The Riffage

Another year around the sun, another year happily spent exploring ever-widening
musical galaxies. While there is, as ever, plenty of great new music to go around
(see the best-of list below), 2018 was definitely a Year Of Looking Back: this
summer, fueled by a realization that I better-catch-’em-now-or-never, I saw Neil
Young in a transcendent solo show (including a rare-ish run through 1979’s
“Pocahontas”!); Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman and Marty Stuart and the Fabulous
Superlatives celebrate the Byrds’ seminal Sweetheart of the Rodeo; and Michael
Nesmith and the Second National Band remind everyone of the key role he played
in creating country rock nearly fifty (!) years ago. Meanwhile, autumn found me
catching Liz Phair and Lucinda Williams (separately) revisiting their masterworks,
Exile In Guyville and Car Wheels On A Gravel Road.

These nostalgia-fests, joyous as they were, did leave me with one nagging question,
though: What albums released now will merit anniversary concerts in the future? Hell,
what bands will even still be around? I won’t even hazard a guess lest my ignorance/biases
be revealed, but a confluence of events -- the rise of playlist streaming, home recording
(who needs three friends with a bass, guitar and drums and practice space when you have
a laptop and a bedroom?), and the balkanization of society -- leaves me with a nagging
sense that the rock album era was an aberration in music history. Rock is not steering
the cultural conversation; a musical scene that captures the imagination, be it Haight-
Ashbury in the mid-’60s or Minneapolis in the mid-’80s, is not in the offing.

Did the successes of the past doom the present to failure? A rock band today will never
best Who’s Next or Revolver, sonically, culturally, artistically. I realize that joining the
pantheon is not necessarily the goal of a rock band (nor should it be), but there’s no
denying those legends loom large. And conversely, if a band wants to kill its idols, how
to slay these behemoths that are revered by longtime fans and increasingly ignored
by everyone else?

Too, the failures of the past also mark the present: did protest songs unseat Nixon? Did the
hardcore kids topple Reagan? Trying to effect change through music is just so much
whistling into the wind. Why even try?

And, you know what? Rock has nothing to blame but itself for its current cultural standing.
Rock music as a cultural force in the second half of the twentieth century was, at best, a
mixed blessing. It (cough) borrowed from African-American and rural traditions, giving
very little in return. It marginalized the groups it couldn’t borrow from. It prioritized style over
substance (why yes, I did read I Want My MTV this year). It offered astroturf alternatives
when actual grassroots movements sprouted. The deeper one digs into rock history, the
more one realizes that, over the past forty years, when confronted with an evolve-or-
stagnate decision, rock chose the latter.

Critics more eloquent/cynical than your correspondent have rightly compared rock to
jazz, or hell, baseball: a spent cultural force, now d/b/a as a niche interest for an insular
audience that knows all the moves and celebrates itself for knowing them. How would
one even go about introducing a young prospective fan to the joys of new rock music?
During the course of a day, where are you exposed to rock? Terrestrial commercial radio
is largely a graveyard. Live music on TV is relegated to Saturday Night Live, late-night
talk shows, and that cologne commercial with Adam Levine. Everyone fast-forwards
through commercials. When it’s gonna change, my friend, is anybody’s guess.

This is getting bleak. Time for the music and books I actually enjoyed this year! As you can
see below, I found lots of great stuff to explore, and if the 2018 list reads like its
predecessors -- heavy on No Depression, singer/songwriter, and (admittedly) bog-standard
indie rock and power pop -- well, that’s what I like. I know who I am. Old dogs and all that.
Trawling the archives for new (to me) discoveries is where I can let my freak flag
(comparatively) fly.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

--Remember when Drake “starred” in every Spotify playlist icon? I half expected him to
have infiltrated every album cover on the site. Not having a Drake-ified version of Eat
‘Em and Smile or Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo feels like a real wasted
opportunity.
--I’ve now reached the age/uncoolness point where I don’t (always) recognize the
musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Now I know how all of America felt on October
6, 1990, when Hothouse Flowers were the musical guest on the episode hosted by
Susan Lucci.

