"A Little Bit Of Everything"

It’s about that damn chicken wing.

Records reveal themselves to you over time, you don’t digest them fully on the first play, you can get an insight listening even decades later. That’s the thrill of discovering a great new album, the way it reveals itself to you, like a new love.

It was the first story in "A Little Bit Of Everything" that hooked me.

Then the third, about the girl writing invitations for her wedding.

Then the second…

There’s an older man who stands in a buffet line
He is smiling and he’s holding out his plate
And the further he looks back into his timeline
That hard road that led him to today

This is all set-up. Free food at a homeless shelter. Someone who’s down on his luck. And in today’s society there’s no sympathy for the downtrodden, belief is if they just put one foot in front of the other, put on a happy face, everything would all work out. But one of the problems with getting older is what happens in all that time. The attrition from events you may have had no part in.

Making up for when his bright future had left him
Making up for the fact that his only son is gone
And letting everything out once his server asks him,
‘Have you figured out yet what it is you want?’

They say a child should never predecease a parent, that you just can’t recover from this.

We all start off with a bright future. And then it’s downhill from there.

They don’t tell you this. They tell you everybody can be President.

But then you get cut from the Little League team. A thousand little cuts follow, until it’s hard to keep your optimism.

And when you’re out of school, no one cares. Maybe we focus on the young in this country because they’re the only ones not infected with loss, the ones who blindly still have hope.

And we expect the man here to barely be able to speak, to be so depressed as to only be able to nod. But then he says…

I want a little bit of everything
The biscuits and the beans
Whatever helps me to forget about
The things that brought me to my knees
So pile on those mashed potatoes
And an extra chicken wing
I’m having a little bit of everything

The beaming idiots cannot acknowledge loss. But the protagonist here has no problem delineating his less than perfect past. But then, unexpectedly, he expresses hope, we see a light inside that inspires us.

And the problem is the MP3 is nowhere near as good as the live performance. In concert, Taylor Goldsmith explodes when he hits the line about the "chicken wing", as if it’s a million dollars, acknowledging it’s the little things in life that get you by.

I think of nothing so much as the Chris Rock routine about the big piece of chicken…reserved for his father, and himself at the end of the show.

The big piece of chicken

___________________

"So Well"

When you’re in your twenties, even into your thirties, you’re still searching, looking for not only love, but your place in the world. The dead ends are depressing, I’d never go back there ever. All those wasted nights nursing a beer in a bar where no romantic activity was ever going to transpire. Meeting someone and getting my hopes up and having that be it, not even a phone conversation thereafter. Despite what the media tells you, being old is great. You know how the game works. That love is never perfect, there’s no such thing as a soul mate and society is based on hype, people selling crap to get ahead. You know what you like, there’s a plethora of friends and activities, the only problem is the sand is running out of the hourglass.

So I can’t really relate to the lyrics of "So Well". I’m in a relationship, of long term, with no obvious end in sight. I’m content, I live a 3-D life. But listening I realized I never moved on to the next phase of life, children. That’s what replaces the angst of the club, all those wasted days and nights, the excitement of birth, the angst of how your progeny are going to turn out. That’s where the focus of oldsters goes. As for retirement, today few can afford it and kids never quite leave the roost so you can be in this phase forever. But what if you don’t ever enter it?

So teen movies don’t quite resonate anymore. I’m long out of high school. And although that exploratory phase of finding out who I am is gone, I do remember the pain. And that’s the subject of "So Well". I’m in a no-man’s land, a purgatory caught between two worlds, and that’s weird, there’s no place on the continuum for the childless, and I now know why oldsters can no longer sing this material, why it takes twenty and thirtysomethings.

I am an old, old sailor
With a future much shorter than his past
I live alone, I do not wander
A world that slips further from my grasp

I know, I know, the sailor is old. But the singer is young and inexperienced. The point is after a few bumps and bruises, especially after twenty five, you feel old, like time is running out. Age is not a number, but a state of mind.

And from my home I watch the people
Struggle through the burden of each day
That’s where Marie, sweet and gentle
Smiles to me when she passes on her way

It takes very little to give someone hope. A smile, a glance. The sailor is feeling adrift, land is receding from his view, but Marie tethers him to society.

And she does it so well
She pulls me out of time’s cruel spell
For long enough to finally tell
That nothing is wrong

There’s a thin line between elation and despair, and vice versa. One phone call can change your mood completely, one look.

