Dear All,
as I have recently indicated in a Facebook post, the new year is finally going to see a few changes in the schedule, compared to six (has it really been that long?) rather rigid years in a row. I will still be reviewing on a regular basis (no worry), but the sequencing of the reviews will be somewhat different. Namely:
1. Instead of a rigorous chronological distinction into six different time periods, they will all be condensed into three: "Old" (including all artists beginning from the pre-war bluesmen and ending with the Sgt. Pepper era), "Classic" (1967-1975), and "Modern" (from the punk/New Wave era right into the 21st century). "Old" artists will be reviewed on Monday/Thursday, "Classic" artists will be covered Tuesday/Friday, and "Modern" on Wednesday/Saturday. This has substantial as well as technical / logistic reasons.
And although I still have a few B's to finish up in the "Old" and "Classic" categories, we are finally breaking through into the C's on this very first week!
2. On Sundays, if all goes well, I am going to eschew the alphabetic principle and instead focus on a series of "Great Album" reviews. For two reasons: (a) in light of man's mortality, there's a serious chance the blog won't ever be able to make it past the first half of the alphabet, so this is a chance to write something about important artists regardless of the alphabet; (b) this will guarantee that there will be at least one "important album" review per week.
These special Sunday reviews will have a significantly different structure from the usual ones, and will be uploaded to the regular old site instead of (or in addition to, we'll see) this blog (there will be a link in any case). As for the material, so as not to spoil the Sunday surprise, I will just say that the "great albums" will not simply reflect my personal preferences; the selection is going to be determined by certain external factors. Otherwise, I'll end up exclusively writing about stuff that has already been reviewed, and that would become tedious.
And it all starts tomorrow, so stay tuned.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
The Byrds: The Notorious Byrd Brothers
THE BYRDS: THE NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHERS (1968)
1) Artificial Energy; 2) Goin'
Back; 3) Natural Harmony; 4) Draft Morning; 5) Wasn't Born To Follow; 6) Get To
You; 7) Change Is Now; 8) Old John Robertson; 9) Tribal Gathering; 10)
Dolphin's Smile; 11) Space Odyssey.
Although technically marked 1968, since it was
released on January 15, the Byrds' fifth album still fully belongs in 1967 — on
the whole, it is still far more «psychedelic», «baroque-poppy», and
«experimental» than anything from the new back-to-roots era of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo and beyond. It
is also messy to the extreme, since the complete and irredeemable
disintegration of the original Byrds took place right through the sessions —
during which Crosby walked out, Michael Clarke walked in, Gene Clark came back,
Michael Clarke walked out again, and Gene Clark walked out again, too. Not to
mention dozens of sessions musicians walking in and out on a pay-per-hour
basis. Or on just a good word.
Despite, or maybe thanks to all the turbulence,
The Notorious Byrd Brothers has
always fascinated the critical mind, and eventually turned into a «cult
favorite» — people who think it too obvious to list Mr. Tambourine Man or Younger
Than Yesterday as their favorite Byrds album often turn to this as an honorably elitist competitor.
I am in no rush to join that chorus, though. It is true that this is really the
last Byrds album where the band members are still trying to push their
imagination to the limits, the last one where three different talents (McGuinn,
Crosby, and Hillman) compete with each other and feed on each other at the same
time, the last one that explicitly rejects formula in favor of freedom. But it
is not true that freedom is always
preferable to formula — and The
Notorious Byrd Brothers, in my opinion, could certainly benefit from a
little more martial discipline than is on display.
It is somewhat telling that when it came to
singles, the only track that was deemed qualifiable was a cover, and not even a
Dylan cover, but their take on Goffin and King's ʽGoin' Backʼ, previously
known mostly in Dusty Springfield's arrangement. It is a classic number, to be
sure, but other than replacing the «adult pop» version with keyboards and
strings with a janglier and more percussion-heavy pop-rock arrangement, the
band does not truly unlock anything here that Dusty had not already unlocked —
the nostalgic pull towards the past coupled with gentle optimism for the
future, as reflected in the elegant key changes of the melody. Even if we call
this the «definitive version» of the song (to me, though, that would rather be
Carole King's own take on her creation on the Writer album), it is still a cover, and not a magically transformed
one.
The band actually does much more with their
second Goffin/King cover, ʽWasn't Born To Followʼ, which they saw as a
fast-paced country-rock number (unlike Carole herself, who recorded it in a
slow, gospel-tinged version in 1969, while still a member of «The City») — and
it still did not prevent them from throwing in a few backward solos and put a
heavy phasing effect on the instrumental passage, because, you know, playing
straightforward country is kinda dull (an idea that had all but evaporated by the
following year). However, even that song never truly goes beyond «cute» —
maybe it's all because of the vocals, so cuddly and fragile and monotonous.
The rest of the album is all left to original
material, but next to the songs on Younger
Than Yesterday, these never seem to truly compete in terms of sharp,
interesting ideas. Crosby, in particular, is beginning to value social
importance over musical integrity. His ʽDraft Morningʼ, an anti-Vietnam
rumination on the fate of a nameless soldier, has no discernible musical theme,
and although the vocals were completed by McGuinn and Hillman already after
he'd been fired, the vocal melody is more enjoyable due to the pure beauty of
their silky tones than to the actual lines they're singing — not to mention the
totally pro forma, unconvincing and
disruptive «war sound effects» in the instrumental part; as far as anti-war
songs like these go, give me The Doors' ʽUnknown Soldierʼ over this one any
day. ʽTribal Gatheringʼ, inspired by yet another hippie caucasus, is too short
and simplistic to justify the «aura of deep mystery» intention of the author,
sounding more like hippie lounge muzak than something to actively attune your
brain to. And although I distinctly remember that ʽDolphin's Smileʼ sounded
fresh and sparkly, a nice tune to wake up to on a bright summer morning when
you want to start your life anew, the whole thing was just too hazy and
hookless to ever find a proper place in my memory.
Ironically, Crosby's best song at the time was
not only considered too risky to put on the album, but, in fact, seriously
contributed to his decision to leave the band — and donate the song to
Jefferson Airplane. As sung by Grace Slick, the version of ʽTriadʼ is still the
definitive one, but the one that The Byrds did, eventually released on CD as a
bonus track, holds up fairly well, too. And it isn't merely its controversial
subject matter — "going on as three" is a fairly uncomfortable
notion even for 2015, although it is probably the next logical stage after gay
rights — that makes it stand out, no; it has an excellent verse structure, with
a double resolution of the vocal melody that, well, doubles the intrigue.
There's a certain je ne sais quoi in
that "...I don't really see why can't we go on as three" conclusion
that almost makes you... you know... see the point and all. It's fairly
disturbing and provocative on all fronts — no wonder that the nice country lads
McGuinn and Hillman felt way too uncomfortable about something like that.
But what did they offer instead? Well, Hillman does write one of the album's
best songs, ʽNatural Harmonyʼ, which goes against his country-rock reputation
by actually sounding more like something Crosby would write — jazzy, trippy,
and featuring heavy use of the Moog synth, still very much a rarity in late
1967; however, his collaboration with McGuinn on ʽChange Is Nowʼ I can
appreciate only a formal level. It does this novel trick of putting together
folk, drone, psychedelia, and even a fast country-western part, but none of the
parts are interesting on their own, and putting them together just feels like
an empty experiment.
McGuinn does shine on his own on the opener,
ʽArtificial Energyʼ, largely due to the powerful, anthemic brass section (famed
session musician Richard Hyde on trombone); but his ʽSpace Odysseyʼ,
concluding the album, is definitely an acquired taste. If the idea of a slow
four-minute folk ballad from the highlands, overdubbed with all sorts of «deep
space effects», instantaneously appeals to your cosmic cowboy psychology,
you'll find it a masterpiece. Personally, I find it boring and tedious, a
fairly dubious tribute to a fairly dubious piece of literature — and, for that
matter, I also hold the opinion that of all Kubrick's movies, A Space Odyssey is also the one that has
dated far more seriously than any other, let alone Arthur Clarke's prose.
