Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blues

Dude. Grad school is, like, superhard. They expect you to show up to all your classes. You have to do all the reading. You can't get drunk on a Tuesday night anymore. No one told me this was what I was getting myself into!

Thanks, Harvard.

But srsly, don't think for a second I haven't given up on the music. I'm going to attempt to use my Saturday mornings wisely and put up something new every week. And while I have some thoughts on The Ghost of Tom Joad that I would like to share, I'm going to focus this week on a few of the releases I got, thanks to Newbury Comics and Planet Records here in Cambridge.

Coming up, though, I will have reflections on teaching a class on African American History through Music and an index of the record stores in the Boston/Cambridge area. I will also be on the lookout for great live music in the area. Great things happening here at Frenchman Street. (Which is in New Orleans, but hey, who's keeping score?)

So let's dig in, starting with an oldie but newfound goodie from a Stax great.

The Very Best of Eddie Floyd

With names like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave in the Stax cannon, it's easy to neglect Eddie Floyd. He was never the burst of manic energy that we so often think of when we imagine southern soul, and never quite looked like a superstar (a little overweight in his prime). He did have an unmistakable tenor that served him well and a crooner's charm. And his ability to write his own songs (with the help of legendary Stax guitarist and member of Booker T. and the MGs Steve Cropper) gave him a great deal of control over his own career that suited him well.

So here for the uninitiated is 20 classics from this underrated soul legend, including the song that made him famous, even if you don't realize it yet, Knock on Wood. Starting with the foot stomping Stax horns, fans of Girl Talk will pick up this riff instantly and everyone will feel they knew those three drum hits just before the chorus. If you want a song to reflect your insecurity about losing a beautiful woman or just to dance to, this will do the trick.

Floyd never matched that initial success commercially, but he wrote a few more classics in his time. "I've Never Found A Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)", later covered by Al Green, is a classic soul ballad, sung with a touching sincerity that his shouting counterparts could never replicate. "Raise Your Hand" later became an anthem of many a classic Bruce Springsteen concert. He also ventured into blues with On a Saturday Night and even reggae with 1973's Baby, Lay Your Head Down (Gently on My Bed).

Floyd is still performing and recording today, often touring with the Blues Brothers Band. But here's a video of him in his prime. Not a hi-fi recording by any respect, but everyone should see the Stax legends on their Europe tours.

Band of Horses- Infinite Arms

After Fleet Foxes made earthy CSN-style harmonies cool again, it was only a matter of time before Band of Horses jumped into the mainstream. And here they are, with a new record contract at Columbia, a new home in North Carolina (after leaving the Sub Pop dynasty in the Northwest) and their best album yet. While their previous album, Cease to Begin, was rooted in a tortured indie sound that gave their brand of Americana serious weight, Infinite Arms brings that together with a few countrified riffs and southern rock keyboards courtesy of Ryan Monroe. The key to this album, though, is Ben Bridwell. Kudos to the man who thought, "Let's record this dude's voice three or four times and create freaking harmonies that would make the Eagles disband again and put us all out of our misery!

Ben's vocals give this album a lilting beauty that completely changes the tenor of this album. Songs that are often filled with doubt become uplifting and even romantic without losing any of their original meaning. Ben is looking back and seeing a person at times naïve and foolish, and finding a way to reconcile that man with his present self. In doing so he looks to God, to Laredo, to home, and to friends and Midwestern skies. These are coming of age stories made to remind you of Neil Young, yet feeling wholly new and refreshing. You can see how this hit #7 on Billboard.

But beware, Band of Horses! Don't get too content, lest we see you turn into a modern James Taylor figure, becoming a happy, well-adjusted person who sings dull, droopy versions of old Motown songs.

Had a hard time finding a good video for them, but here they are on Letterman, playing Laredo.

Blitzen Trapper- Destroyer of the Void

Speaking of the Sub-Pop dynasty, here's another outing from up and comers, Blitzen Trapper. Destroyer of the Void is another solid outing from a group who happily recalls every great folk-rock experiment of the 1960s. That's not to say that this band is stuck in a holding pattern. The title track is a six minute masterpiece, a story of a restless wanderer told in at least three distinct parts. We start our tale with Byrds style melodies before the wanderer takes the stage for an Abbey Road- like sprint through some of his early adventures before their heaviest riffs ever in a hard rocking conclusion.

The opener makes for a hard act to beat, but it sets the tone for the album. It contains a number of moments that are heavier than anything they had done, particularly Love and Hate and Laughing Lover. That said, there is nothing that matches the sunny pop of Sleepytime in the Western Hold. It's darker, but on the whole, it's not quite dark. With the exception of "The Man Who Could Speak True", which just seems too close both in music and story to their utterly brilliant "Black River Killer." That said, they are probably the first band in twenty years that knows how to play a harmonica.

Prognosis? It's a damn fine outing from a damn fine band, and while it won't get the across the board praise of Furr, it certainly shows that Blitzen Trapper are adventurers who won't stand still and aren't going anywhere.

