Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
I picked this up and in the first 30 seconds, I was hooked. As a piece of rock n roll genealogy, it's fantastic: you can hear some of the campy glam rock of Roxy Music (Eno's previous band) in some songs, but you can also clearly hear stuff that foreshadows experimental rock of every era since in there, too. This sounds like Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah. This sounds like Broken Social Scene. Bauhaus probably liked this song. And this is essentially the piano line to Bob Seger's "Still The Same", over and over (though it predates Seger's by 4 years). And, even better, it's a great listen without paying attention to any of that.

Robert Fripp - Exposure
In the late 70's Robert Fripp, long done with the Red-era version of King Crimson, was busy doing guest appearances on records by Blondie, Talking Heads, Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Eno, etc.. And in 79, he started work on a solo record. To support him, he hooked up with various vocalists and drummers and with session bassist Tony Levin. And they made a double album called "Exposure". This was a couple of years before he rebooted King Crimson with Levin, Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford, but it's clear that Fripp was already in that experimental new-wave mode. And it's also clear that he was already fiddling around with some of the things that would become those new KC songs. So, it's interesting in that way. But, that's about as far as I can get with it.

Parquet Floors - Light Up Gold
There's a long prickly branch of the R&R family tree that starts with the Velvet Underground, MC5 and the Stooges in the 60s; it goes on to produce The Modern Lovers, Wire, The Buzzcocks and The Fall in the 70s and 80s; in the 90s it gave us bands like Pavement and Yo La Tengo and Sleater Kinney. Well, Parquet Floors is right on the end of that branch. You know the sound: quick, simple almost-pop songs with shouted lyrics and often dissonant guitars, a rhythm section that can put its head down and keep things moving despite frequent squalls of feedback from the guys up front. They're at their most fun when they cut way on melody and turn up the energy. But I dig their slower tunes, too. Good to see that branch is still alive and still growing.

et tu?

• David Rawlings Machine - Nashville Obsolete. Oh, how this pains me. Their first record as the D.R.M. took a good while to really click with me. I wasn't quite sure I dug the sillier tunes, and the slower tunes seemed too slow. But over time I came to like it quite a bit. And while their live shows are always fantastic, I've been hoping they'd put out a new record so they can have some new material to play. Now they have a new record! And it's full of stuff they've been playing for years. And, most of these songs are and slow and long - and not in the hypnotic style of Gillian Welch's "I Dream A Highway", just, sigh, plodding. Of the seven songs on this, only one comes in under four minutes. One is nearly 11 minutes long, one takes 8 minutes, two are six minutes. And 30 minutes go by before you get to a song with a tempo approaching toe-tapping speed. And, there are strings: not fiddles, but violins and cellos! Of all the things to put next to simple acoustic guitars and vocals, a string section would be pretty far from my first choice. I find it totally distracting. I still love the band, but, sadly, this doesn't satisfy.
• Kurt Vile - B'lieve I'm Going Down. Have you ever wondered what a cross between The Meat Puppets, Iron And Wine and the slower side of Modest Mouse would sound like?

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• King Crimson - Larks' Tongues In Aspic. Though I love the 80s K.C., and I love 1974's "Red", I've always been wary of their earlier stuff. I bought a K.C. compilation in the 80s and it had a couple of their early tunes which grated on me: too proggy in that misty medieval minstrel style. And the title of this album certainly suggested more of that. Plus, the list of band members, at the time, included a violinist! Zounds! So I've avoided this for 25 years. But I recently read some reviews that convinced me to spend a minute sampling it in iTunes. And I'm glad of it. There's none of that RenFaire vibe here. This is much more like "Red" - heavy as hell, bombastic and noisy at times, complicated and generally just brilliant. It's from 1973 and has the same lineup as "Red", too - less a percussionist who departed after this record. But, in my opinion, if you've got Bill Bruford, you don't really need anyone else playing drums.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_gzyaafZd8

• Jill Scott - Who Is Jill Scott? Since there's no more Erykah Badu out there for me to buy, I'm looking at people who get grouped together with her under the "neo soul" banner. And, indeed, there's a lot of similarity between Scott an Badu. They do the same sultry R&B: patiently funky and gently jazzy, densely detailed, precisely produced. Compared to Badu, Scott has a smoother voice and her lyrics are more obviously poetic and more personal. And they're always romantic or sexy; no politics here. I like the sound, but I can only take so many love songs in a day - even if some are kindof playfully dirty. I'll check out more from her, eventually.

