The Bagel And The Rat

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.

Darrin James, Thrones of Gold

Darrin James distills hard-edged soul and craggy Americana into a redolent tincture that I’ve come to think of as New York City Melting Pot. His gravelly voice and confident, grungy guitar work lend themselves equally well to rock and blues (“Trivial”), old-timey piano-driven numbers (“Had Enough of Me”) and blue-eyed soul (“Hate That Word,” “Duct Tape”). There’s the obligatory, grim, Nick Cave-like folk ballad (“Herie”), but this one has a tumbling beat that takes it into original waters. Mandolin and ukulele feed the gentler folkiness of “Dusty Road,” while haunting organ and thudding upright bass give other songs the slightly eerie, organic quality that Americana producers strive for.

James produced the CD himself, with expert support from a set of fine musicians. It’s well-crafted all the way through. The only misstep is “Faith on the Run,” which would be an excellent song but for an uncomfortable resemblance to Tom Petty’s “Last Dance with Mary Jane.”

Its literate lyrics and subject matter are a big part of why Thrones of Gold stands as one of the best indie productions of the year so far. “Long lost, slightly sauced/And swingin’ from a vine/She was a dose of imperfection/Left me danglin’, out of time/I sold my disposition for a nickel and a dime/But now she’s had enough of me.” “Lucky Man,” on the other hand, expresses the eternal strangeness of the situation of the more successful male: “I’m a Lucky man/I know who I am/Never done the best that I can/So I’m Lucky that I got you.”

Politics and worldliness run through a number of songs. The subject of “Herie” “fought in the war for Iran/He had a dream of freer land/His family was murdered/In front of his eyes/But I’ve never seen him cry.” Meanwhile, you can almost picture the narrator of the title track sitting in a weirdly angular apartment deep in Brooklyn, watching war news on TV, wringing his hands, and dreaming:

I’m goin’ somewhere I’ve never been
My life here is at an end
I’ll be an honest man with a calloused hand
Goin’ where people don’t work so hard
No one’s gonna show me no business card
I’m outta here.

Available, with extended clips, at CD Baby.

Karen Jacobsen, Kissing Someone Else

Karen Jacobsen, an Australian singer-songwriter-pianist now based in (yawn) New York (everyone seems to come here sooner or later), has an excellent melodic sense, and her clear, unaffected voice actually deserves the often-overused term “angelic.” Her lyrics range from sinewy (“If I am so amazing why is everything so crazy?”) to overly cliched (“my life is a tomb of endless broken dreams”), but her innocent-sounding delivery and skill at choral arranging make the sentiment go down easier, and the strong melodies solidify the whole CD. Hooky pop-rockers like “So Fast”, “Afterthought,” and the title track, as well as ballads like “The River of My Life” and quirky, heavily arranged pieces like “Merry Go Round” all display these talents.

The key difference between Jacobsen and most pop singers is that she makes virtually no effort to sound sexy. This works in Christian rock, but what about in mainstream pop music? I guess we’ll find out. The real question is whether the twenty-first century wants its own Petula Clark. I don’t see why not. But then, do I look like a century? Don’t listen to me, listen to Karen Jacobsen. Hear songs and samples at her website and at CD Baby.

Chase Pagan, Oh, Musica!

Chase Pagan makes driving piano-powered rock, but it would be wrong to pigeonhole him with the likes of Keane, for his musical vision is considerably more original than any rock the major labels are putting out. Reaching for comparisons, one might say that if Radiohead, Kurt Weill, and The Mars Volta got together and made a CD of carnival music, you’d have Chase Pagan.

He doesn’t so much sing as wail and keen, gasping for breath, drifting up and down his tenor and falsetto range like Jeff Buckley with a pin stuck in him, supporting his heavy piano parts with grouchy guitars and punk-inpired bass and drums. “Push My Buttons,” a titanic groan of avant-garde pain, is the centerpiece of the CD. The songs draw on elements of arty grunge (“Time to Myself”), folk (“Paperboat”), twisted country (“Sailors March”), children’s music (“Spanish Tongue”), other styles, and things not known as they assault the ear like rusty bolts from the blue.

