A few days ago I played you a song written by Dom Mariani, and today I'm going to play you another one written by him. Now, that may seem to you to be a bit unfair (as in: "Where's the variety, Peter? Why are you playing lots of songs by the same person on the blog?"), but I'm going to rationalise it by saying that last week's song was by DM3, and today's song is by The Someloves. That's different, isn't it?
(There's a whole series of "The Complete Guide To Their Music" books, and a few of them are currently available online for $4.99 at The Music Shop. I bought that one and the one about ABBA. I can't speak for the others in the series, but The Beatles book packs a heap of information about their songs into a couple of hundred pages.)
In the entry for "Lady Madonna", the guide mentions that the piano intro was "lifted almost directly from Humphrey Lyttelton's mid-Fifties British jazz classic, 'Bad Penny Blues'". I'd never heard "Bad Penny Blues" (or even heard of it), so I hunted it down and had a listen.
Scott Thurling (hi, Scotty!), the chap who runs Popboomerang Records, sent me a message the other day about Matt Purcell & The Blessed Curse. Scotty sounded terribly excited as he pointed me in the direction of one of their music videos and simply said: "u gotta get this CD".
Yes, indeedy. I like it. Thanks for the suggestion, my good fellow.
By the way, Scotty, I'm happy to buy the CD, but where can I get it? And can I get it cheap? (I'm always on the lookout for a bargain.)
Also by the way, and rather confusingly, there are two Australan artists called Matt Purcell – but they have slightly different styles of music. The one with The Blessed Curse is the power poppy one, whereas the one known simply as Matt Purcell (he's not associated with any curse that I know of) is a more sensitive, singer-songwriter kind of guy (think John Mayer for the Souhern Hemisphere).
Here's the non-cursed Matt Purcell to give you an idea of how different the two Australian Matt Purcells are (why do they have to both be Australian?):
Link Superb. (I'm probably going to overuse the word "superb" describing this song.) Pretty much everything about it is superb to me. Great tunes, great drumming, and an even greater horn arrangement. I never noticed before just how splendid all those horns are. I've heard this plenty of times on the radio, and have it on CD (The Best Of Van Morrison), but never really paid much attention to what's actually going on in the song (e.g., those amazing horns). Now that I've listened intently to the inner workings of the track, I'm mighty glad that I've acquainted myself with it properly. Superb. By the way, I want to mention something I've not always been keen on in a Van Morrison song: Van Morrison's vocals. Although I've liked a lot of Van's songs, I've usually been slightly averse to Van's vocal tics. To me, he's always seemed to me to have a tendency to meander vocally. Some people take it to be like the musical equivalent of speaking in tongues (I'd call it "mumbling spiritually"), but whenever I listen to him it sounds to me like Van's slightly drunk. Having typed that, I think that Van's vocal meanderings suit this song perfectly.
This now brings the official number of Sophie B. Hawkins song I've heard to a grand total of two. (The other one is "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover"). Having listened to "Lose Your Way", I must admit that it doesn't do an awful lot – positive or negative – for me. Overall, I thought it was pleasant, but nothing more. I don't know if it was the banjo, but "Lose Your Way" reminded me of Stevie Nicks' "Landslide" as performed by The Dixie Chicks. Some aspects of Sophie's song irritated me, though. For example, Sophie's vocals – they were a bit too whispery/breathy for my liking. And I thought the wah-wah guitar (in the left channel at 2:25) was pointless and didn't add anything to the song at all. I don't know who decided to put that in the song (maybe the producer), but I thought it was a poor choice of something extra to add to this particular song. And one other thing I found irritating was the cello – I would have much preferred to hear a string section. To me, this song cries out for strings. It doesn't have to be a lot of them, either – just a string quartet, or even a string trio, would do the trick. Had Sophie given me a call I would have been happy to provide a string arrangement (I'm much better at arranging than composing). But I'm not a woulda-shoulda-coulda kind of guy, so I won't lose any sleep over what "might have been...".
