Sunday, July 31, 2005

Ekova is no more

So I always liked the Cocteau Twins meets North Africa by way of Ben Watt style musical melange of Ekova, but had not heard anything since their 2000 release. On a lark (I get on many of those) I picked up a copy of Duoud's Wild Serenade on Label Bleu from France, and realized that one of the two oud players in Duoud is in fact ex-Ekova member Medhi Haddab. I then went digging around and apparently vocalist Dierdre Dubois (link goes to a splash page...come one folks, you all should know you need to at least have an EPK ready when your album is being released) is also releasing something on Six Degrees (the same label that functioned as Ekova's North American distributor) called One (that link at least takes you to a proper album page with some media clips; the song and video for Waiting for Spring is a treat).

I can say so far that both releases are rewarding for some of the same reasons; lush production, great cross-pollinated motifs, solid compositions. Where they differ is that Duoud is essentially an instrumental tour de force showing a mix of the traditional (dual acoustic Oud s) with more eclectic backdrops. Dubois on the other hand, does a bit of a bridge between her past work and that which is currently being mined by female singer/songwriters like Imogen Heap, Bjork, Esthero and in some spots even Sussan Deyhim. It is heavily electronic, but bears the markings of someone who is not going to be pigeon-holed and bounded by generally accepted boundaroies of that term.

More later, but for now...

...the new Imogen Heap album is a stellar affair.

Go buy a copy now.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Wacko Jacko's New Album Goes Blammo

Apparently the new greatest hits collection by everyone's favorite asexual, melanin-challenged crooner, Michael Jackson, has tanked. Hard. Really hard. Like 10,000 Exxon Valdez's running aground on Balboa Beach hard.

In it's first week, the (non)Essential Michael Jackson collection sold a paltry 8,000 copies. That's right, 3 zeroes. This article even states that Carly Simon outsold him by about 50,000 copies. Carly Simon!

If he was hoping of making a comeback after his little courtroom escapades, I think this would be a sign he has some work ahead.

Who is Brandi Ifgray?

I picked up Stargazer by Brandi Ifgray from a cut-out bin purely on the fact that it had a production credit by Jimi Tenor, who did a stellar job producing the debut solo album of his wife, Nicole Willis (who in turn I had discovered through her work with Leftfield, Groove Collective, and the Repercussions); both are on Tenor's sähkö recordings label.

From what I have been able to dig up Mr. Ifgray started his career in some kind of alt-jazz-post-punk-pop outfit called Shadowplay. Other than that, I know damn-all about him. But Stargazer is an interesting outing that apparently is a far cry from his Shadowplay tenure. It is very heavily bounded in the Jimi Tenor production style; an almost IDM meets Money Mark style mish-mash of broken electronica, muted brass, strange arrangements, snippets of funk and soul, and an almost eerily cinematic vibe throughout. Think incidental music for a Hitchcock film with very low key vocals.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Track of the Day

So, I never cared of All Saints much, but Mel Blatt's post AS output has been a step up. Her track with Artful Dodger a few years back, TwentyFour Seven was infectious. I found the single for Do Me Wrong for .99 cents and it was a decent find. The single edit and the Rogue Traders radio edit isn't too bad, albeit a bit dated (the single is 2 years old), but the G Town radio edit is a stinker.

I'd like to see her do an album with her husband, ex-Jamiroquai bassist Stu Zender, which I think could make for somthing quite listenable and groovy.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Cowgirl Down and other Proof that Most Pop Artists are Stupid

An event destined to prove that drug-addled stupidity is not soley the province of Seattle grunge trolls and their even more addled rawk-tweaker wives (yes, I am talking about you, Courtney), it seems country star Mindy McCready decided to take an OD nap in a hotel lobby.

I do enjoy it when these kinds of folks, who routinely chastise rock stars for unhealthy, self-destructive lifestyles, fall on their own swords. Such a nice, sweet, good-old American girl that made good....lumped out in the lobby of a Hilton somewhere doing her best impersonation of an inert object. To boot, this comes on the heels of her being charged with identity theft only the week before, among several other infamy-inducing moments.

In a move that is at least as stupid but unique unto itself, Ricky Martin has dropped himself into a political fray even beyond any witticisms I can provide. I was confused enough when the former Menudo star and fine purveyor of songs to William Hung decided that he wanted to be an ambassador for random cross-cultural understanding; how articulate can a man who is willing to publically sing songs like Living La Vida Loca and Shake Your Bon-Bon be? Just read it, and try to make sense of it yourself.

Gotta Love Modern Ambition

So in a move that seem composed of equal parts Jessica Simpson naturally stupid and Lil Kim criminally stupid, we have 23 year old Courtney Handel. CH tried to pose as an assistant of Jessica Simpson to get freebies from upscale fashion outlets.

As you can imagine, if it is getting mentioned here...it's because little Courtney got busted.

