There are a few classic modalities of musical commentary. One is where an observer writes about how the music makes him feel, including thoughts that come to mind in an almost stream of consciousness way—Paul Nelson rhapsodizing about Dylan in Crawdaddy! comes to mind. Once you get familiar with, say, Robert Christgau’s tastes, you have a slide rule by which to take it with a dash of salt (to mix metaphors) and decide if it’s something you, too, might like or dislike.
Another modality is that of the trees-not-the-forest variety, i.e., Stravinsky’s famous record review where he said nothing about musical intention or evoked emotions or grandiose literary allusions, but simply noted places where “the tuba came in early in bar 58” and “tempi were ignored in the last movement” (not literal quotes here).
And then there’s the “everyman/woman” utilitarian approach, one I love. I’m not sure which Atlanta/Athens ’80s fanzine it was—maybe Tasty World or Flagpole?—whose every live review had this form: “They started around midnight,” followed by one or two details, maybe about the band’s clothes. Then it gets to the point: “And we danced and danced and danced.” I’m not sure which of these camps I fall into, since writing (or even talking) about music is something I have until now managed for the most part to escape doing! But it was nice of MAGNET to ask. Let’s see what happens. —Chris Stamey
Ryan Adams “Gimme Something Good” from Ryan Adams
Hypnotic Fender rhythm-guitar accents with spring reverb in a minor key, a good backbeat, organ drones from the Benmont Tench school of stealth (and it’s actually him; how perfect). I could listen to a loop of just the intro, even, for a few hours. It reminds me of the similarly ’verby cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” that Whiskeytown and I cut years ago during one long, long session. Desolation reverb, minimal elements, nothing extraneous, classic tones.
The static texture fits the lyric about “waiting here until the end of time.” Then the launching pad of the VI-VII (IV-V of the relative major) seems about to move it forward, but it gets stuck on the insistent title “gimme something good” and moves into 3/4 phrasing until the 3 against 4 adds up to an even sum to bounce it back into the minor verse groove again. A tight connection between a song’s lyric and music is what good songwriting is all about. It’s so cool that, the next time it launches into the “gimme something good” 3/4 phrasing, it goes on and on, entreating, seeming much more desperate because of the unexpected extra bars as the math collides and spins out of control.
I’m with Letterman: This is an easy song to listen to over and over. (The last dB’s record had a tune that reminded me at the time of Ryan’s writing, I guess in the drop-D guitar chord fingerings—pinkie finger required—but also in the dissatisfaction with status quo, the plea for help; it was similarly entreating, and similarly titled: “Send Me Something Real.”)
Big Star “Nightime” from Third
I know this one well, having played it with Chilton in the late ’70s, and more recently at a series of international concerts of Third/Sister Lovers, the album it’s on. (And, by the way, does “sister lovers” come partly from that line in David Crosby’s “Triad”?) This recording was mind-blowing when I first heard it on a raggedy bootleg cassette, and once I dug into the specifics of its notation for the concerts (courtesy of original arranger Carl Marsh), its icy artificial harmonics and vibrato shivers, its specific “text painting” of the lyric, my mind was blown again. (I have to tell you, to stand onstage right next to a good string quartet and play this song and hear those combinations of sounds en plein air is transporting, amazing, every time.) Even the one-“t” misspelled song title seems to say this is one of a kind here. It was one of the real handshake drugs for me and many others, early on—that combination of folk guitar, confessional lyric and chamber music. Still unique now, but really groundbreaking then, and doubly so when following two landmark electric-guitar records. In contrast, when Chilton would play this song in our CBGB sets in NYC, it became a wild, demonic thing at times: gloves off, feedback in place of string harmonics, and the lyrics would shift around: “When you’re in the moon, you look more like a werewolf,” for example. And that vindictive version, too, was very, very nice.
Wilco “Candyfloss” from Summerteeth
Wilco is a band that doesn’t let grass grow under their feet. I like this period of their landscape, although Being There is the record I know better from around this time. There’s a lot that sounds Beach Boys-y to me on this, in that handmade piece-by-piece manner, but it also has a little bit of the sound of that era’s digital convertors, perhaps, that kind of grain. (As we all did in those years.) Very nice to hear the bass panned all the way to one side; CDs really liberated the sonic panorama in some ways. If you did this positioning on vinyl with any big low end, the lopsided groove pits might make the needle flip right out of its road.
I think it’s the jolliness of the melody that reminds me most of Brian Wilson, perhaps circa Love You, but also Pet Sounds in the “what the hell’s going on here?” clatter and space echo of the harpsichord-like intro, the happy fairgrounds organ throughout, and the stacked-guitars-and-keys handoffs during the instrumental. Of course, any song that talks about a Slip ’N Slide sounds summery to the max. Maybe the acoustic guitar could have, in hindsight, been cut in the verses to leave some more room in the mix there? Or maybe not … Jeff Tweedy is so adept with a turn of a phrase, his lyrics have that “did he really say that?” quality. You hear more cool lines every time you spin his songs. A good song for the morning. (Like one of the Three Stooges, I’m perpetually surprised by Opera Man there at the end.)
