As the weeks start to slowly blend together, with each day a slightly fuzzier echo of the last, I thought it was important to differentiate “this is a weekday where you stay at home and sit around with the dog on your lap” from “this is a weekEND where you do the exact same thing.” Since one of the minor differences between the two is stopping in here to recap the blur that just went by, here I am. (Honestly, part of me wishes there were badges or something we got for the various milestones we pass — “That’s five weeks of isolation — great job!” or “Congratulations, you put on pants today!” — sort of like AA chips, without the 12-step process and disease.)
Unsurprisingly, this week was very similar to the last — sitting on the porch crushing COVID with the Rizz, listening to a flurry of livestreams while banging away at the laptop. Aside from recurring highlights from the nightly Tweedy or weekly Waxahatchee/Morby shows, got to hear some decent one offs this week — Pete Yorn, Pedro the Lion, and a BUNCH of John Prine tributes, the two best ones of which were from NPR and Consequence of Sound. The former had five “tiny desk” style tributes (the best of which was Nathaniel Rateliff’s, second from the last), while the latter had over a dozen artists in their aptly named “Angel from Maywood” concert. (FWIW, Waxahatchee and Morby did a non-Prine “tiny desk” set from their house, which was also pretty great.)
Everyone from Kevin Morby and Conor Meloy from the Decemberists to Norah Jones and Grace Potter showed up to pay tribute. You can still catch most of the performances on Consequence’s Instagram page — just click the IGTV link and you’ll see the majority of em. They were all pretty good, but I thought the ones from The Lowest Pair, Sara and Sean Watkins, Whoa Dakota, and Sammy Brue were particularly good. (Sadly, the one from Head and the Heart is missing, which was one of the best.) And if that isn’t enough of the Singin’ Mailman you can also watch Prine’s 2018 Austin City Limits concert here, which was his first time on the show in 13-odd years. (Note — you can actually catch any episode from the past three years now by streaming for free on PBS’ site, along with select shows from the archives from folks like BB King and others!)
In the midst of all the tributes and tunes, I also got to do a little reading with some recent album anniversaries showing up in the feeds that are worth sharing. The first of those is the writeup of Toots and the Maytals’ 1975 debut from Pitchfork, which regularly goes back and reviews old albums to highlight classics from the past. The article does a good job giving the history of the band, highlighting how Toots’ country upbringing gave the band a unique sound and showing where they fit in with better known reggae legends like the ubiquitous Bob Marley. It’s a good read — I remember discovering Toots by accident when I was driving around the Irish countryside in a beat-up old bus 20 years ago. It was a week-long trip around the entire country and in addition to listening to regionally appropriate bands like U2 (which remains one of my favorite memories — it made the early albums resonate even more, like they were taking power from their home terrain) the driver kept putting on tapes for this throaty, raw sounding reggae band, which was as alien to those surroundings as a leprechaun in Kingston.
I remember immediately loving it, jarringly out of context or not. There was a cover of the old classic “Louie, Louie,” the John Denver song “Country Road,” and what I previously had thought was an original Sublime song (and one of my favorites, at that), “54-46 (Was My Number).” Similar to the U2, there was an urgency to his voice that was inescapable. I asked the driver who it was and he responded with his thick Irish accent, “TOOTSindaMAAAAAAAYtils.” “Toots in the metals? Two is in the middles? I don’t understand.” To which he exasperatedly ejected the tape and tossed it back to me and I finally understood. These guys remain my favorite reggae band — sure, I like everyone on the planet adore Marley and also enjoy rougher, angrier fare like Peter Tosh, but there’s something about Toots that just sets him apart. Maybe it’s how I found him on that magic trip around the emerald isle or that connection to Sublime, whose debut album we used to listen to on a daily basis back in college. Either way, he’s great and this album was the breakthrough — pop it on while you read the article, or listen to that beloved song of his time in prison, which Bradley and the boys later gave a punky remake.
Next up on the reading rainbow comes another album from the time of my Toots discovery, the Smashing Pumpkins’ MACHINA, which turned 20 this month. The Stereogum article does a good job setting this album into the band’s overall output, starting with a hilarious anecdote about frontman Billy Corgan being a characteristically self-important pissant and getting into a “fight” with Soundgarden that he moped about and made into a big deal the next day. The story highlights one of the ongoing difficulties with loving this band — Billy and his monomaniacal egotism (and now batshit crazy conspiracy theories). At their best the band is amazing — aside from Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie, which are unassailable classics, I also loved Adore and a bunch of their other stuff, including this one — at their worst they are a self-important, overly bombastic trainwreck, almost all of which starts and stops with Billy himself. (When we saw them a year or so ago on tour, Billy legitimately had a giant Catholic-style idol of himself carried through the crowd.)
Which brings us back to this album — not counting the companion piece MACHINA II that was released/leaked shortly thereafter, this is the last time the band I loved did anything worth listening to. It was the last time the two sides of their sound were (mostly) in balance — the thundering drums and roaring guitars, which were undeniable once they got going (Jimmy Chamberlin, alongside Dave Grohl, is one of the best drummers of his generation), counterbalanced by the shy, stark sweetness of Billy’s lyrics and melodies. Subsequent albums like Zeitgeist, Oceania, and the album/non-album Shiny and Oh So Bright seemed to believe that the reason legions of people loved the Pumpkins were because they RAWWWWKED SOOOOOO HARRRRRRRD (and/or thought Billy’s lyrics about fairies and other rambling bullshit in the “epic” ten-odd minute tracks were the draw). As a result, we got albums full of sludgy, overly loud songs with next to no heart. They were the equivalent of WWE wrestlers, puffed up meatheads beating you over the head with folding chairs (not as odd an analogy as you may think for Corgan).
