Gavin B.

Blonde Redhead's Penny Sparkles on New Album


Blonde Redhead's newest album Penny Sparkle completes a trilogy of groundbreaking rock/electronica albums on the 4AD label.

When the downtown New York City band, Blonde Redhead began gigging 17 years ago their high volume dissonant guitars, alternate tunings, and stilted lyric content drew inevitable comparisons to Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth's drummer, Steve Shelley even produced Blonde Redhead's debut album & released it on his own label. Between 1997 & 2000 Blonde Redhead released four well received albums on the Touch & Go label.


Blonde Redhead vocalist & guitarist Kuzu Makino

In 2004 Blonde Redhead resurfaced on a new label, 4 AD & during their four year hiatus from the recording studio, the band had retooled it's sound so radically that the Sonic Youth comparisons were gone forever. Blonde Redhead's new sound moved away from their dissonant punk noise rock origins into the territory of experimental rock/electronica. The smoother edges in Blonde Redhead's sound weren't a sellout to the mainstream. They were still to the left of the Cocteau Twins, perhaps the most adventurous electronic band of the first generation. The Blonde Redhead on 4AD sounds like a completely different band from the Blonde Redhead on Touch & Go.

This week the much anticipated Penny Sparkle was release & it completes a trilogy of near perfect albums by Blonde Redhead for the 4 AD label. Those albums are Misery Is A Butterfly (2004), 23 (2007) and Penny Sparkle (2010). The biggest challenge for Blonde Redhead was to top the sublime perfection of 23, their last album which is their career masterwork & one of the great albums of 4th Generation rock. Penny Sparkle is neither better or worse than 23, it's just different. This album is sparser & more minimalist than any other Blonde Redhead recording & like 23 it will take a few months of repeated listening session for the haunting beauty of Penny Sparkle to completely settle in. It's an artistic triumph for a band that deserves to be heard by more people. Blonde Redhead is a great band because it's members aren't afraid of change & have made a musical career out of refusing to do the obvious.

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The opening cut, Here Sometimes sets the tone for the album:



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The second cut, Not Getting There is a hypnotic & moody song well suited to Kazu Makino's languorous vocal.



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My favorite cut is the mysterious Oslo which features a prominent synthesizer & a ska riddim.



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duga

I had a huge Blonde Redhead obsession for a while when Misery is a Butterfly came out. I was quite surprised how different their early material was from that album. I can't wait to listen to Penny Sparkle...23 was pure genius. I didn't even know they had a new album coming out this year! MusicBanter comes through again...

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

James

I was also really impressed with Blonde Redhead's latest.

Gavin B.

I'm glad to see so many admirers of Blonde Redhead at Music Banter. My blog has gotten quite a few hits since I posted my review early yesterday. Onward & upward to today's topic:

A Brief History of the Neo-Traditionalist Music Movement



Has the troubadour returned? Do we really want him back?

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PART I: The Music Industry Coopts the 60s Folk Revival by Promoting A Bunch of Braying Neurotic Singer/Songwriters in the 70s

Sometimes I get nostalgic for the innocence of the early 70s. It was a time when urban troubadours like Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Brown, Joni Mitchell & Paul Simon inspired tens of thousands of tone deaf people to pick up a guitar; only to find themselves getting booed off the stage by hostile crowds of caffeine addicts at open mike night. By 1976, everyone was sick of hearing everyone else's version of Where Have All the Flowers Gone on hootenanny night. All of those earnest amateur performances of Puff the Magic Dragon were causing entire audiences of coffeehouse patrons to go postal. Aspiring folk singers soon learned that even the most supportive of folk music fans had a breaking point. You've crossed a line when you sing yet another folk diddie written by Burl Ives before an audience that's been slamming down four gallons of Italian dark roast coffee a day

The shelf life of the early 60s urban folk music revival had finally expired, about a decade too late. There was a glut of discarded Yamaha guitars in pawn shops all over America & by the end of the 70s, Peter, Paul & Mary albums were selling for 23 cents a ton in used record shops. But everyone held on to those old Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie & Blind Willie McTell albums to remind themselves what real folk music was all about, before the music industry transformed the singer/songwriter genre into a group of pathetic middle-of-the-road, bourgeoisie neurotics insipidly braying about their tortured love lives.