Monday, July 25, 2005

This Weeks Releases

So this week is a bit slimmer than last, but some potentially intriguing releases are on the distribution trail:

1. Githead - Profile. I know next to bupkes about this except it might have some former members from Wire, which makes it at least worth looking into further. Wire was one of those UK exprimental post-punk bands almost wholly unknown in the US save for college radio. Too bad, as their Chairs Missing album is pretty good. I'd like to recommend more, but that is all I've heard myself.

2. The US will get a domestic release of Faluas do Tejo by Portuguese chamber folk group Madredeus, which has become a bit of a world music darling as of late. Teresa Salgueiro's voice will most likely be in clear, piercing focus once again, and the arrangements will most likely continue to be complex. Good on them, especially after letting the Nettwerk label take their material and do second-string electronic remixes (Madredeus's material, particularly the vocals are ideal for remix, but the Electronico album fell far short of my expectations).

3. Belgium's Milk Inc. will be releasing a sophomore full-length album. Why?

4. Greg Osby releases Channel Three. He is by far one of the finest saxophone players Blue Note has on its modern roster, and compositionally he never gets boring or repetitive. Apparently he covers one Eric Dolphy track on this one, and that sounds promising. As an aside, his website keeps a rather karge archive of free, high quality live mp3s of his various ensembles. Get thee to the dl page.

5. Mr. Aimee Mann (also known by his actual name of Michael Penn, aka the No Myth one-hit-wonder-and-brother-of-Sean-Penn) releases his newest after years holed up in LA playing at Largo and a general low profile.

6. And finally, Doug Pinnick of Kings' X (who just recently delivered a fine double live album themselves) steps out for another solo project, although his first under his own name (the first two were released under the name of Poundhound). I had mixed feelings about the recording quality of his debut, and I never managed to get around to hearing Poundhound's second effort Pineappleskunk, but I am hopeful this one does his vocals and bass tsunami sound some justice.

Spitzer Pimpslaps Sony on Payola; Other Labels Looking for New Rocks to Crawl and Hide Under.

So I have a growing respect for NY AG Eliot Spitzer; the guy seems completely fearless, and the more his detractors grumble and whine, he continues to slam his way through more and more high profile investigations of corporate chicanery. In the case of his recent activity, he just gave Sony/BMG a big headbutt over their "payola" practices (basically industry institutionalized bribery to get mediocre artists airtime).

How else could you get bands as bone-headedly bad as Good Charlotte getting airplay? Easy, pay one radio station $750 to put them on the playlist. I would have paid double to keep them off the radio.

In a more humorous section, "the label group orchestrated fake call-in campaigns, hiring people to request songs so that the station might add a track because it thought listener demand warranted it" Hey idiots, if listener demand warranted it, they would have called in themselves.

"In one e-mail exchange about the practice, a label employee instructed the call-in campaign leader to make the callers sound more excited: "My guys on the inside say that it's the same couple of girls calling in every week and they're not inspired enough to be put on the air. They've got to be excited. They need to be going out or getting drunk or getting in the hot tub or going clubbing ... you get the idea." Considering how many of the artists the labels try to wedge onto the radio sound, you would have to liquor me up just to stomach listening to them. Even some that sound ok, don't after the upmteenth listen that hour. One can only fit the same Franz Ferdinand track into a days worth of programming you know. Makes you think that maybe radio stations could go back to playing album tracks that were artist-centric, which would help actually solidify interest in a group and get the album sales popping. It was a technique that seemed to work for hard rock stations in the late 90s with Tool (which was really the last I have seen of the practice that I saw as nearly ubiquitous with Bay Area stations like 98.5 KOME and 92.3 KSJO throughout the 80s and 90s until they became Clear Channel automatons).

The best thing about this is Spitzer isn't done yet, "...Spitzer's office said it is still investigating payola practices at other companies. ". May Bronfman and the rest of his ilk leak it to the loafers for it.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Autolux on tour with NIN

So I had heard that Autolux was going to open for NIN on their recent tour and I was quite surprised. Autolux has a noisy but otherwise far less abrasive tenor than herr Reznor, but I could certainly see that working, particularly if NIN keeps it close to the With Teeth vibe onstage.

I actually first started picking up on Autolux from the many headed Hydra known as Prince offshoots. I became via Prince and the Revolution, fans of his former bandmates Wendy Melvoin (guitar) and Lisa Coleman (Keyboards) who later operated as a duet named --originally enough-- Wendy & Lisa. Their studio and touring drummer for their first 3 albums was Carla Azar, who is the backbone of Autolux.

The sound it noticably different (there is some influences from W&L days intact, including tight grooves and a certain earthiness, but there is also an admixture of bits from Sonic Youth and Billy Corgan style guitar skronk to some habits culled from obvious years of listening to the Pixies and at high volume. What I found most odd is that T Bone Burnett produced it, and I always associated him with folkier pursuits (he's worked with Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Counting Crows and most recently produced the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack). But hey, I've seen weirder pairings, and in this case it works anyway.

Shortly before the album was released, I scored a promo copy of their debut album, Future Perfect --still shrinkwrapped-- in a local second-hand shop (contrary to the view that they are a graveyard for dozens of bad albums by Perry Como and 101 Strings with Arthur Fielding releases, such places are veritable goldmines of esoteric goodies, and occasionally brand new promos, as this is not the first time I have found such a prize. Make sure to check the vinyl section, as I have found great condition albums by Funkadelic and Pink Floyd that way).

