Pockit Rockit

Looking for a Bit of Harmony

2009-07-10T16:09:00.000-07:00

The last two years of law school and the birth of kids #2 and #3 have pulled me away from my previously scheduled programming. But a little observation begs me to jot down this post on a crisp, feel-good Friday evening.

The observation is this: at this particular moment, it might be the Beach Boys, not the Beatles, that are the preeminent, overriding influence in the best indie pop/rock of-the-moment (I admit that I have deliberately cut-out the entire realm of Sonic Youth/Replacements/Pavement-influenced indie rock). For the Beatles, it was about endless imagination with pop song structure and melodic inventiveness that wove through anyone making "pop" music. And that's still there, but the most innovative music I've been hearing for the last year or two has been a little less concerned with pop structure and melody and more concerned with HARMONY--the intricate, complex, layered and gorgeous kind. That's not to say structure and melody have been jettisoned as much as the emphasis has shifted in a way I have not heard before. And, other than "post-rock," I also haven't heard much formal inventiveness in the pop field (underground or mainstream) in a long time (no, rehashing post-punk or dressing in kooky fashions (or going naked) is not inventive). And when I think of layered arrangements and harmonies, I think of the Beach Boys.

But the recent artists I'm thinking of are not merely pilfering a sound as an excuse to then market themselves with "image" and "attitude." Instead, the recent artists are succeeding in adding new layers of depth and complexity that have built upon the tradition that Wilson and the Boys so wonderfully elevated.

The Beach Boys influence is, surprisingly, most explicit in the most out-there of these albums: Panda Bear's Person Pitch, from 2007. The harmonies are sometimes almost identical to those conjured by Brian Wilson, but modern technology has allowed Panda Bear add track upon track of vocal overlays, turning up the density and richness, while also injecting just a dose or two of post-modern weirdness and trance-iness. The result is the feeling of a dizzying swoon of vocal motion, swirling while standing in place. Some of the indulgences do not help the album, but the layering is awe-inspiring and clearly drawn from the Beach Boys' well.

Check out "Bros" here.

Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear's Brooklyn neighbor and ursine cousin, also exalts its layering and harmonies. After 2007's breakthrough, Yellow House, the band has attained a new pinnacle with their 2009 album, Veckatimest. Most of the deliberately askew elements of the Panda Bear album were barred entry to this affair. The focus is almost entirely on beautiful harmonies that come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Spare the noize, thank you very much. The tracks sometimes swell and expand, while sometimes they simply glow and emanate a pale fire, but they don't "move" much. If you're looking for propulsion, this ain't it. But if you're not trying to get anywhere, except to dwell in a small space of radiance, this works delightfully.

Check out "Fine for Now" here.

The Fleet Foxes are the band that has come closest to matching their Beach Boys-gone-woodsy harmonies to accessible songs. Even then, I know several people who tell me that they don't hear "the tunes" in the Fleet foxes work. Those people are some of my friends, but they are wrong. I suspect the band's classic rock-era, Southern California influences conjure expectations of Fleetwood Mac/Crosby Still & Nash catchiness. If so, then, fine, the FFs "fail" (though the cathartic end section of their brilliant "Mykonos" follows a similar melodic line to the one CSN sing in "Ohio", "Gotta get down to it/soldiers are gunning us down/shoulda been done long ago..."). But the truth is that the tunes are there; they just don't always appear at the expected times and places. Stunning melodic hooks emerge throughout the album, often serendipitously 37% of the way through a song. The verses and chorus don't always follow standard format, but it makes the melodic and harmonic gems that much more magical when they emerge. The joy of following the twists in the snowy road till you find the magic valleys only gets stronger with more listens. Just as importantly, both the band's EP and full-length flow effortlessly through their sunshine, deep woods, wide skies, and cozy hearths, really riding their atmospherics and graceful dynamics. For a bunch of dudes in their early 20s, this is a spectacular accomplishment. A group with the potential to make it for the long haul and well worth keeping an eye on.

Check out "Ragged Wood" here and "Mykonos" here.

If we keep moving on our scale of increasing structure, we eventually arrive at the Dirty Projectors. On their dazzling Bitte Orca, the harmonies are not set on spiral, as with Panda Bear, nor on perma-glow, as with Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, but on flash-and-cut. While the feel on the other three albums is loose, sometimes sprawling, the sound here is more tightly wound, with quicker, sharper edits. But around each rhythmic corner a will o' wisp mini-firework of female vocals lies waiting, to delicately explode and then disappear before you blinked. There is an effervescent sparkle to the harmonies, rather than the langurous glow, and even a vaguely African-esque vibe, at times. It's a different feeling, not as Beach Boys-based, but every bit as intoxicating.

Check out "Cannibal Resource" here.

If You Like Jeff Buckley, Then...

2007-04-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Jeff Buckley probably gets more deep swoons from more people than any 90s artist. More than Radiohead, more than Nirvana, more than Pavement (thank God). Guys, girls, teenagers, elder Boomers, passive radio listeners, hard core music fans, whatever, Jeff Buckley is that kind of artist. His was the kind of talent that was not just extravagant, but was also very open about its extravagance, wailing that you be fully aware of its brilliance. In a world in which everyone wants so desperately to be the star of their own movie and spends most of their waking hours constructing virtual personnae for themselves, it is only more awesome when you witness a true talent, a true star. That was Jeff.

But this type of magnificence presents a difficulty for recommendation purposes. If Jeff Buckley was truly so spectacular, who are you going to recommend that can possibly stand within his radiance without being burned to a cinder?

It's a tough trick (isn't it always?). Assume, for now, that we can't match the raw talent. Can we find something in Jeff's essence that is more attainable to the rest of the mortal world? That depends, since he has several essences. On a purely aesthetic/expressive level, his range flows from the worldly romanticism of Edith Piaf, to the poetic mysticism of Van Morrison, to the honey & vinegar soul of Nina Simone, and many others. So far, so good. He has that superhuman falsetto, not merely clear, but soaring and tearing at the same time. Still, so far so good. Other people have falsettos, too. If we count the artists that came in Jeff's wake and add in the artists that piled on after Radiohead's OK Computer, we could easily fill an entire book with emotive, male vocalists that feature aching falsettos. What most do not have that Jeff did have is a counterbalance to the fey fragility that the falsetto conveys. In Jeff's case, that counterbalance came from many hours with Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin. What it amounts to is rock star balls & bombast, melodrama backed by force. This is crucial. Most male vocalists who lay claim to "sounding like Jeff" have the sincerity, the emotion, the falsetto, but are completely devoid of ROCK. And that is the difference between a vulnerable young man and a neutered wuss.

I'm not above recommending some of these types of male singers to Jeff fans because I know that the surface appeal has some common factor, but I also know they fall short. Considering the masculinity issues at stake here, I think certain female vocalists probably get closer to the heart of Jeff's deep, yet narcissistic and virtuosic soulfulness than most males do. I'd say Tori Amos is the closest thing Jeff ever had to a true artistic peer during his lifetime. Although not devoid of her own flightiness, when it comes to laying it down behind the piano and microphone (especially live), she, like Jeff could, really lets it wail with a full force gale. That kind of power is essential to the Jeff Buckley core. That's what still gets the back of the neck hairs standing on end. Sadly, that kind of power is truly rare.

Still, giving it my best shot, here's what I have in Pockit Rockit and why:

Essence: intense, sensitive, narcissistic, emotive, soaring, wailing vocals. Range and dynamics are key: hushed love songs to howling songs of loss. A little melodrama, but a lot of passion.

Means: range and technique, but also depth of musical foundation, from soul to qawwali to chanson to pop to jazz to heavy rock.

Special Sauce: Rock power, to transcend the puppy dog softness and teenage melodrama.

1) Tori Amos: Like I said, she's the closest peer--closest in essence, talent, and power--to Jeff. Truly awesome talent and expressive artistry as a vocalist and instrumentalist. Both soaring and hushed, and extremely intense with her own material while also passionate and sensitive with her many, usually remarkable, cover songs (her one misstep was the cover of Slayer's "Raining Blood"). My favorite is still her first album, Little Earthquakes, with "Mother," "Winter," and "Precious Things" really showing what she's all about.

2) Ours: New Jersey band who had a brief moment of possibility with a Columbia Records contract. Never happened. Too bad, since the vocalist, Jimmy Gnecco, probably came closer to matching Jeff's raw vocals than any other vocalist I've heard. He has all the sensitivity and all the power. There's even a touch of Bono in his tone. And the band also had a suitably big sound to nearly match the vocals. Sadly, the songs weren't always there, especially when they went for more modest-sounding tracks. But they really should have made a bigger impact. Their first album, Distorted Lullabies, is easily well worth getting at Amazon for $0.99.

3) Sunny Day Real Estate: Another rare band with an emotive, falsetto male vocalist that is capable of amazing force, as well as vulnerability. When they first burst onto the scene, they were touted as a possible successor to Nirvana. Didn't happen, though their smaller fanbase may have been more passionately devoted than Nirvana's. It wasn't until after some intra-band turmoil that they produced their controversial swan song, The Rising Tide. Some fans saw it as a heavy rock betrayal; I hear it as their finest, an album of oceanic strength and dew drop delicacy. Not dissimilar qualities to what made Jeff Buckley so affecting.

4) Martin Sexton: Here's where things start getting a little difficult. Sexton is really roots-based, folk-blues-rock dude. Far earthier than Jeff ever was. Connecting him to Jeff is based on two specious, though not necessarily erroneous, elements. First, and it always has to start here, is the voice. Sexton sounds much more like a grown man than Jeff. With that, there is a greater modesty and everyday quality to Sexton's voice, compared to Jeff's supernova light. But out of the jeans and cowboy boots, Sexton lets loose a startling falsetto of his own, letting his usually hidden feathers spread out behind him. This leads to the second, deep similarity between Martin and Jeff: they both make the ladies swoon. Check out his song "Glory Bound" or his cover of Prince's "Purple Rain" to get an idea of what he does.

5) David Sylvian: Speaking of swooning, Sylvian was one of the masters. Girls would swoon, boys would swoon...his voice was so breathily entrancing that it seemed he would likely swoon, as well, if he weren't so elegantly removed. In many ways, his emotionless rapture, European artiness and ethereal (even cold) glory are the antithesis to Jeff's outward, expressionistic, scene-stealing dazzle. Jeff burns red, while David glows a pale blue. But male beauty and its artistic display could resonate through many fans, not necessarily sexually as much as the realization of an idealized state. Dead Bees on a Cake is probably the best place to start, with "I Surrender" "Midnight Sun" and "Thalhiem" being among his best.

6) Rufus Wainwright: So much for my Led Zeppelin, heavy rock claims. Rufus is a proud friend of Dorothy and, in fact, performed a massive Judy Garland program in New York last year. His voice can soar, but it tends to come out of his upper throat and nose, rather than the screaming wail that was often Jeff's stock in trade. Rufus is too refined for screaming. But much of Jeff was not about screaming, either. Much of Jeff was refined and elegant, as well. Elegance and refinement aside, both are/were sophisticated artists capable of generating deep emotional responses in their listeners. Both are deeply passionate and soulful, with brilliant grasp of melody and dynamics. So they're approaches are a bit different, both are dazzling talents with narcissistic streaks and I'm willing to make the leap that many Jeff fans would be, if they're not already, huge fans of Rufus'.

7, 8, 9, 10) Arid, Autumns, Prayer Boat, Starsailor: Four decent, but flawed, bands that have their own appeals without knocking the ball out of the park. These are some of the better of the bands I mentioned above that get that falsetto thing right, but either miss the power or the dynamics that made Jeff special. Arid, nice vocalist of course. But he is by far the best part of the band's fairly bland, mainstream "alternative" sound. Best tracks: "Little Things of Venom." Autumns, probably the most original of this quartet. Their albums have atmosphere and flow due to their big washes of "shoegaze" style guitar. The vocals reach some nice crescendos, but I'm still left wanting more in the way of memorable melody. Their self-titled album, Autumns, is worth checking out. Prayer Boat sound good on their first song: soaring vocals, rising swells and all. But song after song, you hear the band's limits in vocal delivery, compositional variety, and all-around impact. Starsailor got some attention, along with peers such as Keane, in the wake of Coldplay's initial success. Again, pleasant band, some good melodies, but just not remarkable enough to demand space in your CD player or iTunes. They did name themselves after the most experimental album of.......

11) Tim Buckley: Jeff's dad. It's all-too-obvious, but it must be said again that Tim was the most dazzling vocalist of the late 60s, US folk scene. The most spectacular technique, the widest range, coupled with probably the greatest willingness to push his talent into the realms of the unexplored. To say there is likely some familial influence does nothing to diminish the richness of Jeff's personal influences and his successes with synthesizing them into his own vision. Still, if you like Jeff, you must check out Tim's work, not just because he was Jeff's father and similarly died early, but because he was a jaw-dropping vocalist, in his own right (even if you still like Jeff better). Start with Happy Sad or Blue Afternoon or the live Dream Letter.

Artists I left out but maybe shouldn't have:

Here's where I could have put some of Jeff's influences/artists he has covered: Nina Simone, Edith Piaf, Van Morrison, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Leonard Cohen. They are all immortal--among the greatest artists ever recorded. Everyone should at least check them out. However, between the radical stylistic differences between these artists and Jeff Buckley and the fact that I feel each artists represents only a facet or two of Jeff's essence, I opted not to include them in the "If you like Jeff..." list. As with every list, maybe I was wrong. But that's why this blog's here and that's why the website is dynamic. I'm more than happy to hear all arguments!

If You Like the Doors, Then.....

2007-04-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

I don't think about the Doors very often. But when I finished Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up And Start Again, chronicling the various "post-punk" scenes that emerged from the scorched earth of the Sex Pistols necessary implosion, the Doors came back onto the radar screen. A recurring and interesting detail in the book was how frequently the Doors (specifically, Jim Morrison) were cited as an influence by post-punk bands. The fact that most post-punk bands were virulently anti-Classic Rock makes their fandom only more fascinating.

Some, if not most, of that influence/allure surely stems from the charisma of Morrison and the power he held over his audience. This plays into the tendency many post-punk bands had to work laboriously to construct conceptual foundations for their bands. One preoccupation that often found nearby these foundations was fascism. Sometimes, this was a fascination/repulsion thing, sometimes it was closer to a fascination/fascination thing. Either way, the charismatic leader (or "shaman," as Doors' keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, refers to Morrison) was inescapably alluring to post-punk bands, either for its conceptual ties to fascism or for its more ego-driven appeal to the leaders of certain groups.

