plug tuning, pt. 2

i'm not enitrely ready yet to commence the year-end listing, and all the soul-searching, self-imposed self-conscious listening that entails - to say nothing of the year-end mixmaking - though bedbugs' fairly comprehensive '07 teen-pop round-up makes a good inspiration/starting point. but here goes i guess the last mix-tape i made in regular season play this year, which will stands as a sort of informal beginning to that process, since it rounds up many of my favorites from the first two-thirds of '07 (and the last half or so of '06); and i'll use it as a way to begin commenting on those artists/albums/tracks, as seems appropriate.

it's possibly the most 'conventional' mix i've made in ages, which is to say that, even more than its mood-based predecessor (which drew from a wider array, temporally speaking) it has no especial theme or organizing principle other than to survey recent highlights in a way that makes an enjoyable, relatively cohesive listen.

Title: Musician Plugs II (subtitle: paren(t)heses)
Format: 2 CDs
Date: September 2007
Packaging: similar to the design of the original, with inserts made from that same calendar, but in a long, DVD-size jewel case (the fancy kind that allows two discs to fit on the spindle.) this time it's ingrid bergman on the front/inside cover, and humphrey bogart on the back cover, and for some reason i decided the track listing on the calendar squares should be upside down with respect to the numbers. so it's pretty hard. i won't even bother showing you a picture of the track list for the first disc (which is in the tray, underneath the cd) - look down to see the list for the second disc (which is inside the 'booklet'.)

incidentally, the critics have been raving:

"Your musician plugs covers are works of genius."

- my dad

DISC ONE

1. LCD Soundsystem, "Someone Great"
2. Caribou, "Sandy"
3. Patrick Wolf, "Overture"
4. The New Pornographers, "My Rights Versus Yours"
5. Battles, "Leyendecker"
6. Keith Urban, "I Told You So"
7. Miranda Lambert, "Guilty in Here"
8. The Blow, "Parentheses"
9. Spoon, "Finer Feelings"
10. Pop Levi, "Flirting"
11. The Long Blondes, "Weekend Without Makeup"
12. Okkervil River, "Black"
13. Hot Chip, "No Fit State"
14. The Ark, "Let Me Down Gently"
15. Gui Boratto, "Xilo"
16. Aberfeldy, "Hypnotized"
17. M.I.A., "Paper Planes"
18. Oakley Hall, "Living in Sin in the USA"
19. Patty Griffin, "I Don't Ever Give Up"
20. Feist, "1 2 3 4"

DISC TWO

1. Low, "Hatchet (Optimimi Version)"
2. Margaret Berger, "Naive (16)"
3. Lauryn Hill, "Lose Myself"
4. Junior Boys, "Count Souvenirs"
5. Regina Spektor, "Better"
6. The Good, The Bad and the Queen, "Behind the Sun"
7. Maxïmo Park, "Books From Boxes"
8. The National, "Fake Empire"
9. They Might Be Giants, "Climbing The Walls"
10. Arctic Monkeys, "Flourescent Adolescent"
11. Andrew Bird, "Heretics"
[alternate selection: Joan as Police Woman, "Eternal Flame"]
12. Joanna Newsom, "Cosmia"
13. Ellen Allien + Apparat, "Way Out"
14. Tracey Thorn, "Falling Off a Log"
15. Amy Winehouse, "Tears Dry On Their Own"
16. The Hold Steady, "You Can Make Him Like You"
17. The Gothic Archies, "The World Is A Very Scary Place"
18. Beirut, "Scenic World"
19. Barbara Morgenstern, "The Operator (Single Edit)"
20. The Bird and the Bee, "Again and Again"
21. John Vanderslice, "New Zealand Pines"
22. Jarvis Cocker, "Black Magic"
23. Marit Larsen, "Solid Ground"

[stay tuned for commentary on the tracklists]

metastatic

or, stars of the burial field, and their untrue refinement of the sublime

i've got a question, it's serious as cancer. ok, it's not, but it's mildly interesting: why are the top three slots on metacritic's best-reviewed albums of 2007 list occupied by three obscure electronica albums? one german, one american, one british. all decidedly obscure to the general public, as compared to for instance current top-five runners-up robert plant and radiohead. and all relatively unheralded, at least until recently, even in online music circles; only one of the three even has an amg review yet. (whoa - it was a billboard #2 new age album.) (and, admittedly, i've only heard one, though i know essentially what the others sound like.) so what's going on here?

is 2007 a banner year for techno? has last year's impressive showing of support for the knife's silent shout blossomed into a full-on resurgence of interest in electronic music. possibly so - did i actually get around to trumpeting the return of big beat? (more vulgarly known as electro-house or blog house or, i guess, new rave - yknow, justice and simian and dgtlsm and that?) cuz i'm pretty sure nobody else did.

but this is something else anyway - atmospheric, minimalist, not really dancey at all. nobody uses the term IDM anymore (almost nobody?) - which is a good thing - but it used to be synonymous with "ambient." "minimal'"s become meaningless (and is something else again.) john schenk and the kölnizers call it pop ambient, bedbugs calls it naptime, and i've been taking a cue from lullatone and thinking of it as pajama pop. pajambient? [i really enjoy the notion that this kind of music could be "pop" despite not foregrounding melody, harmony, or even rhythm.]

apart from the motley reigning trio - and if you want to get specific, burial's technically dubstep; stars of the lid are truly minimalist drone artists; and the field could reasonably be called trance or some hipper modifier thereof - eluvium's copia (#21 on the metacritic list with a metascore of [84]), pole's steingarten ([82] - it recently fell off the top 30), and pantha du prince's this bliss all occupy this general genrescape. (copia's probably the least similar - it's essentially non-electronic music made by an electronic artist. on that note, susumu yokota and colleen also released records this year.) the boundaries are blurry, but then so is the music.

but i'd contend that these kinds of electronic or electro-acoustic mood music, ambient/drone/what-have-you, are always around, as it were, in the background - or have been for decades, anyway - albeit only occasionally attracting attention. they were never likely to find mass appeal - a trend of widespread popular interest in them would just be illogical, although i suppose "new age" had its heyday. and it's such personal, intimate music (almost always made by individuals), and so subjective anyway in terms of quality, that it's difficult to construe in the context of a movement or a socially significant scene. if there is a phenomenon afoot - which i'm definitely skeptical about, even though i have personally been taking more notice of this stuff recently myself - it's hard to imagine it as anything more than an incidental waxing of critical interest.

which is of course all that metacritic intends to represent anyway. after all music guide and wikipedia, meta (as my bookmark shortens it) is probably my third most frequently visited site in my insatiable quest for music-related knowledge, even if the actual information it contains is relatively limited. if the other two take their authority from self-declared expertise and the democratic process, respectively, metacritic's is founded on something close to science (with a side helping of the other two.) unlike that other mathematically-calibrated barometer of critical consensus, the more credible but less idiosyncratic pazz'n'jop poll (and its new doppelganger, the idolator critic's poll, nee jackin' pop), metacritic bases its aggregate rankings on actual reviews as they come out, rather than critics' pre-meditated, self-mediated year-end lists.

which makes it a lot more unpredictable, and generally less beholden to tastemaker consensus - it sometimes reads as less relevant, but who's defining that anyway? and it fluctuates constantly. my austinite erstwhile roommate and i will occasionally track and discuss the shifting rankings as if they were sports statistics - for a long time we were debating whether anything would manage to upset from here we go sublime, which a firm lock on the #1 spot for over six months, peaking at [95] if i remember correctly. gradually, additionally overwhelmingly positive reviews (in the 90 range) diluted that down a few points, and then and the refinement of their decline was added to the list, months after its april release, holding the top spot until untrue's unearthing a couple weeks ago. (incidentally, the only overtly dance-based electronica album i can remember even touching the top 30 is justice's opposite-of-ambient † [81] - unless you count lcd soundsystem.)