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Bad Nostalgia Part 1

I am actually listening to We like the Cars That Go Boom by L'Trimm. Reminds me of a guy named Eric I knew who was all about his Kickers and his Fosgate amp in high school...which he had stuffed into an bland, stupid-looking metallic blue 1988 Ford Escort.

Robbie Robertson

Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
1987 Geffen Records

Produced by Daniel Lanois and Robbie Robertson

Personel:
Robbie Robertson - vocals and guitar
Peter Gabriel - background vocals, keyboards
Manu Katche, Terry Bozzio, Larry Mullen Jr. - drums
Larry Klein, Tony Levin, Abe Laboriel, Adam Clayton - bass
the BoDeans - background vocals
the Edge, Bill Dillon - guitars
Daniel Lanois - Omnichord, guitar, percussion, background vocals
+ others

When this album first came out, I had no real idea of who Robbie Robertson was. I just knew all of a sudden he was being touted as a big deal, with "exclusive" video status on MTV (and a special presentation), a lot of rock radio play, and a lot of big guests all over his debut album. I did not realize until a while later that he had in fact been around a long time, as the main songwriter for the Band, which got its major start as the electric backing band for Bob Dylan, and later striking heaploads of fame on its own, culminating in their swan song, The Last Waltz (a striking concert album and video directed by no less than Martin Scorcese) in 1976, whereafter he went into self-imposed musical exile. I now understand not on;ly how important RR is to the history of rock, but that as a solo artist, he is a formidable composer and one of the last bastions of elder statesmen who have kept their sound their own and not catered to the whims of this weeks flavor. This is largely because the music he creates is meant to last; it isn't timely, it's timeless.

This is not the best of his solo output (his sophomore album Storyville gets that status), but this is a solid album that made a distinct jump from his work in the Band, but that is still grounded in the earthy, folky warmth that has characterized him from the onset. With Daniel Lanois as the production helm, and a stellar cast of session players, here is an album that has aged very well from the attention to sonics that rely less on snappy tricks and more on evincing moods and places; southwestern Americana, Phildephia soul, New Orleans R&B, and just a little dancing with the artier and and edgy.

The album opens with Fallen Angel; swelling keyboards and a slowly bubbling rhythmic set up that burns slowly and provides some excellent vocal interplay with Peter Gabriel in the chorus. It shifts to the brisk rocker, Showdown at Big Sky which outside of sounding a bit cheesy, actually works (Robertson is part Native American, and references to his heritage have shown up regularly on all of his albums). The first ballad - made famous by the cover several years later by Rod Stewart- is Broken Arrow. Robertsons raspy voice works particularly well on this one, showing a vulnerablity in the song that Stewart never managed to pass off. There are more uptempo, straightahead rockers; the very political American Roulette and Hell's Half Acre, which like its title, burns. The weakest link is Sonny Got Caught in the Moonlight, which should have been called This Track Got Caught in the Mixing Room.

There are two U2 collaborations, which without Lanois would probably have stood out as outliers. The somewhat pretentious Sweet Fire of Love could have just as well been a b-side from U2's own Rattle and Hum album. But the closer, Testimony is a foot stomping, horn laden parade of uplifting good noise.

The most interesting track is one that was actually released as a single, replete with arty video featuring RR and ex-Lone Justice frontwoman Maria McKee. Somewhere Down the Crazy River is a four+ minute narrative of desire and estrangement under odd circumstances, the type of story RR seems strangely drawn to write and sing about. With the verses largely spoken, the song has a humid, hot denseness that makes the lyrics all the more present:
Yea, I can see it now
The distant red neon shivered in the heat
I was feeling like a stranger in a strange land
you know where people play games with the night
...
God it was too hot to sleep
I followed the sound of a jukebox from up the levee
all of a sudden I could hear somebody whistling from right behind me
She turned around and she said, "Why do you always end up down at Nick's cafe?"
I said, "I don't know, the wind just kind of pushed me this way."

And it just goes from there into a twisted tale of more verses full of distinct imagery and a storyline that follows like a short film in your head, where the soundtrack does the story and you make the visuals.

This is one well done classic rock album.

You might like this if you like:

U2 - Rattle and Hum
Warren Zevon - Mr. Bad Example
Joni Mitchell - Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm
Keith Richards - Main Offender
Little Axe - The Wolf That House Built
Chris Whitley - Rocket House

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

This weeks releases

Well, I thought about maybe rambling about some of the items hitting US shores this week:

1. Natasha Bedingfield (sister to Daniel), whose slightly more squeeky-clean image compared to Pink, but who writes and sounds in some ways quite similar to Pink is getting the stateside release of Unwritten after being out in the UK for quite some time. The video for the lead track, These Words is different from the UK version (albeit an amusing concept involving busking on the beach and sentient boom-boxes), and the album itself has a different track order. Which is sad, because the one great track from the UK version, I'm a Bomb is left off the US release. My guess is that is will do modestly well, but not to the extent that it has elsewhere.