Musically, the thing with the Doors is that they are particularly hard to peg. What is it about the Doors that a Doors fan most connects to? It could be any number of things since the band can be romantic and even sappy one moment, possessed and malevolent the next. I've mentioned the child/dark-side schizm of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. The Doors had something similar, but less fantasy-based, something more worldly and sexual. They were sometimes a blues-rock band, led by a keyboard player and lacking a bassist entirely. They were sometimes a commercial pop band for teen girls. And they were sometimes flat-out psychedelic as they went on improvised trips while Morrison went off into his primal/Freudian/existential black hole. Blues-rock, jazz, psychedelia, pop, hard rock, pretty/ugly, seductive/destructive, accessible/experimental. As with many classic bands that have been able to maintain an audience for forty years, there are many different facets about the Doors, each of which radiates at a different strength to each fan. Then again, it may just come back to Morrison.

I remember very well when I was trying to put together POCKIT ROCKIT, how surprised I was that I found these guys to be one of the very hardest bands to match effectively. The best approach I could devise was to approach one or two elements in the Doors make-up, such as the vocals or the instrumentation, and try to match those, rather than match the entire essence. In fact, I still scratch my head about trying to come up with better recommendations for the Doors. So, while I'm not necessarily the biggest fan, I have a great deal of respect for the Doors for being, in retrospect, one of the more idiosyncratic and original bands of their day.

ESSENCE: Like I said, this is tough. The best I could come up with is sort of kaleidoscopic, trying to capture the tightrope walk between the mainstream, the Dionysian-decadent and the insane, the possibility of pop pleasure or a slip through the rabbit hole. Or is it all a put-on?

MEANS: Different vibes on different tracks, Manzerak's organ, jazzy jamming skills, Morrison.

SPECIAL SAUCE: Does it have to be repeated? Morrison held it all together. I'll add that the de-emphasis on the guitar perhaps enabled the space for Morrison's presence and for the more atmospheric feel of some of the band's best material ("Riders on the Storm," "The End" etc).

Who I have in POCKIT ROCKIT and why:

1) Phantom's Divine Comedy: closest to the Doors actual "sound," if a bit more melodramatic.

Although their one-off album is from around 1974, these guys come the closest to actually nailing the Doors sound, the jazzy, trippy pop/rock with a hint of malevolence on the horizon, almost to the point of vaudeville. Getting the vocals right, or even close, is not easy, and this group hits it.

2) Nick Cave: The closest modern embodiment of the Morrison ethos: ragingly intense, movingly tender, always passionate.

Here's where we start leaving the Doors time period and try to translate their essence in new ways. Cave is probably my first choice in this regard. For one, he has that rich baritone that always holds the possibility of flying unhinged with Old Testament passion. Sexy, commanding. He can do lush, romantic, poetic ballads of love...or of murder. Or he and his crack band can release the bats, bellowing with hellfire and brimstone. Start with Live Seeds or Henry's Dream since both show Nick's range magnificently. Then move on to Tender Prey, probably my favorite.

3) Jefferson Airplane: some similar dark/light dynamics, but from a more folk--rather than blues-based--background.

Airplane had that peace, love, flowers...blood in the streets dichotomy, at times. Hippies, for sure, the acid was sometimes bad and it came it out in the music, from folk pop to heavy psychedelia. Grace Slick was also a suitably charismatic/sexy frontperson for a while.

4) Joy Division: Radically different sound, but some core, essential similarities of dancing around the void and the baritone vocals. Raw and doomy but rewarding.

This requires a little bit of a leap, since the bands are of clearly different times and places. However, JD's searingly intense vocalist, Ian Curtis, was one of those post-punk Jim Morrison fans I mentioned earlier. He also sang in a low, monotone, baritone, which had some connection to Morrison, but far starker, more harrowing, more suffocating, just as Joy Division's music is to the Doors'. But between the singers related neuroses/obsessions/demons and the bands' abilities to wake the razor of song and oblivion, JD may truly resonate with certain Doors fans, though I'm under no delusions that it will work will all of them. Start with Closer.

5) High Tide: A Morrison-type vocalist fronting a band more like Black Sabbath or King Crimson, around 1970.

At least the vocals have Morrison's deep, moody vibe, though the band is clearly heavier, doomier, and more prog rock-inclined than the Doors. Top quality band. Whether Doors fans or Black Sabbath fans will be more inclined to like their two great albums, Sea Shanties and High Tide, is anyone's guess.

6) Love: Great band, some existential issues, pop/experimental, but the actual sound is significantly different.

Wonderful band, but I have a few reservations. Yeah, they were in the same LA psych scene. Yeah, they could be baroque one moment and grungy the next. Yeah, hope and despair intermingled in some of their music. Yeah, Arthur Lee was a major personality. But I can't help but feel that more Beatles fans than Doors fans would turn on brightest to Love, considering the band's expertise with composition and arrangement, more than Dionysian expressionism.

7) Spirit: Many moods/textures, rock/jazz/blues/folk/psych. But also significantly different sound.

Another excellent band from the late-60s LA psych scene. But again, not exactly an accurate match for the Doors. The leader was the guitarist while the vocals were not remarkable. There was plenty of eclecticism, but I'm not sure the same tension, the same possibility of falling through the rabbit hole, is there in the way it is in essence for the Doors.

8) Danzig: Don't take this one too seriously, but if Morrison-like vocal power is what you want, Danzig's bellowing might hit the spot.

Kind of a lark, this one, but maybe not. Danzig is a campy blues-metal performer who uses Satanic and dark magic imagery in his schtick. However, if anyone in music of the last 20 years was actually influenced by Morrison's vocals, it was Danzig and his amazingly powerful vocal pipes. Throw in some Elvis and Vampira and you're set.

9) Agents of Oblivion: A genuinely passionate and soulful elegy by a band for their fallen bassist. Intense range of emotions and an astonishing vocal performance.

An outsider/dark horse pick and a possible result of my personal affection for this record. The side project of New Orleans metal band, Acid Bath, following the death of their bassist, this was kind of an elegy to him. As such, it has the range of moods I imagine a Doors fan would appreciate: wailing sorrow, red-eyed anger, tenderness, brutality. What holds the album together is what holds the Doors material together: a preternaturally powerful vocalist. Dax Riggs is really a wonder on this recording, from fallen angel falsetto to raving bluesman. A rare performance, Doors connection or not. Even better that the connection might be there, as well.

10*) Velvet Underground: This was a major omission. Though there are substantial differences, the core similarities are closely parallel.

I actually did not include them in the Doors list although, in retrospect, perhaps I should have. If one of the essences of the Doors is decadence and transgression, the VU were every bit their match. Given, the VU's decadence was a more NY/European, artsy/literary world of deSade, Masoch, Burroughs, Artaud, etc while the Doors had a more Californian, primal vibe with the two schools meeting half-way with Brecht/Weill. But either way, the drive was towards breaking taboos, crossing boundaries of sexuality and drug intake. The surface manifestations might have been different, but the underlying drives were relatively similar.

11*) Iggy Pop/Stooges: This was also a major omission, although more justified than the VU. Simply, the Stooges' raw-as-hell, blitzingly minimal, bestial rock attack sounds nothing like the Doors more elegant and refined organ-based sound. Also, Iggy's talk of working class aimlessness and limited horizons was a far cry from Morrison's mystic, rock god invocations. However, when it comes to raw, physical force, animalistic sexuality, on-stage abandon, off-stage hedonism, the whole nine, there are perhaps no two artists more aligned than Iggy Pop and Jim Morrison. Their essences are nearly identical, with substance ingestion to kill the largest land mammals in North America to sexual encounters with any and everyone from 13-year-old girls to transvestite dudes, to physical endurance that should have left them in traction for decades, factoring in the differences due to geography (L.A. via Texas vs. suburban Detroit). So, if you're keying in on the sound of two bands, the Doors and Stooges don't match. If you're keying in on the life-forces of the driving artists of these two bands, you probably couldn't do much better than linking these two madmen.

If You Like Black Sabbath, You'll Like...

2007-03-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

There are only a handful of archetypes: Elvis as the "Rock Star," the Beatles as "The Standard," Led Zeppelin as "The Gods," Dylan as "The Bard," the Rolling Stones as "The Bad Boys," Joni Mitchell as "The Woman," the Velvet Underground as "Alternative," Big Star as the "Should Have Been Huge," Nick Drake as the "The Fallen Angel," and a few others. And then there's Black Sabbath, "The Lords of Doom."

It could be argued that Sabbath had an effect on every artist that followed them. They were the first to define an aesthetic based around darkness and heaviness. This had only happened in flashes from Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, Cream, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Zeppelin. Those artists each took turns skimming the Void; Sabbath went into it. Sabbath were one of the first artists to break as a huge success with minimal support from their label, suggesting to future labels and artists that massive marketing expenditures were not as essential for success as resonance with "the people." And then there was the sound: downtuned, tritoned, and stacked. The downtuning was a semi-result of a freak factory injury that severed the tips of guitarist, Tony Iommi's, fingers. Downtuning, or loosening, the guitar strings helped him to reduce the pain of playing. The "tritone" was a chord or note sequence that, in Medieval times, was thought to be evil and to conjure the devil. What was nifty was that the tritone could be incorporated so smoothly into the blues scales that were already prevalent throughout the rock scene and in the band's music when they performed as Earth, prior to rechristening themselves Black Sabbath. And the stacking refers only partially to the crushing volume and "warm" sound amplification provided by their distinctive Orange amplifiers. The stacking I'm talking about is better discussed by Joe Carducci and refers to having the bass and guitar play the same line on top of each other, essentially doubling-up and filling out the riff to ever more massive effect. For solos and vocal parts, the bass and guitar could separate again, leaving space for atmosphere, building tension, and setting the stage for the cathartic rush of when the stacked riff would drop yet again, igniting some primal, chemical surge, often best expressed physically in head banging.

Compared to Pink Floyd and some of the artists I will look at in the future, it is easy to find bands who sound influenced by, similar to, or connected by essence to Sabbath. Basically, Sabbath's core sound is really simple: downtuned, minor-key, blues-derived riffs, with tons of tritone progressions, wailing vocals, and a hard-hitting, swinging rhythm section. The songs are usually composed as rough suites of one or two riff sections, a jam/solo section, and out.

As simple as the formula is, very few bands get it right, even when they're consciously trying to imitate Sabbath. The most frequent fault is not realizing how loose, swinging, and groovy the Sabbath rhythm section is. Without that, the sound can become stiff, leaden, stultifying and, ultimately, boring. Truly, no one doing the Sabbath style is ever going to do it "better" than Sabbath. So, rather than exclusively recommend bands that sound most like Sabbath, I generally lean to recommending bands who are steeped in one or elements of Sabbath's essence and then take it to unexplored regions.

[Just a quick side-note that I should have brought this up in the Pink Floyd piece because it is so crucial to the guidance/discovery game: do you recommend based on who sounds most similar to the core artist or do you try to lead a reader to take the "next step"? With several slots to work with, I can do a little bit of both]:

So, before we dive into the recs, let's break Sabbath down to its essentials, its core, defining traits.

Essence: As with all of what we call "Metal," it's about conjuring strength and power through the heroic and/or the foreboding. In Sabbath's case, the emphasis is clearly on the foreboding part. The thinking behind the love of the foreboding, or "doom," is that the acknowledgement of impending doom feels better than being hit by it unexpectedly or than trying to deny it. Negative x negative = positive. Then again, it might just be an awesome chemical reaction that the riffs set off.

Means: Downtuned guitars, minor-key riffs, recurring "tritones," stacked guitar/bass playing, high, wailing vocals, swinging rhythm section.

Special Sauce: They did the riffs first and freshest--and most melodic. Great chemistry. Underrated grooviness.

Who I have in Pockit Rockit and why:

Budgie: Second tier, but beloved in the UK and covered by Metallica.

A Welsh band and one of the surprisingly few bands to play close to the actual Sabbath style in the early 70s (most hard/heavy bands at the time sounded more like Led Zeppelin or Grand Funk Railroad). They had minor-key guitar riffs and the high wailing vocals. But when you actually listen to them next to Sabbath, it's clear that the bands are in different leagues: Sabbath had thicker guitar sound, more swing, and better musicianship. However, Budgie are widely beloved in the UK and one of their songs, an uptempo number called "Breadfan," was covered by Metallica, so I felt I would be remiss if I didn't give them their place on the Sabbath list. Squawk is probably their most enduring, and most Sabbath-like, piece.

Candlemass: Took doomy Sabbath sound into neo-classical and operatic realms.

Here's one of those "next step" bands I was talking about. The Sabbath doominess is all over the place, downtuned guitar, minor-keys, tritones, the whole nine. However, these Swedes also add some neo-classical guitar mastery, giving a sound that moves Sabbath's earthiness closer to the grandeur of Mussorgsky. But Candlemass' true trademarks are the bellowing, magisterial, bombastic, operatic vocals of Messiah Marcolin. If there were any questions about the separation from the blues, the vocals obliterate them. As Priest and Maiden did with traditional Metal, Candlemass were probably the first to separate Doom Metal from the blues. Nightfall is their best.

Cathedral: 90s Sabbath flag-bearers, label builders and scene stalwarts.

Often cited as the major flag-bearer of the Sabbath sound in the 90s, especially in the UK. I don't want to diss Cathedral since they have been consummate professionals, really working to build a scene and support many artists. Tons of respect. However, their music has always fallen flat to me. The riffs sound generic, their vaunted groove feels more pedestrian than swinging, and the gruff vocals are limited an unappealing. But that could just be me. They're huge and respected in the scene so check 'em out.

Electric Wizard: Rawer, heavier, screamier, and much more wasted take on Sabbath.

Widely touted for a while in the doom underground for their gargantuan, drug wasted, post-Sabbath sound, I started having my doubts after seeing them in a dreadfully pathetic live show. Still, much of their recorded output is impressive, if you want the Sabbath rawness, but even rawer, heavier, thicker, screamier, more drugged-out. Dopethrone is yours. If you still want the Sabbath melodicism, look elsewhere.

Eyehategod: Nasty, heroin-fueled vibe but with heavy, melodic riffs and great swing.

Every bit as wasted as Electric Wizard, and probably on worse drugs. Despite the New Orleans scum and needle vibe, what Eyehategod really get right (especially on their best album, Take As Needed For Pain) is the melodicism and the deep grooviness of their riffs. Yes, the vocals are wretched, anguished screaming (not a completely bad thing in this band's context) and the production (not to mention the lyrics) is nasty as a crack addict squatter's bunghole, they know what makes riffs kick and what makes them move. Hugely revered and influential in the early 90s underground.

Melvins: An idiosyncratic amalgam of the history of hard/heavy rock.

They synthesized so many different strains of heavy rock history into their sound that they could be placed almost everywhere and nowhere. In truth, they're much screwier than Sabbath, with unpredictable song structures, some consisting of one riff (or digital silence), others bouncing around several. Some are glacial and massive, some are tight and peppy. But they love heavy rock profoundly, as do most fans of Sabbath. That love cuts through the perceived differences and should result in many fans of both bands. Bullhead shows them at their heavy, idiosyncratic, best, with no screwing around.

Penance: Straight-forward, classy doom with excellent musicianship, strong vocals and melodic riffs.

