Another week in music...rhythm and noise...

No matter how often it happens it's always a tiny bit unnerving when your downstairs in the kitchen and the bedroom door slams shut upstairs. You know it's just a draft but that never stops it from feeling a tad strange. Especially when it's raining outside, your neighbour is screaming at her children through the walls, your wired on too much coffee, and frustrated by the state of things.
       It's been another week full of all kinds of news. As most weeks are. Obviously the world news has been considerably bleaker this week. The tragic events in Norway were devastating as they unfolded on television over the weekend. I don't think anyone expected it to turn out as horrifying as it did when they woke up Saturday morning.
       We went to see an Amy Winehouse tribute act Friday night and woke up Saturday to find out the real singer had died. The same media that spent the last four or five years ridiculing her and systematically tearing her name to pieces changed their tone instantly to gut wrenching sincerity and heartbreak at the tragic loss of a truly special talent. Individual people have been guilty of this too. People who viciously attacked her character for years now express their sadness at such a tragic loss of talent at such a young age. It is indeed a sad story. Back In Black was and is a fantastic record and the work of a uniquely and undeniably talented artist. I just found the hypocrisy in certain responses to the story a bit hard to swallow.
       Fortunately it's been a great week for friends and family. Celebrating new arrivals, beginning brand new journeys around the globe, making a long overdue return home. Lots of positive events happening to a lot of great people that mean everything to me. It warms my heart to hear it.
       For myself there are a few possible creative opportunities coming down the pipeline. Nothing monumental but interesting and a little exciting all the same.
      Oh and of course in the midst of all these events occurring around the globe, both tragic and wonderful, I have been listening to a lot of music. All styles and genres. Songs to match any mood. Music that forms the never ending soundtrack to my life in all it's mundane glory.
       As usual over the last week or so a handful of songs stood out. Well, a handful and a bit really. Seven, once again being the lucky number.
   
        We start once again at the beginning. I'd discovered this record while working at the illustrious Refried Beats on Yonge Street in beautiful downtown Toronto. But had sort of forgotten about it recently. Then the other day this song Science Killer came on my headphones like this sludgy rhythmic nightmare, filled my head up with euphoria and pummelled my brain into mush. I just kept turning the volume up and smiling like an asshole. The band responsible for this piece of magnificence are called The Black Angels. A psych rock band from Austin, Texas. The song can be found on their fantastic album Directions to see a Ghost.

        It's no secret I'm a huge fan of the blues. A big moment in my musical education was being introduced to the Chess label and it's unequalled stable of artists. The other day this beautiful song by Jimmy Witherspoon called Ain't Nobody's Business really stuck in my head. A mellow number about a guy contemplating breakfast and shooting his woman. Witherspoons voice is effortless and haunting. The subtle bass and piano carrying you along as his story unfolds.

       Sticking with the blues theme but adding a serious goddamn dose of psychedelia is the one and only Muddy Waters. The song is Tom Cat from his wonderfully titled 1968 album Electric Mud. A Hendrix-esque mix of blues, funk, and psychedelia, that must have ruffled the feathers of many a blues purist when it was released. Nonetheless the album was a massive influence on psychedelic bands of that time. The song is a beast that showcases the raw attitude present in all of Muddy Waters music. For me not many artists come close to the power of Muddy's music. Muddy was a baaaaad man and everyone needs to know it.

       I listen to Sonic Youth every week. My appetite never wanes. The band are true music pioneers. I got into their music fairly late when I found a cassette copy of their 1994 album Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. Controversially the album is probably still my favourite Sonic Youth record, not necessarily because it's their best or most important, but I guess because of how it made me feel when I first listened to it. I felt like I'd just discovered alternative music. I didn't know a band could sound like that. I fell in love with them instantly. The intensity in the combination of Kim Deals vocals and Thurston Moore's guitar playing really affected me. You know when people say stuff like who needs drugs when you have music? Well that's how Sonic Youth made me feel. that's how they still make me feel. The song that came on my headphones this week wasn't from Jet Set trash though. We have to go all the way back to 1983 for this song, and the bands first studio album Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr Idols. That early Sonic Youth sound is a world away from Jet Set. The song I'm talking about in particular is Kill Yr Idols. A ferocious two minutes of defiance and disgust. The recording is minimalist, raw and fucking perfect. But the video link I posted the song to on here isn't from the album. It's from a live show from 1985. Recorded in a small club in Brighton, England it captures the band in all their beauty. Oh to have been in that crowd.

