NEWS: Six Degrees of Emmylou Harris
If you’re a fan of country music, and even if you’re not, you probably know who Emmylou Harris is. Most importantly there is her unique voice, beautiful, weightless, mournful and wholly her own. Then there is her remarkable long white hair. What I find myself drawn to is her tendency to pop up on so many albums by other people. She seems willing to lend her talent in duet or support of any artist who asks, spreading her long-standing country cred to a new generation in the process. From Gram Parsons and Willie Nelson to Ryan Adams and Beth Orton, Emmylou is out there doing what she does best, making other people sound good by sounding great with them. So, in lieu of a traditional list I present to you a new twist on a familiar game you can play at home or at parties. Look how easy it can be!
Emmylou Harris to Heavy Metal in 4 moves:
Emmylou made two albums with the “Trio” of Linda Ronstadt and…
…Dolly Parton, who put her assets to good use in “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” with the man, the myth, the mustache…
…Burt Reynolds, who pimped his way back into celebrity favor in “Boogie Nights” starring…
…Mark Wahlberg’s giant fake penis. Mark also plays a fan-turned-rockstar in “Rockstar,” based on the story of Rob Halford’s fall from grace with metal mainstay…
…Judas Priest!
Emmylou Harris to Eminem in 3 moves:
She sang on the six zillion selling soundtrack to “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” starring…
…George Clooney, who you might remember from “ER,” now featuring…
…Mikai Pfeiffer, who co-stars in “8 Mile” with your least favorite favorite hip-hop entrepreneur…
…Eminem…
Or, for musical purists…
Emmylou Harris to Eminem, in 6 moves - no movies:
She sings backup on “Oh My Sweet Carolina” on “Heartbreaker,” the essential solo debut by…
…Ryan Adams, who, in true spoiled drunken prematurely famous and ill-adjusted rock-star style, yells nasty words on stage at fellow hip young alt-whatever-music trend setter…
…Jack White of the White Stripes, who receives kind mention from the strangest place any of us can hope to find ourselves one day, the title of a song by…
…The Flaming Lips, whose oddly sweet “Thank You Jack White (For The Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me)” appears among other aberrant numbers on their “Fight Test” ep. But wait, it gets weirder. During a January 2003 performance on “Top of Pops” The Lips were joined on stage by guest bass “player”…
…Justin Timberlake! JT’s mega smash Britney bash “Cry Me a River” features…
…Timbaland, and it's just too easy from here since rappers drop lines on other MC’s tracks like you or I drop chewed gum. Timbaland appears with Dr. Dre on “Say What You Say” by…
…Eminem
Emmylou Harris to New York Punk, in 5 moves:
Her landmark album “Wrecking Ball” was given signature production by…
…Daniel Lanois, who also produced that modest little Irish band…
…U2, who are featured on the soundtrack to “Far Away, So Close” by...
...Wim Wenders, a film which features an on-screen performance by…
…Lou Reed, who helped lay New York’s pre-punk bedrock with…
…The Velvet Underground. (For Pop-Culture Bonus Points: Andy Warhol did their album cover AND paintings of Marilyn Monroe who in turn did JFK! That's some good company Emmylou!)
Emmylou Harris to The Matrix, in 6 moves:
The title track on “Wrecking Ball” is a cover of the classic by…
…Neil Young, who later recorded the album "Mirror Ball" with…
…Pearl Jam, who played in Temple of the Dog with, among others…
…Soundgarden, whose singer now fronts…
…Audioslave, which is really…
…Rage Against the Machine minus Zach la Rocha (so it's mostly just the machine), but while Rage was still raging they contributed to the soundtrack of…
…The Matrix. I, too, know Kung Fu.
