Category: Music

I get a lot of CDs to review. Many, many CDs.

I mean, really, really a lot of CDs. Piles and piles. Rafts of them. Oodles. Myriads. Hosts.

Did I mention that I get a lot of CDs to review? Well, I do – a lot more than I could possibly give a careful listen to, much less write about. Yet I like to give everything a chance. What to do?

Like many people who work for a living, I have certain tasks that require total concentration, and others whose tedium is ameliorated by background music. So what I often do is throw CDs into my computer while I'm doing the latter kind of work, and see if something jumps out at me in the first couple of songs. If the music can catch my attention at low volume while I'm focused on something else, I figure the disc's worth a careful listen at home later. Usually the test works well.

But it wouldn't have worked for Johnny Irion's new disc, Ex Tempore. This CD is a very subtle set of songs. Fortunately, I'd heard a little about the artist before, through his work with Sarah Lee Guthrie, so I advanced the CD to my serious listening pile even though it hadn't passed the background-music test. The couple of splash moments I'd heard – a Beatles reference here ("Madrid"), a modestly catchy chorus there ("Roman Candle," "Eyes Like a Levee") – hadn't done the trick.

The danger in my method is that I might miss something with a new and original sound that requires close attention in order to "get" what it's about. And what makes Irion's CD special is that it has a new and original sound. Sure, it has influences and recognizable elements: folk-pop, glam rock, blue-eyed soul, Sonny Bono, The Band, and most directly, Neil Young in his wispy-voiced acoustic mode. But taken as a whole, it sounds like nothing else I've heard – a rare and welcome thing.

Irion serves up his topsy-turvy slices of life with grainy, unexpected lyrics and warmly rootsy but slightly off-kilter arrangements. People find their way through life: "I get a good cry every morning/Cuttin' up other people's onions/It's a good way and a good excuse/To let it all out." They philosophize, celebrate, and bemoan: "Casting my net a little wider every day/Somehow the big one always slips away."

But there's much more to it than evocative lyrics. Unlike 99% of pop music, these songs do unexpected things, both sonically and structurally. Imagination dominates. Irion speaks the pop language without using pop formulas. And it all falls together.

Glad I didn't let this one slip away. Listen up at his Myspace page

Anthony Robustelli, Another Fatal Blow

Cross Steely Dan with Stevie Wonder, add some Rufus and a little Randy Newman, and you'll have Anthony Robustelli's new CD. Reveling in its 1970s antecedents in spite of its digital-clean, 21st century home-studio timbre, the music bops and shivers like the best classic jazz-funk, decorated with hints of modern beats and samples.

Robustelli often records his vocals at a relatively low level, increasing the emphasis on his beats, keyboards, and icy electric guitar accents. (He plays most of the instruments himself). The quirky mixing sometimes gives me pause. It's got its own internal logic, I'm sure, but I can't always keep up with it. However, that's a pretty esoteric quibble about a very enjoyable album of well-crafted songs and tasty playing.

Highlights include the catchy "Half a Chance," the swinging, expressionistic "Charismatic Superman," and the soulful ballad "How Do You Say Goodbye," which seems to channel Leon Russell. An easygoing Southern soul vibe makes "Another Rant" a winner, and a brilliant sax solo by Deji Coker helps flesh out the sixteen-minute epic "And When We Tell You."

Listen here, and if you're in the New York area catch him at Biscuit BBQ on October 5. Live, the Robustelli band seriously smokes.

Various Artists, Americana

A few months back I had the opportunity to review Putumayo World Music's Women of the World Acoustic compilation. Now comes their Americana disc, wrapped in the label's usual beautiful packaging, and compiled with care to present some of the most representative artists and songs in the Americana genre. "From Austin to Asheville," reads the back-cover copy, "contemporary singer-songwriters explore America's rural musical roots." True that.

The disc opens with the brisk "Down the Mountain" by the chirpy RobinElla, and proceeds through a batch of woody, non-threatening tunes from the likes of Mulehead, the Little Willies (the Norah Jones-Richard Julian project), and Robert Earl Keen, whose settle-in-and-take-a-nice-bath voice is always welcome. Newcomer Eliza Lynn introduces a jazzy element with the bland "Sing a New Song," and then Old Crow Medicine Show picks up the pace with their sparkly-eyed, high-lonesome, absurdly catchy "Wagon Wheel," from their self-titled debut – which, incidentally, is one of the very few Americana CDs your humble correspondent has actually shelled out money for in the past couple of years. (In case that means anything to you.)

Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez's danceable "Sweet Tequila Blues" makes you feel like you're at a barn dance. Taylor, the legendary songwriter of "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning," is enjoying a rejuvenated career as part of this duo.

An exception to the album's theme of original songs in old-fashioned styles is new grass legend Tim O'Brien's stubbornly, and refreshingly, traditional arrangement of "House of the Rising Son." Alison Brown's gently virtuosic instrumental "Deep Gap" leads into the gospel-like and utterly charming "Prayer For My Friends" by Terri Hendrix, which is that rarity, a song about praying that doesn't annoy me.

I don't get Josh Ritter's appeal, but he's popular and he's here. Ruthie Foster – whose CD Runaway Soul I also bought with my own money – closes the disc. Foster can teach us all a thing or two about injecting soul into an acoustic arrangement.

The abiding impression one gets from this CD is "pretty, but safe." Nothing wrong with that – the collection is very pleasant and does what it sets out to do. If you don't listen to this kind of music much, it could certainly turn you on to some fine artists.

Shea Breaux Wells, Piece of the Light

Shea Breaux Wells mixes up torchy jazz and contemporary piano pop, but she seems more inspired, both as a singer and a songwriter, in the former language. Her strength as a vocalist is in the fine points of melodic movement called for by jazz chords; her voice doesn't have the bright colors needed for pop, and the songs she writes in the latter style are tame and prone to prosaic, new-agey lyrics. The pulsing "The Keeper" is something of an exception.

I would have enjoyed a whole album of the jazzier songs like "Soothe Me," "Finest of Lies," her snaky version of "Always Something There to Remind Me," and her re-imagining of the Beatles' "Blackbird," in which her velvety voice cushions an exciting piano solo from Noam Lemish.

Listen at her website or at CD Baby.

The Pretty Things, Balboa Island

In my last column I time-shifted back 35 years to talk about a new CD of old music by John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas. This week I’ve got a CD of brand new music from a band that goes back even further.

