San Diego Serenade

“Baseball season will be starting soon” begins Going to Tennessee by The Mountain Goats. Fortunately, the next line “But we have no baseball team here” need not apply to us here in San Diego, nor any longer to my family back in Virginia. One might think that with the latest news about Barry Bonds, steroids, and the web of lies, deception and cover-ups concerning those topics, that it would be impossible to retain the same child-like excitement I once had regarding America’s pastime. One would be very, very wrong.

I find it even easier these days to romanticize the game of baseball, in spite of its glaring flaws. The fact of the matter is that there will always be dozens of memories I will have of the game that I reminsice about fondly, beer in hand, before Barry Bonds, the strike of ‘94 or DC Councilwoman Linda Cropp come to mind. Among these include:

-Skipping school to see the Orioles opening day at the height of my childhood baseball fandom in 1989 with my dad and grandfather, where we sat in the bleachers and sang “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey Goodbye” as a brawling drunken couple was escorted from the stands
-Watching the Red Sox’s 2004 World Series run, where a roar of the crowd across the street at Nick’s signified that something great was about to happen on my five second delayed cable

-Every phone call I made during the course of last seasons ill fated “Mets vs Nationals” bet.
-The first time I ever heard that bell tolling in the 9th as an entire stadium of Padres fans rose to their feet
-Remembering where I was and who I was with when Cal broke the streak, Luis Gonzalez beat the Yankees and McGwire hit 62
-The time that several friends bet heavily on “watch” mode on RBI Baseball, where the computer proceeded to play out an extra innings contest so dramatic that the next door neighbors had to come over to see what all the shouting was about
-Performing James Earl Jones’ “Baseball Speech” from Field of Dreams with full band accompaniment at a concert last December
-Attending my first Nats game in the nation’s capital on the Fourth of July last year and thinking “Yeah, this feels right”

And fortunately, for us romanticizers, baseball has more and better music associated with it than any other sport. For those of you who remain skeptical about the inherent goodness of the upcoming season, I’ve prepared a short 9 inning program for you to get yourself pumped. It starts slow, and saves the big guns for the end. We’ll begin below:
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Here we go with another installment of everyones favorite chart, where we examine Big Champagne style, what the most popular albums are at a chosen internet site. Links will go to places with more information or samples of the particular album. And since it is raining outside, I wrote a haiku for each album.

1. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics

Were these lyrics done:
“Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah”
With all your power?

2. Built To Spill - You In Reverse

At least one hipster
Will continue to insist
He misses “Mike Jones!”

3. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones

There’s one conclusion:
Challenge the Flaming Lips to
A Yeah Yeah Yeah-off

4. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

Ghost, RZA, GZA
M-E-T-H-O-D Man
The Haiku-Tang Clan

5. Band of Horses - Everything All The Time

Too late for U2,
They could have taken the stage
To “The Funeral”

6. The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea

When talking song suites
“A Quick One While He’s Away”
I prefer hands down

7. T.I. - King

The Rubber Band Man
He’s wild as the Taliban
My two T.I. facts

8. Tapes ‘n Tapes - The Loon

If my kids ask me
Whether I liked Tapes ‘n Tapes
I will be surprised

9. The Zutons - Tired Of Hanging Around

Made a Levi’s ad
Where the guy gets his pants back
Instead of the girl

10. Massive Attack - Collected

Strokes, Hives, not The Vines
I would rather listen to
Than Massive Attack

I imagine this will be a divisive song on the Flaming Lips new album, but I don’t think there is any shame in admitting that it is far and away my favorite. It’s by definitely the most fun song on the album, and has the most propulsive music and infectious sound to boot. Check out the video:

In other cool Flaming Lips news, The Whistle Stop Bar is having a CD listening party on Monday April 3rd in celebration of the new album, which you can then purchase at Midnight at M-Theory Music, just down the street. They’re going to be playing commentary from the band along with the album, and you get a free limited edition 7″ vinyl among other goodies they’re gonna be giving away.

Also, over at the Flaming Lips homepage, you can now listen to the whole album and read Wayne Coyne’s explanatory notes for each song, thereby forever eliminating any confusion whatsoever about what these songs are about.

If you’re a fan of Tom Waits’ weird stuff, like Rain Dogs, Frank’s Wild Years and his latest Real Gone, check out the above video. It’s of two songs from a date in Amsterdam on the Real Gone tour. Take note of what is going on musically when Waits isn’t singing. The drumbeat just sort of lurches on at the same pace, the bass isn’t really a factor, but that guitarist…It wasn’t until I watched this bootleg concert that I realized how much of Tom Waits’ signature sound comes from the efforts of his guitarist Marc Ribot. It’s sort of like a rapper working with a favorite producer, in the sense that the Rakim may be fine on his own, but if you ever wonder why he never achieved the heights of his first few albums again, you may want to take a closer look at the less heralded Eric B.

