Storytellers

I think VH1 has (had?) a Storytellers series where musicians who tell stories in their songs do an "unplugged" kinda thing. Either that, or they just get famous musicians to talk about their famous songs and then play them? I don't know, never seen the show. POINT IS, I wanted write a blog post about some of my favorite current songwriters who are adroit (total crossword word) at crafting narratives in their songs that take the listener places and introduce them to characters all the while telling a story. Now writing a decent song is tough enough, but telling an actual story during a song? SKILLZ, right?

Here are a few of my faves (in alpha, cuz that's how I (sc)roll):

Belle & Sebastian
Stuart Murdoch's songs don't usually have a beginning, a middle and an end, it's not really his thing. His thing is introducing characters and bringing those characters to vivid life. These snapshots into the lives of loners, losers and lovers often involve seemingly mundane details that just add to the context. Tell me you don't have a visual in your brain of what the Major, Judy, Sukie and Lord Anthony look like. Of course you do (unless you're a cyborg. Are you a cyborg?).




Blitzen Trapper
I'm not gonna profess to be some kind of Blitzen Trapper super fan, but I do like the band and I especially like their 2008 album Furr and even more especially, that album's title track. It's not a stretch at this point to call it one of my favorite songs of all time. Black River Killer is a really good song that tells a (dark) story as well.




The Decemberists
Colin Meloy and co. have put together back-to-back albums with a cohesive, solid narrative running though them, but that's not why they make this list. Nope, they make it on the strength of their first three albums (and EPs and such) that had individual songs that read like Dickens novels. Tough to pick just one song here, but I'll go with this one:




Flaming Lips
The weirdos from Oklahoma make it based on one outstanding concept album - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I don't know what they were on when they thought of the concept or wrote the music, but I bet it was fantastic.




The Hold Steady
Craig Finn paints vivid pictures of Midwestern youthful exuberance and isolation. His characters come to life in the span of four-minute rock songs as his sing-speak style tells their stories, often revolving around, what else - sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.




Jens Lekman
Jens' tales come off so damn charming, it's sickening. He uses really plain language, nothing too flowery or descriptive, and then mixes in tiny specifics to bring his characters and stories to life. Here's one of my faves.



So there's a few my favorite bands/songwriters who can spin a yarn within the confines of a song/album. There are numerous rap/hip-hop artists that are really good at this as well, but I'll let Terry school us all on those in the comments.

Meet me at the cemetery gates

The following is a (very) rough timeline of my trip to L.A. with Terry to see Belle and Sebastian at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on October 5, 2010.

9:30 am: Leave my house and head to Terry's to pick him up. Was almost certain I didn't forget anything important. Like the tickets. I didn't.

10:30 am: Leave Terry's house in Costa Mesa. Head toward L.A. We usually take his Scion X-box when we head into L.A., but I drive this time. I don't mind - the X-box isn't the most comfortable ride.

11:20 am: Arrive at the cemetery and after doing a quick drive through the grounds, decide to look for a place to eat on the cheap. No one is lined up outside. Skies are gray, but no rain.

12:00 pm: Decide on Carl's Jr even though Terry had his heart set on a Taco Bell 5-buck box. More like a 5-trips-to-the-toilet box, right?

12:30 pm: Almost hit a homeless dude who appeared to be at least mostly blind. It would have been mostly his fault.

12:45 pm: Arrive back at the cemetery. Score a primo parking place right across the street. Surprising, given it's only 6 hours till the event starts, right? Decide to kill time by walking around the cemetery. No one is lined up outside.

1:00 pm: Take a half dozen or so pics of Johnny Ramone's grave/monument thingy. Pay tribute. Take a leak in a port-a-jon set up for the event. It's pristine. See above line on the parking spot for reason.

1:15 pm: Randomly find Jayne Mansfield's grave stone. Terry takes a pic.

1:25 pm: Walk up to this huge mausoleum that is in the middle of a pond, accessible only by a single bridge. Debate which came first - the pond, or the mausoleum.

1:32 pm: See a smaller mausoleum marked Swayze. It is not Patrick's.

1:40 pm: See a group of people walking from the general area of where the stage is set up. Terry thinks it's the band, I do not. It wasn't.