All in all, maybe this entire album is very
much an acquired taste, and one that I have lost all hope of acquiring. Nothing
here is truly bad, with the exception of the last track, but the highs are
lower than any previous highs, and other than the Goffin/King covers, there
really isn't anything here that would unquestionably make it into my personal «best-of»
collection. I still give the record a thumbs up out of respect — with the band in a
state of near-collapse, it is amazing that they even had their minds set on
experimentation and progress so much of the time — but let it also go on the
official record that I continue not
to share the hype, and generally like my Byrds when they are more polished and
focused than when they are in a state of disarray.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Brian Eno (w. Karl Hyde): Someday World
BRIAN ENO: SOMEDAY WORLD (w. Karl Hyde) (2014)
1) The Satellites; 2) Daddy's
Car; 3) Man Wakes Up; 4) Witness; 5) Strip It Down; 6) Mother Of A Dog; 7) Who
Rings The Bell; 8) When I Built This World; 9) To Us All; 10) Big Band Song;
11) Brazil 3; 12) Celebration; 13) Titian Bekh.
Still another addition to the already seemingly
endless list of Eno's collaborators, this time in the form of Karl Hyde, one of
the founding fathers of the electronic band Underworld and, since 2013, also a
solo artist. In other words, this is the first time since the Peter Schwalm
collaboration that Brian enlists another electronic musician as equal partner;
and considering how frequently the old guru gets in creative trouble when
trying to saddle more modern styles of electronica, the setup suggests disaster
from the get-go — once again, the master of soft nuance will try to convince
us that he's just as good at techno-trance as the youngsters? (Let alone the
fact that Karl Hyde himself is only nine years younger than Eno himself).
Surprisingly, the suggestion is screwed: not
only is this not a disaster, but Someday World is, in fact, one of the
most impressive, if not the most
impressive, record to come from the Eno printing press in the 21st century. Its
basic denomination is pop — most of the tunes feature vocals, repetitive
structures, hooks, choruses — but the individual styles, mostly furnished with
electronic arrangements, are quite varied, ranging from Eno's classic upbeat
style of the 1970s to dance music styles that rather reflect the «Hyde
generation» of the late Eighties / early Nineties than anything considered
«modern» in the 2010s. Which is a good thing — the two gentlemen are doing here
what they do best, without necessarily attempting to sound in line with the
times.
There are a lot of synthesized horns here,
although, since there are also real horn players (including none other than
Roxy Music's Andy Mackay on alto saxophone), it is not always easy to tell
digital brass from analog brass with digital treatment; on ʽThe Satellitesʼ,
for instance, real and «fake» horns often play off each other, creating a
wildly polyphonic, dense sound. Sometimes they go into overdrive: ʽDaddy's Carʼ
plays out like a cross between some wild Latin dance and classic Stone Roses,
with the addition of a wall of background harmonies and maniacal funky percussion.
Sometimes you get echoes of Talking Heads and King Crimson (ʽMan Wakes Upʼ; the
short instrumental ʽBrazil 3ʼ, whose throbbing electronic theme sounds like
they're quoting the beginning to ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ). More often, though,
they are being quiet, subtle, and vaguely creepy, with lulling sweet vocals
over threatening bass lines — even if the absolute majority of the songs here
are «beat-conscious», as they say.
Mostly, though, it's the hooks, and the almost
unbelievable ease with which they produce an atmosphere of solemnity that is
quite reminiscent of the glory days. Check ʽTo Us Allʼ — taking two minutes to
build up some tension, then finally exploding in an anthemic vocal sermon, a
prayer in the face of the whole universe, well represented by a few beautiful
guitar and keyboard parts. The eerie ʽMother Of A Dogʼ is one of the best
Radiohead songs that Radiohead never wrote (actually, there's quite a few of
these, isn't there?), with so many peacefully conflicting overdubs in the
background that you'd easily get lost if not for the "I was raised by the
son of the mother of a dog, I was raised by the mother of a dog" mantra
that glues it all together (and no, the verses will not make it any easier to
understand what they mean — it is up to you, in this as well as all other
cases, to come up with your own interpretation). Eventually, they just run out
of words and either put their strength in simple vocalizing (ʽBig Band Songʼ)
or dispense with vocals altogether (ʽCelebrationʼ), but the musical themes are
sufficiently interesting and/or pretty to agree with that decision (although
Hyde, who takes the lion's share of the vocals, is a fairly good singer).
Despite all the moments of darkness, though, Someday World is basically a happy,
optimistic album — I mean, come to think of it, Eno never made a truly
depressing record (although some of his ambient opera may come across as scary
or alienating), and the older he gets, the more hopeful he seems to become of
humanity as a whole (bless his trusting old heart). There is one song here on
which they have the nerve to speak for God himself — ʽWhen I Built This Worldʼ
— but despite all the unpleasant things the Lord says of us in an uncomfortably
auto-tuned voice, and despite the upsettingly funky-paranoid interlude that
immediately follows the declaration, the second part of the song sounds
carnivalesque and oddly uplifting. Well, nice to know we don't have to expect
the next great flood anytime soon.
I could probably live without the lengthy
acoustic ballad that ends the album (and sounds like something Greg Lake might
have contributed to an ELP record in one of his «I'm so romantic, I could just
die» moments), but it has its legitimate place there — as a stripped-down,
intimate coda to an overall «lush» experience — and if you couldn't quite guess
the overall friendly and courteous mood of the album while the electronic
pieces were playing, the coda lets you do this in «old school mode», so let it
stay. On the whole, it's just nice to know that the man can still realize a
visionary project like this — a little bit of complex intellectual naïveté
never hurt anyone anyway; and since this is ultimately a modern pop album, not
a confusedly ambient one, I have no difficulty giving it a major thumbs up.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
The Butterfield Blues Band: Live
THE BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND: LIVE (1970)
1) Everything Going To Be
Alright; 2) Love Disease; 3) The Boxer; 4) No Amount Of Loving; 5) Driftin' And
Driftin'; 6) Intro To Musicians; 7) Number Nine; 8) I Want To Be With You; 9)
Born Under A Bad Sign; 10) Get Together Again; 11) So Far, So Good.
The very idea of the Butterfield Blues Band
releasing their first live album without
Mike Bloomfield — or Elvin Bishop, for that matter, if we want to be
chivalrous about it as well — seems so revolting to me that, you know, these
guys would have to work real hard to
compensate for the affront. And they did not work that hard. Live seems
like a realistic picture of Paul Butterfield and his bluesy/jazzy friends at
the time: a band that plays it tight, intelligent, and safe to the point of
boring. The fact that the record came out the same year as Live At Leeds and Get Yer
Ya-Ya's Out!, not to mention all the fresh blood like Led Zeppelin or
Jethro Tull shaking down the walls, does not exactly speak much in its favor,
either.
The main problem, however, is not that the
Butterfield Blues Band does not sound «tough» when it gets out on stage —
kicking ass and rockin' the roof are not, after all, obligatory requirements
for a good show, not even in 1970. The main problem is that they give the
impression of trying to sound «tough»,
without truly rising to the task. Case in point: ʽNumber Nineʼ, a lengthy,
speedy funk-rock jam, with the brass section in full flight and Paul playing
Aeolus, Lord of Winds, on the harmonica. You can literally feel the buckets of
sweat coming off the players, but to no avail: Sly & The Family Stone or
James Brown would have blown them off the stage in a minute. There is a certain
level of tightness and coordination, but it does not feel natural, and
eventually the brass section just begins going to hell, with the players
falling out of sync with each other and almost hinting at free-form jazz — but
then, neither is this too free-form
to genuinely compete with, say, Eric Dolphy. It's all neither here nor there: a
whoppin' big mess that becomes a real chore when you realize you have to endure
ten minutes of it.
