jukeboxgraduate.com

GREG STOP SMOKING

please.

a. whigs circa 2007.

Citybeat (Cincinnati local) has the scoop on the Rhino retrospective.

I'm not itching for the band to get back together. Some day, someone will have kids that need to get through college and that's probably about when people will want to do that again. And I'd like to live through it one more time. But, if not, c'est la vie.

In related news, 33 1/3 promises results end of the month. 20 books out of almost 500 proposals. Hey, it could happen.

Pareles on Young Neil

Neil Young's 'Living With War' Shows He Doesn't Like It - New York Times

Watch this interview for all-time Classic Neil.

And you can stream the entire album in reasonable quality on neilyoung.com.

five guys walk into a bar

OH MY GOD, FINALLY, FINALLY, SOMEONE FINALLY BOUGHT THIS OFF OF MY CHANUKAH LIST:

I know the Faces are supposed to be a guy's band, the lad's lads, and, furthermore, thoroughly British enough to even confound the most ardent of Anglophiles.

But sweet holy jesus does any of that really fucking MATTER when you have the intro to "Stay With Me," LIVE, dear lord almighty, LIVE, cranked through headphones somewhere very very far past 11? WIth all the raunchy popcorn crunch that is the entire reason you love the Faces? Ronnie Wood's notes tumbling like dustbins down the stairs, aural somersaults, the notes guaranteed to have me stop whatever I was doing and run into the middle of the room wanting to play guitar or dance around or just stand there and FEEL it for as long as it lasted?

OH MY GOD. I cannot stop listening to this. The drum breaks at the end were entirely the reason I was so fucking excited when Kenney Jones joined the Who, even though of course he never got to show any kind of mettle even remotely similar to this when he was with them. (And, of course, we aren't even going to discuss Rod Stewart's solo career because that would rate a fucking book about the size of a James Michener novel, and, ya know -- horse.dead.beaten anyway.)

This is the sound that made me love the Black Crowes even though I always felt slightly -- wrong -- doing so. I know it was faux Faces but for just a second or two of live crunchy guitar debris in my ears I would have done just about anything.

It feels utterly and completely pointless to write anything about the Faces when Nick Hornby covered it just about as well as it could ever be covered when he did those readings with Marah last year. It wasn't some kind of grand treatise on the band or some monumental definition, but it was honest and true and made my heart ache just a little because I couldn't relate to the band the same way because, Anglophile at age 10 or not, I wasn't born and raised in Britain in the 60's or 70's.

But when I discovered them at the age of 10 or 11 when I started opening the Pandora's Box that was all connected to the Beatles/Who/Stones trinity, I loved them. I loved them because they could be big and bold and brash and achingly heartfelt at the same time, bluesy and raunchy, Rod Stewart's voice soaked in whiskey and coated in gravel, Ian McLagen making me think that all rock and roll piano players would be like that, Ronnie Wood being, well, Ronnie Wood, and Ronnie Lane's elegantly solid thundering bassline under it all. I didn't understand it but unlike everything else I was discovering at the time, I didn't need to. I just needed to feel it.

So tonight, at about 1:30 a.m., I threw the headphones on and the cd in the tray for just a second, for what should have been one playing of a live version of "Stay With Me," and suddenly it was like a time machine taking me back.

And I've only listened to one song off the damn thing so far.

(Personal to the people in 3R. I'm *really* sorry. I thought I'd switched the speakers off.)

Greg Dulli's Amber Headlights

Two years ago, right about this time of year, during a late fall dark and bleak, I saw the Twilight Singers for the first time. The first cold had just set in and my heart was newly healing, stumbling over the remnants of betrayal. That show was the perfect balm to wounds visible and invisible, just like Blackberry Belle likely helped Dulli heal from his own loss.

Another fall leads into winter, and I am in a different place and Dulli gifts us with what should have been (or more likely, what might have been), Amber Headlights. So much different in mood and feeling and color than Blackberry Belle, and obviously so: these were the recordings-in-progress as the truly-post-Whigs Dulli began to "fly without a net" (his words). All of this would be quietly shelved following the death of his close friend, Ted Demme.

To be fair, you have to evaluate this record for what it is, no more, no less: admittedly unfinished, a polaroid, a slice in time, not a finished product for mass release (although it is, gratifyingly, finding success outside of the major label mainstream). The songs are classic Dulli, some might have been Whigs songs or were originally written with the Whigs in mind. And even though this did not go through the rigorous process that An Album would have, as a document it is fascinating and infuriating -- Dulli can write riffs and evoke a story arc in a melody line without seeming to break a sweat, maybe the necktie will be a little askew and the cigarette burned down to the filter. There's no question that songs like "So Tight" or "Cigarettes" are Classic Dulli, "Early Today" has one of those guitar lines that sound like a heart unrending, "Golden Boy" should be on your summer driving soundtrack, "Get The Wheel" is likely the predecesor to the astonishing "Teenage Wristband" -- and the superlatives could continue. All of this, for a release of unfinished demos that's better than most people's completed albums.

Where Blackberry Belle was elegie and eulogy, Amber Headlights is the Garden of Eden before the fall. Selfishly I am glad these saw the light of day and even more selfishly I hope this is not the final destination for these tracks and they make their way into the live Twilight Singers show, where that truly unique grouping of musicians can help the songs take on a life of their own outside the studio, and in the process, extend unintentional catharsis or elation or even just a moment to get down to everyone in the room.

Order Amber Headlights here

Review: Ryan Adams: Cold Roses

I am one of those people who thinks that Ryan Adams is a Boy Wonder. I am an unabashed apologist for his drug-inspired ramblings and alcohol-fueled tantrums. I own dozens of live bootlegs (over 50, at least). I think the alt.country purists who want a mando on every song or they condemn him completely (they use the same argument with Tweedy, for what it's worth) can go fuck themselves. I am always the first one to say, "It's just Ryan. It's just part of who and what he is."

However, what I have no answer to is the eagerly-anticipated Cold Roses. Finally! After the perversion of Love Is Hell (where are those New Orleans sessions, damn you), chopping it up into bits and then releasing the whole shebang six months later (forcing us to buy the damn thing two or three times, especially if you wanted that beautiful 10" vinyl edition), Lost Highway is going to let Ryan release what he wants, how he wants it. Finally! We will be able to feast upon Ryan Adams' True Creative Genius.