• ALA.NI - You & I - Spring. Someone on my Facebook feed linked to a video of her so I investigated. If not for the lack of terrible sound quality and modern multi-track production (ex. she does multi-part harmony with herself), you'd swear these were some from the 1920s or 30s. Gently swinging old-school poppy jazz, very nicely executed.

  She only has this one single out so far, but I expect there will be more.

• Norah Jones - The Fall. For this, she dropped the soft jazzy pop and picked up some alternative adult soft rock. Her voice is as warm and fuzzy as ever, but the music - though it be gentle as a cloud - just isn't as snuggley as the stuff on "Come Away With Me".

• Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin'. Groovy 60's-style R&B, with some modern flavor. There's a lot of stuff with that description out there these days. But, like Alabama Shakes, he adds enough new ingredients to the old recipes to keep it from tasting exactly like your gramma's R&B.

• Constant Velocity - 7 songs about eric clapton. This is pretty great. Lots of interesting stuff going on in these songs: structurally, melodically, sonically. The songs are full of twists and turns - and following along is half the fun - but they still flow nicely. Which is not an easy feat to pull off. And though comparing bands to other bands is my favorite thing to do, I can't come up with a solid comparison here. I keep thinking about The Decemberists because there's a theatrical/narrative feel to many of the songs, the way they change-up every few bars, and the A+ vocabulary of the lyrics. But there's not much similarity musically, and I find The Decemberists to be pretentious and boring. This is neither. This is more scrappy and spiky and rocks harder and is simply a lot more fun. Plus, it's commenter Jewish Steel's band!

  Check em out at Bandcamp.

You?

Melvins - Houdini. I don't know why I didn't really learn about these guys until last month. But better late than never, because this is great record. So heavy, with a gigantic thick guitar sound. Four percent signs: %%%%.

Sleater Kinney - No Cities To Love. I've always been conflicted about this band. On one hand, their vocal style sometimes grates on me (see also Throwing Muses and Screaming Females). On the other hand, they rock so hard. The songs are just bursting with energy and passion. And I really like the two-guitar-and-drums approach. Three percent signs: %%%.

Tobias Jesso Jr - Goon. If you really like 70s-style piano-based soft pop rock, this might be for you. It's not for me. One percent sign: %

Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment - Surf.  Got this free on iTunes. They're a 'musical collective', and this is their debut album. For this, they brought along a dozen or so guest artists (Janelle Monáe, Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, Big Sean, etc.)  mostly to share vocals with official member Chance The Rapper. It's a mixture of instrumental smooth-ish jazz, rap, R&B and neo-soul. The lyrics are uniformly positive. And the music is generally laid-back and breezy, but full of great details. Close listening is mandatory. I love it at work through earbuds; at home through speakers I don't like it all. I'm at work right now, so, four percent signs: %%%%.

You?

• Joni Mitchell - Clouds / The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. Clouds was her second record. It's a couple of records before her masterpiece, Blue, and miles from her later jazzy records. This is very much a 60's folk record, mostly just her and a guitar. The lyrics are often hippy-flowery, and the music is sometimes has that CSN-ish, not-quite-medieval, vibe. There are good songs, but only a couple rise to the level of her best. The Hissing Of Summer Lawns came six albums later, and is full-on jazz fusion. There are electric guitars, strings, horns, keyboards, synths, drums, backing vocals. There's even a song that has her singing over samples of African drumming overlayed with Moog synth - sounds like Laurie Anderson or Peter Gabriel; very experimental for 1975. The songs are certainly more complex than on Clouds, but they're a lot less catchy. Hooks are hard to find and some songs just drift by with barely a beat - chord changes in the fog, only her voice and lyrics to follow. And that's OK since she's always worth paying attention to. But overall, it's much less accessible than the prior record, Court And Spark, which blended that jazz fusion with enough structure and hooks to keep the music interesting. On the other hand, the songs have more structure and dynamics than the next record, Hejira, but I somehow like Hejira better. Three Raquos each: »»».
• Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color. About half of the songs share the warm and sweet retro R&B flavor that made their previous record so much fun. The rest of the record branches out into somewhat different areas - harder funk, a little more rock, a little softer R&B, etc.. Some of the experiments are fun, some not so much. There are a few good songs, but they'd only be in my second-tier if they were on Girls & Boys. And on this, they're weighed-down by the rest of the record. Oh well, there's always next time. Two raquos: »».

