Favorite Songs of 2010

5. The Black Keys - "Tighten Up" 

Album: Brothers

It doesn't really matter which song you choose off this record.  They're all great - which pretty much goes for every other Black Keys record too.  

4. Beach House - "Zebra" 

Album: Teen Dream

This song knows me better than the rest. 

3. Justin Townes Earle - "Harlem River Blues
Album: Harlem River Blues

I feel like JTE put together a really complete album with Harlem River Blues and his voice sounds as sure and confident as ever.  "Working for the MTA" and "Move Over Mama" are a few of the other standout tracks, but when the the chorus comes in on "Harlem River Blues", it makes me a believer of anything Justin Townes wants to preach.

2. Broken Bells - "The High Road" 

Album: Broken Bells

I don't really believe that pop is a genre of music, more a definition of its relative recognition within the culture at large, but this is the best pop song I've heard this year.  There is no way to improve upon this song other than to hit repeat and listen to it again.  

1. The Tallest Man on Earth - "Little River"
Album: Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird

I would love this record even if there was no music on it and it came only with the album title.  Every time I say "Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird" I feel like I understand all things in this world and can make sense of being alive.   The fact that the music is so good on this is simply a bonus.  

Have One on Me

Paste Magazine did us all a favor and complied the "25 Best New American Beers of 2010".  I'm sorry to say I only know or have had a few on this list.

Looks like we've all got some catching up to do.

Cheers.

The Top Ten Songs of 2010 I Found on Top Ten Lists of 2010*

Everyone likes to make lists; its how we judge things against everything else.  

While ranking will force a hierarchy, it is also as particular and biased as the writer or publication.  But even if we can't agree on the order, end of the year lists are a great place to find out about all those things that got missed during the year due to limited time and resources.  So, here's my "Top 10 Songs of 2010 I Found on Top 10 Lists of 2010".  These are the best songs I could find on other best of lists that I hadn't already heard this year (at least I don't think I have).  If you don't like my choices, I've provided my source to encourage everyone else to discover something they really love too.  

10. How to Dress Well - "Decisions"

Album: Love Remains

Source: Pitchfork, Top 100 Tracks of 2010 

I have no idea what they're saying in this song.  But, I feel like this is the ending scene to a movie I really love but I haven't seen yet.  I picture my eyes welling with tears while I struggle to hold them back out of some unnecessary masculine pride, even though the lifting harmonies and simplistic bass drum are calling to me to shed my misguided ideas about gender roles in an age when its okay for men to cry.

9. Caribou - "Odessa"

Album: Swim

Source: Pitchfork, Top 100 Tracks of 2010

Hauntingly hypnotic as any song about an abusive relationship and the struggle to break free as I've heard, "Odessa" is still eerily danceable and the repetition of the lyrics and music reinforce the idea of the recurring cycle of domestic violence.

8. Josh Ritter - "Rattling Locks"

Album: So Runs the World Away

Source: Bob Boilen's Top 10 (Really 9) Albums of 2010

Josh Ritter is a foundation you can build upon.  Continually adding and subtracting from his sound, Ritter always manages to keep the whole in tact and produce some of the most consistently challenging and gratifying art.  I use the term art deliberately, because Ritter's songs are good enough for that classification.

7. Das Racist - "hahahaha jk"

Album: Sit Down, Man

Source: Rolling Stone, 50 Best Songs of 2010

I don't know a lot about rap, I'm gonna be up front about that.  But I know this song is good, no joking, cause they're not joking.  Or, maybe they are joking?

6. The New Pornographers - "Crash Years"

Album: Together

Source: 'All Songs' Listeners Pick the Best Albums of 2010

The New Pornographers can do no wrong.  I expect nothing but greatness from everything they do and never seem to be disappointed.  

Canada wins again.

5. Local Natives - "World News"

Album: Gorilla Manor

Source: 'All Songs' Listeners Pick the Best Albums of 2010

Swelling with effervescent pop harmonies that maintain a carefree disconnect to the lyrical content of a song about our carefree disconnect to the atrocities we listen through on a daily basis but fail to connect emotionally to our own lives. 

4. Sufjan Stevens - "Too Much"

Album: The Age of Adz

Source: NPR Music, The Year in Music 2010

I shrugged this off when it came out as another concept side project (a la BQE), and was a little turned of by the hyper-production, especially after really loving the grandiose delicacy of the abandoned "States" project, but the vulnerability that made Michigan and Illinoise great still comes through the electronic haze.