2. The ever pointless group from Biloxi, 3 Doors Down has a new dual-disc release in 17 Days (no relation to the Prince b-side I assume, since I doubt these idiots would know to cover anything that cool). After hearing Kryptonite I realized that these fellows should have followed a vocation more suited to their abilities, like gas-station attendants or golf-course lawn groomers.

3. Cooking Vinyl, a label which recently drew cool points for reissuing Killing Joke's Pandemonium and Democracy albums, will be releasing an acoustic live set by The Church, whose Gold Afternoon Fix album is still enjoyed by this writer here. Apparently it will also feature some new tracks, but no word on whether they are also acoustic or full studio.

4. Macy Gray is releasing a live album/DVD, and while I doubt it will revive her flagging fame, I am sure it will still be of the kind of quality (read: pretty good) I would expect from her. She is not the stuff of greatness, but she is a solid sounding songwriter and singer (limited as her voice is).

5. On the must have list is Charlie Hunter, Bobby Previte and DJ Logic putting out Longitude out on the Thirsty Ear label (which also released the sophomore Yohimbe Brothers album, The Tao Of Yo!, of which DJ Logic is also a member). That is an a-list trio folks. I do beleive another of Mr. Hunter's projects, the Garage a Trois group, also releases something right around now.

6. Another must have is Soft Dangerous Shores by Chris Whitley. Having in the last few years created a bevy of solid albums with contributions from people like the folks from Medeski Martin and Wood, and Dave Matthews (Whitley's Rocket House appeared on DM's boutique label not too long ago), will most likely stick to the stark, moody material he has been mining as of late.

7. In the must have...been stupid category, we have a new album by Babyface. Yes, Babyface. For a guy who must be pushing 40, I think a name change is due, especially if your new album is called Grown & Sexy. Maybe you need to retitle it Tired & Stupid.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Tribe - Sleeper

Tribe
Sleeper
Slash/Warner Bros 1993

Produced by John Porter

Personnel:
Janet LaValley - vocals
Terri Barous - keyboards/vocals
Eric Brosius - guitar/vocals
Greg LoPiccolo - bass/vocals
David Penzo - drums

Boston tends to have an earthy sound to its music scene to me. Something organic that permeates everything, from the most spartan of folk (Patty Larkin comes from those parts) to new wave (remember 'Til Tuesday?) and even a band like Tribe, whose presence was dominanat in the area as a buzzworthy mix of influences that evoked references to early New Order, My Bloody Valentine/Curve, and hints of industrial (probably augmented by the use of John Porter behind the production desk, who had worked with NIN and eventually would produce Stabbing Westward) as well as still carrying some of that local bar scene grit under the nails.

While a song like Making a Plan would evince comparison to late 70s David Bowie stylistically, Nevermind is starkly reminiscent Tori Amos circa Under the Pink and Crawl reminds one of Siouxie Sioux circa Israel, the fact is that this album is mostly coherent and establishes itself as a singular thing (instead of just being a bunch of schmucks parading their influences because they have nothing of their own to provide) is pretty commendable.

The title track is a great piece of catchy postmodern rock, as is Dogflower. The fun opener, Miracle of Sound is apparently about getting a good jab at Milli Vanilli, and Supercollider is...well...about going to work on a Supercollider project, and even the standard gloom-pop ballad Nevermind hints that idea-wise, Tribe is not a one-track pony. They'll write about whatever comes to mind, even if it makes little connection to anything else on the album. The musicianship is above par, with particular kudos to Terri Barous for her rather original keyboard sounds and sequences. They are mostly stealthy and layered in a way as to still sound fresh a dozen years later; there is some hints of Eno in there, and that's always good. Also, Eric Brosius provides an understated but varied approach that let's him drop short solos of great phrasing (the Americana in Red Rover stands out) and a decently varied bag of rhythm tricks, as he does on the noisy chorus of Crawl. And Janet LaValley as a vocalist really should have helped propel this band to far bigger heights than it achieved (it acheived relative obscurity outside the greater Boston area), with her made for MTV looks and excellent vocals.

There are some dead ends, like Romeo Poe which comes off faceless and dated, and Sing To Neptune which sounds like a rejected Concrete Blonde cut (but the Kevin Shields-like guitar work in the coda is admirable). The album itself was recorded a little too muddy in spots, and where you can tell the mid-range is sucking in all the dense synths and basslines, it's just frustrating, but it doesn't permeate the whole album, leaving it still largely enjoyable.

This was sadly, their only major label album, and broke up shortly thereafter, with Barous and Brosius going onto doing video game music and LaValley essentially dropping off the face of the planet after attempts to launch a solo career aborted.

You might like this if you like:

Love and Rockets - Earth Sun Moon
Siouxie and the Banshees - Tinderbox
Concrete Blonde - Free
Curve - Doppleganger
Garbage - Bleed Like Me
Letters to Cleo - Aurora Gory Alice

LOUD ROCK SHOW MAKES TEEN'S HEAD EXPLODE!

