The Letter Q

In this series I spotlight five bands and/or artists whose names begin with the same letter. I try to feature active (or recently active... it's hard to keep current with all the break-ups) performers so as to reflect who I'm listening to and enjoying at the moment.

Q

Gordy Quist
Gordy is a Texas-based singer-songwriter (and if you're going to do the countryfolk thing then you best either be from Austin or Nashville) whose musical output is actually fairly diverse. He'll rock your socks with some honkytonk, or he'll still your soul with a gothy bluesy ballad. Quist is also a member of the group Band of Heathens, but I'm not interested in them right now because their name doesn't start with Q. If you go to Quist's official website you can actually stream 7/11ths of his latest album, Here Comes the Flood, released last year. Listen to "Judas 'Scariot Blues".
Also listen to this demo of "Green and Blue".

Queens of the Stone Age
You know who these guys are by now, and by now you either love or hate 'em. Launch that music player! Pirate lightbulbs!

Quo Vadis
Montreal metal, though sadly they don't sing in French (as if you'd be able to tell anyway). But they are all about the metal brutality, and they're FAST. If you think it's all just studio tricks, listen to their songs from the Live in Montreal album. The band's drummer is fairly well known in the Canadian death metal scene as he's been featured on the cover of several drumming magazines. He's also a physicist, for whatever that's worth. Quo Vadis has been around since the mid-90s so they've had lots of time to practice their precise chaos, and they probably know the exact chord progressions necessary to make your head explode.
Lots of .mp3s on their official website.
Lots of streamies on their unofficial Myspace page.

Quasi
Also making music since the mid-90s is the trio named Quasi. For a long time they were a duo, the husband and wife sort. The husband and wife part didn't work out, but even as divorcees the band lived on. I have no idea how their new third member (officially inducted into Quasi in 2007) fits in relationshiply. ANYWAY, the music is unique (poppy indierock, yet very experimental) and incorporates various un-rock'n'roll instruments like the rocksichord, synths made to sound like rocksichords, and classical stringed instruments. You can find them on Touch and Go Records, and I suspect they're due for a new album soon.
Quasi on Myspace.

Sara Quin (feat. Kaki King)
Cheating, I know, but Q's are hard. Here we have Sara Quin of Tegan & Sara fame doing an REM cover with Kaki King. This song is from Stereogum's tribute to Automatic for the People, and the rest of the covers can be found HERE.
As for this tune, it sounds like Tegan & Sara high on Nyquil.
"Sweetness Follows" .mp3.

Thoughts on DCFC's new single

I love Death Cab For Cutie.
I love Death Cab For Cutie.
I LOVE Death Cab For Cutie.

BUT

"I Will Posses Your Heart" sucks really bad.

The eight-and-a-half minute album version is up on Myspace. I dig the four minute intro. I don't dig the parts where Ben Gibbard sings (which is unusual as I normally find his voice soothing and his lyrics clever-ish).
The radio single axes the huge intro, so if the song pops up on your local rock 'n' roll music station all you're left with is four minutes of crap.

Listen for yourself.
Or don't.

I fear for the rest of the album.

1974

The year 1974 was a peculiar post-hippy pre-disco time in music when funk was just gettin' its groove on, arena rock was big and loud, prog rock found an audience, glam rock was making people uncomfortable, and punk rock was still only protopunk (as if they could know). I'm not going to discuss any of these genres. Instead we're going to check out some folkish and soft-rocky gems. Why? Because in an era when music and music's image was so brash and obtuse, the introspective and low-key tunes get kind of overlooked. But don't worry; none of the following songs are too schmaltzy.


