One Stupid Mop

We like music. You should too.

St. Vincent - Marrow

(download)


I was reading a Bob Lefsetz review of Jamie Cullum's "All at sea" and listening to the song via Youtube, bored out of my mind by the songs performance I start to wander over to the related videos and see that Jaime also does many a cover including "Sky Cries Mary" and "High and Dry" all of which sound lifeless to me. He's emoting alright but the performances all lack a rawness that would make a song stick with you for life. If those same arrangements were sung by Sting or even Norah Jones they would have a much better chance of sticking with me, these performance just leave me flat.

Growing tired of Bob's selections, I searched for a palette cleanser and found this phenomenal performance of St. Vincent's "Marrow" on Letterman.

 

St. Vincent is another one of those artists, like Jamie Cullum, who's name I had heard but for what ever reason had paid no attention to (and in the case of Jamie Cullum I'm glad I had.) Ms. Annie Clark finally caught my attention not with the Letterman clip but with a performance on Austin City Limits a few months ago. I was half passed out on the bed drifting away when I was lulled into curiosity by the angelic flutes and oboe's that suddenly jarred me to attention with a full on marching band stomp.

http://austincitylimits.org/seyret-video?task=videodirectlink&id=176

Kristen and I were unwinding for the night and I stumbled upon PBS and Austin City Limits.  I'll admit I wasn't immediately taken in by St. Vincent.  Like a good music snob I was half interested and half bored because I was unfamiliar with the music and exhausted, so much so I started to drift off... then it hit me, those horns and the guitar solo, the dynamics of soft and quiet to loud and explosive, the sophistication of the arrangements... it had all pulled me in, I was now fully awake and enjoying every minute of it.

The next day Kristen had downloaded the album Actor and knew everything there was to know about her. I then headed to e-music for her 1st album Mary Me and began diving head first in to the world of Annie Clark.  

Annie Clark's music as St. Vincent is almost exactly what you would expect from a multi-instrumentalist who grew up in Texas, attended Berklee School of Music, joined the Polyphonic Spree just a couple years after high school and played in Sufjan Steven's touring band. She writes Pop songs, full of life, colorful arrangements and orchestration that are rough around the edges. A juxtaposition of violent guitars and sugary sweet "Birds on your shoulder" orchestral swoons.  Not every song is a gem, and many come off better live than on record, but the potential here is undeniable, and Annie know's this...

It's interesting how the internet is this revolutionary thing that allows us to connect and share so much information with one another yet it took a TV appearance on public television to get me to finally pay attention.  Crazy world we're living in.

Enjoy.

Get More info:

The Two Man Gentlemen Band - Dippin' Sauce

(download)

There are countless restaurant kitchens, bartender aprons and parent's basements housing musicians (as well as comedians and actors) that only thought they were clever. Two Man Gentlemen band might end up on those skids one day but, for the record: they are exactly as clever as they claim to be.

Members of the rather-good Music Under New York roster, these guys are frequently seen doing live recitals underground. Most of the people in the subway get pity change from passer-bys. They get an actual crowd. It's hard not to stop and take a few minutes for a real-life vaudeville act when your only destination is another day at work.

They facetiously purport to be "true gentlemen," with no four-letter words or "dirty" themes, which would be true if you took all the lyrics at exact face value. Takes about 12 seconds to figure out that they're not talking about a bottle of A1 here.

The 'gem' factor is, more than anything, in their true retro feel. It's hard to copy an old style, and it gets harder as the time period widens. Ignoring the clearly superior recording quality, they jump back near 80 years without so much as a stumble.

That, and it's music guaranteed to make you smile - even if you're catching an early-morning train to work when you really belong back in bed.

Future of the Left - "Lapsed Catholics"

(download)

Either I ignored reviews of Future of the Left's sophomore album Travels With Myself and Another or I managed to miss each and every single one of them, because it appears the album was received pretty well in all corners.

What it took for me to actually download and listen to the album - five times in five days, as it now stands - was for it to land on Against Me! lead singer Tom Gabel's best of 2009 list over at Punknews.org. I thought, this guy keeps putting out great records, maybe he's got decent taste. 

