// Category Archive for: Music

Music Review: Oblivians, Desperation

By Less Lee Moore

Although it was spectacular, the last Oblivians album was technically a collaborative effort with Mr. Quintron on nine tracks of cover versions and traditional songs. Desperation marks the first release from the band since 1997. The quality of the songs on the album reveals that the various musical endeavors of the trio (Eric Friedl, Greg Cartwright, and Jack Yarber) in the interim has paid off in a huge way.

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Waxing Nostalgic Cover Albums: Duran Duran, Thank You

By Jeffery X Martin

Make no mistake: I have always loved Duran Duran. I have no problem admitting this. I had the John Taylor rubber bracelets, the uncensored version of “The Chauffeur” on VHS, the whole nine yards. Their last studio album, All You Need is Now, is criminally underrated. I say this just so you understand that I have no axe to grind. I’m not out to pick on some New Romantics, looking for that TV sound.

But good gods, folks. This album is a constant.

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Music Review: Preservation Hall Jazz Band, That’s It!

By Melissa Bratcher

An important fact that not everyone knows is this: If a band has a tuba player in it, it is generally worth going to see live. This goes double for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was founded in 1961, dedicated to promoting traditional New Orleans jazz. Their new album That’s It! is their first album of entirely original music in their entire 50-year history. Produced by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and Preservation Hall’s Creative Director, Ben Jaffe, That’s It! is an album of future standards.

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Unconditional Musical Love

By Paul Casey

Enniscrone Beach

We traveled a lot in the car. Ireland is a small country but we made the most of it. It was common to be inside of our diminutive Toyota Starlet for five hours at a go. Trips back and forth to Enniscrone, Sligo, were an annual event. Once we were there, we would travel to the Céide Fields or up towards Donegal on long road trips. Being the youngest member of the family, I would call the backseat home. My brother and mother up front, talking about some sight or other, I would be happy to occupy myself with Calvin & Hobbes or The Famous Five. A little bit later it was Star Wars.

Usually the car was in immediate need of repair, or all-out replacement. Fear of breakdown was high, and there were more than a few times when we had to get out and push. When it ran, though, and the window could be pulled down—only halfway in the backseat—things would get a feel to them. My father was there on the first trip, and maybe the second. His presence was an aberration. He was not meant for this place. This was a three-person operation.

My uncle was a secretive sort, at least from the lowdown perspective of a six-year-old. He lived in the garage of my grandmother’s house and hoarded all kinds of wonderful things. Seinfeld came from his collection, as did anything to do with The Beatles. We arranged a cunning switch one year, where we managed to copy all of the White Album and the entire Anthology onto 90-minute cassette tapes. That summer was full of good sound. Skewed takes on well-known songs would sit beside the genuine articles. I got used to Paul McCartney asking, “Is it rolling?”

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Movie Review: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

By Less Lee Moore

When I first heard Big Star, I wondered “Why weren’t these guys huge?” like all their other fans have been wondering for the last 40-plus years. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me answers the why, but their lack of mainstream success still boggles the mind. When Brian Wilson sang “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times,” he could have easily been singing about Big Star.

The story of Big Star is full of both good things—talent, camaraderie, ambition—and terrible ones—bad luck, personal demons, and death. This mixture of the bitter and the sweet is a good metaphor for Big Star’s music, which fuses the two in an unforgettable aural and emotional experience. This is what drew fans and critics to the band and what continues to characterize their legacy.

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Waxing Nostalgic Cover Albums: Tesla, Real to Reel

By Jeffery X Martin

Imagine going back in time to 1975. You’re at a rock and roll club on the biker side of town. Your dad is young; his polyester shirt is unbuttoned down to his navel. His gold chains shine like treasure amidst the jungle rope vines of chest hair he proudly displays. His straw cowboy hat encases his skull like a crown. He pounds down a Schaefer in this bar, filled with Tareyton smokers who would rather fight than switch. There’s an underlying aroma of the sweet leaf. You sit down at his table. He leans in and speaks to you.

“The band’s about to start, kid,” he says. “I’ve been into these guys for a while.” He raises his hand and almost immediately, a blond in a halter top is pouring a beer into your proper Pilsner glass. Feedback begins to bleed from the slightly raised stage. The musicians begin to tune their instruments. The drummer taps his snare cautiously and pounds out a quick bass rhythm.

