3 July 2013 (Day 184) – Producers As Musicians

I sort of conceived today’s listening as an add on to yesterday’s paylist.  The only problem is now as I sit to write this post, I cannot possibly conceive of the connection.  It’s not as though most producers disguise their true identities when they release albums.

Perhaps what I originally had in mind is once a musician is recognised as a type flight producer, any albums of their own music that they produce are probably more likely to be seen as an adjunct to what’s perceived as their main career.  In some ways it is akin to the member of a band who releases the occasional solo album but is never tempted to leave the band in which they made their name.  The resultant albums tend to be viewed as an opportunity for the individual to record material that would never otherwise see the light of day, an attempt to try out things that could not be attempted in their day job or as a pressure release valve.  Whilst this makes a certain kind of sense, it still doesn’t explain my initial concept. 

But the overall concept for today’s listening is a sound one, even though the initial premise was found to be extremely wanting.  And so for whatever reason a number of individuals who’ve made their mark as producers have also been responsible for creating some fine albums of their own music.  This shouldn’t be all that surprising; in just about every example I can think of, the producer began their music career as a musician before turning to production.  (Having said that, one of today’s selections did go the other way, that is from producing to creating music.)  For the purposes of selection, my definition of producer means a producer of music created by other acts.  Anyone whose production history revolves around their own work has been excluded.   

(# 496) Joe Henry – Kindness Of The World (1993)

Joe Henry has produced a number of wonderful alt-country albums over his career, mutating into an acclaimed producer of a some of the industries most respected artists.  These include Solomon Burke, Aimee Mann, Bette LaVette, Elvis Costello/Allen Toussaint, Loudon Wainwright III, Bonnie Riatt, and Billy Bragg.   This was his fouth album and arguably the one that put him on the map.  No doubt this was partially due to the involvement Jayhawks members Gary Louris on guitar and Marc Perlman on bass but the songs are of an uniformly high quality.  Of particular note is the magnificent and optimistic Fireman’s Wedding, the title track a duet with great Victoria Williams, Dead to The World a rocking country number incorporating fuzz guitar and great vocal support from Louris and Buckdancer’s Choice.

(# 497) T-Bone Burnett – The Criminal Under My Own Hat (1992)

Burnett has produced an imposing list of major albums for acts such as Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Counting Crows, Gillian Welch, The BoDeans, Robert Plant/Allison Krauss, Steve Earle and the Elton John/Leon Russell collaboration. He has composed or compiled soundtracks for Hollywood movies which have earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award.  But his own albums have proved to be nothing short of exceptional.  The material on this album consists of two basic types of tracks all with country overtones.  Some numbers are very much in the vein of his soundtrack work incorporating acoustic instrumentation such as double bass and fiddles and the remainder are electrified.  Indeed one track, I Can Explain Everything, appears twice in either guise.  And as is the case for most of his albums, he sings with a casualness that is quite appealing that is sometimes mixed with a dose of sly humour.

(# 498) Daniel Lanois – Arcadie (1989)

The only producer here that didn’t start his career as a musician, Lanois was first really noticed when he worked with Brian Eno (someone I could also have played today) in producing U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.  Since then he’s co-produced more U2 albums with Eno including The Joshua Tree and  Achtung Baby and been solely responsible for major releases by Peter Gabriel (So and Us), Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball), Neil Youing (Le Noise), Willie Nelson (Teatro)  and Bob Dylan (Oh Mercy and Time Out Of Mind).  Arcadie was his first solo album and by the time the first two sublime numbers Still Water and The Maker have concluded it’s clear that he has applied the same glistening production sound that is the hallmark of his most famous production jobs.  The biggest surprise on this is his confident vocal delivery with lyrics delivered in English and French but on occasion he left the vocal duties to others, noticeably on an arrangement of Amazing Grace featuring the incomparable Aaron Neville.

