Category: rock

Still Haven’t Found What You’re Looking For?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[l1I]/l1]’ve been meaning to do this for a while: I’ve gathered up all the searches done here at KnowYourMusic recently. Maybe we can incite a dialog; I’ll see if I can figure out what you were looking for, and you see if you can figure out what I’m talking about.

What does egbdf mean? — The notes of the musical scale, when written on a musical staff, fall either into the spaces, or onto the lines. In normal melody notation, the spaces are easy to remember — the notes are F, A, C, and E — FACE. The lines, however, aren’t as simple; so throughout history, we’ve come up with endless mnemonics to remember the obscure and arcane pattern of the notes on the lines. The Moody Blues did an album with a common UK version, “Every Good By Deserves Favour.” EGBDF — the notes on the lines of the scale. (This musicblog was once at EGBDF.info.)
  • black sabbaths iron man — In case you didn’t find it, I posted Iron Man back in June.
  • Don Wahlberg — New Kids on the Block? No; that would be Donnie Wahlberg. Probably not here.
  • Little Feat — Closest I came was “Ride of the Tarzana Kid” back on September 1st. But they’ll show up in greater detail eventually.
  • Norah Jones — . . . sigh . . . Norah Jones, indeed. You couldn’t have missed “Come Away with Norah Jones“, also in September.
  • Rising Of The Sea — Anything to do with OB1? If so, tell me more; the clips I’ve heard are very interesting.
  • Steven Oliver — Pleasant relaxing jazz guitar. Not familiar enough to offer a real opinion.
  • Three Two One Let’s Jam — Still one of my favorite entries, “Jumping Japanese Jazz” should fill the bill.
  • Wild Wood Flower — If there were only two folk guitar songs, they would be “Wildwood Flower” and “Under the Double Eagle.” Written by A.P. Carter and originally sung by ‘Mother’ Maybelle Carter, mother of June Carter Cash (Johnny’s wife), this is an eternally beautiful song. I like John Sebastian’s cover on “Tarzana Kid”, but nothing approaches the scratchy old 78 RPM record of Maybelle Carter’s equally scratchy voice and AP’s stunning guitar.
  • 1990 groups — Um; which ones?
  • A Little Touch Of Heaven — Nothing comes to mind. Are there more details?
  • Alison Krause Let Me Touch You Awhile — I love Alison Krauss. Not sure if I’ve heard this one, though, so I’ll have to track it down.
  • alley — As in, “Loading Dock Dark Alley Swing“? Or maybe Stevie Ray Vaughan’s incredible “Tin Pan Alley” from “Couldn’t Stand the Weather.” I’m overdue for a review of a complete SRV album; that was my first, so watch for it sometime soon.
  • Blood On The Tracks — Bob Dylan — Mr. Zimmerman has made numerous appearances, but the most direct was “Shelter from the Storm” in October.
  • boy bands — Nope.
  • i know how he feels — Thank you; he appreciates your concern for his welfare. Wait; isn’t that a song by Reba McIntire? After 30 years, I’m coming into my second ‘country’ period. We’ll see about this one.
  • All Along The Watch Tower — “The Watchtower, All Along“
  • Angelo Debarre — Ah; anyone who records Django Reinhardt songs gets my attention. Further investigation is indicated.
  • Coldplay — My daugher Cheyenne has both albums. I’ll get around to these talented guys eventually.
  • granted you one final wish — Would you ask for something like another chance? “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”, whether you mean the song and the album, is one of the pinnacles of modern music; a focal point about which entire genre revolve. If Steve Winwood had never played an instrument, had never recorded another thing, the vocals on this album would secure his place on a very short list of truly great jazz vocalists. On my vacation back in May, I wrote “While I’m Far From Home” about another Traffic tune.
  • Heavy Blinkers – I had never heard of the band. The bio at CDNow sounds intriguing. Have a CD you want to share?
  • homeworld — Yes. As in the group, Yes. First song on “The Ladder”, a wonderful album my oldest son Tristan has tried many times to steal from me. Maybe I’ll buy him his own copy (and maybe he’ll buy me my own copy of the PC game “Homeworld” designed around the song.) This got pretty thorough treatment in “Mountains Come Out of the Sky” back in July.
  • iz — Searching for Iz? “Finding Iz” back in June.
  • limbo song — Chubby Checker. Had the 45 when I was a kid.
  • Michael Nesmith — See “Tropical Campfires” below.
  • Michael Smith — Steve Goodman’s cover of Smith’s “The Dutchman” was more popular than Smith’s version, but Goodman’s tunes “Banana Republics” and “The City of New Orleans” gained wider circulation in the hands of Jimmy Buffett and Arlo Guthrie, respectively. Odd how things work out sometimes.
  • Michelle Branch — Performed ‘Game Of Love’ on Carlos Santana’s newest album “Shaman.” Nice work. Not too familiar with her own music, but I know it’s nice solid listenable stuff.
  • Route 66 — “If You Ever Plan to Motor West” — Well, I plan to motor east on my vacation next week, but this song will be along in multiple versions. They will all be played loud.
  • Tropical Campfires — When granting permission to use their graphics, the official Mike Nesmith website (in the guise of Neffie, the main character in Nez’s book “The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora”) included a link to “Laugh Kills Lonesome“, my review of what I’ve read of the book, and of the marvelous song, “Laugh Kills Lonesome.” Well, almost; they included a link to the home page. So in a day or two, it won’t be there any more. As of right now, this search won’t even find the article, so I’m re-indexing the search engine so folks can find it. I’ve also added what I hope is a really obvious link below the search tool. It’ll probably be with us for a while.

