Live Oak Blues What happens.

Year Three of my personal mission to combat musical ADD is in the rearview, and here are the results.

To review, my rules were as follows:

1. Listen to the entire album in one sitting, no matter how painful that may become
2. Pay attention
3. Record the listening date, rating, and a brief review of each album

The Good

• Paul Westerberg’s Solo Work—The release of the masterful “Trouble Boys” bio triggered a comprehensive trip through the Replacements catalog for me–and a first-time encounter with (most of) the solo work of Paul Westerberg. Gobsmacked. His songs left me speechless more times than I can count, especially “Stereo” and “Suicaine Gratification.” He is our generation’s finest songwriter.
• Swamp Dogg!—Mix Bill Withers, Blowfly, Marvin Gaye, and John Prine together and you may approach the sublime alchemy that is Swamp Dogg. Heard of him, but had never listened to him. Pick any of his records, especially the ones in the 70s, and you’re in for a great ride.
• Belle and Sebastian—I’ve completely dismissed this band for years. On what evidence? None. Because if I had actually listened to any of their records, whatever misgivings would have quickly disappeared. Stuart Murdoch is a peerless pop songwriter, and I’ve literally not heard a bad record from them. “If You’re Feeling Sinister” and “The Boy With The Arab Strap” are the best places to start. Everything But The Girl and The Smiths had a wunderkind and it is named Belle & Sebastian.
• Erasmos Carlos, “Carlos, Erasmo…”—I’m a huge fan of Tropicalia, but had never encountered this gem from 1971. Erasmos Carlos was right in the center lane of the zeitgeist on this one. This record and Os Mutantes’ first are the ones I’d give to anyone interested in Tropicalia (and you should be interested).
• Sagittarius, “Present Tense”—Sagittarius was the Gorillaz of its day (1968): an elusive ensemble whose existence was entirely in the studio. It was never really a band, though its members included Glen Campbell and Bryan Johnston, but for one moment it caught the sweetest tendencies of psych and put out a perfect record.
• Hoosier Hotshots—I picked up this compilation off Discogs on a lark and it has been in regular rotation ever since. Marketed as a musical comedy ensemble in the 1930s, these guys played the tightest Country/Jazz I’ve ever heard, and with mindblowing virtuosity. A blast from start to finish.

The Bad

• Dylan as Sinatra—No mas por favor.
• Roxy Music—I’ve tried so many times to understand their appeal, and I’ve now stopped trying.
• Post-Short People Randy Newman—When your early stuff is so great, there will always be an inevitable drop off. But that does not explain the self-parody of Newman’s LA years.

Five Generations of Coates

Last week, my Uncle Michael passed away, the last of my father’s side of the family. In the parking lot after the funeral, I was given a 20-pound Crown Royal box stuffed with photos. When I opened it the next day, I discovered that through some ancient, unspoken process, I had been made the custodian of The Family Photos. My grandfather’s service in WWII is exhaustively documented here, as is my father’s proud march through high school, college and grad school. As near as I can figure, the photos date from 1922 through the early 2000s.

But the jewel of the entire collection is the photo you see below: My great-grandparents, my grandfather, and my great aunt in 1932 (the same year the Carter Family recorded “The Winding Stream” and “I Wouldn’t Mind Dying”) posing with the instruments they played as group, during church gatherings and in the community. My grandfather would go on to become a guitarist of considerable talent, as I’ve documented here. For me and my family, this photograph is a visual origin story. My brother Collyn’s life as a musician, my own lifelong obsession with music, began with the music I heard as a child at their feet.

In the past two years, I’ve lost more friends and family members than I care to list. Attending funerals has become so commonplace that I found myself noting the need for a new suit as I continue my march to the front of the family line.

We are told our entire lives, if not explicitly, that one day we will become the presiding generation: the guardian of family traditions, the teller of stories, the keeper of photos. The implication is that, without us, these familial artifacts will disappear forever. Inevitable, I know, but it still terrifies me. What was once very real and present becomes the prisoner of memory: tenuous, unreliable and, in the end, illusory.

The saving grace is that we do manage to pass it on, like boxes at a funeral, in so many conscious and unconscious ways. My son, Stuart, is a musician with tastes so eclectic and varied that he could only be my son. The licks from his guitar, I swear, I have heard from my grandfather–a musician he never heard play. Anyone who spends more than five minutes with me will hear me preach the gospel of music. It’s a compulsion so strong that, I know, it will live after me.

