Archives : all posts by Jordan

Yellow Jacket Avenger - "Moonlighter Prizefighter"

I previously wrote about this song on StG, but without an accompanying mp3. I described it then as "a masterful piece of pop counterpoint. The guitar work is elaborate and quick, and the vocals clipped and energetic, yet the overall effect is one of delicacy and vulnerability. Interestingly, Rocky Balboa could also be described as quick and energetic, yet delicate and vulnerable, and he was, in fact, both a moonlighter and a prizefighter." Upon further consideration, I now reject the above and embrace the opposite position. [Info]

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Loudon Wainwright III - "The Swimming Song"

A collection of banalities regarding Loudon's swimming experiences during the preceding summer. Banalities, that is, except for the revelation that there is a swimming stroke called the old Australian crawl. All this is set to densely picked dueling banjos running serpentine, intertwining courses. [Buy]

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My band, The Cay (brand new Myspace page), will play our first show in almost over a decade tomorrow, Friday May 12th at the Casa del Popolo in Montreal. We will be opening for two very fine bands: Snailhouse and The Silt (both of whom I've written about here). I encourage any interested readers to drop by. We should be on shortly after 10.

Yusef Lateef - "Russell and Eliot"

Russell and Eliot is an intersection in Detroit. Clearly some heavy shit obtains at the corner of Russell and Eliot. Some really seedy, nasty business. Maybe there�s a motel there. Fluorescent lights. Transient, desperate living. Suitcases, fedoras, trench coats. Or maybe there�s nothing there. Maybe Lateef was walking up Russell St. when the sinister chord progression started to take shape in his mind. Maybe he thought of that deep soul bass line with the slides at the end of every phrase as he passed Wilkins St., conceived of the lethargic, sun-stroked funk of the drums as he moved up past Erskine St. Maybe he stopped at Eliot, halted by the muse, giddy with his idea: that guitar solo.

�Russell and Eliot� is my dad�s favourite song. For all I know, it was the first song I ever heard. I could sing the guitar solo from memory by the time I was 27 days old. The solo sounds like metal and sparks and oppressive heat and it introduces a new dimension of tumult into an already decidedly unsettled composition. The weak of heart tend to die upon hearing that the solo - a behind-the-beat blues masterpiece - is matched, and subsequently surpassed in intensity by Lateef�s tenor horn: squealing, then calm, then shredding in circles like Pharoah Sanders, but slowly, like John Fahey plays guitar.

I never noticed until now that a piano enters the mix when the solo starts, only to accent occasionally, quietly, almost freely. Nor did I notice the gorgeous, almost Kraut-pop post-solo muted guitar chords.

I haven�t listened to �Russell and Eliot� in years, and now that I listen to it critically for the first time, I can�t believe how good it really is. I first loved the song because my dad loved it, then because it was accessible jazz and I wanted to like jazz, and eventually I came to appreciate it based on its intrinsic attributes. But only now do I see both what it is and what it represents for me. My dad was not an avid music listener anymore by the time I was born, but through records like this one, records that were deeply and apparently meaningful for him, he provided me with an example of and a doorway into the kind of powerful, lifelong love relationship one can have with music. The kind that he and I both have. The kind from which, if well-maintained, the romance never fades. [Buy]

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Simon Joyner - "One For The Catholic Girls"

Me: Pretty much just two chords on an organ for six minutes, huh?
Simon Joyner: Yup. And my Lou Reed vocals.
Me: Why doesn�t that get boring?
Simon Joyner: Because I throw in one very brief flourish at 2:30, and then again at 5:25.
Me: But I�m not sure that�s it.
Simon Joyner: Then what?
Me: Actually, I can't quite put my finger on it.
Simon Joyner: Well, you�re a handsome genius; I�m sure you�ll figure it out eventually. Can I borrow fifteen bucks?

fin [Info/Buy]

A couple of weeks ago, I received the following email: “hello I would like to send you some music. -bill.” No questions, no personal pleasantries, no links or information, almost no punctuation, just a perfunctory greeting, a statement of intent, and a name. He didn’t bother with a subject heading.

