The Charlatans "Who We Touch" special edition

These guys were part of the Manchester scene in the early 1990's that resonated with my soul, fitting perfectly into my catalog along with other wonderful bands such as Ride, Inspiral Carpets, Manic Street Preachers, and the Stone Roses.  Swirling psychedelia straight out of the 60's featuring a heavy dose of organ in the mix... danceable, too.  I lost interest after that as the output of the first decade of the 21st century did not move me like before.  Maybe I was just getting older.  Anyway, when I saw this release a few months ago, I sprung for the double disc with alternative takes, early versions and outtakes, hoping for a revelation somewhere within the 23 tracks.  And I found it all over the record.  This is an outstanding album for any band, much less one in it's third decade of existence.  Here is the first video and lead track, and oddly enough, it's one of the two which I substituted the alternate version for the original.  I read one reviewer essentially peeing his knickers for this song, and here I am including the "softer" version instead for my one-disc edited tracking.  One of the outtakes that did not make the regular release could have been INXS in their heyday covering some obscure 60's song.  These are just two examples of why I enjoy the Charlatans (UK, for those of us in the States), one is never quite sure what to expect when it comes to their sound and style.  Buy an Oasis album and you know you are going to get an Oasis album. 

I found the extended version for sale domestically on Napster and did not see either version on iTunes.  Go figure.  But I will say that even though this was released in September, 2010, it is an early candidate for best album in 2011, an actual R-O-C-K n' R-O-L-L record!

Some thoughts about the upcoming 2010 Grammy Awards

I've had a couple of people ask me about this year's nominees, but I don't feel qualified enough anymore to make predictions like I used to.  Sure, it was a big deal when I managed music retail shops.  There was always a nice sales bump after the show.  Back then, I had to be cognizant of virtually every category out there, whether I enjoyed it or not.  Billboard magazine always posted a big spread about the major non-classical categories, and I would challenge my staff to beat my picks, dangling some carrot as the reward should one of them actually beat me (and, no, it never happened).  But my picks were made without emotion, mostly, choosing winners based on who I expected the Academy to select, not who I would vote for if I actually had a ballot.  But now, I'm so far out of the loop that I don't even know who some of the artists are.

However, in response to those who asked, I have decided to scroll down the list of categories and offer a few brief comments where applicable.

Record Of The Year:  Cee Lo Green can sing, but the Academy will never vote for a song with F*** in the title for this top award.  The Lady Antebellum track "Need You Now" is a fine tune.

Song Of The Year:  Happy to see Ray LaMontagne in the running.
 
Best New Artist:  I truly hope Mumford & Sons wins but I'm guessing Bieber takes it.  The kid is indeed talented, but child stars seldom have career longevity.  Florence & the Machine is a joke.

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance:  I'd bet the farm on MJ.  Never quite understood the Buble' fascination.  Like Adam Lambert's voice but thought the album was just wrong.

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals:  I don't think the Glee Cast are all that good, but mark my words, there will be an upswell of talent down the road who were inspired by this television show.

Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals:  Listened to the Elton & Leon record last week.  It's very good, but I doubt it'll win.  Probably Mrs. Brand and Snoop.

Best Pop Instrumental Performance:  Laurie Anderson is still alive?  The Jeff Beck album was a colossal disappointment.

Best Pop Vocal Album:  Please, anybody but Bieber or Gaga.  Don't encourage them.

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance:  What does this say about the state of Rock music in 2011 when the nominees are Clapton, Plant, McCartney, and Young?  Oh, yeah, right,  John Mayer for his vocals...come on, no!

Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals:  If it's not Muse, I will be sorely upset.

Best Hard Rock Performance:  Again, what year is this?  Alice in Chains, Ozzy, STP, Soundgarden.  I hope the statue goes to the old guys in Them Crooked Vultures so Josh Homme will finally get his due.

Best Metal Performance:  Wow, just how bad is it out there?  It's no wonder I'm out of the business.  Korn, Megadeth, Slayer, Iron Maiden.

Best Rock Instrumental Performance:  Hope Los Lobos wins.  Fine album.

Best Rock Song:  Actually a tough call.  I'd be happy for any of them except the Black Keys.

Best Rock Album:  Tom Petty's album really isn't Rock and Neil Young's is too...I don't know, minimalist?  If only Pearl Jam could find someone who could really sing...

