random musings from a serialist
NYC band deftly balances Latin styles and modern rock.
When I am scanning through the radio stations in rural Eastern Washington, it seems like half of them are Spanish-language stations, and 99% of the time the music irritates me. It is ironic that I enjoy Latin music in general, but I cannot stand to listen to most of the music picked up by my car radio. If only these radio stations would play Cordero, then I would be listening to them every chance I could.
Music for the literate masses.
Before I listened to Mightier Than the Sword, my experience with John McCutcheon’s music consisted of one track from his 1987 Step by Step, which featured the hammer dulcimer. The song is “Babylon is Fallen,” which is an old Sacred Harp tune, and one of my favorites to sing. When I bought that CD some years ago, I was singing with a shape note group in Kentucky. Now I’m in Washington, surprised to discover that this hammer dulcimer player is also a guitar-playing contemporary singer/songwriter of repute.
Mightier Than the Sword first attracted my attention because of its theme. McCutcheon has been a voracious reader for most of his life, and the themes from the books he read found their ways into his songs. For this recording, he took that a step further and collaborated with willing authors to write a collection of songs inspired by a particular book or poem of each author. I haven’t read any of the works that inspired this recording, but after having listened to it, I feel like I know the essences of them.
Indiana songwriter delivers a blue plate special.
Carrie Newcomer has a gift for writing character sketches of people who do not receive much notice in popular music, which was evident in her first recording, Visions and Dreams, with her treatment of modern-day immigrants (“Sounds of the Morning”). Last year, she released a best-of recording called Betty’s Diner that included the previously unreleased title track. “Betty’s Diner” is a brief glimpse into the working-class lives of people found in this fictional diner. With a few phrases, Newcomer is able to flesh out a three-dimensional image of the diner patrons.
Arthur lets his earl grey steep
Since April it’s been hard to sleep
You know they tried most everything
Yet it took her in the end
The diner patrons have returned in Newcomer’s latest offering, Regulars and Refugees. On the CD liner she writes, “After I’d written and recorded the song it became apparent that the diner people had more to say, and so arose a series of songs, poems and short stories written from the perspectives of different characters who frequent a hometown diner in southern Indiana.” She includes a written introduction to the characters of each song, ether as the narrator or from the perspective of the diner waitress, Miranda. The songs them selves come from a variety of perspectives ranging from the protagonists themselves to Arthur’s story, as told by the dog he and his Libby-dearest rescued from the pound (“Arthur B and Me”).
Newcomer’s musical style is sometimes country, sometimes folk, sometimes pop, but more often it’s a combination of all three. The composition and production quality of Regulars and Refugees is classic Newcomer, and does not disappoint. The stories themselves become the emphasis of the recording versus the traditional musical hook. Overall, I give it two thumbs up and a side of slaw.
I’m not sure why Juliette and the Licks’ label thought it would be a good idea to release an EP early in the year (
The Butchies – Make Yr Life Years ago, I fell in love with the music created by queer feminist power pop rockers The Butchies (Kaia Wilson, Melissa York, and Alison Martlew). Their first full album Are We Not Femme? is on rotation in the soundtrack of my post-college music experience. Six years later, a more … Continue reading “josie’s on a vacation far away”
The Butchies – Make Yr Life
Years ago, I fell in love with the music created by queer feminist power pop rockers The Butchies (Kaia Wilson, Melissa York, and Alison Martlew). Their first full album Are We Not Femme? is on rotation in the soundtrack of my post-college music experience. Six years later, a more mature Butchies have put out their third album, Make Yr Life; fourth if you count their work on Amy Ray’s Stag in 2001. This time around it’s on Yep Roc Records, rather than Wilson’s Mr Lady Records, as they have done with previous recordings. This has resulted in a polished production that brings out more of the subtleties of the band’s songcrafting.
As usual, I have trouble reconciling the feminine, emotional vocals with Wilson’s gender-bending personal style. She is a political feminist statement from the moment she opens her mouth and the music flows out sounding like “somewhere between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the suspended time right before your head spins off into orgasm.”[1]
With practiced ease, Wilson and her bandmates are able to shift from quiet intensity to rousing exuberance, often within the same track, without it seeming contrived. In fact, that is one of the style characteristics that have distinguished them from their contemporaries in my internal musical catalog. The song topics have gone from blatantly political to more of the personal-is-political. From the love-struck opening track “Send Me You” (“caught in your eyes / and i’m losing my mind”) to the I’m-over-you “Second Guess” with its repeated refrain, “i don’t need you anymore,” the human experience (or at least the romantic aspect) is played out in hook-filled power pop tunes.
