There's never enough live Wilco

I can't possibly be the only person upset that I couldn't alter space and time enough so that I could live in Chicago's Riviera Theater the last couple weeks or so.
Five nights of every song the band has put on album has got to be the pinnacle of Wilco performances.

And if that isn't enough, the band jets right off to Washington D.C. to play a show tonight that the good folks at All Songs Considered are graciously sending out to all us other folks. It's on as I write this, but perhaps there's still chance to catch it: Wilco live on NPR.
If not, I'm betting NPR keeps up with the trend of podcasting its live performances.

And just because it's the song playing when I tuned in, here's a different version of "When The Roses Bloom Again," a song originally recorded for the Mermaid Avenue sessions that was scrapped after they learned it wasn't a Guthrie-written tune.

DOWNLOAD:
Wilco - When The Roses Bloom Again (live on A Prairie Home Companion)

Open, space

This is the time of year the desert starts bursting. The temperature is in the upper 70s, the sun is bright and clear, everywhere you look people are energized. We don't sit through long harsh winters like most folks, but that doesn't mean that the coming spring is any less enjoyable.

Wildflowers are in bloom. The air smells like life. Spring training is just about to get underway. The temperature swings more than 40 degrees from day to night. You need to be outside, need to feel the simply energy of an absolutely gorgeous day. Take a few moments of glory for yourself - nobody will mind.

When the landscape and the days are this open, you need some music to fill it. You need tunes that sound a bit dusty and a bit breezy. Bright sun-soaked tunes, energetic and laid back at the same time. Tunes that get you singing along. Simple, great tunes.

DOWNLOAD:
Roger Clyne - Fonder & Blonder (live)
Greyhound Soul - Rainer (live)
Dusty Buskers - Sail Away Ladies
River Roses - Forever 17

M. Doughty: The Man

I had a busy week and could hardly get in a couple of listens to my newest album purchase - Mike Doughty's Golden Delicious.

You see, it's a concept album about apples... The narrator is a young German boy in 1920s New York City, and in his playtime stumbles on a magical apple tree hidden from view in a roof-top garden. It lets him hear the music of clouds, and wind, and streetlights, all of which are constantly surging with beautiful sounds heard only by him. As the boy ages, the apples grow fewer and fewer on the tree, until one day the tree itself resembles nothing more than twigs jammed into hard-packed dirt...

That would be tremendously strange. The truth is, I've hardly had two listens to the new record, as I said (don't you pay attention?). But I'm a big Doughty fan from back in the day, when the cassette most frequently thrown into the tape deck while we cruised around in the back of pickup trucks was Ruby Vroom, the absolute paragon of cool in my own personal version of 1994. Somehow, between Nirvana and Radiohead, Soul Coughing was all that really mattered.

Doughty himself described Soul Coughing as "deep slacker jazz," and in writing about the first time I saw Doughty solo, I termed his lyrics "dream-scape beat poetry," perhaps more apt for his earlier solo work, but still something I hear in the latest stuff.

Doughty has a new vision for his music; it's a more organic sound, readily identifiable as music played by a musician. Gone are the samples and drum loops that gave the punch to Soul Coughing's stranger tunes. Doughty terms the new sound and recording method "Dude Theory." It's simple: when the listener sits down with the new tunes, he or she hears five dudes playing music. There aren't any tricks pulled - the layering or overdubs are toned down. And even in the first couple listens I hear the difference. I'm still working my way through Golden Delicious, but it sounds fantastic so far. It's a sparer album than Doughty's Haughty Melodic, but it's better for its simplicity.

"Fort Hood" is the first song that really jumps out at me, with the line "you should blast Young Jeezy with your friends in a parking lot" one of Doughty's most wistful and specific. There's no doubt I'm going to continue burrowing into Golden Delicious for quite a while. And hoping Doughty sticks a Tucson show into his latest tour itinerary...

DOWNLOAD:
Mike Doughty - Fort Hood (live MPR 2008-02-19)
Mike Doughty - I Just Want the Girl in the Blue Dress to Keep On Dancing (live 2007-11-13)
Mike Doughty - Madeleine and Nine (live 2007-11-13)
(Get the MPR whole set, with some really interesting interview segments, here. Check out more live Doughty at archive.org.)

And if you're not following Doughty's blog, you're missing out on a damn good thing.

And if you're into dj stuff, Doughty's been doing some spinning lately. Check out his work in that realm: Dubious Luxury - Soul Power Dry Run

Lastly, props also go out to So Much Silence, who tracked down a promo album of Doughty busking in the NYC subway.

UPDATE:
I just noticed that Doughty's cover of the Magnetic Fields' "Book of Love" is finally recorded as an official release, but it's an iTunes only bonus track. I don't really dig this new trend of digital only extras. I'm not going to re-buy the album for one track. For now, all I could find is a snippet of a live performance:
Mike Doughty - Book of Love (live, partial)

Tucson show alert: Keren Ann, Dean & Britta

The other day I wrote about Dean & Britta, so now here's a quick look at Keren Ann, who opens Wednesday night at Club Congress in what the promoter calls a "double bill from indie heaven."
Overstatement aside, this is one hell of a promising show.

