2.22.2002

 
Daily Record

Iris DeMent wrote some beautiful songs on her first two records, Infamous Angel and My Life. (I particularly recommend "Mama's Opry" and "Let the Mystery Be," which was also covered by, strangely enough, David Byrne and 10,000 Maniacs during the Maniacs' Unplugged session.) But it was on her The Way I Should where she revealed the heart of a country radical.

"Wasteland of the Free" is where Iris stages her one-woman battle on the forces of the right, defending a conscientious objector by saying, "He's standing up for what he believes in; that sounds pretty damn American to me." On "There's a Wall in Washington," as a drum beats a military time, she muses on the people who have come to visit the Wall -- and all that was lost in an unjust war.

But when I listened to The Way I Should yesterday, it was the opener, "When My Morning Comes Around," which stuck with me. It's a song of hope, when there isn't much reason for hope; it's a song of faith, when everything in reality seems to be making faith seem impossible. It's a lovely song, from a very good album. DeMent's voice isn't for everyone, but if you're intrigued by the idea of country folk with smart lyrics and progressive politics -- well, a little intrigue is a healthy thing.

posted by Anon. 9:01 AM

2.20.2002

 
Daily Record
Leonard Cohen's early recordings sound painfully dated to me. His voice, much like John Prine's, has been flattered and improved with age; what used to be whining and nasal is now throaty, textured, smokey. I first heard Cohen Live when I spent a weekend in Victoria, Canada, with my friend Avery. This was back during that nine month stretch of life that I spent in Seattle, and Victoria was a ferry ride away. We met up with friends of Avery's who were at school at the U of Vic, and I remember good food, great conversation, and two albums being played back at Avery's friends' house: one was Bob Dylan's Street Legal, wildly lamented as one of the two or three worst Dylan records that Dylan ever released on purpose (as opposed to a former label clearing out its shelves against his will).

But the other was Cohen Live, a single disc made up of performances from different shows from LC's tours in support of I'm Your Man and The Future. I finally got around to buying it, five years later, this past fall, and I'm both glad I did and disappointed that I waited so long.

Generally I'm against live records that are drawn from several different performances, believing that if it's a concert recording, then it should be a recording from one concert. But the jazzy music and Cohen's passionate, if limited, vocals, make me yield in my orthodoxy here: this record a beguiling one, particularly "There's a War" and "Sisters of Mercy." If there's a disappointment on the album, it's a rendition of "Hallelujah" that almost feels arranged for a lounge lizard, but then, I prefer Jeff Buckley's version, anyway.

I often define a record I like based upon the time that the record is most appropriate for listening. There are 9 AM records (Astral Weeks), there are 3 AM records (Pink Moon); this is a 10 PM record, after one's finished dinner, having the first drinks of the evening, preparing for all hell to break loose.


posted by Anon. 4:43 PM

2.19.2002

 
Little Riffs:
Jukeboxing

It took me about three months to find New York's greatest jukebox (at Tom and Jerry's bar, 288 Elizabeth Street, in Nolita).

It's taken me most of my lifetime to find a jukebox in LA that I love, but it turns out that Akbar, a fine 50/50 bar (half gay, half straight, though the exact ratios may depend on the evening and bartender) in Silverlake, could be a contender. Last night I grabbed drinks there with my friend Alex, after getting dinner. While we were there, "Train in Vain," "Gigantic" from Surfer Rosa, and one of the tracks of PJ Harvey's Stories from the City, Stores from the Sea were played. I took a closer look. Turns out that there are lots of goodies on this jukebox: George Jones, The Rolling Stones, Love and Theft, and assorted other goodies. All this and there's ample parking behind the bar. Now, if only it were within walking distance of my apartment.

posted by Anon. 6:41 PM

2.18.2002

 
Little Riffs:
Bluebonnet springs

Some songs are so good that nobody can screw them up, no matter how hard they try. "Pancho and Lefty," the Townes Van Zandt song, is a good example: I've heard versions by Van Zandt, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan, and though different artists reveal different sides of the song, it always retains its power.

Nanci Griffith's "Gulf Coast Highway" is another such song. Even if Griffith continues to sing on her recent albums like she's baby-talking her way through "On the Good Ship Lollipop," off-key and off-rhythm, I'll always grant her a (slight) reprieve for two reasons: first, her first album of folk covers, Other Voices, Other Rooms, a lovely album, particularly her version of Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather" and Jerry Jeff Walker's "Morning Song for Sally."

