Current Music Blog

So, about the coolest thing ever happened this week while I was doing my new releases segment on CNN.com. Instead of just playing a few seconds off Frank Turner’s new album “Poetry of the Deed,” Frank came into my office, and played a whole damn song live! Yeah, no shit. It was awesome. Just click through above and you’ll see it all go down.

Also, after the CNN segment, Frank played another three songs in my office. Hell yeah! It was awesome. Surreal, really, or surreally, I guess. I’m going to edit those up and post them on current.com once we iron out some paper work.

And if you need to know more about Frank Turner, watch this other clip I did about him on CNN.com and read this other blog post. Or if you want to be moved by the power of music, watch this clip below that was shot at a house party/show in Philadelphia. Frank will play at your home too after a show, if you email him and are cool about it. Oh, and a few beers and a place to crash probably wouldn’t hurt either. Pretty cool for a guy who’s album just debuted at number 13 on the British charts.

I hate to sound like a capitalist whore, but apparently now you can get “Poetry of the Deed” plus Frank’s previous album “Love, Ire & Song” (which is also amazing) and a t-shirt with Chris Bourke’s art on it, all for $20. (If this feels like a whorish product plug to you, feel free to buy each album and a t-shirt separately from another location for more money. Whatever, it’s your life). Chris Bourke did the cover art for the album. He comes from a tattoo background (not in that horrible Ed Hardy way) and does lino prints now. They’re badass. Check it out.

Also, I feel like I should mention that Frank is a really genuine guy who can speak or sing intelligently to just about any subject you throw at him.

I was on cnn.com this morning trying to explain to the world just how wonderful the Drive-by Truckers are, and that’s a lot to do in just a few minutes. So here are some additional thoughts on the Truckers and their new release, the Fine Print (a collection of oddities and rarities).

These songs come from a period when the Truckers had three of the sickest guitar players and best writers around, all in the same band. Any band working today would shiv their frontman and curb their guitar player backstage to have Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, or Jason Isbell in their band, and for a while they were all in the Drive-by Truckers at the same time. (Check out Jason’s work with his new band the 400 Unit. It actually justifies leaving a band that good).

It’s easy to stand in awe of the Trucker’s guitar work. It’ll knock you on your ass, and then buy you a beer for roughing you up by accident. But believe me when I say these guys are amazing writers. You could print up their lyrics, bind ‘em together and sell it as a collection of the last great Southern Gothic poets, and I guarantee it would be better than whatever crap you’re reading now.

Here are a few clips of live performances of songs from this collection.

“Play it All Night Long”

This is a Warren Zevon cover, but it fits so perfectly into the Trucker catalogue that you’d think it was straight off Southern Rock Opera (if you don’t own that, you should). I love the line “there ain’t much to country living: sweat, piss, jizz, blood.” It’s nasty, but about as true as it gets, and that’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.

This clip is from a New Year’s Eve show. Around 2:55, Jason Isbell picks up a balloon and uses it as a slide. No shit. Suck on that helium.

Also I’d like take a moment to write a note to Kid Rock. Dear Robert Richie, this is how you do a Zevon song, douchetard.

“TVA”

Only Jason Isbell could so eloquently explain the significance of and provide contemporary context for the Tennessee Valley Authority as an early arm of FDR’s New Deal while also singing about rounding second base for the first time in the same song.

If you’re one of those people bitchin’ about the government being a bunch of socialist, Nazi, commie gays that are out to destroy America, listen to this song, and be glad you have the electricity to make it happen. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the government too, but occasionally they do something helpful, before the project grows too big and corrupt.

“Uncle Frank”

Of course there’s always another side to the story, and leave it to the Truckers to provide both. The TVA made a bunch of dams and lakes in the South in order to produce electricity and bring us into the 20^th century (not to mention the massive need for energy in Oak Ridge to build massive weapons for the war effort), but when you build a lake, you gotta put it somewhere. Unfortunately there were a good number of people that lived down near the rivers that became lakes, and they got screwed when the government gave them pennies on the dollar for their land. It wasn’t really an option: the lakes were coming. You either got out of the way, got wet, or got dead. And that’s pretty much what happened. Cooley, explains it much better than I can. So just listen.