3. Junip - "In Every Direction"

Album: Fields

Source: Rolling Stone, 50 Best Songs of 2010

The dark undertones and ethereal fuzz background contrast nicely with the idealism expressed in lyrics.  Omnipotence has never had such a nice groove.

2. Buke and Gass - "Your Face Left Before You"

Album: Riposte

Source: NPR Music, The Year in Music 2010

Inventing your own instruments gives you the creative control over your sound like no other, and with a buke (baritone ukulele) and gass (guitar bass) duo Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez reel you in and push you away with equal parts ferocity and sweetness.  

Listen to the track on the band's myspace page.  

1. Joanna Newsom - "Does Not Suffice"

Album: Have One on Me

Source: NPR, 'All Songs' Listeners Pick the Best Albums of 2010

Catchy like a new love and solemn like one lost, this song is heartbreakingly beautiful.  Newsom's voice is sultry, aching and winsome.  Her piano struggles to smile behind her, but does, realizing the levity in a love dissolved by words and actions that fails to reach the unrealistic expectations we set for each other.

*Disclaimer: Yes I know not all the sources are Top 10 lists (actually I don't think any are), but it works better as a title.  

Season's Greetings

Get funky on Christmas Brother Ray!

Brozman

There is no denying Bob Brozman's talent.  He is a master of guitar styles and their cultures, traveling the world over to learn from and collaborate with a diverse range of artists from Hawaii, Papau New Guinea, India, Okinawa, and Australia, just to name a few.

His knowledge of the historical cross pollination of music around the world and his background in ethnomusicology add a rich understanding for why the music we hear sounds the way it does.  Check out a really interesting interview with David Dye from the World Cafe here on the influence of open tunings, colonization and polyrhythms. 

While his ego can be off putting, and his penchant toward flamboyant fills doesn't always lend to immediate listening enjoyment, especially for Western expectations, the sheer range of sounds that one man and a guitar can produce is staggering.

Record Review: The Derek Trucks Band - Roadsongs

I'd like to see what Derek Trucks sees when he closes his eyes. 

The humble guitar hero is known to close his eyes during a solo to focus inward and tune down outward distractions.  I like to think a line-up of blues greats in grainy black and white flashes with each stroke of his slide.  Or that scale charts realign into encrypted puzzles that only Derek can decipher with his playing.  Or maybe he sees the soul of a man broke down, redeemed, and risen anew all in the time span of his solo. 

With his mild mannered stage presence, we might never be able to tell, but Trucks paints pictures with a sound that is dirty and raunchy, assertive and confident, funky and soulful while remaining tight, concise and focused, all without the use of any equipment tricks, pedals, or effects.  

On Roadsongs, the second live album from the band, recorded over two nights in April of 2009 at Chicago's Park West Theater, the music is aware and alive, living and breathing in the city that birthed the modern electric blues.  On tour in support of Already Free (which would go on to win a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album, beating Derek's wife Susan Tedeschi who was also nominated in the same category) the band sounds like a aural action figure out to save the world, wielding only an arsenal of instruments.   

Already Free, The Derek Trucks Band's sixth studio album since forming in 1994, was a unified statement for the band, solidifying the myriad of influences and styles into a cohesive, balanced, and thoughtful record that still rocked and grooved.  The well crafted songs lift their own weight, but are elevated further by the tight, unified playing and skilled musicianship. 

Coming off the success of their best album as a band, the tour to support the Already Free, as documented on Roadsongs, shows the band at a creative peak.  Derek Trucks clearly leads but is supported by the driving rhythm section of Todd Smallie and Yonrico Scott, with copious additions from Kofi Burbridge on keys and flute.  Mike Mattison's gritty vocals extend the emotion of the sound in a more human way, beyond the reaches of the instruments.   

The range of The Derek Trucks Band is astounding.  They do Americana - rocking the basement with Dylan's "Down in the Flood"; building, destroying and remaking Coltrane jazz standard "Afro Blue"; gliding through a reggae breeze on Bob Marley's "Rastaman Chant" and coming back home to Big Bill Broonzy's blues in "Key to the Highway".  The horns of Paul Garrett on trumpet, Mace Hibbard on sax, and Kevin Hyde on trombone are a welcome addition.  Allen Toussaint's "Get Out of My Life Woman" gets funked up and down here, with the horns adding some Louisiana to the stew, and eventually sliding into Jimi Hendrix's "Who Knows" before re-circling to their starting point.  

