Favourites : J Mascis - Several Shades of Why

I was a very late comer to Dinosaur Jr and the beauty of J Mascis's guitar playing.  I also arrived there through the back door by buying this album first.  I read several good reviews of Several Shades of Why, comparing Mascis to Neil Young and others and when I saw the LP cheap on line I thought I would give it a go.

Very Glad I did.

This is a stunner of an album, a lo-fi acoustic beauty. Listening to it now as I write this I am yet to find a bad track.  The first three tracks are a great introduction title track, Not Enough and Listen to Me.  An added bonus is that as with Dinosaur Jr albums you get the added bonus of great album cover artwork.

From this I started buying and listening to Dinasaur Jr.  I have some Pearl Jam but it left me cold.  I first bought Farm and I Bet on Sky, two great albums they have released since recently reforming and then I have been lucky enough to find Bug and Where You Been second hand.  I really missed the whole grunge thing as I was busy with a young family  and had only explored the poppier elements of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and listening to them now nothing much grabs me.

However I love Dinosaur Jr.  More Blogs on them to come.

Song of the Day 14 : Emmylou Harris : Boulder to Birmingham

Gram Parson Memorial : Joshua Tree

Boulder to Birmingham was a hit and almost destroyed by the Hollies for me when an awful version was a hit in NZ in the early 70's (and I quite like the Hollies).  Lacking all the emotion of the original's original tribute to Gram Parsons and the bizarre happenings around his death and burial are completely lost.  Emmylou's version is now recognised as the classic it deserves to be. 

There is some dispute as to whether the "canyons are on fire line" is a reference to Gram's unusual cremation at Joshua tree or the fires raging around Los Angeles at the time.  Something that adds to the songs mystery and allure.  

PS - I gave the Hollies version another listen tonight and it is perhaps even worse than I remembered.  For those brave souls willing to give it a go here it is.  urrrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!

"Boulder To Birmingham"

I don't want to hear a love song

I got on this airplane just to fly

And I know there's life below

But all that it can show me

Is the prairie and the sky

And I don't want to hear a sad story

Full of heartbreak and desire

The last time I felt like this

It was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire

And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn

I watched it burn, I watched it burn.

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham

I would hold my life in his saving grace.

I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham

If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

Well you really got me this time

And the hardest part is knowing I'll survive.

I have come to listen for the sound

Of the trucks as they move down

Out on ninety five

And pretend that it's the ocean

coming down to wash me clean, to wash me clean

Baby do you know what I mean

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham

I would hold my life in his saving grace.

I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham

If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

Song of the Day 13 : Horace Silver Song for my Father

Just learnt yesterday that Horace Silver died a month or so back.  Sad but he left us with some great stuff.  This title is probably his best known because Steely Dan pilfered the into for Ricki Don't lose that Number.  This is a slightly sped up live version from 68.  

Journey Through The Past 38 : Wilco : The long and winding road to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

When people my age and older tell me that there are no great bands any more - I always raise bands like The Drive By Truckers, The War on Drugs, Yuck and Wilco.

Wilco rose out of the ashes of the seminal Alternative Country band Uncle Tupelo.  A band that even though it only recorded four albums had a music magazine and whole style of americana music named after one of them - No Depression.

Their first album AM seemed a natural progression from Uncle Tupelo - if anything the album seemed a little bit of a stop gap and certainly it seemed that Jeff Tweedy was feeling his way out of the shadows of Jay Farrar the apparently more dominant personality in Uncle Tupelo.

I started listening when their second album Being There was released in 1996 and have been with them ever since.  Being There is a great double album that explores the sloppy Country Rock that the Stones can be so good at.

The band then started cropping up everywhere - backing different bands here and there and making the remarkable Mermaid Avenue albums witth Billy Bragg where between them they put music to some old Woody Guthrie Lyrics.

