BLONDE ON BLONDE

There are days that I wish that my car windows were tinted so dark that no one could peer inside.  You see.  It’s just that. My car is my sanctuary. It’s the first place that I get to road test and familiarize myself with new artists, songs, albums, etc.  And more importantly it is the most likely place that I can be found gushing like a little girl, fist pumping the steering wheel in time with a kick drum, or shredding my vocal chords as I sing along to the music that corrals my sanity.  I may just be a little weird when it comes to this.  It’s almost as if I experience the emotion and feeling of the music that then exits my body in a Joe Cocker like spaz-out whilst in traffic.  I go through a stigmatism weekly, except no marks are left on my wrist or in my side.  I merely bring this up not because I totally want to let you behind the curtain but because on Easter Sunday Reese, Gentle John, and myself were three of very few audience members at Madison’s Café Montmarte to witness Strand of Oaks pour his heart out in song. 

On this night, Timothy Showalter’s words and voice, pregnant with what might be the most emotion ever put to music, hung in the balance and lingered in the air long after the last note was played. During his set he told brief and comical stories to momentarily move away from the loaded content of his lyrics, like when he joked about the night’s previous performance in his hometown where he nervously played “Sister Evangeline,” a song about a failed relationship that yielded a child and a broken heart, in front of his grandmother.  Joined on stage only by the rhythm guitar work and hushed vocal echoing of his cousin, Tim glided through the majority of his first album, Leave Ruin, with a delicate and focused nature that was more than fitting as an Easter night cap.  The live version of “Dogs of War,” stripped down and bathing in its naked truths, instantly became my favorite song of his. Very soon after, similar qualities that brim from “Two Kids” returned it to its place as number one.  A back and forth battle similar to this goes on nearly every time I push play, usually ending with a different answer each listen. The autographically tragic “End in Flames,” closed the book on the set and we three music lovers were to finish our pints and head back to Milwaukee.  Only we didn’t…

While the rest of Madison slumbered and prepared to return to classes the next morning, Ryan from Muzzleofbees introduced Tim to Capital Brewery’s Mai Bock as we all talked about music, politics, the Midwest, and the probability of Huey Lewis & the News playing a basement show in a small town.  We got to know each other as much as we could in the short few hours that we spent together.  The only reason I bring this up is because of how it relates to the first paragraph.

To say Leave Ruin moves me is a bit of an understatement (see earlier post titled Music for the Harvest).  The electrical charge given off by it is enormous and has affected me since my first listen.  But I found that when I listened to track five, “New Paris,” a song purposely omitted on Easter for personal reasons on Easter, on my way to work more than a week after that glorious night, I felt my eyes begin to moisten in their corners.  And as the song built up steam and the tempo increased, I began to bob my head and stomp my feet on the floor mats as my Mazda crawled past Miller Park.  Surely onlookers may have thought I was nuts but the choice to flail that way was not my own.  The music owned me in a way that it might not have ever owned me before. 

Tip: If a band or artist that is gaining momentum or popularity but is still relatively small is playing in your area, you go.  Each and every time you go.  Because maybe, just maybe, you will amass a connection to the music that you never thought possible.  Or, maybe you’ll have a horrible time that will go down as the most forgettable night of your life.  But believe me, the small entry fee is always worth the gamble!

When it was announced that Wilco would play two nights in Milwaukee to open their 2009 tour, excited doesn’t even begin describe the feelings that flooded my veins. To add to that indescribable elation, the magnificent and intimately small Pabst Theater would play host.  

Now to some there might need to be some sort of decision to be made.  Which night works best? Which night will they be more likely to “bring it”? Those questions and possible others never crossed my mind.  It was a no brainer. I wouldn’t even need to ask permission for this one. It’s Wilco. It’s Milwaukee. It’s the Pabst Theater. It’s my destiny.

Words to live by:  If a band that you like is coming to town for multiple nights, you go EVERY night. The sets will be different, the crowd will be different, and most importantly, the energy will be different.  I mean, who really wants to hear that the show that they didn’t go to was a way bigger shit kicker than the one that they did go to? Or that some rarity that has seldom been played, was, and will be now locked in the memories of those fans and those fans only because it will never be played again after that night.  These are all instances that are based on “what ifs”. And in these economic times, I’m sure that it’s hard to spend hard earned money on “what ifs”.  But if you’re me, you take the chance.  

