From the fringes of the collection, a few songs to share….
Damien Jurado, "Texas To Ohio"
Here's another one for the "talented, rootsy, nondescript" singer-songwriter file, though I know a lot of people who are big Jurado fans. He gets through to me only in fits and starts. Jurado's 2002 LP I Break Chairs has an appealingly rough country-rock feel, which Jurado more or less abandoned—to his detriment—on the follow-up, Where Will You Take Me? That said, the billowing sound of the WWYTM? highlight "Texas To Ohio" is one that really works, providing a moment of surging aspiration that provides a real respite from the strum-and-mumble of the rest of the album. (Fun fact: In this election season, I've been humming this song to myself a lot.)
"Texas To Ohio" by Damien Jurado
The Damned, "Machine Gun Etiquette"
For some reason, The Damned were never part of any punk canon I was aware of in high school, so I was taken aback when I picked up a cassette copy of Machine Gun Etiquette in the dollar bin at my university bookstore, and discovered what quickly became one of my all-time favorite rock albums. I'd previously only heard The Damned on an old episode of The Young Ones, where they sounded kind of like cartoony goths, so I wasn't expecting a record as varied and spirited as Machine Gun Etiquette, and in fact it was hard to settle on one song to represent all the record has to offer. I picked the hyper-driving title track, because it has one of the most awesome breaks in rock history, but I could've also gone with some of the glammier songs, the poppier songs, or even the ones that sound a little like Nick Cave. The Damned aren't a "piece of the puzzle" because I haven't gotten around to filling in the gaps in my collection. I mainly keep returning to Machine Gun Etiquette, a record that serves as an off-ramp from punk to the myriad styles that came next.
"Machine Gun Etiquette" by The Damned
Dan Reeder, "You'll Never Surf Again"
Reeder is a grizzled troubadour who writes a lot of jokey songs, but he sings them with such conviction—and such a honeyed tone—that he takes the typically insufferably smug singer-songwriter shtick and makes it work. This song is meant—at first—to be kind of ridiculous, and probably inspired by Reeder imagining the one piece of medical bad news that wouldn't really be so bad for him. But by the end, when Reeder starts naming all the Hawaiian beach spots that he won't get to hit, the prospect of a window closing honestly seems to choke him up. The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.
"You'll Never Surf Again" by Dan Reeder
Daniel Johnston, "Sorry Entertainer"
I'm not one of those who thinks Daniel Johnston fandom is a big sham, because there is something touchingly vulnerable about his performing style, and as the many great covers of Johnston songs have shown, he's got a natural gift for melody that suits his wide-eyed, sometimes scarily naïve lyrics. At the same time, I found a lot about the documentary The Devil And Daniel Johnston pretty chilling, and in particular the idea that to many alt-rock scenesters, Johnston's schizophrenia makes him more "authentic." They chastise Johnston's parents for squelching his gifts by loading him up with drugs, which is an easy position for the fans to take, because they don't have to live with him. In a way, the whole Daniel Johnston experience is summed up in "Sorry Entertainer," a frightening, fascinating look inside his sickness, channeled through a performance that's not the least bit controlled. One of my favorite bands, The Jody Grind, used to do a ripping cover of this song, but over time, I've come to prefer the original.
"Sorry Entertainer" by Daniel Johnston
Danielson, "Bloodbook On The Half Shell"
By and large, the Danielson discography is full of interesting experiments and heartfelt expressions of faith and doubt that—to me at least—are often more interesting to ponder than to listen to. But Daniel Smith himself has gotten better with each new project, growing the concept from "family Christian puppet show writ large" to something grander and more legitimately inspiring. Or maybe I'm just affected by the fine documentary Danielson, A Family Movie (or, Make A Joyful Noise Here). After seeing that film, the subsequent album Ships—from which this seafaring suite comes—made a lot more sense.
