Category: Music

Chris Riggs, a former partner in crime in my days in the Suspicious Cheese Lords, emailed me and other former members tonight to announce that the group won a Wammie—a Washington Area Music Association award—for choral group, classical. Considering that past Wammie classical winners have included Hesperus, Leonard Slatkin, the National Symphony, and Denyce Graves, this is a Big Deal indeed. Many congrats to the guys; I only wish I could have been there to see the award.

Update: Here is the full list of 2006 winners from the WAMA site.

Artist: The Replacements
Album: Hootenanny

I could live without so much
I can die without a clue
Sun keeps risin’ in the west
I keep on wakin’ fully confused

I never seen no mountain
Never swam no sea
City got me drownin’
I guess it’s up to me

I can’t live without your touch (2x)

Cold without so much
Can die without a dream
Live without your touch
I’ll die within your reach

Reach
Reach

I never seen no mountain
Never swam no sea
Drownin’ in this city
Well, it’s really up to me

I can’t live without your touch (3x)

Die within your reach
Die within your reach
Die within your reach
Die within your reach

Reach
Die within your
Reach
Die within your
Reach

Since Nick Drake is basically the patron saint of obscure, beautiful, depressive singer-songwriters—the proto-Elliott Smith, if you will—hearing that a new album of Nick Drake rarities, none of which have ever been heard before, is a little like hearing that the Police are going to reunite: one is both excited and a little afraid to hear what is coming. The late Mr. Drake will be playing SXSW—or so it would seem, with a documentary, panel discussion, and set of tribute acts scheduled to show up.

All of the above is not bad for a guy who was legendary unknown even to his record company: in the press release for Drake’s final album Pink Moon, the Island Records guys said:

The second time [we saw Nick Drake recently] was a week or so ago, when he came in, smiling that weird little smile, half-mocking, half-bewildered, and handed over this, his new album. He’d just gone into the studios and recorded it without telling a soul except the engineer. And we haven’t seen him since.

The point of this, is this: Nobody at Island is really sure where Nick lives these days. We’re pretty sure he left his flat in Hampstead quite a while ago…

But all of this bull is just the hype machine turning for an artist 35 years dead, right? Well, except for the music. And if you listen to the unreleased track on Stereogum, “To the Garden,”, do you begin to understand why people are willing to mount (parts of) festivals in this guy’s honor so many years later? Er, with some difficulty. The sound quality is poor, the speed of the tape seems too slow (or else Drake’s voice changed radically during his career)… And yet, it’s quintessential Nick Drake, that mix of melancholy and lyrical melody that is at the core of his latest recordings. Makes me wish he had recorded a clean take, and makes me very curious to hear what else he has up his mouldering sleeves.

Obligatory Nick Drake cross-reference #1: The title of this post is from a Clem Snide song, “Nick Drake Tape”: That Nick Drake tape you love/Tonight it sounds so good/As brown as leaves can get/And sleep is what you should.

Obligatory Nick Drake cross-reference #2: Christopher O’Riley, previously having released two albums of classical piano Radiohead covers and one of Elliott Smith tunes, has been doing Nick Drake songs in concert. I look forward to reviewing that disc when it comes out….

It’s been a long week and I haven’t been online very much. Rest assured, I haven’t been slacking.

Today’s random 10 is sponsored by Spinal Tap, who would have taken it to 11.

1. Boston Symphony Orchestra (Seiji Ozawa, cond.), “Herr Gaensefuss, Frau Gaensekraut” (from Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder) (Gurrelieder/Chamber Symphony No. 1 and 2)
2. Johnny Cash, “Mean Eyed Cat” (Unchained)
3. Cornershop, “Coming Up” (When I was Born for the Seventh Time)
4. John Cale, “Mailman(TheLyingSong)” (blackAcetate)
5. Dexter Gordon, “’Treux Bleu” (The Complete Prestige Recordings)
6. Hilliard Ensemble, “In te speravi, per trovar pietà” (Josquin: Motets & Chansons)
7. Nick Drake, “Parasite” (Pink Moon)
8. Thomas Dolby, “She Blinded Me with Science” (The Golden Age of Wireless)
9. Peter Gabriel, “Red Rain” (So)
10. Archers of Loaf, “One Slight Wrong Move”

The Grammy awards folks announced yesterday that they convinced convinced the Police to play a song together to open the show on February 11. Yes, I’ll be watching (or Tivoing) it. No, I’m not thrilled and overjoyed. Too much time has passed, and I know how old Sting looks now; I don’t want to see an old Andy Summers and an old Stewart Copeland rehashing material that was current almost thirty years ago.

