tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72711932251950973402023-06-20T08:12:54.791-04:00Themes on a VariationReviews of a wide variety of music, from rock to classical, from CDs to downloads, from then to now.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-77266705583853833712009-12-16T04:23:00.002-05:002016-06-15T09:29:22.124-04:00A Very Rosie Christmas by Rosie Thomas (holiday music)Though one is not supposed to judge a product by its cover, I have to admit that the photo on the front of <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002OSGKMS/craigsbookc0b-20">A Very Rosie Christmas</a></span> led me to believe that I was in for amateur night by the yule log. But the quirky appearance belies the heartfelt (and polished!) interpretations inside.<br /><br />The eponymous Rosie Thomas offers a surprisingly faithful rendition of "Christmastime Is Here" (from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000ICLSMY/craigsbookc0b-20">A Charlie Brown Christmas</a></span>), which is followed hard upon by the joyous pop confection — complete with horn and string sections — "Why Can't It Be Christmastime All Year?" (at this writing, currently available as a <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002OSCTXW/craigsbookc0b-20">free download</a></span> on Amazon). This is one of those songs that so captures the mood and tone of the season that it will become a favorite of all who hear it.<br /><br />Like most Christmas albums, other covers follow, both of traditional favorites ("Winter Wonderland," "Let It Snow," "O Come O Come Emmanuel") and nontraditional selections and original offerings. She knocks the dust off the old chestnuts (her "Silent Night" is a creative reimagining), but it is through the other covers and new songs that the personality of <span style="font-weight:bold;">A Very Rosie Christmas</span> flows. <br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B002OSGKMS&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Thomas showcases her smooth vocals (reminiscent of Dar Williams) on Joni Mitchell's "River." "Snow Day" is an original instrumental that calls to mind the feeling of flying — or the closest thing to it on land: sledding — as well as snowball fights and other school's-out fun. <br /><br />Also here is a straitlaced rendition of "Christmas Don't Be Late" (more famously known as "<span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002HMHXO0/craigsbookc0b-20">The Chipmunk Song</a></span>"), which fares unevenly. Some powerful new verses have been added to the lyrics, but the nearly seven-minute length spotlights the original's musical weaknesses.<br /><br />Another spotlight is the skit "Sheila's Christmas Miracle," where Thomas's alter ego Sheila Saputo meets a convenience-store manager who offers her a Christmas wish. Saputo is an engagingly quirky character, and Brian Shoop is kind and genuine as "Mr. Krinkle," as Sheila calls him. Lastly, Rosie sends us off with a Christmas wish, a perfect closer to <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002OSGKMS/craigsbookc0b-20">A Very Rosie Christmas</a></span>, an album that contains a great mix of holiday music and a great deal of Christmas spirit.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-10200011512282917862009-12-01T04:12:00.007-05:002016-06-15T09:29:22.944-04:00'Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets! by Los Straitjackets (Christmas surf rock)<span style="font-style:italic;">This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2003. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000QZY1VS&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>I know you. You may think I don't, but I can prove it. <br /><br />You've been looking all over for it. You may not have known it, but you were. What is it, you ask? You know, but I'll put it into words for you: An instrumental Christmas album with a surf-rock feel.<br /><br />And now your secret prayers have been answered by Los Straitjackets. <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006JM99/craigsbookc0b-20">'Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets!</a></span> is exactly what you've been seeking. Ten traditional Christmas tunes (and three originals, but you'll think you recognize them, anyway) performed in the style of the Ventures, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, and the Centurions by four men in Mexican wrestling masks. Classic surf rock entwined with holiday festivities. Christmas music to play at the beach.<br /><br />I mean, where else but on <span style="font-weight:bold;">'Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets!</span> can you get a version of Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" introduced by the opening to Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba," or "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" sounding like "Tequila" by the Champs, or "Frosty the Snowman" opened with the drum line from Glenn Miller's "Sing! Sing! Sing!," or "The Little Drummer Boy" where the bass shares the melody with a jangly guitar, or any of the other innovative additions Los Straitjackets have given their interpretations of these beloved songs? <br /><br />From the beginning riffs of "Here Comes Santa Claus" to the final cymbal clash of a surprisingly mellow rendition of "The Christmas Song," <span style="font-weight:bold;">'Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets!</span> is the ideal Christmas album. Oh, it's a novelty, to be sure, but one that will fit in wonderfully with the more traditional holiday albums in your collection. <br /><br />You see, I do know you. I know you can't wait to get your hands on this masterpiece of mixed genres called <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006JM99/craigsbookc0b-20">'Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets!</a></span>. This festive bit of fun from four Nashvilleans with a <span style="font-style:italic;">faux</span> Spanish moniker.<br /><br />In fact, you're already tapping your mistletoes in expectation....Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-31444205761016583242009-10-16T04:17:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:23.653-04:00Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes (40th anniversary remaster with bonus tracks)<span style="font-style:italic;">This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br />Music legend Isaac Hayes began his career as a session musician and songwriter for Stax Records. (He and partner David Porter wrote "Soul Man" and "Hold On, I'm Comin'" for <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002F3BOYQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Sam and Dave</a></span>.) Hayes's debut solo album <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000000ZMF/craigsbookc0b-20">Presenting Isaac Hayes</a></span> was a flop, however, and he was intending to go back behind the scenes when Stax severed its relationship with Atlantic Records in 1968. This resulted in Stax's losing its entire back catalog.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0028NSE3M&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Executive Vice President Al Bell (also a songwriter and producer) thought quickly and initiated extensive recording sessions with all of Stax's house artists, in order to create a new "back catalog" of twenty-seven albums by mid-1969. Hayes agreed to record this second album in exchange for creative control, though Bell would still sign on as producer.<br /><br />The result was <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0028NSE3M/craigsbookc0b-20">Hot Buttered Soul</a></span>, a four-song, forty-five-minute exercise in interpretation and improvisation that still astounds and mesmerizes to this day. I believe that the album's long-lasting reputation lies in its sound; it was ahead of time then, and modern artists still aspire to its originality. The multilayered music feels timeless, presenting, if you will, a sort of symphony of love gone sour. <br /><br />If one follows the traditional four-movement format as perfected by Haydn and his students Mozart and Beethoven, this becomes clearer. In the opening track, the singer asks his former love to "Walk on By" so she won't see him crying. Hayes's interpretation of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David pop standard (popularized by Dionne Warwick in 1964) serves as the introductory movement, laying out the main ideas behind <span style="font-weight:bold;">Hot Buttered Soul</span>: specifically the thickly orchestrated (strings by the Detroit Symphony), lengthy interpretation — twelve minutes, in this case — of someone else's music. (The process of taking a popular song and expanding on it harkens back to the symphony, as well, since composers often used their local folk music as the springboard for their works.)<br /><br />"Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" (which has been inconsistently misspelled since its conception, even on the album cover — the backup singers are clearly saying "-nistic") is the fun and light second movement. Its lyrics, by Hayes and Bell, refer to the practice of using big words unnecessarily, and take a more active approach with an attempt at re-wooing the lost love through high-minded compliments: "Your modus operandi is really all right, out of sight. / Your sweet phalanges really know how to squeeze. / My gastronomical stupensity is really satisfied when you're loving me." (Although some doubt is laid on the singer's own knowledge since the chorus is, "Now tell me what I said.")