Nik's Unheralded Albums #9: Neil Young, 'Arc'

Even for the notoriously restless Neil Young, "Arc" is a weird sideline in his lengthy career. An offshoot from the fantastic "Weld" live album recorded during Young's 1991 tour with Crazy Horse, it's basically a sound collage by Young, piecing together feedback freakouts and jams from shows throughout the tour, an extended outro or intro that doesn't ever quite burst into full-on song.

Neil Young has done everything from soothing country folk to electronica to rampaging hard rock, but "Arc" is rather unique in his catalogue. It's a free-form piece of sound experimentation, way more Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" than "Rockin' In The Free World." Young was reportedly inspired by then-tourmates Sonic Youth and Thurston Moore in his approach to a lot of the sound of the Arc/Weld era, and it shows.

"Arc" is a kind of abandoned stepchild in the Young archives and is definitely an acquired taste, but yet I quite like to put it on and be blasted by white noise for 30 minutes or so, to kind of enjoy the scouring power of raw sensation. In some ways, it's as pure as electric Neil Young gets. I kind of imagine it's like being inside Neil's brain for a spin, all echoing feedback and crashing chords.

You can hear a lot of "Arc"'s influence in a band like slow-metal act Sunn O))), whose doomy weight is like "Arc" with added foreboding. "Arc" sweeps and washes over you, and while it's rather abrasive, I don't find it as overbearingly harsh as something like the infamous "Metal Machine Music" or Throbbing Gristle.

"Arc" does have a structure, like a flexing, tense ocean of noise -- the "song" fades and builds, over and over, snatches of a few recognisable numbers including "Like A Hurricane" and "Love And Only Love" pushing out of the chaos. There's a lot of the fierce electric crackle of raw feedback jostling with the swell of guitars, sounding like bombs going off, and it's hard not to be reminded that the first Gulf War was under way at this point in history. If anything, this is Neil's "war" record, and it aims to put you at the front lines.

Does the "concept" get old? I wouldn't put on "Arc" at a dinner party, but at just over half an hour it's no longer than some of the equally apocalyptic jams of Can or Sunn O))). I wouldn't recommend this to someone whose favorite Neil Young song is "Heart of Gold," really, but "Arc" isn't just a novelty disc. It's the logical extension of some of his most extreme Crazy Horse-led guitar freakouts, and an interesting curio in Neil Young's discography.

Here's a taste of "Arc" - the "single" excerpt released from the whole work. Put on headphones, maaaaan...

A Yank's Humble Guide To Kiwi Music (Part II)

It’s May, and down here that means New Zealand Music Month, a celebration I grow increasingly fond of every year. For such a wee little country at the bottom of the world, NZ has a rich and diverse pop music history.

Anyway, so like FOUR YEARS ago I spotlighted a handful of my favourite kiwi musicians here for NZ Music Month and optimistically called that “Part 1.” Here’s part two, with another group of fantastic Antipodean sounds for anyone who wants to learn more about the way-out tunes from down under. This time I spotlight seven young newer bands that are doing outstanding work, and together they do help show that New Zealand pop is very healthy.

Dictaphone Blues

I’m always a sucker for power-pop, and Dictaphone Blues ably follow in the footsteps of acts like Big Star and Badfinger with a bombastic, melodic range of songs on their latest, “Beneath The Crystal Palace.” Shredding guitar solos, heaven-sent harmonies cloaked in a pristine production style, they’re retro in the best possible fashion and well worth a spin.

Recommended if you like: Cheap Trick, Badfinger

Listen to: “Cliché,” live

Drab Doo Riffs

Snarky and charmingly ramshackle, this combo filters rockabilly through a bit of punk attitude. I’ve read them described as sounding like music from a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack, and can’t quite think of a more apt description. Their songs like “Juggernaut” and “I’m Depressed” roar past you in a snide burst and are a rollicking good time.

Recommended if you like: The Cramps, Dick Dale

Listen to “Juggernaut,” live

Great North

To be fair, I do work with the lead singer in this band, but hey, they’re still pretty darned good – a sweeping Kiwi take on Americana that evokes the lonesome open road and heartbreak on the way. “Alt-country” isn’t something that seems very common in Kiwi music but Great North bring class and a distinctive voice to the genre. I’d listen to these guys even if my mate Hayden wasn’t in them.

Recommended if you like: Ryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen

Listen to “Second Skin,” live

Kimbra

NZ-raised Kimbra has hit stardom on the back of her duet in Goyte’s inescapable Sting sound-a-like tune “Somebody I Used To Know,” but she’s a very formidable talent on her own merit. Even The New York Times thinks so. Her debut album “Vows” is pretty charming, bouncy dance-pop that has just enough strangeness and style to it that it sounds quite fresh – and her voice is remarkably versatile, moving from be-bop scatting to a banshee wail.

Recommended if you like: Bjork, Amy Winehouse

Listen to “Settle Down”

Lawrence Arabia

The Finn family hold a mighty sway over NZ pop music – Neil Finn’s Crowded House and Split Enz with his brother Tim, and the up-and-coming dazzling songcraft of Neil’s son Liam Finn. But the true heir of “Beatlesque” pop in NZ right now has to be Lawrence Arabia, whose warm, inviting sound is utterly, effortlessly catchy. His tunes combine nostalgic psychedelia with a dreamy wisdom. The songs are light and airy, with lyrics that are subtly amusing and world-weary at the same time.

Recommended if you like: The Beatles, Squeeze

Listen to “Apple Pie Bed”

Tono and the Finance Company

Arch and witty, this young new band have lyrics so sharp that you find yourself rewinding songs to catch the bits you missed. Frontman Anthonie Tonnon writes songs about being young, confused and broke, but with a poet’s eye. Not every band can pull off a song about how a landlord has ripped you off (“Marion Bates Realty”) and have it come off as a sweeping existential ode.

Recommended if you like: The Smiths, Elvis Costello

Listen to “Marion Bates Realty”

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Born from the ashes of the late punk-pop combo The Mint Chicks, UMO offer a bent and elastic take on psychedelic pop. I already named their debut one of my favourite albums of 2011, and still adore it – splicing together elements of psych and funk to make music that skitters about into unexpected corners. There’s a shaggy-dog beauty to this highly rhythmic, yet weirdly melancholy music that sticks in your head.

Recommended if you like: Prince, MGMT

Listen to “How Can U Love Me?”

My name is MCA and I still do what I please

Well on and on and on and on

I can't stop y'all 'til the early morn'

So rock y'all tick tock y'all to the beat y'all

C'mon and rock y'all

I give thanks for inspiration

It guides my mind along the way

A lot of people get jealous, they're talking about me

But that's just 'cause they haven't got a thing to say

The Beastie Boys were my gateway to hip-hop, which as an uptight white boy I wasn't supposed to get into. I found rap wasn't all guns 'n' girls and got into everyone from Run-DMC to Kanye thanks to the Beasties reeling me in. "Check Your Head" and "Ill Communication" could easily be the soundtrack to my 1990s. And my favorite B-Boy was always MCA, with his battered-tires voice. There's been too much cancer in our lives lately, and at 47, MCA had a lot of good rhymes left in him. One of the greats.

