February 2009

***As a disclaimer, I’m not of the Christian faith, so any portion of this that is inaccurate is purely accidental and shouldn’t be considered an affront to ya’ll.

Handel’s Messiah is probably one of the most famous and easily recognizable classical compositions ever performed – trust me, you know the “Hallelujah” chorus. Handel’s work, written in 1741 and first performed the following spring in Dublin, recounts the life of Jesus. It’s parsed into three sections, the first detailing the Christmas story, section two recounts the Passion and the third part is reserved for John the Revelator.

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It’s odd that some genres that have seen their hey-day come and go still maintain a rather vibrant, yet ignored scene. The height of RnB could be figured to be anywhere between the ‘50s and the early ‘70s. Bands claiming an RnB lineage by the later half of that time frame were occasionally known to just be disco bands aping a tag to get them over – not that anyone can blame them, but…

Current RnB sits closer to pop ballads with some beautiful woman (or man, I suppose) being pushed out in front of some hired guns to perform a song that a writer in a tiny office somewhere put on paper. Even with such travesties occurring daily, there are proponents of the genre to try and push back against some of the nonsense.

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I’m gonna go ahead and offer a challenge. Name a singer from the Bahamas. I know that personally, I can name two, but only two. One of those folks is Exuma. In his obscurity rests a part of his seemingly mystical personage. In reality, though, he was just a man. But a man that had the ability to summon some other worldly spirits during his performances.

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Being predicated upon the notion that the Pretty Things represented as many things about the Brit rock explosion as anyone, the band embodies as much as any other group the beginnings of what would become British punk a decade later. As mentioned in nearly every write up of the band, Dick Taylor, the band’s guitarist, briefly played with an early line up of the Rolling Stones. But even if that nugget of information wasn’t actually true, the Pretty Things were a revved up blues band in a way that the Stones couldn’t ever achieve. The Pretty Things just didn’t have their song craft down pat.

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For whatever reason, John Fahey has become a part of current musical trends after a few decades in the recesses of whatever Americana became in the ‘80s. Of course his guitar style is and should always be lauded, but there are a great many newer acts that have sought to incorporate the ghost of Fahey into their own work – I’m lookin’ at you Ben Chasney. If only they’d started a bit earlier, it may have been reasonable to attempt some sort of project with Fahey. But of course, his death in 2001 has precluded that.

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Every school aged youth in the United States at some point during high school is required to read The Crucible by Arthur Miller. And while Miller’s life was probably interesting enough to write about in a traditional manner – he was married to Marilyn Monroe after all – the historical correlations that the play write drew between the ‘50s, McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials was apt to say the least.

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Music of every hue was transformed by the 1960s. No genre was left unaffected by the political and social upheaval of that decade. Not just in the states, but across Europe and the rest of the world, musicians sought a new sort of freedom – or at least combinations of styles – by which to express themselves. The old forms – classical music, jazz, folk and blues – were revitalized by visionaries who frequently alienated audiences by managing vast leaps in style and substance throughout those ten years or so. And it was during these years that saxophonist Elton Dean became a fixture in the British jazz scene.

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In ones life there need to remain constants. Not to say that playing music and crossing the nation a few times provides anything close to a sure bet, but every time one ventures out to a club to a see a band for the second, fourth or eighth time, there is something intangible and reassuring when those familiar musicians take the stage. And even in Cleveland (which is most likely nicer that whatever the reader may imagine), bands return again and again. Sometimes to the same crowd, sometimes to bigger venues, but that feeling always creeps back, like the dirty water in Erie to the shore.

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With Valentine’s Day ever approaching, I’m sure that everyone has had Ted Nugent at the forefront of their mind for days now. And why not, he’s such a cuddly guy. Whether you love him for his knee jerk political views or his defiant need to own a shit ton of weaponry, there are few figures springing from the annals for American rock music that so surely need to be included in your Valentine’s Day plans this coming Saturday.

And because the Nuge already knew that, he’s put together the track list for that compilation you were planning to give to your loved one. Along side gems from Howlin’ Wolf, the Stones, Otis Redding and Percy Sledge are songs from Cheap Trick and a few too many tunes from the Nuge himself. Does that mean that the Nuge sees himself in the same light as these other folks? I hope not, for their sake, but it’s possible.

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If you get your music news from the vast holes in the internets, there’s no way that you’ve been able to avoid Wavves. Initially, his latest disc was to be released via De Stijl, but as a result of the ever growing – and erroneous buzz – surrounding the 22 year old SoCal resident, he’s moved onto bigger and better things.

I actually got a promo for the album when it was to be released on De Stijl a number of months ago and since the album moved to Fat Possum a new barrage of promo folks have hit the webs in an effort to continue this feeding frenzy of coverage during the added wait that comes with switching labels.

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The last few years have seen a blossoming psych folk movement grow bloated and lazy. There are seemingly three times as many acts delivering trippy acoustic guitar music as there were at the beginning of the decade. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re bad, it just means that a lot of it ends up sounding eerily similar.

Andy Cabic made a name for himself working with (the overrated) Devandra Banhart as he was climbing to faux-stardom. And even during that collaboration, Cabic worked out his own simple, sweet and honest music on his own.

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I don’t believe that I’ve ever heard music that Julian Cope has performed and enjoyed it. I suppose that’s my loss though. And regardless of the manner in which I regard him musically, he does run Head Heritage – a pretty enlightening site of rock criticism, full of estoterica.

Last year, though, Cope so far exceeded any other contribution to the music world from that calendar year by writing a book simply called JAPROCKSAMPLER.

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Whatever English teachers Marco Benevento had during high school really have to be pleased with him. Every kids’ education today in the US has, at least in part, a bit about post-modernism tact on for good measure. And the work of Benevento actually, in musical terms, pretty much defines that conceptual framework.

Beginning his solo recording career with Live at Tonic in 2007 on Rope-a-Dope, it was immediately apparent that Benevento sought to marry all of his musical interests, despite the fact that, if he explained what was to be included, it might not gave made too much sense. After all, how many albums sport covers by Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen and My Morning Jacket? Probably just his one.

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Describing Lux Interior (nee Erick Lee Purkhiser) is difficult in some ways and quite simplistic in others. The figure he cut on stage was some sort of Elvis/assembly line worker on speed dichotomy. His face was drawn, gaunt and ghoulish on his best days – and that’s how he wanted it. Lux seemed to embody everything from Roy Orbison’s woodsy drawl to David Johansen’s sneer. And the lead singer of the Cramps didn’t see the difference between the two – he sought to expound the gospels of both.

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More likely than not this is all in my head but, it seems that within the last ten to twelve years there’s been an ever growing glut of music festivals springing up all over the country. Every genre has a few weekends set aside on some farm especially for fans. And it’s not to big of a surprise that the current US consumer isn’t able to cough up enough money to cover entrance to many of these events.

With more and more festivals being promoted every year, bands become over exposed and each event actually serves to depreciate the value of the experience that it purports to lend fans.

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Any conversation pertaining to the punk off shoot of hardcore most likely will focus on the NYC, DC, SF or LA scenes. And while that all makes a great deal of sense, the reality of it all is that the Midwest (Ohio/Michigan/Indiana) had as much to do with the birthing of this genre as anywhere else. It could in fact be argued that the Necros pre-dated some of the stalwart hardcore acts of the ‘80s. That’s unnecessary territory to get into – and considering the fact that no one will ever usurp the Bad Brains atop this heap of hardcore, it almost doesn’t matter.

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