Featuring "An Album a Day for 2010". I have so many cd's, and a lot of them are the crappy ones that I am left with because all the good ones were either loaned out or stolen from me by my kids. So anyway, for 365 days it is my goal to listen to the good with the bad, the classical with the punk, the sucky and the sublime, and then write something.
These guys are some amazing flamenco guitar players. Jorge Strunz is from Costa Rica and Ardeshir Ferah is from Iran. They met in the US in 1979 and have been recording and performing ever since. We went to see these guys in 2003 at the One World Theater in Austin and I have a signed copy of this album.
The album is all instrumental and also features a flute player by the name of Pedro Eustache, who also signed the CD cover.
I think the most amazing this about them is how well they play together and echo each other's riffs. Farah is by far the more technical player, but Strunz (who appears older) seems to have that little bit of "soul" (for lack of a better term) that makes it more sincere. The first cut, "Matambu" is probably my favorite since I once put it on a mix CD, but this album offers much to explore. Good Sunday listening.
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p.s. While I'm at it here let me give a shout-out to the great radio stations in Austin, TX that play this kind of stuff on a regular basis. I would have never heard of these guys had they not been played on KGSR. I think that station has gone a little more mainstream these days, but they still manage to mix in an eclectic track or two like Strunz and Ferah. And don't get me started on how KUT has changed my life -- I'll leave that for another day.
(This recording: LaserLight Digital, 1990
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 "Emperor"
Anton Dikov, piano w/ Sofia Philharmonic Orch.
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 "Pathetique"
Istvan Szekely, piano)
From the first chord of the first movement of the "Pathetique" sonata you feel heaviness. The plodding quarter note rhythm of the first section pushes you down into the mud. When the rhythm picks up it is only like so much rain, relentlessly washing over you with something that should be refreshing and life-giving, but is too much. Again, Beethoven repeats the form, coming back to the same place, then returning only more forcefully, in waves and weighing down the piece with the left hand. When the melody rises it is always like water seeking a new level, and then it cascades, falling, falling, sometimes trippingly but always down, into the mire.
The second movement, adagio cantable, is an often quoted melody which tenderly, if hesitantly, greets the clearing sky with a sense of weary anticipation. The major key indicates hope, but in the end it is overcome by complete exhaustion and sleep at last.
The third movement, the rondo, assesses the damage and it is not good. There are some hints at a rebuilding process, but in the end we are back to Adam's situation, when, after the fall, he was cursed by God to toil all of the days of his life. It's your choice to take your bread bitter or sweet.
Beethoven is the greatest musician that ever lived. He says more in this sonata than all rock albums put together. But still we still write and we still play, because ... well, because we are the living.
So here this guy comes to try to put some hip new spin on an old genre. I saw him on t.v. once and he has this fun little shtick where he dances around and plays piano standing up. It's only good for a couple of songs, or when he covers Radiohead or Hendrix (like on his previous album "Twenty Something"). This album has none of that magic. His songs really aren't that good and coming from a piano player, this album is remarkably devoid of any interesting solos.
I've had this album in my collection for a few years and after the first few listens I've hardly touched it. This time around the thing rode around in my car in CD changer position #6 for two whole weeks before I finally listened to it. It was only because I took a road trip from my house to Waco, then Houston and back that I finally got around to playing it, and even then it was a chore getting through it. Some stuff is hard to listen to no matter how monotonous the highway gets.
The main problem with Cullum is that he can't decide who he wants to be. If you want to play Sinatra, go for it, but do it up right. By the same token, if you want to be a piano player, do your best Bruce Hornsby, Ben Folds or even Billy Joel -- at least those guys are serious about their instrument. Cullum's cheap crooner/piano player gimmick is wearing thin. Even Harry Connick, Jr. has that New Orleans thing going -- this guy's got nothin'.
Although this album won a Grammy for "Best Rock Album" in 1999 it has met to mixed reviews. If you look up the album on amazon.com you will see a really scathing one about how all of the songs lack sincerity. I'm not saying it's the best album ever but I've always thought this album was kind of cool and thoughtful. I read somewhere that she made this album after a period of depression -- why do songwriters always put out their best stuff after being depressed?
"My Favorite Mistake" is rumored to be about an affair she had with Eric Clapton. Hmmm. It has a really nice guitar hook -- does that incriminate old Slowhand?
The harsher critics have a point -- some of the songs come off like she's trying to hard to be street-smart when she's really not -- but it still sounds real for us wanna-be white people who once went to a Denny's in Austin, TX at 3:00 a.m. "There Goes the Neighborhood" indeed.
I like "Anything But Down" and "The Difficult Kind" and the little jam on "Part 2" of "Am I Getting Through", but I really can't say anything profound about this album.
What does that say about me? And my place in society? Am I lame? Why do I feel like I have to keep justifying myself for liking Sheryl Crow?
Golden Smog is a "supergroup" of sorts, with several different members from different bands: Soul Asylum, the Jayhawks, and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. I like the Jayhawks and Soul Asylum, but as I have noted elsewhere, I am a huge fan of Wilco, and Tweedy's presence on this album is pretty much the only reason I bought it.
It's very listenable and it has some nice cuts on it, the title track being one of them and the friendly "5-22-02". But I obsess about Wilco sometimes and can't help but hear stuff on this album that sounds like them. For example, there are several songs that I swear start out like "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" (from Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot").
I really want to like this album, and I have tried several times. But there's something missing, some kind of pop or hook which would make me come back to it again. In the end it's just "average" as far as I'm concerned. I don't hate it, but .... well, I guess my take on it is, "Eeeeeeeeeh, it's ok."
OK. Brandon Boyd is a great singer. And I like their sound, especially this album, which is one of my favorites. But sometimes I get tripped up on the stupidity of some of their lyrics. To wit (from the title cut):
If I hadn't made me, I'd have fallen apart by now.
I won't let them make me..It's more than I can allow.
So when I make me, I won't be paper-maiche..
And if I f*** me...I'll f*** me in my own way.
Really? This album, which is all about individuality and responsibility, on the title cut, this is the best you could come up with? "F* me in my own way"? Really. That's your message. See, it kind of puts a damper on the whole thing for me.
