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(10/25/01 4:00am)
Beachwood Sparks' first album was a brilliant throwback to the days when country-psychedelic fusion was as startlingly new as color television once was. But the album was not a total revisitation; what made it so breathtaking at times was the use of new psychedelic sounds created earlier in the previous decade by the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Paul Oakenfold with the Happy Mondays. This is the same type of sound that Radiohead currently uses to make people call an album of bad songs and underdeveloped melodies a masterpiece. \nOn the band's second album, Once We Were Trees, Beachwood Sparks shows expansion from the ideas on the first release. The space-cowboy approach played to the hilt on the first album is still here. It's just that now that cowboy seems to have awoken from his mescaline trip in the desert and realized there are a lot of other people around him. \nBeachwood Sparks uses psychedelic textures to propel capital material, using this method to create an air of open space. That feeling is needed when turning in a tone poem about the "lonesome crowded west."\nOnce We Were Trees works like a song cycle, each song seems to breeze effortlessly into the next, creating a captivating unison. At the very beginning of the album the musicians announce their change, quickly going from their familiar aimless drone into singer Chris Gunst announcing, "confusion is nothing new." This is followed by a nervous rave sent sailing by a pump organ, chiming guitars and Beach Boy-type harmonies. \nThe stand out song "By Your Side" was originally done by Sade. Here, it is given a country overhaul and comes out sounding surprisingly sincere. \nThroughout Once We Were Trees, Beachwood Sparks searches for the way to deal with the big city and how everything else will fit in around it. From the sound of it the band members aren't dealing with it all that well, but the breakdown is a complete joy to listen to. Beachwood Sparks is well on its way to becoming the most consistently exciting band around.\nRating: 10
(10/18/01 5:14am)
In recent interviews, Leonard Cohen has said that the deep depression he has felt throughout his career is over. He has spent the better part of the nine years since his last album living in a monastery, where he said he learned that it was all pointless. As to be expected, Cohen's latest album, Ten New Songs, reflects his "personal growth."\nCohen always was the best lyricist in rock and roll, using his novelist decadence and eye for detail to out-do contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Lou Reed. His songs read like novels, stories dipping deep into the darker realms of the psyche. \nThe use of synthesizers and syncopated drum beats on Ten New Songs sounds a little dated. But only dated by 10 years or so, which is excusable because Cohen is only a few moments away from his 70th birthday. For the most part, the arrangements are subtle enough and stay out of the way of his terrific lyrics. \nThick imagery, which is expected of Cohen, is still here. On "Alexandra Leaving" the inevitable and coincidental meetings of sex and God are explored. This is familiar ground for anyone acquainted with Cohen's work. \nHe also explores his imminent death and voyage to the afterlife on "Boogie Street." He plainly says, "Bewildered by your beauty there/ I'd kneel to dry your feet./ By such instructions you prepare/ A man for Boogie Street."\nCohen also reminisces about his well publicized problems on "That Don't Make It Junk." "I fought against the bottle/ But I had to do it drunk/ Took my diamond to the pawn shop/ But that don't make it junk," he sings of his demons. \nTen New Songs is an album that finds Cohen writing about the same types of acquaintances and ostentatious types that have graced his work since he was writing novels in the '50s. But this time, he writes in the past tense. Cohen doesn't find his characters beautiful anymore, nor does he find them sophisticated. He even manages to sound disgusted and yet longing for them to recompense. As so, Cohen is leading by example and still professing his love for those drunken intellectuals of his past.\nRating: 8
(10/18/01 4:00am)