What I want is for them to get together—in the studio, not on TV—and pull a Mission of Burma by creating an album that’s just as amazing and vital as their early work. But I’m afraid the odds are against it.

Confession: I’ve been on a Beatles kick for a month or more now, as a quick glance at my Past Listening pages will show. Ironically, I think it started the last time I was in Las Vegas, with all the ads for the Cirque du Soleil show Love, based on the Beatles catalog. I also finally got a chance to listen to some of the Beatles discs I had ripped as part of The Project.

Now, coming back to the Beatles might not seem to be such a Big Thing, but consider: I basically gave away my Beatles collection, consisting of all the albums from Rubber Soul through Abbey Road, when I was in college. I had been nuts about the music when I was in high school, but by that point I had started to see it as juvenile, somehow. I had become aware of the roots of rock in American blues and folk music, and I had become captivated by the irony and anger of the better 90s alternative music. The Beatles seemed too pat, too earnest, too pop. So I gave the discs to my sister and forgot about them.

Except I had to go back and buy a new copy of The White Album, later.

And then in grad school, I sang lead on an a cappella arrangement of “Got to Get You Into My Life” … and fell in love with that song’s brassy soul. It had always seemed a throwaway track to me, tucked as it was right before “Tomorrow Never Knows” on the totally brilliant Revolver, but now as I studied it it was revealing hidden depths.

I was also becoming aware of how difficult it was to write the sort of melodies and nail the sorts of harmonies that the Beatles pulled off album after album. And I think my investigation of the roots of rock and roll was starting to make me curious… after listening to Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and others I wondered: what happened when this music hopped the pond to stir up four lads from Liverpool?

So in the last month I started picking up the early Beatles albums on the cheap. I had always dismissed the albums before Rubber Soul, preferring the clever songwriting to the albums that made teenage girls scream. I mean, come on… most of the early albums had cover songs on them. But after hearing a lot of 1950s Sun Records, I got curious. And I’m glad I did. Hearing the Beatles’ version of Carl Perkins’ “Honey Don’t” is very very cool. Hearing some of the great originals on the earlier albums (“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” “Money”…

Fast forward to today. A coworker of mine lent me the George Martin mixtape Love, and I listened to a fair percentage of it today. And to my surprise it’s good. There are some really imaginative things in it: Ringo’s drum solo leading into “Get Back,” the merging of “Blackbird” and “Yesterday,” playing “Sun King” backward… It plays like a quiz recording, “spot the song.” It’s a lot of fun to listen to and very pleasant—not groundbreaking but fun.

Lots of stuff happened this week, most of it between the hours of 10 pm and 3 am for various reasons. So today’s Random 10 will be brief. I will, though, point to one new site in my galaxy of affiliations: 43 People, which is now collecting my stories of meeting various famous and semi-famous people. Check out the leitmotif in the Willard Scott and Boyd Tinsley stories…

1. Woody Allen, “Pets” (Standup Comic)
2. Simon & Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (Old Friends)
3. Led Zeppelin, “The Rain Song” (Remasters)
4. The Sundays, “Here’s Where the Story Ends” (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic)
5. Joanna Newsom, “Swansea” (The Milk Eyed Mender)
6. Charles Mingus, “Better Get Hit In Your Soul” (Three or Four Shades of Blue)
7. Cat Power, “He War” (You Are Free)
8. U2, “The Fly” (Achtung Baby)
9. Ryan Adams, “I See Monsters” (Love Is Hell)
10. Sting, “Little Wing” (…Nothing Like the Sun)

I was surprised and saddened to learn of the death of two jazz luminaries this weekend. Michael Brecker was a pretty stellar saxophonist, Grammy winner and collaborator with pop luminaries ranging from Paul Simon (“Still Crazy After All These Years,” The Rhythm of the Saints) to Steely Dan (Gaucho, Gold) to Parliament (Trombipulation) to a host of jazz gigs under his own leadership, including multiple Grammys. I will always remember him for his superbly wry and understated guest spot on Dave Brubeck’s Young Lions and Old Tigers, the “Michael Brecker Waltz.” Leukemia took him too soon.

