A Little Light Reading

Today, the inbox brings "Chandeliers," a divine slice of pop from Summer Fiction, the brainchild of singer/songwriter Bill Ricchini. For our Philly followers, Bill & company are slated to play Johnny Brenda's on December 1.

Summer Fiction, "Chandeliers"

"Neil Young" & Bruce Springsteen - Whip My Hair

I assumed Jimmy Fallon's staff had written a song parody for "Neil Young" and Bruce Springsteen to sing as Bruce commandeered Fallon's show last in an entertaining hour where Springsteen let his hair down a little while still maintaining the requisite amount of Boss-ness. But now that I know that it's a current pop hit by Willow Smith, the obviously fabulous progeny of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, only one word comes to mind... genius.



Go buy The Promise - fanatics need the full boat six disc enormo-package, casual listeners can settle for the two disc version that contains 21 unreleased top shelf castoff gems from what is arguably Springsteen's creative peak.

Jimmy Fallon & Bruce Springsteen - "Whip My Hair" (live 11/16/10 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

Bruce Springsteen & The Roots - "Because The Night" (live 11/16/10 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

Willow Smith - "Whip My Hair"

Pat yourself on the back if you even knew Will Smith had a daughter, much less one with the current # 13 chart hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Promise

For guys like us, the only thing better than Darkness on the Edge of Town is a three-CD, three-DVD exploration of every crevice in that spectacular record's creation. It comes out next week, but I'm told that if I wait five weeks or so, it might show up under some radom tree. In the meantime, read Joe Posnanski's lovely meditation on the connection between Darkness and real life. And while you're reading, listen to the treasure chest of previously unreleased Darkness-era tracks now streaming on Spinner.

Front Row at The Bon Jovi Concert

"To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts"
---Sapphire (Almost Famous)




Bon Jovi - "Bad Medicine"

Of Field and Fire

I’ve been meaning to wax poetic about this for weeks now, but I haven’t found the time, so instead I’ll just wax.

Field Music has made the best album I’ve heard all year and nobody gives a damn.

It’s arty, it’s quirky, it’s melodic. It’s accessible without being obvious. It’ll appease those (like me) who think Dirty Projectors are a little too out there (and in case I've buried the lede, it's called Field Music (Measure)).

It’s impossible to know how a band or a record is going to strike the public. Kings of Leon are the biggest contemporary rock band going, and they’re a nifty little combo I suppose, but why them and not The Gaslight Anthem?

I fall victim myself. Arcade Fire, whose first two albums I liked, released an album earlier this year, and I had it within five minutes. Field Music, whose first two albums I loved, released one, too, and it took me five months. Both albums are ambitious, arty and anthemic. One of them has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The other one is great.

Arcade Fire captured the zeitgeist. Field Music captured my attention and little else.

Trip has been carrying my sorry ass on this blog for months now. I’ll try to do better. Let’s call this a start.

Two Cow Garage - Sweet Saint Me

"Thanks for asking, but things have never been worse"

So goes "No Shame", from Two Cow Garage's 2007 album III, and it just about sums up the band's worldview. Singer Micah Schnabel posits there's no shame "in just giving up and walking away". While that might be true for some bands, it would have been a terrible shame if Two Cow Garage had packed it in back in 2007. They wouldn't have hit on the career detours, one night stands, broken promises, empty rooms and deep self analysis that have led to Sweet Saint Me (out this Tuesday on Suburban Home Records), their no-doubt-about-it high water mark as a fierce rock and roll band.

Main songwriter Schnabel spares no one, least of all himself, as he examines the rock life choices he and his friends have made in pursuit of the perfect riff. On Sweet Saint Me, Andy Schell's piano and B3 sweeten and deepen the self-loathing that threatens to sink the band in a morass of self pity. But hold off on the pity party for this band, because they've delivered one of the most vital rock records of the year, sown from seeds of desperation and heartbreak.