Travels With Myself and Another is, in fact, a pretty good record. It's got some stomping noise and a little obscene attitude not unlike the boys in Art Brut only it is completely unlike them. Everything is a bit cheeky on the album, and sometimes political. Also, I can understand the repeated references the singer makes to his balls - mine play a pretty significant role in my life too.

"Lapsed Catholics," not only the longest song on the album, but also the last song on the album, has stuck with me each time I listen to it. When it ends, I play it again. The casual delivery of story and sudden stab of rock and roll is a refreshing wake-up at whatever point my day is at. It's the acoustic guitar, and the ridiculous lyric, and the noisy climax, and resonates better, I think, than mid-album pleaser "You Need Satan More Than He Needs You."

With a name like Future of the Left, I thought I was about to get the second coming of Refused. To a certain extent, I'm disappointed that I didn't get exactly that. What's left, however, is more than enough to make me listen to the album again tomorrow. And I'll hear this song at least twice.

Fat Les - Vindaloo

(download)

Happy Boxing Day, everyone.

No idea what that is, eh? Well, you're on a computer, so you know what to do.

Suffice is to say that is a very big sporting day across the pond, involving the sport that, being an American, I'm often alone in caring about: football (which you likely call "soccer" or  "the sport I didn't know existed until the U.S. beat the best team in the world" or "bananas"). It also involves rugby but, since I'm American and don't really care, that's unimportant.

One of the real beauties of the game - one that we miss over here - is the song associated with it. Every team has their own set of chants and songs and, on any given match day, a stadium rings with tens of thousands singing unified with gruff, lager-slurred voices. Singing also doesn't harbor the 'girly' stigma, as singing the wrong song near the wrong hooligans can see your teeth quickly replaced by a tire iron.

Vindaloo was originally a fark on these songs but, like any catchy tune you hear after a long night of drinking with the boys, it caught on as a bit of a classic. The lyrics aren't exactly the most sophisticated arrangement, and the tune is easily mimicked by a child on a tiny drum set - a formula from which pop stars have been making billions for several decades now.

Unlike the latest annoying radio hit, it's an entertaining reminder that music (and several beers matched with a bucket of spicy food) makes everything better.

Sufjan Stevens - Star of Wonder

(download)

What Holiday Season is complete with out the sounds of Sufjan Steven's Songs for Christmas. Most attempts at holiday music, especially Christmas music, fall flat with me, but Sufjan captures the hope and joy that the winter solstice seams to bring while still leaving in a touch of sadness and reflection that also comes with the season. Then again all of my favorite songs from Sufjan do this for me. He has the ability to capture tender moments in life that make you want to both cry and sing out. 

This is an appropriate theme for me this holiday season as I celebrate my 1st Christmas with my beautiful wife and her family while I also mourn the sudden loss of my Aunt and witness the heavy sadness that weighs down on my family.  

This year my holidays will truly be filled with laughter, tears, reflection and renewal. Fortunately I have Sufjan Steven's "Star of Wonder" to get me through it. 

Joe

Converge - Dark Horse

(download)

 

Metal is perfect winter music. It's dark half the day. The street is covered in black slush with pockets of dog piss on piled-up sidewalk snow. The wind hits you directly in the face, no matter which way you're walking.

This isn't some depression thing. That's for freaks who like sweating all day in the summer.

In fact, it's the joy of symmetry. Given brutal outside, take brutal inside.

Dropped at the end of October, the latest Converge cut, Axe to Fall, just paints another couple feet on the end of a runway-wide mean streak. But you can train a monkey to pound out drop-d drivel - assuming plenty of free time and no aversion to flung feces. These boys have serious skills.

Among their top traits has always been the natural fluidity between all-out, double-kick speed metal, semi-culturally-acceptable hammer-on verse riffs and flair pieces of harmonic pause. You could fill a landfill with the records of bands who have so horribly blundered the mixing of metal styles, and fit the success stories on a standard bookshelf. Physically and mentally, that's a taxing feat. Throw in the fact that you have to make it sound like it wasn't engineered by that guy who's all alone in the alley talking to six different people, and I'm impressed.

