The 14th Annual Jaybee-bies: 2024, or Love Among the Ruins

Billie Eilish

You don't need me to tell you how f*cked up 2024 was. I'll try to identify some silver linings.  

Executive Summary:

Music: Pop music good, if not exactly in my comfort zone. Jazz, Blues, and Oldies wonderful. Weirdos thriving. (More to come on that).

Music/Personal: No longer striving for competence on guitar. 

Personal: Retired and grandfather of two. Getting old fast.

Politics: Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the bad guys won. Fascism is cool again, apparently. The young folks - men, mostly - let us down.

Humans:

Best:

• Jimmy Carter
• Adam Kinzinger
• Liz Cheney
• Many, many others who, in my current state, I just can't bring to mind. Feel free to write in some names.

Worst:

The ever-expanding "Usual Suspects", as I called them last year, make a repeat appearance here. I'll only make special mention of their Rookie of the Year, Nancy Mace, whose popularity confirms the existence of a new mini-industry busily producing Awful Women, like veterans Elise Stefanik, Nicole Malliotakis, Marsha Blackburn, Kristi Noem, and others. However, I will risk being accused of sexism by saying they'll never quite match the production of Awful Men. But keep up the bad work gals!

Best Books:

During this, my first year of retirement, my ambition was to "just lie down on the damn couch and read a f*cking book or two". 

And I did! I read all of the following books with great enthusiasm:

• A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman: A remarkable history of Europe (mostly France) in the 14th century. 
• The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre: A true-life spy story and a great one.
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: A true-life restaurant story, and a very entertaining one.
• Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett: What's an "I", anyway? Mr. Dennett tries to explain.
• Karla's Choice by Ken Hardaway: John le Carre's son admirably continues the George Smiley saga.

The following are part of my World History Project, which has now reached the end of the American Civil War. I read a lot more than these five, but these are the best of the lot:

• The Good Lord Bird by James McBride: A hilarious and tragic retelling of the John Brown story.
• The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner: Notorious flip-flopper's views on slavery. 
• Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson: The entire Civil War, miraculously, in a single volume. 
• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin: Lincoln and his Cabinet. Possibly the best history book I've ever read.
• Lincoln by Gore Vidal: Vidal could be pompous in interviews and lectures but he did work his ass off to get his historical fiction right. I read this alongside Team of Rvals, and was in awe of his grasp of the details. And, like Burr, it's funny too.

Best Movies:

I did manage to get out and see a few movies, but the only one worth mentioning here is A Complete Unknown. What it may be lacking in specific details, it more than makes up for with Timothee Chalamet's performance (and performances). Ed Norton is also great as Pete Seeger. The music is pretty great, too.

Best TV:

• Somebody Somewhere
• I May Destroy You
• Insecure
• Bodkin

Best Concerts:

Still none. I'm still waiting for one that's worth time/trouble/$.

Music Awards:

Most Work (But Worth it): 

    Billie Eilish

Most Work (And Possibly Not Worth It): 

    The Dirty Projectors

Most Surprising (and Not Necessarily in a Good Way): 

    Nico

Best Nostalgia:

    Jimi Hendrix 

Best Artist:

    Daniel Nigro, producer of both Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan

Best Albums of My Year:

1. Billie Eilish: Where Do We Go When We Fall Asleep? - The key to this young lady, and what eventually wore me down - is not the loopy sound effects (that's her brother). It's the songwriting that stays consistent from beginning to the very end.
2. Cannonball Adderley: Somethin' Else - NOT "worse" than Billie. Just a slower burn.
3. The Quintet: Hot House: The Complete Jazz and Massey Hall Recordings - Ditto.
4. Jimi Hendrix: The Cry of Love - Not a masterpiece. Just a very consistent (that again!) yet relaxed set of tunes with great guitar playing.
5. Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess - I'll get to this at another time, but in short, she edges out Olivia by the sheer volume of hooks and emotion she brings to the table. Geez!
6. Olivia Rodriguez: Guts - A smart young woman. NOT worse than Chappell. Just a bit more professional sounding, which is both a plus and a minus.
7. The Chills: Brave Words - Another one for a later time. RIP Martin Phillips.
8. The Feelies: The Good Earth - "Only" rock n' roll and I love it.
9. John Cale: Paris 1919 - Professed weirdo plays it straight with lovely results.
10. Low: I Could Live in Hope - Just how depressed can you get? Find out here and come back alive.