1:50 pm: After wandering around the cemetery a little more looking for (and not finding) the graves of more famous people, we decide it's probably time to take our (rightful)spot at the front of the line.

2:00 pm: Head out front only to find a guy and girl on a blanket waiting. Resign ourselves to being second in line. Terry jokes with them that that's not where the line starts. They're mildly amused.

2:05 pm: After retrieving our chairs, blankets and other supplies from the car, get in line behind the aforementioned guy and girl. They seem nice enough.

2:10 pm: Text Vicki telling her to bring beer.

2:45 pm: Cemetery grounds crew puts up a makeshift snaking line using wood stakes and police tape.

2:55 pm: Text Vicki reminding her to bring beer.

3:20 pm: A pair of foreign dudes (French, maybe) get in line behind us. One appears to have a bag filled with records, I assume are B&S records he wants to get signed by the band.

3:25 pm: Terry gets up to go take a leak. I text Vicki about her ETA and remind her again to bring beer.

3:35 pm: The first of what will be roughly 20 people get in line with the guy and girl in front of us.

3:45 pm: I make a run to Subway to get Terry and I sandwiches. Terry goes for the black forest ham, I opt for the cold cut combo after being informed the spicy Italian isn't a $5 foot long.

3:55 pm: Pop into a little Hispanic market on the walk back from Subway to see if they have beer. They don't. I text Vicki reminding her to bring beer.

4:00 pm: Arrive back at the cemetery to find a few more guys with thick rimmed glasses and girls with stylish overcoats in line. The group in front of us now numbers 5.

4:45 pm: Ryan arrives carrying a bag of supplies and what turns out to be a portable table. He had to take the bus and the Trader Joe's bag he's been carrying has dyed his arm a wonderful shade of blue.

5:00 pm: I text Vicki to find out her (and my beer's) whereabouts. It starts sprinkling. The group in front of us has swelled to 8. The line of people behind us has just snaked back to where we are. More guys with thick rimmed glasses and girls with stylish overcoats.

5:15 pm: Sprinkles turn to rain drops. Hood of my waterproof shell in full effect. Ryan has no jacket, but does have an umbrella. We cover our stuff the best we can.

5:20 pm: Spot Stuart from the band entering the venue in a black Audi. Someone in front of us says "hi Stuart!" He politely says "hi" back.

5:30 pm: Rain stops completely. Not a drop the rest of the night. Text Vicki reminding her to bring beer. Group in front of us now in double figures. Almost feels like there's more people in front of us than behind.

6:04 pm: Gates open. To mine and Terry's surprise, no one says a word about the chairs we carry in.

6:20 pm: Find a nice spot 25 feet or so from the stage and set up camp. Blankets are unfurled, chairs set up, Ryan's fancy table erected. Ryan has wine. And a candle for the table. I still have no beer.

6:30 pm: I head to the merch table to check out the t-shirts. I settle on a navy blue number, size medium. The girl working the table had a cute Scottish accent and she said "cheers" after I bought the shirt. I think to myself all merch table workers should have Scottish accents. Seems reasonable.

6:45 pm: We are now surrounded by a sea of guys in thick rimmed glasses and girls in stylish overcoats and their blankets and tarps. Many have bread, cheese and wine. I still have no beer.

7:20 pm: Movie (Trainspotting) starts.

7:40 pm: Ryan goes to get some of his friends.

8:15 pm: Vicki arrives. So does my beer.

9:00 pm: Movie ends. Forgot how good it was. Everyone begins condensing their "camps" in preparation for the band. I stash our chairs, blankets and my leftover food behind a tree.

9:40 pm: Belle and Sebastian take the stage and open (appropriately) with Sukie in the Graveyard.

9:55 pm: Nadia arrives, bummed she missed "Sukie."

11:00 pm: Band's set comes to an end after a single encore. Great show. My lower back is sore from standing for 2 hours.

11:30 pm: Drive Vicki and Nadia to Vicki's car a few blocks away. Nadia leaves her umbrella in my car.

12:20 am: Arrive at Terry's house. Drop him off. It's pouring rain.

12:45 am: Arrive home.

