Results matching “silver jews”
Said the Guests: Carey Mercer
Carey Mercer is the lead singer of Frog Eyes, who release their new (and immensely beautiful) record today. It's called Paul's Tomb: A Triumph and it's currently my favourite release of the year. I wrote about Flower In A Glove, and now Lear in Love is also available to sample.
Carey Mercer is the lead singer of Frog Eyes and Blackout Beach, and one of my favourite artists working today.
Carey Mercer is the lead singer of Frog Eyes, a band so special to me I lack the words to convince you. So I will let his words convince you.
Today, a poem from Carey Mercer.
Kraftwerk - "Radioaktivität"
Charles Mingus - "Flowers for a Lady"
Nuclear bombs do not annihilate the earth,
they destroy cities. The destruction of a city
is just
Horrible.
All of our popular imagination on the subject
shows not the destruction of a filthy, mud-covered
unpaved Main Street,
Animal feed stores and the only Dairy Queen
In mock-supplication before the Sun's malevolent prince:
No,
Not that,
But the instantaneous de-constitution
of the imperial and seemingly indestructible
blocks of granite and marble of the grand Carnegie libraries,
the sophisticate's refuge: the arch-venerable first edition
book store,
Folios made of willow
smelling of branch and yearning for the fire,
(better the nuclear fire than the pedant's slobbery digits)
The homeless colonies emerge from their day-nocturnes, then
Behold the sun,
Scurry to nowhere
As they have always done anyways
That other well-dressed man has bought Salami and mushroom-infused cheese
from a distant mountain,
and now drops it in fear,
Every secret-unmarked-door that brings country people to its gates
and yields
a crushing absence of secrets,
buckles in the heat, the paint moves as weeds move in a current and then
it all moves along
Shit,
Everything--the soft inequality, the hard inequality, the beautiful music that emanates out of sadness, the horn of the bridge, the snare over the ridge,
the soft patter of the cymbal as a kind of insistent
symbol,
Everything gone
It's the city that sinks down into a molten remembrance
this sinking occurs in our secret imagination
having secretly imagined it and dreamt it so often
from 12 years old to now,
sometimes still turning on the radio and expecting to hear
dread announcement of
dire static
It is impossible to describe
not using stock images:
Nuclear War
Radioactivity,
Flowers for a Lady
--
For more of Carey's writing, he has an often haunting, often hilarious blog Clouds of Evil
(Previous guest-blogs: White Hinterland, Bear in Heaven, artist Michael Krueger, artist Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, artist Johnnie Cluney, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Arcade Fire, Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Page France, Devin Davis, Okkervil River, Grizzly Bear, Hello Saferide, Damon & Naomi, Brian Michael Roff, producer Howard Bilerman. There are many more to come.)
Said the Guests: White Hinterland
White Hinterland are now two. The group that began as Casey Dienel's reinvention has become a full-moon magnolia arising of something new. Dienel began making music in the most familiar songwriting mold - she played piano, sang stories. We were smitten with her then, inviting her to play Said the Gramophone's first (and, to date, only) concert series. In 2008, she released Phylactery Factory, her first album under the name White Hinterland. I wrote the press release. We wrote about her here. With the change in moniker, Casey's music changed too. The best way to describe it is to ask you to imagine yourself in a warm cottage at night, filled with friends; and then imagine the lights go out; and imagine the boats on the lake, invisible.
The music was even darker, more confusing, on the Luniculaire EP - a collection of French songs, including covers of Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy. It is a hot, free record, but I am not sure it fully works. These things take time.
On Kairos, released soon, available now - everything has coalesced. No, wait. The verb tense feels wrong. This takes the present tense: it is open, shearing, a coalescence. Casey spent the last year learning how to self-record, literally relearning how to sing. She is joined now by Shawn Creeden, a painter and musician who lends tape-loops and bonemarrow bass to White Hinterland; who has helped turn the group's texture to black and silver. Kairos is a gorgeous, minimal, awakening album. Listen to "Amsterdam" (written about here), listen to "Icarus". Buy the album.
Casey and Shawn have been so kind as to do what we do, for a day, and to write about some songs they love. Please make them welcome (and leave a few words behind!) -- Sean
Hakurotwi Mude, Cosmas Magaya, Ephraim Mutemasango - "Nhema Musasa" [buy]
Recorded by ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner in 1972, this is a "standard" among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Its title means "temporary shelter", and I am always amazed and moved when I listen to it. Structurally built over intertwining polyrhythmic patterns, repeating as long as they need to, and accompanied by simple gourd percussion, the music is ceremonial and makes me want to dance or go for a long walk in the sun. From the get-go there is a slightly woeful color to the tune, then when Hakurotwi Mude comes in with the vocals it takes on a wholly more sweeping, deeply sorrowful, and plaintive weight. Yet the song is still not without moments of redemption and celebration. I once heard a story about how American country musicians are wildly popular in Africa, and play to huge crowds of thousands of people in places like Nairobi, Kenya. The attraction is to both the universal stories of heartache but also to the long, lonesome yodeling style of singing, and it's easy to draw parallels between Hank Williams and songs like this one. -- Shawn
Guillaume de Mauchaut- "Messa de Notre Dame : Gloria" [buy
A singer without confidence is like a body without its spine: nothing stands up. I spent much of last winter immersed in 13th and 14th century choral music because there is nothing to hide behind in these works. A friend once loaned me her copy of the Bulgarian Girl's Choir singing on tape and I had to give it back to her because I couldn't drive and listen to it at the same time. It was too much. Too powerful. Voices are powerful things.
It's not only the voices themselves but the balletic manner they can move together that stirs me. When it works, it's like choreography. For this reason, I think my favorite piece of music from this time is Guillaume de Mauchaut's Messe De Notre Dame. I return to it every so often since I first encountered it in college (same as I do with Debussy's String Quartet in G major, or many pieces by Charles Ives). Every visit unveils something new.