I've been sampling some live Keren Ann I've tracked down from a recent in-studio performance on Minnesota Public Radio and she's an extraordinary singer-songwriter. With Jewish, Dutch and Indonesian heritage, she was born in Israel and raised in Holland and France and aside from being multilingual, her musical influences are varied enough to produce a truly unique artist in a genre that's hardly known for break-through performers these days.

In the immediate aftermath of Amy Winehouse and Feist battling it out for Grammy's best new artist, Keren Ann is all-but-assured to get noticed soon, and big time. At least from the live tracks I've heard, she has the potential to be a jazzier and folkier performer than either. But there are exotic elements that seem to pop up throughout.

Regardless of whether you're struck more by Keren Ann or Dean & Britta, definitely catch both, Feb. 20 at Club Congress.

DOWNLOAD:
Keren Ann - The Hardships of the World (live)
Keren Ann - In Your Back (live)
(Get the whole set, with interviews, here.)

And here's just another little taste of Dean & Britta:
Dean & Britta - Night Nurse (live)

Tucson show alert: Dean & Britta with Keren Ann

Just over three years ago, Luna played Club Congress as part of their farewell tour and it was amazing to see the band members so zeroed in on making those last songs and notes stand as their legacy. The band's ascendancy, through seven albums and too manu tours that never broke through the nightclub level, had finally reached its peak. And then they were done.

In the aftermath, a mellowed 40+ Dean Wareham and his bass playing wife Britta Phillips turned their attention to a different sound, a lusher and loungier cousin to the transcendent mix of soaring guitar leads and fuzzy indie pop. Their two albums mix covers (most fitting are the French pop gems) and originals, with a vocal harmony that's surprisingly excellent and beyond anything Luna attempted.

Dean & Britta are coming back to Club Congress Wednesday and check out the Tucson Weekly for an interview. I'm psyched to see what they bring to the stage and how their new direction influences the live performance. I can't imagine anything less than an excellent show, especially given what I've read about the opener, Keren Ann, an Israeli-born, New York and Paris-based dream folk singer.

Below are a couple tracks Dean & Britta recorded earlier this month for Minnesota Public Radio. The stripped-down "Night Nurse" is a particularly good performance.

DOWNLOAD:
Dean & Britta - Words You Used To Say (live on the Current)
Dean & Britta - Night Nurse (live on the Current)
(Get the whole set, with interviews, here.)
And check back in a couple days for some live Keren Ann, also from MPR.

Lastly, here are two more worthwhile diversions:
* a handwritten interview with Dean & Britta. (an incredibly cool concept)
* And the trailer for "Tell Me Do You Miss Me," a documentary of Luna's farewell tour. (Check out at 2:25 for the top quote of the film, "I'm in a bunk bed in Tucson.")

"One more gift to bring..."

I first heard about the amazing collaboration between Iron & Wine and Calexico long before any official word was released about the In the Reins EP. In late 2004, Sam Beam had been spotted hanging around the Tap Room in Hotel Congress, and he was talking a little about recording with Calexico over at Wavelab. I was immediately intrigued and thought the combination had a lot of promise, though the album wouldn't be released for another nine months or so. Beam didn't have any sort of a band to speak of at that point and Calexico is a band full of seasoned musicians who show tremendous versatility in backing various singers.

After the album dropped they all teamed for a tour, also bringing along Salvador Duran, a Mexican singer-songwriter who's since become something of a Tucson institution. I caught the tour at a very packed Rialto Theatre and later found a free NPR recording of a show from Washington D.C. later in the tour.

The day before the Tucson show, Sam Beam, Joey Burns and Salvador dropped into KXCI for an in-studio session that featured a more subdued take on some of In the Reins top tunes. Most interesting was hearing Burns take the lead vocal on "Prison on Route 41," with Beam providing the harmony. The EP started with Beam songs that he'd written with just vocals and guitar. The bands collaborated in the studio for a much fuller sound, and once the songs are stripped back down for a radio performance, there's somehow something more there.

DOWNLOAD:
Iron & Wine and Calexico - Prison on Route 41 (live KXCI)
Iron & Wine and Calexico - Dead Man's Will (live KXCI)
Iron & Wine and Calexico - He Lays In The Reins (live KXCI)

Grammy love

During commercials while watching tonight's too-close-for-comfort Suns win over the Wizards, I flipped by the Grammys, just checking to see if anything interesting was happening.
And just once out of a dozen or so flipovers, something worthwhile was going on (that would be Beyonce and her wonderfully short skirt joining Tina Turner for a decent enough rendition of "Proud Mary").

I don't like the Grammys and I never really have. The only award I've bothered to follow is Best Contemporary Folk Album, which a shocking number of my favorites have won in the last decade or so (Steve Earle, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash). The award has become a sort of below-the-radar acknowledgment of who really deserves some props, or maybe a backdoor sort of lifetime achievement prize.