At the opposite end of the pop music spectrum from Papa John’s shimmery harmonies lie The Pretty Things. 43 years after its first recording, the band that made the Rolling Stones look like polite gentlemen is going strong (if sporadically), and their new album – the first in eight years – sounds far more vital than anything their fellow survivors, the Stones and the Who – bless ’em both – could ever record this late in their careers.

Probably no artist as astronomically successful as those bands could remain this real. The Stones and the Who stretched and polished their musical horizons over the decades. The Pretty Things were never about polish. They were about the beast that scratches your face and gives you an infection, then stomps on your foot for good measure. Yet there’s a simple, aching beauty to some of the new songs.

Lead singer Phil May, guitarist Dick Taylor (the Stones’ original bass player), and their bandmates enjoyed a period of great popularity in the mid-60s in Britain, though their success didn’t cross over to the US. The songs they crafted then were good, but they’re better writers now. Some of the credit for that goes to Frank Holland, a relatively late addition to the band. Meanwhile May’s voice, always effective, has deepened and strengthened with age.

Perhaps the Pretty Things never had the pop songwriting genius of Pete Townshend or Jagger-Richard. They didn’t channel their raw energy into the kind of tunes that could transcend their time, penetrate and become part of the collective soul. Instead the Things built attitude into art, years before the punk revolution made fuck-you rebelliousness mainstream. They were a little too nasty even for those relatively enlightened cultural gatekeepers who welcomed the Stones as a raunchy alternative to the clean-cut Beatles. Laboring in obscurity, they’ve stayed true to their vision.

The band has retained a cult following over the years. The new CD should please those fans and also create some new ones, provided it gets a chance to be heard. Its British Invasion-style, blues-influenced pop songs aren’t prettied up for a pop audience. Parts of the CD are breathtakingly raw, like “All Light Up” and the rave-up towards the end of the epic “(Blues for) Robert Johnson.” The elemental rock anthem “Buried Alive” sounds like a lost collaboration between Cream and T. Rex, the cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of Hollis Brown” suits the band fine, and “Freedom Song” wallows in its Fats-Domino-in-Hell piano triplets like a pig in murky water. Set off against those are a handful of lighter pop nuggets like “Mimi” and “Pretty Beat.”

The Pretty Things weren’t for everybody back in 1964, and they’re not for everybody now. But they’re still exactly who they are. It’s quite remarkable.

Listen to extended clips here and download “All Light Up” (an amazing beast of a song) here.

Larry Bagby, On the Radio (EP)

Larry Bagby’s plaintive voice and melodic, heartland-country songs have a polished sound but a rootsy, almost archaic appeal. The hero of the intense title track is a musician playing small bars, dreaming of making it big and getting played on the radio (a primitive music distribution system popular in the 20th century). The acoustically funky “Done Giving Love” rocks unselfconsciously, like music used to do before everything became ironic, and “Player with a Heart” does right by its old-timey rockabilly feel.

“Counting My Lucky Stars” is an old-fashioned love song with imagistic lyrics and a lovely melody. The other two ballads are forgettably prosaic and could have been culled. But this an EP worth checking out if you’re a fan of rootsy, Dixie-fried, acoustic-based country rock. If nothing else, it proves that Larry Bagby is a lot more than the bully from Buffy.

Listen to tracks from On the Radio here.

Jenn Franklin, Errors & Omissions (EP)

Jenn Franklin’s assured debut is getting a fresh release this Fall. There’s a savage honesty in her piano-driven songs and poetic lyrics (“Broken compass, we just never knew/When north became south became lost”) that make them stand out despite the straightforward pop-rock forms in which she and producer Peter Overton work. The disc feels more like a a brief, pointed album than an EP. Its six songs stretch for 26 minutes, after all – longer than a typical LP when the Pretty Things were starting out!

Although Franklin is a piano player and a good one, her sound is more Evanescence than Vanessa Carlton, more Alannah Myles (especially in “Mercy”) than Tori Amos – though “Impasse 900” does bring to mind the latter’s hit “Cornflake Girl.” Her voice is captured with a slightly distancing effect that reminds me of the way female vocals were recorded in the problematic 80s, but that’s a minor quibble.

The opening song, “What Took You So Long,” rocks the hardest but, overloaded with crunching guitar tracks, it feels the least honest. “Impasse 900,” on the other hand, successfully snaked into my veins. My favorite is the intensely dramatic ballad “Fade,” while “No Mercy” and the lovely “Cozumel” are fully juiced with blood and guts.

Listen or purchase at her website. Or listen to some full tracks at her Myspace page.

I’m devoting much of this week’s column to a noteworthy release of 35-year-old material. It’s worth it.

John Phillips, Jack of Diamonds

“Papa” John Phillips (RIP) was best known for his work with The Mamas and the Papas, but his creativity went well beyond that. Last year, Varese Sarabande re-released Phillip’s only solo album, 1970’s John, the Wolfking of L.A. Now comes the second in their “Papa John Phillips Presents” series.

Jack of Diamonds collects songs he wrote for a second solo LP which never saw the light of day (although the songs “Revolution on Vacation” and “Cup of Tea,” included in different versions here, were released as a single in 1972).

Phillips’s writing and arranging typically combined soulful sophistication with the anything-is-possible musical ethos of the late 1960s and early 1970s. There was always an element of wistful disillusion (and emotional dissolution) in his music, and I’d argue that it’s that sad tinge that made the beautiful choral songs of The Mamas and the Papas into the timeless classics they’ve become. But Phillips’s work outside the confines of the band extended into much more varied musical territory.

“Revolution on Vacation” and “Cup of Tea” lean towards the country-western sound of Wolfking, and the easygoing groove of “Campy California” feels like a lazy sunny day. But “Devil’s on the Loose,” “Mister Blue,” and “Black Broadway” feel much more like the urban soul of the time, with smoky sax, wah-wah guitar, and groovy electric piano. (Heavy hitters like Joe Sample and Van Dyke Parks contributed.) In fact, Phillip’s vocals on the latter two songs betray a heavy Lou Reed influence. The three songs contrast startlingly with what one might expect from the composer of “California Dreamin'” and “Kokomo.” We’re clearly on the gritty streets of New York City. Even “Marooned,” a sad song set on the beach, is subtitled “Double Parked,” while “Chinatown” and “Too Bad” have a jazz-rock flavor that reflects urban cool as well.

