American Songwriter » November/December 2009

Austin City Limits: On The Money

Lynne Margolis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:00:21 +0000

When Austin City Limits aired its first show in 1976, its originators had no idea it would make it past one season, much less become the longest-running live music show in television history. Thirty-five years later, the PBS program that helped put Austin on the map as the “live music capital of the world” is celebrating this anniversary with an amazing season featuring acts from Allen Toussaint and Esperanza Spalding to Elvis Costello and Pearl Jam, a successful namesake festival, a new Web site and a new studio under construction downtown. Oh, and official designation by Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum as the nation’s 10th rock and roll historic site. When rock hall president and CEO Terry Stewart came to Austin to announce the site’s selection, he noted, “We’re landmarking the physical space, but more importantly, we’re landmarking the program. … it’s been a part of everybody’s life who loves music.” That the show, taped in KLRU-TV’s Studio 6A on the University of Texas campus, has remained on the air so long is an extraordinary feat, especially when one considers the vagaries of funding in the non-profit public broadcasting realm. That ACL taped its first hip-hop acts—Mos Def and K’naan—on Oct. 1, the day it received the rock hall plaque, is an indicator of how it’s been able to do so. Though it still carries an allegiance to the roots/Americana acts that formed its foundation (Willie Nelson taped the pilot in 1974 and Asleep at the Wheel was the debut-season opener in 1976; they finally performed together for a show that will air in November), ACL has since diverged widely into indie rock, soul, jazz and many other musical idioms. The 35th season opened October 3 with the Dave Matthews Band’s maiden appearance—which aired just as the band walked offstage after its debut gig at the Austin City Limits Festival, now in its eighth year. The festival itself, now the fifth largest of its kind in the country, was an attempt to draw younger audiences to the show and expand the “brand.” And the new studio, funded in part by Nelson, will become a year-round live music venue in addition to allowing studio configurations for audiences of up to 2,500, instead of the current 300. That means more potential donor support; the show is funded largely by corporate and individual donations, and donors do get free tickets (as do lucky members of the public). Musing about the secret to ACL’s success as he introduced a sneak-preview airing of the Willie and the Wheel segment at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville last month, executive producer Terry Lickona said, “I often think it’s the free beer that we distribute to the audience at the tapings, because it loosens everybody up.” Of course, the show’s musical evolution is not universally applauded; one still hears grumblings from Austin icons who have never been invited to appear. Others fear that tickets will no longer be free at the new venue, though Lickona assures that they will remain so for the time being. Maintaining its intimacy despite the capacity growth (which will increase vertically; the 10,000-square-foot floor area will be about the same) is another issue. As he taped his second segment in five years, Costello remarked, “I hope they take a lot of the magic with them.” But even veterans like Matthews share the sentiment uttered by Gordy Quist of Austin’s Band of Heathens, whose segment airs with Costello’s November 7. Quist called playing on that now-landmark stage, where the ghosts of Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Stevie Ray Vaughan and so many others have stepped, “a check-it-off-the-list kind of gig … one of the things to do before you die.” And Costello also noted, “When you stagger back to your hotel room after your own show, you can turn on Austin City Limits and see how it’s really done.”

RADIOHEAD > Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief

Evan Schlansky — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:00:19 +0000

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RADIOHEAD Kid A Amnesiac Hail to the Thief (CAPITOL) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Radiohead’s OK Computer tour nearly killed them. After much soul-searching, they had created one of the most beloved albums of the 20th century. However, like all good ‘90s alternative rock bands, they were mortified by success, and the conveyor belt of endless self-promotion was nearly too much for them to bear. While no one wanted Radiohead to do anything differently, for the restlessly inventive British gloom rockers, the path was clear—change or die. So they reconvened in their evil, damp castle, threw out all the rules, fed themselves a steady diet of Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin, and cranked out Kid A, the recorded birth pangs of a band undergoing a Kafka-esque metamorphosis. It, too, nearly killed them. Where OK Computer featured rock anthems about alienation in a spiritually bankrupt world, Kid A was music for paranoid androids. Where the last two albums had been packed tightly with classics, Kid A featured tracks like “Treefingers,” three minutes and 43 seconds of ambient sound. But there was something that kept pulling you back in, and that was the albums’ deep textures and dark melodies. The heavily processed “Kid A” was a fist in the face, an open challenge to their fans. “In Limbo” was admirably atonal and discordant. “Idioteque” and “Optimistic” are apocalyptic anthems. The quickly released follow-up, Amnesiac, featured more half-songs, but also, more stone-cold Radiohead classics, like “You and Whose Army?,” “Pyramid Song,” and the intensely gorgeous “Life in a Glasshouse,” which used a skronky jazz horn section to achieve its creepy grandeur. Playing the new material live, back to back with their older songs, put it all in context. “Kid A” even got a melodic makeover. The band seemed to finally find some contentment, and it couldn’t have hurt that their personal Rites of Spring had been so well-received. 2003’s song cycle of Bushian angst, Hail to the Thief brought the guitar anthem back, but not without the bleeps and bloops; those were part of the landscape now. While it didn’t receive the same acclaim as its predecessors, it’s a wholly satisfying album, featuring some of the band’s strongest material (“Myxomatosis,” “2+2 = 5,” “Wolf at the Door”). The real reason to pick up these deluxe editions are the B-sides their bundled with. Amnesiac’s “Gagging Order” is flatly gorgeous, featuring a solo Thom Yorke on acoustic guitar. “Cuttooth’s” surging rhythms sounds like a precursor to In Rainbows. Others, like "Fast-Track," are music to go mad to. Recently, Yorke expressed his weariness with making full albums, and hinted that the band may remain focused on singles for the time being. If that’s the case, these albums are even more precious and deserving of reverence.

