“Well, I got out of work and I headed for the neighborhood beer joint.” He sure did, guitar in hand, with the crowd moving wildly despite the 104 degree heat because if they stop for even one second the electricity will catchy the joint on fire. This band is hot! And a blast to listen to. The singer could probably front a country band – but we’re sure glad he chose to hang out with some rockers. Shoutout for the story about Jimmy Blades. The Von Ehrics
The drumbeats start my week with a vision of strength. This is our final week of summer school, and the kids are ready to dance. I’m ready to dance. The beautiful harmonies of these guys take the dance to a whole new level of dancing within my head as my body moves around. It’s a fantastic experience - the physical and the mental dancing going on in two dimensions – one body. That’s what happens when you teach high school biology to one group of children for many hours every day for a month. The mind can travel and perform many marvelous acts while the body stays imprisoned in a classroom. The students feel the same way, so we can laugh together about the absurdity of the situation. So, what’s that got to do with Revolver?
“‘Oh what the hell’ she says, ‘I just can’t win for losing’, and she lays back down.” I have a total admiration for the ear of the poet here. We’ll probably never know if he is depressed and creating an imaginary listener, or if he is close friends with an extremely depressed person, or if he has the ear to listen to someone who is living with a depressed person. And in the end, it doesn’t matter what the situation is. He is able to capture in a few words what some live for years trying to cope with and understand and never be able to put into words the depths of the pain. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but if she feels bad then I do too. So I let her be.” The song is uplifting because he is able to put feelings into words that many people have struggled with. The song won’t end the struggle, but will help to define the ache. When we share the word diamonds in our deeply private conversations, we’ll be paying homage to Rob. And, in case you wondered, the music is the catchy pop music that Rob is famous for, so yes, you can sing along.
Knock knock knock. Is anyone in there? Are you listening? Wake up. The band doesn’t barge into my life to wake my body, but it’s obvious they have an intense purpose to wake up my mind. “I can go undercover. I can slap your mind!” The music is at once both relaxing and intense. The narrator makes it clear that even if I want to understand the depths of her intent I should keep some distance because she warns “I could kill you!” And that’s only the first cut. There’s more here that scratch into the depths of my ears enough to keep listening over and over. I’m intrigued by Ambush Bug/Reduviidae (“my brother precedes me, my brother’s a disgrace; no cockroach or bedbug; he chose the human race”), Lonely Galactus, The World Eater (In the interest of humanity I bring you fond regards, with infinity, oblivion and death and all infinity”), Bruce Wayne's Bastard Son (“daddy’s doesn’t know it but I’m sitting over here”), and St Fina (“Jesus love you when you hurt”). The music will challenge, but in a welcoming manner. The lyrics are a heavier challenge, but I feel it’s worth the effort to understand the poetic purpose of the narrator. The musical composition built around the meaning of the words fascinates because that means each movement in this cycle will have a different purpose for the musicians to explore. A challenge for the composer, and one that’s met perfectly here, thanks to some wonderful musicians willing to confront the dreams once held deeply within the mind of someone else. Excellent. Thanks to Alex for introducing us! Rachel Taylor Brown
It’s not very often an entire album captures my imagination. Skidmore Fountain starts off this CD with two violins introducing a standard rock tune called Asylum. It’s a good tune, and one I would have easily picked for a song of the day. The violins are playing in a different time signature than a tune, but that intro soon leaves room for a standard “take no prisoners” tune that asks “are you having a good time?” I’m sucked in as an audience member & fully convinced that these guys will entertain me and I’ll be totally pleased with the experience, even as one of the characters in the song states he “lost his way.” When they ask again “are you having a good time?” I’m shouting yes!
The first two acts on this weeks podcast are must-hears. The Ivys sing Never Let You In, a fun pop rock tune, and Jordan Tice has a cool instrumental he calls Salad Days. I'd definitely give them a heads-up if they thought to send CDs here. But they didn't, so head on over to http://musicdiscovery.cdbabypodcast.com/ and listen in to the first few songs on show #39.
“H-h-e-e-e-y, hey! I never treat my body well. Spend my nights in heaven, spend my days in hell.” Take one part good doobie boogie bar band add an equal part of a frontman willing to shout out his love of living a life filled with music - shake, pour into a huge beer mug – and kick back for a great time. But don’t expect to stay kicked back long, the drummer works in tandem with the bass player to drag my feet up to move the many ways my body is capable of when it’s in full joy, especially when the back-up singers smile their harmonies above the wonderful guitar symphony. Shoutouts for another r&r dance track, Other Side Of The Water (“I’ll be gone today, I’ll be back tonight”), and the slower acoustic flavors of The River (“it’s gonna feel good as we wash our sins away and we fall back down again”). Thanks Alex, for the introduction!The Lonely H
“I can’t hold my breath much longer! Only wish that I was stronger!” This is great! My desk is clean and I can pick anything I want to blast my Monday awake before the mail arrives with tons of new stuff. So, I choose the loudest and proudest new band of 2009 to bring my week to a blazing start! It was sorta “hard to choose” the one tune to get my week started, but since it’s been 105 degrees every day this week, I’m shouting out the coolest area I can think of. “I’m going back to the concrete pond”. I’ll even hang out with the Thromboes as they engage in the world’s favorite pastime – girl watching. The Thromboes even brought a few of those girls back to the garage to sing background on the song! Yes! Summer! “There was a fine redhead – she wore some skinny threads!” My favorite part is the rap the background singers get into.
