I trust that everyonehad a nice Record Store Day yesterday? Good. I enjoyed mine as well, thank you for asking.
Some previous commitments kept me out of the stores until very late in the day. Because of this, I wasn’t able to complete a full trip around “The Circuit” like I had hoped, but I was still able to drop into two or three of my favorite shops and perform a customary flip through the bins. It was Red Onion Records & Books that had me reaching for my wallet on this particular day. I somewhat randomly settled on the selections below, though I easily could have doubled my pile and then some. It’s maybe a good thing that I no longer live within walking distance of this fine establishment.
Nilsson, Aerial Ballet
Harry Nilsson’s second album, released in 1968. This is an original issue and is fantastic shape. I’ve had a cd copy of Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, which is an odd studio amalgam of Nilsson’s first two albums Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet (confused yet?), but have always been curious to hear the original albums themselves. Fact: there isn’t anybody on this earth who doesn’t enjoy Harry’s wonderful rendition of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’”.
Video: Harry Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin’” (1969)
XTC, White Music and Drums and Wires
I’m not entirely sure why I finally opted to buy two of XTC’s first three records on this day. These records are hardly rare; in fact they are practically fixtures in the used bins. And why did I opt for the bookends White Music and Drums and Wires, but passed on the released in-between Go2? It could be because Ivan played “Statue of Liberty” at the last Heavywax and it sounded downright revelatory. At any rate, I’ve always considered myself more of a Skylarking/Oranges & Lemons/Dukes of Stratosphear XTC-fan, but that was more out of ignorance than an actual educated preference. I look forward to finally exploring their earlier, new-wave roots.
Video: XTC, “Statue of Liberty “(Live, Old Grey Whistle Test, 1978)
I’ll spare you my theory on how My Morning Jacket is the modern day equivalent to a mid to late 80’s R.E.M. and instead point you towards a download of a track from what’s shaping up to be the year’s most anticipated release. It seems like ions since I saw MMJ play a sparsely attended, yet defiantly convincing set at the dearly(?) departed Metro Cafe. Nevermind that though; after all, “we now live in the 90’s”. Ahem.
A brief break from the musical content to plug something that is certainly near and dear to our hearts: tomorrow, Saturday April 19th is Record Store Day (formerly defined in these parts as “every Tuesday”).
It’s no secret that the record store is an endangered species. You don’t need a blog to tell you that fewer and fewer people are buying actual LP’s and compact discs. MP3’s have their good and bad qualities, but there are still those of us who remain happily stuck in the middle ages. Our computers will never replace our stereos and those digital files will never take the place of a beautiful slab of vinyl. I’m veering into soapbox territory here, so maybe I should stop.
At any rate, should you wish to participate in this special event and you live in the DC area, listed below are some of the fine establishments, all locally owned, that deserve and appreciate your custom.
The following stores comprise what I affectionately call “The Circuit”; they are all easily accessible from each other by foot and each offer their own unique reasons for visitng. For vinyl lovers, nothing beats a lazy Saturday afternoon stroll/pillage through The Circuit.
Crooked Beat :: www.crookedbeat.com
2318 18th Street, NW, WDC
(free grab bags for the first 50 paying customers; one grab bag will contain a $20 gift certificate)
Smash! :: www.smashrecords.com
2314 18th Street, NW, WDC
(10% off all music sales this Saturday)
DJ Hut :: www.djhut.com
2010 P Street, NW, WDC (10% of all vinyl & cd’s and a raffle to win a Numark portable turntable)
Vinyl freaks looking for treasures that are off the beaten path are advised to find their way to the following:
Orpheus Records :: www.orpheusrecords.com
3173 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA
(currently in the midst of a going-out-of-business sale, with deep discounts of up to 50% )
Still buying cd’s? Me too. You don’t have to give your dollars to Best Buy, Barnes and Noble or Borders. The following stores all continue to offer great selections:
In addition to REM’s Accelerate, last week also marked the release of Sun Kil Moon’s third full length album, April. Other than its release date, this album shares absolutely nothing in common with the album that debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 (and topped the charts throughout Europe). While Accelerate is a loud, in-your-face, brash affair, April is a contemplative mood piece. Accelerate clocks in at less than 35 minutes, while April paces itself for a staggering 74+ minutes. In other words, it’s business as usual for Mark Kozelek, the man who has been releasing some of the most consistent and beautifully sad music since 1992, initially with his first band the Red House Painters, briefly under his own name and now with Sun Kil Moon. (Band names are largely inconsequential when discussing Kozelek’s music, as these albums could just as easily be considered solo affairs.)
