Don't Waste My Time, This Is It: This Is Really Happening -- DRA, the "Abusive," "Petulant" Artist

There are artists with reptuations, and there are reputations that precede artists, and some who can be described as either--depending on who it is you happen to be speaking to. I mentioned when I spoke of Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac that my first exposure to Ryan Adams (born David Ryan Adams, hence the common "DRA") was Elizabethtown, a movie that has been disappointing or despised in most circles for creating an alleged new stereotype or caricature of women, for being flaccid, self-important--anything to take down a director who has a following and a reputation. This isn't to say that I necessarily believe that jealousy inspired the responses, or passive-aggression, but that the nature of expectation and reputation can inflict grievous harm, as can the end results--the fact that many think that "Manic Pixie Dream Girls" originated in this movie and spread virally (in the disease sense from which "viral videos" get their name, rather than in the more cheerful sense of "viral video" itself) has not helped the movie in the times following.

I watched it at around 4am one morning, simply because it was there, I felt like watching it and it seemed possibly relevant to my lonely and melancholic mood at the time. I didn't know, when I heard "Come Pick Me Up," that it was a Ryan Adams song. I was familiar with him by name. I saw his name on Whiskeytown reissues. That was really about it. I didn't know anything else--I knew people liked him, but people like a lot of things, some things that I think are good, some I don't, some I just don't get. It was meaningless. But that song--that wasn't meaningless. I thought I ought to get the album it came from, support the artist, take a chance on the rest of it being that good. It was. "Call Me on Your Way Back Home" struck similar chords, while songs like "Amy" and "Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)" were just...good songs. I mean, not "just good," so much as just plain good. Not especially relevant to me, but effective nonetheless.

Keep on Hoping, Keep on Dreaming, Whilst in the Real World You... -- Carcass

CAVEAT: Metal, especially death metal, and even more especially sub-subgenres like grindcore (or, worse, goregrind) are not everyone's cup of tea. I ask that, dear reader, you willingly submit yourself to some of this and take it as a curiosity or an analysis: it's an emotional and personal writing style I have, it's true, but this is music, despite the claims of some, and there's something in it. I'm not asking you to like it, I'm asking you to listen to it with an open mind, to hear what there is to hear in it--after all, that's my own goal here, and my own approach to music, as best I can manage it. Good luck--this band hit a few different styles, and I urge you to sample each of them as I embed them for the sake of this.  Think of it as an academic exploration in curiosity, if you must.

 ----

 Recently, I was out at a local café and started a peculiar run of people across my path. I was served my slice of cake (I actually don't drink coffee, but cafés have the most interesting dessert foods) by a woman in a Satyricon shirt.

"Samael is an excellent album," I say, by way of hoping to skip ahead to actual discussion.
"What?" she says, as we all do when someone makes a non sequitur comment on our shirts. Well, I do it, as well, at least. "Oh!" she says as she realizes my seemingly random comment actually had a sensible origin. "I'm a little bigger on Dark Medieval Times."
"Oh, old school, then. You must be big on Darkthrone, too."
"Yeah."

And off it went. Later, I was at CD Alley (as usual) and a fellow shopper was searching for earlier Death albums--earlier, that is, than their very last one, Sound of Perseverance, the only one in stock at the time there--and had a brief conversation. Back again a few days later and I was recommending Kylesa too a woman shopping there at the same time I was.

Didn't Know What I Was Looking for, Maybe Just a Blanket or Artifacts -- Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac

Its been a busy few weeks, so I've been a bit quiet. Tonight's not much of an exception: I'm going to see my favourite band tonight (Coheed and Cambria). I've been dancing around genres of late as always, from sampling Dead Boys and more Sparks to Luna and the solo albums of Fugazi's Joe Lally to my first round with Cocteau Twins. I've spent most of my time fiddling a bit with "alternative country" and "country rock" (the latter courtesy of Gram Parsons's Reprise albums with Emmylou Harris). The most consistent culprit for this is a band that was originally from and heavily recorded in this area: Whiskeytown. Ryan Adams has gone on to endless solo work (usually described with a pithy comment about the sheer volume of it), and I've found myself stuck on a normally maligned album of his (Rock and Roll), but Strangers Almanac has a veritable stranglehold on my listening, be it here at home, in the car, or wandering around playing with my Toshiba tablet.

