Archive for the ‘Record reviews’ Category

Ain’t that peculiar

Posted: May 31, 2016 in music, Record reviews
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The Complete Motown Singles, 1959-1972
Various artists
2005-2013

In 2005, Universal (which owns Motown) began re-releasing every Motown single ever made. Volume 1 covered 1959-1961. The end of the series, volumes 12A and B, covered 1972. These 14 years set loose a tidal wave of 2,000 songs. When I heard about this, I was STOKED.

Sadly, most of the songs I swam through in this series are not good. For every famous track by Martha Reeves, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Supremes, and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles there’s a Who’s Who of the ignored and the unknown. There are also plenty of lackluster tracks by Martha Reeves, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, etc. Some of those songs didn’t deserve obscurity (Barrett Strong’s “Money”), but most are right at home in that unlit cul de sac.

The first couple of volumes of this series are interesting in that they show how Motown founder Berry Gordy was willing to try anything to produce a hit song. (Even surf.) AllMusic.com opines that hearing the classics alongside the not-so-classics helps us to hear the former in their original context and appreciate them anew.

But the boys (it’s mostly boys) writing for AllMusic.com are nerds who are still living in their parents’ basement. They have nothing better to do than listen to 2,000 songs, most of which had the staying power of a Republican governor running for president, and argue over bass lines, back-up singers, and catalog numbers.

What I discovered with these comps, each of which has about 150 songs, is that I only have so much time left on this planet. I tried listening with deep attention, but it would take me months to digest 150 songs, and anyway I have to go to work in the morning. I started clicking Skip after 30 seconds or a minute of something that struck me as uninspired or derivative so I could wade ashore at last with a good song. And you know what? I appreciate the classics just fine!

I don’t want to skip 15 forgotten tracks to get to “Indiana Wants Me,” then do it all over again for “Ball of Confusion” and “War” (which I did with the 1970 edition). Sure, “Indiana Wants Me” is above average, but in this crowd it’s a towering inferno!

Today’s lesson: Producing a hit record is harder than Chinese algebra.

Any one of these volumes is worth a chunk of your time. They’re like your own personal radio station. Except if you owned this station, you’d yell at the program manager, “You’re fired!” Sad.

Random Pick of the Day, barely
Various artists, Blue Note Salutes Motown (1998)
Twelve Motown classics redone by a major-league lineup of jazz musicians. The results are mostly quiet…too quiet. The voltage meter jumps modestly with guitarist Earl Klugh’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” However, the female chorus tells us three times that they heard it “on” the grapevine. If you can’t get something as simple as a preposition right, I suggest you go back to your seat and study. Another guitarist, Charlie Hunter, tries to get his arms around “You Keep Me Hanging On.” He manages to let all the anxiety out of the song, plus he gets upstaged by the vibes player.

There are two tracks I can recommend, both originally from Marvin Gaye. The first is organist John Patton’s “Ain’t That Peculiar” (which is so good that Blue Note should salute John Patton). The second is “What’s Going On,” which belongs to the sax player, Adam Kolkers.

Two tracks aren’t much out of 12, but these two are good enough that I’m keeping the disc.

(Shot of redemption: This isn’t Motown, but Charlie Hunter triumphs with his cover of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” on his 1995 album, Bing Bing Bing!)

 

I don’t know if the cotton is high, but our hedge sure is

Posted: May 30, 2016 in Miscellaneous, music, Record reviews
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As I write this here in the United States, we’re nearing the end of the three-day weekend devoted to Memorial Day. This is my favorite holiday, the holiday with an entire summer up its sleeve. The weather has been abfab and the house projects ended well, without the traditional two extra trips to the hardware store. The writing flowed, the dog charmed everyone at the beach, and as always the music is the best.

We trimmed two of the hedges that border our yard. Whenever I hack my way into these walls of vines, leaves, branches, and the mysterious dark spaces loved by raccoons I remember again why the Germans hid behind them on D-Day.