You can stream the Fine Print all free this week on Spinner. Listen to it now, than go buy it. And if you don’t already have everything else the Truckers have released, go get that too. If you’re short on cash, just pick one, and I swear your life will be better for it.

I was on cnn.com/live again this morning talking about new releases and trying not to mispronounce any British slang. (Mispronouncing American words is a given). The segment was around the same length as usual, but my coffee was much larger, and I felt like there was a lot I didn’t get to say, so here are the extended liner notes:

“Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood Live from Madison Square Garden,” Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood

This is one of the quintessential Rock ‘n’ Roll recordings of this millennium. I would almost call it the epitome of Rock ‘n’ Roll in its truest form: two extremely talented, absurdly skilled, and well-seasoned pale, white dudes playing old black music. The combo of Clapton’s blues guitar and Winwood’s R&B background is rock in its purest, most simple and deconstructed form. (Plus or minus some Anglo and Scotch-Irish influences).

Clapton and Winwood were old friends all the way back to when they were teenagers in London. The two were always in a bunch of separate bands including Cream and Traffic. When those two acts dissolved, Winwood and Clapton got together to form Blind Faith. That didn’t last long and they went their separate ways shortly afterwards.

Winwood reformed Traffic, and Clapton joined an ass load of different bands and sang a song called “Cocaine.” A lot. Like every night. Then in the mornings and at lunch too. God, he loved that song… so much!!! “Let’s sing it again!!! Right NOW!!! Cut that track up or you’re fired bitch!!!” he’d shout. Then Clapton started singing songs about fucking George Harrison’s wife. (He was kind of a dick.) Flash forward 30 some-odd years and the two reunited on stage for a charity show in 2007, as Clapton was no longer being a dick, and the groundwork was laid for this tour and live album.

Now, everyone knows that Clapton is one of the greats (he’s not God but he is one of the greats); however, Winwood’s the real gem on this record, and he clearly elevates Clapton’s playing, as Clapton does his. Before these shows, Winwood basically called bullshit on Clapton for having other guitarists playing identical Strats right behind him at every show and said it’s just going to be you, me, drums, bass, and some additional keyboards. Not sure how Winwood got to bring backup, but either way, this combo rocks hard and is full of soul. There’s no hiding behind a chorus of studio lifers and background vocalists.

The last time Winwood and Clapton played in Madison Square Garden together, it was 1969, a riot broke out ON STAGE, drummer Ginger Baker got knocked out by a cop’s billy club, and Winwood’s piano was smashed. Five weeks later Blind Faith broke up after only one album and a six-week tour. That’s rock-n-fuckin-roll.

There are a lot of standout tracks on this recording. Traffic’s “Glad” with Clapton shredding in place of the tenor sax solo is as badass as it sounds. So is Winwood joining Clapton for dual guitars on “Dear Mr. Fantasy.” The two of them even manage to do justice to Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and kill a 17-minute “Voodoo Chile.”

My favorite track is probably “Them Changes” by Buddy Miles. Without even knowing he was ill, ClapWood recorded this just days before Miles died. Apparently, a friend at one of the shows held up a phone for Buddy to hear their cover, and he loved it. More or less the same thing happened right after Clapton and Duane Allman laid down “Little Wing” as Derek and the Dominoes, just days before Hendrix died. Thanks Eric. It’s a wonder JJ Cale is still alive today… well, for lots of reasons.

You probably know all the great stuff Clapton has done with Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and as a solo artist, but if you’re not familiar with all the bands that Steve Winwood played in that shaped the landscape of modern music, here are a few choice clips.

“A Beginners Guide to Blur,” Blur

If you’re not very familiar with Blur’s catalogue, it’s only partially your fault. British music that sounds British has never been big on American radio or MTV or whatever other commercial crap takes up most of our bandwidth these days.

Blur are essentially the godfathers of Britpop. Granted, it’s impossible to ever give one band credit for an entire subgenre, but if you had to pick one group, it would be Blur. After their first album, Blur toured the US, to mixed results, and by the time they got back to England, the Seattle grunge scene was exploding like the back of Kurt Cobain’s head all over the UK. Damon Albarn was sick of hearing foreign music dominate the British airways, so he set out to create something distinctly British, and more or less, that’s when Britpop entered the scene in the ’90s.