There are two versions of “Me and My Uncle,” a song made famous by the Grateful Dead, and – speaking of space – a couple of shimmery tracks inspired by the 1969 moon landing. They’re not brilliant pop like “Space Oddity” or “Rocket Man” but they fit in nicely on the CD, which has been put together very smartly – it’s a good listen straight through. For most of its length one could imagine it had been released in this form back in ’73 to critical acclaim. Even the two songs from the Brewster McCloud soundtrack – the only previously released material on the CD – sound like part of the same continuum. The only songs that really don’t are the two unreleased Mamas and the Papas tracks, recorded for the group’s final album, the one their record company forced them to make after the band had already split up. They sound like sad codas to the career of a great band.

Phillips continued working productively for decades after the triumphs of The Mamas and the Papas and Monterey. His work certainly deserves the attention Varese is giving it in this series. The sound has been restored and mastered just right – crisp but not icy, it could almost be coming off of vinyl.

Listen to unsatisfying 30-second clips here.

Stratospheerius, Headspace

There’s so much going on on this CD that it could merit an “Indie Round-Up” column all on its own. Stratospheerius’s music can’t be pegged to one genre, but neither is it a simple hybrid of a couple of styles. For that reason, it’s exciting stuff.

Jazz fusion, Stingpop, progressive rock, classical strains, and jam-band spaceouts take turns running through the ten songs on this, the band’s fourth album. Leader Joe Deninzon’s devilish violin weaves the compositions together, and he lends his throaty vocals to some of the tunes, layering attractive melodies over odd time signatures and dynamic, unpredictable arrangements. Think of a much more adventurous version of the Dave Matthews Band, add Steely Dan precision and prog-rock inventiveness, and you’ll get an inkling. There’s also a Police influence that would be quite evident even without the revved-up cover of “Driven to Tears.” The crack musicians deserve mention individually: drummer Luciana Padmore, bassist Bob Bowen, and guitarist Mack Price.

These songs really do sidestep genre, yet one foot remains in accessible pop territory. “New Material” opens with a Celtic jam that flames into a lightspeed funk-rocker. The song is a funny take on creative inspiration and writer’s block: “I need a death threat deadline panic attack/I need a big bolt of lightning to strike me in the ass/Where’s my material/I need new material.” “Mental Floss” is an exciting odd-time instrumental jam, while “Gutterpunk Blues” begins with a delicate-punk (a new term I just made up) mandolin solo (Deninzon again) which leads into crashing heavy-metal riffage and then devolves into wild electric guitar and drum soloing. The jazz fusion elements come to the fore in the slower instrumental “Yulia,” while the pumped-up klezmer of “Heavy Shtettle Part II: Heavier Shtettle” closes the CD with a blast of technical prowess and ear-candy fun.

An interesting and spirited journey into outrageous creativity, this CD is highly recommended for anyone with an adventurous ear, including fans of fusion, progressive rock, the Police, the Kronos Quartet’s pop experiments and collaborations, and fiery fiddling. Sample the music at the Stratospheerius website and their Myspace page, and read a good interview with Joe Deninzon.

Tim Mahoney, Stay/Leave

Tim Mahoney seems totally comfortable with his talent, not needing to break molds or reinvent things. His new CD has a couple too many songs, but a whole bunch of it is sparkling, radio-friendly pop-rock.

Hmm, “radio-friendly” – does anyone discover new music on the radio anymore? I don’t think so. What, then, is the fate of sunny pop music, even finely crafted sunny pop music like this? Maybe I’m jaded from living on the East Coast. Maybe in some places people still do get their music from mainstream radio. I might be just an out-of-touch windbag. Probably am.

Anyway, because he is an indie, Tim Mahoney mostly gets left out of the bleeding stump of the commercial radio scene (though a couple of stations have spun a track or two). And without that, how do “hit-worthy” songs become hits? It’s a tough one, kids. Is it just me, or are there fewer hit songs these days, even as we have more and more music to choose from?

Nonetheless, jaded readers, there are still places you can hear about good stuff, such as the new, ear-tickling, wiry but honeyed pop rooted in McCartney and Squeeze, that Tim Mahoney serves up. And one of those places is here at the Indie Round-Up. And here it is, so go listen. Mahoney’s home website is a slow loader, so check him out at
his Myspace page. You probably won’t be sorry, and if you are, well, how much did you pay to read this review? Give me a break.

Lez Zeppelin, Lez Zeppelin

Lez Zeppelin is just what you’d think: an all-female Led Zeppelin cover band. As gimmicks go, it’s not a bad one. Known for an energetic live show, the band has now put out its first CD, produced by legendary engineer and frequent Zep helmsman Eddie Kramer. The disc has six Zeppelin classics, plus two original instrumentals that evoke the Zeppelin style, one a riff-rocker, the other an acoustic trip featuring bassist Lisa Brigantino on mandolin.

The band consists of Brigantino, drummer Helen Destroy, guitarist Steph Paynes, and singer Sarah McLellan. McLellan’s got that Ann Wilson-style high belt that a female singer who wants to channel Robert Plant needs, and the band crunches out the hard rock riffage with the best of them. No one can say they don’t know, technically, how to play “Communication Breakdown” and “Rock N’ Roll.”

There is, however, a sterile quality to the recording. The parts are all there, but the drums sound hollow, the guitars too shiny and perfectly balanced. I’m no audio engineer, but I can recognize when a studio recording just sounds, somehow, “cold.” So the CD works better as an advertisement to go see the band than as a self-contained listen.

The tracks that succeed best, sound-wise, are “Winter Sun,” an original, and the long songs “Kashmir” and “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” Perhaps because they allow for more open space, these tracks seem to have encouraged the women of Lez Zeppelin to put more meat on the bones of the music, with McLellan even grafting a little Janis Joplin into her Plant.

Listen at their Myspace page.

Speechless, Time Out of Mind

Speechless makes a moderately complex form of prog-rock that combines a cinematic outlook with a fusion-influenced feel, though heavy, distorted guitars make some notable appearances. Imagine Jethro Tull’s instrumental interludes expanded into full-length mini-suites and performed by Emerson Lake and Palmer plus Steve Howe on guitar, and you might get tracks like “Stella” and “The Big Majestic.” Quieter stuff like “Thank You” suggests Vangelis moonlighting in a smooth-jazz band, with even a hint of Billy Cobham atmospherics, while the triumphal, nearly nine-minute “Vader’s Boogie” closes the CD with a satisfyingly crunchy evocation of Star Wars villainy crossed with classical-influenced scale motifs that made me immediately think of Tull’s Thick as a Brick album. Brain-massaging and accessible, Time Out of Mind is a 50-minute wash of musical good feeling. Who needs a singer?

