HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST

DRESSED TO THRILL

Getting into character for Halloween

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: October 31, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment

Lux Interior and Poison Ivy of the Carmps

Maybe I'm just suffering from zombie fatigue. Or, perhaps, I've just been starting to feel that the overload of supernatural slasher films that crowd cable movie channels in the weeks leading up to All Hallows Eve has reached a tipping point — one in which Freddy Krueger's nightmares on Elm Street have become as annoyingly, even cloyingly routine as the pre-Christmas television blitz of Jimmy Stewart's "It's A Wonderful Life," an otherworldly allegory of quite a different sort. Or, it could just be that among the folks I'm connected with on Facebook, there seem to be quite a few more folks dressing up as women in binders than ghoully grrrrls this election year.

       In any case, while I'm happy to concede that there have been plenty of scary monsters and super creeps over the years – from the lipsticked glam dudes of the ‘70s, to arch goths like Bauhaus, to monsters of metal mayhem like the traveling freak show that is GWAR – rock and roll has really always been about playing dress-up in one form or another, going all the way back to Elvis' rockabilly quaff. After all, John Fogerty wasn't really born on the bayou (he was a Berkeley boy, as in Northern California): He just did his best to look and sound like he was. And, when Pearl Jam's manager suggested that they were a band with "no image" in the early days of grunge, he was rightly reminded that no image is indeed an image.

       With all of that in mind, I've done my best to opt out of the usual monster mashes for this year's Halloween. Instead, I went looking for more playfully eclectic playlist of bands and artists who, at various points in their careers, found unique ways to complement their music with the sort of stylized attire that continues to tweak my appreciation for the tricks and treats of rock-and-roll pageantry. As is so often the case, this is just the tip an iceberg that arguably encompasses anyone who's ever taken the stage, as John and Paul surely knew even in their pre-Sgt Pepper incarnation as the suit-and-tied Fab Four. And, ultimately, that's really sort of the point.

1) Rasputina, "Transylvanian Concubine"

       In 1996, this trio of female cellists dolled up in Victorian-era corsets and lace made a minor splash with "Thanks for the Ether," a strangely alluring debut that incorporated spoken-word reveries and classically-tinged songs encompassed everything from Shakespeare ("Dig Ophelia") to Howard Hughes. This track, the disc's de-facto single, set distorted cellos and some poetic versifying that could have come straight outta an Anne Rice novel to an incessant beat. It actually caught the ear of Kurt Cobain, who had them open for Nirvana, and Marilyn Manson, who did a darker remix of the song for the 1997 EP "Transylvanian Regurgitations." Still, I mostly remember Rasputina for the clothes.

Dresden Dolls' Brian Viglione and Amanda Palmer

2) The Dresden Dolls, "Coin-Operated Boy"

       Moving out of the 19th-century and into the early-20th, the Dresden Dolls came on in whiteface and formal, color-coordinated, thrift-shop garb with their remarkable 2003 debut to offer up something singer/pianist Amanda Palmer termed "Brechtian punk cabaret," a cleverly nostalgic twist on the pre-war scene in Weimar Germany. With little more than drummer Brian Viglione bringing some punch to the performative party, Palmer delivers a deeply creepy tale of mechanical romance in this standout track from the self-titled album that launched her unlikely career as something of an international underground sensation.

3) The Cramps, "Strychnine"

       The self-proclaimed "hottest thing from the north to come out of the south," the Cramps pretty much held the patent on punkabilly from 1976 until frontman Lux Interior's death in 2009. This cover of a fairly deviant ode to the pleasures of poison by the ‘60s garage band the Sonics is one of the more straightforwardly sinister rave-ups, replete with plenty of reverb-drenched powerchords courtesy of guitarist Poison Ivy, from their amusingly titled 1980 album "Songs the Lord Taught Us."

The Damned's frontman Dave Vanian

4) The Damned, "Wait For the Blackout"

       Although they do have the distinction of being bona-fide members of the original, class of ‘76 British punks, the Damned never really quite reached the heights of the Clash or the Pistols. They did have their moments early on, particularly with the fast and furious outburst "New Rose," a semi-classic that gets covered from time to time. But it was with 1980's "The Black Album" (pre-dating Spinal Tap by four years) that singer Dave Vanian embraced his inner (and outer) vampire, and adopted a deep croon that lends this apocalyptic mini-epic its ominous overtones.