I’ll spare you the long story about the difficulty of getting tickets and all that, ((if you want to know, leave a comment and I’ll respond) psssh)) but we managed to get both nights and we couldn’t wait. My friends and I went to our usual pre game eatery, Comet, for $1 Old Styles, soups, and sandwiches.  Anticipation mounted as the swill settled.

 Without going into a song-by-song, show by show analysis, I would have to say that both nights were quite lovely.  The first song of the tour was “The Wilco Song”, which a friend and I discussed as coming into its own, after being thought of as somewhat of a parody after being played on The Colbert Report.  The energy that filled the theater on Tuesday was unrelenting. Normally a sit down venue, the people were up and getting down for the entire evening. 

 As has been reported elsewhere, the material for both nights relied heavily on YHF and AGIB material, which never disappoints.  If files from these shows surface, look for outstanding takes on “Jesus, Etc.” and “Ashes of American Flags,” from night one and both from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.  These songs that are standard in the setlist, were played slightly differently and with tinges of greatness.  A consistent complaint that I have about “Jesus, Etc.” is that, when played live it fails to contain the beauty that it does on record.  Often hurried through and standard, the first night performance was garnished with some of the prettiest and layered lap steel that whined perfectly in line with Tweed’s vocals.  While Nels Cline has helmed the sacred instrument for probably every rendition of the song since joining the band, this particular version was tear jerking.  Same goes for “Ashes…” The song was played perfectly (every song was) but they added an extended outro to accent one of my favorite tracks off of that album. It was fully of heavenly effects and voiceless emotion.  On this particular evening in April, Wilco’s reputation for being labeled the American Radiohead was not quite dead nuts, but extremely visible.  

 Other highlights for night one were “Box Full of Letters,” “Via Chicago,” an inspired version of “Kingpin,” Nels Cline killing the crowd with his crazyily possessed guitar playing (think Joe Cocker with a guitar) and lead singer Jeff Tweedy sporting a Milwaukee Brewers hat for the encore.

Nels spastic axe handling. This is a perfect capture.

Night two, great as it was, was a lot more standard to this guy.  I’m sure people liked night two better, but in my opinion it lacked the energy of the first.  The setlist had a few repeats that were played with less gusto but the songs they didn’t play night one were great.  Highlights for night two: Waiting outside the Pabst Theater to possibly be pictured on the cover of the new Wilco record, selling both of my extra tickets, “Hell is Chrome,” “Company in my Back,” “Misunderstood,” “Forget the Flowers,” “Red Eyed and Blue,” “I Got You,” “Casino Queen,” and being in bed by midnight.  While there may be more song highlights from this night, the energy was turned down a couple of notches.  

It was amazing that Milwaukeeans got to see them two nights in a row as Milwaukee hasn’t always been a tour destination for a lot of bands.  However, with the great things that the folks over at The Pabst Theater are putting together, we’ve had some fantastic multiple night runs and tour openers.  I’d like to especially thank them for bringing great music to a hungry community.  Your work does not go unnoticed.  I’ll be spending three nights with them again this week, (Ray Lamontagne, M Ward, Neko Case).  We are surely blessed to have them around.  

Real quick. I had the luxury of borrowing my mom’s new car for another short stint down to Chicago on Monday.  Besides being an amazing performer, it still carries the satellite radio trial that made the drive an absolute blast.  I stumbled on to E Street Radio, which I’ll admit I really didn’t expect much from. I have a love/hate relationship with the Boss. Besides the fact that he’s called the Boss he made some, in my opinion, sappily mediocre albums in the eighties that made me believe he was an over hyped d-bag. “Pink Cadillac” still makes me want to vomit.  But lately, he’s churning out great album after album and my fascination with The Hold Steady has forced me reevaluate my ill feelings and listen to some of his earlier work.  So, I already knew that Born to Run is classic but the track posted above from Greetings from Asbury Park blew my mind.  The lyrics are great. The soft bass groove snakes (and is absent from the solo acoustic version) and his voice induces goosebumps. Maybe you’ll dig it too and we can empty a couple tall boys while listening to it someday.

Sleeping Beauty

The Lion's Final Roar

I stopped by Atomic today, its last day, twice. I stopped on my way to work because I wanted to one more time feel some of the anticipation that I used have, waiting for that door to open.  It was quiet and peaceful, at rest.  Not open for 4 hours.  

I then returned after work, already knowing that the records that I had held out on were already in the clutches of someone a little less in need of a bargain than I. I wanted to look through the stacks just once more, hoping to find something rare, something I would treasure.  I wanted to breathe it in one last time, see that group of people that made shopping for music an experience.  

