Dylan at 75

New York, NY -- Feb. 17, 2016

Bob Dylan's 115th studio album It Doesn't Feeeeel At All Anymore will be released to coincide with the venerable musician's 75th birthday, on May 24th, 2016. Mr. Dylan, now confined to his nursing home bed except for seventy to eighty smoke breaks during the day, recorded the album over the course of several months last summer and fall. The unique circumstances of the recording sessions (e.g., the need to stop for oxygen intake roughly every thirty seconds) contributed to what longtime Dylan apologist Clinton Heylin refers to as the "breathless" quality of the music. "He can barely mumble anymore," Heylin says, "and when he's got a bit of oxygen in him, he tries to squeeze in as many words as he can. It's almost impossible to understand him, very much like the amphetamine-fueled days of the '66 tour." The twelve tracks, split between eight covers and four original compositions, reflect Dylan's ongoing obsessions with mortality, spirituality, and young women.

Track List

1. Hand Me Down My Walking Cane
2. Don't Get Around Much Anymore
3. Positively Mayo Clinic*
4. It Was a Very Good Year
5. Bad Girls
6. Bingo With a Bimbo*
7. My Generation
8. The Way We Were
9. Silver Threads Among the Gold
10. Idiot Anesthesiologist*
11. Hey Nineteen
12. Last Night I Dreamed of an Erection*

* = New Dylan composition

Dylan at 70

So it’s been five years since I did this. And now Bob Dylan is 70, an unseemly age at which rock ‘n rollers need to seriously consider a future involving adult diapers and pureed food. “How terribly strange to be 70,” Paul Simon once sang, and he was right. He’s only got a couple months to go now, too. You keep waking up in the morning, and before you know it, it happens.

In the intervening five years Bob Dylan has, with characteristic implausibility, released a lot of music. Some of it is old (the historic Newport Folk Festival recordings from ’63 to ’65, the superb collection of outtakes and alternate song versions called Tell Tale Signs, the oft-bootlegged Witmark Demos, and a ’63 concert recording from Brandeis University). Some of it is new (the ridiculously great Modern Times, the mediocre Together Through Life, and the merely ridiculous Christmas in the Heart).

He’s kind of set in his ways now, so you get the feeling that the utter unpredictability of the man and his work is probably not going to change. He is, without a doubt, the greatest songwriter and the single greatest presence in the history of what could loosely be construed as rock ‘n roll. But the fact is that rock ‘n roll has never been big enough to encompass what this man does, which ranges from Delta blues to hallucinatory poetry to honky-tonk jukebox anthems to gentle folk to schmaltzy MOR, complete with sappy strings and heavenly host choir accompaniment. And that’s just in the last five years.

At some point he will probably stop making music. But he’ll go out with his boots on and his harmonica rack strapped to his guitar, and the Neverending Tour will have to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. I hope that’s a long, long way off. Happy birthday, Bob. His biography at All Music Guide starts off with “Bob Dylan’s influence on popular music is incalculable.” That’s correct, and I won’t even begin to try to tote it up. But I’ll still marvel at what the man has done, and is doing. He won’t care about that, or about anything else written or said about him. He will go on being Bob Dylan. I suspect that’s part of the reason why we love him.

Letting It Rip

Letting It Rip, at Image Journal.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Forty years ago this week Every Picture Tells a Story arrived on American shores. It was Rod Stewart’s third solo album, but nobody was really counting at the time. That’s because Rod Stewart was everywhere in 1971, and his albums with his superb band Faces were rivaling those of The Rolling Stones as the best that rock ‘n roll could offer.

For anyone who knows Rod Stewart only from his cheesy pop ballads (“Tonight’s the Night,” “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”) and his incessantly bland covers of the songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin, it may come as something of a shock to know that at one point he was the greatest rock ‘n roll singer in the world. But he was. He proved it on this album, where he took a bunch of old and decidedly placid folk, country, and R&B songs, and simply rocked the shit out of them. The fact that he did this with fiddles, pedal steel, acoustic guitars, and mandolins as lead instruments (and, okay, the world’s most primitive drummer in Micky Waller) is all the more remarkable.

There are a few exemplary Stewart originals here – “Mandolin Wind,” the title track, and, of course, “Maggie May.” But it’s the covers that still astound me. Whether obscure (Ted Anderson, anyone?) or blazingly obvious (Bob Dylan, Elvis, The Temptations), Rod’s covers on this album remain the definitive versions of these songs. There are eight songs here, spread out over about forty-five minutes. Okay, so Rod had yet to figure out how to write a catchy three-minute single (and I, for one, am never going to forgive him “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?,” in spite of its admirable brevity). So he left a lot of room for the band to jam. Good thing, too, or we would have never heard Ronnie Wood’s finest six minutes as a guitarist on the title track, or Lindisfarne’s Ray Jackson play those poignant mandolin codas on “Maggie May” or “Mandolin Wind.” What we have here is as close to a perfect album as the seventies produced. If you’ve never heard it, do yourself a favor and discover one of the classics.

Nelsonville Music Fest, 2011

Nelsonville, Ohio doesn't have much going for it. There used to be a shoe factory in town, but it closed up shop a long time ago. Now 10,000 people hang out and don't do much of anything. There isn't much w0rk outside of the fast-food restaurants and gas stations. The more enterprising citizens run meth labs out on the Back 40, and there's plenty of open spaces right outside of town to raise illegal cash crops to sell to the college kids in Athens, 15 miles down the road. And that's about it.

Or was about it, until about ten years ago. That's when a couple idealistic entrepreneurs bought an old, abandoned opera house in the center of town, refurbished it, and started bringing in national music acts. People trekked down from Columbus, 60 miles north. People trekked up from Athens, 15 miles south. It's not exactly a rags-to-riches story, but they made enough cash to do something truly audacious: start a major music festival out in the middle of nowhere, in the Appalachian foothills where nobody with any sense ever stops.

That was seven years ago. And it's taken off, sort of. By that I mean the musical acts have gotten bigger, the scope has gotten grander, and the three days in mid-May that it all goes down are the musical highlight of the year for quite a few people. But this isn't Bonnaroo or Coachella, where you can watch your favorite band from half a mile away. This is Nelsonville, Ohio, where 5,000 people show up, maybe 10,000 if the weather is nice, where you can cozy right up to the stage, and where you're liable to run into Willie Nelson or Loretta Lynn strolling the grounds. For some of us, it's just about the best music event in the world.

