I discovered that a new Pernice Brothers album had sneaked out last year via a comment left on Brian's blog a month or so back. I immediately set out to track it down as they haven't had a record out for almost a decade. The only place I could find it was on their bandcamp page, but I was happy to throw them some money and definitely not disappointed on receiving my download.
Spread The Feeling is classic Pernice Brothers - bright, sunshiny pop tunes with blissful harmonies and an underlying air of melancholy. If you've never heard of them, here's a Venn Diagram I drew to explain the band in as few words as possible...
Hear the full album over on Bandcamp, but here's one of my favourites...
Thanks go to Chris for pointing me in the direction of the new Jeffrey Lewis album, released late last year. It's been a while since Lewis has popped up on my radar, but there's a fine set of songs here that appeal to a grumpy old man who's rarely impressed by anything these days.
The song that caught Chris's ear was LPs, and I'm sure it's one which will strike a chord with many of you as Lewis relates his youthful addiction to vinyl (because it was cheap and nobody wanted it in the late 80s, early 90s)... but there's a sting in the tale. He doesn't buy LPs anymore. I wonder if you can guess what he buys instead...
But there's much more to be enjoyed on this album as Lewis embraces true Grumpy Old Man status and sinks his teeth into his very own Mid-Life Crisis (I'm reassured to see he's only three years younger than I am).
This is it, then. A pretty shitty year, all told, both on the world stage and closer to home. Still, we must press on and concentrate on the things that do still bring us joy. For me, that's my boy, a constant source of fun, pride and love. And music... always there, always something to cling onto in the wreckage. Here's the best of this year's offerings, in my humble opinion, with no obvious surprise at the top...
4. Craig Finn - I Need A New War
The Hold Steady released their first album in five years, Thrashing Thru The Passion, and a fine record it was too. However, their frontman appears to have transcended the trappings of his own band, and his solo albums continue to rise into another league altogether. I Need Another War was another great example of why Craig Finn is probably the best short story writer in contemporary rock. The Raymond Carver comparison still holds true.
When they swept up all the empties the parties always seemed like such a waste
3. Jenny Lewis - On The Line
Having said all that about Craig Finn, here's someone who can actually challenge him to that short story crown... and in this case, I guess she takes the prize. Another artist who has transcended her former band (the excellent Rilo Kiley) and continues to develop in new and exciting directions. She's more musical than Craig - shades of Tom Petty, Aimee Mann and even the Shangri-Las on this record - which is why she places one step higher. But it was a close call.
I had tickets to see Jenny Lewis this summer - my only gig of the year. Then I ended up having to move house and missed the gig. Dag-nabbit.
2. Lukas Nelson - Turn Off The News And Build A Garden
Song of the year right here. The rest of the album was pretty bloody amazing too, showing a diversity of styles most country / Americana artists would struggle to display. All those years gigging with Neil Young, and his dad, have obviously paid off for Willie's boy. There's even a bit of Jeff Lynne in this record. Stylish and poppy - a difficult trick to pull off these days.
My Top Three Bruce Springsteen Albums are, in ever-changing order: Born To Run, Nebraska and Tunnel of Love. Who's have thought that thirty-plus years after the most recent of those, he'd have delivered a challenger for the coveted Number Four position? But if you're gonna go draw new water from the well, choosing a well in Jimmy Webb's backyard is a masterstroke...
Top Track: Are you kidding me? I could sit here all night trying to work that one out. Here's this week's favourite...
Happy New Year, everyone. I'd like to hope 2020 will be better than 2019, but I've reached the age where I realise that's pretty unlikely. Still, humanity may yet prove me wrong.
Thank you to the good people who read this blog, who keep me company in the darkness. Your visits are always much appreciated. Be well.
It points at all the problems that it don't understand
It points at Parisians across the sea
It points at anybody who thinks different than me
If you're marching to your own drum or kneelin' in the news
My wild pointy finger prob'ly pointin' right at you
Best lyrical explanation this year of why the world's going to hell in a handbasket...
6. Tullycraft - The Railway Prince Hotel
Thanks go to Brian for turning me on to this lot in a big way this year. Witty, literate lyrics and poppy harmonies made this an irresistible summer listen. Plus, they steal part of Paradise By The Dashboard Light in the song below, so bonus points for that.
