Heavy rotation for January:
Tom Waits Orphans
Vince Gill These Days
Keene Brothers Blues and Boogie Shoes
Sloan Never Hear the End of It
Nighmares on Wax In a Space Outta Sound
Todd Snider: That Was Me and The Devil You Know
Tommy Guerrero
Wayne’s Favorites of 2006 (Vols 1-2)
Hey I realize I’m no Nick Hornby, but I thought I might try my hand at chronicling my musical purchases and listening habits over the course of 2007. And no, the purchases and the listening don’t always coincide as you’ll see sometimes it takes me a while to get around to “seriously” listening to some of those cds.
My listening year official starts on Boxing Day. And this past December 26 I was standing in line with the teaming hordes at Best Buy when I spotted Tom Waits‘ highly acclaimed new album Orphans. (I was at Best Buy purchasing a $100 HDMI cable since Sony is too cheap to include the proper cable connection so C could have the hi def experience on the PS3 that Santa dropped off, but that’s another story.) Anyway, I bought Tom’s new one, which was released in late November, and sure enough it’s 5 star masterpiece.
Orphans is a three disc “box” but it’s an unusual “retrospective” in that it is not a mere compliation of previously released tracks. Waits does versions of his songs that were originally recorded by other artists (I really like “Fannin Street” which his buddy John Hammond recorded first), plus he does “covers” of songs by Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht, Leadbelly, The Ramones…you get the idea. “Brawlers” (Disc One) is full of bluesy rockers. “Bawlers” (Disc Two) is a tour de force of styles (ballads, waltzes, etc). And “Bastards” (Disc Three) is packed with the weird and wonderful (experimental music and spoken word pieces like Tom reading encyclopedia entries about the strange behavior of certain insects).
The other “universally acclaimed” box set released in the last few months of 2006 is Vince Gill’s four disc collection of new music, These Days, which was my first purchase in January. I’ve not been listening to much “mainstream” country the past few years, but then again, Vince is no longer mainstream country. These Days covers a different style on each disc (rock, country, ballads, acoustic/bluegrass). There is know doubt Gill’s a talented writer, amazing player and pleasing singer. These Days is worthy of all the praise, but when you have 43 new tunes there are is bound to be some clunkers, but there are only a couple of those (most notably the duet with Diana Krall). I find myself listening to all four discs quite a bit.
Two other new purchases this month:
Sloan is a a first rate Canadian power pop group who has taken a tip from Robert Pollard and produced a 30 track disc with a majority of the tunes checking in under 3 minutes. Their Beatlesque stylings have produced loads of success in Canada (the group was formed in the early 1990s in Halifax), but they remain pretty much below the radar in the US of A—that’s too bad for the Yanks because their missing out on some sublime pop. In their review of Never Hear the End of It, folks at All Music Guide envoke the b-side of Abbey Road, The White Album and Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, A True Star—not bad company!
Speaking of Bob Pollard, my final purchase of January was #42 in prolific Pollard’s Fading Captain Series: The Keene Brothers’ Blues and Boogie Shoes, an album that had I listened to it in 2006 would have definitely been in my Top 10, alongside Pollard’s solo disc Normal Happiness. Guitar slinger Tommy Keene (Velvet Crush and Paul Westerberg) joined Pollard’s From a Compound Eye touring band and they began writing songs. Blues and Boogie Shoes is the result and it’s better than the first couple of Pollard’s official solo records, which is saying a lot! AMG says: “Blues and Boogie Shoes is the first (and hopefully not the last) album from the Keene Brothers, and while it’s a more modest affair it sounds significantly stronger and more satisfying than Pollard’s much-vaunted “official solo debut” and fuses muscular rock guitar with glorious pop hooks as well as anything GbV ever released. With Keene in charge of the instrumental side of the program, the guitars both chime and crunch while the drums bash away in glorious fury — Keene’s musical vision is certainly simpatico with Pollard’s, but he offers enough fresh melodic twists to give the songs new blood that serves them well, and his guitar work is consistently excellent without a hint of needless flash.”
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