Oh, golly gosh, I am so glad that it is Christmas season once again, for it is only at Christmas that my neighbor, ZephyrTadwalter, makes her famous seasonal glug, full of wine and raisins and almonds and wine and rum and vodka and practically everything else I like; and so it is that I come to you brimming with Christmas cheer and goodwill, having completely forgotten that I don't work here anymore!
Actually, the truth is additionally that I missed you -or at least my idea of the proverbial, theoretical you - and yearned once again to inflict my opinions on you in regard to your no doubt at least partially impending holiday shopping and general mood.
So... jolly? Not jolly? What? If you're any kind of music fan you can't have helped noticing how little seems to be going on lately as a thoroughly beaten music business cowers further and further in the corner, totally punchdrunk.
Musicians are working less and getting paid less when they do, even as they lose all hope that the record biznezz will ever again make as much sense as it did even five or ten years ago, when it still made hardly any. There's less record companies spending less money promoting fewer, more conservative records, and it'll probably just get worse, because at this point there's no logical financial justification in considering a business that the internet has all but rendered obsolete. An intelligent person would do something else.
And as if that weren't bad enough, people who go to music clubs are suddenly faced with an entirely smoke-free environment in which you can clearly see every aspect of your poor, sad, drunken friends' deterioration as they slowly age before your very eyes.
You have to worry that the lack of smoke and haze may eventually kill the bar business entirely. Why, only a few months ago Lo Cicero's, my longtime favorite non-snooty Italian restaurant in Orleans, closed, no doubt right after the employees and patrons finally got a good look at each other. Which leaves me totally without acceptable garlic bread, meat loaf, and magic salad dressing alternatives, and thus plunging into the depths of despair.
On the other hand, if you really dig the rockin' sounds, then you're going to have to listen to something. In the clubs, the new all-lady band the Ticks has provided some good fun for all with their unpretentious, playfully sunny disposish, not to mention an array of costumes and fashion ideas that would make Carmen Miranda green with envy. Strangely enough, I haven't gotten to hear their new album, “So Young, So Bad” (no doubt available on their website, www.theticks.com) but I'm looking forward to it, with the usual baited breath.
Another good local shopping tip is the eponymous Calamity J and the Giants CD (available wherever fine Calamity J and the Giants products are sold), which is effectively the long-awaited solo debut of ex-High King Jay Cournoyer, and it was well worth the wait. Jay has long been one of the Cape's best voices, and he's a distinctive and cheerfully funky songsmith, too. This is one of the best home-grown recordings I've heard in years, and features cameos from members of NRBQ and the Incredible Casuals..
I'm also proud to point out that Patty Larkin of Wellfleet put out perhaps her best record ever this year, “Red = Luck” (Vanguard), coincidentally also one of the best albums anyone, anywhere put out this year. Buy lots! Distribute maniacally!
Meanwhile, here's some more wide-ranging suggestions -i.e., off-Cape! -from a major crank who basically hates everything, best stuff first:
The re-issue of Randy Newman's “Good Old Boys” (Rhino), with a whole disc of solo outtakes, was easily the most momentous and satisfying event of the year for me; he also has a new solo album out on Nonesuch. Another standout was the soundtrack to the movie “Amandla” (ATO/BMG), which features a wide range of African vocal and choral work, plus Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela, and Miriam Makeba; it's fascinating terrain, studded with at least six absolute stunners.
The new Paolo Conte album, “Reveries”, is delightful, although I'd still recommend starting -as soon as possible -with his first American album, “The Very Best Of Paolo Conte” (both are on Nonesuch.)
Also liked Dengue Fever, the New Pornographers, the Shins, the Strokes (kinda), Danien Rice and Sondre Lerche (some), the North Mississippi All-Stars (mostly just “Meet Me in the City” off “Polaris”, though I heard good reports from their show last summer at the Beachcomber), the Beatles' cool re-imagining of “Let It Be Naked”, Joseph Arthur, Mark Erelli, Bleu, uh, Joni Mitchell's 2-disc “Greatest Hits” re-tooled, also on Nonesuch (“Travelogue”), uh, er...