A good example of idolatry done well. All that you could want in the Sabbath sound, with a bit of 90s updating: lowered, yet still clean, vocals, stronger musicianship, and melodic influences that draw from classic, traditional metal. Consistently solid, but Parallel Corners was their breakthrough.

Pentagram: The closest thing there was to a second Black Sabbath in the early 70s.

If I had to name one band that sounds most similar to prime-era Sabbath, it would be Pentagram. Coming up with a similar sound at almost the exact same time, but in Baltimore rather than Birmingham, this is your band if you are looking for the Sabbath sound. Go with the excellent comp of early stuff, First Daze Here. With consistently high quality riffs, songs, and doomy vocals from Bobby Liebling, the major place Pentagram comes up short next to Sabbath is with their comparatively stiff rhythm section.

Saint Vitus: Unpolished, with a touch of punk amateurishness that many find endearing.

Ozzy had been officially out of Sabbath for six years (eight, unofficially) when Saint Vitus released its first album in LA in 1984. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal had done its thing, Def Leppard and Motley Crue had started doing their thing, Metallica and Slayer had started doing theirs. Sabbath was as ancient history as the Druids. Except Saint Vitus wasn't going to accept that, as their album title, Born Too Late, laid bare. They, as well as Chicago's Trouble, still worshipped the old gods throughout the 80s, despite the radical unfashionability of that stance. Personally, a lot of their stuff sounds like underproduced, slightly amateurish Sabbath, but those qualities can be very endearing to the right ears.

Sleep: Made the Sabbath sound even more monolithic and psychedelic.

Building off of some of the momentum built by Eyehategod, Sleep probably did more to bring Sabbath into the 90s than any other band, short of Sabbath's reunion, itself. Despite not selling particularly well during their career (probably due to limited touring and drug-related issues), their stature has only become more legendary as time has gone on. Sleep somehow managed to make Sabbath even heavier and more monolithic than it ever was, while also blowing out the psychedelic elements that were sometimes more suggested than truly explored in Sabbath. All this, while still maintaining that ever-elusive, swinging groove. Of course, as things got heavier and heavier and more and more psychedelic (by the time of their swan song, Jerusalem), melody tended to disappear into the cannabis haze, but this may deepen the trance. Start with Holy Mountain.

Solitude Aeturnus: Brought elements of progressive rock to post-Sabbath doom.

If Candlemass brought neo-classical elements to Sabbath, Solitude Aeturnus brought progressive rock elements to the doom sound. Featuring some of the best musicianship and strongest vocals in doom metal, SA were able to stay doomy while also attaining a level of dynamics and complexity that few others in the style could match. Some might say that you don't need chops in doom. Maybe not, but it makes for highly engaging listening. For those coming from a more Maiden/Fates Warning direction, this would be a doom band to check out. Beyond the Crimson Horizon shows them at their prog-doom best.

Trouble: Very melodic doom, with psychedelic pop and thrash touches.

Of the very few 80s bands carrying the Sabbath flag, Trouble is probably my favorite. They were easily Saint Vitus' equal in the heaviness department, but because of their better skills, they could gallop as well as crawl. Trouble's songs were consistently well put-together, highly melodic and memorable, as their influences ranged from straight doom to psychedelic pop to thrash. A great, important, and underappreciated band in the history of metal. Start with the Rick Rubin-produced, self-titled, Trouble.

Some bands I deliberately did not choose:

Blue Oyster Cult: despite the black magic imagery and occasional heaviness, their music was really not particularly heavy. Solid classic rock with some heavy moments, but not nearly enough to be a relevent comparison to Sabbath.

Obsessed: Important band in 80s doom scene, but I see them as kind of a more straight-forward, biker Saint Vitus. That, plus the common presence of Wino would have made their inclusion redundant.

Sir Lord Baltimore: Early entry to the US heavy rock pantheon. Some genuinely heavy moments, but also a lot of weak tracks. Lastly, their heaviness probably has more in common with, say, Mountain, than with Sabbath.

Bang: Another frequently-cited, early heavy rock band. The vocals are not dissimilar to Ozzy's but, as with Sir Lord Baltimore, I think consistent quality is lacking. Also, the drums are mixed very weakly, diminishing much of the potential power of their first (and best) album.

Orange Goblin/Alabama Thunderpussy: Both are high quality bands, especially live. Both could have been chosen for the list. However, both bands' reliance on boogie rhythms (which, admitedly, Sabbath used on occasion) gives them a feel that deviates just enough from any kind of doom to put them in a slightly different category. Taking this application to an extreme would be someone like Fu Manchu who, despite having many heavy riffs (some even semi-Sabbath-derived), give off a totally different vibe due to their rhythms, vocals, song structures, etc.

REINTRODUCING POCKIT ROCKIT: How We Discover Music, Part 1--Pink Floyd

2007-03-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

What I'd like to start doing with this blog is to examine how we turn-on to music. How do we go from where we are with music to points unknown? Is using what we already know our primary guide to exploring the unknown or do we use other means? What issues impact musical taste? How much of taste is musically based versus socially based? How big of an impact do things such as personal associations play or what about the impact of repetition? What about the effects of subculture and style? I think we know that these things all have an impact. I just don't know how much. Can we ever just experience music "as music"? Do we even want to? Are all of those externalities, such as subculture, style, associations, etc an essential element that enhances the experience? Or, are those externalities a way in which we reduce music to mere fashion? I have my thoughts, but I really don't know.

I evaluate and categorize music for a living. It is of deep concern to me and a source of never-ending fascination to try to figure out connections between artists. For example, what would somebody who likes Jane's Addiction also like? It can be a difficult task, especially with this kind of band with such an idiosyncratic style (the Doors are another difficult band to match really well). There are numerous cues that a Jane's fan could attach to: is it Perry's voice that most signifies Jane's sound? Or is it Stephen Perkins' drumming? Is it the hardness of the music or the quasi-psychedelia of it? Or is it something totally different: the decadent ambi-sexual vibes, Perry's corsets, the fact that you were a sophomore in high school and your first tape was the beat up copy of Nothing's Shocking that your older brother's hot girlfriend gave you. Or did a friend drag you to a show and it was your Birkenstock that landed on stage and was picked up by Perry. Trying to factor all of that into a system is massively (impossibly?) complex. But I do think the underlying music, in and of itself, whether formally (the notes and structures), sonically (production), or perhaps even spiritually (essence) can be realistically explored and compared. So that's what I try to focus on.

Specifically, I'm trying to figure out how people connect from what they currently know and love to what they have yet to discover and yet to start getting into. It's the most tried-and-true, classic means of reference I know. By tracing that path, I'm trying to see if it's possible to get at "the essence" of a given artist's music and to see if it's possible to experiencing "pure music"-- music, as itself. Personal associations are burned deeply into everyone and are pretty much impossible to remove from the evaluation process. But removing the packaging, promotion, social pressures, political agendas, social theories, and other extra-musical distractions could go a long way towards building our ability to evaluate music in a rational, passionate, and musical way.

Most of this questioning is going to be fairly welcoming and open-ended: I'm simply going to pick an artist of the day and try to figure out what that artist's essence is: what forms the core that makes that artist what it is. Then, I'm going to look at a bunch of other artists to try to figure out who, in essence, is most like the given artist. This is basically what I've been trying to do in the Pockit Rockit book and website, but now opening up the windows to its process, while also inviting critique and oversight.

I want to kick things off with Pink Floyd, a colossus of Classic Rock to most, a symbolic object of revulsion to some, and highly personal to me as they were my first concert (Brendan Byrne Arena, 1987, Momentary Lapse of Reason tour) and still one of my favorite bands. Better yet, for all their renown, they are a tricky band to match and to provide discovery recommendations for, as we'll see in a minute. But they ultimately do a great job of showing how this process works, for better or worse. Hopefully, we'll be able to improve the process as we open it up.

The first step is to figure out what Floyd's essence is--what is Floyd at its core? This is more complicated than it could be due to the fact that the band changed its approach significantly between the time of its early singles and first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), and the dawn of its mature period, beginning around the time of Meddle (1971). There are plenty of people (of which I'm not one) who contend that Piper was the most significant album Floyd recorded and their definitive statement. For now, let's assume it is. Where does that leave us? Piper is, in essence, the cataclysmic rupture between childhood innocence and the menacing vortex of the Void, perhaps the struggling expulsion from the Garden or perhaps, more simply, the musical illustration far too much hallucinogenic material. Carrying out this source of meaning is the tandem of Syd Barrett's whimsical pop-songs with psychedelic production: "Bike," "See Emily Play," "Arnold Layne," etc and the heavily distorted, ominous guitar freakouts: "Interstellar Overdrive," "Astronomy Domine." This Floyd is a schizoid soul.

And that's a tough trick to pull, because that schizoidness is what made early Floyd special. Honestly, much of that psychedelic pop/rock sound was done by a billion different (mostly English) bands that weren't particularly notable. Some relative stand-outs include Tomorrow and July, but good as they were, they didn't match Floyd at either extreme of deliberately arrested development or nuclear mental meltdown. Perhaps some more interesting choices would include the Soft Machine on their first two albums, which had some of that child-like playfulness, but combined with a kind of avant-jazz-rock sound, rather than bad trip menace. For that vibe, Hawkwind might be the best choice, especially on their Space Ritual live double-album. Many people have drawn similarities from Floyd to the Velvet Underground's folk/feedback approach, although the Velvets never had a feeling of delight or innocence. They were clearly, self-consciously "arty," with John Cale's avant-garde resume and the band's connection to Warhol, while their songs had an archly urbane, (overly?) worldly edge, full of heroin and S&M references. Maybe it was a kind of convergent evolution with two bands getting to vaguely similar places while arriving there from vastly different orientations.

With kind of halting, tentative steps the next few years yielded moments of genius ("Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," "Careful with that Axe Eugene," "Nile Song," etc) but not much in terms of a coherent aesthetic. Things only started to coalesce with 1971's Meddle, the Live in Pompeii album and then....then....of course, Dark Side, followed by Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. At risk of alienating many passionate record collectors and hard core psychedelic fans, these 70s albums are the definitive body of the Floyd essence: transportation through hope, exploration, failure, disillusionment, despair, death, truth, salvation, not always in that order and not necessarily all of them in a single album. As time went on, the lyrical messages become increasingly pessimistic, but the experience of taking a trip is always there, as strongly as with any band that I know. This was achieved through masterful pacing, texture, and dynamics , as well as spectacular recording quality. The instruments are consistently secondary to the flow of the composition: none of them are overplayed or flashy: Nick Mason's drums mostly keep time, Rick Wright's keys are mostly atmospheric (though essential), Roger Waters' bass steps out only occasionally (such as on the monstrous, walloping "One of These Days"), leaving most of the soloing space to the understated forcefulness and restrained grandeur of David Gilmour's guitar. The music is closely composed, like a symphony, so there is little room for messy edges. Most every note, progression, and sequence is there for a reason and generates a specific effect, perhaps chemical. All together, that effect is sublime transportation. The tones are controlled, disciplined, a mixture of acoustic and electric, sometimes dreamy, sometimes hard, usually with a palpable intensity and often with a hint of darkness, directed primarily by the simple, powerful, guitar lines over a bed of swirling keyboard atmospheres and softly sung/more harshly spoken songs.

Breaking it down:

Essence: Immersive and transportational listening experience through a wide emotional range in which the dominant sounds are spacey, intense, and often dark.

Means: Understatedly powerful lead guitar, omnipresent atmospheric keys, controlled drumming, disciplined bass, modest vocals, pessimistic lyrics, meticulous dynamics, spectacular production.

Special Sauce: Mastery of extended, album-length composition and immersive listening experience.

Who I Picked For Pockit Rockit and Why:

Eloy: particularly, their late 70s/early 80s work (Silent Cries..., Ocean). What they had that very few other bands of the time had, was a feel for the Floydian guitar/keyboard tones and interactive balance. The sound is crystalline, even if not quite as meaty as Floyd's. What they got wrong is that when you have a great sound, the vocals cannot be allowed to detract from it. Unfortunately, Eloy's vocals are heavily German-accented English, which can be distracting. Thankfully, their songs are largely instrumental.

House of Not: they pick up on the harder-edged, darker Floyd sound from the Wall/Final Cut. The atmosphere and musicianship is spot-on, if only their writing throughout the duration of the piece were more consistently excllent. Some stunning, memorable tracks, though ("Mainstream").

King Crimson: this begins a string of what seem to be artists more tangentially related to Pink Floyd's sound. Crimson does not really sound like Floyd, especially in their earlier incarnations. The musicianship is more rigorous, the compositions more ornate and demanding, etc. Still, Crimson (as with the best progressive rock) approaches music in a similarly transportational sense, if also in a more experimental and improvisational sense than Floyd. Still, for a certain Pink Floyd fan, I think Crimson could be a logical next step of exploration, especially due to Crimson's excellence with dynamics and Fripp's truly phenomenal guitar playing. No one writes "better" progressive rock than Floyd, just like no one writes "better" Metal than Black Sabbath, but Crimson provides a different angle on the style with a bump up in intensity that could be an exciting next step. Red strikes the best balance of song and instrumental, though Larks' Tongues in Aspic may be more intense.

Magma: similar issue here, as with Crimson. They don't sound like Floyd, but they have some essential similarities that could resonate strongly with a Floyd fan. Admittedly, there is a little element of self-indulgence as Magma is probably my favorite band and any excuse to get them more exposure is a good one, in my mind. But for all their Carmina Burana, epic-opera, jazz-rock, on Top of a totalitarian, Martian march, Magma, just like Floyd, are one of the greatest composers of the album-length, extended composition. They cover the highest highs, lowest lows, brightest brights, darkest darks, and take you on a jaw-dropping, breath taking, soul stirring trip through your emotional and spiritual being. All of life, but elevated and magnified, for forty minutes. The invented language and chorus vocals may seem bombastic to those who appreciate Floyd's more austere sensibilities. But some may find here the greatest band ever, as I did. Mekanik Destructiw Kommandoh, as complete of a statement of musical and spiritual art that I know.

Mike Oldfield: Particularly Tubular Bells and perhaps Amarok (though Ommadawn is probably better). Oldfield is much more instrumentally focused and lighter than Floyd, bountiful with all sorts of "world" influences and pastoral passages. But, again, he brings a mastery of extended composition that certain Floyd fans would appreciate. His guitar work is ace, as is the fantastic production. In terms of sound, if a listener could embrace Floyd as a gentler, more ethnically vibed, all-instrumental band, while retaining the suberb guitar work and even a bit of Floyd's intensity, Oldfield will be much appreciated.

Nektar: No one sounded quite like Floyd, but Nektar came closer than most. Certainly, their light show rivaled Floyd's. Also, like Floyd, this band did a lot of evolving. Their first, Journey to the Center of the Eye, leans back to Syd, but spacier and generally rockier. One year later, A Tab in the Ocean was more in line with Meddle's sound. Things tightened up further by Recycled, with shorter songs that fit into the sharp, clear, total album. The overall sound is sometimes a little harder than Floyd's and a bit more psychedelic and more loosely structured. The trip was almost as good and the aesthetic for the time was more than sympatico.

