After
17 years of professional music-reviewing, Noel Murray is taking time off from
all new music, and is revisiting his record collection in alphabetical order,
to take stock of what he's amassed, and consider what he still needs.
Nearly every
music fan eventually comes to realize—for a while anyway—that
there's no reason to wait for the bands he or she loves to come through town.
There are local bands playing nearby nearly every night, and many of them, in
the right context, sound every bit as good as the big-timers. It's that context
that's tricky. Sometimes it's hard to pin down exactly what we're looking for
in a local band. I had a good friend back in college who got annoyed when his
favorite frat-bar cover band started doing originals. I had several other
friends who tended to latch onto the bands that sounded the most polished, and
thereby most likely to some day make it onto the radio and MTV. And still
others who seemed to only like bands if they played to crowds in the single
digits.
From the
moment I saw my first local band at an all-ages club when I was 17, I was
captivated by the idea that a bunch of people I'd never heard of could get up
on a stage and do a creditable approximation of rock 'n' roll. Then again, growing
up in Nashville in the '80s spoiled me. There were a wealth of great bands
around then, and because of Nashville's status as an "industry town"—with
professional facilities and such—even the youngsters tended to be slicker
than bands in other local scenes.
The kings
of Nashville in the '80s were Jason & The Scorchers, a blazing country rock
band made up of four talented, likable guys that the whole city was rooting
for. Everyone hoped the Scorchers' success would trickle down, and everyone
appreciated that the band waved the flag for Nashville well, showing the proper
respect for country music history while also rocking as hard as any punk act.
The Scorchers' early records got the attention of nationally known rock critics
and earned them a spot on a major label, but while the band continued to tear
up the college club circuit—frequently alongside their good chums
R.E.M.—they could never quite find the sweet spot in the studio. Their
records frequently sounded either over-muscled or over-wan, and their songs
nearly always came off more cornpone than they seemed live. Seeing the
Scorchers perform, as on the TV appearance below, it was easy to understand why
the majors would want to be in business with them…
…but in the
'80s, mainstream rock was all about metallic sheen and synthetics, which meant
that the Scorchers at their raunchiest were never going to crack MTV, no matter
how well they dressed the part. (And the Scorchers dressed it so convincingly
that a decade later I'd walk into a rocker bar on West End and still see about
a half-dozen guys decked out like Warner Hodges, complete with fluffed-out
hair, black leather and superfluous chains.) The Scorchers did as their label
asked, downplaying their country side in favor of their hard rock side, hoping
to capture some of that Sunset Strip hair metal fanbase. Instead, they
alienated their longtime fans and created dissension within their own ranks.
Their dream died by the end of the decade, and a half-dozen or so other
potentially great '80s Nashville bands—like The Movement, Raging Fire and
Jet Black Factory—found the road out of town getting narrower and
rockier. By the time I left for college in '88, the scene was barely flickering.
When I returned after college in '92, it still lay dormant.
Of course
things were tough all over for local scenes by the end of the '80s, as college
rock gradually gave way to indie. I went to school in Athens, GA, which had
given birth to The B-52's, Pylon and R.E.M. not so long before I arrived, and
which had inspired the documentary Athens GA Inside/Out, about the boundless creativity of
its music scene. I watched that movie a couple of times before I left for
college, and went to see all its featured bands during my first semester. But
the Athens scene was different from the Nashville one, in that it prized
immediacy and flights of fancy more than songwriting and professionalism, and I
quickly realized that I didn't actually like very many of the best-known Athens
bands. (Which didn't matter, since nearly all the bands in Inside/Out were defunct by the end of my
freshman year anyway.)
So I went
searching for new bands that no one was talking about yet, starting out with
novelty acts like The Groove Trolls and The LaBrea Stompers (the latter of
which featured my future wife as keyboardist and eye candy) and then
gravitating to straightforward rockers with punk overtones, like Five-Eight,
Bliss, Roosevelt and Mercyland (the latter of which was led by David Barbe,
soon to be the bassist for Sugar). I can make cases for pretty much all of
those bands as "good" (except for The Groove Trolls), though for the most part
they were really only good enough to be the best Athens band playing in town on
any given night, not necessarily good enough to make it outside the scene.
The major
exception? The Jody Grind. I started seeing The Jody Grind when they were
called An Evening With The Garbageman, playing sets primarily consisting of
offbeat jazz and country covers, interspersed with poetry readings by hulking
redneck Deacon Lunchbox. They seemed at first like just another novelty act,
and my friends and I played our part by making up silly dances and chants to do
along with their songs. Then the band changed their name to The Jody Grind and
added more and more originals, many of them clever and sentimental, and lead
singer Kelly Hogan would sometimes get so into her renditions of "Mood Indigo"
or the band's own "Blue And Far" that she'd tear up. And we would too.
When The Jody
Grind released their second album, Lefty's Deceiver, they seemed destined for greater
things. No other band in the country had a sound like theirs, at once light yet
substantial, and drawing on several different rootsy genres without coming off
as dour traditionalism. They had a crowd-pleasing live show and an expanding
musical vocabulary. I'd go so far as to argue that if The Jody Grind had been
the standard-bearer for the budding alt-country movement instead of Uncle
Tupelo, the genre might've become more varied and more popular. (And I say that
as a major fan of Uncle Tupelo.)
