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Sunday

Friday YouTube

Kinky Friedman -- Sold American (with cameo by Jimmie Dale Gilmore)

Moonlighting

As many of you would know, Club Troppo's bi-weekly Missing Link feature rounds up events in the Australian blogosphere. I contributed the Yartz section this week. There's alot of fascinating stuff out there, when you actually go looking.

Tennessee Blues

Thanks to Chris for alerting me that a brand new Steve Earle song has been posted at the Exit 0 Yahoo! Group (in "Files.") You can also hear it a few minutes into this radio interview, his voice is a bit scratchy but it's nice and the interview is very good.

The song is called Tennessee Blues "at this point" (although, elsewhere its "Goodbye Guitar Town"), it's a classic Steve solo acoustic track in its sound but I agree with Chris its "good, not a classic." BUT it's still good. It's about relocating to NYC and not fitting in with the Nashville establishment -- ha! That seems rather a superfluous rebellion for Steve Earle in the year 2007. Keep sticking it to the man, Stevie. Heh.

The new album is due out September and will be a "folkie" although its produced by one half of the Dust Brothers and Steve admits to having "tested positive for Pro Tools." This direction pleases me no end, underwhelmed as I have been with his last couple.

If you listen to the radio interview, be sure to stick around for the Townes medley.

The picture is a genuine Steve Earle pick I scored at his Metro gig a few years back.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

about Neko Case's microphone.

Livin, Lovin, Louvin

There is a bit of chat in the comments to the post below about Wilco. I'm a Team Farrar partisan but Jeff Tweedy does a very good job on his duet on the new Charlie Louvin album. They do Great Atomic Power, the Louvin Bros classic, and deeply weird, gospel. The rest of the album is very pleasing too, old Charlie sounds on death's door ... but not in a bad way. His couple of duets with George Jones in particular and his tribute to brother Ira are pretty special for the country nerd. But it's all good, traditional old timey country and the parade of hip young thangs who join him (though few I think ever physically in a studio with him) carry their end.

Not much modern Louvin multimedia but here's some twang from The Wilburn Brothers Show in the 60s on YouTube. I don't know anything about Diane McCall but she really knows how to work that eye shadow.

I Like Both Kinds of Music: Honky and Tonk

Science Blogs, which I love, has a new meme which is at once at the heart of Flop Eared Mule's existence -- music -- but also her greatest anathema -- awkward personal revelation! It started with a post on some research which is trying to say some useful things about musical preferences and personality (link to a PDF of the article in the journal Psychological Science.) This has lead to much naming of ten favourite songs and psychoanalysing thereof.

Of course the proposition has alot of anecdotal weight: the primeval urge to hand out mix tapes/CDs, the read, write and comment on music blogs, "what music do you like" as a perennial ice breaker, the way I sneakily survey a person's CD and book collection immediately on entering their house and make snap judgements thereon.

So, here are my top ten. With as little premeditation as possible. Off the top of my head. And with the usual caveats about how it will change tomorrow and invoking Bob's Law (only having one song by one artist represented otherwise it would be 10 Dylan songs).

If You See Her, Say Hello, Bob Dylan
She Ain't Going Nowhere, Guy Clark
You Were Never Mine, Delbert McClinton
Waitin' Round to Die, Townes Van Zandt
Goodbye, Steve Earle
Big River, Johnny Cash
Sunday Morning Coming Down, Kris Kristofferson
Sorry You Asked?, Dwight Yoakam
Lines Around Your Eyes, Lucinda Williams
Paradise, Bruce Springsteen
Dance Me to the End of Love, Leonard Cohen

OK, that's 11 but it's done now and I can't choose which to remove.

First off, I notice that it is all incredibly white although that doesn't actually reflect my overall listening habits at all. Thinking about it, while there is not much better than Muddy doing "Soon Forgotten" at Newport I tend to listen to blues in blocks of albums and less as individual songs I seek out. My favourite albums would have to include, say, The Chambers Brothers "Live", and surely a Solomon Burke and at least one Sonny Terry/Brownie McGee. Muddy's Folk Singer. Or Willie's Blues. This is ... odd. ?