This isn't the place to get too much into the causes of emotional resonance, but it's worth noting that that element is a strong part of what is pushing it up the listening list so readily and regularly of late, and it means something that it has the resonance, even if the "why" of it isn't immediately relevant here.

Guess Who Just Got Back Today? -- Thin Lizzy

Around high school and college, I had a habit of trying to avoid limiting myself to singles and familiar tracks from any given artist as a means of making sure I didn't unintentionally and unknowingly find myself without some lesser-known but glorious music. It also helped to know where to start with artists who never really had a "Greatest Hits" due to their relative new-ness or because it simply hadn't happened in any reasonably available fashion. Of course, the fact that albums are some of the more commonly discussed in circles surrounding music history encouraged this as well, nevermind the affinity shown by musicians toward making "albums" as a cohesive unit of music starting sometime in the late 1960's, which is the beginning of when I find most music interesting.¹

As a result, I spent a lot of time in those days with complete (though simple) discographies from artists who caught my ear, thinking it would be rather peculiar for anyone to write a number of songs that I liked and only that handful--or, really, even a single song. I suppose the logic ran that if the band or artist was still known and discussed ten, twenty, thirty years on, there must have been enough of value in all their work to maintain a fanbase after their initial charms might have worn off. I've mentioned that XTC pushed me to eventually pursue more complete (sometimes excessively so) discographies, but that came from pushing through album after album, getting scattered first by things like well-regarded EPs from modern artists.

Still, for quite some time, many artists from the 1970s and 1980s in particular were available primarily only via their album-styled works or greatest hits compilations, rarities being not-oft discussed, let alone easily found. Heck, I didn't realize how often bands would even bother with them in the major label, popular-mainstream of things until stumbling into things like The Cars' Just What I Needed anthology, or The Police's Message in a Box set (which actually isn't a box, for the record).

One of the bands I picked up in those days, alongside less traditional (though possibly more loved) artists like Tom Waits--leading, incidentally, to my fascination with his lesser-regarded earlier works--was Thin Lizzy. Of course, most people think of them from that 1976 smash hit (assuming they even know what band was behind it) "The Boys Are Back in Town," and I was not much of an exception. Now, to spare you just a bit, let's drop that song in, to give those unfamiliar a simple hook to start from, via that very song:

Record Store Day

Barry Andrews - "Rossmore Road"
Bronski Beat - Age of Consent
Kate Bush - The Kick Inside [US Release]
Cursive - Burst and Bloom*
Dr. John - Locked Down
Patterson Hood and the Downtown 13 - "After It's Gone"*
Hüsker Dü - Candy Apple Grey
Hüsker Dü - Flip Your Wig
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Josef K - "Heaven Sent" 12" Single
Peter Koppes - Manchild & Myth
Luna - Rendezvous*
Magazine - Real Life
Magazine - "Rhythm of Cruelty"
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas
Mission of Burma - Forget
New Order - Movement
Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance
Post Marked Stamps #5 "Project Mercury" - Aspera Ad Astra/Haelah
Public Image Limited - Album
Public Image Limited - First Issue
The Replacements - Tim
Leon Russell - Leon Russell

*RSD Exclusive/Release. I missed out on the Minus the Bear and Ryan Adams singles...

Recommendations: I Hate You, Rob Crow; Karate by Kennedy; Glances at Björk and Unexpected Pumpkins Riffing

I'm still settling on format here, so bear with me. There's something a bit stilted about my usual approach--take a band, write something, that makes it more of an "event" to sit down and write it, which may not be the most appropriate approach to take to something like a blog. I'm still working this out, as its only been about a month, after all. I'll still take that approach toward whatever band ends up tops in my little poll (and possibly or even probably the rest of them there, eventually), but for now this less formal recollection seems it may be appropriate.

I've actually got a handful of recommended listens hanging around, which I normally just let pass by. Well, not exactly true, I've always listened to the recommendations people have given me. That is, the recommendations themselves. I'm often feeling so at a loss with the artists I've taken up on my own that taking time from "getting to know" Depeche Mode or Joy Division or New Order or The Church or Robyn Hitchcock seems wrong and makes me feel "behind," so the name ends up filed away for future reference.