For me, mostly, the Grammy Awards show represents pretty much all that sucks about music and the entertainment industry that surrounds it. It's all show, no passion. It's all mainstream, no creativity. It's all popularity, no room for the fans who don't take their cues from ClearChannel radio. It missed the best and awards the mediocre-est. It's static, monied, unmemorable and mostly worthless. It's further behind the curve than music companies themselves.

And once in a while it's an open forum for some industry prick to attack the very fans who support the whole damn multibillion dollar boondoggle. I remember clearly when good ol' industry shill and recording academy president Michael Greene pulled out his ticket book to call all Internet fans of music criminals. Never mind the blindly accusatory tone that dick-hole took to the podium. I'll call him out on the absolutely blatant misrepresentation of the whole notion of downloading in his preaching. I can't believe that speech was so many years ago, and the "music" industry still hasn't taken step one toward getting its shit together in recognition of the shifts in technology.

Anyway... The one Grammy awards show I can clearly remember watching was 10 years ago, when I wandered across the street from my dorm to some long-since-closed restaurant to watch Bob Dylan take three Grammys (album of the year, best male rock vocal performance and best contemporary folk ablum [see?]) and perform in probably the strangest segments in Grammy history.



(Worth noting here is the fact that the same song that got "Soy-Bombed" was featured in a number of Victoria's Secret advertisements... a fact that makes the term "soy bomb" seem ever so much dirtier...)

So why did I even bother flipping over to the awards show during Suns commercials? For one moment, five years ago, when all the disdain that the Grammys have had for music fans like me washed away in a coup of rock n' roll brilliance.

With a shout of "This is for Joe!" from Bruce Springsteen, an unbelievably awesome group struck into The Clash's "London Calling" as a tribute to the great Joe Strummer, not even two months gone from this realm. Joining Springsteen were Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl and Miami Steve Van Zandt and I was blown away. If it was planned, I didn't know, so I just like to think that somehow that crew of musicians told the suits to fuck off and that they were gonna do a Strummer tribute, like it or not.



It was a great moment and a truly amazing performance because it was obvious that each of those dudes knew they were singing for Joe, singing like it mattered.

And so, no matter who won whatever tonight, or who won whatever whenever, I have a tiny bit of props for the Grammys because of that performance. Plus, I'm one of the very, very few music fans in my age group who say Grammy got it right picking Steely Dan's Two Against Nature over Radiohead's (overrated in every way) Kid A for album of the year in 2001 (though Beck's Midnight Vultures would've been my overall top choice).

So the music industry deserves maybe 1 percent attention during awards season, just in case somebody pulls out something as awesome as that Clash tribute.

DOWNLOAD:
Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl & Steven Van Zandt - London Calling (live Grammy 2003)

The Thanks I Get

Folks keep trickling in to the site looking for "The Thanks I Get," a bonus song from Wilco's latest album, Sky Blue Sky. So why not give 'em what they're looking for?

"The Thanks I Get" is my personal favorite from the Sky Blue Sky sessions and I think it works equally well as a soulful full-band romp and as a plaintive Jeff Tweedy solo acoustic tune.
Tweedy actually wrote the song for Solomon Burke to sing, hoping it would be included on the 2002 project that ended up as the Don't Give Up On Me album. It's an incredible record, full of specially written songs by the likes of Dylan, Tom Waits, Van Morrison, Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello and Joe Henry. The soul legend brought an amazing life and presence to the tunes... what I wouldn't give to hear him sing "The Thanks I Get."

So here are two versions, a solo acoustic one (pay attention to the banter at the end - that's where Tweedy tells the Burke story and talks about the upcoming Sky Blue Sky) and a full band recording from Conan O'Brien.

DOWNLOAD:
Wilco - Is that The Thanks I Get (live Conan).mp3
Jeff Tweedy - Is that the Thanks I Get.mp3

R.I.P. John Stewart

Folk singer and songwriter John Stewart died last month, passing away in the same San Diego hospital where he was born 68 years earlier. For some well-written obituaries about his 50-year career as a musician and songwriter, go here and here.

His career never hit the big time - my guess is he was just too clean cut and harmless to make much of a splash in the turbulent last 1960s and early 1970s when he did the bulk of his solo recording - but I've known his music my whole life.

John Stewart was absolutely my mom's favorite and I can clearly remember hearing his signature records - California Bloodlines and Willard - regularly as a child. I don't remember liking them, but they were there. And later when I branched out musically I gave them another shot.

His voice was deep and soothing like a great storyteller - which he was. Stewart seemed to be wrapped up in some visions of a truly good America, one that didn't exist because it had passed, or because it hadn't come yet. Such nostalgia runs through his songs, but he was no conservative - he stumped for Bobby Kennedy in 1968 after leaving the Kingston Trio.

If nothing else, Stewart had a varied and fascinating career. He got his start in a top-selling combo that seemed to be the safe alternative to all the new groundbreaking folkies led by Dylan. His most well-known song is "Daydream Believer," an impeccably catchy (and well, dreamy) pop gem the Monkees took to No. 1 for four weeks in the winter after the summer of love.