If you ask any Louisvillian of a certain age–“Where were you during The Tornado?”–they will tell you without asking which tornado you mean. In a city where tornadoes are a way of life, this is pretty significant when you consider the one in question happened some 42 years ago, destroying numerous neighborhoods, schools, and nearly all the old-growth trees in Cherokee Park. There are entire websites dedicated to this tornado and the others that made up the 1974 Super Outbreak. It was a defining event.

I certainly know where my father was. He was watching this tornado pass within two miles of our house from the top of a tall maple tree in our front yard. A compulsive and gifted photographer, this tornado was simply an opportunity he could not pass up. I also know where my mother was. She was on the ground yelling at my father to get his ass down from the tree, a detail prudently omitted from her published account of the tornado.

None of us knew for sure where my youngest brother Collyn was, but my father could see from his vantage point that the tornado went right through where his nursery school was supposed to be. He also knew that most of the city was likely without electricity, as he had seen the main power plant explode when the tornado ripped through it. So off he went to find my brother where there were no longer roads.

Many hours later, he returned with my brother and reports of surreal devastation: roofing shingles embedded in trees, live power lines hopping in the street, houses moved intact hundreds of feet from their foundations.

In his last years, bent double with the ravages of a life spent not treating his body all that well, I had to remind myself this was still the same man who would not even question whether or not it was a sound idea to shoot up a tree during a tornado. After I moved to Florida for grad school, I remember telling him how I wanted to experience the full force of a hurricane (wish granted, by the way). He thought that was the craziest thing he had ever heard.

As I’ve recounted here, the Boy Scouts in the mid-1970s was not Norman Rockwell, at least not for me–a frightened, buck-toothed kid with a smart mouth and nothing to back it up. My first camping trip involved an initiation of sorts: a tent by myself that I was “advised” to pitch in a puddle of freezing water. This setup had the tacit blessing of the Scoutmaster, who hated long hair on boys even more than he did having to spend the weekend camping in cold weather with two bum knees. I managed to avoid exposure, but had concluded at some point during that long night that the Boy Scouts were not for me.

When my dad came to pick me up at the end of this ordeal, the Scoutmaster hobbled over to him with a smile I had not seen the entire weekend. As I sank into the passenger seat of my dad’s ’66 red VW bug, he and the Scoutmaster wandered off out of earshot and into a inexplicably lengthy conversation. All my dad said when he got back to the car was “I guess I’m the new Assistant Scoutmaster.”

My father’s tenure began with an event that would have far-reaching consequences for both of us: the acquisition of and merger with Troop 262: Tidewater Virginia’s answer to the Bowery Boys. From the “Black Sheep Patrol,” as they called themselves, I came to hear about such life hacks as how to smuggle wine in a Boy Scout canteen, how to jimmy a sliding glass door with a straight-slot screwdriver, and how newspaper works in a pinch when you run out of rolling papers. I feared for my father’s well-being.

I needn’t have worried. One hour into his first camping trip with us, he left to go check out the canal that bordered the campsite. Fifteen minutes later, he strode back toward us with what looked like a thick, brown belt dangling from his left hand. “Hey,” he barked and waited until we all faced him. “This is a water moccasin,” he said as it writhed wildly against his forearm. He then took a hatchet, pinned the snake to a tree stump, and whacked its head clean off.

After the snake’s body stopped whipping in the sand at our feet, he grabbed it again and then skinned and gutted it with same pocketknife I’d seen him clean his pipe with a hundred times before. When he was finished, he threw it on the fire, never once looking at us, even though we were all staring at him. No one said a word during the ten minutes it took to roast the water moccasin.

I have no memory of what it tasted like, or if I even ate my piece of it. But from that moment on, the troop never regarded my father with anything less than complete reverence. Even though I would never become a member of the Black Sheep Patrol (no matter how much I tried to aspire to their level of delinquency), he would remain their undisputed king.

Our shelter was to be 125 lbs. of WW2-era canvas and wood, large enough to house an army patrol. It claimed nearly all the trunk space in our blue ’69 Impala, smelled sweetly of ancient mildew, and took Daddy the better part of an hour to erect–with marginal help from little brother Thomas and me. 

We were inside the tent all of ten minutes when a ranger appeared to tell us about a tornado warning in the area and that we needed to find some shelter that wasn’t a tent. Somehow we ended up in one of those tin-roof camp chapels that doubles as an auditorium.

In the dark, we chose a place for our sleeping bags onstage against the back wall and right next to a bookshelf full of vintage (1927-1959) Hardy Boy Mystery Stories that I did not have in my collection at home. I don’t recall any protracted struggle with my conscience before ordering Thomas to shove the entire Hardy Boys mother lode into his backpack while Daddy went out to get the rest of our camping gear.