5) Kiss, "Rock and Roll All Nite"

       Sure, Kiss, in full make-up, are an obvious Halloween pick. But one of my favorite, if brief, periods in Kisstory is "Dressed to Kill," the 1976 album with the wry black-and-white cover shot of the band in full face paint, but wearing natty Fab Four-style suits rather than their full costumes. It's definitely a look, although, sadly, not one they stuck with for very long. And, the disc does end with one of their all-time greats, a peon to partying every day and then switching over to rock and roll once the sun has set.

6) New York Dolls, "Personality Crisis"

       It wouldn't be fair to bring up Kiss without giving these trashy New York City proto-punks their due because Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley got their idea for playing dress-up from the tongue-in-cheek, dime-store drag queen look the Dolls sported when they first emerged in the early ’70s with a twisted take on Rolling Stones androgyny. I'm sticking with "Personality Crisis," the song that best describes what the Dolls once embodied, when they released their self-titled debut in 1973.

7) The Rolling Stones, "Child of the Moon"

       And, now that we've mentioned the Stones, it's not always worth remembering that they took a somewhat misguided trip into Sgt. Peppery psychedelia in 1967, with "Their Satanic Majesties Request." But a few good things did come out of the era that had Mick dressing up like a wizard, pointy black hat and all, including the single "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and it's luminesque b-side, an all too often forgotten tune call "Child of the Moon."

8) Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Dear Prudence"

       As a sideways nod to the Fab Four, who changed costumes more than a few times in their short time together, here's an alluringly eerie rendition of one of their late-career "White Album" cuts by the post-punk queen of goth Siouxsie Sioux and her Banshees. Released in 1983, it became one of their bigger UK hits, and helped popularize her dark diva stylings here in the States.

9) Devo, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

       While we're at the crossroads of post-punk/new-wave covers and Beatles/Stones tunes, it kinda doesn't get much better and/or weirder than Devo, in their matching futuristic spacesuits, doing a number on this Jagger/Richards classic. It’s hard to imagine what anybody made of this when the Akron-bred band came out of nowhere with "Q: Are We Not Men A: We Are Devo!" in 1978. And, it remains a truly strange, yet oddly accessible transmission from the punk-rock era.

David Bowie as Aladdin Sane

10) David Bowie, "Cracked Actor"

       Ziggy Stardust is admittedly one of the benchmarks for rock-and-roll costumery. But the quick wardrobe change the Thin White Duke, as he'd later be known, made directly after his tenure with the Spiders From Mars, into the more elusive and introspective Aladdin Sane (as in, "a lad insane"), is too often underrated. With a multi-colored lightening slash painted across his face, he brought on what he's called an Americanized version of his glam sham with r&b-tinged rockers like "The Jean Genie" and the suitably schizophrenic "Cracked Actor," a somewhat deeper "Aladdin Sane" cut.  

BAND OF HORSES

BREAKING SAD

Band of Horses take another resonant ride on the melancholy side

By: MATT ASHARE |  

Published: October 3, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/list/music-burg/

Band of Horses, Mirage Rock (Columbia)

BRINDELL'S BOYS: Band of Horses in their latest incarnation

Reliably sturdy, emotionally earnest, often nearly meditative mid-tempo Americana in the vein of Neil Young and Crazy Horse are some of the qualities that have characterized Band of Horses since 2004, when Ben Bridwell emerged from behind the drums of Seattle slo-core specialists Clarissa's Weird to front the group. But, while it wouldn't be quite right to suggest that Bridwell's overly sober, by reputation the thick-bearded singer-songwriter is certainly more somber than, say, playful.

       So it feels like it must be a sign of something – perhaps a loaded, coded message to his many minions — that Bridwell settled on a cleverly puckish title for Band of Horses' fourth album, their second since moving to the big leagues of Columbia Records and earning a Grammy nomination with 2010's Infinite Arms. Say it real fast three or four times in a row, and Mirage Rock begins to sound an awful lot like "garage rock," a style/genre that, like indie-rock, Bridwell has largely relinquished as Band of Horses have found footing somewhere in the general vicinity of what used to be called the mainstream.