What we got, instead, is an unfocused, meandering double album that seems just the tiniest bit self-indulgent. It would be easier for me, I think, if I could just say "I fucking hate this record, it's the worst thing he's ever done, it SUCKS!" But I can't. Cold Roses doesn't even piss me off; it's just -- blah. Which is, I think, probably the worst crime an artist can commit. Not bad, not mediocre, not disgusting, but to be so bland as to not cause any reaction of note, any emotion, nothing. Probably the biggest crime an artist can ever commit is to be boring.

I will go on record as saying that I fucking hate the Grateful Dead. Hate them. I have incredible respect for them as artists and musicians and for what they brought to the culture, but oh my god I hate their music with a blind raging passion. It's not even a punk rock thing, I just don't like them, period. This probably goes a long way towards why I don't care much for anything on Cold Roses (there are dancing bears on the inside in case you didn't get it), but it's not all of it, because people I know who worship the Dead aren't turned on by it either.

Even with all of this, I still eagerly purchased a ticket go to see Ryan live, out somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey -- only for Ryan Adams would I do this, I'm not even going back to this club to see the Dolls in August -- and the live show was even more depressing. Maybe it was the venue, maybe it was the fact that the best vantage point when I arrived at 7:45 (doors at 7:30, it's not like I showed up at 10) was standing at a bar, with the accompanying noise and traffic. Maybe it was the bimbos standing to my right who felt the need to shriek "WOO! RYAN! YEAH!" every time there was anything resembling silence.

Or maybe, just maybe, it wasn't very compelling.

I hate to the person at a concert who waits for old, familiar material, but while the new songs were certainly warmer and livelier in person, they still could not hold my interest. And the old songs were completely taken apart and reinvented -- legitimate, to be sure, and important always, but they felt artificial and forced: Let's take it apart just because we can. And, again, while that's a perfectly valid reason to do so, the new interpretations didn't reveal anything new inside the familiar. Even if an artist takes a song apart because they are sick to death of playing it, there is usually some kind of perverse energy going on there: "Okay, let's show you what I can do with this!" "New York, New York" as a punk polka with an accordion I would have had a grudging respect for. The slow, lumbering lilt he put to the song was trying hard to be all Nashville Skyline, but it definitely didn't succeed.

Maybe he's doing this on purpose. Maybe he wants to weed out those fans that aren't truly committed to it all, who will put up with and worship everything he does. Maybe I'm just showing my true colors. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm a fan who is simply disappointed with Cold Roses, is willing to say so, and who hopes for more with the next release.

Links:
This Is It: Ryan Adams' latest
7-4-03, Battery Park
Sara doesn't like Cold Roses either

devils & dust, 30 days out

So, one month after its release, I finally make myself sit down to write about this record. This all should have happened much sooner, but I just found myself so perplexed that I kept postponing the task for no other reason than I kept feeling like I was missing something. I wish I could say that it was because this record was so complex and challenging that I didn't know what to make of it, that it took time to truly absorb it. If anything, the record confused me, and not in a good way.

Up until this missive was finished, I had deliberately avoided reading what anybody wrote about the record, not Amy, not SFJ, not even Pareles in the Times (who I won't link because it will already cost you money to read it, but he did think it was the second coming), not even my editor at Backstreets. It wasn't so much that I didn't want someone to tell me what I thought about the album as I didn't want my own sinking feelings about the record affirmed, or conversely, I didn't want to have someone tell me that this record was amazing (#1 in the US and the UK? That must've cost Sony a pretty penny) and have me wonder if perhaps I just don't get Bruce any more, maybe I am not really part of his core audience so no wonder the record doesn't speak to me.

Or maybe, just maybe, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Which is where it usually lurks.

Devils & Dust is not a bad record. It's just not a great record, and Bruce Springsteen, Mr. Control Freak Extraordinaire, only releases Great Records. If he released a record every year and a half I could accept it in the same kind of context as, say, a Polaroid snapshot, and let it be just that, but he doesn't work that way, and the fact that this came out as quickly as it did is somewhat mindboggling. But then you have to add to the mix the fact that I know probably too much, I know how old some of these songs are, and then I start to worry that maybe the reason that "Long Time Coming," "All The Way Home" and "The Hitter" show up on here is not that they fit thematically ("Long Time Coming" does, and yes, you can stretch it and say "The Hitter" does as well [and, only because of the first two lines, only the device he uses to tell the narrative makes it fit thematically] , but it is a stretch), but that he didn't have anything better so he dusted off songs out of the closet. This is of course a time-honored tradition and would be fine if (again, "Long Time Coming" excepted I think - I think) they were such memorable gems that it was only with great reluctance they were warehoused.

And then the boyfriend will remind me of the genesis of The Rising, and how Bruce didn't have much, and that it was only when Brendan O'Brien pushed him to sit down and write that we got a whole album. I do find it funny how many people hated The Rising but seem to love Devils & Dust; The Rising was a great record with some exceptional songs. Devils & Dust is, at best, a good record with some shining moments. I hated The Rising when I first heard it, but then ended up with four copies (work, car, home, extra); even now, I'm not tired of the songs. I can't say that Devils & Dust has similarly inspired me, and trust me, it's not that I don't want to like it. I desperately want a great, relevant, inspiring Springsteen record to have on repeat in the iPod for the next year. Instead, when I want relevant and inspiring, I'm turning to the new Sleater-Kinney record instead--which is probably not a fair comparison, but then again, why the hell not?

I made the point in my Storytellers review that if you have to explain a song in order for the audience to understand it, then something is wrong with the song, because the song should be enough. Sasha makes the same point about "Silver Palomino," and I'll make the same point again, here, about "Matamoros Banks" (and also "Reno," but "Reno" gets its own paragraph, don't you worry, so just hang on). I like that Bruce sees "Matamoros Banks" as the sequel (or rather, companion piece, I think) to "Across The Border" but he shouldn't have to draw the line for me, and the songwriting -- the *storytelling* -- should be strong enough that you don't have to explain to me that you are switching perspectives (another problem with "Reno," once again, wait). And the fact that he feels the need to explain things, both in concert and in the liner notes, makes the songs feel half-baked, not ready for prime time. Springsteen is, goddammit, a strong enough storyteller in 150 words -- hell, in one fucking line -- that he doesn't need to tell us what the song means. And while the man is reknown for the stories he would tell in concert, they were always apart from the song, a compliment, a tangent, sparking off the theme of the song, not long treatises on what the song was about.

