Recent CD Purchases

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:12 am

Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South. These guys are as good as it gets and this is their third truly great album in a row.

Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now. Not his best work by any stretch but it is still inspired and Earle's conviction (as an artist, not as a felon) is admirable.

Otis Taylor - White African & Truth Is Not Fiction. I picked these two up on the strength of a recent No Depression article and I am so fortunate to have lucked into such an amazing artist. There is one song off Truth Is Not Fiction entitled "House of The Crosses," about a Russian prison guard who is forced to watch over his evil father who is one of his prisoners, that is one of the most incredible songs I have ever heard.

Carolyn Mark - Terrible Hostess. Very cool Canadian singer/songwriter who is one half of The Corn Sisters along with Neko Case.

Post by **BlueChair** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:20 am

fdfd, to you too!

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:21 am

BlueChair wrote:fdfd, to you too!

Hey man, I've got this "Invalid_Session" albatross around my neck so them there's the breaks for me!

Goody2Shoes · Post by **Goody2Shoes** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:29 am

Hey El Vez--I was given Truth Is Not Fiction for Christmas last year, and House Of The Crosses blows me away every time. I'm glad to know someone else who enjoys it. I like Comb Your Brown Hair and Babies Don't Lie an awful lot, too.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:39 am

Goody2Shoes wrote:Hey El Vez--I was given Truth Is Not Fiction for Christmas last year, and House Of The Crosses blows me away every time. I'm glad to know someone else who enjoys it. I like Comb Your Brown Hair and Babies Don't Lie an awful lot, too.

Oh snap! You should pick up White African if you get the chance because it is equally as good. "My Soul's In Lousiana," "Resurrection Blues" and especially "3 Days and 3 Nights" are light years beyond what most contemporary blues artists are doing. I really am glad to have discovered this man's voice because it's so different from almost anything I have ever heard before.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:57 am

I also picked up Ashgrove, the brilliant new album from Dave Alvin. As of right now, I would have to give it to Alvin for having the best album of the year. I'm incredibly excited about The Delivery Man and Real Gone but I can't see either one topping Ashgrove. Also, if you are fortunate enough to have Alvin & The Guilty Men touring near your neck of the woods, you owe it to yourself to check these guys out. It changed my life when I saw them a few months back at City Stages.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:00 am

Last night I bought Joe Henry's Scar and Jonathan Richman's Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman. I'm not really loving either one as much as I thought I would, but Jonathan Richman comes closer. I also bought Pulp's The Hits, but that was for a friend; friends don't let friends go without a Pulp CD.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:02 am

I do really like "Richard Pryor Addresses A Tearful Nation" off Scar but it was one of those things I listened to for a few weeks and never picked it up again.

Post by **BlueChair** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:07 am

Scar is one of my favourite albums from 2001, though I definitely agree that I was a lot more into it at first than I am now. Still, it's one I pick up again from time to time and enjoy just as much as I did initially. Great late night chilling music. My favourite track on the album is "Rough And Tumble"

Mr. Average · Post by **Mr. Average** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:14 am

El Vez: Thank you for the Ashgrove mini-review (Dave Alvin). You pushed my over the edge, and I will pick it up before the start of a new Working Week. I'm tremblin' with anticipation.....

( I saw the Blasters back in 1983-84 at Bogards Cafe in Cincinnati, and I got so excited during the SRO set that I jumped up, threw my arms wildly backwards, elbows first, and knocked the guy behind me out cold. Eye's Open. Unconscious. His buddies screamed at me "Dude...you killed him!" which of course, I did not. He was rapidly revived, but that is my little Dave Alvin and the Blasters "these guys are great live" story.

Have you seen the Blasters Live DVD recently released? Any good?

Please forward all responses to the California State Penitentiary, Lockdown Unit R and R.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:18 am

I really liked The Blasters: Live Going Home although I was letdown a tad because "Just Another Sunday" is my favorite Blasters song and they didn't perform that one. Minor quibble at best. There were some nice bonus interviews and Dave comes off as the musician you would most want to have a couple of drinks with. Phil Alvin is a strange, strange case for me. Great singer, smart guy but I don't dig how he has downplayed his little brother's contributions and the man just flat out looks bizarre when his face contorts during performance. Shouldn't bother me but it is so distracting and I keep thinking "Phil Alvin is having a stroke! Somebody call an ambulance!"

Ashgrove contains three or four songs that are strong contenders for song of the year. "Everett Ruess" is my favorite largely because I can identify with the guy who pulls a Jeremiah Johnson and walks away from a plastic society to live and die alone in the wilderness. Except that I am no woodsman so the death part of the equation would probably occur within the first twenty four hours.

"I hate your crowded cities with the sad and hopeless mobs/And I hate your grand cathedrals where you try to trap God/'Cause I know God is here in the canyons/With the rattlesnakes and the pinon pines/And they never found my body, boys/Or understood my mind"

"The Man In The Bed" and the title track are equally as great but there isn't a single song on there that isn't very, very good.

Post by **BlueChair** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 2:15 pm

This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies and The Kinks
Neil Young - Tonight's The Night

RedShoes · Post by **RedShoes** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 2:19 pm

On the same shopping trip with Blue, I picked up:

Help!, The Beatles (and yes, I realize how pathetic it is that neither of us owned this yet)
Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:50 pm

I really and truly did not need to spend more money on music this week but it's like a drug and I am a nasty addict.

Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster. It baffles the mind to realize that this is the first ever Foster tribute album. Among the many highlights, Raul Malo delivers a heartbreaking rendition of the title track and Mavis Staples pretty much owns "Hard Times" from now on. All in all, a very worthy salute to the first great American songwriter.