Mavis Staples “Your Good Fortune” from Your Good Fortune EP
This is in many ways an old-fashioned record, but also very modern. The bass sounds tubed-out and blown-up, distant and blended with the plumpy kick, but the snare (with no hi-hat) is dry and present, the kind of close-micing contrast that would never have really happened back in the day because the room mics would have had too much bleed on them, most likely. So, that brings a sense of dislocation right from the get-go. Some kind of trashcan-lid cymbal in a delayed reverb, also very nice and retro. Of course, the low Wurlitzer with tremolo evokes Memphis/Muscle Shoals.
But all this really just serves to dish out the darkness around the lyric and to get out of the way of her one-of-a-kind, wonderful voice. It’s an insistent, undeniable vocal take for sure, front and center. You can’t “look away.” I will say, however, that when I listen to the words, it sounds like she’s grateful to be the unexpected recipient of this “good fortune,” but when I listen to the music, it sounds like there is an ominous quality to being on the receiving end of it. Is it sung to God or human? (The old Al Green perplexity.) So, that juxtaposition is confusing. I’d like to know more about why she might sound so suspicious of this seeming boon.
Dawes “Things Happen” from All Your Favorite Bands
The only time I ever saw Dawes, I stumbled onto them playing in a ballroom at SXSW, and I thought, “What a great-sounding band.” It was quite powerful and fluid, the flexing of muscles. But listening to this, all I can think is, “What a sad, sad song.” I guess there’s a road trip happening, driving north, and also into the past, looking for some reconciliation with it? Without hope of a meaning in events, spurning the notion of causal connections?
I like the band arrangement. The drummer is very sensitive to the rhythm of the singing; great that the bass is in the high octave in the first verses. I guess that “organ” is a guitar with effects? Nice. There is a measured, controlled (safe/comfortable?) modern element to all of this that matches the muted, depressed lyric; right near the end, with the higher “I don’t know what else that you want me to say to you” and the overlapping words, it threatens to break loose, but doesn’t quite. I imagine that this song becomes much more energetic live, but I hope it’s not a “Bic lighter moment” sing-along, I am not sure I’d like to be one of 3,000 people enthusiastically celebrating this kind of fatalistic mood. An effective recording, though, for sure.
The Damnwells “Lost” from The Damnwells
A classic “cut to the chase” texture; acoustic guitars, fat bass and drums; tube-mic vocals; high harmonies in the right sing-along places. No muss, no fuss, to the point. I have to say that this is a bit too “mastered,” too compressed, for me (although it could have been the mix and not the mastering, or maybe it’s something about the version I’m hearing). The singing sounds choked by the Radio 1176-ish attack/release, and this distracts me from the song. I’ve certainly been guilty of this squeezed sound myself! And it’s exciting up to a point. But it’s time for us all (in the studio racket) to back off and let recordings breathe more.
Popping up twice to a falsetto note in the pre-choruses(?) is a nice Roy Orbison-ish touch. This song sounds like it was written in a rush, while genuinely feeling the way that’s described—usually the best way to write a four-minute song. This is well-done and effective, but I wonder if some more distinctive or perhaps stark/revealed treatment might have also taken it there while revealing different layers on repeated listenings? Maybe that’s just me. Is L.A. the “devil’s symphony” in the song?
Mac McCaughan “Box Batteries” from Non-Believers
Electric guitars and a rock beat have always been good ways to express a sense of freedom and a need for motion, and this fits this skilled and witty lyric, about heading for the privacy of the forest (“we’re not so into nature … but we’re deep into the woods”), bringing “tapes and disaffection” and “the cheapest beer there is,” finding out what you’re about under the hood of a borrowed ride. It sounds like a teenage anthem to me, and having a car-trip song with the double-entendre of “we don’t go too far … but we might” is highly charming.
