I haven't listened to much new music this year, but I'm always listening. In my
mid-year round-up, for which this amounts to the much belated and superfluous part 2, I neglected to mention what is far and away my new song of the year: Bill Callahan's cover of Kath Bloom's "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" (which was recorded for
Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute to the Songs of Kath Bloom). I admit that I'd never heard of Kath Bloom before this year, and still haven't heard her music, but if it's anything like the quality of Bill Callahan's version of her song, then it must be worth seeking out. (Though
fans of the originals may be understandably bitter at Bloom's apparent obscurity, still that's no call for completely missing the boat on Callahan's cover--"adult alternative"? No. Just, no.)
Here, anyway, is Bill playing the song live (this clip first seen via
Steve, who is also responsible for privately sending me the link to the studio version--thanks Steve!):
9 comments:
I think I remember you sort of dismissively casting away TV on the Radio before--do they count as a Pitchfork-approved indie band de jour?
have you listened to Dinosaur Jr.'s new stuff?
Ha! Yes they would count as Pitchfork approved, etc... but I seem to recall that my dismissal had more to do with the fact that they were being employed as evidence that indie rockers were in fact engaging with "black" music, a highly dubious proposition. (Anyway, I really liked their first ep, but have remained immune to the no doubt considerable charms of their albums.)
I have not heard the new Dinosaur Jr. stuff. I was never a big fan in the old days (I can recall more Sebadoh songs than I can Dino Jr. songs), but I am curious about the new one. Steve was telling me about one song a little while back.... what are your thoughts on it?
I think Dinosaur Jr.'s newest album is brilliant, maybe even their best from a first-song-to-last standpoint, but then again it's a lot like their old stuff, so I can't promise it will impress you more than their old stuff.
I guess I do like a lot of Pitchfork-approved bands, but I like TVOTR a lot more than most. I like their last two albums rather than their first LP and EP, but I'd say overall, I feel more intellectually engaged by them than by just about any other currently active group I listen to.
Forgot to mention I agree with you about Deerhoof. That's good stuff. And Mirah's got some great stuff, but I think I've only really listened to C'Mon Miracle. "Jerusalem" really knocks me over.
Thanks Andrew. Please note that I am not saying these Pitchfork-approved bands are necessarily bad. Just that they are not for me. (Not just that I don't like them--some of them I probably would--but they are not for me.) I have learned about many of my favorite artists through Pitchfork.
TVOTR just slipped me, since I loved the Ep, but the first album was meh, the next couple came out smack in the middle of my decision to drastically cut down on my music consumption.
No, that's totally reasonable, and I really liked how you articulated the last paragraph of the post; I've often wondered at what age/stage I'll start seriously tapering off my active music following, and the tapering has already begun to some extent. There's such a backlog of music to listen to anyway.
But there is also a very legitimate reason for pure backlash against the Pitchfork hype machine, or at least that's what I often feel. I mean, seriously, Arctic Monkeys weren't that great, and compared even to a band like The Libertines, aren't that creative at all. And Art Brut was a one-trick pony; and Interpol is actually looking like one of the worst Joy Division-cover bands of recent years (Crystal Stilts, I think, for just one example, is better).
Sorry for the outpouring; I strangely don't get to talk about music very often anymore--most of my hipster friends from college have disappeared into Brooklyn.
The thing about Pitchfork, I think, is that few people distinguish between their different writers. There are those who've been there since the early days, who still seem to be the "voice" of Pitchfork, the ones reviewing the mainline indie rock, the ones generating hype. They don't interest me much. But there's also diverse writers such as Mark Richardson, Tom Ewing, and Tom Breihan who I like--all of whom write better, for one, and don't seem too invested in indie rock. (Richardson has written there for a long time, it's true, and he does tend to review Animal Collective releases, but if you know what his general tastes are, the connection is clear.)
And no apology necessary... outpour all you want!
Richard,
Several responses: when I lived in NYC, I met a woman who ran a class for toddlers and youngsters with contemporary music: Milton Babbitt-type stuff, George Crumb, Kronos Quartet. Intriguing.
Yes, Amy Rigby was married to Will Rigby, drummer of the dBs. And yes, it's a break-up album. IIRC, she's now with Wreckless Eric ("I'll go the whole wide world").
Me, I'm a sucker for power pop. I love hooks and melodies, I love harmonies, I love the jangle and chime of an arpeggiated Rickenbacker 12-string, I find the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/conclusion form somehow comforting and yet capable of surprise. No one is too old for a good tune, and sometimes the best tunes and even lyrics (& poetry) are written by the young. There're gems out there—hidden, obscure, one-shot wonders—it's like a quest, for me, to find them. That's, of course, a holdover from my college days when I would spend endless hours in the cut-out bins and used record stores in Chapel Hill. That is to say, for me, it's the song, not the singer. And I agree with J.M. Coetzee: my favorite music is the stuff I haven't heard yet.
Best,
Jim H.
Ah, yes, Jim. The dBs. Of course. (I suppose I could have looked it up, but where's the fun in that?)
And that music class for toddlers sounds awesome. I'd love to find something like it for Mirah (she's responded well to some saxophone skronk!).
Thanks.
I quite liked Amy Rigby's Diary of a Mod Housewife, and learned a couple of songs from it. She's made several CDs since then, and while each one has a few songs on it that made it worth buying as far as I was concerned, none was as consistently good as Diary.
For some reason this brings to mind the Roches. I loved Maggie and Terre's Seductive Reasoning, and liked their first album as a trio with Suzzy well enough -- again, a few good songs. But though I've listened to much of their music since then, it's Seductive Reasoning that I keep going back to.
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