It's happening again, starting Friday afternoon and extending through Sunday evening. That's Sharon Jones and her Dap Kings up there to the left, who put on one hell of a show last year. Sharon won't be there this year, but here's who'll show up:

FLAMING LIPS
GEORGE JONES
NEKO CASE
Yo La Tengo
Wanda Jackson
Justin Townes Earle
Over The Rhine
Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger
Lost in the Trees
Bomba Estereo
Mucca Pazza
The Growlers
Michael Hurley
Drakkar Sauna
Doug Paisley
Ned Oldham & Old Calf
Baby Dee
Y La Bamba
Cheyenne Marie Mize
Southeast Engine
The Honeycutters
Chooglin'
Samantha Crain
The Spikedrivers
Sgt. Dunbar & The Hobo Banned
Nick Tolford and Co.
Mount Carmel
Wheels On Fire
Black Owls
She Bears
The Black Swans
Hex Net
Octopus & Owl
Duke Junior + The Smokey Boots
Scubadog
Whale Zombie
Weedghost
Rattletrap
Jerry DeCicca
Eve Searls
Shelby Carter
Jess & Kyle
Zeb Dewar
Bruce Dalzell
Todd Burge
Chris Biester
Matt Moore
The Lovesick Blues
Seth Riddlebarger
Bill Wagner & Brett Burleson
Shazzbots
Flyaway Saturn
Elemental Revolver

That deck is stacked, but clearly the aces are on top. Most people will come for The Flaming Lips, and that's fine. If it brings people to Nelsonville, Ohio, I'm for it. Personally, I'm most excited about George Jones (who will, I trust, show up) and Neko Case. I look forward to seeing rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson and indie stalwarts Yo La Tengo for the first time, and Justin Townes Earle and Over the Rhine for the umpteenth time. Some of those folks farther down the list make me pretty happy, too. Michael Hurley is a freak-folk original, a guy who's been writing wonderful and bizarre songs since the '60s. Drakkar Sauna recorded an album of Louvin Brothers covers a few years back that I thought was just swell. Doug Paisley is a Nashville renegage who writes literate, thoughtful, and wryly humorous country songs. I've already told my kids we need to get on the road early Saturday so we can catch Baby Dee. Baby Dee used to be a he, is now a she, and writes some of the most transparently beautiful piano ballads you will ever hear. My longtime buddies and Athens favorites Southeast Engine are playing Saturday afternoon, right on the heels of their new album that has received ecstatic reviews almost everywhere. I can't wait to see them. Jerry DeCicca and his fine Columbus country-noir band Black Swans are playing separately and together. Eve Searls, who I've only encountered in her fine band Super Desserts, is apparently playing a solo set. Oklahoma singer/songwriter Samantha Crain, whose 2009 album Songs in the Night knocked me flat, is playing a solo set. And my buddy Professor Josh Antonuccio, who doubles as an extraordinary music producer, is playing with his band Scubadog.

There is so much to see and hear. Couple that with anticipated reunions with lots of friends I haven't seen in a while, and a chance to spend three days with my daughters, both back home, albeit momentarily, from farflung universities, and you have the makings of one fine extended weekend. I suppose it's also worth mentioning that this is the biggest bargain in the music world. Three days of non-stop music will set you back a whopping $70. You should come. You won't regret it.

Okkervil River -- I Am Very Far

Here's my Paste review of the new Okkervil River album I Am Very Far, one of the highlights of this still-young musical year.

Poems, Never Read

Butcher knives and flowers. Poems, Never Read, at the Image Journal.

The Kick in the Crotch

My immediate reaction when I heard the news this morning was relief. Good. Good riddance. And I still believe that. But I didn't, and don't, feel like celebrating. Within about fifteen seconds my mind had turned to thoughts of, "Hmm, I wonder where the terrorists will strike next?" Because they will. We destroyed the figurehead of an insidious movement, but we have not destroyed the movement. And all the gloating, all the flag-waving, will do nothing but further incite people who are bent on hating and destroying us.

I posted some MLK and biblical quotes on Facebook today not because I wanted to be preachy and santimonious, but because I actually believe them. I think Jesus' teaching about these issues is fairly clear, and I try to take those teachings seriously. I certainly understand that there is a lot of room for differing views here, but what I don't understand is how Christians can condone and celebrate a spirit of vengeance, and how they can justify and gloat about the use of, for example, waterboarding, which apparently led to some of the information that resulted in bin Laden's demise. I guess the ends really do justify the means. I'm not sure where I read that, but I don't think it was the Bible.

There is much that I find dispiriting, unseemly, and distasteful about the events of the past 24 hours. Celebration is fairly far from my mind. So good riddance. But let's not pretend that there's anything remotely Christian about these proceedings. I know, it's a fallen world, and idealism gets kicked in the crotch every time. But don't ask me to cheer the kick in the crotch.

Both Girls Hoax Revealed

I have been listening to the self-titled album from Both Girls. It's a fine electronica/folkie kind of album, with surprisingly literate lyrics for people who play around with synthesizers. And there's a song about Ohio. You should buy it, and you can do so right here.

But something puzzled me all along, left me uneasy, staring up at the ceiling at 3:00 a.m., trying to unravel the mystery. There was a certain hint of je ne sais quoi in the vocal timbre that simply didn't jive with the title. Now, these are lovely girls, but they have surprisingly deep voices. And I became suspicious.

After several weeks of sleuthing, careful analysis of vocal tics, painstakingly meticulous reseach into the lowest limits that the female voice can reach, and Google searches on the term "Both Girls," I can now reveal the shocking truth. Both girls are ... well, you be the judge. Take a look at this:


I know, the evidence is circumstantial at best. These are half faces. They could be anybody. But they are most emphatically not girls. Not even bearded women can grow hair like that dude on the right. And although the fuzzy down on that "girl" on the left could theoretically be grown by a woman, "she" just doesn't look like a girl, does she?

