Laziness

Earlier today I found myself thinking about all the shows I did not go to this year. Shows I told myself I should go to, shows that I would go to. But then at the moment of truth I decided nah I'll just stay home because going out is a pain in the rear.

I admit going into DC is a bit of a pain in the ass. I live outside the city but not terribly far. On a good night it takes me about 15 to 20 minutes to get downtown. Parking is a big issue. The city seems to have made it a real chore to park. I went to an Old 97s show earlier this year and got a ticket for parking in the neighborhood; I hadn't noticed that the zones had been adjusted so you couldn't park on them at all. This is a relatively recent happening. Same thing for seeing my friends in Bells and Hunters do a gig at Velvet Lounge;  I parked on Georgia Avenue by the Howard University hospital and got a ticket because it was a street-cleaning time. Down around the 930 Club and DC9 and the Velvet Lounge there aren't any parking garages. Over by The Black Cat there is one garage. On H St by the rock and roll hotel there is parking in the neighborhood but it can be tough to find if you get there too late.

Metro isn't an option. First, it's kind of far from my house. By the time I drive there and park I could be damn near downtown. Second, it isn't like New York where it runs all night. By midnight it's closed, and although shows have started to get finished earlier to accommodate that I still don't like chancing it or leaving a show early.

When I lived in the city I would just take the Metro to the show and then take a cab home. That was awesome. When I saw Elliott Smith play I was living in Van Ness, so before going to the show with a bunch of friends I had them all over for dinner. Good times, man. A cab ride from downtown to my house now would cost about $50. Ack!

That part is really just lazy ass loser talk. There's nothing like seeing a band bring it on stage. The energy I get after a show is always worth the annoyance and near dread I feel about actually going. Once I get there it's awesome and fun, but like going to the gym the hardest thing is often getting off the couch.

But....another problem rears it head. I am old. And I have a job. And for said job I get up at 5:15am. I am not required to get up at 5:15am but I am one of the weirdos who likes getting one early. If I get in late I feel like I am already behind and playing catch up. So even though once I get to a show where I love it and enjoy it, I still am likely not going to get home until well after midnight. Which means I have, after getting home and showering and finally coming down off the energy of the show, maybe 3 hours of sleep. And like I said, I am old now. Not Methuselah old but old enough where only getting a couple hours a sleep is hard to recover from.

That's also a cop out. I am not that old. It isn't that difficult to find a split to park. Those shouldn't be excuses for not going out to see the bands I love.  If I hadn't been a wuss I could have seen Pelican, High On Fire with Kvelertak (!!!!!), True Widow, Surfer Blood, Frontier Ruckus, Blitzen Trapper, Steven Wilson. And those are the ones off the top of my head.

So for this coming year I already have on my calendar Grant Lee-Phillips, Band Of Horses, Josh Ritter, The Men, Neil Finn. So, dear friends, if you see me blogging about a new record and saying how I plan on seeing them this coming so-and-so, do me a favor and prod me so I don't act like a big baby. Rock on!

Ripples Never Come Back

My friend Erik commented about my picking up The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway on vinyl and how it was getting a lot of play on his iPod. That makes sense. Erik is a helluva a keyboard player and Lamb is very much a keyboard record. Sunday night I turned off the lights, put on the good headphones, lit a candle and gave it a full attention listen. It really is a spectacular record. Take "The Carpet Crawlers":

It's just a soaring song, especially when part of the story as a whole. It becomes almost holy the way the chorus soars. It's a great harmony between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.

Genesis is a fascinating band in terms of evolution. I can't think of band that evolved as organically as Genesis. With Gabriel at the fore they started as a very British art band, culminating in his masterpiece. He left the band because he felt the band structure couldn't offer him anything more; that he needed to go in different directions. Most of us have seen the Behind The Music and before long Genesis found their singer behind the kit. Happily, the split was amicable.

And the split changed the band, but it did so over time. The first post-Gabriel record, A Trick of The Tail is in many ways a miracle in how good it is. Songs like "Dance On A Volcano" and "Squonk" and "Entangled" and "Ripples" are fantastic. The follow-up to that Wind and Wuthering is not as good to me, at least I don't enjoy it as much. At this point guitarist Steve Hackett left for similar reasons to Gabriel, feeling confined within the band and wanting to move on to other things.

How many bands could lose their singer and guitarist and replace them not by hiring new people but by assuming the role internally? I can't think of any. And not only did they continue, then continued to make great music. And Then There Were Three was the first as a trio and is outstanding. "Burning Rope" is one of their best songs; "Snowbound" and "Undertow" and album opener "Down and Out" are all exceptional. The last song on the record hinted at where they would go: "Follow You Follow Me."

The next record, Duke, is one of my most favorite records of all time. And it's another miracle in plastic in how good it is. It's without a doubt more radio friendly than the Gabriel days, but it still retains many of the progressive bonafides. There's the hits "Misunderstanding" and "Turn It On Again." Then there's the non-hits but songs that are amazing: "Duchess" and "Man Of Our Times" and favorite of mine "Please Don't Ask" and the very proggy conclusion with "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End."

