Rod Stewart = Hate

Did you know that there is a rock band named "Rod Stewart = Hate"? There is. Listening to Rod's third album, Every Picture Tells a Story, I begin to understand why. Not that it's a hateful album. It's a perfect album, in fact, an album driven by acoustic instruments -- piano, dobro and mandolin, mostly -- and that, impossibly, rocks like crazy. And that's because Rod Stewart is a force of nature, a big, blustering, strutting, soulful singer who can still sound pleadingly poignant. It's a neat trick, and on that album he might be the greatest singer in rock music. The title track, in spite of its misogynistic lyrics, contains some of the best singing ever committed to recorded media.

And he threw it all away for ... Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? Rod Stewart = Hate. It's an equation that's all too easy to understand.

The Halfway Point

Not content with year-end lists, many music critics now offer their thoughts at the halfway point. Here are mine. For what it's worth, I think 2009 has been a fabulous musical year, with quality and innovation bursting forth in every genre. In typical fashion, my list is all over the place. That's because I like music, all kinds of music, and I see no reason to compartmentalize my listening habits.

My #1 album isn't out until August 18th. Sorry about that. It just happens to be the best album I've heard so far this year. When it comes out, you should buy it.

1) Joe Henry -- Blood from Stars

Three masterpieces in a row now from the best songwriter you've probably never heard. This is weary lounge music for 3:00 a.m., jazz from another planet, with lyrics that can stand on their own as poetry.

2) The Antlers -- Hospice

Maybe it's because I suffer from seasonal depression (basically all four seasons, but November through March in Columbus, Ohio, when the sun doesn't shine, is particularly brutal). Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for the pensive folk songs of Bon Iver. But this a terrific and terrifically depressing album, perfect for bedroom philosophers.

3) Aaron Strumpel -- Elephants

If you would have told me six months ago that one of my favorite albums of the year would be based on the Psalms, I would have told you that you don't know me very well. Long the purview of schlockmeisters and saccharine hacks, Aaron Strumpel has stolen the hymnbook of ancient Israel back for the regular folks, including folks like David (the original blues harp player) who bitch and moan and cry out in pain. This album wails. Add the tribal chanting and the horn section cribbed from avant-garde jazzbos The Art Ensemble of Chicago and you've got something very rare and special indeed.

4) Two Cow Garage -- Speaking in Cursive

Okay, it came out in late 2008. But I didn't hear it until a few weeks ago. Raw punk energy, some cowpoke guitar licks, and a lead singer/songwriter who gargles with Drano and reads T.S. Eliot. What's not to love?

5) The Decemberists -- The Hazards of Love

Oh boy. This is bound to be the most divisive album of the year. They're prissy literary wanks to begin with, and they up the ante this time by recording a no-singles, 17-song suite/concept album about, wait for it, a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William, who is desperate for the two of them to be reunited; a forest queen; and a villainous rake. Umm, yeah. Me? I love it. But I love all those Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span albums from the late '60s/early '70s, too, and this one is very much a part of that tradition.

6) The Receiver -- Length of Arms

Columbus kids make good. If Radiohead had continued in the prog-rock direction of OK Computer, this is what they might sound like in 2009.

7) Dave Perkins -- Pistol City Holiness

Raw, visceral blues, equal parts Stevie Ray guitar pyrotechnics and steamy Delta stomp. And some pretty great and funny lyrics, too. Witness "Preacher Blues: "I would hang with the Baptists if they could get that girl for me." That's some love and desperation.

8) Darcy James Argue -- Infernal Machines

Big band music for folks who like Jimi Hendrix and Parliament Funkadelic. This is unlike any jazz I've heard before.

9) Antony and the Johnsons -- The Crying Light

Is it chamber music for the cabaret? An Off-Off-Off-Off Broadway musical? Whatever it is, Antony Hegarty has made a lovely, contemplative, heartbreaking album, his voice soaring and mournful, the strings tracing the pensive themes of memory and loss, holding on to color in a world of fading grey. This is a beautiful album.

10) Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears -- Tell 'Em What Your Name Is

Pure funk and soul, a la James Brown. I didn't think they made music like this anymore. I was wrong.