The Gloria of the Mass begins as a call and response. A lone tenor intones before the choir makes an aggressive entrance that sounds not unlike the muezzin calls at an Islamic Mosque. The piece is punctuated by sporadic isorhythmic passages, some of which (as in the Amen) ricochet with hocket (when the top two voices sing independent melodies that lock together rhythmically - a solid modern example would be the staggering way Amber, Angel, & Haley sing at the end of Dirty Projectors' "Remade Horizon"). There are moments of heavenly improvisation, and yet there is a haunting, earthly quality to it that rattles me to the core. It is all flesh and bones, full of longing. -- Casey
Sam Buck Rosen - "Cooking With Gas" [buy]
To get the full effect of Sam Buck Rosen's gift for rhythm, you must listen to this song on headphones. His rich voice gutters out over the hot mix in a game of tag with the undulating beat, panning out in amber-hued ribbons against staggering handclaps, distorted guitar and gorgeous cooing. Have you ever had a full-grown man coo? Because it is something to behold. I can't listen to this without feeling I'm trapped inside a wind tunnel. A wind tunnel that I want to dance in. It's dense and thick, hot and sweaty. The song ends before he gives you a moment to compose yourself and grasp onto a ledge. His record just came out this January on St. Ives and it's a gem: hooky, sexy, and confident. The soundtrack to a raucous party you wish would never end. This song is just dying to be remixed. -- Casey
Ghostface Killah ft. Raekwon, Slick Rick, & Rza - "The Sun" [buy]
In '05/'06 while I was on Glacial Ghost Tour with my other band we had a little CD playing alarm clock radio containing a burned CD with 10 or so tracks of this song. Every night as we bedded down on some cat-piss stained floor we slept on we'd set up this alarm clock and every morning when it was time to get the tofu scramble and home fries started we'd wake up to this. Always an uplifting jam, I love this song front to back. GHOSTFACE IS RAPPING THE SUN'S PRAISES. How sick is that? Rae is on point as always and Slick Rick is flawless over this breezy RZA beat. -- Shawn
Nat Baldwin - "One Two Three" [buy]
"One Two Three" comes off of 2007's MVP, one of my favorite albums by Nat, really one of my favorite albums by anyone. His songs settle in slowly like creeping vines, hooking me in when I least expect it. A few days after I first heard this song, its melody returned to me a few days later as I was gardening and it hasn't really left me since. That was about two years ago now. Listen to how deftly it unfolds with touches of Chris Taylor's production, leading off with a simple contrabass tune played with a sawed-off bow, his voice perched hawk-like in its high register before twisting down into a darker, menacing tone. Harmonies and a waltzing beat flank him during the refrain, retreating into the ether just as your ears begin to adjust. Though they drop out of the mix, it is easy to imagine them poised in the wings, ready to strike at the first hint of a threat. It's a gentle warning from a prize-fighter, a sweet song lined by rows and rows of sharp teeth. -- Casey
Erykah Badu - "Hip Hop/The Healer" [buy]
Erykah Badu - "Telephone" [buy]
I'm just gonna come right out and say it: Erykah Badu is one of my favorite singers alive. She is a fearless and ambitious chameleon and her voice is her weapon. On New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War), she paints her world in spheres. On "Hip Hop/The Healer", she sings of rebirth over a patient beat that ripples out behind her like rings on the surface of a lake. She comes across as sexy, tender, cool, enraged, strong, and even a bit silly but "Telephone" strikes me as the most revealing. Here she says everything by saying very little at all. Written the day after J Dilla's funeral, it's a dusk-bitten elegy containing one simple wish for the one she loves to "fly away to heaven" and make a place for her there. When her voice collapses into a raw, low moan towards the very end, it seems like all might be lost. Yet it's her most emphatic hope that stays with me long after the song has ended, the joy crackling in the top of her voice as she sings: "Celebrate your life, OH! Say 'I love you!'" -- Casey
[White Hinterland are Casey Dienel and Shawn Creeden. They live in Portland, Oregon. Visit their website and buy their new album, Kairos. You also owe it to yourself to see them on tour, visiting North America, Britain and Europe this spring. They play Montreal's Casa Del Popolo on April 20. ]
(Previous guest-blogs: Bear in Heaven, artist Michael Krueger, artist Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, artist Johnnie Cluney, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Arcade Fire, Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Page France, Devin Davis, Okkervil River, Grizzly Bear, Hello Saferide, Damon & Naomi, Brian Michael Roff, producer Howard Bilerman. There are many more to come.)
ST VALENCES DAY
Malcolm Sailor Quartet - "Looking for Something to Say, Anything to Say". The piano is doing the looking: ceaseless, inquisitive, moored. All this song's other sounds are false leads, fool's gold, lights lifting off of wing-mirrors. The Quartet stumbles into a love-affair, into melody, and Adam Kinner's sax follows that glinting route. It blossoms and fades. Other loves end more abruptly. When the Quartet grasps finally for a climax, it is the recollection of a theme: like a lost thing they pretend has been found. [MySpace / album launch at L'Envers, Fri Feb 12 - 9:30pm, Fred Bazil Quartet opens!]
Surfer Blood - "Swim". A few weeks ago, I wrote on Twitter that this band was tickling me under the chin. Weezer crossed with Vampire Weekend, I said, which is a comparison I largely maintain. But in spite of listening to Astrocoast on repeat, mostly as I build, defend and demolish gargantuan 30" snow forts, I had not yet written about this song, "Swim". I have been too busy repelling invaders and repairing avalanche-flattened sunglasses. I have been too busy in the corner of my fort, high in the Laurentian mountains, where I rest sweaty in my snowsuit and write a log of my adventures. The log is based on an elaborate metaphor: I am not a man with a snow fort; I am a surfer with a longterm career-path and two marvellous shiny revolvers. [buy]
---
Montreal's Constellation Records has composed a wonderful little podcast for Scotland's Skinny magazine.
London-based Plan B magazine, perhaps my favourite music publication of the 2000s, folded last year. But they have now put all of their old issues online. Cover stories on Joanna Newsom, Arcade Fire, MIA - generally before they hit mass consciousness. My articles for Plan B over the years included a couple of features and 40-something reviews. My favourite was a review of a Silver Jews concert in 2006.
Said the Guests: Bear in Heaven
The first person I ever heard utter Bear In Heaven's name was the French filmmaker Vincent Moon. He had been in New York recently, and he told me "zey were amazing". Noisy and ripe, he said, or those are the images I took away with me. At the time, Bear In Heaven were supporting their first album, 2007's Red Bloom of the Boom. I listened, I watched Vincent's Take-Away Show with them, but the band's songs were still very diffuse - more noise that ripeness, perhaps. And so I waited for the boom to fully bloom.
Fast forward two years, and Bear In Heaven's new record arrives on my doorstep. Beast Rest Forth Mouth is regal, filthy and magnificent; it is blurred, burred and precise. Songs that sing, that catch & echo, but still submerged in that slick of groan, shatter and pixelbitten heave. Which is to say, it's a subway roar and bright red plum. It's everything Vincent promised.
Earlier this week, I wrote about two songs from Beast Rest Forth Mouth. Go listen, go buy. And now, Adam Wills, the man Wikipedia calls Bear In Heaven's guitarist, has answered my plea to share some songs he loves - to offer them up, and tell them why & how they make his body chime.
Thank you so much to Adam for joining Said the Gramophone as one of our rare guest-posters. Readers! Please read, imbibe, and leave a comment! Oh & buy the album, do.
Musically, this is the crossroads for us as a band. In the circle of music we share, spin, love, and waste hours yapping about , this track, well, this whole album, has got to be at the epicenter. Bringing in just about every element and every genre that we adore. It's dubby, it's weird, it's catchy as all hell.. It's truly a perfect song. Just totally infectious. Each musical child birthed by This Heat sits high on all of our charts. Flaming Tunes, The Camberwell Now, and This Heat itself, are strong and apparent influences on us. Now, perhaps I'm wrong for speaking for the four of us. But to me, it's always been so romantic and strangely appealing to be cherished long after our lifespan as a band. I've certainly noticed and contributed to overly hyped current bands that just don't exist nor hold my interest 6 months later. This Lifetones record is a wonderful example of unrecognized genius, this song does NOT sound 25 years old. I was extremely tempted to post another song from the album, the title track, "For A Reason".. simply for that classic dub mantra "Live the life you love, love the life you live.".. That's something I try to wake up with everyday. Though, certainly, "If I can learn from you, to learn from me, to learn from you.." is a lesson we should all practice.
