Playlist #266

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Happy Monday, folks! I’m glad we’ve finally seen the back of May; that month had it out for me, I swear. But now it’s June, and the end of the school year beckons. Here’s a playlist to start your week.

  1. Paul McCartney, “Lost Horizon”: McCartney released a new album last week. It’s pretty good. It’s a McCartney album, which I feel like is a known quantity at this point in his career. His voice is still in fine form, even if there’s the occasional warble to it, and the man still crafts beautiful melodies like most people craft bowel movements.
  2. SUSS, “Sunset IV”: These guys do “cosmic Americana,” which is ambient music with pedal steel. This particular collection, Counting Sunsets, gets the closest they’ve actually been to composing what I’d think of as songs, but it’s all very pleasant music to listen to while you do your laundry on a rainy Sunday.
  3. nep, “A Big Brown Dog Named Bagel”: a musician I discovered via Facebook last week. Her first album, which this song is from, is mostly acoustic singer-songwriter fare, while her more recent album (last year’s Noelle) incorporates more modern styles and sounds. Both are pretty good, though, and this particular song is great.
  4. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “California Stars”: Could Mermaid Avenue be done nowadays? Could you get an anti-folk folkie like Billy Bragg and alt-country darlings like Wilco together, throw a bunch of Woody Guthrie lyrics at them, and get a masterpiece like this? I’m not sure you could, but I’m glad we did.
  5. Grateful Dead, “Touch of Grey”: It’s very difficult to ever actually say exactly what a Grateful Dead song is about (other than psychedelic drugs and overlong guitar solos), but I’m pretty sure this one is about trying to age gracefully, even when you fall on your ass or you, like, drop trou in front of your fiancée’s parents. I could be wrong, though, and this one could just still be about drugs.
  6. Mike Doughty, “Grey Ghost”: I just love the rhythm and feel of this song. It’s great.
  7. Drive-By Truckers, “Everybody Needs Love”: Is this contemporary southern rock’s answer to the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love”? Maybe. Is it a great song? Definitely.
  8. The National, “Bitters & Absolut”: Who doesn’t love a song about being an alcoholic?
  9. Bahamas, “Lost in the Light”: A lazy, laconic guitar riff helps this song lope along to those beautiful harmonies in the chorus.
  10. Camera Obscura, “If Looks Could Kill”: I love how bouncy and jangly the guitar part is in this song, and the vocals are just perfect. No notes.

Playlist #265

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Happy Tuesday, folks. I’ve got the first three days of this week off for various holidays and teacher work days, so I’ve spent the time relaxing and not thinking about what I have to do when I get back to work on Thursday. Here’s a playlist.

  1. The Gray Charlies, “Burnt Offering”: My brother released his full EP last Friday, and I think you should listen to the whole thing, but especially this song. And not just because this is the one that I wrote the words and music for. No, because the way the singer digs into it just hits right, and the strings are absolutely gorgeous.
  2. Rostam, “Like a Spark”: This is just Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” right? Like, I’m not complaining, but this is just “Astral Weeks” with different words.
  3. The Pauls Band, “Penguin Parade”: A buddy of mine from work released a second single last week, and it’s pretty darn good.
  4. Shakey Graves, “Time Flies”: A lo-fi slab of acoustic-based alternative folk, which is a string of words that either immediately made you make a vomit emoji face or light up like a Christmas tree.
  5. The National, “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”: Aside from being the only National song I can think of with an actual guitar solo in it, the title is unnecessarily long and I kinda love it for that.
  6. Antony with Bryce Dessner, “I Was Young When I Left Home”: A Dylan cover? On one of my playlists? It’s more likely than you’d think!
  7. Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Pa’lante”: Apparently a word in Spanish that means “foward” or “keep going.” A nice little reminder that as hard as things get, as ridiculous as the world around us seems, we have to keep trying not to fuck it up too much and just move forward each time we do.
  8. Van Morrison, “Madame George”: Is it a song about a drag queen? Or about his own mother? Even Van doesn’t know. But it’s beautiful.
  9. Tom Petty. “The Apartment Song (Demo)”: I always preferred the demo version of this song, since the lyrics are a little different in the second chorus (instead of just repeating the chorus, he adds in some new words in the second run through and it just really fits and I’m sad it didn’t make it into the final version). Plus, I’m pretty sure that’s Stevie Nicks singing backing vocals on it.
  10. Daniel and the Lion, “No Ghost”: This slice of pop perfection is all Clyde’s fault. He’s the only reason I even know who this band is.

