Music Notes

It’s been a few weeks for one of these, not for any particular reason other than time to listen to the new albums I require before doing one. Usually when there’s a break, it’s because I got overwhelmed by the actual writing, but that’s not the case here. In any case, we’re back!

Two shows to report. First, I saw Steve Earle at the Spire Center in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I had never seen a show here. It’s a converted church and is a nice place to see a small show and seeing Steve Earle in such a space is a good thing. Usually this venue has somewhat smaller acts that also cater to old people, which means a lot of B-level 60s folkies and blues guitarists who wish it was the 60s. Not really my thing. But Asleep at the Wheel is playing there near the end of summer and there’s a chance I would see that. In any case, Earle has been playing for 50 years now and so he is doing songs in the order he wrote them. That’s not the same as recorded, so he starts with “Tom Ames’ Prayer” and “Ben McCulloch,” both songs that didn’t get released until his post-drug album Train a’ Comin‘, which happens to be my favorite of his albums. Then he goes into some of the big songs off Guitar Town, “Copperhead Road,” a bunch of the songs off albums such as I Feel Alright and Transcendental Blues (both of which I find to be just OK albums) and then a couple of his mining songs. Finally, he does “Galway Girl” as a great encore. He’s also telling a lot of stories and these go on for awhile, sometimes possibly too long, though I love the stories about trying to make it in Nashville in the 80s. He’s definitely getting older and his voice is a little more ragged than he used to be, but he’s still quite the character. Very much worth seeing if you can.

Then I saw the Dan Weiss Quartet at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, the last of the spring series that I try to attend a few shows from. This included Weiss on drums, Peter Evans on trumpet, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and Miles Okazaki on guitar. This was my 5th time seeing Brennan play, though always in someone else’s band and my 3rd time for Okazaki, also only with others. Had not seen Evans or Weiss before, or even heard of them. It’s a good show though. I got a perfect view of Brennan’s vibraphone and she is just so amazing. In the set I saw, she had a good 5 minute solo, which you don’t see a lot these days in these modern jazz bands, but they really let her go to town and it was pretty great. Weiss also had some lengthy time for himself. Evans mostly played within the band and Okazaki was somewhere in between all that. Not sure that it was the most transcendent show I’ve seen there, but it was certainly beyond worthy, with some pretty super moments. It also never hurts that everyone in this band clearly likes each other and as Weiss said when introducing people, that really matters in the making of semi-improvised music.

I recently read Kelefa Sanneh’s Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. Sanneh, the pop writer for The New Yorker wrote this history of rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance, and pop since 1970 as a way to revisit his own history, to discuss changing tastes, and to consider a world in which critics now like everything and thus mostly say nothing. I mostly liked the book, especially the second half. I appreciated him basically starting in 1970ish, as a way to avoid the tired old histories of Elvis and Dylan and the Stones. I did find his discussions of rock, country, and R&B to be perfectly fine, but less revelatory than the last four. One reason for this is that I know more about the first three’s history. A better reason is that Sanneh was a punk who became a rap fanatic and then someone who has thought harder about dance music than I ever have and who later became famous for his defense of pop against “rockism” back when he wrote for the New York Times. Rockism is the idea that rock bands like Springsteen and U2 are simply better and more authentic than pop music, which is of course complete Boomer bullshit. The default Rock is God world remains strong though. Sanneh is a bit more of a populist than I am. I really do think the lack of outright negative reviews in the music world is a problem, even though at the same time I appreciate how we have stopped letting music divide us into tribes. Everyone likes everything, the absolute opposite of what has happened in our politics. He’s a bit too forgiving of the racism of country music fans too. But a bit too much populism when it comes to art is not actually a bad thing. I enjoyed the book and learned a lot. Can’t ask too much more than that.

In case you didn’t see it, Pitchfork published another essay by our colleague Elizabeth Nelson, this time a retrospective discussion of The Pretenders’ 1984 album Learning to Crawl.

We lost Alf Clausen, the legendary composer for the first seasons of The Simpsons. He was 84.

