A Post-Christmas/Pre-New Year Musical Round-Up

Everyone is keen to put this year to bed. Let's put out the old and bring in the new. And keep those paddles revved up: this baby just might need 'em. But before we roll up our sleeves and get to work on rescuing what we can, it's worth remembering some of the best of last year. The five CDs that received the most play in this house were: #5 - To Survive by Joan As Police Woman (A) #4 - Harps And Angels by Randy Newman (A) #3 - Vegas by Martyn Joseph (A) #2 - I, Flathead by Ry Cooder (A) But the number one most played CD in my house was ... (drum-roll, please) ... Mama Mia! Oy vey -- to think there ever was a time when I was dying for something -- anything -- to usurp Hairspray. *Sigh* Another reason why I can't wait for the new year to begin. Whenever I was in charge, however, the number one disc in this house was Just Us Kids by James McMurtry. Were I to let Google describe McMurtry's appeal, you'd get attributes like, "Caustic observer of Americana", "Lou Reed from Texas", "Leonard Cohen of the South" etc ... but the man has created his own genre. And though he claims to have made peace with being a "beer salesman" his music is deeply affecting stuff. The "caustic" is what the uninitiated tend to hear first (releasing "Cheney's Toy" as the album's first, free single pretty much sealed the deal). But there's also a depth of human yearning that comes from scraping the bottom of the soul, and listening to what the shadows are whispering when you can't get back to sleep. It might not be as finely balanced in its sensibilities as Childish Things was, but ... it scratched the most difficult-to-reach aural itch for me. So there it is. Some other pleasant memories: Favorite Celeb Singer Interview: Esquire UK with Robert Plant Technically, the interview took place over a year ago, the morning after the Zep reunion, but it wasn't published until February. Nor is it available on-line, alas, but NME has some highlights here. Plant basically says he enjoyed the packed-stadium hoo-ha, but not enough to quit touring the smaller venues with Alison Kraus and T Bone Burnett. You da man, Robert! This was the year I gave it up to Apple. No, I haven't bought a Mac ... yet. But I did buy a new iPod for my wife. And, resorting to my weenie Windows partition, I went through the bother of installing iTunes. Once the platform was up and running I even used it to purchase a few coveted albums, including the aforementioned Harps And Angels. I reached several glum conclusions: 1) iTunes downloads are as good in sound quality as you'll find below DVD-level releases. Mind you, that's not saying much. I bought H&A via iTunes, gave it a listen, and wondered if the file compression hadn't flattened things out just a little. When I was finally able to hear the CD the quality of sound was exactly the same. Lesson learned: CD production has crapped out. Unless the item I'm after is available on dual-disc, I'll opt out of the CD package and go the iTunes route. 2) The iTunes/iPod synchronization is as close to flawless as a computer sync is likely to get. For Linux users like me, this is the equivalent of Bono walking out on stage, today, with the largest white flag you ever saw. I'm basically admitting that, when it comes to music, Open Source Software is still trailing-edge. There are a lot of fine excuses for this ("Apple has all the money!") but the truth is the truth. Apple rewards music lovers; Open Source rewards code freaks ... seven-point-eight out of ten tries (not that that's a bad thing). If 2009 were to provide any disposable income, might this be in my foreseeable future?

Haven't We All Lived Here?

Via ALD, life next to a Wendy's. I once lived next to a Burger King. I will not be purchasing their just-released flame-broiled scent for men.

My Favorite Christmas Disc

The children line up. The lights are shining, the mics are on. Some of these kids have already opened their presents, others will be tearing into the gifts when the show is over. They've all got something scripted to say, but nothing more challenging than, "Happy Birthday, Jesus," or "God bless us everyone!" And still, for some, the pressure of doing this on stage is too much. Tears erupt; a meltdown ensues.

The children don't know it yet, but their performance anxieties are only the tip of the iceberg. Someday, God willing, they will be adults hosting, or joining in, larger Christmas gatherings. And a performance of subtler nuance will be expected of them.

So my favorite Christmas disc is Up For It by the Keith Jarrett Trio (A). It's not their best recording, but in one aspect it is possibly their most remarkable performance. A soul-crushing year, an oppressive environment. Nobody wants to take to the stage.

But they do go on. It takes a few minutes for everyone to find the groove, but they do. They find the groove, they dig it, they shine.

I daresay this is the way it is for many of us on Christmas day. So much performance, in the silent hope that at some point, perhaps for only a minute or two, the mask will become the face. And when it does, it is good.

Merry Christmas.

