The Lemonheads at Shepherds Bush Empire, September 2005, courtesy of Stuart Goodwin

The other way I come across music is by reading liner notes. So, if you’re paying attention (and you’re ostensibly me), that means you read liner notes, work at a radio station, and follow up on your references to find good music. Sounds kinda boring when its put like that. Anyway, that is, as I illustrate over at Buffalo Spree, how I found The Lemonheads.

The way I stumbled across The Lemonheads, as most of my musical discoveries occur, was due to another band, in this case it was the Barenaked Ladies. While listening BNL’s song “Jane” I came across a reference to The Lemonhead’s lead singer Evan Dando and former band mate Juliana Hatfield’s rumored intimate relationship. So off I went into tracking down any information I could about them and their band. How I had managed to avoid the heavy press Dando, Hatfield and the band was receiving is still a mystery, considering the exposure they received starting with 1992’s now classic It’s a Shame about Ray and continuing with 1993’s follow up Come on Feel the Lemonheads.  As it turns out, I crossed The Lemonheads’ path just as they were slipping off the radar in 1997, after a couple messy and chaotic records.

You can read the rest of the article at Buffalo Spree, which includes acouple of videos from a recent performance. Here’s one of my favorite songs by The Lemonheads, “Allisons Starting to Happen” from that same show in Philly.

“Slapped Actress” is the final track on Stay Positive, and it could be argued that with it, ends a certain phase of the band, partially due to the departure of keyboardist Franz Nicolay in 2010. But I digress. In 2008, lead singer Craig Finn did an interview over at Uncut, where he discussed (amongst other things) how “Slapped Actress” fits into the themes of the album, based off a screening of John Cassavetes Opening Night:

I’m not someone who’s emotionally moved by much film, but I got this Cassavetes box set and I was surprised by the impact his films had on me. With Opening Night, I was very drawn to this idea of the ageing actress. I mean, if you’re trading on your beauty, the ageing process is really your enemy. And Opening Night has that as a really tragic thing, her simply getting older.

I was also really taken by the scene where Cassavetes wants to slap Gena Rowlands, and he says, ‘If I don’t really slap you, it won’t look real for the performance.’ And she says ‘It’s a play, why would you have to actually slap me, that’s the whole point.’ That kinda connected with the way I think people are preoccupied with my relationship with the characters I write about. I’ve always said no one really cares whether Quentin Tarantino kills people or does karate but for a songwriter there’s this question of a perceived honesty, that your songs are the story of your life.

This is as good an explanation for the use of Opening Night in the song. But I think there’s a deeper theme running through the album that pushes not only the song to bigger heights, but the engaged listener as well.  Stay Positive starts with “Constructive Summer” a song about creating and building, and becoming something bigger. ”Slapped Actress”, with its infectious monster riff, lively and melodic piano, snarling insistence that “we make our own movies” and repeating “woah-oh” sing-along vocals is the answer to the unasked question in the opener: “How?” As it does this, it creates a rhyming couplet with “Constructive Summer” that communicates a sense of closure, achievement and progress to the themes set at the start.

From the aforementioned guitar riff to the amazing piano, from the Catholic imagery to the allusions to Opening Night, this song hits a number of accessible beats and progressions that upon hearing them for the first time, I was surprised but also expecting to happen. The upward reach of this song made perfect sense with each previous mention of death, construction, parties, image creation, and not to mention the understanding of the straightforward rock sound of the band. You know they’re trying to knock it out of the park almost every track, because that’s what The Hold Steady does.

When I first listened to this album, I was on a long drive to a friend’s house, and I was loving every minute of the experience. As the song progressed, I wanted to see performance compared to Catholic Mass, and there it was. Then I wanted it to be about a movie, and it became that. Then, I wanted this song to break the walls of narration, and it does as the narrator sings that “our hands will hold steady”. Then I wanted my frustration, agreement, and excitement with the core concepts of creating an identity or creating art or both, to burst out in a chorus of voices of like-minded people transcending the normal height, and reaching that place of rock and roll where Joe Strummer is a saint. And then it does exactly that, echoing into the night.

I stepped out of my car when I arrived at my destination as if I had just been to a show of theirs, and not been simply listening in my car. Every time I play that song, I get chills with an aching desire to listen to it again and again. Even now, with its even more personally relevant message of aging’s diminishing returns, the song holds its power. “Slapped Actress” is The Hold Steady doing what rock and roll was meant to do, and can do better than almost any other medium: convey complex emotions in a handful of minutes, make them bigger, and transcend them.

That’s from Blitzen Trapper’s album Furr, the title track actually. I’ve got a whole nice write up over at Buffalo Spree about them, complete with a couple more videos.

I interviewed Ben Folds for Buffalo Spree. He was great, and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have met/interviewed so many of my favorite musicians.

Also, I feel this is an appropriate place to reveal that I still haven’t watched Almost Famous. So there’s that. And here’s a video of  ”You Don’t Know Me” featuring Regina Spektor.

John Vanderslice, you’re next.

Punk has an interesting history with concept albums; they’re something that isn’t usually associated with the common perception of punk’s ethos. The Clash gave us Sandinista!, Hüsker Dü dropped Zen Arcade, and, skipping a bit forward and with a looser definition, Green Day released American Idiot. Loud, fast, and short are the adjectives that come to mind, but the main characteristic of punk is, and always will be, to break the rules.