       Swapping saddles isn't exactly new to Bridwell. The South Carolina native quickly became the only remaining founder of the original Band of Horses foursome. And, at this point, former members outnumber the current five-piece — Bridwell, keyboardist Ryan Monroe, guitarist Tyler Ramsey, bassist Bill Reynolds, and drummer Creighton Barrett — by a full two-to-one ratio.

       That said, Band of Horses have embodied a bedrock of consistency, even as various players have come and gone, in large part because Bridwell's distinctively haunting yet hearty falsetto, whether drenched in reverb or supported by spot-on harmonies, has remained so glaringly bare of artifice. And, even as his songwriting has evolved to incorporate more rootsy arrangements, churn-and-burn Crazy Horse guitars are still very much an elemental part of Bridwell's Band of Horses vision.

Band of Horses, Mirage Rock (Columbia)

      If "Infinite Arms" marked Bridwell's return to his native south (it was mostly recorded in North Carolina), then Mirage Rock signals a shift toward a rather eclectic vision of classic rock, as well as a determined attempt to leave the limitations of the garage behind without losing the illusion of grassroots intimacy. Rather than taking over the reigns of production, as the band did on Infinite Arms, they brought on a legend, Glyn Johns, whose considerable resume includes classics by the Who, the Stones, and Clapton, although it's probably more relevant that he also helped the Eagles find their country-rock footing in the early-‘70s, and did something similar for Ryan Adams just last year on Ashes & Fire.

       Johns has a well-tested talent for honing hooks, clarifying choruses, and subtly sharpening melodies that lends a kind of refined rawness to a recording. His deft touch is apparent from the first guitar-bursts on Mirage Rock. With drums pounding and powerchords roaring, Bridwell begins on a high note, crooning wordlessly "Awoo, woo" in an almost celebratory falsetto. The song's title, "Knock Knock," suggests there's a punchline coming, but it's not of the comic variety. "So, say it to me/Say it to my face/There's no time to be deserved or safe," Bridwell sings, as if for the first time in a long time he really is in a hurry to get somewhere. That place is a rock-solid chorus that finds him "knocking" over and over again on some unspecified door, an image that suggests he's pushing hard toward a creative breakthrough of some kind.

       After a chaotic intro, the next track, "How To Live," settles into a more measured groove, as big, ringing guitars create an anthemic atmosphere for a little world-weary introspection. "I really don't have to suffer/I still do it anyway/I'm a diamond in the rough/Or a dirt clod in the clay," Bridwell reflects in what might be the disc's most telling line: he may be a major player on a major label with a major producer, but Bridwell's comfort zone, as song titles like "Everything's Gonna Be Undone" and "Heartbreak on the 101" suggest, is still minor-key melancholy, unraveling relationships, and a kind of looming quotidian sadness. He revels in everyday details of decay: "There's no street lamps/Only three buildings/And one of them's vacant," he intones on the largely acoustic "Slow Cruel Hands of Time," an airy reverie that find him, "Back in my yard, where everything's just dull."

       With its jangly guitars, each chord drawn out into pretty arpeggios, and enigmatic imagery ("Sky is in the yard/Street cotton candy in the fall"), "Slow Cruel Hands of Time" is just one of several tracks here that owe a debt to R.E.M's reinvention of "Southern" rock. In that sense, Band of Horses are in the right hands with Johns at the board. He's not just familiar with the three-part Crosby, Stills and Nash harmonies that color the undulating, fingerpicked "Shut-in Tourist," the mellow "Horse With No Name" tones of "Dumpster World," and the bluegrass-inflections of the rather Dylanesque "Everything's Gonna Be Undone," he's basically on a first-name basis with all of them.

       Mirage Rock does its best to split the difference between grungy hard-rockers, like the softly searing "Feud," with its "I need you to fail" refrain, and the straight-up Bakersfield country discomfort of "Long Vows," a Gram Parsons-style ballad that begins with a "Hello Darlin'," and ends on a meaner note: "No one's gonna show you the way/When it gets cold/You can find yourself baby/Back in the hole from which you came/And everything will fall into place." If, at times, that makes for an album that's more an amalgam of styles than a coherent artistic statement, at least Mirage Rock has one thing holding it all together: an alluringly pensive moodiness bordering on both beauty and despair. As Bridwell, at his most unadorned, put it in "Heartbreak on the 101," "You leave me more damaged every day/You took my entire world and threw it all away."  

