{"id":3166,"date":"2010-07-22T17:31:13","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T01:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=3166"},"modified":"2010-07-22T17:31:13","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T01:31:13","slug":"tracks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/22\/tracks-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracks"},"content":{"rendered":"

"On The Road To Find Out"<\/span>
Cat Stevens<\/p>\n

They’re doing construction on the 405.\u00c2\u00a0 Widening it.\u00c2\u00a0 Which I think is a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 I read a story in the "New York Times" saying that if you enlarge a highway it’ll just generate more traffic, people will live further away, figuring they can drive into town.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can’t, traffic is that bad in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 What we need is public transportation.<\/p>\n

So I’m jammed up and jelly tight with my brethren on the asphalt at midnight, listening to Deep Tracks on XM.\u00c2\u00a0 And I hear this.<\/p>\n

Terrestrial radio only plays the same hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 But hearing "On The Road To Find Out" was a revelation, brought me right back to the seventies, when the only context you needed for a record was it and yourself. Now music is social.\u00c2\u00a0 "California Gurls" was not written for the individual, but the group…nothing inherently wrong with that, but I always preferred the more intimate tracks, like "On The Road To Find Out".<\/p>\n

"Mary Jane’s Last Dance"<\/span>
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers<\/p>\n

The last great thing this band did.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I love "Crystal River" on the Mudcrutch album, but TP&THB have never equaled this.\u00c2\u00a0 Great riff, great vocal, infectious…it’s both personal and social, good alone and with a group.\u00c2\u00a0 Couldn’t turn this off when I heard it on the satellite after "On The Road To Find Out", even though I was already home.<\/p>\n

"Time Loves A Hero"<\/span>
Phish<\/p>\n

\n
time loves a hero (little feat) covered by phish 7-1-10 raleigh<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is actually better than the Little Feat studio original.\u00c2\u00a0 I pulled up the seventies cut, caught up in the reverie of the cover.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the live take off "Waiting For Columbus" trumps Phish’s version, but the boys from Vermont kill it here.\u00c2\u00a0 The vocals are pretty damn good.\u00c2\u00a0 And Phish can definitely play.<\/p>\n

"Amsterdam"<\/span>
Crowded House<\/p>\n

I love the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 After writing about Neil Finn, I got e-mail from the gig, last night at the Bowery Ballroom, while it was still happening!\u00c2\u00a0 In real time I found out that David Byrne hit the stage to join Crowded House on "Once In A Lifetime" and "Road To Nowhere"…and I got the MP3s…all before midnight on the west coast.<\/p>\n

And my inbox has been filling up with testimonials by Split Enz\/Crowded House\/Finn fans.\u00c2\u00a0 This is how you do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Play to the core, who will come see you for $35 in an intimate venue.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re playing to the very last row in a hockey rink, you’re doing it wrong.<\/p>\n

But that’s not why I’m writing this…<\/p>\n

Since yesterday I’ve played this track, "Amsterdam", in excess of thirty times.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t stop.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t help myself.<\/p>\n

A brain synapse went off, had the band’s new album been released yet?\u00c2\u00a0 I searched in Napster on my Sonos system and started playing "Intriguer".<\/p>\n

The opener, "Saturday Sun", was a disappointment.\u00c2\u00a0 The follow-up, "Archer’s Arrows" didn’t reach me the first time through.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s just the point.\u00c2\u00a0 The fourth or fifth time through it did.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what listening to albums is about. Finding one track you like so much that you go back through and discover others.<\/p>\n

Although I’d be lying if I said I’m fully involved with "Archer’s Arrows" yet.\u00c2\u00a0 But I do love "Falling Dove".\u00c2\u00a0 Sounds like falling rain in the early morning light, walking alone on a road surrounded by greenery.\u00c2\u00a0 It was "Falling Dove" and "Twice If You’re Lucky" that got me to playing the whole album.<\/p>\n

Along with "Amsterdam", of course.<\/p>\n

It’s such a thrill to find one great track.\u00c2\u00a0 Find two others on an album and you continue to spin the long player, delving deeper.<\/p>\n

But I could barely listen to anything else, because my brain kept wanting to hear "Amsterdam".<\/p>\n

You know how a song lodges in your brain and there’s a change so good, aural heroin, that you can’t help but listen to it again and again?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what happened last night with "Amsterdam".<\/p>\n

I spun the whole album on my midnight hike.\u00c2\u00a0 But then when I hooked into "Amsterdam", I couldn’t get off it, as I walked in the dark, past the horses, conducting the band with my hands.<\/p>\n

And when I got home, like a smoker unable to quit, I had to put on the headphones and listen to "Amsterdam".<\/p>\n

And as soon as I woke up, my drug was there.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to play it, but I had to.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed music, this specific song, even though I was fearful of burning it out, having it lose its magic, its hold over me.<\/p>\n

"Amsterdam" will never be on Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not for the masses, but the fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Who always want more.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of an album every three years, Crowded House should dribble out the tracks, keep us attached, and possibly the world will change enough that the masses can discover a cut like "Amsterdam", not homogenized by executives for radio consumption, but straight from the artist’s heart to the listener’s ear.<\/p>\n

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"On The Road To Find Out"Cat Stevens They’re doing construction on the 405.\u00c2\u00a0 Widening it.\u00c2\u00a0 Which I think is a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 I read a story in the "New York Times" saying that if you enlarge a highway it’ll just generate more traffic, people will live further away, figuring they can drive into town.\u00c2\u00a0 But you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-P4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3167,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions\/3167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}