I hope everyone is having a fine Christmas so far! Here’s a rather short, quick, and simple LP Monday choice, but I hope you enjoy it ^^
“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (1971), John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band. The first Christmas-related release by a Beatle after their breakup. They used to send an annual Christmas single to their fans in the Beatle fan club, and each one of them would write a Christmas tune during their solo years, beginning with this song by John.
One of Lennon’s many anti-war Vietnam songs, he said he took a lot of what he learned with his hit “Imagine” to write this song. “Put your political message across with a little honey,” he discovered. The song would release in the US in December 1971, but it wouldn’t chart or achieve much success initially. Due to its later release it received less radio play and wasn’t given an appropriate amount of time to gain popularity before the season was over. However, with its delayed release in the UK till the following year, it would do quite well over there since it would release with plenty of time before the holidays. Ultimately it would chart its highest though shortly following Lennon’s death in 1980. Since then it has slowly become a Christmas classic.
One more fun fact about the song is the commonly misheard beginning. At the start of the song Yoko whispers “Happy Christmas, Kyoko” followed by John whispering “Happy Christmas, Julian”. This was mistakenly listed as “Happy Christmas, Yoko” and “Happy Christmas, John” on the lyrics sheet for their compilation album which this single appears on. The actual names spoken are Kyoko and Julian, Ono’s and Lennon’s children, respectively.
I’ll end this short entry with this Christmas short film, directed by Wes Anderson and featuring Adrian Brody. Yes, technically it’s an advertisement for H&M, but it shows off the style and charm of a normal Wes Anderson feature film. It also features this song in its closing ^^
Christmas is quickly approaching, with only one more week to go! So to help get y’all in the holiday spirit I decided to grab a Christmas tune from my library. Hope you enjoy!
Living In The Past (1972), by Jethro Tull. It’s been about one year since last featuring one of Jethro Tull’s albums on LP Mondays. At the time I described them as “the band that had the biggest impact upon me last year,” and a year later I still easily list them as one my all-time favorites. They’re also quickly becoming one my Christmas traditions with their excellent The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, which features arrangements of classical Christmas melodies along with a large selection of original Christmas and winter-related tunes they wrote over their career. But today I’m talking about a different Jethro Tull album.
The compilation album Living In The Past consists of a few unreleased songs, but is primarily a collection of their early singles. Several of the songs on the album were remixed slightly and were reworked in stereo, only ever having a mono release prior to the album. Along with all of the singles and early cuts, the third side contains two songs from their live performance at Carnegie Hall in 1970. The album itself is packaged more like a large hardcover book that opens up as a booklet with over 50 featured photos of the band. The second and second last pages are actually record sleeves that hold the two LPs. As you can tell from the photo, the gold lettering on the front cover of mine has faded with the years. Later reissues would use different packaging materials, change the back to list the tracks, and would also change the colors to a more reddish maroon and yellowish gold for an overall brighter color scheme.
Enough talk about packaging though, what about the songs? The first one is bluntly titled “A Christmas Song” and was originally released as the B-side of their third single “Love Story” in 1968 (but was also included on a few B-sides of their next single “Living in the Past”). The song features the usual sarcasm and humor that several of Ian Anderson’s lyrics tend to carry with them. As a whole, the song warns against the “thoughtless pleasures” that comes with the holiday festivities and our tendency to forget what the holiday originally was meant to celebrate. He poses the question: How we can feast when there are others in the world suffering? Eventually the speaker concludes that this is “just a Christmas Song” and decides to join in with the celebration. Side note, the song would amusingly get a sequel more than 20 years later titled “Another Christmas Song”.
The next song is a little different than most others on the album. “Wond’ring Again” is actually a very early cut of the tune “Wond’ring Aloud” which made an appearance on their famous album Aqualung. The original version addresses the fact that we are using up the Earth’s natural resources and contemplates the future that our children will be left with. The first two verses discuss this through satire while pointing out that the poor and weak are the first subjected to our mistakes. The third and final verse changes focus from the illustrated satire to a first-person interaction that acts as symbolism against the rest of the song.
