Album Review - Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend
Modern Vampires of the City
XL Recordings (2013)

Artistically significant charm is a tough musical bogey. On their third LP, Modern Vampires of the City, New York based indie sensations Vampire Weekend deliver deceptively dense, diverse, yet accessible pop that delights. It's the kind of album that connects with music snobs, English scholars, and teenagers alike; dance music for the contemplative. It's a bold musical vision, fully realized.

The songs bear little relationship to each other, but they nonetheless feel like parts of a cohesive piece. The vibe is intelligent pop, with the sophisticated poetry of Columbia educated lead singer and lyricist Ezra Koenig feeding a philosophical mood. (If Koenig was more focused on sex than philosophy, it would be easy to hear screaming girls in your head.) This from the album opener and mellow morning drive mood music, "Obvious Bicycle":

So keep that list of who to thank in mind.
And don't forget the rich ones who were kind.
Oh you ought to spare your face the razor,
Because no one's gonna spare their time for you.
Why don't you spare their world a traitor,
Take your wager back and leave before you lose. 

The morning of "Bicycle" quickly becomes night, and the dance party begins. If Jim James nailed his own version of Graceland, with a twist of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, this would be the near result. Koenig has a background in African music, and it permeates much of the record, especially the superb "Everlasting Arms." His vocal chops match his lyrical prowess. Like James, he knows how to measure his vocal effort, alternately rocking you to sleep or bringing down the house, as the context requires.

As one would expect from Ivy League musicians, inspirations are diverse. "Arms" opens with orchestration before launching us to the African savannah. The album even brings Irish hyper folk into the mix (the Riverdance ready "Worship You"). "Don't Lie" lays gospel organ over a marching band drum roll. 

Intelligent and versatile, VW can weld campfire folk into soaring electronica without sounding contrived. Album highlight "Hannah Hunt" pulls the listener quickly through an initial burst of synthesized chaos into crackling love song serenity...

Our days were long our nights no longer,
Count the seconds, watching hours.
Though we live on the US dollar,
You and me, we got our own sense of time. 

Once a trance is obtained, the listener is ripped momentarily out of it with percussive shots of out-of-nowhere piano and renewed electronic noise. Then, a peaceful drumroll leads immediately back to ... serenity. The song is a model of lyrical quality and restrained texture, delivered in a taught sub 4 minute package. "Hunt" is emblematic of the album's quirky, taut genius. 

As a body of work, Modern Vampires is a bold experiment in intelligent pop, beautifully executed both musically and lyrically. I can't get enough of it. Casual fun should always be this serious; deep art this charming.


    

SOTW - March 1, 2014 - "Try Not to Look So Pretty"

Dwight Yoakam is the Genuine Article; a Music Lover's musician. Yoakam is a lineal descendant of the badass masters of the Bakersfield style (stylistically if not geographically). Unlike so many in his genre, he writes his own songs. It's hard to imagine him holding an instrument on stage unless he planned to play it, and well. Looking at him, you get the feeling that cowboy boots are less a stage prop than an integral part of his being.

Despite growing up on the Georgia Coastal Plain, I've never been a Country kind of guy. Modern Country in the Garth Brooks vein, while accessible, always felt too engineered. Like Rock, Country diverged from its roots, but I never felt it did so with the same success. Still, I could never help but be intrigued by Dwight Yoakam. His piercing tenor demands attention; it's the kind of voice that focuses the mind of the listener no matter his genre preference. While knowing little about Dwight, I've always had the feeling that, if his name came up in a room full of serious, Old School Country Fans that cut their teeth on Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, you'd see nods of approval and hear things like, "Hell yeah, Dwight's the real deal."

On Sunday nights during high school, mostly out of sheer boredom, Zackary Wade and I would often go and ride for miles and miles. It's the way young and restless minds fill time in Wide Open Spaces. I well remember floating up I-75 in a crystal blue '91 Buick Reatta with Zackary, skipping around Dwight's modern classic, This Time. Zackary had an infuriating (for me) propensity to skip around to singalong choruses (his cassette copy of the Allman Brothers Decade of Hits had jagged edges before and after the long solo in "Blue Sky"), and the advent of the CD fed the habit. But, your Song of the Week for March 1, 2014 was one that Zackary never had any problem sitting through (the mark of true musical greatness). While "Try Not to Look so Pretty" would barely get you half way from Vienna to Unadilla on a northbound trip up 75, it left an enduring imprint on my young mind.