TOM WAITS

Tom Waits celebrates his staying power on Bad As Me

By Matt Ashare

Tom Waits, Bad As Me (Anti-)

BAD TO THE BONE: 'I've been here since Eisenhauer"

Tom Waits hasn't quite done it all – he's just done a whole helluva lot since he first emerged as something of an odd duck in the early ’70s. With a penchant for vaudevillian theatrics, an abiding affinity for deep blues and late-night jazz, and a proclivity for rockist experimentation, the prolific Waits has spent most of his career as an acquired taste, a delicacy of sorts. Working on the fringes and behind the scenes, he's seen his songs covered by Bruce Springsteen ("Jersey Girl") and Rod Stewart ("Downtown Train"), to name just two; played supporting roles in films by Robert Altman (Short Cuts) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Outsiders and Bram Stoker's Dracula); and collaborated with avant-garde playwright/director Robert Wilson on two musicals, The Black Rider and Alice. Along the way, he's collected his fair share of accolades, including a Best Original Song Score Oscar nomination for Coppola's One From the Heart, a Best Alternative Album Grammy for 1992's Bone Machine, and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year. And yet, until now, with the release last week of his 20th proper studio album, Bad As Me, Waits has never debuted in the top ten of the Billboard top 200 sales charts.

      Bad As Me, which hit number six its first week out, is the first collection of new material Waits has recorded since 2004's Real Gone. And it does boast an impressive guest list, including Keith Richards, who plays guitar on four of the disc's 13 tracks; Los Lobos multi-instrumentalist David Hidalgo (four tracks); and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea (one track). Avant guitarist Marc Ribot, Primus bassist Les Claypool, and Tom's son, drummer Casey Waits, are among the more notable players who round out the cast. But the real difference makers on Bad As Me are the songs themselves, all of which were written and produced by Waits with his wife Kathleen Brennan. It's as if the two made a conscious decision not necessarily to iron all the wrinkles out of Waits' style, but to perhaps smooth over some of the rougher edges in an effort to create a more accessible variation on some familiar plots.

      The disc opens with Richards riffing Exile-style on the chugging blues of “Chicago.” Here, Waits deploys his trademark Howlin’ Wolf baritone growl as he conjures the mix of hope and desperation that led to what’s become known as the “Great Migration,” the early 20^th-century movement of millions of African-Americans from the South to the Midwestern cities like Chicago. It’s a song that could have been written decades ago, yet it resonates with uncanny immediacy in these times of slow economic recovery.

      “Chicago” is hardly a blueprint for Bad As Me. Instead of sticking to one sonic palette or staying on genre, so to speak, Waits tries on a number of the different hats he’s worn over the years. “Talking At the Same Time” is a slow swinging number with tinkling lounge piano, a tasteful horn section, and ethereal vibrato guitar that finds Waits singing in a world-weary falsetto about our troubled times. “A tiny boy sat and he played in the sand,” Waits croons, “He made a sword from a stick and a gun from his hand/We bailed out all the millionaires/They got all the fruit/We got the rind/Everybody’s talking at the same time.”

      Waits goes into mad daddy mode on the disc’s title track, a wigged-out celebration of geek love driven by a trash-can drums and outfitted with surf-style guitar licks and a honking baritone sax. And, over another very Exstylish Richards riff, he barks maniacally about his having his vertebrae rolled “like dice” and his skull being a “home for mice” when he’s “gone.” Aptly enough, the song’s called “Satisfaction.” But, just in case you miss the Stones reference, Waits drives home the point with a wink and a nod: “Now Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards/I will scratch where I’m itching.”