Neurosis: Again, I've taken liberties with the literal interpretation of the Floyd sound in favor of what I've gleaned to be the Floyd essence. Neurosis comes from the East Bay post-hard core scene. They are far heavier and rawer than Floyd (especially regarding the mostly barked/incanted vocals). However, starting around the time of Souls at Zero and reaching full stride by the following masterpiece, Enemy of the Sun, it became obvious to me that Neurosis was playing, in lack of a better term, "psychedelic music." Many heavy music fans (including Floyd fans) agreed with me wholeheartedly when I would suggest as much to them at concerts. The albums feel like extended works while the songs are often long, volcanically intense, yet incredibly dynamic journeys, in themselves. This ability to shift intensities is largely what gives Neurosis its cathartic, time and space-travelling power--a power very much related to Floyd's, even if the outward form is a bit different. I know that a lot of Neurosis fans are Floyd fans. I don't know how many Floyd fans could become Neurosis fans, but I'd like to at least open the door.

Ozric Tentacles: Here, it comes back to the powerful, lead guitar/spacey, atmospheric keys interaction. The Ozrics essentially reinvented psychedelic jam music in the late 80s with their futuristic, space rave-influenced sound. They're entirely instrumental and bring in influences from dub, Middle Eastern, Indian, and trance musics, so they're not a Floyd carbon copy by any stretch. But the playing, with its polished and streamlined prog approach to psychedelia and its seamless instrumental interplay show Floyd to clearly be one of their biggest influences. And they definitely know how take you on a trip: Erpland does it all.

Porcupine Tree: Probably the first band I would recommend to Floyd fans seeking the next torchbearer. One of the most important prog bands of the 90s, PT's Stephen Wilson almost perfectly matched Gilmour's fantatic lead guitar and tasteful vocals while gracefully incorporating more modern elements, such as trance rhythms and electronics. You want Floyd, but newer, more updated? This is your band. Start with the live greatest hits Coma Divine and work backwards.

Radiohead: To the extent that prog translated into the post-alternative/post-Nirvana world, I would say that Tool is the modern King Crimson, Mars Volta is the modern Yes, and Radiohead is the modern Pink Floyd. Their best work, as with Floyd's, is both progressive and song-oriented, challenging and accessible. They can generate a powerful emotional reaction with everyone in the band playing their heads off or with just an acoustic guitar and vocals. Vocals, in fact, are closer to the lead instrument here, as opposed to the guitar, so the overall feeling is a bit more emotive than grand, but they achieve both in spades. Lastly, few bands are good at connecting songs into a organic album-length experience than Radiohead, especially on OK Computer.

Tangerine Dream: This band kind of inverts the tangents I went on with King Crimson and Neurosis. Those bands have little tonal connection to Floyd but may, for certain listeners, have similar effective goals as Floyd. Tangerine Dream, on the other hand, has a lot in common with Floyd, tonally, but their goals are divergent. An insightful reviewer once called TD "Pink Floyd without the rock" and that's about right. All the atmosphere, the spaciness, the intensity and vague ominousness are absolutely there, largely through the expert use of analog synthesizers. However, the atmospheres exist largely to be lived in, without the tightly composed dynamics and production embellishments that make for a typical Pink Floyd song cycle. They occasionally bring in rhythmic elements but the real impact comes from the powerful, moving clouds of keyboards. Phaedra is probably the most definitive, though Riccochet and Force Majeure add some drums for a more rock-ish feel.

VanDerGraaf Generator: Another in my stream of take-the-next-step recommendations, rather than being a this-is-totally-like-that recommendation. It should be getting clear by now that this recommendation game is not a slam dunk affair with obvious, no brainers at every turn. There are usually a few of those, and certain bands lend themselves to myriad copycats more than others. However, at least with a group like Pink Floyd, the feeling I'm following is who carries any, some, or many of those essential, core, Floydian elements I mentioned earlier: "Immersive and transportational listening experience through a wide emotional range in which the dominant sounds are spacey, intense, and often dark." VDGG has all that, perhaps even too much. Vocalist, Peter Hammill, is unreservedly intense and dramatic--a far cry from Floyd's stateliness. But the dark trips, saxophone accents, and poetically pessimistic take on the human condition could resonate very strongly with certain Floyd fans, as Magma and King Crimson might do with others. Little question: Pawn Hearts.

The lack of obviousness is a major reason why I wanted to start this new blogging approach with Pink Floyd. Each artist demands a different approach to discovery guidance, based largely on the originality of the artist, the number of followers it has, the quality and variety of those followers, and the ultimate, artistic and emotional impact of the artist. For Floyd, there are few truly direct comparisons (Porcupine Tree, House of Not, maybe Radiohead) but the artistic approach (extended, album length works) and the ultimate goal (emotional/spiritual transportation) is immortal and aimed for by many artists. The trick is recognizing and balancing those elements through artists that create their work without necessarily having any thought how it fit into my equation. For some listeners, the balance of my recommendations will fall to the left; for others, to the right; for others, hopefully, a third eye will open. After addressing the basics, I think offering the possibility of revelation is the greatest service I can hope to offer.

POCKIT ROCKIT PICKS FOR 2006: Good Ideas For You, Distilling The Deluge For Me

2006-12-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

The first thing I gotta get out of my fingers is that the main melodic theme from the first track of the recent (and quite amazing) JOANNA NEWSOM album sounds almost exactly like Springsteen's "Spirits in the Night." Next, this is the first time I've ever done a year-end wrap-up. As I'm going through it, it seems to serve a bunch of purposes, some for your benefit, some for mine. There is the obvious reason: to provide listening/shopping guidance. But isn't that kind of what I've been doing all along? And why only include stuff from this year? I mean, we all find out about stuff from throughout history all the time. The post-modern cultural phenomenon of "perpetual retro" only compounds things further.

The answer is that year-end wrap-ups are a good way for anyone who listens to a lot of music to get straight what came out in a given year. It's about fighting the inevitable onslaught of feeling "lost in music" (although I suppose it also gives sociologists the opportunity to situate a song or album in a historical context). There are virtues to getting lost, as there are with many aimless endeavors, but it can get tedious, leading to a music experience equivalent of high school ennui: "What do you wanna do tonight?" "I dunno. What do YOU wanna do?" And then doing nothing.

So, in the interests of distilling the accelerating onslaught of music and making sense of some of the amazing albums of 2006 and isolating them so I don't confuse them with the amazing albums of 2005 or 1975, here are some discs to remember. Exciting Saturday night possibilities are right around the corner. I just hope I don't forget about all the other albums that I didn't put on the list.

PURE REASON REVOLUTION -- The Dark Third (SonyBMG)
The best prog debut since MARS VOLTA's. Seamless flow for 70 minutes as it rides through PINK FLOYD and PORCUPINE TREE spaciness and non-stop memorable songs.

PROTEST THE HERO -- Kezia (Vagrant)
If the this is the kind of metal the emo scene can produce, I say give us more. Excellent chops, melody, crunch, complexity, and strong, traditional metal vocals. And they look like they're fifteen.

HOLD STEADY -- Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant)
I've never been more than a tepid Springsteen fan, but I'll be damned if these guys knocked that E Street sound out of the park with this one. I have not been able to get it off my play button.

DEAR HUNTER -- Lake South River North (Triple Crown)
Ambitious, nearly-one-man-project of brilliantly written and played progressive post-emo. Superb dynamics, subtle and tasty guitar lines, varied styles yet still very coherent.

JOANNA NEWSOM -- Ys (Drag City)
Speaking of Springsteen with the Hold Steady, here Newsom pulls out the melody for "Spirits in the Night" on the opening track. In fact, she conjures so many nifty melodies throughout each track and the arrangements are mostly so well conceived that I find there's always something interesting going on, despite it being an hour of Yes-length tracks of infant-granny-intoned folk-poetry and harp accompaniment.

DANAVA -- Danava (Kemado)
Unusual hard rock debut influenced by HAWKWIND at their proggiest, with a little boogie and glam. I think the album was underproduced, considering the instrumental prowess of the band, but they are certainly one to watch.

SAVIOURS -- Crucifire (Level Plane)
I don't know why these guys haven't gotten more attention in our retro daze, but they really understand their core material on a level that few of their peers approach. Rarely do they ape any single band. Instead, they expertly balance SABBATH-era doominess, NWOBHM/punk rawness, and MAIDEN-esque, elegant, harmonized lead guitar lines. Underrated.

COLOUR HAZE -- Tempel (Elektrohasch)
Kyuss-inspired trio that has done magic with their musical heritage by stretching it waaay out, turning their massive riffs into jazz heads from which to launch their skillful, heavy-but-loose jams.

STARKWEATHER -- Croatoan (Candlelight)
Nudging out a respectable CELTIC FROST album (and the impressive Confessor album from late 2005) for "Heavy Music Comeback Album Of The Year," this disc is a jaw-dropper. Heavier, more intricate, and more emotionally bloodletting than ever, Croatoan features the mid-tempo, center of the earth intensity of NEUROSIS, the freaked-out, reptilian nastiness of TODAY IS THE DAY and the soul abjection/exorcism of the SWANS. Tough to make it through in one sitting, but revelatory.

CRIME IN CHOIR -- Frumpery Metier (Gold Standard Labs)
It's a pretty good time to be a prog fan. Between all the post-hard core, post-metal, and post-rock out there, prog has essentially inundated much of the indie world. It really comes down to many ways of saying "prog." With CinC, no subterfuge is necessary: this is pure prog. Instrumental, even. Some of the riffs and beats feel vaguely early-80s, but we're talking melodic, technical tracks, with walls of keys and some guitar for counter-balance. Kind of like a more prog & keys, less metal & guitar F***ING CHAMPS.

CITAY -- Citay (Important)
Strumming away on a sun-dappled summer day and then ROBERT FRIPP shows up from the next-door lawn, lays down in the hammock next to yours, sips some lemonade, and starts soloing over your strumming.

J DILLA -- Donuts (Stones Throw)
I have no pretensions of passing as a hip hop fan, but I know a great album of music when I hear it. Rarely have 31 tracks of near-snippets and beat sketches worked so well into a coherent, flowing album. Tons of funk, jazz, soul, and beats galore. And not a rapper within earshot. RIP.

AGALLOCH -- Ashes Against the Grain (The End)
Brilliant new one from one of the most original voices in American metal. Taking a page from OPETH's grimoire, Agalloch are able to meld the dreamlike and nightmarish, the romantic and the bleak in their doomy, gothy, folky, proggy vision. Pretty close to their watershed album, The Mantle.

ROGER JOSEPH MANNING -- Land Of Pure Imagination (Cordless)
Flawed and inconsistent yet fantastic and beautiful set of home recordings by this ex-JELLYFISH dude. Average voice and some mawkish lyrics but also a sense of pop/rock beauty that perfectly melds the greats, such as TODD RUNDGREN, PAUL MCCARTNEY, BEACH BOYS, ELO, and more.

WARHAMMER 48k -- Uber Om (Emergency Umbrella)
Left-field, outsider metal running all over the place with no-wave/post-rock noise, doom, thrash, and stoner styles. Completely bonkers but mostly musical and compelling.

EARL GREYHOUND -- Soft Targets (Some)
Exciting New York-based trio that rocks hard when they swing their Bonham-beats with bigg riffs and wailing vocals. The energy and interest drop a bit with their fairly basic, straight rock tunes. If they could hone what it is they do best, they'll knock skulls.

P.S. 2006 also featured releases by four of the most exciting bands in contemporary rock: 1) Tool, by a vast expanse, the best metal band to chart in over a decade, 2) Mastodon, perhaps the best metal band straddling the extreme and accessible, 3) Mars Volta, the first band to truly recreate prog rock in a post-alternative world, and 4) Isis, whose massive, trance-inducing pieces essential redefined hard-core. Unfortunately, none of these great bands' releases came close to representing their finest achievements. While their 2006 albums deserve notice, I would refer anyone interested to prior releases.

KAI KLN & SOULHAT: Extinct Regional Heroes

2006-11-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

Kai Kln - Seven - 5/8/93, UC Davis
Kai Kln - For What & What For - 10/30/98, The Boardwalk
Kai Kln - Blur - 10/30/98, The Boardwalk

Soulhat - Bonecrusher - 7/30/94, Floodzone
Soulhat - Wiggin' (with quote to Jeff Beck's "You Know What I Mean") - 7/30/94 Floodzone

My 23-year old brother-in-law told me about archive.org around two weeks ago. "Thousands of free live shows," he said. He's there mostly for the Disco Biscuits and related bands but it definitely sounded intriguing. As expected, 90% had to be jam bands of various sorts, with small allowances for random bands with open recording policies, such as the post-rock Red Sparrowes. I didn't recognize most of the bands, but as I was flying through the index, I was stunned to run into a band name that I had hubristically assumed only I (and the 90s residents of the Sacramento area) was familiar with: Kai Kln.

A record store owner in Brooklyn, who was formerly from Cali, hooked me up after we'd been talking a while and I told him how into progressive hard rock I am. I since found their other two albums in blow-out bins for around $1 each ("Please, take these off of my hands. Hell, I'll pay you," the stores seem to say). You got a deal. Especially cause these guy ripped in ways that no one else did. They updated the Zeppelin school by getting a little funky and polishing up the rhythm section a bit while loosening up the songs and guitars to give the impression of a band who was simultanously hard rockin' and laid-back (though this comes through more in their studio material, especially the essential Matter Of Things). The occasional banjo jams did nothing to dispell this impression. This was a band who clearly liked not only the Dead and Zeppelin, but also the mutated guitar mastery of the Meat Puppets and loosely funky post-hard-core of the Minutemen. This was a sound that could have really resonated with the jam band kids who were also into heavier stuff like Zep and Sabbath, as well as with the nascent stoner rock kids who were just starting to get into Kyuss and Monster Magnet. Somehow, despite seeming to have appeal to a wide swathe of people, Kai Kln ended up resonating with pretty much no one outside of the Sacramento area. A friend of mine from Sacramento played on a few of the same gigs as Kai Kln and said they would often draw over a thousand people, unheard of for an unsigned band. If a tree falls in the forest...

Similar story with Soulhat. Super-talented band from Austin that would generate some smoking shows and draw some decent crowds in the early-mid 90s. Their mix was predominantly hard, blues-based Southern rock with a nifty funk cut. Yes, they would get a little folky here, a little country there, a little surreal some place else. But tight, funky, classic, jamming hard rock with some ripping lead guitar was what this band was about. Two problems: first, it wasn't clear where on radio to put them (too off-center, funky, and jamming for post-grunge "rock" formats, too hard and traditionally "rock" for alternative radio). Second, they were really a live band. The studio efforts never did them justice. They still do the occasional gig in Austin.