"Reno". I get very, very concerned when anyone tries to tell an artist when they have gone too far, or what they are and aren't "allowed" to do. You don't like "Reno"? Skip it. Make your own mix (as some pretentious blowhard who wrote to Backstreets this month did). But musicians are not jukeboxes and you don't have to agree or like everything that they do, and you get to vote by not buying their records or not going to their shows. Period. My argument on "Reno" is that Bruce wanted to very drastically contrast two periods in the character's life, how he can descend from glory into despondency, and he wanted the difference between the two worlds to be utterly different. My problem isn't the language or the technique, my problem is that it just isn't done very well, and not because it uses language some people find objectionable (I swear to god if I ever hear any of you swearing at a baseball game I will report you to the hypocrite police, if there was such a thing, and there should be). That's all. The transitions aren't sharp enough and the middle passage isn't clear enough to me (without his explanation, anyway) and that, to me, is what makes "Reno" fail. Not the questionable language.

(Sidebar: The Starbucks thing was asinine, not because they banned him, and not because Bruce's management wanted to sell the record there -- it's not the worst marketing idea in the world -- but because Starbucks actually believes that the Starbucks brand has more meaning and value to people than Bruce Springsteen as a brand does. How completely idiotic.)

I like "Leah". I like "Maria's Bed." I am not sure that both of them needed to be on the record, and I'd argue that there are songs on "Tracks" that got left off of other albums that are stronger than both of these numbers combined. "Long Time Coming" is beautiful and moving and hurrah that it emerged from the vaults and it fits beautifully with the theme, intentional or unintentional, of parenting and children, that shadows the album. "Black Cowboys" feels like a Jonathan Lethem short story (and is probably my favorite new song). I have made my peace with "Devils & Dust" as a song, and out of the new material (again, stress on new) on the record, it's probably the best song, but I don't know what that means. I also don't know how much I'm colored by my exposure to all the interviews where he talks about the song, or if hearing it live (without the freaking Nashville Strings and other production elements that sanitize it too much to my liking) has changed me. I can't tell at this point.

Now, having said all of this, I need to make the point that I think the live show supporting Devils & Dust is anything but predictable or boring and is in fact incredibly reactionary. It pissed Amy off -- hell, it's pissing off a lot of people, including big, long-time fans. For a solo acoustic tour to have this affect is utterly remarkable. I do have to wonder how long the surprises are going to continue; Boston felt somewhat formulaic after the string of surprises that have been rolled out this tour (and even "Real World" felt just the tiniest bit rote; I know I am spoiled, being one of the few thousand people on the planet who have heard it played live not once but twice, but still). I like the fact that he is approaching songs from different perspectives, even if they don't last or I don't like them -- okay, so there's nothing I don't like (I am somewhat tired of this version of "The Promised Land" although it doesn't count because it's not the standard version, but it is the standard non-standard version, if that makes sense). I like that he is not rolling out "Thunder Road" and "Born To Run" and "I'm On Fire" gets played on a freaking banjo. I love the honky-tonk version of "Ramrod" so much I would like it to stay that way forever. And I am a rabid maniac for what's been done to "Reason To Believe," although I realize I am in the minority here (okay, I seem to be the only one who is enthralled by it, actually). My only lament is I wish Bruce could have brought the same spirit of experimentation and reinvention that is clearly present on this tour, to the recording of Devils & Dust. Everyone would probably still be pissed off -- long time fans who want Bruce to stay the same forever, newer fans who missed it the first time so they don't want him to ever change -- but we'd have an album to remember.

Oh well. There's always the next one. You know, the one he's going to make with Social Distortion as his backing band. Or with the same kind of band that Dylan has, with a white-hot guitar player that will actually challenge the Guitar Slinger of Central New Jersey.

(Yeah, right. In my dreams.)

(Wait. "Real World," solo piano, repeatedly. That did happen, right?)

(Maybe my dreams aren't that crazy after all.)

Links:
My 4/22/05 Asbury Park Rehearsal Show review
My Storytellers review
Other writing on Bruce

new york dolls to release third album?!

According to Jason Gross (majordomo of Perfect Sound Forever), there is going to be a NEW New York Dolls album in our future! (See Ye Wei Blog aka Wild Taste).

He makes the excellent observation that 1) we will be deaf from all the cries of "blasphemy" but that 2) even if JT and Jerry and Arthur were still around, it would hardly be 1975 at the Mercer Arts Center anyway.

Frankly, David Jo and Syl are entitled to make hay while the sun shines as long as people are willing to go see them. And the best thing is, so far, they haven't sucked, and David is embracing his Doll-ness like never before. You know what? Right fucking on.

Heartless Bastards - Stairs and Elevators

I fell in love with Heartless Bastards' vocalist Erika Wennerstrom's voice on the Junior Kimbrough tribute (Sunday Nights - The Songs of Junior Kimbrough). I was absolutely floored and immediately went to find out more about this band.

I am pleased to report that Heartless Bastards' debut album, Stairs and Elevators, sounds nothing like they do on the Kimbrough tribute. But you know what? It's a million times better. It's the first album from a new band in a long time that made me stop what I was doing and LISTEN to it, the first album I was blown away over, the first album that I had to take the time and get to know it. I loaded it on my iPod and during the first few days, time and time again, a song from this record would come up in the random shuffle and I'd have to stop what I was doing to check the display on the iPod - "What IS this? Man, it's good." Oh. Stairs and Elevators. Should've figured.

You're going to struggle to figure out who Wennerstrom's voice reminds you of - I know I did. I went through everything I could think of - Ann Wilson? Annie Golden? Lucinda? It was driving me insane until I hit the third track, "New Resolution". Maybe it was the fact that the intro bass line seems to be a boy howdy tribute borrowed from "Blitzkreig Bop," but this was the song that the penny fell into place:

She's a female Joey Ramone.