       Funny enough the next song that caught my attention this week was a cover of a Sonic Youth song by another of the truly great rock bands of the last 25 years, Seattle's mighty Mudhoney. The song is Halloween and was featured on a split single Sonic Youth and Mudhoney released together in 1988. Mudhoney covered Halloween and Sonic Youth covered Touch me I'm Sick. The song is also featured on the deluxe edition of their seminal album Superfuzz Bigmuff.  There are few sounds more grin inducing than the production on Mudhoneys early recordings, and Halloween is no exception, featuring one of my favourite guitar riffs ever. It's a serious undertaking covering a Sonic Youth song, but I think somehow Mudhoney improved on it. The track is drenched in all that wonderful Mudhoney defiance and anger and sounds magnificent.

       We take a sharp turn away from alternative rock for the penultimate song of this past week and head to New York circa 1994 for a slice of hip hop bliss. I've been fairly obsessed with Gang Starr for a few years now. Dazzled by Guru's smooth rumbling vocals and Premier's superb understated jazz breaks and samples. This week I was passing through a park when Mostly Tha Voice came on from Gang Starr's fantastic fourth album Hard To Earn. Guru tells wannabe rappers how it is over another sweet Premier beat. Few hip hop duos made it sound as easy as Gang Starr, and the hip hop world lost a true legend when Guru passed away last year. Gang Starr are one of my main go to groups when I want to chill.

       Finally fans of mid 90's hip hop will probably recognize the opening few seconds of this last song. A driving funk track from 1967 called The Sad Chicken, recorded by Leroy & the Drivers. A serious song for walking and a mean way to start a night. I have lot 60's/70's funk and soul compilations on my itunes so periodically and randomly during my day I'll get slapped hard with a solid piece of funk like this.

   


 

Partially confused ramblings on a Friday afternoon...and the song of the day...

I'm not a music expert. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of albums, bands and singles.  I'm not really an asset to have on your team during a pub quiz. I know people like that and I've met plenty of people like that. They could tell you about West German vinyl pressings of Beatles albums, and which Stones pressings have the superior sound quality. They can name songs with a word or two from the most obscure song lyrics.
       I struggle to remember song lyrics. I don't know much about obscure vinyl pressings. I can't discuss the structure of music, of songs, in any kind of technical terminology, and I don't really play any instruments. I was gonna say I'm not an aficionado but then I looked up the definition of the word in the dictionary. Aficionado: A person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject or pastime.
      So maybe you could say I was an aficionado. Though I'd prefer you didn't. Labels make me cringe. What kind of an asshole actually gives himself a label like that anyway?
      Problem is everything I know is based on what I like. And there's not really any rhyme or reason to what I like. I like what sounds good to me. It's all very personal, and largely related to my own individual experiences. For instance right now I'm seriously digging Mitch Ryder and Holly Golightly. Why? I don't know, I stumbled upon them again and their music matches my mood.
      I do have the enthusiasm nailed though. I know what I like and I'm enthusiastic about what I like. I guess that's the short and sweet of it. If I'm sat with you and a really great song comes on, I'm really good at obnoxiously telling you how great the song is. In simple blanket terms. If you asked me why the song is so good? I'd say something like what do you mean? Listen to that fucking guitar! Not terribly insightful, I know. An expert would explain something about what key the guitarist is playing in. Or point out a clever chord change or something along those lines.
      All I'm good at is pointing out music that interests me, and relating what it means to me. In emotional terms not technical terms. I love Pink Floyd's album Meddle because of how it feels, and how it makes me feel.
     I don't know, I'm probably being stupidly, embarrassingly obvious here. What can I say, I sat down needing to write something on here and this is what came out.
     Music affects and excites me on a primitive level. All genres, all eras. As long as there's truth in it.
     Take Joel Plaskett for instance. I'm listening to him right now. His album La Di Da. The real strength in Joel's music, of which there are many, is his voice. His voice is genuine. True.
   
      Anyway, here's my song of the day for this uncertain Friday afternoon...enjoy...

   
   

Seven Songs...

It's Friday again(as I'm writing this), another week over. Another one of those up and down weeks full of good and bad and Brie and Salami sandwiches and music and thank Christ, sunshine. Lots of sunshine. I'm rocking a serious sandal/t shirt tan. I was in the park yesterday during my lunch break, eating a sandwich, listening to music, and saw two young topless deviants, known as chavs round these parts, drinking cider and wrestling by the hedges. It was a very homoerotic, violent Larry Clark meets George Michael meets Ken Loach type scene. Not my preferred choice of sunshine/sandwich/music/relaxing in the park entertainment. Around these parts the sunshine seems to bring the scum out like rain to worms.

