What a Cut-up: Warren Zevon’s Sentimental Hygiene

 Posted by
Dec 102008
 

Warren Zevon, “The Factory”

Warren Zevon, “Detox Mansion”

As I mentioned yesterday, I finally picked up Warren Zevon‘s largely overlooked Sentimental Hygiene, his 1987 release with members of R.E.M. and other guests that signalled a return to form following a particularly long and intense period of drug and alcohol abuse, even by this hard-living cynic’s standards. Five years after Zevon’s unexpected premature death by lung cancer (who didn’t think he would OD?), this album stands as a bookend to the artist’s typically other overlooked work, 1980’s Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School. Considering I’m listening to this album for the first time ever and it sounds exactly like every other album I’ve ever heard by the guy, my initial thoughts follow in cut-up fashion. My thanks to a variety of critics and bloggers, who did the heavy lifting and posed, sometimes unintentionally, a couple of piercing questions.
Continue reading »

Share

Mystery Date Revealed: The Fireman feat. Sir Paul McCartney and some dude from The Orb

 Posted by
Dec 092008
 

tcfiViHa1F4]

The Fireman is Paul McCartney and this dude “Youth” who played bass for Killing Joke and gained more rep with his “ambient house” collaborations with Orb.

Unbeknownst to moi, they started collaborating in 1993 and have realease a total of three albums, 1994’s Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest and 1998’s Rushes. I haven’t heard a single thing from these but understand they are heavily electronic and might not even include lyrics.

Can anyone shed some light on these for the class?

This new one Electric Arguments showed up highly praised on eMusic. I gave it a whirl and like it more than anything he has been involved with in a long, long time. It starts out pretty far away from electronic but by the second half gets pretty deep.

Track 1 Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight

Very little in the way of anything Beatles, at least not overtly except for:

Track 2 Two Magpies

And by Track 11 we’ve gotten here: Is This Love
Continue reading »

Share

The Rock Town Hall Xmas Record

 Posted by
Dec 082008
 

The RTH Xmas record is the 15 best Xmas songs as nominated by you: the villagers of Rock Town Hall.

Here are the rules: You nominate a song for inclusion. The moment another villager seconds your vote, it’s in. We keep going until we have 15. This becomes the Official (Mod? [Mod – Why not, provided my favorite rockin’ Xmas song is included?]) Rock Town Hall Xmas Album.

This process should leave us with a pretty great mix tape or iPod playlist to pair with a single malt and drown out the shrill caroling of crazy Aunt Bea from Winnipeg.

I am going to start us off with a song I think should have no trouble at all being seconded; “Fairytale of New York,” by The Pogues.

Share

Jim Ford: Godfather to Pub Rock

 Posted by
Dec 082008
 

I love pub rock. There’s no clear definition of the style, but it was a mid-70s British phenomenon, a back-to-basics trend that was never wildly popular, a precursor to punk, and many pub rock musicians carried on into the punk era. Brinsley Schwarz is probably the best-known exponent of the style, which I think of as a mixture of black and white musical genres – rock, R&B, country, folk, and pop. The conversation between black and white is what rock & roll is all about to me, and pub rock was a peculiarly British take on that conversation.

I’m going to write an irregular series about pub rock here, and I want to start with a man who could be called one of the progenitors of the style. He was also a player in what could be called the secret history of rock & roll.

Jim Ford is one of those legends that almost no one knows about. If he’s known at all it’s because he wrote the song “Niki Hoeky,” which was recorded most famously by Aretha Franklin on the Lady Soul album. Here’s Bobbie Gentry doing “Niki Hoeky” on the Smothers Brothers TV show. Note the authentic Cajun mise en scene:

Ford’s other claim to fame is that Nick Lowe has cited him as his biggest influence. But let me back up a bit and give a little background on Ford himself.
Continue reading »

Share

Not Great Men?

 Posted by
Dec 082008
 

I often fall behind a week or two in reading my subscription to The Economist. That’s OK, because I don’t put much stock in being a current events guy. I mostly read The Economist in hopes of finding signs of Great People.

My wife and I have subscribed to The Economist since 1995, when we got back from our year in Hungary. It provides a balanced overview and analysis of world events, developments in science and the arts, and so forth in a way that skirts around the America-centric and marketing-driven tone of Time, Newsweek, and all other publications that have been influenced over the years by the success of USA Today.

I always begin reading The Economist at the back, where they run a featured obituary. I love obits! It’s good to reflect on the lives of great men and women, especially those I may have otherwise never heard about. Death has its benefits after all.

Great People are harder to spot in the world news and politics sections, but they exist. The Finance section makes no sense to me, so I can’t tell if they exist there. I also struggle with Science, but I can spot greatness in that area now and then. Next to the obits, the Books and Arts section of The Economist is the best place for me to keep up with the works of Great People.

Yesterday, while catching up on last week’s issue, I got to the Books and Arts section and read about a music conductor I’d never heard of before, Gilbert Kaplan. I often come back to articles regarding classical music, but this one was entitled “Desparately seeking Mahler.” One of the only classical albums I own and know well is a performance of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with some short songs following, Sinfonia No. 4 – Lieder und Gesange aus der Jugendzeit. I’m glad I read about this guy before he makes it to the obits page.
Continue reading »

Share
 Older Entries  Newer Entries

Lost Password?

 
twitter facebook youtube