Within
weeks of Lefty's Deceiver though, The Jody Grind's bassist and drummer (and Deacon
Lunchbox as well) were involved in a fatal traffic accident. And though Hogan
and guitarist Bill Taft were the dominant creative forces in the band, they
didn't have the heart to go on. Taft lent his services to other Atlanta-area
bands—most notably the sublime Smoke, before its lead singer Benjamin
died of AIDS—while Hogan has released a couple of good solo albums and
has become the designated guest vocalist for any number of alt-country acts,
including her friend Neko Case. (Case sounds so much like Hogan in fact that
sometimes I have a tough time telling them apart.)
As for me,
I returned to Nashville and spent almost a decade writing about local music,
finding a handful of diamonds in the rough, but really only one all-timer.
(That would be Lambchop, a subject for another day.) Since I stopped writing
about local music, I've pretty much stopped thinking in terms of scenes, which
may be a better way to approach music. Part of me says that critics—or
even civilians—should strive to appreciate artists that are good
regardless of their origins, rather than making excuses for them out of loyalty
or civic pride.
But another
part of me says that since musical taste is so subjective anyway, then
honestly, what does it matter if you like a band more because you've seen them
live a dozen times at a local club, and have had a beer with the bassist? It's
not the most important thing in the world that music's appeal translates easily
from listener to listener. If you catch a band on a good night, and they create
the same emotional rush in you that Jon Landau felt when he saw Bruce
Springsteen in '75, well, it's that rush that matters, not whether you can
convince anyone else to feel it too.
*****************
Pieces
Of The Puzzle
Jane's Addiction
Years Of
Operation 1985-91,
2001-04
Fits
Between Guns N'
Roses and Bauhaus
Personal
Correspondence On
the first Lollapalooza tour, Jane's Addiction played in Atlanta in front of me
and 10,000 or so of my closest friends, and about halfway through their set,
Perry Farrell brought Ice-T to the stage so that they could duet on Sly Stone's
"Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey." Before the song, Farrell took a moment to bait
the Atlanta crowd, calling us racist crackers, and as I rolled my eyes, I
imagined Farrell as a teenager, dreaming about the day that he could become a
rock star, head into the south, and sing this song in front of a crowd of
rednecks, with a rapper by his side. So very brave, our young Farrell. But then
to be a Jane's Addiction fan, you to have to endure a certain level of
self-aggrandizing bullshit on Farrell's part. That's been both the band's
genius and their curse. Musically, Jane's Addiction was never too far removed
from the made-up and hairsprayed hard rockers then plying their trade on
Sunset—a
connection I tried to make when I interviewed Farrell last year, though he was
having none of it. They set themselves apart by drawing on elements
of avant-garde and shock theater, and though none of it was as mind-blowing or
radical as Farrell liked to pretend, both Nothing's Shocking and Ritual De Lo Habitual were and are really exciting
records, with songs that burn on slow fuses before exploding spectacularly.
(Mucho credit to guitarist Dave Navarro and the versatile rhythm section of
Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins.) The band may have had less to say about our
culture of sex, violence and racism than they'd hoped, but they generated a
feeling of grandness that transcended the skuzz. Sometimes I think portable
music devices were invented for bands like Jane's Addiction, so that dweebs
like me could walk down the street with headphones on, feeling cocky,
politicized and ocean-sized.
Enduring
presence? Farrell
and Navarro seem to have been actively trying to fuck up their own legacy over
the past decade, between Navarro's multiple forays into reality/competition TV
and Farrell's succession of fairly shitty side projects. Last year's Satellite
Party was especially weak, and perhaps indicative of a permanent shift in the
fortunes of the whole Jane's Addiction generation of alt-rockers. These guys
were supposed to be the insurgents, but they ending up becoming massively
successful, and in the music business, fame and fortune has its own kind of
peculiar momentum. It's hard to go back to being a meager-selling cult act one
you've been a major earner for a major label, so former players like Farrell
keep coming up with ways to pitch themselves as relevant and cutting-edge. When
that fails, they move on to the next stage: indie labels and the oldies circuit.
Hey, it happens to best of them.
[pagebreak]
Jason & The Scorchers
Years Of
Operation
1981-present (off and on)
Fits
Between Hank
Williams and The Rolling Stones
Personal
Correspondence Even
though the Scorchers were arguably the most important Nashville rock band
during my teen years, I only saw them live once in those days, because they
weren't playing all-ages shows very often. I was too young for the legendary
Cat's Records parking lot show that had Jason hanging off a billboard, yelping
to the throng, but I did see the Scorchers play an outdoor concert on the
Vanderbilt campus—though I had to leave early because my brother got a
headache. The only time I saw a complete Scorchers show was their big comeback
set at the Exit/In, during the band's mid-'90s reunion. I was an accredited
journalist by then—and stoked that Jason knew who I was when I said hello
to him after the show—otherwise I might not have made it into a gig that
nearly every rock fan in town was clamoring to see. It was a memorable set too:
well over two hours long, with three encores, and all the band's favorites
represented. I don't know that I've ever had a more satisfying live music
experience.