Stewart's run of quality troubadour albums started not long after Kennedy was gunned down on the campaign trail. He brought folk and country together with a storyteller's charm for a certain type of Americana that somehow skipped over Gram Parsons and the rest of the hippies.

Then, whether he was influenced by disco or glossy California rock, he turned once again, donning a white suit and sticking a red rose between his guitar strings for one of the gaudier album covers ever. But Bombs Away Dream Babies would be his biggest hit, with gloss to spare from the guitar, vocals and production (and who knows what else) of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. But the songs are top-quality, like he finally started writing with night in mind instead of day.

He never stopped touring. I don't know how many times my folks saw Stewart play, but that last time, in December of 2002, they brought us kids along. Stewart was an elder statesman of folk by then, but he never lost his die-hard fans and (I'm guessing, but I think this is a safe one) never put on a bum show.

It kinda hit me when I saw that he died, and it actually felt like weighty news to pass along to my mom. But later I put on some tunes and I don't think there'll ever be a day when John Stewart's music isn't a familiar comfort for me.

DOWNLOAD:
John Stewart - July, You're a Woman (live)
John Stewart - California Bloodlines (live)
John Stewart - Gold
John Stewart - Heart of the Dream

Catfish at the Cinema

Far and away the greatest benefit to being a relatively infrequent movie watcher is almost never watching a bad movie. I tend to get upset and offended at the time wasted to watch your average Hollywood action flick or romantic comedy, so I shy away from films as they hit the theaters, wait for the hype to die down and see what offerings get some props from reviewers I dig and have a little staying power.

Such was the exact process that brought me to Into the Wild and No Country For Old Men these last couple days and I reckon I have little in the way of anything but compliments. Talk about your simple, yet powerful movies - compelling stories, dialog that seems real-to-life as well as insightfully quotable and beautiful camera work. There isn't much more that's similar about the two films, so I reckon I'll move on in the order I saw them.

Sean Penn has been such a powerful presence in the last couple films I've seen him in (Mystic River and 21 Grams) that it's no surprise he's moved over to directing. He seems to be a deliberate detail-oriented director, taking a heavy hand (he wrote the screenplay as well) in the production as a whole, and really drawing the most out of the material. I doubt Penn will be a frequent director; instead he seems drawn to the unique story that plays out here.

Despite having heard a good bit about the film before hand, I was under the impression that it was mostly about the journey in Alaska. I'm glad that wasn't the case - it's more like Into the Great Wide Open than Into the Wild and that's for the best. Whether he's Christopher McCandless or his chosen name of Alexander Supertramp, the protagonist is driven by movement and experience, not simply the need to rush as far as he can from society. In truth he makes his biggest leap away from society not by trekking into the Alaskan wilderness but in that first moment he makes up his mind that he doesn't need money, or a home, or a job, or anything that ties him to anything else. It's that over-the-next-horizon restlessness that defines his character, no matter the horizon.

Emile Hirsch was a great choice for Alex, bringing a believability to his restless idealogue. He didn't spout the nonsense you might expect from a just-barely-on-his own kid. He wasn't constantly coming up with new justifications and rationale for his wanderlust. His philosophy was simple and mostly unchanging - the trappings of society are simply traps and the measure of a life is in the experiences of the individual. But he did - tragically - misjudge how crucial simple fellowship can be. It's something that he came to eventually and it's ultimately the story's greatest sadness that he didn't get to live out his years with that addition to his world view. Alex was no misanthrope, though he may have come across as one. In truth there's really no good word for his take on society. He loved his fellow travelers, the souls more at home on the fringes of society, and ultimately found as much strength in them as he did in the wilderness, though the realization was slow in permeating his restlessness.

On a final note, the music in the film was every bit as great as some friends have said. Eddie Vedder provides another way of reading the character and the action, much in the same way that Badly Drawn Boy uses the language of music to say things in About A Boy that the filmmakers just couldn't get to otherwise. Taken one by one, the songs are all quality, with an acoustic yet full sound that fits the landscapes of the film. But taking note of the lyrics, we see more parallels in Alex's journeys and a new dimension emerges.

Music is such a central part of Into the Wild that it was fascinating to follow it up with a film that had absolutely no music at all. That quietness to me translated incredibly well as space, in a variety of ways. It let the empty Texas landscapes stand even more imposing, more immense. It let the characters' inner thoughts play a role in the film, whether you had a decent guess what those thoughts were (as in the case of Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss) or whether they were as inscrutable as the darkness (as in the case of Moss' nemesis-by-chance, Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh).

I didn't even notice the lack of music until one of the film's most suspenseful moments, where the ominous strings should have been. And it was no less suspenseful for the absence. People breathing, floor boards creaking, shadows covering doorways... all of this is real, all of it is in the moment, on the screen, and none of it needs an extra bit of manipulation. Kudos to the Coens for going against the grain there.

I've been a Coen brothers fan for years and years, but for some reason have stuck to just the comedies. There's little in No Country for folks looking for the fingerprints of the geniuses who created The Big Lebowski, et al. But the dialog is the tell. That's probably the greatest strength of each Coen film I dig - a richness of dialog that never seems forced, giving each character a uniqueness, full of lines you want to jot down and remember, with not a bit of it contrived or fake or in any way detracting from the movement of the story.

