MARK LANEGAN

Mark Lanegan delves into a darkness beyond the blues

By Matt Ashare

Published: February 14, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2012/feb/14/mark-lanegan-delves-darkness-beyond-blues-ar-1689179/

Mark Lanegan Band, Blues Funeral (4AD)

DARK FORCE: Lanegan seduces with the force of a black hole

Mark Lanegan's voice is a deep, dark force of nature, more earthquake than hurricane, more thunder than lightening, more ominous than luminous. It's an instrument of blunt force that resonates with subtle aftershocks, rumbles portentously, and seduces with the irresistible force of a black hole. Lanegan's delivery has the power to imbue even the most playful nursery rhymes with sinister, apocalyptic undertones. He sounds like a guy who hasn't just seen into the abyss; he's looked it over, stared it down, and maybe even jumped right in.

       If there's a downside here, it's that Lanegan doesn't exactly have a lot of range, a failing that became apparent during the grunge heydays of the early ’90s, when the band he fronted, Screaming Trees, flirted with a kind of mainstream success. A product of the rural Northwest, the Trees had been toiling away as burly outsiders on the punk-oriented LA indie label SST for half a dozen years before they landed on Columbia at the height of the great surge of Seattle signings that hit in the wake of Nirvana's Nevermind breakthrough, and scored an alt-rock hit with "I Nearly Lost You," an emotionally wrought rocker that got a big boost from its inclusion on the soundtrack to the movie Singles. But the Trees simply weren't built for radio, alternative or otherwise. And, in 2000, Lanegan finally parted ways with the band to pursue a more modest solo career that he'd embarked on ten years earlier with The Winding Sheet, a spare, reflective, bluesy album that, among other highlights, featured Kurt Cobain singing and playing guitar on a cover of the very same Leadbelly classic Nirvana would later perform on their MTV "Unplugged" album, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night."

       As a solo artist, Lanegan seemed happy enough pursuing a kind of slow build toward something biblical, as his feet became more and more deeply entrenched in the fertile soil that lies at the crossroads where brooding rock meets deep blues. But Blues Funeral, his first solo disc since 2004's ironically titled Bubblegum, marks something of a great leap forward for Lanegan, both musically and moodfully. He's always done dark just about as well as anyone, with the kind of unimpeachable conviction you simply don't find with artists who only dress the part. But this time, you get the sense that he made a point of stepping outside of his comfort zone, of challenging himself to take that voice into alluring corners of the underworld he's never been entirely willing to explore on his own.

       Much of what makes Blues Funeral a creative breakthrough for Lanegan might be chalked up to the simple fact that he's been anything but idle since Bubblegum. By 2004, he'd already been an adjunct member of Josh Homme's Queens of the Stone Age for four years. And he continued lending vocal support to Queens’ albums up through 2007. In the meantime, he began collaborating with Scottish indie songstress Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian on a series of more folk-based albums. In 2007, the British electronica group Soulsavers retained Lanegan as their primary vocalist, and the following year he and former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli released their first collaborative album as the Gutter Twins. Oh, and Lanegan also found his way onto a track by British producer Jamie LaVelle's forward-looking project UNKLE in 2010.

       Dulli and Homme are two of the more notable players Lanegan put together for Blues Funeral. They round out a cast that includes original Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons and his Eleven bandmate, multi-instrumentalist/producer Alain Johannes. Their impact is felt immediately, as grinding guitars and a muscular beat frame Lanegan's funereal allusions in the album's aggressive opening track, "The Gravedigger's Song." "In my blood flows sleep," Lanegan intones, "And the dark heavy rain/The magnolia bloom so sweet/Only torturing me."

       The blues are still a touchstone here, but the skeletal acoustic sketches that typified Lanegan's early solo recordings have been replaced by fully plugged-in arrangements. Even when he heads back to the delta to call out to the lord in "Bleeding Muddy Water," he's joined there by guitars that surge until they reach a symphonic peak as Lanegan repeats "You are the bullet/You are the gun" like an unholy prayer. It's the kind of haunted, gothic Americana that Gun Club specialized in and Nick Cave has often aspired to.

