in rivulets
This is the day
I take the hose and rinse my sins away

A Camaro as a metaphor for religion? Silver in the bird shit and diamonds in the dirt? Totally cool song.

Anyway, this is just a fantastic album, one that showed that regardless of popularity, this would band would be a songwriting force for years and albums to come.

In other random thoughts and news.

I am not much of a fan of The Beach Boys. Other than harmonizing, I am not sure what the value added for the band is. I mean, it’s obviously not terrible music. It’s just kind of whatever to me. I tweeted this last week and was….surprised to receive so little push back. I’m curious, do you all think The Beach Boys are some kind of great band or is the growing consensus more meh than I expected.

The Beach Boys–massively overrated or the most overrated band in the history of popular music?

— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) March 5, 2022

You know, I listen to Pet Sounds about once a year, just to see if I hear what people love about it. I always find it…not very good.

Why is it that any discussion of music has to refer to the late 60s and early 70s as THE TIME WHEN MUSIC WAS GOOD. I blame Boomers, which is objectively correct about most of culture. Nothing against any of these songwriters, but the thing about this tweet and the comments is that the idea that the best of anything in music could have happened from artists who recorded for the first time after 1975 is considered impossible.

Who are the Three Best Lyricists of the Rock Era?

-Bob Dylan
-Leonard Cohen
-John Lennon

fight me.

— Dennis Herring (@dcherring) March 6, 2022

This is not a list making exercise I am interested in engaging with. I dunno, there are lots of great lyricists out there, from Stephen Foster to Patterson Hood. That includes Dylan, Cohen, and Lennon (I guess on that one…) But there’s nothing better about rock and roll from the early 70s–much of which is very great–then there is about rock and roll from the late 80s or early 90s or right now. But the conversation MUST VENERATE WHAT BOOMERS LIKE. Ugh. What makes it impossible that Meg Remy or Carrie Brownstein or so many other contemporary rock singers could be one of the top 3 ever? Nostalgia and received wisdom.

Long and very very good New Yorker profile of Caetano Veloso. This is a moment to mention that while I like the Brazilian musical tradition quite a bit, I do wish it kicked some ass a little bit more, getting off of that chill vibe a bit. Just a personal preference. As this article notes, musicians, thought not really Veloso, actually protested in the late 60s against the electric guitar. Count me out of that version of anti-imperialism. Despite all of this, Veloso is truly an all-time great. As for his dating his current wife when he was 39 and she was 13….well………

Wadada Leo Smith is one of the all-time great jazz musicians. And yet, though he is 80, he really only came into his own in his 60s. He was almost totally unknown before that except for those who were real heads. Bandcamp has a good overview of the albums available there as places to start. But even I don’t really know his work from the 80s and early 90s. It was with the Yo! Miles albums he did with Henry Kaiser starting in the late 90s that he came to my attention and my respect for him has only grown since the. The one time I saw him live was absolutely great, an all-time show.

For that matter, here’s another recent Bandcamp guide, this time to the superb pianist Vijay Iyer. Break Stuff and Far from Over are the only ones here I know, suggesting I have a lot of work to do. But I do highly recommend both those albums.

We lost Bobbie Nelson this week. Sister Bobbie loved playing those high piano notes on her brother’s Willie’s record. She was great, a key part of his sound in the 1970s and after.

We also lost Ron Miles this week. I will have more on one of the most important jazz figures of the last thirty years next time.

I’ve owned Marianne Faithful’s Vagabond Ways album ever since it came out on CD in 1999. Talk about a forgotten work. But it’s quite a good album–the title track is absolutely devastating. And now it’s being reissued and she talks about it.

If you’re like me, you are interested in contemporary classical music but outside of a few composers, don’t quite know where to start. Again, Bandcamp is a great resource and here’s some of the material released here in February.

Album Reviews. Still haven’t listened to an album released in 2022 yet. But it will happen someday!

Henry Threadgill, Poof

This is one of these half-available jazz albums, so I could only hear three of the five tracks. I found this to be a lovely and quite accessible set of compositions. Love the guitar and cello work especially. Solos are encouraged and feed the band, which is less common in free jazz these days than it used to be. The compositions are very strong. It’s not maybe my favorite album ever, but it’s a very good one and I think one of the best of Threadgill’s career.

Threadgill is on sax, flute, and bass flute here. The rest of the very fine band includes Liberty Ellman on guitar, Jose Davila on tuba and trombone, Christopher Hoffman on cello, and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums.

None of this is on YouTube, so here’s a full Threadgill concert for your enjoyment.

