Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Madness has returned with an absolute vengance.

Dust Devil- Madness I was taken aback when finally got around to downloading The Liberty Of Norton Folgate an album released by Madness early last spring. Madness is the much beloved ska/rock band from London. Madness recorded it's first album One Step Beyond in 1979 which is a mighty long time ago, folks. By all expectations, a pop music band isn't supposed to make an album as good as Norton Folgate, 30 years past their debut album with all of it's members in the 50 years+ age bracket. Norton Folgate is undeniably the best album ever from Madness and it has all of the uniquely British commentary and wry humor that characterizes of the best of albums by the Kinks. Don't miss this one. It's one of the best releases of 2009 and Madness has made the most astounding comeback of the year.




Edward Folgate is also available in a deluxe 2 CD editon with a dozen more songs, most of which are as good as the songs on the single CD issue.

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BONUS VIDEO: Madness does a live performance Clerkenwell Polka, another song from The Liberty of Edward Folgate on the Jools Holland show.

jackhammer

I saw them do a performance of a track from the new release on TV a couple of weeks back (I didn't catch the title) and unfortunately I thought it was absolutely terrible, limp and lifeless bland Pop but you say the album is really good? Well I certainly respect your tastes so I shall give the album a listen on Spotify because of course A) being English and B) growing up in the 80's you can't help but love a few Madness tunes (Embarassment is absolute bliss).

__________________

Gavin B.

The album isn't ska in the manner of One Step Beyond but more like clever Anglocentric pop in the tradition of Squeeze, the Kinks and XTC. The whole Prince Buster thing was a gimmick of sorts and Madness wasn't as deeply involved in the 2 Tone scene as Selector and the Specials. Madness had pretty much moved away from the ska sound with 1982 release The Rise and Fall Of. The Rise and Fall was also compared favorably to the Kinks when it was released 27 years ago.

AMG the bible of music reviews has given Norton Folgate 4.5 stars out of 5, the same mark AMG gave their spectcular debut album One Step Beyond. For the record, I rarely see AMG give any album a full 5 stars.

Below is a copy of a review by Michael Quinn at the BBC: NOTE: I got Michael Quinn's permission to use the entire text of his review via email but the review should not be reposted without Michael's consent.

The reason why I posted Quinn's review in it's entirety is he hits the nail on the head with his review. I always feel my own remarks on idiosyncratic UK groups are woefully inadquete because I'm an American and don't fully understand vagary nature of the British class system.

I don't want to sell you a lemon, Jackhammer... there are plenty of albums that I'm supposed to like, but I don't. I'm pretty much off the grid in my range of musical tastes, and evaluate music one song at a time, regardless of the artist or genre. I'v embedded We Are London and Idiot Child the album's two openers below. I these two songs don't do for you, then Norton Folgate probably isn't your cup of tea.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Eric Burdon: the old warhorse of the blues.

GTO- Eric Burdon Eric Burdon hasn't been on the charts since he recorded Spill the Wine with the L.A. based funk ensemble War in 1970. That doesn't mean he hasn't been around. He's been a neverending tour for the past 40 years with neverending array of reformed Animals, reunited Animals, and new versions of the Eric Burdon Band.

Eric never been anything other than a working musican in good times and bad times for nearly 50 years. He's 68 years old and his robust voice shows no signs of wear and tear. It's remarkable because Burdon still sings with the kind of firery abandon that should have destroyed his vocal chords by the age of 35.

David Munyon's song GTO is the perfect fit for Eric Burdon's expressive voice. Not too many folks can sing an ode to a muscle car with the kind of passion that Burdon pours into his vocal. Burdon has talent for singing behind the tempo of the song which only the most gifted of blues singers have. His singing sounds like he's having an intimate conversation with the listerner. Burdons voice is the perfect device for Munyon's ornate Southern gothic lyrics.