Naturally, most of the songs are taken from the
band's latest albums: ʽEast-Westʼ is not an option, and there is not even a
single fast, short, catchy blues-rocker from their past — mostly these excursions
into jazz-pop and funk territory, with a little gospel on the side (the awful
singalong number ʽGet Together Againʼ, which, for some reason, strives to
establish a black church atmosphere in an L.A. club). ʽThe Boxerʼ, by the way,
is not a Simon & Garfunkel cover (that would have been at least novel), but
rather a new funky composition by Rod Hicks that provides the drummer with a
soloing opportunity (the drummer is
the boxer, see?), and the brass section with a chance to replicate the
meticulous punctuality of The Family Stone (which they fail). The other tunes
aren't even worth discussing.
What is
worth discussing is the split that the public had with the critics — most of
these latter day Butterfield albums, and this live one in particular, have
always received a serious share of academic admiration, yet sales were
drastically slow, and if East-West
still finds support among the connoisseurs these days, everything after 1966-67
seems to have completely fallen out, no matter how much the critics try to
revive it (see Bruce Eder's truly glowing account of the Live album at the All-Music Guide, for instance). The reason, I
guess, is that The Butterfield Blues Band play their program formally right. There are no serious
lapses of taste here (other than in the ʽIntro To Musiciansʼ bit, which Paul
delivers as if he were stoned, or dead drunk — maybe he was), there's energy,
there's some originality, there's not a lot of pretense and quite a lot of
humbleness. But there is never a sign
that this is a band that's ready to «go all the way», you know. Ultimately,
they just sound like any average blues-rock band with enough determination to
go on practicing, no matter how much time it takes. And the decision to expand
into jazz-rock and funk — genres that absolutely require that one «goes all the
way» if one wants to make a difference — was probably the single silliest
decision of Butterfield's entire career. As a jazz musician, he's too sterile;
as a funk player, too stiff. He was born in Chicago, and that is where he
should have stayed.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Buddy Guy: Slippin' In
BUDDY GUY: SLIPPIN' IN (1994)
1) I Smell Trouble; 2) Please
Don't Drive Me Away; 3) 7-11; 4) Shame, Shame, Shame; 5) Love Her With A
Feeling; 6) Little Dab-A-Doo; 7) Someone Else Is Steppin' In; 8) Trouble Blues;
9) Man Of Many Words; 10) Don't Tell Me About The Blues; 11) Cities Need Help.
This is as straightahead as it ever gets: nothing but pure electric
blues, eleven heads in a row, and not a single guest star in sight — an
impeccable experiment in the «can I do it alone?» genre. Of course, this also
makes it twice as hard to say anything uniquely meaningful about this album, unless
it is in the comparative genre... and it's not that difficult to slip into the
comparative genre here, considering how few originals there are. The choice of
covers is actually not all that trivial: for instance, there are two songs by Charles Brown, both of
which were covered in 1963 by Sam Cooke on his Night Beat album. Coincidence, or the result of some fortuitous
nighttime listen? There's Freddie King's ʽLove Her With The Feelingʼ redone in
the style of ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ, because Buddy loves ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ,
but he can't play ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ on all
his albums, so a little strategic thought is in order here. There's Denise
LaSalle, there's Fenton Robinson... all sorts of interesting blues people that
rarely appear on the first pages of blues encyclopaedias. But, of course, it's
still just the blues.
Points worth mentioning, in addition to Buddy's
reliable vocals and guitar escapades, are: (a) a sweet appearance by legendary
Johnnie Johnson, Chuck Berry's pianist of choice, contributing a feather-light
(in the good sense of the word) solo on ʽ7-11ʼ; (b) a suitably comic
arrangement of ʽSomeone Else Is Steppin' Inʼ, with ridiculous «party noises» in
the background and a drunken choir joining in for the final line of the chorus
— but thanks, Mr. Guy, for reminding me where the Stones stole their ʽBlack
Limousineʼ from; (c) ʽTrouble Bluesʼ features a lo-fi production style, with plenty of hissing and crackling to
artificially age the song — see Mr. Guy flirt around with indie aesthetics!;
(d) ʽCities Need Helpʼ, one of the two originals, is Buddy adopting a socially
responsible posture — kind of like Bobby Bland on his moody, smoky early 1970s
records. He still cannot resist from the temptation to turn it into a guitar
pyrotechnics feast midway through, though, and I concur. Are we going to become
more socially conscious if Buddy Guy tells us that our cities need help? No.
But if he goes on beating the crap out of that guitar, who knows what changes
that might eventually bring about in our social consciousness.
In terms of beating the crap out, I would
probably single out ʽPlease Don't Drive Me Awayʼ, where the man brushes the
dust off the wah-wah pedal for a speedy, destroy-everything-in-its-path type of
solo, sometimes bordering on the psychedelic; and ʽSomeone Elseʼ, for such an
essentially comic number, also boasts a fairly mean tone, with each note
threatening to snap you in half. Beyond that, it's Buddy Guy and his
predictably ecstatic blues guitar — lots of improvising, not a lot of artistic
invention that could be correlated with words. Which means it is time to award
this album its well-deserved, if unexceptional, thumbs up and move on.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Budgie: Never Turn Your Back On A Friend
BUDGIE: NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON A FRIEND (1973)
1) Breadfan; 2) Baby Please
Don't Go; 3) You Know I'll Always Love You; 4) You Are The Biggest Thing Since
Powdered Milk; 5) In The Grip Of A Tyrefitter's Hand; 6) Riding My Nightmare;
7) Parents.
Smart move — replacing Rodger Bain with Roger
Dean. After all, when it comes to production Budgie could very well be their
own producers, but when it comes to painting your album sleeve, none of the
band's members could draw worth a damn, so why not hire the hippest of the hip?
The style is immediately recognizable; the only question is, will that style be
superimposed on music that will be closer in sound to Yes — or to Uriah Heep?
The answer is neither. The album cover may be
colorful and enigmatic (what the hell is
that guy doing with that mutant eagle?), but Budgie stubbornly remain a heavy
rock band above everything else — only one track on here displays extra
«progressive» ambitions, and, to be honest, they are not even the kind of
ambition that Black Sabbath displayed that very year, when they got Rick
Wakeman to play for them a bit. To compensate for this, though, they tighten up
their formula to the max: there is really no other Budgie album where they
would kick ass on such a consistent, inventive, and, might I add, intelligent
basis. (Yes, kicking ass can actually
require inventiveness and intelligence).
Of course, I suppose that the true reason why
this record is usually brought up as Budgie's finest hour is ʽBreadfanʼ — not
only would that be the only Budgie song to be revived and popularized in the
future (by Metallica), but it is clearly also the Budgie song, period; the one that, in Mick Jagger's own words,
"makes a dead man come". Bourge's opening riff is so good that the
band repeats it over and over for almost a minute before Shelley starts singing
— a classic combination of speed, precision, and fury that predicts the
stylistics of thrash metal a good decade before
thrash metal. There's other goodies scattered around, too — like the hilarious
(anti-capitalist?) lyrics with nursery rhyme elements, or the slightly creepy
dark-folk acoustic bridge; but essentially it's all about the riff, and if you
think the song is too abusive and repetitive, well, it's meant to be that way.
It must actually be quite a chore, I suppose, to be able to play that tricky
riff so many times in a row so quickly without making any mistakes — of course,
with the advent of Slayer and Megadeth this all became standard practice, but I
honestly don't know a single other track from 1973 that would have a riff like
ʽBreadfanʼ's.
Still, the album is much more than just
ʽBreadfanʼ. Their cover of ʽBaby Please Don't Goʼ, which they borrowed from
Them (and the Amboy Dukes) rather than Muddy Waters (and which would later be
re-borrowed by AC/DC), has the crunchiest rhythm sound of all these covers and
an excellent slide guitar solo that puts Ted Nugent to shame (and I am quite a fan of Ted Nugent's guitar
playing) — AC/DC would have more fun with the track, but this one's my bet if
you want a stone cold dead face to go along with it. ʽYou Are The Biggest Thing
Since Powdered Milkʼ could certainly live a healthier life without the silly
«phased» drum solo that eats up almost two minutes, but other than that, it is
still a major riff-fest, even if it is arguably the most Sabbath-derived tune
here (particularly when the second, boogie-oriented, part comes along).
