-=ShoEboX=- of Worm Quartet
Marscon Main Stage w/ Stargate
Page 5 of archived music reviews originally run on Bartcop-E.
More recent reviews added to the end of the page.
I have seen none of the major movies nominated by the Academy of Arts and Sciences. I won't be watching the presentation tonight, and by the time you read this I will have further ignored the winners. Viewership continues to crumble. The Academy has decades of history to prove why it's irrelevant: As time recedes, we can see that the winners (and even the nominees) were the wrong choice. The Awards are just for show, to get a brief box-office boost. Not, in itself, a bad thing. But if you want to proclaim yourself to be all about "arts and science" then you would do well to make your decisions based on artistic merit and technological accomplishment.
Publicity stunts get boring after a while.
A Retrospective
These reviews are repeats, culled from columns past and edited/updated as need be, regarding artists who will be at Marscon this weekend, March 2-4. I've recommended the great Luke Ski many times, and talked about the Marscon Fundraiser CD last week. Luke will be emceeing the Dementia Track and having a grand ol' time.
Worm Quartet's first AND latest CD (as of 2006) is Sumophobia Alpha 2 Ex Super Championship Turbo Edition. Shoebox calls it Sumophobia A2EXSCTE but I prefer the more descriptive Sumophobia Alpha. By any name is a rerelease of older but remastered material material plus new stuff. Worth every acronym. Heck, it was worth the extra penny to buy it directly from him at Marscon. 72:44 of impure bliss, plus space between tracks.
The only real problem I have with Sumophobia Alpha is that I can't play a lot of my favorite cuts on the radio without bleeping. I'll get around to eviscerating the material for the sphincter conservatives, but out of the box I was reduced to playing Russian McDonald's Commercial in which, if there are Naughty Words, they are in Russian. Worm Quartet is in the proud, if grungy, tradition of anti-establishment young rebels: Scatological, insulting of celebrities, self-deprecating, off the wall and usually makes you laugh even when you don't think you should. The music sounds almost childish but isn't; his use of looping and rhythm machines masks some nice tunes. He sings songs of procreation, coffee, not giving a sh*t about your website, hair on the soap, William Shatner, carbonated hamsters, being a hopeless romantic and hamsters again.
What separates Shoebox from all the other smartass college kids who never grew up is his use of language. He has the astonishing ability to juxtapose ideas and concepts that have never even contemplated being on the same planet together, much less in the same line of lyric. Sure, anyone can write a song about vampire penguins but it takes special talent to make a spatula into a phallic symbol. Only Shoebox can sing his songs; when other people want to sound like WQ, they bring in Shoebox to provide their Inner Voice (the most requested song on the Dr. Demento show in 2005). Imagine if a kid in Tom Lehrer's college math class crammed for finals by immersing himself in Italo Calvino, Weird Al Yankovic and the Sex Pistols. Okay don't, see if I care.
Sumophobia Alpha is highly recommended if you liked any other Worm Quartet CD. If you've never heard WQ, this is a pretty good overview, with early songs and recent songs and a wide range of material to choose from.
Flex Your Nipples - Live, is a full-scale Worm Quartet DVD. (Go to the Worm Quartet main page, click on Buy Stuff; ShoEboX is so retro, he used frames.) I picked it up at Marscon, and have been dipping in it ever since. It's got a full Worm Quartet concert, with commentary but not a subtitle track in Portuguese, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not going to get to in this lifetime. It looks like a basement tape but the sound is surprisingly good and it's very well edited so you don't have to wait around for the sound checks. An excellent addition to any Worm Quartet collection. Heck, if you're the type who prefers concert films to the audio alone you might want to start with this DVD.
Worm Quartet's latest CD, Mental Notes, is available in pre-order and I hope to pick up a copy at the con.
Eric Coleman released his first full CD at age 44, so I like him already. Some See The Glass Half Empty is a pretty good debut. His solo guitar work derives from folk, though he regrets not being a metalhead in his most played song, Bang My Bald Spot, which I heard him perform at Marscon. He is exactly like that. He copes with aging in Low Self Esteem Talking Blues and Trophy Wife. I like his commentary on commercialism in Golden Age of Silicon, out just in time to be a commentary on wardrobe malfunctions. I know too many really good musicians who spent years before releasing a CD that fell flat. Many amateur musicians are great in a circle of friends but their studio albums don't capture their high points. Some See The Glass Half Empty is much better than many 25-year freshmen CDs. It's not a great album, but it has several good songs with a point of view based on long experience.
Since then, Eric has spent a great deal of time touring and refining his act. He has great rapport with the audience, and the concert is frequently interactive. I expect his Marscon appearance to be fun.
A word about The Gothsicles. I'm not really a fan of mosh pit music so didn't pick up their CD. But I've got to give props to the video that accompanies their live performance. Computer-generated video, lovingly crafted by geeks with too much time on their hands. Watching the images as they flash by helps those of us who can't really catch the lyrics as they get screamed. If you like this kind of music, go for The Gothsicles. If not, see if you can catch one of their concerts. You might acquire the taste.
I hear a lot of music. Not all of it is to my taste. Now, I'd like to think that I can tell the difference between something that others might like but I don't and a real piece of crap. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Like The Gothsicles, Art Paul definitely falls into the category of acquired taste that I haven't acquired yet. You might. No promises. He has several CDs out, including a Tribute Album to which I contributed. Here are my updated comments on his Best Of CD.
Art Schlosser belongs to that group of people who believe that if you keep plugging away, you'll eventually succeed. No matter what. And he may be right. I wish him luck. The Best of Art Schlosser was compiled by The Great Luke Ski, so on his recommendation Art and I traded CDs. He's a very persistent guy. (You can stop sending me e-mails asking when I'm going to review your CD now, Art.)