So enjoy the album. It's a good one. But I thought it proper to warn you so you're not taken in by this hoax. Both Girls, my ass.

Steve Earle -- I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

My review of Steve Earle's latest album at Christianity Today.

Glasvegas -- Euphoric Heartbreak

Glasvegas' sophomore album Euphoric Heartbreak falls victim to all the sophomore slump stereotypes. Bigger budgets mean more studio tricks, popularity leads to self-importance, and all the good songs got used up the first time. It's rarely a good formula, and it isn't this time, either.

The self-titled debut revealed a hungry Glasgow band that played to its strengths -- big, earnest anthems about grinding poverty, single-parent families, social workers, pints, skirts, and gang warfare. It was the world the band knew, and they put it across with buzzing Jesus and Mary Chain guitars and a singer who could out-emote Bono. For Euphoric Heartbreak they've hired U2 mastermind Flood to handle the production duties, and Flood does what he does, slathering on the synths, playing tricks with reverb, and generally smothering everything that made the band special in the first place. Just as problematic is lead singer/songwriter James Allan's newfound tendency to replace what he knows with Generic Uplifting Anthems. One is called "The World Is Yours." One is called "You," which features the stirring chorus of "You, You, You." One is called "Shine Like Stars," where James assures us that "Yesterday all my happiness seemed so far away/Now it looks as though it's here to stay." One hopes that Paul McCartney is feeling charitable. Then there's the puzzling "Lots Sometimes," during which Allan repeats the title mantra (I think about you lots sometimes/I wonder if you ever loved me at all lots sometimes) some thirty or forty times. That's lots and lots and lots. Too much, particularly for a phrase that is awkward from the start.

It's all deeply disappointing. To his credit, Allan still has those wall-rattling vocal chords, and he still declaims in a thick Scots brogue that mercifully obscures many of the more wince-inducing lyrics. But the frothy bombast of Euphoric Heartbreak is a major misstep. There is heartbreak here, all right, but precious little euphoria that doesn't seem forced and artificial.

Forty Odd Years

Finally, Loudon gets his own boxed set -- Forty Odd Years, 5 discs and 87 tracks, out in May. It's about time. Better known these days as the father of Rufus and Martha, Loudon Wainwright III has simply compiled one of the great, underappreciated catalogs in contemporary music. I've written about him before. I'm sure I'll write about him again. That's because he never fails to astonish me in his ability to peel back the layers of propriety and respectability and say the things that really go on in human relationships. This isn't warts-'n-all songwriting. Hell, this is probing the cancer at the heart of families, and putting the malignant cells under the microscope. God bless him and his dysfunctional life.

Last week I attended a family affair
And a few remarked upon my recent growth of facial hair
You look just like your father did
With that beard someone said
I answered back I am him
Even though my old man's dead
I didn't want to be him
Well at first I did
When I loved & looked up to him
As a little kid

He sent me to his old school
I was a numeral with his name
And he gave me this gold signet ring
And he wore one just the same

And I guess that I believed him
And probably it was true
When he told me I was just like him
That's what some fathers do

But a father's always older
And my dad was rather tall
Who says size doesn't matter
He was big & I was small

I needed to be big enough
To be someone someday
And I learned I had to beat him
And that was the only way

I learned I had to fight him
My own flesh blood bone & kin
But I felt I was just like him
Can a man's son be his twin?

First we fought for my mother
That afforded little joy
When he left she was heart broken
And I was still their little boy
But I started to get bigger
And to win the ugly game
When I made a little money
And I got a bit of fame

And I saw how this could wound him
Yes this could do the trick
And if I made it big enough
I could kill him off quick
But how can you murder someone
In a way that they don't die?
I didn't want to kill him
That would be suicide

I got frightened so I backed off
I let up and I was through
And in the end he did himself in
Usually that's what we do

I'm alive and he is dead
And neither of us won
It's spoiled for the victor
Once the vanquishing is done
A man becomes immortal
Through his daughter or his son
But when he fears his legacy
A man can come undone

And the beard is a reminder
I'm a living part of him
Although my father's dead and gone
I'm his surviving twin

The Unthanks -- Last

This may be the second golden age of British folk music. Nothing against Fairport Convention, Pentangle, and Steeleye Span, but there’s no need to hearken back to the glory days of the early 1970s to find adventurous folk-based music pouring out of Albion. Mumford and Sons and Laura Marling have the more commercial folk-pop side covered. Johnny Flynn continues to ply his wry, literate songs as a Dickensian ragamuffin. Kate Rusby holds down the Trad Nightingale post quite admirably. And Alasdair Roberts continues to spin out his cockeyed tales of knights, fair damsels, and metaphysical conundrums.

Last, the latest album from The Unthanks – yes, Unthank being the surname of sisters Rachel and Becky – belongs in that storied company. Like 2009’s Here’s The Tender Coming, Last is firmly based in Trad Britfolk territory, but that foundation is twisted and subverted in fascinating and lovely ways. Song titles like “The Gallowgate Lad” and “My Laddie Sits Ower Late Up” clearly point out the ancient nature of the proceedings, but those looking for a straight Trad album will be surprised. The songs invariably receive a stately, elegiac treatment from producer, pianist, and arranger Adrian McNally (Rachel’s husband), and the resulting austere chamber music and measured, mid-tempo arrangements often bear striking resemblance to American slowcore band Low.

Rachel and Becky sing, of course, and their voices, whether trading solo verses or entwined in those incomparable sibling harmonies, are nothing short of breathtaking. The northern coal country accents are so thick that it is often difficult to follow the narratives, but it doesn’t require a lyrics sheet to hear the melancholic beauty of the sublime singing, or the unrelenting sadness that drifts through these songs. Duskier and rougher than the comparatively airy Kate Rusby, the sisters manage to convey both the idiosyncratic burr of their native Northumbria and a luminous soul. This is wonderful singing.

The songs are variations on a theme, whether they come from ancient sources, Tom Waits (“No One Knows I’m Gone”), King Crimson (“Starless”), or Northumbrian songwriters Alex Glasgow or Jon Redfern. Life is short. Tragedy is always just around the corner. Love is fleeting. And yet something remains. This is bittersweet music written from a hard country, and it looks unflinchingly at inexplicable events and still manages to hold out for beauty and goodness. I’ll take that formula any day, or any century, and Last is built to live up to its title. These are gorgeous songs that will remain long after the latest flavor of the month has disappeared.