R. Stevie Moore - "Why Can't I Write a Hit?".
Now THIS is a question every band must ponder. R. Stevie Moore, is just, hmm, spectacular, and this song in particular, aside from being hilarious, serves as the perfect theme song for our band. Since we first started getting reviews, it sure seems no one knows what exactly we are trying to do, what kinda of band we are, and just where to place us. Albeit positive reviews, most start with some variation of "How do I classify this band?"... Though extremely proud that most can't pin point our influences and inspirations musically, maybe we're the only 4 on the planet that truly "gets" us. Often annoying, yet always encouraging. Now you can reflect back to my rant over Goodside and perhaps 30 years from now, some futuristic reflection of myself will realize how brilliant we really were? That's something that would make us all smile. But for now, I'll take some pleasure in R. Stevie's gurgled vocals slapped on the end of an otherwise perfect pop song "The songs are too weird, the songs are too weird, the songs are toooo weeeeiirrrdddd"
The Walker Brothers - "The Electrician".
Scott Walker. I love you. You make me feel dark, alive, gay, cooler than cool and I can never get enough. I think this record by now is pretty well circulated, but it's from the Walker Brothers very last album. Holy shit. From the minor atonal string drone that sits underneath it all (Same thing I loved from the very first Scott song I was played "It's Raining Today") Scott composed the first 4 songs off this record, and I don't think many make it to the 5th track, these songs are THAT good. Baby it's slow, when lights go low, there's no help, no. You guys can keep your Morrissey, Scott Walker is my God. Hungover morning commutes, late night red-wine fueled "karaoke" sessions, and overheated slow dances, Scott has suited each situation so well.
Bill Fay - "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow".
I'd very much like to dedicate this song to a very dear friend. As I type this, she is struggling with her battle with cancer, and I can't quit thinking about her. Her time here spent on the mortal plane and her role beyond. I wish for her to carry with her, all in this world that makes her happy, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. I love you. We all do.
[Adam Wills is one quarter of Bear In Heaven, a band based in New York City. Their second album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, is due next week on Home Tapes. Listen to their songs at MySpace, join them on Facebook, and see them live this month across parts of the American south and northeast. // Click here to pre-order their terrific new record.]
(Previous guest-blogs: artist Michael Krueger, artist Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)
Said the Guests: Michael Krueger
You will love Michael Krueger. He is an artist from Lawrence, Kansas whose work pricked my heart like the sharp tip of a coloured pencil. Discovering his drawings was like discovering a forgotten album of photographs - shots from when I was growing up (like I am now). Oh yes, I remember this time. And also this time, banded & prismed. And when this happened. Only then when you go back to the first page to go through these memories again you realize no, they did not happen; these are souvenirs from dream. From when you decided with all your soul to climb that bluff and you packed your pack full of apples and you got up there but there was the woman in the calfskin and the milkmaid looking at that man with eyes full of lust, and the sun was setting, and there was the tree, and earth, and blues.
Which is to say that Michael Krueger draws hidden things as if they are unhidden. His bright lines camouflage his seriousness, like the holster of a gun. The men and women he draws have regrets, footprints, constellations over their heads. There is a face on the back of every penny.
Michael Krueger has a solo exhibition open now at Boston's Steven Zevitas Gallery. It runs through October 17. If I were there, I would be there. I have been working on the drawings for this show for the past year, he says. You can read an interview with Michael at Fecal Face.
Michael has done two drawings especially for us, for Said the Gramophone, giving image to two songs he loves. Please look, listen, look again; and please do leave some comments in the comments. (Thank you so much, Michael.)
Michael Krueger - "Where You Wanna Be", colored pencil, 15" x 20", 2009.
(click image for full size)
inspired by
The Cave Singers - "Cold Eye" [buy/MySpace]
Michael Krueger - "Young Lieutenant", colored pencil, 15" x 20", 2009.
(click image for full size)
inspired by
Drakkar Sauna - "Paul's Letter to St. Job" [buy/MySpace]
I listened to these two songs a bunch while I was working at the Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium. I spent a month there this summer with my wife making art and drinking beer.
Belgium is Beautiful!
For me making art and listening to music go hand in hand, and I am grateful to all of the musicians past and present who continue to inspire me.
[Michael Krueger is a father, an artist and a teacher. He was born on January 5, 1967 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He now lives in Lawrence, KS where he teaches at the University of Kansas. He has given lectures and workshops at over 80 venues including City College in NYC and the Edinburgh College of Art, and one of his images of Thomas Jefferson hangs at Monticello. Michael's new solo exhibition, Endless Colony, is currently on at Boston's Steven Zevitas Gallery.]
(Previous guest-blogs: artist Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)
CHEAP DATE: OUR 2009 FUNDING DRIVE
Said the Gramophone is now around six years old. Six years is a very good age to be. We know how to walk, run, jump and crack jokes. We know the words to a few songs. We've invented code-words, made some friends, and we are learning how to draw shoelaces.
Six years ago, there's no way Dan, Jordan and I could have imagined ourselves here in pistachio-green, saying, "Hi again, all you".
This is the third annual Said the Gramophone Funding Drive. It's when we ask for your generosity.
Last year the three of us played you more than 500 songs and wrote more than 250 posts. Each day we threw one, two, three hours of our lives at this silly, sometimes splendid thing. It doesn't take much more than that to keep all this going. But it does take something. (That something is: money.)
Said the Gramophone does not take advertising. You may have noticed that most websites, and certainly most mp3blogs, do. Words that have been used to describe this decision: "stupid", "silly", "naive", "nice". Every week, someone new asks us if we want to put up ads - a few days ago I was even stopped on my bike. But our foolhardy decision has stuck, and this means that not only are we a little poorer than we might be - once a year we have to come to you and say Please give.
If you enjoy this site, please give. TIME magazine may like us but still Said the Gramophone is never going to be the biggest mp3blog in the world. We are too set in our weird, woolly ways. We try to do just one thing - writing with spirit about the songs we love, - and to do that one thing well. Our audience is you. That's it. There's no one else. You small, strange gang. We cherish our rare contacts - and every spring we ask for your help.
This year there are two funds for donations. Both will be open for just one week and then we will go back to our quiet noisiness.
