Lou Reed

Lou Reed passed away last Sunday after having complications from a liver transplant.  Reed's recent passing brought back so many feelings, good and bad, about my life.  The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed were THEE soundtrack to my life in college.  I don't know how many times I listened to "Heroin" and "Sunday Morning" on my headphones while I was in the study hall of my dorm in my freshmen year in college.  This time of my life was probably the most depressed I have ever been, and as dark as the Velvet Underground could be, they brought lightness to my life back then.  I completely connected with the music, and as a 19 year old, I felt the anger and depression, yet tenderness at the same time from the lyrics of Reed--lyrically and musically he could be as spiritual as he was dark (listen to "Jesus" as an example of Reed's spirituality).  I was obsessed with all four Velvet Underground albums, but especially Velvet Underground & Nico.  I was never as big of a fan of Reed's solo work, but enjoyed listening to Transformer and Berlin occasionally (even though Berlin was too much of a downer even for the dark, goth-influenced late teen that I was back then).  I remember once listening to Metal Machine Music once ALL THE WAY THROUGH, which I think barely anyone can attest to--of course I was under the influence, but that's beside the point.  The point is that Reed's music, his lyrics, his deadpan New York vocal delivery, his style, and his fearlessness to grow and change as an artist were inspirational and commendable.  Lou was an artist, a rock legend, and probably one of most influential musicians in rock music of the past fifty years.  R.I.P. Mr. Reed, you are gone but will never be forgotten.

  

"The Plague": A Forgotten Song

Scott Walker

Scott Walker's first four albums (Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3, and Scott 4) were big fixtures for me about twelve years ago.  Somehow, over the years I've moved away from Scott Walker--I think I burned out on his music.  In the past few weeks, I've been rediscovering his music, and really enjoying it.  I recently discovered his track "The Plague", a B-Side off of his first album, Scott.  This track really blows me away--I can't believe it wasn't released on any of his proper albums.  You can find it in the box set of Walker's music, or on the compilation Boy Child (a very nice introduction to Walker's music).  I love the introduction to the track--the la, la, la's of the female vocals, the fuzzed out-acid-drenched guitar intro to the song, then Walker's vocals kick in, "I spent many nights laying on my back, waiting for the dawn that appears to crack..."   Just a great song!

Nilsson: Aerial Ballet

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Nilsson (No, It's Not Elliott Smith)

I haven't done much of anything with this blog recently.  It's not that I have stopped listening to music (that never happens), and it's not like I haven't heard anything that has inspired me to write (that isn't the case), it's just finding the time to sit, gather my thoughts, and try to articulate why I like what I like can be difficult.  I'm not a writer, so it makes it all the more difficult for me. 

What I do know is that I've been on a 60's/70's pop kick recently, running through the catalog of post-Pet Sounds era Beach Boys albums (Sunflower, Surf's Up, and Friends are all enjoyable albums while nightly getting my mind blown by Smile and the outtakes), delving back into Syd Barrett/early Pink Floyd era, repeatedly listening to the first three Love albums (Love, Da Capo, and of course, Forever Changes)--essentially I'm going back to my college music interests...

While I've heard plenty of Nilsson songs, and even once had a solid compilation of his work called Personal Best, I recently picked up the Pandemonium Shadow Show/Aerial Ballet albums on cd, essentially the first two solo Nilsson albums compiled on cd.  While I like Pandemonium Shadow Show, and can understand John Lennon's obsession with the album, Aerial Ballet is the album of Nilsson's that really gets me.  From the brilliant pop of "Good Old Desk", to minimalist organ (keyboard?) track "One", to the gospel-tinged "Bath", to the Fred Neil, country-ish cover of "Everybody's Talkin'", it's all pretty brilliant in my eyes.  This song particularly gets me...

..."I Said Goodbye to Me" is probably one of the best break-up, moving-on-with-my-life songs I have heard.  Maybe because I wasn't familiar with this track, and was already familiar with a majority of Aerial Ballet from compilations, I don't know.  It doesn't resonate with my current life, but everyone has had a break-up in which they felt afterwards, everything in their life is entirely changing, and they have moved on.

And Aerial Ballet ends with "Bath", a nice closure to an album with it's gospel-like opening piano chords...

Sunshine Pop, Psych Pop, and Pet Sounds

 

I've been on a bit of a warm weather, sunshine and psych pop bent recently.  Of the things that has "floated my boat" recently:

1.  The Beach Boys The Pet Sounds Sessions--If I had to choose one album to take on a desert island, it would certainly be Pet Sounds.  That album means everything to me, and has since I was a kid.  Just recently I decided to pick up The Pet Sounds Sessions, released in 1996, and have been absolutely blown away by the disc 3 of the box set.  Disc 3 is vocals only, a cappella versions of Pet Sounds in its entirety.  The album blows me away even more after repeatedly listening on my headphones to strictly the harmonic vocals of The Beach Boys, pure as day and absolutely brilliant.

