- Cloud Nothings - Attack On Memory. When I listen to this, I hear a band trying out sounds from other bands: from the vaguely Thom Yorke-ish opener, into things that sound like Paper, Pixies, Tokyo Police Club, etc.. It's not bad, but I get so distracted by the echoes of other bands that I can't get into it fully. Not their fault entirely, it's a curse of mine.
- Buddy Guy & Junior Wells : Hoodoo Man Blues. 1965. Now this is the shit. Guy's guitar playing is awesome: aggressive and playful (and his influence on Clapton is obvious). He sounds like he's just having a ball. Harmonica, in the mouths of folkies at least, makes me want to tear my ears off and fill the holes with spackle, but Wells' favors a low and growly tone, and it's well down in the mix. Awesome. Killer record.
- Buddy Guy & Junior Wells : Alone And Acoustic. 1981. Just Guy with an acoustic guitar and Wells with his harp; both sing. I much prefer the electric side of these guys, but there are some good songs here.
- Buddy Guy - Sweet Tea. 2001. The sound of this reminds me of Neil Young's "Le Noise" record; it's huge and raw, up-close and intimate when it's quiet, and when it gets loud it grabs you by the neck and roars in your face. It's a great sound, very live. Feels like you're watching them in someone's backyard. The only thing that detracts are the various odd reverbs/echoes on Guy's voice; seems like there's a different unnecessary vocal effect on each song. His voice still sounds fine, and doesn't need any decoration.
- Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits. This is Spoon's Britt Daniels, Wolf Parade's Boeckner and New Bomb Turk's Sam Brown. It's a fun record; a strong 80's electronic new wave vibe, and a good amount of Britt Daniels signature hooks and vocal lines. They're coming to town next month. I am excite.
You got anything new?
Listening to Outertainment by Baby Gramps and I recommend it very highly. (at work now, maybe later I will write more about it.)
I’m trying very hard to ration my enjoyment of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” which I heard for the first time this week. I’m scared to overplay it but it’s … just … so … good. I feel that given enough listens it might lose something and that scares me a little. It’s not as strange as I was expecting to be honest and the guitar playing is simple enough that I can probably manage every song on the album.
With some prompting from my wife I downloaded “Give Up The Ghost” by Brandi Carlile and it’s fantastic and was very much the soundtrack of our recent holiday. Even my 8-year old daughter likes it and much hilarity ensued when she asked “Daddy, why does she always sing about ladies?”. We have this blog to thank for our love of Brandi BTW. Yay Cleek! We love her voice, her lyrics and the whole minor-country twang of the record. We should move to the USA and be done with it really.
I have also been listening to Boxer by The National after my wife – again – fell head-over-in-heels in love with High Violet and became very eager to consume more of their material. They must be due a new record soon? I hope so. Boxer takes more work than High Violet and the production seems different – less ambitious – but it’s worth the effort.
I have also been listening to a lot of Talking Heads, especially Fear of Music and Speaking in Tongues. And The Suburbs by Arcade Fire is back on my radar and getting a lot of listens mainly because, again, I can just about play a good chunk of the songs on my acoustic.
So music is very much front and centre for both the wife and me at the moment – we’ve almost given up on television (other than True Blood which just finished). I treated my wife to a Kindle Touch a few months ago and she is sailing close to an obsession with ready – 20 or more books a month is normal. She now wants to be a part-time proof-reader which would be perfect if she can find anyone willing to employ her. She said the amount of grammatical and spelling errors in those “50 Shades…” books was staggering.