It kicks off with a slightly deceptive pair of three-bar phrases before settling down into the steady-rocking I VI progress of the verse. The insistent eighth-note (downstroke?) guitars and pedal distortion tones are a martial call to arms … or at least to “your stepdad’s car.” The lo-fi drum loop sounds like it might be powered by one of the box batteries of the title—which is really great! (Not onomatopoeia, but a close-yet-unnamed cousin?) In fact, it would be nice if all the sounds on this had come from nine-volt batteries, although I suspect this was not the case. But the guitar square-wave fuzz also evokes that pedal-battery imagery. Or maybe the “box” in question is a blaster, which takes not the square nine-volts, but a few million C or D cells? I dunno …
I would have enjoyed the guitar licks at the end being a bit louder in the mix. I like Mac’s wild-bronco soloing a lot, in general. It’s really nice that he waits until almost a minute into the song to bring in the bass guitar, and even then it fades in like the approach of a distant car. Sonically, this isn’t as wide or deep as some of the other songs, but this is part of the very handmade auteur quality of Mac’s recordings, both as Portastatic and now under his given name. I have to say that I really like (prefer?) the “single mix” of this song in many ways, though (with the bass entering in more expected ways). The barking bari-sax single-note guitar in that version is grabbing. This single version relies much more on just the tick-tack of the li’l ol’ drum machine, which is a nice counterintuitive move for a single—to cut off the real drums! In the same way that George Harrison surprised at the end of an old video by doing a backflip after sitting in a chair for four minutes, I also like the fact that, for the single version, Mac adds a real drum fill as a stinger at the very last second.
R.E.M. “Shaking Through” from Murmur
When Murmur came out, I was sans record player. I have felt for decades now that I’m going to be found out one day for not having ever heard this record except in the background at parties. I guess that time has finally come.
It’s a pleasure to hear how organic and well-played this song is, how well-arranged, and the hands-on hard-panned mix holds up well. Loud tom fills! Peter Buck picking away at top speed, the piano a great pairing for this. It sounds like the real band, like something that really happened once upon a time, whereas so many bandwagon-hopping recorded documents from that time sound like cartoon or steroid versions of the artists. I know it’s a cliché, but it did remind me of the Byrds—both bands’ records sound like real folks engaged in making music, instead of carpenters assembling a sonic infrastructure bit by bit.
Michael’s chorus melodies that do the hang-time thing of stretching past the chord boundaries for liftoff (along with some organ drones, I think) are part of the expansiveness of this, floating over the busy-ness of the instruments—his melody at the start of the chorus stays on the D (root note of the I chord), while the rest have moved on to the V chord with its C#. The slight clash gives it a bit of a teleport there. And—after floating some little high chords above a tonic drone à la the Who; very cool—it modulates up a whole step! The only modulation in any of these songs. This used to be a standard-practice way to kick up the energy on a record; nowadays, we just step on one more pedal. I loved hearing this. I might have to get a copy of the rest of the album now.
Yo La Tengo “Is That Enough” from Fade
It is said of Gil Evans’ arranging (for Miles Davis, among others) that the parts did not balance in the room, that the unusual and ear-catching woodwind and string blends and colors were (by design) made possible only by the mixing console and close micing, which would not have been an option in an earlier era. I think this, too, about the way that Yo La Tengo dramatically combine very, very quiet singing and very, very loud playing—it’s a trademark of the band, the kind of hyper-real effect that makes the listener lean in closer toward their distinct aural terrain. And they do this with guitars, drums, other things—the loud made quiet and the quiet made loud.
This record sounds huge and orchestral right from the get-go—a big sound, but it’s really a dialed-in fuzz guitar effect pedaling the tonic over the changes (plus piano) that creates this illusion of vastness. Inside that cloud, the band is playing in a solid, punchy Wrecking Crew folk/rock manner, Carol Kaye bass and all. A great effect, this ocean of sound; when the progression gets past the IV chord and lands on the V and the drone is still on the I, it’s very rich. I do find that there’s something about the high-end harmonic richness of the drone that fights the high partials of the strings, maybe? And the viola range is hard to pick out—I would have enjoyed hearing the strings panned over a bit instead of a stereo spread. That rich top end of violins doesn’t come through here completely in the way the part seems to suggest; maybe if there were some EQ moves from time to time on that part.
It’s hard to believe that early in the band, Georgia didn’t sing much. The two together have such charm, but back during my brief tenure as YLT second guitar-slinger, I don’t remember her singing very much. The little string hook after “Is that enough?” is a charm—almost Muscle Shoals or American Studios—as is the oohs-with-strings of the bridge (but an additional layer of hyper-high violins could have been a good addition in this part). These specifics, wrong or right, don’t matter so much; the warmth of the emotion comes across, in spite of the questioning and uncertainty of the lyric.
Jad Fair And Norman Blake “Yes” from Yes
The most distinctive and auteur of all these tracks, “Yes” harkens to beat poetry with the plumber’s-helper muted horn and the finger snaps. I love this one. One to loop and let play for hours. My only caveat: Where is Norman’s lovely voice? It reminded me of another beatnik-inflected track: “Chicken,” by Peter Blegvad, as produced by Andy Partridge (not on YouTube), and also “Yep Roc Heresy.” Also of any number of songs by my favorite, Robert Wyatt. I can go on saying things like “infectious” and “gobs of charm,” but maybe I should just say “yesssssss” and also “and we danced and danced and danced.”
