It's quite bizarre how much I like the Border Song but nothing else Elton John's done at the same time. Maybe it's more a case of my not really being that fussed about his work, but anyway, I agree completely. Relatively bare-boned simplicity is what stands the test of time the best, in the sense that a fairly simple tune with the right kind of hook to it will be covered by generations of artists to come, or at least that's how I look at it. Jackie Wilson Said, Slow Down, Cry Me a River, Yesterday and Satisfaction are a few others like it I think of at the moment.

Perhaps predictably enough, this here's my personal favourite version of the said Border Song...



Kind of annoying how those guys never recorded a studio version. Oh well.

This bit was well said, and explains a lot about your musical taste.

And I have to agree, I think it takes more talent to conquer simple musical structure and make it great, than to throw every technique you know into one giant frenzy and call it a song.

Great write-up, btw. And great song.

Theres a coldness to music from the 90's, and while I think a good deal of it is ****, there are a few gems I still love. And I don't mean that I turn up the radio when they come on, I mean think they have given, to the overall musical canon, a great deal of advancement, or at least a sharpened guidence.

One of those songs that should have been dead and buried is the Wallflowers 1996 masterwork One Headlight. I say this in all sincerety, there should be a bigger deal made about these folks, and as Jakob Dylan releases a new album this month, I'm inspired to dig up everything he's touched.

But this is about the song. I think too much of the 90's was too concerned with being weird, showing that were exceptional in their strife and misery, and there wasn't so much a story as there was a laundry list of transgressions that had been leveled against the singer/narrator by a faceless "her" or an indescript "world."

While Dylan here doesn't sterr away from that he surrounds these plot points with a lush metaphorical landscape of a community, where the man is alone because of an enviornmental strife, not an emotional one. Emotion is important, but it was sullied in that decade because it was overused, to tag a line, the personal became political. To some degree One Headlight is a distant cousin to Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer"

And ultimatly, its married with a bit of Outlaw/frontier country that gives it the well-worn soul of old age, of someone who's suffered truely, and knows that like with shamble on. There is no death in heartbreak, and unlike his contemporaries who assumed there was, Dylan gives you the impression that the lack of death is the most terrible thing.

Musical Economy
 

For better or worse, when I'm feeling like I could jellify my body and slip through the cracks in the floor, I go take a walk through a graveyard near my house. There are tons of reasons why, but needless to say the iPod has to be a little more appropriate than if I were walking down the street.

Somewhere in there was "Nothin'", the Van Zant cover from Raising Sand which only has Robert Plant singing, and therefore, a mean fiddle by Alison Krauss. It fits a walk through the graveyard so i'd rewind (?) the song to my favorite parts and really sat with the song a lot longer than if it had come up randomly.

Later on came to Johnny Cash's version of "Wayfaring Stranger" (which has the best accordion you've ever heard and eventually a fiddle. Listening to it, I thought to myself "Jesus, is this Alison Krauss too?" It struck me then that economy has too much to do with the sounds of the lesser played instruments.

In a musical landscape dominated by electric guitars, they all get their own sound, and its intentionally different. I don't know **** about guitars but I know that musicians that play them are as picky about them as they are their cars, healthcare providers, and where they buy their porkchops.

So what does this do for the listener? Sadly, I feel as if it severly downgrades the amount of experimentation that could exist. At this point it seems the only folks coming up with different sounds (to any noticible degree) are those making their own, and so its got to come from someone that has an established presense and can get away with this sort of thing.

Roots music may have a DIY ethos thats impossible to get away from (i mean its generally played on porches) but in that down-to-earth, home-spun mentality, theres still a rigid discipline thats silently mandated. Standards that have existed for centuries are constantly reinvented, but theres always a strand of originality.

The bare-boned economics of it is that, no matter how ****ty you make a guitar, theres enough interest in it, and enough ways you can learn that as long as its cheap, someone will buy it. But Fiddle, trombone, bagpipe, or accordion, they all cost too much, are too scare, and vary so little that new companies aren't springing up due to the looming bankruptcy that would come from it.

In roots music, necessity if the mother of invention; accidents the catalyst of progression. But no one plays the Lute any more, and if the genre is going to get as weird as the people and places in its own stories, we need to get medevil again and start coating our wood casings with cat guts, and insect entrails, we need to start building the musical version of soapbox racers again, because Jack White and Tom Waits can't do it alone, because in a tradition born from the tribal origins of the worlds children, the progression of time has only resulted in a regression of sound.

Bring in the Jazz, spread on the funk
 

Musical Oracle, Madlib, has a fairly extensive project called "Sound Directions" modeled on his first release "Yesterdays New Quintet." If you've listened to anything in this family, Jazz being spun up like it was hip-hop, (Dan the Automator, Mark Farina) then this is probably already on your playlist. That or if you bought the Kill Bill soundtrack, you've probably heard what this genre is capable of.

Built like a soundtrack to a movie that never came, the musical soundscapes tend to make you paint your own picture. A selection from one of my favorite albums is below. If you're looking to get into more of this, I suggestion you check out...

