Ramblings on Music, Texas, Etc.

Back to the blog

Well, I can no longer belabor my exile from the blogosphere. In case you were wondering where I disappeared to, my June was mostly consumed by a move to a new home (still in Houston, though John C. will rightly dispute my claim to that based on my new zip code). There was a good three weeks or so where I was mostly checked out from a musical standpoint. Some odd shifts have occurred in my listening habits as of late, brought on by my now-standard summertime obsession over guitars. A few of you might be appalled to find out what I’ve been obsessing over lately, and we’ll get to that in short order. So in the interest of getting back to some regular blogging, let’s get a few bullet points out of the way…

• Grace Potter & The Nocturnals’ self-titled new album is still my fave of the year so far. In fact, some of the credit/blame for my recent classic rock obsession should be laid at their feet for conjuring such a 1970’s vibe. It’s been a bit disheartening to see that the record hasn’t really caught fire, despite the standard recent appearances on Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel (they did manage not to slip from the #184 slot on Billboard’s Top 200 Album chart last week). There’s really no reason this album shouldn’t be some kind of hit, but it certainly exemplifies how ineffective the major-label bag of tricks is these days. Here’s hoping there are still plenty of fans out there to be won over by GPN’s best record yet. Will a second music video make any difference (even one with French strippers)? Probably not.
• Alejandro Escovedo’s new record Street Songs Of Love is probably my second favorite of the year and similarly evokes a certain golden era of rock and roll. If you thought Real Animal was an unapologetic rock album, you ain’t heard nothing to you hear this thing blast from your speakers.
• The Black Crowes are celebrating their 20th Anniversary in high style with the release of Croweology, a double CD collection of acoustic versions of songs mostly from their first four albums. It’s indulgent and overly long, and also a real treat for longtime fans. It’s kind of interesting how smoothly they’ve locked into this Band-like vibe between this and their last album Before The Frost… Certainly not for the casual listener but obviously a must-have for fans. And make special note that their upcoming tour will be the band’s last for some time while the Crowes take an indefinite hiatus after enjoying a creative resurgence over the past few years.
• Sheryl Crow’s new album 100 Miles From Memphis was co-produced by guitar great Doyle Bramhall II, and it does indeed often capture the soulful spirit of the city in the title. It’s my favorite Crow record in a long while, and maybe sometime I’ll bore you with a post about how I’m slavishly devoted to the idea that Sheryl Crow is capable of another great record. This one is better in small doses – none of the tracks are anything less than solid, but they tend to mine the same territory repeatedly. Still, it’s a mildly adventurous album by Crow’s standards, and it’s to her great credit that she’s still giving it her best effort.
• Okay, I admit I’ve been really diving headlong into guitar-hero music lately, and it’s probably not an exaggeration to claim that I’ve listened to almost nothing but Clapton, Hendrix and Stevie Ray for almost a solid three week stretch. I finally picked up Hendrix’s recent Valleys Of Neptune, which is a fantastic album of unreleased stuff featuring several alternate versions of well-known tracks. Even better is the just-released Sony Legacy Edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand The Weather, which features a few unreleased tracks and an entire show recorded in Montreal. I’d also like to note that Craig Hopkins has created a fantastic tribute book to SRV. He has had 3000 copies self-published, and it will be published by Hal Leonard/BackBeat Books in two parts starting in the fall of this year (pre-order from Amazon here). But the full volume is probably worth grabbing now as a collector’s item. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the new guitar is a Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster.
• I caught Robert Plant & The Band of Joy out at The Woodlands about two weeks ago. Since the new record is not yet out (due Sept. 14), I was sort of expecting a lot of laid-back material in the vein of Raising Sand. I was also expecting an open revolt of Zep-heads. On both fronts, I was pleasantly surprised. Plant was in awesome form, and I guess it goes without saying that his band – which features Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin and Darrell Scott – was unreal. Plant was generous with the spotlight, and the crowd was deliriously enthralled. Oh, and Bettye LaVette opened the show and I’m pretty sure conjured a violent thunderstorm with her set-closing rendition of The Who’s “Love Reign Over Me”. Incredible.
• I’ve actually been listening The Allman Brothers. Dear God help us all.
• The Derek Trucks Band will be taking a break while Trucks works on music with his wife, Susan Tedeschi (!). The band’s parting shot is a double live album Roadsongs recorded in Chicago last year. It’s fantastic – everything I admire about Trucks’ band amped up to 11.
• Lest you think I’ve lost all touch with my roots, next weekend I’ll be heading to North Adams, MA, for the Solid Sound Festival, aka the Wilco Super-Dork Fest. My good friend Babalugats and I also have designs on visiting the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, PA (which is close to ‘Lugats’ home in PA). He really wants me to try to weasel a “press credential” or something, but I think it’s safe to assume that every attendee at Solid Sound will be a music blogger.

