Oh, Baltimore

This happened just a few doors down from where I used to live. Charming news from Charm City.

Here's what a local landlord has to say about our student body too.


FMFM: Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gershwin. Sometimes simple pleasures are the best. As enamored as I will always be with Thelonious Monk's harmonic genius and sense of timing, with the dazzling speed of Art Tatum and his descendant Oscar Peterson, there will always be a place for Teddy Wilson's piano playing on my turntable. I've been enjoying his work in Benny Goodman's late-30s small groups too (pre-bop jam dates with Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton), but this is a playful trio songbook LP from 1959 that hasn't ever gotten old. Side one has the fast numbers and side two has the ballads, but Wilson's tempos are always spot-on, with just the right bounce. It sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. Love the bowed bass too. Mysteriously given only three stars. Wrong again.

WWAPKD?

Another graceful, tasteful move from Rush Limbaugh.

I see that he has partially retracted his statement, issued a ham-handed apology, and tempered his accusations by saying that Michael J. Fox is simply "allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democratic politician." I imagine Limbaugh would prefer that people who suffer from debilitating diseases should keep silent about political battles regarding the legitimacy of research that could save their lives. Now there's some quiet dignity. Fuck you.

Video here.

[Tangential: Fox was campaigning for another one of those America-haters, Tammy Duckworth.]

Hello, hello

Postcards from The Edge.

I felt like a gringo

There are nights when I think that Stu Sherman was right.

Beirut's set at the GAMH last night made me think of the first Camper Van Beethoven album: faux ethnic music, played mostly for laughs. Six men and one woman took the stage with trumpets (up to three at a time!), other brass stuff, an organ, a violin, a variety of percussion devices, and an assortment of stringed things from the lute family. No bass. They played mostly forgettable minor-key tunes for about an hour, jumped around, shook tambourines in the audience. It was fun, in a Serbo-Croatian kind of way.

Maybe those songs address serious matters, or serve as wedding songs or something, in their original context. I would guess that almost no one in attendance cared about any of that. For most people who would actually show up at one of their shows, Beirut is simply a change-up from the usual, a detour into ethnic music that you don't have to take too seriously. (I'd laugh if you called it indie rock.) Most of the band is quite young, and the frontman isn't even old enough to drink in a bar. He is not without his gifts, but his music is ultimately of little consequence. It could be dance music for people who don't dance. I liked it anyway.

Yeah, I know. Thinking too much can ruin a good time. The PopMatters essay shoots a little higher than necessary (did he really have to bring Susan Sontag into it?), but the writer definitely has a point. (Boss disagrees. Says it just sounds good, and he leaves it at that.) Beirut does trivialize something that's taken seriously somewhere in the world, sure. But isn't that where rock'n'roll comes from? Simultaneously embracing and cheapening more serious things?


FMFM: The mp3 in the title.

That last night he had total retention

Remember a couple of days ago when I expressed surprise that the wild Hold Steady finale wasn't on YouTube yet? Now it is.

I don't think you can see or hear me in this video, which I believe ends about half a minute before the end of the last song.

Who would've thought that a raucous bar band could turn John Berryman's poetry into a blogosphere hit? Unlikely.

Jesus he knows me

A well-paired duo of documentaries played at the Balboa all week, and today I made time for Jesus Camp and Al Franken: God Spoke -- as always, a dirt-cheap matinee double feature. I doubt I'd have gone to see either one separately, or even paid full admission for both. But with a free afternoon and time for a walk during autumn's finest hour, I shared the theater with about a dozen elderly folks and viewed two films improved by their juxtaposition.

Jesus Camp addresses Evangelical Christian youth camps and ministries in Missouri and North Dakota, with visits to Colorado Springs and D.C. Most of the film consists of exactly what you'd expect: pre-teens being taught to speak in tongues, being home-schooled about creationism, being lectured about abortionists and the world of sin. According to the filmmakers and distributors, the film allegedly refuses to take sides or judge the ministers and campers, but they certainly come off as kooky zealots. It must be noted, however, that there is almost no way these people could be presented as anything other than kooky zealots. (Unless, of course, you're a Believer.) It's depressing more than anything else. These kids are so vulnerable, and so intent on setting themselves apart from their peers, that watching them be manipulated by their elders in the name of righteousness is crushing.

