Quick Hits, Vol. 102 (Peter Wolf, Southern Family, Train, Robert Ellis)

I sometimes feel like I'm aging out of the musical mainstream around here.  I just pulled up the Spotify New Releases list to see if there was anything I might want to grab, and the vast majority of the artists listed there are things I've never heard of.  Not things I've never listened to before, but artists I have literally never even heard of before.  A smattering, in order, to show that I am not just cherry picking: GEMS, Quincy, KAMAU, Social Club Misfits, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Mozzy, ForteBowie, Jay 305, Felix Cartal, Moguai, Bro Safari, Gangly, Adelitas Way, Andreas Moss, and then J Cole and Steve Aoki.  Wow.  The musical universe is expanding so amazingly fast.  None of those names are even made up, didn't have to.

Peter Wolf - A Cure for Loneliness.  This is the lead singer for the J. Geils Band (yes, the "Love Stinks" people, oh, and "Centerfold," which are both classics in my book) who has been making solo albums for a while.  This album is a little more spare, singer-songwriter type stuff than the 80's pop version of this dude I had in my head.  This almost has more of an Americana sound bordering on country at times - see the "It Was Always So Easy (To Find An Unhappy Woman)."  I actually like that song quite a bit, great sing-a-long.  His tunes kind of remind me of a simpler Pete Yorn or some of the Bruce Robison sound.  It's really pretty good.  Most listened-to track on the album is "Rolling On," the album opener, but I have a feeling that is most listened to by people just checking this out and then moving on. The most popular track on this album is a live track called "Wastin' Time." We'll do that one instead.

Stones anyone?  I'm just going to keep this album in my new music Q and listen a few more times.  I like it well enough, but I'm not sure it deserves to graduate into my more permanent playlists.

Various - Southern Family.  This is a compilation of tunes from producer Dave Cobb, who is the mastermind behind a bunch of the actually good stuff in country music right now.  He's been producing people like Shooter Jennings, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, and Jason Isbell in their recent stuff.  So this includes those guys (except for Sturgill) as well as cool new people (Jamey Johnson and Anderson East), garbage hacks I don't understand (Zac Brown), and an old classic (Rich Robinson).  The disc is pretty clearly intended to be traditional and aim for the down home classic sound and feel.  The "You Are My Sunshine" rendition by Stapleton and his wife is freaking great - I remember them killing that at ACL this last year.  So good.  Although it is over 6 minutes long, which is an interesting move in general.  I'll give them a pass because of the impassioned guitar solo in the middle that requires you to close your eyes and lean back in your chair and speak in tongues.

Spotify has me confused on how to see the play count for any of these tunes, because it isn't by a particular band, so I can't see their listing of most popular tracks.  Er, no, maybe they just don't have enough listens to have most popular tracks yet?  Whatever.  I don't know what is most popular here, so I'll just give you one of the best in my opinion,

That's right, I skipped all the cool new country guys in favor of the most Nashville person on the disc, but screw it.  Although I don't know Miranda Lambert's music at all, she sounds freaking fantastic on her track ("Sweet By and By").  Her voice is choice.  Also, the soul country mash of Anderson East is cool as hell.  The Shooter Jennings track is fun.  This is a really good album, very even and chilled and pleasant.

Train - Does Led Zeppelin II.  Dammit, man, this actually isn't terrible.  I wanted to hate listen to this album, mainly because Train is annoying, but more importantly because Led Zeppelin's II is one of the greatest albums of all time.  And to have these jabronies slaughter it as a full album cover sounded like the perfect way for me to have fun and spill some rage onto the page.  Instead, the musical part of it is actually really solid.  Luckily, the vocals are such a shit weak sad copy of Robert Plant that I can definitively say that you should not listen to this album.  If you feel like subjecting yourself to a slice of it, here is the most listened to track from the album, "Ramble On."

He actually sounds OK until the chorus kicks in, and then for sure sounds like a guy in a cover band at a crappy bar on East 11th singing to a crowd of 3.

Robert Ellis - Robert Ellis.  I reviewed this guy a while back for his appearance at ACL 2014 and liked him.  The feeling still holds with this album, although it seems to go even further afield from his country-ish leanings that I recall from back then.  I'd still pretty seriously continue the Wilco comparison though, this stuff is still great lyrics and kind of a country-fied indie rock thing.  "How I Love You" is the currently most popular track on the album, but "California" has doubles the streams at 1.3 million.

That girl is going to beat your ass, Robert.  Do not mess around with her anymore, just let her go to Cali with your kid and you won't get your sunglasses smacked off anymore.  Win win.  His haircut is speaking to me right now because I got a similar one today.  I have used the same barbershop, except for when I didn't live in Austin, since I was about 2.  I guess I'm stubborn or loyal in this way.  I'm also cheap.  But the shop right now has two dudes who are almost always in there to cut hair.  One, the owner and a native Austinite, does a great job and makes my hair look kind of like it did when I originally sit down, just shorter.  The other dude, a native New Yorker, generally tries to take my hair into the hipster stratosphere with loads of hardening agents and tinctures that smell of herbs and this weird blade thing that thins out my hair.  Today, the owner had a line of 3 dudes and the New Yorker was cooling his jets in his chair, so I rolled the dice yet again.  The shell on top of my head right now smells of some mysterious herbaceous concoction and is hard enough to stop hockey pucks. Literally, while walking the halls a few minutes ago, a co-worker looked up and just exclaimed "GOOD GOD!"  Anyway, Robert Ellis has a hipster hair-do and I feel for him, I hope that he is happy with it. This album is good - another good track on here I'd suggest to you is "Drivin'."  I'm going to hold on to this disc and see how it feels after a few hours in the car.