So completely skipping the R&B and Rap section we come to...ah, never mind.  I can't say much about Country, either, only just that this category is where real songwriting still happens.  There are a few other comments to make...

Best Contemporary Jazz Album:  If you haven't heard Trombone Shorty yet, look him up.  This isn't some old cat, he's 25 years old from New Orleans and I'll wager he'll have a longer career than Bieber.

Best Americana Album:  Let's see, Roseanne Cash, check; Willie Nelson, certainly; Mavis Staples, I guess; Robert Plant, British using Nashville musicians, that's a mulligan; Los Lobos? 


Best Traditional Blues Album:  If Cyndi Lauper wins this over Charlie Musselwhite, James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, and Jimmie Vaughan, I'll turn in my union card.  Her album was a disgrace to the genre.

Best Contemporary Blues Album:  I have the Kenny Wayne Shepherd record, but there are no losers in these nominees; Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Bettye LaVette and Solomon Burke.


Best Traditional Folk Album:  I heard one track from Maria Muldaur's album (yep, Midnight at the Oasis Maria Muldaur) and it was outstanding.

Best Contemporary Folk Album:  Another quality category with Ray LaMontagne, Jackson Browne, Guy Clark, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Richard Thompson.

Best Spoken Word Album:  Haven't heard any of these but check out this A-List of nominees; Craig Ferguson, Sarah Silverman, Jon Stewart, Michael J. Fox, Carol Burnett and Woody Allen!

Best Comedy Album:  Don't know if he'll win, but Robin Williams did a bit about God and his Creation Committee developing human genitalia that had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe!


Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual:  Funny that Trent Reznor wasn't nominated and he won the Golden Globe for "Social Network".  Go figure...

Best Surround Sound Album:  I know, this is reaching, but if you truly want to hear a tremendous progressive-rock album, get Porcupine Tree's "The Incident."  Steven Wilson is nominated here in what is certainly the most diverse category of the entire procedings. 

Whew!  That took longer than I thought.  Guess I'll now have to watch the show this Sunday. 

Clinic "Bubblegum"

I remembered their album "Walking with Thee" from 2002 and I thought I liked it, so I sampled the first 20 seconds or so of a couple of the new tracks from this record and decided to get it.  Just remember, I pay for these myself.  I don't receive promos from labels.  So I am picky about my choices, and for the twenty months I've been blogging about new music, I have yet to pay for a complete turkey.  "Bubblegum," however, is a 92.3% turd.  For the non-mathematicians, that's one redeeming track out of thirteen.  I've seen comparisons to Radiohead, Elbow, and Arcade Fire, and I only like Elbow from those choices, but I don't get the connection.  The gimmick for this British band is they wear surgical masks, and it's apropos since the sound is so sterile.  The songs here are dull and BORING!  Art-punk, my ass!  I even went back to my catalog to see if I could find the earlier album just to see what had changed, but it wasn't there.  Slowly, it's coming back to me through the fog.  One of my assistant managers at Music 4 Less was a fan so I believe I gave it to him.  And honestly, I think I was confusing Clinic with Caviar.  Damn fog gets thicker with age...

The Orb featuring David Gilmour "Metallic Spheres"

If you had played a game of "Name That Band/Artist" with me with a hint that one member of Pink Floyd was involved, I would have guessed Richard Wright, not Gilmour.  There is just enough guitar here to qualify, and most of it is neatly tucked within the mix, and no way would I think David Gilmour.  Hell, I could have made those noises eventually and I don't play guitar!  Multiple reviews have compared this record to early Pink Floyd albums (and why not since there have been so many Floyd references over the course of the Orb's existence), but I'll be damned if I once thought that to myself while listening. 

I'm not going to delve into the history of this band, but I own their first album from 1991 (I need to dig it out for a 21st century spin).  The Orb was all the rage in the new ambient/house age, remixing tracks by artists like Primal Scream, Mike Oldfield, and Wendy & Lisa.  And twenty years ago I may have partied more, and that could have had some influence on my tastes. 

A listen to "Metallic Spheres" would benefit from some of the substances available at the alleged parties of two decades ago.  I would guess it would be best absorbed while in a minimally altered state achieved by your method of choice.  If I was the proprietor of a hip, ultra-chic martini bar, I'd have this CD playing in heavy rotation.  It's essentially one track broken into two "Sides" which are composed of several vignettes, each several minutes in length, neatly tied together with subtle edits.  Gilmour's involvement stemmed from his version of Graham Nash's "Chicago" (another typical Orb trick in a couple of ways), recorded long before this project was ever conceived.  You will hear the song in vocal samples briefly on each side, and that's the only connection to the original. 

