Classics: Mermaid Avenue

I have, for years, thoroughly enjoyed Volume One of the Mermaid Avenue project that Billy Bragg and Wilco did together.  The album is a 1998 alt-rock/alt-country masterwork that uses previously unheard lyrics of Woody Guthrie over music performed by Wilco and sung by Billy Bragg. Guthrie apparently left over a thousand songs-worth of lyrics behind when he died, and his daughter has sought to get some of those out there to the world.

These songs swerve between the silly ("Christ for President" or "Hoodoo Voodoo") and the more serious ("At My Window Sad and Lonely), but there are two songs on here that are absolute classics for me.  I have put them in more playlists and on more mixes than I can count.  Yes, I still make mixes like back in the junior high days.  First, California Stars.

It is a spare little guitar and piano tune over the top of some loose drum and Jeff Tweedy singing a love song to California and the gal sharing it with him.  Such a relaxed little groove.  Next, is Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key.

More light touch with the guitar, keyboard, and violin, along with Natalie Merchant harmonizing along.  It has kind of an Irish lilt to the song, but the lyrics are all about this kid using his singing skills to mack on young ladies in his country bumpkin home.  One more from that album - At My Window Sad and Lonely.

So eloquently captures the sadness of waiting and wishing for someone.  Love it.  And the most amazing part to me is how well the lyrics and the music mesh, when the lyricist had been dead for 30+ years by the time these new versions hit the streets.  Such a cool project.

Mermaid Avenue Vol. 2 came out a few years later, in 2000, and was not nearly as strong of an album, but still retains the same fun spirit and lyricism.  I think my favorite is "My Flying Saucer," which is likely not the strongest lyrical expression of Guthrie's political songwriting, but definitely shows his playful side.

Much later, in 2012, a third volume was released with 17 more songs recorded during the original sessions.  Again, significantly weaker to me than the original disc, but still a fun listen.  My highlights on here are "Ought to be Satisfied Now" and "Jolly Banker," which is a fun take-down of the fat-cat bankers of 70 years ago, which still resonates well with the financial collapse of a few years ago.  Sample feel good lyric sung by the Jolly Banker character: "I'll come down and help you, I'll rape you and scalp you, I'm the Jolly Banker, Jolly Banker am I."

I don't remember who originally turned me on to the first album - I suspect it was KGSR back before they lost their way.  I hope something in here fires you up as well.  Spotify has all three albums available for play in one big, fat pile.  Go enjoy.

First Aid Kit

Two young gals from Sweden who sound like Californian veterans of the 70's folk scene.  This is wonderful harmonic country-folk; finger-picking guitar, some slide guitar here and there, and gentle drum brushes under some lovely classic country singing.  They first came to notoriety by covering a Fleet Foxes song and somehow getting that to the attention of the lead singer of the Fleet Foxes.

They look like tiny little Arya Starks in their wooded Swedish back yard forest.  That song is fantastic in its own right - the Foxes are a great band - and these girls do a great job staying true to the harmonies and nuances of the original.

After that, they put out an EP, then an album, but it wasn't until 2012's The Lion's Roar that they really found a huge audience.  Their most popular song off of that album is a great country/folk-heros-in-love-name-dropping love song that was chosen as a Top Ten Single of the year by Rolling Stone in 2012.

Love it.  They just recently released their new album, Stay Gold, and it is ten more songs of that same beautiful style.  The top song so far from that new album is My Silver Lining:

Does it feel like that "try to keep on keepin' on" chant in there is from listening to ABBA all the time while growing up?  Otherwise this is some excellent, old-school harmony that feels instantly classic.  I wish they were coming back to ACL again this year, but I'll just have to add their album to my poolside playlist and enjoy all summer long instead.

The X Games

I have survived the inaugural X Games foray into Austin.  Just barely, but I have survived.

