The Weekend Review: January 2011 Report

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to the first Weekend Review of the new year.  I hope you’ll enjoy our new monthly format, optimized for ease of use with the hope that you’ll be able to turn to guitarbucketlist.com for new music news in 2011.  Hurry back next weekend for the February report!

The King is Dead
The DecemberistsProducer:
Tucker Martine

Released:
January 14, 2011

Rating:
4.5/5 stars

Top Two Tracks:
“Rox in the Box” & “Rise to Me”

After the impressive – and yet distracting – complexity of 2009’s The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists return to kick off 2011 with what may very possibly be the best album of the year.  The King is Dead, referred to as a “barn album” by band members in the deluxe edition doc Pendarvia, is an album of simple and yet profound beauty.While, to be fair, it lacks the mind-blowing scale of recent previous efforts, there is something to be said for a cohesive and eminently listenable collection of tracks.

Think of it as an acoustic rock masterpiece, headlined by the soaring “Rox in the Box” and the sing-along anthem waiting to happen “This is Why We Fight.”  Even the fully acoustic, balladic tracks like “Dear Avery” are gorgeous to such an extent that you won’t be able to skip the track, even if you’re on the road looking for a rock song.  Although the lead single, “Down By the Water,” lacks something of the “x factor” that makes songs truly great, it is still a tightly packaged, catchy tune indicative of the best of the King is Dead sound.  Oh, and if you think “Calamity Song” sounds like an aural love-child of R.E.M., you won’t be surprised to learn that it actually features Peter Buck on lead guitar.

Good, good stuff, and a high bar to be set this early in the year.

 

Mine is Yours
Cold War KidsProducer:
Jacquire King

Released:
January 25, 2011

Rating:
2.5/5 stars

Top Two Tracks:
“Royal Blue” & “Flying Upside Down”

2008’s Loyalty to Loyaltywas the album that introduced me to and left me in awe of the Cold War Kids.  Their unique sound and keen sense for mixing the slow and off-center with the straightforward and single-worthy led me to high expectations for their next release.Well, as is often the case with high expectations, the reality rarely compares.

Whether my reaction is due to what I had expected to find on Mine is Yours is honestly too early to say, but what I’ve heard here is a collection of underwhelming tracks, many of which seem to promise more than they deliver and are often longer than they deserve to be.  Tracks like “Royal Blue,” “Sensitive Kid,” and “Flying Upside Down” stand out as excellent without need of qualification, but others like “Broken Open,” “Louder Than Ever,” and “Cold Toes on the Cold Floor” beg for more consideration, more development, in order to reach the heights established on the previous record.

This is not to say that it should be like a sequel to Loyalty to Loyalty, but the songs of Mine is Yours should at least be as interesting.  While I was initially turned off by the slicker production values, I’ve entirely come around on that, which makes me wish that more attention to detail had been paid.

 

The Party
Ain’t Over

Wanda JacksonProducer:
Jack White

Released:
January 25, 2011

Rating:
3.5/5 stars

Top Two Tracks:
“Shakin’ All Over” & “Nervous Breakdown”

Slogans like “The Queen of Rockabilly” don’t typically entice me to purchase music, but in this case, it was bookended by Jack White’s name in the production credits and a nod to Bob Dylan’s “Thunder on the Mountain.”In short, I couldn’t resist at least one listen.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that The Party Ain’t Over holds up to repeated listens, fronted by the outstanding “Shakin’ All Over,” a track that aptly blends the gritty alternative sound for which White is so well known with the sonic signature of 50s rock and, I suppose, rockabilly.  Here, as on the rest of the record, riffs abound and Jackson’s ragged voice establishes her in my mind as the female equivalent of a contemporary Dylan, in vocal delivery if not in lyricism, craftsmanship, etc.  In the area of originality, it is clear she doesn’t hold a candle to aforementioned Bard, but her choice of covers is impeccably fitting: a devastating take on “Busted” (see: Johnny Cash), the closest anyone has come to covering a 2000s Dylan track without earning a sneer from me, and a redefining arrangement of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know That I’m No Good.”

Even the latter half tracks are enjoyable, foot-tappers like “Nervous Breakdown” and “Dust on the Bible,” as well as slower tunes such as “Blue Yodel #6” (not to be confused with #4, or my personal favorite, #9).  All in all, for an impulse purchase out of raw curiosity, The Party Ain’t Over is a testament to Jack White’s capabilities as producer and studio musician; it may not be the best album of 2011, but it bears a certain quality and strength of arrangement (both within tracks and across the album) that it deserves to be noticed.

What Good Am I?: 70 Reasons Why Bob Dylan is Awesome

(or, Writing 70 Reasons is a Long Time)

By Chris Moore & Nicole Fekete:

Unlike just about every other Dylan article in existence (some of mine included), we’re going to resist the urge to rattle off some witty Dylan-themed puns and cut directly to the point.

Bob Dylan is 70 today!

It’s a bit odd for me to accept that my all-time rock music icon is a septuagenarian, but, even at seventy, Dylan is still making headlines, unpeeling yet more layers of the so-called Never-Ending Tour with a top notch band, and releasing new material at a surprising rate.