(Interesting dustup between the filmmakers and megachurch pastor Ted Haggard here and here.)

As much as I'd like to get behind Al Franken, there's something about seeing him speak to high school kids that made me recall the language used in Jesus Camp. (Except, of course, he's using things like mathematics and statistics to make his points, rather than trying to make young people feel good about Jesus.) He is depicted as vulgar and a little vain, yet clearthinking, witty and human. The film does endeavor to present valid criticism (as well as Fox News ranters with little to chew on) but rarely seems like much more than a collection of the kinds of soundbites that are killing cable news and hurting America. I get enough of that already, thanks.


FMFM: Soweto Never Sleeps: Classic Female Zulu Jive, a mid-80s Shanachie compilation of mbaqanga and mqashiyo from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The vocal parts are dazzling, but who's that band? They could've been the Meters. Way underrated with two and a half stars; I wish it were twice as long.

Finns for our feet

I'm standing onstage at the Great American Music Hall. I'm playing Craig Finn's guitar. And some girl is handing me an open bottle of Jim Beam, wiping the remains of a shot off her lips. How did it get to be this way?

It may very well be par for the course for Hold Steady shows to evolve into wild free-for-alls by night's end, or last night may have been an unusually festive occasion. There were a hell of a lot of people there who knew every word to their songs, and the band is clearly receiving more attention than ever before. (A page and a half in the Sunday NYT Arts and Leisure section, huh?) The posse of young rowdies to my left, right below Finn's nose, was in full frat mode: crowd surfing, stage diving, shoving people around. I guess that's what happens when you make a full-on arena-rock record. (More photos from strangers are here and here. Interactive version of the photo above is here.)

Was the music good? Sure, assuming you like power-chord rock straight out of the 1970s, delivered like the band has wanted to play it all their lives. (Check Tad Kubler's "Best Bands of All Time" list.) Frontman/writer Craig Finn presents himself as neither a good guitarist nor a good singer, but rather an enthusiastic firebrand/ringmaster whose boozy rants, wild pantomiming and over-the-top charisma set the band apart from its riff-rock peers. (To be fair, there are many other things too: the wild antics and generally odd appearance of skilled pianist Franz Nicolay, Tad Kubler's licks on the double-necked Gibson, and the bash-and-pop rhythm section that knows how to make things right for everyone else.) They throw everything in the playbook at you, and nearly everything works.

Last night's show reminded me of seeing Guided by Voices at Irving Plaza in 1995 and 1996. The face of rock'n'roll is starting to look less like the classic Jagger/Plant-type frontman, and more like Finn: pudgy, drunk, balding, entering middle age, and yet all fired up about making music like it's the last thing he ever wanted to do. His onstage moves circle beyond irony and back to fun, like Bob Pollard's; the music is not so much a reinterpretation but rather a reinforcement of everything you (might) already like about rock'n'roll. They may have stretched too far on their latest record, or maybe not, but in person they are unquestionably a first-rate band.

Everything hit the fan during the encores. Kubler mounted a speaker and started taking beers from people in the balcony. Finn started spraying the crowd with beer. Kubler successfully crowd-surfed. The guy in front of me loaned Kubler his hat. Kubler wore it for awhile, then threw it into the crowd. The guy looked worried that he was going to lose it forever. Kubler asked him if he played guitar, handed him his axe, and started pulling people out of the crowd. Once he'd yanked four or five people onto the stage, everyone started climbing up there, myself included. The bottle of Beam, passed around onstage during the show, became everyone's. Some guy had Finn's guitar, but couldn't play it. And so I wound up taking it from him, and the last licks of the night came from my fingers. Kubler came over and was ready to shut me down, but saw that I was playing in tune and so he let me go a little bit more. I don't know whether Finn plays in drop-D tuning or if the instrument had been molested sufficiently to knock it out of tune by that point -- how could you tell? He hardly ever plays it during their songs -- but I made it through without sounding terrible. I think.

Somehow, this isn't on YouTube yet.