Instead of capitalising  after the solid success of that album they veered into a more experimental rock and Beatles style songs on the next album Summerteeth with at the time worse commercial and critical reception.
So Wilco is hardly a new band though and may even have recorded their last album if current rumours are true.  Somehow I think they will rise again.  After all they have been through a lot worse and survived (even if it was not in one piece).

The lot worse occurred when recording their fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (YHF).  It was all captured in the great documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart.   On YHF the band took some of the ideas on Summerteeth and stretched them further. They took a long time recording it and tempers frayed and fuses were short.

When they delivered the album to the label (Warner's reprise) the label rejected the album and demanded changes as they judged it to be too noncommercial.  Wilco refused to bow to pressure they had nowhere to go and held their ground.

Eventually the label relented and released them from their contractual obligations and in what is a real rarity also gave the band the masters to the new record.  The story then gets interesting as the band then starting leaking songs and the whole album on line and managed to create a real underground internet interest in the album.  Magazines started praising the songs and asking whether this album which many were now beginning to call a masterpiece (it's not but it is bloody good) would ever be released.  So the band started hawking the album to potential labels and eventually signed with Nonesuch Records.  Ironically Nonesuch was also a Warners label so Warners ended up paying twice for the same album.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a reasonable commercial success and cemented Wilco's position as a leader in alternative and at time experimental Americana Music.  The album stands the test of time and it has some great songs on it including Jesus Etc, Kamera, War on War, I'm the Man who loves you and Reservations. Norah Jones' reworked version of Jesus Etc is well worth a listen - perhaps a bit edgier than many people associate with her.

I believe that Wilco has gone on to record better albums - but when I am in the mood this is still the best!

Journey Through the Past 37 : John Hiatt Bring The Family

Prior to Bring the Family John Hiatt had put out a procession of solid albums that had gained a low key cultish following.  Known to some as the US's answer to Elvis Costello (something he played up to on the video of this remake of the Spinners Living a Little Laughing a Little (an actual duet with Costello)).

When he released this in 1987 it was at a low point in his career and personal life.  He had been dropped by three labels after more than half a dozen albums that received great reviews and poor sales.  In that time he had recorded  and played  occasionally with Nick Lowe, Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner.

So with what must have been a fair degree of anxiety he entered a small studio in LA with the three veterans and a great bunch of originals and recorded this classic album.  It was the start of a purple patch for Hiatt when he seemed to be writing songs for everyone from Iggy Pop to Joe Cocker.  Around 1990 when we lived in Taupo the soundtrack to many of our drives was a C90 mix tape of Hiatt songs that never seemed to have a bad song.

However it is this album and its bunch of songs that I probably come back to this most. Kicking off with Memphis in the Meantime the album really never lets up with Alone in the Dark, Lipstick Sunset,  Tip of my Tongue and Your Dad Did.  The latter song had a particular resonance at the time as our kids were at an age when I could really relate to the song.

However it is probably the much covered Have a Little Faith in Me which really stamps the album's raison d'etre solidly.

The band reconvened  a few years later for another album under the name Little Village.  However by that stage democracy seemed to be ruling things and as a result the songs were not as consistently good and the overall vision was not as strong.  Hiatt however has continued to record solid and occassionally great albums which I will cover later.

Song of the day 12 : Ricki Lee Jones Rainbow sleeves

I first heard Rainbow Sleeves by Ricki Lee Jones on the great soundtrack to King of Comedy.  Bette Midler also does a version but to my ears it loses all the song's subtlety.  Perhaps that is because it is rumoured that Tom Waits wrote it for her, potentially as a kind of partner to Ruby's Arms,  his other song supposedly about leaving Rickie Lee.

At any rate - this is just magical!

Ricki Lee eventually released it on her Girl At Her Volcano EP.

