Tag: #theband

Posted on

Insta’ Gratification: Neko and the Flood from the ‘Gram

One of the best albums of the past 20 years celebrated an anniversary a few weeks back, beloved Neko Case’s flawless masterpiece, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, which came out 15 years ago this month.  Easily her best album to date at the time (and honestly, probably still — though Middle Cyclone gives it a solid fight), it built upon the undeniable strengths of those preceding outings — the honky-tonk rambles of The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby and the more ethereal, stately blues of Blacklisted (which has possibly my favorite of her songs on it, the devastating beauty “I Wish I Was the Moon.”) Case showcases each of those elements on Confessor, as well as gospel and more straightforward indie songs, for an album that is perfect from top to bottom.

From the moment she got started Case’s one-of-a-kind voice was always the star — able to roar with unbridled ferocity or reduce you to tears with its kneebuckling versatility and beauty. What really came into focus on this album, though, was the strength of Case’s songwriting — songs about love, death, loneliness, and loss play out vividly across the album’s twelve tracks, although the lyrics are rarely as clear as the images they evoke. “Girl with the parking lot eyes” from opener “Margaret vs Pauline.” “My true love died in a dirty old pan of oil” from “Star Witness.” “Your body, limp, beneath my feet, your dusty eyes as cold as clay” from “Maybe Sparrow.”

You can clearly picture each of those things as she sings, yet the circumstances surrounding them aren’t always clear. The songs feel like flickering images from an unknown film where you get glimpses of what’s going on as the door to the theater opens and closes, but never see the entire movie. Images of birds, lions, wolves, and more pop in and out of view, never lingering long enough to tell you the whole story.

What holds it all together is what started it in the first place — that voice. That unbelievable, unparalleled voice. Case sounds amazing on this album, balancing the mystery of those images with the unquestionable emotion she packs into her performance. The anger that simmers beneath the line “everything’s SO easy for Pauline — for PauuuuLIIIIIIIIIIIINE!” at the end of the opener. The naked desperation in her plea, “pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase, don’t let him die” at the close of “Star Witness.” The unflinching confidence when she vows,”I don’t care if forever never comes cause I’m holding out for that teenage feeling.” The full-throated anguish over the titular bird in “Maybe Sparrow.” It hits you right in the heart, over and over again no matter how many times you listen, and it doesn’t matter whether you fully understand why — the voice tells you everything you need to know.

It’s again paired with her long-time duet partner Kelly Hogan’s on several of the best songs, reminding us that somehow even something as amazing as Case’s voice can become better. (Like adding bacon to almost anything or throwing a runny egg on top — are you ever sorry they showed up?) The two’s voices are so perfectly paired it’s intoxicating, an effect that’s only enhanced when you hear it in person. I remember seeing them perform this album at my favorite dive here in town and I legitimately was nearly knocked out on my feet — it was like listening to two angels serenade each other and you were just lulled into a dreamlike state of stupor, eyes closed and smiling. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a couple hundred people be so quiet.

It was an amazing show and it — like the album — remains one of my absolute favorites. Do yourself a favor and check it out, if for some reason you haven’t already.  I could pick any of the aforementioned songs to get you started, but I think my favorite is probably “At Last.” Short, sweet, and by the time the shimmering guitar comes in at the end you’re swooning — just lovely. Give it a listen here:

As I’m sure the eight of you are already aware, there’s been a surge in nonsense over on the ‘gram lately, large quantities of it courtesy of yours truly thanks to the dare issued to me recently by the one and only Oddge. Long story short she got tore up on seltzer and corn dogs one night and in the midst of that drunken frenzy she said, “yaknowwha — you’re wasting your time writing, Sunshine. You could post something EVERY SINGLE DAY and no one would notice.” She then whipped her half-filled White Claw at me across the room, kicked over my fern, and stormed out into the night to bark at dogs and passersby.