Lots of songs were sung & lots of coffee was drank. We all ended up with jangled nerves & in search of a new kind of music that expressed the zeitgeist of our times. By 1979 we were so busy slam dancing to Totally Wired by the Fall we hardly noticed the ignominious fall of folk music. The 80s urban punk existentialist wardrobe of all black outfits with Doc Martin work boots, soon replaced of the 70s urban existential folkie's wardrobe of plaid flannel shirts & Redwing work boots. Arlo Guthrie & Officer Obie seemed like a characters from a big goofy dream that everybody shared a long time ago. I stopped playing my harmonica in a neck harness while I mowed the yard. The dream was over.

PART II: The Neo-Traditionalists Restore Authenticity to Singer/Songwriter Genre

For the past decade a number of roots oriented musicians have been laboring to restore some dignity & authenticity to the much maligned singer/songwriter genre & by doing so they've become the vanguard of a neo traditionalist revival that's reshaping the the direction of independent music.


Black Prairie's music is a provocative blend of swing, French cafe music, bluegrass, pop, and blues.

This year one can't help but notice the tsunami of fresh singer/songwriters like Lisse, the Tallest Man on Earth, Laura Cantrell, Marissa Nadler, Josie Holland, Brandi Carlille, Miranda Lee Richards & Phillip Selway who have all released notable albums & played the summer roots/Americana festival circuit to wildly enthusiastic crowds.

We've also noticed a growing audience for roots & ethnic fusion bands like Espers, Hem, Gogol Bordello, Calexico, Devotchka, Iron & Wine & the Carolina & the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

PART III: The 80s & 90s Roots of the Current Neo-Traditional Movement

In reality the 60's folk revival never really went away, rather it mutated & reinvented itself within the indie rock music movement of the late 80s & early 90s. My own epiphany was listening to The Trinity Sessions by the Cowboy Junkies back in 1989. The Cowboy Junkies were an alternative band that played low fi renditions of music by Hank Williams, Patsy Cline mixed with an acoustic rendition of the Velvet Underground song Sweet Jane at a slow but sensuous dirge tempo. This sort of post-punk/country music crossover by the Cowboy Junkies was a revelation for me.

The current crop of post millennium neo-traditionalist bands owe a debt to earlier roots oriented performers like Gillian Welch, Wilco, Cheri Knight, the Cowboy Junkies, Lucinda Williams the Handsome Family, Los Lobos, Steve Earle, the Pernice Brothers, Chris Whitley, Chris Thomas King & the ever present John Hartford who collectively invented the Americana genre back in the 80s & early 90s when roots music & the folkways tradition had largely fallen out of fashion with mainstream music audiences.

Joel & Ethan Cohen's 2000 film Oh Brother Where Art Thou? a musically driven story line set in the Depression era America became a cinematic manifesto for the No Depression movement has profoundly influenced the musical direction of the current generation of indie music artists. You can bet than nearly every contemporary indie musician from Jack White to Ira Kaplan has their own cherished copy of the Oh Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack in their music collections.


The ironically named Mountain Man is a trio female singers from Bennington Vermont.

1st generation poetic folk troubadours like John Prine, Leonard Cohen, David Bromberg, Loudon Wainwright II, Rory Block, Iris DeMent & John Hiatt are playing to SRO audiences all over the world & most of the fans are people under the age of 30. It's too bad that 1st Generation roots revivalists like John Hartford, Gram Parsons & John Fahey aren't around to benefit from the renewed public interest in the roots music they devote their considerable musical talents to promoting.

Even Robert Plant is getting in on the act. Plant assisted by co-producer & roots music superstar Buddy Miller has formed a neo-traditionalist fusion band, Band of Joy. The recently released Plant album, Band of Joy is highlighted by harmonist Patty Griffin. With the Band of Joy vehicle, Plant finds fiercely original music within other people’s songs, nabbing two songs from slow-core stalwarts Low & cherry-picking relative obscurities from Richard & Linda Thompson and Los Lobos. Band of Joy extends a lot of Plant's earliest ideas about dark, psychedelic country/folk music that predate his tenure as singer for Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant has always had an astute ear for innovative new bands & the latest musical trends. I remember checking out the debut releases of band like Massive Attack, Portishead & Saint Etienne in the 90s because Robert Plant chatted up those pioneering electronica bands in interviews.

Should we all get our old Yamaha 12 strings out of hock & relearn the chords to Kumbaya all over again? No... it's better to leave sleeping dogs to lay, but it wouldn't hurt to explore some of the great neo-traditionalist groups that are emerging from the current crop.

Here's three of my favorite neo-traditionalist artists who have all recently released debut albums.