You?

I've been listening to a lot of late-60s white blues bands lately, mostly thanks to the awesome vinyl rips that Prof. Stoned has put together.

First, and the only American band in this set, is the Paul Butterfield Band (later the Butterfield Blues Band). I've been listening to their first two records: "The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" and "East-West". Like all of these bands, they do a lot of very faithful versions of blues standards. These are skilfully done, but I find myself wishing they were grittier, leaner, with maybe a little more swagger. To me, their original tunes are much more interesting, especially the longer improvisational instrumentals on their "East-West" album: Work Song and the title track. In those, they started with traditional electric blues licks and then blended-in jazz, eastern and Latin ideas. And that mix was the obvious predecessor to bands like The Allman Brothers, Santana and even The Rolling Stones.

Here's "East-West". Within 15 seconds, you swear you're listening to an Allman Bros tune. A minute in and you can't help but hear the end jam from the Stones' "Can You Here Me Knocking".

You might recognize that guitar player, Mike Bloomfield. He's the guy tearing it up in back of Bob Dylan in this famous concert:

Next up, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers - The Mono Singles Collection (Prof Stoned 2012). These are the A and B sides of the singles released by the band during 1964-67. 23 tracks, all in mono, all from original vinyl. They include tracks with guitar from Eric Clapton, Roger Dean, Bernie Watson, Peter Green and Mick Taylor. John McVie plays bass on most. Jimmy Page produced a few of them (and you can definitely hear his influence). Mick Fleetwood even shows up on drums for a couple; and some of the songs recorded from that particular session would end up on Fleetwood Mac's first album. The songs themselves are almost uniformly great, and the band is always fantastic.

And finally, Fleetwood Mac. Everyone knows the Buckingham/Nicks/McVie version of FM. And people might know a song or two from the Bob Welch era ("Hypnotized", "Sentimental Lady"). But most people probably don't know much about the first era, even before Christine McVie joined, with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan (all on guitar and vocals). Sure everyone knows "Black Magic Woman", but they probably know it from Santana's cover, not from FM.

Mac was absolutely a blues band then, with not even a hint of the pop that the name "Fleetwood Mac" would become synonymous with. And their first record, "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac" (1968 - also from Prof Stoned) is just about perfect. Jeremy Spencer and Peter Green were both great guitar players: Spencer's flashy sizzling Elmore James-style slide leads contrast nicely with Green's spare, stinging and reverb-soaked style. They both sang, too. And while I haven't found a list of who sang which song, I'm assuming each sings on songs that he also did lead guitar on. And based on that, Spencer has a joyful, and just slightly hammy, delivery that always makes me smile. Green's vocals are, like his guitar playing, much darker and spare.

Here's Spencer taking the lead on Elmore James' "Shake Your Moneymaker":

I also picked up a record called "Hey Baby" which has some songs from The Christine Perfect Band - Christine McVie's maiden name is "Perfect", and this was her pre-FM band. They're not fantastic songs, but they do show her distinctive style was well developed even in 1968. The rest of the records are FM songs that McVie played on before she was an official member. Some of them show up on later FM records. Also interesting.

And then, "Then Play On", FM's third record. It's the last one with Peter Green and the first one with Christine McVie (though she's uncredited). Haven't got into this one much, yet. I bought it mostly so I'd have a copy of "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)" - Judas Priest's cover is so awesome I just had to have Peter Green's original - and it is also awesome. Priest just made it louder.

You?