Anyway, over the last week I listened to a lot of music, and particular songs stuck in my brain more than others, as particular songs have a habit of doing. Roughly seven, this time around. A song for each of the last seven days! If you wanted you could put all seven songs together in order, you know, fashion a playlist. You could give it a clever name and walk around your town picturing some fictional phantasmic week that was and never was. A week full of sandwiches and goblins and sunshine and deviants and beauty and disappointment and dogs and vampires.

We start the week at the beginning, with a cover of the Godfather Theme song by Jesus Acosta and the Professionals. A seriously heavy seriously soulful seriously dirty rendition of the iconic theme. With a killer distorted guitar riff and a organ line that sounds like it's coming from deep inside your brain. It's just the kind of late 60's/early 70's world music funk I love stumbling across. The song can be found on the wonderful compilation Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up, that I really couldn't recommend enough. Any volume of the Cult Cargo series is a gold mine worth owning, but Belize City especially.

Song two, Tuesdays song, is one minute of aggression from Los Angeles' volatile girl punk band Mika Miko. Now tragically disbanded. The song is End of Time from the band's Kill Rock Star's label debut C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. The girls in the band always claimed they were best appreciated live. Additionally they also make for great park walking music. If you were so inclined and had the appropriate headphones, ideally ear buds, you could do some tumbles in the grass. Maybe punch a tree. Or the air. Or a hippy.

Next is a sublime track from a soundtrack Mile Davis recorded for a French film called Ascenseur pour l'echafaud(Lift to the scoffold). The song is called L'Assassinat De Carala. I've never seen the film and in many ways am glad for that fact. The album is the very epitome of film noir. Of 50's jazz cool. And I prefer not having any associations with the film. I want to keep it as a soundtrack to my own life. The record is drenched in atmosphere. A beautiful, sinister, melancholy timeless soundtrack. It's serious, deeply affecting music, quite separate from the rest of Davis' output around this time in the late fifties to early sixties. It doesn't fit in with his earlier bebop material or his later Kind of Blue period or his ambitious and infinitely more challenging Electric material. I'm not sure how the album sits with serious Mile Davis fans, but it's one of my favourites. Simple, elegant and moving.

The next song came on my ipod when I was in Whitby with my wife. It immediately latched onto my feet and arms, making me move them in outlandish frantic weird movements. I started laughing, going oh yeah. Feel that. And other such ridiculous statements. I assumed it was something from the seventies. Something I'd managed to avoid somehow all my life. When I got home and turned on the computer, I found out the song was called Last Bongo In Brighton(Remix) by the very contemporary, very hip hop,very English DJ Format. From his debut album Music For The Mature B-Boy. Format specializes in big beats and 70's funk breaks and anyone who likes good hip hop will dig his music.

Tom Waits appears on my ipod frequently. Over the last seven days a song from his essential album Rain Dogs played several times. Rain Dogs is the middle album of a trilogy book ended by Swordfishtrombones and Frank's Wild Year's. Coincidentally it is also the first album I ever owned by Tom Waits. I bought it from the Goodwill store in Toronto, at Coxwell and Gerrard to be specific, when I was about seventeen. Vaguely familiar with Waits at the time I was sold on the intriguing album sleeve and subsequently confused, challenged, and amazed by the music on the vinyl record. I'd never heard music like it, and hadn't even been aware you could make music like that. It sounded like carnival music from a nightmare. The song Gun Street Girl appears towards the end of the record. One of the more straight forward acoustic numbers. I'd sort of forgotten about it till this week. It's a barnstormer. A fearsome piece of songwriting. That quite frankly leaves me stunned.

The hypothetical Saturday song in this fictional musical week, loosely based on my actual real life listening experiences over the past seven days comes courtesy of The Nazz. A band I got into over the last few years, they have a straight forward satisfying psych rock sound, and were formed by Todd Rungren. The song I listened to this week is called Crowded from the band's 1968 self titled record Nazz

Our final song, Sunday's song, the song for that wonderful day of rest belongs to Mr Johnny Cash. From his album Now, There Was a Song! released in 1960. The song is the rollicking I Feel Better All Over. It was actually penned by the gambler himself, Mr Kenny Rogers. A song tailor made for Sunday drives, or Sunday mornings dancing with your girl or Sunday afternoons drinking in the backyard. The music industry did it's best during the last seven or eight years to over saturate the market with Johnny Cash, and as such I had to take a step back for a short while. But his music will never die and Cash will always be in my heart, just as he should always be in yours.