The Aqualung version is less than half the length of the original cut, consists of almost entirely new lyrics, and is stripped down to only a simple acoustic guitar, piano, and an added string part. As for the lyrics, the original is often seen as being more pessimistic when compared to the romantic lyrics of the second version. There is no publicly known reason the song was changed for the album and there are many fan theories behind the alterations made to the piece. Some argue that the second version could be interpreted as a love song written to Anderson’s newly married wife, while others point out the fact that the original cut was the final song their ex-bass player contributed to. Another popular belief is that it was too heavy of a subject matter and did not nicely fit in with the already complicated themes of god and religion that Aqualung dealt with. I think these are all contributing factors, but would probably give more credit to the idea that it did not fit smoothly on the album. Several of the songs on Aqualung tend to be long, serious (or at least sarcastically serious), and occasionally grave in tone, but they are offset with short roughly one-minute tracks that are almost the complete opposite. Some of these songs are happy, some sad, some just silly, but they offer the listener a short break from the complicated themes of the album and provide a delightful bridge to the following song.
I’m honestly torn between which version I prefer, but I do believe that “Wond’ring Aloud” is the best fit for its place on the Aqualung album. However, “Wond’ring Again” has its third verse, which is just so…perfect! If you’re looking for the best of both worlds though, a few years ago they officially released an amazing mash-up titled “Wond’ring Aloud, Again”. Jethro Tull’s wacky antics and silly sense of humor isn’t for everyone, but Ian Anderson really does have a knack for poetry and the courage to tackle deep, compelling topics. They may be rather eclectic in their tastes and influences, but their music ends up ironically becoming very niche in nature.
Here’s another band that I’ve been itching for some time now to feature on a Monday LP. As 2017 comes closer and closer to wrapping up, I also wanted to pick one of my favorite albums to be released this year.
Crack-Up (2017), Fleet Foxes. One of the bands that I really fell head-over-heels for during my first year of college. They had all the traits I was looking for in music at the time. Colorful, complex lyrics, a wide range in musical instruments, and a strong sense of visual style in their album design and music videos. Oh, and I guess there was also the important factor that “folk” had taken the top spot in my music taste at the time. This came from me diving deeper into musicians I grew up listening to, like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, and was also helped by the boom of the “freak-folk” movement, with bands like Mumford & Sons, Of Monsters and Men, and Bon Iver. Anyways, you can imagine my disappointment when they announced they were going on hiatus while they’re lead singer/songwriter, Robin Pecknold, returned to college. They had only made two full albums and a short EP (plus a second EP, if you count their first self-published demo EP, with only 50 copies made and sold at their first shows). How could they leave so soon?! Well, Crack-Up was their long awaited return after 6 years and boy, was it worth the wait 😀
While the band’s lineup has had some slight changes over the years, most famously Josh Tillman (AKA Father John Misty) as their drummer for a few years, the group has mostly been spearheaded by Pecknold and normally consists of around five core members with almost all members providing vocal harmonies. The multilayered vocal harmonies come largely from one of their primary musical inspirations, The Beach Boys. Their influence can be heard more prominently in their earlier works, but it definitely helped shape their overall sound as well. Even some of the abrupt time signature changes mid-song for some of Fleet Foxes’ tunes mimic some of Brian Wilson’s more avant-garde work.
The album Crack-Up picks up immediately where Helplessness Blues left off, literally following the final lyrics of the previous album. “Grown Ocean” (the final track of the previous record) has a “call-and-response” structure, where the second line answers the first line, but the final call is left unanswered as the album unexpectedly ends. The speaker of the song reaches out to their older self in the future for assistance, thus leaving the last call unanswered till they have the solution. This is where the opening lines of “I Am All That I Need” answer that call, left hanging for the past six years. Much of the rest of Crack-Up follows a similar pattern with what I like to call “partnered songs”, where a track is directly followed with a response to the previous track. Some of these tracks are so closely intertwined that they become the same song, with titles like “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar” for the first track. All of the songs share some common themes and ideas, but I feel like a large portion of the record follows this pairing pretty closely (occasionally weaving together three songs).
But what about the two songs I chose specifically? While they don’t directly follow one another, both of them are featured on the second half of the record and it is still possible to draw connections between the two. The first is “If You Need To, Keep Time On Me”, an actually rather subdued piece in comparison to several of the other tracks on the album. It largely focuses around an acoustic guitar part accompanied by a piano and a mixture of swirling musical notes and sounds deep within the mix. What really makes this a standout piece on the record though is in its subtleties. On multiple occasions, tunes from the album change key and rhythm almost without warning, leaving you with this startled transition, that can still be beautiful, just in a different way. “If You Need To, Keep Time On Me”, on the other hand, gracefully changes key three times as well as tempo while never feeling rushed.