Al Stewart - Nostradamus
Past, Present, and Future was released in the UK in '73, but was released in the US the following year, SO IT COUNTS. Though this song is a bit proggish, Stewart had yet to shed his folk influences as the song (nearly ten minutes long... you better set aside a block of listening time) is carried by acoustic guitars and some manner of bongo. Lyrically we have a odd history lesson about the things Nostradamus saw years before they happened. In pseudo-poetic language he sings verses like this:

From Castile does Franco come and the Government driven out shall be
An English king seeks divorce, and from his throne cast down is he
One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germanie
No law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be

If this sort of wordaging drives you crazy I understand, but the tune is a catchy one, and those guitars sound really good, and if you're patient you'll get to enjoy the fun claptrack three-and-a-half minutes in.
I will admit that the chorus makes me really paranoid:

Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me

Nostradamus, just sitting there knowing all your stuff. Creepy.
Anyway, that's a pretty cool album cover, isn't it? Doctor Strange, travelling through time or something. The previous year's UK cover is a much more drab one of an urbane Stewart hanging out next to a mantle.


Harry Chapin - W*O*L*D
Most songs about radio are pretty lame. This one is the opposite of lame. Rather than just encouraging the listener to crank up the volume, Chapin tells the story of a radio DJ who's been a part of the ups and downs of the biz, who's loved and lossed and still pines, who's aged yet still yearns for the good ol' days. It's actually a pretty sad story and makes me want to reconsider this Broadcasting degree I've got hanging on the wall.
What intrigues me as much as the story are all the subtle odes to golden age and early jock radio. Harmonious background singers, when they sing "W-O-L-D", sound like they're crooning the call letters to some long-forgotten station. Chapin calls himself a daddy-o, and later a doo-wop bass nudges in a great 1950's "yeeeah". And he's "feeling all of forty-five", y'know, like his age or like the vinyl singles they would spin.
This is a bittersweet song, to say the least. But DJs are like the truck drivers of the music industry, so it fits very well.


Leonard Cohen - Who By Fire
I suppose this could be considered a duo as Janis Ian backs Cohen up word-for-word. Anyway, I like how initially this appears to be a very simple song (sparse instrumentation, each line begins with "who...") and yet there are deep spiritual implications found within the lyrics. Inspired by a Jewish prayer (where the first line is taken) the song explores various ways a person might pass from this earth, and yet all the same nobody is beyond God's scope, and each person will be righteously judged. It's like a moodier "Gotta Serve Somebody" (which was released five years later).


Tom Waits - (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night
Before he got all weird and his voice went to gravel, Waits wrote sweet little lounge ditties about women named Martha or, like this one, havin' yourself a good ol' Saturday night. Waits sings this like he's singing about YOU, and goes so far as to kick the song off with car sounds before singing about you driving your car. As you listen you become Joe Everyman, blowin' your fresh paycheck on beer and pool. You're a working man, of course, so you're living for the weekend and moments like these. But maybe this is a paltry existance for you to live, and you consider it as there's a "melancholy tear in your eye."

Makes it kind of quiver down in the core
'Cause you're dreamin' of them Saturdays that came before
And now you're stumblin'
You're stumblin' onto the heart of Saturday night

And maybe the heart of Saturday night can't be found cruisin' the strip with your "sweet one" or flirting with the waitress. But you'll take it because this is all you've got to look forward to.
Now I'm all bummed out, but I'll meet you next week.


Chicago - Wishing You Were Here
While beginning a song with car noises might be innovative, beginning a song with crashing waves is not. However this song is completely and wholly redemed by the melting harmonies done by (and never done better) three members of the Beach Boys. Lead vocalist Terry Kath, in a very subdued manner, does a call-and-response thing with the BBs until unexpectedly Peter Cetera blasts in with the bridge. The bridge is short and ends before you realize what an odd thing it is considering the rest of the song's context.
Thematically this song is about life on the road. Peter Cetera's got a job to do, and doggone it, he does it well. But that doesn't prevent Chicagoans and Beach Boys alike from pining for their far away loves.
I suppose bittersweetness is today's theme.

il Buono, il Brutto, il AlbumArto: Gordon Lightfoot

il Buono, il Brutto, il AlbumArto
Take a band. Take its album cover highlights. Take its album cover lowlights.
Swish it all around in your mouth. Comment.

