Possibly the best song ever- no foolin

Banda MS "El Mechon"

One of my guitar students played it for me on his MP3 player and I was hooked. Bought it on iTunes. Seriously, this is one of the best songs I've ever heard in my life. Have no idea what it means. Expect to hear it on the next mix I make you.

Peter Tosh

Many might not know this about me, but one of my noteable entry points into music was in early highschool my brother and I were aficionados of reggae cassettes. We spent any spare money we had (usually split the cost) on reggae tapes. I was probably 14 and the shopping mall record stores were all we had access to (I hadn't caught the Amoeba bug yet, and CDs were just catching on, making odd cassettes cheaper) and in those stores like Sam Goodie or The Wharehouse they would have like a clearance bin that was like a 4' x 4' bucket where tapes were like $3 or $4 bucks. Most were incomplete albums or rare songs culled together and usually bootlegged by unheardof labels or distributors. Looking back, I don't know how any of it was legal.

Keith and I scoured these bins for reggae tapes and ended up, through these odd collections and compilations, collecting the equivalent of whole Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, Black Uhuru, Inner Circle, and Peter Tosh albums.

One legit album we purchased was Peter Tosh's "Equal Rights". I have memories of listening to it on family drives. In a Volvo station wagon with my parents listening to this militant, apacolyptic, herbalist, Afrocentric, Rastafarian play 9 songs of slightly durgy, slightly funky music.

Recently, I found myself really craving these songs, especially "Steppin Razor", but when I looked for a Peter Tosh greatest hits album and looked at the songs offered, you really can't get a better collection of Tosh's songs than on Equal Rights. So I went out and got it. Sure, "Steppin Razor" is a no-brainer, with it's super tough guy message, but super summery blissful tone. Also, tosh's version of "Get Up, Stand up", sure- I get it. But the real gems here are lesser-known tunes like "I Am That I Am", "Ja Guide", and "African". On all three of these, Tosh does. See usually the chorus of the song contains the melodic hook and also the resolution of the tension created by the preceeding verse. However, Tosh builds tension with dark, minor choruses that are repedative and dark, but when he returns to the verse- it resolves. Case-in-point the eerie (not Irie) middle-eastern/north African (Etheopian?) tinged chorus of "Jah guide, Jah guide, Jah guide, etc." to the verse with "I tru this valley, when I troddin' tru this valley...." it has this amazing, peaceful resolution.

Tosh uses this vehicle to reverse to lyrical polarity of the pop song. In a normal pop song, the resolving chorus sends the message: "Everything's fine!". Peter Tosh was making a very serious record and tackled themes such as the final Escaton, Religion, Black militantism, etc., so the choruses stayed tense, as if to be very forward about the serious nature of the record, but then let's it sail back to the breazy side to offer the listener a positive and affirming feeing. After all, this is reggae!

A funny note is that in the extended liner notes of this deluxe remastered edition, the drummer recalls how craaaazy their approach was to the recording of this album and gives the example that he didn't play the one drop on the whole album because he played some four on the floor on "Stepping Razor". The humor in this is that the 4x4 beat only lasts for about 10 seconds in the intro of "Razor" and drops heavy on the one (really this means the 3 beat) for the rest of the entire album.

This is one of two reggae albums I own. But if you own two reggae albums, this should be one.

Joaquin Phoenix is stealing my look!

I've never been mistaken for Joquin Phoenix before, but now I foresee a lot of unfortunate run-ins with confused paparazzi and superfans. Also could've titled this post, "The Day I Took a lot of Drugs and Was a Guest on Letterman".

My Double Mix CD for 08 (overdue)

A friend posted his mix cd for 08. Here's mine. It's two discs and is separated by the age of the artists. Read the liner notes to figure out why. Let me know if you want a copy.

SONGS I LIKED IN 2008

Disc 1 “Young Folks”

This is just stuff I got in 08. Songs that were actually released in 08 are marked with a *

1. Mates Of State “Get Better” Re-Arrange Us *

The best song on this record.

2. Battles “Race: In” Mirrored

This seems to fit, since this year Jill and I went through the whole X-Files catalog.

This should’ve been the theme song for the X-Files movie that came out this year.