       Blues Funeral is shot through with dark visages, grim titles ("St. Louis Elegy" and "Deep Black Vanishing Train," to name two), guitars that rain heavily on leaden lyrics like "If tears were liquor/I'd have drunk myself sick," and thundering drums. But Lanegan and his posse use a lighter touch on "Gray to Black," the closest approximation to a pop song this singer's put his stamp on since "I Nearly Lost You." And a programmed beat paired with icy synths takes Lanegan somewhere within the general region of clubland on "Ode to Sad Disco," a mournful, six minute-plus elegy that incorporates some spooky, reverb-drenched slide guitar and finds Lanegan on his knees, contemplating "subterranean eyes," the "hollow-headed morning," and a "diamond headed serpent."

So, yeah, Lanegan can be a little heavy handed with the gloom and the doom from time to time. But it never feels overly theatrical in the black-lipstick-and-mascara vein. It’s just what’s bred in his bones. And he’s also just plain good at it. 

PAUL WAGGENER

The country mettle of Lynchburg's Paul Waggener
by Matt Ashare
The Burg, February 8

It's not exactly difficult to suss out Paul Waggener's particular musical affiliation. Long, flowing black hair. Check. Torn and frayed black jeans. Check. Skull patches: Check. Full-sleeve runic tattoo's. Double check. So yeah, he's into metal. Or, as he puts it when we sit down over coffee and beer at the White Hart, "heavy, heavy metal," with a distinct emphasis on heavy.
    But there's more than meets the eye with Waggener, whose extreme metal trio Hunter's Ground are playing February 17th at the Coffin House in Roanoke and are gearing up to self-release a six-track CD titled No God But the Wild. Put an acoustic guitar in his hands, and you'll quickly discover that his affinity for outlaws extends well beyond Pantera and Motörhead, back to a cadre of characters who, in their day, infused classic country music with a real element of danger, from Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, to Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and one-time death-row inmate David Allan Coe. Indeed, he'll be delivering a heavy dose of Hank Sr. and the the Man in Black, as well as his own similarly styled songs and a few choice countrified metal numbers, when he plays solo this Friday, February 10, at Rivermont Pizza.
    Waggener was born and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, home to "Frontier Days," the largest rodeo in the world, and a mecca for country artists of all persuasions.  "All of the biggest country acts would show up for Frontier Days," Waggener recalls. "The town would double in size. Otherwise, it's 50 thousand people, it's flat, it's depressing, and all there is to do is drink, do drugs, and play music, which is what I did until I left."
    By the time Waggener departed Cheyenne for Lynchburg six years ago, he'd already gravitated toward the more intense fringes of the metal spectrum. And, while thrash-and-bang remains a primary passion, he's since discovered a parallel, and equally primal fondness for classic country. Just don't confuse the roots music in Waggener's songbook with the kinder, gentler, commercial fare Nashville's Music Row has been pumping out for the past few decades. Waggener views that brand of country with the same scorn those ranch hands in the Pace Picante ad have for the poor fella who gets his salsa from New York City. "It's mostly just guys from California with fake Southern accents," Waggener says with obvious contempt. "And, they're singing about stuff they've never seen or done."
   
Q: So, is the headline here "Anarchist metal dude plays country music"?
    That's pretty close. When I was a kid, we used to listen to all kinds of country music. Then, as I got older, I wanted something more extreme, so I started playing really, really heavy metal. And then you start to realize that a lot of the themes are pretty much the same in black metal and country — it's all outlaw stuff, and it's all really grim, really dark. It's about death and murder… And about relationships gone horribly horribly wrong, usually ending in murder. Hank Williams and Johnny Cash are two perfect examples of that, and those are the two guys I cover the most because of the content of the songs. Hank Sr. is by far my favorite, because it just doesn't get any grimmer than that. Even my originals tend to sound a lot like Hank Sr. I mean, with country, it's like why try to reinvent the wheel. It's already been done as well as it's ever going to be done. So I try to make my originals sound as authentic as possible. A lot of those classic songs draw on a lifestyle that I've completely lived and that I'm intimately familiar with. So it's easy to draw on my own experiences when I'm writing songs.

