lie to me, sing me a song

I must be one of the last people on the internet who gives a crap about music to get a Last.fm accout. But having had it for oh, about twelve hours, I am already wondering how I possibly could have lived without it.

The first song - or one of them - I heard on it was 'Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain Angel' by Whiskeytown. 'Faithless Street' is the one WT album I don't own and as a result I'd never heard this song before. I was breathtaken. Startlingly and starkly beautiful with vocal harmonies that wrench you right to the core.

The WT 'related artists' radio station has turned me onto the likes of Songs: Ohia, Okkervil River, Golden Smog and Son Volt, previously just names and reputations to me. And now, thanks to the free download feature that I can quite clearly see me spending the rest of my days searching around on, Flowers From The Man Who Shot Your Cousin.

Incidentally, how do you pronounce Son Volt? Is it son as in 'sun', or son as in...how it looks? I've always said the latter, but now I think about it there's no reason why it should be.

On an unrelated note, The Decemberists' new(ish) LP, 'The Crane Wife', is undoubtedly one of the finest albums I've had the pleasure of hearing for a very, very long time.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to download more free sad bastardry, and wonder why Itunes doesn't have 'Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain Angel' for sale.

People have finally cottoned on to the fact that if they want to give me a present, music is the swiftest way to my heart. So this Christmas was a good one in that respect. The highlights:

• The Lemonheads - The Lemonheads

I haven't had a chance to really get into this yet. However, I like the sound so far, 'Become The Enemy' in particular. Evan Dando's voice is deep and rough and I love it. Yes, I'm a sucker. I had heard absolutely no Lemonheads before this - just one Evan Dando track - but requested it because I have heard a lot about them over the various boards I frequent, and they've never yet led me astray. From the R.E.M., Ryan Adams etc. boards I've discovered the likes of Calexico, Josh Ritter, Joseph Arthur, and Wilco. Which brings me to...

• Wilco - Kicking Television

This live album, recorded over three consecutive nights in Chicago, spans two discs and completes my Wilco collection. It's a triumphant way to finish it off - I've not yet had the chance to experience the band live but this recording transmits at least some of the energy from what I've heard are wonderful performances.

• Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell, 29, Rock N Roll

I know, I know. I know what you're thinking - how can I be the fan I claim to be when I have only just completed my collection? Well, to be fair I've got my hands on some version or other of most of the songs on all three records, but it was all a bit disjointed - I couldn't be happier to at last own these three albums. Love Is Hell really needs no introduction, it brims with sad and peculiar and dark and lovely treasures - Avalanche, Afraid Not Scared, I See Monsters, Political Scientist, the fragile reworking of Wonderwall. 29 may be harder to love but it grows nonetheless, with its shivering highlight, Blue Sky Blues, gently creeping out and wrapping itself around you. And then there's Rock N Roll, a much derided 'concept album', a dashed off 'fuck you' to Lost Highway on their refusal to release Love Is Hell on the grounds of its being 'too depressing'. Well, all I have to say is this: if this is Ryan Adams at his worst, then every other artist on this goddamn planet has one hell of a lot to live up to. It's not smart, it's not deep, but it rocks. Hard.

In the last week or two I also discovered Calexico in their own right, having previously only heard them in collaboration with Iron & Wine on their EP, 'In The Reins'. 'Garden Ruin', an album picked up on the spur of the moment in the sales, is well worth the investigation, in particular the achingly wonderful closer, 'All Systems Red'.

UPLOAD
Calexico - All Systems Red

And what does 2007 hold? Any guesses on what this mysterious 'Project X' is that Ryan Adams has hinted at over at his blog? And what did your seasonal haul contain - any new discoveries?

Happy New Year.

Is 'Starting To Hurt' the best song about suicide ever or what?

Discuss.



[alright, I know it's not. I just wanted to post that. Forgive.]

We deviated, but now we are slowly returning on the path to Sad Bastardhood...slowly. You can link Ryan Adams to the following band in less than three degrees of separation, so it's all good.

REDISCOVERING R.E.M.



I feel bad about R.E.M.. I really do. When I dumped them for Ryan Adams, it was like suddenly dropping a faithful long-term partner who's never been anything but good to you, and running off with the neighborhood bad boy. When I first asked if we could still be friends, they seemed reluctant. But last night we made it up, to some degree, and went right back to where we started, almost exactly three years ago, with 'In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003'.

