Monday, November 30, 2015

Best Albums of 2015: Number Ten


Screaming Females

Narrowing down my favorites of 2015 to just ten albums was not easy and I didn't try to force it just so I could write about specific albums. And yet, it worked out that my number 10 was the first album that really caught my attention this year and pretty much set the stage for the rest of a year in which I dug into metal and heavier rock more than usual. Not to mention the very name of the band pretty much describes my favorite thing in rock as I've written about before. So, my number 10, is Rose Mountain by Screaming Females.

rose mountain

Somewhere between metal and punk with a dash of artsy drama, this album grabs you and excites you and even annoys you a little until you can't help but listen again. Marissa Paternoster's voice maybe comes off a little affected at times but there's something about her vibrato and rawness that takes me past any potential off-putting weirdness and into something much more natural. Just listen to the opening track, "Empty Head" and by the time you get to the chorus you will be bobbing your head and maybe playing air guitar.  But it won't end there because it goes right into "Ripe" which really cuts loose and demonstrates Paternoster's guitar skills as well.

Slower tracks like "Wishing Well" and "Hopeless" feature a tightrope walk between the screaming female and the vulnerability she is not afraid of demonstrating. "Hopeless," in particular is the kind of power ballad that I think some of us might relate to more than others and like most friendships ended by one sided unrequited loves or just plain loneliness such as the lyrics seem to imply, it ends too soon. But still, the lyrics "Don't count on me again, I'll obsess on our encounters, I want us to be friends, I'm not hopeless, helpless, or begging you to stay, It's just turning out that way," will linger, hopelessly. It really is a beautiful little song that almost evokes Linda Perry pop sensibility and lays Marissa's heart open on a glass table that makes you listen to the rest of the album a little more closely.

marissa paternoster
This image is rock n roll.
The subject matter seems to be mostly on the less exhilarating side of life, which balances out the soaring, arena influenced rock. Some of the lyrics are just how I like them: hard to get to the specific meaning and specific enough to be honest. But a song like "Broken Neck" is most likely dealing with depression or some other sort of mental illness with its chorus of "It's my mad disease, pills and scripts they push me." And the misleadingly titled "Triumph" which features an uplifting riff and some great shredding also features the chorus "Our triumph is sleeping now, my form of devotion, I'll drag you down in the crowd, I go through the motions." It's in in these moments that Paternoster's voice is most perfect, bringing forward a layer of raw truth and unexpected emotion.

All in all, just listen. Don't try to make sense of it because really, the big take away here is that Melissa Paternoster is a badass guitar player above all else. Let her shredding in songs like "Triumph" and the just fucking awesome closer, "Criminal Image" take you along and you will be soaring.

Friday, November 27, 2015

2015 Week 47: Contenders

contender

I've spent the whole week going over some of the albums that stuck out for me this year and I'm narrowing my list down to my eventual 10 for 2015. Last year I didn't rank them, and instead just presented them in any order, because I generally hate rankings. But I might challenge myself this year and actually impose an order and pick one that is the best. But it's going to be tough. There are several that could fit the bill and at least one I hadn't actually heard all the way through until this week. In the meantime, this week's Spotify playlist will give you a little taste as it features one song from each of the top 23 contenders. The possibility of something else sneaking in at the last minute is still open, so if you feel something is missing, let me know quick and I'll give it a listen.

Friday, November 20, 2015

2015 Week 46: Shades

dr. dude

It's been a pretty shitty week for the world. I've been stressed at work, but shit going on all over the planet just puts things in perspective. And that perspective is that people basically fucking suck. From the guy who pulled the trigger to the gaggle of assholes who use it to further agendas. Always the fucking agendas. But whatever, really, there's only one song that is really worth listening to at a time like this, when there's really nothing you can do about any of it.


Anyway, that should allow you to decompress a little before putting on this week's Spotify Playlist about real, out of time, hipster swagger. This one cool kid who truly never cared what anybody thought, and maybe also was a time traveler, put this list together on his phone in 1940, while sitting on the hood of a '57 Chevy, wearing Ray Bans and smoking a cigarette from the future. He simply called it Shades and disappeared forever. I found it by accident while drinking a craft beer and riding my pogo stick to work one day and now it's yours. Enjoy.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Perfect Songs - Tomorrow Never Knows

revolver

I could probably pick any Beatles song at random, label it perfect, write it up and few people would question it. Likely because few people would read it, but that's neither here, nor there, nor everywhere (see what I did there?). But there's one Beatles song that I can say without a doubt has had the most lasting, evolving power over me. It's somehow a little scary and inviting, confusing and comforting. It's perfect and Don Draper knows it, no matter how dismissively he stops it (its effect on him is clear in the finale).