They shot their disapproving glances like a gatling gun
I couldn't vocalize the words that rested on my tongue
You never let yourself forget that this was passing
I'm sure you're not the only one
5. The Divine Comedy - Office Politics
Edit out three wearisome gag tracks which outstay their welcome after the first couple of listens and this is another great Divine Comedy album... though not quite as inspirational as Neil's last, Foreverland. It's a concept album set in an office... yet peek below the sitcom facade and it has quite a bit to say about Little England and the workaday world that inspired Brexit. Morrissey should give it a listen.
The final Leonard Cohen album, a posthumous surprise, was an excellent early Christmas present. It's more than just a collection of out-takes from the sessions that led to his last album, You Want It Darker, which was released just a couple of weeks before his sad passing in 2016. It feels like a real album, lovingly compiled by Cohen's son Adam, and it's a worthy companion to the aforementioned, plus a fitting postscript to Lenny's career.
There's just one moment on one track which can't help but raise an eyebrow whenever I hear it.
The Literary Review gives annual awards to "Bad Sex In Literature", pointing out where even the most established and respected authors come unstuck when trying to describe the act of coitus. Morrissey famously won the award a few years back for this passage in his much-mocked debut novel, List of the Lost...
"At this, Eliza and Ezra rolled together into one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”
It's worth pointing out that Morrissey wrote that novel on the back of his lauded Autobiography, which most critics loved... although I personally felt it could have used the occasional chapter break, or at the very least, paragraph. However, this only goes to show that Morrissey is on firm ground when writing about himself, but has long since passed the point of being able to engage or empathise with anyone who isn't Morrissey. Hence, fiction is now a no-go for him.
Back to Leonard though, and the lines that cause me to go a bit Roger Moore, from the otherwise excellent The Night of Santiago...
The lights went out behind us
The fireflies undressed
The broken sidewalk ended
I touched her sleeping breasts
They opened to me urgently
Like lilies from the dead
Behind a fine embroidery
Her nipples rose like bread
I dunno, I just can't get past the bready nipples, though I do keep trying, because despite this, it's a rather heartbreaking song, of an old man looking back on a sexual encounter from his youth, filled with both joy and regret. Leonard, however, has the perfect response for my (if you'll excuse the pun) titters...
You were born to judge the world
Forgive me but I wasn't
Besides that though, Thanks For The Dance really is a thing of beauty. If further proof were needed, try this...
Thanks for the... ahem... memories, Leonard. (See, I can avoid the obvious puns if I try really, really hard.)
Apologies for the awful pun in the post title. I've spent all week trying to think of a pun based on Lloyd's Bank but I couldn't think of one that was remotely complimentary.
A new Lloyd Cole album is always a cause for celebration in this house. I've had the latest one over a month now though and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. "Change of direction" is an understatement, as Lloyd abandons "sad old man guitar music" and embraces 80s electronic pop in a way that makes me feel he's been listening to a lot of John Grant. The fruity language suggests the same... never thought I'd hear Lloyd singing, "So I'm a complicated mother-fucker, you knew that..." Although this record certainly re-affirms his complicated nature.
Unlike most other Lloyd Cole records, this one has taken a while to grow on me. I'm not sure why, because the lyrics are prime Lloyd and the music works. It's not Lloyd trying to be contemporary (always a mistake for 50+ musicians)... because, let's face it, the 80s were a bloody long time ago.
You can listen to the whole of Guesswork at Lloyd's website, should you be interested. It's definitely worth persevering with and he should definitely be lauded for trying something different and not playing it safe by releasing just another Lloyd Cole guitar album. After all, guitar music's dead, isn't it?
(Let's hope not.)
Here's my current favourite track. I have no idea what it's about, but it's quite mesmerising...
There's no denying that Nick Cave's latest album is a work of art. A beautiful, haunting epic about the fragility of life, as Cave continues to work through his grief over the tragic death of his son. It's a worthy follow-up to one of my favourite albums of 2016.
The latest album by Jesse Malin, on the other hand, is a workmanlike rock 'n' roll record - albeit one of Malin's best in a long while. I was a huge fan of his debut album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction (which will be 18 years old next year... frightening) but Malin started to believe his own hype a little too much after that and his output has been only sporadically entertaining since. This latest effort ropes in Lucinda Williams, Billie Joe Armstrong and Alejandro Escovedo though, and Malin's forlorn vocals have never sounded better. Actually, workmanlike is damning it with faint praise. It's a definite grower.
Hardly a work of art though.
So how come, of the two, it's Malin's record I keep going back to?
There's always some debate whenever I mention my love for Huey Lewis & The News. Sometimes I think I'll start Huey Fridays and devote one day a week to extolling the virtues (non-ironically) of this most fun and life-affirming band. But I suspect I'd be pissing in the wind, and it'd just give Martin another excuse to drag out that American Psycho clip... to which I can at least respond with this these days, because it always gives me a chuckle.