We sorted through shoeboxes of old photo prints, slides, and negatives. (What can you do with negatives today? Sew them into a Victoria’s Secret sarong?) Here’s a photo I found that stands in for my mood this afternoon. It’s Emma, our first dog, on a hike called West Cady Ridge in the Central Cascades of Washington, probably in late spring 1995:

The joy of being a dog
The joy of being a dog.

Of course, what’s a holiday weekend without a box from my Dad? Among the treasures I don’t know how I ever lived without were four spindles of string from the 1960s:

Spindle City
Free to good home, moldy atmo included.

All this string (one spindle holds twine) comes from an age when packages were routinely strung up. Pies, cakes, and donuts from a bakery always arrived in a flimsy cardboard box tied with string. Packages from department stores and even supermarkets were often hog-tied as if they might bolt if they had a chance. Four spindles of string – nothing’s getting away from me now.

If you live in the United States, I hope your Memorial Day weekend has gone at least as well as mine. I mean that sincerely, whether you support Donald Trump or a rational human being. Thanks for reading along, and welcome to: Big Week!

Random Pick of the Day
Miles Davis, trumpet, Gil Evans, arranger and conductor, Porgy and Bess (1959)
The highlights are what you’d expect – “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” – but the whole album is grand. Do you believe in heaven? If there is one and you end up there, you’ll be hearing this disc a lot.

Random Pan of the Day
Bad Religion, 80-85 (1991)
These Southern California political punks are harder-hitting than The Ramones, but 30 years on both bands have the same problem: Every song sounds the same. Thirty years have turned Bad Religion into a Weird Al parody of themselves. It doesn’t help that the drumming reminds me of Fred Flintstone’s feet slapping against the pavement to make his car go.

If you had lived in SoCal in 1980 through ’85, these 28 tracks would fill you with nostalgia; you’d be back on the streets in no time, though you might not remember what it was you used to do there. I couldn’t get all the way through them, but I must honor Bad Religion for the title of their 1983 debut: How Could Hell Be Any Worse?

 

I’m super-freaking because our next president might be a bad-tempered, orange-tinted Teletubby who doesn’t have the brains God gave a walrus. Other than that, I’m good.

Posted: May 7, 2016 in music, Record reviews
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It’s about fucking time I said this, so here it is, plain and simple, because I am through holding back:

I love Rick James!

I first met the late Mr. James in a parking lot in Boston. In that summer of 1978, when I thought punk was a joke because I believed in something lasting (disco), I lived near the urban campus of Northeastern University. One hot, humid evening I walked past the parking lot where a black fraternity had set up a fortress of boom boxes. At that moment all of them were playing James’ “You and I” from his first album, Come Get It.

I was funkedelicized!

Later on they played A Taste of Honey’s “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” but come on, I’m being serious here. That night I learned that Rick James knew how to make you shake your moneymaker. Even when his albums are stupid – and there’s enough stupid in his collected works to suck the salt out of the Great Salt Lake – there’s usually something I want to dance to. What that man couldn’t do with a guitar, a cowbell, and thigh-high boots!

(Just don’t get trapped in the tar pits of his ballads. What’s that, Rick? You’ve been hurt by love before? How long is this going to take? This must be how the dinosaurs died.)

I saw him in concert the following year when he was touring after his second album, Fire It Up. “Love Gun” and “Come Into My Life” are the worthwhile numbers on that disc. I kept finding one or sometimes two songs on each album that could turn a dance floor into the disco inferno that The Trammps promised but couldn’t deliver. On Bustin’ Out of L7, that song is “High on Your Love Suite/One Mo Hit (Of Your Love),” which begins as more “You and I” but burns holes in your superhero underwear by the end of its 7 minutes.

By the end of the ’70s, it was clear that Prince had ambitions greater than James’, but it wasn’t at all clear that Prince had the talent to make that happen. In fact, Rick James in 1978-79 was one of Donna Summer’s few worthy adversaries.

Here comes Rick James’ ultimate, amazingest, most awesomest album
James stumbled into the new decade with Garden of Love, which was overrun by his ballads. If you enjoy scraping barnacles off a hull, this is the album for you. Meanwhile, Prince released his first good album, Dirty Mind. How would James respond?

He counter-punched with Street Songs and that immortal study of human sexual response, “Super Freak”!

