Posts Tagged ‘Listening Booth’

  
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Monday, November 17th, 2008

Listening Booth: Miranda Lee Richards, “Light of X”

by Jeff Giles

Miranda Lee Richards – Light of X (Nettwerk, 2009)
purchase this album (Amazon)

She took guitar lessons from Kirk Hammett and R. Crumb was her godfather, but don’t expect shredding or off-color humor from Miranda Lee Richards; her second full-length effort, Light of X, is as heavy on the gauzy L.A. vibe as you’d expect for an artist who has worked with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Jon Brion/David Campbell studio mafia. It’s pretty, vaguely country-tinged stuff — sort of like Mazzy Star and Concrete Blonde thrown in a blender with the Innocence Mission and early Linda Ronstadt.

It is also, as you may have already guessed, very heavy on vibe, and somewhat light on actual songwriting. Light on X plods along at a middling gait, feet shuffilng, eyes glued to the floor; it’s the aural reflection of its cover photo, which depicts Richards backlit by a pastoral sunset, standing next to a horse. Hooks aren’t Richards’ primary concern — she seems to think it doesn’t matter if you remember the song as long as you remember how you felt while you were listening to it.

And here’s the funny thing: she’s mostly right. Light of X wafts in slowly, envelops you in a thoroughly pleasant haze, and wafts back out again, and even if it leaves you with the impression of one long, autumnal ballad, it’s all put together so beautifully that it’s hard to argue. I doubt I’d be able to stay awake for all of a Miranda Lee Richards concert, but something tells me I’ll be playing Light of X on many a Sunday morning. The album won’t reach stores until next February, but you can pre-order it now at the link above; in the meantime, give “Early November” (download) an advance listen, and watch the video for “Long Goodbye”: (more…)

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Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Listening Booth: “Warren Zevon” (Collector’s Edition)

by Ken Shane

October 30, 2002 – It was close to the end when Warren Zevon made what everyone knew would be his final appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. The cancer had already taken a tremendous toll on him, and every small movement was an effort. Letterman loved Warren’s music, and had supported his career for years. I like to think that it was because Dave recognized that Warren was willing to cross a line that Dave could only approach before retreating. During the Q & A that night, Dave asked Warren what the one thing was that he wanted people to know. The dying songwriter famously replied, “enjoy every sandwich.” Less than a year later, he was gone.

Warren left us with a beautiful farewell album that he called The Wind, and he laid out his final wishes on the emotional closing track:

Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile
If I leave you that doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile

And so we have kept him in our hearts over these last five years. For many of us, hardly a day goes by that Warren doesn’t remain a presence. When his sandwich metaphor is applied to his music, Warren made sure that we would enjoy every sandwich. It’s not just about his music though, any more than our memories of Hunter S. Thompson, surely a kindred spirit to Warren, are just about his writing. In their too-short lives, both men managed to find a freedom that few of us will ever know. (more…)

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Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Listening Booth: The Cure “4:13 Dream”

by Ted Asregadoo

The Cure – 4:13 Dream (2008)
purchase this album (Amazon)

For bands like the Cure, that have been able to stick it out for 30 years of recording and touring, one must ask: “Is there anything left for these old codgers to say that’s musically refreshing?”  No one really does the pain of love lost like Robert Smith, and 20 years ago, when I was in college, his songs certainly struck a chord with me because, you know, college is full of love lost/love found moments, and songs like “Just Like Heaven” or “Six Different Ways” strike just the right note.  But does the Cure’s new music appeal to the same sense of desperation it did 20 years ago? If I were playing with my Magic 8 Ball while asking that question, it would say:  “Signs Point to Yes.”

4:13 Dream is not quite the masterful pop of Head on the Door, or the dense atmospherics of Disintegration, but at times it comes close to combining the two. The lead track, “Underneath the Stars,” has a long intro and a dreamy feel that reveals something novel for a Cure album:  beefed-up drums and a raw-sounding guitar.  Smith’s vocals are delayed and echoed to create an ethereal quality to match the lyrics — which center on intertwined lovers lost in passion under a canopy of stars.  Unfortunately, the effect is overdone, and what could have been a passionate song of the oneness of love comes off as kind of creepy.