I was saddened about Alice Coltrane too, though reportedly she had been in poor health for a number of years. Fans of her husband John’s work generally are of two minds regarding Alice’s contributions to his later works, when she replaced McCoy Tyner on piano in his performing ensembles. Either they think of her as Yoko to his John (particularly those who don’t like the later, more experimental albums), or they recognize her work as a passionate collaborator and an important contribution to the sound and concept of such albums (Expressions, Stellar Regions). She was also an important contributor to the work of McCoy Tyner himself (Extensions). She will be missed.

Well, an exhausting week draws to a close. Really, I’m not sure what else I can say. I’m ready for a three day weekend and that’s all.

Oh yeah, and we might get some snow on Monday. So suck it, Seattle. (Boy, am I pissed that the city of rain has gotten more snow than we have so far this year.)

1. Tadd Dameron and John Coltrane, “Super Jet” (Mating Call)
2. The Cure, “The Blood” (Head on the Door)
3. Beastie Boys, “I Don’t Know” (Hello Nasty)
4. Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, “O Ignis Spiritus” (Mnemosyne)
5. Herbert von Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic (Johannes Brahms, composer), “Ein Deutsches Requiem, 3. Solo: “Herr, Lehre Doch Mich” (Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem)
6. Ayub Ogada, “Ondiek” (En Mana Kuoyo)
7. Sonic Youth, “Brother James” (Screaming Fields of Sonic Love)
8. Beck, “Nothing I Haven’t Seen” (Sea Change)
9. The Reindeer Section, “Raindrop” (Y’All Get Scared Now, Ya Hear?)
10. U2, “All Because of You” (How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb)

New at Art of the MIx: the difficult listening hour 2: chichester and other. As a favor to my mom, I put together some modern and contemporary choral music selections. I’ve sung the Chichester and In the Beginning several times, have read through the Beatitudes, and just missed the chance to perform El Niño. They’re all pretty spectacular pieces. I just wish I could have found a better recording of the Aaron Copland piece.

I have my new 30 GB iPod loaded up with a bunch of my favorite mix tapes cum playlists in addition to the purely random playlists that I used to keep on the old model. So this week’s playlist will be random samplings from songs I like a lot as well as stuff that I haven’t really listened to yet.

1. Mint Royale, “Show Me” (Dancehall Places)
2. Morrissey, “Alsatian Cousin” (Viva Hate)
3. Morrissey, “Late Night, Maudlin Street” (Viva Hate)
4. Morrissey, “I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me” (Viva Hate)
5. Pixies, “Born in Chicago” (Rubáiyát)
6. Frank Black, “Whatever Happened to Pong?” (Teenager of the Year)
7. Frank Black, “(I Want to Live On An) Abstract Plain” (Teenager of the Year)
8. Frank Black, “Calistan” (Teenager of the Year)
9. Frank Black, “Freedom Rock” (Teenager of the Year)
10. Hilliard Ensemble, “Credo” (The Old Hall Manuscript)

Oops. I keep forgetting that the “shuffle by album” setting applies to the master Shuffle Songs menu item as well as regular play. So here’s a bonus random 10 that is a little more random… even though it begins and ends with a Tom Waits track from Orphans:

1. Tom Waits, “What Keeps Mankind Alive” (Orphans)
2. Youssou N’Dour, “Fakastulu” (Set)
3. Last Exit, “Every Day’s Just The Same” (Last Exit Demos)
4. Above the Law, “Freedom of Speech” (Pump Up the Volume)
5. Robert Johnson, “Malted Milk” (The Complete Recordings)
6. Beck, “Rowboat” (Stereopathetic Soul Manure)
7. The Rolling Stones, “Get Off My Cloud” (Singles 1965-1967)
8. The Corn Sisters, “She’s Leaving Town” (The Other Women)
9. Melissa Etheridge, “Similar Features” (Melissa Etheridge)
10. Tom Waits, “First Kiss” (Orphans)

I look forward each year to KEXP’s Top 90.3 Albums list, not only to see how my own favorites from the year fared (and, really, stack-ranking spectacular albums against each other has limited appeal. What does it mean to say that Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is better than Supernature? Each is a kick-ass album in its own way), but also to catch items that I may have missed. Yesterday I found the 2006 list on KEXP’s website and created a copy on Lists of Bests. So now you can use the List of Best version of the KEXP Top 90.3 Albums of 2006 to track your listening progress against some of the best music that was released in 2006.

