Today’s Tracks
"Buildings & Mountains"
Republic Tigers
Somewhere in the eighties, the criterion changed. The question wasn’t whether something was good, but whether it was a HIT! A hit was something catchy, instantly memorable, that someone who’d actually pick up the phone and stay on the line with a researcher could recognize and approve of in a snippet. It would be like having to decide to marry someone based on a fleeting glimpse. Maybe you’d notice appealing physical features, but you’d have no idea what was inside, whether it was creamy nougat, life-fulfilling or air.
Our whole world has been refashioned around this concept of instant. Buy now, forget instantly. Remember the music from the nineties? Well, maybe better than the music of the oughties. The tunes serve a purpose, they feed radio and television, they’re purveyed by pretty faces, they can be sold. Easily. Talk to someone who wants to make it today. They’ll get plastic surgery a la Ashlee Simpson, they’ll tell you what Perez has got to say, but the music comes last. Because the music is much harder than the trappings. Clive can get you a tune, he doesn’t even want you to write your own, and your voice is irrelevant, you can be auto-tuned, hell even Lindsay Lohan got to make a record.
Unfortunately, the opposite world is equally murky. Peopled by musicians who think they’re great because they’ve recorded tunes and pressed them onto a CD. And their minions who can’t compete in the Perez world champion these tracks, which oftentimes leave one flummoxed…why is this so great?
So we have a country that is not passionate about music. It’s either worthless or too hard to digest, too hard to find, too hard to understand. Why are there reviews in the newspaper? Who are these people writing, why do they care, why should we care and why should we trust them?
Leaves a lot of us surfing the Web, not for music, but excitement, the same way we listened to the radio back in the sixties. Hell, when politics is more interesting than music, the world is truly upside down, the executives and the hipsters have ruined the scene.
I played the "Paste" sampler. On a lark. There were 21 tracks. Some of them were truly unlistenable. Almost none of them were good except for this one, "Buildings & Mountains", by Republic Tigers.
This is not a hit on ANY format. It just sounds good. Like that old seventies band Charlie. It started to come out of the speakers and I noticed. I had to play it again, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
If you’re a fan of rock, if you believe the singer has to be able to sing, if you are interested in what a Del Amitri has to say, if you don’t live for punk, check this out:
It’s the very first cut. And if you’re signed into MySpace, you can click and download the MP3 for free.
The rest of the MySpace cuts are not as good. But these days, you’ll settle for one cut.
"In Color"
Jamey Johnson
I guess I’m drawn to country because you’re invited to the party even if you’re not hip, if you’re overweight, if you haven’t been keeping up. You can tune in and you won’t be assaulted. You’ll find people testifying.
Oh, the stations are too formatted. It’s not the country of yore, the Hank Williams stuff. It can all sound kind of similar. But when you’re driving, staring out the windshield, you can be surprised now and again, you can hear something that just sounds right. In a kind of B-level Skynyrd way. Not "Free Bird", but an album cut.
And when I finally realized I liked "In Color", I figured it was another redneck Iraq song. Shit, do you have to be a Republican to like country music? Who decreed that? But this isn’t a political song… It’s about life. We live, then we die. It’s so scary. There’s an end to this movie. You don’t feel it when you’re a teenager, a twentysomething. But even if you avoid having a family, get your face lifted, you’re going to be confronted with an immutable fact, that you’re going to die, much sooner than you think.
If it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should’ve seen it in color
I was scared when I graduated from college, when I got married. You wonder what happens now. But you know if you never take a risk, you never go forward. You can stay home all day and watch TV, but your life doesn’t really begin until you walk out the front door. The Internet is a good facsimile, but it’s like the difference between watching and playing. It’s the most fun, you feel most alive when you’re playing.
But if you play, you can lose. You try to win, but not everybody does. Inside, it’s only you. Outside, you’re part of a team, the human race. You can’t predict others’ behavior, their desires. Humans contradict themselves on the spot, it’s astounding we get along at all.
This Jamey Johnson is not a nobody. He co-wrote George Strait’s big hit of last year, "Give It Away". Which is a great intro to country, because it doesn’t sound like the Eagles, but real country. And he’s done great Trace Adkins songs too. But now Jamey Johnson’s singing his own songs.
And obviously more focused on writing than the Web, and that’s a mistake if you’re an artist today. You’ve got to take your career in your own hands. You’ve got to check your site every day, see what’s going on at MySpace. And Jamey Johnson needs to know some asshole has hijacked his page.
Wow, it’s fixed! You don’t hear that wannabe singing over his material, the jerk who embedded their video in his site. So, you can hear "In Color".
It’s the second cut in the player: In Color
I heard this on Sirius New Country, 60. After canning 100.3 because they played an old track that irked me. I was on XM, but the song on the folk channel wasn’t as good as the previous one. What was on Highway 16 and X Country didn’t float my boat, so I fired up Sirius and discovered this.
It’s not a hit yet. Maybe it never will be. And it’s not a classic. But there’s something here. Just not the artifice of the Nashville afternoon songwriting sessions, but some truth, some honesty.
Mika
Sometimes, stuff is labeled kid pop, evanescent crap, so you don’t check it out, especially if you’re old and listening to James Taylor or a youngster listening to the Shins. But, this guy is VERY talented. A modern day Freddie Mercury. And sometimes Prince.
Start with "My Interpretation". This is positively seventies. The intro has the naked truth of an Emitt Rhodes record. There’s a pre-chorus that hooks you and then we’re in Queen territory, later Queen, after "Keep Yourself Alive", when Freddie let some of the camp come in.
This isn’t quite Elton John, but you’ll be stunned how good this is.
"Love Today" is Prince from the "Dirty Mind" era, my FAVORITE period. When the beat puts you in a trance, when you feel SO GOOD! Mika even SOUNDS like Prince.
The piece de resistance is "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)". This is not so different from "Bicycle Race", not quite as catchy as "Fat Bottomed Girls", but you’ll get caught up in the camp, the pure fun. No one in America cuts shit like this. They’re afraid of judgment of their sexuality, we take ourselves so seriously. Whereas the English are willing to make fun of themselves, to HAVE FUN! The most dyed-in-the-wool rocker could be at a wedding, a bar mitzvah, sitting on the sidelines as the deejay plays this, but as it unfolds and the girls get up and dance HE’LL WANT TO BE PART OF THE ACTION!
There are a few too many styles on the album. But there’s raw talent in evidence. Don’t let the hit "Grace Kelly" scare you away. If you’re fine with Freddie Mercury being gay. If you like "Night At The Opera" just as much as the first two records. Check this out.
"Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’"
Crazy Elephant
I found someone on Limewire with a screaming fast connection, so I peered inside his hard drive and found this.
Shit, I haven’t heard this in decades. They were a one hit wonder, but I’ll put this up against all those tracks dominating the Top Forty today. This is not measured, it’s got exuberance, it’s got ENERGY!
This ain’t the Rascals. There’s the faux psychedelia. But the record takes off on a tear and doesn’t stop for two minutes. If you know it, you know what I mean!