It is my heartfelt desire for this site to become truly interactive. Until recently, I believed I was on a first name basis with both of my readers. Instead, a perusal of the server logs indicates that, over the last month, nearly a thousand different readers have spent an average of thirteen minutes each here at KnowYourMusic. You can’t imagine how exciting that is.

So, tell me about yourself. Who are you? Where are you? What do you like? What am I doing wrong?

Let’s talk.

(If that link doesn’t work for you, you can use the ‘Comment’ link below.)

Twin Troglodytes

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Jimi Hendrix enjoyed putting his spin on other artist’s tunes. His personalization of “Wild Thing” to close his set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was, while memorable, hardly unusual for him; but it put him in a select category, to date inhabited only by Hendrix and R.E.M. — artists who have covered Troggs hits.

The Troggs’ 1966 cover of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing” is one of the most recognizable recordings of rock music. Always more popular in England than the US, they were not, as is often supposed by less informed programming directors of pop and rock radio, one-hit wonders. Even if we ignore their string of UK hits (not a good idea, but sometimes difficult to avoid due to US radio’s US-centric take on music charts) they had two hits on the US charts, and it was the second, making it to the top 5 in 1968, which was covered by R.E.M. on 1991’s “R.E.M.'s 'Radio Song'Radio Song.”

While “Wild Thing” exemplified the troglodyte persona expected from the band, lead vocalist Reg Presley was adept at crafting sensitive ballads. “Troggs' 'Greatest Hits'Love is All Around“, while not as simple as “Wild Thing” (a feat I wouldn’t want to attempt) has simple lyrics and uncomplicated music. Not yet unusual in rock singles, it sports strings and a polished arrangement not present in the “Radio Song” cover; the arrangement is distinctly 60s and adds to the sweetness of the song. On the heels of its caveman predecessor, learning that this gentle love ballad comes from the Troggs increases its appeal by emphasizing their diversity and talent.

Nibble on Your Little Ear

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

There isn’t much better than a CD player full of Van Morrison. “Tupelo Honey” is required listening at our house, as is much of the Morrison canon.

I won’t spend time on Van’s biography; Jason Ankeny of the All Music Guide is perhaps even more effusive and hyperbolic than I would have been.