my inkling at the time was that the metacritic method skews towards niche albums - records in genres with a supportive core audience but that are unlikely even to be reviewed by critics without a specific interest in the genre. it's a reasonable bias, and even a desirable one (vs. p'n'j's tendency to favor least common denominator), which helps to highlight forms with limited audiences, like underground electronica (is there any other kind left?) and world music (such as last year's #1, ali farka touré's savane.) but it also, maybe counterintuitively, favors more broadly palatable, "adult"-leaning selections of the sort i sometimes call ABM or dad-rock, which the hipper blogs and 'zines will often ignore - hence strong showings this year from patty griffin, richard thompson, suzanne vega, and nick lowe, among others. it's a narrow line - albums must be reviewed in a sufficient number of publications even to appear in the database, but once included, they're all on roughly equal footing regardless of the number of reviews - and fewer reviews can often be an advantage.

burial [92] and stars [91] have 11 reviews each, as did farka toure [94] last year; the field [90] still only has 14. radiohead [88] have 40 - obviously it's not always a disadvantage. there were no electronic albums on last year's top thirty - has the entrance policy consciously diversified to allow this crop in? - although '05 had isolée's wearemonster at #3 [89] with 12 reviews, and also kraftwerk, the books and konono no. 1, if any of them count.

based on the admittedly rough indicator of percentage overlap in their top tens, metacritic has become an increasingly accurate predictor for pazz'n'jop over the past seven years, possibly because the burgeoning blogosphere has helped to consolidate critical consensus - there were five overlapping picks last year and six in '05, but only four the two years before that, and three from '00-'02.

at this point, i'd say it's unlikely that more than three - maybe four - of the top ten overlap with pazz'n'jop, or jackin' pop (though those two will surely overlap substantially, especially since they're both calling for ballots early this year.) frankly, the metacritic top ten is a bit of a mess right now - the top three are causing a collective freakout in the user comments, les savy fav feels bizarrely fluky, and the upstart physical release of lcd soundsystem's 45:33 upstaging its own artist's actual '07 album by six places is simply poor form. it was much neater up until a month or so ago; more plausible when radiohead, the arcade fire, and sound of silver were among the top 3, and at least more interesting when patty griffin, miranda lambert, battles, and panda bear were.

but hey, a weird year for critical consensus could well indicate a great year for the critical community, and for music in general. i certainly have no complaints; even as i find myself looking farther and farther afield for contenders for my own list, i'm already sitting on a pile that it will be somewhat torturous to choose among. and i better get on it... it's getting to be that time. meanwhile though, i've been painstakingly polishing off reviews of many of my favorites c. 2005-06, for amg - hopefully i'll make it through that batch soon too and can start tossing things off with somewhat less excruciating care. see you soon.

plug tuning, pt. 1

Title: Musician Plugs
Format: CD
Date: 2002, it must have been. april i think?
Packaging: in a jewel case with inserts made from a time-life "faces of the 20th century" calendar meredith gave me from back in the 20th century. half of greta garbo upside-down on the cover; the other half rightside-up inside. clark gable on the back. the calendar part (from the back of the pictures) is in the interior tray and i traced it onto the cd itself too:



also, calendar inside the 'booklet,' forming the numbers (mostly) for the tracklist:

1. super furry animals • some things come from nothing

2. boards of canada • roygbiv
3. wilco • radio cure
4. damon albarn, afel bocoum, toumani diabate, et. al. • kela village

5. the mountain goats • horseradish road
6. aphex twin • {siding nails}
7. empire state • bugs in the system
8. califone • trout silk
9. infectious organisms • city limits
10. tortoise • equator
11. spoon • take the fifth
12. rjd2 • {here's what's left}
13. yo la tengo • autumn sweater
14. {the} beck • paper tiger
15. hrvatski • gemini (early)
16. john vanderslice • from out here
17. plaid • new family
18. the chemical brothers • the sunshine underground

i made this mix for my parents. the concept was to plug some musicians to them that i thought they might enjoy (males, i guess, specifically, as a counterpart to the highly successful "chicks" series of mixes for my mom.) musician plugs is what audiologists call custom-fitted ear plugs for people who want to retain their hearing and also hear clearly when exposed to a lot of loud noise. mine are purple and live in little a neon yellow case.

it didn't really work out too well for that purpose - for one thing, i don't think they listen to it much, maybe because it's got a lot of electronica. also, it maintains a pretty consistent mellow mood, meaning the songs don't really stand out that much, so it doesn't do a very good job of plugging the individual artists. (spoon's awesome "take the fifth" taking pride of place as the lone high-energy cut providing a release and a contrast to the rest of the moodery.)

on the other hand, i think it is a nice li'l mix, for those very reasons - i like how it sustains that mood while covering a decent amount of genre territory including hip-hop [9] and "world" [4]. though most of it is indie and electronica of various stripes, or some combination. it has some of the classic examples of a particular type of gorgeous synthesized portamento chordal sequence that just makes me melt - i'm thinking especially of [1] (which used to be my radio show theme song), [12] and [15]. (another one would be squarepusher's "journey to reedham") i sometimes refer to these bits as "keening," though i'm not quite sure what that means.

anyway it's a pretty listen, and an interesting snapshot of what i was listening to at the time - some of these artists i haven't given much thought to in the past five years (empire state, infectious organisms, hrvatski), though there are also many of my perennial favorites on here.

real is the old fake

this just in:

full speed ahead
rock and roll is dead
the girls and boys from the mickey mouse club
clocked it in the head

those are the opening lines of "fake is the new real," one of the more immediately arresting songs on the recent debut release by soul/r&b/pop songstress alice smith. the album, for lovers, dreamers & me, is pretty good - it might be great after a few more spins. it might be offering a genuinely new perspective (and perhaps one way forward?) for the whole soggy morass of neo-soul/adult-contempo-r&b/singer-songwriter pop, though it might also just be those same things again, particularly well-executed.

but i mostly bring it up to tussle with those lyrics for a minute. in case you didn't guess, the tone of the song is flatly disapproving of the state of affairs ("we're living in phony times," etc.) the predictable rockist party-line of course, though conceivably it could have been a celebration of the teen-pop revolution...(did anybody ever write a celebratory song about rock and roll being dead? that would be awesome. and how glad they were not to have to rock out anymore?) more interesting is that it seems several years out of date - not that such a sentiment is unpopular in 2007 (in time, we can only hope...) - but, hey, the mickey mouse gang aren't boys and girls anymore.

it's an excellent, succinct summary of some major trends in pop music c. 1997-2003, but the story doesn't end there: as of 2004-06, rock is back in pop again in a major way. granted, it may not be the kind of rock and roll to which the song presumably means to refer; and it's hardly made an incursion against hip-hop/r&b - but the lyrics don't complain about those things. come to think of it, isn't it a little funny that an artist in smith's genre-cluster is bemoaning the death of rock, and complaining about teen-pop? what's it to her? (well, it's a society/lifestyle issue too, but whatever. )

in fact, it turns out that the song, which was written by imani coppola, dates back at least to 2002, when it was on coppola's independently released little red fighting mood (about which the internet contains almost no information.) her other contribution to for lovers, the funky, show-tuney "woodstock," is also recycled, from another '02 indie album, whose title - post traumatic pop disorder syndrome - may tell us something about her mind-state at the time. [eta: album title correction, from the horses mouth - also, "fake" is on both albums. let's reflect on how the correct title affects the implications i had insinuated.]

imani hails from the class of '97, probably somewhere near that cardigans/beck(/cibo matto/cornershop/etc.) funky alterna-pop realm i was just discussing, possibly with more of a neneh/lauryn hip-hop vibe, possibly more fiona/paula cole songwriter territory. i get the sense that the word "quirky" shall be applied liberally.