'Grace Potter & The Nocturnals': The Ramblings Review

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals don’t seem like a band prone to second-guessing, but one might wonder when the opening track of their self-titled new record is a re-recording of a B-side from their previous album ("Paris (Ooh La La)"). But it’s easy to chalk that decision up to an abundance of confidence, especially when the rest of the record practically overflows with a newfound certainty about what their band is all about. Long associated with the jam-band circuit and often tagged unfairly as a blues-rock outfit, GPTN leave no doubt as to their intentions to be nothing more and nothing less than the Next Great American Rock and Roll Band.

To be sure, they’ve got all of the clichés down pat: a sexy, hip-shaking frontwoman; band members who look like they wandered off the set of Almost Famous; Flying V’s and Hammond B-3’s. If GPTN hit all the buttons of 1970’s rock and roll, they don’t let those influences weigh down this album. It is a thoroughly modern, often pop-inflected, take on classic rock and soul. And rather than try to bottle the magic of their live performances, the band is happy to let the record be its own beast. Slick, exuberant, and refreshingly devoid of self-consciousness, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals stands apart from its impressive predecessors.

There are things on this record that simply should not work. “Goodbye Kiss,” with its reggae-influenced riff, springs to mind, but I’ll be damned if that hook doesn’t bury itself in my brain. The coda of “Tiny Light” might seem a bit tacked on, except for the fact that it unloads at just the right point in the record’s sequence. Producer Mark Batson, who co-wrote about half the songs, certainly should get some credit for focusing the band’s talents and giving them just the proper coat of studio varnish.  As always, the Nocturnals for their part provide a rock-solid musical backdrop (new bassist Catherine Popper proves a particularly valuable addition, and guitarist Scott Tournet continues to evolve into a notable guitar hero).

When it comes to Potter herself, you could rattle off a list of obvious and apt comparisons - Janis Joplin, Stevie Nicks, Ann Wilson, Tina Turner – and what would be painfully obvious is how short the supply is of commanding frontwomen who both embrace and defy their femininity. Grace Potter has taken some shit in certain corners for wearing mini-dresses and high heels, but she’s nobody’s pop-tart. There’s no denying that GPTN have played the major-label game, but they’ve managed to balance the need for shameless promotion with the necessity of retaining their credibility.

I suppose I cut freewheelin’ albums like this a lot of slack, particularly at the onset of summer. My enthusiasm could be construed as backlash against my own fondness for gentle, navel-gazing singer-songwriters. Grace Potter may yet make that full album with T-Bone Burnett, or she may find in the next decade that shaking tambourines onstage night after night is a tough haul. But for now, not yet 30 years of age, Potter has plenty of rocking yet to do and this record should afford her and The Nocturnals the opportunity to do it for quite a while longer.

NEW (AWESOME) GRACE POTTER & THE NOCTURNALS ALBUM OUT NOW!

Well, several stabs at a proper review have false-started, but I wanted to get the word out about the new self-titled record from Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. 

The short version?  Their best yet, and right now my favorite album of 2010 (coming hot on the heels of another contender, Tift Merritt's See You On The Moon).  I wrung my hands a bit about this release, knowing that sessions with T-Bone Burnett were scrapped and the whole thing re-recorded.  But all that sweat and effort were worth it because this is the most eclectic, rocking thing I've heard in ages.  GPTN have long been a consistently engaging live act, but most fans would agree they've never quite bottled the magic in the studio.  This album remedies that and certainly ought to be a breakthrough for the band.