(These are starter suggestions)

Kill Bill Soundtrack
Mushroom Jazz Volume 2 (or #4)
Music to make love to your old lady by


Enjoy!

The crowning achievement of slapstick hip hop. MC Paul Barman and MF Doom throw down over a CCR respin. A track everyone can love and just in time for summer.

Rap has always had the ability to mix serious, hilarious, and vociferously political into one track. The master villain does it again.

greater than 4 stars, greater straight-A report cards, greater than poor sports in divorce courts or sports bars...

For Cunning Stunt, a repost....
 

I did this while bored. Forgive the mistakes. Debate the song selection...wait do my readers have decent enough taste to listen to the stripes????

1. Icky Thump

The new big hit, a song with a misplaced solo and (as Adidasss described it) Baltic organs emerged on the radio in early 2007 with the same ethos as Get Behind Me Satan with an electrified arena-ready seasoning that reminded the masses that the stripes could still throw down and reinforced fans theories that GBMS was a Cobain-mindful celebrity dodge endearing them more to White’s Rock God persona.

“Well Americans, what? Nothing better to do? Why don’t cha kick yourself out you’re an immigrant too…”

2. Seven Nation Army

The map making house hold name that made the most vicious of protesters grit their teeth in admiration. Titled after a misnomer given to the “salvation army” by a young jack white, seven nation army uses one chord, a little slide, and a five note hook to scorch the airwaves of 2004 and leave every other single that year in the dust. With an ominous bass line intro (played on the guitar) that was as foreboding as it was danceable the stripes had their first sing along played by no less than five other acts that very year. The detractors hit this one hard with arguments of simplicity, reminding everyone else that elaborate is for philosophy and art films. Long live rock and roll.

“I’m going to Wichita, far from this opera for evermore. I’m gunna work the straw and make the sweat drip out of every pore”

3. Denial Twist

The funkiest white boy jam since Beck released “where its at.” Simple piano chords and some meg white shuffle carried an entire CD designed to shake the hounds off their trail; the stripes roll out a pop song with lyrics still bleeding from the break up. Dig the break down in this one, Jack White testifies like the Godfather himself.

“so now your mans, denying the truth and its getting in the wisdom in the back of your tooth, ya need to spit it out in a telephone booth while ya call everyone that ya know”

4. Fell in Love with a Girl

Coming in the Strokes sweep up of anything sounding remotely retro, fell in love with a girl was shorter than your average song on the radio that year by a good two minutes. Coming in around just under two minutes, the stripes packed enough fuzz, fury, and incoherent lyrics to make even the old folks sing along.

“Red hair with a curl, mellow roll for the flavor and the eyes for peeping, can’t keep away from the girl, the two sides of my brain need to have a meeting”

5. Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground

If Fell in love with a girl helped them draft off of the Strokes surge of popularity, Dead Leaves established the Stripes as their own band, dragging the high speed rush of everyone looking for New York bite down to the delta blues. The song had enough force to dreg up countless bands from Detroit that would otherwise have no shot. A persevering sound, and establishment of style and a minor preparation for the elephant that was about to come.

“soft hair and a velvet tongue, I wanna give ya what you give to me and every breath that is in your lounges is a tiny little gift to me”

6. Broken Bricks

Out of key singing, chords so stiff you can hear the bounce, and is Meg White just jingling keys at certain points? Possibly, but who cares, the stripes show up with more swing than you can shake a stick at, and when meg was potentially playing with actual sticks. Jack channels his inner Springsteen and tells a tale of blue-collar revelry and the man crushing the souls of another family.

“broke into the window panes just a rusty colored rain that drives a man insane you try to jump over water but you land in oil climb the ladder up a broken crane. Don't go to the broken bricks girl it's not a place that you want to be think of the spot your father spent his life demolition calls it Building C”

7. Rag and Bone

“This place is like a mansion, its like a mansion, look at all this stuff!” And so is this song. The stripes go grifting and come up with enough jump to remind you that bands never used to have to harvest 80’s **** synth to come up with a song people could get down to. Its hard to determine here if the stripes sound more like hobos, carnies, or used car salesmen but the slime that’s all over them in this one is very much their own, which despite all the comparisons is more than you can say for Zeppelin. Who knows, maybe its some amalgamate of all four.

“Well can't you hear we're selling rag and bone? Bring out your junk and we'll give it a home a broken trumpet or a telephone”

8. Instinct Blues

An unfinished song from an unfinished disc. Too simple and too obvious for any real fan to appreciate, and any non-fan to get. The Beauty of this one lives in its tortured bends and non-sequetir breakdowns. You can feel the grime build on you after this ones over.

“And all the chickens get it and them singing canaries get it. Whoo! Even strawberries get it I want you to get with it”

9. Death Letter

If the Stripes style wasn’t enough of a clue, Jack White ****ing loves Son House, so much so that he covers this throwback gem with notes so distant you’d think it was coming from House himself. Jack always did have the fine fingered knowledge to have those amps throw as much pain as the electric would allow and here he doesn’t let up an inch. The guitar work here might be too beautiful to describe.