Yesterday’s Bright Frontiers Album Notes

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Now that the album has been out for a week or so, I thought I’d give some insight into the songs and the production of this particular album. This particular album was the most difficult one to make so far; I spent most of last summer just not recording anything, and then when I started actually writing and recording songs again, it was damned difficult to get recordings I was happy with. All that aside, let’s go song by song and see what there is to see.

“Teapot Apocalypse”: A simple song, and one that I got recorded fairly quick. I do love the chord progression for this one, and the idea of the teapot apocalypse is one I’ve played with before (in a Kraken Vacuum song called “Release the Kraken!”).

“That Human Touch”: I recorded two versions of this song accidentally. The first version was too rough and I didn’t care for the guitar tones I came up with. I didn’t intend to re-record it, but I’d forgotten I’d done the first version and sat down and did a significantly better take the second time around. My brother added the synth horns in post-production, and I rather enjoy them, goofy as they may be.

“Honest Misery (Acoustic)”: The first of two all-acoustic songs on the record, both of which have fuller versions as well. Why did I do that? I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time. This was always a very simple song, and I still really like this version of it. I’m not 100% sold on the idea that the “full band” version really adds all that much, but you can be the judge.

“¡Tierra Del Fuego!”: This song started out as an instrumental many, many years ago. I finally put some lyrics to the song late last year, and it’s a fun song to play. I am rather sad that the choral “aaahs” that I originally put in it didn’t make it into the final mix.

“To the Ones Who Go Before (Elegy)”: This is the song that broke me. I wrote it last April after my uncle suddenly passed away. He was the great musician in the family, the guy who was in a half dozen bands and could play the hell out of the guitar. We turned to him for advice and feedback and the occasional guitar solo (he played the solo on my song “This Town Ain’t Big Enough” back on that first EP). I tried no fewer than three times to record this song, and gave up on all but the last version. Things just…didn’t click. The vocals weren’t right, or the guitar wasn’t right, or something felt wrong. I finally managed to get a good version put together late last year, and the final piece was hiring a guy off of SoundBetter (a website for professional musicians and musician-adjacent folks) to play the saxophone solo over the end of the song. I’m still waiting for my dad to record vocals for the second verse so I can release another version of the song featuring family members. We’ll see when or if that happens.

“Flicker and Spark”: I don’t generally write traditional love songs. It’s just not in my wheelhouse. But this one turned out alright, I think. I’m particularly proud of the little guitar riff at the end, simple as it may be.

“Honest Misery (Dishonest Version)”: Here’s the “full band” version of the song. I had some weirder guitar parts in there, but Clyde took them out. It’s probably for the best. Again, I’m still not really sure this version particularly adds anything that the original acoustic version was really lacking, but it’s still not bad.

“Here’s To Dyin'”: I wanted to write a John Prine song. Did I accomplish that? Probably not. Would it make him proud? I like to think so.

“The Last of the True Believers”: A song written entirely for the piano. This one took a couple of different attempts to get right, what with the change of pace between the verse and the chorus. I’m really proud of the guitar work in this one, even if there’s no acoustic guitar in this song (which is weird for me).

“When I Say Your Name, Only Silence Answers”: I wrote this one trying to write a Lord Huron song. I don’t think there’s enough reverb on the final product for it to qualify, but I still dig the final result.

“To the Ones Who Go Before (Acoustic)”: For a while, I thought about just having this version of the song and not the “full band” version. I was so frustrated with how progress on that version was going and just recorded this one instead. I still like it, and it makes a nice end song for the album. Clyde recommended I put this one here, and I’m glad he did.

Playlist #264

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Happy Monday, folks! After last week’s multiple fiascos, I’m hoping this week (which will feature the last time I see some of my students before graduation) will go smoother and with fewer towed cars. Let’s get into the playlist.