On Side B, you have the magnificent ʽIn The
Grip Of A Tyrefitter's Handʼ, where Tony has a brilliant idea — chop the
minimalistic four-chord riff in two parts and place both of them in different
channels, so you get the effect of two guitars chatting with each other in
point / counterpoint mode; beyond that, the instrumental breaks totally
dispense with solos in favor of an extra bunch of riffs, including an oddly
tuned «pseudo-Eastern» one. And then there is ʽParentsʼ, a 10-minute epic about
the perils and insecurity that await you upon graduating from Dad's and Mom's
care — not a particularly innovative or insightful topic, but somehow they manage
to get the tragic vibe just right. I still don't know why they thought it
useful to mimic a seagull squad on top of these solos, but apparently «seagulls
shrieking» = «thunderstorm coming», and that's, like, a metaphor for the perils
of grown life once you're ripped out of your safety net. Anyway, it's a major
improvement on ʽYoung Is A Worldʼ and arguably Budgie's best attempt at a
sentimental, heart-on-sleeve, and simultaneously heavy/thunderous epic.
In the end, my only gripe with the album are
the acoustic links — ʽYou Know I'll Always Love Youʼ and ʽRiding My Nightmareʼ
definitely overdo the soft-and-tender thing, and Shelley's falsetto actually
grates on my nerves far worse than his normal «bleating» on the harder tracks:
there is something very unnatural about his trying to pass for Art Garfunkel.
Fortunately, that's just two short tracks that can be skipped if you find this
style an irritant, too.
No unreasonable expectations, please — ʽBreadfanʼ
may indeed contribute their most significant contribution to the world of heavy
music, but other than that, Never Turn
Your Back On A Friend is just a solid piece of work in an already
well-functioning and properly explored area. But it is a solid piece of work: I mean, if a band can be
complex-and-catchy (ʽBreadfanʼ) and
simplistic-and-catchy (ʽIn The Grip...ʼ) on the same album, it's gotta count
for something. Derivative or not, Tony had the golden touch at the time, and
even made a few tentative moves to wiggle himself out from under the other Tony's shadow (even ʽIn The Grip...ʼ
sounds like nothing Sabbath ever did up to that point, let alone ʽBreadfanʼ).
Clearly a thumbs
up here — this record is a must-hear for any hard rock fan, even
those who have a natural aversion towards Roger Dean covers, because you can
sometimes find a Jon Anderson hiding underneath.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Beat Happening: Music To Climb The Apple Tree By
BEAT HAPPENING: MUSIC TO CLIMB THE APPLE TREE BY (1984-2000/2003)
1) Angels Gone; 2) Nancy Sin;
3) Sea Hunt; 4) Look Around; 5) Not A Care In The World; 6) Dreamy; 7) That
Girl; 8) Secret Picnic Spot; 9) Zombie Limbo Time; 10) Foggy Eyes; 11) Knock On
Any Door; 12) Sea Babies; 13) Tales Of A Brave Aphrodite; 14) Polly Pereguinn;
15) I Dig You.
As a very brief, but obligatory post-scriptum
to the true story of Beat Happening, we should mention this collection of
singles, EPs, and other rarities, spanning about fifteen years. It was first
made available as one of the CDs in the Crashing
Through boxset, released by K Records in 2002 and containing just about
everything the band ever did; then, a year later, it was issued separately,
for the benefit of those veteran fans who already had all the records.
As it usually happens with these things, you
will not find any major surprises here, though. Historically, I guess, the
most important tracks are the last four — recorded by the band in 1988 in
collaboration with another indie outfit, Screaming Trees, and containing the
proto-grunge rocker ʽPolly Pereguinnʼ that was later named by Kurt Cobain as
his favorite song of the 1980s. It does stand somewhere halfway between the
heavy psychedelia of the late Sixties and Nirvana's somber grunge declarations
of hatred for humanity, but honestly, it's not that good — not even in a bang-your-head-against-the-wall suicidal
variety of «good». The sound of it,
with the heavily distorted descending riff (a little derivative of Cream's
ʽWhite Roomʼ, if you ask me), the deafening bass, and the stone-dead vocals, is
morbidly seductive, but the hook-power is quite limited. But I guess the sound
was well enough for Kurt on this occasion. Besides, it's really a Screaming
Trees song, not a Beat Happening one, so why am I even discussing this?
Another interesting inclusion is the single
ʽAngel Goneʼ, which was actually recorded during a brief reunion period in 2000
— and shows that very little had changed in the meantime, except that Calvin's
baritone became even deeper, but also more controllable: he is now capable of
weaving fluent, even slightly mesmerizing vocal melodies (over the same
monotonous two-chord guitar jangle) that confirm the band did have talent, after all, no matter how efficiently they tried to
hide it for all those years. And the B-side, ʽZombie Limbo Timeʼ, shows that
they never lost the scary graveyard side of their personality either — although
this track, to be honest, sounds like
straightahead black comedy (and could also be easily mistaken for a B-52's
outtake).
Fans of You
Turn Me On will also be happy to have the single ʽSea Huntʼ, which preceded
the album and presaged its style — anthemic singing, heavy echo, and just a
touch of offensively out-of-tune violin to remind us that these guys were still
downshifters and deconstructors, and what was good for The Velvet Underground
was even better for Beat Happening. The rest of the tracks, including alternate
(single) versions of ʽNancy Sinʼ and ʽDreamyʼ, just sort of pass by, though.
That said, I do admit that I have not
been, as of yet, able to listen to the record properly as recommended —
namely, while in the state of climbing an apple tree — and cannot accurately
guarantee that it will not sound
completely different to the ears of someone busy grappling a tree trunk with
all four limbs. Unless, of course, this is simply a veiled hint at the fact
that this kind of music can only appeal to 12-year olds, or to any-year olds
with the mind of a 12-year old, or to any-year olds who can efficiently
simulate the mind of a 12-year old whenever they want to recover from the latest
political scandal or personal tragedy. Beat Happening, ladies and gentlemen.
Give 'em a big hand and all.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Buzzcocks: The Way
BUZZCOCKS: THE WAY (2014)
1) Keep On Believing; 2)
People Are Strang Machines; 3) The Way; 4) In The Back; 5) Virtually Real; 6)
Third Dimension; 7) Out Of The Blue; 8) Chasing Rainbows Modern Times; 9) It's
Not You; 10) Saving Yourself; 11*) Disappointment; 12*) Generation Suicide;
13*) Happen; 14*) Dream On Baby.
Look out, the cocks are buzzing once more (or
should that be «the buzzes are cocking»?)! After an 8-year long break, Shelley
and Diggle are back with a brand new rhythm section (Chris Remmington on bass,
Danny Farrant on drums), a brand new producer (David M. Allen, known best of
all for producing a string of records for The Cure in the 1980s), and a brand
new way of releasing their stuff — via the PledgeMusic system, which runs on
direct fan support. Apparently, the band wanted to find out if it still had any fans left — enough to finance
the recording and release of yet another LP — and guess what, either there are
still enough people around to want to hear a brand new Buzzcocks album, or
studio fees are going down at the same rate as oil prices. In any case, all
these nasty generous people have essentially stripped me of the right to begin this
review with the proverbial «who the heck needs the Buzzcocks in the 21st
century?» rhetoric question. They have not stripped me of the God-given right
to say bad things about the Buzzcocks, though, so brace yourselves.
On second thought, though... the funny thing
is, The Way does not really sound
all that bad. In fact, compared to the last one, two, three... five Buzzcocks albums, it sounds
downright involving! First and
foremost, it has the absolute best production values on a late-period Buzzcocks
record, hands down. Perhaps they went easy on sound compression or something,
but the guitars have a sharper, brighter, crisper sheen even when they are
sticking to chainsaw buzz — and sound even better when they go for cleaner
riffs or a less distorted sound in general. Maybe we have the producer to
thank for that (after all, he did work on Disintegration,
one of the most magnificently produced albums of all times)... who knows? all I know is that this sound comes in far
more colors than the fifty shades of grey on all their records from the 1990s
and the 2000s.