[project: somebody needs to come up with a name for this music/phenomenon, the late '90s artsy, eclecticist pastiche party pop/rock vanguard, which was in some ways a great failed hope for the fusion of art and commerce - people don't make records like this any more, or if they do they certainly don't sell. hint: i've definitely used the collage/college pun before to invoke this stuff.]

i haven't actually heard chupacabra, or any of coppola's music, which i probably should if i'm going to talk about her. but basically, she had a major-label debut that for whatever reason didn't lead to a major-label career; dropped out of sight (but not out of music, apparently); just released her second reasonably-available album, which sounds "difficult" (hard to say if that's in the interesting way or the boring way.) i'd had the impression that she had done more songwriting for other folks, like pop folks, in the interim, apart from this smith album, which has plenty enough indie integrity (and soul integrity to boot) to be a perfectly sensible match. but i may have been confusing her with chantal kreviazuk, about whom i also know nothing.

ok, well it would have been more interesting if i could link imani more directly to the kind of industry-approved teen-pop that she attacks so pithily (not sarcasm: i really like that stanza!) but come to think of it she was a kind of teen-pop herself - she was only 19 when her debut came out, and she got an mtv hit out of it if nothing else. no big shocker though that she's joined the ranks of the failed-star music-biz disaffected (aimee mann, brie larson, plenty other major-label dropouts that i'm having trouble thinking of) and seems to be doing the fringy artsy indie cult-following thing á la ani difranco and [sorta?] me'shell ndegeocello (or jane sibery to name somebody less multi-racial - or, sorry, issa, wtf.)

i guess this was a mostly failed attempt to continue the game of drawing links between '00s (teen)pop and '90s alterna/rock/songwriter/etc. (wow, look at that comment, dave; we were so gushy then!) (oh right, we still are.)

speaking of mia doi todd - oh whoops, we weren't, but she certainly fits in here - bertine's 1999 debut album, morbid latenight show [from before she started using her surname - tho with a name like zetlitz why would she wait?] turns out to be surprisingly close to what i had expected the golden state to sound like. bit of a trip-hop thing to it (think morcheeba); definitely "pancultural" as heather puts it, and generally jazzier, loungier than you'd expect from her later work - though it is still dance-pop, more or less. but it doesn't seem like "diva" territory to me, much more auteurist - she writes all her own tunes (!) - and not too far off from that the self-consciously hip, eclectipastichepop posse. neat. [eta: actually, she didn't write all of the tunes - amg lied, and eventually i went downstairs and looked at the liners. but, she wrote all the lyrics, and wrote or co-wrote almost all of the music.]

stop-gap song-gab

just taking a little break from writing about music for that other place (most recently a bio and two reviews on sway - not yet pubbed but watch that link) to write about music here for a change. sidebar updated to include links to the old podcast posts. (i'd almost forgotten i'd started to do that. never fear, i've already got an idea for a new one: expect it later this week! ha, i mean decade!) also, some new links that i won't have time to fully follow, and a ish-ton of new titles in the acquisitions dept. flick, did i really buy/earn/acquire forty-seven new records in october? what the christ?! no wonder it's eternal! so you can see why i haven't been able to think of anything to write about here lately.

and that's not counting my prodigal/prodigious itunes/download influx lately - i'm still in the midst of processing new/ish albums by [in stupid lacitebahpla order] tunng, tmbg [bonus disc], the veronicas, the mitchell brothers, the clientele, the avett brothers, susumu yokota, sugababes, studio, sloan, skye sweetnam, royksopp, roisin murphy, radiohead, pole, paramore, pantha du prince, panda bear, minor majority, lucky soul, lil wayne, lethal bizzle, les savy fav, kompakt, kathy diamond, jens lekman, jay-z, iron + wine, helios, colleen, cassius, britney spears, black milk, beirut, amerie, aly & aj, aesop rock, and 65daysofstatic. er, among others. (and that's just the '07 stuff: new years' coming soon y'all - have you got your listing brain in gear?) (and a couple of those emboldments are based on a single serious listen, or even less - many of the others i've barely begun to graze.) back to the racket, basically. but it's been good to me, thistime, thusfar. guess i'll be reporting back on these... all in due time.

i have in fact managed to process more of that october overload than you might be imagining, though there's certainly a ways to go - i thought i could point to a few recordings that have stood out in recent weeks enough to achieve some prominence in my headspace - many of them, as it happens, on the older side of things. i'd post mp3s but i've been at a total loss for a decent server lately (free or otherwise, just so long as it works - let me know if you have suggestions.) couple youtube links tho:

"been it" - the cardigans
i know, it's pretty ridiculous that i didn't own first band on the moon until now (after all, it's officially a 1st-tier album by a 1st-tier band within the swedish pop/rock category - shhh i don't own any ace of base either, but that's also nothing a 99¢ bin somewhere isn't just waiting to fix.) guess everybody else had their fill of it about a decade ago (!), whereas i, c. 1996, was about a month late in jumping on the odelay bandwagon, which meant i lost out on the chance to catch the cards' opening slot on that beck tour which easily makes my missed-concert-regrets top 5. (this is in 8th grade mind you.) had things been different, my swede-tooth phase might have arrived significantly earlier - or not. actually, i was hepped to life a few years later, via "carnival" and "gordon's gardenparty" on my first girlfriend's first mixtape (aw), but never fully completely embraced it past a few songs.

so anyway, i had a pretty good idea of what i was in for when i finally snagged fbotm (for only 50¢!) at circle thrift the other week, but i don't think i fully anticipated just how much unmitigated poptastic brilliance it contains. of course i knew and loved "lovefool" for the perfecto-popslice it is (covered it in a college band, even, and no-way ironically), but it's almost diminished in its album context: among its less polished peers, it's so seamlessly shiny that it sounds sarcastic, revealed to be the snide euro-pop caricature it obviously always was - albeit note-perfect enough to outclass the genuine article even as it mocks it. but it's the weird, complicated, elegant, almost grotesque, blissfully jaded constructions - "losers," the "iron man" reinvention, "your new cuckoo" - that elevate this disc to the height of pop/rock in the most literal sense of that usually glossed-over term - or, better - art-pop, wherein not one iota of the pop is sacrificed, and yet it just bleeds archly artless artifice.

most of all, it's "been it" - perfectly perfect pop, with about four times its share of hooks, but more than that, so inventive in every direction - i could dissect practically every second and come out gleaming and beaming - it's like the breeders "cannonball" like that - but, i hazard, better? just a couple - that indelible opening, synch'd bass and bass-drum pick-up fill before it bursts into full-on cooing pop. the varied hesitations in the deceptively arhythmic verse riff [0:35]. fake-out slope-rhyme of "sister" with "mistre-ess." the alarm clock at [2:13]. the seemingly antithetical verse (crunchy rock sparseness) and chorus (fleshy pop swoon) unexpectedly merging [3:20] for a tantalizing moment (rok gtr + pop vox) before the entropic, unspiralling breakdown. whew. and all of it, of course, lofted heavenward by nina persson's gossamer croon, the band's truly unshakable asset, in finest feather here.

this has been my dishwashing album of choice lately (along with in rainbows), and that's the one that keeps sending me back for the replay button. the feel-good dishwashing hit of the fall! yeah i know it's old news - shut up. at this rate i'm going to have to actually investigate those later-day cardigans records that i'd always passed over dubiously...until then, though.

