Indie Rocker vs. Classic Rocker: Fall Jams

Kurt Garrison and Kristofer Collins

Normally, we like to think of this as some kind of comical battlefield; a riotous convergence of wits as to who has the better taste in music.   Both Kris and I would also like to think that what we say and what we write about has some merit and will be taken by you, the reader, as a blueprint for those with discriminating tastes—but let's face it, we usually just end up looking like a couple of nerds.  So we thought we'd try something a little different.  Last summer's IR/CR was more of a postview of what the two of us had been listening to during that time frame; kind of like the regular feature but without the pettiness (god, how we mire in the pettiness).  So open up that bottle of Woodford Reserve, watch the leaves fall from the trees, and breathe in the burnt autumn sunshine.  Oh, and feel free to take a look at the column, too.

CR: Bob Dylan — Time Out Of Mind

There’s an unsettling chill throughout this record that’s unlike anything else in the Dylan oeuvre. Say what you will about old Uncle Bob, but his records, whether brilliant or atrocious—and there are copious quantities of both types in the man’s discography—the one adjective you will rarely see attached to a Dylan album is ‘cold’. ‘Messy’, yes. ‘Lazy’, yes. ‘Stupid’, yes. But never ‘cold.’ But from the opening cut, a bitter dose of anger and shame suitably branded ‘Love Sick’, there’s a distinct touch of iciness, a late season midnight fog floating in the grooves. You could probably pinpoint the chill in the particular sound producer Lanois gets from the organ, the guitar tone like something out of a transistor radio caught between stations, but it feels deeper than merely a tic of production. Song after song meeting mortality head-on, laments of lost loves, and some truly rusty blues all conspire here, some secret whispery pact that rustles from your speakers like the sound of someone walking away from you over a ground covered in brittle new-fallen leaves.

IR: The Bombay Sweets — Dead to Me

I popped this into my CD player, and there it sat, snug and content between a disc from the Carter Family box set and a Sun Records comp—and wouldn't you know, this puppy could've been a continuation of the two.  Sure, it's got the tendrils of the new millennium on the outer layers, but the hip bone is still connected to the thigh bone, and Minnesota's Bombay Sweets do a pretty good job of mining everything from Buddy Holly to The Gun Club to fellow Minneapolites (is that how you say it?) Tapes 'n Tapes that captures a broad appeal for those who nod to the past while having no interest in repeating it.  Look at it this way:  remember that episode of The Kids in the Hall where Kevin McDonald portrays a drunken Buddy Holly who enlists his pet spider monkey to commandeer the plane?  Well, this is the soundtrack that they would've been listening to.

CR: Marianne Faithfull — Strange Weather

Cold autumn nights cry out for a chanteuse, a singer with a certain Weimar way, a drunken damsel in dishabille. Well, you can have your Lotte Lenyas and Ute Lempers, I’ll take Marianne Faithfull. Strange Weather may not be as career defining as Broken English, but as a mood piece, and for me this is a season for world weariness, and why not, since everything outside my window looks tired and bowed down. Strange Weather is the way to go for anyone who likes to indulge in a little old world insouciance and self-pity. Faithfull and her co-conspirator producer Hal Willner cherry pick the pop canon so perfectly it would put a smile on Sinatra’s face the same way a pixie cut on a young Mia Farrow did. From Tom Waits to Jerome Kern, Kid Prince Moore to Doc Pomus, Faithfull stirs up a bit of fin-de-siècle decadence. These are the last days of the last cabaret girl on earth.

IR: Girls Names — S/T

From the other side of the pond is Girls Names, a Belfast trio who tread the same territory as the Bombay Sweets but take a decidedly different flight—all the way back in time to 1980's New Zealand.  Yeah, these kids have the noise and lo-fi goodness that could place them comfortably within the realm of resident No Age-rs and third-wave Sonic Youth aficionados.  But it's the kiss to kiwi popsters The Clean and The Cakekitchen that feeds the popfactor machine that doubles as my red-blooded American heart.  Is that a floor tom I hear on the Victrola or Graeme Jefferies beating on my door?  Doesn't matter either way because it's that damn good.  And if I can continue on my Texas pop star kick (which is odd because BH really never did that much for me), envision The Young Ones episode where Mike finds Holly in his bedroom strung up like a marionette.  Now pretend that it's Morrissey and not Buddy Holly, and that Mike actually got that old tape recorder to work.  Never has crooning about Smithwick's and naughty girlfriends sounded so good. 

