Live Review: Play Misty For Me

1. Early Show: Jonathan Wilson / Jenny O.
By now, the Mercury Lounge is starting feel like home. So it was no surprise that Father John Misty's exuberant bass player, Jeffertitti, was standing right inside the door and that within minutes we were chatting away like old friends. I had to tear myself away, however, to accept a drink from my sister and brother-in-law, who "always buy a drink for someone who turns us on to great music." They owe me a great many drinks. After a few sips of Black Bush, we stepped into the music room to hear Jenny O.

As I told Jeffertitti (and Laurel Stearns, Father John Misty's manager, who was also hanging out), anyone who can sing a Buddy Holly tune without making me cringe is worth a listen. This rule of thumb was proven right by Jenny. Her voice is exquisitely controlled throughout its considerable range and her songwriting has a busker's swagger along with a deep engagement with elemental folk and rock structures. High hopes in this quarter for her debut album, "produced with, for, and at me" by none other than Jonathan Wilson, who was up next.

JW is like that cool guy you stay in touch with because he always has the best records. The difference is, he can play every note (and instrument, practically) on all those records. But this virtuosity is always in the service of song and emotion, and he gives plenty of opportunities for his band-mates to shine. One of my favorite moments was when he picked up an enormous tambourine to enhance our - and most likely his own - experience of another great solo by his ace keyboard player. JW and the band are now simpatico enough that when echoes of Hendrix's 1983...A Merman I Should Turn To Be seemed to creep into a lengthy take of Natural Rhapsody, they were all along for the ride.

Terry, my brother-in-law, and I saw Wilson back in January and neither one of us would have called that show tentative. But when he and his four-piece band roared to life this time around the true meaning of "road-tested" was immediately clear. They just jelled more and found even more directions to pursue in JW's songs, which already have marvelous meanderings built in.

This was the last gig of their tour. Next stop is opening for - and playing with, I believe - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. While the prospect of JW exploring the interstices of Free Falling (Petty's best song) is tantalizing, I look forward to his next club tour - and so should you.

2. Late Show: Father John Misty / Har Mar Superstar
After popping around the corner for a mochachino at D'Espresso, I returned to the Mercury for what Wilson had called "the Father John Misty experience." But first up was the character who calls himself Har Mar Superstar. His gimmick is that he's a tubby little balding man who fancies himself a funky R and B sensation. Unfortunately, his voice and songs are not up to the task and his act quickly grows monotonous. For a sub-cheap thrill, he ends the show in his underwear. Life is too short to discuss him further, except to say that he did provide an instructive contrast to Father John, as they are both persona exercises to some extent and Har Mar demonstrates the pitfalls of that being all you have to offer.

Remember J.Tillman? The graceful and melodic drummer from Fleet Foxes, known for his solid backing vocals and witty asides? He's also known for a series of beautiful albums under his own name. While these feature some excellent songs (check out No Occasion) and gorgeous production, they can be slightly morose and over-introspective. In fact, the most satisfying J.Tillman recording I own is actually a Daytrotter session from 2010, which never fails to elicit at "Who IS this?" whenever I play it to the unsuspecting. So he has long been on my radar as a hugely talented musician looking for focus or identity, or both, and when I read last year that Jonathan Wilson was producing his next album, I sensed a breakthrough around the corner.

Little did I know that the breakthrough would come under another name: Father John Misty, whose louche videos began dropping into my iTunes via the Sub Pop podcast earlier this year. This guy likes a bit of Riot House decadence with his singer-songwriter stylings, has outrageous dance moves, an acerbic wit, and probably thinks J.Tillman is a bit of a wet blanket.

Now, with the excellent album Fear Fun (produced by one J. Wilson, natch) under his belt, he's taken his show on the road with an top notch band of co-conspirators. Coming on stage to the strains of I Call My Baby Pussycat, his greeting was "Hello, fake funk fans," before launching in to an explosive assay of I'm Writing A Novel. His voice sounded stronger and more flexible than on record and the catharsis seemed to feel as good to him as it did to the crowd.

Throughout the night, I never tired of his slinky moves, accompanied as they were by his haunted eyes and slightly pissed-off air - not to mention one terrific song after another. His band was a study in contrasts, mainly between Jeffertitti, with his dyed blond hair, pogoing and overall extroversion, and the other guys. There were so many personae flying around, however, that it wouldn't surprise me if the bass player was a devout churchgoer and that Banjy Lysaght, the somewhat studious lead guitarist, who achieves his precise and glowing tone with the help of about 18 effects pedals, was the one with the nearly empty bottle of tequila rolling around under his seat on the tour van.

The whole show was a complete success and by the end, Father John and his cohort owned the room. The combination of literate (and often hilarious) songs steeped in the sounds of the best of American music and more than a little sparkle of showmanship is a winning one. J. Tillman could learn a few things from this guy.

Adam Yauch Remembered: A Tale of Two Bassists

The last time I saw Adam Yauch was at a Beastie Boys concert in August, 1998. Mike D. had offered me tickets partly because we were old friends and partly because he knew I could use a good night out as my 19 month old son had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor just five months before. And the time before that likely had been in 1989 when I photographed the Boys for the Paul's Boutique album cover. So we were not close, but we had a history, and when I walked into the cinder-block backstage area at what is now the Izod Center, he greeted me warmly, introducing me to his wife and making me feel welcome. My sister had been to Nepal recently so we talked about Nepalese tea and I wished him well with his quest to help the Tibetan people. Onstage, they rocked the house and lifted my spirits. Adam had become an accomplished bass player by then and I couldn't get enough of his raspy voice and witty words.

