There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment. ~Elvis Costello
28 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ogallala, trapper shoepp
Trapper Schoepp: “Ogallala” (2016)
Trapper Schoepp calls his latest album “a reflection of my record collection” as opposed to an album that reflects any particular genre. He also acknowledges it’s his inevitable road album, since he was fresh off of a couple years’ touring when he recorded it.
According to Shoepp, “Ogallala” was a song he dreamed up when he used NyQuil to get to sleep while suffering from a chest cold.
28 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: paul mccartney, ram
(via CultureSonar) by Ken Hymes
In early 1971, with The Beatles involved in some bitter legal disputes with each other and with their own management, Paul McCartney recorded Ram with his wife Linda and three hired guns, guitarists David Spinozza and Hugh McCracken, and drummer Denny Seiwell. The album was eviscerated by critics on its release, with Jon Landau and Robert Christgau particularly vicious in their assault on both the album and McCartney’s general reputation relative to John Lennon. Some writers were grudgingly complimentary about McCartney’s sheer mastery of the craft of production, but almost no one could be heard to support the material itself.
There has certainly been a reappraisal, with some glimmering that Ram represents not a failure to live up to The Beatles (or to the expectations of Village Voice writers), but rather a beginning of something new. Perhaps AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine is correct that “in retrospect it looks like nothing so much as the first indie pop album, a record that celebrates small pleasures with big melodies.”
Read more: http://www.culturesonar.com/ram-paul-mccartney/
25 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: flash mob, juan luis guerra, la bilirrubina
Well orchestrated surprise performance of ‘La Bilirrubina’ at Aeropuerto Internacional Las Américas in the Dominican Republic, home of merengue superstar Juan Luis Guerra.
Guerra’s classic original version is below:
25 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ever fallen in love?, nouvelle vague
Nouvelle Vague: “Ever Fallen in Love?” (2006)
Nouvelle Vague, with a new album released just late last year, continue to re-work 80’s new wave in ways that keep its flavor fresh. Here they bossa novatize the Buzzcocks in irresistible fashion from their 2006 album Bande a Part. Reprinted below is what we snarked in a previous post:
French production team Nouvelle Vague’s moniker is well-chosen: it translates into English as “new wave” and means “bossa nova” in Portuguese. And how handy for them, specializing as they do in bringing a beguiling Brazilian sensibility to MTV-chic artists such as Joy Division, Modern English, Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order and the like.
It makes one ponder what a timesaver it’d be if other artists employed the helpful tact of couching their mission statement in their band name.
“The Alan Parsons Project” could have been called “Vangelis with Lyrics”. “Electric Light Orchestra” might have been “Diet Sgt. Pepper”.
Young fans of southern rock (if there were such thing) could have been spared much confusion if “Lynyrd Skynyrd” began calling themselves “A Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute” after 1977. And how much of your download budget could’ve been better utilized had “Mumford & Sons” given fair warning and called themselves “The Bad Avett Brothers”? Perhaps “The Trans-Siberian Orchestra” might have chosen a name like “Nobody Cared About Us When We Were Savatage, But Hey–Christmas!”
I suppose that last one might not have fit on the music hall marquee.
Anyway, if you’re into Bossa Nova covers of the Clash–or need some ironic dinner music for your next chill party–check out the New Wave Bossa Nova of Nouvelle Vague.
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2015/10/14/songs-you-may-have-missed-551/
25 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: amnesia, pousette-dart band
Pousette-Dart Band: “Amnesia” (1977)
A song that starts with the line “you hit me on the head with your beer bottle” seemed an unlikely choice for recommendation here. But when the chorus of this 70’s soft rock chestnut kicked in, well, “something in my chemistry changed”.
That chorus is a neat summation of a sound that could be found on late 70’s radio, when Pure Prairie League and Marshall Tucker Band and Poco found their greatest success. And the slide guitar solo brings to mind the work of Joe Walsh in another notable country rock band of the day.
Pousette-Dart Band only cracked the top 100 once, with the lilting “For Love”, which perfectly sums up the late 70’s soft rock era of Player, Orleans, Chilliwack and the like:
Thanks Dave Geraci!
25 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: more barn, neil young
(via Huffington Post) by Todd Van Lulling
Graham Nash — of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — has a story about his friend, Neil Young, that has been almost too perfect to believe for nearly three decades.
As the myth goes, Nash was at Young’s ranch just south of San Francisco when Young asked him if he wanted to hear something. (That something would become Young’s now famous 1972 “Harvest” album, which features the track “Heart of Gold.”) Nash, of course, said yes and suggested going into Young’s studio. That wasn’t Young’s plan.
“He said, ‘Get into the rowboat,’” Nash explained on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2013. “I said, ‘Get into the rowboat?’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go out into the middle of the lake.’”
The two row out on the lake, with Nash assuming Young brought a cassette player and headphones with him.
“Oh, no,” said Nash on NPR. “He has his entire house as the left speaker and his entire barn as the right speaker. And I heard ‘Harvest’ coming out of these two incredibly large loud speakers louder than hell. It was unbelievable. Elliot Mazer, who produced Neil, produced ‘Harvest,’ came down to the shore of the lake and he shouted out to Neil, ‘How was that, Neil?’”
The best part is Young’s apparent response to the situation. As Nash explained, “I swear to God, Neil Young shouted back, ‘More barn!’”
13 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: donnie and joe emerson
(via the guardian)
Among the great “what-ifs” of the recording industry, it has to be among the most unlikely: what if a farmer had never bought a tractor?
Fruitland, Washington has a population of 751. There are no zeros missing from the end of that number. This tiny rural town is where Donnie and Joe Emerson grew up, living a teenhood driven by the demands of the family’s 1,600-acre farm.
As Donnie, says, during the summer in particular, “there wasn’t no messing around. You don’t run that type of farm by sitting around.”
Their life-changing moment came in the summer of 1978 when their father, Don Sr, bought a tractor that came with a built-in AM-FM radio. It was this that led, not so indirectly, to one of the greatest forgotten records of the decade, Dreamin’ Wild…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/28/donnie-joe-emerson-dreamin-wild
Pitchfork‘s review of Dreamin’ Wild:
Originally released in 1979, only to sit in the teenaged Emerson brothers’ home studio for decades, Donnie and Joe’s sole record showcases a prodigal talent for blue-eyed soul and landlocked yacht rock that’s only just getting its dues…
Read more: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16841-dreamin-wild/
11 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: cover songs
(via Purple Clover) by Kevin Haynes
First released January 11, 1971, Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” redefined the limits of cover song success. Here, we celebrate Janis’ classic version and other artistic interpretations gone right.
‘Me and Bobby McGee’ — Janis Joplin
Kris Kristofferson’s vagabond road song was first recorded in 1969 by, appropriately enough, “King of the Road” Roger Miller. But Joplin’s only No. 1 hit, completed days before her death on October 4, 1970, is the ultimate trip down memory lane—a soulful, cinematic look back at love gone by.
Kristofferson, who’d been dating Janis, first heard her version of the song shortly after she died. “Afterwards,” he recalled in a recent interview, “I walked all over L.A., just in tears.”
‘I Shot the Sheriff’ — Eric Clapton
03 Jan 2017 6 Comments
in Video of the Week Tags: dolly parton, jolene
Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” is a pretty great country standard in its original form.
But when slowed from 45 rpm to 33 1/3, the honky tonk molasses that results sounds like a pretty awesome alt-country tune, like that My Morning Jacket track you’ve never heard:
03 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in Did You Ever Realize, General Posts Tags: call me, chris montez, la cucaracha
Every Moment Has A Song 