Honorable Mention

Akron/Family -- Set "Em Wild, Set 'Em Free
Alasdair Roberts -- Spoils
Allen Toussaint -- The Bright Mississippi
Alligators -- Piggy and Cups
Animal Collective -- Merriwether Post Pavillion
Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Beware
Brandi Shearer -- Love Don't Make You Juliet
Bruce Cockburn -- Slice O Life
Buddy and Julie Miller -- Written in Chalk
Burnt Sugar -- Making Love to the Dark Ages
Castanets -- Texas Rose, the Thaw and the Beasts
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women -- Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women
Devon Sproule -- I Don't Hurry for Heaven
Diana Jones -- Better Times Will Come
Dirty Projectors -- Bitte Orca
Gasoline Heart -- Cucumber Riot
The Gourds -- Haymaker!
Gregory Alan Isakov -- This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Gretel -- The Dregs
Grizzly Bear -- Veckatimest
Hermas Zopoula -- Espoir
I Was A King -- I Was A King
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey -- One Day in Brooklyn
Japandroids -- Post-Nothing
Joe Lovano -- Folk Art
John Doe and the Sadies -- Country Club
Kevin Devine -- Brother's Blood
Laura Gibson -- Beasts of Seasons
Leonard Cohen -- Live in London
The Lonely Forest -- We Sing the Body Electric
M. Ward -- Hold Time
Madeleine Peyroux -- Bare Bones
Marco Benevento -- Me Not Me
Marianne Faithfull -- Easy Come Easy Go
Marissa Nadler -- Little Hells
Mono -- Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Neko Case -- Middle Cyclone
No Through Road -- Winner.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart -- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Passion Pit -- Manners
Patrick Watson -- Wooden Arms
Pine Leaf Boys -- Homage au Passe
Son Volt -- American Central Dust
The Soul of John Black -- Black John
Southeast Engine -- From the Forest to the Sea
St. Vincent -- Actor
Strand of Oaks -- Leave Ruin
U2 -- No Line on the Horizon
The Von Ehrics -- Loaded
Wild Light -- Adult Nights
Will Gray -- Introducing Will Gray
William Elliott Whitmore -- Animals in the Dark

The Secret, Unpublished Job Market

One of my colleagues in my MBA program is now selling herself as a "career coach," and has sent me an email message advertising an upcoming seminar. One of the topics to be discussed is "Accessing the Secret, Unpublished Job Market."

What this suggests to me is that deep in the bowels of, say, The Pentagon, or perhaps The Louvre, there are technical writers still working, clandestinely employed on documenting our transition to socialism, or whatever it is the important people are up to these days. They're probably not paid well, but at least they're all paid the same. And this sounds much cooler than The DaVinci Code to me. I think I'll go. You think I'll be sharing the secrets with you poor, uninformed schleps? That's what the Pay-Per-View blog is for. A guy's gotta find some way to earn a couple extra dollars. But I'll say this: that dude is creepy. If I look like him after the secrets of the unpublished job market are revealed, you have my permission to fire me and ensure that I am never hired again.

No Through Road/Two Cow Garage

The albums come in never-ending waves. They blur together. Sometimes they stand out. And when they do, I try to tell you about them. Here are two that have stood out in the past couple weeks.



No Through Road -- Winner.

Yes, the period is part of the title. Thank you, TV on the Radio and latest album Dear Science,. Punctuation is your friend.......

No Through Road hail from Adelaide, Australia, where apparently the music world is stuck in a 2002 timewarp, and where all the cool kids are listening to Interpol and The Strokes. That's okay. I like Interpol and The Strokes, and this band recaptures the sound really, really well. "Party to Survive," the video shown above, sounds like a lost track from Is This It?, and a great one at that. "Berlin Wall" and "Your Fall" are just as good, and the album careens right along until it flames out on the final track, the 10-minute, feedback-bedraggled "(this isn't) Rock 'n Roll." It's technically true. It's mostly noise. But there's a lot of great rock 'n roll along the way.

Two Cow Garage -- Speaking In Cursive

In a more just universe, Columbus' own Two Cow Garage would be playing the big summer festivals. Instead, they detonate their killer live shows night after night in front of mostly indifferent fans in dive bars in the Midwest.