But that's not why I'm here today. No.
I haven't even had time to write about the latest Sun Kil Moon album yet, when here comes another delicious offering from the too, too prolific Mark Kozelek, another artist who polarises opinion, just like Huey... though for quite different reasons.
This time Kozzer's teamed up with singer/violinist/female Bobby McFerrin impersonator Petra Haden. Perhaps her sweet-yet-slightly-oddball musicality has rubbed off on old grumpy guts as he's actually remembered to sing a couple of times on this record (as well as more of the usual mumbled diatribes... one 19 minute track on this album is called 1983 Era MTV Music is The Soundtrack To Outcasts Being Bullied By Jocks... which will keep me happy for a while, anyway).
This... this is beautiful though. One of the best songs of the 80s (shut up, you're wrong) given an entirely new spin by a misanthrope and an angel. Listen without prejudice...
If you want more Petra Haden, I recommend her versions of...
I find it very difficult to explain why I like The National as they don't fall into any of the easy to define categories that characterise most of my musical interests these days. They don't write story songs; their lyrics are obscure, at times frustratingly so, but occasionally spring surprising images or ideas on the listener that stick in your head like hooks. But there's nothing I particularly relate to or laugh at or even sing along to in Matt Berninger's lyrics, and normally songwriters like that (of whom there are a growing number these days) get short shrift from me.
Musically they're not an obvious choice for me either. They're not country or indie or singer-songwritery soft rock... which, you know, Mid-Life Musical Crisis should be the name of this blog these days. I'm not really sure how to define the band, but there is something quite contemporary in the production which would hold little appeal if it came from other artists.
One thing I can pinpoint is that I do like Berninger's voice, even when I don't know what the hell he's on about. Although, here comes another potential fly in the ointment: that voice gets rather sidelined on The National's latest album as Berninger welcomes on board a raft of female guest vocalists, including Sharon Van Etten and Kate Stables from This Is The Kit.
All that said, I've been listening to I Am Easy To Find for a good few months now, on and off, and I've yet to grow tired of it. It kind of washes over me, and I've come to realise that lyrically, Berninger belongs to the same school as Bowie... or Michael Stipe. That's most obvious on my favourite track (one which is crammed full of those frustrating lyrical hooks... and curiously even namechecks R.E.M.). The album version isn't available on youtube for some reason, but this is a pretty decent live take...
After featuring The Highwaymen on this week's Saturday Snapshots, it seems only fair to give their contemporary female counterparts a mention. The Highwomen are Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires - successful country stars in their own right, except they often struggle to get airplay on country music stations in the states because of famously sexist playlisting policies. (A lot's been written about that, so google it to your heart's content.)
For their eponymous title track and mission statement, they roped in original Highwaymen songwriter/creator, who worked with Carlile and Shires, to rewrite his famous tune from a female perspective...
Even better though is the closing track, Wheels of Laredo, which reminds me very much of one of my favourite Warren Zevon songs, Desperados Under The Eaves...
I'd like to say thank you to everybody who left a supportive comment after Monday's post. I know I'm being particularly vague about why things are pretty stressful at the moment - beyond job issues which I've alluded to but don't want to go into more detail about, for making things worse. There is something else that's causing me sleepless nights but I should be more able to talk about that, one way or another, next week. Until then, your good wishes are much appreciated here, and reflected back upon you all. It's good to have friends, even though I've never met any of you. And thank especially to John, who offered to meet up for a coffee - unfortunately, those damned work commitments have me chained to a (metaphorical) blackboard for the foreseeable, but that was much appreciated too.
Today's latest contender for my albums of the year is the latest record from Midland. A country record, yet it isn't cool Americana nor shiny, cheesy Nashville pop-country. It's a bar band record, good-time country rock, and as with their last album, there's a huge debt to the Eagles... though whether Midland have a trippy, pretentiously epic (in a good way) Hotel California in their future has yet to be seen. At the moment, they're content playing the Heartache Tonight / Take It Easy game, with the odd splash of... whisper it, so as not to offend the musos... Dr. Hook.
The video's fun, but it does kind of detract from the story of the song...
I don't know how come I've only just discovered Chip Taylor, when it appears he's been writing great tunes for over 50 years and has released over 25 solo albums in that time... but that's why I like the music industry. It never stops giving. There's always somebody new to discover... even if that somebody has been doing their thing for half a century.
