marramgrass

The collision of music and humour often leaves a mess. At the extremes you have the musical comedians (Mitch Benn and Bill Bailey being fine examples) and the serious artistes (oh, pretty much everyone who’s a little too earnest for their own good). In the middle it can be tough to find anyone to properly recommend.

Enter Barenaked Ladies, the Canadian alt-rockers contending for Most Misleading Band Name Ever. Somehow they manage to take stonking, if occasionally obscure, musicianship and meet it with brilliant, surreal, Canadian funniness.

Which is not to say they’re a comedy act; they’re not. Instead, the lyrics and the manner have a slyness to them that can be light-hearted or poignant, but always funny — if smirking or eyebrow-raising rather than always belly-laughing.

My introduction to Barenaked Ladies came with the tune “Shoe Box” when it was picked up for the Friends soundtrack album, although I quickly sought it out in its proper home, 1996′s Born On A Pirate Ship. Energetic, it manages their usual trick of being playful and thoughtful at the same time.

From my first little fib when I still wore a bib,
To my latest attempt at pretending I’m someone
Who’s not seventeen, or doesn’t know what you mean
When talk turns to single malts or stilton.

(I couldn’t find streaming links for this one, which is a shame. You can hear a snippet through iTunes if you have it installed.)

Think of the songs you can (and do) listen to again and again. The first one of those that I remember is “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers. I was young when my dad gave me a Best Of tape — young enough that it’s linked in my head with visits to my grandparents’ caravan down past Millisle, and I think we stopped going there while I was still in primary school.

I listened to this song over and over, which in the days of the cassette tape and Walkman took a little dedication. I remember fantasizing about learning to play it on the guitar and impressing everyone around me. I was young enough that those fantasies didn’t involve impressing girls, and it was years before I learned to play guitar. I never did learn to play “The Gambler”, though, and no-one would be impressed after I opened my mouth to sing it, anyway.

I do blame it for contributing to my adult liking for a bit of country, and not always country-rock, either. Oo-er.

The song came to mind when I read a recent PA strip, and I discovered that I don’t even have a copy of it anymore. Spotify came to the rescue, and after a couple of listens I was struck by the near-nonsense of it.

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em,
Know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away
And know when to run.

You never count your money
When you’re sitting at the table;
There’ll be time enough for counting
When the dealing’s done.

As the last words of a man who’s been through the wringer, intended as essential advice for the young fella in danger of heading the same way, it certainly sounds good; it makes a nice graphic chorus for a country song. But I haven’t a clue what it actually means that’s of any use beyond, “Have a bit of wit.”

Still, nice tune, still love it. Perhaps I’ll pick up the guitar and figure it out.

“The Gambler” [YouTube]

“The Gambler” [Spotify]

A couple of years ago I published a short series of posts called Tuesday Tunes. Those ones were all about songs with memorable lyrics. I’d like to kick the series off again, but with no fixed idea or agenda, beyond that on a Tuesday I’ll post about a song I’ve been listening to lately.

Sometimes a little of bit of British prog rock is what you need.

Not long after I first started listening to music with any kind of interest, I would lie on the floor beside my dad’s stereo with his headphones on, working my way through his small but interesting collection of actual vinyl LPs. (I had to lie on the floor to get close enough to look through the shelves — the hi-fi unit was in the corner beside the dining table, with no room for any other approach.) One of the albums that caught my attention was Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, released in 1979.

There are a few tracks on it that have stuck with me since, but my favourite is “The Logical Song”. The rhythmic keyboards are as enjoyable as ever, and while the lyric isn’t what you’d call subtle or clever, you can see why it appealed to a smart-alec teenager (and why it’s still fun):

Now watch what you say, or they’ll be calling you a radical,
Liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re
Acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable.

“The Logical Song” [YouTube]

“The Logical Song” [Spotify]

(Continuing the occasional series.)

The second of the two live albums I’m revisiting is Across A Wire: Live In New York City by the Counting Crows. The first Counting Crows album I bought — and I went on to buy them all and turn up at many gigs — I listened to it again and again. I still return to it regularly, and it captures me every single time.