These are some of the things we did in the past year: introduced you, perhaps, to artists such as Ponytail, Withered Hand, Sister Suvi, Tune-Yards, The Whiskers, Carl Spidla, Jumbling Towers, Adam & the Amethysts, Lykke Li, the Dodos, Women, the Soul Stirrers, the Instruments, Diamonds, Babe Terror, Kasai Allstars, Wild Beasts, Hologram, Sibylle Baier, Kleerup, Young Coyotes, Abe Vigoda, Karl Blau, My People Sleeping, Wale, Forest Fire, Freak Paeans, Rye Rye, School of Seven Bells, Lord Dog Bird, Jib Kidder, Gossamer Albatross, Titus Andronicus, Witchies, Styx Tyger, Nico Muhly, Passion Pit, Esau Mwamwaya, Pretend You're Happy, Francois Virot, Buraka Som Sistema, Eternal Summers, Eagleowl, Land of Talk, Meursault, Doug Randle, Marvin Pontiac, Nneka, Fever Ray, Parlovr, the Phantom Band, Twin Sister, Micachu and the Shapes, the Daredevil Christopher Wright, Clues, Emperor X, the Best Show on WFMU; wrote stories about rusted butterflies, "Kokomo" in the subway, listening to Percy Sledge, seeing the Silver Jews, having a crush on Stephen Harper, Mikaeus Andante, Mayo Thompson at the library, Bruce Springsteen surveys, and oh hundreds more; offered guest posts by Ariel Kitch, Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Adam & the Amethysts and sort of the Silver Jews; shared our favourite songs and favourite albums of 2008.
We did a lot with little, but it was only worthwhile because of our readers' kindness of spirit, eagerness of ear, and dope handclaps. Thank you so much for all your comments and clicks, your hoots and chides, your tips and toodle-oos, your back-blogs and back-rubs. Thanks for telling your friends, your uncles, your sisters, your thesis advisors about us. Thanks for adding us on Facebook. Thanks for playing our favourite songs to your lovers. Thanks for having patience with our bullshit. We understand that not everyone can afford to donate to a silly website. Regardless of dollars or cents, pounds or zloty, thank-you thank-you thank-you all again for continuing to make this one of the most rewarding things in our lives.
And a great song to send you on your day, to paint yr walls a heart's watercolour blush. I mentioned it before in passing, but it deserves more. (via shake yr fist)
Burning Hearts - "I Lost My Colour Vision"
Said the Guests: Amber Albrecht
When I met Amber Albrecht, I was wearing my suit. I had just been at a job interview. I was visiting my friend Kit, who had an exhibition on, and as we were talking this small woman came in. She had brought fancy markers and, I think, her lunch. Somehow, just looking at her, she seemed like she had a forested spirit. (I don't really know what that means; think birch bark, poisonous berries, moss.) Kit said, Sean, Amber; Amber, Sean. She was there to do some drawing with Kit. And then I went Uhhhh... and asked if she was Amber Albrecht. Because I had just been wandering around the internet, looking upon the works of artists, and one of these artists was a remarkable Montrealer called Amber Albrecht, and Amber's work in particular I had been gawping at, dumbfounded. She made drawings & prints that were beautiful, elaborate, with extremely fierce, strong spirits. I guess that makes them sound like pretty pictures of lions or falcons but no, Amber's art recalled much more serious things. Half-a-Daguerreotype, maybe, of the witch that Hansel once met.
Anyway it's now a long time later and Amber is about to open a solo show at Montreal's Division Gallery, 372 Ste-Catherine, Suite 311. The show is on from February 28-April 4, and the vernissage takes place 3pm-6pm on Saturday. (The gallery will also be open very late for Nuit Blanche.)
She made these pictures for Said the Gramophone, very specially, and it took her a very long time to make them what she wanted. They are illustrations of two songs she loves, by an artist called The Constellations. The Constellations is Jeremy Latta, and he lives in Ottawa, Amber says, and he has made "really nice album covers for his singles project that he's been working on for a while now which required that he make I think nineteen albums and now he's finished".
I hope you like them as much as I do. Please leave Amber your comments!
[Amber Albrecht lives in Montreal, inside a giant bee-hive. Demarcations is showing at the Division Gallery from this Saturday, February 28 until April 4.]
(Previous guest-blogs: The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)
INSIDE THE GOLDEN DAYS OF MISSING (THE SILVER JEWS)
This is a special Saturday post because I am extremely bummed out by David Berman's announcement that he is more or less wrapping up the Silver Jews. Berman wants to turn to writing - books? poetry? screenplays? - and is haunted by the fact that his band are "too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm" that his father, a right-wing lobbyist, has "caused". I want to wish David well in all his undertakings - and I'm as excited as anyone about a possible follow-up to his poetry book, Actual Air. But like Carl, I hope he is making his own glad choice - and is not directed by his father's sour one.
In any case, the Silver Jews are one of our favourite bands, and Berman one of our favourite lyricists. He is one of my favourite poets too, but as Berman has often insisted, these are two separate things. He is among the most beloved artists to Said the Gramophone, and in honour of him - in honour & celebration, not a memorial, as Berman has centuries left in his heart, - we have re-uploaded every Silver Jews song we have ever written about. The first was almost four years ago, the most recent just six weeks.
May the wind be at your back, David.
Said the Gramophone & the Silver Jews:
Dan on "Party Barge" and Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea.
Dec 11, 2008
Sean on "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat" and the Silver Jews live.
Sep 4, 2008
Dave Berman himself! On our blog! Answering questions!
Jun 12, 2008
Sean on "Frontier Index".
Nov 26, 2007
Dan on "Night Society".
Dec 29, 2006
Rachell Sumpter's painting for "Horse Leg Swastikas".
Jan 18, 2006
Dan on "How Can I Love You (If You Won't Lie Down)".
Jul 18, 2005
Dan on "How to Rent a Room".
