TWO FROM THE VAULT

Here are a couple good tunes from the vaults. First up is a nice jam with some old pals, Yo La Tengo, and "Stockholm Syndrome." This is a great song. I know it's wrong but I swear it won't take long.


"Born in the Seventies" by the Fruit Bats is an hilarious backwards glance at a decade you might remember. Vaguely. Great seventies pedal steel and appropriately opaque lyrics. The sands of time stuck in your shoe...that make you cross, they make you blue. Whatever happened to you? You were born in the seventies.

SINGING TOGETHER

"You've Lost That Loving Feeling," by the Righteous Brothers.

Great vocals are all about feeling. Sure, you can get Mariah Carey to hit six octaves or hire the Three Tenors to sing the Manhattan phonebook and it would all be technically perfect--and about as dull as dishwater. Good vocals are about feeling, and the spaces in between, and the surprising harmony that somehow lifts it all off the ground. The sand in the Vaseline is what makes it interesting. The great pop song makes you tap your feet, or stop and listen, or crank up the radio as you drive the great American highway.

"I Get Around" by the Beach Boys

The Beach Boys were an harmonic convergence of California sun, surf, girls, and souped-up hot rods. Their soaring vocals were instantly recognizable as the sound of summer. At the creative helm was Brian Wilson, who directed this juggernaut into teenage symphonies, but you can't beat these early transistor radio tunes. This sounds like summer.

"Cloud Nine" by the Temptations

Out of Motor City, The Temptations were one of the most successful soul acts, a tough little outfit with vocal harmonies that reached a gritty perfection. The Temps were cool. The sound of these soul survivors was tough and real back in the day, and folks may snicker at their outfits and dance steps because all style gets old eventually, but their vocals remain timeless. On top of that, they didn't just sing silly love songs. They could "tell it like it is."


"Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down" by the Beatles

The Beatles...of course. With two of the greatest rock vocalists ever, Lennon and McCartney, not to mention unrivaled songwriting teams, The Beatles could do it all. They wrote their songs, and could play just about anything, but their vocals were a huge part of their success. Here they are, late in the game, after the screams of Beatlemania had died down playing on the Apple rooftop in London.



"Pancho and Lefty" by Willie Nelson & Bob Dylan

As if to prove my point, here are too technically imperfect voices--Willie's is thin and high and lonesome, and Dylan's is gravelly--that come together in a wonderful duet on an old Townes Van Zandt song. They make it their own, and you believe them. Sure, Mariah could sing this tune and toss in all that glissando but it would be like eating a cake made entirely of frosting. This is a plate of ribs, crispy and burnt on the ends, slathered with picante sauce that leaves you gasping for beer. This performance fits a story of outlaws and bandits beautifully.

MEET BENJI HUGHES

Who the hell is this guy? Why didn't anyone tell me about Benji Hughes? I keep up with contemporary sounds as best I can, trade musical tips with fellow obsessives, read the music rags, but I totally missed this oddball character from North Carolina who looks like the offspring of some unholy union between a long lost beer hippie and Sasquatch. Benji is one scary looking dude, but just when you think he'll ride his Harley through your flowerbed to kill the family dog, he turns into a heartsick troubadour who brings a tear to your eye. Benji writes the hell out of a song. He maps the human heart and not like some dopey singer-songwriter--this guy has soul.

I first heard about Benji this week in the Believer Magazine Music Issue, something that comes out ever year about this time, and a great article by Joe Hagen. Esquire, StarNews Online, and Encore, "Your Alternative Voice in Wilmington, NC," have also been sources for this piece, if you're curious about that sort of thing. Track down more info if you can. Some day he may be a common household name, but I just hope he gets one billionth the attention your brand name pop stars enjoy every day.

One of the best Benji Hughes' songs I've heard came out in 2003, in which Hughes sings about his old man in the joint.


"Dad"

It’s been a long time since you dropped me a line
I just had a birthday and Mom’s doing fine
The last time I heard you were still doing time
I heard about the sentence, never got the details of the crime


“Benji captures heartache much in the same way Hank Williams did back in his day," said Fred Champion, local musician and the owner of CD Alley, in Wilmington, NC (where tickets were on sale for Benji's shows at the East Coast Opera House, July 24 and 25). "He expresses in a song his thoughts and feelings on just what it means to be human: to love, to have heartache, to pine for someone, and about regular everyday life things like annoying neighbors or the experience of going to see a favorite band with some friends.”

