Hey, here's a good old thread. I spent the last week in a Dickensian debtor's prison (though it was voluntary and so I was free to leave whenever I liked), so I'm gonna get back into the swing of messageboarding by talking about albums I like that you should like too!
Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me
Faithful boarders will recognize that I've been trying to sell this one for years, largely to no avail. But what can I expect? It's a hostile audience: the
really faithful boarders will recognize that "Nellie" was either the name or pseudonym of the Ballston girl, and we alllll know that
TSM Hates Women
. When you build the connotation of waxy vaginal discharge upon a sturdy foundation of (largely fictitious) misogyny, why, it's certain that nobody will take a flier on that. Or it could just be that we're not particularly amenable to cutesy lounge-pop with profanity sprinkled in. In spite of all that, you should still give it a try if you haven't yet, because she's too damn musical and clever not to appreciate. She plays most of the instruments on the album, to the best of my knowledge, which is all the more impressive considering she's written stuff lightyears ahead of tired-ass I-IV-V power chord progressions. Stylistically, she jumps from one broadstroke genre pastiche to another in between more traditional jazzy offerings, while maintaining enough of the same songwriting sensibilities to cohere an overambitious attempt at rapping on "Sari" to synthpop on "Waiter" to smoky cocktail lounge fare on "Manhattan Avenue." The one blemish on this, the best of her three albums (advance to
Pretty Little Head and the qualitatively superb but quantitatively disappointing
Obligatory Villagers if you like), is "It's a Pose," which is just about how white men suck, and I do enough self-loathing about my lot in life without some GRRRL piling on. Skip it and you're still left with 57.45 of seventeen inspired tunes, more than most albums will give you. Fun fact: noted TSMer Al Keiper went to middle school with her.
The Thinking Fellers Union Local #282 - Strangers from the Universe
I discovered the Fellers, as surely dozens have, by noticing the longest wackiest band name on the list of back catalogues on Mark Prindle's site and diving in based on his rave reviews. Not the only nomenclatural standout I discovered through Prindle: this was also my entry into the world of Neil Hamburger, though I never could procure anything from "Just Farr a Laugh!", and I never got past reading the reviews for BUTThole Surfers side project "Fearless Iranians From Hell." The Prindle thread in Etc prompted me to revisit the Fellers, who had been lying dormant in my music collection for some time. But when I opened the folder, F:\An ocean of noise\Thinking Fellers Union Local #282 - 1994 - Strangers from the Universe, I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before: somehow the scans of the liner notes had made their way into the folder! I could read the lyrics as I listened now! Of course, I could've just looked them up somewhere and found them, but you're always working at about 95% accuracy when you do that, and the thought never occurred to me anyway, preferring to let the words wash over me largely undeciphered. But it turns out this was a stupid approach to the album! Taking in the lyrics makes this album kick even more ass! Getting the full lyrics to "Socket" really brings out the flavor, so to speak, the flavor in this case being the inability to sense things after being severely electrocuted. Goes well with "Operation," which is not about a hospital, but ostensibly about being stabbed--if not severely disfigured and dismembered--on a city street and left for dead while people loot the narrator's apartment. I pick up a lot more restlessness and anxiety from "February" when I can tell he's saying "everything's the same, it's just more of the same" at the beginning. There's nothing deeper to get from "My Pal, the Tortoise," though. It's just a tortoise who files a proclamation of tortoise intent! The interludes of practice-space noodling just are what they are, whatevz, you get Feller Filler on every release. There are several Fellers albums out there, and Prindle pretty much likes 'em all (
Mother of All Saints being his fave, IIRC), but this is far and away the most accessible, even when you go years before fully understanding all the lyrics.
Grant Green - Idle Moments
Here's a brain-meltingly cool guitar-centered jazz album, also featuring tenor saxophone "middleweight champion" Joe Henderson and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson (personal favorite of mine). If you're an atonality acolyte who scoffs at softer (though not
smooth god no) jazz offerings fit for audio wallpaper at dinner parties, or believe that electric guitar can only exist with overdriven amplifiers, I can't believe you'd like this at all, but just let down your defenses and
relaaaax in a big soft chair with a nice cup of tea and take it in. Given the musicians on this date, the playing is top-notch, with Hutcherson's vibes stealing the show at times. The 15-minute title track will blow right by in what feels like a small fraction of the time. One of the things that I take note of is how well they play at pianissimo, especially the tenor, which can be worlds harder on a wind instrument than playing balls-out
ffffff or whatever. Trust me. The restraint and balance that the guitar/vibes/tenor demonstrate on the head is the sort of thing that makes you almost involuntarily give out that quiet little aspirated "
nice" in appreciation. Green's guitar chops are so good that even ardent rock/metal fans should be able to enjoy what he does on his solos, not just on the title track I've been blabbering about but on the other three charts as well. If the first tune puts you to sleep against your will, fear not; the other 28 minutes aren't nearly as soporific. Nonetheless, the name of the game remains discretion throughout the album, never getting too loud, too ambitious, or too meandering.
I hope at least one person likes at least one of these three and justifies this post. I know Black Lushus won't, because he complains about me at a board where I'm not registered and says that he'll avoid anything I endorse just because I'm me. As far as discovering new music goes, this is probably a sound policy (pun intended) because I suck at liking things, but geez, just say it to my face or something.
