Category: Music

Jen Chapin, Ready

Some artists, upon becoming parents, grow soft and precious in their work, but Jen Chapin remains a vital songwriter with a jazzy bite. Her new CD may be her best yet.

True, it has many quiet times and gentle sounds, and even a lullaby (“Skin”). And she addresses the “little man” in so many words more than once. But her slithery delivery, pop-inspired melodies and cutting lyrics turn even the homiest sentiment into art.

Nor has Chapin left behind her social and political consciousness. Pretty tunes and easy, jazz-soul arrangements (played by a very tasty small band that includes her husband, bassist and co-writer Stephan Crump) carry acidic observations about politics, ambition and lust. With a muted sonic palette the group paints a broad variety of pictures.

The mesmerizing “Goodbye” has an almost Brelian sadness, while the funky Rickie Lee Jones-like “Election Day” reflects Chapin’s longtime work with World Hunger Year (co-founded by her father, Harry Chapin): “We fuse all our illusions to these long lolling hours / To dreams of new sneakers and memories of funeral flowers / To each distracting handout and styrofoam meal / Leave chanting to the children a fury we conceal.”

“NYC,” reworked from the bass-and-voice version on 2002’s Open Wide, features Crump’s upright bass at its funkiest, while in the title track, a 1970s-style funk-soul groove blossoms into a spacious jam about new love.

There’s a lot to discover on this CD. Since it’s mostly on the quiet side, a couple of listens may be needed for full appreciation. But it repays the effort, plus interest.

Splitsense, Purify

This isn’t my mug of grog, but if you like supercharged headbanging alternative gloom metal, it might be yours. Splitsense is all about glowering moods and crunching guitars, not sensitive songwriting, and with lyrics like “These walls won’t last forever / Stale clouds of dust infect me” it’s just as well. That’s from the hookiest song, “As Far As I Can See.” Lead vocalist Jason’s hoarse yell is almost satanically strong, though it can soften into sensitivity, as in the ballad “Nigh,” for me the CD’s other highlight, whose melody uncharacteristically verges on the sweet. Mostly this music is a blast of adolescent anger at the world. “You’ll never break free / Of my disease / Scream / You can’t repent for all your / Sins.” “Don’t fall / Fall to your knees / Cause I can’t save you.” They’re right: Splitsense isn’t going to save the world, or anyone’s soul, or rock and roll for that matter. But they make a hell of a noise trying.

Extended samples here.

Greg Graffin, Cold As The Clay

Some fans of Bad Religion might be surprised that front man Greg Graffin is releasing an album consisting entirely of old-time American folk music and original songs inspired by it.

Some might not, though. The influential punk band’s erudite lyrics and masterful song structures contain enough clues that a variety of classic strains have informed its music. Now Graffin, one of Bad Religion’s principal songwriters (the new CD’s producer Brett Gurewitz is the other), has “set out to create a record that would honor the legacy of American music,” and he has succeeded.

Though his voice isn’t the most artful of instruments, Graffin’s love for the music shines through. He is backed on some songs by old-time musicians and on others by a rock band, but all are refreshingly under-rehearsed and heart-on-sleeve. The original songs bear Neil Young, Gram Parsons, and The Band influences, as Graffin himself points out in his liner notes – Stephen Carroll of the Weakerthans contributes a beautifully Youngian sound to “Don’t Be Afraid To Run” and “Rebel’s Goodbye” – but they also stand on their own. Among the traditionals, “The Highway” and “Talk About Suffering” (with Jolie Holland on harmony vocals) are especially touching.

Apollo 13, Lovebomb

Fusing pop, rock and electronica allows new bands to get away with old-fashioned (e.g. meaningful) songwriting without sounding dated or uncool. All sorts of comparisons come to mind listening to Apollo 13‘s new CD: Elvis Costello with a dance beat, Power Station, Cat Stevens, Deep Purple, even The Who (“Oh I can see for miles, but I still can’t find the end,” they croon in “No Sign of Land”). The band’s success on college-centric Purevolume.com and at getting video and game placements bears witness to its hipness.

The hard-rock screamer “The Bomb” leads into the smooth techno of “Interference,” followed by the melodic “Up Up & Away” which spreads 80s-style harmonies over a thumping dance beat. “Rollin’ On” takes on hard southern-rock, with Shannon Savoie’s amped-up tenor shredding the high notes. The slinky “Another Lovely Day” suggests Robert Palmer recorded underwater, “Grandiose Palaces” sounds like Queen meeting the Turtles, and there’s a bit of soul in “Landslide to Oblivion.” Yet there’s consistent melodic and lyric depth beefing up the clever creativity of the production.

Its songs interspersed with theatrical instrumental interludes, Lovebomb isn’t quite categorizable, yet it’s both modern and accessible. That’s a tough thing to pull off. These lines from “Rollin’ On” sum up Apollo 13’s union of the tried-and-true with the up-to-the-minute: “I’m a-rollin’ down this old highway / Gonna find me a brand new life / Well I’m a-rollin’ rollin’ on / Don’t bother checking your GPS system girl / ‘Cause I’m gone yeah.”

Available, with extended clips, here.