MUSIC BOOKS READ

The People’s Music, Ian MacDonald
The Sound Of Our Town, Brett Milano
Entertain Us! The Rise and Fall of Alternative Rock in the Nineties, Craig Schuftan
All Yesterdays’ Parties: The Velvet Underground In Print, 1966-1971, Clinton Heylin, ed.
Apathy For the Devil: A ‘70s Memoir, Nick Kent
It's Just the Normal Noises: Marcus, Guralnick, No Depression and the Mystery
of Americana Music, Timothy Gray
Trout Mask Replica, Kevin Courrier (33-⅓ Books)
Chronicles, Volume 1, Bob Dylan
Marquee Moon, Bryan Waterman (33-⅓ Books)
Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless
History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day, Jack Boulware
and Silke Tudor
Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap, Evelyn McDonnell, ed.
Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965, David H. Rosenthal
Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock, Steven Hyden
A Cultural Dictionary of Punk, 1974-1982, Nicholas Rombes
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, Rob Sheffield
Philosophy at 33 1/3 rpm: Themes of Classic Rock Music, James F. Harris
The Age of Rock: Sounds of the American Cultural Revolution, Jonathan Eisen, ed.
Exile in Guyville, Gina Arnold (33-⅓ Books)
Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC, Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt
Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs, Phil Freeman, ed.
Outlaw Blues, Paul Williams
Rock From The Beginning, Nik Cohn
Swordfishtrombones, David Smay (33-⅓ Books)
We Rock So You Don't Have To: The Option Reader #1, Scott Becker, ed.
Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta, Chuck Klosterman
Armed Forces, Franklin Bruno (33-⅓ Books)
The Da Capo Book of Rock and Roll Writing, Clinton Heylin, ed.
I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Craig Marks
and Rob Tannenbaum, eds.
C’est la Guerre: Early Writings, 1978-1983, Byron Coley
Life, Keith Richards
Music From Big Pink, John Niven (33-⅓ Books)
Heavy Rotation, Twenty Writers On The Albums That Changed Their Lives, Peter
Terzian, ed.

FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2018

(In approximate order of acquisition)

POST-, Jeff Rosenstock (Polyvinyl Record Company)
Freedom’s Goblin, Ty Segall (Drag City)
Bat Fangs, Bat Fangs (Don Giovanni)
Don’t Talk About It, Ruby Boots (Bloodshot)
Widdershins, Grant-Lee Phillips (Yep Roc)
Years, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers (Bloodshot)
Loner, Caroline Rose (New West)
What A Time To Be Alive, Superchunk (Merge)
Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves (MCA Nashville)
12, Sloan (Yep Roc)
Mr. Jukebox, Joshua Hedley (Third Man)
Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys (Domino)
Providence Canyon, Brent Cobb (Elektra)
Sings Olivia Newton-John, Juliana Hatfield (American Laundromat)
Tell Me How You Really Feel, Courtney Barnett (Mom + Pop / Milk!)
Lush, Snail Mail (Matador)
The Nude Party, The Nude Party (New West)
Among the Ghosts, Lucero (Liberty and Lament)
Time Flies, Jim Lauderdale (Yep Roc)
To The Sunset, Amanda Shires (Silver Knife)
Remain in Light, Angelique Kidjo (Kravenworks)
Wild! Wild! Wild!, Robbie Fulks and Linda Gail Lewis (Bloodshot)
Look Now, Elvis Costello and the Impostors (Concord)

(RE-) DISCOVERIES FROM THE VAULTS

GREATEST HITS

The Essential Capitol Collection, Keely Smith (Capitol): June Christy’s pensive
christmas album This Time of Year spurred an investigation into late ‘50s/early ‘60s
female vocal pop/jazz singers (Julie London, Anita O’Day, Doris Day, Jo Stafford,
Dinah Washington, to name a few) that took up a good chunk of the year, and Keely
Smith -- probably best known for her work with one-time spouse Louis Prima -- found
her way to the top of this pile. Someone more clever than me wrote that all these great
vocal pop and jazz singers spent their entire careers breathing in cigarette smoke-filled
air, so it’s a small miracle they all lasted as long as they did. Think about that while
marveling at her effortless ability to shift from the kicky likes of “On The Sunny Side
of the Street” and “How Are Ya Fixed For Love?” to the torchy “There Will Never Be
Another You” and “Someone To Watch Over Me”.

The Millennium Collection, The Marvelettes (Motown): Another year, another girl
group. Yes, all the songs are great -- “Playboy,” “Beechwood 4-5789,” “Too Many Fish In
The Sea” and “I’ll Keep Holding On” are my choices -- what else is there to say?