Listen to some full tracks at their Myspace page; hear extended clips and buy the CD at CD Baby.

New York Electric Piano, Blues in Full Moon

Another set of instrumental yumminess comes out of famous busybody Aaron Comess‘s studio in the Catskills. The Spin Doctors drummer backs up Fender Rhodes whiz Pat Daugherty in this funky, volcanic, supremely interactive jazz trio.

The third member is the excellent bassist Tim Givens, who, as noted on the band’s website, is also the maintenance man for Daugherty’s Rhodes – a highly valuable skill. And because the Fender Rhodes, like the Hammond B-3 organ, is also a monster to cart around, you hear it far less than its unique and versatile musicality deserves. This CD is a good argument for more Rhodes in the world.

Funkiness and thoughtfulness both inform Daugherty’s gentlemanly compositions. The band plays the songs as one, yet the musicians’ personalities – especially Comess’s – remain distinct through the tight opens and closes and the airy but controlled jams. Very nice stuff for those very groovy moods. (You have those very groovy moods sometimes, don’t you?)

Here’s a sample from NYEP’s new disc. Their Myspace page also has some tracks from their earlier releases.

Kim Richey‘s new CD Chinese Boxes straddles the edges of pop. Songs like “Jack and Jill” and the title track almost feel like they came out of the 1970s, with jaunty Bacharach-like beats and happy frills from triangles and trumpets. But the songs on Chinese Boxes are also almost painfully concise. They’re pretty and sweet and emotional but do it all with the economy of a straight-set victory. The waltz ballad “Drift” shines with a gorgeous little melody you can’t blink out of your head when it’s over, which is almost too soon. It’s one of those tunes that sound like they’ve existed since the dawn of humanity.

“The Absence of Your Company” and “Turn Me” nod towards country music, but only in the way Rosanne Cash’s recent work does, which is mostly by fulfilling the old saw that country is music for grownups. Though Richey is known for writing songs for country artists, this CD suggests neither Nashville nor any other place in particular. It’s not that Richey synthesizes different styles into one of her own. It’s that her music is just about as style-free as pop can be. Emotional purity in both songwriting and singing is what makes Chinese Boxes such a superb album.

The chorus of “Turn Me” has a melody that resembles one by Tori Amos, but the red-headed faerie would never write lyrics like “Words don’t matter, you only need to understand/I’m not going anywhere without you.” Richey’s songs are simply about human relationships. Her artistry is in distilling thoughts and feelings and conflicts that in real life are endlessly confounding, into precisely and beautifully wrapped packages of words and music. No fancy bows and ribbons are needed.

“I Will Follow” has a youthful bounce, as if the girl within the woman were coming up for air. “One step forward, two steps back/So funny I forgot to laugh/Lead me down the garden path/And I will follow.” Then the melancholy “Something to Say” shakes you gently with “When I get my head around/What it is that keeps me down/Wouldn’t that be something?” It’s a small, gleaming catharsis, made the more wrenching by ending on an unresolved chord.

Chinese Boxes is going right up on the same shelf of honor in my collection as Rosanne Cash’s Black Cadillac. And with the rocker “Not a Love Like This” we’re back in Cash territory. Richey’s velvety voice here reaches its peak of intensity as the milk chocolate turns into a fancy bar of 70% cocoa. Following that hard-driving climax, Richey gives us “Another Day,” which joins a soulful verse with a Celtic-flavored chorus melody. It works like a lucky charm. And the album closes with the gently shuffling ballad “Pretty Picture,” another dose of satisfying, cathartic sadness.

Giles Martin’s subtle production makes the CD sound good at various volumes. But if you put it on loud, and you’re in a receptive mood, its 32 minutes are almost too much to take. As Richey sings, “On the the tip of your tongue are all the words you never say/Don’t let another day go by.” Grab this.

Oli Rockberger, who will be headlining the opening night of the 2007 Soul of the Blues Festival (curated by yours truly) later this month, played a fine solo set in Brooklyn at Biscuit BBQ last night on the club’s good old Knabe grand piano. Although it’s not the world’s greatest piano, I personally could sit and play it all day, because it’s the kind of piano I grew up with. I always assume piano makes like Knabe must all have gone out of business decades ago. But the Knabe brand, which started in 1837, is still made, though now it’s a part of Samick Musical Instruments, Ltd.

Trivia: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s concert on a Knabe piano officially opened Carnegie Hall.

Oli was followed by a smashing set from Boston’s Sam Hooper and his trio. Sam dazzled with his guitar, and his band (bassist Jordan Scanella and drummer Aine Fujioka) locked in and filled the tiny room with a monster sound. At times it almost felt like Jimi Hendrix was in the room, but Sam mixes rock with blues and soul and funk and pop, and does equal justice to them all.

You can hear some of Sam Hooper’s tracks at his website or his Myspace page.

Tinsley Ellis, Moment of Truth

Tinsley Ellis often draws comparisons to blues and rock guitar legends like Freddie King and Warren Haynes, but when I listen to his heavy-lidded blues-rock I can’t help thinking of Jimi Hendrix and his disciple Stevie Ray Vaughn. I think it’s a combination of the unflashy singing and the stripped-down guitar-bass-drums attack.

Yes, there are some keyboards on Ellis’s new CD, but they’re for decoration. The album is first and foremost about great guitar playing, and only secondarily about the songs, which are solid and structurally straightforward. This is rock-hard no-excuses Southern blues going strong in the new century.

Moment of Truth is the second release of the Atlanta bluesman’s second tenure with Alligator Records. The label’s Bruce Iglauer summed it up when he first heard Ellis’s music in the late 1980s: “It had the power of rock but felt like the blues.” Ellis’s playing has become a little sparer over the years but, if anything, gained a feeling of easy fluidity.

That’s especially evident in some of the new CD’s slower tunes, like “You’re Gonna Thank Me” and the gloomy, minor-key “Too Much of Everything.” But even when he brings out the pyrotechnics, as in “Bringin’ Home the Bacon,” Ellis makes it sound easy. Using the standard blues guitar palette he seems to always manage to have something a little bit new to say with each solo. Like all the best blues guitarists, he gives his instrument a real speaking voice.

Highly recommended for blues and rock-guitar fans, and a good introduction to Tinsley Ellis for those new to his music.

The Alternate Routes, Good and Reckless and True

I first heard the Alternate Routes when one of their songs appeared on a compilation CD with one of mine. The song, “Ordinary,” stopped me on my tracks – I hadn’t heard such a good pop song in a while.