Blur and Oasis had a pretty big feud. Granted pretty much everyone had a feud with Oasis, hell — they even feuded with themselves. But Blur and Oasis were always competing for the #1 slot in the UK, often with Blur winning. However, Oasis was doing more of a Lo-Fi, American alternative sounding thing, and that caught on much bigger over here. But remnants of the rivalry still exist. If you ever see a drunk British guy in his mid 30s, which is fairly common, run up to him and shout “BLUR OR OASIS!?!” and then vehemently disagree with everything he says after that. It’s a blast.

Get caught up on Blur here.

“It Was This or Football” (first half), Kid British

How can you not like that song? Maybe if you’re the soulless, joy-crushing, hearing-impaired bastard child of Nazis and slave owners, you might not like it, but pretty much everyone else should love that song.

Kid British pull off a pretty slick combination of most every genre of music using some sweet harmonies, live instruments and well-placed samples. Don’t be angry just because they’re better at it than Americans.

To old school rockers who shit on sampling all together: sampling is nothing new. It’s been around forever, and the greatest sampler of all time is probably Jimmy Page. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, and if you actually don’t know, look it up. Sampling’s not just unique to music either. No one called Jasper Johns a hack for lifting from Betsy Ross.

Kid British are getting bigger across the pond, but for some reason no ones is really pushing them over here, which is retarded because these guys are a goldmine. If I had the cash, I’d invest in an American PR campaign, and then retire from the royalties of their next album. Whoever decided not to get behind them here is a fucking moron. Do yourself a favor and get in on what they’re doing now, so you won’t have to buy “A Beginners Guide to Kid British” in 18 years.

You can buy the first half of their album here, watch some videos here, follow them on twitter here, and do a little bit of everything here.

I was on cnn.com/live again this morning talking about new releases and trying not to dissolve into a fit of cuss words and obscene gestures when we talked about the Jonas Brothers.

Here’s a quick run down of the new albums we covered:

Jonas Brothers “Lines, Vines, and Trying Times”

Seriously? I mean, really. Another f@ckin’ Jonas album?!? I’m so damn sick of 14 year-old girls running the entertainment industry with their allowance money. We all know Hughie, Dewey and Louie suck, so I’ll keep this short by rebutting the three main arguments adults with the minds of children make for the Jonas Brothers.

1). They write their own lyrics. F@ck you they shouldn’t! These lyrics sound like they just copy and pasted from your little sister’s Twitter account. One song compares a teenage breakup to World War III and another compares it to a NASCAR race. Well which is it—the largest and most deadly war this world has ever seen leading to the annihilation of the Earth, or a series of high speed left turns? They don’t write their own lyrics, they wrong their own lyrics. At least the Monkees hired Neil Diamond to write a few great songs for them.

2). They play their own instruments. F@ck you they don’t. They hold their own instruments while about 25 of the world’s most skilled studio musicians play behind them.

3). But they’re like little Stevie Wonder or the early Beatles! That’s it. [I stab this person in the neck.]

Street Sweeper Social Club “Street Sweeper Social Club”

Badass! This is Tom Morello, Boots Riley, and Stanton Moore knocking you on your ass with skull shattering guitar riffs, smooth, sly and satirical verses, and spot-on, tight ass drumming.

If you’ve been waiting for Morello to return to his monstrous guitar licks and political agenda in the same album, your time has come. This album rages against the machine that built the machine, but is a bit more lyrically subtle about it than Zach de la Rocha generally was. One second you think you’re listening to a song about a party, then the next second you realize that Boots just called for the beheading of a Wall Street exec. Listen to it for free here, read the lyrics here, and then buy it here.

Get more about Tom Morello at Current.com.

Old Man Pie “Old Man Pie”

Old Man Pie describe themselves as “anti-folk, Americana, and pie music.” Pie music? Yes, please. British Americana? Why the hell not. We’ve churned out enough pseudo punk pop bands with fake British accents, so why not have an English Americana band?

In addition to making really unique and catchy music, these guys made some cool flash animation videos and a couple of video games to promote their songs. Check them out here and here, then once you realize you’ve got their songs stuck in your head, buy their album here. Old Man Pie!