Behind The Song: “Abraham, Martin and John”

David Freeland — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:31:11 +0000

“Abraham, Martin and John” Written by Dick Holler I can’t recall who first outlined for me the distinction between “art of its age” and “art for the ages,” but, over the years, I’ve thought of it often when approaching pop songs as a fan and critic. As a marketable commodity, one which reflects current patterns and trends, popular music tends to evince, sometimes awkwardly, the cultural reference points of the time in which it was created. Of course, every work of art dates to a certain extent; however, art that dates well can move beyond temporal boundaries in a way that speaks to us about our lives in the present. Applied to pop music, it’s the difference between a performance that sounds fresh each time we approach it (“Respect,” for example, or “Like a Rolling Stone”) and one whose charms are more evanescent, rooted in a specific time and place. “Abraham, Martin and John,” a lovely comeback hit for rocker Dion DiMucci, aka Dion, in late 1968, seems to fall into the latter category. Well-received by critics and listeners at the time (it rose to the No. 4 position on Billboard’s pop chart), it has since come to be regarded generally as mawkish and trite. The true gem of the single, it has been argued by writer Dave Marsh and others, lies on its flip side: the insistent, bluesy “Daddy Rollin’ in Your Arms.” No doubt, “Abraham, Martin and John” betrays its late 1960s sensibility. Written by rock performer Dick Holler in response to the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the song expresses bewilderment through effective but simple lyrics: Anybody here seen my old friend Martin? Can you tell me where he’s gone? He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good they die young I just looked around and he was gone. “Actually,” Dion wrote in his 1988 memoir, The Wanderer, “if it had been up to me, ‘Abraham, Martin and John’ would have stayed just a young songwriter’s dream.” Then recovering from a long addiction to drugs, and working to get his career back on track, Dion didn’t see the message of the song until his mother-in-law pointed it out to him. Eventually, though, he came to view the socially conscious piece as a reflection of the state of the world and his own troubles: “I realized that what these four guys—Lincoln, King, and the Kennedys—had in common was a dream. It was like they had the courage to believe that a state of love really can exist…‘Abraham, Martin and John’ was a way of reminding people that they could aspire to great things, even in the midst of tragedy and confusion.” Certainly, some of the sentiment expressed in Holler’s composition is naïve (John F. Kennedy, as we know, was initially slow to respond to the cause of civil rights), but there is also a sweet hopefulness to the recording that transcends its limitations. Set in a plaintive key and framed with subtle orchestral backing that includes violins and harp, it exudes a warmth and sincerity that never fails to move me emotionally. I’m also struck by Dion’s marvelous performance on guitar (check out his work at the song’s fade) and the haunting, almost choir-like purity of his vocals. This is the sound of a man—and an American culture—down, in a spiritual sense, but not out. Curiously, unlike other protest works from iconic rockers (John Lennon’s “Imagine,” for instance), “Abraham, Martin and John” has not survived to become a ubiquitous element of the pop cultural landscape. Rarely is it heard in television commercials, and even radio seems to have passed it over. I can’t recall when I last heard it on an oldies station, although when I was a teenager, in the 1980s, it was played frequently. Has the public joined forces with the critics, deciding en masse that “Abraham, Martin and John” no longer bears relevance in an Obama world? Is the piece just an example of middling art crafted with good intentions? Perhaps, but I think the song’s biggest obstacle lies in its specificity. Unlike “Imagine,” Dion’s personal statement actually steps forward to name names—a liability, given the ongoing right-wing vilification of the Kennedys and corporate broadcasting’s conservative ties. Ironically, “Abraham, Martin and John,” once dismissed by many as ineffectual, may now be too outspoken for its own good. But there are moments when a song like “Abraham, Martin and John” can surge into the present, making itself felt in ways that still resonate. After Ted Kennedy’s recent death, a friend in his middle 60s called to tell me he had spent most of the day crying: “It seems as if a whole era is passing with him,” he said. I thought of “Abraham, Martin and John,” of how it evokes a social struggle that, despite progress, remains fundamental to American life, and reflected that maybe Dion and Holler gave us an art for the ages after all.