Gordon Lightfoot
This is the cover to Gordon Lightfoot's debut album, enthusiastically titled Lightfoot!, released in 1966. I like this one for a number of reasons. First, he looks like James Dean from the movie "Giant". Second, it's simple and casual and gives you a good idea of what the music sounds like. Third, Gordon Lightfoot doesn't even need to look at his fingers when he plays the guitar. Obviously I would change the goofy turquoise font, but this is still my favorite Lightfoot(!) cover.


I'm apologizing for the foul quality of this picture. I couldn't find a higher-rez one, so I had to do some image stretching. Even so, Mr. Lightfoot looks quite dorky here. Interestingly enough, despite being such an unintentionally silly album cover, Sundown (released in 1974) was his most commercially successful original album. It contains such classics as "Sundown" and "Carefree Highway", and possibly other tracks about hairy be-sandalled men sitting in hay. Although a clearer image would probably reveal more, I have no idea what that stuff is behind his Gibson. Lightfoot himself appears as though he's about to say something, possibly "It smells like poo and the hay is itchy. Do I have to sit like this? Are you sure I look awesome?"

Continuing with the blue shirt/blue pants/guitar theme, here we have the follow-up to Sundown titled Cold on the Shoulder, released in 1975. You can see that the album designer and/or photographer tried to incorporate the title into the imagery. See? The woman, in his shadow, looking down on him, over his shoulder... see? The image itself appears to have been developed on some sort of fabric, possibly even denim. Gordie loves his denim. Anyway, aside from making the picture appear as though it was taken during a hard indoor rainstorm, the end result is intensely moody. How dark, man.

MMFRR#10 -- Metavari

Severe apologies for the non-updates. Life happens.

You know what else happens? Myspace music friend requests. This, of course, leads us to another edition of Myspace Music Friend Request Reviews.

I used to have a bunch of these in my inbox, but for some reason they've all disappeared, wiped out by Tom. All except for Metavari's request. Prepare to have the spotlight shoned upon thee.

Before I go on I have to mention that Ty-from-Metavari frequents this here blog. This has no bearing on what I think of the band (honestly!), but it is good to know that readership exists.

Metavari








(featuring the talents of four disembodied heads and a fellow who really digs his horizontal stripes)

A lot of bands (a LOT) shoot themselves in their collective feet with bad vocals. How many times have you been jammin' to a rockin' intro only to have awful singing ruin your special little moment? COUNT THE TIMES RIGHT NOW. When this happens while I'm driving it makes me want to jerk the wheel. But anyway, as a band the best way to get around this is not to sing at all. Let the instrumentation say what needs to be said. Let the listener translate the music into a language that speaks best to him or her.

In the past fifteen years instrumental indie-rock (indie-mental rock?) has become quite fashionable. Fortunately it's a fashion I don't mind wearing. Explosions in the Sky, GY!BE, and Unwed Sailor are, in my opinion, the best purveyors of the genre. But what they don't do is add the boopy and beepy influence of indie electronica (indie-tron?).

The electro-rock wire is a shaky one to walk, especially for an instrumental band. Too far in one direction and suddenly your techno; fun but full of headaches. Too far in another (eliminating the beats, for example) and you become overly atmospheric and quite boring. Air and Zero 7, at least in the chillout department where Metavari qualifies, balance themselves in this manner quite excellently (albeit with the use of vocals). Done just right the music can hover around unobstructively in the background OR it can be the fascinating center of attention.

Do Metavari successfully accomplish the same? Shoot yeah they do. Without employing pesky words either.

I'd be interested to catch the band live (like, in person... Youtube performances exist) where their shows become multimedia events. Also they've been incorporating Beach Boys music into their sets, and I am completely interested to hear how well and how differently they rearrange those songs. In fact, Metavari is releasing a digital nine song Beach Boys cover album FREE this summer, and that is something I cannot wait for.

My only complaint is that there are only these two-minute samples on their Myspace page. Fools, I want to hear the whole song. Even if it's ten minutes long. ESPECIALLY if it's ten minutes long.