Honorable Mention: Arto Lindsay, Fishermans, Steely Dan, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Stars of the Lid, David Behrman, Elliott Smith, Beyonce

Best Compilations:

1. Muddy Waters: Anthology
2. Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings
3. The Shirelles: 25 All-Time Greatest Hits 
4. Fats Domino: My Blue Heaven, The Best of...
5. Sir Warrior etc: Heavy on the Highlife!

The Album I Listened To Most but Had the Least to Say About It Due to Density (Mine, not the music's.):

Bach: Violin Concertos

Some of the best songs I heard this year can be found here.

Oh, and Mrs. Jaybee's Favorites:

1. Beyonce: Cowboy Carter
2. Billie Eilish: Where Do We Go When We Fall Asleep?
3. Gorillaz: Cracker Island
4. Bill Withers: The Ultimate Collection
5. Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

Conclusions:

Now with two granddaughters, I'm slowly beginning to understand what life is all about. I hope I'm not too late. 

Pop continues to grow - sometimes away from me. That's okay. I don't have to be in the middle of it. As long as I can find some electric guitar music - now a small sub-section of pop - I'll be okay.

Jazz and blues (and oldies, and older pop) will always be there to fill the gap. I was hoping to keep you informed about new stuff, but if old stuff is new to both of us what's wrong with that?

And finally, I have come to realize that most of my countrymen think a dictator is someone who is NOT popular. A little more education might have helped. One can only hope the bad guys form a circular firing squad.

Happy New Year!

We Can Be Weirdos: VU Alumnae

Nico

John Cale

The Time of Your Life vs. No Time At All:

Having recently retired, I veer between two contradictory ideas:

1. I now have all the time in the world, so I will get every Bob Dylan bootleg like my friend Nutboy recommends.
2. I am nearer to the end of my life and time is thus limited. Therefore I must be unrelentingly focused on the best of everything, not in every weird byway.

While my default approach is number one, lately I've been opting for number two.

WYHIWYG vs. WTFITS

Most pop records are pretty straightforward. In the olden days, there was a thing called "airplay", which was needed if a record was to become popular. Thus artists, "encouraged" by the record companies, would try to not scare off DJs, whose motto was "what you don't play can't hurt you". The song had to be short, sweet, and catchy right out of the gate. Thus, the end product tends to be what you expect. They hold no secrets and offer no mysteries. And it's good, even great, sometimes. You get what you pay for. Or, to put it another way, What You Hear Is What You Get (WYHIWYG).

Then there are records that, when you put them on, an unprepared listener is likely to say "What the fuck is this shit?" Call it the WTFITS (pronounced what fits?) Test. I'm not talking about records like Ruby Vroom or Second Edition whose first impressions are quite daunting, but that eventually pull you in. I'm talking about the ones that - after dozens of listens over the course of, ahem, decades - still make you shake your head.

I will never know who the WTFITS GOATs are, but I am aware of some real contenders. In Pop Music there's Pere Ubu and Captain Beefheart. Scratching the surface of Jazz reveals Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman. And out there in Classical Music, there's Steely Dan fave Cathy Berberian. And if there are Country and Western weirdos I don't want to know about them. I don't need Deliverance vibes.

In this series about, well, weirdos, I will try to limit myself to new purchases. Of course, my mind wanders, and now that I mention Pere Ubu I ask myself why I have not gotten anything else by them since Dub Housing in the early eighties? Oh, because that record scored highest-ever (in the Jaybee Universe anyway) WTFITS score with a 10 outta 10. Even Trout Mask Replica (9.5) can't match that. And my one listen to Metal Machine Music reveals it to be only a 9.0, as you get the joke rather early in the proceedings.

My reaction to such music can be perverse. Sonic Youth, for instance, has enticed me to buy at least six albums while not fully satisfying me on any of them. How did they do that? Is it like having an argument with someone and you keep going back hoping to come out on top of the conversation. 

This might explain why, after getting two rather mystifying Ornette Coleman albums I'm tempted to put this on my Christmas list.

But deep, deep (deep) down I realize the really really real reason is that cool people like these albums/artists and I want to be cool, too. Never mind that when I actually meet any of these cool people I guard my wallet and look for the exit. It turns out the cool people I meet via the written word tend to be the same ones I avoid on the D train.

So before I do any further damage I'm pulling out all my WTFITS albums and, before I die, come to some understanding of/with them.

In the meantime, I will look at some new (for me) records that are kinda strange. This time I'll limit myself to two Velvet Underground alumnae.

Nico: The Marble Index (1968)

Take Chelsea Girls, subtract the good songwriters (Jackson Browne, Dylan, Lou Reed, etc.) and add random background noise to announce that it's art. Nico mostly disavowed Chelsea Girls, and here she wants to prove her avant-garde bonafides, so she dragged John Cale - producer and fellow VU alum - into this project. Good soldier John doubled down on the Art with a capital A and thus must accept some blame. I imagine Nico standing erect wearing a Viking hat when "emoting" these tunes (a term I use loosely) from the top of Mt. Bindingsnuten.