Continue reading “Nibble on Your Little Ear”

Shelter from the Storm

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Webster’s defines it as ‘a position or the state of being covered and protected.’ Sometimes some of us reach a place in life where, if we can’t have love, at least we hope for a shelter from the storm.

From the opening verse

 'Twas in another life time, One of toil and blood. When blackness was a virtue And the road was full of mud. I came in from the wilderness, A creature void of form. "Come in" she said, "I'll give you Shelter from the storm."

it’s not completely clear whether the shelter is real or imagined.

Later, “Dylan sings

 Try imagining a place Where it's always safe and warm

but if he’s reassuring us, why use the word ‘imagine’? It’s as if his life has become so bleak that he’s blind to the cost of her ‘shelter.’ Too late, he learns.

 I bargained for salvation And she gave me a lethal dose. I offered up my innocence And got repaid with scorn

Perhaps ‘learns’ isn’t the right word; still hopeful at the end,

 Beauty walks a razors edge, Someday I'll make it mine. If I could only turn back the clock

but clocks don’t turn back; the past is irretrievably gone.

Bob Dylan’s “Bob Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks'Blood on the Tracks” is a treasure of an album. “Tangled Up in Blue” hits me just as hard today as it did the first time I heard it 27 years ago, but “Shelter from the Storm” has taken on a whole new meaning over the years.

Musically sparse, as Dylan often is, one thing that struck me when I rediscovered “Shelter” a few years ago was how stong the bass-playing is. It reminds me of Rick Haynes on some of Gordon Lightfoot’s early albums; strong, melodic, not content to stay in the background, but never quite competing with vocals or guitar. It’s a link I thoroughly enjoy.

Lenny

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Everyone has their short lists of musical preferences — favorite songs, greatest jazz album, all that. If you really want to incite a verbal riot, announce loudly that you think Ringo Starr is a great drummer (I do, and it does. Later, maybe.) But talk about guitarists, and on anyone’s top ten list, six, maybe seven of the names will be the same small group. And, if not at the top, very near it, will be Stevie Ray Vaughan; every single time.

Personally, I think Eric Clapton has greater technical prowess; Mark Knopfler has more style, and Chet Atkins had more grace and overall ability than all of ’em. But Stevie played with a passion to match Clapton’s hottest fire on nearly every recording he made. Clapton impresses; listen to “Motherless Children” or “After Midnight” and you know you’re hearing a master. Knopfler delights; hearing “What It Is” or “Skateaway” you know he’s grinning from ear to ear, because so are you. Chet inspires; he and Les Paul playing “Birth of the Blues” makes me wish I could, and his duet with Knopfler “Tahitian Skies” makes me know I could. But when Stevie Ray Vaughan is ‘on’, really playing what he feels, you feel it all the way to your core.

When he recorded “Lenny” on his first album “Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'Texas Flood'Texas Flood“, he was on.

Lenny was his wife, Lenora. Lenny was his guitar, a Fender Stratocaster with a maple neck and lighter than usual strings. Lenny is half blues, half jazz, half rock; all three halves graceful, stylish, technically brilliant; but mostly, “Lenny” wordlessly grabs my heart every time I hear it. It constantly amazes me that so much emotion can be conveyed with music alone.

The opening chords are jazz, pure and simple, but right away, Vaughan starts playing with it, establishing a melody and then immediately dropping out for a bar while the bass carries the tune. Now wandering up the neck of the guitar, pausing now and then to let us catch up or wonder where he’s heading; letting the silence build anticipation. Back around to the melody, but shorter, just a bit more punch; then off again, up the neck and then back down to the lowest notes on the guitar, bouncing and flexing to squeeze every drop from that low ‘E’ string, then flying up to the high ‘E’ just so you don’t forget it’s there, and then, my favorite spot in the song. A flattened, buzzed note; from most players, you’d think it was a mistake, but Vaughan has just taken us on a tour of the entire fretboard, and now, in the midst of the only screaming high notes in the journey, he throws in something personal; something other than what you expected to find. And it’s perfect.