Naturally, when I received the Alternate Routes CD I was worried that the rest of the songs wouldn’t measure up. But it turns out to be a very good CD. “Ordinary,” with its memorable, soaring melody and lyrics, screams “first single” to my ears, but the band is more than one great track. Bursts of power-pop (“Who Cares?”, “Time is a Runaway”) mingle with sophisticated Sting-like ballads (“Hollywood”, “The Black and the White”) and high octane rockers (“Going Home With You,” “Are You Lonely?”). Tying them together are Tim Warren’s clear, bright tenor – like Sting’s voice without the rasp – and the band’s ability to fuse affecting melodies with his graceful lyrics.

Not every song is brilliant, but it’s a relief to know that “Ordinary” isn’t a fluke. “Going Home With You” is crafty and menacing. “Hollywood” has an unexpected chord change that gets you right in the gut. The more generic-sounding “Time is a Runaway” – the actual first single – has a beautifully photographed, skilfully directed but ultimately boring video directed by Lisa Cholodenko, the filmmaker responsible for the awful Laurel Canyon but also the excellent High Art. You can watch the video if you want to see what these guys look like driving around in a van, but the album is the important thing, and it’s a fine achievement.

Highly recommended for adult-alternative audiences, twentysomething hipsters… practically anyone, in fact.

Listen at their Myspace page.

King Wilkie, Low Country Suite

Here’s a CD that really sneaks up on you. The young band King Wilkie earned an “Emerging Artist of the Year” designation from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2004. (The stiff competition that year included Cherryholmes.) Now, still using bluegrass instruments, the Vriginia sextet has recorded a new collection of original songs with maturity and skill. The lyrics aren’t always great, and co-lead vocalist Reid Burgess will probably learn to sing with a little more subtlety. But those are minor flaws. Lovingly produced by Jim Scott, who’s worked with Tom Petty and the Dixie Chicks, the CD sounds like flowers and flows like wine.

Once in a while there’s a tiny bit too much flow, in fact, and the band seems to de-focus, as in “Rockabye.”

Many of the songs, especially those sung by the buttery-voiced John McDonald, are fairly dark. “When the levee broke, nobody was around/You stood by watching when I fell to the ground/There’s no blood on my hands, ’cause I do what I’m told/Want to live a lot longer, now I’m feeling so old,” sings McDonald in the beautiful “Savannah.” The songs that you could call truly fun, like “Angeline” and “Miss Peabody,” are in the distinct minority. But the disc leaves you feeling good simply to have basked in the presence, for 43 minutes, of a superb musical sensibility.

The closing tune, “Captivator,” begins in a sweet and low James Taylor-like mode, then kicks up into a shout-along rave-up that’s sure to bring a smile to your face. Unless a motorcycle just ran over your foot.

Highly recommended for roots music and Americana fans. Hear tracks at the King Wilkie website, and watch a quick “making of” video at Amazon.com. Can these guys be as sweet-natured as they seem in the video? If they are… holy easy chair, Batman! They also have a Myspace page.

Kate Voegele, Don’t Look Away

Speaking of Myspace: now that the site has gone into the record label business, aren’t you curious whom they’ve chosen to sign?

The answer is Kate Voegele, a highly commercial-sounding but refreshingly non-wimpy chanteuse-songwriter out of Cleveland. Her debut CD certainly beats what most of those American Idol alums have had cranked out under their names. The best songs are top-notch, and Marshall Altman’s crystalline production is just inventive enough to keep the ear dancing even through the lesser tunes. There are no real duds anyway. If you appreciate good, youthful pop that a person over 25 – or, say, a Tori Amos or even a Joni Mitchell fan – wouldn’t be embarrassed to be caught listening to, this is a good choice.

Hear full tracks at her Myspace page.

And now, on to some indie EPs that have come my way recently.

The Compulsions, Laughter From Below

The Compulsions make crackling New York City hard rock. Their shimmery-grungy guitars come straight from AC/DC and Keith Richards, their smart-ass sneer from punk bands like the Dictators, their drawling beats from blues-rockers like the Black Crowes. Put it all together and the Compulsions seem to be aiming to fill the empty slot left by Guns N’ Roses.

Their EP rocks hard, and their best songs, like “Down on the Tracks,” “Howlin’ For You,” and the country-ish ballad “My Favorite Wine,” have the kind of ragged simplicity that makes for classics. When their songwriting matures a tiny bit more, they could contend to take over the world – or at least its dirty underside, which is the fun part anyway.

Hear full tracks at their Myspace page.

Guards of Metropolis, Whatever It Is

Is there a void in your musical life where Elastica and Garbage used to reside? Then this half-Norwegian, half-Californian quartet might be the cure for what ails you. The first two songs on Guards of Metropolis’s new four-song EP are slick, happy-angry little elasto-rock gems, and the title track even boasts a light taste of progressive-rock complexity. Its chugging antiwar message goes down easy: “You keep screaming that peace is a reason to fight/You keep praying and saying the future is bright/You keep shovelin’ shovelin’ shovelin’ shite/Under our noses/While telling us that you’re planting roses.” Hmm, who could they be talking about?

I’m not sure what the fast-barreling rocker “Exhole” is about, but it isn’t anything nice. And that’s a good thing.

On the heavier “Perfect World,” snarling singer Kristin Blix switches to a menacing whisper. “It’s a perfect world,” she sings, “and I’m the perfect girl” – daring us to say otherwise. The EP closes with “Have You Found Your Yoko Yet?”, a pretty, Lennon-esque power ballad with a nicely building musical structure.

Guards of Metropolis is a promising band and I look forward to hearing a lot more from them.

Jack Conte, Nightmares and Daydreams

Jack Conte brings pop, art-rock, and classical music influences to bear on this acoustic-electronica EP. Smoothly cerebral with a moody, concentrated energy, these four songs give your brain a wee workout along with your ears. Classy, tasteful stuff.

The Morning Pages, The Company You Keep

This warm, analog-recorded Americana EP comes from a Brooklyn band with a fine philosophy: as singer-songwriter Grant Maxwell notes, there is “a yearning for a more organic music that is emerging in some of the new bands.” Elements of country music, Dylan-style folk-rock, and gospel meet in piano-heavy arrangements that suggest The Band.

But the nasal lead vocals are kind of annoying, and with the exception of the rollicking, minor-key “With the Lord,” the songwriting is on the weak side. The Band, let it be noted, recorded a bunch of foot-draggers as well as their great long-distance runners like “The Weight” and “Up On Cripple Creek.” The Morning Pages need to come up with more of the latter sort.