I had my camera along so I snapped the above pictures and a few more of the outside and in, the posters and walls, the crazed and quick fingered seekers. And I thought as I left that I would like to take a picture with Rich the owner, Mark the clerk that “is” Atomic to me, but I realized that I don’t need pictures to memorialize this. All of the sensory remembrances of Atomic Records are stored in my head.  Those will last longer.

It is now the third month of 2009 and I already have my third favorite album of the year thus far.  I told you that I fall hard for albums in an earlier post and I will do my utter best to prove it to all ten of you loyalists.  First the bombastic and trail inducing ear candy of Meriwether Post Pavilion, then the beautifully honest and heartbreaking Leave Ruin, and now this.  Now, I don’t think that I’ll be shouting about this record from tall buildings or bridges, and I won’t even feel like a hip bastard for knowing about the gem that is Justin Townes Earle’s Midnight at the Movies before a lot of others.  Why? To tell the truth, it’s just not that type of an album.  I don’t think it calls for that type of a reaction at all.  It’s more of an album that plays on the jukebox of every wonderfully shitty bar that’s smoke filled and empty.  That’s how I encountered it. Golden.  A SMALL group of people met at a local bar, were dealt Pabst Blue Ribbon by a tattooed server, inhaled crazy amounts of carcinogens and listened as intently as possible over the uninterested but amusing backroom.  It was the perfect listening experience!  

My wife, upon hearing the first notes of a steel guitar and a piano at the start of track two, “What I Meant to You” said “I’ve heard this before. I have.  It sounds like something my grandparents used to listen to.”  After I momentarily and angrily chuckled at what I thought was a snide comment about my new passion, I with a (know it all) wink remarked, “EXACTLY.”  After she exited the car and went off to bury herself in PHDery, I drove out of the parking lot wondering just what it was about this music and this tall Tennessean that made me tap my foot like a grass chewing red neck and seek out every thrift store western shirt this side of the Mississippi.   And it basically comes down to one thing.  There is an absolute simplicity that bleeds into continuity behind this, and his previous record, that make them such pleasures to listen to.  Justin Townes Earle takes country music and doesn’t try to alter it. Doesn’t try to do too many configurations to it. He’s not trying to change the world by being the “next” anybody. Shit, he’s already got enough of a shadow with Townes & Earle making up 2/3 of his name to add any weight to his already hefty load. One listen may reveal slyly tossed in glitches of pop, indie rock sensibility, and even a little ragtime but in the end it all adds up to equal one hell of a country record that converts anyone that swoons even a little at the sound of a dobro or mandolin.

“Midnight at the Movies” opens as Earle tells a story about every wandering loner that has searched for solace in dark and dirty places that require silence and silent reflection.  “So, it’s half price, double feature, two and a quarter after seven o’clock….” His trips to the cinema come at a fair price but even though the auditorium is populated with gamblers, possible prostitutes, and pixilated celebrities, his company only illuminates the fact that he’s alone and has nothing waiting for him at home. It’s a sad song and one that normally wouldn’t fit at lead off, but he sings it with a confidence that brings you in.  Intrigues you.  Makes you want to follow him around and study his habits.  Not put him on suicide watch.  From this point on, you’re batting around.  The rest of the album plays out wonderfully mixing in toe tapping bluegrass-y numbers like “BlackEyed Suzie,” the toe stomping rag, “Walk Out” and classic country tracks like “Poor Fool” “Here We Go Again” and “Mama’s Eyes.”  Take my word for it, you definitely won’t have to worry about skipping over tracks on Midnight at the Movies.  The only time you’ll be reaching for the controls will be to play over a short and catchy ditty that’ll be stuck in your head until the day has died.  

For this post I will utilize two muses that fraternized in my headspace and produced what you are about to read. First, I recently watched a film, The Wackness, that’s subject matter and accompanying music teleported me back to my suburban upbringing as a mild teenage miscreant with an affinity for urban compositions.  The soundtrack was filled with A Tribe Called Quest, Notorious B.I.G., and Raekwon, doing many of the tracks that carried me through an awkward 1994.  Now while I’ll still occasionally toss old school hip hop in my stereo or spin some vintage sounds on my turntable when I need to get in a groove, I don’t embrace nearly enough the music that kept me up Friday nights listening to the hip hop block on WMSE or watching EPMD & Slick Rick videos on YO! MTV Raps.  This music was my escape and my agitator.  Even though I didn’t experience or understand half of the shit in a TOO $HORT rap, listening to it gave a swaggerless kid a swagger and made me feel a way that nothing else could.  And plus, as an adolescent with a Grand Canyon sized conscience, it was a half-assed way to piss people off without consequences (well there was that Public Enemy shirt that got me suspended in the fifth grade but, meh, that was nothing).