  1. Neil Young, “Walk On”: Among the many challenges I faced last week was trying to find a cover of this song that simply didn’t exist. I heard an alternate version of it on the Tonight’s the Night 50th Anniversary set, which somehow tricked my brain into thinking there was a cover I’d heard of it back in the late 90s/early 2000s and I just couldn’t remember who’d done the cover. Spent a few hours Thursday evening trying to figure it out, only to discover it was…the version I’d heard on Neil’s Decade collection back then. I Mandela Effect’d myself, I guess? I dunno. The song is a jam.
  2. Jack Johnson, “Taylor (4-Track)”: Speaking of songs I heard back in the late 90s, I had the MP3 of this song on my computer back in college and preferred this version to the album version that came out on Brushfire Fairytales, but I hadn’t been able to find this version of the song for more than 10 years and had despaired of ever hearing it again. Along comes Surfilmusic, a collection of soundtrack cuts and a bunch of early 4-track demos, this song among them. Made my weekend, let me tell you.
  3. Brian Fallon, “Better Before”: I knew Fallon (and the Gaslight Anthem) had some Bon Jovi in their musical DNA; it’s damn-near required for a Jersey band to have JBJ and the Boss in their musical make-up. But this is the Bon Jovi-est song the man’s ever recorded, and I kinda love it.
  4. Wilco, “Everyone Hides”: While a lot of Wilco’s newer music seems like it was designed to just wash over you in an acoustic hush, but some songs still stick out. Like this one. It’s got a very insistent rhythm and a neat guitar figure.
  5. Lazlo Bane, “Superman”: Have you watched the Scrubs revival? I was pleasantly surprised with how good it is. And the theme song – this song – still hits just right.
  6. Radiohead, “These Are My Twisted Words”: A glitchy, stuttering number, the sort of song that you hear and immediately recognize as peak Radiohead.
  7. Galaxie 500, “Isn’t It A Pity”: An elegiac 80s college rock take on the George Harrison classic. Whereas George’s version relied on the wall of sound wash of guitars and voices to carry the tune, Galaxie 500 strip it down to a single guitar, bass, and drum kit and prove the bones of the song are as solid as can be.
  8. The Fray, “Over My Head (Cable Car)”: Can you believe this song is more than 20 years old? I still think of them as a band that just came out! Am I just an Old now?
  9. Kate Wolf, “Across the Great Divide”: I love this song, I just hate the harmonica in it. I feel it undercuts the tone of the song.
  10. Violent Femmes, “American Music”: What could I possibly say about this song other than, if you don’t sing along, you’re not American.

Playlist #263

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Folks, it feels like today has been a whole month of Mondays dumped on me all at once. I don’t even wanna get into it. Here’s a playlist for y’all while I go sit in a corner and try not to plan murder.

  1. The Florida Mass Choir, “Storm Cloud Rising”: The song featured on the last couple of episodes of Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again, and I dug it. It’s very moody and atmospheric for a gospel song.
  2. Rage Against the Machine, “Sleep Now In Fire”: For when you need to feel a bit of rage in your soul, there really is no one better.
  3. Reel Big Fish, “Hungry Like the Wolf”: The best version of this song, hands down. It just needed those ska horns.
  4. Alannah Myles, “Black Velvet”: Apparently she didn’t start seeing a dime from this song until rather recently. And that is just absolute bull honkey.
  5. Roger McGuinn & Tom Petty, “King of the Hill”: I do love listening to the Tom Petty Sirius XM station, because his catalog is deep enough that I can still get surprised by a song I wasn’t really aware of like this one.
  6. Them, “I Can Only Give You Everything”: I also get to hear songs like this one on the Tom Petty station. There are so many songs by Them that I just don’t know, because their stuff just wasn’t widely available when I was a kid, and now I’m purposefully seeking it out because why the hell not?
  7. Wilco, “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)”: I love the little repeated guitar figure in this song so much, I don’t even mind that the song is damn-near 10 minutes long.
  8. The Envy Corps, “Story Problem”: A friend I worked with back seventeen, eitghteen years ago introduced me to this song. I still love it.
  9. Frank Turner, “Get Better”: For when I need to try to feel more optimistic, which is challenging today.
  10. Soul Coughing, “Fully Retractable”: For when it is, in fact, fully retractable.