Our history, if presented in a manner appropriate to Behind The Music could consist of me railing at the camera that Adam had wrecked my band (The Young Aborigines) and helped the Beastie Boys rise from its ashes. But it wasn't like that. The Abs consisted of myself on bass, Mike Diamond (drums), John Berry (guitar) and Kate Schellenbach (percussion). We played an un-categorizable mash-up of post-punk, dub, and what we called "primitive" music. It was mainly for fun but we had some ambitions. My journal from 1981 mentions contact with the manager of the Bad Brains and a constant attempt to play in front of people. In the end, we only played two shows, and the joke was they were both on the same night.

Adam came to our crowd through the NYC hardcore scene, which Mike, John and Kate had grown increasingly attracted to. Though we were a tight-knit bunch of (mainly) upper-Manhattanites, the guy from Brooklyn with the wicked sense of humor and a wild streak was soon one of us, he fit right in. Adam respected what I was trying to do on the bass and was open to suggestions about the instrument. At the time I was taking lessons with a guy called David and Adam considered learning from him as well. My diary also notes that I brought Adam to David's loft to buy his first Fender bass.

While I was blown away by the Bad Brains (I must have listened to their ROIR cassette every day for a year), I was not much of a hardcore fan and the idea of playing that kind of reductive music did not fit with my omnivorous musical appetite. This led to to an unusual situation, with Adam and me playing in completely different bands with the exact same people, sometimes even rehearsing on the same day. Mike would get up from the drums and move to the mic; Kate would leave her hodgepodge of percussion and slide in behind Mike's kit; I would unplug my bass, and Adam would plug his in. John would keep his guitar, likely watching with a crooked grin and running his hand through his excessively pomaded hair. Sometimes I hung around and tried to add something but usually I would cut out home. My biggest contribution musically was probably the time I showed Adam how to use his thumb to slap the bass, a la Larry Graham. It had taken me almost a full summer to refine the technique and he was impressed.

The B. Boys and the Abs continued their parallel lives until around May of 1982, when the latter, without a thriving scene to support it and a confused musical approach, faded away into the ether. However, now that Adam is so tragically, heartbreakingly and unbelievably GONE, I find myself thinking more about the spaces in between. Like the hilarious night a passel of us crashed at Adam's Brooklyn brownstone, getting no sleep at all as we tried to fit five people in one bed. He was obsessed with the phoniness of advertising and kept us in stitches with his impressions of how poorly the media portrayed the way people behave.

In September 1981, a few days before I took the pictures included here, Mike and I headed to Central Park to go boating. No doubt this excursion was prompted by the fact that Yauch had a job at the concession and could hook us up. We might have put his job on the line as I tried to teach Mike to row, something for which he showed absolutely no aptitude. The three of us just broke out laughing after we finally got the boat back to shore.

We all had a lot of energy, and watching Adam bounce around on stage in old clips on YouTube reminds me of the night he got "nicked for acting like an ape on [the] subway," as I wrote in my diary. The cops gave him a warning and we continued on to see the Bad Brains at A7. Soon the Beasties were opening for the Brains and headlining their own shows.

Then came Pollywog Stew, Cooky Puss, Adam Horovitz, and, most improbably, global super-stardom. When the Licensed To Ill era was happening I was sort of amused by the whole thing, but also disgusted by the casual misogyny and bored by the brutish, frat-boy friendly beats. The success of that album kept Mike and the boys out of town for quite a while but we reconnected after things died down, leading to my agreeing to use my photo skills to make their dream of a 360-degree album cover a reality. While we careened around the city between locations, they played me some rough edits of the Paul's Boutique material and I turned to Mike and said, "Now, this I like!" The smorgasbord of sounds took me back to our listening sessions, when the Gang Of Four could be followed by Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and some old record from the 1920's.

They were on their way to becoming the hipsters hipsters as the world knows them today, and while I didn't always go for everything they did, I knew there was no compromise in their pursuits, within the Beastie Boys or otherwise, and I respected and admired Adam's work as an activist and filmmaker.

Even though I spent a lot of time with Adam in 1981 and 1982, we were really only acquaintances. In the end, I think his death felt like such a crushing blow to me for the same reason it did to many who never even met him: he was one of us, he fit right in.

My heart goes out to his wife and daughter, his parents, and his brother Beasties.

Note: All photos, and photos within photos, copyright 2012, Jeremy Shatan

Go Talea On The Mountain

Attending a concert of "classical" music is usually an exercise in reviewing interpretation. More often than not, the music is familiar, from another time, or both. If you don't like Mozart, it's unlikely you're going to spend your precious time to check out how one group's approach may differ from another. However, when it comes to contemporary classical, often referred to as "new music," the music could very well be new to you (and everyone else in the room) and the evaluation of the performance and the composition itself becomes more intertwined.

After seeing two concerts by the Talea Ensemble, I am unshakably convinced that the depth of their preparation, the sincerity of their engagement and enthusiasm, and their technical mastery, can produce definitive and transparent performances of whatever they choose to do. Talea's work is a gift to composers and listeners, allowing these often challenging works to be put forth into our experience as complete works of art.

Their most recent appearance was in the stunning and acoustically rich space in the basement of the Baryshnikov Arts Center (pictured above). The opening work was called Tractus, by a young composer studying at Columbia University named Victor Adan. Beginning with breathy sounds and sustained woodsy scrapings from the viola, the heart of the piece is soon revealed to be the percussion. Whether in beats on a low-tuned tomtom or a violin bow eliciting squeaks and sighs from a block of styrofoam, most of the tonal color resided there. While there is apparently an improvisational element to Adan's work, there was enough pattern and repetition that Tractus became a playfully terrifying little machine. I couldn't help being reminded of some of the more outré songs by art rock legends Pere Ubu, for example A Small Dark Cloud from 1979's New Picnic Time. Adan is obviously one to watch.