Prairie Musette by Black Prarie Black Prairie combines French musette cafe music with traditional Americana on "A Prairie Musette" from their 2010 album, "Feast of the Hunters' Moon." Black Prairie hails from Portland Oregon & three members of Black Prairie are also members of the pop/rock band the Decemberists.



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I Am A Child by Red Horse Red Horse is a roots Americana folk trio formed by three veteran performers of the folk scene, Eliza Gilkyson, Lucy Kaplansky & John Gorky. Their sublime rendition of the Neil Young song, "I Am A Child" appears on their self titled 2010 album release.



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White Heron by Mountain Man Mountain Man is an ironically named all female trio of neo-traditionalist & Americana musicians from Bennington Vermont. Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Amelia Randall met while they were students at Bennington college. "White Heron" is a song from Mountain Man's debut album, "Made the Harbor" was released in 2010. It's one of the most original first albums I've heard in quite some time. The complex & elegant vocal arrangements, minimalist instrumental arrangements & low fidelity recording quality make it hard to place a date on the album. It almost sounds like a Library of Congress field recording made in Appalachia in the 1930s which is why the music of Mountain Man has such an alluring charm.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Five Good Reasons To Love Brit Bands

Say what you will about the never ending revolving door of new Brit bands, every decade or so a new wave of innovative UK bands come along to awaken the world to the infinite artistic possibilities of rock & roll music.

Be it the Kinks, the Beatles or the Stones in the 60s; Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols or the Clash in the 70s; Gang of Four, Public Image Ltd. or XTC in the 80s; Blur, Oasis or Stone Roses in the 90s; or Radiohead, the National, the Coral, the Futureheads or the Libertines in the 00s; every new generation of UK rock bands manages to challenge our expectations & subvert the conventional notion that rock and roll is subject to arbitrary rules or creative limits.

Below are five songs which will do a better job of waking you up in the morning than three double espressos & 40 milligram dose of Adderal. The songs are also five good reasons to love Brit bands.

#1. Struck Dumb by the Futureheads



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#2. Natural's Not In It (Rakes Remix) by Gang of Four



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#3. Song #2 by Blur



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#4. I'm Not Down by the Clash



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#5. Totally Wired by the Fall



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__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

For Lightspeed Champion Life Is Sweet! & It's Nice to Meet You



Lightspeed Champion in concert

Lightspeed Champion (aka Devonte "Dev" Hynes) is a black pop artist that doesn't fit into any neat category. Dev sings and has mastered a number of musical instruments including piano, guitar, bass, & drums.

Dev is native of Houston Texas & was in the experimental band the Test Icicles before forming his own band (also called Lightspeed Champion) that consisted of former members of the Faint, Cursive & Tilly & the Wall. Lightspeed is a bit of a geeky character whose music reflects his own love of glam rock, experimental rock, baroque pop, cabaret jazz & even Broadway show tunes.

Since Dev has spent much of the past three years living in London, many music blogs have misidentified Lightspeed Champion as a UK performer. Dev's move to England proved to be fortuitous as British audiences were far more appreciative of his unusual talents. Jimi Hendrix also moved from the United States to London in 1966 because the American music industry wasn't ready to sign and promote a gifted young black performer who played psychedelic rock. The more things change the more things remain the same.


Lightspeed Champion's music doesn't fit within any of usual preordained music genres for black artists such as R&B, Hip Hop or Soul Music.

Earlier this year I received a promo copy of his sophomore album with the rather unwieldy of Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You which was released in February. At first I didn't quite know what to make of his unusual talents but I slowly began to appreciate Lightspeed's music on it's own terms. I became an official fan when I saw Lightspeed perform live on Dinner With the Band, a rock & roll cooking show in the Independent Film Channel on American cable television.

The first selection Madame Van Damme is a key cut on Life Is Sweet!:



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The second selection, Flesh Failures is from an EP of solo acoustic performances by Lightspeed titled Galaxy of the Lost. This song is near & dear to my heart because it's from the musical score of the Broadway play Hair. I've thought that Hair , song for song, had the best musical book & lyrics of any Broadway musical of it's era.



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The Big Guns of Highsmith is also on Life Is Sweet! & reminds me of a quaint Brit pop song that could have been written by Ray Davies or Freddie Mercury.



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__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

My Favorite Cover Song Performances

I have a rather large collection of notable & not so notable artists performing cover songs. I've been collecting cover songs for years. Generally speaking, you won't find the best cover song performances on those hundreds of ill conceived artist tribute albums which are ubiquitous items at record store cut-out bins, garage sales & flea markets.