2.  Curt Boettcher--I dug the singer-songwriter and his compositions with The Association, and I'm also rediscovering his band The Millennium, and realizing what a brilliant album Begin is.  I bought Begin a few years ago, but never really delved into it until the past month.

Curt also formed a band named Sagittarius and recorded an album in 1968 (same year as The Millennium Begin was released) called Present Tense, which I just recently purchased so I can't form a great opinion of it yet, but I have enjoyed what I heard thus far.

3.  Lastly, I've rediscovered Olivia Tremor Control, and have been listening to their two albums, Dusk at Cubist Castle, and Black Foliage recently.  They were an amazing band from the late 90's from the Elephant 6 Collective, and were one of my favorite bands during that era.  It's fun rediscovering albums that I haven't heard in over ten years--I feel like I'm approaching the band with fresh ears again and they still sound wonderful to me. 

Stark Reality: Acting, Thinking, Feeling (The Complete Works)

I don't know what to write about The Stark Reality.  You can probably google them and find tons of bloggers that have written wonderful superlatives about them, and describe the sound of the band better than I.  Let me just say that I was pumped to pick this up the other week.  Previously all I had of The Stark Reality was the compilation Now, which was nice but I really wanted to full deal.  The Stark Reality was a groove machine--a band that existed in the late 60's/early 70's, and were a combination of jazz, rare groove, and soul (with a little psych thrown in).  No one sounds like them.  And come on, an electric vibraphone, who can beat that!  Included in the Acting, Feeling, Feeling (The Complete Works) is the classic album in its entirety Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop, a crazy album written for a public television show for kids which featured vibraphonist Monty Stark.  It's great music and well worth picking up!  The first clip I have posted is footage from the children's show (I wish I was one of those kids!), along with the music of Stark Reality performing live.  The three clips following are individual tracks from the album Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop.

 

Nature Boy

Nat King Cole

"Nature Boy" is one of my favorite songs of all-time.  It's a timeless song, written in 1947 by Eden Ahbez and first sang, and made popular, by Nat King Cole. 

 Since then it's been covered by many people over the years, from jazz guitarist George Benson, to power-pop icons Big Star, to psych-rock underground legends Gandalf.  I really love every version, because each are so different in their own right.  Besides the Nat King Cole and George Benson version, the next version I heard was by Big Star off of their Third/Sister Lovers album, when I was highly into anything Chilton-Bell-Big Star related back in college.  Alex Chilton sounds so lonely and cold on "Nature Boy", I remember playing it repeatedly when I was in college 15 years ago and being mesmorized by it.  

The George Benson version of "Nature Boy" may have been the first version that I heard, as I come out of the womb listening to Benson constantly in the first five years of my life.   It's got a funky-jazz feel, and I enjoy Benson's vocals on it. 

 
Lastly, this is the most recent version of "Nature Boy" that I've heard.  In the past six months, I bought Gandalf's self-titled album, and it has increasingly become one of my go-to favorite psych albums.  "Nature Boy" certainly gets the "Gandalf" treatment on this album.  Very psych.

Let's Talk Prog...

Soft Machine

...Or more like, essential Prog, because there is a lot of craptastic Prog Rock that I've never dug.  From my somewhat limited knowledge of Prog Rock, the ones that are tops are the first few Soft Machine albums (Volume One, Volume Two, and Third), King Crimson In The Court of The Crimson King, Gong You and Angel's Egg (though sometimes they are a bit too lyrically quirky for my taste at times), Caravan In The Land of Pink and Grey, and Egg's first album Egg.  Definitely of the Prog I've delved into over the past seven-eight years that I've liked the most is the Canterbury scene Prog, and I've never quite gotten into Yes, ELP, type of Prog. This is the kind've stuff by Soft Machine off their first album that I dig:

 As I mentioned I get sometimes get turned off by some of Gong's quirkiness, but sometimes their music really hits on all cylinders, like when they get into a groove with flutes, crazy drumming, and of course, Prog's essential, the Saxophone:

I have begun to just recently get into Egg, part of the Canterbury scene of the early 70's.  Check out their rendition of a Bach composition:

Recently I've been thinking I need to delve deeper into Prog, but it's hard to wade through the crap and find the cream of the crop.  Maybe my like of Prog is mainly of the Canterbury bands--a little more poppy, but still the prominent keyboards, drumming, and saxophones are all there. 

