Tag: van morrison

Random Shuffle (11/20/06) – Liz Phair, Martha Wainwright, Depeche Mode, Van Morrison, & Echo & the Bunnymen

“Never Said” – Liz Phair
From Exile in Guyville

In the mid-1990s I was on a plane flying from Birmingham Alabama to Tulsa Oklahoma. This was a trip I normally made by automobile, but I had recently fallen inexplicably ill. Being a freshman in college I was not accustomed to being inexplicably ill while all alone, hence the trip home via airplane.

On the plane, I was actually feeling pretty healthy and virile thanks to the lovely lady who took her seat next to mine. Perhaps seeing my Walkman or my copy of Spin magazine (in the days when having a copy of Spin magazine exuded a cool hipness) she struck up a conversation about music. The topics ranged from Fugazi and Dinosaur Jr to inevitably Nirvana. She asked me if I liked Liz Phair, and I had to admit that though I had heard good things, I had not actually listened to her. She raved about how amazing and beautiful Phair was and highly recommended I listen to her soon.

As these things do, the conversation waned and we went about reading our magazines and carried through the annoyance that is flying. A few bits of conversation were had here and there and then the plane landed and we departed. I made a mental checklist to listen to Liz Phair as soon as I could and went along my sickly way.

As it turns out I didn’t promptly listen to Ms. Phair and it was in fact this last year that I ever managed to get a copy of Exile in Guyville for a listen. What I was waiting for, I don’t know, but I wish I had paid more attention to that vixen. It is a beautiful and beautiful album full of angst, poetry, and raw emotion.

“Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” – Martha Wainwright
From Martha Wainwright

Speaking of angst, poetry, and raw emotion, Martha Wainwright has plenty of each flowing from her mouth like blood from a lanced tongue. This song just slays. Her voice is tortured and strangled and pulls it all out of me until I lie flat and still gasping for life.

I can’t say I’m much of a fan of any of the Wainwrights, either Loudon or Rufus. I’m not overly familiar with their music, but what I have heard hasn’t made me seek them out either. They get praised well enough that I continue to think I should dig into their well farther, but well, so it goes. When the Duke lauded Martha with praise and sent a few tunes to the mp3 project I anxiously checked them out.

Sweet chimichanga that girl has got something. Her voice isn’t what you would exactly call beautiful, but there is a certain poetry to her words and such effectiveness in the way she sings that it doesn’t matter.

I honestly don’t really know what she’s singing about here, but whatever it is it breaks your heart. She projects such gut-wrenching emotion

“Just Can’t Get Enough” – Depeche Mode
From Speak and Spell

In my junior high to be hip you had to love U2 and you had to adore Depeche Mode. This was pre-Joshua Tree and Violator so neither of those bands had reached worldwide superstardom yet, though they weren’t exactly unknown indie bands either (this was Oologah Oklahoma, we didn’t know what the heck an indie band was, so just not being on the national charts was obscure enough.) Frankly, I never was all that hip in high school, but my brother was and he used to play the heck out of both bands.

This is the only Depeche Mode song that stuck and has lasted in my head all these years later.

It’s some darn fine synth pop too.

I still have vague memories of the cool kids mimicking the synch beats while goofing in drama class.

“Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” – Van Morrison
From Pay the Devil

From the moment I heard “Tupelo Honey” I knew I’d be a Van Morrison fan forever. I was actually a casual fan before that moment, but that song sealed the deal. I know how people hate to hear about me discovering an artist through their greatest hits packages, but I went through a short period where all I was doing was picking up Best Ofs. I didn’t have the cash to shell out for entire record collections, and this was before I had an internet connection, or even knew of such a place where you could go and get suggestions of which album to start with, so a greatest hits deal seemed like the best way to get a good foundation on who an artist was. I’ll still stand by that idea, for that time at least. I now can download a few songs, listen to snippets at Amazon, or search out my knowledge basis for the best places to start with, but then it made your purchase and pray it comes out all right. And for my money, a hits package was the best bet.