Rest in Peace, MCA. Adam Yauch 1964-2012

Concert review: Elvis Costello and the Imposters, April 15, San Francisco

When I saw that Elvis Costello was going to be performing in Northern California the same time I was making my quasi-annual pilgrimage to the homeland, I knew I wasn’t going to pass that opportunity up. Especially as he was on his “Spectacular Spinning Songbook” tour, a unique vaudevillian experience where Costello played the carnival barker and let the audience choose the set list.

I’ve seen Costello play twice now, in Oregon in 2002 and San Francisco in 2012, and each time it’s been one of the best concert experiences of my life. The man puts 110 percent into each and every performance, and is a true showman. For my money he’s got one of the richest songbooks in popular music, from the angry young man “My Aim Is True” era to the stately chamber pop of “Imperial Bedroom” to the twisted rage-rock of “Brutal Youth” to the bittersweet country rock of "National Ransom."

And at San Francisco’s historic Warfield theatre the other night, Costello traveled through it all. The “spinning songbook” is a gimmick he briefly used back in the 1980s and has revived for his new tour, a “Wheel of Fortune” style device that audience members are invited to spin, and wherever it stops, Costello plays a tune. Costello adopts the huckster persona of “Napoleon Dynamite” (which predates the kitschy movie by years, thanks) and the stage includes such oddities as a “society lounge” bar and a go-go dancer cage eager fans are invited to enter. It all rides the line between cheesy and cool but Costello delivers it firmly tongue-in-cheek. Even the go-go dancing cage worked, and we got to see some truly terrible white folks' dancing from some of the audience members, but everyone was having a blast. The Imposters were in great form too, especially the invaluable Steve Nieve on keyboards (and occasionally, a great theremin).

Costello and the Imposters were on fire from the start, blasting out with a mini-set that included a roaring “Lipstick Vogue” and a sprawling “Watching The Detectives” before the wheel-spinning began. Selections on the wheel included individual songs and “theme” picks like “Time” or “Roses” that would launch a few grouped songs. Having ordinary folk come up and interact with Costello made the concert have a nifty community feeling, and the wheel made the concert a nice mix of classics and rarities and some great covers. A dynamic version of “Episode of Blonde” saw Elvis wandering the entire audience as he sang, even coming up onto the balcony not 10 feet away from me.

The concert really had me once again appreciating Costello’s vast resume of songs – “Everyday I Write The Book,” a haunting “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror,” fierce takes on “Mystery Dance” and “Radio Radio.” It also opened my eyes to how good Costello can be at covers, and his deep appreciation of other artists. Few musicians have such eclectic tastes from country to opera to pop, and this night Costello took on the Rolling Stones (a wonderful, singalong “Out of Time”), Chuck Berry (“No Particular Place To Go”), an utterly joyful Beatles “Please Please Me” and a song that particularly appealed to this Bay Area crowd, the Grateful Dead’s “Ramble On Rose.” By the time it wrapped up after 2 ½ hours with a boisterous “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding,” we were all converted to the Church of the Spectacular Singing Songbook.

It was a great show – the only flaws being that my balcony seat kind of obscured the colourful wheel and that people around me couldn’t stop fiddling with their damn iPhones during the show (hey, I love my iPhone too, but I’m able to stop playing with it sometimes). Oh, and after the show I had to walk across town through San Francisco's seediest neighborhood The Tenderloin at nearly midnight, but hey, I survived!

Mix Tapes I Have Known #3: "M------," 1994

Ah, cassettes. They still seem fashionably retro to me, a spot I realize CDs in general probably occupy for everyone under the age of 30. The box of mix tapes dating from my pre-millennial youth still sits in the garage, a bit dusty and cobwebby, but full of strange memories. Here's another dive into the navel-gazing world of nostalgia:

The tape: "M------"

Year created: Spring 1994

Who it was for: Let's pretend the wife doesn't read my blog. This one was for an old girlfriend, who we shall call "M" here as frankly we're all old and married and have kids and stuff now. But once upon a time, I was a worldly college senior and she was a dimple-cheeked freshman, I was full of ego and she was extraordinarily kind, and we hooked up for a few short weeks. Time was the enemy, though - we got together about 6 weeks before the end of the school year, and I was off to New York City for a big fancy internship with "Billboard" magazine and she was off to New Orleans. Can you keep a relationship that's just started going when you spend an entire summer apart?

The answer, of course, was "no." Although I wrote her often (real letters, no email then!) and we tried, we drifted apart over those three months. When we all came back to school in the fall, she had another boyfriend and that was that. The summer of 1994 is an exceedingly strange time in my mind, even now -- all by myself in the biggest city in the world, the universe full of potential and every detail of sprawling Manhattan etched in my mind.

I sent her this tape as summer began, trying to hold on to things.

Track listing:

SIDE A

1. To Sir With Love (Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant) 2. Swimming In Your Ocean (Crash Test Dummies) 3. May This Be Love (Jimi Hendrix) 4. Into My Life (Colin Hay Band) 5. All I Want (Toad The Wet Sprocket) 6. Gentleman Who Fell (Milla) 7. Bottle Of Fur (Urge Overkill) 8. The One I Love (R.E.M.) 9. Somebody (Depeche Mode) 10. Different Light (The Bangles) 11. When I'm 64 (The Beatles) 12. That's All (Genesis) 13. Stay (Amy Grant)

SIDE B

1. The Best Is Yet To Come (Frank Sinatra) 2. That Feel (Tom Waits) 3. I Would For You (Jane's Addiction) 4. Bent Out Of Shape (Replacements) 5. Tear In Your Hand (Tori Amos) 6. Do You Love Me Now? (Breeders) 7. Within You (David Bowie) 8. That Voice Again (Peter Gabriel) 9. Wink (Blue Mountain) 10. Luna (Smashing Pumpkins) 11. All Apologies (Nirvana)

What this says about my music tastes at the time: Actually, I'm not as embarrassed by this one as I am by some other mix tapes I made. Kurt Cobain was recently dead and so was grunge, and there's a nice mix of pop, alternative rock and out-of-nowhere clangers. I was getting to be a bit more eclectic in my tastes, I think.

What was I thinking? But then again, there's an Amy Grant song here. Amy freakin' Grant. I honestly don't even know how that got on there.

This song could totally be taken the wrong way: "This one goes out to the one I love / this one goes out to the one I've left behind / another prop has occupied my time." - R.E.M., The One I Love

Seriously, I think I overdid it: "Love" is in at least four song titles and most of the songs here are on that topic. Considering we were only dating a few weeks, I probably came on too strong.

Clever left-field choices: You can't go wrong with a dash of Tom Waits, and I love the jaunty feel of the Sinatra song kicking off side 2. I've always thought Crash Test Dummies were rather unfairly maligned as one-hit wonders, and "Swimming In Your Ocean" is a nice little gem off their "God Shuffled His Feet" album.

Totally obvious choice: I think I used "That's All" by Genesis on at least 75% of the mix tapes I ever made. I love that song, but yeah, kind of a cliche. And ending with "All Apologies" seemed quite poignant just weeks after Cobain's death, but might be a bit forced now. Still, overall, I rather like this tape and what it was about the wide-eyed boy from Mississippi I was then, off to New York City for a summer that - cliches be damned - kind of changed everything for me.

Concert Review: Urge Overkill, Auckland, March 6

Some bands will always take you to a certain time in your life. For me, Urge Overkill is the sound of 1993.