Best Albums of 2012: #2. Tame Impala: Lonerism

Tame Impala's Lonerism is my favorite rock album of 2012.  Tame Impala is basically Australian's psych-singer-songwriter Kevin Parker's project, and his second full-length release.  His debut, 2010's Innerspeaker was equally as good.  I dig the drums, the psych-era John Lennon-esque vocals, the fuzzed out guitars, and the more prominent synths, which Parker has emphasized more on this album than the debut.  I highly recommend Lonerism, one of the main reasons to rock out in 2012. 

Face-to-Face Jams

A Love of Your Own

Ned Doheny has been one of my favorite (and more underrated, in my opinion) L.A. singer-songwriters from the 70's era.  He was known in the L.A. singer-songwriter community, but was largely unknown by the mainstream.  He recorded a few solid albums, notably Prone but especially Hard Candy, as it features some sun-soaked groovers.  File under:  early Hall & Oates, Todd Rundgren, and Bobby Caldwell, among the blue-eyed soul greats.  "A Love of Your Own" is one of Doheny's most solid cuts, with some tasty vibes, and also featuring Steve Cropper on guitar and Tower of Power on the horns!

Looking Forward To THIS...

Tame Impala Innerspeaker was one of the best rock releases over the past five to ten years (see also:  Dungen Ta Det Lugnt.)  Their new album, Lonerism, comes out in the U.S. on October 9th, and I couldn't be more excited, as I've been searching the youtube clips off some of the tracks off the upcoming album, and it sounds hot, and may even turn out better than Innerspeaker (at least based on the tracks I've heard thus far).  Good stuff, will definitely cop it when October 9th rolls around. 

Blues With An Edge

Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters

I have to go right out and say that I'm not a big blues fan.  I went through a phase in my post-college years where I listened to a lot of blues-folk stuff like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon Jefferson, among others.  It was a short six month phase for me, afterwards turning towards a 60's psych-folk phase.  Recently, I've been intrigued with the atypical blues albums by traditional bluesmen like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.  Each recorded an album on Cadet Concept in the late 60's that was more electric, psychedelic, and generally noisier than anything they've recorded before (done so in hopes to appeal to the young hippie crowd at that time). 

Each also disliked their new style at the time. The Muddy Waters album Electric Mud, has some crazy psychedelic guitar solos and drumming by the members of Rotary Connection.  It's overall a solid listen, as is Howlin' Wolf This is Howlin' Wolf album, recorded with the same backing musicians from the Rotary Connection as Muddy Waters used.  Even though both bluesmen did not like the recordings (in Howlin' Wolf's case, plainly stated on the cover of his album), their subsequent albums are an interesting footnote and brief detour on their musical careers, and in blues music in general.  Check out the funkiness on Howlin' Wolf's track "Evil". 

And in Muddy Waters case, funky as well on a remake of his classic "I Just Want To Make Love To You"

   

Michael Franks

I've slept on this cat for such a long, long time.  Michael Franks is smoothness personified, with a singing style part Chet Baker and part Donovan.  He's jazzier than Donovan and more rock-influenced than Chet Baker.  It's all good though, with those electric keys and smooth vocals over some solid lyrics.  Over the past few months, I've picked up both his The Art of Tea (largely considered to be his best), and Sleeping Gypsy albums, and really enjoy them both.  Why didn't I listen to this cat sooner?  I wish I knew...

Summer '12: Get Yr Rawk On!

Black Sabbath in their heyday

There was a time many, many years ago, that I listened to tons of rock.  I am a product of the northwest, exposed to all the grunge music filtering throughout the region as teenager, so rock is in my blood.  Besides listening to old school rock like Jimi Hendrix, I loved the Seattle sounds of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney in the early 90's, among others.  Over time, most of those grunge albums have been traded in for other albums.  Just recently, I decided to put on some Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin for the first time in years--I've been in a rock mood over this past weekend, and it felt right.  Really, if someone asks you who are the greatest rock bands ever, those are the two I would say immediately.  Beatles are more melodic pop, Rolling Stones can be rock, but also had a bluesy bent.  Velvet Underground could rock but were too arty to be considered a pure rock band.  As everyone knows, Zeppelin is blues inspired (or ripped off blues artists, depending on who you talk to), but they seriously rocked.  And of course, Black Sabbath rocked like no other.  While Paranoid is probably my favorite Sabbath album, Vol. 4 is highly underrated and may be the most interesting Sabbath album because there was a lot of musical experimentation on this album.  One of my favorite rock songs of all time is the track "Supernaut", off of their 1972 release Vol. 4.  It's up there with "War Pigs" as my favorite Sabbath songs.  "Supernaut" has everything you could possibly want in a track that seriously rocks--great guitar intro, face-melting guitar solo, and a cool drum-breakdown.  I played "Supernaut" in my car the other day with my 2 year old son in my back, and he went absolutely nuts for it!  Head bobbing and swaying all over the place, makes me wonder if all this 'high-brow' soul, jazz, and Latin that I regularly play for him isn't his thing--maybe he's a rock child after all!  Anyway, it was hilarious, and just to test, I repeated "Supernaut" at least three times on the car trip, and he reacted the same each time.  It's pretty apparent that the rock is in his blood as well, just as it is in his father's.