RAINBOW SLEEVES

You used to dream yourself away each night

To places that you'd never been

On wings made of wishes

That you whispered to yourself

Back when every night the moon and you

Would sweep away to places

That you knew

Where you would never get the blues

Well now, whiskey gives you wings

To carry

Each one of your dreams

And the moon does not belong to you

But I believe

That your heart keeps young dreams

Well, I've been told

To keep from ever growing old

And a heart that has been broken

Will be stronger when it mends

Don't let the blues stop you singing

Darling, you've only got a broken wing

Hey, you just hang on to my rainbow

Hang on to my rainbow

Hang on to my rainbow sleeves

Song of the Day 11 : Aaron Neville Tell it Like it is

What a tear jerker this is.  Aaron Neville's Hit record Tell it Like it is from 1967 stands the test of  time and in my opinion he never did better as a solo artist.  I got my first copy a bit later on the excellent The Big Easy soundtrack and always thought I new the song from longer ago - I probably did!

Damn Right I've Got the Blues : Muddy Waters - Hard Again

In my last year of high school this was THE blues album to have.  It managed to be both a blues record and something that could be played at white middle class school parties in NZ.  Not as easy then as it would be now.  Muddy teamed up with Johnny Winter and produced probably the best album of both of their careers.

From the raucus opening of Mannish Boy - a great reworking of the Bo Diddley song.  The album is then filled with energetic reworkings of Muddy Classics and a few new songs.  Other picks would include I want to be loved, I Can't Be Satisfied and The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock and Roll 

This was the first blues album I owned - its still in great condition as I rescued it recently from storage in Christchurch - and while the cover has some mildew marks on it the vinyl plays like new.

Magic!

Journey Through the Past 36 : The Saints : All Fools Day

Bruce Springsteen sang a relatively obscure Australian song during his second concert in Auckland this February. He had recorded it on his latest album but it was still a little surprising to hear it again after about 20 years.  It was a song called Just Like Fire Would originally by Australian Band The Saints. I

The song first appeared on their 1986 album All Fools Day and I will be the first to say that I prefer the original version.  I had heard a few Saints songs before then - after all along with Nick Cave's The Birthday Party they represented what was apparently the best of the Australian Punk Rock Movement.  However by the time of this album they were really just a bloody good rock band with good songs.

Other songs on this album to check out include See You in Paradise and  the title track (even if they do sound a bit too much like Jagger!).

Song of the Day 10 : Where the Devil Don't Stay : Drive By Truckers

I think of Where the Devil Don't Stay as kind of the bastard son of Steve Earle's Copperhead Road.  A great rock and country song at the same time (as opposed to Country Rock).  It was the song  that really sold me on the Trucker's greatness.

It was great to watch Sam at practice with his band step up to microphone and sing lead on their cover of the song.

My Daddy played poker on a stump in the woods back in his younger days
Prohibition was the talk, but the rich folks walked to the woods where my Daddy stayed
Jugs and jars from shiners, these old boys here, they ain't miners
They came from the twenty-niners
It didn't take a hole in the ground to put the bottom in their face

Back in the thirties when the dust bowl dried
And the woods in Alabama didn't see no light
My Daddy played poker by a hard wood fire
Squeezing all his luck from a hot copper wire
Scrap like a wildcat fights till the end
Trap a wildcat and take his skin
Deal from the bottom, put the ace in the hole
One hand on the jug but you never do know

Son come running
You better come quick
This rotgut moonshine is making me sick
Your Mama called the law and they're gonna take me away
Down so far even the Devil won't stay
Where I call to the Lord with all my soul
I can hear him rattling the chains on the door
He couldn't get in I could see he tried
Through the shadows of the cage around the forty watt light

Daddy tell me another story
Tell me about the lows and the highs
Tell me how to tell the difference between what they tell me is the truth or a lie
Tell me why the ones who have so much make the ones who don't go mad
With the same skin stretched over their white bones and the same jug in their hand

My Daddy played poker on a stump in the woods back when the world was gray
Before black and white went and chose up sides and gave a little bit of both their way
The only blood that's any cleaner is the blood that's blue or greener
Without either you just get meaner and the blood you gave gives you away

Song of the day 9 : Bob Dylan : If You See Her Say Hello

If You See Her Say Hello has been a favourite since the day I first heard it.  A beautiful song of sad regret and yet resignation.

