Is "Ponta De Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma)" really about where slaves
arrived in Brazil? Or did I just expand a mental legend over the
years, trying to explain and contain the unsettling, unsettled poise
and expanse of Jorge Ben's rolling, grinding samba soul classic?
Literally, it's about soccer, but the key line "um ponta de lan a
Africano" doesn't match the title ("Point of the African Lance",
ouch!), and the line's translation---"an African point man" (also "Um
ponta de lan a decidio", " A man whose mind is made up")—is pretty
pointed too. Word to Brazil's 60s junta, and to its polite society,
which has long tended to insist that Brazilians aren't hung up on
race. But it sounds like big Ben's got all of the above and something
else on his mind, that he's listening to, listening for. Sounds like
he's still listening.
The restless example of Ben (who could have played it safe, with
respectably salt-of-the-earth pop star status established early)
further schooled Beleza Tropical, the reputation-making debut release
on Luaka Bop, the New York City label founded by David Byrne in 1988
Beleza… arrived like a ship from post-bossa nova Brazil, mostly filled
with discreetly fabulous and accomplished descendants of the
tale-telling, refugee gamesters in Boccaccio's Decameron. The crew of
Beleza… can mostly be ID'd as members and fellow travelers of the '60s
Tropicalia movement, who had been exiled or isolated because of
cultural activities that the junta found excessively international,
frivolous and otherwise weird. They grew up, in no small measure by
sharpening their wits while whetting their appetites. Intelligent
pleasure heads can learn, don't have to burn just yet. That was
Boccaccio's word to his plague- and power- (incl. pietism) ravaged
age, and maybe Byrne's word to the somewhat similar '80s. But you
could also say that both were savvy children of their ages'
enterprising spirit. Byrne also seems related to Chaucer, a fan of
Boccaccio, when, at its best, Luaka Bop's signature sound pipe-dreams
a cannily recycled/extended Canterbury Tales, bringing the Decameron's
isolated yarn-spinners onto the magical mercantile Yellow Brick Road,
the beginning of the world as we know it.
So, with that non-absolutist, live-and-let-earn sentiment in mind,
it's perfectly imperfectly okay that Ben's massively credible "Ponta…"
point man kicks off Luaka Bop's 15-track celebratory retrospective,
Twenty First Century Twenty First Year, by landing re-fine-tuned ears
on the mega-hyped, funk-lite balcony that Shuggie Otis built. Luaka
Bop meant to demonstrate that resurrection was for Americans too, so
Otis's 1974-recorded Inspiration Information was rescued from
collectors-only obscurity, and the bargain bin, and record show
prices. Anyone could slip on the listening bar's headphones, and dig
how Otis played all the instruments in his nice niche, just so his
shaky little voice could go "Aht Uh Mi Hed," as Twenty First Century's
second track's new third life still tells the tale. He's leaning far
out into purple keyboard clouds of what should be ease, but with a bee
in his bonnet. He's listening to it, wanting something more.
By "more," Shuggie might not have in mind "Fuzzy Freaky", by
David Byrne (who has now departed LB). As placed here by compiler
Justin Carter, it must be especially harrowing for those who thought
Byrne would make Luaka Bop just successful enough to fatally
misrepresent the artists he re-issued, reducing them to warm 'n' fuzzy
li'l furriners--and/or Tee-Headsy, novelty nibbles around the edges of
edginess.(He reportedly named his label for a Sri Lankan tea, Luaka
Black Orange Pekoe; its own label was made to fold into "BOP", like
so. The quaint horror, the quaint horror!) In this proud parody of
Heads-era Byrne's fly-eyed, jittery white guy persona, the guy learns
to dance, in a truly foreign/alien way, and celebrates with a lithe,
blithe self-nibble ("It's my body, and I'll eat it too"). Simmer down
now!
