Tomorrow the Green Grass

If you’re not one of the 200+ going to the Jayhawks’ concert this Saturday, January 28th at the State Room in Salt Lake City, or one of the thousands attending the tour elsewhere around the nation, you probably didn’t listen extensively to their new CD, Mockingbird Time. The CD is the first with the original Jayhawks’ lineup in years, and Louris, Olsen and Co. held very little back. Filled with three-part harmonies and crunchy guitar riffs, you can’t help but tap your toe and sing along to tunes like High Water Blues or Cinnamon Love.
However, if you’re reading this, you probably have given Mockingbird Time many listens, and I am not paid to convince you to believe a CD is great if you already do. (Yeah. They don’t pay me). Instead, I’ll be spending some time on an older CD, and one that has not lost its flavor—indicated by the number of tracks the Jayhawks have been playing from it during their 2011-12 tour of MT.
If you are familiar with Tomorrow the Green Grass, you know how listenable the CD really is. Written in 1995, amid a huge rush of music, especially out of the Minnesota area, the Jayhawks proved they had what it took and became one of the forerunners of their genre. Mark Olsen and Gary Louris’s haunting harmonies on tunes like Blue, Miss Williams’ Guitar, and Red’s Song are known by every Jayhawks fan, and the cover Bad Time (originally done by Grand Funk Railroad) is known by virtually everyone above 20 and below 80 years of age. The upbeat, distinctive crunch that is Gary Louris’s SG isn’t missing either. Real Light has two featured solos, which Gary sticks to in his shows. Nothing Left to Borrow features great guitar melodies which turn into a seemingly mocking narrative sung by Olsen and Louris. All in all, the album remains one of the best in the genre to date. If you haven’t picked yourself a copy in the last 8 years, get one. It’s available on iTunes and Spotify. And if you’re in the Salt Lake area, you might get scalped and gouged, but you might get lucky and get into the show.
-Schiffmeister

Quadrophenia: The Real Me

There is music and then there is MUSIC.  Then within the MUSIC there is MUSIC MUSIC.  You know, the music that changes you, makes you think, takes you somewhere else, gives you tingles, makes you yell at everyone else in the car to shut their gobs because the best part of the song is coming up.  It is rare when we find that music and then feel like everyone in the world must partake in this wonderful secret that we found.  For me this CD was The Who’s, Quadrophenia.  Now when I’ve shown this CD to others it has received welcome reviews and nods, but never the shout it-from-the-mountain-tops acclaim that I give it.  I think the reason is the following story.

You see, I found Quadrophenia my sophomore year of high school.  Ahhhhh sophmore year.  If I were to make a coming of age/Wonder Years show it would just be about that year.  The discovery of Quadrophenia came hand-in-hand with my first break-up, a nasty experience for a darling 16 year old boy such as me.  I was angry and awkward all at the same time, trying to still be cool enough to get back the girl, but distant enough to make her ridiculously jealous so that she had to come crawling back to me.  A sure fire plan.  Needless to say I needed an outlet, and then Quadrophenia fell right into my little sixteen year old hands. 

My Uncle, who I will refer to as Stallion Cornell, and my father (Dr. Jimmy Senior) had both highly recommended Quadrophenia, but it was the big man, Santa, who came through for me.  That Christmas I listened to the story of a boy from Brighton who was weird, awkward, jealous, and just like me.  I felt like I was living Quadrophenia and was hooked.  The music sealed the deal. In my opinion The Who’s best work.  Songs like The Real Me, Bell Boy, and Sea and Sand rock.  I mean they really swing.  Keith Moon sounds like he’s having a drum seizure.  Others make you think – they grab you fast then suddenly stop and make you feel suspended in mid-song, like I’ve Had Enough and Cut My Hair.  Perhaps my favorite part of this record is that it is just that – a record.  I could never just listen to one song without listening to the whole album, the whole story.  Each member of the Who plays a different part in the story with a different theme, something that you just have to listen to in order to understand.  There are two instrumental tracks on the album, The Rock and Quadrophenia (the song).  These became my theme music, music that I wish could be played behind me at all times if possible.  Then after two CD’s of awesome music the story ends with Roger Daltrey screaming the lyrics to Love Reign O’er Me whilst the pitter patter of rain sounds in the background.  Then that’s it.  The journey is over.  Welcome to the new world. 

I still listen to Quadrophenia after every break up.  I think it’s a nostalgic thing.  It changed music for me and a little bit about how I view life.  But don’t take my word for it (Cue “Reading Rainbow” music).

-Dr. Jimmy

The Death of the Album

There are many reasons to fear for the future of music (or even its present state).  In large part I find the radio to blame.  The radio picks its heroes to play over and over again, unrelentingly bombarding the public with the same10 hits for 6 months straight before changing their lineup.  Dance music is the focus of the day.  Now don’t get me wrong, dance music has its place and purpose.  I like a good electronica tune as much as the next hipster.  However, when I hear anything by LMFAO outside of a club or house party, I cringe.  It’s like listening to self-improvement tapes while pulling into a McDonalds.  It’s obviously being misused.  

Now, leaving dance music to run its course, I find the more alarming trend in radio is the death of the album.  How many times have you picked up an [enter apple product name] and found a list of artists that only have one or two songs a piece?  Let me give you a for instance.  I was on a road trip with a friend who had his iPod plugged into the car.  As the sole heir to the shotgun seat I took control of the iPod.  I would scroll down till I found an artist I liked (My Morning Jacket, Death Cab for Cutie, Cake, etc.) and would find they had their one or two hits and no other songs.  This is only one example of a trend I’ve seen with most people my age.  