A lot of the best cover songs are often found on eps, on the flip sides of single releases or on soundtracks in which a prominent band will contribute a single track which is a cover song. Rebeka Del Rio's stunning operatic Spanish language performance of Roy Orbison's classic song Crying can only be found on the soundtrack to the David Lynch movie, Mullholland Drive. Del Rio has an amazing mezzo-soprano voice but for some unknown reason she's never recorded anything other than that single song for the Mullholland Drive soundtrack.

I've compiled comprehensive list of my favorite cover songs that I've come across over the years. I place more of a value on stylistic interpretation rather than faithful replication of the original source material.

You may also notice that 3 of the 5 songs I've embedded are acapella renditions of songs. That reflects my own view that superfluous layers of instrumentation & production techniques can be a distraction and often a minimalist acapella interpretation captures the simple essence of a beautiful song in a way that gives the listener a fresh perspective on the meaning of the song.

A few of the cover songs have been out of issue for years & I'm happy to send a digital MP3 file of any song on the list to persons who are having trouble locating the songs, free of charge of course.

Gavin B's Comprehensive List of Notable Cover Songs
(Original artist is in parenthesis)

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds- Aimee Mann (Beatles)
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction- Devo (the Rolling Stones)
Games People Play- Bettye LaVette (Joe South)
Sweet Jane- Cowboy Junkies (The Velvet Underground)
Mustang Sally- Silver Apples (Wilson Pickett)
Just Dropped In- Sharon Jones & the Daptones (Kenny Rogers & the 1st Edition)
Billie Jean- Shinehead (Michael Jackson)
How Do You Mend A Broken Heart- Al Green (The Bee Gees)
Not Fade Away- The Rolling Stones ( Buddy Holly)



Llorando (Crying) - Rebeka Del Rio (Roy Orbison) Embedded Above

Love Will Tear Us Apart- The Swans (Joy Division)
Life on Mars? - Seal (David Bowie)
Viva Las Vegas- Shawn Colvin ( Elvis Presley)
Viva Las Vegas- Dead Kennedys (Elvis Presley)
Twist & Shout- The Beatles (Isley Brothers)
What A Wonderful World- Victoria Williams (Louis Armstrong)
Jealous Guy- Roxy Music (John Lennon)
I Started A Joke- Richie Havens (BeeGees)
Everyday Is Like Sunday- The Pretenders (Morrissey)
The Boy in the Bubble- Patti Smith (Paul Simon)



Making Plans for Nigel- Nouvelle Vague (XTC) Embedded Above

Stuck in the Middle With You- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (Stealer's Wheel)
Don't Fear the Reaper- Heaven 17 (Blue Oyster Cult)
Electric Aunt Jemima- The Persuasions (Frank Zappa)
Ripple- The Persuasions (The Grateful Dead)
I'm Not In Love- Olive (10cc)
Dust In the Wind- Daughter Darling (Kansas)
Cupid- Amy Winehouse (Sam Cooke)
Police & Thieves- Get Back Guinozzi! (The Clash/Junior Murvin)



Killer Queen- Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs (Queen) Embedded Above

Here There & Everywhere- Emmylou Harris (the Beatles)
For No One- Emmylou Harris (the Beatles)
Working In the Coal Mine- Devo (Lee Dorsey)
Street Fighting Man- Lake Trout (The Rolling Stones)
Sin City- Emmylou Harris (the Flying Buritto Brothers)
I'll Never Fall In Love Again- Elvis Costello (Dionne Warwick)
Wild World- Maxi Priest (Cat Stevens)



Disco Inferno- the Bobs (The Trammps) Embedded Above

Rivers of Babylon- the Neville Bros. (the Maytones)
Almost Blue- Chet Baker (Elvis Costello)
Sail Away- Etta James (Randy Newman)
Across the Universe- The Kennedy Choir (The Beatles)
Walk Away Rene- Ann Savoy & Linda Ronstant (Left Banke)
Sisters of Mercy- Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstant (Leonard Cohen)
Dedicated to the One I Love- Linda Ronstant (the Shirelles)



I Can See For Miles- Petra Hayden (The Who) Embedded Above

The Acid Queen- Tina Turner (The Who)
Hey Joe- Jimi Hendrix (The Leaves/Love)
I Am Not Willing- Lloyd Cole (Moby Grape)
Just Like Heaven- Katie Melua (the Cure)

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

For Fans of Saint Etienne



I got an email from Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne updating me on the band's fall appearances. Saint Etienne is one of the groundbreaking bands of the house music/electronica movement of the early 90s. I interviewed Bob & Sarah Cracknell on their first American club tour of the United States when Foxbase Alpha was released in 1991. The article I wrote about the band was featured in the alternative weekly The Boston Phoenix & they were thrilled because it was the first large feature article about the band in the United States. I've been on their mailing list every since & Bob faithfully keeps me posted on their whereabouts, their touring itinerary, their record release parties & their gala annual Christmas bashes.