“I gat a letter this mornin’ what do you rekon it read, it said the girl you love is dead”

10. Hotel Yorba

A simple country swing that will make you tap your foot while dreaming of rolling down the open roads of the Midwest. Yorba, given its prominence for allegedly once housing the Fab Four when they visited the blossoming metropolis of Detroit [sic], lets the words do all the fancy talking with Jack telling us the problems of modern life when you’re just trying to love your woman. And really, whats more country than that?

“I been thinking of a little place down by the lake they got a dirty little road leading up to the house I wonder how long it will take till we're alone sitting on the front porch of that home stomping our feet on the wooden boards never gonna worry about locking the door”

11. Jolene

Dolly Parton might have had it first, but she lacked the vicious lashes of distortion that express the torture of rolling in your bed wide awake at four in the morning with all the demons thrashing in your head, and your man whispering someone else’s name.

”he talks about you in his sleep and there is nothing I can do to keep from crying when he calls your name, Jolene”

12. Hello Operator

If the opening riff of this one doesn’t speak to you, you might lack a soul. With infections fills that mandate air guitar, and senseless stick clicking on megs behalf, its hard not to bob to this one.

“Find a canary a bird to bring my message home carry my obituary my coffin doesn’t have a phone”

13. Union Forever

Written while Jack tried learning a song in Citizen Cane, this brought the stripes into their first legal battle. But what might have been taken from the film is irrelevant, the haunting over drone that creeps in from behind will give you that “someones behind you” feeling on the neck every time.

“With wealth and fame, he's still the same I'll bet you five you're not alive If you don't know his name.”

14. Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise

Arguably the most overlooked Stripes song. It may not be the most elaborate, or the most sonically pleasing but its hard not to find the beauty in arpeggiated piano notes and lyrics like:

“you try to tell her what to do and all she does is stare at you, her stare is louder than your voice, cause truth doesn’t make a noise”

15. Catch Hell Blues

Like Instinct Blues, this one is all music and few words. While certainly more thought out, the power still comes from the non-lyrics, tons of slide, great runs, and parts that are so high on the register your dogs will be screaming.

“If you go looking for hot water, don’t be shocked when ya get burned a little bit”

16. Stop Breaking Down

For all the Stripes pretend to remain children, they have some filthy god damn lyrics. Taking this one from the king of the delta blues himself, Jack gives it the old White Stripes bounce that makes you dance in your car seat even as the song is miles away from anything dance oriented. Make the kids leave this room on this one, if you can make out the lyrics.

“The stuff I got is gonna bust your brains out Well, it'll make you lose your mind You saturday night women, you love to Ape and clown You won't do nothin' but tear a good man's reputation down - stop breakin' down!”

17. Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine

Buried deep on Elephant and overshadowed by song with bigger star power or more poignant topics, the stripes take aim at the entitled and the hypochondriacs with the nastiest riff this side of the 70’s.

“Well strip the bark right off a tree And just hand it this way Don’t even need a drink of water To make the headache go away Give me sugar pill And watch me just rattle Down the street”

18. Same Boy You’ve Always Known

Another track that I feel should have been more well received. Somewhere south of all the radio hits, Same Boy has more pain in jacks voice than is seen in most of the stripes catalogue, which takes some average level lyrics and gives them an amazing breath of fresh air.

“I hope you know a strong man who can lend you a hand lowering my casket I thought this is just today and soon you'd been returning the coldest blue ocean water cannot stop my heart and mind from burning”

19. Hand Springs

From the hot pinball rock CD, Jack tells the all to common tale of love lost at the bowling alley. In the aftermath of his loss to a smooth talking interloper with enough pinball’s skills to woo her away, Jack ponders old age and a potential loss of bowling skills. Alas, Lament my friend, lament.

“he's lookin' at her the way I did when I first met her I could see in his face white flowers and cups of coffee and love letters”

20. Ball and a Biscuit

You can’t play riffs like these with your grandma around. Coming it at over seven minutes, this one clocks in as the stripes longest song to date and what might be their filthiest. After covering enough delta blues men, Jack takes it on up to Chicago and takes a bath so he can “get clean” with his woman. If it wasn’t for euphemisms, the stripes would give Prince and 2 Live Crew a run for their money.

“You read it in the newspaper Ask your girlfriends and see if they know that my strength is ten fold girl and I'll let you see if you want to before you go”

Q: Are the White Stripes Metal?
 

Just some things I think people should check out.



Sting - Driven to tears


can't hear a god damned word he's saying half the time but sting sounds like he's scream truth in a storm on this one. I really dig it. (taken from the concert for Haiti)



Clarence "Frogman" Henry - Ain't got a home

First heard this looking up strats for WoW and loved it. this 50's juke **** is the best party music ever made.




Reverend Gary Davis - Death don't have no Mercy (in this land)

There are no blues like the depression era blues. The soundtrack to your children dying slowly while you look for jobs that keep going over seas. The blackest level of hell they make shudders when hearing this song.



Cheeseburger - I'm coming Home

Another one I've posted before. This obviously isn't 50's juke-junk but its the offspring. Dreaming of the days with a hot sax solo was obligatory to stardom. Break out of jail? this song makes me want to do **** to get back in.