Sometimes, of course, this leaves me in a place like yesterday, where, wandering around, I find Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime, and can't figure out why the name is imprinted in my brain so strongly. As I'm at CD Alley, I go to ask who's working if they can tell me something. Luckily, it's Alison (I know her name now, as I decided to ask for the purposes of writing here!) and this is--or was, anyway--her area. She's always been enthusiastic about the post punk and post hardcore bands I ask about, which has been terribly helpful. Drive Like Jehu, she says, well, Yank Crime was one of her all time top albums once upon a time, and yes, it makes sense for me to associate them mentally with Jawbox. It's easy when my source of information is conveniently placed at the time one of these things comes back up, and, once in a great while, someone might (possibly) get a text from me while I'm out, asking for recollections on why I'd know a band's name. Usually Brian suffers this, alongside requests to do bits of research on bands we are both ignorant of. Bless his heart. He's like my portable internet, since I don't have a smartphone. Lots more personal, too--and able to summarize or collate data helpfully!

And It's Something Quite Peculiar... -- The Church

"They're Australian?" -- My father, with some measure of incredulity, reflecting not a low opinion of the Australians, so much as the fact that their country of origin had not shown through to him.

"Yep," said I, knowing that the country I'd identified as my "favourite" in my youth (due to my affection for its peculiar wildlife, including my favourite animal, the platypus¹) was responsible for a number of artists I had, by then--a few months before today--identified as quite enjoyable. My love of INXS is no secret, but I'd recently discovered not-Aussie-but-Kiwi Split Enz via Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck (that is my own review of the film, though I make no mention of the band responsible for writing the songs, and it's not exactly my finest movie review--to be clear and avoid angering residents of either island, they are from New Zealand, but were on major Aussie label Mushroom), an accidental discovery years ago of X, not to be confused with the far more famous Los Angeles band, some years ago, AC/DC (though a bit garbled, as the Youngs were born and mostly raised in Glasgow, Scotland), the Bee Gees (similarly to AC/DC, they emigrated to Australia, albeit from England), and milder interests in Men at Work. Recently, I've decided I might give Midnight Oil a shot as well, and have been pleased so far.

But those bands aren't, any of them, the band I'd just informed my father had come from the furthest hemisphere from our home in the United States. No, that band is one that is generally known for a single song or not known at all: The Church.

Now, if your immediate reaction is "Who?" then I can give you the only answer likely to make sense to you--if this doesn't do it, you're not going to get it (or possibly from, say, Australia, and know their first hit, "The Unguarded Moment" better).

Listen: Do you want to know a secret? -- Aspera (Ad Astra), My Unknown Love

I went out gallivanting again (one more XTC box down!), and perused the endless supply of $1 discount CDs strewn about (but neatly) the Greensboro Edward McKay figuring I could spare $1 here or there.

Surprisingly, I found this:

This is a compilation released in 2000 called Post Marked Stamps. Tree Records released a series of 9 7"s in the late 90s, independent bands of varying stripes (mostly in the realms of what might be termed "emo" and "post rock," I guess). I'd barely interacted with it when I downloaded the track I gathered from a legal source (which has changed enough that I don't mention it by name here), I didn't get the rest of the compilation. Now, later, I did manage to end up with one of the songs, "Lighthouse in Athens, Part 1" by Cerberus Shoal (one of the more obscure post rock bands I took up in the early 2000s), but mostly I'd gotten it for one track: "Black in the Eye" by Aspera Ad Astra.

Normally, this is where I'd link you to that song via YouTube.

What Do You Call That Noise That You Put On? -- XTC and Obsession

This is pop?

Right now I'm listening to the Replacements and dipping into some early 90s hits for my own entertainment. I've been listening to Paul Westerberg's (of the Replacements) solo material for a lot of the day, spent last night listening to Ryan Adams and the rest of today listening to early Bee Gees, Dinosaur Jr, Meat Puppets, and Badfinger.

