Burning the Nite Club (930) Down

I saw two shows in 72 hours this week. I'll talk about the second first and the first one some other time.

One of the most entertaining live acts out there is the Old 97s. If you're not familiar (shame on you!) it's sort of country-punk from my grew-up-in-town of Dallas. This tour was celebrating the 15th anniversary of their great Too Far To Care album. Since it's the thing to do now they did the album in it's entirety start to finish. I've commented on this before, but (there's always a but) this album is so great it's fine with me.

Here's a video of them doing the album's (killer) opener "Time Bomb." It's about 5 years old but you'll get the idea.

Yeeeeee-haw!

I think Rhett Miller is one of the best front men around. He's good looking, a great lyricist, and a very engaging performer. I try (horribly) to model my stage presence on good old Rhett. I think if you're watching a band, you should be entertained. It is entertainment, right? I read that in a manual somewhere. And the Old 97s definitely enterain. High energy, lots of fun, great songs.

They did TFTC to start the show. For the second half they did (from memory) "Mama Tried," "Victoria Lee," "Murder (Or A Heart Attack),""Jagged,""Valentine," "Rollerskate Skinny," "Dance With Me," "Champaign, Illinois," "Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You)"and "Brown Haired Daughter." I might have missed something but that sounds right.

Rhett himself opened the show with a 20 minute acoustic set. Very cool. The support band was called The Travoltas. Not much to say of them except the singer has produced the 97s last few records, the keyboard player seems like a cool dude to hang around with, and they got nice suits. My neighbor said it best: "It went from cool to kitchsy to long." Another plus, there was not much dead time between sets, Very fast turnaround and I am old now so I like that.

Here be some photographic evidence of the good-time-had-by-all.

This man is Stewart Ransom Miller and he's a serial lady-killer

The Travoltas. Nice suits.

Just a little band from Texas

GRULHH: Marquee Moon

Editors note: I am going to start a new feature called GRULHH, which stands for Great Record U Likely Haven't Heard. I expect you to go off to the local record shop or iTunes or wherever you steal music from or Spotify and immediately procure or at least listen to the records in this series. Why? Because they are great and you likely haven't heard them. You're welcome.

I play guitar but admittedly not very well. I reckon if I practiced a lot more than I do, or maybe if I started playing when I was young and not when I was 28ish (or something like that) then maybe I'd be able to be a competent lead guitar player instead of the passable rhythm guitarist. Happily for my band's sake I can sing (how well is open to interpretation) and write songs (which I actually think I do fairly well but again I'll leave you to be the judge of that).

The point here is that I am always impressed by good guitar playing be it on record, live, or by Tom standing across the basement from me. When most folks think of great guitarists and great guitar albums, the usual suspects show up: Hendrix, Van Halen, Clapton. One record I would put in that list (and that a lot of rock writers do anyway) is Television's Marquee Moon.

It's interesting that a band that came out of the 1970s NYC club scene were such virtuoso guitar players; and that they let their virtuosity come out on record. The licks and leads and run that Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd pull off on this record is really stunning. If you are guitar player, and I am thinking mainly of younger players like my nephews, this is a record you should really give a chance to.

Here's "See No Evil" which is the first track on the record.

What's really great about it is the interplay between the two. The rhythm lines and the lead lines weave in and out and around each other. The whole record is like this, vocally and vibe in tune with bands like Talking Heads, but the guitars are creating a whole different element. This record, to my ears, at least, sounds like nothing else on the planet. It's tough for a guitar band to set itself really apart, to do something unique and special. Television have the guitars acting as another voice here, where you don't just listen to it as the guideposts or the propulsion of the song, not a wall of noise and sound but parts that demand your attention, leaving you wonder where it's going next, how it will be different the next pass through.

Television didn't last terribly long. They made another record which is good but just isn't on the same plane. The most notable thing done after this was when Richard Lloyd helped Matthew Sweet out on Girlfriend and Altered Beast, two other very unique sounding guitar records. Television did reunions and a record not too terribly long ago, but again, it doesn't have the magic they captured on Marquee Moon.

If you got nothing better to do, here's the awesome title track. Be warned it is ten minutes long, so you can always surf someplace else in another window while this is going.

