Category: rock

FAWM Over. We Win.

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

February Album Writing Month is officially over for 2009. And I officially won.

Which means I wrote or co-wrote at least 14 songs during the 28 days of February. (You’ll see on my FAWM profile that it lists 19; it’s actually only 18 because one is listed twice but I don’t want to lose the comments on my original post.)

This year I discovered the double harmonic scale, which makes everything you play sound all Arabian Night-ish. I wrote two Arabic-sounding songs (my most ambitious musical endeavours to date) and collaborated on another.

I wrote a German drinking song. In German.

I wrote a Mexican dance song. In Spanish.

I played a jazz guitar improvisation, my first guitar improvisation ever.

I did my first FAWM music video.

I also did, as I have every year, some country, some folk, and some swingabilly.

And now, I’m tired.

Goodnight, Elisabeth

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

T[az]B000000OVA[/az]hat would be Elisabeth with an ‘s’ in case you didn’t catch that. (No, it’s not really pronounced differently, but we liked how it looks, and the Little One’s other middle name is ‘Rose’, another word pronounced like it’s spelt with a ‘z’ when it’s not.)

Recovering the Satellites isn’t as even as August and Everything After; it’s louder, too. But when I’m in the mood it works quite well, and it’s got two of my four favorite Counting Crows songs.

Elisabeth is a wistful song. Of course, lyrically, it’s hard to say what it’s ‘about’, but it’s wistful. Helped to a large degree by new guitarist Dan Vickrey’s flawless solo. (Massive digression: Is it Vickrey? David Bryson was also playing guitar at the time, and Bryson also plays dobro; the solo sounds very much like how a dobro player would approach an electric guitar . . . ah, well; liner notes fail once again to provide enough detail.)

So many guitar players confuse intensity with volume or speed. Not this time. Only 8 bars, 30 seconds, but it’s achingly intensely heartfelt without being loud or fast. Only a few notes, really, but each one is adding to the conversation. Subtlety; that’s what’s missing in most rock guitar. Not this time.

Paranoia in Bb Major

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

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&lt1=_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’ll Be Your Lover, Too

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

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.

Met Two New Bands in Jerome

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Wandered into the hotel’s bar during the CD release party for ‘Los Guys’ who could have a better name, but sounded like Jackopierce and the Jayhawks. Good Americana originals. They all signed the CD. Their bass player was playing a Fender Resonator bass (which, for you musical non-geeks, makes as much sense as saying he was playing Einstein’s gas-engined Mona Lisa.) I didn’t know they existed, but it turns out they made a handful five years ago. It sounded spectacular and when he let me play it it was gorgeous. Of course, the only place I can find one new it’s up to $1,000 and there are no used ones left out there.

Also heard a band called ‘Cadillac Angels’ doing rockabilly covers and lots of originals. Loads of fun; great sound for a trio. Tony Balbinot plays a lovely Gretsch White Falcon like Neil Young’s, but he doesn’t play it like Neil does. Made me desperately want to put together a swingabilly band again.

Stuck in the Middle of Stealers Wheel

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[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?

Little Debbie, Little Debbie

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Twang should be a genre all to itself. I’m a sucker for twang. Play way back by the bridge, turn the reverb up to some kind of tape-slap setting, and it might not even matter what the words are.

Of course, if the words are about oatmeal pies, pointy boots, quarters and Little Debbie, that’s just fine, too.

I blame Southern Culture on the Skids (SCOTS) for psychobilly; rockabilly was usually pretty friendly and happy. SCOTS took it to the edge, and many have taken it right over. None for me, thank you. I like my musical energy to be positive.

“Walk Like a Camel” is just plain silly, if you squint your ears and block out external nonsense. Of course, Little Debbie’s ‘special outfit’ probably isn’t a flannel sleeper, but at least there’s nothing here requiring explanation to the four-year-old.

Yet.

Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[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.

Robert Palmer probably wasn’t as influential as he should have been, though he lived almost a quarter-century longer than Bolan.

Like a Mattress Balances on a Bottle of Wine

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

I[az]B00026WU8M&[/az] have managed to go an entire year without writing about Bob Dylan. I managed to go 40 years without hearing Blonde on Blonde, other than the bits played on the radio.

I’ve written about Dylan’s word play in an earlier post. The lyrics of Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat aren’t as disorienting as, for instance, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (on the same album, but ooh I love the live version on Hard Rain.) But it’s still Dylan. Not quite nonsense, but certainly not sensible.

I can’t hear the second verse without laughing:

 Well, you look so pretty in it Honey, can I jump on it sometime? Yes, I just wanna see If it's really that expensive kind You know it balances on your head Just like a mattress balances On a bottle of wine Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

[az]B0012GMUP4[/az]A traditional 12-bar blues, it opens with Dylan himself playing a lead of sorts. It reminds me why Robbie Robertson played all the other leads on the song. Kenny Buttrey’s drumming is very non-traditional; cymbal accents in jazzy places a straight blues player might not have thought of, and an almost burlesque kick drum roll at the end of each chorus-less verse. The Wikipedia article talks about the near-agony of getting a final version recorded.

It all finishes up, lyrically, with a poke at her new boyfriend:

 You might think he loves you for your money But I know what he really loves you for It's your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

Makes me want one of my very own.

Blown to Smithereens

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[az]B000002TUJ[/az]I had forgotten how very much I like jumping up and down to nearly everything The Smithereens have done. Pure simple crunchy rock, the way folks did it way back in the 60s.

Watching Pat DiNizio play the guitar, it doesn’t even look like he’s trying, belying the enormous sounds that result. Though so many of the songs have desperately sad lyrics, Pat always sounds so hopeful, as if somehow, some way, it’s all gonna be okay.

 Maybe I won't be afraid to love somebody new Maybe I can open up my heart Then I won't drown in my own tears

(The chorus of ‘Drown in My Own Tears’)

See? It has a happy ending. (Okay, you probably have to hear the song to get the feel.)

Okay, how about this, then?

 Now she held a bass guitar and she was playin' in a band And she stood just like Bill Wyman; now I am her biggest fan

(from ‘Behind a Wall of Sleep’)

[az]B000025YLP[/az]Quite a few of their hits open with a very Beatle-esque guitar riff. DiNizio makes no secret of his love for the Fab Four’s music—Smithereens have covered the Beatles’ entire first album. The riff in Only a Memory sounds like the riff from I Want to Tell You but phrased a little differently. The similarities are clearly homage, not theft.

Two special favorites from Blown to Smithereens—Behind a Wall of Sleep and Drown in My Own Tears. ‘Drown’ hit the radio at a time when I thought I would do exactly that; ah, the happy memories of being a teenager. (Isn’t it wonderful that we only suffer through that age once?) And ‘Sleep’—how can I not love a song about a beautiful bass-playing girl?

This is happy music, despite the lyrics. I can’t not have fun listening to Blown to Smithereens (usually, just a little too loud.)