Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Everybody Has Their Own Opinion
No single musician or band has captivated me so completely as once did Los Angeles-based Jane's Addiction, a four-member, semi-dysfunctional freakshow whose music will resonate with me forever.
Between 1987 and 1993, I spent untold sums of money on Jane's Addiction posters, stickers, bootleg recordings, concert tickets, and t-shirts.
In poor imitation of the lead singer, I wore (supremely wretched) dreadlocks in my hair; had my nose pierced in a dicey St. Louis thrift store; and for a short time refused to suffer any criticism of the band from cronies ... or my mother.
And I perpetrated all of this foolishness for a group with just a single self-titled live album and two studio albums--Nothing's Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual--when Bill Clinton began his first term as President.
To date, they've produced a third (Strays) and a fourth, tentatively called The Great Escape Artist, is reportedly in the works. But I'm not holding my breath ... or even that interested, really.
The band's original line-up consisted of founder and front-man Perry Farrell, bass player Eric Avery, guitarist Dave Navarro, and drummer Stephen Perkins. Tensions with Farrell prompted Avery to leave in 1991, and (with a couple exceptions) he has not expressed interest in returning.
Wikipedia, fan sites, and the official JA site can provide more background, should you be interested.
Alternately, you can read Brendan Mullen's Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction, which prompted my present nostalgia.
Interviews with family members and friends from the L.A. music scene filled some important gaps in my knowledge--for instance, Navarro's mother and aunt were murdered by his would-be step-father and it was many years before he was apprehended.
Avery is described by peers as the brainy, brooding dude I intuited him to be. Perkins is a kind of steadfast glue, willing to stick with the rest in good times and bad.
And if Mullen's assembled history is close to the truth, and his contributors forthright, Farrell is an exceptionally charismatic, cocky, and self-obsessed libertine. Perhaps my biggest takeaway is what I'll call the Perry Farrell Paradox.
He has always enjoyed the wild abandon of parties, gathering people together, and is credited for dreaming up Lollapalooza and other music events. In fact, he was willing to lose a considerable amount of his own money investing in concerts (later in his career).
And yet, and yet ... the irony: he is consistently an incorrigible prick averse to equitable contracts and financial arrangements with bandmates.
All of which suggests nothing less than the usual hedonism and heroics of most rock 'n roll stories ... which is why Jane's Addiction so fascinated a particular bucktoothed, introverted high-schooler in south-central Illinois.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
We're Trying Our Best
More than ten years ago, my younger brother expanded my musical horizons significantly through the blues artist R.L. Burnside. The guitarist, who left this mortal coil in 2005, was one of many performers recorded and distributed by the enigmatic Fat Possum Records.
Founded in 1992 by Matthew Johnson and Peter Redvers-Lee, the label's early mission was to discover (and in some cases rediscover) blues players in Mississippi and help them be heard more broadly ... before they up and died. Their business motto: "We're trying our best."
Among the albums they helped create in their early years, including three fantastic compilations (Not the Same Old Blues Crap), Fat Possum won a good deal of attention for the hypnotic, sometimes droning, All Night Long by Junior Kimbrough.
Iggy Pop was reported to be a big Kimbrough fan and counts as one of many artists covering songs on the tribute Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough. (Unfortunately, Pop's two versions of "You Better Run" are among the most forgettable. See The Fiery Furnaces' tripped-out "I'm Leaving" instead.)
In 2002, Jay McInerney published a compelling profile of Fat Possum and its curious oldsters in The New Yorker, titled "White Man at the Door."
Fat Possum artists seem to share a background of sharecropping, illiteracy, poverty, alcohol abuse, and prison time. Burnside is a convicted killer, as is T-Model Ford, the crudest and most exuberant of the Fat Possum lot. T-Model Ford's drummer, Spam, lost several fingertips to a girlfriend with a box cutter. Seventy-four-year-old Cedell Davis, crippled with polio as a child, was crushed and nearly killed in a barroom stampede set off by a police raid.In time, Fat Possum began to sign younger talent with their own approach to the blues (the now wildly popular Black Keys) and indie rock rooted in a blues mindset (Heartless Bastards).
Paul (Wine) Jones, a part-time welder, is the only Fat Possum artist who's young and fit enough to play an entire set standing up, although he is sometimes not sober enough to do so. Johnson is suspicious of all blues cliches, including the one that says you've got to suffer before you can sing the blues, but he concedes, "My artists have all had hard lives, and that's reflected in the music."