• D'Angelo And The Vanguard - Black Messiah. When it comes to R&B/soul/neo-soul, I don't have many points of reference. Aside from Erykah Badu, there's Prince's 1999 and Sign Of The Times - and growing up in the 80's, I couldn't have not known those two Prince records. Even so, I think just knowing that much has set me up pretty good for getting into this. Prince, of course, had all those amazing funky pop songs, and that creepy sex vibe. The great Badu (who I'm going to see in a couple of weeks!) taught me that there's more to modern soul and R&B than just slow jams and wailing divas; it can be as playful and interesting and experimental as anything - which was only a revelation to me because I never bothered investigating the genre until I accidentally saw Badu do a performance on the Chappelle Show. And this is so all of that: playful and interesting and experimental. The sonic layers are dense and new stuff pokes out everywhere. Some of the melodies and rhythms are either so slithery and shifty, or so clipped and stuttery, that it can feel almost like the Dirty Projectors - who sometimes run with a melody as if they're trying to keep it away from you. And besides the slinky, funky, sexy, slightly psychedelic tunes which occasionally remind me of the lesser-known corners of Prince's Sign Of The Times, D'Angelo sprinkles his spot-on Prince-y falsetto squeals all over the place. Which is definitely not to say that it sounds like any kind of rip-off of any of that: just that this a strange new land for me and I can't help but orient myself by the only landmarks I know. This record is a fun new region of that funky land, and there are fascinating things everywhere I look. Great record.
• Captain Beefheart - Safe As Milk. Late 60's psych-rock. It's certainly more accessible than Trout Mask Replica, but I can't say I find myself ever wanting to listen to it. There are some good tunes, and the band is really great. But right now I'm still in the stage where I have to force myself to give a spin because it hasn't clicked with me. And I really want to know why people rave about the Cap'n. So this is a study, not a treat. Maybe I'll figure it out someday. Some bands just need time to grow on you.
• Nirvana - Bleach (2009 remaster). I remember hearing this record back in 91 or thereabouts and not being too impressed. It definitely wasn't as catchy as Nevermind, so I guess I convinced myself that it was just a warm-up to the good stuff and forgot about it. But hearing it now, I realize that Nevermind is the outlier, and that this, In Utero and Incesticide are what Nirvana really sounded like - not just the production, but the energy and the attitude. And, man: ferocious. Cobain's vocals and guitars utterly seethe with furious energy. Few would call him a techinically great guitar player, but holy fuck, what a ball of fire the guy was. Unfortunately, the bass is buried deep in the mix. Cobain's guitar sound is so huge and Novoselic's tendency to play the root of Cobain's chord right in time with the bass drum makes it hard to pick out the bass out sometimes. And, it's not Dave Grohl on drums, but the two guys who preceded him do a good job keeping up with Cobain's lead. The songs range from truly great to forgettable, and there's a bit of slop in some of them. But that's fine - even if the tune isn't great or if the timings aren't perfect, the sheer energy the three of them generate is just awesome.

You?

• Bob Dylan - John Welsey Harding. Most of Dylan's post Highway 61 records have taken a long time - years in some cases - to grow on me; a problem I have never found with his earlier stuff. So it's probably too soon for me to judge this one. Nonetheless, I shall judge: I'm not getting it. I liked some of the songs immediately, especially those I already knew from covers ("All Along The Watchtower", "Wicked Messenger", etc.). But overall it falls flat for me. I can see how it might have been a bit of a curiosity, coming out in the same year that Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, Are You Experienced, Disraeli Gears and Strange Days all came out. And maybe that made it more interesting at the time. But, frankly, I've heard better country-rock records. I'll check back next year.
• Big Star - Live In Memphis. It's the soundtrack to what is billed as the only professional video recording of a Big Star show (in Oct 1994). But only half of the original Big Star was present: Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens. Co-frontman Chris Bell died in the 70s, and bassist Andy Hummel didn't participate. So, two guys from The Posies took their spots. Still, it's nice to hear Alex and Jody singing and playing those songs (and one of the Posies guys singing a couple of the Chris Bell tunes, including "I Am The Cosmos"). The band was very loose; and whoever is doing the backup vocals had a hard time following Chilton's flexible timing; the mix is rough though far far better than the sound on the live album from '74 (which was Alex, Jody and a substitute bass player). Overall, like that earlier live record, it's not a great listen; but it is an interesting one if you're a big Big Star fan like I am.
• Robyn Hitchcock - The Man Upstairs. This is his third in a row with just ten songs. And on this one, half of these tunes are covers, including The Psychedelic Furs' "The Ghost In You", Roxy Music's "To Turn You On" and even The Doors' "The Crystal Ship". Most of it is acoustic guitar, piano, cello (?), and some whispery backup vocals; and it's all done with a sparse, delicate and airy vibe. The big exception, which wakes things up halfway through the record, is "Someone To Break Your Heart" - a quick and snappy electric guitar and harmonica tune. I like this record better than I've liked his past few records (solo or otherwise), and it's mostly due to the covers. He's always picked interesting covers live, and he always does them well (I even saw him do "Funkytown" once). So it's nice to have some of them well-recorded.

