Lost In Translation

In The iPod: Death Cab For Cutie, Old 97s, Robert Forster

Death cab For Cutie’s new release Narrow Stairs seems a bit more bombastic than usual. However, I think there’s enough of their signature sound that it will please longtime fans.  “I Will Posses Your Heart” is almost a 9-minute jam.  But my favorite tracks are the catchy “No Sunlight”, the heart wrenching “You Can Do Better Than Me,” and “Cath…”

 Another longtime favorite band, The Old 97s has also put out another new release, Blame It On Gravity.  Unfortunately, while The Old 97s can still create some memorable lines and rockin melodies they are well past their creative apex that was seen in Too Far To Care.  Some standouts include “The Color Of A Lonely Heart Is Blue,”   “Dance With Me,” “The Easy Way,” and “This Beautiful Thing.”

I wasn’t a fan of The Go Betweens, but had heard good things about them. Their former lead singer Robert Forster does a decent version of “Tower Of Song” on I’m Your Fan (A Tribute To Leonard Cohen).  Like Cohen, he has a very distinctive voice. Salon recommended his solo album The Evangelist and I have been enjoying it thus far.  I particularly like “The Evangelist,” and “If It Rains.”

Ben Gibbard Talks To Mark Kozelek

The AV Club has an interesting discussion between two great artists that both have cool records out at the moment:

Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon) and Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service) are terrific songwriters who are also friends. That's why The A.V. Club figured it would be fun to have the have the latter phone the former and interview him about the new releases on his Caldo Verde imprint: April, Kozelek's first album of original material since 2003's Ghosts Of The Great Highway, and Nights Of Passed Over, a recently updated lyric book accompanied by a disc featuring alternate and live takes of songs like "Carry Me Ohio" and "Wop-A-Din-Din." Gibbard can be heard singing on April—Kozelek's third full-length as Sun Kil Moon, the moniker he adopted after retiring the Red House Painters name, following 2001's Old Ramon. The album finds Kozelek in his usual reflective mood, with a particular emphasis on his ex-girlfriend and muse Katy, who died several years ago from cancer. Their conversation eventually turns to Gibbard and Narrow Stairs—Death Cab's new album, which is due out May 13—as well as their forays into acting, including Kozelek's memorable turn as Stillwater bassist Larry Fellows in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, and Gibbard's appearance in John Krasinski's forthcoming adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.

In The iPod: Portishead, Elvis, and R.E.M.

I recently acquired three albums by artists who have been around for a while, but all three seem to have been more or less successful with their latest products of inspiration.

Portishhead made a couple of interesting atmospheric trip-hop albums about 10 years ago, Dummy and Portishead. Their follow up, Third, is heavily influenced by that electric, atmospheric sound that is most effect as background music for me. I’m not sure there are any other bands that still fall under the “trip-hop” moniker and it seems Portishead was never comfortable with this label, but it is an interesting listen and can be classified as a success.

I was excited to hear that Elvis Costello and the Imposter’s new album, Momofuku, was recorded with Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley (she has become one of my favorite artists with her band, solo, and projects like this and The Postal Service). It turns out that most of her presence is limited to background vocals, which is OK, since the material is quite strong. It isn’t among my favorites, but it sis a solid album. It is impressive that Costello can continue to make music of consequence.

I have to admit that I was much more suspect about the new R.E.M. album Accelerate, which many people have cited as a return to classic form. Although I won’t go that far, I will admit it is one of the better post-Life’s Rich Pageant albums. I agree with the guys at Flowering Toilet about R.E.M. (check out this post with two downloads from “So Much Younger Then” a classic bootleg from 1981), they were a defining band of my youth that slipped into mediocrity early on and haven’t really risen out of that designation in my opinion. Again, that being said this is one of their better efforts in some time.

Ryan Adams & Sincerity

The AV Club blog has an interesting piece by Steve Hyden about his ambivalent attitude to Ryan Adams. I can relate and I'll comment on some of his more provocative points below:

I’m a big fan, and I often can’t stand him, either.

The man is a genius singer/songwriter, but he's always making a jackass out of himself. It's hard to defend his douchebagy actions outside the studio. I suppose anyone who has seen him in concert has a grip. The one concert I saw (at Priest Lake Idaho for the Cold Roses Tour) had incoherent, audience-baiting banter in between songs in which he played an inordinate amount of new material that would later be on Jacksonville Nights and 29. A friend of mine saw him during the Easy Tiger tour and felt short changed by the lack of "any" banter or stagemanship.