This is just funny. It makes no sense, isn't true, but the quotes and the image that accompanies it are worth the laugh.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Lars Ulrich Slept on My Floor (and other Observations by a Rock Star Photographer)

So Ross Halfin has taken some great images of great hard rock icons. He has also taken great images of fairly pathetic (but famous) hard rock stars. This article covers the opening of a gallery show of his images at the Proud Galleries in London. The article itself has some great quotes:

"Guns'n'Roses looked good in the day. Now Axl looks like a silly old man." I contest that is not entirely true, as when he was younger he was a silly angry man. Axl has not made anything worth listening to since ever (well, a few tracks from Appetite for Destruction were good), and certainly was never as interesting a photo subject as the rather psycho blaxploitation extra meets Muppet Show stagehand that is Slash, or the punk throwback drunken swagger appearance of Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan. Axl always looked like the scrawny geek. Now he's the pudgy geek.

"I worked with Metallica for ten years and now I don't talk to them. I fell out with the drummer. Lars [Ulrich] used to sleep on my floor. Now he's one of those people who would shake my hand but he'd be looking over my shoulder for the next person in the room. He really let me down as a friend but that's the nature of this business." Can't say it surprises me seeing as Lars should be a PR flak or office mailboy, since he cannot play drums to save his life or do anything musical worth a listen. IMHO Lars is a self-absorbed hack who got lucky standing behind a seething James Hetfield. I would like to see Dave Mustaine club him like a baby seal with a Gibson Flying-V for a few hours to straighten the little pastry-head out.

Halfin is rarely excited by the current rock'n'roll crop. When pushed to name a musician he would have liked to photograph, he concedes, "I really regret not shooting Jeff Buckley," Halfin says. "I went to his last show in Melbourne and he was amazing." I can't say I blame him for not being excited, as there is not much in hard rock/metal right now that has the kind of distinct visual impact in comparison to the halycon days of the 70s-early 90s. It isn't that there isn't good stuff, but even I have to say as much as I like the post-punk inspired antics of some of the new groups, the largely than life elements seem largely insincere posturing.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Night Flight Nostalgia

What triggered my recollection earlier today of Night Flight is irrelevant, but I felt that the recollection came for a purpose: to tell all you folks how any cable music video channel these days is largely pathetic, ossified garbage, and that if you had a show like Night Flight running (even re-running the old episodes from its initial tenure on the USA Network from 1983-198?), I'd be tempted to watch TV regularly again.

Why do you ask? Actually, you most likely aren't because I would be surprised if more than 4 people read my inane musings, and of those 4, I am sure none remember a show that played in the 80s on a B-grade cable network in the deep bowels of the night. But I digress.

Night Flight was initially a 4 hour block of utter freeform madness. Usually several hours worth of random videos with interspersed interviews (including a very bad infamous one with super-white, super-moribund Peter Frampton), concert footage and strange shorts, both animated and live action.

It was not uncommon to see one hit wonder Rockwell followed by Kate Bush, a smattering of animated jibberish (anyone remember the French-Czech sci-fi absurdity that was Fantasic Planet or La Planète Sauvage as it was originally known), maybe 15 minutes of a live show from Bauhaus or a documentary on some second string post-punk band -- although some consider Bauhaus a second string post punk band. More videos (maybe Fishbone, maybe Talking Heads, maybe Timex Social Club, maybe all three). More animated weirdness. Pepper at regualar intervals with a rather goofy voiceover (I have no idea who the "host" was, since you never saw him, he never named himself, and really all his short blips of speech were extraneous to the actual content of the show). It was only one of two places on TV I know of that ever showed anything by Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics (the other being Solid Gold of all shows). They showed Bad Brains, the Dead Kennedys, Grace Jones, and uncut versions of videos you wouldn't catch during primetime. It was a programming free fire zone.

Now we have the problem that MTV, VH1 and I am sure MuchMusic, Fuse and all the other also-rans have become so programmatic, so compartmentalized and rigid beyond hope, that any chance of a show like that airing now is essentially nil. Unless some whackaloon decides to take his old 80s VHS collection and some downloads from a p2p network and takes them to the local cable access channel and pulls some un-retarded variation of Waynes World, we are destined for ever lower standards of cool.

If anyone has old NF footage, let me know.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Pinko Commie Soft Rockers! DIE!

All I can say is the headline asking why Air Supply is being treated like the Beatles in Cuba is apt, but not entirely so. It is clear when you are in a country as damaged to allow a fashion fatality meets hardline leftist nabob like Fidel to survive in power for 4 decades, you are probably a country too addled to realize how utterly pathetic and useless a band as Air Supply is, and is likely to be ecstatic about anything performing lightweight material that isn't Fidel.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Roland Orzabal - Tomcats Screaming Outside

In lieu of this years release by a reformed Tears For Fears, I felt this old gem from my Intune.org days could be resurrected.