A song of heartbreak should not be so lovely. Void of pretense and resorting to only pragmatic metaphorical device (no storms brewing in the distance or fires burning here; only a "useless thought," thrown away at night), the song boils the sentiment of the heartsick lover down to a totally useless plea. The pain lies in the beauty before the narrator, and there's nothing that can be done about that, but he must beg anyway. A timeless modern Country classic, "Try Not to Look so Pretty" exudes resolute, straight-faced heartbreak in the great Country tradition.

      

Not Fade Away (The Day the Music Died?)

Clear Lake, Iowa; February 3, 1959 just before 1:00 a.m. The wind howls at 30+ mph on a biting winter night as a light snow begins to fall on the deep frozen plains. The weather is deteriorating faster than the forecasters called for. The clouds are closing in, with visibility dropping quickly. The stars will soon be obscured, the night pitch black. At the Mason Municipal Airport, a small Beechcraft Bonanza, piloted by 21 year-old Roger Peterson, taxis onto the runway carrying three passengers. With its 165hp Continental engine barking defiantly against the arctic gale, the plane takes off to the south, then banks north, headed for Fargo, North Dakota. Its owner, Jonathan Dwyer, stands alone in the night and watches the gathering clouds swallow the flashing red tail beacon. It disappears, leaving only the wail of the night. "It's better to burn out, than to fade away." 

Buddy Holly at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.
February 2, 1959. Jennings (L) is also seen. 

Thus, 55 years ago this week, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson flew into eternity. Barely six miles from the airport, the Bonanza was shattered across an icy corn field and the brilliant young stars on board were given to the Ages. Holly was 22; Valens 17. You may be familiar with the tragic details (many of which were memorialized in the 1987 film, La Bamba). Holly chartered the plane because the school bus the artists were using for their Midwestern "Winter Dance Party" tour had a busted heater and he wanted to make the next stop in time to rest and wash clothes. Valens, who had a fear of flying after watching two planes collide above his middle school playground, won his seat on the doomed plane in a coin flip. Richardson had the flu and was given his seat on the plane by a member of Holly's backing band named Waylon Jennings. When he found out Jennings would not fly, Holly quipped, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." 

Aircraft, drugs, and fast machines have taken too many of Rock's legends too early. While it's painful to consider what could have been, I try to take solace in what was avoided. Holly left us as his star exploded. The world only ever knew him as a glowing, smiling, youthful ball of kinetic musical energy, ripping at musical conventions in his black, thick-framed glasses with Texas-born fire; helping to fuse Rock to Roll. He never had to endure the indignity of muddling through worn out hits on the casino circuit or not waking up in some hotel room with a needle stuck in his arm. He got to the Top, then he was gone. "A love for real, not fade away."  

Holly was one of the Mercury astronauts of Rock (think Elvis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley), leaving a mark on its early history that was as vivid as it was indelible. It would be easier to list the Rock bands that have not covered him. (According to one source, no less than 83 bands have recorded "Peggy Sue.") This week, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles first performance on the Ed Sullivan show. As you watch the news, consider the first question that popped into John Lennon's mind as he walked onto what was then the biggest stage on earth: "Was this the stage that Buddy Holly played on?" Despite being gone before his 23rd birthday and committing only 40 or so songs to tape, Holly was named Rolling Stone's 13th Greatest Artist in Rock history. You think Rivers Cuomo or the hipster at the nearest coffee shop would be wearing horn-rimmed glasses if it wasn't for Buddy Holly? I doubt it.   

The topic of Holly's greatest and most enduring song, is permanence; not of life or the physical, but of love. His body left us in that frigid Iowa corn field, but the Cat was out of the Bag by then. He'd met the imperative he set for himself in a manner that would reverberate through the Musical decades. Don McLean had it wrong. The Music didn't die on February 3, 1959. It was just beginning. "A love to last more than one day. A love that's real - not fade away."  

