Growing up with classic Country and Folk vinyl records in a quaint Denver house apparently made an early impression that still shadows Lucas Hilbert in his music career. Despite his earnest college and twentysomething years of delving into New Wave, Alternative, Indie, Britpop, and Electronic genres in both Indie music stores and with Amazon’s Music Advantage Program, he still can’t escape the haunting appeal of slide guitars, banjos, accordions, and violins, not to mention Southern drawls and simple songs with a hint of dark Americana.
Seems hard to believe, but The Wallby Pink Floyd was released 30 years ago today, November 30, 1979.
And, even harder to believe, the WTO protests in Seattle, also known fondly as The Battle in Seattle or N30, started 10 years ago today, November 30, 1999.
Both of these N30 anti-establishment zeitgeists featured elements of rioting, burning rubbish, and gas masks. Coincidence? I
think not.
This just in: Pitchfork has given the new Animal Collective song "What Would I Want? Sky," releasing on December 15 on the Fall Be Kind [EP], a perfect 10 rating. We wanted to mark the occasion since the music blog is stingy with its perfect rating (rightly so). And even though we at Chordstrike fawned all over the band and included them in our Best of the Year list, we're not quite sure if the favorable comments in the review fully justify the rarefied rating. Sure, "consistently different," and sounding like "new age or yoga or the 1990s" (things that make you go hmm), and the ability to "take a sound and turn it inside out to make something new, but something recognizable, even familiar" are all admirable if not altogether coherent qualities in a song. But are those really the things that merit a perfect 10? Indie bands take notice -- there's your new playbook for success. --Lucas HIlbert
Another year of CMA Awards has come and gone and Chordstrike is here to vilify and praise the worst and the best of "Country Music's Biggest Night." Without further ado...
Top 10 Worst Moments:
1. Taylor Swift's "mature" opening show performance replete with a stripper pole and black spandex (or was it leather?), not to mention, her voice was flat and off key. 2. Carrie Underwood does "Cowboy Casanova" looking strangely like Christina Aguilera circa 2003. The presence of synchronized dance steps and costumes proves yet again that the contemporary country genre is anything but Country. 3. Sugarland wins Duo of the Year and asks Brooks & Dunn if they want to come on stage to say anything. The awkward and uncomfortable look on B & D's faces was oh so palpable. 4. Sugarland performs another wannabe tear jerker song which leads this viewer to ask, "whaddu I gotta dooooo to keep from listening to youuuu?" 5. Kenny Chesney - another CMA Awards Show, another blue shirt and pair of gray pants. And he went way off key, saved only by Dave Matthews appearing on stage to rescue him from his own warbling. 6. Video screens flashing lyrics word for word during a few of the performances. Did I forget to turn off my close captioning? 7. Lady Antebellum win the Vocal Group of the Year award followed immediately by a TIAA CREF commercial that features a Lady Antebellum song. This makes for the quickest sellout story in Country Music history. 8. Brad & Carrie are interrupted by an Little Jimmy Dickens rambling about a Taylor Swift video. I know it was supposed to be a play on the Kanye thing, but it didn't come off quite right. 9. ABC's lame attempt to promote their new show "The Middle" by using the show's stars as award presenters, along with their painful attempt to link their show to the "common family" epitomized by Country Music. Yea, nice try. 10. Brooks & Dunn perform with ex-ZZ Top member making it the one and only geriatric retiree performance of the night.
Top 10 Best Moments: 1. Darius Rucker wins the New Artist of the Year award and is the first African American artist to do so, as well as his acceptance speech. 2. Carrie Underwood dissing Kanye West to the tune of "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Kanye." 3. Zac Brown Band's cover of "Devil Goes Down To Georgia." 4. Jamey Johnson's subtle and understated acceptance speech for Song of the Year, including the link between our grandparents and Veterans Day to "In Color." 5. On stage banter between Brad and Carrie, including the comment about "George Straight plus eight." 6. Kid Rock and Jamey Johnson perform "Somewhere Between Jennings and Jones" to thankfully feature some traditional country for the night! 7. Miranda Lambert's bass player with the white suit and mohawk. So Country Punk! 8. Lady Antebellum on-stage performance reminiscent of an old duo between Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. 9. Darius Rucker does his version of crowd surfing during his performance. We loved those lip syncing fans that couldn't quite get the lyrics right. 10. The huge psychedelic flat screen ceiling lights hung above Keith Urban during his performance.
David Gray
has come full circle back to his roots on his latest release, Draw the Line, which is
significant given the fact that he could have easily succumb to the many distractions
of success. Long-time fans of David Gray who gravitated to his earlier releases including A Century Ends, Flesh, and Sell, Sell, Sell will be happy to know he has
not wandered far from the musical path he set out on nearly 20 years ago.
