Mm” border=”0″ align=”left” />[az]B000BF0D9M[/az]y kids introduced me to a whole string of video games about a guy named Mario, but I don’t think that’s who Jesse Cook is talking about. Somehow, Mario Takes a Walk completely possesses me every time I hear it; it’s one of those rare songs where both the live and studio versions I’ve heard punch me right in the solar plexus.
Thumping danceable drums annoy me. Except sometimes. Adding a ‘thump thump thump’ to most music turns me off completely, so I have no explanation for why Cook’s music, which is nearly always flamenco guitar and thump, grabs me like it does.
Every time I hear Mario (or Matisse the Cat, or many others) I want to do a Titanic on the bow of a sailing ship and laugh out loud while I’m dancing. Sure, it’s impossible, but that’s what music is for, to free us for the impossible.
Jesse has a new album, The Rumba Foundation which you can listen to at his website. Like I am right now.
About a year ago, when my daughter started using the phrase “goodtimesgoodtimes” like it was a single eighteen-letter word to mean agreement with something I’d said or a positive comment on something that had happened, she was more excited about it than I was.
So, when she introduced me to a band called Goodtimes Goodtimes, spelled like that, two nine-letter words, I was less than enthusiastic. Fortunately, I got over it and as a result, I’ve discovered some of the best ‘feel good’ music I’ve heard in a very long time. The name that Franc Cinelli chose for his mostly one-man project is what I like to call ‘truth in advertising’. The cover of Goodtimes Goodtimes’ first album, Glue, is a rising sun of bright cheery yellow. And the music is decidedly happy. I don’t get excited about angry music; there’s a distinct lack of happiness in music today and I don’t write about music that’s not happy. Well, sad is okay. There’s a place for sad songs. But not angry. I really prefer happy. Wanna hear happy? Listen to Kids or Sunshine Sunshine, happy songs.
The entire album, right from the opening track Summer is perky and cheerful—the word perky keeps coming to mind; I hope Franc doesn’t mind. The songs are simple, uncomplicated, lyrically at least. Musically, they’re a little challenging. I’ve tried playing a couple of them and they don’t just roll out of my guitar, I tell you.
Desire is one of those songs that for some indefinable reason makes me feel, immensely and intensely. I don’t know if the chord progression reminds me of something else or maybe it really is just the intense feelings of yearning in the lyrics. The Red Sky and the Spanish Coast is just a really cool name, and at the end of it there is a little musical epilogue of sorts that I actually found (perhaps on the website?) as an mp3 called Glue, although there is no song Glue on the album. So there you go, Glue is actually the epilogue of The Red Sky and the Spanish Coast.
There’s lot of slide guitar on the album, which I really like; acoustic slide guitar. It’s a very acoustic album. It says it was recorded in the bedroom.
There’s one mystery song, For All My Kingdom. It’s not on the CD but I have an mp3 of it. I’m not sure how that happened.
The songs below, Let It Begin and The Rescue, will be on the new EP which should be out imminently—imminently means whenever Franc feels like it—and it already feels a little more mature, fleshed-out, robust than Glue, possibly because there are other musicians involved. And if you go to YouTube and search for Goodtimes Goodtimes you can watch videos of the songs. Or you can go the websites, which are linked down there in the bio, and read all about it.
Glue is well worth the paltry sum it costs to have it shipped to your home. I’m really excited not just about the EP that’s coming out, the full-length album shortly after that, but I’m especially looking forward to Goodtimes Goodtimes someday doing a tour of the left coast of the United States. When they come to Northern California, you can bet I’ll be right there in the front row, smiling.
Goodtimes Goodtimes started life as a one man band; Franc Cinelli, an Italian raised in London, filtered his roots through a multicultural sieve to forge a unique identity and distinctive sound. A true bluesman, born out of his natual era, and so he blends his blues-folk with his personal optimism. He and his cohorts create ethereally wonderful alt.folk. You’ll have each song on repeat in your head before it even finishes playing.
Drawing on traditional blues, folk and country music, the songs of Good Times Good Times are infused with the musings of a young man who is as much at home in London’s Soho as in Rome’s Trastevere or New York’s Lower East Side. Inspired by the New York coffee house scene of the ’70s and encouraged by the enthusiastic reception to his music, Franc spent much of the last couple of years playing the New York circuit. Thoroughly absorbed by the scene, Franc soon found himself playing in bars, clubs and coffee shops, developing a solid following among the music-loving New Yorkers; playing sometimes three or four times a night in different venues around the city; learning to take his guitar everywhere in case of an impromptu gig in someone’s basement or loft apartment; and often playing until five or six in the morning. Moving on to touring up and down the “Coasts” and back again doing the same in the UK.