The second composition was the one that gave the ensemble it's name, Talea, completed by Gerard Grisey in 1986. A French composer born in 1946, Grisey studied with such luminaries as Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis, and also trained at Pierre Boulez's IRCAM. In short, he was groomed and poised to become a new music superstar, and had the talent to match, before being tragically felled by an aneurysm in 1998 at the age of 52. Talea comes around the middle of his output and was the first piece I've heard by him. From the first few bars, Grisey's deep understanding and love of the sounds of instruments comes to the forefront and i was luxuriating in instrumental textures and timbres. A multicolored explosion of rising, falling and resonant sounds, Talea also featured pile-driving unison riffs that seemed drenched in the sonorities of progressive rock. While it stopped and started regularly, Talea's forward motion was undeniable, and undeniably exciting. "I've never been disappointed in a piece by Grisey," I overheard another concertgoer say. And now I can say the same - and that I'm looking forward to more.

After a brief intermission, all the lights (except those on the music stands) were turned off and we were exposed to Salvatore Sciarriino's challenging and mysterious Infinito Nero for mezzo soprano and ensemble. Composed in 1998, this work hovers at an intersection of music, sound art and theater. The text comes from the ecstatic and bloody ravings of a 17th century saint named Maria Maddelena de' Pazzi. According to Sciarrino, she did not speak, rather "...words actually shot out of her like a machine gun and then she fell silent for a long period." Even though those long silences are part of the work, the role of the singer is extraordinarily difficult. Bo Chang's lush tone and incredible concentration brought it off with aplomb. The sound world of the piece consists mainly of windy whistles, glottal plops and occasional melodic fragments. There were moments of such quiet that the breathing and shifting organism of the audience became almost a Cagian collaborator in the music making; it was impossible to separate any of the sounds in the hall from the composition itself.

In the end, I couldn't help but think that Sciarrino had committed an amazing act of empathy, putting us in the head of this mystic madwoman as she yelped such visions as: "They are the/Wounds in which I lose myself/Come, come/With the crown: its long thorns pierce/The eternal father in heaven/He writes on me with his blood." The sounds with which Sciarrino surrounds these words could be seen as the saint's breathing and swallowing as she waited for inspiration, or that of her attendants as they waited for her words, or of the breeze blowing through the skulls on Mount Golgotha as Jesus died on the cross. Powerful stuff, indeed.


The Talea Ensemble performs again in our area on May 27th and June 9th. Take a chance and you might find yourself with a new habit.

 

Record Review: Breton

The album is dead, say the pundits. Listeners live on shuffle play and you can't sell'em anymore, so why bother? From an artistic point of view, however, this holds about as much water as telling playwrights to only write one-act plays or painters that they can only use one subject per piece. Just as real musicians desire to use a bigger canvas for expression, real music fans demand to hear their heroes go big. Finally, if a forward thinking bunch like Breton still see value in creating a long-player, I wouldn't worry too much about the health of the format.

 

That leaves us with Other People's Problems, the debut album from Breton, which comes on the heels of the Blanket Rule EP, the most recent of several they've released since 2010. The first sign that they are going to treat this seriously is the addition of secret weapon Hauschka, a fairly prominent avant garde pianist/composer who is also signed to FatCat Records. His string and brass arrangements appear on four songs, which are brilliantly sequenced throughout the record, lending it a continuity. Fortunately, there is no reverence for the work of the Dusseldorf-based master. The first sounds we hear on lead track Pacemaker (after some ominous clanking, which may be the "Demolition" or "Metro" referred to in the sleeve notes), are Hauschka's strings, chopped, scuzzed, and quickly joined by the brick-hard rhythm section. Roman Rappak's doleful sprechstimme soon enters along with some uber-distorted synth that could cause a weak woofer to clip in protest. It's a fantastic song that doesn't end so much as back out of your consciousness.

Pacemaker is an apt title for an opener as it sets the tone without hesitation. Those of us who have followed Breton for a while know we will hear them evolving but familiar. Anyone new to the band will know right away what they're about and be ready to go along for the ride. Electrician follows, with the crucial couplet "Why are they trying to salvage/What we'll be leaving by the side of the road?" Crucial, because nearly everything is treated as salvage in Breton's world, from the dilapidated London bank they use as a headquarters, to Hauschka's strings, and even Rappak's voice, Adam Ainger's drums and the field recordings used by Ian Patterson and bassist Daniel McIlvenny to thicken the texture. It's a scorched earth approach that leaves only the future as a possibility: Don't pick up our scraps because we've bled them dry.

The third song is a re-recording of standout 2011 single Edward The Confessor, an assaultive stomp that includes their other secret weapon, Rappak's delicate harp filigrees, which are also heard on one or two other songs. The noirish soundscape of 2 Years follows, with its alternating refrains of "Two years is not so much" and "Whatever happens, don't ask us who we're here to see" - its mood made stunningly effective by the soulful backing vocals from Py. It's one of my favorite songs on the record, a haunting combination of glitch, strings and sorrow.

For all their engagement with the world of electronics, samples and studio wizardry, Breton has always come off as a band and Wood and Plastic has a careening forward motion that only a live rhythm section can create. Soaring strings once again bring drama and segue nicely into the next song, Governing Correctly, which opens with the bone-dry wit of Ainger's drums. This song showcases the band's compositional chops, almost a mini-suite with three or four micro-movements in a mere 3:50. There's a casual virtuosity in the way the synth picks up the melody of the almost spoken lyrics, hinting at an anthem, but only just.