Tough love, to be sure, but far be it from me to ignore a challenge, so I’ve been doing my best to post something over there every day, offering the people what none of them asked for — more musical selections (and ramblings) from me! I’ve been having some fun with it, posting gems from the grocery store, birthday bashes, and relics from the past, as well as the usual new finds you’d expect to see here. It’s those latter ones I want to memorialize here, in part so I don’t forget them (still don’t love the disappearing stories) and in part so I can add them to the master playlist and have them come up on Sunshine Radio.  (Which I TOTALLY know more than just me uses — totally…)

I won’t rehash what I said over there (since I ALSO know all of you have already seen them before!), but if you feel like rewatching/listening, here’s your chance to dive back in! Until next time, my friends…

–BS

    • Watch the outstanding Netflix documentary on Latin American rock, Break it All. It showcases a ton of my faves, including the Argentine giants Soda Stereo:

    • Brit band Sports Team are definitely worth a listen, sounding like “a fun, hooky mix of Franz and the Strokes:”

    • Fellow Chicagoan Andrew Bird dropped a solid new album with his old Squirrel Nut Zippers pal Jimbo Mathus that’s a good listen:

    • Old-time faves The Band just released an expanded version of their Stage Fright album for its 50th anniversary and this one’s been a revived favorite:

    • Aussie act Amyl and the Sniffers released this ripshit rocker that’s been on repeat for much of the past few weeks:

    • Love em or hate em Kings of Leon are back with a new album and this is one of its better tracks:

    • Toronto titan Drake dropped a three song EP that has this solid collab with Lil Baby:

Posted on

A Winter Weekend Wonderland: Waltzes, Secrets, and Songs by Sailors

Now that the temperatures are finally starting to climb above Antarctic resort levels and I begin to regain sensation in my fingers (back home in Chiberia they’re expecting temps to jump between 80 and 90 degrees this weekend!), thought I’d crawl out of my igloo to highlight a couple of salmon I caught swimming by under the ice. Since my last post a few weeks ago I’ve been obsessed with The Last Waltz, partly because of how negatively drummer Levon Helm talked about it in his autobiography, but also because of how good I’ve always thought it was. I remember first seeing it way back in high school when I got home from being out one night (probably at something totally rad like chess club or raging with the mathletes). The local access station always showed a weird mix of stuff in the late night hours — Three Stooges blocs, All in the Family or Laugh In mini-marathons, bad B-movies, or old concerts — and I always found a bunch of things that caught my fancy.

This night they were obviously fishing from the latter category and I remember watching with curiosity as it opened with this strange (but lovely) orchestral music, as well as interviews with these shaggy guys I didn’t recognize — including what appeared to be a crazy homeless guy curled up on a couch (who I later learned was keyboard/pianist Richard Manuel). Once they got to the music, though, I was grabbed from the outset — this country-tinged shuffle of an intro quickly followed by the drummer growling, “When I get offa this-a mounTIN, ya knoooow where I wanna go — straight dooooown the Miiiiiiiiiiiiiississippi Rivah to tha Guuuuuuulf-a Meeeeeeeexicooooooooooooooo!” in the opening classic “Up on Cripple Creek.”

It’s a great song, to be sure, but something about the band itself prevented you from looking away — whether it was that crazy homeless guy banging away at the keys with a voice that sounded a little like Ray Charles, or that drummer who looked like a lumberjack and sang out of the side of his face, or the other organ player who looked like a physicist and had an untameable mane of hair exploding from his bald spot’s perimeter like the President’s does now. To say nothing of the skinny guitarist with circle glasses ripping off riff after riff without breaking a sweat, or the bassist with the voice that emerged in a series of sweet honks, or the endless parade of legends — Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and a couple of Neils (Young and Diamond), among others — coming out one after the other across this warm, opulent stage.

It was magnetic — the way each person sang a different song, each song spanned a different genre, and so many superstars wanted to say goodbye to these strangers I’d never heard of. (In addition to them playing for nearly three hours and almost everything they sang being so dang catchy.) To hear Helm talk about it so harshly made me wonder if I’d missed something or had somehow gotten it wrong, so I went back after reading his book to make sure this wasn’t yet another item from my youth that I’d overvalued or outgrown (like Cavaricci pants or role playing games). And while the movie is still amazing — it’s almost worth watching just to hear the exchange between Robertson and Clapton as they trade licks on “Further On Up the Road” and see the smile on Clapton’s face when Robertson crushes the so-called god of guitar, or the tingle-inducing end of “It Makes No Difference” when Hudson appears, invoking what might be the first/only time in human history where you think to yourself “FUCK yeah, saxophone!” — what’s captivated me the past few weeks has been the 40th anniversary audio edition, which has nearly another hour and a half’s worth of material that I never knew about.