Mar 7, 2005
Best Albums of 2008
1. Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow, and Blue - "Foxes Mate For Life"
Somehow two things can sometimes come into existence at the same time. Like babies who look the same and also happen to be named the same name. But when this happens, one wins, right? VHS beat Beta, Madonna beat Cyndi Lauper, and unbelievably, Vampire Weekend beat Born Ruffians. Both their big debuts kind of offer to fill the same kind of role of "clear new vision and singular charming, moving new musical voice." But it's unfortunate that Vampire Weekend got all the credit, because Born Ruffians blow them out of the water, right out. So this is the best album of the year because it's flawless and fuck Vampire Weekend. [Buy]
2. Ladyhawk - Shots - "I Don't Always Know What You're Saying"
A forest at night. If you scrape the bark off the trees, you can hear songs that sound familiar, but drip with the dark fresh sap of the tree. Ladyhawk has made an album so vital I can't think of another way to describe it except for the blood of trees. It's not human blood, it's tougher, harder, ready for danger, it's more removed. It's familiar with humans, it's been watching them, harmed by them, but is not itself human. [Buy]
3. Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping - "Nonpareil of Favor"
Nothing has the shape you thought it would. Suitcases are used like life rafts, fruit like wall-hangings, windows like doors and vice-versa. But in this world where it feels like conversations happen with people talking at the same time, and every day has a different tempo, precarious, still there is magnetic, towering, thorny, blessed and bloody, truth. To hell and back with gender, sex, race, fame, subservience, control, and charm. [Buy]
4. Destroyer - Trouble in Dreams - "My Favorite Year"
Destroyer has sewn the clouds into the snow on the mountains. Every song seems to fade to white, after bursting with gold or red or blue flower and flame. Epic one step at a time. [Buy]
5. Wild Beasts - Limbo, Panto - "Brave, Bulging, Buoyant, Clairvoyants"
Limbo, Panto is hard to listen to all at once. It's kind of like a 10-course meal, just over the half-way mark you're kind of thinking, "okay, that much again?" But that's only a quirk and not a detriment, there's just too much to love here. A list of some of the things you can think of when you listen: ghosts, opera, Morissey, picnic with a stereo, socks dancing, bike riding, witches, fake women voices. [Buy]
6. Hologram - Summer Jammer - "Mommies"
This band doesn't even have an album yet, but I couldn't ignore them. Such promise I rarely see. Caroline's voice comes straight from out of the woods, full of spring water and hollow logs, and she always sings strange and swaying and moonlit. And the guitars are loud in just the right way, they really make it sound easy. They made the most consistent collection of 6 songs of anyone this year, and I'm told there's a full album coming out next year, and I've heard one song from it already, I can tell you we haven't heard the last at all. [Buy from Insound, with insane blurb written by me]
7. Lykke Li - Youth Novels - "Breaking it Up"
5 songs out of 12 isn't even half. One show on a whole tour is only a fraction. But these things are enough for me to consider Lykke Li, and her first album, a masterpiece. Every side of her is marvelous, rich, full, gorgeous. [Buy]
8. The Whiskers - Distorted Historian - "Heat Death"
Distorted Historian is kind of like the Synecdoche, New York of albums. It's cool and warm, it's completely touching and personal and affecting and true, but also horrifying, wrong, and made of parts that don't all fit together. It's marvelous, and I liked my time with it, but if I listen to it too much the goddamn winds of old age, sickness, forgetting, dreaming, wishing, disappointment, small victories, real-life love and all else starts to weigh a little heavy on my admittedly sensitive little shoulders. Here's to whiskers, and The Whiskers. [Free! / Buy]
9. Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea - "Party Barge"
I used to go to a cottage in the summer times, and on that lake there was an actual Party Barge. It was this floating deck covered in astroturf, with a tent and some lawn chairs and a cooler on it, with a little prop motor on the back, and it would pup-pup around the lake, slow as can be, and the people on it would turn and wave to every beach they passed. Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is a beautiful and sincere Party Barge. Huge, friendly, calm, comforting and slow with still plenty of room to party. So much care and love and offered-up confession. [Buy]
10. Diamonds - Diamonds - "Diamonds"
This album is about one thing. I don't know what it is, I don't think they know what it is, but if you listen to this album, like if you listen to On Avery Island or Aw Come, Aw Wry, you start to see it reveal itself. Some kind of alive idea that goes beyond similar beats and chords, those are just the only ways of dealing with this same idea. [Get!]
--
tomorrow: Sean's Top Songs of the Year.
also: Shaq's twitter account
A Preliminary Guide to Vintage Canadian Psych Pop
I was sitting with Adam Waito several months ago, at a time when there was no ice on the ground and clear black night skies. He had probably just finished playing a killer set with his band, Adam & the Amethysts. Adam released one of our favourite albums of this year, a record that's handsewn folk and brash electric pop and with a faint psych corona skirting its choruses. You should buy it here (CD) or here (digitally).
Anyway, Adam had probably just finished playing a killer set, killer in the way it killed all my worries, slew all my fears. And we were sitting under black night skies and he started telling me about Canada's lost psych music. A hundred bands that did not gain repute, that disappeared into the sands of time, with only crazy collectors now digging these LPs out and going: "Holy bejewellings! Look what we missed!"
I was fascinated. The albums he talked about sounded like they ought to be my favourite albums in the world. Great, forgotten psych bands from Thunder Bay? From Winnipeg? From Montreal?
And so I convinced him to write this, a Preliminary Guide to Vintage Canadian Psych Pop. The music is killer, the curatorship sublime. Most of these albums are out of print. If you dig the post, please leave a comment! (We'll try to convince him to come back.) -- Sean
My preoccupation with Canadiana and with finding new music has led me to discover some rather incredible Canadian acts from the '60s and '70s that range from completely obscure to relatively unknown. Now, I'm no authority on psychedelic music. These are just some bands that have managed to find me (mostly through the Internet) and I've tried to include some tidbits about them.
With reverence for the naturally majestic and decidedly fucked-up colony of Canada, I would like to share a few choice unsung heroes of psychedelic pop from the land North of America with you, the readers of Said the Gramophone. These are some songs that in some way compel or inspire me.
The Rabble - "Candy" (1969)
The Rabble formed in 1965 in Pointe-Claire on Montreal's West Island, and their big break came when, in '68, they got to replace Cream at the last minute at The Paul Sauve Arena in Montreal. "Candy" is playful and irreverent and to my ears anticipates some of the poppier early punk bands that would emerge a decade later. You can party to this song in Montreal quite easily today, let me tell you.
Jarvis Street Revue - "Mr. Oil Man" (1970)
This is sprawling heavy-psych epic that, I'm proud to say, hails from my hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario. It's the flagship track from a rare environmentalist concept album of the same name, whose heavy-handed eco-message is only matched by its heavy-as-hell acid-guitar. Long before the corrupt oil industry was grim reaping the political consciousnesses of pretty much everyone, JSR was prophesying that there will be blood, and did so with creative, fuzzed-out - if a little long-winded - intensity. So damn cool. It's been bootlegged as well as officially reissued if you feel like grabbing it without paying close to a grand for a rare original LP on Ebay. Me, I've still got my fingers crossed for an original copy in a thrift store record bin when I'm home this Christmas holiday.
Christmas - "Something Borrowed" (1970)
Speaking of Christmas, that's what this next Oshawa, Ontario band was called, and if I do say so, it's one of the best band names ever. Christmas features ex-members of another great '60s band Reign Ghost (formerly of The Christopher Columbus Discovery of New Lands Band, another mind-blowing band name). This is a pretty straight-ahead folky pop rock song from their album Heritage that will stick to your ribs right near your heart.
A Passing Fancy - "Island" (1968)
This song is beautiful and amazing with its organ, church bells, and sad pop melody. A Passing Fancy were a Toronto band that emerged from the '60s Yorkville scene. A career highlight was playing Expo '67 in Montreal. Formed in '65, they released a number of 45s and one LP before disbanding in 1969. One of the members is now the president of a hockey card company. I have to say, this song just really does something special for me."
Borealis - "Old Age" (1972)
Borealis were a psych-pop band from the Maritimes (Newfoundland I think). "Old Age" is a really simple and lovely song from their Sons of the Sea record, with its spinning-speaker guitar, restrained rhythm section, and delightfully amateurish vocals. It's a heartbreaking and cute ode to the singer's deteriorating grandfather. At a time when not a lot of rock albums were being recorded in the Atlantic provinces, the album apparently wasn't too successful, although they supposedly had a track on the St. John's top 10 for a couple weeks. The full title was Sons of the Sea/Professor Fuddle's Fantastic Fairy Tale Machine.