“Fool’s Errand” is an amazing example of the contrary though. The song’s verses are carried by this driving, staccato rhythm with even the lyrics sung in a similar manner using unusual harmonies. The composition is able to craft this sense of discomfort or unease with this; however, it distills these feelings almost immediately upon entering the chorus. With the arrival of the chorus, everything immediately shifts. The music becomes legato and flowing, now slower in tempo, and the singing rises becoming almost joyful. Taking a closer look into the lyrics, we also notice an interesting change from verse to chorus, but in a different way. The verses speak of unrest and troubles and our attempts to conquer them before admitting our faults in the chorus. This is expressed as “I knew it was a fool’s errand” (hence the title).
So where do the songs connect? Well first, we’ll need to take a dive into the lyrics of “If You Need To, Keep Time On Me”. The title is repeated twice at the end of each phrase and expressed in a comforting manner to someone unspoken. Perhaps it is spoken to a lover as their relationship teeters on the edge of the abyss, and the following song is looking back after the relationship has truly fallen to pieces. However, I think there are enough hints to paint a different picture as well. In the lyric insert sheet with the record, the first song begins with the date “January 20th, 2017”, the day that Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. This is also teamed with the line “Who knows what State is in store” with an emphasis on the capitalized word “State” to help drive the point home. This new interpretation can also alter the way we view the second song. While I feel like “Fool’s Errand” is less specific and purposefully more vague in its lyrics, it is hard not to connect the line “Blind love couldn’t win as the facts came in” with the political race of 2016.
Whichever way you look at it, I love how they structure their lyrics. Even within the lyric sheet there are places where a word is written twice with two different, yet similar sounding options. For example the line from “If You Need To, Keep Time On Me” that reads “A frightened fool stokes [heedless/heatless] fire” ultimately leaving it up to the reader which word you think the singer is saying or which one better fits the sentence. The Fleet Foxes’ work is filled with several of these small nuances that really makes them into something special. Their songs overflow with a multitude of sounds and emotions.
While I dearly missed their presence, I am glad they were able to take a productive break from music and return with such a well-executed album. I’m fairly confident that if someone asked me to name only one band as my “all-time favorite”…I couldn’t answer ^^;
Although, Fleet Foxes would definitely be one of the names that would run through my mind ;D
Alright, alright. Let’s step back only one year from last week’s LP to cover a talented folk singer.
Clouds (1969), Joni Mitchell. An unconventional album at times, with unusual harmonies, open-tuned guitar work, and unique love stories. Clouds is even more impressive when you consider this was only Mitchell’s sophomore offering, strongly signaling at what was to become of her impressive career.
Joni Mitchell, possibly one of the few music artists that did not originally choose to primarily be a musician. She has a strong passion (and skill!) for painting and is often famously quoted as being a “painter derailed by circumstance”. Her ability as a visual artist is apparent in several of her album covers (including this one, a self-portrait) where she would paint, photograph, and design much of her own work. Oh, and she almost always produced all of her work herself, beginning with this album. Her music ranges from a more traditional folk sound to full orchestra pieces, jazz, R&B, prog, and even some electronic work. When some people refer her to as “The female singer/songwriter of the 20th Century”, you can really understand the wide-spread effect of her work.
While she played guitar and sang from a young age, initially Mitchell just wrote songs for musicians in the music scene. She wrote (and inspired) a few songs for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, as well as others like Judy Collins and Dave Van Ronk. Much of her songwriting is often likened to that of her fellow Canadian, Leonard Cohen, with a strong poetic quality to her lyrics. As for her guitar playing, Mitchell was famous for playing open-tuned, which is where a guitar is tuned to play a chord with “open” strings (without fingers pressing on a string). She learned to play like this because as a child she contracted polio that effected her ability to stretch her fingers when first learning to play. Originally a limitation, it ended up influencing her songwriting as she discovered unusual harmonies and chords through her experimentation.
The songs I included are the final two tracks on the record. “The Fiddle and The Drum” is completely acapella, uncommon for her music, but I feel that it really shows off her raw, sometimes rugged vocal range as a singer. The lyrics of the song address “Johnny” (often interpreted as representing the U.S.) and his choice to “trade the fiddle for the drum”, referring to his desire for war. While clearly written in response to the Vietnam War, the song saw a resurgence in 2004 when it was attached to the protest against the war in Iraq.