Link I have a sneaking suspicion that you chose this song because of the drum beat in the introduction (and the middle eight). I'm a complete sucker for that drum beat. This is another song I'd call pleasant and not much else. Despite its pleasantness, two aspects of this song prevented me from enjoying it a little more: 1) the slightly-out-of-tune guitars; and 2) the out-of-tune vocal harmonies. This is a song I'm rather tempted to call "unremarkable". I was trying to think of something that would sum up how I feel about what I've heard of The Spongetones so far, but Stewart Mason in his All Music Guide review of Always Carry On: The Best Of The Spongetones 1980-2005 said it for me: "Of course, not everyone can be the Beatles, and as Always Carry On: The Best of the Spongetones 1980-2005 proves, there's something to be said for being the Dave Clark 5."
Groovy. A bubblegum song with blues riffs. My toes were a-tappin' and my head was a-noddin' (although I wasn't able to do both simultaneously – I haven't mastered that ability yet). Out of the five tracks on offer this week, this was the one I played most often. Groovy.
Link Loved it. When I'm in the mood for it – which is often – swing is just the bee's knees. (Or the cat's whiskers.) And this track has everything a swing fan could want: plenty of tunes; plenty of horns; driving beat; short'n'sweet drum fills; vocal interjections from excited band members etc. Man, oh man. I dig swing.
I know that I pestered you with a whole heap o' Montana songs recently, but I've only just discovered a video for one of their songs ("Nearer"). I'm afraid that's all it takes for me to play you yet another Montana song:
I don't know if you remember yesterday's Song of the day post (if you had my memory, you wouldn't). It involved a mystery CD I received in the mail. The two-track sampler CD featured a band called Chinook, and the mystery was that I had no idea who sent it to me.
That is, until now.
It was sent to me by one of the members of the band, Ed (Hi, Ed!). Ed is a friend of a friend who had my mailing address, and he thought I might be interested in hearing the CD.
Ed was right.
Thanks, Ed. (Or, to get a bit more exotic: "Mucho arigato, Eduardo".)
My friend Terry (Hi, Terry!) emailed me the other day and said something along the lines of "Hey, Peter, have you heard the musical coincidence involving Neil Diamond liberally borrowing from Elgar's 'Nimrod'?", to which I replied: "Nope".
I'm very familiar with the classical music piece by Elgar. (I'm a classical music nut, and Elgar is a composer that classical music nuts learn about fairly early on in their explorations.) "Nimrod" is one part (the "Nimrod" part) of his "Enigma" Variations. The Neil Diamond piece however, is something I've never heard before. Neil's "Dear Father" is a piece of music with words (which I suppose makes it a song) on his soundtrack to the movie Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Now, I've never read the book, seen the movie, or heard the soundtrack, but I did know that all three incarnations of JLS are cherished by plenty of people. Because it's considered almost sacred by an awful lot of folk, I won't make any jokes about philosophising seagulls.
Anyway, when Terry handed over the Neil Diamond track I had a listen. It took a while for me to wade through Neil's over-emoting vocals and try to find the tunes in amongst all that mawkishness before I realised that, yes, some of the melodies did remind me of Elgar's "Nimrod".
By the way, Wikipedia reckons that there are over 60 recordings of the "Enigma" Variations. I only have five of them. Don't worry: I won't pester you with all of them. I'll just play you my favourite.
Last week I received in the mail a two-track CD sampler from an Australian band called Chinook, and I have absolutely no idea who sent it to me.
Accompanying the CD was this blurb:
The story of Chinook starts in the summer of 2007 when four friends put all their equipment into an East Brunswick townhouse and began writing songs. Since this inception the band have continued to please their loyal supporters playing shows in and around Melbourne and also venturing interstate for the odd show.
In 2008 they released their debut EP 'Little Solo Project' which showcased their own blend of melodic rock and blissful folk. The creation of this particular style of playing and song writing is largely due to band members originating from different sides of the globe in Australia, New Zealand and England.
Now in 2010 they have just finished their second EP – a seven track record, recorded and produced by David Briggs (Little River Band) at his North Melbourne studio, Production Workshop. Still to be titled, this new released strengthens Chinook's abililty to create songs with a broad varity of pop/rock sensibilities.
Enclosed is a sampler CD with two tracks taken from the new EP with the expected release date to be in early 2011.
Beat Magazine Review Black & White (Independent) "Melbourne's Chinook are working on a second EP, due out early next year. Black & White is a preview and they're sounding great – the simple, harmonised sound has hints of pub rock roughness and a great Oasis-worthy hook. Production is great too."
That blurb didn't help at all. I still don't know who sent it to me.
