Favourites : Randall Bramblett - No More Mr Lucky

I have been playing this album a lot recently, probably after not having listened to it for over a year.  As they say on radio stations - it has been on high rotate!

I started the binge after seeing he had recorded a new album.  I ordered it but the vagaries of Fiji Post mean that I had it delivered to Wellington for me to pick up at Christmas.

Unlike most music in my collection I have NO IDEA when and where I bought No More Mr Lucky. Pretty sure the following would have combined to have made me pick it up;

• The cover - the red suit, the fedora, the bag and no idea who the person is - presumably Randall
• It was cheap
• It was on the New West label (at the time it was released I had most of the albums recorded on what was then a new the label)

Bloody pleased I took the punt as this is a really great album and it was certainly good enough for me to start collecting his albums (I now have five).

At the time I know I knew nothing who Randall Bramblett was.  Wikipedia was not quite as thorough as it is now and so did not really extend down to long suffering and under-rated musicians like it does now.  Now I know he has been playing in bands and on records since the early 70s.  I also know that this was his sophomore effort of a second go at a solo carteer  was recorded 25 years after his initial go.  

A few years after I had the album I saw Bonnie Rait and she opened with Bramblett's God is in the Water - a song that really let's you hear what he all about in one song.

I really do not think there is a bad song on this album.  Many like Get in Get Out and Peace in Here have a quiet and insistent groove that only the best songwriters can get across.  Others like Lost Enough and Sunflower are magical.

Recent Additions : John Moreland : High on Tulsa Heat

I can not remember how I came across and decided to buy High on Tulsa Heat across the name John Moreland and the album.  That is even though it only arrived this week.

I think it must have been an Amazon recommendation via a connection from rating Jason Isbell.

Anyway I am glad I did find out about it and even though I am only on my second play through I know that I will be playing this often.

I am sure those who like the quieter observation side of Springsteen, Isbell and the like will enjoy this.

It really only takes one listen to realise he is a gifted lyricist. Great and memorable single lines, couplets and verses keep jumping out at you that are a mix of succinct and wry personal observation. However you would have to like music on the depressing side to really get what I am saying.  This is not a happy listen......

"you worried that you're happier at war than at peace or are you losing sleep tonight like I am?" From Losing Sleep Tonight

"I guess I got a taste of poison, I've given on up on ever being well, and I keep mining the horizon, digging for lies I'm yet to tell" Cherokee

or this

"And the things that made you so safe are only on a screen these days, And there's a loser in every fight, your favourite version of the past, can be found in a photograph of American Flags in black and white" American Flags in Black and White

"We were high on Tulsa heat, And lost in lonesome sound, Now we're back on broken ground" High on Tulsa Heat

Recent Additions : Neil Young : Bluenote Cafe

In late 1987 and early 1988 Neil Young was touring his then new album This Note's For You.
While many hardcore fans now dismiss the album I certainly find it an interesting and challenging album.  It marked the return to the Reprise label after being sued by David Geffen for not making "Typical Neil Young Albums" while he was recording for the Geffen Label.

I think (theory according to me) that Neil may have been thumbing his nose at David Geffen and deliberately recorded a more commercial but still non typical album recorded a horns driven album for his for his return to Reprise.   Anyway it was a start to Young's renaissance both in terms of quality and successful.

I probably have about 6 or 7 Neil Young live albums and for all of his reputation for being contrarian most of the live albums have at least 50% classic songs (sometimes radically changed).  Sure some are loud rocking crazy horse albums while others are softer more acoustic ones, but generally they are held together by a selection of classic songs.

Thankfully Bluenight Cafe is very different to that.  If it had been just another live concert album with the old stuff a a few selections off the new album, I probably would not have bought it.  I have checked the set lists from the tour and the show generally consisted of 12 or 13 songs Only an extended jam of Tonight's The Night is really a nod to his more famous back catalogue.

Bluenight Cafe therefore seems to be a great documentation of that tour.  It collects all the songs that were played each night and then cherry picks the additional songs that may have only been played once on tour or ever.

So we get a solid version of Crime in The City  which would not be released until the next album Freedom, an early version with some different lyrics of Ordinary People (which would eventually see the light of day almost 20 years later but with 6 more minutes,  a beautiful version of Twilight with some subtle for Neil guitarwork,

Only played it once so far but this is a great addition to Neil Young's archive series.   