Soak in the glorious sing-along "Lydia", about a troubled woman-child, an Adam and Eve vision that haunts every barfly on a bender. There are no happy endings here, except for the 75 minutes on stage each night. The album's title track may be Schnabel at his most self-flagellating, flinging self-inflicted daggers like "my own words are turning on me like a gun inside my mouth". but a thumping rhythm section, swirling B3 and clackety guitar make the medicine a little easier to swallow. And the age old question of every indie band that scuffles even remotely with success is dissected in "Soundtrack to My Summer", as the band are "going to sleep as punk rock kids" and "waking up part of the machine". For those who like their rock straight, no chaser and abhor dj dance club culture, check out this diatribe from "My Great Gatsby":

"Since Dylan went electric, man, things just ain't been the same
Now djs are making records, could you please just be ashamed
Of your raping and your pillaging of this thing we love
Now I'm stuck down here on the killing floor and I need someone to shove.

The album's relentless, claustrophobic wallow is leavened somewhat by contributions by bassist Shane Sweeney, he of the Civil War-worthy muttonchops. "Wanted To Be" and "Closer to You" feature Sweeney's warm, craggy baritone that sees the light, knows the shared blood spill is worth it, and seems to prop up his world-weary brother. This is a band with a bond that runs so deep that they had to close the album with the call-to-arms of "Brothers in Arms" that celebrates not only their own shared struggles but those of any desperate band of brothers. And that bond is passed on to the next generation in "Jackson Don't You Worry", an unsparing chronicle of bringing kids into the rock crucible, where you celebrate "birthdays and graduations through a telephone", but physical absence doesn't have to mean spiritual absence. Note the bookend cribbing of Big Star and Springsteen.... is there a better pair to pilfer from?

For those despaired that Westerberg went soft as The Replacements ended, Sweet Saint Me seems to fulfill that hard/soft quiet/loud pop song cycle that would have fit nicely after Pleased to Meet Me. It's a rock band that is sick of itself, so much so that the only cure is transcendent rock and roll.

.

Two Cow Garage - "Lydia" (from Sweet Saint Me)

Two Cow Garage - "No Shame" (from III)

Two Cow Garage - "Skinny Legged Girl" (from Speaking in Cursive)

Two Cow Garage - "No Surrender" (from Under The Influence, Vol. 9)

Micah Schnabel - "American Static" (from When The Stage Lights Go Dim)

Just 'Cause You Feel So Good, Do You Have to Drive Me Out of My Head?

Just finished watching the movie Pirate Radio, and while it appears to be a rather sanitized version of British pirate radio in 1966, it is hugely entertaining and worth two hours of your time. The above is a deleted scene from the movie, and one of the best music videos of the last ten years.

I am also certain that 1966 was the single best year in the history of rock and roll. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Beach Boys and even the Prefab Four, the Monkees, were in their prime. Radio ruled with a wide-ranging diversity and endless supply of three minutes songs whose heart and soul have provided the blueprint for every rock band that followed.

Watch Pirate Radio with measured expectations, enjoy the fab music and dry, awkward humor and revel in the notion that not one song from 1966 has aged a day.

The Rolling Stones - "Get Off of My Cloud"

Jason And The Scorchers Tonight!

For those of you in the Philadelpia-New Jersey-New York corridor, there is a show tonight that demands your attention - the return of Jason and The Scorchers. Unfortunately it's in the godforsaken hinterlands of Bucks County, and even though I've been to the Sellersville Theater three times, I still don't where it is. God bless GPS.

Take a look at this clip and skip this show at your own peril.


The Scorchers latest, Halcyon Days, is among the best releases of 2010 and bonus show points for spitfire opening act, Sarah Borges and The Broken Singles.

Jason & The Scorchers - "Moonshine Guy/Releasing Celtic Prisoners"

Jason & The Scorchers - "Golden Days"

Sarah Borges And The Broken Singles - "The Day We Met"

Sarah Borges And The Broken Singles - "It Comes to Me Naturally"

Tommy Keene - Songs From The Film - LIVE!!