Honestly, that's the best description I could give you, and I only want to try so hard to explain it to you because her voice is so unique and tremendous, a soulful, vulnerable warble, a heartfelt croon. And it only gets stronger with the next song, "My Maker." Realize that I consider this to be like one of the greatest compliments I could give anyone, because it's not just that she's channeling Joey (I'm entirely certain it's not intentional, but I could be wrong) Wennerstrom's own brand of emotion and grace is permeates the entire record, every corner, every note. It has soul, it has guts, it SAYS something. She's not whining or pleading, there's a calm grace and power. This isn't much of a surprise, coming from someone whose web site statement reads: "My name is Erika Wennerstrom. I'm 27 years old and from Dayton, Ohio. I've wanted to be a songwriter and performer since I was born....I just want to keep on moving and do my best not to look back."

The music. It's another three piece, but so complete, robust, satisfying. It's not minimal as much as essential. Erika on guitar, Mike Lampling on Bass and Kevin Vaughn, and it's bigger than it should be. This rhythm section is both fluid AND solid, I mean, like Entwistle-Moon solid; listen carefully to the drum fills rolling behind "My Maker" if you don't believe me, and "The Will" and "Pass and Fail" could be Isle of Wight-era Who.

The songs don't fit into any neat little category, they rock, there's retro (without being such a carbon copy you wonder why they even bother). I could totally expect to have walked into CBGB in 1985 and seen this band onstage, but they don't sound dated. In fact, quite the contrary: they sound fresh, original, inspired. You could even dance to them (okay, that drunk couple who think they can dance really well, but can't, will get up in front of this band and dance to something like "Pass and Fail" for sure).

If for some reason you didn't plunk down the cash to buy the Kimbrough tribute (and why not? It has two songs by the new Stooges!) "Done Got Old" is on here too, and sounds even better in context with the band's music book-ending it. It reveals itself to be the standout track that it absolutely is.

"Piano Song" is the only track to have, well, a piano, and this is thrilling. I wish there were more. It's just Wennerstrom and the keyboard and here you can actually hear every detail of that vodka-soaked, world-wise instrument. "Lazy" wraps it all up, crystallizes it, the voice, the crunge-worthy guitar, the stop-and-start precision of the rhythm section, in my minds' eye I see the drummer twirling his sticks above his head with a Moon-ish grin on his face. It also wouldn't have been out of place on Paranoid (and owes perhaps just a little to it).

Stairs and Elevators will be on my top ten of 2005, hands down. Hell, It already is.

Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out

I became a die-hard Who fan at the age of 15. Did I say die-hard? More like obsessed, obsessive, consumed, in love with a rock band the way you can probably only be when you are discovering the world and your place in it for the first time.

Now, Mike Watt and d.boon (of the late, great Minutemen) were also die-hard Who fans from a young age, and had a friendship that was cemented, solidified through their shared love of and for music. d.boon died in an automobile accident in 1985, and Watt (he's just Watt) has continued fighting the good fight and continued making great music.

Petra Hayden Sings The Who Sell Out is the brainwave of Mike Watt, and was inspired by his friendship with d.boon and their shared Who obsession. Watt suggested the idea to Haden, who is a friend and colleague, and she took on the challenge. The result is what will definitely be one of the most remarkable albums of the year.

While obsessive fans of any band can sometimes be somewhat rigid and defensive of the music they love, Who fans are probably some of the worst offenders on that front. To many of them, there is no other music worth listening to, and no one, repeat, no one, can touch the Who's music. (As an example, for a better part of the 90's a large majority of Who fans were up in arms over Eddie Vedder "daring" to perform the Who's music and sing Pete Townshend's songs -- of course, somehow overlooking that he had been invited by Pete himself).

So Petra Haden is one brave woman, taking on the recreation of an entire Who album, solo. She doesn't even have brand recognition working in her favor. If she got one thing, the tiniest, most miniscule thing wrong with this record, she would be skewered alive.

But there is not one thing out of place on this record, and this is notable because there is no instrumentation whatsoever on the album. That's right, the entire record is performed completely acapella. Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out is absolutely a cover album in the classic sense; Haden tracked every single note, every thundering Entwistle bass note, every rollicking Keith Moon drum roll, every Townshendian crescendo, every classic Daltrey vocal warble. But the difference here, and what makes this album so remarkable, is that every vocal track, every sound effect, every instrument, is created using Haden's voice and only her voice, multi-tracked.

This record is nothing less than jaw-dropping brilliant. It's astounding. It's a truly remarkable, joyful musical performance, while also being the most original idea for a cover album, ever. That said, part of the album's brilliance is that the interpretation is blindingly original, but at the same time, not so inaccessible that it won't speak to a larger audience.

As Watt relates in the liner notes, Haden wasn't particularly familiar with the album, or with early Who. This is important, because it means that it wasn't her all-time favorite record and lifetime dream to cover it. She has no emotional attachment to the songs - which you would think would make it lifeless and dull, or at least lacking energy. But Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out is anything but that. Instead, there is this pervasive pure ebullience and joy that saturates the record. There is a freshness and a spirit to the performance, because she hadn't heard the record her entire life, it was all new to her.

Now, if you're familiar at all with The Who Sell Out, you know it's a pop art masterpiece, and one of its hallmarks are the radio jingles that appear in between songs, connective tissue if you will, trying to simulate what it was like listening to Radio Caroline or any of the other legendary pirate radio stations stationed off-shore in the 60's and vital to the British music scene. So it's not enough already that she's singing "I Can See For Miles" and "Armenia City In The Sky" and "Mary Anne With The Shakey Hands," Hayden includes every jingle - Rotosound strings, Heinz baked beans, Track Records - it's all here.

Every single song is fascinating, but the most overwhelming performances have to be "I Can See For Miles" (that droning Townshend chord-solo is there, too), "Armenia City In The Sky," and "Sunrise" - the latter perfectly suited to Haden's voice - and the top of the list is "Rael," Townshend's first attempt at rock opera - the "mini-opera," as it was referred to, with its intricate instrumentation, captured down to the last note and inflection.

The experience of listening to this record is beyond unique, especially if you are a fan and know the songs inside and out. (Watt alludes to this in the liner notes: "We knew that record inside and out and Petra caught that spirit, big time.") You discover that you know every single inflection and every tiny insignificant sonic detail, and find yourself singing along in your head to the various tracks - for example, "Our Love Was, Is" has an angelic counterpoint I don't think I ever consciously noticed before. Or the bass line in "I Can See For Miles" takes on a new dimension when it is sung and not strummed, not to mention the compositional components you never really heard separately from the rest. It feels like you are listening to the music upside-down, or in another language - you know it, but you suddenly don't. The rug of 'familiar' is pulled out from underneath you, and if you are lucky, it is like hearing and experiencing this album for the very first time all over again, except with the benefit of years of musical experience behind you. You have context and can appreciate it more than you did the first time you bought Sell Out, most likely that dreadful double-album reissue with the ugly American cover.