Urge were a bit of the odd man out in the mid 1990s, the era of grunge. I loved the whole grunge thing, but Urge's vibe were more old-school 70s arena rock - taking a tip from bands like Cheap Trick and Kiss, but with songs also steeped in the Husker Du/Replacements style of gritty punkpop. The band dressed like hipster dandies and never wore flannel. They even had a logo, for crying out loud - how un-grunge!

But I loved Urge Overkill, particularly the one-two punch of their great power pop albums "Saturation" and "Exit The Dragon," their last gasp before the band broke up in the mid 1990s. Their biggest popular hit was their cover on Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" from the movie Pulp Fiction, a great song but not really representative of the Urge's full talents. At their best, Urge were hard-rocking, witty, and slick in a groovy kind of way.

Because no bands ever break up forever any more, a reunited Urge Overkill came to the Kings Arms in New Zealand this week for their first show in decades - whippet-thin frontman Nash Kato looking barely aged a day since the 1990s, with his sunglasses and floppy hair. Eddie "King" Roeser and Kato traded off vocals and guitar licks in a fun hour or so set. Pal Bob and I went to check it out.

I remember listening to "Saturation" incessantly in 1993, living in this wee tiny trailer with cinderblock bookcases. At 22 or so, at a point when you have no idea where you're going to end up in life, Urge's "Positive Bleeding" was a kind of anthem for me -- "I live my life with no control of my destiny / I can bleed when I want to bleed."

There was a heap of 1990s nostalgia going on for the Urge's reunion show down here. Sometimes muddy sound and a smallish crowd didn't dim the band's terrific energy. Highlights includes a great show-opening turn on "Positive Bleeding," plus welcome takes on "Saturation" album cuts "Bottle of Fur" and "Heaven 90210," two of my favorites. Urge also dipped into their fun new "comeback" album "Rock 'N' Roll Submarine" a few times, which maintains the feel of their 1990s work very well. "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" was hauled out for the encore with a raggedy loose version, while the pounding "Sister Havana" wrapped things up. Urge put on a tight, good-natured show, looking happy to hit New Zealand on their second life. Glad to see you guys too, and thanks for making me feel like it was 1993 all over again for an hour or so.

Another review, with cool video here: The 13th Floor

And the great video for "Positive Bleeding":

Concert Review: Beirut, Auckland, January 16

A band with rousing accordion riffs, a thundering horn section and the occasional lusty tuba solo isn't the sort of act you'd think might sell out one of Auckland's top hip concert venues. But Beirut's sound defies the expected for modern pop music. Zachary Condon, the 27-year-old face behind Beirut, looks about 16 and yet channels that old-world gypsy vibe with a timeless, epic sound that sounds unearthed from sometime in the last century.

Beirut came to New Zealand for a series of great shows this week. The six-piece act are kind of world music magpies, drawing on gypsy dance, Mexican parades, French ennui and more to create a swirling sound anchored by Condon's soulful, world-weary voice and a cascading series of horns. At the Powerstation Monday night, they managed to be both epic and intimate. (Here's a few reviews by my work cohorts at the Herald and Volume magazine far superior to my own scratchings.)

I wonder if for much of the crowd Beirut affected them like they do me -- in the iPhone/Twitter age it somehow evokes an older time, a sense of legacy which often seems lacking in our live-updates-all-the-time world. Condon's lyrics often touch on the foggy border between now and then, a constant pining for an imagined ideal past. Beirut walks a fine line - their appropriation of the past and old-fashioned instruments, and Condon's youth, might make them appear too overtly hipster precious in their approach. But there's an underlying sincerity in their mournful odes and ballads.

When "Postcards From Italy" surged up -- a song I listened to a lot during the depressing days of last fall -- I felt a kind of cathartic joy, at sad sounding music that also is full of nostalgic love. Live, Beirut transformed many of their slower songs into jaunty waltzes -- the wistful "Santa Fe," the tender "Goshen." But they also unleashed the joy that music can bring - a grand voice, an accordion gurgling, a ukulele twang, or the kick of a line of horns blaring (Beirut makes the best consistent use of horns in pop music by any band since Earth, Wind and Fire). When all three horn players blasted their trumpets, horns and tubas at the same time, it's ecstatic. The rollicking folk-pop show closer, "Gulag Orkestar," was a dizzy blast, complete with tuba solo - how many rock concerts have had a tuba solo be a crowd-pleasing wrap-up?

The "Postcards from Italy" video:

Nik’s Unheralded Albums #8: Milla, ‘The Divine Comedy’

There’s no reason this album should be any good, really. It’s by a former supermodel-turned-zombie-movie-actress. While Milla Jovovich has carved out a lucrative career in movies like the “Resident Evil” series and “The Fifth Element,” her 1994 debut album – and only one to date – would seem the kind of vanity project that has little to recommend it. Actors who think they’re singers clutter the used CD sections of the world – Bruce Willis and Eddie Murphy, I’m looking at you.

But here’s a surprise. Milla’s “The Divine Comedy” is actually quite good, a heavily atmospheric sampling of folksy world music pop that carries a distinct, pleasant voice. Milla pays homage to her Ukrainian homeland with an album full of mandolin, dulcimer, and cascading synthesizers. There’s an aura of blissful lovesick reverie and girlish confusion throughout many of the songs (not surprisingly, as she was only 18 when the album came out). Numbers like “Gentleman Who Fell” or “You Did It All Before” don’t sound like a lot of the other mainstream music that was coming out in 1994, and that’s what’s kept “The Divine Comedy” sounding pretty fresh years later.

There’s a gentle pastoral, broken-hearted feeling to the album, but Milla’s emotive voice and constantly surprising and rich instrumental choices keep the album ducking cliché. You can hear a heavy Kate Bush influence in her work, and the sounds of artists like Beth Orton and Tori Amos peeking around the edges.

I’ll admit I was drawn to “The Divine Comedy” by the fanciful nude portrait of Milla on the cover, but this album offers more than celeb-spotting. While I don’t imagine it sold very well, it had a decent critical response and it’s a bit surprising that in the 18 years since Milla never put out another proper album. But while this is an obscure record, it’s got a devoted fanbase -- and the mere fact I’m still listing to it fondly in 2012 is a sign “The Divine Comedy” had a happy ending.

The ‘Gentleman Who Fell’ video:

Happy 65th birthday, David Bowie!

...One thing that happens as you get older is your idols get older, too. It's hard to believe David Bowie is of retirement age today - even though he's been semi-retired since 2004 or so. I've written about Bowie many a time before on this blog. It's fair to say I'm a mega-fan, of pretty much everything from "Space Oddity" on up to "Bring Me The Disco King." Heck, I even have a soft spot for the Tin Machine era.

His "retirement" after his last studio album, 2003's "Reality," was a surprise - no melodramatic goodbye announcement or anything, but a slow fade away. While Bowie's given us enough entertainment for several lifetimes, the selfish fan in me still hopes he might come out for one last hurrah sometime - 65 isn't quite ready for the nursing home just yet.

One of my bigger musical regrets is not seeing Bowie when he performed in Portland, Oregon in 2004 on what would turn out to be his last major tour. I foolishly thought I'd get another chance to see him, and little Peter was less than 2 months old and cash was thin on the ground. But man, now I'm thinking I might've missed my one chance to see Bowie live. I've seen most of the other musicians on my "concert bucket list" but Bowie has eluded me.