One thing I love is receiving something completely unexpected and enjoying it, and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed those songs. But who on Earth sent me that CD?
My favourite Australian power pop band, The Wellingtons, is (are?) currently roaming the American countryside, playing a mini acoustic tour there. (No, the guitars aren't tiny. It's the tour that's small.) By the way, whilst ensconced in the land of Americans they'll be seeing some of their favourite power pop bands. (Well, I guess if you want to see US power pop bands you probably need to actually be in the US to do so.)
So, in honour of (or "to commemorate", or "to celebrate", or "immortalise"*) The Wellingtons' little tour, here they are with an acoustic version of one of their songs:
This band excelled at writing unusual pop/rock songs, and "Victoria" is a good example of that because there's not an awful about it that I'd call ordinary or standard. Apart from the instrumentation (which is pretty regular for a rock band), the song has an unusual structure (does it have a chorus?), and the guitar parts, as always with this band, are a little left-of-centre. The band's unusual-osity is just one reason why I've always loved 'em.
Oh, and speaking of "Victoria", that name reminds me of:
I received an enthusiastic email the other day that let me know about the new-found popularity of Grand Atlantic courtesy of a three-year-old song and a television program:
Hot on the Heels of Their Critically-Praised Ripple Music Debut, Grand Atlantic Light Up the Soundtrack of Gossip Girl
Following hot on the heels of the success of their Ripple Music debut split 7" single, Grand Atlantic keep the pedal to the metal, building momentum and converting the uninitiated to the Grand Atlantic ranks.
Taken from Grand Atlantic's massively praised second album "How We Survive," the hot single "Used to Be the Sensitive Type" was remixed and remastered for inclusion on the Ripple Music split single which also featured the KEXP Top 20 hit by Sky Parade, "I Should Be Coming Up (But I Keep Coming Down)." Since then, things have only gotten busier for the Australian band.
Locked in the studio working on songs for their 2011 third album hasn't kept Grand Atlantic from touring Japan and readying another US tour in 2011. With dates already set from coast to coast, including a four-day stay at SXSW, fans will have plenty of opportunity to catch Grand Atlantic's heady, trance-inducing psychedelic pop single. And the US audience is definitely catching the Grand Atlantic wave. The first episode of season 4 of the hit TV show, Gossip Girlfeatured Grand Atlantic's "Until it's Gone," bringing in tons of new fans. The video for "Until It's Gone," featuring footage from the recent Japanese Tour garnered thousands of hits after the band's Gossip Girl debut.
Pressed in extremely limited quantities, the Ripple Music's 7" split single (pressed on glowing orange vinyl) is still available through www.ripple-music.com and can be found everywhere on Grand Atlantic's tour.
"Gives Oasis a run for their money." (Courier Mail, AUS)
"Grand Atlantic molds the psychedelic post-punk ethereal moods of their countrymen, The Church, with the shoegazing swirling madbeat of The Stone Roses, and toss in a touch of garage crunch à la Ripple favorites The Thieves just for kicks. The results of this combination of psychedelic distillery are intoxicating..."(The Ripple Effect, USA)
"...This is the excellent album Oasis should have done after What's the Story Morning Glory but didn't..."(Lucid Culture, USA)
"Grand Atlantic sure know how to write songs choc full of guitar driven rock/pop dynamics..." (thedwarf.com.au, AUS)
"Grand Atlantic has a sound masterfully blending driving modern rock riffs with smart pop hooks and spot on harmonies..."(Bill's Music Forum, USA)
"Grand Atlantic’s second full-length album is chock-full of pop rock, with big sounds, singalong hooks and catchy melodies... How We Survive is a masterfully crafted record." (Time Off Magazine, AUS)
After the unreasonably large amount of Puffy songs I foisted upon you in the last few days, I thought for today that I'd give you something as an antidote to all that Puffy-ness. An Anti-Puffy, so to speak.
So I started thinking: "Hmm. What artist can I think of who could qualify as The Anti-Puffy? I know: John Cale."