Interference is actually anthemic, with massed football-terrace vocals and a chorus of "It's a mechanism we've come to rely on/It's a skeleton." Hauschka's work here has a grandeur reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield that exposes the cinematic nature of the song, amplified in the poignant video Breton created. Ghost Note is a dense keyboard-heavy workout leavened by Rappak's harp but unmistakably grim. "They decide, they decide, they decide," Rappak repeats, as if he indeed has no choice.

The spacious opening to Oxides comes as a momentary relief, as does its mildly funky backbeat. However, subway announcement vocals and mechanistic synth patterns soon bring the calamity of modern life back to the forefront. Just when you think there will be no let-up along comes the goofy cowbell and cheap keyboard intro to Jostle, which they somehow transmute into the most lyrical song on the album, the way a shaft of sunlight can make an urban wasteland sparkle. Shattered safety glass and the stars in the sky can be equally uplifting, if we let our eyes do the seeing instead of our minds.

The album ends as I hoped, with the fractured stasis of The Commission. Five minutes of broken glass, bass drum drops, pulsing keys and echo-laden vocals. It's the kind of song that continues after it's over, until you go back to the beginning. And you will go back quickly - Other People's Problems is a triumph.

The packaging is also exemplary, as is the extra stuff included in the deluxe package, most notably a limited edition cassette. Only 150 exist and no two are alike. Mine was recorded an old copy of Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection and contains gorgeous mostly instrumental music - low-fi and hinting at further possibilities for Breton. No doubt the contents of these tapes will provide future material to be salvaged...

Full disclosure moment: I am thanked on the inner sleeve, not for anything I've done in any official capacity but just for trying to spread the word across all my networks about this terrific band. Call me "the under-under-assistant east coast promotion man."

 

Tense and Dense: Breton Live

At a time when GarageBand, Pro Tools, AutoTune, MPC's and MacBooks are the basics of many bands's arsenal, the question of what they can deliver in a live setting can loom ever larger. That's not to say that a band has to be great on stage to be great - three unsatisfying live encounters with Siouxsie & The Banshees in their heyday proved that point definitively. However, putting on a great concert is a way to expand on existing material, showcase new songs, and deepen the bond between musicians and fans.

Back in 2010, when I first discovered Breton on an episode of the Iodacast, the possibility of seeing them live was as remote as solid information about who they were and what they were doing. In the months since, that's changed considerably due to what appears to be a measured plan of growing exposure and prominence (not to mention - full disclosure moment - my befriending the band members on Facebook). This campaign recently came to a head with multiple performances at SXSW and their NYC debut at Mercury Lounge last Wednesday, and will culminate with the release of their first album, Other People's Problems, on March 26th.

Even though they take full advantage of all the above mentioned soft- and hardware, Breton's sound is emphatically that of a band, with all the energy that implies, so I was not expecting an arid bunch of laptop jockeys to take the stage on a foggy night last week. And while there were two MacBook's and at least one MPC on stage, I was not wrong. Anchored by the explosive, gestural, angular-yet-swinging drumming of Adam Ainger, the five piece group leapt out of the gate and did not let up for the hour of their set. Although they performed in the dark (more on that later), the light from the films they projected was enough to see their expressive movements. They were clearly making the kind of music they like to listen and dance to and their engagement had much of the crowd moving constantly.


Taut barbed-wire bass, usually played by Daniel McIlvenny, and the jagged guitar of vocalist Roman Rappak interlocked perfectly with Ainger's drums and created a tense, nervy foundation for the dense blocs of sound perpetrated by Ian Patterson on the various electronics. On the impressive newer songs, the sampled material included rich string arrangements by their FatCat Records label-mate, Hauschka - a welcome embellishment to their sound.


Rappak's vocals are the final component and his plain-spoken yet slightly wounded tone is perfect for the sentiments of betrayal, confusion, sorrow and anger that make up the subject of many of their songs (i.e. this modern world that we live in). On the brutal blast of Edward The Confessor, he pushed a little harder but never edged into shouting, and on this song and the recent How Can They Tell, he is showing greater and greater range and proving himself more than up to the task of meeting the variety of moods, sounds, and textures that make up the growing palette of their sound.


The group started as a filmmaking collective that just made music to accompany their visuals. Obviously, with the current touring and imminent record release, their sonic efforts are in the foreground (although Rappok recently helmed a Sinead O'Connor video). When asked why they performed in the dark, Patterson let on that it was so that the accompanying visuals (run by Ryan McClarnon) could be seen and also to preserve a certain anonymity that would keep the focus on the music. A fair point, however the Mercury Lounge doesn't quite have the resources to realize that vision. No worries - such a group canny artists will soon have those details sorted.


The show at Mercury Lounge proved without a doubt that Breton can bring it onstage, and, in a venue with more sophisticated staging, their films and the vision of stylized anonymity will come to fruition in what should be a thrilling experience. I, for one, plan to be in the front row.


P.S. The boys return in May for two shows opening up for meat and potatoes indie-rockers We Were Promised Jetpacks (think Arctic Monkey's duller cousins), but it will be worth your while to catch them while you can.

7 From 12

The mist of the new year is starting to clear and some of the records that will define 2012's soundscape have emerged to take over my eardrums. Here are seven that have been exciting me of late.