 

The live work of a band defines who they are.  Roadsongs tells us this about The Derek Trucks Band: The Derek Trucks Band knows the blues.  They know it is more than just Chicago or the Mississippi Delta; it is more than a defined structure, meter, or key; more than a time or place.  It isn't sad and static, rather the blues is an acknowledgment of each others burden of life.  The blues is an honesty, shaped by people (some musicians and some not) who are able to sing the struggle with a smile on their face.

When I close my eyes, I see Derek Trucks smiling. 

"Walking Far From Home"

In a follow up to a previous post, give a listen to "Walking Far From Home" the first song off of the upcoming Iron and Wine album Kiss Each Other Clean which is currently streaming on the bands Myspace page. 

Iron and Wine has a couple U.S. dates in L.A and N.Y. around the album release date, before heading across the pond for dates across Europe.  Check out their website for all upcoming tour dates.

Post About a Future Post (or What Does this Mean to You?)

Songmeanings.net is a lyrics site with a bit of a value add; instead of only providing the lyrics to your favorite song, they also provide a forum for users to give their thoughts on what they think the song means and to comment on what the song means to them.  As an idea, its basically the conversation you might have with your friends about that song you love but don't always completely understand.  As with any Internet forum, the conversation is as good as the participants, but there's some interesting comments out there if you're willing to disregard the stray negative poster. 

I tell you all this because we (and by we I mean I) are going to give this a try in an upcoming post.  I'll break down a song with some hypotheses about it's meaning, add some annotations and see if we (and by we I mean you and I) can get some comments going.  Unwarranted negativity please stay home on this day.

Beards of Neon

Earlier this week, Iron and Wine revealed the cover art to "Kiss Each Other Clean", their new album currently scheduled for release on Jan 25th of next year.  Read more about the album, including the tracklisting over on Pitchfork.

So what can we expect musically from this album based on the art?  

The first thing that jumps out to me about this cover is the range of color contrasted against the black background.  Could be suggestive of dark undertones over laid with a range of brighter harmonies.  Sam Beam looks like he's knee deep in a river of neon tubes, yet he's dressed in a suit jacket and pants.  Maybe this has some lyrical reference on the new album, like a flood, where a subject finds themselves in an unexpected situation.  His eyes are illuminated like flashlights, the brightest focal point in the picture, possibly to imply a vision into or beyond what is normally seen.  The barn behind him looks to be on fire, streaming hair-like strands of wavy smoke while peacocks (I think?) peacefully graze along the river bank. Fire has lots of connotations that could connect to themes Iron and Wine reference, such as the devil, sin, or hell.  The blasé attitude of a bird which represents beauty might be a metaphorical clue to a deeper critique.  

Overall, to me, the fluidity of the lines and vibrant palette suggests a linear connection between the songs and a continued progression towards the expansive sounds and enhanced production of 2007's "The Shepard's Dog".  That cover, which featured a wild-eyed dog and stark hues of gold, pink and black signaled a shift away from the the lo-fi acoustic sound and bedroom production and was decidedly more bold than the serene "These Endless Numbered Days" cover and the muted "The Creek Drank the Cradle".  

Luckily, we don't have to judge an album by its cover alone.  Check out the promo clip featuring about thirty seconds from the new album, and see if you think "Kiss Each Other Clean" sounds anything like its looks.  

Favorite Record Review: The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

"There are times when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and girls in America, they have such a sad time together."

With that opening line, Craig Finn sets the stage for everything that is to follow on The Hold Steady's 2006 release Boys and Girls in America.   The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Minneapolis Finn plays narrator on the band's third release, backed by Bobby Drake on drums, Tad Kubler on lead guitar, Galen Polivka on bass, and Franz Nicolay on piano and keys.  Finn's stories follow a series of characters as they stumble out of the bars and around the streets, through blackouts and break-ups, before the buzz and after the come down,  drugged out, strung out and high; dealing, coping and moving on.  It's the coolest diary you wish you could write, but are glad you can't. 