Despite all that, though, I went out to Charlotte's Manifest Discs and Tapes, which I last visited about eight years ago, yesterday, and though I walked out with some of the Ryan Adams and Meat Puppets I just mentioned (as well as some long-desired Thin Lizzy and Church reissues), the find of the night was an object that's been in my peripheral vision for a while, then suddenly went out of print. I'd seen a copy at my old friends CD Alley but it had even left there--and they often have box sets that just hang out until they go out of print and one of us stumbles in and goes, "Hey, waitasec..."

Somehow, this thing was sitting there with that TWEC-style sticker¹ denoting their online usage of TWEC's SecondSpin.com (not worth linking to, I'm afraid) and consigning many of their prices to absolute weirdness (see: unusually long footnote). Sometimes a great deal, sometimes a horrendous one not worth touching. Indeed, this particular item is out of print, as I noted, so that makes the price a huge gamble. The list price, when in print, was around $60, and that's become the starting used price for most of the year. This one, though, was marked $37.99. So, screw anything else I was going to find--this was coming home with me.

So, what was "this"? Well, here, of course, is a picture:

Omnibus, take all of us, all of us take Omnibus

A lovely stack.

 
While I've been digging through post-punk, alternative rock and their relatives and descendants, my father has continued on his longest musical path, which relates most to roots, folk, 'alternative country' and the like. My appreciation of defunct local band Two Dollar Pistols confused both of my parents, as it was noted that they seemed "more like [your father's] music" by both of them. Of course, they played in the Borders I used to work in, as our Sales Manager, Gerald, was very invested in music and the local scene--and, despite a move, he continues to be invested in music. So I had a solid starting point for the band, and I've found that baritone vocalists appeal to me in some way that I'm still trying to figure out, as there aren't many around. Let's set that aside though, and I'll agree to talk about my father's interesting influence on my taste in music some other time.

Still, this meant that I was out looking for the reissue of Smashing Pumpkins' Gish¹ while trying to get him to a place he could find the new Dylan tribute Chimes of Freedom for a price he'd accept. He'd actually texted me some time prior to try and acquire a copy through my current job, but, well, nothing doing. I don't work somewhere that's going to carry niche compilations, however large that niche might be.

Times I Want Is Times Like This - We're Where the Action Is

While my immediate desire was to begin addressing the Beggars Banquet series of Omnibus releases, I'm going to set that aside for another day, as it was requested, quite reasonably, that I discuss the stores in the area I live in and that seems important in this day and age, as I'm not sure who does or does not know about them. As I'm writing this, making it a revolving series seems like a good idea, as I'm likely to wax poetic about a lot of them, or at least a few of them, to make sure I give a good approximation of the kind of variety each carries and what to expect from them.

If you live in the Triangle--the part of North Carolina so named for its set of three cities in relative proximity to each other: Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh--there are a number of music stores actually still present and doing interesting business and providing different advantages for those seeking music. We've lost some good ones, some not so good ones, and some middling ones, even in the time I've been around. Some persist, some persist for strange reasons, and some go for even more mystifying ones.

I frequent two stores for new music on a semi-regular basis, occasionally browsing one or two others, and dipping into a chunk of used stores even more erratically. It's a weird sort of community in general, but the persistence of independent music stores is a good thing. Most cover vinyl and CDs, and all of the sealed, new music purveyors also sell used material.

I'm not going to delve too much into vinyl, though I'll address the locations I've had luck with it, because I'm not enough of a connoisseur of the stuff to address who has the best, most pristine stock, or who is best for collectors. Me, I couldn't care less if what I just ran across that I want is a first pressing. It's a nice bonus if it is, and I can delight in stumbling across it, but I won't turn down second presses or even reissues.

The best place to start is probably the store that caused me to move to the area. About ten years ago, I visited Chapel Hill for the first time in my life, shortly after I'd started expanding my taste into modern independent music. I was in the midst of obsessions with At the Drive-In and Aphex Twin, and the former I could actually still find in places like Best Buy and Circuit City, but you'd be lucky to get past The Richard D. James Album or Come to Daddy (the US issue that combines the original, separate British singles into a single release) in the catalogue of an artist who has been releasing music since the early 1990's under various aliases. So when I went into this newfangled idea of an "independent music store," my new fascination with vinyl and my interest in these harder-to-find artists drove me to look in those places first.