Review of Joni Mitchell's "Song for a Seagull"

I haven't dropped an album review on Sputnik Music for more than a year. But this one was ready. I posted it there an album or so ago.

Review Summary: Joni's first album provides a taste of the riches to come.

Lately, for a variety of reasons, I've been listening to a lot of early Joni Mitchell, which reminded me that this pleasant little album still didn't have its own review here. Problem solved!

By the time Joni Mitchell released Song to a Seagull in March of 1968, she was already a seasoned songwriter and performer at the age of 24. She had begun playing live in her native Saskatchewon at 18 years old, and started performing mostly her own songs shortly thereafter. She worked her way into the United States by 1965, impressing folk artists such as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush and Judy Collins, all of whom recorded covers of songs she had written. At some point, David Crosby discovered her playing at a club in Florida, and took her out to Los Angeles to record an album. He then became Song for a Seagull's producer.

For the most part, Seagull is a very bare-bones album. It's largely just Mitchell, her lovely voice, her acoustic guitar and her songwriting (although Stephen Stills does play bass on one track, and somebody named Lee Keefer is credited with playing something called the banshee). And really, that's enough.

The original vinyl release was divided into two sections. Side A is called "I Came to the City", while Side B is entitled "Out of the City and Down to the Seaside". A lot of the LP falls into "pretty but forgettable" territory. But some of it is just exquisite. For me, there are three standout numbers.

"Night in the City" is the third offering on Side A. It's a simple song lyrically, that finds Joni and her partner gearing up for a night on the town. What's exceptional here is the way her voice shines on the chorus, effortlessly gliding between high and low notes, while she echoes herself on a second vocal track. It's also nicely realized musically, as the acoustic guitar is supported by some light piano and a fairly restrained bass. (This is the number Stills plays on.)

The next real standout is the next-to-last song on Side B, the album's title track. This is a slow and stark song, which contrasts a bright, airy vocal with strange, distorted guitar chords played underneath, creating an eerie but memorable effect.

This is followed by what is probably the most memorable song on the LP, Mitchell's ode to a charming-but-shallow, woman, "Cactus Tree". This one is a lyrical tour de force, which tells the story of a series of amazing and successful men and the woman who can't commit to any of them, because "She's so busy being free". I think the live version captured on 1974's Miles of Aisles might be a better performance than the studio effort recorded here. Nevertheless, this is a stunningly good song for a first-album effort.

There are some other treats throughout. "Michael From the Mountains" was a pretty popular song in the early part of Joni's career, and while I find the verses of "I Had a King" fairly ordinary, the chorus is certainly gorgeous. And a pair of the other tracks here, "Marcie" and the weirdish "The Pirate of Penance" sound like early inspirations (at least musically) for songs that were reworked into more successful entries on later albums, "Ladies of the Canyon" and "Roses Blue".

Song for a Seagull (which was originally released simply as Joni Mitchell, thanks to a printing mistake on the album cover) was moderately successful for an unknown artist, making the tail end of the U.S. Billboard charts at # 189. More importantly, it got the right people whispering about Mitchell, which helped pave the way for the greater success that was to occur for her next couple of LPs. But if albums like Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, Blue and Court and Spark are musical diamonds, then Song for a Seagull is certainly at least a pearl - it's not her best work, but it is charming and valuable in its own right.

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Missed Another One

These last few months, I've missed way more local music shows than I've caught.

Last night, the plan was to attend the monthly Huntington Folk Society showcase at the "Hard Luck Cafe", hosted at the Huntington Cinema Arts Centre. The show featured someone named John John Brown, an out-of-town artist I wasn't familiar with, and local minstrel Steve Robinson. I first saw Robinson more than a decade ago at one of Frank Walker's benefits for Prune Belly Syndrome. I picked up his debut album, Back Roads, and I'm pretty sure I played a cut or two on my old Local Insomniac Music radio show (although I could be wrong here. I can't remember if I was off the air by the time the LP came out.)

Anyway, I pulled the album out and gave it a couple of spins this week, just to get ready for the show. But things didn't work out the way I'd hoped.

I left the house at 6PM for a 7:30 show. Now I think I've been to the Cinema Arts Centre twice in my life, and the last time was about eight years ago when I took my daughter to see a Shadow Play version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

But a lot has changed in eight years. These days, I have some problems with my night driving, especially if I'm driving somewhere where I don't really know where I'm going and I have to try to look at road signs. (No, I don't have a GPS, either in my car or on my flip phone.)