Emmylou Harris to Disco, in 6 moves:
Back to “Wrecking Ball,” where she covers “Waterfall” by…
…Jimi Hendrix who ruined a perfectly good fire with all that guitar playing at Woodstock, where everyone stood up and went to the bathroom when…
…Sha Na Na took the stage. Yes, they were really there. They were also in "Grease," starring…
…Olivia Newton John and that guy, what’s his name… and technically speaking I could stop there, but it gets waaay more disco when you discover that miss Newton John sang a duet with…
…Andy Gibb on his “After Dark” album - no, I don’t own that one - and he was a Brother Gibb, which brings us to…
…The Bee Gees… but wait, there’s more! In 1978 The Bee Gees lost Billboard's International Disco Forum “Disco Group of the Year” award to…
…The Village People, and it doesn’t get more disco than that.
(I swear I didn’t make any of that up.)
Wasn’t that fun!? Now who wants to help alphabetize the contents of my refrigerator?
REVIEW: Scissor Sisters "Scissor Sisters"
I don't know much about Elton John's expansive repetoir and I am confident in saying that this doesn't make me a bad person. I'm guessing, however, that at some point he recorded a song, maybe an entire album, that sounded a little like funk. Maybe there was a walking bassline, maybe some punchy horns, surely a wahwah guitar and lots and lots of glittery piano. If such an album exists then I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it is playing at the Scissor Sisters' house right now, and has been since they found it in someone's garbage 10 years ago. Neighbors hear it repeating so they peak in the windows but all they can see are assorted arms and legs poking out from a giant pile of feather boas beneath a disco ball.
Ridiculous? Absolutely, and worse... it is sooooooo boring. This is pseudo-sexualized whitey funk dance music from the 80s redressed in 21st century glam and digital effects. No track has the momentum, punch or even tempo to be a real booty-shaker - or the genuine freakness to qualify as subversive even when considering the naughtiest potential of "Take Your Mama Out." The best thing about this album is that it puts to rest the tired idea that seeming gay is enough to make you cool.
(In the spirit of full disclosure I should acknowledge that I spent a very long and awkward evening at an Elton John concert in 1992 with a then newly ex-girlfriend for whom I bought the tickets prior to and without any reasonable way of anticipating the breakup.)
REVIEW: Iron and Wine "Woman King EP"
Each of the EP's six songs makes direct reference to capital "W" Women or to a particular woman in some way or another. And most of the songs move with an urgency that verges on the not so quiet. Hell, "Freedom Hangs Like Heaven" is one choir, a few handclaps and an Amen short of bone fide revival tent gospel blues.
Beam's poetry is consistently rich and his near-whisper delivery is dovetailed again by sister Sarah Beam's light vocal touch. Each song, even the album, plays like a poignant scene in a bigger picture. We are not given all the details or even a beginning or end. Instead we hear a sense of direction, a source of light, a change, a motivation.
Background hiss of DIY production has been replaced by the low warm buzz of electric guitars and an expertly chaffed fiddle. Beam appears to be setting his own course with clear-eyed determination, as if he's seen the bigger picture and it's just starting to get good. The fact that this is an EP - often a post-script on what came last or a bridge to new material - bodes well for the future since the feeling is energetically new even if the tools and tone seem familiar.
REVIEW: Bright Eyes "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn"
Special dual album review of Bright Eyes "I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning" and "Digital Ash In a Digital Urn"
PART TWO
"To the deepest part; Of the human heart; The fear of death expands;
Till we crack the code; We have always known; But could never understand;
On a circuit board; We will soon be born; Again, again, again, again…"
from "Arc of Time (Time Code)"
Bright Eyes Conor Oberst may not qualify as a truly polarizing figure in popular music but he certainly represents a ridge from which raining opinions might flow in opposite directions. Those opinions range from praising him as "rock’s boy genius" and liberal America’s new musical conscience to lamenting him as an overly hyped suburban mope-ster with a Bob Dylan fixation and a thesaurus. Forced to choose I must confess to falling loosely into the second group with feelings of hope for his clearly enormous potential. Conventional wisdom would lead one to think that the co-release of albums so stylistically opposed as "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" (electronic) and "I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning" (folk) would further spread this gap, adding "versatile and ambitious" to his list of commendations while giving detractors reason to call the project "unfocused and over-reaching." However the poise and polish of these albums, and their surprising similarities, have me wondering not about Oberst’s merit as a prodigy but if the divide between troubadour and programmer is really so wide.
