Any Other Way

Two or three times a week I'll get a friend request from a band on myspace. I rarely add them, but I always give them a listen. Ninety-nine percent of the time they're terrible. But I've yet to turn on the "block band requests" feature because I figured someday I might get a request from a really good band I might not have discovered otherwise. Last night it finally happened.

Delorentos is a foursome from Dublin that play angular indie rock that is chalk full of hooks. I highly recommend you head over to their myspace profile and listen to "The Rules" (or you could watch the video). That song has been stuck in my head on permanent repeat since I first heard it last night. It kind of reminds me of a more steamlined, less spastic Franz Ferdinand.

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be an mp3 of "The Rules" online, so I'm posting this song from their 2005 EP Leave It On (currently out of print). It starts off slow, but kicks in after about a minute.

Delorentos - "Any Other Way" (mp3)

They have a new single coming out on February 23, "The Basis Of Everything," to be followed by their first full length album this spring. They'll also be playing at SXSW in March, so if anyone is headed to Austin they are definitely worth putting on your intinerary.

California

Richard Butler's solo debut just missed out on making the cut for my year end top five list. Co-written and produced by frequent Pink Floyd & Roger Waters collaborator Jon Carin, the album is a fairly subdued set of songs that deal with Butler's divorce and the death of his father. And as good as it is, I think it was those themes that kept me from really bonding with it. There just weren't enough times last year that I wanted to listen to downbeat music. But I feel obliged to give it a mention because it contains what was without a doubt my favorite song of 2006.

Butler has written some of my all time favorite songs, both with The Psychedelic Furs ("The Ghost In You") and Love Spit Love ("Am I Wrong"). But with both of those, I loved them for personal reasons as much at because they were great tunes. With "California," there is no emotional relevence to anything going on in my life (the lyrics seem to ponder the meaning of love at the end of the world). I think it's the production that I like so much. There is something about the start/stop melody on top of the repeating vocal lines that is just cool as hell. It's got a great blend of quiet and loud parts, and the outro sounds like a rocked-up version of U2's "With Or Without You." Whatever the reasons were, there was literally not a single time I listened to this song in the last year that I didn't reach for the repeat button.

Richard Butler - "California" (mp3) from Richard Butler

painting (Spacegirl) by Richard Butler

Hillbilly Thang

BR549
Layla's Bluegrass Inn, Nashville, TN
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

It's been over ten years since BR549 left their fabled residency at Robert's Western World for the glory and riches of a major label deal, so their not quite secret (but definitely under the radar) two night stand at the Bluegrass Inn this week was kind of a big deal. The cowboy hats, western shirts, rockabilly hairdos and ironic trucker caps were out in full force to see the band that started the Lower Broad revival return to their roots. And I can't imagine that any of them left disappointed.

It wasn't the original lineup reunion that had been rumored, although it did see guitarist Chris Scruggs return to the fold. Both nights the band played non-stop four hour sets full of old country covers both classic and obscure, along with the occasional original tune. My personal favorites of the three hours I caught last night were "Matchbox," "Cocaine Blues," and "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)." And of course as it got close to midnight and the set was winding down, they played their classic retelling of a fabled lost episode of the Andy Griffith show, "Me 'N' Opie." But the absolute highlight of the evening came when a guy who had flown down from Connecticut just for these shows made a request. He handed them a piece of paper (with the requisite accompaniment of Alexander Hamilton) asking for "Perpabst a medley of songs you don't really know" (he thought the PBR reference was quite punny). After conferring for a minute to figure out exactly how they were going to pull that off, the band launched into impromptu versions of The Ramone's "Beat On The Brat," The Who's "Squeeze Box," and after a brief pause when they decided it took three songs to make a medley, The Beatle's "All Together Now." The kicker was that the guy who made the request didn't recognize a single one of those songs.

It wasn't just like the old days. The low ceiling (and even lower stage) at Layla's made it hard to see the band, and it was downright impossible if you were at the back of the bar. And while there was a full house for most of the evening, it certainly wasn't packed to the gills like Robert's used to be on Friday and Saturday nights. But musically it was everything you could have hoped for, and the honky tonkers definitely seemed thrilled to have their favorite sons back home.

BR549 - "Me 'N' Opie (Down By The Duck Pond)" (mp3) from Live At Robert's
BR549 = "Little Ramona" (mp3) from BR5-49

Shenanigans

I've decided that this whole Donnie Davies thing is an elaborate prank. The evidence...

- Donnie Davies obviously cannot play guitar. Watch the video. I was so busy laughing at it earlier today that I didn't notice.