GTO
Words and Music by David Munyon
As Performed by Eric Burdon

In Biloxi Mississippi on a street called Waterloo
At the roadhouse where the highway
Does a little number there with a 42
On a chasin' for some lovin'
On a humid afternoon
She's delighted he's a quitter
He probably never will deliver
So she leaves him with his rock 'n' roll tunes

But he's still got the GTO
And he still loves to drive that road
He's still got a GTO mighty good
It's a kind of gold
GTO

On the blue team in Virginia
Another weekend maneuver
On a weekend with per diem
A lot of work there for democracy
There's a governor from assembly
Reciting good poems from his memory
And all of his money in his money jar
He traded for one muscle car

But he's still got the GTO
And he still loves to drive that road
He's still got a GTO mighty good
It's a kind of gold
GTO

In Malibu California
There's a surfer do you remember
He used to ride the Big Kahuna
With Robin and Finesse
They used to call him Super Hooter
He used to rock there to Wooly Bully
He's the one you can see him on the beach
They call him old man
Check out the girls in their cars

But he's still got the GTO
And he still loves to drive that road
He's still got a GTO mighty good
It's kind of gold
GTO

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Sunshowers- The M.I.A. version vs. The Savannah Band version

Sunshowers- MIA/Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band- Today's song of the day is Sunshowers which was recently popularized by British hip-hop phenom M.I.A. (real name Maya Arulpragasam). Many of her younger fans don't know that M.I.A. is sampling the drum and bass and chorus to a 1976 song by Dr. Buzzard's Orginal Savannah Band called Sunshowers which was the B side to their smash hit Cherchez la Femme.

I think it's interesting how M.I.A. takes what originally was a sunny optimistic song and subverts into a vehicle for one of her political broadsides in support of the Tamil separtist rebellion in Sri Lanka. M.I.A. and her entire family are political exiles of Sri Lanka and they currently live in London. The charismatic M.I.A. is very good at playing to the camera. On this video, the camera can hardly contain the sheer force of her magnetism. Speaking from a literary perspective, M.I.A. is the real authentic thing. Her ability to turn a phrase and express herself is above and beyond the limited poetic talents of every contemporary American rapper I've heard.



Sunshowers
Lyrics by M.I.A.
Music by August Darnell & Stony Browder


I bongo with My Lingo
Beat it like a wing yo
From Congo to Columbo
Can't sterotype my thing yo

I salt and pepper my Mango
Shoot Spit Out the window
Bingo I got him in the thing yo

Quit bending all my Fingo
Quit beating me like you're a ringo
You wanna go?
You wanna win a war?
Like p.L.O I don't surrendo

Sunshowers that fall on my troubles
Are over you, My baby
And Some Showers I'll be aiming at you
Cause I'm watching you, My baby

I bongo with My Lingo
Beat it like a wing yo
From Congo to Columbo
Can't sterotype my thing yo

I checked that mouth on him
F*cking Checked that gas on him
I had him, Cornered him
****ing Shut that gate on him

Why would you listen to him?
He had his way I'm bored of him
I'm tired of him
I don't wanna be as bad as him

It's a bomb yo
So run yo
Put away your stupid gun yo
Cause see through like a protocol call
Which is why we blow it up 'for we go

Sunshowers that fall on my troubles
Are over you, My baby
And Some Showers I'll be aiming at you
Cause I'm watching you, My baby [x2]

Semi-9 and snipered him
On that wall they posted him
They cornered him
And then just murdered him

He Told them he didn't know them
He wasn't there, they didn't know him
They showed him a picture then ;
"Ain't that you with the Muslims?"

He got Colgate on his teeth
And Reebok classics on his feet
At a factory he does Nike
And then he helps the family

Beat heart Beat
He's made it to the Newsweek
Sweetheart Seen it
He's doing it for the Peeps... Peace

Sunshowers that fall on my troubles
Are over you, My baby
And Some Showers I'll be aiming at you
Cause I'm watching you, My baby [x3]

The second verion (embedded below) is the original version of Sunshowers as recorded in the 1976 by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. The Savannah Band was a New York City based band who did a very original form of retro-funk the gave a nod to the big band sounds of Cab Calloway. The band had three R&B superstars, Stony Browder, August Darnell and Cory Day. Browder and Darnell were half brothers and both were multi-insturmental musical prodigies. Cory Day was one of the leading female R&B song stylists of the 70's. All three were involved a second band Kid Creole and the Coconuts in the 80s a musical ensemble which expanded the vision of the Savannah Band to include more exotic music from around the globe. I saw Kid Creole in Boston in the mid 80's and thought they were every bit as good as the JBs, James Brown's legendary ensemble that set the standard for larger size R&B bands.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Little Dragon is a showcase for electronica/jazz stylist Yukimi Nargano

Looking Glass- Little Dragon Machine Dreams the highly anticipated second album of Swedish electronica band Little Dragon is due for release this Tuesday Nov. 3. I came across several bootlegged songs from the album posted on YouTube beginning yesterday and the song I've embedded, Looking Glass is my favorite among the songs I sampled online. Scandinavia seems overrun by a horde of great electronica bands these days.