Guess what is exactly 2 hours and ten minutes from Havertown, PA (going north) and 2 hours, 10 minutes from Red Hook, NY (heading south)? Brooklyn, And that's where worlds collided at The Rock Shop, a tiny new venue in the heart of Park Slope that brought together me and my old college pal, JM, plus trusted accomplice Chopped Liver for a night of reliving our debauched late 20's (no wonder we couldn't find wives until our 30's). The soundtrack? The magnificent Tommy Keene, currently on a limited 8 date tour that features Tommy and band zipping through the power pop landmark Songs For The Film from start to finish. How could we not go see that?

Songs From The Film, you say? You bet - it stands with the best of Big Star, Matthew Sweet, The Plimsouls and The Raspberries as the cream of the crop of the critic wet dream genre of power pop. The night began with the first sighting of JM in four years (and a great burger at Bonnie's Grill), the last being a disastrous screening of the Jack Black stinker, Nacho Libre, that apparently JM's kid still hails as a classic. And for chrissakes, isn't it time for a moratorium on Jack Black movies? The guy has been in about 700 movies in the last 10 years, and by my count has been tolerable in maybe two, High Fidelity and Tropic Thunder. And don't even start with Tenacious D - that is some horrid, unfunny pain. Jack Black makes Will Ferrell look like he has range. But I digress.

The first time JM and I saw Tommy Keene was on a hellacious double date / double bill (Peter Case opened - don't get me started on all you fuckers that refuse to acknowledge Case as one of the great under appreciated American songwriters of the last quarter century) at Maxwell's in Hoboken. It was all going so well until JM and I tried to answer the question "What if we tried to drink all of the beer in New Jersey?" I can't say we satisfactorily answered the question, but I can hazard a guess our dates might have given the night a slightly unsatisfactory review. I do remember a night spent in my date's bathroom, alternately heaving and lying prostrate on the floor, reveling in the refreshing flop sweat respite delivered by the icy cool blue and white bathroom floor tiles. Yep, I was a keeper. But again I digress.

Tommy Keene circa 2010 is enjoying a slight burnishing of his alreay considerable legend based on the absolutely essential career spanning double disc compilation, punnily titled Tommy Keene You Hear Me? Filled with alternate universe hits like "Places That Are Gone", "When Our Vows Break", "Love is A Dangerous Thing" and "Back to Zero Now", it's a power pop nerd's treat as it includes 7 tracks each from the difficult to find Songs From The Film and the almost impossible to find Based on Happy Times. Keene is an exceptional guitarist (just ask acolytes Robert Pollard and Paul Westerberg) and his music is defined by his crunchy jangle, as well as his sharp (and sometime opaque) songwriting and plaintive vocals.

Last night's giddy romp that ran from "Places That Are Gone" through "The Story Ends" was a glorious and nostalgic celebration that happened, according to Keene, "because it seemed like it was time. It's everyone's favorite album. Not mine, but everyone else's". The songs crackled with urgency as Keene smacked us in the face with his meaty but lean guitar leads, playing only was absolutely necessary. Especially thumping was his reading of Lou Reed's scathing account of his institutionalized electro-shock therapy, "Kill Your Sons", each note a crushing blow. Keene has aged remarkably well and his vocals still carry just the right mix of heartache and sneer. And major kudos to the soundman, whose mix was clean and crisp and still loud enough to rattle walls. Excellent, excellent sound. Also of note was the abundant appearance of homo obscura, rock nerds dedicated to the pursuit of obscure power pop bands (and yes... guilty as charged.). Openers Valley Lodge (fizzy glam pop featuring wise guy singer Dave Hill's deadpan asides on selling songs for commercials, Gary Glitter and pedophilia) and Title Tracks, whose debut It Was Easy is one of 2010's best pop records (and whose set included The Who's "So Sad About Us"), set the stage perfectly for Keene's valentine to long-time fans.

JM - I hope you got home OK. Let's do this again.

Tommy Keene - "Places That Are Gone"

Tommy Keene - "Love Is A Dangerous Thing"

Title Tracks - "Black Bubblegum"

Valley Lodge - "Comin' Around"

JM, Tommy Keene, TK


Chopped Liver, Tommy Keene, TK

Because once isn't enough

Here's Cee-Lo again. The song remains Not Safe for Work, and Not Safe for Not Dancing.

Cee-Lo's Shawshank Redemption from Dallas Observer on Vimeo.