4 pretty decent songs there, particularly the Sting one. Given some of the other stuff I listen to quite a bit, it's almost inevitable I'll check some of his stuff out in the not-very-distant future. Really liked that Frogman Henry one too - another one I've never heard of before. As you say, it's 50s jukebox fluff, but still a great little number - I've got a few compilations of that kinda stuff lying, and they're always good to whip out when you don't really know what you particularly feel like listening to.

I've been looking for this one forever. 2 live crew and Prince are Puritans comapraed to this group. I think its proof saying what you're going to do is never as filthy as using horrible metaphors. For this to come out in the 1930's is ridiculous.

If I made a song saying literally what these guys say figurativly I'd be arrested and shot. Hilarious, vile, aweome. Listen and love it.

Great songs by bands you hate #1: The Counting Crows
 

I'd like to do this series because I think that people would like a band more if they weren't subjected to the horrible **** that comes on the radio constantly. I also think its good to let people know, from time to time, that their opinions make them arrogant ****s.

First of all, if you don't like the Counting Crows there is likely one of two elements at play:

1. You aren't American

2. You're a douche.

The first is acceptible, the second is not. To my foreign friends, I get not liking them. I don't like the Stone Roses for probably the same reason. But if you're stateside there is no excuse. I say this because its antagonistic and also because its probably fair. But you were likely all things terrible well before you hated Counting Crows.

I've heard tons of reasons from friends. "I hate Adam Durtiz hair", "They sound like pussies", "Friends sucked." I'll give you two of those, but the band is immesly talented and I think it would be unfair to let them die witha front man who made some bad fashion choices. (God knows we haven't penalized Bowie for similar).

What you've probably heard:
Mr. Jones
Hanging Around
Around Here

Theres nothing particularly wrong with these songs but the can (and often) do pitch the bands sound in a direction that doesn't represent them terrible well. They've been accused of godfathering the lighter emo sound into popular culture being covered live by Dashboard Confessional and (i think) Brand New. And unless you were alive and awake in 1996 you probably haven't head "long december" but thats guilty too.

But the band has a strong folk element that isn't displayed in most of the radio-friendly work that I think give the Crows an advantage over the traditional pat-rote garbage that was a peer in the 90's (Live, Stroke 9, Goo Goo Dolls).

What you should try:
Omaha
Ms. Potters Lullabye
Colorblind
Rain King
Holiday in Spain
Anna Begins*

If I haven't convinced you to try their music, then take a half a step toward them with these covers....

Friend of the Devil (The Greatful Dead)
Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
The Ghost in You (Psychedelic Furs)

Colorblind is one song which can completely move me emotively. I love that song so much; cannot get enough of it. I like Counting Crows, but to be honest I haven't really heard a whole lot of their stuff other than This Desert Life. Now I'm tempted to finally check out more.

So you heard "Ms. Potters Lullabye" then, yes? What did you think of it. If not their best song, its easily in the top 3.

Personally I think its a crowning achievement, but I really like those long, rambling (musically), songs with vague subject matter.

I feel like Bright Eye's "Cassadega" & Neil Youngs "I'm the ocean" is like that too.

Root cause of the Issue
 

When you claim to like "roots music", to me it says you've decided on sound over style. That your acts would do better, if they want your money, to record their songs ona front porch with acoustic instruments. That the power going out in the middle of the show is irrelevent.

But too often, "roots" is in the same boat as this stupid retro-trend that has overtaken the hispter population. Dressing up like a pin-up girl, or some turn of the century yokel - its bad enough when it doesn't effect the music I love.

Too often losing msic from the 20's means attempting to sound just like them. Somehow, I think they lost the message.

I know guys who play guitar without a pick because it sounds more authetic. While I think thats a little extream, it does illustrate the unspoken benefit of the front porch concert - its fairly honest. The sounds aren't perfect, the voices don't auto-tune, and musicians learn to adapt to mistakes, failures, and "what song is this again?"

I tend to blame any guy who has a crush on zooey deschanel. its not an accurate system, but its a nice way of cutting through a large amount of frauds in one shot. To me its comprable to Applebee's. Lets not bother creating an atual atmosphere and character to each restaurant nation wide, lets just put a bunch of rusty sleds and tricycles on the wall and call ourselves rustic.

The point is honesty in total, and we're being fed, partially by corporate cahs-ins (but thats to be expected) and the other portion is by a rebellious angry sect of the population who wants to take a shot at modern, capitalistic America. A drive to return to a simpler time, a way to physically express that "things were better then." But this in your face prophetering is as obnoxious as it is wrong. As evident as they'd like their opinions to be, its even more evident that their hollow shells of people with short-sighted reactionary theory.

I do love "Mrs. Potter's Lullabye" in fact that is probably my second favourite to Colorblind... I just love really haunting, sad songs. You're right, rambling is a good way to describe Mrs. Potter's Lullabye. I love the driving piano in that song too... and the lyrics. Good band. I need to get more albums I think.

