Sheer Mag – Expect the Bayonet
Yesterday’s election results were so gratifying. I was never invested in the local races like this before. All across the country, the stories of diverse first-time candidates coming out and just crushing it in races big, and especially small. A wave is coming and it’s called payback.
“If you don’t give us the ballot, expect the bayonet.” 2018, here we come!
Public Service Broadcasting – They Gave Me a Lamp
This past July, the new album by Public Service Broadcasting, Every Valley, was released. It’s an album filled with songs about coal mining in the valleys of South Wales in the UK; from the days of literally fueling the nation’s industry, through the progress of mechanization, the strikes in the 80s, the pit closures, and the loss of jobs and devastation of communities that followed. You might think it would be an odd subject to write an album’s worth of songs about but in the aftermath of Brexit and Trump, it’s actually incredibly timely.
I went to graduate school in Wales 20 years ago. Mid-west Wales not the southern coal fields, but still, Wales with its rolling hills dotted with sheep. People spoke Welsh there, in addition to heavily-accented English, and it’s also where my husband and I met. So I knew nostalgia was going to be pulling hard and that I was going to like this album for those sampled Welsh accents no matter what.
However, I didn’t necessarily expect to love this album for the stories it tells. It deserves to be listened to in its entirety, start to finish, as the songs follow the sequence of events as they played out in the valleys. If you’re not familiar with the history of the rise and fall of these Welsh coal mining towns, you can imagine it being coal towns in West Virginia, or the car factories in Flint, or steel mills in Pennsylvania. [I also strongly recommend you watch the movie Pride. Even if I can’t convince you to listen to the whole PSB album, watch that movie.] It’s what happens when an industry dominates a town or region, and how the working-class people who built it up are “chucked on the scrap heap” when those industries leave.
This song, “They Gave Me a Lamp” is about the women’s movement during the strikes in 1984-85 when Margaret Thatcher was determined to break the miners. I saw PSB in Boston back in September and when they played this song there were video clips of women on the picket lines and putting together food packages for striking families. It could just as easily be video clips from the Women’s March back in January. I’ve seen a video from their recent show in London and J. Willgoose, Esq., introduced this song by talking about the samples in it as “telling the story that we wanted to tell, what I think is quite a powerful story of feminism, of political awakening, of political emancipation in a way, the power of protest really, which seems it’s worth to write songs about, no?”
After the inauguration, I felt like the Women’s March was such an empowering moment and I wanted it to be the start of something, not just a one-off. There were a lot of resistance groups sprouting up and a lot of them were lead by women. I went to protests against the travel ban, the March for Truth, but I also joined my local Democratic party. I’d always voted but I felt like there had to be more we could all do. I’d read about how entrenched the Republican party had become in local politics, which in turn leads to Republican-controlled statehouses, which is what gets you those horrible politicians who want to return to the 1950s, if not earlier. They often run unopposed and consequently win in places that vote blue on the national level. If we are going to succeed at preventing this country from becoming a fascist state and hopefully moving it forward from where it was at the end of Obama’s two terms, we need all hands on deck.
So when I hear the woman in the interview at the beginning of this song saying, “if you could get a woman involved in one thing, they could see there was this other life … like myself, politics was just something that shouldn’t affect me, but politics is life and everything to do with it affects you, directly or indirectly”, I raise my fist in solidarity. By the time the second sample plays the woman saying, “I think a lot of women found their feet” I see the huge crowds at the marches, I see the women who, like me, got involved in local politics, I see the new faces of the younger people who took the leap to run for office. And when those Brassy Gents™ come in and the song really takes off, I can’t help but get goosebumps and tears start rolling down my cheeks.
Today was election day. Democrats won the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey. A transgender woman beat the GOP incumbent in the VA state legislature who sponsored the “bathroom bill.” A Sikh man won as the mayor of Hoboken, NJ. Maine, with their horribly racist and just generally idiotic governor, who was Trump’s prototype, just voted to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. And here in my town, we swept our local races. Swept. Them. The resistance is just getting warmed up.