If that weren't enough to convince you, the record can be picked up for a song at a number of outlets:

• Amazon ($6.99)
• Amazon MP3 ($5.99)
• iTunes ($7.99, includes bonus track)
• Best Buy ($6.99, includes exclusive DVD of live tracks and interviews)

And check this out - the Nocturnals recorded a show at the Fillmore in SF back in December showcasing the new tunes (and a few older ones).  The video and audio versions are both availabe from iTunes, at a price of $9.99 each.

Consider this my opening salvo in the Grace Potter Hype Machine War.

UPDATE:  I completely missed this Relix interview with Potter back in April, which sheds a ton of light on the T-Bone sessions (and hints that the five tracks recorded are likely to see the light of day at some point).

UPDATE II:  And, of course, you can listen to the album over at GPTN's official site.

UPDATE III:  I should have directed you to Kenny's excellent GPTN site, ThisIsSomewhere.com.  It was actually the site that pointed me to that Relix interview.

It's been SEVEN years...

... since the last Gillian Welch studio album, Soul Journey.  At this rate, David Rawlings Machine will release another record before Welch does under her own name.

Tift Merritt - 'See You On The Moon': The Ramblings Review

"Sometimes there's a choir in my head singing at the top of their voice.  Singing at the top of their voice, they sing "Don't look back, don't be scared."

-"Engine To Turn" by Tift Merritt

Once upon a time, Tift Merritt was the next-big-thing, either in the Alt.Country universe or even in the regular Country universe (she did, after all, receive an inexplicable Best Country Album Grammy nomination for the genre-bending Tambourine).  For obvious reasons - let's call them "sales numbers" - Universal subsidiary Lost Highway unceremoniously dumped Merritt, partially explaining a four year absence before releasing Another Country in 2008 on Concord Music's Fantasy label.  That album went a long way in resetting expectations for Merrit's music, largely abandoning the rock-n-soul throwdown approach that highlighted Tambourine as well as Merritt's gritty live performances.  What emerged in its place was an uncommonly thoughtful and graceful artist, equally at ease behind a grand piano as she was fronting her soulful band.

See You On The Moon only reinforces the notion Tift Merritt is most at home in her introspective skin, and the new record certainly builds on the success of Another Country.  Most importantly, with the help of producer Tucker Martine she has found new ways to frame her music that are surprising yet subtle.  The album's opener "Mixtape" is perhaps the most surprising, drenched in 1970's R&B conventions complete with dramatic stabs of strings.  If Merritt was looking to throw down the gauntlet to declare her diversity, she chose a heckuva great opening track.  However, skeptical fans will be relieved to hear the second track "Engine To Turn" which manages the neat trick of being melancholy and sublimely hopeful at the same time.  Thanks to a gently swelling arrangement, it may also be the most beautifully produced song she's ever recorded (though that honor could easily go instead to the fifth track "Feel Of The World", which features My Morning Jacket's Jim James on ghostly backing vocals).

The album's second half is highlighted by a muscular cover of Emmit Rhodes' "Live Till You Die" and a return to the classic R&B vibe with "Papercut".  The album's home stretch turns delicate with a trio of songs starting with the title track.  It is followed by lovely take on the Anne Murray (!) hit "Danny's Song" before winding up with the socially conscious "After Today".  Closing out a record with three mellow performances is perhaps not the most advisable commercial move, but it's really with these songs that you appreciate the depth of Merritt's singing and performing talent.  There's really no other singer that I can call to mind (okay, maybe Patty Griffin or Emmylou Harris) who so pours her heart and soul into her songs the way Merritt does so completely. 

What Tift Merritt does so well - and what so few other singer-songwriters do - is tackle heartwrenching themes while finding the hope buried underneath.  At times, one gets the impression that her own music career has required more perseverence than even Merritt thought she had.  That she's found more success on her new label and built a committed fanbase with little more than beautiful music and hard work should be a lesson to aspiring musicians, if not the music industry at large.  If this album has a weak spot, it's that the good material on the album's second half is a bit overshadowed by its nearly flawless first half.  It's a mild criticism to note that See You On The Moon merely builds upon her previous three excellent records, rather than transcend them completely.  That's a tall order for an artist as consistent as Tift Merritt, but I'm fairly certain - based on abundance evidence here - that such a record is still very much in her future. 