Over 11 songs and 41 minutes of music, Finn provides counsel from behind the mic like over-educated bartender, pharmaceutical college school drop out, under-employed lawyer, and community college English professor all rolled into one.  Professor Finn references Jack Kerouac's alter-ego and poet John Berryman's suicide in "Stuck Between Stations", while sardonically remarking "'You're pretty good with words / But words won't save your life'" / And they didn't so he died."  "Chips Ahoy!" questions the intimacy of a relationship built around drug use and an uncanny gambling skill.  On "Hot Soft Light" Dr. Finn quips "it started recreational / and ended kind of medical", admitting that there are times "when it all comes on a little bit too bright".  "Same Kooks" cranks up the speed with Kubler's skills on full display, nicely slowing down to an almost Gospel like keyboard phrase, making us think there might actually be a baptismal cleansing of sorts in the much referenced Mississippi River. 

Lament over the inability to replicate the newness of first love builds and swells in "First Night" and an inner monologue during a kiss in "Citrus" slows things down to a contemplative change of pace.  "You Can Make Him Like You" gives consent to a girl to acknowledge her own self -worth and the ability to define an identity independent from a man.  Advice like "You don't have to deal with the dealers / Let your boyfriend deal with the dealers / It only gets inconvenient / When you wanna get high alone" typifies the depth of Finn's ability to craft sharp witted tales that capture a perspective not often as thoughtfully represented.  The brash and reckless qualities of adolescence are presented alongside the vulnerability and the insecurity that defines the mixture of contradictions that we all, as teens, live through.

Above all, the biting, literate insight elevates the songs on "Boys and Girls in America" beyond any type of stereotypical DIY punk anthems.  The playing is dirty without ever being sloppy.   Finn's speak-sing delivery is a talking blues for a post-punk age.  The morning after wisdom becomes an overarching morality through Craig Finn's blend of street corner psychiatry and light-handed religiosity.  In the end the ethos imparted is more than a blessing of a drugged blurred existence.  It is a recognition that the drugs and the drinking, the "massive nights" and the "crushing lows", all come to be transcended by time, distance, and self realization.  We grow, we learn, and we come to grips with ourselves and the life we've been dealt.   After all other attempts to obscure yourself fail, sober up, and let yourself come into focus - words alone won't save you.

The Only Poem I Ever Wrote About Music

          six string handgun
          weapon of choice
          using everyone else's words
          to find my voice.

          knee deep, ink well
          words caress the page
          well dressed rebel's
          quietly veiled rage.

          face first, free fall
          last dollar's bet
          musicians at the mic
          beg for one more set.

First Brew - Batch No. 1

Photo by L. Coolidge

Photo by L. Coolidge

Photo by L. Coolidge

Fistful of Mercy

The rock supergroup has been tried a few times before, think The Traveling Wilburys or more recently Monsters of Folk, and as in sports it's always uncertain whether a team of all-stars will succeed over a more organic mix of talent.

Fistful of Mercy is a new group of greats featuring Ben Harper, Dhani Harrison (son of George), and Joseph Arthur which formed in February after Harper and Harrison guested with Arthur in the studio.  The three decided to write some originals together and the resulting group of songs became "As I Call You Down", which came out in early October.  The group is on tour behind the album and last night were the musical guest on the newly revived Conan, performing "Father's Son" with a super guest of their own, former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

Check out the performance below.

"Lie to Me, Like I Lie to You..."

Aside from the metal album and Weezer collaboration, Ryan Adams has been apparently happily married and relatively quiet lately, until recently when he performed at a Los Angeles benefit - even letting wife Mandy Moore sit in during rehearsal on "Oh My Sweet Carolina".

Now with a relaunched website revealing the track listing and upcoming pre-order of the much hyped archival release of a double LP from the days of The Cardinals, it'll be interesting to see what a new batch of songs and touring line-up might look like. 

Check out this version of "Magnolia Mountain" which is currently at the top of my rotation from The Cardinals era.

"Got a Letter this Morning...."

Music continually reveals to me the unpredictable and beautiful connections that we share between each other and the world around us.

In reading "Martin Scorsese presents...The Blues", the companion book to the Scorsese produced 2003 documentary of the same name, I learned that Delta blues legend Son House was rediscovered in my newly adopted hometown of Rochester, NY in 1964 after almost 20 years of anonymity working for the New York Central Railroad.  After giving up on a musical career that started in Mississippi and went on to influence the entire genre along with its best players, House emerged from the shadows in the folk and blues revival of the 1960's and went on successfully re-recording and touring until his re-retirement in 1974.  House died of cancer in 1988.

That got me thinking about one of my favorite Son House tunes "Death Letter" and how great both the original and the 1998 cover by a then eighteen year old Derek Trucks (with Warren Haynes on vocals) are.  

Listen to the Derek Trucks version here.