The story is cut of all fat, and because of that requires quite a bit of trust of the filmmakers. It rattled me at first, left me wanting the back stories of Moss and Chigurh, left me wanting to know who the drug dealers were who got gunned down in the Texas desert. I needed that at first, wanted to dig into each character to learn how to read the angles, but none of it was there. It was simply a mess dropped right in your lap and ultimately I think it was fitting. The $2 million and gun battle fallout just dropped on Moss. Moss just dropped onto Chigurh. And the whole mess just dropped onto Tommy Lee Jones sheriff Ed Tom Bell, just as mess after mess after increasingly larger and alienating mess had been falling on his for his whole life as a Texas lawman.

That slow sense of the world spinning out of control, of events running your life instead of the opposite, of a growing and desperate helplessness, is a theme I'm often drawn to, in movies or books or music. It's Yeats' "Turning and turning in the widenying gyre," rewritten with a homicidal maniac, an in-over-his-head welder and an aged sheriff, all dancing about on a chaotic parquet of drug trafficking, greed raining from all angles and blood lust.

While it's damn good, I can't say No Country is my favorite Coen film. It's abrupt and once you accept its main assertion that the world is fucked, the narrative elements lose a good bit of their significance. But I am pushed to explore the earlier Coen films. And I'm definitely going to start reading some Cormac McCarthy.

Go Get Gone

Start pouring the whiskey, the Fourkiller Flats are back on stage Friday at Club Congress.
The Flats are hard-charging twangy rockers who sound plenty legit singing about waking up in a Las Cruces jail or tossing beer bottles about in one holy hell of a fight. An EP from 2000 and a 2001 set of 10 originals and a cover of Whiskeytown's "Faithless Streets" (so I started this damn country band, 'cause punk rock is too hard to sing) are all the bastards have recorded so far.
It's been a few months since they've played a show, and last time they played nearly all unrecorded songs, so maybe it's time for a new album one of these days.
The band has this curious roller derby video up on their MySpace page and while the connection escapes me, it's a song they haven't released, so check it out:

The Flats are opening up for the Mother Truckers, an Austin-based alt.country combo that I haven't seen yet, but they've been getting a lot of props around here.

Welcome...

Catfish Vegas presents... has seen a surge in traffic lately, almost entirely from people googling about for celebrity deaths. And the untimely departure of Heath Ledger seems to have vastly accelerated that surge.
Mr. Chair occasionally logs what drives readers his way, and it's usually something to do with shaving testicles. Not that he's ever blogged on the subject, but if that's what the public wants, I 'spose he ought to deliver one day.
Aside from searching out a celebrity death pool, it seems like random visitors here are trying to scope out a hot congresswoman. And I did blog about a hot congresswoman, so that's the way it goes.
On Jan. 10 I had a few visitors seeking out Arlo Guthrie. And people regularly stop on by after searching out Wilco's "The Thanks I Get." There are a few other musical inquiries that steer folks here. And one other recurring query is for this see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkey statuette I linked to. Strange.

A fine winter weekend

I was kinda taking a breather there at the end of the year, then I got blindsided by the flu. But now I'm mostly recovered and starting to peek around for stuff to listen to and blog about and do.
This weekend is the Dillinger Days, celebrating the (very serendipitous) capture of the notorious bank robber by Tucson police in 1934. I know it sounds like fame on the order of "Largest Free-Standing Pole West of the Mississippi," but everywhere has to be known for something. Besides, it's a good idea for a downtown party, and screw everywhere else where you can't have an outdoor festival in the middle of January.
But the point of this is to say that the tunes are absolutely first rate.

First up are the aptly named Dusty Buskers, "the band that fits on a bike."

They've actually been pretty regular at booking shows, but the first I ran across these guys they were literally busking, with a fiddle, a madolin and a hat set up between them. I love their cover of Woody's "Hard Travelin'" and the Dead Milkmen classic "Punk Rock Girl."

After the Buskers is Tucson's own British bluesman, the lightning hot harmonica player Tom Walbank and his Ambassadors. I've never been short of amazed watching Walbank and his band jam and I don't think many performers around the world have carved out such a unique musical persona.


Playing last is the legendary Al Perry, who can strum an acoustic, lead an all-star Telecaster jam or honky-tonk it up, depending on the mood. He's been called the Unofficial Mayor of Downtown Tucson and I gladly concur.
Download: Al Perry - We Got Cactus

Happy Arlo Guthrie Day!

It's the 10th of January, and I still ain't had no sleep...

Today we celebrate one of my all-time favorite songs - "Darkest Hour" - and its author - the great Arlo Guthrie. It's a song full of mystery, driven by fleeting images. And if I knew precisely what it meant I'd get further into that, but as Arlo himself has said, the song came to him in a dream. And it truly exists best in a sort of dreamscape. The two lovers in the castle seem completely separate from the pre-battle atmosphere all around them.