Second, because she wrote "Gulf Coast Highway," a small song of large rewards, a composition that seems to bring out the best of all those who choose to sing it.

The song is a snapshot of both sides of an aging southern couple, alone in an old house with their memories; the wife describes the husband working the rails and rice fields and oil rigs off the Gulf Coast, while the husband remembers the nights they fell in love, warm nights in springtime. Now they live in the house, the only thing they've ever owned, and look ahead to the end, which they'll face together, when they'll "fly away to heaven come some sweet bluebonnet spring."

It's actually a fitting companion to "Angel from Montgomery," the John Prine classic, best realized in a live duet between Prine and Bonnie Raitt. The difference between the two songs is that somehow the couple in "Gulf Coast" seem more together then the couple in "Montgomery" who "have nothing to say."

On Griffith's Blue Roses from the Moon, she does a version of it with Darius Rucker. Here, the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, who more often than not displays all the restraint of a karaoke addict, displays maturity and grace: he's never sounded better. Nanci even breaks out of her baby talk voice by the end of the song. The results are affecting.

But two even better versions of this song are available courtesy of the Sweetheart of the Rodeo, herself, Emmylou Harris. Her Portraits box set features Harris duetting on it with Willie Nelson: now, IRS woes and Honeysuckle Rose aside, the fact is that Nelson has a beautifully textured voice whenever he chooses to apply it. He applies it here.

But my favorite version of the song comes from an Austin City Limits program of a few years back, when the male side of the vocal is handled by... Dave Matthews.

This isn't the only time that Matthews and Emmylou have duetted: they did "The Long Black Veil" together for a Johnny Cash tribute concert a few years back, and on Emmylou's recent Red Dirt Girl, Matthews appeared on "My Antonia." Both tracks are very, very good, and suggest that Matthews actually does have pipes when he chooses to enunciate, and when he has something interesting and involving to sing.

But on "Gulf Coast Highway," when Matthews comes in, singing that "She walked through springtime/when I was home/the days were sweet/the nights were warm," he sounds just like an old man savoring the first days of his marriage to the woman he's loved all his life.

The nostalgia, the regret, the love all feel real. Emmylou said, in introducing the song to the Austin City Limits crowd, that when she first heard the song she had to pull over to the side of the road, as it made her think of her parents. I hear what she's saying: it's one of the few songs that's consistently managed to make me well up a little bit. It's a song to savor. It's what we call a keeper.

posted by Anon. 3:52 PM

2.17.2002

 
Listening Station: John Hiatt

Recommended albums:
Bring the Family (1985)
Walk On (1987)
Crossing Muddy Waters (2000)

1. "Your Dad Did," from Bring the Family

2. "Thank You Girl," from Bring the Family

3. "Learning How to Love You," from Bring the Family

4. "Trudy and Dave," from Slow Turning

5. "Dust Down a Country Road," from Walk On

6. "Buffalo River Home," from Perfectly Good Guitar

7. "One Step Over the Line," duet with Rosanne Cash, from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken II.

8. "Miles Before I Go," from Crossing Muddy Waters

9. "Only the Song Survives," from Crossing Muddy Waters

10. "A Mess of Blues," from Till the Night is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus

For you file sharing detectives, I also actively recommend tracking down "True Believers," a song Hiatt recorded for the lame-as-fuck Melanie Griffith prostitute children's comedy, Milk Money, as well as a duet of the Temptations classic "My Girl" that he recorded with Loudon Wainwright III.

You might also stumble across recordings that he did with Matthew Sweet for some Vh-1 live program, where they duetted on the Beatles' "If I Needed Someone" and the Ramones' "I Want to Be Sedated."

I am not making that up.
posted by Anon. 9:41 PM

 
One step forward, two steps back
2001 in Review: John Hiatt's The Tiki Bar Is Open

There was a period in the 1970s when every other film Robert Altman released was terrific, and every other film he released was poor. He was consistent only in his inconsistency.

When he released a dud, it would seem to squander all the goodwill he had generated with his last success.

When he released a winner, critics would rave of his redemption, his artistic comeback.