1:00 am: Fall asleep dreaming of horses. Even though they didn't play it. WTF?

The hole-in-one conundrum

I was playing golf the other day around dusk, as I do whenever the old ball-and-chain lets me out of the house on a weekday evening. That's not true - I don't always play golf (ZING! Just kidding, hon). Anyways, it's a perfect night. Nice and warm. No one behind me on the course. A few cold beers in the bag. And after a few skanky shots, I even started hitting the ball decent. So I get to Hole 7, a longish par-3 over water. Tough hole. As is very often the case when I get to this hole, the sun is now very low in the sky and Hole-7 faces due West.

After surveying the situation - blocking out the sun with my hand to see the hole location, picking out a spot between my ball and my target for alignment, and taking the final swig from beer number two, I make a passable swing with my 4-iron, sending the ball in the general direction of the green, 190-yards or so away. Or at least, that what it feels like. Once the ball leaves the club face, I do my best to battle the glare of the sun to try and track it. No dice. The orange fireball in the sky wins yet again and I look down and left to see if my ball will end up like so many before it - at the bottom of the lake. A few seconds pass and the lake remains ripple-free. My ball is on dry land, at least.

As I make the walk toward the green along the edge of the lake, scooping out balls others were too lazy to retrieve (we're in a recession, people!), I scan the area ahead for my ball. Nothing. I head for the bunker right of the green where I'd guess roughly 30% of the balls I've hit to this hole have ended up. Nothing. Quick searches of the long bunker that borders the left side of the green and the devilish little pot bunker in the back both fail to reveal my Titleist 2. Huh? I scan the rough around the green more closely, even walking up the slope to the cart path for a bit of a bird's eye view. Still no ball.

I walk back down to the green and the flag stick catches my eye. "No way," I think to myself. First off, I didn't strike the ball all that solidly - kind of toed it, and second, "there's no effing way that ball went in the hole." Still, I've looked all over and haven't found it. Maybe it was the recipient of a few fortuitous bounces and maybe, just maybe, it found it's way to the bottom of the cup.

This wasn't the first time this has happened to me, and I'm fairly certain it's happened to almost everyone who has played the game for any number of years. To that point, I'd never sauntered up to the hole and looked in, only to have my ball sitting there looking back at me. Well, it didn't happen this day either. Turns out my ball was fifteen yards or so back in a thick spot of rough. A hack out, a decent bunker shot and two putts later, and my would-be one was now a double-bogey five. Ouch.

After taking out my frustration over the double out on the next tee shot (not really, but I did stripe one down the middle), I got to thinking, what if that ball did find its way into the hole, for my first ever hole-in-one? My first thought was that it would kinda suck, really. Here I am, playing by myself with only some birds and rabbits to witness this great achievement. No one to high-five, no one to ooh and aah over the feat, no one to call me a lucky bastard and no one to buy beers for afterward. No one to relive the moment with a year or two, or ten down the road.

Also, I'd always imagined when I finally got my first ace, it would be a perfectly struck shot, just flushed. I would hold my finish and track the flight of the ball as it homed in on the stick like it was being sucked into a black hole. Then cue the aforementioned high-fiving, oohing and aahing, etc. This would have been the exact opposite of that. The shot was toed, a low duck hook that started right before eventually divebombing left. Just an ugly golf shot. Add that to the fact that the sun pretty much would have rendered me blind had I tried to track its flight, and it would have pretty much sucked all the way around.

I still would have busted out my cell phone then and there and called pretty much everyone in my contacts list. But deep down, I’d have been a little pissed if my first hole-in-one happened that way. Now, the second, or third, or fourth…

Driving Sucks

So I pull up to a red light the other day and both lanes are occupied by a single car. There's no one immediately behind me in either lane, so I get the option of pulling behind either car. This is, of course, a huge decision. Get behind a slow-ass driver and you kiss like 20-30 seconds of valuable time goodbye. In lane 1 we have a suped up Honda - spoiler, exhaust, all the douchey accessories. Lane 2 is a newer model minivan. I pull up behind the minivan banking on the fact that the soccer mom at the wheel will drive like the rest of SoCal's soccer mom population - like a bat out of fucking hell. The light finally turns green, and the minivan, as I'd hoped, takes off like it was in a drag race. As I pass the Honda, still sitting at the intersection, I see the teenage driver messing with his phone. This almost always works out for me.