- Compare his singing voice with his voice in this "welcome" video. I realize sometimes people sound different when they sing than when they speak, but not that much. Also, the guy can barely keep a straight face.

- Check the registration info for lovegodsway.org and eveningservice.com. They were both registered by proxy on the same day (October 25, 2006). The Evening Service website has a copyright notice of (1999-2006) on their website, but there is no information on either of these sites (or donniedavies.com) on the Internet Archive, so they've probably just gone live in the last few days.

So yeah, I think we've been had. My first reaction was to say it was too ridiculous to be true, but on a cursory check everything seemed legit. Frankly I wish I'd dug a little deeper before I posted about it. Whoever did this put a lot of work into it. So kudos whoever you are. I'm more than a little embarassed.

Social Distortion - "I Was Wrong" (mp3) from White Light, White Heat, White Trash

Wilco will make you gay

Idolator posted a link to this list this morning, which advises parents which bands might make their children gay. It would be the funniest thing I've seen all day (Morrissey listed as questionable???), if it weren't for this video. Lovegodsway.org founder and reformed homosexual Donnie Davies evidently has a band called the Evening Standard. So I present to you the greatest video ever made, "The Bible Says."



Sadly, this doesn't appear to be a joke. Lovegodsway.org has been registered since last October.

UPDATE: Youtube has taken down the video, citing a "terms of use" violation. Probably that whole "God hates fags" chorus. Myspace has killed it too. The link above is from someone who posted it at youtube under a different title. It probably won't last long, and the audio is out of synch, but right now it's the only link that works.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The verdict is in, and I'm calling this is a hoax.

Across The Universe

A roundup of links I found interesting this week...

- The Onion AV Club has a great article about legendary lost albums, and one of the authors is Nashville Scene writer Noel Murray. Even casual music fans could probably guess the number one lost album, but the rest of the list has a few surprises.

- The Post Show did a hilarious Bob Dylan mockumentary called No Direction, Period. The premise is that during his peak years in the early-to-mid 60's, he wrote every popular song that's been recorded in the last 35 years. If you can watch all four minutes and not crack up, you're made of stronger stuff than I am.

- Janet at Out The Other caught the Jeff Tweedy show in Nashville last week, and raved about opener (and Wilco drummer) Glenn Kotche. After watching the "Monkey Chant" video, I can understand why. I've been a drummer since the sixth grade, I've never been so impressed by a drum solo (although calling it merely a drum solo really doesn't do it justice). Janet's post has links to the piece it was based on, and hearing that makes the performance even more impressive.

- If the rumors are true and The Police play Bonnaroo this year, I'm going to have to overcome my hatred of festival concerts and dirty hippies. For the last five years I've sworn that only a reunion of Stewart, Sting and Andy could get me to overcome my love of daily showers. Now it looks like it might happen. Eeek.

- Heart On A Stick has compiled a 2006 Music Bloggregate, a spreadsheet tracking the year end best album lists from a whopping 641 music blogs. It's an interesting read, though I continue to be amazed that so many people can actually listen to Joanna Newsom.

- This has nothing to do with music, but I loved this line: "Getting complimented by Jessica Biel on your butt is like getting complimented by Mr. T on your fool-pitying skills."

The Beatles - "Across The Universe (Alternate Mix)" (mp3) from the bootleg Revolution

Nothing Lasts Forever

I've always thought that Echo And The Bunnymen's Songs To Learn And Sing was one of the coolest titles ever for a best of album. Tomorrow the collection gets re-released in the U.S. as The Very Best of Echo & The Bunnymen: More Songs To Learn And Sing. The new version drops "The Puppet" and adds ten new songs, including "Lips Like Sugar" and several songs recorded since the band reunited ten years ago, along with a DVD.

One of the new songs they added is "Nothing Last Forever." They included an acoustic version of the song on their In The Margins single in 2005. I'm assuming it's from a radio broadcast, but the credits don't indicate the details.

Echo And The Bunnymen - "Nothing Lasts Forever (Acoustic)" (mp3)

Lost In The Supermarket

I had mixed feelings when Tower Records shut off the lights for good last month. Honestly, it was inevitable. The company had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for years, due to bad business decisions and shortsighted views on the changing music industry. I won't go into a long discussion about how mismanaged they were, but the quote at the beginning of this article blaming all the industry's problems on file sharing illustrates how management at the company just didn't get it. And their poor customer service was legendary. My favorite "Tower sucks" moment was when I lived in Las Vegas, and heard an announcement one night that "Tower will be closing in thirty minutes, so you might want to think about leaving."