"one sound" - knife in the water
awright. already wrote about this one. maybe you didn't notice though, plus i thought it belonged in this round-up. could've come up with another of their tunes to write about - the album keeps going and growing on me; "seat of pity" has been in my head plenty, and i went and got earned myself their later cut the cord album too, which promises to be just as enthralling. but this'll save me some work. here's what i wrote:

"dusty semi-country minimalism. nine minutes plus. same progression just repeated and repeated, sometimes with verses. organ harmonizations just so-slightly off, never quite resolving they way they should, but growing familiar enough that you almost don't notice - the unsettling rendered inconspicuous through desensitization. 'i want to fall right back to sleep/to dive back in the sheets.' hypnotic."

and it's still just as powerfully intense. between these guys, okkervil (new album very nice), and spoon (obv.), i'm cultivating some major affection for austinites lately, and looking to expand - def. intrigued by what i hear about future clouds and radar (and cotton mather, of which that's an offshoot.) go tx!

"can i change my mind" - tyrone davis
got this a few months back but it just keeps getting better. totally my serendipitous soul find of the year - and not from one of those collector-cheatin' rare-groove compilations i'm so ardently ambivalent about neither - just a budget-quality reissue i stumbled across in a random $2.99 bin in boulder. the whole album's sweet - "knock on wood" gets reinvented as a ballad, the arrangements throughout are consistently stellar, even when the songs sometimes dip below that mark - but it's plain to see why the title cut was the single, and apparently a respectable hit, though mostly lost to history, at least for folks like me.

it locks right off into a loping, almost mellow funk groove, with a nimble, rubbery bassline and chunks of guitar hittin' on the 2 so fat you could slice 'em - plus another guitar licking out effortlessly spidery spangles. and the horns - a single unison swell, repeated once up an octave, and then retreat, to make room for mr. davis' achingly langorous entrance on the vocal. the way he yawnily slides into that opening line - "...aaw, she didn't bat an eye" - is just priceless. ditto his smooth semi-crack on the word "time" at [1:14]. aw shucks. so gooey.

an intriguing premise too - it's nothing new under the soul sun for him to be lamenting his lapses that lost him his love, realizing it only too late - but the way he asks the title question, so innocently, as though he'd be doing her the favor, when clearly it's her mind that would need the changing. sly, kinda, but seductive. ooh, and check the reggae version by mr. mittoo, too.

marshall crenshaw - marshall crenshaw
part of my ongoing campaign to get more comfortable or at least better acquainted with the [non-synthpop, non-talking heads] 1980s, partially sparked by my reading of this fascinating, smartly-written book, whose most substantial contribution to my understanding of the t-heads was a historical contextualization by means of occasionally interjected news-headline highlight reels, pop'n'politics anecdotage, and downtown-scene local color. also part of my ongoing campaign to get more familiar with more singer-songwriter types, if nothing else so that i can have more coherent things to say (and examples to give) in situations like that knotty wrangling with folk songwriting i was doing a few posts ago.

the same (the former, esp.) is true of the feelies [crazy rhythms, 1980] and aztec camera [high land, hard rain, 1983] albums i also picked up recently, and scritti politti before that - of that bunch, crenshaw is clearly the least post-punk (ergo least punk) and most songwriterly - not sure if he quite fits into the "new pop" rubric with which i'm haphazardly lumping the others, but whatever. i've known for a long time that i would like this - it's just been a question of whether i'd go with the readily available original release or hold out for the spennier rhino bonus-tracks reissue: i didn't. actually i don't think i really knew who he was until tara mentioned him, with vague disinterest, as somebody her dad liked - even though i feel like my dad might have one of his albums, maybe even this one.

right, so it's very obviously dad-rock - there was probably no disputing that even at the time - but let's not forget that it's still rock (it came out in 1982, the year of my birth - according to amg "a brief, exhilarating moment in between the fall of disco and the rise of MTV, when the eternal verities of real rock & roll broke through once again.") it reminds me, more than anything, of the likes of joe jackson and graham parker (and oh yeah robert gordon duh - elvis c. was never this prosaic), though not as punkily disaffected as either of them ("cynical girl"'s lyrics notwithstanding) - especially the way he talks about 'girls' (might as well spell it 'gurls') girls girls, walkin' down the street [q.v. "pretty girls," "local girls"], feels like a direct lineage from the beach boys and big star. is it just me or do people like this no longer get away with making reference to 'gurls' anymore in such a flip, factual manner?

anyhoo, peep it it pops. (obviously, btw, what this really is is power-pop, 'nuff said.) i couldn't choose a favorite track to single out for this - "rocking around in nyc" has one of the nicer unanticipated harmonic moves (the "...she's facing disaster" bit); the groovy "there she goes again" has been known to course through my head in the mornings, compelling me to put the album back on; "someday, someway" is a perfectly sensible single choice with swell harmonies - though in general i like the rootsy-cutesy rockabilly cuts less than the more straight-forward rockers (although honestly the best thing on here might be the cover of arthur alexander's "soldier of love," because that song is just so awesome and it's a pretty good cover.) which, ultimately, is kind of the problem - marshall crenshaw is a triumph of formalism, and everything on it shines with wholly admirable, consistent craftsmanship, but not with the spark of truly inspired, individuated songs-qua-songs. still craftsmanship is something - you certainly don't get it this good too often. remember, i like formalism.

[eta: if only marshall crenshaw were a brit (bloody sounds like one innit?) he would get some coolness points for being pub-rock, which is clearly what this is, except that it's american. nevermind that pub-rock is like the most dad-rock thing conceivable, it's still cool because it begat brinsley schwarz who nick lowe who begat elvis costello, or something like that. right? i need to investigate it more, but first somebody needs to make the early nick lowe albums available/affordable. obviously it should/would be yep roc, who are his current label and who just reissued robyn hitchcock's catalog and billy bragg's before that. ok?]

transient random-noise bursts with announcements - stereolab
i don't have anything to say about the music on this yet, except that it's slightly underwhelming so far (tim sendra don't fail me now), but now that i've finally got it, which means i've now completed my collection of classic-era (i.e. pre-cobra) 'lab proper full lengths (groop's an ep rite?), which for a long time didn't really seem possible (though as it turns out there are only five)...i thought i'd be justified in asking a question that has always bothered me about this album:

is it "[transient random]-[noise bursts with announcements]"

or is it "transient [random-noise] bursts with announcements"?

i like the latter better, i think, as a theoretical description of music (that there would "random-noise bursts", which happened to be transient, as the primary feature, followed by the announcements.) but the former kind of seems more likely? can't tell.

as far as more current stuff goes, well i will admit that skye sweetnam's "music is my boyfriend" (awesome video too), roisin murphy's "overpowered" (ditto), lethal bizzle's "police on my back," britney spears' "heaven on earth" (yeah, "piece of me" too but that's old hat) and the veronicas' "untouched" all remain pretty righteous. but y'all knew that right?

as rumored, the bonus disc to they might be giants' the else, entitled cast your pod to the wind, is pretty phenomenal ("why did you grow a beard," "brain problem situation," "i'm your boyfriend now," "employee of the month" = future classics), though despite being fluffier and fresher, it'd be hard to say it's actually better than the album proper. which is also quite good by the way.

oh yeah, and did i mention that i rather like this devon sproule character?