Here they are in an a record store in Nashville.

Yeasayer- Odd Blood

Following in T.V. on the Radio's footsteps, Yeasayer have figured out that rock and techno make for a damn fine combination and, with this album, are one of the few rock bands that have made an album perfectly comfortable in a club or rave, though you can still blast it through your car stereo. Check out Modegreen, which gives you rough techno, Stax horns, and a few anarchic guitar solos to see what I mean or the '80s throwback of O.N.E. to see what I mean.

Tell your local DJ about these guys, and enjoy them in bed or on the dance floor. Also a shout out to Blake for loaning me this one. I'll get it back to her one of these days.

Here's an '80s tribute of a video for O.N.E.

And finally, on to the blues…

Tab Benoit- Fever for the Bayou

Some blues fans out there might have seen this album and thought, "Did I really need another version of I Can't Hold Out?" No you didn't, and that's one of only two missteps (the other being the overly nostalgic "The Blues is Here to Stay") on an otherwise magnificent outing from Swampmaster Benoit from 2005. Benoit is an exceptional blues guitar player with a soulful wail of a voice. And while he is clearly following in the footsteps of many a white blues player who listened to Stevie Ray Vaughan records in the '80s, he also knows his share of zydeco and Cajun pop, which gives his music a special spice. So while every bar player in Chicago is stuck playing Muddy Waters knockoffs, Benoit is hooking up with Big Chief Monk Boudreaux for a Mardi Gras Indian track, "Golden Crown," or injecting some soul into the proceedings with "Lost in Your Lovin." Even better, he has gotten better with age and is an exceptional live performer with a deep love for the environment and music of his home state.

Here's the title track at New Orleans' famous Rock 'n' Bowl.

That's all for this week. I'll give a quick shout out to the deluxe edition of Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power, which brings back the original David Bowie mix of the album along with a concert that shows just how fucking crazy Iggy was in his heyday. See y'all next week.

I’m back! Here’s the word from five months of Music

Hey people. Wowzers so senior project eats a lot of time. My apologies for missing out on a ton of blogging, but such is the state of affairs when one is committed to writing over 100 pages in one five month interval. I'm temporarily back in the blogging business, at least until things get particularly crazy at grad school. I'll try my best, though, to clock in at least once a week.

I've got a lot of thoughts swirling about. I want to talk about my senior project, particularly some of the music I discovered along the way, not to mention some of my thoughts on the Lomaxes. I also intend to update my Best Albums of 2009, as promised. But I thought I might focus on some of the new discoveries of 2010, ones which I haven't been able to write about just yet.

Now it's been a slow process getting acclimated to the music scene of 2010, but I can already mark a few early successes and am ready to make some premature conclusions. First of all, it seems that driving guitar rock seems to be back at last. And I don't mean that some dinosaur has made a comeback album. Or that Jack White's new project is any good. (It's decent, but really I miss the Raconteurs.) I mean, young bands are actually moving away from the disco revivalism of TV on the Radio and the sunny (though often ironic) pop harmonies of the Shins. They're dusting off the electric guitars and the amps, learning how to play riffs again, and rocking out.

Now don't get me wrong. Frenchman Street takes all comers, and I'll never pass up on a song like TV on the Radio's Golden Age (as good an argument for disco as any song ever made). But it's refreshing to hear something catchy coming out of those amped up six strings again.

Here's a profile of some of the albums of 2010 (well technically one's from 2009, albeit late in the year) that have shown the guitar can still be relevant again. Two of these bands have released major label debuts, while the other two are actually vets who seem to be getting hot at just the right time (and generating a bit of buzz for their efforts.)

Free Energy- Stuck on Nothing

• You know a musician is showing his age when he starts longing for- or at least defending- the sorts of dead end places that he decried in his youth. Rock for young musicians is about escaping the small towns and dead end places of youth. Look at the evolution of Bruce Springsteen. He made his fame as a writer of songs about escape and loneliness in the small towns of America. "Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run." Straightforward, right? But by Born in the U.S.A, he's making songs like "My Hometown" and "Working on the Highway" which accepted the small town life that he once hoped to flee from, even celebrating it sometimes. They're not bad songs, but he got old. Well… he hit his thirties, but you see the point. He preceded to usher in the dreaded "heartland rock" that celebrated the life of being in a "small town." This was rock for the settled and comfortable.
  

  Listening to Springsteen, though, I'm reminded that the best rock bands write songs that are anthems of escape and/or rebellion. And here comes Free Energy, with their opening self-titled song from Stuck on Nothing to remind us of that simple truth. Make no mistake, the four chords of that opener (courtesy of this album's MVP, guitarist Scott Wells) will be in your ears for the next few months, a pitch perfect fist pumping driving anthem. "We're breaking out this time… We're going to try a new life, see how it goes." That's all you need to know about the spirit of this album. Free Energy is not the most dangerous band you'll ever hear, and their singer, Paul Sprangers, is a bit bland at times. He sings the way James Franco (pre- Pineapple Express) would in my mind. But their energy is infectious Stick them in a playlist in between Weezer and Cheap Trick, and you've got a perfect summer roadtrip playlist. Enjoy!
  

