I've been reading Nick Mason's bio of Pink Floyd this week, and it's funny how in the last 50 years, not much has changed for young bands trying to make it. Last weekend, Denise and I saw Walk the Moon and Company of Thieves in a large Arena show at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. Tonight, I took in a show at the other end of music hierarchy that featured some local bands playing a much smaller venue with a pair of young national touring bands.
Back in October, I reviewed the new album Seed by the band Looming. I basically liked the album, although I noted that the band's lead singer Jessica Knight has a voice that I find interesting and unique, but some people can't deal with. About two weeks ago, I was checking Looming's Facebook page, and I noted that they were scheduled to play on Long Island on January 25 at a venue I wasn't familiar with called The Amityville Music Hall. The full band wasn't coming along on this tour -- Knight and her bandmate Brandon Barnes were playing as a duo.
I really wanted to catch the full band, but I figured I might not get the chance to do that for awhile, so why not take advantage and at least catch an acoustic version of Looming playing close by. (I was wrong about the acoustic part, but more on that later).
I contacted the venue, and learned that while there weren't seats available, because of my age and situation, they'd make accommodations for me. It was scheduled to be a six band show, featuring four local bands plus Looming and Pale Lungs, a national touring band from Nashville, TN, so it was key I be able to sit -- I might have made it through Looming's set standing, if I knew exactly when they were going on (and knowing the music scene, how likely was that?). But I wouldn't have been able to make it through any of the other bands. In the end, the venue allowed me to bring in my own folding chair that I keep in my car trunk. I really appreciated them helping me out.
Now I was picturing either a VA type hall (this was, after all, a 16+ show), or maybe a venue like 89 North in Patchogue. But as I drove up and down Route 110 in Amityville, squinting to see address numbers, I didn't see anything like that. When I finally found the place, I realized why. It turned out that The Amityville Music Hall is a refurbished version of the old Wrong Way Inn!
Now those of you who have known me from the old Long Island Music Coalition days probably remember that in the first year of two of the LIMC's existence, with the possible exception of The Spot at SUNY Stonybrook, there was no other venue where we booked as many full-band LIMC shows as The Wrong Way Inn. It's fairly tiny for a music club. But it was home.
The place has been prettied up some -- there's now a raised stage, and a full sound booth in the back, and the upper part of the walls has what appears to be soundproofing. But other than that, it looks pretty much the same inside. Being there felt very familiar. I think I even ran into my own ghost.
By the time I got there, I had missed the first two bands, Casanova and Only Sibling, and a band called Smol Data was just finishing their set. All I can tell you about them was they were louder than I expected, and pretty interesting. They're a female-fronted shoegaze band from Islip. They didn't have any merch with them, but I know they have a demo up on bandcamp.com, and someone told me they have a new EP coming out soon.
The next band up was Crash the Calm. They've described themselves as combining grunge, alternative, post punk and ambient. I'd just go with "heavy alternative". They were actually quite good. The singer had a gruff voice that reminded me Vinny Caruana's (of I Am the Avalanche and The Movielife fame). I was pretty impressed by them. Before I left, I picked up a copy of their LP, How've You Been.
Next up was Pale Lungs. As I said earlier, they're a touring band from Nashville who I'd definitely classify as shoe gaze. Apparently, they've played the Amityville Music Hall before, and seem to be friends with Crash the Calm. They're also the ones who put the tour together, then invited Looming along. They have a new CD, also available on Bandcamp, called Strawberry. The thing that most impressed me about them was their dynamics -- they really know how to create quiet spaces between the waves of sound.
Now a few words about Looming. I introduced myself to Jessica and Brandon in between the Crash the Calm and Pale Lung sets. They explained to me how the tour had come about. We talked a little about the CD (I have a digital copy, but the hard copy has been back ordered on Amazon since October, which was news to them), and I explained to them how I first became a fan (from a review of their debut album Nailbiter in Alternative Press). And they actually gave me a free T-Shirt, which was super-nice ( I bought a second, so I'd have one for each of my kids). They also explained that although they were playing as a twosome on this tour, they were performing electric, not acoustic. They'd brought along some sampled percussion to fill out the sound a little. The full band will come back together for a brief tour of the East Coast with Tigers Jaw (although unfortunately, the closest they're coming to here is Providence).
What really impressed me is how hard they're working. Jessica mentioned that she's made music her full-time career right now, and they're actually driving with Pale Lungs for this tour. And they're having all of the experiences of hardworking touring musicians all over the world. For example, earlier today, they got into a slight car accident, and at the beginning of the set tonight, they had some equipment problems, etc. (All the same kind of things that Nick Mason talks about early Pink Floyd experiencing in his book). I hope that someday, they'll be where Company of Thieves and Walk the Moon were last Saturday -- playing large venues and maybe making some real money. But right now, they're paying their dues, although they seem to at least be enjoying the experience.
I enjoyed their set, although it wasn't a full Looming performance -- Jessica mentioned from the stage that she had been sick all day, although she was happy and excited to be playing the show. But the sampled percussion was very loud and echoey, so I didn't get to hear her voice as much as I'd have liked (actually, I thought the vocals were a little low in the mix for all of the bands, but especially for Looming.) Also, game though she was, by the end of their next-to-last song, I could hear her struggling with her vocals because of her illness. But I enjoyed their set regardless. (You can see the setlist at https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/looming/2018/amityville-music-hall-amityville-ny-33eea87d.html . They really created a wall of sound.
I was really glad I went tonight. It was fun meeting and talking with Looming, and seeing all four of the bands that I caught, and it was nice to see The Wrong Way operational again as the Amityville Music Hall. It's nice to be getting out and enjoying some live music these days.
Coming very soon: I've in the process of completing my Best of 2017 lists. Plus a review of the new album by Waterparks.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Review of Kaiser Chiefs' "Stay Together"
I posted the following album review on the Sputnik Music website a little earlier this afternoon:
I've never made any bones about it -- The Kaiser Chiefs' 2005 debut Employment is one of my favorite albums of the millennium. The band's sense of fun, and their ability to craft strong alt-pop singles such as "I Predict a Riot" and "Everyday I Love You and Less" led me to believe that this was going to be one of the bigger bands of the 21st Century. Sadly, it hasn't worked out that way. 2007's Yours Truly, Angry Mob was a letdown, and most of their work since then has been middling at best -- always good enough to keep me buying their music, but nowhere near the quality of that first album.
Stay Together (2016) doesn't quite reach the high bar set by Employment, but it's a step in the right direction. This is mainly due to two factors: 1) The band has chosen to fill the LP with songs of more personal (and accessible) subject matter than on some of their more recent efforts. Sex, love and relationships are the topics of the day here. More importantly, 2) They've infused the music on this album with disco and other dance music elements. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of dance music as such -- but blended together with The Kaiser Chiefs' adept pop sensibilities, it works pretty well. I wouldn't have guessed it, but maybe a quick injection of 1970s Bee Gees was just what this band needed to freshen up their sound.