ROCK

Joy of a Toy, Kevin Ayers (Harvest, 1969): I’ve got an old issue of MOJO to thank for
this one -- Ayers’ solo debut landed near the top of that magazine’s countdown of the ten
best Ayers-adjacent releases. Even after decades of musical seeking and discovery, there
are countless avenues that have yet to be investigated, and the whole Soft Machine/Robert
Wyatt/Kevin Ayers thing had been an sonic monolith to me, but the friendly and inviting
Joy is an accessible listen: “Joy Of A Toy Continued,” “The Clarietta Rag” and the not-at-
all-relevant-now “Song for Insane Times”. I realize this write-up says nothing about what this
album sounds like; actual knowledgeable reviews of the album are required to use the
adjectives “whimsical,” “British” and “Syd Barrett-esque”, so there ya go.

Green River, Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fantasy, 1969): Not a new discovery
per se, but after years of reaching for Cosmo’s Factory when I needed to scratch my
Creedence itch, I moved two albums to the left on the shelf and finally spent some quality
time with the first album the band released in 1969. It’s unimpeachable of course, with
nary a duff cut on it, and tracks like “Wrote A Song For Everyone,” “Lodi,” and the title track
still shine a half-century later.

The Royal Scam, Steely Dan (ABC, 1976): Like Green River, Steely Dan’s fifth album
was already known to me, but it took a deep dive by our album-of-the-month club to truly
appreciate the work that Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (and a battalion of fleet-fingers
guitarists) put in to The Royal Scam. I knew the songs, but this year came away with an
(even deeper) appreciation for Larry Carlton’s worldbeating solo(s) on “Kid Charlemagne”
and Paul Griffin’s underrated piano solo on “Sign In Stranger”. Read Griffin’s bio and ask
yourself, Why haven’t we torn down every confederate statue and replaced them with
one of Griffin?

At Yankee Stadium, NRBQ (Mercury, 1978): Again, not-totally-new-to-me, but nearly 20
years after picking up the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet’s greatest-hits album Peek-A-Boo
(bought after teenage me fell under the sway of “It Was A Accident,” which WPLR used to
play with surprising regularity, even in the late mid-’90s), I finally started listening to the band’s
albums proper. (I should note that the (latent) Red Sox fan in me may also have been
responsible for me taking two decades to listen to this album. That said, it’s a funny album
cover.) Better late than never! It feels like NRBQ is a band in danger of slipping down the
cultural memory hole, which is both A) shameful, given their staggeringly enjoyable and
strong songbook; and B) entirely predictable, given that they play freewheeling roots
rock/bar rock, which in 2018 has next to no cultural currency. For the curious among us,
though, the albums are still available and still a joy to behold. As for At Yankee Stadium
(performed by the band’s definitive line-up of Terry Adams on keys, Al Anderson on guitar,
Joey Spampinato on bass, and Tom Ardolino on drums), it’s 34 minutes of friendly, loose-
limbed rock and roll: “Green Lights,” “I Want You Bad,” “It Comes To Me Naturally”. It feels
as fresh and fun as the day it was released.

JAZZ/FUNK/SOUL

Blues-Ette, Curtis Fuller’s Quintet (Savoy, 1959): A springtime read of David Rosenthal’s
Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965 generated a massive album wish list that I’ve
only just begun to navigate. Trombonist Fuller and co (Benny Golson, tenor sax; Tommy
Flanagan, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Al Harewood, drums) turned in a wonderfully
relaxed (to cite the word that pops up in most reviews) session that even hard bop newbies
like yours truly can recognize and appreciate.

Palm Springs Suite, Jack Fascinato (Capitol, 1959): This curio landed on my radar
courtesy of the fine folks at Numero Group, who spent much of the summer celebrating
exotica (the so-inclined should seek out their Technicolor Paradise: Rhum Rhapsodies and
Other Exotic Delights box set). As for PSS, subtitled “Vivid Musical Portraits of America’s
Most Colorful Playground,” it’s a charming, cheery instrumental exploration of Southern
California, clocking in with the opening “Desert Dawn,” and winding through a day marked
by “Poolside Patter,” “Golf a la Cart,” “San Jacinto Sunset” and finally, “Desert Stars”. At a
lean 30 minutes, it’s a 48-times-more-efficient way to experience a day in Palm Springs!

Face to Face, “Baby Face” Willette (Blue Note, 1961) and Let ‘Em Roll, Big John
Patton (Blue Note, 1965): Two more dips of the toes into the very deep pool of great early-
to-mid-’60s Blue Note-backed, Hammond organ-fueled soul-jazz. Mercifully, I’ll never reach
the bottom of this pool. Expect one or two of these on every year-end list until the heat-death
of the planet… so, another five years or so.