The gently avid grazing sounds of the Byrne thing recall LB's
recent collection of tracks by Brazilian teen prodigy Yonlu, who made
music on his computer, with some acoustic instruments and local
environmental stuff mixed in. He posted his process for several years,
building up quite an online fanbase, before committing suicide, in a
forum. There's an undertone of sadness, eventually foregrounded, in
short but roomy, mostly-instrumental early tracks.Despite this, and
even despite the title, (added by whomever), A Society In Which No
Tear Is Shed, he seemsno more morbid than many an adolescent. Sound's
spare vs. sparse, to some extent, though he can sing like Veloso, and
the last track def. lives up to some listeners' Nick Drake
comparisons, as a tiny craft cruises the top end of twilight,
gracefully. The insular dedication here, of artist and producers,
carefully bring Yonlu's musical mobiles from where he left them, with
no gratuitous portents of presentation. Judging from this, it seems
that Yonlu always did share the overall LB aesthetic, of obsessive
work, times pleasure/relief/release/respite-seeking, with and in the
outer world of sound, as much as could be stood.
Marcio Local spends more time in that outer world, where he's
laying back on a moving fender, while delivering "Samba Sem Nenhum
Problema"("Samba With No Problem") to Twenty First
Century….Ironically, considering its truthful tag, it's arriving from
his excellent but tiresomely-titled new set, Marcio Local Says Don Day
Don Dree Don Don. But that labored label kinda signifies too, insofar
as the Local lad is listening hard to his reverie of how Ben-style
samba soul should be, this very afternoon. Listening 'til he hears his
cue, somewhere in the drum corps, Stax riffing horns, 'shroom clouds
of percussion, guitar, etc Then he yelps an acrobatic riff, from way
back behind the afternoon parade across his mirror shades, as he
darts through the traffic again. He's timing it so he won't get run
over (upstaged) by the very ongoing tradition getting a re-charge in
his own song. And indeed, Local's afterbuzz holds its own even as
Venezuelan boogie knights Los Amigos Invisibles, Cuban jazz salts
Irakere, and vintage African funk's Moussa Doumbia successively
possess the rare-groovological students' graduation procession of
self-expression. (Also new on LB: Los Amigos' Commercial scores big,
after first quarter's foreplay fumbles.)
(An unlisted, and oddly wobbly, off-brand, "Heart of Glass," by
Nouvelle Vague, drops ears off in "Valentin", Susana Baca's tensely
glistening Afro-Peruvian ballad, which is already
attracting/distracting a traveler who's arrived bearing a big stick.
Keep listening, follow the other guest via translated lyrics on the
label site, but don't turn around.)
Twenty First also flashes several mesmerizing songs about tuning
(and perhaps turning) into your car. American Steely-Police heads
Geggy Tah are eternally ecstatic about changing lanes, while merging
with the radio. (It worked! "Whover You Are" was Luaka Bop's biggest,
least-obviously-recognizable-as LB-product, mid-'90s micro-hit!) Jim
White, who was all about driving cabs 'til Luaka Bop called him back
to the grooveways of recordland, also settles deeply into "Static On
The Radio", cruising through the lilting, twanging shadow of all
doubts. He keeps murmuring, "Ah know…", and that trailing off is the
cue for his fare, guest ghost Aimee Mann, to resume
elaborating/decomposing her zombie-chant refrain.
All such slipstream profiles disappear with the rainlight, as
attention (having stepped through Tom Ze's "Defect: Curiosidade", a
speculative windshield patiently hovering over this Tropicalista
Prospero's upriver junkyard island) is face to face with the sunny,
free-style smile of Os Mutantes' Rita Lee, singing "Baby" in 1970, and
at the close of this set. When she exclaims, "We live in the biggest
city, of South America!", every tunneling music geek in the world
sees the light, just as she leads the way out of the shiny, shivery
frame that Luaka Bop can't help trying to save/re-re-issue her in.