Many people thought it was directly related to Dylan's then failing marriage to Sarah at the time.  He of course denies it.

I have three different versions of it with three slightly different lyrics. However it is the final album version that I still prefer.

As always with Dylan he can just hit the spot with a few well chosen words like;

 I hear her name here and there

As I go from town to town

And I've never gotten used to it

I've just learned to turn it off

Either I'm too sensitive

Or else I'm getting soft

But here are the full lyrics...

If you see her, say hello

She might be in Tangier

She left here last early spring

Is living there I hear

Say for me that I'm all right

Though things get kind of slow

She might think that I've forgotten her

Don't tell her it isn't so

We had a falling-out

Like lovers often will

And to think of how she left that night

It still brings me a chill

And though our separation

It pierced me to the heart

She still lives inside of me

We've never been apart

If you get close to her

Kiss her once for me

I always have respected her

For doing what she did and getting free

Oh, whatever makes her happy

I won't stand in the way

Oh, the bitter taste still lingers on

From the night I tried to make her stay

I see a lot of people

As I make the rounds

And I hear her name here and there

As I go from town to town

And I've never gotten used to it

I've just learned to turn it off

Either I'm too sensitive

Or else I'm getting soft

Sundown yellow moon

I replay the past

I know every scene by heart

They all went by so fast

If she's passing back this way

I'm not that hard to find

Tell her she can look me up

If she's got the time

Songwriters

Bob Dylan

Read more: Bob Dylan - If You See Her, Say Hello Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Journey Through The Past 35: The Kinks

With news that the Kinks may be reforming for a 50th anniversary tour it is worth pulling out those greatest hits collections and remembering what a great singles band they were in the early and mid 60's.  Later they did produce a couple of good LPs but I never felt that they made that transition as well as either The Who or The Stones. However I know people who swear by The Village Green Preservation Society and The Muswell Hillbillies.

I have good compilations and on both LP and CD but The Ultimate Collection here is pretty complete.

Waterloo Sunset has to be one of the best songs about London ever written. However the quality is there throughout from You Really Got Me (complete with Jimmy Page's guitarwork), Sunny Afternoon,  to later hits like Lola and Come Dancing.  

Favourites : Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club : Howl

When the reviews for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's debut came not nothing in the raves made me want to part with $20 to give it a try.  A few years later in 2005 I read a few conflicting reviews for Howl (from raves to disdain) and there was enough there to make me think I might find it interesting and I picked up a copy.

WOW

To me this was a revelation that I do not feel that often when listening to new music. This is powerful acoustic based rock music.  Tracks like Ain't no Easy Way, Fault Line, the title track and Complicated Situation all stand out from songs that all stand on their own. 

One of the things I enjoy the most about my music collection is when one of the boys picks up on something I like.  It happens more often than many would think and more than the the boys would probably care to admit - however I am pleased to report that Sam is BRMC fan.  While to me this is the Motorcycle Clubs Peak and I do have later and earlier albums, Sam would point you to Baby 81.  On Baby 81 they do give a mix of their acoustic and more amped up side. Who am I to argue? -  he has even seen them twice. 

Song of the Day 8 : Gimme Back my Dog - Slobberbone

I love good simple songs and on the face of it Gimme Back My Dog is maybe too simple for its own good.  The line Gimme Back My Dog is repeated more than 30 times throughout the song each time seemingly a little more angry and a little more frustrated.

The singer has not only lost his girlfriend but his trusty dog who has also traded his affections and trotted off happily with the ex.  You really have the feeling that the singer feels he has nothing left!

Just read the lyrics and say you don't feel for the guy!

I am not the only one to rate the song - the author Stephen King rates it as one of the three greatest rock and roll songs of all time!

