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Autumn Mix 2009

2012 is fast approaching, tsunamis and other horrible acts of nature are upon us already, and yet the music just keeps getting better and better. I guess there's a higher power after all.

Here's my list, though possibly not officially complete, of top songs to fill a gorgeous autumn afternoon. It's a little eclectic but I think it works.

I chose songs I've been listening to often that evoke a quiet, rainy day sort of feeling that goes as well with crisp leaves as a pumpkin spice latte.

Sample most of the songs below and enjoy.

Monsters of Folk - The Sandman, The Brakeman, and Me
Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman
Cat Stevens - If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out
M. Ward - Vincent O'Brien
Mayer Hawthorne - Just Ain't Gonna Work Out
Kanye West - Paranoid
James Morrison - Nothing Ever Hurt Like You
Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose - Too Late to Turn Back Now
Snow Patrol - Hands Open
Pearl Jam - The Fixer
John Mayer - Who Says
Kid Cudi - Make Her Say
Robin Thicke - Lost Without U
Dean Martin - Sway
The National - Fashion Coat
Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
The Zombies - Time of the Season
Billy Bragg - A New England
Johnny Cash - Guess Things Happen that Way
Little Joy - The Next Time Around
Edwin Starr - 25 Miles

SONG I LOVE!

Oh my God. This song is so good. Maybe I'm crazy but I love this so so much.

Monsters of Folk - "Whole Lotta Losin'"

T-R-U-T-H

Today has been strange.

In two of my classes there were guest lecturers that gave such invigorating speeches - in such different ways - that I was left with too much information in the end.

The first was a young author who explained her book of short stories to my small writing class. At first, if I'm being "honest" here, I wasn't sure what to make of her or her writing. I wasn't sure if I could relate much to anything she was about, and I'm still not sure, but her honesty was jarring. I ended up getting that fuzzy feeling in my eyes when you're staring at something for too long by the end of class because I couldn't stop looking at her when she spoke. She seemed like she was coming from such a truthful place in her storytelling that I was kind of amazed. I liked watching someone talk about themselves for so long in a way that didn't make me feel excluded from their observations. Her stories on paper were good but not nearly as interesting in depth as her human form telling us all these things about her life so candidly. I wish more people would just get in front of a class and tell a portion of their life story. I'd be more inclined to go to school..

The second lecturer was in my theatre class. Bill Bowers, a really excellent mime and stage actor, came to perform a couple pantomime pieces he wrote in the style of Charlie Chaplin, his idol. The same thing happened with this man as the author - at first I wasn't sure I could get past my initial reaction to his image. He came across as so over the top and obnoxious that I felt like I didn't need to see it. It seemed stereotypical of a traditional theatre actor to be crazy and overly expressive with his face but by the end I was leaving voice messages on my boyfriend's phone that we need to break up because I'm in love with a mime (I fall in love with passion ALL THE TIME). He was so interesting and heartbreaking and funny and dynamic that I couldn't get enough. I wanted to stay in my seat when class was over just to watch him interact with the professor. Once he spoke for awhile his vivid expressions became endearing and he too spoke of honesty within art.

There was so much emphasis on honesty today that it made me nervous. Why is it so difficult to be honest? And this goes for acting, writing, real life...

What is it about the truth that makes it so difficult to accept?

Of course there's billions of truths in the world and in our own lives that it's impossible to put them all into one container and label it the same but there has to be something about the term in general that makes people nervous and unsure about how to get it across.

I hide the truth all the time but I almost never lie. I'm not only horrible at lying but even worse at disguising my true emotions. My favorite thing in the world is being expressive and truthful so I guess it confuses me when other people, particularly artists, are stressing "being honest" so much in their lectures. Why would that be such a focal point of explaining art? And why are we TRYING to be honest? Why can't we just be... honest?

I know it has nothing to do with music but actually it does if you want to push it that far. Musicians have to be honest just like any other art form. I think probably most with music - there's really no hiding when you're pouring your heart out in lyrics and vocals. Even drumming. Even any instrument.