I printed out the directions on the theatre's web site, only to discover that they leave out one important piece of information -- you're supposed to get off the LIE at Exit 51 and head north. But while the directions on their phone line highlight the fact that there's a fork in the road that you're supposed to veer left on (as I learned later, when it was too late), the direction on the website omitted this little tidbit. So when I found myself in the right lane coming up to the fork, I went right. (After all, without knowing the correct route, it was a 50/50 choice, so I figured I might as well pick the one that matched the lane I was already in.) Naturally, it was the wrong choice.

I turned left when I got to Route 25, and drove for awhile, looking for Park Ave. After a but, I pulled into a shopping center and called Denise for the exact address and phone number. (I'd have looked it up myself, but hello ... flip phone!) I pulled out and kept going. But at some point I hit another fork, and turned around.

By this time, it was getting close to showtime, and I was hungry and grumpy. I pulled into a Burger King parking lot, and tried to call a friend I was planning to meet at the show. I figured since I was having so much trouble seeing the street signs, maybe he could give me a landmark for where Jericho intercepted Park. But there was no answer. So I called the phone number for the arts center, but of course, there was no option to speak to a live person. I listened to their recorded directions to see if they said anything helpful, and it was here I learned that if I'd simply gone left at that first fork and kept going straight, I'd have gotten directly to the cinema without even turning. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, guys.

The directions indicated a route from the intersection of Route 25 and Route 110, so I got back on 25 and started heading west towards Route 110. Or so I thought. I must have driven for 20 minutes or so before I happened to see a sign that indicated I was now driving on Route 25 East. By this time, I must have already been well past the Smithtown Center for the Performing Arts, because I moment later, I came to the intersection of Route 25 and Route 347. I have no idea how I got turned around and started heading east when I thought I was going west. But it was already well past show time, I was still hungry (and my blood sugar was low), and honestly, I was having a little trouble getting my bearings. So I decided to lick my wounds, get something to eat, and just go home.

I did get to catch up on some (very varied) music in my car, burning through Slim Whitman's Greatest Hits, the new Of Montreal CD, the new Kesha CD, and a couple of songs from the new Torres album. And I felt a little better after I got a burger in my belly. But it was a bit of a humbling experience.

So since the beginning of the year, I've missed shows I'd planned to attend for Cassandra House (unexpected sellout), James O'Malley (lack of sleep) and Steve Robinson (got my fool ass lost). I suppose I'm lucky I was able to find my way the five minutes from my house to the Braceland Gallery to see Roger Silverberg.

I've got a few more local artists on the calendar over the next few months, so we'll see how it goes. I've been joking with my daughter that Im going to go into Bellport Village to the store with the big sign that says "Companions for Seniors", put on my most pathetic face, and ask the person at the counter, "Will you be my companion?" Pretty sad.

In any event, I'm not ditching the flip phone. But I am going to start using Denise's old GPS in my car.

Peace.

Favorite Artists, Part 8: About Joni Mitchell

My last "Favorite Artists" essay was a difficult one, as I tried to tease apart how I feel about Bruce Springsteen's politics from how I feel about his music. This one is only slightly less difficult, because it's a tale of two Joni's, one of whom I love, and the other whom I've mostly been indifferent too.

Now all of the artists I've written about thus far have had long careers, and all have had high points and low points. And almost all of them did their strongest work in their early-to-mid careers, only to tail off a bit at the end. But for my taste (and that of the general public's, too, judging by album sales), Joni Mitchell is the most extreme example of this that I'll deal with.

There are two things that separate the amazing Joni from the meh Joni. One of these is her voice. As happens to many (if not most) singers, Joni's voice changed over the years. On the early albums, her voice was high and angelic, with an amazing little treble. As the years passed, however, her voice deepened, some say by as much as an octave, due to a combination of aging and way, way too many cigarettes. It's not her voice was bad later in her career -- she never reached the depths of, say, a Marianne Faithful. But early Joni could often carry a song on the sheer beauty of her voice, before you even considered the quality of her songwriting. Later Joni couldn't do this.

The change in vocal pitch by itself wouldn't have been a deal breaker for me, though. No, what broke Joni and I up was that her music itself, and her musical interests, changed and changed drastically. But I'll come back to this.

First, let me do what I usually do, and go back to the beginning. You'll notice that this essay, which is Part 8 in my "Favorite Artists" series, is the first about a female artist. There's a reason for this, and as you'll discover as the series continues, it's not that I don't like female singers. Far from it.

But back in the '70s, there was slim pickens as far as female artists went on the radio stations I listened to. Sometimes you'd hear the Motown girl groups, but they weren't really my thing. And while I liked Gracie Slick, Janis Joplin and Heart's Wilson sisters, I didn't like any of them as much as I loved bands like The Who, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd.