Here's a live version from 2006: Arlo Guthrie - Darkest Hour (live in Dublin)


Next we have a treat, an incredibly early version of Arlo's signature opus, Alice's Restaurant. It's essentially more of a prototype than even a first draft. The 19-year-old Arlo is singing in 1966 at Gerdes Folk City and all that exists of the song at that point was the looping guitar pattern and the chorus. But there's no mention of Thanksgiving or the draft or anything that emerged when he recorded the song a later. What's there is the wit that's continued to drive his performances since. What I find most fascinating is how much more he sounds like Woody in those days. His banter is twangier, more Oklahoma than the Brooklyn-born Arlo really had much right to claim.

The main bulk of the song (at just 13 minutes, it's actually substantially shorter than it would eventually become) is Arlo talking about how the words to Alice's Restaurant are going to spread like wildfire - first out of the club and into the Villlage, then the rest of New York and then steadily across the East Coast and the rest of the country ("New Mexico, OLD Mexico") and the rest of the continent ("there's a slight chance it may get into Cuba"). And eventually the song will go over the whole world, and one day everybody in the world, at the same time and in the same key, will sing "Alice's Restaurant."

Download: Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant (live 1966)

Everybody have a great Arlo Day!

Get your picks in!

The window for participating in the Celebrity Death Pool 2008 is drawing to a close. Get your picks in by Jan. 13!

And as Mr. Chair said about the picks thus far: "If we are any good at this, Fidel, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Phyllis Diller better tie up any loose ends soon..."

Holy crap

These are dark days indeed for my Wildcats, on the road Wednesday to play the higher ranked Sun Devils?! I know the Mustard & Rust have been on a bit of a resurgence of late, and in-state dominance can't last forever, but what sportswriter in his right mind actually believes ASU is a better team? I'll admit that without our leading scorer this isn't exactly a game that's worry-free at this point in the season. But c'mon, one of the nation's most storied programs is essentially an underdog facing a team that hasn't been ranked in 13 years? Let's just say this doesn't add up and move on to celebrating another blowout come Wednesday night.

Goin' to Acapulco...

One of the things I love most about Calexico is the band's tremendous versatility. They've backed numerous other musicians on incredible albums (Richard Buckner, Neko Case), collaborated with others (Iron & Wine, Howe Gelb) and just generally become some of the best go-to musicians around.

Their versatility certainly extends to their own performances as well. The last two shows I've seen - less than two months apart - couldn't have been more different.

The first was a park show, drawing 10,000 people in an all-ages picnic atmosphere. It was one of the full mariachi shows, with Luz de Luna starting out the nearly three-hour set and joining Calexico on state for several songs later. It was rowdy and joyous, full of i-yi-yi's and a let's keep going vibe that ran well after dark.

Next was last Friday, when they played to 800 sweater-clad people inside a performing arts theatre. There were no mariachi players and the vibe was more sedate. A friend sat in on piano (not one of Calexico's most typical sounds) for the entire show - a more acoustic affair with several top-notch cover songs and a new one, "Absent Afternoon, which Joey Burns said was inspired by the funeral processions driving past his new home downtown.

The kind folks over at TucsonScene.com were kind enough to record part of the show and put it up on youtube. Below is a cover of Dylan's "Goin' to Acapulco," which features prominently in the "I'm Not There" film and earns Burns and John Convertino screen credits as "Brass Band Player #1" and "Brass Band Player #2." Before the song, Joey asked for all the reverb he could get out of the sound man, which hardly surprising since Jim James of My Morning Jacket sings the tune for the film and soundtrack.

Stu LeBlanc's Year in Haiku

(I'd like to welcome the illustrious Stu LeBlanc for an extra special guest posting here: 2007 in haiku.)


pissed her name
in the snow while she
stayed in the car

"I feel
dowdy", she said,
wearing my clothes

bad decisions
are requisite at a
toga party

all partygoers
drenhed in a soft
summer rain

stomping through
puddles, our wobbling
ways home

now a two-time
community college
dropout

rediscovery of
the advantages of not
washing my hair

just out of prison
and I hung out with
him anyway

at midnight
the organ goes into
the bonfire

Catfish at the record shop

Happy New Year everybody!
It’s not like you haven’t seen several hundred best-of 2007 lists by now (check out Large-Hearted Boy’s master list – sheesh!) but in this little corner of the blogosphere we’re gonna just go ahead and do the same.
So, without further ado, here’s the Catfish Vegas Presents… Top Albums of 2007

1. Okkervil River – The Stage Names
Rambunctious and energetic this time out, Okkervil River made their most unabashedly rock ‘n’ roll record yet, centering on the themes of fame and fortune, with nods to the night life and on “The Plus Ones,” a clever bit of addition that turned several classic pop songs on their heads.

2. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
If the skinny bearded bohemian Springsteen had come up now and settled on a gypsy ensemble instead of a rock ‘n’ roll band, he’d come pretty close to sounding like Arcade Fire’s newest.

3. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
Wilco’s most soulful record, Sky Blue Sky is also dominated by Nels Cline’s one-of-a-kind guitar shredding. Methinks the “dad rock” haters didn’t actually bother to listen to the album.