Oh, and the cover of the CD - of course, the cover - it's an exact tribute to the original UK pop art masterpiece, which featured each member of the Who in an advertisement for the products "advertised" on the album. Of course, Hayden duplicates them to exacting perfection. I just hope the experience wasn't so exact that Haden caught pneumonia from sitting in the tub of baked beans - which is what happened to Roger Daltrey during the original Sell Out album cover shoot.

(Remember what I said earlier about obsessed and obsessive.)

Finally, if you need an imprimatur in order to validate the record for you, here's a quote from Chairman Townshend himself: "I love it. It is exquisite."

No argument here.

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[This review is also featured on Blogcritics.org]

Buy Petra Hayden Sings The Who Sell Out at Amazon.com

Download on iTunes:

gram rabbit

With a name like that, you know I was all over it in a flash. Read my review over at Blogcritics.org.

today's (belated) iTunes purchases

It feels like it's 1985 again, when you feverishly debated whether or not a record "rated" buying on CD or whether you "just" bought it on vinyl. (The all-time favorite quote on this subject, which has become part of my legend so much I cannot remember who originally said it: "Bruce Springsteen recorded Nebraska in his kitchen, you need it on CD so you can hear what was going on in the living room?")

So now it is similar, except in my case it is partly out of sloth and partly out of storage concerns (since all the cds are here, just stored up above in the boxes I moved them in until I once again solve the dilemma of CD Storage that doesn't involve furniture that costs thousands).

(Another sidebar: I honestly haven't had an itch necessitating opening up any of the boxes of CD's since the middle of June, when they were packed and shipped. Does this mean that I really do have my core library on the iPod or am I just self-limiting?)

Anyway, so the reason it took me so long to iust buy these on iTunes was because part of me really wanted the actual records, and then I looked at the storage problem I already have in three months just with the live music, and hit the "buy now" button:

the ramones: nyc 1978

Last month, I spent an afternoon putting bookshelves together, and listening to this relatively new live Ramones album from 1978. And I’m standing there, holding a screwdriver, trying to figure out how to not fuck things up so I don’t have to take the damn thing apart and put it back together the right way, when it suddenly hits me. And I mean, hit me for the first time, even though it's hardly a new thought:

I'll never see the Ramones again. Ever.

When Elliot Smith died, I was up in the middle of the night, trading links to news reports and commiserating with a 20something acquaintance from a newsgroup I frequent. In one of his emails, he mentioned the fact that Elliot was the first death where he felt it was something that truly belonged to him. He felt that he couldn't "claim" Joe Strummer's death as it was before his time, no matter how much the Clash may have affected him. I think that's how I feel about the loss of Joey and Dee Dee, more than any other rock and roll death these past few years.

As much as I worshipped the Who and was so obsessed for so many years that that's how anyone from high school remembers me, I felt as though I was a pretender trying to claim Entwistle’s death. As much as I hate to admit it, it was really beyond my generation. I mean, I didn’t become a fan until after Keith Moon was dead. But the Ramones - they were mine. I was a fan in real time. They were from New York. And they were one of the first bands I ever snuck out of the house against permission to go see. When I was in high school, wearing a Ramones shirt was an act of the highest rebellion, and the only thing that would save you from getting beaten up was the fact that you were a girl, and considered so weird, due to your musical interests, that you were not even worth the energy. Can you imagine this today? (this is why I find it extremely funny when mall punks try to menace me on the bus. I just want to say, “Your Hot Topic clothes and Supercuts punk haircut do not frighten me in the least, you know that, right?”)

So I’m dancing around the apartment, assembling this Ikea furniture, singing along at the top of my lungs (I’m still not sure if this makes me really fucking cool, or really fucking pathetic), and then this realization falls upon me like a ton of bricks. Specifically, it hit me during "Let's Dance" - where I know the song so well I can mark the guitar chords at the exact precise split seconds. That song always stands out for me as the perfect example of why the Ramones were a fucking great band: their razor sharp timing between chorus and verse, Joey’s impeccable phrasing, Johnny’s waves and waves of power chords. You know that feeling where you are just part of the song, there's no separation between your body and the notes being played? It felt like I was there, like it was live, that I was in the audience singing along for dear life and pogoing along fiercely. I felt that blissful feeling again for a precious few seconds and then I realized that this was the closest I'd ever come to that again, and it made me unbearably sad.

There was nothing like being at a Ramones show. Even in 1995 it still felt almost as defiant as it did in 1980. The Ramones were a headliner at Bumbershoot ’95; Mudhoney was the opening act. However, whoever put that day’s schedule together was clearly smoking crack, because that bill was the exact same time as Patti Smith, and while this was ostensibly a poetry reading, this was the summer when Patti had just returned to playing live after 25 years, and her readings were turning into mini-acoustic shows. So what did I do? I saw Mudhoney, and then pried myself out of the pit and hauled ass over the Opera House to watch Patti and Jim Carroll (See what I mean? On what planet did that make any sense? Anyone who wanted to see Patti and JC damn sure also wanted to be at the Ramones, and not necessarily vice versa). It hurt, but my rationale was that I was going to be seeing them open for Pearl Jam twice the following month. (And, ya know, god bless Pearl Jam for that. The New Orleans Pearl Jam show was actually supposed to have been the Ramones’ last U.S. show ever.)

After the night had ended, my friends and I assembled at Bumbershoot headquarters, the late, lamented Denny’s on Mercer Street. Sitting in one of those ridiculously large circular booths, my younger friends who had been at the Ramones show began relating it back to me:
"Well, they walked out to this Western song..."
Me: "Right. ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.’"
"How did you know?"
"Because they always do."
"And someone came out wearing a mask during one song, maybe it was Eddie!"
"Might well have been, but someone always comes out wearing a mask to carry the Gabba Gabba Hey sign."
"Joey wore his leather jacket the whole time!"
"Yep, he does that."