April follows up 2005’s Tiny Cities, Kozelek’s album comprised entirely of Modest Mouse covers. Kozelek has always had a knack for unlikely cover choices (AC/DC, the Cars, Yes, the Star Spangled Banner), but he’s never failed to make a song sound uniquely his own. That said, April is a return to entirely original compositions and in that sense is the natural successor to the first album under the Sun Kil Moon moniker, 2003’s uniformly excellent Ghosts of the Great Highway.
April is a fairly demanding listen. It’s not challenging or confrontational, but rather is the kind of album that requires a kind of immersion. Kozelek often writes the kind of song that can ease along a level plane for upwards of 7 or 8 minutes. If you don’t pay attention, you might just miss it. It’s a style that certainly reveals the massive influence of Neil Young. Like Neil, Kozelek is as at home plugging in and leading an epic Crazy Horse-like plod as he is quietly fingerpicking an acoustic (adequately displayed in the selections below). One might go as far as to say that an appreciation for Shakey might just be a required prerequisite for Sun Kil Moon.
April might not be the equal to Ghosts of the Great Highway, the album that would certainly serve as the best introduction to Kozelek’s rich discography, but it’s steeped in much of the same unshakable sepia-toned beauty. It’s a grower for certain.
Sun Kil Moon, April (Caldo Verde, 2008, Purchase Here)
It’s a big day here at REV HQ as one of our favorite bands has released a brand new record. Accelerate is REM’s 14th studio album and the party line seems to indicate that it is the much ballyhooed “return to form” effort. Read all the reviews and the pre-release hype and you’ll get pretty much the same arc: for those of you who took a sabbatical from the band the last few years, while they figured out how to carry on without drummer Bill Berry and released a string of mediocre, inconsequential records, it’s finally safe to come back. Recent interviews with Michael Stipe and Peter Buck even have the band members themselves somewhat owning up to the relative shortcomings of their recent recorded output.
So Accelerate is touted to be the record where REM have regained their focus. But is it?
Perhaps I’m not the best person to answer that question, as I actually swim against the critical tide (and apparently to a certain degree the band themselves) in regards Accelerate’s most immediate predecessors. I actually would rank the band’s first post-Berry album, 1998’s Up, among their very best. I find 2001’s Reveal to be a fascinating exercise in the art of studio-as-an-instrument. And I’ll admit it: I really enjoyed 2004’s Around The Sun. Ok…so I can’t adequately refute any of the common criticisms levied against ATS; much of the album does in fact sound like a band sleepwalking and forgetting its identity. But I think it’s more a matter of unfortunate production and arrangement choices. The songs are actually there; the guys just had a few bad days at work. We’ve all had those, right?
So, once again, I’m probably not the person to ask if you want an honest assesment of whether or not Accelerate succeeds in making REM “relevant” again. The fact is I know I’m going to listen to this album until I find things to appreciate and enjoy, much as I did with Around The Sun. The only question really is how long this will take and what role this album will ultimately serve in what is one of my most favorite musical legacies.What follows now are my earliest impressions of Accelerate, having now finally heard the album from beginning to end for the first time.
As much as it pains me to admit, I must parrot the partyline to certain degree: there *is* an intangible quality to the album that gives it a much more urgent and, for lack of a better word, living quality. The sound is of a band renewed and full of energy. Uptempo rockers rule the roost here, with Peter Buck’s guitars pushed deeper into the red than ever before. If there is an antecedent in the band’s catalog, it’s in the louder, faster moments from 1996’s New Adventures In Hifi (ie, “Wake Up Bomb”, “Bittersweet Me”, “So Numb, So Fast”, “Binky the Doormat”)– no real surprise as the band’s relatively fast working methods for Accelerate most closely resemble the written-on-tour/recorded-at-soundcheck approach taken with New Adventures.