I remember when that episode aired, and he was placing the needle, I knew from the location of it what was coming. I have a long history with this song. I think I was always aware of The Beatles as a kid because I listened to the local oldies station, Magic 102.7, a lot, but they never played this. So I was familiar with the mop top, boy band era, really. This song came into my consciousness when I was around 11 or 12 watching PBS one night when they played the documentary The Compleat Beatles. I only vaguely remember specific details that have since sort of just congealed in my mind into a mass of gelatin Beatles facts that I somehow just know now, but I do remember vividly hearing this beat and seagull squawking and being a little bit shocked by it.

beatles
Like any healthy 12 year old, I was pretty naive about drugs so talk of the Fab Four getting high, on acid of all things, was eye opening and held a certain darkness that I couldn't deny was attractive. Sure, there was talk of meditation and India and all that, but drugs, man. Let's not kid ourselves. If I remembered anything from that film, I never forgot that song or the album it came from, Revolver. And a few years later, when I was 14, I bought my first Beatles album and second ever CD and it was that very album.

The thing is, by that time I had gotten confused and thought this song was called "Doctor Robert" so I was momentarily disappointed while playing the album the first time. I remember going right to "Doctor Robert" and expecting that beat and saying "damn it." So I said fuck it, and just played the album from the start instead. And I loved every song, but it wasn't that droning voice and those sounds that seemed to be coming from space. It wasn't that dark thing that called to me, which only now do I really understand as the call of Rock n Roll and humanity and the universe. Each song was just a song in comparison. And then. . .


Could it be? YES. YES IT WAS! THE SONG! It was wrapping itself around me in my room and I did just as it asked: turned off my mind, relaxed and floated on this wave of I wasn't even sure what. On some level I was afraid my parents would come in and angrily take this drug music away from me. But how could you not play this loud? Or on headphones? That day and over the years I played the hell out of this album, and particularly this song . . . sober.  I'm positive it's engraved in my synapses. And then. . .

It would be impossible to write about this song without at least touching on my psychedelic experiences. Let's just say I had many. And I guess because in the mid 90s acid made some kind of comeback, there was much music that was supposed to cater to tripping. There was the whole neo- hippie thing going at the time, but I wasn't into Phish or that kind of stuff. I was more drawn to the electronic noises that seemed to capture the same sort of thing The Beatles were doing in this song. Whenever I was tripping, every noise, or silence, or the rushing wind, or the white noise in a room, would somehow morph into a beat, a pattern, a series of transitions into each other like some hallucinatory DJ was mixing reality for me and at the same time, the DJ was me. It was glorious and it always took me back to "Tomorrow Never Knows." While tripping, this song opened up new layers and meaning and colors and sensations that to this day I remember and feel, fondly, every time I hear the song.

recording revolver
It's ultimately about the music.
Anyone that's ever tripped will tell you that there really is no accurate way to describe it and that's because your brain just sort of folds and unfolds everything from time and space to sound and vision so language just fails. But this song, it doesn't fail. It gets it. And maybe John was writing about meditation and the sounds and the feeling are meant to be spiritual not psychedelically influenced. At the end of the day, I say it's the same thing. I say it's all about an alternative mind state and opening those doors. Mine were already opening thanks to this song, it's just the acid sort of blew the door off the hinge. But it was four dudes from Liverpool that started my trip in a perfect way, with a perfect song.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

2015 Week 45: With a Thrill in My Head


Those days you wake up with a song inexplicably stuck in your head will throw you for a loop sometimes. Especially when it's a song you may not even like so much or even if you do, you haven't heard or thought about for many years and really wouldn't have on your own. But, as I've mentioned on occasion, my mind is an asshole. Why do I find it hard to write the next line? I want the truth to be said. . . .


I mean, I don't hate the song, but I wouldn't necessarily listen to it voluntarily. Yet, Friday morning I had to listen to it first thing in the morning because it was playing in my head out of the fucking blue. And you know what? Fuck it, it's a good song. There are some pretty interesting lyrics in there. "With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue listening to Marvin all night long, this is the sound of my soul"? That's somehow unhinged and beautiful at the same time.