A lot of women found their feet, and now we’re ready to run.
Trashcan Sinatras – All Night
If I ever win the Powerball, I’m going to start a foundation for touring musicians. It’s going to give grants to bands who want to tour but who lack the money to finance transportation or hotel costs. There will also be an international arm that helps bands arrange visas and makes sure they can afford to bring their whole show on the road, overseas.
Trashcan Sinatras. The empty table was reserved for “Aunt Betty.” She was a little late arriving.
I recently saw the Trashcan Sinatras on their All Night tour, just three guys with guitars, no drums, no horns. It was great, don’t get me wrong. It was a really small stage in a small bar so it was a good fit, and I do love to hear how songs can sound when stripped down to the basic elements. But I know that sometimes I’m missing out on the full band experience that you can catch when you live where your favorite band calls home.
Admittedly this isn’t a problem if you like to go to big stadium shows. Those tend to have the budget and wherewithal to just load everything up on a truck and drive to the next city. I really don’t do those big shows anymore. It’s too expensive (though I see why, paying all of the crew to take it from place to place) and there’s just too many people. The venues I’ve been going to these past couple of years are right in my sweet spot for size and I’m a little spoiled now because of it.
More on this topic another day.
Slotface – Bright Lights
I left this until too late tonight and I don’t have the time to write the thoughtful entry I intended to so here’s a song from my Shazam list.
Omni – Supermoon
I had never heard of Omni before I saw them opening up for Franz Ferdinand back in June. I liked them and felt like they would be a lot of fun to see on their own for a full set when people aren’t impatient for the headliner. They’re from Atlanta. You could tell, couldn’t you? I mean that in the best possible way, in case that wasn’t obvious.
Once upon a time, that fact would have been enough for me to plop down probably up to seven dollars on their record. I have a pretty decent collection of records by bands who came from Georgia or North Carolina, or who had their album produced by Mitch Easter and/or Don Dixon, or mastered by Greg Calbi, was on DB Records, or 688 Records, you get the idea.
There is an original copy of the Method Actors Dancing Underneath sitting down the street in the M bin of my local (mostly used) record store. It’s $14. I haven’t bought it because that seems like a lot for just five songs. Besides, I feel pretty safe in leaving it there because I’m pretty sure that I am the only person likely to buy it. It’s been sitting there for a couple of years now and I keep pulling it out to see if the owner has realized that it’s not moving at all and maybe he should drop the price. He has not.
Now the price of a new record is rarely less than $20. I’m not begrudging bands for charging that much, given the costs to make and distribute them, to say nothing of how little they make from the streaming services, but it’s far less likely that I’ll take the plunge. The album this Omni song comes from was released in September so I couldn’t have bought it at the show anyway but I’m more likely to buy a record at a show because I am under the (perhaps mistaken – more to come on this another day) impression that the band will net more money this way. Come back this way, Omni! I’ll come see you and buy some stuff!
Buffalo Tom – Summer
One of the radio stations that I listen to has a regular feature where they pair up a beer and a song, Brews and Grooves. Sometimes I miss it because I’m already too far out of range by the time it comes on but I was running late this morning and managed to hear it before I got too far away. The dj was talking about how the beer was a nice crossover from the lighter summer beers to the heavier fall beers and it just so happened that I already had some in my fridge at home; Harpoon’s Flannel Friday. To accompany this end of summer/beginning of fall beer, and flannel, he picked a 90s band and a song about summer being gone.
I have to give the dj credit on this one. I usually agree with his assessment of the beers (though my own preferences are a little narrower than his) but now and then I feel like the song choice is not quite as strong a match as it could be. But today and yesterday were unseasonably warm and I was even walking around outside both days in a sleeveless shirt, in November in New England, with the leaves crunching under your feet. Plus, Flannel, 90s. So, yeah. Buffalo Tom’s Summer and Harpoon’s Flannel Friday. I put it to the test this evening and I fully endorse this match.