There’s quite a bit of dense, interesting chamber rock coming out these days. I think it’s the result of an information overload. Rock has gone through so many movements and iterations that new artists with unusual talent are forced first to drown in an excess of input, then to flee to the upper atmosphere with no skin on. With this CD Chase Pagan leaps to the forefront of this movement, chasing the shards of his own heretical rainbow.

You can download the accompanying EP, which contains some of the same tracks as the full-length CD, for free at his website, or hear some full tracks at his Myspace page. The EP also contains a cover of “Play the Game” by Queen, clearly another of Pagan’s inspirations.

Eli Cook, Miss Blues’es Child

Eli Cook is a twenty-year-old blues guitar wizard with genuine soul. His first acoustic recording consists of old and new songs played in raw, live-sounding arrangements with little more than Cook’s acoustic guitar and voice, plus banjo accompaniment by the stalwart Patrick McCrowell. Cook’s playing is a joy, and his original songs fit smoothly with his thoughtful covers of Robert Johnson, Son House, traditional songs and the like. Highlights include “Terraplane Blues,” “Goin’ Down South” (also recorded recently by one of my favorite new roots bands, Hillstomp), and the original title track.

Cook’s raucous take on “Fixin’ To Die” shows his mastery of incessant, scratchy electricity. By contrast, the satisfying, seven-minute-long “Trick Bag,” an original, demonstrates his sensitivity to the importance of empty space, something young performers don’t usually develop so early in their careers.

Cook sings with the mix of grimness and sensitivity that the material demands, but tries too hard to sound like an older man, putting too much force into his baritone. It makes him sound a little like one of the Eddie Vedder imitators who crawled onto the music scene in the 1990s. It doesn’t detract from the louder songs like “Fixin’ To Die,” but drags down the trance and country blues numbers.

Still, though he would be more convincing if he relaxed his voice some, Cook’s fine guitar work and top-notch material make this CD a very worthwhile listen. Eli Cook is a talent to reckon with.

Hear extended samples at CD Baby.

Scotty Don’t, Scotty Don’t

This twenty-minute EP rips through a quick survey of pop styles. “Back Porch” has a 1970s classic rock jam vibe. “When I Say” starts as a not very original reggae jam a la Bob Marley’s “Is This Love,” but then bursts into a punked-up ska-rock section that somehow makes perfect sense. “…Different Kind” suggests James Gang grooviness, and “Punk Rock Lullaby” is exactly that. “Everything’s Alright” goes back to the loose 70s flavor of the opening track, and the EP ends with a spacey-cool, acoustic miniature about being busted for smoking dope.

The trio is the original project of Badfish, a bizarrely successful Sublime tribute band. Given that genesis, it’s not surprising that their strong points include high quality songwriting, tight vocal harmonies, and a light touch. I don’t know to what extent the harmonies can be reproduced at a live show. But the band’s combination of bubbly enthusiasm and sneaky craft make their new project eminently worth checking out.

Hear several tracks at Scotty Don’t’s Myspace page.

Collector’ Choice Music Reissues: Barnes & Barnes’ Voohaba and Wild Man Fischer’s Nothing Scary

Rejoice, aficianados of outsider music. Prick up your pointed little ears, Dr. Demento fans. Collectors’ Choice Music has reissued three classics of weirdness: Barnes & Barnes’s first album, Voobaha (with gushers of bonus tracks), and Wild Man Fischer’s Pronounced Normal and Nothing Scary which were produced – cajoled into existence, one might say – by the aforementioned duo.

Larry “Wild Man” Fischer is a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic with a disturbingly entertaining take on the world, and songwriting talent to go with it. Frank Zappa recorded him in the late 60s (Fischer references Zappa in a couple of his Nothing Scary monologues) but he was too unstable to have a consistent career even as a wacky weird guy.