Much better year for movies; briefly, you MUST, MUST, MUST see “Russian Ark” (number one on my hit parade -this brilliant, dreamy, one-marathon-take masterpiece had me sitting there with my jaw dropped to the floor for longer than any movie ever), “Aberdeen”, and “Spirited Away”; also the current HBO/ Mike Nichols version of “Angels in America”, which is flawed, needlessly intelligent, and sometimes a bit of a tussle, but definitely amazing and worth it (if it only had what might be the wonderful Meryl Streep's best work ever, it would be essential, but it has much more), and “All the Real Girls”, “Winged Migration”, “Lawless Heart”, “Dinner Rush”, “Blue Crush”, “Spun”, “Frida”, and “The Italian Job.” Surprise -pretty good year for movies!
Ok, that's it, merry Christmas.
Friday, December 19, 2003
Friday, June 20, 2003
Feature: Mark Erelli
(note - at this point, Kelp on Kape has been discontinued, but they still let the old boy write an occasional feature)
Is Mark Erelli the New Elvis of folk music? Or is that just a spiffy way to begin an article about him?
I know it sounds unlikely, but it's not entirely a moot point. Recently, no less an authority than the New York Times rhapsodized about him being a “gravelly-voiced heartthrob who has a way with a smirk”, and who can even think of the word “smirk” without thinking of the King? Sure, he was a rocker, and Mark's a folkie -or, perhaps, a semi-folkie. (Hell, he performs solo with an acoustic guitar, what would you call him?)
What is undeniable is that Erelli has a sincere and natural way of getting all the way inside a song that is most gratifying, plus actual pipes and even pizazz, as you may yourself notice at the First Encounter Coffeehouse in Eastham this Saturday, June 28^th when he makes his third appearance there.
Critics have also compared his latest album, “The Memorial Hall Recordings” (Signature Sound Recording), to the Band -again, a wonderful and intriguing group to be compared to, whether it's true or not. If I were a singer, and I got compared to the Band and to Elvis, I would quit right there -it's just not going to get too much better than that.
Mark is still a little green, and a little too easy-going to live up to all that, but he does somehow put you in mind of some great folks. He has a certain rasp to his voice that reminds many of Steve Forbert and John Prine, but he's a better, less mannered singer than either one - and he writes good songs, too!
Plus, he's modest. Cheerful, too (and probably thrifty, 'cause show folk usually are; not sure about his obedience.) Very unassuming about communicating -he just does it, and you don't see him setting up his stuff or anything! Basically, he throws a slider.
Here's what's great about the modest part: he just put out an album he wrote only four songs on, which is entirely unheard of in modern folk. In an era when people dependably put out whole albums of nothing but their own compositions, whether they're saying anything worth saying or not, Erelli actually does lots of other people's songs, all songs you've never heard of, all well-chosen.
Which makes him a good interpreter, which is refreshing; but the fact that his four songs stand out so well in this company also makes him a very promising songwriter. Two of them -the western swinging “What's Changed”, and the lovely instrumental (he wrote an instrumental! I love this guy!) “Little Torch” -are the best things on here.
The album is also interesting for the method with which it was recorded. To this end, Erelli and his band took up residency in a Civil War-era Memorial Hall in the small town of Monson in central Massachusetts, where “THE MEMORIAL HALL RECORDINGS was made in only three and a half days, with a minimum of overdubs. Mark says that during the recordings, the Hall itself became like another member of the band - “the fifth Beatle” -and the vibe is very real, woody, and, eventually, ingratiating.
I say eventually, because the album comes on pretty unassuming at first, and, in general, it's not aiming to be a world-beater. That's what's great about it: he's not trying to knock you over, he's just sidling up next to you. There's a trilogy of Civil War songs in the middle, moody and spare, and a couple of the others that are also dour and haunting, but the depressing stuff is leavened with joy and humor (“it's a fine time of year to watch you disappear.”)
The band is great, too, always spare and melodic, especially Kevin Barry (the Boston guitarist who seems to be everywhere lately) and accordionist Joe Barbato. There's a lot more accordion on here than you'd figure, and it's not that chordal, tejano stuff, but something much sparser, tuneful, and old-fashioned.
A person could miss a band like this, playing solo, but something tells me you won't. Erelli just loves singing: “Even when I was in middle school, y' know, and it was junior high when it wasn't really cool to like music class... we used to sing Joni Mitchell songs, and people would sing “Both Sides Now” kind of rolling their eyes, and I'd be sitting there going, 'god, I kind of like this... what's wrong with me?'”
