Why’s it so strange when they say that the world’s moving upwards?
why’s it surreal when my hands feel they can’t roll the dice?
why’s it so great just to wake every day alive and by your side?
It’s a mystery I guess, there’s lots of things I can’t find
its not the way that you look, but your move that catches my eye
Why’s it so soft when the cannons unload on the others?
Why’re we so loud when we say it won’t happen to us?
Why does my mind blow to bits every time they play that song?
It’s just the way that he sings
not the words that he says or the band
I’m in love with this soul, it’s a meaning that I understand The Way That He Sings (acoustic) – My Morning Jacket (Up Cripple Creek version)
A stunning rendition from a rad acoustic set by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, at a tiny bar in Louisville, Kentucky a few months back. Jim surely possesses one of the most affecting and astounding voices in all of rockdom today, and I got tingles at the way the crowd fills right in with the background chant that I’ve always heard as “ah he don’t know, no….” Wonderful. I would have given a small body part to maybe be there.
Jim James also announced a new record label endeavor last week, a joint project between him and former My Morning Jacket guitarist Johnny Quaid. Read more at the Removador Records website; they aim to bring you “some of the coldest music you ain’t never heard.”
As you may have heard around in the news, tonight is a “blue moon,” a rare occurrence of the second full moon in one month. Steeped in legend, it’s gotta portend good things for 2010.
Driving home last night, the almost-full moon cast an eerie glow over the snowy plains of Colorado, making everything visible as if it was daylight. Tonight will be even brighter.
Happy blue moon, happy New Year’s everyone. Here’s to 2010.
From the new EP of George Harrison/Beatles covers by My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James (under the clever, throw-them-off-the-scent moniker of Yim Yames), this song feels like a much-needed salve on my rawness today:
Sometimes I am glad I don’t know the fancy tricks of studio recording, and how they make Jim’s voice sound like it is coming to me from somewhere outside time, like it was created to someday record this song about the temporal nature of the evening, a cloudburst, love, our lives.
I’m sure it has something to do with reverb and certain knobby magic on the console, but the golden-red aura of his voice is truly exceptional here, and it feels like some kind of hope breaking through.
All the tracks are thoroughly gorgeous, and the EP is available now for just a handful of dollars.
I saw Grace Potter and the Nocturnals rock a bluesy, soulful set last night before a packed Ogden Theater. In addition to a powerful selection of songs from their own catalog, they worked in a ferocious cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black.”
Just listen to Grace wail on the line about, “I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes…”
After the the earnest beauty in his last album Learning To Bend (which included that Southern-sweet cover of “A Change Is Gonna Come“), Kentucky’s Ben Sollee is back this month with a 2-song EP, currently available only on tour.
The opening track finds Sollee pairing with another musician friend from Louisville that you may know: Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Their simply-strummed acoustic duet blends Sollee’s gentle musings of optimism with Jim’s distinctively gorgeous harmonies. It is a timely song of hope in the face of seemingly overwhelming hopelessness.
I wouldn’t make a sound if I wasn’t so angry
I wouldn’t be running if there wasn’t so far to go
I wouldn’t keep on if there wasn’t something worth keeping
I want to believe the mountain can be moved
But this is only a song
It can’t change the world
But why try? Why even sing at all?
… There is beauty in freedom and folks like me
Came over on boats, flew in on planes, crawled under fences and fought wars
to find some unity
This earthy, warm, rich bootleg is from a shared evening of music that included sets from M. Ward, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes.
Billed as the “Monsters of Folk” tour, after individual sets it closes with a six-song jam session where they all play together and sometimes (like for the closing Dylan cover) take turns with the verses. The sound quality here is sparkling and pristine with some choice song selections in the mix. Any of their single sets would be a treat in its own right; together they blow my mind a little bit.
Notable track: that Willie Nelson cover! “Always on My Mind” is one of my favorite sad songs as is, but with Jim James taking the lead vocals it aches and ebbs in a new way. There are so many wonderfully melancholy songs in this bunch – in addition to the lonesome starter of “Fuel for Fire,” the way M. Ward’s voice cracks on Undertaker (”Ah, but if you’re gonna leeeeeeaaaaave, you better call the undertaker, take me under undertaker, take me home“) is practically the sound of a heart breaking.