A number of the tracks stand out for me. I especially like "Indoor Firework". The verses are bass driven and stealthy, punctuated by little bursts of strummed guitar, and there's a yearning to the choruses that I find gripping. "Good Clean Fun" is another really good one. This is a droll song about an unhealthy-if-fervent relationship with a chorus that exemplifies the concept of the clueless male: "Why are you so mad"/Sex makes everything better". I'm also fond of "Parachute", the album's lead single. It's a catchy little number, even if I'd have to admit there's nothing especially unique about it.
In fairness, Stay Together hasn't exactly been universally acclaimed. It hasn't sold as well as 2014's mediocre Education, Education, Education & War, and the reviews overall have been mixed -- Metacritic only rates it at 59/100, and on this site, it's the band's lowest user-rated album to date, scoring only 2.2 out of 5 stars. However, I'd argue that its score on Sputnik is more indicative of the musical leanings of the average Sputnik User than it is of the quality of the music, and that the LP hasn't caught on with the band's usual base because it's a change of direction for them. The problem isn't that Stay Together is a bad album -- it's a good album that hasn't fully found its audience, that audience being people who enjoy dance-oriented alternative pop.
So Brit pop fans, 80s club kids, lovers of English new wave and 70s disco, come one and come all. Stay Together will get you moving and keep you smiling at the same time. It's not typical Kaiser Chiefs by any means, but it is the best and the freshest LP this band has released in a number of years.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
I've never made any bones about it -- The Kaiser Chiefs' 2005 debut Employment is one of my favorite albums of the millennium. The band's sense of fun, and their ability to craft strong alt-pop singles such as "I Predict a Riot" and "Everyday I Love You and Less" led me to believe that this was going to be one of the bigger bands of the 21st Century. Sadly, it hasn't worked out that way. 2007's Yours Truly, Angry Mob was a letdown, and most of their work since then has been middling at best -- always good enough to keep me buying their music, but nowhere near the quality of that first album.
Stay Together (2016) doesn't quite reach the high bar set by Employment, but it's a step in the right direction. This is mainly due to two factors: 1) The band has chosen to fill the LP with songs of more personal (and accessible) subject matter than on some of their more recent efforts. Sex, love and relationships are the topics of the day here. More importantly, 2) They've infused the music on this album with disco and other dance music elements. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of dance music as such -- but blended together with The Kaiser Chiefs' adept pop sensibilities, it works pretty well. I wouldn't have guessed it, but maybe a quick injection of 1970s Bee Gees was just what this band needed to freshen up their sound.
A number of the tracks stand out for me. I especially like "Indoor Firework". The verses are bass driven and stealthy, punctuated by little bursts of strummed guitar, and there's a yearning to the choruses that I find gripping. "Good Clean Fun" is another really good one. This is a droll song about an unhealthy-if-fervent relationship with a chorus that exemplifies the concept of the clueless male: "Why are you so mad"/Sex makes everything better". I'm also fond of "Parachute", the album's lead single. It's a catchy little number, even if I'd have to admit there's nothing especially unique about it.
In fairness, Stay Together hasn't exactly been universally acclaimed. It hasn't sold as well as 2014's mediocre Education, Education, Education & War, and the reviews overall have been mixed -- Metacritic only rates it at 59/100, and on this site, it's the band's lowest user-rated album to date, scoring only 2.2 out of 5 stars. However, I'd argue that its score on Sputnik is more indicative of the musical leanings of the average Sputnik User than it is of the quality of the music, and that the LP hasn't caught on with the band's usual base because it's a change of direction for them. The problem isn't that Stay Together is a bad album -- it's a good album that hasn't fully found its audience, that audience being people who enjoy dance-oriented alternative pop.
So Brit pop fans, 80s club kids, lovers of English new wave and 70s disco, come one and come all. Stay Together will get you moving and keep you smiling at the same time. It's not typical Kaiser Chiefs by any means, but it is the best and the freshest LP this band has released in a number of years.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Monday, January 22, 2018
Company of Thieves and Walk the Moon
Sometime early in December, Denise asked me how badly did I want to see U2. She had been thinking of getting U2 tickets as my Christmas present, but when she looked them up, she discovered that U2 was looking for over $200 a ticket. She found this particularly grating because she remembers seeing them for about $10 a ticket at Nassau Community College shortly after their first album came out, when nobody even knew who they were. I've never seen them myself, and while I like them and wouldn't mind seeing them, they're not in my top echelon of favorite bands. And frankly, for $200+ a ticket, Bono can kiss my Irish-American ass. I like their new album somewhat, but let's face it -- U2 is no longer a cutting edge band.
Instead, I told her I'd rather she got me tickets for another show she and I had talked about, Walk the Moon, who was playing at the Mohegan Sun in January. I'd rather see a(n admittedly lesser) band that I like who's still in their prime at a fifth of the price. So that was the show that Denise got me tickets for for Christmas.
At some point later (I think in early January), I was up on the Mohegan Sun's website to see if there was an opening band, and although they didn't specifically list one, I followed a couple of links and learned that they were being joined on this tour by Company of Thieves. I was surprised and very happy to see this. The last I heard, Company of Thieves had broken up. This was unfortunate, as their first album had been in my Top Ten Albums of 2009 list, and their single "Oscar Wilde" was in my Top 20 Songs list for that same year. So now I was particularly psyched for the show.
As it turned out, Saturday was kind of a grueling day physically. We had things to do in the morning, and I didn't get a chance to eat. Denise decided she'd rather spend the bucks than drive all day, so we took a 1:45 Port Jefferson Ferry boat to Connecticut. The plan was to eat when we got to Connecticut, rather than eat the unappetizing ferry food. But of course, when the ferry reached Connecticut it was already 3:15, so we decided to just head to the motel we were staying at in Waterbury. Bottom line, my hope had been to have lunch, then check in and take a nap for an hour or two before we went to show, but the way it worked out, we had to check in, skip the nap and head right over to the Mohegan Sun and eat there.
I was so out of it at that point from lack of sleep and low blood sugar that I was concerned that I was going have one of those shows that I half slept through. It was bad enough that I did that in 2015 at the Squeeze show, but at least most of that crowd was at or near our age. it's even more embarrassing to be the only old guy sleeping at a show surrounded by mostly kids and young adults. As I've mentioned before, aging kind of sucks.
Luckily, we were able to get a quick table at a seafood shack inside the casino, and finally getting some protein in my system brought me back to life a little. As it turned out, we had some extra time after dinner anyway, because showtime was 8PM instead of the 7PM start time we had been told. (Our tickets were "Will Call", so we didn't have physical tickets to look at until we actually got to the Mohegan.) So we hit the floor and gambled for about an hour or before meeting up back at the Arena entrance at 7:30.