SOTW - January 31, 2014 - "Tan Lines"

It's been so damn cold all week. Let's turn our minds to someplace warmer ... the Beach. Yes. While enjoying the Beach, people bathe in the sun. Skin exposed to the sun turns brown, or red. Skin covered by clothes stays some shade of white, depending on the individual. The borderline between exposed and unexposed skin in the sun is a strange, but compelling, topic for a song.

The way one views a Tan Line is a function of age. For the parent, it's "did I get sunscreen there ... I sure hope she doesn't get burned ... we'll reapply when we go up for lunch ...") For the grandparent, it's a sign that the normal sun blocking protocols broke down ("Too much wind for the umbrella yesterday!"), resulting in actual exposure to UV rays and a modern Real Simple no no. For the young - those to whom a sunburn is little more than the badge of shotgunned beers and a killer day at the beach - the Tan Line is an object of .... Desire, for it marks the boundary between the un-forbidden and (possibly) forbidden.  

So it is to local Athens, GA heroes, The Futurebirds. To anyone who's ever seen the 'Birds live, their view of the Tan Line, as portrayed in your Song of the Week for January 31, 2014, will come as no surprise. Any doubt as to lyricist Carter King's sentiments is removed in the first line:

 "Sifting through pictures from the naked beach when all I want is you here naked here      with me." 

So, the focus is on the Flesh, the tone loud and longing. But for anybody with an image of a Southern indie "Sexual Healing" in mind, think again. This is the musical equivalent of breezy beach volleyball after a six pack on a late June afternoon; 18 a side, nobody cares who wins. The juvenile lust is built on a sunny day pedal steel riff that would fit in a mid-tempo Gram Parsons road trip song. After dancing around the main riff for two verses and the repetitive, "I know it's all for these tan lines" chorus, the party builds to a house-wrecking, reverb drenched, Velvet Underground meets Wilco crescendo. It's my favorite tune on 2013's excellent Baba Yaga and a perfect segue to the afternoon Beach session for young parents ... or a funnel of beer for those whose Biological Clocks are quiet. Like a frisbee, it's fun for all ages. "Tan Lines" belongs on your summer vacay playlist.  

SOTW - January 10, 2014 - "Song for Zula"

"Some say love, is a burning thing,
That it makes, a fiery ring..."

You think you know where I'm going, right?

With the exception of the Almighty, has anything inspired more music than the pain of Love lost? Whole genres (e.g., Blues, old Country) are built around longing and pleading for an object of desire, just out of reach. Lyrically, the love-lost composer expresses one of three general sentiments: 1. I lost her and want her back; 2. I lost her, and it hurts so bad, and I don't know what to do about it; 3. I lost her, and it hurts so bad, but I'm determined to get past the pain and move forward. In Matthew Houck's (performing under nom de guerre "Phosphorescent") ethereal 2013 album Muchacho we find all three, fused into an inspiring mix of pain and resolution.

In the middle of what he described as a "domestic crisis," which can only mean a bad case of confusion and heartbreak, Houck retreated with his guitar to a desolate hut on the Yucatan Peninsula to put the finishing touches on the material that eventually became Muchacho. The soundscape that resulted from this isolated creative process is a stirring mix of Jim James meets Blood on the Tracks era Dylan vocals, laid over a sparse electronic backdrop. It is superb, must-listen, contemplative mood music. Houck is an Alabamian who cut his teeth in early '00's Athens, so his music resonates in the Southern mind; this is outlaw Country for the Radiohead generation.  

