Music Notes
By 
After sort of recovering from the exhaustion that Big Ears creates, I dragged myself to Boston to see the great rock band Wednesday, who I think is probably the most kick ass rock and roll band working today. This Asheville based band recently lost MJ Lenderman to his star solo career. But that hasn’t hurt Wednesday, not much at least. For one, that show in Boston was the largest they’ve ever played and it blew their minds. It was in a smaller venue and sold out so fast that it got upgraded and that nearly sold out too. There were probably 800 people or so in there. It was a fun show too. It was an April 1 show, so they started by going into Lenderman’s “Manning Fireworks” as an April Fool’s Joke.
It’s not a comparison, but Wednesday is simply a better band and live act than Lenderman. I don’t care that Lenderman is the more popular. Having just seen him at Big Ears, there’s no real comparison for me. Lenderman is talented and he’s got a great band. What he doesn’t have is a rock and roll voice. The band has to slow down every time there’s a verse. To say the least, Karly Hartzmann does not have that limitation. Her scream–and it’s Corin Tucker level here–can cut through any amount of guitar and drums. The songs are sharply written about southern fuckups, basically themselves, and she has such a great stage presence. Plus they covered Gary Stewart’s wonderful all-time great song “She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking Doubles)” which makes my heart glow. This band deserves every accolade it gets. Karly is who deserves the stardom.
A few major deaths in the music world in the last couple of weeks. For me, the most important was Jon Dee Graham, the Texas songwriter who I saw a bunch of times when I lived there between 2007 and 2010. It’s not totally shocking that he died at 67. He wasn’t really into things such as “being healthy.” He smoked like a chimney for one thing and had been sick for some time. A bummer, but what a great songwriter, especially in that time I was lucky enough to see him on a regular basis on Wednesdays when he played the 10 PM set at the Continental Club and James McMurtry would come on at midnight. I probably saw him a half-dozen times or so and then once in Rhode Island, where he played this bar where about 5 people were paying attention and everyone else was loud and drunk and it was really depressing. I guess he got paid. Probably a little bit. Anyway, his album Full remains one of my all time favorites. He never did play “Amsterdam” when I saw him, but his little travel narrative has one of my favorite lyrics ever: “Those Muslim girls with their defiant stares/I don’t care if you cover your hair/I still love you/Just not in that western way.”
And if you don’t know much about Graham, this is a great piece on him from The Bitter Southerner.
We also lost Dolores Keane. I first ran into this Irish singer on Tom Russell’s amazing The Man From God Knows Where album, his song cycle about the American immigrant past, and particularly his family. Keane plays the role of the Irish immigrant and “When Irish Girls Grow Up” is such a great, great song. Might as well be the experience of my mother in law, even if she migrated much later than the characters in Russell’s family.
Keane had overcome a lot, especially a serious drinking problem. It wasn’t stated why she died. I’ve heard a couple of her solo albums and they are solid, particularly 1978’s There Was a Maid, which is the one I know best.
Afrika Bambaattaa died the other day. That’s an enormous loss. As for his personal life, yikes, not great. But anyone who made this big of a difference in the history of music as one of the true hip hop pioneers must be mentioned regardless.
Finally, Chip Taylor. You know Chip Taylor even if you’ve never heard of him. He wrote “Wild Thing.” He also wrote “Angel of the Morning.” He wrote. “Song of a Rotten Gambler,” which Anne Murray had a big hit with and others have recorded. He wrote “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder) for Janis Joplin. Later in his career, he took a young fiddler under his wing and released a couple of great albums with Carrie Rodriguez that I think really hold up and launched her reasonably successful solo career, though I haven’t heard much from her lately. He was also Jon Voight’s brother.
I guess I should note that Dash Crofts, from Seals & Crofts, died too. Hope all you soft rock fans are OK.
Melvin Gibbs is such a fantastic bassist. I saw him recently at Big Ears with Harriet Tubman and Georgia Anne Muldrow. Harriet Tubman is just one of those bands where life isn’t the same if you are lucky to see them. He has a new book out about the history of black music and it looks fascinating.
Why does everyone hated being labeled an “Americana” artist?
Glad to see the British banning Kanye. What is the deal with reviving this asshole’s career anyway?
You know people are turning on Trump and MAGA when even mainstream country music is moving to the center in its songs.
Blue Jays fans really hate that Daulton Varsho’s walk-up music is Alex Warren’s “Ordinary.” Do any of the Mariners hitters have walk-up music that uses a song about forgetting how to hit a baseball in 2026?
Country “comedian” and right-wing asshole Ray Stevens fell and broke his neck, though not in a paralyzing way. His brain was broken long ago.