(# 499) John Cale – Fragments Of A Rainy Season (1992)

John Cale has played a major role in rock music history, first as a member of The Velvet Underground (and before that, drone pioneers The Theatre Of Eternal Music) and also as a producer of some of the finest albums ever recorded including debut albums for The Stooges, The Modern Lovers and Patti Smith. But he has also recorded a string of marvellous and challenging solo albums.  Fragments Of A Rainy Season is not an example of his production skills.  It is a recording of a live performance consisting of just Cale, his rich Welsh voice and his piano.  It includes highlights of his best known work (Paris 1919 and Guts), Style It Takes from his Andy Warhol tribute album with Lou Reed and two of the most audacious cover versions ever recorded.  One is his deconstruction of Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel in which the entire tune is slowed down to a crawl and performed as a tragic ballad.  The other is his version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah performed relatively straightforwardly in a manner that would have provided both Jeff Buckley and k.d Lang with the necessary inspiration to attempt their interpretations.

2 July 2013 (Day 183) – Acts In Disguise

Obviously my real name is not otis.youth.  I chose it because I wish to remain anonymous; you never know what nefarious elements out there can do with just your name.  As if to prove that, yesterday I received an obviously fake letter from overseas designed to scam me.  Just one reading of the envelope and letter was sufficient to determine how the scammers obtained my mail address from a particular non digital source.  Unfortunately for them, that immediately gave their game away; well, that and the poorly phrased English, the wild and inaccurate guesses about my family tree and the misspelling of one aspect of my name. 

And this provided me with the theme for today’s listening.  There are a hell of lot albums out there by established acts who go under assumed names as if to hide their true identities.  Obviously in most instances, these identities can be determined by just as single listen, especially if the artists involved have distinctive voices or playing styles.  But from what I’ve been left to understand, in many instances, this occurs at the insistence of one or more of the acts’ record companies who have allowed them to record and release the results on the other act’s label.  The idea seems to be that if the act releases the material under a different name, this would not divert too many sales away from the act’s established catalogue.

If true, this is another example of how record companies truly do not understand how music fans operate.  First, as I’ve already mentioned, if the acts have anything distinctive about them, their presence in the new entity becomes immediately apparent.  Second, it reveals a breathtaking naivety about music fans, especially today.  It may come as news to them, but fans really do read music magazines, websites or  newspapers and listen to radio stations etc that will report on and review the eventual results.  Finally, and most importantly, the labels don’t seem to understand that such an album amounts to free publicity for the act’s back catalogue.

And so today’s listening dips a toe into some of my favourite examples of acts in disguise, starting with a partial one:

(# 493) The Chris Stamey Experience – A Question Of Temperature (2005)

True identities: Chris Stamey and Yo La Tengo

The origins of this mindblowing album go back to 2004 when the album was originally released (and credited to the true identities)  in a very limited run as part of an anti George W. Bush re-election effort.   Fortunately, sanity prevailed and the album was given a full release. Although Stamey is identified, very few of the numbers here sound like the quirky tracks that would have been recorded by the group with which he is most often associated, The dB’s.  (One of their tracks, Summer Sun, is covered here.)  On the other hand, the album sounds very much like a lost Yo La Tengo album with Ira Kaplan’s idiosyncratic guitar playing very much to the fore.  It starts off with a brace of superb cover versions, the most well known being The Yardbrid’s The Shapes Of Things, Cream’s Politicans and Television’s Venus.  But the absolute highlight of this set is the awesome 10 and a half minute MacCauley Street (Let’s Go Downtown).  A classic slow/freakout/slow number of the type often utilised by the latter day Sonic Youth (refer to Murray Street tracks such as Rain On Tin or The Empty Page), this starts off with quiet half sung/spoken lyrics that clearly position the song as a form of modern day homage to The Velvet Underground.  (Lou Reed is even name checked in this part of the track.) The middle five minutes or so is an inspired Yo La Tengo freakout with guitars and Kaplan’s e-bow exploding in all sorts of directions as if trying to replicate the VU’s improvised workouts on their live renderings of Some Kinda Love before fading to an organic end.  (Sonically speaking, all of the guitar and e-bow lines in the middle section appear to have been allocated one channel or the other, and so fiddling around with equalizers, speakers, etc, can produce varying results.)   It is very close to the finest single track I’ve ever heard from this veteran band.