After a while they realized that they weren't going to surprise me with any of their observations. They were so crestfallen. To them they thought they were seeing it for the first time - but they were! That's what I tried to tell them. What did it matter that this is what the Ramones had always done - to them it was the most exciting thing in the world at that moment. And I loved the fact that it had been the same for 25 years but it never felt old and tired, and loved that anyone I ever dragged or forced to go see the Ramones would walk away from the show just bursting with energy and burbling with excitement.

My dream is to start an all-girl Ramones cover band. Just for fun. Some day, I will make this happen. And we will walk out to "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "Joey" will never take her jacket off and "Dee Dee" will always count the songs down "1234!" and "Johnny" will always stand in that familiar half-crouch, leaning back just slightly, flailing away at the Mosrite in a blur. Maybe that will console me somewhat that I'll never get to see the Ramones again.

Maybe.

The Ramones: NYC 1978

perfect fall albums #2: the twilight singers sing blackberry belle (also live)

Q: Do you think people think you're an asshole?
Greg Dulli: I know people think I'm an asshole.

Q: Why? Tell me what you mean by that.
GD: I'm a candid, direct, and confident person, and people don't like that. I think I'm a very loved and loving person, and I think that pussies are scared of me.
--The Stranger interview, 11/28/03

I worshipped the Afghan Whigs. For me, they were that band that you're annoyingly obsessive about, that no one else you know is. It was that train collision of punk and soul that no one else quite got right until the Whigs foisted themselves upon an unsuspecting universe.

Even before the Whigs broke up and Twilight Singers was all we had, I wanted to love them. In Seattle, for a while that was what everyone was talking about - Greg Dulli and Shawn Smith. I heard a few songs from the early, first demo that was floating around, and what wasn't there to love? But then, rumors, fallings out, change in concept, and it became the record that was supposed to come out any day now. The released version really did nothing for me, and I actually wasn't upset that I was not in town when Greg came through with this project in 2000.

Three years later, and another incarnation of the Twilight Singers. The Whigs have broken up, Dulli's moved to LA. Reports are varying - he looks great, he looks like shit - the usual. Pair that with the parallel Elliot Smith reports and things were not looking so great.

But this record is - remarkable.

Soulful with a touch of funk. Heartfelt almost-emo shadings lyrically and musically. Lush and emotive. It's the perfect record to listen on a softly greying late autumn afternoon, just as the rain begins to fall. That's what it feels like, that's what it SOUNDS like. Dulli always wanted to be Prince – okay, he really wants to be Curtis Mayfield – and I’ll go out on a limb and say he succeeded in merging his vision with Prince’s sensibility circa ’85, with enough of a modern sound that it’s just not retro.

Dulli just has a knack for writing these tremendous, climactic songs – “Don’t Drink The Water,” “Milez Is Dead,” and the glorious “Faded.” And he continues it here – “Martin Eden,” “The Killer,” and the utterly explosive “Teenage Wristband.” They’re just larger than life.

It’s the kind of album that only reveals its true self after multiple listens. And even after you think you’ve gotten it, yet another layer unpeels.

Then there is the live show.

This tour did not get off to the greatest start, by all reports. You couldn’t even write it off as younger fans holding the torch of the Whigs so high that there was no way this incarnation could live up to it - diehard Whigs fans were proclaiming they’d never give Greg a cent of their money ever again. The thing is, though, I trust Dulli – I trust his muse, to be more accurate. He might be drunk, or slightly fucked up, or arrogant, but I’ve never seen him go on that stage and not deliver. It might be out there or it might be the weirdest fucking trip you’ve ever been on, but he just can’t lie up there. I don’t mean that he doesn’t tell slightly exaggerated stories or isn’t full of boasting and bravado, but it was always the music that never ever ever lied. I don’t believe you can play those songs and sing those lyrics without looking like a fool if you don’t fucking mean it.

Tonight, last show of the tour, Chop Suey here in Seattle, St. Gregory returns to his former home. And once again, Dulli brought it all home. When the opening notes of “Esta Noche” came raining down, seemingly from the heavens, it was indeed nothing short of homecoming. The songs are eerie and evocative on the album, with their own individual characters, but live they expand and fulfill their promise. They’re huge, thundering, and I swear, utterly breathtaking.

I know I am overly emotional when it comes to this music, but I don’t know how you can possibly be ambivalent or anywhere in the middle when it comes to anything Dulli’s involved in. (Hell, he even sang like he was blowing his vocal chords out on the Backbeat soundtrack.) It’s all too powerful, too passionate, too heart-renderingly, overwhelmingly, painfully honest. This shit is real. Dulli’s been through love and loss, friends and enemies, sex and drugs, and stared death right in its goddamn face. Even before the Texas incident (when he had the shit beat out of him by a bouncer with a 2x4 during the 1965 tour), he knew. He understood. Call it an old soul (or more likely, just plain soul, the one element that made the Whigs stand out for me above all others), call it a high sense of drama, but it was that sensibility that made this band and those lyrics so true.

Dulli wrote (and writes) about life and love and heartbreak with darkness but without drama, with passion and pragmaticism mixed together. He sees the shades of grey and is willing to inhabit all the spaces inbetween. Life ain’t black and white and love sure as hell isn’t, either, and he’s walked both sides of that thin line. The best example of this is, of course, the old “I got a dick for a brain/and my brain is gonna sell my ass to you...” line from Gentlemen’s “Be Sweet”, or a dozen other instances I could quote you verbatim, I know them (and have lived them) entirely too well. He faces this shit head on, dares it to come seek him out, dares himself to go in after it. The lyrics address denial but are anything but that. It’s about standing there, ready to face the blast head on, knowing what could happen but doing it anyway. Break my heart? That’s fine, I’ve seen worse. Do it again? I’ve got scars you’ll never even touch. That ain’t bravado; that’s just an acceptance and readiness to pay the price of living, in its truest sense.

