Random Musical Notes: Heirs of Nick Drake, Most Pointless Band Reunion, Best Power Pop of 2009?

Heirs of Nick Drake

Looking for more of doomed, melancholy folkie Nick Drake? Fans knows that there is precious little of the real commodity: three proper albums, a fourth of outtakes, and a highly questionable and utterly irrelevant fifth, consisting of Nick's mom Molly taking a star turn and the 9-year-old Nick tootling on his clarinet. But for music in a similar lovely, brooding, melancholy vein, you could hardly do better than Irish duo Tir na Nog, pictured on the left. It's like two Nicks for the price of one. The self-titled debut, A Tear and a Smile, and Strong in the Sun, all from the early '70s, might be a little hard to track down, but are supremely worth the search. And if you're willing to venture a bit wider, several of the recently deceased Scots folkie John Martyn's early albums -- Bless the Weather, Solid Air, and Sunday's Child -- will call to mind Drake at his jazzy, meditative best. A little closer to home, Scott Appel's Nine of Swords is both a touching tribute to Drake's music (Appel covers several of Drake's best-known songs) and a logical continuation of Drake's music if he had lived.

Most Pointless Band Reunion, Ever

-- It's hard to blame the old coots; the economy's bad, and you still have to put the Swiss cheese on the table. But of all the pointless musical reunions, that of Focus may be the most pointless of all. You may or may not recall Focus and their one and only hit, "Hocus Pocus," from 1972. To refresh your memory, and to help you recall what you may long to forget, "Hocus Pocus" remains the only Top 40 hit to feature yodeling. Here they are in 2008, back together again after all these years, and reprising their hit.



Best Power Pop of 2009?

Anacortes, Washington's The Lonely Forest are about to release the best power/indie pop album I've heard thus far this year. It's called We Sing the Body Electric (h/t Walt Whitman), and it's full of memorable hooks, indelible melodies, and loud guitars, just the way I like it. Check out their MySpace page to listen to the wondrous first single, "We Sing In Time."

Job Update

-- The Polish metal (as in gold and silver, not music) industry appears to be booming. Yet another company has offered me a lucrative salary and access to the Polish resorts.

-- I applied for a job in Jersey. Jersey, in this case, is a nine-mile-by-five-mile island in the English Channel, fourteen miles from the Normandy coast of France. If offered the job, I would at least consider it. Europe appears to be happening. As opposed to, say, Columbus, Ohio. Au revoir, Buckeyeville.

-- I have a couple friends of friends who might know about job openings that may be coming up sort of near home in industries for which I am at least tangentially qualified.

-- I am writing the Great American Novel. When it is published, you should buy it. This will allow me to feed my family.

-- I am working on my church's web site.

-- Typing in the words "communications" and "Ohio" in the monster.com or dice.com search engines reveals job openings for car mechanics. Go figure. Maybe it's because they know how to search engines. Otherwise, I'm missing the connection.

Bono Vocalism and His Manpowers

More fun takes on my reviews, translated out of English, and then back to English:

This is an album all about clip: the ravages of the relentless March of hrs and years, chronos
and kairos, calendar clip and timevs. those moments that are out of clip, that prolong us, those in which we meet something of the Lord. It Holds a subject researched explicitly in `` Minute of Resignation '' and `` Unknown Company, '' and sideways in posterior courses such as the anthemic rocker `` Breathe '' and the atmospherical closer, `` Cedars of Lebanon. ''

This is an album done by middle-aged manpowers still playing a shaver 's game, goodly cognizant of the absurdness of the furnishing ( see the humourous, self-deprecating lines in the funk-driven `` Standup Comedy '' ), and seeking for and sometimes chance grounds to locomote along. Intrinsically, these are vocals that could hold ne'er been composed by Bono Vocalism, the nave, ideal younker of early albums. And in and of itself, these are vocals that could simply hold been indited by Bono, the aging, iconic stone star taken with with Redeemer and himself in equal step, and troubled by the incongruousness. They are great religious and human vocals.

Worst Band Name Ever

Worst band name: MSTRKRFT. It looks unpronounceable, and probably is, but even once you decipher it phonetically it appears to be an advertisement for macaroni and cheese. Perhaps only FLRWXDSRTTPNG would be more heinous.

Job Offers!!!

First, on the international front:

Hello,
Your resume was found on the job site. We examined your candidacy and want to offer you a position in our company. If your resume changed, please send us an updated version to email, indicated at the end of the letter.
My name is Julia Glass, I am a employee manager in the company Poland Investments Inc.
Briefly about our company: we deal with selling and purchasing of certificates of metal in Europe. Our central office is located in Poland. The first license for activity in Poland was provided in 1998. Nowadays, we have our offices and employees all over the world. We work with individual clients, as well as with corporations.
We offer ideal conditions of work. Once in a year we grant a 2-week vacation on the resorts of Poland. All our employees are provided with a whole kit to have the possibility of working in every part of the world. Absolutely gratuitous we grant a laptop (brand Dell, HP or Apple) and mobile phone (brand Blackberry or iPhone), we pay for internet access and mobile communication.
We aren't standing still and that is why having the European market conquered we move on to reach the U.S. one. The primary stage - is to form the staff. And namely you are offered a position in dynamically developing company.
At the stage of forming the staff we offer a possibility of flexible schedule or part-time occupancy.
Annual salary is $125,000. We appreciate well-educated employees; that is why if you have MBA, the raise in the salary is granted. Each certificate of degree is individual that is why the markup must be stipulated with head manager, after being accepted for employment.
With the expansion of the influence of our company in the U.S. market, promotion track is naturally granted to you.
We are always glad to answer all your questions and stipulate the conditions of collaboration. You can get in touch with us by phone (from 8 am till 6 pm, Monday-Friday) or through email in any time, convenient for you. We are looking forward to your answer.

Wow, a employee manager wrote to me. And I'm so relieved to read that promotion track is naturally granted to me. Perhaps grammar checker will also be part of job. I am also forward looking to 2-week vacation on resorts of Poland.

And, on the domestic front:

FIND THE PERFECT JOB!

Blog posters are earning $12-$50 per hour.
Article writers are earning up to $25-$45 per hour.
Why not stay at home & get paid for typing on your computer!
Write Fiction and Non Fiction Stories - $450 per story
A Great Job Even if you aren't a "natural born writer"

Where to begin? First, I Really like The Random capitalization. Second, I'm a big fan of the ampersand, & all aspiring natural born writers use it & love it. Third, last time I checked, the phrase "up to" is usually followed by a number indicating the top of a pay scale; as in "earn up to $6,000,000 per year while eating Oreos and swigging chocolate milk." So the phrase "up to $25-$45 per hour" is a little confusing to me. Which is it? Finally, I love job postings that equate writing to "typing on your computer." I bet these folks have MBAs and were once in corporate management.

Hire me! I have mad keyboarding skillz!

Alt-Country Roundup: The Believers, The Von Ehrics, Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls

Alt-country music arguably peaked in 1995, with the formation of Whiskeytown, The Jayhawks' Tomorrow the Green Grass, Emmylou Harris' Wrecking Ball, Old 97's Wreck Your Life, Steve Earle's Train a Comin', and the releases of the debut Wilco, Son Volt, and Buddy Miller albums. Don't look now, but that was almost a decade and a half ago. In the meantime, the genre, which once seemed to breathe fresh, new life into hoary country music, has gotten a little long in the tooth. Tastes have changed, and the audience, for the most part, has moved on. That's most evident in the demise of No Depression Magazine, which championed this music throughout its history, and which closed its doors a year ago. But don't write off the old warhorse just yet. Here are three new albums that hearken back to the days when the music was a thoroughbred. One of them looks good in the starting gate, but never lives up to its lineage. The other two look like beat-up old nags, but really kick it into gear for that push down the backstretch.