1976

The summer of 1976 was a shitty time. Don’t let any Bicentennial nostalgist tell you differently. The U.S. had just been thrashed in Vietnam, Nixon had resigned in disgrace, and Gerald Ford presided over a deeply disgruntled nation.

Musically, it was a shitty time, too. Hippie dinosaur bands still roamed the planet, unwilling to accept the fact that they were irrelevant. The radio was dominated by corporate rockers like Journey and Styx and insipid pop stars like The Carpenters, America, and Tony Orlando and Dawn. Punk may have been bubbling up in places like Manhattan and London, but in Ohio we didn’t know about it. And on the home front, my girlfriend had broken up with me, my parents were in the midst of an endlessly messy relational breakdown, and I was working 60 or 70 hours per week at Red Lobster, peeling shrimp and cleaning toilets, generally with a handwashing in between, all so that I could go back to college in the fall. It was still better than being at home.

The one bright spot was Stevie Wonder. Stevie had been a bright spot for a while by that point, and he was in the midst of a string of albums that would define his greatness. Sometime during that summer I heard “Isn’t She Lovely” and “Sir Duke,” the two singles from Songs In The Key of Life, and they more than helped me cope. Then a couple months later, safely ensconced back in the dorm in Athens, Ohio, the album came out, and promptly blew my mind. Stevie was all over the place on this sprawling, 2-album set. He got funky. He got jazzy. He got supremely soulful. And he wrote love songs and social protest songs that were equally great. Thirty-five years later, Songs In the Key of Life remains one of my favorite albums. I played it again yesterday, and remembered 1976 all over again. Auld lang syne, and good riddance. But thank God for Stevie.

Favorite Ten Books?

Anybody want to play?

Collected Stories -- Flannery O'Connor

Jayber Crow -- Wendell Berry

Infinite Jest -- David Foster Wallace

Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens

The Brothers Karamazov -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

The Lord of the Rings -- J.R.R. Tolkien

The Heart of the Matter -- Graham Greene

Silas Marner -- George Eliot

The Moviegoer -- Walker Percy

Peace Like a River

My essay about a great hymn, and its relationship to March Madness, at Image Journal.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury Band - American Legacies

Bluegrass and Dixieland together? Believe it. Here's a link to my Paste review of the new Del McCoury Band/Preservation Hall Jazz Band album American Legacies.

New April Albums

There is so much great music being made on every front. And so little of it gets played in places where people might actually hear it, or talk about it. So I’ll try to write about it. It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got. Here are some superb albums that have been or will be released in the mid-March to late-April timeframe. Today’s edition is brought to you by the letters A, B, C, and D. Life is busy, but I’ll try to get to the remaining 22 letters as well.

Amor de Dias – Street of the Love of Days Amor de Dias is Alasdair MacLean from melancholic psych-poppers The Clientele and Spanish vocalist/instrumentalist Lupe Núñez-Fernández of the indie pop duo Pipas. The spirit of the 1960s hovers over this music, but the spirit is split fairly schizophrenically between chamber popsters like The Left Banke and Love and the tropicalia of Sergio Mendes and Brazil ‘66. I’m a big fan of The Clientele, so MacLean’s ethereally lovely songs are the highlights for me, but Núñez-Fernández’s bossa nova interludes offer a fun and bracing change.

Baby Dee – Regifted Light Baby Dee’s played harp in Central Park in a bear costume, was a church organist, and was a featured performer as a hermaphrodite in a Coney Island sideshow. Now, forget all that. Mention of that backstory is both inevitable and misleading. The music here is so lovely, the sentiments so open and gentle, that the expected camp (and there is a bit) fades to near irrelevance. This is a predominantly instrumental album, with Rachmaninov sturm and drang piano passages meeting bassoon, cello, and glockenspiel. When Baby Dee does sing (on four of the twelve songs), her voice is ravaged and the words are a healing balm. Like the mysterious pagan/Christian moon of the title track, these songs have been packaged up and offered as a gift. I, for one, am happy to receive it.

Brad Mehldau – Live in Marciac Another Brad Mehldau live album, this time a solo effort. And two CDs of solo piano at that. Uh-oh. Solo jazz piano albums run the serious risk of turning into snoozefests. But there’s no need to worry here. In typical eclectic fashion, Mehlau covers the Great American Songbook (Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein), the expected rock /indie touchstones (Nirvana, Lennon and McCartney, Nick Drake, Radiohead), and several shimmeringly beautiful originals. It’s yet another gorgeous and outrageously creative album from one of our most technically dazzling and adventurous jazz pianists.

Brave Irene – Brave Irene Rose Melberg is something of a Twee superstar, with previous recording stints in Tiger Trap, Go Sailor, The Softies, and under her own name. This time she fronts an all-girl band, and if the resulting songs on this short 8-song EP are still beholden to ‘60s girl groups like The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las, the guitars and swirling organ are straight out of late ‘80s/early ‘90s Kiwi pop from the likes of The Clean, The Chills, and The Bats. That is, and always will be, a superb combination.

Chris Bathgate – Salt Year My favorite of the myriad recent entries in the singer/songwriter department. Bathgate’s music could loosely be described as “folk,” although he mixes in enough mandolin and electric guitar to keep it interesting. He’s also a poet, and that’s what separates him from the nondescript masses. This is a sad song cycle about a bad year of relational breakdowns. It’s been done a thousand times before. But because he’s a poet, Bathgate stamps his own personality on the dour proceedings.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – It’s a Corporate World I receive a lot of music; far more than I have time to listen to. So sometimes a gimmick is needed to get my attention. In this case, the name of the band worked just fine. Who are these jokers? Well, yes, they’re jokers. But they’re also really talented popsters, with massive hooks lurking beneath those synth lines. They’re really funny, and they’re all set to become the MGMT of 2011.