Breton - Blanket Rule EP I have been burning with anticipation for their first full-length since it was announced last year so this free EP came as a nice surprise to bank the flames. But this is no odds and sods collection - the four new tracks are finely-wrought and fascinating, featuring layers of gritty sonics. Among other signs of increasing mastery, singer Roman Rappak displays a new sensitivity on How Can They Tell, which evokes feelings of confusion, betrayal and sorrow over a slippery background. While you can download Blanket Rule from Soundcloud, this is a band that takes their physical product seriously so I highly recommend getting the exclusive CD from FNAC, which features an excellent bonus track called Not Gospel, which you won't find anywhere else. BIG IMPORTANT NOTE: Breton are making their NYC debut at Mercury Lounge on Wednesday, March 21. There are still a few tickets available and all it takes is $10 for the privilege of saying you were there when.

Field Music - Plumb The Brewis brothers have cooked up another collection of intricate and witty pop to follow up their magnum opus, Measure, which was my number three album of 2010. Considerably shorter than that double album and filled with often very short songs Plumb has the flavor of a suite. It's tough to imagine them not performing the 35 minutes of music in one continuous burst. It's amazing the level of detail they shoehorn into 1:53 and I have the feeling I will be discovering new nooks and crannies for a long time. I was also impressed with their cover of Leonard Cohen's Suzanne for a Mojo compilation. It seems there is even more range to these guys than I thought!

Brooklyn Rider - Seven Steps This string quartet has a well-deserved rep for a wide-ranging repertoire and excellent, passionate playing and their new album does not disappoint. It opens with the title track, a group composition(!) that explores the many ways that long lines can be combined with skittering and plucked sounds to create various moods. Christopher Tignor's threnodic Into This Unknowable Night follows almost with a sense of relief from the sturm und drang but soon becomes unsettling. The composer' samples, percussion and AM radio add texture and detail to the drawn out chords. With their expansive view of music I suppose a trip to the 19th century shouldn't come as a surprise (and they have performed Mozart brilliantly in concert), yet it is still notable that more than half the album is taken up with Beethoven's 14th String Quartet in C# Minor (Opus 131). The more you listen, however, the more it makes sense. This confounding work, published a year before Beethoven died, opens with an amorphous, miasmic movement that was part of the inspiration for the music in Scanners, the David Cronenberg 1981 creep-fest and it is full of frissons. The combination of short and long movements, shifting keys and unexpected variations has me shaking my head thoughout the work's seven movements each time I listen. Brooklyn Rider tackle the demanding piece "guided by the spirit of free play rather than the heavy weight of the auteur's pen," so in a way this is just another performance of a canonical work. But the context is unique and when you circle back to the start of the record, the quartet's commitment to communicating the perpetual freshness of great music becomes blindingly apparent.

Sleigh Bells - Reign Of Terror There may be more noise around this band than there is on their records so I'm not going to add to it at any length. Suffice it to say that if you liked their debut, you will likely find this almost equally diverting. Guitarist/producer Derek Miller and Singer Alexis Krauss give us some more of what we want (cartoonish guitars, distortion, programmed beats, breathy vocals and distortion) while pushing into some new, more emotionally reverberant areas. The key track for me is You Lost Me with its weeping glissando guitars. While the verses are pure teen noir, the chorus of "I don't want you to see me this way/But I'm ready to die" seems to reflect Miller's mother's recent battle with cancer. And as someone who has watched three people very close to me die of the disease, this certainly struck a chord with me.

Hospitality - Hospitality This debut record (besides an EP in 2009) is as warm and welcoming as the band's name, and as expertly put together as something by label-mates Spoon. The lyrics are easily relatable and Amber Papini sings then with a few different voices - pixieish, wry, confessional. It's like a night out with someone you haven't seen for a while but are so glad to have in your life again. The more you listen, the more details you notice in the arrangements. It goes down easy but there are rougher edges lurking underneath the chiming guitars. They betray their inexperience only in the slight overuse of a few tricks, like adding a beat to the bar to emphasize the words ("Don't-You-Know"), something they do on three songs. But this short and sweet album introduces a delightful new group to the world we call Indie.

Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas Look up "elegiac" in a dictionary and you won't be far from the overall mood of this collection, but there's more variety here than you might notice at first. From the sly blues of Darkness to the gospel shadings of Show Me The Place and the folk basis of everything, this is the most "Americana" record he's put out since 1984's Various Positions. The lyrics, of course, are deep, witty, and endlessly quotable. If you're new to Cohen, this is maybe not the best place to start - but start! I envy you your journey.

Prodigy - HNIC Part 3 Speaking of endlessly quotable, how's this from Look In My Life MSTR: "The fire in my heart could burn up the planet/The plans in my head are putting me on a hammock/In the Canary Islands, with my canary diamonds"? This free mixtape is neither a career defining masterpiece like the first in the series nor a solid placeholder like the second, but more of a sketchpad, although one with a few thrilling moments and no real weak spots. One of the high points for me is simply titled ex and features an energized P spitting flames over the sparsest of beats. Download it for free and get the rush for yourself. Keep in mind that this is just the warm up for the official H.N.I.C. 3 release, which is imminent.

 

 

Requiem For A Popcast

In my younger days I was fond of quoting the maxim (invented by myself): "All newspapers are lies but the New York Times has the lies you need to know." While I don't feel quite the same way, perhaps that's why I continued to listen to the New York Times Music Popcast, their "weekly guide to new music," even though it was frequently unintentionally hilarious.

 

Now, without fanfare, and with almost as much notice, the Gray Lady has summarily cancelled production of most of their podcasts, citing financial reasons.

