Shuffle Off #1: Synthetic sounds redux

I have no shortage of ideas for recurring features for this blog; my only problem is making the time to make them happen. So I'm gonna strike while the iron is hot and launch one mere hours after it occurred to me. Inspired very indirectly by this popular garden-blog ritual/meme and by the way some people include what they're "Currently Listening To" in forums and blog posts, I thought it would be fun to share with you what's in heavy rotation on my car's 6-disc CD changer every now and then.

Ever since we got this car with such a ludicrous amount of audio options (there is also a plug for an iPod), I've been having fun curating various combinations of albums: an all-Paul Simon set, all-Van-the-Man, all-Janis, all-Radiohead ... and then some looser ideas, like a mishmash of indie-rock and earlier Americana (Matt Pond, My Morning Jacket, Music from Big Pink, etc.) and later a tribute to psychedelia (Hendrix, Big Brother & the Holding Co., etc.). Then I hit "shuffle" and let the fun begin.

At the moment, I'm on an electronic music kick (I hate the term "electronica"--much prefer "synthetic," since that's the general feel of the stuff) for the first time in years, prompted in part by listening to that Burial album all sorts of unlikely people seem to love (me, I'm finding it kind of repetitive and annoying) and an Autechre EP I'd been looking for for years and finally found used in a Toronto record store. So I decided to pull out a semi-random colleccion of stuff I acquired about 10 years ago (can it be? yikes!) when I discovered that instrumental electronic music was ideal accompaniment for writing, proofreading, driving to work, and all sorts of other mundane activities.

So here's what's in the car as of the beginning of February 2008:

1. Autechre, Gantz Graf. This duo is still probably tied with Aphex Twin as my all-time favorite purveyors of unlistenable noise. And I mean that as a high compliment; they have a brilliant (and frequently quite witty) way of balancing rhythm and chaos, although this particular EP dates from the height of their mostly-chaos period. I find myself fast-forwarding through the 3 tracks when one of them pops up--only to discover that it sounds almost exactly the same in fast-forward as it does at regular speed! (Value added: the flip side of the disc contains a trio of nice videos. But I'm not really sure this was worth the $13 Canadian I shelled out, since it's basically a glorified single.)



2. Kosheen, Resist. Bought this used shortly after it came out in 2001 on the strength of the single, "Hide U," and the freaky Natural History Museum cover art. I was fairly disappointed with most of the other 15 tracks and put it aside for years, but now it's turning out to be the standout of the current shuffle mix. I don't normally care for vocals in drum-and-bass-y stuff--to me the deathknell of the synthetic non-revolution of the late 90s was the widespread addition of singers and/or samples of singers--but I gotta say, Kosheen's Sian Evans has a fine voice, and the lyrics are a bit less silly/disposable than most in the genre.



3. Land of the Loops, Bundle of Joy. If you ask me, this is one of the great lost albums of the 1990s, ripe for rediscovery 20 years from now. One-man-band Alan Sutherland put together a wonderful collection of catchy melodies, weird sound bites, lovely ballads, and brief snippets that sound less like filler than like connective tissue. Secret weapons: guest vocalists Heather Lewis, Simone Ashby, and Meadie Ballenger. So, yeah, maybe I'm not as anti-singers-in-synthetic-music as I think I am. But only when they sound this good.



4. Howie B., Turn the Dark Off. Mr. B was the go-to guy for U2 and other rockers who wanted to dip their toes in synthetic music for a while there. Witness the spoken-word cameos by Robbie Robertson here, sounding nothing like his Band incarnation and a lot like a cross between Laurie Anderson and David Byrne.

5. Freaky Chakra vs. Single Cell Orchestra. I either paid a buck for this or got it for free, and I've always enjoyed it, although a friend of mine heard two minutes of it once and said it gave her a headache.

6. Aphrodite, Aphrodite. Another free or buck find, and a good illustration of what I was just saying about how annoying I find vocalists in this kind of music. Oh, no, wait: the only thing more annoying than singers in drum-and-bass? Rappers in drum-and-bass. That was the death knell.

I just wasn't made for these times

My, my, this is an eclectic group of party animals, is it not?



When I first saw a (different, much more stiffly posed) photo on the cover of the TV supplement in this past Sunday's Buffalo News, I thought "who is that stone-faced man standing alongside Francis Ford Coppola, Diana Ross, Martin Scorsese, and Steve Martin?" Then I realized the bearded, bespectacled man was not FFC (he is really pianist-conductor Leon Fleisher, duh) and the stone-faced guy was none other than Brian Wilson. This motley crew was to be honored during the 30th annual "Kennedy Center Honors," so naturally I made a point of watching the broadcast tonight.

For the record, I think Scorsese's brilliant in small-to-medium doses, never really found Martin all that funny, never heard of Fleisher until now, and am one of the few homosexual men of my generation who finds La Ross tremendously overrated. She has her moments, from "Someday We'll Be Together" to her recent career in crime, but she's never really done that much for me as a pop diva, a camp icon, or anything else. I mainly tuned in for Brian. (Here's his official site's page on the event, with plenty of links.)