The CD is nearly 74 minutes comprising 54 songs. He sort of sounds like The Sex Pistols without the punk, Emo Phillips without the jokes or a kid brother who desperately wants something. I started off listened to a few cuts at a time, and I think I've got the gist of his musicianship. He has great titles and good concepts, then beats them to death by repetition. Probably the best way to survive as a street musician. Have a Peanut Butter Sandwich is most of the lyrics of that song, and it became #1 on Dr. Demento's Funny Five back in 2001. I listened to Are You Gullible? and The One Chord Song and I Don't Want To Find Waldo and a few others. It took me a while before I could listen to The Shortest Song I Ever Wrote, This One's Even Shorter, Another Star Trek Sequel Blues, Kermit the Frog Aftershave or Santa is Elvis. Worth a coin or two as you pass by on the street.
The Best of Art Paul, in a cardboard sleeve, is the perfect gift to give a tween boy, especially if you tell him never to play it around you. It has that sense of pre-adolescent humor and an infectious enthusiasm that transcends any lack of talent. I'm glad this CD is part of my collection because I like weird things, and I'll probably slip in some cuts over the air now and then. But listen before you decide for yourself.
Art Paul will be performing at Marscon 2007. I look forward to meeting him but, during his concert, I'll probably watch audience reaction more than listen to the music. Still, live performance is a different art form than recorded music. I might get caught up in the experience.
Ookla the Mok are the Musician Guests of Honor at Marscon. They've remained on the periphery of my consciousness; I only have one of their CDs, Super Secret, and a few other scattered cuts. OtM is heavy on the comic references, which can is fun if you follow the field. They'll fit into Marscon well.
A short column this week, as I'm off in the wilds of Bloomington Minnesota for Marscon 2007, the only convention with a Dementia track. As long as I'm surrounded by musicians who know other strange musicians, I might as well tap their fevered brains and besotted ears. Thanks all!
One of my favorite songwriters is a guy named Paul K. One of my favorites to the point that, when there was no website about him I made my own. The current version. His website.
I once described Paul as if Lou Reed had grown up reading Raymond Chandler rather than William Burroughs. His music runs the gamut from punky rock and roll to blues to folk to pretty much anything else he feels like tossing into the mix. His music is about redemption. He was a junkie back in the 80s and much of what he has written about the crawl back up to a real life. His most recent music is more political and his semi-regular update on the email list that I run is always worth a read. I don't get into goofy fanboy mode much, but I always do with Paul.
Quickshots
I buttonholed several people at Marscon. They (for the most part) named their favorite weird artist/group of those who weren't at the con.
ShoEboX of Worm Quartet: Possible Oscar.
Pheonix (DJ on Dementia Radio): David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
Art Paul Schlosser: The Trenchcoat Club, Victoria Williams
Eric Heideman: The Decemberists, Barenaked Ladies, "mutant folk" eg The Roches, Lou & Peter Berryman.
Adam English (of Ookla the Mok, Musician Guest of Honor at Marscon 2007): Jonathan Coulton. "He's so good, I probably shouldn't have told you about him."
Ed Eastman: Alex Beaton, easpcially the CD Daft Ditties.
Rob McClude (Marscon sales table): Metallica, Black Sabbath
Dana Wolfe: Tom Smith
Emi Briet: Throwing Toasters, Lemon Demon
Earl Luckes (Nick Atoms, etc): Queen's Flash Gordon Soundtrack;, Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry Anthology; Ennio Morricone's, Once Upon A Time In The West; Peter Wyngarde's, When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head
the great Luke Ski: Consortium of Genius, Throwing Toasters, Boogie Knights, Lemon Demon, Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm, Positive Attitude
Marscon is the only sf convention that has a Dementia Music track. Other conventions make space for music, but Marscon reserves the Main Stage during most of the con for the musicians that aren't quite filk and not quite folk. These are people who, for the most part, grew up listening to Dr. Demento and wanting to be Weird Al Yankovic. Dementia is a self-defined category which, very loosely, means, "the kind of music Dr. Demento would play". A very broad category, to be sure.
At this year's Marscon, I picked up several CDs, many of which were published in time for the con; counting the CDs promised through the mail, I've acquired more music at Marscon 2007 than any other con. This week and next will cover some of my new haul.
Mental Notes
Worm Quartet has long been a favorite (and a friend), and Mental Notes stretches his musical legs.
Shoebox... excuse me, ShoEboX... um, -=ShoEboX=- (whew it's hard to keep up) specializes in rhetorical undeconstructionism. Smashing words and concepts together in the mosh-pit of despair is an enormous amount of fun, but a little goes a long way and Shoe... er, -=ShoEboX=- properly limits examples to just as much as we can stand. The remarkable thing is that all the logorrhea are so different from each other. In this case, Adventures In Creative Nostril-Swallowing (A Tribute To Plants That Suck):
Further, I detect the semi-subtle influence of the great Luke Ski on several tracks (and he capitalizes the name properly). A few times, some of the lyrics were more than dysfunctional words playing in the same psychodrama, they were actual pop references in the tgLS mode of summing up an opus and extracting relevance to the song. Consider this snippet from I'm Not A Girl:
More than just expert vocabulary-scarring, this demonstrates an understanding of the art.
I very much enjoyed the a cappella rendition of You Will Go To The Moon, the paean to his wife's naughty bits in I've Got A Wife and Ed Meese. Even the outtakes in the hidden cut were fun.
The album artwork by Andy Hopp is splendid. I like the visual puns front and back, and the notepad theme inside. Many of the Dementia artists have learned a trick or two about marketing.
