2011 Music Review... a little late

It has been a long time since I did a top ten list. maybe a year. maybe two. It was a good year for music. it was a good year. I listened to more music which was a goal.The challenge continues to be the same. Where in a world where there is so much music available all the time, for free and to pay, how do you find the good stuff? Who are the trusted sources? I still don’t know. So here we go.

1. Decembrists: The King Is Dead, OK, I like everything about this CD. I might be biased because I got to see the show twice. The album is so much lighter and so much easier and breezier than any of Meloy’s EPIC CD/Album/Song Cycle (pretentious bullshit) that it sings and it flies. It is right up my alley with an alt country flair and having no good hacks like Gillian Welch and Peter Buck makes it that much worse. When I think of 2011 it will be of this CD. If you have not bought it, get off your ass and get it done. No excuses.
Don’t Carry It All
Calamity Song
Rise To Me
Rox in the Box
January Hymn
Down by the Water
All Arise!
June Hymn
This is Why We Fight
Dear Avery


2. Dawes: Nothing Is Wrong, This was probably the easiest and perhaps saddest discovery of the year. I read about this band on Bob Lefsetz blog, email letter, Lefsetz.com and he was extolling the hard work of these guys. I tuned in and it sounded a lot like Jackson Browne and Browne in an effort to revitalize himself did some gigs with them. Download “A little Bit of Everything” and “If I wanted Someone.” If you like those two go for the whole thing. It is well produced and he writes good songs. Maybe a little over wrought. What is wrong with that? I think Jackson Browne sings some back uop and I would swear that David Lindley plays some of that beautiful slide guitar. As your attorney... I would recommend it.

3. Mountain Goats All Eternals Deck, I do not think John Darnelle can do anything bad at this point in his career. He is prolific, opinionated and brilliant. God is great, all the time. Darnielle is great pretty much all of the time. There is a mournful desperation to all his songs, a concentration of angst which sounds in each song like he is cathartically loosing it from his psyche. Try three songs, “Damn Those Vampires”, “Age of Kings” and my favorite...”For Charles Bronson”.

“Set your sights on good fortune
Concentrate
Pull back the hammer
Try to hold the gun straight”

Indeed.

4. Bottle Rockets: Not So Loud, This is Brian Henneman and the boys unpluggin and playin the hits. I am a fan. I heard them too many times this year but Henneman can write a song and can play. He puts on a show and he makes it bend and shake. If your not already a fan buy this, put it on and you will be. And go to his shows each year in the Lou on Christmas night. Good for the soul.

5. Rural Alberta Advantage: The Departing, OK, this is one of my favorite known, unknown bands. There last CD had several rocking songs. They sound is like a fun Billy Corgan who really embraces the beat and the lyrics with no pretension. The departing is just an excellent CD with no weak spots at all. It rocks. It rolls. it sighs, it cries. This could be the best of the year if for no other reason than that it sounds like no one else. If you want to check them out they have a My SPace page which is really kind of cute. last time I went to my My Space page there was a homeless man living there. http://www.myspace.com/theraa

6. Steve Earle: I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Earle turns out a CD that is not quite as haunbting as the Hank Williams song he named it after. A couple of songs with his girlfriend/wife Allison Moorer and production but the inimitable T-Bone Burnette. If you pick up the deluxe edition on iTunes it has the title song and a video of the albums making. Earle is a true artist who struggles and thrashes with his art in a way that remains interesting and has established some longevity that forces respect.

7. Bright Eyes: The People’s Key, Connor Oberst is long past being a child prodigy or even an edgy artist from Omaha. he is a pretty consistent producer of quality indie pop. The question is not whether he can still make good music but whether he still has anything to say. This album with his long time side man Mike Mogis would seem to say yes. Downlaod “Jejune” and “Triple Spiral” and see where the rest takes you. Your not in Omaha any more.