(I'm particularly impressed that Chip Taylor released a song and an album in 2012 called Fuck All The Perfect People. That's going on the list of songs for my funeral.)
Anyway, Chip Taylor has a new album out at the moment. He's 79 now and his voice and delivery owe much to latter days Johnny Cash & Leonard Cohen. Here's the title track (with a little help from an old George Jones tune). It's a belter.
The new album by Richard Hawley appears to have gone by without much fanfare, but to me it's another fine example of an artist who's still operating at the peak of his abilities.
After a fiery indie-guitar opening reminiscent of his old band the Longpigs, the album settles down into classic Cash-Orbison mode. After a couple of the listens, many of the tracks sound like old friends from years gone by. It's hard to believe they've just been recorded, you could easily imagine hearing them playing from a crackly old AM radio 30 or 40 years ago.
I'm having a hard time finding anything positive to write about of late, which is adding to my blogging drought. Still, here's an excellent aid to the 3am woes, the latest album from Smog's Bill Callahan: a genuine spirit lifter. Not only has he written a song about the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show*, but he also excels at the pithy lyrical couplet. Here's one example which will hopefully lift your spirits slightly too.
Western Stars is the best Bruce Springsteen album since Tunnel Of Love.
There, I said it.
Of course, Bruce was (in theory, at least) onto a winner with me when he decided to channel the sound of Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell on his first album in 5 years... 7 years if you discount the hodge-podge contract-filler of 2014's High Hopes as many commentators appear to be doing. But it could also have gone so wrong - I mean, this is unfamiliar territory for the Boss, shouldn't he play it safe and stick to what he knows?
Actually, history has shown us that when Springsteen doesn't play it safe, he produces his best records. Born To Run succeeded because Bruce aimed high and tried to channel Phil Spector. Nebraska succeeded because he released the demos he recorded in his bedroom when he realised they were more powerful than full band arrangements would be. Tunnel Of Love succeeded because he refused to make Born In The USA II, kicked the E Street band into touch, and released instead the most personal album of his career - the ultimate break-up record (or guilt-tinged new romance record, depending on how you look at it). Those, in my opinion are the Holy Trinity of Springsteen albums, and while Western Stars might not make #4 on my list, it certainly comes a lot higher than anything else he's recorded in the last 32 years.
Don't get me wrong, there have been many good songs on the albums released since ToL, but the records themselves have always felt late-career, past-your-prime efforts. We loved them because we loved Bruce. He even managed to tap into the zeitgeist on occasion, most notably on The Rising and Wrecking Ball, but the glory days were seemingly over.
Western Stars isn't a record that seeks to change that. Instead, it's a record that embraces it. It's a record about growing old, and looking back on your better days with regret, but also acceptance. It's been compared by some reviewers to Nebraska (or later, sub-Nebraska efforts such as The Ghost of Tom Joad or Devils & Dust), yet to me it's the closest Bruce has ever come to recapturing the spirit of Tunnel of Love. The music might even be better, because it evokes the wide open spaces of 70s Americana rather than being smitten to 80s synth-based production. (That doesn't make it a better record though... records we love are about much more than just music.)
Western Stars begins in the past with a song about freedom, youth and hope. Hitch-hikin' romanticises the freedom of the road just like Gentle On My Mind once did, and it's packed with classic Springsteen character detail. Then comes The Wayfarer, looking at the same subject with more sadness and much less romanticism. There's touches of Steinbeck or even Ray Bradbury in the lyrical detail here.
After this, age and regret creep in. Tuscon Train contains that recurring Springsteen theme of laying awake in the middle of the night with an unquiet mind. And then come the songs about old men looking back on their lives through wistful eyes, the central theme of the album, realised through Western Stars, Drive Fast (The Stuntman) and others, bringing us some of the Boss's best character writing since... well, since Tunnel of Love. Clearly writing his autobiography and then performing it every night on Broadway has reinvigorated The Boss and given his creativity a new lease of life.
It all culminates in the penultimate track (and first single), Hello Sunshine - a bright and beezy slice of California Americana on the surface, though lyrically it's a tune all about staying one step ahead of the blues. It took me a while to truly appreciate its meaning, but once I did...
You know I always loved a lonely town Those empty streets, no one around You fall in love with lonely, you end up that way Hello sunshine, won't you stay?
I've read a lot of reviews of Western Stars. Some I agreed with, one I threw out of the window. Ironically, the one person who nailed it was the man who Bruce took his inspiration from: God himself, Jimmy Webb. Although typically, God was full of humility in his response...