Abacab and Genesis followed in the pop trajectory. That and Phil Collins pop solo career led to the monster that was Invisible Touch. It's very easy to forget what a great drummer Phil Collins was. A seriously fantastic drummer. The knock he gets for turning Genesis into a pop act is unfair. Listening to the post-Gabriel records the change is there but it is natural; Lamb does not give way to IT but evolves there. Some might say devolve but whatever.  I don't begrudge them moving more towards pop. It's their art and they get to choose what to do with it.

The resiliency of the band, their ability to grow and mature and evolve is fascinating. It is a testament to what exceptional musicians Phil Collins and Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford were (are).

If you've forgotten, or maybe never knew, what a great band Genesis could be, here's one of my favorites:

Record Store Day Black Friday 2013

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.

Old Favorites: Living Room Scene

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope everybody has a great holiday, eats a ton, and then hits the gym tomorrow!!

I am going to debut a new feature and I am calling it "Old Favorites." Three guesses as to what it means. You...in the back...what's that you say? CORRECT! Here I will be talking about old records that happen to be favorites of mine yet maybe haven't been played for a while.

For this inaugural post, I am listening to Living Room Scene by the late, great Dillon Fence. They are a four-piece out of North Carolina who toured the East coast extensively in the early to mid-90s. They never got any national exposure, except for a brief mention in a Rolling Stone cover story about Hootie and the Blowfish. Regardless of that, they were one of my most favorite bands whilst in college. Their sound in kind of typical alternative power-pop from those days. Hootie was one of the bands they were "associated" with; they and other bands from the North Carolina and South Carolina power-pop scene had supposedly made an agreement to take some of them on tour if they ever made it big. Hootie did so they took Dillon Fence with them. That's nice.

Dillon Fence only made three full length records, the mellow-ish Rosemary, the harder edged Outside In, and their swan-song Living Room Scene. I probably like OI slightly better than LRS, but this was the one that first got me into them. The music is earth-shattering but it is really well done. Lead singer and guitarist Greg Humphreys was the soul of the band; his voice is very reminiscent of a rockier, Faces-era Rod Stewart.

I first saw them when they opened for The Connells, another North Carolina favorite, at old WUST Hall, which is now known as the New 930 Club, though it's been there nearly 20 years now. WUST Hall didn't have many rock shows there back then. The configuration was pretty much the same as the 930 is now, but it was much dingier. The coolest part was there were murals of Baptist revivals on the walls. Back then, the U Street Corridor in DC was much more sketchy than it is now. Going down there for college kids was a bit of a dangerous thrill. We didn't know any better.

After LRS came out the band went through a bunch of members. Bassist Chris Goode left to go back to school or something, then guitarist Kent Alphin left to form Granger. Drummer Scott Carle stuck around. I saw the original line-up just once, though I wound up seeing their various incarnations about five times. I remember seeing them at old old 930 Club and meeting the band in the long hallway leading to the club. What was most cool was how happy they were to see me and my friend Eric wearing our Dillon Fence tee shirts. They were genuinely happy about it. I remember seeing them at at the old Bayou in Georgetown where we got to hang out with them for a while after the show. I also saw drummer Scott Carle as a roadie for The Connells and was very excited he remembered us and talked with us for a while. They were very nice guys but seemed bummed about not making it big.

I still spin the old Dillon Fence records, and my LRS tee-shirt is one of my oldest and rattiest but I still like wearing it. Here's the title track; hope you enjoy it!

Sink In The Fangs

Red Fang continues in the tradition of scuzzy looking guys drinking a shitload of beer and playing heavy stoner rock. They are heavy, they are loud, they play fast and then they play sludgy. And if you watch any of their videos they really love beer. Take "Wires" for instance. The setup is they receive a check for $5000 to make a video, which they promptly use to buy beer and destroy a ton of shit. It's funny and stupid all at the same time and perfectly encapsulates who they appear to be.

Whales and Leeches is their new record and it builds on their self-titled debut and 2011's Murder The Mountains.  Like the last record it is produced by Chris Funk from The Decemberists. If you have heard of that band you might find it curious he would produce a band like Red Fang. They both come from Portland, OR, so they have that going for them but other than that the connections are sparse. The Decemberists offer a very progressive take on folk music. Red Fang would be expected to beat those guys up. But music is really all connected. It's chords and notes and guitars and beats no matter if it is loud or soft or someplace in between. And Funk's production is something that makes Red Fang stand out from the common stoner metal band. Sure it's heavy but there are dynamics and nuance working here that you don't always find on albums from like-minded but lesser bands. A special treat is seeing Roger Joseph Manning Jr.'s name in the credits, he being the former keyboardist in power pop bands Jellyfish and Imperial Drag. His talents are utilized for just one track but it helps escort Red Fang's trip down the road toward more interesting and different places.