(# 494) Hindu Love Gods – Hindu Love Gods (1990)

True identities: Warren Zevon and R.E.M. minus Michael Stipe

This album consists of a number of cover versions knocked out during the recording sessions for Zevon’s Sentimental Hygiene album.  (Zevon’s band on that album was essentially, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry.)  It’s not meant to be taken as anything other than an enjoyable romp through a number of well known songs.  Of these the highlight is their barnstorming version of Prince’s Rasberry  Parade. Close behind is a stomping performance of Battleship Chains a track made famous by The Georgia Satellites, the blues standard Mannish Boy and other blues classics such as Crosscut Saw and Travellin’ Riverside Blues.  A version of Woody Guthrie’s Vigilante Man rounds things off nicely.

(# 495) The Dukes Of Stratosphere – Chips From The Chocolate Fireball (1987)

True identity: XTC

Easily the most intriguing of these acts owing to its highly ironic and totally unforeseen consequences, this is a compilation of the debut 25 O’Clock mini album from 1985 and the full length 1987 release Psonic Punshot.  XTC recorded these records as a homage of sorts to the British psychedelic acts of the 1960s they loved and which also seemed to inspire much of their work at the time.  XTC was not referenced on the original releases with each member adopting a fictitious identity and certainly the 6 tracks which make up 25 O’Clock are hard (at least to me) to pick out as them.  However, it was hard to miss distinctive XTC touches on Punshot, especially on Collidescope, Vanishing Girl and You’re My Drug.  Closing track Pale And Precious plays out as an astonishing Pet Sounds era homage to The Beach Boys.  Incredibly, despite the fact XTC were releasing amazing albums under their own name simultaneously, they were massively outsold by their alter egos.

1 July 2013 (Day 182) – Acts To Whom I Owe A Debt

Thanks to the Bulldogs shock 3 point loss to Melbourne of Saturday night, I was in a foul mood when I arrived at work and sought to elude anyone wanting to remind me of that. 

I was still in a foul mood as I started scrolling.  Even this task didn’t lighten my spirits until I came across an act and their first two albums.  I smiled as I thought about the impact their music had on me and opened me up to different sounds.  This demanded that I pay a debt and sing their praises and those of the other acts that made up today’s listening;

(# 487) The Police – Outlandos d’Armour (1978)
(# 488) The Police – Regatta de Blanc (1979)

I never viewed The Police as a punk act.  I saw them as a rock act with a pronounced reggae influence.  Listening to both of these albums back to back, I was surprised at how slight that reggae influence seems to be today.  Regatta de Blanc, in particular is almost devoid of its influence apart from Message In  A Bottle, Walking On The Moon and The Bed’s Too Big Without You.  Maybe I feel this now because I’ve listened to a lot of prime 70s reggae since I first heard these albums, but the point remains I owe a debt to The Police and The Clash, in particular, for making reggae palatable to me by including it with rock.   Whilst I now appreciate that Bob Marley and the Wailers did precisely the same thing at the same time with their albums on the Island label, I now realise why I didn’t take to it then because I suspect the balance went too much in the other direction, that is, they still sounded like reggae albeit with some rock mixed in.

And make no mistake, these first two Police albums are still exciting rock records and the live performances of the time I’ve heard on bootlegs, etc are incredibly dynamic.  Outlandos d’Armour starts magnificently; Next To You is a great opening, So Lonely the quintessential slow/fast/slow/fast number and Roxanne endures today despite all of Sting’s attempts to recast it.  Hole In My Life is fun and Peanuts is goofy fun.  The two rockers that kicked off the former side 2, Can’t Stand Losing You and Truth Hits Everybody are rockers of the highest order.  The less said about the final three numbers the better.

Regatta de Blanc is even better, offering a greater diversity of tracks.  The previously mentioned reggae tracks all have elements in them that clearly demonstrate that the guys, especially Stewart Copeland, were true students of that music form.  The title track makes for a great drunken singalong and is deadly when played live, It’s Alright For You Is a nice throwback to the first album and the closing combination of Copeland’s Does Everyone Stare and Sting’s No Time This Time was a massive improvement over its predecessor.

(# 489) George Thorogood and the Destroyers – Live (1986)

I love George Thorogood and the Destroyers.  Always have.  Always will.  For a long time in my life they were practically the only overseas major blues act of any note to regularly visit these shows and the first one that I saw.  Thanks to him, I paid serious attention to Bo Diddley and, thanks to the name check on this album, was introduced to Hound Dog Taylor.  Then there was his performance at Live Aid.  Queen and U2 may have won the honours at Wembley, but it was George that set Philadelphia on fire, and reintroduced Bo Diddley and Albert Collins to the world’s and my attention to boot.  (And remember, he was a last minute addition to the bill!) And only AC/DC is a finer exponent of gutbucket electric boogie today.