Gimme back my dog (x8)

It was mine before I met you

It was mine before I'd let you

Come closer and hold it and know it

The way you once knew me

And it was mine before you knew me

It was mine before you'd choose me

And use me and lose me, refuse me

The way you're now refusing to

Gimme back my dog (x8)

It was mine before I'd see you

It was mine before I believed you

When you said 'I need you'

It seems that you were just throwin' me a bone

And it was mine before you found me

It was mine before you'd hound me

And bound me, then ground me, and pound me

Like a stray dog with no way home

Oh, just like a dirty stray dog with no way home

So come on girl, you gotta give me some credit

It was mine before you'd go get it

And pet it, and let it run

When you threw the damn thing its ball

And it was mine before you lost me

It was mine before you'd try me

Lie to me, and try to deny me

That you ever loved me at all

Yeah so

Gimme back my dog (x12)

Gimme back my dog (x4 fainter)

Song of the Day 7 : One Time One Night : Los Lobos

One Time One Night was on Los Lobos second under rated and under appreciated album  By the Light of the Moon -

A song almost made to convert into a mini series or an LA based movie.

A wise man was telling stories to me
About the places he had been to
And the things that he had seen

A quiet voice is singing something to me
An age old song about the home of the brave
In this land here of the free
One time one night in America

A lady dressed in white with the man she loved
Standing along the side of their pickup truck
A shot rang out in the night
Just when everything seemed right
Another headline written down in America

The guy that lived next door in #305
Took the kids to the park and disappeared
About half past nine
Who will ever know
How much she loved them so
That dark night alone in America

A quiet voice is singing something to me
An age old song about the home of the brave
In this land here of the free
One time one night in America

Four small boys playing ball in a parking lot
A preacher, a teacher, and the other became a cop
A car skidded into the rain
Making the last little one a saint
One more light goes out in America

A young girl tosses a coin in the wishing well
She hopes for a heaven while for her
There's just this hell
She gave away her life
To become somebody's wife
Another wish unanswered in America

People having so much faith
Die too soon while all the rest come late
We write a song that no one sings
On a cold black stone
Where a lasting peace will finally bring

The sunlight plays upon my windowpane
I wake up to a world that's still the same
My father said to be strong
And that a good man could never do wrong
In a dream I had last night in America

A wise man was telling storie to me
About the places he had been to
And the things that he had seen

A quiet voice is singing something to me
An age old song about the home of the brave
In this land here of the free
One time one night in America

Journey Through The Past 34 : The Neville Brothers : Yellow Moon

Yellow Moon

Way back when we were living in Taupo in the early 90s I bought Yellow Moon after seeing some clips on TV of the Neville Brothers in action.  I was aware of the name as they had popped up on albums by members of The Band and backed Dr John on some of his seminal early 70's albums.  They were also the core of the New Orleans Funk Maestros The Meters.  Aaron Neville had also had the hit Tell it Like it is in 1967.

This is an album that works by being more than the sum of its parts.  Only the title track seems to me to stand on its own now after more than 20 years but the album still works as a whole with the brothers bringing their gris gris to some Bob Dylan covers (With God on Our Side and Hollis Brown), Sam Cooke's A change is gonna come and the New Orleans standard Will the Circle be Unbroken interspersed with originals and injun chants.  The second line is never far away!!!

Journey Through The Past 33 : The Replacements Let it Be and Tim

The Replacements are my son Chris's favourite band.  An unruly mess of characters from Minneapolis, they were contemporaries and frequently shared the bill with another great local band Husker Du. I vacillate in terms of which of these bands I like best.  Think it depends on what mood I am in and what album I am thinking of or playing.

Minneapolis must have been interesting at that time as its music has probably never been better represented with Prince, Husker Du, The Replacements and The Jayhawks all making waves at the same time with quite different sounds and approaches.


I first heard The Replacements (and Husker Du) for that matter in about 1988 when we had a visit in Nelson by Lawrence and Grant (aka The Coat) friends of my brother who came for a weekend of serious drinking and music.  Chris, one at the time must have picked up their vibe then :-).

Let it Be and Tim are for me the peak of their output and two of the best sloppy rock and roll records you could hope to hear.  They capture the band at their peak as they transitioned from local twin tone records to the big time with Warners' Sire Records.

