When Lightning Strikes and We Are Sleeping...

In case anyone is wondering where I might have been with my ramblings and random musical selections, you may note from the Last.FM widget over to the right that I have been happily continuing to listen to music, not including my vinyl and compact disc rotations (the latter being in-car listening). Mclusky's Mclusky Do Dallas, in all its vulgar glory, has occupied my turntable of late more than anything else in its white vinyl re-release form that appeared briefly in the collage of images that represented my collage of Record Store Day purchases this year. My car CD player has rotated endlessly, as it often does, based on where I am going, when and the whims of the moment.

What has interrupted my posting, however, was a recent influx and an attempt to catch up a backlog of complicated reissues.

To put this in a kind of perspective, here is an image of the purchases I've made in the last week, which is not totally out of character and should clarify any concerns about what on earth keeps me from focusing on a single release or artist to discuss them:

You can click to enlarge that sucker, and in the process see the sheer volume of stuff I just inundated myself with. For those who cannot make things out, here's a brief rundown:

With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness -- Firey Songs (with Tongue in Cheek)

I was at work yesterday and someone noted that the song they were listening to--to be quite honest, I can't recall--was appropriate for our discussion relating to work-things being burnt down (which will have to go without explanation, except to say that this was not a plan any of us had in mind, so the secrecy is to protect the sanctity of the workplace, not its employees plan to end it), and so ensued a discussion of songs with the word "burn" in them, as I groped blindly through my memory for songs after suggesting Nine Inch Nails' "Burn," I found myself pretty lost. I noted that it was hard to think of songs with "burn" in the title without my digital music collection (more specifically: the program I use to deal with it). The use of google was immediately noted, but of course the song is ridiculous common and parsing for multiple conjugations of the verb is not easy. We started assembling an increasingly ridiculous set of songs collectively, eventually dabbling into early rock like Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" and Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" (written by Otis Blackwell and Dennis Linde respectively, to get credit where due!), after exhausting our memory of other titles.

The words "Fire" eventually got added, which only made the list that much more ridiculous. However, my original goal was to try to incorporate other songs that were referring to the word in its destructive sense (if you didn't click the link, the NIN song gains its title from the refrain of "I'm going to burn this whole world down!" with intense emphases I can't replicate visually without looking ridiculous and thus failing to actually convey it).

I could continue that idea here and do it the justice I intended, or just play with the whole idea and go with songs I think are really good that use the word in their titles. How's that?

She Walks in So Many Ways -- What Else Hides Here?

While I can have a packrat attitude in general, it is often supplemented by a tendency toward organization, even if the rules for this organization are known only to me. As such, I've quietly added a small handful of "resource" pages to this blog for various purposes, such as identifying the places from which I derive my entry titles, which are generally from the artist I'm discussing when I am discussing a single artist, but are sometimes lyrics that come into my head as thematically relevant to the issue or work at hand. I separate them out by month of web-publication for an entry to keep them somewhat easier to digest, though I plan to archive them by year when it gets to that point, in order to keep the volume of links reasonable. So far, this means I've written these basic charts for March, April, May, and June.

I also feed my excessive attention to detail with a selection of the resources I regularly consult for my personal usage in carefully sculpting the flow of my digital music collection. These can be absolutely mind-boggling for people, as they are so utterly devoted to the minutiae of music release that one wonders what on earth possesses people to do it. I've learned to only appreciate this, as so long as someone is always going further than I am, they will include the information I want, and I can just marvel in abject, slack-jawed wonder at who would take the time to scan or photograph a thousand 7"s just for the purposes of simple variations in the printing of 45" record labels. Indeed, though, I was just spending time cataloguing the bonus tracks on my nearly-complete collection of the Byrds' '60s albums, and am currently listening to chronologically arranged tracks included on the original and reissue of Blue Öyster Cult's Tyranny and Mutation.

For the purposes of clarifying my extremely subpar photography skills, I've also compiled a list of the CDs that appear from my own personal collection in the banner that heads the blog. It's subject to change over time as my collection expands, and sometimes unusually shaped or sized releases are pushed out of place to my "Box Sets" shelf. Which I wish I didn't need to separate, but making room for boxes that can hold full-sized 12" LPs is not very spatially efficient.

