Highly Recommended: Delta Spirit — Ode to Sunshine

It happens every year — I make a year end list of my favorite records, and then a few days later I go and find a new one.

I finally got around to picking up Delta Spirit’s debut full length. I’ts been on my list since we saw them upstage Dr. Dog at 3rd and Lindsely back in September. I had heard the record once or twice at Grimey’s but hadn’t had a chance to let it sink in. After their short and briliant instore a few weeks ago, I made a mental note that I needed to go ahead and buy the record next time I was able to earn some store credit.

Since picking up Ode to Sunshine last night and I’ve already listened to it about half a dozen times, and I can already say this is one of the best records of the year — deeply soulful, with a great sense of timelessness and hopefulness mixed and a little bit of religious confusion and clatter and swagger and groove. Great singer, awesome drummer, great live show, and fantastic songs.

You can hear some Delta Sprit here – listen to “Trashcan” and just try and tell me it’s not one of the best songs you heard in 2008.

Record Purchase — December 21, 2008

Vinyl:

• Neil Diamond — Greatest Hits
• R.E.M. — Wendell Gee 12 inch (b/w “Crazy” and a live version of “Driver 8″)
• R.E.M. — (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville 12-inch UK single (b/w “Wolves” and live versions of “9-9″ and “Gardening at Night”)
• My Morning Jacket – Chocolate and Ice

CD:

• Elvis Costello — Brutal Youth (and with this, I believe I have the entire studio output complete)
• Ethiopiques  — Volume 8: Swinging Addis 1969 – 1974
• Michael Jackson — Dangerous (Special Edition) (yeah, taking it all the way back to the 5th grade)
• Delta Spirit — Ode to Sunshine

My Girlfriend Made a Video

I’m lucky to have a wife who seems so understanding of my love for Neko Case.

“Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” was my favorite record of 2006, maybe of the decade, maybe one of my favorite ever. So Neko’s “Middle Cyclone” — due 3/3 — is easily at the top of my “most anticipated” list. The excerpts in the video below have me feeling confident I won’t be disappointed.

I Told You Avenues Would Never Die

Famously (well, among about 6 people), I once claimed that “Avenues will never die” from stage at one of our shambling, off-the-cuff wedding-related reunion shows between late 2005 and 2006.

And thanks to the internet, I guess I’m right.

On a whim, months ago, I made good on my promise of giving all our music away for free on the internet and uploaded our record and EP to last.fm for the world to stumble across, becuase those 300 copies of “When It Was Me” aren’t doing me any favors sitting in boxes in the attic.

And of course, the traffic on the Avenues page of last.fm is like lonely-country-road-at-night slim. But goofing around tonight online I found this – a blog post written in June after stumbling across our corner of the net. He/she enjoys our stuff and calls it a “travesty” that we exist in such anonymity. If you only knew, friend.

My Friend Rachel is SO Much More Talented Than I Could Hope To Be (or, two little poems set to music)

I received an amazing surprise from my dear friend Rachel Fogarty this weekend — she’s secretly been setting some of my poetry to music for a composition competition in San Francisco.  She and Kevin (earmuff pioneer, lover of tom grooves, equally amazing musician) showed up at our Christmas Open House this weekend with a release form and an embarrassed smile as she asked me to sign it — like I wasn’t going to be completely flattered that she had even THOUGHT of doing something like this.

Rachel’s graduate recital a few years ago was revelatory — having never heard her compositions before, I was totally floored at her talent and surprised that I hadn’t realized it sooner. It’s an honor that she’d even want to use my old dusty poems for her work.

Words and links to MP3 below.

My Favorite Records of 2008

I’m a nerd, so by default I love Year End lists. And I’m nerdy enough to make my own (although, in my defense, I had to do this already for Grimey’s…)

So the year in summary?  First, I was so busy this year I feel like I missed a lot of stuff. I didn’t find myself with the time this year to dig much beyond the perpetually-growing list of artists I already have interest in. I scaled back this year, too — whereas 2007 saw me buying something like 200 records, this year I bought about half as many.

Secondly, I found myself disappointed by a lot of records this year (precisely why I have a list of “Disappointments” below).  It’s funny to look at 2008 in contrast to 2007 — in retrospect, I felt like every record that come out in 2007 was vying for best record of the year, while I found myself feeling very “meh” about a lot of the 2008 lineup.