CR: Jackson C. Frank —  S/T

Jackson C. Frank recorded only one lonely, little album in his lifetime. An American folksinger adrift in London, Frank fell in with fellow ex-pat Paul Simon, as well as up’n’comers on the Brit circuit such as Al Stewart, Bert Jansch, and a pre-Fairport Convention Sandy Denny. Frank’s eponymous platter is an austere affair even for a folkie. His finger-picking is clean, his voice brimming with yearning. Opener “Blues Run the Game” has become a standard. And how could it not with verses like this:

            Maybe tomorrow, honey
            Someplace down the line
            I’ll wake up older
            So much older, mama
            Wake up older
            And I’ll just stop all my trying

Damn, right? And the rest of the record ain’t half bad either. Frank’s influence runs wide and long, but soon after making the album he lost the thread and disappeared. After a stint sleeping on the streets of NYC, and then getting shot point blank in Queens which left him blind in his left eye, there was an attempt at a follow-up LP. Nothing but a few odds and ends came of the sessions. He died in 1999. I can’t imagine anyone listening to this record and thinking it a good time, but it is a breathtaking piece of work. Gloomy as hell, though.

IR: Beirut —  The Riptide

Zach Condon and company seem like the kind of cats who should take seven years between records; their song structure, attention to detail, and work ethic lends itself more to the latter-day over-achievement of Sufjan Stevens and Broken Social Scene.  And while I'm sure Beirut take their sweet old time, they are no way in the universe of, say, Kevin Shields or Axl Rose.  Beirut obviously spent the last year or so keeping their noses to the proverbial grindstone and the hard work yields a solid-if-not-quite-mind-blowing release in The Riptide.   With the familiar trumpets, euphoniums, clarinets and ukuleles—along with Condon's droll yet comforting voice— this should please listeners both old and new.  Whereas March of the Zapotec documented their evolution, The Riptide shows that the band is right where it wants to be, amidst washes of keyboard and pulsing piano to counter the eastern European musical cabal.  And I say that as someone who's easily spoiled by a group that doesn't greet underground success like a deer in headlights (see: Loveless) or, say, anchoring down a concept album with a Titanic-esque title that sounds like some xenophobic Michelle Bachmann rant (see: Chinese Democracy).  Yes, dear listeners, Beirut doesn't write checks their asses can't cash. 

CR: Richmond Fontaine — The Fitzgerald

This is a stepchild of Nebraska, a collection of song portraits, character pieces and monologues, hard luck tales from the destitute and unloved set to acoustic guitar and the occasional windy flourish. Willy Vlautin does not write happy tunes or toe-tappers, but even for him The Fitzgerald is pretty relentless in its worldview. The album doesn’t share the boisterous punky attitude of some of his previous work, nor does it display the polished grandiosity of later productions. This is the middle period. Here and on Winnemucca, Vlautin’s music is at its purest—laid back and emotional, literate without the need to play at intellectual gamesmanship. It’s the sort of record that you can imagine playing softly in the background of Capote’s In Cold Blood, a soundtrack for killers and victims alike.

IR: Youth Lagoon — The Year of Hibernation

Whereas countless burgeoning artists will fill your heart with promise and lead you on with lies, one gets the impression that Youth Lagoon is too busy with the emotional bloodletting to acknowledge that someone might actually be listening.  And this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Head Lagoon-y Trevor Powers has the affected voices thing down pat, with perfect little whispers and whimsical advice from loving mothers that should find a happy home within the toned bosom of every female yoga instructor from Squirrel Hill to the Southside.  The kid has clearly been getting his fill of early Bright Eyes while embracing the cold and mercurial aloofness of Sigur Rós.  (And it's apparent that I'm not the only one who actually liked Arcade Fire's The Suburbs.)  Sure, it gets cloying at times but Trevor shouldn't be chided for actually giving a shit about broken hearts and unfulfilled dreams.  A definite thumbs up from this old scoundrel.

Kristofer Collins thinks he knows something about pop music. He is wrong.
Kurt Garrison does things.