Fortunately, Smith’s love affair with studio tricks is tempered on the pure pop sound of “The Only One.”  But lyrically, the song definitely ventures into racy territory: Oh I love I love oh I love what you do to my skin/When you slip me on and slide me in …Oh I love I love oh Iove what you do to my bones/When you slide me off and slip me home … It’s the crush, oh yeah! If you’re not really paying attention to that fact that Smith is talking about a variety of sexual acts, you might just be nodding your head and enjoying the pop goodness of the music.  I don’t know about you, but for me, the thought of Smith gettin’ busy and writing lyrics about it is antithetical to the “I just want to hold you forever and love you” persona Smith has cultivated as a passionate, but ultimately, asexual being. (more…)

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Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Listening Booth: Cheap Trick, “BUDOKAN!”

by Jeff Giles

Cheap Trick – BUDOKAN! (Sony/Legacy, 2008)
purchase this album (Amazon)

On the surface, I grant you, this looks like a terrible idea, especially if you’re a Cheap Trick fan. Sony went back to the well with the band’s classic At Budokan album 10 years ago, expanding its (already perfect) 10-track length to include material from the historic concert that was clipped from both the original and 1994’s Budokan II. Now that fans have At Budokan, Budokan II, and At Budokan: The Complete Concert to choose from, what else could possibly left to dredge up from a 30-year-old series of concerts?

Quite a bit, as it turns out. In fact, BUDOKAN! fills three CDs and a DVD — which is really pretty absurd when you hold it up against the perfect blend of power and economy that was At Budokan, but as a collectors’ item, it does pretty well on its own merits. Most importantly to diehards, Legacy has included video footage of the show the band played two days after At Budokan, previously unseen to all but the lucky few who watched it the single time it aired on Japanese television. It’s nothing revelatory, but it’ll prove a powerful lure for diehards — especially when you consider that Amazon is selling the box for $37, well under the $49.98 MSRP.

Also included is audio from the DVD performance, as well as the requisite double-disc remastering of At Budokan: The Complete Concert, plus a few stray extras on the DVD, including a pair of performances (”Voices” and “If You Want My Love”) recorded at Budokan earlier this year, and new interview footage.

Are Cheap Trick and Legacy soaking the band’s fans here? Yeah, probably. They could have released the DVD on its own, for one thing, or as a CD/DVD combo, rather than lumping it in with yet another reissue of the complete concert. Devoted Popdose readers know I’ve spent most of ‘08 with my nose firmly implanted in Legacy’s buttocks, but BUDOKAN! is one release I think they got wrong — there are certainly fans who already purchased At Budokan, Budokan II, and The Complete Concert, and those are the people who will be most tempted by the prospect of seeing the band in all its ‘78 glory. The price point isn’t as prohibitive as it could have been, but even a classic live album doesn’t need a deluxe reissue of its deluxe reissue, does it?

Me, I still think the original At Budokan — currently available for the low, low price of $6.99 — is the best of the lot. And I’ll tell you another thing: I’m not writing “Budokan” again for at least a year.

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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Listening Booth: Eric Hutchinson, “Sounds Like This”

by Jeff Giles

Eric Hutchinson – Sounds Like This (2008)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Nine times out of 10, I’ve got to believe that a singer/songwriter who got a crucial career break from Perez Hilton would rank at or near the bottom of the list of things I’m interested in hearing — but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and as I rinse the taste of crow out of my mouth, I’m forced to admit that Hilton was on to something with Eric Hutchinson’s Sounds Like This.

Sounds Like This has been out for awhile now — a long while, if you count its original incarnation as a self-released title — but to their immense credit, Warner Bros. has taken the slow-build approach to Hutchinson, staggering its pitches to AAA radio and media outlets, the upshot being that I’m just now spinning the shit out of an album that’s been out since April.

Better late than never, because Hutchinson is a songwriter worth hearing. Yes, he’s just another dude with a guitar — and yes, he does bear a passing, superficial resemblance to the similar-sounding artists you love to hate. But where the great majority of Hutchinson’s peers imitate classic pop’s form without getting close to its function, Sounds Like This offers 10 punchy, effortlessly memorable tracks that cover all the bases, from tearstained ballads to handclaps-and-horns uptempo tracks.