Murder was the case

"...a man was shot multiple times near 24th and Shotwell streets..."

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies

A veteran amateur pilot, and a former co-worker of mine, has interesting observations regarding the Cory Lidle crash.


FMFM: R.E.M.'s And I Feel Fine, the best-of comp from the IRS years (pre-1987). A good deal of this disc is merely of historical interest, and there is no new song I would deem essential. But the onstage material from Boston and Holland makes a damn good case for R.E.M. as a first-rate live band. (Does Stipe still tell those stories before songs?) Regrettably, I missed seeing them in the club days. I was awfully close to going into NYC that night in 1987 when they played the Ritz, but I was barely 15 at the time. I never bothered in the arena/shed era. Maybe I should've.

[UPDATE: I was unclear about something: By "this disc," I was referring specifically to Disc Two, the only reason I would own such a product as this. Disc One is a traditional best-of, while Disc Two consists largely of live material, outtakes and other rarities. I will say, however, that the remastering makes a big difference on the material I already own. Side-by-side comparisons with Eponymous are like night and day, and while my original wax still sounds great, I've been hearing things on cuts like "Pilgrimage" that I've never noticed before.]

"Made me do things I never dreamed of...."

Fans of soul 45s from the 1960s should know about Home of the Groove, The B Side, The A Side, and Funky 16 Corners.

Check out "There's A Break In The Road" by Betty Harris, on Home of the Groove right now. Harris's salacious vocal and the unmistakable drumming of Zigaboo Modeliste carry the tune, but what's up with all that feedback? Bass chords in the chorus? (It was, after all, made in the psychedelic-garage era.)

I understand it was the last record Harris made before a 35-year silence.

How the heck do these records go out of print?

Reagan youth

I was just reading Ronald Reagan's 1989 Farewell Address, and discovered these words:

Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons--and hope for even more progress is bright--but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from Angola.

Wow. Afghanistan and the Gulf, we all know about. Cambodia and Vietnam continue to have various disputes, but there is substantially less conflict and strife there than during the 1970s and 1980s. Angola has been a disaster area, due to civil war as well as disease, for most of the last ten years, despite the departure of -- hah! -- Cuban troops in 1989.

Reagan said all this in the context of discussing free markets, cutting taxes, and globalization, and appeared to be taking credit for these steps toward world peace through trade. I hope he is resting comfortably in his shining city on a hill.


FMFM: The Pernice Brothers' Live A Little, possibly their strongest collection of songs since the unbeatable The World Won't End. While the production is less creative than on the band's last outing, the melodies are more immediate and the string charts are spectacular, especially as heard on the "outtake" versions that arrived on a bonus disc with my pre-order. I'm not quite sure why they re-made "Grudge F***" (although I think the self-censorship in the title is hilarious), but I'll take it.

Joe Pernice's ability to condense information into a small space -- generally, one of the challenges of poetry -- will keep me unpacking these songs for quite some time. There are times when he delivers so many images so quickly that I feel like he's rushing me, but one day I think I'll appreciate those moments more. And the bonus disc, featuring demos with wordless singing, lends a valuable insight into his creative process. Five stars.

Strict time

Ordinarily I would have blogged about the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in this space, but I'm saving it up for the next issue of No Depression. They don't publish too much online, but if they do post my review I'll send you there when it happens. Please consider buying the magazine anyway! It's always full of worthwhile reading.


FMFM: The Hold Steady's Boys And Girls In America, a Big Statement record currently facing an out-of-control hype machine. (I realize this is the third time I've mentioned it myself.) The big guitars match the band's big intentions -- cinematic rock largely about dashed expectations of legendary love -- and although there were times I wish they'd reached a little nearer, I can't deny that Craig Finn's characters are powerfully drawn. They matter. I'm behind this one, especially when I'm driving around on nights when I'm starting to think Sal Paradise was right too. See you next week, boys.

"You flash a piece out on the lanes..."

All this, just as Jimmie Dale Gilmore rides out of town. Are you happy, you crazy fuck?

But did Sloppy Sue and Big Bones Billy make it up there?

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned my failure to photograph the rock at the peak of Sierra Buttes etched with the names of 1880s climbers? Here it is, thanks to a fellow bachelor weekender who scaled the 8,587-foot peak with us.