The Arena itself was nice. I thought we had seen Duran Duran and Mannheim Steamroller there about 10 years ago, but it turns up my poor brain was all befuddled -- that was at the MGM Grand Arena at Foxwoods. This arena holds a lot of people, but somehow seemed more intimate than you'd expect. There are basically three sections -- the floor section, the first inclined section, and a top section. We were in the first inclined section, to the left of the stage.
The place was about half full when Company of Thieves hit the floor. They were good, but different than I expected. They were very energetic, especially Genevieve Schatz, the lead singer. She was completely different than I expected. I figured the person who wrote the chorus of "Oscar Wilde", which has lyrics about how we are our own devils, and we make this world our hell, would be a cynical, sarcastic kind of gal. Instead, she was the exact opposite. She was much more Glinda the Good Witch than Janeane Garofolo.
As for the crowd, I felt like they were kind of low energy to start the night. They were responsive -- they applauded the band -- but except for "Oscar Wilde", they didn't really seem to get into the show. This might have been partially because the band played several new songs in their relatively short set, but I think it was also because a lot of the young crowd just weren't that familiar with them -- their last release was in 2011, and they announced their breakup in early 2013, a full five years ago.
This was unfortunate, as they're really quite a good band -- Schatz has a very powerful voice, and their songs are sophisticated and kind of interesting. I wish there had been more publicity to tell people Company of Thieves was even on the bill -- I had to literally hunt the info down. These guys do have a fan base, and I think more of their fans would have attended the show if they'd been aware of it. As it was, by the time the arena filled in, it was mostly sold out, but there were about ten empty rows at the top of it all the way around -- maybe fifteen empty rows at the furthest points from the stage. I bet if they'd have publicized this band more, they'd have sold those seats too. Nevertheless, Company of thieves seemed to be really excited and happy to play in front of a big crowd again. They'll be releasing some new music later this year, and I hope it brings them back up to the popularity level they used to be at.
They did mention that had a new EP for sale -- its official release is sometime in February, but there were advance copies available for sale at the show. So in between sets, I headed to the merch stand and bought a copy. I was a little taken aback that they charged $20 for a five-song EP (and only three of them were new studio tracks). The lady at the counter kindly offered that the band was going to be autographing their merch, and pointed to the side of the booth where kids were starting to line up. I thanked her kindly, but my days of standing on lines for band autographs are -- I was going to say "done", but they never really existed in the first place. If I ran into the band somewhere, and I could pull out the EP and ask them to sign it, I would, but I don't really care about autographs enough to ever stand on line for them. As for the price of the CD, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a band that probably isn't making much money right now, so if an extra ten bucks or so can help them keep playing until they reach a higher level, then fine.
Walk the Moon hit the stage around 9:15 or so. And I quickly learned that if the (two-thirds female) crowd had been reserved during Company of Thieves, it was because they were saving their energy for this band. They were all up and dancing from the get-go, and after every song, there was a chorus of high-pitched voices screaming their heads off.
Walk the Moon was really impressive, even better than I had expected them to be. Having just released their third album, What If Nothing, just a few months ago, they now have three albums worth of quality material to pull from to put together a setlist. They also have a really good light show, although my one complaint about it was that most of the lighting was directly behind them, backlighting them so that half of the night, it was like watching a band of silhouettes. The two large screens on either side of the stage filtered the light out some, so you could see the band better if you looked at them.
But really, this was a minor complaint. Nick Petricca is an amazing and energetic front man. At one point, the band explained that they had performed in Albany on Thursday night, flew to L.A. to play a short set at the iHeartRadio ALTer EGO concert (along with Mumford & Sons, Beck, Cage the Elephant, Spoon, The National and Dashboard Confessional) on Friday night, then flew back to the East Coast for this show on Saturday. But, they explained, a frenzied crowd like this gave them a big shot of adrenaline, and you could tell the band was really into it. It also probably didn't hurt that this (by Petricca's own confession) was the first time ever that Walk the Moon had headlined an arena show of this size. In any event, they played like a group who was happy and excited to be there.
The band played a good chunk of the new album, but also supplemented it throughout the night with many of the best songs from their first two albums, including my favorite Walk the Moon song, "Next in Line". Interestingly, the song that got the biggest crowd response of the night wasn't "Anna Sun" their first big hit from their first self-titled album, or "One Foot", the biggest hit from their new album, but "Shut Up and Dance", from their second album Talking Is Hard. They really tore the roof off the building with that one. The audience seemed to also really enjoy "Different Colors", a song celebrating diversity.
As I told Denise after the concert, I love seeing bands from the 70s and 80s that take me back to a lot of my favorite music. But every so often, I really need to get and out see a quality younger band. I enjoy watching the kids enjoy the music. Anyway, I couldn't have asked for a better concert to start off my 2018.
So thanks for my Christmas present, Sweetie. It was great to get away for a night with you.
Instead, I told her I'd rather she got me tickets for another show she and I had talked about, Walk the Moon, who was playing at the Mohegan Sun in January. I'd rather see a(n admittedly lesser) band that I like who's still in their prime at a fifth of the price. So that was the show that Denise got me tickets for for Christmas.
At some point later (I think in early January), I was up on the Mohegan Sun's website to see if there was an opening band, and although they didn't specifically list one, I followed a couple of links and learned that they were being joined on this tour by Company of Thieves. I was surprised and very happy to see this. The last I heard, Company of Thieves had broken up. This was unfortunate, as their first album had been in my Top Ten Albums of 2009 list, and their single "Oscar Wilde" was in my Top 20 Songs list for that same year. So now I was particularly psyched for the show.
As it turned out, Saturday was kind of a grueling day physically. We had things to do in the morning, and I didn't get a chance to eat. Denise decided she'd rather spend the bucks than drive all day, so we took a 1:45 Port Jefferson Ferry boat to Connecticut. The plan was to eat when we got to Connecticut, rather than eat the unappetizing ferry food. But of course, when the ferry reached Connecticut it was already 3:15, so we decided to just head to the motel we were staying at in Waterbury. Bottom line, my hope had been to have lunch, then check in and take a nap for an hour or two before we went to show, but the way it worked out, we had to check in, skip the nap and head right over to the Mohegan Sun and eat there.
I was so out of it at that point from lack of sleep and low blood sugar that I was concerned that I was going have one of those shows that I half slept through. It was bad enough that I did that in 2015 at the Squeeze show, but at least most of that crowd was at or near our age. it's even more embarrassing to be the only old guy sleeping at a show surrounded by mostly kids and young adults. As I've mentioned before, aging kind of sucks.