“Both Sides, Now” is possibly Mitchell’s most recognizable work, but she actually wasn’t the original one to record it. In fact, roughly a dozen different singers and bands would cover the tune before she finally released her own version and then followed that up with another version in 2000. The song addresses three subjects: clouds, love, and life. Each verse tackles one subject with the singer expressing her initial positive reaction and opinion of each topic before admitting her now bleaker outlook on it. The verses are then followed by its corresponding chorus exclaiming that she’s “looked at both sides, now”, but she still fails to fully understand the merits and issues each one carries.
The love stories depicted on Clouds are fascinating, addressing their shortcomings while admiring their highlights. The record is through and through authentic Joni Mitchell material, with only the occasional song where she is joined by David Crosby (from the Byrds) on electric guitar. Along with the stellar album that is Blue (which would shortly follow this album), Clouds provides a solid example of Mitchell’s songwriting and what she brought to the folk scene.
Here’s yet another album on my all-time-favorites list that I’ve actually been waiting for the best date to talk about it.
All Things Must Pass (1970), by George Harrison. The album was originally released on this date exactly 47 years ago, marking Harrison’s first release after the breakup of the Beatles earlier that same year (but not his first solo work, that was earlier with Wonderwall in ’68).
The Beatles. What can be said about a band in a brief blog entry when there are countless volumes of books about their music and influence? The last time I featured an album from them (way back for LP 3), I introduced them as the band that “didn’t need any introduction.” While some people may not be closely familiar with everything they did, almost everyone can recognize at least a few bars from something in their extensive song library. So in an attempt to keep from repeating common knowledge (and for the sake of time), let’s skip right over the Beatles and focus on the album.
All Things Must Pass came out roughly 6 months after the Beatles final album Let It Be. It consists of a varied range of musical styles, a large list of guest musicians, and a long list of songs written by Harrison (with the exception of two tracks contributed by Bob Dylan). The album was largely made up of songs he had accumulated over the years, including a few tunes George originally wrote for the Beatles, but had ultimately been rejected. The two Dylan works were done while George visited at Dylan’s home in the states. Both tunes are an example of their close friendship they had formed (along with another song on the album “Behind That Locked Door”, which Harrison wrote for Dylan) and the beginning of a songwriting partnership that would eventually come to a peak with the Traveling Wilburys in the late 80s.
While we’re discussing it, let’s jump right into the first song I chose today. “I’d Have You Anytime” is one of the songs they wrote at Dylan’s secluded home outside Woodstock, NY, and both of them are listed as the co-songwriters. A rather unconventional album opener (especially at the time), it serves as a rather slow, calm opening that accurately displayed the more meek nature of “the quite Beatle”. The next tune, “Apple Scruffs”, arguably shows off even more of Dylan’s influence on George. With a folksy acoustic guitar part and a harmonica part played by Harrison, the song was meant as a thank you to the die-hard Beatles fans (often referred to as Apple Scruffs) that existed long after the first wave of “Beatlemania”.
Due to the length of the album I decided to select a third song as well from the record. All Things Must Pass is pretty much amazing front to back and features some very well known tunes (like “My Sweet Lord”, still one of my all-time favorite Harrison songs, period), but I wanted to stress just how good some of the lesser known stuff is. However, I couldn’t exclude the one tune that Harrison deemed important enough to feature twice on a single album (but I could still pull out my hipster card and select the less popular version >:D). The song “Isn’t It A Pity” is one of those powerful songs that just make you stop, listen, and think. Like a particularly famous Beatles song, it looks at life’s problems and exclaims how a little bit of love can go a long way. However, with this song, Harrison’s words are broken and downtrodden. The song doesn’t proclaim what love can achieve, but rather looks at the sorrow that is wrought by the absence of such a thing. The lyrics cry out “Isn’t it a pity” because we refuse to let love solve our problems.
One of my favorite albums, by one of my favorite artists, All Things Must Pass easily makes it onto my list of “The Best (according to my humble opinion)”. Another part of the album I didn’t really mention was the third disc, known as “Apple Jam”. It features five different jam sessions from the impressively long and diverse list of musicians that worked on the album. While definitely unrefined in the way that jams can become, it is still a lot of fun to listen to a group of individuals play just for the heck of playing.