"I am a boy, I am a child
With those simple dreams still burning in my heart
And I’ve known Marie for a while
She shows me where all my beginnings are

It’s worst when you hook the fish, because you risk it slipping off the hook. The sailor is starting to relax, marinate in his good feelings. He’s become optimistic, he sees the potential in life. That’s what human relationships will do to you.

And once a week she takes me dancing
She shows me friends and places I never knew
And it always ends watching her leaving
With men she knows that don’t understand what loneliness will make you do

In movies the guy gets the girl, happily ever after is not a goal, but an entitlement.

And there’s a minority of beautiful people who fend off the opposite sex with a stick, but if you want to know the emotional condition of the average male, pay attention to this song. You get your hopes up, but then you find you were never really in the game at all.

I know it well. The dreaded friend zone. I’m so busy observing their boundaries that I never get to cross them.

Spotify link

All my old records are new again.

Somewhere along the line we decided sound didn’t matter. Instead of purchasing ever more expensive components to get closer to the music a stereo became an all-in-one box, and the music was produced to be played upon it, all squashed with a level so high it drowned the sound.

But it didn’t used to be this way. Used to be you saved your nickels and dimes to have those famous names in your house. Started with Fisher and Scott, evolved to KLH and JBL, and before the crash exotic names infiltrated the landscape, from Lux to Mark Levinson. I saved for years for my Nakamichi cassette deck. I lived without FM for a year because I wanted this integrated amplifier that sounded incredible and I wasn’t about to sacrifice to hear radio.

I’d drop the needle and dance around the room, the sound was so exquisite. And when I put on the headphones I felt like I was in the room with the artist.

Today I do again.

They’re billed as the "The World’s Finest Headphones", and I’m not about to argue, I’m hearing stuff I didn’t even know existed.

I’ve got this CD player so exotic and such a pain in the ass I haven’t fired it up in years. You see the CD moves, not the laser. You drop a weight on the disc and the drawer recedes into the unit and then…

In this case, I put the plug right into the unit, I didn’t even want to go through the amp, I didn’t want anything else in the chain. And what emerged blew my mind.

I listened to albums I knew by heart and found out I didn’t.

My favorite album of the nineties, even though it was released in 1989, is Shawn Colvin’s "Steady On". Suddenly I could hear the "Ch" before "China" in "Steady On", and there’s a tambourine that eluded me for two decades, until now. And this is an acoustic record! There’s not that much on it! And it was like I was in the center of the studio during "Diamond In The Rough", with the players surrounding me. I could write a whole column on how great this album sounds, the revelatory experience, I could see John Leventhal play the guitar, and the intro to "Cry Like An Angel" almost brought me to tears.

And I’m poring through the stacks and I come across James Gang’s "Rides Again". I was always enamored of the debut, the follow-up never quite hooked me, but I love the final cut, "Ashes The Rain And I", so I decided to play it. Suddenly I like "Funk #49". It breathes, I can make out the words, instead of being compressed you can see three distinct players, you can make out the bass, and the words are clear as day, they make sense. "Funk #49" used to just be an anthem on the radio, now it’s not a hit, but a barely polished gem. Who knew Dale Peters was this good? He’s showing the brilliance of John Entwistle. And "Ashes The Rain And I" is so majestic you feel like you’re ensconced under a tree on a mountaintop contemplating a vast unpopulated landscape. The track evidences nothing so much as…humanity, an elusive element in today’s recordings.

And I found my remastered version of "Late For The Sky", my favorite album of all time. The headphones eclipsed the original CD, but now… I could hear a word before the second line of "For A Dancer" that I always believed had to be there but could never hear. Yes, there is an "and" before "pay attention to the open sky", it’s subtle, but it’s on the recording.

And the organ on the Black Crowes’ "Thorn In My Pride" is a revelation, you can literally see it. Truly. Music video gives you the illusion you’re closer to the music, but on the HD 800s you don’t even have to close your eyes, you can literally see the instrument, the blond wood, the placement of the fingers.

And I could just about feel the air move in the bass drum on "Back In Black".

But what blew my mind was the static on David Gray’s "White Ladder". It was like I was listening to an overplayed vinyl record. It wasn’t tape hiss, just something deep in this recording made at home that couldn’t be removed from the final version, or that Gray decided to leave in. And I do believe that’s a Jew’s harp in the intro, whatever it is, it’s not the instrument I used to think it was.

Now we lived for decades with substandard television, conventional wisdom was it was good enough, that the public would not pay for higher quality. That turned out to be untrue. Flat screens are ubiquitous and now they’re so cheap no one thinks twice. People just wanted to be closer, they wanted the truth.

They want that in music too.

