Steve Winwood—Nine Lives
Quite honestly, I don’t expect much from my ‘60s rock ‘n roll heroes. With the exceptions of Bob Dylan and Richard Thompson, who still manage to surprise me from time to time, most of the artists who made me care about rock ‘n roll in the first place are either dead or have been coasting since the Nixon administration. Paul McCartney? That 1970 solo debut album was really something. And that’s about the best I can muster. Van Morrison is hit and miss (and entirely miss on his latest Keep It Simple), Eric Clapton only emerges from his now three-decades-long... read more
Hayseed
Last Thursday night I spoke at a fun and challenging gathering of Columbus artists called Wild Goose Creative; a group of writers, musicians, actors and actresses, and visual artists who come together once per month to share their work and support one another. There were a few people from my church and many people I didn’t know. Since this was my first public speaking opportunity that didn’t take place on the campus of a Christian college/university, I reveled in the absence of unanswerable and fundamentally misguided “What are five rules we can use to determine what Christians should listen... read more
Danny Federici
Danny Federici, longtime keyboard player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, died of melanoma yesterday. He was 58. I have a DVD of Springsteen and his band that was recorded in Los Angeles in 1973, when Bruce was just starting out. Danny Federici looks like he’s about 12 years old. Neil Young told us a long time ago that was it better to burn out than to fade away, but he was wrong, and thankfully wrong about himself as well. Nevertheless, it’s unsettling to encounter news like this, to find that the guys who manage to escape the car and... read more
Sun Kil Moon—April
The recently deceased Madeleine L’Engle once said that said that she was immune to the effects of aging because she could so easily recall all the years that went before. When she was eighty, she claimed that she was also 21, and 35, and 50. The years ran together, the warp and the woof of an unbroken tapestry that stretched across a lifetime. It’s a sentiment that singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek must have taken to heart. April, his third album under the Sun Kil Moon moniker, is the perfect encapsulation of memory and longing. He conjures up the past again... read more
Rediscovering the Dusty Gems
This isn’t a quality to emulate, but I have great swatches of my music collection that are totally unexplored. And by “totally unexplored” I mean I’ve either never played the music or played it so long ago that I have no memory of ever playing it. So sometimes I rummage through the old, dusty stacks of vinyl looking to see what I might have missed. And this is what I find. Moon Martin—Escape from Domination Okay, I played this one. Back in 1979. But it had, umm, been a while. Moon Martin may be the least likely rock star in... read more
Best Albums of the First Quarter of 2008
These are the albums that have impressed me the most over the first three months of this year. Some of them may not yet be released. Sorry about that. I receive albums months in advance of their release dates, and it’s a thankless task to go back and check on these things. All I know is this is what I’ve heard, and this is what I like. If it’s not out now, it will be out soon. There is no implied order here other than alphabetical. Marco Benevento – Invisible Baby An impossible, goofy convergence of jazz, post-rock minimalism, classical... read more
Todd A., International Punk
My memories of Cop Shoot Cop (yes, a band, not a badly written newspaper headline) are not positive ones. I recall a couple vocalists who yelped more than sang, a distinct lack of melody, and a series of confrontational songs. White Noise was the name of the album I heard, and that was pretty accurate. One could listen to a jackhammer breaking up the pavement or one could listen to Cop Shoot Cop. Bassist Todd A., one of the principle yelpers, left the police academy twelve years ago to embark on a relentlessly eclectic exploration of world music. His first... read more
Searching for the Yarragh
William Butler Yeats, a conflicted soul and superb poet, once wrote about the “yarragh.” For Yeats, the yarragh was a cry of the heart, a haunting and haunted sound that could be found in Celtic (and particularly Irish) song and poetry. It was sorrow and lamentation for what had been lost, and for centuries of foreign oppression. It was anger and self-righteousnessness, a loud and belligerent cry that insisted on the inherent dignity and worth of a people. In short, it was soul, but soul with a particularly nationalistic fervor. It’s a sound I’ve been seeking out for most of... read more
Short Takes—Van Morrison, Dub Pistols, The Acorn, Eddie Clearwater
Van Morrison – Keep It Simple I love Van Morrison. But this is a disaster. Throughout his brilliant career Van has periodically phoned it in. And yes, that’s a bad connection you’re hearing. Consider this one then as a workmanlike but uninspired effort, full of predictable, generic rhymes, tepid R&B horn arrangements, and vocals totally lacking in soul and fire. Van, never known to back away from a headscratcher, offers a song called “That’s Entrainment,” which the dictionary defines as “To carry along (a dissimilar substance, as drops of liquid) during a given process such as evaporation or distillation.” Sounds... read more
Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame—Class of 2008
It seemed like a good idea at the time—enshrine the biggest and best stars of the rock ‘n roll era, and give them their own building where fans can come and gape at the very guitar pick Eric Clapton used on “Layla.” Reality has turned out to be a little different. The problem is that the list of the “biggest and best” dried up a long time ago. And so, in a few weeks, we (okay, the shrinking number of people who actually seem to care about these things) will witness the spectacle of Madonna, John Mellencamp, The Ventures, and... read more
Dennis Wilson—Pacific Ocean Blue