That was when it all properly began. Of course there'd always been 'Losing My Religion', 'Everybody Hurts', 'Man On The Moon', but it was when I received 'In Time' for my birthday in 2003 that things really took off. I fell in love. Love progressed to full-on obsession. But thirteen albums and two live shows later, the spark has gone. I'm no longer interested. Until last night, I hadn't listened to them in months. Truth be told, these days there is a growing feeling, even amongst the hardcore fans, that R.E.M. are losing it. I certainly lost interest. 'Around The Sun' was - well, it was all right. But they've spoilt us over the years, and R.E.M. fans just aren't used to 'all right'. 'All right' doesn't cut it, but increasingly it's having to. Most recently, debate has raged on the fan boards (they're still my homepage, but these days I rarely even wait for them to load before skipping over to alt-country.org for my RA fix) over their Christmas fanclub single. It used to be a cause for high excitement, but in recent years it's degenerated into tired covers by other bands, leaving many questioning - is it worth it?

But back to the topic in hand. 'In Time', while by no means being a comprehensive collection of the Warner years - what, no 'Leave'? No 'Let Me In'? - is certainly a wonderful introduction to the intricacies and small joys of R.E.M.'s finest work (for now let's leave aside the IRS years - that's a topic for another time). The soft, heartbreaking eloquence of Michael Stipe's voice, for example, heard most exquisitely on 'Nightswimming'. 'At My Most Beautiful' divides opinion (sentimental drivel or romantic genius?) but 'E-Bow The Letter' and 'Electrolite', both from 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi' are firm favourites, the former a flowing and almost disturbing stream-of-consciousness murmur, the latter a joyous farewell to the century. Moments such as these reminded me last night, as I drifted off to sleep with them infiltrating my consciousness, just what I loved about the band.

But it was something more than that. It wasn't just that the music was good, really good - there was something else. R.E.M. was the first band I ever had true respect for, as musicians and as people. Buck, Mills, Stipe, and, while he was in the picture, Berry, had integrity. Of all of them, Peter Buck still retains this, and thus my admiration, what with his obviously genuine passion for music that he can never stop playing (currently on tour with Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, the only one really pushing for a new album these days). But Michael Stipe? Oh, I'm sure he's still a good guy these days. But there are only so many pictures of him schmoozing with celebrities on another red carpet that you can take, when really all you want is for him to get his groove the hell back on in the studio.

And if he did? There are still promises of a new album...oh, gosh, at some point. Some fans still hold out the dizzy hope that they'll record with Bill Berry again sometime soon. But by the looks and sounds of it all, it seems that the drive has gone. One wonders if they really care any more. I certainly don't, much. And that's what upsets me so much. R.E.M. were my first love. They're why I listen to the music that I do. They're why I fell in love with music full stop. So I guess I owe them that. And who knows, maybe we'll get back together again some day. But while last night's rediscovery of sorts means that they'll be frequenting my playlists a little more than they have of late, for now the break up is still on. R.E.M. and I, we're just friends.

MUSE - LIVE AT WEMBLEY ARENA



Alright. This might not be exactly what this journal says on the tin. At all. As an English teacher once said to me, 'How can you like country and Muse? That's not possible - Muse are just, like, random noise'. (Yes, he's an English teacher and he did say 'like'. He's dead cockney.) But for a few dizzy hours last night, this particular writer stepped out of the realm of Sad Bastardary and into the space age. Also known as the Fucking Insane.

For yes, last night I went to see Muse live at Wembley Arena. ( (Setlist) )

Every so often it's nice to go to a gig in a venue that holds more than about 3000 people, where you can get up and jump like a crazy bastard, get absolutely deafened, and headbang to your heart's content. And seeing Muse to do this is pretty much as good as it gets. This was the second time I've seen the band live, and while nothing quite beats the total euphoria of your first time, last night came close. The set opened with 'Take A Bow' from new(ish) album 'Black Holes And Revelations', setting the tone for a night of space-age antics and guitar-goddery from teeny tiny frontman Matt Bellamy. Leaping from guitar to grand piano and back again, to my mind he cemented his position as the ultimate mad genius of the music world - who else can successfully rip off Rachmaninov with such style? Words can do little justice to his gloriously manic riffs and genuinely sublime piano playing. He's an alien-loving, conspiracy-theorising superstar, and fuck me if he doesn't just know it.