So the Orb pays Gilmour for the use of his name and a track of work. They slice, dice, marinate and fold it into a retro-Orb recipe, and I'm sure it has sold well worldwide in the four months it has been available.  I'm not going to label it a sell-out, but is Gilmour aiming to become England's equivalent of Gene Simmons?

The Snowy White Blues Project

I don't normally buy older releases, not that 2009 is old, but I had heard of this record for a while and finally located it a couple of months ago.  My first encounter with Mr. White was on a warm, late September evening in 1977.  My butt was firmly planted on the right hash (oh, that's funny, I said "hash") mark of the 45-yard-line of Tampa Stadium, home of the brand new Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL team.  That's right, on the field.  A massive stage in the end zone, huge banks of speakers located high in the adjoining stands, large dirigibles of pigs and cars floating overhead...this was the next stop of Pink Floyd's "Animals" tour.  I vaguely remember through the haze of youth, alcohol, and combustibles wondering aloud who the "other" guitarist was on stage with the band.  Turns out it was Snowy White.  If you are one of my older readers and had the 8-track of "Animals", it was his lead guitar on "Pigs on the Wing", not Gilmour's.  I know, that sounds strange, but that was the way of the industry in the 70's.  Floyd's keyboardist, Richard Wright, then employs Snowy on his 1979 solo album, "Wet Dream."  After that, he joins one of my favorite rock bands, Thin Lizzy, as a replacement for wild man Brian Robertson, recording two great records, "Chinatown" and "Renegade", and the subsequent live album.  He also played guitar on Phil Lynott's solo album, "Solo in Soho." 

If you know your R'n'R history, you know drugs were a big part of Lizzy's history, and Snowy wasn't immune.  Couldn't do much as the 80's wore on, until old pal Roger Waters tapped him to be his guitarist for The Wall tour in 1990.  Waters has kept him employed over the years, and if you saw last year's tour you heard Mr. White in action.  In between, he has stayed busy with his own projects, most of which I haven't heard, until this one.  Being out of the loop as I am, I didn't know there was a live album last year to support this record.  Hell, being out of the loop before that smoky Sept. Eve '77, I did not know that Snowy was good friends with one Peter Green, the guy with the bluesy Fleetwood Mac (not the version with the wives), and also played with John Mayall before getting the boot in lieu of some guy named Clapton.  This explains the British blues style of  "In Our Time of Living," which caught me off guard since I was expecting more electric blues/rock.  But once the initial shock wore off, this became a fine blues record to play for a group friends, because it's not too old sounding and certainly doesn't have that screamin' gee-tar that turns off the musical wimps in the gathering.  Here is Snowy performing one of my personal faves of the record, "Red Wine Blues", a track that features his lead vocals.  That's another plus for this album as most everybody aptly and ably sings some lead. 

During this tour break before Waters takes the show to Europe, Snowy will release another project late February with the White Flames called "Realistic."  The drummer is the only holdover from the Blues Project, so I expect a slightly different offering, one I hope I can acquire some time before 2012!

OMD "History of Modern"

I did not discover Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark until 1983, just after starting work in the world of music retailing.  The album was "Dazzle Ships", and it just absolutely blew me away on a level that the Ol' Mad Rocker wasn't accustomed with.  It was electronics like I had not heard before.  A concept album based on computers and the Cold War, with shortwave radio transmissions and telephone time voices.  Bursts of brilliance throughout the record.  So much so that I went back and got the first three records.  I can't say I never understood why it wasn't a resounding success.  It was truly too far ahead of its time.  But I became a huge fan and the band proved me correct when they slipped into more of a pop realm and hit it big with "If You Leave" from the Pretty in Pink ST and their album "Crush."  I stuck with them through 1991's "Sugar Tax", which was a splintered OMD, and passed on the final two records before they gave it up.

