More 2012 (and older) Favorites

I'm still deciding about Danilo Perez' CD. It came out in 2008 and KPLU loves to play the title track "Across the Crystal Sea" -- and it really is fine. Claus Ogerman supplies his usual gauzy background strings, and the whole album is warm and languid -- maybe TOO languid. Cassandra Wilson's version of "Lazy Afternoon" makes Diana Krall sound hyper. I enjoy the album a lot, it's just some tracks take a little work to actually hear.

Manuel I've mentioned before, very Tangerine Dream-ish. Live, he plays everything, which means he sets up keyboard patterns and plies on more patterns, then plays guitar over that. I've loved his work for years, and this is such a wonderful package.

 

 

If you listen to CBC much, you've most likely heard SOME of this. Very nice melodic modern choral music for the most part, but the solo "Goodnight Moon" (using the text of the children's classic) is the highlight, but so much of this collection is aces, though the glam cover...???

 

 

Other titles I've mentioned earlier, the Beach Boys reunion CD, the soundtrack to "The Descendants"

are also favorites. In addition, I've always like Fleetwood Mac's 'lost period', after Peter Green left and before the massively popular Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks period. There are 3 or 4 albums post-Green when Bob Welch, Jeremy Spencer, Christine McVie and Danny Kirwan wrote some good atmospheric songs, but they were miles from the initial blues-based early albums and some fans lost interest. Then there were the drug-fueled breakdowns, the unorthodox religious detours, the fact that their manager sent out a fake FMac to fulfill tour obligations -- really, if you don't know this era, pick up one of the recent band bios -- you couldn't make this stuff up. Anyway, when Bob Welch passed away last year, I decided to replace my ancient cassette copy of "Future Games". I really wish someone would compile a "Best of" from this era, because there are some gems tucked away on less-than-stellar albums. The FMac box "The Chain" covered some, but you could get a decent CD with some judicious plucking

 

 

My son gives me crap for listening to albums like "Blue Funk" because he says it sounds like a bad blaxploitation soundtrack. Exactly! That's why I love it (only I don't think it's bad, but I don't have much in the way of street cred, so there you go.) Anyway, I picked up "Black Byrd" by Donald Byrd (edges to the brink of disco, and I'd lose the vocal tracks), "Blue Funk", and I've been re-evaluating Herbie Hancock's "Head Hunters" album from 1973. The blurting bass-synth notes that occupy most of "Chameleon"'s rhythm track sounded like a blatant attempt to ring up some Sly Stone sales numbers, but listening to it now, I hear the obvious Sly and funk influences, but Herbie brings more to the sound than imitation and pastiche. In retrospect, I hear later Miles (of course) and some things that wouldn't be out of place in a Weather Report album. 

 

 

So that's 2012 laid to rest, at least for now. I'm looking forward to hearing the Neil Young and Crazy Horse CD "Psychedelic Pill", the solo album by Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan, the old-time 78 collection of classics and obscurities "Return of the Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of", more John Fahey, and a 2012 New York Times pick "Terpsichore: Muse of the Dance" with the Capriccio Stravagante Renaissance Orchestra. Excited? Me too!! 

 

Oh, and yes, I did pick up "Steel Rails Under Thundering Skys" (that's how they spell it on the cover). It's a classic train sound CD (no, really, there are a few) and I first heard about it when John  Fahey spliced a bit onto one of his albums. The package feels like a bootleg, on-line you can find 'correction's to the train models cited on the CD...really a glimpse into a world gone by, and evocative of vast expanses.

 

 

 

Everybody Else's Best of 2012

2012 must have been a crap year in music. I don't have much to go on here (don't spend too much time listening to pop radio, Spotify, yada yada) but I have this hunch...

Clue #1: Uncut Magazine includes a "Best of 2012" CD in their year-end issue, and after listening to it, I was truly, deeply, totally depressed. Really? This is it?? It sounds a) bad, b) derivative, and c) totally nondescript. I was depressed because here it was, proof positive that I was totally out of the loop, ready for  my senior discount at the local buffet trough. And yet...and yet. I checked Entertainment Weekly's list, as well as Rolling Stone's. Not one single title from Uncut made it to either list. Understand that Uncut is a British publication, but they fawn over non-Brits like Neil Young and Leonard Cohen, so wouldn't there be at least some cross-over? Then I figured it out; it's not a "Best of 2012" so much as a "Best of 2012 That We Could Get The Rights to for Our Free with Purchase CD" -- but that doesn't scan so well, does it?

