Music Notes
By 
Here is a great history of Living Colour, one of the most underrated bands in history, particularly focusing on their debut album Vivid and it’s great single “Cult of Personality.” I personally think Stain is their best album, but all three of their initial studio albums are fantastic. This goes into the intense racism they faced in the music industry, a situation that took a Mick Jagger direct intervention even to get them a recording contract.
This is a good piece on how a lot of journalists and writers are reticent about being honest with just how horrible of people so many of the early bluegrass greats were. This piece particularly focuses on Jimmy Martin, a crazy motherfucker who was also quite abusive toward women, as his former lover writes. Bill Monroe was not a nice man either, as this article alludes to. While I am not going to stop listening to Jimmy Martin (or stop watching Woody Allen or Roman Polanski films) just because he was a bad guy, I really don’t see the point in writing a book about someone if you aren’t going to be honest about their bad and hard ways.
Best Tweet Ever:
Some nights you're up trying to come up with the worst possible version of the Traveling Wilburys and then a photo just speaks to you. pic.twitter.com/NvOFB6qVMg
— Thierry Côté (@tcote) May 2, 2018
David Cantwell lists 10 great country albums released in 1978. Of all of them, the Rodney Crowell debut is the best and is simply one of the greatest country albums ever released.
The only way to really improve a music festival is not have them at all. Music festivals are awful–the performances are usually bad because of the open space, you are at the mercy of the elements, they go on forever, etc. I maintain that the club show is the greatest musical experience one can have. I guess there’s something to see 5 bands in 3 hours, but how many of those experiences are going to be good ones, at least if you care about the music itself and not just seeing 5 bands in 3 hours?
Glad to see the great pianist Carla Bley get some media attention!
Glenn Branca died today. I can’t say I was a big fan, but he certainly was influential and had his fanatical followers.
My long trip last week around the Chesapeake region was a 46 album trip. Since I refuse to allow myself to listen to the same album twice on any one trip, this becomes a good overview of what some of my favorites are these days. So here’s the list:
1) Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard, Pioneering Women of Bluegrass
2) Drive By Truckers, Go-Go Boots
3) Jason Isbell, Something More Than Free
4) Neko Case, Blacklisted
5) Bill Frisell, Unspeakable
6) John Moreland, High on Tulsa Heat
7) Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
8) Joy Divison, Substance
9) Smog, Supper
10) The Band, The Band
11) V/A, Rounder 25 Years of Bluegrass, Disc 2
12) Bill Frisell, Quartet
13) V/A, Borderlands: From Conjunto to Chicken Scratch
14) The Internet, Ego Death
15) Tom Waits, Rain Dogs
16) V/A, Conjunto: Tex-Mex Border Music, Volume 3
17) Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet, Way Out East
18) Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come
19) Patsy Cline, Live at the Opry
20) Frank Zappa, Hot Rats
21) Gang of Four, Entertainment
22) Last Exit, Headfirst into the Flames
23) Craig Taborn Trio, Chants
24) Ray Price, Night Life
25) Taraf de Haidouks, Of Lovers, Gamblers, and Parachute Skirts
26) L7, Bricks are Heavy
27) Chris Knight, Chris Knight
28) Loudon Wainwright III, Album III
29) V/A, African Pearls Mali 70: Electric Mali
30) Pink Floyd, Meddle
31) Flying Burrito Brothers, Farther Along: Best of the Flying Burrito Brothers
32) Richard Thompson, Watching the Dark, Disc 3
33) X, Wild Gift
34) Hacienda Brothers, What’s Wrong With Right
35) Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV
36) PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
37) Mount Moriah, Miracle Temple
38) Arthur Russell, Love is Overtaking Me
39) Illegal Crowns, Illegal Crowns
40) Chris Stapleton, Traveller
41) Sonny Sharrock, Ask the Ages
42) Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth, Deluxe
43) War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream
44) Sonic Youth, Dirty
45) Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Real Enemies
46) Neko Case, The Worse Things Get…
Album Reviews:
Myra Melford Trio, Alive in the House of Saints
This is an extended version of the 1993 album that made Melford a big name on the jazz scene. Now extended to two discs, this is a pretty fantastic set of music with Lindsey Horner on bass and Reggie Nicholson on drums. This is a killer album. The only downside to it is that at well over 2 hours, it’s a lot of Myra Melford. My one critique of modern jazz albums is that they are often very long, too long to want to listen to all at once. Technically, the two discs are sold separately, which helps alleviate that, although of course you have to pay for both discs.
A-
Dawn of Midi, Dysnomia
Jazz for techno fans. Interesting idea. But like techno, it’s extremely repetitive. I get the difficulty of this sort of technical repetition in live instrumentation, as opposed to the electronics of the club. I respect that. But I also find it pretty boring. However, for a certain set of listeners, this is going to be one of their favorite jazz albums.
B
Ozuna, Odiesa
Rolling Stone called this one of the 10 Best Latin Albums of 2017, but all I heard was pretty generic Latin R&B sounds from this Puerto Rican reggateon artist. It’s fine, but there wasn’t anything sonically I found particularly memorable.
B-
Taylor Swift, Reputation
Since some people seem to at least respect Taylor Swift’s pop career, I figured it was time to give one of her recent albums a listen. This is her latest. I think it is pretty bad. She has pop talent, I wouldn’t even begin to deny that. But this just is not a good album. The only song that I felt was above average was “Don’t Blame Me,” which isn’t even one of the six released singles. The over-reliance on AutoTune is just totally out of control and it drives me crazy. She gets lots of accolades for writing about her own life and emotions. Big deal. Maybe this is unusual in pop music’s hit factories, but who cares. The question is whether this is good music about her life and emotions, judged by the same standards as every other person who writes about their life and emotions. And it’s really not.
I also feel there’s a sort of soulless nothingness to Swift’s music. Maybe this has something to do with her move from country to pop. Of course, that’s a path we’ve seen before and there’s nothing wrong with it. Make the music you want and who cares about the labels I guess. But the fact that there’s basically nothing left from Swift’s earlier music. Was it the country she didn’t believe in? Is she just interesting in making money? These are perhaps not relevant questions and maybe they don’t matter. But I feel a giant void when I listen to Taylor Swift.
Even without any of this, Reputation is a crappy album.
C-
Federico Aubele, Berlin 13
Aubele is an Argentine trip-hop artist who I’ve enjoyed for several years without really loving it. Basically, it’s good background music for me; interesting enough to pay attention to if I want, easy enough to not pay attention, good for groups. Realizing I was mostly familiar with his early work, I checked out this 2011 album. It’s fine. More electronic than his earlier work, but it mines more or less the same atmosphere. Enjoyable, not mind-blowing.
B
As always, this is an open thread to all things music and none things politics. Incidentally, a reader recently sent me some tea and cherries for cocktails. I want to thank that reader very much and note that we all greatly appreciate it when someone buys us something off the wishlist.