For this week’s LP, let’s dive into something I haven’t featured here yet: Contemporary Christian! W-Wait! Don’t leave just yet! I promise, they’re really worth your time ^^;
The Long Fall Back To Earth (2009), Jars of Clay. One of the very first bands I remember finding that wasn’t introduced to me by my parents. I loved the John Denver, Bob Dylan, Elvis, and Eagles music that my parents showed me as a kid (and I still do!), but Jars of Clay were easily one of the first bands I recall looking for CDs of in Wal-Mart by myself. While not my first introduction to the band (that would have been the amazing Good Monsters), I received this album as a gift (in CD form) shortly after its release, and it has rarely ever left my active listening catalogue 😀
The Nashville quartet Jars of Clay is…well, yes, a Contemporary Christian band – technically – but they do an amazing job of avoiding some of the negative criticism that the genre receives. The genre often gets slammed for its lack of creativity, lower quality of musicianship, and overly “in-your-face” messages (kinda similar to how some psychedelic music isn’t taken seriously with its recurring “hippie” lyrics). I’m not saying that all Contemporary Christian is bad, unoriginal, and preachy, but there sadly is a large selection of music from the genre that will fall short in one of those categories. Christian music ain’t the only genre to suffer from these problems, but they do have their fair share of them though.
However, I feel like the difference with Jars of Clay’s music should be apparent right out of the gate. Their music is rich with interesting sounds and an impressive range of musical instruments, from acoustic to electric. Their lyrics are poetic, complex, and often the complete opposite of the straightforward lyrics associated with the genre. Launching their career with their platinum selling self-titled album in ’95, they made an immediate impression with their acoustic, folk music that blended mandolins, violins, and organs (and that was during the era of grunge!). Several of their albums would have them changing gears and focusing in on different styles. Sometimes it exceeded expectations, other times it flopped (that type of plan can do that), but either way they were able to provide something new and often refreshing with each release.
The album The Long Fall Back To Earth came after the critical success of Good Monsters and I feel there was a decent amount of interest as to whether or not they would stay with their new, well-received sound or try something new once again. The truth ended up being the latter, but this time it was an even greater shift than normal. They had laid aside their folk music and their newly acquired rock for something mostly digital. The album, as a whole, has a distinct Indie feel with an 80s influence like music from The Cure or even Bowie. It could also be described as having an almost ethereal quality that is reminiscent of something you could expect from the Flaming Lips or certain Radiohead tunes. Another thing to note about the album is its largely melancholic nature with several noteworthy uplifting songs, but still a more somber tone overall.
The record is literally chockfull of great tunes that I could listen to for forever, but I had to somehow narrow it down to only two songs. As much as I really, really wanted to list “Hero” on here, it regretfully had to be set aside for these two (also equally amazing) songs. “Safe To Land” is a great example of the beautifully subdued, calm sound the album features. It is initially driven by the constant droning of a lone electric guitar that begins quietly before being overcome by the (synth) strings and the crescendo of the drums. Also take a close listen during the bridge for some nice synth work that adds just that nice flourish to the track. The other tune, “Boys (Lesson One)” also displays a unique music direction, this time being propelled mostly by drum loops and synth. The lyrics, while still very poetic, are less abstract and more in the form of a story. The song was originally written directly for the band members’ sons (hence the title “Boys”) and I feel that alone can easily explain most of its lyrics. I’m pretty sure I could feel a whole page on the lines that I love from this song, but instead I would just encourage you to listen closely and savor each part of it.
While I’m not sure what Jars of Clay album I would label as “their best” (it’s so hard to compare them since they’re all so different) I can pretty confidently state that The Long Fall Back To Earth is my personal favorite. If you’re not convinced this album is for you, but your curious about their other music, there really isn’t a terrible album you could pick up from them. Although, they’re most recent album, Inland, is an awesome starting point if you want a little bit of everything they can offer.
I confess. I may have partially chosen a Band album last time because I wanted to do this record this week. Hopefully it’ll make sense why I teamed these albums up together…
TX Jelly (2017), by The Texas Gentlemen (or The Gents, for short). So I got to see this band live in Boise this past week, and boy were they fun live! I’ve definitely seen several bands live that can just jam on a tune or pull out some impressive solos before, but The Gents were really able to shine in these categories.