The
result is a humble album punctuated by his gritty baritone, layered acoustics,
and a sobering thrush that comes across as an amped-up middle-aged confession
half the time, and a sweet lullaby the rest.
After the
overwhelming success he garnered from 2000’s White Ladder, followed by an introspective period that
included more down tempo and ethereal albums, Gray returns with a bit of idyllic
hope delivered with his own brand of cynicism and irony.
In my
interview with him, David Gray was gracious with his time and quite conversational
in talking about Draw The Line
and the multiple journeys that inspired it. He admitted to being full of
confidence following a long period where he was stuck in the “shock of success” that
descended on him with the ubiquitous accolades and critical acclaim of White Ladder. Now liberated from that
period that tested his personal demons, David Gray feels a new presence and sense of
purpose as he reflects and bears his musical soul to us all, more content than
ever with his life and his music.
Hear it all in the 14 minute interview, and enjoy.
An exclusive video from Monsters of Folk is now available for your viewing pleasure. We're also hosting a Streaming Listening Party of the full album a week before street date release.
In an era chock-full of super groups (see Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, and Chickenfoot just to name a few), now Indie Music fans of the world can rejoice, too!
Ex-Dire Straits guitarist and front man Mark Knopfler has a new album, Get Lucky, and we talked to him about in this recent interview. Mark sounded pretty mellow, and so does the album. But fans of Dire Straits and his solo material should enjoy another fine offering from the Sultan of Swing.
And no, I did not ask him if he still wants his MTV. Damn, I wish I had thought of that one sooner. Then again, not.
Today the country music duo known as Brooks & Dunn announced that they will be splitting up as a band. Among several distinctions,
the duo has had 40 different Billboard hits, 20 of which reached number
one. They also won the Country Music Awards Vocal Duo of the Year award
every year since 1992 with one exception in 2000. A brief message on their website offered the following note:
"To Our Fans:
After 20 years of making music and riding this trail together, we have
agreed as a duo that it's time call it a day. This ride has been
everything and more than we could ever have dreamed.... We owe it all
to you, the fans. If you hear rumors, don't believe them, it's just
time.
We will release our #1's and then some" on September 8th and bid
you farewell one last time in 2010, with The Last Rodeo Tour...(dates to be
announced)."
I was just reading through No Depresssion, one the best online magazines (formerly in print) focused on americana music, and found their list of Five Best Living Songwriters to be an interesting read. It was also interesting to see that Bob Dylan made the number one spot, same as he did on our similar list of The 100 Greatest Singer-Songwriter Albums of All Time. It looks like all 5 of their artist picks made it somewhere onto our list as well.
I would love to know more about the author's apparently strong aversion to Nick Drake. It's also suspect to see the inclusion of Patty Griffin and Billy Joel (the guy wrote Uptown Girl after all) at the number 4 and 5 spots, which would not be my choice, but everyone's taste is their own. That's what's great about music.
Thanks, No Depression, for your best list. Any of you Chordstrike readers care to chime in with more of your passionate opinions and picks of the best songwriters out there? I'd especially love to hear about any under-the-radar artists that aren't the ubiquitous picks we normally see.
We’re halfway through the year already, so it’s time to present half of a Top 10 list for our Best of the Year So Far. The following top 5 picks are the standouts in the ever-growing americana genre that pulls from all brands of alt country, bluegrass, folk, rock, and blues music. Each of the following titles fall somewhere in that spectrum, if not covering all of them in some cases.
Arriving on the scene in her early teens on the strength of her own written material, 18 year old bluegrass singer/songwriter Sarah Jarosz already has the right voice and music for anyone to notice that the young songstress has bluegrass in her soul and can express it with just the right tone. Offering listeners a brand of musical honesty and depth that’s mature beyond her years and mixing it with the rustic reflections of an observant troubadour, Jarosz holds her own with an apparent comfort and ease that bodes well for what she can do for years to come. Playing on the album with some venerated bluegrass greats (including Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien, and Samual Grisman of the David Grisman Quintet) but not content to rest on the shoulders of such giants, Jarosz wrote all but two songs on the album herself, with interesting cover choices of Tom Waitsand Colin Meloy (the Decemberists) on the other two tracks. This rising bluegrass singer has laid down a solid foundation on Song Up in Her Head and is poised for great things to come. Let’s hope she will continue to burn as brightly as she has out of the gate.