Stone Coyotes, Dreams of Glory

You need this: another ass-kicking from the Stone Coyotes, a wife-husband-stepson trio that might be making the purest rock of any band working today. Tossing together the straight-ahead power chords of AC/DC, the snarl of the Rolling Stones, and the juicy storytelling of country music, the veteran singer, songwriter, and guitarist Barbara Keith hasn’t lost an ounce of her grit and cred. Doug Tibbles bashes the drums like a man possessed, while son John Tibbles solidly handles the bass.

“You could say I’m a starry-eyed dreamer/You could say I’m a troubador of old/You could say I’m a high plains drifter/Or a prospector digging for gold,” Keith hollers in “Digging for Gold,” and you believe she’s all those things. “Johnny Rock’s Cantina” and a straightforward cover of “Streets of Laredo” expose a soft underbelly, while two live tracks at the end capture the band out-rocking most acts half their age. No need to dig for the gold here, the vein runs right over the surface.

Listen at their Myspace page.

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, In the Palace of the King

Another year, another solid release from John Mayall, the godfather of British blues. In the Palace of the King is a tribute to the late, great Freddie King, one of Mayall’s important inspirations and influences. It features songs associated with King, along with a couple written in his honor, and works quite well as a tribute, but it’s every particle a John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers album.

Mayall’s voice has both clarified and thinned with age, but it was never the central point of his records anyway. His harmonica sounds as sweet as ever, his piano flies free on his bouncing tribute to King (“King of the Kings”), and he has, in Buddy Whittington, a worthy successor to the great guitarists who have graduated from Mayall’s lineups over the decades (Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Coco Montoya, and Walter Trout among others). Blues guitar fans will dig this album for Whittington alone.

As an extra treat, Robben Ford guest stars on his own instrumental blues “Cannonball Shuffle,” which is appropriate since Freddie King was known for having hits with instrumentals. (The Bluesbreakers’ relationship with these King tunes goes all the way back to the recording of “Hideaway” on the legendary 1966 album with Eric Clapton and John McVie.) Another point to note is the presence of several songs with Leon Russell’s name on them, which can never be a bad thing.

Moodwise, this CD lies towards the brighter end of the Mayall spectrum, so throw it on at a party and you should see a lot of smiling faces.

Highly recommended for blues fans.

Marty Stuart, Compadres: An Anthology of Duets

Marty Stuart is one of the best-known least-known artists in country music and beyond. This collection of collaborations between the mandolinist extraordinaire and a bevy of musical heavyweights bears witness to the royal circles he’s moved in ever since joining up with Lester Flatt at the ripe old age of thirteen.

Recorded at various sessions and situations over the years, these fourteen tracks show the broad range of Stuart’s interests and abilities as singer, interpreter, and of course, player. More importantly, they’re just plain good listenin’. From an early “Rawhide” with Flatt, to the gospel “Move Along Train” with Mavis Staples, and back to a curious, nouveau-bluegrass version of The Who’s “I Can See For Miles” with Old Crow Medicine Show, this CD is all about good times and good feeling.

Johnny Cash on “Doin’ My Time” sounds as bubbly as the Man in Black ever managed. Stuart goes toe to toe with B. B. King in a shuffling “Confessin’ the Blues,” and on a sloshy bar-room bender with Travis Tritt in “The Whisky Ain’t Workin’.” The previously unreleased duet with Loretta Lynn on the sweetly sad classic “Will You Visit Me On Sunday” is a small country treasure. Even “John Henry” makes an appearance (in a scintillating instrumental duet with Earl Scruggs), as does the almost as legendary George Jones in “One Woman Man.” The Staples Singers’ harmonies in “The Weight” approach the sublime (as the Staples Singers are wont to do).

While the album cannot boast a consistent sound, Marty Stuart has a steady and recognizable presence here and wherever he works despite lacking the outlandish sort of personality that lands other stars in the tabloids. Refugees from today’s commercial country music might want to think about heading his way.

The Mugwumps, The Mugwumps

Solve for x: The Great Society is to Jefferson Airplane as x is to the Mamas and the Papas. Answer: x = The Mugwumps, the 1964 New York City-based folk-rock band that included Denny Doherty and “Mama” Cass Elliot (future Mamas and Papas), Zal Yanovsky (who subsequently co-founded the Lovin’ Spoonful), and Elliot’s then-husband, future Nashville songwriter Jim Hendricks. Until now, few knew of the Mugwumps except as a precursor to more important things, and perhaps from the lyrics to the autobiographical song “Creeque Alley” that the Mamas and the Papas recorded a few years later. Now their one album has been reissued by Collectors’ Choice, and we can all hear the glory that was the Mugwumps.

OK, glory isn’t the right word. But you can certainly hear elements of what would become the signature sound of the Mamas and the Papas. The multiple lead voices, the joyful, echoey choral parts, and the folksy jangles mixed like sparkly bits into the pop bubblegum all looked forward to the rock greatness that was to come later in the decade.

The Mugwumps, however, also had a Beatles-like affinity for rootsiness and rhythm and blues – formative rock-and-roll – as evidenced by their pounding rendition of Felix Pappalardi’s “Do You Know What I Mean,” their rambunctious cover of the Willie Dixon-penned rhythm and blues classic “You Can’t Judge a Book By the Cover” (a hit for Bo Diddley two years earlier), and their straightforward version of the Coasters’ “Searchin’.”

It was the age of the two-to-three minute single. The album is all of twenty-two minutes long, typical for its time. But it isn’t just the shortness of the songs that distills the Mugwumps’ incipient creative force. I think there is something of the gritty energy of New York City in this record. No believing in magic here. Still there’s a pinch of something like magic in the two wistful originals by Elliot and Hendricks, “Here It Is Another Day” and “Everybody’s Been Talkin’.” Both songs have a gentle sadness about them that presage, perhaps, the now legendary personal dramas that were to come.

Charlotte Kendrick, North of New York

Back in the present day, and up the Hudson a bit, singer-songwriter Charlotte Kendrick and her producer-collaborator husband, Dan Rowe, craft elegant, breathy folk-Americana tunes which Kendrick sings in a velvety voice that’s soothing like a soft sofa after a long hard day.