Tonight, in no particular order, we celebrate Bob Dylan — holder of the record for most songs by a single artist covered at the Laptop Sessions (63) — for being awesome, for…

1) Coining the phrase, “Keep a good head and carry a light bulb,” after carrying an over-sized light bulb to a press conference.

2) “Going electric” and doing so at maximum volume.

3) Sneaking marijuana innuendo into the major radio hit, “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.”

4) Getting arrested for looking like a hobo.

5) Spawning co-founding Wallflower and outstanding lyricist Jakob Dylan.

6) Inspiring, in his words, a gazillion books.

7) Remembering words when high, yet forgetting when sober.

8 ) Assembling what is perhaps the first creative, true music video in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in the opening credits of Don’t Look Back.

9) And for including Allen Ginsberg in it!

10) Having the bitchin’-est background singers around.

11) And for becoming romantically involved with each of them.

12) Coming out with a self-proclaimed terrible album to shirk attention and shed devotees (Self Portrait).

13) Being (one of?) the most covered artists of all time.

14) Having a song called “The Cough Song” (“Suze”).

15) Punning off stoned while being stoned.

16) Dropping my favorite f-bomb of all time (“Play effin loud!” live in 1966).

17) Recording the only country album by someone other than Johnny Cash that I enjoy (Nashville Skyline).

18) Being friends and dueting with Johnny Cash.

19) Being friends and dueting with George Harrison.

20) Making the first Traveling Wilburys session possible.

21) Taking the lead role on Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 3.

22) Writing popular rock songs that feature lumberjacks, sword swallowers, and one-eyed midgets.

23) Inspiring a song about his beard (Wilco’s “Bob Dylan’s Beard”).

24) Busting out a song like “Billy 1” from the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid for the first time live in concert… nearly four decades after it was released.

25) Inspiring that National Lampoon parody song about the “spangled dwarf in his bowtie.”  (And the infantry don’t ask why!)

26) Walking off the Ed Sullivan Show when he was prohibited from playing “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.”

27) Writing Chronicles, Volume 1.

28) Giving us hope that there’ll be a volume two!

29) Rearranging any song from his catalog as though it were the year 1942.

30) Giving the Byrds the boost they needed to truly hit it big.

31) Conceptualizing the Rolling Thunder Revue.

32) Composing some of the most notable protest songs in American history.

33) Avoiding titles like “voice of a generation.”

34) Playing “Oh Sister” at the Hard Rain (1976) concert in response to a request that he play a protest song.

35) Continuing to write subversive protest songs throughout every period of his career (“Gonna Change My Way of Thinking,” “Neighborhood Bully,” etc.).

36) Recording what is perhaps one of his best albums at the age of 59.

37) Being in the midst of a Never-Ending Tour.

38) Playing with the Band, which is best when working with Dylan.

39) Still knowing how to rock out. (see: the version of “High Water” on Tell Tale Signs)

40) “Oh, Mama, can this really be the end? / To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again…”

41) For recording “Spirit of America” with Brian Wilson!

42) Surprising everyone with Christmas in the Heart, the creepy, raspy-voiced curmudgeon’s guide to yuletide tunes.

43) Inspiring a fairly uninspired collection of covers titled Tangled Up in Blues.

44) Inspiring that most ridiculous of cover collections titled Tangled Up in Bluegrass.

45) Sporting a mullet during the only decade that it was even remotely forgivable to do so.

46) Not being ashamed to wear that sequined jacket in the seventies.

47) Developing an aura that led to wild rumors regarding subjects like his legs (amputated in the motorcycle accident?) or the motorcycle accident itself (did it ever even happen?).

48) Recording and writing with the Band (heard of the Basement Tapes, anyone?).

49) Rarely swearing, then dropping just about every swear and slur of his catalog in “Hurricane.”

50) For inspiring controversy over his first performance in China (see: Maureen Dowd’s editorial, Ron Rosenbaum’s reaction on Slate.com, etc.).

51) For becoming deathly ill… right after releasing an album that was all about death… and shortly after saying that the album wasn’t necessarily about death.

52) Writing “All Along the Watchtower” and admitting to the superiority of Jimi Hendrix’s version.

53) Writing “New Pony,” and enabling Jack White and the Dead Weather to create the rare arrangement that, by far, surpasses Dylan’s own.

54) Having one of the wildest rock star heads of hair ever.

55) Introducing the Beatles to drugs.  Imagine how the sixties would have been different without that…

56) Transforming and altering the public perception and memory of the Newport Folk Festival.

57) Having more talent in his left jowl than the sum total of most popular contemporary artists.

58) “Mississippi.”

59) Hardly acknowledging the stage invader during the SOY BOMB incident (1998).

60) Writing “Masters of War” (1963), a song that would eventually (2004) cause the Boulder, CO high school band Coalition for the Willing to be investigated by the Secret Service for allegedly threatening President Bush when alarmists overreacted to the final lines of the song.

61) Releasing an album on September 11, 2001 with an eerily timely amount of twin imagery.