Anyway, highly recommended, blah blah blah.

I rate Metavari 10 moogs out of 10.

The Letter P

In this series I spotlight five bands and/or artists whose names begin with the same letter. I try to feature active (or recently active... it's hard to keep current with all the break-ups) performers so as to reflect who I'm listening to and enjoying at the moment.


P


Britta Persson
It may or may not be worth mentioning that Ms. Persson is from Sweden (though it would explain why, despite not having an entry on the regular ol' English Wikipedia, she does get a brief nod in the Svenska Wikipedia). There is a detectible accent, but it certainly doesn't detract from the goodness of her music. It's probably a very ethnocentric thing to assume that it would, and you're a very bad person for having thought so. ANYWAY, Britta sings wide-eyed whole-voiced mellow rock. I detect some 1970s influence (even though she herself was birthed in the 1980s) in a lot of her singer-songwritery tunes, especially the ones I've heard from her newest album, Kill Hollywood Me. I think I also detect a lot of lyrical wryness (see, 'cause I've got a wrydar detector). Good stuff, all of it. Even her forlorny songs have enough groove and bop to them to warrant a casual hip shake (except for "Defrag My Heart"... I don't know what's up with that song OR the video).
There are four streamies (all from the new album) and some videos on her Myspace.
Also, "You Are Not My Boyfriend" (.mp3).


The Psyke Project
On the same side of the pond, but in a different realm of music altogether, from Denmark here's the brutal doomy metalcore stylings of the Psyke Project. The Nordic region is renown for its metal progeny, and this band represents well. As you would expect, the music is dense with atmosphere and at times slogs along. But in a blink of an eye (or a punch of a fist) things can/do get violent and speedy. The vocals are well-done, too. Not too shrill, not too gutteral... very enthusiastic. I hope one day they come stateside (Canadianprovinceside?) so I can see them in action. The Psyke Project: something excellent in the state of Denmark.
They've got a bunch of streamed songs on their neat-lookin' website.
Their four songs on Myspace are awesome and downloadable.


Pure Horsehair
I think they're a duo, though sometimes it's just one guy, other times there's a full band. Other than that I don't know much about Pure Horsehair. I know the music is nice in a folksyrootsy sort of way. I also know it's experimental as much as it is traditional, which is actually very refreshing. After hundreds of years of backwoods gee-tar strummin', sometimes it's hard to do something new with the genre. Somehow they/he/they make music that is both haunting and inspiring at the same time.
Those first two songs on their Myspace page, "Grasshopper" and "Trees (EEG)", are really good.
"H.D. Told Me" (.mp3)


Panda Bear
The man who calls himself Panda Bear is probably a mad genius. His work, both as a member of Animal Collective and his own solo material, is so far out in left field that he has to be completely nuts to have ever conceived it in the first place. And he calls himself Panda Bear. But when you try to peel back the layers and sort it all out (the rhythms, the instrumentations, the meanings) you'll find it's like figuring out a pulsing rubik's cube. Of course sometimes it's just too much and therefore too annoying. But Panda Bear's good parts far outweigh the bad, and if you can acquire the tastes he offers, then you'll ultimately end up redeemed.
Two streamed Myspace songs.
If you like "Comfy In Nautica" then you can download that one and three others over at Insound.com.


Poni Hoax
You like crafty Euro-disco, you say? A lot, you say? Weirdo. But Poni Hoax is good. They make groove-able shake-able funk-able remix-able SLIGHTLY PARANOID dance rock from France. Their music creeps around nice and rhythmically and allows you, with your huge tinted glasses and European trash 'stache, to scope out the fine foxes scattered about the club. Their music also reaches loud and triumphant apices, doing so as you simultaneously come across the one hot fox who won't throw her Red Bull and vodka cocktail (black market and expensive, of course) into your face.
Poni Hoax's pièce de résistance is the song "Budapest", a pseudo-apocolyptic and catchy ditty about... I don't know... Budapest, or something. Listen to it and like it. Do so from their Myspace space.