“I bet they start with some Deep Purple,” your dad says. He takes a surreptitious bump of coke and waits for the band to get going.

The singer approaches the microphone. “Good evening, everyone,” he says, “we’re Tesla, and this is ‘Space Truckin’.'” Your dad nods knowingly. Tesla? What the hell is Tesla doing here?

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Music Review: The Three O’Clock, The Hidden World Revealed

By Cait Brennan

“You like pop, right?”

The grizzled, ancient record clerk—god, he had to be at least 28!—leaned over the counter.

“What, like Phil Collins?” I asked. Oh, it’s 1984 in Phoenix, by the way.

“God, no, that’s like—bubblegum or something,” he coughed, like he ate a big black bug. “Here,” he flips through the in-store play copies and pulls out a record with some weird pasty kids making kissy faces under a dilapidated pagoda. This crazy sugar-crash stomp comes storming out of the store speakers, swirling keys and guitars ringing in my head like the bells of Notre-Dame. And then the singer, with a voice like none other: “sitting complacent, are you there where I see you, with a cantaloupe girlfriend . . .” What?!

“They’re the Three O’Clock, man,” says he. “A little twee for my taste, but I kinda figured you’d dig it.”

The clerk got my $4.98 and I got Baroque Hoedown, the first EP by the Three O’Clock. It’s at least 20 years later before I even begin to suspect what a cantaloupe girlfriend might be, but I dive headlong into this “paisley underground” thing, rifling through record bins until I have all their stuff, which at that time included their album released as The Salvation Army, and their full-length LP, Sixteen Tambourines. They would go on to release great albums on IRS and Prince’s Paisley Park records, but for me, their stuff on the brilliant Lisa Fancher’s Frontier Records is still the greatest.

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Music Review: Dave Davies, I Will Be Me

By Julie Finley

As a “lifer” in regards to being a Kinks fan, I felt that I should definitely review my childhood idol’s newest release, that idol being Dave Davies. I won’t give a history lesson on The Kinks (as there are enough online sources out there that could clue you in), but I do need to note that Dave’s relationship to his brother Ray has been well-documented as being unrestrained, to say the least. It is no mystery that Ray prefers that Dave live in his shadow, and that the competitive dysfunction between the two of them is one of the things that has led to both having a prolific output of work throughout both of their lives (even outside of The Kinks).

Quite honestly, though, Dave’s career is still often overlooked despite the fact he has been even more fruitful in his endeavors regarding the creation of new material. Ray hasn’t had that much solo material since The Kinks stopped recording in the mid-’90s, but the solo work he has put out is mostly rehashing his old catalogue with a few albums of brand new content. Dave has actually put out more original material than Ray since the ’90s! Yes, some of that has been re-releasing long-lost music that was never released as The Kinks, but the bulk of his output has been original material.

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Music Review: Hirsute Pursuit, Tighten That Muscle Ring

By Ann Clarke

It’s been a while since I’ve written any reviews about anything, mainly because I can’t fucking stand new shit, because that is what it is—SHIT! However, sometimes you hear something and it compels you to expel your thoughts in a written context, basically excreting your reaction upon observation. In this particular case, that would be the album Tighten That Muscle Ring by Hirsute Pursuit. This might not be a brand new release (it came out in 2012, so it isn’t old, either), but it is new to my ears.

I wanted to publish this review during the month of June since it’s Pride Month and because I have NEVER heard anyone that is as proud to be gay as the fellas in Hirsute Pursuit! They take their pride to parts unknown. With the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA and Prop 8, the gay pride is at an all-time high, but for the two that are Hirsute Pursuit (Harley Phoenix and Bryin Dall), they clearly aren’t thinking about anything marital when composing their songs. In fact, these are the types of guys that would be out even if it meant the death penalty! Laws or not . . . these guys are going to cause some butt-hurt to someone!

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Assemblog: June 28, 2013

Among The Living (image from Twitch)

New this week on Popshifter: Chelsea reviews new albums from Dessa and Bosnian Rainbows; Julie puts the music of Dream Affair into a musical context; Paul explains why Christy Moore’s “Delirium Tremens” has multiple meanings; Jeff lifts up his lighter for Styx’s Big Bang Theory; Cait reminisces on Big Star and their soundtrack for the movie Nothing Can Hurt Me; and I try to describe the somewhat indescribable film The Rambler.

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