However, in the early 1980s, Barnes & Barnes (Robert Haimer and Lost In Space’s Bill Mumy), of “Fish Heads” and “Boogie Woogie Amputee” fame, took on the challenge of tracking Fischer down, recording more of his vocals, and putting musical tracks to them.

Some of Fischer’s output in the new sessions came in the form of shouts and monologues, but many were real songs. Fully conceived pieces like “All I Think About Is You,” “The Rain Song,” “Outside the Hospital” and “Love Love Love In Everything You Do” show a serious, original and actually quite mainstream songwriting ability. Snippets like “Ping Pong Ball Head,” “One of a Kind Mind,” and “Bad Leg” do the same on a smaller scale. That distinguishes Fischer from certain other, nowadays better-known outsider artists like Wesley Willis. It’s no wonder Zappa took an interest in Fischer.

Unlike with most “sane” songwriters, Fischer’s raw thoughts too are fascinating, which is no doubt why Haimer and Mumy captured the selections here that are not, strictly speaking, musical. Fischer’s take on the music business is especially wry, bursting out in various monologues and harangues.

And a truly terrible business it is. I don’t think Haimer and Mumy really sought to “make it big” in the music biz, though they put out quite a few albums both on Rhino (Fischer’s label too) and elsewhere, some of which deviated from their successful novelty formula. I suspect if they had tried too hard to go mainstream they might have spoiled the senses of humor that made them stars of the Dr. Demento show.

I can almost guarantee that you’ve heard “Fish Heads” even if you’ve never listened to Dr. Demento or heard of Barnes & Barnes. You might even have seen the video. If not, do it now, then come back.

Are you back? Great. Now all that’s left to say is that this reissue of Voobaha with its many bonus tracks is a treasure trove of twisted humor. Horror fans will dig “Cemetery Girls” with its samples from “It’s a Good Life,” the classic, terrifying Twilight Zone episode in which six-year-old Mumy turned cornfields into places of terror for a whole generation. “Party in My Pants,” “Three Drunk Newts,” “Sewey Hole” – they’re all here. Yup. All here. For you. To listen. To. Go ahead. Eat them up. Yum.

Scott Blasey, Travelin’ On

Now onto some regular stuff. The new solo CD by Scott Blasey, lead singer of The Clarks, has a warm, intimate sound that’s folksier than the band’s but boasts the same smooth, sturdy, heartland-pop songwriting that’s characteristic of the Clarks’ strong catalog.

Blasey gives his soulful side a good workout with “Sweet Mystery,” “Little Sofia,” and a version of the Sam Cooke classic “Bring It On Home To Me.” (The latter, interestingly, is less convincing than Blasey’s own soul ballads.) The catch in Blasey’s voice – the soul – has always been an important part of the Clarks’ appeal, and it extends to his solo work.

“Time To Go” is a powerful pop anthem. “See You Around” and “Church of the Open Highway” feature airy harmonies that give a hint of psychedelic pop. On the latter, guitarist Chris Holt, who elsewhere on the album contributes George Harrison-like guitar solos, references Patty Loveless’s 1991 hit “Hurt Me Bad (In a Real Good Way”), pointing up the country elements in Blasey’s heartland sensibility. Bubblegum pop (“Be Your Man”) and original folk songs (“Baby, You’re My Saving Grace” and the title track) also form part of the landscape.

The CD is treat from a savvy and talented veteran. There’s a free download of the nice piano mix of “Time To Go,” and a video of “San Antonio,” at Blasey’s website.

Mary Karlzen, Yours To Keep

Like the Clarks, Mary Karlzen is a major label veteran who is now/again happily independent. But her new CD disappoints. Much of it has an uptempo Americana feel, tastefully executed by a studio band that includes bassist Garry Tallent of the E Street Band and Wilco’s Ken Coomer on drums. Unfortunately, blandness dominates. Karlzen’s voice doesn’t have enough oomph to carry the rockers, which mostly sound generic anyway. The snappy “Find Yourself” rises above the sameness, a little, and “Stupid or Something” is strong and catchy. The two covers – Paul Westerberg’s “Skyway” and a duet with Matthew Ryan on Tom Waits’s “Heart of Saturday Night – are nice.

