The end of the year came with a bang, in the form of Christmas gifts (that I orchestrated via my Amazon.com Wish List, of course), and a 2012 New Year’s resolution to get current music. Which I finally got around to on December 31.
So my grades are even less considered than usual.
Tallest Man on Earth The Wild Hunt
Nutboy was raving about this one, and I finally got around to it on Christmas. This one catches you immediately, with the elfin, early Dylan-ish vocals and spare arrangements. After a few listens you notice there are real tunes here, and words, too. Perfect for early winter mornings, when you’re feeling a little weird, and weird is the only way to go. A-
Steve Earle: Guitar Town
A little too straightforward country for me, but better than last year’s dabblings (Miranda Lambert and Brad Paisley). So I’m more willing to stick around, and let it work its magic. B+
Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Spinning Around the Sun
Now here’s a paradox. This one is more conventionally country than Steve Earle, but I like to more. Maybe because it’s so damned pretty. (And Mrs. Jaybee is tolerating Gilmore’s quavery voice better than Iris Dement’s. But by this point, she observed “You didn’t tell me you liked country music before we got married.”) He manages to keep it from getting too cloying, all the while hitting you with strong melodies. Highlights include a great version of Hank Williams “I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry” and the brilliant “You’re Just a Wave”. A-
All year long, I waited for some clear choices for current music, but my limited success with rap and r&b kept me from trying Frank Ocean or Kendrick Lamar. By New Year’s Eve, my desperation to appear cool forces my hand:
Fiona Apple The Title Goes On and On and On (jk it’s The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do:
Well, so far I can’t say that the music I’ve heard so far is any better or more attractive than what I typically hear from her. As spare as the arrangements are, after a few listens, it’s still kind of a blur. She’s very smart and and very tough, though. Mommy, I’m scared! B+
So that’s 2012 in all it’s gory detail. Next time, I’ll cut to the chase and give you that all-purpose summary of anything and everything of any and sometimes no consequence: a top 10 list.
Did I say good? I’m sorry. I meant GREAT!
It’s amazing what a couple of good records and a little time can do.
There I was back in August, feeling a little down because music - and by extension, the world - wasn’t living up to my expectations. Then, I pick up records by (in order of stupenditude) the Small Faces, Imperial Teen and the Stone Roses and suddenly things were looking up.
Oh, a couple of other things helped, like the election and my passing a professional certification exam, which I mention only to say how great it is to study to Leonard Cohen.
I’d picked up (or rather, loaded down) the The Essential Leonard Cohen back in January. Poor Leonard was one of the victims of my move from Vinylandia. His original Best Of was one of the last vinyl albums I ever bought, back in 1989, and as such, he got banished to the basement shortly after getting only a few spins.
But Essential is two full CDs worth of LC moaning quietly by himself accompanied only by a guitar (the early stuff) and then moaning again, accompanied by backup singers and a huge band (the more recent stuff), and all of it pretty darned slow. The pretty, early stuff was nourishing during the cold winter months, but I found the later songs - with the except of “Tower of Song” - much longer to begin with, and taken in such huge chunks, positively oppressive, especially as the warmer weather came in. So I put LC aside for a few months.
And then one summer Friday night when left to my own devices and could thus oppresGoods only myself, I couldn’t think of anything better to put on than this record. And between the beer and the extreme heat and the pizza and the internet and the chocolate chip cookies, I began to notice words like “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” And it all began to engulf me. Suddenly, for that moment, LC was my man.
Cut to November when I was studying for my exam, what better to put on to not distract me but LC? And I did, every night, and Mrs. Jaybee didn’t complain. (There was one study session in particular where I played it three times in a row.) Until finally, while we were doing the old “What would you like to hear?” “No, what would you like to hear?” thing, I called her bluff and said “Leonard Cohen”. She busted out laughing, knowing I was only kidding. I couldn’t put her through all 35 songs again. After all, she didn’t have to take a test.
But then again, she’s not one to do the beer/pizza/internet/chocolate chip Friday night thing, either.
Suffice to say, attempting to take in the entirety of the record should only be done under special circumstances as specified above. Nonetheless, here was something that I’d almost dismissed at one point, and then became obsessed with at another.
It’s a big chunk of trance, an iceberg of solace I’ll happily slam into on the right occasion. A-
… I panicked. The Thanksgiving downloads weren’t quite up to snuff, so out I went, back to the stores in search of that Thanksgiving high. But I only managed to make things slightly better, or worse, depending how you look at it.