"Bloodbook On The Half Shell" by Danielson
Darondo, "Didn't I"
I like to think of Darondo as a proto-Cody Chesnutt, working through his lo-fi R&B/folk hybrid in the Bay Area a few decades before CC. Like most latter-day Darondo fans, I can thank Gilles Peterson for sticking this song on one of his crate-digging anthologies (and then the good people at Ubiquity Records for releasing a whole Darondo anthology). This song really is one of those proverbial "lost classics." Too raw in performance and production to ever be a hit, "Didn't I" is noteworthy for, as I wrote two years ago, "an unforced synthesis of the era's dominant soul and funk styles, which helped measure the magnitude of artists like Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and James Brown, just by standing in their shadows." I added, "Darondo wasn't just an opportunistic copycat (though his lush string hangings and cooing background singers echoed the commercial trends of the day), and he wasn't kitschy (though his songs sometimes lurch out of tune, goaded by his wrenching falsetto). The x-factor in all of these tracks is Darondo's idle, jazzy guitar, which has the intimate quality of a man sitting on the edge of his bed. If anything gives Darondo's songs their feeling of off-the-cuff R&B homage, it's the sense that he slapped them together just so he could pick a while."
"Didn't I" by Darondo
Dashboard Confessional, "The Secret's In The Telling"
I don't really have a dog in the Dashboard Confessional hunt. I wasn't one of the young people who'd apparently never heard an acoustic guitar before Chris Carrabba entered their lives, and I'm not one of those purists opposed to the kind of slick, radio-ready rock that Dashboard Confessional evolved into. In fact, when it comes to DC, I say the slicker the better. In essence, how different is this song from the Boston and Bryan Adams tracks I've posted in previous weeks, besides the absence of a built-in nostalgia factor?
"The Secret's In The Telling" by Dashboard Confessional
The Datsuns, "MF From Hell"
If last week's track from The D4 represented one of the welcome byproducts of the post-White Stripes "rockisback" movement, this would be… well, the other end. This, folks, is how you smother a musical wave in its cradle. All this shrill thudder proves is that it takes more deftness than you might think to be Motörhead.
"MF From Hell" by The Datsuns
Dave Matthews Band, "Grey Street"
I hate to disappoint those of you who'd like me to savage the DMB, but honestly, I'm pretty Matthews-neutral. He's responsible for one of the dullest concerts I've ever attended, which is probably why I've never bought any of his albums. But I've enjoyed the occasional Dave Matthews radio hit and/or late night talk show performance, and a couple of years ago I borrowed a friends' DMB collection and made a decent hour-long iPod playlist out of it. I especially like the album Busted Stuff, which is less jammy and more song-y, and holds to a simpler sound that downplays the arena-rock moves in favor of something more like FM radio circa 1978. "Grey Street" would sound just fine wedged between a song from Billy Joel's 52nd Street and Gerry Rafferty's City To City. In the early days of Inventory I pitched an idea called "Songs We Like By Bands We Don't." This song was the inspiration.
"Grey Street" by Dave Matthews Band
David Allan Coe, "Death Row"
Coe's reputation as the ultimate badass country songwriter has been stoked in large part by his lengthy stint in prison—which inspired arguably his best album, 1968' Penitentiary Blues—and by rumors of his bootleg "trucker tapes," with their X-rated, racially inflammatory lyrics. (I say "rumors" because I've never heard those records and don't know anyone who has; though when I was a teenager, I knew plenty of friends who claimed to have "a cousin" that had one.) What I like best about the grey-market Coe tapes are the song titles: "Nigger Fucker," "Cum Stains On The Pillow," "Don't Bite The Dick," "Fuckin' In The Butt," and then, out of nowhere, "Jimmy Buffet." Anyway, as this song from Penitentiary Blues should make clear, Coe clearly has a way with language.
"Death Row" by David Allan Coe
David Mead, "Comfort"
It's strange that there's no real place in today's market for Mead, a soft-rocker who shares some affinity with Paul Simon and Michael Penn. Twenty years ago, he might've been a stealth star, beloved by middle-aged office workers who probably wouldn't even know the name of the songs they were singing along with, or the name of the guy singing them. If her were one degree starker or louder, Mead might've had a James Blunt/David Powter-type career. But Mead, like Josh Rouse and some other doggedly mellow singer-songwriters, has too much invested in idea of music designed to… well, comfort.
"Comfort" by David Mead
The Dead Milkmen, "The Thing That Only Eats Hippies"
Decades before Los Campesinos! or Art Brut, Philadelphia's The Dead Milkmen poked basically harmless fun at scenesters of all stripes. I've always found their jokes pretty hit and miss, but the thoroughness of this gag-song is impressive, and a reminder of a time when the only thing punks hated worse than cops were hippies. (These days, it would be a different "H" word.) And given the subject matter I've covered these past two weeks, I especially like this line: "It ate Stills and Nash, before they could shout / And then it chewed on David Crosby, but it spit him out."
