The Ship Song

Yes, it's a love song. Originally written and performed by Nick Cave, it was on his 1990 album The Good Son. I've always been partial to this version by Concrete Blonde, which was originally a b-side, also dating from 1990. I'll have a longer post on Concrete Blonde later, but I'll just say this, the moment when Johnette Napolitano comes into this song (around 1:30) still sends shivers down my spine. It's a song about two lovers who have forgotten the world, lost in the damage of their own world. The key lyrics are about how the connection you make with someone can make you forget all sorts of dubious and destructive moral choices you've made in the world outside.

We talk about it all night long
We define our moral ground
But when I crawl into your arms
Everything it comes tumbling down

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

And then, she sings, unbelievably and inevitably [at 1:30]:

Your face has fallen sad now
For you know the time is nigh
When I must remove your wings
And you, you must try and fly

Fujiya & Miyagi

I know I've been buried under the radar for a while now. Part of it is lack of inspiration, part of it is lack of time. But I've been thinking that I want to do some long form posts on the careers of certain musicians: I'd like to consider the entire corpus of work of a particular musician or band and add commentary to it, post some videos, and maybe mp3s of unreleased tracks. The first one on my list is Joni Mitchell, an idea (partly) suggested by an anonymous reader of this blog. Joni Mitchell has 19 original studio albums and two live albums, all worth perusing for one reason or another so it's gonna be a long haul.

In the meantime, I post here a song by a British band called Fujiya & Miyagi. I discovered them during a trip to New Orleans in 2009 when someone was playing their album Transparent Things in the car. They're supposedly influenced by kraut rock (who isn't these days? it's like saying you were influenced by guitars or drums). They take their name from a vintage record player (Fujiya) and Pat Morita's character in The Karate Kid (Miyagi). They have released a new album this year called Ventriloquizzing, which I have not heard. But it's definitely worth digging up a copy of Transparent Things (2006). Every track on that album is good. Every track, I kid you not. An old review here.

Here is the video for "Ankle Injuries," the first song off Transparent Things.



And the video for "Collarbone," the second track off the album.

Thurston Moore - Space

I wrote a review of Thurston Moore's new album, Demolished Thoughts, for the next issue of Inflatable Ferret (out tomorrow, I think). I'll post a link to the review once it's out, but for now here's a track off the album. I have to say right out that I was surprised by this record. It's a really lush sounding record (Beck produced) with 12-string guitars, violins, harps, and a light rhythm section. The guitar-violin combo really works here and the music is perfect summer music that's a little off-kilter. I highly recommend the album. Here's a particular gorgeous track ("Space") from the album:



You can download mp3s from the album at The Aquarium Drunkard. Also watch a cool video with Thurston Moore reminiscing about New York and talking about the album at the French website La Blogotheque.

WOW

There's something just incredibly awesome when musicians normally known for soft/mellow music suddenly shift gears and do music totally uncharacteristic and HEAVY.

And if it's some quasi-folkie (attractive) soft-spoken chick with a guitar, it takes it over the limit. Here's Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent, known for 2009's awesome Actor) doing a cover of Big Black's "Kerosene" last Sunday (May 22) at the Bowery Ballroom here in NYC. This was the show to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Michael Azerrad's classic book Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. Several contemporary bands took turns covering the bands covered in the book.

Here, Annie Clark fucking rips a hole in the ozone layer with this. It's worth watching all 7 minutes of this. You will be pounded into submission. Steve Albini, eat your heart out.

Stuff

For Ashim, here's a cover of a song by the Soft Boys from a Replacements show on July 1, 1985. It's from a bootleg variously called Simply Unacceptable or 7th St. Entry in Minneapolis. Full rip of the show here.

The Replacements -- I Wanna Destroy You (live) [mp3]

Happy Birthday

The Fleet Foxes

This following song was the soundtrack to my late winter 2008 and early 2009, during a time when I spent a lot of time in Boston / Cambridge. The Fleet Foxes are a Seattle-based band who do beautiful songs about dreams within dreams washed by unbelievable harmonies, voices stacked on each other like a million parallel rail lines from here to the horizon.

Their first album, self-titled, appeared in 2008 and they just released their sophomore effort, Helplessness Blues, which I am told, is just as good, if not better than the debut. The people in the band seem kinda young (mid-20s), and maybe that's one reason why their music seems dislodged in time, without influence or context. Sometimes the voices remind me of the Everly Brothers, that crazy dream harmony that they used to conjure up in songs like "All I Have to Do is Dream" and "Cathy's Clown." But where the Everly Brothers sang about unrequied love, Fleet Foxes sing about weird make-believe worlds, lives kidnapped from Medieval times. The cover of their first album was a Dutch painting from the 16th century (actually by a Flemish Renaissance painter by the name of Pieter Bruegel the Elder).