So here's a brief obituary of the Popcast - why I won't miss it and why I will. A little bit. When I first started listening, it was introduced by Tom Kuntz, then the Pop Music Editor. While he had a boyish enthusiasm for the idea of the podcast, he seemed to lack all feeling for music. Every time he spoke I would wonder why he was the Pop Music Editor and when he said the name Beyonce, which was distressingly often, it sounded like he was reading a phonetic translation from Swahili. Fortunately, he was only there to set up the episode before passing it on to one or another of the NYT's Pop Music critics - mainly Jon Pareles, Ben Ratliff, Nate Chinen, and Jon Caramanica. Although Kuntz soon moved on, the format basically stayed unchanged until the podcast's demise.

Now these are all intelligent guys, who have risen to the top of their profession, and who often write good articles and publish acclaimed books. Unfortunately, none of them have an especially dynamic vocal presence. Also, as the weeks went by, it became quickly clear that the content, based partially on their taste, I assume, and partially on editorial concerns (the Paper Of Record and all that), was not so much a guide to "new music," but a guide to new recordings, which is not quite the same thing.

What this meant in practice was long conversations over-analyzing music which is already highly publicized, top-selling, and, that will, I believe, prove fairly disposable - Beyonce, again, Rick Ross, Brad Paisley, Adele, L'il Wayne, etc. After a while, I had to wonder who the audience was for this. For pop culture semioticians the discourse was not deep enough and for the people who actually purchase those types of records or mp3's, it was likely far too involved. There is also the unseemly vision of grown men getting home from work and firing up the computer to play the latest from Taylor Swift. For their own enjoyment.

So why did I keep listening? Besides those "lies you need to know" there were the occasional flashes of brilliance, as when Jon Pareles introduced me to Calle 13's spectacular Residante O Visitante. While their subsequent albums have not struck the same chord with me, this was in nearly constant play in 2007 and will go down as one of the best of that year - not to mention that decade. Also, cultural critic Larry Rohter often showed up to investigate music from around the world or from older niches of America. He combined good reporting with a fan's enthusiasm to very satisfying effect. He ought to have his own podcast. Ben Ratliff occasionally had the space to display his jazz and metal chops, critically speaking, which are well known from his books.

As for Jon Caramanica, his self-satisfied belief that the most commercial stuff is on the cutting edge is one of the main reasons I won't miss the Popcast. When I like stupid stuff, I don't make great claims for it. Some things can't - or shouldn't - be explained. About the only time I've agreed with him since he joined the Times was his recent takedown of The Black Keys, Foster The People, etc., which was long overdue.

So no need to shed a tear for the Popcast. There are plenty of other podcasts to help you find new music, which I will explore in the future.

 

 

 

2011: The Year In Live, Part 2

The final post on the year just passed. With 2012 over 1/12th over, it's time to get cracking on what's going on this year!

Besides the concerts I saw with Hannah (see Part 1), I was lucky enough to finally see Fleet Foxes, The Walkmen and Mastodon in 2011 - wow!

Going To Church - Ever since my wife and I saw an extraordinary Bob Dylan concert (yes, they do happen) at the United Palace Theatre in 2009, we have wanted to return to this storied venue. As we didn't get to see Fleet Foxes when they were touring behind their first album, there was no hesitation getting the tickets when they played there in May. We were sat far back, which is my wife's preference, and after enduring the lamentable Cave Singers, we were bathed in the warm harmonies and expansive sound-world of the Seattle band. The new songs sounded great, but perhaps even more remarkable was the passion and freshness of Robin Pecknold's engagement with songs he has sung hundreds of times around the world. It was a stunning show.

Going To Brooklyn - My wife doesn't much like going to concerts, but when Fleet Foxes announced more shows at the Williamsburg Waterfront in September, with our old favorites The Walkmen opening, she had no qualms about making the trek. And, boy, was it worth it. I have been a devoted fan of The Walkmen since their first album and my wife came on board with You & Me in 2008 but we had never seen them in the flesh. I knew singer Hamilton Leithauser was a suave dresser, but we were both unprepared for his fantastic command of the stage. His charisma is white hot and his commitment to the songs is total - and he manages to be charming at the same time. The band completely delivered, their minimal yet epic sound filling the stage and small gestures sounding huge as the sun set at our backs. 

As great as the first Fleet Foxes concert was, it was eclipsed by their Brooklyn performance. The new songs were road-tested now and sounded more of a piece with their earlier works. Also, as I was standing fairly close to the stage, I was able to pay more attention to how they produced their sounds and it was a masterclass. Certainly, you can play a Fleet Foxes song with a beat-up acoustic and it would sound good, but since they are steeped in 50 years of production techniques, they enhance their compositions with brilliant musical touches. The first thing I noticed before they even came on stage was the Hofner bass (made famous by Paul McCartney) on the left of the stage and the upright bass on the right. This told me that they took their bottom end seriously, which became even more apparent when they took a leaf out of Owen Bradley's book and used both together. Combined with J.Tillman's melodic drums, it enveloped the crowd in a rich low end that amplified the emotional impact of the tunes. The whole show was full of instrument-switching, instrument-doubling, and virtuoso flourishes. Robin was as charming and witty as Leithauser had been earlier in the night and made everyone feel included. We walked back to our car with an afterglow that seemed to last for weeks.

Going It Alone - The opportunity to see Mastodon at Terminal 5 in November was not one to be taken lightly - but who to go with? A quick visit to their Facebook page and I quickly learned that two old friends of mine were also fans. Cool! I messaged the first one and although he wanted to see the "saviors of heavy metal" he had to decline as he was in a windowless room in Costa Rica doing top-secret programming for an internet company I can't mention. One down. The other guy showed interest but was so lame about replying to my message that the concert sold out, which drove me to StubHub where I scored one ticket at slightly over face value. Yes, I was going to be facing the monstrous Mastodon on my own. 