Also, the list leans very heavily to the maudlin, indeed downright tragic in some cases. I concede this is probably an accurate reflection of my tastes. The Dwight is uptempo and tongue in cheek (with mariachi horns!) but the rest is pretty ballady/angsty. I do love a good don't-think-let-rip singalong, but again few jump to mind for a list like this. And noticably light on actual rock music, although some loudish Springsteen or the Stones or something is also representative of ... me.

And of course there is only one chick. Female artists are certainly in the minority on my roster, but surely not this extreme.

And there is no Randy Newman which is just plain wrong.

I wonder what song would indicate: "cannot just make a list of ten songs"?

UPDATE 14/3: I've added YouTube links to those that exist. Fat Steve is the best Steve. Discuss. And Emmy too. The Kris is from the Johnny Cash memorial. *Sniff* Another Bruce song which could well be The One is his full band live version of "Youngstown" from The Ghost of Tom Joad, where it's done al la folkie. That version is great too but the E Street rock treatment is so intense. Here is a random live version from YouTube, it is officially available on the Live in NYC CD and DVD. And also the solo acoustic arrangement to complete the set. Neat segue to ... since I left Randy off the list, My Life is Good.
Heh. And my real favourite Randy song set to a montage from Days of Our Lives.

Hazmat Modine

I can't really improve on the All Music description:

Hazmat Modine tap into the deepest veins of raw, unpolluted prewar blues and ancient jazz, then whip them up in a blender, tossing in strains of Caribbean calypso and ska, Eastern European klezmer and Balkan brass, Middle Eastern mystery, and more than a few unidentifiable elements that just somehow fit. The result is music that sounds at once ageless and primeval, authentically indigenous and inexplicably otherworldly, familiar and unlike anything else.

Yesterday Morning:



The album Bahamut turned up on a few best of lists last year so I took a flyer and got it off eMusic. Been listening constantly all week. I like that despite all these disparate elements -- Tuvan throat singing included -- it has such a clean, focused sound built around traditional blues.

For genuine freak out, see the Lost Fox Train, a harp solo from the album. Yikes.

Stolen Meltdown

In lieu of other inspiration I'm stealing this "Friday Meltdown" idea from Timmy at Surfdom whose made quite the tradition of it.

Watching: Watching some classic New York Dolls video at YouTube, I'd love to see them later this month but may not be poss. Anyway. I've blogged about lead singer David Johansen's latter day blues reinvention with The Harry Smiths before (in fact, it was, like, my second evah post or something.) Here he is on Smokestack Lightning with Hubert Sumlin.



Oh and some German rap about football, just cuz:



Reading: "Das Attentant Auf Amenemhet I. Und Die Erste Agyptische Koregenshaft" von Karl Jansen-Wilkeln. German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German by April Wilson and Sinuhe, The Bible and the Patriarchs by Miroslav Barta.

Before all this uni work fell on me in the last few weeks the last thing I read was one of my new very favourite books, Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon. The inspiration for the TV show Homicide:Life on the Streets, although the pure Simon-ian vision is best expressed in the shows he himself produced, the extraordinary The Wire and The Corner. Simon was a Baltimore Sun crime reporter who spent a year (I guess the term we would use now is "imbedded") with the Baltimore PD homicide squad. This is their story. Wow. Just wow.

Listening to: I bought the new album of Dylan covers by Bryan Ferry, Dylanesque. It's really rather OK although I wish he'd been a bit more adventurous with the song choices. And the late 2006 Raven Records release (hello Raven? Get a freakin' website already) of a smoking 1979 Bobby Bare live gig, Down and Dirty ... Plus.

Happy Birthday Johnny Cash

Lazy Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday Blogging

Away for the weekend tomorrow so this is all I got.

Random iTunes 20.

