Category: pop

Journey Down the Nile

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]B001F7XITW[/az][l1P]P” border=”0″ align=”left” />roving once again that it’s not just a river in Egypt, J. D. Souther’s Journey Down the Nile is my new intentional earworm.

I think it’s a samba. I’ve forgotten most of the little I ever knew about Latin rhythm, but I think it’s a samba. With little machine-gun drum fills and a bass that knows how to samba. Or whichever dance it is. Apparently the horn section was recorded live, sliding in behind the languid vocals and wrapping around the piano which, like the bass, dances to whatever Latin rhythm that is. The trumpet solo defies the subtlety of the other instruments, blaring over the top, holding one long wavering note while they all change chords underneath. It’s one of those little musical witticisms I love.

Lyrically, there’s some kind of social commentary in there, but I’ll be hanged if it’s surfaced yet. The wit overshadows the message, but Joel David doesn’t care any more than John David did.

Robert Palmer and Jools

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]B000065UNE[/az]Bit by bit we’ve been catching up on Later with Jools Holland (who is a story in himself.) While Best Beloved was doing other things, I thought I’d have a look at the last time Robert Palmer was on the show. He’d be surrounded by a gaggle of lessers, which made me suspect he’d get a single shot and be off; probably not worth dragging Best Beloved in from what she was doing.

One of the others was Macy Gray. Hearing her voice again, watching her perform I Try, I realized I’d forgotten what an astonishing voice she has.

Somehow I developed an uninformed attitude about Mary Chapin Carpenter at some point in the past. She sang Party Doll from Mick Jagger’s solo album. It melted me.

Palmer performed, not once, but thrice: with choir and band (Stone Cold), with David Grant and Jools doing a vocals and piano version of Lowell George’s Twenty Million Things, and ending the show with the choir doing Pride a capella. Palmer’s vocal control in each performance is perfect; it’s obvious his voice is doing exactly what he intends. As someone who merely carries a tune while wishing I was a real singer, it was glorious watching it done right.

I decided Best Beloved should see it after all. (When Pride snapped to its finish, she stared blankly for a moment, then laughed out loud. It takes work to get a reaction like that from her. Most gratifying.)

Monkees Head

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]6305038694[/az]Finally saw the Monkees/Jack Nicholson movie Head last night.

It is bizarre.

Other than the obvious self-referential mocking of the insincerity of the media, it has no plot or point. It does have two Carole King songs, one Harry Nilsson song, two written by Peter Tork, and one by Mike Nesmith.

In one fascinating scene, after Davy Jones sings Daddy’s Song by Harry Nilsson, Davy and Toni Basil do a dance routine all dressed in white, against a black background—and the same routine dressed in black, against a white background. Scenes from each are cut together to make a single dance, sometimes flashing back and forth so fast it’s like a strobe effect. It is very cool, and uses no special effects whatsoever.

Most people won’t ‘get’ Head either because they wanna know what it ‘means’ or because it’s just plain bizarre.

Fine with me; most people don’t ‘get’ me either, and often for the same reasons.

Energy, Pythagorean or Otherwise

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]B000TGGTIC[/az]Amazon (like everyone else) now sells MP3s. To give those of us with Amazon.com associate accounts a feel for what the new store is like, they’re giving away FREE! the song ‘Energy’ from the brand new Apples in Stereo album New Magnetic Wonder.

The band’s ‘About’ page says 

 In the charmed world of The Apples in Stereo's Robert Schneider, music and mathematics are the principal creative outlets.

Schneider has created a non-Pythagorean musical scale, and composed some music using it. It has potential. You can hear the new album in its entirety at the website.

Pop music isn’t supposed to be complex or life-altering. ‘Energy’ is fun, simple, repetitive. It’s got a catchy melody that’s hummable, the lyrics don’t make me think too hard (I have other music for that!) and it’s all performed well. If this had come on my car stereo this morning, I’d have turned it up, not off.

And with album names like ‘New Magnetic Wonder’ and ‘Her Wallpaper Reverie’ it seems like their other six or seven albums are worth looking into. I’d never heard of AiS, but they’re gonna get a thorough investigation, I assure you.

Then Your Clothes

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]B000008EFC[/az]Despite the fact that I still don’t own his entire catalog, I’m saddened by Jude Cole’s apparent decision to record others’ music instead of creating more of his own.

This morning as I was taking Russia Saturn to work Jude put a smile on my face with my favorite track off “Start the Car”—”First Your Money (Then Your Clothes)”

A simple tale of misguided affections is accompanied by simple but effective music. One of the first things that struck me when I was learning the song was that the bass (my starting point) isn’t doing anything other than the root note of each chord: bom, bom, bom, bom instead of a rockabilly shuffle or alternating country bass or some complicated rock riff.

The album’s opening with the crunch of the title track strongly reinforces the laid back country feel of the rest of the album. “First Your Money” has the same kind of wryly amusing lyrics you might find in the work of Brad Paisley or even Roger Miller:

 My mom said, "Son, it won't last She'll be gone when you're out of cash." Hey, Mom, I need a ride back home

and later

 We stopped to wish upon a star She stole my breath; she stole my car

And one more:

 Oh, no, love ain't cheap There's a tollbooth up on lover's leap

Just as “Start the Car” is aggressive without being angry, “First Your Money” is more about lessons learned than some tragedy about love gone wrong. For my money it’s a better message.

Time for a Cool Change

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]B000002TFW[/az]Songs about sailing reach me in places I forget about sometimes. My father taught me to sail (lest you get the wrong impression, the ‘sailboat’ was 16′ long and 4′ wide, and you sat on the deck like a glorified surfboard; we were not yacht club people.)

Songs that surprise me fall into another special category—when an artist does something a bit out of their box, and does it well, it has special appeal.

Songs that teach me about myself are the best category, with books, movies, and people who teach me about myself.

“Cool Change”, recorded by the Little River Band in 1978, is one of the very special entries in all three categories. In my head, it connects the peace of sailing with the peace I’ve always wanted in life; it connects the hard work of sailing with the hard work I know life to be.

Later in their career, LRB tried to ‘roughen up’ their image. I think it was a mistake; the glorious harmonies and slick production of all the tunes on their Greatest Hits album are a major part of the appeal (of course, well-written song help.)

 "I was born in the sight of water, and it's there that I feel my best"

Another nice touch is the subsitition of the word ‘cool’ in the phrase ‘sea change’, with overtones and undertones of the life-altering decisions we often fail to make, and sometimes make so poorly.

Oh; one last category: really good saxophone solos. Intense, simple, melodic.

I don’t listen to this song nearly enough.

Accompanied by faves like “Take it Easy on Me”, “The Other Guy”, “Lonesome Loser” (it’s better than you remember), and one of my guilty pleasures, “Reminiscing”, LRB’s Greatest Hits is a no-brainer.