Second, it's got a handful of really enticing
songs. ʽPeople Are Strang Machinesʼ, for instance, has nostalgically playful
oh-oh-oh-oh backing vocals à la David
Bowie, nice lead lines and a moody chorus — not that the song title tells us
anything we didn't know before, but they tell it with plenty of conviction this
time. ʽOut Of The Blueʼ expertly plays with stop-and-start structure and
throws in a simple, efficient, and not totally stolen garage-rock riff.
ʽChaising Rainbows Modern Timesʼ often gets mentioned as the one song on here
that comes most close to emulating classic-era Buzzcocks, and it does, except
that I am not too happy about the main rhythm melody sticking way too close to
the ʽBlitzkrieg Bopʼ pattern. And ʽSaving Yourselfʼ is probably the darkest,
most uncomfortable finale to a Buzzcocks album ever — in fact, this whole record, in light of everything that we
know about the band, might be their darkest ever, with way too few songs about
boys and girls and way too many about surviving in a strange new world.
I know what you're thinking, and quite a few
people out of the few people who noticed and discussed the record said the
same things — the Buzzcocks sound old
here, older, more grizzled and tired than ever before, and like all old and
tired people, they now feel more at ease whining at the horrors of «virtual
reality» and all that other crap than doing what they used to do best (debating
about the fifty ways to leave your lover, that is). The tiredness is indeed
reflected in the tempos (slower than usual), the vocals (Shelley's range and
energy has gone down), and the lyrical themes. But if we are to nitpick about
nuances and subtleties, this is compensated for by the improvement in texture
and melodicity, and by the very
simple fact that finally, the Buzzcocks are coming to terms with their age and
acting like it — like any other veteran on the field, they have earned their
right to complain about the younger generation and its values, even if the
younger generation has a legal right to ignore every single word of it. (One of
the bonus tracks is actually called ʽGeneration Suicideʼ, so there!).
I almost thought about giving the album a
thumbs up, in fact, before I pinched myself back to reality (I mean, will I
ever get the urge to listen to at least one of these songs again? Hardly!).
However, and I do mean that honestly, this was, indeed, the only post-reunion
Buzzcocks album that did not actively annoy me — an album that sounded like
they really wanted to make it because something in their hearts urged them to,
rather than simply a mechanical requirement like «well, we're musicians, we're
supposed to make records, so let's go make another record, even if we know
beforehand we're not making any serious money on it». Nothing here makes me
yearn for a follow-up, but it's still nice to add another bunch of aging
punkers to the small collection of punkers who know how to do it well (like the
Adolescents, who, today, are anything but, yet still manage to preserve their
integrity).
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Byrds: Younger Than Yesterday
THE BYRDS: YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY (1967)
1) So You Want To Be A
Rock'n'Roll Star; 2) Have You Seen Her Face; 3) C.T.A.-102; 4) Renaissance
Fair; 5) Time Between; 6) Everybody's Been Burned; 7) Thoughts And Words; 8)
Mind Gardens; 9) My Back Pages; 10) The Girl With No Name; 11) Why.
Although this album (actually recorded at the
end of 1966 — still in the «Revolver
era» rather than the much-mutated «Sgt.
Pepper era») is very frequently listed as the pinnacle of the Byrds'
career, I have always belonged to the small minority that regards it as a tiny
step down from the heights of Fifth
Dimension — at least in terms of innovation and diversity, if not overall
song quality. Where Fifth Dimension,
with all its minor faults, broke The Byrds out of the eggshell of their early
formula and opened them to the many ways of the world, on Younger Than Yesterday you can sort of see the beginnings (only the beginnings) of
their retreading back to a slightly different, but still monolithic eggshell.
At the very same time, you also see signs of serious tension between band
members that ultimately led to the band's enclosing itself in a rigid niche,
and then simply disintegrating because nobody cared any more.
If these sound like undeservedly harsh words
for an introduction to a great album, let me stress that the idea is not so
much to defame Younger Than Yesterday
as it is to restore justice for Fifth
Dimension. My only concrete
problem (as opposed to the abstract construction of an idealistic «progress
curve») with this record is one song and one song only, and yes, you guessed
right: David Crosby strikes again! Last time around, it was the clumsy
arrangement and the exaggerated vocal antics on ʽHey Joeʼ — this time, it is
ʽMind Gardensʼ, unquestionably the worst track ever that classic-era Byrds put
on tape. In fact, it was one of those ʽRevolution #9ʼ-type moments, where
everybody except the contributing artist hated the track, but did not have
enough willpower to veto its inclusion.
Crosby himself later argued that the hatred was
simply due to backwardness — that his bandmates were appalled about including
something that did not have either rhyme or rhythm — but, of course, this is
just a bunch of crapola; in fact, Crosby himself would later come up with
plenty of far, far better compositions that had neither rhyme nor rhythm, but
compensated for this with beautiful atmospherics. ʽMind Gardensʼ, however,
sounds like something where the overriding itch was to compose, record, and
release a track without rhyme or rhythm, period.
(Actually, the underlying guitar melody does have plenty of rhythm, to be
precise — it's just not a very interesting guitar melody, and David largely
referred to the vocals, of course). The lyrics, which sound like they were largely
influenced by Oscar Wilde's Selfish Giant
(yet still find a clichéd opportunity to throw in a reference to "the
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", just for kicks), are almost
intentionally primitive in their psychedelic-moralistic imagery; the singing is
annoyingly shamanistic and shows that Cros never properly finished his crash
course in tribal incantations; and worst of all, very soon you find yourself
surrounded by a swarm of discordant backward guitar solos that make the whole
experience physically painful (there
is an alternate version among the bonus tracks of the CD reissue that seriously
tones down this hideous buzz, but still does not completely resolve the
problem). Basically, the only kind words I have to say about this monstrosity
is that it makes the following ʽMy Back Pagesʼ sound twice as angelic by
contrast.
All the more curious is the fact that, outside
of ʽMind Gardensʼ, the remainder of Crosby's contributions for this record are
fairly nice — ʽEverybody's Been Burnedʼ is a beautiful three-minute long
introspection on the matter of broken relationships, with two somber minor key
guitar parts weaving around each other and a perfectly melancholic vocal
serenade from David himself. (The song is said to have been written as early as
1962, but I guess its «torch song» genre characteristics and the lack of a
proper chorus could not help but delay its release); and ʽRenaissance Fairʼ,
inspired by an actual trip to the original South Californian Renaissance Fair,
is one of Crosby's catchiest compositions — based on a real riff, for once, if
not a particularly inventive one; its starry-eyed refrain of "I think that
maybe I'm dreaming..." should count as one of the most trend-defining, uh,
starry-eyed magical moments of 1967, especially in its retro-futuristic
perception of Elizabethan decor as suitable garb for the new psychedelic era.
At the same time with Crosby reaching his songwriting
peak (even if it does result in a few excesses), we also have Chris Hillman
emerging as a distinct songwriter in his own right — and pulling the band in a
completely different direction: the country-rock style. ʽTime Betweenʼ and ʽThe
Girl With No Nameʼ, with their steel guitars, banjo-imitating guitars, and
perky tempos, are two prime examples of the Byrds' early venturing into
hillbilly territory, and, honestly, sound like fairly generic country to me (I
do actually prefer the Beatles doing ʽWhat Goes Onʼ — they have Ringo singing
on it, and it's kinda funny). However, Hillman is able to do better than that: ʽHave You Seen Her Faceʼ is a fine
slice of jangly pop (the intro alone sounds like a blueprint to a good half of
Big Star's career), and the sleeping masterpiece here is ʽThoughts And Wordsʼ,
which somehow manages to combine both the country-rock and the art-pop idioms,
throwing in a moody psychedelic hum effect — it's like the Byrds' ʽThings We
Said Todayʼ multiplied by the trippy production values of Revolver. On this song, the backward guitars actually work. See how
they kick in as the second chorus starts up its "I knew what you wanted to
do"... yep, you wanted to drive me nuts by jamming jagged shards of
backward guitars in my ears. You don't spoil lovely melancholic music with
brute ugliness unless you have a good reason, and Hillman at least pretends to
have one — it's all about a lovely beginning and a rather brutal ending.