I’m not particularly convinced that there is a “roots music” moment happening right now, but there are a lot of good artists who have made solid careers for themselves and this article profiles a bunch of them. I’m mixed on the chosen artists–glad to see Charley Crockett here. Billy Strings certainly has gotten rich, but I hate what has happened to bluegrass, which is now just virtuoso jam band bullshit. Anyway, check it out.

I never cared about Katy Perry one way or the other but the former huge pop star has become a punching bag and this is actually an interesting piece about why.

It’s so exciting to know that up until Trump budget slashing, Denver used to sweep Red Rocks for dirty nuclear bombs before every show. I understand that Dave Matthews fans are really high profile targets for nuclear terrorists.

Why Ernest Tubb wrote “Walking the Floor Over You”

Very excited for the new James McMurtry album and he’s been doing interviews and one thing he notes is that he won’t play “We Can’t Make It Here Anymore” because he fears it could be coopted by Trumpists.

Playlist for the last few weeks:

1. Tom Russell, Road to Bayamon
2. PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
3. Drive By Truckers, Welcome to Club XIII
4. Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, disc 1
5. Tammy Wynette, Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad
6. Patterson Hood, Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance
7. Hank Thompson, Seven Decades
8. Thumbscrew, Multicolored Midnight
9. Bill Frisell, East/West, disc 2
10. Bonnie Prince Billy, Best Troubador
11. Kacey Chambers, Backbone
12. Gram Parsons, Grievous Angel
13. Mitski, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We
14. Feeble Little Horse, Girl with Fish
15. Miguel, Wildheart
16. Jamila Woods, Water Made Us
17. LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening
18. Bill Miller, The Red Road
19. Eric Revis, Slipknots Through the Looking Glass
20. Willie Nelson, Shotgun Willie
21. Matthew Shipp, New Orbit
22. Torres, self-titled
23. La Santa Cecilia, Amar y Vivir
24. Loretta Lynn, The Definitive Collection
25. The Freight Hoppers, Where’d You Come From, Where’d You Go
26. Justin Townes Earle, Kids in the Street
27. Neil Young, On the Beach
28. Ryley Walker, Deafman Glance
29. Mabe Fratti, Sentir Que No Sabes
30. Billy Bang Sextet, Live at Carlos
31. Wadada Leo Smith, America’s National Parks, disc 2
32. Dwight Yoakam, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room
33. The Hold Steady, Almost Killed Me
34. Waylon Jennings, Waylon Live, disc 2
35. Wussy, Ghosts (x2)
36. Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
37. Wussy, Left for Dead
38. Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
39. Ray Price, Another Bridge to Burn
40. Butch Hancock, West Texas Waltzes
41. William Parker, Long Hidden: The Olmec Series
42. Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter
43. Mount Moriah, How to Dance
44. Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man
45. New Grass Revival, On the Boulevard
46. Matt Sweeney & Bonnie Prince Billy, Superwovles
47. Torres, self-titled
48. Yo La Tengo, Stuff Like That There
49. Drive By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera, disc 2
50. David S. Ware, Surrendered
51. Adam O’Farrill, For These Streets
52. Purple Mountains, self-titled
53. Neil Young, Harvest
54. Del McCoury Band & Steve Earle, The Mountain
55. The Hacienda Brothers, What’s Wrong with Right
56. Los Lobos, Just Another Band from East L.A., disc 1
57. The War on Drugs, Slave Ambient
58. Lone Justice, The Western Tapes
59. Janelle Monae, Dirty Computer
60. La Santa Cecilia, self-titled
61. The Band, Northern Lights Southern Cross
62. Darius Jones, The Legend of e-Boi
63. Townes Van Zandt, Our Mother the Mountain
64. Lisa O’Neill, All of This is Chance
65. St. Vincent, All Born Screaming
66. John Coltrane, Blue Train
67. Bill Holman Band, Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk
68. Frank Ocean, Channel Orange
69. Dave Alvin, Romeo’s Escape
70. Palace Music, Lost Blues and Other Songs
71. Childbirth, Women’s Rights
72. Bill Frisell, Music for the Films of Buster Keaton: The High Sign/One Week
73. James McMurtry, The Horses and the Hounds
74. Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking
75. Agalisiga, Nasgino Inage Nidayulenvi
76. Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man
77. Buddy Tabor, Abandoned Cars and Broken Hearts
78. Norman Blake, Fields of November
79. Norman Blake, Old and New
80. Joanna Newsom, Ys
81. Miles Davis, Dark Magus, disc 1
82. The John Coltrane Quartet with Eric Dolphy
83. Ana Tijoux, 1977
84. Chris Corsano/Bill Orcutt, Made Out of Sound
85. Mikal Cronin, MCII
86. The Mountain Goats, Beat the Champ
87. Orquesta Akokan, 16 Rayos
88. Chvrches, Every Open Eye
89. Beyoncé, Renaissance
90. Jason Isbell, Southeastern
91. Marc Ribot, Rootless Cosmopolitans
92. Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
93. Raul Malo, Pat Flynn, Rob Ickes, Nashville Acoustic Sessions
94. Junior Brown, 12 Shades of Brown
95. Bill Monroe, Live Recordings 1956-1969: Off the Record, Vol. 1
96. John Hartford, Aereo Plain
97. Sun Ra, In Some Far Place: Roma 1977
98. Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit
99. Joe McPhee, Nation Time
100. Don Edwards, Live at the White Elephant
101. Silver Jews, The Natural Bridge
102. Sunny Sweeney, Heartbreakers Hall of Fame
103. The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital Of The West 1940-1974, disc 5
104. Laura Veirs, The Lookout
105. Wadada Leo Smith/Douglas Ewart/Mike Reed, Sunbeams of Shimmering Light
106. Delta 5, Singles and Sessions, 1979-81
107. Bodega, Endless Scroll
108. Bonnie Prince Billy, Hear the Children/Sing the Evidence
109. The Tallest Man on Earth, Dark Bird is Home
110. Millie Jackson, On the Soul Country Side
111. Dave Liebman/Tyshawn Sorey/Adam Rudolph, New Now