I just watched a youtube video on the difference between dancing the merengue and salsa. I don't know how to dance but god, those videos really made me wish I could. They are so incredibly passionate and there's something really honest in moving your body so close to someone else's expecting that they'll know the right way to move with you. The eroticism in that is incredible. Being truthful is kind of erotic in general - for me at least. Maybe my mother had a good collection of old records but hell, she did not know how to dance the merengue. I'm sort of wishing it was the other way around now. I'm also sort of wishing I could dance with a tall, feathered hair, older gentleman but wishing don't often come true, huh?

So, the truth. I might be honest but I still don't get it.


My only complaint: They're smiling too much - smiling isn't that sexy, is it?

Monsters of Folk: A Review

I know every new band or song I mention is my "favorite" but right now I'm so impressed with Monsters of Folk, a supergroup collaboration between M. Ward, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes.

I had heard about this grouping for awhile now and indeed it has taken Monsters of Folk over three years (maybe even more) to put out a cohesive album together due to scheduling conflicts between all the members and the lack of a sturdy meeting place until Mogis laid down some roots in Omaha in the shape of a recording studio used to produce most of the tracks on their debut album that came out last week.

Not only do all of these songs have a little something special to them that the individual solo artist's collaborating on them don't always have on their own, there's the fact that these artists were so enthralled with their work that they refused to have any hired hands to play additional instruments on the recordings. Absolutely everything you hear on this record came from these four gentlemen - and that's an accomplishment in itself.

On the band's website, there's a biography-type section that discusses the aspect of "cameos" within the songs. They paid extra attention to making sure the songs didn't sound like a specific member being backed up by the others. While I was perusing this album on iTunes, I actually found myself being drawn first to the tracks that had M. Ward's voice in the 30 second samples because not only is he one of my favorite artists but I felt like those songs had more of the old fashioned "She & Him" style that I so appreciate from his work. Once I downloaded the songs and listened to them in their entiretly I found that the other members of the band - even Conor Oberst, who sounds at his best here and whom I typically detest - contributed so much to even this songs I had pinned as M. Ward penned. They really do a great job at a completely cohesive sound.

There is also this great Traveling Wilburys style to the entire record that makes it not only folksy but a little country and a tad vintage rock and roll. In my mind, I could picture these four performing a concert at a bar in Nashville much more than their upcoming stop at the Beacon Theatre. This is the kind of music that doesn't really need to be accessorized by much. It is sparse, hands in the mud kind of stuff that doesn't get old - it just gets better with time.

So far my favorite track is "Whole Lotta Losin'", one of the first I downloaded out of the 16 tracks that flesh out the complete package. This song is so catchy and down home. I don't know how else to express it. There's certain parts where you could swear Tom Petty was singing in the background. This is no doubt intentional - there's certainly a lot of inspiration coming from people like The Band and Neil Young on all of these songs but unlike some other artists, Monsters of Folk does this old/new thing perfectly, contributing something completely fresh and unique to the genre.

"Baby Boomer" and "The Sandman, The Brakeman, and Me" are also really growing on me. They just give a feeling of catchy, fun jams being sung among friends in a little room.

This album makes me want to give Bright Eyes and My Morning Jacket another try. Hmm. Maybe just the latter.

For more information and samples make sure to check out MonstersOfFolk.Com.

Guest Blogger: Blink-182 - August 26, 2009

The following review was written by one of my favorite writers, the brilliant Keith Heumiller after attending the Blink-182 show at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ. He emailed it to me quite awhile ago and due to so many situations, I was unable to bring it to you until now. I greatly appreciate Keith's generosity with this review exclusively for Music Mavens. I'm lucky to know someone who is not only passionate about music but so incredibly talented. Hopefully he'll let me steal more of his work in the future.

I actually listened to Blink-182 after this...for a little while.

Here's what he had to say:

In terms of the concert itself, I was rather disappointed. This was, I think, the third time I've seen them, and I actually walked out on the last one (2002's Pop Disaster Tour w/ Green Day) because, quite simply, they couldn't play. They sounded like a 3-piece middle school band trying to cover Blink 182 songs, and the disjunct between their studio work and live performance was almost physically painful to listen to. I don't normally walk out on concerts, especially ones that cost as much as that one did, but I don't normally find myself confronted with such a painfully obvious truth as I was that night - namely that Blink had become a "studio band," one of the worst possible indictments for any group with underground punk roots or predilections.