On MACHINA, though, there was still relative harmony between those sides. Sure, the edges were starting to fray and in retrospect you could see the disappointing path that would lead to those subsequent albums, thanks to Corgan’s fundamental misunderstanding of what made his band great, but for the most part things held together one last time. This was one of two new albums I listened to on almost endless repeat when I was living abroad, aside from my compilations of older material (this being the early internet days I was still operating off a Discman with a small binder of mix CDs, since space was of a premium) and it, along with the Counting Crows’ This Desert Life, were my tether to home, helping me beat back the intermittent blues and pass the hours between class/work/travel. Both those albums immediately transport me to that remodeled janitor’s closet I was living in at the time — it was legitimately three arms’ lengths wide and as long as a twin bed (the building unsurprisingly ended up being condemned shortly after I moved out) — and both still hold up today. This one was always one of my favorites — give it a ride while you read:
Last up is another anniversary article from Stereogum, this one on the Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious turning 20 this month. I didn’t discover these guys until I got home from that trip, as the Strokes and all the bands that came in their wake started exploding later that year. As Lizzy Goodman details in her fabulous Meet me in the Bathroom (which I wrote about here), they came in waves — first the Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD, and the Walkmen, then bands like the National, Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, Kings of Leon, the Vines, and more.
The Hives broke as part of that second wave, but as the Stereogum article relays the album that would eventually catapult them into the limelight came out before all those first wave albums (including Is This It?)! It highlights some of the fickleness behind who makes it (and when) and who doesn’t, especially in the pre-internet age with its much more limited opportunities for exposure. I remember the first time I heard “Hate to Say I Told You So,” with its undeniable hook and limitless energy — by the time you get to the bass breakdown (a sighting more rare than that Jamaican Irishman) you were ready to Kool-aid through the walls of your dorm room. Thankfully these guys eventually cracked through and have mostly kept up the high level of quality they established on Veni. They also remain one of the best live bands around, so if you’re looking for a way to get pumped during the pandemic, check out this breathless, blistering set from 2004, which was so good they made it a DVD. Enjoy the Tussles in Brussels here:
We’ll pull ourselves off Memory Lane for a couple new additions I caught floating by this week — first comes the latest single from beloved Built to Spill’s upcoming album, a covers album of Daniel Johnston songs. (Creatively titled Built to Spill plays the songs of Daniel Johnston, due June 12.) It initially seemed an odd choice for a band known for its guitar heroics, but upon hearing their version of songs like “Life in Vain” and this one, “Mountaintop,” you see how seamlessly it fits with the bands sweeter, melodic side. Excited to hear the rest of the album — enjoy this little slice of heaven here while we wait:
Next comes the latest from indie Super Friends outing Muzz, which sports former Walkmen drummer Matt Barrick, along with Interpol frontman Paul Banks and indie hopscotcher Josh Kaufman (he’s played with Bonny Light Horseman, the National, Craig Finn, etc). Since releasing their first single (the excellent “Bad Feeling”) the guys have announced a full album (Muzz, due June 5) and released another track from it. Similar to their previous release, this one finds the trio hanging back a bit, riding a languid vibe in lieu of some of their former outfits’ more raucous affairs. It works well — we’ll see how the rest of the album sounds soon. In the meantime enjoy “Red Western Sky” here:
Next comes the latest from Magnetic Fields, back for the second time this month with a new track from their latest concept album, Quickies. As noted two weeks ago, the album will have 28 songs, each less than three minutes long, and will be out May 15. This one is classic Mags, showcasing Stephin Merritt’s singular style — part showtunes, part satire — this one’s lyrics are at turns hilarious and sweet, just like the band at their best. Enjoy “I Want to Join a Biker Gang” here:
Up next comes the latest from Will Toledo’s Car Seat Headrest, whose upcoming album Making a Door Less Open comes out in a couple weeks (due May 1). The first two singles “Can’t Cool me Down” and “Martin” were both really good tunes, and the latest, “Hollywood” is no different. It’s a scathing ode to the titular town and it’s unclear who the guest vocalist is, but their rap-like cadence counters Toledo’s sleepy drawl well. Getting excited to hear the rest of the album — sounds like a hopeful rebound to 2016’s excellent Teens of Denial. We’ll see in a few short weeks — in the interim enjoy “Hollywood” here:
We’ll close with a couple tracks from Gorillaz, former Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s hit or miss cartoon collective, which he recently revived as part of his Song Machine project. As I wrote about before, he plans to release a series of “episodes” over the course of the year, with each episode detailing the fruits of a new collaboration. The last one with rapper slowthai was pretty good, as are the most recent ones — “Desole,” a breezy jaunt through the Caribbean with African vocalist Fatoumata Diawara, and “Aries,” a cool drive through 80s nostalgia with New Order bassist Peter Hook. Three for three has me more enthusiastic about what’s to come than Albarn’s recent work would normally have me. Let’s hope he keeps up the hot streak in the coming months!
Until next time, my friends… –BS