Brazda Brothers - "Lonely Time" (1973)
As recent migrants from Europe (I'm not sure where), they were supposedly inspired by the natural beauty of their new home of Galt, Ontario, and recorded this LP in only six hours in Toronto. It's a really beautiful record, made special by their odd accents and slightly-off vocals, as well as brilliant bursts of organ.
Elyse Weinberg - "Deed I Do" (1968) [buy]
Finally, Elyse Weinberg is an amazing woman whom I had the privilege of meeting during Pop Montreal this year (we sat on a songwriter's panel together at the Symposium). She played this song with members of the Saffron Sect playing sitar and tanpura at her show at the Casa. She was amazed that there were young folks who knew how to play a song from an obscure album she made 40 years ago. Anyway, the live rendition was magnificent and that album is called Elyse and is really heartbreakingly awesome. Hopefully she won't find this and be mad that I posted her song online. She's from Toronto and used to hang out with folks like Neil Young, but who really cares, because she's amazing.
If you want to hear some other great Canadian bands from the late '60s/early '70s, check out Plastic Cloud, The Plague, The Poppy Family, Reign Ghost, Terence, It's All Meat, and duh, the Guess Who. Most of these bands have been reissued or bootlegged or posted online, so have fun!
[Adam Waito is from Thunder Bay and lives in Montreal. He has played in bands such as Telefauna and Miracle Fortress but now leads Adam & the Amethysts, whose Amethyst Amulet is one of the great undiscovered albums of 2008. (BUY: CD/MP3)]
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(Previous guest-blogs: The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)
NASHVILLE PROSE
Silver Jews - "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat". Saw the Silver Jews with Dan last night. What an amazing, beautiful show. David Berman up there like a kid and a teenager and a wise-man, all at once. He and Cassie having conversations with their eyes, there for us all to see. The band playing their instruments with a fierceness I'd not heard before; the Silver Jews' live sound is more fearsome, sparking, wild than on record. And still Berman's lyrics cutting right through, mouth close to the mic, words slipped into our ears like hands into pockets. Sweat was pouring off his face like from the spout of a teapot.
I saw the Silver Jews two years ago, in Edinburgh. It was their eighteenth-ever gig. Last night was their sixty-ninth. Though in 2006 there was a more innocent joy to the show - a clean country jubilance just in singing the songs, - last night's freer, louder stuff shook the heart even more. Now is when you should go see the Silver Jews. They're at a threshold - still new enough at this that every night's a discovery, a shambles, a treasure; but comfortable enough in their touring shows that the songs, well, they kick ass. The balance won't stay this way forever.
But some of what I wrote for Plan B two years ago is still true. Not the earring -- the gist:
We’re not losing ourselves in the crowd – eyes rolling back in our heads as we cheer. No. I watch the earring on Berman’s ear, like a tattoo brought back from sea. I watch the way Cassie looks at David, sometimes, when he doesn’t look back. I watch the way he glares at his monitor or stumbles over a lyric. And I feel a mortal kind of joy – the stuff of human beings and human lives. The sterling wonder of a gift that’s made by fallible human hands, by creatures with hearts more silver than gold.I still can't quite get into Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, but there's a moment to "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat" that's like defibrillator paddles on rainy Thursday mornings, hot Wednesday nights. WE'RE COMING OUT OF THE BLACK PATCH. WE'RE COMING OUT OF THE POCKET. Yup.
THERE'S SUMMER YET LEFT
The Swingers - "Counting the Beat". It's Labour Day and here's a song for the labourers. Or rather for the labourers who aren't labouring. The ones lifting crates or typing memos who get distracted mid-crate, mid-memo, staring off into space. There's a girl or a boy in the glaze of their eyes, a skip in their heart, a tap in their toes. Can't get anything done, no, they're too much in love; fire the bosses, go on strike; call in sick, smash the timeclock; scamper dancing all through the warehouse, all over the office, til' the weekend. (Thanks Jessica!) [out of print]
Langhorne Slim - "Spinning Compass". And then something a little more Monday. "Spinning Compass" sounds like an overture, an introduction, a first date. Like a first & a beginning. Then again, here's the thing - it ain't. Listen to the lyrics. So here's a song for turning not-beginnings into beginnings, turning dead ends into open roads. Turning cello and accordion into a crop for your horse. [buy]
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Elsewhere:
Montrealers, take note! Silver Jews play Sala on Wednesday night!
Owen Pallett pointed me to the weirdoness of this synthesiser blog.
A beautifully presented mixtape of Tim Hardin covers.
A bizarre, luminous, sci-fi music video for Jay Bharadia's marvelous "Snowy Day".
The Record of the Week Club is a terrific project out of Winnipeg where all sorts of local musicians get together on a Wednesday night and then have to record a song before they can leave. Many fascinating things! Though of course I am most partial to "Keewatin Arctic", featuring the Weakerthans' John K Samson, Inuit throat-singer Nikki Komakslutiksak and electronico Blunderspublik.
And at the Lifted Brow, Christopher Currie is writing stories inspired by titles or prompts from other folks. They've now published "The Flannerys", his response to my challenge: A story that talks about one hundred and twenty women, all individually named, and never more than 10 named at one time (ie, in reference to the same thing/in sequence). Or is that too complicated?
Said the Guests: The Whiskers
Thom Stylinski is the mad master genius behind The Whiskers. On the records, he sounds like he's 7' tall, gaunt like an undertaker and with eyes like laser beams, or tractor beams. He's with us today to talk about some music.
Hi! I tried to think of a theme that connects three or four songs in an elegant sum-greater-than-parts way, but that's stupid so here are three songs I was humming at work today.
Jesse Stiles totally knows how everything works; it's easy. It can't be any more complicated than some sort of configuration of sticks and wheels and boxes, wires and electricity. Taking advantage of that concept, he makes music with lots of gizmos and contraptions, and then, taking advantage of his groovy brain, sings shit like: "Everywhere I've ever been, it was always bigger than me, because somewhere smaller than I am is the worst place I could be." It's lines like that that turn hums into words.
Jesse does the odd live DJ-dance-guy thing and is the only live DJ-dance-guy that makes me want to dance. His website is http://jts3k.com and his new record is coming out soon and I think it is a picture disc, which is one of my favorite types of discs.
Hot Gurl Party - "Hot Gurl Party Signs Your Yearbook"
Hot Gurl Party totally hate me. There are three members and I have spent time with all of them and they definitely don't like me, personally, as a human, yet I STILL listen to their music, because the beats are frickyfresh and the bass is tubular and the vox are singscreamed with complete indifference to the microphone and its function. This yearbook song here was twice as long when it debuted on stage, and it was glorious, but because HGP hate me, they cut it in half on the album. They have a myspace but they don't write, record, or perform anymore. The three members each have other bands but they only last a few weeks. Their album is really great but the case is covered in glitter and it gets on your hands and clothes and all over all your other CDs and it makes you think, "oh now what the hell."