Enduring
presence? That
mid-'90s reunion generated two studio albums and one double-live album that
almost make up for the band's previous rapid degeneration from their 1982 debut Reckless Country Soul to their 1989 nadir Thunder And Fire. Jason & The Scorchers were
always a tricky band: too meaty and aggressive to be a country act, yet too
twangy and Dixie-fried to be mainstream rockers. Their music needs a certain
amount of glitzy hard-rock sheen to achieve maximum impact, and yet if the band
slicks up too much, they lose the grit that makes them unique. By the mid-'90s,
they were essentially free of commercial obligations and could perform in the
style that suited them best, even though their material was weaker and their
audience diminished. These days, the Scorchers are no longer a going concern,
but they reunite occasionally for a gig or a mini-tour. I haven't seen them
play in over 10 years, but I'd be shocked if they weren't still one of the best
live rock acts on the planet.
Jay Farrar
Years Of
Operation
1987-present (including non-solo)
Fits
Between The Carter
Family and Doug Sahm
Personal
Correspondence Like
most Uncle Tupelo fans, I'd pegged Jay Farrar as the band's true creative force
and Jeff Tweedy as the likable hanger-on, so I fully expected Farrar to have
the more fruitful solo career once Uncle Tupelo dissolved. But while Son Volt
(who I'll cover separately down the line) and Farrar's solo releases have had
their moments, I confess that I've found it difficult to fully warm up to
Farrar's post-Uncle Tupelo music. Maybe that's because Farrar himself so rarely
warms up. He has one of the most recognizable and original voices in
roots-rock, but one of the most muted personalities, and the combination of his
relentless insularity and miserable moan makes Farrar an acquired taste that
can be difficult for some to acquire. It also means that those who are devoted
to him are, to put it gently, fervent. (To put it less gently, they're kind of
assholes; I had a run in with a commenter last year who was convinced that rock
critics praised Tweedy over Farrar because it was hip to do so, not because we
actually preferred him.) I still check in with Farrar every time he puts an
album out, and I like scattered songs and even some whole albums. But I also
find myself wishing that he'd stretch out more, push himself, open up, strive. Farrar's such a talented
songwriter and accomplished musician, but he keeps selling himself short.
Enduring
presence? To me,
Farrar's finest post-UT hour—aside from Son Volt's superb debut
album—was Sebastopol, one of the few records he's made where he really does seem
to be pushing towards something greater than he's capable of. Songs like "Feel
Free," with their burbling sound effects and direct yearning, present a version
of Farrar that's at once more playful and vulnerable than his usual murky,
vaguely angry self. Since it was his first proper solo album, Sebastopol seemed to bode well for the future,
but the follow-up Terroir Blues was a creative retreat, and then Farrar reconvened Son Volt
for a pair of good-not-great records. He's still got greatness in him though. I
keep waiting.
Jay-Z
Years Of
Operation
1989-present
Fits
Between Eric B
& Rakim and The Notorious B.I.G.
Personal
Correspondence I
can't remember why I made Jay-Z's The Blueprint one of the few hip-hop albums I've
bought in the '00s, because in the abstract, it's not the kind of rap I'd be
inclined to prefer. I'm not big on crime stories, self-promotion, or tracks
that lean heavy on hooky samples, and yet The Blueprint struck me as a perfectly
proportioned model of just that kind of hitmaking hip-hop formula. The
Blueprint and The
Black Album stayed
in heavy rotation in the months after I picked them up, and I still return to
them when I can (though I haven't kept up with the various comebacks that have
followed). Maybe I'm responding to Jay-Z's polish and showmanship, or maybe
just to the pop version of ascendancy—the idea that there needs to be one
major artist in a genre who towers above the rest in terms of success and cultural
impact. In the early '00s, Jay-Z wasn't just a rapper, he was an event. It's a blueprint that Kanye West
(one of the producers of The Blueprint) has tried to follow himself, with varying success;
though as I'm sure I'll mention in a few weeks, I appreciate West for many of
the same reasons I appreciate Jay-Z. We'll always need leaders, even if it's
just so that we'll have someone to disagree with,
Enduring
presence? If Jay-Z
actually had retired after The Black Album, that would've been an amazing way to go out, though
as of yet he hasn't tarnished the brand. I've heard good things about American
Gangster, and
intend to pick it up when this project is over. I'm still interested to see if
Jay-Z can match the likes of Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint now that he's in his fat-and-happy
years.
Jeff
Buckley
Years Of
Operation 1991-97
Fits
Between Edith Piaf
and Jane's Addiction
Personal
Correspondence I
don't want to say that death was the best thing to happen to Jeff Buckley,
because I—like many—was eager to hear what he was going to do next
with that magnificent voice and restless musical curiosity. That said, it's
easy to forget that before Buckley drowned, he wasn't exactly well-known, and
even the music buffs who knew him were fairly divided on whether Buckley's
debut LP Grace
was a staggering masterpiece, a hit-and-miss first shot at greatness, or an
overwrought set of bombastic, shapeless rock. Myself, I was I the hit-and-miss
camp at first, though these days I shade more towards masterpiece. Grace has its clunkers, but in a way
they're of a piece with the album's moments of real triumph. It's a record of
impossible ambition, and in retrospect what's most impressive about it is the
confidence Buckley brings to each song. He wails away like he knows exactly
what he's doing and why, and if you're not into it that's your fault, not his.