The Texas Gentlemen are largely based out of Dallas, Texas (big surprise there). There’s not a lot of info out there yet about the band, but that’s largely due to the fact that they are still a fairly new name. Their first album TX Jelly was only released this September and they’ve mostly spent their time as studio musicians and as backing bands for touring artists (see, I told you there’d be a connection to The Band). Last year they were Kris Kristofferson’s backing band on tour and they’ve backed other musicians such as Ed Sheeran and Leon Bridges. While the specific number of musicians within the group is really hard to pinpoint (I heard an estimate somewhere around 50, and the liner notes mention at least 15 musicians on this album), the group is largely spearheaded by Beau Bedford, who wrote two of the songs, performed on most of them, mixed, and produced the album. When I saw them live, they were a 6-piece band backing Paul Cauthen (also listed as another member of The Gents).
So let’s dive into the album, TX Jelly. I admit, on the first listen through the album may seem a little jarring to some listeners. The multiple musical influences are pretty apparent right away as the album shifts between country, funk, psychedelic, roots, jazz, gospel, and rock. While this large variety ends up creating a less cohesive album as a whole, it makes up for its lack of focus by displaying their impressive versatility and range as musicians. The record truly feels like a group of fellow musicians really playing around and showing off what they do best. If I had to get critical about their work (so far), I’d say that their music is more about the “music” side of things and less about the lyrics. They make fabulous musicians, but I’d really like to see them practice their song writing skills some more in the future. That’s not to say they don’t have any good lyrics in their songs though. I’m actually really fond of the words behind “Superstition” and “Trading Paint” still has some amusing lyrics as well.
The tunes I chose for this Monday LP show the band on two different ends of music styles. The co-lead singer/co-songwriter of “Gone” is Paul Cauthen (who was the main act of the concert) and he’s the one that starts off the tune. This song has a strong driving beat with some fun extensions of short words (such as the title word, “gone”) stretched out into long phrases with multiple pitch changes. The song also features a slow breakdown with it’s bridge that changes up the tempo some. The other tune “Shakin’ All Over” is probably my favorite from them, and their live rendition was extremely impressive. More of a jam song, the song is a long and largely instrumental take on the classic rock tune most famously covered by The Guess Who. Their version almost ends on multiple occasions, only to come back even stronger and louder every single time.
Overall, The Texas Gentlemen are a fresh batch of musicians who really seem to have a passion for their variety of music. While their first album may show off a band that is still trying to get their footing in the industry and practice their songwriting skills, it also displays a large collection of musicians who are at the top of their game and able to play just about anything thrown their way. I’d highly recommend giving them a listen, even if all of their music doesn’t grab your attention, there’s likely something in TX Jelly for you. I would definitely urge people to see them live though, because I feel that’s where they’re really able to show off :3
Also once again, a big thanks to Vinyl Me, Please. This is a copy of their limited pressing of 500 copies on “blue & gold splatter” vinyl (mine’s numbered #459). It was through them that I first stumbled upon The Gents, and like several others I’ve discovered on Vinyl Me, Please, I was not disappointed. Hey! If you’re lucky, they may still have a few copies left on their site: TX Jelly
I thought a live album would be a nice change of pace…well, that was until I realized the still fairly recent LP 22 was a live album. Oh well, this one’s already recorded and ready to get posted ^^;
Rock of Ages: The Band in Concert (1972), by The Band. And before you ask, yes, “The Band” is the name of the band. I thought the same thing the first time someone told me about the Canadian group, and it doesn’t make talking about them in conversation, or even Googling info about them, very easy. However, once you dive into their music and who they actually were, I swear their name will make sense.
It’s very easy to forget that behind most albums and songs, there is often more people at work than just the music artist that sings the tune. Sure, there are songwriters who don’t get a lot of time in the limelight, but I’m talking about someone else that tends to get even less attention. The backing band members and the studio musicians. The songwriter normally gets their name next to the title of the song, but that random musician that came in and played drums for one tune? Listed deep within the album notes, and that’s if they’re lucky sometimes. The same can be true of live performances when a singer goes on tour. Normally the lead musician is polite enough to introduce the band members to the crowd, but this formality is also sometimes skipped over.
That is not to say that these musicians aren’t as talented as the frontman they’re backing (sometimes it can amusingly be the opposite), they just tend to be unknown names to the public. They often end up in groups so that studios can find bits for them easier. Whether it’s something like a horn group or a rhythm group, they find other musicians they are able to play well with. Some of these unofficial “bands” would even be given their own titles, like the Funk Brothers, The Nashville A-Team, or the famous Wrecking Crew. However, except for a few minor exceptions, these groups never (successfully) released much material on their own. Glen Campbell, originally a guitar player for the Wrecking Crew, is a good example of an exception, but even he would have to release six albums before catching the public’s eye. The Band is another such example.