Stand out tracks include the album opening one-two punch of "DOEN" and "Blood Like Cream." The latter offers an almost power-poppy bounce and an Iron Maiden-esque guitar run near the end. Other cuts, Like "No Hope" and especially "Crows In Swine" remind me of their former tour mates Mastodon. Album closer "Every Little Twist" brings on the psychedelic-a; if you have the vinyl and are not paying attention, you'll find this song will go on forever as the record's lock-groove comes blessed with the end of the song...playing forever and ever and ever.

Here's "Blood Like Cream" from Live at KEXP:

You Will Get This Record...Then Pass The Time By Playing A Little Solitaire

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats' Mind Control is as Sabbath sounding a record as you can get without actually being Black Sabbath. In fact, it is easily the best Black Sabbath record of the year by far, this included.

Take "Mt. Abraxas:" it starts gloomy and doom, total homage to the first eponymous Sabbath record, then it gallops into "After Forever" territory. before sludging back down. After that "Mind Crawler" kicks in, with it's heavy and simple riffs backed by a barely audible but completely essential piano run. It's the kind of song that makes me get up and dance like Michael Shannon covered in bugs. And that's just the first side of the first record. There's nothing terribly complicated in this music. It's derivative sure, but it takes everything that was great about Black Sabbath and just nails it. It's heavy and it stomps and it is a little bit scary. You feel like something evil (or maybe just interesting) is going to ooze out of the speakers. (Aside: googling "70s horror movie girls" brings up a surprising amount of lesbian activity).

Speaking of lesbians, here's something to do: check out their website, specifically the Garbage Dump section, where fans upload images that might or might not have anything to do with Uncle Acid. It's.....strange...that's about the gentlest I can say about it.

Happy story about this record: I had first read about them when Steven Hyden mentioned them in a write-up he did about the state of metal citing primarily Kylesa (awesome), Deafhaven (OK) and Queens Of The Stone Age (tired). In fact that article is where I also first read about ASG and Blood Ceremony and Kvelertak, but I digress. Thanks to Spotify I was able to hear this Uncle Acid record and I dug it much. Then one day it disappeared off Spotify, with some message saying it could no longer be available in the US. FRAK! A couple weeks later I went down to Som Records on 14th Street in DC and lo-and-behold there it was, a vinyl copy of Mind Control, sitting on the shelf. I gasped..really...I gasped and probably squealed with delight when I saw it. I grabbed it lest another metal head lurked somewhere ready to pounce. It cost over $40 but I didn't give a shit. This record rules. Listen here for confirmation!

Fourth Time (Not) The Charm

Blackfield is a kind of supergroup, featuring Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree and three amazing solo records, and Israeli pop star Aviv Geffen. It's a fascinating collaboration: Wilson uses Blackfield as a opportunity to write shorter, more focused, almost-pop songs; Geffen uses Blackfield to explore new sonic terrain beyond what his solo career offers.

Their first three collaborations (along with a live set from New York City) are all great, especially Blackfield II. The fourth, simply titled Blackfield IV does not have the impact the others do. This could be due to Steven Wilson taking a backseat to Aviv Geffen, supporting this effort less as a collaborator and more as a guest, in addition to his normal production duties. The record also hosts a number of additional guest spots. Vincent Kavanaugh of Anathema, Brett Anderson of Suede, and Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev all appear to different effect.

All the songs are credited to Geffen, but the songs that are the best are those that are the real collaborations between Wilson and Geffen: album opener "Pills", "Sense Of Insanity," and "Jupiter," easily the best track on the record, all have what made the other Blackfield records so great.

Unfortunately the rest of the record is lacking. "X-Ray" featuring Kavanaugh is a pleasant piece and the music works very well with his voice, but is ultimately a trifle. Brett Anderson doing "Firefly," while having a compelling voice that works incredibly well in the glammish Suede, is almost embarrassing; his over-the-top delivery fits well with Bernard Butler or, to less effect, Richard Oakes' churning guitars. It doesn't work with the orchestration and precision of Blackfield. Donahue's "The Only Fool Is Me" feels like filler to end an album side, coming in as a two-minute lullaby.

"Springtime" and the second side has more of the Blackfield vibe. Side opener "Jupiter" is followed by the heavy-ish "Kissed By The Devil" and the poppy "Lost Souls." "Faking" has a middling chorus and verse but then soars into a brilliant bridge; too bad it couldn't have been used in a better overall song. "After The Rain" closes the album but still feels like more filler.

Overall it is a disappointment. I really love Blackfield and was seriously looking forward to this record. It isn't a bad album on it's own; perhaps it should have been marketed as an Aviv Geffen solo record. I understand Steven Wilson wanting to step back a bit from other commitments, especially considering how well his solo career is going, but Blackfield works best as a true collaboration between two unique artists.

Here's the aforementioned "Jupiter." A great song that is supported by a fantastic video.