Mental Notes is R-rated for language, but nothing a kid in High School hasn't heard from their parents. Highly recommended, whether this is your first Worm Quartet CD and want to check out why Dr. Demento plays his stuff all the time or whether you have his other CDs and want to add to your collection.
-=ShoEboX=-'s wife -=Kim=-... er, Kim, makes nifty buttons and necklaces.
Words of Cheese and Other Parrot Trees
Art Paul Schlosser is an acquired taste, and I may have finally jumped the shark been bitten. At least for live performances. Art Paul is a street musician, a fixture in Madison Wisconsin. The very aspects that make his recorded music difficult to take in large quantities make him so much fun to watch: His fearlessness, the utter lack of professionalism, the well-honed "put a quarter in my hat"-tested schtick. I didn't know what to expect meeting him in person, but he is, as we say in the Upper Midwest, a hoot. His concert at Marscon had people laughing out loud, singing along and playing kazoos. With a few props and boundless energy, Art Paul kept us all going.
His latest CD features cheese. And parodies (aka parrot trees) of songs done ala fromage. A Wisconsin specialty, but life experience for all. (A Cheese That's Real) Not Fade Away requires the costume in the picture above (or at least the chapeau). Beatles, Mamas & Papas, The Doors are all churned. I'm a Cheese Head takes on The Monkees:
Art Paul also ranges beyond dairyland to other topics, notably Christmas. I haven't actually heard the whole thing yet, so I'm going to stop here.
You can download songs and order CDs through the links on Art Paul Schlosser's MySpace Page. I can't, in good conscience, give an unsliced recommendation to any of his music, but after seeing him live I'm getting into it. If you happen to be walking down State Street in Madison, look for the guy with the cheesehead and throw a few coins his way.
Happy Ranch
Anther pleasant surprise was Carrie Dahlby. She's a frequent collaborator with the great Luke Ski. They duet the original Star Wars plot to the songs from a different movie in Grease Wars and she's the main vocalist as Vader Boy. Her first solo album is Happy Ranch, and it's a successful outing.
Many of the cuts are little snippets she sings to her cat, Buffy Kitty, including one sung into her cell phone. These are fun, and may start a rush of feline serenades. Or ringtones. You have been warned.
All good Dementia artists have an ear for parody (even when they don't want to call it filk). Carrie has an excellent ear for music, an eye for subject matter and fungible hair for live performances. Steely Dan songs are parodied with Any Watcher Dude about the Watcher on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Reelin' In The Grease (Stowin' Away The Pounds) adds extra calories. Type Two Diabetes spins from Gilbert & Sullivan while What's Wrong With This Song advances a Sweetwater tune. I've never seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but it's a favorite among some, and Hedwig Robinson parodies a Simon and Garfunkel tune originally for a completely different movie.
D was her contribution to the Art Paul Schlosser Tribute album (to which I also kicked in). Carrie's voice is sufficiently different than Art Paul's that even those few who are familiar with the original will barely recognize it as a cover. A marvelous piece of work.
Any musician that has her father playing bass and guitar has a few licks of her own. I Really Did Go To School Naked is a bit of subversion that I like to spread around. She gets Luke Ski and many others to help her with UR about "a mysterious skin blemish". Fight Club! The Musical jabs at a number of songs along the way.
While very different, if you like the great Luke Ski you'll like Carrie Dahlby. Several songs will get airplay and I didn't have to bleep anything! Happy Ranch is highly recommended.
Pictures by Baron Dave from the Marcon 2007 Galleries.
Quickshots
After I wrote last week's column and sent it off, I got more favorites from various musicians and attendees at Marscon.
Rob McClude (Marscon sales table): Metallica, Black Sabbath
Dana Wolfe: Tom Smith
Emi Briet: Throwing Toasters, Lemon Demon
Earl Luckes (Nick Atoms, etc): Queen's Flash Gordon Soundtrack;, Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry Anthology; Ennio Morricone's, Once Upon A Time In The West; Peter Wyngarde's, When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head
the great Luke Ski: Consortium of Genius, Throwing Toasters, Boogie Knights, Lemon Demon, Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm, Positive Attitude
Marscon is the only sf convention that has a Dementia Music track. Other conventions make space for music, but Marscon reserves the Main Stage during most of the con for the musicians that aren't quite filk and not quite folk. These are people who, for the most part, grew up listening to Dr. Demento and wanting to be Weird Al Yankovic. Dementia is a self-defined category which, very loosely, means, "the kind of music Dr. Demento would play". A very broad category, to be sure.
At this year's Marscon, I picked up several CDs, many of which were published in time for the con; counting the CDs promised through the mail, I've acquired more music at Marscon 2007 than any other con. Last week covered three artists, and there may be more to come.
Carla Ulbrich
Carla Ulbrich only has three CDs and a two-song EP, but songs of hers pop up on various compilations, so I know there's more in her. Nonetheless, I'll only talk about the CDs.
her fabulous debut, from 1999, is a strong first effort, pink and cuddly. Nicely produced, with good arrangements, strong singing and a lyric sheet. Topics range from boyfriends to food to songwriting to tv shows. She has an expressive southern twang that gives her music a coy innocence over hardass lyrics.
Her most famous song is What If Your Girlfriend Was Gone:
This song and its parody have been on Dr. Demento, leading her to write a third version, What If I Only Have One Good Song? Bouncy country riffs for a potential boyfriend.
Fame, such as it is, hasn't scratched her cynical side. When informed that she wasn't allowed to have a bad day because she was a "hero", she responded with Not Your Jesus:
I'm also fond of Boy Wonder, about a young genius who desires normalcy. Not enough folk singers realize that they have Nothing To Say, and Carla gets a good song out of it too! The way to her heart is through her stomach in Toasted Chicken Sandwich.
her fabulous debut is more country than filk or dementia, and yet remains above the fray, looking at life from an unexpected angle. Her debut is still her strongest CD, and highly recommended.