Then, back down to the melody, slower, sweeter, and to the finale, just as slow; just as sweet, ending right where we began, except for the final two notes, gently chimed from the center of Lenny’s sweet maple neck.

A Murder of One

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

When I first heard Counting Crows‘ “Mr. Jones” I didn’t like it; nothing definable, it just didn’t please. Strangely, when I saw the video and didn’t like that either, I suddenly realized that I did like the song (and still do.) After a few more huge hits, I decided it might be worth spending $12 on the CD. In retrospect, my caution seems silly, but that’s my nature.

Coming after the upbeat radio hit “Rain King”, the album’s three quietest songs almost lulled me to sleep; “Sullivan Street”, a sweet ballad; “Ghost Train”, dark and brooding; “Raining in Baltimore”, so quiet and slow that it takes a careful listener to find the melody, which then rewards that listener doubly.

Following that trio, the intro to the final song on the album, a vibrating electric guitar string, seemed sure to herald another lullaby to wrap things up. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“A Murder of One” struck me as a particularly witty title — a flock of crows being a ‘murder’, and a murder of one implying, besides the obvious, the loneliness of one when there should be more.

Counting Crows' 'August and Everything After'The vibrating string fades to a moment of silence, and then the entire band joins in the first crashing note of this moving, driving tune. Matt Malley’s bass is more prominent than I recall it on the rest of the album, Adam Duritz just a little more anguished, his timing even more impeccable than usual, but for me, the star of the musical part of the song is Steve Bowman’s drumming. Tight, hard, fast; he’s clearly using both hands, both feet, and his head to get that much rhythym and snap out of his kit. I was disappointed not to find him on the Crows’ second studio album, but such is life.

The title, far from being a simple bit of wit, is apropos to the lyrics about the anguish of seeing someone you care about in an abusive relationship, unable to escape because they don’t know anything else.

It also contains, in one verse, the children’s rhyme whence came the band’s name:

 I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there counting crows One for sorrow Two for joy Three for girls and four for boys Five for silver Six for gold and Seven for a secret never to be told

The momentum of the music and the intensity of the lyrics feed on each other to create an effect not unlike caffeine, every time I hear the song (thrice and more, just while I’ve been writing this.)

Huffamoose?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Huffamoose — just hearing the name, you know you’re in for something unusual. Along with the unusual comes some superior storytelling, and more than a little fun.

We've Been Had Again1997’s “We’ve Been Had Again”(a pretty obvious play on the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”) has two of the most touchingly romantic songs I know of, and one that’s pure unadulterated fun.

“Wait”, the first single from the album, is about dancing. You’ve heard plenty of songs about dancing that start out like “Wait”:

 move back just a little  let me watch your hips sway hold me  looser still  throw me like I'm wet clay

Well, except that last part. As the dance progresses, we know we’re enjoying ourselves, but it keeps getting stranger and stranger. I suspect you’ve not often heard dancing described as

 patterned prances secret glances of high strung tip toe fringe of a taut brown leather

before “Wait.” From the opening guitars, through Craig Elkins’ carefully unpolished vocals, back to the final splash of those guitars, it bounces and weaves around an intimate dance I hope you remember as well as I do.

“James” is the story of two young people who start out thinking that love is enough; James is going to change the world, she and James are going to make a difference; James

 is bigger than life he sees things he knows things he is not like you and me

but when they grow up, James

 still loves his music but he knows where his priorities lie He stepped on his dreams so many times and wore out the path he needed to take to find the life he thought would just happen to him like the changing of a season

and sometimes you know how he feels, trading his dreams for real life, and wondering where the dreams fit in, and if love really is enough. But she still loves him; still believes in him; I don’t think she cares if he changes the world or not.

