Issue #26, Bang Your Heart (Summer '09)
I was lost but now I'm found.
My apologies for the unreasonable delay. This is what breeding does to a sad wannabe hipster. It's all baby poop and Dora from where I'm at.
The good news is that rock and roll still saves my life and it can still save yours. The recession might be knocking your buzz, and Summer of 2009 seems determined to hide from us at all costs. But the songs on this list will light you up from the inside out.
Meanwhile, in addition to diaper duty, I've put the finishing touches on a book that I hope will be called Bang Your Heart. It's all about us music freaks—what we need, what we give, why we pray in the temple of song. Should drop in late Spring, at which point I'll be visiting select cities with my favorite musicians, and hoping to see you. Till then, I'll post updates and such at this FB page.
Okay, enough marketing. Here's the happy noise...
Josie Blows the Judaphone
- Raphael Saadiq
- The Way I See It
- (Sony, 2008)
- Am I honestly tipping a solo album by a Tony! Toni! Toné! alum? To mis-quote our last black president, when questioned as to whether he enjoyed pollinating Gennifer Flowers ... You bet I am. This is pure soul from the Philly wing of the party. "Sure Hope You Mean It" ranks as the greatest hidden track never released by the Platters.
- Charlie Mars
- Like a Bird, Like a Plane
- (Rockingham Records, 2009)
- Charlie got tipped a few years back and he returns now, having thrown off the bridle of country for something more atmospheric, a kind of Pink Floyd under the influence of Marley vibe. Call it stoner sex jelly. And spread liberally.
- Johnny Flynn
- A Larum
- (Mercury Records, 2008)
- Tommy Finks put me onto Flynn, who makes folk rock of the nimblest British sort. Think Fairport Convention with a brogue, or Nick Drake with a bit more vim in his vigor. It's all joy and mischief, guitars strummed by sprites and a reedy tenor.
- Clare Burson
- Silver and Ash
- A softly devastating suite of songs that reveal themselves with the slow grace of an antique music box. There's a story here, subtle but persistent, about the people who came before us, and the miracle of our births.
- Sam Roberts
- Love at the End of the World
- (Zoe Records, 2009)
- The Motor City went down in a bonfire of big fenders and good old American greed. But what survives of the grandeur is captured in "Detroit '67," an astonishing organ-soaked celebration of what happens just before the party collapses.
- Garland Jeffreys
- Don't Call Me Buckwheat
- (RCA, 1992)
- A seminal survey of racial neuroses, delivered in a playful infusion of R&B, blues, and pop. The record makes an ideal gift for that crazy uncle who keeps sending you clips about the rise of the Obama Birther Movement.
- Ike Reilly
- Poison the Hit Parade
- (Six Siren, 2008)
- Still ugly, still making pretty things. The Ike delivers another blow to the temple of corporate rock. "When the Plant Shuts Down" offers a blistering vision of what the recession might do to wake our conscience.
- Joe Henry
- Blood from Stars
- (ANTI, 2009)
- More lustrous whatever-he-does from Pasadena's prophet of soul. Joe's recent discs have showcased the likes of Don Byron, Marc Ribot, and Ornette Coleman. So who's the next jazz giant placed at the center of his elegant murmurings? Try Levon Henry, age 17. Seriously. And the kid can play. Seriously.
- Eric Hutchinson
- Sounds Like This
- (Warner Brothers, 2008)
- Madonna was all ready to roll Hutchinson out as the Next Big Thing. Then her label tanked. Then the internets found him. Then he got another deal. And now his first LP is here, a creamsicle of sweet sunny pop.
Guest Tip from Big Papi Tom DeMarchi, father of the Amazing Chilly Chaz
- The Weakerthans
- Reunion Tour
- (Epitaph, 2007)
- If Chekhov had been born in Canada in 1970, raised on a steady diet of John Berger, Loudon Wainwright & Raymond Carver, and wielded a guitar instead of a fountain pen, he'd form a band like The Weakerthans. Frontman John K. Samson crafts three-minute pop gems to explore – nay, inhabit—characters as disparate as a Sasquatch spotter ("Bigfoot!"), a curler ("Tournament of Hearts"), and a house cat ("Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure"). Reunion Tour will have you driving around the block singing along at the top of your lungs before turning in for the night.
Guest Tip from The Artist Currently Known as The Close
- The Eels
- Hombre Loco
- (Vagrant Records, 2009)
- Waste no time: HL dives deep for all the lighter melody and singalong hymns you knew they had in them on all the somber early albums, all those songs where Mark Everett was just inches from suicide – no joke in his family: his sister killed herself and his father, a physicist of renown, died too young. And yet, and yet: the existential edge is still here, lurking, looming, poking in its head when needed. You WILL rock out to the track "Tremendous Dynamite" and you WILL lose your shit over the track "Fresh Blood," and you WILL smile smile smile to "All the Beautiful Things." Everett doesn't know he's a minor genius. His music reveals the truth about the sick tribe we are.
Tip Singles
- Gretel
- "Jesus [Where Did You Go?]"
- (From the fiddlelicious disc The Dregs)
- Can you imagine Blondie sent hurtling into a tent revival? Can you imagine Patti Smith rocking a banjo? Can you imagine yourself saved at last?
- Lizz Wright
- "Leave Me Standing Alone"
- (From the sultry soul platter The Orchard)
- The kind of earthshaking kiss-off song that makes you realize you just made a very big mistake, mister. Etta would be proud.
- Eagles of Death Metal
- "How Can a Man With So Many Hearts Feel So Alone?"
- (From the wrongly maligned album Heart On)
- So they sound almost exactly like the Rolling Stones. That's supposed to be a bad thing? Please.
- Jackson Browne
- "Where Were You?"
- (From the album Time the Conquerer)
- Mellow Man Ace gets his Katrina outrage on for ten minutes. America let a bunch of poor people drown and all we got was this disturbingly gorgeous track. Oh, and a President with an actual human heart.
That's all for now, freaks.
Remember to tip your bartenders and support your musicians. They're what tell us who we are inside.
Steve