Yo La Tengo - Live KEXP 2013-01-18 (concert)

In the first installment for Women's History Month 2020 I'm going to feature Yo La Tengo, a band that I'm quite fond of but so far have only mentioned in passing.  At the core of YLT is husband and wife team of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals) and Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals).  Active since 1984, their discography includes 15 LPs and countless other releases.  Although Ira is the front man, singing most of the songs and playing guitar, Georgia also sings, and their combination really defines the sound of the band.

Herbert turned me on to Yo La Tengo around 2000, right after "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out" came out.  Herbert is a big fan of Yo La Tengo, but not a fan of Sonic Youth, which I consider strange since I find a lot of similarities in their respective sounds.  Sonic Youth might have a harsher, more aggressive, punk-influenced sound on some songs, but in my opinion if you like one band you'll the other.

This entry is from KEXP's excellent in-studio concert series, where they were supporting 2013's "Fade", one of the few LPs of theirs that I don't have.  Georgia sings on the last song, "Before We Run".

Bear Hands - "Giants" (forgotten song)

Last year we got married, and this year we had another significant life event: the joint purchase of our new home in Ghent, which partially inspired the choice of this year's birthday song.

"Giants" is a single from the 2013 Bear Hands LP "Distraction".  It received a moderate amount of airplay on 96X when it came out, although I'm not sure I've heard it on the radio recently.  I liked it immediately: it works the loud-soft-loud, with a frenetic hip hop structure followed with a slower chorus and meaty, early-80s guitar riff, lots of white noise and no negative space -- but I can't remember if Danette had strong feelings about it one way or another.  However, this is another installment in a list of songs that make me think about Danette, not necessarily a list of Danette's favorite songs.

The chorus is the obvious why it makes me think of Danette, with variations of:

I said I know you love me, I am loving you more
I am loving you more

And, a little more on the nose given our recent purchase:

Give you everything that I have ever owned
Soon I will have bought us up a house and home
Up on the seventh floor

Studying the lyrics and commentary a little more closely, there is school of thought that the song is actually about co-dependent junkies ("I've been awake for days in the dusk and the dawn"), but I'm just going to pretend I didn't read that.  Besides, the last several birthday songs have embraced more metaphorical connections; the song feels joyous and we're not going to let a possible Springsteen-esque dark undercurrent ruin the song.

The deciding factor for choosing this song is the video itself: a well-executed but presumably otherwise low budget affair that features the band members posing and what are likely their girl friends in a more celebratory mood.  The director visually conveys a youthful, hedonistic exuberance, and that's how I feel about Danette -- even if we're almost old enough to be the parents of the people in the video.

Bear Hands - "Giants"

Previous birthday songs:

2017: Alvvays - "Archie, Marry Me"
2016: Molly Hatchet - "Flirtin' With Disaster"
2015: Avett Brothers - "Kick Drum Heart"
2014: Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors"
2013: The Green Pajamas - "Kim the Waitress"
2012: The Cure - "High"
2011: Blink 182 - "Josie"
2010:  Dead Milkmen - "Punk Rock Girl"

Swearin' - "Surfing Strange" (LP Review)

I've already blogged extensively about Waxahatchee, AKA Katie Crutchfield.  Here I will cover her twin sister, Allison Crutchfield, in another installment for Women's History Month.  As documented extensively elsewhere, Allison and Katie lead the punk band P.S. Eliot from 2007-2011, eventually splitting and forming Swearin' and Waxahatchee, respectively.  Although technically separate bands, soon Allison and other members of Swearin' were backing Katie, both in the studio and on tour.  As of 2015, Swearin' is defunct.

When I first learned of Swearin', I was super excited and ordered their 2013 LP "Surfing Strange".  The video for the single from the LP, "Dust in the Gold Sack", was great and I was hoping for an LP as strong as "American Weekend" or "Cerulean Salt".  Unfortunately, while it's not a bad LP, it's not nearly as great as Katie's first two LPs.  The problem?  Too much Kyle Gilbride & Keith Spencer, and not enough Allison.  I totally respect their DIY "if you write it, you sing it" approach, but Kyle & Keith singing (and writing) aren't why I bought this LP. 

Again, this is not a bad LP, and there aren't really any bad songs.  But ultimately it's just "Dust in the Gold Sack" and a few others, making this is a good, but not necessary, LP.    

Standout songs: "Dust in the Gold Sack" (live 2013), "Mermaid" (live 2013), "Parts of Speech", "Unwanted Place"

Skip 'em songs: none.

Final score: 6/10



P.S. (Eliot): Fortunately, Allison has since gone solo. 

2018-03-05 update: I spoke too soon, 3/4 of Swearin' are back together.