Gusting rain hammered the tin roof all night, but we were warm and quiet in our sleeping bags, watching the shadows of whipped tree branches play on the oak stage floor. It was one of the only times in my life when I have felt completely content. 

The next morning, my dad could not get the hell of there quick enough. He shoved the wet, battered tent into the trunk and yelled for us to bring our stuff out. Thomas’s backpack, substantially heavier, did not make it to car before disgorging its payload of books at Daddy’s feet. 

As I recall, we both received the standard three licks with my dad’s hand-tooled leather hippy belt and, of course, returned the books, most likely never to be read.

Nursing inflamed buttocks and disappointment, I could not have known that this night of rain and shelter with my father and my brother next to me would become a “wet cement” moment for me. To this day, when it rains at night, I always raise the window a little so I can reproduce even a little bit of the contentment I felt that night in 1972 when absolutely everything was well and at peace.

Two years ago today, I began an experiment to re-align my brain back to the gradual unwinding of the record album and away from mixtape/playlist instant gratification. Think of it as the aural equivalent of the Slow Food Movement. You see, I need external discipline if I want to change anything about myself and this, I reckoned, was something important enough to change.

To review, my rules were as follows:

1. Listen to the entire album in one sitting, no matter how painful that may become
2. Pay attention
3. Record the listening date, rating, and a brief review of each album

I’ve been doing it religiously for two years now and have no plans to ever stop. Apparently I did this 295 times in the past year.

Based on the data, I must have spent the year in perpetual nostalgia, because I revisited a lot of old friends (Fire Of Love, Sound Affects, Pink Moon, Tonight’s The Night, the Rolling Stones catalog in order through Tattoo You).

Which is not to say the year was without its share of startling revelations:

• Vashti Bunyan, “Another Diamond Day” (1969)–A cool, timeless day in the mountain when all the world is a possibility.
• “Scott The Hoople In The Dungeon Of Horror” (2015)–The Minus 5 release five records of new material in a Record Day-only limited release, every last groove superb.
• Paul Weller, “22 Dreams” (2008)–Yeah, he’s still around and writing great, expansive music.
• Robert Wyatt–Tip of the hat to Saint David Bowie for this recommendation.
• Re-release of the Fela Kuti discography–The height of his powers.
• David Crosby, “If I Could Only Remember My Name” (1971)–There’s no reason this psychotic walrus should have a produced a record this great, but he did.
• Charles Lee Guy III, “The Prisoner’s Dream” (1962)–Wanna hear a legit convict lay his soul out on the hot pavement without a touch of self pity or cliche?
• And who knew that 70s-era J.Geils Band was the tightest crew this side of the J.B.’s?

Anyway, here they are, an entire year of listening in alphabetical order:

Exactly one year ago today, I decided to target an attention span that had been withered to a nub by Spotify, Pandora, and playlist/mixtape culture in general. Along the way, I had left The Album as a cultural object behind for the quick fix of the song, wrenching such gems as “Sweet Emotion” or “What We All Want” from the album masterpieces within which they reside. Further complicating things was that, for three years, I programmed and DJ-ed a weekly radio show where I cherry-picked songs as a matter of course. As of this time last year, I do not believe I had listened to an album in its entirety in at least five years.

This was profoundly disturbing to me because, with few exceptions, I despise the machinery and culture of The Single. I grew up loving the LP, with its careful (in most cases) song sequencing, and the way it demanded an extended visitation of my attention, the way it allowed me to inhabit the consciousness of, say, a divorce-ravaged Marvin Gaye on “Here, My Dear,” or the traumatized protagonist of “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.”

So I set out to remedy my musical ADD. For a full year, there would be no playlists, no obsessively playing the same song 10 times in row (multiple relapses on this one), no “greatest hits”: I had to listen to albums in one sitting and, to keep myself disciplined, I had to mark the date, rate the record on a scale of 1 to 5, and jot down a note or two by way of a “review.” I did this 834 times in the past year. Approximately 80% of these records were ones I had either never heard before, or never sat through all the way.

Some of what I discovered:

• A love for Classic Country (1945-1975), particularly the Bakersfield variety
• A reconciliation with vinyl, my first love
• A marked distaste for any kind of genre “crossover”
• That 1979-1985 was a bad era for music in general, particularly for artists who sought to “update” the sound that made them famous for the mirage of “New Wave” (in some cases, my reaction to these records was so violent that I not only removed the record from my collection, but from my house)
• That the Chi-Lites were the absolute cream of the Philly Soul crop and could not make a bad album
• That the Bee Gees may have been the most underrated pop group of all time
• And many others

So, here it is, in alphabetical order: every record I have listened to in the past year:

A number of you asked for the complete list of 5-star records, so here it is. A couple of notes:

1. I began this list to target genres, artists, and records I had not given proper attention to. I know punk, general 50s-80s rock and roll, blues, and jazz fairly well, so those genres are not well-represented here.