Playlist #262

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Happy Monday, and May the 4th be with you! And all my Lutheran friends say, “And also with you.” Here’s a playlist.

  1. Pat McGee Band, “Bookends”: A student introduced me to this band last week. Pretty solid singer-songwriter stuff.
  2. Nocturnne, “Proximity”: A DIY singer-songwriter (I have a thing for that style) writing exactly what you think a 20-something singer-songwriter would write. It’s not bad, but I’m not sure it’s really speaking to me.
  3. Old 97s, “Timebomb”: A ripsnorter of a song, it explodes out of the gate and blew little grad school Charlie’s mind back in the early 2000s. It remains awesome.
  4. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes, “Man On Fire”: Let us cast our minds back to the far-flung year 2012, when Stomp-Clap-Hey! ruled the airwaves and a band with such an unwieldy name could come to prominence. And then let’s never speak of it again.
  5. The Elected, “It Was Love”: This song (and this band more in general) gives me hope that there’s an audience out there for someone whose voice is weak like mine.
  6. Elton John, “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”: Elton John just makes you feel things sometimes, y’know?
  7. Ram Jam, “Black Betty”: Bam-ba-lam.
  8. Molly Hatchet, “Flirtin’ With Disaster”: Somehow this turned into a Southern Rock playlist without me even trying. But if you don’t find yourself doing 90 down the highway with this song blasting out the windows, there’s something wrong with you and you might be clinically dead.
  9. Marshall Tucker Band, “Can’t You See”: If there is a sadder Southern Rock song out there, I don’t know it, because most rock songs don’t encourage you to “crawl inside and die” in a hole in the wall or jump off the tallest mountain in Georgia (a state totally known for its tall mountains).
  10. The Dandy Warhols, “Minnesoter”: My favorite song about being someone from Minnesota? I’m not sure that’s actually what it’s about. I’m not sure the guy who wrote it is entirely sure what it’s about.

Playlist #261

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Happy Monday, folks! We’re winding down the month of April and moving into what I think of as crunch time in the public schools, when all of the seniors suddenly realize that they need to pass my class if they want to graduate. The number of “what can I do to bring my grade up?” conversations I’ll have over the next few weeks is innumerable. Here’s a playlist.

  1. The Gray Charlies, “The Twelve Lines That Didn’t Work”: I’ve probably said before how strange it is to hear someone else sing words I wrote twenty-some years ago. It remains strange, but supremely satisfying. It’s also weird when you remember that you had to write a few extra lines for the song because the singer ended up doing it differently than you or your brother had originally anticipated and there’s gonna be some dead air in there. You can check the song out here.
  2. Khatumu, “blackout”: The more I listen to this woman’s work, the more I admire it. She’s really good at creating a gripping structure and writing compelling lyrics. The instrumental aspects are always excellent, well-produced with just that perfect hint of DIY.
  3. Joan Armatrading, “Water with the Wine”: Damn, but this woman can sing. I would listen to her sing the phone book.
  4. Patti Smith, “Gloria”: Ever wonder what would happen if Lou Reed recorded a Van Morrison song? It’d probably sound a lot like this.
  5. Pearl Jam, “I Am Mine”: I remember when the album this song is from, Riot Act, came out in 2002. I was in grad school and bought it from the school bookstore. I also bought a couple of Star Wars trade paperback comics for Dark Empire, which I read and reread multiple times over the next couple of years because I only owned, like, six comic books.
  6. Phosphorescent, “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven”: It takes balls to cover Bob Dylan at the best of times, and even more so when you’re covering one of his latter-day classics. Phosphorescent manages to pull it off with aplomb.
  7. Pink Floyd, “Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun”: Early Pink Floyd is still the weirdest Pink Floyd, and I kinda need that sometimes. Heaven only knows what they’re gonna do when they reach the heart of the sun, but I’m sure someone probably has a plan.
  8. Aaron Neville, “Everybody Plans the Fool”: The little synth sting at the end of the chorus always gets me in this song.
  9. Nanci Griffith, “Boots of Spanish Leather”: I am apparently in a Bob Dylan covers mood this week. I should probably put together a list of my favorite Dylan covers someday (if I haven’t already done that, which I probably have, but man that is a list subject to change).
  10. Radiohead, “Bodysnatchers”: Whenever I’m working on a novel and have a fight scene, this is the music that I put on to help me write it. Works perfectly every time.