"Look here…look what I wrote on my shirt." Yeah babe. Byrne on! ¶ 7/12/2009 0 comments
http://koganbot.livejournal.com/148701
And what he wrote a few years back ("The Man In The Distance")
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0148,kogan,30266,30266,22.html
People of the future: Voice links change, so you may have to search
on their site. ¶ 6/26/2009 0 comments
for Chinese currency, which makes our maxxed-out world go 'round (so far).
Appropriately, on Renminbi's first full-length
album,"The Phoenix," voices and lyrics are distant distress signals,
carried along by the melodic sweep, swoop, and crash of guitar, drums,
and synthesizer (no bass guitar needed, not with the incisive shadings
of SMV's keyboards). About half the tracks are instrumentals, but they
all bring the sound of your strongest doubts, faintest beliefs, and
vice-versa, into a butt-thumping, well-timed (though obsessive)
post-punk workout. don allred ¶ 9/16/2008 0 comments
greetings, Fellow Earthlings!
Just two weeks ago I myself surfaced here:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/travel/03surfacing.html
The 6-hour trip from Brussels on the "Train of Great Speed" passes
through the God-Part of Lion and X-in-the-Province (I'm translating
here for your convenience) before it reaches its final destination.
As cities go, Marseille is delightfully BRUTAL: in terms of port-town
grunginess, parts are way beyond Rotterdam and Antwerp, falling
somewhere between Thessaloniki and the west side docks of Manhattan.
Even the women speak French with a kind of tough-guy accent. When I'd
mentioned to various people that I'd be going to Marseille, a couple
of them reacted as though I'd said I was going to vacation in Newark.
Now I know why.
The guidebooks and newspapers and travel websites call it "France's
most cosmopolitan city". The adjective is a code-word, however: Paris
is obviously the most cosmopolitan. What Marseille is, is the most
racially integrated. On the one hand, some tell me that the North
Africans there are mostly Algerians (unlike Brussels, where most of
the North Africans are Moroccan Berbers which, strictly speaking, even
makes them non-Arabs). On the other hand, I've also heard and surmised
that in Marseille they seem to have come from all over -- Algeria,
Morocco, Tunisia, also Egypt, and also some Lebanese (who no doubt
feel some affinity, since the place was supposedly first settled by
the Phoenicians 2600 years ago) -- basically, everywhere around the
Mediterranean where the French had some kind of colonial presence.
But mention must be made of the Greeks in all this, since they were
the ones responsible for the expansion from a trading post to an
actual port and the actual planning of the city: this accounts for
the presence of Greek surnames among families in Marseille to this
day, some traceable back to the original settlers, and it also
accounts for my feeling uncanny similarities between some of the
dodgier hillside neighborhoods in Marseille and the working-class
residential quarters up the hill from the port in Thessaloniki.
Since the Arabs began arriving not long after World War II, even
before Algerian independence, most of those now in Marseille are
totally assimilated -- which in France also means impeccably groomed
and dressed. It's somewhat startling, like the Arab version of being
in a Texas town where half the population looks like Alberto Gonzalez
and Jennifer Lopez.
Also, rather fewer Africans in Marseille than I expected. In Brussels
they're mostly Congolese, whereas I got a sense that in Marseille most
come from Senegal.
By the morning of Day 2, I already caught on to the HUGE number of
mixed-race couples: Arabs with Europeans, Europeans with Blacks, Arabs
with Blacks. It got to a point where I would see an ethnically mixed
couple with a stroller approaching and I'd try to guess what their kid
would look like. Ergo, the ethnic mix that Marseille is currently
undergoing must be like that of New Orleans and the Caribbean two
centuries ago.
The food is a chapter unto itself. It lived up to one's expectations
of being in France, but you do have to seek out the right stuff. I
spent a huge part of Sunday afternoon and part of Sunday evening
wandering (and lounging) around the Cours Julien neighborhood
highlighted in the NYTimes article, and damn if I could find a place
that was open on a Sunday, not closed for vacation, with a cook on the
premises.
