Up the Downstair

“Headlong Flight”

Palmer — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:44:12 +0000

The newest single by Rush was released today. It is rockin’. Heavier than Snakes and Arrows but still in that vein. Actually, it wouldn’t have sounded too out of place on Caress of Steel.

Levon Helm Losing Battle With Cancer

Palmer — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:42:47 +0000

According to Levon Helm’s webpage, his fight with cancer is not going well.

Levon is in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey.

Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer back in the late 90s so I presume that it has returned. I hope he leaves us peacefully.

UPDATE 19 April – Helm died today.

Records Store Day 2012

Palmer — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:36:34 +0000

Record Store Day is this Saturday, 21 April. A list of special releases for the occasion is here. Genesis’ Spot the Pigeon EP is being re-released on vinyl, oddly enough. The most interesting entry here for me is the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Run DMC doing the latter’s “You Be Illin”. The label indicates that Run DMC’s performance is from 1986 so I am assuming this is a remix of some sort with CCD adding their parts on top.

The AV Club has a list of events here in Madison which include in-store performances, WORT DJs spinning tunes on location, and deals.

Live Premiere of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Palmer — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:53:02 +0000

One of the neat things about boots is that they give you the chance to hear works in progress, songs never recorded, etc. Someone in the audience at Nirvana’s 17 April 1991 at the OK Hotel in Seattle, WA recorded at least part of the show which included the live premiere of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Musically it’s pretty much the same as the version that popularized grunge but lyrically it’s very different.

Alabama Shakes – “Hold On”

Palmer — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:41:48 +0000

I’d never heard of Alabama Shakes until yesterday when I listened to them on Sound Opinions. As Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis noted, the band has the Muscle Shoals sound and singer Birttany Howard has a fantastic set of pipes.

Ian Anderson – Thick as a Brick 2

Palmer — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:04:51 +0000

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At the urging of various associates, including Derek Schulman of Gentle Giant, Ian Anderson decided to make a follow-up to Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick and it has arrived just in time for the ruby anniversary of its predecessor. The newspaper spoof that formed the cover for TAAB noted that the lyrics for that album were written by an 8-year old named Gerald Bostock. Forty years later Anderson looks at what happened to Gerald as he grew up, all the vocations he might have entered and choices he could have, but didn’t make.

Make no mistake, this is an Ian Anderson solo album and not the latest from Jethro Tull. Martin Barre apparently decided to take a pass. However, aside from guitarist Florian Opahle, everyone has toured under the Tull banner over the past several years. Although forty years on, Anderson chose to retain the sonic palette of TAAB and so there’s plenty of Hammond organ here courtesy of John O’Hara along with David Goodier on glockenspiel (and bass too) and the obligatory acoustic guitar and flute. The newspaper spoof that was the St. Cleve Chronicle is now stcleve.com.

“From a Pebble Thrown” opens like side 2 of TAAB with the swirling gusts of wind and those three staccato guitar/piano notes, the first of a handful of musical references to 1972. The song describes Gerald as “Twelve, going on sixteen”, not yet having attained majority but at the age where decisions can last a lifetime. “Pebbles Instrumental” spins us through time to might-have-beens where Anderson imagines the alternate lives our Gerald could have lived. First he is a banker making his millions through underhanded deals and then a homeless man who suffered sexual abuse and the cold indifference of his family. Anderson then imagines Gerald as a military man followed by a chorister at his local church. Or perhaps he became an ordinary man living in middle class obscurity. The final four songs find each incarnation of our protagonist looking back at his life, at where his choices have led him.

Musically TAAB2 sounds like you’d think it would. The acoustic elements wouldn’t sound out of place on Anderson’s solo albums The Secret Language of Birds and Rupi’s Dance while the heavier, rockier sections sound very much like latter-day Tull a la Dot Com but with a proggy patina circa 1972/3.

“Upper Sixth Loan Shark” introduces us to the young man who would become a mendacious denizen of Canary Wharf. Gentle acoustic guitar and flute with a bit of glockenspiel form an aural pillow for Gerald’s head while flourishes of electric guitar hint at his ambitions. On the other side of the spectrum, “Old School Song” appropriates the martial organ riff from TAAB (“I’ve come down from the upper class…”) and never lets go. It’s insistent beat churns underneath Gerald’s military mindset, discounting “mad poets” and “painters twee”.

Both “A Change of Horses” and “Adrift and Dumfounded” have been around a few years appearing in Tull and IA solo live sets and here they have been repurposed. The former finds Gerald in a pensive mood, contemplating the decades that have passed. Coming in at over eight minutes, the song leaves space for plenty of soloing. Anderson lays down plenty of flute but there’s also some great guitar-accordion sparing as well. “Adrift and Dumfounded” features some wonderful dynamics. Organ plays off acoustic guitar with electric lead joining the fray. There’s also some nice jazzy piano that helps makes this song a cousin to “Rocks on the Road”.

“Give Till It Hurts” is a Celtic-flavored acoustic ditty that is a worthy entry in the long line of such songs in the Tull catalogue. After years of more easy-going music, it’s nice to hear Anderson’s more aggressive flute playing in songs like “Shunt and Shuffle” as well as its slashing chords and thundering drums which harken back to “Locomotive Breath”. There’s simply more muscle on TAAB2 than on anything Anderson has done in years. “Adrift and Dumfounded” features some winding guitar from Opahle as Scott Hammond kicks the drums into overdrive while the choruses of “Power and Spirit” are downright fierce as Gerald the preacher fans the flames of religious fanaticism.