In recent interviews, Leonard Cohen has said that the deep depression he has felt throughout his career is over. He has spent the better part of the nine years since his last album living in a monastery, where he said he learned that it was all pointless. As to be expected, Cohen's latest album, Ten New Songs, reflects his "personal growth."\nCohen always was the best lyricist in rock and roll, using his novelist decadence and eye for detail to out-do contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Lou Reed. His songs read like novels, stories dipping deep into the darker realms of the psyche. \nThe use of synthesizers and syncopated drum beats on Ten New Songs sounds a little dated. But only dated by 10 years or so, which is excusable because Cohen is only a few moments away from his 70th birthday. For the most part, the arrangements are subtle enough and stay out of the way of his terrific lyrics. \nThick imagery, which is expected of Cohen, is still here. On "Alexandra Leaving" the inevitable and coincidental meetings of sex and God are explored. This is familiar ground for anyone acquainted with Cohen's work. \nHe also explores his imminent death and voyage to the afterlife on "Boogie Street." He plainly says, "Bewildered by your beauty there/ I'd kneel to dry your feet./ By such instructions you prepare/ A man for Boogie Street."\nCohen also reminisces about his well publicized problems on "That Don't Make It Junk." "I fought against the bottle/ But I had to do it drunk/ Took my diamond to the pawn shop/ But that don't make it junk," he sings of his demons. \nTen New Songs is an album that finds Cohen writing about the same types of acquaintances and ostentatious types that have graced his work since he was writing novels in the '50s. But this time, he writes in the past tense. Cohen doesn't find his characters beautiful anymore, nor does he find them sophisticated. He even manages to sound disgusted and yet longing for them to recompense. As so, Cohen is leading by example and still professing his love for those drunken intellectuals of his past.\nRating: 8
(10/15/01 3:55am)
Willie Nelson does it all for his love of music. It is the mistress of music that keeps him away from home and on the road more than 200 days of the year. At age 68, he doesn't plan to retire or slow down any time soon. He's still living life the same way he did back in 1973, when he first presented himself as the prototype for the country outlaw.\nThe other reason for his torrid pace is his fans. At the IU Auditorium Saturday night, he played to a packed house. The crowd was mostly older fans in town for the Homecoming weekend. Everyone in the crowd knew what they could expect from Nelson. He has been making hits for more than 40 years. When Nelson took the stage in his black clothes and cowboy hat, his hair in its trademark pigtails, they had no reason to think the night's performance would be anything less than stellar.\nDuring the past 20 years, Nelson's most popular work has been duets. From Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard to Dr. John and B.B. King, it seems as if Nelson has done a duet with just about everybody. With a new album of duets with such high profile artists as Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow due early next year, it seems as if he will never get back to seriously doing what he does best.\nNelson's best work has always been his interpretations and song phrasing done on a small scale. His best album, 1975's "The Red Headed Stranger," contained such a low-fi approach and spare sound that his record company thought it was a demo. The duets, while they remain the most popular of his work, mark the low point of his creative output. His latest album, "Rainbow Connection," a simple collection of children's songs, was one of his most endearing albums of the last two decades because of its lackadaisical approach and lack of pretensions.\nSomewhat unfortunately, Saturday night's concert displayed the same mindset that keeps Nelson making his duets albums. Throughout the two hour, 40-plus song set, he hardly played a song that the whole crowd didn't already know. Taking no song or set breaks, Nelson and his band blazed through the best known of his song catalog as if they had someplace else to be. \nAs each song melted into the next, the crowd roared as soon as they recognized which hit was being played. Nelson plodded along, playing "Whiskey River," "Crazy," "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys." He covered all his bases to make sure no one would leave disappointed about the song he didn't play.\nThere were a few precious moments where Nelson came into his own, presenting the subtleties that make his music so glorious. These mostly consisted of the interplay between him and his band, on songs like "The Great Divide," where the band's jazzy notes met the Spanish classical influence in the song. \nNelson has had a long career, and you can't fault him for choosing to rehash his greatest hits in concert -- but at the same time, it's difficult to watch a once-viable artist stay stuck in the past. He has shown at times that he can still be much more than a nostalgia act. His live shows and duet albums show that he may just now be succumbing to the commercialism that he had once fought so hard against.
(10/12/01 3:29am)
Willie Nelson is not what you would call a traditional country music star -- he's an outlaw. Since his beginnings as a struggling songwriter in Nashville, Tenn., he has been fighting against the constraints of the country music genre.\nAt 68, Nelson shows no signs of slowing down after a 40-year career and 100 albums. He will perform at the IU Auditorium at 8 p.m. Saturday for the Homecoming concert. Tickets cost from $26 to $46 ($16 to $26 for IU-Bloomington students) and are still available.\nJohn Hobson, senior vice president of the IU Alumni Association, which is a co-sponsor of the event, said "Nelson is a good attraction and offers a broad appeal."\n"Each year we work with the IU Auditorium to make this weekend special," Hobson said. "We feel the Willie Nelson concert will be a perfect ending to our Homecoming weekend. He is a legend."\nNelson started his career in music as a DJ in Fort Worth, Texas. He sold his first song, "Family Bible," for $50 in 1960 and decided to move to Nashville to try his luck. The nasal timbre of his voice and his jazzy vocal styling kept him from being a successful performer at first, but his song writing abilities were eventually noticed.\nThroughout the 1960s he had success as a songwriter. He wrote popular songs like "Crazy," "Hello Walls" and "Funny How The Time Slips Away." Patsy Cline's recording of "Crazy," remains the most requested country song ever.\nDespite his success as a songwriter, he could not get a break as a performer. Discouraged by the lack of interest in his performing and the formulaic approach to country music in Nashville, Nelson packed it up and moved back to Texas to become a pig farmer.\nHe didn't wait to long to re-emerge, and in 1973 he reappeared with a new image, transforming himself into a country outlaw. His new albums had concepts, and his songs reflected his wide range of influences. It would become this image that Nelson would be known by -- the long red hair in pigtails and his classical guitar with a huge hole which he named Trigger. By the time he released the "Red Headed Stranger" album in 1975, Willie Nelson had become a household name.\n"He never has seemed too concerned with image," said assistant music professor Andy Hollinden, who teaches the History of Rock of the 1970s and 1980s. "That is one of the things that I have liked about him. It wasn't about the glamour and looks but the music. He is the genuine article, just like Hank Williams Sr."\nNelson is as active now as ever. He released five albums of new material in 2000 and has released one album, "Rainbow Connection," this year, with at least one more scheduled for release before year's end. \nNelson also still tours for the better part of the year. He played in Noblesville last month at Farm Aid, an event he co-founded. He also closed the "Tribute To Heroes" telethon, leading an achingly beautiful rendition of "God Bless America." That performance inspired Dan Rather to say if America had a collective voice, it would probably sound like Willie Nelson.
(10/11/01 4:56am)
Since his start with Whiskeytown and after his first solo album Heartbreaker, Ryan Adams has been plagued by high expectations. Critics have agreed that Adams is an exceptional songwriter and though he hasn't found it yet, he is destined to have great success.\nAdams decided to answer these nagging comments by calling his second solo album Gold. For critics who point out his obvious debt to his influences, Adams fires back by inverting Bruce Springsteen's famous cover photo from Born In The U.S.A. On the back is a photo of a bed with records piled high.\nIt was after those banal shots at his critics that Adams decided to make his album. Not that this album seems thrown together; there are 21 songs collected here. Adams seems to have discovered the pop ballad earlier this year, and not in the place you think he would have looked. While on Heartbreaker he wrote tasteful ballads inspired by Gram Parsons' solo albums, on Gold he looks only as far back as the Counting Crows and the rest of the too dramatic roots bands from the mid-'90s. He often drops his low growl from his previous work in favor of a Van Morrison style, soaks a song with strings, sits down at the piano and sings about love. Sometimes it's enticing and even believable, often it's tiresome. \nAdams doesn't totally abandon the essence that made Heartbreaker so good. There are a few interesting rockers such as "New York, New York" and "Firecracker." On "Sylvia Plath" and "When Stars Go Blue," he attaches the expressive gravely voice that is precisely the reason why so many have high expectations for him. \nWith the right amount of airplay and exposure there is no reason that Gold should not be a gold record. Adams has written the kind of songs that the public falls for as sincerity. Despite some questionable moments, Gold does provide some songs that his antecedent fans will find fabulous and will likely prolong their feelings that Adams might just be the second coming.