Counting Crows studio albums, with the exception of 1996′s Recovering the Satellites and isolated tracks on other albums, tend towards the slightly soporific; the live album is anything but.

Across A Wire is actually more like two albums: the first disc is a selection from a mostly acoustic Storytellers set for VH-1, while the second is a much harder set for MTV. Both are raw and emotional, giving the songs the edge that most of the studio albums lack. These are the recordings with which I can turn out the lights, put on the ‘phones and listen, over and over. Highlights are most of the VH-1 disc, plus “Round Here”, “A Long December” and “Have You Seen Me Lately?” from the MTV disc.

The Counting Crows get a rough ride. Their albums don’t always help, but as a live act they are well-worth making the effort to see. These two discs manage to capture some of that life.

Continuing my return to the albums that have shaped my listening over the years (and this is a series that could run and run), I’ve grabbed two albums with something in common: both are live albums, and each was the album that drew me in to the rest of the band’s music — maybe not the usual way it goes.

First of the two is Hell Freezes Over, by The Eagles, titled with a cute reference to the band’s assertion that they would play together again “when hell freezes over.” :-/ The disc is a recording, for MTV, of the reunion gig 14 years after they disbanded in 1980, with four new studio tracks making up the numbers.

The Eagles made their name with an easy-going kind of country rock, and that’s the dominant style on this disc. Even the songs from their later, harder days maintain the easy vibe.

Standout moments are the acoustic duelling of “Hotel California”, an epic “The Last Resort” and a plaintive yet hopeful “Desperado”. Few of the arrangements are very different from the studio versions in the back catalogue, but there’s something in the delivery that feels a little more mellow, a little more grown-up and weary. All this combined makes Hell Freezes Over my favourite Eagles record and one I’m glad to have dug out again. I’m still listening to it.

A while back I had a look through my record collection (or, rather, my iTunes library) and picked out a number of albums that I used to listen to regularly; these are the albums that influenced my listening, mainly as a teenager, and the albums that would make up the skeleton of my future musical taste.

As a sort of ongoing companion to this post, I thought it would be fun to revisit these albums and see if they still stood the listen.

The first is Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. This disc is at the top of the pile as I suspect that most people who were listening to music around the time of its release have a copy somewhere, and because I hadn’t listened to it at all in a very long time.

When I went back to it, I expected the album to be a great disappointment. My ears and tastes have grown up a fair bit since 1995, so I was ready to be quickly tired of the radio-friendly angry-grrl-rocker bit. And no, it didn’t last, but for a time I was singing along on the motorway.

Jagged Little Pill is track after track of undemanding aural fluff, and sometimes that’s what’s needed, but I don’t expect to return to it again for another spell of years.

More to come…

(This post was intended for last night, but delayed by our late and tired return home after the concert in question.)

My wife and I have remarked often how we haven’t been to any live music since we moved back to Northern Ireland. Two-and-some years is a pretty long dry spell.

I’d never knowingly encountered the music of Beth Neilsen Chapman, but when Gerry Anderson played “Sand and Water” and plugged last night’s show at the Grand Opera House I decided it was worth a go. The decision was helped by promised support from local boy Brian Houston.

It was a very good call.

It’s something like nine years since I last saw Brian Houston live, but his short opening set told me that’s way too long. I guess he’s been doing the groovy, layered sample thing on “Jesus Again” for a long time, but it was one of several turns that blew me away last night. He’s a superb showman at work.

Turns out that I know more Beth Neilsen Chapman songs than I thought, and she can certainly sing. The three-piece for the evening included local talent Eilidh Patterson on backing vocals and the very dude-ly Maartin Allcock on bass and bouzouki.

I’d yet to hear Eilidh, although I know of her in a family-of-a-friend sort of way, but I was impressed. She was in great voice yesterday. And Mr Allcock sent me away swearing to never again pretend I can tame the four-stringed beast.

The Opera House wouldn’t be my first choice for a gig, but the sit-down-and-relax vibe was entirely appropriate — and you can’t argue with front row seats.

Last night, as we were driving home from a visit to family, we got to talking about music. The question was: what are the songs that you could listen to over and over again, winding the tape back or skipping the CD to the start of the track, because there’s something about them that makes your scalp tingle? (I’m sure you know what I mean.)

I could quite happily think of several dozen. Some because they capture a particular emotion; some because they evoke a time in my life (this was the criterion that prompted my wife most of all); some are faintly embarrassing while others are broadly accepted classics; some draw me in through the vocal, some through instrumentals; some are even notable simply for the tone of the guitar.

The following are a few of those songs that, at some time in the past, I have listened to again and again — just because.

• Pacing The Cage by Bruce Cockburn
• American Pie by Don McLean
• Vienna by Billy Joel
• Run-Around by Blues Traveler
• A Long December by Counting Crows
• Dry County by Bon Jovi
• Love Like A Tide by Brian Houston
• Birdhouse In Your Soul by They Might Be Giants
• The Good In Me Is Dead by Martyn Joseph
• One by U2
• Float On by Modest Mouse
• Come What May by the Maroons
• On her Majesty’s Secret Service by Propllerheads
• Shoebox by Barenaked Ladies

Like I said, there’s some fairly embarrassing music in there, but all are tracks that at some point have grabbed me and not let go. For each I could go into great detail why it’s here, and I could go many more again. Any to add?

Gedeon Maheux suggested a group blog for today. It sounded fun, so here’s my contribution.

From Ged:

What are some of your favorite “story songs”? Everyone loves music, but often times songs that tell a story stand head and shoulders above the rest. The musical tales these songs tell turn them into either one hit wonders, or classic generational hits. Which artists write the most loved story songs and is there a consensus on the best one of all time? We just may find out.

I thought this would be difficult, but it was surprisingly easy!

“And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Eric Bogle. Quite a graphic and hard-hitting sung tale of the ANZAC soldiers at Gallipoli. It’s been covered almost as many times as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, and a couple of those covers (The Pogues’, for example) are great, but I’d recommend hitting up iTunes for Eric Bogle’s recording on At This Stage.

“Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel. An admission to having some Billy Joel in my record collection will probably banish what little credibility I’ve managed to accrue over the years, but there you go. This is a song that I remember enjoying every time it came on the tape player in my dad’s car, and having dug it out again I still appreciate it — although I’m no wiser as to what on earth is going on in the prologue or epilogue. The Stranger is an album that really deserves to be given a chance.

“White Collar Boy” by Belle & Sebastian. The Life Pursuit is a great wee album, and this tune is my standout track from it. A gaolbreak tale told with fantastic humour:

You were chained to a girl that would kill you with a look.
It’s a nice way to die, she’s so easy on the eye.

Belle & Sebastian tend towards the slightly kooky, but this is probably one of the most accessible tracks of what I think is their most accessible album.

“Dic Penderyn (The Ballad Of Richard Lewis)” by Martyn Joseph. Martyn Joseph is the Welsh singer-songwriter with a tendency towards protest and a voice that knows how to make a point. “Dic Penderyn” is his telling of the hanging of an innocent man after the 1831 Merthyr Rising. This is a song that gives me shivers every time I listen to it.

“I Hung My Head”, a Sting song as recorded by the great Johnny Cash. Cash’s vocal drives home the sorrow and resignation of this bleak song’s protagonist. If you happen to lay your hands on the album, American IV, don’t let it go. The whole disc is fantastic.

For more sung tales check out the other participants of this group blog:

• Living in the Now
• The (mis)adventures of a macintosh administrator
• MikeSchramm.com
• Hardcore Geek
• Glitschka Studios
• mizaru.me.uk
• ChristinaWarren.com
• AustinHeller.com
• masonsklar.com
• A. Emory
• alainedouard.vndv.com/
• The Sound of Silence
• Gedeon Maheux

I’m maybe half-way through the task of sorting and organising the almost 60 gigabytes of photos stored on our slowly-dying Windows desktop. This is from September 2004, of now-defunct Third From The Left playing the Bongo Club in Edinburgh.