Professional Smart Aleck is her second CD, a live album (more on that later). No longer pink and cuddly, she's in college now, at Carla U,. She instructs audience in elocution with A Name is a Name (My Name is Carla while discussing The Teachers At Clempson and The Wedgie. She can tell you How To Build A Log Cabin (for Dummies) or why Therapy Works and asks performers Would You Rather Be Paid?:
The CD is definitely a sophomore outing, but with the accumulation of four years of experience, and it pays off. She repeats a few songs from her first CD, with a hidden track of outtakes to poke fun at herself. I can't recommend Professional Smart Aleck to start off your Carla Ulbrich collection, but if you like her debut this is worthwhile picking up.
People write about what they know, and unfortunately Carla spent some time in a hospital. At least she got an album out of it: Sick Humor: The Lighter Side of Illness. Many of the songs are parodies, covers of rock songs, and so she gets close to filk. The music arrangements are good, and she's lost much of her South Carolina twang. You can feel that she's annoyed with the time spent battling illness, but she still looks at life a little cockeyed.
She parodies Personality, by Lloyd Price with Sittin' in the Waiting Room:
She's On the Commode Again as Patient 2946065 and asks, after losing too much weight, What If Your Butt Was Gone (the parody of What If Your Girlfriend Was Gone mentioned above).
The songs are well done and the observations are personal and incisive. Perhaps a bit more than we wanted to know, but we can all relate to being poked and prodded and pilled. The subject matter is handled with gentle humor, not rage against the machine. Sick Humor is another successful Carla Ulbrich outing, and recommended.
And a quick comment on the EP If I Had The Copyright (The "F" Word Song) (click to load the mostly worksafe video of concert footage of second version). The song itself is fun and wouldn't make a sailor blush. The first cut is the full, unbleeped, version. The second cut is a raw recording of a live concert, but much more fun to listen to. Perhaps someday Carla will collect all her wandering songs into one CD, but until then we'll take what she dollops out. She's fun in concert, and available.
Eric Comes Alive - Windycon 2006
Semi-disclaimer: Eric Coleman doesn't really deserve this rant, as he freely admits he pressed this CD to have something new for Marscon. Tough. It's my soapbox.
Back In The Day, a band's second album (or thereabouts) would be full of lamentation about being on the road or having to pay too much in taxes or how hard it was dealing with fans or somesuch. You write what you know, and touring is hard work. Of course, back then a vinyl recording too a lot of initial capital and the investment was beyond most individual artists. Nowadays, almost anyone can record a concert off the soundboard and press a few CDS to see how sales go. All too often, an artist's sophomore CD is of a live concert and without the years of Spinal Tap-like touring being them, the concert album disappoints.
Eric gives a good concert. But you have to be there. He bounces off people he knows in the audience, and they request songs and make jokes. His second CD (no Eric, I'm not counting your EP) is Eric Comes Alive - Windycon 2006. A faithful recording of the whole thing, including banter. Having been to several of Eric's concerts, I felt at home. I've even played a cut on the air, a bit of banter about LiveJournal of which we are both members. I'm glad I have this CD, but I can't recommend it to anyone who hadn't seen him in concert or isn't a fan of his first CD, Some See The Glass Half Empty.
I understand the economics of touring and needing to have new material at sales tables when you revisit a venue. And something is better than nothing. Still, I prefer the route taken by the great Luke Ski. In between major released, he repackages old material, adds some new stuff and picks the best example of live performances.
So, Eric, I hope you don't mind that this rant lands on you, and will take the plug of your first CD as offering. But you have more stuff, you can come out with a new CD, dammitalltoheck.
Oh Dear FSM... Not Another One
On the other hand, we have DJ Particle with her sophomore effort, Oh Dear FSM... Not Another One. She describes herself as a "RIAAcidal Lesbian Parodist" and goes from there. She has lots of energy and it can be fun listening to her dander on the Dementia Radio Shoutcast. On the other hand, it can be grating to hear her try to sing. Her vocal range, alas, is exceeded by her enthusiasm.
On the other hand, her enthusiasm in infectious, and she's enough of a geek to get good sounds out of her looping and sampling. When it works, it works. Her live screed against Windows Vista is fun, especially for us Mac guys. The two hidden tracks are part of the "RIAAdical" biz on file sharing. The techno sampling is not to my taste, but it might be to yours.
Her filk of a filk, I Stole This Song, fits nicely in this theme, and with one bleep is playable on the air. She has a song about Leela of Futurama (with another about a Dr. Who Leela) and samples Bush to urge impeachment before Next Election Day.
Dj Particle's performance at the Smackdown was pretty good. She bopped around to The Home Coming Queen's Got A Gun to mention next year's Musician Guests of Honor, Hot Waffles. She hit all the notes and chewed the scenery. Perhaps a live concert CD would be good for her, if she selected the cuts to show off her talent.
I'm glad I have DJ Particle's two CDs in my collection, since I never know quite when I'll need something more off the track than usual. But I rarely play them and they're not on my iPod. You might like her stuff more than I do. 'Ya Never Know.
Pictures by Baron Davefrom the Marscon 2007 Galleries.
The Early CDs
The Wronged Woman has long been a theme in Country and Western, going back at least to Frankie and Johnny, with roots in Greek Tragedy and Shakespeare and other high falutin' book learnin'. Tammy Wynette sacrifices her pride to Stand By Your Man and and Kitty Wells blames men for her failures in It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Women and Barbara Mandrell feels bad while she cheats and Kay Frances insists You Make Me Puke and the road goes ever onward.
Meanwhile, Kacey Jones is has a grand ol' time makin' fun of her own failures and be mean to her exes.