2. I can justify every 5-star rating on here, so just ask. I’d also be curious to hear what 5-star records you know about.

—-

About six months ago, a friend mentioned a book to me that it turns out I had bought some years ago and forgotten–one of the many annotated lists of must-hear records. While the book is heavily skewed toward British music, it knocked loose a revelation in me: I suffered from musical ADD and had been for some time, and it was music’s very availability that had fertilized this tendency.  At some point, I had stopped listening to albums and devolved into listening to songs and playlists exclusively, cherry picking tunes that already aligned to my calcifying tastes. Back in my teens, when I used to spend all my paper route money on records, I would memorize every part of an album, liner notes and all. Spotify, Pandora, mp3s, and increased disposible income had killed off this part of me.

So I decided to make my own list, and installed a few rules for self discipline: 1. I must listen to a record in its entirety, and could not skip songs, no matter how wretched; 2. I had to rate each record from 1 to 5; and, 3. I had to write a few notes about my experience with the record. The result is a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet (numbering some 800 records and growing) and a revitalized obsession with the vinyl album as an art form. Some days I will listen to 8 records a day, sometimes none, and I am now on a first-name basis with my town’s record store owners.  Among the many surprises: 1960s Bakersfield Country, the also-rans of the classic Psych period, the many branches of the Byrds family tree, and Curtis Mayfield’s late-60s/early-70s work with The Impressions.

I also discovered something I call The Drive-By Truckers Syndrome, which is making a record simply because it is time to make a record. In these cases, the artist seemingly appears in the studio with a clutch of songs to record regardless of whether or not the material itself actually constitutes an album. For instance, we consider London Calling, Odessey & Oracle (sic), and Astral Weeks albums, not just song collections.  In many cases, records suffering from DBTS are fine and inoffensive, but often indistinguishable from any other record in the artist’s oeuvre. The various configurations of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young made DBTS a cottage industry in the 70s, and even the great Van Morrison has endured periods when he had more songs than inspiration.

Here is a sampling of some of the records I rated as “5 stars”—each one a revelation:

• Willie Nelson, “Phases and Stages” (1974)
• Os Mutantes, “Os Mutantes” (1968)
• Alexander “Skip” Spence, “Oar” (1969)
• Gene Clark, “White Light” (1971)
• Buck Owens And His Buckaroos, “I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail” (1965)
• Raphael Saadiq, “Stone Rollin'” (2011)
• The Kentucky Colonels, “The Long Journey Home” (1964)
• Mickey Newbury, “‘Frisco Mabel Joy” (1971)
• Air, “Moon Safari” (1998)

I’ve had a Pop fetish that dates from the time I heard the first “woo!” (at :08) in the Jackson 5’s “The Love You Save” on the bus in first grade. It likely started earlier, but that is the first historical evidence I have. I may have been a solitary, frightened, stripe-trousered, snaggle-toothed kid, but I knew a good hook when I heard one. I’ve been chasing that first potent bolus of Pop energy ever since. Admitting this ain’t easy.

You see, Pop has a philosophical problem, especially with the music intelligensia (self-appointed and otherwise), and that problem is right there in the name. The equation goes like this: Pop = popular = the unschooled hordes = immediately suspect. It’s the old Bread & Circuses conundrum. Complicating matters is 50 years of wretched pop music, and of songs lazily called Pop that actually aren’t. For instance, Michael Jackson will never be the King Of Pop, because he didn’t make pop music as Michael Jackson…but he sure as hell did with the Jackson 5.

So what’s the difference? I suspect–though have never verified–that it could be proven scientifically that certain chord progressions and melodies hit that sweet spot in the Western brain. For want of a better word, let’s call them “hooks,” since everyone else does. I am a hook junkie and the best Pop artists manipulate them to their advantage. ABBA, for instance, leads with the hook in “Dancing Queen” (an undebatably brilliant Pop song…just ask Jeff Tweedy). In “Go All The Way,” the Raspberries get to the hook in short order and drive it home no less than 6 times in 3 minutes and 25 seconds. Hooks don’t have to slap you upside the head like these, but there they must be! Listen to Pernice Brothers, Big Star, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and Lambchop for just how sophisticated and infectious these can be.

Out of sheer laziness, I will say that Pop is ultimately undefinable or, at least, is best served through examples. I will have at least 30 of these at your disposal this Sunday from 1 to 3 on Left Of The Dial, only on Grow Radio!