Alright, I know this is a little out of character for me lately, but I want to go way out on a limb here and recommend that you all leave your little huts next Wednesday, June 27th , and scamper down to the Wellfleet Beachcomber to see a new, tough little band called the Detroit Cobras. For any right-thinking American, leaving the house nowadays has to be regarded as a potentially hazardous proposition; yet I truly believe that these guys -once described as the Ronettes crossed with the Rolling Stones in Motown (!! -I mean, how cool would /that/ be?) - might be, uh, fun.
I use the term "guys" rather loosely here, as two of these guys, namely co-leaders Rachel Nagy on vocals and Mary Ramirez on guitar, clearly aren't. There's plenty of bad girl attitude to their work, but it's nicely understated (and, unlike Cape Cod's original, beloved bad girl group, the Extremes -and when will that reunion finally happen? - endearingly under-dressed, as the band uniform seems to lean heavily toward whatever-I-had-on-in-the-van wear.)
These folks play with a serious kick, loud and proud and relatively unadorned, and the music is a sort of rocked-up soul thing, but with a minimum of guitar effects and arena rock hooey. The guitars sound like guitars, careless and clangy, maybe not all that far from Joe Strummer-ville, and the drummer kicks. And the clear aim is to make you dance and go nuts, except for the occasional ballads, which were made for melting. Most of their songs sound like they were recorded in about half an hour, and there's a feeling of abandon to it that's just swell. Some of it's cave man stuff, but it's smart cave-man stuff (or, if you prefer, cave-person.)
One of the most distinctive and delightful things about the band is that they more or less steadfastly refuse to write their own songs, to which I can only say, thank you. The number of awful songwriters on tap lately has truly mushroomed out of control, and I'd like to thank the Detroit Cobras for at least trying to stem the tide. Plus, the material they pick is masterful, and obviously born of large record collections and dogged pursuit, alternating between obscure songs that you can't believe someone else knew about and obscure songs that you didn't know about. It's record collector's heaven: Ruby Johnson, the Cookies, the Blossoms, the Staple Singers, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Tammi Terrell, etc. (plus, the goils are really cute, and look like they might be on something.)
Even with all these other assets, though, the thing that really cinches the deal is singer Rachel Nagy, who had all sorts of interesting things to say -including "it's ironic that I'm a singer, 'cause it has always been my view that white women should not sing." From that point on, we got along famously.
Rachel's a great singer, not just a good one. She understands that the first focus of a singer shouldn't be showing off or belting or giving it all you got or putting in ten more doo-dads per syllable; it should be about singing the damn song, period, in a way that lets you know how the songwriter felt. For someone working a genre that sometimes leans toward histrionics, she has a restraint that's very intriguing.
More than anyone, Nagy sounds like Irma Thomas, most obviously on the Irma covers, "It's Raining", "Breakaway", and especially a just plain perfect version of "Cry On." There's a little of that bluesy feeling throughout, though: beat up, resigned, but sweet. She calls Irma "my godhead, my hero. I saw her live at her club in New Orleans [since washed away in Katrina, alas] and fell on the ground, screamed and cried. I could've washed her feet with my tears and hair." She got it.
Plus, she just turns out to be one of those rare people with pipes, an instantly satisfying and unadulterated sound so compelling that... well, I don't really buy that whole reading-the-phonebook analogy, but she's got pipes, and pipes is good. You don't have to show it off, everybody knows from note one.
Ms. Nagy seemed to share my feelings on the tragic lack of smoke in bars nowadays ("I mean, it's New York in the winter and you're supposed to stand outside and smoke -that's retarded!"), coddling of modern chillens through excessive monitoring of various health issues ("They're gonna turn 25 and a butterfly's gonna land on their head and they're gonna have an aneurysm") (and how'd we ever get going on that, anyway?), hatred of the singing of Janis Joplin (otherwise Janis seemed ok), and of people who get all bent out out of shape when they lose children (especially people who have multiples to begin with. After all, as Rachel pointed out, "you can always have more kids.")
At one point, she did imply that the band was born joyfully out of the record collection of its founder, since-departed guitarist Steve Shaw. She said she never meant to be a singer, and that she was plied with drinks early on, when the band played for the best reason, which is wanting to make those noises enough. "We sort of pulled a fast one -we said we were gonna break up, and then as soon as [Steve] left, Mary and I giggled and started up again. The only reason we keep boys around is as archivists; the girls job is to dance and sing."