The Best Song of 2010 is Not Safe For Work, Children, Parties, The Supermarket, School, In Fact, Almost Any Social Gathering... But Oh My, Is It Good

Back in the days of historically bad break-ups, broken hearts and the occasional restraining order, I dreamed of a song that would combine the cavity-inducing bubblegum smarts of the Grass Roots, the urgency of primal rock and roll and the screaming soul chops of Otis Redding and Little Richard all wrapped in an exuberantly profane chorus that focuses on the one word that gets daily workouts from all walks of life, but still maintains it's hard-earned bad boy image.

That song has finally arrived and "Fuck You" by Cee-Lo Green is the best song you'll hear all year, and it'll be despite the saucy chorus, and because it imagines that Terence Trent D'Arby had fulfilled the promise of his debut and decided to mash 50 years of soul music into 3:45 of spleen splitting, piano driven, loaded with oh-oh-oh's call and response euphoria. And it's even better than that.

And because we love a good kiss-off as much as the next guys, here's a few of our favorites including two more NSFW entries by the similarly agitated Tonio K and Harry Nilsson.

Ain't that some shit.

Cee-Lo Green - "Fuck You" (from the upcoming Lady Killer)

Tonio K - "H-A-T-R-E-D" (from Life in The Foodchain)

Nilsson - "You're Breaking My Heart" (from Son of Schmilsson)

The Beat Farmers - "Goldmine" (from Tales of The New West)

Lyle Lovett - "God Will" (from Lyle Lovett)

New Video from The Duke and The King

If "Shaky" is any indication, the sound on The Duke and The King's new album has a sound that's a little bit fuller (horns, group harmonizing) but the songs will retain that looking forward/looking back wistfulness that characterized much of their debut, Nothing Gold Can Stay. TD&TK mainman Simone Felice heads out for some solo dates, including a local stop at the intimate First Unitarian Side Chapel, and you will not see a show in a better venue this year.

Nottingham (Sold Out!) 08/25/10 UK
Newcastle 08/26/10 UK
City of Edinburgh 08/27/10 UK
Sheffield 08/31/10 UK
Liverpool 09/01/10 UK
London, London 09/02/10 UK

Toronto, Ontario 09/17/10 10:00pm CA
Toronto, Ontario 09/18/10 10:00pm CA

Philadelphia, PA 10/09/10 8:15pm US
Freehold, NJ 10/10/10 3:00pm US

Teenage Kicks in a nutshell

If there were a pedal steel in here somewhere, it would be the perfect synthesis of our record collections.

Long Live The Duke & The King!

Teenage Kicks faves The Duke and The King return with their new lp, Long Live The Duke & The King, on September 27. No specific label, track info or cover artwork yet, which in the internet age is a bit of a treat as the band and their new release retains a bit of mystery as we wait for the actual release day to hear the new record.

Nothing Gold Can Stay, their debut, was an introspective, soulful stunner, with Simone Felice emerging as a significant voice among the alt-indie-folk dream weavers. It's been an event-filled couple of years for Felice, including recent open heart surgery. Earlier this month he self-released an acoustic disc, Live From A Lonely Place, where he re-interprets the five best songs from Nothing Gold Can Stay, reclaims a handful of Felice Brothers songs and offers up two new songs. The treatments are really spare, with just acoustic guitar and the occasional harmonica for accompaniment.

Simone Felice - "The Morning I Get to Hell" (from Live From A Lonely Place)

The Duke And The King - "Long May You Run" (Live - Stills-Young band cover)

The Felice Brothers - "Waterspider" (early version of song that appears on Nothing Gold Can Stay)

Al Gore Gets His Inner W.A.S.P. On

From The Onion, Recently Single Al Gore Finally Able To Listen to W.A.S.P Albums

Ike Reilly Week in Philly

The Ike Reilly Assassination, a searing , combustible mix of the DIY punk rock of '77 and the classic rock of Dylan and Springsteen, went three years between Philadelphia gigs and by the end of the week they'll have played 4 Philly shows in three months. Lucky us.

