they're coming to take me

http://www.metafilter.com/91499/Now-is-Strange

Freedom's Just Another Word

New Old songs, collected as a new Kris Kristofferson album, streaming. Nonstop wonderfulness.

He crashed a helicopter into Johnny Cash's yard in order to bring you 'Sunday Morning Coming Down'. Dude deserves to be famouser than he is.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126169194&sc=nl&cc=mn-20100427

More Beetles

Still working on my guitar album. Here are some more of those recordings. Sadly, none of them seem like keepers: there are some sour moments, and I was having a mysterious computer glitch of some sort that inserts a crackle here and a pop there. Still, you may enjoy hearing them.
(The first link is a new take on one posted previously.)

http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_EyedElator.mp3
http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_BeautifulMapleBorer.mp3
http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_GrantsRhinoceros.mp3
http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_GreenWoodBorer.mp3

The Lovers Have Told Us

A nice music video from Rafter, an old pal and former boss who's made a bazillion excellent recordings. I saw him do an excellent, if underattended, show last night. He's playing again tonight at Southpaw if any Brooklyn folks are reading this.

Hell, here's another one. Enjoy:

I Just Can't Shoot That Good

This album was an early, transformative, blues experience for me: a cassette (made by the father of a high-school friend specifically as part of a wildly successful program to inculcate my young ears with THE BLUES and JAZZ) that I listened to over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I've heard a lot of Hopkins since, and he pretty much falls into the category of a lot of blues and jazz folks: every recording is excellent, so why pick a favorite? But this album seems pretty perfect in every way to me.

I remember really 'hearing' it for the first time, after many listens, one night while working alone at a tiny ice cream shop in a tourist trap in San Diego. I had the boom-box turned up, no customers were anywhere near, and I was bored, and then cleaning, and then mopping, and then bored again, and meanwhile this was playing. The sound of Lightnin's voice suddenly stopped sounding strange or foreign or 'black' or historical or like 'blues' or even like a recording of someone I'd never met and who'd been dead a long time, and suddenly sounded like THE VOICE, present now and living and true, with all of the sly humour and world-weariness and gentle wisdom and frailty and subtle anger and love, that all of us would sing with if we only knew how to sing with our pure inner selves; it sounded like the sound of my soul and yours. I decided that this was the true meaning of 'soul' music: not just a genre, but any music that really contained so much humanity that it could sweep your soul up into it and carry you along.  

I know now that this effect is a type of magic that can come from nearly any good music (I could make a long list of things that have made me feel this way, but many of them are already posted to this blog...), but that night I was young enough and the music was awesome enough that it really changed my life.

Give this one a few listens. And any time you see a Lightnin' Hopkins record, pick it up.

Here's a randomly selected video: there are other good ones out there but this will give you an idea of the magic.  

Lightnin' Hopkins - Come go home with me

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nozzxzmjmmh/Lightnin Hopkins- Texas Blues.zip

Check 'E'

I don't know much about this one. Downloaded it, fell in love with it, haven't been able to find and buy it. I bought another, similar one, but this album's a bit better. Basically, you have dubby spacey percolating endlessly seething hypno-sound, with steel guitars and primitive synth swoops punctuating a bed of music that's somehow both extremely hyperactive and also mellow and calming. It's a dance party you could fall asleep to.

Anyone know all about King Sunny Ade? Tell me more in comments.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ddymwuymznd/King Sunny Ade and his African Beats - Check 'E'.zip

Let's Get Together and Rub Rub Rub

Bought this on LP a while back in a used bookstore, and have been enjoying it tremendously. Highlights include the lecherous 'Stoop Down Girl' and a personal favorite, 'Let's Get Drunk Again'.

Lou Curtiss at Folk Arts Rare Records in San Diego (see long and wordy previous post) talked about Sam Chatmon when I last visited. I'd made an offhand comment about the blues tradition of sharing lyrics; that there was this underlying pool of ideas that everyone traded and re-combined. He pointed out that a lot of the underlying songcraft came from really gifted songwriters like Sam Chatmon, who'd penned many of the songs that then became common currency (in part or in whole).

Sam was a member of the incredibly influential Mississippi Sheiks, and possibly a half-brother of the great Charlie Patton.

Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jwmmdydennm/Sam Chatmon- Blues When It Rains.zip

On the Road to My Heart

Fans of classic country will be delighted by Merle Haggard's new one, now streaming from NPR. His voice is more tremulous than of old, and the general intent seems a bit mellower than in some past releases; but the songs, and the instrumentation surrounding them, are as rich and delicious as ever.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125636724

Electrocution

I've heard this twice on NPR now, and I'm totally crushing on it. I've never heard (though I've certainly heard of) Nada Surf before, and I don't care if it's a cover and also a sonic ripoff of the Byrds. It's a delicious song and I plan on buying the record when it comes out. Hot damn.


http://one-track-mind.com/nada-surf-electrocution/

SXSW 2010: Sondre Lerche

I stumbled upon the Norwegian balladeer's music in the early aughties on an Astralwerks sampler. Part of me is a big sucker for well-crafted pop songs, and another, smaller part is a sucker of schmaltzy, well-crafted pop songs. Sondre's music usually falls right in between.

You could write the guy off as a novelty; I mean, what else comes from Norway except big sweaters and lots of fish? But Lerche has a nice combination of talent and humility that keeps him searching for interesting things to do.

Anyways. I saw him a few years ago, actually right when I moved to Austin, and it was a solo show. I wasn't really into it. But when I saw he was playing an inside venue on a very unseasonably cold SXSW Saturday, I thought I'd check him out again.

It was great. It was like watching Sondre busking for euros at some subway station. The crowd was unsure of itself in the beginning, but completely attentive and silent by the end of his first number. Here's a song - I think it was the first one he played - from that show. It's called "Airport, Taxi, Reception". (The person who uploaded it wasn't sure).

SXSW 2010: The Soft Pack

This was the band I was most excited to see this year. I saw them last year by chance and was thrilled by their cover of Phoenix's "Fences". Their interpretation was a droll, Velvet Undergroundy reading of the French group's choice album cut.

But, more than that, they remind me of the influential but short-lived trio, Sirens of Titan.

Also hailing from sunny San Diego, the Soft Pack combine distilled rock riffs with descriptive SoCal imagery and personal dissatisfaction. After several listens to their latest CD, it in many ways sounds like something SoT might have done had the group been able to stay together.

Witness The Soft Pack's "Pull Out", a song suggesting California secede from the US:


A song with lyrics that might have easily been penned by Ryan and Justin; guitar-work not unlike an angsty Ero would play. Similiarly, "Mexico":



with its tale of lost love and running to Mexico, and its suave six string work, seems like something hammered out of a SoT practice session. Also, I'll ask the listener to compare "Parasites" with the Sirens of Titan's "I Don't Lie":



and I think the parallels are there. Or maybe not.

Finally, just enjoy this great single and video from the Soft Pack.

SXSW 2010: Vivian Girls

I've been meaning to see this band for a few years. They always come to SXSW and play several shows; so many shows that I never seem to act with any urgency when I see them listed because I feel I can always catch them another time.

Anyway, they were sharing a bill with someone we had run over to see and I realized my time had finally come. Yes, I just bought another beer and stuck around.



Vivian Girls are a staple of the Brooklyn scene, and their sound is all about gritty three-chord-rock with twee lyrics. There's enough growl and grace, though, to keep things interesting. They have some surprisingly Stereolab-like harmonies, and I really like how the singer sings out of the side of her mouth (not visible in this particular video).

I thought they were pretty good but will need to reinvent themselves when the "girls" become "women".