Traditionally folk music lends itself well to the solo performer. It is the genre responsible for elevating the American singer-songwriter to the status of Institution in popular music. All you really need is an instrument you can play while you sing and someone to keep the beat. Digital music, though perceived as being at the opposite end of the spectrum, is very much the same. It remains a primarily solo endeavor of tech-savvy musicians with a relatively small set of tools; percussion (live, machined, sampled or in combination) and an instrument you can play while you sing. That the instrument might be a computer filled with prerecorded loops and synthesized melodies seems irrelevant when the goal is the same – to make compelling music.
Even before George Beauchamp plugged in that first frying pan guitar the tools of popular music were engaged in a perpetual game of leapfrog with technology. Today’s electronic music, digitally driven and immensely marketable, can be an intimidating subject to explore. Examples range from the a-rhythmic clankery of live telephones falling apart into open pianos, dancehall beats beneath reedy violins, field recordings of the wind and everything in between. Just as digital technology has inserted itself into so many aspects of our lives digital music has found intersections across genres as artists reflect on the presence of emergent technologies in culture and embrace the virtual-zeitgeist. This is most apparent when electronics meets pop (digi-pop, pop-tronica, lap-pop…), where artists like Bjork and Radiohead have given the cutting edge an awe-inspiring sense of beauty, humanity, and social relevance.
The sound of technology at work has become so pervasive on and off the pop charts that many of the greatest musical moments of this decade (so far) are unimaginable without the computers on which they were partly performed – Radiohead "Kid A," Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," Flaming Lips "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" and The Postal Service "Give Up." Ironically these albums, to which "Digital Ash" owes a heap of artistic debt, also serve to point out how conventionally analog – and maybe just plain conventional – the album really is. Emphatic title and drum machines aside this is a pretty straightforward pop album playing under the influence of electronica.
The real influence felt is that of co-producer Jimmy Tamborello (The Postal Service / Dntel) who dials down his skittering heart beats and glitch-ridden samples to meet Oberst's voice, which seems naturally tuned to the crackle and whir of digital distortion. Tamborello leaves plenty of tell-tale code lying around the album, but beneath the fire wire and flat screens each song lives and dies by a classic melody and the unflinchingly personal poetry of Oberst’s writing. So Bright Eyes the experimenting electro-pop band and Bright Eyes the politically minded folk-rock band aren’t that different after all.
A quicker pace and buoyant techno-tribal rhythms do temper the album’s Nihilism 101 themes – the forced march of time, inevitability of death, insignificance of human drama on a cosmic scale, no God, no Hell, etc. Apparently Oberst was unable to heed the advice of his own "Down In a Rabbit Hole,"
"If your thoughts should turn to death; Got to stomp them out; Like a cigarette"
Then again why should dwelling on death be any harder to quit than smoking.
True gems "Gold Mine Gutted" and "Arc of Time (Time Code)" strike a balance of dark and light, the latter sparking a genuinely danceable rave-up midway through even as Oberst chants "you die, you die, you die, you die…" It’s a tough balancing act though, and other numbers leave stained images of twenty-somethings with big city problems out in the cold of spare, often somber arrangements that sound less than farm-fresh though not yet past their expiration date.
It’s nice to see Oberst out from behind his guitar fronting a band, albeit largely computerized. Maybe the heat of an unshielded spotlight can warm exposed nerve endings and sweat out more meaning. But in the stark light of day "Digital Ash" is an honest reflection of great things, including its influences, while "Wide Awake" may prove to be great and influential on its own.
An aside: "Light Pollution," the lone unvarnished rocker on “Digital Ash,” has Oberst doing his best Paul Westerberg while telling part of the story I was making up in PART ONE. Turns out my Mrs. Shibley was really a guy named Jonny Hobson who loaned Conor books and let him hang out in his basement listening to "…old folk songs about the government… He even got [Conor] a subscription; To the Socialist Review" Ahh yes, good times.
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