Men Are Some Of My Favorite People is the earliest album available. (She released Born to Burn earlier, as Ethel & the Shameless Hussies.) By now she's a seasoned performer and the CD is a live concert with many of the songs that are her standards and are repeated one or more times on subsequent albums. A couple of songs will serve as examples of her self-deprecation and her ability to wield the rapier.
The tracks include many of the spoken intros. Jones loves to banter with the audience, and gains energy from them, but doesn't let the audience take over the songs. This is fairly rare, and serves her well on this and her later live album.
Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay, Of Dead is a more commercial attempt at mainstream country, and succeeds with some nice production and an eye on her image, though it's her shortest CD and the one she writes the fewest songs for. She snags Delbert McClinton for the duet You're The Readon Or Kids Are Ugly and channels Kinky Friedman for her version of Geography. She'll get local airplay during the holiday season with Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis though she may not get the card.
In her first two CDs, Kacey Jones connects with a live audience and taps into the rich history of Country and Western music. A strong start.
The Sweet Potato Queen Pair
Never Wear Panties To A Party is a more risque outing. The lyrics don't appear on the insert but you can buy a Pink Party Panty with the album title emblazoned on the front. She's hitting her stride with the country rock outing. The title song is fun and unabashed advice. (Though presumably she'll make an exception if you wear the panties she sells.) After a one night stand, Carol King asked Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Kacey's earthy answer is the bouncy ditty, I Thought He Was Mr. Right (but he left). For some reason the torch song about watching a former lover's trysts, Just To Torture Myself, gets an "organic jailhouse version" which features some blistering guitar blues. We Need The Wood comes in two versions: G and PG. No, it's not as dirty as it sounds. She gives advice to a guy with a martyr complex, "Get off the cross, honey we need the wood." What makes it PG? "Shit happens."
Jones comes to grip with her inner and outer Sweet Potato Queen with "I Wanna Be A Sweet Potato Queen" and the rousing Mississippi march on St. Patrick's Day, "The SPQ Parade Anthem" Unbeknownst to many of us, The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love (print and audio), cookbook, fat-ass book, parade, etc are a bit of a phenomena.
The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Box of Music has Jones leaping on the bandwagon in a big-ass way: 73 minutes of music spread over 21 tracks. Most of the songs are about hedonism and engorged body parts, and often both. It's difficult to pick out a few favorites, since I'm smitten with most of the songs. "Sweet Potato Queens love Lolling In The Tub" (to the tune of Bringing in the Sheaves), about taking a looong bath. The bonus version has a Naughty Word, but is almost work safe anyway. How Far Can We Go Crazy is more rousing hard rock than country, but is also about lolling about in the tub. Then there's a terrific Grrrl Power anthem:
She gives more advice reggae-style with We All Need to Get Laid, when a friend doesn't have enough nookie. The rock admonition to men Show Up Naked, Bring Beer because men are easy to please is echoed with a reprise of Never Wear Panties to a Party while she looks really hot in This Dress and brags about her breast enlargement in How Do You Like These Babies Now? It's not that easy, guys, since she has two different versions of a song that tells girls to hold off while leading them on, Never Give 'em Any. Doesn't seem fair.
Nipples To The Wind
Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay Or Dead -- Live!, her second live album in six releases, shows Kacey Jones at work. The first twenty-two tracks comprise eleven songs and their introductions. While the intros are brief, to the point, get the audience laughing and segue nicely into the song. Jones gives a great concert, feeding off the energy of the crowd but not letting them spoil the song for the CD. She hates going to the laundromat so laments I'm Down to My Christmas Underwear. This is now added to my Christmas cycle of songs (which I usually play in July.)
She gets serious about a relationship, since without love We're All in This Alone. Without love, you might as well get Dressin' Up for the Pizza Man. With a much older love, she's "i>Waitin' for the Guy to Die. What she really loves is safety of and nostalgia for My Own Bed.
"Nipples To The Wind, let the fun begin, nothing to defend, just nipples to the wind. chin up, chest out, that's what we're talkin' about..." Another bawdy, in-your-face anthem from Kacey Jones serves as the title track to the CD. Several of the songs are from Nipples To The Wind, "An original sassy comedy" as two women play an assortment of characters. This is another very strong outing for Jones, empowering women while laughing at herself along the way. She reprises Women Are the Rhythm of the World, A Woman's Mantra and But I'm Not Bitter among others, and picks up men Down At The Piggly Wiggly and wears This Dress...
Of course, I was smitten with Monkee Man, a love paean to Peter Tork. Ah, a Sweet Potato Queen who shares my musical taste. Clocking in at over an hour, this CD excites your fiddly bits even as it's work safe (depending on where you work). Like all the CDs I got directly from her, this one was autographed.
The personal touches are like the intros to the live albums: An extra that brings you closer to the artist. Kacey Jones draws you into her sensuous world and makes you want more. Most of her albums a stuffed with music, though many of the cuts are repeats or slightly raunchier versions.
Recommendation for an iPod worthy singer
All six Kacey Jones CDs are strong outings with and very iPw. I'm going to do something very rare and recommend a live album as the first one to get. Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay Or Dead -- Live! It has many of her best songs performed well. Like Carla Ulbrich who I talked about a while ago, Jones belongs in that glorious category of sassy women singer-songwriters who won't take shit and don't mind poking fun at themselves either. The next one to get (or if you get two) is Nipples To The Wind, then fill in your Kacey Jones collection. I still have one more left to go!