“I had heard these rumours and thought, ‘Is it possible that this is true? This guy needs us like a migraine!’
"I think it’s a very bold and admirable step, and
it certainly shows that he’s connected with the ground. He’s planted
down here with all of us. It shows there’s no snobbery in him.”
"I was
amazed at how he locked on to the sensual pleasure that can be derived
from loneliness. From what Warren Zevon used to call ‘splendid isolation.'"
"And
yet, at the same time, he’s recognizing there’s a danger there. There’s
a dark side. That lonely road has its appeal, but at the same time he’s
cautioning you: Don’t get too far out there, as you might not be able
to get back. That’s so intense and personal. The largesse of the artist
in revealing that to the listener is amazing.”
The album's postscript then is Moonlight Motel, a song that almost seems to revisit the young lovers of Born To Run and find out where they ended up. The highway only takes you so far, that's what I take from it. For all those of us who grew up with Bruce (even those of us who are a good twenty years his junior), it's a fitting end to that story.
Willie's boy has done it again. Hot on the heels of one of the best albums of last year, here comes his latest. I called Craig Finn one of the busiest men in rock last week, but Lukas Nelson is giving him serious competition, also playing guitar in Neil Young's band as his "day job".
I've not listened to the whole album in detail, but the title track (with Sheryl Crow on backing vocals) is a powerful statement about the state of the world today...
A week or so ago, Craig Finn announced the imminent release of a new album by his old band, The Hold Steady. This comes hot on the heels of his fourth solo album, I Need A New War, which is already shaping up to be one of my albums of the year.
Much as I love The Hold Steady, I'm starting to think Craig Finn's solo albums are getting even better. His storytelling is definitely hitting a purple patch - miniature Raymond Carver-esque vignettes in every song. Plus he's experimenting with what music critics might call "sonic diversity" - that is, throwing in a few different instruments and varying the genre at times.
Here's a terrific live performance of one of the stand-out tracks...
The latest Mercury Rev album is a bit of a curiosity. A reworking of Bobbie Gentry's second album, The Delta Sweete, it sees regular Rev vocalist Jonathan Donohue hand over his mic to a stellar range of guests, including Norah Jones, Phoebe Bridgers, Beth Orton, Margo Price, Vashti Bunyan and Lucinda Williams. This patchwork quilt of a tribute album shouldn't really work, and I half-expected to be grumbling that "none of them (even Lucinda) can hold a torch to Bobbie's originals", yet I've found myself getting sucked in with progressive listens.
As you'd expect from a Mercury Rev record, the arrangements are lush and sparkly and trippy, like something out of a dream, a hallucination, or a David Lynch film. For the most part, the guest vocalists rise to the occasion, either by being faithful to Bobbie's interpretations... or, particularly in Lucinda's case, being true to themselves. Actually, Lucinda is given the toughest draw - a cover of Ode To Billy Joe, which wasn't even on the original album but... well, it's Ode To Billie Joe. How could they resist?
Only occasionally does the odd vocalist betray her more contemporary roots by indulging in the kind of histrionics favoured by modern chart divas and X-Factor contestants... but I won't name names. Bobbie wouldn't approve. For the most part though, I think she'd be pretty chuffed with this tribute. We may never know, since she's shunned the celebrity life for over 40 years now. But let's at least hope she earns a few pennies towards her retirement from this...
To spare your blushes, I've posted the censored version of the new Amanda Palmer album cover... those of you interested in seeing the uncensored version can find it easily enough through google. Blushes are not something Ms. Palmer ever seems to worry about.
The cover is appropriate though - There Will Be No Intermission is Amanda Palmer laid bare, a confessional of how her life has changed in the 7 years since her last full album (though there have been many side projects in between), most notably her experiences as a new mother.
It's a very long album (I just managed to burn my download to an 80 minute CDR to listen to in the car) and a times there are shades of Mark Kozelek, both in the length of the track, and the raw, stream-of-consciousness honesty of the lyrics. It's probably not an album to recommend to newbies, but for those of us who have been with Amanda for a while, it offers great rewards if we stick with it. (The major difference between Palmer and Kozelek is that Amanda still uses tunes and singing, whereas Kozelek is mostly content to ramble over low key backing tracks these days.)
The stand-out track for me is this astonishing paean to motherhood... At Least The Baby Didn't Die. It's a song that mothers everywhere would, I'm certain, feel a connection with... though very few will ever hear it. Fathers, too, will probably recognise some things here too...