Luckily, we were able to get a quick table at a seafood shack inside the casino, and finally getting some protein in my system brought me back to life a little. As it turned out, we had some extra time after dinner anyway, because showtime was 8PM instead of the 7PM start time we had been told. (Our tickets were "Will Call", so we didn't have physical tickets to look at until we actually got to the Mohegan.) So we hit the floor and gambled for about an hour or before meeting up back at the Arena entrance at 7:30.
The Arena itself was nice. I thought we had seen Duran Duran and Mannheim Steamroller there about 10 years ago, but it turns up my poor brain was all befuddled -- that was at the MGM Grand Arena at Foxwoods. This arena holds a lot of people, but somehow seemed more intimate than you'd expect. There are basically three sections -- the floor section, the first inclined section, and a top section. We were in the first inclined section, to the left of the stage.
The place was about half full when Company of Thieves hit the floor. They were good, but different than I expected. They were very energetic, especially Genevieve Schatz, the lead singer. She was completely different than I expected. I figured the person who wrote the chorus of "Oscar Wilde", which has lyrics about how we are our own devils, and we make this world our hell, would be a cynical, sarcastic kind of gal. Instead, she was the exact opposite. She was much more Glinda the Good Witch than Janeane Garofolo.
As for the crowd, I felt like they were kind of low energy to start the night. They were responsive -- they applauded the band -- but except for "Oscar Wilde", they didn't really seem to get into the show. This might have been partially because the band played several new songs in their relatively short set, but I think it was also because a lot of the young crowd just weren't that familiar with them -- their last release was in 2011, and they announced their breakup in early 2013, a full five years ago.
This was unfortunate, as they're really quite a good band -- Schatz has a very powerful voice, and their songs are sophisticated and kind of interesting. I wish there had been more publicity to tell people Company of Thieves was even on the bill -- I had to literally hunt the info down. These guys do have a fan base, and I think more of their fans would have attended the show if they'd been aware of it. As it was, by the time the arena filled in, it was mostly sold out, but there were about ten empty rows at the top of it all the way around -- maybe fifteen empty rows at the furthest points from the stage. I bet if they'd have publicized this band more, they'd have sold those seats too. Nevertheless, Company of thieves seemed to be really excited and happy to play in front of a big crowd again. They'll be releasing some new music later this year, and I hope it brings them back up to the popularity level they used to be at.
They did mention that had a new EP for sale -- its official release is sometime in February, but there were advance copies available for sale at the show. So in between sets, I headed to the merch stand and bought a copy. I was a little taken aback that they charged $20 for a five-song EP (and only three of them were new studio tracks). The lady at the counter kindly offered that the band was going to be autographing their merch, and pointed to the side of the booth where kids were starting to line up. I thanked her kindly, but my days of standing on lines for band autographs are -- I was going to say "done", but they never really existed in the first place. If I ran into the band somewhere, and I could pull out the EP and ask them to sign it, I would, but I don't really care about autographs enough to ever stand on line for them. As for the price of the CD, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a band that probably isn't making much money right now, so if an extra ten bucks or so can help them keep playing until they reach a higher level, then fine.
Walk the Moon hit the stage around 9:15 or so. And I quickly learned that if the (two-thirds female) crowd had been reserved during Company of Thieves, it was because they were saving their energy for this band. They were all up and dancing from the get-go, and after every song, there was a chorus of high-pitched voices screaming their heads off.
Walk the Moon was really impressive, even better than I had expected them to be. Having just released their third album, What If Nothing, just a few months ago, they now have three albums worth of quality material to pull from to put together a setlist. They also have a really good light show, although my one complaint about it was that most of the lighting was directly behind them, backlighting them so that half of the night, it was like watching a band of silhouettes. The two large screens on either side of the stage filtered the light out some, so you could see the band better if you looked at them.
But really, this was a minor complaint. Nick Petricca is an amazing and energetic front man. At one point, the band explained that they had performed in Albany on Thursday night, flew to L.A. to play a short set at the iHeartRadio ALTer EGO concert (along with Mumford & Sons, Beck, Cage the Elephant, Spoon, The National and Dashboard Confessional) on Friday night, then flew back to the East Coast for this show on Saturday. But, they explained, a frenzied crowd like this gave them a big shot of adrenaline, and you could tell the band was really into it. It also probably didn't hurt that this (by Petricca's own confession) was the first time ever that Walk the Moon had headlined an arena show of this size. In any event, they played like a group who was happy and excited to be there.
The band played a good chunk of the new album, but also supplemented it throughout the night with many of the best songs from their first two albums, including my favorite Walk the Moon song, "Next in Line". Interestingly, the song that got the biggest crowd response of the night wasn't "Anna Sun" their first big hit from their first self-titled album, or "One Foot", the biggest hit from their new album, but "Shut Up and Dance", from their second album Talking Is Hard. They really tore the roof off the building with that one. The audience seemed to also really enjoy "Different Colors", a song celebrating diversity.
As I told Denise after the concert, I love seeing bands from the 70s and 80s that take me back to a lot of my favorite music. But every so often, I really need to get and out see a quality younger band. I enjoy watching the kids enjoy the music. Anyway, I couldn't have asked for a better concert to start off my 2018.
So thanks for my Christmas present, Sweetie. It was great to get away for a night with you.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Review of Crash Test Dummies' "God Shuffled His Feet"
I posted this review last night on the Sputnik Music site:
Oh Canada! Hail to my neighbor to the north. I praise you because not only have you shared with us some major musical talents over the years, like Rush and Joni Mitchell (for which I am eternally grateful), but you've also given us a host of quirky smaller bands throughout the last four or five decades, so many of whom I've enjoyed: Bands like Klaatu in the seventies, and Martha and the Muffins in the eighties. Oh, and in the nineties -- Crash Test Dummies!
Although they made a nice little career for themselves in the great white north, God Shuffled His Feet (1993) was this band's only internationally successful album. A follow-up to their 1991 debut The Ghosts That Haunt Me (which had reached #2 on the Canadian charts), this one took off around the world, reaching #1 in New Zealand, #2 in the UK, #5 in Austria, and #9 in the U.S. It also went double platinum in the U.S. and triple platinum in Canada (although it was actually less successful overall there than their first album had been). In most of the world outside of Canada, the album was largely powered by the success of one unconventional single, a slow and poignant track about how it feels to be different, the oddly- titled "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm".
The song is a highly atypical single -- it's slow, soft and very sentimental. The verses tell the tales of three different children: a boy whose hair turns white after a harrowing car crash, a girl who doesn't want to change clothes in the school locker room because she has birth marks all over her body, and a boy who is a member of a Pentecostal church where the worshipers regularly lurch and shake in religious ecstasy. The chorus consists entirely of the quasi-humming of lead singer Brad Roberts, as he repeats the song's title. The lyrics draw you into the children's embarrassment and their shame at being perceived as different from their classmates, all the while only implying (without spelling out) the daily torment they receive from their contemporaries. Nowadays, I get the feeling that the track is somewhat looked down on by music fans. This is unfortunate, because on its own terms, it's both a touching and effective little song.