My first mistake was at J&R, where I hedged my bets, and got two CDs that were not likely to offer any surprises:
Graham Nash: Songs for BeginnersIn my never ending quest to replace my 8 track tapes (yeah, I set the bar pretty low) I came across this lovely little gem at a decent enough price. If CSNY never toured or made another record again I could care less. But just as my interest in them was beginning to wane, Joni Mitchell dumped Graham Nash, which inspired a better than average level of songwriting. Bad for Graham, good for us. It’s not as good as your average Neil Young album, but it sure beats most of Stephen Stills solo work. But since I’d heard it before, it could only give me so much of a charge. B+
Grateful DeadAfter the pleasant surprise of Anthem of the Sun, comes (in the Jaybee universe, anyway) the slight disappointment of GDs first record. I love the Dead’s focus on revamping traditional music, but the production is pretty thin, the vocals aren’t there yet, and Jerry Garcia plays the same freaking solo on every song. Either he had the studio jitters, or he just wasn’t great yet. (Although the live version of “Viola Lee Blues” would suggest otherwise.) But again, my familiarity with most of it dampened the overall effect. B+Then I was off to Other Music (a preface that is becoming less and less necessary) trying to pare a pile of eight CDs down to two. One that didn’t make the cut was a Go Betweens record - a victim of my tendency to err on the side of an unfamiliar artist. I probably overrate the GBs, but they’ve given me two of the best holiday records I have, so in retrospect I should have picked them.
The Baseball Project, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying QuailsA makeshift rock n’ roll “band” (with Peter Buck of R.E.M. on guitar) that does songs about baseball can only have limited appeal to a lukewarm sports fan like me. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, exactly. It just ain’t the Go Betweens. B+
So that left a fairly conservative pick:
Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What
Like Andrew Bird in our last episode, this one’s a grower, but it just takes too damn long. A-And so, by being super safe, I missed the boat altogether, and my Thanksgiving music for 2012, as good as it was, did nothing to make the holiday season magical. Which is what I need it to be.Here’s looking forward to a meh-ry Christmas.
Summertime, and the Downloadin's Easy:
So I keep going back and forth on my preferred method of music acquisition. A trip to the record store give me an opportunity to browse, and I get to hold something in my hand, which is important to us guys.
But the trouble is that the only thing downloading requires is for me to be sitting on my ass (I'm an expert) at a computer, while going to the record store involves, well, going to the record store.
Thankfully the download gods became more forgiving as the year went on.
I’m still not sure these albums really are. And what better start with than an album of music that’s barely there?
Eno Music for Airports:
It’s been about 30 years - and a zillion records he’s sold for other artists - since I’ve gotten an Eno record. This one is from his prime and I wasn’t disappointed. Without going into a whole lot of detail that will mean absolutely nothing to you, I’ll just say that it’s the ambient music you’d expect. Just done better than anyone else, and with the beauty more out front than on Another Green World. A-
Here's the whole thing.
Bob Marley: Legend:More music for specific occasions, like a hot day by the pool (do you actually have a pool? Why don't you invite us over?). Funny but this doesn’t sound that much better than Natty Dread, which leads me to suspect that I’d really love some other stand alone albums. (I wonder if I could say the same about Blur?) But as it is, this one flows by flawlessly. A-
Dig the audience participation on "No Woman No Cry".
Postal Service: Give UpA mere side project for Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, and another guy. Said other guy sends BG some tracks that are kind of electronica in nature, and BG adds the voice, melody and guitar. And it all adds up to a very pleasant record. Which finally makes me interested in DCFC. A-
"We are Silhouettes"
Best of the Monkees:At $2.99, another bargain. But the sound is crappy,and my version would have been a little different. I miss the liner notes, too. B+
"Sometime in the Morning"
The Small Faces: Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake:Who’da thunk an obscure sixties album with bonus material would be so great? I’ll admit that the first spin was almost painful, with the limited sound quality, quaint narration in spots and some music that’s aged just slightly (hmm, just like me!). But the tunes emerge, the band proceeds to rock, and we catch Steve Marriott at just the right amount - a wee bit before all that swagger in Humble Pie. Wonderful. A"Afterglow"
Imperial Teen: OnI always root for a band with women in it. Here the boy/girl breakdown is 2/2, with the gals handling the bass and drums, quite well, thank you very much. This one hits you softly, but immediately. The spare but decisive instrumentation, the quiet yet expressive vocals and the words that are still waiting to get into my brain. It’s the great tunes that keep getting in the way. A-"Million Dollar Man"
Stone Roses:I’m liking this more as time goes on, but I must admit that at first it sounded like phony poseur pop music that could only come out of England. Everything was just too perfect - the jangely guitars, the echo - and the vocals far enough back to suggest that they had nothing to say. Now that I’ve given it time, the sound is sticking better than fake stuff normally does. B+"Waterfall"A Pre-Thanksgiving Strike That Didn’t Quite Work Out:Right around early November, I begin to play for my holiday music link, and reach out, hoping for gentle pop/ songwriting/textures/emotion, hoping for nothing too harsh. But the critical thing is that it’s got to kick in right away, or at least before Thanksgiving Day.
Los Campesinos!: Hold On Now, Youngster...What I get instead is frantic, but very fun pop (even if it doesn’t fit the holiday mood at all) music. But hey, it’s not their fault I didn’t buy it in the summer, when I can better handle the overflow of words, instruments, beats and hooks. B+
"You! Me! Dancing!"
Andrew Bird: The Mysterious Production of EggsSo I was hoping that Andrew Bird might save the day. Well, he kind of did, eventually, which really isn’t saving the day at all when you really think about it. Now that it's mid-December, and he’s having the calm, soothing effect I was hoping for. I just needed it a month ago. B+"Tables and Chairs"Overall, not bad, huh? A lot of really good records, with an ever so slight misfire at the end, which has a lot more to do with my needs and expectations than the quality of the music.One might think that downloading would be the way to go from this point on.Uh, well...
Somewhat disappointed in the results of my prior adventure in downloading, I found myself back in the record store.
Maybe this is where I truly belong. Maybe I’ll never be convinced that a downloaded album actually exists. Maybe when I download, it costs more for the good songs.
Having logically argued myself out of downloading (for the time being), I manage to find myself in a record store on several occasions over the next few weeks.
Trip 1:
After a failed attempt at hard rock and trying singer songwriter sludge, I was longing for some tuneful pop. You know, chiming guitars, snappy beats, catchy melodies...
Jens Lekman: Night Falls on Kortedala
What I got instead was by far the weirdest album of the year. Pop music, yes. But of the extra cheesy mid-sixties variety. You know, the kind your parents might have liked if they despised the Beatles, and loved watching European melodramas.
The orchestrations (yes, there are orchestrations) are totally over the top. And the singing is so mannered that I expected Engelbert Humperdinck to jump out at any moment. Luckily the subject matter was just weird enough (and to be fair, the tunes are just tuneful enough) to keep me paying attention. The best song has an actual guitar on it. B+
"Your Arms Around Me:
It took me a few weeks to figure out that Jens Lekman wasn’t going to be my pop salvation and I
resolved to get back up on the horse.
Trip 2:
This trip yielded an experiment in how my reactions to music change over a few listens. So where did I finally end up with them?
Wu-Tang Clan: Enter the Wu-Tang:
I can hear the appeal of this music, up to a point, but from my comfortable, safe standpoint, I still struggle with the more brutal aspects of it. I guess these guys will have to wait for me to catch up to them, as is usually the case for me with hip hop. B+
Beck: Sea Change:
Ah, so where did I leave off with Beck? A very consistent, catchy and at times beautiful record. It never quite took over my brain, like some classics do, but it’s a Contender nonetheless. A
"Sunday Sun"
Best of Blur:
In England, they’re gods who get to put out a complete boxed set of their music. In America, they’re the ones that you’re always saying “so they do that song”. Unfortunately, it’s very hit or miss whether you liked the song in the first place. There are a few great ones ("She’s So High", "Parklife") here but no more than what I’d expect from a regular album, let alone a Greatest Hits. B+
"She's So High"
Bright Eyes: Lifted, or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
So young, so very ambitious. And when the artist in question has the right attitude, you really want it to go well. But this doesn’t hit the mark often enough to be a masterpiece. Some great moments, though (You will you will you will, and ????) So I still prefer the simpler I’m Wide Awake, because it has no greater ambitions than to put together ten excellent tunes. B+
"You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will."
Trip 3:
Friend Sean had an art exhibit and he invited us along. Was it Fate that it occurred in a used record store? Sorry Sean, for spending almost on CDs as we did on your art.
Liz Phair: Whitechocolatespaceegg:
Another post-masterpiece record link, this time a couple of records down the line after the epochal Exile in Guyville. So while it’s no Exile, it’s also not a disappointment. Ms. Phair puts together over a dozen excellent tunes, and how many records have that many. Life-changing no, but pretty good! A-
"Shitloads of Money"
The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious:
Loud, fast fun, with a lead singer coming across as a more nerdy Iggy Pop. So I’m not taking it as seriously as I should. If I played it more often, I’d know if it had staying power. B+
Wire - Pink Flag:
After a twenty year go round with a greatest “hits” collection, I finally get the 1978 classic, and while it’s very good, the unknown legend in my head was a little better. A-
"Mr. Suit"
The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight:
After having bought this in 2010 only to immediately lose it, I found it again. I’d barely gotten to know it but now can confirm that, like Fegmania! a year ago, it’s slightly disappointing. I’ve come to the conclusion that as talented as Robyn Hitchcock is, he’s more suited for a greatest hits record. B+
"Underwater Moonlight"
So my luck with the record stores was slightly better than my downloading. Maybe I need to slow down and not rush into the 21st century.
Yeah, maybe it’s time to invest in an 8-track tape player...
Downloading, it turns out, is ever so slightly less pathetic than going to a record store. And maybe the only real difference is that it takes less time. And it’s a good deal less deliberative than I first let on.
Oh, I do go through my research when I get the itch for new music. But more and more lately I’m the victim of the Amazon drive-by. Every month, it seems, amazon has 100 mp3s on sale for $5. This past January it was 500! So I perused the list and wrote down about 50 possibilities. Through a method that one could only call...subjective I managed to cull it down to just two.
So you’d think I’d have come up with some real winners
.
Wild Flag:
I liked Sleater Kinney, love Carrie Brownstein on “Portlandia”, but, sad to say I rarely feel like putting this on. I have to wait for that “hey, I spent good money (?) on that music, so it’s time I got my money’s worth!” moods to go back to it. Is it the organ? The vocals? The unmemorable songs? I don’t know but it just isn’t resonating with me at all. A huge disappointment. B-
"Romance"
The Essential Leonard Cohen:
Two full CDs worth of LC. You’ve heard too much of a good thing? It seemed that way at first. It really should have been perfect for January, but the early stuff was just too quiet, and the later stuff, too plodding. B
But he’ll be back.
"Sisters of Mercy"
.
Television: The Complete Elektra Recordings
Classic Marquee Moon. Undeservedly Reviled Adventure and fun Live at the Old Waldorf”. Who could ask for more? link A
"See No Evil"
But it doesn’t really count, since it’s not new to me. So downloads have been disappointing so far. Maybe I’m not through with the record store just yet.
While most of you lead normal lives, I do things like go to record stores - a doubly pathetic exercise these days, what with so few young people there to provide some validation. When they do frequent such places, it’s in the ever expanding vinyl section. When I was their age, I watched that section contract to about the size the CD section is now.
Unlike online ordering, where I consult my “To Buy” list, weigh the prices of various websites, factoring in gift cards and shipping and handling costs, and ultimately make the whole exercise comparable to the planning of the D-Day invasion, a trip to the record store is very circumstantial.
First of all, you’re browsing. And you’re limited to what they have in stock at the moment, and increasingly, by what they have on display, since going through the racks methodically like I used to do is the very definition of sad.
I rarely plan a trip anymore. That would be sadder still. But when I’m in the neighborhood, there is that gravitational pull that’s hard to resist. I just make sure not to look up to see the other pathetic people.
And what did J&R have to offer that day, for $4.99 no less?
Amnesiac Radiohead:
Coming off the almost twin “masterpieces” - OK Computer (the great, but kinda bombastic, popular one) and “Kid A” (the weird, and thus controversial, one that I like almost as much) - it’s a relief that this one’s pretty simple. It emphasizes Thom Yorke’s voice and the song’s melodies. The lyrics aren’t as dumb as usual and the textures are nice and soothing. Solid. B+
"You and Whose Army"
Lodger David Bowie:
Also coming off of what would eventually be regarded as two masterpieces - Low (the weird poppy ambient one) and “Heroes” (the weird rockier ambient one) - Bowie consciously moves away from an obviously Eno (who collaborated on all three of these records) inspired sound. It starts out straightforwardly enough, but as things progress, almost as an act of will, Bowie keeps finding a stranger melodies or arrangements. I think he realized that the songs just aren’t as memorable as the prior records, so he’s trying to keep your attention. And it works, to a point. He nails it on “Look Back in Anger” and “Boys Keep Swinging”. But it’s just not as catchy either prior masterpiece. B+
"Look Back in Anger"
A week later, I somehow found myself in the neighborhood again, where I had a very similar experience in the jazz section. It’s ridiculous for me to grade something I barely understand, so I like to think of the following as my primitive gut reaction to something very sophisticated, something that will take me years to truly get.
Sidney Bechet Ken Burns Jazz:
From 1923 to 1947 he played the hell out of the clarinet and soprano sax, meeting up with Louis Armstrong along the way, and ends up filling in a big gap in my collection. I’m sure there are more comprehensive collections out there, but my time’s running shorter than my money. Perfect for a dilettante like me. B+
"Wild Cat Blues"
Coleman Hawkins Body and Soul:
My preferred jazz era is the late 1950’s. And I may never forgive the forties for impressing upon my youthful brain the supposedly vast difference in quality between the big bands of that time, and say, a small one, like the Beatles, from mine. As such, it takes a long time for music from that era to get past my prejudices. Too soon to tell, but it’s probably me.
"Body and Soul"
So that’s the outcome of an hour or two of my time. I’ll bet you spent yours having a life.
But I’d do it again.