But when Tower first came to Nashville in 1988, you couldn't buy music on the internet. If you wanted an import CD and Cat's didn't have it, it meant a trip to Atlanta, or perusing the ads in Goldmine. When we were still underage and couldn't go to bars, my friends and I would often spend Friday nights going through the racks at the West End store. After college, I worked near West End for five years, and would often spend my lunch breaks reading Billboard or Melody Maker at Tower. So I actually had quite a few memories based on the store. None were more satisfying then the four hours of absolute boredom I watched my mom suffer through while my step-dad and I went through every single bin at the Tower Clearance store in Greenwich Village. It was sweet, sweet revenge for all the hours I spent bored out of my skull as a kid while she shopped in fabric stores.

So why am I writing about Tower a month after they closed their doors? Because when they were liquidating their inventory, I bought a LOT of CDs. The deep discounts gave me a great opportunity to buy a bunch of stuff that had been on my radar for a while, but kept getting bumped back down the list whenever I went music shopping. I've been ripping the cellophane off CDs on a daily basis for the past month and a half, and I still have a stack of twenty or so that haven't been touched since I brought them home. Over the next few weeks I'll be writing about some of them, so if you're wondering why I'm suddently posting about so much old stuff, that's why.

I was going to put up a Clash track with this post (the one in the title), but then I figured anyone who hasn't already heard London Calling a thousand times probably isn't reading a music blog. So here's another shopping song instead...

The Replacements - "Customer" (mp3) from Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash

Albums Of The Year 2006

I had intended to get my best of 2006 posts up while I was at my mom's house between Christmas and New Year's. That was silly. One should not try to blog while on vacation. Then I got back into town and have been busy with job stuff, and family stuff, and band stuff, and football stuff. I thought about just abandoning this post, but I'm pretty sure that if you write a music blog, you are required by law to do a post about your favorite albums of the year. So here is mine... better late than never.



1. Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways

I've been running this list in my head for the last month and a half. Until today, the album at number two was going to occupy the top spot. But listening to Cash's swan song again, I realized that it had to be number one. I wrote about it at length back in August, but I hadn't listened to it in a couple of months. Perhaps a line from my favorite song on the album explains why...

"You won't read that book again because the ending's just too hard to take."

It's not that it's depressing, it's just heavy. It's not background music. It demands to be listened to. And these days, it's hard to find forty-five minutes to dedicate to a CD. But if there was ever an album that demanded that kind of attention, this is it.

This song still gives me goosebumps. They start at the "You know that ghost is me" line. Every time.

Johnny Cash - "If You Could Read My Mind" (mp3)




2. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas

When I first heard about this album, I thought it was an odd pairing. But it turns out that Isobel Campbell's delicate soprano and Mark Lanegan's gravely baritone is the perfect blend of sweet and sour. Isobel wrote and produced most of the album, but it is more grounded and rootsy than her usual brand of whimsical chamber pop. At times it sounds like an Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack for a David Lynch spaghetti western. Would it be too much to hope for a sequel?

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - "The False Husband" (mp3)




3. The Duke Spirit - Cuts Across The Land

I generally try to check out the opening acts whenever I go to a concert. I've discovered some of my favorite bands that way over the years. So I was a bit bummed last March when I went to see Ted Leo. I showed up at 9:30 on a Sunday night, and missed the first opener completely, and only caught the last three songs of The Duke Spirit (apparently the Exit/In decided to start going all punctual and I missed the memo). But those three songs absolutely blew me away, and I was in line immediately after their set to buy their CD. The band was amazing, and there was something about singer Liela Moss that just exuded cool. My first impression was that they sounded like a cross between Mazzy Star and Jesus And Mary Chain. But Hope Sandoval actually sang with JAMC, and it sounded nothing like this.

The Duke Spirit - "Darling, You're Mean" (mp3)




4. Aberdeen City - The Freezing Atlantic

It's funny how some songs grow on you. I bought this CD on the strength of two songs last summer, but quickly grew to love the entire thing. Well, almost. I really wasn't that crazy about "Pretty Pet." But when I saw them in October at the Exit/In, that song was the absolute hightlight of the set, and ever since then I swear it sounds different. I know that the notes coming out of the speakers are the same, but somehow I hear them differently. Aberdeen City and The Duke Spirit were definitely my favorite musical discoveries of 2006. Read the full review from September for more.