The CD ends with a very satisfying cover of The Outfield‘s “Your Love.” Wilson’s breathy voice and solemn intensity coupled with York and Martlew’s light touch on the drums and bass, respectively (as well as a sprinkle of backing vocals), presents this cover with appropriate reverence. Much like Sixpence None the Richer‘s cover of “There She Goes,” the song takes a 180° shift in perspective. It is paradoxically both a Butchies-type song and not a Butchies-type song. I spent most of the first listen trying to place it, and the countless subsequent listens reveling in the beauty of it.
Take my advice and make room in your CD rotation for Make Yr Life. You won’t be sorry.
A Prairie Home Companion® – 30th Broadcast Season Celebration The first live program of A Prairie Home Companion® was broadcast on July 6, 1974 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Garrison Keillor developed the idea of having a radio show with musical guests, drama sketches, and advertisements for fake products, and it ran for thirteen years before … Continue reading ““It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon”
A Prairie Home Companion® – 30th Broadcast Season Celebration
The first live program of A Prairie Home Companion® was broadcast on July 6, 1974 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Garrison Keillor developed the idea of having a radio show with musical guests, drama sketches, and advertisements for fake products, and it ran for thirteen years before going off the air. A few years later, Keillor re-started the program in New York City as The American Radio Company™ where it gained national attention. In 1992 it returned to Saint Paul, and went back to being called A Prairie Home Companion® in 1993.
I grew up listening to this program with my parents. We would be in the car going to or from somewhere on a Saturday evening, and they would tune in whatever public radio station they could find and we would listen. Sometimes I would lie on the living room floor with the stereo on, listening to the program. As a kid, I was more interested in the funny old-timey commercials than in the music or the rest of the program. I would wait through all that other stuff to hear the Powdermilk Biscuits® song or Bertha’s Kitty Boutique™ or Guy’s Shoes® and then laugh at the silliness of it. I don’t remember listening to the show much when I was in high school and college, but after college I lived without at television for many years and re-discovered public radio. A Prairie Home Companion® again became part my regular Saturday evening schedule. (Note: The program is broadcast live at 5pm Central, so some readers may be used to hearing the program in the afternoon. That’s one aspect of the time change from Eastern to Pacific that I haven’t quite gotten used to yet.)
The Moaners
The Moaners
Cheryl Wheeler
Cheryl Wheeler
Second-wave feminists in the late 60’s and early 70’s had a rock and roll voice, sung by bands such as the Chicago and New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Bands.
The Chicago and New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Bands and Le Tigre – Papa, Don’t Lay That Shit On Me
Second-wave feminists in the late 60’s and early 70’s had a rock and roll voice, sung by bands such as the Chicago and New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Bands. Precursors to today’s riot grrl and queercore bands, they broke through and gave women in the liberation movements their own rock and roll anthems.
In 1972, Rounder released a record called Mountain Moving Day consisting of four songs each from the Chicago and New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Bands. It was an attempt to capture the power of their live performances, and neither band was experienced with recording in a studio. This shows through in the roughness of the arrangements, but only if one is looking for it. The power of their songs and the statements they made to women and rock goes beyond these technical issues.
A sonic treat meant to be savored over and over again.
From the pondering chords at the beginning of the first track to the of the last, Mia Doi Todd’s latest recording, Manzanita is a sonic treat meant to be savored over and over again. Her contralto voice lilts through melodic soundscapes filled with delicate percussion and mellow electric and acoustic guitars. Occasionally the tempo picks up into a mildly retro-60’s groove, such as on the two-ships-passing-in-the-night song “The Last Night of Winter.”
Todd is a poet, as well as a stunning vocalist. Her lyrics speak of love and politics in artfully written phrases and word pictures. She is part philosopher, part lover, and part prophet. In “The Way,” she warns of the impending Armageddon of capitalism:
We all know they’ve got it fixed
in politico-economics.
We’re junking bonds; we’re dropping
bombs we’ve made by guzzling gasoline.
Public confidence is shaken
like the apple from the tree.
I think this is the first time I have heard someone use the phrase “politico-economics” in a song.
The second verse of “My Room Is White” made me catch my breath when I first heard it:
The tide comes in, and we’re caught
by the rocks and the wetness neverendless.
We kiss for the first time, our lips and tongues
tied in fitness, infiniteness.
Then the ocean pulls back somehow,
to reveal a crowd of uncertainty.
The reggae-inspired “Casa Nova” is also one of my favorites from this recording. The musical hook is catchy and the “I’m over you and moving on” message in the lyrics has a universal appeal. The flamenco-flavored “Tongue-tied” also stands out. Truly, this CD contains no duds and can be played on repeat without becoming tiresome.