<br /><br />But the main attraction of "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" (or whatever you want to call it), other than trying to decipher the lyrics, is the instrumental that fills out the latter six minutes of the song's nine-minute running time. Pianist Marvell Thomas spans the range of keys while the Bar-Kays' bassist James Alexander and drummer Willie Hall (who would later join The Blues Brothers Band) lay down a groove that hits somewhere around the coccyx and requires the hips to move in time.<br /><br />While "One Woman" is not a minuet, or even in 3/4 time, it does serve as the "dance" on this album. The shortest song by far at only five minutes (and surprisingly never a contender for a single), its lyrics about what Mary McGregor called being "torn between two lovers" only emphasize this role. Its chorus could not be clearer — "One woman's making my home while the other one is making me do wrong" — though there's obviously some communication lacking in the former relationship.<br /><br />Then the piece de resistance, Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" — sung by a man who is finally leaving the woman who cheated multiple times but whom he had always taken back before — differs from the popular Glen Campbell recording in practically every thinkable way. First off, Hayes holds a single chord on his organ and drummer Willie Hall clangs a single cymbal for eight minutes while Hayes expounds on the story behind the song. I've never heard anything like it. It was reportedly performed live numerous times before recording, and yet it seems entirely extemporaneous. For the remaining ten minutes, Hayes draws out every single drop of emotion that can be squeezed from these powerful lyrics, turning it into a most-grand finale of this "symphonic" soul classic.<br /><br />Stax has rereleased the album with liner notes by Jim James of the band <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0017PB5TW/craigsbookc0b-20">My Morning Jacket</a></span> (fan) and Bill Dahl (historian), digital remastering, and two bonus tracks: the single edits of "Walk on By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." The sound is remarkably clearer than my previous recording of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Hot Buttered Soul</span>, and that will be the main draw for repurchasers. <br /><br />The singles are novelties at best, with their only attraction being to compare where things were cut to make the songs playable on single-oriented radio. Since the lyrics are not what raise <span style="font-weight:bold;">Hot Buttered Soul</span> above the rest, and the singles make sure to focus on those to the detriment of the wonderful instrumentals, fans are unlikely to listen to these more than a couple of times each, though they may serve as relatively smooth introduction to newcomers.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-81173436541603750092009-09-11T04:15:00.003-04:002016-06-15T09:29:24.306-04:00Piano Starts Here by Art Tatum (Zenph Re-Performance: Live at the Shrine)<span style="font-style:italic;">This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br />Jazz pianist Art Tatum, over fifty years after his death, still has the power to impress new listeners and wow even the most accomplished pianists. Largely self-taught, Tatum's style was so original and his improvisational ability so seemingly boundless that few have even attempted to follow in his footsteps.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0017R1E5K&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>His classic album <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0017R1E5K/craigsbookc0b-20">Piano Starts Here</a></span> (never out of print since its release) is a compilation of four early recordings from 1933 and a 1949 live concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The playing is, of course, stellar on these old recordings, but the sound quality on my cassette copy is lacking to say the least. Having been a Tatum fan for over a decade, I was excited to hear of a newer, clearer version on CD. <br /><br />Zenph Studios' "re-performance" process is an intriguing idea to say the least: Using the original master recording for best quality, every aspect of every note is loaded onto a digital file, which is then played back using a Yamaha Disklavier, an acoustic piano fitted with a computer. This reproduces the sounds exactly the way Tatum played them. Then, the songs are rerecorded with better quality equipment than was available back then, resulting in an amazingly clear performance. (Zenph first attained acclaim with their re-performance of Glenn Gould's classic <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000LE0THE/craigsbookc0b-20">Goldberg Variations</a></span>. Next up is <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002BFIN6K/craigsbookc0b-20">Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff</a></span>.)<br /><br />In this case, since the majority of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Piano Starts Here</span> was a concert, the rerecording was also done before a live audience at the same venue, in order to capture the same acoustics as far as possible. Thus, the "live" feel is still retained. This recording also restores material from the performance that was omitted from the original pressing. In addition, the track order has been fixed to more closely match the order played in the concert. So, as much as an old-fashioned fellow like myself objects to saying it, this "remake" beats the original in many ways.<br /><br /><OBJECT align=right classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab" id="Player_d80e0680-01a8-4efd-9f69-bba68d774823" WIDTH="250px" HEIGHT="250px"> <PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2Fd80e0680-01a8-4efd-9f69-bba68d774823&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate"><PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high"><PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF"><PARAM NAME="allowscriptaccess" VALUE="always"><embed src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2Fd80e0680-01a8-4efd-9f69-bba68d774823&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate" id="Player_d80e0680-01a8-4efd-9f69-bba68d774823" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="Player_d80e0680-01a8-4efd-9f69-bba68d774823" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" align="middle" height="250px" width="250px"></embed></OBJECT> <NOSCRIPT><A HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2Fd80e0680-01a8-4efd-9f69-bba68d774823&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A></NOSCRIPT>The first thing you notice is the clearer sound. An informal side-by-side comparison with my cassette copy of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Piano Starts Here</span> shows just how superior the Zenph recording is. It allows the listener to hear every note of Tatum's signature speedy runs, where the original is often muddled. The high notes are no longer shrill, and there are some quieter notes that I had actually never heard before, such as the low note that ends the opener, "Tea for Two." In general, I feel that this album opens up the experience and should be embraced by Tatum enthusiasts, as it finally allows us to hear every note that was played.<br /><br />Some will undoubtedly balk at the very concept of "recreating" the legendary Art Tatum's music, or will be concerned that <span style="font-weight:bold;">Piano Starts Here</span> will sound like a computer produced it. But the folks at Zenph have taken great pains to ensure that the fingering is Tatum's own. It's obvious they do it out of their love for the music and their desire to release it from the confines of inferior recording methods. Let go of the fact that a computer is playing the piano, and Art Tatum comes through loud and clear.<br /><br />The tracks come in two versions: surround sound and binaural. The surround sound is of course best for those with a home stereo sound system. You will feel as if you were in the audience. But the binaural is the real ear-opener here; listened to with headphones, it is designed to sound as if you were on the bench with Tatum himself: the music is down and forward, and the applause comes from the right. If you ever imagined yourself a concert pianist, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Piano Starts Here</span> will make your dream come true, at least in your own head.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-89662460723859108172009-03-23T04:50:00.005-04:002016-06-15T09:29:24.906-04:00Fancy Blue by Tywanna Jo Baskette<span style="font-style:italic;">This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2003. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br />Tywanna Jo Baskette's debut album begins with a breath and ends with a giggle. In between are nineteen improvisational songs about many diverse subjects. From her parents' deaths from lung cancer in "1985/1998" to "I Love Goat Cheese" — where she makes the word "udders" into something beautiful — to how "everything goes pop pop pop" ("Pop Pop"), Baskette travels with her "little girl" voice across her emotional landscape. And she had me enthralled the whole time. Her songwriting is also childlike — seemingly coming from nowhere with unconventional rhythms and changes, sometimes rhyming, always evocative.