i love amg. (so much more than bmg - that was always just a marriage of convenience, while it's lasted, but they're hardly the kings of convenience these days...) i love stephen thomas erlewine's catholic tastes and generous yet authoritative tone; i love thom jurek's exhaustive, opinionated, lovingly detailed, forthright essay-reviews (even when i don't completely agree with them) [but apparently lots of people don't] - and i especially adore tim sendra's [first record bought: monkees greatest hits - hey me too!; favorite magazine: highlights for children] gleefully tweeful indie-pop crushes. (and i like the other reviewers too - andy kellman on electronica; marisa brown on hip-hop; john bush on assorted things but i associate him with earlier techno for some reason...everybody on everything really, which is part of what makes the site so great - you get the sense that everyone involved has at least a decent familiarity with basically any kind of music that comes up.) btw: all of the reviews i linked above played a substantial role in convincing to pick up the albums, in certain cases without any other information.

i love the sense i've gleaned of what many of the reviewers/editors must be like, even though i of course have no idea - i particularly like when the gang gets together to dish about recent pop singles or, like, how hot kat mcphee is. it's a little like getting to hang out with your favorite professors (or maybe your camp counselors) in an incongruously informal social setting; slightly awkward but revealing. (wish they were still doing that - i haven't quite warmed to this new blog format yet, though it seems promising; it's nice to have comments, and it seems like it'll be easier to keep track of things. actually, it fills in some of the gaps left by stylus' departure.)

i love the monthly new release lists (though they're only up for three months) which are the handiest memory guides that always seem to include not just the best releases (as they claim) but pretty much every notable release from the month period. which brings me to the key point that amg somehow manages to give at least marginally positive reviews to an unlikely majority of records, without seeming unduly gushy or indiscriminate - they rarely deliver pans, even to controversial records, always patiently exploring the positive aspects of records while putting them in perspective. and the reviewers convey a sense of individuality and personability without ever letting themselves get in the way of talking about the music. which is understandable enough, since it's supposed to be an authoritative, encyclopedia-style publication; it's just impressive and inspiring how much creativity passion the writing still manages to convey, within those restraints.

most of all, i love and hate how easy it is to just get sucked into the web of all music guide: starting with their often-intriguing album of the day, or the notable releases of the week on the sidebar, or just looking up the records i just heard, or just bought, or saw at the record store and wasn't sure whether to buy (a total personal ritual), or was just thinking about...and then end up following hyperlink after hyperlink, constantly learning new things even when i thought i'd explored a particular strand to its furthest extent . there's so much music! and these guys think they can contain all of it!? (it's like something i said the other day to somebody who offered to lend me a book: thanks, i'd like to read it - i just have to finish the internet first.) no question, i spend more time on allmusic.com, on a daily basis, than any other website.

and now.....

OMG! OMG! OMG!

yup, there i am... just joined the team, as an "expert" (or something like that) on uk and scandinavian pop. of which there are some mildly surprising gaps in amg's coverage, which i am thrilled and honored to be filling. there are certainly a bunch of albums and artists - including many of my recent favorites - that i'm looking forward to covering for them. the pieces i've done so far - bios and album reviews on richard x, margaret berger, and amy diamond - have given me the opportunity to revisit some favorites and in most cases come to some new realizations and reflections about them. (well not that new...mostly just how bizarre amy is, and how amazing rich and marble are.)

i'm keeping a running list of absent bios and reviews i want to write - not just in those genres, since i'm hoping to be able to write about other stuff for them as well - let me know if you come across something that they're missing. and then, of course, there are many more (inevitably) other artists in my "area of expertise" that i haven't even heard of - my editor just tossed me a short list of them the other day - "artists who've been charting recently in scandinavia." so there's plenty to explore there. which is good - it'll encourage me to write quickly and efficiently about the ones i don't care about/can't find enough information on (seeing as how i can't read swedish); and it'll keep me from wanting to write nothing but raves. may have already discovered a new keeper this way too - norwegian folk-pop band minor majority. (hm, maybe a little too earnest and maudlin though. we'll see.)

anyhow. that's the news. hopefully i can get myself some discipline. (and not spend hours composing silly blog posts like this one, so i can get to actually sharing insights about music. er something.) so far, anyway, i feel like this is going better than my past attempts at holding down music-scribing gigs. hey hey hey!

go! power at halloweentime

pullet with dragonfly wings

i don't typically associate halloween with great music - not being a misfits fan (or a goth), the pool of season-appropriate standbys runs surprisingly shallow - but i have happened to see a number of great shows on hallows-e'en past: most memorably elliott smith at the beacon theatre in 2000 (hm, well apparently on or near) (he played "don't fear the reaper" as an encore), and the roots at the electric factory in '01 (all-out in dapper pimp attire.) ok, and for that matter i guess that particularly memorable tmbg show in '01 as well. (i do remember the moldy peaches being in costumes.) anyway. the go! team concert at [the venue f.k.a. t.l.a.] this past wednesday wasn't quite up to those levels, nor was it the euphoric dance-dance-revelation à la this past st. paddy's' junior senior show that i'd secretly hoped for. BUT it was pretty fun nonetheless, and a nice break from not going to any concerts b/c i didn't have sufficient interest or anybody to go with.

i just went by myself b/c i didn't have anybody to go with. which woulda been more fine if the show had started at 8 as advertised - instead it was doors at 8 show at 9, so i ended up seeing all of the 'support' band's set (good choice for halloween, but their handmade book+cd album packages were much more extraordinarey than the actual music) and then waiting for a full 50 minutes for the 'team... i mean, i know that's not all that unusual of a delay between sets (though it srsly should be - but save unprofessionalism rant for another day), but it can substantially drain one's energy level to have nothing to do but stand there for almost an hour, vaguely jockeying for position, vaguely eavesdropping, vaguely nodding to the boards of canada (?!) on the sound system but not so much as to seem like you're trying to attract attention to your familiarity with it. so once they finally showed, ninja [that's her above, with the wings - thnks flckr] and company had some work to do get me back into it. and they weren't helped out by the sound - it was loud and indistinct enough that it was often hard to make out the melodic/harmonic content of the music, with or without earplugs.

yet slowly but surely, the goodvibes pulled through. not sure if it was my ears getting acclimated or just my resolve to revel firming up, but after spending the first half of the set debating leaving early, i finally started acquiescing to ninja's exhortations (hands in the air! jump to the beat! ladies go like this!), um like i meant it. by the point, two-thirds of the way in, when she declared "(sorry, but) this is the go! team, and we're not going to accept anything less than all-out, sweaty, shakin-yo-booty, dahncing, from everybody in this room!," the crowd was ready to get really into it too, so we had ourselves some right good, jumping, almost-abandon. helped that they played some of their best tunes then ("ladyflash" i think was what they launched into - definitely the high point.) "bottle rocket" also around then (though i have to admit i'm not very good on the names of their songs.) the horn parts and such were never as loud as they needed to be, which meant a lot of the hooks got lost - but even so, my impression remains that they have just a handful of great songs, and a lot that are sort of undistinguished. the show didn't particularly make me want to check out their new album either. but, y'know, that's ok.

hum. actually, i think what really made me want to post about halloween-night music was the djing i heard at silk city slightly later on. (some of it apparently - maybe? - by one of the guys who was in liquid liquid.) there was too much unexciting house/minimal stuff that never went anywhere interesting - and there was definitely not nearly enough room to dance. but it was all worth it for a couple of selections that it just tickled me to hear. first (right when i got there) that weird frankie valli pilooski edit - hearing it actually played out at a club made me instantly much more appreciative of its existence, even though it's still a complete wtf? dunno if the crowd knew what they were hearing (is it actually getting successfull?) but they seemed to be playing along. later there was an airing of that ross of love insta-classic "kick out the chairs," and an uncanny recreation of the peak moment of my own halloween dj set ("crescendolls" > "thriller"), but best for sure was hearing "late in the evening" - oh man! totally unexpected, brought me such a smile...i sang along with the whole thing (esp. the horn parts!) he looped the intro groove for a really long time before starting the song too - made me wonder if it was a sample...has anybody done that?