And if you doubt any of these claims, have a listen to this album, recorded on a typical night out, the year after that Live Aid performance.  The band roars out of the starting blocks with Who Do You Love?, Bottom Of the Sea and Night Time, the latter including riffage from Train Kept A Rollin’.  He pays homage to John Lee Hooker on One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, scorches through Madison Blues and the obligatory Bad To the Bone and sends everyone home very happy indeed with a romp through Reelin’ And Rockin’ full of his bawdy wit.

And the great thing is that he’s still at it, more or less, proudly unbowed.  A year or two back “M” asked me to take her to see Joe Cocker.  No problems there; I’m a long time Cocker fan, but just as important was that George Thorogood and the Destroyers were opening.  Unbelievably the Palais Theatre was jammed full before he got on stage.  By the end of his set, “M” was asking me how to pronounce Thorogood, and a number of hard core fans had left their seats, went into the foyer, bought up at the merchandise table and gone home.   Somewhere around the world tonight this is being repeated;  George and his mates are recreating this album, preaching to the converted and winning new fans.  And it will continue until the day he dies.  Long may he continue to do so. 

(# 490) The Saints – (I’m) Stranded (1977)
(# 491) The Saints – Live At Pig City Brisbane 2007          

I remember in the moment in 1977 as though it were yesterday.  I was watching Countdown and this film clip came on for this new band from Brisbane called The Saints.  The song was (I’m) Stranded and it was a revelation encapsulating everything I thought rock should entail.  The overiding memory was of the jolt to my senses caused by the combination of Ed Kuepper’s buzzsaw guitars and Chris Bailey sneering delivery of the lyrics.  And the lyrics meant something, at least to me - Stranded/Yeah I’m On My Own/Stranded/Yeah I’m On My Own/Stranded-on-my-own -  simple, to the point, memorable and easy to remember.  With the song still in my head, I went to school the following day.  Usually, everyone would discuss the acts on the show but, despite my raves, could not find anyone who remembered seeing them.  The lyrics then took on a double meaning; it became my mind’s anthem in terms of how I saw my own musical taste.  In those days Countdown was repeated the following Saturday afternoon.  In the absence of a VCR, I took my cassette player and taped the clip when it came on (it started the second side of the same tape in which my radio listen to Springsteen’s Born To Run had been captured two years previously).  It was only after I played the tape again that I noticed the fake crowd applause the program’s producers had tacked on to the end of the clip.  Stranded, indeed.

(I’m) Stranded the single, became the title track of The Saints debut album and 36 years later the album still sends the same jolt through me as that Countdown appearance.  In fact, (I’m) Stranded isn’t necessarily the best track on the album.  There’s the ferocity of Wild About You, the relentless Erotic Neurotic, their trashing cover of Elvis’ Kissin’ Cousins  and the awesome demolition set pieces that were the closing tracks Demolition Girl and Nights In Venice.  The reissued version of the album is even better as among the bonus tracks is one of the greatest tracks ever recorded by an Australian act – This Perfect Day- and their brutal assault on River Deep – Mountain High.

But I have the original album on my iPod these days.  The reason for this was to leave space for  Live At Pig City, the recording of the first comeback gig by the original foursome after Kuepper’s departure 27  years previously.  As reunion gigs go, this was pretty damn good with the band attacking everything at absolutely full throttle.  The version of This Perfect Day is magnificent but it is the 4 closing tracks that represent the absolute zenith of the original band’s recorded history. It’s kicked off by the raging horn driven attack of Know Your Product from their second album and then continues unabated into Messing With The Kid and Nights In Venice before an explosive River Deep provides the aural cheery on top.  Strangely only (I’m) Stranded sounds less than extraordinary – as also happened when I saw the original band replay the debut album at The Forum in 2009 – a fate seemingly reserved for a track which is now so vested with personal history.