Sounding either like Steve Earle fronting The Replacements or Paul Westerberg fronting Drive-By Truckers, take your pick, these four lads rock and lope, but mostly they bash the hell out of their instruments and sing their rough and ragged but literate tales of the lost and the losers, kids who were raised on Jesus and Disney movies and meth labs, bored and lethargic and intermittently, furiously committed to busting out of their dead-end farm towns.

In Micah Schnabel the band has not only a thoroughly captivating, gravel-voiced singer, but a fine writer who piles up little cinematic details that somehow manage to capture a whole lifetime of beauty and waste: "She wore a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, a Virgin Mary tattoo/On her left shoulder like a badge of honor, but faded green to blue." That's the start of the disarmingly desperate "Sadie Mae." Damn, dude, you had me at the first line.

There are thirteen songs here and thirteen winners; raw, jagged slices of visceral rock 'n roll that redefine both the words "poetry" and "slam." Speaking in Cursive is Album #4 in an ongoing series of criminally ignored releases. It's one of my favorite albums of the year, and it needs to be heard.

100 Most Essential Folk Songs

The good folks at Kent State University's WKSU recently polled their listeners in search of a master list of "The 100 Most Essential Folk Songs." The results are shown below.

There are the usual problems inherent in any such list, mainly the definition of "folk" and its inevitable overlap with other genres. Gram Parsons, folk singer? Really? "Like a Rolling Stone," folk song? You've got to be kidding me. It's also dominated by old fogies, and one suspects that the listeners aren't spending much time with Bon Iver or Fleet Foxes. That aside, it's a pretty good, representative list, and certainly includes most of the acknowledged highlights.

The 100 Essential Folk Songs

Song -Written OR Performed by

This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie Blowin’ in the Wind - Bob Dylan City of New Orleans - Steve Goodman If I Had a Hammer - Pete Seeger Where Have All The Flowers Gone - The Kingston Trio Early Morning Rain - Gordon Lightfoot Suzanne - Leonard Cohen We Shall Overcome - Pete Seeger Four Strong Winds - Ian and Sylvia Last Thing On My Mind - Tom Paxton The Circle Game - Joni Mitchell Tom Dooley - The Kingston Trio (Trad) Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Sandy Denny Goodnight Irene - The Weavers (Trad) Universal Soldier - Buffy St Marie Don’t Think Twice - Bob Dylan Diamonds and Rust - Joan Baez Sounds of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot Alice’s Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds (Pete Seeger) Puff The Magic Dragon - Peter, Paul and Mary Thirsty Boots - Eric Andersen There But For Fortune - Phil Ochs Across The Great Divide - Kate Wolf The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band (Robbie Robertson) The Dutchman - Steve Goodman Matty Groves - Fairport Convention (Trad) Pastures of Plenty - Woody Guthrie Canadian Railroad Trilogy - Gordon Lightfoot Ramblin’ Boy - Tom Paxton Hello In There - John Prine The Mary Ellen Carter - Stan Rogers Scarborough Fair - Martin Carthy (Trad) Freight Train - Elizabeth Cotton Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan Paradise - John Prine Northwest Passage - Stan Rogers And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - Eric Bogel Changes - Phil Ochs Streets of London - Ralph McTell Gentle On My Mind - John Hartford Barbara Allen - Shirley Collins (Trad) Little Boxes - Malvina Reynolds The Water is Wide - Traditional Blue Moon of Kentucky - Bill Monroe No Regrets - Tom Rush Amazing Grace - Odetta (Trad) Catch The Wind - Donovan If I Were a Carpenter - Tim Hardin Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell House of the Rising Sun - Doc & Richard Watson (Trad) Kisses Sweeter Than Wine - The Weavers Tangled Up In Blue - Bob Dylan The Boxer - Simon and Garfunkel Someday Soon - Ian and Sylvia 500 Miles - Peter, Paul and Mary Masters of War - Bob Dylan Wildwood Flower - Carter Family Can The Circle Be Unbroken - Carter Family Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound - Tom Paxton Teach Your Children - Crosby, Stills Nash & Young Deportee - Woody Guthrie Tecumseh Valley - Towns Van Zandt Mr. Bojangles - Jerry Jeff Walker Cold Missouri Waters - James Keeleghan The Crucifixion - Phil Ochs Angel from Montgomery - John Prine Christmas in the Trenches - John McCutcheon John Henry - Traditional Pack Up Your Sorrows - Richard and Mimi Farina Dirty Old Town - Ewan MacColl Caledonia - Dougie MacLean Gentle Arms of Eden - Dave Carter My Back Pages - Bob Dylan Arrow - Cheryl Wheeler Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire Man of Constant Sorrow - Ralph Stanley (Trad) Shady Grove - Traditional Pancho and Lefty - Townes Van Zandt Old Man - Neil Young Mr. Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan American Tune - Paul Simon At Seventeen - Janis Ian Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel Road - Nick Drake Tam Lin - Fairport Convention (Trad) Ashokan Farewell - Jay Ungar and Molly Mason Desolation Row - Bob Dylan Love Is Our Cross To Bear - John Gorka Hobo’s Lullaby - Woody Guthrie Urge For Going - Tom Rush Return of the Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons Chilly Winds - The Kingston Trio Fountain of Sorrow - Jackson Browne The Times They Are A Changing - Bob Dylan Our Town - Iris Dement Leaving on a Jet Plane - John Denver