The gripping centerpiece of Muchacho is your Song of the Week for January 10, 2014. "Song for Zula" must have been written for the lost object of Houck's affection. It is a profound statement of resolution in the face of Love lost. The opening lines channel Johnny Cash and tell the listener immediately that this story is heated. This is no one night stand. There are wounds here, and they are fresh. We are then taken on a meandering path of pain ("then I saw love disfigure me"), defeat ("you see the cage it called. I said, come on in"), anger ("and I could kill you with my bar hands if I was free") and this poetically moving statement of resolution (see 3 above):  

You see the moon is bright, in that treetop night.I see the shadows that we cast in the cold clean light.I might fear I go, and my heart is white,And we race right out on the desert plains all night. So honey I am now, some broken thing, I do not lay in the dark waiting for day here.Now my heart is gold, my feet are light,And I am racing out on the desert plains all night. 

Houck thus stares down the dragon, and prevails. It's always a better ending when our hero finds his way forward in the face of loss.

"Well, it's Christmas time, pretty baby!"

Merry Christmas! 

圣诞快乐! Fröhliche Weihnachten! Merii Kurisumasu! 
Heri la Krismasi! Joyeux Noël! C Рождеством Христовым!

Catch the Spirit; it's everywhere, and contagious. Plug in the tree. Light a fire. Pour yourself a drink. Put your feet up. Lean back and take a breath. Take a moment and soak It in. There's 10 minutes somewhere out there to wrap that last gift. "It's Christmas time, pretty baby!"  

No holiday, no time, is constituted of Music more than Christmas. The scale and beauty of the tunes inspired by the Season is staggering. It's the one topic that virtually every musician who commits song to tape addresses at one time or another. What else could Run DMC, Pavarotti, and Waylon Jennings have in common? It fills the air wherever you go, like smoke from chimneys interspersed with winter fog. Whether rattling through a tinny speaker at the grocery store or playing on the soundtrack inside your head, it's everywhere. Holiday is the one musical category that, regardless of genre preference, everyone, and I mean everyone, likes. Dare you say otherwise? Be it wistful (the immortal "White Christmas") serious ("The Little Drummer Boy"), playful (the ubiquitous "Jingle Bell Rock"), it's all equally beloved. We just want to hear it and to know that, for 30 short days, the world is the slightest bit Different. The Season allows us to place problems great and small in context and feel the energy that comes with shared Joy; Music serves as a medium for the serene excitement of Christmas. "It's Christmas time, pretty baby!"      

At Christmas, Music joins an infinitely diverse global citizenry in a singular celebration of a Savior, born in a barn, in a small town, a long way from here, a long time ago. Whilst walking about the nearest mall in December, look around. Consider the socioeconomic, geographic, religious, and experiential histories of the people you pass. They may not celebrate the Season. Giving may be the furthest thing from their minds, or they may be spending their last dime on a modern day Gift of the Magi. But, when they hear mention of a certain Reindeer with a flushed nose or the (highly improbable, in the South) prospect of Christmas snow, it affects them all, in the best way. They know it. The song brings us all together. "It's Christmas time, pretty baby!"     

Looking back at 37 Holiday seasons, I'm so thankful for Christmas and the role that its Music has played in my life. When I was a child, Dad had an old Sony receiver that sat on a mahogany table in the tile-floored, wood-paneled study that hung off the side of our Georgian brick cottage. The Sony had a metallic silver front and wood sides and you had to turn a knob to move an actual needle to find a radio station. It had cushioning at the end of the dial so it would give you a pleasing bounce when you went too far to the right past 108 FM. When you flipped the power switch off, it took it several seconds to go dark. (It looked like this.) A more modern black double cassette deck sat on top of it. When Mom pulled out the musty-smelling box of ornaments each year, one of the first things that came out was a solid black cassette tape. It had a red and white label on the side with "Perry Como - Christmas Music" written on it. I knew how to work the old Sony, so I could get Perry started. Sister Beth and I (Sister Meg was toddling at the time) didn't know a thing about Perry Como and would never have voluntarily listened to any non-Christmas song of his; I don't think Mom even listened to him. But, every December, in the green glow of the old Sony and the full spectrum splendor of the tree (colored or white this year?), Perry brought us the joy of tradition. That's when the celebration started in earnest. We knew it then. "It's Christmas time, pretty baby!"    