Foxy Shazam- Foxy Shazam

• The third album from this Cincinatti (really?) based quintet, but their first with major label, Sire, so it seems to be their arrival album. Thankfully they've lost none of the winking bombast that makes them one of the most fun discoveries of the year. Like the Darkness in their prime, these guys have carried on the epic rock- complete with sweeping strings, horns from member Alex Nauth, and on "Connect", a gospel choir- of the '70s into the 21^st century, but with no desire to take themselves seriously. They even have the look, with Eric Nally busting out Freddie Mercury's hair from the '70s (long) and his moustache from the '80s. (Which is for the best, as only Freddie could make the Middle Eastern Dictator look seem likeable.) And like any great frontman, Nally dominates the sound of this stage. He has all the qualities of your average indie frontman, but he rises above the fray with a ridiculously wide vocal range, reaching its highest notes in "Second Floor." And of course like every great frontman, his band is good enough to back him up and push him forward. Loren Turner creates hooks, both melodic and bone crushing, which is a rare quality for guitarists. Sky White has gotten a lot of buzz on piano and rightly so, centering the sound of the album in a tasteful fashion. On "Oh Lord" he can always be heard providing a baroque touch to a song that seems pre-packaged for stadium rock. And really, how could a power ballad like Bye Bye Symphony work without a little ebony 'n' ivory keeping the melody. Daisy, sadly, is too often drowned in the mix, but keeps a solid rhythm along with Aaron McVeigh, who does what every great '70s rock drummer did- pound the drums and crash the symbols ferociously.
  

  Bottom line is this is a sample of rock at its most absurdly grand. It's a big sound that one hopes will find a home at a time when big productions are making a comeback.
  

New Pornographers- Together

• The New Pornographers have been a long standing presence in indie rock and power pop. So what's new here? Not too much really, except that after a decade of recording, the core of the band is tighter than ever, putting forth a powerful mix of strong hooks, rock solid rhythms, and the magnificent harmonies of Carl Newman, Neko Case, and Dan Bejar, put on display on Crash Years and Your Hands, particularly. The group moves briskly through a 44 minute set of pop music that truly rocks and never dissolves into melancholy or ironic cheerfulness (see: Apples in Stereo). All the while, the band is supplemented by strings and horns from the Dap Kings. It's a sound that is getting notice outside of all the usual circles of critics, charting at 18 on Billboard. (Of course, that's probably in no small part because sales have been in free fall all decade, so that may not be the best metric, but it will certainly mean more press attention over the next few months.) In short, this is fun, powerful pop (Hey! Power Pop!) based in indie music, but also taking calls from old school rock productions.
  

The Hold Steady- Heaven is Whenever

• Okay I'm going back to Springsteen, because I've been listening to a lot of the Boss lately. (And wondering whether he should have been the topic of my senior project.) Here's the thing about Boss that people sometimes forget. More than any musician other than Dylan, he made rock music safe terrain for literary types. The difference, though, is that while Dylan made the music safe for the surreal, Springsteen made it safe for the storyteller. More than just about any songwriter, he wrote about true characters. You had the various gangs of his first few albums, the tortured souls of Nebraska, and, recently, the fireman of The Rising. And he could tell these stories with a six-piece band behind him. He brought the storytellers of the Anthology of American Folk Music into the age of rock music like no one else.
  

  Following in that tradition is the Hold Steady. Having always been known for stories of war-weary characters, they continue onward in that tradition with their fifth album. Every song deals with characters who are not ready to accept the world as is, as Springsteen was by the time he sang "My Hometown." But they're getting close to that age where they're supposed to, and they seem to know that they're making their last escapes on songs like "The Weekenders" and "The Sweet Part of the City." On "We Can Get Together" they are clinging to the sounds of the past (name dropping Paradise by the Dashboard Light and Utopia), and proclaiming that (SPOILER ALERT) "Heaven is whenever we can get together." These are often broken characters but they are not giving up yet.
  

  Credit as always goes to Craig Finn for great lyrics, and to Tad Kubler for some blazing guitars. He takes on an extra burden to carry the sound in the absence of keyboardist Franz Nicolay, who left the band in 2009. Kudos also goes to producer Dean Baltulonis, who creates a large and sweeping sound that never strays too far from the album's distinct Americana roots. It's an arena-ready Americana album with Abbey Road-style backing vocals. How often do you hear that?
  

  The Hold Steady were on the Colbert Report recently. Check 'em out to hear and see what they're like.
  

 

Stay tuned for more articles for the future. I'm going to try to work at a once a week pace. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, check out these albums. I'm going to see if I can embed some videos to give you an idea what you're hearing.