If you held a gun to my head and asked me to choose between my top three musicians of all time - Bowie, Dylan and Elvis Costello - I figure I'd have to go with Bowie, whose sheer theatrical inventiveness pushes him slightly over Misters Dylan and Costello for me. Happy 65th birthday, Mr. David Jones, wherever you are - and thanks for all the memories.


Don't let me know when you're opening the door
Close me in the dark, let me disappear
Soon there'll be nothing left of me
Nothing left to release
- "Bring Me The Disco King," the last lyrics on the last album David Bowie has released to date.

Year in Review: My favorite music of 2011

It's that time of year, so here my picks for my favorite music of 2011, in alphabetical order:

Beirut, “The Rip Tide”
Sometimes sad is good, and Beirut does wonderful sad. Imagine Morrissey if he'd loved world music and brass bands. Zach Condon is only 25, but his music sounds like it's been around forever, steeped in old-world charm. Beirut's third disc, "The Rip Tide" is all sweeping melancholy and Condon's mournful voice, but it's the kind of sad that feels good to listen to. The jaunty "Santa Fe" is perhaps my favorite song of this year, while the title track is beautiful, broken-hearted and grand. If you like Arcade Fire or the National, you need to listen to this one.

Ben Folds, “The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective”
OK, technically it’s a box set, but it’s got new stuff, too. And what a treasure trove for fans of Folds and his wry, witty piano pop – three discs of hits, rarities and live versions. Folds’ tunes straddle the line between Elton John and They Might Be Giants, with a song able to break your heart and crack you up in the same verse. The Ben Folds Five were one of the great underrated acts of the 1990s and Folds’ solo career has been pretty winning. This set offers a whole new chance to appreciate the hooks and harmonies, and discover rare gems.

Fabulous/Arabia, “Unlimited Buffet”
New Zealanders Lawrence Arabia and Mike Fabulous have collaborated to create a dreamlike and gorgeous piece of Kiwi pop. Arabia's last album "Chant Darling" is one of the best Kiwi records of the last few years -- in that same creative, vibrant zone bands like Phoenix Foundation and Liam Finn are operating in -- and this record is nearly as good. High harmonies, floating hooks, a bit of winking irony and an undercurrent of funk swim together in an album that is perfect for listening to on a New Zealand summer's day, watching the waves roll in at the beach.

Kanye West & Jay-Z, “Watch The Throne”
It’s a gaudy and cocky monument to consumerism, with barely an ounce of subtlety – but still, the two titans of hip-hop deliver a caffeinated, hook-filled romp of an album. While less epic in its reach than Kanye's last album, it's still a pretty dazzling mix of ego and invention, with some of the best uses of samples in a long time. Most “event” albums -- like Lady Gaga’s latest -- fall short, but this one manages to deliver.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “Soul Time!”
Unabashedly retro soul-funk, which may not be particularly groundbreaking but sure lights up a room. I've been on a big classic soul kick lately -- Otis, Aretha, Stax -- and Jones is one of the few folks today who carry on that tradition in a way that doesn't just seem like a tribute act. Top-notch musicianship and utter sincerity abound in songs like "Genuine" and "What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?" I'd take the well-seasoned, passionate voice of Sharon Jones over the staggeringly dull Adele any day of the week, myself.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Mirror Traffic"
Ah, Malkmus. Don't ever change. On the heels of the great Pavement reunion tour comes another slab of Malkmus' quirky, goofy rock, this time produced by Beck. Full of jammy guitar riffs, wacky lyrical asides and hooks that burrow into your brain, "Mirror Traffic" is good partly because it seems so damned effortless for the band. Only Malkmus could deliver the chorus to "Senator" with a straight face: "I know what the senator wants / what the senator wants / is a blow job." Awesome!

My Morning Jacket, “Circuital”
Some fans hated MMJ's last album, the experimental "Evil Urges," but I kinda dug it. The myth-drenched Southern rock combo return with an album that sums up all their parts. "Circuital" combines the spooky, reverb-filled feel of MMJ's first few albums with the free-wheeling charm of their later work -- got to love a song called "Holdin' on to Black Metal," which is defiantly tongue in check. But then album opener "Victory Dance" is a slow-building thunderbolt of a song, knocking you flat with its building power.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “Unknown Mortal Orchestra”
Out of the ashes of New Zealand’s punk-pop band The Mint Chinks comes this groovy psychedelic funk rock outfit, now based in Oregon. There’s a kind of alien, trippy loose-limbedness to this record, which blends solid grooves to space-cadet melodies. A bit like MGMT or Of Montreal, it’s a band giving a hipster take on well-worn genres with true adoration. It’s seasoned with a strange dash of melancholy that only makes the beats dig deeper.

Tom Waits, “Bad As Me”
After nearly 40 years of doing this, isn’t Tom Waits’ schtick old by now? But “Bad As Me” is as fresh and strange as anything else in the master’s cellar, and like many other critics have said, it plays almost as a “lost greatest hits” album. Waits saunters through every style in his book – the mournful ballad, the warped road song, the tub-thumping rant. I remember Waits being a bit of a cult figure when I stumbled across him in the late 1980s. But icon status, and even admission to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, hasn’t dimmed his distinctive weirdness one bit.

Wilco, “The Whole Love”
After two lovely but mellow albums, there’s a welcome return of tension and experimentation to Wilco’s latest. There’s less of the anguish that marked the band’s classic “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” but there’s a resurgent curiosity and sense of play. The band’s secret MVP is astounding guitarist Nels Cline, whose textural clangs, chords and riffs give frontman Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics added space and mystery.

Bubbling under: Florence + The Machine, “Ceremonials”; PJ Harvey, “Let England Shake”; Bon Iver, “Bon Iver”

Songs of the year
Beirut, "Santa Fe"
The Drab Doo Riffs, “Juggernaut”
Bon Iver, "Perth"
Liam Finn, "Cold Feet"
My Morning Jacket, "Outta My System"
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Senator"
Urge Overkill, “Thought Balloon”
Florence + The Machine, “Never Let Me Go”
Tom Waits, “Hell Broke Luce”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “How Can You Luv Me?”

Show of the year
I've been a total slacker on the concert scene the second half of this year, because I'm an old man in my 40s, after all. But I did see some excellent stuff earlier this year, including the sprawling traveling review of George Clinton & P. Funk - the big man may be past his prime but he was backed up by a great all-star cast. A '90s fave of mine, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, were also garage-rock fun, but the real highlight for me was seeing the post-punk combo Gang Of Four tear it up, and energetic front man Jon King ripping the Powerstation apart like it was 1979 all over again.

That's me in the corner: Farewell, R.E.M.

R.E.M. have called it quits, which saddens me -- not as much as it might once have, perhaps, but it's still worth taking a moment to remember how great they were at their zenith.

I know there's a lot of wags out there who expressed surprise they were still together, that the general consensus is that they peaked with 1992's "Automatic For The People" and it's been a slow downhill slope ever since, but I don't care what anyone else thinks -- they remain one of the finest bands of the last 30 years, and their influence can be felt on countless acts.

It's hard to be a band that makes it to that blockbuster level of a U2 or a Pearl Jam or Rolling Stones. Inevitably, you fall off the peak a bit. Name a band that sustains a 20+ year career of constant critical and commercial success, and it'd have to be a pretty small list. R.E.M. was a fluke as a mainstream success -- they were more comfortable in the shadows, in the cult icon category with people like their idol Patti Smith.

