Folk Contest: Final Round Results

Well, this one was a forgone conclusion after the first day or two of voting. Our matchup was:

Amigo the Devil - Everything Is Fine vs. Fire on Fire - The Orchard

I voted for Fire on Fire, and I got my wish, as Fire on Fire won it all by a vote of 10 votes to 5.

I'd say it was a moderately successful tournament. The only negatives were: 1. Trying to get everyone to continually participate after the first round or two (it could have been worse. Most participated, but some lost interest after, or even before their picks were eliminated), and 2. Interpersonal issues. One guy got mad because I wouldn't allow his vote after the time limit. What made it even worse was his vote would have thrown the round into a tie, and there was another would-be late voter whose vote would have actually changed the result of the round. Ho boy!

Will I do it again next year? Probably. I'm stupid like that. I told myself I wouldn't, but by next year, I'll have forgotten what a pain in the ass it was sometimes, and I'll probably do it again.

Anyway, good on Fire On Fire. They're our tournament champions.

Folk Contest: Final Round

So this is it. As New York starts to come out of lock down for the pandemic, we've managed to spend at least some of these last two months thinking about folk music, and have reached the final round of our Folk Contest. Here are the two contestants:


Amigo the Devil
Everything Is Fine

Really fun and dark "Murderfolk" with a bluegrass twinge

https://open.spotify.com/album/59vkWqeq9otcDeUaLGKqfO


vs.

Fire On Fire
The Orchard

aydross121

Very accessible spin on this sort of apocalyptic folk subgenre. Think a less evil sounding Comus.

On Spotify and Google Play.


May the best folker win!

Folk Contest: Semifinal Round Results

I've been remiss in keeping you guys up-to-date on this, considering today is already the last day of voting for the finals. But anyway, here we go.

As you know, we had two matchups in this round.

1. Amigo the Devil - Everything Is Fine vs. Augie March - Sunset Studies

I voted for Amigo the Devil. Augie March got off to an early lead. However, in the end, Amigo the Devil carried the day, 9 votes to 6.


2. Matt Elliot - Farewell to All We Know vs. Fire on Fire - The Orchard

I voted for Fire on Fire. It was the same story as the other match: Matt Elliot carried the early vote, but Fire on Fire made a late comeback and scored the victory, 8 votes to 6.

So in a reversal, this week, both of my picks won. And Amigo the Devil and Fire on Fire move on to the finals.

Folk Contest: Semi-final Round

All right, at this point, we're down to our Final Four, and you can cut the tension with a butter knife. Or something. Here are the matchups:


1. Amigo the Devil Everything is Fine vs. Augie March Sunset Studies


Amigo the Devil
Everything Is Fine


Really fun and dark "Murderfolk" with a bluegrass twinge

https://open.spotify.com/album/59vkWqeq9otcDeUaLGKqfO


Augie March
Sunset Studies


It's Chamber Folk/ Indie Folk. An Australian band, this was their debut, and had some cracking tracks.

https://open.spotify.com/album/7tEwWmdqrQk7LcOeWKzvt7?si=WSkEmwMOQxWVjVerv1jsBQ


2. Matt Elliott Farewell to All We Know vs. Fire on Fire The Orchard


Matt Elliott
Farewell to All We Know


Do you believe in resurrection? You don't? Well, I did when I first heard this. This is the second coming of Leonard Cohen, I mused. He breathes throughout this album somehow. How very odd, how wonderful! It is probably not true, but damn it, he used to play a mean guitar, too. Enjoy!

https://mattelliott.bandcamp.com/album/farewell-to-all-we-know

or spotify



Fire On Fire
The Orchard


Very accessible spin on this sort of apocalyptic folk subgenre. Think a less evil sounding Comus.

On Spotify and Google Play.


These two contests will determine our championship matchup next week. I can't wait. (OK, I can. But I am interested.)

Folk Contest: Elimination Round Results

There wasn't a lot of conversation as to why people voted the way they voted, as by this time, we were all pretty familiar with all of the albums.

1. Amigo the Devil - Everything Is Fine vs. Ksiezyc - Ksiezyc

I voted for Ksiezyc. However, Amigo the Devil won 9 votes to 5.

2. Augie March - Sunset Studies vs. Clem Snide - Forever Just Beyond

I voted for Clem Snide. But the winner was Augie March, by a vote of 9 to 4.

3. Matt Elliott - Farewell to All We Know vs. Gordon Bok - A Song for November

I voted for Gordon Bok, and for a while, it looked like he'd carry the day. But there was a late surge for Matt Elliott, who won, 8-6.

4. The Trees Community - Christ Tree vs. Fire on Fire - The Orchard

This was the only difficult vote for me. In the end, I went with for happy hippy vocal harmonies and voted for The Trees Community. Thus dooming them, of course. The final vote was Fire on Fire 8, The Trees Community 5.

So yeah, my pick lost all votes this round. Sigh.

Anyway, Amigo the Devil, Augie March, Matt Elliott and Fire On Fire all move on.