I won't be anywhere near the U.K. this fall, but I'm going to share Bob's email for UK Music Banter members who may want to attend a couple of their special fall events. I must confess that I'm a mad fan of Saint Etienne & urge anybody who hasn't yet seen them to do so. The band doesn't tour that much anymore & they're well worth seeing live.

The first event is a deejay event where Bob & Pete will be playing selections from their amazing record collections. Bob writes: The second set of events will feature the full membership of Saint Etienne including the glamorous Sarah Cracknell & it's their annual Christmas gala concerts. There will be three shows in three cities & prices are quite reasonable:

16th December - Glasgow ABC- £16.50 All Tickets
17th December - Manchester Ritz- £17.50- All Tickets
18th December - London HMV Forum- £22.50 - All Tickets

There's a £2.00 agency fee on each ticket. All events are open floor dancehall events except for the HMV Forum in London which has a dancehall floor on the floor lower level & concert style seating on the upper level.

Tickets to these events can be had at this website: Saint Etienne Christmas Gala



St. Etienne's London website is @ Saint Etienne in London

I'm signing off this post with a video of one of Saint Etienne's finest concert moments: their mesmerizing set at the Glastonbury Festival in June, 1994. I was at this amazing event which featured the five of the best Brit bands of the day, Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, & James. The greatest Brit band of all, Stone Roses, was noticeably absent from Glastonbury '94. Stone Roses was in the recording studio all that summer frantically finishing up their Second Coming album. Geffen Records had lowered the boom on the Stone Roses after a five year wait for their second album & had given them an ultimatum to deliver the album by fall of '94 or face a lawsuit to recover all the advances on their future royalties. The band self destructed a year later after they were no-shows to headline the Glastonbury '95.

At Glastonbury '94, Saint Etienne was part of a small contingent of newer electronica artists that had been taking been taking the London dance club scene by storm. I wondered how the dance oriented house music of Saint Etienne would sound from the monolithic Pyramid main stage before tens of thousands of rock music fans in the windswept pastures of the Worthy Farm. They played fearlessly on that beautiful early summer's day and were one of the most talked about bands of the festival.

The appearances by Saint Etienne, Obrital & Björk (who had just released her first solo album Debut) at Glastonbury '94 signaled the arrival of the first generation of post-rock electronica artists who were the vanguard artists of today's diverse & ubiquitous electronic & dance music genres. Glastonbury '94 was the highlight of the summer I spent tramping around England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland in search of my Celtic roots. The festival was one of the most memorable musical moments of my life.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Queen Boo

I don't think anybody is unintellegent enough to shrug off many of the most influential and popular bands in rock music because they're from Britain but you posted some damn good songs, especially Blur.

Gavin B.

From the Fringe

I've spent the last week catching up with some of the more unconventional artists in my music collection. A copy of Youth Novels by Lykke Li Zachrisson (who goes by Lykke Li) has been in my record collection for about six months and recently, I was finally in the right frame of mind to listen to it. Lykke is a sort of Swedish version of Bjork and found myself enthralled by her sublime deconstructuve approach to pop music. The video below is Dance, Dance, Dance with accompaniment supplied by members of two Swedish bands, the Shout Out Louds & Peter, Bjorn & John:



Wildbirds and Peacedrums is percussion driven Swedish group that plays unclassifiable mix of spare, bluesy vocals and powerful drumming -- with some pop and jazz elements mixed in for good measure -- Sweden's Wildbirds & Peacedrums feature singer Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Werliin. Their album Rivers is one of my favorites for 2010. The video is a live performance of the song There Is No Light.



Mountain Man is a Vermont based all female vocal trio that I've covered before in this blog. Their 2010 album Made the Harbor is simply one of the most stunning and original roots music debut albums I've heard in years. Animal Tracks sounds like a 19th Century Appalachian folk ballad recorded in a Library of Congress low tech, single microphone, field recording session.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt