Reading in LA TOMORROW!

I can hardly believe it myself, but I will be reading from my book at the Hammer Museum in LA tomorrow evening at 7.

Incidentally, I learned a lot from this article, and I think you can, too. (Thanks to the RT List!)

Screengrab Review: Six Man, Texas

I'm proud of this review. It has some clunky writing, yep. But it's not too far from how I pictured it. That means everyone else will most likely hate it.

Plus, I forgot to post it, but here's a column about My Neighbor Totoro from last week.

Remember that these are at Nerve.com, which has some smutty content (although not on this blog). Browse accordingly!

Music Library: Ben Vaughn, Benko, Benny Goodman, Benoit Charest, Bernard Herrmann, Bernie Worrell, Bert Jansch, Bertha Lee and Charley Patton, Bessie Smith, Betsy In The Gene Pool, Betty LaVette, Beulah, Bevis Frond

Ben Vaughn - "Dressed in Black" and "I Dig Your Wig." These are from Halloween mixes by David Smay, I think. Pretty good bluesy-swamp rock.

Benko - An International Affair. This is the debut EP by Benko, a very interesting and fun Austin trio of drums, bass, and vibes. At Obscurity headquarters, we love Benko! But this reminds me that I have as yet failed to pick up their first full-length album, which came out at the end of August. Will do so soon!



Benny Goodman - "Sing Sing Sing." Swingin'!

Benoit Charest - "Belleville rendez-vous." Funny that this should crop up right after Benny Goodman, as there's certainly some familiarity between the two. This is the song from Les Triplettes de Belleville, the delightful, but deeply weird animated film from a few years ago.

Bernard Herrmann - Vertigo Original Motion Picture Score. That's cinematic! I am now filled with a vague sense of foreboding and an overwhelming need to sit down.

Bernie Worrell - Pieces of Woo: The Other Side. Surprisingly un-funky, this is a mostly jazz-oriented affair. It's - unsurprisingly - produced by Bill Laswell and has a lot of his influence in the sound. A few tracks are collaborations with Fred Wesley, who was James Brown's bandleader for a very long time. Some have Buckethead on guitar.

Bert Jansch - Dazzling Stranger and The Black Swan. Jansch is one of the greats of Brit-folk, the John Fahey to John Renbourn's Leo Kottke and Richard Thompson's... uh, Richard Thompson. Dazzling Stranger is a compilation of Jansch solo and tracks with The Pentangle, Jansch's eclectic 60s folk-rock band with Renbourn, Danny Thompson (who tours with Richard Thompson now and fronts the jazz-fusion band Whatever), Terry Cox, and Jacqui McShee. He's dabbled in blues, hippie folk, swirling rock, and lots of gorgeous fingerstyle acoustic guitar. Neil Young once said that Jansch had done for the acoustic guitar what Hendrix did for the electric. There's lots of standout tracks over the course of his career, but the tops are "Needle of Death" (recently a frequent cover of Yo La Tengo's), "Blackwaterslide" (covered by Jimmy Page on Led Zep's first album), "Reynardine" (more familiar from the Fairport Convention version), "When I Get Home," and "Train Song," (both of which I'll discuss more when and if I get to the Pentangle before I die of old age). I should mention how much I like Jansch's voice, too, which is not just world-weary and craggy but also lilting and pleasant. The Black Swan is a Drag City album from 2006 with Beth Orton and Devendra Banhart popping up, probably hoping to do for Jansch what Banhart and Animal Collective did for Vashti Bunyan: make this underappreciated 60s icon a touchpoint for younger music lovers. It's a killer album.

Bertha Lee and Charley Patton - "Mind Reader Blues" and "Yellow Bee." I'm not sure why these are under Bertha Lee instead of Charley Patton. Excellent early folk blues.

Bessie Smith - The Collection. More early blues from one of the all-time great blues singers.

Betsy in the Gene Pool - "Slow in the Left Lane." An alt-country band from North Carolina who moved to Texas around the time I did, but then vanished. Decent song, but I don't remember whether they had more that would stick around like this one.

Betty LaVette - "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got." Here's a gaping hole in my music collection. This is the only song I have by Ms. LaVette, who has a wonderful raspy soul voice and uses it to powerful effect on this cover of Sinead O'Connor's a capella tune.

Beulah - John Peel Session 4/20/2000, The Coast Is Never Clear, Live on KCRW 9/25/2001, Netherlands Radio 8/26/2001. So that's one studio album and three live shows? Weird. I got the live shows from that site that used to post Elephant 6 bootlegs. Does that exist anymore? I don't know. Beulah plays horn-heavy, somewhat-psychedelic power pop. You make music that could be described that way, and chances are I'll like it.

The Bevis Frond - He'd Be A Diamond. This is a compilation of the psych-rock band by my friend Jon B. They sound a bit like one very ambitious guy covering every song on the Nuggets box.