So anyway, I had the first volume of Van’s greatest hits and loved it. It’s filled with such classics as “Domino,” “Wild Nights,” and “Brown Eyed Girl.” It’s great music and worth every penny. I decided I could be a fan, but instead of searching out a single album, perhaps something with a few songs I now knew I loved, I went for the volume two greatest hits. I should have known better. Few artists have that many greatest hits, and Van’s was filled with maudlin, sappy religious numbers. Gone were the two-stepping beats and killer horn section. Instead, it was slow melodies and sad strings. (Editor’s Note: I obviously love the songs on Volume 2 now.)

Van laid low in my collection for a long time after that. Eventually, I was trolling Napster for some good love songs to put on a mix tape for a girl. “Tupelo Honey” was found and I was back on the track to Vandom once again. I’ve since nabbed many a Van Morrison album and my love has never stopped.

This is Van’s recent take on classic country songs. Honestly, I haven’t given it my full attention yet, just let it play in the background a few times, but from what I can hear he’s still got it.

“The Killing Moon” – Echo and the Bunnymen
From Ocean Rain

Man, what’s up with this list? It is random, but still nabs two alternative 80’s tracks and two raw, powerful women, and Van Morrison.

Back again to junior high (or maybe it was high school, the memory fades these days) the church we went to had just hired a new youth guy and he was chatting me up trying to get a lay of the kids and make us believe he was a cool guy. Anyways he asks me about music and I say I’m into alternative stuff like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and all that stuff when he asks me about Echo and the Bunnymen. Knowing the name and maybe a couple of songs I say ‘yeah’ and act like they are the coolest. He brings up the soundtrack to the movie Lost Boys and the song “Cry Little Sister” thinking that was Echo and the Bunnymen (though they did cover a version of “People Are Strange” on the soundtrack it was Gerard McMann who did the song in question). Not knowing any better I agreed that it was killer and we basked in our coolness.

We did become great friends, though I learned he wasn’t an Echo fan either, and not really very cool at that.

This particular song I got on a compilation disk from Spin magazine (see there are themes to this post) along with a bunch of other indie/alternative bands they were promoting at the time. It’s still a great song, and I still dig “Cry Little Sister” too.

Random Shuffle (09/18/06) – Van Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Ryan Adams, Seu Jorge, & Led Zeppelin

“Magic Time” – Van Morrison
From Magic Time

I can’t really remember when I first discovered Van Morrison him. I do remember having his first greatest hits album for ages and playing it like mad in college. The songs just shimmered and glowed like fresh magic. Eventually, I bought the second greatest hits album and was sunk because it stunk. Most of the songs are from a religious period if he had a religious period like Dylan. I don’t know, I’m not that steeped in Morrison mythology, but a lot of the songs seemed deeply religious, and boring.

In time I’ve come to love more and more of his songs. Is there a greater few minutes of music than “Tupelo Honey?”

I first heard his newest release, Magic Time on a bust tour of Southern Ireland. The bus driver was playing everything Irish including The Man, U2, and lots of traditional Celtic stuff. He played this album and at the time it sounded OK. It was a little slow and not filled with the type of songs you want to hear on a multi-day bus trip.

A friend bought the disk and I borrowed it and have since found it to be a late-era Morrison treasure. The songs are mostly soft, but they have that impassioned Van Morrison delivery, and the lyrics are sweet and kind and perfect for a romantic evening.

This song seems to hearken back to a time when Van was young and full of that magic vigor. It is deeply nostalgic and unapologetic about it. It has a nice little sweeping shuffle and feels like a sunny day picnic out in the countryside – neath a shade tree to keep the heat of the sun at bay.

In other words, just about perfect.

“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – Jerry Garcia
From Run for the Roses

Jerry Garcia’s studio albums are about like the Grateful Dead in the studio – mostly awful. That’s not actually all that fair since the Dead released several really great albums, and Jerry did a few good ones solo.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the Dead don’t know how to produce their own records. Live, in the moment, they can perform magic, but given time in the studio to record, listen, and record some more they underestimate their abilities and screw it up.

Garcia puts a little reggae influence into his version of this Dylan classic, but it doesn’t really help. Clocking in at over seven minutes, it just goes on and on without ever hitting a level that justifies the length. Oh, there is some very decent melodic Jerry guitar work in the middle, but it never manages to put me in the kind of zone I often reach during a live performance.