Up close & personal
with Red Fang

Only Red Fang was listed on the ticket as the opening band so I was a little dismayed to learn that Dillinger Escape Plan was on the bill as well. Life is a little too short for two opening acts, but I knew they had been around a while and figured this was my chance to check them out. Before the place was half full, the hairy dudes of Red Fang took the stage and - whaddya know - laid it down in fine style. With guitars down tuned so far the strings should have been slack, they played rifftastic punk/grunge/metal songs with distinct melodies and a distinctive style of almost Brucknerian repetition. Along with much of the audience I was more than pleasantly surprised. After over 30 years of concert going, I have found the odds that an unknown opening act is going to be even good to be almost non-existent. When their set ended, I was charged up but a little concerned that the floor would not be the place to be for Mastodon, due to the higher volume of the headlining act. I headed upstairs and took my place along the wall of the mezzanine - and am I glad I did. 


I don't want to go into details, but Dillinger Escape Plan were one of the worst musical acts I have ever experienced. And it is an act. The roadies knew exactly when the lead guitar jackass was going to climb the amps and there were strategically placed apple crates (helpfully painted fluorescent green) for guys to jump up on. The whole thing was so canned - ugh. And the music, while precise, was dumbed down Helmet and I didn't much like them either. Next!

Mastodon - the aftermath

Finally, Mastodon, in all their glory. If you're not familiar (and you should change that - soon), this is the preeminent hard rock band in America today. Melody, weight, conceptual depth, emotional engagement - it's all there. A culmination, in fact, of many genres and micro-genres of heavy music from the past two or three decades. Yes, there are bands that are more abrasive, more bizarre, more obscure - but when it comes to the sheer love of music, Mastodon wins out. And live, it was no different. Just to watch how guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher assemble those jaggedly beautiful riffs was a pleasure. And the rhythm section of Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor swung like a mother. It was a great set ending with the perfect singalong of Creature Lives - see for yourself.

What did you see on stage last year? Here's to more great shows in 2012!

The Best Of The Rest Of 11

OK, this is freaking long but there was so much that I would hate to have pushed under the rug by the reductive nature of the Best Of 11 list that I just have to let it all hang out. Groove along at 8tracks.

Just Under The Wire - In no particular order, these are the ones it almost hurt to leave off the Top Ten

The Whole Love by Wilco - after a couple of slightly too conventional (yet enjoyable) records, the whole Wilco nearly returned to form with this gem. Opening and closing with two their finest songs ever, only one or two fillers kept this from making it to A Ghost Is Born or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot territory. 

Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron and Wine - Sam Beam writes songs that sound like old friends the first time you hear them and there are several new entries into his canon on this beautiful record. One wheezy saxophone too many keep this from hitting the high mark set by The Shepherd's Dog.

The King Of Limbs by Radiohead - Was it fascinating, innovative, often beautiful? Yes. Was it compulsively listenable like In Rainbows? No. Special mention for TKOL Remix 1234567, a massive remix project that yielded often brilliant results.

Dennis Coffey by Dennis Coffey - Damn, this was a good record - play it while pulling out of a Walmart parking lot and you feel like Starsky and Hutch. Coffey's slashing guitar and rhythmic precision have not deserted him and his young collaborators reenergize the legendary axe-man. On the fence? Download the free remix collection.

Bon Iver by Bon Iver - Justin Vernon's second album under this moniker featured a big ensemble sound and gorgeous songs. Some seemingly willful obscurity kept this from being a complete success, however.

Catholic by Gavin Friday - 16 years is a long time between records and, as a huge fan of his three previous albums, I was having trouble managing my expectations. After several months of listening, it seems a little undercooked, but his voice has never sounded better, and it is one of the great voices.

Murder The Mountains by Red Fang - When these (mostly) hairy dudes opened for Mastodon, bros in the audience were giving each other amazed looks and throwing non-ironic devil horns. They were that good and the merch table was busy. Sludgy but swaggering, with some nicely placed Brucknerian repetition and left-field melodies, these guys are not your average slice of metal. 


Nine Types Of Light by TV On The Radio - More multicolored orchestral avant-pop by the Brooklyn standard-bearers, somehow just slightly less satisfying than their last one.

Tassili by Tinariwen - Another great record from the Tuareg band, featuring wonderful contributions from Kyp and Tunde from TVOTR, Nels Cline and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. The only caveat is that there is less variety here and I really miss the electric guitars.


Cotonou Club by Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo - This hallowed Benin-based ensemble was thought to be defunct or dead until the mega-fans at Strut tracked them down and recorded some hits and some new songs. Unstoppable!


Deadly She-Wolf Assassin Armageddon/Momma's Song by Fred Ho - This trailblazing sax player/composer/arranger/conceptualist is fighting a mean cancer. That hasn't stopped him from releasing four albums in 2011. This one moves from Japanese inflected jams to driving fusionoid grooves. An important artist, let's hope he keeps it up.


Suck It And See by Arctic Monkeys - The lack of interest in this album's expert rock and pop on this side of the pond is almost tragic. It may be their own damn fault for leading with Brick By Brick, perhaps the worst song they've ever recorded. But ignore classics like this at your peril, or Reckless Serenade, which features these brilliant opening lines: "Topless models. Doing semaphore. Wave their flags as she walks by. And get ignored."


