The Snoqualmie/Seattle Connection (and it's not just rain)

Jesse Sykes is from the Pacific Northwest, with a voice like Dusty Springfield dragged through David Lynch Twin Peaks swamp-surf guitar muck, dipped in Sandy Denny's smoky patina, sometimes descending into Marianne Faithfull rasp. "Reckless Abandon" is from 2002, and that one has the Lynch/Badalamenti stamp. 2004's "Oh My Girl" moves from Lynch territory to an alt-country-ish Cowboy Junkies feel, narcotic, soporific -- nothing much even gets into mid-tempo. Yeah, your first reaction may be "Isn't this a little too artfully affected?" but she's got the talent to back it up.

Two Rites Don't Make a Left

In keeping with the season...I first heard Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) when my father brought home a box set of classical music for his college-credit night class. The early stuff I'd heard before, but the last LP or two -- Menotti's "The Medium" (sp-p-p-ooky!), Debussy, Copland -- and the first part of The Rite. Yikes! I can understand why Disney wanted this piece in "Fantasia" -- it is soundtrack writ large. So I imprinted the Pierre Boulez version -- dry, surgically precise (Stravinsky is not given to sweeping dramatically grand gestures). It was THE version. Now, you have to understand that this music caused quite the uproar when first presented -- Igor Stravinsky, classical music's Johnny Rotten. Much later I heard Gergiev's version: loud, boorish, the horns blat and the strings smear -- what IS this noise? Then I realized -- I've grown too comfortable with this music, and Gergiew rudely presents it as it must have sounded to that first audience. I still listen to the Boulez version, but Gergiev's is refreshing . (And watch the "Russian Ark" DVD for Gergiev's appearance as the conductor in the penultimate scene.)

A Short Soundtrack Rant Here

Is it that hard to choose the best music for a soundtrack? I'll just give a small example: travel shows. Isn't practically every piece of classical music in the public domain by now? How hard can it be to get it right, or at least, not glaringly wrong? Case in point: another 'travels through Britain' show, lovely shots of English countryside accompanied by...Vivaldi. He's ITALIAN -- could you not find ANY British composers? Or last night, watching Ken Burn's National Parks series, there was a sequence where the voice-over quote refers to the magnificent expanse as being worthy of Beethoven -- and what's playing during this segment? Aaron Copland's music for "Our Town". I love that music, warm, bucolic, aching in tenderness for small-town life, but not something that indicates the panoramic vistas of the West --- and didn't they hear the part about BEETHOVEN!!?! More examples to follow, I'm sorry to say...

New Old-Time Music

You may have noticed little in the way of country music discussed here; eventually I may write about Emmylou Harris, Townes Van Zandt or even the Glaser Brothers, not to mention the 'acid cowboy' stylings of the New Riders of the Purple Sage or Old & In the Way. But for the most part, what most people think of as 'country' leaves me cold; the Eagles have a lot to answer for. When it comes to bluegrass and old-time music, though, I'm your fan. Norman Blake has worked with Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, and performs his own version of contemporary Southern old-time. Norman's voice takes some getting used to: nasal and not all that interested in hitting the notes, eventually you may come to find it endearing -- and his guitar playing is fast, fascinating and seemingly effortless. I treasure his albums with Tony Rice, another master picker, but I listen to "Whiskey Before Breakfast" most often. This is real back porch music, with humor, history and a touch of regret.

Tip o' the iceberg ?

Tonight's entry is about Germany's Ash Ra Tempel and the man behind the scenes, Manuel Gottsching. This one is hard for me to write, because I've listened to some of this music forever; it has folded itself into my brain. I have no idea what someone hearing it for the first time would hear.

Short history: born of early German attempts to join the international '60s rock explosion, Ash Ra was German 'kosmiche music', New Age before the label and before fern bars and herbal tea. This was an experiment by rock musicians to explore the 'cosmic' limits of composition. No surprise, the early albums are only listenable in a sociological/ironic way, especially the one with Timothy Leary. Jump ahead a few years, and Manuel Gottsching, guitarist, visionary and basically the band Ash Ra Tempel discovers contemporary minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Result: "Inventions for Electric Guitar". Later, "New Age of Earth", (which my wife described as "adult lullabyes") -- imagine a bed of guitars and keyboards (no vocals) floating you away to the land of Wynken, Blynken and Nod. This music will put you and your kids to sleep (and I have the track record to prove it.) This is NOT a bad thing. Even later, "E2 to E4", 50 minutes of synth rhythm patterns eventually crested by guitar noodling. "Private Tapes" is a collection of unreleased tracks, and not a bad way to sample Manuel's styles over the years.

My guess is that Manuel was searching for a way to musically emulate brain waves, to discover a way to contact our inner lobes in the most direct way, without barriers. Science + sound, an experiment that has resulted in...future posts.

Blue Nile versus The Boss

The Blue Nile have released only 4 albums: "A Walk Across Rooftops" (1984), "Hats" (1989), "Peace at Last" (1996), and "High" (2004). How do you make a living by releasing an album every 7 or 8 years?? AWAR didn't work for me, but I totally signed up with "Hats", still I think their best. Didn't care much for PAL until I skipped the first song, then loved it (what is it about the way one crap song can sink a whole album?) "High" for me doesn't reach previous heights, (yeah, I know), but a good 'un still. Paul Buchanan's voice is the apex of desperate yearning, always on the brink of despair. Or at least, that's what I thought until my brilliant son Ben said, "But he's not giving up -- that's the point." Well said. I remember my reaction to Bruce Springsteen's song "The River" -- girlfriend's pregnancy means he'll have to give up his dreams and work at The Factory, or The Mill, or whatever, chained to that job and a wife and kids and responsibilty... As Bugs Bunny would say, what a maroon. At least he has a job, a child and a loving wife (until "he" (another song, same character) starts "racing in the street" -- jeez, Bruce, how much time did you spend listening to the Shangri-Las anyway??) Maybe Bruce saw how immature this chump was. I really hope so. Anyway, "Hats": "The Downtown Lights". Find it, listen to it. As food writer Mark Bittman says in a totally different context, "this you will do forever".