Two videos, including one for “Stupid or Something,” can be seen here.

Ben Godwin, Skin and Bone

Speaking of Tom Waits, there’s a little of him in Ben Godwin, a Londoner transplanted to New York. With a gritty voice that’s half Joe Cocker and half Ian Anderson, Godwin belts out a set of theatrical, jazz-inflected tunes inspired by New York City life. By turns soulful (“Constantly Reminded”), Bacharachian (“Paper Thin Walls”), gentle (“Castaway”) and Brelian (“Outsize Shoes”), Godwin’s songs are as old-fashioned as the intelligibility of the lyrics he pipes out with his thick baritone. “Poverty’s a crime in the poorhouse / And the punishment is life / The lucky ones work in the slaughterhouse / And the rest go under the knife,” he bellows in the title track, where you should also listen for Julie LaMendola’s eerie saw-playing.

“We’ll sweat our hearts out / Fill a rich man’s cup in the New World City / We’ll break our backs building monuments to the sky / Catch our fingers in the teeth of the machinery,” he cries like Bertholdt Brecht and Kurt Weill in “New World City,” but we’ll also “make a new religion out of rusted cars / Our televisions, and our hollow stars.” “So very precious,” cries the Everyman of Godwin’s tales, “but we’re only worth a song in the New World City.” But the value of a song, as Godwin certainly knows, is boundless.

Echoing Jacques Brel’s “The Bulls,” “New World City” ends with a litany of places, cities all over the world where people struggle. But unlike the Brel song, which leaves us with its grim battlefield images, Godwin’s “La la la” chorus returns for a final affirmation of life amidst the dirt and grime.

This music is serious, fun, and definitely different. You can hear extended samples at CD Baby.

Todd Snider, Peace, Love and Anarchy

The new disc by Todd Snider, heir apparent to John Prine’s corner of the Americana music universe, is billed as “a Set of Rarities, B-Sides and Demos.” But since Snider himself is a rarity and a b-side, what’s the diff?

Normally Snider’s loose, jagged sound is more or less carefully built up in the studio. Here it’s mostly left raw. Many of the tracks have just guitar and vocals. A couple are early versions of songs that later got fancier production; others are true rarities, or items that slipped through the cracks. But each one has at least one pearl of value inside. In fact, this CD has transformed me from a lukewarm Todd Snider fan into a big Todd Snider fan. It reminds of when I first heard Roseanne Cash’s 10-Song Demo, which revealed something more fundamental to me about the artist’s sensibility than I had heard in polished studio recordings.

“Polished” isn’t a word one is inclined to use in the same sentence as “Todd Snider,” and that’s as it should be. This rough-edged set has spare rockers (“Barbie Doll,” “Cheatham Street Warehouse,”) country blues (“Deja Blues”), love songs (“Missing You,” “Feel Like I’m Falling In Love,”), half tongue-in-cheek country numbers inspired by Prine or Jerry Jeff Walker (“Old Friend,” “Combover Blues”), and even a gospel-soul tune “I Will Not Go Hungry.” “Some Things Are” could be a lost Garcia-Hunter number.

The title track from the 2004 release East Nashville Skyline didn’t make it onto that CD. Now we have it:

“Something good comes along / Then it’s gone / Kind of like Phoenix Radio / We used to listen, and where did it go / It went off of the air so that more Sheryl Crow could come on.” Harsh. But – yeah.

The spoken-word “From A Rooftop” has more about the singer’s love affair with East Nashville – and we all have an East Nashville, wherever we may live. “Our skyline – it ain’t very high. But we love it.” Me too, Todd, me too. I feel the same way about Brooklyn. At least for now.

“Old Friend, Old Friend / God knows where we’re goin’ / I guess half the fun’s not knowing where we’ll wind up in the end.”