The Believers -- Lucky You

Seattle's The Believers -- singer/songwriters Craig Aspen and Cyd Frazzini, with help from members of Band of Horses -- play a slick brand of alt-country that owes as much to Heart and Foreigner as to Gram and Emmylou. The sweet harmonies are there, to be sure, with Aspen's raspy tenor blending perfectly with Frazzini's pure soprano. But the guitars and production are pure 1977 arena rock. Depending on your perspective, that's either a welcome return to a long-overlooked chapter of rock 'n roll, or a sad reminder of the music in its most corporate incarnation. Cyd has a big, brassy Pet Benatar/Ann Wilson voice, the kind that begs for radio airplay on AOR stations. The songs, for the most part, are hook-laden and memorable, with opener "Higher Ground" offering a soulful, country blues take on Hurricane Katrina, and the title track offering the most representative merger of singalong choruses and bludgeoning guitar hooks. Hit me with your best shot, indeed. My verdict: No win, no place, but a decent show.

The Von Ehrics -- Loaded

Dallas cowpunks The Von Ehrics work the simplest of alt-country formulas: take the early Johnny Cash/Tennessee Three freight train rumble, speed it up, and distort the hell out of it. They do it ten times here, blasting through a short half hour of tales of excessive alcohol consumption, excessive alcohol consumption, and excessive alcohol consumption. Yeah, these are one-trick ponies out on that racetrack. Yeah, it's a hell of a lot of fun. If you like the early Old 97's albums, particularly Wreck Your Life and Too Far to Care, you'll find much to love about this album.

Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls - The Vain Hope of Horse

Here's the class of this field. Heath is an L.A. cowboy with a Tom Petty fixation, and he brings along some impressive buddies to help: Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, The MC5's Wayne Kramer, and Wilco's Nels Cline. Musically, this is fairly standard rootsy fare, with only Cline's mournful, inventive guitar work to distinguish it from hundreds of similar albums. But the songs are first-rate, and Heath spins out tales of down-and-outers that sound authentic and honest, and offers some political commentary that doesn't sound like warmed-over Steve Earle. Best of all is "Anarchist Girl," a left-field, left-wing love song to a girl who "throws a kiss just as good as she can throw a brick." The press release opines that the album is for those "who keep Springsteen and The Sex Pistols side-by-side in their record collections," and that actually sounds, for once, about right. It's a wonderful debut; ragged, soulful, and well written.

Cat Power (No, Not Her)

Steven Demitre Georgiou is an almost forgotten man these days, even when he goes by his much more famous musical pseudonym Cat Stevens. For a while there in the 1970s he was one of the biggest pop stars in the world, and he released two unquestioned masterpieces in Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat. But even on those unmistakeable triumphs there were signs of the discontent and restlessness that made him abandon music entirely at the end of the decade. Cat Stevens, perhaps more than any other pop star, was a spiritual seeker. He saw through the hollowness of fame and fortune, and he simply walked away from it. What he walked toward is a matter of some controversy. But as an ongoing document of one person's search for Truth with a capital T, those early '70s albums can hardly be improved upon.

His music arrived at the perfect time. The cockeyed optimism of the 1960s had given way to the deaths of some of music's brightest stars, and the violent and senseless debacle of Altamont had tolled the death knell for the simplistic preachers of peace and love, man. There was a growing realization that rock stars were not only incapable of saving the world, but that they couldn't even save themselves. Into the breach stepped Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, the newly introspective Bob Dylan. The music was quieter, more contemplative, more focused on the internal warfare of the heart.

Cat Stevens was a part of the sixties whirlwind. He wrote a series of hits for others, and had some moderate success with his own early albums, but the turning point came in 1968, when he contracted tuberculosis. He emerged from a three-month hospital stay with a new lease on life and a newfound appreciation for the deeper issues, and instead of writing "Here Comes My Baby" he was now inclined to write songs with titles such as "But I Might Die Tonight." Maybe near-death experiences will do that to you.

The four albums he released between 1970 and 1973 -- Mona Bone Jakon, Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat, and Catch Bull at Four -- remain his lasting legacy. Armed with a soulful voice, an uncommonly facile way with melody and hooks, and a batch of deeply moving, spiritually searching songs, he was both critically respected and massively popular. Those albums sound as fresh and relevant today as any albums recorded during that time.

This was Cat's basic approach:

I listen to the wind
to the wind of my soul
Where I'll end up well I think
only God really knows
I've sat upon the setting sun
But never never never never
I never wanted water once
No, never, never, never, never

I listen to my words but
they fall far below
I let my music take me where
my heart wants to go
I swam upon the devil's lake
but never, never, never, never
I'll never make the same mistake
No, never, never, never, never
-- Cat Stevens, "The Wind"

To explore, click here, and listen to the song and watch a video featuring flowers, trees, and swirling clouds. Because it's that kind of song.

It was also one of those songs that could make the hippie chicks swoon, and any decent guitarist with moderate picking and strumming abilities and a normal sex drive took a crack at it. It was moral, but vague enough to mean almost anything, and left the listener with the impression of both spiritual high-mindedness and heightened emotional sensitivity. You're damn right the dudes played it. It was best not to delve too deeply. Swimming upon the devil's lake seemed like a sensible and perhaps life-saving alternative after sitting on the setting sun, but Cat seemed to think little of the notion, so most guys played it straight. There was also that old adage about not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Cat left it all behind in 1978. He converted to Islam, changed his name to Yusuf Islam, entered into an arranged marriage that eventually produced five children, gave away his substantial wealth, auctioned off his possessions, and founded a Muslim school near London. He was out of public view for more than ten years, and then shocked the world at the end of the '80s by supporting the death sentence ordered by the Ayatollah Khomeini against novelist Salman Rushdie for writing the book The Satanic Verses. Oldies stations pulled his songs. Old fans reacted with dismay, and wondered how the author of "Peace Train" and "The Wind" could have changed so radically.

In the intervening decades he's recorded sporadically, mostly music heavily influenced by his Islamic faith. But in 2006 he released An Other Cup, a surprisingly deep, moving collection of new songs, and a welcome return to the musical territory he left behind thirty years before. His voice sounded unchanged; rich as ever. And the sentiments sounded considerably more conciliatory.

But it is those early '70s albums that will endure. I've taken out my old, scratchy vinyl records and played them over the past few days. There is a beauty and an honesty about them that can be heard loud and clear, even over the clicks and pops. I'm very thankful for this music. If you missed him the first time around, you might be pleasantly surprised by how well he has endured.

The Gourds, Squashed

This is what happens when an album review gets translated to another language, and then re-translated back to English. I am thinking that I writed this not the way it appears in the paragraphs subsequent and later.

------------------------------

There's a drove out of Austin, Texas call The Gourds. It's organic and soulful. There be songs compactly otherwise unknown culture name Thurman. And near are rigid be enthusiastic about and unreturned love songs. They enjoy two front singers who fulfill impressively sheltered imitation of Levon Helm and Rick Danko from The Band -- simply two of the goo of the mask batter vocalists ever. There are songs about fossil.