Clue #2: My son and I have remarked over the years that Rolling Stone reviews don't hold up very well. Take Led Zeppelin, for example. Cut to ribbons in the reviews of their first 2 LPs (not that I don't disagree), but a few years pass, and now Rolling Stone crowns LZ Rock Gods, over and over and.... Umm, rewrite history much? And here we have the "Best of 2012", and it's packed with what originally earned 2 1/2 or 3 stars out of 5 earlier this same year. Hard to compile at "Best of" in a duff year without padding out the team.

My best? I'd have to take a page from Stephen King (yes, yes, I get it) who listed the best books of the year by which ones he's actually read in 2012, so with that caveat, here goes, in no particular order, CDs I purchased in 2012 that I can recommend:

Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban: Mambo Sinuedo
I came late to the party to the whole Buena Vista Social Club thing, but I eventually succumbed. Both BVSC and Ibrahim Ferrer's albums are favorites, but I liked the "Mambo Sinuedo" album because they avoided the museum preservation intent, and just played some tacky surf-Mex K-Mart music out of sheer joy.

Kate Rusby: Sweet Bells
Yorkshire accents, Christmas tunes and local brass band arrangements: total Christmas bliss.


                                       

Radiohead: King of Limbs
I'm writing this while listening to Bill Laswell's remix/reconstruction of some Miles Davis tracks, this one is "Rated X/Billy Preston"...and I'd swear Radiohead know this music inside out. "King of Limbs" was a long, long process of assimilation for me -- but then I saw YouTube clips of their live versions and I think I began to grasp the muli-layered inventivesness of their approach -- and by being so inventive (like Miles), they forestalled the whole "play the hits as we remember them" future that encases rock bands in amber.

Next: Fleetwood Mac! Tony Rice! Blue Nile! and, ladies and gentlemen, "Steel Rails Under Thundering Skyes" (their spelling, not mine).

 

 

Rod, Rod -- Why Do You Continue to Break Our Hearts?

The title of this post is from a note I wrote when I caught Rod Stewart singing on some Christmas special on TV. He looked great, commanded the stage (tiny though it was), gave off an air of relaxed fun, a man born to entertain and just have a good time in front of thousands of his best mates. But...Christmas songs? He's worked his way though umpteen 'songbooks' trawling through the Standards, now he's looking to snatch the Christmas crown from Der Bingle? Is this the Rod we fell in love with when we first heard "Cut Across Shorty", or "Maggie May", or, bless 'im, "Mandolin Wind", and of course, the mighty mighty "I Know I'm Losing You".

I've been skimming through "Rod: The Autobiography", and I recommend it, but... (and as Pee-Wee Herman once sagely replied "Everyone I know has a big but".)

Here's the deal: Rod's Mercury label albums ("Gasoline Alley", Every Picture Tells a Story", that era) are wonderful, a fine mix of acoustic and electric, folk and soul with a dash of blues and some real rock 'n roll thunder. Then, the story goes, Rod moves to LA, becomes posh, wears make-up and then... "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy", "Hot Legs",,,well, the Mayans have recalibrated their calendar and that is the new sign of the end times. "Rod" (the book) addresses these concerns with a nod and a wink, and he's the first to complain about his wardrobe choices, but the catch is, he's having it both ways. He comes across in print as a good guy, someone self-deprecating with a quick wit, someone you'd be happy to share a pint with -- and then he tells the story about how he triple-timed his wife with 2 other models.  I get the sense of the golden boy, told he's a rotter but, well, how can you not love the darlin'?

One example from the book: he talks about touring with the Faces and the tensions caused by his nascent solo career -- the Faces had one record label, and Rod had another, so Rod's label would send round limos for him and fancy hotel suites, while the Faces fumed with their cheaper options. Rod says, "Well yes, I could have taken one for the team and refused the fancy suites .... but then I wouldn't have had a suite, would I ?"

So every time Rod 'redeems' himself (certainly not his view) with an "Unplugged" album that restores his cred, we know that soon he'll go for the gold and leave us old fans disappointed once again. I have no doubt that Rod's next album or two, supposed to be a return to his rock/folk/soul roots, will be warm, matserful and a total hoot. And that sets us up for the next folly ....