Said the Gramophone - image by Kit Malo

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Not Where You Expect It, But Somewhere Else
by Jordan

Paul Duncan - "In A Way"

Here is the sequence of events that led me to write this:

I was sitting in my chair, at my desk, petting my cat (Bruno the Berber "purr-purr" kitty) contemplating what kind of song I felt like writing about. I picked up a guitar and played a simple part that reminded me of Tortoise: a hammer-on on the low E string, a big, meaty slide on the A string, a strange time signature. Then I opened my email and found this song.

I knew that I would post it as soon as I heard the wide-open drum overture yield to the guitars. I liked the way they paced back and forth. I thought that I shouldn't deny the cosmic significance of the fact that "In a Way" sounds like the Chicago post-rock Tortoise pioneered. When I discovered that it was in 10/8 time I burned the only extant copy of my novel. It was a masterpiece. I realize the inapproriateness of my reaction, but such is my insouciance in the face of 10/8 time.

At 0:53 there is a short build to a small crescendo - the kind that Tortoise was (is?) fond of and that brought me so much joy as a teenager. Impeccably arranged; a violin, a rhodes and a guitar playing at being a mandolin bring the song to a conclusion. [Buy/Info]

***

Fred Neil with Gram Parsons - "You Don't Miss Your Water"

Fred Neil and Gram Parsons sing about not knowing what you got til it's gone. Despite the abrasive blues-style, big bend acoustic guitar playing in the left channel, and the low mix of Parsons's voice, this still emerges as a simple, felt and trenchant song of regret. [Buy]

12:10 PM on Sep 21, 2005.
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Find It, Refine It
by Jordan

Mary Timony - "The Hour Glass"

There was a time when I would listen to this song over and over again. Sometimes I would just listen to 1:00 to 1:44, scan back, listen again. I was working in the Canadian Coast Guard's policy unit (man overbored!), was heartbroken, and was looking for anything to focus on other than myself. Mary Timony's Mountains was a savior for me.

"Can't you hear the birds calling from inside the anxious forest of delight?"

Yes, weirdly enough, Mary, I can. I can hear that and more. Just between 1:00 and and 1:44, I hear the viola play ripples on a stream, the bass, like a zombie, push up from beneath the earth, the keyboard (or affected guitar?) throw lightning bolts, and the drums clap like thunder. I hear all this happen, as you say, from within the anxious forest of delight. How have you brought me to this forest? Merely by uniting the only two things worth their salt on the whole of this god-forsaken earth: indie rock and prog? In any case, thank you; I'd much rather be here in this forest than back in my office filing inconceivable amounts of paper, obsessing about my own disintegrating life. [Buy]

***

Roy Harper - "Francesca"

And speaking of heartbreak: Roy Harper wakes up on a sunny day to find Francesca gone. He is able to move from being angry about Francesca's sudden betrayal to being thankful for the sunlight and, finally, for the time he did have with her. He sits up on his bed, takes his guitar, and writes an almost perfect 1:19 love song. [Buy]

11:53 AM on Sep 16, 2005.
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This Is So Simple
by Jordan

Liliput - "Hitch-Hike"

This is so simple: whistles, horns, and power chords. What the train station in Lilliput would sound like, guaranteed. [Buy]

***

Mahalia Jackson - "A City Called Heaven"

The organ drones, the bass is bowed, the piano meanders, and Mahalia’s voice spills over without erupting. We are left tense, anticipating and hoping for cadence like Mahalia is anticipating and hoping for that city called Heaven. [Buy]

10:38 AM on Sep 14, 2005.
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Songs Courtesy of Sally Go (Pizza?)!
by Jordan

Rod Freeman and The Blue Men - "I Hear A New World"

Did you guys have any Smurfs albums growing up? Smurfing Sing Song, perhaps? Well, I didn't. I was raised on muesli and Strunk and White. So you can imagine how excited I was when I found this Rod Freeman recording with the Smurfs singing back-up. It's like the time I submerged myself in the Ikea ball room (an act which had been strictly forbidden by my parents, who insisted that I play only with cubes and never with spheres ("six is better than one")) while on break from my job working at the store's caf.

You're at a Hawai'i beach dance party and the sun is setting in colours you've never seen before.

***

Neko Case - "Wayfaring Stranger"

I posted the Papa M version of this song about six months ago. This one is better. Not only is Neko Case a better singer than David Pajo, but the banjo-guitar interplay is a playful and rich dialogue and in addition, the banjo solo at 1:04 is an indication that my general aversion to solos is a most unnatural aberration that must be remade in the image of a love for solos, and must be, in fact, what it appears to be.

12:09 PM on Sep 2, 2005.
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Not Kept In Jars
by Jordan

Jon Brion - "Theme" (from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

Do you remember Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet and Frodo Baggins, it's a movie about love and memory. It's also about the relationship between what we know and how happy we are, and the intrinsic value of knowledge and truth. It raises the question of whether it is better to bask in the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, come by dishonestly, or to suffer the part cloudiness of the mind spotted by sometimes unpleasant memory. Like the cave analogy of Plato's Republic or Robert Nozick's "The Experience Machine", Eternal Sunshine rejects comforting unreality and opts instead for tricky truth. And that's the way we at STG like it.