Vacate is the word. Arriving at Coachella Sunday, the traffic was light, the sun was shining but not too intensely . . . and the extra ticket my friend had was pretty much impossible to give away. There were tens of thousands there to see some very fine bands for Sunday, but it was not packed-crowded. While surely this was not nice for the organizers, it was good for the dusty masses who were wedged together a little less tightly for the third and final day of Coachella 2008.
Sunday was also basically just The Day I met The Hoff. All else (including shaking Sean Penn’s hand and chatting with M. Ward) pales in direct comparison. It’s like if you look right at the sun and then try to focus on anything else. The brilliance of his tanned Hoff-dom made me want to run down the beach slow-motion in a red tank swimsuit. Oh wait!! Not really.
After unfortunately missing Brett Dennen who I was looking forward to, Sunday actually began with Sean Penn urging us to get on his Dirty Hands Caravan to New Orleans (which would be a cool six days if I could afford just to just up and go). Penn is actually quite a compelling speaker and I admired what he was trying to do. I hope he had some success with the Coachellans. And contrary to advance rumors, Penn brought no special musical guest with him, just his direct earnest stare and his impassioned speech.
Next up was a few fun songs from Detroit/Chicago hybrid duo The Cool Kids on the main stage. They’ve got an old-school hip hop feel with buckets of confidence. I know Chris over at Gorilla vs Bear has been a big fan, saying way back when that they reminded him of “a late ’80s EPMD joint produced by a low-budget version of the Neptunes.” Agreed – not a bad start. Those guys would be amazingly fun to see in a small club – maybe kind of like the time I saw Sugarhill Gang in a tiny (literally) underground club in Italy.
Heading back to the tents, my mind was sent reeling by Holy F*ck, whose brand of lo-fi improvisational electronica is anything but sterile. Watching them pour their hearts into their music, doubled over their machines, radiating intensity — and then hearing the warmly soaring sounds that emerge made me reconsider what’s possible with that genre. They closed with my favorite song of theirs (you must watch them do it) and I know it sounds a bit hyperbolic, but for those final five minutes my soul levitated a little.
I’d been looking forward to the gorgeous vocal interplay, catchy melodies and varied instrumentation of Canadian lush-pop band Stars. I’d caught their live set before, so I knew how engaging Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan’s shared verses and crowd banter could be. Their Set Yourself On Fire album is a favorite of mine and I loved hearing those songs live, alongside the new stuff.
A wandering jaunt backstage revealed a busy crew inflating and painting the massive pig for the Roger Waters set later that night, and the aforementioned Hoff and Penn (sounds like a Vegas magic trick duo). I also tried and clearly failed to suppress my glee at meeting M. Ward, who was waiting to join his friends from My Morning Jacket on stage for their sunset performance.
My Morning Jacket more or less melted my face off. I’d never seen them play live before but from the opening notes of “One Big Holiday” I was pulled into their vortex and duly impressed with how hard they rocked. As a live band MMJ is relentless and fiery and impassioned.
They played through several songs from their new album, which ranged from the fairly-traditional big alt-countrified sounds of “I’m Amazed,” the straight up funky falsetto of “Highly Suspicious,” and a gorgeous rendition of the title track “Evil Urges.” They range so effortlessly from the thrashing rock to the perfect burnished timbre of sunset vocals fading out into the air.
Jim James played a scorching solo while surveying his fifedom from the speaker stacks in his Skeletor boot tops.
M. Ward indeed came out for the second song,”Off The Record,” with little fanfare. M didn’t sing at all to my disappointment, but they had some intense moments of rocking out and clearly enjoyed playing together.
Finally, a slightly blurred (call it artistic) shot of MMJ as the last vestiges of light from Sunday vanished below the horizon. I’m behind them, looking out at the crowd. They played for just a shade under an hour, abruptly leaving the stage at three minutes til 8.
Now, by the time Roger Waters took the stage, everyone in the crowd seemed to fall into two categories, both equally lethargic:
a) those who were doing some form of mood- or mind-altering drugs (not me Mom!) in what one of my friends commented was surely the densest concentration in the world at that moment in time of high people
-or-
b) those who were completely wiped out, who wanted nothing more than to lay on the grass somewhere and watch Roger Waters’ bi-plane drop confetti on us that turned out to be Obama fliers. We were glad it wasn’t biological warfare, which was honestly my first thought.
So while Waters took Coachella to the dark side of the moon, freaked with our minds with the surround sound effects, and released the giant pig that apparently got a bit out of control, I laid in the cooling grass that was just starting to be damp with dew and waited for the Tesla coils to go off, shooting blue-green lightning from coil to sky to earth. They never did for me, not that night.