1978 was a great year for music. Punk had finally filtered down to the mainstream, and the resulting New Wave mashup of snarling attitude and pop hooks actually made it fun to listen to the radio again. Since 1978 is now officially 30 years ago, and since record labels are fond of releasing 30th Anniversary commemorative box sets and expanded special editions and the like, it’s a good time to rediscover some great music you may have missed (potty training was such a drag that year for some of you) the first time around. The recent superb reissues of Nick... read more
Larry Norman
In April of 1974 I prayed the Sinner’s Prayer and asked Jesus Christ to be my Personal Lord and Savior. About a week later several new and still somewhat dubious friends who called themselves “brothers” and “sisters” started badgering me to stop listening to Pink Floyd. “Listen to Larry Norman,” they told me. So I took them up on the advice. Athens, Ohio, where I was living at the time, had a Christian bookstore on Court Street that was full of the usual kitsch; coffee mugs with Bible verses, puppy and kitty posters, a couple shelves of books, and, at... read more
Random Musical Notes
Whither (Wither) Columbus? I keep reading breathless reviews about the new U2 concert film U23D. I admit that my previous experiences with wearing the funky glasses at 3D movies has left me less than optimistic. But everything I read tells me that this truly is something different—U2 on a giant iMax screen, with eye-popping visual effects. One reviewer I respect, who is not typically given to hyperbole, stated that the experience was like being a fly on Bono’s shades, and that the new technology employed in this film could very well revolutionize the film industry. He noted that this was... read more
Contemplative Cowboys
I like my cowboys with philosophy degrees. It’s okay if they wear the Stetson hats as long as they quote Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein. Or know how to spell their names. Or at least have more on their minds than longnecks and short skirts. These three cowboys more or less fit the pattern, although none of them wears a Stetson, and one of them is at least partial to longnecks and short skirts. But I’m giving him extra credit for the literary reference on “Faulkner Street.” Kasey Anderson – The Reckoning Portland, Oregon troubadour Kasey Anderson has some cojones. He starts... read more
Aradhna—Amrit Vani
There’s no great secret here, but I’ll spell it out. I’m a Christian who has very little use for Christian music. Although some of my favorite music has been made by Christians (U2, Bruce Cockburn, Vigilantes of Love, Tonio K., Innocence Mission, Mark Heard, Peter Case, T-Bone Burnett, Sam Phillips, Buddy and Julie Miller, Over the Rhine, not to mention Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Willie Johnson and Ralph and Carter Stanley), the Contemporary Christian Music genre in general, and the Worship Music wing of that genre in particular, holds little appeal. There’s too much imitation of Fleetwood Mac circa 1975,... read more
Fleshtones - Take a Good Look
I love garage rock. But I hate garage rock revivals, even though I firmly believe that the genre is vibrant enough to be revived every five years or so. With the exception of The White Stripes, every one of the latest crop of revivalists—The Vines, The Strokes, The Hives—has let me down. After impressive starts, they flame out into limpid sophomore albums. And they never find their way back. So thank God for The Fleshtones. They started making garage rock twenty-five years ago, they’ve never stopped, and they’ve never, ever sucked. Their latest album, Take a Good Look, is twelve... read more
I Can’t Hear You
In theory, music reviewers approach every new album as a piece of freshly created art, with no preconceptions about the quality of what they are about to hear. And if you believe that, I have a stupendous new Christmas album from Barry Manilow to sell you. The reality is that we bring all kinds of preconceptions and life experiences to the proceedings, and sometimes they mess with the music. Sometimes it’s impossible to hear the new notes because of the racket from the past that is playing in our heads. Take Shelby Lynne as a case in point. Shelby Lynne... read more
Girl’s Night Out—Catherine Russell, Amy Winehouse, Shelby Lynne
Catherine Russell – Sentimental Streak I’ve just been complaining about the glut of standards albums in the marketplace these days. Well, here’s one that works because it trades the stuffy academic approach for the raw vitality of a southern juke joint. Russell, daughter of longtime Louis Armstrong musical director Luis Russell, has the jazz pedigree and the sultry voice, but what ultimately sets this album apart is the song selection, which is surprising, earthy, and often funny. Eschewing the obvious choices, Russell digs deep into the back catalogues to pull out Bessie Smith’s “Kitchen Man,” a wondrously carnal stew spiced... read more
The New Great American Songbook?
Between the late 1920s and the early 1960s a handful of American songwriters, many of them associated with Tin Pan Alley, crafted a body of work that has proven to be an almost inexhaustible well of creativity. Among them were Harold Arlen, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, and Jimmy Van Heusen. Together – whether writing for Broadway, Hollywood, or their own bands – they created what has come to be known as the Great American Songbook, the set of acknowledged standards that formed the backbone... read more
In Good Taste
My sense of taste is apparently significantly atrophied. I have friends who are connoiseurs of coffee, beer, and wine. They discuss the alluring complexities of Ethiopian dark roast and the tangy zest of Jamaica Blue Mountain. They debate the merits of Belgian Trappist beers and blonde ales. Don’t even get me started on the wine discussions. I’m a McDonald’s man, myself. They don’t serve beer and wine, of course, but they do serve coffee, which is generally labeled “Coffee (S/M/L).” It contains caffeine, which is a desired ingredient when I show up for work at 7:20 a.m. It tastes... read more
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