Touch My Heart: A Tribute To Johnny Paycheck. BWAP will back me up here (I hope!) when I say that Paycheck is one of the most misunderstood and least appreciated great country artists of all time. Robbie Fulks (another musical hero of mine) is the album's executive producer/prime mover and he smartly downplays the novelty songs from Paycheck's admittedly uneven career and instead focuses on the mature love songs, hard-bitten character studies and raucous white soul stompers like "11 Months & 29 Days."

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 5:51 pm

I say that Paycheck is one of the most misunderstood and least appreciated great country artists of all time.

Ok, I back you up. From a historical perspective, Paycheck will always be remembered for that one song. But unlike Billy Ray Cyrus or CW Mcall, there is a great (neglected) body of work that preceded the hit. I can certainly remember when "Shove it" was all over the place, and the dude looked stupid and stupid people liked the song, and I certainly had no interest in investigating his back catalog.

It's a pity - any fan of honky tonk (George Jones, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price etc.) will eat up early Paycheck.

Someone was asking earlier about songs in the same vein as Psycho, someone replied with Knoxville Girl (Louvin Brothers version is the one that gets me) - another one, even creepier is Paycheck's, (Pardon Me ) I've Got Someone To Kill - because it's in the future and not the past tense.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:25 pm

I bought Watching The Dark (a Richard Thompson box set I thought had been deleted, but there is a new expanded HMV in Glasgow, and the bloke said they were expanding their stock....he also said the Sandy Denny box set has been their biggest seller of all box sets too! Interesting! Anyway I digress..) and also Norma Waterson. That's the woman from the Watersons who cover's The Birds Will Still Be Singing, as well as RT, Billy Bragg and a Grateful Dead song...it's a really good folk album, Im really pleased with it.

I also bought an XBox...and today, cos I got FIFA 2005, I finally heard the oft-talked about, oft-lambasted, oft-acclaimed Head Automatica (cos they're on the soundtrack to the game, song is called Burning Brooklyn or something)....they're OK. I wasn't enamoured or anything, but I can see how the singer was influenced by EC.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 7:08 pm

May your jaw turn to glass for lack of enthusiasm.

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 7:56 pm

Otis Westinghouse wrote:May your jaw turn to glass for lack of enthusiasm.

=)

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 7:57 pm

laughingcrow wrote:I also bought an XBox...and today, cos I got FIFA 2005, I finally heard the oft-talked about, oft-lambasted, oft-acclaimed Head Automatica (cos they're on the soundtrack to the game, song is called Burning Brooklyn or something)....they're OK. I wasn't enamoured or anything, but I can see how the singer was influenced by EC.

I didn't know they were in that.
Yeah, they're one of the greatest bands to ever breathe,

VonOfterdingen · Post by **VonOfterdingen** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:48 am

Bought Ian Browns 'Solarized'. Not the Stone Roses but pretty good (albeit not as great as the album 'Golden Greats')

Thinking of Stone Roses/Ian Brown/John Squire - how well known are they in the US?

Stone Roses debut-album is still my all-time favorite album though 'King of America' is close behind.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:13 am

That Stone Roses record was pretty big stuff when it hit here. I never owned it, sadly, but love the stuff I knew from it...

Although I have no business spending money these days, this week I bought these three for about $35 (God bless Newbury Comix!!):

Elliott Smith - From A Basement on A Hill
Moz - You Are the Quarry, expanded edition with extra tracks and DVD
Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 7:55 pm

Elliott Smith's posthumous has had great reviews. Would like to hear that.

You profligate Moz-fan - falling sucker to the 'reissue, repackage' of a CD you already own!!!

Streets is good. Like EC, I rate it as a highpoint this year, but doubt I'll be playing it much long term. Dry Your Eyes is a classic, and much of it is memorable, but the narrative is ludicrous in places. His delivery is unique. EC ranked it as choice of the year in the Q review of 2004, alongside Ryko Kiley.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:38 pm

Before Christmas I'd like to get Missy Higgin's debut album. She's a cool new aussie songwriter (on piano at least) who seems country but has an intelligence rarely encountered in the country, and who's no doubt read a lot. Her first single is bound to become a long term classic at least here in Australia, it's called Scar:

He left a card, a bar of soap and a scrubbing brush next to a note
That said "use these down to your bones"
And before I knew I had shiny skin and it felt easy being clean like him
I thought "this one knows better than I do"

A triangle trying to squeeze through a circle
He tried to blunt me so I'd fit

And doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that hit too close to home?
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could've gone?
And doesn't it feel peculiar when everyone wants a little more?
And so that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave me with a scar?

So the next one came with a bag of treats, she smelled like sugar and
spoke like the sea
And she told me don't trust them, trust me
Then she pulled at my stitches one by one, looked at my insides clicking
her tongue and said
"This will all have to come undone"

A triangle trying to squeeze through a circle
She tried to blunt me so I'd fit

And doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that hit too close to home?
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could have gone?
And doesn't it feel peculiar when everyone wants a little more?
And so that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave me with a scar?

I think I realized just in time, although my old self was hard to find
You bathe me in your finest wine but I'll never give you mine
'Cos I'm a little bit tired of fearing that I'll be the bad fruit nobody buys
Tell me, did you think we'd all dream the same?

And doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that hit too close to home?
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could have gone?
And doesn't it feel peculiar when everyone wants a little more?
And so that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave me with a scar?
Could you leave me with a scar?

This is her:

Pretty hot, eh?

ice nine · Post by **ice nine** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:41 am

Bambaa, is she anything like Casey Chambers?

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 5:53 am

Sounds interesting, here's an ordering link for her album
http://www.missyhiggins.com/store/?id=3&section=cds