Two years ago I wrote about the latest studio album by Pittsburgh rockers the Clarks. Since then the band has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, put out a greatest-hits collection, and now produced this fine live DVD (along with an accompanying audio CD).

The concert video displays the stage charisma, sharp songwriting, tight musicianship and sheer joy in making music that have made the Clarks a big regional hit for two decades. It may also contain some clues as to why success at the national level has largely eluded them.

The DVD includes 79 minutes of professionally recorded and produced concert footage of the Clarks performing a selection of their best material from their numerous CDs up to and including 2004’s Fast Moving Cars. The atmospherically lit multi-camera shoot captures plenty of different angles, band closeups, and shots of euphoric audience members singing along. The stage at Mr. Small’s Theatre in Millvale PA is small, but as the Clarks don’t jagger about the stage much it doesn’t matter.

Handsome, lanky lead singer Scott Blasey exudes confidence, yet strikes his rock-star poses with a shy smile as if he’s still amazed by the fact that he gets to do this for a living. Lead guitarist Rob James looks like he’s having the time of his life while displaying an easy mastery of all things six-string. Bassist Greg Joseph and drummer David Minarik crank out the rhythms so expertly you can sometimes forget they’re there, which is the highest praise for a rhythm section.

The foursome has undergone not a single personnel change since starting as a college band two decades ago. This consistency pays off in a seamless but big-hearted stage show. A must-have for Clarks fans, the DVD can also constitute a thorough introduction to the band for left- and right-coasters. And therein may lie the key to the mystery of why the Clarks are still regional. A thoroughbred rock band that consistently puts out catchy new songs, they are not edgy. They may be just a little too nice to conquer gnarly New York or blasé L.A.

They’ve had a lot of radio play in the Pittsburgh area, especially from their 2000 release Let It Go, and their best songs – “Maybe,” “Born Too Late,” “Shimmy Low,” “Train,” and their 9-11 tribute “Hey You” among others – are better-written than, and as radio-friendly as, much of what’s heard on modern rock and pop stations. But maybe their sound is too middle-America: too rocking to be power-pop, but too friendly to be “modern rock.” If so, it’s a shame, because – forgive the marketing-speak – few bands offer as complete a package as the Clarks do. (Personally, I’ve had it with edgy. Give me a good song over an intriguing attitude any day.)

The DVD also includes 25 minutes of interviews with the band members, giving insight into how they got started, what they’re like personally, and how they write their songs – nothing out of the ordinary, but nice to have if you’re a fan. On the technical side, the authoring is smooth, the editing and lighting are eye-catching, the sound quality is as good as one can expect from a live recording – which is pretty darn good, these days – and for eighteen songs plus interviews, the price is definitely right.

There is an audio CD available too, but it has fewer songs. For a pure audio experience, you’re better off with their best-of collection, Between Now and Then. But for Clarks fans, and for lovers of melodic rock and real, honest bands in general, I can recommend this DVD wholeheartedly.

Zach Hexum, The Story So Far

Zack Hexum’s sound harks back to the seventies and eighties (think Paul McCartney, Tears for Fears, and Squeeze) – a keyboard-heavy soft rock with power-pop highlights. Nothing at all like his brother Nick’s band, 311.

But while the sound and sensibility aren’t new, the songs are outstanding, and as I’ve mentioned a gazillion times before, good songs are what it’s all about. The lyrics are both fluid and sharp, often putting a unique slant on common feelings, as in “Simple City”: “I saw a yin yang girl today she was black and white/She was a pile on a chair pale and dark/She wore a shirt that left her breast for all of us to see/I wanna color her and then maybe we’ll be/In Simple City soon/Just staring at the moon/Will you be there?/Can I take you there?” And the melodies are fresh and catchy and quirky all at once.

“All I Want,” “One Spin,” “Sun Still Shines” and “Met a Girl Like You Once” are are among my favorites, but the songwriting shines throughout. Hexum’s voice is a flexible though not amazingly strong instrument; he makes the most of it, singing his intelligent lyrics archly enough to be interesting and emotively enough to be lyrical.

Very highly recommended.

The Animators, How We Fight

The Animators’ sophomore effort is almost like two albums on one CD. The first five songs make up a set of gorgeous power pop. Several of these songs borrow, and sometimes exaggerate, the grunge technique of quiet verses and loud choruses. “It’s Good To Be Here” establishes the pattern, with meaty guitar refrains and the plaintive, sensitive-guy delivery that lead singer Devon Copley is very good at but not restricted to. The section ends with “How Do I Get Over You,” a power ballad that feels to me like the heart of the album and deserves to be a classic.

The rest of the CD is more varied and experimental, starting with the acidic “The Senator Goes To Hell” with its Dixieland tuba and angular honky-tonk piano. The song – about, I’m guessing, Strom Thurmond – pulls no punches: “no matter how deep they bury him, he’s gonna smell/the senator goes to hell.” The circus-y arrangement of “Good Day” would make Brian Wilson proud, while R&B flavored, anti-consumerist call to action “Buy Buy” with its irresistible chorus suggests something Pete Townshend might have written after accidentally wandering into a Wal-Mart.