4. Feist – The Reminder
This album grabbed me for the first time (and never let go) on “Intuition,” when Feist’s repeated “Did I?” is echoed by a chorus that sounds three rooms away. It’s an album of great balance, great songs and the greatest singing voice this side of Neko Case.

5. Band of Horses – Cease To Begin
Hell yeah! The bearded dudes who made what was my favorite album of last year have come back with a record nearly as perfect. Band of Horses found their sound right out of the gate and have settled in beautifully.

6. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
I love listening to all the varied rhythms that carry Sam Beam’s latest batch of tunes. As great as he is singing unadorned, it’s great to hear that he knows when to fill songs up as much as he does leave them open.

7. Radiohead – In Rainbows
The blokes from Radiohead rediscover guitars and make their best album in a decade. Not that they abandoned the experimental, they just reserved that for music industry kiss-off of jumping in with a set-your-own-price direct download. Kudos.

8. Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Banging Down the Doors
This is the record I’ve been recommending to everyone I know lately. I stumbled onto a rave review at Razing the Bar and snagged a free download Furman’s record company was offering. This is outstanding stuff – hard charging acoustic rock, with hints of Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, the Mountain Goats and Dylan throughout. This topped out Andy Whitman’s best of 2007 list and if I’d gotten it a few months earlier, it probably would’ve done the same for me.

9. Felice Brothers – Tonight At The Arizona
Believe me when I say that more than most people, I gravitate toward spare, country-folk music, and that the Felice Brothers have made one of the best debut spare, country-folk debuts I’ve heard in a long while. It doesn’t hurt that there’s more than a little Dylan floating around these songs.

10. The Gourds – Noble Creatures
For everyone (including myself) who wrote them off as bluegrass jokers after the amazing “Gin and Juice” cover, I’ll say this: out of everybody recording music today, the multi-talented Gourds are the closest to carrying on the tradition of The Band.

11. Bruce Springsteen – Magic
Bruce comes back from his folk detour for a new E Street Band record that stacks up better than The Rising. The production is just a bit too tight and polished for my taste, but the songs are incredible, with “Radio Nowhere,” “Gypsy Biker” and “I’ll Work For Your Love” as good as anything he’s written since the 1970s.

12. Meat Puppets – Rise To Your Knees
Certainly candidates for music story of the year, the Meat Puppets are back with another album fried by the sun. Rise To Your Knees is the proper sequal to Too High To Die, as caught up in dusty songs as much as the psychedelic hybrid they came up with on earlier albums. The album got me thinking… if only Kurt Cobain had met up with a motorcycle crash instead of a shotgun and hit out in the desert, with the Meat Puppets playing The Band to his Dylan…

13. I’m Not There Soundtrack
I really don’t know where to put this album. Tributes are such tricky business and most ultimately fail. But this collection of Dylan covers is pretty much the best music released all year. The two-disc set stays mostly away from Dylan’s biggest songs – “All Along The Watchtower” by Eddie Vedder and the Million Dollar Bashers and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” by Antony and the Johnsons are the only “big hits” and really the two weakest tracks on the whole collection. Digging up those hidden gems is the soundtrack’s greatest asset – “Pressing On” by John Doe and “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” immediately drew me in, but what’s surprising is that even as a Dylan fanatic, I’d never even heard either before. Another highlight is the chameleonic work by Calexico, who back Willie Nelson, Iron & Wine, Roger McGuinn, Jim James and Charlotte Gainsbourg and even get parts in the film.

Honorable mentions are awarded in the following categories:

Top local albums:
Chango Malo – The Whiskey Years; The Deludes – Sedation Nation; Greyhound Soul – Tonight and Every Night; Golden Boots – Burning Brain

Indie stalwarts with barely miss albums:
Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank; Shins- Wincing the Night Away; White Stripes – Icky Thump; New Pornographers – Challengers

Representatives of the “2007 was a good year for noise” school of Stu Leblanc favorites that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around, but nonetheless dig:
Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam; Panda Bear – Person Pitch

The old-timers who can really do no wrong but didn’t make records that stack up with their career bests:
Lucinda Williams – West; Steve Earle – Washington Square Serenade; Levon Helm – The Dirt Farmer

Previous years-in-review:
2006
2005
2004
2003

Catfish at the Clubs: Best Shows of 2007

I guess it'd be more accurate to say "at the clubs and the parks and the amphitheaters and whatnot." I had some of the best musical moments of my life watching live music during the past year. I made my way to about 35 shows this year, from a dozen or more great local Tucson bands to some of America's greatest living legends.
It's next to impossible to rank this type of stuff, so here's 12 of the best shows, in chronological order.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Plush, Jan. 9
This show demonstrates as good as any one of the greatest treasures of seeing live music in Tucson: the opportunity to watch very great performers in very small venues. Still, I was surprised Malkmus didn’t book a larger venue. Since he played nearly all new songs, I didn’t know a single one the whole night, but it didn’t matter. He’s a strange genius on the guitar and Janet Weiss on drums is an incredible addition.
Download: Stephen Malkmus - Merry Go Round (live at Plush)

Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – Club Congress, April 14
One of Britain’s weirdest exports, Hitchcock’s wordplay is like no other songwriter. And he’s the best banterer I’ve ever seen. I’d caught him twice before solo acoustic, but with the full band (including Peter Buck) of his latest recording partners, it’s even better.