The Last Hurrah of the Music Industry?

From the AP:

A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs.

Illegal downloads of musical files will cost a Minnesota woman $1.9 million, a jury has decided.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said.
Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at the fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents.

She plans to appeal, he said.

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIAA was "pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."

"We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," she said.

Thomas-Rasset downloaded work by artists such as No Doubt, Linkin Park, Gloria Estefan and Sheryl Crow.

This was the second trial for Thomas-Rasset. The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions. The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies. Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.

Buy a 50-inch high-definition TV for your kid. Plug it in, and hand him the remote control. Then say, "If you turn this on and watch the picture, you're going to be fined millions of dollars. You make $7.25 per hour at Taco Bell? Too bad."

That's the fine predicament that the dearly beloved Recording Industry Association of America finds itself in these days. Everybody knows it's wrong to download music for which you haven't paid. The poor, suffering artists deserve to eat, same as your taco-stuffing kid, and, by God, the fat cats at the big labels deserve their 90% of the cut, too, I suppose. But try explaining to your taco-stuffing kid[1], who also happens to have iTunes, and a flash drive, and friends in the dorm who have iTunes, and who has somehow inexplicably ended up with 20,000 songs on the ol' laptop, that it's a bad idea to download music for free. What was that rationale, again?

"Just don't do it," you tell them. "Put down that remote control. Pay no attention to that big shiny screen, or that Power button."

Given the current exigencies -- the presence of the big screen, the remote control in hand, the power most definitely being ON -- it's getting increasingly difficult to convince anyone that they shouldn't press that magic button. I know a lot of musicians. And I sympathize with their predicament, really I do. I honestly believe that they deserve to make a living doing what they do best. But perhaps, dear RIAA, it's time to rethink what "making a living" might look like. And perhaps you might earn just a smidgen more sympathy if you didn't sue some poor social worker for $1.9 million for downloading 24 songs. That's $950,000 per album. Must be nice songs.

Changes in technology have always driven the market. New ways of doing business are created. Old ways of doing business fall by the wayside. Anybody bought a set of Encylopedia Britannicas or an 8-track tape player lately? The smart musicians and the smart music labels have already figured this out. They're promoting the music online, offering complimentary tracks for download, marketing new music in unconventional and creative ways. And, astoundingly enough, in spite of the dire warnings that the sky is falling, there are still many musicians who are able to earn a more-than-comfortable living. But as long as the RIAA is calling the shots, there will still be those proponents of the equivalent of hard-bound encyclopedias and 8-track tapes, ready to sue the shit out of any poor schlep who dares to push the magic button and listen to the pretty sounds.

I love music. And I love musicians. But I can't help hoping that this is the last hurrah of a dying music industry. Some things deserve to die. The RIAA is one of them.

[1] Disclaimer: "Kid" in this case is purely hypothetical. Yes, I have kids. They don't work at Taco Bell.

Forgotten Detroit

It's stunning, really. You don't have to travel to Rome to view ancient ruins. You can just head up I-75 and get your fill.

The photos at Forgotten Detroit are sobering, and sad, and beautiful. This is what happens when a once-great city is left behind. That's the waiting room of the Michigan Central train depot, abandoned since the trains stopped rolling in 1988. There's a ghost town just a few hours north of me. The stories in those walls are mostly untold. There's nobody to tell them.