Thank heaven for regional vitality. That's what allowed bands like Kai Kln and Soulhat to go for as long as they did, despite being unsigned or ignored by their label. Bands that get get hot in one area tend to have word-of-mouth spread farther and wider these days, often faster than the band's heat warrants. But that's still a generally good thing. Hopefully, current Kai Klns won't fall through the cracks as easily as they did in the 90s. Then again, as the ability to be heard nationwide, instantly, increases does that demand the increasing formation of a "national" sound? If so, what determines that sound? Could it be the fashions of the biggest media centers, such as New York and San Francisco? To an extent. There will always be fashion, but we've already been seeing dizzying niche-ification, too. Only the niches are not really arranged by geography as they are by interest groups. This might strip some of the unique flavor that can ferment in a certain place at a certain time with the right people and the right fans (early 80s NYC, late 80s Seattle/Minneapolis, etc). This might incent musicians to write for broader, blander audiences. Then again, musicians don't get paid by selling records nationwide; they still gotta play live. And that means playing where their friends and family are. That means home. That means gigs like the gigs on archive.org. That means a great resource for the rest of us.

DANAVA FINALLY LAUNCHES THEIR DEBUT

2006-11-14T14:09:00.000-08:00

Danava - Danava (Kemado)

Danava is still, as it was at the time of NY Press' ridiculous “Return Of The Real Rock” piece, one of the most interesting bands in underground hard rock, though the Press didn't bother to mention them. Judging from last night’s show at Mercury Lounge, Danava's only gotten sharper since then. The sound is clearly in place: a dense, semi-progressive, semi-spacey hard rock with myriad arpeggiated riffs, a frenetic rhythm section, high, dark-gnome vocals, and synth swirls and swooshes for texture. HAWKWIND plays a big role in the way the bass and guitar layer on top of each other, the way the synths swirl, and the overall momentum of most of the band's pieces. But while Hawkwind would often be content to riff on one or two notes, Danava likes to race up and down their scales, creating a proggy effect that doesn’t really resemble anyone from the 70s (maybe a downer IRON MAIDEN gets closer, if we're allowed to move into the 80s). The vocals are high and pinched, recalling BANG recalling OZZY, but sometimes with a deformed glam and sometimes with a robotic hobbit vibe that, again, makes it not quite like anyone. The guitar takes on all sorts of sounds, from a distorted fuzz, to a soaring chorus, chugging to wailing.

Funny thing is, at Mercury, all of this stuff kind of went out the window. Or, under the wheels might be a more apt analogy. That is, under the wheels of the steaming freight train of their rhythm section. The bass was all over the place, essentially bridging the hyper boogie jamming TEN YEARS AFTER's Leo Lyons to the prog-punk-metal innovations of METALLICA’s Cliff Burton. This bass player may very well be the engine of the Danava machine (Kemado should just get this guy a Rickenbacker). Meanwhile, the drummer’s two hands did not stop for the entire set, as if beats were better understood as a nonstop raging river of fills. Awesome energy and hyper-percussive (“thumpy,” as an old friend used to say), though I could have personally used a little Mitch Mitchell and John Bonham heavy-funky beat mastery every now and then to go with his Keith Moon abandon. Regardless, this rhythm section’s as good as you’re going to see in this kind of rock, even considering that the guitar, vocals, and synths were pretty much obliterated unless they were in their highest registers. The result was crisp and punchy, if lacking a little in dynamics, vocals, and guitar.

The band’s just-released, self-titled disc on Kemado minimizes some of these issues, but brings up others. The drum-thumping is lowered in the mix, though far from buried, while the lead guitar and vocals are pushed up, providing some high end to counter the busily churning, but relatively difficult to discern bass. The synths blow into and around the pieces like some intergalactic winds accompanied by shooting stars and comets.

The album launches with “By the Mark,” probably the most well-circulated track by the band, and deservedly so. Based around a mournful opening guitar line, pitting a high guitar against a low bass in tasty harmony, the track soon launches into its Hawkwind hard space rock, with riff sequence after riff sequence. It pretty much encapsulates the band’s sound. The next track “Eyes In Disguise” starts by giving us a breather with a couple of minutes of an organically repeating, electronic, minimalist/krautrock figure that gets jarred to attention by some hard, muted cymbal hits that recall the beginning of “Eye of the Tiger” before blasting into a riff that takes up most of the next six minutes. "Quiet Babies In A Manger" is the shortest and one of the most satisfying tracks on the album. The opening features a short movement of baroque counterpoint (recalling, but not quite equalling, the FUCKING CHAMPS' take on Bach's "Air in G". Honestly, I'd love to hear Danava put their expert guitar and bass skills to even more counter-point and polyphony in their writing, if applied sagely, of course). This passage gracefully cedes the stage to a basic cock rock riff which, in turn, opens up into a rare opening of space as the guitar plays some patient, graceful, sustained notes, taking its time, building tension and energy, before launching into a hyper-busy prog-arpeggio section, complete with harmonized flashes that finally comes to a tight, definitive conclusion. The album finishes up with a witches tale of sorts called “Maudie Snook,” whose main riff is more than reminiscent of THIN LIZZY’s “Black Rose.” But while the Lizzy track is triumphant and anthemic, this Danava riff seems more gnarled and malevolent…more witchlike. With a piano coda, no less.

My major complaint with the recording is that it feels under-recorded. I understand that budgets are always a concern, but a couple of choices are curious. A major choice was to put fuzz on almost every instrument. Rather than making things sound richer, warmer, and Vertigo-vintage, the fuzzy tone makes certain things (such as the vocals) sound thin, choked, and even shrill. Also, a decision seems to have been made to balance all of the instruments to each other. But this flattening in recording levels has tended to make the melodic lines muddy-together, making it difficult to separate the guitar and bass (and keyboards?, if they're playing the riffs. I can't really tell). Considering the musicians' skills (especially the bassist's), it's a shame to lose them to the mix (or is he just under-playing?). The guitar player's got chops, too. Why muffle him? More space and separation, I think, would have allowed each highly active member to stand in clearer relief without necessarily upsetting the intended band-based balance and greater-than-the-sum-of-their-parts power.

It's one thing to get all fuzzed-out with a band that can't play very well, in order to minimize their technical shortcomings and emphasize their energy, or whatever. But it's another thing to fuzz-out on a band who is not only technically accomplished but also relatively adventurous with its compositions. Danava plays astral sci-fi existential fantasy hard rock. The spaceship should be constructed of some outer-nebula, extra-terrestrial alloy. And it is, but the production makes that alloy feel a bit frayed and rusty, rather than highlighting its potential for space and time travel.

Danava is a musically ambitious band. "Retro" only half-fits since the band's aims are clearly beyond mere idolization. Nor can they be said to be derivative since any similarity they might have to any earlier band is countered by five dissimilarities. "Hipster" doesn't really apply since their pieces are vigorous enough and built from a kind of commitment to their form that would preclude most casual fans or fans of "progressive hard rock for people who don't like progressive hard rock." On the downside, their riffs can step on each other's toes, their arrangements can get muddy and their pieces (which average nine minutes) could benefit from wider and deeper dynamics. On the plus side, they have all the chops they need, a deep well of imagination, independence of vision, and idiosyncrasy of expression. On top of that, they know the history of hard rock and what made the best the best. That means, while they are very good now, even one of the best in the US hard rock underground, it seems very likely that they're going to get even better.

DEAR HUNTER & MARS VOLTA: Well-Beyond Emo

2006-10-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

Pleasant surprise of the week (last week) goes to the debut album/"EP" by Dear Hunter, Act I: The Lake South, The River North. The disc is amazingly well put-together for an indie effort: progressive post-emo with multi-tracked vocals nearly worthy of Brian Wilson's music director, Jeffrey Foskett, plenty of imaginitive guitar lines and melodic & harmonic devices, and superb musicianship throughout. Dredg fans should be impressed, especially considering that this album is meant as a mere prelude to a forthcoming "full-length."

Other fans that should take note are Mars Volta fans. Coincidentally, that band's fine new album, Amputechture, (a vast improvement over the disappointingly faux-"complex" Frances the Mute, though also far short of the watershed, DeLoused in the Comatorium) came out right around the same time as Dear Hunter's. DH's emo roots are still far more apparent than MV's and their songs are far more restrained and far less complex than MV's often sprawling pieces. But this is only their first album and I see a certain ambition shining through, not dissimilar to the out-of-the-ordinary ambition that Cedric and Omar often let shine in their work with At the Drive In, that bodes well for the band's (mostly one guy's) creative future.

Interestingly, there's a song from each album that is very similar to each other: "Inquiry of Ms. Terri" for Dear Hunter and "Vermicide" for Mars Volta. They're both understated, downbeat songs with moody, desultory verses that cut strikingly into variations of a similarly effective chorus structure: Clarion Call--hit!--Clarion Call--hit!. Mars Volta then goes on to add a guitar solo while Dear Hunter adds a cathartic vocal section. It's such a simple device but it's employed very well by both bands. The thing to notice is how DH nails the exclamatory strikes on the expected downbeat on the first bar of the chorus and then inverts it on the second bar by nailing an unexpected off-beat. The effect plays around your expectations, hitting you with a right uppercut after having previously hit you with the left hook.

That kind of little twist is a cut above most in subtlety, intelligence and even physicality. That kind of little forethought makes the difference between the run-of-the-mill and those that potentially have something special. Make no mistake, DH has much that remains obviously in the emo tradition they come from. They're not rewriting the Book nor are they revolutionizing anything. But they are already bringing with them an imagination and idiosyncrasy that defies cliches and results in original music that rises well above its genre. Keep an eye on these guys.

CHECK OUT THE SIMILARITIES IN THE FOLLOWING TWO TRACKS:

Dear Hunter
"Inquiry of Ms. Terri"
Act 1: Lake South River North
Triple Crown Records (2006)

Mars Volta
"Vermicide"
Amputechture
Universal (2006)

Two more from the Dear Hunter disc:

Dear Hunter
"Battesimo Del Fuoco" --pretentious title, but here are the Brian Wilsonian vocal arrangement techniques I'm talking about.
Act 1: Lake South River North
Triple Crown Records (2006)

Dear Hunter
"City Escape" --perhaps the best track on the album. Energetic with the understated progressiveness that shows some of the promise the band has.
Act 1: Lake South River North
Triple Crown Records (2006)

ODE TO COLTRANE (Pt.2): Pharoah Sanders & Christian Vander

2006-09-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

Pharoah Sanders
Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)
Elevation
Impulse, 1973

Magma
Coltrane Sundia
Kohntarkosz
A&M, 1974

Well, last night's McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders show was a disappointment. Perhaps it was inevitable, with all of the hopes I had placed in it. I had envisioned a My Favorite Things/Resolution/Creator Has A Master Plan medley. It didn't happen that way. Instead, we got a few trifles, a half-hearted "Afro Blue" and McCoy checking his watch every few bars. One hour set. Not a second more. And not a great hour, at that.

That being said, I wanted to give a closing (if oblique) ode to John Coltrane on what woulda have been his 80th birthday with two tracks. These two odes close the book with quiet waves into the sunset rather than with trumpet fanfare. But both go pretty deep. The first is a Pharoah Sanders track, off of his Elevation album, called "Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)." Played on piano by Joe Bonner, it features the harmonically heavenly, harp-like chording that chracterized much of Tyner's sound (much more of which I would have loved to have heard last night), here augmented with all sorts of blissful chimes and shakers. Wordlessly beautiful.

The second track is deliberately similar. It was recorded by the man who may be my favorite musician, drummer/pianist/vocalist/composer Christian Vander and his band, Magma. I would be perfectly happy to highlight Magma pieces every day, but this track, "Coltrane Sundia," is an unusual one in the Magma canon. Placed at the end of one of their darker, more ominous albums, Kohntarkosz, it's a warm, spiritual beacon, an explicit expression of Vander's frequently mentioned, but usually only implied, passion for Coltrane's music. Check out the repeated motif of the high guitar note followed by the descending piano chords. It reflects a kind of glance to the infinite and a humble glance back to Earth. Sublime and effective.

Considering the piano-based nature of this piece and the acknowledged resemblance Vander's piano solo in hismagnificent "Eliphas Levi" has to Tyner's solo in "My Favorite Things," you have to wonder if his love for John Coltrane is as much a love for McCoy Tyner. Hmmm...And bringing it all around to complete the circle, Vander's jazz/soul/gospel band, Offering, would often play Pharoah Sanders' piece, "You've Got to Have Freedom." Perhaps it's truly all One.

ODE TO COLTRANE (Pt.1): John McLaughlin & Santana 1973

2006-09-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

John McLaughlin & Carlos Santana
Live in Chicago
1973 (Oh Boy)

Love Supreme

Let's Go Into the House of the Lord

My anticipation is intesifying for this week's McCoy Tyner with Pharoah Sanders shows at the Blue Note. Tyner takes me where no other pianist does and Pharoah's work often derives from a similarly, unspeakably beautiful harmonic ground. Well, it does after his work with John Coltrane, at least. And since this series of shows is meant as a commemoration of Coltrane's 80th, all bets are off. Ascension will happen. It's just more of a question whether it will be done through exapansion or obliteration. Here's to hoping for the former, but the pre-game excitement can't tell the difference.

Jazz came to me from John McLaughlin. I was never exposed to any jazz growing up and would have no idea who John Coltrane if not for the constant devotion paid to him by McLaughlin (as well as by Christian Vander, perhaps my favorite musician). While perhaps more associated with Miles Davis for his work on Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson and In a Silent Way, McLaughlin always had a bit more of Coltrane's drive for spiritual supernova and sonic meltdown intensity than with Miles' more restrained (if still very intense) urbanity. McLaughlin, for me, was the harnessing of maximal technique towards the solar sublimation of the soul, all done in a way that a kid who group up on Hendrix, Floyd and Purple could feel in every cell. So, I had every Mahavishnu tape I could find and even Shakti's Best Of, not to mention the all-time great Friday Night in San Francisco. But it was around my 17th brithday that I was flipping through one of my favorite NYC record stores, before the major bootleg busts of the 90s, that I came upon this 2-disc set: John McLaughlin & Carlos Santana Live in Chicago. 6 tracks, over 2 hours total! Line-up: I only recognized John & Carlos, as well as Mahavishnu drummer-spectaculaire, Billy Cobham. The percussionist, Armando Peraza, I assumed was part of Santana's band. Some guy named Larry Young on keyboard? Who's that? Doesn't matter. Recorded 1973. $44.99. It was my b-day and I was doing it, no matter what (just three weeks more than 15 years ago today). I didn't even have a CD player yet.

A few thousand CDs later, it's still one of my most revered discs. The guitar blast-offs get so high and seems to hold the peak forever, with the non-stop freight train percussion stampeding everything forward and with Young's spacy keys providing texture and counterpoint. I've posted here their 20-minute "cover" of Coltrane's "Love Supreme" in celebration of Coltrane on his 80th birthday, as well as their 25-minute take on Pharoah Sanders' "Let's Go Into the House of the Lord," to celebrate his celebration of Coltrane. Sorry there's no McCoy Tyner piece. These are staggering pieces of jazz-rock group improvisation and, also staggering, they might be only the third and fourth best tracks of the set!