The music throughout God Shuffled His Feet is a genial brand of soft folk rock. There's a lot of acoustic guitar and piano. The most striking thing about the band's sound is Robert's deep voice (which falls somewhere in the bass/baritone range) and his sharp and distinctive way of pronouncing his words. The other unique thing about the LP is its thematic frame. Many of the song lyrics have to do with the relationship between God and his creations. The album practically functions as an advertisement for Intelligent Design theory.
Overall, God Shuffled His Feet is a top-heavy album -- the first three tracks are far and away the strongest. In addition to the "Mmm Mmm" song, there's the LP's title track, an unhurried tune with a wry sense of humor that finds God, having just made the world, engaged in an awkward encounter with his new creations. He tries to communicate to his people in parables, but finds himself somewhat flummoxed by the more concrete nature of their questions: "If your eye got poked out in this life/Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?" Then there's "Afternoons & Coffeespoons", the album's second track, which is a more upbeat number powered by some nicely strummed acoustic guitar. This one is an amusing, if someone regretful, tract about aging: "Someday I'll have/A disappearing hairline/Someday I'll wear/Pajamas in the daytime." It was modestly successful as a single, and is considered by many Crashheads (or whatever the band's more devoted fans call themselves) to be the quintessential Crash Test Dummies tune.
The rest of the album is okay -- it's just not up to the standards of those first three tracks. "Swimming in Your Ocean" was a somewhat successful single in Canada, but if you're looking for the next best song, I prefer the soft, lackadaisical pleasures of "The Psychic" -- there's some lovely piano on this one, and it provides an excellent showcase for Roberts' resonant voice.
Although the band continued to have some success in their home country, internationally, they dropped back into obscurity after God Shuffled His Feet. Regardless, this is a pretty decent album in its own right, and it also serves as a good example of the kind of eccentric alternative rock music that was often successful in the early 1990s.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Review Summary: Gentle-but-eccentric Canadian folk rock
Oh Canada! Hail to my neighbor to the north. I praise you because not only have you shared with us some major musical talents over the years, like Rush and Joni Mitchell (for which I am eternally grateful), but you've also given us a host of quirky smaller bands throughout the last four or five decades, so many of whom I've enjoyed: Bands like Klaatu in the seventies, and Martha and the Muffins in the eighties. Oh, and in the nineties -- Crash Test Dummies!
Although they made a nice little career for themselves in the great white north, God Shuffled His Feet (1993) was this band's only internationally successful album. A follow-up to their 1991 debut The Ghosts That Haunt Me (which had reached #2 on the Canadian charts), this one took off around the world, reaching #1 in New Zealand, #2 in the UK, #5 in Austria, and #9 in the U.S. It also went double platinum in the U.S. and triple platinum in Canada (although it was actually less successful overall there than their first album had been). In most of the world outside of Canada, the album was largely powered by the success of one unconventional single, a slow and poignant track about how it feels to be different, the oddly- titled "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm".
The song is a highly atypical single -- it's slow, soft and very sentimental. The verses tell the tales of three different children: a boy whose hair turns white after a harrowing car crash, a girl who doesn't want to change clothes in the school locker room because she has birth marks all over her body, and a boy who is a member of a Pentecostal church where the worshipers regularly lurch and shake in religious ecstasy. The chorus consists entirely of the quasi-humming of lead singer Brad Roberts, as he repeats the song's title. The lyrics draw you into the children's embarrassment and their shame at being perceived as different from their classmates, all the while only implying (without spelling out) the daily torment they receive from their contemporaries. Nowadays, I get the feeling that the track is somewhat looked down on by music fans. This is unfortunate, because on its own terms, it's both a touching and effective little song.
The music throughout God Shuffled His Feet is a genial brand of soft folk rock. There's a lot of acoustic guitar and piano. The most striking thing about the band's sound is Robert's deep voice (which falls somewhere in the bass/baritone range) and his sharp and distinctive way of pronouncing his words. The other unique thing about the LP is its thematic frame. Many of the song lyrics have to do with the relationship between God and his creations. The album practically functions as an advertisement for Intelligent Design theory.
Overall, God Shuffled His Feet is a top-heavy album -- the first three tracks are far and away the strongest. In addition to the "Mmm Mmm" song, there's the LP's title track, an unhurried tune with a wry sense of humor that finds God, having just made the world, engaged in an awkward encounter with his new creations. He tries to communicate to his people in parables, but finds himself somewhat flummoxed by the more concrete nature of their questions: "If your eye got poked out in this life/Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?" Then there's "Afternoons & Coffeespoons", the album's second track, which is a more upbeat number powered by some nicely strummed acoustic guitar. This one is an amusing, if someone regretful, tract about aging: "Someday I'll have/A disappearing hairline/Someday I'll wear/Pajamas in the daytime." It was modestly successful as a single, and is considered by many Crashheads (or whatever the band's more devoted fans call themselves) to be the quintessential Crash Test Dummies tune.
The rest of the album is okay -- it's just not up to the standards of those first three tracks. "Swimming in Your Ocean" was a somewhat successful single in Canada, but if you're looking for the next best song, I prefer the soft, lackadaisical pleasures of "The Psychic" -- there's some lovely piano on this one, and it provides an excellent showcase for Roberts' resonant voice.
Although the band continued to have some success in their home country, internationally, they dropped back into obscurity after God Shuffled His Feet. Regardless, this is a pretty decent album in its own right, and it also serves as a good example of the kind of eccentric alternative rock music that was often successful in the early 1990s.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Review of Neil Cavanagh's "City of the Sun, Valley of the Moon"
I just posted this review a few minutes ago on the Sputnik music website:
New York indie artist Neil Cavanagh slipped this release out late in 2017, to little fanfare. That's a shame, because it's one of the better releases of last year. What a world we live in now, where a musician can write, perform, engineer, produce, mix and master an album this good virtually all by himself. Yes, two of the tracks have a backing guest vocalist (John Cavanagh on "Sun Coming Out" and Michelle Ingkavet on "Another Morning"), but let's face it -- City of the Sun, Valley of the Moonis almost as solo as an album can get.
Cavanagh himself describes the music as "an eclectic sequence of alternative, experimental and progressive rock", and that's fair enough. To me, the album has a Todd Rundgren vibe -- there's a lot of gentle psychedelic rock here -- and there's also a touch of Joe Satriani, although this LP is much less guitar-centric than some of Cavanagh's earlier music (and some of the stuff that most reminds me of Satriani is actually performed on synthesizer -- go figure).