They have a unsullied album called Haymaker!, which will be out rightly after the lead in the air of the year. It's probably their best album inside a prolonged vent of proper and excellent albums. All of which would lead you to agree to that they're a sort of weirdly teen, pop-culture-obsessed innovation accomplishment, which they are, but next they go around in the borough of and knock you out next to a correct unrequited love chant that sound hence gummy and full-strength and desperate that you'd give your declaration the singing page be textual in blood. Yeah, I know. There are songs about do rag. They have an accordion recitalist named Claude. They do what they've always done, free better. I've loved them in favour of years, but I always find myself to some extent faltering (or keyboard-tied) when I try to mark them and their music. Right presently it's at the pinnacle of my Best Albums of 2009 account. And the songs? They recite about flatulence, Star Trek, weather girls, Schoolhouse Rock, and Catwoman. They crop a sort of slush rock/boogie/Cajun/country conglomeration that doesn't eligible confidently within any of those niche. There's a miniature more of a Cajun force and of equal kind to idiotic more classic Levon Helm hillbilly wail this occurrence around. A twosome of them have skanky ZZ Top beard, beerguts, and form like they should be driving great rig. But I'll unmoving guarantee that it won't modify decomposed the list. --Paste Magazine's Andy Whitman Country / Alt-Country Haymaker!.

Are You a Christian Hipster?

Author Brett McCracken takes a crack at defining the Christian hipster:

Christian Hipster Likes and Dislikes (By No Means Exhaustive… Just a Sampling)

Things they don’t like:
Christian hipsters don’t like megachurches, altar calls, and door-to-door evangelism. They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart. In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic. They don’t like people like Pat Robertson, who on The 700 Club famously said that America should “take Hugo Chavez out”; and they don’t particularly like The 700 Club either, except to make fun of it. They don’t like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell, who once said of terrorists that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” They don’t like TBN, PAX, or Joel Osteen. They do have a wry fondness for Benny Hinn, however.

Christian hipsters tend not to like contemporary Christian music (CCM), or Christian films (except ironically), or any non-book item sold at Family Christian Stores. They hate warehouse churches or churches with American flags on stage, or churches with any flag on stage, really. They prefer “Christ follower” to “Christian” and can’t stand the phrases “soul winning” or “non-denominational,” and they could do without weird and awkward evangelistic methods including (but not limited to): sock puppets, ventriloquism, mimes, sign language, “beach evangelism,” and modern dance. Surprisingly, they don’t really have that big of a problem with old school evangelists like Billy Graham and Billy Sunday and kind of love the really wild ones like Aimee Semple McPherson.

By this definition, I am a Christian hipster. I should also point out, however, that I'm 53, balding, overweight, and wear a hearing aid. I also have equilibrium/balance issues, by which I mean that occasionally I have trouble simply not toppling over when standing still. By most counts these defects would disqualify me from hipster status, although I'm still holding out hope for the ironic appeal of hearing aids, particularly when they are worn by music critics, either standing or prone.

But most of the people I know and hang out with solidly qualify in these "hipster" categories. Still, I have some questions, the chief one being why disliking things that suck is a sign of hipsterism, and not simply a sign of general discernment that should apply across the theological, generational, and hair-follicle spectrum. Who in their right mind believes that sock puppets are an effective evangelistic tool? For that matter, who in their right mind believes that statements such as "blow them all away in the name of the Lord" is an attractive and winsome way to articulate the gospel? Hear the good news: you're going to hell! Umm, what's the bad news?

As to the distinction between "Christian" and "Christ follower," it may sound like mere semantics, but there is something to the notion that the word "Christian" has been co-opted by people, both in power and out of power, who don't represent what I believe and who don't live the way I want to live. Almost every day I encounter statements by Christian leaders that make me wince, and that I disagree with on the most basic levels. I'm a screwup loved by God, and I have plenty of crap in my own life that automatically disqualifies me from making self-righteous pronouncements on others. That's the bottom line. Of couse, that doesn't always stop me from speaking and acting judgmentally, but that's part of the crap I need to deal with. And that's what I want to communicate to the people I encounter in my life. And yes, I want to distance myself from people who spew judgment, who are professional haters and whiners and bitchers. Frequently, Christianity in America doesn't look much like Christ, and to the extent that those two things can and should be distinguished, then I'm happy to make that distinction.

Things they like:
Christian hipsters like music, movies, and books that are well-respected by their respective artistic communities—Christian or not. They love books like Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider, God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. They tend to be fans of any number of the following authors: Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, John Howard Yoder, Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, Anne Lamott, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Henri Nouwen, Soren Kierkegaard, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Annie Dillard, Marilynne Robison, Chuck Klosterman, David Sedaris, or anything ancient and/or philosophically important.

Christian hipsters love thinking and acting Catholic, even if they are thoroughly Protestant/evangelical. They love the Pope, liturgy, incense, lectio divina, Lent, and timeless phrases like “Thanks be to God” or “Peace of Christ be with you.” They enjoy Eastern Orthodox churches and mysterious iconography, and they love the elaborate cathedrals of Europe (even if they are too museum-like for hipster tastes). Christian hipsters also love taking communion with real Port, and they don’t mind common cups. They love poetry readings, worshipping with candles, and smoking pipes while talking about God. Some of them like smoking a lot of different things.

Christian hipsters love breaking the taboos that used to be taboo for Christians. They love piercings, dressing a little goth, getting lots of tattoos (the Christian Tattoo Association now lists more than 100 member shops), carrying flasks and smoking cloves. A lot of them love skateboarding and surfing, and many of them play in bands. They tend to get jobs working for churches, parachurch organizations, non-profits, or the government. They are, on the whole, a little more sincere and idealistic than their secular hipster counterparts.

Personally, I am afraid of candles, and open fires in general. When you have equilibrium/balance issues, this is not necessarily a trivial concern. But it is also probably a reaction to my suburban neighbors, who spend their days playing golf, running power tools, chopping down trees, and building huge bonfires in their backyards. On summer nights my neighborhood looks like some vast, primordial campground in Tract Home National Forest. While this is happening I tend to listen to Sufjan Stevens and look out smugly from my back porch.

Again, I plead guilty. I like almost all of the authors listed above. But again I would like to think that this has little to do with hipness, and a lot to do with the fact that they write well and have worthwhile things to say. In terms of the eclectic theological approach, for too long the evangelical church has assumed that they have a corner on Truth with a capital T. Having been membered for years in a True New Testament Church(TM), the one bunch of misfits who finally got it right after two thousand years, and who had to deal with the attendant hubris and incessant bickering that accompanied that view, I'm grateful to acknowledge that maybe, just possibly, a couple Christians in the past might have some things to teach me. Personally, in terms of communion, I can deal with Merlot, grape juice, or the ingenious McCommunion Wafer 'n Wine Combo Pack, with throwaway cup. It's not worth fighting about, in my opinion. Re: the "some of them like smoking a lot of different things" comment, I'm sure that's true. It's been true for me. Idolotry can be an oppressive reality. Here's the deal: don't smoke, kids. It's bad for your health. So are double Whoppers. Depending on what you're smoking, and why you're doing it, it might also be illegal and immoral.

Stupid taboos probably ought to be broken. Thirty-five years ago almost every Christian male I knew had hair down to the middle of his back. I used to have hair down to the middle of my back. I used to have hair. Now a lot of the Christians I know have piercings and tattoos. Come to think of it, I'm the only member of my family who doesn't have a piercing and/or a tattoo. It's all about as eternally consequential as whether you like American Idol. But let me also state that Real Christians(TM) don't like American Idol.