A week later I found a cd in my mail by a band called The Red River. The cover was a poorly drawn (sorry Bill) picture of a boat with a tree growing out of it, sailing on blue waves that looked more like eagle talons. The drawing was in the medium of magic marker on lined loose leaf paper. The liner notes contained one credit and one email address and nothing else. The credit was “by Bill Roberts”, and the email address was the one Bill had written me from.

Needless to say, I was terribly excited to hear Bill’s songs. I felt as if I were about to hear the music Marcus Aurelius would have made had he had access to Pro Tools.

The record, Some Songs About A Flood, is, somehow unsurprisingly, great. The Red River plays simple songs with simple melodies, and plays them mostly on the acoustic guitar, shaker, voice, and backing voices. These songs are so carefully sung, so delicately arranged, that listening to them can be as tense as watching a game of Jenga, the outcome of which determines who will live and who will die, generally.

I still know nothing about Bill Roberts. But I have my suspicions:

1. He likes the Microphones a lot.
2. Based on the sophistication of his music and lyrics, I would be very surprised if he were any less than 14 years old, and based on his energy and aesthetic, I would be utterly shocked if he were a day older than 79.
3. Besides his obvious adherence to the Stoic philosophy of life, I think it’s safe to assume that Bill Roberts has a soft, muddy spot for the Romantic Naturalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his follower, Phil Elvrum.

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The Red River - "The Mighty Tide"

A composition about and of waves, “The Mighty Tide” is a gospel song whose vocal solo near its end is both hilarious and sublime. Listen to him breathlessly sneak hoots into his vocal line as if his awe of and deference to the power of nature would not be apparent if he did not include all the hallmarks of a good gospel solo.

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The Red River - "Real Danger"

The song builds, becomes denser, richer, yet always remains perfectly clear, never muddy. Each instrument is a pane of glass: as they are piled on top of each other, the quality of what they transmit changes, but the centre of the song (its long-unfolding vocal melody) is never obscured, just differently lit. [Info]

[Update: You can buy or trade for Some Songs About A Flood by emailing Bill. He is very nice, and confirmed that my three suspicions were indeed correct.]

Jolie Holland - "Springtime Can Kill You"

1. I’m not a man who has ever been killed by a season. To be honest, I always felt that seasons lacked the agency for murder. Alas, as per yuj, I was wrong. A season killed Jolie Holland.

Winter was questioned first, it being the usual suspect in terms of seasons. Now, seasons don’t look like humans - that is probably the first thing one comes to understand in life. But still, Winter, with a cigarette dangling from its lips and another one tucked behind its left ear, calmly explained to the coppers that it had no motive: “Jolie’s from Texas, see? So, I never even knew her. Why would I want her dead?”

2. From beyond the grave, Holland warns that springtime could kill us too. Her advice to us is, essentially, carpe diem. She tells us to go outside, leave our houses, not be too shy. She attempts to lure us into an appreciation of the outdoors, of spring moonlight, of lilacs and honeysuckle. But this advice is given as if springtime were holding a gun to her back, feeding her lines. She says it knowing full well that it was exactly this kind of rhetoric that led her out into the streets where she met her own sinister fate. She is warning us through clenched teeth (i.e. the tense tapping of the ride, and the tight, nervous whisper of the guitar).

3. Imagine the instrumental bridge at 0:47 and then again at 1:56 as a play, Springtime. In it, the whistling plays the role of a little boy running, in his clumsy way, down a narrow residential street, dragging his wooden bat across the concrete. The baritone horn, travelling in the opposite direction up the same street, plays the role of a small funeral procession: black suits and white shirts, a hearse, dour faces. Springtime (the sour voice of Jolie Holland) is faced with a difficult choice: should it rain or should it shine? The rim-shots play the rain, falling in slow heavy drops. The boy turns around, runs home. The bereaved are comforted. Springtime laughs, throws down some lightning, kills somebody, eats some ribs, exeunt. [Buy]

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Kaizers Orchestra - "Mister Kaiser, Hans Costanze og Meg"

This is probably the best Norwegian military waltz I’ve heard all day.