“Take It So Hard” is a well-written but rather standard relationship song, but the title track gets more creative. Sung in gentle Simon and Garfunkel harmonies the lyrics get deep into the strange subtleties of love and the hardening thereof: “what’s the harm in hiding something/this is how we fight/and how we come together… I don’t mind the tears this time/we’re strong enough that we don’t feel it/we’re smart enough that we don’t mean it/as long as we don’t read between the lines.” “Ordinary Moment” is, lyrically, a straightforward ballad, but musically a fascinating piece of chamber pop. And the last track shows that the Animators can artfully mix a metaphor: “We only know a golden age/On the morning after.”

This is one of those CDs that takes a couple of listens to fully appreciate. Fortunately it also has enough catchiness to draw in the casual pop-music seeker. Check it out.

Available at CD Baby.

Josh Sason, four song demo at Myspace.com.

Josh Sason is a promising young singer-songwriter from my “home town” of Long Island NY. As evidenced by these four songs, he’s got a good sense of melody and musical drama. His dense, almost orchestral arrangements show plenty of skill on guitars and keyboards and in the studio (he does everything), and his heated, passionate tenor is just the thing to melt girls’ hearts; his list of inspirations starts with Coldplay, but his phrasing is closer to that of Oasis’s Liam Gallagher. The songwriting needs a little more focus: only the ballad “Your Name” has a strong enough hook to really stick in the ear. But that will come with practice and maturity. Meanwhile this is a kid to watch.

OUT AND ABOUT: It’s been a quiet couple of weeks for me, nightlife-wise, but I’ve been checking out a lot of bands at Myspace. Although it’s not about a band, I just had to share this nugget from Indie Roundup’s Mixed Metaphor Police, who spotted this title on a naked girl’s Myspace blog post: “Christmas is starting to rear it’s [sic] ugly head around the corner again.”

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Come hell or high water – and the latter, at least, certainly seems to be on its way – people are never going to tire of music stripped down to essentials. You see this in a number of seemingly disparate styles: thumping dance music in the clubs; two- and three-chord punk at all-ages shows; elemental rock, from Neil Young to Pearl Jam and from “Wild Thing” to its descendent, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”; and, in another realm, the once-again popular ancient musics of Gregorian Chant and Hildegard von Bingen. Simplicity or uniformity of rhythm, melody, or both characterize all these strains, notwithstanding any complexities, hidden or otherwise, that may also adhere.

American folk music, too, has always relied on simple building blocks, but right now there’s a special emphasis on raw, “authentic” sounds and compositions. No band exemplifies this spirit and trend better than Hillstomp, the Portland, OR duo that has just released its second full-length CD. I caught up, electronically, with the band – otherwise known as Henry Kammerer and John Johnson – as they toured California before returning to the Pacific Northwest.

The band, which proudly calls itself “Portland’s third greatest guitar / bucket-n-can duo,” creates a unique sound out of trance blues, hillbilly grit, and an undercurrent of goofiness. With only voices, a guitar, and a “drum” kit made of buckets and other assorted objects – plus, occasionally, a little harmonica and keyboard from friends – they bang out traditional songs like “John Henry,” country blues nuggets by R.L. Burnside and his mentor, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and original songs. Tempo and mood vary but a certain gloomy glee remain fairly constant. Hillstomp’s ragged sound comes out of who they are, but it is also reactive, as percussionist Johnson explains:

It comes naturally to us because those are the elements of blues and country that we like. From a performance standpoint, it comes naturally because it’s really the only way we really know how to play. It’s [also] a reaction, even if unintentional, just because we don’t like the kind of polished and pretty blues and country you’re talking about. For us, blues is all about grit and dirt. It’s not about notes, or technicality or any of that crap. Does it make you want to shout and holler? Does it make you feel a little dirty? These are things it should do. If it makes you say, “Wow, the production on this is impeccable! Mr. Segal’s solo over the bridge on track 3 is really hot,” you should be slapped.

As a reviewer who finds himself saying just such things now and again, I consider myself duly slapped. Kind of like the guy in the cowboy hat on the cover of Hillstomp’s new CD The Woman That Ended the World is about to get slapped if he doesn’t let go of that woman’s arm and let her get on that train. She must have realized she could do a lot better; Hillstomp, on the other hand, hasn’t tampered with its successful formula. The production on the new CD is a little cleaner (*slap* ouch!) but that is of little importance. More significant is that with their single method and limited palette the duo can create enough different musical statements to make two full-length Hillstomp CDs a good listen all the way through.

“Nope,” from their earlier CD One Word, is a sweet love song that contrasts blaringly with the hard scratching of Bukka White‘s “Shake ‘Em On Down.” The stately raga-like solemnity of Burnside’s “Goin’ Down South” leads into the hearty good humor of the band’s own bluegrassy chant “Lucy’s Lament,” vocals grating out through vintage Turner bullet microphones, the kind usually employed to give blues harmonica players their flattened, raucous sound.

On the new CD, in addition to the slightly sharper production, the musicianship has improved. Kammerer’s vocals are a bit stronger and surer and his guitar riffs more varied, while Johnson’s percussion kit technique has expanded. If anything, there was a slight sense of hesitation in the playing on the first CD, which is gone on the new one. But you have to listen closely for these changes; they’re subtle and not critical.