I had bouilliabaise twice. The first encounter was in a tourist-trap
restaurant where what they served up bore as much resemblance to the
real thing as a platinum-wigged transvestite hooker does to Marilyn
Monroe. The second time I dropped by a place patronized by locals one
generation older than me. The bleached-blonde MILF Arab waitress
cheerfully read the description of the joint in my copy of the Lonely
Planet, yelled out the gist of it to the cook in back, who approved,
and then in order to recommend other places for bouilliabaise she
quickly marked at least 8 other addresses in the gastronomical section
of my guidebook. And if what they treated me to was merely their
everyday run-of-the-mill offering, I'd love to return some evening
with three other people and order up a big batch with at least 7
varieties of fish and shellfish.
HUGE percentage of assimilated-Arab staff in Marseille restaurants of
all classes. It's funny to walk into a place, inquire as to the plat
du jour, and have a flawlessly clad, steamy-sexy Arab woman make
unfaltering eye contact with you and enumerate the specials of the day
and their most notable ingredients in perfectly enunciated French and
a tone of steely utter seriousness. When it comes to food in France,
there's no room for kidding around.
As tourists in other places, the French have acquired a pretty bad
rep. I recently saw an article reporting the results of a French-run
poll for some travel publication, and they were the most consistently
disliked by other countries when they're tourists there. HOWEVER: in
the course of a couple days, I figured out why:
After my experiences in Central and Eastern Europe, and the sullen,
indolent indifference usually demonstrated by Belgian service
personnel, in Marseille I was amazed. The sudden shift in diet
(morning espresso instead of tea, very few dairy products, etc)
necessitated some unscheduled trips to the loo, and on several
occasions people let me use their WC even when it was clear that I
wasn't going to be a paying customer. (Of course, using a public
toilet in France is an adventure in itself, but never mind.) I walked
into a pharmacy because I needed to check a phone number & address,
and the woman behind the counter retrieved their phone directory from
the back with no complaint -- whereas in other countries, the staff
would huffily claim that they don't have one and send you on your way.
And therefore, when they go abroad, the French probably (quite
reasonably) expect service personnel to be equally accommodating and
efficient.
If you're ever there, pray that it's not a summer day when the fog
accumulated overnight just hangs over the city: worse than mere
mugginess, it's essentially a fetid, airborne mix of mildew and algae.
Every city in Europe has its characteristic odor that's at its worst
in the summer; Marseille's is like a tropical shower stall or hammam
that hasn't been cleaned for three weeks. But when it does clear, the
sea air is most salubrious. You can get a sense of all the balmy
gemutlichkeit by having a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseille
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marseille
And in conclusion, some literary notes:
I wish to set the record straight: recently, when I identified various
influences on my GASTRONOMICAL HAIKU and cited GEORGES BATAILLE, I did
*not* have in mind the early 20th-century
surrealist-socialist-pervert, but rather the well-known contemporary
traiteur in Marseille who is mentioned on these webpages, par exemple:
http://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/em/casebouffepas/index.php?id=28960
On my next trip to Marseille, I will be going with the stated purpose
of researching a potential remix-remake-remodel of this story:
http://www.wbenjamin.org/story.html
Finally, if any French Symbolist poet were to ever try to claim that
Marseille is a great place to die, the guy wouldn't have a leg to
stand on. ;)
Mark Sinker respondez:
I *love* Marseille -- it's the most exciting city I've ever been in
(admittedly I was travelling with the most exciting woman I know, back when
she wasn't safely coupled up with a er er very sweet young fellow boo bah).