The strips are beast, Elephant is an excellent album. I don't really know why the question "Are the White Stripes metal" even needs to be asked to be honest, I don't think I've seen one single element of any song that has made me think that they could be metal. That said, I haven't listened to their earlier stuff or their later stuff, just Elephant and White Blood Cells.

They are quite quirky, though. Song like "This Protector," "In the Cold Cold Night," "I think I smell a Rat," as examples are all very different, and I'd be tempted to place them in the Alternative genre rather than the Rock genre based on those songs alone. Very interesting band, at least :D

Why I listen to Pop.
 

I’ve been told that my musical taste is eclectic bordering on indiscriminate. In seemingly unrelated news, I’ve also been told I’m very hard to watch movies, television shows, or listen to the radio with. The inference in tone and fits proximity to my own statements suggest its because I’m highly critical of most everything to do with art. I refute nothing.

Having said that it might be slightly vexing to know that I not only listen to pop music, but enjoy it to a large degree and will often prefer it to music I generally own. This audience isn’t something I’ve procured through romantic entanglement or occupational hazard.

I’d once known a man who claimed that Xanax was like a “reset button” for life. Similarly, I find pop music a sort of respite for a critical mind, which is no disparaging commentary but rather a compliment to its clear philosophical vision; The veritable post-wine cracker at the tasting. Where many make the mistake of seeing compliment become insult is in believing that there is no virtue in striving for simple goals (which much of pop most certainly does) and that without risk, music can’t simply be worth the listen.

While a good deal of the flack is given for the genres fan base, this is more of a lesson in psychology and sociology which no one has neither the time to listen, nor the patience to put up with my lecturing. While its certainly a large and valid topic, for the purposes of explaining myself, lets suffice with the idea that any disgruntled attitude toward anyone who listens to the music has no bearing on, nor should be calculated into the worth of the genre.

But just as in life where we cannot all be chemical engineers, neither, too, can all music push the very bounds of what is collective commonplace in the world of Western Popular Music. The tiny gears of the world are as vital to the machine as the engine or the fuel, and any value found in one or the other is nothing more than rationalization created to suit ones own vision of the economy of things.

At this point it might be hard to discern how this is a favorable comment (or how it was intended to be) at all. It has to do with, I suppose, my own vision of how things ought to be. Do we view music as a finished masterpiece to be reviewed plainly without the assumption changes were possible? A sort of divined and unwavering truth that was born in tact? Or do we conclude what I believe most would have found themselves bereft of the linguitical baggage that would come with this topic and conversation, that music is an ever-flowing muse, created to inspire rather than to be evaluated? The suppression fire that allows advancement; the felled tree that fertilizes the fallow earth?

President Kennedy once said, “Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.” I find pop music to occupy that same position. Just a simple machine, whose operations learned in youth allow the complications of the adult world to be dismissed to the subconscious where all brilliance springs from, while the conscious mind unravels and heals from all the vexing bulwarks of a life with responsibilities.
In short: without simplicity now and again, there is no hope for the complexity that would satisfy our more critical thirst.

This position and its logic are obviously not airtight. Room for interpretation is till to soil. But the alternatives should always be presented if only to strengthen the opposition through the questioning that comes with debate. While many who relish the higher register complexities of progressive pieces might begrudgingly give pop its place, those willing to move in new directions will always be ready to start back at the bottom. Even if it means relearning those lessons of youth, as basic as they are, as frustrating as it might be to have to learn them again.

To take a line from Caddyshack: “The world always needs ditch-diggers too.”

Great writeup. Is that from your blog?

I'd intended for it to appear here only, but the computer at work really sucks with this new job, so I stored it on the blog and re-posted it here later.

You've got a great blog. I'm glad you're porting stuff from it anyway. I think you should bring more of it here.

Normally I would, but a good deal of it is political. I'll also have to write up, at one point, how I come to write anything more thoughtful than a set of directions.

If only to illustrate why I produce less often than Pandas.

I hear ya.
For what it's worth though, having read what you do produce, those baby pandas are worth the wait, and I'm sure the rest of the animal kingdom would understand.

Well thank you.

I use blogspot to post, and it allows you to save entires and not post them. I've probably got triple the blogs waiting to be posted than actually are. My next entry will be the logic-boggling philosophy that I use to write. As I say, if nothing else it will explain some of my stranger characteristics.

I'm a bit of a rummager when it comes to music. And I dig through Youtube a lot; that great internet dumpster where everyone gets input. I found a 6 video series on the Pogues "Fairytale of New York."

If you're into music. Not the Pogues or this song, but music, I really, really suggest you watch this series.



If for whatever reason you don't have the time to watch 6 videos, check out this (the 5th one) and I promise you it alone will prove the series is worth the time.



I thought I'd share this with you guys because the commentary is really rich and covers quite a few disciplines from music to history and all over. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did.

Its apparent genius is not rewarded. Futhermore, in life, we need to play to our strengths. Mine happens to be the company I keep and the videos i get because of that. So I'm going to post the ****ing whacked out horse**** I'm lucky enough to find on a daily basis.



Watch this one until the end for max effect.