Her new CD is one you have to take a little time to sink into, mostly because it opens with a song that’s too much like a naked diary entry to be art. Fortunately the energy picks up along with the tempo in the mandolin-driven “Off the Tracks,” after which you’re ready for the more focussed sentimentality of the gentle ballad “Best Of Me.” My favorite track is “Yellow,” a true and perfect little folk song with a sharp lesson: “There’s no secret password, no code to crack/It’s not a race or a contest if you’re still keeping score/You will always have less, they will always have more.”

“Too Nice” is another winner, its deceptively simple melody carrying a strong message about an excessively image-conscious society. “And I’m willing to risk it all/Set myself up for a fall/You only reap what you sow/And I’ll do all that I can/To make this worth it for my band/Do my job and keep my man/Settle down on a little land/Take in the woman that I am/’Cause nice won’t get me anywhere.” Subtle, sharp stuff. Her declaration of independence, in “Laces,” is tinged with confrontation: “Who’s got the front seat now?” The songs are full of such complications.

When the lyrics get prosaic, the songs bog down. “Drag You Down” has a pretty melody, but it’s undercut by lines that don’t flow: “I won’t talk about the future if you find it hard/It’s just that I was mesmerized by you from the start/But I’ve got nothing on you, you’ve got everything on me.” This comes, I suspect, from Kendrick’s inclination to examine matters of the heart with obsessive closeness, with both positive and negative consequences. When the lyrics are good, they’re very good, and the songs rise above standard folkie fare and into Nancy Griffith and Stefanie Fix territory.

The CD will most often be listened to less closely, however, and if you’re in the mood for this gentle kind of stuff, it should give a lot of pleasure. I played it in the background at my office and it sure sweetened the day.

Recommended for fans of soothing folk music and intelligent voices. Available, with extended clips, at CD Baby.

Second Dan, Bringing Down Goliath

Second Dan, the New York band led by the Australian Dan Rosen, makes muscular alt-rock that’s tight and noisy at the same time. That tension sometimes puts on a new-wave 1980s face, like early U2 or Midnight Oil, with a little ska flavor here and there. The verse of “You Make Me Want To” even sounds a little like latter-day Who. But the overall intensity suggests influences from Nirvana and Foo Fighters, not to mention post-9/11 angst.

The tunes and arrangements are well crafted but it’s mostly the power and the mood, along with some of the trapeze artistry in the background vocals – all bolstered by rock-solid production – that stick with you. (An exception is the melodic, danceable “The Elephant Fell to Earth.”) Second Dan is good with the occasional acoustic ballad too – the rich concoction called “Everything Is Good” suggests Radiohead.

This is strong stuff from a promising band. A couple of killer hooks could propel them to the front ranks of modern rock with the likes of Copeland.

Hear full tracks at their Myspace page.

Heartbreak Club, …Lamecore

Another Australian import with a very different vibe, this adorably cheeky pop-punk EP makes fun of teenage pain with a wink and a wag of the tail. “Here’s to me. I’ve just lost my everything. This pout and mope industry justifies something cruel,” says the arch narrator of “The Girl @ TGUK.” Liberal use of dynamics, a hefty but hollow guitar attack descended from Blue Oyster Cult, and offbeat lyrics and snatches of conversation churn through songs with titles like “She Talked To Me!” and “Boy Said/Girl Said.” The funny “Bethanie” that starts the EP and the acoustic “Like the Weather” that closes it are like two sides of the same sigh – boy loses girl, boy gets girl – but the very last line of “Like the Weather” pulls the rug out: “Oh what a ruse.”

Hear full tracks at their Myspace page.

The Soft Parade, the fourth of The Doors’ six classic studio albums, is often considered the least successful. However, the newly mixed and mastered 40th anniversary reissue of all six records is an excellent occasion to revisit the experiments that resulted in the band’s uneven but interesting 1969 effort.

The album included pop-oriented arrangements that carried the Doors far from their stripped-down, bluesy roots, with some questionable results. Internal divisions, meanwhile – partly caused by Jim Morrison’s excessive drinking – made the recording process slow and difficult. Nevertheless the album produced a number of classic songs, including “Touch Me,” “Wild Child,” and the nearly ten-minute title suite that had counterculture kids screaming along with Morrison, “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!!!”

In “Tell All the People” and “Touch Me” the new production makes the individual horn parts burst through the mix with such clarity that the songs become more like sophisticated Chicago (the band) arrangements, or post-swing tunes, and less like the cheesy pop that some critics likened them to when the album came out. Whether you consider this an improvement may depend on what you originally liked or didn’t like about the songs. If the rethinking of those two recordings (by original Doors engineer Bruce Botnick) still doesn’t grab you, you may take comfort in revisiting the much more Doors-like “Shaman’s Blues,” which has always been one of my favorite Doors songs. The new mix keeps the grim intensity while giving a new separation to the underlying keyboard parts.

“Do It” was mostly forgettable then, and it remains so; perhaps significantly, it’s the only song on the album credited to both Morrison and Robbie Krieger. Everything else was written by one or the other. (Prior to this album, the band members were in the habit of giving one another collective songwriting credit.) Though at the time of this recording they weren’t working together quite so smoothly, the singer and the guitarist retained their capacities for inspiration. Morrison’s “Wild Child” and Kreiger’s ballad “Wishful Sinful” ably represent the band’s grungy and romantic sides. (The English horn solo on the latter comes through sweetly sparkling in the new mix.)

“Runnin’ Blue” might be the weirdest song ever recorded by the band, with Kreiger thinly hollering the bluegrass chorus and the horn players going crazy on the jazzy break. With its density and abandon, the song gains a great deal from the new mix. By contrast, no added sound clarity can make the “Soft Parade” suite itself more than an inconsistent mix of simple, catchy musical bits and Morrison’s pretend poetry.

The bonus tracks are worth having, though the liner notes fail to give any background on them. There’s the underrated “Who Scared You;” two versions (in different keys and arrangements) of the chantlike “Whiskey, Mystics and Men,” the second of which I particularly like; the goofy, good-natured, mostly instrumental rhythm-and-blues jam “Push Push” (basically a rewrite of “Twist and Shout”); and a previously unreleased, slightly looser take of “Touch Me,” during the introduction of which the bass and guitar play a slightly different rhythm, for those of you keeping track of such things.

The Doors always had a slightly different rhythm from everyone else. Pretentious, flawed, and dominated by a self-destructive front man, they were and still are one of rock’s most original and influential groups, and The Soft Parade, imperfect as it is, remains an essential disc for Doors fans.