anyway. that made me happy about djs. and wondering if maybe having my binders pre-packed (rather than starting fresh every gig) is tending to make my sets staler and less inventive, less likely to pull out unexpected chestnuts like that - and what effect mp3jing would have. (ha! coinage?)

oh, btw: i guess i should mention that i went to a concert last night as well - the çudamani gamelan, from bali, at lang at swarthmore. i went in hoping but not expecting to have my generally low level of interest in gamelan changed - and it wasn't, particularly, but i did enjoy the first few numbers, especially, more than any gamelan i've seen in the past (which has basically just been the swarthmore gamelan. who do not play nearly this fast or precise.) after a while it did all start to get indistinct - the pieces seemed to be less form-based, with fewer quick, dramatic shifts - but probably i was also just having trouble continuing to pay attention. liza argues that i should dig this stuff because i like steve reich - which is true, to a point - my problem with a lot of it is that it's noisy and aggressive in addition to being harmonically and structurally minimal. um. but i like the stuff that's less noisy all-the-time. and there's no question that this group had some seriously astounding technique - especially the xylophone lines that were split up between multiple players alternating beats. so wow for that.

before and after eternity

lot been goin on. you can see by my (just, finally, updated, but already out-of-date) sidebar that i've been doing some diligent collecting these past months - i'll have plenty to say about many of those recent acquisitions (many of them excellent); hopefully i'll get around to saying it, for now the emboldening will have to suffice. i recently contributed what will likely be my last bits of semi-amateur music-scribing for a while, in the form of some blurbs for the styjuke's track-by-track dissection of the radio one. established 1967. album/covers series. not an overly worthwhile thing to write about - forty top uk chart acts covering songs from 1967-2006; even on such a grand scale, with a nearly limitless wealth of implied possibilities, these kinds of things seem almost guaranteed not to produce any music of lasting value - but an enjoyable project nonetheless.

stylus magazine and most of its satellites, including the singles jukebox, are shutting down after this wednesday. i've actually known this for a couple months from certain inside sources, but it seems to have been a successfully kept secret until very recently - quite an accomplishment in itself on the 'nets, which i take (maybe fancifully) as just a small indication
of how beloved and respected stylus was, by loyalists inside and out. to join the cortège of eulogists who will doubtless continue to fill the commentboxes (also here) for the next two days and beyond...i too am certainly going to miss stylus sorely - it has meant a great deal to me in the past three years or so, even if my tenure as a writer - first as staff reviewer, more recently an occasional jukebox blurbist - there was fairly undistinguished. [eh...well short anyway; re-reading my handful of contributions now i'm reminded that i can in fact write a pretty damn decent record review, in fine stylus style, when i can actually be bothered to take the time. this is probs the best thing i did for 'em, although i made it into their farewell roundup - to my surprise - via my rare, impassioned, lone comment on this piece. heh. i'm sort of touched.]

but as it happens i'm moving on to, i guess, semi-pro music-scribing, for the only outlet that rivals stylus for my attentions and affections...well actually, in case you haven't already guessed/don't know (and, er, if "you" care), i'll hold off on telling you where for another minute, 'til i'm actually published. though it did occur to me today (not entirely for the first time), that if i couldn't make a decent go of it as a music writer in an environment as welcoming and open-minded as stylus (albeit uncompensated), it's probably just not something i'm sufficiently compelled to do... eh, but here i am. so here i go.

folk
more i wanted to say about folk and songwriting. it keeps coming up - maybe one of those october things. was gonna eta that devon sproule piece below (which ended both before i'd gotten everything out and long after it should have) but better to just keep it flowin'. anyway the night after i wrote that i discussed those ideas, and extensions of them, with a friend who almost uncannily predicted several comparisons just before i drew them - the magnetic fields as exponents of what i'm calling classicist or formalist songwriting, and more interestingly joni mitchell as an analog/precedent for what devon does: as a songwriter/lyricist, but simultaneously as a vocalist/guitarist, because point being that their musical creations don't fit neatly within those lines; the elements all combine in idiosyncratic, virtuosic constructions that, though they could certainly be performed by others, would lose something integral in the translation.

we (my friend and i) mostly meant the joni of blue, i think, specifically - even as soon after that as court and spark, the music had moved well beyond what could straightly be called "folk," i think (and her writing was if anything less classicist, despite perhaps some literary formalism.) her earlier days of course had their share of classicism, or, at least, classics, in the trad-folk, campfire-sing sense. (not that even these entirely fit the straightforward, economical model of formalism i've been hawking.) (ok, i'm actually pretty ignorant of mitchell's music beyond those two albums and mingus, so i'll stop talking about her, and try to rectify that.)

it's not like devon's work is entirely lacking in formal structure, either - "let's go out," particularly, stands out as an excellent 32-bar aaba (one reviewer rightly pegs it as 'her own jazz standard.') and that's not to mention her earlier work either, the two albums she released, under her first name only, back we (she and i) were in our teens (i like how the amg reviewers point out that she's more like ani difranco than britney spears), in the immediately post-lilith era, when she was hanging with the likes of dave matthews band and, yknow, being a teenager - albums she seems to have (rather adorably; also understandably) attempted to bury. [a little bird told me that although she claims they're "out of print" to any prospective buyers, there are in fact has stacks of them in her mom's basement.]

i haven't heard them, so i don't know. but do i gather that one thing which sets her later "mature" [=early 20s] work apart is also the thing which most markedly separates it from blue-era joni: a pronounced rootsiness. which can be a stripe of authenticity, general speaking, but more specifically and germanely sets it up as folk music in a way that is more ambiguous with, e.g., blue (which could be called folk, but doesn't signify it nearly so overtly, and really oughtta be labeled "singer/songwriter" if anything should, since it practically originated s/s as we know it.) funny thing about that, actually - a modicum of country/blues/hillbilly/even jazz (in dev's case) signifiers (instrumentation, vocal stylings, general ramshackleness, what-have-you) helps to establish something as folk(s)y (those being musics of the people)...but too much of those things and you're already off in a different direction: genre. (i wanna say something like folk isn't so much a style as a mode, but i don't even really know what that means.)

and that's the thing about dev - she's got, if anything, more of that backwoods, ol'-timey flair than you could ask for (and with nary a hint of affect; lilith-pop closet-skeletons notwithstanding), and her songs fit beautifully into that aesthetic, in lyrical and musical content, but structurally they seem to be something fundamentally other - more in the realm of a artsy-poppy literary mitchell or newsom or will sheff (okkervil river) or maybe even springsteen (?) than a traditionalist/lyrical-minimalist like lucinda williams or patty griffin or ryan adams or perhaps loudon wainwright or ron sexsmith. which seems like something a little unique. at least i'm struggling to come up with parallels. erin mckeown comes to mind (as sharing a lot in common with devon), though distillation leans more formalist, grand is rockier, and i haven't heard her last couple.