CARDIACS: Failed Valiance or (Nearly) Reconciling the Irreconcilable

2006-09-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

The Cardiacs --R.E.S. (from Little Man...).
One of the best examples of the Cardiacs' aesthetic: high-paced, punk-vocalled verses lead by racing keyboard lines, giving way to blaring horn sections, a Floyd-like guitar solo, and a rousing, anthemic conclusion with everyone coming in on regal wings and a modest fade-out.

The Cardiacs --In A City Lining (from Little Man...).
Grand opening verses giving way to a maniacal, ska-via-calliope sound that would appear all over the Mr. Bungle debut.

The Cardiacs --Title Unknown To Me (from Obvious Identity).
One of my first Cardiacs tracks and probably the one that provided me with the revelation of how unusual these guys (and girl) were/are. Aggressive, punk vocals, tight, high-speed guitar, ominous (if dated) keys all at work in a coherent, ultra-dynamic composition (if rough recording). Still, if you want to hear the truest fusion of punk and prog on record, this might give you an idea.

It seems so obvious now that punk could be aesthetically reconciled with reggae, funk, and disco. When the Ramones and Pistols first launched, I wonder how obvious it was. But the Clash, Gang of Four, the Contortions, and others made it so and a million others also tinkered with variations on the formula. So, if punk-reggae and punk-disco could be done, why not punk-prog?

Sure, punk shared a core sense righteous indignation with reggae which likely formed a spiritual bond on which a formal bond could be built. But the same could hardly be said for punk and the overtly sexual nature of funk and the outlandish decadence of disco. Yet, the formal bonds were forged, all the same. Punk and prog also seem to stand at diametric opposites, with punk favoring simple song structures, untrained musicianship and vocals, and overtly political and confrontational lyrics while prog tends to favor more complex or extended compositions, highly trained musical skills and metaphorical lyrical approaches. If I had to distill punk and prog into single-word essences, they would probably be confrontation/provocation and transportation/composition, respectively. In those terms, it is easy to see why punk and prog haven't gotten together much. Then again, confrontation and Bacchanalia don't go together like peanut butter and chocolate, either. Even on a formal "sound" basis, punk and prog have had a tough time getting together. Some people might point to the solo work of Van Der Graaf Generator main-man and John Lydon favorite, Peter Hammill. But his anguished, singer/songwriter solo work tends to be too straight-forward for most prog fans, even those who worship him, to fully embrace as prog and is probably too bleak and harrowing for most punk fans to fully recognize as punk. Others might point to Hawkwind as the perfect blend of prog and punk. But again, most prog fans find most of their material, maybe apart from their mid-70s work, to be far too amateurish and sloppy in terms of technique and composition, however endearing, to be "true prog" while most punk fans would probably object to the band's frequent, 10+ minute song durations and over-the-top arena stage show. No doubt, cases can be made for a band here or there as the lock and key to the elusive prog-punk doorway, but it's pretty slim pickings and usually dubious, at that, for one side or the other.

There is one band that, new to my ears, has come closer to nailing certain, core elements of both punk sounds and prog sounds than any other band I've ever heard. That band is the Cardiacs.

More among British punk bands than US ones, one of the biggest identifying factors is the vocals: a snarling, snotty spit, more than a little obnoxious, not particularly trained and not particularly melodic, although not completely incapable of occasional silver flashes of melodic beauty. Cardiacs have those vocals. Add some palpably edged-up and jittery urgency and you get more of a sense into the band's punk-side feel. Too much caffeine, too little sleep, more than a little frustration. Most of the Cardiacs' verses, taken by themselves, could more easily pass muster through a hard core punker's filter than virtually any punk band of the past decade. But it's important to note that it's not the Pistols we're talking about here as much as Wire.

And that leads into the other element of the Cardiacs. In between and often a part of the verses are arpeggiated keyboard lightning strikes. Far too precise for punk, they might be called New Wave if they didn't reintegrate into the song with tricky meters and intricate melodic stops 'n starts, jump cuts and curly queues. But nifty keyboards, in and of themselves, wouldn't place them much further along the prog meter than some of the early stuff by the Stranglers or the more complex sides of the Damned. It's that after or around the main verses and choruses, the songs often blossom into symphonic grandeur, with huge keyboards approximating a post-punk take on the mellotron sound of bands such as Spring, Cressida, Rare Bird, Procol Harum and Genesis. Harmonies refract gracefully while still maintaining a twinge of their frantically wired origins. No doubt, the Cardiacs and early XTC kept tabs on each other. As Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding followed their McCartney/Lennon-sparked muse, the Cardiac boys followed their Gabriel muse. But the Wire bite never loosened its grip.

Truth be told, I only have the Cardiacs' first (and supposedly proggiest) album, A Little Man and a House... and Sings to God, Pt. I&II (perhaps their most heralded), in addition to two dozen, random, mostly live tracks from various sources, so I am nowhere near qualified to give you a full breakdown on their body of work and their course of progression and artistic development. Also, Little Man came out in 1988, even though the band had been playing and recording together since the late 70s, meaning that their punkest sounding stuff has to be found on various collections. Of the assorted tracks I've accumulated, the songs from the kinda rough-sounding Obvious Identity album (boot?) show the most balanced punk-prog attack, though I have no idea what year they're from. Some of the tracks I have show a rawer production style, like these, bringing the most out of the punk sound while some of the tracks sound like they were recorded on a 96-track board, making the proggy elements that much proggier. And while the Cardiacs may convincingly pass, at various points, as punk, prog, ska, post-punk, or whatever, it doesn't necessarily follow that fans of each of these styles will find the Cardiacs' music irresistable. In fact, the opposite seems to have been closer to the truth during the Cardiacs' career: everyone ran away screaming. The punks probably didn't like the intricate, often complex songs and the keyboards; the proggers probably couldn't take the snotty vocals; everyone else concluded that the band didn't know whether it was coming or going, although I bet Mike Patton's a fan. Which means that, despite the valiant attempt (and the Cardiacs' music is often of a very British, failed valiancy), maybe the Cardiacs' failure in both the prog and punk marketplaces only emphasizes how far afield the two genres truly are and that prog and punk do remain largely irreconcilable, for the time being. But maybe the Cardiacs have shown the way to start reconciling the differences.

NO IDEA WHAT IT IS, BUT I'LL TAKE IT

2006-08-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

TOKYO KID BROTHERS
Throw Away The Books Let's Go Into The Streets 1971, P-Vine/Victor Records

Fuzzy Rock Song With Protesting Woman In The Middle

Shouting Man Followed By Rousing Acid Rock Jam

Ensemble Punky Krauty Hippy Rock Track

There's one shop in New York where I buy three-quarters of the music I don't order online. Yes, it has eclectic inventory that turns over efficiently. But the real reason I love this place so much is that they give free reign when it comes to exploring and experimenting with their inventory. All of the discs are arranged on their racks and shelves, without protective cases, sensors, or thermal detonators. Customers are free to listen to one or thirty-one discs while they're in the store. All one has to do is pick up a disc, open it, put the disc in a discman, and explore to one's heart's content.

The end result for me is that I can fulfill my desire to check out every disc that has an awesome cover, or that was released between 1970-76, or that has anything else intriguing about it. And I'm not tied to a turntable, so I can check out one Roger Dean-graced disc while sifting around for some random Hipgnosis-graced disc......or something I never knew that I never knew about.

Such was the case last week when I found a certain, enigmatic Japanese disc. That state of origin is often an interest-piquer, by itself. The front cover was intriguing, too: a thrice repeated, b&w photo of a Japanese ensemble, of some sort, taken inside a boxing ring. Maybe 20 people, an eclectic bunch, a kind of Warhol factory-style group, with a muscle dude in the upper right, next to someone holding out a tattered American flag. Bottom left, random nude chick and random freak folks in-between. Front center is the apparent leader of this entourage, a youngish-looking guy, in an overcoat, with a briefcase (guitar case? bomb case?) at his feet, kind of looking up at the camera.

Unfortunately, there isn't much English to be found anywhere, to give me any clue as to what I have in my hands. The words "special thanks to" are inside the booklet, as are other cryptic words such as "love & banana." I do see some numbers, however: 1970, '73, '69, '67. Not totally sure if this means what I hope it does, but it could be promising. I keep looking through the booklet and notice that there are, in fact, a few English words on the cover. A slogan. A manifesto, even: "Throw Away The Books Let's Go Into The Streets." Well, the time-period definitely seems confirmed. What this fun bunch is protesting is less clear and it's probably better that way. BUT, I do have my disc player so I can actually hear what this thing sounds like.

And it's a trip. It kicks off with some hard rock riffage, a la Free or early Grand Funk, as played by "Take Your Children Not To Work, But To Form-A-Band Day." Until the the vocals land like a pack of rabid rejects from an Exploding Plastic Inevitable party, shout-singing like early Amon Duul or some punk-hippy, Japanese Slits or Raincoats. The good drugs settle in and the singers then drift into a blissful and peaceful, wordless intonation and drift off ....Only to be jolted by an animated, agitated female voice, presumably on a street corner, presumably protesting or spreaking the thruth, as she sees it, to someone who apparently doesn't get it....when the rabid party rejects jump back in, this time with some different hard rock backing them up. Cut. And that's the first track.

I didn't know what was on the rest of the album. I didn't care. I knew that this disc, whatever it was, was a "piece of interest." What happens to be on the rest of the disc includes shamanistic chants, anthemic ballads, acid jams, hippy rock, hysterical weeping, big ensemble choruses, lots of fuzz, and a concluding monologue: "Sayonara. Sayonara. Sayonara."

If it sounds performative and theatrical, that's because it is. After playing the disc and writing the brief, I did a Google search, using the front cover slogan as my guide and found that the group was called Tokyo Kid Brothers and was, indeed, and dance/performance troupe in the late 60s. Several comparisons have been made to projects such as Hair. Julian Cope gives a typically electrifying and evocative, if unrealistically over-the-top description here. TKB eventually evolved into the just slightly less obscure J.A. Caesar, which carried on the theatrical underpinnings of the original group, but added heavy psychedelia and prog rock as the years went on. Those are stories for another day. Until then, please enjoy these few TKB tracks.

HAPPY RHODES

2006-08-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

HAPPY RHODES (Official Web Site)
HAPPY RHODES (MySpace Page)

Wretches Gone Awry--A sublime example of Happy's melodic mastery. Starts like medieval Kate Bush (or "Fotheringay" by Fairport Convention), drops for a nearly-imperceptible second into a mode that comes close to almost suggesting country, and then back again to the gothic finger-picking and melancholy. (from Rhodes I, 1984, when Happy was around 19).

Asylum Master--A good example of Happy's lower (if not lowest) register and high register within the same song. (from Rhodes II, 1984)

Feed the Fire--Nice alternate version with Happy gracefully quoting Yes, Kate Bush, and Bowie in the coda. (from Rhodesongs, 1993. Original version on Warpaint, 1991)

To Be E. Mortal--One of Happy's more challenging pieces, and brilliantly so. She repeats the title in variations, accompanied by synths. Mesmerizing and infinite. (from Ecto, 1987)

It's amazing to read the range of people who state their admiration (if not infatuation) with Kate Bush. I've read comments from Steve Walsh, the vocalist of Kansas, to Kendall Jones and John Norwood Fisher, guitar and bass of Fishbone, to Quorthon, of Bathory. What any of these guys got from Kate's work or how her work influenced their work is unclear, but such is art.

I wonder what they'd think of Happy Rhodes. Unless you have never heard Kate Bush's work before, it is impossible to hear Happy Rhodes and not have her conjured. Of course, there are twists. Firstly, Happy recorded her entire output with a fraction of the monetary resources of Ms. Bush, giving the semi-ironically named Happy a more austere, but no less soulfull, sound. Also, Happy played most every instrument on most of her albums. Often, this means that she is simply accompanying herself on an acoustic guitar, lending her art-pop a less baroque and more distinctly "singer-songwriter" feeling than Ms. Bush. Ms. Rhodes also utilizes several synthesizers, sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly. They used to bug me, and sometimes still do, sounding cheaper and cheesier than the artist playing them. Over time, I've come to increasingly, but not always, embrace their organic "imperfections" as a symbol of the human/machine or reality/dream essences of Happy Rhodes' music.

The greatest difference between the two artists ironically stems from the source of their greatest similarity: their voices. Clearly, Happy made a concerted and magically successful effort to channel the faerie-high aspects of Kate Bush. While doing so, Happy somehow also developed the ability to summon a strikingly resonant low-end. Some have compared it to Annie Lennox, though Happy's voice feels more brooding and imperious while eschewing Ms. Lennox' r&b influences. Ms. Bush has an underrated low-end, as well, but it's not the equal of Ms. Rhodes', who also wields her low-end more frequently and with greater confidence.

Bush revels more in the sensual world while Rhodes feels more personal and introspective, like she was the only girl in school listening to Yes and Kate Bush--and listened to them alone. Perhaps like Happy was the only person in school who knew Happy existed. Rhodes is limited in her presentation and arrangements, lacking some of the leaps of evolution and experimentation that Bush consistently displayed, resulting in a relative sameness that would not stand up to Bush's song book over a few hours. But Happy more than makes up for this with a melodic sense that can be, at times, beyond words. Her acoustic guitar and multi-tracked vocals are often sufficent to stop a given breath. Not always, but far more frequently than most. But there is no shame in coming second to one of your idols.

As it stands, with Lilith Fair perennials on one side and debauched wastoids and hipsters on the other, Happy Rhodes has stood pretty much alone with her art rock and prog rock-informed style. Blessedly, she has endured as one of the most enchanting underground songwriters of the 80s/90s. We are expecting a new album from her in the not-too-distant future.

THE SKINS OF METAL & PROG, TURNED INSIDE-OUT

2006-08-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

The process of gearing up for the recent Blind Idiot God shows got a friend and me talking about heavy instrumental bands of days gone by. Before I could say anything like Spastic Ink or the Champs, he took the liberty of exclaiming, "I fucking hate metal. I also fucking hate prog." Well then. There you have it. Then he slipped this one "What I love is Gore."

That was initially surprising since that pretty much forgotten and not really lamented Dutch band have elements of both metal and prog. The guitars are mean and aggressive. The drums are punishing and relentless. The tracks are often of epic length and daunting complexity. At the same time, the band subverts both metal and prog. While the guitars are, indeed, strong and forceful, they do not really set themselves up in positions to glory in that strength. The riffs rarely repeat, nor do they even identify themselves. They chug and slash and tear and crash but rarely do they breathe and rarely still do they leave space for an anthem. The playing shifts constantly, with no where to plant your feet, nowhere to raise your arms and metal hands. Here, the monolithic wall of riffs seems more intended to drown or suffocate you than to help you attain any catharsis.