Despite the inanity, I still like this album and have listened to it many times. There really isn't a bad song on this disk, and musically it really kicks butt and Boyd's vocals really sparkle, especially in the higher registers. And it starts strong (from "Privilege"):
Find yourself a back door
I see you in line dragging your feet
You have my sympathy
The day you were born you were born free
That is your
That is your privilege
I really like the vocals, for example, on "The Warmth". But then you get some kind of hack lyric like this from "When It Comes" and it almost ruins it:
And it feels like a matador is taunting me with his reddest red cloth and I am the bull.
Yes I feel emphatic about not being static
and not eating the bullshit that's being fed to me no more...
cause' now I'm full.
Anyway, to wrap this up, I think "Drive" is one of the most played songs of the last 10 years (I remember seeing some kids playing it at a high school graduation, ha) and I really, really like "Pardon Me" partially because of this verse:
Not two days ago,
I was having a look
in a book
and I saw a picture of a guy
fried up above his knee.
I said, "I can relate,"
cause lately I've been thinking of combustication
as a welcome vacation from
the burdens of
the planet Earth.
like gravity, hypocrisy,
and the perils of being in 3-D...
but thinking so much differently.
"Combustication" and "the perils of being free". OK, there's some deep thought there after all.
These guys, Mozart and Schubert, they were amazing, creative men who revolutionized music in their time. We like to think of their music as "old", but in their time they were not only innovative with the new technology (i.e. the "pianoforte"), they incorporated other styles and genres into their music. For example, a style called "Strum und Drang" was a German style of music and poetry that was popular before Mozart's time that he sometimes incorporated, or alluded to, in his music. In fact, it can be shown that part of Mozart's genius was his ability to borrow and synthesize various styles into that of his own.
I think you see where I'm going with this. "Midnite Vultures" sounds like a disco throwback album, but with updated electronics. There are some really nice funk grooves here and even a horn section. There are parts that sound like Prince. One of my favorite tracks, "Beautiful Way", is a slow groove that features a pedal steel and a harmonica. My favorite track, "Mixed Bizness", has a guitar riff and horns that pretty much rips off The Ohio Players.
I shouldn't say "ripped off" because Beck does it in such great style that makes me want to go and buy an Ohio Players CD and listen to it. (Ha, notice I didn't say, "Put on the record album.")
So I can't say that I am a Beck aficionado because I've only listened to it a couple of times now (at the behest of Emily), but I can say that this is a fun dance party album in a good, grooving way that makes you remember the best parts of disco and funk and which omits the afros, disco balls and shoes with really tall heels.
There's just something about Mozart drifting through the house on a Sunday morning when the windows are open and the breeze wafting through. Cup of coffee and the newspaper. Think I'll read the comics and do the crossword too.
Franz Schubert died in 1828 in Vienna at the age of 31. At the time the cause of death was listed as typhoid fever but modern researchers think he probably had syphilis. During his brief lifetime he composed over 1000 works, about 600 of which are "lieder", which are songs. This quintet is unusual because of the instrumentation. Most quintets are composed of a piano plus a string quartet -- two violins, a viola and a cello. In the "Trout" one of the violins is replaced with a double bass. The work was composed when Schubert was 22 but was not published until 1829, a year after his death.
So yeah. I've been thinking about all this music I've been listening to and how the good stuff usually has two or three underlying meanings. Like I never thought of Steely Dan's "Gaucho" as depressing until I really listened to it. I'm beginning to think it's all depressing. Check out this commentary on the piece from Wikipedia:
2. Andante in F major (the flattened submediant of the work's main key, A major). This movement is composed of two symmetrical sections, the second being a transposed version of the first, except for some differences of modulation which allow the movement to end in the same key in which it began. Each section contains three themes, the second of which is notable for its poignancy. The striking feature of this movement is its tonal layout: the tonality changes chromatically, in ascending half tones, according to the following scheme (some intermediate keys of lower structural significance have been omitted): F major - F sharp minor - G major - A flat major - A minor - F major. Such a tonal structure is revolutionary to the harmonic concept of Classical composers such as Mozart and Beethoven.
Well I should know by now
That it's just a spasm
Like a Sunday in T.J.
That it's cheap but it's not free
That I'm not what I used to be
And that love's not a game for three
(TJ = Tijuana for you neophytes.)
Again with the age thing.
This album, by the way, is all about being burned-out on living the fast L.A. lifestyle. It has a very California feel to it. There are some pretty overt drug references, like "chasing the dragon" in Time Out of Mind and "the Cuervo Gold, the Fine Colombian" in Hey Nineteen; and lots of commentary on the "glamor profession", but this album is all about coming out defeated on the other side. There is really not a flattering portrait of anyone or anything on this collection, despite the upbeat sound of the thing.
The song that especially portrays this sentiment is the extravagant title cut, which satirizes the gay lifestyle. Now, I know Becker and Fagen are not gay, so on one hand this song comes off a little bit homophobic, or at the least stereotypical. On the other hand it is just the icing on the ironic cake (no pun intended on yesterday's entry):
Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes
Bodacious cowboys
Such as your friend
Will never be welcome here
High in the Custerdome
By the way, nobody knows what the heck is a "Custerdome". I think the key word here is "high". Plus I always liked that line,
No he can't sleep on the floor
What do you think I'm yelling for?
I'll drop him near the freeway
Doesn't he have a home?
Yes, this album is about drugs. The "gaucho amigo" is the stupid choice you made when you were high that you thought you couldn't live without, but now you can't get rid of it. It's not his fault -- he can't help it that he's a "bodacious cowboy" -- but he doesn't belong in your house living with you. Now you have to do something drastic to get rid of him.
Get the message? It is for any of us who has ever repetitively, or addictively, engaged in something stupid and is now trying to live with the empty consequences. And I think that's something we can all relate to.
And you thought these lyrics were nonsense.
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p.s. The copy of this album I have is actually on Disk 4 of the collection "Citizen Steely Dan". If my kids are reading this, I would like to know the whereabouts of disks 1-3. Love, Dad.
If I had to come up with a term to describe this band it would be "post-modern." The reason is because, by and large, their songs tend to be sparse and scripted -- that is, there are not a lot of "jamming" and "improv" in Cake music. John McCrea's flat baritone, which he mixes in with occasional spoken word, are in stark contrast to the grunge scene which they came out of. It's like they are conveying more or less the same message and emotion as grunge, but in a totally opposite style.
McCrea has an ironic wit that is acerbic and biting (from "Frank Sinatra"):
We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations,
A faintly glimmering radio station.
While Frank Sinatra sings Stormy Weather,
The flies and spiders get along together,
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.