More recently, fantastic low-fi bands like Wavves and Crocodiles have joined the roster--artists with musical aesthetics quite apart from the black fellas listed in the back catalog.
Just this past week, the label announced that Spiritualized had signed. Fronted by J. Spaceman (Jason Pierce), formerly of the Spaceman 3, the band will be working on its seventh album.
Not by accident did they land with Fat Possum: Spiritualized also contributed to Kimbrough's 2005 tribute album and Pierce's music, like Kimbrough's, often bears the descriptor "drone."
All of which is a long way of saying that a) deep-down Matthew Johnson is a My Bloody Valentine fanboy and b) you need to listen to these folks and new acts like Yuck ... Fat Possum continues to deliver the goods.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Smoky Pipes Suited for Torch Songs
The Watson Twins' Talking to You, Talking to Me ... we have it.
You might also like their album with Jenny Lewis, Rabbit Fur Coat (2006).
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
A Fantastic Sense of Showmanship
Though you may not know P.T. Walkley, it's likely you've heard his tunes in a few television commercials.
Walkley leads a group called The Blue Jackets, and I think he is one of the finest pop songsmiths working these days.
We have both of his albums for your listening pleasure:
... and the Adventures of Track Rabbit and Mr. Macey Wakes Alone.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Man Up: Malcolm McLaren, 1946-2010
Malcolm McLaren, perhaps best known as the manager of the infamous Sex Pistols, passed away yesterday at the age of 64.
While opinions about McLaren run both hot and cold, former SP frontman John Lydon commented, "For me Malc was always entertaining, and I hope you remember that. Above all else he was an entertainer and I will miss him, and so should you."
During punk's heyday, McLaren was married to designer Vivienne Westwood and the couple operated the shop Sex, which was responsible for both creating and disseminating many of the culture's iconic looks.
Always seeking new opportunities, particularly in music, McLaren once approached the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the mid-1980s and wanted to overhaul the band:
After hearing a short, live set, McLaren was "clearly unimpressed"--according to Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis. He then proposed to reinvent the group and have them play really stripped-down, basic punk rock, with all of the emphasis on the frontman, Kiedis.As for more recent projects, McLaren co-produced the documentary Fast Food Nation, based on Eric Schlosser's book.
Although Kiedis was flattered to be considered, he, along with the rest of the bandmates rejected the offer. Kiedis recalled the event, saying, "It was like the Wizard of Oz had spoken, and what he had said was too ludicrous to take seriously," as his proposition was very different to the band's musical style.
His obit in the NYT closes with the following:
Mr. McLaren spent much of the last 30 years trying to explain punk. "I never thought the Sex Pistols would be any good," he told The Times of London last year. "But it didn’t matter if they were bad."
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Between the Veterans and the Rookies
Looking for a unique group of covers played by some top performers? Check out War Child Presents Heroes, compiled as a benefit for the human rights group War Child International.
The nonprofit's mission is "to advance the cause of peace through investing hope in the lives of children caught up in the horrors of war."
According to the organization's founders,
Children are amongst the first casualties of any armed conflict, always the most vulnerable and innocent of victims. In the last decade alone 1.5 million children have died in wars. Four million have been disabled and a further 10 million traumatised.An important project, certainly.
The severe psychological wounds that war inflicts on children can scar them for life, crippling the very generations that must one day rebuild their devastated countries. For the future peace of the world we must do everything in our power to help these war children.
Instead of the usual angle of young artists picking their favorite tracks to perform, the producers asked senior artists to select their juniors.
My favorites include Beck's stomping take on Bob Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat," Franz Ferdinand's propulsive "Call Me" by Blondie, Estelle grooving through Steve Wonder's "Superstition," and The Like's charming "You Belong to Me" by Elvis Costello.
Great music for a good cause!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Monday, December 14, 2009
100 Best Albums? 100 Best Songs?
Rolling Stone has published two end-of-decade "Best" lists in its most recent issue:"100 Best Albums of the Decade"
It will suprise few music hounds that Radiohead's 2000 album Kid A tops the list.
The Strokes' Is This It falls right behind at number two.
"100 Best Songs of the Decade"In a looking-to-catch-flak (and in this author's opinion hilarious) decision, Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" holds the top song spot.
Disappointed, outraged, aggrieved with the results?
Begin your protestations ... now.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)