But WNEW-FM, my radio station of choice, used to periodically play the King Biscuit Flower Hour, a syndicated radio show that featured concert performances by many of the artists the station normally played. And on this one night, the Flower Hour broadcast a show by two solo artists, one who was familiar to me and one who wasn't. The singer I knew was James Taylor, riding high on the success of a series of singles from the albums Sweet Baby James and Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. The other, as you've probably guessed, was Joni Mitchell. (Apparently they were an item at the time, which I never even knew until I looked it up today, although I did know about her relationships with men like Graham Nash and Warren Beatty.)

I don't remember too much about the show, except that Joni blew me away. I think the format was that Taylor would do a couple of songs, and then Joni would do a couple of songs, and they might have eventually even done some together. I think the first song she performed was "The Gallery", and she had me right away. I'm pretty sure she also played "Conversation" that night, and probably "For Free", "Big Yellow Taxi", "Michael From the Mountains" and "The Circle Game" as well. JT was good that night, but Joni was amazing.

As it turned out, I soon learned that I already knew and loved several Joni Mitchell songs that had been recorded by other people, "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins, and "Woodstock" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And before long, I picked up a copy of Joni's Ladies of the Canyon LP, and played it into the ground.

In the end, I came to love Joni's music way more than I ever loved James Taylor's. (Sorry, JT.)

I've talked before about runs, like the Pink Floyd run from Dark Side of the Moon through The Wall, or The Who's 3-LP run from Tommy through Quadrophenia. Joni had a pretty great one, too, although in her case, it wasn't a straight run -- it was more of a four-out-five situation.

Joni's first LP, Song to a Seagull came out in 1968, after she was already a successful songwriter (with songs having been recorded by Tom Rush, George Hamilton IV, Buffy St. Marie, and Dave Van Ronk, among others). The album, which was produced by David Crosby and featured Stephen Stills playing bass on one track, received mostly positive reviews, and made the back of the charts at # 189. The most acclaimed songs from the effort are probably "Michael from the Mountains", the excellent "Cactus Tree", and the single "Night in the City".

The second album, Clouds (1969), though, is the one where she first really hit her stride. This is actually my favorite Joni LP, serving up treats, as it does, such as "Chelsea Morning" (which might be my favorite Joni Mitchell song), "That Song About the Midway", "The Gallery" and Joni's version of "Both Sides Now". This one charted at # 31 in the US and # 22 in Canada, and was Joni's first Gold Album.

What followed were Ladies of the Canyon (1970), which featured numbers like "For Free", "Conversation", "Big Yellow Taxi" and "The Circle Game", and Blue (1971) (probably Joni's most critically acclaimed album), which showcased classic tracks such as "Carey", "California", the title track "Blue", and Joni's melancholic nod to Christmas, "River". Ladies demonstrated a change in shift from guitar-based songs to piano-based songs (which was fine with me), while Blue is probably Joni's most personal album (and her most morose one).

For me, her next effort, For the Roses (1972) was a step down, although I'm sure many would disagree. It was her most successful effort to date chart-wise, hitting # 5 in Canada and # 11 in the U.S. But it was also her only album released between the years of 1970 through 1974 that didn't go higher than Gold -- all three of her other releases reached at least Platinum status. It did contain the most successful single of her career, the clever "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio", and some other minor favorites such as "Woman of Heart and Mind" and "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire", so it certainly wasn't a bad album. It's probably her least impressive album from her best creative years, though.

Nevertheless, in 1974, Joni issued her most successful LP ever, the amazing Court and Spark. The album mixed Joni's classic folk stylings with pop and even a taste of jazz. (This last influence was a harbinger of worse days to come, but it worked here, at least.) The LP included a trio of popular singles, "Help Me", "Free Man in Paris" and "Raised on Robbery", as well as the excellent title track "Court and Spark", another vintage Joni track, "People's Parties", and her manic cover of Annie Ross and Wardell Grey's "Twisted". Court and Spark reached # 1 in Canada and # 2 in the United States, and went double platinum.

Later that same year, Joni followed up this success with one of the best live efforts ever, the double album Miles of Aisles. This one also went Gold, not bad for a live LP. However, although I love it dearly, it's here that I can really hear the signs of the changes to come. By this time, Joni's voice had clearly started to deepen, and as her backing band for the tour from which the recordings were drawn, she'd hired Tom Scott's L.A. Express, a well-respected jazz fusion band.