(#  492) Pretenders – The Pretenders (1979)

Speaking of music vested with personal history, this is the album that always reminds me of my university years.  The University of Melbourne has what was then called a “leisure library” which became my preferred place for relaxation between lectures, tutorials and research.  To me it was notable for four things – the awesome library devoted to all things political and pop culture; bound volumes of (US) Rolling Stone magazine going all the way back to its first editions; a music library and a listening room full of headphones, listening chairs and bean bags where one could go and listen to up to 8 albums from the collection as requested by students whilst passively inhaling smoke from the funny shaped cigarettes others there were smoking.  And the first Pretenders album was the album that was seemingly most often requested and which I most wanted to hear.

And little wonder.   Side 1 of this album is nothing short or perfect, seemingly sequenced as a mini album in its own right.  Precious is the perfect opener with Chrissie Hynde taking absolutely no prisoners.  The Phone Call, Up the Neck and the chaotic Tattooed Love Boys follow before Hynde steps aside for the instrumental Space Invader.  Not that she needed to give the boys in the band any space, as much as the album in dominated by Hynde it was also a stunning showcase for James Honeyman-Scott’s flashy guitar work, Pete Farndon’s forceful bass and Martin Chambers’ spectacular drumming.  The Wait follows, now an acknowledged classic, before the album’s first ballad, a tender cover of Stop Your Sobbing brings the side to a perfect close. 

At this point, the needle at the Uni library could rest in the run out groove for incredibly long periods of time which is why this was such a loved album.  If it appeared that it would be a long time before the platter would be flipped by the hassled librarians, I could always search for something else to hear or leave.  Unsurprisingly, I’ve always side 2 was weaker – it is – but it still contains Brass In  Pocket and the wonderful closer Mystery Achievement.   But this doesn’t matter, whenever I hear this album I’m instantly transported to the bean bags and the headphones.  This alone is a reason to be grateful.

29 & 30 June 2013 – Half Time

Sunday 30 June marks half time in my project.  Six months of blogging completed with another 6 months to come.  It should be more than enough time to play some of my very favourite albums and think of a new project for 2014. 

There was precious little time available for listening and all I got to hear was:

(#484) Outkast – Stankonia (2000)

This is regarded as one of the all time great rap/hip hop albums.  I can see why.  It is an expansive record that takes in a wide range of musical styles and sources and an array of mostly discovered talent.  Brilliantly sequenced, it starts of in a rush with Gasoline Dreams, and culminates in a brilliant sequence of psychedelic influenced tracks including Toliet Tisha, Slum Beautiful and the title track.  And yet, it lacks one explosive gigantic global hit or two to give it the proper recognition it deserves.  Pity that their subsequent album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is this album in reverse (that is, containing the huge break out singles but lacking the overall conception of this).

(#485) Nada Surf – The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy (2012)
(#486) Nada Surf – The Dulcitone Files (2012)

Nada Surf is an alternative rock band from New York that’s been around now for 18 years and yet this is just their sixth album.  It consists of 10 tracks of guitar driven melodic rock/power pop which reminds you of some of the best practitioners in the field over their lifetime, such as Matthew Sweet circa Altered Beast, Superchunk and prime era Lemonheads.  The best tracks on this come early on.  The opener, Clear Eye Clouded Mine, is noisily melodic and Waiting For Something and Jules And Jim are nice straight ahead poppier numbers.  Let The Fight Do The Fighting adds trumpet to the template with  good results.  The Dulcitone Files is a bonus disc containing acoustic versions of half the album that demonstrates the songcraft sitting behind the numbers.  Perhaps some of these could havwe been included in the main album proper for greater variety?

So just what I achieved so far this year?  Counting the albums I’ve played on the weekend I have in the first 6 months of the year:

A] listened to a total of 486 albums spread out across 515 CDs.  Assuming a minimum of 10 tracks per CD, that would equal approximately  5150 tracks which, assuming 50 minutes  per disc, equates to an estimated listening time of 429 hours .

B] listened to a further 218 tracks spread out across 4 iPod Shuffle sessions, which at an estimated 5 hrs per session  equates to an estimated listening time of 20 hours .

C] attended a total of 6 gigs in which the headliners played a total of 115 tracks (for an estimated time of 9 hours) , and

D] viewed a total of 18 music related DVDs, TV broadcasts or documentaries, which at an average of 80 minutes per item results in 22 hours and 40 minutes of viewing .