Burl Ives is totally mental. This is, I guess, a children's song, which would usually indicate a happy or sad-then-happy story housing simplistic lyrics and themes, but Burl, dude, what the cuss are you talking about? I've had a few conversations about this song and its "watch the donut, not the hole" mantra, attempting to relate it to some deep philosophy or something. All those discussions lead to only one conclusion: He's actually just telling all the kids to literally look at things that ARE things, and to NOT look at things that AREN'T REALLY things.
Let's all hum more songs more often in more places thanks.
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(Previous guest-blogs: Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)
Said the Guests: Silver Jews
Next Tuesday, June 17th, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea by Silver Jews will be released on Drag City Records. It's an incredible album, it might be Silver Jews at their best, or perhaps maybe their best-dressed. It's album with made with true love, out of moments and truths and tall wild tales. We're presenting today an interview with David Berman; one of the best poets and songwriters of my whole life.
Said the Gramophone: Your poems and songs feel like very different creatures. How do you know what ought to be a poem and what ought to be a song? Do certain stories or feelings lend themselves to one form over the other?
David C. Berman: I think you're imagining the writing process inside out. The text doesn't arrive out of thin air. It's brought forward in the modus operandi. You're either writing a poem or writing a song. If I am in a song writing consciousness, it is a mode I am in for days or weeks, and while in that mode I try to let everything roll as closely by that unfinished song as possible. It is kind of like eyeballing a conveyor belt in your mind.
If I were to set out to write a good-sized poem, I'd "be looking at" anywhere from 5-10 days with no other mental commitments.
StG: David Lynch doesn't put "chapters" in his DVDs, because he doesn't want to encourage watching his movies in parts. If this is true, he probably has a very certain idea about how his movies "ought" to be experienced, which I think is a totally reasonable part of the process of creating a whole piece of art. Is there a certain way you imagine as the best way to experience this album?
DCB: Hmm. I think it has to be heard more times than other albums for it's wholeness to come out.
I'm thinking of records with "Play Loud" or "meant to be played loud" somewhere on the artwork. It always seemed a tinge futile. My feeling was always something like, "no, i will not play you loud".
I could print "Absorb Intently for Long Time Before Re-selling" on my products, but I'm afraid of pushing others around..
StG: Could you tell me about one of your favourite songs - by someone else? A song that evokes for you very strongly a story, a memory or a feeling?
DCB: I was just in Britain and I was thinking about that Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall", how I always hated it as a kid because the guys who liked Pink Floyd and AC/DC and whoever, were the worst people on the landscape. Anyway, I was a very shy kid, and I was completely intimidated by these assholes who were anywhere from 15-18 when I was 10-13, and i would find their campfires in the forest after they were gone. So anyway I didn't like this song especially for the sentiment "hey teacher, leave that kid alone", which struck me as a dirtbag bias against school, an element that has firmly taken root in redneck culture since then. My inner attitude was "shut up pink floyd. You don't speak for me. I want to learn."
I also despised my sister's 45 of Rod Stewart's "Da Ya think im sexy" for being mispelled.
StG: When I listen to "Candy Jail", I imagine the song's hero is innocent, but still appreciative of how nice the jail is. This isn't really a question, I guess, but it's there if you want to respond to it.
DCB: I guess he seems like me and most of the people i know who recognize the unhealthiness and emptiness of pop culture but make a silent deal with themselves to indulge in their own gluttonies anyway, while waiting around for things to change. The friend who died was perhaps unwilling to wait around unashamedly.
thanks daniel.
best wishes, DCB
[Pre-Order Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea]
(Previous guest-blogs: artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)
Title Fight
I've been listening all day to Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea, the new and secretly escaped album from Silver Jews. It's incredible, and beaming, and lots of fun, but I dare not post anything from it today. It doesn't come out until June. Call me a tease or whatever you like, I just don't want to do it quite yet. Let everyone else say their piece first. Today, I'll post a song that Silver Jews cover on their new album, from happy weirdo Japanese pop alchemists Maher Shalal Hash Baz.
Maher Shalal Hash Baz - "Open Field"
Open field, with a window, open field, waste no time...
Those are the only words, but even those are almost unnecessary, like narration that describes what you're already seeing. As if the soft puffing horn, softer than a question mark, the sunshine guitar with green grass strings, the chorus of golden "ahhhs", the tall and waltzing clarinet, weren't indication, illustration, enough. [Buy]
Bill Wells & Maher Shalal Hash Baz - "Tipsy Cat"
Here I feel like I'm listening to Hot 8 doing a TV show theme song. And a more welcome combination I couldn't imagine. If I had to write a show based on this theme song (and I do, Sean wants more and more for these posts) it would be called "The Desmonds". It would be about a struggling family in the Bronx in the 70s. The father is a beat cop, the mother trying to go back to school, the daughter coming of age and falling in love, and the son getting by as a kid in the city. And it would have heart, tons of it. [Buy]
TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE
Sam Amidon - "Little Johnny Brown". The tide brings in different things. One day: cockleshells, sea-glass, driftwood. Another day it's seaweed and turtleshell. This morning you wake and climb the bluff and there are jellyfish, millions of them, gleaming in the sand like rubies. The tide brings seagulls, planing, and buzzards, loping. It brings stones. It brings strangers in ships, and wide white sails. It brings salt. It leaves the salt on the beach. When you lie on the beach it smells like tears. The tide does not bring her back.
Sam Amidon's album with Doveman's Thomas Bartlett, under the name Samamidon, is one of my favourite folk records of this year: strange, wild, weary. "Little Johnny Brown" is taken from the upcoming All Is Well, due in February on Bedroom Community. It was recorded in Iceland by Valgeir Sigurðsson, who produced Bonnie "Prince" Billy's The Letting Go, with brass, string and woodwind arrangements by Nico Muhly (Bjork, Philip Glass). I cannot wait to hear the rest of it. (These are Sam's favourite albums and films of 2007: R. Kelly and Verhoeven sit at number one.)
Silver Jews - "Frontier Index". Poets and comedians are in the same business. "I just want to say something true," David Berman sings, voice like a snakeskin. You can imagine him, late, drunk, standing with a microphone before a brick wall and knowing it's not going well. Getting belligerent. Poets do not necessarily make good comedians, nor comedians poets, but they are in the same business. Poems are like punchlines, or punchlines like poems. They rewire your brain, bring in cold and warm fronts. There are two jokes in "Frontier Index", and I won't spoil them for you. They are both about inevitability. Like Homer Simpson says: "It's funny because it's true." I did not laugh when I first heard them but I smiled and for a moment I forgot the cold.
(smiling bird photographer unknown.)
You Would Know If I Were Finished
"Across from him the Dane and his companions had ordered luncheon. Abe did likewise but scarcely touched it. Afterwards, he just sat, happy to live in the past. The drink made past happy things contemporary with the present, as if they were still going on, contemporary even with the future as if they were about to happen again."
A passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. I've never read it. I assume the Dane must be Hamlet, and Abe must be Abraham Lincoln, because with those characters, the passage becomes quite pointed. But if my life and my whole damn aesthetic has any marching song it's "down with context", so let's just let the words fade in and out like passing by a fist-fight while riding in a cab. In a way, that's what this year has been like. A lot of heavy rumbling, some loud thunder, and a great big night that just turns the volume up and down on the sun. [the vinyl is cheaper]
Ramblin' Jack Elliot - "Woody's Last Ride"
Shhh... if you're quiet enough, the whole year will just fall fast asleep and we can get out without any more hassle, without any more favours. [Buy]
HAD A DREAM LAST NIGHT
Jennifer O'Connor - "Tonight We Ride".
Pavement - "Secret Knowledge of Back Roads" (live at the Cat's Cradle, 9/11/92).
There's just a whole lot of sky.
Buy Jennifer O'Connor's new album. Buy records by Pavement and The Silver Jews (who first performed this song).
Have a good weekend.
silver and spinning
Arcade Fire - "My Heart is an Apple". People talk about their favourite songs. Tonight I feel more like asking this favourite song what it says about me. What's locked in those lyrics. What's behind the paper apple stuck to Win's guitar.
"My Heart is an Apple" starts with apology, homesickness, confusion. These twists of language that mean one thing and then the reverse. Just so much yearning.
And then Win goes outside.
The bridge of "My Heart is an Apple" is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I know. Here it's birds and trees, shoreline and splash, the darkening late afternoon. The band used to lower their eyes and move aside, fingers making gentle snaps. And you'd really see Regine for the first time, standing behind the organ wound with red lights. And her eyes would be lowered too as she considered the notes. So slow, so slow. So slow. The audience silent as hopes. Stars coming out behind and over our eyes. They snapped their fingers and she sang (like a secret so excited to share): "Your mouth is full / my heart is an apple."
It's a wide song. The way it's written, it could be a tune about unrequited love: a mouth too full to take a bite of mine. But the way it sounds when the bridge comes - no. No it never was and couldn't be. For Regine's song is the slow, glimmering sound of the one certain thing: of the appleness of my heart. Love at its most beautiful, there for all your feasting.
[Order the Arcade Fire's self-titled EP, remastered earlier this year.]
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Neutral Milk Hotel - "Where You'll Find Me Now". Okay I realise this is a typical blog/rock'n'roll request, but please do turn this loud. Not now, probably. No - when you are feeling like shit. Turn it loud on your speakers or your headphones and then the thing that you might find is that in all the lulling fuzz and mellotron, amid the accordion and acoustic guitar, well there's enough electricity to make lightning bolts. And your limbs will jerk and you will toss your head and you'll strain your mouth open to feed on all this muddy pretty psychrawk, and the only thing that you'll taste is no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't a recipe for happiness, kids: this is a recipe for no, no, no, no, no, no. For giving yourself the hot shakes.
[Order Neutral Milk Hotel's underrated first album, On Avery Island]
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Clem Snide's Eef Barzelay is about to dive into a solo North American tour. He sent us an exclusive, and outstanding, live recording of "Jews for Jesus Blues". It reminds me of the old Mountain Goats and the hesitating bits of Johnny Cash and inevitably of the new Clem Snide. And it reminds me of looking at a great piece of art and wondering how you'll ever be able to take with what you just learned. (Those occasional thumps are the sound of the other shoe dropping.) "Now that I'm found / I miss being lost."
More of Eef soon.
See Eef here:
10/7 - Vienna, VA (Jammin Java)
10/8 - Philadelphia, PA (World Cafe)
10/10 - NYC, NY (Mercury Lounge)
10/11 - Hoboken, NJ (Maxwells)
10/12 - North Hampton, MA (Iron Horse)
10/13 - Montreal, QC (Club Lambi)
10/14 - Toronto, ON (Rancho Relaxo)
10/16 - Chicago, IL (Schubas)
10/17 - Madison, WI (High Noon)
10/18 - Columbia, MO (Mojos)
10/19 - St Louis, MO (Duck Room)
10/20 - Nashville, TN (The Basement)
11/01 - Seattle, WA (Crocodile Cafe)
11/02 - Portland, OR (Doug Fir)
11/03 - Eugene, OR (Sam Bonds Garage)
11/05 - San Francisco, CA (Cafe du Nord)
11/07 - Los Angeles, CA (Hotel Cafe)
11/16 - NYC, NY (Irving Plaza - Daily Show concert with Mountain Goats and Superchunk)
she left her shirtsleeves
Hookers Green No. 1 - "Bloody Great Big Fucking Party". With "Bloody Great Big Fucking Party", Hookers Green No. 1 come closer to capturing the spirit of The Unicorns, so dear and departed, than anything I've heard since Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone. Aberdeen, Scotland is a very long way from Montreal, Canada - but there is no mistaking the rattle of glee and melancholy, like front teeth in a coffee tin. Electric guitars swagger and droop, a synth-line wiggles, voices woo-woo from the back. And then, well, there are horns, drums, ratatat and tickticktick. There's a coda that arrives like a parade rounding a corner - giant balloons, floats, a marching band; whistles, percussion, a roaring team of pals. It's a crowd of rowdy Scots whose chants will rouse the housewives, whose coo will call the fishes, whose hot-cold sass will fry your egg, flip it into a roll, set it warm in your hands. And it's one of the best singles of the year so far.
(the music video is shambolic and suitably joyous)
[Hookers Green No. 1 are unsigned. (MySpace)]
Ola Podrida - "Instead". Sometimes the horizon's like a hook, a flash of silver that catches your heart just as the day is fading into its night.
Old Podrida is the project of David Wingo, the Texan musician who has scored or contributed music to all three of David Gordon Green's feature films. This includes 2003's All the Real Girls, one of my favourite movies. When Dan screened it for me at his apartment a few years ago, the room was red, my heart was tender, and next to the flutter of that moving picture the rest of my world felt like a melting waxworks.
Ola Podrida's music is murmur and lift, the bird you can step close close closer to, that then turns and flies away. (If you are quiet you may feel the wind from its wingflap on your face.) "Instead" is as beautiful as a sad song can be. It guards the listener with as much care as the Red House Painters do and it grows to meet the shape of your silhouette: be there one of you, or two. It's a calm that implies a coat full of turmoil; a sunset that implies the broken-and-mended day. It's the way, the way, the way a lover can look so beautiful even as s/he leaves. They won't turn to see your face.
[MySpace]
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My writing elsewhere: I have feature review in this month's Plan B of the Silver Jews' remarkable gig in Edinburgh last month. And in The Skinny you can read an interview with Camera Obscura.
Londoners, take note: Plan B is looking for editorial staff.
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Bishop Allen's May EP is now available. The first track, "Butterfly", is a free download. It is light as, um, well, you know - and it will make you sway. Dig the girl singing, but dig even more the roasted sound of the saxophone.