No disco comp can receive the coveted Orthodox Union Kosher Certification if it doesn’t include “Super Freak.” But Street Songs is so much more than this stupid song. I’m lying. Most of these tracks are dull, including “Fire and Desire,” James’ duet with his former girlfriend Teena Marie. It doesn’t have the fire and desire of Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell or June & Johnny Cash or even Daryl Hall & John Oates.

But the album opens with the impact of Hillary Clinton plowing into a bar fight while waving a bicycle chain over her head. If you heard “Give It to Me Baby” and “Ghetto Life” in a club you’d knock over your table and your date to get to the dance floor. “Give It to Me” even has the “Thriller” bass line, and Michael Jackson didn’t release Thriller until a year later. These two songs are in the starting lineup in the World Series of Funk.

You could explore James’ catalog past Street Songs, but why take the risk? As with Duran Duran, you only need a few of Rick James’ songs. And you do need them. You know I’m right. Don’t get all super freaky on me.

Come Get It, 1978
Fire It Up, 1979
Bustin’ Out of L7, 1979
Garden of Love, 1980
Street Songs, 1981

Oh yeah: Please vote for Hillary.

Random Pick of the Day
Funkadelic, Maggot Brain (1971)
George Clinton, the founder of Funkadelic and Parliament, knows how to get all up in your face. Maggot Brain is like Sly & The Family Stone turned to 11. “Super Stupid” is superior to the entire Grand Funk Railroad oeuvre and good enough for Jimi Hendrix. You could disintegrate Coldplay or Tears For Fears with this one song.

The mesmerizing title track was the centerpiece of this album. It has no lyrics so I can’t tell you what “Maggot Brain” means. My guess is that he was saying fuck you. That would also explain the cover photo. This is one of the most unappealing jackets in the history of vinyl record jackets.

The guitar solo on “Maggot Brain” would make doves cry.

Random Pan of the Day
Adele, 19 (2008)
Come back when you’re 25.

Oh shoot, she did!

 

Hope is the thing with feathers

Posted: April 17, 2016 in Miscellaneous, Record reviews
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Deborah has for many years wielded a white feather boa that she named White Fang. She wore it at dances. She wore it for New Year’s. She wore it to see Lady Gaga. She wore it with Esmerelda and Maybelline, two of her killer party dresses.

In the company of White Fang
I won’t say when this photo was taken. However, I can confirm that we posed after the last man walked on the Moon but before the first rover drove on Mars. The dark lighting here altered reality: Deborah’s hair is red, her dress is purple, and I am 7’ tall.

But there comes a time in a woman’s life when she knows that, though it’s been a long time coming, a change is gonna come. Oh yes it will.

Deborah and I rarely go to Fangable events these days. Society is less formal, and people don’t like me. For these reasons, and because she understood that White Fang should now be warming the bare shoulders of a younger woman, Deborah decided to give the boa to our friend Kristin. The effervescent, ever-youthful Kristin is approaching a milestone birthday, so what better time than now?

Last Friday night, at a gathering of friends, Deborah made the presentation. I was standing in the backyard under the stars – this was a gathering of women, and though I hadn’t been banished, I wouldn’t have added much to the conversation. I was playing tug of war with our lucky dog Lucky. I could see through the large picture window at the back of the house as Deborah, deploying White Fang one last time, demonstrated the poise, confidence, and good posture a boa demands (along with various show-stopping moves).

While I watched I noticed that Lucky, who is not yet six months old, was also watching. You could see the exclamation point over his head. A huge white bird was loose in the house, flapping its wings all over Mom! The fight-or-flight circuit closed in the little corgi’s brain and without a thought for his own safety he thundered through the dog door like a 20-pound cannon ball and burst into the party.

Kristin was serenely sitting with White Fang arrayed around her. Now that he was face to face, or face to feathers, with this unknown, shape-shifting creature, the avenging Lucky threw on the brakes. He remembered that he was a puppy. This was obviously a superior being. His ears melted against the sides of his head, his belly hit the carpet, and he awaited orders. Note to Kristin: Adult men will do this, too.