Purist fans have complained that the setlist was distinctly pedestrian - oh woes, nothing from 'Showbiz'! - but it rocked on to a euphoric crowd who screamed along every apocalyptic word to 'Plug In Baby', 'New Born' and 'Time Is Running Out'. Lighters came out for 'Soldier's Poem' and 'Invincible'. One of my highlights was 'Map Of The Problamatique' - in which the emo-est lyric in their catalogue, 'when we bleed, we bleed the same', is executed in a way only Bellamy could pull off - but the moment for true hysteria was saved, of course, until last.

The band leaves the stage. Cue riotous screaming. The drummer's disembodied voice - 'We can't play until you've burst that balloon - get your lighters out!'. The last of the vast confetti-filled balloons released at the climax of 'Bliss' is burst by three enthusiastic fans in the pit. Then the arena is filled with the sound of thundering hoofs. This is 'Knights Of Cydonia', the closer to 'Black Holes...'. Not that it's remotely necessary, because by this point the crowd is shouting every single word right back at Bellamy and co, but the words to the chorus flash up on a screen behind the band. 'No-one's going to take me alive/the time has come to make things right/you and I must fight for our rights/you and I must fight to survive'.

Verging on the cliché, perhaps, but then comes the riff, the riff that forgives all, a riff so fucking good that it's dangerous and really ought not be allowed. My neck still hurts from the headbanging.

UPLOAD
Muse - Knights Of Cydonia

CURRENTLY LISTENING
Muse - Starlight. Like if A-Ha swallowed a rock and roll pill.

Tomorrow, normal Sad Bastard service resumes. Thank you, and goodnight.

This song's like a warm blanket that smells of home.
It's like a hot still hay field in August when the sun's about to go down.
It's like a very long time ago.
It's happy memories and the kind of nostalgia that makes you want to break down and cry.
It makes you want to travel to wherever it is:

I woke beneath a clear blue sky
The sun a shout, the breeze a sigh
The old home town and the streets I knew
Wrapped up in a royal blue
I heard my friends laughing out across the fields
The girls in the gloaming and the birds and the wheel
The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay
Circadas electric in the heat of the day
A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land
And the lake was a diamond in the valley's hand
The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts
They were coming together they were pulling apart
And angels everywhere were in that midst
In the ones that I loved and the ones that I kissed
I wondered what it was I'd been looking for above
Heaven's so big there ain't no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer...
-Josh Ritter, Thin Blue Flame

It's the kind of poetry that simultaneously makes me want to cry and to smile and realise that nothing matters.

It makes me take down 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald from the shelf and open it to the last page:

'And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory and enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.'

Somebody - and I apologise, amateurxxstanding, whoever you are, for this unauthorised quote - commented thus on a lyrics website: 'Josh seems to be questioning the dependability of believing in a God when we live in a world full of hatred and injustice. He finds that instead of relying on salvation in Heaven, he seeks solace through embracing his life on earth.' That's wonderful. It's that last sentence that gets me - 'he seeks solace through embracing his life on earth'. That cuts to the heart of the song more simply and purely than anything I could ever say, so I'll leave you with this.

UPLOAD
Josh Ritter - Thin Blue Flame

Gosh. Ryan Adams fans are a friendly bunch. Thanks to all of you so far for friending and kind comments!

WHISKEYTOWN AND STRANGERS ALMANAC



I don't claim to know much about Whiskeytown - other than the Ryan Adams connection, naturally - but I've been listening to this album a lot lately. Somewhat surprisingly, I bought it before I ever got into Ryan Adams, but after a cursory listen I just nodded wisely, considering it an addition to the sum of my musical wisdom, and put it back on my shelf where it gathered dust for a year or two. When I discovered the joy of itunes, Avenues became a staple in my top 5 most played, but beyond that the album languished. What a joy, then, to rediscover it now.

