Catching up with MMJ on ACL from DVR.

At first I wasn't sure about 'Evil Urges' but in this live setting especially I dig the 70's pop / Shuggie Otis blues-soul they bring to their indie jam schtick.

Jay Bennett, R.I.P.

Jay Bennett, ex-Wilco, has been dead for days now. It's kinda shaken me up a tad. I admit to minimizing his impact on Wilco's music in the past, as I wrote a year ago in this music forum thread:
Been a fan since Being There, wasn't too into A.M (or Uncle Tupelo for that matter, whose final tour I caught). Bennett was a great addition to the band as a sideman and production assistant. Left to his own devices he puts too much crap into the mix, as is evident on his unlistenable solo albums. Palace at 4 AM is brilliant, but consider that it was done again with a collaborator (Edward Burch) and with some co-writes from Tweedy. As for the live band, I've seen every tour since BT, and none have disappointed. However, since cleaning up Tweedy has taken on a more relaxed, affable stage presence, and the latest outfit does the best ensemble/jam thing of any. Any time I saw them with Bennett he acted like the superior rock-star prick, spotlight stage left, thank you.

I'm a big Wilco fan, they may rank second only to the Kinks as my top act ever. I've been revisiting the Bennett-era albums, not that I don't play them anyway, but in particular this week. Just now I popped on their first post-Bennett release, A Ghost is Born, which gives a better assessment of what he brought to the party when you don;t hear his contributions. Simply put, the man was a musical master, a pop architect. It is undeniable that his contributions to Wilco took them from pretty-good alt-country territory to best band going right now. Yes, he was a little ADD in his approach, and may have cluttered things up a bit when left to his own devices. He may have been hard to deal with...so can Tweedy be. None of that overshadows his impact on some of the greatest records recorded in the past twenty years. And Jay's solo/collaborative record with Edward Burch (Palace at 4 AM) is a lost pop masterpiece.
Cause of death is still unknown, but anyone dying at 45 is a shame. Live every day as if it were your last, one day it will be. And try to make nice with those you have loved, because one day you may not be able to say "I'm Sorry".

An Outtake from I am Trying to Break Your Heart, Jay's tune "Cars Can't Escape":


The Jay composition "My Darling" from Session at W. 54th:


Jay's contributions the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

21 Reasons Why Jay Bennett Should be Back in Wilco

R.I.P. Jay.....

Thinking Outside The Box Store

From Magnet, 2006:

"So you’re leafing through the ads in the Sunday paper and what to your wondering eyes should appear but the new Cat Power CD for $7.99. At Best Buy. This, you figure, is a great thing. Cheaper than iTunes, way cheaper than the $12.99 they’ll probably be charging at the local record store. And look: You can pick up Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire and a couple other titles at the same ridiculous price. It’s almost free, and therein, gentle indie rockers, lies the problem......"

Read it all here, then go out and buy a record from the locals.

Record Store Day

April 18. This annual event will take place at your local independent record store. Lots of promos and exclusives and just a good reason to support these guys in down times. C'mon folks, how about picking up a real, tangible album (or cd) rather than send all your cash to Itunes or worse??

http://www.recordstoreday.com

John Mellencamp on the state of the music 'industry'

From Huffington Post (also on his website)

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We've read and heard about the "good old days" and how things used to be. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements. Artists and their music flourished in back alleys, taverns and barns until, in some cases, a popular groundswell propelled it far and wide. These days, that possibility no longer seems to exist. After 35 years as an artist in the recording business, I feel somehow compelled, not inspired, to stand up for our fellow artists and tell that side of the story as I perceive it. Had the industry not been decimated by a lack of vision caused by corporate bean counters obsessed with the bottom line, musicians would have been able to stick with creating music rather than trying to market it as well.....

Read the whole piece

The Amazing Saving Grace of Neko Case

I tend to be a year behind all the cool trends, and I like it that way. I tend to peruse end of year best-of lists and use them to get the music I missed. It's a good strategy; the fluff may get sorted out a bit better, some records may be available in the used bin or finally on vinyl. As I was going over this Hype Machine Music Blog Zeitgeist list of the best of 2008, I was amazed with not only the shittiness of a lot of it, but that this is what the kids think was the best of the year. This blog polls other music blogs for their best-of's, so it's weighted towards techie/hipster stuff that the smart white kids listen to. Now there is some great music on their; Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark, Sun Kil Moon's April, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Dig!!! Lazarus Dig, and Deerhunter's Microcastle come to mind. But a lot of this stuff is crap, blippy disco-dance fluff recorded and mastered with that terrible compressed and tipped fizzy-treble sound. Come on... MGMT? Cut Copy? M83? Hot Chip? This shit is the best of the year?