When the song was over, the dj came back on the air and was talking about how a friend of his from Texas or someplace like that had never heard of Buffalo Tom. He said he hadn’t thought they were just a New England thing, he thought they were more well known across the country, but maybe not. I feel like my opinion is disqualified in this situation because even if I was living in DC when I saw Buffalo Tom, I came from New England.
Anyway, just to round out this nice little flashback Friday vibe, I got out my stub from that Buffalo Tom show at the old 9:30 Club and snapped this picture. Cheers!
NE-HI – Prove
There are a couple of bands I’ve heard this year that are new to me but there’s a familiarity about their sound, and that’s ok with me. Sometimes you just want to hear something that scratches a particular itch.
The Raveonettes – Recharge & Revolt
So, here it is November again. NaBloPoMo. And I have a blog that has been gathering dust. It has seemed frivolous to spend my evenings writing about music in the way that I do when our country’s very existence has been hanging in the balance. Most of the time I just felt so drained from getting through the day and staying on top of what is going on that I had nothing left to say. Also, where to begin? The sheer volume of unbelievable crap, and the dizzying pace that it came flying at us, was overwhelming for someone like me who often used current events to steer my song choices.
Music is still my outlet though and I needed it more than ever. I upped my concert attendance. For a while I thought I might be able to see 50 bands this year for my 50th year* but my budget and family obligations put a damper on that goal and I think I’ll probably come in around half that number by year’s end. In a year that has seen the violence unleashed at concerts reach terrifying new heights, it is perhaps an odd thing to pursue. My children are alternately worried, embarrassed, and maybe occasionally jealous that I go to as many shows as I do but it’s worth it. It’s always worth it. It has never been more obvious to me that life is short and that sharing in the magic that is a really great concert is one of the high points. Especially now.
I don’t know where the forces of evil draw their energy from to keep up the onslaught they are unleashing on us but I know where I go. If I can’t make it to 50 shows, maybe I can at least pump out 30 days of posts to make up the difference.
*Holy crap I had to add a new category – 50s! Gulp!
R.E.M. – Can’t Get There From Here
I am on the train to Maine. Let me say that again. I AM ON THE TRAIN TO MAINE!!! I have waited 34 years for this day so I am just a little bit excited.
In 1983, my mother got a new job up in Maine and those of us still at home moved from our New York City suburb to a small town in Maine. Up to that point in my life I had never given public transportation much thought. Every kid I knew had a father who took the commuter train into the city to an office job. That’s what my dad had done up until my parents got divorced and his company transferred him to their LA office. My mother’s job situation had been bad and the cost of living in New York was high. Moving up to Maine for a better job and into a less expensive house came along at just the right time.
We’d spent our childhood summers at a tiny beach town up in Maine and I think my mother had dreams that life would become as idyllic as those summers had been. Those summers were idyllic. But summer in Maine and winter in Maine are two very different things. I can’t speak for my older and younger sister who made the move with me but I was not looking forward to moving at all. I was 15 and my mother’s rule about going into New York City had been that once you were 16, you could take the train into the city with a friend and without an adult, so long as the friend knew their way around and she knew where we were going and what we were doing. I was just a few months shy of my 16th birthday and suddenly the promise of that freedom was gone.
Life in Maine took some getting used to. It wasn’t just the snow and the fact that everyone looked like they walked out of the LL Bean catalog. We were city girls by the standards of the Mainers in our high school. We dressed differently, we listened to different music, I remember one kid commenting that he had never seen a girl wearing nail polish before I came to school. The place where I probably experienced the biggest culture shocks was in my German class. I’d taken Latin in New York but the Maine high school didn’t have a Latin class at the level I was at so I started over and took German 1. If you’ve ever taken a foreign language, you know that you start with very basic things. Our German teacher was a funny little man from an Austrian skiing village. Teaching us about the seasons he mentioned that spring in Austria and Germany came in March with gradually warmer temperatures and flowers starting to sprout and bloom. The other kids took this information in as if they’d never experienced spring before. Little did I know it was because they hadn’t, not in March and not gradually anyway. When we learned about different modes of transportation, he talked about how the cities are all connected by trains and how much people relied upon trains to get to work. One kid raised his hand and asked if that didn’t cause a lot of traffic jams with the cars having to stop for the trains to cross the streets to get to the station. I think that was the moment when I thought, holy shit, I am really living in East Bumfuck now. We had train tracks in town but only the occasional freight train would use them. The gates would come down and stop traffic so the long, lumbering freight trains could creak their way through. These kids had never seen passenger trains. Had never seen commuter trains with dedicated tracks and tunnels so they never needed to cross the roads.