1987

In 1987 the hip 80's were still awesome as the awkward transition to the cool 90's hadn't yet begun. By this point most rock 'n' roll sub-genres had reached their aesthetic peaks and the procreators of such were either just now easing into bland obscurity or, for better or worse, they were taking their art to the next level.

Although at the time I favored the music of Raffi over that of The Smiths, I've since come around, aged twenty-one years, grown a few feet taller, and have forgotten the words (though not the melody) to "Baby Beluga". The Smiths probably would've warped this five-year-old's mind anyway.

As much about re-discovery as it is about the regular sort of discovery, here are five kickin' songs from 1987. Reoccuring themes include life after punk rawk, bitter ends, and disturbing stories. Enjoy!


Husker Du - Ice Cold Ice
In January of 1987 Husker Du released Warehouse: Songs and Stories. In December of that same year the band unexpectedly broke up following a show in Columbia, Missouri. It was unexpected in the sense that they were in the middle of a tour, but drugs and strained relationships, those things that slowly wedge bands apart, things Husker Du had been trying to work through for years, finally culminated and destroyed the band. You'd never know that by listening to this album, though. They sound great. There's the odd 80's production that makes these songs feel a bit dated, but the tunes themselves are brilliant. As far as "Ice Cold Ice" is concerned, revel in the sweet melody, the desperate vocals, the harmonies... even some call-and-response. And underneath it all is the aggressiveness and attitude that made them such an awesome early 80's hXc punk band. By the way, if you turn the volume up to listen to the fade-out, watch out for that final chord. BWAAAAANG.


New Order - 1963
Murder you can dance to! The lyrical story is a bit vague, but evidently Bernard Sumner wrote this about the Kennedy assassination. The story goes that JFK hired Jack Ruby to take care of Jackie O. so that he and Marilyn Monroe could live together happily ever after. Ruby turned to Lee Harvey Oswald to make the actual hit. The hit was a miss and the bullet got JFK instead. Monroe, distressed that her lover had been killed, committed suicide. Ruby, miffed that Oswald screwed up the job, shot him in the stomach on national television. Obviously this isn't a story to be taken literally (Kennedy had been hit with two bullets, and Monroe died in 1962), so you can take the song to mean whatever you want. "1963" was released as a b-side to "True Faith" in July and appeared on the Substance compilation in August.


The Smiths - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
Probably the most depressing song EVER. I don't know what's up with the intro at the beginning, but it sets a weird mood. Two minutes of piano and an angry mob(?) and orca sounds(???)... only to be crushed by a sudden wall of sadness when the real song begins. If it annoys you then pick up the 7-inch single, which omits the intro. But if you're a big enough Smiths fan to purchase vinyl singles then you're probably not going to care either way. This appears on the band's final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come, and is in fact their final single (apart from re-issues, which obviously don't count). A downer song on multiple levels.


Rites of Spring - Patience
Time to get emo, but in the original post-hardcore definition of the word. Forerunners of the now-mislabeled genre, vocalist Guy Picciotto (later to join Fugazi) attacks and wrestles with the lyrics in a manner that is definitely reminiscent of punk and hardcore. The instrumentation, on the other hand, is almost subdued and even kind of jazzy. It all comes together, though, to create this brief and intensely emotional package. "Patience" appears on their 4-song All Through a Life EP, but you might as well get End on End compilation which contains the entire EP as well as their entire self-titled 1985 album. (Each of these releases, by the way, was produced by Ian Mackaye.)


The Sugarcubes - Birthday
You know what this post needs? More Bjork. Though this song appears on 1988's Life's Too Good, "Birthday" was released as a single in October of 1987. It was the band's first hit and was voted the #1 song that year on John Peel's radio show. It's got that doomy Icelandic feel to it, but this is most certainly a chipper pop song about love between a five-year-old and the... bearded guy... who lives... next... door... ew. If you don't want to admire the lyrics then you can admire Bjork's enormous pipes. She's, like, five feet tall but has a voice that can knock down a brick house.