Don’t Mess With Mister T, Stanley Turrentine (CTI, 1973): Another soul-jazz connection
(Turrentine was once married to Hammond organist Shirley Scott, tho they were splitsville
by the time of this release), saxophonist Turrentine and band (orchestra, really) including
drummers Billy Cobham and Idris Muhammad, bassist Ron Carter and guitarist Eric Gale,
offered this quartet of great tunes, anchored by their sharp take on the Marvin Gaye-penned
title track. (Gaye’s version appeared on the Trouble Man soundtrack the previous year.) I’m
not sure there’s anything especially momentous about this release, but I just liked it, ya know?

The 2nd Crusade, The Crusaders (Blue Thumb, 1973): Another musician making multiple
appearances on the year-end wrap up! This time, it’s guitarist Larry Carlton, mentioned
above spinning out the masterful solos on Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne.” Three years prior,
he was a member of long-running jazz/funk/soul outfit the Crusaders, and this double LP
captured them at their ‘70s peak. I especially loved the autumnal “Look Beyond the Hill”
which recalls both Mulatu Astatke’s “Tezeta (Nostalgia)” and Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work”
(though Carlton didn’t play on that particular ‘Dan track). Too, their cover of Carole King’s
“So Far Away” earned a spot on my ever-growing list of jazz covers of pop songs.

The Power of Soul, Idris Muhammad (Kudu, 1974): I have to thank Spotify Weekly for this
one. The aforementioned Muhammad leads a killer septet, including saxophonist Grover
Washington, Jr., through four impossibly jazzy/funky/souled-out tracks -- and yes, that title
track is a Hendrix/Band of Gypsies cover. (More wheels-within-wheels: both this and the
Turrentine record were produced by CTI boss Creed Taylor.) If you’re keeping score at home,
this and the Keely Smith collection were my finds of the year.

MISCELLANEOUS

WKHR-FM, 91.5: I have no recollection how this one fell into my ears, but the streaming
version of “Cleveland’s Favorite Big Band Station” became one of my go-to “around the
house” radio stations on Sonos (along with WWOZ, WMBR and WFMU). A commercial-
free station dedicated to vocal and instrumental pop from the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, WKHR
was a great way to decompress and put some distance between myself and the madness
of Life In These United States, 2018 Edition.

Radiooooooo.com: This is a fun site: On a map of the world, click on a country, then click
on a decade and - voila! - you get a playlist of songs from that country in your selected
timespan. Granted, some decades and countries’ playlists are more robust than others (the
site relies on user uploads), but Russian music from the ‘30s? ‘60s French ye-ye? ‘80s
Australian pop and garage? You are there! I used it to soundtrack a Greek-themed wedding
shower at work (don’t ask) and the songs I picked from the ‘60s and ‘70s went over like
gangbusters. Opa!

Seeburg 1000: For all the record-keeping I do, I need to do a better job of tracking where
I come across my musical discoveries during the course of the year. (My guess is Record
Collector magazine.) Anyhoo, the Seeburg 1000 Background Music System was similar to
Muzak -- a phonograph used by offices, restaurants, factories, etc., to pipe in instrumental
music to public places to keep people happy/docile/spending money. (The Wikipedia entry
has all the details. The curious will find their time rewarded.) The Seeburg 1000 website
streams these songs, and like WKHR, it’s great “around the house” music that kept me
happy and docile while I cooked/cleaned/read music magazines to learn about more
albums that will one day earn a slot on a year-end album write-up. There’s even a Seeburg
1000 Christmas album, for those of us who daydream about doing their holiday shopping in
a Gimbels department store in 1961.

Wolfgang’s Vault: Yes, I ponied up for a subscription to the live music vault (it was 50% off!),
and it paid for itself pretty quickly: In the first week or so, I tore through a blistering circa-’77
Graham Parker set; Wilco, right before Being There dropped; a killer set from Steve Earle
from 1986 (my fave find on the site so far); and a great Mose Allison set (also ‘77). The
sound quality is pretty good, and it’s Sonos compatible (and the Android app works well).

The Riffage

Thursday, October 31, 2019

The Tens In The Rearview - My Favorite Albums of the Decade

Friday, December 7, 2018

2018 Year-End Round Up

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