You can feel the crackle of 2500 years of negotiating the multi-cultural
shove and pushback, and the physical geography reflect it: it's a big bowl
of a place, the twoerblocks marching off up the semi-distant mountains, with
knobs of volcanic rock punching up through the plain, every single on built
on for centuries, AND the whole lot riddled beneath with a crumbling
rats-maze of catacombs. Vick tried to by a house there -- the first someone
said to her, "This is house is TAKEN" very meaninfully (meaning gangsters
were kindly letting her know she should look elsewhere); the first the town
surveyor said "Well, it's a lovely house, but it could fall thorugh the
crust of this rise into the underground Roman ruins AT ANY MINUTE, so I
can't approve the pruchase)
. Frank Kogan adds (in response to M. Le F.'s PS:
I thought of you when I looked at the NYTimes site this morning and saw
this:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/travel/10Hours.html )
"Be grateful that about the only species not represented in the form of
taxidermy on the walls (or the menu) of Buckhorn Exchange, billed as Denver's
oldest restaurant, is the donkey (1000 Osage Street; 303-534-9505;
www.buckhornexchange.com). Here, steak can be ordered by the pound, about
$45 per."
My friend Mara works there! (But I've never been to the place, my weekly
food budget itself being about $45.)
As the article itself demonstrates, tourist offerings in the city are pretty
slim. Most tourists who come through here are on their way to the Rockies.
Good zoo and good botanical gardens, however. And the baseball stadium is
thought of highly, though I've never been in it.
Also, of the four cities I've lived in (Rome, New York, and San Francisco
being the other three), Denver is by far the least integrated.
I read a NY Times article six months or so ago about ethnic relations in
Marseille, the thesis of the article being that civic leaders there make
ethnic understanding and peace a high priority, and have been by and large
successful.
:
¶ 8/11/2008 0 comments
Town is indeed movin' slow as Uncle Joe at the station. And too much
so. At times. It seems. But. Then. There. Is. This:
The infernal night wind of "Skull Sock And Rope Shoes" bumps hanging
gardens against the ziggaraut, as if demanding entrance to the sealed
heart of mercy; and the desert is so dry it comes walking like a man
into the city of storms, seeking a drop this golem can actually feel;
though chiromancers rain lightning, still he sways! Til falls through
the white light of Milk--and is reborn as "Motown," tip-toeing,
stomping wine from the decline of the mighty Mississip'--no lie, this
is Southern Rock 2008 A.D., the great Southern migration to and from
Motor Murder City and thus(bobbing up in the wake of "We Destroy The
Family") kinda sweet: "So I'm almost growwwn, and I mus' sleep
aloooone"--cast from thee bosom of thy family? Hold fast bwah, it's
only forever! don allred
Alfred Reed. I'd heard a few of his own tracks, like on Harry Smith's
Smithsonian Anthology Of American Folk Music, and mainly remembered
them as quaintly charming, in a preachy way. But the A-List Nashville
cats (several of whom have played on Dylan's Nashville sets, as far
back as Blonde On Blonde) and Public Radio/folkie-circuit mainstays
start right out kidding the moralism, honestly commenting (rather than
pretending to share his strictures), and really they're honoring the
songs with that response, and also by bringing out , rather than
injecting, the catchier, blues-rag-para-vaudville implications. Reed
knew he had to compete with Jimmy Rodgers, after all, balancing
between different audience factions' concerns with authenticity and
pop (Ry Cooder's liner notes provide some background, and although
Cooder himself doesn't play on this, Nat Reese's guitar grind, slip
and grind on "Black And Blue Blues" reminds me of what young Ry
brought to Captain Beefheart's blues, as the surreal, thump 'n' shift
of the words' impact also preceeds Beefheart). Some artists do play
the piety dead serious; most effective is Larry Groce's electric "You
Must Unload," which what Slow Train Comin'-era Dylan was going for
(this is more succinct: dropping that load is what you got a trapdoor
for). Connie Smith and Marty Stuart keep the mountains and the tears
rippling along too, Kathy Mattea does things with pills and sugar, and
the Carpenter Ants bear it way—doesn't always work, but even the
lesser stuff moves on eventually, as all things must (Oh yeah, and
"The Telephone Girl" is an ancestor of Internet angels, and Ann
Magnuson overdubs herself into a Lily Tomlinesque, deadpan-twangin'
missionary chorus line on "Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls"—and like I
said, Blind Alfred folded in whatever earthly entertainment value
would get him and his message in the door—like some of my ancestors
were a girl gospel quartet/acrobatics team, in that same time and
space) (On Proper American, fittingly enough.)