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0000APVCX&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe><span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000APVCX/craigsbookc0b-20">Fancy Blue</a></span> is so unlike modern popular music that, at first, it doesn't know where to go in my head. The closest comparison I can make is to the experimental pop of the <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://musicwhatmusic.blogspot.com/2008/04/glow-pt-2-by-microphones-2008-deluxe.html">Microphones</a></span>. Their songs don't always jibe on the first listen, but when you let go of preconceptions, they burrow their way into your soul. <br /><br />Tywanna Jo Baskette's "pass-alongs" are just like that. She is not musically trained and can't play an instrument, but she's been writing off-the-cuff songs since she was twelve. She'd sing them, then they were gone. It wasn't until a friend began following her around with a microcassette recorder that any of them survived at all.<br /><br />These are songs she has written for herself, not for me or you, or to have a hit record. They're completely genuine. It will be difficult for some people to really understand what she is doing, and those people are likely to jump to criticism. But those who are able to, think of her songs as you would a song a child extemporaneously created — about pots and pans, or Rover, or whatever — except that her lyrics contain evidence of a close familiarity with death. <br /><br /><OBJECT align=right classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab" id="Player_47899c3f-71b3-4384-a097-afcaff5e1c7a" WIDTH="250px" HEIGHT="250px"> <PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2F47899c3f-71b3-4384-a097-afcaff5e1c7a&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate"><PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high"><PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF"><PARAM NAME="allowscriptaccess" VALUE="always"><embed src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2F47899c3f-71b3-4384-a097-afcaff5e1c7a&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate" id="Player_47899c3f-71b3-4384-a097-afcaff5e1c7a" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="Player_47899c3f-71b3-4384-a097-afcaff5e1c7a" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" align="middle" height="250px" width="250px"></embed></OBJECT> <NOSCRIPT><A HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2F47899c3f-71b3-4384-a097-afcaff5e1c7a&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A></NOSCRIPT>There are moments of joy and trauma on <span style="font-weight:bold;">Fancy Blue</span>, like how "Pinky" (co-written with Bobby Bare, Jr., and one of the few cuts with drums) turns from the shocking event of a beau seeing her in her pink underwear before their first date, into "someday my prince will come and he will call me Pinky." Free-association reigns supreme, calling into being lyrics that are connected by tangents. Memories, experiences, strange events, commercial jingles, all of these are worked into Baskette's "lullabies for adults."<br /><br />This level of truth has been replaced so much by artifice that it is refreshing to see it surface again. She will likely get lost in the shuffle of singer-songwriter albums and that is unfortunate because <span style="font-weight:bold;">Fancy Blue</span> is a record that hits all the right notes, just not the ones you expect.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-73110722465180387062009-03-17T05:22:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:25.832-04:00An Interview with Leo Moran of the Saw Doctors (March 14, 2004)<span style="font-style:italic;">In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I am reprinting this interview that originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2004. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0000AB145&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Working at <span style="font-style:italic;">The Green Man Review</span> has made me aware of many different types of music I had previously missed, and my favorite of all the bands to which I have been introduced through reviewing is the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/sawdoctors.html">Saw Doctors</a></span>. Ever since I heard <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/playagainsham.html">Play It Again, Sham!</a></span>, it has never left the couple dozen or so discs that are in my constant rotation. This band from Tuam, Ireland, have managed to take their influences from their home country and from American rock and make their songs universal, while writing solely of their own experiences.<br /><br />"We've never had a problem about the songs being too local," said Leo Moran in a recent phone conversation conducted during the annual spring leg of their American tour. "People often ask that question. We just hopefully write things about our own lives, and people can draw parallels and see themselves in some of the songs." And they have a sense of humor, which always helps.<br /><br />When the new CD/DVD release, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/livegalway.html">Live in Galway</a></span>, became available, I jumped at the chance to hear/watch them, especially since until that point I wasn't familiar with their more popular songs like "N17" and "I Useta Lover" — two of Ireland's biggest selling singles ever (and I call myself a fan!). The American leg of the tour began with a CD launch party in Manhattan on March 10th.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0001ENY0I&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>The expression, "If it's March, it must be the Saw Doctors" doesn't seem entirely out of place, as — according to a separate interview included on the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/livegalway.html">Live in Galway</a></span> DVD — the band has been asked back repeatedly to play the States during the month of the year most closely associated with Irish culture.<br /><br />I answered the phone on the afternoon before their Chicago concert to greetings from tour manager Niall Barrett. While confirming my credentials, he requested I not keep Leo on the phone too long, as he had a sound check to make soon. I assured him that this would not be a problem. After a moment's conversation, he went to fetch Moran, who co-fronts the band along with Davy Carton.<br /><br />This early in the tour, Leo expressed fatigue due to the hectic schedule. "It's a bit exhausting at the moment because we just arrived in J.F.K. on Tuesday and then Wednesday we had the CD/DVD launch in Manhattan. Then we got on the boat and Thursday night we did Detroit and upstate New York, and then we drove across to Cleveland. We were a bit tired because the stamina and the time zone change hadn't completely clicked in, but I think it's fairly clicking in now today."<br /><br />What a schedule! Maybe I should have been concerned that they wouldn't make it a few more days until I could see them in Boston. But I wasn't, and they did arrive (in the middle of a typically rough New England snowstorm) and still put on a great show.<br /><br />I started with the obvious questions about the new releases: Why release a live album now?<br /><br />"It just happened now. People have been asking us to do a live album and DVD for a long time, and we were always kind of putting it off. We'd recorded a lot of shows over the years and done well, but not nearly good enough. Maybe we're not ready to release a live album, and maybe we should never release a live album because it wouldn't really capture what people want to bring home from the show.<br /><br />"Then, a man who made a documentary for us in 1991 called Steven Lock — the documentary was called <span style="font-weight:bold;">Sing a Powerful Song</span> — he decided he wanted to make a follow-up TV documentary, that we would go down to Clare Island on the boat and play around at home and at the pub and rehearsing and all that good stuff. We were just thinking when we were out there that we should go out there more often. It was great to have the excuse to go out there, and we'll have to find another excuse to go out in the future.<br /><br />"Part of what he wanted was to film two shows at Galway in July. So, they filmed with six cameras, and a lighting man called Tom Kenny who was a friend of ours — he normally did the Who and Eric Clapton and MTV stuff and all that — worked under the table. We couldn't really pay him to do the kind of show we were doing. We just had to hope that it turned out well and that it got recorded.<br /><br />"We did two nights. The first night, we thought was very good and we were very happy with it, and we went away thinking that if it doesn't work out the second night, at least we have enough to get away with. Luckily enough, then we did the second night, and it was actually better, and we ended up using all the second night. We were very lucky, really, and I think an element in that was that the pressure was off. We didn't have to worry any more about it.