Now that I’ve pointed out how integral and distinct Ribot’s work is on Waits’ records, every time you hear a solo or distinctive guitar riff, it’s going to stand out, kind of like how you never noticed the arrow in the FedEx logo until someone pointed it out to you. You can thank me for that later. For now, you ought to check out the large body of solo work that Ribot has amassed with various projects. In addition to playing with other artists as diverse as Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello, Medeski, Martin & Wood and Harry Shearer(?) he has released several very interesting solo albums that I didn’t know about until yesterday.

My favorite, and infinitely the most listenable to the non-fan of crazy avant garde music, of all of his solo works are the two albums he recorded with the Los Cubanos Postizos. Translated as The Prosthetic Cubans, (rivaled maybe only by Keith Richards and the X-pensive Winos as the greatest backing band name in history), they interpret traditional Cuban music Ribot-style. So imagine that sharp, metallic guitar snaking its way across shuffling Latin rhythms in the kind of marriage so unholy that of course it ends up working. Anyone who all of a sudden realized two paragraphs ago that a big part of what they like about Tom Waits is the work of his guitarist would be advised to check these two albums out today.

MP3: Baile Baile Baile from Muy Divertido! his second album with the Prosthetic Cubans.
The first was simply titled The Prosthetic Cubans.

Video of the group performing courtesy of archive.org

San Diego CityBeat came out with their exhaustive and excellent local music issue today. It’s full of interesting articles about local bands and local music, and it is all available on their website. Besides the great demo review project they put together, there are some more interesting musings about music in San Diego. These include:

-Obervations and predictions for ‘06. My favorite is “In an attempt to take disinterested hipster cred to new levels, someone will drag the Casbah’s Pac Man game into the main room during a sold-out show and play for the entire set without once looking up.”

-13 Local bands being asked how they came up with their name. Holiday & The Adventure Pop Collective was “Inspired by titles like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the band put together a batch of words that gave the feeling of escape.“

And then of course there is the reviews of demo tapes the magazine received. There is a Best Of section, but that is not nearly as entertaining as the Rest Of section. After sifting through not nearly as many entries for the NH5D soundtrack project, I can definitely relate to wanting to accurately and viciously describe how bad a song is. I just didn’t have the balls to put statements out there in the fashion that the CityBeat did. I mean what if at some point in time through some horrible twist of fate I actually met the person about whom I wrote:

The cheese and schmaltz remained funny until my own penis actually receded into my body. Wait. Hold on… yep, I’m a girl now. Thanks, Andy!

Or

This album came with a note announcing that, “If you’ve ever heard of the Beatles you will like this CD.” Well I’ve never heard of these Beatles guys, but if they sound anything like Weckel, then the only people who are going to like them are coffeehouse art-fags who dig bad David Bowie impressions. The aural equivalent to spilling a grande brew-of-the-day in your crotch.

That second one Definitely makes me want to hear the album, but I can’t find any info on the artist, Will Weckel. Below are a few more artists on the “Rest Of” list that sounded intriguing to me, along with CityBeat review excerpts and attempts to track down their music to sample.
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The Smoking Gun has an interesting gallery of Pre-Prepared CNN Obituaries so that if any number of notable people die, they can have a lead story image ready to go. You have to imagine that if there is any musician out there that warrants that treatment, it has to be The Libertines’ Pete Doherty. Not really because of his accomplishments, but just because everyone sees it coming, so you might as well knock it out during a slow five minutes just to be ready.

Rolling Stone has a pretty fascinating article detailing a reporter’s attempts to interview Doherty. Along the way he watches him snort, smoke and shoot a wide variety of substances, gets in a car with him for some reason, and even gets a few coherent thoughts out of the man, who seems like he definitely has an intelligent mind and a not too abnormal upbringing. I am a fan of the man’s music, but was wondering where people thought he might wind up in the pantheon when the inevitable happens. I see it breaking down five different ways:

1. The Shannon Hoon - as Chuck Klosterman says, the Blind Melon singer proves that dying young is not always a one way ticket to becoming a rock legend.

2. The Bradley Nowell - Sublime became and remains exceedingly popular after he died, and inspires a few “what if he were still around” moments, but nobody laments him as being a genius that died before his time

3. The Gram Parsons - I don’t know much about him, but decades after his death the consensus seems to be that he was a pioneer who died too young, even if the style he pioneered, (Country-rock), never really got that big and nobody really listens to him.

4. The Jeff Buckley - Became a legend after he died, and his shortened body of work is celebrated while wondering what could have been, but you get the feeling that if he were still around he’d be considered “Just OK”

5. The Kurt Cobain - Indisputable tragedy, a legend, decried only by people who want to be contrary, even if the points they make are valid.

I feel like he’d have to release one more pretty amazing album before the KC became a possibility, but I wanted to see what everyone thought, plus I found this cool poll utility and wanted to try it out.