It's because of that confidence that I've never known quite how to take Sketches
For My Sweetheart The Drunk, the posthumously released collection of Buckley's sessions with Tom
Verlaine—sessions Buckley reportedly was dissatisfied with—and the
demos for what might've become the revised version of his second LP. I think
those Verlaine-produced songs sound good-to-great, while the demos sound
intriguing but ultimately off-putting. Was Buckley about to record something
staggeringly awesome and boundary-expanding, or was he about to sabotage a set
of songs that could've become every bit as classic as those on Grace? And would more than a handful of
cultists like myself have cared? I think the answer to that second question is
yes, because it's hard to believe that someone as talented as Buckley would've
stayed obscure forever. But we'll never know. Damn it.
Enduring
presence? Thanks to
my friend and former boss Stephen Thompson—a major Jeffhead—I've
got a wealth of live Buckley bootlegs and demos, but not much from the period
just before he died. I know Buckley's mom is sitting on a bunch of stuff, and
there have been ongoing debates on how best to package it. I'm sure eventually
we'll start to get some official releases of the rarities and unfinished
material, but I hope it's sooner rather than later.
The Jefferson Airplane/Starship
Years Of
Operation 1965-present
Fits
Between Big Brother
& The Holding Company and REO Speedwagon
Personal
Correspondence
Similar to what happened with me and The Grateful Dead, a biography led me to
explore the Jefferson collective further than I ever had before. (Beyond Surrealistic
Pillow, basically.)
But Jeff Tamarkin's Got A Revolution, while well-researched and well-written, never quite
persuaded me that The Jefferson Airplane, The Jefferson Starship and Starship
were any more than self-indulgent, semi-talented rock slobs who were lucky
enough to catch a wave and ride it for decades, coming up with a decent song
every year or two in order to keep the machinery greased. I know that sounds
harsh, and I'll hasten to add that The Jefferson Airplane were formidable in
their day, and did a lot to earn their rep. But even back in the '60s the band
members tended to take advantage of the cluelessness of their label bosses,
convincing them to put out weird concept albums and side projects based on
far-out ideas (and the certainty that with enough drugs and enough guest musicians,
they could make those far-out ideas into something listenable). As lousy as
most of The Jefferson Starship and Starship albums are, in some ways I prefer
their solid-state album-rock hits to the shaggy, quasi-political acid-rock of
the Airplane. When I dug into the Starship era for the first time, I was
surprised by how many of those songs I knew: "With Your Love," "Runaway," "Find
Your Way Back," "No Way Out," "Jane," etc. I'd never really identified them
with The Jefferson Starship because they don't sound much like the same band
that recorded head-trip boogie anthems like "3/5 Of A Mile In Ten Seconds." But
as Tamarkin's book details, the band changed incrementally, feud-by-feud and
member-change-by-member-change, until they'd become everything they once
rebelled against, without even realizing it.
Enduring
presence? Unlike
early hippie crossover acts The Mamas & The Papas and The Lovin' Spoonful,
Jefferson Airplane cracked AM radio playlists with actual rock music, which
remains an impressive accomplishment. Even today, the screeching guitars and
brutal percussion of "Somebody To Love," sound surprisingly threatening. The
Beatles pioneered many of the pop-music revolutions of the '60s, but when
"Somebody To Love" hit the charts in early 1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band was
months away from release, and Paul McCartney was making a pilgrimage to San
Francisco to meet the hottest band in America and its smart-mouthed singer,
Grace Slick. If nothing else, the Jeffersons have that legacy to cling to. I
return to Surrealistic Pilow and Bless Its Pointed Little Head from time to time, marveling at how
wild they sound. But all things being equal, I'd rather hear "Miracles."
[pagebreak]
The Jesus & Mary Chain
Years Of
Operation 1984-99,
2007-present
Fits Between The Velvet Underground and The
Shangri-Las
Personal
Correspondence The
rumors about The Jesus & Mary Chain preceded the release of Psychocandy in the U.S. by months, as the likes
of Rolling Stone
and Spin printed
stories about the band's fuzzed over early singles and cantankerous 20-minute
concerts. I don't know what I expected when I finally heard Psychocandy—on a tape a friend from
Governor's School made me, with James' Stutter on the flipside—but I don't
think I was expecting songs so yoked to doo-wop and early rock. Songs like "The
Hardest Walk" and "Taste Of Cindy" sounded like the battered old 45s I found in
my mom's old record box, only with an extra layer of dirt and crackle. I was
less enthusiastic about the J&MC; records that followed, although I've grown
to like Darklands
a lot in recent years. The first time I heard it, when I was in high school, I
mistook the switch from distortion to clarity as a wimp-out move, rather than a
ballsy attempt to show that the band didn't need a gimmick to write timeless
rock songs. (Take a lesson, The Raveonettes.)
Enduring
presence?: I know
some people are partial to Automatic and some of the band's other post-Psychocandy/Darklands material, but I tend to cherish
those first few years' worth of songs—including the singles and B-sides
on Barbed Wire Kisses—as The Jesus & Mary Chain's salad days. It says something
that in the notoriously standoffish UK music scene, where bands seem to sniff
at the idea that they've been influenced by any other band, The Jesus &
Mary Chain remain an acceptable name to drop.