Q: What are some of your songs, and what kind of experiences are you drawing on?
    "Black Magic and Moonshine" is one of my new ones. And I've got one called "Sorry To Let You Down." You know, real upbeat themes. It's the same topics and subject matter as the classic outlaw guys. I just put my own personal twist on the lyrics. Some of my songs have heavy devilry and occult overtones. But it's all done in the that old-school country music fashion. And, I have a song about meth, because that was big around where I grew up in Cheyenne. I mean, I watched people completely ruin their lives on meth. Just growing up there and seeing a lot of crazy, crazy situations…that's where a lot of my writing and music comes from. It's pure country gold. People may not pick up on it because what they hear is this really twangy old-school kind of country. It's just got lyrics that shouldn't be in there because you could never have gotten away with that back when Hank Sr. was alive.

Q: Hank's grandson, Hank III, does straight county and metal live and he's also done albums that are half and half. Have you ever considered doing something along those lines?
    The problem is that the places that I play the country stuff, you really can't do metal. And at the places the metal band plays, the kids don't really want to hear country music. But I think Hank III really has opened up a lot of metal kids to country. So I am going to record a five-track country demo and then a full-length that I want to call "Apocalypse County and Armageddon Blues." It's going to be ambient reverb-soaked country with big doomy electric guitars. I want it to be different and little bit original. But the great thing about that real classic kind of country music is there's a venue for it everywhere. I can walk into just about any bar in any city, set up and play a two hour set for $200. I'm going to try to do a lot of that this summer — just set up a mini tour circuit for myself. I'd love to be a point where I can just play like one show a week... and not have to have a day job.
http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2012/feb/08/country-mettle-lynchburgs-paul-waggener-ar-1673278/

THE GRAMMYS

Adele, Bon Iver, and Jay-Z Get Their Night at the Grammys

by Matt Ashare The Burg, February 8

Can Justin Vernon as Bon Iver be this year's Arcade Fire?

Once upon a time, there may have actually been a certain logic to the Grammys. Back when the record business was fairly well centralized, radio was the dominant medium for song consumption, and a defined notion of what constituted the pop mainstream existed, it presented an opportunity for the organization that runs the awards — the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) — to put its best face, or faces, forward. And, as with the Oscars, there was a measure of predictability when it came to who got the big nominations. But those days are long past. And nothing in recent memory illustrated that more vividly than the closing moments of last year's 53rd annual Grammy Awards show, when an unconventional indie-rock band from Toronto, the Arcade Fire, beat out multi-platinum rapper Eminem, pop princess Katy Perry, and a pair of Ladies — Antebellum and Gaga — for Album of the Year, on a night when tween sensation Justin Bieber was mercifully upset by jazz artist Esperanza Spalding in the Best New Artist category.

         So, yes, in spite of expected multiple wins by marquee stars (Eminem, Jay-Z, John Legend, and the above mentioned Ladies), as well as a few respectful nods in the direction of legacy artists (Paul McCartney and Neil Young), it was something of a watershed moment for an institution that hasn't always had a particularly good reputation for keeping up with the times. After all, the Grammys were famously slow on the uptake with hip-hop. And NARAS has endured some rather shameful moments in the past couple decades: a depleted Jethro Tull beating out Metallica for Best Hard Rock/Metal honors in 1989; Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" losing to professor Eric Clapton's MTV unplugged recording of "Layla" for Best Rock Song in ‘92; and Steely Dan's Two Against Nature prevailing over Radiohead's OK Computer and Eminem's admittedly controversial The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000.