Also, check out the White Stripe's live take on "Death Letter" which intersperses lyrics from another Son House classic "Grinnin' in Your Face" toward the end of the cut.

AUD-acity

Wednesday October 20th's performance by Phish at Utica, NY's AUD felt like a two year old simmer finally reaching full boil.  In a single night, the proverbial watched pot at last shifted phases in the humid halls of the "Handshake City's" Memorial Auditorium from back burner bubble to overflowing sonic elixir.

Since regrouping in 2009 after a self imposed five year hiatus, Phish have since dusted off their bag of jams with a mix of mostly successes, but had to date, fallen short of completely reascending the mountain of delicious grooves and seamless interplay which built their devoted following in the 1990's.  A headlining set at Bonnaroo, the first ever west coast festival, dubbed Festival 8, and a breezy New Year's Eve blowout in Miami left the audible evidence of a band building self-confidence and re-discovering the joy of playing music for its own sake once again.  Promising moments wafted among the amphitheaters and arenas of two summer's and fall's worth of shows like the pot smell through the parking lots, but the high of top-form playing has seemed to remain elusive.

A hesitancy to trust in their own, and one another's, improvisational ability left the band sounding contained and at times predictable.  Full band exploration and a willingness to leave song structure for the adventure of the journey, of which built Phish's legend,  has been largely reserved and relegated to the second set, with "Light", "Piper, and "Ghost" becoming go to destinations.  Unbounded jamming outside of this formula has been kept mostly in check, and while the band has become increasing tight in their playing, the spontaneous energy which unites band and audience in pioneering spirit has felt, at times, adrift.  Lead tour guide to the ether, Trey Anastasio, has struggled to contain his tone and capture his distinctive technique.

And just when fans have come to accept that this mixed bag of flickering quality might be the norm for the 3.0 era, Phish showed why they still deserve the mantle as this era's arbiter of genre shifting psychedelic revelry.

Phish Utica Event Poster - by Crosshair
Copyright Phish 

The Utica show opened with the bluesy smoothness of "My Soul", which quickly melded into crunchy licks and immediately charged the approximately 5,000 Phans in attendance with a palpable excitement.  Well executed versions of "Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan" and "Vultures" followed, but it wasn't until the funk stew of "Wolfman's Brother" that the potential of the night started to take shape.   A solid start promptly liquefies into a breakdown vocal jam, with Trey mimicking his guitar bends and twists with his voice to carbonating effect, joined by Page and Mike bouncing spontaneous sounds off Trey, and one another, with buoyant airiness.  Fishman flutters below but not behind, and lets the jam expand and contract while keeping the structure in tact.  The swamp funk eventually gives way to the rhythmic strumming of the Talking Head's "Cities",  where Trey asserts the "Genesee Facorty" is "a nice place to get some thinking done".  Before coming up for air, the band moves effortlessly through the composed structure of "Guyute", accelerating to a fuse blowing pace, culminating in an explosion of triumphant yelps and squeals, and ending with an eerie muffling of the closing lyrics.

"Guyute" teases continue to plink and plunk over the opening frame of "David Bowie" before the band attacks in full.  "Guyute" teases continue throughout "Bowie", joined by several "Wilson" teases.  At one point the crowd is chanting "Wilson!" under Trey reiterating the line "He's bouncing like a newborn elf" (from "Guyete"), before Trey steers the ship back into "David Bowie".

After scorching the end to "David Bowie" like they they haven't done too often, if at all in this era, "Wilson" gets a full but short treatment (and some more "Guyete" teases).  "McGrupp and the Watchful Horsemasters" and "Saw it Again" follow, adding to the from-a-previous-era feel of the show.  And just when it seems like that might close the first set Trey strides into "Run Like an Antelope", again dropping "Guyete" teases against the bouncing bass lines of Mike Gordon.

Even without the second set, which did contain its own share of highlights, including "Sand", "Birds of a Feather", and "Split Open and Melt" bracketing "Have Mercy" and "Piper", the first set offering was enough to acknowledge as the long awaited greeting from an old friend.  Within roughly 80 minutes of music, we find that the band we thought we knew, really is the band that's there.  The set list trickery and song blending combined with virtuosic playing and instigator hijinks's hasn't eluded themselves yet. 

The sweaty brows and smiling faces of those in attendance was the visual evidence that reaffirms the connection which brings this community together.  And maybe it's fitting that "The Handshake City" was the meeting place for this reintroduction to occur.  The outstretched hands of each and all reach out and once again clasp in unison with Trey, Mike, Page and Fish. 