8. Blind Pilot: We Are The Tide, I was so in love with these guys after their first album that there was really not much room for them to do anything but disappoint. In 2008 it was really just a two man band with a lot of people helping out but on tour and on this album it is a full blown sextet. The sound is fuller and is sweetly swings. it has been described more than once as a “bookend album” and although there is much to be said for what it in between download the tunes “Half moon” and “New York” and thank me later.

9. Hayes Carll: KMAG/YOYO, You know if you don’t like Hayes Carll...I don’t like you. No one rocks the genre of insurgent country, alt-country, country, honky tonk like Carll. And he has two LLs in his last name. Every song is great with an anger and an irony and sense of real people and real music and a real good time. Get a feel for it with “Another Like You” and “Grateful For Christmas”. Be happy for Hayes Carll. Wait for what comes next.

10. Wilco: The Whole Love, This is kind of like The Decembrists offering. A little lighter, a little easier. But it is not as good. I get tired of all the guitar noodling and the techno rambles but it is much more to hold on to than the dreaded, “Wilco, The Album”. Not all of it is tuneful but still, it is an easy listen.

Honorable Mention:
Rhett Miller: The Interpreter Live
The Lemonheads: Varshons
Joe Pug: Live At Lincoln Hall
Ryan Adams: Ashes and Fire


it was a good year for music. This is not all of it. there was a plethora of one song bursts and discoveries of some old stuff that really made me smile. For a feel good that really goes way back try:
The Dismemberment Plan, “You Are Invited”.
Eddie Money From His Acoustic Unplug It In CD “Trinidad.
The Javelinas: Illinois Line
All of those should light you up one way or another. God’s Peace and go listen to a lot of music in 2012. it might make you whole again. it certainly cannot hurt.

Concert Review: The Decemberists At The Pageant, St. Louis

Sooooo.... I had the opportunity to see The Decemberists twice on the same tour. Why? WHY? WHY? WHY? do you go see the same band on the same tour? A couple of reasons:
1. Dooling had an extra ticket for Omaha and I needed a road trip; and
2. I am a fan
That is right. My bad old hating, cynical self is a fan of the Decemberists and their pretentious little prick and genius, Colin Meloy. What happened to being a fan? rarely do people gush any more and when they gush at my age it is more likely to be about a red wine or a great deal on a flat screen screen TV. It is a little sad and I am certainly part of the problem berating other peoples taste when they are so bold as to put forth an opinion.

But the Decemberists and Meloy are at the top of their game. Off of a string or pretentious concept albums telling stories through a song cycle that owes more to Shakespeare than to Lou Reed. He is an awful, horrible, dark, talented writer and he is absolutely at the height of his powers. We all know from our prior reading that this type of talent has a shelf life. There are some that are great enough that they have three or four creative high spots in a long career but for most...you burst on the seen for a few years, spill a lifetime (up to that point) of angst... and then either disappear and retire (smart and classy and no one ever does it) or thrash around in irrelevance and eventually end up playing the Ameristar Casino for a paycheck.

So when you get a chance to see someone who is doing it, right now, you go. The new CD will be one of the 10 best of the year. It is a totally accessible CD veering towards being as alt-country as possible, (without a steel guitar) and it is frankly just a fun album with great lyrics.

So raise a glass to turnings of the season
And watch it as it arcs towards the sun
And you must bear your neighbor's burden within reason
And your labors will be born when all is done

I saw the band in Omaha 10 days before at a sit down concert at the Holland Center. It was one of the first shows of the tour and he was a little tight but he also could not create the requisite energy in a sit down venue. He in retrospect was clearly sturggling and every song had to end with a big finish that would go on for ever and the crowd would clap thinking he was done and then...he would jump again, freewheel with the guitar again and then finally... end. he was trying to put on a show but the crown could not hop up.

And now I was going to see him again because I had ordered the tickets a couple of months ago. On a classic note, I had Jon order the tickets and when I got home from work to go to the show... he could not find them. I go crazy about this type of stuff but he had his receipt for the tickets and was able to (after I had a brain hemorrhage) get the nice Ticketmaster (TM) people to agree to print some more for us at the will call window. Win, win....WINNING!