How Do You Do by Mayer Hawthorne - A year or two of touring has worked wonders on Mayer's voice and his crate-digging ways have led him to some new byways. The band is as tight as the songwriting and dig the Donald Fagan influence!


Blessed by Lucinda Williams - For me, this is her most engaging and engaged album since Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. While most of the lyrics are great, the groove is strong enough to make it easy to ignore the infelicitous ones. Searing guitar from Elvis Costello is a nice touch.


We're New Here by Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX - Jamie XX makes some funky lemonade out of Gil's final album, which was a bit of a sad affair in its original form. A fitting end to an often magnificent career. Looking forward to reading his memoir in 2012.


Pl3dge by Killer Mike - He's still angry - angry enough that he wants to occasionally inspire the best in all of us, just to piss more people off. But when he hooks up with a Funkadelic groove and raps about destruction, it feels so good to be bad.


Watch The Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West - MBDTF was an incredibly hard act to follow but No Church In The Wild sets a high bar for this ultimate collabo - so high that some of the more half-baked tracks sound more so. 


Biophilia by Bjork - Perhaps overshadowed by her app-mania (which in my cynical moments seems to be a clever way to get us to pay twice for the same songs), this is an often meditative collection of art-songs, played on a fascinating collage of acoustic and electronic instruments. Perhaps she is evolving into more of a niche artist than she was previously - I'm happy to follow her there.


Rhizoma by Anna Thorvaldsdottir - If the cotton candy-haired Ms. Gudmonsdottir doesn't satisfy your need for chilly northern soundscapes, Rhizoma certainly will. Knotty and atmospheric.


Bruckner Motets by The Choir of St. Mary's Cathedral - For these explicitly religious works, Bruckner actually takes a lighter approach than his symphonic statements and his engagement with the texts seems absolute. These performances, beautifully recorded and performed, put nothing between you and this astonishing music. It would be hard to imagine recommending another version of these works over this glorious collection. 


Roots, Rock, Reissues (and other sounds from the past)


Mega-boxes from the likes of The Who, Pink Floyd and Nirvana dominated the reissue scene and have their pleasures, I'm sure. Either a financial windfall or another gift-giving season will have to occur before I can officially weigh in. Here's the old stuff that was news to me.


Not one but two spectacular Lee "Scratch" Perry reissues made this for a banner year for the dub lovers of the world. The Return Of Sound System Scratch one ups its predecessor with more bass-heavy missives from the alien heart of reggae, while The Return Of Pipecock Jackxon brings a 30 year-old album, one of the last recorded in Jamaica by Perry, out of the shadows.


The foundations of reggae are laid bare in Soul Jazz's Studio One Story, which includes a fantastic single-disc compilation and a four hour documentary/interview DVD, which explains how a lot of blissful music came about. As soon as I learn how to build my own speaker box, I'm taking my sound system to the streets of NYC.


Soul Jazz has also been killing it with the Bossa Nova collections and Brazil Bossa Beat is no exception. Featuring the full spectrum of Brazilian sounds released on Elenco records in the 1960's, this works well in the background as well as repaying close listening. 


That Salsa is New York and New York is Salsa is ably demonstrated by the recently unearthed soundtrack to Our Latin Thing, the film of a ridiculously good Fania All Stars concert at the Cheetah Club in 1971. Still need convincing? How about El Barrio, four more CD's of fantastic Fania wax.  


If all of the acoustic jazz in my collection mysteriously disappeared except for the music made by the (second) Miles Davis Quintet, I would be disappointed but only just. So the appearance of Live In Europe 1967 is a major event for me. Not surprisingly, the music is scintillating from beginning to end. The DVD features two wonderful concerts, pretty well-filmed - Miles is the star but try keeping your eyes off Tony Williams. And since it's subtitled "The Bootleg Series Vol. 1" one can assume there is more quality stuff on the horizon.


England in the late 60's seemed to spit out ferociously talented acoustic guitar players like watermelon seeds. Michael Chapman is one such gent I was unfamiliar with until this year. While his dry voice takes a little getting used to and his songs don't always gel, when he nails it, he's amazing. Either get the hipster-approved Light In The Attic reissue of Fully Qualified Survivor or do as I did and get the older reissue that includes his first album, Rainmaker, which is also very fine. And, he's still at full strength today as evidenced by his recent Daytrotter session.

David Bowie's seeming retirement has created a little bit of frenzy around any hint of new sounds so the leak of Toy, his aborted album from 2001, was certainly a happy accident. He was revisiting some pre-Space Oddity songs in fine form and working up originals (some of which appeared in different versions on Heathen). While not quite a lost masterpiece, it's very good and has even appeared on some top ten lists.

Janie Hendrix might be an unpleasant person, but she that she has the Jimi Hendrix's legacy well in hand is proven once again by the Winterland box set, which features concerts from the prime of the Experience just before the release of Electric Ladyland. I can't imagine hesitating before acquiring this slab of goodness.


Speaking of legacies, the Rolling Stones have been playing a bit fast and loose with theirs, what with re-recording vocals and other parts to old songs for the recent deluxe reissues of Exile On Main Street and Some Girls, so the release of a beautifully mixed version of the oft-bootlegged 1973 Brussels Affair concert is a cause for celebration. The Stones at their best (i.e. with Mick Taylor) ably assisted by Billy Preston and a couple of great horn players, playing a near-perfect setlist. They're still excited about everything, especially new songs like Heartbreaker, and the version of Midnight Rambler is the best I've ever heard. Plus, Jagger speaks French in a louche manner that it's hard to imagine anyone else getting away with. Listening to this will bring you right back to why you care about these guys.




What GREAT stuff did I miss??