      On the mellower side, Waits has fun with rhymes like “Ocean wants a sailor/Gun wants a hand/Money wants a spender/And the road wants a man” in “Face the Highway,” a haunted goodbye that drips with stoic defeat. The combination of Augie Meyers’ accordion and Hidalgo’s violin, helps lend the spare, tragic “Pat Me” an air of drunken cabaret. And Richards teams up to sing harmony with Waits on the largely acoustic “Last Leaf,” a countrified homage to aging, if not gracefully, then at least with a certain sense of pride. “They say I’ve got staying power here on the tree,” Waits intones, “I’ve been here since Eisenhower/And I’ve outlived even he.”

      As the album nears its end, Waits gets into character as a casualty of war in the most outwardly dissonant track here, the protest tune “Hell Broke Luce.” Noisy percussion, serrated guitars, and the sound of machine-gun fire punctuate points like “How is it that the only ones responsible for making this mess/Got their sorry asses staples to a desk?” And he closes out the affair on a gorgeously sad note, with yet another of his perfectly pitched odes to the broken souls of the world, the poetically bittersweet ballad “New Year’s Eve.”

      It’s hard at this point to imagine the 61 year-old Waits as anything other than the cult artist he’s always been. But it sure does feel like the cult of Waits is growing. . .
http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2011/nov/09/tom-waits-celebrates-his-staying-power-keith-richa-ar-1446733/ 

My Morning Jacket, "Circuital"

My Morning Jacket Take Their Own Sweet Time On the New “Circuital”

By The Burg Staff on Jun. 01, 2011

By Matt Ashare

My Morning Jacket do not sound like a band who are in even a little bit of a hurry to get anywhere on their new “Circuital,” the Louisville, Kentucky band’s sixth album in a dozen years. The disc actually features a song called — yes — “Slow Slow Tune,” a deliberate, willfully, and perhaps even a bit brilliantly ironically slow, slow tune that, with its psychedelic ambiance, its heavily reverbed guitars, and its au naturel production, brings to mind the Tommy James and the Shondells classic “Crimson and Clover.” “Slow/Not the meter of today/But I’m not singing format anyway/This slow, slow tune,” singer/guitarist Jim James (aka Yim Yames) lazily murmurs, winking affably and nodding knowingly before laying his meta-rock cards on the table with this verse: “You/Somewhere in the future listening/I hope the present for you’s glistening/With notes that ring so true/This slow, slow tune. . .”

James is holding a straight flush, and he knowest of what he speaketh: there really isn’t a single note that doesn’t ring “true” on “Circuital.” His awareness of that — reflected in both the snarled simplicity of his lyrics and the relaxed intensity of the songs themselves — is a big part of the pleasure of the MMJ vibe. And vibe, more than clever turns of phrase, musicianly displays, or hooks you’d pay to play, is what “Circuital” is all about. I mean, you gotta get four songs deep into the disc before James finally offers up a track with a trad verse/chorus/verse structure, the rootsy, fingerpicked, mostly acoustic alt-country “Wonderful (The Way I Feel).”

In most bands’ hands, the tune would be a throwaway — a gratuitous tip of the cowboy hat in the general direction of Gram Parsons and all his various and nefarious acolytes. But Jones and his MMJ crew (bassist “Two-Tone” Tommy, drummer Patrick Hallihan, and multi-instrumentalists Carl Broemel and Bo Koster) have mastered the art of the understated overstatement. “Wonderful (The Way I Feel),” for all its pedal steel whines, cursory rhymes (“I’m going where the living is easy/And the people are kind/A new state of mind”), and prosaic lines like “With the sun on my shoulder/And wind at my back/I will never grow older/At least not in my mind,” is more Southern than country, as in Terry Southern. And, once again, James unabashedly shows his hand: “I can learn from way back when/And still live right now,” he croons with a passion that suggests he means it.

The “way back when” My Morning Jacket conjure so vividly as they forge resolutely forward on “Circuital” brings to mind the bold and, at times, even reckless genre (ad)ventures of classic-rockers like the Stones, the Who, and the Beatles, once they’d established their brands, secured loyal fan bases, and taken to challenging their fans.

The title track, like most of the disc, takes time building up to its explosive hook. But the payoff — Pete Townshend powerchords paired with a very Neil Young guitar solo — is so worth the wait. One of the more immediately appealing tracks is a retro-funky in-joke titled “Holdin’ Onto Black Metal.” And layers of ethereal vocal harmonies, an insistent keyboard hook, and a muscular backbeat that keeps threatening to trip over itself on “The Day Is Coming” brings to mind something John Lennon might have thrown on the “White Album.”