Once again we had Steve Earle’s son Justin Townes (Van Zandt) Earle open the show and it immediately was a more connected show. The crowd was attentive if not respectful and interacted with him as he told a few stories and sang pretty much the same set. Once again a great opener, warming the crowd up but not raising expectations too much. He really can play guitar, he writes a good song and I will make an effort to buy his new album and see him when he comes around with a full band.

He finished. I had another beer. We were able to stand on the floor about 20 feet from the stage. I was able to get a beer at the bar but could not take the beer on to the floor since it was an all ages show. This seemed a small price to pay and i was able to grab another beer between sets because I was dry as dirt. Once again the lights dimmed. I was once again treated to the alleged Mayor of Portland telling me to close my eyes...imagine myself in a Pacific rain forest (as he allegedly hovered in a large ship over the venue) as a group of strangers wandered through the forest towards us, and they are The Decemberists! Yay! The lights come up and they break into the set and start with “The Infanta” and then “Down By The Water” and I was worried he was going to replicate the Omaha show but then we got “Calamity Song” and I knew it would be a different show.

Meloy was working the crowd from the start and the band was even tighter having performed the show a few more times and they tore it up. I do not know whether the show was so much better because of the venue and being able to stand and stand close to the stage if you wanted, or whether it is because there was booze, or whether it was just better. But it was better. Much better. It was tight and it rocked and I liked the set selection more. He played “Don’t Carry It All” and as if just to piss my Omaha host off he played “The Sporting Life”. It was awesome. The whole set list is below:
The Infanta
Down By the Water
Calamity Song
Rox In The Box
The Engine Driver
The Bagman's Gambit
Won't Want For Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
The Crane Wife 3
The Sporting Life
January Hymn
The Rake's Song
Don't Carry It All
16 Military Wives
This Is Why We Fight
The Chimbley Sweep


Hr did a three song encore and that was that but it was great night at the Pageant and while I questioned seeing them twice on the same tour within ten days.... definitely not a mistake. The new album is powerful. Go buy “The King Is Dead”. Even this early it will be on a lot of ten best lists.

THE OMAHA POSTER!

Concert Review: The Decemberists At Omaha's Holland Center

Sooooo.... after a road trip of north central Missouri and southern and western Iowa (which might be catalogued in more detail at some later date, I found myself in Omaha, guest of noted author, law school professor, screenwriter, columnist, commentator and raconteur (look it up) Richard Dooling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dooling. The purpose of my trip was to go see the Decemberists who were playing at the much Vaunted Holland Center in Omaha, which is...pretty sweet I must say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Performing_Arts_Center. The Holland Center is named for Richard “Dick” Holland who was an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway and a great supporter of education and the performing arts. Evidently he kicked in 90 or so million to get the job done. The trip itself had been an adventure through Kirksville to see my son in a performance and then up to Ottumwa (loose meat), Des Moine (the Waveland) and on to Omaha and Hudsons for record Store Day. It was quite a Saturday.

The show was scheduled for a Sunday evening. Sunday is a problematical time to have a concert. It is a school night and there is always, no matter my age that feeling of dread that the weekend is about to end. Added to that was the prospect of a forced march back to the Lou for a 1:30 meeting with a banker and the owner of an electrical contractor that is shutting down (oh the exciting life of the Banking and Bankruptcy lawyer). We spent a little time before the show in Downtown Omaha in the Old Market District. The Old Market district is what is always supposed to happen when a city decides to save it’s historically significant “warehouse districts”. It has apparently worked better here than it has so far in the Lou where we have “The Landing” which is always just one year away from really “getting going” for the last 30 or so years and also in the oddish area west of the ballpark where we have a hotel, a restaurant and a mish mosh in the old but refurbished buildings. It must be a cool part of town because Saddle Creek Records has their headquarters there along with their own music venue, “The Slowdown”. Anyway, Old Market rocks and though much of it was closed you get a feel for what a successful rehab looks like and the city clearly values it.