Another wayfaring homeboy, Ed Sanders, has recently 'llowed Collectors
Choice Music to recycle Sanders' Truckstop and Beer Cans On The Moon.
The first, from 1970, is usually described as hippie parodies of
country folk, but Sanders was from Oklahoma before the Lower East
Side, and it's more the banana-peel ass-speck of all human existence
that he celebrates and commiserates with here. "Jimmy Joe, The
Hippybilly Boy" won't leave them hills of OK cuz he loves 'em, he's
the peacenik side of Ed (goes back to save one drowning soul too many,
gets his groovy long hair wrapped around the rear-view mirror) while
the illin' Johnny Pissoff of "The Illiad" is a bloody-minded Ed that
mighta been if he'd stayed in the sticks, isolated and righteous.
Really it's about 1969/1970, the napalm and other smog that blurs
roles, and leaves several horny wraiths waltzing through the crash
pads and round the mountain, with "Banshee," "Breadtray Mountain,"
"Homesick Blues" and "They're Cutting My Coffin At The Sawmill"
particulary worthy of the Holy Modal Rounders, others more like
Working Man's Dead, though Deadpan Ed should have gone for more takes on some
of the vocals (according to Richie Unterberger, who provides extensive
notes, including quotes from unfavorable reviews, in the booklets of
both CDs, Sanders' Truck Stop employs drummer/sometime pianist John
Ware and bassist John Ware, both from Linda Ronstadt's band, when
she'd left the Stone Ponys but was still promoting that hit version of
Michael Nesmith's "Different Drum," and these same guys soon joined
Nesmith's First National Band; plus, David Bromberg, Patrick Sky, Jay
Unger, "and, on steel guitar and banjo, Bill Keith, who'd been in
Bill Monroe's group and Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band, " but a pretty
lean, flexible sound). Beer Cans On The Moon came out in 1972, and is more
topical at times, but resists datedness with all sorts of little
twists in the vocals, words, tunes, and arrangements (music is more
varied, and includes a guy from Woody Herman's band, as well as Jake
Jacobs, who had played on some Fugs tracks; his own band, Jake & The
Family Jewels, released The Big Moose Calls His Baby Sweet Lorraine,
with a sweet, croony cover of "When Will I Believed" which I was
floating through 'til Cannonball Ronstadt's version blasted me towards
taking refuge with Patti Smith and Television's early work. Just as
well, it was time to wake up and move on, I guess? ).Meanwhile, back
on Beer Cans, the split between idealism and satire is more apparent
now, also its entanglement, esp. when Ed wishes everyone a "Six-pack
of Sunshine" while beating his head against a wall (but also spouting
some lovely lines), and sitting "in a geodesic honky-tonk"on the title
track, right about the time the whole universe is turning into the poor side o' town.
"Yodeling Robot" 's electric autoharp bounces like particles, while
trad. country's keep-a-goin' formalism is honored by said robot,
hopelessly but stoically in love with Dolly Parton, 'cos "I-yern eyes,
can-not cry." "Henry Kissinger" sounds like the Irish
alderman/slumlord on that album I reviewed in Voice last year,
McNally's Row Of Flats. "Albion Craigs" is a funky
almost-gospel-reggae setting for William Blake. It's all Ed, for sure
(Not Pavoratti, not Dylan, and not the Fugs, but the kinda good when
it's good that you can't get anywhere else, given the quantity and quality of country-punkoid Ed herein--
unless it's on for
instance the countrier tracks on the Fugs' The Belle Of Avenue A,
which I haven't heard). Don Allred ¶ 4/04/2008 0 comments
overplaying the waif card here, even though this probably her most
romantic album, her most truly atmospheric, because in order to have
an atmosphere, you gotta have gravity, from the right substance in the
spin. Every time the music starts, her voice first reaches me as a dry
ice smoke ring 'round the moon, over the shining spine of historee
(great and good old and newer songs coming together, and coming up in
just a minute) with a vivid poise that keeps her from sounding too
earnest: it's just the right, sensuous sound (especially as it moves
through her musical companions' reverb, echo and grooves) for her
cosmic quest, for romantic and spiritual fulfillment. ( Janis Joplin
answered, when asked what Today's Youth are looking for: "Sincerity,
and a good time." Hey hay hey.) The confidence as well as
sensitivity—so of course "New York New York," with just a simple
adjustment of its seatbelt, should have this tensile lope and sway,
backbeating right past Radio City rinky-tink, with ingenue still in
tow/charge. She's totally at home with the Dirty Dozen Blues Band,
especially drummer Jim White, of the Dirty Three and recent,
noteworthy collabs with Nina Natashia; Judah Bauer of the Jon Spencer
Blues Explosion(! But he does not play no fratblooze here) is also
aboard (with Eric Papparozzi on bass and Greg Foreman's keyboards),
but this little combo is less like a blues band is usually expected to
be, more like rockers who have learned much from the Hi Rhythm
Section, in terms of taut, spare punctuation and momentum, fitting
Chan Marshall's vibrant reveries perfectly (the one time she holds
back a bit, seemingly getting lost, on "A Woman Left Lonely,"
Foreman's electric piano tremolo gets more emphatic, rallying her,
appropriately for a song about a woman who's coming back from
rejection). The sequence of tracks is very effective: after "New York
New York," Hank Williams' "Ramblin Man" is recast as "Ramblin' Woman,"
and the original's melodramatic, spooked compulsion is tempered by a
certain expansiveness: she knows this kind of journey is where she's
meant to be, not that it doesn't matter who and what she finds. A new
version of her "Metal Heart" follows, with a confrontation, a note to
self and other, that steadfastness , mettle and "metal" is in the
sound, not heavy metal, but the electricity moving through natural
elements, 20th Century engine-uity revving up again in these old
songs, which sound as timely as ever. The sleek, starlit,
meta-metal's also there in Lee Clayton's "Silver Stallion" which
practical-minded Cowgirl Chan leads from mythology or decoration, out
into her own prospects, and "Aretha" is wistfully, unpretentiously
invoked, to re-inspire her lover and herself, also (as repeated
listenings reward), I think of this as prefiguring later songs, as I
relate it to Dylan's line from Tarantuala, "Aretha, crystal jukebox
queen (the album's title from this?), I shall play you as my trump
card." I think of that because I know she'll reach Dylan's own "I
Believe In You," with Bauer accentuating the Stonesy riff with which
Dylan foresaw "Start Me Up," and White's drum leaps develop a hip hop
cast, kicking off the mud of a town through which one proud outcast
searches for another. Marshall's own "Song For Bobby, " reminiscing
about various near-misses with the Master, could easily be gushy, but
she's even too grown-up for that now. She strikingly connects
Dylanesque phrasing to Billie Holiday's, on the latter's "Hush Now
(Don't Explain)," reminding me of D. 's description of his later songs
as "overlapping phrases on an electrical grid," the overlapping of
expression and reticence, austerity and warmth in the shadows. Which
is also where the hope and fear meet in, Jessie May Hemphill's "Lord
Help," just as "We're all reborn, to face the morning sun." Uh, and so
on, with some surprises: I didn't even recognize Joni Mitchell's
passive-aggressive self-pity/guilt-tripping you-dumped-me classic,
"Blue," at first, cos Chan doesn't imitate her at all! Not even in
this age of girly-swirly chamber folk, not at all (and the band's just
bumpin' at the walls of the break-up, you know it'll all work out as
it should or will). This girl is a woman now! (But not too scary with
it.) ------Don Allred ¶ 3/10/2008 0 comments