Your music may be great but sooner or later it will be old and forgotten.
I've listened to and more or less absorbed all of Cake's albums and I have to say that by far this one is the darkest. Maybe it's because it's the most direct:
To me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
End is the only part of the word
That I heard.
Call me morbid or absurd.
But to me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
To me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
I know I just said that most of their songs feel "scripted", and they do, but "Fashion Nugget", compared to the other albums, has the most "improv" on it. Like I said, it's the most direct and emotional, so you get a couple of honest guitar solos (like the one on "Nugget") and even a jazzy trumpet solo on "Italian Leather Sofa". Cake's biggest radio hit, "The Distance", appears here, but the marquee song on this album is their cover of the 70s disco hit "I Will Survive". Something in McCrea's deadpan delivery just smacks of irony: in the same way that Gloria Gaynor was sort of heroically inspiring, McCrea takes you to that place of resolution where you know that that the sun is going to come up tomorrow no matter what kind of crap happens today. (From "Nugget":)
Now Heads of State who ride and wrangle,
Who look at your face from more than one angle,
Can cut you from their bloated budgets
Like sharpened knives through Chicken McNuggets.
...
Now nimble fingers that dance on numbers
Will eat your children and steal your thunder,
While heavy torsos that heave and hurl
Who crunch like nuts in the mouths of squirrels.
Shut the f**k.
Shut the f**k up.
Learn to buck up.
Shut the f**k.
Learn to buck up.
What you have to like about Cake is that they fuse together a lot of different styles in their music to create a common ironic message: life is tough, pardner. You can't even make a dime off of the song you wrote about it:
I'll tell all about how you cheated.
I'd like for the whole world to hear.
I'd like to get even
With you cause you're leavin'.
But sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year.
I once heard an interview on NPR with John McCrea and the interviewer got hung up on the cutesy little things in the lyrics, like it was all a joke, instead of the underlying irony in their intrinsic message. In other words, it's easy to dismiss Cake as complaining all the time. But sometimes you need that extra voice, that biting wit, delivered completely out of context, that gives you another perspective and makes you realize that all is not as it seems. This is what Cake brings to the table.
Daria, I won't be soothed over like,
Smoothed over like milk,
Silk, a bedspread, or a quilt,
Icing on a cake,
Or a serene translucent lake.
Daria, Daria, Daria,
Daria, Daria, Daria,
Daria, I won't be soothed.
I won't be soothed.
I can hear all of your collective disdain -- "I can't believe he likes Sheryl Crow." Bite me, ok? Sheryl is awesome: she's a great singer, she has a great public persona, and her music, well ... you have to admire her for her consistency.
She continually cranks out listenable, foot-tapping, driving-down-the-road, sing-along music with just enough lyrical depth to keep it interesting. Listening through this "best of" collection I have to say that there is really only one song here that I don't like. There are several that I really love, "Everyday is a Winding Road," "Steve McQueen", and the cover of the Cat Stevens song, "The First Cut is the Deepest." I don't even mind her song with stupid Kid Rock, "Picture".
I heard her in an interview once say that her goal is longevity and that she patterned herself after Tom Petty, that she just wants to be able to make a lifelong career out of recording these kinds of songs. And when you think about it, Tom Petty, I don't think, has never written more than about two lines per song of a decent lyric, and I don't think he's ever written a "whole" song. But there he is about every three or four years with another song on the radio. Now Sheryl's verses look like Longfellow next to Petty's -- at least she can complete the thought: "Like Steve McQueen, all I need's a fast machine".
So I can say this with confidence, from the rooftops and on my public blog -- I don't want to marry her, but:
I LOVE SHERYL CROW !!!
Plus there's something about these warm winter days -- it was 60 and sunny today in Texas -- that is conducive to rolling down the windows and singing at the top of your lungs to songs you know and love.
The waiting is over so let's roll int he clover
Time for a head full of stars
Let's pull back the curtain, only one thing's for certain
Well we don't have very long
Don't look back my wounded bird
there's nothing for you here
Need no wings just set your mind to fly
(from "Wounded Bird")
I love the Black Crowes and I've seen them five times. I especially love "Southern Harmony and Musical Companion", but that was released in 1992, 18 years ago. Look, these guys are getting old.
But so am I.
I'm not the kind of guy that likes to live in the past. I like to remember the good old days as much as the next guy, but I like to think I'm moving forward. Yes, I know all the songs on "70s on 7" on Sirius, but I need something new.
I like this album because it's not the Crowes trying to recreate some kind of glory days -- it's them right now making music that matters to them right now. So, yeah, it takes on a little balding salt-and pepper haired aspect when Chris Robinson sings (in "Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution"):
"To give up now would be such a pity,
Don't you wanna see the ship go down with me?"
Lost love, lost opportunities, in the end all we can hope for it to have enough energy and gumption to keep trying, to do it one more time (from "Oh Josephine"):
Waited for redemption
No leaving love behind
You've got to know where you wanna be
It gets cold outside
It's too late to play it safe
So let's let it all ride
Yeah, let's let it all ride
Let it all ride!
You've got to like the instrumental jam on the end of that song that just says, "OK boys, let's finish strong," but not in an exhausting, frenetic way; in a measured, meaningful way.
You may be a big Crowes fan but you might not appreciate this album if you're under 40. That's ok, the Crowes love you. I do too.
Sometimes a road is rocky and hard
Full of dangers unrelenting
Just take great care to follow your stars
Let the good times come a plenty
Whoa mule, whoa mule, we're dirty but were dreaming
Whoa mule, whoa mule, we'll both get there someday
Sorry I'm dividing this double album up into two sections -- the first disk just rocks so much that when I start listening to it I don't want to go on to Disk 2 (the mellow Foo). It has some great tracks, "Best of You", "DOA", "Resolve" and "End Over End". I am sitting here trying to justify why I like the Foos, and I guess my only answer to that is, "I like guys with guitars."
Really, though, where would we be without the Foo Fighters? We would be overrun with foo, that's where we'd be. Foo is dangerous and will take over if we don't keep it in check. We should be thankful that we have the Fighters of Foo for protecting us from evil Foo.
Thank you, Foo Fighters, thank you for all the work you do. And for delivering the rocking.
This little album by Lyle is alright. Some reviews say it's his best since "Road to Ensenada". I like Lyle, but sometimes he's a little to laid-back for me and so it's hard for me to actively listen to him sometimes -- as opposed to passive listening, where it is playing in the background. Now I don't want to reduce him to some kind of "elevator" music, but he does have a certain soothing quality.