For Claire, who was asked to dance by the the job she most desired, then asked to wait until the end of the night, then erased from the dance card entirely. She should know that when she arrives in Montreal, she will find at least two dance cards dedicated pretty much exclusively to her. [Info (kind of)]

Manu Chao - "Dia Luna... Dia Pena"

What’s this song about? Anyone? Something about the moon? The moon is brilliant tonight. About suffering and death? Well, I can understand that. First off, I seem to be watching a TV movie adaptation of Crime and Punishment with Patrick Dempsey as Raskolnikov. While Raskolnikov suffers and causes death, Patrick Dempsey, with his inconsistent generic European accent, causes suffering and forces me to hope for his death. But it’s better than being outside; that much is for sure. I live in the McGill University student ghetto, which is a bad place, particularly in spring. As soon as the temperature rises above zero, the neighbourhood’s residents become possessed by a sort of libidinous rage, running around naked, fighting, having sweaty, random sex in the streets. It’s scary. I just went out into the melee and barely escaped with my life, and didn’t escape with my dignity - running as I did from a black SUV that appeared to be pursuing me slowly in reverse. I ran past horrors of every sort, not every one of which relates directly to this song, so I’ll spare you the details (think of Dante). Eventually I stopped in front of a man sitting meditatively on the curb. I could see in his face - his brow furrowed in deep contemplation - that he, like me, stood outside of (yes, above) this Gomorrah; that he suffered for the indignity of our neighbours. I looked at him and I felt recognized. He opened his mouth, and I stood ready to receive the warm, gentle greetings of a sympathetic soul and fellow philosopher. But no such greetings came out. Instead, he puked everywhere and for a long time.

Luckily, Manu Chao is here to comfort me with a song clearly recorded inside a room separated from a more complicated outside. We can barely hear the tumult of the external world, though Chao made sure to leave the window open. Voices from the street waft in on a breeze I can feel. There’s the sound of a television, of a child’s toy, of a mariachi band receding into the distance. There’s a woman screaming. I can hear the hissing and clicking of snakes. Manu and I will stay inside, thank you. [Buy]

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Half-Handed Cloud - "You've Been Faithful To Us Clouds"

Apparently when Dan Bejar moved out of that pixilated CGI forest he occupied while recording Your Blues, Half-Handed Cloud moved in. It’s not that the song doesn’t annoy me (it does), but that its melody draws me in - so pure and strong that it can adapt, survive anywhere, even in this Midi-earth devoid of nourishment.

Also, this song appears to be about Mary Magdalene, that lovely, hair-covered wild woman who bathed Jesus' feet in tears and was the messenger of his resurrection/wife (sue me). Happy Easter, merry Passover, and have a good weekend, everybody. [Info]

Bobby Bare - "Everybody's Talkin'"

Lately, in my song selection and writing, I’ve been guided by the many convergences I see in music, my experience of music, and my life outside of music. I don’t think of these convergences as significant teleological phenomena, but as ways of organizing my thoughts and writing. Or, in other words, I’m in the mood for anecdotes.

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Sometimes you want to be presented with an enormous platter of raw beef, rice noodles and egg noodles, onions, mushrooms, spinach, and cabbage. Other times you want a hot cooker to be placed in front of you, greased up with pork fat and filled with a broth of sweet soya sauce. Still other times you desire nothing more than to dip your food into a bowl of raw egg and then roll it around in sticky rice. When all of these desires converge, I suggest that you go to a Japanese restaurant and order sukiyaki. I think you’ll find it satisfying on all accounts, including gastronomico-aesthetic ones not mentioned above.

Last night was one of those nights for me, and, following my own sage advice, I sought some sukuyaki at Sakora. Once there, guess who I saw dining with a friend? That’s right: Sacha Trudeau. Sacha is filmmaker, a writer, and the son of former Prime-Minister Pierre Trudeau.

My first experience with Sacha was a surreal one. It was the summer of 2001 and I was working at the Human Resources Department of the federal government. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, just minding my own business, when my boss’ boss’ boss’ secretary approached me and told me that Sacha Trudeau was on the phone waiting for me. This was unexpected to say the least. What did he want to speak to me about? Perhaps Doctorow’s Ragtime, I mistakenly conjectured. I’ve always liked that book, and thought that he probably did too (doesn’t everybody?). I figured he had probably heard of my considerable interpretive skill and far-reaching knowledge of American cultural history, and wanted to “get my take on it.” But no, what he actually wanted to talk to me about was real-estate: apparently, he’d found for me an unbelievably affordable two bedroom apartment in Mile End. We exchanged pleasantries, he told me about the apartment, I thanked him and said goodbye. Unanswered questions persisted. I wondered if he did this for everybody – a sort of year-round realty Santa.