Cross-posted at Blogcritics

Much is being made of Jonathan Coulton‘s recent, Internet-fueled popularity, but as several fans pointed out in the comments to his most recent blog post (entitled “How I Did It”), it’s easy to lose sight of the essential fact that Coulton’s music is wonderful. Sure, he’s used the Internet in innovative ways, and sure, he had a measure of good luck in getting the necessary exposure that enabled him to find his audience. But without an unusual gift, none of that would matter.

At last night’s jam-packed concert at Union Hall in Brooklyn, Coulton demonstrated performing chops to match his songwriting talent. Strong vocals and nifty guitar work acted merely in the service of the rooted connection he made to the audience with his songs. It’s that connection which can elevate a concert to the realm of the transcendently entertaining. Alone with an acoustic guitar, Coulton embodied the primeval bond between entertainer and audience. That’s not a niche – that’s basic entertainment. It doesn’t matter if every last one of his fans discovered him on the Internet – they’re coming to see him live. Plus ça change…

“I Crush Everything,” a slightly surreal song about a lonely giant squid, exemplified the imagination that makes Coulton special. He can create a truly touching and beautiful song from the point of view of a creature that is alien and nearly mythic to us. “I lie below, you float above/In the pretty white ships that I’ve been dreaming of/And I’d like to swim beside you/Getting dizzy in your wake…” The chorus brilliantly (musically and lyrically) evokes the incompleteness of the sensitive squid’s life.

“I’m Your Moon” is another song about fundamental human feelings expressed through things that don’t have them – in this case Pluto and its moon, Charon. In the universe of music, it’s just a short step from a metaphor about birds and bees to a love song sung by one celestial body to another. In taking that step Coulton adds his imaginative spin to age-old topics, while remaining comfortably accessible to music lovers.

As one fan noted in a blog comment, “You come for the funny, you stay for the music.” The song “The Future Soon” is certainly of the funny, as are many of Coulton’s most popular tunes, but unlike a typical novelty song, it’s sad and deep as well as humorous. We can’t help but sympathize with the geeky teenager dreaming of “perfecting my warrior robot race”: “Cause it’s gonna be the future soon/And I won’t always be this way/When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away.”

Something similar, of course, is what gives his biggest hit, “Code Monkey,” its force – humor and silliness in the service of real feeling. Or is it the other way around? It doesn’t really matter. While there were plenty of code monkeys in the audience last night, they aren’t much different from the rest of the world now. In fact, we’re all geeks now, tied to our silicon, hip to the digits. Jonathan Coulton is a creature of us. Niche indeed.

Cross-posted at Blogcritics.

Various Artists, Women of the World Acoustic

This is one of those CDs that works equally well whether you listen to it closely or play it merely as feel-good background music. Each listener will no doubt find some of the international voices captured here more captivating than others, but every track is pleasing. The Greek singer Anastasia Mousatsou’s cool, distant tone doesn’t thrill me the way Sandrine Kiberlain’s sexy voice does, for example. On the other hand, although I tend to prefer strong or more mature-sounding voices, I’ve always loved Emiliana Torrini’s cellophane-feathery singing, and the folky track she offers here, “Sunnyroad,” doesn’t disappoint.

Though the artists hail from lands as different as Cameroon, the Czech Republic, Iceland and Chile, the CD has a remarkable consistency of energy and tone. This could be interpreted in a negative way, as a result of Western instrumentation finding its way into ethnic musics of all stripes. But while the differences among these tracks may not bang you over the head, each artist has a uniquely valuable creative voice that you can appreciate by listening with a little care.

The extensive liner notes to the nicely packaged CD provide background on each singer and song. The catchy “Bida Marianu” by Lura, who hails from Lisbon’s Cape Verdean community, is one of my favorites. The Colombian singer Marta Gómez’s heartbreakingly simple “Paula Ausente” (“Absent Paula”), with its silvery, pan-Latino feel, tugs at the heart. Another top track is the subtle, insistently rhythmic “Sekna,” by the Algerian singer Mona. Its lyrics sum up the compilation: “In my life there are too many stories/One thousand and one stories/They make me laugh, cry/They make me sad or happy/But they are all part of me/And they are all in my heart.”

At least, that’s what the translation says. Other than Torrini’s track, only one song here, the beautiful and aptly themed closer “One Voice” by the Canadian group The Wailin’ Jennys, is in English. And that’s just fine, because this CD is written in the world’s language.

Hear clips here. A portion of the proceeds go to the Global Fund for Women, which supports women’s and girls’ human rights internationally.

Asylum Street Spankers, Mommy Says No!

Indie Round-Up doesn’t often cover children’s music, as we have our hands full with the gazillions of CDs supposedly made for adults. When it’s one of our favorite bands, however, we’re delighted to make an exception. The Asylum Street Spankers have always made music steeped in humor, both clever and goofy, so it seems a natural thing for them to have produced a kids’ album.

And a very nice one it is. That is not only our opinion; we subjected the CD to the precocious judgment of H-Bomb, who just turned seven, with positive results. The album has the Spankers’ usual combination of thematic silliness, musical integrity, and rainbow-colored energy. As always, the band is centered on acoustic instrumentation. (It’s famous for performing without any kind of electronics – no amps, no microphones, no nothin’.)

Here, instead of songs about silly adult matters like sex, drugs, and drinking, the Spankers sing of silly child matters like boogers, monsters, and superheroes. What could be better?

This reviewer, though no expert in the field, thinks it’s safe to say that good children’s music doesn’t “sing down” to kids, and this CD meets that requirement. The Spankers recognize that kids are just as smart as us grown-ups – they just know less about certain things, have some different concerns, and boast better senses of humor.

Christina Marrs the musical saw player, Sick on violin and guitar, Wammo, and the rest of the Spankers translate their old-timey country and blues almost effortlessly to the kids’ genre. (Those names – Wammo, Sick, and so on – weren’t made up for the occasion.) Songs like “You Only Love Me For My Lunchbox, “Don’t Turn Out the Light,” and “Training Wheel Rag” deal with superficiality, envy, fear, inferiority – troubles that plague humans of all ages. The inclusion of Nirvana’s “Sliver” and Harry Nilsson’s “Think About Your Troubles” is a nice touch that further shows the band’s respect for kids’ appreciative ears. But with all that, the pervading mood is one of good times and humor.

If you have kids in your house, or kids to buy gifts for, or kids stomping around in the apartment upstairs, definitely consider picking this CD up for them. You can hear samples (and buy the disc) at the Asylum Street Spankers website or at CD Baby.