Further kindreds can certainly be found in the more recent pair of new songs recorded for 2003’s best of compilation In Time, “Bad Day” and “Animal”. (One wonders, by the way, how Around The Sun might have fared with the caffiene-injection of those two songs?)
If I anticipate any potential pitfalls with Accelerate it’s that many of its most memorable and immediately noteworthy moments seem to simply recall earlier, more storied moments in the band’s career. There’s a fear that in the band’s effort to “return to form” they may have found themselves on a bit of a treadmill. That certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but say this for Up, Reveal and Around The Sun: at least there was an effort, at times considerable, to push the band into new realms and sonic territory. Accelerate sounds like a band retreating safely to its comfort zone.
For now though I am going to push those fears and reservations aside and simply enjoy the process of getting to know a new batch of songs from one of my favorite bands. I’ll share with you my two immediate, first-spin favorites.
“Mr. Richards” is perhaps the album’s most melodic moment. Imagine Green’s “Turn You Inside Out” (see what I mean?) recast with Beatlesque melodies. Then there’s “Horse To Water”, a song that sounds like it may have been written two minutes before it was recorded and sounds all the better for it. It’s as close to 70’s NYC punk as REM has ever sounded. I also like to think that Stipe’s venemous lyrics are addressed to the recent critics of the band, those who have the gall to tell the band what type of album they *should* be making. “I am not that easy, I am not your horse to water…”
In honor of Martin Scorsese’s soon to be released Rolling Stones performance film/documentary, Shine A Light, let’s take a moment to appreciate one of the band’s most often overlooked gems.
Actually, as the sleeve above indicates, this song, while credited to Jaggers/Richards, was released as a Mick Jagger solo single in 1970 to coincide with the release of the film Performance, in which Jaggers co-starred as a past-his-prime rock star who gives safe harbor to a gangster on the run.
As a matter of fact, Jaggers may be the only Stone featured in this particular recording. Legend has it that Keef refused to participate as a sign of his displeasure that Mick’s love scenes in the film with his then girlfriend Anita Pallenberg were a little too, ummm, realistic. Instead, you have some very tasty slide guitar work from none other than Ry Cooder. Production comes courtesy of the legendary Jack Nitzsche.
An earlier, unfinished version of “Memo From Turner” actually featuring the Stones later appeared on the band’s odd’n’sods collection Metamorphasis. Anyone heard that version?
(Note to self: must add Performance to Netflix queue.)
My prior knowledge of Goldfrapp is fairly limited. My broad impression was of a band that specialized in the kind of disco-glam anthems likely to soundtrack your next visit to The Gap. How was I to know they were as capable at making music for headphones as they were for dancefloors?
Seventh Tree is the English duo’s fourth album. I’d read some fairly rapturous reviews of the album that tossed around words like “folky”, “pastoral” and “psychedelic” — words that on their own don’t necessarily merit an investigation, but when used in conjunction certainly make me take notice. While the album isn’t quite as dusty or rustic as I perhaps was lead to believe, it does deliver a captivating listen on its own terms.
For this album, the band gives the backbeats a break, instead offering up a sonic signature that places an emphasis on warm washes of analogue synths, occasional finger picked acoustic guitar and some sweeping string arrangements that at times feel borrowed from a Nick Drake record. Of course, the real star of the show here is singer Alison Goldfrapp, who has a dynamic range that calls to mind Kate Bush.
Much of Seventh Tree floats out of the speakers pleasantly enough, but the album is peppered with occasional highlights. “Little Bird” spends its first half prettily trading in the album’s primary colors, but explodes and builds to a climax that sounds roughly like what would happen if a Hofner bass-weilding Paul McCartney crashed a Cocteau Twins session. “Cologne Cerrone Houdini” see’s Goldfrapp auditioning to be the next Bond girl. And “Caravan Girl” has some serious hit potential, the album’s most upbeat moment that reminds me of Saint Etienne’s high water mark, Good Humour.