And we have not yet mentioned the
McGuinn/Hillman lead-off ʽSo You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Starʼ, one of the
first and bitterest sarcastic takes on rock stardom by rock stars themselves;
or the sci-fi noises on ʽC.T.A.-102ʼ, a more than respectable successor to ʽThe
Lear Jet Songʼ; or the new re-recording of Crosby's ʽWhyʼ, released earlier as
a single and now sounding very much like Martha & The Vandellas' ʽHeatwaveʼ
because we can; or ʽMy Back Pagesʼ, which tends to get my vote as the band's
second best Dylan cover (and this time, they actually have enough space to
cover four out of six original verses) — McGuinn's vocals are not always
capable of capturing, let alone expanding upon, the magic of the original,
particularly when they cover humorous or battle-oriented songs, but «Dylan the
transcendental visionary» always comes off fine, and rarely, if ever, finer
than on these "crimson flames tied through my years"...
And it all happens within an almost
embarrassing twenty-nine minutes — in
29 minutes here, these guys say more than most modern bands say in 10 years.
Amazing how fast things were really moving back in 1967, isn't it? (The bonus
tracks aren't particularly phenomenal this time, but they do include ʽLady
Friendʼ, the last substantial Crosby-penned single they released, and a couple
more early excursions into country-rock with Hillman). Although, supposedly,
this still has something to do with the conservative peculiarities of the
American LP market, which rarely thought its customers worth more than 30
minutes of music per vinyl chunk. (Unless your artist was Dylan, who just
couldn't shut up — ironically, though also predictably, Bob would begin
releasing his own under-30-minute albums exactly at a time when this
restriction was finally and completely lifted).
So where, if you might ask, are those
«retreading» signs that I mentioned earlier? Well, essentially you see two
main trends sometimes peacefully co-existing, sometimes battling here — Crosby's
psychedelic vision and Hillman's «earthy» style, with McGuinn clearly more
seduced about the latter than the former. Crosby would eventually lose, and for
good reason — all these songs are really much more about solo Crosby than the
Byrds as a band, far more so, in fact, than even John Lennon's latter-day
Beatles material (more like as if Lennon were to offer songs like ʽMotherʼ or
ʽGodʼ for Beatles albums). Hillman would win — and complete the Byrds' transformation
into The Country Turf Preservation Society, which would still be a fairly
pleasant society, to be sure, but quite far from the all-powerful eclectic
deities of American rock that they were for a very brief period in 1966.
On a song-by-song basis, Younger Than Yesterday is as strong as anything else they did in
their peak period — however, it does not have either a ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ or
an ʽEight Miles Highʼ to symbolize a particular major breakthrough (ʽSo You
Want To Be...ʼ comes somewhat close, with its send-up of the pop star image and
Hugh Masekela on the trumpet, but does not exactly have the majesty of those
two other singles), because there are
no major breakthroughs here. Which, on a personal level, should not prevent
anybody from simply enjoying the excellent music. Alternately, it may just be
an intense hatred for ʽMind Gardensʼ that spoils and distorts my perception:
honestly, I'd rather have Crosby re-recording ʽHey Joeʼ in a duet with Iggy Pop
rather than having to listen to this atrocity, which I count among the same
«1967 excesses» as the Animals' Winds
Of Change, even one more time. Regardless, thumbs up are still guaranteed all
the way — on the already overloaded shelf of classic records from that wonder
year, Younger Than Yesterday will
always have a secure place of honor.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Brian Eno: Lux
BRIAN ENO: LUX (2012)
1) Lux 1; 2) Lux 2; 3) Lux 3;
4) Lux 4.
With all these collaborations and new ideas and
attempts to conquer the world of body-oriented electronic pulses, we'd almost
forgotten Eno's primary function in
the world of instrumental electronic music — as provider of heavenly ambient
soundscapes. Ever since Thursday
Afternoon made a, ahem, definitive
statement on that, «heavenly ambience» became largely reserved for scattered
installations and Windows themes; I think that The Shutov Assembly was really the last album tagged as simply
«solo», whereas purely ambient releases from later years were all supposed to
go along with the installations.
Actually, Lux,
too, was originally commissioned as a soundtrack to an art gallery (and, prior
to that, was exposed at airport terminals), but it counts as an artistic work
in its own rights — not to be specifically associated with any particular
space, time, or n-th dimension.
Consisting of four tracks that run for about 18-19 minutes each, it returns us
to the good old days when Mr. Eno was trying to make us understand and slowly
savor the inherent beauty in one single piano note before moving on to another
one — a nostalgic trip, if you wish, to the times of Music For Airports and On
Land, when the world was so young and unspoiled and Man had plenty of time
to relax and chill out after unloading all the fresh kill and waiting for Woman
to cook his supper.
These days, we've all advanced to a new level
of conscience — and preoccupation — that probably will not let you get in the
100% proper mood to enjoy this new musical painting. For what it is worth,
though, I find it every bit as well-developed and beautiful as anything he'd
ever done in the genre. All four tracks sound very much alike, with relatively
minor nuances responsible for minor mood shifts, so, in a way, it is sort of
like a somewhat busier, more involving Thursday
Afternoon, where the point is no longer to infuriate you with its subtle
arrogance, but to honestly entertain you with visions of yet another glass
castle... or tropical aquarium, whichever way your imagination takes you,
provided you have one and it includes hardware support for Enotronics.
The specific catch is that, in addition to Eno,
Lux also features the contributions
of Leo Abrahams on «Moog guitar», and of Neil Catchpole on viola and violin: I
do not even remember when was the last time, if there even was a last time, that Brian recruited string players for his purely
ambient projects, and these textures make a lot of difference. Usually it is
just a single note, of course, bowed smoothly and steadily somewhere in the
background, fading in and out ever so slightly, but in combination with the
slowly tinkling keyboards this can have an even stronger hypnotizing effect
than bare keyboards (unless the wheezy sound happens to irritate you; if so,
better shut off and reboot your ears in safe mode before continuing).
Most of the positive responses to Lux, I think, came from people who
never realised before how seriously tired
they were of all the information overload and all the frantic activity (or
frantic simulated activity) of modern music (particularly electronic) —
probably putting it in the same category as all those «slow reading clubs» and
other feats of deceleration and downshifting — so it is quite possible that
this was Eno's intention all the way: for him, to release Lux in 2012 is pretty much the same as it would be for a major
former disco star to put out a canonical disco record. Just to see if it still
holds up, you know. From that point of view, Lux is a total success: critics liked it, fans seemed pleased, and yes,
the man can still put you to healthy
sleep after all these years. And, as I have always insisted, there's nothing
wrong with music that puts you to sleep if its original intention is to put you
to sleep. The nagging question is: if you pay full price for a ticket to one of
those galleries where they play this, are you offered a complementary pillow
and blanket, or do those cost extra?
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
The Butterfield Blues Band: Keep On Moving
THE BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND: KEEP ON MOVING (1969)
1) Love March; 2) No Amount Of
Loving; 3) Morning Sunrise; 4) Losing Hand; 5) Walking By Myself; 6) Except
You; 7) Love Disease; 8) Where Did My Baby Go; 9) All In A Day; 10) So Far, So
Good; 11) Buddy's Advice; 12) Keep On Moving.
God, how boring. By 1969, both Elvin Bishop and
Mark Naftalin had left the band, feeling that the ship had sunk low enough —
but, of course, «The Butterfield Blues Band» may function under that title as
long as it has at least one Butterfield in it. Keep On Moving features at least ten different players in addition
to Paul, and I am not even completely sure who of them was «officially» a band
member and who was not at the time. Most importantly, the quality of the music
hardly stimulates me to find out.
Basically, at this point they are acting as a
weak, dis-focused substitute for Blood, Sweat & Tears. Lots of brass, lots
of swinging' and funky rhythms, lots of swagger and agitation, but practically
nothing by way of memorable tunes. Somehow, they have gradually entered a
«loungy» phase of existence, where vibe and atmosphere are created by the
players' tones and personalities rather than compositional findings — and other
than a few more nice bits of Paul's harmonica, there is nothing particularly
fascinating about these particular tones and personalities. For me at least,
the «three listen test» was failed here 100%: glancing back at the song titles,
I have not the faintest memory of how any of them originally went, other than a
general vague remembrance of how much noise the brass section made and how Paul
Butterfield worked so very hard to pass for a natural «soul screamer» and it
still didn't help.
Now, with the help of the «play» button, just a
few quick remarks: ʽLove Marchʼ is undescribably dippy and silly — and its
organ-led gospel bridge, culminating in a "I know... THERE'S GOTTA BE A CHANGE!",
is the biggest embarrassment in Butterfield history up to that date, just about
everything about it being a poorly executed cliché. ʽWalking By Myselfʼ is the
only song that even remotely tries to rock, and new guitarist Buzz Feiten adds
a decent lead part, but he's definitely no new Mike Bloomfield. His only
songwriting contribution, ʽBuddy's Adviceʼ, probably has the best brass riffs
on the album, but they fall on a totally empty stomach anyway.
For objectivity's sake, I should probably state
that the album is very well produced (by Jerry Ragovoy, the author of ʽTime Is
On My Sideʼ and ʽPiece Of My Heartʼ), that the brass, keyboard, and guitar
players are tightly coordinated, that at least some thought is included in most
of the arrangements, and that Robert Christgau gave the album an A, saying
about Butterfield that "he just gets better and better". Well, this
ain't the first and ain't gonna be the last time that we don't exactly see
eye-to-eye with Mr. Dean, and just so that this fact can be properly reflected,
I'm going all out here and awarding the album a decisive thumbs down. Okay, honestly,
this decision has nothing to do with Christgau — I just thought that you
should be aware of alternate opinions, no matter how puzzling or irrational
they are.
Monday, December 21, 2015
Buddy Guy: Feels Like Rain
BUDDY GUY: FEELS LIKE RAIN (1993)
1) She's A Superstar; 2) I Go
Crazy; 3) Feels Like Rain; 4) She's Nineteen Years Old; 5) Some Kind Of
Wonderful; 6) Sufferin' Mind; 7) Change In The Weather; 8) I Could Cry; 9) Mary
Ann; 10) Trouble Man; 11) Country Man.
The success of Damn Right, I've Got The Blues gave birth to a prolific pattern to
which Buddy has more or less conformed ever since, releasing a steady stream of
records with one or two year intervals that are pretty much interchangeable,
some being slightly more and some slightly less interesting, of course —
essentially, though, lovers of Buddy will want to savor them all, while those
who are largely indifferent to modern electric blues might just pay a little
attention to those few tracks on which Buddy's guitar playing occasionally
transcends the genre's limitations.
Feels
Like Rain, unfortunately, has
no such tracks. Like its predecessor, it is a mish-mash of some really old
blues tunes, some comparably old R&B hits, and a few contemporary, but
still retro-oriented compositions — all of them impeccably played and produced,
and featuring some guest stars to boost up sales; this time, though, Buddy goes
with some lesser profiles, the most notable of the lot probably being Bonnie
Raitt and Paul Rodgers, and with John Mayall and Travis Tritt in tow. Accusations
of «pandering to mainstream tastes», which sometimes accompany descriptions of
this record, are a little misguided: with or without all these people, Feels Like Rain would still feel
exactly like Buddy Guy — if he choked the arrangements up with solemn
synthesizer parts, or started studying Madchester beats, that'd be a whole
other story, but these guys are just
following the boss' directions, 'sall.
What is actually much worse than abstract
«pandering to the mainstream» is the inclusion of all those covers. What
business does Buddy really have in
trying to not just cover Muddy Waters' ʽShe's Nineteen Years Oldʼ, but to
actually imitate Muddy, both in his
vocals and his guitar playing? It's one thing to adapt the song to his own
style, but have we all lost access to the old records or something? Is the intended
target audience of the cover supposed to consist of people who'd never ever want to listen to a song from 1958
because it's, like, all mono and shit? It's not very likely that those same
people would be interested in investing their money in a record by an old
geezer who was 22 himself in 1958. Likewise, it is not very uplifting when he
tries to appeal to the James Brown fanbase (ʽI Go Crazyʼ) or, God help us, the
Grand Funk Railroad fanbase (ʽSome Kind Of Wonderfulʼ — which most people
certainly associate with GFR rather than Soul Brothers Six) instead.
My own favorite tracks here are the two
blues-rock rave-ups that bookmark the album and are credited to Buddy himself —
ʽShe's A Superstarʼ and ʽCountry Manʼ (not that he had much to compose on
either one, except for some new lyrical lines). Totally generic in basic form,
they are simply used by Buddy as launchpads for some major master soloing, with
heavy wah-wah support and a speedy, guitar-throttling approach where his note
sequences cover each other like rippling waves, rather than jagged, broken,
dissonant patterns that he favors more often. The words of ʽCountry Manʼ, which
he delivers like a passionate defense speech in court ("I'm a country man,
baby, you know I ain't ashamed / That's why I'm crazy 'bout my guitar, that's
why I surely will keep on playing"), ring a little strange, seeing as how
Buddy was always professionally associated with «urban» Chicago blues — but
then again, he did spend all of his childhood in Lettsworth, Louisiana, and if
he means that it is precisely this rustic pedigree that gives him the strength
and the stubborness to push on in his «conservatively innovative» manner, more
power to the man, I say. He certainly plays the hell out of his guitar on that
track as if each new verse he delivers on the subject provides him with extra
strength to do it.
If you are in the mood to relax a little, the
title track, written by John Hiatt and sung and played by Buddy in a duet with
Bonnie Raitt, will do a reasonably good job as well. Nothing particularly
special on the hook / riff / arrangement front, but Bonnie's slide playing is
always welcome, and her raspy vocal support in the background feels... well,
suffice it to say that there's a pleasantly optimistic vibe to all of this, and
that Buddy's singing is almost unusually sensitive and vulnerable, compared to
his usual standards.
That said, three songs to salvage out of eleven
is not a particularly awesome quota; and the rest, ranging from the puzzling (dueting
with Paul Rodgers on ʽSome Kind Of Wonderfulʼ? How gauche!) to the unremarkable
(dueting with John Mayall on ʽI Could Cryʼ? How... nostalgic...), are nothing
to write home about. Of course, that did not stop the man from scooping up yet another Grammy here for «best
contemporary blues album» — for almost total lack of competition, I suppose —
but honestly, it does not seem as if the guy was trying too hard here.
Fortunately, he would begin pinching himself way hard for the next release, just in the nick of time to escape
being pegged down as a particularly smelly dinosaur.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Budgie: Squawk
BUDGIE: SQUAWK (1972)
1) Whiskey River; 2) Rockin'
Man; 3) Rolling Home Again; 4) Make Me Happy; 5) Hot As A Docker's Armpit; 6)
Drugstore Woman; 7) Bottled; 8) Young Is A World; 9) Stranded.
This was originally my introduction to
the Budgie sound, and so I am somewhat partial to their second album, even
though, when you put it in the proper context, it loses to the self-titled
debut in terms of freshness and to their third album in terms of polish and
ambition. Still, it seems clear enough that Squawk is not just a mechanical retread of Budgie: in the year 1972, broadening of the horizons was still
considered more noble than locking oneself into a tight, never-changing
formula, and next to Budgie, Squawk has a bit more of everything —
more acoustic numbers, a stronger folk and even Delta blues influence, and a
small, but solemn progressive streak that suggests Moody Blues and King Crimson
as humble, but insistent competitors to Black Sabbath as the band's primary
musical mentor.
Two tracks in particular stand out, each one
illustrating a different facet of the band. On the in-yer-face blood-and-guts
hard rock front, the neorealistically titled ʽHot As A Docker's Armpitʼ is an
early classic, with a super-catchy pop-metal riff whose notes are precisely
echoed by Shelley's vocals (even if it requires introducing a rather silly
stutter) and a speedy mid-section with one of Bourge's speediest solos ever
played (possibly influenced by ʽChild In Timeʼ), while the final section, with
its bolero structure, plays out like a Jeff Beck tribute. Derivative as heck,
yes, but its swagger cannot be beat — and while it is possible to be distracted
or irritated by Shelley's «goat» vocals, I think they work very well in the
context of this ironic, irreverent music that never asks you to take itself too
seriously. There's some sort of early proto-hipster snootiness about all this
that could be despised in a different context, but comes across as delightfully
hilarious when you remember all the «serious» hard rock bands playing around in
1972 — yes, even Deep Purple.
The second track is ʽYoung Is A Worldʼ,
showcasing Budgie's romantic / sentimental / artsy-folksy side — their
initiation, in fact, into this tricky world, and a fairly successful one. The
acoustic introduction, the Mellotron touch, Shelley's oddly seductive
declarations of "I can be big" and "I can be small",
Bourge's massive infusions of thick riffs and droning solos that come and go
while the main romantic theme keeps returning — all of this is not exactly King
Crimson quality, but a reasonable facsimile; at the very least, this helps them
break out of Sabbath's shadow, since Sabbath themselves would not begin their
own «artsy» phase until a year later. Even outside of any context, though,
ʽYoung Is A Worldʼ is just a nicely pulled off epic track, and Shelley in
particular plays the part of a naïve wild child very convincingly — he should
have actually sung more often in this high-and-deep register.
The rest of the material, though not as
immediately hooky or epic, is still quite consistent. ʽWhiskey Riverʼ cleverly
introduces a funky vibe into an otherwise generic blues-rocker (Ray Phillips'
drumming is particularly recommendable here); ʽStrandedʼ begins like it
wants to rip off Jimi's ʽIf 6 Was 9ʼ, but then moves into Zeppelin territory
instead and becomes their answer to ʽWhole Lotta Loveʼ; ʽBottledʼ is a short
and cool slide guitar instrumental (hence the title); and on ʽRolling Home
Againʼ, Budgie become the Monkees and play a friendly little country-pop ditty,
which sounds totally out of outer space in this context, but feels like a very
welcome companion. I am definitely not a fan of such relatively by-the-book
blues-rockers as ʽRockin' Manʼ and ʽDrugstore Womanʼ (the titles kind of speak
for themselves), but I don't have anything against them, either — there's enough
sectional changes and plenty of energy to keep them afloat without raising too
much interest.
Nevertheless, I do have to admit that if Squawk happened to be the last record
by this band, any memory of it would have washed out fairly quickly. Its thumbs up
are perfectly well guaranteed, but it is not here, no, that Budgie would
briefly turn into an unstoppable monster on the brink of dominating the hard
rockin' scene. To do that, they'd need to tighten and sharpen their act some
more — and one element of that was shedding their Sabbath skin completely, by
getting rid of Rodger Bain in the producer's chair.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Beat Happening: You Turn Me On
BEAT HAPPENING: YOU TURN ME ON (1992)
1) Tiger Trap; 2) Noise; 3)
Pinebox Derby; 4) Teenage Caveman; 5) Sleepy Head; 6) You Turn Me On; 7)
Godsend; 8) Hey Day; 9) Bury The Hammer.
A tricky question here: will the Beat still be
Happening if, for once — just for once — the band actually decides to record
music that does not intentionally
sound bad? As in, quality hi-fi production, predominantly on-key vocals,
well-tuned guitars and all? The song structures may still be minimalistic as
hell, restricted by 2-3 chords at max, and the atmosphere may still smell of
lobotomy post-op, but the technical quality is improved to the point of there
actually being some technical
quality, and isn't that, like, sacrilegious for this band? Is there a point
here? Didn't we really all enjoy Beat Happening just because of the aural
masochism?
In any case, it is a good thing that they
recorded this, because otherwise we'd just have empty speculations — and here
is your actual chance to witness a cleaner, tighter, more overtly musical
variant of Beat Happening before it's too late. Additionally, there is one more
important change: the songs are much longer now on the average, varying from
around 4 to 6 minutes, with ʽGodsendʼ clocking in at an awesome-awful 9:28 —
and no, this is not some sort of «progressive» tendency, because the Spartan
melody stubbornly stays the same all the
time. If you can listen to our shit for two minutes, you might as well
listen for nine. Let the chords soak in.
My honest opinion is that the gamble pays off
quite well. In essence, this is the same old Beat Happening — Calvin, the
grumpy one, and Heather, the bright innocent one, with their guitar melodies
reflecting the two different personalities — and the improved sound quality is
a blessing for their vocal hooks, which, although repetitive, finally get a
chance to properly materialize and solidify (particularly when they prop them
up with multi-tracked vocals).
So you could say that the inexperienced kid of
seven years ago has finally matured here, advancing to the level of writing
some really densely encoded lyrical
observations on love and death and to the level of actually mastering some
professional techniques to set them to music — yet all the while remaining at
about the same level of rudimentary musical talent, and retaining the twee
innocence and the gloomy sarcasm of
yore. Actually, one thing that you can sense fairly well is that the
personality is almost completely split in two now: Heather and Calvin move in
such different directions that it almost feels uncomfortable to have something
as sweet, optimistic, and encouraging as ʽSleepy Headʼ and something as grinningly ghoulish as ʽPinebox Derbyʼ (a song
about hunting witches and sealing them in coffins, no less!) on the same album.
Or, a minute later, have to listen to the quasi-Satanic mantra of "turn me
on dead man, turn me on dead man" and then, right next to it, learn that
"it's just the things you do, you make it true, you're a godsend"
over the course of a friendly nine-minute mantra.
Indeed, approximately half of this album sounds
as if it were recorded in the dead of night at your local cemetery, while the
other half was recorded in broad daylight on some green lawn in Central Park.
The two halves lock together on the final track, ʽBury The Hammerʼ, a
relatively rare case of an actual duet between Calvin and Heather that urges to
"forgive and forget, it's time to make amends", as if the previous
forty minutes were spent in the state of a hostile rift, and now the creepy
cemetery joker and the sunshine-loving dame are coming together in one final embrace...
yeah, I could picture something like that.
And yes, the vocal hooks are nice. Not very original — just nice. For
the record, one bit of vocal modulation on ʽSleepy Headʼ is borrowed from the
Stones' ʽAs Tears Go Byʼ, and I'm sure that most of the other parts can be
traced back to their old-school pop roots as well, from Motown to the Kinks,
but they are reworking, not stealing, and matching the old hooks to their
modern personalities. Be it the mournful "we cry alone, we cry
alone" of ʽTeenage Cavemanʼ, or the adoring "you make it
true..." bit of ʽGodsendʼ, or the nonchalantly mumbled "bury the
hammer, bury the hammer" mantra, they're all a tiny tiny bit «new», and
they're all meaningfully attractive.
Overall, this is clearly a thumbs up kind of album — I hesitate
to call it the «culmination» of all things Beat Happening, since it objectively
sounds very differently from
everything they did previously; but as the end of the journey, it is at least
as important as the self-titled debut. You can easily skip the middle of the
road, but it makes sense — and a little intrigue — to take a look at how they
ended up if you already know how they started out. Ironically, this was not originally supposed to be Beat
Happening's swan song: it is more like one of those albums that unintentionally
come out looking like swan songs, and then subvert the band into breaking up because
there's just no way they could really pick it up and continue on. Another
record like that, and the spiral of mediocrity would start swirling again; but
as it is, You Turn Me On remains the
band's most immediately accessible and likeable record, and I'm glad they went
out with it.