A.V. Club contributor Amanda Petrusich summed up this argument in her scathing review of Rock N Roll from Pitchfork: Ultimately, the problem isn't knee-jerk alt-country purists getting pissed about Adams' penchant for electric guitars, or cred-obsessed indie kids hollering about Gap commercials, it's Adams' newfound incapacity (or refusal) to write a song with any acceptable degree of sincerity-- and knowing that he probably could really stings.”

I think artistic license transcends "sincerity"-imagination provides a conduit for expression that belies experience. However, I agree with Hyden when he says:

Call me naïve but Adams’ public persona, to me, seems like the polar opposite of contrived. In fact, Adams is a case study for why contriving a public image is good for an artist. Most artists, whether they like to admit it, put a lot of thought in how they’re perceived by their fanbase. They want the image to fit the music so the two can become interchangeable and feed off each other. Because it’s the art that ultimately matters, not the person that made it. Arcade Fire won’t be doing any photo shoots with Playboy models, for example, because fake tits might undermine the inspirational, chin-stroking power of “Intervention.” This is seen as Arcade Fire acting like Arcade Fire, but it’s really about maintaining a premeditated public perception in a consistent, orderly fashion. Win Butler doesn’t really dress like an Amish farmer in real life, and I’m sure there are days when he doesn’t ponder the future of existence or experience swelling crescendos of uplifting emotion. Some days he might feel like sleeping in, or curling up on the couch with some Cheetos and his Gilmore Girls DVDs. Butler, though, is able to block out the non-Arcade Fire-esque parts of his life from his public persona, which really isn’t that hard to do. (Not blogging about it is a good first step.) But Adams can’t do this. He behaves in public exactly the way he’s feeling that day, which makes him look insincere when he’s actually being completely, utterly, stupidly sincere.

But Adams’ sincerity has nothing to do with his talent. In fact, the two stand in steely opposition. Adams’ unguarded persona has always overshadowed what’s really noteworthy about him: he writes so many damn good songs. As much as Adams himself would hate to be called as much, he is a consummate craftsman. He has what show business people used to call “the knack.” He’s a natural with melody, he sings beautifully, and he can churn out good songs like a one-man Brill Building. He’s more Neil Diamond than Neil Young. If Adams’ realness didn’t always get in the way more people would admire his talent especially since he’s getting better over time.

But I have to disagree with him on this point:

Adams’ growth as a songwriter is re-enforced by the re-release of Strangers Almanac, a late-’90s alt-country touchstone that doesn’t really hold up 10 years later. Because he hadn’t yet developed his craft, Adams was forced to fallback on the down-home, genuine country fella shtick that Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy laid on thick on the early Uncle Tupelo records. (I still cringe whenever I hear that part in “Screen Door” when Tweedy sings “Down here, where we’re at, everyone is eq-ually poor.”) Adams was only 23 when he made Strangers Almanac, and he wasn’t good enough at songwriting yet to make up for his lack of lyrical insight. (Lyrics still are Adams’ weakness.) Only “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart” and “Dancing With The Women At The Bar” stick, and point the way to the better songs he’d write later on and, hopefully, will continue to write in the future if blogging doesn’t take up too much of his time, or the public’s attention.

"Dancing With The Women At The Bar" doesn't even make my Top 5 songs from, what I think is, a timeless album, Strangers Almanac. "Excuse Me While I Break My Heart" is one of my favorite Whiskytown tracks, the other from this album that are rated 4 stars or higher on my iTunes are: "Losering" (5) / "Waiting To Derail," "Somebody Remembers," "House On The Hill," and "Everything I Do." (4)

Primer: Elvis Costello

The Onion AV Club gives the primer treatment to one of my all time rock heroes, Elvis Costello:

Elvis Costello, broken down by the songs that define his themes and styles, and five albums that every serious rock fan should own. Costello's latest, Momofuku, is currently available as a vinyl-only release with a digital download code. A CD will follow May 6.

They name the top five albums as:

1. Get Happy!
2. This Year's Model
3. The King of America
4. Imperial Bedroom
5. Armed Forces

For some reason I have always thought that Get Happy! was over-rated. It has never been one of my favorites,but I've got to agree with the rest. My top five:

1. The King of America
2. Armed Forces
3. This Year's Model
4. Imperial Bedroom
5. My Aim Is True

In The iPod: April 2008

Vampire Weekend has been generating a lot of buzz, but I’ve only recently heard of them. And I’m glad I did because they have a truly original sound that is part pure pop informed by African music via Paul Simon’s Graceland (Afro-pop)-which they call “Upper West Side Soweto.” This seems appropriate with references to Cape Cod and the like. Infectious 3-minute pop songs are the result. The standout s include “Oxford Comma,” “Walcott,” “Campus” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.” It’s feel good music, pure pop for now people.