Burial - "Rival Dealer" (LP Review)

Burial's (aka William Bevan) 2013 EP "Rival Dealer" has been working its way up my playlist.  I have his critically acclaimed two full length LPs (2006's "Burial" and 2007's "Untrue") which I enjoy, but not nearly at the level at which this EP has captured my attention.  Other reviews do a good job of contextualizing this EP within the rest of his canon (Pitchfork, RA, NME), but for me this EP synthesizes everything I liked about his first two LPs, as well as what I liked about Andy Stott's "Luxury Problems" and Balam Acab's "See Birds".

Bevan himself said in a BBC Radio 6 interview:

“I put my heart into the new EP, I hope someone likes it. I wanted the tunes to be anti-bullying tunes that could maybe help someone to believe in themselves, to not be afraid, and to not give up, and to know that someone out there cares and is looking out for them. So it's like an angel's spell to protect them against the unkind people, the dark times, and the self-doubts.”

And there is a definite triumphant feeling to these songs, mostly abstract but some rather concrete.  Furthermore, he samples an interview with NASA Earth scientist Melissa Dawson at various points in the EP.  Although I haven't posted it here, I've shared with friends my theory that the US space program exists mainly to provide samples for electronic music, and with "Rival Dealer" Burial only reinforces my position.

All three tracks are great, but the corner stone is clearly the closing "Come Down to Us".

Skip 'em tracks: none.

Standout tracks: "Rival Dealer", "Hiders", "Come Down to Us".

Final Score: 9/10

Waxahatchee - "Cerulean Salt" (LP Review)

Just over a year ago I reviewed "American Weekend", the debut LP from Waxahatchee.  Her second LP "Cerulean Salt" (2013) finds her backed by a "real band" (actually members shared with her sister's band, Swearin'). 

Whereas "American Weekend" was a solo, lo-fi, bedroom recording masterpiece, "Cerulean Salt" doesn't try to duplicate that success.  The songs are still sparse and minimally produced, but are enriched by the fuller sound afforded by the presence of band members.  Some of them even downright rawk -- such as "Coast to Coast" and especially "Misery Over Dispute".  And while the comparison to Liz Phair continues (exhibit A: "Brother Bryan" vs. "Girls! Girls! Girls!"; Exhibit B: "Dixie Cups and Jars" vs. "Go West"), a more thematic comparison would be to Bruce Springsteen in that the glossy, upbeat songs hide some pretty dark lyrics.  Almost any song would do, but it's hard to beat "Dixie Cups and Jars":

I'm not a whipper in the wind
Or solace laying at the bottom of a bottle
Or your thick skin
Escape yells both our names out loud
We run like hell, I'll write a tragic epilogue and you'll act it out

I watched your dad give you away
I watched him drink the bitter taste in his exertion away
Make-up sits on your face like tar
The champagne flutes poorly engineered
Employ dixie cups and jars

A more eloquent LP review is available at Pitchfork.  I will say that while it doesn't speak to me personally like "American Weekend", "Cerulean Salt" is arguably a better all around LP. 

Standout songs: "Dixie Cups and Jars" (live), "Brother Bryan" (live), "Coast to Coast" (live) (live w/ Mish Way), "Tangled Envisioning" (live), "Misery Over Dispute" (live), "Lively" (live), "Swan Dive" (live),

Skip 'em songs: none.

Final score: 9/10. 

Connan Mockasin - "Caramel" (LP Review)

I can only describe Connan Mockasin's 2013 LP "Caramel" as the soundtrack for Prince's fevered, imp-infested, slow-motion, pornographic, Shaun-Cassidy-trapped-in-Twin-Peaks, hallucination-within-a-dream.

Herbert turned me onto this LP about a year ago.  The professional reviews for this LP are mixed, and mostly because of its break with his more conventional prior material (of which I'm unfamiliar). I won't claim I completely understand this LP, but there is something weirdly beautiful happening here -- you just have to listen and decide if it works for you. 

I'm going to break from my regular LP review format and just list the 11 songs since although they're distinct, they're so inter-related that you really shouldn't separate them out.

1. "Nothing Lasts Forever"        
2. "Caramel"      
3. "I'm the Man, That Will Find You" (official video)
4. "Do I Make You Feel Shy?" (official video)
5. "Why Are You Crying?"          
6. "It's Your Body 1" (live)     
7. "It's Your Body 2"     
8. "It's Your Body 3"     
9. "It's Your Body 4"     
10. "It's Your Body 5"     
11. "I Wanna Roll with You" (live)

The official & live videos, while sufficiently surreal, somehow aren't surreal enough compare to the visions the songs conjure in my mind. 

Final score: 7/10.  It grows on you; I reserve the right to raise this in the future.