“The hammer slowly takes my life.” A tale of how the rich get richer while the people who create the wealth suffer. Imagine just one of those bailed out bankers picking up a seven pound hammer, much less a twenty pound hammer. And is anyone ever going to bail out the guys who actually lift the hammer? Sounds to me like we’re being prompted by the new administration to understand and accept hammer-holders will stay unemployed for several years to come while the thieves in suits who never break a sweat get bailed out. When funds are loosed to build things, it’s not the guys building the highways who will profit.
These folks put out one of my most favorite albums of 2007, and it’s great to hear they survived to make a second album. Since I really loved the first CD, this one kinda threw my brain in a mess – hip hop? Well, I thought it through and realized given the age of these youngsters, it’s a smart commercial move. They’re good at it, and probably unique. I haven’t heard tons of punk flavored hip hop yet, so these kids are still on the cutting edge. Harder for my ears to get used to but I hope it’s just perfect for folks their age. The Archies for the 21st century – lots and lots of sugar! A few cuts, of course, struck me as perfect for kids of all ages. Monkey In The Middle is an energetic fun summer dance song. Plan to sweat! The shoutout tune is Big Bass Drum. Tiny Masters Of Today
Some fine flute playing with help from some great players, el gran guitarrista Yamandú Costa y el maestro Dominginhos. The composition begins with an acoustic guitar preparing a fine meal and offering up an appetizing dream to introduce the hypnotic flute melody. Supporting the flute is a tango enhancing accordion flavor that soon comes out for his own solo. A fine addition to any meal. Half way through the composer adds dessert to the mix, and creates a mood for a sensuous glass of wine. Carlos Núñez
I had this one all figured out before I listened to it. The lust had diminished, life was same-ol same-ol, day in day out, love was there, but robotic. Well, that’s okay I figured – as long as the music is good. The back cover on the ep warned me I’d hate this. Beautiful people dressed in white doing their best to look sad or bored, but too dang picture perfect to ever pull it off. I was all set up to dismiss this as bunk, but I did my duty ad listened. My little promise to artists is that I’ll listen to everything that comes in here at least once.
The picture's a year old, but I ain't getting any younger. Trying to teach high schoolers Biology during summer school is a gas. They can't figure out how to remember all these new terms, etc, so I explain to them pretend it's an album. How many of you know every song on the new Enimem album? They don't only already know the titles, but they know all the lyrics already. So, I explain, study it the way you do lyrics, rap it. Let's face it, the terminology sounds like it came right out of the rock & roll canon. Kreb's Cycle had a hit with Matrix of the Mitochondrion b/w Oxidative Phosphorylation. Golgi Apparatus had a big seller with Synthesis of Proteoglycans b/w Extracellular Matrix. Then I start thinking - what a brainstorm, this could be the next big thing - Science Rocks! Then I realize the heat today, well into 103 degrees, mixed with the humidity is begging me to go out for a beer at the local beer garden.