Like most things, I was a bit of a late bloomer to R.E.M. -- I didn't discover them until 1989's "Green," and it was appropriate that I discovered them in my first year living in Mississippi. In the early days, they were definitely a Southern band, steeped in kudzu, gothic mystique and fog. Someone in my college dorm was giving away some of his CDs and I snagged "Green." I remember playing one track over and over again that seemed directly written for me, freshly moved from the West Coast to the deep South -- "I Remember California," of course.

There was a big hoo-rah in the rock world around 1992 or so over who was better -- U2 or R.E.M. It's never been a contest for me. While U2 are grandiose, epic and often a bit overblown, R.E.M. were a cult band who briefly became mainstream through the sheer power and craft of their songwriting. Even now, 20 years on, I listen to the chiming mandolin chords of "Losing My Religion" and it still sounds fresh and peculiar on the thousandth listen, the urgency and murky universality of Stipe's anguished lyrics ringing true.

I love their entire career, which carved an arc from hushed Southern poets to stadium-filling anthems to the more hushed, emotionally open balladry that dominated their later work. Michael Stipe's gift as a lyricist, especially in the early days, was combining elliptical lyrics with heartfelt sincerity -- a song like "Fall On Me," "What's The Frequency Kenneth" or "Driver 8" could've been about anything, whatever you wanted it to be. Some of their more populist songs like "Everybody Hurts" or "Shiny Happy People" might've felt like sell-outs to the fans of the mumbling Stipe era, but even they had a dash of that R.E.M. mystique to them. R.E.M. never sounded like anybody but themselves to me.

I'd stick with them through thick and thin -- while they haven't released a truly great album since 1996's underrated, experimental "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," I usually found at least a few songs to like on their later work. I loved the hit singles like "Losing My Religion" but also the rare numbers like the soundtrack number "Fretless" or "Out Of Time's" sadcore masterpiece, "Country Feedback." 2001's "Reveal" I find particularly strong, with a gorgeous wanderlust on songs like "All The Way To Reno" and "Imitation of Life." They could disappoint toward the end -- 2003's "Around The Sun" was a dull bore -- but honestly, I don't feel like R.E.M. ever embarrassed themselves. Perhaps they chose to retire a bit later than they should have in order to get the proper amount of appreciation -- but I think in the end R.E.M. will be remembered as one of the giants of the "alternative rock" era.

Nik's Unheralded Albums #7: Joey Ramone, "Don't Worry About Me"

Death changes how you listen to an artist. You can't help it. Try putting on Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" this week and not thinking about her lonesome end. It's pretty much impossible. Of course, eventually the shock of death fades a bit and it's just another song by the Doors. There's a ton of famed posthumous albums, from Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" to Roy Orbison's "Mystery Girl" to George Harrison's "Brainwashed."

Some after-death albums are better than others, some are obvious record-company attempts to catch in on leftover bits and bobs (hello, Tupac Shakur!). Occasionally, you get one that's a defining final statement by an artist who knows the end is near. Warren Zevon's "The Wind," the latter albums of Johnny Cash, and one of my favorites, Joey Ramone's "Don't Worry About Me."

Is it morbid? Hipster nostalgia? Probably a bit of all of the above. But 10 years after his death, I still find myself listening to and enjoying a Ramones fan curiosity -- the only solo album by lead singer Joey Ramone, released a year after his death from cancer in 2001.

"Don't Worry About Me" doesn't break the Ramones mold. Short, sharp and punchy, it's got that distinctive Ramones sound but shot through with a slightly more introspective air, and underneath the punk/pop you realize this is a loose concept album about Joey's life, and his battle with lymphoma.

"Don't Worry About Me" is a 34-minute catharsis for Joey, recording the album from his sickbed. Look at the song titles -- "Stop Thinking About It," "Like a Drug I Never Did Before," the marvelous "I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up)". "I Got Knocked Down" is a song for anyone dealing with the horror of their body or a loved one's body failing -- "Sitting in a hospital bed / I want my life," Joey sings. There's nothing too deep or metaphorical about this -- it's Joey's very real frustration, delivered with the same blunt passion the Ramones would bring to lines like "Now I wanna sniff some glue." But "Don't Worry About Me" isn't a downer of an album. With typically goofy Ramones songs like "Mr. Punchy" or a cover of the Stooges' "1969," it's a defiant, resilient album. He doesn't ask you to feel sorry for him -- hell, the final song is the title track, "Don't Worry About Me."

Off-center covers of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" are cliche by now, but man, I still love Joey's take on it, which opens the album with an ecstatic blast, a punch in the face of death and fate. Knowing the singer is gone now, too young, lends it an extra poignancy -- is that manipulative, I suppose? But something being manipulative doesn't mean it isn't also based on truth. As last blasts raging at the darkness go, "Don't Worry About Me" is one of my favorites. Play it at my funeral.

Nik's Unheralded Albums #6: Julian Lennon, "Mr. Jordan."

I do feel bad for the children of rock stars. Never mind all the lunacy involved around growing up being Keith Richards Jr or whomever, but then there’s the impossible expectations that come if you decide to follow in their footsteps. The music world is littered with Frank Sinatra Juniors, Jakob Dylans and so forth.

One kind-of-success was John Lennon’s oldest son Julian Lennon. He had a few minor hits back in the mid-1980s, then sank from sight. His first two albums were what I'd call perfectly pleasant pop -- with their biggest attraction Julian's startling similarity to his late father's voice. But only so much can be done with nostalgia, so Julian Lennon never quite rose above one-hit wonder status with his single "Too Late For Goodbyes."
 
Yet Lennon Jr. continued plugging away, and surprised with his third album, 1989's "Mr. Jordan," a more sonically adventurous little gem – the kind of pop that’s often called “Beatles-esque” which here at least can be traced partly to genetics. I’d say it’s the highlight of Julian’s brief recording career, with a self-assurance that his earlier work lacked.  The mellow singer-songwriter vibe has been replaced by a grittier, more experimental sound that really works well.

The very first track of "Mr. Jordan" announces that we're moving on from John Lennon to David Bowie as an influence, with Julian boasting a deeper, sturdier singing voice than before, more willing to expand his range. "Now You're In Heaven" pulses with a strong beat and crunchy guitar riffs, sounding like a lost single from Bowie's "Lodger." "Open Your Eyes" bounces along on a very '80s Human League keyboard line, mashed together with a dash of "Tomorrow Never Knows" swirl. "Angillette" is a sweeping ballad that does echo "Mind Games"-era Lennon, but is tinted with Julian's own distinctive ache. With "Get Up," Lennon reaches further back into rock history with a loose-limbed rockabilly pastiche. Everything-and-the-kitchen sink album closer "I Want You To Know" is a psychedelic romp that piles on the soundscapes (at one point Lennon sounds like he's singing while marching underwater). "Mr. Jordan" is a magpie of an album, with Julian trying on a variety of musical hats, some of which fit better than others. His willingness to experiment is bracing and he sounds far more free than he did in his earlier work. But after a couple more albums, that was it for Julian's music endeavors.
 
Lennon seems to have given up the music biz, and I can’t say I blame him – it rarely turns out well for pop kids. But over his brief heyday he delivered some material that moved well out of his father's shadow. (The music of his half-brother Sean, whose own hipster-ish solo records got a bit of hype in the 1990s, has aged far less well to me.) While Julian Lennon can't ever hope to entirely get past that formidable father figure, "Mr. Jordan" shows he had a voice of his own.