But it’s incumbent upon the people making it and purveying it to lead the charge, to impress quality upon the mainstream.

The problem with the CD was it wasn’t good enough. It was compromised at the outset, audiophiles wouldn’t buy in.

And DVD-A and SACD were marketing debacles. As is surround. Why do we want surround sound when all these classic albums were mixed to stereo to begin with? That’s like insisting twentysomething icons get plastic surgery to make them look even more beautiful…huh? Didn’t work so well for Heidi Pratt.

And files are the future. Which is why you should be lobbying for a national broadband policy, for speeds approaching the ones in South Korea. The labels think the Internet is their foe, no, it’s their friend, if they’d just embrace it.

And if we make the tracks available and stimulate an ecosystem, people will buy in. Look at the success of Beats headphones. Audiophiles will argue they’re bass heavy and overpriced, but the hoi polloi are happy to shell out hundreds of bucks. Sure, they’re looking for status, but so were we when we bought our component systems way back when. The side benefit is exquisite sound.

And this changes the music. It creates a need for better players and better recordings. When you can see all the warts, you want to do your best to overcome them. Music is no longer an illusion, but truth.

Now the bad part. The HD 800 costs $1800. Although you can buy them for $1499 all over the Net.

Sounds excessive, I know. Then again, remember when people used to spend this much on speakers, when you couldn’t get a good component system for less than two grand and people went for it?

Technology will lead us out of the wasteland, people won’t be listening to lo-res MP3s and AACs forever, hell, not even much longer, that’s like trying to open a Word 1.5 file on your brand new MacBook Air.

You see technology moves at light speed. Don’t decry it, hitch your wagon to it. Embrace the possibilities it uncovers.

Meanwhile, I just got a brand new music collection, and I haven’t even started spinning the vinyl yet!

P.S. I just saw T-Bone Wolk playing the accordion at the end of "Cry Like An Angel", he may have departed this mortal coil a few years back, but right now he’s purely alive in my ears!

HD 800 – Sennheiser

Sennheiser HD800 Over-Ear Circum-Aural Dynamic Premiere Headphone – Amazon

"There’s definitely a shift going on now, too. When the Grammys were on this year, I noticed that almost every Album of the Year nominee was under 30. I came up in a time when Springsteen, the Stones, Dylan, and the Beatles were still dominant. For every magazine cover with a new band, there were five covers with one of those guys."

Beck Hansen

Beck: 15 Years

We are in the midst of a music renaissance. We burned down the old edifice and in its place we’re building something new, albeit with some of those old 70’s values.

The classic rock artists are bitching they can’t get paid for recorded music, even though they haven’t put out anything listenable in eons and are touring at inflated prices to ever-diminishing crowds. The cord-cutting between the audience and radio and MTV in the past decade has shown the virtues of classic rock, suddenly it was all available for the taking and the young ‘uns did. But now, they’re creating for themselves. And the audience is vast. This is a sea change so gigantic many can’t yet see it. If you’re not part of the scene, you’re lamenting that music was great back when and there’s no new good stuff and you’re sick of the Top Forty crap.

And one thing we know is the mainstream media is last, it’s interested in the most eyeballs. As a result we get a travesty like the VMAs and an attendant press corps trumpeting its ratings, not realizing that exercise was about money and self-promotion, whereas the new scene is being built away from prying eyes, but it’s burgeoning.

I knew the name, but the first person to testify about Dawes was my friend Rick Cummings, a Deadhead if there ever was one, he accompanied the band to Egypt, he was a friend of Owsley. He and his wife went on a long road trip last summer and when they came back he couldn’t stop testifying about Dawes, he even laid a burnt CD on me, he said I needed to hear the music.

That was something, but it wasn’t enough.

Then there was that gig a couple of months back, over in hipdom, otherwise known as Silver Lake. The band was backing up Jackson Browne. One never knows what these mashups portend. Are they going to play JB’s tunes or Dawes songs? I didn’t go, but it was the number one show of the year so far, the buzz was deafening, I got e-mail from the gig swooning. And then this concoction went on the road together, in Europe.

And this year the lineup at the Santa Monica Pier’s Twilight Dance Series has been substandard, I haven’t gone, but then I heard Dawes was performing last night. I wanted to go, but I had a conflicting obligation. But then I heard a song on the radio.

Not on terrestrial. If you’re still listening to that format, you’re out of the loop. I heard this track on Sirius XM’s Spectrum. And I winced at Mark Goodman’s introduction, here’s "brand new" music from Dawes! My idea of brand new is this week. The Dawes album came out months ago. Why can’t we banish this jive-talking from the radio? Fans want to be treated like they know something. Bring Lee Abrams back to satellite and reeducate the deejays.