When faced with a tougher choice, like between a small SUV and a luxury car or something, I always fuck up and get behind the asshole who accelerates like he has a non-covered cup of coffee in his cupholder. This asshat usually likes to keep it 5 MPH under the posted limit too.

God, I hate driving.

Underrated vs. Underappreciated

While driving home from work yesterday, my iPod all ashuffle, The Jam's "Away From The Numbers" popped up and graced my short drive with a little mod-rockin' goodness. As is usually the case when I hear a Jam song, I thought, "you really need to listen to more Jam" (since remedied). I also thought, "wow, these guys are underrated." A few miles further North on I-5 I reconsidered my "underrated" tag for The Jam and opted instead for "underappreciated."

This may be nothing more than semantics, but I think it's easy for people to throw around the underrated tag when often it's just not the case. I'd bet most people familiar with The Jam's stuff consider them a fairly seminal late 70's - early 80's act. They were a band that achieved much more notoriety in the UK than here in the States, and they often get lumped in with the British punk bands of the time. While this isn't egregiously off the mark, it also sells the band short a bit. Their mod-rock revival sound bridged the gap between the punk acts and the new wave acts that were beginning to pick up steam. In a sense, The Jam were in no-man's land. Too musical and melodic to be punk, too subversive and angsty to be new wave. Classifications aside, though, they were a great band and today, perhaps a little underlistened to and underappreciated.

A few more underappreciated bands:
Television
The Damned
Fugazi

And some bands I feel are truly underrated:
Built to Spill
Buzzcocks
Descendents
The Replacements
Stiff Little Fingers

Apparently, I don't think 70's and 80's punk gets its due. What are your underrated and underappreciated acts?

Album Review: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks

I root for Ted Leo. Perhaps more than any other artist today, I want his albums to be good. And I'm not sure I can really explain why. He seems like a pretty cool dude and all, but I think it has to do with the type of music he makes. Call it power pop, call it pop-punk, whatever. I like to think of it as power pop with a purpose, and there aren't many artists out there who do it any better.

Quick story. A buddy and I went to see him during the Hearts of Oak tour. We'll call the buddy Gary, since that's his name. There are two things I remember from that show: 1.) Gary and I were having some beers across the street from the venue, since the Glass House serves no booze, and these dudes who were there to see the show too came up and asked us if we were "in the band." Not sure which band they were referring to, since there were a few playing that night, but we got a kick out of that. And 2.) the show was relegated to this smaller side room on the other side of the venue's main room because so few tickets were sold. I'd say there were probably less than 50 of us there that night. But the way Ted Leo and his band played, you'd have guessed there were 5,000 kids packed into that smelly, sweaty, cramped back room. Also, there was a tambourine that was passed around for the audience to play during the set. I guess that's three things.

Now, on to the new album, The Brutalist Bricks. I'm going to go song-by-song and give my impression of each while listening to them. This should be fun-ish.

1.) The Mighty Sparrow
Strong, strong opener. Vocals right off the bat and a nice sense of urgency. I like the subtle tempo changes. The song cools off and then heats back up quickly. Watch out for the false stop - don't be that gut at the show that claps before the song is really over. I hate that guy. I've been that guy. Sadly.

2.) Mourning in America
A fuzz-rocker of a song with subtle electro flourishes. It settles into a pretty straight-forward rocker after that though, revisiting the fuzzy guitar every so often. A nice second track.

3.) Ativan Eyes
Power guitar opening, then becomes kind of an anthemic sing-along kinda track. New territory here for Mr. Leo, but doesn't sound out of place. Could see this as a single and also in a TV ad real soon.

4.) Even Heroes Have to Die
A typical Ted Leo folk-rocker. Oh-oh's galore. Nice acoustic feel to this song without departing too far from overall feel of the album.

5.) The Stick
Churning power chords...definite punk/hardcore feel. Short and sweet with a bit of a change up toward the middle. Shouty vocals. Very different from the last track. I like, though.

