Peter Buck was the first former REM-er to come out with a solo record. He also appears to be the only one planning to do that. Only a year after his eponymous and vinyl-only solo debut, he returns with I Am Back To Blow Your Mind Once Again. The debut was not earth-shattering. It felt loose and fun, things that Peter Buck never really seemed when he was in REM. The follow-up here, also a vinyl-only production, is more of the same.
His primary cohort is Scott McCaughey, he of The Minus 5 and long-time collaborator/pal of Buck. It is kind of a bluesy, boozy record. I don't suspect this record took terribly long to make. It reminds me in terms of feel of the record he and Mike Mills and Bill Berry did with Warren Zevon back in the early 90s as Hindu Love Gods. It's the kind of record that musicians make when they are having a good time. It's not an artistic statement, it's not reaching for something great. It's a portrait of a talented artist doing his thing. It does not quite live up to it's name. But it's a welcome diversion.
Buck does not have the most magnetic voice. It is often drenched in effect but his voice is sort of a natural effect. He was not meant to be a front-man. But that is not a criticism, just a fact. It suits the vibe though. When McCaughey takes the lead vocal on the nice mid-tempo cut "Fall On My Own Sword" it's a noticeable shift.
The first three songs are solid rockers, especially the third one "Life Is Short" where Kurt...somebody. The credits on the back label don't go into much detail. Anyway he gets off a great psychedelic guitar solo that goes on a bit too long, which is perfectly fine.
The Drive By Truckers' Patterson Hood shows up for the most interesting song on the record: "Southerner." It features Buck on a sinister sounding enow guitar while Hood recites the lyrics, capturing what it means to be a southerner of a certain age.
The only song I could find on YouTube was "Drown With Me," which features Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker on lead vocal, and sounds like it could have come off of New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I didn't look that hard for a video, though.
A co-worker of mine recently introduced me to Discogs. This is a super cool online database of albums. What's cool is that you can look-up all the potential variants of an album. Do you have a German copy of Dark Side Of The Moon? Lo and behold there it is! Naturally I created an account and promptly went about inputting my collection because I have nothing better to do. I was surprised to see I only have 193 records. HA! That's all, right? Here is a link to it if you want to peruse.
The dangerous part is the marketplace. For all these records, there are links to vendors who are selling them and for people who are looking for them. You can create a wish list of things you want. The majority of the vendors take Paypal. So a giant marketplace of Paypal accepting vendors make this a very very VERY dangerous website.
There's also a place where you can comment on records, rate them not only on how you like the album but on the condition of your copy. It is a little clunky in figuring out which copy you have,e specially when there are many to choose from. Many of the titles have pictures of the labels included, which helps considerably for matching up to the degree of exactitude a nerd like me desires.
For what it is worth, I have only done one transaction so far, mainly so I can see how it works. I ordered this from a nice fellow in Germany. It is already on it's way. I am very interested to see how long it takes.
Friday night me and the missus went down to Georgetown for the grand opening of Hill & Dale Records. It is a very nice, modern looking shop. They had drinks and appetizers for the crowd. We were amongst the first folks there and I was somewhat surprised there was no line. Happily for the store it filled up pretty quickly making it a challenge to maneuver through the racks.
Unlike most record stores, which are uniformly used shops, Hill & Dale carries only new releases and reissues. This is an interesting gambit. They did not have an incredible amount of inventory but it did take about 30 minutes to peruse what they had. They and plenty of classic rock and jazz reissues. Tons of Floyd and The Who and Beatles and Coltrane and Miles Davis. Surprisingly there were no Zeppelin records, but that must be because they have not been reissued yet. Unfortunately for me, it was pretty much the usual major label stuff. Going through the stacks, I got the feeling of going through the records available at Urban Outfitters. I don't know the ins-and-outs of how the business works, but it would have been nice to see more boutique label stuff.
Jodi wound up buying two records: the reissue of Beggars Banquet by The Rolling Stones and a lovely double LP of Ryan Adams' best solo record Gold. She got me Jeff Buckley's Grace (which I figure will be great through the headphones), the first William Tyler record Behold The Spirit and the recent reissue of Townes Van Zandt's High Low and In Between.
In addition to records they have posters and have photography exhibits on the walls. It makes for a nice touch. It feels more like a gallery than a record shop. It feels kind of fancy.
Starting up a brand new brick-and-mortar record shop seems like a silly idea. Vinyl is making a comeback but is it enough to warrant a store dedicated to new vinyl? The location is interesting. Georgetown is a high rent area and the store is set back sort of hidden away back in One Canal Square or whatever it is called. How much foot traffic are they going to get from folks wandering around? Will they even know it is there?
I wish them a lot of luck. I hope it goes well and is a success. It is a noble experiment. I would probably drop in if I was down in Georgetown, but it will not be a destination place for getting records. The internet is still too great a convenience.