Jethro Tull
Years Of
Operation
1968-present
Fits
Between The
Yardbirds and Yes
Personal
Correspondence One
of family mysteries that went to the grave with my father is exactly why he—and
by extension my brother and I—stayed so partial to Jethro Tull. I grew up
on Aqualung,
which got as much play on our living room turntable as The Beatles, Eric
Clapton or Chet Atkins. I'm sure it had something to with my dad's preference
for accomplished musicianship, which also led him to rate Yes and Emerson Lake
& Palmer pretty highly. Later, my high school English teacher—the one
who made lists of essential rock albums for me—turned me on to Jethro
Tull's Stand Up,
which puts Ian Anderson's trilling flute and puckish take on medieval folk in
the context of smoky electric blues rather than proggy pretension. It's a
really fine record—though I like the proggy pretension too. I don't play
the full Thick As A Brick that often, but I drag it out about once a year and give it
a spin; and as silly as it may sound, I count the lyric sheet to Aqualung as one of those
scales-falling-away-from-the-eyes, "Hey, maybe our leaders are lying to us"
moments. As blustery and leaden as they can be at times, there's something
inherently delightful about Jethro Tull.
Enduring
presence? Jethro
Tull's infamous win in the first year of the Grammy's "Best Hard Rock/Heavy
Metal Performance" has been an unfortunate and unearned ding against their
reputation, as they've become an example of Grammy voters' out-of-touchness. In
my opinion, Jethro Tull are one of the most entertaining and frequently
inspired bands of the blues-rock/prog-rock era. They're not favorites of mine,
but I'm nearly always pleased when a Tull song comes on the radio. Unless it's
"Bungle In The Jungle."
Jimi Hendrix
Years Of
Operation 1966-70
Fits
Between Cream and
B.B. King
Personal
Correspondence In
one of the many uncomfortable associations that comes with growing up in the
south, I had a friend in junior high who was incorrigibly racist, and referred
to nearly all R&B; and rap as "jungle music," and yet was arguably the
biggest Jimi Hendrix fan I've ever known. (Similar story: A guy I worked with
as an adult raved about the Tina Turner concert he saw on HBO one night. What
impressed him most? That the concert was shot in Europe, and there were no
black people in the crowd.) What's particularly pathetic about my friend's
pro-Hendrix/anti-soul stance is that one of Hendrix's strengths was his connection
to R&B.; Nearly every showboat with an electric guitar in the '60s declared
their allegiance to Robert Johnson and B.B. King, but Hendrix—who had the
advantage of actually being black, and thus didn't have to prove how
"authentic" he was—paid his respects to The Beatles, Motown and garage
rock, and was rarely accused of breaking faith. His first LP Are You
Experienced is
still absolutely phenomenal in the way it jumps from style to style, without
losing any internal consistency. Even though Hendrix's hits are so overplayed
that it can be hard to really hear them anymore, his less pervasive album cuts and
singles—especially the poppier ones, like "Remember"—continue to
impress with their casually avant-garde approach to rock and soul. (And the
songs are so short too—something Hendrix's disciples often fail to note.)
Enduring
presence? Is it
petty of me to hold the career of Stevie Ray Vaughan against Hendrix? I'm sure
Vaughan would've gone on to make some good records had he survived the late
'80s—and its ghastly, blues-unfriendly production styles—but still,
so much of what Vaughan and his followers have produced sounds like Hendrix
without the wit. It's like journalism inspired by Hunter S. Thompson or music
criticism inspired by Lester Bangs. The progenitors are amazing; their
adherents, less so.
Joan Armatrading
Years Of
Operation
1972-present
Fits
Between Janis Ian
and Nina Simone
Personal
Correspondence I'm
not sure how embarrassing this is to admit, but I owe my Joan Armatrading fandom
largely to Mandy Moore. I was sent an advance copy of Moore's LP Coverage, on which she covered Armatrading's
"Drop The Pilot," the only song on the disc with which I was unfamiliar. A
little reading up on Armatrading convinced me she was someone I'd probably
like, so I picked up the double-disc anthology Love & Affection and sure enough it was right up my
alley. Armatrading's from that mid-'70s era when the best soft rock had
aspirations toward art, and she in particular imbued the singer-songwriter confessional
with the sophistication of jazz and the earthiness of island music. She falls
in line with a lot of the other '70s folk, rock and soul I've always liked:
Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, Rickie Lee Jones, Prince and
others. Discovering her so late in my pop life was like getting to re-enjoy
some of my old favorites. So thanks, Mandy Moore!
Enduring
presence? Perhaps
the reason I wasn't as aware of Armatrading was because she's never part of any
of the canons I explored as a lad—and still isn't. I couldn't help but
notice that when our own Nathan Rabin last week reviewed the episode of Saturday
Night Live that
Armatrading guested on, he didn't mention her performance at all. And why would
he have? Who pays attention to Joan Armatrading?