Thus, adding together the approximate amount of tracks and listening/viewing time, we get:

	Estimated number of tracks	Estimated time spent
A	5150	429 hours 10 minutes
B	218	20 hours
C	115	9 hours
D		22 hours 40 minutes
	Total of: 5483 tracks & 18 a/v items	Total of: 480 hours and 50 minutes

And none of this takes into account reading time and time spent on writing the blogs for this project, although, if anything, my reading time has directly decreased in proportion to my writing time.

Somehow, these figures just don’t seem enough.  I must do better.  I will do better.

28 June 2013 (Day 179) – Kitchen Table Blues

Here I am sitting at my kitchen table cold and unhappy.  I’m cold because our central heating unit has broken down.  I’m unhappy because the technician that came to fix it declared that the value unit (or something that sounds like that) needed to be removed and has taken it away to be repaired.  So now I’m p***ed off because we’ll have to wait another week before the repaired piece can be returned and reinstalled.  It also meant I had to work from home working from said cold kitchen table as I waited for the technician to arrive. 

Some people might think that working from home is an easy day’s work but it actually takes a great deal of discipline.  Whilst you aren’t distracted by your phone going off or people “popping by” to see you for any reason, other new distractions emerge.  There is your bed (as in “why don’t I just write on my laptop from the comfort of my bed?”), your TV (as in “why don’t I keep this on whilst I work?”), your mail box (as in “my mail should have arrived by now”) or your immediate surrounds (as in “why don’t I pop off to the supermarket to get something for lunch?”).  Sitting at the kitchen table allows me to overcome all of these but it does put me into close contact with my fridge and the urge to get something to eat or drink.  Compared to the other distractions, it’s the lesser of all evils.  Indeed, I use trips to the fridge as the means of resting my eyesight when it  starts to worsen from too much time on the laptop.

The other luxury I allow myself is in choice of listening matter.  As I’m alone in the house, I can choose anything irrespective of lyrical content.  No chance of offending anyone.  I can play things on my stereo system thus giving my ears a break from the earplugs of my iPod and, most importantly, I have access to my entire collection.

And so it is today as I play CDs from my plastic pending box.  My first selection is supposed to remind me of warmer climes;

(# 480) Popol Vuh – City Raga (1995)

Popol Vuh was a German experimental (i.e “Krautrock”) band formed by the late Florian Fricke in the 1970’s.  They produced numerous albums and a few soundtracks for German director Werner Herzog including Nosfertu The Vampire and Aguirre: The Wrath Of God in the process moving from music dominated by synthesizers to world music albeit with an experimental/ambient bent.   This album, as the title implies, takes its cue from Indian (as in the sub continent) music and the seven individual tracks fly by as if part of one longer piece but I'm unsure whther this is typical of their work.  Further investigation is necessary.

(# 481) Ben Folds – Ben Folds Live (2002)

This album is drawn from a solo tour of the United States in 2002.  It’s an enjoyable enough performance with songs drawn from his solo works and the Ben Folds Five.  The overall effect is more or less the same as listening to a piano man on a larger stage, a point made more explicit by the inclusion of Elton John’s Tiny Dancer.  Best Imitation Of Myself, Narcolepsy and The Luckiest come off best.  The seemingly off the cuff Rock This Bitch adds some colour and there is also his bizarre statement that his best known song Brick is about helping his first girlfriend have an abortion.  

(# 482) Shane Nicholson – Faith & Science (2006)

Formerly of Pretty Violet Stain and recently separated from wife Kasey Chambers, with whom he’s created two strong albums, Nicholson has produced some really solid albums of contemporary rock .  This is his second album and is full of songs about self doubt, personal struggle, hope and the healing powers of a strong relationship.  Everybody Loves You Know, Safe And Sound, I Can Change, Home and Stolen Car all seem to stem from deep wells of an interesting life.  The amusing Big In Japan sits well in contrast alongside such company.

(# 483) Dan Kelly And The Alpha Males – The Tabloid Blues (2004)

Dan Kelly is the nephew of Australia’s venerated Paul Kelly and is carving out a nice little niche for himself.  This was his first album with the Alpha Males which includes the leader of The Drones Gareth Liddiard.  Although the album cover is an attempt to portray a Blue Note album cover in orange, there is no jazz to be found here.  The first two thirds of the album is dominated by some of the best alternate rock to have emerged from an Australian Act over the last decade before settling into more reflective material on the run home.  The final track, River O Tears, is co composed with Liddiard and reminds me a little of Liddiard’s solo album.