(10/11/01 4:00am)
Since his start with Whiskeytown and after his first solo album Heartbreaker, Ryan Adams has been plagued by high expectations. Critics have agreed that Adams is an exceptional songwriter and though he hasn't found it yet, he is destined to have great success.\nAdams decided to answer these nagging comments by calling his second solo album Gold. For critics who point out his obvious debt to his influences, Adams fires back by inverting Bruce Springsteen's famous cover photo from Born In The U.S.A. On the back is a photo of a bed with records piled high.\nIt was after those banal shots at his critics that Adams decided to make his album. Not that this album seems thrown together; there are 21 songs collected here. Adams seems to have discovered the pop ballad earlier this year, and not in the place you think he would have looked. While on Heartbreaker he wrote tasteful ballads inspired by Gram Parsons' solo albums, on Gold he looks only as far back as the Counting Crows and the rest of the too dramatic roots bands from the mid-'90s. He often drops his low growl from his previous work in favor of a Van Morrison style, soaks a song with strings, sits down at the piano and sings about love. Sometimes it's enticing and even believable, often it's tiresome. \nAdams doesn't totally abandon the essence that made Heartbreaker so good. There are a few interesting rockers such as "New York, New York" and "Firecracker." On "Sylvia Plath" and "When Stars Go Blue," he attaches the expressive gravely voice that is precisely the reason why so many have high expectations for him. \nWith the right amount of airplay and exposure there is no reason that Gold should not be a gold record. Adams has written the kind of songs that the public falls for as sincerity. Despite some questionable moments, Gold does provide some songs that his antecedent fans will find fabulous and will likely prolong their feelings that Adams might just be the second coming.
(10/04/01 5:21am)
Lambchop's Tools In The Dryer is a collection of A- and B-side singles, live outtakes and other rarities. Lambchop is a band whose spotty career is marked by music that displays the members' big ears (or big record collections). Listening to Tools In The Dryer will not help you pinpoint their identity any more than their other records. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Kurt Wagner's music has always been a blend of pretentious art and odd humor. This collection serves as a nice way to watch his and the band's evolution. \nThere are tracks from the band's very beginning; home recordings made on a Casio keyboard while the members were still in high school. One of those songs, "All Over The World," is notable for its obnoxious woodwinds played over the pop-country tune, displaying the band's taste for the avantgarde at an early age. There also are some truly awful re-mixes of songs from previous albums, which were made to increase Lambchop's popularity in Europe. They mostly just end up sounding like Eurotrash-dance garbage. \nThe best songs, and the reason why this album is a worthwhile purchase, are the collection of singles that are hard to find elsewhere. On "Nine" they layer Pavement-like distorted guitars over Wagner's fabulous lyrics. "Cigaretiquette" shows Lambchop's affinity for pop sensibility as fitting for the grand joke. Lampchop uses a brass section to propel the late-night lounge feel that the music and lyrics call for. \nThe real gem on this album is the Vic Chesnutt cover, "Miss Prissy." Chesnutt is a great folk songwriter. Despite some relatively famous people trying to push him to a bigger audience, he remains, for the most part, undiscovered. Lambchop's reading is done very well, and it should make listeners want to seek out the source.\nThe singles on Tools In The Dryer are some of the best recordings that Lambchop has made. That said, including the rare and live tracks that will probably not be collected together anywhere else, fans would want to buy this album.\nRating: 6
(10/04/01 4:00am)
Lambchop's Tools In The Dryer is a collection of A- and B-side singles, live outtakes and other rarities. Lambchop is a band whose spotty career is marked by music that displays the members' big ears (or big record collections). Listening to Tools In The Dryer will not help you pinpoint their identity any more than their other records. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Kurt Wagner's music has always been a blend of pretentious art and odd humor. This collection serves as a nice way to watch his and the band's evolution. \nThere are tracks from the band's very beginning; home recordings made on a Casio keyboard while the members were still in high school. One of those songs, "All Over The World," is notable for its obnoxious woodwinds played over the pop-country tune, displaying the band's taste for the avantgarde at an early age. There also are some truly awful re-mixes of songs from previous albums, which were made to increase Lambchop's popularity in Europe. They mostly just end up sounding like Eurotrash-dance garbage. \nThe best songs, and the reason why this album is a worthwhile purchase, are the collection of singles that are hard to find elsewhere. On "Nine" they layer Pavement-like distorted guitars over Wagner's fabulous lyrics. "Cigaretiquette" shows Lambchop's affinity for pop sensibility as fitting for the grand joke. Lampchop uses a brass section to propel the late-night lounge feel that the music and lyrics call for. \nThe real gem on this album is the Vic Chesnutt cover, "Miss Prissy." Chesnutt is a great folk songwriter. Despite some relatively famous people trying to push him to a bigger audience, he remains, for the most part, undiscovered. Lambchop's reading is done very well, and it should make listeners want to seek out the source.\nThe singles on Tools In The Dryer are some of the best recordings that Lambchop has made. That said, including the rare and live tracks that will probably not be collected together anywhere else, fans would want to buy this album.\nRating: 6
(09/20/01 4:42am)
Sebastopol is the first solo album by former Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar. The work he has done with these seminal alt-country bands was some of the most influential and critically acclaimed of the 1990s. \nIt's been more than three years since Son Volt's last album, and consequently it sounds as if Farrar had plenty of time to work on the album. That is a compliment to the songs as much as it is a detriment to them. The songs are very well written, but it also seems as though he spent a prolonged time in the studio playing around with every sound and instrument he could find. He employs swirling effects, alternate tunings, atypical rock rhythms, synthesizers and sitars quite frequently throughout the album. Often, it just seems to cloud the water. \nBut at times synthesized strings are used very well to affix drama. "Feed Kill Chain" and "Damaged Son" use the synthesizer to add a distant, terror-stricken feeling. But on "Voodoo Candle" and "Prelude (Make It Alright)," the sound just seems misused. The highlight here is "Barstow," employing no gimmicks, it is a humorous story and has some excellent harmonies (with Gillian Welch) and lap steel work. \nProbably the biggest problem with Farrar is his lyrics. With Uncle Tupelo and on Son Volt's first album Trace, the portraits of existentialism in the Midwest seemed refreshing and powerful, but now the subject matter seems tired. While it's possible that like his folk music heroes he feels a certain responsibility to report, it's more possible he doesn't know what else to say.\nIn a way Sebastopol is remarkable because it isn't boring. It is long, almost 45 minutes, and it's always surprising that Farrar's placid vocals are as captivating and emotional as they are. Despite well-worn lyrical subjects, he is finding new ways to present the sound of the meaningless Midwest, which proves that the synthesis between country and rock has a lot of uncharted territory.
(09/20/01 4:32am)
At the risk of saying, "here's yet another side of Bob Dylan," here it is. This album could be seen as a Basement Tapes or John Wesley Harding-like attempt at American musical history, but it's not. Oh, it's American history all right, he just got a little closer to the right answer here on Love And Theft, the icon's 43rd album. He looks to the blues, rockabilly, Tin Pan Alley, Sun Studios and country-swing to fit his vision.\nThis is Dylan's second indisputable masterpiece in a row, which is unfamiliar ground for a 60-year-old rock and roller. Gone is the swampy, deathbed feel of 1997's Time Out Of Mind, replaced with "that thin mercury sound" that Dylan used to describe his 1960s trilogy Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. The lyrical imagery is dense, humorous and fits in so easily to the sound of his fabulous backing band (his touring band for the last two years). Dylan did the production himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.\nOn songs like "Moonlight," "Bye And Bye" and "Po' Boy," Dylan looks to pre-rock pop music. At first listen these songs seem pretty awful, but it's easy to realize how they fit in with the album. It is pure schmaltz, but that's the point, the lyrics strike home that these songs are not to be taken sincerely. Listen to the way Dylan sings these songs, allowing his voice to crack, the sound of almost a restrained laugh, and the vision of the smirk on his face is clear.\nBut this album is not a joke -- it's an album of stories. On the aforementioned songs the stories are in the style. But songs such as "High Water (For Charley Patton)," go on On The Road-like journeys through the past, complete with wild, vivacious descriptions of the mundane and significant with equal attention.\nSo many people will inevitably scrutinize the album and whether they like it or not, the point should not be lost that Dylan set out to make a concept album. As he sings in "Summer Days," "she says, 'You can't repeat the past,' I say, 'You can't? What do you mean you can't? Of course, you can."