ANYWAY…

The track Goodman played was SO special I changed my plans on a dime, I canceled dinner, I had to go to the Pier.

Now the new acts are unlike those of the past twenty five years, they don’t dance, they don’t employ hard drives, honesty and truth are key. They’re the antidote to the b.s. If you can’t just plug in and wail, they’re not interested.

And boy did Dawes wail.

And they had special guests. Blake Mills, who used to be in the band, who truly soared, and another guitarist I can’t remember the name of who entered into a battle with the lead and…

Jackson Browne.

Yes, it was a special evening last night on the Pier. A one time event. Not the same gig in every hall across America.

And they didn’t play JB’s material, they did two Warren Zevon songs, "Mohammed’s Radio" and "Lawyers, Guns And Money", Jackson’s single-handedly keeping Zevon’s memory alive, in the old oral tradition, recordings are not as important as actually playing these tunes.

But the highlight was that song I heard on the Spectrum, "A Little Bit Of Everything".

With his back against the San Francisco traffic
On the bridge’s side that faces towards the jail
Setting out to join a demographic
He hoists his first leg up over the rail

In the tradition of all great story songs, from "Celluloid Heroes" to "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", "A Little Bit Of Everything" exists in its own vacuum, it sounds like nothing else, it’s an instant anthem.

Oh it’s a little bit of everything
It’s the mountains, it’s the fog
It’s the news at six o’clock, it’s the death of my first dog
It’s the angels up above me, it’s the song that they don’t sing
It’s a little bit of everything

Ever feel overwhelmed? Maybe you haven’t contemplated suicide, but you’ve certainly experienced despair, it’s the human condition.

And you might say the singer hasn’t got a great voice, but neither did Dylan. It hasn’t been about what you have to say for far too long. But this guy has got something to say. It’s like we’re living back in the era of "Late For The Sky".

But that was almost forty years ago, 1974 to be exact. But give Jackson credit, for refusing to become calcified, hooking himself to the star of these youngsters.

The artists are the beacons. The businessmen have lost the way, pursuing money instead of that warm sensation inside that has you feeling you’re not alone on the planet, that someone else understands you, that’s what a great record delivers.

And "A Little Bit Of Everything" is not the only good song on the album. I especially like "If I Wanted Someone" with this exquisite line:

If I wanted someone to clean me up, I’d find myself a maid

That’s not what we’re looking for in a relationship, we just want someone to "make the days move easy".

"If I Wanted Someone" is a twist on Neil Young’s "A Man Needs A Maid" without the excesses of those with the spotlight upon them, speaking of rims and ho’s.

Life is challenging. Who’s singing about that?

And the audience sang along with "When My Time Comes", from the previous album. You can go unnoticed by the arbiters, the mainstream, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have fans, who’ll listen to you, come out to see you, support you.

And that’s what it’s about. Connecting.

You can jam something down someone’s throat, but that’s commerce, not art.

The audience comes to great art, they just need a few pointers from friends.

And when I pointed a friend to Dawes he went on Spotify and was immediately hooked and accompanied me to the gig.

I don’t know how you get rich in the new world, I think you’ve got to do it for the love, for the journey, for the experience.

Thank god someone original is plowing forward, we can hitch ourselves to them.

Dawes put a smile on my face, reinvigorated me, made me believe what once was, that elusive elixir that hooked me back when, has returned.

It’s a brilliant start.

Climb on board.

P.S. Besides the above tracks, listen to "Time Spent In Los Angeles" and "Million Dollar Bill". If "Nothing Is Wrong" were just a bit better track for track, Dawes would be the new Mumford & Sons. You create and think nobody is listening. This is wrong. If you’re any good, you’d be stunned how many care, how many pay attention. Strive for excellence. It’s gonna be recognized.

Spotify playlist

MySpace

I don’t believe in tribute albums. Too often populated with the work of second-rate artists or stars phoning it in, you’re better off listening to the originals.

But what if you don’t know the originals?

I’ve got seven John Martyn tracks in my iTunes library, I love "Head & Heart", but to say I’m familiar with his catalogue would not only be a stretch, it would be patently untrue.

And if there’s any hype on this package, it eluded me. But I got such a passionate e-mail from someone who has liked my recommendations, I checked it out, and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it, it’s all I’ve played since.

There are thirty tracks, it’s overwhelming, so I’ve cherry-picked gems to get you started. The rest are never bad, but these are stellar.