Journey Through The Past : Mott the Hoople - Mott

Like many Bowie fans I came across Mott The Hoople through their "cover" of All the Young Dudes. Also like many Bowie fans I then picked up a few of their albums and have their great live album, and the twin pack of Mott and The Hoople.

Many early fans maintain it was all down hill from Bowie's involvement but that really does a disservice to the band as well.  I certainly think that Mott is their crowning achievement.   Kind of Glam meets Dylan in London.

It kicks off with the classic All The Way From Memphis, and includes the two other self reverential songs  in Hymn for The Dudes and Ballad of Mott The Hoople. 

The album rocks hardest on the re-working of their earlier song Violence and Drivin' Sister and then ends with the terrific I Wish I was Your Mother.

A forgotten classic waiting and needing to be rediscovered and reassessed.  

Recent Additions : Ryan Adams ; Live at Carnegie Hall

I managed to pick up a copy of Live at Carnegie Hall shortly after it was released.  It took a while to wing its way from the US to Fiji via NZ.

It is certainly worth the wait.

I have only seen Ryan once, on his first visit to NZ with the Cardinals.  Jan and I flew up to Auckland, got caught in traffic and just managed to check into our hotel and then to the concert on time.  It was a solid show but Ryan was having one of his grumpy nights so it did not reach the heights necessary to be a great show..

I think he has been back to NZ three times since and each time the reviews seem to get better and better.

Ryan is certainly one of the best songwriters to have emerged in what is now approaching a 20 year career.  After struggling with a hearing and balance disorder he is now back touring regularly and recorded his two shows at Carnegie Hall in November 2014.  You have the choice of buying a ten song selection or the full shows on a six lp set.  I chose the latter and do not regret it at all.

Releasing and buying two complete concerts is fairly typical of Ryan and his fans.  Ryan who has been accused of not exercising enough quality control in his releases.  He released three albums including a double in one 12 month period.  However all his albums (with maybe the exception of the The Finger's We Are Fuck You album) have at least one or two songs worth hearing.

So this is just Ryan in a chatty mood, guitar, piano - magnificent acoustics and some immaculate recording with a first rate vinyl pressing. Magical.

In terms of songs as he says halfway through side two - he was talking to his manager and asked where he thought he should play a whole lot of songs he had not played for more than ten years and Carnegie Hall was the obvious choice - yeah right!  But that is what you get sets covering his whole career but with generous dashings of his solo debut - Heartbreaker.

I think if you are in the States you can see most of the shows on Youtube but you guys will have to make do with Oh My Sweet Caroline, Rescue Blues, and the new one How Much Light .  I am particularly pleased that he chose to play Halloween one of my favourites from his Love is Hell Double EP.

Great album and now I am looking forward to getting his Taylor Swift tribute 1989 on vinyl.

Journey Through The Past : Steve Miller Band - The Joker

The song The Joker was my introduction to Steve Miller in 1973.  While it is now almost a standard it marked a change in style and emphasis for the band as it changed from a psychedelic blues band to a slightly quirky pop rock band.

Anyone new to the band, familiar with all the later hits and buying the album The Joker on the strength  of the title track will be a bit taken bacj by much of the rest of the album. And it is a pity that the song has almost become a standard and its originality and quirkiness now lost.

There is a great aggressive take of Come on In My Kitchen, one of my favourite Robert Johnson songs.  Similarly blues inflected and oriented are Steve Miller's own Loving Cup (not to be confused with the Stones' song of the same name) and Evil.

Ironically it is his cover of  Jesse Young's Mary Lou that points most directly to where he was going. Some fans fell away but many more followed.

Journey Through The Past : Husker Du : Flip Your Wig

Flip Your Wig was my first Husker Du record.

I was introduced to them by The Coat when he came to visit us in Nelson in the early 80s.   He knew not to come empty handed and the records I remember from that visit were by Husker Du (Zen Arcade from memory) and The Replacements (definitely Let it Be).

I later learnt that they were both from  Minneapolis which at that stage seeemed to be like the Dunedin of the States with these two bands and Prince.

After hearing them it was inevitable that I would end up getting copies of their latest records and have since collected more than a few by each and The Replacements became Chris's favourite band.

What I particularly like about this album and Husker Du is the melody buried beneath the noise.

The first four songs really outline the manifesto of their later career pretty well.  The title track kicks things off nicely, then you are into the melodic Every Everything and Makes No Sense at All and then the angry Hate Paper Doll.  Now that would have made a great EP - but there are more rewards.