"Now You're In Heaven" video:

Happy 70th birthday, Bob Dylan - and 10 of my favorites

The beautiful thing about Bob Dylan for me is that you never quite get to the bottom of him. After a casual Dylan fandom for years, I dove whole-heartedly into the world of Dylan obsessiveness about five years ago. I haven't quite come up for air yet. Today, the man turns 70.

So in honor of Mr. Dylan's 70th, here's a list. Of the hundreds of Dylan's songs that are out there, my favorites are constantly changing. Here's what my 10 top Bob Dylan songs are today. Tomorrow, they could be entirely different. That's kind of the beauty of Bob; everybody's Dylan is a different one. Happy birthday, Mr Zimmerman!

Blowin' in the Wind: This was probably my first exposure to Bob Dylan; I remember singing it in class in third or fourth grade during music lessons. It stuck in your head, instantly. I think I'd assumed it was some 100-year-old standard, not knowing it was written less than 10 years before I was born. Some of Dylan's songs kind of seem like they always existed, excavated from the earth at just the right time.

Not Dark Yet: Is this 1997 song from "Time Out Of Mind" the most depressing one Dylan ever wrote? Perhaps, but there's something so beautiful about this mournful ode to the end of love and the end of one person's world, it's like a particularly stunning tombstone. Hushed and elegaic, this song is proof rock stars can grow old with superb dignity.
 
Maggie's Farm (live at the Newport Folk Festival, July 1965): It seems hard to imagine these days that Dylan going "electric" stirred up so much fuss once. But listen to this raw molten blast of sound from the Newport Folk Festival where Dylan blew a crowd of Peter, Paul and Mary fans to bits. I love the song, but I love this particular performance of it found on the "No Direction Home" soundtrack even more -- it's a giant middle finger by Dylan, who sings the lines "I AIN'T gonna work on Maggie's farm no more" like his life depended on it. Maybe it did.
 
Tombstone Blues: Off all Dylan's madcap surrealistic lyrics, this is the one I've always loved the most -- from "Highway 61 Revisited," a rollicking, quite funny tour of whimsy and tragedy. I couldn't begin to tell you what it's actually about, but the way young Bob reels off lines like "The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone / Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown" is just vastly entertaining, like a drunken carny rattling off his spiel to anyone who'll listen.
 
Subterranean Homesick Blues: Did Bob Dylan invent rap? Honestly, if you listen to this classic, you have to at least give him a few nods in that general direction. Free-wheeling and hip, it's a mash-up of Beat poetry and talking blues that pretty much invented a handful of genres of music. And let's not forget that classic film clip of Dylan flipping cue cards to the tune from "Don't Look Back" -- a giant step towards MTV and the video revolution, too.
 
Lay Lady Lay: One of Dylan's cheesiest songs, perhaps, from the "Nashville Skyline" era where his voice suddenly took on a surprisingly silky crooner's tone. And "Nashville Skyline" is a rather slight album compared to the masterworks that came before it, but I love it all the same - a simple homage to hearth and home, gorgeously produced and one of his biggest hits. Sure, it ain't political or surreal, but it's just a mighty pretty song, and Dylan's written plenty of those for the ages, too.
 
Idiot Wind: From love to heartbreak -- from "Blood On The Tracks," this is a blistering trip into the eye of the storm of a relationship crumbling to bits. There's a breathtakingly honest anger and plain meanness to this song, which is almost like reading someone's secret diary. It's so intimate it's uncomfortable, as Dylan spits out lines like "One day you'll be in the ditch / flies buzzing around your eyes." But it's a powerhouse because it feels so true.
 
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere: I have a specific memory attached to this song, of a favorite restaurant/hangout back in Oxford, Mississippi, and the night it closed its doors. A ton of local musicians, including members of the band Wilco, sung the night away to bid the cafe farewell, and a shining highlight was a merry singalong of this Dylan tune. It's hardly one of the deepest of Dylan's catalogue, but it's a song that seems to celebrate being alive, getting out of scrapes and surviving to sing the night away.
 
Hurricane: For my money, the best Dylan "protest song," although there have been many great ones. An older Dylan takes the raw talent of his youthful songs and adds the indignant outrage that comes with age and experience as he takes on the case of convicted murderer, boxer Rubin Carter. Did "Hurricane" Carter do it? Even if you think he did, by the time the 8 roaringly angry minutes of this song go by you might well have changed your mind. That's what a truly great protest song can do.

I'm Not There: From the legendary "Basement Tapes," most of which have never seen official release, this haunting number was released on the soundtrack of the Dylan homage movie of the same name a few years back. It's Dylan at his spookiest Weird America best, hushed and sounding like he's singing from a million miles and years away.
 

Nik's Unheralded Albums #5: "The Lost Boys" Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

When a soundtrack is at its peak, it evokes a movie but also kind of surpasses it -- you listen to the crashing cadences of Strauss for "2001: A Space Odyssey" or the jangly retro hits of the "Rushmore" soundtrack, and you find yourself reliving your favorite bits of the movie, but you also kind of create an idealized version of it in your head. It turns out "Top Gun" is actually a kind of terrible movie if you watch it today without the affections of nostalgia, but man, whenever I hear Kenny Loggins sing "Danger Zone," I'm 15 again and feel a spontaneous quiver of excitement, as a movie that's way better than the actual "Top Gun" ever was unspools in my brain.

Which brings me to "The Lost Boys," the 1987 teen vampire movie that chews up "Twilight" and spits it out in gory little pieces. An early work by "Batman & Robin" auteur Joel Schumacher, it's all smoke machines, hair-spray fashion and pouty angst, but it's still actually a heck of a lot of fun. And the soundtrack is a tasty slab of vintage '80s bombast and cheese, one I have a rather unaccountable affection for. Unlike a lot of the big '80s movie soundtracks it doesn't boast wall-to-wall hits like "Footloose" or "Dirty Dancing" did, and your biggest stars are INXS and Echo and the Bunnymen. (If they'd paid better, you'd have thought they could've gotten Depeche Mode and Sisters of Mercy to sing on this thing.)

But "The Lost Boys" soundtrack in its sunglasses-at-night sweep perfectly captures the glossy feel of the movie, which was Goth without the gloom, sexy without being nasty about it. Jason Patric, an evil pre-Jack Bauer Kiefer Sutherland and Jami Gertz brood a lot and the two Coreys provide comic relief. Bill from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" plays a vampire. It features one of the great cinematic closing lines. But it's glossy trash, of course.

Lou Gramm's screeching anthem "Lost in the Shadows" pops up several times in the movie -- I particularly like the breathy urgency he puts in as he sings against the beat. Gerald McCann's theme song "Cry Little Sister" is melodramatic and gaspy Harlequin romance Goth. The marvelous cover of The Doors' tune "People are Strange" by Echo and the Bunnymen nicely captures the movie's tone of parody mixed with menace. Another cover tune I've always liked here is Roger Daltrey's take on Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me." (A song tailor-made for vampire flicks.)

Bodybuilder/sax man Thomas Capello's bizarre scene singing "I Still Believe" is so insanely homoerotic and over-the-top in the flick that it spawned a "Saturday Night Live" parody decades after the movie. (Seriously, why didn't someone tell the guy to put a shirt on at least during the filming of this scene?) But while you can't watch that scene without giggling, the actual song itself isn't terrible, in a Huey Lewis if he were a bodybuilder kind of way.