YouTube is the world's biggest flea market & archive of both sacred & profane artifacts of popular culture. Where else can you find an old video of Andy Warhol eating a take-out Burger King hamburger?

Its not often we get the travails of musical narration on here, but on a random trip to McSweeny's I found a slightly humorous, musically adept author writing about selling a song to Nashville. Its not the best thing you'll ever read, but I'm trying to just expand horizons here.

Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Dispatches From a Guy Trying Unsuccessfully to Sell a Song In Nashville.

new ipod song.

I kinda dig it.

I tried in vain before to carry the water for some World Music. It never flew. So I'll post one song here, off one of my favorite albums, and hopefully it works out. Try it while you're doing something else. Let it sink in.

Bandoneon and cello aren't always a pop-smash combo, but I think this is the sort of thing you use for background music while you create art yourself. Try.

So I'm on No Depression's e-mail list. I don't normally read every issue cover to cover but I do check out the articles and see what strikes my fancy. In the most recent letter, one such has...

The history of any art form can eventually be traced back to its folk roots. The rich and subtle paintings of DaVinci or Vermeer have their antecedents in the simplified cave paintings of Lascaux. The delicate sculpture of Michelangelo, Bernini, or Rodin find their roots in the bluntly voluptuous Venus figures from tens of thousands of years ago. Of course, these folk forms endure through history, patiently awaiting their next cycle of rediscovery by future generations who re-appropriate and re-render them in their own contemporary image. This tension between the “primitive” forms of old and the “sophisticated” forms of educated artists informs much of the most celebrated modern art – see Picasso, Gauguin, Brancusi, and Dubuffet as famous examples. I can’t help but feel that roots-oriented music is entering a similar cycle where highly technical players are applying erudite musical knowledge with some of the oldest folk forms of American music (which were, in turn, derived from even older European and African forms.) I’m not sure what the hell to call it, though…


I began thinking about this after seeing the Punch Brothers play an hour long set at Grimey’s Record Shop in Nashville this weekend. For those unfamiliar, the band is composed of what would normally be traditional bluegrass instrumentation – mandolin (Chris Thile of Nickel Creek fame), fiddle (Gabe Witcher), banjo (Noam Pikelny), guitar (Chris Eldridge), and double bass (Paul Kowert). However, the Punch Brothers’ intricate melodies, harmonic density, lively counterpoint, and wild shifts both dynamically and rhythmically owe almost as much to classical music conventions as they do bluegrass. They take this form, the standard bluegrass band setup, several steps beyond the Newgrass music pioneered by John Hartford, Sam Bush, J.D. Crowe, and others in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s very difficult to classify.

While the taxonomy and categorizing of music can be a painfully frivolous endeavor, it can also be convenient. I’ve described the Punch Brothers and other groups with similar characteristics as chamber music with a strong bluegrass/old-time influence. (To emphasize that point, the Punch Brothers were heading to Vanderbilt University’s Ingram Hall, a fine-arts theater with a “chamber music” vibe and hefty price tag, right after their free afternoon in-store appearance.) So, perhaps Chambergrass might be appropriate? Or, instead of Newgrass, how about Grass Nouveau (because let’s face it, everything sounds more sophisticated in French)? None of this “highfalutin” wording is meant to imply that Grass Nouveau can’t be a foot-stopping, ass-shaking good time. It definitely can (and was on Saturday.) However, its complex forms can also make for pure head music, perfectly suited to strap on some ear cans, slurp down bong hits, and waste an afternoon drooling in a beanbag for those so inclined. Also, it can provide dense educational fodder for serious music nerds looking to study some pretty heavy compositions. In fact, the supercharged versatility of Grass Nouvea is its greatest strength, though its practitioners are few and far between (to this writer’s knowledge, anyway.)


Other than the Punch Brothers, the first group that comes to mind blending chamber music-like compositions with bluegrass and old time forms is the Sparrow Quartet (and, perhaps, some of its individual members in their solo projects.) Similar to the Punch Brothers, the Sparrow Quartet weaves very complex melodies, boisterous dynamic shifts, and somber harmonics with gleeful explosions of fiddle riffs, blues vamps, and other folk forms. The group boasts two banjo players, a fiddler, and a cellist. Of course, when one of your banjo players is Bela Fleck, renowned newgrass pioneer and virtuosic player, and the other is Abigail Washburn, a clawhammer banjo player with a stunning voice who sings in both English and Mandarin, one shouldn’t expect rote renditions of bluegrass standards. (By the way, Fleck and Washburn are now married, apparently working to create a master species of lightning-fingered banjo deities.) Filling the space around the dueling banjos are two highly educated musicians in their own right. Casey Driessen is a Berklee-trained fiddler whose solo explorations would certainly qualify as Grass Nouveu, though they have more electronic and jazz influences than the “prototypical” Punch Brothers or Sparrow Quartet. Ben Sollee is a classically-trained cellist from Kentucky whose side projects eschew the intricacies of chamber music for experiments in a soulful acoustic indie-pop with a strong rural influence. While I appreciate the solo work and various side projects of all of these musicians, the sum is greater than the whole of the parts when the Sparrow Quartet brings all of this talent together in one room. Whether they record further as a coalition or experiment separately, these are some of the musicians, along with the Punch Brothers, that I’ll keep my eye on to see what strange and interesting new hybrids flower from the roots of bluegrass music.