The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is also impressive. I think its an improvement on his side project Grinderman that had some highlights but overall wasn’t consistent. However, that record resulted in Cave writing songs on guitar rather than the piano as he has in the past. My favorite tracks are “More News from Nowhere,” “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!,” “Night Of The Lotus Eater,” and “We Call Upon The Author.”

A friend ripped a Sun Kil Moon track for me a couple of years ago and I totally dug it. It sounded like alt country to me, it turns out it is the Red House Painter’s Mark Kozelek’s new band. I seem to remember seeing a concert or having an album back in the day in Seattle. Anyway, April is a pretty cool album with some understated and well-written tracks, and my favorite track is a 10-minute song, “Tonight The Sky.” Other standouts include “The Light” and “Tonight in Bilbao.”

In The iPod: March 2008

I was so impressed with the I’m Not There film soundtrack that it has been getting a fair amount of play on the iPod. It’s a roster of indie all stars doing Dylan classics: Karen O, John Doe, mark Lanegan, Calexico, Los Lobos, Stephen Malkmus, Tom Verlaine, Yo La Tengo, etc…

I’m also enjoying Cat Power’s latest album of covers, Jukebox. However, I don’t think it’s as impressive as her previous album 2006’s impressive The Greatest. My standout tracks include “Aretha, Sing One For Me “ and “I Believe In You.”

I decided to go back and get some old BoDeans songs. You may remember them for their them song for party of Five “Closer To Free,” they were one of the more mainstream bands that I was grooving to that had that rootsy, alt country sound. Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, in particular, was a solid recording. But I think my first album was Outside Looking In, a purchase inspired by their infectious song “It’s Only Love.”

The National’s recent album Boxer has been in rotation as well, but I haven’t heard it enough to comment authoritatively. But the fact hat I haven’t been inspired to come back to it might be reflective of my opinion, however, there was a cool song on a The Believe magazine music compilation that I quite like. So I’m not quite ready to give up on them yet.

I keep waiting for Stephen Malkmus to put out an album like his solo debut, but the subsequent albums have sounded more like Pavement than Malkmus solo offerings and this is true of his latest with the Jicks called Real Emotional Trash. That being said his albums are usually growers-the more you listen the better they get.

Primer: The Kinks

The AV Club's Primer series takes a look at the seminal British rock band, The Kinks:

Primer is The A.V. Club's ongoing series of beginners' guides to pop culture's most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us-and hopefully you. This week: The Kinks, broken down by 20 songs that define their themes and styles, and five albums that every serious rock fan should own. Kinks leader Ray Davies releases his latest solo album, Working Man's Cafe, next week.

The Kinks 101

In early 2008, The Kinks wound up, oddly and out of the blue, at the top of the U.S. album chart. Admittedly, that didn't have much to do with Ray Davies and company, who have been on hiatus as a group since 1996. It was Juno's recent Oscar nominations that catapulted the film's soundtrack into Billboard's number-one spot. And nestled between the disc's indie-pop and classic rock cuts is The Kinks' "A Well Respected Man," a top-20 hit from 1965 that predicted the wit, sophistication, and iconoclasm the band would make its trademarks.

In The iPod: Drive By Truckers

I have been really impressed with the Drive By Trucker’s latest album, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of their previous releases, but it seems like they always had some memorable tunes on every album despite their tendency to be a little too literal minded in their songwriting, which can be seen in on this album in songs like “Bob”: “He’s not light in his loafers.” Bassist Shonna Tucker makes three remarkable contributions to the album with the sultry “I’m Sorry Houston,” “The Purgatory Line,” and the rousing anthem-like “Home Field Advantage.”. There are 19 tracks in total and only a few clunkers. “Check Out Time in Vegas” feels haunted by the ghost of Gram Parsons’ “Ooh Las Vegas.” I’m still getting to know this album, but it’s one of those albums that seems to get better on each listen-a real grower.

Random Rules: Dean Wareham

Dean Wareham is one of my indie rock heroes, part of the legendary Galaxie 500, followed by luna (one of my favorite bands of all time) and his current incarnation with wife former Luna band member Britta Phillips. In this AV Club feature an interviewer talks about random songs that come up on the shuffle of the interviewee's iPod. Here's the intro:

The shuffler: Dean Wareham, the former leader of indie-rock featherweight champs Galaxie 500 and Luna. Wareham's current project is Dean & Britta, a team-up with his wife and ex-Luna bandmate Britta Phillips; their latest album, Back Numbers, was released last year. The duo also scored Noah Baumbach's 2005 film The Squid And The Whale. Wareham's first book, a memoir titled Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance, comes out in March.