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0001ENXYK&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>"So we ended up having two shows completely recorded, audially and visually. That became the DVD, with 70 minutes of the concert and the hour of the documentary, and automatically we had a live CD album. It all kind of fell into place, and there was a natural enough rhythm about it, and you don't argue with that, really."<br /><br />Both Moran and Carton sing and play guitar, with Carton singing lead on most of the songs and Moran tackling the majority of the lead guitar duties. Both are founding members of the Saw Doctors and met after Davy Carton's previous band, Blaze X, split up. I asked Leo about their history.<br /><br />"This band was absolutely fantastic," Leo remembered. "It was like an Irish version of the Ramones." He was a huge fan of the band and regretted their breakup. "I knew that there were all these songs hanging around that Davy had, and that Paul Cunniffe (who, unfortunately, passed away in 2001) had written, and that nobody was maybe ever going to hear them. I just thought it would've been a shame.... So, I started going up to Davy's house on weekends and we eventually tried to put a little band together.... The songs, thankfully, were songs that people did want to hear, and the ones that we wrote subsequently were ones that people wanted to hear as well."<br /><br />The band that was to become the Saw Doctors almost seems to have been fated. Another founding member (the band's percussionist, Padraig Stevens) was Blaze X's manager. "He had been writing songs, and we started writing songs together, and it just started to work. It was one of those things," Leo continued. "I had been in bands before that were good bands, and it always felt like we were pushing hard at making something happen. But when the format of the Saw Doctors got on stage, it was easy." He referred to the combination of talents as "magic" and concluded, "If it happens once in your life, you're lucky."<br /><br />When I mentioned that the easygoing atmosphere really comes across in the music, he agreed, "It's the songs that do the work, really."<br /><br />What got him into performing originally? "I got such pleasure out of listening to other people's songs and records and going to shows. I suppose you just think that what they're doing — what they're sharing about themselves — is such a positive thing ... that it'd be great if you could do the same yourself. And it's a bit of a dream come true, really."<br /><br />A dream come true? So is he happy with the level of success the band has achieved? "When we started writing songs and started putting the Saw Doctors band together, we could never have imagined that we'd have 37 U.S. tours under our belt in twelve years' time or whatever. It's hard to believe.... It's an amazing success, really, for anybody whose hobby becomes their livelihood."<br /><br />Since most of the songs are credited to both Carton and Moran, I wondered if he and Davy usually wrote together, or if they had a Lennon/McCartney kind of arrangement. Leo laughed and said, "You're putting us up there a little high," but his further description made the songwriting process sound like fun. "I might write a few lines and Davy'll come up with a tune, then he might write a whole song himself or I might have most of a song.... There's all kinds of different combinations. There's no 'usual'. We don't try too hard."<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000BGH19G&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>The band's last two albums have recycled earlier material for the sake of their constantly growing audience who may not have had the opportunity to acquire their older recordings, many of which are not available in the U.S., so I asked Leo if he knew when fans might see some <span style="font-style:italic;">new</span> material from the Saw Doctors. Plans are apparently already in the works: "We have to start recording in May and June and get an album ... out before the end of the year. It always goes longer than you hope, but we do know that much."<br /><br />I'll definitely be looking forward to that new album. But even if it doesn't come out as scheduled [update: <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/cure-sawdoctors.html">The Cure</a></span> finally came out in 2006], with the level of care that the Saw Doctors put into re-releasing old material, I'm not too concerned. And hey, there's always that new Shambles CD to pick up.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-53130523466237697362009-03-06T05:15:00.001-05:002016-06-15T09:29:26.452-04:00Nine Lives by AerosmithIt's hard to complain about something free, but somebody put <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0012GMUNQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Nine Lives</a></span> on the swap table at work in the case for <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000NDEXOI/craigsbookc0b-20">40 Seasons: the Best of Skid Row</a></span>. So, when I popped it into my car's player, I thought I was going to recapture my "Youth Gone Wild." Instead I got (to quote lyrics from the title track) a "stay of execution."<br /><br />The last Aerosmith album I paid real money for was <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005QENZ/craigsbookc0b-20">Get a Grip</a></span> because, after "Cryin'" was such a megahit, it seems like every subsequent single has been trying to duplicate the formula. Which means you can identify an intended single in the first five seconds ("Falling in Love [Is Hard on the Knees]" and "Hole in My Soul," for example). This is fortunate because it means you can quickly skip garbage like "Full Circle" ("If I could change the world like a fairy tale, I would drink the love from your Holy Grail" — where's my toothbrush?) and get to the only good things about <span style="font-weight:bold;">Nine Lives</span>: the deep tracks hidden in the middle.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0012GMUNQ&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>It seems that their blatant attempts to give the public what it wants have not hindered their creativity elsewhere. "Nine Lives" opens with kick-ass hard rock nicely reminiscent of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005QEO1/craigsbookc0b-20">Pump</a></span> (still my favorite Aerosmith album). <br /><br />Later, the band offers a "Taste of India" with sitar and sweeping strings grounded by the thunderous rhythm section of Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer. "Something's Gotta Give" is a harmonica-centric track that would not have been out of place on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000CF30C/craigsbookc0b-20">Toys in the Attic</a></span>.<br /><br />"Ain't That a Bitch" starts out like slow jazz and turns into a groovy power ballad from the "What It Takes" songbook that nonetheless gets a little "Hey Jude"-y with its overstay-its-welcome ending. And "The Farm" is a fun little trifle with terrific orchestral support that would make a great party song (even if the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000ADS64E/craigsbookc0b-20">Wizard of Oz</a></span> clips are more than a little strange).<br /><br />And ... that's it. The rest of the album is filled out with dreck. "Crash" is a mish-mash of pop-punk and metal that is just confusing. "Kiss Your Past Goodbye" is a weak ballad obviously geared toward tramps and the guys who screw them. "Pink" is an execrable waste of a good groove, spoiled mainly by the fact that the lyrics don't have the guts to be as suggestive as they really want to be. ("Pink is like red but not quite"? They need to take some lessons from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://musicwhatmusic.blogspot.com/2008/11/black-ice-by-acdc.html">AC/DC</a></span>.)<br /><br />Worst of all, "Attitude Adjustment" sounds like something that would have even been filler on some mid-'80s hair-metal band like <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002W8F/craigsbookc0b-20">Autograph</a></span>. And "Fallen Angels" is a failed attempt at meaningful lyrics that falls flat when the song doesn't even know what it means ("Where do fallen angels go? I just don't know.... They keep fallin'") and yet manages to go on for eight minutes before simply fading out.<br /><br />CDs these days have way too many tracks because people feel like they need to fill out the 80-minute running time to give listeners their money's worth. But <span style="font-weight:bold;">Nine Lives</span> has a solid 20 minutes of good music, which is more than a lot of CDs I paid full price for back in the '90s. And isn't that what the programmable feature on your CD player's for, anyhow?Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-64930205992609669672008-11-19T06:00:00.001-05:002016-06-15T09:29:26.963-04:00Book Review: John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums by Chris Welch and Geoff Nichols (Led Zeppelin drummer biography and analysis)<span style="font-style:italic;">This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2004. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br />Ask any aspiring drummer for his influences, and odds are the name John Bonham will appear on his/her top five list. Voted the second most influential drummer ever by <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00007B9LQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Rhythm</a></span> readers (only Buddy Rich was higher), John "Bonzo" Bonham's effect on modern drumming (especially hard rock and heavy metal) cannot be overestimated. Not bad for a working class bloke from Redditch in a band that was only recording for a decade.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0879306580&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Unfortunately, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879306580/craigsbookc0b-20">John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums</a></span> is only partially successful in capturing that in print. The book is divided into two portions: rock journalist Chris Welch covers the biographical portion while drummer/writer Geoff Nichols analyzes Bonham's style.<br /><br />Welch is thorough, I'll give him that. He combines research with personal experience to give a full readout of the important events (musically speaking, primarily) in Bonham's life. However, he utilizes such pedestrian prose that his portion is only interesting from an informational standpoint. I can't see myself reading his chapters over again.<br /><br />Nichols, on the other hand, writes with such passion for the instruments and with such a true appreciation for Bonham's oeuvre that his two chapters of analysis are a joy to read. <strong>John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums</strong> will be going on my music reference shelf on the basis of his input alone; specifically his coverage of each album individually and his picking out of representative songs on which to focus.<br /><br />As a fan of Led Zeppelin, I appreciate Welch's depth of research and I feel I learned a lot about Bonham's place in the band's legacy. However, Geoff Nichols' analysis taught me more in the way of Bonham's place in the creation of the band's sound. As a drummer, I find that infinitely more valuable.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-64510812678727535422008-11-07T20:15:00.001-05:002016-06-15T09:29:27.665-04:00Black Ice by AC/DCThere are few things in this crazy world that you can really depend on, but the sound of an AC/DC song is one of them. Since their beginnings in the early 1970s, their sound has changed very little — even through a change of frontmen that, in retrospect, was more drastic than it seemed at the time — except that more modern producers have removed the tinny sound of their early records and replaced it with a deeper one that truly does their music justice.<br /><br />Now, I'm not saying that AC/DC are the best band ever, but they're certainly one of the most consistent, and <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001F2W4Y2/craigsbookc0b-20">Black Ice</a></span> is just one more example of this. Of the fifteen songs on this, their first studio album since 2000's <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000NVI1IO/craigsbookc0b-20">Stiff Upper Lip</a></span> (and the first to feature lyrics by vocalist Brian Johnson since 1988's <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009MGR6/craigsbookc0b-20">Blow Up Your Video</a></span>), only a couple are not up to the level of their brethren. The rest of the album is a solid lineup of concert anthems, the kind of rock n roll at which the boys from Australia have always excelled.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B001F2W4Y2&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Johnson's comment that "we found out what we were good at, and that was rock n roll" may have been what inspired the group this time around, given that there are three songs on <strong>Black Ice</strong> with "Rock n Roll" in the title (and one called "Rocking All the Way"), including the first single, "Rock n Roll Train," whose chorus actually says "Runaway Train." (But God forbid someone confuse them with <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00138J1VM/craigsbookc0b-20">Soul Asylum</a></span>!)<br /><br />The lyrics have never been the high point on any AC/DC album (except, as stated above, when it comes to their consistency). This time, if anything, they are a bit tamer than usual, with what seems to be much less innuendo (possibly something to do with the album being primarily available through Wal-Mart in the U.S.). But arena-rock songs aren't about intelligent words, anyway, to wit this verse from "Rock n Roll Train":<br /><br />One hot Southern belle<br />Son of a devil<br />A schoolboy spelling bee<br />A schoolgirl with a fantasy<br /><br />Those words don't mean anything, but when Johnson wails them, well, you just want to wail right along with him. Luckily, the musicianship on <strong>Black Ice</strong> is strong enough to carry the album. Though it's the heavy-metal/hard-rock listenership that most fully embraces them, AC/DC has always been, at its heart, a blues-rock band, and several songs bring this right to the front. Witness the riff on "Decibel" that sounds lifted right from Beale Street, with Johnson surprisingly deft at using his lower register vocals in accompaniment. <br /><br />In fact, most of the second half of <strong>Black Ice</strong> is saturated in blues rock, and it's so far my favorite portion. Don't get me wrong: I love a good fist-pumping riot as much as the next guy, but there's just something about that white-boy blues that brings it on home for me. There's not enough "Stormy May Day" to go around in my opinion — Angus uses a slide(!) and reminds me of Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying." (Incidentally, "Skies on Fire" reminds me of another Jimmy Page track from his best solo album, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000W198FA/craigsbookc0b-20">Outrider</a></span>.)<br /><br />But whatever you think of the band's style, if you're a fan, you'll be enthralled by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Black Ice</span>. Even my three-year-old son is already a fan of "the train song" and "Big Jack" (which he thinks is actually about <a href="http://matthansenfam.blogspot.com/2008/04/big-jet.html"><strong>Big Jet</strong></a> from <strong>Little Einsteins</strong>, and I don't correct him because I think it's cute), so there's another potential fan on the way up. Luckily, the odds are that, by the time he's old enough to pay money for his own albums (in whatever form they're available by then), AC/DC will still be playing the same kind of hard rock grounded by Phil Rudd's journeyman 4/4 beat, Chris Williams's unwavering bass, and Malcolm Young's invisible rhythm — and I'm really glad they are.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-59073608409710917602008-08-16T00:11:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:29.293-04:00Schoenberg and Sibelius: Violin Concertos performed by Hilary Hahn, violin, with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Swedish Radio Symphony OrchestraThe sole violin concerto written by composer Jean Sibelius is my single favorite piece of music. I've heard several recordings of it, from <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0013AYT4E/craigsbookc0b-20">Jascha Heifetz</a></span> (stunning) to <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000000S94/craigsbookc0b-20">Maxim Vengerov</a></span> (disappointing save for a rousing finale), and any new recording excites me with the possibilities.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0016UPLMK&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Hilary Hahn's recent recording of the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UPLMK/craigsbookc0b-20">Sibelius violin concerto</a></span>, under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, is nothing less than gorgeous. Her tones are pure, and she extends the slow parts, squeezing every last bit of emotion out of them. Salonen and the orchestra offer commendable support. In contrast, the violinists I've heard before this (all men, if that matters) seemed to be interested more in just hitting all the notes perfectly. Hahn opened a new door for me. <br /><br />The <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UPLMK/craigsbookc0b-20">Schoenberg violin concerto</a></span> paired on the disc was written using the composer's pioneering dodecaphonic (or 12-tone) technique. Schoenberg himself pronounced it "unplayable" (with pride!), but Hahn gives it the old college try and manages to draw a discernible melody out of the dissonance. This is definitely the more challenging listen of the two pieces, but repeated tries are most definitely rewarded, especially for those interested in the history of modern classical music (Schoenberg is the undisputed progenitor of such phase, so I'm reserving judgment until I can get my head around it properly with a few listens. Also, I have no frame of reference, never having heard it before. <br /><br />Twenty years ago, Salonen led violinist <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00077F94I/craigsbookc0b-20">Cho-Liang Lin</a></span> in a recording of the Sibelius violin concerto (paired with the violin concerto of Sibelius's fellow countryman Carl Nielsen) that has since become a classic. I have no doubt that this Hahn performance will achieve an equal level of respect over time.