Aberdeen City - "Pretty Pet" (mp3)




5. Your Black Star - Sound From The Ground

It's almost like somebody took a list of everything I'd want in an album and then went and made it. Delay heavy guitars? Check. Jackhammer drums and a rock solid rhythm section? Check. Lyrics that are just cryptic enough to keep you interested but not so much that they're nonsense? Check. Folks across the ponds in Japan, Australia and England have been enjoying this album from Louisville's finest since 2005, but it didn't get released stateside until last fall. It was worth the wait. Read the full review from October.

Your Black Star - "Surrounded" (mp3)

Honorable Mention (in no particular order):
Richard Butler - Richard Butler
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Bring The Flood
Paul Simon - Surprise
Thom Yorke - The Eraser

Luck Be A Lady

I had every intention of staying home tonight and finishing up my long delayed "Best Albums of 2006" post. But then I got a call from a friend about playing poker this evening, so plans be damned. The post is already two weeks late, what's another day?

To set the mood, here's a song from one of the birthday presents I got last week (more on it soon).

Frank Sinatra - "Luck Be A Lady (Live)" (mp3) from Sinatra: Vegas (Disc 2 - Live at The Sands, Jan-Feb 1966)

Wish me luck. Both at poker and for the Powerball ticket I bought this morning.

UPDATE: Frank Sinatra - "Here's To The Losers" (mp3) from Lucky Numbers

photo courtesy of Casino Rarities

Take Me Back, Leave Me Here

In 2004, The Church released El Momento Descuidado, an acoustic album which featured reinventions of nine songs from the band's catalog of 25 years, along with five new songs. Steve Kilbey weighed in on the process of making the album:

“The record was made in two or three days, virtually live. The trick was to treat them all like brand new songs. They were all fresh, they all had equal status. It’s not like we just played the old electric parts on acoustic guitars. That could never work for us. Just doing The Church Unplugged would have been pointless. We wanted to really feel the songs, reinterpret them. We wanted to free them, open them up, strip back some of the artifice. We found there were some other songs lurking in there, behind the stiff face of the originals.”

Evidently they enjoyed the process so much that they're doing it again. After touring the U.S. acoustically last year, they've recorded another batch of unplugged material, El Momento Siguiente. A release date for the album hasn't been set yet (only saying it will be "in the very near future"), but they will be rotating some of the new material on their myspace page until the album's release. Currently featured are an acoustic take on "After Everything" and a Maharishi-era George Harrison style remake of "Tantalized."

To reboot the monday morning b-side feature, here is one of my favorite Church rarities, from the 1992 Ripple single.

The Church - "Nightmare" (mp3)

UPDATE: Well, that was fast. Apparently when The Church says "very soon," they mean tomorrow. The album is now available, and two more songs are up on their myspace page; a cover of The Triffid's "Wide Open Road" and the new "Song In The Afternoon."

post title by... The Church

Happy Birthday

Today is quite simply the most awesome birthday in music history. Among those celebrating today are Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, Frank Sinatra Jr, Meg White, Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets), Shawn Colvin, Jim Croce (a personal favorite) guitarist Michael Schenker, Donald Fagan (Steely Dan), Cyril Neville, Ronnie Hawkins, drummer Max Roach, Partridge Family "keyboardist" Susan Dey and a bunch of classical composers I promise you've never heard of. But towering above all of those is one of the most important and influential singers to ever emerge from the British music scene (and even though I shouldn't be admitting this in public, the subject of one of my recurring dreams, seriously)...

Emma Bunton.



So to Baby Spice and everyone else celebrating a birthday today, this is for you...

Frank Sinatra - "Happy Birthday" (mp3)

There's not a lot I can tell you about this recording. It was made in 1984, and I can only guess Old Blue Eyes was warming up for a recording session (probably for the L.A. Is My Lady album).

Best In Show 2006

2006 was one of the best year's for live music of my life. For whatever reason, in the last year or two Nashville has started to become a destination for touring bands, rather than just a stop to gas up and eat. With that said, it's funny that three of my top five shows were out of town. And of the two that did make it, neither of them were club shows. That's not a knock on the bands I did see around town, it's just the level of compeition they faced from other shows I saw last year.

A couple of quick notes. First, none of the pictures in this post are from the actual shows I saw. But I thought with such a long post, it'd be nice to break it up with some visuals. To view the source page on Flickr, click on the picture. Second, since I'm talking about concerts, all of the songs featured are live tracks. And now, on with the show...