Third, I spent a lot of my musical energy in 2008 digging backward and discovering music I had missed. Some of the musical highlights of ‘08 for me included finally getting around to Sun Kil Moon, digesting all of the Beulah back-catalog (and falling deep in love with it), digging into Fela Kuti, afrobeat, and Ethiopian jazz, and an awful lot of post-punk.

Anyhow, on to the lists:

Avenues Rarity — “All The King’s Men”

Sorting back through the music library today for Christmas music, I found myself scrolling through the Avenues outtake library (specifically, to find the Avenues Christmas Epic — “Merry Christmas, Donkey Babies.”  It’s a long story.) Anyhow, in the process I stumbled across this little recording of “All the King’s Men.” Had almost forgotten about this one — I think this is the only recording we have with vocals, done with myself and Dan and Kevin Honnoll in Ocean Way studios right around the time Kevin and I were finishing our last semester at Belmont, spring of 2003.

By the time this recording was made, I think the song was well over a year old. I remember that I was listening to Dylan’s “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” about twice a day every day (still one of my favorite songs) while I was writing the lyrics/melody, so this worked its way into being an homage of sorts.

If recollection serves me right we played this live twice, and the live version had drums in the chorus, lap steel, and Kevin played mandolin on the verses, and I remember how ridiculous he looked holding that tiny mandolin sitting on his drum stool.  Still, wish I could remember what it sounded like with everything.

Avenues — All the King’s Men

We Sought Out Weakness With Our Fists

We Sought Out Weakness With Our Fists

I was a little boy
bright blue shorts and bony knees 
for the first time away from my mother —
a week at summer camp.
Every morning I wrote her long, detailed letters
hiding the fact that I was a severed heart, an anxious bird,
and in my head I ceaselessly counted the days until the week would end.

Monday. Tuesday. Four more nights. Now halfway there.

That boy singled me out on the first night
as if he heard my secret countdown
above the uncontrollable murmur of assembly.
His yellow tank top and thrift store shoes betrayed him
and he was old enough to know
that we saw him in trailer-width rooms,
learning to ride his bike on gravel driveways,
playing with the toys we had discarded.
And he saw me for what I was —
a boy who stood back from doorways, never made fists,
a choir boy, her lipstick perpetually on my cheek.

Wednesday. The day after the day after tomorrow. Thursday. One more day and last assembly.

In that final night we gathered in the gymnasium for a farewell dance where
he found me in the dark, slid up from behind and grabbed my collar,
and twisted my lanyard like a noose around my slender neck,
my stomach knotted like the nylon cord as he corked it tighter.
And he laughed at me:
a long loud rattling presentation
and his eyes scanned the room for those who would laugh along.

And as his pupils raced I balled my fingers into a tight fist,
my palms sweaty, my bitten crags of fingernails
buzzing against flesh
and I went for his mouth
a frustrated flailing of my right arm towards his lip
and my knuckles connected with the sinews of his jaw,
the sound louder than I expected,
the force of my swing passing through his teeth and gums and tongue
and into the twist of his neck and out into nothing, throwing my my feet off balance
his eyes jarred and shuttered out of instinct, and he reached for me
jaw hanging open
breath sucked tight behind his crooked teeth
cracked lips shiny with crimson spit
he clutched my shoulder to steady me
and his hands were fists familiar and practiced
forced three times into my stomach
just below my ribs,
the breath thrust from my lungs
and I fell to the gym floor gasping for air,
gasping for forgiveness from the counselors
who were now running towards him,
were wrapping their hands around the tension in his wrists.

We were spilling with possibility –
me down there genuflecting for breath, balling my fists,
and he up there being pulled away,
his heart like a knife
looking for something small and fearful and easy to cut open,
for real weakness to expose, for real blood to draw forth
and carry him into the arms of those other kids
whether out of fear, or respect, or honor.

I opened my throat
and let the stale gymnasium soak my lungs —
my knuckles still tingled with the memory of his jaw,
my frustration seeped steadily into pride.

Tomorrow, just tomorrow. Just wait until tomorrow.

3 Months of Pressure.

I’m surprised I even remembered my login for WordPress.