While there are times the album rocks out, a lot of it has a laid back feeling. There's a great deal of pleasantly strummed guitar, some comely piano, and a lot more experimentation with synthesizers than on most of this artist's previous work. As for the singing, Cavanagh's somewhat high vocal range is effective throughout, especially when he layers his vocals on tracks like "Everything's Forgotten Now", and at times, his phrasing is distinctly Beatlesque. In this case, however, the music is at least as important as the vocals, probably more so. Fittingly, then, there are also several instrumental tracks on the album.
Two of the best songs here are relaxed, mostly-acoustic tunes, and interestingly, they each have park themes. The first is called "On a Sunday Afternoon", which has an all-instrumental alter-ego later in the album called "Sunday Evening." The music here evokes the image of a lazy summer afternoon, lying in the grass and watching the clouds. The lyrics complement this, as they find the singer clearing his head after some kind of a life change -- possibly the loss of an over-stressful job, the kind that makes you wonder after the fact, "Why didn't I get out sooner?" As good as it is, the instrumental version might even be better than the original, as the lack of vocals there really draws your attention to the incredibly beautiful slow guitar solo.
The second song I referred to might be even stronger than the first. This one is a mid-tempo number called "The Gates of Crocheron Park." It takes the form of a conversation between a parent and an adult child, as the singer finds strength and renewal by returning to his home town: "Follow the stars, you'll be homeward bound/With all that was lost just waiting to be found/But they're closing up the gates of Crocheron Park/Just as the sun is going down". The song has a great hook, and is filled with a number of appealing little guitar trills.
City of the Sun, Valley of the Moon does a good job of mixing up speeds and styles throughout. In addition to the songs I've already talked about, there are slow and pretty piano tracks ("Valley of the Moon"), chunky guitar numbers ("Abused"), psychedelic guitar and synthesizer instrumentals ("The Empire Strikes Back"), and exquisite acoustic songs ("Taking a Ride"). Yet somehow, the album always holds together as a cohesive whole.
This is definitely Neil Cavanagh's best album to date. Although it has virtually no publicity behind it, I really hope that somehow people will find there way to it and give it a listen. It's one of the hidden treasures of 2017.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Review Summary: Affable psychedelic rock and modest experimentation with some solid pop hooks.
New York indie artist Neil Cavanagh slipped this release out late in 2017, to little fanfare. That's a shame, because it's one of the better releases of last year. What a world we live in now, where a musician can write, perform, engineer, produce, mix and master an album this good virtually all by himself. Yes, two of the tracks have a backing guest vocalist (John Cavanagh on "Sun Coming Out" and Michelle Ingkavet on "Another Morning"), but let's face it -- City of the Sun, Valley of the Moonis almost as solo as an album can get.
Cavanagh himself describes the music as "an eclectic sequence of alternative, experimental and progressive rock", and that's fair enough. To me, the album has a Todd Rundgren vibe -- there's a lot of gentle psychedelic rock here -- and there's also a touch of Joe Satriani, although this LP is much less guitar-centric than some of Cavanagh's earlier music (and some of the stuff that most reminds me of Satriani is actually performed on synthesizer -- go figure).
While there are times the album rocks out, a lot of it has a laid back feeling. There's a great deal of pleasantly strummed guitar, some comely piano, and a lot more experimentation with synthesizers than on most of this artist's previous work. As for the singing, Cavanagh's somewhat high vocal range is effective throughout, especially when he layers his vocals on tracks like "Everything's Forgotten Now", and at times, his phrasing is distinctly Beatlesque. In this case, however, the music is at least as important as the vocals, probably more so. Fittingly, then, there are also several instrumental tracks on the album.
Two of the best songs here are relaxed, mostly-acoustic tunes, and interestingly, they each have park themes. The first is called "On a Sunday Afternoon", which has an all-instrumental alter-ego later in the album called "Sunday Evening." The music here evokes the image of a lazy summer afternoon, lying in the grass and watching the clouds. The lyrics complement this, as they find the singer clearing his head after some kind of a life change -- possibly the loss of an over-stressful job, the kind that makes you wonder after the fact, "Why didn't I get out sooner?" As good as it is, the instrumental version might even be better than the original, as the lack of vocals there really draws your attention to the incredibly beautiful slow guitar solo.
The second song I referred to might be even stronger than the first. This one is a mid-tempo number called "The Gates of Crocheron Park." It takes the form of a conversation between a parent and an adult child, as the singer finds strength and renewal by returning to his home town: "Follow the stars, you'll be homeward bound/With all that was lost just waiting to be found/But they're closing up the gates of Crocheron Park/Just as the sun is going down". The song has a great hook, and is filled with a number of appealing little guitar trills.
City of the Sun, Valley of the Moon does a good job of mixing up speeds and styles throughout. In addition to the songs I've already talked about, there are slow and pretty piano tracks ("Valley of the Moon"), chunky guitar numbers ("Abused"), psychedelic guitar and synthesizer instrumentals ("The Empire Strikes Back"), and exquisite acoustic songs ("Taking a Ride"). Yet somehow, the album always holds together as a cohesive whole.
This is definitely Neil Cavanagh's best album to date. Although it has virtually no publicity behind it, I really hope that somehow people will find there way to it and give it a listen. It's one of the hidden treasures of 2017.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Review of The Magnetic Fields' "Distant Plastic Trees"
I posted this review earlier this morning on the Sputnik music website:
In the beginning, there was no Magnetic Fields. Not really, anyway. There was just Stephin Merritt, a laconic, somewhat depressed musician/songwriter in his mid-twenties. In 1991, he put together his first album under the Magnetic Fields name, Distant Plastic Trees. He played all of the music himself, and wrote nine of the ten tracks on the LP (the only exception being "Babies Falling", a cover of a song by The Wild Stares). He entrusted the vocals, however, to a young woman with a light-but-pleasant soprano voice named Susan Anway. The album went largely unnoticed at first, and probably would have stayed that way. Except ... well, we'll get back to that.
Anyway, I rated this album at 3.5 stars, which by Sputnik Music standards equates to "great", and the site as a whole seems to agree (the aggregate Sputnik rating currently sits at 3.4). "Great" might make you think Distant Plastic Trees is an album of consistent high quality, but you'd be wrong. What you have instead is a 10-track LP with a few pretty good songs, a few average ones, and two or three that are fairly lousy. Oh yeah, and a couple of great ones that pull the whole album to a different level.
The music throughout consists largely of synthesizers and keyboards, sometimes with tinkling bell-like sounds, static and other white noise, swooshing air and humming generators, and various other sound effects. Anway's vocals are pretty enough. They're maybe a little thin, but by and large, they work with this material.
The tracks that don't work (such as "Kings" and "Falling Babies") tend to be a little formless and experimental, and I chalk them up to the young Merritt relying on trial and error as he tries to find his way as a musician and a songwriter. A few others, like "Living in an Abandoned Firehouse With You" and "Josephine" are inoffensive, but a little boring.