Folk Contest: Elimination Round

Now it starts to get crazy. This is the quarterfinals, or as my prog rock contest friend Friday likes to call it, the Elimination Round. This week, the eight winners from Round 1 are paired up and matched against each other.

This week, all four matches will be held at once, with the four winners going on to the semi-finals. Our remaining entries are:

1. Amigo the Devil - Everything Is Fine vs. Ksiezyc - Ksiezyc

Amigo the Devil
Everything Is Fine

Really fun and dark "Murderfolk" with a bluegrass twinge

https://open.spotify.com/album/59vkWqeq9otcDeUaLGKqfO


Ksiezyc
Ksiezyc

do you like your folk medieval, polish and like you're in some kind of apocalyptic luddite church? jam hard or die

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUEuajM4Geg



2. Augie March - Sunset Studies vs. Clem Snide - Forever Just Beyond

Augie March
Sunset Studies

It's Chamber Folk/ Indie Folk. An Australian band, this was their debut, and had some cracking tracks.

https://open.spotify.com/album/7tEwWmdqrQk7LcOeWKzvt7?si=WSkEmwMOQxWVjVerv1jsBQ



Clem Snide
Forever Just Beyond

As I'm obsessed with it right now, a new release:

https://clemsnideband.bandcamp.com/releases

Also available on YouTube



3. Matt Elliott - Farewell to All We Know vs. Gordon Bok - A Song for November

Matt Elliott
Farewell to All We Know


Northern Skylark

Do you believe in resurrection? You don't? Well, I did when I first heard this. This is the second coming of Leonard Cohen, I mused. He breathes throughout this album somehow. How very odd, how wonderful! It is probably not true, but damn it, he used to play a mean guitar, too. Enjoy!

https://mattelliott.bandcamp.com/album/farewell-to-all-we-know

or spotify


Gordon Bok
A Tune for November

My pick is on YouTube, I saw it there. He is old school sea shanty New England type stuff pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n6v45J3vGk



4. The Trees Community - Christ Tree vs. Fire on Fire - The Orchard

The Trees Community
Christ Tree

An early "freak folk" album mixing Christian liturgical music, psychedelia, and world music. This is probably the only album I could describe as simultaneously experimental harmonically (microtones in the Asian influences) and instrumentally (sitars, harps, weird percussion), yet quaintly old-fashion and homey (mainly their singing tone). The group's website states their influences "ranged from the Incredible String Band and Moody Blues to Indian Raga and Balinese Monkey Chant, from traditional American sacred folk music to Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Charles Ives, Bela Bartak and Claude Debussy."

https://youtu.be/kdeYjCq1poY


Fire On Fire
The Orchard

Very accessible spin on this sort of apocalyptic folk subgenre. Think a less evil sounding Comus.

On Spotify and Google Play.

Folk Contest: Round 1 Match 8 Results

Zoinks! Forgot to post this. This one was never really close. It was also a weird round, because one of the guys whose rec was up for voting got mad at me three weeks ago and essentially dropped out, when he tried to vote after the deadline and I disallowed it. And the other guy whose rec was up for a vote voted for the first guy's rec instead of his own. (And it doesn't seem to have been any kind of protest vote - he just liked the other rec better.)

Anyway, here was my vote:

Laura Gibson - This isn't really a folk album - I suspect her previous work was probably more folky/alt country - this feels to me more like light jazz pop. It is a good album though. I especially like "Slow Joke Grin".

Unfortunately, for Laura, though, she runs into a buzzsaw with Fire on Fire. This album is weird and wonderful, with multiple singers. I wasn't familiar with this band, or with Cerberus Shoal, the band they grew out of, but I will listen to more of both in the future.

My vote is for Fire on Fire.

The majority of the rest of the group agreed with me. 

Final Results: Laura Gibson 3 votes, Fire on Fire 7 votes.

Winner: Fire on Fire

Favorite Artists, Part 9: About The Cars

As my regular readers (reader? heh heh) might know, this one has been a long time coming. That's because I was just about to write this about a month and a half ago, and I suddenly got sidetracked listening to the various members of the band's solo albums.

By the mid-to-late 1970s, the prog rock that I loved was under attack by the young barbarians of the punk rock movement. This didn't really thrill me. I had no real interest in The Sex Pistols, and I only came to know The Ramones during the '80s.

But there were artists and bands associated with this movement that I did like, such as Patti Smith and Blondie. And eventually, they kind of morphed with the public perception into the new wave movement of the late '70s and early '80s.

The Cars were a Boston band who came together in 1976. Prior to this, various members had played together in other projects, but this was when the classic lineup of guitarist, singer and songwriter Ric Ocasek, singer and bass player Benjamin Orr, lead guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboard player Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson  became The Cars. They released their first eponymous LP in 1978, and went on to produce a total of six studio albums before breaking up a decade later.

Sadly, Benjamin Orr died in 2000 of pancreatic cancer. Easton and Hawkes briefly banded together with Todd Rundgren in 2005 to form The New Cars (which mostly played covers of Cars and Rundgren songs.) Then in 2011, the surviving original members of the band regrouped to produce one more album, Move Like This. Ocasek died in 2019, thereby assuring that we'd never see another Cars project again. (Although we could possibly see a reunion of The New Cars, which I personally wouldn't mind.)