At the same time if you listen actively to this album you get a lot of "homing" type of imagery: traveling, rambling and going home. There are several covers along those lines on "Natural Forces", like "Whooping Crane", "Bayou Song" and "Bohemia". The title cut is Lyle's, as well as "Pantry", which actually appears twice, once in a country version and once in a bluegrass version. I think the latter is the best because it fits the cute lyric that implores his wife to be true while he is away by making her love analogous to home-cooking:
Don't cheat on me with cornbread
Don't cheat on me with beans
Don't cheat on me with bacon
Cooked up in collard greens
And don't cheat on me with biscuits
With jelly sweet and blue
Keep it in that place
Where you know you will be true
Keep it in your pantry
Ha. Anyway, the title song, "Natural Forces", actually has a very nice thought to it. He talks about ramblin' and moving as being movtivated by some natural desire (ironically similar to some Zeppelin songs, LOL), and compares it to some of the wars and migrations of history, then centers it at the end with this thought:
And now as i sit here safe at home
With a cold Coors Light and the TV on
All the sacrifice and the death and war
Lord I pray that i'm worth fighting for
...
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is
I missed yesterday and there are two disks in this album so today you get a
>>> DOUBLE-SHOT of the ZEP <<<<
I grew up in the 70s but I came to Led Zeppelin very late. When I was young I was a church boy and, except for a few radio hits, I always associated them with druggies and Satan worshippers. Really, I'm not kidding. Now I realize their genius and appreciate their ground-breaking style, but I'm not going to wax poetic about the good old days and how they were the greatest, nobody can play like Page, blah blah blah.
What I am going to tell you about is what I remember about some friends and acquaintances who were Zeppelin fans. Like Timmy M., a friend of mine in high school who insisted that all his friends call him "Zofo", for the inscription on their 4th album (the one with "Stairway" on it). Of course, we didn't know for sure if it was "ZOFO" or "ZOSO", but Tim already had the nickname, so we just called him "Zo".
Then there was this kid I met at basketball camp when I was about 15. He was older, more worldly and had gone to school in Europe. He tried to convince me that the Led Zeppelin song playing on his tape player was his band.
My friend Don and I used to ride around in his dad's Chrysler (sometimes Melissa and Linda would go with us). The car only had an 8-track player and some how or another the only decent album we had to listen to (in 1980) was "In Through the Out Door" (which many consider their weakest). Don loved to point out the little place in the keyboard solo in "All My Love" where he accidentally hits two keys at once. He also loved to demonstrate the concept of what people do when they "go shufflin' downtown" (from "Fool in the Rain").
Finally there's my friend Marty, who was a manager at IBM when I first started working there in 1988. He wasn't my manager, so we got to be friends. I remember talking to him in his office one day and he told me that his favorite band was Led Zeppelin, and he had one of their concert posters on his office wall. I couldn't believe it because I thought he was such a straight-laced guy. He was. He also liked Zeppelin. He died a couple of years later of some weird heart condition at about age 36. I think of him sometimes when I listen to Led Zeppelin.
So am I a big Zeppelin fan? I like them as much as the next guy. Do I like to listen to them? Yeah, I do.
I told my daughter Emily that I would give these guys a listen. I'm not really a punk fan but she thought I would like it. I like it ok -- I think if I listen to it a little more it will grow on me. Now that these guys are on my radar screen I am anxious to give a listen to the album that came after this, "Against the Grain." But that's not why I'm aggravated. The thrashy guitars with the intellectual lyrics just kind of fits in with my frustration.
There's no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end
When we all disintegrate it will all happen again, yeah.
If you came to conquer, you'll be king for a day,
But you too will deteriorate and quickly fade away.
And believe these words you hear when you think your path is clear...
We have no control. We have no control.
We have no control, we do not understand.
OK, so I get the junk emails all the time, which I mostly delete. But the ones that get me going are the ones that talk about President Obama's citizenship (that he wasn't born in America) or his religion (that he's a Muslim). From a political standpoint I'm kind of on the fence about him -- he hasn't convinced me yet that he's little more than a bunch of empty promises -- but that's beside the point. The point is that defaming somebody and spreading falsehoods doesn't help your case and doesn't do anything to make things right. If Obama is a bad president, then let's hear a critique of his policies: making up stuff doesn't convince people, it just makes the maker-upper look stupid and ignorant.
What does this have to do with Bad Religion and punk rock? Because it's all about DIALOGUE, man. I've been writing about music for two whole weeks now (wow, I know) and the one thing I've learned is that everybody has something to say. Some say it better than others (i.e. "Books are Burning" by XTC). Some use a different medium and style to emphasize their point, like these guys, who raise a lot of good questions on this little disk, which, incidentally, is only about 25 minutes long even though it contains 15 songs -- most of them are less than 2 minutes each. Short, punctuated, and to the point. I haven't quite digested their message yet, but let me say it was refreshing to hear a different, thoughtful point of view. You may not like the message or the delivery, but you have to respect their part of the dialogue -- they have something to add.
People who try to get you to accept a truth at face value are probably lying to you. They want to limit the dialogue only to their point of view, only to their truth.
This is one of the most honest albums you'll ever listen to. You just get the feeling that everything here is "real".
Come here, darlin', from a whisper start
To have a little faith in me.
I know writers, songwriters, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, whatever ... they all speak from their heart, speak from where they are. But Hiatt just has this voice, this way that he says it, that just comes across as real and sincere.
There was a life that I was living
In some cracked rearview
Where no future was given
To a heart untrue
Still I thought that I was so strong
That my will could force me through
I didn't know it would be so long
Learning how to love you
When I listen to this album, I can't help but think about the story behind it. At the risk of repeating stuff you can read elsewhere on the net: in 1987 Hiatt has had some moderate success but is down and out, a recovering alcoholic, and has burned so many bridges that no one wants to work with him. He calls in a favor with his friends Nick Lowe (bass), Jim Keltner (drums) and Ry Cooder (guitar and slide) and they record "Bring the Family" in four days because that's all they had the money for. For this reason two of the songs are Hiatt playing solo ("Have a Little Faith" and "Learning How to Love You"). The result has been heralded as a masterpiece, not only because the songwriting is exceptional, but because of his stellar backing band. Just listen to Keltner's work on "Memphis in the Meantime" (Is that a bicycle bell?).