By the way, the people shown above are Vito and Monique Aiuto. Together they make music, and are known as The Welcome Wagon. A lot of Christian hipsters like them. What I like about them is that that's who they are, that they aren't trying to be ironic, and that they really do carry off that Grant Wood/American Gothic in the City vibe quite naturally. As a parting word, let me encourage you all to be yourselves quite naturally.

Life in the Foodchain

Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift
-- Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"

That sounds about right. And right now I'd probably settle for the day shift. Searching monster.com, the world's largest database of job openings, shows that precisely fourteen positions have been posted nationwide for technical writers in the past month. The closest are in Alexandria, Virginia and Beloit, Wisconsin. Dice.com, the monster.com for techies, shows precisely zero technical writer openings in Ohio. My guess, extrapolating from the roughly 20 technical writers I know who are currently unemployed in Columbus, is that there are hundreds of applicants for each position.

Q: What are the odds?
A: Not very good.

I learned that in one of the numerous classes I took during the twenty years of schooling.

Well your mother was there to protect you
Your papa was there to provide
So how in the world did the excellent baby
Wind up in this hotel so broken inside?
You lie on your bed in the midnight darkly
Listening to every sound
Watching the shadows for anything moving
And hoping they don't come around

'Cause it's dog eat dog
And it's cat and mouse
It's watch your step and cross yourself
And get back in the house
And it's do or die
It's push and shove
Because everybody's hungry
And there isn't quite enough

That's right, we're talkin' about the good life
In the foodchain
Love among the ruins
I guess that you've finally got to accept
That there's nothing you can do about it
It's kind of like carving the turkey
It's kind of like mowing the lawn:
Everything gets to this certain dimension
Winds up on a customer's plate and then gone
-- Tonio K., "Life in the Foodchain"

Willie Nile -- House of a Thousand Guitars

Willie Nile doesn't make indie rock, psychedelic rock, or alt-anything. He makes blue collar rock 'n roll, the kind that used to emerge out of basement windows and garages a long time ago. It's all filtered through a late '70s/early '80s pop sheen, and it forever dooms him to the second tier of rock artists. He's more Eddie Money than Bruce Springsteen (come to think of it, Bruce Springsteen is more Eddie Money than Bruce Springsteen these days). But when he's on, and he's on about half the time on his new album House of a Thousand Guitars, he reminds me of the pure, primal joy of bashing out chords and reveling in the unmitigated pleasure of making a racket.

Willie's been around for almost thirty years now, and his early albums document a witty wordsmith in love with three chords and a backbeat. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and if his subsequent history hasn't demonstrated much artistic growth, there's something to be said for dogged persistence. His 2006 album Streets of New York was a long-awaited comeback, and put Willie back on the cultural radar. Unfortunately, the new album is a step backward, awash in too many nondescript power ballads. Some of the song titles tell the story: "Love is a Train," "Her Love Falls Like Rain," "Little Light," "Touch Me." They're right out of the Bon Jovi/Creed playbook, and the rest of the lyrics don't improve on the initial impressions. But there are a handful of great, no-frills rockers here as well, particularly the scathing "Doomsday Dance," which boogies all over the apocalypse, and "Magdalena," which features the best shouted "Hey! Hey!" chorus I've heard since the early days of The Ramones and The Romantics.

So think of it as a house of 500 guitars. It's an album that begs for the use of the Next button on your iPod or CD player. And it's an album that offers up its share of small but satisfying rewards.

Trifecta Perfecta -- Justin Townes Earle, Gretel, Will Gray

It was one of the strangest triple bills I've ever encountered -- country traditionalist Justin Townes Earle, indie-folk stalwarts Gretel, and hip-hop/roots artist Will Gray. Imagine Hank Williams hanging out with Leslie Feist hanging out with ?uestlove and The Roots and you're in the ballpark. Or, in this case, the bar; specifically, Cafe Rumba in the north campus neighborhood. Nashville, Boston, and L.A. came to Columbus. It was an unprecedented geographic and stylistic mashup, and it was was an astonishingly redemptive, soulful batch of fun.

Justin Townes Earle, as he took some pains to point out, is not only Steve Earle's son, but his mother Carol's son (wife number 3 of 8, for those keeping score at home). To say that there are a few unresolved, simmering father/son issues might be a major understatement. I saw Justin last spring at an outdoor festival. He was uneasy in front of a large crowd, I was 500 feet from the stage, and the resulting set left me underwhelmed. There were no such problems last night. Playing in front of a hundred people tightly packed into a dive bar, Justin and musical cohort Cory Younts absolutely ripped it up, playing a two-hour set that featured most of the songs from Justin's two albums The Good Life and Midnight at the Movies, and wide-reaching covers from The Replacements, Randy Newman, Townes Van Zant, and Buck Owens. This was the real truckstop jukebox shitkickin' deal, and watching Earle on stage, and listening to that impossibly raw, keening voice, it was impossible not to imagine oneself transported back to Montgomery, Alabama in the late '40s, as Hank Williams was rocketing off on an all-too-short but brilliant career. Look at that photo. I suspect Justin might be aware of those comparisons, too. But look, they're deserved. The guy absolutely channels Hank, and he writes some tunes that can hold their own with the master. He's also a very fine picker, an aspect that isn't highlighted enough on his albums, and with Younts on banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and harmony vocals, they roared through a honky-tonk set that was pure magic, and that left me grinning from ear to ear.

Gretel, these three attractive Bostonians to the left, play raw, uncompromising folk music that belies their wholesome image. Singer/songwriter Reva Williams (on the right) writes and sings poetic, introspective soul scourings that are frequently disquieting and alarming in their intensity. Check out some of the lyrics from "Car Bomb Times":

Angels or doctors I can't afford
But I can pay to get fucked up when I get bored
Forty days and forty nights now I prayed to the Lord
I think he said it's high time I fall on my own sword ...

These are car bomb times, these are car bomb days
These are scared girl/boy rhymes, these are scared girl/boy ways

Don't look for it at a worship conference near you any time soon. But if you value honest songwriting sung in a Lucinda Williams howl, and if you're one of the three or four Christians who doesn't have his/her life totally together, you might find some thoughts that resonate pretty deeply. Kate and I had the distinct pleasure of hanging out with Reva, Melissa, and Phil at dinner, and I'm so thankful for their musical talent, their unflinching writing, and their friendship. Their new album Dregs, out in April, is well worth your time.

Will Gray and band took the stage about 1:30. I was skeptical: two rappers, a turntable maestro, an acoustic guitar player, a banjo picker (Reva Williams, from Gretel), and a cellist. Sure, dude. Good luck.

And it was absolutely mind-blowing. The rhymes were fabulous, Will Gray sang like an old-school Marvin Gaye, and that band, impossibly, gelled into a rockin', funky, folky R&B Americana machine. It was the freshest music I've heard in months. Will is currently recording his debut album with T Bone Burnett at the producer's helm. Watch for it in late summer or early fall. I know I will be.

Check out the video for Will's song "Back to the Wall" right here.

We left the house at 8:00 p.m., dragging our tired, middle-aged butts out for a night on the town. We arrived home at 3:00 a.m. and neither one of us wanted to go to bed. Such is the power and the wonder of great music. We saw it in abundance last night, a strange and wondrous sonic shot of joy. I live for nights like that, and I'm so thankful that every once in a while they turn from wistful dreams to reality.