If the theme is "life sucks and then you die" that's fine, but don't actively try to make it so. I like a lot of music that could make one want to slit one's wrists but this could take out an entire neighborhood.

It starts off okay, with an off-kilter little ditty that sets the doomy tone. Okay, fine, I'm thinking, you're preparing me. So I get comfortable in my chair and wait. Then she does it again. And again. And so on. 

I will admit that after repeated listenings, a few songs do emerge, but alas, they recede again as the accompaniment (again Cale) is erratic bordering on random. On one song the background adds tension and thus improves things a bit, on another song it just gives the sense of two blind people occasionally bumping into each other in a dark room.

The climax is "Evening of Light", which - as you can see below - belongs in a cheap '70s horror flick. It reminds me of the worst parts of Pleasures of the Harbor and the best parts of The Wicker Man.

And yet, I don't hate it. It just needs a label, like "Warning: Pretentious, Bordering on Silly".

B-

John Cale: Paris 1919 (1973)

Having spent last summer with Lou, I felt it only fair to dip back into John Cale's oeuvre (I always  have wanted to write - but not necessarily pronounce - that word!). I've got his three albums on Island Records, which are good, if not exactly catchy. His 1990 collaboration with Eno is a lot more fun.

Cale, by the way, was born in Wales, was quickly recognized as a musical prodigy, and ended up in America playing with avant-garde luminaries like La Monte Young and Terry Riley, and playing 18-hour concerts as one does. 

He then met Lou Reed and formed the Velvet Underground, playing, among other things viola. After he got tossed out of the band (just Lou being Lou) he went on on to produce numerous artists including the Stooges, Patti Smith, Nico, the Modern Lovers, and Squeeze. And his own solo career would be singularly idiosyncratic without all the Lou Reed nastiness.

This is probably his most accessible record. Quite lovely and way more enjoyable than anything Lou was doing at the time. I guess this is Cale's stab at commercialism, just to show he could do it. But he can't without it coming out weird anyway. How does one recruit half of Little Feat and get them to sink into the mix without a trace? (Well, they do manage to bust out for "MacBeth".) I guess after years of trying to bend Lou Reed to his will (and vice versa) Lowell George was a piece of cake.

It's a bit baroque, rife with literary and historical references. What undermines it is his not exactly unpleasant but kinda shaky voice. He sounds like he's hanging onto the melody for all it's worth, and occasionally falling off. If it were sung more skillfully, it might have been one of the best records of the decade.

Alas, it's only pretty freaking good.

A-

Next: It gets weird(er)

Secret History: 1967

 
Well, this is the year when all that is good supposedly happened. Sgt. Pepper, Monterey Pop, Summer of Love, etc. I'll admit it: Sgt. Pepper is a very good album, but hardly my favorite. The Stones "Between the Buttons" is lighter and poppier than "Aftermath", and thus a bit less brilliant. Buffalo Springfield's second album, "Again" has several classics on it. You can even it pick it up in the cutout bin, if you don't feel like springing for the "Box Set". (That Neil Young's got quite the racket going for him, doesn't he?)

But you already know all that.

Cream's "Disreali Gears"? Eh. I'm just as likely to listen to "More of the Monkees", but more on that later.

The Moody Blues – "Days of Future Past"? Well, I guess this one's our fault. We all liked it a lot, and well, they just kept at it for years afterwards. It's not a bad record at all, just too many strings. (This was back when some people's idea of art was a classical music orchestra.) Do we really need to hear "Nights in White Satin" (Which at first I thought was Knights. Picture that why don't you?) again? Ah, but "Tuesday Afternoon"! That one'll always work on me.

As unfair as this sounds, I can't quite suppress a yawn. Not over the quality, mind you. It's just that we've all been over this already. So let's go deeper.


 
If ever there was a record that defines a cultural divide, it's "The Velvet Underground and Nico".  Yeah, I know Nico sounds a bit odd, and I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't love the more experimental at the end, but if you don't like what precedes it, please stop reading now. One of the greats. If you've ever wondered why people thought Lou Reed was a genius, start here.

If you were lucky, you could catch "You Set the Scene" on Saturday afternoons on FM radio. If you're luckier still you bought "Forever Changes". Love was
one of the first interracial rock groups, and is sometimes thought of as the West Coast Velvet Underground. That's because beneath the beautiful melodies and soaring strings, you get lyrics about the dark underside of the Summer of Love. But beautiful nonetheless.