And that was exactly the avatar Greg conjured onstage tonight. The band was stellar, elements of funk and soul and just plain rawk. This is a band capable of playing “Hey Ya” and “Don’t Fear The Reaper” (complete with cowbell), “Black Love” into a Stevie Nicks medley that concluded with a note-for-note rendition of the ending to “Layla,” tweeting birds and all. Interspersed with that were the Twilight songs, better than ever, and then the Whigs songs you almost felt guilty for wanting to hear so badly. – we got “Uptown Again,” “Crazy,” “66” (which came right after “Hey Ya” and I have to say, I do hear the influence of the former on the latter, not that Greg could have stayed away from “Hey Ya” if his life depended on it – when I heard he was covering it, it was just so damn obvious, ya know?) And to end the whole night, the best possible ending, the biggest, loudest, almost arena rock version of “Faded” I ever remember seeing, so huge it overwhelmed that tiny club.

For me, it was equal parts joy and pain and catharsis and just plain old rock and roll goodness, it was abandon and reclamation. It was healing, and was exactly what I needed right now, a chance to face the roaring furies head on, to fully embrace and inhabit all those shades of grey. Only at the Whigs could I find myself shaking my ass one minute, headbanging the next, and laughing the whole time, even if at least a quarter of it brought tears to my eyes. To my delight, right now, the Twilight Singers was the exact same thing, only, well, more grown up, if that makes any sense. Definitely not more mature, just more seasoned, settled, established and expansive. This record should be huge; I’ll just selfishly thank my lucky stars that it’s not.

Consider yourselves warned.

links:
summer's kiss, fan site
dulli's inferno, official site

this is it: ryan adams' latest

I had this standing Ryan Adams debate with someone I once loved. I will cop to the fact that it was his influence that got me to pay serious attention to Ryan's work, something I'd stupidly neglected to do, letting the reputation overshadow the actual music.

Our ongoing discussion ran fairly consistently along the following lines: I admired Ryan's sheer volume of output, simply because he wasn't standing still, he was always creating, and it wasn't all crap. His point was that "more" didn't necessarily equal "better," and that Ryan tended to value "new" over "good". He also felt that Ryan didn't have good filters - exhibit #1, the version of "Dear Chicago" that made it onto Demolition is decidedly inferior from the original demo - and I wholeheartedly agree on that point. (And in case you're going to ask, the demo's floating around the net if you decide to go look for it.)

Because I came to embrace Ryan's work so far along in the story, I think that I may have just a greater patience (or maybe it's just indulgence) of much of what can irritate (and amuse) fans of RA. While my former associate, who was around from Whiskeytown days, had far less tolerance for what he felt was a lack of focus and quality.

I don't know what made me decide that I was in it for the long run with Ryan; I think the show I saw at the Moore in October of 03 was a big part of it, for sure. Moody and plaintive, emotional, almost fragile. Moving from piano to guitar and back, stage half dark, half blue, that beautiful voice echoing through the theater. Even when I hated the attitude, I gave props to the instrument. You held your breath the whole time. I was gone. Then, Heartbreaker became an almost pathetic soundtrack for my life last year, when I'd lie on the couch in the dark and listen to the record over and over and over on endless repeat, trying to fight my way through desperately aching disappointment and regret. That's the aural equivalent of getting a tattoo.

So now we come to the new releases, LLORNKCOR [it's rocknroll backwards] and Love Is Hell, Pt. I. I suppose I could be Good Reviewer and give you the background and the history, but you can go read just about any magazine right now to get all of that.

I had the New York version of LIH (there's two sessions, NY and New Orleans; the official releases will be a mix of both sessions) and RNR earlier this summer. I confess that I had issues with LIH at first, but I think that was an issue with emotional resonance. If you are currently subscribing to the theory espoused by the title of the record, it isn't exactly going to be your favorite thing to hear. But now, even with it being not a fully formed concept (in my opinion, anyway - at best it's a compromise between Ryan's vision and his record label), I think it's beautiful.

I *loved* "So Alive". Just adored it. I mean, I didn't want to, but after three listens, I just couldn't help it. The album, though... I didn't hate it, and I can't even say it wasn't what I was expecting, because I had no real expectations. Well, that's not true - to be honest, I expected it to sound rawer and crunchier than it is. I would have liked a BIG GUITAR album from Ryan. Or a thrashy punk record (I guess that's The Finger, but I just can't take that seriously).

So I listened to it and then I put it away until the official release date. That night, despite myself, and despite working until 11pm, I found myself tearing over to Easy Street on the way home in desperate search of. Yeah, I had RNR, but until I held the official release in my hand, I had no idea if what I had was real or not. And I didn’t have LIH – half of it, sure, but unfinished. I came home, and breathlessly threw on RNR. Yeah, same record that got passed to me under the table. It still didn’t click. It just didn’t. But I had LIH so I was okay. Finally, the New Orleans sessions, which live up to their reputation (Ryan referring to NOLA as a place you go to “to drink and die”). That’s a windswept November album if I ever heard one. Candles, a dark room, and the wind blowing frantically outside. Desperate, desolate, melancholy. Not perfect, but enough tiny jewels glinting through.

But then, after I’d written it off – RNR started to haunt me. Songs, lines, choruses, would stick in my head. I'd be going through the pile of CDs in front of the stereo, or clicking through the iPod, and something would make me go back to RNR.

It's not easy to write this kind of quasi-mainstream stuff, you know? I mean, people do it, and the radio plays it, but most of what's on commercial radio today makes me scream in agony after about the first 30 seconds. Yes, this record is derivative. But it's unapologetically derivative, and it's mixed together in this crazy way that could probably only come out of Ryan. I mean, a song that sounds like Cheap Trick *and* TRex (“Shallow”)? Does it really surprise anyone that he finally sat down and wrote some songs that sound like Oasis (“The Drugs Not Working”) or the Smiths (“Anybody Wanna Take Me Home,” probably the least successful homage) or the Cure (“Boys”)? Ryan's always worn his influences on his sleeve (or tattooed on his arm), and personally, I'm actually surprised that it took him this long to let himself just go for it, have fun, see if he could do it.

I know that most of Ryan's fans think it's unmitigated crap. Amateur, immature, simplistic. But you know what? I think that's precisely what it's meant to be. At this point, Ryan could get just about anyone to play with him, and he deliberately chose this path. Someone criticized it as not being "sincere," but I think that's utter bullshit. It's ain’t fuckin Dashboard Confessional (bleah), but I think it's plenty sincere, because I believe that it's true to where Ryan is right now. Unfortunately (or fortunately), he’s just not living up to a lot of people’s expectations about where he should be at this moment.