Dropkick Murphys – Going Out in Style Boston’s Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys make the same album again and again. And yes, that's Celtic with a K sound, not with an S sound, you Beantown basketball fans. The thing is, it’s a really great album, and on Going Out in Style they continue to mix The Clash with banjos and bagpipes. That’s just fine with me. This time Bruce Springsteen drops by to sing on “Peg o’ My Heart.” That’s just fine with me, too.

Ezra Furman and The Harpoons -- Mysterious Power

One of my favorite young singer/songwriters, poet/punk Ezra Furman, has a new album out. You can read my review at Paste.

Aradhna in Columbus

The last time the

a) Indian
b) Nepalese
c) American
d) Canadian
e) Christian
f) Fusion
g) Folk
h) Post-Rock

(pick any three above, or invent your own label) band Aradhna played Columbus the room was filled with Ohio State doctors and professors from New Delhi and a few bemused music majors. Last week the band played to rooms full of blissed-out American yoga devotees in Canton and Toledo (who knew? But apparently they exist). And yesterday, in front of 400 people at Columbus’s Xenos Christian Fellowship, the band played to a mixed audience of curious white suburbanites and Nepalese and Bhutanese refugees.

All of them would have seen a strange sight: three white men from the U.S. and Canada who grew up in Asia, equally at home and strangers wherever they travel. It was fitting that yesterday’s concert took place at Xenos, a church named after a Greek word meaning “stranger” or “alien.” I suspect that Chris, Pete, and Travis – the members of Aradhna – understand the concept all too well. Welcome to their fractured world, guaranteed to puzzle and delight every observer. If the sight of Zondervan Jesuses in long robes doesn’t throw you, wait until you hear those sitar runs and wailing vocals that inevitably manage to find the cracks between what Western ears like to think of as “notes.” There is cognitive dissonance everywhere you turn.

There is also great beauty that manifests itself in all kinds of musical and non-musical ways. Chris Hale, who plays that sitar, and who is primarily responsible for the microtonal wailing, is one of the most gifted and humble people I’ve ever met. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the classical music of India and Nepal. But I know a shredder when I see one (a concept, no doubt, that is foreign to one brought up in the mountains of Nepal), and Chris can hold his own with any blindingly fast guitar slinger you’d care to name. He’s also a fabulous singer who can inject a miles-deep soulfulness into every song.

No matter. What he’s primarily interested in is befriending and serving a bunch of disenfranchised people who have recently arrived in the U.S. The worship service that Kate and I attended yesterday morning – the guys from Aradhna and about a hundred dirt-poor Nepalese and Bhutanese refugees – was remarkable in every way, a little foretaste of heaven. The concert was musically satisfying and uplifting and joyous. Believe me, I’ll take that. But the worship service was pure gift, something that was a privilege to witness. I’ve seen a lot of good concerts, and I’m not complaining about yesterday’s. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like the sight of three white men in long robes surrounded by a sea of people singing and dancing.

There was much more. There was a wonderful, hours-long dinner and conversation Saturday night with Aradhna and a group of friends. There was an extended time with Pete and Travis, who stayed at our house and entertained us until the wee hours of the morning. There was the concert itself, which started off with small expectations (50 people if we’re lucky, Travis told me) and ended with friends calling friends, and a laughing, swirling, singing mass of people that filled a large room. And there was friendship – good people Kate and I have known a long time, and new and deeper connections with the band we both love, and new connections with poor but not desperate people who amazed us with their joy and their sense of inclusion and hospitality.

It was a damn good weekend. I’ll have another, please.

Josh T. Pearson -- Last of the Country Gentlemen

My essay on Last of the Country Gentlemen, the lovely and disturbing new album from Texas troubadour Josh T. Pearson, is now up at the Image Journal blog.

The Ruins of Detroit

It's rare that I find myself growing emotional about a place. People, sure, all the time. But I actually found myself tearing up as Kate and I drove through Detroit a couple weeks ago. We traveled through downtown with our friends Phil and Lauren, then out E. Jefferson to some obscure (to me) pottery place that Kate wanted to visit. And in the space of five miles or so I saw both incredible beauty and architectural wonder and some of the most depressing ruins I've ever seen. One neighborhood -- Indian Village, maybe? -- was full of beautifully retored, massive mansions, while a block away I encountered what looked to be bombed-out buildings. There were ruins like the one pictured here everywhere I looked. That's not a melodramatic photo, nor is it uncommon to see grass and weeds poking up through the asphalt. It was eerie. And it was profoundly sad. I felt like the lone survivor after the nuclear holocaust.

My memories of Detroit all center around my aunt and uncle and cousins. They lived in Livonia. My cousins were a few years older than me, and they were the ones who had the Bob Dylan double-sided single of "Like a Rolling Stone" that blew my mind, and those great Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger singles, etc. To a great extent they informed my musical education. I can recall my aunt and uncle laughing in a good natured way when I told them, as a little kid, that I wanted to go to college. Why would anyone want to do that when you could start work at the Ford or GM plant right out of high school and earn a better living than any sissy college graduate?

I don't have to tell you the ending to that story, I'm sure. It cannot have ended well, and it didn't. But that's all bound up in my memories of Detroit. I love that city. I mourn for that city. It was good and heartbreaking to visit it again.

Aradhna in Columbus - 3-27-11

Columbus folk, please come out to see Aradhna next Sunday.

I have written about Aradhna before. In a more just universe, they would be Slumdog Billionairies after winning Nepalese Idol and landing the big Bollywood deal. But that's not what they're about. What they are about is lovely, contemplative, soaring worship music. There is sweetness and great beauty here, western and eastern musical modalities meeting in a blessed confluence, and musicianship that will make your jaw drop. And because they are not Slumdog Billionaires, they would appreciate your presence and your financial support, whatever you can provide. Come and be astounded.

More details here.

Why St. Patrick's Day Should Be Celebrated Every Day

Dropkick Murphys, that's why.

The Buddy System

Here's my recent interview with Americana artist Buddy Miller at Paste Magazine. And yes, that's Buddy with Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant.