At this point, as the hiring of the L.A. Express might have led you to expect, Joni's musical leanings veered off into a much more jazz-oriented direction. Joni was always a rebel. She was a self-taught guitarist, and she was famous for employing a variety of open tunings that other musicians found challenging to play. (Watch the documentary film of The Band's last concert, The Last Waltz, and you'll hear some of the guys playfully grouse about it.) But from 1975 on, Joni's compositions got more and more out there. Her songs got more and more formless, and played around not only with jazz, but also with swing and various other influences.

Mind you, there were still some worthwhile numbers over her next three albums, The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975), Hejeira (1976) and Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977). Some of the best included "In France They Kiss on Main Street" and "Shadows and Light" from Hissing, "Coyote" and "Amelia" from Hejeira, and "Dreamland" and the title track from Don Juan. But to tell you truth, I never even bought the first two LPs back in the day (although I own them now), and while I liked Don Juan's Reckless Daughter somewhat, it paled in comparison with her earlier stuff. And the record sales showed it. Joni always retained a certain core audience. Maybe she even gained some of the jazz crowd. But a glance at the charts shows that while Hissing sold decently, each album after that sold progressively worse. At this point, many of Joni's most ardent fans, myself included, jumped off the bus and never really got back on.

Joni's next release was Mingus in 1979. I heard it was a collaboration with the aged jazz musician Charles Mingus, and this was enough to scare me off. In retrospect, that was a good thing. When I started writing this series almost two years ago, I also started buying up all of the albums I hadn't previously owned by the artists I planned to write about. Most of these LPs were late Joni Mitchell albums, pre-Stevie and Lindsey Fleetwood Mac LPs, and certain early and late Rush albums. I finally got around to listening to Mingus this last summer, and I hated it. I know others will disagree. The album did go silver, and it received at least middling reviews from places like Sputnik Music, AllMusic and The Rolling Stone Album Guide. But I think it's wretched, and it isn't helped any by the fact that the actual songs are interspersed throughout with snippets of conversation taped at Mingus's birthday party, shortly before his death later that same year.

Over the last few days, as preparation for writing this essay, I've been listening through all of Joni's other original albums, through her last one, 2007's Shine. Some of them are a little poppier than I expected, and I've heard a few songs here and there that I like. Of course, at this point, Joni is still with us, at age 76. But she had an aneurysm in 2015, and as of 2018, was still learning to walk again. And as I slowly begin to geeze out myself (I turn 63 next month), I plan to spend at least some of my remaining time on this planet listening to some of her later albums in greater depth and appreciating the gems I find therein. But damned, that 1968-through-1974 version of Joni was a pearl of great beauty. I've listened to literally dozens of female folk artists since then, and for me none of them has ever hit the heights that Joni Mitchell did during this time period. (Aimee Mann might come the closest.)

What was it I liked best about the Joni Mitchell from the late sixties through the mid-seventies? Some of it was just her sheer vocal beauty. Listen to that trill in the last chorus of "Conversation", where she sings, "He knows that's what he'll fi-i-i-ind", or the transitions from the verses into the choruses of "Chelsea Morning", and you'll hear what I mean. Janis, Gracie and the Wilsons never sounded like this.

It was also the poetry of her lyrics, (e.g., "The sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses" - from "Chelsea Morning"), and the imagery therein, like the description of the protagonist of "Blue Boy", worshiping at the feet of the statue who was her lover, until she herself turned into a "lady statue". Priceless.

Finally, it was her unusual song structures. Listen to enough music, and you develop unconscious expectations that when you hear a certain line of music, the next line will go in a predictable direction. Joni's music tended to defy these expectations. Listen to the guitar from the first into the second line of "People's Parties", for example, or the line from "My Old Man" where she sings "We don't need no piece of paper/From the city hall". Or just listen to stresses of the various syllables in one of Joni's most famous lines, and you'll hear what I mean: "Don't it always seem to go/That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?".

All of these elements together are what made Joni Mitchell's music so special during this period of her career.

So that's my tale of two Joni's. I wish her love and happiness wherever she is right now, and I thank her for the many hours of happy listening she's given me over the years. I feel a little bad that I couldn't stay with her for her whole career, but her tastes and mine just diverged too much. I sure did love those folk/pop years, though.

The next article in this series will be a sharp change in direction, as I hit the beginning of the new wave years and write about one of my favorite bands from that period, The Cars.

January 2020 Song of the Day

For new readers, this refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations.

I'll keep this in the same abbreviated format as last month.