I like a girl with her feet on the ground.
The Cobras' five records have their ups and downs, but the ups are pretty wonderful; their best album might still be 2001's "Life, Love, and Leaving", though their latest, "Tied and True", gives it a run for its money; the one Cobras' original, the fabulous, hilarious, "Hot Dog", is on 2005's "Baby". They're a good downloading project, as you might not need whole albums, but there's songs here that will rock your world.
And they've never been here before, and who knows when they'll pass this way again? Those who must rock should be in attendance.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Pretzels & Dick
Man, pretzels are so good sometimes! -know what I mean? Most of the time, you don't even think about pretzels, it's as if they weren't even food, and then, suddenly, for whatever reason, the memories come flooding back: lord, these are so salty and good with booze!
It's the same with getting drunk. When I grew up, people valued getting drunk, but nowadays, being pie-faced has somehow acquired a patina of unrespectability, as if it just wasn't p.c. -almost as if it was looked down upon! Sometimes I think it's this whole no smoking, avoidance-of-cancer thing, taken to extremes. Sure, you don't seek out cancer; but do you really want to see who's sitting next to you at the bar that clearly? At one time, these were like phantom figures. Now that everything's smoke-free, I can see my friends way too well. And now I'm supposed to stop drinking?
And if that's true, why did God give us pretzels? I mean, I'm glad He did and everything, but it's hard to believe nourishment was His goal with the pretzel. But pretzels are so full of mystery! Isn't it obvious that drunk people would've been satisfied with so much less?
Which brings me to browsing for music in the digital age.
Look, you've got to understand: I was a hard-core vinyl guy. I still have literally thousands of records, untouched for many years, surrounding the stuff I do touch, and in most cases sounding way better than the stuff I do touch, but all the ?new? stuff is on cd, so I end up playing nothing but cds. Records were my first love, and perhaps my truest, though even the ceaselessly, effortlessly, unavoidably radiant Mrs. Kelp might agree that I've tried to become more moderate in my ways to the point of appreciating in-person humans to a roughly similar degree (at least after the fact, on reflection); but oh my god, records were SO CUTE!!! So large, so space-ship like! Man, that was a product!
But cds would make nice earrings...
Anyway, the only reason I mention that is to explain that I'm not, by nature, a computer-y guy, though I definitely have become one. If you'd have told me ten or twenty years I'd be spending this much time TYPING! -well, I certainly would've denied it, in fact did deny it when some of you did in fact point out the painful obviousness of it: we're all in thrall to these little screens, these little keyboards. And they're, like, wicked cool!
OK, so, like, check it out, here's a message to my brethren old and cranky-ites: this is an arguably good browsing situation.
The premise is that you can pretty much hear thirty seconds of anything, on Itunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic, all these digital music outlets, whatever, people will play you thirty seconds of absolutely anything. They've somehow declared all beginnings completely worthless -what a nineties point of view!
So you've got to decide, really fast, is it good, or is it stinky?
Being contemporary is so relentless.
But here's the good news: I tried this test on the new Wilco album, ?Sky Blue Sky? (I've always kind of liked Wilco), first listening to the songs as 30 second samples (on Itunes) and then in full (on Rhapsody, as some sort of promotion), and I'm gratified to say that in retrospect the 30 second samples seemed to give me all the information I needed to choose the two or three tracks I liked enough to keep (this also takes into account the possibility of liking something ok, but not quite to the point of ever needing to hear it again.) This situation in turn made it possible to (more or less) avoid an entire Bjork album! (her latest, whatever it is.) (Which makes it sound like I don't like poor Bjork, and I do, I like Bjork a lot, but the thirty second hints told me I don't need this particular album. It's like I just found ten bucks!)
Remember, the world is getting worse and worse, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaking of everything going downhill continuously, I have to tell you that my good friend and personal hero Dick Wetmore died a few months ago, down in Naples, Florida, where he'd spent the last few years so happily with his terrific wife Marge. I'm sure Dick will be remembered by many locally, as he spent many years on the cape, which he obviously dearly loved -and visa versa. He was famous with hepsters as being one of the first guys to play bebop on a violin, and he was a wonderful musician on both violin and cornet as well as a truly charismatic singer. Dick was personable beyond reason, and playful as a pup. He always said he was from the planet Twylo, and most of us believed him.
And I wrote way more about Dick than I wrote about anyone else. After all, how often do you meet someone from Twylo?
A memorial service will be held for him at the Duck Creeke Inn in Wellfleet at 12 noon on Sunday, May 27th ... there's bound to be some great anecdotes, so come on down.
They may even have pretzels.
It's the same with getting drunk. When I grew up, people valued getting drunk, but nowadays, being pie-faced has somehow acquired a patina of unrespectability, as if it just wasn't p.c. -almost as if it was looked down upon! Sometimes I think it's this whole no smoking, avoidance-of-cancer thing, taken to extremes. Sure, you don't seek out cancer; but do you really want to see who's sitting next to you at the bar that clearly? At one time, these were like phantom figures. Now that everything's smoke-free, I can see my friends way too well. And now I'm supposed to stop drinking?
And if that's true, why did God give us pretzels? I mean, I'm glad He did and everything, but it's hard to believe nourishment was His goal with the pretzel. But pretzels are so full of mystery! Isn't it obvious that drunk people would've been satisfied with so much less?
Which brings me to browsing for music in the digital age.
Look, you've got to understand: I was a hard-core vinyl guy. I still have literally thousands of records, untouched for many years, surrounding the stuff I do touch, and in most cases sounding way better than the stuff I do touch, but all the ?new? stuff is on cd, so I end up playing nothing but cds. Records were my first love, and perhaps my truest, though even the ceaselessly, effortlessly, unavoidably radiant Mrs. Kelp might agree that I've tried to become more moderate in my ways to the point of appreciating in-person humans to a roughly similar degree (at least after the fact, on reflection); but oh my god, records were SO CUTE!!! So large, so space-ship like! Man, that was a product!
But cds would make nice earrings...
Anyway, the only reason I mention that is to explain that I'm not, by nature, a computer-y guy, though I definitely have become one. If you'd have told me ten or twenty years I'd be spending this much time TYPING! -well, I certainly would've denied it, in fact did deny it when some of you did in fact point out the painful obviousness of it: we're all in thrall to these little screens, these little keyboards. And they're, like, wicked cool!
OK, so, like, check it out, here's a message to my brethren old and cranky-ites: this is an arguably good browsing situation.
The premise is that you can pretty much hear thirty seconds of anything, on Itunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic, all these digital music outlets, whatever, people will play you thirty seconds of absolutely anything. They've somehow declared all beginnings completely worthless -what a nineties point of view!
So you've got to decide, really fast, is it good, or is it stinky?
Being contemporary is so relentless.
But here's the good news: I tried this test on the new Wilco album, ?Sky Blue Sky? (I've always kind of liked Wilco), first listening to the songs as 30 second samples (on Itunes) and then in full (on Rhapsody, as some sort of promotion), and I'm gratified to say that in retrospect the 30 second samples seemed to give me all the information I needed to choose the two or three tracks I liked enough to keep (this also takes into account the possibility of liking something ok, but not quite to the point of ever needing to hear it again.) This situation in turn made it possible to (more or less) avoid an entire Bjork album! (her latest, whatever it is.) (Which makes it sound like I don't like poor Bjork, and I do, I like Bjork a lot, but the thirty second hints told me I don't need this particular album. It's like I just found ten bucks!)
Remember, the world is getting worse and worse, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaking of everything going downhill continuously, I have to tell you that my good friend and personal hero Dick Wetmore died a few months ago, down in Naples, Florida, where he'd spent the last few years so happily with his terrific wife Marge. I'm sure Dick will be remembered by many locally, as he spent many years on the cape, which he obviously dearly loved -and visa versa. He was famous with hepsters as being one of the first guys to play bebop on a violin, and he was a wonderful musician on both violin and cornet as well as a truly charismatic singer. Dick was personable beyond reason, and playful as a pup. He always said he was from the planet Twylo, and most of us believed him.
And I wrote way more about Dick than I wrote about anyone else. After all, how often do you meet someone from Twylo?
A memorial service will be held for him at the Duck Creeke Inn in Wellfleet at 12 noon on Sunday, May 27th ... there's bound to be some great anecdotes, so come on down.
They may even have pretzels.
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