Now I understand not everyone is as fanatical about music as I am.  I don’t expect others to have the discography of the Beatles ready to go at a moments notice (though I highly recommend it) but what worries me is people aren’t even given the chance to hear the rest of the album.  I’m not the biggest Coldplay fan (by a long shot) and yet I heard the same 2 songs from Viva la Vida nearly everyday on one radio station or another for months on end.  Now, maybe that was a great album, maybe not.  Irrelevant.  What’s important is that I would have never heard any other song off that album if I didn’t take the initiative to go listen to the whole album.  So few people ever bother to listen to the rest of the album thereby missing out on some great music.  This is such a shame to me since we live in a day when it’s so easy to listen to a whole album before ever having to spend money on it.  We have Grooveshark, Spotify, NPR First Listen, and sometimes the artists themselves post the album to try out.  And yet, so many are content to hear what the radio spoon-feeds us, never knowing there are songs we may even like more than the single.  

When Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was release in 1967 the Beatles didn’t send a single out before-hand.  This was a big deal at the time since the trend of the day was to have a single play on the radio to get listeners excited about the album and then they would go out and buy it.  When Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band came out  there was no single for the DJ’s to play so many of them simply played the whole album.  Awesome.  And not so surprisingly, it is now considered the greatest rock album of all time.  That doesn’t happen anymore.  Heck, most groups nowadays can do a worldwide tour on the fame of a single alone.  Big artists aren’t nearly as worried about making an album as they are about getting a single grossly over-played in order to boost their ticket sales.  I don’t blame the artists mind you, it’s just the way things are now.

My friends, what I ask is not that we boycott the radio or occupy X 96.3.  The radio will do what it has to in order to stay on the air.  I respect that.  All I ask is that when we hear an song we like, that we look up the album and try it out.  The majority of the time we won’t end up buying the album because it sucks.  Sometimes a great single is a stroke of genius from an otherwise mediocre band.  Don’t buy an album just to get the single in these cases.  That’s why we have iTunes.  I wouldn’t blame anyone for getting the singles from Fastball and not buy the whole album.  But at least listen to the album.  

The Eels : Elctroshock Blues

I frequent a little record shop called "Graywhale".  It is my equivalent to Norm from "Cheers" I suppose, except no one actually shouts my name when I walk into the store.  The trouble for me is that there is so many CD's and so little money that is currently residing in my bank account (that is until that estranged Nigerian princess makes good on her word once her father's back in power).  Recently I made a trek there to browse/peruse the aisles as usual and stumbled across a CD that I had been looking for quite some time.  Perhaps a small back story first to explain.
When I was about 16 my friends and I playing music together because a new bass player moved into our neighborhood.  He was big into punk (leather boots, patched jean jackets, etc, etc) and opened my eyes to a lot of new music.  Most of the punk stuff I never really latched onto, but some of the other ones developed to be some of my favorite stuff to listen to on my practically vacant ipod at the time.  One of those was a song by the band the "Eels" named "Last Stop: This Town".  I had always wanted the CD that it came on, but had never come across it until last Tuesday.
As I paid for my newly acquired CD entitled "Electroshock Blues" the cashier decided to give me the low down on this CD.  He was a burly man with a large beard and smelling slightly of a species of cannibas.  AKA your average Graywhale employee, who I will now refer to as Brucie.  Brucie told me that the CD was written after the lead singer and songwriter's sister died and his mother was diagnosed with cancer.  Brucie informed me that this CD is amazing and even in his top 5 CD's of all time.  Of all time Brucie?  Really?  Alright you have my attention.  Brucie's last words as I left the store were "Don't go skipping around on that record okay!?  You listen to all of it all the way through!".  Deal.
For the record I like this CD.  I really do.  Top 5 worthy, no, but definitely worth a listen.  It struck me originally as if Sufjan Stevens was singing at a funeral.  The songs are about sad things, but many of them have awesome music backing them up.  The songs are catchy, my favorites being  "3 Speed", "Climbing to the Moon", and "The Medication is Wearing Off".  The singer Mark Oliver Everett (known as "E" apparently) doesn't really sing necessarily.  He kind of sing-speaks, a new word I'm trying out.  There are no guitar solos or drum fills, yet the guitar is catchy and the drums are clean.  That being said there songs that I can't get behind.  The auto-harp song "Dead of Winter" feels like you are watching thick molasses drip from the bottle or ice melt and "Baby Genius" is a little too ambient for me, but luckily they are both stuck in between other good songs so the actual flow of the CD isn't really disrupted, just slowed down.
Overall my rating of this CD is: Tasty.  Tasty licks and material.  Recommended for light listening and "Dead of Winter" is recommended for narcolepsy.

Dr. Jimmy.

In the beginning there was blog.

This is the beginning.  My friends and I have been told we should keep a blog.  Perhaps it is the fact that I can't read "Rolling Stone" any more because nothing is good enough anymore (every CD made is now 3.5 or 4 stars aka lukewarm), or maybe it is the fact that we can't walk into a record store without our faces lighting up like Charlie Bucket eating a Scrumdidileeuptious Wonka Bar, but I have decided to try it. 
For the most part this will be new music that we come into contact with that the general populace should be warned about or informed about.  There will also be reviews regarding personal favorites and hidden gems of the musical universe.  Once we reach world wide popularity we will also take requests, but one conquest at a time.  We are like the Huns in that fashion.
Feedback is more than encouraged, we want to know what the people like. 
A few ground rules need be set before the battle begins -
1) No swearing.  We are unlike the Huns in that fashion.
2) No hits to the groin.
3) If you defend Nickelback I will hit you in the groin.
Go.