I can't get into Billie Holiday.

There, I said it.

I don't like the way she sings. I've never liked when white rock singers like Janis Joplin ape her slurred "Baby-you-can't-imagine-how-my-heart aches" style, and after all these years of not liking imitations of that style, I'm comfortable admitting that I don't like the style's root voice either.

I've read essays on the song "Strange Fruit" and Holiday's interpretation of it that make tears well in my eyes. I'm not completely insensitive. I feel a bit of Billie's pain too and am aware that some of the songs are pretty good, but too much of the Billie love in our culture seems wrapped up in that Tortured Artist thing, and that Tortured Artist thing rarely plays well for me. Coupled with the fact that I really don't like the way Billie Holiday sings, I'm comfortable with stating that I don't like Billie Holiday and what her voice suggests to my soul. It's just too much of da blooz to resonate with me. Sorry.

Have you ever held the fact that an artist projects "too much" of something against that artist? Has the "Englishness" of The Kinks or The Smiths, for instance, ever gotten in the way of your appreciating the music? As much as I love British accents and Syd Barrett's solo albums, there are times when I feel like he's putting it on. I ask myself, Can anyone really have that much of a British accent? The same thing goes for me with various American artists and their "country" accents. I've heard people speak that way, but some singers are "too country" for me. I'm uncomfortable. I feel like they're shoving it in my face.

Read more

Without sound recordings, how will future generations surfing the Web have the chance to assess the half dozen years or so when James Blood Ulmer was onto something with his gutbucket take on rural blues, folk, and harmelodic jazz? As long as videos have been posted on the Web I've been searching for live, recorded concert performance evidence of the Ulmer music I've loved since stumbling on Are You Glad to Be in America through Odyssey and the countless live albums that recycled the guitar-drums-violin approach of that last great studio album. I've had no luck finding video evidence of the Blood I knew and loved...until now!

Chances are you won't get it, but I thought this was somewhat visionary, mind-expanding music when I heard it in my late teens and early 20s. I still find the best of his work during these years to be inspiring and, somehow, representative of deep American values, as corny as that sounds. For this discussion, however, I'm not so much interested in focusing on my personal experiences with Ulmer, but in examining artists we loved who began to believe they were something else and sucked thereafter.

In Ulmer's case, who's to say? The man had to pay the bills. As real bluesmen kicked the bucket, he must have seen an opportunity to occupy a Last Man Standing position and earn a few long-overdue paychecks. When you're James Blood Ulmer, forgotten hope of the early '80s NY jazz scene and Martin Scorcese wants to feature you in his highly anticipated documentary on da blooz I guess you put down the harmelodics, suck it up, and crank out a pointless cover of "Spoonful." While you're at it, get Vernon Reid, another Great Black Rock Hope of your era, to plug in and jam along with you. If you run out of white folks to eat it up in the US, the French are seated at the dinner table, waiting for their serving.

So my example is James Blood Ulmer. He got to thinking he was an honest-to-goodness bluesman, and he's sucked ever since. It saddens me. Has an artist ever abandoned him- or herself - and sucked thereafter - in your eyes? Do tell.

As a tie-in to one of the themes of Exploitive Black Rock History Month as well as an excuse to make public, once more, my feelings on the film Almost Famous, I thought I'd re-run the following thoughts on films that don't rock. Our initial discussion was fun, but I was surprised more failed rock movies weren't brought up and hashed over. What's that one about the fictional Carole King figure (Illyana Douglas) - Grace of My Heart! I liked it, but I've gotten into some long discussions with a couple of friends who KILLED the movie for having, like, a 1967 mixing board in the background during a scene that was set in 1965! Many other rock films do not rock - or cause split reactions among us rock nerds. I'm thinking of The Doors, Andyr. I can't get by the glued-on sideburns; my man Andy is all-forgiving thanks to the mystical Indian/peyote scenes.

This post initially appeared 5/21/07.

I've probably said my piece just fine on my main beef with Almost Famous. Long story short, it's a cheap, self-help, feel-good story for people who won't help themselves to feel good. That, and Kate Hudson is among the most annoying screen presences of this era. The kid's defense of Hudson's groupie with a heart of gold, Penny Lane (Kid: "You guys are always talking about 'the fans, the fans, the fans' - She was your biggest fan!"), during the "truth-telling" flight scare, is especially embarrassing. Knowing glances follow as this 15-year-old dork tells it straight up. How phony! How conceited of semi-autobiographical writer/director Cameron Crowe to cast himself in this role. For whom does Crowe speak? What about that imaginary band's imaginary fans, who wanted to believe the myth of the cocksmen and their groupies? What about the sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll? What about these imaginary fans having to see their imaginary heroes bond over "Tiny Dancer"? Surely there are more realistic, more noble ways to allow for a feel-good, coming-of-age tale in the middle of the world of rock 'n roll!*

Let's move onto the exquisitely conceived Black Snake Moan, or what I'll refer to as Da Blooz Exorcist. Surely you were intrigued by the trailers a few months back of a barely clad Christina Ricci playing a white trash nymphomaniac who's left by the side of the road, taken in, and nursed - in a sense - back to health and salvation by a blues-playing, Bible-totin' Samuel L. Jackson, looking a bit like Pops Staples. I know I was intrigued! This had all the markings of a world-class, what-were-you-thinking turd of hilarious proportions. Last night I watched the film in my hotel room, and it nearly delivered the goods.