The reason I repeat all that is because it is what I hear every time I spin "Bring the Family". When Hiatt sings in "Lipstick Sunset", "And lord I couldn't tell her / that her love was only killing me" you just have to feel for him. And Cooder's breathtaking slide work on this song makes it real. "Have a Little Faith in Me" is that outpouring that every guy has made after a change of heart, but with the underlying desperate hope that it's more than just a sell job, not only to her but to himself. Maybe it IS a song to himself.
But the real gem here is "A Thing Called Love", because it creates a gritty, down-and-out feeling (lost in the Bonnie Raitt version) of someone who has screwed up every other aspect of his life but still discovers that he can still be blessed and rescued by love:
Ugly ducklings don't turn into swans,
And glide off down the lake,
Whether your sunglasses are off or on,
You only see the world you make
Not to lay too much music theory on you here, but the riff, F# A# C# E, is genius. There's the major chord F# A# C#, with the 7th, the E, just kind of leaving you hanging at the end. It's a 7th chord but it doesn't act as such (in wanting to move to another chord) -- the 7th just punctuates the major triad in way that kind of "messes it up" and makes it imperfect, but valid nonetheless; it's not dissonant, but it turns a major chord (F# A# C#) into something with a minor top (A# C# E). It's not major, and it's not minor, and it's not invalid -- it just kind of leaves you baffled, like, what the hell are you trying to tell me?
Now I didn't have no plans to live this kind of life,
It just worked out that way
And are you ready for this thing called love?
Don't come from you and me, comes from up above
I ain't no porcupine, take off your kid gloves,
Are you ready for this thing called love?
Doubt? Uncertainty? Maybe a little subversion? Yet, we're still here, so along with that you also get hopefulness and maybe a little optimism.
A really, really brilliant statement. Thanks for sharing, John.
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p.s. We met John Hiatt a couple of years ago on a cruise. I've always admired him so like an idiot I couldn't think of anything to say. He was nice enough to take a picture with us anyway:
I got this cd for Christmas, and was pretty excited about it when I unwrapped it, the band a "supergroup" being composed of bassist John Paul Jones (of Led Zeppelin), drummer Dave Grohl (of Nirvana and front man for The Foo Fighters) and guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age).
John Paul Jones? Really? I hadn't seen that guy on credits in a while. Wonder how come he's not been involved in any of the Page/Plant projects? He's looking pretty good though .... (See their web site.)
Anyway I've listened to it three times now and if I had to describe this album in one word it would be "throwback". First of all, it's got a real raw, garage sound too it. Some songs sound like "Cream" and others are kind of psychedelic. I have to say I didn't like it so much at first but it's beginning to grow on me. There's not to much lyrically that's too heavy -- it's mostly just hard luck love a la rock-n-roll.
Maybe I'm just getting old, but is seems like love in the 21st century is a lot more cynical than the idyllic 90s. Back then, when we wanted to call someone we had to use a pay phone ("Raining in Baltimore") and we had time to deal with "the status of (our) emotions" ("Anna Begins"). "Love is a ghost train" is such anachronistic imagery in 2010: nobody rides trains anymore, except for commuters in big cities, and gone is that perception of it being able to be "lost" in some kind of metaphysical fog, because the reality of modern life is that everybody is connected with Twitter and Facebook and there is no such thing as "disappearing" or "going off the radar" anymore.
Too bad, because the wonderful thing about escaping is not only the solitude where one can regroup and think about things, but also the comfort of getting "found" again:
And I get no answer And I don't get no change It's raining in Baltimore, baby, But everything else is the same
There's things I remember and things I forget I miss you I guess that I should Three thousand five hundred miles away But what would you change if you could?
(From "Raining in Baltimore")
Adam Duritz (lyricist/singer for CC) has crafted an entire album of anonymous "sameness". Sameness in thought and persona:
Gray is my favorite color I felt so symbolic yesterday If I knew Picasso I would buy myself a gray guitar and play
(From "Mr. Jones".)
Sameness in location:
Omaha, somewhere in middle America Getting right to the heart of matters It's the heart that matters more
(From "Omaha".)
White light blindedness = too much information = sameness in situation:
Step out of the front door like a ghost into a fog Where no one notices the contrast in white on white And in between the moon and you Angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
(From 'Round Here".)
Oblivious slumber is all I crave:
Asleep in perfect blue buildings Beside the green apple sea Gonna get me a little oblivion, baby Try to keep myself away from myself and me
(From "Perfect Blue Buildings".)
I looked up at the calendar yesterday and realized that 1990 was twenty years ago. This album has held up surprisingly well. When it came out I remember a friend telling me that his impression of the album was that they were the "kings of jangle", and if you think about it, this came out right in the middle of the grunge surge, so it was groundbreaking for its time. Even then, it lyrically called for more reflection and introspection. It seems so out of place in today's technological millieu where, if you can imagine it, anything and everything can be produced. Some of my favorite bands are this way (re: Wilco, Radiohead). But from 1993, here come the jangling Crows, pulling us back to the heart of matters: it's the heart that matters more, and at the end, reminding us in the gentlest of ways, that true change doesn't come from being pushed and prodded by technology, but only after genuine soul-searching, introspection, maybe some gentle urging, and a LOT of talking.
I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there counting crows One for sorrow Two for joy Three for girls and four for boys Five for silver Six for gold and Seven for a secret never to be told There's a bird that nests inside you Sleeping underneath your skin When you open up your wings to speak I wish you'd let me in All your life is such a shame All your love is just a dream Open up your eyes You can see the flames of your wasted life You should be ashamed You don't want to waste your life I walk along these hillsides In the summer 'neath the sunshine I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me Change, change, change
I gotta stop reading about depressing stuff. Yesterday’s blog entry had some deep thought, and now I’m seeing everything on the bleak side.
One of my favorite albums of 2009 is Wilco’s “Wilco (the album)”, mostly because I think Jeff Tweedy is a genius and I pretty much buy anything they put out. And without exception, I never like a Wilco album when I first buy it and it takes a while to grow on me. I bought this album last summer. Today when I listened to it again it made a little more sense me to me than just a collection of cool songs.
Today I realized that every song on this album deals with finality, resignation, and accepting life as it is. Some songs are happy and upbeat, and some songs are slow and thoughtful; some are acoustic, and some are instrumentally heavy: all follow the same thread. Shall we begin with narcissistic self-reflection?
