First day of spring and it has rained all day.
It’s wet, cold and very, very welcome.
First day of spring and it has rained all day.
It’s wet, cold and very, very welcome.
Orright, so I’ve gone from Earworm of the Week back to Friday Earworm. My blog, my rules.
You have to admit, the psychedelic-mushroom munching-hillbilly-slightly creepy and scary but hilarious vid for this song goes really well with the events of the week just gone.
And I love this quote from an old interview:
“When my relatives ask, ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’, and I tell them I’ve been playing in a country band, a grimace comes over their faces,” he says, “and they pretend to be supportive.”
I’ll be playing with Tess McKenna on Saturday, September 4 from 5 to 7 at the Union Hotel
109 UNION STREET
BRUNSWICK VIC 3056
The Union is a lovely pub with a great atmosphere. The last time I was there was in the Great Hailstorm of ‘10 (as we’ll all call it when we’re clacking our false teeth in the old folks’ home) and I can tell you it’s a nice place to be when the weather is cold and blustery outside. Or not.
If Abbott wins I’ll be the one sobbing into my beer.
Everlasting is the second solo CD from Rebecca Barnard, formerly of Rebecca’s Empire and Yarraville local treasure.
My first impression: quiet and restrained, occupying a very adult space between pop and cool jazz. The dove-grey cover art maybe sets up that expectation. Yes, it’ll seem soft and unassuming at first listen, but it’s a mighty album.
Everlasting is like a gemstone which might look soft and grey on the ground, but on closer inspection it’s covered all over with tiny multicoloured facets, and once you see one you discover more and more of these facets and refracted colours, all different.
Barnard, who is a foodie and radio/TV cooking personality in her other life, has another description for it.
“It’s a bit like one of those Chinese stocks that’s been simmering away for years and years,” she says of her new-found musical potency.
“The longer you let it go, the stronger it gets until it’s got all these elements that you’ve been striving for.”
I’ve been tasting this stock for a week and I keep finding more unexpected flavours. The pop sensibility of Rebecca’s Empire is still there in more uptempo songs like Give Way and Fall and Walk. The signature buzzy lead guitar still pops out on occasion (she plays all guitars on this disc) joined by clarinet, cello and other textures.
Everlasting was recorded in a few weeks in New York. Barnard deliberately took herself out of her everyday world to travel to a distant place, but to record with Barney McAll, who she had known since childhood. Other musicians are Dan Reiser (drums), Jonaton Maron (bass), Rufus Cappadocia (cello), Matt Darriau (Clarinet).
Take some time, got to move from there
All that’s left is what you bear
(Give Way)
This isn’t a CD for rushing around with a child clinging to your leg, or on the car stereo in noisy traffic. It’s a melodic meditation, with Rebecca’s sweet and husky voice telling you stories in between bursts of her signature sweet harmonies. The ingredients in the stock are the shifts and shocks of adult life, and the flavours are subtle sweet-sour-salty tastes and spices blended by a masterchef. I first listened to the title track, Everlasting, in the kitchen with distractions all around me, and it sounded unexciting, almost filler. Then I listened to it properly and now it makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Barnard invites the listener into something deeply precious and personal, hugely generous, a gift.
This is My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style by the Dream Warriors, from Canada. I love Acid Jazz and I think this is one of my favourite things ever.
The Head tune is from Quincy Jones’ Soul Bossa Nova (Roland Kirk is the flautist).
Here’s a thought experiment: What do you think the Dream Warriors’ homage to / quotation of Soul Bossa Nova would have done for this recording’s sales, given that it’s obscure back catalogue which previously would have to have been hunted down by afictionados who knew of its existence in the first place (barring the odd brilliant remainder bin accident, and we’ve all had ‘em.)
Probably the bump would have been small, but it would have advanced the original artists a bit among a demographic which wouldn’t have discovered them otherwise. Even if in a small way. Discuss.
Let’s hope the Dream Warriors avoid the notice of rent seeking parasites.
I heard this on Music Deli a while back and my hair fairly stood on end. It’s been my number one earworm and consolation over a fairly trying too-busy-to-blog couple of weeks.
Here’s the only YouTube of this song I can find, and unfortunately the audio is shit. Imagine this song with wonderful sound, starting with a clean, hair-raising blast from that horn section, and go off and buy Homemade Biscuits. It’s as if Wilson Pickett came back to life as an Australian and joined the Saints.
This song should go in the Pool room along with Know Your Product, Eternally Yours, and other iconic Australian indie foot stompers.
Dan Sultan is releasing another album at the Espy Gershwin room on November 21. I hope he’s still using that horn section.
The boychild introduced me to this singer. I’d heard of Neil Murray, but not Pete Murray.
I can’t work out whether this one is my favourite, or this:
I love the way the rhythm section flies in the chorus.
That natural voice, sitting pretty in the natural range, with a bit of breath, no meslisma and pyrotechnics: Idols please note.
My earworm of the week has been Near You by Dwight Yoakam. But I can’t find a YouTube for that, so I’m posting links to interesting youtubes other people have found lately.
Pavlov’s Cat links to a chilling piece of Southern Gothic by Bobbie Gentry. I’m loving the set design. The little guitar is interesting. Words and chords here.
Boynton shows us Masterchef, 1941. One of those young gels is going to have to do a pressure test, for sure.
And Tigtog gives us a typical hospital emergency scene, featuring doctors who are, er… very highly… trained.
Update: How could I have forgotten this? Erk. Double erk. But as Barista would say, “strangely compelling“.
I should be putting up something of Jacko’s…but I can’t go past this.
.
Nick Possum
Uncensor