Look for yourself. Between MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye, he gave us Images and Brewster McCloud. After Nashville, he delivered the interminable Buffalo Bill and the Indians; after Three Women and A Wedding, he made the one-of-a-kind Paul Newman/Sci-Fi/Futuristic Backgammon movie, Quintet.

Altman's entire career is remarkably inconsistent: for every Short Cuts and Gosford Park, there's a Pret-a-Porter and a Popeye.

Bret Saberhagen brought a similar inconsistency to much of his career as a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. It seemed like if you had Bret on your staff during an odd numbered year, you'd be guaranteed an ace of a pitcher: from '85 through '91, the records of Bret's odd-numbered seasons were 20-6, 18-10, 23-6, and 13-8. His even-numbered seasons, though, were a different story: from '86 to '92, Bret went 7-12, 14-16, 5-9, and then 3-5 in an injury-plagued season.

John Hiatt is about as dependable as Saberhagen and Altman; i.e., he's not.

Hiatt spent the better part of the first 10 years of his recording career turning out low-rent singer songwriter power pop -- equal parts Graham Parker and Elvis Costello. Then he released his masterpiece, Bring the Family, with Nick Lowe and Ry Cooder as his sessionmen, and everything changed.

Triggered by his wife's suicide, Hiatt had recorded an album of beautiful ballads and exhilirating rockers, all displaying a gift for wordplay and a textured, cigarettes and coffee voice. It was named by Rolling Stone as one of the best albums of the 80s, and if you don't own it now, well, you should. I'd be surprised if you can't find it in the Nice Price pile.

Hiatt then released a similarly home-and-hearth record, Slow Turning. Also very good, and featuring lovely slide guitar by Sonny Landreth. Then on his next record, Stolen Moments, what were poignant and perceptive takes on generations and growing older, started feeling a little cute and a little tired.

Around this time, though, Hiatt seemed like the country songwriter du jour, with Bonnie Raitt having a hit with "Thing Called Love," Jeff Healey having one with "Angel Eyes," Emmylou Harris doing "Icy Blue Heart." Hiatt was getting more and more attention for his gift with a lyric; I especially have always been fond of a couplet he wrote in "The Most Unoriginal Sin," the sole recording of which, to my knowledge, is on Willie Nelson's Across the Borderline:

What was left of us,
was all covered in dust and thick skin
A half-eaten apple,
or the whole Sistine Chapel
painted on the head of a pin

Hiatt next offered the flat out rock of Perfectly Good Guitar -- where the melodies were lovely, but, aside from the terrific "Buffalo River Home," which still stands to me as one of his best tracks ever, the lyrics just weren't there. Next he released Walk On, a return to a more countryish style, and that seemed to be Hiatt's new peak. His music had caught up with his lyrics, and he even was stepping out into new territory, both musical and lyrical. He received a Grammy nomination; his song "Cry Love" was all over the radio.

Then he took another step back, and released Little Head. Somehow Hiatt had taken a step from one of the finest records of his career, to release an album that took its title from a song that was a dick joke. It was a record that felt cheap and chintzy, tailor-made for VH-1, but leaving his strengths out of the recording studio.

After that, Hiatt seemed to float a bit. He seemed to release three anthologies in the span of three years; he took over from David Byrne as host of PBS' fine Sessions at West 57th. The moments of Hiatt joining in with John Prine on guitar are happy memories. The moments of Hiatt stumbling through an interview with a surly Jeff Tweedy, a little less happy, but plenty amusing.

Then in 2000, Hiatt released Crossing Muddy Waters, on the Vanguard label. It was stripped down -- all acoustic guitars, a back-porch record. It felt like Hiatt was reaching back for that intimacy that he had achieved on Bring the Family. And on tracks like the title track, "Only the Song Survives," and the beautiful "Miles Before I Go," he was indeed hitting it. Not a wonderful album, but a good one -- and a promising one.

This past year, Hiatt plugged the guitars back into the amplifiers, reunited with his old Goners band, led by Landreth, and released The Tiki Bar is Open.

First thing's first: an awful title. Like Little Head, it sounded like Hiatt was releasing another novelty record. And the title song is just that, a bar blues complete with a verse memorializing Dale Earnhardt that just makes you feel a little queasy.

There are some good moments here, where Hiatt's gifted wordplay is brought out for all to see. "All the Lilacs in Ohio," which takes its title and chorus from a great line in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend, has a great rave-up spirit, and "My Old Friend" is up there with Hiatt's best home-and-hearth songs, like "Slow Turning" and "Real Fine Love."