Long-time fans of Neko Case
will be happy to know that dark and obscure themes continue to rule the
day in her musical world. Neko’s signature caterwauls and crooning
refrains call like a siren beckoning listeners to come to her shores in
a perilous world filled with fairy tale creatures whose purpose as
either friend or foe is not always apparent. That’s to say that Neko’s
off-center lyrics keep the listener just out of reach of her inner
circle. There’s a continuous sense that her songs are intentionally
obscure as if offering more literal insights might expose her to too
much intimacy with the listener. Instead, she offers broad lyrical
strokes that give an impressionistic feeling that remains compelling,
if not always clear. With a litany of cameo appearances on the album
from some great artists including members of The New Pornographers, Los Lobos, Calexico, Giant Sand, The Sadies, Visqueen, and The Lilys, not
to mention those in her own band, the volume of talent around her
manages to thankfully remain in the pocket of the album instead of
overflowing into it. Ultimately, we’re left to scrutinize the finer
points of Neko Case’s songs to see what clues they can offer about her
fairy tale worlds, but we love hearing her sing about them nonetheless.
Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away, by Slaid Cleaves (CD, MP3)
Singer/Songwriter Slaid Cleaves
has been building his musical momentum for a while. And by some accounts, this is the album that defines the best of all 8 of his
albums to date since the mid-90s. Speaking of some accounts, partly
because it’s close to deadline, and more because our customers know
the music AND how to write, I’m highlighting a few lines from
our customer reviews to
help explain why this album is here. I’ll just add that the even keeled blend of folk, country, and
blues with a hint of rock is what propelled this into my list. Fans of Son Volt, T-Bone Burnett, Whiskeytown, and The Jayhawks (all on elevated status in my world!) will gravitate to this release and its
amalgamation of all things Americana. And now for some customer raves:
Hyperbolium
says, “Cleaves sings with a warmth that infuses an element of hope in
the crushing blows he delivers. Is there hard-won pain or only a clever
couplet in singing ‘Every man is a myth, every woman a dream / Watch
your little heart get crushed when the truth gets in between… The album
winds down with a bitter critique of politicians, global industrialists
and sleepwalking media, somehow managing to retain a belief in the
goodness of man. The closer, "Temporary," resigns itself to existential
impermanence.”
Tim Brough “author and music buff” says, “I've long posited on Amazon reviews that Slaid Cleaves is America's best working young folksinger and one of our finest interpretive singers. I considered his Unsungto
be one of that year's best records…. The music, downbeat as the
descriptions sound, is thoroughly likable. The hopeful "Beautiful
Thing" swings hard at the liars and manipulators in the belief that
"the goodness of man" sees us through "the new dark ages."
Colin Spence "grey mist"
says, “His 'matter of fact' delivery of the songs belies the potency of
their lyrics - a qualitative combination that would spell out a recipe
for disaster for some artists. But with SC, his somewhat impassive
vocals serve only to emphasize the intensity of the lyrics - then
again, with some songs I detected just a little more edge to his
singing than on previous albums.”
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, self-titled, (CD, MP3)
Fans of Dave Alvin, who know him from his years with The Blastersand all the goods they delivered in equal turns of blues, rockabilly, and vintage country sounds, should fall nicely into the groove of his latest CD. It offers the added twist of an all-star line-up of some of the biggest female stars in folk and bluegrass yesterday and today. Dubbed The Guilty Women, the group consists of Americana scene vets Christy McWilson, Cindy Cashdollar, Nina Gerber, Laurie Lewis, Sarah Brown, and Amy Farris. Alvin’s gruff baritone mixes with rich female harmonies and plenty of bluegrass string work from violins, lap steel guitars, and mandolins to fill the bucolic scenes and stories that come to life on each track. Here’s hoping that the ubiquity of female talent lingers a little longer to work with Dave on similar projects in the future, too.
Do Wrong Right, by The Devil Makes Three (CD, MP3)
Easily capturing the moniker of most-whimsical band on this list, the rough and tumble sounds of The Devil Makes Three leave their mark sounding like a jug band high on hay fever during a night of partying at the county fair where their music shuffles along in shades of half-sober Dixieland and Cajun styles. With lyrics that are peppered with references to all-nighter pop-offs, it’s fun to imagine what could happen during one of their set breaks: “No one’s getting arrested / no one’s having any fun / doctor’s orders for your heart beatin’ / go ahead and take you one / now you’re dumber than a singin’ saw playing ‘Uncomfortably Numb,’ it’s a thorazine work party with free fluorite bubble gum” and: “You drink a cheap malt liquor from a 40 ounce bottle / a fifth of bourbon and some pills if you got ‘em / but you know you’re goin’ to come down every night / and there ain’t no way that it’ll ever feel satisfied.” If you’re looking for a little entertainment under-the-influence, no prescription needed, check out Do Wrong Right. You won’t have to worry about a hang-over, but be aware of the quick onset of do wrong fun.