Lyle Lovett: It Just Comes Natural

Lynne Margolis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:00:53 +0000

If the term “Americana” had not been coined, radio programmers, journalists and anyone else charged with sticking labels on music would still be pondering how to define Lyle Lovett’s singular style. Blithely genre-jumping from traditional country to gospel, jazz, blues, folk, western swing and even soul, he’s one of those artists, like Béla Fleck and Elvis Costello, who simply cannot be corralled. Exhibit A would be his four Grammys, which include Best Country Album for The Road to Ensenada and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (for “Funny How Time Slips Away,” his duet with Al Green). Well, there is one label he wears as easily as his lopsided grin: Texan. When he’s not on the road with his Large Band, his pals Joe Ely, John Hiatt and Guy Clark, or in some other musical configuration, chances are he’s in Klein, Texas, a German-Lutheran settlement north of Houston named after it founder, his great-great grandfather. Lovett lives with his fiancée, April Kimble, in his grandfather’s house on the original family farm (which he eventually bought back after parts were sold). His mom lives next door, in the house he grew up in. The land still produces hay, and his uncle keeps some cows. A few years ago, Lovett, an avid horseman, started breeding quarter horses. (The bottle-raised orphan bull that mangled his leg in 2002 also resides there.) It’s not far from Texas A&M, where Lovett graduated with degrees in German and journalism, hung out with Butch Hancock and Robert Earl Keen, and honed his songwriting skills. Showing a classically Texan independent streak, Lovett wanted to set up our interview himself; it was easier than going through his publicist, especially because I was traveling from Austin and would need directions. But when Lovett suggested a rendezvous in Tioga, it led to the following exchange: How far is that from Austin? It’s north of Dallas. Probably a few hours. ... You’re not from Texas? That’s right. I’m not from Texas! What else could I say? He didn’t laugh; just politely asked where I was from. I answered, “Pennsylvania.” Fearing my Yankee origins would scotch the interview—which would focus on Natural Forces, his second album featuring songs by his favorite Texas songwriters—I quickly added I’ve lived here almost six years. (Later, I kicked myself for not paraphrasing the song’s next line, “Texas wants you anyway,” or remembering the quip natives love to hear: “I got here as soon as I could!”) Over a two-and-a-half hour lunch at one of his regular haunts (he ordered a cheeseburger), we discussed animals, journalism, his acting career, HBO’s True Blood (he was surprised and tickled to hear his own “I Will Rise Up” over the credits of a recent episode) and of course, Texas. He told me I fit right in. You’ve always had a sly streak, and this album is loaded with “Dr. Demento”-worthy double entendres ... Thank you. Do you do those just for fun, or do you have an additional purpose--like seeing if you can get them on the radio? Writin’ songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it’s hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record. [Laughter] So when you do a song like “Choke My Chicken” and “Farmer Brown” (“Farmer Brown/Chicken Reel”) … “Farmer Brown.” I would never title a song what you just said. How rude. How crude. [Grins] But you’ll sing about it. Oh sure, I’ll sing it. [Laughs] Bob Schneider says he prefers for people to connect the dots and form their own relationships with his songs. He uses a writing game; somebody will suggest a word or phrase and he’ll write songs. Do you want people to build their own relationships with your songs, instead of trying to interpret them literally? Beyond hoping that someone will like one of my songs, I don’t think about how a song will be received. I just hope that, when somebody hears one of my songs, they’ll want to hear it again. I don’t have an impact or an effect in mind. I really just try to write something that makes sense for me, that seems true. For me, songs are sort of sacred ground, because it’s a place where you can actually tell the truth. You don’t have to be diplomatic. I think the point of a song is to just say something that’s true, or that expresses an idea that reflects something that’s true, whether it’s a truth about human nature or about the way people bullshit one another. A song doesn’t have to be serious to be true… but to me, that’s what a song is. And if I can get that right for me, then it’s worth writing. …You’re asking people for their time and attention, and it’s a chance to tell somebody what you think, or to share a joke. I just always hope that whatever’s in the song is worth demanding somebody’s time [for]. You have such an eclectic musical sense, but it’s not clear where you got it. You started playing in second grade, but you said you weren’t an ambitious music student, so how did it evolve? When I was in high school, a couple of buddies of mine played guitar and were interested in learning songs, which is not something that I’d ever really done. I would always practice my guitar and try to play along with records, but I’d never learned a song. So that’s what got me interested. And then one of those guys had his driver’s license, where I didn’t, so we started going into Houston together once a week for a guitar lesson. I had a really great teacher in town. And then we started playing together. We were doing mainly singer/songwriter stuff. A lot of those songs that I recorded on Step Inside This House; Steven Fromholz’s “Bears” and “Texas Trilogy” and [Townes Van Zandt’s] “If I Needed You.” And the blues stuff, the person who showed me that blues could be a part of acoustic and folk music, more than anyone, [was] Willis Alan Ramsey. This guy was so mixed up in the blues, and I found myself really drawn to that. I always loved blues and it naturally became a part of songs that I was writing. And that’s where the jazz stuff comes in. It’s really just blues. What I was trying to do [on Natural Forces] was play songs that have been a part of my musical life. None of these songs were songs that I learned for this record. They were songs that I’ve known for years. The simple fact was, it’s been two years since my last record and I was eager to record “Natural Forces” and “Pantry” and “Farmer Brown,” even. Believe it or not, I was eager to record that. [Laughter] I didn’t have enough other songs that I was happy with that I wanted to put with ‘em. I thought it was a good chance to record some of these songs that weren’t on Step Inside This House. I made that record as long as the record company would let me. That’s the only double-disc I’ve ever done, and I still couldn’t record everything I wanted to do. Do you think of yourself as a slow songwriter? No, I don’t worry about it, I don’t think about it, really. I enjoy writing the way I’ve always written, and for the reason I’ve always written when I feel like I’ve got something to write about. Clearly, I’m not trying to write songs for the radio; I’m not trying to write songs in a 9-to-5 kind of way. I try to write songs, or play songs, that reflect my sensibilities about what I appreciate in the world, and in life… I’m always grateful when I’m able to write a song that I like. But I don’t worry if I don’t have something going. The songs that, usually, I’m happiest with are songs that you don’t sit down and write. They’re songs that make you sit down and almost write themselves. Songs that I’ve written in the past that I feel are more crafted, they end up being the songs that I don’t necessarily play. They’re not songs I stay involved with for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with that approach to writing songs. It all depends on how good the song turns out. You’ve used the same producer for your whole career. How did you two hook up? Billy Williams was a part of the band that I met in 1983 on that trip to Luxembourg that I took to play just as a single. And I ended up hangin’ out with those guys for a month and they [invited] me to come to Phoenix and record. We did one day in a recording studio together and recorded “Cowboy Man,” “Give Back my Heart,” “If I Were the Man You Wanted” and “Closing Time,” and that became the first demo that I went to Nashville with. It was a lucky time, because it was a time when Nashville was being open-minded. …I went to Nashville for the first time in June of 1984, and was lucky to get some meetings, and I listened a lot more than I talked. And even just being in the room with people and listening to songwriters and publishers talk, they all seemed to be talking about the same thing, which was, people were having big hits on the radio, but the sales numbers were really down. And they talked about how a No. 1 song on the radio didn’t necessarily equate to sales. It became clear to me that Nashville was looking for a way to even that out, and there were a lot of new people signed in those days. I got a record deal in the summer of ‘85. It seemed like Nashville was looking for what would be next. My record came out in ‘86—the same year that Dwight Yoakam’s first record came out, k.d. lang’s first record came out, Steve Earle’s first record came out, Marty Stuart’s first record came out, Sweethearts of the Rodeo’s first record came out, Randy Travis’ first record was either in ‘85 or early ‘86. Even I had songs on the country charts, which is surprising to me. But what turned out to be the next thing in Nashville were the more traditional-type acts like Randy Travis and Clint Black, and then Garth Brooks. But there was that period of time when there was a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t think of as being a traditional Nashville signing gettin’ signed. You’d see people having a chance to make a record, and that’s a very cool thing. I feel very fortunate, because I always think of myself as the guy, you know, if there are three lines at the airport to get through security, I always pick the one that moves the slowest. Are there any particular performances that stand out as special memories? I’ve gotten to work with so many people that I’m a fan of. All the touring I’ve gotten to do with Bonnie Raitt; Butch Hancock; every time I get to work with Ray [Benson] and Asleep at the Wheel; the times I’ve gotten to work with Willie. Willie’s so generous. Every time I get to go out with John [Hiatt] and Joe [Ely] and Guy [Clark], just to be around those guys, it takes me back to when I wrote for the Battalion at Texas A&M. I get to interview my heroes. It’s such an inspired relationship you guys have onstage. Are you ever gonna record together? We have recorded. It’s mired in the record deal. We recorded three nights in Redwood City, California, a couple of years ago and it’s all ready to go, if we could get the business end of it [together]. … I’m hopeful that we can eventually put it out. Anything else you want to mention? I’m especially proud of the songs by my songwriter friends on this record. Eric Taylor’s song (“Whooping Crane”), and Don Sanders’ (“Bayou Song”). It’s fun to record somebody else’s song, but you always want to do justice to it, and on “Step Inside This House,” which was Guy’s song, I had to ask him if I could do it. He had never recorded that song. The songwriter always has first dibs. Guy was really nice about lettin’ me do it and I called him afterward and I said, “I hope I didn’t mess it up.” And Guy is so cool; he said something that was just a great lesson. You know, if you write something, you should be able to stand behind it. So Guy says to me, “Man, you can’t mess up one of my songs.” And I just thought that’s the kind of confidence—that’s how you’re supposed to feel about your songs. And if you don’t feel that way about one of your songs, then by God, don’t play it.

STREET SMARTS: Toughness Trumps Talent

Michael Kosser — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:04:53 +0000

There’s no way to hide from this. I’ve talked about it before and I’ll talk about it again. These days, non-performing songwriters have their work cut out for them if they’re going to survive as professionals. Having said that, I insist that there are real survivors, pros that year after year get enough cuts to keep their families fed and enough hits to live comfortably. It can be done, because today big hits mean big money. But… I don’t know how to underline the importance of what I am about to say in such a way that you won’t go crazy when you get your first big hit. I’ll try. That first hit is a life-line—it’s not a one-way ticket to the good life. A few hundred-thousand dollars is not that much money these days. Use it to pay your debts and sock the rest away, ‘cause you’re gonna need it! It’s hard for non-performing songwriters, and one reason is the horrible fact that A & R people who don’t necessarily understand the country music industry that employs them have made it the norm that singers be songwriters. That mindset has created an opening for music publishers, who have successfully appointed themselves the artist development arms of the record labels. This is as it should be, because at least good publishers know a songwriter when they hear one, and, consequently, one of their aims in artist development is to school singer/songwriters, or at least require a modicum of songwriting talent before they pitch one of their singer/songwriters to a label (do I hear laughter in the background?). If you are a singer/songwriter in search of a deal, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that your best portal to a record deal is through a publisher. Publishers love to sign songwriters who can sing. If you are one of those, and they give you a publishing deal, they will not only pay you a draw—if they are doing their job, they will put you and your best songs in a studio with good musicians, produce a good session, and pitch you to the labels. This, of course, does not guarantee you a record deal. Always and forever, most would-be artists get turned down, but rejection is the music industry’s only constant. That’s good for most of us, because talent cannot be taught, but toughness can, and I truly believe that, in this business, toughness trumps talent. OK, I’ve made my first point, that the industry as we know it today is set up for singer/songwriters. But, you say, I am not a singer/songwriter, I am a songwriter. Should I just rip up my legal pad, smash my D-18 to toothpicks and become a starving poet? Certainly not. I have already averred that I know non-performing songwriters who do well year after year. They do so because they know that writing songs is just half of what songwriters must do—or maybe less than half—and this is nothing new. When I first came to Nashville (in the Precambrian Era), many of the top songwriters knew all the artists, producers and label heads, and spent as much time pitching songs as they did writing them. I remember one songwriter who went on a bus trip with Charley Pride and did not pitch Charley a song through the entire tour. Charley was no fool; he knew that songwriter was not riding his bus just to see the U.S.A. On the last leg of the trip, on the way home to Nashville, Charley was fairly itching with curiosity and demanded that the songwriter open his satchel of tapes and start playing. The songwriter got his Charley Pride cut. It’s that kind of attention to detail that makes non-performing songwriters successful. It was true in 1970. It’s true today. Successful songwriters cultivate successful singers to write with. They cultivate songwriter/producers to write with. They cultivate productive three-way writing opportunities. They write songs their best songpluggers will pitch till they get the song cut. They can brave a year of rejections, cuts that did not make it onto the album, promised singles that don’t happen for the worst of reasons. They save their money for years like that. They have a powerful conviction that their talent, their sense and their toughness will pay off in the long run. They climb the mountain the first time, take their successes in stride, and when they tumble down the mountain, they just consider the tumble part of their profession and don’t even waste time mourning their slump. They continue to write, make new connections, and move forward toward a new round of success. Oh, and if enough time passes and they still don’t make it back, they find another purpose to their life and don’t waste a moment in regret. You can be all this and more, when you finally, truly believe that toughness trumps talent.

THE XX: On The Horizon

William Hooker — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:00:47 +0000

The xx make dark, tightly composed and sensually delivered pop music, a unique result that sounds a bit like Interpol or Young Marble Giants, certainly in the indie rock tradition; therefore, in slight contrast to bassist Oliver Sim’s claimed influences: TLC and Aaliyah. That The xx embrace ‘90s r&b artists without a hint of irony is believable when (bassist and singer) Sim remarks, “I enjoy the melodies from those artists, but that’s about all I take from mainstream music,” rejecting the band’s propensity to sell out. Claiming disinterest in mainstream appeal used to be code for artistic purity; however, considering the meta-genre that indie rock has become lately, who’s to say one can’t embrace the highway and the road less travelled without confusing everyone in the process? It’s clear that the band has had a lot of time to share ideas with each other; according to Sim, “Romy and I have known one another since nursery [school], and we met Baria and Jamie in secondary school when we were 11… all our houses were about five minutes from one another growing up.” The band immediately became fond of playing shows at venues rather than playing at school, “We could have played talent shows at school but we avoided them; we were kind of secretive about the band, and it’s a lot easier playing to people you don’t know than the ones you go to school with.” Possibly, this secretiveness has something to do with the highly personal, sexual and discernable lyrics prevalent on their self-titled release; if the band is comfortable letting us in on their personal lives, perhaps that’s because we don’t have P.E. with them Monday morning. According to Sim, these lyrics serve as the foundation for the band’s catalogue, and, when asked to reflect on a trend in their writing process, the bassist states “the songs start with lyrics, what Romy and I have written, and we come together and collage… adding bass and guitar to that. Baria and Jamie fill it out after that into a proper song.” When these songs possess beauty, it is always a dark charm, a characteristic Sim chalks up to influences: “A lot of my favorite songs are very dark. Whether intentionally or not, that darkness has made it into my songwriting,” he says, adding, “However, many of the lyrics are not dark and I like how you can be singing a pretty optimistic song and deliver it in a dark way.” These favorite songs include Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” (whose influence is very obvious on the slow and shadowy ballad “Infinity”) and the Cure’s “Lullaby,” which he calls “very dark but quite fun at the same time.” Sim admits that the band’s parents (most of whom are also big Cure fans) enjoy the band, and if they don’t enjoy their children’s professional path, then they at least tolerate it. According to Sim, “All our parents are friends; they sort of chose us to be friends, actually.” At this point in the conversation, talking about elders, I relate an anecdote I heard recently about U2’s guitarist, Edge, who once said he disliked telling his grandmother that he was a guitarist, since someone her age wouldn’t respect that sort of profession. Asked about his own granny, Sim relates that he has “a younger granny who checks my MySpace and she’s down with the band, got the album and everything and is quite on it. Whereas, I have a great aunt who is like 94 and I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m, like, in an orchestra or something so… as long as she’s happy.” On the theme of age and taste, I ask Sim which he’d prefer attending: the symphony or a really good horror movie? “Probably a symphony just because it would be a first and I’ve gone to many a horror movie in my time.” We agree that this would make his great aunt proud.

Member	Age	Role	Influences
Oliver Sim	20	Vocals, Bass	TLC, Aaliyah
Romy Madley Croft	20	Vocals, Guitar	Distillers, CocoRosie
Baria Qureshi	20	Keyboards	Electro-clash
Jamie Smith	20	Production	Future Hip Hop

THE SCHLANSKY FILES: Reliving Woodstock

Evan Schlansky — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:06:41 +0000

They say if you can remember the ‘60s you weren’t there. Well, I don’t remember the ‘60s, although I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean I was actually there. It’s hard to say, what with the possibilities of time travel, reincarnation, etc., etc. I did, however, grow up listening to the Woodstock soundtrack. In fact, it was pretty much my introduction to rock and roll, my spiritual textbook, if you will. I’d inherited a crate of old records from my parents, who were just out of college in 1969, and wedged in among The Beatles and Rolling Stones LPs sat the Woodstock soundtrack, begging to be discovered. A three-record set, with six distinct sides, you’d have to choose what to listen to—you couldn’t finish it all in one sitting. As a teenager, I would look at the album art and pull out the records from the sleeves, (“Hey look… naked people!”), scanning the names for the bands I remembered liking. Every so often, I’d give a new band a second chance. I already knew I liked Jimi Hendrix, but how did I feel about Sly and the Family Stone? I was also intrigued by artifacts of my parent’s hippie days, from a time before me, when they led completely different lives. I asked them if they went to Woodstock. “No. we thought about it, but we decided against it.” “You decided against it?” “Yes, I think we went to a friend’s house that weekend.” “A friend’s house? That weekend?” It seemed blasphemous to me. I’d have given anything to have been around back then. To experience the free love, the free music, and the freed mind. I started to watch the movie every day after school. While other kids wrote the names Whitesnake and Mötley Crüe on their binders, I wrote names like Canned Heat. 10 Years After. Crosby, Stills and Nash. Melanie. Rhino’s new, expanded Woodstock box set, released in celebration of the festival’s 40th anniversary, brings it all back home for me. A six-CD set, it sets out to capture the festival using a cinema vérité approach—dialogue and stage announcements are plentiful, and there’s a host of deserving yet never-before-heard performances. The typeface even mimics the font of the original soundtrack, and the whole thing takes about as long as a half a Woodstock to listen to. One point of interest comes in seeing who covered what 9for the first time, full set lists are included in the liner notes). Joe Cocker became famous for it, but Richie Havens also busted out The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” that weekend. Sweetwater (weren’t they from Almost Famous?) trotted out that anthem of all things hippie, Hair’s “Let the Sunshine In.” (Oddly, they also started their set with “Motherless Child,” the song Havens, who riffed on it to create “Freedom,” closed with one set earlier.) Arlo Guthrie jammed on “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep,” a song Bruce Springsteen would court Grammys with many years later. Joan Baez, usually good for a Bob Dylan cover or three, played not a single Dylan song, but Melanie played “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Jefferson Airplane did Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Wooden Ships,” as did Crosby, Stills and Nash. Joe Cocker opened with “Dear Landlord,” and gave a nod to Bob with “Just Like a Woman” and “I Shall Be Released,” which The Band also covered “I Shall Be Released.” CSNY sang “Blackbird.” Country Joe and the Fish did “Ring of Fire.” The expanded box set offers familiar, iconic moments and new surprises. Canned Heat, of all people, come off as MVPs. I always thought starting your set by declaring “I sure gotta pee,” was a weird way to go. Their “Woodstock Boogie,” clocking in at nearly 30 minutes, is incendiary. And really, you can never have too much boogie. Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” is liquid ecstasy. If a part of you isn’t dancing when you hear this, get that part removed. Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band that was left off the soundtrack the first time around, sound amazing here. Check out “I Put a Spell On You” and the soulful guitar solo that follows. Janis Joplin’s “Work Me Lord” might be the best thing she ever did—unless “Ball and Chain” is. You can hear her just leaving it all out there, working her instrument, her naked voice reverberating to half a million people. And Sly Stone’s “Dance to the Music” medley is simply the greatest thing ever. Back then, I didn’t like it—it’s all one chord, I complained. It makes me that realize that we live different life times within our own lives. And a lot of it is defined by the music you listen to—especially when you’re a teenager. Woodstock was a social phenomenon as much as it was a musical event, and the amount of mind-bending, not-entirely-good-for-you acid going around threatened to derail the whole thing. The box set makes that abundantly clear, adding more audio tracks of festival MC’s John Morris and Chip Monck. At first, they’re all laid back, speaking in a “Prairie Home Companion”-like lull. But as the hours wear on, they screw it all up, losing all their built-up cool: “For those of you who have partaken in the green acid, if you would, as soon as is convenient, please.... go to the hospital tent. Ladies and gentlemen...(ominous pause)...thank you so very much.” Also, “I’ve been informed that somebody is handing out some flat blue acid. It is poison.” This is insane MC’ing at it’s finest. Then Jerry Garcia and Country Joe get on the mic and say the cool-as-shit things to make it all OK. “You’re not gonna die,” they assure the crowd. It’s funny, a lot of things that seemed so cool to me about the hippy mindset, in smaller doses, seem kind of ‘60s ridiculous to me now. “If we think real hard, maybe we can stop this rain!” Well, no. “That's the ...that’s the reason for this f***ing conference, man,” says yippie king Abby Hoffman, so into his own ideals that he calls the one of greatest concerts of all time a conference. After he jumps on stage to rant further during the Who’s set, Townshend takes him out with his guitar, then sympathizes. “I can dig it.” he says dryly. Wonder why that scene never made the movie. They’ve got it on YouTube though. That’s the future for ya. Those people stayed up all night long for rock and roll. When I went to Woodstock ‘99 (by the time I got to Woodstock) I slept through an epic set by George Clinton. I wish I’d been awake now. There I got Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow instead of the Who and Janis Joplin. Everlast instead of Arlo Guthrie. But I survived the fires, and I survived the legions of deranged college students, and I survived listening to Creed, so I guess I survived Woodstock. “Hey man, you people gotta be the strongest bunch of people I ever seen in my life. Three days man! …We just love ya. We just love ya.” Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Woodstock set was their second gig ever. Their debut album had only been out for a couple months. They open their set with “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” as if to say, “Oh yeah...we got a song for ya....You’re probably gonna like this one.” Even back then, their set was designed to show off their acoustic and electric side. Back when I was a burgeoning hippy, Crosby Stills and Nash were gods among men. Years later I actually got to meet Graham Nash, and he told me he never saw the movie. “What? No way!” I said stunned. “That’s blasphemy!” It’s interesting to think that if Jimi Hendrix had fallen victim to the plaid acid, Sha Na Na would have been the band to close Woodstock on that fateful Monday. Hendrix got to close as planned, but many hours later, in the stark light of morning, during which he kind of fakes his way through another brilliant set. “We’re just gonna do a primary rhythm thing,” he tells the crowd. He jams into the “Star Spangled Banner,” an out of tune angel. And then it’s all over but the shouting, all over but the come down. Let the legend making begin. Thanks to the new audio, we get to hear the very last words of the Woodstock festival, which are “Have a good life...thank you.” Followed by a request. “Pat Dotch... please go to the pink and white medical tent.”

AMERICAN ICONS: Mitchell Parish

Paul Zollo — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:12 +0000

He’s written the words to many of America’s most cherished standards, starting with the classic “Stardust,” with music by Hoagy Carmichael, a song which he said he knew “in his gut” was important. Other standards to which he concocted the lyrics include “Deep Purple,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Moonlight Serenade” and “Volare.” He was born in Lithuania in 1900, and came to America with his family in 1901 on the S.S. Dresden when he was just a baby. The family went first to Louisiana, but quickly surmised New York City was a more hospitable home for a Jewish family. His given name was Michael Hyman Pashelinsky. As a kid, he fell in love with books, and was writing poetry and short stories by 11. A decent pianist, like George Gershwin, at 18, he got a job as a songplugger—traveling around performing hit songs at music stores in order to sell sheet music. It was, he has said, his “apprenticeship” as a songwriter, in that he learned from the inside out the structure and mechanics of hit songs. He was a lover of recorded music even before the record industry was in its infancy. “I’d go to the penny arcades,” he remembered in a 1992 interview, “and they had all these machines lined up—with Edison cylinders. You dropped a penny in the slot and the cylinder would play a song.” Above the cylinders were the song’s title and its writers, so Parish quickly grew wise to who was authoring hit songs. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” which was one of that era’s biggest hits, was, he noticed, written by Irving Berlin. Prior to then he had considered becoming a writer of novelty songs—jokey, punch-line ditties for vaudeville. But seeing Berlin’s name there, as well as the names of other successful songwriters, set him on the songwriting path from which he never veered. He teamed up with scores of composers, all who needed someone to write a lyric first—to which they would then compose a melody—or to match lyrics to an existing tune. “Stardust” emerged by this latter method. Hoagy Carmichael, who usually wrote his own words as well as music, had composed an extended melody that was beautiful, but which was a challenge for him to write words for. Parish heard it and was unimpressed. “I didn’t like it,” he said with a sly smile. “When I heard it, it was a swing tune, but I didn’t write it that way. It sounded just like another swing tune. It was nothing like the way it is now, which is sweet, mellow and romantic.” Victor Young did an orchestral arrangement of the song as a ballad, as opposed to a rhythmic swing melody, and Parish heard it then as if he’d heard it for the first time. “It was altogether a different mood, a different feeling. Really beautiful. And it became what it became.” Asked if he knew how important this one song would be, he said he did have a gut feeling that this was a momentous one. But had no idea it would become a standard. “You don’t sit down and write a standard,” he explained. “A standard evolves.” With Hoagy, Parish wrote two other songs which, though never as famous as “Stardust,” also became standards—“Riverboat Shuffle” and “One Morning In May.” Parish understood that a great lyric often emerged over time, and cannot be forced or contrived. “If I had to labor over a lyric too long,” he said, “if it became an arduous task where I sweated and toiled and struggled, I would drop it. And not because I shunned arduous work, but because I felt it wouldn’t be fair to the composer. The lyric would show its toil and sweat and that wouldn’t be good for the song. The sturm und drang would be evident.” Known for his famous titles, he was asked if he thought of the title first before writing a lyric. “In general,” he said, “most songs are written in that manner. Usually, the lyricist would think of the title. And if he had a good, catchy title, half of the song was written. Let’s say I got ‘Stars Fell on Alabama.’ I got that title and went in the arranging room, and there was Frank Perkins, the arranger. I told him the title. Told him to fool around with it, see what he comes up with. A few days later, he came in with the melody. Well, the song was already half-written! And that happened often like that—I would give a title to a composer, he would compose the melody, and then I’d write the rest of the lyric to his melody.” As for advice to today’s songwriters, he decried the lack of quality in most modern pop songs, saying “If Irving Berlin were around today, he’d go unpublished,” and then said, “The advice I’d give is to keep in mind this isn’t easy. Songwriting is a tough struggle. It wouldn’t be easy for me if I was writing today. But I say if you enjoy writing song, then keep doing it. That alone should be reason enough to continue. Remember, you never know when a hit song is going to come along!”

NORAH JONES: Friends in High Places

Dave Steinfeld — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:54:51 +0000

Willie Nelson was recently asked his thoughts on Norah Jones, who duets with him on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” from his recent standards collection, American Classic. He responded, “Norah is the most down-to-earth… natural person I’ve ever met. You never know if she has any idea how great she is.” Sitting across from Jones at a bar in New York’s East Village, I can see what Nelson means. Despite being talented, beautiful and extremely successful, Jones comes across as completely unpretentious—the kind of girl you’d hang out at a bar in the East Village with, but not necessarily during a magazine interview. There’s something incredibly “normal” about her, which is unusual for someone whose debut album scored eight Grammy awards at a time when most girls her age were still in college. She even has a sense of humor about her normalness. When I mention to Jones that she hasn’t had any brushes with the law or dated anyone from Mötley Crüe, she quickly replies, “Yet!” Jones’ new CD, The Fall, is her fourth official album and her first in almost three years. It’s also significant because it finds her breaking out of her comfort zone. This is still a Norah Jones record—it’s not like she’s suddenly gone industrial or anything. But she’s working with a larger set of musicians this time around, many of whom she never played with before; she’s teamed with producer Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Buddy Guy, Kings of Leon) for the first time; and she’s playing more guitar on this album. I asked her whether she finds it different writing on guitar than piano, which is the instrument she’s known for. “I find it easier to write on guitar,” says Jones. “But I also get trapped into writing similar chord cycles, because I’m a very limited guitar player. I don’t know how to play anything but really rudimentary chords. Whereas on piano I can write a song like ‘My Dear Country’ [from her last album, Not Too Late]; I could never write chords like that on guitar.” “It [was] fun, once I got over my self-consciousness of playing guitar in front of Marc Ribot or Smokey Hormel,” she continues with a laugh. “But they were both really cool, and they were like, ‘Wow! I really like your guitar playing.’ Whether they were just saying that or not, it made me feel comfortable.” Ribot and Hormel weren’t the only heavyweights that Jones worked with on The Fall. Prolific session drummer Joey Waronker played on several tracks. And though they don’t actually perform on the album, Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff each collaborated with Jones on one song—the ethereal “Light As a Feather” and the more aggressive “Stuck,” respectively. Of working with Adams and Sheff, Jones says, “They’re not similar, necessarily, but they both seem to be very prolific and have a lot of ideas. [In both cases], I had a song that I hadn’t finished… I had a couple of lyric ideas, but nothing that really stuck. And for me, it’s really hard to write lyrics once I’ve finished with the music. It’s easier [to put] music to lyrics for me. So in these two cases, they really helped me get the lyrics together.” Musically, the songs on The Fall are probably a bit more diverse than on Jones’ past efforts. Highlights include the opening song, “Chasing Pirates,” a catchy, Wurlitzer-driven tune about being too wound-up to sleep; the lovely breakup ballad “Back to Manhattan”; and the hilarious “Man of the Hour,” which closes the disc. The first time I listened to the album all the way through, my impression was that Jones had ended a long-term relationship, gone through the usual ups and downs that follow and wound up meeting the new man of her dreams—the guy she’s singing about in “Man of the Hour.” Then, I listened a second time and realized that she’s singing about a dog. According to Jones, he is the new man of her dreams, though. His name is Ralph and he’s a poodle. “[But] I like to say that he’s a scruffy, manly poodle,” she adds. “Because you say poodle and people start rolling their eyes… My dogological clock started to tick. So I got a dog [and] it’s great. I’m madly in love with him.” As for “Chasing Pirates,” Jones tells me it was one of the first songs she wrote for The Fall. “It kind of helped shape the whole album, actually,” she says. “It wasn’t [initially] my favorite but once we recorded it, it was one of my favorites. It’s funny what an interesting arrangement can do. It can turn a good song into a great song—or it can turn a great song into a bad song!” Jones has collaborated with an extensive and diverse range of artists throughout the years—from the aforementioned Nelson and Ray Charles to Andre 3000 of Outkast. I was curious to know if there’s someone she’d like to sing with that she hasn’t. “When people mention the list of all these great collaborations I’ve done, there are very few female artists,” she replies. “It’s not because I have avoided it—I do the things I get asked to do… But I would love to work with more women… I did a show a few weeks ago with Rufus Wainwright and his sister Martha and their mother Kate [McGarrigle]. And it was just so much fun. We did a bunch of songs in four-part harmony.” And as for Willie Nelson, it seems the admiration is mutual. Jones tells me, “He opens his mouth and sings and it sounds like my childhood coming out. I just adore him.”

Video: Holly House Deathbed Covers

americansongwriter — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:22:29 +0000

The Annual Gear Guide Gets the “On My Deathbed” Treatment Our On My Deathbed contest is a reader favorite. It’s a tough question, what do you want to hear before you break on through to the other side, before you climb that stairway to heaven? If you could plan out your soundtrack, what are you going to pick? For our 2009 Gift Guide, we asked this question to East Nashville collective, Holly House Music. They deftly and eagerly responded; each band that was able, met us at Eli Beaird’s (And the Relatives, Eureka Gold) garage/basement studio dubbed the Eastwood Salon, to record their Deathbed covers. Engineer Steve Martin ran the soundboard for us and kept the schedule on this marathon day of recording. Each Holly House group stepped up to the plate and delivered most-worthy performances. holly house deathbed songs 2009 from Eli on Vimeo. Video shot and edited by Seth Pomeroy. ARTISTS Shoot the Mountain And the Relatives Caitlin Rose Tristen Eureka Gold ON MY DEATHBED COVERS Shoot The Mountain - In An Aeroplane Over The Sea And The Relatives - Be Here To Love Me Caitlin Rose - You Are My Sunshine Tristen - On and On and On Eureka Gold - I Go To Sleep