Ike Reilly's current media blitz is in support of Hard Luck Stories, one the best releases of 2010 (and 2009 too, since it was a digital only release in Novemeber 2009). Reilly is, quite simply, one of the best current songwriters working, and he's still getting better. Just don't ask him to "magic rat" you.

Tonight come join the faithful as Reilly and crew take Girard Ave. by storm by smacking you in the face at the M Room, a perfectly seedy hole in the wall right near Frankford and Girard, about a block away from Johnny Brenda's. And get there early (ten?) for Standard Fare, a Brit-pop three piece wallowing in romantic angst, featuring the slightly agitated, wobbly warbling of one Emma Kupa and three minute post-punk songs that sound like a cross between Art Brut and Liz Phair (Guyville Liz Phair, that is).

And then Friday at noon, Ike Reilly will play a FREE show at World Cafe Live. You can go (remember it's FREE) or listen to show on WXPN. I suggest a go route. Get your FREE TIX HERE.

Ike Reilly - The War On The Terror and The Drugs (from Hard Luck Stories)

Ike Reilly Assassination - When Irish Eyes Are Burning (from We Belong to The Staggering Evening)

Ike Reilly - Farewell to The Good Times Part 2 (from Poison The Hit Parade)

Ike Reilly Assassination - Garbage Day (from Sparkle in The Finish)

Ike Reilly Assassination - She's So Free (from Sparkle in The Finish - bonus track)

Ike Reilly Assassination - Heroin (from Junkie Faithful)

Ike Reilly - Hip Hop Thighs # 17 (from Salesmen And Racists)

You can order his music here.

The Gaslight Anthem: "People Wanted Something Honest"

I recently chatted with Ben Horowitz, drummer for Teenage Kicks faves The Gaslight Anthem. The fruits of that conversation are in the new issue of The Providence Phoenix.

Here Today

One of the most remarkable things about Paul McCartney’s astonishing show on Saturday is that it told just half a story.

All of the songs that McCartney and/or John Lennon wrote for the Beatles are credited to both of them, but most are regarded as either Paul Songs or John Songs, and with a couple of exceptions (including “A Day in the Life,” which is a Paul Song and a John Song welded together), Saturday’s set consisted entirely of Paul Songs:

Venus and Mars/Rock Show; Jet; All My Loving; Letting Go; Drive My Car; Highway; Let Me Roll It/Foxy Lady; The Long and Winding Road; Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five; Let 'Em In; My Love; I've Just Seen A Face; And I Love Her; Blackbird; Here Today; Dance Tonight; Mrs. Vanderbilt; Eleanor Rigby; Something; Sing the Changes; Band on the Run; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; Back in the USSR; I’ve Got A Feeling; Paperback Writer; A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance; Let It Be; Live and Let Die; Hey Jude. First encore: Day Tripper; Lady Madonna; Get Back. Second encore: Yesterday, Helter Skelter, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)/The End.

In the early days of this blog, in a brief rumination about John Lennon, I wrote “Every once in a while, don’t you stop to wonder what he might have done these past twenty-six years? And doesn’t it break your heart a little every time?” Watching Paul play, I had those thoughts again, and I wondered what a comparable Lennon show in 2010 might be like.

Your first reaction might be that Lennon wouldn’t do a comparable show, that he had little interest in visiting his past. But there’s no telling how his thinking might have changed over the past three decades. He clearly was more at peace with himself and his past just before his death at age 40 than he had been ten years earlier. So, if you have disbelief, suspend it for a moment.

In my imagination, this is the set of John Songs that he would have played, and it is as titanic as the show Paul performed. How is it possible that these two men were in the same band?

Power to the People; Whatever Gets You Thru the Night; The Ballad of John and Yoko: Eight Days a Week; A Hard’s Day’s Night; If I Fell; Help!; And Your Bird Can Sing; Come Together; Jealous Guy; Working Class Hero; Norwegian Wood; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Dear Prudence; #9 Dream; You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away; Mind Games; Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey; (Just Like) Starting Over; Nobody Told Me; I’m a Loser; Ticket to Ride; Happiness is a Warm Gun; Across the Universe; A Day in the Life; Watching the Wheels; Strawberry Fields Forever; Revolution; I am the Walrus; Instant Karma! First encore: Imagine; Nowhere Man; Tomorrow Never Knows. Second encore: In My Life; All You Need Is Love; Twist and Shout.

