Waxahatchee - "American Weekend" (LP Review)

"Crave, desolate, you dive in, we follow along.
I contrive you with whiskey and Sam Cooke songs
and we lay on our backs, soaking wet
below a static TV set.
Conversation flows, counting shooting stars and catfish,
but I'll never make a wish."

After I don't know how many listens, I still get chills from the opening lines to "Catfish", the first song on Waxahatchee's debut LP "American Weekend".  I did not discover Waxahatchee until the release of the release of "Cerulean Salt" a year later, and then made my way back to "American Weekend".  All the hipsters know the story by now, but here's the short version in case you don't: twins Katie & Allison Crutchfield were in the cleverly named (but terminally underground) band P.S. Eliot.  When they broke up in 2011, Allison formed Swearin', and Katie recorded as Waxahatchee during an extended retreat to her parent's lake house on Waxahatchee Creek, essentially off the grid and far away from everything. 

The result is an intimate, confessional, lo-fi masterpiece.  I  know I've overused the reference to Liz Phair's "Girlysound" tapes, but in this case the reference is unavoidable (and I'm not the only one, see this Pitchfork review).  (I suppose I could also compare it to the "Texas Campfire Tapes", but those references have gone out of style now that Michelle Shocked is a self-hating traitor.)  I know the idea of a solo, acoustic, coffee house, autobiographical, neo-hippie, female folk singer is a 3rd stage Lilith Fair cliche, but trust me: Katie's different.  There is an unpretentious, wrenching, earnest, piercing sincerity that transcends the sparse, almost harsh recording.  Where Liz channeled a battle-of-the-sexes anger borrowed from early Pat Benatar, the villain in Katie's songs is Katie: paralyzed with self-doubt and a millennial-flavored self-absorption.  Despite this, and the fact that I'm nearly old enough to be her father, the music connects with me, in part because Katie's provided a universal soundtrack for awkward, early 20s relationships (e.g., I'd like to imagine a particular college relationship-but-not-quite-girlfriend addressing me in the manner of "Bathtub" and "Grass Stain").

But it's not just romantic relationships that are the subject of Katie's songs.  "Rose, 1956" is her attempt to fathom the difference in her reality and that of her grandmother (?):

Sharp hangover, it is Christmas Eve.
It fades and evaporates passing the trains and lakes and trees.
Your breaths are short and urgent and it is unsettling.
Cause you got married when you were 15, 15.

Now I hide out from telephone wires at Waxahatchee Creek.
Your body, weak from smoke and tar and subsequent disease.
You got married when you were 15, 15.

More insight about Katie and Waxahatchee can be found in this interview with Pitchfork.  I can say more about this LP, but then it would be more about me and less about Katie/Waxahatchee.

Since there are no bad song on the LP and quite a few live versions on the web, I'm changing the format a bit:

Standout songs:

• "Catfish" -- studio, live in Asheville NC
• "Grass Stain" -- studio, live for NME, live in Cohoes NY
• "Rose, 1956" -- studio, live in London
• "Michel" -- studio, live in Asheville NC, live in OK City
• "Be Good" -- studio, live in Kansas City MO
• "Bathtub" -- studio, live for NPR, live in Lake Worth FL
• "I Think I Love You" -- studio, live for Wichita Recordings, live for NPR, live for last.fm/Gibson  
• "Noccalula" -- studio, live at 2013 SXSW 

Final score: 9/10.  I reserve the right to adjust this upwards in the future.

And to close out the review, here are the closing lyrics to "Catfish".  As Danette pointed out, all of the songs "sweat" with subtle Southern cultural references.  Although not really the point of this song, it provides color in a way that only those familiar with sticky, Southern nights can appreciate:

We stick to our slow motion memory.
It's 1 in the morning and 90 degrees
and though now it is hovering darkly over me,
it'll look just like heaven when I get up and leave.
You're a ghost
and I can't breathe.

Blackstreet - "No Diggity" (the song remains the same)

This post is for Danette, who absolutely loves the song "No Diggity" from Blackstreet's 1996 LP "Another Level".  I'm not going to save it for a birthday post for her for obvious reasons: the song is about a guy in love with a prostitute because of her technical proficiency and voracity*. 

I was reminded of this song recently when I heard the 2012 cover by Chet Faker from his EP "Thinking in Textures".  I'm pretty sure I had seen the Ed Sheeran version before, but that doesn't come close to the smooth, downtempo version that Faker turns in.  The Faker version also has some interesting percussion towards the end, with the drums emulating the piano (?) sample from the original. 

Blackstreet - "No Diggity"
Chet Faker - "No Diggity" (live version)
Ed Sheeran - "No Diggity"
and for completeness #1: "Pitch Perfect" - "No Diggity"
completeness #2: Bill Withers - "Grandma's Hands" (which Blackstreet sampled for "No Diggity")

* If you read the lyrics I guess it is just a coarser version of The Police's "Roxanne".  Yet I can't help but think about the Chris Rock routine "I Love Rap Music" -- "He Ain't Talking About Me!" (video).

Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors" (forgotten song)

Another song for Danette's birthday!  I first heard "32 Flavors" in early 1998 when Alana Davis released it as her first single off her first LP.  It was a good song and received a good bit of radio airplay, but I soon learned it was originally released by Ani DiFranco, off her 1995 LP.  And although Alana turned in a nice, shorter, radio-friendly version, it does not approach the depth and richness of the original. 

Early 1998 was right before Danette and I got together, and I had a number of significant life decisions to make.  And although Danette never said anything like this to me at the time, I imagined that she did and that's nearly the same thing:

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you're going to get hungry
And eat most of the words you just said

And after 16+ years, I can say 32 is a significant underestimate.  

Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors" (studio), "32 Flavors" (live)
Alana Davis - "32 Flavors"

Previous birthday songs:

2013: The Green Pajamas - "Kim the Waitress"
2012: The Cure - "High"
2011: Blink 182 - "Josie"
2010:  Dead Milkmen - "Punk Rock Girl"

Let's Active - "Every Word Means No" (forgotten song)

This installment of "forgotten songs" comes from our friend Hillary, who while at dinner with Danette last week mentioned being a fan of Winston-Salem's Let's Active back in the day.  Danette had never heard of them and I only knew that there was a band by that name (probably via Terry). 

I did some poking around and their first real song was "Every Word Means No", from their 1983 EP "Afoot".  The song sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure if I actually remember it or if, sounding like a cross between R.E.M. and The Connells,  it is just representative of the early- to mid-80s college sound.  The connection with R.E.M. is not accidental -- guitarist and vocalist Mitch Easter produced the first two R.E.M. LPs (as well as other bands) for I.R.S. Records.

This is the kind of band that fleshes out a musical scene, even if they are overshadowed by the scene's more central bands.  So is it new, overlooked, or simply forgotten?  In the car collecting world, we'd call this "new old stock".  Enjoy like its 1983.

Let's Active -- "Every Word Means No"

Edit: After poking around some more, I'm pretty sure I remember their 1989 song "Every Dog Has His Day", even though I could not have told you it was by Let's Active.  Regardless, "Every Word Means No" is a better song.

The Specials - "Rock Goes to College (1979)" (concert)

A couple of weeks ago, Mat and I were driving back from DC and searching for common interests on the ipod.  Enter The Specials.   We made it through their first two LPs, both of which I plan to review some day.  In the interim, I found this great concert footage recorded in late 1979 and aired in early 1980.

Apparently the BBC (and NPR-types like myself just love the BBC) had a four year series (1978-1981) called "Rock Goes To College", where up and coming bands played at college venues in the UK.  Few of these concerts are available in any format now (cf. the Pink Floyd 1970 KQED concert), but fortunately The Specials concert exists on YouTube. 

The concert is early in their career, drawing from their first LP,  EP, and single.  The track list:

• (Dawning of a) New Era
• Do the Dog
• Monkey Man
• Rat Race
• Blank Expression
• Rude Boys Outta Jail
• Doesn't Make it Alright
• Concrete Jungle
• Too Much Too Young
• Guns of Navarone
• Nite Klub
• Gangsters
• Longshot Kick de Bucket
• Madness
• You're Wondering Now

This is a fun 1979 time capsule from a great band (check out audience on stage at the end).  And in an interesting cross over with the archival aspect of my professional career, if you study all the other episodes that were broadcast you'll be hoping they surface some time too.  Hey BBC, open up your archives!

St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Live KEXP 2014-04-19 (concert)

Breaking with the metal theme of the last few posts but staying with the NPR theme of the previous post, today I feature St. Paul & The Broken Bones.  The easiest way to explain the sound of SP&TBB is that the ghosts of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, and the rest of the Stax Records back catalog have found new life, new shoes, and moved from Memphis TN to Birmingham AL. 

I suppose a critic could say they're derivative, but I think it would be more fair to say they're celebrating an established genre.  I mean, Otis died before these guys were born, and I welcome new artists revisiting classic sounds. 

I learned of them a few months ago on NPR's Morning Edition.  That NPR did a feature on these guys should surprise no one.  Joy hooked us up with their debut LP "Half The City" but until I find the time for a proper review, this four song live in the studio set will have to suffice.





BTW  -- The KEXP Youtube channel is simply amazing; tons of good stuff there.

Horseback - "Live at Nightlights 2011-11" (concert)

I came to know about Chapel Hill's Horseback by way of Butch at Squealer Music.  Last week he gave me a pointer about alt-country Mount Moriah (great stuff), and apparently the guitarist, Jenks Miller, also plays in Horseback, a sort of Crazy-Horse-plays-drone-metal band.  I thought I was posting something new and edgy but apparently NPR covered them over two years ago, so once again I'm less than timely.

I've listened to some of their studio material online, but I have to say I like this short concert better (I'm pretty sure there are just two songs).  The music is quite heavy, mostly instrumental, and the cookie monster vocals are further back in the mix and thus less distracting.  The end result sounds more like a 32 minute metal version of "Careful With That Axe Eugene".

I haven't decided whether or not to pick up one of their studio releases, but this nicely edited video is worth checking out.