More contenders for Best of the Year:
Just to keep things interesting and honest, here are a few more albums that may very well end up on our final best of the year list, but for now they are worth noting to round things out.
It doesn't get much better than this: Classic Steve Earle covering classic Townes van Zandt. Since this is cover album (albeit with incredible songs and equally stunning renditions), this one is not currently in my top 5 list, but as the year goes on, we’ll see if any other better contenders can do a one up.
A solid sophomore follow-up to a good first release, Mescalito. I’m still debating in my head whether the style is overly derivative of Dylan, but the voice definitely is. I think it's probably a vocal preference thing for me. I'm also wondering if there’s a hint of Tom Petty(?!). Still on the fence with it as stylistic questions linger, but definitely some good tracks: “Day is Done,” “Change Is,” and “Hey Hey Hurray.”
This one is being released today as we go to print, so with not enough quality time for a critical listen I’ll have to relegate it to the second tier for now. But judging by the latest video clip, sound samples, and decade-spanning collage from Jay Farrar’s work (including Uncle Tupelo), there is little doubt that this will probably rock-it to the top of my list by the end of the year.
And with that, we wait for more to come in the second half of the year, including those sleepers in the ranks and some anticipated releases later in the year.
Most
musicians probably take for granted the fact that they can carry around their
instruments to concerts and band practice. In today’s world, a small
Fender amp and Stratocaster are all a musician needs to get rolling. And in
yesterday’s world, as we learned in anthro-musicology news last week, something
as simple as a little vulture bone and mammoth tusk made a fine instrument some
35,000 years ago.
On
the opposite end of the scale – literally – fast forward several thousand
millenia and consider that one particular instrument of choice is so large that
it probably requires an installation plan, building permits, and perhaps an
architect. Yes, I’m talking about the world’s largest instrument: the
pipe organ.
While recently digesting some minutia related to Renaissance piano concerto transcriptions with my friend
Pete who provided background research for this piece, he brought up an interesting point that there seems to be a recent resurgence
of the pipe organ in concert halls nationwide. That’s right, it turns out that pipe organs are
not just for Sunday School anymore, even though many followers of the craft
still convene in grandiose churches, as they did in Seattle last weekend to pay
homage to the pipes and not necessarily the holy water.
Could this new movement bring pipe
organs into the mainstream of the classical music world? Or does the fact that
so many pipe organs already exist in concert halls indicate a fait accompli for
pipe organs beyond the hallowed walls of churches everywhere? To help answer it
all, let’s look at some of these noble beasts up close and personal based on
their most notable features:
The Newborn: We start off by highlighting the pristine William J. Gillespie Organ which is the newest concert hall organ to be built and resides at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, CA.
The
Queen’s Throne: Certain to help sell tickets with its good looks and towering
majesty, the organ inside Meyerson Hall in Dallas epitomizes the
"new" wave in concert hall organs.
The Cubist: As one might expect, one of the most visually spectacular,
and extremely controversial new pipe organs is the monster Rosales Opus 24 in
the new Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
The
Big Boy: One of the most recent additions, and attracting tremendous attention,
is the new Dobson (2006) at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
The Southern Bell: One
of the smaller blowers in the ring of newly christened organs calls Music City
its home in the Nashville Symphony's new concert hall. Hmm, I do love me some
honky tonk mixed with a little organ music on a Friday night to kick off the
weekend.
The
Postmodernist: In the category of Things
To Come (a couple years away), Casavant is currently building a major organ
for the new Kauffman Center in Kansas City.
The Orphan:Alice Tully Hall in NYC is still awaiting the
glorious return of its pipe organ after it was removed prior to the hall's
acoustical renovation.
Calling attention to the new concert hall trend, the New
York Times states that, "An organless Tully
means that New York has no major concert hall with a pipe organ, bucking
a nationwide trend.
The Nip & Tuck Class: (currently
or recently under renovation):
The Storage Rack: Speaking of Steere, we would be remiss not to
mention that Springfield, MA (Pete’s hometown) has a fine concert hall with a 1902
Steere organ that has been in crates for 30 years in the basement of a
municipal building. The Steere & Turner company was located in Springfield
and subsequently bought out by Skinner (then the General Motors of the organ
world) in the 1920's.
Long story short, it’s an active
time in the pipe organ world. And, of course, we have not even touched on
pipe organs in churches, from which many glorious sounds are emanating from
pipe organs everywhere. But for secularists and other organ-obsessed fans
everywhere, the options for enjoying some pipe music in multiple locales are growing, and
growing, and growing.