"Hey, Phish - good to see you again." 

Treats

Photo by L. Coolidge

Along with the changing leaf color and falling temperatures, fall brings with it plenty of good things to eat for young and old alike.  Candy corn, apple cider and pumpkin pie fill the shelves of farmer's markets and the stomachs of satisfied eaters.  While the pumpkin is well known as a pie filler, it's less known, but equally delicious, as a brewing ingredient.  Here's three tasty beers that will make you think twice about turning your pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale 
The innovators over at DogFish Head seem to do everything just a little bit different and a little bit better than a lot of the other breweries out there.  The Punkin Ale is no exception.  Brewed with real pumpkin meat and organic brown sugar, punkin ale is full of taste, body, and alcohol - coming in at a ghastly 7.0 ABV.


Shipyard Brewery - Pumpkinhead Ale
The Pumpkinhead Ale from Portland, ME brew house Shipyard, is  light golden in color and full of spice.  Most of the pumpkin taste is masked behind the more noticeable cinnamon and nutmeg flavor.


Smuttynose Brewing Co. - Pumpkin Ale
Coming out of New Hampshire, the Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale finds the right blend between pumpkin and spice - not too much of either but just enough of both.  Flavorful enough to know you're drinking a pumpkin beer but without overpowering the overall flavor.

Nice Costume!

Five predictions for Phish's Halloween costume this weekend in Atlantic City: 

Panda Bear - Person Pitch - a long shot, but Trey has talked about loving this album, by Animal Collective co-founder Noah Lennox, and "Comfy in Nautica" fits perfectly with the seaside setting.











Led Zeppelin - I - a Zeppelin album is a definite possibility with the band playing several tracks from the Zep catalog in the past, including songs like "Good Times, Bad Times" off this record with relative frequency.




James Brown - Sex Machine - cause even sounding like James Brown on his worst night would be pretty damn funky, as Phish know all too well.











Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend - after Trey's recent comments in the LA Times blog about this year's musical costume having a huge effect on his guitar playing and Trey's interest in the indie bands of today, this was the first album I thought of.  Not sure I want them to play this (even though I do like this album) but hey, you never know.




The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out! - the influence of Frank Zappa on the Phish sound can be heard in lots of different places and this would be a seriously freaky choice on Halloween.  I can already hear an extended vacuum solo in "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet".

Favorite Record Review: M. Ward - Hold Time

There are moments each of us carry, that linger on in our memory, long after the time at which they occurred has passed.  These memories replay on a revolving loop in the background of our daily lives;  sometimes being retold and remade, embellished or misremembered, but forever a constant reminder of our overarching narrative.  Played together, these memories are the way in which we see ourselves in the world - the events of our lives from the first person.

Matt Ward's collection of songs off of 2009's "Hold Time" provide the score for these personalized motion pictures.  His songs are familiar and comforting, reminiscent of something we know, but they seem to hover just beyond recall.   Ward's voice is lushly coarse and delivered with layers of genuine tenderness, coating his songs with a thick stroke of emotional residue.  He sounds as if he woke in the middle of the night to sing these songs just for us.   

The album opens with "For Beginners", but kicks off in earnest with "Never Had Nobody Like You" the first of two standout electric tracks; charged by a delicious fuzz, supporting vocals by the female pronoun of Ward's side project She & Him, actress Zooey Deschanel, and a decisive bass drum thump.  Covers of Buddy Holly's "Rave On" (also featuring Deschanel) and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" (featuring Lucinda Williams) assemble new structures from old architecture and are decidedly original in approach and distinctive in sound.  "Fisher of Men", "To Save Me" and "Epistemology", the second up front electric track, have Ward weaving subtle religious references around jogging bass lines, uplifting choral parts, and aloof cool slide riffs.  A pair of unadorned acoustic tracks, "One Hundred Million Years" and "Blake's View" supply the philosophical mortar to fill the joints the religion he sings of cannot.  

Thoughtful track sequencing allows the album to ebb and flow like a canoe happily taken by the current of the river.  Overall the guitar playing, like Ward's voice, sounds almost lazy at first, but in actuality brims with shy confidence and great skill.  The instrumentation is purposefully applied and always seems to enhance rather than detract from the core of the songs. 