Eventually it came out that the surprise call was the result of the backroom machinations of another Santa: the Real Santa. I met the Real Santa (Steve, he humbly prefers to be called) when I told my boss’ boss’ boss that my band was recording an album.

“Oh, well, you have to meet Steve,” she said of her friend and coworker.

I didn’t know why I had to meet Steve and was, frankly, extremely skeptical about how imperative it was that I do. It turned out that she was right. In fact, it’s probably true that everyone has to meet Steve. For one thing, Steve owns an island. He’s not a rich man, but he owns an island. In addition, he’s fond of telling a story the moral of which is “keep your mouth shut when riding a motorcycle,” the subject of which is the time he swallowed a whole bat. The veracity of the story, I’ve been told, was once challenged by Steve’s good friend Sacha Trudeau; whereupon, Steve proved, analytically, that the story was 100% true. (I haven’t seen the proof but apparently it follows directly from Russell’s (1872-1970) Paradox). He is also – and this is the reason I had to meet him – a lover, collector, and maintainer of vintage music gear. Over the years, he has sold me many guitars and amplifiers for unreasonably low prices, including the only person who truly understands me - my 1961 Gretsch Country Gentleman - for a pittance. He is an extraordinarily generous man. When I told him that I was looking for a place in Montreal for September, he told his best Montreal friend to try to find a place for me.

I can at times - as Sean and Dan can attest to - be something of an absent, or at least foul-weather, friend. Since I stopped going back to Ottawa for the summers I’ve lost touch with Steve. The last contact I had with him was an email I received on my twenty-third birthday (I’m now 63) whose subject was “ukulele” (he gave me one, via my parents, as a birthday gift), which stated simply:

“Everybody's Talkin'
Fred Neil

F
Everybody's talkin' at me
F7
I don't hear a word they're sayin'
C7 F
Only the echos of my mind
F
People stop and stare
F7
I can't see their faces
C7 F
Only the shadows of their eyes
Gm7 C7
Chorus: I'm goin' where the sun keeps shinin'
F Cm7 F7 Gm7
through the pourin' rain
C7 F F7
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes
Gm7 C7
Bankin' off of the northeast wind
F F7
Sailin' on a summer breeze
Bb C7 F
Skippin' over the ocean like a stone

C7 F
And, I won't let you leave my love behind
C7 F
No, I won't let you leave my love behind
C7 F
And, I won't let you leave my love behind”

No explanation or nothin. And I haven’t heard from him since.

His email renders me kind of superfluous here, but I can say this:

Bobby Bare’s version is like a Robert Altman film. Everybody’s talkin’ at the same time - we pan across the band, each part of the conversation moving into focus briefly, and then falling to the background. [Buy]

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Shotgun and Jaybird - "For The Kids"

This song is a tiny Marc Chagall (1887-1985) painting. It’s a ukulele in a barbershop. A barbershop in a storm. A thick bolt of muted yellow lightning (the electric guitar) bisects the corner of the canvas. [Info]

Simon Finn - "Patrice"

Freak-folk from back when it was called Acid-folk. Simon Finn has delusions of grandeur ("my poems rule the universe..." ), a tendency toward the trite psychedelic image ("may eagles lead your way," etc., etc.), and a voice that falls easily out of tune. Yet, his mossy songs are worthy of our attention. His spartan, quiet arrangements reveal the undeniable melodies at the centre of his work. Listen to the delicate acoustic guitar pattern; invariable, yet gaining power as Finn wraps it in increasingly dense layers of flute tones. Also, sometimes he delivers lyrics like Destroyer does.

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Simon Finn - "Jerusalem"

If Leonard Cohen was less careful, if he could lose his temper completely, subordinate his intellect to his emotions entirely, he might have recorded "Jerusalem".

Simon Finn invites augurs to determine what they will from his insides, which he has conveniently put on display. I'm no augur, but Finn's organ does not appear to me to bode well. [Buy]