Apparently, a couple of years ago found the mates getting together again for a brief tour which featured a track for track replay of what many consider their greatest record, "Architecture and Morality."  Things must have gone splendidly and so OMD puts out a record some fourteen years after the final studio release, but it's the core members first recording together since 1986.  And let me tell you, "History of Modern" is an absolute time machine trip back to their heyday of the mid-eighties.  If you have three or more OMD albums in your collection, you will certainly love this record.  The guys voices haven't aged one bit, and the music is vintage OMD, with some of the threads of the early years' loops and sound effects mixing perfectly with the pop structures that made them famous in the States.  The drum tracks are a bit more upfront early in the album, and allow me to submit the first single as evidence.  Then deep into the record, several tracks in, up pops a straight up dance track, "The Future, the Past, and Forever After," destined for remixing and club playlists around the world.  If this isn't the third single, I need to be their management company. 

"History..." is like one of your friends you haven't seen in a decade or two and they just don't look any different or older than the last time you met.  I am truly surprised.  Welcome back, old friend.

Bryan Ferry "Olympia"

I got on the Roxy Music bus late, some ten years into their career.  The album, Avalon, not only was one of the best of the year 1982, but also of the 80's decade, and it still holds its own twenty + years later.  Ferry was quite prolific in the early days with a handful of RM albums and a half dozen solo records to his credit.  But it was Avalon that hit my psyche, and the following two solo records registered just as high on my appreciation scale.  Boys and Girls yielded two tremendous tracks, "Slave to Love" and "Don't Stop the Dance", and Bete Noir served up "Kiss and Tell."  It was all pretty much downhill after that, even after reforming RM.  But those three albums were such a major part of my mid to late 20's that I felt like I had to give him a shot with "Olympia."  The pieces were all in place.  All the original RM members appear in different tracks.  Guest artists included David Gilmour, Dave Stewart, Flea, and Chris Spedding, while regular contributors were Nile Rodgers and Marcus Miller.  And the music itself is outstanding because of the lineup, but Ferry is no spring chicken, and his voice is more fragile than ever, overwhelmed throughout the first half of this album.  Should you be able to dig it out of the mix, you need the lyric sheet to know what he's mumbling about.  The last half (Side 2 for you old farts) offers a better sonic stew and, therefore, two of the three keeper tracks, "Song to the Siren" and "Reason or Rhyme."  

The musicianship on Olympia is top notch, but it's unfortunate that the songs just aren't worthy of it.  Mr. Ferry, legend that he is, should have left this one in the can.

Kasey Chambers "Little Bird"

 

If you really need to revisit my affection for Ms. Chambers, then here is a post from last year about her 2008 release with her husband, Shane Nicholson.  The last sentence says something along the lines of her being one of the most under-appreciated artists in music today.  That statement is intended for American consumption, as the "Little Bird" album has hit the BIG TIME in her native Australia.  In the Down Under's version of the CMA, this album was recently nominated in seven categories.  That's the definition of BIG TIME!  More evidence?  In a recent edition of Australia's Country Music magazine, she shares the cover with some hack named Keith Urban.  Come on, even Americans know who he is... In an unprecedented move, most of Australia's rock/pop FM stations have found tracks to play for their formats, from a decidedly country-flavored record, no less.  Anybody remotely familiar with commercial radio programming can tell you that just does not happen (am I right, Beau)? 

So allow me to offer a comparison to one young country performer here named Taylor Swift.  I know you've heard of her.  Famously been known to suck in a live setting, yet she's still a megastar based on her songwriting and, some would say, her looks.  It's certainly not her voice.  Chambers' vocals are certainly heritage country, not pop/country where the vocals are so interchangeable and generic.  You had better be a fan of, say, Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams to appreciate Kasey's vocals.  I've read other descriptions as "child-like," but I don't understand how that applies.  She may turn off the casual American country music fan with her sound, but just listen to the words people.  If Swift can speak for a generation of twenty-somethings, then Chambers writes for you older souls out there.  I played the title track for my sister, who's been in Nashville for a couple of decades now, and she immediately said the voice wasn't for her, but, "damn, that's a great song!"  Album, Artist, Song of the Year, all the big noms, and one that is called Heritage Song of the Year.  This is a category specifically about Australia, and here is a performance of her nominated track, "Nullabor Song."  Nullabor is several hundred miles of basically nothing in the southern part of the country, and Kasey essentially grew up there as a child, traveling with her family, camping under the skies at night singing country songs .  The lyrics speak volumes to Aussies, and many have said it's the best Australian song written in years. 

Well, it's an absolute tragedy that "Little Bird" is unavailable in America as of today.  I just don't get it.  I hope Sugar Hill picks it up for domestic release this year and then you can say you heard it here from Ye Olde Mad Rocker.