Folksinger - Treehugger
Disclaimer: Michael Johnathon is from the same part of the country where I grew up -- the Hudson Valley area of NY -- and we have a mutual friend in Pete Seeger. But we never met and I hadn't heard of him until these CDs came my way. I wound up in Minneapolis, he found a home in Kentucky. Neither of us quite left that area of the country, that curve of New England from Boston to New York that encompasses the Berkshires, the Catskills and the lower Hudson, which avoids the megalopolis to the south as well as the mountains and seacoast to the north. His songs remind me of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School of Art.
Johnathon is quite active, and the WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour is now also on tv, he has a live webcast, blog, and more! The liner notes say he has "nine released albums and two books ", but I can only comment on the three CDs I have.
Walden: The Earth Song Collection
Walden: The Earth Song Collection is a fine CD and fitting tribute to Henry David Thoreau. The first song comes from a two act, four character play Walden: The Ballad of Thoreau:
Still, the songs I like best remind me of the gentle hills and bucolic yet close-to-civilization to be found in the foothills of the Catskills. In The Woods has some marvelous harmonies and nostalgic instrumental breaks as well as colorful lyrics:
Similarly, The Cabin, "the music from a chimney fire fills the air again" and imagery. I never lived in a cabin in the wood, but I knew a lot of people who did.
There are too many people in the world for everyone to go live alone in the wilderness, so Thoreau's lifestyle makes lousy urban planning. Still, simplifying your life and keeping an eye on what's important are useful ways to structure your life. The collective nostalgia for places and times we never experienced are, nonetheless, home to many. Walden: The Earth Song Collection is an album about the home you never had, but remember. The songs are iPod worthy (iPw) and the CD is Highly Recommended.
Evening Song
Evening Song isn't about Thoreau or the Catskills, but the writer and the mountains lurk in the background. Even on a red-eye flight going from coast to coast is cause to reminisce about the Americana one passes while traveling alone. "I saw America late one night" along Blue Highways. Many of the songs are about being alone and trying not to be. Evening songs. His dealings with women run the gamut, when she leaves by the Nighttime Star and loves him as she and the family sings a Sunday Song and he frees her to stay as her love brings out his Spirit:
The Troubadour wonders where the time has gone. He bemoans the destruction caused by the Master of War who are away from the fighting; a live cover of the Dylan song.
Evening Song is, perhaps, the strongest of these three albums, which is saying a lot. Johnathon orchestrates the music with 18 of his friends. The sound is lush and inviting; acoustic country folk at its finest. Highly Recommended and well iPw.
Live
When Michael Johnathon puts out a Live album, he doesn't play around. And this is Volume 2 of The Best of WoodSongs! The picture of Michael Johnson and the FolkBoy Orchestra with Irish songstress Maura O'Connell shows eight people. As with most live albums, it was probably a great concert. The CD avoids most of the common mistakes of live albums, and produces a strong, tight effort.
Wings of Change establishes that "The only part of life that will ever stay the same is: everything will change." When it does, we might die from those mistakes that never go away in The World We Made. He covers Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door and sings of women who leave and women who wait. The longest song, and the saddest, is Chimney and the Grave, a duet with O'Connell as parents are ripped apart after the death of their child:
The wrenching imagery continues, with somber mandolin and cello in the background. Eventually a song rises from the ashes of despair, but it's too late for the marriage. Not a song I can listen to a lot.
Live is the earliest of the three CDs, I think. Johnathon is very busy touring and promoting acoustic folk music, appearing on various NPR shows and such. While it has many strong songs and terrific performances, this isn't the CD to start off with, though you'll want to add it to your collection if you like either of the two above.
"Americana" or "Folk" or "Other"
The range of music between "Easy Listening" and "Dementia" is wide. I have many CDs that don't necessarily fall into clusters. I like to review related CDs in any one column, but sometimes worthy music isn't related to much other worthy music. At least, given my collection. Much of the music I've acquired recently has been from disparate sources. Many artists have been around for a few years and are feeling their oats with self-published CDs, giving concerts and/or trying to get radio airplay.
The ability of the masses to hear recorded music is less than a century old. The Edison Phonograph dates back to 1878, but it was developed to transcribe telegraph signals. Decades passed before the sound quality reached any sort of decent fidelity, and as long for the price to drop to where recordings were affordable for the masses. The first commercial radio stations were in the early 1920s, and they were live. Post-WWII brought tape to record for the radio, and the LP for home listening.
In the same time period between the Edison Phonograph and the LP -- roughly 60 years -- is roughly the same time between the LP and the iTunes store. Listening to digital music on an iPod is easy, cheap, and personal, with a selection that would have been unimaginable in Edison's time. I daresay that most iPods have more different pieces of music on them than someone in the 1920s heard in their entire lifetime.
What we gain in flexibility and variety, we've lost in sound quality. Too many get the majority of their music via a medium-quality mp3 using a poor quality audio bud. Better than a transistor radio in the 50s, not nearly as good as a high quality stereo system of the 80s. This is terrific for walking down the street and not bothering anyone, but not so good for the audiophile who likes to use their ears to the fullest. Maybe all those loud concerts and stereos, maybe it's trying to listen to the radio in a very loud car, but somehow convenience has replaced audio quality. Maybe this is the Revenge of MTV, where "seeing" a rock song while hearing the music over cheap tv speakers was as good or better than a true audiophile experience.
Forgive another discourse on technological change. I'm working to justify CD-quality sound (which isn't all that high a spec) over downloading a file, and help sell some CDs. I have a good computer sound system and a mid-range stereo, and my stereo is much better sound. Much music is iPw: iPod worthy. And much is also worth a true listen, as close to a live performance as you'll get without being there.
Still, I expect the fallout from the rise of digital distribution will be a concomitant emphasis on live music. You hear the shadow of sound through ear buds, then want to hear The Real Thing. Here are three CDs that both deserve listening in good stereos and who tour enough that you might have the chance to see them.