You may notice it’s been 3 months since my last post on here. Let me just give you, dear reader, a taste of the last three months of my life:

I started a challenging new job. We made an offer on a new house. The offer was denied. We put our house on the market and sold it in 4 days. We went on a 10 day vacation to the West Coast. We frantically searched for a new house. We bought a house. We moved. Ashley got a new job. We bought bicycles. We went to a family reunion.

Now that things are finally settling down again, I almost can’t even remember what to do with freetime.  I’ve made the resolution to get back into the swing of writing, and I plan on sharing things here as much as possible.

More details on the three months of silence to come — but I will say this:  in retrospect, that might have been a little much to do at once.

HOLY SH*T I JUST MET ELVIS COSTELLO.

This was the text message I sent my wife and few other folks yesterday at about 12:13. I’m still sort of accepting the fact that this happened at all.

But first, the night before: Costello played an outstanding show at the Ryman. I dare to say you won’t find a more vital artist of his age than Costello — he still performs with more drive and focus than I see in some folks half his age. The setlist was fantastic: EVERY SONG from his new (very urgent, very immediate) album Momofuku, plus a smattering of gems from the back catalog. The highlights:

• new tune “Flutter and Wow”, which could very well be among his finest songs ever
• a jaw-dropping solo rendition of “Alison”
• a very solid and fluid four-piece take on the slick production of “Everyday I Write the Book”
• truly amazing vocal performance on “Either Side of the Same Town” from The Delivery Man
• “Man Out of Time”
• “Beyond Belief,” “Accidents Will Happen,” and “The Impostor”
• A totally breakneck-paced version of “Radio, Radio”

My gripe: the crowd. Here’s this amazing, energetic set delivered by an absolute master who’s charming and talkative and generous enough to deliver 4 stellar encores, and the jaded mostly middle-age Nashville audience just sits there like they’re waiting for a Hot Pocket to come out of the microwave. I really hate when the Ryman audience sits through a rock show (you just can’t feel it the same way sitting down), but c’mon Alice — the least you can do is bob your head from time to time. I saw numerous people refuse to stand during the ovations, and about an eighth of the balcony left immediately before or after the first set. There was even a mad dash for the door after the first chorus of the closing rendition of “Peace, Love, and Understanding.” Look, I know you’re going to have to wait 5 more minutes to get your Yukon out of the parking lot if you leave with everybody else when the final note has been played, but what’s five minutes in exchange for showing an artist a little respect. I saw the same thing at R.E.M. three years ago, and even at the Tom Waits show a few years back. Bottom line: most of the time, I think Nashville doesn’t even deserve the moniker of “Music City”, because some of the quote-unquote music-lovers in this town are jaded idiots.

But put that aside. Elvis came to Grimey’s on Thursday.

Honestly, I felt like a 10 year old girl. I was completely nervous in the hours before his arrival, all sweaty and listless, wandering the store aimlessly. When he arrived, we were ushered quickly to the side for group photos (sadly, no solo pic of Elvis and I in a bromancely embrace). During all of this, Elvis was looking around the store, making comments about the inventory. He made a great (and reverential) Prince joke, although I can’t remember what it was about. I felt like he was sort of shopping the whole time he was there, just looking around, connecting all this vast musical knowledge in his head.

We pretty quickly opened the door to let people in, so I stepped aside and helped keep the line in order. I stood about 12 feet or so away from Elvis while he talked to folks, and he was really charming, very witty, and very friendly to everyone. He told Grimey’s regular (and supreme vinyl collector) Joe Crook that he liked his Son House t-shirt, and I thought Joe’s head was going to explode. While there was a little lull in the line, Larry and I jumped over and introduced ourselves, shook his hand, and thanked him for being there, and it was pretry surreal and a little hazy, even in the moment it was happening.

When the line evaporated we closed the doors so Elvis could shop, and he spent a good 30 minutes going through the store, asking for recommendations from Doyle, and making requests. There were a few straggler customers still around, and he made some recommendations to them in passing, which was pretty much the coolest thing ever. He bought a box worth of stuff, said goodbye, and then took off in his bus.

So yeah, yesterday was one of the coolest and most surreal days ever.

Sidenote: if you haven’t heard Momofuku yet, go hear it. It benefits from a very immediate, almost tossed off vibe. Great songs played almost effortlessly from a very friendly genius of staggering proportions who wears a nice hat and a scarf in April.