1. The theme for the month was name your top-rated song of the previous decade.

2. My one rec for the month was my top song of the 2010's, "My Town" by Antigone Rising.

3. Since you don't get to rate your own rec, my highest rated song of the month was Black Sabbath's "Zeitgeist", a track I wasn't previously familiar with. The song was included on their most recent album, 2013's 13.

4. The highest rated song for the month, overall, however, was "Paradise Circus" by the band Massive Attack.

The link to the list, with the entire playlist of songs for the month, can be found at January 2020 Song of the Month.

Housekeeping Part 2

So as you might have guessed, due to the lack of an update, I never heard back from Cassandra House or the Patchogue Theatre people, so there won't be a write-up for her Patchogue Theatre show last Thursday.

In fairness, I tried to reach Cassandra through one of those "Contact Me" spots on her website, and I never trust that those kinds of messages will get where they're meant to go in a timely fashion. (I have no idea who's running her website). I later found an old email address I'd successfully contacted her through before, but by that point, I felt funny trying to contact her twice -- Never beg and all that, ya know?

I had hoped to replace it with the James O'Malley show at the Michael Braceland Art Gallery the next evening. But the new cat, who's a lovable little guy but is also a little furry butthole, woke me up on 4 hours sleep Friday morning, and by the time Friday night rolled around, I was in no shape to go anywhere. So, I hope to catch up with both Cassandra House and James O'Malley sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, I'll be back in a day or so with the January Song of Day update. And I've been making a list of local artists I haven't seen in awhile and looking up their shows in the months to come. So hopefully soon, I'll have a bunch of local music shows to tell you all about.

'Til then, live well, my friends!

Housekeeping and Coming Attractions

So I mentioned near the end of last year that I wasn't sure where I was going with this blog in 2020. I don't expect to be attending as many live shows this year as I did in the last two years, and I don't expect to be attending live shows in Manhattan anytime in the foreseeable future. I asked Denise if she was interested in pitching in a write-up once in awhile, as she has no plans to slow down her concert schedule. But Denise is much less of a wrestling villain than I am (as this blog is known for being a tad ... cranky, shall we say?), so she decided she wasn't interested. (Maybe I can get her to give me some verbal reviews that I can summarize for you, though, especially of her '80s Cruise in March.)

And honestly, it's not just here in this blog, or in the general area of music, I've been making changes. In the past, I used to love going to the movies, and used to attend at least 11 or 12 films in the theaters each year. Last year, the only film I saw all year in the theaters was Avengers: Endgame. Part of it is that now that the kids are grown up, they don't need Denise or me to take them when they want to go to the movies. Part of it is also simply ticket prices. Going to see a film in a theater is just a much more expensive proposition than it used to be. (Although it is kind of nice that I've reached the point where most theaters will give me a senior citizen discount.)

But just like in music, part of it is also politics. We live in a time when politics seems to work its way into every single aspects of our lives, and I'm just not interested. You can make any kind of film you want, but don't expect me to pay for the privilege of having a bunch of politics and/or modern cultural mores shoved in my face. So I anticipate continuing to be much more picky than I used to be as to where and when I spend my cinema bucks.

TV is the same. It's all about the message. My message is no thanks. (It's actually a little more explicit than that, but let's keep this column family friendly.) And don't even get me started on team sports. At this point, I'm down to watching baseball and hockey (and I'm eyeing them both suspiciously in case they get out of line.)

So if I'm attending fewer live concerts and fewer films, and watching less TV and sports, what am I going to do with my time? Good question.

The answer I've come up with is try to use it more wisely on a number of things. I've been enjoying my family time more. And since my daughter and her boyfriend moved in, I've had one more family member in her boyfriend to spend time with. (About a year or so ago, when I was trying to socialize with my daughter a little, my little hermit exclaimed in frustration, "Will you do me a favor and adopt another kid so you'll leave me alone!?" I think that's why she's moved the boyfriend in -- he likes to chat with me more than either she or her brother do.)

I'm also reading more fiction, especially science fiction. I've finally gotten around to William Gibson's Neuromancer, and I've got a couple of Robert Heinlein books on my list as well.

I've recently also gone back to an old love, professional wrestling. I don't know how long it will last -- I tend to watch in cycles for a year or two and then lose interest. But ever since they've formed the new AEW promotion to compete with Vince McMahon's WWE, I've been watching them on a weekly basis. And last week, they managed to combine three of my favorite things by holding the show on a cruise ship, and giving a little promotion to their champion, Chris Jericho's, rock band Fozzy, so you had rock, wrestling and cruises all together in one package -- now that's entertainment!