Best of all, by sticking to his 10 best cuts, Hutchinson avoids getting stale; Sounds Like This comes and goes in a hair under 38 minutes — just enough time, in other words, for you to decide you want to hear the whole thing over again. I wouldn’t exactly call the album eclectic, but the songs are varied enough to keep things interesting, and the production carries a classic pop vibe that’s damn near impossible to resist — loads of electric piano, touches of brass, and the requisite stacks of harmony vocals abound. (Special kudos are due producer Will Golden and mixer Neal H. Pogue for delivering an album that doesn’t sound like it’s had its dynamic range squeezed out by a sausage press.)

I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say Eric Hutchinson is one for the ages, but what I can tell you is that I’ve listened to what feels like nine dozen albums by young singer/songwriters this year, and Sounds Like This is easily the best of the bunch. Give “You Don’t Have to Believe Me” (download) a try, and see what you think.

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Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Listening Booth: Red Wanting Blue, “These Magnificent Miles”

by Ken Shane

When I was in my early 20s, I worked for a major concert promoter here in New Jersey. I recall that each time I walked into his office, I would see cartons on the floor, full of the latest LP releases from the record labels of the day. I also recall wishing that someday I could get on the label’s mailing lists so that I would get their new releases every month. As the stacks of CDs threaten to overtake my small space here, I’m reminded of the old adage “be careful what you wish for … “

It’s no secret that music writers get a lot of free CDs from artists, PR firms, and record labels. It’s one of the perks of the job, along with concert tickets, and a free drink now and then. Many jobs have perks. If you work at MacDonald’s, you probably get free fries. If you work at a Wall Street investment bank, you get to rape the taxpayers of this country. If you are the President of the United States, apparently you get to enrich your friends with the sweat of working people.

Despite the fact that I get a lot of music for free, I still get music from the Internet. That’s right, I’ve been known to download a song or two, and if you’re a regular visitor to Popdose, you have too. I believe strongly that the major labels have been ripping off consumers for years, and now the chickens have come home to roost, but I try hard not to download music by hard working independent musicians, unless they invite me to do so. Sometimes that approval is tacit, as most indie bands welcome the promotion that having songs posted at blogs like Popdose can bring. They tend to understand the value of sharing their music more than the majors ever will.

I know the struggle that these artists face all too well. I’ve seen it up close and personal. Living in a van for weeks at a time, on the road away from family and friends too much of the time, trying to scratch out a living when it’s like trying to find water in the desert. If I see an indie band that I like in a club, I make it a point to buy their CD. It’s really the very least I can do. (more…)

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Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Listening Booth: Ry Cooder, “The UFO Has Landed”

by Jeff Giles

Ry Cooder – The UFO Has Landed (2008)
purchase this album (Amazon)

It’s a hundred degrees in the shade, easy, and you’ve been hiding from the worst of the heat in this tiny bordertown cantina for most of the afternoon. Full of cervezas, you ask the bartender where the bathroom is; he laughs at you and gestures toward the alley out back. Stumbling outside, you steady yourself against the wall with one hand while doing your business, and as you close your eyes, enjoying the sweet release, you catch a few distant, gentle strains of the most beautiful music you’ve ever heard. It’s only when you’ve finished and zipped up, intent on finding the source of the magical sound, that you notice the stranger. He’s slumped against the wall, maybe ten feet away, draped in a poncho, with a bottle-shaped brown paper bag for company.

“Hey,” you say, shuffling unsteadily over to him. “Where’s that music coming from?”

He’s on his feet before you know it, grabbing you by your shirt collar and slamming you against the alley. His fedora is jammed so low you can barely make out his eyes, and he’s either smiling or grimacing at you — you can’t tell which. He smells like the worm in an empty bottle of tequila.