In this fantasy, John is alive, but George is not, so just as Paul played “Something” as a tribute to the Quiet Beatle, John might slip in “Here Comes the Sun.” And at some show, somewhere, John’s friend Paul emerges unannounced during the first encore for a duet on “Two of Us.”

If I’m going to dream, let me have big dreams.

The Universal

About an hour into his show Saturday night in Kansas City, Paul McCartney’s band retreated from the stage, leaving the man alone with an acoustic guitar to play the Beatles’ classic “Blackbird” and “Here Today,” the open letter he wrote to John Lennon’s memory. Without tricks or adornment, McCartney strummed and sang simple melodies and words, and it was spellbinding, the mystery of music encapsulated in six minutes. How can something so stark be so stirring?

The whole night was like that, though most of it was appreciably louder. Three hours of some of the best and most famous songs ever written, each mangifiying the power of the one that preceded it.

I was born in 1968, just old enough to remember “Silly Love Songs” and “Let ‘Em In” as hit singles on the radio. But I don’t recall a time without most of the songs that Paul played. For me, the Beatles catalog is like the oceans and mountains, things that help define the earth. There is no hyperbole when it comes to this stuff. A recital of Beatles songs in 2010 is nothing more or less than a performance of the great cultural artifacts of the past half-century. Some of it, like “All My Loving” and “Drive My Car,” brought a smile, and much of it was pure majesty – “Eleanor Rigby,” “Let It Be,” the monstrous sing along to “Hey Jude.” And I’ve never felt my heart swell at a rock show the way it did during the opening chords to “A Day in the Life.”

Three songs from the set – “Dance Tonight,” from Memory Almost Full, and “Highway” and “Sing the Changes” by Macca’s alter ego The Fireman – earned their first release within the past three years, but most were three or four decades old. Still, the show was no more an act of nostalgia than a performance of Hamlet is. These are important songs, living things, and they stand on their own without need for any personal context.

The fact that there’s no one else left to play them made the evening feel even more poignant, as did the easy intimacy McCartney shared with the audience. He mentioned three people by their first names only – Linda, George and John – and 15,000 strangers knew who he meant and that they are all gone, lending him a humanity that’s sometimes hard to appreciate. Yes, he’s a titan, but he’s also a man who has known more than his share of loss. Beatles songs have long represented myriad things, and now they also represent the finite nature of life.

The depth of that cache of songs was further revealed when Paul came out for his first encore, after a murder’s row of classic to close the set. I thought “what else can he play?” and he pulled out “Yesterday.” Oh yes, that one.

Very few can make any claim to being McCartney’s peers, and all of them come with obstacles to appreciation. The Rolling Stones carry a hint of menace, with a junkie vampire guitarist and songs that have not always reflected the most enlightened attitude toward women. Bob Dylan is the definition of inscrutable, with his blown-speaker voice and labyrinthine lyrics making for disciples more than fans. And a Bruce Springsteeen show, joyous as it is, can have a clubby feel, as die-hards work to one-up one another by getting the Boss to play the most obscure requests. But there is no obstacle to McCartney. He is the last universal in music, with the best songs and the broadest appeal. Saturday may mark the only time I ever see him, and it was a privilege to be there.

Day 69 - Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Pop Music

I haven't seen this commercial on TV (I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a commercial since April when I got a DVR, except maybe during ballgames) but this song is yet another example of why the three minute pop song is king. Sounds like the Juno theme song crossed with my boy Jeremy Fisher. I love it, but those who have a low tolerance for sunshine pop should sit this one out.

And check out the remix, which actually doesn't ruin the song.

Kyle Andrews - "You Always Make Me Smile" (from the Kangaroo EP)

Kyle Andrews - "You Always Make Me Smile" (remix)

Jeremy Fisher - "Scar That Never Heals" (from Goodbye Blue Monday)

The Moldy Peaches - "Anyone Else But You" (from the Juno soundtrack)