6.) Bottled in Cork
Right in with the vocals on this one as well. A bit of a cacophonous start and then mellows out into a bit of a strummer. Like two songs in one. Wow, this tune is ALL over the place. As wildly as it starts, it ends just as quietly. Strange song - not my fave.

7.) Woke Up Near Chelsea
Piano at the start and then drums and urgent vocals. Then, the RAWK. I've listened to this album a half a dozen times or so, and it hasn't really dawned on me how much it rocks. Consider this guy dawned on. "We are born of despair" indeed. Great song.

8.) One Polaroid a Day
A little mellow/chiller song after a few rockers in a row. Almost, dare I say, soulful. Kind of a funky yet muted riff and a nice bubbling baseline. Soothing backing vocals. A big detour as far as the album's flow is concerned.

9.) Where Was My Brain
A little Fugazi feedback to start. Straight punk tune here it seems. Classic guitar solo. This is like the punk version of the Pixies' "Where is My Mind." Mr. Leo really left the "pop" out of the pop-punk equation on many of these songs.

10.) Bartomelo and the Buzzing of Bees
Well, there is a bee on the album's cover. Starts with a rumbling baseline then the song proper kicks in. Here's the "pop" I said was missing. Sort of your classic Ted Leo tune here.

11.) Tuberculoids Arrive in Hop
Very strange song here people. Acoustic strumming with a little alt-country thing going on. Then, falsetto. Dark would be a good word to describe this song. Big time departure.

12.) Gimme The Wire
Back to some frenetic pop-punk. This song wouldn't sound out of place on any Ted Leo album, yet it almost does here, given the rest of it. Odd breakdown in the middle and then back to the main riff. Good song.

13.) Last Days
Fuzzy guitar licks to open...jangling percussion. Then turns into another classic Leo tune. Reminiscent of some of the stuff on Tyranny of Distance. If you weren't keeping track, you'd still kind of know this was the closer, which isn't a bad thing.

And that's that. Not a real cohesive collection of songs, but everything here is either good or real good. A few are just OK and there are some head-scratching moments, but nothing egregious. A return to form, I say!

My recommendation: Procure this album immediately.

My Favorite Albums of the Past 10 Years

Whew, where has the time gone? Seems like it was only yesterday the entire country was going batshit over the impending doom Y2K was going to unleash. Fun stuff. So, this is my list of MY favorite albums released between 2000 and 2009. I'll attempt to write some sort of qualifying/explanatory entry about the Top 10 and then just list the rest accordingly. Enjoy! Or don't, I really don't give a shit.

(update)On second thought, I'll just write about these albums individually...here's the first.

1. Fugazi - The Argument
While I was aware of Fugazi's existence long before I had knowingly heard any of their music, I somehow managed to avoid listening to a band I now count as among my Top 5 favorite bands of all time. In my defense, this was before the time you could fire up the ol' computer and download pretty much any album ever recorded. How did we survive the 90s? So, one day I'm in my sister's boyfriend's brother's car (seriously) and he reaches for a cassette with a red cover and pops it into the player. The bass line to Waiting Room blasts over his stock car stereo speakers and I'm mesmerized. Since I was very familiar with Minor Threat, I knew as soon as Ian MacKaye opened his mouth that this was Fugazi and that I needed to own this album.

That was probably 1996 or 1997. I went about collecting all their older albums (many out of used bins) and then bought their 1998 release, End Hits, soon after it was released. By the time The Argument was released, I was beyond ready for a new Fugazi album. And it didn't disappoint.

End Hits had hinted at a more musical Fugazi, and while it was very good, it flailed around a bit, especially toward the end. The Argument, on the other hand, is tight, direct and brilliant. The band's trademark controlled aggression is on full display, as well as the inclusion of a cello and acoustic guitar - instruments one would not expect to find on a Fugazi album. The cello plays a big part on a few tracks, creating a haunting backdrop to more subtle vocals and guitars. There are a few classic Fugazi moments - "Full Disclosure" and "Epic Problem" are bona fide face-melters, but my favorite parts of this album shows the band at their most restrained. And restrained does not equal any less intense. If anything, these songs draw the listener in even more as the band rails against corporate greed, racism and globalization. Some things never change.