He remembered his earlier appearances at the First Encounter fondly, musing that he thought it was one of those rooms that actually sounds great empty, but that he thought trying to get people to leave might be the wrong way to go in the long run. We both thought that those uncomfortable pews might polish a few of them off, but Mark said that that was just a normal part of “the puritanical sado-masochistic kind of experience” so sought after in today's modern folk music environment.
Could be a new kind of Elvis in the building.
Is Mark Erelli the New Elvis of folk music? Or is that just a spiffy way to begin an article about him?
I know it sounds unlikely, but it's not entirely a moot point. Recently, no less an authority than the New York Times rhapsodized about him being a “gravelly-voiced heartthrob who has a way with a smirk”, and who can even think of the word “smirk” without thinking of the King? Sure, he was a rocker, and Mark's a folkie -or, perhaps, a semi-folkie. (Hell, he performs solo with an acoustic guitar, what would you call him?)
What is undeniable is that Erelli has a sincere and natural way of getting all the way inside a song that is most gratifying, plus actual pipes and even pizazz, as you may yourself notice at the First Encounter Coffeehouse in Eastham this Saturday, June 28^th when he makes his third appearance there.
Critics have also compared his latest album, “The Memorial Hall Recordings” (Signature Sound Recording), to the Band -again, a wonderful and intriguing group to be compared to, whether it's true or not. If I were a singer, and I got compared to the Band and to Elvis, I would quit right there -it's just not going to get too much better than that.
Mark is still a little green, and a little too easy-going to live up to all that, but he does somehow put you in mind of some great folks. He has a certain rasp to his voice that reminds many of Steve Forbert and John Prine, but he's a better, less mannered singer than either one - and he writes good songs, too!
Plus, he's modest. Cheerful, too (and probably thrifty, 'cause show folk usually are; not sure about his obedience.) Very unassuming about communicating -he just does it, and you don't see him setting up his stuff or anything! Basically, he throws a slider.
Here's what's great about the modest part: he just put out an album he wrote only four songs on, which is entirely unheard of in modern folk. In an era when people dependably put out whole albums of nothing but their own compositions, whether they're saying anything worth saying or not, Erelli actually does lots of other people's songs, all songs you've never heard of, all well-chosen.
Which makes him a good interpreter, which is refreshing; but the fact that his four songs stand out so well in this company also makes him a very promising songwriter. Two of them -the western swinging “What's Changed”, and the lovely instrumental (he wrote an instrumental! I love this guy!) “Little Torch” -are the best things on here.
The album is also interesting for the method with which it was recorded. To this end, Erelli and his band took up residency in a Civil War-era Memorial Hall in the small town of Monson in central Massachusetts, where “THE MEMORIAL HALL RECORDINGS was made in only three and a half days, with a minimum of overdubs. Mark says that during the recordings, the Hall itself became like another member of the band - “the fifth Beatle” -and the vibe is very real, woody, and, eventually, ingratiating.
I say eventually, because the album comes on pretty unassuming at first, and, in general, it's not aiming to be a world-beater. That's what's great about it: he's not trying to knock you over, he's just sidling up next to you. There's a trilogy of Civil War songs in the middle, moody and spare, and a couple of the others that are also dour and haunting, but the depressing stuff is leavened with joy and humor (“it's a fine time of year to watch you disappear.”)
The band is great, too, always spare and melodic, especially Kevin Barry (the Boston guitarist who seems to be everywhere lately) and accordionist Joe Barbato. There's a lot more accordion on here than you'd figure, and it's not that chordal, tejano stuff, but something much sparser, tuneful, and old-fashioned.
A person could miss a band like this, playing solo, but something tells me you won't. Erelli just loves singing: “Even when I was in middle school, y' know, and it was junior high when it wasn't really cool to like music class... we used to sing Joni Mitchell songs, and people would sing “Both Sides Now” kind of rolling their eyes, and I'd be sitting there going, 'god, I kind of like this... what's wrong with me?'”
He remembered his earlier appearances at the First Encounter fondly, musing that he thought it was one of those rooms that actually sounds great empty, but that he thought trying to get people to leave might be the wrong way to go in the long run. We both thought that those uncomfortable pews might polish a few of them off, but Mark said that that was just a normal part of “the puritanical sado-masochistic kind of experience” so sought after in today's modern folk music environment.
Could be a new kind of Elvis in the building.
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