3. Sun Kil Moon “Somewhere (ver.2)” Ghosts o/t Great Hwy bonus disc

I had to sight-sing the original show-tunes version of this song for a voice class I took at the JC. I liked getting the deluxe edition

of Ghosts of the Great Highway way more than getting there new record this year. Nothing from the new one made this list.

4. Fleet Foxes “Ragged Wood” Fleet Foxes *

Chrissy bugged me about this enough to buy it and I was glad I did. This song shows how every song on this record is like three

songs in one. The electric guitar work on this sounds like KC Wescott’s work on his old band Unwed Sailor.

5. The Elected “Did me Good” Sun, Sun, Sun

I hate this guy. And I hate his other band Rilo Kiley. And I hate both of The Elected’s albums, but there is one song on each of

them that have become favorites for Jill and me.

6. Vampire Weekend “Campus” Vampire Weekend *

Matt convinced me to get this record. He knew about them before anyone! This song makes me think of my college experience and the chorus sounds like a Smiths song to me.

7. New Pornographers “Go Places (Lite Mix)” Deluxe Edition B-sides *

This record came out last year, but they made the bonus material downloadable to superfans like me who bought the “Executive Edition” this year. I like this alternate mix better than the original.

8. The National “Santaclara” The Virginia EP *

The movie that came with this sucked. And they made the packaging too big to fit in my CD wall.

Good thing the too-big-to-be-called-an-EP suffices as a new album.

9. Damien Jurado “As You Wish” Gathered in Song EP bonus track

This Re-issue came out in 06 but I got it this year. This might be the only record that would show up in many of my friends’ top ten lists collectively. The bonus songs are well worth repurchasing the album for, as this demo from the Waters Ave S. era proves.

10. Birds&Batteries “I’ll Never Sleep Again” I’ll Never Sleep Again *

This is a local band we’ve done stuff with. I like this song. I also reviewed this album for thebaybridged.com.

11. Mates of State “The Re-Arranger” Re-Arrange Us *

This song seems to come back around too many times. That’s my gripe.

12. Rivers Cuomo “Can’t Stop Partying” Alone Vol. 2 *

This is the only track on both discs where I don’t have the physical album. Just iTunesed it. It’s a re-working of some rap song and I love the sad tone mixed with the bling bling lyrics. I’m personally embarrassed and ashamed of the Weezer record from 08. This song is a small consolation.

13. Damien Jurado “Sheets” Caught in the Trees *

Maybe my vote for best record of 08. This song is supposed to be autobiographical and is super sad to me.

14. The National “About Today (live)” The Virginia EP *

Love the dialogue, “Hey, are you awake? / Yeah I'm right here. / Well can I ask you about today?” seems ultra real.

15. My Morning Jacket “Off The Record” Z

Heard this on tour this summer. Hate this band, but love the songs on this record.

16. Kathleen Edwards “Goodnight, California” Asking for Flowers *

Her record came out this year, so I had to put a song from it on here.

17. Battles “SZ2” Ep C / B Ep import[Disc 1]

This is a repressing of both their EPs on one release. This might be their best song period.

Disc 2 “Old Folks”

This is just stuff I got in 08. Nothing on this disc was released in 08. I ran out of room and needed to make a second disc, so I separated the artists by age.

1. James Taylor “She Thinks I Still Care” Live

I love the humor and the story in this George Jones song. My parents loved to play this record at home.

2. Talking Heads “Heaven” Best of

Both of these next two songs were showed to me by Peter. Both changed my paradigm considerably. This one a little musically, but it has implications into my theological growth this yea. The next song changed me in terms of recognizing my identity as a guitarist.

3. Tom Waits “Clap Hands” Rain Dogs

4. Robert Plant and Alison Kraus “Killing the Blues” Raising Sand

Bought the record because this song was on a Marshall’s or Ross add or something. Good trip music.

5. Jimi Hendrix “Hey Joe” Experience Hendrix

You gotta have a Jimi Best Of CD I guess.

6. Cream “Politician” Best of

Bought this for my guitar class for the obvious hits, but fell in love with the mathy time signatures of this song.

7. U2 “Things to Make and Do” Boy Deluxe Edition Disc 2

Ur is often overlooked as being part of the “Original Punk” movement, but they really were. Boy and this song prove it.

8. Elvis Costello “(I Don’t Want to go to) Chelsea” Best of

I love how the verse and chorus are basically the same melody except for like one note, but I can’t figure it.

