Leica M8, Summilux 35mm, f1.4, 1/8000th, ISO 160
At Last! A Tulip Frenzy!
Posted in Uncategorized on April 10, 2008 by johnbuckley100
Down The Rabbit Hole With The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Posted in Music with tags Dandy Warhols, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Out Crowd, Velvet Underground on April 9, 2008 by johnbuckley100I like to think about rock’n’roll in terms of families, clans, circles. Six degrees of sonic separation. If Tulip Frenzy were a Harvard B School class, someone would blurt out “Ecosystems.” Yeah, well, connected systems. There is that.
You know that old story that only 100 people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but they all formed bands? I like those bands. For years, it was nearly enough for someone to put the words “Velvet Underground” in a review of a band, and I’d go buy the record. Why? Because if they were trying to sound like the Velvet Underground, that was a good start. From Galaxie 500 to Luna, Dream Syndicate to the Darkside, you really can’t go wrong looking for music made by bands who worship at the altar of his Lou-ness.
There are some obvious clans, systems, circles. Think of all the bands that want to sound like the Stones, or the Faces. For all I know, Whitesnake might have an ecosystem richer than the Amazon. Then there are more formal systems like the Elephant 6 Collective. Bands that sound like or have been produced by Brian Eno. You know the game.
For me, some of the bands that sound like the Dandy Warhols are more entertaining the Dandys have been since 13 Tales. You know who I’m talking about: the Morning After Girls, the Out Crowd. Bands that have that cool Dandys guitar sound, but maybe aren’t so cynical, so self-consciously ironic.
Now, I had long since listened to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and yes, my angle in was from “Dig,” that documentary that came out a few years ago showcasing the Dandy Warhols as careerists and The Brian Jonestown Massacre as junkie geniuses that could never quite get it together. Oh man oh man oh man, to have been alive in the 1990s when the BJM were around. Wait! I was alive in the ’90s! How did I miss them?
Are they the great unknown American band? The band that most jacked into the raw power of the VU? Putting out double albums, three albums in one year, playing 9-hour sets for 10 people. This is the stuff of myth, and having spent the last month — note the absence of posts here — playing them over and over and over again, yeah, the reality is pretty amazing.
If you’re not an aficionado already, start with Take It From The Man. Play it for like a week. Then move on to Their Satanic Majesty’s Second Request. After that, go straight to And This Is Our Music.
Oh yeah, you’ll want more.
Did I mention that they’re still alive and kicking and are going to play festivals in Europe this summer and then play a gig at Terminal 5 in New York this summer? July 25th. See you there.
Kelley Stoltz: Call Your Bank!
Posted in Uncategorized on March 18, 2008 by johnbuckley100Well that didn’t take long. Was driving along, minding my own business, or actually listening to news about the Fed’s lowering interest rates by 75 basis points, and on comes an ad for a bank, and the background music is Kelley Stoltz’s “Birdies Singing” from the “Below The Branches” album. Man, what a hip ad agency. Next up, a VW commercial! And Kelley gets to quit that job in the record store….
Not A Tulip Frenzy
Posted in Uncategorized on March 3, 2008 by johnbuckley100Leica M8, Summilux 35mm, F1.4@1/8000ths.
Down The Rabbit Hole With Kelley Stoltz
Posted in Music with tags Kelley Stoltz on March 2, 2008 by johnbuckley100- Finding a review of Kelley Stoltz’s “Circular Sounds” in the, I dunno, February or March issue of Uncut may have been a mistake. Until then, blissfully ignorant of his work, I was just an ordinary fiend, listening to my Beatles and Beefheart, taking my Kinks straight up without a chaser, leaving room in my heart and my iPod for the Eels and Devendra Banhart. But then I made the mistake of listening to “Circular Sounds,” and let me tell you, we can call off the rest of 2008. The best album of the year was released in February.
- My bigger mistake, though, was pulling on the thread and dragging up “Below The Branches,” the album Stoltz released in 2006. So it’s maybe better than “Circular Sounds.” It is, minimally, its equal. Ah, but was I content to leave things there? Oh, no. I had to keep pulling, had to get “Antique Glow” and “The Past Was Faster.” Not as good as the two most recent albums, mostly because of production values, or the lack thereof. The early ones seem more of the DIY, homegrown, low-fi variety, while the two most recent albums seem to have been delivered to us like tablets from the pop-rock deities.
- So, it’s been down the rabbit hole with Kelley Stoltz. And here’s a quiz to determine whether you’ll soon be joining me, whether you can talk your way past the doormen, that seven foot monster with his midget pal. Do you like the Kinks? The Beatles, particularly the Lennon songs? Is your idea of a good Paul McCartney song “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” Have you found yourself moved by the pure bohemian beauty of Devendra Banhart’s songs? Were you ever at least mildly amused by the sensibilities of Camper Van Beethoven? Do you like Nick Drake in small doses? Did you ever hear Henry Badowski’s absolutely bizarre 1981 album “Life Is Grand”? Do you like any of the Elephant 6 bands, particularly Beulah, Apples in Stereo, and Olivia Tremor Control? Will you admit, either publicly or at least to yourself, that you kind of liked one or two Harry Nilson songs? Do you, as I do, hate the Beach Boys, while admitting that Brian Wilson’s weirdly overwhelming impact on recent white pop music is not all bad? At any time in the last five years have you listened to David Bowie’s”Pin Ups” album, especially his version of “See Emily Play”?