Playlist #260

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s a weird week here in Northern Virginia (they’re really all weird weeks, if we’re honest), with no school for me tomorrow due to a special election. Here’s a playlist to get us through it all.

  1. Massive Attack and Tom Waits, “Boots on the Ground”: A collaboration I didn’t know I want that uses a great extrapolation of “The Earth Died Screaming.” Love it and want more.
  2. Paul McCartney, “Rinse the Raindrops”: Realized over the weekend that McCartney went through a pretty experimental phase in the early 2000s. This song is 10 freakin’ minutes long and only features one verse, but it never sits still and never gets boring.
  3. Thundercat, “Anakin Learns His Fate”: Dude fuckin’ rips it on the bass and writes some of the smoothest jams I’ve heard in a long while. Also, he’s clearly more than a bit of a nerd.
  4. The Pauls, “Beyond Bourbon”: Buddy from work’s band doing an original song of theirs. It’s a cool little barroom weeper.
  5. Gillian Welch, “Red Clay Halo”: I’m an Okie. I know from red dirt. So does Gillian Welch, apparently.
  6. Sting, “When The Angels Fall”: I always felt like this song was a suitably epic way to end the Soul Cages album. I also think the song meant more to me (or felt like it did) when I was in college, when everything feels like it means something more than it probably really does.
  7. Wilco, “Jesus, Etc.”: Still one of my favorite songs off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which remains one of the best albums of the past thirty or so years.
  8. Jars of Clay, “Grace”: I still go back to this album every so often, and everything from the way they structure the songs to the harmonies and instrumental solos gets me every time.
  9. Jimmy Reed, “Ain’t That Loving You Baby”: Sometimes, you just need a little dirty blues. Today is one of those times.
  10. Rilo Kiley, “I Never”: Hard to imagine this band would try to pull off some blue-eyed soul, but they do it anyway.

Playlist #259

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Happy Monday, folks! The weather here in Northern Virginia is heating up this week; we’ll be getting our first 90°+ days of the year this week (I know, Okies, y’all have already had days that hot, aren’t you special?). Anyway, here’s some songs to cool off to.

  1. Jeremy Messersmith, “Bridges”: I love this song for two things: (1) its chorus, which is depressingly sing-along, and (2) the line “I’ll break you like a promise,” which just hits right in the guts with the way it’s so tossed off all casual-like.
  2. Josh Ritter, “Getting Ready To Get Down”: The Bible College to Lesbian Pipeline should be discovered and somehow harnessed to create a vast amount of Subaru-and-carabiner-strengthened power that can be harnessed to solve, if not global hunger or something similar, at least get all the dogs adopted in your area.
  3. Bo Didley, “Who Do You Love”: It’s “whom,” actually, Mr. Didley. Just sayin’.
  4. Willie Nelson, “Come On Up To The House”: I have always kinda loved Willie Nelson as in interpreter of other people’s music, and his version of this Tom Waits song (with help from Sheryl Crow and at least one of his songs) really spotlights how good he is at it.
  5. Elvis Presley, “Run On”: Elvis in full-on gospel music I-ain’t-got-time-for-your-shenanigans mode.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Never Be You”: Even Tom Petty’s cast-offs are better than most other bands’ top songs. I will fight you on this.
  7. The Frames, “When Your Mind’s Made Up”: This song is almost 20 years old. Imma just go turn to dust now.
  8. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot”: Of course, this one’s pushing 40, but doesn’t act a day over 18. Gotta love the energy.
  9. Gary Moore, “Parisienne Walkaways”: I was introduced to this one by Uncle Gert. He had me sing it for one of his “Family, Friends, and Me” collections a couple of years ago. How does it somehow feel more haunting now?
  10. Fleetwood Mac, “Storms”: Tusk is the Fleetwood Mac album that keeps giving. Sure, Rumors may have had more top singles on it and is revered as the end-all, be-all of Mac albums, but Tusk is a messy masterpiece all its own. And this quiet, powerful song is just one more reason why.