Chuck Klosterman wrote a great article about Benji in Esquire back in March. "A Love Extreme is twenty-five songs of pure, enthusiastic songwriting from a man who clearly does not care what I think about his work. It's an ambitious, solipsistic project...But he's amazingly good at fitting every musical idea into whatever worldview is best suited to hold it. There's something effortless about his ability. It often seems as if Hughes can listen to any rival artist, immediately deduce what element defines the work, and then synthesize the vibe without seeming derivative. It's almost like A Love Extreme is a project: At various fleeting moments, he sings a little like Julian Casablancas, Joe Pernice, Leonard Cohen, Jarvis Cocker, Rivers Cuomo, Chet Baker, Mark Oliver Everett, and Mark Sandman."


Listen to his song about a road trip to see the Flaming Lips, called, appropriately enough, "I Went with Some Friends to See The Flaming Lips":


It was raining just a little but we didn’t mind
We had some drinks in the bar at the Haywood Park
Sent Mark and Jason on a beer run, ’cause it was getting dark
Then we checked into our rooms and started eating mushrooms
Jessica and Elle dropped by...

The music changes, shifts, and whoa, the drugs kick in.

Standing in a line we realized Mark had taken too much...
taken way too much MDMA...

He elucidates his world in stunning detail, and the music beautifully reinforces the mood. He'd probably yell obscenities if he heard this, but he's really a short story writer. His stories wouldn't be out of place in a collection of great contemporary writers working in the short form, George Saunders, say, or Deborah Eisenberg--writers who chronicle this strange modern world in all its glorious and strange detail.



"You Stood Me Up" is about a fight Benji had with a date. He brings in some soulful sounds and telling details to paint a picture of a small town misunderstanding that is bleak and absolutely real:

You had a date with me
On April 17th
I showed up at the Dairy Queen
where we were 'sposed to meet
I got there at 4:53
We were 'sposed to meet at 5
I had a Butterfinger Blizzard and some fries

According to Hagen in the Believer, Benji grew up in a crazy family with a strict Jehovah's Witness mother and a "hard-fisted drunk man" for a father, but he finally squeezed out of there. He played gigs in Charlotte and became something of a legend among local teenagers. This hillbilly beardo would show up and blow everyone away with his songs, then he'd smile and pop a beer. Hughes recorded some, too, and was roundly ignored by everyone. He co-wrote one of the songs from "The Dewey Cox Story" called "Let's Duet," a Johnny Cash/June Carter parody that has more double entendres than anything I can remember.


Benji Hughes came out with another record, "A Love Extreme," a glancing reference to the Coltrane spiritual classic. NYTimes music critic Jon Pareles loved it, and a few more folks, but it didn't really take off. Too bad. Not enough people read George Saunders, either. Still, it's a great album and worth your time, especially if you're just hanging around the Dairy Queen doing nothing.


Benji Hughes is not for everyone, and he doesn't want to be. If you're looking for standard pop confection look elsewhere. His voice can be mournful at times, kind of in the Beck ballpark, but he can dazzle you if you love true stories and real music.

"The Mummy"

The committee, they asked me to be the one to pick the band to play the prom
I said I wanted Frankenstein
They said that Frankenstein was not a band
Could you get Dracula?
Whatever you do, don't get the mummy

Don't get the mummy, when the mummy gets drunk he unravels...

BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES

Do you like music?

Do you really like music, or is it just incidental background noise, the audio equivalent of wallpaper? Does music really matter? If you catch yourself singing in the shower, playing an instrument, or just tapping your feet to a tune on the radio you must watch this riveting documentary.



"Before the Music Dies" zeroes in on the current state of American music at a time when fewer and fewer companies control the music industry. Turn on the radio, and you're likely to hear bland, homogeneous Velveeta oozing from your speakers. Overproduced, pitch-corrected, unimaginative product dominates the airwaves--but down the block, just out of earshot, diverse and creative independent music plays its heart out and struggles to survive. What's the deal?

"Before the Music Dies" isn't simply an anti-corporate screed. Filmmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen have made a thoughtful film that asks why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really have the power to silence creativity. They examined all the angles, and interviewed dozens of musicians, critics, industry insiders and fans to find out. The film that will make you think--especially if you love music.

BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA

"Stuck Between Stations," live on Letterman

Straight out of Brooklyn, The Hold Steady is a bumblebee that--aerodynamically speaking--should not be able to fly. Combining classic guitar rock and indie angst, one could cite the Replacements and Grifters as influences, but one could just as easily cite your favorite bar band, and that skinny prankster on the Asbury Park boardwalk, ol' what's-his-name, with whom they share a love for guitar anthems and good storytelling. Lead singer Craig Finn looks like an actuary on a drinking binge, but he delivers the goods--heartbreaking stories about teenagers getting wasted, joyriding, fumbling in and out of love, acting cool, and hanging out in bars with nothing but memories and bands like The Hold Steady.


"Your Little Hoodrat Friend"

COME ON BABY IN OUR DREAMS

And if the snow buries my,
my neighborhood.
And if my parents are crying
then I'll dig a tunnel
from my window to yours...


"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" performed at the Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands.

Snow this morning! The neighborhood was completely covered with snow when I woke up, a surprise after the weatherman tried faking us out last night. They called off the warning, and sure enough the cold front hit--which they say will be the longest frigid stretch since the 1980s. I opened the blinds and made hot coffee and kept singing this song about digging tunnels through the snow.

Arcade Fire are perfect for a bright, wintry day. The band is from Montreal, so they know snow. Led by Texan Win Butler and Québécoise Régine Chassagne, this indie rag-tag multi-instrumental troupe powers through joyous and heartbreaking anthems guaranteed to roust the coldest, moribund soul. They bring an axe for the frozen sea within us.

Fun couple: Win Butler and Régine Chassagne

They remember that childhood wasn't all cake and ice cream, and they soar and dive and capture that midnight terror reserved for little ones still wearing feet in their jammies. In their songs, we see a world where sleep is giving in, where an older brother is bitten by a vampire, and the entire neighborhood dances to flashing police lights. It's weird stuff, sure, more art than entertainment, and not for everyone, but if you wake up snowblind and vulnerable this band will blend seamlessly with the illogic of your dreams. Listen to them work their magic.


Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up!

"Wake Up" performed live at Glastonbury



People say that your dreams
are the only things that save ya.
Come on baby in our dreams,
we can live our misbehavior.

Every time you close your eyes
Lies, Lies!


"Rebellion (lies)" performed live at Coachella festival

MY MORNING JACKET

My Morning Jacket has a great new album called "Evil Urges." The album is all over the map, a carnival of musical styles ranging from their patented wailing Americana, to basement-tape era Band, to Prince-style funk. Go buy it. The video clip above isn't on the album, but I couldn't resist posting MMJ playing with the Boston Pops on Letterman.

Below is title track from the new album. Please click the button to listen:

SANTOGOLD INTROVERT EXCAVATOR

After singing for punk band, Stiffed, Brooklyn girl Santi White made a brilliant album as Santogold. She somehow combines Karen O and M.I.A., tribal, electro, and eighties dance music, and each track could come from a totally different album. This catchy cut makes me want to dance while it lambastes hipster art fakers on the Lower East Side, L.E.S. Artistes.

What I'm searching for
to tell it straight, I'm trying to build a wall
Walking by myself
down avenues that reek of time to kill
If you see me keep going
be a pass by waver
Build me up, bring me down
just leave me out you name dropper
Stop trying to catch my eye
I see you good you forced faker
Just make it easy
You're my enemy you fast talker

I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up
If I could stand up mean for the things that I believe

SOMETHING NEW

Fuzzed-out, sleazy pop from the Raveonettes, recorded live at the Triple Door in Seattle. With a menacing, retro, low-fi vibe, they sound like they just crawled out of a David Lynch movie, but actually they are cool Scandinavians. This is "Aly, Walk with Me," from the album, "Lust, Lust, Lust."

THIS MONKEY'S GONE TO HEAVEN

Play this at my funeral. The Pixies inspired and influenced a million bands, including your beloved Nirvana. Black Francis, or Frank Black, or whatever he's calling himself these days, is a solid rock sumo, a stone Buddha, and Kim Deal is Siva, and who doesn't have a crush on Kim Deal? There was this guy, an underwater guy, who controlled the sea, got killed by ten million pounds of sludge. What more can you say?