what else? i'd come up with some other examples for the kind of songwriting i was and have been describing, in addition to stephin merrit, andrew gregory, carsie blanton, and perhaps john hiatt (whom i don't know well at all):
• edith frost (particularly her most recent album - but: she does a poor job of conveying that crucial 'folk' intimacy/rapport in concert - she just seems like such tentative a presence)
• much of beck's sea change album (in such marked contrast to most of his lyric-writing before or since as to arouse suspicion - which is partially why i've given him so much flak for it over the years...even though there are admittedly a couple gems. actually, his failure to connect convincingly live is probably more of the reason.)
• well john darnielle, indeed - albeit in style more often than substance (which is often more abstruse, but get lonely, especially, peels back those layers to become, by contrast, shocking in its starkness. and he certainly delivers the personal-magnetism goods live. he supposedly denies being "folk," but he can suck it.)
• some of will oldham's stuff. loudon, probably, but in a clunky/sappy way (eh, i just don't like him much.) maybe some early billy bragg (but i doubt it.)

but it's hard. none of these are stellar examples, and frankly what i'm getting at is something that probably happens pretty rarely, and probably never consistently across a whole body of work. i want to set out this dichotomy [succinct/effusive, structured/fluid, perspicacious/evocative, pithy/poetic, direct/discursive, universalist/idiosyncratic] that speaks in theory to my sense of what traditionalist folk writing, rigorously defined, wants to be (viz., the first of each binary in that list), but of course in practice most songwriting falls in between most if not all of these pairs of poles - a majority of good songwriting draws from both strains, intertwining as necessary. so it's hard to single out examples, particularly without actually discussing specific lyrics. and i'm thinking it's particularly hard to stick entirely within either column in a way that's both engaging (not boring) and effective (not pointless.) which may be why it's so impressive to hear either done well.

deejaying
i've been djing a bit. did one party last weekend (the night before mine), where there wasn't a whole lot of dancing, but what there was was enjoyable: first a cute couple grooving to motown; later the predictable whooping it up for madonna and prince - but they disappeared back into the kitchen when i slid that into some peppy italo; finally a bit of h.c.g.d.a. to harder-edged club pop and jungle/d&b schtuff - a guy who clearly knew told me i was "too good for my own good." awshux. it was one of my more fun, fluid, flawless recent sets if i do say so.

on saturday, the second of three costume parties this weekend (i barely noticed the music at the first, except for the romantics' funky "walking in my sleep" downstairs and old 97s upstairs), i djed what i knew would be the most rollicking dance-party since...the last time i played at the walton house - the dancers didn't disappoint. one of them asked me what the soul songs were that i played, so i e-mailed her this list:

laura lee - i need it just as bad as you
tyrone davis - can i change my mind?
tommy roe - sweet pea
stevie wonder - signed sealed delivered
temptations - i can't get next to you
sharon jones and the dap-kings - tell me
candi staton - i'd rather be an old man's sweetheart (than to be a young man's fool)
dusty springfield - lost
katherine mcphee - love story

which was one entire set (i think that's all of it) - i tended to stick with one genre at a time that night more than i often like to do (from there - roughly - to chart-pop to massive dance jams to some electronica then roundabout to some '80s favorites and then more recent uk/scandinavian stuff, and even a little set of rock at the end.) some very good requests, and i think i played all them, usually right away (sort of a challenge/point of pride): "sweet pea" was a request (that was pretty leftfield - glad i happened to have it with!), later the roots, justice (i played a different cut than i'd intended so i played two more later), "challah-back girl," "cock-rock," and michael jackson. several people asked that, and i was a bit hesitant, but i'd kind of known all along that i was going to play "thriller" - so i did, and it was undoubtedly the pinnacle moment of the party. so, excellent.

[strange as it may sound, i don't really know michael jackson, outside of the obvious singles (of which there are many) - i don't have any of his albums, even though they're always around and are very manifestly both good and important. i suppose i've sort of been holding them in reserve them for those very reasons - no reason to hurry, really. at the third party of the weekend i chatted with a longtime mj fan who helped convince me that the time may be soon...]

"thriller" went right into rjd2's "the horror," which went over quite well. i was also very happy to play "frankenstein" (edgar winter - not the whole thing), adult.'s "nausea" (just got 12"!), "like a pen," cerrone's "supernature," black box's "everybody everybody" (thrift store pickup), and two tracks each from blackout (which went over v. well) and in rainbows (which didn't exactly - thought "bodysnatchers" might work as a dance jam but no dice; "reckoner" was my last song, and they did some nice improvy things to it.) i specifically bought a dennis yost and classics iv greatest hits lp that afternoon so that i could play "spooky," but of course i forgot to play it...oh well.

status
stalled out on the mixtape front - which is cool, for now. i do want to upload an existing dj-mix or two but have been having trouble finding a frustration-free way to share 'em. am more or less waiting on making more until i get some kind of laptop set-up worked out - have been playing around with traktor but it's going slowly. most of my cd collection is in boxes now - save 400 in two binders for djing, and 96 i guess in another for home listening. and of course the fifty or so that i've bought or otherwise acquired in the last two months (and if the sidebar is to be believed only sixteen of those were in september, all in one fell swoop on a brilliant a.k.a. day.)

actually, i don't think i've bought anything at a.k.a. since - in well over a month that is - though i have stopped in there. branching out, then - finding some excellent stuff at long in the tooth (on 20th and sansom) which has a tremendous amount of character despite an odd layout - definite focus on true-blue (for want of a better word) rockist tastemaker territory - punk, vintage indie, pedigreed country, jazz, '60s garage/psych and folk-rock... got some girl-group comps there too, which seems to fit in as well. prices not too bad either. have also made some cautious stops at th!nk music, the new a.k.a. only in that it's next-door to my new work-place, which has an equally bad layout without the redeeming features (they even sort used records alphabetically with new, ew), but managed to get some nice indie gapfillers. finally, i redeemed all my volunteer credit at the marvelous for a grab-bag of whatsit. otherwise, did some carefully plotted 'net shopping in the weeks leading up to my birthday (that's allowed, right?), among other things, expanding and consolidating various recent explorations in genre, and prepping my self for my new writing gig.

hm, how 'bout i stop talking about buying records? maybe i'll get around to talking about the music on them. or maybe i'll at least talk about the new britney and radiohead albums - those are pretty much the big news of the month, aren't they? since i'm all about being relevant. both are about 43 minutes long - bit too much for them to fit on a cd-r together, which is too bad b/c blackout rainbows has some good artistic possibilities. also both are quite good, but i'll give you a hint: one's better than the other. and it's not the one dave bedbug thinks. oh yeh, speaking of, teenpop is finally starting to perk up for '07 - save hilarity, rihanna, and ashley t., there'd been precious little action up until a month or so ago. and i may just be ready to listen to some more of it. digital-wise, i've been processing a handful of enjoyable things recently, one of the better of which, in case i don't get to mention it again, is tmbg's cast your pod to the wind. what the christ. what the devil.

one more recent obsession: "one sound" by knife in the water. dusty semi-country minimalism. nine minutes plus. same progression just repeated and repeated, sometimes with verses. organ harmonizations just so-slightly off, never quite resolving they way they should, but growing familiar enough that you almost don't notice - the unsettling rendered inconspicuous through desensitization. "i want to fall right back to sleep/to dive back in the sheets." hypnotic. hmm now.

devon sproule will save your soul

haven't been seeing a lot of shows lately (there have been a bunch that i might haps have gone to, but didn't care quite enough to go by myself), but no way was i gonna miss a frustratingly rare philly performance by this Virginny (not virginy) gal, whom i first heard/saw the epiphany before last - i think she's been back in the interim, but i was out of town. anyway, never miss her. if you get the chance to miss her, just don't do it!

even though this show was "in the round" with three others - which turned out to mean four folkers on stage with their 'coustics, going down the line and each singing a song in turn, surprisingly little roundness to it, really, devon was pretty much the only one who tried to add some harmonies to the others' choruses. (there was also a whistling meme.) she was also the only one who broke out of the demurely self-effacing/adulatory mode of 'tween-song banter ("wow, you're so talented, how can i ever follow that up!" "i don't think i know that many chords!") which quickly got a bit tired, albeit cute. not that she was impolite - and she was suitably complimentary of her peers - she just wasn't so earnest about it all (like, insisting that she spells "devon" the correct way) in a way that got her cast and played up as the kooky [and/or] drunk one. (which she certainly was, too - best moment was when she raced to the bathroom and back in between someone else's songs, and half-admitted/half-boasted: "i didn't wash my hands!") point being, she was by far the awesome one of the four, and you could tell she kind of knew it too.

not that the others were bad - though i was mildly pained by one john francis, who veered from overweeningly solemn to clumsily saccharine, often in worrisomely strangulated voice (hurt too that he went after d.s. each time. possibly this wasn't a good venue for him tho.) the other devin was more intriguing, did political reasonably well (also, at all); nice "end of the world as we know it" pastiche. anyway he had a nerdy-goofy personable presence which made his songs easy enough to take.

but in particular i enjoyed carsie blanton's mastery of a certain straightforward, but witty, style of writing (about relationships, almost inevitably) that is a lot of what i like in folk music - you get it the first time through, there's a set-up that's either subverted (in a way you forgot to remember to expect) or else not (which may be harder to make work, but can be more satisfying) - anyway; crafted, crafty and formalist (which is only almost to say formulaic, but in a good way, like a "well-written blues.") it's something that happens in other forms too of course - i'm struggling to think of practitioners but stephin merrit comes to mind, and some john darnielle (though that's usually less straightforward)...actually i'm really surprised i'm having so much trouble with this. oh, john hiatt maybe? anyway, not to get sidetracked into a whole discussion about lyrics (though i'd like to have it later when i marshal some more examples - but do you get what i'm saying?)

it's an economy of language - not necessarily few words, but each word being overt in its purpose. songs that are simple enough in their construction that you can remember them easily (for campfire/cartrip singing, especially), possibly even after just one hearing; narrative/linear enough that you can remember the sequence - indeed that the sequence effectively creates the content of the song; and witty and distinctive enough that you want to remember them (rhyming/wordplay is crucial here - it's often where the craftiness comes in, and is also a memory aid), even if remembering is almost beside the point, is just a way of saving/savoring the moment of initial encounter.

because that's the fundamental act of folk music, more, i think, than other musics - the songwriter sharing the song, presenting it, like a piece of handicraft, like telling a story with a practiced, finely-tuned delivery. "it's all folk music," they say, right, cuz it's all made by folks, but to me that's where the folkiness of it comes in - folks playing songs for other folks (and the "songs" part is important, it's not just "music"), in a context of the everyday, a relationship that has to do with shared humanity - and there's that folk[="craft"]/art distinction, too. not that folk can't be arty, for sure - definitely this interpretation is not very coterminous with stylistic/cultural/marketing-based understandings of the genre.

to head off this thorniness (thorn off this headiness?), let me say that what i think i'm actually doing here is trying to justify to myself why i am not an especial devotee of the folk. (at least in its contemporary state.) i.e., that its essence stems from live performance, and i, ultimately, am a recorded-music guy. [whoa - 'nother new can of worms?] don't know if that's a good 'splanation, but it'll do, because we are getting way off from the point of this post, which is that devon sproule rules (that does not rhyme btw) and is awesome.

and btw what she does is not the kind of songwriting i was describing before. (actually i'm not really sure if carsie blanton does that either - i can't really decide if anybody does. oh wait, andrew gregory does; he really does. "shades of john prine?" dunno.) no, devon writes wordy, florid, meandering lyrics, often self-consciously literary, but just as like to be colloquial and off-the-cuff, either way full of precise, lucidly evocative details, typically of the homespun/folksy variety. not at all unlike joanna newsom, really (in style, though usually not in substance.) exactly like the kind of poems that i don't tend towards (i'm more inclined to poems like the songs i described above - pointy, shapely, snappy)...possibly because they ask more of the reader...except that hers are just so lovely i don't mind, and i want to drink them in.

especially when she comes up with a doozy of a musical setting for them, a single simple titular vocal hook ("(baby) does the day feel long?" "(baby) let's go out"), or a whole-cloth stunner of a chorus melody ("plea for a good night's rest" - that one's been haunting me.) more typically her tunes meander to match her words, without choruses to speak of; her unshakable appeal probably comes less from self-evidently undeniable songwriting than the combined potency of the entire package; her fine-spun lyrics, her accomplished pickin', her beguiling, terrifically limber voice (underplayed on the recorded versions, unfortunately though understandably), and probably most of all (if you're lucky/dutiful and go to see her), well, just her ineffable charm - maybe that's the folk part like i was saying, but also the part that transcends folk (qua genre): a great performer is a great performer.

just as devon's music certainly transcends folk - it's country, jazz (well, swing anyway), soul (er, soulful), bluesy-rootsy - poppy too, if you like - and all this with just herself and a guitar, though she's augmented on record. (it's a similar blend to ms. erin mckeown, another modern "folk" artist who's got something special going on.) but then folk by nature is mongrel anyway, or it oughtta be - even the kind of classicist formalism i was trying to get at earlier is something equally germane elsewhere (country, soul, pop); seems dangerous to yoke a genre to a particular songwriting mode (and what's labeled folk these days might just as well be called "acoustic/singer-songwriter," as much of it is, though those are terrible burdensome tags too.) anyway, just as easy as "it's all folk" why not say "none of it's folk." (i mean, my whole point was, maybe i'm not a folk fan, but this folker is too good to pass up.)

well. the devon sproule song that was my obsession for a good two weeks (and this entry has taken so long to write that even that's faded, though the song itself is untarnished) is "keep your silver shined," the title song from her new album, thankfully out and available recently though i heard her do it nearly two years ago when i first saw her, and it stuck with me all that time. you can hear it at herspace. again, no chorus (just the title phrase, soaring upward into wordlessness) - this time i think it's the harmony that really does it for me (how cute is she telling this kid the chords?), along with those little melodic lilts and of course the words - their sound ("a summer swam...a poughkeepsie scam") just as much as their meanings. it's got her cutesiest ("hands in our pockets and our pockets in our pants") and most poignant ("the best of us changed; the rest of us stuck behind") lines, and a wishful wish list it's hard to disagree with. essentially it's a catalog of and appreciation for life's little joys (from apple-picking to dresser drawers, two things i've almost, but not quite, achieved in the last week or so), a good thing for autumn if not quite autumnal. though in effect maybe it is. it's got that october feeling. indrawn communal contentment. glowy.

the "in the round" performance was a nice concept - done right, i think it would have created an especially conducive setting for a folk music interchange, one that allowed these four songwriters a chance to augment their music and performance by playing off one another. i'm not sure how that would work exactly - something like a jam session; a folk-song sing-a-long - inevitably something more fluid, less structured than you're probably gonna get in a contrived concert situation like that. what we got was a measly four songs from each performer - a tease, dev agrees, but also a neat forced encapsulation (should be easy to for each one to be memorable - devon did "silver," "plea," her quirky appalachian swing stomper "ol' virginia block," and a lovely compilation one-off called "julie") - and four roughly parallel but divergent visions of what folk might be. well ain't it all after all? sproule rhymes with soul rhymes with rock'n'roll. it's only acoustic singer/songwriter music, but i like it.