Isabelle Delage
The Inundation by Isabelle Delage is one of the reasons I became a music reviewer. The Inundation is such a wonderful album that we should be shouting about it from the rooftops. We'll have to make due with spreading the word on the internet.
Isabelle writes songs of such personal intensity that I have no problem using her first name even though we've never met. The opening cut, "Mary's Rainbow", is beautiful and sad and hard to write about because I keep tearing up, so I'll use her words from the lyric booklet: "This is a fantasy song which came to me when I was reading about autism, deafness and a condition called synethsesia, a crossing of two or more senses in which a person 'sees' as bursts and twirls of color." A simple song, with guitar and backing vocals guiding you through Mary's senses as she waits for her father to return from war.
She put off writing songs for twenty years to raise a family. They are lucky to have her, and now so are we. Isabelle is all grown up now, and writes songs for grownups. In "I Never Knew", she tells of her discoveries, over time, about death, heartache and having children.
And nobody told me that a newborn babyThe journey from life to death runs through the death of her younger sister as a young woman, to the breast cancer death of an old friend. She has one song in French, her native language, which is conveniently translated in the booklet.
Would smell as sweet as hay
And melt my heart clear away
A tiny fist wrapped around my finder
Trusting me to know
The things it needs to live and grow
She also does something neat that I haven't seen in a long time. "Small Things" is the song she has on a radio sampler, and her CD version is longer... and better, with an ending coda in Swahili. A three language album! A simple arrangement, beautifully sung and played.
It's your turn now to take a bowThe Inundation is a remarkable first album, thirty years in the making. I'm tempted to say that you need a few miles under your belt before you can appreciate the journey, but joy and pain are universal for any age. Highly recommended. More than iPw (iPod worthy), these songs deserve a good listen to.
You have done all humanity proud
And though you think you work in the shadows
You are one of the world's greatest heroes
Don McLean
For most of us, the last time we thought about Don McLean was when Madonna covered "American Pie". Fortunately for us (and him), he's been touring and writing... and being written about. I hadn't realized he was the subject of "Killing Me Softly With His Song": Why wasn't I informed? In 2004 after 40 years in the business he was inaugurated into the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters' Hall of Fame. And sometimes he just likes to sing.
The Western Album, from 2003, is sandwiched in between 2002's You've Got to Share: Songs for Children and 2005's Christmastime. He's been stretching his musical chops. While he won't make you forget about Ledbelly or Garth Brooks, he does a very nice job covering old Western favorites ranging from Gene Autry to Tom Lehrer.
He does a nice swing version of "I've Got Spurs (That Jingle)", though I still have never encountered the song that says "oh ain't you glad you're single". Trouble with women is further explored in Woody Guthrie's "Philadelphea Lawyer" (spelled that way, for some reason). The loneliness of the "Blue Prairie" is heard as he and his saddle pals sing along the trail. His chorus nearly yodels in "Song of the Bandit" and kids have fun singing along with "I'm An Old Cowhand".
"Lyndon Has A Bear Hug On Dallas" is about loving Texas and a road named after LBJ that goes around the city. More overtly political is Tom Lehrer's "The Wild West Is Where I Wanna Be" about atomic testing in the western desert. Still fun.
I bet Don McLean concerts are great. He has a wealth of material to choose from, his own and a wide repertoire. The Western Album probably isn't on his A List anymore, but it's recommended for fans of the genre and for those who want to keep up with a favorite artist with some iPw tunes.
The Old Ceremony
Our One Mistake by The Old Ceremony is the most recent release by a band recommended by a friend in the Carolinas. Django Haskins, lead singer and songwriter, says the group "draws their water from a deep well of music". The songs are good, but don't expect worldbeat; mostly straightforward American folk, with some interesting arrangements and the occasional song in Chinese. The Old Ceremony has a lush, folk, jazzy sound, like a big band backing up a Bob Dylan who can sing.
"Believer" is insistent jazzy funk with rap rhythmic lyrics, urging a woman to "make me a believer". Micky Dolenz, eat your heart out. "Poison Pen" urges us to take responsibility for our actions, citing The Declaration of Independence and such, admonishing our collective failure to live up to those ideals.
And the laws of this world
Were not handed down to men
They were written by our own hands
They were written by our own hands
They were written by our own hands with a poison pen.
"Radio Religion" is sort of the opposite of "American Pie", as the singer discovers the wide world opening up on the radio. The day the music music lived! "A love has turned to anger, all the gentleness has gone, baby, What Is Going On?" A mournful breakup, such plaintively.
They do a lot of live concerts, and their lush sound must be hard to reproduce. The eight people listed in the credits fill up a stage. But when it works, it's a full sound, and the lyrics are good enough to justify the effort. Recommended, and I hope to hear them in concert someday.
"Celtic" or "Country" or "Odd"
Music is everywhere. Despite the rise of low-quality mp3s available on the internet and DVDs replacing MTV for watching recorded music, that 20th Century idea of listening to a high-quality sound recording is still the baseline for audio. As I talked about last week, easily affordable recorded music has been at hand for little more than a century.
Here are three CDs from disparate sources: One was handed to me after I saw them in concert, one was sent at my request when I heard a track on a sampler album, and one came out of the blue from someone who thought I was weird enough to appreciate it. While each of these will have to fall into a marketing category to be placed in the proper record store shelf, all of them stretch the boundaries of their genre.
3 Pints Gone
Auld Lang Syne: The New Favorites of 3 Pints Gone is the result of remixing old tracks, producing live tracks, and some new releases. I know 3 Pints Gone, based in Wisconsin, from their concerts and filking at Minneapolis science fiction conventions, such as this one from the 2007 Convergence, which also served as a release party for the new CD. They've always given a fun, high-energy, half-drunken concert, and it's about time they produced an album that takes advantage of their experience and craft.