The band also stretches their song structures a little more on the new CD. The easy shuffling beat of “In The Hole” belies a macabre story of a boy who falls in a hole and meets first a rat and then an unexpected fate: “My mother said you live until you die/I never thought my mom would tell a lie/Black rat and me just keep on keepin’ on/We’re dead down here and still singin’ this song.” “Shake It” is a Chicago-bluesy soul jam assisted by David Lipkind on harmonica and Lewi Longmire on Hammond B-3 organ. And “Boom Boom Room East Blues” pounds like a sledgehammer: “I got a woman/She long and she tall/Sleeps in the kitchen/Legs out in the hall… Born as a baby/Into a girl/Became The Woman/That Ended the World.”

Not surprisingly the band got an enthusiastic reception overseas. Audiences in the UK “went apeshit!” Kammerer reports, noting, however, that “they often do that over here [in the US] as well.” But “people in UK are into blues, and into the offshoots of.”

Far from the first rootsy American act to find acclaim across the pond, Hillstomp is planning a more extensive European tour this Fall, after which they’re going to play a few shows in the Midwest and then take some time off from the road. “We’d really like to get back in the basement and start drinking beer and just playing music together for awhile,” says Johnson. “That’s how this thing was born, and we’d like to get back to that for a bit. It would do us some good.”

Johnson evinces a very healthy, realistic attitude towards a music career: “Making a living at this would be great. For me especially, it would be a dream come true. But, we aren’t really willing to do it without regard to consequences, if that makes sense. We don’t want to wake up in five years and realize we don’t have any fun playing this stuff anymore and that we haven’t really lived any kind of life. Hopefully we can find a reasonable balance. This music has longevity in it if we don’t burn it and ourselves out.”

The traditions Hillstomp builds upon certainly do have longevity. Just ask the ghosts of Fred McDowell or Dock Boggs. Or Hildegard von Bingen. And look out for Hillstomp – coming, if you’re lucky, to a stage near you.

Available, with extended clips, at CD Baby.

There’s a lot more to Willie “Big Eyes” Smith than his best-known role as the drummer in Muddy Waters’s band. His new CD finds the singer, composer, drummer and harmonica player in fine form at age 70.

Taking front and center on a mix of covers and originals, Smith leads a variety of top cats through a delightful eleven-song set of old-school Chicago blues. With Pinetop Perkins, that nonagenarian national treasure, on piano, and guest appearances by other notables including fellow Muddy Waters alums James Cotton and Bob Margolin, these songs incline mostly towards the joyful side of the blues, which is part of the reason I’ve hardly stopped listening to it since I got it.

Highlights include the Muddy Waters tune “Read Way Back”; Sonny Boy Williamson’s classic “Don’t Start Me Talkin'”; and Smith’s own wryly funny “I Don’t Trust You Man” and Howlin’ Wolf-style one-chorder “Woman’s World.” The beautiful original “Blues and Trouble,” a slow number played with only Margolin’s resonator guitar and Smith’s harp backing up the vocal, is the heart of the CD: “Blues and trouble bother me everywhere I go / Blues and trouble bother me everywhere I go / I’m so stuck in the bottom and can’t see the light no more.” But Smith doesn’t stay down in the dumps for long, picking up the sticks to bang out the backbeat behind guest guitarist Billy Flynn’s composition “I Want You To Love Me.”

Smith plays drums himself on only two tracks; his son Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith more than ably handles skins duty on the rest. In spite of the variety of musicians helping out, the whole CD has the feel of a family affair. For authentic traditional Chicago blues played by some of the best in the business, look no further.

Brandtson, Hello, Control

Brandtson has been around for nearly a decade, but somehow I’d missed the whole phenomenon until now. Not knowing the band’s previous work, I can only consider the new CD on its own terms – but there’s nothing wrong with fresh ears. And there’s not much wrong with the CD, either – it’s full of melodic, modern rock with bite, and more hooks per square foot than a velcro dance floor.

The soft-rock opener, “A Thousand Years,” has a Neil Finn-style melody, and the bright “Earthquakes & Sharks” is clever and catchy, if not very original musically, with funny lyrics and supple, close harmonies that evoke Squeeze. Ska-punk-disco makes a fiery appearance in “Denim Iniquity.” “Nobody Dances Anymore” is relentlessly danceable. And so on. A few of the songs in the second half get a bit drony and repetitive, but the whole album is enjoyable, and that’s a rare thing in pop-rock.

Sara Wendt, Here’s Us

Sara Wendt‘s captivating new EP meets the expectations raised by its promotional copy: “rocking yet delicate and nuanced… featuring haunting overtones that make her music both vivid and dreamy.”

“I’ll Be Waiting” is a tense and powerful pop gem. Wendt’s sad and beautiful cover of Homer Erotic’s “King of the Ghosts” has a sun-baked Mediterranean feel, as her keening wail trades riffs with co-producer Ann Klein‘s fuzzed-out guitar. The poetry is like an offspring of Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith, and Wendt’s wrenching delivery squeezes the most out of it.