Et tu?

• The Gun Club - Fire of Love. Classic 80's punk infused with blues. I'd heard the name, but I always assumed The Gun Club was some kind of new wave synths-and-white-hair band. But a friend who has no use for that stuff mentioned this record, and I took a listen. It's good! I wish I'd heard it 25 years ago. (Update: this was also #77 in our 2011 Readers Favorite Records Poll!)
• Jack White - Lazaretto. For some reason, I haven't liked any of Jack Black's post-White Stripes records 1/10th as much as I like his Stripes stuff. In my ears, that minimal blues-stomp stuff the Stripes did is so much more fun and alive than what he does when he gets to add all kinds of other instruments. Bring back Meg!
• Yevgeny Kutik - Music From The Suitcase. There's a genre of music that gets used as background in dark movies, especially those set in eastern Europe, early 1900s. It's usually a solo violin in a classical style, but mournful and plaintive and less formal than the old masters. I once thought they might be Chopin (eastern European, classical but more modern, etc.), so I bought a bunch of Chopin. But that wasn't it; Chopin is too intricate and busy (and piano-based). I only knew Stravinsky and Prokofiev from their big loud symphonies, so I didn't suspect them. And that's as far as my knowledge of eastern European classical music went. This was pre-digital music, where you could just preview tunes at will, so I couldn't just hunt around. I eventually gave up. But a couple of months back I heard a review of this record on NPR, and there was that music again: violin and piano, spooky, melancholy. And they were mostly short songs by big-name Russian composers, late 19th C, early 20th C: Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovitch, etc.. I just didn't know they did those types of things. Mystery solved.
• Cypress Hill - Black Sunday. Insane In The Membrane!, yeah that one. It's fun, shut up.
• The Pharcyde - Bizzare Ride II. Since early 90s hip-hop is the only hip-hop I like, I must buy everything from that era. It's a little uneven, but the good parts are really good. I like it.

You?

Listening to, today, cause I'm studying for upcoming shows...

• St Vincent - St Vincent. Admittedly, I've only heard this once; and that was in the car on the way to work today. But it's perfect for playing in a car: it's loud, bass-heavy, the drums are compressed and pumped-up to absurd levels (along with everything else). It's the first time she's done a record with this hyper-compressed modern feel, and it actually sounds great (in my car anyway). While the drums-and-bass-forward production initially made me think she'd taken a Liz Phair-like turn for the dance floor, after a couple of songs, it was clear that it was just a matter of emphasis: her songs are still St Vincent songs, but now the bottom end aggressively thumps and bumps, while her guitar shreds and her melodies twist and spiral away into the air, as they always have. Makes her tunes a lot more accessible while still preserving most of what makes them interesting. Good stuff. Going to see her this coming Tuesday.
  Four Laquos: « « « « «

• Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Wigout at Jagbags. Malkmus is, as ever, a clever rhymer ("cinnamon and lesbians", "we lived on Tennyson and venison and the Grateful Dead", "a love like oxygen, so foxy then, so terrific now"), an energetic singer and a giddy guitarist. While the songs on this don't quite hit the highs of some of their other records, it's still a good listen. My iPod refuses to pick any of these songs in shuffle. Going to see them this coming Monday.
  Three Laquos: « « « « «

• The Funkees - Dancing Time. They're a Nigerian band (they're coming to your town, they'll help you party down), active in the 70s, and this record is a 'best of'. It's funky afro-rock, very 70s, very raw, lots of energy. Very fun.
  Three Laquos: « « « « «

You got anything new?