At this concert, however, I was surprised to see that the guys had actually learned to play their own songs. Most of them, anyway. Some, like "I Miss You" and "Violence", from the super-produced, mega budget Blink 182 album (2003), were still so obviously scaled down in the live version that they were almost unrecognizable. But where the band picked up in their performance of crap-pop hits like "All the Small Things", they fell way behind on the creativity end. The set played out like a greatest hits CD. Only 2 of the 14 or 15 songs they played were "bomb tracks," or non-singles, and there was never even a mention of a new album, or new material. The same old fart jokes were there, the same pedantic banter back and forth between Tom and Mark, but there was no broaching the subject - no evidence whatsoever - of a "new" Blink 182 emerging from the ashes of their breakup. Those of us hoping for a push in a new, more mature artistic direction - a direction perceived by both critics and fans in the wake of their last, self-titled album, which Rolling Stone gave four out of five stars and dubbed a "coming of age masterpiece" - may be in for a bit of a disappointment.


In short, this concert - this tour - strikes me as nothing further than a Geffen-sponsored test run, a temperature-gauging of the pop culture pool to see if Blink 182 is still relevant enough to spend 2 million dollars on a new record. If the band was serious about moving in a new direction, about crafting and developing a more artistically respectful and socially poignant variant of the pop/punk/rock wave they rode to stardom, they would not have put on a show that, in nearly all respects, could have been seen on the same stage over five years ago. They are not catering to an older, more discerning network of fans (who were there, in fact. I spoke to a 60 year old man in the beer line who said he had heard Tom's side-project Angels and Airwaves from his son, and liked it enough to come see if it would somehow have an effect on a "new" Blink 182. I went to talk to him at his seat about halfway through the show, but he was already gone).

The band did add one "new" touch to their live show, however. Near the end of the concert, Travis, alone on stage, strapped himself into a custom built throne and flew around the arena in a sort of 'magic carpet' style flying drum solo (see pics). This would have been cool, if I hadn't seen it before. I guess the band didn't understand that some of their fans may be old enough to remember Tommy Lee doing the same thing, almost a quarter-century ago.


All photographs courtesy of Keith as well.

Why John Mayer... why

I have listened to John Mayer's new single "Who Says" over ten times since it was released on johnmayer.com earlier this weekend.

This does not necessarily mean it's a good thing.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure what to make of this song. From the acoustic version he's playing around L.A. for months now to the little snippets we heard while he was hosting on the radio to now the final product released through his website and the one that will be going national very soon (tentatively on Monday).

I'm surprised by this. I loved the acoustic version, the sample was growing on me, but now I'm underwhelmed. I love this little song so much - it reminds me of a contemporary Johnny Cash/James Taylor sound but it's not John Mayer level material. I'm used to his singles being the worst songs on the albums but still ten times better than the rest of the garbage on the radio. Now though there's actually a lot some stations are offering in terms of excellent singles that truly are the best on many artists' albums. When Mayer first debuted, his sound was fresh and witty. While his voice still distinguishes him from other singer/songwriters -and his musicianship in general- this song is not what I expected. Of course it's wonderful to be pleasantly surprised by your favorite musician but I'm still on the fence about whether this is a "pleasant" surprise or not.

I have no real credentials to give a thorough rundown of what is good or bad within a song but I know John Mayer's catalog better than the back of my own hand. I know every lyric, every guitar part (through humming that is), and every song he's performed that hasn't even been released. I'm going to love this new album and embrace it with every fiber of my music-loving heart no matter what the first single is but I just wish it had been... different.

I still listen to his last album, Continuum, nearly every day and it's over three years old so I'm sure I'll love Battle Studies just as much (check out "Half of My Heart" - that's my song so far) but it's just that "but" that's getting in the way. I'm too old for the pop thing and I don't want Mayer's sound to evolve into something I can't relate to anymore.

So I'll go download it and enjoy it like it's the greatest thing to hit the airwaves since Tom Petty debuted in the '70's but I'd still prefer something a little more blusey and funky from a supposed guitar master.

Song to Love: Empire State of Mind

I don't like to "editorialize" these songs to loves... well it's more like I don't like the word "editorialize" - I love doing it though. And watch me go:

I LOVE this song. There is something about this song that catches my attention like no other. There is a power to it. It's like Jay-Z's urban take on Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and he even mentions Sinatra in it. I'm realizing more and more that one of my favorite music genres is Rap and although that might sound surprising based on my other favorite musicians, songs, etc. I have good reason.

I can't think of much mainstream, top 100 Billboard music that has more soul and feeling than some of these hit rap songs of the past five years. Artists like Kanye West, Jay-Z, Common, Kid Cudi, T.I. and David Banner have so much heart in their music it's ridiculous. Maybe it's covered with a smattering of pomp and some form of shock and awe but underneath there's a world where feelings are the most important thing and magic comes in the form of addicting beats and desperately delicious rhymes.

This song by Jay-Z off his new album, The Blueprint 3, is one I first heard on the disastrous VMA's earlier this month and while I enjoyed it then, it wasn't until I downloaded it last week that it grabbed me. There are such interesting elements working together on this track - Alicia Keys with a hook that's beautiful and haunting (I have never heard her sound better - she has a bridge that's utterly breathtaking), Jay-Z with verses that explain the topic (Manhattan) in a fresh, new way, and music that sounds exactly like the words do, if you know what I'm saying. The song sounds like New York. It's like music onomatopoeia, and that's really rare. Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" also has this sound. (side note: Jay-Z was recently seen attending a Grizzly Bear show in New York so it all comes full circle)

So far this song has reached #1 on the iTunes charts and #5 on the official Billboards list, also managing to chart in the UK, Ireland, Canada, and Switzerland. It doesn't officially get released to radio until October 19th.

You MUST check this song out. Whether you like rap or not, this is a special case. I would listen to this every hour if I could.



Empire State of Mind
Yeah,
Yeah, Imma up at Brooklyn,
now Im down in Tribeca,
right next to DeNiro,
But i’ll be hood forever,
I’m the new Sinatra,
and since i made it here,
i can make it anywhere,
yeah they love me everywhere,
i used to cop in Harlem,
all of my dominicanos
right there up on broadway,
brought me back to that McDonalds,
took it to my stash spot,
Five Sixty Stage street,
catch me in the kitchen like a simmons whipping pastry,
cruising down 8th street,
off white lexus,
driving so slow but BK is from Texas,
me I’m up at Bedsty,
home of that boy Biggie,
now i live on billboard,
and i brought my boys with me,
say wat up to Ty Ty, still sipping Malta
sitting courtside Knicks and Nets give me high fives,
N-gga i be spiked out, i can trip a referee,
tell by my attitude that I most definitely from…

[Alicia Keys]
In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York

[Jay-Z]
I made you hot n-gga,
Catch me at the X with OG at a Yankee game,
sh-t i made the yankee hat more famous than a yankee can,
you should know I bleed Blue, but I aint a crip tho,
but i got a gang of n-ggas walking with my click though,
welcome to the melting pot,
corners where we selling rocks,
afrika bambaataa sh-t,
home of the hip hop,
yellow cap, gypsy cap, dollar cab, holla back,
for foreigners it aint fitted they forgot how to act,
8 million stories out there and their naked,
cities is a pity half of y’all won’t make it,
me i gotta plug Special Ed "i got it made,"
If Jesus payin LeBron, I’m paying Dwayne Wade,
3 dice cee-lo
3 card marley,
labor day parade, rest in peace Bob Marley,
Statue of Liberty, long live the World trade,
long live the king yo,
I’m from the empire state thats…

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York
Welcome to the bright light..

[Jay-Z]
Lights is blinding,
girls need blinders
so they can step out of bounds quick,
the side lines is blind with casualties,
who sipping life casually, then gradually become worse,
don’t bite the apple Eve,
caught up in the in crowd,
now your in-style,
and in the winter gets cold en vogue with your skin out,
the city of sin is a pity on a whim,
good girls gone bad, the cities filled with them,
Mommy took a bus trip and now she got her bust out,
everybody ride her, just like a bus route,
Hail Mary to the city your a Virgin,
and Jesus can’t save you life starts when the church ends,
came here for school, graduated to the high life,
ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight,
MDMA got you feeling like a champion,
the city never sleeps better slip you a Ambien

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York


[Alicia Keys]
One hand in the air for the big city,
Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty,
no place in the World that can compare,
Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeaaahh
come on, come,
yeah,

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York