I assume that Jon Brion lives his life based on Socrates' great maxim that the unexamined life is not worth living. He also wrote the theme for I Heart Huckabees, a movie that references Plato's cave explicitly. If more evidence is needed, look no further than this theme, in which he demonstrates great self-understanding through his uncanny evocation of memory and its yellow-tinged, hyperbolic cousin; nostalgia. Pay particular attention to the delicate backward keyboard coils, which sound like a feedback loop of memories of memories, etc.

You can erase Jon Brion from the new Fiona Apple record, but you can't erase him from our memory, or, at least, we'd prefer that you didn't. [Buy]

***

Michael Hurley - "Blue Driver"

Michael Hurley is "looking out the rear-view mirror for the highway patrol." It seems that he's in trouble with the law. Not surprising, since what makes his singing sublime is its oddness, its small surprises, its off-kilter rises, falls and quivers. Listen to the last thirty seconds of this song and tell me that he's not criminally insane and I will tell you that you are criminally insane and then have you arrested. "Woooooooo oooooo ooooooooo." [Hi Fi Snock Uptown, the album on which "Blue Driver" was originally released, has not been released on CD. Long Journey has been, however, and I strongly recommend that you buy it.]

7:18 AM on Aug 30, 2005.
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Accordingly, Frau Planck Was Turned To Ash
by Jordan

General Miggs - "Broken Hoof"

When I listen to unsolicited submissions I try to keep an open mind. I try to approach them optimistically. I've been on the other side of the equation; sending my music out into the abyss, to be discarded, or worse. But, realistically, the chances that I will like any particular submission are relatively slim. Often submissions are well conceived, competently executed, or widely appealing, but just don't speak to me (take note: I require songs to address me directly). So when a song as good as this one is submitted to me by a band I've never heard of, I cry for days on end, inconsolable for having realized that I am so lucky, while others suffer in a variety of ways. I am, after all, a deeply modest man.

"Broken Hoof" is unrelentingly catchy. Through verses, bridges and choruses it never loses its momentum, never loses its strict shuffle. The drums and bass play at chaos like clowns play at being drunk: pretending to fall over each other though they are in complete control, pretending to be crude and clumsy though they are supremely elegant. During the first bridge, at 1:23, a steel drum is introduced and manages to sound simultaneously exuberant and aching. The same could be said of the brilliant vocal performance, an unadorned and persistently energetic presentation of the melody. [Info]

***

Think About Life - "Serious Chords"

Think About Life manages, through outstanding vocals and solid pop songwriting, to find tenderness in the Heart of Darkness (i.e. among abrasive keyboards and a house beat). [Info]

3:55 PM on Aug 25, 2005.
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New To Do
by Jordan

So, first of all, I'm sick as a dog. I'm all congested, got a big cough, sinus headache, etc. I can't think of eating anything but ice cream, and so I end up eating way too much ice cream and feel even sicker. That's the situation here, and it could affect the things that happen below. My cat won't even hang out with me.

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FemBots - "Count Down Our Days"

The first half of this song is a slow-building The Band-like piece of Americana. Vibraphone and glockenspiel start things off in unison. A satisfying and familiar chord progression on propulsive acoustic guitar, and the singer's charmingly imprecise voice. Then the FemBots' signature sustained honky-tonk piano leads into the drums and bass. Now there's a room full of people - hard-working people, with ruddy hands, in a weathered wooden room. They have hard black shoes and they stomp the ground. They are banging out a song with their hands and feet and yelling in harmony while they do it.

I saw Magnolia Electric Co. a few weeks ago and witnessed not a band of indie-rockers, but a gruff group of heavy-set, whiskey-swilling, southern-rockers. Only the drummer looked like someone I might know. They played for an hour and a half and what little stage banter was attempted was done so uncomfortably. The FemBots sound like the Electric Co. looked (so did the Electric Co.) except, if Magnolia Electric Co. sound like they're from the south of the States (they're not), then the FemBots sound like they're from the Canadian prairies a hundred years ago (they're not).

But then, at the song's halfway point, something happens. Everything cuts out but the acoustic guitar, yet the presence of the whole band is felt. It's almost time to go home. The song is a countdown, and every step towards the end is an intensification of the celebration. The band comes in and what was in the first half a beautiful mess is now severe and precise. The stomps turn to hand claps, the honky-tonk to doo-wop, the blue collar rock into something like heavy Philly soul. We end with an anthem, the workers adorned with sequins: "Turn the light out/before they turn the lights out." [Info]

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Tom Zé - "Brigitte Bardot"

Elsewhere in the world: a man is dressed all in white linen. He lies in the shade, contemplating the pouting French actress Brigitte Bardot. My Portuguese is a bit rusty, but I think he likes her. It's oppressively hot outside. Or, maybe I just have a dangerously high fever. [Info]

12:47 AM on Aug 19, 2005.
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