Paul Edwards Redux

I'm back on the Paul Edwards Show tomorrow afternoon from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. EST. I'll be on shortly after 4:00. I hear that this time we'll talk more about music. That's WLQV, 1500 on your AM radio dial in Detroit. If you're interested, I'm told that podcasts are also available, usually 2-3 days after the show.

U2 -- No Line on the Horizon

My review of U2's new album No Line on the Horizon is up at Christianity Today Magazine.

Bandspotting

Every two years Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, puts on a great little conference/party called The Festival of Faith and Music. It's three days of hanging out with people who are serious about their faith and who love music, and the intersection of those two consuming passions. This year we'll get to hear The Hold Steady, Lupe Fiasco, Over the Rhine, Vic Chesnutt, Julie Lee, Baby Dee, Kenneth Thomas, and David Bazan (Pedro the Lion). And those are just the musicians. The speakers/presenters are equally impressive. You should check it out.

As we did two years ago, Michael Kaufmann (director of Asthmatic Kitty Records) and I are currently listening to a batch of new songs recorded by various performers/bands who are trying to win a contest called Bandspotting. The winner gets to perform at the conference. The good news: the music is, almost uniformly, amazing. The bad news: we have to pick a winner. This is, in all honesty, far more difficult than writing a feature article or an album review. There's great indie rock here. There's outstanding chamber folk. There's superb singer/songwriter fare. There's a guy who howls the Psalms to an unholy racket, and I mean that in the best possible sense since it seems unlikely to me that the guy who wrote these sacred blues laments was doing so to the accompaniment of saccharine pop music. I know it's a cliche to state that everyone's a winner. In this case, it happens to be true. It is such a heartening experience. And damn difficult, too.

Eleni Mandell -- Artificial Fire

My review of Eleni Mandell's latest album Artificial Fire is up at Paste. This is still my favorite album released thus far this year, including that new one from that Irish band.

With a Shout: Celebrating U2

You may have heard of this little Irish band called U2. They have a new album coming out next week called No Line on the Horizon. I'm currently in the midst of writing my review for Christianity Today Magazine.

In the meantime, I'd encourage you to check out the blog of my friend Josh Hurst. Josh has rounded up the thoughts of various music critics as they reflect on U2 and what the music has meant to them. It's a good and inspiring read.

I get frustrated with Bono. I love him, and he makes me crazy with his over-the-top pronouncements. I also don't know of a celebrity, past or present, who has done more tangible good for the world. But reading the thoughts assembled on Josh's blog, I'm reminded again of why the band is so beloved, and why I myself cherish this music.

Heart and Soul -- The Case for Peter Case

Man, it's been a tough week for news about musical heroes.

Peter Case has enriched my life for about thirty years now, first as the lead singer/songwriter for The Plimsouls, then as a superb solo artist. His songs have spoken to me as powerfully as any artist, and he has a particular knack for nailing the distinctive conundrums that will be familiar to people who desire to follow God, and who regularly get tripped up by their own humanity and their propensity to follow their own wayward tendencies instead.

I just found out that Peter underwent open-heart surgery a few weeks back. He's recovering nicely, and that's very good news, but the medical bills associated with the surgery and his recovery are, of course, astronomical. And, in a story that is all too common in the musical world, Peter does not have medical insurance.

Yes, you can help. Yes, so can I. In the interest of cutting off some potential objections and the snarky comments about the stupidity of not having medical insurance, let me note that I've come to a renewed appreciation of this dilemma in the past couple weeks. It's one thing to moan about the several hundred dollars per month that you have to shell out for medical insurance through your employer. It's quite another thing to be without an employer, or to be self-employed (welcome to the wonderful world of musicians). Then that several hundred dollars per month rapidly becomes several thousand dollars per month, and when you're faced with the prospect of maybe, if you're lucky, raking in more from ticket sales than you spent on gas to get to the next gig, then things like medical insurance tend to fall by the wayside.

In any event, Peter could use your help. A number of musicians and friends have formed a benefit organization called Hidden Love Medical Relief to raise funds to help defray Peter's medical expenses. A benefit concert is also in the works. I'll let you know once I hear more details.

I woke up in the dark
My covers on the floor
Stripped of all my dreams and my pride
The vast black night that conquered me
Was coming back for more
Until I turned and saw the angel by my side
We kept the secret hidden deep inside
Hidden love, unbidden love,
And all the tears we cried
Though I've loved you for a long time
It can't be denied
Someone sees the dreams we hide
-- Peter Case, "Hidden Love"

Van Morrison -- Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Speaking of Van, here's my take on his just-issued Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Andyman's Treehouse/More Bobcat Love

Friday night Kate and I ventured forth to Andyman's Treehouse, a nondescript (except for one critical feature, noted below) dive bar in an industrial neighborhood of Columbus, to see a couple bands. Andyman is program director at CD101, Columbus' "alternative" station, which means that, in contrast to QFM96, which is stuck in a late '70s Boston/Fleetwood Mac/REO Speedwagon timewarp, the alternative station is stuck in a Nirvana/Pixies/Smiths/Cure late '80s/early '90s timewarp. It's okay. I'm convinced that Columbus will eventually have a station that plays non-Top-40 current music.

In any event, the Treehouse is aptly named. There is a large tree that protrudes up through the middle of the floor in the performance area. It's kind of cool when you aren't trying to watch bands perform. It's fairly intrusive when you are. I had a hard time seeing around the massive trunk.

I caught Frontier Ruckus and Southeast Engine, my first time for the former band, and maybe my fifth or sixth time for the latter. Frontier Ruckus, from Lansing, Michigan, played a short Americana-laced set; all banjos and keening vocals, with occasionally unexpected trumpet and musical saw peaking through to set them apart slightly from the other thousand bands plying their rootsy trade. They were decent; nothing to get overly excited about, but I liked the trumpet and musical saw. Southeast Engine was out promoting their new album From the Forest to the Sea, and it's another great one. Adam Remnant is a very, very fine songwriter, and I love the mix of cracked, world-weary vocals and early Elvis Costello and the Attractions musical accompaniment. Those who love poetic, biblical imagery and songs about being a sinful asshole loved by God will find much to admire. Fans of bands such as Vigilantes of Love, Pedro the Lion, and Sixteen Horsepower should take note. I left before The Coke Dares and The Kyle Sowashes took the stage. It was 11:30; time for all good middle-aged-slouching-toward-senility music writers to be in bed.

Saturday morning we ventured down to Athens, Ohio, home of Ohio University, and current residence of my daughter Rachel. She's doing well, and it was great to see her. We ate lunch at a place called Bagel Street Deli, where the winsome young coeds behind the counter were making sandwiches and singing and boogieing along to a song blaring over the speakers. The song? The Brazilian Girls' "Pussy Pussy Pussy Marijuana." Ah, Athens. It's amazing to me that in the space of 85 miles and an hour and forty-five minutes one can travel to a different universe than the one I normally inhabit.

After lunch I ventured over to Donkey Coffee and Espresso, the best coffee house in Ohio. I had a great hour and a half conversation with owner and proprieter Chris Pyle, who also doubles (triples? quadruples?) as music impresario, record producer, and rock 'n roll band member. There aren't that many people in my life who will throw out statements such as: "True or False, R.E.M. is the second greatest American band ever." Chris is one of those people. We had a great time, talking about music and life, more or less in that order. The guys from Southeast Engine (Athens natives) stopped by, too, and it was fun to hang out with them and debate the merits of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Then I wandered over to Haffa's Records, where the guys behind the counter were debating whether Elvis Presley was the third-best rock 'n roll performer ever. It must be something in the water. These conversations never seem to occur in Westerville, Ohio. Ortho Weed 'n Feed vs. Scott's Turfbuilder, yes, but not Elvis Presley or Van Morrison.