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-46232552657331264572008-05-05T16:01:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:31.358-04:00There Will Be Blood by Jonny Greenwood (film score)In addition to the terrific acting from star Daniel Day Lewis (and to a lesser extent, Paul Dano in a dual role), there were two major plusses about Paul Thomas Anderson's film <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://somebodydies.blogspot.com/2008/05/there-will-be-blood-directed-by-paul.html">There Will Be Blood</a></span>. The first is, I had no idea where the story was going. In an age where it seems that one movie is pretty much like another, this is a welcome surprise. <br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B001200T8A&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>The second additional plus was the terrific modern-classical score from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood (including portions of his <span style="font-style:italic;">Popcorn Superhet Receiver</span>). It is the first in recent memory that both calls unnecessary attention to itself (mostly due to its use of dissonance during particularly dramatic scenes) <span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> remains true to the film. <br /><br />Most of the time, when I notice that I'm hearing a score, it's because it's particularly bad. A good score, most of the time, should be like a good editor: if they're doing their job, you won't notice them. But Greenwood's music outdoes itself on both fronts, making the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001200T8A/craigsbookc0b-20">music from There Will Be Blood</a></span> also the first score since <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002P4P/craigsbookc0b-20">Danny Elfman</a></span>'s peak in the early 1990s that I am actually considering purchasing on CD.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-84126854043165164442008-04-14T14:40:00.003-04:002016-06-15T09:29:31.864-04:00The Hopeful and the Unafraid by Jason AndersonJason Anderson is one of the most interesting singer-songwriters working today. He is both prolific (see his <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.ecarecords.com/releases/jason-anderson/songaday/index.php">song-a-day project</a></span>) and endlessly creative. His forte is arena rock straight from the E Street school, but he's not afraid to delve into other genres as it suits his muse.<br /><br />The driving goal of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014DCT38/craigsbookc0b-20">The Hopeful and the Unafraid</a></span> was to recapture the live sound of the concerts Jason Anderson has been performing practically nonstop over the last few years. It was recorded in Chicago at Soma Studio over a day and a half in January 2006 (except for "Wanting and Regret," a 2004 recording from the Massachusetts sessions that eventually produced <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.ecarecords.com/releases/jason-anderson/onthestreet/index.php">On the Street</a></span>) — and it does have a rawer sound than his previous two albums from K Records.<br /><br /><iframe align=right marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="120" height="240" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?o=1&l=as1&f=ifr&t=craigsbookc0b-20&p=8&asins=B0014DCT38&IS2=1&fc1=000000&lc1=6633ff&IS2=1<1=_blank"><MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/craigsbookc0b-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com"></iframe>Anderson is a master of the slow build leading up to an emotional blowout, and this is shown to great effect on "El Paso" (which, at nearly eight minutes, sounds like the live version of a studio track — quite an accomplishment since it <em>is</em> the studio version) and the next track, "July 4, 2004" (which musically channels Paul Westerberg). <br /><br />When Anderson sings "I love this part," it reminds me that I love that part, too: when he repeats a refrain and gets so caught up in his own effort (as he also does in "Hold On" from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/newengland.html">New England</a></span>) you would think he was listening to a favorite tune by someone else. It's a snapshot of a moment and adds to the immediacy Anderson is trying to achieve.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014DCT38/craigsbookc0b-20">The Hopeful and the Unafraid</a></span> also contains two definite power-pop masterpieces that get the blood pumping. "This Will Never Be Our Town" has an infectious hook and effectively carries over the pedal steel from "Wanting and Regret." And "The Hopeful and the Unafraid" has lyrics that could be self-reflective: "We couldn't get it out of our heads till the morning / That song that we just kept on singing." I was singing right along with him by the end — and it wouldn't leave my head the next day, either. <br /><br /><OBJECT align=right classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab" id="Player_b6da642c-bbab-4a5c-ac97-3f4475459462" WIDTH="250px" HEIGHT="250px"> <PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2Fb6da642c-bbab-4a5c-ac97-3f4475459462&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate"><PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high"><PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF"><PARAM NAME="allowscriptaccess" VALUE="always"><embed src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2Fb6da642c-bbab-4a5c-ac97-3f4475459462&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate" id="Player_b6da642c-bbab-4a5c-ac97-3f4475459462" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="Player_b6da642c-bbab-4a5c-ac97-3f4475459462" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" align="middle" height="250px" width="250px"></embed></OBJECT> <NOSCRIPT><A HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fcraigsbookc0b-20%2F8014%2Fb6da642c-bbab-4a5c-ac97-3f4475459462&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A></NOSCRIPT>By the time the banjo came out on "Ohio" — with an opening that begs to be sung along with — I was ready to follow Anderson in whatever musical direction he wanted to go. "Watch Your Step" merely cements that. Anderson has a fascinating ability to write songs that remind me of other songs I like, instantly making a song I've never heard before sound like a familiar old favorite that I can't wait to hear again. And he has certainly found his perfect vocal counterpart in backup singer Juliet. She enhances the lyrical melody without ever taking away from his lead.<br /><br />Though <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014DCT38/craigsbookc0b-20">The Hopeful and the Unafraid</a></span> is only available as an LP, a free CD of the album comes with every purchase (along with information about a different free mp3 album), so you really get three albums for the price of one. While this may not musically be Anderson's best album, it is probably his most instantly accessible, and should definitely be a first purchase for anyone who has seen him live.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-47584384049351850092008-04-11T19:39:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:32.578-04:00The Glow Pt. 2 by the Microphones (2008 deluxe remastered reissue)I can't believe it has been seven years since <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UJROI/craigsbookc0b-20">The Glow Pt. 2</a></span> was first released (and six years since I first heard it). Now, listening to the 2008 reissue with 20 additional tracks (subtitled "Other Songs and Destroyed Versions") — available on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014DC014/craigsbookc0b-20">2 CDs</a></span> or <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014DCT8I/craigsbookc0b-20">3 LPs</a></span> — the most amazing thing about revisiting it is not that it still stands up, but that it still seems very ahead of its time, even today. (The extra tunes are interesting in context — especially the "destroyed" versions that comprise 14 of the 20 additional tracks — but are not vital to the casual listener.