The one I’m really stuck on though is “A&E”, the album’s first single. It’s a poignant “Drugs Don’t Work” lament, coming across like Pulp’s “Sorted For E’s & Wizz”, if it were written by Jarvis Cocker’s neurotic sister. It also features one of the more memorable videos I’ve seen in a long time.
If you frequent any of the music blogs then you have likely already read the latest news sure to send shockwaves across the music industry.
Just yesterday evening, the Raconteurs announced via their web site and Myspace page, that they would soon be releasing a recently completed record. To put a finer point on it: they finished the new record, titled Consolers of the Lonely, the first week of March and it will actually be in stores (as well as available for download at all the major outlets and the band’s web site) next week.
From the band’s press release:
“The album was mastered and completed in the first week of March. It was then taken immediately to a vinyl pressing plant. Then to a CD pressing plant. Then preparations to sell it digitally began. March 25th became the soonest date to have it available in EVERY FORMAT AT ONCE. The band have done no interviews or advertisements for this record before this announcement.”
The band then go on to claim that while they will likely be suffering a bit of a hit in terms of the all-important first week sales, their desire to get the record in everybody’s hands at the same time trumps any commercial concerns. As if all of that is not enough, they will be debuting a video on their web site on March 25th as well.
The logistics of this are kind of amazing. Though we here at RitH are big fans of Brendan Benson, we never really latched on to the White Stripes and subsequently never bothered with the Raconteurs’ first release. Regardless of whether or not we revisit that decision (possible), or decide to take the plunge on album number two (likely), on some level we must now consider ourselves fans of the Raconteurs. It’s such an admirable gambit, one that ups the ante from In Rainbows certainly and throws down a gauntlet that I know at least one person should appreciate.
Then today news came that Gnarls Barkley will be bumping up the release of their second album, The Odd Couple, from April 1 to…ummm, today. The album is now available for download from all of the major outlets and will be in the traditional brick and mortars this week. Not quite as impressive as what the Raconteurs are pulling off, but pretty cool nonetheless.
As with the Raconteurs, we missed the boat on Gnarls Barkley’s first album and weren’t necessarily planning on applying for any late passes here. But respect is due. Today at least we are fans in spirit.
Of course the cynical view here is that these are both attempts to minimize the risk and/or damage of pre-release leaks. In the Raconteurs’ case, they most assuredly won’t have to worry about the cat getting out of the bag, but the Gnarls Barkley album has apparently already leaked. If that in fact is the motivation, more power to them. Artists have every right to ensure that their works are distributed in the manner they fully intend.
Will the rush to release strategy earn these artists higher sales? That, of course, remains to be seen. One thing is for certain: two high profile releases just became even higher profile. Is all of this enough to upset the apple cart that is the broken music industry? Again, the outlook is murky. But it represents a trend that this music consumer certainly applauds.
Update: Now I’m reading rumors that Elvis Costello will be releasing a vinyl-only new album on April 22nd! Sounds cool to me…and maybe goes some way towards serving as penance for the recent unnecessary rash of reissues.
Tonight marks the return of HEAVYWAX, our monthly vinyl-only dj event, co-hosted by ivaner.
Ivaner can’t be with us this evening, as he is traveling somewhere in the southern hemisphere, but I’ve asked our good friend Les, aka The Pin Striped Rebel, to help out in his absence. I’m excited to hear what gems Les has to offer. And, being the newcomer that I am, I’m hoping to get a few spinnin’ tips from a seasoned pro, to boot. Should be a fun night. For me. Hopefully for you too!
Come join!
/////////////// HEAVYWAX
/////////////// WHEN: Friday, March 14, 9:30PM-2:30AM
/////////////// WHERE: The Hotel Bar (Upstairs), The Rock & Roll Hotel, 1353 H Street, NE, WDC
/////////////// NO COVER
HEAVYWAX occurs monthly, every second Friday, at the Rock& Roll Hotel.
"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Martin Mull, Elvis Costello, Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa or Thelonious Monk- choose your favorite reported source.
Nilsson, Aerial Ballet
XTC, White Music and Drums and Wires