Roger McGuinn is holding back a bit on The Byrds "Younger Than Yesterday", which is why I like "Fifth Dimension" a little better. And David Crosby contributes the hilariously bad "Mind Gardens", but he redeems himself with "Everybody's Been Burned", one of his best songs. Chris Hillman fills in the gap with several catchy tunes. It's not quite their best, but still damned good.

My copy of Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" is on heavily scratched vinyl. But it's lighter on its feet than either "Volunteers" or "Bathing at Baxters". This might seem tame for a record that came out at the beginning of the psychedelic era, but it's tuneful and a delight.

With Moby Grape, it's more scratched vinyl. (I wish people would take better care of their records before giving them to me.) And yet the energy of this record is still shines through. I love the guitar riff that starts it all off, setting the mood immediately. The singing is great and songwriting isn't far behind. A tinge of country, but definitely rock. The classics are "Hey Grandma", "Indifference" and "Omaha", one of the most joyous rock and roll songs ever. "Listen my friends!..."

The Kinks "Something Else" is the kinkiest Kinks record ever, and almost as good as "Face to Face". Side one is a hard look at everyday English working class life. ("David Watts" is one of the best songs about class ever.) Side two is the Kinks at their strangest, with "Waterloo Sunset" as the finale.

Procol Harum's first album, "A Whiter Shade of Pale",
with
the title hit, the original "Conquistador" and a bunch of other excellent songs, may be their best. My vinyl copy is kind of woozy. The guy who punched the whole in the center must have been drunk that day. And because the sound quality on vinyl is poor, Robin Trower's guitar sometimes sounds like a kazoo. Hey, not your fault, man.

The obvious Jimi Hendrix album to own is "Are You Experienced?". Even if you're tired of the hits, the non-hits and the CD bonus tracks keep you coming back. But how about "Axis Bold As Love"? It doesn't burn as brilliantly, but it gives off a nice quiet glow. A great evening album.

Poor Richie Havens. Even in the sixties, they made you dress up for album photos.
Clearly taken prior to Woodstock, the cover shot of "Mixed Bag" shows him sporting
thick
glasses, a blazer and dress pants. He looks like he's attending private school. This is the record that provides the title for a very annoying radio program, but the record itself is very pretty and worthwhile.

And speaking of 60's folk, don't forget Nico's "Chelsea Girls", where you get a little bit of sixteen-year-old-Jackson-Browne-sensitivity, a Bob Dylan song where the singer actually hits the notes, Tim Hardin and the Velvet Underground all in one place. Quite the bargain I'd say.  But don't ask me.  Ask my wife, who, after a couple of plays, said "I can't believe how good this is."  (Hey, what that's supposed to mean, anyway?  Okay, I admit that I may have, on occasion, put her through some...questionable music.)



You won't hear these songs when your local radio station does a Top 1000 Songs of All Time holiday weekend special. But I'll bet you're so tired of the songs they do play that you won't be feeling nostalgic anyway. The records I mention above will remind you that there was more in the 1967 universe than our short term cultural memory can now imagine.

Homonym-phobia

With everything else you’ve got on your mind, you needn’t be losing sleep trying to keep your various pop singers straight. Not literally anyway. Throw in some other similar sounding words (Nico, Neko, Neitche, Nike, etc.), and it can get even more complicated. I’m here to help, but must warn you that there will be a test on this later.

Nietzche was a 19^th century German philosopher.

Nike is the shoe company that exploits children in Asia

Nico is a long-gone, once-member of the ultra cool Velvet Underground.

Neko Case is a young Canadian singer-songwriter, and sometimes member of the New Pornographers.

Their musical achievements being less memorable, I’ve already lost interest in the first two.

 

Nico’s first solo album, Chelsea Girls, recorded right around when the Velvet Underground were getting their bearings, starts with two songs by a very young Jackson Browne. The first one – “The Fairest of the Seasons” – is relatively unknown, but beautiful in that early Jackson Browne/mid-sixties kind of way. The next – “These Days” – has been covered a lot. I don’t know if this is the best version, but it was striking enough to bring tears to my eyes when I first heard it. Although Jackson’s version sports a fabulous guitar solo and heartfelt harmony, it’s also got his trademark self pity.

Contrast their handling of the couplet whose first line is: Well, I had a lover
There’s JB’s whiny - But it’s so hard to risk another, these days.
And Nico’s cool and devastating - I don’t think I’ll risk another these days.