I do find it kind of uncool when people record shows without the band’s permission. On the other hand, when a dude has an archive of 10,000 recorded shows extending back to the 80s that is mostly rock and roll and not generally the typical bands known for live releases, it becomes an important archive and of course then you end up with important and rare shows you’ve documented.
This week’s playlist, very short due to a lot of shuffle and being busy and listening to more new albums than usual that are reviewed below.
- Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose
- Robert Earl Keen, Gringo Honeymoon
- Julien Baker & Torres, Send a Prayer My Way
- Richard Thompson, Still
- Buddy Tabor, Edge of Despair
- U.S. Girls, In a Poem Unlimited
- Bob Dylan, Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The Royal Albert Hall Concert, 1966, disc 1
- Roberta Flack, First Take
- Last Exit, The Noise of Trouble: Live in Tokyo
- Vincent Neil Emerson, The Golden Crystal Kingdom
- Julia Jacklin, Pre Pleasure
- Yossou N’Dour, Fatteliku
- U2, Achtung Baby
- Die Spitz, Teeth
- Wussy, Rigor Mortis
- Michael Nesmith, And the Hits Just Keep On Coming
- James McMurtry, The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
- Smog, Supper
- Waylon Jennings, Waylon Live, disc 1
- Chubby Wise/W.C. Averett, Bluegrass
- Drive By Truckers, bootleg from 2/19/09
- The Louvin Brothers, Tragic Songs of Life
- David Torn/Tim Berne/Ches Smith, Sun of Goldfinger
- Merle Haggard, Branded Man
- La Santa Cecilia, self-titled
- Sunflower Bean, Twentytwo in Blue
- Peter Gabriel, Security
- Eleanore Mills, This is Eleanore Mills
- Neil Young, Way Down in the Rust Bucket
- Jim Lauderdale & Ralph Stanley, Lost in the Lonesome Pines
- Johnny Paycheck, Someone To Give My Love To
- The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital Of The West 1940-1974, disc 6
- Ralph Stanley, Classic Stanley, disc 1
- Vijay Iyer Sextet, Far From Over
- Joy Division, Substance, 1977-1981
Album Reviews:
Yankee Bastard, FUCKING USA
I guess in hardcore punk, 6 minute EPs that consist of 8 songs make an album. In any case, these are angry Koreans who do not like the United States, in case you were unclear on the point by their English name and album title. It’s loud and angry and that alone gets a reasonably favorable mark.
B-
Harriet Tubman/Georgia Anne Muldrow, Electrical Field of Love
Harriet Tubman is the jaw-dropping noise jazz trio of Brandon Ross, Melvin Gibbs, and J.T. Lewis. Georgia Anne Muldrow is the weirdo modern soul singer they love. I saw Harriet Tubman perform in LA once and they invited her up. Then they decided to do a whole project. I saw it at Big Ears last week. It’s pretty cool. Her vocals are often more noises and moans than lyrics, which isn’t all that surprising in the history of free jazz vocalists. Sometimes they are real songs though. I like the project, do think it would be better with just the three of them doing there thing instead of often slowing down the playing to accommodate her. But hey, why not try an album like this? Plus they love each other and we should respect that.
B+
Somewhat surprisingly, nothing from this album is on YouTube, so here is Harriet Tubman without Muldrow in full effect.
Hurray for the Riff Raff, Live Forever
Hurray for the Riff Raff does put on a fun, inspiring live show, but I never really thought about what a live record for them would look like. In fact, it feels like most young bands eschew live records. Maybe because a lot of them are not the live performers they need to be to pull it off. The question with any live album is whether it adds much to the studio albums. This one doesn’t really. But here’s the thing–the songs are just so great that it doesn’t matter much. Just shuffle the songs in a different way, mix the order, add a few different vocal traits from singing them live, and you have a perfectly worthy listen. I’ll probably buy this.
B+
Mitski, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me
Mitski became the bard of slightly disaffected young women in the late 2010s and did it very well. After talking about stepping away from music to do something else, she found herself drawn to more recording. She writes song, what else is she supposed to do? This is her latest. Going into this, I felt that as trenchant as her observations could be, we were starting to hit diminishing returns on what she produced. Not bad, but kind of the same thing. So I was curious to hear the new release.
Well, I was really impressed by the opening track “In a Lake,” about why growing up in a small town would be terrible because you couldn’t forget anything. With its accordions and tone and lyrics, it sounds like a Kate and Anna McGarrigle track. The album goes forward with mostly comfortable themes. Mitski really is a great songwriter of love and longing. Yes, the sonic palette is relatively limited. That’s probably not going to change at this point, but it wouldn’t hurt her to do something pretty different musically going forward. In this, she reminds me a bit of Waxahatchee, who I love a bit more, but who gets over some sameness in the sound based on the excellent lyrics. If you love Mitski, you will love this, if you are new Mitski, you will probably be interesting, if you merely like Mitski (me), you will probably see this as a bit of the same, but, again, you can live with it.