On the title track Ward sings, "You were beyond comprehension tonight, but I understood, now if I could only, hold time....hold time....hold time".  With this album, M. Ward seeks to do the impossible: both pause the moment while present in it to keep it from ending, and physically grasp time as a means of understanding and contextualizing our story within the larger storyline.  While even M. Ward can't keep time from passing, he does manage to be the cinema to let our moments replay.

Live Bait Vol. 2

Yesterday, to coincide with start of the fall tour, Phish released Live Bait Vol. 2, a fully mixed soundboard recording of a selection of jams from the second leg of this summer's tour.  The free download is the available over at livephish.com

The second half of this summer provided some of the strongest shows the band has put on in the 3.0 era (fueled by the new Ocelot Languedoc) so I'm a little surprised by cuts like What's the Use, NO2, and Kung being included here, but it's free and a big thanks goes out to the band for making this available.  Let's all hope for a Vol. 3.

Phish starts a three day run at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado tomorrow night.

I Can Barely Hardly Wait

The Delta Spirit's blend of roots influenced rock caught my ear in 2009 with their full length debut from a year earlier "Ode to Sunshine".  Matt Vasquez's current yet timeless songwriting sung and sometimes yelled over a well integrated mix of guitar, piano, and some unorthodox percussion give songs like "Trashcan" and "People, C'mon" an urgent yet open feel.  The songs manage to be catchy enough to be the right kind of anthemic, without being preachy or cliched.  The everyman appeal of Vasquez's writing has expanded even farther on this year's "History from Below", after Vasquez was introduced to Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".  Zinn's retelling of history from the viewpoint of the people rather than the powerful is required reading for anyone who is even moderately willing to consider that the history you learned in high school social studies may not be the whole story.  

Check out a couple of video's that I love of the Delta Spirit performing "Trashcan" and "People C'mon" in an impromptu set for La Blogotheque's Take Away shows on a San Francisco cable car.  The Take Away Shows feature lots of great artists performing unannounced shows in unconventional locations.  So you get Bon Iver following what look to be some uninterested listeners around the streets of Paris or the Arcade Fire in an elevator using a phone book to help keep the beat.  Really great stuff both for the concept and the performances.  

Delta Spirit - Trashcan from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Hungover

Before his breakout success in The Hangover, Zach Galifianakis had what I thought was one of the funniest, all be it, short lived late night talk shows.  The Late World with Zach premiered in the spring of 2002, but was quickly canceled due to low viewer turnout.  Unfortunately, VH1 failed to hold onto a comic gold nugget that was way ahead of its time.  The opening piano monologue, interviews in strange places, Sneaky Jesus, and Zach's digressions into all sorts of unrelated and offbeat topics with guests, were a perfect storm of funny.  Check out this opening where Zach shoots the opening monologue from his (alleged) house.

 

Another great pre-Hangover Zach moment, is his leading man role in Fiona Apple's video for "Not About Love" from 2005's Extraordinary Machine.  The nonsensical antics of Galifianakis play perfectly off the heavy weight of Fionna's lover out of love lyrics.  The quick cuts to Apple slamming the piano punctuate the song's quick changes of tempo.  Apple and Galifianakis convincingly play their parts as ex's in the "glad to see you go" breakup tale.  The video captures the unhinged, just about to jump energy of the music which Fiona does so well, with a playful visual counterpoint.

   

"No Glamour in Vengence"

Some stories would be entirely unbelievable, were it not for the fact that they just happen to be true.

That was my reaction upon hearing the story behind "The Ballad of Vitaly", the closing song on Delta Spirit's June release, "History from Below".  The song recounts the story of Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect turned murderer turned folk hero who was convicted and imprisoned for the 2004 murder of air traffic controller Peter Nielsen.  Nielsen was the only official on duty on the night of July 1, 2002 when a passenger plane from Moscow to Barcelona collided with a cargo flight over German air space, killing all 71 people involved.  Included among the fatalities was Vitaly's wife and two daughters.

In the years following the crash, Kaloyev was unable to cope with his grief.  He became enraged by an offer made by Skyguide, the company in charge of managing the skies on the night of the crash, to financially compensate him for the lives of his loved ones.  Through a private investigator, Kaloyev tracked down Nielsen, whom he blamed for the deaths .  Vitaly confronted Peter Nielsen on the steps of his home in Kloten, Switzerland, where he lived with his wife and 3 children after retiring due to the stress associated with the crash.  Vitaly has said he doesn't remember much after seeing Nielsen face to face.  Hours after their meeting, however, Vitaly Kaloyev was found by police in a nearby hotel covered in blood.  Peter Nielsen was dead, stabbed to death on his front steps with his wife and children in the house.  Vitaly was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the murder.