You can also find a few less focused links, like my last.fm profile page where you can see what artists I've been listening to most on my computer (naturally, vinyl and in-car CD listening is not tracked), as well as what tracks I've last listened to as of the time you visit. The movie reviews I wrote for a few years are also available over on the right, and a link to a gallery of my more unusual vinyl records, and the Facebook page for this blog, which I politely request you "Like" if you get the chance and use the site.

Just to make things easier this once: this title comes from a song by the Jayhawks, and it's actually the title of the song as well as the opening line of its chorus. Here they are performing the song at Ocean Way Studios (I don't know which one, though I'd hazard at guess that it's the Nashville one), and you might be able to see that this is only appropriate as a song to follow a brief mention of the Byrds:

Had I Known You Better Then, I Would've Said Those Three Ol' Words -- Daryl Hall/John Oates's Abandoned Luncheonette

While I do try to keep (negative) reputations from influencing what unfamiliar things I will listen to, it does mean that they're often things I won't go after quickly. Artists with a reputation for flaccid or sneer-inducing pop I tend not to judge near so harshly, but not knowing which will really strike a chord with me means I'm wary of touching any of them without some point of familiarity. Mix in the fact that, my current and varied and peculiar knowledge notwithstanding, I used to have no idea who wrote or sang this song or that one and it doesn't help much. Of course, those who were at a point of absorbing a lot of those facts when artists were regularly and visibly releasing music can say, "They did..." and hum or sing a few bars, sometimes even just name a song and things will fall into place. Recommendations when I stumble into something, too, can help with this.

One day a few years back, I was flipping through a crate of duplicate and unwanted records my father had, taking what I wanted for myself. After picking out the known quantities--a copy of my favourite Beach Boys album (Surf's Up) as well as the double-LP reissue that combined their later album So Tough by "Carl and the Passions," named for a pre-Beach Boys group Carl was in, packaged with Pet Sounds; The Association's Greatest Hits; and newly-appreciated-to-me Sparks' debut under that name, A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing (they were called Halfnelson and released a self-titled debut under that name, but renamed themselves Sparks and the album was reissued as eponymously as that instead), I was left sorting through mostly obscure disco, pop, and electronic music, the dance/electronic end very much derived from the taste of one of his friends. Things like Michael Garrison's 1979 debut In the Regions of Sunreturn, which is out of print even on CD, or Larry Fast's 1975 debut as Synergy, Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, which is an utterly fantastic album that made the charts in its day--#68, anyway--but is sort of lost today. There were some other in-between sorts of known quantities like Golden Earring's 1975 album Switch, sandwiched between 1973's Moontan (which spawned the huge hit "Radar Love") and 1982's Cut (which spawned the other big hit, "Twilight Zone").

There was one other album that managed to jump out at me, simply because it looked a bit odd, had names I knew, and had those names arranged in a peculiar fashion:

A New Update on Old Thoughts

I've finally amassed enough bits and pieces that I feel I should update a few odd old thematic, non-band-specific posts.

I stopped to write about strange, often abrasive voices once, and there are some peculiar voices I did not mention, and one I was unfamiliar with myself, that was mentioned to me outside the comments there.

First was one I'd heard about repeatedly anyway, and then a friend told me was a perfect example of peculiar voicing after that article. I picked up a few of her albums on and around Record Store Day, and discovered that, indeed, her voice is odd, though, as is often the case with me, didn't faze me beyond recognition of its oddity: Kate Bush.

She had a huge hit with "Wuthering Heights" (which was apparently an achievement in many senses, as the first self-penned female #1 in the UK), which should make it clear enough what's odd about her voice:

It's operatic in the dramatic sense, and otherwise filled with that kind of melodrama that fits and describes her music appropriately.

Well, Son, A Funny Thing About Regret Is...

..."That it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't."

An appropriate lyric beyond the fact that it's from the album in question: I've said that immediate first impressions are unhelpful, and so I tend not to do them--few (if any) of my rules are hard and fast. I'm breaking that totally and completely right now--or, well, near enough to it.

In celebration of an upcoming "holiday" of sorts, as well as an increase in pay and a more palatable job and things like that, I went out to the last stores I'd not visited recently, namely the Nice Price Books in Chapel Hill, CD Alley (I know, isn't it surprising I hadn't been there?) and the Edward McKay in northern Raleigh. I managed to fill a bunch of gaps as well as start myself on a few paths I'd been meaning to over the course of time anyway.