27 June 2013 (Day 178) – Where Imitation Is Sincere

It is amazing how concepts about my day’s listening occur to me as I sit down to write these posts.  Take today acts for example; a relatively new county/bluegrassy band, an undefinable singer/songwriter and a now veteran US West Coast punk band. The similarities are all trivial and relatively unimportant - they’re American, relatively unknown, highly regarded by their peers and, most insignificantly of all, have found their way into my collection. 

And yet when I look at my music journal, one thing stands out from my notes.  It is that each of the albums I played today appears to owe a stylistic debt to another act or musical style.  I’m not suggesting for a moment that the acts in question are rip off merchants; they’re all much too clever for that.  Rather the albums see to me to be either musical tributes/homages or are experimental in the sense the act is attempting to learn something by recording tracks in the spirit of the influence.

(# 477) Zac Brown Band – Uncaged (2012)

I first heard about this band earlier this year when I read that Bruce Springsteen had checked out the band’s Melbourne gig at the Myer Music Bowl on one of his nights off here.  That was good enough for me to do some investigating and my purchase of this album was the result.  It’s easy to see what Springsteen was drawn to; the band plays a mixture of fiddle accented country, folk and mostly southern rock that vaguely reminds me of the sound The Boss got on his Seeger Sessions project. There is nothing seriously amiss with the album but, then again, nothing to get all that excited about.  Everything here is much too clean and precise when a little bit of dirt and raggedness is required.   I suspect this could be a classic case of an act that is much better live than in the studio. 

(# 478) Micah P. Hinson – And The Pioneer Saboteurs  (2010)

Micah P. Hinson is a singer/songwriter from Texas and this is his sixth album, most of the predecessors being named after what I assume is his backing band at the time. This is the only album of his that I own or have heard and, for most of it, the clearest reference point I can discern is Nick Cave.  Many of the tracks here appear to be about the trials and tribulations of frontier life, a theme of Cave’s albeit in a different country and context.  On some of the tracks,  particularly on 2’s And 3’s and She’s Building Up Castles In My Heart, Hinson sings is a Cave like voice.   Some of the musical arrangements, especially on the opening couple of numbers, The Striking Before The Storm and The Cross That Stole This Heart Away are also reminiscent of Cave’s soundtrack work.   The similarities end with the incredible final track, The Returning, a massive sounding instrumental that inhabits the same territory but by invoking the spirit of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse or even Sonic Youth.  My Australian edition also contains a couple of bonus tracks after this, the latter of which, the original version of Watchers Tell Us The OF The Night is very much in the spirit of The Returning.

(# 479) Pennywise – From The Ashes (2003)

I bought this album cheaply from the op shop I wrote about recently because it had a bonus DVD attached.  The packaging didn’t provide a description and it turned out to be about the making of the album.  Had I know this, I wouldn’t have purchased this, felling that owning all of the albums that preceded it was sufficient.  And this one does suffer from a marked drop in quality, on many of the tracks it seems that the band were content to produce music very much in the same vein as The Offspring albeit with better lyrics.  This Is Only A Test stands out in this company for bucking the overriding trend.

26 June 2013 (Day 177) – When Two Acts Collaborate

Through music’s rich history there has been a strong tradition of established acts recording with each other.  Some of these have clearly been initiated through friendship or mutual admiration.  In some areas, especially jazz and blues, collaborations emerge between musicians who had become familiar with each other by playing together as session men on other artists recordings.  There are the tribute collaborations that occur when an established act wishes to help an early inspiration by producing or appearing on that acts comeback album.  And then there are what I could term as “wish list” collaborations when an established act specifically approaches a peer with an invitation “to jam” (and then invariably chooses never to release the results - Prince and Miles Davis anyone?)