Tracing the beginnings of The Band is confusing at best, but if you were to over simplify it, it would begin with “The Hawks”. Originally put together by the rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and based in Toronto, the band would gradually change its lineup over the years until it consisted of the members that now make up “The Band”. They would split from Hawkins in ’64 and briefly be known as “Levon and the Hawks” (named after the drummer, Levon Helm, who had been with the band the longest, since ’57), but it wouldn’t be until 1965 when they would really hit the big-time as Bob Dylan’s backing band during his first “electric” U.S. tour (and for his world tour the following year). While still technically “The Hawks” at this time, on tour they were often just billed as “Bob Dylan and the Band”. They ended up forming a strong relationship with the famous folk singer, who would contribute in several ways to the band by writing songs and painting album covers for their solo years later. When they struck out on their own again in 1968 they realized that most people who recognized them knew them only as “the band”, and as they say, “The rest is history.”
While The Band would write the majority of their own work (with the tunes Dylan wrote for them as the biggest exception), several of their tunes would be covered by a wide variety of artists over the years. It seems only fitting that the band that once backed Dylan wasn’t exactly known for their…graceful delivery. Quite like the unique (some might say flawed) voice of Dylan, their performances stressed their own raw qualities instead of fine tuning their work. I, for one, prefer the originals because I feel like they have a stronger emotional impact for me through their flawed, yet sincere delivery. Of course, if you asked me, I also prefer Dylan’s and Leonard Cohen’s versions of their songs instead of most of their covers, so maybe I’m biased.
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is a good example of this case. The Civil War inspired song from the South’s perspective would be quite beautifully covered by a multitude of artists, and yet few would capture the sad, mourning quality that The Band’s original possessed. The other song I chose, “Unfaithful Servant”, is another fairly somber tune. It’s true meaning is mostly shrouded in mystery since the The Band refuses to give any concrete explanation. One can draw very different conclusions about the song, especially since the song’s speaker is never fully identified. Some think it is a close friend of the “unfaithful servant” consoling the ex-servant after they were expelled from their master’s house, others believe it to be the master himself who may have had an affair with the servant that the mistress had discovered. What is certain is that while the words are quite harsh, their delivery suggests some deep regret or pain from the speaker that is hard to fully understand.
The Band’s music never ceases to amaze me. Their songwriting skills spread across their many members is impressive in its own right, but their skills as musicians with their different instruments is equally strong. If you’re not familiar with The Band, their energetic live albums are a great place to start, but I think I would have to say my personal favorite is their second self-titled album ^^
Did I miss a week? Whoops! I actually got around to recording this track last Sunday, but I got so busy during the week that I never got around to writing about it (and as you can tell, I wanted to write quite a bit about this one) ^^;
The Complete Recordings (2015), Jackson C. Frank. Wow. Here’s a heavy one. There are plenty of haunting albums out there, but the work of Jackson C. Frank (as well as his life’s story) is truly one of hardship and depression. These songs are all taken from the beginning of Vol. 1, but there is also two more volumes included in this series.
Ever since I first heard Frank early this year, I’ve been captivated by his music and his story. He may have only released one self-titled album in 1965 during his career, but I feel like I still cannot possibly do justice to his story in this short blog. A life of serious ups and downs, tragedy first struck when he was merely 11 years olds when his school’s furnace exploded, killing 15 of his classmates and leaving him severely burned. While he would eventually recover, his scars would cause him a multitude of health problems for the rest of his life. This sorrowful beginning wouldn’t be without its triumphs though. He would be gifted his first guitar to help with his recovery in the hospital, get to meet his idol Elvis, and even be given an insurance payout for his injuries nearly equal to that of $1 million dollars in today’s money.
Frank would use that money to travel to England and join its booming folk movement of the mid-sixties. There he would meet and befriend Paul Simon (who had briefly moved there after the unsuccessful debut album with Garfunkel). Simon would go on to produce Frank’s only record Jackson C. Frank in 1965, and Al Stewart would even provide backup guitar on one of the tunes. The album would enjoy some minor success in England and go on to influence multiple songwriters from Simon, to Nick Drake, to Robin Pecknold from the Fleet Foxes, and even to Mark Lanegan from the Queens of the Stone Age. However, very little of the rest of Frank’s story is filled with much happiness.