One of those, I'm going to preface with a bit of peculiarity: I have a strange relationship with labels. Record labels, I mean. I have some I trust almost implicitly (DeSoto springs to mind), some I'm pretty sure I trust, some that give me genre indications, some that make me wary, so on and so forth. But I've often developed these impressions with no overarching awareness of a label's work. I identify them with a single artist I know, or work backward from the first artist I saw on the label. In this case, that's the "problem" in question. In my days on eMusic when I first began attempts to expand my horizons, I started going alphabetically, so I ended up with one band before any other: !!!. Yeah, that's their name.

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.

Welcome to Hollywood, Hey Man, Can You Spare a Quarter?

Scattered in bits and pieces across the internet (including on this blog in a few places, like my purchases from Record Store Day this year, my discussion of unusual voices, and as performer of one of my favourite b-sides), my love for Leon Russell is not even close to a secret. Indeed, I've even a noticeable affection for the look he rocked throughout the 70s in particular: salt-and-pepper beard, top hat, and hair to his shoulders.

But I'm actually here to talk about something else in Leon's career, besides his "solo" work that began with 1970's Leon Russell. I do forget on occasion that Leon's come up a bit in the public conscious since Elton John began to emphatically display his love of Leon's work, enough that they released a joint album, The Union, in October, 2010. Still, the parts that jump out to me are often stranger bits, less known bits or more uncommon bits--simply because I was not given a purely singles-based method of hearing the man's work.

It all came from my father's encouragement to listen to Gimme Shelter: The Best of Leon Russell, a two-disc anthology of work only released with the man's work visibly attributed to him. In large part, this meant it covered his solo work. But that anthology is (was--it's out of print) chronologically arranged, by effective recording time, rather than release. That means the set opens with "Hello, Little Friend," from a 1971 album entitled Asylum Choir II, credited to "Leon Russell and Marc Benno." At first glance, it appears to be one of a number of duo albums Leon did (another big one would be One for the Road with Willie Nelson). However, this is actually the sequel to the comparatively obscure Look Inside the Asylum Choir, credited to, well, The Asylum Choir, released in 1968.

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.

I'm Good, Gone, Down on the Hip -- Jawbox

I've always had an affection for music videos, which has led to the purchase of numerous otherwise-ignored-by-the-public DVDs, and some other oddities. Before I'd really settled into the mode of pursuing b-sides, my purchase of Deftones' B-Sides and Rarities, which naturally compiled its titled objects, was driven by the unmentioned inclusion: all of their music videos on a DVD accompanying those songs. Because I like the band quite a lot (Deftones was one of my few major label modern releases on vinyl for a long time, and still has only a few relatives of that variety, and I was known for my endless listening to White Pony in high school), I did decide to go ahead and listen to the "accompanying" CD (as I saw it, at least).

In the process, I was faced with a good number of remixes, live and acoustic versions, but also a solid number of covers. Deftones were part of what was considered the "nu metal" wave of heavier popular music, but rapidly found the label inappropriate or uncomfortable--and their choices of covers only re-emphasized this. Their performance of the Cure's "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep" from the MTV Icon show for the Cure appears on the disc, surrounded by covers of The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Sade. However, the cover I'm bringing all of this up to mention is the one chosen to lead the disc: "Savory."

Of course, that cover is technically just Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno and the band Far, but that's not relevant for where I'm going, which is toward the band from which the song was sourced--Jawbox. When I picked this disc up (near its release seven years ago), even the Cure was only vaguely familiar, Skynyrd through the obvious singles (though not the one covered there--"Simple Man"), and the rest were alien to my ears, though the names rang bells in a way that suggested I ought to know them in the sense of knowing things about music, but I had no clue why, and would easily confuse them with other familiar band names that I had no music to associate with. Jawbox easily fit here, except that I didn't even associate the band's name with a reputation.

"Savory" was probably the standout cover on the album, even if it came from the earlier phase in the Deftones' career, which has remained my least favourite. The song itself, though, is so very unusual that it is at first jarring but rapidly becomes alluring and curious. It starts with a distorted, circling, ringing riff, with a more staccato, muted, and heavier one driving underneath it until an unusual drum beat comes in and the first riff turns to a higher note and circles closer. Chino and Jonah Matranga (I assume) then begin to sing and carry the melody, with harmonized emphases over the near-atonal, repetitive riffing until it spreads apart to single-picked notes that mimic the previous riffs like an echo, but carrying more melody by moving between strings.

Indeed, the instrumentation is all preserved from the original track: