By what alchemy is it possible that Kelley Stoltz can produce these handcrafted geegaws, mostly playing the instruments all by himself, that still swing like a band playing after midnight, when the crowd’s gone home, just for the sheer joy of proving their craft? Look, as some folks who hang out in these parts know, we believe an injustice was done to Kelley in 2008 when the jury at Tulip Frenzy awarded Bob Dylan Album Of The Year honors for Tell Tale Signs, an album of older, unreleased tracks, while Stoltz’ Circular Sounds was clearly the best album recorded and produced in that year. We would like, this year, to have awarded To Dreamers the laurels, but in the honors race, it was at best this year’s tribune, as the consulship was claimed, fair and square by someone else. Look, here’s what Kelley Stoltz does: he writes songs that veer from Ray Davies-like storytelling perfection to whimsical explorations of oddball sounds, and makes albums that contain beauty, verve, and kicks. That’s all. And he does it with a sense of humor, but mostly the sense of dedication to craft normally thought to be the province of, say, that woman in Naples who spends her entire life sewing just button holes, nothing else. Like Hans Chew (see below), Kelley Stoltz’s amazing To Dreamers is the kind of album that just doesn’t get made anymore. Oh, sure, Prince can still crank out two, maybe three albums a day over in Paisley Park, without contact with a single other human being. Stoltz’ work is more like that first John Fogerty album, that first Paul McCartney album, where an artist creates what he needs from the material he has: his own guitar, bass, and drums. He does it his way. We don’t want to emphasize solitude, because for all we know, Kelley may be the life of the party. What we want to emphasize is craft, deliberation, artistic clarity, dedication. All bundled up in album filled with whimsy, hooks, and rock’n’roll joy.
Archive for the Music Category
Tulip Frenzy’s #3 Album of 2010: Kelley Stoltz’ “To Dreamers”
Posted in Music with tags Kelley Stoltz, Tulip Frenzy Top 10 List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100Tulip Frenzy’s #4 Album of 2010: Hans Chew’s “Tennessee And Other Stories”
Posted in Music with tags Hans Chew, Tulip Frenzy Top 10 List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100Interestingly, in the same time frame in which Leon Russell released an album with Elton John — which admittedly we haven’t heard, but which we presume was recorded in a brightly lit, expensive studio, with wet bar and catering — the pianist who seems to have most absorbed the sound from Russell’s first album, Hans Chew, produced a solo album that by contrast is a hand-polished work of understated, oft-time raucous craftsmanship. This is a whole grain and locavore labor of love, a slice of border-state realism produced, where else, in Brooklyn. If Elton and Leon’s album is a Carnival cruise ship, Tennessee and Other Stories is that Cris Craft beauty you want to cruise around in on top o’ Smoky Mountain lakes. We admit to being mildly amused by it when first we heard it, but then we just couldn’t quit playing it, until there reached a point that we realized Chew’s roadhouse piano and Three Calendar restaurant home cooking had the grit of substance and the flavor of sweet honey. And that it might just last, like a raree show oddity, and inspire generations with its purity, its great songwriting, and its quiet authenticity. And man, this guy can play piano.
Tulip Frenzy #5 Album of 2010: The Black Angels’ “Phosphene Dreams”
Posted in Music with tags The Black Angels, Tulip Frenzy Top 10 List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100If we’d wanted to have fun at the expense of our critical chops, we might list Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Black Dub, and the Black Keys, all of whom had decent albums in 2010, before these guys. But the best of the black bands were The Black Angels, whose Phosphene Dreams was a revelation. Earlier Black Angels’ albums have been one-dimensional affairs, and don’t get me wrong, with these guys, sometimes one dimension is enough. Phosphene Dreams., though, had playfulness in its late ’60s reverb, and not just drones but melodies, and just as a song shaped up in some kind of predictable form, they’d juggle the iPhone and a new shape would appear. If you were to draw a Venn Diagram and in one bubble had fellow Austinites the 13th Floor Elevators and, say, the Doors in the other, The Black Angels prowl the overlap. Yes, too much of what they do is still limited by some of the same elements of beat and vocal phrasing, but this isn’t a band that plays outside the box, this is a band that plays outside the dimensions any box might fit in. They opened for their pals Black Mountain on tour this fall, but this is one time where the opener’s album may have outshined the headliner.
Tulip Frenzy’s #6 Best Album of 2010: Black Mountain’s “Wilderness Heart”
Posted in Music with tags Black Mountain, Tulip Frenzy Top 10 List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100Black Mountain has come a long way since Stephen McBean allegedly named the band for the stash of Afghani piled high on the table in front of him. While their early sound owed much to No Wave bands and Pere Ubu, and while McBean’s protean songwriting takes on so many shapes he has to channel different songs between Black Mountain and the Pink Mountaintops, what they’ve grown into is a classic, early ’70s album-rock band with strains of metal and folk and punk. It’s a pretty great combination, and when Wilderness Heart was released Tulip Frenzy rejoiced. We like the formula — Seconal riffs followed by Sandy Denny folk followed by real rock’n’roll — and we like McBean, who is shaping up to be one of the most interesting figures in rock. We love Amber Webber’s ululations, and whether it’s pounding out riffs in Black Mountain, or plying the B.C. villages with the Canadian equivalent of Americana with their band Blood Meridian, we have a soft spot for the immensely talented Matt Camirand (bass) and Joshua Wells (drummer extraordinaire.) The novelty of Jeremy Schmidt’s greasy organ riffs in no small part make the band, but since we weren’t Deep Purple fans the first time round, there’s no reason to start being one now. Still, the way these guys can settle into a groove on stage, and he breadth of McBean’s talents, make us fear the next time we have an opportunity to see them will be in a venue far larger than the 930 Club. We admire them, and wish them well, even as we fear we’re losing them.
Tulip Frenzy’s #7 Best Album of 2010: Dean & Britta’s “13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol”
Posted in Music with tags Dean&Britta, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100What is this link between Dean Wareham and Andy Warhol? Yes, they both glommed The Velvet Underground’s vitality, and Luna’s version of “Season Of The Witch” first appeared on the soundtrack of I Shot Andy Warhol. But there is something deeper at work here, which is why it was brilliant of Andy Warhol’s museum curators to have commissioned Dean & Britta to record songs for showing during an installation of Warhol’s films. Having adored Luna, and been somewhat less than enamored of Dean & Britta’s post-Luna output, we were more than pleasantly surprised by this record when it came out. The obscure VU song they covered, “Not A Young Man Anymore,” is as catchy as “Plundered My Soul” or anything by Chappo, and we’ve found ourselves humming it all fall. The best thing was the way Dean & Britta play with a kick, for even on Britta’s songs, there’s nothing fey about these performances. Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for ‘Drella was a drag; this tribute to Warhol was one of the best albums of the year.
Tulip Frenzy’s #8 Best Album of 2010: Robyn Hitchcock’s “Propeller Time”
Posted in Music with tags Robyn Hitchcock, Tulip Frenzy Top 10 List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100So we’ve deemed the reissued Exile On Main Street ineligible for consideration because it isn’t wholly new, but after picking up the red flag and going to the viewing booth, the refs have declared Robyn Hitchcock’s glorious Propeller Time (which we reviewed here ) as absolutely kosher, even though it was recorded in 2006. Recorded and then banked in the vast vault in which, who knows, he may have six or seven folk-rock masterpieces stashed away, like that electrician who just showed up with 100 some-odd Picassos. Not everything Robyn Hitchcock does merits accolades; too many of the acoustic guitar and piano ventures exhibit an excess of energy and an inability to edit. But Propeller Time, while not as fine as Goodnight Oslo (recorded later, we believe, with the same musicians, including Peter Buck) still shows signs of his 4th Quarter rally, and mixes breathtakingly beautiful melodies with humor and rock’n’roll verve.
Tulip Frenzy’s #9 Best Album of 2010: The New Pornographers’ “Together”
Posted in Music with tags The New Pornographers, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100To paraphrase Justice Stewart, we know a great New Pornographers album when we hear one. When they released Twin Cinema back in 2006 2005, some cool cats bemoaned the lack of caffeine. Not us. We saw it as the Album of The Year, and thought it would be hard for them ever again to reach such heights. And they haven’t, not with Challengers, and not with this year’s Together. However, even though we expressed a little disappointment when Together was released, they’ve still got it, and with a song like the breathtaking “We End Up Together,” emotional resonance trumps cleverness and Glee-like theatrics. Our guess is that after solo albums by Neko and Carl, the songwriting well may have been two fingers shy of a tankful. The fact that they’re back out on the road leads us to believe the next time they go into the studio will lead to good things.
Tulip Frenzy’s #10 Best Album Of 2010: the black ryder’s “Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride”
Posted in Music with tags the black ryder, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100Technically, the black ryder’s superb debut album launched in 2009, but things move slowly from the antipodes, and by February, when it hadn’t arrived Stateside, we took out a second mortgage and bought the import, and were glad to have done so. So when we reviewed it in February, it may not have been new to Melbourne hipsters, but it was new to us, and based on the traffic to TF, new to our readers. Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride was the road not taken by The Morning After Girls, the BJM-infused, dreamier aspect to the band that was largely jettisoned on Alone. With an impeccable pedigree and great chops, the black ryder takes shape amidst gauzy sonic guitar pop, and gallops straight into your foreheard. A great debut, and here’s hoping that in 2011, they release something new in North America.
Darker My Love’s Holiday Song
Posted in Music with tags Darker My Love on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100Christmas arrived a little early… Thank you, Target. Thank you, Darker My Love.
http://www.youtube.com/v/w4Prt9T4-nk&hl&hd=1&fs=1
BTW — it will become very clear very soon why Tulip Frenzy finds a holiday song from this band to be very special to post this year…
On Why The Re-Released “Exile On Main Street” Won’t Be Tulip Frenzy’s Album Of The Year
Posted in Music with tags "Tell Tale Signs" John Buckley, Bob Dylan, Chappo, Circular Sounds, Exile On Main Street re-release, Kelley Stoltz, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List on November 29, 2010 by johnbuckley100There’s no question that the remastered Exile On Main Street, with its incredible unearthing of songs long presumed buried in Villefranche-sur-Mer, was the album we most anticipated, and it’s possible that “Plundered My Soul” was the best song released by any band other than Chappo. It may well have been the music event of 2010. And with those new tracks, it could even qualify as a “new” album.
But two years ago, when Dylan’s magisterial Tell Tale Signs was released with a few “new” songs but mostly rearrangements of songs that had been released earlier, we were moved to declare it #1 on Tulip Frenzy’s Top Ten List for 2008. After all, we reckoned, when the history of 2008 is written, the release of Tell Tale Signs will be considered its landmark musical achievement. And yet, in so doing, we screwed others. We specifically screwed Kelley Stoltz, whose Circular Sounds, but for Dylan’s re-release, would have captured the top slot, going away.
And so we take this stand: we won’t list Exile as 2010’s top album, because in actuality it was 1972’s top album, and would have been so designated then by Tulip Frenzy if the gang hadn’t been more concerned with, like, passing Algebra 1 than publishing a blog. This will offer justice to those young pups who deserve to be known as the makers of the Tulip Frenzy #1 Top Album of 2010. We know who they are. They are, for the record, younger than Mick’n’Keith, who while not quite needing walkers, certainly don’t need any more accolades than they get already.
Tulip Frenzy 