Barry Black, "Mighty Fields Of Tobacco"
"Mighty Fields Of Tobacco" by Barry Black
I've written about Eric Bachmann's work with Archers Of Loaf and Crooked Fingers, but up to now I'd skipped covering his solo albums and this striking Archers-era side project, in which he invited friends from the North Carolina music scene to help him realize his post-rock/classical-minimalism fantasies. Frankly, before I heard Crooked Fingers for the first time, I had hopes that Bachmann was going to head more in this direction, combining the slacker-punk of the Archers with more freewheeling instrumental experiments—sort of like he did on AoL's All The Nations Airports. I think Dignity & Shame by Crooked Fingers comes closest, but I miss the outright what-the-hell-ism of Barry Black's first album (though not so much its dreary follow-up).
The Beefeaters, "Don't Be Long"
"Don't Be Long" by The Beefeaters
I'll be revisiting the killer five-disc late '60s/early '70s Elektra retrospective Forever Changing quite often in the weeks to come (now that it's finally loaded on my hard drive), but I'll kick things off with this early effort by the band that would become The Byrds. As a precursor to The Byrds' poppy jangle, "Don't Be Long" is pretty good, even if the pieces aren't yet all in place. There's a grandeur that's missing. This is more like two miles high, not eight.
Bjork, "The Boho Dance"
"The Boho Dance" by Björk
I wrote about Bjork when she came up back in Week Five, but I didn't include a sample track because in the early going I wasn't yet putting up a track for every artist. Now that I'm able to pluck this song from last year's not-always-successful Joni Mitchell tribute album, I'll retroactively give Bjork her moment of audio. "The Boho Dance" happens to be one of my favorite Mitchell songs, and though I miss Mitchell's jazzier arrangement from The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, I think Bjork's decision to make this a vocal showcase proves both the sturdiness of the original and the power of Bjork's voice to command attention.
Bloc Party, "Blue Light"
"Blue Light" by Bloc Party
When readers pointed out the absence of this band from Week Six, it was one of the first times that I realized I had some major, unintentional gaps on my hard drive. It's not like I'm a huge Bloc Party fan—I like about half of each of their albums, plus a few otherwise uncollected songs from the EPs and singles—but I have a really strong 50-minute homemade Bloc Party anthology I listen to fairly often, and it's highlighted by this song, which transcends the band's various post-punk influences and presents something simple, personal and oddly pretty.
Blossom Dearie, "Figure Eight"
"Figure Eight" by Blossom Dearie
This I got from The Squid And The Whale soundtrack, and it's one of the many songs from that movie that brought home how much Noah Baumbach's troubled boyhood ran in tandem with my own. This is such a lovely song, and one that I'd all but forgotten in my adulthood until I started showing the Schoolhouse Rock DVD to my number-obsessed son, and my wife and I both found ourselves tearing up when this song appeared. (That closing line about infinity—so unexpected, so poignant—slays us every time.) It's remarkable how deep an impression the music of our youth can leave. It can be as powerful a memory trigger as smell. And you don't even have to wait until you get older to get nostalgic. A few weeks ago, as I was revisiting Elliott Smith, my kids were playing in our front room when Smith's cover of this song came up, and they immediately stopped what they were doing and looked at me. "Dad, can we watch Schoolhouse Rock?," my daughter asked, for the first time in months. Why yes. Yes you can.
Boogie Down Productions, "South Bronx"
"South Bronx" by Boogie Down Productions
As I recall, nobody even pointed out the absence of BDP back in Week Six, which I'm worried says something about the group's enduring influence. Most of my Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One records are on cassette, but I do have Criminal Minded on CD, and while that record—considered by some to be proto-gangsta-rap—doesn't really reflect the more challengingly political artist KRS-One would become, it's arguably his best album from a groove perspective. Credit goes to DJ Scott La Rock, who was killed after Criminal Minded was released. And songs like this "my hip-hop youth" memoir point the way towards the quirkily personal and weirdly educational tracks to come on By All Means Necessary and Ghetto Music.
Bruce & Clifton Green (w/Tweedie Gibson), "My Lord Help Me To Pray"
"My Lord Help Me To Pray" by Bruce & Clifton Green (w/Tweedie Gibson)
I used to be on Rounder Records' mailing list, and about a decade ago they sent me Kneelin' Down Inside The Gate, a strange and beautiful collection of Bahamian gospel. The interplay of these three voices—from the evangelical to the aspirational to the downright weird—encompasses pretty much the whole of the Christian religion. It's like the holy trinity of gospel vocals.
The Caravans, "Walk Around Heaven All Day"
"Walk Around Heaven All Day" by The Caravans
And here's an entirely different kind of gospel song, culled from the Vee-Jay records box set. I like the spareness of this track: just a free-form organ and piano, and a vocal that emphasizes the peaceful aimlessness of the afterlife.
The Chesterfields, "Ask Johnny Dee"
"Ask Johnny Dee" by The Chesterfields
The wonderful compilation CD86 collects singles from the UK indie-pop movement of the mid-to-late '80s, and this song is more on the poppy end, in that aside from the lo-fi production, it could fit alongside something by The Smiths or The Lightning Seeds. But that production also helps make the song, giving a sense of what it's like to stand in the shadow of stardom, and feel insignificant.