I thought of Mr. Cale because he's about as unlike Puffy as a musician could be. For example:
1. He's not female
2. He's not a duo from Japan
3. He's not perpetually cheerful
4. He doesn't have a range of clothing, toys, or video games (at least I don't think he does)
5. He was in The Velvet Underground.*
So, here to rid you of all thoughts of Puffy Previousness is The Anti-Puffy:
I enjoyed Phil Seymour's song a lot. And I think I'll call Phil Seymour "America's Ted Mulry" from now on. By the way, I can't really think of anything in particular to say about "I Found A Love" because there's nothing out of the ordinary to report – there are no weird vocal harmonies, no wrong notes, no out-of-place instruments etc etc. It's just a well-written, well-performed power pop song.
Link Before I played this song, I saw the name of the artist and was looking forward to hearing that wonderful, deep voice that Lou Christie's renowned for, singing a song that I was familiar with. But when the singing began, I realised that I was thinking of Lou Rawls. Oops. As soon as I realised that I had the wrong Lou in my brain (now, there's a Science-Fiction thriller title for you: The Wrong Lou In My Brain), I apologised to both Lou's and got on with listening to the song. However, I committed yet another musical faux pas: when Lou (Christie) started singing I realised that I wasn't listening to the song I thought I was going to listen to – I thought I was going to listen to "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me". So, now I had to apologise to Diana Ross and The Supremes and The Temptations as well. Now that I was finally concentrating on "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" by Lou Christie, I enjoyed it. To me, it sounds like a Bubblegum song before Bubblegum came along – I'd call it pre-Bubblegum. I liked the background vocals. I just found out that "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" was released in 1969 which surprised me a little. Given the production (Las Vegas-ish), vocal style (both main and background), and country of origin (the land of Americans, where they love big shiny Las Vegas-ish pop songs), I would have picked this for about 1964 – not 1969, the era of hippies and Woodstock, the time when electric sitars and thumb cymbals ruled the airwaves.
[I have a feeling that my sentences are getting way too long and fractured. Please let me know if my sentences become unintelligible.]
Where was I? Oh, yeah: Lou Christie (not Rawls) singing "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" (Not "Love Me"). I like this song. And the more I play it, the more I like it.
Fotomaker - "Where Have You Been All My Life" (1978)
Link Oh, dear. I'm afraid that this is definitely not the song for me to make any sort of (welcome) comment on. To spare your feelings, I'd love to be able to skip making any kind of comment. However, as you are possibly a glutton for punishment, here are a few of the things I found "grrr"-worthy:
1. The slightly country, slightly ballady feel of the song which reeks of "tenderness". Ugh. 2. The seemingly-endless string of lyrical clichés. Ugh. (I actually cringed whilst listening to most of those lyrics.) 3. The synthesized 'brass section' (appearing every two bars in the verse, starting at 1:03 – it sounds like a synthesizer playing two notes that were set to "trumpet"). Ugh. 4. The refrain (at 1:49) leading up to the guitar solo that (to me) doesn't seem to quite fit in with the rest of the song. (I also thought it was the best part of the song – and not because it was the shortest part.) 5. That piano fill at 2:06. Talk about cliché. Ugh.
The only thing I will say in this song's favour is that some of the melody and chords that were used in the verse reminded me of ABBA's "Super Trouper". The great news is that I was reminded of ABBA. The not-so-great news is that when I think of ABBA, most other artists come off a distinct second-best. But back to the Fotomaker song: there is one other thing I can think of that could be considered as praise – I thought the guitar tone in the solo was OK. But why put strings in the song from the guitar solo onwards, when they could have been used throughout the song, taking my mind off of those horrendous lyrics? I've listened to the song three times now, and it did not improve each time. Quite the opposite: every time I heard the song, the things that annoyed me managed to annoy me even more.
Link Now this is much more like it. When it started, straight after the Fotomaker track – and almost as an antidote to the Fotomaker track – I was groovin' to it in a major way. The beat, the melodies, the riffs, the instrumentation, the playing... it's all good. Yep. Not much to complain about here. (Well, nothing I can think of.) By the way, you supplied a mono version of the track. I've replaced it with the stereo one which allows you to really appreciate Emitt's acoustic guitar playing (in the left channel) as well everything else he played on the track (which was, incidentally, everything else).
Link Fabulous. And it's just occurred to me that nothing I can say is going to add to the enjoyment of a Booker T. & The MG's track – any Booker T. & The MG's track. My advice for anyone about to listen to "Time Is Tight": just sit back, relax, and let Booker T. and the gang do their thang. Oh yeah.