9. Talking Heads “This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)” Best of

Fell in love with this / was entranced by this when Bob Boilen used only the intro to illustrate what he loved about the 80s and how this sort of thing used synths and guitar and slick production, but was still smart and creative..

10. U2 “Race Against Time” Joshua Tree Deluxe Edition Disc 2

Maybe U2 should’ve been an instrumental band.

Tardy Best-of 2008 Post

Man, I haven't posted in a while. It's not that I haven't had music to write about, it's more of a time thing. Well, usually I make a lot of lists... best-of lists. And I'd like to make a top 10 list for 2008, but let's face it- there wasn't a whole lot going on in 08. So here's my top 3:

1. Damien Jurado- "Caught in the Trees"
I read this is his only autobiographical songwriting ever. All his other work has been narrative. This one weaves a pretty intense tale. I just like it because it's Damien Jurado doing what he does best. I needed that.




2. Fleet Foxes- "Fleet Foxes"
I just wanna go on the record as saying I grew out my hair and beard before these guys hit the big time. This album is highly visual and otherworldly. Topped only by the imagery and otherworldliness of Midlake. O! Midlake, how I pine for thee.....



3. The National "The Virginia EP"
I blogged about this earlier. This is B-sides and live tracks from the recent "Boxer" era. Too many songs to be called an EP, but when you're as good as these pretty boys, you can can stuff whatever you want. Came with a DVD that was almost unwatchable. But these rare tracks are almost as good as Boxer.


In total, the music of 2008 was about as good as this post.

G - FUNK ERA

The rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble.

4 books

"Drown" by Junot Diaz was a gift from a student and her family, OK, let's say Bora. I liked the fact that it shared a title with a song that made me fall head-over-heals in love with music as a teenager and liked the font on the cover (courier). I devoured it, searching for meaning, searching for understanding. From my paradigm, it was a novel that followed a Latino(?) man who immigrated to the US, no in the next chapter, is this about his dad? next chapter... is this about maybe his brother or his brother's drug-dealing girlfriend? next chapter: we're back in the Dominican Republic, so I think this is like maybe his sub-conscious self imagining what life would be like if he hadn't left the DR, no..... now we're in Florida.... waiting for these characters to connect or something, is this chapter about his father? Well, like a dummy, when I finally finished the book and felt like the novel really never connected the dots from chapter to chapter, like the genius that I am I read the back of the book, which explained to me that this was a collection of short stories about males from the Dominican Rebublic and their immigration stories. Ooooooh, so it wasn't a novel at all and that wasn't the same guy! That explains why the main character had different names in every chapter, was different ages (though in different decades), and (in one chapter) had his face eaten off by swine as an infant and believed he had super-human strength (only to have his face and mortal abilities back in the next chapter). Oh, I get it- those weren't chapters in a novel, but separate short stories: stand-alone. Despite the confusion, upon this back-of-the-book epiphany, I loved the book, felt like I had been a part of several families, and lived several lifetimes. Highly recommended. Highly humbling experience.

Given as a gift by my sister-in-law, "Tree of Smoke A Novel" by Dennis Johnson (author of "Jesus' Son" I didn't know that until I googled it just now, did you?) has been on my bedside table, shoulder pack, and toilet tank for over 6 months. I'm not gonna pretend. It was the longest book I've ever read. Followed about 20 characters on separate sub-chapters over the course of 20 years, the central-most character being a young CIA agent who essentially organized 3x5 cards in a card catalog at a villa in remote Viet Nam during the war. No hero, no plot line or story, just slices of life from 20 characters. No hero, just bystanders. Yet I liked it, entered a different world in my innermost mind. Willing to admit that I might not have fully understood it or that it honestly might have been smarter than me.

(NOTE: I am an educated person and hold both graduate and post graduate certificates despite the fact I did not understand the two aforementioned books, which laugh at me from a shelf I built with my own hands.)

Back to my comfort zone on my week off, snuggling up with Cormac McCarthy and the stomach flu to read "Child of God". Format: western. Reading level: Gid. Premise is blown in the first paragraph- we are all children of God, even the worst of us, even the main character who is a hermit and serial killer and, later, cave dweller. Protagonist as anti-hero. You get it. I loved it. It speaks to me with American language. Done in two days, restoring my confidence after months with the same book.