But sometimes a big slab of cheesy music from your youth is what you need. I haul out the Journey's "Greatest Hits" disc sometimes and still feel my blood start pumping when Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" theme music from "Rocky III" rings out. "The Lost Boys" soundtrack sold less copies than "Top Gun" and "Flashdance" did but in some way I'd call it the perfect '80s movie soundtrack -- very little irony, lots of bombast, and hooks that may leave you feeling a bit of guilty pleasure but still won't quite stop echoing around your brain.

Concert review: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Auckland, April 23

What is P-Funk? It's a style of music, a state of mind, a sprawlingly ridiculous cosmology all shepherded by the fried brain of one George Clinton, who brought his outrageous Parliament Funkadelic gang to Auckland for a show last night at the Powerstation that was a non-stop three-hour celebration of funk, rock and the joy of letting your freak flag fly a bit.

Clinton's tangled musical legacy includes the bands Funkadelic (more rock than funk alone), Parliament (who are a free-wheeling party band) and a whole slew of spin-offs and side projects like funk star Bootsy Collins. I've been a fan of Parliament for a while -- a band guaranteed to cheer you up no matter how low you feel -- while I've only recently delved into Funkadelic's catalogue, an eclectic, beautiful and gritty mishmash of genres and sounds. I wasn't going to miss a chance to see Clinton's mad revue on a rare trip down under.

Admittedly seeing the P-Funk show is more of a nostalgia act today than I'm sure the P-Funk circus was at its peak -- Clinton is nearly 70 now and served more as the "grand conductor" and a genial stage presence rather than really funking out himself; his croaky voice these days sounded a lot more like Captain Beefheart. But the ever-shifting band itself -- by my count nearly 20 people, some old P-Funk hands, some new -- kept a tight hand, with the invaluable rhythm section keeping songs going no matter how far afield they went. Near-naked ladies and men danced and sang, joints were freely passed about, and pretty much everyone on stage took a turn singing a song. A three-hour-plus show bounced and rambled all over the place without a single real break, sometimes the groove only moments from falling apart entirely. The band masterfully tugged and pulled to keep the audience's energy up till well after midnight.


The P-Funk "hits" came out -- "Atomic Dog," "Cosmic Slop," "Bop Gun," "One Nation Under A Groove," a delightful "Give Up The Funk," and blended in with other more obscure Clinton tunes. It's the kind of show where Clinton's granddaughter came on stage in the middle of the jam "Flashlight" to deliver an impromptu risque rap, and it all kind of works.

The best moments were sheer transcendence -- A sprawling 15-minute or so take on "Maggot Brain" really got me. The song in a sense is just one massively anguished guitar solo but Michael Hampton's loving take on it was great. "Maggot Brain" is the kind of song that you either ride along with or find indulgent, but for the space my head was in Saturday night, I found it gorgeous and glittering. Last night's show nicely showed how Clinton's sound can spin from hard-rock crunch to dance-floor anthems at the drop of a hat.

At its best P-Funk is a music of ecstasy, a celebration of being alive for however long we've got. Clinton is one of the few musicians who can be said to have honestly created a genre all his own. Part hard rock, part R&B sway, part pantomime buffoonery and part magic, it's a sound that's well worth seeing live at least once to get the full experience. Now I just need a couple more naps to recover.

It's Record Store Day 2011!

I zipped on down to Auckland's mighty Real Groovy Records for a couple hours today for Record Store Day 2011, celebrated worldwide as a way to help draw attention to the sadly struggling independent record store industry.

It's been a grim year for these kinds of places -- both the other two Real Groovy stores in New Zealand have announced closures (one thanks to the Christchurch earthquake), and I'll do anything I can to keep RG Auckland going strong by grabbing up some more music for the ever-escalating collection. (But honestly, I really needed those Dead Milkmen and Oingo Boingo discs. And that rare Rykodisc Big Star Live album I've been hunting for forever? Score!)

In the last 6 months I've been happy/sad, because I've grabbed dozens of CDs and books from huge clearance sales at Auckland stores -- the Borders chain for instance pretty much got rid of all their CDs so I picked up stacks of bargains back around Christmas. It's awesome for bargain hunting, but kind of grim in the big picture -- these sales offloading stock are because half these places are in receivership or bankruptcy, after all. I don't even know how many of the great book and music stores, corporate and independents alike, will be around in another five years.

Ever since I've been a little kid, one of my favorite pastimes in the world has been shelf browsing. Ask my parents -- when I was 7, my idea of a treat was being taken to the library. And to this day, I get a nice sense of peace and happiness simply browsing the shelves of bookstores and record stores, hunting around for whatever I might happen to find. It's like a treasure hunt, and while sure, I can download that book or record now I might be looking for, I'm just a stickler for the tangible sensation. There's a certain way an old book smells, for instance, which sounds kind of freaky fetishistic to say. I've got a million fond memories of browsing in book and record shops from New York City to San Francisco to Sydney. Real Groovy is one of the greats and a lot of fun to spend time at.

Anyway, Record Store Day is an awesome thing. Take a chance wherever you are today to remember the thrill of browsing the stacks, of finding that rare gem, of supporting these endangered places. I'm all for the digital world, but man, I'll never stop being a fan of musty old second-hand books and previously owned albums.

Concert review: Gang Of Four, Auckland, February 24

OK, so this week was pretty much a disaster I'd like to forget. The terrible earthquake, more dismaying family sickness news, lots of quake-related stress at work of course, and to top it all off my car got broken into in our own driveway last night; $300 worth of damage for the sake of about $2 in change.

About the only thing that saves this week from a total write-off is a cathartic, phenomenal show last night by post-punk pioneers Gang Of Four at the Powerstation. Ninety minutes, two encores of high-octane, lacerating guitar and bass and a frontman who seemed to be channeling David Byrne and Iggy Pop's illegitimate child. Some nights, you need to be in a row full of people jumping up and down and singing "To hell with poverty / we'll get drunk on cheap wine."

Gang Of Four, to my mind, are an unfairly overlooked pivotal late '70s act who combined punk and funk to make political rock you can't help but dance to. Bands from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Franz Ferdinand and LCD Soundsystem owe them big. Their debut, 1979's "Entertainment!," is one of the signature postpunk albums, all coiled angst, bass that twangs away like a gong, shrieking, staccato guitar and chant/sung lyrics. Frontman Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill are the two founding members who lead the group today, and it's their drive that feeds the push-pull of grinding rock with highly political subjects -- "At Home He's A Tourist," "Natural's Not In It," and "I Love A Man In Uniform," one of the most sneeringly witty anti-war songs ever written. This is the band Rage Against The Machine always tried to be (and failed to quite live up to, but that's just my opinion).

Gang Of Four's songs are often accused of being chilly, with gloomy lyrics like "this heaven / gives me migraine" or the awesomely snide "Love'll get you like a case of anthrax / And that's something I don't want to catch." But live, King threw sweat, gymnastics (a headstand!) and microphone-stand twirling energy into the Gang's songs, adding a whole new dimension to their work. King was fantastic, swirling, shaking and gyrating like a man 20 years younger. At one point he sat out for a song played by Gill and I worried he was having a mild heart attack downstage. Meanwhile, Andy Gill had approximately one facial expression for the whole show but let all his emotions out with his scorching guitar work, which places its focus on bursts of tone rather than showy solos.