1. Wilco (The Song) There’re so many wars that just can’t be won Even before the battle’s begun This is an aural arms open wide A sonic shoulder for you to cry on Wilco Wilco will love you baby
Let's continue with the story of a deep-thinking pugilist:
2. Deeper Down Underneath the ocean floor A part of who we are we don’t explore I adore The meaninglessness of the this We can’t express
In perhaps the most overt metaphor I've ever heard from Tweedy (he's usually a lot more subtle), a busted relationship is compared to two separated wings of a bird:
3. One Wing One wing will never ever fly Neither yours nor mine One wing will never ever fly, dear Neither yours nor mine, I fear We can only wave goodbye
Sometimes things suck because we screwed them up so much that they're almost impossible to fix:
4. Bull Black Nova If I’m the one with blood on my sofa Blood in the sink, blood in the trunk High at the wheel of a bull black Nova Then I’m sorry as the setting sun This can’t be undone Can’t be outrun
The worst part of this situation is that he's trying to outrun his problems in a piece of shit Chevy Nova. Bummer, dude. This drives us right into a tender love ballad with an unsatisfying center:
5. You and I Oh, I don’t want to know Oh, I don’t want to know Oh, I don’t need to know Everything about you Oh, I don’t want to know And you don’t need to know That much about me
Don't be so depressed. You're not the first to feel this way. Every generation thinks it's the last, thinks it's the end of the world:
6. You Never Know It’s a dream down a well It’s a long, heavy hell I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore It’s a fear to transcend, if we’re here at the end I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore You never know
Oh wait. It IS that bad. To add insult to injury, our misfortune is just fodder for TV news:
7. Country Disappeared Hold out your hand There’s so much we don’t understand So stick as close as you can To all of your best laid plans You’ve got the white clouds hanging so high above you You’ve got the helicopters dangling, angling to shoot The shots to feed the hungry weekend news crew anchormen So every evening we can watch from above Crush the cities like a bug Fold ourselves into each other’s guts Turn our faces up to the sun
Don't beat yourself up so much, though; it's not all your fault:
8. Solitaire Once I thought without a doubt I had it all figured out Universe with hands unseen I was cold as gasoline Took too long to see I was wrong to believe in me only
Your life is dust and that's all there is to it, even if you try really hard:
9. I'll Fight I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go I’ll go for you I’ll fight, I’ll fight, I’ll fight I’ll fight for you I’ll die, I’ll die, I’ll die I’ll die for you I will, I will, I will
And if I die, I’ll die, I’ll die alone On some forgotten hill Abandoned by the mill All my blood will spring and spill I’ll thrash the air, then be still
You’ll wake with a start from a dream And know that I am gone You’ll feel it in your heart but not for very long
You might as well make the most of it, be thankful for what you have, and sing a happy tune, like the next one, which is the most musically upbeat song on the album, even if it has a tragic ending:
10. Sonny Feeling You know it’s true The other shoe It waits for you What can you do? Remember to show gratitude The darkest night is nothing new ... A sunny feeling is taken away
And now we come to the final conclusion of every great rock-n-roll song cycle: "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.":
11. Everlasting Everything Oh I know this might sound sad But everything goes, both the good and the bad So it all adds up, and you should be glad Everlasting love is all you had
Everlasting everything Nothing could mean anything at all
Books are burning In the main square, and I saw there The fire eating the text Books are burning In the still air And you know where they burn books People are next ... The church of matches Anoints in ignorance with gasoline The church of matches Grows fat by breathing in the smoke of dreams It's quite obscene
Books are burning More each day now, and I pray now You boys will tire of these games Books are burning I hope somehow, this will allow A phoenix up from the flames
(from "Books are Burning")
In 1562 Franciscan monk Diego de Landa was the instigator of several purges in the new Spanish colony of Mexico in which all of the Mayan books in existence at the time were burned: "We found a great number of these books in Indian characters, and becaue the contained nothing but superstition and the Devil's falsehoods, we burned them all; and this they felt most bitterly and it caused them great grief."
Landa was a man of a double-nature, for he also is the author of the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, the most important document that we have concerning Mayan history.
How do we reconcile the paradox of a man who both burns and writes books? This is no problem once we consider that Landa rejects the slightest identification with the native population of the Yucatan and demands only their assimilation into the Christian religion. "The church of matches anoints in ignorance with gasoline."
Andy Partridge of XTC is, in my opinion, the finest lyricist in rock music. He is a songwriter's songwriter. Great artists tap into universal themes, and, in the case of entertainers, say them in a wry or witty way that gives them an extra spin:
I believe the printed word should be forgiven Doesn't matter what it said Wisdom hotline from the dead back to the living Key to the larder for your heart and your head
What did humanity lose when the Mayan books were burned?
I believe the printed word is more than sacred Beyond the gauge of good or bad The human right to let your soul fly free and naked Above the violence of the fearful and sad
Is free self-expression really our human right? At what point do we have an obligation to moderate that self-expression to fit within a specific societal framework?
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p.s. chalkhills.org is THE source for all things XTC. p.p.s. Historical references come from "The Conquest of America" by Tzvetan Todorov (1982).
Come out tonight, come out with me, baby. We'll throw the careful into the crazy, Turn the sky black into a sky blue, Turn the close shave into a "woo-hoo"! What I say is true, make a fire, gotta burn a few, Make a fire, gotta burn a few, We can do what we want to do.
We're like Romeo and Juliet, 40 dogs, cigarettes, We're like good times that haven’t happened yet but will. I can tell you where we're gonna be When the whole world falls to the sea: We’ll be livin’ ever after, happily
(From "40 Dogs")
I've been needing something new and today I found it. I don't know why it's taken me so long to get on the Bob Schneider bandwagon, but this is my new favorite album, even though, technically, I don't own it yet. I streamed it today on Rhapsody. You pay a monthly subscription fee and then you can stream anything you want, continuously if you want. So a lot of times when I hear of something I might like I listen to it first on Rhapsody before I buy it, and, yes, it still makes sense for me to buy it because I'm something of an audiophile and I like the pure sound that you get from a real CD and not just the MP3s.