Of course, Bluegrass itself is also a hybrid of prior forms including European folk songs, African blues forms, early jazz, and more. Such is the history of art, constantly tilling the soil of the past and planting the seeds of differing cultures who find themselves unexpectedly intertwined. The tale is as old the hills that spawned Earl Scruggs or Roscoe Holcomb before him. While the story isn’t new, each generation tells it a little differently, re-arranging the chapters and verses. Indeed, everything old is nouvea again, and I’m glad to be around for this arrangement.

I hope you enjoyed it. Short, rich, and something most people here are nose-diving into. Also, if you missed the link at the top, here it is again.

From Newgrass to... Grass Nouveau? - Americana and roots music - No Depression

How far must classical come?
 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Bandoneon.jpg

Because I have no other metaphor readily available, I’m going to relate it to Cryptozoology. For years we suspected some sort of mythological creature lived in lower east Asia. You’d hear tales from villagers, shepherds, and sherpa's about some man-like thing living in the high hills. Eventually we found out those were silver-back low-land gorillas. And today we regard them as just another animal, though there are still books for of Sasquatch this and Loch Ness that.



In the music world, very few things go into the classical realm with ease. For a long time, few instruments made the cut as something that was ranged enough, and flexible enough to take on the classical repertoire; Piano created this movement, being born for the substandard instruments of the past, harpsichord, dulcimer and the harp. Once man had achieved his instrument of progression, others earned their way into the game, violin and the bowed instruments. All the manner of woodwind and see the orchestra was filled with instruments you could be classically trained in. As the style fell from favor, many would believe that what classical could achieve was already discovered, set and stone, and reduced to mere hobby for those interested enough to pursue.



Then Segovia came along, like some silver-back gorilla and said “yes, the rumors are true, the Guitar is and can be a classical instrument. Watch.” And while many wrote classical for guitar prior, it was mostly mythology, novelty, or shtick. It certainly wasn’t the proud pea**** of the concert hall we consider it today.



The question for us as appreciative observers is, what other lowland gorillas exist out there amongst the yetis and chupacabra?



This question, and to some degree passion, originates in my own fascination with one instrument bordering on the very cusp of where guitar might have been 110 years ago. For all intents and purposes, lets call it the Accordion. If you do your research, you’ll understand why its difficult to use any particular name. The problem is 3-fold.



For one thing, there doesn’t seem to be much scholarship in regard to both construction of the three major instruments (addressed later), and also the classifications tend to be, at least thus far, scattered.



To explain that last part, lets address the aforementioned 3 instruments that might comprise what I’m referring to when I say Accordion.



* Accordion – Most westerners hear this and think of the spring-like box with piano keys on it that sounds like a portable little organ. Its mostly associated in the United States with 3 major ethnic groups; Latin Americas (and Mariachi), Italian Americans (and Tarantella, generally), and Eastern European in its many different incarnations (klezmer, gypsy, ect.). To a smaller extent, the Irish population be come to mind, but its generally with another sort of accordion.



* Button Box – I’m using this title because its to differentiate the accordion above from this one. Primarily, the first is unisoronic, meaning that no matter which direction I’m moving the instrument (push, pull) it makes the same noise for the key you’re playing. The button box, possibly referred to as a melodeon by our international friends, is commonly bisoronic which is often why buttons replace keys. A push generates a different note than a pull would for the same key. Its no wonder they moved away from piano keys, which is one of the western words most iconic muscial symbols. To suggest that the white key between two black keys isn’t a D may have been see as musical-blasphemy.





* Bandoneon – The match head that set this horrible struggle on fire for me. Those many casual observers would say one IS the other, for some reason I have yet to discover, the Bandoneon is considered to be in the Concertina family, rather than the Accordion family. This is the case despite both being free-reed (like a Harmonica). Normally I’d dismiss this as ridiculous sausage-making but the bandoneon represents one of the big arguments for the “Accordions” presence as an instrument more than capable of delivering on the Classical pile. The Tango, which sounds like Classical though is often classified as “jazz” stands as the major musical force in several Latin American countries. Like Segovia, Astor Piazzolla stands as its ranking patriarch.

Why these three exist as separate entities to some degree is a mystery. They certainly aren't without their similarities, they likely have more than not, but it seems to be that the single biggest hurdle in preventing the full on acceptance of this instrument into the classical Valhalla is that scholarship is failing on an all too consistent basis. This goes well beyond the storied halls of Major Metropolitan Conservatories. There is no movement at the bottom.

This "Accordion" still sits at the bottom of public opinion. If some youth finds themselves in possession of an instrument and weekly lessons, they are likely forced there by some diaspora-laden immigrant parent who's iron-clad rule over the house insists that the instrument is learned for traditional [enter country here] traditions. And who's the biggest sitting champion of this instrument in popular culture? Its Weird Al Yankovik. I love Al, but no wonder the instrument is taking as a joke.