They were held in L.A. for years, but have signed a deal to come to Austin for the next four years.  Why the hell not?  So when the tickets went on sale last year, I nabbed five wristbands for Saturday, thinking it would be a fun excursion with the kiddos and wife in tow.  While I would not call it a complete bust, it was a hard day to enjoy.

My main beef with the Games is the venue and the insane amount of space they put between the different events. When schlepping 3 small kids from xxtreme little car racing over to xxtreme skate ramping, walking for a damn mile with a couple thousand other people is very difficult and sweaty and unpleasant.  More to the point, I think it was entirely unnecessary.  To my untrained eye, there were open spaces available to set up the events closer to each other.  At one point, I jokingly asked a volunteer if an event would still be going on if we took the half hour to walk over to the venue, and she corrected me that it would definitely take longer than thirty minutes to walk to the venue.  What the hell?  But then she helpfully told us that for $75 we could ride an elevator up to the top of the big tower in the middle of the track.  Awesome.  No thanks.

Next, the heat and humidity combo was brutal.  It actually wasn't that terribly hot for Texas in June - I think it was 93 out there - but there is zero shade in the stands, which are made of reflective silver metal, which also manage to completely block the wind.  It was like being in a solar broiler.  When the action was happening, the whole crew forgot that misery entirely, but the events were generally late to start and frequently involved long delays throughout, so we spent a lot of time just broiling.  And our three year old just wanted to sit in a lap the whole time, so one of us got the joy of a extra little heater on our crotch.  I looked over at the older two at one point and the six year old just had sweat dripping off her nose and chin onto her wet shirt.  Ugh.

I was also disappointed by the fact that most events were happening one at a time.  So the entire crowd would go from each event to the next, instead of splitting up the crowd into more manageable chunks.  This was likely for TV or something.  When we walked all the way over to the Skate Park to see that event, there was no way to get a seat that would actually see what was happening.  Thousands of people had already taken most of the seats, and the remaining ones were useless.  The Park was built up about 20 feet high, so that you could not see anything at all from ground level and even if you were level with the top of the bowl, you couldn't see anything that happened once the rider dropped in to do tricks.  This was when buying those VIP passes started to make sense.

My old man whining aside, when the action was happening, it was awesome.  The kids loved it.  The adults loved it.  I totally get why you should do the X Games in person.  After giving up on the insanely long walk to the BMX dirt track, we watched the RallyCross finals, with each kid picking their own car to cheer for (generally based on the tragically unattractive paint job or color of the car's rims), and when the race was on the kids were on the edge of their seats cheering and talking up their car.  It was really fun to watch.  However, the racing excitement was deflated frequently by disabled cars.  When a car goes down, the race stops and a couple of wreckers drive out to get the car and pick up all of the little pieces of the different cars that have been left behind on the track.  For example, the first race started with five cars, but had to pause during the first lap to clean up a car.  After about 20 minutes in the solar broiler, the race restarted with four cars, which lasted no time at all before another car went down.  After the cleanup session, the final three cars raced it out.  And it was awesome.  We only lasted two races at that track before bagging it to try to cool off, but the boy wanted to stay and keep watching those races.

Same kind of thing at the Moto X Speed and Style.  When the action was happening, the kids were on their feet, amazed by the tricks and ability of those dudes to launch themselves up in the air and twist all over the place before righting themselves and landing.  There were apparently strong winds (although we couldn't feel it in the damn stands) that made the riders tone down their jumps, but for us, it was still a blast to see.

After about five and a half hours in the broiler, we threw in the towel.  All my grand plans for seeing music with the kids or hanging around to see the Big Air did not happen, but by that time I was totally fine with leaving.  A Sonic Route 44 had my name written all over it.

DONE!

Hard to believe, but I've made it through the whole list.  Hooray for me.

Now that I have listened to every damn last one of the 111 bands set to play the first weekend of the Festival, it is time for me to do some analysis and consolidation. What do I need to hear?  What would I like to hear?  What do I plan to avoid like plague? 