Wild Rosebud and Big Bruce sure can be assholes sometimes.


FMFM: The New Boss Guitar of George Benson, an easy-swinging soul-jazz date that marks the guitarist's first appearance as a leader. There is a lot to enjoy here, although Benson is nowhere near the heights he would later achieve. The interplay among the soloists is generally upbeat and spirited, although the rhythm section remains in the pocket most of the time and feeds relatively few ideas upstream to Benson, organist Brother Jack McDuff and saxman Red Holloway. Benson shines on the ballad "Easy Living" too. Amazing to think this was going on during the days of Beatlemania. Featuring awful, clumsy liner notes by Chris Albertson, listed on the back cover as a WBAI DJ but apparently also a Prestige producer of the era. Eventually, he turned out to be a pretty good writer after all.

Truth to power

"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."


FMFM: Ron Carter's All Blues, another elegant session on CTI. Carter sticks with the upright on this one, and has Joe Henderson as a melodic wingman and Billy Cobham as an unusually subdued rhythmatist. The natural-sounding bass is mixed loud and up-front, and appears bold and blue.

Turn you inside-out

One more note about Sonic Youth: Check out this awesome idea.

[T]he piece of paper underneath the CD tray that contains the track listing is double sided - the side that faces out contains the track listing with a bar code and an RIAA anti-piracy notice and the opposite side has the same track listing without a bar code or an RIAA warning.


FMFM: Ellington's "The Mooche," from the Ellington Uptown LP.

"I was rather ripped when I got here...."

Fifteen minutes into Sonic Youth's appearance last night at the Fillmore, we thought we had a feel for their set. We'd just seen them play "Teen Age Riot," embark on a noise coda at least five minutes long (featuring crossed-swords guitar neck rubbing from Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore), and launch into "Candle". Two songs from 1988, plus some old-school Sonik Toothery in between? A.L. Jones turned to me and said, "I think it's just going to be that kind of a night."

After that, though, they leaned on Rather Ripped for most of the next hour. I'm afraid I don't own the record yet, but I know I heard "Incinerate," "Rats," and "Or," and some other fresh material. The band showed total confidence in the newer stuff, and attempted what Ms. Jones called "some weird shit going on here tonight": Lee Ranaldo playing acoustic guitar for one song (!), Kim Gordon playing slide guitar (!) for another number, and Mark Ibold and Gordon spending half the night as the best twin bass guitar combo since Ned's Atomic Dustbin (that's a joke, kids).

And then the place completely ignited when they did "Kool Thing" to end the first encore, one of their most popular songs and yet a totally unexpected move in this context. They've spent most of the past twelve years or so exploring a very different avenue of music than the street "Kool Thing" is on, exploring quieter double-helix stuff instead of their riffy side. (Gosh, what a different arena they played in, way back in 1990.) I, for one, have not spun Goo more than once in the last five years, although I probably know every twist and turn on the entire record. This was one of the most explosive performances I've seen all year.

Continuing the trend, the group sent us home with two early works, "The World Looks Red" and "Shaking Hell". Wild.

I also have to give props to the lighting director and whoever designed the odd-angled white backdrop. Do they actually take that thing on tour with them, or was it in the tour rider? ("One (1) irregularly-shaped white thing, at least fifteen feet high....") A slide projector shone its beam on the band all night, and they appeared to be lit from beneath sporadically as well. Very cool effect. Probably blinding for the band members themselves.

Boy, am I glad they didn't follow that stupid Village Voice critic's advice. How old was she, anyway?

[Check it out: I first saw Sonic Youth play at this place, in 1992! With the Beastie Boys, no less! And Luscious Jackson. This person was there too.]


FMFM, shortly: Goo

Hold my life

They're already streaming the upcoming Hold Steady album over at Vagrant (via Pitchfork), but I think I'd rather listen to it in the car. Especially because it's all about geography, see.

Kelefa, I think they might be rockists. [Check the MySpace: "...new wave was pretty weak then and now," and "Kills dance punk. Or whatever that soulless shit is."]


FMFM: M. Ward