To Rant Tyrannical Rants

"Inundated" is a word I virtually never use. Honestly, I had to look it up just now to confirm its meaning. I learn words from TV or movies and assume I know what they mean. I often use the words correctly, but pronounce them wrong.

 In school we took spelling and vocabulary tests that were ripped directly from the back of our books. Every August school would start with us tearing out a year’s worth of tests and passing them to the front. The teacher would use these as the tests that would be passed back out to us, one a week for the next nine months (minus Xmas vacation and spring break).

 In the seventh grade I did something that I am now reminded of almost daily. At the end of the school year, my math teacher asked for a volunteer to take the books back down to the storage room. Taking on this task got me access to the supply room. In the supply room, I had access to every spelling and vocabulary test for the remainder of my K-12 career.

 It is really pretty amazing that a person that made straight A’s in the subject, could have such a limited vocabulary. I blame the public school system.

 The world is inundated with new music. So much of it coming out every day, some good, some bad, some mediocre, barely any of it is fantastic, but certainly an incomprehensible amount generated very second of every day.

 

 If you pay any attention at all to music, you will know what I am talking about. It is not something I only just discovered, but rather something that was recently pushed home. Last week I had a phone conversation with a program director I don’t know from a station I never heard of in Portland Oregon. During the conversation she mentioned that a particular band was “a bit soft for our format.” This excited me. I got a tingle in my scrotum because I am ready for the re-surge of heavy, or at least angry, rock. I had to know what “not soft” music she was playing. So I asked, “what not soft music do you play” and she gave me a very long, very detailed list of bands. I did not recognize a single one. I looked her directly in the eye over the phone and thought "For all I know you are making up these band names," She could have very well have been fucking with me, “oh you know we play Carpet and that one band Desk, oh yeah and Lamp. I love Lamp”

 

 For approximately 2 minutes I went “uh huh, oh yeah? them too?” Politely I waited until she finished. Then I said, “I have never heard of a single one of them.” She did the thing that people do where they pretend like you are not as up to speed on music as they are, and eventually told me they all tasted like chicken and sounded like Arcade Fire, Built to Spill or Foo Fighters. These were names I recognized, but don’t listen too because they are too soft for my playlist format.

 I get over 10 new albums a day recommended for potential reviews. Some of it’s “ok” none of its really that great. In the words of Jack Nicholson, “this town needs an enema.”

Lauren O'Connell: Acoustic, but not New-Folk nor Americana.

I am waiting for some marketing genius to coin the phrase that will be widely accepted as the identifying term to describe the years 2000 to 2012. We have all grown accustomed to calling the crazy hippie / anti war years “the sixties”, the disco years “the seventies”, Reagan / MTV years “the eighties”, and the grunge / no national debt / violent crime dropped in the United States (for the first time in five decades) years “the nineties” but what do we call 2000 to 2012? Will those be the preteen years, or simply “the aughts” as in two thousand aught one.

Musically speaking, these years will turn out to be some of the most historically significant. Y2K may not have had wide spread results, shutting down infrastructures or really doing much of anything, but with the invention of Napster in 1999, the year 2000 was the beginning of the end of what the record industry perceived as reality. But, like Papa Hemingway once told us, the sun also rises.

 In the post-apocalyptic world of illegal downloading, new methods of promoting music have arisen. Among these, Youtube has been recognized as a cheap and effective way for musicians to get themselves seen… Well the effectiveness DID exist. Now Google has turned it into such a cluttered mess, it is less likely that your video will be seen. But in the last five years of this century’s first decade, or “the aughts”, Youtube made some people celebrities on some level. Of these side-stage stars, Lauren O’Connell shines the brightest.

 For the most part the majority of the Youtube darlings are cover bands, and for the most part they all do the same schtick. They do jazzy renditions of pop songs. It’s a slightly less ridiculous version of the Richard Cheese routine. Of these, Pomplamoose reign king and queen. If not for their popularity, I would never had heard Lauren O’Connell. Initially I was exposed to her side project with Nataly Dawn: My Terrible Friend. Up front, it doesn’t appear any different than the rest. They did covers, though with choices like Tom Waits, they were admittedly less from the pop charts. I watched their videos, not really interested, until I saw them perform the song “When I Decide.” The song doesn’t list any writing credit. I am not 100% sure it is an O’Connell song, but having grown more familiar with her wit, clever cynicism, and poetic taunts, I would be willing to go all in and bet the credit is her’s.