As mentioned below, my recent trip to NYC ended with a frustrated me being forced to listen to a CD by an unknown artist until my friend saw fit to borrow a roomates computer that my ipod could plug into. In a strange twist of fate, I got to the point where I actually didn’t want the CD we were listening to to end. Had the circumstances surrounding my being in that apartment been different, had I not been beaten down by a weekend in the big city, or had I possessed a CD of the band I wanted to listen to rather than the ipod, I may have been more willing to take action and dickishly play what I wanted to right off the bat. As it stood, I sort of sat there while my friend brought me ginger ale and peanuts, and took in the music of David Shultz.

I don’t know much about the man, nor do I ever expect to. From his tour dates, I suspect he lives in New York, but he plays on Friday at Coupe De Ville’s, (widely renowned as the worst bar at UVA, and paradoxically one of the few that endorses live music), so there may be a UVA connection as well. I think that his music is best summed up by a line from his album closer “Of All The Things”: “I recognize the familiar sound / It’s like a song I’ve heard a thousand times before / or maybe I’ve never heard it at all.” I think that his music is like 1,000 other things done right.

Imagine your typical guy with a guitar, but take away the baseball cap and make him sound genuine. Put a little bit of whiskey in his voice. Kick the tempo up every now to keep things rockin’. Don’t mention the ladies by name, they already know who they are. And most importantly, make sure that the guitar and harmonica sound mournful enough that when you realize that the song is making you sad, you suddenly understand that it’s because you’re not sure if anyone else you know is ever gonna hear this guy’s songs.

I realized that right about song 3, and by the time the record was almost over, the thought of other people not hearing these songs I had heard had become a devastating proposition. Fortunately, I am a man of action who is going to do his best to make damn sure that these songs don’t go unheard by you, the discerning reader of a stranger’s blog. So here’s what I suggest that you do: Check out these two songs, check out Shultz’s myspace site and then, (this is the big step), register for a free trial at eMusic and use some of your 50 free downloads to get the rest of his CD. eMusiccan do no wrong by me. Their free trial is a cancel anytime, no strings attached policy, they’re gotten rave write ups from Rolling Stone, and every other music blog you will read will endorse them whole heartedly. Best of all, within five minutes you can be downloading Dave Shultz’s self titled album, plus My Morning Jacket, The Meat Puppets, The Arcade Fire, etc.

David Shultz Myspace

MP3: The Flaws & Tones

Front page news in the U-T today, thanks to an anonymous commenter for the tip. Check out the article, looks like it’s gone for good now. I think that supporters should have gathered outside town hall and chanted “Let Them Play! Let Them Play!” like the kids did at the middle school birthday party that Kevin Arnold’s band “The Electric Shoes” were supposed to play at on The Wonder Years.

I could pretend like I’m upset about missing the bands, or the spirit of community that was going to bring us all closer together, but damn…I really can’t imagine how great of a debacle a bona fide hot dog eating contest could have been…

Shaky video of early Raconteurs gigs have turned up on YouTube. Above is a cover of David Bowie’s “It Ain’t Easy” which is awesome. The video is right around D+ quality though, so it is fortunate that better quality MP3s of another show have also turned up, and are posted at Tea With Tufty. After listening to just the Bowie cover and the set opener, I have far more faith in the band. In fact, I even feel bad for doubting that Jack White would participate in something non-awesome. Below is a video for “Steady As She Goes”, the single which made me uneasy.

Lastly is a Charlie Rose interview with Jack and Meg, where he discusses Hipsters in candid terms. I always think it is silly to see the term “hipster” used in a legitimate context, such as a PBS interview or a New York Times article, and this is no exception. What Jack White says, that had not crossed my mind before, is that the the fickle “looking for the next big thing” nature of hipsters moving from band to band at breakneck pace does not simply cause there to be fewer “classic” bands that stand the test of time, but that this is more of an intentional maneuver, because hipsters don’t want to be associated with anything that is old and uncool. It’s not that they got former forgotten buzz bands wrong, it’s that they never wanted to be right: just cool. It’s always strange to hear bonafide wealthy rock stars talking about things like this, but you have to figure he has more experience with it than most other people, so as before, I’m inclined to agree with the man.

As a final note, if you are ever looking for MP3s or reviews of recently played concerts, try using blog search engines such as Technorati. Whereas the big dogs such as Google and Yahoo can be unpredictable with their update schedules, sometimes taking days, blogs tell Technorati when they update, allowing them to be right on top of the latest postings. That’s how I found these MP3s, a process which would have been more difficult and frustrating at Google.

I emailed the guys in The Vision Of A Dying World a few times the past week, and I like to imagine that the guy in the band reading my emails is the guy in the bottom right corner of the above photo, and that he reads the emails with the exact facial expression he has in the picture. Anyways, they have a new banjo driven song that rules that I thought people would want to hear.

The Vision Of A Dying World - Beaver King