I’ve actually done this with past Top 90.3 lists as well (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and (created by someone else) 2005), and it’s interesting that I always hover between 25 and 30% coverage on these lists.

I’m also creating a list in eMusic which tags albums I haven’t heard yet that are on the KEXP lists and available in eMusic. —Yes, I am a music geek.

The Hardest Working Man in Show Business has taken his last curtain call. Obituaries: AP, New York Times plus local reactions, Washington Post plus appreciation.

I first became aware of James Brown through “Living in America,” I’m sorry to say, but even that throwaway song became mystery and power when he grunted out “I feel good!” at the end. There were other echoes of Mr. Dynamite around in the 1980s—Eddie Murphy’s “hot tub” had an army of middle school kids aping Eddie aping the Godfather of Soul. And the appearance of “I Got You (I Feel Good)” on the Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack inspired one Jewish kid I know to learn that simple yet smoldering saxophone solo and play it for hours in echoing stairwells. But mostly JB’s influence was invisible, embedded in a thousand rap songs and cultural-ironic remixes.

For me personally, that changed in college, when on a whim and a flier I picked up a discount copy of 20 All Time Greatest Hits through my CD club (you remember CD clubs, right?). And then I found out that it was just the teaser for Star Time, and that found its way to my doorstep too. And then I was hooked. Throwing on “Sex Machine” at parties, driving down the road with fellow musicians deconstructing the beats on “Funky Drummer”…

James Brown taught this white Presbyterian boy about soul power. Without JB, I probably never would have discovered Parliament—first because I wouldn’t have known that I liked funk, and second (thanks to JB alums like Bootsy Collins) Parliament never would have existed.

Another appreciation from Funky16Corners.

Christmas albums by popular artists face a pretty significant challenge: how to make the holiday canon, which ranges from medieval plainchant (“O come, o come, Emmanuel”) to high classical music to Tin Pan Alley tunes and children’s TV show theme music, sound like it belongs to the artist and not let the artist be overwhelmed by what can be a lot of schlock. There are three basic approaches to the challenge: go ultra-traditional with the arrangements, create a bunch of originals in the Christmas spirit, or just be yourself and damn the torpedoes. My latest favorite Christmas album, Bootsy Collins’ Christmas is 4 Ever, takes the third path with a vengeance and ends up with one of the most fun Christmas albums I’ve listened to.

Bootsy, for the uninitiated (though that hardly seems possible), is the funky, funky bass player behind James Brown’s late 60s output (“Sex Machine,” “Super Bad,”) and George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic (where he gained notoriety for his costumes—star-shaped sunglasses and thigh-high rhinestone studded space boots as well as his outer-space bass playing), and a pretty substantial run fronting his own combo, Bootsy’s Rubber Band. This, in sum, is a man who could definitively answer Funkadelic’s question, “What is soul?” So what, pray tell, is Bootsy doing facing down such white bread Christmas classics as “Jingle Bells,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” and “Silent Night”?

As you might expect, Bootsy solves the clash of genres by throwing a party. And a pretty damned good party too. The arrangements on this collection are tight, with key contributions from fellow ex-PFunk stars Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider, and Fred Wesley (who arranges the tight horn charts that propel the most spectacular songs and is the other James Brown alum on the record), and an array of guest vocalists ranging from the traditional R&B styles of a bunch of folks whose names I didn’t recognize to some rap contributions by Snoop Dogg. There are voice cameos from other friends of Bootsy, from Buckethead to George Clinton to the late Roger Troutman, bringing Christmas greetings.

And damned if it doesn’t all hang together. The horns make it feel like a Parliament reunion, and there’s a propulsive funk beat that runs through the whole album that makes one want to stand up and dance. (For this writer that’s no mean thing.) But for me the standout moment is deep in “Silent Night,” which may be the only time this holiday standard has grooved, where Bootsy answers the sung line “Sleep in heavenly peace” with a fervent “You and me, baby!” Aah, right on.

This post also at BlogCritics.

Very cool: the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (New Mozart Edition), an online archive of scores to all the composer’s works. Please note the Personal Use Only warning before you download a set of scores for your next concert performance…

The resource is going to be invaluable for scholarship. Why, I myself have already downloaded the scores to KV. 231 and 233 (the “Kiss My Ass” canons) for further study.