Still, “Circuital” isn’t so much reverential as it is referential. Simply put, it’s the sound of a band transcending easy labels like “New Southern Rock” or “Alt-Rock Jam Band,” reaching beyond their so-called “country” roots, and having a good go at taking their own sweet time finding those notes that truly do ring, well . . . true.http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/my_morning_jacket_take_their_own_sweet_time_on_the_new_circuital

New Year's Daze

Keefing it Real
A New Year's Eve playlist

"Happy," The Rolling Stones (from Exile On Main Street Deluxe Edition) — Thanks to Life, a memoir as bold, brash, and rakishly charming as his best riffs, it's been the season, if not the year, of Keith. When he took over the mic to proclaim, "I need a love to keep me happy" back in ’72, nobody thought he'd live to see the end of the decade. A full 38 years later, he's still going strong, and this signature song rings as true as ever.

"Help Me Mary," Liz Phair (from Exile In Guyville) — If Phair's Exile really were a song-by-song answer to the Stones' Exile then the match for "Happy" would be "Fuck and Run" — probably not the best strategy for a successful new year.  Better to celebrate tempering "hatred with peace" and weaving "disgust into fame," especially since Phair impressively channels Keith's loose yet propulsive chordings on this ultimately uplifting track.

"P.S.," Ryan Adams and the Cardinals (from III/IVI) — It's almost always worth looking to the past before moving forward into new year/decade. This rousing glam kiss-off came out of ’07’s Easy Tiger sessions. Why it's taken so long for alt-country's allegedly reformed king of dramedy to unburden himself of it is anybody's guess. Just glad to finally have it. 

"Ready to Start," The Arcade Fire (from The Suburbs) — The Grammy-bound Arcade Fire made a bit of history in 2010 by hitting #1 with an indie release. Win Butler never quite sounds like he's ready to bust a move — he's far to cerebral for that. But this instructive, upbeat ode to new beginnings rocks most of the moodiness out of him until he indeed resolves that he's "ready to start." 

"Not Afraid," Eminem (from Recovery) — Anyone who can go from Relapse to Recovery in the span of a year deserves props. Poised to overshadow The Arcade Fire and just about everyone else at the Grammys, the new Eminem made some major New Year's resolutions when last the the ball dropped. He may sound angry and defiant at the start of "Not Afraid," but before long he's apologizing (!!) and urging us all to take his hand and move into the future. Redemption, not to mention recovery, is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing.

"Just Dance," Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis (from The Fame Monster) — Just because — because she brought spectacle to a new level and had a fashionably great time doing it. So just shut up and dance. It's New Year's eve. . .

"Wake Up Everybody," John Legend feat. the Roots (from Wake Up!) — Sure, the video plays a bit too much like a big-budget PSA and Legend's channeling of What's Going On-era Marvin Gaye comes off slightly stilted. But the Roots come to the rescue, grabbing the groove and then the mic to take this socio-political wake-up call places Gaye never had the chance to dream of.

"Daft Punk Is Playing At My House Tonight," LCD Soundsystem (from LCD Soundsystem) — With Daft Punk busy deflecting lukewarm reviews of their Tron Legacy soundtrack, it's not likely they'll be playing any house parties over the holidays. LCD Soundsystem's electrofunk homage/send-up "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House Tonight" isn't just the next best thing, it's better. For best results, press play and repeat.

The Invisible Hand, "The Future of Music" (from The Invisible Hand) — It just wouldn't be right not to celebrate something Charlottesville as we ring in the new year, and The Invisible Hand have all the makings of the future of the local scene, if not quite the future of music. Angular melodies, hyperkinetic drums, gloriously noisy guitars, and a frontman who sings with the kind of passionate intensity Yeats would approve of. Give it a shot.

"Fake Empire," The National (from Boxer) — Until something better comes along, every New Year's Eve should end with "Fake Empire," an epic ode to staying out "super late" that begins as a slow dance and gradually gains a glorious kind of momentum. By the time the lights go out, Matt Berninger is crooning "No thinking for a little while" as the horns kick in and the drummer drives off into the rising sun.