So I guess that means I’ll be back.
And finally –randomly but perfectly– the song that was looping through my head all that last night:
“What a beautiful face I have found in this place That is circling all around the sun What a beautiful dream that could flash on the screen In a blink of an eye and be gone from me Soft and sweet Let me hold it close and keep it here with me
And one day we will die and our ashes will fly From the aeroplane over the sea But for now we are young Let us lay in the sun And count every beautiful thing we can see Love to be In the arms of all I’m keeping here with me
What a curious life we have found here tonight There is music that sounds from the street There are lights in the clouds and there’s ghosts all around Hear a voice as it’s rolling and ringing through me Soft and sweet How the notes all bend and reach above the trees. . .”
This was a weekend of long-overdue fresh starts and spring cleaning:
Time to retire old Jack, I’d say. And (!!) yesterday afternoon I sat in a coffee shop with a local illustrator/designer and discussed my concepts to redesign this site. He’s making me a nifty new custom header image, and I think I am going to move Fuel/Friends over from Blogger to Wordpress. I would welcome any suggestions you may have for redesign, or help with the conversion process if you’re a web-type because I am in the slow class when it comes to this stuff.
Here are some tunes I am enjoying this week after culling the promo CD stack that I am woefully behind in enjoying:
Looks Like We Haven’t Learned A Thing The Walkup After meeting in a Lower East Side NYC bar in 2005, The Walkup have been honing their energetic, punchy live show into a full-length studio album of material called Down on Pacific (June 3, Reynolds Recording Co). Their music is angular and hooky with Brit-pop influences and ace drumbeats, perfect for warmer days and summer nights. The album is produced by Gregory Lattimer (Albert Hammond Jr.) and Caleb Shreve (Ra Ra Riot).
Do The Panic Phantom Planet Southern California band Phantom Planet’s retro overtones take bold predominance in several tracks on their newest release Raise The Dead(released last week on the Fueled by Ramen label). This cut is an absolutely infectious reworking of a song originally off their 2004 fanclub-only CD Negatives, all laced with ba-ba-ba (shooby doo)s and exhorations to “come on, come on” over jangly jaunty guitar. You’ll be totally wanting to bust out singing this all day; wait until you’re in the elevator.
How Did We Forget? El Perro Del Mar As we recall from high school Spanish class, El Perro Del Mar translates to “the dog of the sea” and sounds like it should be a quartet of jolly Mexican mariachis, but is actually comprised solely of the the lovely platinum blonde Swede Sarah Assbring. This tune sounds like it’s coming to you on a very old radio, wafting in from another room where it’s been playing all along. There is a timeless quality to the music – the coy bittersweetness of the blues, modern Swedish ambience, and moments where it feels like a gentle lullaby. From The Valley To The Stars is due tomorrow on fellow Swedes The Concretes‘ label Licking Fingers. After touring with folks like Jens Lekman and Jose Gonzalez, she has several upcoming dates in May with it-girl Lykke Li.
Evil Urges My Morning Jacket This brand new mp3 from My Morning Jacket was unleashed upon the music-web community last Friday via email blast. It’s the title track from the upcoming Evil Urges album (June 10/ATO Records), and the fact that it’s cross-posted on just about every other blog in the world (except maybe this one) shows how hotly anticipated this release will be. Also, judging by the vibe emanating in virutal heatwaves off this track, their evil urges are actually compelling them to wanna gyrate around like Prince and croon in a soulful Motown falsetto. If this sneak peek only whets your appetite, you can also check out the astoundingly cool SXSW set that Jim James did with M. Ward to hear some more new MMJ material, mixed with the old. Sublime.
If You Stay Richard Julian Brooklynite Richard Julian hangs out with musical pals like the talented Jesse Harris and plays in Norah Jones’ side project band the Little Willies (who opened for Ryan Adams in NYC that one time). In addition, if you appreciate a recommended drink menu to complement each track on an album, check the liner notes of this one. Developed by an NYC mixologist, the concoctions range from warm beer & weight gain, to absinthe and rye whiskey, to this one — a sugar cube with champagne, laced with Angostura Bitters. The sweet with the bitter, as Julian musically weighs in on whether she should stay or go: “but if you stay there’s a film I’d like to go see / and if you go, i’ll watch one on tv.” It sounds like a nonchalant proposal, but by the end of the song Julian is confessing that he would “weep like a goat” while she packed her things, letting his true colors bleed through. Sunday Morning in Saturday’s Shoes is out now on Manhattan/EMI.