1. Beck "Stormbringer"

He wrote one of the most famous tracks of the nineties, "Loser", and then was so overhyped it was hard to take him seriously, the hipsters were fawning all over him. But this is so ethereal, so magical, I’m instantly a fan again. It’s only marginally different from the original, but Beck’s recording is so majestic, and the change will blow your mind.

If you liked King Crimson, if you like your music to exist in its own vacuum, with no tentacles to anything else, you’ll love this. It hearkens back to the Middle Ages, I cannot get it out of my head, it’s a great antidote to the b.s. of every day life. Play it.

It’s subtle.

But so much of the best music is.

Beck – Stormbringer (John Martyn Cover)

2. David Gray "Let The Good Things Come"

He triumphed with "White Ladder" but has been sliding ever since. But this is a complete return to form, if you were ever a fan, you’ll dig this. Gray has a way of conveying one man alone in his own home after dark with a bottle contemplating his future. It’s so personal, it’s unnerving, almost creepy.

This sounds like nothing on the hit parade, it jolts you into the realization that what is sold down the highway of hits lacks so much of the essence of music.

3. Judy Tzuke "Hurt In Your Heart"

This will have you Googling. You can place the name, but not the story.

She’s been at it forever, but is still essentially unknown, at least in the U.S.

It’s not about melisma, range, it’s about selling the song. And Tzuke does it exquisitely here. There’s the intimacy and passion of the early Elton John records, even though this really sounds nothing like them.

4. Morcheeba/Bradley Burgess "Run Honey Run"

Morcheeba had their moment in the States, but it was minor. I always liked them, but they dropped off my radar. But this is almost as infectious as the Beck cut, even though it sounds completely different.

A great track is one that affects you emotionally, gets the blood pulsing, has your head nodding to the beat, following the groove.

Like the rest of the tracks here, subtlety is key. But if you can slow down enough to let this penetrate you, you’ll smile.

Morcheeba – ‘Run Honey Run’

5. Beth Orton "Go Down Easy"

She was always great, but she’s been in hiding. The era when she broke disappeared. But that doesn’t mean she’s still not great.

It’s like you open the door to the woman of your dreams. But she’s not an empty vessel like Kim Kardashian, not someone selling their body but someone leading with their mind, their emotions. If you ever liked Orton, you’ll like this.

Beth Orton – Go Down Easy [John Martyn Cover]

6. Emperors Of Wyoming "Bless The Weather"

I assume they’re named after the Neil Young instrumental, but I’m clueless as to who they are. This sounds nothing like the foregoing tracks, but it’s infectious in its own way. Like stumbling across a band with a stinging electric guitar around a campfire on the high plains.

Everything you thought music once was, this is.

It’s got nothing to do with the hype machine. There’s no obvious selling point other than the tracks themselves.

I’m not saying everybody’s going to like this stuff, but if you ever laid on your bedroom floor in the seventies and stared at the ceiling as the music pouring through your headphones put you in a trance, you’ll dig this.

I could say more, but words pale in comparison to listening. Those to whom this doesn’t appeal will scratch their heads and say I’m an idiot. But a certain cadre will cry Eureka! and be reinvigorated, will tell all their friends, want to go to a gig, believe that music is back.

Although I gave a few YouTube links, I couldn’t find the rest of the songs there, but you can find them all on Spotify, search on "Johnny Boy Would Love This….A Tribute to John Martyn"

This is the e-mail that got me to listen:

When you told me about Bettye LaVette I listened
When you showed me Stevie Winwood I lit a fire and dusted off my guitar.
When you saw J Brown live I rushed out to buy tickets.
When you went back stage with Lars I was there with you. (in spirit)
When you review Adele I agreed
Now let me do you a favor…………………….John Martyn Tribute.

I bet you cannot turn it off after the first track.
It is everything that you talk about below. It is for the fans by the fans, which in this case includes Beck and David Gray and Robert Smith. No Hype and very little buzz, but word of mouth will send this collection into every corner of the globe.

JM died last year. Sex drugs and rock and roll took another postwar UK artist. Signed to Island he was a favorite of Chris Blackwell and a disciple of Nick Drake.

I could go on but you do not have time. Better you spend the next 8 minutes listening to Let The Good Things Come (David Gray) from the Tribute Album – Johnny Boy Would Love This. If you can turn it off you would have wasted 8 minutes. If you love it you will have been introduced to a whole new world of music fans. I am not in the business I have no reason to write to you other than to return the favor..

Thanks

http://www.johnmartyn.com/

guy melhuish