The Cribs - "Payola" (LP Review)

"10 years on and 2001 is long gone
So I didn't wanna write another leather jacket love song"

Those are the opening lyrics to "Leather Jacket Love Song", the only previously unreleased song on the The Cribs 2013 singles compilation "Payola".  It's also a great song and an appropriate way to describe a ten year retrospective.  It is also indicative of what's disappointing with "Payola" -- only one unreleased song. 

There are actually two versions of "Payola": a single CD with 21 singles from their first five LPs and the one unreleased song, and a "deluxe" double CD that also includes 18 b-sides, bonus songs, and non-LP singles.   Of course I have all of albums and many of the singles and EPs, so my interest was in the deluxe edition to try to fill out some of the songs that I was missing. 

Much like my review of "Preemptive Strike", I'm reviewing the collection as a collection, not really the songs themselves.  The songs are great, but on a collection like this you have to review how the collection itself was created.  My problem with "Payola" is that 1) it oversamples the later LPs, and 2) doesn't have enough hard-to-find material for completists.  On disc 1, only seven songs (of 21) come from the first two LPs.  But as a collector, I really want to talk about disc 2.  The Cribs have always had a strong focus on singles and their associated b-side; for example, see their 7" collector box set.  Not being a 7" collector, I was hoping to get canonical copies of many of their hard-to-find songs.  Here's a list of their non-LP songs, roughly in order of the time frames of the corresponding LPs, with "*" indicating presence on "Payola":

The Cribs (2004):

On The Floor
Death To The Dead Bodies
Feelin' It!
I Gotta Go To LA
Song From Practice 1

The New Fellas (2005):

Happy's Just A State Of Mind And A State Of Mind Is Just Electrical Impulses           
*It Happened So Fast           
North Of England                               
I'm Still Blaming You          
*Saturday Night Facts Of Life
*To Jackson            
I Was Her Man But I Done Her Wrong             
*Advice For A Roving Artist
*Non-LP single: You're Gonna Lose Us

Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever (2007):

*Kind Words From The Broken Hearted            
*Fairer Sex            
Tonight                                
*My Adolescent Dreams          
Run A Mile             
*Get Yr Hands Out Of My Grave          
*Bastards Of Young
I'm a Realist (Postal Service Remix)
*Non-LP single: Don't You Wanna Be Relevant?

Ignore the Ignorant (2009):

*So Hot Now
Curse This English Rain
*Is Anybody There?
Non-LP single: Housewife

In the Belly of the Brazen Bull (2012):

*Glandular Fever Got The Best Of Me
*On A Hotel Wall
*Eat Me
*Better Than Me
*Don't Believe In Me

Again, the bias toward later material is evident -- there are no b-sides from the era of their first LP and five songs from their 2012 LP.  B-sides from the era of their second LP are well-represented, but unfortunately for me those five songs are also on the 2006 Japanese-only EP "Arigato Cockers".  Apparently that EP is hard to get, so I consider myself lucky for having a copy and I guess I can't really fault their inclusion on this collection.  The songs from the era of MNWNW are excellent and deserve more coverage than they receive, but unfortunately for me the only one I did not already have was The Replacements' cover "Bastards of Young".  I did not have any of the included songs from the era of the last two LPs, and although I already have "Curse This English Rain", I don't see how one could exclude this excellent song twice: once on "Ignore the Ignorant" and now on "Payola". 

I'm also disappointed in how they treated the non-LP singles.  "You're Gonna Lose Us" and "Don't You Want to Be Relevant" are excellent songs, but they should appear on disc 1.  Also, the single-sided 7" from the Johnny Marr-era, "Housewife", is still effectively unavailable -- that should be on disc 1 as well. Speaking of Johnny Marr, "Leather Jacket Love Song" is the last song he recorded with The Cribs and it is excellent -- this should have been a single in its own right. 

So in addition to the one unreleased song, I already had 10/18 of the songs on disc 2, and I'm no closer to getting copies of the really obscure songs from 2004 & 2005.  So while "Payola" is welcome, it is also a bit frustrating that the collection falls short of what it could have been.

Standout songs: nearly all of them, but here is a list of songs not covered in other reviews: "Leather Jacket Love Song" (live version for NME), "Fairer Sex" (2007 live version; Payola has the studio version), "Get Yr Hands Out Of My Grave", "Bastards of Young" (2007 live version; Payola has the studio version), "Glandular Fever Got The Best Of Me", "On A Hotel Wall"

Skip 'em songs: none.

Final score: 8/10.  I wish they had included some of the earlier leather jacket love songs.

N.B. Yes, I have not yet reviewed "In the Belly of the Brazen Bull" or "Live at the Brudenell Social Club".  I'm working on it.