I went off to college outside of Philadelphia where two different train lines made stops on campus. I took the train into Philadelphia as often as I could, became a master at hopping the local trains up to New York City, and the Amtrak to destinations far away. I fell in love with 30th Street Station. After college I returned to my mother’s house in Maine. Shortly afterwards, there was a bus strike. I hadn’t gotten my driver’s license yet because I hadn’t needed it but suddenly I felt trapped. There was no way to get out of that small town if you didn’t have a car. I longed for a train to come and deliver me from the small town that felt so remote. Never had the words to this song felt more appropriate.
Ten years ago or so, they started an Amtrak train to Portland. Now it goes all the way to my mother’s town. You can easily walk to the train station from her house. It’s my dream come true. I never managed to do it before because now we are a family of four and it’s easier and less expensive to drive when we go to visit. But this time I am travelling alone and my car needs a new clutch so it was the perfect opportunity. There is still a little of that can’t get there from here element because you have to switch not just trains but train stations in Boston and, just to make sure I really appreciate the final leg of this trip, they put us on buses for the stretch between Boston and the first stop the train makes because of track work this weekend. I took a train, a subway, a bus, and finally the train that will take me all the way to my mother’s house. It took twice as long as driving does but it was worth every minute.
Kishi Bashi – I Am the Antichrist to You
I’ll get back to the memorial service playlist (long version) in a little bit but I’m stuck on the Kishi Bashi show I went to over the weekend. Wow. This advice comes a little late as the tour only has two more shows (Charlottesville on Wednesday and Asheville on Thursday) before heading to the UK and no other dates posted, but if you get the chance to see him, you should go. For reasons I can no longer remember I have missed the shows that came within driving distance of me before. Not a mistake I will repeat in the future.
The musicians he has playing with him are really talented and versatile. I feel like the songs really soar in a way that the recorded versions just can’t match. The harmonies are fantastic.
When I’m at a show, I usually grab a couple of pictures when the opportunity presents itself but I don’t usually try to do more than that. Both because my phone’s capabilities are limited and my own concert-going protocol is pretty old school. Be present. Be in the moment. Don’t watch the concert through your phone. Now and then I’ve tried to record some part of a song but the results are usually bad and I’d rather be dancing than standing still filming anyway.
But just before he performed this song, he asked everyone to take out their phones to make a sound effect. If you and a friend call each other, then put the two phones very close together, just a few inches apart, it will create a chirpy, cricket-like feedback. Well, I was by myself. And since the people near me moved a little to be able to get their phones in position to make the noise, I had a clear shot and my phone in my hand. Watch it in HD and full-screen (my daughter always gives me a hard time that I forget to turn the phone for a horizontal shot but then I’d just have people’s heads in the shot) if it looks too small and blurry above.
That’s just him looping the violin and his voice, and the sound is so big. You can really hear the phone feedback clearly at the end of the song. That is not me you hear singing along. If you are in my car, you will have to endure me singing along, loudly, maybe even repeating a song enough times for me to be able to sing the different harmonies, but at a show, I am only going to sing along when the performers are encouraging the crowd to join in. I actually think I’m pretty good at singing along but I’m there to hear them, not me.
This was the only song he did solo, several they played as an acoustic four-piece, then others with everything plugged in and lots of additional instruments. It’s worth the price of admission just to see the banjo light show that Mike Savino brings to the outfit. Go. I can’t imagine you would regret it.
Noisy Cats 