I took a cheap shot at Nico’s singing last year, but I was just pandering to those of you who might find it, in combination with her heavy Austrian accent, awkward or cold. But on “These Days’, she manages to convey all the emotion of the song with none of JB’s narcissism. Oddly enough both songs popped up in “The Royal Tannenbaums”, which I happened to catch while obsessing on this CD, making them even more affecting.

The rest of the record is excellent. She handles the great, early Lou Reed songs quite well, and does a fine job with Bob Dylan’s rare “I’ll Keep it with Mine”. The only lousy track is a whimsical – something Nico is definitely not - third song by Jackson Browne.

All in all, it’s an interesting mix of mid 60s musical cross-currents like folk, experimental and orchestral. And most importantly, the wife liked it.

Nico went on the make more music that I’m told veers into very stark, experimental territory. I’ll explore this more after I’ve refilled my meds.

 

Everything is so easy for Pauline begins Neko Case’s first song, “Margaret vs. Pauline”, from Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. It draws you right in because the rhythm of the melody perfectly matches that of the words. The song hints at sibling rivalry but turns out to be about class differences.

Her sound is a cross between country and David Lynch. (You know, with that echoey guitar, like that Chris Isaak song). I was a bit suspicious of this at first. Sometimes a distinctive sound is there to distract you from a distinct lack of something else.

Well it’s certainly not her voice. Neko’s voice is pretty but strong, occupying a middle range that wears well on you. She writes songs that suit her voice, too. This is less common than one would suppose. And every last one of those songs has a well thought out melody that gets you through the oblique lyrics and abrupt endings. It all holds up so well that we found ourselves listening to it repeatedly for months.

I should have realized how good it was when I copied it into my Windows Media Player library and, mixed in with everything else there, every song still stood out. And since I expect that a more or less steady clarification of the words will ensue, I’m in for the long haul.

So now here’s the quiz:

1. What was the name of that Chris Isaak song?
1. Don’t care.
2. True or False, Neitche was a lousy tipper.
1. True, but only if the waitress laughed when he ordered an “uber-burger”.
3. In what movie does Nico the character appear?
1. “The Doors”
4. In what movie does Nico the actor appear?
1. “La Dolce Vita”
5. In what documentary is Nico the subject?
1. “Nico Icon”
6. I know I’ll love the Neko Case record, so what New Pornographers CD should I get?
1. I’m currently listening to “Mass Romantic” (rhymes with frantic). I’ll let you know.
7. Is Nike still exploiting kids in Asia?
1. I still don’t buy their sneakers, so let me know.

And yes, Johnny, you are correct. None of this was covered in class.

The Evil That Men Do, Part 1: Music for Captive Audiences

Why do we do this to each other? Why do we insist on inflicting our music on each other - in our homes, in our cars? Once you enter someone else’s living space you’re subjected to their taste. It’s just a matter of how strongly they insist on imposing it on you.

You do it to me because you assume everybody must like what you’re putting on. It’s a big hit, so normal people should like it. A big enough hit to penetrate the personal and professional smog you’ve surrounded yourself with by having a family and job. The CD is something we’ve all heard of, so there’s no presumption on your part in putting it on. In fact, you’re being nice. It’s like you put out a plate of nachos.

My motives aren’t so pure. With me, everything’s got to be edifying. I can’t just put on what you already like. As a matter of fact, I probably don’t have it. I’ve heard it too many times already, and probably don’t like it nearly as much as you do anyway. So what do I do? I put on something that I like that I’m just sure you’ll like, too - because I’m good like that.

When I do it to you, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Or should I say, sometimes it works. Three examples that come to mind:

The Chills “Submarine Bells”

Badly Drawn Boy “Hour of the Bewilderbeast”

Sufjan Stevens “Illinois”

All of these got very positive reactions, and it’s easy to understand why. They are very melodic, with pleasing, but non-abrasive textures. You can have dinner to them.

Some of my other attempts have not been so successful:

Nico (Eva Braun singing Jackson Browne)

Pere Ubu (Nico, during the fall of Berlin)

Captain Beefheart (words fail me).

I resigned myself (around the time of my wedding) not to play these records around guests anymore.

And I now know not to put on a brand new CD (Jonathan Richmond’s “Jonathan Sings!”) on when people are helping you out with painting or moving. This is definitely one of those occasions when you just have to turn over control of the stereo to them - especially if it’s me.

If you’re having a party, you can tell people to put on whatever they like (although I’d sooner they helped me with the barbequing), but just so they don’t actually take you up on it, make sure you’ve got the CD changer filled and playing, and keep plying them with another beer.

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Now playing: The Chills - Heavenly Pop Hit
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day
via FoxyTunes