Done Somebody Wrong The Allman Bros Band
Highway 17 Rodney Crowell
It's All in the Game Tom T Hall
Shine Hallejulah Shine Bill Monroe
New York Times Cat Stevens (but I couldn't listen all the way through. Ugh.)
Boulder to Birmingham Emmylou Harris
Norwegian Wood Tim O'Brien
Ways of a Woman in Love Charlie Rich
Gotta Get it Worked On Delbert McClinton
Take Me Away Hayes Carll
A Boy Named Sue Johnny Cash
Streets of London Tony Rice
A Widow's Toast Neko Case
If I Can't Have You Etta James
Red River Sonny Terry with Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston/Alec Seward
Little Sadie Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson
Just a Little Talk with Jesus The Stanley Brothers
Unfaithful Servant The Band
Good News Blues Todd Snider
Wide Open Road Johnny Cash

A Stunning Plan

A few weeks ago my sister -- newly relocated to Route 66 at Flagstaff, Arizona -- emailed about maybe going to see "some bluegrass guy." Meh, you know, if nothing else is on. Some chump the name of Ralph Stanley, never heard of the guy.

Anyone else I would have blogged that puppy and made delicious fun but as The Boss sang (sort of) "you turn your back on your sister, you ain't no friend of mine." So I confined my mockery to a few private emails and politely suggested it would be most edifying for her and husband if they were to attend.

She has.

I kid, because I love.

But you know what was also funny? Reading Tim McGraw's message boards at CMT.com when Dr Ralph beat him out for "Best Male Country Vocal" at the 2001 Grammys. Hee hee.

See also: Bob Dylan Ralph Stanley.

R.I.P

I was very shocked yesterday to read at Honky Tonk Highway of the sudden death of Les Scott. He'd been a fixture on the scene ever since I have been going to gigs here, and for along time before that, the heart of a lot of bands on bass, guitar and harmony.

Tamworth Rage Page has a moving tribute page, including details of a memporial event at the Cooks River Club on the 25th, although all the gigs this weekend I'm sure will be for him. Vale Les.

Ho Ho Ho ...

... and a bottle or three of rum.


Keith in Pirates III

West 2

I moped about the new Lucinda Williams album West at Hickory Wind. You can read it here.

Category Error

This David Hadju article republished in The Oz earlier this week stirs something I've thought for a while. We need a new definition of rock music and to stop being so hung up on the meaning established fifty plus years ago.

The Rolling Stones ply a nostalgia for the 1960s and '70s, as do various Motown acts that are on perpetual tour in the arts-centre circuit. For musicians disinclined to work in self-tribute bands, however, it is not easy to rock and age. Rock, at its crude best, is a music of disgrace, anathema to ageing (or doing anything else) gracefully.

It's the music of youthful rebllion because in the 1950s and 1960s its practioners were youthful rebels, or carefully marketed that way at least. The definition arose out of the circumstances of its practice and its place in the popular culture, right nor 1967 wrong for 2007. Why are we obliged to accept this (in popular culture terms) archaic definition and judge "aging acts" by it, as if everything in the world changes except the definition of appropriate people to play rock music.

High Noon for Frankie

This is probably the defining album of my childhood. Maybe it and Blood on the Tracks are the only albums I can say I know all the words to every song. (Born in the USA maybe too. OK and Cash's Bitter Tears and Emmylou Wrecking Ball probably now I think about it. You get the picture though, its an exclusive list.) "Rawhide" of course is the name recognition song but the western genre doesn't get much better than "Wanted Man":

She had spangles on her red dress
She had laughter in her voice
When he tried to put his hands on her
My heart left me no choice
But was she really worth it?
Well, I guess I'll never know
She'll be drinking someone else's rye
When I'm six feet below

You can hear his Italian crooning roots in the smooth delivery but he totally works that gunfighter's snarl and you actually get thirsty listening to the anguished clippety clop of "Cool Water."

Which is best? A wanderin' fool or a heart at rest? I never have found out. Vale, Frankie.

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art ...

This story did the rounds last week,

A fugitive who apparently fled to Tennessee to see his ailing mother was being sought yesterday in Florida in the theft of a tour bus owned by country singer Crystal Gayle.

A man believed to be Christopher Daniel Gay, who is being sought on felony theft and escape charges, was seen Thursday with the bus at a racetrack in Lakeland, Fla., telling the manager he was there to pick up NASCAR driver Tony Stewart.