The show was at 8 and the opener was to be Justin Townes Earle. We got there early and it was clear that this was more akin to an opera house than a rock and roll venue. First floor was an expansive lobby with a large merch table all manned by one girl and a bad charge card processing machine. There was a long line but the decision was that we should buy our posters now which were pretty sweet. Heading up there at 8:03 there was a bar outside the actually performing facility but it was also equally clear that there would be no cocktails inside the room. I remember when they were trying to do that for a while at the Fox in St. Louis for rock shows... it is a non starter. Soooooo, no booze. We went in and were seated by the typical old people volunteers (I recently heard a brilliant piece on the New York Metropolitan Opera gift shop which evidently had a huge old people volunteer shoplifting problem).

Justin Townes Earle is the example of the children of twang rock royalty that actually has a lot of talent. He was appearing ion a minimalist set up of just him, his songs, his guitar and a fiddle player. I do not know who the fiddler was but he was good, but how do you really judge that with a slightly twangy country scion who is singing about murder and addiction. I have seen Justin with a band, and I have seen him play guitar with his band and he can put on a show. he can REALLY play guitar and his lyrics and his voice are both very good. His dad of course had serious heroin addiction and other problems. The songs are all good but they require listening to and when you are waiting for the Decemberists... it just seemed a little too listless for the show that I was expecting and I think....I think that he was the perfect opener in that he was competent, obviously talented, and no one gave a shit. Still, I thought he was a perfect, yet unimpressive opener. Perhaps they had him because the new album is more Americana. Hard to say.

Anyway... he had a quick set and there was a brief intermission. Many of the crowd went out to have a cocktail and I just spent some time looking around the venue. It really is a pretty impressive place. Like the Touhill in St. Louis...but nicer. It was clear that no expense was spared for acoustics. Around 9:00 the lights dimmed and then we heard a voice. A voice claiming to be the Mayor of Portland who was hovering above the venue and asking us to close our eyes and imagine the Pine forests of Oregon... I could not quite get there. And then they came out and the CD cover from the new CD lit up and Colin Meloy came out.

It looked like he had gained a little weight...again. But whatever he had gained it weight he had also gained in stage presence... and they started with a harmonica bleat into the new CD. I was hoping that they would start right off with the first song off the new CD, “Don’t Carry It All”. I love this song because of the Tom Petty like harmonica and the line:
“and you must bear your neighbors burden within reason; and your labors will be borne when all is done”. I love that. But he did not. He started with “Down By The Water”. Also a great song. The new CD “The King Is Dead” is much more accsessable and is not the song cycle epic that he has pretentiously worked over in his last two CD’s. It is a really solid Cd and this Concert showcased it. He had his great band with Chris Funk on guitar and John Moen just playing awesome drums and Jenny Conlee doing keyboards and whatever else was needed. They really are a great band.

And Meloy directs them. Dooling really wanted to hear his favorite song “The Sporting Life” but this is a well rehearsed show and his arrangements are complicated and it does not lend itself to audience requests are deviance from the set list. So they played most of the new CD kicking it off with mournful harmonica burst that starts “Down By The Water”. The new Cd translates pretty well to live but the big favorites were when he got into the back catalogue. He doled out “The Crane Wife I and II and then he played one of my favorites, “The Rakes Song” and also got the famous indie rock sing along with “The Mariners Revenge”.

The show was really well done but in that room with people sitting he could not really get the energy going. he is a pretty affable performer and though he strikes me as someone who I would probably think was pretentious in a bar... he is just really talented, and passionate and hard working. I mean the guy really works hard. I kept waiting to hear “Valencia” and the opener from the New CD “Don’t Carry It All” but it was not to be tonight. He finally got the crowd standing for his encores and we brought them out twice for about a two hour show. An orderly but amused crowd headed out satisfied into the Omaha rain and I looked forward to seeing him again in St. Louis in about 10 days.