So, yeah, Bob Schneider, ya'll. I listened a little bit to "Lonelyland" a few years ago and liked him but for whatever reason didn't go any deeper. He's a big name in and around Austin and is/was front man for The Scabs. "Tarantula" on this album was actually a Scabs song. There are quite a few cool numbers on this disk, several of which showcase his talent as a lyricist. Anyway, my favorite tracks on this disk are "Trash", "40 Dogs" and the neat little "Scabs"-esque "Your Head Holds Gold, Your Heart Holds Diamonds."
I don't know why it always makes sense to me to listen to James McMurtry when I am paying bills and working on finances. Maybe there's something grounding in that panhandle Texan baritone brogue, some kind of "cowboy poetry" that speaks to my roots:
Now my boy goes like a house on fire He’ll never burn out and he’ll never retire And I remember when I used to think like that When I was young and the world was flat But I’m forty some years old now and man I don’t care All I want now is just a comfortable chair And to sell all my stock And live on the coast I don’t believe in heaven But I still believe in ghosts.
(From the title track.)
A friend of mine, a displaced Minnesotan, writes a lot in his blog about his perceptions of Texans and how they think from his point of view. He's very insightful. (See The Spanish Medievalist.) I know it's his way of dealing with his own homesickness, and I'm sure he yearns for his own people and is glued to the radio when "A Prairie Home Companion" comes on. By the same token, I'm a Texan so it's somewhat refreshing when a guy like McMurtry speaks to me in my language. On trying to figure out his woman:
She gets a little restless in the spring She might follow the lines you sing Bullshit though they are ‘Cause sometimes that’s just the thing If delivered with panache and a certain grace Fingertips on satin lace Cutting cards and quoting Proust Whatever turns her wild mare loose
(From "Restless".)
I love that line, "cutting cards and quoting Proust". By the way, it was Proust who said, "Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination." Uh, ok.
What I really love about McMurtry, though, is that in the end he always returns to some basic, down-home state, like the guys in "King of the Hill" drinking beer in the alley. Kind of reminds me of my grandpaw (who we called "Papa JuJu"), loading up his pickup and heading out to check the cows because he just couldn't think of anything else to do:
And I’m just a little down tonight I’m just a little down A little messed up is all I’m saying Just a little down tonight I’m just a little down But I believe I’ll make it Believe I’ll make it
(Also from "Restless".)
It's in that mundane world of finances and taxes and everyday crap that I discover that maybe, maybe, when all the work is done, maybe there's something spectacular after all, something to look forward to, something that makes me get up in the morning and say, hey, today's going to be ok, today I'm gonna see something cool, today I'm going to see an elephant:
I’ll borrow the truck from uncle Phil You know I can drive it well He won’t need it now that the hay’s all in Just let me go and see the elephant
Sister she can’t go with me This is not for her to see Little brother you’ll get your chance To go down and see the elephant
(From "See the Elephant".)
What is life, anyway, if it's not just getting to see the next day? That's pretty dern special in itself.
Before I get into talking about this album let me just say something about the packaging and the sound of this remastered version. Unbelievable. The instruments are crisp, the vocal mix just right, and the sitars not too twangy. Don't just listen to it in your car or the MP3s on an iPod, sit yourself on the couch equidistant between your speakers and play it on the big stereo. I know there are purists who swear by the vinyl, but for $9.99 you can't go wrong with this re-release. In addition to the remix, which they engineered from the original analog tapes, there is a booklet complete with pictures, and even an "enhanced" Quicktime feature to the CD, so you get some other goodies as well.
Speaking of the album itself, some consider it the Beatles' most adventurous, pre-dating "Sgt. Pepper's" and containing a mix of the wry George ("Taxman"), the symphonic Paul ("Eleanor Rigby"), the sitar-wielding John ("Tomorrow Never Knows") and, oh yeah, "Yellow Submarine" sung by Ringo. This album really has it all -- the love song, the introspective, the pop hit, the experimental, the political, the exotic -- and you get them in their prime, at that moment in time when they decided to quit touring and concentrate on creating great music in the studio, and also before any of the controversy and infighting that is sometimes associated with their later work.
Five stars, baby.
Track listing: 1. Taxman (George) 2. Eleanor Rigby (Paul) 3. I'm Only Sleeping (John) 4. Love You To (George) 5. Here, There and Everywhere (Paul) 6. Yellow Submarine (Ringo) 7. She Said She Said (John) 8. Good Day Sunshine (Paul) 9. And Your Bird Can Sing (John) 10. For No One (Paul) 11. Doctor Robert (John) 12. I Want to Tell You (George) 13. Got To Get You Into My Life (Paul) 14. Tomorrow Never Knows (John)
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p.s. By the way, the entire Beatles catalog has been remastered but this is the only one I have right now. HINT: gift idea for the Caseman.
This album ain't nothing but a good time. Straight-ahead rock-n-roll. I got this album for Christmas.
Nice rock beats, kind of reminds me of the band "Jet", with a lot of power chords and some keys. Nothing too deep here, but there are a lot of songs which mix love and guns. Go figure. My favorite track has to be "Communist Moon":
Let's all share our dreams Let's all share our dreams Under a communist moon.
These guys seriously need a lead guitarist, though. Otherwise,
Thom Yorke, lyricist for Radiohead, is a fatalist. He's a glass-half-empty kind of guy. He's everything you want in a real artist -- dour, introspective and funny looking. That's not the thing I admire about him, though. The thing I admire about Thom Yorke and Radiohead is their ability to be on that cutting artistic edge and still be hugely popular.
Great music, in my mind, is inexhaustible: every listening allows you to discover something more or receive some new insight. "Great" also implies the work is, um, "interpretable" or "appreciatiateable" on many different levels. On first listen you can readily appreciate Radiohead’s experimentation with different electronic sounds, symphonic arrangements, guitar riffs and melodies and how they blend them together into a whole. They have demonstrated this on previous albums, but here the weird noises remain in the background while the full force of Yorke's lyricism and inflection moves to the forefront. In this context you appreciate the album's overall tone and lyrical thread, which, synthesized with the musical swells, leave the listener emotionally exhausted.
The theme of fatality of modern life runs strong through this album. One is tempted to attribute this to some messed-up point of view, but I think there is something deeper here. The clue to unraveling this dour trip is in the final song, “Videotape”, in which the singer states:
When I'm at the pearly gates
This will be on my videotape, my videotape
Mephistopheles is just beneath
and he's reaching up to grab me
This is one for the good days
and i have it all here
In red, blue, green
Red, blue, green
(“Red, blue, green”, of course, refers to the cable colors on the back of your DVD player and TV.)