Guthrie Family Legacy Tour – Centennial Hall, April 29
Arlo has long been a favorite of mine, and this was the first time I got to see him perform. He’s a rich storyteller and a great songwriter in his own right, plus it never hurts to be able to draw on a song pool like his dad Woody left us. I left the show amazed in equal measure at his humor and his humanity. Download: Arlo Guthrie - In Times Like These (live Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival 2006-08-12).

Alejandro Escovedo & The Drive-by Truckers – Rialto Theatre, May 5
It might seem like a strange double bill, but they definitely went well together. I’d seen Alejandro once before, stuffed into Congress, but it was great to see him fill that room with sound. And the Truckers are one of the best live bands out there today, with enough songs to keep going and going and going (plus they were kind enough to preview some new ones).

Bob Dylan – AVA Amphitheatre, July 24
Dylan returned to the desert just over a year since his last Arizona shows and this performance was much better than the more sedate one at the TCC Arena. The Modern Times songs sounded great live and as usual, Dylan threw a couple curveballs into the set. The harsh and jagged “Masters of War” remains as stinging an indictment as it was more than four decades ago. Download: Bob Dylan – Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) (live Tucson 2007-07-24)

Chango Malo cd release show – Club Congress, Aug. 17

Leave it to Chango Malo to take over Congress inside and out, invite eight other bands and turn their CD release show into the party of the year. And in all that mess of bands and friends and beers, they rose above it all with a show as tight as it was drenched in energy. The album rips too.
All in all, the night was a strong statement about the quality of bands regularly playing downtown Tucson. The scene is excellent, varied, energetic and above all, musically inspiring.

Hotel Congress Festival – Aug. 30 to Sept. 2

A handful of local bands impressed on Friday, and the Friends of Dean Martinez mesmerized before the Weird Lovemakers brought the whole damn thing crashing down Sunday night, but the standout set of this festival (far and away) was Okkervil River’s Saturday set. I was front and center with a bunch of friends for the rambunctious and passionate performance that had as many sing-alongs to new stuff as it did old. I’d had a copy of The Stage Names for a few weeks by that time seeing most of it live was an absolute thrill.

Download: Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe (live in San Francisco)

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival – San Francisco, Oct. 5 to 8
I already wrote about this one extensively, so I’ll just say that Jeff Tweedy performing “Remember the Mountain Bed” was just one of those moments when life doesn’t get any better. Check it out: Part 1, Part 2.

And from the festival:
Jeff Tweedy - Remember the Mountain Bed
Emmylou Harris - Sin City
Gillian Welch - Pocahontas


The Hold Steady (with Art Brut) - TLA, Philadelphia, Oct. 23
I was definitely lucky when my East Coast travels coincided with this show. I've listened to the Hold Steady as much as any other band during the last two years and Boys And Girls In America has been as much of a go-to album as I've ever had. (Major props also go to the Hold Steady’s performance at Plush on June 4. I was a hell of a lot closer to the band there, but I gotta go with the Philly performance for a larger and rowdier crowd and top-notch openers.)
Check out NPR's All Songs Considered podcast to download performances from both bands (a couple weeks after the Philly show).


Ted Leo & The Pharmacists (with The Swim) – Club Congress, Nov. 1

It was a treat to watch some friends sharing the bill with one of their heroes.
Ted Leo absolutely rocks, but he deserves respect for much more than his music. He's unabashedly political and brings intellect to the pursuit than most activists.
Check his Web site for a "news" section that's more or less a blog
And find a live Ted Leo show here.



Bookmans Party in the Park (Calexico) – Nov. 3

"... let Tucson's favorite sons and their best mariachi friends let loose with what must be about the best of the dozen or so shows of theirs you've taken in. Remember how you first saw Calexico with maybe a couple hundred people stuffed into an art gallery by the railroad tracks, must've been 1999 or 2000. Remember how they seemed to have a pedal for the passing train, and how they set the room on fire. Remember how on three or four albums since those same musicians captured a hell of a lot more attention and without a doubt became one of the world's greatest bands. Sit in anticipation for a particular song, a Bob Dylan cover you'd been soaking in for months, with several different bootleg recordings, before finally hearing them back Willie Nelson on "Senor." Celebrate as the trumpets bellow loud and mysterious. Shimmy and sway as the show stretches many songs and songs and songs afterwards. Depart with a poster and autographs..."

Neko Case – Rialto Theatre, Nov. 15
I talked a friend into flying in from San Francisco for the show - one of only two solo dates this fall for Neko. Her guest performances at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival were nice little teasers for this show. The tunes from her latest album just soar live and there's plenty of quirky banter.
NPR broadcast Neko's show in LA the next night and has it available for download here.