As it is, I’ve already played a few collaborative albums – The Orb and David Gilmour, Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Lou Reed and Metallica among them.  What surprised me was the sheer number of candidates just on my iPod, including these five gems:

(# 472) John Legend and The Roots – Wake Up! (2010)

This is a collaborative albums consisting largely of soul covers put together by modern day soul man Legend and hip hop masters The Roots.  The choice of songs clearly reveals an intention to produce a socially aware album in the mould of Curtis Mayfield’s 70s efforts.  Indeed, the opening track is Hard Times, a Mayfield number originally recorded by Baby Huey and The Babysitters.  For me the highlights of this spectacular album come from their attempts to make over some classics of the genre – an epic 2 track version of Donny Hathaway’s Little Ghetto Boy, a truly soulful version of Marvin Gaye’s Wholy Holy and a long loose meander through Bill Withers’ I Can’t Write Left Handed.  But topping everything is a convincing attempt on Humanity (Love The Way It Should Be) a reggae number originally recorded by the hitherto unknown (to me) Prince Lincoln Thompson.

(# 473) Brother Jack McDuff and David ‘Fathead’ Newman – Double Barrelled Soul (1967)

I discovered this album totally by accident when the disc was accidently placed into the digipak of another album I purchased.  This consists of lengthy soul instrumentals by organist McDuff and sax player Newman who have appeared on countless albums in my collection. For the most part, the tracks are easy going and just manage to contain enough energy to prevent them lapsing into lounge music although Esperanto goes perilously close.    Their version of Sunny is quite entertaining seemingly incorporating the James Bond Theme into the rhythm.  This is definitely one for lovers of the work of Booker T and the MG’s or The Bar-Keys.

(# 474) Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (2007)

This is another covers album, this time of a range disparate Americana soundings tunes selected by musical archivist/musician/producer T-Bone Burnett for bluegrass singer Krauss and rock god cum world music warbler Robert Plant.  Despite the billing it is Krauss’ honeyed voice that dominates the majority of tracks with Plant providing, at times, subtle support.  As producer Burnett provides a wonderfully sparse yet nuanced production sound that complements them beautifully.  Strangely enough the album’s highlight, Please Read The Letter, was co-authored by Plant having appearing on his Walking Into Clarksdale album with Jimmy Page.  Fortune Teller, Killing The Blues, Tom Waits’ Trampled Rose and Townes Van Zandt’s  Nothin’ are all rendered convincingly.

(# 475) Various Artists – Judgement Night Original Soundtrack (1993)

The movie is merely OK but this soundtrack is sensational.  Using the template established by the Run DMZ and Aerosmith version of the latter’s Walk This Way, each track on the album is a collaboration between a hard rock or alternative act and a hip hop act.  The albums starts with all guns blazing with Helmet and The House Of Pain on Just Another Victim, a track in which the former’s brutal guitar attack is perfectly complemented by the latter’s rap and sampling.  Falling which follows this is almost as good as Teenage Fanclub start working abound with Tom Petty’s Free Falling only for De La Soul to cool things down with a typical rap. The title track mashes Biohazard and Onyx to sound like Body Count and Slayer and Ice-T sound right at home on Disorder, effectively a cover medley of songs by The Exploited.  Freak Momma sees Mudhoney providing the music background for a typically inventive Sir Mix-A-Lot rap and Missing Link by Dinosaur Jr and Del the Funkee Homosapien sounds like a great lost early Red Hot Chili Peppers track.

(# 476) Canned Heat And John Lee Hooker – Hooker ‘N’ Heat (1971)

This is one of the finest blues albums ever released.  For the most part it is a John Lee Hooker solo album with support at times from the Heat’s Al Wilson, whose last recording this was.  Whether its Hooker's playing and stomping or Wilson’s harmonica the first disc and the early part of the second is full of great blues numbers such as Send Me Your Pillow, Sittin’ Here Thinkin’, Driftin’ Blues, You Talk Too Much and Bottle Up And Go.  But the real business are the tracks where Hooker joins Canned Heat for a turbocharged boogie session.  The final three tracks, Let’s Make It, Peavine and an electrifying 11 minute Boogie Chillen No. 2 are as good as this type of music gets.

By the time I’d finished listening to the last album here I was at home attempting to get my thoughts together for this post.  Word was coming from our nation’s capital that the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd was challenging the current Prime Minister and his former Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard for his previous post.  Later on it was revealed he had succeeded.  Clearly collaboration is not a term that is familiar for either leader.