Album Reviews:

Sniffany & The Nits, The Unscratchable Itch

Classic female fronted angry English punk. Of course they aren’t inventing the wheel here, but then this is part of the larger group of musicians that have created such other outstanding bands such as Joanna Gruesome and The Tubs that reach into the English rock past and create something different. This is very much Sniffany’s baby though and she totally rocks. How does she describe what she does? “All my favourite films are about women doing evil things over and over again. I wouldn’t say I’m a bad person, but I’ve always been drawn to those things because there’s more truth in it. All my lyrics tend to mix the sort of repulsion nobody ever associates with hyper-femininity. There’s nothing else I find as interesting.” And hey, it’s pretty interesting too and you can even understand some of the lyrics, which are pretty fucked up. She’s committed to the bit, no question about that.

A-

James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Abstraction is Deliverance

A superstar quartet around this rising and still pretty young saxophonist, one of the best artists working in jazz today. That quartet includes Aruan Ortiz on piano, Brad Jones on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums. This has a very strong Coltrane in 65 vibe to it, mostly originals but with Mal Waldron and Billie Holiday’s “Left Alone” as a fun cover. Lewis is such a master of his instrument, just astounding control and compositional genius. Ortiz plays the Alice Coltrane-esque parts amazingly too and the rhythm section does more than what is necessary to make this one of the top jazz albums of the year. If you like modern jazz that has some roots in the tradition but also is not trying to replicate the early 60s or before, this is a great album for you. It’s frankly just so much more interesting than anything the Marsalis boys have done. Maybe that’s not a fair comparison on either side here, but given that remains something of a definitional flashpoint in debates about jazz (among the 50 people who care) that it becomes almost inevitable to bring it up. The other person who is the clear influence on Lewis here is David S. Ware, whose 90s and 00s work took the tenor to new places; Lewis isn’t quite as outre as Ware, but the tone has some strong similarities. Just a really good release.

A

Mary Ocher, Your Guide to Revolution

Not quite sure if this is my guide to revolution, but it’s a fun title. She’s serious too, you can even visit her personal guide to radical living at her website. It’s very much “consumerism is bad.” She bemoans the decline of such politics since the 90s; I am more ambivalent as I always thought those politics were really half-baked to begin with. But perhaps it did seem easier to just opt out of the bullshit of society then than now. As for the supposed musical guide to revolution, it’s basically DIY electronics stuff with a psych edge. As such, it’s somewhat ironic that computerized sounds is the guide to an anti-consumerist revolution. The music is alright for electronic instrumental tracks. The vocals are whatever.