Roland Orzabal
Tomcats Screaming Outside
2000 Eagle Records

Roland Orzabal
Eagle Records

Produced by: Roland Orzabal and Alan Griffiths

Personnel:
Roland Orzabal - vocals, guitar, keyboards, programming
Alan Griffiths - guitar, keyboards, programming, ambient mayhem
David Sutton - bass
Nick D'Virgilio - drums


Some of you are scratching your heads at the name...I can hear it over the wire (that, or my DSL service is weirder than I thought). Why does Roland Orzabal sound familiar? Well, he has written and produced songs for folks like gospel/soul singer Oleta Adams, and one of the growing population of Icelandic faery-waiflings Emiliana Torrini. Oh, and he sang, performed and produced the majority of his multi-platinum success as one half (later the total of) Tears For Fears.

Ok, before the sound of the moronically overplayed on 80s flashback stations Shout causes your ears to bleed, hear me out. This is a bloody brilliant album. It is so well done in its performance and so mature in its compositions that it kind of threw me way off when I first caught up with it. While TFF became famous for the pretty boy looks of original member Curt Smith and Orzabals pre-grunge era cerebral angst anthems, the band was not just a juggernaut of MTV kitsch. Orzabal was admittedly more intellectual and more capable a musician than most of his contemporaries, and his search for new sounds meant that even towards the end of the TFF era in 1996, he was still experimenting and expanding. And while each TFF album had its own stamp -Elemental was pure slick AOR, Raoul and the Kings of Spain a grounded quirky romp, and Sowing the Seeds of Love a Beatles meets Stax Soul era and art-rock boulliabase - TSO is an amazing anthropological index of all that he has done before, synthesized with new sounds in a more tightly wound performance. Strangely enough, when Orzabal finally puts out an album as a solo artist, it sounds the most like a coherent band effort (when he was in (or simply was) TFF, it seemed like Orzabals benign dictatorship over roving hordes of other TFF members and session musicians aplenty).

And mind you, Alan Griffiths has shown he knows what he is doing, and having topline drummer Nick D'Virgilio is a big plus (listen to Kevin Gilbert's The Shaming of the True and Beware of Strangers with his own band, Spock's Beard) as he is not only deft with the sticks, but a good composer and studio knob-twiddler in his own right.

Probably the best highlight of this album is that Roland really uses his voice, something you would get hints of in songs before, but now he appears quite comfortable going from soft melody to belting it without much pause. His vocal power is akin to U2s Bono or Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, but his delivery is neither as faux-soapbox-soul as Bono and as pontificating as Kerr. Some really standout spots include Kill Love and Dandelion. He falters a tad on the mid-tempo For the Love of Cain but otherwise, solid. His vocals on Hey Andy! are both melancholic and diffuse, lending to a feeling of the song in its depiction of death, loss and identity. Low Life is a sarcastically menacing tune replete with shimmering guitars during the choruses to shift the pacing.

Speaking of guitars, Roland goes for textural sonics as opposed to soloing (say what you like about 80s pop, but the guitar solos in Shout as well as portions of the entire Sowing... album had some deft six-stringery flying about). This is not to say the album lacks punch; if anything TSO goes for a dense sound without the need for lots of drop D tuning or walls of distortion. Under Ether is almost six minutes of vertigo inducing buildup and release...the whole song is as vast as the Sahara (helped by the Middle Eastern flavour of the guitars and pummeling drum fills). Dandelion swirls around and around and drops you flat on your ass, and Bullets For Brains, while a little too preachy lyrically, starts at a gallop and does not relent until its last few notes.

Some of the standout cuts are real surprises; Under Ether is just staggering, Hey Andy! and Snowdrop wire together pop lushness with jungle style electronica that leans close to what folks like LTJ Bukem and Big Bud do, only with more vocals and less bleeps. Day by Day by Day by Day by Day is a little bit of trip hop meets updated new romance, although a stupidly repetitive title. Hypnoculture starts as a Deep Forest rip-off but eventually tumbles into an absolutely driving bassline and layers of liquid synth washes.

While so many 80s stars go on nostalgia package tours or mine the same sound of the 80s for niche audiences who can't seem to escape 1983 and pants with too many damn pockets, Mr. Orzabal has actually done something impressive - an album of fresh tunes, and a clean, full sound that claims new territory for an old dog that many may have written off, and certainly should not have.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Listening to the Deer Head

I like listening to most things by Keith Jarrett. Really do. The guy can essentially play anything that comes to mind with great passion and skill. Sometimes he can get a little too out, and I am not always in the mood for his tendency to mouth his notes the way he does at times, but when he is on, the guy smokes.

I guess the saddest thing about Keith is his rather enfant terrible stage persona, known to castigate his audience directly and anything else that bothers him indirectly via the microphone in his apparently long spoken introductions at concerts. I have been reading more and more about his rather difficult tendencies as of late, and it makes me reticent to see the guy perform. At least until I listen to something like At The Deer Head Inn with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian in tow. The opening cut, an 11+ minute rendition of Miles's Solar is worth it alone. This stuff is the sound of close friends at the local speakeasy having a conversation and something smooth in a tumbler with ice, and chain smoking until dawn.