Now onto "To Live's to Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt" by John Kruth, a present from Sissy. Just read the introduction under my bedside lamp after an SNL re-run and was moved to write this blog entry about this intro and the last few books I've read and the common theme of anti-hero throughout. This fella's book is about an anti-hero: Townes Van Zandt- rogue singer-songwriter. Yet in the intro to his own book, Kruth sites his beginnings as a creative person and biographer as being spawned by Mickey Mantle, Willy Mayes, and the Beatles. Yeah, you and everybody else my parents' age. Where's the danger? How does the hero turn out to write a book about an anti-hero like TVZ? I loved music like Delta Heymax and thebrotheregg and resent stories about how "life-changing" the Beatles were. That's nice that they changed your life, but they changed every single other American teenager's life in exactly the same way at exactly the same minute of payola-bought airtime. In other words, to sum up this whole thing, here- who is the anti-hero? who gets to write about him? I think heroes get to write about anti-heroes, which is an extreme paradox that hopefully I'll come to understand better than I understand half of the books I read. But for now, though, I'm looking forward to this book about Townes- a songwriter who speaks to me in the most basic American voice and language.

The Elected

In a comment from another post, Ch mentioned I might like the new Jenny Lewis record. Jenny Lewis is the frontwoman of indie darlings / LA hipsters / former child actors Rilo Kiley. And while I have heard some cuts of the Lewis record, I've been really into the side project of the other songwriter/former child star in Rilo Kiley- Blake Senate. His band: The Elected. The Album: "Sun, Sun, Sun". Pretty good. $2.95 at Amoeba. There's one song that will be on all the mix tapes I make this year called "Did Me Good" and it's fantastic.


The Elected's "Not Going Home"


some Jenny Lewis on a kids show

TV (netflix) Recommendation

A lot of my friends like the WIRE and/or MAD MEN and I wanted to precommend this show called Flight of the Conchords because it shares actors from the aforementioned shows.

Kristen Schaal plays a telephone dispatch person on Mad Men, but also plays Mel, the band's stalker and only fan on Flight of the Conchords.
David Costabile plays a newspaper editor on the Wire, but first played Doug, Mel's husband, on Flight of the Conchords.
It's pretty much like a mix between Mad Men and Wire.

talking heads

Been listening to the "Best of" the Talking Heads and among the songs I didn't know before but love is "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)" and the line:

"It's O.K. I know nothing's wrong."

... sticks out to me. I wait for it every time. How reassuring.

(highly recommended record)

The Wire: just a thought

Here's a thought:

Lester Freeman is "The Wire". In other words, he is what the title refers to. Of course there is the literal wire tap that goes on, but Lester is the one who puts it up. He is also a catalyst or an inner-antagonist... the ominous cheshire cat who insights the other characters. I'm suggesting that Freeman is the unsuspecting, unexpected central character.
Discuss.

Telegraph

Anybody seen Joke Man lately?

Man, Telegraph is really falling apart.

A Skin, A Night

I got this a while back- a double disc of a documentary DVD about The National making "Boxer" called "A Skin, A Night" and an audio CD of B-sides, demos, and live tracks called "The Virginia EP". It is an unusual package showing a cover for the film on one side and a cover for the CD on the other. I saved the movie until I could watch it with some friends who were also interested, which I did a couple nights ago.

The DVD:

This is hardly a documentary. Just some footage of the National recording their masterpiece, but in the most mundane way (which is how recording is done), showing things like the bassist recording his plunk plunk plunk bass line to a tick tick tick clicktrack. This might be interesting to someone who's never seen recording done, but this kind of stuff is supper boring to me. This is supplemented by arty subway footage and psychedelic color swirls and photoshop tricks. The problems with this movie: 1. No narration. 2.During the arty 5-minute subway scenes, there would be no sound (?) , which left me and my four friends sitting in awkward silence watching the screen basically change colors like sunspots.... without any sound. If you're going to put sort of a visual art abstract piece for 10 excruciating minutes in the middle of a music documentary, play some music for corn sake!