After gorging on food on Thanksgiving Day, I dragged my self to Record and Tape Exchange in Fairfax for the Black Friday special edition of Record Store Day. For those unfamiliar, RSD is when artists will release special stuff, usually 7" vinyl but sometimes 12" selections. A store does not get everything, so it's kind an exciting and sometimes disappointing proposition. But it's a cool way to support local vinyl shops!
I was planning to get in line at 6am but sense took over. I wound up sleeping until 7am. After hopping up and brushing my teeth and throwing on a bunch of layers I drove over to the shop. I brought a blanket to protect my rear end from the cold concrete and my iPad to help while away the time. I was 7th in line with a bunch of high school kids ahead of me. Not too shabby. Nobody showed up after me until the store opened, so one could argue it didn't really matter but whatever.
But MAN it was cold. Like high 20s when I got there. I was warm for the first 30 minutes but it did not last. I was convinced my nose was going to fall off. My toes went numb even through the wool socks and my heavy hiking boots. I talked a little while with the kid in front of me but for the most part is read and listened to my iPod to tune out the talk of the group of 5 kids at the front of the line.
My list included live cuts from Dawes and Band Of Horses, the Albini mix of Nirvana's In Utero, a Rush 10" single, a Townes Van Zandt collection and the latest Brendan Benson which doesn't come out officially until 2014. From that all I got was the Band of Horses 7". But it is very cool. It's two acoustic songs from a Ryman Auditorium gig, a beautiful version of a favorite called "No One's Gonna Love You" and backed by a cover of Gram Parsons' "Song For You." The Nirvana record was there but somebody snatched it. The rest didn't interest me.
I then headed over to the new vinyl arrivals section and happily found a bunch of gold. The Beatles White Album, the first James Gang album as well as their Carnegie Hall live album, One Of These Nights from The Eagles, the last Peter Gabriel-fronted Genesis record The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Led Zeppelin 1, and three classic Rush LPs. I also got my sweetheart a copy of The Muppet Movie soundtrack, since I wasn't able to find the special Muppets Christmas 7".
All in all a good day record wise!! If you like vinyl you should definitely check out Record Store Day when it happens.
I reckon if anybody could get me back in touch with my faith it would be Johnny Cash.
Johnny's faith was a big part of his life. It was a big part of his return from the abyss of drugs. That and June Carter were the two things that got him back on the straight path. When he left Sun Records he did so because Columbia Records was so happy to have him they had no problem with him releasing Gospel records, even though they were not the kind of thing that would sell.
Early in the 1970s Johnny was at the height of his popularity. Between the records and the TV show he was doing very well. So he parlayed that popularity into a movie that was very personal to him: "The Gospel Road." I haven't seen the movie but I understand it to be inspired by Johnny's visit to The Holy Land and made up of Johnny narrating against scenes of that visit and of actors portraying scenes of Jesus' life, interspersed with songs both traditional and original. The soundtrack to that is what I am listening to right now.
I grew up Catholic; I went to Catholic schools from second grade through high school, high school spent with the Jesuits. In the last few years however, I find myself without much of a faith these days. Much of it is that I don't agree with the Church; I find people (not just in the Church but elsewhere) spend too much time meddling with other people's lives. I am not anti-religion; I feel if it helps you become a better person then fine. I think if it makes you feel superior or look down on other people, or if it makes you disregard the value of human life because paradise awaits you, then that's where I disagree vehemently.
Johnny Cash had the kind of faith that I sometimes wish I had. He embraced it and was never afraid to talk about it or sing about, but it never felt in listening to him that he was judging you or pushing his faith on you, in least in a way that made it uncomfortable. What you had was a man who loved and embraced his faith and used it to improve his own life and of those he loved.
The record here is not Johnny's best but it's interesting. I found it at the local used record shop for $5 and I couldn't resist. Listening to it, it appears to be the audio from the movie put to a record. There are some great songs and performances. Kris Kristofferson shows up and does a great version of "Help." June is here of course. Larry Gatlin to. But the fascinating part of it is the portrait of Cash and his faith; that he was brave if that's the right word to so openly display what he cared so much about and meant so much to him. That I really admire and it's one of the reasons why he's one of my heroes.
Peter Buck is best known as the guitarist for REM. His career with that great band has pretty much had him in the background behind Michael Stipe, a place it also seemed from general observation he was happy to occupy.
After the retirement of REM last year (I don't say break-up because it wasn't an acrimonious split, just a band deciding that was it...for the time being at least), Peter Buck is the first out of the chute with a solo record. Interestingly it is a vinyl release, and since I have recently gotten onto a crazy vinyl kick I reckoned I would track it down. Even though they only made a couple thousand copies it wasn't hard to find a copy thanks to the internet. It arrived last week.