Which I guess is appropriate, since At The Deer Head was a small such speakeasy where Jarrett had done some of his first live work there in his mid-teens. He reconvened there 3 decades later to "re-christen" the club after a generational change in ownership. Good on him.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Bob James - Touchdown

Bob James
Touchdown
Tappan Zee/Warner Bros. 1979

Produced by Bob James

Personnel:
Hiram Bullock, Earl Klugh, Eric Gale - guitars
David Sanborn, Randy Brecker, Jon Faddis, Hubert Laws - brass
Bob James - various keyboards
Idris Muhammad, Steve Gadd - drums
Ron Carter - bass

Bob James is a master of fluffy pop jazz, and may in fact be a direct ancestor to Kenny G, which would make him a pawn of the anti-Christ for all we know. He has on very rare occasions stepped out of that mode to make something accessible but -if only in spots- challenging. This album is largely not one of those occasions, made all the more annoying by the waste of great talent on it (most notably the impeccable Ron Carter).

This late 70s snoozer of a recording actually starts on a somewhat amusing note, with Angela (Theme From "Taxi") which actually survives well due to its status as a rather popular piece of TV music nostalgia. And truth be told I like the Fender Rhodes work in it (even Bob can manage a decent melody on the Rhodes, which can do a lot to cover your faults due to the sonic qualities of the Rhodes itself). But from there it's the title track, which is about as lazy, braindead and bland a track as you can get. Really. Its pretty much garbage all the way around. I Want to Thank You (Very Much) starts off as almost a Frankenstein melding of Caribbean floozy lounge with a heaping de-vertebraed slab of elevator muzak...and then gets odd with strange bits of almost stiff acoustic guitars and brief punches of horns that make it sound like you are about to see a burlesque show, only to have it cut out back to the lounge track. Sun Runner has about eight notes at the beginning that make you think it might be a cheap but passable copy of Herbie Hancock. And then the rest of the song kicks in and you don't know wht to think of it. Best I could describe it is like neutered George Duke writing instrumentals for Olivia Newton John's album of Bossa Nova tinged singles. Yes, it's crap too. The regular piano in it is sharp and painful to the ears in various spots. The closer, Caribbean Nights once again starts ok, this time with a lazy beachcomber's groove, but then veers into something I could only describe as the backdrop music to spotting a greasy stranger at the casino tiki lounge ordering mai-tai's for the overly made up woman in a Prada knock-off she shoplifted from another casinos giftshop an hour back...and now they're celebrating his winning at Keno.

Skip this. Actually, skip Bob James.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

From the Vaults 1

A few years ago, I started participating in a nascent online community called Intune.org, which had a short shelf life, but led to my initial interest in rambling about music online. Since I recently caught another show at Yoshi's (of Me'shell N'degeocello, which I will eventually ramble about here as well), I dug out this review from a pair of other great shows I have seen at the venerable institution:

Live Review: A Weekend At Yoshis - Geri Allen Trio, 03.30.02, Billy Cobham Spectrum, 03.31.02

Geri Allen - Piano
Robert Hurst - Acoustic Bass
Billy Hart - Drums


Billy Cobham - Drums
Gary Husband - Keyboards
Lee Sklar - Bass
Dean Brown - Guitar


Yoshis is a great place, arguably the best Jazz venue on the West Coast of the United States. It's a Japanese restaurant with a Supper-club section that mixes a lively environment of bustling activity (the sushi bar) with the intimate feel of lounge from an era long gone by (the club). It moved less than a decade ago from a rather seedy location to right on the embarcadero of the Oakland Marina and lies right in famous Jack London Square. I have seen a slew of acts here, from Bill Frisell to Charlie Hunter. But this weekend, I went and saw two long standing idols; Geri Allen on Saturday, and Billy Cobham on Sunday.

Saturday evening I sat front-row and slightly left for a close look at modern titan Geri Allen and her newest trio. To say Geri Allen is one of the most underexposed talents in piano is beyond obvious; her style flows directly from the canon written by Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Thelonius Monk, but her sensibilities put avant-garde and modern classical elements into the mix with stunning results. She can play hard-bop with deep conviction, she can swing immensely hard, and she has a rapport with her bandmates so that she allows some near cacophonous improvising, but always able to corral and redirect the motion of the band at just the right times so as to keep things truly musical. She covered a fair amount of material from her career (note: Geri has been actively recording for almost 2 decades, and has a huge back catalog of material) as well as one tune from Hurst and one from Hart.

Unlike many of her contemporaries, she is neither tied to an era gone by (like Wynton Marsalis) nor is she trying to push the envelope just for the sake of itself. She carries an air of power that is both distancing and inviting. She is graceful and flowing, but several times during solos one was nearly taken aback by the swinging change in mood from controlled grace to aggressive -near enraged- assault, as if the paino was both caring lover and recalcitrant bastard...heightened by the physicality of her attack on the ivories. It was amazing to watch this soft-spoken woman do slow floating chordal work to explosive romps of hand speed record-breaking runs in her solos.