After the well received, bedroom recorded “GLUE” LP , Goodtimes Goodtimes new live EP , produced by Danton Supple, steps everything up a notch or two. Story-telling in the night; late night drinking and early morning wanderings. Irresistibly rustic killer hooks and a new favourite band.
Hey, click the little arrow thingy and play the songs!
Let It Begin is just so darn perky. I am strongly in favor of perky; there is far too much cranky already. will someone please tell those guys in system of a down? “down dow-n down, whoah oh oooh” indeed. must add more ‘whoahs’ to my own songs. The Rescue feels more serious, but still positive. I think that’s where you grab me, franc; all that sunny positivity. at my age, you finally realize that happy and perky are way more important than one’s angsty teen years would indicate.
Jazzy, with a light edge, floral topnotes and a decisive nose.
Charlie Cheney is a distinctive and intelligent songwriter whose love for February Album Writing Month is a driving force behind the fun and learning that I get from it.
His song Jimmy Doogan was a jazz delight when he recorded the demo last year. He’s done a video which includes a new bridge section. Lyrically, the song has nice tension, but musically it was all sweetness and happy. The bridge really pushes it briefly into a meaner place, so the release coming back to the sweet melody is darkened nicely.
Charlie Cheney. Jimmy Doogan. Enjoy.
(The video isn’t exactly HD quality, but the sound’s the important part and that’s crisp and clear.)
B[az]B000OZ2CLQ[/az]anjos have been on my mind a lot of late. My brother is allegedly finding all the parts to my tenor banjo to return to me, but that’s iffy at best.
Rush keeps finding me new music, and some of it goes straight to my core. Like the Avett Brothers.
When I’m listening to Paranoia in Bb Major in the car, I can sing all the parts. It feels good to hear and feel myself singing like I know I really can. [az]B001AZI20Y&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=F3EABC&f=ifr” style=”float:left;width:120px;height:240px;margin:0 0.3em;” scrolling=”no” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ frameborder=”0″>Gives me hope that I can start doing the same with my own music; nudges me toward better arrangements. Educational music; wonder of Scott and Seth planned that . . .
Marvelous harmonies (brothers singing together seems to work well; there were these two guys named Phil and Don who made quite a career of it as I recall.) Great instrumentation—very bluegrassy, without making the music into bluegrass. It’s rock, really it is. It just rocks without ear-splitting pain or noxious guitar rage.
[az]B00096S2LE[/az]Hard not to smile at the end of Paranoia when they go into the incredibly high falsetto ‘la, la la, la la da, la-ah la-da’ with cello (cello!)
Murder in the City, from Second Gleam, was my first Avett Brothers song. Poignant, gentle, loving; sometimes when I wake up at night and it’s playing, I think about my family and the people who I’ve loved and never see. One of the best wistful songs I’ve ever heard. St. Joseph’s on the same album is darker; a slice-of-life moment that’s less storytelling, more feelings-of-the-moment.
Intelligence in music always appeals to me. When it makes smile, it moves right into the inner circle.
I[az]B000002KBD[/az]t fell into the hole left by Astral Weeks and Moondance. Van’s His Band and the Street Choir may not be their equal; that’s fairly subjective. But my subjective opinion is that it contains one song which, as yet, is unequaled in my life.
I’ll Be Your Lover, Too is the single most passionate song I know. There’s nothing overtly sexual in the song; it is, truly, about the overwhelming experience of two people being completely subsumed into a new, single entity.
The simplicity of the arrangement, just a couple guitars and shuffling brushed drums and cymbals, focuses attention on Van’s, even for him, intense vocal delivery.
The song’s ending is fun; as the music wraps, Van asks “How’s that?”
It opens with three promises most men never make, and those who do, rarely keep:
I'll be your man I'll understand Do my best to take good care of you
The love I feel for my Best Beloved consumes me at times. I know she knows that I love her more than music. I only hope someday I can put into lyrics what she’s done for my heart and my life.
[az]B0001AEVGI[/az]Gerry Rafferty’s music makes me smile. His lyrics make me smile. His voice is warm and soothing, making me believe, as the title of the last song on Ferguslie Park says, everything will turn out fine. I know Joe Egan is part of Stealers Wheel, but I can’t dredge up feelings about his contributions. Maybe it just needs more attention.