Dream Diary - You Are the Beat

As an unabashed longtime fan of Teenage Fanclub, and a newly minted Twee fan, Philadelphia's Dream Diary ought to be right in my wheelhouse. The guitars jangle and chime, the melodies are sticky sweet and cloying, and the background singers go "oooh" and "aaaah" in all the right places. But the Fannies can get muscular when they need to, and the best Twee bands stamp their own idiosyncratic identities on the music. Maybe it's the wafer-thin production. Maybe it's the lead singer's slight lisp that turns one of the more memorable choruses into "thweet thweet bird." Maybe it's that creepy Bride of Chucky cover. Or maybe it's the fact that the ten songs on this debut album are virtually interchangeable. This is the musical equivalent of cotton candy. It tastes good going down, but ten minutes after it ends you wonder why you're hungry for something more substantial.

Bruce Cockburn - Small Source of Comfort

And here's a link to my review of the new Bruce Cockburn album Small Source of Comfort in Christianity Today Magazine.

Bruce Cockburn Interview

My recent interview with guitar god/mystic poet Bruce Cockburn is up at the Paste website.

The Holy Spirit and Assholes

My article on the Holy Spirit and Assholes, at the Image Journal blog.

The Baseball Project - Vol. 2: High and Inside

My review of the new Baseball Project album Vol. 2: High and Inside is now up on the Paste website.

Bill Mallonee

That album -- Killing Floor, by Vigilantes of Love -- was and is a revelation to me. When I first heard it (1993, as I recall), there were precisely two Christian songwriters I respected. Mark Heard operated uneasily from within the CCM world, spinning out his poetic tales on the intersection of faith and doubt. And Bruce Cockburn operated entirely outsides the confines of CCM, another restless poet, mystic, and relentless musical innovator.

Bill Mallonee, the lead singer and songwriter for Vigilantes of Love, was number three. He remains one of my favorite songwriters. He's the best of the three at conveying the Christian As Asshole theme, one that I can both affirm personally and attest to on a wider basis. He understood grace in profound and wondrously literate ways, and he could convey the same basic thought -- I'm a screwup, but a screwup loved by God -- in a thousand different metaphorical contexts. That thought remains central to my theology, such as it is. He was and is a superb songwriter, and it didn't hurt that he employed a musical approach that was influenced by Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

He's coming to Columbus next Friday, March 11th, for a concert at Grace Central Church (237 W. 2nd Ave.) The show starts at 8:00, and there's a $5.00 cover. You should go see him if you get the chance. Like Dylan, he's on a Neverending Tour. And like Dylan, I hope and pray he finds his way home. You can catch him on the road, midway to the destination, next Friday.

we were thrown into a snowbank
into this screaming night
i heard the splintering of bones
i heard the cries of pain and fright
we had laughed and shared a kiss
mingled there our lives honey
doing ninety miles an hour
when our train hit the ice

now i can't remember
what was i so excited about
i can't remember
why all the fuss and shout
i can't remember
ah watch the ember going out

we were joking about the club car's
noticeable bad taste
the food was barely edible
and the opulence and waste were simply astounding
the passengers spent hours dismissing
rumors of their demise
and it's true a little make-up
can make a corpse look fine

but i can't remember
i've been this way since birth
i can't remember
who gives a rat's ass who is first
i can't remember
ah what is any of it worth

i caught sight of a body
in a coat that looked like yours
and i called out your name darling
but i guess you never heard me
instinctively i reached out
and i pulled you near to me
sometimes God's grace won't let you look upon
what you can't bear to see

but i can't remember
all the idols on parade
i can't remember
buy low sell high trade away
i can't remember
ah watch the embers die away

i saw Jesus in the air
now there's a face that you can't miss
i saw Him brush away the snowflakes
and bestow on you a kiss
He gathered you up in His arms
God you looked so fine
that white dress you were wearing darling
like a billion stars did shine
-- Bill Mallonee, "I Can't Remember"

Too Good To Be True?

Apparently not.

That's Richard Thompson and Buddy Miller performing together, singing Richard's song "Keep Your Distance."

Baseball nerds play the "What If" game and imagine what it would have been like if, say, Babe Ruth had teamed up with Willie Mays and Albert Pujols. Music nerds play the "What If" game and imagine, oh, Robert Plant performing with Buddy Miller, or Buddy Miller and Richard Thompson teaming up on a duet.

Wait ... that really happened?

Yes, it did. But you had to be on the Cayamo Cruise to see it, a sort of Music Nerd Goes Tropical vacation getaway that gives hardworking Americana-type folks a nice boondoggle, and music fans with money to burn (i.e., music insiders or corporate CEOs who remember their misspent youth) the opportunity to see their heroes up close and personal.

I wish I could have been there. I would have paid good money to be there. But probably not enough to make it on the Cayamo Cruise.

Photo by Jim McKelvey. Sorry for stealing it. But it's a nice photo. Jim is apparently one lucky fellow, hopefully a music insider.

Suze Rotolo

R.I.P. Suze Rotolo, whose lovely visage appears next to the Voice of a Generation on one of the most iconic album covers ever.

Bob Dylan wrote a lot about Suze Rotolo, although true to his inscrutable ways, he never referred to her by name. But she's the subject of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Ballad in Plain D" and "Boots of Spanish Leather." She got him thinking about politics and social justice, and we all know where that led.

The relationship was short-lived and tumultuous. Dylan moved on, as he is wont to do, and Suze moved on too, marrying, having children, working as a teacher and artist in her lifelong home of New York City. Those are fifty years that are best known to her family, as perhaps they should be. Alas, sometimes people are best known for a brief, shining moment -- a snapshot. Sometimes literally a snapshot.

I hope and pray that the long decades that followed were full of deep, meaningful moments. But for most of us she will always be eighteen years old, young and in love.

Leaving the Plastic Suburbs

When Kate and I moved to our current Westerville, Ohio home in 1999, we had no intention of staying long-term. We had moved from Westerville to the supposed smalltown idyll of Mount Vernon, Ohio with the thought of escaping plastic suburbia. But the smalltown idyll had turned out to be a lethal mixture of insular small-mindedness and my obstinate tendency to be an opinionated, loudmouthed asshole, and it was not a good fit. We moved back to Westerville out of self-defense. It wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t what we really wanted, but it was what we could afford. Our kids were still young, and the schools were solid, and the neighborhoods were safe, and in the interim it was a pretty enough place. We lived a couple hundred yards from a reservoir, where sailboats sailed and regattas regattad, or whatever they did when those crazy long boats raced one another. We lived a half mile away from a metro park that looked like the gardens of Versailles, or at least the stolid Midwest equivalent, and the formal hedgerow mazes and prim, ordered rose bowers and Zen rock gardens were a welcome sight after a hard day in the wilds of corporate America. It was still plastic suburbia, but maybe we could make a stand for a little while.