A-

Jesse Aycock, self-titled

Aycock is a well-known Nashville sideman, having worked with basically everyone. Wasn’t expecting what is basically a falsetto, pretty rare in country music. Without knowing ahead of time, I would have guessed this was a woman. Doesn’t matter of course. This is actually a really nice album. Chill country-rock, a bit reminiscent of the 70s Los Angeles scene in its vibe, but more consistent and with enough change of pace songs that it holds up better than a lot of that music.

B+

Amyl and the Sniffers, Comfort to Me

This is kick ass punk music from Australia. The Australian accent really works here, which may be a very American comment but still, it’s a nice change. Plus it is just rocking punk, the way it should be. When Amyl screams “I’m short, I’m shy, I’m fucked up, I’m bloody ugly!” she means it and she doesn’t care either. The lyrics and the singing are a combination of vulnerability and incandescent anger with the hint of violence if you fuck with her at all. Awesome.

A

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Rendition Was In

As a general rule, cover albums are a bit limited, especially one that is odds and sods, collecting random releases recorded for movies or tribute albums. But it’s Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings so yeah, it might be somewhat limited in vision, but it’s not like it’s not a good listen. Some songs are better than others, sure. Oddly the “This Land is Your Land” doesn’t totally wow me. But the “Just Dropped In” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” sure do.

B

Santrofi, Alewa

Solid although somewhat tepid collection from the Ghanaian supergroup. It’s completely fine, don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to find a west African album that isn’t at least pretty good. The musicianship and the musical traditions are just so, so strong. Throwback highlife is sure sight better than a throwback, well, a lot of things. But some really move you and some don’t as much. This is in the latter. Solid, funky, but also not really better than a whole lot of west African releases.

B

Dave Douglas and Joe Lovano Sound Prints, Other Worlds

A very solid if not groundbreaking album from the great trumpeter and near-great saxophonist, plus a very solid band featuring Lawrence Fields on piano, Linda May Han Oh on bass, and Joey Baron on drums. Good, fairly straight ahead jazz that fits everyone on here quite well. If you are looking for solid, listenable modern jazz that builds on mid-60s traditions in a useful way, this is a good album for you.

B+

Camper Van Beethoven, self-titled

Let’s go old school! I like CVB and I have a number of their albums. I even listened to their collaboration with the great Eugene Chadbourne a few days ago, Camper Van Chadbourne. But I realized I had never listened to their third album, from 1986, or at least I don’t remember doing so. Heck, why not check it out.

It reminded me of why I love this band at their best. First, this is so out of touch with the popular music of the 1980s. It’s on a whole other plane, though one that fit like a comfy pair of slippers on college radio. The lyrics are seeped in irony and sarcasm and yet is there really any difference between Stalin’s Cadillac, LBJ’s Cadillac, or Pinochet’s Cadillac? I often find the little instrumental pieces of the band the least satisfying part of their albums, though they could certainly pull them off. That’s the case here too. But then there’s that kick ass cover of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive.” Ah, good stuff.

A-

Austra, HiRUDiN

An alright if limited 2020 album from this Canadian electronic music artist/songwriter. Lots of vulnerability. I wouldn’t say her musical choices are that amazing and the album’s production feels a bit rudimentary to me, which may be an intentional choice of course. Some tracks I really like (“I Am Not Waiting” is a real good one), others leave me somewhat indifferent. In short, the kind of album I’m glad I heard once, not sure I need to again.

B-

Wadada Leo Smith/Douglas Ewart/Mike Reed, Sun Beams of Shimmering Light

Another jazz album where only two of the five tracks are available from streaming (given the near zero-market for these albums anyway, I don’t know why these labels are so resistant to streaming even on Bandcamp). Anyway, this is on the subdued side of the creative modern jazz world. A collaboration between the legendary trumpeter Smith, the saxophonist/bassoonist/whatever he feels like blowing into today Ewart, and the drummer Reed. Of the two tracks, I thought “Super Moon Rising” my personal favorite. Ewart and Smith have worked together since the AACM days in the late 60s Chicago scene so their interplay in fantastic. Reed is younger but has a stalwart of Chicago jazz for a couple of decades now at least. The trust between these players is obvious and, at least in these two tracks, quite lovely.

A-

Alex Mincek, Torrent

A challenging but enjoyable piece of contemporary classical music that sometimes feels like there are noises inside your eardrums. He doesn’t actually record much, so this 2017 release was his first in seven years. It’s really quite a fascinating listen, by and large. However, the last piece, the 17 minute title track starts off so quiet and slow that even with a good pair of headphones it felt like it was never really getting started. Of course it then cascaded into something pretty great in the second half.

A-

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