“Pretty Dark Knight” is a dreamy, Eastern-influenced drone complete with sitar (Klein again). It’s a little like The Doors’ “The End” turned upside down and inside out. An unexpected chord change in the chorus and the crystalline toll of a bell provide all the drama the song needs. The title track is another catchy pop nugget, this time on the Sara McLachlan tip.

The final two songs don’t do much for me, but the opening lines of “Weightless With Love” do give a good idea of the sharp angles of her language: “I can’t make small talk with words that big/With those big words you used on me.” Sara Wendt is an original talent graced with a lovely voice. This is intelligent, variegated music that is perhaps most easily classified as pop-rock, but shouldn’t be shoehorned into any such category.

Melissa Mulligan, Sparrow

Hit machine Melissa Mulligan is back with a new EP featuring her new killer track, the hard-rocking “Objectify Me,” a tongue-in-cheek take on the objectification of women. “I’m getting bored as heck/With all your damn respect/When’s this friendship gonna end?” The rollicking closer, “Laughing (I Dare You)” is a similarly slanted take on love games, all of two minutes and eleven seconds long. In between, Mulligan’s more reflective side appears in the pretty “Nashville,” while the soul-rock churner “Walk Out” shows off her strong Janis Joplin influence. It’s a good song, and more to point, it’s just the kind of thing Janis would have turned into a showstopper; Mulligan stays true to that mode with spirited vocal pyrotechnics. All that it’s missing is the Kozmic Blues horn section.

Todd Martin, Time For Good

There’s a big market for guys like Todd Martin. You hear them on the radio one after another: gentle-voiced, unthreatening balladeers with a sensitive catch in their voice and a touch of rock in their arrangements. But their songs too often have limp melodies and cliche-ridden lyrics.

Martin manages to rise above the sad stereotype at certain points on his new CD. His sweet voice, half Freedy Johnston and half Michael Stipe, is a well-tuned and emotional instrument that gives a soothing quality to the choruses of “Punchline” and “Midas to Minus.” And there are other likeable bits and pieces, like the killer opening riff of “Save Myself” and the dramatic, wall-of-sound build in “This Life.” But on the whole, the earnest vocals, artful production and ace backing band can’t inject enough personality into these unremarkable songs.

Available here.

Like her stage persona, Danielle Howle’s music is authentic and quirky at the same time. Stylistically, she travels to and fro. But with a cock-eyed worldview and a voice that drips with irony, she uses the American songwriter’s standard bag of tools and tricks to blaze, and when necessary cut, her own path.

Her new CD opens with the irresistible “Roses from Leroy’s,” which has an 80s pop-rock vibe. But then suddenly she’s evoking Patsy Cline – and pretty darned well at that – with “I’ll Be Blue.” “Fields of Cotton” has a traditional folk flavor, while “Oh Swear” swings with horns. Produced by Hootie and the Blowfish’s Mark Bryan, the CD also features a wonderful duet with Hootie singer Darius Rucker on the Etta James/Harvey Fuqua classic “If I Can’t Have You” (admittedly, this is a song that would have been tough to screw up).

Howle is a kick-ass live performer, but her unapologetically inexpert vocals may take a little getting used to on record. Yet listen to the ballad “This Kind of Light” and you’ll hear something of the heartwrenching sugar of Bonnie Raitt and a bit of the raw boniness of PJ Harvey combining into a unique and powerful voice – and I don’t mean just the literal voice, but also the figurative “voice” of the storyteller or fiction writer. It’s the storytelling, even more than the delivery, that makes these songs work as well as they do.

“Walking Through the Black,” in spite of not having a super-strong hook, has a soulful force and builds to a big climax, while the torchy “Love is a Fall” is a fine example of Howle’s skill with melody. “Who Knows” shows off the humorous side that’s so evident at her live shows. In fact every song here has a feel that’s quite different from all the others. The CD is charming and never boring. Fans will be pleased, and new fans should be made.

Well, it finally happened: an Indie Round-Up where not one of the CDs under review – there are four this week – is available with cover art at Amazon. That means, for those of you reading this on Blogcritics, which is probably 99% of you, an unreferenced CD will be pictured at the head of this article. However, far from being a random pick, the CD pictured has been selected for you using our patented Bagel&Rat Recommendation Engine. So you, yes you, will be sure to enjoy it.

Oh, and for those of you reading this at my own blog, The Bagel and the Rat: Hi, Mom!

Now on to this week’s new stuff:

ANN KLEIN, My Own Backyard

Every so often the busy New York City guitar-slinger Ann Klein releases a CD of her own work. Her recent My Own Backyard is the sweetest and smoothest yet.

The opening track, “Hank Williams,” is a delicious rootsy rocker that reminds me a tiny bit of one of my all-time favorite guitar songs, the Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman.” The bouncy “All That I Had Missed” establishes the CD’s Americana focus as well as Klein’s mastery of country guitar feeling and technique – she plays the regular six-string, the lap steel, the mandolin and the dobro (as well as the bass), all on this one song.

The title track is a beautiful little ballad co-written with Tim Hatfield, who also mixed and co-produced the album.

Klein’s expressive but small voice has been skilfully recorded and set in the mix so that it punches through, and the songs are well crafted, especially those noted above and the juicy Mary Chapin Carpenter-style twang-rocker “You Can Be My Rainy Day.” But Klein’s guitar work is the star; the CD would be a pleasure to hear on the strength of that alone.