A funny thing happened in the intervening twelve years. I came to love Westerville, Ohio. There are many reasons for this. I figured out that people are mostly the same all over, and that they are no more shallow or money-grubbing or self-serving in a suburban tract home than they are in a charming Victorian manse. I dealt, finally, with the addictions that contributed mightily to the manifold emotional and spiritual disconnects in my life. And I surrendered, really, kinda, although I have to remind myself to fly the white flag of dependence pretty much on an hourly basis. What can I say? I am a slow learner. Thirty years after praying the Sinner’s Prayer, I finally gave up, and figured out that following God meant a lot more than believing the right things, and that it had a lot more to do with being kinder, and less self-serving, and caring for and about others. I watched friends and neighbors, those faceless suburban mannequins I previously would have dismissed without a second thought in my hubris and haughtiness, struggle with pain and sorrow and unexplained and unexplainable tragedy. And, at least on my better days, I hurt for them. I would like to think that I became less of an asshole.

All that happened in Westerville, Ohio: plastic suburbia. And now we’re leaving it behind. Our kids are grown. We don’t need, and don’t want, a 4-bedroom, 2.5-bath, two-car-attached-garage kind of existence. The need to make a stand, or at least that kind of stand, is past.

We would like to live in the middle of Columbus, Ohio. Urban life. Traffic congestion. Crime. Bring it on. At a time when many of my colleagues and friends and relatives are considering retirement, planning for the good life, Kate and I are pondering a different kind of good life. Our church is in the middle of the city, and we like and love those folks, and we want to be with them. I don’t mean to make this more noble than it is. I intend no judgment toward those who have chosen a different path, and I don’t think I’m under any delusions that this will be an easy or a natural transition. I suspect it will be difficult and challenging. But I also believe that this is what we’re called to do. I’m excited by the prospects. We’ve wanted to do this for a while. Kate and I are in absolute agreement about this. And now it’s time.

But I’ll miss Westerville, Ohio. This is something I could not have even remotely fathomed ten years ago. It turned out that there were no plastic people here. There were just people, and they were as exasperatingly disconnected and as vulnerable and significant and lovable in Westerville as they are anywhere else. They mattered. They will go on mattering, and I’m thankful for them.

The Builders and the Butchers - Dead Reckoning

My review of the new The Builders and the Butchers album Dead Reckoning is now up on the Paste website. For those who like Flannery O'Connor and their folk music rough and ragged, this is a good way to go.

How a Bill Becomes Law in Ohio

Thank you, Dan Heck.

Heading Down the Mountain

Musician friends, make sure you promote your concerts and sell plenty of T-shirts. Nobody buys music anymore.

(H/T to Michael McClune)

Loving the Church

So, I wrote an article about Mavis Staples, one of the most amazing human beings I've ever encountered. This is a woman who oozes compassion, who has been instrumental in bringing about needed social change in the Civil Rights movement, and who treated me with nothing but kindness and respect during our recent conversation. You know what people who comment on the article want to talk about? How Mavis was flirting with an interviewer during Sunday's Grammy Awards.

Why, oh why, must Christians be such judgmental assholes? I know, I'm doing it too, right now. But you know what? Sometimes Christians are judgmental assholes. I'd like to slap some of them. If they turn the other cheek, I'll slap that one, too. Then I'll repent. But not until I get in two good slaps.

Mavis 'n Me

My interview with/feature article on Gospel great Mavis Staples is now up on the Christianity Today website.

Mickey Newbury

This news makes me very happy. Mickey Newbury's classic trio of albums from the early '70s, long out of print, are about to be reissued. Newbury was a Nashville outsider long before the days of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, etc. He didn't cultivate an outlaw image. He just wrote devastating songs about the downtrodden and the losers, and his album Looks Like Rain (one of the three about to be reissued) hit me right in my adolescent gut. His songs were unspeakably sad; little vignettes of lives unraveling in cheap motel rooms, lonely people sitting by themselves watching a phone not ring. It's no wonder Music City didn't know what to do with him. This wasn't glitzy Nashville heartbreak. This was the real, 3:00-a.m.-staring-at-the-ceiling deal.

Check out these albums and discover a songwriter's songwriter.

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

DRAG CITY TO REISSUE MICKEY NEWBURY AN AMERICAN TRILOGY MAY 2011


Mickey Newbury. The name may not be familiar to everyone, but the songs and the performers they are associated with should be: “An American Trilogy,” (Elvis Presley) “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” (Kenny Rogers and the First Edition) “She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye,” (Jerry Lee Lewis), “Funny, Familiar, Forgotten Feelings,” (Tom Jones) are just a few of the songs in the Newbury catalog.

He was a songwriter’s songwriter at the dawning of the era of the singer-songwriter, yet he was also an unknown name on the Billboard charts. His early success writing in Nashville and his selfless and relentless championing of his friends and contemporaries paved the way for Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and David Allen Coe. Newbury songs have, to date, been recorded over 1300 times by more than 1000 performers including Johnny Cash, Scott Walker, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, the Box Tops, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Nick Cave. He is the only songwriter ever to have number one hits (with different songs) in the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts within the space of one year (and three of those songs were in the charts simultaneously!). But Mickey Newbury himself was by far the best interpreter of his own songs.

A visionary album in the vein of Love’s Forever Changes and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Looks Like Rain immerses the listener into a vividly-painted emotional landscape of heartbreak, madness and despair tracked by the sound of wind chimes and rain. Mickey followed this masterpiece with another, 1970’s ‘Frisco Mabel Joy—recently voted number 6 in an Uncut reader’s poll of the 50 greatest ‘lost’ albums. Here he broadened the palette, incorporating the sound of the Nash philharmonic, an ‘orchestra’ consisting of electric and steel guitars, to produce what Mojo described as “an hallucinatory suite of sad, soulful songs”. The cycle of Cinderella Sound albums ended in 1973 with a third epic, Heaven Help The Child, by which time Mickey’s increasing confidence in the studio was clear and he had definitively laid out his stall as a recording artist.