Stuck in the Middle with You, their one huge hit from their eponymous first album, seems to annoy some folks. Puzzling. Slide guitar doesn’t make it to pop music much, and this has it in spades. Slick, slippery, wiggly slide. From the opening chords on acoustic guitar, the no-nonsense bass, silly-serious hand-claps, through vocal harmonies, multiple electric guitars snapping, and some of the subtlest drumming in a pop song (cowbell! before cowbell was, well, whatever) it bounces perkily through really strange lyrics I still love, nearly 40 years later.
[az]B0002LHQH2[/az]The slide guitars (plural; there are, briefly, two) shimmer over another electric guitar playing a noodley little lead, and two rhythm guitars, one electric, one acoustic. One benefit of an endless stream of top-notch studio musicians instead of a regular band is you get a wide variety of ace performances on every instrument.
Lyrically, I’ve always thought this was another guy at the party Randy Newman’s momma told him not to come to.
When I bought Feguslie Park long after its release, I rediscovered Star, which somehow sneaked onto San Diego radio while I still lived there. But the real killer here is Blind Faith; something about the earnest search for just the right memories of happier-but-harder times always felt like a journey I wanted to finish.[az]B0007735A8[/az]
All three Stealers Wheel albums are available on CD these days. Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty are master songwriters (their first album was produced by the illustrious team of Lieber and Stoller) and delicious performers. Even their wistful sad songs feel good.
The Salvador Dali-esque covers don’t disturb me as much as they should. Animalised faces, disemboweled lizards, faces in the ground; I suspect even Dali would find them strangely disconnected from the bright cheerful music within. Perhaps another case of production decisions made by someone other than the artist?
[az]B000069V25[/az]Searches are down here at the ranch, but this one is one of those snippets that’ll drive you mad if you don’t know where to find it.
Of course, if you’re really old and paid attention, you know that ‘hubcap diamond star halo’ is a line from the T. Rex song “Bang a Gong” which was covered by the incomparable Robert Palmer (working with the Duran Duran boys as Power Station.)
[az]B0000APVHW&[/az]A review at Amazon calls T. Rex “one of the most influential rock acts of the ’70s.” Either I wasn’t paying attention, or that’s fairly hyperbolic (and I’ve been told more than once that I’m given to hyperbole, so I know whereof I speak. Probably.) Although, if Bowie and Rod Stewart were at his funeral (Bolan was killed in a car crash on 16 September 1977, two weeks before his 30th birthday) perhaps I should give it a think.
[az]B001INZ7EC[/az]Musical oddities twang relentless. Miniature concerti on the strings of the holler. Multiple musicians stretch lyrics taut over the bones of memory and loss and hope. Minor keys, major melodies.
A quavering voice driving earnestly before the musical buzz of flexing hardware and jangly picking.
Frontier Ruckus is perpendicular to bluegrass; somehow, they cross it at right angles, leaving no doubt that either you are on the train or you have missed it until it next passes your station. Which it will, so pay attention.
I think this has always been my theme song (one of them, at least) and I just had to wait 40 years for someone to write it. More assertive than folk, less aggressive than rock, more intelligent than pop. Retrobilly, maybe.
The City is a Washing Machine opens with acoustic guitar, a vigorously thumped kick drum, and vocals, eventually we get organ and other stuff (the happy click of drumsticks, for instance, and piano) but it’s far into the song, the last word of the chorus in fact, before I hear a bass. And that’s very minimalist cool. As is the ending: an unfinished line, both lyrically and musically. Witty. I like witty.
I know how my life began and I know how it will end; I will be searching for a word that rhymes with 'dying' as I lay dying
Every instrument is played with panache, and some, in addition, with a pick. jordan hudock, ny lee, cody hudock (look; two folks with the same last name) and franck fiser (they’re listed on their MySpace page in lower case, and with my ‘no period after the ‘D’ in Joel D Canfield, please’ affectation, who am I to correct them?) are having fun.
Let’s all buy their album so they feel obligated to tour. Los Angeles is too far to drive. Though, Marvelous Toy just might be worth it.
Jordan was kind enough to send a copy of their press kit which you can grab and read if you like. It suits their music, it does.
(See also Waiting for the Fire, much more complex than your average retrobilly song; earnest, passionate, and stupendous fun to sing along with.)
Frontier Ruckus
Every instrument is played with panache, and some, in addition, with a pick. jordan hudock, ny lee, cody hudock (look; two folks with the same last name) and franck fiser (they’re listed on