Big Records, Little Records

Some records are considered big. These are the ones that get all the hype, get the magazine covers, get the casual music fan interested. Three records of that ilk which have come out recently are the new ones from Muse, Green Day and The Killers. All three are bands I am fans of.

The Killers records is a par for the course with them. A few really good tracks ("Runaways" being the stand-out) and a good amount of filler. Which is a shame because they are a good sounding band and Brandon Flowers is a great front-man. The songs are not always up to snuff, though. Nevertheless, Jodi and I will be seeing them in December because this will always be one of my most favorite songs.

The Green Day record is the first of three the band is releasing in the next six months. It is...well....meh. I didn't really start liking Green Day until I got their RockBand game at the urging of my brother-in-law. After playing, and getting to really listen to the songs and I made my fingers hit the right buttons, I found their songs to be catchy and rather enjoyable, at least to fool around with in a video game. The new record is more of the same, but nothing on it really stands out.

The Muse record is simply dreadful. I have no idea what Kate Hudson is doing to Matt Bellamy but it isn't good. I loved Absolution, liked Black Holes and Revelations, but found The Resistance kind of meh. The new one, The 2nd Law is just not enjoyable. It seems they are trying to morph into Queen, which to me isn't a good thing. If ever there was a band that got more traction out of so few decent songs it's Queen. Muse were always over-top and bombastic, and when they took up the Radiohead mantle by remaking The Bends on their behalf I dug it. But the problem with this new direction is it's uninteresting. It feels like they want to follow the Radiohead map by getting away from their sound and carving out something new. But where Radiohead made something unique (and not always to my taste admittedly) Muse are churning out uninspired junk.

Whew! Sorry for the harshness. Let me mention a couple records that have come out the last month that DO deserve your attention. These are the "little records" referenced in the title. And most of the time, it's the little records you haven't heard of by bands and artists you might not know or have forgotten that are the ones that should be getting the Rolling Stone covers.

Lonerism by Tame Impala. An Australian band doing a very modern and, unlike Muse, interesting take on psychedelic rock. Vocally, it's very reminiscent of John Lennon (a good thing). Musically it has that late-60s vibe but with a modern take. I saw them tour behind their first record InnerSpeaker and they put on a great show. This record is a great next step from that record. Here's the lead single, "Elephant:"

Silver Age by Bob Mould. The former front-man of Hüsker Dü and Sugar is back doing what I like best: straight ahead loud power pop. Hanging out and guesting on the last Foo Fighters record seems to have gotten Bob's power-pop juices going again, and this album is a revelation. Man, I hope he tours. Here's Bob on Letterman.

Both these records are great great great and you should check them out. Both will be high on my favorites-of-2012 list.

Groovin' on the New Aimee Mann

One of the best songwriters out there is Aimee Mann. She is probably most famous for her time in Til Tuesday and the video for "Voices Carry." This was back in 1985 or 1986. She has gone on to a great career as a power-popper, making two GREAT solo records (Whatever and I'm With Stupid), a handful of decent solo records, and soundtrack work, most notably for P.T. Anderson's Magnolia, which used "Wise Up" to interesting effect.

Her latest record is called Charmer and it's great. It's full of smart song-writing and great hooks. That's what I felt has been missing from her last few solo records. Perhaps I should go back and give them another try, but for now I'll keep the new record in the rotation. I was going to point out a couple of the better tracks, but really they are all really good.

The video for "Labrador" has a clever gimmick: it is a shot-by-shot recreation of the "Voices Carry" video. Check it out (including a cameo from Jon Hamm):

I have seen Aimee Mann twice. The second time was at the 930 Club. The FIRST time was at the old Bayou in Georgetown. That was a memorable show. One because it was The Bayou and it has been gone for many years, but more interesting to you was the crowd. There were a lot of girl-power type chicks there. The opening act was Semisonic which Dan Wilson and John Munson's band after they ended Trip Shakespeare and before "Closing Time" success. Semisonic got some rough treatment from the women in the audience, who were not particularly interested in seeing an opener of three dudes. Anyhow, Semisonic finished their set (who by the way impressed me enough to buy their EP that night) and when Aimee Mann came on stage she scolded the audience for booing Semisonic, that they were a great band and so-on-and-so-on. I thought that was a nice thing to do. She also told a funny story about Elvis Costello but that might have been at the 930 Club show.

If you like power pop, do check her out.