But much of this album feels like a rummage sale, as Hiatt finally bothers to record "I'll Never Get Over You," a song Jo-El Sonnier covered more than ten years ago. And "Farther Stars," an eight minute-plus psychedelic monstrosity, is embarrassing. Overall, Hiatt feels like he's treading water, marking time, and, to use a phrase Earnhardt himself might have approved of, spinning his wheels.

posted by Anon. 8:39 PM

 
Little Riffs
U2 and 9/11

Was it just my imagination, or did U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind become a much better album after 9/11?

Before 9/11, it was a solid rock record, a step away from the irony-soaked Eno-visions of their last three records, yet avoiding the arena rock pomposity of Rattle and Hum. But after 9/11, suddenly the record became transcendent.

Maybe it's because their performance on the America: a Tribute to Heroes marathon -- where they took the intro to "Peace on Earth" and then sailed into an exhilirating version of "Walk On" -- was for me, the stand-out of the night. But All seems much more important now. Not just the songs that can be so easily applied to the current state we find ourselves in, but also in "Wild Honey," perhaps the most joyous song U2 has cut to record since "One Tree Hill."

The song that sticks with me more than any is "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of." Thankfully, we don't have to watch the awful video (showing Bono singing at a football game?) that accompanied it anymore, and instead, make our own connections to a call for coming together during the rough times.

For me, "Stuck in a Moment" was the song of that moment, of that week. The Saturday after 9/11, I went for a jog around the Central Park Reservoir. I had a Discman with me, listening to a mix I had burned. When "Stuck in a Moment" came on, I replayed it five straight times.

It might have been written about Michael Hutchence's suicide overdose, but that didn't matter: one of the great things about music is that the listener can make their own associations, connect and relate to a song for wholly different reasons.

And right then and there, with the smell of sulfur still in the air and with the only sound above being the sound of Tomcats heading over the city, the lyric "I'm not afraid of anything in this world/there's nothing you can throw at me that I haven't already heard," had an entirely new layer.

posted by Anon. 9:34 AM

 
Overheard...

Village Voice's Pazz and Jop poll of 2001's best albums was released this past week. Here were two choice comments from contributing critics:

"The Strokes are only a great garage band who've been mistaken for rock saviors, maybe because no one in New York has a garage."

Chris Riemenschneider
Minneapolis, Minnesota

"In the time it's taken you to read this sentence, Ryan Adams has written two more songs."

Tim Grierson
Los Angeles, California

posted by Anon. 9:29 AM

 
Overheard...

Rolling Stone.com reports that anti-death penalty advocate, short story writer, and cranky Guy Clark disciple Steve Earle will be releasing an odds and sods compilation of B-sides and covers on April 9. The record, entitled Sidetracks, will include Earle's original songs for crappy movies Pay It Forward and Steal This Movie.

For Forward, Steve recorded "Open Your Window," never available until now on CD, and for the Abbie Hoffman biopic, Steve duetted with Sheryl Crow on the Chambers Brothers' classic "Time Has Come Today." The most interesting contribution to the project may be Earle's cover of Nirvana's "Breed," originally released on the Japanese version of Transcendental Blues. There's also a cover of Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages," which recently was given a fine treatment by Marshall Crenshaw.

Sidetracks does not include versions of songs that Steve has covered on recent tours, including the Beatles' "No Reply" or Son Volt's "Windfall," nor does it include the sublime cover of "Before They Make Me Run," the Keith-sung Stones classic that Earle recorded with the Supersuckers.

More intriguing than the songlist of the B-sides album is the quote from Earle on his next album of original material. (It's been over a year and a half since TB was released, which after Earle's prodigious output of 5 great albums in 6 years qualifies as an eternity.)

Says Earle on the record, which will be released around Christmas: "It's a very, very, very political record. There's no reason to write songs about girls right now." (Now, me, I like to think that there is always a reason to write songs about girls.)

Whether the political nature of Steve's next album is good news or not depends on how you feel about Steve's more political songs, like "Ellis Unit One," "Billy Austin," or "Christmas in Washington." Without falling on either side of this argument, I do note that the two strongest songs on TB were "Steve's Last Ramble" and "The Galway Girl," both, um, songs about girls.

posted by Anon. 12:33 AM