In some songs, the whole doesn’t equal the sum of the parts – “Part of the Game” and “There’s a Storm Comin’,” for example, are full of charm and flowing guitars, but have somewhat wilted hooks. Inspired bits like the solo in “Go Back to Chattanooga” and the sparkling harmonies on the chorus of “Love Is Standing By” keep the second half of the CD from losing steam, however.

Good stuff here, on several levels.

Available at CD Baby here.

CONTROLLING THE FAMOUS, Automatic City

With their gloomy alt-rock lyrics dressed in shiny power-pop duds, Controlling the Famous sounds more like a cleaned-up Clash than like most of the new rock bands on the scene. With U2-influenced guitar drills and ska-leaning beats, the songs motor through your brain like fast cars speeding along Big Sur.

The straight-up, vibrato-free vocals remind one of Dave Grohl, and although these boys can’t quite match the Foo Fighers’ melodic prowess (few bands can), their best songs are a cut above the norm, in particular the clever, punchy opener “Detox,” the passionate, midtempo “Heart Attack,” the intense “Highway Parking Lot,” and the catchy “Two Sides” which seems like a snappy answer to the No Doubt hit “Hey Baby.”

Automatic City will be available in stores May 16. Meanwhile, you can listen to “Two Sides” at the band’s Myspace page.

JOE ROHAN, These Days

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a dose of good old heartland rock. Cleveland’s Joe Rohan is like a more honey-voiced John Mellencamp with a supple falsetto added. Sharp production makes a polished place-setting for Rohan’s strong tenor voice, and the arrangements feature just enough keyboard licks and crisp funkiness to suggest a blue-eyed, countrified kind of soul – the smooth-as-silk “Cold Winter Day” in particular suggests Lyle Lovett.

The fabulous opener, “Desert Love,” could be a radio hit, and “Lovestruck Romeo” is a good, bluesy number. Rohan’s expert acoustic guitar work is featured on the sweet “James Dean,” but as a song, it, like most of the remainder, is just average, composed of really nice parts but too often (as in “Angeline” and “Pair of Horses”) relying too heavily on melodic cliches. These songs cry out for big hooks that don’t come.

Still, the best tracks on here are excellent indeed. And Rohan includes a frantic, Bad Company-style cover of “Ring of Fire” that’s maybe worth the price of admission all by itself. Finally, stay till the end for the lovely, evocative guitar instrumental called “The Moon.”

KEVIN SO, The Brooklyn Sessions EP

While he works on a new full-length CD, the prolific Kevin So is giving his fans something to tide them over with this low-budget but slick-sounding EP. Four good Kevin So songs are worth more than an hour of music from most artists, and these tracks represent some of his best, maybe even a new peak in his career.

Since his move to New York about three years ago, So has evolved from a hardworking, top-notch folkie to a jazzy neo-soul genius. If he didn’t have an Asian face, would Kevin So be where John Legend is now? Quite possibly. Are Western audiences ready for a literate and sophisticated, but mainstream and accessible, Chinese-American R&B singer-songwriter-guitarist-keyboardist with mesmerizing stage presence, brilliant songs, and godlike cheekbones? If it ain’t, it sure as hell should be.

These new tracks will soon be available online. Until then: Kevin So’s last studio album, a two-disc set, is available here, and his even more recent double live album here.

In two senses, it’s pretty hard to believe that Alligator Records, the formerly upstart blues label out of Chicago, has been around for 35 years.

First, Alligator seems – at least to a fortysomething like myself – to have always been with us. What, only 35? Not as old as the blues itself? Not…forever?

And second, it’s remarkable when any independent label survives this long, no matter what its mission. Alligator has done it with a two-pronged strategy: scout and sign new talent, while also picking up seasoned, even legendary artists who, for reasons ranging from fickle audiences to personal demons, have fallen out of the spotlight (at least in the US, the birthplace of the blues) and are due for comebacks.

To celebrate the longevity and devotion that have made Alligator the world’s most successful modern blues label, it has just put out a two-CD collection spotlighting its three and a half decades of releasing some of the best blues (and, occasionally, blues-ish) music money can buy. Founder Bruce Iglauer and his team selected one track from each of 35 artists’ first releases for the label, ranging from Hound Dog Taylor’s Howlin’ Wolf-style, elemental electric blues to Son Seals’s minor-key funked-up variety; from Koko Taylor’s 1975 comeback to Charlie Musselwhite’s in 1990; from Professor Longhair’s last recording in 1980 to the teenage Shemekia Copeland’s first in 1998.

Alligator seems to have been along for almost every musical journey the blues has taken contemporary fans. From Buddy Guy and James Cotton to Johnny Winter and Lonnie Mack, the list of world-famous artists who have recorded for the label goes on and on. It released Corey Harris when he was starting out as a country-blues revivalist, Elvin Bishop when he returned to his blues roots, and Mavis Staples when she sought to bring her soulful gospel message to the public after 9/11. Guitar heroes, fiery belters, harmonica masters, and even C. J. Chenier’s Zydeco have found a home on Alligator, and we’re all the better for it.