The Jody Grind
Years Of
Operation 1988-92
Fits
Between Dusty
Springfield and Neko Case
Personal
Correspondence Two
days before half of the Atlanta-based roots-rock band The Jody Grind died in a
car accident, I filed a review of their second (and last) album Lefty's
Deceiver in which I
wrote with an unusual amount of personal candor (even by Popless standards)
about what the band had meant to me during my four years at The University Of
Georgia, and how with graduation imminent, I found myself clinging to the
wonderful Lefty's Deceiver as an example of what's possible. The review ran on a
Monday, by which time the news of the accident—which happened over the
weekend—was widely known. I had some people tell me that the review was a
comfort that Monday, serving almost as an inadvertent eulogy. But it wasn't a
comfort to me, because I had a lot invested in the idea if The Jody Grind could
break out, so could I. If they could go from playing to a dozen people at The
Downstairs Café (as seen in the video below), then I could go from our college
paper to a real job in journalism. As it happened, the ride didn't go so
smoothly for me either.
Enduring
presence? There's
apparently another band that's emerged in the past several years that calls
itself The Jody Grind, and while they may be okay at what they do, I can't help
but be annoyed that they're using one of my favorite defunct band's names.
(Though to be fair, there was another Jody Grind before "my" Jody Grind too, so
I guess turnabout is fair play.) Perhaps if some kind record label (like maybe
Yep Roc or Bloodshot) would get the '90s Jody Grind's records back into print
(perhaps on a big two-disc anthology with bonus tracks and live material), we
could chase the upstart Jody Grind back to where they came from.
Joe Jackson
Years Of
Operation
1978-present
Fits
Between Elvis
Costello and Ben Folds
Personal
Correspondence
Piano men tend to carry chips on their shoulders just as a matter of course,
but Joe Jackson has seemed to me to be extra-pissy. Perhaps it all started with
his wildly entertaining debut album Look Sharp!, which had the misfortune of
standing in the shadow of Elvis Costello and Graham Parker (at least from a
critical standpoint… sales-wise and chart-wise, Jackson's debut outpaced his
fellow travelers). Then, after basically making the same album again with I'm
The Man, Jackson
seemed to dedicate himself to defying expectations, recording albums influenced
heavily by dub, jump blues, Cole Porter and big band. He recorded his album Big
World live, with no
crowd noise, and released it on a 3-sided LP. He released a live
album—one of my favorite live albums of all time, actually—in which
he favored versions of his best songs that sounded different from the
originals. I haven't always liked Jackson's music—especially
post-1988—but he's never failed to surprise me, and he's never stopped
being a little cantankerous. That seems to be the secret to his success… such
as its been.
Enduring
presence? One of
Jackson's major problems is that after that stellar debut, his songwriting has
been kind of up and down. In the '80s he was usually good for two to three
really fine songs per record—and those records always sounded fantastic—but he frequently
confused generic grumpiness with social comment. Nevertheless, he's responsible
for roughly 20 teriffic pop songs, and one the greatest opening lines ever:
"What the hell is wrong with you tonight?"
[pagebreak]
Stray
Tracks
From the fringes
of the collection, a few songs to share….
The
Jayhawks, "Crowded In The Wings"
When the
'90s alt-country story gets written up nice and proper, a whole chapter should
be devoted The Jayhawks' Hollywood Town Hall, one of the albums from that era
that made the genre seem not just viable, but possibly the next big thing in
rock music, post-grunge. (See also: Whiskeytown's Stranger's Almanac, The Bottle Rockets' The
Brooklyn Side, and
about a half-dozen others.) This song is Hollywood Town Hall at its best, evoking The Band and
The Byrds while staying resolutely contemporary and appealingly personal. The
Jayhawks were a good band for pretty much their entire existence, but while Tomorrow
The Green Grass has
its supporters, I don't think they ever topped Hollywood Town Hall. (And I think they're failure to do
so shook Gary Louris and Mark Olson a little.)
Jennifer
Gentle, "I Do Dream You"
If you're
going to try to write and record new songs as snappy and mind-blowing as the
best of Nuggets,
you may as well go whole hog, as this Italian neo-psych-pop band does here.
They distill the lysergic essence of those old garage rock singles, boost its
power, and then pour it all over an original composition as catchy as it is
surreal.
Jenny
Toomey, "The Smell Of Him"
With her
band Tsunami—and as a label maven and indie-rock philosopher—Jenny
Toomey has had a profound, not-always-properly-recognized impact on the
direction of alternative music. She's put out some decent solo records too,
especially the double-disc Antidote, which is divided into a "Chicago" set and a "Nashville"
set. This song—which sound to me like an accidental homage to Pink
Floyd's Animals—comes
from the Nashville side, recorded with members of Lambchop. It's dreamy and
forlorn, matching well with Toomey's admittedly limited skills as a songwriter
and performer.
Jesse
Harris, "Feel"
Laid-back
folk-pop artists don't get a lot of respect among music nerds—just
witness the hatred for Jack Johnson expressed in the Popless comments section
last week—and though music nerds haven't paid a lot of attention to Jesse
Harris thus far in his brief-but-prolific career, I have to imagine that if
Harris were a bigger seller, he'd be hated. Me, I like the dude. He has an
easygoing style and effortless melodic flow, such that his songs don't really
seem like much, even as they're getting stuck in my head. And when I
did a Random Rules with him last year, I was impressed with his
enthusiasm and breadth of knowledge. He's a huge Brazilian music fan too, which
makes me wonder: If his albums were sung in Portuguese, would he get more
respect?
The Jim
Carroll Band, "People Who Died"
If you're
only going to write and record one truly memorable song, I think you'd want it
to be something like "People Who Died," a cathartic shot of nostalgic nihilism
that encapsulates Carroll's music career: It starts out with palpable
excitement, then it repeats itself a few times, and by the time its done,
everyone's pretty much ready for it to be over.