Last night I gave it the headphone experience. Listening through headphones is the best way to listen to music, especially vinyl. It's an all encompassing experience, especially when it is later in the evening and the lights are out and you are just chill in enjoying the music, like I was last night. The only sad part is I was too lazy to go down and fetch a beer. Through the headphones you can really hear everything that's going on; every string struck, every snare hit, every pump of the organ comes through nice and clear.
Buck takes special care to note this record was recorded all analog. No digital shortcuts, no studio trickery, it is all done to magnetic recording tape, then mastered "onto a half-inch Scully deck at 30 ips." That's from the notes along with the record and I cannot say I know what that means but I will guess it's old school.
With such attention to old-school detail, the record comes off more as an experiment than a statement. Nothing wrong with that but it keeps the record from being a drawn-in experience. At the end of the second song of side two, titled "It's Alright" Buck says "if that isn't music I don't know what is." That is a statement I can support, but that doesn't mean it's great.
Buck is helped out by old friends Mike Mills and Scott McCaughey from The Minus 5. McCaughey also did a side thing called The Baseball Project where he and some friends (Buck included) did two records worth of baseball-inspired songs. The music here is much in that vein, but the negative is it sounds very thrown together, a bit too ramshackle, a bit too all-over-the-place. Buck has an interesting voice; hard to describe except that it is deep and not what you immediately think of as musical. Reminds me why you don't give a lead guitarist a microphone a lot of the time! That said there is no doubting the quality of musicianship on display. Buck is a seriously talented guy and it is here in spades.
Best songs on the album are the Byrds-y "Some Kind Of Velvet Sunday Morning" and the album closer "I'm Alive" which has a loose Stones-y Exile On Main Street vibe. But then there are songs like the aforementioned "It's Alright" and "L.V.M.F." which stands for little-village-mother-fucker. There are lots of curse words shouted in a few of the songs which doesn't bother me but seems sort of pointless.
All in all a good record. I don't expect it to be among my favorites for 2013 but I recommend it to hard core fans of REM, not neccesarily casual fans, though.
Over the Christmas holiday Jodi enabled my belly-aching about setting up my old stereo system by buying me a bunch of vinyl records. Needless to say this started a frenzy of activity. I immediately dug out my old receiver, CD player, turntable and speakers and got everything working again.
With that inspiration I attacked the train-wreck that my attic office had become. From a mess of dust and boxes and storage bins and tables with junk all over the place, it has been clean, set-up and re-organized into the sanctuary I have always wanted. On one side is my desk, from where I type this. In one corner is my guitar gear organized around a table with recording gear and tools. In another is my hi-fi system. In between will go a futon from downstairs, just need Tom's help in getting that moved. Once that arrives I might never come down. Just kiddin, sweetie!!
Then I went into the attic and retrieved my 1500+ CDs. The only CD rack that survived the purge (a gift from my first girlfriend in college) only holds about 400. So the rest remain in bins but readily accessible. My vinyl collection has grown from 0 to about 50 in a little over one week. Before you scoff, that is mainly through two trips to Record and Tape Exchange in Fairfax VA where I have found pure gold for as little as $1. The most I paid was a beautiful copy of Led Zeppelin II for $15.
The internet has also been helpful. Hopefully you read my Top 10 Albums of 2012 series (start here). I am halfway in the receiving of being able to change that to Top 10 RECORDS of 2012. I also picked up Peter Buck's new solo record and will talk about that tomorrow maybe.
Vinyl is just so much more cool than CDs. Not just in the presentation aspect but I am one of those nerds that thinks vinyl just sounds better. It is definitely better than digital, especially when it comes through real speakers. . The first record is listened to after hooking everything up was Barnstorm, Joe Walsh's first record (which I found for $3). The production on that record is just stunning; it sounds like it was recorded in the barn that graces the cover:
When the first notes of "Here We Go" came softly through, then built up into the chug it has, it was magic. Magic I tell you!! I hesitate to say but it was a revelation. This is the way music is supposed to be heard, not from a hard-drive through computer speakers but through Infinity's (or even better good headphones) on a good turntable. That said, my CDs sound glorious to.
Back to Barnstorm. It's one of my desert-island-discs. The melodies are just beautiful. This is before Joe got overtly goofy with his "Life's Been Good To Me" schtick, when he had been making The James Gang great but felt too restricted and confined by that band to remain there. There isn't a bad track on the record, but the highlights are "Mother Says," album opener "Here We Go", acoustic beauty "Birdcall Morning," and the brilliantly heavy "Turn To Stone" which is 1000 times better here than the redo he did a couple years later. Joe is one of those terribly under-rated guitarists, a real true innovator. This record is the one that shows all that in one stop.
Here's "Turn To Stone" and I promise you it sounds nowhere near as good on your computer as it does cranked through the speakers. It isn't the album version but it's from 1973 and it shows why Joe is so freakin great.