Pam Tillis, Rhinestoned

Now it’s time for polished.

On Pam Tillis’s first CD for Stellar Cat, her new, personal label, the country star, working with co-producers Matt Spicher and the legendary Gary Nicholson, has exercised complete creative control. The result is a worthy follow-up to It’s All Relative, her 2002 tribute to her father, Mel Tillis. The new disc sounds gorgeous but not overdone, with good songs, which, though by a variety of songwriters, all somehow sound as if they were written specifically for Tillis’s creamy soprano. That’s a tribute not only to the songwriters but to the singer’s assured and always honest delivery.

A lot of Nashville CDs contain only a couple of good songs, with the rest there just so the friends and crew of the label or the singer can make some money from writing credits. On this CD the proportion is reversed, with only a few forgettable tracks getting in the way of the good stuff. The Dixieland-inspired Crazy By Myself (by Matraca Berg) and the spirited, spiritual “Over My Head,” which features Jim Hoke on pennywhistle, are both heart-lighteners. Gloomy heartbreak checks in with Leslie Satcher’s “Something Burning Out,” but “Train Without A Whistle” and the masterful “Someone Somewhere Tonight” better show off Tillis’s ability to pull the heartstrings without seeming manipulative.

The intense story-song “Bettin’ Money On Love” with its recited verses is unusual for Tillis, but she pulls it off with aplomb. “Band in the Window” is an obvious but sprightly tribute to the obscure bands who play the honky-tonk bars right in the shadow of the Opry. In the sweet “Down By the Water” Tillis comes close to the 1970s “hippie country” vibe which, according to her notes, she wanted to suggest with this album. Mostly the CD doesn’t do that. What it does, though, is give us some real country music, unlike some of the other styles the singer has tried on over the years. The modern (slick, if you will) production remains tasteful, not getting in the way of the singer or the songs. And it holds together as an album – you can listen to and enjoy the whole thing through.

Recommended for country fans and all lovers of delicious singing.

Albert Hammond, Jr., Yours To Keep

The guitarist and singer/songwriter Albert Hammond, Jr., best known as a member of The Strokes, released his first solo CD last Fall in the U.K. It’s out now in North America and definitely worth a listen.

Not Strokes-like, Hammond’s pastel-pop songs and arrangements dab together several strains of pop-rock into a landscape that’s bright and extremely accessible, yet original enough to be an interesting place to spend some quality time. He and his team – producer Greg Lattimer and engineer Gus Oberg, plus a number of guest artists including Sean Lennon – crunch together strains of Sgt. Pepper, Tommy James, 70s glam, 80s precision, and the chamber pop of the 90s and today.

Hammond’s lead vocals are modest but confident, and he has full-fledged songwriting skills. The lyrics don’t make much sense, but it doesn’t matter at all, because the drama and the pleasure is in the music. When you do pay attention to the lyrics, they seem to wink at you, and you feel that you’re in on a joke. From “Hard To Live In The City”:

There’s something about you that I couldn’t tell
And you were always crazy
And I don’t like that
There’s something about you that I knew so well
To all those questions I have no answers
I wish that I could sit in the sun

Me too, Albert, me too.

Like the Animators, but a little more lighthearted and poppy, Hammond proves that the artistic integrity of adult rock and pop is as strong as ever, with new generations of musicians continuing to expand the field. It’s hard to pick favorite songs here, but a few of mine are the swinging “Call An Ambulance,” the John Lennon-inspired “Blue Skies,” and the falsetto-fueled, bell-like “In Transit.”

The anxious, insistent guitar tones of “101” and the tense “Scared,” with its melodic echo of “Cruel To Be Kind” and psychedelic chorus, help give the largely sunny CD some bite. It closes with two well-chosen covers, Guided By Voices’ “Postal Blowfish” and the Buddy Holly chestnut “Well All Right,” which serve as bookends to the vast shelf of pop from which Hammond draws his inspiration.

Highly recommended.

Hear some tracks at his Myspace page.