1. The Pogues with Against Me
House Of Blues, Las Vegas - 10/15/06

This was not just best show I saw of last year, it's my new favorite concert ever, knocking U2 in 1987 out of the top spot. I felt that way immediately after the show, but felt like I needed some separation from it before I could really make that statement. Three months later I haven't changed my mind. I've seen some amazing shows in my life (like the one below), but I've never been happier walking out of a venue as I was that night. Read my full review from October.

The Pogues - "Boys From County Hell (Live)" (mp3) from Steams Of Whiskey
Recorded July 12, 1991 in Leysin, Switzerland.



2. Sigur Ros
Ryman Auditorium, Nashville - 2/14/06

Sigur Ros on Valentine's Day... perfect. In any other year, this would have undoubtedly been my favorite concert. Even though it can't claim the top spot, it would still make my top five all time favorite concerts. They had been at the top of the list of bands I was dying to see ever since I heard Ágætis Byrjun in 2001. Although I'd rather not have waited five years to see them, it was definitely worth it. The entire experience was nothing short of magical. Musically it surpassed my impossibly high expectations, but the real surprise was how cool is was visually. The lighting wasn't anything over the top, but the way it was used (especially projecting shadows onto a transparent screen in front of the stage) was absolutely brilliant.

Sigur Ros - "Untitled #1 (Live)" (mp3) from the Sigur Ros website
Recorded October 16, 2002 at Spark 7 Hall, Vienna, Austria.



3. The Wedding Present
The Earl, Atlanta - 3/3/06

David Gedge has been one of my favorite songwriters for at least 15 years, ever since I borrowed a friend's copy of Bizarro for an extended period in college. I actually got to see the Weddoes twice on this day, as they also did an in-store performance at Criminal Records that afternoon. When we got to The Earl that night, Gedge was hanging out by the merch booth. My attempt to say hello to him quickly detereorated into barely coherent fanboy babbling. The entire show was absolutely amazing, but honestly they could have come onstage, played "Suck," and said goodnight and it still would have been one of my favorite shows of the year.

The Wedding Present - "Brassneck (Live)" (mp3) from Singles 1995-1997
Recorded August 25, 1996 at the Reading Festival, England



4. The Church with Rob Dickinson
Variety Playhouse, Atlanta - 8/6/06

A band known for their effects ridden guitars prove they can be just as intense and ethereal without amps or pedals. They provided just as many goosebump moments as any time I've seen them with their full arsenal of electronic gadgets. Of the five times I've seen them, this show is my favorite. Read the full review from August.

The Church - "All I Know (Live)" (mp3) from Tin Mine
Recorded December 11, 2005 at Newtown, Sydney, Australia



5. Oasis
Ryman Auditorium, Nashville - 3/26/06

This pick kind of surprised me. But when I was looking at the list of concerts I saw last year, this really was one of the best. It's amazing that a band who mostly stand dead still on stage can put out so much energy. Part of that you can chalk up to the fans; both time I've seen Oasis the crowd was absolutely bonkers. Hearing 2400 people singing the chorus to "Don't Look Back In Anger" is just a completely cool experience. But mostly it's because of the music; Noel and company simply write great rock and roll songs. Derivative? Sure. But so were the Beatles sometimes.

Oasis - "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) - Live" (mp3) from Familiar To Millions
Recorded July 21-22, 2000 at Wembley Stadium, London

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

So if the rumors are true, two of my wildest dreams are going to take place this year. One is the release of The Police Around The World on DVD. It's quite simply the greatest concert movie ever made. The live footage is amazing, but what really makes it so much fun is all the footage of them backstage and on tour, like this clip with Jools Holland.

The other one is a Police reunion tour. For as long as I can remember, that has been at the absolute top of my list of concerts I would gladly give up a limb to see (I'm only slightly exagerating... you could take a finger, as long as it was the pinky, or that other one next to it - does it have a name?). Other than Frank Sinatra and The Beatles, The Police are the only one of my favorite artists that I've never seen live. And even if they only do one show in the US this summer, I'll be there. I realize it won't be as incredible as seeing them in 1982 would have been, but I'll take it.

The Police - "Message In A Bottle (Live)" (mp3) from The Police Live!
Strontium 90 - "3 O'Clock Shot (Live)" (mp3) from Police Academy

If you think Strontium 90 sounds suspiciously like The Police, that's because it is. Kind of. Mike Howlett of Gong put the group together in 1977 for a Gong reunion show that took place in Paris. If his liner notes are to be believed, it was the first time Sting, Andy and Stewart ever played together. This particular song contains elements that later became two different Police songs, "Be My Girl/Sally" and "O My God."

post title by The Smiths