Cover of Machine Dreams

Little Dragon is a showcase for Swedish-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano, a mainstay of the European downtempo and lounge scenes. Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, Nagano first broke through in 2000 and 2001 as the singer on several singles by Swell Session, a project of Swedish DJ and producer Andreas Saag. If you like pop oriented electronia like Saint Etienne, Bjork, Massive Attack or Portishead, there's a good chance you'll like Little Dragon.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Steve Young inspired an entire generation of outlaw country musicians.


Rock Salt & Nails- Steve Young This 1969 rendition of the Utah Phillips classic is my all time country and western song. I uploaded it to YouTube when I discovered the song wasn't available there.

Steve Young was the most soulful country vocalist of his era and a big influence on Waylon Jennings, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt, Emmylou Harris and country rockers like the Byrds and the Burrito Bros.

In fact the guy making that harmonium organ sound like a fiddle on this version of Rock Salt & Nails is none other than Gram Parsons. Chris Hillman is playing bass and Gene Clark the original vocalist for the Byrds plays harmonica on other tracks of the album. The most amazing instrumentalist on the song is the legendary James Burton who makes all of those spine tingling sounds on the dobro.

The existential pain over lost love has wild and desperate beauty that shimmers in this heartbreaking version of Rock Salt and Nails. Steve never became as well known as the many musicians he influenced, but his cult following has lived long and grown by leaps and bounds over the past four decades.



Rock Salt And Nails
Words and Music by Utah Phillips
As Performed by Steve Young

By the banks of the river where the willows grow old
And the wild birds warble with the strange sound so
By the banks of the river where the waters run cold
It was there I first listened to the lies that you told

Now I lay here each night all alone and I weep
And nothing ain't worse than a night without sleep
The letter you wrote me it was written in shame
And I know that your conscience still echo's my name

If the ladies were blackbirds and the ladies were thrushes
I'd lie there for hours in the chilly cold marshes
If the ladies were squirrel's with big bushy tails
I'd fill up my shotgun with rock salt and nails

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Gillian Welch relaxing after a 2005 Grand Ol' Opry appearance.

Caleb Meyer- Gillian Welch w/ David Rawlings When you hear the sound and fury of Gillian Welch's 2004 performance of Caleb Meyer, you have to wonder why she hasn't been in the recording studio in the past six years. The video is courtesy of the venerable BBC4 and was filmed at St. Luke's a beautiful London church, converted into an accoustically perfect small concert performance venue.

Caleb Meyer was the lead tune on Gillian's second album, Hell Among the Yearlings which was released in 1998. Ms. Welch and her songwriting and performing partner, David Rawlings, were among the earliest notable artists of the 90s neo-traditionalist music revival. Between 1996 and 2003 Ms. Welch made four dazzling albums of starkly beautiful rootsy country music. She's been promising to be back in the studio in for around three years now. I hope she makes good on the promise by sometime next year. She's been gone too long.

To listen to Gillian's music you'd swear she was an indigenous musician from some remote Appalachian mining town in West Virginia. So I was suprised to find out that Gillian grew up in an upper middle class area of Los Angeles and her parents were both comedy writers for the Carol Burnett Show.

Gillian has talked about her the influence punk and proto-punk music on her own post modernist approach to country music:
The neo-traditional revivalist movement peaked with the unanticipated runaway success of the soundtrack to Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. Since 2000, it's been pretty much downhill for the neo trads: John Hartford has died, Alison Krauss won a Grammy for a collaborative album with an ex-Led Zeppelin member, Ryan Adams has yet to find his musical compass and Gillian Welch has been silent since 2003.

A lot of good roots music has come and gone over the past decade but dance music, hip hop, Nashville country pop still dominate the charts. Real authentic roots music is still an underground phenomena heard on boutique indie labels only. And worse... the same six global infotainment corporations control 85% of the retail music market while feeding us a steady diet of the same old uninspired mainstream garbage.