Tonight’s double-header Blues party starts with the wonderfully loud guitar of Aynsley Lister. “You’ve been hanging on to all my dreams way too long, now I’m breaking free.” The guitar has entered a spectacular place in my dance cells as the bass and drums support the aging bones within this human frame! Love the short, but meaningful drum solo. Aynsley Lister
The second act for tonight continues the Friday night blues with a total Texas boogie dance floor filler. The narrator is concerned that his baby is “out all night”, with some fine r&r lead playing. Shawn does a fine job of emulating some of the best blues players, but giving it a personal flavor that lets you know he’s not just imitating the past. He’s making blues for a new generation of broken hearts. Love it - thanks! Shoutouts for My Luck Has Changed, Let's Blow This Joint & the fine instrumental which is a beautiful tone poem of a guitar turning into a wild Hurricane being pushed around by the percussion & bass. Play it again! Shawn Pittman
“I’m not strange at all. I just want to follow you home.” The kind of guy we warn our kids about, but you gotta admire the narrator for being honest about his feelings. What attracts me to this song is not the creepy guy wanting to follow people home, but the music. The guitar lovingly starts off this party with a sweet intro, then as the narrator begins his story, the guitar is joined by a steady thumping bass in tandem with a fiddle, an engaging trumpet opening the heavens, and a piano player percussing the earth with power to raise dried seeds to life. Shoutout for If You Hope. Otis Taylor
”What makes a man labor for labor’s sake when he ain’t even in on the take.” LOL!!! Great question. Don’t worry, there’s no answers here – just a hell-raising song about a lots of things that are more fun to listen to than think about. I really really love the way the chorus of singers hold out the word ‘foundation’! Gives the word a new, exciting appeal. There’s a bit of revolution in the air here – the whole group singing – that’s a lotta fun, and then there’s some more words that invite dancing in the streets: “Gather up your axes, forget about paying your taxes.” Shoutout for the total American acoustic rock and roll of What Good are Plowshares If We Use Them Like Swords. Takes Isaiah’s words and throws them out there into the modern world with a twist of reality. If there ever came a time when our swords would become plowshares, people would still hit each other over the head with them. That’s humanity for ya. Fun music for fun times! Hoots and Hellmouth
Some people have fun fooling with my head, and I love ‘em for it. For example, Brendan ends this EP with a song called Slow. That’s okay, lotsa artists end their CDs with a slow song, it’s a given. But it’s fast. And full of lyrics! They slide by so fast that Brendan sneakily makes me listen over and over. Of course by then, it’s a part of my life, and I have to keep it in my forever collection. And like everything else in my forever collection, I have to tell my eartasting friends about it. “Shut all the windows, open up the floodstream.” Brendan Themes
The Thromboes play a fast and loud instrumental ode to the sun for the first Monday of summer vacation! The recording sounds perfectly live in a garage with a souped up car or two nearby. The garage door is of course wide open – you can almost hear the police car pulling up as the neighbors call about all the noise these men are managing to produce in the hood.
100 years ago, when I was 8 years old I got my first guitar, along with a book called ‘Play Guitar In 7 Days’. The frets were ¾ of an inch away from the strings, and my fingers bled a lot, but I accomplished the task by practicing every day for 2 hours a day. I sounded good enough to start playing in a band after a week. It was probably the same book all the people on the radio used, because it wasn’t hard to play along with the radio after a month or two. But that soon bored me, because I kept hearing other things. Solo guitar players, fancy little tricks, and worse – I discovered Segovia at the library. The good thing about Segovia was that he was first and foremost a teacher, so each of his albums would have easy, medium, and advanced pieces. He didn’t call them that, of course, but it was inspirational to be able to play a piece like Segovia played it after a month of practice, and the harder pieces after months of practice, and there were always the pieces that no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t figure out. Even though as a teenager I was making money teaching guitar, it wasn’t until I reached college that I learned about technique and exercises so I could aspire to play the more difficult pieces.
Good old fashioned BBQ chicken with potatoes and home grown slowly sweating a nice crisp outer crust on the edge of the grill while the bass player lovingly mixes King Of The Road with These Boots Are Made For Walking up and down the neck, with finger snappin’ Leslie getting ready to ask “What’s the fuss?” The aswer to that question is easy, and I think she really knows, but she’s playing coy. The fuss is the music is fresh, the spirit is free. There’s touches of Rickie Lee Jones meeting her youthful self and shouting to Chuck E, “there’s something in the air! I used to fight it, but now I just don’t care!” Leslie has enlivened the party, and with her excellent musicians preening alongside, the music definitely hits the spot! Flip the chicken and dance along, it’s going to grill for an hour. “I never understood how further education could ever feel this good!” Give the horn players an extra beer! Shoutouts for the slow roasting dance of I Know You Better Than That, and the sultry spices of Be My Baby. Leslie Mendelson
Loni from specialopsmedia let me know about this set. These two records are being re-released on a single CD. Seems like 100 years ago I bought these albums when they first came out. Later, I secured copies of the CDs when they were released in the 90’s. I still keep those handy, but I’m guessing they are no longer available. The good news is that both are available again on a single CD. So, if you don’t have a copy, this is your chance. There’s always a new generation that needs to hear folks that influenced other musicians. Big Star was never really a “big” act, but they made enough noise that other writers came to admire and/or copy them. The fact that the record company did not get behind the band in the manner that most bands of this caliber would expect had a lot to do with what eventually became the ‘indie’ scene. Why sell your soul if you couldn’t profit from it somehow? The CD includes both albums, and the mixes that made it to 45 back in the day.Big Star
The last thing I’d expect to see on an album called “Illusions” is a cut called ‘Reality’. Catching my eye is one thing, catching my ear is another. I’ve listened to this cut many times this week waiting for it to start boring me. Never did. Describing it is another issue. It starts off in almost a jazz mode, but it doesn’t take long for the rock to kick in. Flavored with reggae, funk, powerful percussion and outer space sounds – this cut is wild on speakers, even wilder in headphones. Definitely presents a great method to get people up to the dance floor at any Friday night party. The best thing about this cut is its instrumental energy will fit well into any genre of party you happen to be enjoying. A good one for your toolkit, my DJ friends – you’ll wild up any good times with this. Special thanks to Maria for getting this one out to Texas! High Ceiling