         All of which has made handicapping the 54th Grammys, which air this Sunday night on CBS, something of a crap shoot. Will the Arcade Fire win of 2011 truly mark the start of a trend? Or will NARAS voters, cowed by angry Bieberheads, take a more measured, conservative approach when they cast their ballots? On the surface, at least, the list of nominees suggests it could go either way.

         Not surprisingly, rap superstar Kanye West goes into the night as an odds-on favorite with seven nominations. Then again, Eminem had a full ten last year, and only walked away with two. It should also be noted, with appropriate bemusement, that Kanye's in the paradoxical position of being up against himself for Best Rap Album, with his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sparring with his Jay-Z collab Watch the Throne for Rap Album of the Year. (Unless I've got the math wrong, that means the most he can win is six.) Of course, Kanye's got a bit of a checkered past when it comes to awards shows (see: Taylor Swift), and, for all of his obvious talent and industry power, he is not quite the kind of role model NARAS tends to prefer. So don't be surprised if, like Eminem, he only comes away with a pair of victories.

         If there is anything close to a sure bet this year, it's gotta be British soulstress Adele, a critic's darling with a clean record, six nominations, and the right profile to be a Grammy poster girl. Her 21 may very well leave Lady Gaga high and dry in the Album of the Year category for the second year running. But thanks to some major changes in some major categories, Adele's going to face stiff competition not just from Lady Gaga, but also from seasoned songwriter-turned-pop star Bruno Mars in a category like Best Pop Solo Performance because this year NARAS has done away with separate slates for male and female artists. And Mars, along with the alt-rocking Foo Fighters, also has six nominations.

         But the most intriguing prospect for the kind shock and awe the Arcade Fire brought to last year's show comes by way of another indie upstart, the artist known as Bon Iver (a/k/a Justin Vernon). Vernon is in the running for four Grammys — Best Song, Best Record, Best New Artist, and Best Alternative Album. It's a long shot, but if Adele and Mars split the pop vote for Best Song, Bon Iver's "Holocene" could come out on top. And since Vernon wrote "Holocene" himself, the same could happen in the Best Record category. He's got the curvaceous Nicki Minaj to contend with if he's to take Best New Artist. And he's up against Radiohead's King of Limbs for Best Alternative Album, although Radiohead have got other opportunities (Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song).

         Which leads me to some of the more perplexing aspects of this year's Grammy nominations — yes, more perplexing than the distinction between Best Record and Best Album. What makes Radiohead more "alternative" than Wilco, whose The Whole Love is stuck in Best Rock Album with Jeff Beck's Rock 'n' Roll Party Honoring Les Paul (seriously?), as well as discs by Foo Fighters and the Red Hot Chili Peppers? If Beck's disc wins that one, it may amount to another Jethro Tull oops. It's also unfortunate that the Black Keys, who released the best album of their career last year, have to compete with a collaboration between the legendary Tony Bennett and the late Amy Winehouse in Best Pop Duo/Performance. I mean, really, do the Black Keys as a pop duo? And, while I had been hoping that the Decemberists might enjoy a much deserved Arcade Fire moment this year, that's just not the way it's looking to pan out. They got some props — Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for "Down By the Water." And maybe they'll best Coldplay, Foo Fighters, and Radiohead in one of the two. But, as Sunday approaches, I beginning to think NARAS could do worse than asking the Arcade Fire back for a reprise of last year's closing credits.

LEONARD COHEN

The gospel according to Leonard Cohen

by Matt Ashare

Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas (Columbia)

Leonard Cohen is unquestionably — and unabashedly — one of the stranger dudes to ever have sustained a musical career in the modern era. Sure, Dylan's eccentric, at times aggressively so. And there are plenty of oddballs who have gotten their 15 minutes over the past half-century. But Cohen has single-mindedly taken unconventional to a whole new level in his five-plus decades as a recording artist and performer.