This has been remarkably fun - I am truly amazed at the overall quality of the music that will be coming here this year.  There were some bands I did not like, but even those are probably well-loved by a large swath of the public - that music was generally not poorly done, it is just a genre I don't appreciate or enjoy. 

Check out the page links above to see my groupings - not sure how many I'll have but so far I have determined which ones are the best and the second level.  I'll be working up the rest of them this week.  Enjoy! 

The Avett Brothers

I really love these guys.  I got to see them from pretty close up two years ago when they played ACL, and their energy was off the charts.  My expectation - a relatively staid alt country concert with one guy plucking his banjo and another strumming his guitar - was blown out of the water.  They jumped around the stage, thrashing their banjo and wailing out their lyrics.  They had a stand-up bass player who was kicking around and flipping out like he had missed the memo that he was a refuge from the symphony.  They also made the boss-level move of inviting Chad Smith, the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer, up to play a few songs with them.  He banged out a few songs like they were Uplift Mofo-era punk gems - it was serious fun.  With all of this history in mind, I am really looking forward to seeing them play.

As to the music, this is two brothers from North Carolina playing funky bluegrass folky music in a way that is terrifically accessible and loads of fun.  I first came to them through KGSR and the title track off of the "I and Love and You" from 2009.  This was a Rick Rubin-produced beauty that went to #16 on the annual best albums chart, #7 on the rock charts, and #1 in the folk charts, and got them slots on Letterman, Fallon, Kimmel, the Grammys, and Austin City Limits.  I and Love and You is a soft, wonderful love song:

Before I leave that first album, I think you also need to hear January Wedding, because it is another fantastic thing (although this is not the cleanest audio):

Their next album, 2012's The Carpenter was more of the same magic.  Some slow, harmonic alt-country tracks mixed among some happy banjo-fueled rockers.  One of those is Live and Die:

Which just makes me want to learn how to pluck a banjo or dance in a field of clover or pet a cat or something else weird.  The Carpenter's sessions produced a ton of good music, so pretty soon thereafter they released 2013's Magpie and the Dandelion.  The top two songs off of that album are Another is Waiting (with a video apparently about model culture and being too skinny?):

and Morning Song, another soft, harmonic gem, all about finding hope and getting over a loss:

There was a long article about them in Rolling Stone a few months ago that I enjoyed, it was just fun to know more about them and where they have come from.  And some tabloid-level gossip about one of the brothers dating the sister from Dexter (and potentially naming The Carpenter after her).  I think they are a great band and I really hope that I can go back and see these dudes play again.

Icona Pop

Non-stop dance party.  I really like their big hit, "I Love It" (as do more than 74 million YouTube users) - it is a great dance pop anthem to not giving a damn:

I really hate the KidzBop version my children listen to, because they censor/change more than just the cuss words and take the careless joy out of the song by not even letting them crash their car.  Come on, man.  Let little kids know about crashing cars and watching them burn!  This is a good example!

This is a duo of Swede ladies who came out with I Love It in 2012 and blew up.  That song has since been featured in a slew of video games, TV shows, commercials, and every radio on the planet.

I played their one album 4 times today to get a good feel for it, and it is all thumping, danceable good time EDM.  However, nothing is as good as that major hit.  Second place to me is In the Stars (which doesn't have an official video, but you can hear here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-jAEM-oEiQ).  Their next biggest song is apparently We Got The World, which is a remarkably similar thing.

Instead of crashing cars and not caring, you get people think we're freaks because we have fun but we are just crazy and cool and stuff over and over again, over the top of a dance-able but relatively basic EDM thump.  They keep all their songs nice and short, the longest one on their album is 3:20, while five of their songs don't even crack the 3 minute mark.  Which is good, bang it out and move on to the next party.

I expect these guys will be up against other big acts, so I kind of doubt that I'll go see them.  But I think they would put on a fun party of a show.