F@#*ed Up, based in Toronto, released their 18 track 78-minute long concept album David Comes to Life earlier this year, and by their name alone, it is clear they are not strangers to breaking rules.

Who doesn’t like a nice concept album or rock opera every once in a while? To add a little to this article, I would have included Titus Andronicus’ recent “The Monitor”, The Decemberists’ “Hazards of Love”, and some longer explanation of concept albums and rock operas, and how much I love them, and how much I think they’re a natural evolution of the album proper. You can read the rest of the article here.

Anyway, I’m excited for this show, and about Fucked Up. Just about as excited as I was when a friend recommended Refused to me almost a decade ago. I can’t resist, here’s the title track from “The Shape of Punk to Come”, live somewhere exactly it should be played.

With all of the songs and bands I have pushed through my brain, somehow this song gets stuck again and again. “Lucky Denver Mint” and its album Clarity have it in for my brain. I’m not sure how or why it lodges itself in my brain, but when it does, its there in a world of its own. There were a few days in a row last week, where I woke up with the lyrics in my head as the first full sentence of the day.  Specifically, I get the closing couplet of the first verse jammed in the gray matter:

Somewhere I made a wish
With Lucky Denver Mint

That’s supposed to happen right? They took the title from there for goodness sake, and I think there’s some solid reasoning, beginning with the end of each line. Wish/Mint is an imperfect match for an end rhyme, but there’s an interior rhyme with the “i” that binds them across the lyric. With the melody applied, it lifts off. Soaring from ‘somewhere’ to ‘wish’ and sliding down from ‘with’ to ‘mint’, the separate parts work together to build a hook that feels as ethereal and tangible as the words and concepts that define them at the same time. In short: its a brilliant stroke of songwriting. But is this merely the easiest part to remember of the song, so that’s why it gets stuck in my head? Maybe. The chorus erupts afterwards, and really, try not getting this stuck in your head:

You’re not bigger than this, not better
Why can’t you learn?

Now repeat that over some amazing drumming, unceasing guitars, and vocals that sound bruised but getting stronger, for the bulk of the song. Tough to beat, for sure. But I still end up with the last couplet of the first stanza lodged in my brain during waking hours.

So why is this song so catchy? I can’t figure out an answer to that question–there are no direct connections to events, no sly heartwarming recollections from the past, no negative connotations, no personal interactions that bind me to this song. For most of the songs I like as much (or have come to wake up to) I’ve had a personal connection to connect them with. The only images that come to mind are of the grey-white wall of a good friend’s parents’ living room, a former-best friend, and that still-good friend. They only appear after the chorus repeats, and pressing myself to consider any images. Otherwise its a notion of being in Buffalo in 2001, without any commentary or context, just detritus.

Perhaps “Lucky Denver Mint” and its exceptional hook is a pure song, lodged in my brain, unmolested by memory. Maybe its just a phenomenal song. Perhaps I’m waking up to it because of this nigh-objective reference in my brain is searching for that connection. Either way, it remains a brilliant song, steady on its own in the sea of thoughts, memories, and images that make up a brain. For now, at least, until something comes along to anchor its place in my mental jukebox.

Deep inside a bin of leftover promo CDs, two albums sat waiting to be opened, reviewed, and enjoyed. Neither of these discs, or the surrounding leftovers, had been given more than a cursory listen by the staff at the college radio station I worked for at the time. Which was understandable, as there were, and continues to be more music released than can be consumed by any individual. The first of these discs would be set aside for six months, revisited, and loved, seeping its way into my life song by song. Conversely, the second album let me sail into its textures upon first listen. That first disc was Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy and the second was Great Lake Swimmers’ Bodies and Minds.

You can read the rest of the post over at Buffalo Spree, and check out a live video of the band performing “Bodies And Minds” below.

Almost every seat was filled at UB’s Center for the Arts on Monday night. I sat in mine with a simple benediction my fellow attendees bestowed upon me before heading in: “I’m so jealous that you’re seeing these guys for the first time.” The double bill of Return to Forever and Zappa Plays Zappa is not a show you would have caught me at before, oh let’s say, last Friday. That’s when I was subject to a marathon session of audio research by fellow music aficionados, who gave me the same jaw-dropping eye-popping expression I’ve been known to give when I realize someone’s missing a huge piece of music knowledge.

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about jazz. I’ve dabbled here and there with some of the larger figures of the sound, but never put the time and patience into any further investigation. To take this a step further, Jazz Fusion is something I didn’t consider my palate ready for, even after digesting Miles Davis’ masterpiece, Bitches Brew. This weekend I had no choice but to embark into some challenging waters. Two drummers, a bassist, and a pianist got me plugged in and primed for what I was going to hear at the show….

You can read the rest here, and watch an audience member’s short video of the performance below. Couldn’t tell you the song, but it was just about the end of the show.

Meanwhile, I found a fan video of Awful Age, from the first album. Its not bad at all.

Here’s one of their recent tracks Music is a Cult, which you can download on their site, or stream over at last.fm.