By the way, from Wikipedia: "The expression "Spandau Ballet" was slang used by Allied troops in the trenches in the First World War referring to the twitching of the corpses hanging on the barbed wire and repeatedly hit by Spandau machine gun fire from the German lines." So, pretty fucking hardcore for a band featuring smooth 80s sax. Also, now I want to watch this:


So then this week's Spotify playlist gained a framing device, as you'll see. Buy a ticket to the world, and come back again after you've heard the thrill in my head. It's not really anything more than a bunch of songs, but maybe you can find some meaning in it. If you do, let me know.



Saturday, November 7, 2015

2015 Week 44: It Is What It Is

I finally loaded my music library onto Google Music. I don't think I'll be switching to Google, only because I do like the interface, music discovery and social features better on Spotify, but it's nice to be able to stream my Beatles and other obscure garage and shit. So I guess I just have two music apps now. What are you gonna do?

So I accidentally deleted this week's playlist and had to create a new one. I tried to more or less capture what I had before. It is what it is. Not much else to say about it, really. Just some songs.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Broncho at The Culture Room: My Mind at CBGB's

culture room, ft. lauderdale
Broncho!
I've always loved the whole late 70s New York, CBGB vibe. And for me, that whole thing sort of extends to bands and sounds that aren't even part of that era or scene specifically, but it's what I think of when I hear even somewhat scuzzy rock n roll that is also kinda poppy. So I sometimes lump in stuff that's more new wave or whatever into the same grouping. And then again, the thing about the CBGB bands of that era is that there really was no "sound" to it. They were all very different. Talking Heads sound nothing like Blondie who sound nothing like Television or the Ramones. And Lou Reed and Iggy Pop weren't even part of that. Yet, last night, I saw Broncho play at The Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale and those are some of the things and bands I thought about.

culture room, ft. lauderdale
It's cool to be bummed.
But before Broncho came out, local band Heavy Drag from Miami opened up and I was pleasantly surprised. They bill themselves as a bummer band and I can see what they mean by that with the heavy droning sound and all. Their sound seemed to me to be fusing Black Sabbath and The Velvet Underground, a combination that seems obvious and which I'm sure many bands have claimed, but Heavy Drag also amps up the psychedelic vibe which may be why  it works really well for them. I would have bought their album last night if it had been available on vinyl (because I'm a hipster) instead of cassette (because I'm not a superhipster). None the less, check them out on Spotify and elsewhere. Well worth it.


Speaking of being a hipster, we went to the show to see Broncho, who were opening for The Growlers. Nothing against The Growlers, but I guess they're just not my thing so we didn't plan on staying and didn't. This is not the first time we've gone just for the opener. And it probably won't be the last. And since we wound up discovering Heavy Drag, it was a bonus. 

broncho live
Whoa-oh oh-oh, whoa-oh oh-oh.
I'd been listening to them since their second album, Just Enough Hip to Be a Woman, came out last year. but still wasn't sure what to expect, but the bottom line is Broncho was great. I always forget just how small The Culture Room is and how great the sound generally is which was already a plus. Last night, I would say if there was any weakness in Broncho's show it was that they maybe went too loud, sacrificing clarity for the undeniable power and energy that the extra volume gave them. But, honestly, I can't complain because I didn't need to understand a single word Ryan Lindsey was singing beyond the "Whoa-oh oh-oh, whoa-oh oh- oh" in "What," or the stuttering "doo doo doo, etc" of "Class Historian." And while on the album their sound comes across with a heavier dose of glam, new wave and groove, live it was much more raw and, well, "CBGB," which in this case ranges from Ramones and Blondie to Iggy and Transformer era Lou Reed. So much punk going on in their riffs that I hadn't noticed until last night. And yet, still with the heavy textured effects and walls of reverb. It's a pretty fucking great combination that they balance without getting completely muddy. It's rock n roll, baby!


It was clear we were the oldest people at the show, which on the one hand is a sign that we're cool motherfuckers and the other is a sign that, no fuck it, we're just cool motherfuckers. We can only hope the kids at the show noticed and that it somehow inspires them. It's rock n roll, baby!!

broncho live
Rock n Roll!!