Jim
Guthrie, "Lovers Do"
I was a
little bit obsessed with Guthrie's album Now, More Than Ever back in 2004, when its gently
pulsing strings and casually insistent rhythms seemed almost painfully lovely
to me. Over the course of the five months I've been working on this project,
I've become increasingly disillusioned with sweetly orchestrated indie-pop, if
only because I have a glut of it, and because sometimes the genre's cushiony
sound seems like an attempt to keep the real world at a distance. And yet,
songs like "Lovers Do" still achieve their intended effect, carrying me out of
myself for minutes on end, lost in reverie.
Jim
Lauderdale, "Hummingbird"
Because the
2002 LP The Hummingirds was such a likable, unpretentious throwback country album, I've spent
much of the last decade thinking of myself as a Jim Lauderdale fan, even though
I haven't actually liked anything else he's recorded since then. I finally got
fed up with Lauderdale two years ago and in a combo review with an Emerson
Drive record, I wrote the following:
"By
some weird stroke of fate, alt-country underdog Jim Lauderdale is releasing two
purposefully generic-sounding new albums, Bluegrass and Country Super Hits Vol. 1, on the same day that mainstream
pop-country band Emerson Drive is releasing an album called Countrified. It's like two factions of a
culture war, issuing competing mission statements. Is this what country music
is? Or is it this?
To Lauderdale, 'country' means simple music that anyone can make with just an acoustic
guitar, and maybe some friends with fiddles. Bluegrass plays the genre straight, using the
traditional string-band approach, while Country Super Hits is a little rowdier, but in the
safe-for-radio, every-hair-in-place way of classic country. Meanwhile, Emerson
Drive believes 'country' is more a state of mind, to be conveyed by yokeled-up
vocals and maudlin Middle American sentiment. Typical Countrified tracks include 'A Good Man,' with
the opening line 'I don't need a whole lot of money / But I wouldn't turn the
lottery down.' There's hardly a note on the record that doesn't pander. But
honestly? The same could be said of Lauderdale, who started his career as a
retro-minded original, but has become something of a dry theorist. It's easy to
overrate Lauderdale because he sounds more 'authentic,' but on Bluegrass' 'Don't Blame The Wrong Guy,' he
clumsily weaves banjos and fiddles into a song where they don't really fit, and
on Country Super Hits' 'I Met Jesus In A Bar,' the lyrics are so cloying that they must be
conceptual."
Nevertheless,
I'll probably listen to whatever Lauderdale does next. Sometimes one good album
is enough to keep me hooked for a very long time.
Jimmie
Rogers, "Waiting For A Train"
Here's one of the
classics of country music, rendered in a version that sounds almost like
speakeasy jazz. Rogers was one of the first pop artists to muddy up the racial
divide in music, and while he sounds like a thoroughgoing hick on this song's
vocal track, he also sounds happily familiar with all sides of the tracks.
Jimmy
Cliff, "Sitting In Limbo"
This song
is from the Harder They Come soundtrack, and what's most remarkable about it to me is
that it's barely island-inflected at all; it's just a soulful pop ballad with
reggae as part of its parentage, yet in no way purebred. For a time there in
the early '70s, it seemed like Top 40 radio was heading in this direction, with
eclectic influences from around the world getting integrated seamlessly into
accessible pop songs. But for the most part, reggae and its ilk have remained
marginalized on the charts, reduced to novelty songs, and as deep background
for non-reggae hits.
Jimmy
Dean, "I.O.U."
Six minutes
of this may be more than anyone can stand, but I'm including it for a couple of
reasons: Because it's a prime example of the maudlin spoken-word country song,
with its stately orchestration and discursive, treacly sermonizing, and because
I can't hear it without thinking of Albert Brooks' hilarious parody version, "A
Phone Call To Americans." I don't have an MP3 to share, but here's
a link to RealAudio file. Favorite line: "Mother's Day used to be a
whole week in July. What happened, gals?" Runner up: "We check into hotels, but
hotels won't take our checks. Well they won't take mine." In third place: "To
go, my country? Why can't we eat it here?"
Jimmy
Eat World, "Bleed American"
My first
exposure to Jimmy Eat World was this song, which made a pretty strong first
impression—as did the whole of the Bleed American LP, which to me still sounds like
an adroitly aligned mix of arena rock and emo. (I know that real Jimmy Eat
World fans prefer Clarity, which is a good record too, but I came to that one later,
and so it didn't sound as fresh to me.) I'm dismayed by how crummy that post-Bleed albums have been, though I imagine
it's pretty tough to be Jimmy Eat World, with such a fervent fan base (each
with their own set of expectations) as well as such a large number of people
who hate everything they stand for. When my a
Random Rules with Jim Adkins went up a couple of weeks ago, a
commenter confused my relaxed banter with Adkins as a sign of disrespect, and
when I write back that I liked Adkins and liked Jimmy Eat World, another
commenter fired back with "Of course you do, Noel. Sigh." Because I'm just that
lame, I guess.
Jimmy
Reed, "Baby, What You Want Me To Do?"