       He alludes to as much in the opening verse of the portentous "Going Home," the first song on Old Ideas, his 12th proper studio album since he was first signed by the legendary Columbia A&R talent scout and producer John Hammond amid the flurry of the ’60s folk revival. "I Love to speak with Leonard/He's a sportsman and a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard/Living in a suit," he half-sings/half-whispers in that immediately recognizable cracked baritone that remains one of his many distinctive, if somewhat difficult, qualities — a sagacious voice that paradoxically manages to convey a sense of both genuine intimacy and cool detachment. Buoyed by little more than a few quiet organ chords, a choir of women's voices, and intermittent string embellishments, he continues what amounts to an internal monologue, intoning, "He will speak these words of wisdom/Like a sage, a man of vision/Though he knows he's really nothing/But the brief elaboration of a tube."

       That's Leonard Cohen in a nutshell: a suit-and-tied prophet of verse, confronting mortality, contemplating the dark depths of the soul, straining against the vicissitudes of life, embracing with wry wit his own unorthodoxy, finding humor and a kind of agnostic salvation in deceptively simple rhymes. It's what he's been, and it's what he remains on Old Ideas, a title that may indeed reflect his own realization that, to a large degree, he's still tackling many of the same themes — love, sex, religion, obsession, depression — that have marked his songwriting since his first album, 1967's Songs of Leonard Cohen.

       Perhaps it was merely an accident of timing that Cohen has typically been cast among the folk luminaries who came of age in the turbulent ’60s. But Cohen was already an anomaly when he joined Dylan, Joan Baez, and their cohort in NYC. For starters, the now 77-year old Cohen grew up in the pre-rock and roll days of big-band jazz, beat poets, and Sinatra crooners. And he'd already established himself as a promising young writer of fiction and poetry before he embarked as a singer-songwriter. So it's not entirely surprising that he took a somewhat skewed approach to folk, or that, despite his many accolades (a Grammy lifetime achievement award, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, etc. . .), he’s always been a commercial outsider.

       But, if success can be measured by the number of other artists who have covered your songs, Cohen's career has been a triumph. From Judy Collins' 1966 version of "Suzanne," to the late Jeff Buckley's hymnotic reinterpretation of "Hallelujah," the Cohen songbook has been cherry picked by dozens upon dozens of performers from nearly every corner of the musical map. There are three Leonard Cohen tribute albums, featuring performers as diverse as R.E.M., U2, Nick Cave, the Pixies, Suzanne Vega, and Peter Gabriel. And, if you listen closely to Nirvana's "Pennyroyal Tea," you'll hear Kurt Cobain make this reference: "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally.”

       The cult of Cohen simply endures. As does his timeless talent. There are echoes on Old Ideas of his folksinger days, most notably the fingerpicked acoustic tune "Crazy to Love You," a meditation on lost love that reaches the level of spiritual allegory when Cohen gently rasps, "I'm tired of choosing desire/Been saved by a sweet fatigue/The gates of commitment unwired/And nobody's trying to leave."

       Elsewhere, Old Ideas is shot through with gospel inflections, both in the musical arrangements and lyrics. The pitch-perfect female background harmonies that play call-and-response with Cohen’s gruff pronouncements on "Amen"; lines like "Show me the place where the Word became a man"; and the blues structure that underpins the aptly titled "Darkness," with its smooth groove, organ soloing, and, again, those gorgeous background vocals, all conjure images of the church — the Church of Leonard Cohen.

       And yet, Cohen is uniquely adept at sermonizing without resorting to the dogma of preaching. “Oh let the heavens hear it/The penitential hymn,” he proclaims in “Come Healing,” one of the sparest and most affecting tracks on the album, “Come healing of the spirit/Come healing of the limb/Behold the gates of mercy/In arbitrary space/And none of us deserving/The cruelty or the grace.” It’s one of those quiet, reflective moments with the power to make you stop and listen beyond the strangeness of Cohen’s voice. And then, as with so many of the songs here, you just might want to go back and hear it again. 

http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2012/feb/01/gospel-according-leonard-cohen-ar-1656036/