Kate and Rachel and I took a long walk around the campus and environs, and eventually ended up at Salaam, a Turkish restaurant, for dinner. There a woman belly danced with a sword on her head. I studiously looked down at my Lamb Kofte and tried not to look at the belly, although the sword was a little worrisome. It was exactly parallel to my jugular vein. She was a pro, though, and finished her performance with nary a slip. Thank God.

We drove back home in a snowstorm and made it to church on time yesterday, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to take on fourteen toddlers in Sunday School. It was a fun weekend.

The Buddy System

Please pray for Buddy Miller. Buddy suffered a heart attack in Baltimore on Thursday, then underwent triple bypass surgery. He's recovering, but still in very serious condition.

In a world full of massive egos and jerky behavior, Buddy Miller is a seriously great singer and guitarist, a humble and self-effacing human being, and an all-around nice guy. He's played guitar for just about everybody (currently Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and Patty Griffin), he's made five stellar solo albums, and several duets albums with his wife Julie, who complements Buddy's vocal and instrumental gifts by writing some of the best songs you'll ever hear. Separately and together, they are magic.

When I go don't cry for me
In my fathers arms I'll be
The wounds this world left on my soul
Will all be healed and I'll be whole

Sun and moon will be replaced
With the light of Jesus' face
And I will not be ashamed
For my savior knows my name

It don't matter where you bury me
I'll be home and I'll be free
It don't matter where I lay
All my tears be washed away

Gold and silver blind the eye
Temporary riches lie
Come and eat from heaven's store
Come and drink and thirst no more

So weep not for me my friend
When my time below does end
For my life belongs to him
Who will raise the dead again
-- Buddy and Julie Miller, "All My Tears"

But not yet. Please pray.

New Reviews/Articles at Paste

Some of these are or will be in the print publication, but if you'd like a quick view ...

Joltin' Joe and the Hospice Bed
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys -- The Tiffany Transcriptions
Bruce Springsteen -- Working on a Dream
Southeast Engine -- From the Forest to the Sea

Interviewing for Non-Jobs

I've had two firsts this week. I've had two stellar, knock-the-ball-out-of-the-park job interviews, wowing even myself and impressing recruiters (I think) with my general erudition, articulateness, technical savvy, and overall suave and debonair approach to life, not to mention my humility, only to be informed, at the end of my virtuoso performances, that the companies actually have no job openings.

Excuse my non-suavity: why the hell would you do this? Why would you interview someone when you don't have any jobs for which you might want to hire them? Well, I asked that question, in slightly more polite form. And here's what I was told: We want to have a corral full of qualified candidates once the job market opens up.

So I've been part of the general cattle call. Moo. There's nothin' out there, folks. Nobody's hiring. And when I say nothin', I'm not exaggerating. I guess technical recruiters need to keep busy, too.

Upcoming Columbus Concerts

It's a great time to be an indie music fan in Columbus, Ohio. I caught my buddy Matt Beckler (with full band!) at Skully's Sunday night. I loved the new sound.

This Friday (2/20) offers the indie extragavanza of The Kyle Sowashes (you have to admire the chutzpah of a guy who names a band after himself), Frontier Ruckus, Southeast Engine (pictured above) and The Coke Dares (basically terrific Bloomington, Indiana band Magnolia Electric Co. without Jason Molina) at Andyman's Treehouse, 887 Chambers Rd. There will be many beards.

I've written about Southeast Engine several times here. They're celebrating the release of their new album From the Forest to the Sea, which I review in the next issue of Paste. You need to see them. As an added bonus, you get three other bands, two of which I can vouch for. Frontier Ruckus is a terrible name for a band, but they sound great, and incorporate banjos and trumpets into the same Americana songs. And The Coke Dares are amazing, and remind me of what Guided By Voices would sound like if Black Francis/Frank Black was fronting the band. I'm not sure about Kyle, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for his cojones.

Next Saturday night (2/28) we get Boston band Gretel at Cafe Rumba on Summit St. just south of Hudson. I've written about Gretel, too. Reva Williams (also pictured above) is one of my favorite songwriters, period, and she'll bring her big, soulful voice and poetic songs of angst and dis-ease. For those of you who like songs written from a distinctly Christian sensibility, but which are a million miles removed from CCM, you're in for a treat. You'll also hear musical saw.

Come on out and join me if you're able.

Benjy Ferree Redux

I keep coming back to this album (Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee). Pitchfork criticized it for being too minutely focused on Bobby Driscoll. AMG faulted it for being a concept record with a muddled concept.

I'd say that both the PFork and AMG reviews are partially correct. There is a strong, almost obsessive, focus on Bobby Driscoll. And the references to Driscoll and his career/life are so obscure and insular that it's very possible to hear those references as muddled. There are, for instance, numerous references in the album to "pieces of eight" and "doubloons." I'm sure that for many listeners those could create some WTF moments. They make sense if one happens to know that Driscoll played a major role in Disney's Treasure Island. But Ferree doesn't spell it out, and he assumes that the listener is already familiar with the minutiae of Driscoll's life, or that listeners are willing to do a little research. Those are probably faulty assumptions.

But there's something doggedly thrilling about this album, akin to a three-page footnote in a David Foster Wallace essay, or Faulkner rambling on about Mississippi in a five-page run-on sentence. This album is either a work of genius or the most wrong-headed, misguided music you'll hear this year. I'm more inclined toward the former view, although I'll readily admit that it's a challenging and sometimes unrewarding listen. I've never heard anything quite like it, these glam blues, and although I hear the Jack White and Bowie and Freddie Mercury influences, I'm most impressed by the fact that Benjy Ferree has made an album that is, in many ways, without precedent. I'd probably give it five stars for its sheer uniqueness and for the doo-wop existential dread of "Fear," and then knock off a star because of those faulty assumptions.

Paul Edwards

For for those of you who might be in or around the Detroit area, or within radio hailing distance, I'm going to be speaking about music on Paul Edwards' radio program at 4:00 p.m. EST this Thursday, February 19th. That's WLQV, 1500 on your AM radio dial.

You can also stream the show live from the website linked above.

The Waiting

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
-- Tom Petty, "The Waiting"

At a certain point -- and it doesn't take all that long in this economy -- you've done everything you can do. You've contacted every employed person you know, you've filled out all the online applications you can fill out, and you've searched every job search site that can be searched. At that point you sit back and wait.

And the waiting really is the hardest part. My job interview this morning was canceled. The recruiting person has a sick kid, so we've rescheduled for later in the week. It's okay. It's given me a chance to rehearse my spiel in my head, and to pray for a woman I don't know and her sick son. There's merit in that. And I have two other interviews scheduled for later in the week as well. That's good, I keep telling myself. So I changed out of the monkey suit, and I headed for the den, where I do my waiting. Now I sit waiting for the phone to ring. I wait for an email to pop up, and hope that it's not another advertisement for erectile dysfunction medication. At least the email pops up.