You’d be hard put to find a better companion for the second semester of your Blues 101 survey course, should you happen to be teaching one. (You’d need to go elsewhere for the early country styles and other traditional forms with which the blues began.) Alligator has wisely stuck a single-CD price on this chronologically ordered two-disc set, making it but a small investment for those (like most of us) whose music budget makes us hesitate to buy a compilation rather than seeking out just those artists we already know we like the very best. There’s not a dud on here; in spite of the subgenre-hopping, it’s a pleasurable listen straight through. Pick it up if you enjoy but are only glancingly familiar with the blues, or get it for a youngster you know – you might just light a fire under someone that won’t ever be put out.

I just scored myself some tickets to Cate Blanchett in Hedda Gabler at BAM, so I’m in a great mood. Let’s just get started, then. I’ve got three good indie CDs to tell you about this week.

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The Beautiful Girls, We’re Already Gone

Perhaps one of the best eclectic acts to come along since Beck, The Beautiful Girls are at home with dub, reggae, blues-rock, lo-fi pop and roots. It isn’t the individual songs but the sum total that makes this Australian band so interesting and potentially important. Guitarist and principal songwriter Mat McHugh sings with wry circumspection, and there’s no fancy production; the songs are arranged and played with elemental rather than mechanical precision, like basic reggae. When the sound gets big, as in the rave-up at the end of “The Biggest Lie I Ever Told,” the effect is mighty; throughout, the band skilfully employs layering and dynamics to get the most possible impact from simple forms.

Plus you can dance to it.

Despite the band’s somewhat self-consciously modern sound, there’s very little “how cool are we!” attitude; these guys have internalized many styles, but their synthesis seems to come very naturally. End result: subtle, twenty-first-century eclectic-pop gold.

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Leah-Carla Gordone, Dancing On The Dragon

Leah-Carla Gordone has matured appreciably since her last album, Butterfly Child. Stylistically, her r&b-flavored folk-rock puts one in mind of Melissa Etheridge (minus the off-key singing) crossed with Gwen Stefani (minus the pandering to the male libido). But Gordone holds forth in a husky baritone like Nina Simone’s, backed up with her own acoustic and twelve-string guitars and some highly funky support musicians, notably Mike Unger on electric guitar, violinist Yiling Tien, and a crack rhythm section.

No longer dependent on peace-and-love homilies, Gordone’s lyrics mingle hopeful idealism (“Can we get it back to how it used to be/When everything was pure and free”) with relationship realpolitik: “When you open up and let someone in/It’s like peeling back a layer of your skin/And it hurts at first but then you grow to like it/That is when the tragedy begins.” Melodies flow, harmonies soar, and choruses glitter. Gordone remains an earnest, serious and consciously inspirational singer-songwriter, but the style and art of her songs, and her production of them, now make a fine match with her lyrical themes, with hooks that are organic to the songs and also strong in pop sensibility: “This Moment,” “Get It Back,” and “The Dragon” are especially good examples of Gordone’s ability to come up with tunes both meaningful and catchy.

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Melineh Kurdian, From Where You Are

Folk-rocker Melineh Kurdian takes inspiration from the Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco as well as the traditions of American roots music. Nothing unusual there; umpteen folk-rockers meet that description. What sets Kurdian apart is the sheer beauty of her songs and of the voice that brings them to life, a voice with a measure of Patty Griffin’s ability to wrench the heart. “Santa Maria” almost knocks you over with loveliness; “Devil’s Child” is a poignant, almost achingly generous response to intolerance.

On the technical side, Kurdian’s own superior guitar skills seem to have inspired the supporting musicians – including lead guitarists Rob Endicott (a name new to me) and Ann Klein (who’s played with just about everyone) to excellent work.

Klein’s leads fire up “Cowgirl Love Song,” whose lyrics neatly capture life’s biggest dilemma with a musical metaphor: “That’s a tough chord, that’s a hard question to play/That’s a lot of love that you shove in my direction every day.” “Goddamn n’ Just Do” is a muscular take on the “Hit the Road, Jack” theme: “I am the unexpected man that can, I am a wild woman you don’t know could/I am what you could and should but won’t ’cause you won’t follow through… So, pack your heartache, put away your bellyache/Goddamn and Just Do.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, [insert teenage pop moppet here].

What Kurdian doesn’t have are big hooks. That’s no fatal flaw in music with this rare combination of airy beauty and earthy grace, but it’s the one thing (other than dumb luck and the unfairness of the world) that could keep Kurdian from reaching the level of folk-rock royalty like the Indigo Girls and Shawn Colvin.

Catch her at Invasion of the GoGirls at South by Southwest in March. Buy the CD at CD Baby here.

Jessi Colter released her first solo album in 1970, shortly after her marriage to Waylon Jennings, but except for a couple of children’s releases, she hasn’t been heard from in over two decades. Yet her new Don Was-produced CD is every bit as vital as her early self-penned successes, like “Storms Never Last” and the 1975 hit “I’m Not Lisa.”