C+

Sugaray Rayford, In Too Deep

Old school soul blues with a strong social edge, starting with the lead song “Invisible Soldier,” about PTSD in veterans. This is the kind of album that I have hard time figuring out why someone would dislike. You’d have to hate soul and blues and horn sections and grooves and while I suppose that describes someone, I wouldn’t want to know them. That’s different than thinking Rayford is breaking a ton of new ground or this being your favorite album or something like that. But it’s a classically enjoyable album and that’s a comfort zone we should all be able to embrace. At the very least, if you don’t like “Gonna Fill You Up,” which the Staples Singers could have done, then I just have nothing for you.

B

The Whitmore Sisters, Ghost Stories

The history of sibling groups in country music is long and great and the Whitmore Sisters, both singers and veterans of the country and Americana scenes but who have not recorded together before this, is an excellent addition. Siblings simply are really good at singing together if they’ve done it since they were kids. This is a solid set of songs, wonderfully delivered. Check out “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter” as a great intro. This album came out of them live together during Covid and they decided it was time to do the album together. And the ghosts? Well, a lot of them are people they knew who have died, something with a lot of meaning during Covid. The album came out in 22 and I wish I had heard it before this.

A-

Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves, Hurricane Clarice

I should have heard this duo awhile ago since they appear at a lot of festivals I go to and I’m like, I should check this out but then I never do. So now I will check out the album at least. And this is really cool. They are old-time banjo and fiddle musicians except not really old-time at all. They take those old ways and adapt them to new and even avant-garde styles, including drone music. This is really rethinking the traditions of North American folk music in an entirely new way and it’s so refreshing in an age when bluegrass has become hippies engaging in technical masturbation rather than playing real songs with meaning or remembering that music is about soul more than it is around proficiency. In other words, on guitar give me Norman Blake or, say, Robbie Robertson over Steve Vai any day and in the modern bluegrass world give me de Groot and Hargreaves over Billy Strings any day. They could jam for 20 minutes too. They just know that it’s better music to not do that. Oh, and the title? It’s a dedication to Clarice Lispector, the Ukrainian-born novelist of mid-20th century Brazil. She had her own unique grammar to her art too. And the opening track is about Rachel Carson. Now that’s a folk tradition I can get behind!

And yeah, dang, I should have taken those chances to see them before this.

A-

Roy Campbell, Visitations of Spirits

This is a 2023 release of a live show from 1985 that the legendary trumpeter did at Brandeis with William Parker on bass and Zen Matsuura on drums. Four decades later, Parker is one of the all time jazz legends and Matssura never really quite became as huge as the other two, dying in 2015, but was a really respected free jazz drummer. Campbell himself passed away in 2014, though I was lucky enough to see him in one of the first really awesome jazz shows I ever saw, when he was in the Other Dimensions in Music band. Now, I’ve never felt that the 80s was a great decade for jazz. The 60s guys were struggling to be relevant, a lot of the fusion dudes had gone into pure cheese, and the next generation of legends were still pretty young. Over time, I’ve moderated this stance though, as I mistook some of no one paying attention with not much happening. Very much not the same thing. Anyway, I wrote this before listening to the album, just for context. Now to listen….

This is a pretty enjoyable recording. My first thought is that Parker is already such a complete badass on bass, in a way that very few bassists have really been noticed for. Of course there’s Mingus and there’s Carter and there’s been other great bassists, but few have so dominated the proceedings on their recordings while also not getting in the way of the other players as Parker. My second thought is that this is really pretty subdued for these guys. There’s a lot of space for everyone and counter to so many stereotypes, this music has never been all about noise made really loud. Now, I don’t think this is an all time album for anyone involved here, but it is a really good moment in time and well worth a listen.

Nothing from this on YouTube, but here’s another Campbell piece for your ears.

B+

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.