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UJROI/craigsbookc0b-20">The Glow Pt. 2</a></span> has long been described as Phil Elverum's masterpiece, and I have to still agree. Its songs flow together wonderfully whether you listen to them individually or in mind of the improvised concept (tied together sonically by the tugboat sounds played underneath throughout — they're very clear during the quiet spots). <br /><br /><iframe align=right marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="120" height="240" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?o=1&l=as1&f=ifr&t=craigsbookc0b-20&p=8&asins=B0016UJROI&IS2=1&fc1=000000&lc1=6633ff&IS2=1<1=_blank"><MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/craigsbookc0b-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com"></iframe>And listening with headphones enhances the experience. In fact, I would have to say that the sonic depth is so amazing that headphones are vital to experiencing the full majesty of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UJROI/craigsbookc0b-20">The Glow Pt. 2</a></span>. And Elvrum's sweet, high voice adds to the effect. On no other album have I felt as if the music entered through my ears and swam around for a while, not quite able to escape. <br /><br />This is all because Elvrum (later Elverum) was not afraid of experimentation. Each song has its own distinctive sound. The dual acoustic-guitar sound at the front of "The Moon" has to be heard to be believed. (For the origin of that sound, listen to "The Pull" from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/microphones.html">It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water</a></span>.) And his creativity is always surprising. What seems at first like noise, after a few listens unfolds itself like a blooming bud to reveal all its layers. Only after repeated listens do you come to appreciate the imagination — one would almost say "genius" — involved in the making of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UJROI/craigsbookc0b-20">The Glow Pt. 2</a></span>. <br /><br />But even such a personal record cannot be done alone — not and remain faithful to its analog roots. Several of Elvrum's friends helped out. Most noticeable are the angelic voices of Khaela Maricich (of <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/blow.html">The Blow</a></span>) and <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/mirah.html">Mirah</a></span> on a few tracks. I became a Mirah-phile through my research on this album. In fact, over the past six years, I have become rather well versed in the K catalog — from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/magicwand.html">Little Wings</a></span> to <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/softhardcore.html">Tender Forever</a></span>, from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/beathappening.html">Beat Happening</a></span> to <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/otr-2012.html">Old Time Relijun</a></span> — and it all started with this album.<br /><br />For a while, Elvrum seemed to embrace his soundscaping abilities, agreeing to produce albums for his friends (Mirah's <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/mirah-miracle.html">C'mon Miracle</a></span> and Jason Anderson's <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/newengland.html">New England</a></span> come first to mind), but after the release of the more ambitious (but less accessible) <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/mteerie.html">Mount Eerie</a></span>, things took a different turn. He changed the name of his band to the name of that album, and the music became more stripped down and even indie-er than ever before once he opened his own label, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/" target="_new">P.W. Elverum and Sun</a></span>. (For example, one of the first Mount Eerie releases, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/11oldsongs.html">Eleven Old Songs from Mount Eerie</a></span>, merely contained Elverum's vocals accompanied by an old Casio keyboard.) The last we heard from "the Microphones" was a live album that managed to consist of all new material (<span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="livejapan.html">Live in Japan February 19th, 21st, and 22nd, 2003</a></span>) and a <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000S9CCM2/craigsbookc0b-20">7" single</a></span> containing a couple of daily-life-oriented protest songs ("Don't Smoke" and "Get Off the Internet").<br /><br />But, though Elverum is currently serving a different muse than the one who led him to create <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0016UJROI/craigsbookc0b-20">The Glow Pt. 2</a></span> (and I don't fault him for that — you've got to follow your bliss, and he does it to the hilt), it's nevertheless great to be able to go back in time, so to speak, and recapture the days when a guy with a vision, immense creativity, and some friends combined to make the first great album of the 21st century.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-15721639640377634022008-03-31T09:03:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:33.140-04:00Tout Seul dans la Forêt en Plein Jour, Avez-Vous Peur? by WoelvWoelv is multi-instrumentalist Geneviève Castrée. Québécoise by birth, she now lives in the Northwestern United States. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X418XQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Tout Seul dans la Forêt en Plein Jour, Avez-Vous Peur?</a></span> [All Alone in the Forest in Broad Daylight, Are You Scared?] is her attempt to understand the American mindset, partially by going deep inside herself (as in "Sang Jeune [Young Blood]"), and partially by putting herself in the mind of characters she has no connection with (such as "L'homme qui vient de marcher sur une mine [The man who stepped on a mine]").<br /><br />Since the entirety of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X418XQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Tout Seul</a></span> is sung in French — a language I do not speak even passingly, though I occasionally recognize a few words that have similar counterparts in Spanish, another language I know only slightly better — it is even difficult to grasp on the most basic level without help. Luckily, the liner notes have been translated into English.<br /><br /><iframe align=right marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="120" height="240" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?o=1&l=as1&f=ifr&t=craigsbookc0b-20&p=8&asins=B000X418XQ&IS2=1&fc1=000000&lc1=6633ff&IS2=1<1=_blank"><MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/craigsbookc0b-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com"></iframe>But I listen to music mostly at work, where reading liner notes would be inconvenient at best. So, I decided to make the leap and take <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X418XQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Tout Seul</a></span> at face value, treating Castree's voice as just another instrument. (Therefore, be warned that any song titles here in English are merely my <I>attempts</I> at translation.)<br /><br />Castrée (who sometimes appears on others' records under Geneviève Elverum) is the wife of Phil Elverum of the <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/microphones.html">Microphones</a></span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/mounteerie.html">Mount Eerie</a></span>, and <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/dplus.html">D+</a></span>. He is one of my favorite artists, and his presence is deeply felt throughout <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X418XQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Tout Seul</a></span>. His voice appears on "(réconciliation)" and "Deux Corps [Two Bodies]" and his typically heavy drumming features on "Drapeau Blanc [White Flag]" and "La Petite Cane dans la Nappe de Pétrole." Others are less specific, such as the guitar on "(réconciliation)" sounds like the one he used on "The Moon" (from <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://musicwhatmusic.blogspot.com/2008/04/glow-pt-2-by-microphones-2008-deluxe.html">The Glow, Pt. 2</a></span>).<br /><br />Castrée's voice carries similarities to <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/mirah.html">Mirah</a></span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/blow.html">The Blow</a></span>'s Khaela Maricich with an occasional belt of Bjork and a bit more soft palate. The most effective track on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X418XQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Tout Seul</a></span> was "La Mort et le Chien Obèse [Death and the Overweight Dog]," which punctuates a rolling bassline and multi-tracked vocals with Castree's howling — left and right, far and near — until it dominates the soundscape.<br /><br />On the downside, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X418XQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Tout Seul</a></span> is only 36 minutes long (including the 12-minute title track, two-thirds of which seems to be a slowed-down recording of an airplane taking off). Each track seems to reside in its own emotional space — which can be a little jarring when three songs of around one minute's duration appear one after the other — but the spare instrumentation (is that a cello on "Sons Mon Manteau"?) is the thread that binds it all together. Repeated listens reveal further depth, but all in all, this kind of subjective musical journey is difficult to critique, as it is by its very nature so intensely personal.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-91155887016910174842008-03-24T19:21:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:33.815-04:00Last Man Standing by Jerry Lee Lewis (duets)The title of Jerry Lee Lewis's new album refers to his legacy as one of the original founders of rock 'n' roll. The legendary Sam Phillips's Sun Records studio was the launching pad of many of the greats: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison. Of that stellar group, Lewis is the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000GRUQYW/craigsbookc0b-20">Last Man Standing</a></span> — that is, he is the only one still alive.