Unusually melodic guitars (for Huffamoose, I mean) create a very 60s feeling that matches the lyrics perfectly. Oh; one other thing we’ve got in common: James is “never unhappy ’cause he never wears a watch.” You can’t argue with that logic.

More of those melodic guitars lead us into “I Want to Buy You a Ring.” The lyrics are assembled with a goofiness only possible from someone who’s addlepated from the overwhelming experience of falling in love. 

 It feels like nothing ever felt before It's a song and I wrote it about you I love you See? I told you I was good!

 But this is nothing like I thought it would be I'm scared all the time I'm afraid I'm gonna hurt you

and later,

 What a sorry song What a stupid idea . . . I write the songs that make the whole world think about absolutely nothing. I believe (I don't believe, I don't think 'believe' is strong enough, it's band-wagon jargon)

but the chorus transcends the silliness of the rest of the lyrics:

 I want to buy you a ring Maybe I'll make it myself Do you like rubies and diamonds and emeralds and gold and silver?

Even the 60s poptune backing vocals sound right at home, surrounded by the innocence of falling in love for the first time. I think that’s part of the appeal of “James” and “Buy You a Ring”; they both talk about love with a voice full of innocence and wonder.

Used Songs – Step Right Up

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

It’s typical of Tom Waits that his retrospective album compiled from his first six releases is called, not “Greatest Hits” but “Used Songs.”

Waits is a songwriter’s songwriter. The first track on his first album, “Ol’ ’55”, was also one of the earliest tracks recorded by the Eagles, on their Tom Waits' '1973-1980 Used Songs'top 20 debut album. Although Tom’s recording evince fine musicianship, one doesn’t listen to a Tom Waits album for the guitar playing. The first attraction is a desire to see whether it’s possible to sing an entire album in that unbelievably gravelly low voice. It’s not long until you’re so wrapped up in the stories he tells that even that remarkable voice is secondary to the tales it tells.

Waits’ songs seem to be populated from film noir, or in fact, from almost any old movie. Except, we rarely hear a complete story. Instead, we catch a snippet of conversation as we pass on the street; we overhear a private conversation in the next booth; we carry on a brief pointless conversation with a total stranger; never quite hearing the whole story, we still feel like these are real people, and that somehow they’re important to us. While many of his tunes display a ready wit, the sad songs never seem trite; they’re too simple and real to be dismissed so lightly.

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Warren Zevon Diagnosed with Inoperable Cancer

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Excitable Boy Warren Zevon, 55, (“Werewolves of London”, “Excitable Boy”, “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me”) was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer last month, according to a Reuters news release.

Zevon has collaborated with the Everly Brothers, R.E.M., and Jackson Browne, but his biting wit was best displayed in his solo works spanning the last 33 years. Warren is heading for the studio for a final recording session.

The same Reuters release says he will be “spending his remaining weeks with his two adult children, son Jordan and daughter Ariel.”

New York State of Mind

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

One year ago today, lives changed forever; some ended, some forever scarred, but at the same time, some began. Yes, there are children celebrating their first birthday today, because, in spite of the occasional madness in the world, life does indeed go on.

More than one of those who perished were men I consider brothers from a religious standpoint; not helpless victims, but voluntary victims — firefighters who, knowing they were risking their own lives, didn’t hestitate to enter the dual inferno to help others.

Music has a marvelous healing effect. There are some songs which I’ll always associate with the 11th of September. One tune which has seen a resurgence of appreciation is Billy Joel’s Billy Joel's 'Turnstiles'New York State of Mind.” The first time I heard it was 22 years ago; the last time I heard it was ten minutes ago as I was wending my way through the city streets to work here in beautiful southern California. Joel once commented that meeting Ray Charles was like meeting the Statue of Liberty. “New York State of Mind” always reminds me of the homage he pays to the great jazz artists, and the fact that he’s always done so without sacrificing his own style. It’s a wonderful song which carries just a little bit more meaning than it once did.