But this is a music column, so let me bring the focus back to music. I still expect to be listening to a ton of new LPs, and working my through the back catalogs of some of the more enjoyable artists I've discovered over the last few years, bands like Nightwish and Mostly Autumn.

And I've been wanting to educate myself more about certain musical genres I haven't paid much attention to in the past. Believe it or not, I've considered hip hop. And this will probably happen some, as my daughter's boyfriend is passionate about this genre and seems inclined to want to teach me about it. (I'm interested because it's really become the music of this generation, but I'm also resistant because I just don't identify with "gangsta" culture at all.)

But the genre I'm really leaning towards right now is metal, with a specific focus on progressive and/or symphonic metal. This has a lot to do with Nightwish. As you know, I named their most recent album, 2015's Endless Forms Most Beautiful, as my Album of the Decade for the 2010's. I also recently listened to their 2011 LP Imaginaerum, and really just enjoyed the hell out of it, as well. And with Nightwish scheduled to come out with a new album this April, Human. :II: Nature. (I know, pretentious title), I expect to be focusing significant attention on them this year, and starting to explore other somewhat similar bands, such as Epica, Leaves' Eyes and Midnattsol. (I'm super excited about the new Nightwish LP. Unfortunately, I see that they're spending the entire year touring Europe, so they probably won't hit North America again until 2021. And when they do, I have a bad feeling they'll be playing Manhattan and not Long Island, so I don't know if I'll get to see them anyway.)

But it's not just this sub-genre of metal I'm interested in. I never got that into classic metal bands like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, because I never found their songs that interesting. And I never much liked the typical vocals you'd hear in most metal bands, either the high-pitched, shrieky vocals you hear in bands like Virgin Steele or the growling, so-called "dirty" vocals you hear in bands like Slipknot. (I always felt like I was listening to Orc music.)

But in 2019, I heard a number of metal bands in various sub-genres whose music really intrigued me. These included Soen, a Swedish progressive metal band whose song "Martyrs" made my yearly Top 20 list; Saor, a Scottish black metal band, whose music includes some Celtic influences; Batushka, a doom metal band from Poland, whose members dress (and sing) like eastern orthodox priests; and Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, a Welsh sludge metal band whose album was up in my Top 10 for the better part of the year. I'm also finally ready to check out the Italian gothic metal band Lacuna Coil, and although I don't know how "metal" I consider them, I'm going to go back and give the latest Tool album a listen as well. (I note that out of all of the bands I mentioned, Tool is the only American one. It seems that most of the style of metal I'm interested in is only being created in Europe.)

I'll still be listening to a lot of alternative rock, of course, as well as all of the genres I usually listen to (prog rock, folk and folk rock, Celtic and Celtic rock, etc.). But I think I'll be spending a decent part of the next 4 or 5 years exploring more of these areas of metal that have recently caught my interest.

I might also, for financial reasons as much as anything else, be exploring more local music shows this year than I have in the recent past (especially as I'm not particularly impressed with what I see of the national summer concert schedule so far this year.) That's just become a little harder for me than it used to be because I need to find venues that are comfortable for me. However, the Braceland Gallery is a good start.

It seems strange to say, but assuming I make it through this upcoming decade alive and intact, by 2030, I'll be 72. My body sometimes feels old, but my mind doesn't at all. But I can tell you that as long as I'm still walking this earth, music will continue to be an important part of my life. (Unless the zombie apocalypse finally comes, of course. Then I'll probably be spending most of my time trying not to get eaten.)

So I guess that gives you (and me) a little bit of an idea as to what to expect coming up in this blog for the next year or so, anyway.

I'm hoping to make it to the Cassandra House show (with Sophie Buskin opening) this Thursday at the Patchogue Theatre's Loading Dock. Unfortunately, I popped by there Saturday and discovered it's sold out. (So kudos to House, Buskin and The Loading Dock). I've reached out to Ms. House and to the Patchogue Theatre to see if I can either can on a guest list or get a press pass, but unless I hear back from one of them, I'm gonna have to deep six that plan. (I would have bought a ticket earlier, but as my car drives pretty poorly in the snow, I sometimes like to wait until the week of a show between January and March to get some sense of what the weather is supposed to be like.)

But I do have a ticket for Cherish the Ladies at the Patchogue Theatre in March. And I'm also hoping to catch Leslie Mendelson at My Father's Place on April 11.

I'll also be keeping my eye on the local theater companies to hopefully cover some musical theater for you this year. I'm toying with the idea of catching the Argyle Theater's production of Caberet in early-to-mid March. And I'll be keeping my eye out for when the Gateway Theater releases their summer schedule, hopefully sometime soon.

Anyway, that should give you an idea of what to look forward to on this blog in the months to come. So stay safe and warm, people. And let the music flow.

China Crisis

A few weeks ago, I learned that China Crisis was playing a show at one of my favorite venues, The Boulton Center in Bay Shore. They were around the area last year (or late in 2018), playing at My Father's Place in Roslyn, and Denise had expressed interest in seeing them. We were away that day, though, or we had another commitment, so we didn't go. This time, when I let her know they were coming to Long Island again, she asked me if I'd like to see them.

Now I don't remember this band at all from the eighties. So I looked up their best known songs and went up on YouTube to give them a listen, figuring I'd find one or two familiar ones where I'd go, "Oh! So that was China Crisis." I listened to maybe five songs, but much to my amazement, zip, zilch, nada. I didn't recognize one of them. I liked their sound, however, so I told Denise I was in. I figured I'd just pretend they were a new band I'd never heard of. (I feel a little bad that we haven't been going to as many shows together since I hit live-show overload at that Bastille concert last year and decided to "boycott" Manhattan.)

This last week was pretty laid back. I had a bunch of work to catch up on, since we had the kids upstate last weekend to visit with their siblings and aunt and uncle, but I managed to hack my way through it in a couple of days.

But ss the show drew closer, I got a little dubious about whether it was going to actually take place. When I had first looked at tickets a few weeks ago, not many had been sold. And although it was still listed on the Boulton Center's web page, when I went up on China Crisis's Facebook page, it was nowhere to be found (nor was it listed on Setlist.fm.) I was a little on pins and needles all week waiting to see if the performance would happen, but as time wore on and we didn't hear about any cancellation, I figured we'd just assume the show was still on. And thankfully, it was.

I was a little tired yesterday, since I woke up early to the sounds of noisy yard work. I was confused (and a little pissed) about this -- we do hire contractors to maintain the back yard, but that's during the warm months -- it's the friggin' end of January! And I couldn't figure out how they had flown their lawn mowers over my car, since I usually have to park on the other side of the driveway for them to get to the yard. But today, it turned out to be the neighbors' crew. (@^&*x!)

Anyway, I took a fairly light day, but I was a little draggy before the show from getting up early.

Denise and I left early, since we'd learned (from Denise getting stuck on the way home) that Sunrise Highway was all backed up. (We later found out that some poor 70-year-old guy got killed trying to cross the service road, and that was why the police had the eastbound side closed off.) But by the time we left, the westbound side had opened up, so we were at the Boulton Center with time to spare.

When we walked in, we ran into John and Joni Blenn, and we chatted with them about various things (including the death of Terry Jones, the current status of Leslie West, and the mysterious disappearance of local songstress Kathy Fleischmann. Fleischmann, if you're out there somewhere, check in and say hi. The whole local music community misses you.) We also ran into Tina and Cindy from Denise's WLIR Facebook group (who had scored first row seats. Nice job!)

We bought a couple of waters and a pretzel and went inside, only to discover that Denise had accidentally bought us what I consider the best seats in the house (and the ones I'm going to try to buy from now on.) They were on the right aisle in Row E, which is the first row after a section break, so there's nothing but open space in front of you. (Talk about leg room! I was in heaven.) My seat felt a little tight (which I attribute to too much McDonald's over the last two weeks), but other than that, I was as comfy as could be. (I know that some of you read these write-ups to see how cranky I was feeling at a given show, but I think I'm gonna disappoint you for this one.)

Denise's friend Mary from the WLIR group saw us and said hello on the way in, and we briefly chatted about eighties music and adoption before the flickering lights let us know the show was about to start.

China Crisis came out as a 4-piece, which included original members Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon, plus a young fellow on keyboards and a sax player. (Unfortunately, I didn't write their names down, and they're not listed on either the band's Facebook page or their Wikipedia page.)

Daly and Lundon are a nice pair of Liverpudlian (or thereabouts) working class gents, both from large families, who seem to have made a nice little career for themselves. (I was going to call them a couple of old coots, but Wikipedia lists them both as having been born in 1962, which makes them both five years younger than me. So let's go with "strapping young lads".)

Daly came out looking a little like Mitch McConnell, but in a yellow-checkered glee club jacket, a black T-Shirt and pink tennis sneakers. (Or if you hate McConnell, substitute the guy from the first X-Men movie who gets turned into white goop and swooshes away all over Jean Grey's floor.) Lundon is his shorter, quieter sidekick, who laughs a lot, but proved he can curse pretty good too after he accidentally dropped his guitar following the seventh song.)