<br /><br /><iframe align=right marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="120" height="240" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?o=1&l=as1&f=ifr&t=craigsbookc0b-20&p=8&asins=B000GRUQYW&IS2=1&fc1=000000&lc1=6633ff&IS2=1<1=_blank"><MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/craigsbookc0b-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com"></iframe>But don't let the morbidity of the album's title put you off, because <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000GRUQYW/craigsbookc0b-20">Last Man Standing</a></span> showcases "The Killer" at his best. Even at 71, he still knows how to, in the words of Chuck Berry, "keep a-rockin' that pi-a-no."<br /><br />Despite a guest list that reads like the membership rolls of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000GRUQYW/craigsbookc0b-20">Last Man Standing</a></span> is a "duets" album in name only — this is a Jerry Lee Lewis album through and through. Lewis has an amazing ability to make people like Jimmy Page (on "Rock and Roll"), Bruce Springsteen (on "Pink Cadillac"), John Fogerty (on "Travelin' Band"), and Mick Jagger (on "Evening Gown") look like unwelcome guests on <I>songs that they wrote</I>. <br /><br />Lewis, who proclaimed himself one of only four great stylists in music history (in company with Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, and Hank Williams), plays them as if he wrote them, and it often seems like he did, with rhythm and melody changes suiting them more to his individual style. It's like he's saying to his fellow legends, "<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000GRUQYW/craigsbookc0b-20">Last Man Standing</a></span> is my album, and you're lucky to be on it."Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-55650255894923260712008-03-11T13:37:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:34.287-04:00Retox by Turbonegro<span style="font-style:italic;">This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/">The Green Man Review</a></span>. Copyright 2008. Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><br />Ever since the release of its widely acclaimed <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000T97XZW/craigsbookc0b-20">Apocalypse Dudes</a></span> (the album closest in their discography to a masterpiece), fans of Norwegian "death punk" band Turbonegro have been clamoring for a suitable followup. But the intervening decade had only resulted in a breakup, a subsequent reunion and two albums of subpar material, so there was only disappointment.<br /><br /><iframe align=right scrolling="no" style="width:120px;height:240px;" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=craigsbookc0b-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000TPTMTQ&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>Now, though, it appears that Turbonegro is back to its old tricks, and <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000TPTMTQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Retox</a></span> is the result. From the opening track, "We're Gonna Drop the Atom Bomb," the old influences are there. The seasoned listener will detect traces throughout the album of various metal bands from the 1970s and '80s, from classic Judas Priest and Iron Maiden to the relatively modern stylings of Faith No More.<br /><br />Though the songs by Happy-Tom and Euroboy form the basis of the experience, it is Hank von Helvete's vocals that truly carry the day on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000TPTMTQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Retox</a></span>, deftly riding the line between parody and tribute. Tongue firmly in cheek, Turbonegro crafts solid hard rock songs with a combination of wit and sincerity.<br /><br />But fans should never fear: Turbonegro is above all a heavy metal band, and their songs' topics reflect a very male-focused mentality that, surprisingly, resonates genuineness. Covering subjects from the perils of aging ("Hell Toupee") to the benefits of being overweight ("Everybody Loves a Chubby Dude"), the men of Turbonegro are definitely coming to terms with their insecurities.<br /><br />Oh, who am I kidding? With songs like "Stroke the Shaft" (with the warning "the head's off-limits") and "I Wanna Come" ("I wanna come, to the party at your house. I wanna come, but I can't get off" [the bus]), the fellows of Turbonegro are really just still teenagers at heart (and elsewhere) and are showing on <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000TPTMTQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Retox</a></span> that they're just out to have a good time.<br /><br />And I have to admit that there's a real sense of freedom in just letting go, popping this CD in the car (alone, of course — no one but another Turbonegro fan would understand), and screaming about assisted masturbation on the way to work. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000TPTMTQ/craigsbookc0b-20">Retox</a></span>'s final track is an eight-minute epic that asks the musical question "What Is Rock?", and I have to admit that the answer for me is, "This album is." Nobody is producing music like Turbonegro, and though that's probably a good thing, I for one am glad that they are.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271193225195097340.post-62907676813680674472008-03-11T09:46:00.001-04:002016-06-15T09:29:34.801-04:00Children's Music That Adults Can StandWith two young children, I spend a lot of time in the car listening to <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://xmradio.com/programming/channel_page.jsp?ch=116">XM Kids</a></span>, channel 116. (There is another children's station called Radio Disney, but they seem to basically play edited pop songs.) A lot of what is broadcast is the usual silliness, but occasionally my ear perks up to a song that seems to have a little more going for it than the rest. <br /><br />As a sort of public service for other parents looking for music that is appropriate for kids but isn't the same old treacle, below are some album recommendations (often based on hearing only one song) of some children's music that I found myself humming later on in the day, and even admiring.<br /><br /><ul><LI>Asylum Street Spankers: "You Only Love Me for My Lunch Box" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/asylumstreet/from/craigsbookclub">Mommy Says No!</a></span> — children's music on eclectic instruments, with a lyrical wink to the adults). <LI>Barenaked Ladies (aka "BNL"): "Crazy ABCs" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0015YGUR2/craigsbookc0b-20">Snack Time</a></span> — the alphabet song for the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062701908/craigsbookc0b-20">Extraordinarily Literate</a></span> crowd). <LI>Michael Bublé: "Spider-Man Theme" (available as an <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0011ZYN10/craigsbookc0b-20">MP3 download</a></span>).<LI>Steve Goodie: "Harry's Wand" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.stevegoodie.com/merchandise.html#potteredmeat">Pottered Meat</a></span> — music from Fountains of Wayne's "Stacy's Mom" with lyrics summarizing <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/prisonerazkaban.html">Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</a></span>).<li>Jessica Harper: "Stay Three" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0010SGGRW/craigsbookc0b-20">Hey, Picasso</a>*</span> — a great all-around CD; here's my <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/heypicasso.html">full review</a></span>). <LI>Peter Himmelman: "Feet" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000UDQ588/craigsbookc0b-20">My Green Kite</a></span> — the beat is seat-swayingly good, and it's educational, too!). <LI>Jack Johnson and Friends: "Upside Down" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000XO0KXA/craigsbookc0b-20">Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film <span style="font-style:italic;">Curious George</span></a>*</span> — another great all-around CD with appearances from Ben Harper and Matt Costa, and a cover of a <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/music-rock.html#white">White Stripes</a></span> song). <LI>Mr. Saxophone: "Welcome to the Jungle Gym" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mrsaxophone/from/craigsbookclub">Songs from the Treehouse</a></span> — music from Guns N Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" combined with funny lyrics about the playground).<LI>Justin Roberts: "Pop Fly" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0017HUO56/craigsbookc0b-20">Pop Fly</a></span> — an infectious chorus, and it really captures what it's like in the outfield).<LI>Secret Agent 23 Skidoo: "Luck" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/23skidoo/from/craigsbookclub">Easy</a></span> — brilliant musicianship, thoughtful and intelligent lyrics, and a banjo on a rap song!).<LI>The Sippy Cups: "Dear Prudence" (from the CD <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sippycups/from/craigsbookclub">Give Peas a Chance</a></span> — with covers from the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Ramones, and others, how can you go wrong?).<br /></UL>Albums with a * are highly recommended because — so far, at least — they stand up to repeated listens.Craig Clarkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13340904520617472135noreply@blogger.com0