Thanks to Helm’s account I learned more about how that day went down, with the band playing basically non-stop for four or five hours, doing essentially a Band concert on its own before each of the allies and influences started coming out to play two to three songs a piece (vs the single songs that show up in the movie), along with several encores and rehearsals. For some reason they didn’t film all of the above, only recorded most of the audio, so there’s a bunch of treasures I’d never heard until I started mining my obsession the past few weeks. And while I think it’s fair to say the movie captured most of the concert’s best segments, there were a bunch of really good songs that somehow didn’t make the cut — the New Orleans tinged (or titled) “Life is a Carnival” and “Down South in New Orleans,” the swinging hoedowns of “Rag Mama Rag” and “W.S. Walcott Medicine Show,” or the uniquely Band-ish tracks like “This Wheels on Fire” and “King Harvest.”

Hearing all this made me understand Helm’s distaste a little more — not only because the Band sounded so good (Helm’s gravely growl in particular is a delight, making songs from the first two albums sound better than they ever did on the records), but also due to the haphazard chaos of the movie, which missed several key moments. (Helm was specifically annoyed with how Muddy Waters was handled, with the great track “Caldonia” left out as well as the legend’s intro/exit.) That said, I still think writ large this captures a magical moment in time — a band in its prime giving a monster farewell show with some of the biggest names of the day — that definitely lives up to the mantra of “leave em wanting more.” Check out some of my favorites and see for yourself:


———————————————-

We’ll close with the regular assortment of one-offs — first this article from Stereogum on the anniversary of beloved Built to Spill’s classic, Keep it Like a Secret, which turns 20 today (exhibit 12760 why I am O.A.F.) It does a good job walking you through the album and its many gems — I had the good fortune to see them perform this in its entirety two years ago back home and it was like a one hour waking dream. Warm, shapeshifting, and hazy around the edges, this thing’s perfect from top to bottom. Pop this on and hop onto the cloud:

Next comes a surprise single from Interpol, “Fine Mess,” whose album last year was the good-not-great Marauder (although it topped body double Gabriel’s year end list, which just shows his taste is as questionable as our appearance), and it hearkens back to the band’s early years, all nervous energy and twitchy guitars. It’s unclear whether this is part of another album or an extra from the last one, but it’s a good listen regardless — give it a spin here:

Up next comes the much-anticipated return of fellow New Yorkers Vampire Weekend, who released two songs from their upcoming album Father of the Bride this week. It’ll be the first album without founding member Rostam Batmanglij and their first since 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City(number 7 on that year’s list), so the band plans to come back strong by making it an 18-song double album. “2021” is a slight little throwaway, but “Harmony Hall” is a solid song, sporty a lovely little guitar riff that doubles on itself before adding in pianos and building to a bright chorus. Hopefully the rest of the album leans towards this one vs the former:

Next comes another surprise return, this time from former Libertine (and tabloid trainwreck) Pete Doherty, who’s been touring with a new side project, the Puta Madres (which means “jolly sailors” in Spanish), and plans to release their debut soon. Doherty has apparently cleaned up his act after years of trying to kill himself with drugs and booze (he even reconciled with former bandmate Carl Barat, recording a new album three years ago I somehow missed) and while the shambolic energy of that former unit’s early years is missing, it’s still a pretty good song. I’ll be curious to hear the rest of the album when it comes out — give this a ride in the meantime:

We’ll close by circling back to the start and another offering from America’s Hat, this time with the latest single from Canadian punks Pup who plan to release their third album Morbid Stuff in the coming months. Thankfully it doesn’t sound like they’re straying from the formula that’s gotten them this far (no dreaded synthesizers in sight), tossing off another catchy, high energy ripper. Let’s hope the rest of the album follows suit — check out “Kids” while we wait:

Until next time, my friends… –BS

Posted on

Words and Guitar: the Lizard, Loft, and Levon

Since the wind is howling outside like a frigid tornado and it’s therefore too damn cold to do anything else, thought I’d pop in with a couple recommendations that’ve kept me company by the fire, three auto-biographies for folks familiar to the eight of you that you might find worth a spin.