Grammy winning engineer Steve Rosenthal and mastering engineer Jessica Thompson have restored the original analog master tapes believed for many years to have been destroyed in a fire but recently re-discovered in the Elektra records vault and created stunning new remasters of each album specifically for this release, making this the first ever CD issue of these landmark albums using the original tapes.

An American Trilogy provides a rich and compelling trip to the deep space of Mickey Newbury, one of the most extraordinary and unique artists in American popular music.

Battle of the Bands

Battle of the Bands, at the Image Journal blog.

Over the Rhine -- The Long Surrender

My review of the new Over the Rhine album The Long Surrender at Paste Magazine.

The Winter of Twee

Other than a few recent albums I’ve had to review, I’ve been blissfully unaware of newly released music for the past few months. That’s because I’ve been caught up in exploring the musical genre that goes by the unfortunate name of Twee. The dictionary defines the term as “affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint.” Yep, it is that. Supremely catchy, too.

A Pitchfork article describes the label’s application to music as follows:

For their musical cues, they looked to the quaintest, least-cool roots of youth-culture music: girl-groups, 1960s guitar jangle, bubblegum chirp, rainy-day balladry. Their lyrics toed the lines between schoolboy earnestness and arch, bratty simplicity. Their guitar playing revolved around elementary chord strumming, and their production ranged from no-frills to downright primitive. Their performances were so amateurish that the word "shambling"-- as in "shambling along"-- became one name for the scene. Their fashion sense was deliberately plain, like children dressed by their mothers: stripy shirts, librarian skirts, and enough anoraks (parkas) to make that word a genre name. Their gender politics weren't just egalitarian: If anything, they celebrated the girly and the sweet, so much so that the word "twee"-- pronounced the way a baby might say "sweet," and meaning cloying, or overly precious-- became the biggest insult leveled at them.

So, there you go; music for nerds, dweebs, and nebishes. Sign me up.

The truth is, I had already been sorta signed up for a while. The best-known exponents of the genre – UK and Scandinavian dweebs Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Kings of Convenience, and The Clientele – were already well known to me. They were bookish, a little shy and socially awkward, and supremely melodic, traits that serve bookish music fans perfectly well. But I had never really explored the genre in depth.

That all changed with an album that showed up in my mailbox in the fall, the debut release from Allo Darlin. Allo Darlin was the brainchild of a London-by-way-of-Australia waif named Elizabeth Morris. She and her band sounded like a Cockney version of The Shangri-Las or The Ronettes, and wrote songs that managed to quote Weezer, Johnny Cash, and Doris Day and still sound utterly fresh in their quirky specificity. One song recounted how she fell in love with her boyfriend while making chili. It was the kind of homespun detail that just sounded right, like something that might actually happen in the usual extraordinary life. The songs had breezy melodies, witty lyrics, chiming guitars, and a serious backbeat, and they were all about being young, full of life, and in love with music. Plus, they rhymed "platonic" and "gin and tonic" while the guitars played the riff from Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl.” I was sold.

A little Internet research revealed that Elizabeth Morris was also in a band called Tender Trap, a throwback name to the ring-a-ding ‘50s, but a full decade ahead of that reference point in their sound. Again, Phil Spector’s girl groups were the touchstone, but this time Elizabeth was content to play guitar. The vocals were handled by one Amelia Fletcher. And who was this Amelia Fletcher? It was Internet research time again. Oh, my God. Or, more correctly, Oh, my gosh.

Amelia Fletcher, it turned out, was merely the godmother of Twee. A quarter century, three band name changes, and a dozen albums later, she was now fronting Tender Trap. But what had come before was mind boggling.

Let’s start with Talulah Gosh, since that’s where it all starts. The only album you’ll find, and the only album you’ll need, is Backwash, which compiles the only 25 songs the band recorded. It’s a masterpiece, front to back, a 5-star album that effortlessly captures the appeal of the entire genre: manic, jangly guitars, sweet girl group harmonies, and songs about falling in love. There’s an appealing, to-hell-with-it amateur patina over the whole enterprise. It sounds like, and probably is, the product of smart kids who love music and who never thought that their garage band bashing and chiming would go anywhere.

Amelia’s ensuing bands – Heavenly, Marine Research, and Tender Trap – merely continue the tradition, albeit in slightly more polished, better produced ways. Nearly all of the dozen albums are great. I would guess that two-thirds of my listening time over the past three months has been taken up with this music. I don’t regret a second of it. I would vote for Amelia Fletcher as Empress of the Universe.

But I should note a few of the other notable discoveries of the Winter of ’11. There is, of course, an American counterpart to the sound, and the primary exponent is one Rose Melberg. Rose’s earlier bands – Tiger Trap (not to be confused with Tender Trap), Gaze, and The Softies – pick up where Talulah Gosh left off.

An outlier, Wales’ The School, released a superb Twee album called Loveless Unbeliever last summer. I’m late to the party, but it’s wonderful.

Australia’s The Lucksmiths make consistently great guitar-based pop music that might be Twee, and might be merely R.E.M.- and Go Betweens-influenced jangle. Whatever it is, you’ll find ten or so soft rock/jangle/precious albums that feature one exquisitely crafted pop song after another.

And Columbus, Ohio’s own Super Desserts are a worthy addition to the party, making idiosyncratic, chirping music that owes as much to Sufjan Stevens as it does to Belle and Sebastian on their album Twee as Folk.

Icepocalypse Playlist

Ice Age – Birdmonster
Back Street Slide – Richard and Linda Thompson
Always Crashing in the Same Car – David Bowie
Ice on the Wing – Nada Surf
Jesus I’m Freezing – Garageland
Icebound Stream – Laura Veirs
Slip Slidin’ Away – Paul Simon
Buried in Ice – The Felice Brothers
Assume Crash Position – Konono No. 1
In This Home On Ice – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Kingdom of Ice – Woven Hand
Hockey Skates – Kathleen Edwards
Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day – Jethro Tull
A Cold Freezin’ Night – The Books
If the World Should End in Ice – The Handsome Family