(09/20/01 4:00am)
At the risk of saying, "here's yet another side of Bob Dylan," here it is. This album could be seen as a Basement Tapes or John Wesley Harding-like attempt at American musical history, but it's not. Oh, it's American history all right, he just got a little closer to the right answer here on Love And Theft, the icon's 43rd album. He looks to the blues, rockabilly, Tin Pan Alley, Sun Studios and country-swing to fit his vision.\nThis is Dylan's second indisputable masterpiece in a row, which is unfamiliar ground for a 60-year-old rock and roller. Gone is the swampy, deathbed feel of 1997's Time Out Of Mind, replaced with "that thin mercury sound" that Dylan used to describe his 1960s trilogy Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. The lyrical imagery is dense, humorous and fits in so easily to the sound of his fabulous backing band (his touring band for the last two years). Dylan did the production himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.\nOn songs like "Moonlight," "Bye And Bye" and "Po' Boy," Dylan looks to pre-rock pop music. At first listen these songs seem pretty awful, but it's easy to realize how they fit in with the album. It is pure schmaltz, but that's the point, the lyrics strike home that these songs are not to be taken sincerely. Listen to the way Dylan sings these songs, allowing his voice to crack, the sound of almost a restrained laugh, and the vision of the smirk on his face is clear.\nBut this album is not a joke -- it's an album of stories. On the aforementioned songs the stories are in the style. But songs such as "High Water (For Charley Patton)," go on On The Road-like journeys through the past, complete with wild, vivacious descriptions of the mundane and significant with equal attention.\nSo many people will inevitably scrutinize the album and whether they like it or not, the point should not be lost that Dylan set out to make a concept album. As he sings in "Summer Days," "she says, 'You can't repeat the past,' I say, 'You can't? What do you mean you can't? Of course, you can."
(09/20/01 4:00am)
Sebastopol is the first solo album by former Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar. The work he has done with these seminal alt-country bands was some of the most influential and critically acclaimed of the 1990s. \nIt's been more than three years since Son Volt's last album, and consequently it sounds as if Farrar had plenty of time to work on the album. That is a compliment to the songs as much as it is a detriment to them. The songs are very well written, but it also seems as though he spent a prolonged time in the studio playing around with every sound and instrument he could find. He employs swirling effects, alternate tunings, atypical rock rhythms, synthesizers and sitars quite frequently throughout the album. Often, it just seems to cloud the water. \nBut at times synthesized strings are used very well to affix drama. "Feed Kill Chain" and "Damaged Son" use the synthesizer to add a distant, terror-stricken feeling. But on "Voodoo Candle" and "Prelude (Make It Alright)," the sound just seems misused. The highlight here is "Barstow," employing no gimmicks, it is a humorous story and has some excellent harmonies (with Gillian Welch) and lap steel work. \nProbably the biggest problem with Farrar is his lyrics. With Uncle Tupelo and on Son Volt's first album Trace, the portraits of existentialism in the Midwest seemed refreshing and powerful, but now the subject matter seems tired. While it's possible that like his folk music heroes he feels a certain responsibility to report, it's more possible he doesn't know what else to say.\nIn a way Sebastopol is remarkable because it isn't boring. It is long, almost 45 minutes, and it's always surprising that Farrar's placid vocals are as captivating and emotional as they are. Despite well-worn lyrical subjects, he is finding new ways to present the sound of the meaningless Midwest, which proves that the synthesis between country and rock has a lot of uncharted territory.