  

 It is a wonderful song, and if My Terrible Friend had less cover songs, and more songs like “When I Decide” and “The Daylight Here” I would have bought their EP. Don’t get me wrong. From a commercially viable, units sold, perspective, the cover song gig works. I just prefer cover songs in smaller doses, heavily slathered in a gravy of original material.

 At that time, prior to the release of Quitters (her 3rd album) O’Connell was offering a bulk download of everything she had ever recorded for $20. It was about 25 songs including her albums Sitting In Chairs, and The Shakes. In addition there were some out takes including the song White Noise which eventually ended up on the next release, Quitters.


 

 The CD Sitting In Chairs doesn’t really do much for me. I am glad I didn’t hear of her when this album was released because I know how narrow minded I am and it is possible I might have dismissed her permanently based on this album. It is much easier in hind site to look at it compared to the two albums that followed and guess that she was likely just finding her voice. Maybe she was shaking off everything she learned, and preparing to do things her own way. When it comes to song writing, you never really know. To Lauren, these songs on the first album could be the most personal, and in some cases those tend to be the ones that don’t really resonate as well with others. That is unless you are Eric Clapton and you have the ability to go up to Will Jennings and say “hey, I will pay you to write a song about my kid dying, so I can tell everybody I wrote it, put it on a sound track, and make millions off his death.”

 From the first line from the first song from The Shakes, the Lauren O’Connell style stands out. With beauty and charm she describes something as simple as her lawn, and when you think she is making a point, she lets you know she is not:

"There's a tree in my yard and it killed all the other plants / And showed no remorse but even nature's a bitch / So that bitch is gonna take her course /  It dominates the lawn and it doesn't seem right / It played out like that / But you won't hear me complain 'cause it don't look bad"

 There is a theme in O’Connell’s writing. She often comes across as “Maybe I care. Maybe I don’t” and she delivers the message with astute observations of minute details while spinning a yarn half exaggerated, and a quarter true.

 The first two albums were very well recorded, but obviously home made. For her third effort, she wanted to go into a studio. Lauren chose to utilize Pledgemusic to raise money to help with her recording cost. She set an undisclosed goal, and created a new Pledgemusic standard by raising her goal in less than 24 hours (the first to do this). Sixty days later, at the end of the pledge drive, she had reached 268% of her original goal.

 Very shortly after raising 268% of her goal, O’Connell announced to her fans that she was going to ask them for more money to pay her way to SXSW. At the time, that struck me as rather ballsy.

 Still operating on her own, with no label support, Lauren released the album Quitters March 2012. The record was engineered & mixed by Oz Fritz, and is pretty impressive. O’Connell has really come into her own. She has an all around understanding of what makes an album enjoyable from beginning to end. In addition to focusing on song writing, she also crafts the complete work like a roller coaster ride. Just when you are tired of the lows, she lifts you up, and then eventually drops you down again. The woman is a rock star. She just doesn’t know it yet. She is a Neil Young for her generation. She has the ability to take us down the middle of the road, and maintain a mainstream interest, but she won’t. She is going to hit the ditches and cross the field and take us on a more interesting journey. I personally am looking forward to the ride.


 

CD Review: Collette Savard - Best Dress

Artist:  Collette Savard
Album:  Best Dress
Label:  Self released
Release date: April 21 2012

The first track on this CD is Nicer Things, which is a slow paced country song.  When I first listened to it I noticed that the vocals sounded far away.  Initially I didn’t like it, but gradually I began to appreciate it.  It was a brave measure for an otherwise straightforward song.  I could tell she had a beautiful voice, and thought it was interesting she had chose to bury it in the mix.  Then I realized my headphones were plugged in all the way.  Yep, that fixed it and put the vocals back on top of the mix as the artist intended.