They're an affable pair, and Daly entertained at great length between numbers, with colorful stories about their parents' support for them being in a band (or lack thereof), sneaking into a show to see Thin Lizzy, making their first American tour opening for Simple Minds, and working with Steely Dan's Walter Becker. (And if you've ever listened to The Beatles talk, you know that everything is better when told with a Liverpudlian accent.)

Now I had done my usual due diligence, looking up a setlist they had played at a show in Pawling last weekend. (And by the way, "Pawling" is apparently going to be the name of my first future grandchild. My daughter likes to amuse herself on road trips by assigning her future children the names of the various exits on whatever thoroughfare we happen to be traveling on. Thanks to our trip to Florida a few years ago, I'm the proud future grandfather of a boy named "Okeechobee".)

I'd also printed this setlist out to bring to the show, and had familiarized myself with the band's music by making a YouTube playlist based on the Pawling show. But I had also noticed when I was up on setlist.fm that they like to mix it up a lot, and rarely do the same show two nights in a row. So I wasn't shocked when I found that my setlist was already out of whack by the first song.

Anyway, here's what I want to tell you about the show and the band:

1. China Crisis's music is very enjoyable. I'd describe their music as very chill eighties dance pop, most of which would be completely at home in a John Hughes movie. (Denise actually thought they did have a track on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack LP, but I looked it up and that seems not to have been the case.)

2. Their sound mixes simple, understated synthesizer, strummed guitar and tasteful, laid back sax. They accurately described some of their earlier songs as sounding vaguely Asian, thanks to what they call their "plinky plunky piano").

3. Besides Simple Minds, they mentioned having opened for such acts as The Police, David Bowie, Santana and Eurythmics, to name a few. Santana seems a little weird to me, but all of the others make perfect sense musically.

4. They talked about being influenced by people like Bowie, Brian Eno and Stevie Wonder, and also by contemporaries such as Human League and OMD, again, all of which made perfect sense.

5. I also heard musical echoes, in different songs, of artists such as The Cure ("Bigger the Punch I'm Feeling"), Martha and the Muffins ("Tragedy and Mystery"), and even Kenny G (who we all learned in South Park kisses just like Mr. Garrison's father)("Fool").

6. Daly handles the majority of the lead vocals with Lundon and the others providing backing harmonies. But Lundon did take the lead on two songs later in the evening ("Hands on the Wheel" and "Fool").

7. They really focus on slow-to-mid-tempo songs. The only remotely fast song they did all night was "King in a Catholic Style"; and

8. I suspect that this is why I was unfamiliar with them before. Much of their music, especially the earlier stuff, would have been perfect club music for when the DJ wanted to give couples a slow, romantic song to do some close dancing to. Denise was a club kid, and would have heard their stuff when she was out dancing. I had two left feet, and wouldn't have.

9. Some of my favorite songs going in (based on that YouTube playlist) included "Black Man Ray", "African and White" (which has been replaying in my head since the show last night), "Wishful Thinking" (which was their biggest hit in the UK) and "Working With Fire and Steel" (which was their biggest hit in the U.S., but which they surprisingly skipped for last night's show). Denise's favorite is "Arizona Sky". However;

10. I also found during the show that I particularly enjoyed "Here Comes a Raincloud", which they had played in Pawling, and "Autumn in the Neighborhood", which they hadn't. In all, they played a set that was two songs longer than the one they had performed in Pawling. So bite us, you Pawling punks! Ha ha ha ha ha!

In spite of the lack of promotion on the band's website, in the end, the auditorium wound up being about two thirds full, which the band seemed fairly pleased with. The audience was a bit more ... shall we say, interactive? ... than I'd have preferred, probably because Daly did so much talking between songs (at least in the first half of the show, until he realized it was almost 10 0'clock, and they still had a bunch more songs to get to.) And this time it was the ladies making most of the noise. (Oh, those eighties gals. So wild! So unpredictable!)

Anyway, I really didn't hear anything from the band that I didn't like. I enjoyed the show even more than I expected to, and I expected to enjoy it from the start. The full setlist can be found at https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/china-crisis/2020/boulton-center-for-the-performing-arts-bay-shore-ny-4b98affa.html. (I usually like to make wacky names for these links, but then I learned that when Denise copies the reviews to her Facebook group, the links don't work right, so we'll stick to the actual link just this once.)

I'm hoping to give you another concert write-up next week, but there's been a snag in that plan that I'm trying to work out, so we'll have to see how it goes. Be well, my peeps!