Convict. Dying mother. Country star (in her own right and sister of Loretta Lynn). NASCAR. Wanted in numerous states. Inevitably everyone said, "this should be a country song!"

Well, now it is. Master bluegrasser Tim O'Brien does a very fine job on short notice, to the tune of Pretty Boy Floyd. (link direct to MP3) I especially like the bit about the colour of his momma's eyes.

EC was here

Eric Clapton and band
Sydney Entertainment Centre
January 30th 2007

Guest post by Christopher Sheil


He opened with "Tell the Truth", and poorly. But about half-way through the opener the players all found their slots, and in the end it was a triumph. There was "Key to the Highway" and a song I didn't recognise, which were OK, plus "Why Has Love Got to be So Sad?" which is a favourite. Then he went into "Little Wing", which was magnificent, and for mine the highlight of the night. EC went for it, with subtle and not so subtle Jimi embellishments, and he flew, and the number was nailed, dead into the ground.

After that, I loved the acoustic set in the centre. "Running On Faith" was surprisingly successful, and nothing was bad. Coming out of the middle section, "Motherless Children" delivered real freight - Clapton's "Rollin' & Tumblin'". "Further On Up the Road" was forgettably familiar, and felt like intermission.

By this time, I was waiting for "Layla" because Derek Trucks is a big deal, and could be Duane Allman II, and knows how to lift the roof, and I was getting edgy with anticipation. They started it well, doing the famous anthem that is that riff justice, but alas couldn't deliver the middle for mine, which was of course what I was waiting for. They just seemed to lose their way fleetingly, and once the micro-seconds pass, there's no going back. Bugger. They finished it beautifully. Touching, as ever.

"Cocaine", as the first encore, left me cold, as ever. This number must appeal to a particular audience, as he has always done it live whenever I’ve caught him, and, as ever, I could do without it. I don’t know why he doesn't play the funkier and more interesting "After Midnight" if he has to do a JJ Cale number, or the marvellous “Ride The River” from their recent collaboration. The finale was "Crossroads" which was pretty good, and the man left us with a wonderfully clean final solo.

All up, it was lovely, there were some special highlights, and it was always interesting – how neat to have a screen just overhead showing close-ups of the players’ hands at work. I was interested to see that both Derek (all the time) and Doyle Bramhall II (much of the time) play electric (as well as acoustic) guitar with their bare fingers, as distinct from playing with picks. Unless this is a new trend, it is very unusual. I can't remember seeing a slide player, like Derek, playing blistering solos with his bare fingers. EC always uses a pick, but supplements it with his fingers when he's playing acoustic, which all makes for a great feel inside the music. At times, Trucks went close to stealing the show, yet EC also punctuated him very well, setting up his spaces and then pulling him back down into the band.

I can’t remember seeing EC with two side guitars before, and it supplies a fabulous extra dimension, even if it does dilute EC himself somewhat. Chris Stainton on keyboards, Willie Weeks on bass and Steve Jordan on drums, together with a second keyboards player and two back-up chick singers, are one helluva ensemble. There is, in any case, a longstanding integrity to EC's music, which holds the sound together. While Clapton acknowledges the crowd, and the players acknowledge each other frequently, there is no sense of them seeking, let alone begging for, audience approval. I always enjoy the refreshment that comes with the sheer confidence of top flight international bands.

On the other hand, apart from "Little Wing", which was inspired and we were privileged, EC struck me as lacking the extremities he once had, which means that his concerts are less exhausting, less satisfying than they once were. The sound, for instance, was normal concert, whereas historically EC has always been very fucking loud. For all the reasons we know and understand, he can never again be the guitarist on the cusp of breaking music like you have never heard before, and is therefore bound to be less tense, less risky, less exciting. Perhaps, if we were to compare him with Dylan, Clapton's now tidying up in the late end of his career, rather than making consummating final statements.

But hey, it was a blast. My life passed before my eyes ... wish he’d done "White Room" … might go back again tomorrow night.

2/2/07 Update by Amanda: More guitar nerd discussion at Blogocracy.