B+
Sloan, Steady
I’m not really familiar with this Canadian indie band that goes back to the early 90s, but at some point, I had put their 2022 album on my to-hear list, so I thought it was time to check it out. It’s pretty poppy! Basically enjoyable catchy garage rock that doesn’t exactly move anything forward, but if you like power pop but a bit grungier than The New Pornographers, this is a good album for you. Plus with more than a tinge of country in some songs. I enjoyed it.
B
Altin Gün, Ask
This is a Dutch-based band of mostly Turkish guys who do versions of the great Anatolian psych-rock music of the 70s that was so critical to the world music scene of that time. This album is from 2023 and they have a couple out since then. Granted, I don’t know enough about the history of the music they are building from here to speak intelligently about it. But then I don’t speak intelligently about most of the music I see. I can say I would absolutely pay to see this rocking band. This is probably as much a review of how the entire scene makes me feel as much as this band, but they both make me feel good and isn’t that good enough? Works for me. And really, it’s like if classic rock was actually good and interesting.
A-
Tyshawn Sorey Trio, The Susceptible Now
Sorey is one of the masters of modern jazz. He can do anything. His preference is often working in the traditional p-b-d trio format, playing interesting compositions that would both fit in to the jazz of the 60s but is also rather different from them. This is a 2024 album from his usual trio of Aaron Diehl on piano and Harish Raghavan on bass. It sounds great. It’s like the 60s merged with the present, an album that works in the dark corners where many think jazz fits best but also captivates you. That they cover McCoy Tyner’s song “Peresina” doesn’t hurt this formulation. The other songs are Mingus’ “A Chair in the Sky,” best known for the Joni Mitchell version that they did together near the end of his life, Brad Mehldau’s “Bealtine” and Vividry’s “Your Good Lies,” which is a song I don’t know from a few years back. The combination shows Sorey’s influences and interpretative power.
A-
Nothing on YouTube from this album either, but here’s a cut from their 2022 album that gets the talent across.
Shakti, This Moment
I never really got into the Shakti albums of the 80s, with John McLaughlin engaging his eastern spiritualism love in his music. Maybe it’s because I thought McLaughlin was wildly over the top with this stuff to the point of hippie self-parody. I absolutely should go back and listen to those albums. Instead, I decided to check out the album they released in 2023 when they decided to give it one more go after all these years. There won’t be another, at least not with the original lineup, because Zakir Hussein died a couple of years ago.
But I gotta say, I did not enjoy this very much. McLaughlin brings a lot of silly electronics to this instead of his guitar. Some of the vocal work is cheesy, reminding me of some sort of scatting. Obviously, the percussion is amazing. McLaughlin can still burn on his guitar. The new violinist does lovely work. But the project as a whole exists on wrong side of the New Age and self-indulgence too often for the positive stuff to work for me. I up it a bit because of the great Indian musicians here, meaning that you can pay attention to parts of songs or try to forget that McLaughlin is fucking around running his guitar through synths. There are great moments, I won’t deny it. But it’s not a great album.
B-
Brian Bilston/The Catenary Wires, Sounds Made by Humans
As a general rule, I’m not opposed to poets speaking over music as albums. And this is a very British version of that genre. But Bilston’s observations about the world are just kind of boring middle class life with a few wry observations narratives. That’s fine–there’s nothing wrong with living that kind of life, but an interesting lyrical experience it does not make and if the lyrics aren’t carrying, there’s no real room for the music to do so.
C
Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, Live at the Village Vanguard, Volume 1
When I saw Immanuel Wilkins play last year at Big Ears, his band included a cook. Literally–he was making a stew on stage and the smells were supposed to influence the players. Now that is something I had never seen before. It was also a hell of a great set. So I am not unhappy to see him release a live recording of his quartet at one of the classic venues in jazz. It’s super. It’s a good way for those who might be interested in some new sounds without going way into crazy jazz might explore a bit. Micah Thomas is on piano, Ryoma Takenaga is on bass, and Kweku Sumbry is on drums. This is a glorious album, a fantastic document of a young master in action, and something you should hear. Likely this will compete for my favorite album of 2026. Evidently this is going to go to Volume 3, with the next volume this month and the following in May. Oh my.
A
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics. Other than the Nashville establishment sucking, that’s OK.