I'm really, really tempted to trot out that overused William Carlos Williams chestnut about the pure products of America going crazy, because this was one surreal assemblage of talent: the five honorees sitting next to each other and Lord and Lady Bush, Diana blowing kisses every few minutes, Scorsese looking slightly embarrassed, and Brian mostly off in that safe place he goes to when things get scary (which is to say 95% of every day since January 1, 1964). The announcer for the show was Carl Kasell, direct from NPR and my favorite game show. Apparently public radio does not pay its most highly regarded voice that well, because here he was picking up a little extra cash shilling for CBS, reduced throughout the evening to saying things like "The Kennedy Center Honors ... sponsored by: the Bristol-Meyers-Squibb-Sanofi Pharmaceuticals partnership."

Art Garfunkel did the intro to the Wilson segment, and people laughed when the first words out of his mouth were "I love rock and roll," thinking he was being sarcastic--when, as we know, Garfunkel does not do sarcasm. This was followed by a film bio which managed to compress most of the key plot points into 3-4 minutes, paying as little attention to the other Beach Boys as possible. I couldn't help wondering how Brian felt hearing this tidy, relatively perky trip through the most painful events of his life: abusive father, clueless record label, career-crushing depression, yadda yadda yadda. Hey, guys--you left out the brother who died of cancer, the one who drowned, the decades of lawsuits with the cousin, and the cult-leader psychiatrist. What gives?!

But no matter, for it was on to the musical performances, each more surreal than the last:
1. Lyle Lovett performing a truly touching slowed-down version of "In My Room" (the surreal note here was that I had just seen him parody exactly this sort of gala tribute near the end of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story to hilarious effect).
2. Hootie and the Blowfish, all dressed in matching blue Pendleton shirts, doing a cover-band medley of "I Get Around" and "California Girls" that inspired Brian to bounce around a bit in his seat, a move that Diana picked up on and began to exaggerate in her groove-y diva way, which in turn made Brian nervous again. Several elegantly dressed women in the audience leapt to their feet to dance, until, in that time-honored ritual repeated at every dive bar and suburban wedding across this great land since the early 1960s, their male companions grudgingly joined them. Soon the President and First Lady joined in, and for one brief and shining moment, a room full of wealthy, mostly white people was united in arhythmic hopping and bopping, clapping merrily against the beat. Even Leon Fleisher, whom we had just learned 20 minutes earlier has lost the use of his right hand--a tragedy that ended his career as a pianist and nearly destroyed him--was clapping away, visibly wishing he was somewhere else. A Christmas miracle!

This would all have been quite enough, but no:
3. "Ladies and gentlemen, Libera," says Carl Kasell, and out walk 9 boys in white choir robes (very Polyphonic Spree--and boy, wouldn't they have been a cool choice?). The littlest, cutest boy says in his best Oliver Twist voice, "Mr. Wilson, we were born a long, long way from your 'California beaches,' but the sunlight of your music can be felt every day on our streets in South London." Brian looks taken aback by this news flash, then smiles, and the boys sing a churchy choral version of his late-period solo non-hit "Love and Mercy," a wonderful song whose anti-war message surely sails directly over the head of our Commander in Chief (whose fave BB hit is BOUND to be "Kokomo," you just know it). The 9 moppets are joined by approximately 75 more boys; this new batch has clearly hit puberty so they have to stand farther back. All these underage kids chanting somberly about "standing in a bar" is a jarring image, but also lovely in its way. Brian closes his eyes; he and his wife Melinda look like they're going to cry, Diana dabs her eye, and it is quite powerful--until the kids reach the climax of the song, and--can it be? no, it can't! yes, it can!--dozens and dozens of beach balls fall from the ceiling onto the heads of the audience, who begin batting them around as if they are on spring break. Yee-ha!

Kasell takes us to another commercial break, then out comes host Caroline Kennedy, fresh from her recent notoriety as the inspiration of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," to wish us all a good night. (This is a total digression, but does it strike no one else as slightly creepy and restraining-order-y that she was 13 years old when he wrote that song?)

Writers' strike or no writers' strike, TV does not get much better than this, folks.

The Year in Music: 2007 edition

Moving right along.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: I was tempted to give this to In Rainbows, just because, but instead there shall be a tie. One winner is incredibly unhip and the mere mention of his name will cost me valuable credibility points among the cognoscenti, but those will be regained by the revelation of the other winner. Just watch:

Paul Simon, Surprise.



As a soft rock lover from my youth, I was a huge Simon & Garfunkel fan, and followed both their solo careers longer than most right-thinking people did, but they both lost me sometime in the early 1980s. Graceland, which is the one Paul Simon album it's probably cool to like, did nothing for me, and the ones after that left me cold, too. Until this year, when 60something Paul joined forces with 60something Brian Eno. The end result is just kind of great, if you ask me: beautiful production, moving and funny lyrics, catchy melodies. I listened to it over and over again when I first got it early in 2007, and think I will do so again, very soon.

Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala.



Much of what I just said about Surprise's strengths applies to this album, too, only its creator is almost 40 years younger. I'm a bit conflicted about giving this Album of the Year status because I've only been listening to it for the last 3 weeks or so, but it's so incredibly good that I'm gonna go with my gut. The guy does sound a great deal like Stephen Merritt, Jonathan Richman, and my main man Don Lennon, but he's also some kind of wild production genius--no album by any of those fine individuals sounds anywhere near this sonically complicated. I'd love to hear all the stuff he samples in its original form, because I don't recognize any of it, and because I suspect that he has transformed it all so thoroughly as to be unrecognizable. It's also hard to tell what comes from somewhere/someone else and what he generated himself, with or without other musicians. His voice (like Simon's, actually) is a bit limited, but he does a great job writing for it. It may take some getting used to. I suspect this is one of those love-it-or-hate-it affairs. Chalk me up as a lover. "Shirin" is easily the most beautiful song ever written about an Iraqi hairdresser operating an illegal salon in her apartment.

Runners-up:
The Flight of the Conchords, Songs from the First Season (or whatever it's called)
Matt Pond, PA, Last Light

CONCERT OF THE YEAR: Lucinda Williams at Artpark (Lewiston, NY). At first I was drawing a blank; this was not a stellar year for live shows, at least not those that I managed to catch. But then I remembered what a magical evening this was: great set list, cool new songs, best of the 3 times I've seen her since the mid-80s. Duet with opener Charlie Louvin was icing on the cake.

Runners-up: Before I remembered Lucinda, I was thinking of giving this one to 3 shows I saw in about 2 weeks, 2 by Ani DiFranco and 1 by Andrew Bird, all at Ani's new venue, Babeville, which immediately made my list as Best Concert Venue in Buffalo. But I felt kind of weird about that since I have had a work connection (tenuous in Bird's case) to both artists and it felt like nepotism or something similar. But hell, they were all great shows.

ARTIST OF THE YEAR: Think I'm going with a tie here. The new car in our household has a 6-CD player, and I've been enjoying cooking up retrospectives and supersets and such, and the best one by far thus far consisted of six recordings by, you guessed it, Mr. Paul Simon. It's not just the new album (see above); I also got several CD reissues of his earlier works that came out a few years ago, each with 2-3 bonus tracks (usually demo versions of key songs, sometimes with very different lyrics or arrangements) that really do hold up. The second best superset came from Radiohead, and while I don't think they've singlehandedly sparked a revolution or anything, that was a pretty damn cool stunt they pulled with their latest album, and the album itself is even cooler.

Runners-up: See "Album of the Year" runners-up.

SONG OF THE YEAR: Amy Winehouse, "Rehab". I know, I know, she is currently on the fast track to becoming the new Lindsay Lohan, better known for actual stints in rehab than for her art, but that is still one damn catchy song. Sort of reminds me of Ray Charles releasing songs like "Busted" when he was busted and "Let's Go Get Stoned" when that was something he tended to do quite a bit. I'm not super-crazy about the entire album, but as singles go, that one is a doozy.

Runner-up: Because this blog is called "Can't Get It Out of My Head," attention must be paid to the many times that Feist's "1-2-3-4" got stuck in my brain, thanks in part to that ubiquitous Apple/iTunes commercial and thanks in larger part to the song itself. I'd give the video "Video of the Year" if I had such a category, which I don't, because videos don't exist anymore, as we all know. The whole Feist album is terrific, btw.

That's all, folks. See you in November 2008!

Smile, though your heart is aching...

Update from May 2006: This is a blog entry I never finished; rediscovered the draft of it just now and decided to finish the sentence I left incomplete and just end it there. This show was such a tremendous experience that I should at least leave some kind of marker here. Even today, two years later, I could still go on and on about it... but I won't. You're spared!


I fully intended to race home after seeing Brian Wilson and his band perform Smile in Toronto and write about the experience here while it was still fresh in my mind, but that didn't quite happen. Now three or four weeks have gone by, and if anything the memory has already transformed itself into the stuff of personal legend.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen the group; they shared a bill with Paul Simon at Darien Lake, one of those corporate amusement park amphitheater deals outside Buffalo, in the summer of 2000, and that one had been such a moving experience (I'd never wept all the way through a concert before) that I doubted the second time around could possibly equal it.

Boy, was I wrong. A big part of the power of the Darien Lake show was simply the thrill of seeing this guy for whom I have so much respect and empathy--an artist who'd finally triumphed over his long history of stage fright, mental illness, and fucked-up band/label politics--who had at long last found the ideal ensemble to play his music with respect and careful craftsmanship in front of an audience that could hear it for what it was. And what a band—one part Wondermints, one part latter-day BB touring types, all of whom sound absolutely amazing. [...]