Second, I read an article in GQ titled, “The Last Record Store” that reinforced the overwhelming sadness and loss that I feel for small independent record stores (including my lifelong favorite, Atomic Records) that are slowly vaporizing in our communities due to the convenience of a mouse click or tap on the old track pad.  There will always be a sense of being and comfort that one gets from the stale smell of used record jackets or long haired clerks that are sometimes treasures chest of knowledge and other times arrogant pricks that silently think you’re a sentimental douche bag for bringing the latest Shins record to the counter.  But nonetheless that exchange will be completely lost when we are all forced to purchase or download our music online. So, after these different mediums acquainted themselves and commingled for a while, I remembered some exchanges that I had with record store clerks that I will never forget.

I might post more of these exchanges randomly but the first and most relevant incident occurred in or around 1994 when I was shopping at an area mall with my aunt and uncle.  Not trying to handcuff the “angry” youth that my sneer projected, they let me go off by myself and gave me a set time to meet them at the food court. Happier than hell to be able to go off on my own, I ran to the “tape” store to spend the Andrew Jackson that was earned mowing my grandmother’s lawn the day before and burning an enormous hole in my pocket.  I recall that this particular day that I must’ve looked through every tape in the store.  I remember seriously pondering the Michael and Janet Jackson duet “Scream” for minutes.  But I suppose my vast amount of time spent pulling out plastic cassette tape protectors wasn’t all that strange.  For those that have shopped for music with me, know that its like shopping for beer with me, I have to see everything on the shelf before I spend a dime. Glancing down at my watch I noticed that I had nearly spent the entire hour and a half already and I had a handful of tapes that needed to be dwindled down to two.  While I don’t remember every tape, I do remember the final three.  An album that pumped testosterone into the football locker room before games and practices my freshman year, Candlebox’s self-titled debut.  An album containing a song that I mistakenly thought was titled “Hearts and Thoughts that Fade”, one of the catchiest songs of the year and still one of my favorites, Pearl Jam’s Vs.  And an invigorating hip hop album with a hot single that breaks down that acronym that is its title, Wu Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). 

I don’t know why I remember the Candlebox album because I didn’t end up buying it.  However, I do remember the others mainly because I recall the dude behind the counter laughing at me after I asked if “Hearts and Thoughts that Fade” was on the Pearl Jam album followed by his refusal to sell me the Wu- Tang album that I had tactfully placed “Parental Advisory” side down. “Yeah it’s on there man. It’s called ‘Elderly Woman…though.  And dude.  I can’t sell you this.  What are you 12? Sorry man.”   As a baby blemish faced kid of 14, I didn’t have the nerve or wit to give’m hell, or tell him what a dick that I thought he was.   So I walked away, head down and teary eyed, back over to the Michael & Janet single display rack. I stood there for what must’ve been an eternity. I picked up and put down that shitty recording (M&J) about thirty times, while my foot, like a pendulum, glided back and forth over the carpet.  After an approximate 15 minutes, the asshole clerk that was taking advantage of the only power he had in this world, called me back over the counter.

 “Hey, you’ve obviously got decent taste in music because you’re buying Vs.  I’d rather you buy a Pavement tape instead of that other shit but I suppose I won’t stop you.  I mean, if you don’t spend your money here you could just have someone buy it for you elsewhere or worse, DUB it. That’ll be $8.”

I don’t think I spoke a word to him.  I was scared that I would say something that would make him take his gift back.  I was also too in shock and too thrilled that I would be listening to nothing but C.R.E.A.M. for the next two weeks straight (I did and remember going to baseball practice singing the chorus the next day).

Thanks record store guy!  Thanks for a memory that iTunes or a torrent couldn’t provide.

I’d like to say another HUGE thank you to Atomic Records for providing me with rare music, awesome memories and the ideal record store experience for so many years.    You’ve made music shopping a pure joy and are probably a big reason why I love music so much. Thanks Rich and the numerous members of Team Atomic over the years.  You will be so incredibly missed.  Only good thing for me is, at least now when I buy records elsewhere I’ll no longer feel the painful guilt of unfaithfulness.