In the meantime, you can be sure that See You On The Moon is one of the best records you'll hear this year.

(You can hear SYOTM in its entirety over at Spinner.  Tift's homemade video for "Mixtape" can be seen here.)

TIFT MERRITT'S 'SEE YOU ON THE MOON' OUT NOW!

Well, my review is a little slow in coming, with the usual problem - too much love, not enough words - delaying it.

But rest assured you should run out to your local record shop (or Amazon or iTunes) and pick up a copy of Tift Merritt's latest album, the elegant and graceful See You On The Moon.  She cranks up the tour in support of the record this week, and there's a good chance she'll be visiting your town this summer (alas, no Texas dates yet).

And, as always, you can keep up with the latest news over at the greatest fan site on the web, TiftMerritt.net.

Reviews have trickled in a bit slowly, but here's a couple of good ones:

• All Music Guide (by Mark Deming)
• The Onion's A.V. Club (by Noel Murray)
• The Washington Post (by Bill Friskics-Warren)

(Photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg)

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360 & PS3)

Okay, it's been a while since I bored you with my, um, perspective on a video game.

To deny that Red Dead Redemption (from Rockstar, the creators of Grand Theft Auto) falls within my sweet spot would be a denial of the fact that I am a massive fan of Westerns.  No doubt, the film genre of outlaws, gunslingers, heroes and rogues has been the indirect inspiration for countless video games, but very few games have attempted to literally bring Westerns alive, and - until now - none have done so successfully.

Leave it to Rockstar Games, the gold standard in so-called "sandbox" games, to create a Western-themed universe that is incredibly rich and detailed.  Furthermore, it's an absolute blast.  I've never finished a Grand Theft Auto game, though I remain a loyal fan.  I can boil down why I love RDR so much more than GTA to this: it is infinitely more fun to explore freely than the cities of GTA ever have been.  Also gone is the constant badgering of your cell phone, so prevalent in GTA IV.  In RDR, you can gallop across the plains or enjoy a hand of blackjack without the nagging sensation that someone is waiting on you to do something.

The other distinguishing characteristic of RDR is that you are encouraged to play as the hero (though you are welcome to play as an outlaw).  GTA has always been a more morally complex universe than its critics contend, but there was never any getting around that eventually the story and missions would put you in the position of a criminal.  The story structure of RDR is the opposite, though you will be forced to gun down plenty of bad guys.  But it's so much more satisfying to capture, rather than kill, your bounties when the game pays you with both more cash and something called "Honor" points (likewise, you receive "Fame" points in either case).  The result is less moral ambiguity than GTA, but this sits comfortably within the tradition of Western films.  The voice acting and music, naturally, are both top-notch, which is a given with a Rockstar title.

But again, what I really love is just the exploration of the Old West.  It is simply a breathtaking universe, whether you're gazing out over a river-carved canyon or marveling at a thunderstorm rolling in (which has only occurred once in hours of gameplay).  Day and night creates new context - you can't visit certain characters at night, but you can earn cash as a nightwatchman, for example.  Random events fall in your path during exploration - you stumble upon a victim of coyote attack, you can assist a lawman in recovering escaping prisoners, a cougar attacks and kills your horse.  I even managed to accidentally shoot my horse, at one point (-50 Honor points, btw) and strand myself a looooong way from anywhere.  Hop on the occasionally passing train (always locatable on your map) and travel to areas you've never even gotten close to yet.

The gameplay is no huge challenge, and fans of shooters will be disappointed at the lack of skill required (though you can turn off the auto-aim).  But that is hardly the point of Red Dead Redemption.  This game lets you live inside a Western-themed universe 100 times larger than any film that you've ever seen.  Any fan of sandbox games or GTA or just great games in general should give it a look.  For video game buffs who also love Westerns, this might be your favorite game of all-time.