More interesting is "Tar Heel Boy". It has a country/Appalachian vibe to it, to the point where Anway even yodels on the chorus, but the instrumentation sounds something like a banjo-inspired music box. "Smoke Signals" and "You Love to Fail" are also winners. The first features some lovely swirling piano, while the second is one of Merritt's classic not-love songs: "And I want to take you out/But you always refuse/'Cause you only play the games/That you know you can lose/You love to fail, that's all you love".
The 600-lb. gorilla on the album, however, is a little ditty called "100,000 Fireflies". This song began with some limited airplay on alternative rock and college stations. Gradually it became something of an underground classic, to the point where various critics have named it one of the Top 10 indie songs of the nineties. It starts off sounding like an inverse and more ethereal version of Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", until Anway jumps in with one of Merritt's best-ever opening lines: "I've got a mandolin/I play it all night long/It makes me want to kill myself". From that point on, the song manages to be funny, touching and sad in equal measures, as the singer pleads for her lover to give their relationship another shot: "You won't be happy with me/But give me one more chance/You won't be happy anyway." For a certain type of twee teen/young adult, this song was the musical totem of their generation, beloved in much the same way as films such as Donnie Darko and Napolean Dynamite were embraced by their respective admirers in the early 2000s.
Although "100,000 Fireflies" is the song Distant Plastic Trees is most noted for, one other track, "Falling in Love With the Wolf Boy", is almost as brilliant. This one features whirling, carnival-like synthesizers that seem to fall in and out of the sync with Anway's vocal part, and includes lyrics that are both biting and highly amusing. The song is a description of/fantasy about a person of the female persuasion with whom Mr. Merritt is something less than pleased (I'm going to take a wild guess that it's Ayn Rand, but I could be totally off-base): "With a face like an African mask/And the strength of ten men when she's wrong/She's in charge of the world at large/And her novels are all very long". Where someone of a more violent nature might wish for physical harm to befall the object of their derision, however, Merritt has a gentler but stranger plan: "Take her down to the woods where the wolfboy lives/So the villagers say/And the three of you evaporate into the night/And you both fall in love with him." A unique solution to an interpersonal problem if ever there was one.
"100,000 Fireflies" probably didn't make Merritt a ton of money. But it did help to give Distant Plastic Trees and The Magnetic Fields enough of a reputation to build a cult following in indie music circles to carry the band through the nineties until the release of their most successful album, 1999's opus 69 Love Songs. Listeners who first jumped on The Magnetic Fields' train on or after that point would probably find the band's original sound, with its airy female vocals and tinker-toy synthesizer sounds, jarring. But while this first Magnetic Fields album is certainly uneven and immature compared to an album like 69 Love Songs, the hits on Distant Plastic Trees still outweigh the misses by far.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Review Summary: "Why do we keep shrieking/When we mean soft things?/We should be whispering all the time." -- from "100,000 Fireflies" by Stephin Merritt
In the beginning, there was no Magnetic Fields. Not really, anyway. There was just Stephin Merritt, a laconic, somewhat depressed musician/songwriter in his mid-twenties. In 1991, he put together his first album under the Magnetic Fields name, Distant Plastic Trees. He played all of the music himself, and wrote nine of the ten tracks on the LP (the only exception being "Babies Falling", a cover of a song by The Wild Stares). He entrusted the vocals, however, to a young woman with a light-but-pleasant soprano voice named Susan Anway. The album went largely unnoticed at first, and probably would have stayed that way. Except ... well, we'll get back to that.
Anyway, I rated this album at 3.5 stars, which by Sputnik Music standards equates to "great", and the site as a whole seems to agree (the aggregate Sputnik rating currently sits at 3.4). "Great" might make you think Distant Plastic Trees is an album of consistent high quality, but you'd be wrong. What you have instead is a 10-track LP with a few pretty good songs, a few average ones, and two or three that are fairly lousy. Oh yeah, and a couple of great ones that pull the whole album to a different level.
The music throughout consists largely of synthesizers and keyboards, sometimes with tinkling bell-like sounds, static and other white noise, swooshing air and humming generators, and various other sound effects. Anway's vocals are pretty enough. They're maybe a little thin, but by and large, they work with this material.
The tracks that don't work (such as "Kings" and "Falling Babies") tend to be a little formless and experimental, and I chalk them up to the young Merritt relying on trial and error as he tries to find his way as a musician and a songwriter. A few others, like "Living in an Abandoned Firehouse With You" and "Josephine" are inoffensive, but a little boring.
More interesting is "Tar Heel Boy". It has a country/Appalachian vibe to it, to the point where Anway even yodels on the chorus, but the instrumentation sounds something like a banjo-inspired music box. "Smoke Signals" and "You Love to Fail" are also winners. The first features some lovely swirling piano, while the second is one of Merritt's classic not-love songs: "And I want to take you out/But you always refuse/'Cause you only play the games/That you know you can lose/You love to fail, that's all you love".
The 600-lb. gorilla on the album, however, is a little ditty called "100,000 Fireflies". This song began with some limited airplay on alternative rock and college stations. Gradually it became something of an underground classic, to the point where various critics have named it one of the Top 10 indie songs of the nineties. It starts off sounding like an inverse and more ethereal version of Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", until Anway jumps in with one of Merritt's best-ever opening lines: "I've got a mandolin/I play it all night long/It makes me want to kill myself". From that point on, the song manages to be funny, touching and sad in equal measures, as the singer pleads for her lover to give their relationship another shot: "You won't be happy with me/But give me one more chance/You won't be happy anyway." For a certain type of twee teen/young adult, this song was the musical totem of their generation, beloved in much the same way as films such as Donnie Darko and Napolean Dynamite were embraced by their respective admirers in the early 2000s.
Although "100,000 Fireflies" is the song Distant Plastic Trees is most noted for, one other track, "Falling in Love With the Wolf Boy", is almost as brilliant. This one features whirling, carnival-like synthesizers that seem to fall in and out of the sync with Anway's vocal part, and includes lyrics that are both biting and highly amusing. The song is a description of/fantasy about a person of the female persuasion with whom Mr. Merritt is something less than pleased (I'm going to take a wild guess that it's Ayn Rand, but I could be totally off-base): "With a face like an African mask/And the strength of ten men when she's wrong/She's in charge of the world at large/And her novels are all very long". Where someone of a more violent nature might wish for physical harm to befall the object of their derision, however, Merritt has a gentler but stranger plan: "Take her down to the woods where the wolfboy lives/So the villagers say/And the three of you evaporate into the night/And you both fall in love with him." A unique solution to an interpersonal problem if ever there was one.