As the first release after the death of an iconic loved one – Jennings died in 2002 – Out of the Ashes bears comparison to Roseanne Cash’s powerful and elegiac Black Cadillac, but Colter’s voice, though supple, bears the honorable stamp of age and weather. In the hypnotic title track, which alone is worth the price of the CD, Colter’s voice fades in and out among fussy piano arpeggios – typical of the casual, slightly messy production. She does the same thing in the Patsy Cline-like “You Took Me By Surprise,” keeping her voice low, J.J. Cale style, among the rocking piano chords, forcing the listener to lean in to hear. The song’s mix of old-style Country & Western with turn-of-the-21st-century alt-country (cf. the Be Good Tanyas) shows us two things: there’s nothing new under the sun, and the sun should shine brightly on Jessi Colter’s comeback.

The elder Jennings’s voice (son Shooter also appears on the CD) emerges from the past on a duet of the Tony Joe White classic “Out of the Rain.” This slightly off-kilter but moving treatment can stand proudly with those by Joe Cocker and Etta James. The gentle, artsy “So Many Things” is a small glowing treasure. Colter gets down and bluesy in “You Can Pick ‘Em” and “Velvet & Steel,” devotional in the opening and closing hymns, playful in her cover of Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” and back to country music basics with “Never Got Over You,” a duet co-written with Ray Herndon. The CD is a consistently sparkling constellation of American roots music.

With Rosanne Cash’s latest, knowing the backstory is an aid to appreciating the music. But Jessi Colter’s new CD, though it has a melancholy tone that suggests loss, demands no knowledge of specific lives. Its pure, raw, deeply human music is full of sweetness but entirely saccharine-free.

Our new Whisperado EP, Some Other Place, has received a couple of really nice mentions in the blogosphere. [Is that still what it’s called? The blogosphere? I often find myself fallen several days, weeks even, behind the times in virtual circles. Must be all the time I spend reading those old-fashioned “books.”]

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“The musicianship is excellent and varied and the songwriting solid. It doesn’t waste time with homage to the American roots music tradition. It just goes about adding to it. ‘Some Other Place’ is the kind of song Greg Brown might write if he weren’t annoying as shit.” – Jim Henley (Read the whole review here.)

[Note: opinions expressed are those of the writer quoted, not of Bagel & Rat. We think Greg Brown has a great voice, and we like his song “Your Town Now,” but, as we don’t know his music very well otherwise, we have no opinion or knowledge of his qualities, annoying or pleasant.]

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“I could mention here, again, that it rocks. Or that the song “Black and Blue” works equally well whether or not you take the ass-kicking metaphorically. Or that if I were writing a story and wanted a great name and location for an indie-rock record label, I only wish I could come up with something as good as ‘Bagel & Rat Records’ on Flatbush Avenue.

“But I’ll skip all that and just tell you to get yourself a copy and hear for yourself.” – Slacktivist

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So, if you ain’t got your copy yet, what are you waiting for?

My band, Whisperado, has released its first recording, the six-song EP Some Other Place.
Read all about it – and buy it via Paypal – here.

(It will also be available shortly at CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon.)

Grand thanks to all who came to celebrate at our CD release party last night!

Here are the top ten things I learned from attending Rosanne Cash’s CD release party in NYC last night and then listening to the new CD:

10. The major labels may be hurting for cash, but not for Rosanne Cash. For her, only real, velvety-crimson roses will do.

9. For sheer songwriting excellence, I’m still partial to 1996’s 10 Song Demo, but as an integral work, the new CD is Cash’s best to date. Dense with emotion, it’s about mortality and loss, but not morbid, and mercifully free of facile invocations of faith. (God may be “in the roses/the petals and the thorns” but “It’s a strange new world we live in/Where the church leads you to hell.”)

8. Despite the heavy doses of contemplation and brooding in the new songs, Cash still rocks. Witness the taut title track, the smooth, chocolately rockabilly of “Radio Operator,” and the angst-ridden “Dreams Are Not My Home.”

7. For the musicians out there: Cash’s flair for minor keys is as forceful as ever; so is her trick of ending a phrase with the dramatic two-chord instead of the more usual five-chord.

6. Cash’s honeyed, heartbreaking alto can loosen up even a room full of jaded music-industry insiders. On stage she’s magnetic and glowing.

5. One can’t help but admire the grace and humility with which she accepts and uses both the talent she inherited and the long shadow that comes with it.

4. Even in the hyper-selfconscious 21st century, a “concept album” can be a good idea. Black Cadillac is perhaps more accurately described as a theme album. The songs stand alone but all are auto- or superautobiographical, dealing with present feeling and with history of past generations both known and only known of. The beautiful “House On The Lake” is a crystal-clear paean to simpler times, perhaps of childhood; “Radio Operator” evokes Johnny Cash’s life during wartime; and “Good Intent” concerns the arrival in America of the singer’s ancestors centuries ago.

3. Trying to separate the work from the life is, in this case, futile and unnecessary. These songs speak to the deep and conflicting feelings about family and loss that are part of the universal human condition. Knowing they’re inspired by people whose lives belonged more to the world than to their own families makes them, if anything, more touching and powerful.

2. I like gin.

1. And the number one thing I learned from Rosanne Cash’s CD release party:

Even a musical royal gets nervous when her voice coach is in the audience.