- Answer yes to any two of the above questions and you can join me down the rabbit hole in Kelley Stoltz’s Wonderland where pop music is crafted by hand, and is delivered by a divine messenger. Hurry. Wouldn’t want to be late.
Wilco At The 930 Club
Posted in Music with tags Dwight Twilley, Dylan, The Band, Wilco on February 28, 2008 by johnbuckley100- Wilco’s not usually thought of as a ball of laughs, but they were loose and in fine fettle Tuesday at the 930 Club. The core sextet was joined by a three-piece horn section, and of course the immediate reference point was The Band’s “Rock of Ages.” If the “Mermaid Avenue” albums were as close we can get to channeling “The Basement Tapes,” then once again this is as close as we can get to a great Canadian-American amalgam playing those timeless bits of North American folk while headed by a Midwestern genius who genuinely loves Little Richard.
- Nels Cline was gangly and exhibitionistic when he grabbed the strings in both hands and let loose some fine chaotic skronk, a mix of Robert Fripp and Tom Verlaine, but all in, for a noise-rock virtuoso, he sure seemed comfortable playing in a rock band.
- Tweedy wore one of those LBJ Borsalinos, and seemed just the slightest bit on edge, calling a request for a louder amp “petty,” chiding the crowd — incorrectly as it turned out — for not knowing “SummerTeeth” well enough to sing along. That said, he seems comfortable enough within his full body of work, with just enough — not too much, as in the Jay Bennett days — of a challenge from his bandmates, to settle in for what was both a greatest hits repertoire and some deep dives. How cool was it for the band to play almost the whole first side of “Being There?” And practically in order? Way cool. They even played the Dwight Twilley-esque “End of the Century,” which of course was amazing live. I’d say the only album that got short shrift was “A Ghost Is Born,” but if that’s your craving, all you need to hear is “Handshake Drugs” and you’ve got your fix.
- Wilco is a unique band. Another way they’re comparable to the Dylan-Band collaboration is in terms of their historical perspective. If you think about “Mermaid Avenue,” who else but Wilco (and Billy Bragg) would both have thought to put music to unscored Woody Guthrie lyrics, and then have done so in a fashion so of-the-age-appropriate? They can delve into folk, alt.country, R&B, and yet more than any band other than the Drive By Truckers, play Southern-fried harmony guitar like they’re Wet Willie or something. It’s telling that they would, for example, record Gram Parson’s “One Hundred Years From Now” as pure Bachman-Turner Overdrive (another Yankee/Canuck collaboration); that “Walken” would take a page out of the Lowell George playbook.
- As always, I was offended by the reference to hard drug use. Isn’t there something really wrong about a sing-along to the words, “Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm,” followed by, “there’s something in my veins/bloodier than blood”? I realize Tweedy’s in recovery, and singing your old songs, which make reference to drugs, isn’t like Eric Clapton getting sober and going out on a tour sponsored by a beer company. No matter how it’s rationalized, if there was one kid who came to the show who thinks that it might now be cool to shoot up heroin, then something inexcusable has happened.
- I found myself marveling at how much I enjoyed a band that at times can be so bland, so anodyne, and then punctures the moment with something incredibly raw and artful. Live, they’ve always followed the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force. Tuesday night they also played with looseness and occasional delicacy. When they feel like it, they really can truly overpower an audience, and all doubts.
Black Mountain Blows The Doors Off D.C.’s Rock and Roll Hotel
Posted in Music with tags Black Mountain, Blood Meridian, Pink Mountaintops on February 20, 2008 by johnbuckley100- Black Mountain is the rare band that is tighter live than in the studio. Last night they came to D.C.’s Rock and Roll Hotel and had a volcanic eruption.
- Stephen McBean was a surprisingly low-key front man, given how dominant his singing is on both Black Mountain and sister-band Pink Mountaintops records, and he seemed more comfortable playing guitar back by the amps while Amber Webber held the center stage. From the moment they struck up “Stormy High” from their new LP “In The Future,” it was clear that Black Mountain is one highly gelled unit, as tight as the Stones in ’69, more propulsive than Led Zeppelin, with greater psychedelic range than any of the San Francisco bands or even the “Ummagumma”-era Pink Floyd. Yeah, I know the company I’m putting them in. I don’t do it casually.
- Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Matthew Camirand and Joshua Wells were riveted together, the most urgent rhythm section on God’s green Earth, at least since John Bonham slipped away. After all, they’re the heart and soul of Blood Meridian, but that’s an alt-country band, for cryin’ out loud. Camirand finger picks a Gibson bass while Wells wallops his drum kit like John Henry besting the infernal machine. Interestingly, on “Druganaut”– which is a killer in both recorded versions, but last night was played at a looser, ever so slightly slower tempo — Wells plays the beat backwards, they way Charlie Watts plays reggae. It was very subtle, and magnificent.
- Amber Webber sings in a warbly ululation like a Yemeni widow at a funeral procession, but she basically just stands there, cool as a cucumber. For a band so centered on call-and-response vocals — all kidding aside, Webber and McBean are not unlike Sly Stone and his sister going back and forth in “Dance to the Music” — she and McBean are exceptionally easy going.
- McBean looks like he purposely is trying to scare young children, with his thick long hair and black beard, but he plays the guitar like a genie. “That guitarist carried the band,” I heard some kids say on the street as we left the surprisingly Mudd Club-like Rock And Roll Hotel. I disagree — the MVP for this outing, and I suspect others, is clearly Joshua Wells — but McBean’s at least on par with Dave Gilmour in being able to project a band like this into deep space.
- In the review of “In The Future,” Tulip Frenzy earlier chided them for channeling Deep Purple, but Jeremy Schmidt’s keyboards pay as much of a debt to Pere Ubu’s Alan Ravenstine’s analog synth as they do to, say, Keith Emerson.
- The set was a surprisingly fast-paced sonic goo, never bogging down into vanilla fudge, even on the loooong songs. “Stormy High” kicked off the set, and they played most of “In The Future,” before finishing up with a one-two punch of “Druganaut” and “No Satisfaction” from their first album. I’m used to the campfire version of “No Satisfaction,” but this was pure punk rock.
- Under most circumstances, listening to a band invoke the early ’70s sound of pre-heavy metal psychedelia is not my idea of fun. I’m kind of stunned that in 2008, the best real rock’n’roll around is being made by a band just this side of prog. But it’s all true. Black Mountain blew the doors off the Rock and Roll Hotel.
NPR helpfully aired the whole thing. Want to hear what I’m talking about? Link here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19086361
Kelley Stoltz “Circular Sounds” Gets A Jump on The Best Of 2008 Lists
Posted in Music with tags Brendan Benson, Elephant Six Collective, Kelley Stoltz, The Kinks, Wes Anderson on February 18, 2008 by johnbuckley100Because they’re friends, the reference point for San Francisco-based pop genius Kelley Stoltz has tended to be Brendan Benson. And I can see that: they’re both incredibly clever pop classicists who can craft bespoke masterpieces out of threads pulled from old Beatles and Kinks records. On “Circular Sounds,” Stoltz’s brand new album, (his fourth) you could easily see him fitting into the Elephant Six Collective, with “Everything Begins” bearing resemblance to something by Beulah, and more than a few other songs invoking the late great Olivia Tremor Control. But I mean this as the highest compliment: Stoltz is the pop Wes Anderson. No, not for anything having to do with preciousness, but because of the way he conjures the greatest small moments from the exceedingly weird 1970s. There’s a Spirit/Randy California-ish ring to the guitar, but Ray Davies and the Kinks — heroes of Wes Anderson — would seem to be the songwriting model invoked most often. Here is a completely realized vision: power pop (lower case ‘p’s) based on beautiful songwriting so removed from current trends and sensibilities that if you told me this was some great lost record from 1973, I’d fall for it completely. Just as I fell for “Circular Sounds.” Doubt me? Go to the iTunes store and listen to “When You Forget.” If you can resist, you’re probably the type that can eat one potato chip.
The Duke Spirit’s Oasis Amidst The Desert That Is British Rock
Posted in Music with tags Buzzcocks, Luna, Oasis, The Duke Spirit on February 18, 2008 by johnbuckley100This is a message to the management of The Duke Spirit: okay, you know you have under contract the single strongest British rock band to emerge since Oasis in 1994. Liela Moss’s vocals are sexier than Kate Moss’s face, and the band packs such a wallop that that once it hammers its hooks into your brain, you’re pinned, completely caught, no place to go but to replay their music over and over and over again. At the same time, guitarists Luke Ford and Dan Higgins can play Buzzcocks rough to Luna soft, and all stops in between. But here’s your challenge as management: you have to resist licensing their music to a car company. Oh yeah, they’re coming, if they haven’t already got there. The band’s perhaps a little too hard rock for Volkswagen, but I can easily see Mitsubishi going for the Zombies-like intro to “The Step and the Walk” from the superb new album “Neptune.” I’m guessing Ford or Dodge might want to show how hip they are by having “Lassoo” power an ad for some jet black SUV, cruising with the club kids through lower Manhattan. And here’s my advice: resist. Sure, the songs are catchy enough for such commercial application, yet at its heart — the Duke Spirit’s spirit, if you will — the band needs to channel Sterling Morrison riffs and Noel Gallagher power chords on the way to making maybe the strongest Brit rock of the modern age. Yeah, they’re that good. Anything else is a sellout. Don’t blow it.
Tulip Frenzy 