I know that I should try to be less of a punctuation stickler because, well, it annoys most everyone who is NOT as obsessed (same goes with my proper pronunciation of bruschetta, but don’t get me started). However, sometimes you just can’t turn a blind eye. I happened to have a camera in my bag this weekend while waiting at a red light, and wanted to comment on this sign I noticed a few weeks ago – one that taunts me every time I sit at this intersection:
If there’s one thing worse than incorrectly used apostrophes, it’s gotta be inconsistent application of your made-up rule for where they go. If you’re gonna be wrong, can you please have the gusto to do it consistently all the way through your sign? Thank you.
[end rant]
Onto this week’s batch of tunes to cheer up your ear’s (ouch).
Do The 45 Ryan Shaw I’ve been meaning to get my hands on 26-year-old Ryan Shaw’s debut album ever since I heard this former church-choirboy from Georgia tear it up at the Boulder AAA radio conference last August. Everyone was buzzing about him and his formidable voice that recalls the confident ’70s funk of Stevie Wonder and some of the fantastic retro doo-wop of guys like Sam Cooke from years past. This is the opening track off a fine, fun disc (This Is Ryan Shaw) that I am finally getting a chance to appreciate. No one makes ‘em like this anymore.
Dynomite Explosion Mont de Sundua You may have seen the little mention over on Pitchfork this past week about the unearthed sounds of Jim James‘ pre-My Morning Jacket racket in a band called Mont de Sundua. I am enjoying the off-kilter spacey thump of this track from their album that was recorded back in 1998 and never released. It’s going to be out this year and it sounds as if they were having a lot of fun when they made it. Even if they do look like they are livin’ the thug life in that picture from their MySpace.
To Sing For You (Donovan cover) –> Brand New Colony Ben Gibbard [img] alternate link NPR streamed the whole acoustic set from Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard at DC’s 930 Club on Thursday night and this was the nice little cover he opened with, sort of laying out the foundation for how he’s gonna be your folky troubadour for the evening. Seriously though, Donovan is an underrated songwriter, and this cover is suited to Gibbard’s voice and truly lovely. It seamlessly runs into the Postal Service song ‘Brand New Colony,’ so you get that as a bonus. My imaginary office boyfriend John Krasinski (Jim Halpert) showed up at some point in the night to play a Wilco cover (?!). First the Shins, now this. Right on John.
From (unreleased, live on Daytrotter) Dr. Dog I have been resisting the lazy, hazy sounds from Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog, mostly because I’ve read this book out loud a few too many times and it just struck me as a silly name. Which it is. However, I came across this unreleased track from their excellent Daytrotter set and decided to give them a chance, finally. Man, I am so stubborn. Dr. Dog just finished a tour with Cold War Kids and Elvis Perkins, and their new album We All Belong has been called “one of 2007’s strongest releases, combining tight arrangements with picturesque vocals and a lazy fall afternoon BBQ vibe.” [bonus: great interview here]
From The Floorboards Up Paul Weller This last one is not a blazing hot new release, but this week I was listening to Paul Weller’s 2005 solo album As Is Now and just marveling at how it sounds better than about 80 percent of the music I “screen” nowadays. Even after thirty years of making music (The Jam, Style Council, then solo), this is a fresh, tight, fantastic release that is “uncluttered and impassioned.” Listen to the ferocity with which Weller growls the lyric on ‘Come On/Let’s Go’: “Sing you little f*ckers, sing like you ain’t got no choice,” or enjoy how this song starts out with that unrelenting riff and ends with an abrupt yank that feels premature. Dude’s a master, and this whole album is worth some of your time.
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
“These chords are old but we shake hands / 'cause I believe that they're the good guys.”
—Josh Ritter, "Good Man"
"I am fuel, you are friends / we got the means to make amends."
—Pearl Jam, "Leash"
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. If you represent an artist or a label and would prefer that I remove a link to an mp3, please email me at browneheather@gmail.com
Submissions
Got something I should hear? Email me at browneheather@gmail.com. Digital's usually best, but music submissions can also be sent to: Fuel/Friends, PO Box 64011, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-4011.
If there’s one thing worse than incorrectly used apostrophes, it’s gotta be inconsistent application of your made-up rule for where they go. If you’re gonna be wrong, can you please have the gusto to do it consistently all the way through your sign? Thank you.
Name: Heather Browne