Well, perhaps 'joy' is not the right word. Maybe it's just me, but in places 'Strangers Almanac' is perhaps one of the most hopeless - that is, without hope - records I have ever heard. Not that that's meant derogatively - but if this record has a heart, it's a dark one of stony regret and a sense of having given up a long time ago. Ryan Adams may still pen reams of songs full of heartbreak, but they resonate with emotion and longing. 'Strangers Almanac' does not long. It sits alone with a bottle of whiskey and resolutely thinks of something else instead. Of course, there are uptempo moments, such as the defiant 'Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart', but it's the sublime despair that hits me every time. 'There were houses on the hill, there were bottles of pills that were easy to buy'. In 'Dancing With The Women At The Bar' you can almost hear the creak of saloon doors as they swing. This is no New York album, the kind that Ryan Adams records these days. This is a sepia tinted picture of the south, sitting on the front porch with a drink or three and enough smokes to last all afternoon. No tumbleweed, but it's a close thing. I don't doubt there are many who'll disagree with me about this album. But that's just what it means to me.

Currently Listening
A little more alt.country goodness from the alt.country goddess Neko Case. Boy, is she ever gorgeous. 'Star Witness' is the song, and my song of choice for belting out at the top of my lungs when nobody else is home.

UPLOAD
Whiskeytown - Dancing With The Women At The Bar
I'm in a givin' mood: Neko Case - Star Witness

Listen? Discuss and enjoy.

My 'real' LJ was getting too cluttered with musical ramblings that, let us face facts, nobody was really that interested in. So my inner music geek has migrated. You can read all about it if you want. You can run away screaming, too, if that floats your boat. It's all gravy.

Anyway.
Recently, I've been thinking that the way I listen to music needs to be regulated, or at least modified. I'm supposed to love music - and I do - but now it has come to the sorry state of affairs that, in my Itunes 'top 25 most played', there are songs by just 8 artists. So much for musical diversity. I blame Ryan Adams. Anyhow, I have devised two simple rules:

(1) I will listen to at least one full album by an artist other than Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Neal Casal and Whiskeytown, per week.
(2) I will stop ordering the songs in my itunes by playcount. This results in repetetive playing habits.

That should do it.

Having said which...

RYAN ADAMS - BEDHEAD 5 VOL. 17 - 'WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT'


I feel this image is somewhat appropriate.

At last count, there were at least 18 'Bedhead' albums floating around the World Wide Weberverse. Had we but world enough and time, as Andrew Marvell might say, I would be in possesion of all 18, but as they take approximately an hour to download each, and, contrary to popular opinion, I do actually have a life, my ipod holds just the final two volumes.

The Bedhead albums are compilations of live Adams performances cherry-picked by the good people at RyanAdamsArchive.com, which have become something of an institution in the Adams fan community. Vol.17, from the 'What Will Happen Next' series (vol. 15-18) comprises 15 live tracks from various shows in 2005, including 'Oh My Sweet Carolina' and a performance of the now-retired 'Come Pick Me Up'. While no recording can do justice to Adams' live shows - be they a rocking thrash-through of ten songs and a storm off stage, or a two hour long ramble of acoustic strummings and on-stage banter - this Bedhead makes a pretty good stab at it. 'Carolina', as always when performed live, lacks Emmylou Harris's tug-at-your-heartstrings vocal harmonies, but Ryan manages to make it magical nonetheless. 'The Hardest Part' demonstrates the talents of The Cardinals as a tight-knit band in their own right. I always thought 'Tennessee Sucks' was a piss-take, but here it is nonetheless, a weird little jam complete with more than a little lyrical improvisation.

I love Ryan Adams. It's just one of those universal truths. But he's simulaneously probably one of the most adulated and detested artists in music. Why? Well, take those 12 albums he's just dashed off and uploaded onto his website. Some call it genius, others cry out in desperation for a little quality control. Should he stick to what he's good at - live shows, as documented in the Bedhead series? Is three albums a year really too much? Okay, I probably fall into the category who call it all genius, but even I take slight exception to 12 albums in a week. The proof will be in the pudding when (or, indeed, if) Lost Highway decides to finance his next 'real' album. 30-second raps about Anna Saris and crazy theories about the origin of humankind, and just-to-piss-'em-off remixes of Come Pick Me Up? Or cleaned-up versions of the gorgeous piano driven Sad Bastard (tm) songs debuted on the apparently never ending 2006 tour? Here's hoping for the latter.

Currently Listening
Just downloaded a CD compiled by a German music journo of all the new songs from this tour. 'Draw Me A Map' is one of these, and is absolutely pure Ryan Adams gold. Agressive and heartwrenching vocals, a sparse piano skeleton, 'love me or leave me' lyrics. Did I ever mention the fact that I love Ryan Adams?