So really, The entire Cars output consists of seven studio albums, one New Cars album mostly of live covers, and the various solo projects of the individual band members. Robinson is the only one who never put out a solo album, while Orr, Easton and Hawkes put out one original studio LP each, and Ocasek put out six or seven (depending upon how you count them) solo projects. It's not a huge output, compared to most of the artists I've written about before, but it's not terrible either. (Hawkes also released an obscure soundtrack album that's impossible to find these days, and an LP full of covers of Beatles songs performed on the ukelele. But I've never gone down those particular rabbit holes.)

Truthfully, though, the meat of The Cars' reputation rests on the shoulders of those first five studio albums, from The Cars (1978) to Heartbeat City (1984). Everything else I mentioned is the equivalent of dessert, plus an after-dinner mint.

So what do I like about The Cars, and why did they make my Favorite Artists list?

The Cars got off to a great start with me from that first single, "Just What I Needed". I liked the attitude, and I loved Orr's use of synths. After listening to the great classic keyboardists of the '70s, Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson, and their majestic, sweeping styles, this song featured the synthesizer being used in a far different way, adopted for a pop format. It's still kind of sweeping, but here, it's driving home a hook, as it functions as an instrumental chorus. As the '80s went on, synth pop would feature synthesizer lines that were even shorter and poppier. But few of them would grip me the way the synth line does here.

In fact, "Just What I Needed" already featured a number of the elements that would make The Cars so popular. The Orr/Ocasek vocal style (and I'm embarrassed to tell you how many years it was before I realized that it was Orr on lead vocal here and not Ocasek); the trademarked Easton/Orr chunka chunka guitar and bass lines; and the attitude of the vocalist's relationship with the various women he sings about are all contained here, in their very first release.

So yeah, the first couple of elements I like about The Cars are definitely their songwriting (most of their songs were written by Ocasek, although Orr wrote a significant number of them early on), and Hawkes' use of synthesizers. (I didn't mind the chunka chunka guitars, or the nearly-spoken vocals, but while they were key elements of the band's style, they weren't my favorite pieces of that style.)

The second thing I loved about The Cars was their level of consistency over those first five albums. I'd rate the first, the second and fifth slightly higher than the third and the fourth (we're talking The Cars, Candy-O and Heartbeat City over Panorama and Shake It Up), and the sales figures bear me out on this. But really, we're talking maybe half a star's difference here, and odds are that if you like one of these albums, you like them all.

The Cars' last two albums are fairly average, but like I said, they're just minor additions to the main part of the band's catalog. Likewise, The New Cars project was kind of fun, but the project only created two or three original tracks.

As for the solo projects, as I've learned recently, there are some treats to be found there. The Easton album is fairly ordinary, while the Orr LP is a decent little pop rock album. The jewels to be had, though, are Hawkes' almost entirely instrumental Niagara Falls (1983) (which unfortunately you can only buy on vinyl, but you can hear the whole thing YouTube), and the first Ocasek solo album, Beattitude (1982). Several of his other solo projects are pretty good as well.

The Cars didn't have a reputation as a great live band, but they're one of the bands I'm still sorry to have missed. They were a great singles band, though, and they came along at a time where singles were coming back into prominence over albums. I don't put them in the same category as great '70s bands like The Who and Pink Floyd. But they were a great bridge from the rock-centered music of the '70s to the pop-centered music of the '80s. And now that I know that they're really gone, damn it, I miss them.

And that's really all I have to say about The Cars.

May 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. The list of May songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - May 2020.

1. The theme for this month was a little complicated. It was entitled "A Netflix Original". The idea was to come up with a pitch for an original show on Netflix, then submit a song that goes with the show as a song for the opening credits. Unfortunately, this theme confused or scared off enough people that we had fewer participants than we often do, so those of use who did make recs were invited to also submit a song for their show's closing credits.

2. I totally copped out by submitting a pitch for a show called Friday the 13th: Forest Green (which is what the town of Crystal Lake renamed itself in one of the later Friday the 13th films.) This allowed me do what I really wanted to do, which was submit Alice Cooper's classic "He's Back: The Man Behind the Mask" (which was actually created for, and used as, the theme for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.) For my closing credits' music, I selected New Jersey band Reality Suite's awesome song "Grave". (Alice Cooper - He's Back: The Man Behind the Mask; Reality Suite - Grave).

3. My vote for highest rated song of the month produced a tie between a classical music piece, Hector Berlioz's "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath" (Hector Berlioz - Dream of a Witches' Sabbath) and a track called "The Face You Don't Recognize" by James Joys (James Joys - The Face You Don't Recognize).

4. The highest rated song by the group in general was "Television Tower" by Monolake (Monolake - Television Tower.) I liked this song quite a bit myself.

5. The link to the playlist for the month, minus the two songs I couldn't find on YouTube, is May 2020 Song of the Day YouTube Playlist.