The same goes for the way Gore stands prog on its head. As per most classic prog, Gore's compositions are often very long, in the 15-25 minute range. Also in line with much prog rock, the compositional complexity and instrumental virtuosity are both at very high levels, by rock standards. But unlike the more symphonic structures favored by traditional prog, with their emotional peaks, valleys and overall narratives, Gore tends to play at one, dense dynamic level: a thick but harmonically rich guitar tempest with a million chordal shifts and pummeling rhythm, but little, discernable melodic development. Gore is not looking for highs and lows to take you on a journey as much as build a swirling space in which the listener can either asphyxiate or lose themself through the rabbit hole. I suppose an angry, three-piece, mid period King Crimson trying to play the first three Swans albums might sound something like this.

Apropos of nothing, while Gore were an instrumental band, they had lyric sheets that would be covered with wall-to-wall text, in small type. Go figure.

Considering that Gore's best work was done in the late 80s, well before Slint, Rodan, Don Caballero, Pelican, et al the band may deserve credit as the first, heavy, post-rock band. But not that many people ever heard Gore and, those that did often didn't like them. It was the time of thrash and death, the time of rave, the time of the Pixies. With the possible exception of a Blind Idiot God here or there, no one was playing music like this back then. That doesn't necessarily make Gore's music more likeable, or even influential. But it does make them adventurous, original and admirable.

GORE -- The Breeding/Liefde (from Wrede/The Cruel Peace, 1988)

The most dynamic and accessible track from their masterwork, the double-album, Wrede/The Cruel Peace. Earlier work was basically instrumental hard core while later work was thug metal faux-soundtrack stuff, complete with spoken word. This is where they hit their inverted metal and prog genius.

For biographical info on Gore, click here.

DO ME BAD THINGS

2006-08-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Simon Reynolds recently posted a few entries in memoriam of Tony Ogden, the late singer of early 90s group, World of Twist. Among many interesting comments, Reynolds describes WoT as "monumental," "saccharine," "lavish," "cosmic," "an Ecstasy-addled vision of pop
utopia. Bubblegum sitar, corny horn flourishes, Northern soul beats, Dave Gilmour/Loop guitar curlicues, mucoid spurts of synth, aciiied frenzy - it ought to be a mess, but the absurdly motley inputs come together like a dream." Sounds like a lot of fun. Add WoT to the "must check out" list.

His descriptions of such over-the-top, multi-appendaged, polymorphously perverse pop remind me of a disc I picked up last year called Yes! by a group called Do Me Bad Things. The album title feels most appropriate since the bands seems to have said "yes" to every musical idea that anyone in the nine-piece band brought to the table. This is bubblegum r&b, hard rock pure pop by a bunch of people who "like heavy rock. We like riffs. We like sludgy rock. But we like pop harmonies and hooks...and power ballads."

So what the heck does that mean when the disc is spinning? It means Beyonce backed by AC/DC, with a Spice Girls harmony chorus frolicking in the middle, chased by a bar of heavy rifferama on one side and funky drumming on the other and through the middle with a guitar solo that wouldn't be out of place on a Boston record, only to be doubled-up by a noisy, meaty sax solo to take the whole thing over the top.

DMBT are on the same label as The Darkness, so that explains some of the "no fear of being ridiculous" aesthetic. The Scissor Sisters' hyperbolic sense of fun with their many influences is a decent reference point. Jellyfish's Alice in Candyland sunspray pop is also a good refernce point. The Go! Team's cheerleader enthusiasm definitely applies, as well. But before you think that this music must float in the air, the sometimes crunching guitars and sometimes wailing vocals are there to give it some heft.

This is shoot-the-moon pop. Stuff that figures, if you're gonna do it, why not go all the way? No "drab realism" here, no forced earnestness, and certainly no self-seriousness. As Reynolds said of World of Twist, this ought to be a mess and it kind of is, prompting no small amount of head scratching and exclamations of "are you kidding me?" But it does come together. I wouldn't say "like a dream" with all of the fleeting ephemerality that implies. It comes together more like a carnival. Maybe you just got a spiral lollipop that's wider than your head, or a five scoop banana split, or a foot long chili-covered corn dog. Maybe you ate them all at once, but you're with your honey, you're doing every ride, life's got magic and it's good.

DO ME BAD THINGS -- What's Hideous
The track I had in mind when i described their sound above.

DO ME BAD THINGS -- Time For Deliverance
Opening track and probably the most riff-centric track of theirs.

DO ME BAD THINGS -- Move In Stereo (Liv Ullman on Drums)
One of their more bubblegummy tracks, but expertly so.

SONG OF THE MOMENT: Marshall, Donovan, Broomfield -- "That's Love"

2006-08-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Just can't stop playing this track. It happens sometimes. When it does, it's so instantaneous that I'd wager it has to be chemical. A certain shift from one note to another, a chord modulation, a rhythmic tilt or break, whatever it is, triggers a hormonal/endorphal release and everything else is irrelevant.

Here, it starts with a jazzy, sorta-bossa groove, with restrained electric guitar of the kind that Michael Franks might use. Cool, nice, but not yet remarkable. The voice comes in and here's where things start to interesting. It's a flawed voice, idiosyncratic, perhaps that of a songwriter or arranger, rather than that of a "pure" vocalist. It's tough to pin down sexually. While it becomes clear that it's a male voice (I think), there's not a note of Marvin Gaye or Al Green in sight. It's not even the extreme falsetto of Curtis Mayfield. Stevie Wonder's high tenor starts getting closer, but the closest comparison might actually be a slightly clearer Eartha Kitt. But it's not as if the voice is so great that makes the song indelible. It's just that it's off-center enough to signal that there might be something unusual about this track. Just enough to keep you listening.

The verses progress in their jazzy soul way, electric piano providing the flavor behind the vocalist. A little hint of horns. As the chorus approaches, the horns rise a bit, strings start swelling, a climax is meticulously being built. And this is key. The extra time spent on the transition from verse to chorus is the time spent setting up the swoon into rapture. As the strings build, it's not with clouds of cotton candy, but with the precipice-standing, four-note cadence of the Twilight Zone. They're inside the mix, so as not to dominate the consciousness of the listner, but the tension they build is palpable, at least semi-consciously. When the chorus drops, it's not as an explosion or exultation as much as the glide following the step over the edge. The chills on my neck swirl as the voice does its bittersweet, slowly, inevitably descending "That's luuuuuuuuuve...." with a sweepingly co-gliding horn on one side and strings on the other. That's around where the explanation stops and the reasons cease to matter.

MARSHALL, DONOVAN, BROOMFIELD -- That's Love

HOYRY KONE: Finland's Not Scandanavian?

2006-08-02T06:08:00.000-07:00

Finland is not actually part of "Scandanavia." That noble distinction is reserved for Norway, Sweden and Denmark. We don't usually think of it that way but, no, Finland is not one of them. Is it right to think of Finland as the West Coast brothers of Russia? That doesn't feel quite right, either. So, neither here nor there it is!

Maybe it's the combination of alcohol from the East and social liberalism from the West and the deep, dark forests and snow-capped crests of both that have made Finland the idiosyncratic wonder it is. Whatever the case, the last decade has seen more than a fair share of tweaky, freaky, geeky stuff coming out of Finland. Circle's repetition-based, psychedelic hard rock, Magyar Posse's cinematic post-rock, Aaviko's "casio-core," Rotten Sound's brutally tight grind-core, Skepticism's ambient "funereal doom,"and dozens of freak and acid folk bands such Kemialliset Ystavat light their bonfires and commune with the fireflies and reindeer in the woods.

But the band that stands out for me was Hoyry Kone. And sadly that band is no more (several of the members becoming the Eastern European/gypsy-flavored rock band, Alamaillman Vasarat). While they were easily as weird and quirky as any band Finland has produced, they also added the virtues of compositional brilliance and instrumental virtuosity. God bless prog rock! Without it, we'd all devolve into lysergic drum circles and cluelessly strummed stringed instruments of various provenances (fun to do, perhaps. Fun to listen to? Not so much).

For those who do like prog rock (King Crimson, Magma, Yes, etc) and who have tried it all, this is a band for you. While drawing from plenty of sources (nothing coes from nothing, after all), Hoyry Kone has very few real peers. Maybe the Czech band, Uz Jsme Doma, with their ethnic melodies and manic instrumental skills has a similarly tweaked vibe, but that's one of very few. There's plenty to love: a vocalist of conservatory quality, a bass player to match the manic thump of Magma, two guitarists of metallic chunkiness and jazzy finesse, violin & cello to transmute some Eastern European/Gypsy melodies, and a drummer sharp enough to bridge to off-kilter, string-based, Balkan sections and symphonic prog passages. East, West, neither.

Mind you, this is off-center stuff, even for a prog band. The vocals are in Finnish (and Latin). The melodies are a little, um, foreign. The rhythms are rarely straightforward. The songs are rarely within galaxies of verse-chorus structure. Still, this is music. It's not oral surgery or even Albert Ayler. If you've been there with King Crimson and Magma, as well as their 90s progeny such as Anekdoten, Anglagard, and Deus Ex Machina, you're gonna be just fine. You might even find in Hoyry Kone your new, favorite, out-of-print prog rock heroes.

HOYRY KONE -- Karjunkaato (from Huono Parturi)
A good summary of their sound. Other tracks might be heavier or weirder, but this brings their aesthetic together: the strong vocals, the Eastern European (Finnish?) melodies, prominent rhythm section, wide dynamics, the whole nine.

HOYRY KONE -- Orn (from Hyonteisia Voi Rakastaa)
The first track from their first album. This was the song that made me pick up the cheap, used copy of this disc from Mellotronen, in Stockholm, 1997. A little funky to hear the new wave-style production here, but the chops and imagination were clearly already in place.

OVER THE TOP. COMPLETELY.

2006-07-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

Modesty be damned and banished! We're shooting the moon on this one. We're gonna start with a little keyboard vamp. Bring in the band and now let's get comfortable in a tight, swinging jazz rock groove. Enter nifty guitar solo. And electric piano solo. Band keep vamping. Now, horns!, hit it and take us to the verse. Bring it down, all quiet. Spotlight on vocalist, stage-center, sounding like he was recruited from the house band at Caesar's Palace. Bring the waka-waka guitars, strings, horns, AND oohh-aahhhs from a female choir. Now it's the band's turn again, a little harder this time than the first time around. The jamming begins, horns leading the charge. Strings swirl, guitars twirl, horns wail into a mild cacophany and silence. Lone spotlight again on stage-center as Mr. Vegas comes out again and takes us back to the three-ring circus of horns on one side, strings on the other, waka guitars bicycling around, and the female choir flying back and forth on their trapeze. All goes quiet and the juggler enters in the shape of a short, tight drum solo that sets up the finale by first inviting the bass to get the ball rolling. Everyone else joins in the fun. Electric piano. Backing vocals. Horns. MOOG! only now has the party truly started. And we fade out as the Big Top tea party spins into the distance.

Quick, concluding note. Around four years earlier, Lucifer's Friend had recorded one of the top-10 tracks of early metal: "Ride In The Sky." Led Zeppelin may or may not have ripped-off the horn's war charge for Plant's howl in "Immigrant Song." I just found a very cool "live" clip of that track on YouTube. Check it out.

LUCIFER'S FRIEND -- Spanish Galleon (Banquet, 1974)
Yes, it's over the top but so unabashedly so, so unironically, so sincerely. I don't know if music like this is made any more. Is this kind of thing is even possible without quotation marks?

THE HYPERSPACE ROCK SOUND

2006-07-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

Pink Floyd was my first concert. Momentary Lapse Of Reason "reunion" tour. 1987. Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. It was my first concert and, therefore, an important life event and one of my favorite music-related experiences. Any number of Crash Worship events, with its atavistic wine, milk, fruit, nudity, and drums were all intensely involving, lived experiences and some of my favorite music-related experiences.

Another of my favorites was Blind Idiot God at CBGB, around 1994/95. If Floyd was my favorite for its life event status and Crash Worship was my favorite for the lived experience, BIG might have been my favorite for tangible, musical force. It was simply awesome, in the classic sense.

The first thing that anyone in the room would have noticed was the wall to wall spread of futuristic, state-of-the-art-looking, five-foot tall speakers. Who the hell uses that much amplification? Why? And what are they possibly going to do with it? Next, your eyes went to the front and center of the stage where there stood the biggest drum set I have ever seen at a New York club show. This massive, double-bass edifice with maybe five rack toms, three floor toms and innumerable cymbals would have been perfectly at home on stage with Dave Lombardo or even Journey, if you added a orchestral gong behind the kit. Who the hell plays on a kit like that? In CBs? Why? And what is he possibly going to do with it?

The short answer to the above questions is that Blind Idiot God made me feel what it might be like to fly in the Millenium Falcon while inside one of its engines....and enjoy it. And I don't mean it in the masochistic "can you take the pain" or "how exteeeme can you go" senses. I mean that this was the most supersonic, levitationally massive (the band's guitarist, Andy Hawkins prefers "symphonically loud"), monolithically hyperspace musical performance I have heard.

The band’s sound is entirely instrumental and is based around harmonically complex guitar chording and throttling drumming (though the band also incongruously plays dub). Hawkins’s guitar sounds as though he has amassed several legions of guitarists, each playing its own esoteric chord on top of each other at such speeds that it isn’t clear where one chord ends and another begins. It’s as if he has condensed all of Glenn Branca’s guitar symphonies into one person and one guitar.

Yet BIG’s best stuff hits harder than any Branca piece. That’s where drummer Ted Epstein comes in. Simply put, you’d have to look far and wide to find a drummer that is doing so much and doing it with so much power and invention. Usually, the most athletic drummers (Lombardo, Mick Harris, etc) sacrifice some composition for their power and might even lighten-up as they speed-up while inventive, finesse drummers (Bill Bruford, etc) often sacrifice some wallop for their niftiness. Epstein doesn’t fall prey to either. He is constantly putting all sorts of cymbals in all sorts of unusual places, adding brilliant shading and tone to what he’s playing at any speed, even while he’s pummeling his huge set into utter oblivion.

It's when the two coordinate that BIG pulls off its most interesting trademark: the sudden acceleration/deceleration effect. Hawkins somehow bends his chords in such a way that sounds like his guitar's batteries are running low while Epstein and bass player, Gabe Katz, suddenly drop into a woozy, slow tempo to simulate the feeling of winding down, only to have Hawkins quickly strum some tight, higher chords as the rhythm section follows with thrash beats to bring everything from 15-150mph in one second. This is the Millenium Falcon "hyperspace" effect I was talking about, though I could see how it could just as easily be interepreted as whiplash.

But hyperspace does a better job of describing the physical exhilaration that this music can induce. The feeling of being compressed and expanded at the same time. Being sucked into a black hole and shot out into the infinite at the same time.