Not to mention, in this holiday season, Converge has another entertaining employ: drown out your neighbor's incessant christmas music or sneak it in to Dad's Bing Crosby playlist for some extra cheer.

Jemina Pearl - Band On The Run

(download)

Jemina Pearl has this mix of danger and sex that Demi, Selena and Miley would be smart to find if they want to stick around past high school. Watching all three of them, I'd be surprised if they (or their stylists) aren't big fans, not that it matters for our purposes here.

There's a lot that I love about Pearl - the lyrics, the attitude, the knee-high boots and daisy dukes she sports on the cover of the album - but her voice is what seals the deal on her solo debut Break It Up. She sings like a pop princess, or at least like she might have it in her to be one, only with a sneer that's probably followed by a broken nose if you look at her the wrong way.

This and more amounts to a win for the former frontwoman of Nashville punk band Be Your Own Pet, which imploded last year while the band was on tour. Being hailed as the new cool kids by none other than that ultimate source of everything cool, Thurston Moore, must have been a lot to handle.

Make no mistake, this is the same Jemina Pearl who was singing about stabbing girls after class with BYOP. She's just added some accessibility to the middle finger she's waving in your face.

Bowerbirds – Crooked Lust

(download)

I’ve been really digging on Bowerbirds’ “Upper Air” album lately. Usually, I’m not one for folksy music, but this trio from Raleigh, North Carolina has won me over with its warm and welcoming sound that exudes confidence by being at ease with its simplicity.

There’s a refreshing purity stemming fourth from the floaty melodies and shiny vocals that populate the record. I find it all very soothing and relaxing, a musical stress reliever equivalent to a shoulder rub, cold beer, Xanax, or all three at once.

The music feels weightless to me, a quality I find quite appealing. Even the hints of sadness weaved throughout the dreamy atmospherics ring out with such organic beauty that it feels uplifting. If that doesn’t make sense, you can play the song and see for yourself.

Fools & Critters - Fools, Critters & Whatnot

(download)

At Halloween, I posted what I think is the best Charlie Brown sample ever. This here is more of an intro to the song, but it comes from one of South Florida's most underrated local bands to have entered a studio: Fools & Critters.

The mock & roll band, as they called themselves then and now, sang mostly about bullshit, taking the piss out of nearly anything they could think of. That I know of, the band released two albums, the studio classic Flingin' Powdered Doughnuts and a live tape called Does This Look Infected To You?

Of course, here's the song that anybody in South Florida who listened to WKPX in the mid-90s will know, "Spaceman Spiff". Once I discovered the song, we brought the band into the station for at least one interview and they sent us all sorts of exclusive studio stuff that I'm sure nobody else has.

Mark Herndon, the band's lead singer, also DJ-ed my brother's Bar Mitzvah - which must've been a frightening experience for him.

I'm not sure where they land in the lore of the SoFla local scene but I know I'm still talking about them, though I'm not really sure what that's worth.

Mason Williams - Classical Gas

(download)

Ask a music fan "Who's the best guitarist ever?" Ninety-five percent of the time, you get one of three reactions:

1. They fire off a famous name that everyone knows like Hendrix or Vaughan either because they don't know anyone else or just never put any thought into it.

2. They make a pensive face and/or ask for clarification before launching in to a diatribe that far exceeds the time span you had planned to listen to their answer.

3. They name some "M"tv 4-chord jackass. You kick them in the teeth.

I firmly believe that the unqualified greatest is Django Reinhardt, and Mason Williams is on an elite list where taste determines the other top spots. No, I'm not going to launch into a #2 - nor am I going to make a childish joke about that last phrasing, no matter how much I want to. I'm just going to recommend that you find a quiet spot, plug in the headphones, and try to really wrap your head the fact that there is only one guy playing. While you're at it, remember that there is a 7-part instructional video on how the hell to play this (which runs for nearly an hour).