For a group that's got a rather serious reputation, I was pleased at just how much joyful fun Gang Of Four are live. Bass man Thomas McNeice, looking like a Lenny Kravitz impersonator with his swaying dreadlocks, was terrific at playing all the classic songs, sending out resonating bursts of corded sound that stabbed right through the audience. Gang Of Four played most of Entertainment! plus a selection of their other tunes and some from their really solid comeback new album Content. We had the seething blast-furnace fury of "Anthrax", "To Hell With Poverty" became a raucous mosh pit singalong, and "I Love A Man In Uniform" was an encore delight, while "Damaged Goods" closed out the set. Good show, mates.

Here's Gang Of Four on David Letterman recently performing their new single "You'll Never Pay For The Farm." Jon King in full effect!


And a recent take on "To Hell With Poverty":

Mix Tapes I have Known #2: 'More Damn Music,' 1997

...So where were we? Last time around in my excavation into my box of mix tapes of ye olden pre-iPod days, I looked at a tape from 1992. The thing about mix tapes is -- usually -- you made them fervently trying to impress some gal/guy you were all emo about. Usually, of course this didn't work and the tape ended up a monument to your own insanely overwrought passion of the moment. This tape from 1997 didn't end in tears, though - two years later I ended up marrying the recipient. Mix-tape score!

The tape: More Damn Music from your California Hippie Dude

Year created: 1997

Who it was for: My future wife Avril, all the way over in New Zealand. Around this time, fall 1997 or so, I'd gone and abruptly moved away from Mississippi back to my native California, got a job at a tiny newspaper in the San Joaquin Valley, was living in a concrete bunker of a back-alley apartment with psychopath rednecks in the front unit, and in just a few months time Avril would get a green card and come from New Zealand to live with me. So a rather transitional time, in other words... I think this tape, one of many we exchanged back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, was a kind of long-distance reassurance and valentine if you will, in hopes that after many years living far, far apart we two might finally get to try out a proper relationship...

Track listing:

SIDE A
1. #1 Crush (Garbage)
2. Normal Like You (Everclear)
3. Amy [Amphetamine] (Everclear)
4. I Will Buy You A New Life (Everclear)
5. Boogie Chillin' (R.L. Burnside)
6. Heaven Beside You (Alice in Chains)
7. I Do Not Want This (Nine Inch Nails)
8. Sappy (Nirvana)
9. Mystifies Me (Son Volt)
10. I Turn Around (Elvis Costello)
11. Bloody '98 (Blue Mountain)
12. The Passion of Lovers (Bauhaus)
13. Sheet Kickers (Guided By Voices)
14. License to Confuse (Sebadoh)
15. Life Worth Living (Uncle Tupelo)
16. Talk Show Host (Radiohead)

SIDE B
1. Fire Maple Song (Everclear)
2. Glycerine (Bush)
3. Devil's Haircut (Beck)
4. My Son Cool (Guided by Voices)
5. Motor Away (Guided by Voices)
6. My Valuable Hunting Knife (Guided by Voices)
7. Positive Bleeding (Urge Overkill)
8. What Goes On (Velvet Underground)
9. Try (Michael Penn)
10. Chottie See (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan)
11. Who You Are (Pearl Jam)
12. Find The River (R.E.M.)
13. Something's Out There (Freedy Johnston)
14. Feel So Different (Sinéad O'Connor)
15. Short on Posters (Guided By Voices)

What this says about my musical tastes at the time: It was the waning days of grunge, and I was mightily into Everclear and Guided By Voices judging from the four Everclear and five (!) GBV songs I included. The music of your late college years is pretty much the music you will always love, and very little here embarrasses me overly 14 years on.* Neither Everclear nor Guided by Voices have ever really equalled their mid-1990s peak, though.

What was I thinking? *OK, well, except for the Bush song -- the bargain-rate version of Nirvana, they were pretty lame even when they were cool for about 10 nanoseconds. If you couldn't find Nirvana, couldn't find Stone Temple Pilots, you got these guys.

This song could totally be taken the wrong way:
"He'll keep you in a jar / And you'll think you're happy" - Nirvana.

Aw, that's sweet: "Why must it always be the less I see of you, the more I care?" - Elvis Costello

Clever left-field choices: There are some more obscure acts here -- I always have loved alt-rock also-rans Urge Overkill, who I think were very underrated, and Michael Penn continues to be one of the most unfairly ignored singer/songwriters out there.

Totally obvious choice: Well, like I said, it was the age of grunge. I might as well have made the tape case out of flannel, this is such a totally 1997 sort of production.

Nik's Unheralded Albums #4: Freedy Johnston, Can You Fly

Freedy Johnston, "Can You Fly" (1992)

The world has a surplus of singer/songwriters, sensitive guys with guitars penning odes to their lost loves and such. Kansas-raised Freedy Johnston got a bit lost in the cracks, but his albums hold some great stories, told with a keen eye and a voice that is by turns agonized and hopeful. His breakthrough album on a career that never quite went mainstream was 1992's "Can You Fly," a record packed with finely honed character studies, tales of valiant losers and romantic mavericks.

"Can You Fly," his second album proper, was financed by Johnston selling off his grandfather's old land in Kansas, as he notes in the rollicking album opener, "Trying To Tell you I Don't Know" -- "Well I sold the dirt, to feed the band." It's the kind of album that's known to a certain breed to rock critic and a small devoted fan base, but really should have been a stone-cold classic. The far more vapid, high-school journal-style lyrics of Alanis Morissette sold gazillions around the same time. Isn't that ironic.

Johnston's vocals quiver, seem barely held back -- the hummable melodies of the songs given great tension by his voice's commitment. Like a songwriting Raymond Carver, Johnston paints character landscapes with a fine eye. Take the elegant, broken-hearted "Mortician's Daughter," where with a few quick strokes Johnston etches an entire world: "I used to love the mortician's daughter / we drew our hearts on the dusty coffin lids. ... We rolled in the warm grass by the boneyard fence / her skin so white, the first leaves falling."

I recall listening over and over to "The Lucky One," a singalong tale of a beaten-down gambler's plucky optimism -- "I know I'll be the lucky one," he sings, and it's a call for anyone who ever gambled away on a dream -- whether it was a good one or a disastrous one. Some of the songs grow for me with each listen, like the little masterpiece "Responsible," where a father sees his daughter off to the big city, or the mysterious and evocative title track.

It's a distinctly American record -- not in any jingoistic fashion, but in the way Johnston pushes between dogged open-road big dreaming and tiny, brittle setbacks. The wide-open skies and roads of Kansas color "Can You Fly," where ghosts of the past flutter about without ceasing.

Johnston went on to produce some other fantastic work -- his next album, 1994's "This Perfect World," is just about as good as this one, while 1997's tightly wound "Never Home" only suffers in comparison to its predecessors. After that, though, Johnston's muse seemed to fade -- 1999's rather lethargic "Blue Days, Black Nights" drowned in its own dark tone and I have to admit I kind of lost track after that.

Just recently Johnston released his first album of new material in eight years, "Rain On The City." I haven't gotten around to picking it up yet, because I guess it's a case of worrying you can't recapture that same old magic. Still, "Can You Fly" and "This Perfect World" are good enough a testament that Freedy Johnston will always rank high on my songwriters hall of fame.