This song, "White Winter Hymnal" is spine-tingling-ly beautiful. It was the single off the album and undoubtedly the best song from it. The video is a little off-putting but just close your eyes and put on repeat. There is something mesmerizing at work here.

Unable to embed in my blog, but click here for the video. And here is a live performance.

The Besnard Lakes

Well, it's my last night in Moscow. Goodbye to Russia and all that. For some reason, Moscow makes me tired in a way that New York doesn't. I've been here a week and I feel exhausted. Walking the streets of Moscow, you see posters for lots of shows coming up: System of a Down, Roger Waters (doing The Wall!), Whitesnake, and Shakira. Yes, I have now mentioned both System of a Down and Whitesnake in my blog, and I did not do that out of irony. I took the picture on the left on Wednesday, walking near the U.S. embassy on my way to the nearest subway station (Smolenskaya). Whitesnake is playing Moscow on June 2. I would imagine that the guy in Whitesnake is, like 70 years old. But that seems like a small obstacle to be able to do "Here We Go Again" in Moscow, right?

Like any major big city outside the West that is caught in the whirlwind of swift-paced 'modernization,' Moscow is a bundle of contradictions. But I think, more than any other place I've been to, it thrives on kitsch but without the self-consciousness of knowing that it's kitsch. In other words, there's lots of bad taste in Moscow. That doesn't mean that people don't do haute culture or whatever you wanna call it. There's an abundance of that. But once you get below the radar level of say, a Mozart opera or a exhibit about Suprematism, it's pretty much a straight nose dive to, um, the Black Eyed Peas or Talo Cruz or whatever. Or the exhumed corpse of bad Whitesnake (yes, back in the mid-1970s, there was a brief moment---mind you, a very brief moment---when it was thought possible that Whitesnake might be a respectable band, having emerged out of the cadaver of Deep Purple, an actually good band; but alas Whitesnake's future hand in single handedly inventing hair metal has made us all forget that moment).

But there are, of course, people who like decent pop culture here. I remember that Laika played here back many years ago. I think the reunited Swans played here recently. I see that a lot of bands/musicians go through here, tap into the subculture, and then leave. There's cool stuff going on in Moscow but it's a bit difficult to track down.

One of my favorite tracks on the iPod here in Moscow was the Besnard Lakes' "Albatross.' This is a band that plays big music. They are the bastard progeny of My Bloody Valentine crossed with circa 1966 Beach Boys. Based in Canada, they put out one of my favorite albums from last year, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night. Apparently a husband-and-wife team affair, kinda like Thurston and Kim. Or Bert and Ernie. Crank it up and get washed over by the wash of candy fuzz distortion. Goodbye Moscow. Enjoy

Kurt Vile

Back when I lived in Pittsburgh (circa '99-ish), I tried recording a whole bunch of my songs on a 4-track TASCAM cassette model. I was on a roll. But it was really hard to translate the music I was hearing in my head onto the thing that I would hear back on a cassette or a CD. I wanted something that was a little world-weary, something low-fi, sometimes very heavy, sometimes soft. I recorded a lot of songs and some of them came out OK--about 15 songs.

Well, recently James asked me to review the new Kurt Vile album for the next issue of Inflatable Ferret which I haven't gotten around to yet (oops). Vile has long curly hair and his new album is called Smoke Ring for My Halo, almost as good a title as his last one, Childish Prodigy. Either way, been listening to Smoke Ring for My Halo a lot this past few weeks, and here in Moscow too. Russian subway trains are way too loud to listen to music so it's mostly out in the dreary streets. I keep coming back to this one song, "On Tour" which I found really reminiscent of something, but it turns out that it's actually reminiscent of nothing real. It's just reminiscent of the sound I was trying to get when I was recording songs in '99. This is the sound. The vocals are not really anything I would have done (he sounds a little like Tom Petty) but the sound, the guitars, the drums, it was in my head. So it feels really comforting to listen to it now, like an old friend or something. The song seems quite simple on first listen it has these little embellishments that slowly gather steam and stand out after repeated listening. I love the bells-chime-y electric guitars that play over the acoustic guitar background through the song. They achieve a kind of state of grace that's kinda mesmerizing.

The facts: Smoke Ring For My Halo came out last month (March 2011) and is a most delicious album. Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth likes him. He's on Matador. His recent show with his band, the Violators, at SXSW is archived here.

Do Re Mi

Here in Moscow, something made me think of this song.
Apparently, the last song he recorded right before the deed.
Quite amazing, actually.