What they don't tell you in the trailers is that Jackson's Lazarus character has his own set of troubles, specifically woman troubles. What else? His woman done left him, and he's been hittin' the bottle pretty hard. Turns out he hasn't been playin' da blooz in public fo' some time. The trailer makes you think he shows up on screen a fully formed blooz-slingin', Bible totin' healer from the git-go, doesn't it?

Spoiler Alert! Beware before reading on.

Read more

I'm sure you all know about Fleetwood Mac's roots as a blues band, led by the ax-work of the talented, troubled Peter Green. I've got a box set of early Fleetwood Mac that is loaded with da blooz, and from what I can tell, it's actually well done. Bluestoneologists like HVB will sure have a better read on early Mac's value, but the band could jam. My box set even includes two albums worth of them jamming with Chicago blues greats, but not being the world's greatest appreciator of Chicago blues, I've chosed this long jam for our JAMuary celebration instead. It's got one of those funny blues song titles that always appeal to me.

Fleetwood Mac, "Rattlesnake Shake"

I hope you dig this, and I hope this jam opens up some discussion on what constitutes a kicking blues jam, what the Brits brought to the blues that may have actually been helpful to keeping the spirit alive, and so forth.

Yesterday was an especially bad day in the Mr. Moderator household. One of those end-of-the-holidays blues days, in which every family member was miserable and no house, not even Windsor Castle, would have been big enough for each of us to grumble in private. At one point I was in such a bad mood that I looked through my albums and pulled out an album Townsman Geo gave me a couple of years ago, the first Ry Cooder album.

Have you ever pulled out an album you typically don't spin while in some extreme mood, whether high or low?

Read more

What is the musical foundation of Classic (ie, Roger Waters-led) Pink Floyd?

Last week I heard "Run Like Hell" on the radio for the first time in years. I always liked that song a little bit, at least parts of it. At the same time, it's always been one of many Pink Floyd songs that make me nauseous. I think the nausea I've experienced in songs like this one and "Have a Cigar" have something to do with the heavy use of delay and Waters' knack for coming up with the least-pleasant melodies in rock. But the nausea-inducing qualities of Pink Floyd were not at the front of my mind while this song played.

Read more

To this day, although I've come a long way in digging reggae music, I prefer hearing The Clash do their version of reggae than almost any real reggae artist. Give me "Police and Thieves" with those crunchy guitars and awkward bass over the Junior Murvin original version any day, even though the original version is pretty great. If you put a gun to my head I may even admit that I prefer the bastardized reggae of The Police and Joe Jackson to most of the real thing. Not cool, but true.

I feel the same way about most Brian Jones-era Stones covers of slightly earlier R&B/early rock songs, like The Stones' version of "Around and Around" over Chuck Berry's original or their cover of The Valentinos' "It's All Over Now." Mad props to the source material, but I'll take the Stones!

Give me Paul Simon and Talking Heads doing whatever they've done with South African and South American music over most of what I hear by the people who inspired them. Not cool at all, I know, but I've never found King Sunny Ade's music, for instance, half as interesting as the best of Simon and Byrne. For starters, it's nice to know what's being sung. How do I know King Sunny's not singing his culture's equivalent of "Working for the Weekend?" I do, however, prefer the real Brazilian stuff that Byrne's label has released to Byrne's solo works in that same vein.

A lot of my favorite "country" songs are Elvis Costello's pastiches of real country songs, songs like "Motel Matches." One of the best things about Costello's "country" originals is that the rhythm section gets to do cool fills. Real country rhythm sections usually sound to me like they've got the freedom of a lamb.

I can't say the same for newer takes on Da Blooz, not even Da Blooz of Jeff Healy and Stevie Ray Vaughn. This is proof that more than Rockism is at play, right?

To celebrate the software upgrade to Rock Town Hall, here are a few downloads that were uploaded to the site with ease...thanks to the upgrade! Workers in The Back Office know what I'm talking about. Mad props to the IT/design staff.

Lightnin' Hopkins, "Coffee House Blues"

Baby Grandmothers, "Being Is More Than Life"

Sun Ra, "Music from the World Tomorrow"

You've heard the story about Eric Clapton leaving The Yardbirds over the final straw of the band recording the pop ditty "For Your Love". How dare the band forsake Da Blooz!

Now, however, I ask you to consider the costs of blues credibility, particularly as it applies to this Humble take on the number.

Next, consider the flipside, in a variation on this well-known theme...

Read more

I wish I could find the hi-def broadcast version of this guest appearance by Amy Winehouse with The Rolling Stones at the 2007 Isle of Wight Festival. It's really bad, and the camera crew on the hi-def broadcast picked up some very telling looks of varying emotions from the musicians:

• An embarrassed glance between that keyboard guy, Chuck Leavell (?), and the Bill Wyman replacement bassist
• Keef and Ron discussing real estate in the Bahamas while tossing off beginner blues licks that had nothing to do with the lame performance of the song
• Amy-as-desparate-fangirl, clutching to her sole snack sack of tricks in full knowledge of how badly she was being exposed (no wonder she's throwing down all those drugs)
• Mick as Alpha Bitch, blind to how bad the whole scene is, wholly focused on putting on his show, not getting distracted by thoughts of the days when a real guest star could step onstage to match moves with him. Oh, Tina!

If anyone finds a clip of the hi-def broadcast version, please send it our way. Thanks!