Paul Westerburg the songwriter behind the band had the ability to write completely dumb fuck songs as well as perceptive pieces.  Lurking in there is an alternative country band wanting to break out!

For every Bastards of Young there is a Here comes A Regular, for every Left of the Dial there is a Swinging Party (Check out Lorde's version?!?) for every Gary's Got a Boner there's an Androgynous, for every I will Dare there is an Unsatisfied . Chris ranks Westerburg as the best rock song writer of all time and I while I do not quite agree I can see his point - an incredibly talented and self destructive person.  The band eventually imploded with from what I understand (apart from Bobby Stinson) more booze than drug problems but they remained revered by a

I have all their albums and while I struggle with the roughness of some of their first two albums I find something of merit on all the rest.

Song (s) of the Day 5 & 6 : Dr John, Right Place Wrong Time and Such a Night

I find it hard to separate Right Place Wrong Time  and Such A Night by Dr John.  They come from the same album and whenever I play one I play the other.  So I thought I would put them as joint songs of the day. This clip of Right Place Wrong Time has the added advantage that Dr John tells the story of how, after being a successful session guitarist he had to switch to piano after losing a finger.

I first heard them on American Top 40 (RIP Casey Kasem) in about 1974 of the two I probably prefer the easy swagger of Such A Night.

Song of the Day 4 : I'll Wear it Proudly : Elvis Costello

I'll Wear It Proudly from one of my favourite Elvis Costello albums, King of America, is as bare and honest a love song as you will ever hear.  The lyrics are simple but full of raw emotion and honesty

I hate these flaming curtains they're not the color of your hair
I hate these striplights they're not so undoing as your stare
I hate the buttons on your shirt when all I wanna do is tear
I hate this bloody big bed of mine when you're not here

[Chorus:]
Well I finally found someone to turn me upside down
And nail my feet up where my head should be
If they had a King of Fools then I could wear that crown
And you can all die laughing because I'll wear it proudly

Well you seem to be shivering dear and the room is awfully warm
In the white and scarlet billows that subside beyond the storm
You have this expression dear no words could take its place
And I wear it like a badge that you put all over my face

[Chorus]

I'll wear it proudly through the dives and the dancehalls
If you'll wear it proudly through the snakepits and catcalls
Like a fifteen year old kid wears a vampire kiss
If you don't know what is wrong with me
Then you don't know what you've missed

We are arms and legs wrapped round more than my memory tonight
When the bell rang out and the air outside turned blue from fright
But in shameless moments you made more of me than just a mess
And a handful of eagerness says "What do you suggest?"

Favourites : King of Comedy Soundtrack

On a recent trip to Christchurch I unearthed some good lps from storage but was disappointed I did not manage to find the box with this one in it. I bought the King of Comedy soundtrack in 1982 - when it was released it had some unreleased songs by artists I liked and an interesting mix of Genres. The tracklist was compiled by Robbie Robertson for the Scorcese Movie.  At that stage they were something of a cocaine fueled mutual appreciation society.  While the movie could probably best be described as interesting the music on the LP is stellar.  Check out the track listing at the bottom of the blog.

Highlights to me were Van Morrison's Wonderful Remark, Ray Charles Come Rain or Come Shine (my first and rather late introduction to Ray), Robbie Robertson's Between Trains, Ricki Lee Jones version of Tom Waits' Rainbow Sleeves, BB King's Aint nobody's business and Ric Ocasek's Steel The Night

–Pretenders, The	Back On The Chain Gang	3:51
–B.B. King	'Taint Nobody's Bizness (If I Do)	3:33
–Talking Heads	Swamp	5:13
–Bob James	King Of Comedy	4:23
–Rickie Lee Jones	Rainbow Sleeve	3:39
–Robbie Robertson	Between Trains	3:25
–Ric Ocasek	Steal The Night	3:55
–Ray Charles	Come Rain Or Come Shine	3:40
–David Sanborn	The Finer Things	4:27
–Van Morrison	Wonderful Remark	3:57