The EP:

Not sure why they're calling this an EP, it has 12 songs on it. But they're brilliant. Well worth the price, even iff the movie is a toss-away. As a fan, I love the idea of collecting "lost songs" on hard copy (long live the CD!). Love this collection ending with the song "About Today", which asks the question, "How close am I... to losing you?" and contains the universally familiar dialog:

Hey, are you awake?
Yeah I'm right here.
Well, can I ask you about today?

Love that. Love the National's honesty. It kind of crescendos and the audience claps along and it's great. Great. Great. Great.

Pretty Amazing Performance

P.S. Has anyone tried backwards devilhorns yet?

Raise your hand...

...if you remember these Hamm's beer commercials on Saturday morning cartoons.

Fleet Foxes- "fleet foxes" review

This Fleet Foxes record was recommended to me by my friend, Ch, who always has some great music tips (but also loves the new Mariah Carey record). Well, at first I checked it out online and really wasn't that into the Fleet Foxes. They sort or sound like Band of Horses or My Morning Jacket (the cool kids say "MMJ"), but it never hits. You know the band never crashes in. Being a child of the late 80s and early 90s, I wait for every song to hit- for that moment when the chorus bursts in and I put up backwards devil horns (backwards devil horns are so much more satisfying- try it!). This never happens on the Fleet Foxes self-titled record. So I reported back to Ch that Fleet Foxes just didn't do it for me.

Later I was listening to my favorite podcast, All Songs Considered, and they featured a live performance of Fleet Foxes and I got super into it. No, it never hits. But the Fleet Foxes develop their anti-hooks around polyrhythms, unconventional song structures, and dark vocal harmony arrangements. In fact, this is a vocal record, where the instruments aren't really that essential and the unusual chords that the 3-4 vocalists make are very unusual- in the same way that Midlake had those crazy early Fleetwood Mack harmonies.

Anyway, after listening to the live performance, I was sold and bought the record yesterday. It's been on repeat rotation and we even played it at low volume while having dinner guests and it worked as great dinner music, because it sounds kind of like choral music. I really dig the whole other-wordly vibe that the lyrics give off. Again, it's very Midlake-ish in that way. It makes you feel like you're out in the woods in medieval times foraging for berries and herbs. So, I was wrong, the Fleet Foxes are right.

GOURDICULTURE !

Dear faithful readership,

I've decided to branch out and launch a new blog documenting my adventures and misadventures in growing gourds, curing them, and turning them into a variety of musical instruments. Rather than cluttering this, my music blog, with gardening info- I've decided to create a new blog called:

GOURDICULTURE

http://gourdiculture.blogspot.com/

Hayden: "in field and town" review

Hayden is one of those guys I've followed since I was a teenager. He's sort of the Canadian David Bazaan (of Pedro the Lion) with a Heart-of-Gold-era Neil Young thing going on. I've bought basically everything he's put out, which all has the common threads of being a little folky, all instruments recorded and performed by himself, bedroom-pop feel, etc., but this record was slated to be his "rock record" by journalists/bloggers. This album does not rock. It rolls in the way that Hayden must have rolled out of bed to press the record button while making this record. And that's not to put down the album. It just lulls at the same pace the last few records did and does not achieve the exititng variances of his first two full-lengths (1995's "Everything I Long For" had a Tom Waits rasp and 1998's "The Closer I Get" had sort of an indie-rock Pedro the Lion/Bedhead feel).

"Field and Town's" strong pieces are "Damn This Feeling", which is a simple piano tune where you can actually hear the pedal mechanism inside the piano (sounds like he stuck the mic right in the top of the upright), and the synth in "Worthy of your Esteem" provided the one fresh element on the record. "Did I Wake up Beside You?" has a syncopated electric guitar upstroke that pays homage to Neil's "Southern Man" The disappointment here is "Lonely Security Guard" whic fits the story-telling that Hayden likes to do, but it seems ill-conceived.

Folks, my recommendation is to go out and buy Hayden's "Live at Convocation Hall". It's a double disc live record that covers his best prior to 2002. I've written before on this blog that sometimes live records are better than "best-of" records and this is a fine example. It's just Hayden and a home-town crowd and the interaction between them. A wonderful double-record that I take on road trips and that I strongly recommend to those wanting to check out Hayden.

Amazing Starflyer 59 quote for their near-perfect album, "Americana"

"Time is all you need when you stop to think."

This is funny.

Click here.