It seems like a different world now. We go so fast these days. It takes so much work to create a moment, we are often too exhausted and anxious to enjoy it when it arrives. Let this year be different, and let the Music be your guide. To paraphrase Dylan, the answer's in the air all around us. Take a few seconds and focus on the words you hear sung in church, at the mall, sitting in your wing chair with your feet up, or inside your head. What you will find in them is the reason that we celebrate and, in many ways, the celebration itself. "It's Christmas time, pretty baby!"  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Redemption (Jason Isbell)

When excess and stubborn pride diminish a man's life to a point of near zero, the first step in redemption is to admit a lack of control; to recognize and confront weakness. In Rock, where careers are built on ego and gluttony, redemption and adoration are hard to find simultaneously. If you take the bottle of liquor out of a Rock Star's hand and strip him of self-destructive bombast, what's left?

Jason Isbell had to figure it out. The scion of a musical family and a natural talent, in 2001, Isbell found himself leading the Drive By Truckers' southern-fried 3 guitar attack at age 22. He endeared himself to a half-generation of Southern music fans with timeless statements of the "Dirty South" such as "Outfit" and "Decoration Day." While former DBT mates Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley focused on the South's grimy underbelly, Isbell's approach was more nostalgic and down home. Where Hood focuses on anthemic statements of Southern mystery and faded glory ("Sinkhole," "Ronnie & Neil"), and Cooley on loners and crooks ("Women Without Whiskey," "Cottonseed"), Isbell was more the rebellious teenager feeling his way while raging in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot ("Goddamn Lonely Love," "Never Gonna Change"). It was never really a square fit, and Isbell left DBT in 2007 to walk alone.

It was a long and painful road littered with plastic liquor bottles, small crowds, and self-destruction. Success did not find him quickly, substance abuse set in, and Isbell came to represent one of Cooley's desperate loners. The gutter was deep, but thankfully not too long. Things started to turn with the release of 2011's well-received Here We Rest and its memorable sing-along highlight, "Codeine." During the sessions for Rest, Isbell fell in love with now-wife Amanda Shires and sought out sobriety. He found it, probably saving his life in the process. Building off of the success of Rest, Isbell sharpened his focus, embraced sobriety, and moved boldly in the right direction. For a former Drive By Trucker, facing the world solo with an acoustic guitar in hand and his back to the bottle must have been daunting.      

With the release of 2013's critically-acclaimed Southeastern, things have come full circle. Instead of running from his past, Isbell used it as fuel for great music and a better tomorrow. On album highlights like "Tired of Traveling Alone," we see a man with his weaknesses on full display. Haunting album opener "Cover Me Up" provides an immediate admission of vulnerability; elsewhere we find fear of death (barroom rocker "Super 8") and intrigue ("Elephant"). Hardly abandoning his Muscle Shoals / DBT roots ("Flying Over Water"), Isbell is comfortable, and effective, with a Martin acoustic in his hand ("Live Oak"). The result is a superb tour de force that serves as a necessary component of, and stirring testament to, Isbell's ongoing quest for redemption.

I saw him play the Georgia Theater recently with his backing band, the 400 Unit, and he looked and sounded great. This is not a man on shaky ground; there's no apparent apprehension of falling back into the Hole. Watching the taut 90 minute set, I saw a traditionalist that would have been as comfortable at Johnny Cash's Sun Studio as he would jamming at Muscle Shoals with the Stones (this night brought a solid rendition of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"as the closer). Eschewing displays of virtuosity on the guitar in favor of more terse solos in the Carl Perkins mold, Isbell is a natural and enigmatic showman. He shows an appreciation for his audience instead of rebelling against them; engaging them instead of prodding them. While his DBT songs remain the crowd-pleasing centerpieces of the set (a scorching "Never Gonna Change" was this night's highlight), his solo material continues to gain traction on its merit. What I saw was a healthy, rejuvinated, and vital artist nearing the top of his game; a man who is comfortable in his skin in a way nobody could have expected when he was passing around a handle of Jack Daniels at 1:40 a.m. in his DBT glory days. It's inspiring to watch a man who has confronted and conquered self-destruction, with the battle serving to fuel a vital new period of his art.