“You want music?” he growls. “I’ve got some music for you…”

And that’s what Ry Cooder’s albums are like — a forced march from the alley behind Pedro’s Cantina to the Dust Bowl and back again. As a young recording artist, he was blinding in his restlessness; but unlike many eclectic artists, who come across as showy dilettantes, Cooder gives you the impression that he’s bouncing around like this not because he wants to show you how much he knows, or because he wants to expose you to as much as possible, but because he makes no distinction between these genres. It isn’t that simple, naturally; an ardent musicologist, Cooder is simply incredibly adept at drawing lines between, to give just one example, Hawaiian and American folk music. So adept, in fact, that you can’t even hear the lines — only a walking musical encyclopedia could make it through these records and really understand what Cooder’s doing the whole time. But it doesn’t matter; that’s the beauty of it. (more…)

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Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Listening Booth: Passion Pit, “Chunk of Change EP”

by Taylor Long

Passion Pit Steadily making its way around the Internet, the Chunk of Change EP by Massachusetts’ Passion Pit started out as a Valentine’s Day gift to founder Michael Angelakos’ girlfriend. Angelakos wrote and recorded the entire thing himself, recently reissued with two extra songs (”Better Things” and “Sleepyhead”).

With its roots in homecraft, it’s not surprising, then, that much like The Postal Service, the songs on the Chunk of Change EP have that bedroom electro-pop feel. The lyrics tend to be romantic (“I gave into your love / as you rapturously commanded”), optimistic (“I believe in believing”) or both (“Baby don’t be sad / better things are coming / I swear there’s truth in that”), creating a rather cutesy effect when combined with the twinkling, glitchy, toy-like electronics. Hell, one of the tracks is titled “Cuddle Fuddle.” The songs are a bit more drawn out in length, though, which tones down some of the sugary coating.

Passion Pit, “Cuddle Fuddle” (download)

Angelakos’ vocals do get a little tiring after repeat listens. His falsetto gets a bit shrill, and his voice too acrobatic, overall, as though he’s not always quite sure what to do with it. But, for a starter EP, one could certainly do worse.

Other electro-pop acts have been raised to great heights based off one EP (cough Black Kids cough), and looking on their CMJ schedule, Passion Pit could very well be facing a media frenzy. Let’s hope they’re left with a little room to breathe.

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Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Listening Booth: Lucinda Williams, “Little Honey”

by Ken Shane

Like many other people, I welcomed Lucinda Williams into my life with the release of the Grammy-winning Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, in 1998. Over the course of the last 10 years, I’ve been a fascinated observer of her career, both on record, and on the road. I’ve had the opportunity to see her perform live on numerous occasions, and although her backing band tended to change with every new tour, she has always had a knack for employing some of the finest musicians available. This is particularly true of her guitar players, a group that has included such greats as Gurf Morlix, J.J. Jackson, Kenny Vaughan, Bo Ramsey, and her current sidekick, the redoubtable Doug Pettibone, who shines brightly on this album.

To follow Williams’ career is to listen as she bares her broken heart time and again in her songs. But there’s good news this time out: “I’m stepping out and writing about things other than unrequited love. But because that’s not part of my experience anymore doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being a songwriter,” she explains. “There are plenty of other important things to write about — the state of the world for one thing — I don’t buy into the myth that because you get to a certain level of contentment, you have to throw in the towel.” Hopefully some of her more satisfied contemporaries are listening. (more…)

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Monday, October 6th, 2008

Listening Booth: Taj Mahal, “Maestro”

by Jeff Giles

Taj Mahal – Maestro (Heads Up, 2008)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Maestro celebrates Taj Mahal’s 40th anniversary as a recording artist, and true to contrarian form, Mr. Mahal has elected not to follow the traditional route for this sort of release — best-of, re-recordings, etc. — and opted instead to head into the studio with a few special guests to cut some new sides and prove he hasn’t been around too long to kick a little ass. The dozen-song album follows a protracted layoff between recordings for Mahal, which is unfortunately nothing new; since alienating his label in the ’70s — and filing a precedent-setting lawsuit against Bill Graham to boot — he’s flitted in and out of the periphery here in America, often recording for rinky-dink outfits or labels without U.S. distribution.

In Heads Up, Mahal has found a label that isn’t a household name, but boasts a pipeline to the deep pockets of the Concord Music Group, as well as an eclectic, jazz-tilted roster that includes Fourplay, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masakela, and George Duke. A label comfortable dealing with artists who don’t fall squarely into a single genre, in other words, which is exactly what Mahal needs to give Maestro an outside shot at selling a healthy number of units. Well, that and the famous names attached to the songs — Taj enlisted the aid of some trendy guests this time around, including Ziggy Marley, Ben Harper, and Jack Johnson. (more…)

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