First comes the coffeetable sized book about the beloved Lizard (aptly named Book) — because if anything says “I’m warm and inviting — place me out in the open so children and random visitors can rifle through me,” it’s these guys, one of the loudest, heaviest, and flat out ferocious bands around. Comic irony about the book’s format aside, it’s a great read — aside from quick backgrounds on each of the members, told first in the individual’s words and then added to by the remaining three members, it walks through each of the band’s albums, from the drum machine origins of Pure to the disappointing departure of Blue.  Bassist David Sims leads most of those discussions, giving interesting background on the recording process writ large, as well as recollections (and recommendations) for specific songs on each album.   There’s validation in hearing that your favorite albums/songs are some of his/theirs as well (Goat, Liar, and Shot rank highest, and Down is acknowledged as one of the weakest), but it’s also fun to go back to albums/songs you’ve written off and try them again because they’re his/their favorites. (“Trephination” and “Too Bad About the Fire,” for example, or virtually all of Blue, which they still like/rank higher than Down.)

There’s also a ton of great photos of the band, both at gigs and behind the scenes (the blood-splattered guitar of Duane Denison with no explanation raises a tantalizing array of questions), and loads of stories/additional context from non-band members, such as producers, writers, and fans. The ode to the first second of “Boilermaker” is one of my favorites — both because it’s spot on and because not many bands elicit this level of adulation. (I’m afraid to look, but highly doubt there are blog posts or articles about the intricacies of 21 Pilots songs.) Here’s a taste:

“The opening second of Liar is hands down the greatest opening second of any album ever recorded…Part of its charm is how hilariously self-defeating it is to put the climax of your album within its first second…if Liar were a splatter flick, it would start with the woodchipper scene.  It’s getting cold-cocked without even seeing the face of your attacker.  No matter what volume your stereo is at, it’s too loud…it’s like walking in mid bark…it’s opening the door to find the Jesus Lizard rehearsing (or worse) in your living room…[it’s] an abrupt jolt coming in midsentence, seeming to send the message, “Uh, the party’s already started, where the fuck have you been?'”

Next comes the tale of Tweedy, as remembered by Jeff himself, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). Apparently Santa is one of the eight readers here, as she heard my wish and delivered this to me just after the holiday, and I’m glad he did because it’s a fast, enjoyable read.  Despite what you’d guess based on the tone of most of Tweedy’s music, he’s got a really good sense of humor (saying a signature on one of the pictures in The Loft had been “eradicated by the power of sad mid-tempo rock,” for example) and he’s often self-deprecating, which helps keep the mood light, even when he’s talking about pretty serious stuff — whether it’s the well-publicized breaks from the Jays — Jay Farrar from Uncle Tupelo and Jay Bennett from Wilco — or his equally well-publicized addiction to painkillers.  Tweedy seems intent on not glossing over things to make himself look good, owning up to elements that helped lead to those breaks and providing details that really drive home that first point (such as admitting he would steal painkillers from his dying mother-in-law when he was in the grips of his addiction).

It makes for a resonant, sympathetic read — from his childhood in Belleville, Illinois, a tiny town outside St Louis with “the longest Main Street in America,” where his dad worked for the train company (the town’s main employer) and his mom would put up posters for his early gigs (while also adorably taking money at the door) to the formative days of Uncle Tupelo, trading music with Farrar and his family, and the birth of Wilco in the wake of the former’s demise. Tweedy unsurprisingly knows how to tell a tale, and he walks us through a lot in the book’s ~300 pages — aside from the aforementioned episodes, he also details a lifelong insecurity and anxiety surrounding his music that seems surprising for someone of his undeniable skill.  (It also leads him to admit to something I’ve long suspected, his “trying…to find ways to undermine songs,” which seems like a form of self-defense now that you know where it’s coming from.) Both for what he’s gone through and how he chooses to portray it, Tweedy really endears himself to the reader and makes you connect to the music in new ways, now that you’re armed with additional context and detail.  Reiterates the suspicion that he’s a guy you’d like to hang out with for a couple hours — or at least I sure would… (if for no other reason because he knows about ridiculous things like this video, which he mentions in the intro as something guaranteed to make him smile, and it certainly worked for me. Be sure to stick around for the “solo” a little over a minute in…)

Last up comes the story of The Band as told by its drummer, the famed wild man Levon Helm, in This Wheel’s on Fire. It’s an equally vivid read, as one would expect with a narrator like Helm, taking you from the cotton farms of his youth in Arkansas to his formative years on the road with Ronnie Hawkins, which ultimately became the farm team for the future hall of famers. Both segments of his life feel like relics of a long-ago past — the sharecropping, segregation-era South and the birth of rock and roll — but Helm’s natural storytelling ability makes both crackle with detail.  Whether working the fields in the blistering heat, living in houses with no electricity or plumbing, or working the chitlins circuit, driving thousands of miles and playing hundreds of gigs, often for little or no pay, you can picture everything whether you believe it actually happened or not.  Which is not to imply Helm is embellishing, just that these eras seem so distant despite only being 60 or 70 years in the rearview mirror. (Another such example being his seeing Elvis play a show early on with no drummer because there was a law you couldn’t have one in a place that served liquor!)