In theory, this time should provide me a welcome respite from writing about database capacity planning and database stored procedures, and should offer a fine opportunity to write about the things I actually like to write about. In reality, it's hard to focus on music when I'm not sure how the bills are going to be paid. I need to revise a long article about Bruce Springsteen that I've written for Image Journal, and instead I keep thinking about the Boss I don't have. I've done remarkably well during my first five-and-a-half days of Life Without A Job. I've been in good spirits, I've been able to focus on others, and I've honestly experienced a measure of peace and joy. This is the grace of God. Today I'm not doing as well. I'm simply waiting. And the waiting is the hardest part. It's time to take it on faith. So wish me faith. And hope and love.

Strange Life

It's a very odd life. In the past twelve hours I have had two preliminary phone interviews for new jobs, set up two in-person interviews, been contacted by several friends/acquaintances who have provided job leads, interviewed a Norwegian pop star at his home in Oslo, and agreed to be interviewed on a radio show by a Conservative Christian Radio Personality(TM) in Detroit.

It's been a curious mixture of grovelling and showmanship. I have to remember which is which (e.g., whether the word "cool" is improper or expected in a given conversation; same with "database capacity planning" and "blood of the Lamb"). I'm thankful for new opportunities. I'm astonishingly upbeat. I've learned how to say "Frode Stromstad" in the proper Norwegian way. And I'm thankful to God, and I'm not just saying that for the benefit of the Conversative Christian Radio Personality.

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Will Work For Food

I need an economic stimulus package, specifically one that will allow me to make the mortgage payments, buy food and insurance, pay the doctor bills and buy the medicine, and put two kids through college.

This morning I was laid off from my IT consulting company, the casualty, along with about 40 other consultants who were twiddling their thumbs, of an economy where nobody wants any consultants. It wasn't a surprise. I've been twiddling my thumbs since the beginning of the year, waiting in vain for something to open up. Nothing did. And companies, damn them, won't continue to pay peoples' salaries when they're not doing any work. There are only so many online training courses one can take. So I'm now highly trained in project management methodologies and business analysis use cases, ready to join the unemployment line.

It's happening all over, I know. My situation is no different from that of millions of other Americans. And I've been through this before. It actually gets really old really quickly. What may be new this time is that there don't appear to be any jobs for which to search. That's what's particularly scary. For those of you who are praying types, I'd appreciate your prayers. This does afford me a fine opportunity to learn, once more, that God is in control. It's fairly evident that I'm not.

Benjy Ferree -- Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee

Here's a recipe for commercial suicide: write a concept album about an obscure Disney child star turned adult homeless addict, sprinkle in liberal doses of surrealistic imagery, and toss in a variety of musical influences, from the strutting glam rock of T. Rex to the multi-tracked vocal bombast of Freddie Mercury to the raw country blues of Son House. That's what D.C. singer/songwriter Benjy Ferree does on his sophomore album Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee. Naturally, no one will know what to do with this hopelessly convoluted mashup. Naturally, it's a pretty great album.

Bobby Dee, in this case, is Bobby Driscoll, who starred in Disney's Peter Pan (among others), hit puberty, suffered a bad case of acne, was dropped by the studio, developed a nasty habit of sticking needles in his arm, and died destitute and unknown at the ripe old age of 31. Ferree tells his story in some detail, dropping obscure references to Driscoll roles and Disney plots, but he abandons the biographical ephemera long enough to get metaphysical, and that's when he's great. "Fear," the single that no one will hear, is terrific in its evocation of surrealistic existential dread, whipped up into a '50s doo-wop froth and capped by some fine Bowie glam histrionics. It's a brilliant song, the kind of thing Franz Kafka and the Dung Beetles might have sung around the oil-drum fire on some street corner in Philly. If "Fear" is the unmistakeable highlight, Ferree does himself proud on the more straightforward glam tunes, and his Marc Bolan impersonation is one of the best I've heard. It's all a little too insular and minutely focused to connect universally, but there are moments of real transcendence and beauty here. Bobby Dee is strange, quirky, and musically bracing. It's got no chance, but prove me wrong and check it out anyway.

Ronald Koal

Todd Novak and Ed Shuttlesworth, both of whom played guitar in bands fronted by the inimitable Ronald Koal, have started a MySpace page dedicated to the memory of Columbus' finest rocker. Check it out, listen to the music, watch the videos, and understand why a few of us who remember still miss the man.

Here's a piece I wrote about Ronald a couple years ago in Paste Magazine.

--------------------------------

Ronald Koal wanted to make rock ‘n roll. But more than that, he wanted to be a rock ‘n roll star; lounge in the back of limousines, cavort with groupies, and acquire an expensive drug habit. He ended up with two out of three; just another addicted musician with his fifteen minutes of local fame, a handful of sycophantic hangers-on, and a broken-down van for his band’s gear. The limousine never materialized. But during those fifteen minutes he made brutally powerful, transcendent rock ‘n roll. His story is mirrored in a thousand towns and cities across America. He was the charismatic kid with great talent who never quite got his act together, who never caught that one big break, who was one step away from the big-label contract and the big-money tour. And in this case, it killed him.

In 1980, when Ronald Koal formed his band The Trillionaires in Columbus, Ohio, anything was possible. The New Wave movement was in full flower, and in the glorious, heady days between the rise of punk and the ascendancy of MTV, all the old rules were tossed aside, A&R shills at the big record labels were befuddled, and anybody and everybody tried their hand at rock ‘n roll. Art school dweebs, computer programmers, and Playboy bunnies all rushed to fill the breach, and eventually ended up in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. And so it seemed like a reasonable gambit for a brash, precocious, gender-conflicted kid from the suburbs of a Midwestern cowtown.

The early gigs were legendary. Sporting a Mohawk, heavy eyeliner, and a half dozen costume changes every hour, Koal was part Bowie androgynous pinup and part Jim Morrison shaman, howling his poetic confessions, offering up angst-ridden psychic dramas that were frequently disquieting in their intensity and ferocity. The Trillionaires camped it up behind him, mixing homages to surf instrumentals and lurid Grade B sci-fi soundtracks with furious Clash-inspired punk. But this was Ronald’s show, and Ronald played the rock star to the hilt, a new Ziggy Stardust for the Buckeye Nation. “Get up and shout/Get up and sing/Destination Zero,” he sang, casting his arms wide, a nihilistic evangelist, and his audience, crammed shoulder to shoulder, often standing outside in the rain, looking in to a packed bar, did exactly that. “He’s the most magnetic, electrifying rock ‘n roll singer I’ve ever seen,” a friend marveled at the time. I didn’t disagree. There were rumors of a move to New York, tours with The Ramones or The Talking Heads, an impending multi-album deal with Sire or Stiff Records. “Catch him now before he ends up playing the big arenas,” everyone said, and I did – forty, fifty times over the course of a couple years. And he was almost always great, although there were the occasional lapses of interest, evidence of boredom, and moments of cynical malaise that surrounded the rock ‘n roll circus.

His first album, Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires, came out on the Columbus-based No Other Records in 1982. The label name came close to being prophetic. Who knows what all the factors were, really? A peripatetic career far removed from the rock ‘n roll movers and shakers, a lack of distribution, and mediocre production probably all played a part. But aside from a few positive reviews in indie magazines, the album sank without a trace.

And something broke at that time. Koal, who always alternated between bouts of supreme arrogance and debilitating self-doubt, fired and hired band members willy nilly, stopped writing new material, and showed up wasted at gigs or missed them altogether. He continued to play to local crowds, but his moment had passed, and the numbers dwindled. He moved to New York City in the late 1980s, quite belatedly, and tried to connect with a new audience, but the New Wave that he tried to crest in on was long played out. A solo album, White Light, with its obvious Velvet Underground influences, emerged in 1990. It was another great album that no one heard.