"100,000 Fireflies" probably didn't make Merritt a ton of money. But it did help to give Distant Plastic Trees and The Magnetic Fields enough of a reputation to build a cult following in indie music circles to carry the band through the nineties until the release of their most successful album, 1999's opus 69 Love Songs. Listeners who first jumped on The Magnetic Fields' train on or after that point would probably find the band's original sound, with its airy female vocals and tinker-toy synthesizer sounds, jarring. But while this first Magnetic Fields album is certainly uneven and immature compared to an album like 69 Love Songs, the hits on Distant Plastic Trees still outweigh the misses by far.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Review of the Hank Stone Band's "Painting Tomorrow's Skies Blue"
I just posted this review, my first of the new year, on the Sputnik Music website.
Review Summary: "Hearing the rippling of rivers/You will not utterly despair."
Hank Stone is an old folkie. I don't think he'd mind me telling you that. Stone's music initially brings to mind artists like Bob Dylan, Woody and Arlo Guthrie and Peter, Paul and Mary, although there are also a variety of rock and Americana influences as well. Painting Tomorrow's Skies Blue is his third album, and his first with the Hank Stone Band, which includes Todd Evans (of He-Bird, She-Bird) on guitars and backing vocals, Mike Christian on bass and backing vocals and Gary Settoducato on drums and percussion. Stone himself adds both acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Overall, this is a solid album that features some fine songs and some quality musicianship. Stone being a folkie at heart, he gives us some songs about trains (both real ones and toy ones), some songs about rivers, and even a gentle war protest song. But he also touches on themes such as spirituality vs. science, the yin and yang of luck, and the betrayal of a friendship.
My personal favorite track is a little ditty called "One Side's Up", a lighthearted song that pokes fun at various superstitions, all the while pointing out how one person's good fortune is another's mishap. Ultimately, he comes out on the same side of the fate vs. free will argument as Canadian prog rockers Rush: "Is it the fall of the cards? The roll of the dice? Why does no one ever talk about virtue or vice?" The song is enhanced by a rather tasty guitar groove, presumably delivered by Evans.
"The River Says" is also a favorite. The song is mostly about the permanence of rivers and our connection with them, but it morphs in the last verse into a river-themed love song. This one also features some really pleasing guitar work. Another interesting track is "The Rippling of Rivers", a song that Stone speaks as much as sings, that takes the form of a debate between himself and scientists such as Francis Crick, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on DNA, but who sees human consciousness as little more than a side effect of neural processes. Stone makes it clear that he respects the science, but feels that such a cold approach misses some pieces of the human puzzle.
One last track I'd be remiss if I didn't mention is "Wartime Bride". While many songwriters who try to write a protest song fall into the trap of preaching to the converted, Stone takes the approach of instead creating a believable and sympathetic character as the protagonist of his song, in this case a young soldier talking to his fiancee. His thoughts aren't filled with platitudes or huge ideas -- he just wants to find a way to talk to his girl (the Army has blocked Facebook, but he found an old phone card he can use), finish the job he was sent overseas to do, and get home to his lover and his family. By not preaching, Stone makes his song all the more effective -- we empathize with the young man, and want to see him make it home safely. The song is proof that sometimes, a light touch is more powerful than a sledgehammer.
My only criticism of the album is I'm not sure that the songs are consistently as strong here as were the tracks on his 2005 solo album Rough Folk. The Band is excellent throughout, and there are some numbers that seem to be carried more by the proficiency of the playing than by the songs themselves. Nevertheless, the top tracks certainly exemplify Stone at his best, and overall, this is an enjoyable and above-average album.
Hank Stone's bio states that he's been writing songs for more than forty years, and he's been performing for more than fifteen. Painting Tomorrow's Skies Blue contains a solid representative sample of the songwriting skills he has honed over that period, and also gives you the added bonus of a skilled backing band to present those songs in their best light. It's a more-than-worthwhile listen for fans of folk rock and Americana music.
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review Summary: "Hearing the rippling of rivers/You will not utterly despair."
Hank Stone is an old folkie. I don't think he'd mind me telling you that. Stone's music initially brings to mind artists like Bob Dylan, Woody and Arlo Guthrie and Peter, Paul and Mary, although there are also a variety of rock and Americana influences as well. Painting Tomorrow's Skies Blue is his third album, and his first with the Hank Stone Band, which includes Todd Evans (of He-Bird, She-Bird) on guitars and backing vocals, Mike Christian on bass and backing vocals and Gary Settoducato on drums and percussion. Stone himself adds both acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Overall, this is a solid album that features some fine songs and some quality musicianship. Stone being a folkie at heart, he gives us some songs about trains (both real ones and toy ones), some songs about rivers, and even a gentle war protest song. But he also touches on themes such as spirituality vs. science, the yin and yang of luck, and the betrayal of a friendship.
My personal favorite track is a little ditty called "One Side's Up", a lighthearted song that pokes fun at various superstitions, all the while pointing out how one person's good fortune is another's mishap. Ultimately, he comes out on the same side of the fate vs. free will argument as Canadian prog rockers Rush: "Is it the fall of the cards? The roll of the dice? Why does no one ever talk about virtue or vice?" The song is enhanced by a rather tasty guitar groove, presumably delivered by Evans.
"The River Says" is also a favorite. The song is mostly about the permanence of rivers and our connection with them, but it morphs in the last verse into a river-themed love song. This one also features some really pleasing guitar work. Another interesting track is "The Rippling of Rivers", a song that Stone speaks as much as sings, that takes the form of a debate between himself and scientists such as Francis Crick, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on DNA, but who sees human consciousness as little more than a side effect of neural processes. Stone makes it clear that he respects the science, but feels that such a cold approach misses some pieces of the human puzzle.
One last track I'd be remiss if I didn't mention is "Wartime Bride". While many songwriters who try to write a protest song fall into the trap of preaching to the converted, Stone takes the approach of instead creating a believable and sympathetic character as the protagonist of his song, in this case a young soldier talking to his fiancee. His thoughts aren't filled with platitudes or huge ideas -- he just wants to find a way to talk to his girl (the Army has blocked Facebook, but he found an old phone card he can use), finish the job he was sent overseas to do, and get home to his lover and his family. By not preaching, Stone makes his song all the more effective -- we empathize with the young man, and want to see him make it home safely. The song is proof that sometimes, a light touch is more powerful than a sledgehammer.
My only criticism of the album is I'm not sure that the songs are consistently as strong here as were the tracks on his 2005 solo album Rough Folk. The Band is excellent throughout, and there are some numbers that seem to be carried more by the proficiency of the playing than by the songs themselves. Nevertheless, the top tracks certainly exemplify Stone at his best, and overall, this is an enjoyable and above-average album.
Hank Stone's bio states that he's been writing songs for more than forty years, and he's been performing for more than fifteen. Painting Tomorrow's Skies Blue contains a solid representative sample of the songwriting skills he has honed over that period, and also gives you the added bonus of a skilled backing band to present those songs in their best light. It's a more-than-worthwhile listen for fans of folk rock and Americana music.
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)