Frank would splurge the rest of his insurance payoff and slip into deep depression. This was edged on by a prolonged writer’s block and the tragic death of his young son, eventually leading him to be institutionalized and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He would spend most of his life either in a mental institute or homeless, which did very little to help his worsening health conditions. He moved to New York in the hopes of finding the now successful Paul Simon and record a new album, but failed to find and meet up with him. While homeless there, he was shot and became blind in his left eye. A few years later in 1999 he would die of pneumonia; penniless and still without a home.
Now I know that’s a lot of info about the artist, but I feel like Frank’s folk blues have a more significant impact upon one’s listening experience if you have a deeper understanding of where he was coming from when he wrote and sung these songs. I included “Blues Run the Game”, not because it is easily his most famous, but because it perfectly encompasses the story of his life. From the line “catch a boat to England” to the ever present fact of Frank failing to run away from his life’s “blues.” “Dialogue” is an even more somber tune, giving us an in depth look into his mind and depression. It speaks of his painful attempt to seclude himself, but the acknowledgment that only sorrow remains in one’s loneliness.
If you’re looking for something a little more uplifting, Jackson C. Frank is probably not the place to look, but that doesn’t mean all of his songs are depressing. “Don’t Look Back” feels more like a socially charged tune from Bob Dylan’s catalogue, “My Name Is Carnival” has weaving rhythms giving it a Renaissance fair quality, and “Just Like Anything” appears at first to be another blues song, but is underlined with just a dash of hope. One of my personal favorites is actually “Milk and Honey”, which stills sends chills down my spine each time I hear it. I hope Jackson C. Frank’s still largely unknown tale can bring you some joy, even through his sorrow-filled music.
So I was gonna post this album last Monday, but I didn’t get around to recording it before I left. So without further ado…
Nonagon Infinity (2016), by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. An album that controversially won ARIA’s “Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal” album of the year. Was it because it was bad? (Ha! Quite the opposite!) Let’s dive into the infinite loop that is Nonagon.
King Gizzard is a band based out of Melbourne, Australia and consists of 7 members in all (with two drummers no less!). In their short career of only 7 years so far they have released 11 LPs and 2 EPs. This is even more impressive when considering that three albums have come out this year alone, with a proposed two more before the year ends! It’s easy to see the band has a lot of fresh new ideas that they just can’t wait to put down on a record. Each album tends to focus on a single idea or experiment. For example, there was a completely acoustic album recorded on a farm, an entire album played with instruments tuned to microtones (notes that sit between notes, not flats or sharps, think a “one-fourth step”), and a metal album followed by a jazz album. And then there’s Nonagon.
Nonagon Infinity is pretty simple on the surface. Each song leads directly into the next one seamlessly creating this illusion of one long song (especially when later songs call back to melodies heard in a previous song). Several albums have used this idea before (Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is a popular example), but King Gizzard decided to take it one step further. Upon first listening to the album, the listener may be slightly taken aback by the abrupt beginning and end of the album. That is until you play the album on repeat and you realize the last song perfectly bleeds into the first song. This creates the infinite loop hinted at by the title. To top things off, the album has been streaming in its entirety, forever looping on the website http://nonagoninfinity.com/ since its release last year. Located at the bottom of the page is a counter listing how many times the album has looped. When I visited it before writing this, it was somewhere around the 18,470 mark playing the song “People-Vultures”.
The album is also impressively diverse musically. From the hard rock opener “Robot Stop” that makes use of microtones, to the more psychedelic “People-Vultures” with its surrealistic lyrics, to the prog-infused “Mr. Beat” and its leading keyboard parts, to the distinctly jazzy “Invisible Face” featuring a subdued breakdown with congas, to even the metal closer of “Road Train” and its fast power chords. This, however, is the major reason that it stirred up such controversy when it won “Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal” album of the year. With such distinct “non-metal” music backgrounds it was pulling from, hardcore metal fans were upset at the “diluting” of the genre. While I do understand the concern of fans to keep a genre’s sound “pure” and “true” to its roots, music (like art) doesn’t exist within a vacuum, but instead is heavily influenced by the times and the other music around it. Alright, so I may have hesitated in giving it that specific award, but the one thing that is for certain is that Nonagon Infinity is an extremely solid album all-around (even if it is hard to place a genre label on it).
I was extremely fortunate enough to catch the band in a small local bar in Boise only a week ago. They are currently on tour and I would HIGHLY recommend seeing them live. I know I’ll catch another one of their shows as soon as I get the chance 😀