Basically my thesis here is that Thom is writing about the futility of the “video” society, where everything has to be documented and shown to the world on YouTube. This leads to a life devoid of meaning, since everything is now not real but just for show. Since “Videotape” is the last song on the album it serves as kind of an epitaph for the album, and the “protagonist”, if you will, the persona singing in first person (which Thom Yorke creates) takes the listener on a little journey of futility.
The theme is stated plaintively in the opening lyric of the album in "15 Step":
How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
Won't take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out then you cut the string
The perceived loss of individually in this context is stated most emphatically in the second song, "Bodysnatchers", in perhaps the album's most dramatic musical moment:
Has the light gone out for you?
Because the light's gone for me
It is the 21st century
It is the 21st century
It can follow you like a dog
It brought me to my knees
They got a skin and they put me in
They got a skin and they put me in
All the lines wrapped around my face
All the lines wrapped around my face
And for anyone else to see
And for anyone else to see
I'm a lie
The music that always gets stuck in my head from this album is Thom’s frenetic declaration that “It is the 21st century.” It’s something along the lines of, “Damn, we’ve come all this way and this is what we’ve created?” Making videos of ourselves is an individual act, but is it us or some false exterior “skin” that we’ve put ourselves in?
The setting of track 4, "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi", is underwater. The amazing instrumentality of this song creates a surreal scene where the singer considers his innermost thoughts and longings, as typified by being "in the deepest ocean" and highlighted by guitar, vocal, electronic and even steel drum arpeggios. It is here that we hit bottom.
Even relationships in the video world are fatalistic, which is typified sardonically in my favorite track "Jigsaw Falling Into Place":
A Jigsaw falling into place
So there is nothing to explain
You eye each other as you pass
She looks back and you look back
Not just once
and not just twice
Wish away your nightmare
Wish away the nightmare
You got the light you can feel it on your back
[A light,] you can feel it on your back
Your jigsaw falling into place
In this world even relationships are reduced to a pre-determined formula, just like being a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that, though minute, only is meant to lock into a pre-determined picture. This is the script; this is what people expect and what they want to see. Life is not life, it’s a screenplay. This is echoes the previous thought in the lyric from which the album takes its name (in the track “Reckoner”):
Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)
(“Ripples” = video waves; “we separate” = it’s fleeting and futile; “blank shore” = a video monitor; “in rainbows” = red/blue/green = video.)
Art doesn't always make you happy, but it should make you think. This album makes you think about modern life and what it means to be “real”. The other thing it makes you think about is that it takes a damn good band with a high level of artistry to deliver this kind of message.
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p.s. Radiohead’s musicality is phenomenal and it’s easy to ignore the lyrics. But in my opinion you only get the full impact of the music when you figure out what Thom Yorke is saying. Here’s a web site that can help you with that: http://www.greenplastic.com/lyrics/.
All the things we know are gonna fall away from me like a grain of sand slips through a good friends hand
A friend once told me, "People are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime." Our life experiences are defined by those people, and there are many reasons that they go out of your life. When the end is tragic, however, it can forever cloud every future relationship.
Kind of deep thoughts for a rock album, maybe, but the single vein of "Out of the Vein" is the loss of a high school friend and how it affects everything in the writer's life. "Wake For Young Souls" is the centerpiece of this album and solidifies this thought, not so subtly:
I held your face in a photo in high school When you were alive, now that's all I have Now I can't remember who I was myself then But it doesn't help, now I look to you as a friend To tell me ... Who we are now who we are, Who we are now who we are, Where does time go? On a wake for young souls ...
This song is poingant enough, but what is left to discover is how this moment winds its way through the whole album. In "My Hit and Run" the singer is reminded in the middle of his crash of the crash that killed her:
Mister death in the car below Doesn't even slow And away he goes In the majesty of a motor crash You skid into my darkness forming Sex and death, heartbreak and strife But I give no warning
Unresolved issues, to be sure. How often in art do we have a reminiscence of an earlier, happier time? In "Palm Reader" he shows just how stuck he his:
There's no one to trust except maybe the two of us But that's in the past the place where I'm living is haunting broken dreams I read horoscopes in magazines especially yours in the sign of the Leo, the regal one but man you let your claws show oh it's so slow, when will they let me go
It is such a pervasive force in his life that it prevents him from moving forward in any present relationship. In "Forget Myself":
You're crazy and you never faded I don't want to be so complicated See my life come undone Watch it go and let the damage run I'd change the song now if I could In the slickness of your blood
The great thing about this album is its sense of discovery -- you really have to dig to find out that "Out of the Vein" is really a kind of eulogy, a blood-letting, if you will, to try and get past this really bad thing. Towards the end, "Self-Righteous" departs from the format of the other songs gives us a slow, somewhat free-form introspection which features a kind of weak, detached female voice in the background that hints at redemption:
Get up on your own now Way up all alone now Lift your head again and try this Everyone is so self-righteous ...
I say "modern" because it's what all the kids are listening to these days. Robert Earl has struggled for years for recognition, but the Austin Music Hall was packed out on New Year's Eve to see him, 90% of them under 30 and all of them singing along on "Merry Christmas from the Family." I've always admired his ability to mix the narrative ballad with the personal and be cheeky at the same time. This album is no different. The title cut is awesome, but my favorite line has to come from the last track, "Wireless in Heaven":
Is there wireless in heaven? I just want to know Will I need a password To log in when I go? And does Jesus have a web site To send in my e-mail? Is there wireless in heaven, Or should I go to Hell?
It's hard to say why we like what we like. Maybe someday psychologists will figure that out. We listened to this album fresh out of the wrapper after visiting "Fry's" on New Year's Day. (Yah, it was open.)
This is their new one. Their last album of new material "Out of the Vein" really grew on me and Stephen Jenkins has this knack for capturing the "regrets of lost youth" in his lyrics. It's going to be interesting how this tack holds up as he gets older -- we'll see. For the most part, the reason I think I've always liked this band is their tendency to rock, be melodic, and provide variety in their songs in tempo, instruments and vocals. Their first album is one of my all-time favorites (the one that contains "Semi-Charmed Life").
Favorite tracks so far on "Ursa Major": Bonfire -- got a Sting vocal quote in there, ha. Why Can't You Be
Why can't you be like my water pic shower massager / A sweet and reliable machine
Why can't we be happy with what we've got? There's a new year's thought for you.