I admire my wife for making this decision, and I will admire her just as much without the boa as I admired her within the boa. As for Kristin, when I drove her home that night, she expressed some anxiety about being the new Bearer. I thought about that later and realized she has nothing to worry about. She already has everything she needs. All that was missing was something to wrap it in.

Random Pick of the Day
Cat Power, The Greatest (2006)
The closest comparison to Ms. Power is Tom Waits, but only their vocal delivery is similar. Cat Power is more introspective and not at all funny. She never approaches anything resembling the structure of a pop tune. None of her songs sound finished, either. I find her interesting and even cathartic (“Living Proof” is stunning in its quiet, waltz-time way), but it’s taken me a while to appreciate her.

Random Pan of the Day
Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band, Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band (1978)
This is the one with “Boogie ’Til You Puke” and that solemn study of forbidden love, “I’m Not Too Old for You” (“Step on my love and it’s like dropping an egg into the carpet”). “I Used to Be a Radical” rocks relatively hard and includes a funny line about trying to assassinate Spiro Agnew with an ice cream truck. “Mood Ring” sounds like ZZ Top at band practice. The whole thing sounds like ZZ Top, but lowercase. The occasional humor in the lyrics makes Root Boy (who was born Foster MacKenzie III) a distant ancestor of Flight of the Conchords.

 

Lamp unto my feet

Posted: April 10, 2016 in Miscellaneous, music, Record reviews
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Last month’s delivery of the junk my Dad brought home from his voyages with Columbus made me think about flashlights. I have never lacked for flashlights in my adult life because my father was a faithful subscriber to the Flashlight of the Month Club.

Dad’s all-purpose emergency plan was to equip every room in his house with a flashlight. This is a plan that could only have been cooked up by the Flashlight of the Month Club. As soon as I owned a house, Dad had a place to send his surplus. Of course you have to ask how equipping every room in your house with a flashlight will help you in an emergency. For example, if you’re in a room that lacks flashability and the power goes out, you could always fumble your way to a more helpful room. This process is even easier if the power goes out during the daytime.

If Donald Trump becomes president, flashlights won’t help.

A day or so after unpacking the latest round of flashlights, I spotted this display from the 1960s at a local antiques shop:

Flashlights

This made me consider the evolution of this handy tool. (The British invented it, so I should call it a “torch,” but it says “flashlight” on the Flashlight of the Month Club tote bag so I won’t.)

Today, most flashlights are made from plastic, not metal. The barrels are no longer ribbed for your pleasure (they’re knurled). LEDs are replacing incandescent bulbs. The push-button on-and-off switch has replaced the slide switch. One thing remains the same: A flashlight powered by batteries can’t operate when the batteries are dead.

Years ago, while hiking, Special D and I stayed too long on a ridge and had to hike down in the dark. I fished the flashlight out of my pack and switched it on. It stayed off. I tried the flashlight in Special D’s pack. Nothing. Fortunately, we had with us our first and most resourceful corgi, Emma. She understood immediately that Run-DMIrving’s son had brought disgrace on the family name. She expertly led us down the mountain. All we had to do was follow her fluffy white stern.

(There was a bright moon, the trail was well-blazed, and we were in little danger of going astray. Emma still deserved all the acclaim she received.)

Emma on TV

Dad was also a faithful subscriber to the Pocketknife of the Month Club. I could tell you this all-purpose emergency plan, but you can probably guess.

Random Pick of the Day
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (1975)
After two inconsistent records, Springsteen takes command of this disc and our lives from the first note. There are few opening tracks in rock like “Born to Run.” It’s the musical equivalent of “Call me Ishmael” or “In a hole in a ground there lived a hobbit” or “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” This record rips the bones off your back. You don’t own it? Why are you being so mean?

Random Pan of the Day
The Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun (1968)
There’s plenty of disorganization to go around on this disc. You either revel in it or you end up hating hippies. As I listened to Anthem of the Sun this evening, I decided that Greg and Duane Allman must’ve loved this record. You don’t get “Whipping Post” without “New Potato Caboose” as a model. And I have to admit, “New Potato Caboose” is a groovy name for a song.

 

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