No one really knows what happened after that. Koal moved to Germany in the early 1990s, met and married a local fraulein, and set up shop in Berlin, where he played a few gigs. The marriage didn’t last, the gigs dwindled, a new album failed to materialize, and Ronald Koal put a bullet in his brain sometime during the early morning hours of May 8th, 1993. He was 33 years old.

There are probably hundreds of musicians like Ronald Koal, human detritus washed ashore by bad choices or just plain hard luck, and unless you lived in or around Columbus, Ohio, it’s unlikely you’ve ever heard of him. Some would argue that he doesn’t merit the attention, that he was just another has-been, a loser who couldn’t adjust to the sometimes harsh realities of life. I remember instead his early gigs, the promise of greatness, the delicious, breathless anticipation of seeing unbridled creativity and passion spark and ignite. What is left are memories, ephemeral and fading, too few songs, the unanswerable questions that always seem to reside in the sobering gap between what was and what might have been.

Creature Comforts

You know the guy in your neighborhood who lives for Halloween, and who wraps himself up in Ace bandages so he looks like The Mummy, and who buys a coffin for his front yard, and who lies down in his Mummy suit in the coffin, waiting for the little two-year-old kids to saunter unsuspectingly up the driveway so he can scare the crap out of them and psychologically scar them for life (thank God for diapers, eh)?

Last night I hung out with that guy. Thanks to my dad's death (is it any wonder that this kind of guy reads the obituaries?), my childhood friend David and I have reconnected. David has a house full of old monster movie posters, dinosaur models, Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Blob figurines, Star Wars parephernalia, robots, and grotesque rubber masks. I haven't really seen David since late childhood. He was, inexplicably, a nice guy, albeit a guy who certainly lives in his own little bubble of a spooky, disfigured world. He has found a way to woo a woman and sire a child, both of whom also appear to be obsessed with his interests. It takes all kinds. I was glad to see him. I think.

The 2009 Grammy Awards

Almost every year I find myself getting sucked in to this extravaganza. I admit that I'll hate myself in the morning, but I do it anyway. O wretched man that I am, who is there to save me?

This year I don't hate myself as much as usual. Although the Grammys will always be a celebration of style and popularity over substance, there were several performances I actually liked, among them Radiohead's/The USC Marching Band's (best performance since Fleetwood Mac's Tusk) take on "15 Steps," Justin Timberlake and T.I. (now there's a phrase I never expected to type), and Paul McCartney's surprisingly sprightly version of "I Saw Her Standing There."

There were the usual headscratching mashups (Stevie Wonder and The Jonas Brothers? Sugarland and Adele?), but overall I thought the performances were more interesting and varied than usual. The awards? I don't really give a rip, although if somebody has to win these things, it might as well be Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I think Alison Krauss has won something like 173 Grammys now. It's hard to fault someone, though, who sings and plays so well, and is so self-effacingly shy. And Robert Plant! I'll even let it slide that I've had Raising Sand for something like two years now.

Artist Most in Need of an Editor/Sane Voice of Reason to Say "Ack! That's a Horrible, Bloated Idea" and "No, No, You Need to Pare It Way, Way Back"

The candidates are:

1) Ryan Adams
2) Robert Pollard
3) Bill Mallonee
4) Bruce Springsteen (kidding; but less so on the last time out)

And the winner/loser is ... Robert Pollard.

I have varying degrees of respect for all the candidates, and downright love and affection for the last three. Still, the former Guided By Voices frontman is the easy winner here, primarily because his three going concerns (Boston Spaceships, Circus Devils, and solo Bob) churn out new albums on the order of one per month, and because every one of them has a couple inspired moments surrounded by utterly mind-numbing, pointless lyrical and musical swill. Pollard's latest solo effort The Crawling Distance is typical. It's his umpteenth record of the past year (honestly, I've lost count). It's got the usual jangly guitar riffage inspired by the British Invasion. It's got songs with inscrutable titles ("The Butler Stands For All Of Us," "By Silence Be Destroyed"), and lyrics that split the difference between non-sequiturs and vagueness. It's got great hooks that meander off into plodding noodling. It's got occasional memorable lines that never hang together long enough to suggest a broader meaning and context. It's a mess.

I miss the guy who used to only put out two puzzling, infuriatingly inconsistent, and frequently great lo-fi albums per year.

Most Disappointing Albums

I've been forcing myself to listen to Bruce Springsteen's latest album, Working on a Dream. I keep hoping that my initial dismay will pass. So far, it's not working. Those of you who know me know that I love Bruce Springsteen. I would hop in the car with him and drive off down Thunder Road, pushing Mary out of the front seat if I had to. I would walk through Jungleland with him, braving the gang warfare. I would go through hell and back for Bruce Springsteen. But I will not listen to this new album another time. It's too painful.

And that made me wonder about the albums that you and I might consider as the most disappointing albums we've ever heard. To be a Disappointing Album is not the same thing as to be a Horrendously Bad Album. We expect some albums to be Horrendously Bad, and they are, and we don't really care. The entire Ratt catalog comes to mind, briefly. But Disappointing Albums elicit a special pain. We like the artists who create them, and we want to like the work they create, but for whatever reasons, we can't find it within ourselves to muster much, if any, enthusiasm for the misguided mess we hear.

Here are my candidates for Most Disappointing Albums. What are yours?

-- Bruce Springsteen -- Working on a Dream

Bruce tries to croon. Bad idea. Bruce sings about finding true love at the checkout counter of the supermarket. Stupid idea. Bruce tries to write an outlaw tale that sounds like something Weird Al Yankovic would come up with if he was writing a parody of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. Mind-numbingly misguided idea.

The Sex Pistols – The Great Rock ‘n Roll Swindle

They put it right out there in the title, but still. The concentrated venom and rage of Never Mind the Bollocks … gave way to this? A disco medley of Sex Pistols “hits”? A French version of “Anarchy in the U.K.,” complete with accordion solo? Sid Vicious’ transcendently awful rendition of Sinatra’s “My Way”? It’s hard to exaggerate just how far that middle finger was extended to the fans. This is a band that had to break up. No one would have bought a third album.

Bob Dylan – Self Portrait/Dylan/Down in the Groove/Dylan and the Dead

It’s a four-way tie for the Voice of a Generation. Bob Dylan has left more unreleased masterpieces in the can than any other songwriter has written masterpieces. But periodically he feels the need to short circuit his magnificent career by releasing tediously uninspired performances of his own songs (see that album with The Dead) and addled covers of contemporary songwriters such as Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon and easy-listening pop classics (“Let It Be Me,” “A Fool Such as I”).

The Pogues – Peace and Love

The Pogues had set the bar so high with Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace With God that a letdown was inevitable. Still, when it came, the crash was mighty. Shane MacGowan seems distant and uninvolved, the other songwriters aren’t able to pick up the slack, and the playing seems lifeless and dispirited.

Fleetwood Mac – Fleetwood Mac/Rumours

I’m being blasphemous, I know. I don’t care. I think Lindsey Buckingham is a pretty good songwriter. And I can’t stand Stevie Nicks, the Embraceable Ewe, and I’ll probably never get over the direction Buckingham and Nicks steered my favorite band. Yeah, yeah, they sold 50 million records and made a bunch of classics. Not to my ears. I loved the obscure but entirely praiseworthy Danny Kirwan/Bob Welch band that preceded this one. Check out Future Games and Bare Trees and listen to the band when they were at their peak.