"The Thing That Only Eats Hippies" by The Dead Milkmen
Dean Martin, "Making Love Ukelele Style"
I've spent time with pretty much every one of the major crooners of the '40s and 50s, and Martin is the one whose charm eludes me almost every single time. That hitch in his voice—coupled with his lazy, drunk persona—keeps me at bay for some reason. I just don't hear any enthusiasm, passion or genuine conviction in anything he sings. He's arguably at his best on trifles like this, where indifference is a virtue.
"Making Love Ukelele Style" by Dean Martin
Debra Cowan, "Has He Got A Friend For Me?"
I first encountered this morose Richard & Linda Thompson ballad via Maria McKee's self-titled solo album, where the former Lone Justice frontwoman makes it sound like the lament of a woman who's long ago given up. Cowan's version isn't more hopeful exactly, but Cowan's desperation is at least more conversational. She's not expecting much, but she does still want to stay in the game. No matter the interpretation, I have yet to hear a version of this song that wasn't one of the most sadly beautiful—and, frankly, relatable—songs I've ever heard.
"Has He Got A Friend For Me" by Debra Cowan
The Delgados, "All You Need Is Hate"
On the whole, The Delgados' 2000 LP The Great Eastern is their defining moment, for the way it lets shapeless folk-pop songs first drift then surge, with the able assistance of producer Dave Fridmann. The follow-up, Hate, is far more bombastic, and loses some of the grace that makes The Great Eastern great. On the other hand, Hate contains The Delgados' best song, a smartass inversion of a handful of well-known rock love songs, polished up with an ironically Spector-esque sheen.
"All You Need Is Hate" by The Delgados
Regrettably unremarked upon: Dan Penn, Dangerdoom, Daniel Lanois, Dappled Cities, Darlene Love, David Porter, Dead Kennedys, The Deadly Snakes, Deerhoof, Def Leppard, The Del Lords, Delbert McClinton and Delta 5
Also
listened to: Damien
Dempsey, Damien Rice, The Damn Personals, The
Damnwells, Damon Aaron, Damon Bramblett,
Dan Bern, Dan Deacon, Dan Hicks & His
Hot Licks, Dana Cooper, Danbert Nobacon, Dandy Warhols,
Danielle Howle, Danielle Peck, Danny
Barnes, Danny Dell, Danny Flowers, Danny Pound,
Dantalion's Chariot, Daphne Loves Derby, Darden Smith, The Dark Fantastic, The
Dark Romantics, Dark Side Of The Cop, Darker My
Love, Darol Anger, Darondo, Darrel Rhodes, Darrell
Scott, Darryl Worley, Daryl Leroi Gleming,
Dash Crofts, Dave & Ansel Collins, Dave
Alvin, Dave Bartholomew, Dave Derby, Dave
Hollister, Dave Olney, Dave Van Ronk, David & David, David &
The Citizens, David Andersen, David Arkenstone, David Ball,
David Bazan, David Childers & The Modern Don Juans,
David Dondero, David Essex, David Fridlund, David Joseph, David Karsten
Daniels, David Kilgour, David Ruffin, David Schwartz, David Shire, David
Tomlinson, David Vandervelde, Dawn, Dawn Of A Piccolo, A Day
In Black And White, Days Like These, Dayton Sidewinders, De Kift, The
Dead Bodies, Dead Meadow, Dead Voices On Air,
Deadboy & The Elephantmen, Deadstring
Brothers, Dean & Britta, Deana Varagona, Dear John
Letters, Dear Leader, Death From Above 1979, Death In Vegas, Death
Vessel, The Deathray Davies, DeBarge, Debra Cowan, Decahedron, Decibully,
Decomposure, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dee Dee Sharp, Dee Edwards, Dee
Robert, Deep Dish, Deer Tick, Degenerate
Art Ensemble, The Del McCoury Band, Del Shannon, Delays, The
Delfonics, Delma Lachney & Blind Uncle Gaspard, The Delta Rhythm Boys,
Deltron 3030, Delux, Den McTaggart, Denison Witmer, Deodato,
Department 5, The Departure and Departure Lounge
Next week: From Destroyer to Dwight Yoakum, plus a few words on my country-rock problem.
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