Lessons are impossible to find at most local schools where a migrant population doesn't carry it in. I live in a fairly forward-leaning metropolis in America, and I can't find lessons beyond someones living room. By its very existence there, it has an aura of lacking credibility. Still, the potential is there, and with the on-coming push of roots music and, as the opinion piece I posted above will suggest, "Chambergrass" the revolution might be upon us.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Piazzolla.jpg

I'm digging it as well, surprisingly. It definitely wouldn't have been something I would have chosen on my own to listen to.
Do you only have this song or do you have the whole album?
The image is really distracting. =P

This is the best thing you've ever written. Good job, man

I don't, my dear. I don't. Delving into albums is something I might have done at a younger age, but at the ripe old age of 87, I only hope to inspire.

Hey thanks, I appreciate that.

That picture is dope.. What kind of camera did you use?

Ha, I wish I could tell you. Thats Tom Waits, and if I were ever close enough to photograph him, let alone in the California Wine Country, I might just quit my job and work at a gas station for the rest of my life. Where do you go when your dreams have come true?

If I ever find out, i'll let you know.

Music is an insufferable interest. Despite what the coffee shop barista's will tell you, its the only art with an unbearable cult following and despite it being a traditional bastion of anti-religious folks, these barren souls walk around professing its scripture as if they not only believed in God, but they'd spoken to him and he said "thou shalt not enjoy past the first EP!"

Alright, so thats a little far. God's no hipster but for christ sakes all of his followers are. Whats humorous to me as I walk around these boards is that I've got ever idiot who just discovered Velvet Underground telling me how religion is a joke, but they'd sleep with someone for being as into WH/WL as they were.

For too many around these boards, they're Christians without the Sunday Mass; Evangelicals without the roof of a Megachurch.

But if I'm going to continue with this beleaguered metaphor, then let us be Buddhists - or at least Quakers - and count ourselves as believes in the awesome faith of music, but tempered with a strict patience and discipline. Not because I'm sick of you running off at the mouth about how great something is (I am), or racing to recite facts about bands/songs/et. all to a room full of people who already know just to prove you're a little smarty pants (I'd love to ****ing punch these people) but because we, as an old and wise people, with a deep appreciation and a keen eye for integrity know that, just as in life, love doesn't mean infatuation but an endearment to the flaws of thing.

If music were a woman, there would be some we'd love to **** repeatedly. There'd be too many we'd **** for a night and regret. Still more than would break our hearts, and a few that could snore at night, watch terrible television, nag you when you change lanes too fast on the highway, and buy us ****ty presents for Christmas but that we'd love because of those things. Because deep down, underneath that abhorrent veneer would be a genuine person who cared for you in return.

Too many around here run to the precipice, counting the ways in which something appeals to you, like some Shakespeare with a flower full of petals, never concerned for its failings or flaws until one day they arrive and we all grow disinterested. But like the more reasoned among us, our faith in the deliverance of things like music is only reinforced when it becomes less obvious at the intrinsic value of something.

I know these boards are no fan of religion but since I've dug myself this deeply, let me close with one final comment. And since I'm sure everyone's Pro-English, I'll even choose a quote from C.S. Lewis. The man once said (the jist of) that too many dismiss religion and its powers because a daily miracle isn't seen even now and again. And while no one turns water to wine, every day the trees drink up the water and nutrients, create from them fruit by which we make wine.

Sometimes its hard to notice the value of the candle when we're hunting for fireworks, but to those reasoned and patient enough, its not only seen but enjoyed to no end. I hope my comments here today can shed a light on what I rant and rave against here on a daily basis. That the raw awesome power of any bands first EP may fade, certainly, and sometimes that really is just selling out. But sometimes, if you look correctly, its just refined and tempered, somewhere out of plain view, if you're patient enough.

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Edit:

For my own personal count, there have been 78 posts (some of which must be mine) and 4,513 views. Which means, assuming none of the responses were mine, one in 58 viewers respond. Including me its likely to hit 1 in 70.

I'm not sure why, when someone tells you about Styx, you hear either Renegade or Come Sail away, because if they've got songs like the one I've posted here, I cannot imagine why is isn't leading the charts.

I've never heard this song on classic rock radio, its never been mentioned on compilation discs, and can anyone tell me why?

Before this past Wednesday night, Styx was, to me, a band in time. Unless it was the 70's, Styx weren't relevant. But this track sounds like a Rush track juiced up on Testosterone. The organ smells of Deep Purple. The guitars wail like early Ozzy.

The vocals still sound the same but at least they aren't the sell-out, "play-to-the-vagina-in-the-audience" **** you usually expect from Styx. I dare say they took a page from Springsteen's book, if by that they could have somehow gone to Springsteen through Bon Jovi (who hadn't existed heretofore).

Musicbanter, I know you're into pretentious Dictionary-Rock so you can get some art house poon, but every once in awhile you need to listen to something with a set of balls on it. Listen to this, take off your ironic glasses, and go **** that chick who asked you for a cigarette. I know her mouth smells like a carpet store, but she's still a freak.

Thanks, Tommy Shaw.