In this stunning performance of Caleb Meyer you can pick up on the punk influence by the force of simplicity, the melodic dissonance and the unconventional anti-guitar approach of both Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Notice how Rawlings uses a capo way down on the fifth fret of his guitar to make it sound like a mandolin.

music_phantom13

Thank you for this, I'm really enjoying it so far. I like the minimalish verses and the lack of a buildup when the songs suddenly fills in any empty space that may have been there.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Townes Van Zandt at home in rural Texas

Nothin'- Townes Van Zandt

I was glad to see a couple mentions of the music of Townes Van Zandt over on the Modern Country music thread. His musical gifts were certainly underappreciated when he was alive and the resurgence of interest in his life and music is long overdue.

I've never thought of Townes as a traditional country artist and he doesn't fit into any neat musical category. AMG places him in the folk genre but he was marketed for most of the 70s as a singer songerwriter in the mode of James Taylor or Jackson Browne. Van Zandt's country music associations began after Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Emmylou Harris began covering his songs in the the late 70s. Townes was a gifted interpreter of Hank Williams who frequently included one or two songs writen by Hank in his set list.



Oddly enough Townes identified himself as a blues singer, more than anything else. Townes was noted for saying, "There's two kinds of music in the world, there's the blues and then there's everything else." Townes was making a joke but he really did have the heart of an country music outlaw that shared the same body with the soul of a rambling bluesman.

Much of what Townes Van Zandt wrote and sang had a direct lineage back to the indigenous Texas blues music of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mance Liscomb and Lightnin' Hopkins. In fact Townes was a close friend of Lightnin' Hopkins who was also his early instructor on guitar playing. Townes frequently used the imagery and language of the blues musician in his music. Townes rarely let a live show pass without doing one of the few dozen by Lightnin' Hopkins songs he had mastered over the years. He also performed songs by Bo Diddley, Mississsippi Fred McDowell, and a rousing rendition of the old folk blues standard Cocaine played in the manner of blues guitarist Rev. Gary Davis.

My favorite album by Townes is the first album of his I ever purchased: Delta Mama Blues (1971) on Tomato Records. Some of my best record purchases have been mistakes and my purchase of Delta Mama Blues was a mistake. At the time I was studying blues guitar under the persistent glare of accoustic guitar master Eric Schoenberg and living in Cambridge MA. One of Eric's instructions to me was to listen to a lot of delta blues music in order to refine my own individual style of playing. So one afternoon I'm browsing through albums at the Harvard Coop and the words in the title "delta mama blues" jumped out at me. I thought I was purchasing a delta blues album but I really got something a lot better. I still wonder what Townes was thinking about when he picked the picture for the album cover. It's such an odd photograph.



It took about a month for the music on the album to really get under my skin. I remember laying in bed in the dark listening Townes sing the heartbreaking songs in his plaintive voice and getting a bit overwhelmed with emotion. I was going through a big time romantic breakup and I took comfort in discovering a guy that was even more pathetically heartbroken than I was.

This version of Nothin' isn't the studio version but pretty close to it. This was filmed in 1988 at private concert at a Holiday Inn in Houston. It sounds like only one person was at the concert and Townes agreed to have the concert filmed. It was probably a rich Texas oilman with $10,000 to blow on a private concert.

I think Nothin' is the finest song Townes ever wrote and it really does sound like a blues song to me.



Nothin’
Words and Music by Townes Van Zandt

Hey mama, when you leave
Don't leave a thing behind
I don't want nothin'
I can't use nothin'

Take care into the hall
And if you see my friends
Tell them I'm fine
Not using nothin'

Almost burned out my eyes
Threw my ears down to the floor
I didn't see nothin'
I didn't hear nothin'

I stood there like a block of stone
Knowin' all I had to know
And nothin' more
Man, that's nothin'

As brothers our troubles are
Locked in each others arms
And you better pray
They never find you

Your back ain't strong enough
For burdens doublefold
They'd crush you down
Down into nothin'

Being born is going blind
And buying down a thousand times
To echoes strung
On pure temptation

Sorrow and solitude
These are the precious things
And the only words
That are worth rememberin'