Bettye LaVette - 'Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook': The Ramblings Review

The title of Bettye LaVette’s new record is both spot-on and a bit redundant. LaVette, after all, has staked out impressive territory over the course of two breakout albums for Anti- Records as a stellar interpreter of others’ material. However, she ups that ante considerably on Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook by tackling tunes that even the most casual classic rock fan will probably recognize. If there was any passing doubt that LaVette’s name belongs in the pantheon of great soul artists, this record should obliterate them once and for all.

Not that the record is a perfect fit for LaVette’s gritty, yet spectacular voice. For that I’d refer you to her last record, a collaboration with the Drive-By Truckers that was in many ways to the musical opposite of Interpretations. Slick, tasteful and subtle are not three adjectives I would use to describe The Scene Of The Crime, and the new album features arrangements that almost uniformly fall into those categories. So it’s a less visceral record for sure, but what it does do is highlight LaVette’s considerable vocal prowess like nothing before. But as her stunning vocals are more or less a given (at least to those who are already fans), the real star of the new record is her uncanny ability to render the most overplayed songs almost unrecognizable. Not that she undermines these British rock warhorses with unnecessary reworkings of the melodies. Instead, what LaVette does is play down the obvious hooks to reveal new, often introspective, depths buried in the source material. When you consider how successfully she does this on nearly every track on Interpretations, it’s easy to make the case that Bettye LaVette may the finest song interpreter working today.

As I mentioned before, the uniqueness of LaVette’s approach is not found in some cleverness of the arrangements, but in how she sings them. As also demonstrated on her previous two records, she can indelibly stamp a song with her signature singing style, without diminishing its inherent appeal. Indeed, in more than a few cases (many represented here), her take is simply better than the original version, truly the only measure that separates a “cover artist” from an Artist (am I right, Simon Cowell?). I don’t mean to imply that these songs are anything less than great. But I have to give enormous credit to anyone that can make me love The Moody Blues’ “Nights In White Satin”. Even better, she updates the Rolling Stones classic “Salt Of The Earth” with just enough lyrical tweaks to make it beautifully modern and relevant.

Drive-By Truckers fans, many of whom are no doubt now Bettye LaVette fans, won’t find much to love about the musical arrangements on Interpretations. But this record has a certain seize-the-moment quality to it, having evolved from her breakout performance at the Kennedy Center Honors a couple of years ago (the producers of that event ended up producing the album). Many of the musical performances are restrained to the point of sedate, but they only further highlight LaVette’s voice, which the producers capture flawlessly. This album ought to find an easy audience across a number of outlets, and I can’t fault LaVette for swinging a little more for the fences after building a solid cult audience over the decades. Is the British Rock Songbook my first choice of material to hear Bettye LaVette sing? Not particularly, but she’s shown an admirable refusal to repeat herself, and I can’t wait to find out what she’ll do next. Even if this album is a breakout success and leads inevitably to a British Rock Songbook, Vol. 2, I’ll still be first in line to hear LaVette sing that as well.

The Black Keys - 'Brothers' (out now)

So this week was supposed to be all about snuggling up with my new super deluxe edition of Exile On Main Street.  And don't get me wrong - it's freakin' awesome.  The included photo book is worth the price alone, mainly because it has about 30 pages of photos by Dominique Tarle, who documented the sessions in France and has been famously guarded about publication of the photos (Genesis Publications' book Exile is possibly one of the most sought-after piece of Stones collectibles and is easily my worst case of why-oh-why-did-I-not-buy-it-when-I-had-the-chance).

Anyway, that's a digression right off the bat.  Because what I'm REALLY digging this week is the new album from The Black Keys titled Brothers.  Here's a band that just continues to surprise and evolve and get better with each subsequent album.  There isn't one particular album that is my favorite, but over their last four albums or so, I think the Keys have become one of my favorite bands.  Brothers is their best so far, even though it largely eschews the kind of lo-fi Zep riffs that were their signature early on.  Attack & Release was obviously a turning point, and Brothers largely cashes in the investment made on that record.  Surprisingly soulful and catchy, I highly recommend grabbing this one with all due haste.

Here's a video for "Next Girl".  It really pretty juvenile and silly - in other words, right up my alley...

Peter Case returns with 'Wig!' (due June 29)

A welcome return after recovering from some health problems.  And he's in fine, rocking form...