And Then I Discovered Steely Dan

Becker and Fagen

Let me first start off this post by saying I wasn't a Steely Dan one year ago, or even nine months ago for that matter.  I don't know what compelled me to continue to dig deeper into their catalog, but let's just say I wasn't impressed with the surface hits of Steely Dan in the past, yet an inner voice called upon me to buy their albums and really listen to everything on their albums.  And buy them I did.  First Aja (largely considered their best, and great Michael McDonald backing vocals with one of the greatest jazz-rock songs in "Peg").  Then Gaucho (possibly my favorite of theirs but it changes by the day between this and Aja).  Then later The Royal Scam, Can't Buy A Thrill, Katy Lied, and of course Donald Fagen's brilliant early 80's solo album, The Nightfly.  Now it all makes sense.  You can't compare any band before or after the Dan, they were truly originals.  Lyrically, their themes were dark and at times demented (even the band name "Steely Dan" comes from the name of a dildo in William S. Burroughs novel The Naked Lunch), yet when you listen to an early 80's album like Gaucho, you can picture yourself listening to this album on a yacht with some middle-class yuppies drinking some Cuervo Gold.  But everything inside the music--is so much more.  A great example of this is in this clip where Becker and Fagen discuss the making of the song "Peg"

Becker and Fagen were the minds behind Steely Dan, and they built their songs around dozens of session musicians that would come in by the hour.  They had a vision, and even if multiple takes of songs that lasted upon days on end (coke had to play a part, right?), they apparently knew what they were doing.  Here's one of my favorite Steely Dan tracks, the title track off of Gaucho:

With all of the rare groove, psych-folk, boogaloo, and northern soul I have bought recently, apart from possibly Marvin Gaye's entire catalog, there isn't anything I've listened to more then Steely Dan's catalog in these past six months.  I love every bit of it.

 P.S. I need to apologize to my father, as I used to cringe and tell him to turn off the Dan whenever he would put on their Decade of Steely Dan album when I was a child.  I loved most of the music he put on as a child (Stevie Wonder, George Benson, The Beatles, Hall & Oates, Grover Washington), but I couldn't connect with Steely as a child.  I was wrong about them for over 30 years.

Light of Love

"Light of Love" is off of Bonnie Dobson's 1970 release Good Morning Rain.  This song's on fire.  When I hear Bonnie's vocals, I can't help but think of Beth Gibbons from Portishead (sans the trip-hop beats).  The fuzzed out guitar helps matters, as Portishead was known to sample some fuzzed out guitars in their day.  Dylan dug her, and so should you!     

Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

The Free Design

 

This is the second post in a row that I've gone away from the usual soul-jazz type of thing, but I've been grooving on a lot of psych pop-folk sounds from the 60's recently.  I have two albums by the psych-pop group The Free Design.  Kites Are Fun is probably my favorite of their albums, but I also love their Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love album.  Released in 1970, the album is a little more funky then their past releases.  The second track on the album, "Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life", blows my mind.  It begins as a funky instrumental, then turns into a great pop song featuring the melting vocals of the Dedricks, and lastly, the song concludes in a jazzy, echo-y groove.  Definitely one of my favorite pop songs from the 60's (and there are so many to choose from).  One of pops treasures, The Free Design are one of the few bands that melt my heart whenever I listen to them, but especially when listening to "Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life". (must note:  the below clip is missing the first minute of the song, the funky instrumental section that really adds to the song in its entirety)

Cry Baby Cry

"Cry Baby Cry"--the same title of two wonderful songs by two completely different bands.  The Chicago Psych-Folk band Hollins and Starr only released one album in their time.  Released in 1970, Sidewalks Talking, simply put, is one of the 1960's/70's Psych-Folk scene's brighter moments--though I don't claim to be too knowledgeable on the subject.  It's a shame Hollins and Starr never made more music, but their legacy lives on in the form of individuals like DJ Shadow, who sampled "Twin City Prayer" for his track "What Does Your Soul Look Like?"  Here is "Cry Baby Cry"

 The Hollins and Starr track got me thinking of The Beatles track "Cry Baby Cry" off of The White Album.  One of my favorite tracks off of their brilliant double-album, just another brilliant John Lennon vocal, and the descending guitar chords are very Beatle-ly, and beautiful, as always.