Cold Grits, "Funky Soul"/ David Sea, "Let's Just Get Together"
"Funky Soul" by Cold Grits
"Let's Just Get Together" by David Sea
Here's two tracks from the quite fine The Soul Of Neal Hemphill, a collection of R&B singles from the Birmingham scene. The Cold Grits song is a greasy instrumental that verges on the manic, while the David Sea song is decidedly mellower. The latter has a simple sentiment—damn it, let's just screw already—but Sea imbues it with boyish sweetness.
Deerhoof, "The Galaxist"
"The Galaxist" by Deerhoof
I avoided writing about Deerhoof in Week Eleven because I couldn't find my copy of Friend Opportunity, the album of theirs I like best. (It turned out to be in my car.) I like the other Deerhoof albums reasonably well too, but Friend Opportunity is damn-near perfect in the way it shifts from experimental to hooky to riffy without a clear sense of logic. I had a hard time picking a song from any other album that encompassed what I love about Deerhoof, and a hard time settling on just one from Friend Opportunity. I settled on "The Galaxist" because it captures the albums full range: its weirdness, its rockiness, its beauty.
Elephants Memory, "Old Man Willow"
"Old Man Willow" by Elephants Memory
I saw Midnight Cowboy for the first time in a bowdlerized TV version when I was in high school, and when I found the soundtrack at a used record store shortly afterward, I bought it in large part because I wanted a copy of this song, which plays during the movie's psychedelic party scene. I'd never quite heard music like this before I saw Midnight Cowboy, because I hadn't yet bought my first Velvet Underground record, and wasn't yet into the output of 4AD. I'm still kind of amazed that "Old Man Willow" made it onto a movie soundtrack, because while it's easy to dismiss the song as some movie producer's clichéd idea of "hippie music," it's far more avant-garde in conception and execution than the fake go-go sounds that populated most of the era's youthsploitation. This song's kind of a mind-blower, to tell the truth. I think the guys and gal in Deerhoof may have listened to it a few times.
The English Beat, "She's Going"
"She's Going" by The English Beat
If I'd had The English Beat loaded two weeks ago, they definitely would've been a "piece of the puzzle," because I listened to I Just Can't Stop It and Special Beat Service about as much as I listened to anything during my high school infatuation with '80s Britpop. Special Beat Service in particular—as represented by this song—is a pretty amazing album, pushing beyond the simplicity of two-tone to encompass a variety of emerging immigrant cultures, all while asserting the band's "Englishness" in the form of a sound in step with the breezy style of early '80s radio.
Eric B. & Rakim, "I Know You Got Soul"
"I Know You Got Soul" by Eric B. & Rakim
I have to confess that I didn't really get Eric B. & Rakim the first time around, probably because they were more club-oriented than the other hip-hop of their era, and at the time I was more into the rock-minded minimalism of Run-DMC and Boogie Down Productions and the assaultive maximalism of Public Enemy and The Beastie Boys. In 2008, "I Know You Got Soul" is more where my head is at, hip-hop-wise.
Fear, "Let's Have A War"
"Let's Have A War" by Fear
I used to have a theory that nobody ever bought the Repo Man soundtrack; they just had a copy they either duped or stole from somebody else. Now that my Repo Man soundtrack is loaded up, I can talk about some of the tracks that introduced me to L.A. punk. I almost wrote up Circle Jerks' "Coup D'Etat" this week, but I like this classic Fear track a lot more, probably because it's so beefy that it could almost pass for a hardcore version of Van Halen. It's also got the perfect sentiment for a punk anthem, at once witty and pissy. "There's too many of us" indeed.
Fela Kuti, "Zombie"
"Zombie" by Fela Kuti
See Femi Kuti entry, two weeks ago. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Among the rest… Aaliyah, Alabama 3, Albert King, All-Time Quarterback, Alternative TV, Arvo Part, Ash, Ashford & Simpson, The Avengers, Barenaked Ladies, Béla Fleck, Bert Jansch, Better Than Ezra, Big Head Todd & The Monsters, The Black Crowes, Blaine Sprouse, Blancmange, The Blue Notes, Blues Traveler, BMX Bandits, Bomb The Bass, Book Of Love, Boyz II Men, Brian Eno, Busta Rhymes, C&C Music Factory, The Canadian Brass, Candlebox, Carla Thomas, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chumbawamba, Cibo Matto, Circle Jerks, Collective Soul, Crash Test Dummies, The Cult, Dada, Das EFX, David Holmes, Dead Prez, Deana Carter, Deborah Harry, Deee-Lite, Deep Blue Something, The Dentists, Des'ree, The Dickies, The Dictators, The Dils, Divinyls, Eddie Floyd, Eddie Kendricks, EMF, The Emotions, En Vogue, Erasure, Everlast and Faust
Next week: The regular format resumes, with coverage of artists ranging from Gang Of Four to Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, plus a few words on pop and politics.
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