Van the Man, What to Buy: One Short of a Six-Pack

Greil Marcus has a new book coming out soon, "When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison", and in one chapter, he dismisses 17 years of Van Morrison's albums as forgettable. Well no, they aren't "Astral Weeks", but there's still some great stuff to be uncovered there. Here's a quick and by no means definitive list: "The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two" (1993) doesn't have the hits afforded Volume One, but it's a well-chosen collection, and the sequencing of tracks is so sensitive that it actually sounds like a better album than Volume One. "Too Long in Exile" from 1993 formed the bones of his live shows from that era, recorded on "A Night in San Francisco" (which my wife would insist is the missing part of this six-pack). Blues, jazz noodling and tributes to early influences. "Days Like This" (1995) is spotty, but great when Van is in the pocket, enough on this album to earn a place here. "The Healing Game" (1997) has the best ratio of really good songs, and "Back On Top" (1999) is close. There's a Best Volume Three, but I'm sure we could have done a better job picking lost gems from this period, and a lot of these releases have since been remastered with added tracks --- but how can you top how "The Healing Game" ends? Genius.

Why I Love "American Idol" and Fela Kuti

Don't worry, there's really no connection between the two. I love "American Idol" because it forces me off the couch and into the room farthest away, which is a combination computer room and laundry. Next stop, back door. And here I get to write about people like...Fela Kuti! Fela is the father of Afro-beat, a combination of Nigerian big-band, James Brown funk and African tribal chant, or at least that's how it's often described. I hear less James Brown (maybe in the guitar scratching) and more Vivaldi. No, not that way -- Vivaldi's been said to have composed the same concerto hundreds of times, and that's where the comparison comes in. Fela's music follows the same pattern: rhythm starts out, band drops in, groove established, horn section piles on, Feli chants/shouts/lectures us for 5 or 6 minutes, chorus chimes in, repeat until finale. This can last anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes, and I treasure every second. "The Best Best of Fela Kuti" is a good sampler; since the New York musical about his life debuted last year, there's been a reissue campaign afoot to get his original albums back in the racks, so we have an abundance of Fela to choose from.

Quick Pick: Italia

Only listened to this once, courtesy of the library, but I really enjoyed it. Very rustic Italian folk music, recorded by Alan Lomax, way before Nino Rota or Hugo Montenegro, it's part of a series apparently gone out of print. This one's "Emilia-Romagna", and kudos to the librarian who ordered it!

Rosetta Stone or Not?

For many of us ancient types, our first exposure to "real rock music criticism" (oh, how it pains me to type those words) was in Rolling Stone, the living embodiment of our nascent rock culture. Yeesh. Read those ancient scrolls now, desert people, and repent. As my son Ben pointed out, "Isn't it funny that the bands they trashed way back then are now in their Top Ten Greatest Rock Bands of All Time ?" Not that they were wrong, neccessarily, but time and marketing have reversed some of the TKO's scored (Led Zep may be slow, but once they gained traction they obliterated anyone in their path to the Hall of Fame). There are some great attempts at expanding the concept of "review" -- Lester Bangs, John Mendelsohn, Greil Marcus, Lenny Kaye and J.R. Young, for instance, but read these collections with a generous soul -- they were sincere and naive, but trying something different.

America's Band ? (Sorry, Grand Funk..)

I've liked Wilco since their first whiskey-soaked debut, but...well, as their career progressed and Jeff Tweedy exerted more influence on their musical development, it seemed to me that they were taking simple alt-country melodies and slathering a gravy of noise on top. You could hear the disconnect. Fast forward through breakups, breakdowns and rehab, and with Nels Cline shredding on guitar, Wilco has attained the pinnacle. "Kicking Television" is their best (live) CD summation. And as much as I've loved everything I've posted so far, THIS ("Ashes of American Flags") is the DVD I'd twist your arm and force you to purchase. From the opening song "Ashes of American Flags" (filmed at a sound-check no less! What a moment!), Wilco avoid the 'band on the runway' cliches and focus on the music. I'm totally in love with "Impossible Germany"; what a tribute to the twin-guitar sound: Wishbone Ash, we salute you! Jeff's dry humor, the band's mind-link, the audience's energy -- what a package.

India For Dummies (Mainly Me)

I know next to nothing about India; history, culture, music, cuisine -- nada. But, as the man says, I knows what I like. What little Indian food I've sampled seems to me the most sublime alchemy of sauce and spice, the films are a riot of color and music, and the music... First, try to ignore the TV/movie shorthand we grew up with: the sound of sitars does not mean "groovy sixties party with dancers swirling in pot smoke, most likely 'tripping' on acid". Then, just sample the menu, as it were. I was lucky enough to discover the Nimbus recordings (you'll recognize the label, faithful reader.) The CDs allow for extended performances and spacious miking; once again, real musicians performing in real time in a real room. Hariprasad Chaurasia's flute bubbles along to a fiery climax, and the Khan family performance brought the Allman Brothers to mind, it was that exciting. WARNING: most libraries purchase world musics based on price, so avoid if you can the CDs you'd see on sale for $5.99 in supermarkets.