3 from 33 1/3

That's hard to read. Lemme put this on a different server so it will be clickable for a larger image.

A HUNGRY NATION ASKS: WHERE'S MY HAT?

Dear Readers, Writers, Friends of the High Hat, and Those Anxiously Awaiting Our Imminent Demise:

Time is the subject of the High Hat Issue 10, and Time has been our enemy this year. We the editors have been so involved in our personal projects this year that we have consistently allowed the next promised issue to take a backseat to our other endeavors. This is a less-than-ideal situation, naturally.

Therefore, it is with all due apologies that we hereby inform you that Issue 10 IS forthcoming. In fact, we want to expand it to the heretofore-unseen DOUBLE ISSUE.

This DOUBLE ISSUE will be published in December 2008. We will feature our current articles on Time, and we proudly expand our special feature idea to include The End Of An Era. Call it Death if you must. In fact, call it Death anyway, but don't be literal.

Time and Death. Has a certain ring to it, yes?

This special topic will and must include articles about politics (apparently there is some sort of political shindig in the USA at the moment), personal loss, doors closing while others open, that sort of thing.

Pitch now! Write soon! Publish in December! Contact us at highhatsubmissionsATgmailDOTcom.

Having Fun On Stage With Barack and Johnny-Boy

Wow, it's nice to see them act like adults, but a little disconcerting, too, to see how easily they (and especially McCain, who's gone for the more cutthroat rhetoric) step away from everything they're saying on the road.

Music Library: The Bee Gees, Bee Vs. Moth, Beechwood Sparks, Beirut, Belinda Gillet, Belle and Sebastian, Belt Buckle

The Bee Gees - Bee Gees' 1st and "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart": The first Bee Gees album is a slice of Aussie wannaBeatles-ishness. Lots of swirling psychedelia, not all of it interesting, a few that sound like they took pieces of Beatles songs and mixed them together differently. The most prominent of these is "In My Own Time," which is built on a bassline and guitar part stolen from "Taxman," but with a phased (maybe backwards) guitar lead stolen from "Tomorrow Never Knows." The best track is the stellar "To Love Somebody," which has rightfully been covered often by other bands. "Broken Heart" is a delicious chunk of drippy 70s pop.


Bee Vs. Moth - "Doom Equity" and "Tjamis;": Two tracks by the primary creative outlet of my bandmate and friend Philip Moody. Bee Vs. Moth is avant-jazzy but unabrasive, sometimes veering closer to the fake jazz of Universal Congress Of and sometimes to an almost Ellingtonian swing. Lots of chops on display in the instruments, but the chops never overrun the swell and swing of the songs. I need to get off my hindquarters and pick up the rest of this album.


Beechwood Sparks - "Ghost Dance 1492". This must be off of a mix I got from someone in the past, but it's lost to history now. Good song that reminds me of the Olivia Tremor Control. The album cover that iTunes selected for this is a Jim Woodring drawing, which is awesome.

Beirut - Gulag Orkestar and "Elephant Gun": I was curious about this because the reviews made it sound like gypsy indie rock. Which is about right. It's Eastern European music (I don't know from Romany) with an indie-rock bent to the lyrics. It's interesting, but a little light on substance. Especially since a major touchstone for this band seems to be Neutral Milk Hotel, who were anything but light on substance. The other major touchstone is, I think, Arcade Fire, who are similarly light. So there's that.


Belinda Gillet - "Someone Hates You." A free track from eMusic. Not really my thing. Sounds like a song intended for a season-ending montage on a teen-heavy show. Or a sing-a-long in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, and I think I've already established that I'm not crazy about Aimee Mann. Strangely, at the halfway point, the music stops, and there's 3 minutes of silence following the less-than-3 minute track. I expected a hidden track or something, but no. Probably will delete for that reason.


Belle and Sebastian:

• Tigermilk, Dog On Wheels EP, If You're Feeling Sinister, Lazy Line Painter Jane EP, 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light EP, and The Boy With The Arab Strap: I don't know how wrong it is to review these together. But I'm going to. This whole run of music is utter delight, an admixture of childhood whimsy, late-teen/young-adult pose, and world-weary grown-up reflection, all built around this odd nostalgia for music that never existed before (to steal a line about the completely dissimilar Jonathan Richman). I mean, most of these tracks could have been recorded at any moment between 1966 and the present, and yet they are also so distinctly the product of the 90s, and I don't know how to reconcile this. I need to read Scott Plagenhoef's 33 1/3 book about If You're Feeling Sinister, I think. There's so many wonderful songs that I'm not going to even try to list them all. I will say that my favorite of all of these is The Boy With The Arab Strap, which was the first B&S album I bought, and therefore the first one I wholeheartedly embraced.
• Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant and Storytelling: The earlier of these is such a weird album. B&S went more democratic in songwriting, which led to some songs that sound like Lee Hazlewood and some that sound like, I dunno, Melanie or some other 70s folky-girl. And some that sound like B&S. Just odd. The latter of these is the soundtrack to the miserable Todd Solondz movie (was that redundant?). Apparently, very little of B&S's music appeared in the film, but unfortunately, the album is peppered with dialogue from the movie. The songs range from ultra-light to okay.
• John Peel Christmas Party 12/18/2002: Maybe it's wrong to admit this about a goofy Christmas show, but this is my absolute favorite Peel Session. I like how bands always seemed to let down their hair and have a blast on his show, but B&S throw everything out the window. It sounds like a drunken great time. They start with "O Come, All Ye Faithful," a fairly reverent version driven by organ, bass, and cymbals. Then they just let loose: "Christmas Time Is Here" (from the Charlie Brown Xmas Special), the Sonics' "Santa Claus," a couple of original tunes, James Brown's "Santa Claus, Go Straight To The Ghetto," more Christmas songs with a few originals (including a killer version of "The Boy With The Arab Strap"), all leading up to a sublimely ridiculous version of "The Twelve Days Of Christmas."
• Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit: These solidify the slightly-schizo B&S from Fold Your Hands Child into a 70s-AM pop melange. The Life Pursuit is the better of the two because there's a little more T. Rex in there and a little less Starland Vocal Band.

Belt Buckle - Belt Buckle EP. A four-song one-off collaboration between Eric Matthews, Lou Barlow, and Bob Fay. Barlow & Fay, as you may know, were in Sebadoh. Matthews was one of the two artistes behind Cardinal, one of my favorite chamber-pop purveyors, and has gone on to a creatively successful (if not financially so) solo career. Two of the songs are clearly Barlow tracks, and not among his best. The other two are Matthews songs, not quite up to the heights of his later work, but okay. I don't know if it's just my version, but the mix is awful.

Music Library: Beck, Bedbug, Bedhead

Anyway.


Beck:

• Mellow Gold: I listened to this constantly when it came out, but it sounds pretty uneven to me now. Still some greatness and some filler.
• Odelay: The weird little Scientologist's magnum opus to my ears.
• Mutations: Os Mutantes is awesome, yes, but I don't hear their influence that strongly on this album, despite the way the majority of the reviews honed in on the song "Tropicalia" and declared the album was Beck doing Brazil. It's good, but a lot more folk-rock-pop (I do hear some Love on a few of the songs), and nowhere near as groundbreaking as Odelay.
• Midnite Vultures: Ah, Prince is awesome, yes, but again with the yada yada his influence not that strong despite the reviews yada, okay. I mean, there's always going to be something cold and alien about Beck, right? That's one of his strengths, really, that intellectual approach to sound. So his take on sex music sounds like puppets fucking.
• Sea Change: Some Beck fans consider this one of the all-time great breakup albums. I know from great breakup albums. While this isn't a bad mopey album, it's not up there with the major league hitters like Shoot Out The Lights and Blood On The Tracks. The touchstone here is Serge Gainsbourg, with at least one track ripping off the guitar and strings from Gainsbourg's amazing Histoire de Melody Nelson album.
• The Information: I've listened to this quite a few times and still have no opinion on it. I can barely recall any of the songs, although none annoyed me, either. One track steals the drums from another Serge Gainsbourg song, but only for a little while. Just a lot of blah, which is disappointing from the guy.

Bedbug - "Big Day": Local band doing the indie-rock noise+hooks thing. It's not a world-changer or anything, but I like this song.

Bedhead:

• What Fun Life Was: So much of the Bedhead sound is there right at the beginning. There's cymbal-heavy drums, layers and layers of clean guitars, melancholy melodies, sleepy vocals. Great stuff
• 4-SongEP1910: Recorded in one take live in a church, this one is similar to the debut album, although with maybe a little bit more Sterling Morrison than in the later works.
• Beheaded: Sounds like a statement of purpose from the opening notes. I don't know how Bedhead does it. They make music that sounds like it should be an overwhelming squall of noise and yet it somehow sleepy and restful and almost ambient in places (and although I never saw them live, I have seen the Bedhead outgrowth The New Year, which performs the same trick while actually squalling like a damn noise factory). My favorite track is "The Rest Of The Day," which has an amazing cumulative effect after n repetitions of the same coda over and over again.
• Dark Ages EP: Three songs with increased use of feedback and dynamics. The cumulative effect is especially on display in "Inhume," one of my favorite Bedhead tracks.
• Transaction de Novo: Utterly brilliant. Transcendentally beautiful. Indie rock at its finest. My favorites are "More Than Ever," "Half-thought," and "Lepidoptera."