This is one
of my wife's favorite songs, but when I asked her to tell me why, she started
strong, talking about the "untraditional blues structure" and how "the verse
kind of accelerates and stretches out," before she realized I was recording her
thoughts for posterity and she backed away with a simple, "It's just awesome."
Joe
Henry, "Edgar Bergen"
Last year,
reviewing Henry's most recent album Civilians, I wrote:
"Because
Joe Henry has become entrenched as 'the songwriter's songwriter,' steadily
releasing critically beloved albums of smart character sketches, it's tough to
object publicly to the way so many of his songs sound damnably similar,
blanded-out by his pinched rasp and seeming disinterest in melody. It's like
complaining that art-film directors don't move the camera, or that modernist
poetry doesn't rhyme. So it's probably safer to point out the redeeming
qualities of Civilians, like the moody, evocative tracks 'Parker's Mood' and 'Civil War,'
where lack of structure keeps the focus on a general mood of weary resignation.
And it's probably better not to point out that songs just like those are
available on nearly every Joe Henry album."
I'll cop to
that being an overly harsh assessment of an undeniably talented artist, but to
be honest, my frustration with Henry has been building up for nearly a decade.
When he first made the transition to scarred, shambling art-folk on albums like Scar, Henry sounded
fresh, and songs like "Edgar Bergen" had the quality of a good short story,
evocative cinema and engrossing mood music, all at once. Then he did it again.
And again. As I wrote in the Glorious Crackpots essay a couple of weeks ago,
sometimes an artist's retreat ito repetition can be singularly satisfying for
his or her fans—but only if those fans are on the artist's wavelength to
begin with. Henry's music already requires me to move outside my comfort zone,
so hearing him do the same thing over and over isn't such a treat for me.
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, "Coma
Girl"
I don't
have much more to say about Joe Strummer that I didn't put in my write-up of
The Clash a couple of months ago, but I felt I had to acknowledge Strummer's
end-of-life stint fronting The Mescaleros, a group that served as a vehicle for
Strummer's maturing theories on musical mélange and the pleasures of sharing a
communal moment with a crowd at a rock show. Global-A-Go-Go is the most satisfying Mescaleros
album—it's not Clash good, but it's pretty damn good—while the swan song Streetcore contains some of Strummer's most
moving songs, like this chugger, which fills me with such joy at Strummer's joy that I'm frequently overcome
with emotion by the time the song ends.
Joe
Walsh, "Rocky Mountain Way"
Walsh For
President '08. It's not too late to make it happen, foks.
Regrettably
unremarked upon:
Japan, Japancakes, Jason Isbel, Jawbox, Jawbreaker, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Jelly
Roll Morton, Jenifer Jackson, Jenny Lewis, Jens Lenkman, Jeremy Enigk, Jerry
Lee Lewis, Jets To Brazil, Jim Reeves, Jim White, Jimmy Witherspoon, Joan Jett,
Joanna Newsom, Jobriath, Joe Cocker and Joe Ely
Also
listened to: The
Jan Martens Frustration, Jan Wayne, Jane, Jane Aire,
Jane Siberry, Janette Carter, Janice McClain, Janice Ian, The January,
TaxiJards Macalé, Jared Young, Jars Of,
ClayThe Jasmine Minks, Jason Collett. Jason Darling, Jason Mraz, Jason,
RossJason White, Jasper,
JamesJay Bennett, Jay, Jay McShann's Orchestra,
BrannanJean Knight, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Jacques,
PerreyJedd Hughes, Jeep, Jeff Alexander, Jeff
Bates, Jeff Black, Jeff Hanson, Jeff Klein, Jeff Thomas,
Jeff Tweedy, Jeffrey & The Healers, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Jeffrey Lewis, Jen Chapin, Jenn Grant, Jennifer Lopez,
Jennifer Nicely, Jennifer O'Connor, Jephte Guillaume,
Jeremiah Lockwood, Jeremy Toback, Jerry, Jerry Butler, Jerry Corbetta, Jerry Douglas, Jerry Garcia,
BrownJerzee Monet, Jesca Hoop, Jesse Dayton,
Jesse DeNatale, Jesse Malin, Jesse McCartney, Jessi Colter, Jessica Andrews, The Jesters, Jesus Jones, Jet, Jewel, Jihad Jerry & The Evildoers,
Jill Read, Jill Scott, Jill Sobule, Jim & Jesse, Jim Brickman, Jim Gilstrap
& Blinky Williams, Jim James, Jim Noir, Jim O'Rourke, The Jim Yoshii
Pile-Up, Jiminem, Jimmy & Walter, Jimmy Church, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Gilmer,
Jimmy Hughes, Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Murphy, Jimmy Ruffin, Jimmy Scott, Jimmy
Sweeney, Jo Ann Garrett, Jo Sullivan, Jo-Jo & The
Fugitives, Joan Jonreneaud, Joan Of Arc, Joan Osborne, Joe, Joe Acosta, Joe Algeri, Joe Bennett
& The Sparkletones, Joe Bonson & Coffee Run, Joe
Caverlee, Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers, Joe Hill Louis, Joe Holland,
The Joe Houston Orchestra, Joe Maneri, Joe Pagetta, Joe Pain, Joe Simon, Joe
Tex and Joe Val & The New Englanders
Next
week: From John Barry to Jonathan Richman, plus a few words on drugs (for real
this time)