As you might expect from the name, 3 Pints Gone will be in the Irish/Celtic section, with heavy emphasis on drinking songs. *hic* Renaissance Festivals are their natural habitat. While there are live cuts on the CD, this is not a concert album, with the majority of the songs being remixes of previous releases. Which needed the remixing. The group has four other CDs, but this is the one to get.
The title song, "Auld Lang Syne", is giving a spirited celtic treatment, very different from the dewy-eyed New Year's ballad. 3 Pints Gone does very well with non-traditional covers of traditional songs; at least I haven't encountered them arranged quite this way. "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye", the anti-war song which I mostly know as Steeleye Span's "Fighting for Strangers", gets a good a cappella rendition. "Away Rio" keeps its sea chanty roots. A woman dressing as a man to be a sailor looking for her impressed love is a common theme in celtic songlore, and "Willie Taylor" is a upbeat version of a downbeat song.
A more recent song is based on a true story. As British forces were being evacuated from Dunkirk in June 1940, the 51st Highland Division was fighting a rear-guard holding action at St. Valery, waiting for an evacuation order that never came. The Dunkirk retreat was a strategic and PR success, but those that didn't make it out did not share in the glory.
When I returned at the end of the war,An understated, emotional ballad.
From the Stalag where I'd been confined,
I read of the battles the allies had fought,
Stalingrad, Alamein, and the Rhine.
And with pride in their hearts people spoke of Dunkirk
Where defeat had become victory
But nobody mentioned that Highland Division.
They'd never heard of St.Valery
Many of their songs about war or coming home from war, far more than drinking songs. All songs have been honed by experience and many have wonderful harmonies. 3 Pints Gone has been around for a while, and Auld Lang Syne squeezes every drop out of them. If you like traditional Celtic songs in the Tommy Makem/Irish Rovers style, then you'll like how 3 Pints Gone builds on traditional arrangements for their versions. Recommended, with many of the 21 cuts being iPw. If you like this CD, you can fill in your collection with the others, but you'll like their concerts better.
Chris Stuart & Backcountry
Mojave River by Chris Stuart and Backcountry could be filed under Bluegrass or Americana, but for the moment it's in my Country section. The harmonies and the driving banjo are the deciding factor. Sounding like The Rooftop Singers on a country station, all the songs are well done and, like 3 Pints Gone, show their traditional roots while bold arrangements make unique versions.
The CD opens with a rousing rendition of Townes Van Zandt's Dollar Bill Blues (the only song they didn't write), which sets the tone. The tale of drink, gambling and whoring will keep your toes a-tappin' with several good lead breaks letting the band members strut their stuff. He's an outlaw, but she's an outlaw too, and she teaches him "love is a poor man's pride" when she leaves him high and dry in the desert, the dry "Mojave River" as metaphor for lost love. Much of their lyrics are metaphor and/or allusion, with almost ethereal harmonies. "Rider On This Train" is a slow, sad and luminescent ballad of man who lost everything when his woman died, sort of a New Country take on "Oh My Darling Clementine".
A little girl doesn't understand death in "Don't Throw Mama's Flowers Away", a bittersweet bluegrass take. I'm not entirely sure what "Sin Stealer" is about, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it's about a guy who feels so down he doesn't want to be forgiven, preferring to wallow in his many vices than be forgiven by G_d. I can relate.
"Buttermilk Pie" is frisky and silly. "The Jealous Crow" desires the beauty of a young woman. "Time Was" is a country reminiscence of times that have passed on.
Mojave River is an excellent original country album, crafted finely enough for traditionalists and complex enough for those (like me) who only wade into New Country waters. Recommended for any who appreciate the genre, with several iPw songs.
Steve Kilpatrick
Westside Crop Circles by Steve Kilpatrick is not a new CD and I'm not sure of it's availability, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. Self published, so if you ask nicely maybe he'll burn you a copy. It's an odd, jazzy affair that sends some reviewers into a tizzy of scarlet prose. Me? I liked it.
"Brothers-in-Law" could fit in a Country format or New Age, with the earthy subject matter of him preferring his sister's first husband more than the current one. "Conjugal Visit" is all about the preparation for one; a country theme, I suppose, with electric guitar and a driving beat, though I doubt many Country stations would agree. I like "Rough & Tough", an odd little arrangement of an odd little song:
She's lying on the bed rolling side to sideThe other end of the kid is taken care of in "Adjustments", about breast feeding (from a woman's POV, though Steve sings it). Meanwhile, "Me & The Bank" co-own the car, women coast to coast burst into tears when "Bruno the Neighborhood Lovegod" gets married, she runs off leaving "Me & Oprah, My Pajamas and the Pain" and a "Worried Mind" insists that God broke into his place and stole his stuff including the porn.
Soon enough of her eyes will open wide
None have ever earned a love more divine
but something in the air tells me that it's time
She's rough and tough and hard to diaper
Her flying hostile feet kick out at the air
Gnarled fists glance off everywhere
Musically, Westside Crop Circles is hard to place, though the country and folk influences are evident. I'll probably put in in my Filk/Weird Music section, though it isn't filk or Dementia Music in the Weird Al/great Luke Ski sense of the term. Kilpatrick isn't writing jokes or parodies, he's creating odd situations and looking at them from a skewed perspective. If he were a comedian, he'd be Stan Laurel. If he were a crop circle, he'd be an unusual sighting in the west side burbs.
Too good to be placed in my weasely Acquired Tastes category, I still can't give Westside Crop Circles an unqualified recommendation. If you, too, look at the tilted world, then you will appreciate Steve's view of life as it marches by without understanding. I suspect that many of my readers fall into this vortex, and want to point out one of the eddies in your stream of consciousness.
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