Friday, March 30, 2012

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Eight: Stay Loose by 100 Mile House

This is a band I've never heard of; I got this track as part of a rather massive album released this past Canada Day commemorating Gordon Lightfoot. They're a trio--a husband and wife plus instrumentalist hailing from Edmundton, Alberta and...well, they're really good.

Now it goes without saying that this is a cover--but maybe because it is a cover of a song I'm not familiar with, I can judge the band on its own merits and not as a cover. While their folkiness is undeniable, the first thought I had upon hearing the early strains of the song was how much this sounded like early Talking Heads. There's a sparseness to the guitar that is reminiscent of those first few albums...and then the darkness comes with Peter Stone's voice, lightly accented but deep as a newly dug grave. And the true marvel is how well that nightmarish deep bass blends with his wife Denise McKay, who comes off as the ghost to Stone's demon, adding grace to the despair in her husband's voice.

You can sample more of this bands work on their website . You can also find Turning Back The Pages Of My Sweet Shattered Dreams, the compilation this song comes from here.

No video for this song, but here's a video for a song from the band....

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Seven: Time To Go by Dropkick Murphys

This may be the single most Bostonian photo I have ever
posted...
Well, it's March, which means it's time for another visit to my favorite Celtic rock band of all time, the Dropkick Murphys.

I've written about the Murphys before, discussing a song from the first album to feature Al Barr as lead vocalist. This song is from the third featuring Barr, Blackout, and it's a love letter to the Boston Bruins.

....which doesn't surprise me, truth be told. A quick look at the Murphys' history will show the band's love of their local sports teams--this is the band that reached national notoriety when they were asked to record the Red Sox anthem 'Tessie' for the 2004 season, after all. But they seem to have a particular love for the world's fastest sport. Back in 1999, they recorded a song called 'I Had Enough' for a tribute album to that ubiquitous hockey film, Slapshot, and other songs have been featured on the soundtrack to EA Sports' NHL line of video games.

What I like the most about this particular song is how it's actually a song about being a fan. Yeah, there's the cheering for 'Black and Gold' at the beginning, but the bulk of the song tries to capture the experience of leaving work, getting together with your pals, and taking the subway to root for your team. It's the perfect song to get yourself all worked up for some action, propelled fully by a riotous melody that benefits from its own chaotic nature. It's definitely one of the things I feel I can hand a non-sports fan to give them an understanding of why sports is important to so many people--myself included. And while that stupid lockout that closed down the NHL for an entire season cooled my ardor for a sport I used to love, this song does remind me what I saw in it in the first place.

The Murphys are still a Boston institution, and are touring right now in support of Going Out In Style: Fenway Park Bonus Edition, which couples their concept album from last year with a live concert CD recorded at the Mecca of Baseball.

Here's the song merged with photos of The Boston Bruins in action.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Six: Wait by Sarah Mclachlan

Look into her long, dark, befreckled, Canadian mirror...
And here we have someone who really benefited from the interest in female artists in the early 90's. After all, she was recording solo before the Tori Amoses and the Alanis Morrisettes and the Fiona Apples of this world, having two albums and an EP out before Little Earthquakes hit. That being said, an argument could be made that it was the success of Amos that prompted the album this song came from, Fumbling Toward Ecstacy, to become the big breakout hit that she was looking for.

Much like Billy Joel, I have something of a strange relationship with Mclachlan. I was aware of her previous two albums, Touch and Solace, as tracks from them received airplay on WDRE before that august alt-rock station gave up the ghost. I didn't care for those early tracks, but the lead single from Fumbling Toward Ecsctacy, 'Possession,' did grab me enough for me to buy this album. Sometime after Mirrorball, however, I began to drift away--probably because I felt that Mclachlan was one of those musicians who found her niche and comfortably sat within it, never venturing out of it and stretching herself. Hell, I wonder at times if she'll be lauded in the future more for what she did with her fame (promoting alternate energy sources, promoting interest in female music by founding Lilith Fair) and some of her stranger interview statements (like when she proclaimed she hated deodorant in that weird Details interview) than her actual musical output.

(Say what you like about Amos. She may have her periods of complacency, but she is not afraid to try new things. She may rush back to her core group of fans afterwards, but at least she tries.)

This is very, very typical Sarah McLachlan....but then, pretty much everything she puts out is. And that may be the problem.

McLachlan has an amazingly powerful instrument in her voice. It has the capacity for great emotional range, and when she allows herself to let loose like in 'Possession,' she can grab you by the metaphorical throat. But more often than not, she's content to take that voice and tether it to the same pseudo-jazz Cinemax-After-Dark-soundtrack background sludge that makes all her songs sound pretty much alike. And when she doing these song-a-likes, her voice ends up being technically sound....but cold, precise, like she's doing this more as an intellectual exercise. And even though the song could be about a failed relationship, could be about a failed marriage, could be about mental illness, could be about failed attempts at having a baby...it doesn't connect.

But then, in writing that last paragraph, that may be the genius of McLachlan as a songstress. The combination of haunting soundscapes and vague lyrics invite us to complete the story with our own experiences and impressions, so that the guy who sees this song as being about a failed marriage and the girl who interprets it as a song about regrets over an abortion are both right. McLachlan doesn't have to reveal anything of herself to make herself special; she lets the listener reveal things about themselves to make them love her. I may not appreciate that trick, but I respect it.

No video for this one, but here's a live performance from 2003....