62) Imagining and filming the incredibly lengthy and as-yet unavailable on DVD Renaldo and Clara, yet another artifact from the Rolling Thunder Revue era (the Bootleg Series live album being the premier artifact).

63) Inspiring terms like Dylanologist, Bobolator, and more.

64) Adding sound and voice to a Victoria’s Secret commercial and releasing a limited edition compilation CD via store locations.

65) Writing and recording what is arguably the best “break-up album” of all time.  Twice. (see: Blood on the Tracks)

66) Playing lead and soloing during the 1995 MTV Unplugged concert.

67) Inspiring tales such as those told by Highway 61 Revisited-era electric guitarist Mike Bloomfield, the best of which are inappropriate for a family-friendly blog.

68) Accumulating such an impressive vault of alternate versions (most recently, beautiful versions of “Mississippi,” “Most of the Time,” and others have emerged), live tracks, and more.

69) Having the guts to leave his hometown, travel east, change his name, and reinvent himself as an authentic performer and, eventually, songwriter.

70) Living a life that is more the stuff of legends and rock star biographies than any of us will ever experience or even be able to imagine.

This is, admittedly, a limited list.  It was developed and written on a whim in one draft, so we encourage you to add reasons via the comment box below.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this, and until next May 24th, a happy Bobby’s B-day to one and all!

P.S. I almost forgot! 

71)  Inspiring an outstanding website such as Expecting Rain, which enabled my two installments of “Together Through Life: A Look Back at Ten (Officially Released) Bob Dylan Rarities” to earn the record for first and second most views in a single day of any post at guitarbucketlist.com!

The Weekend Review: September 2011 Report

By Chris Moore:

September was, for me, the slowest new music month of the year thus far, but if the only music released in a thirty day span is a brand new Wilco studio album, you’ll find me a happy camper each time.  Jeff Tweedy and company have yet to disappoint me, and regarding The Whole Love specifically, Wilco has rarely impressed and entertained me so greatly (probably only once before; can you guess on which record?).  Read on…

The Whole Love (Wilco)

Producer: Jeff Tweedy, Pat Sansone, and Tom Schick

Released: September 27, 2011

Rating: 5 / 5 stars

Top Two Tracks: “Born Alone” & “Dawned on Me”

From start to finish, The Whole Love exemplifies the Wilco experience: traces of what you’ve come to love, unexpected turns (particularly, this time around, in “Capital City”), and a careful sequencing that unites twelve distinct songs along a single thread.  Bookended by relatively lengthy experimentation in the distortion-drenched, feedback-fueled romp “Art of Almost” and the pleasant acoustic twelve-minute narrative “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend),” the majority of the tracks on The Whole Love are concise efforts, ranging from the retro-stomp of “I Might” to the lush acoustic production of “Black Moon.”  On most tracks, it becomes clear that it is not so much that Wilco is an experimental band so much that they are innovative in their arrangements, in their seemingly instinctive sense of how to blend movements in songs, which instruments to bring high in the mix when, and how best to (subtly) layer in beds of synthesized sound for atmosphere.  From start to finish, The Whole Love is a striking effort: one of those albums that yields up new revelations with successive listens, one that begs to be left alone when the twelfth minute of track twelve fades and cycles back into to the first tentative moments of “Art of Almost.”  If you hear only one new album this year, I would posit that Wilco’s latest disc is the most expansive, complete, fully rendered of them all; a true must-listen.

“Threshold” (Chris Moore) – Original Wednesday

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to my first true Laptop Session in quite a while — since December, to be specific, when I covered the Goo Goo Dolls song “Laughing.”  Well, I’m back today with an original song from my new album, The 2010 Project, which was released just a couple weeks ago.  In fact, the day after my album hit the web for download, Mike Fusco (who mixed and produced it) and I went to see the Goo Goo Dolls.  This was our second time seeing them — and I won’t repeat what I wrote about them back in December — but suffice it to say that it was exciting going to see a band with so many anthemic songs, a group that can create such energy and drive the audience so masterfully.  And look like they’re having the time of their lives on stage.

We left the concert revved up: proud of the project we had just completed the day before and excited for new music to come.

So, now that a couple weeks have passed and I’ve had the opportunity to play The 2010 Project songs live again, thinking of them as whole songs to perform rather than in pieces (as I did during the recording sessions), I had the itch to return to the Laptop Sessions and debut those songs that haven’t been seen and heard here yet.

This is the second track on the album, “Threshold,” and one which stands out from the rest for the fast delivery during the verses and the statement of purpose in the chorus that could very well be the thesis statement for the entire album.  For this video, I (for obvious reasons) couldn’t include the guitar solo performed on the studio version, so I broke out my “E” harmonica and worked out a simple solo and added some flares to the beginning and end of the performance.  It clocks in at under three minutes, and is a good example of the type of music I’m making these days.

And, for those who have heard the demo version, this is a significantly improved arrangement!

I also recorded “You Will Thank Me” as well as the single from the album “It All Comes Around,” so check back for those videos in the coming weeks.

See you next session!