Listen to the story on NPR's World Cafe about the Delta Spirit and the story behind the song.  Listen to the full song here.

"Please, remember me..."

Easily my favorite Austin City Limits moment to date is Iron and Wine's closing performance of "The Trapeze Swinger", which originally aired on November 15, 2008.  For me, this version easily trumps both the album and soundtrack releases (listen to a full cut of the album version here).  The singular, steady beat and instrumentation on the album seems to take away from the emotional intensity of the lyrics that he captures in the live setting. 

Before watching, find someone you love and hold them like you know you should have but haven't recently.

Ok - maintain that position and push play.

Watch the full episode. See more Austin City Limits.

   
The solitary acoustic guitar; the harmonizing with sister Sarah Beam; the accelerated and slowed pace; the phrases that seem to pause and linger - his voice trailing off without the guitar like without the love he sings about; the depth and density of the songwriting which require at least an entire post of their own, all make this a moment not soon forgotten. 

Thanks Sam.

Stay Still

Also out from the Austin City Limits family is a new book of photos, entitled Austin City Limits: 35 Years in Photographs, by house photographer Scott Newman.  Since 1979, Newman has been behind the lens and in the front row, giving him an exceptional vantage point to capture some great moments.  Learn more on the book here.

"Great Music. No Limits."

For the past 35 years, PBS's Austin City Limits has brought some of music's most innovative and diverse musical acts into the living rooms of America.  The longest running television concert series, debuting in 1976,  has remained relevant by honoring our rich country, rock, and blues heritage, while promoting the new voices of each generation.      

That tradition continues this weekend, when the show premiers its 2010-2011 season with reggae legend Jimmy Cliff.  This years lineup includes a mix of past favorites and new friends, to commemorate the end of taping at the show's current, and original musical home, on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.  The show will move into a newly constructed venue as part of the Block 21 development project next season.  The final guests in ACL's old home will include past favorites Robert Earl Keen, Rosanne Cash and Lyle Lovett, along with first timers The Black Keys, Monsters of Folk, Trombone Shorty, and John Legend & the Roots.

Many of the tapings by this years artists coincide with their appearances at the show's festival offshoot, Austin City Limits Festival, on October 8th-10th.  ACL Festival 2010 looks to have one of the best top to bottom lineup's of any this summer. The Eagles, Muse, and Phish headline, with performances by M.I.A., LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend, and many, many, more. 

The Austin City Limits brand has outlived others dedicated to capitalizing on the concert experience, like MTV's Unplugged, and captured today's music listener, by embracing new music and new media.  It's possible to watch a selection of full episode's on the show's website.  The show has joined with taping partner KLRU to offer Satellite Sets - short video concerts of up and coming, yet still largely unknown, bands.  The ACL Festival has used Facebook and Twitter as platforms to reach the mobile media generation, while at the same time marketing the festival to environmentally and socially conscience twenty and thirty somethings, and still hip parents looking to bring their kids along.  

Looking back, it's easy to see why Austin City Limits has been a success; we need no other evidence than the show's pilot episode, taped October 17, 1974 - a rollicking performance by country music's outlaw extraordinaire, and Texas's own, Willie Nelson.  Check out the impressive full list of the show's past performers here.

Watch the full episode. See more Austin City Limits.

Everywhere is the Best Seat

What follows is an attempt to write about some of the things that inform and inspire my life, namely: music, art, and beer.  The title for this blog comes from a quote from avant-garde composer John Cage - "Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat".  Cage's all encompassing acceptance of every sound as music perfectly captures my own love for the constant noise enveloping each of our lives.  The clock ticks, a car radio filters in through an open window, your ringtone sings out, and without encouragement, songs enter and exit.  The music breathes in and out around us.  There is no such thing as silence.   

If nothing else, I hope this conversation with myself allows me to research, understand and appreciate those sounds, musicians, artists, brewers, and thinkers that, for me, come through the rest of the static.  For those of us that live with heads stuffed with lyrics, melodies, and riffs, inhaling and exhaling the pulse of the life around us, the music truly never stops.  Listening is as easy as tuning in to the world around us to find our best seat.  The view from my seat is as follows: under a pair of headphones, behind a camera lens, and at the bottom of a pint glass.  Who wants to listen to silence anyways?