Along comes this week a little salvation in this world of shit, Neko Case's latest Middle Cyclone. Miss Case is this amazing singer, great songwriter, and just plain wonderful artist. Call her thing alt-country if you want but her sound is way more varied than the usual twangers, and her involvement as singer with the New Pornographers, not to mention her old punk n' twang days with cub, Maow, and others gives her hipster cachet. This latest album is easily her best, taking the lush, orchestral sounds of her recent releases and finally putting them to slightly less abstract songs that dodge around and demand interpretation while offering a touchstone to start from. Listen to her rather oblique yet excellent last album Fox Confessor... and you'll get my drift.

There are enough full/'professional' reviews out there ( here, here, here, and here to start) that I won't waste anyone's time with my own. Suffice to say though that this record starts off (in March no less) 2009 on a great foot. The music is great, the songs are great, and that voice...that voice.

Here's an excellent interview from the NY Times on the making of the album and all, and one from NPR. Since she's apparently moved to Vermont, I think I'll hit her up to sing at my summer barbecue for all the free cider she wants.

Obama's Secret Record Collection

from Rolling Stone....

When Barack Obama moved into the White House on January 20th, he gained access to five chefs, a private bowling alley — and a killer collection of classic LPs. Stored in the basement of the executive mansion is the official White House Record Library: several hundred LPs that include landmark albums in rock (Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed), punk (the Ramones' Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols), cult classics (Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin) and disco. Not to mention records by Santana, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Isaac Hayes, Elton John, the Cars and Barry Manilow.

During the waning days of the Nixon administration, the RIAA, the record companies' trade group, decided the library should include sound recordings as well as books. In 1973, the organization donated close to 2,000 LPs. The bad news: The selection was dominated by the likes of Pat Boone, the Carpenters and John Denver. In 1979, legendary producer John Hammond convened a new commission to update the list for the hipper Carter administration. "They felt they needed to redress some of the oversights that might have taken place the first time around," says Boston music critic and author Bob Blumenthal, who was put in charge of adding 200 rock records to the library.

At the commission's first meeting, Blumenthal brought up Randy Newman's thorny dissection of Southern culture, Good Old Boys, to determine what restrictions the panel might face. "That was exhibit A," Blumenthal says. "And I was told, 'Oh, the president loves that album! Go ahead!' " So Blumenthal and his advisers — including Paul Nelson, then Rolling Stone's reviews editor — compiled a list to reflect "diversity in what was going on in popular music." They picked the Kinks' Arthur for its "theme of empire," and Blumenthal snuck in favorites like David Bowie's Hunky Dory.

On January 13th, 1981, the LPs — each in a sleeve with a presidential seal — were presented to Jimmy Carter at a White House ceremony. But the collection — placed in a hallway near the third-floor listening room, complete with a sound system — didn't remain upstairs long. When Ronald Reagan took office that year, the LPs were moved to the basement. Depending on the source, the reason was Nancy Reagan's distaste for shelves of vinyl, or the edgy choices themselves. A spokesman for Obama said it was too early to comment on whether the president would revive the library. But Obama may be pleased to learn that at least a few of his favorite albums — Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run — are there if he wants them on pristine slabs of vinyl.

[From Issue 1071 — February 5, 2009]

2008 Recap, #1 Music Together Now!

By far my favorite musical moments this year came from the Music Together class that we enrolled Alice in. Every Saturday morning we head over to the All Together Now compound in East Montpelier and sing and dance around with other kiddos and parents. It's been such a joy to watch Alice open up, have fun, and sing along, and I expect we'll keep up with the program for some time. Anyone with kiddos ought to check it out.

2008 Recap- #2 Ray Davies

Okay, I'll finish my 2008 list and put it to bed.

#2- Ray Davies, Working Man's Cafe and 12/11/08 at Higher Ground:

Everyone should know I'm a big Kinks fan, from back when I started listening to music. And even though I missed out on the boys from about 1993-2000 (funny how that coincides with my 'wasted youth' years), they are now again in major rotation in my life. Ray put out arguably one of his best records since the early 80's last spring, Working Man's Cafe. Another wistful look back like Village Green a bit, with his solid publican attitude. Ray also wrote some great stuff reflecting on life itself, particularly "Morphine Song" which deals with his recovery after being shot by a mugger in New Orleans maybe five years ago. In general, a really solid record.
So when I see Ray is making a rare Vermont stop on his short winter tour, I was pretty psyched. I hadn't seen Ray since '91 or '92, missing his local/regional stops while I was in my twenties. In spite of the show's promotion and a really shitty snow/ice storm that night, he nearly packed the house. Starting the set as an acoustic duo, he pulled out some killer material, reaching back to the Kinks' Golden Years for tracks like "I Need You", "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", and "See My Friends", among others. As his touring band members trickled out on stage song-by sonhg the intimate duo morphed into a full band and filed the set with selections from the new albums (including tracks off 2005's Other People's Lives) mixed with older classics. "Celluloid Heroes" was performed so well I damn near weeped, and the only bugger I had was that they could have dropped "Apeman" and pulled out "Shangri-La" which has been played at some other shows on the tour. All in all, a great night and one of my top ten shows ever.

Set List