Did I mention the band also plays dub?

Last thing. BIG are playing the Knitting Factory on Friday night (July 21st) with Don Caballero. This is, I think, BIG's first concert in New York in around a decade. Word is, they may even have a new release coming out later this year. Either way, just go. Go. And make sure you're strapped in.

BLIND IDIOT GOD -- Thunderhead (from Cyclotron, 1992)

BLIND IDIOT GOD -- 747 (from Cyclotron, 1992)

BLIND IDIOT GOD -- Roller Coaster (from Undertow, 1988)

WAR BABIES IN THE ABANDONED LUNCHEONETTE

2006-07-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

Nelly Furtado's talent-free music continues to be played over the course of this summer. Usually, it's the track "Promiscuous," but I've also been unfortunate enough to encounter another of her tracks, "Maneater." As more than a few writers have pointed out, this may be intended as a direct reference to the Hall & Oates track of the same name. I don't hear it. In fact, I'd say that any similarity or connection of Furtado's "Maneater" to the concept of music is purely coincidental.

I think to myself that mentioning Furtado and Hall & Oates in the same sentence is ludicrous. On second refelction, it only becomes more so. H&O obviously wrote tons of great pop that still holds up very well (in revisionist hipster circles, H&O holds up even better than that). I'd say that H&O wrote more good songs in the single "I Can't Go For That" than Furtado has in her career.

OK, enough snarkiness. What I want to play are some earlier H&O tracks. Of particular interest is their 1974 album, War Babies, produced by Todd Rundgren. It's their first rock album, after a few somewhat tentative stabs at folk-soul type material. And it's a piece of work. The amount of cocaine that must have been in the studio is palpable but so is the group's sense of adventure and willingness to let rip some funky ideas. Frankly, it doesn't all work, but it's fun to see them try it out. The album, still stands as some of their most interesting, if not most pop-perfect material.

Hall & Oates -- Is It A Star?
The basic chords are almost identical to Steely Dan's "Pretzel Logic." H&O add their own great, Philly-style harmonies but the kicker is the weird rhythm break and guitar solo that comes in at around 1:40. It's like prog rock, soul, blues, jazz-rock fusion.

Hall & Oates -- Beanie G & The Rose Tattoo
What was I saying before about mounds of cocaine in the studio?

Hall & Oates -- Screaming Through December
"Quasar! Quasar! Were the first words I heard from Faustus all day." Say what? Not exactly a great track, per se, but it shows Hall & Oates going a little "out there." Strong vocals from Daryl and a bizarre, prog rock/fusion middle section starting at around 3:30. "70s Scenario," elsewhere on War Babies, is a better song about a certain kind of disillusionment. But this one might be more unusual and (melo)dramatic and still packs all the mid-70s malaise you could ask for.

Hall & Oates -- Had I Known You Better
Great track from their second album, Abandoned Luncheonette, from 1973. This one is actually by the relatively infrequently heard John Oates and is one of the best examples of the soul-folk that these guys were coming from. It reminds me a little of "Everybody's Talkin'" and could be a decent secondary song in a movie soundtrack.

SWEET BRAZILIAN PHILLY SOUL

2006-07-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

It was Milton Nascimento that got me into Brazilian pop music. Jobim and Gilberto were closer to cool jazz. Caetano and Gil were OK but also a little too messy sometimes. Jorge Ben and Tim Maia would come later. But Milton's sense of melody -- up and down the scales and octaves, often with profound, sensuous melancholy, and with a rich low end and angelic falsetto -- just slayed me.

Cassiano never had Milton's career in terms of success or longevity and it would be hard for most anyone to match Milton's talent. However, Cassiano did have his own magic, based on a similarly heart-rending melodic and on a deep appreciation for American soul and r&b, especially the Philly style. Maybe Donny Hathaway and his combination of groove and sweetness would be a good comparison. Here are a couple of tracks:

CASSIANO -- Nao Fique Triste
This is that melodic sense I'm talking about. Also check out the backing harmonies and understated orchestrations.

CASSIANO -- (I don't have the title)
Here's a groovy hustle that was given to me by my friend, Greg Caz, who is the biggest authority I know on Brazilian pop of the 60s/70s. This is a track he spins at his all-Brazilian dance night, Brazilian Beat, at Black Betty in Brooklyn.

MILTON NASCIMENTO -- Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser
So this might be an obvious choice. This is the song that did it for me (though I believe it is actually sung by Milton's musical partner at the time, Lo Borges). And it's as good as music gets.

MARY MARGARET O'HARA

2006-07-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

Recording one album and a movie soundtrack over 20 years is sure-fire way to avoid public acclaim and welcome obscurity. With Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America, from 1988, it doesn't really matter. It's as individual of a singer/songwriter album as you're going to find. It's sparseness suggests folk and even abstracted country influences that fade in and out of the more atmospheric, jazzy, and arty ambiance that fans of Jane Siberry and Victoria Williams would affectionately recognize. O'Hara's voice is clear without being overly studied but just "off" enough to raise questions about her emotional stability. What's not at question is her intensity of feeling and her personal immersion within each song. O'Hara's frayed edges and unexpected flights in, out, and around the coloring lines were never universally welcomed but they are one reason why, for a strong sliver of those who hear her, she becomes an adored favorite.

Mary Margaret O'Hara -- Help Me Lift You Up (Miss America, 1988)

My favorite track of hers. Indelible. Conveys strength, despair, and salvation. Probably intended as much for herself as for the ostensible "you" of the song. Check out the little lost balloons of vocal sighs she releases throughout.

This Mortal Coil -- Help Me Lift You Up (Blood, 1991)

Wonderful cover, increasing the lushness and atmospheric qualities of the song. Featuring Caroline Crawley of Shellyann Orphan and Deirdre Rutkowski on vocals.

GUITAR TONE OF THE SUN PT. II

2006-06-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's obvious I'm going to return to guitars in a million different ways: riffs, styles, solos, interplay, tones and all that. But I'd like to mention one piece right now, as a corollary to the previous post on this awesome, solar guitar sound I was talking about. Funny enough, this track by Space Opera doesn't even employ that precisely played, but highly distorted, harnessed-fire sound built by McLaughlin, Fripp, Duhig, and currently developed by Tim Green. If anything, Space Opera's sound is more generally categorized into "country rock," like the Byrds, Poco or CSN. Their guitar sound usually features more 12-strings than Les Pauls. However, on "Over And Over" they pull out the guitar stops unlike few tracks I've ever heard. If last post's Jade Warrior piece was a noble sail to the infinite horizon, this Space Opera track is a southwestern stellar supernova. The first firework goes off at around a-minute-and-a-half and then the piece proceeds to peak and peak, yes, over and over, for the next four minutes. Those are four ecstatic and astonishing minutes.

Space Opera -- Over And Over

GUITAR TONE OF THE SUN

2006-06-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

Being able to play the right note in the right place is still pretty much the indicator of greatness in an instrumentalist. Sometimes it's lots of notes, sometimes not playing any. However, I've come to increasingly feel that TONE takes the great instrumentalist to the realms of the sublime or genius. Funny enough, the masters of one are often the masters of the other. Here, I'm thinking of Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd ("Shine On," "Dogs"), Brian May of Queen, Robert Fripp of King Crimson, John McLaughlin of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Tom Scholz of Boston and a bunch of others. These guys play with a tone that, for me, cuts through any questions, ambiguities, uncertainty, and crises of meaning. They each direct their light in different directions and with different intent but they all come to a sound that embodies the "guitar tone of the sun."

One of my favorite current embodiers of that sound is Tim Green, a San Francisco-based guitarist/producer. Somehow, I think through overlapping several guitar lines, he can get a sound that's laser-like yet rich, full, and vibrant. Sometimes, the guitars will be in harmony, sometimes in polyphony, but always with a soaring/searing light to blaze the way.

Here are a few, lesser-heard examples of the awesome guitar tone I'm talking about. The first three feature Tim Green. The last track shows where this sound started opening-up and is close to perfect bliss for me:

The F***ing Champs -- Air On A G String (adapted from Bach's "Air in G").

The multi-voiced arrangement is beautiful on its own. Not surprising considering the composer and the piece's renown in wedding circles. But it's the resonant, restrained-laser sound of the guitars, as though several streams of fire have agreed to cordially minuet with each other, that makes this more than a mere cover.

Citay -- Vinter
What Never Was And What Should Have Been

Tim Green from the above-mentioned F***ing Champs is applying some of that awesome guitar production to another band's compositions. The guitar is high but meaty, substantial, as if it could knock you flat, just as easily as go through you, or all around you. The second track is notable for its Zeppelin-reference title but also for how it echoes much of the great Jade Warrior track that follows below.

Jade Warrior -- Borne On The Solar Wind.

Simply, one of my favorite instrumentals of all time. It's a rare kind of piece that I could listen to endlessly. The guitar-choir comes in at around 1:20 and doesn't "do" all that much, except gently but surely blow the wind and the shine the setting sun of the infinite horizon.

HOW TO BECOME AN OBSCURITY IN 10 STEPS

2006-06-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Terry Reid is exactly the kind of artist I'd like to highlight in Pockit Rockit: an artist with all the talent in world, with a voice that could belt and rasp like a young Rod Stewart or Steve Marriott and search or wail more like Tim Buckley--simultaneously gregarious and introspective--who could have had the world at least twice, yet who ends up in deep (but not yet hopeless) obscurity.

Intro: You're a hugely talented kid starts rising through the scenes in England. Everyone who hears you sings your praises. You're soon opening up for Cream and the Stones. You're 18.

Step 1: Sign a management deal with the biggest, most happening guy around.

Step 2: Have him bungle your first two records with uneven material and sub-par recording that doesn't present you at your strongest.

Step 3: Watch him not even release your debut in your home country, where you've probably built up the greatest number of fans.

Step 4: Get approached by Jimmy Page to become the vocalist for the New Yardbirds (i.e. Led Zeppelin), but turn it down due to your budding solo career and the threat of massive legal repercussions from your manager.

Step 4: Add insult to injury by recommending your replacement, in this case, Robert Plant.

Step 5: Perform the same trick twice by turning down the Deep Purple vocalist position, also largely due to the threat of massive legal action by your manager.

Step 6: Finally sue your manager to get out of his contract and poor management. Lose much of your money and don't release an album for 3 years, in the process. You're maybe 21.

Step 7: After years of litigation, finally release your finest album, a quiet, introspective, non-rock star, folk-blues album that your label barely supports.
(Courtesy of Paul Toms)

Step 8: Drift into obcscurity playing solid-quality, but relatively modest, soul/r&b-based rock/pop to a small group of devoted fans through the 70s.

Step 9: Fall off the Earth altogether in the post-punk, alternative/indie rock eras of the 80s/90s.

Step 10: Hopefully, start to get reappraised as your work is slowly reissued and insightful blogger write about you in the 00s. You can check out what Terry's up to these days at his website.

(Courtesy of Paul Toms)

Here are a couple of rare live tracks and two tracks from my fave Terry album, River:

Silver White Light -- A soaring rocker recorded live in San Francisco around 1969/70. Originally on Terry's second album, Terry Reid. Pretty easy to picture Terry with Zeppelin at this point.

Changes/Stay In My Home -- Terry did a rapturously well-received set at the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre. This is one great piece that I found from that show.

Things To Try -- This shows that Terry had not lost his joy for life during his legal battles with his management. Great country, blues, folk-rock piece.

Dream -- One of my favorite Terry songs. It's very difficult to channel bits of solo Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, and even some bossa nova in one track.

2006-06-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO THE POCKIT ROCKIT BLOG!

For kicks, here are a couple of options for background music/downloading. They're meant to feel good as you read the blog intro. To be clear, these tracks are meant for discovery purposes. So, if you like any of these songs, you are warmly encouraged to buy as much material as possible by the artist in question. Artists: if you do not wish for your songs to be presented here, please feel free to contact me and your song will be removed immediately, with respect.

Nostalgia Track: Free To Be You And Me by Marlo Thomas and Friends. I never realized this song's associative power until I started getting responses after I put it on my wedding CD. They used to play this movie for us in grade school.

Uplifting Indie Pop Track: Tonight We Fly by Divine Comedy. Well-known to legions of (primarily European) fans, this is too life-affirming of a song to fear its familiarity. In that sense, it's similar to Earth Wind & Fire's "Fantasy."

Out-Of-Print Funk Track: Shoot-Kickin' Instrumental from the Chains & Black Exhaust compilation. No idea who recorded this. What is clear is that it has one of the coolest intros in funk history. Kicks my booty every time and it always feels great.

Underrated Alternative-Era Classic Rock Track: Stardog Champion by Mother Love Bone. Theoretically, these guuys woulda been the bridge between Guns 'N Roses and Pearl Jam. The band did, in fact, become Pearl Jam, after their star front man OD'ed and they recruited a new vocalist, Eddie Vedder.

I'm Ari and, towards the end of 2005, I compiled a Zagat-like music guide book called The Pockit Rockit Music Finder 2.0. The gist was to make music discovery as fast, fun, and easy as possible by using the classic, "if you like X, then you might like Y" methodology. I've decided to put together this blog as a sort of backwoods and sideroads appendage to that book and its web-site, pockitrockit.com. While on that site, I'm trying to compile every conceivable musical connection that you and I can think of, this blog is where I can focus on highlighting a song or two a day. Songs that strike me as special in some way. Songs that I'd like to share. Songs that might connect to something you already know and love and help to take you down roads you've never explored. Songs that might simply connect to a certain mood and the feeling that it conjures. The goal is still the same: getting turned on--discovery.

A friend of mine has records worth over $2500. I don't. He looks for albums that have been printed in editions of four and a half copies. I don't. When I think of spending $2500 on an album, my mind immediately turns to the comparable value of 400 hypothetical CDs I could explore instead, hopefully unveiling some mysterious revelations that could never be forseen: the disc with the bizarro-bikers-in-space artwork, to the disc whose band lists 15 vocalists, 10 keyboardists, and a drummer, to the disc from 1972 that was never officially released but lists Black Sabbath's guitarist, Tony Iommi, as its producer. I'd have no idea what any of these discs would sound like but I'd be very certain that I'd really, really like to know.

So that's what it's about: that kind of curiosity and the ultimate thrill of discovery. That thrill 's where most of the fun happens, more than in prizing obscurity for its own sake (as tempting as that can be). The discovery I'm hoping to share could be in the shape of a lesser-known song by a very well-known artist. It could be a track by an artist you may have heard of, but never really listened to. It could be a track by a band known well within a little niche but not so well-known outside of it. And, then again, it could be a completely, hopelessly, out of the blue rarity. If I can be at least useful on a daily basis, while providing a little dusting of magic every now and then, then we're on the right track.

Last note: if you're really trying to find tasty stuff that's similar to some of your favorite artists, definitely let me know. No promises but, if the inspiration kicks in, I'd love to help you find what you're looking for.

Cheers,

Ari