Starting in the mid-90s Anderson began to write songs about growing old – stuff like “At Last, Forever”, “Wicked Windows”, and “The Dog-Ear Years”. That trend continues here but I appreciate how this theme is mixed in with some social commentary. There’s nothing heavy-handed but you’ve got the homeless, greedy preachers fleecing their flocks, and even greedier bankers. Just as the music brings the slow and the fast, the electric and the acoustic together, the lyrics are a wonderful mix of story-telling, subtle finger-wagging, and reflection on years gone by.

TAAB2 will no doubt suffer because of comparisons to it predecessor but IA brought this on with the concept, the title, and the sporadic references to classic Tull tunes. This is too bad because it’s an album worthy in its own right. TAAB2 may see the world through the eyes of a man in his mid-60s but Ian Anderson is rocking again.

Reptile Palace Orchestra – Songs and Dances of Madisonia

Palmer — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:18:00 +0000

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Madison purveyors of Balkan lounge funk, Reptile Palace Orchestra, released Songs and Dances of Madisonia this spring, their first album since 2003’s We Know You Know. There has been some molting since then with Kia Karlen and Greg Smith assuming duties on accordion and brass from Timm Gould and Doug Code. Plus singer Anna Purnell left the band to form Chick Singer although she plays and sings on a few songs here. Thusly this album represents the debut of her replacement, Maggie Weiser.

Weiser is given a chance to strut her stuff on the leadoff track “Sev Kardesim”. Also known as “Turkish Hora” (a hora being a type of Eastern European dance), drummer Robert Schoville and bassist Ed Feeny keep a simple beat that’s adorned by accordion, clarinet, and Biff Blumfumgagnge’s violin. Weiser may sing in a slightly higher register than her predecessor but her voice is just as rich and lissome as she demonstrates here with her crooning about subject matter unknown since I don’t speak Turkish.

Fans of RPO love to do circle dances at their concerts and this album offers a plethora of such tunes to get listeners’ bums a-movin’. The folkdance music of Bulgaria gets special attention here with five songs including “Snosti si Rada pristana” which is described in the liner notes as a barn-burner. And so it is. Clarinet and violin play in unison while Purnell pleads her soulful billet-doux to the listener. This is the second time the song has appeared on an album, the first being back in 1996 on the live album On the Wings of a Skink. Also seeing new life is “Guisevska Racenica”, which appeared on the band’s debut Early Reptile. The main differences between the previous versions and these new ones is the presence of the drum kit. “Bavno Horo” begins as a slow burner perfectly suitable for holding your honey close but finishes at breakneck pace with clarinet, violin, and trumpet all racing along.

Similarly the Macedonian dance number “Žensko Camce” simmers with a mournful violin melody before the pace picks up. There’s even a bit of Arabic operetta here in the form of “Marakebna Al Mina” sung by Mryriam Darsouni, an Algerian friend of the band. Guitar and sax trade licks in between bursts of her smooth, honeyed voice. “Wash Your Hands” may be a piece of throwaway calypso but is ultimately great fun. It lacks nothing in the shake yer booty department and Weiser’s sultry vocals make personal hygiene irresistible.

But not everything here is a folk dance from Eastern Europe as the band are happy to inject some originals into the proceedings. “Skeleton Dance” is a spooky little shuffle by cellist Seth Blair while a stuttering drum box and washes of synth finds the band veering towards Brian Eno in “Lycanthropy”. “Rude Oud” began life a few years ago on an album by The Gomers, another of Biff’s bands, only it actually featured an oud and Frippertronics from the man himself. Here, the vaguely bluesy, arabesque oud riff is ported to the violin where it’s joined by guitar (or is that Biff’s Mandocaster?). Soon enough the sprightly melody opens up and there’s room for Smith to do something akin to David Jackson in his freest of moments. And if that weren’t enough, we get some manic guitar soloing before Biff imagines what Robert Fripp would do with a violin.

The truly odd thing is how well Balkan dance music sits with proggy eccentricites and Enossified minimalism plus dashes of Arabia and the Caribbean thrown in for good measure. Hopefully we won’t have to wait nine years again for another dose of pan-Slavic weirdness.

GG Allin on American Idol

Palmer — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:05:15 +0000

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I present without comment.

More Details on New Rush Album & A Sample

Palmer — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:02:29 +0000

The new Rush album, Clockwork Angels, is due 12 June. According to the band’s website, Neil Peart has gone all steampunk.

Lyrically, “CLOCKWORK ANGELS” chronicles a young man’s quest across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy as he attempts to follow his dreams. The story features lost cities, pirates, anarchists, an exotic carnival, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life. The novelization of “CLOCKWORK ANGELS” is being written by science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson in collaboration with Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart.

A brief sample from the lead single, “Headlong Flight”, is available. Sounds very old school with a nod to “Bastille Day”.

I Guess the New Rush Single Is Pretty Good

Palmer — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:52:56 +0000

The forthcoming single from Rush’s new album is a song called “Headlong Flight” and it’s apparently pretty good. Dominic Nardella really likes it at least.