“Firecracker” – Ryan Adams
From 02/09/02

I believe this is Mr. Adams’ third time starring in a Random Shuffle, which may be a record, and certainly proves I have quite a bit of his music on my little computer. A very large portion of my RA collection (at least on my computer) is live. A while back I downloaded a big stinking chunk of a compilation and have yet to actually burn them to disk.

What I have heard of it, it is a bit of a mixed bag. Previously I’ve mentioned how I don’t like Adams’ tendency to write super slow, unmelodic tunes and that goes doubly so for his live material. But even the faster songs performed live, at least in this case, aren’t so great. I very much enjoy his more recent live outings with the Cardinals, but from what I’ve heard of his stuff a few years back, it is not so great. The band just isn’t as on as I like.

Take this instance, for example. “Firecracker” is a great little song. It is a nearly perfectly crafted pop-rock ditty. Live, the organ decides to go all speed metal on me and destroys the melody, Adams tries to keep up and does his best at being the big rock god lead man, but it doesn’t fit. What’s left is the remnants of a good song with a lot of energy, but without the tune that made the song great in the first place. (The video I’ve embedded above is not the version I wrote about, but I couldn’t find it anywhere).

“Rebel Rebel” – Seu Jorge
From The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions

Personally, I felt The Life Aquatic was Wes Anderson’s least interesting film. The action and the characters never quite gelled into a cohesive whole. What helped make it a good film, though, was Seu Jorges’ Spanish takes on David Bowie songs. I don’t think this particular song from the Aquatic Sessions is a David Bowie song, but what do I know I can only name a handful of Bowie songs. So this may or may not be a Bowie cover, but it most definitely is a nice, lulling little acoustic ballad. (Editor’s Note:  I have no idea why I didn’t think this song was originally written by David Bowie, obviously it was.)

While visiting my folks in Oklahoma this summer a commercial came on the TV and in the background was Seu Jorge’s version of “What a Wonderful World” which prompted my brother-in-law to scoff that Jorge was in way too many commercials. At the time I wondered what he meant, as I had only seen the one commercial.

In the weeks that followed I became more familiar with Jorge’s work and have noticed that an awful lot of commercials have used his songs. It is easy to see why. Many of his songs are interesting, unique, and different yet almost instantly accessible. They are on the opposite side of the spectrum from the vapid jingles that most commercials (and pop radio) play every day. Here’s to more commercials playing Seu Jorge and his ilk.

“Battle of Evermore” – Led Zeppelin
From Led Zeppelin IV

It may prove what an odd musical upbringing I had, but I first knew and loved this song through Heart and the version they recorded as The Love Mongers on the soundtrack to the movie Singles.

I still love that version.

I’m sure I was familiar with Led Zeppelin at that time. They were the titan of hard rock, and I certainly enjoyed heavy doses of hard rock. I was more in love with current bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Nirvana, all of which, of course, have heavy influences from Led Zeppelin. But I didn’t own a Zeppelin album then.

Sometime later I rectified this and bought up most of the records. Led Zeppelin is a classic, of course, though I always preferred Led Zeppelin II.

Zeppelin always reminds me of an article I once read about Kurt Cobain, who later in life, was embarrassed that he had Led Zepplin posters on his wall when he was a young boy. They were too corporate, or not punk enough,  and that pointed to being a sell-out.

An easy enough opinion for a young man to have. I certainly went through periods of being embarrassed by the music I once loved. But these days, who has the time? I admit when I was a young boy I had posters of New Kids on the Block, and dug the boy band ditties. Although, I must secretly admit it had more to do with trying to be liked by my cousin and fitting in, than any true admiration of NKOBT.

Not long later, I ripped those same posters down and wondered how I could ever have liked those boys. But now it is a fun little piece of nostalgia, and I can actually go back and admire the hooks and harmonies. It is impossible to not smile when “Hanging Tough” hits the radio on the retro hour. I still do the hand motions too.

I’m no longer a Zeppelin fan. I think I outgrew the crunching guitars and the vulgar, science-fiction lyrics. But I have no shame in spending many hours watching The Song Remains the Same and being mesmerized by Jimmy Page playing the guitar like a violin.