Donald Fagen on Jean Shepherd

My generation knows Jean Shepherd as the source material and chortling narrator of A Christmas Story (wp). But Donald Fagen remembers "Shep" as a distinctively subversive personality:

"From Bert the Turtle's exhortations to 'duck and cover' in the face of an atomic blast to the endless parade of new products hawked on the tube by Madison Avenue, Americans were feeding themselves a line of hooey that was no less absurd than the most hard-core Maoist brainwash. 'Relax, life is good,' we were told. 'Your government and Walt Disney have got the future well in hand.' To skeptical Mad magazine-reading little stinkers like myself, it was this mendacity on the part of adults that was the most sinister enemy of all. Because Shep made it clear he was just as dazed, enraged, and amused as you were, that he noticed what you noticed, he established himself as one of a handful of adults you could trust." 

If that seems a little rich, don't just read the piece: hit the sound-files too. Fagen brushes away a little of the "protective coloration" and reveals some of the man's discomfiting depth of character, here.

January 5, 2021: “An entire generation of Americans grew up feeling inferior to just the names of the guys on the radio” -- a terrific essay on Jean Shepherd by Lee Vinsel at LARB.

She & Him, Volume One / Los Campesinos! We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

The '01 Echo has become our dust-around-town-and-get-things-done vehicle. It's also where I listen with the greatest intent to my music. The car came with a factory-installed CD player, which, in this era of sound files and satellite radio, is the technological equivalent of the 8-Track Cassette Deck. When I've finished my monthly downloads at eMusic I see which "albums" fit together on a single CD, then burn it and give it a spin as I scoot about on errands.

This practice has made for some strange musical bedfellows, but few pairings have been as jarring to my expectations as this month's: She & Him, Volume One (e) and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed by Los Campesinos! (e) The latter are keeping alive (*cough*) the sex-death obsession that fueled British dance-music in the 80s (the jaunty fatalism that runs through 24 Hour Party People(A)). These Cardiff kids inject a lot of snap into their gloom, and I find it all a welcome reprieve from the aurally-enforced cheer of the season.

Hot on their heels is Volume One by She & Him, Paste's choice for album of the year. Full disclosure: I was determined to dislike this album. The deliberate understatement of the duet's name and album (starring Zooey Deschanel as the torch singer!!) along with the cutesy poses for the camera signaled something altogether a little too fey for my tastes. And 2008, I thought, signaled a year when fey was a quality we had in overabundance. I figured I'd give it a quick spin, then dismiss it and the rest of this dismal year with a shrug.

It can't be done. For all the posing, the actual product is delivered with charming sincerity. Deschanel fluidly shifts from sha-da-da R&B to Loretta Lynn twang, and wallows about in Ward's lush retro-production with a delightful ease. I'm not yet sure if I can claim Volume One as my all-time favorite album of the year, but it's certainly made my top-five. Added bonus: it appeals to the women in my household, too.

The Darkest Night Of The Year by Over The Rhine

As with so many aspects of life, women have an edge over men when it comes to appreciating Christmas. Men can look into the pinched-dough features of a newborn child and be moved by the thought of God as Newborn Babe. Fathers appreciate this. But mothers get it.*

So it is no surprise that women performers produce some of the most moving Christmas music. My daughters really like Carolyn Arends' Christmas CD (A); my wife is partial to Emmylou Harris'(A). There is much I enjoy in both discs, but nothing moves me quite like The Darkest Night Of The Year by Over The Rhine.



Today marks the longest night of the year. As another Mary points out, this is not the time of year a person naturally feels like singing the Magnificat. That Christendom finally superimposed this particularly Christian moment over this particular time of year makes for "holy days" that are rife with ironies -- so much so that the ironies threaten to overwhelm even the deepest, most revered metaphors of hope, humility and love.

Returning to the Magnificat, it is for me one of the most beautiful passages of scripture. But I have to admit, it takes some effort for me to let it past the Adult Reader Filter that screams, "AFTER THE FACT! AFTER THE FACT!!" The larger "fact" remains: these words embody not just a primal hope, but the desperation it tries to resist.

I think that's the quality I find in this particular performance by Over The Rhine. Despite the cover's depiction of an angel deafening a human, this is an album with varying shades of quiet disquiet. Especially in Karin Bergquist's vocals there is a sense that true hope resists and speaks obliquely to the desperation that bears down on it. It has to, otherwise it is not hope at all, but something shallow and disposable.

Not this. This is music to accompany the listener through the longest -- and darkest -- night of the year.

Links: The Darkest Night Of The Year (A, e). Over The Rhine (h).

*Post-script: I can't write this without including the old Jewish joke: How do we know Jesus was Jewish? He lived with his parents until he was 30; he thought his mother was a virgin; she thought her son was God.

As If We Needed Proof...

Nick Hornby is hipper than I am. *sigh* I really don't "get" Vampire Weekend.