I'm kind of curious about the concept of loyalty in fandom today. I mean, I have never taken a record than anything more than, this is what this artist has to say right now. It may not interest me. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the artist or the music, or even that there's anything wrong with me - it's just how art is. If I don’t like an album or a song or a tour, or don’t resonate with it, I’m not going to automatically abandon that artist.

RNR is decidedly not product. It's not carefully designed (and before you point to the interviews where Lost Highway talks about wanting a "single," I somehow do not think that RNR was exactly the answer to their prayers) - it just IS. It's not a final statement, but it's a statement about right now. If you read any of the interviews Ryan’s done around the release of the album, RNR should not surprise anyone. He was tired of music, he was burned out, talking about leaving music (the original announcement of the 7/4 Battery Park show was billed as his “farewell” show). If you felt like that, wouldn’t you just want to go into someone’s basement and just crank out something raw and basic and not too complicated?

I keep having this argument everywhere I turn, and now I'm done. It works for me. Trust me, I decidedly do not love all of it, but I don’t hate any of it. The best songs – “RNR,” “1974” and “So Alive” (at least in my opinion, your mileage will definitely vary) – kick ass for what they are. Not as compared to “16 Days” or “Nobody Girl” or “Oh My Sweet Carolina”, but, again, for what they are. I don't know that I'll listen to it in 20 years but I’m not sure I’m going to listen to the Datsuns or even The Minus 5 vs. Wilco - but does that make those records necessarily bad? I don’t think so. If every record Ryan makes from here on out is just like RNR, and we don't get any more flashes of brilliance (and for that, I'll still point you in the direction of LIH) -- then, come talk to me. I'll be waiting.

It comes down to this: some of the songs make me hurt, some make me wince, some make me cry, some make me smile and some make me sing. More than anything, they make me want to be able to open chapter 345 of the endless Ryan debate with the aforementioned third party. But that's gone, in the type of sad decline and exploding disintegration that's told over and over in Ryan's songs. Because heartbreak is still universal and lost love, to paraphrase something I read once, is what makes the jukebox play forever.

They make me feel. And no matter what these records are or aren't, or what they could or might be, that one fact alone is hardly insignificant.

joe strummer: streetcore

I never got a chance to write about Joe's passing. The news reached me literally as I walked into the door of my childhood home for Christmas, text messages chirping out of my cell phone every few minutes as word of Joe's death spread across the world. I had no time to write, and no one to commiserate with.

All of this is by way of saying, this is probably more eulogy than album review. It's impossible to even feign any objectivity while listening to Streetcore, because, well, this is it.

As an epitaph, it's a mighty one. But beyond that, it's just a fucking good, sometimes GREAT record. I listened to it non-stop after I bought it, and that took me by surprise. I bought it out of grief and loyalty and admiration, but I did not think it would end up that firmly ensconced in heavy rotation, that I would be putting individual songs on repeat on the iPod.

"Arms Aloft" is inspiring, anthemic, full of hope and exhortation: "May I remind you of that scene?/We were arms aloft in Aberdeen," the chorus for all the world reminding me of a bouncing mosh pit circa 1980, and the story sounding like it was inspired by his days on the road with the Clash. "Long Shadow" is a wonderful, wry, Strummer-countrified, rollicking ballad that he'd written for Johnny Cash. The last line being, "Somewhere in my soul/there's always rock and roll..." Someone needs to pick this up as a standard cover. I am dead serious about this and am going to make this some kind of personal crusade. I can hear musicians from Springsteen to the Supersuckers to Ryan Adams to John Doe, covering this song and keeping Joe's memory alive.

Joe's cover of "Redemption Song" reminded me how the Clash were singlehandedly responsible for any genuine appreciation and understanding of reggae that I possess. This version... no other rock singer should ever be allowed to cover this song again. I listen to it, and think of "Police and Thieves" and "Pressure Drop" and their cover of "The Harder They Fall". I remember the Clash bringing Gregory Isaacs to open for them in 1981 at the pier (Grandmaster Flash was there one night, too). Nowadays, the crossing of genres in that fashion is taken for granted. But mixing reggae with punk was about as disturbing back then as putting a CCM artist in front of a Good Charlotte crowd today.

The album ends with his cover of "Before I Get Old," retitled by Joe as "Silver and Gold". It's bare, just Joe's voice, accompanied by fiddle, acoustic guitar, touches of harp, some keys in there. "I'm going to go out dancing every night/I'm going to see all your city lights/I'm gonna do everything, silver and gold/and i got to hurry up before i grow too old..." he sings, and you have to wonder if maybe, somehow, he knew? After the song finishes, it becomes clear that tape is still rolling, and then you hear Joe's voice, with that trademark Strummer self-assurance, stating, "Okay, that's a take!"

Yeah, Joe. That's a take, all right.

perfect fall albums, #1 : matthew ryan

1. Matthew Ryan - Regret Over The Wires

I suppose I'll just be honest and cop to the fact that the whole reason this guy caught my attention was an article in Uncut this summer that basically described him as the best parts of Ryan Adams, without the temper tantrums.

He came through town in early October, as support for the Turin Brakes. It was a very odd crowd that night at Chop Suey; a mix of the usual scenesters, those you'd expect at a Turin Brakes show, and others that looked like they'd be more at home at a Poi Dog Pondering concert.

The loud Friday night bar chat was stiff competition for Matthew on acoustic guitar, and a lone companion on electric and lap steel. But as the set moved on, the pockets of quiet attention grew, and people began moving closer and closer to the stage. That ain't an easy thing to do in a support slot on a Friday night.

The echoing, soaring guitar reminded myself and my companion of the best parts of feel of the Edge's guitar - Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum eras. Having said that, it came off as anything but derivative. Evocative, with just a tinge of familiarity. You felt like you'd heard some of these songs before - not because they were carbon copies, but because there was this thread of - timelessness - moving through them.

The album, Regret Over The Wires, also doesn't disappoint. At first I thought I preferred the bare-bones presentation of the live show to the fully-fleshed out, sometimes lush melodies. It's a strong effort - not perfect, there are some moments that aren't quite as memorable as I think they could be (but the live show was like that too). The other thing I admire about the record is just plain solid pop-craft. Here's a guy who isn't afraid of a melody or a hook and can work both without being painfully obvious about it. Production, also, is impeccable.

matthew ryan online, where you can also purchase the album.