Helm’s stories about life on the road during the birth of rock and roll are particularly incredible — playing four to five gigs a day, six to seven days a week, with a lead singer (Ronnie “The Hawk” Hawkins) doing backflips onstage and a piano player hitting the keys so hard the hammers would pop out like popcorn. Driving all over the South, playing torrid sets and getting in bar fights (and at least once blowing a place up for not paying them), before driving all the way to Canada to repeat the process. It sounded like barely contained bedlam — but man it also sounded like fun…

Through it all Helm’s country phrasings liven the proceedings, with lines like “so cheap he could squeeze a nickel hard enough to make the buffalo shit” or “stunned like a hog staring at a wristwatch” (or even calling harmonicas “harps”) giving everything a warmth and geniality as if you were sitting around the campfire listening to him tell stories.  Even when he gets to the Band era, which gets a lot more complicated and dark despite the fame and success, the stories are still engaging and give you insight into another key period in our history, the Vietnam/Woodstock era of the late 60s/early 70s.

Similar to Tweedy and Sims, Helm is refreshingly honest, talking candidly about the band’s output (essentially the Big Pink and its self-titled successor are the only two albums he rates highly) as well as its ultimate demise (he spares no sharpness for Robbie Robertson and his decision to pull the plug, in addition to causing their decline in the first place by taking almost all the songwriting credits).  It was surprising to hear how much he hated The Last Waltz, which I still think is pretty great, but based on the circumstances at the time (as well as what it sounds like got left out of the final product) makes sense in his telling.  It’s an entertaining read, whether you’re a devotee of the band’s music or not.

That’s it for now — hope you enjoy these.  I’ll see you once the ice hurricane lets up…

–BS

Posted on

Walk Across the Welcome Mat: Many Happy Returns

We’re in strange new territory here — the government remains closed for longer than it ever has before, and I’m older and mangier than I’ve ever been before.  No coincidence those get commemorated on the same day — if ever there was a corollary to the constant disappointment, stupidity, and ineptitude in DC, it’s me. And so on this esteemed day in history I wanted to do my part to give fellow furloughers something to celebrate in the form of good music.

It’s been a pretty bountiful first couple weeks to the new year — maybe a positive sign this year is going to break from the bludgeoning slog of the past few? (I wouldn’t be Sunshine if I didn’t foolishly think so!) — and there are seven things worth flagging for folks so far.  First up comes a pair of singles from the Raconteurs’ return, Jack White’s first super side project featuring solo songman Brendan Benson and Jack Lawrence/Patrick Keeler from the Greenhornes. We haven’t seen the band for a decade, as White has spent his time recording crummy solo records and generally growing more cantankerous/crazy on his ranch outside Nashville.

Similar to another formerly-beloved frontman whose previously unimpeachable taste and talent has largely disappeared in recent years, Billy Corgan, White also seems to misunderstand what made him great.  I caught him last summer when he was touring his most recent material and ended up leaving early — “I used to have a girl drummer so if I have a girl drummer and play old songs people will think it’s amazing! I also used to rip off tight, glorious little guitar solos and people would lose their minds so if I do lots of them — and longer! — then that’s even BETTER!” Instead it was a pale, vainglorious reminder of past glory, like trying to fit into your high school clothes as if two or three decades hadn’t passed. As with Corgan it’s frustrating to see someone you enjoyed so much fall so short of that mark now.  Maybe this reunion is what White needs to get back on track, though, as the first two singles — “Sunday Driver” and “Now That You’re Gone” — are promising starts.  The latter has White tossing out bright little licks to balance Benson’s vocals while the former has White front and center, shouting lyrics into the mic atop a beefy guitar riff.  We’ll see how the rest turns out — the band always fell into the solid, not stellar category for me before, but I’ll take a little more solid and reliable these days.  See what you think:

Next comes the return of another act who ghosted the past decade, Seattle solo man David Bazan — better known as Pedro the Lion — who hasn’t shown up wearing that moniker since 2004.  Bazan is known for his warm voice and intimate lyrics, often about love/relationships, and his debut It’s Hard to Find a Friend remains a well-loved favorite. (Check out tracks like “Big Trucks,” “Bad Diary Days,” and “Of Minor Prophets and their Prostitute Wives” to see why.) Bazan’s spent the intervening years rattling off a string of solo albums (seven by my count), but decided to return to Pedro last year, playing a few shows to test the waters and ultimately recording a new album (the appropriately named Phoenix, which will be released next week — 18 Jan).  He’s released three singles so far — “Yellow Bike,” “Model Homes,” and my favorite, “Quietest Friend,” which is a lovely tune in line with those from his twenty-years-gone debut. Hopefully the rest of the return lives up to these.  Give the latter a listen here:

Up next comes the latest single from UK outfit UNKLE, which used to fuse hip hop and electronic elements in thrilling, unique fashion on its early outings (their 1998 debut Psyence Fiction remains a classic) before shifting to a more eclectic mix in recent years (2010’s Where Did the Night Fall landed at number nine on that year’s list). Their last album was a disappointment (2017’s The Road, Vol. 1, which was a down-tempo, overly theatrical slog), but the first cut from the upcoming album (The Road: Part II/Lost Highway, due out 29 Mar) sounds like a return to their early days.  Sporting an Al Green sample and a shuffling trip hop beat that’s tough to ignore, the song calls to mind fellow British legends Massive Attack in both mood and delivery.  (Which is almost never a bad thing…) The album looks like a long one with 16 songs on the track listing (minus tiny little interludes), so hopefully the remainder fall more in line with this one.  Check it out in the meantime here:

Last of the listens comes from Rob Sonic’s latest album, Defriender, which snuck in silently at the end of the year and almost went unnoticed — by everyone except my new bestie Numu, I should say, which is the unblinking eye of Sauron and SHALL not be defeated! (Seriously, everyone should download this app — it catches everything!) It’s his first since 2014’s outstanding double feature where he dropped his third solo album, Alice in Thunderdome, as well as the second chapter of his equally excellent partnership with Aesop Rock in Hail Mary Mallon, which dropped Bestiary. Unfortunately this one’s a letdown compared to those two — Sonic’s lyrics are still sharp as ever, but the beats are uncharacteristically weak this time around.  Except on this one, “Air D&D,” which is a vintage cut I’ve listened to a bunch.  Maybe the album will grow on me — in the meantime crank this one, which besides the throbbing Prodigy-style beat opens with the line I want to start most conversations with these days:

We’ll close with some worthwhile reading material, each a retrospective on a classic album or band that are worth revisiting.  First comes this article from Pitchfork on the Buzzcocks’ Singles Going Steady, which marked the end of the band’s brief reign and remains a much-loved classic. The article does a good job charting the band’s rise and its place in punk’s pantheon (as well as its importance overall) and it — like the album — is a good entree for the uninitiated.  I had the good fortune of catching these guys a few years ago at Riot Fest and it was a treat, as I was too young to catch them in their prime.  They still put on a good show all these years later, so pop this one on Spotify and give it a read.

Next comes a look back on the Flight of the Conchords — the THIRD thing on this list making a return after nearly a decade away (what’s next, my chronic acne and inability to talk to women?) — by the folks at Vice.  The duo recently popped up on Colbert with a new song (the characteristically funny “Father and Son”) and did a full reunion special in London late last year that’s showing on HBO and quite good.  The article recaps the band’s hey day, while also lamenting its departure (as paralleled in “The Bus Driver Song,” which he uses as a centerpiece for the conversation). It’s a good read and reminder of how funny these guys were — for me, I often think of the hair helmet and crack up and wish I could take attendance at meetings because of these guys. Definitely worth watching the special, too.

Last comes this retrospective from Rolling Stone on the Band, Dylan’s former backing band that became a full on force in its own right later on.  I quibble a bit with some of the rankings (whether Levon Helm hated it or not, The Last Waltz is an absolute gem and the best introduction to their songs), but it does a nice job giving some history and context for each of the albums (and the band’s often tumultuous state at the time).  Definitely a band worth knowing — songs like “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Weight” are timeless, and “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down” and “Ophelia” (among countless others) ain’t too bad either.  Give it a read — and definitely track down The Last Waltz if you’ve never seen it before. It’s an epic close to a band and an era.

Until next time, my friends… –BS