The musicianship that went into Best Dress is impressive.  There are something like fifteen instruments being played on the album, but not necessarily all at once so it provides variety without being overwhelming.  Collette has a beautiful voice and controls it as an instrument and not just as a means to express the lyrics.  Her music is folk, country, pop.  I would really like to hear her sing sincere angry rock from her heart.  She has a voice that, if fueled by true vengeful hurt, would bring a level of legitimacy back to a whore of an industry………………… But that is not her style.

By song #6 I wasn’t sure about this album as a whole.  Individually the songs were good, but together there wasn’t enough variety for my taste.  Then track seven started: Are You Coming Along.  This is my favorite track on the album.  The composition is very interesting and the reverse tracks utilized in mixing changes the otherwise conventional style of the album.  The song is hooky and catches your attention more so than the rest.

I went and looked up some of Collette’s other material online.  The two main players in the project have a lot of talent, and are doing some very interesting things.  I could be missing the mark, but it almost seems like they are hungry to get out of the box.  Every now and then they create an ethereal noise that stands apart from the rest of their music.  I think it is those few glimpses where we see of what they are capable.

This is not from the album, but I like it.

What What

I received a press release that said:

Orange County Musician Hosts a Show on Airsee.com

STOP THE MOTHER FLIPPING PRESSES... Oh, wait a minute, that is what Airsee.com is for... I guess this isn't really news. Okay, go ahead a restart the presses.

That would be equal to, but not as interesting as, a press release titled:

Cleveland County woman urinates in toilet.... Film at Eleven.

CD Review: 2nd Life - Everything is Possible

I receive CDs to be reviewed and have no real rule of thumb deciding which ones to review. I chose the album Everything’s Possible by 2nd Life because they are from South Africa and I decided I wanted to hear what S.A. had to offer.

Unlike most people, I not only like, but actually really love cover songs. Some times I get excited about them. If it is a song I really like, I want to hear what one musician did with it compared to the original artist’s presentation of it. So when I got this CD and I saw the title of track 5, I went straight to it.

This band’s rendition of Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac is interesting and certainly not bad, but lacks the power of the original.  Stevie Nicks has done interviews stating how much she hates singing the song because, when written, it was Lindey Buckingham’s way of calling her a bitch and a slut. The song comes from pain and anger. 2nd Life’s version is empty of either.

The album over all is poppy and upbeat. I could find very little information on the artist (2nd life is a one man band) other than his previous band experience, but just listening to this album gives you a pretty clear idea of his musical influences. At different times during different songs your ear can taste ingredients like Kansas, Metalica, Rick Springfield, Hoodie and the Blowfish, etc.

This is a very safe album with an almost Christian Rock sound. If you have a young niece and her mom doesn’t want her listening to a lot of songs that may contain the “fuck” word, then this is a safe buy.

Check out the video for the song 2011. Even though they don’t sound exactly a like, see if the intro guitar riff makes you want to start singing “Hold On Loosely” by 38 Special.


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Side note:

For a less pretty, but more angry version of Go Your Own Way, check out the version by the punk band Seaweed.

The Flaming Lips break record for most shows in 24 hours

(Reuters) Oklahoma rockers The Flaming Lips broke the Guinness world record for most shows performed in 24 hours this week, taking the title from previous record holder Jay-Z. The band performed eight shows in eight different U.S. cities, kicking off in Memphis, Tennessee on Wednesday, playing through Mississippi and finishing in New Orleans, Louisiana on Thursday. Front man Wayne Coyne posted a picture on Twitter on Thursday with a certificate from Guinness World Records after the band's fast-paced tour that viewers were able to watch live online as part of the O Music Awards. Rapper Jay-Z previously held the record for performing in seven cities across the United States in November 2006, using his private jet to travel from Atlanta to Las Vegas in 24 hours. The Flaming Lips rose to fame with their 1993 single "She Don't Use Jelly," and have won three Grammy awards. The band caused a buzz with fans and critics earlier this month after releasing a controversial video featuring singer Erykah Badu naked for their song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." (Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and David Gregorio)

'The Star Wars That I Used To Know'