Geri has typically chosen impeccable people to play with; Steve Coleman, Charlie Haden, Ornette Coleman, and Ron Carter. This show had Robert Hurst (formerly of both the Wynton and Branford Marsalis bands, as well as a solo artist) and Billy Hart (of almost everybody) showing a more than capable back section to Geri. Robert plays in an understated but fluid manner, opting for more open and complex variations rather than sticking to the standard walking bass style. His solo segment was a funky and punchy romp that exhibited some edgy phrasing. Billy Hart was about the only inconsistent part of the evening, with his drums mixed a little too high into the PA (compounded by the fact that I was practically facing his kickdrum). Some of his free-jazz musings were unecessary, but overall he still kept tight time and was varied in his palette of sounds (different sticking styles, brushes, and approaches to getting sounds out of the kit).

All in all, I strongly recommend Geri to those who like a varied approach to their jazz, with elements of other styles and approaches. For the more traditional, I would say pick up The Gathering which feature her trio, as well as husband Wallace Roney (protege of a certain Miles Davis and a top-notch recording artist in his own right), guitarist Vernon Reid, and others. For the more experimental bent, go for either Maroons or any of her work with Anthony Cox, Charlie Haden, and Paul Motian.

On Sunday, I drove the 50 minutes up highway 880 to return to Yoshis for yet another treat - the reunion of the Billy Cobham Spectrum....well, sort of. Bill Cobham started in the early 60s with folks like piano guru Horace Silver but quickly booked gigs at the Miles Davis Bitches Brew sessions, and later fame with John McLaughlin in the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Billy is a very soft-spoken and warm-hearted man in person, but behind a trap-kit, he is absolute superhuman creature, a status compounded by the fact that he is still built like Atlas, and looks like he could bench-press Michigan. He took military drum corps concepts of stick control and used them to a most funky effect, as well as breaking lots of 'rules' about how drumming is done (i.e. his kit is almost perfectly symmetrical and he is able to play ambidextrously in ways yet to be imitated, as well as playing the high hat with his left hand and his snare with his right, a method newer drummers like Carter Beauford from Dave Matthews Band have admittedly taken). His solo debut in 1972, Spectrum was a feat of fusion mastery, and his output since has travelled all over the map from the sublime to the bland, but live he never never never disappoints. The last time I saw Billy was at the now defunkt Ajax Lounge, where he had Dean Brown and Gary Husband (on both keys and an extra drumkit).* , but this was the first time I had ever seen Lee Sklar (who most of you that are old enough may remember as the long-haired biker looking dude in the Phil Collins Sussudio video). None of them disappointed - Lee plays a thumping, galloping style of bass that is a perfect compliment to Billy - he keeps it in the pocket and locks the groove down with no fuss. Dean Brown replaces original Sprectrum guitarist Tommy Bolin (who died at age 25 of a drug overdose in the late 70s) and Gary replaces Jan Hammer. Both have been with Billy for years , but this was the first time I had ever seen Lee live. Their comfort with the material was evident. Gary is not so much funky as he is flowing, with an aggressive but liquid style that suited this show perfectly...or would have if he wasn't mixed down so damn much. Dean played some great guitar, and proved to be entertaining visually, as he constantly contorts his face and his body spastically moves to the sound...as if he has let go of the control of the rest of his body to control the unbridled power of the fretboard. He was an excellent showman who didn't seem phased by anything....including one of his strings breaking during the middle of a song.

The show spotlighted material from Spectrum (i.e. Stratus, Quadrant 4), but also had one Dean Brown composition and a new track called Five Day Run, but the definite highlight was the encore drum solo, which defies real decription. It was thematically constructed to be musically sensible (no wankery for its own sake - it actually had a sonic logic) and visually enthralling. He showcased his total mastery of 4-limb independence and midway used 4 drumsticks (2 in each hand held at 90 degree angles) and used alternating wrist motions to do snare and tom roll combinations that really MUST be seen to be understood. This was a funky and fun Easter afternoon indeed.

For an adequate look at Billy, look for his Horace Silver work, or get the Rudiments anthology which shows what happened before fusion became the f-word of jazz.

*. Gary Husband has been doing keyboards with Billy for almost a decade and even has a disc of his keyboard work, but his fame is really as a drummer himself, for artists like Allan Holdsworth, Level 42, Gongzilla, and a cavalcade of other albums where Gary's wild drum prowess is required. His own solo drum stuff is well worth seeking.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

The End is Nigh!

William Hung is making a summer album of old chestnuts for release. The lead off single will be Achey Breaky Heart from that poster boy for mandatory Supercuts visits, Billy Ray Bob Billy Clyde Joe Bob Jethro Billy Bob Cyrus, that musical homunculus of twang. Other choice cuts include a complete gangbanging of Randy neuman's I Love LA and making Richard Marx's song Right Here Waiting worse than the original, which I though was a technical impossibility.

In a move of equal or greater stupidity, the US Courts give us a petit mal seizure of idiocy known as the Grokster Case.

And in very sad news, I just found out that Mark Ledford passed away last November, presumably of heart problems. I found out only because he is tributed in the new Will Calhoun disc. I very much enjoyed Ledford's work on his one solo album, as well as his contributions to the Pat Metheny Group. Rest In Peace Mark.