a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

I Think My Work Is Done Here.

If this were a regular column, right now I'd be extolling the virtues of Josh Garrels (but you can get the whole thing for free and judge for yourself); or explaining how I really like the title song of Fleet Foxes' Helpnessless Blues and am generally OK with the rest of it; or pushing the latest Bill Mallonee WPA(11, BTW) but really more looking forward to the new studio album in October; or mentioning that while Adam Granduciel hasn't created a masterpiece with The War on Drugs' Slave Ambient he's finally at least created a successful prototype for one.

But it's not. And the above is really all I need to say about them.

It's not as if I'm not writing -- I'm doing plenty of that, in fact. But things have changed, in a variety of ways, over the last several months. I started this blog as a way to largely share my love of music, as well as a way to process all the transitions that have happened in my life over the last 5+ years -- a cross-country move, a major career shift and all the frustrations you could eat in the process, a major familial paradigm shift including the transition to empty nestdom, becoming a published author by the same company that showed me and 30 others the door some 3 1/2 months after the final book came out, the church-search saga (thankfully -- and fairly quietly, in terms of this blog -- resolved)....

And I wonder whether it's not the latter that fuels the decision-making here. Because the last several months have kind of been about -- besides searching for a new job, of course -- getting my relationship with God back to where it was when I "triumphantly" left Jersey for the world of Christian publishing here in Colorado. Now don't get me wrong: We still love Colorado, specifically Loveland -- in fact, after wrestling with it a few months back, we've resolved to stick it out here rather than looking elsewhere. As with everything, we'll see what happens.

But my spiritual life has suffered. I've shared this with friends here, but you'd think when your job is to develop Bible studies and resources for pastors, etc., as a byproduct of that you'd be getting fed spiritually in the process as well. With the exception of the massive wrestling to create Growing Out, that was not the case. Especially when the process (and leadership, IMHO and not just MHO) increasingly pushed God out of the picture, and has showed no signs of turning back. Enough about that.

But slowly, the guy I left behind in Jersey for (inadventently) a world of spiritual hipness is being reassembled. Been working on a small-group project for these guys, based upon a much larger study a bunch of us guys did at Group to "get our Bible fix somewhere," and honestly, it's been what I thought I signed up for 6 years ago. It's been, well, healing for me. And granted, I needed the 5+ years of frustration experience -- let alone the connection established with these people during that time -- in order to even have this shot.

But in any case, it's addressing issues I've prayed about for a long time, including understanding my own sonship to God and my relationship with His Son. Thus, I remember the joy and anticipation I had when I first came out here. And more importantly, I remember why I came out here. The gig with the above publisher will probably extend to at least one more product (which I'm also seriously digging on), and then who knows? Hopefully beyond. But it's already had its effect on me. Between that and a legitimate connection with a church once more, the spiritual hamster wheel is back in motion.

All of which to say: My focus has changed. I'm still in process, but I'm working it out elsewhere. And thus, I think I'm done here.

I'll leave this up through the end of the year, in case I reconsider my decision and/or am inspired to do both blogs. (Realistically, I'll review the Bill album on the new blog whn I get it, 'cause it fits.) For that matter, barring a sustained spike out of nowhere, the Growing Out pushes I've been doing elsewhere will be going into phase-out over  the next couple months ('cause Lord knows they've probably already decided that about the most of the books themselves, less than a year after releasing them).

So I'm moving on. Thank you, little Burning Light blog, for being a lifeline during this most transitional time of my life.

I run into most of you elsewhere anyway, so that's probably where I'll do it again. See y'all down the road.

--Carl

Posted by: burninglight at 10:38 | link | comments (2)

Back to work....

...in a manner of speaking, anyway.

I still don't have a full-time job. But as of Monday I do have a big freelance assignment that I have 3 months to complete and'll earn me more than 10% of last year's salary. Plus, it's for a small-group version of a study I actually LIKE. And I think it's understood that my critic skills extend way beyond music.

Plus-ser, I have at least one more much smaller assignment currently on tap and hopefully another that'll commence in a couple weeks. So at the very least, I now have to actually put in a chunk of time every day until the fall. Whether this is the beginning of a permanent paradigm shift or just a welcome infusion until I can find a "real job" remains to be seen, but this oughta keep us going until November at the very least. Not quite the 50th-birthday present I was looking for (Sunday, BTW), but maybe this one just takes a little longer to unwrap.

And speaking of back to work, I do have one new album to bring to your attention today. And yes, yes, I know, shouldn't an imminent 50-year-old have grown up enough to be over the artist in question? Well, no, and here's why:

1) HE's 51.
2) We both skipped a grade (1st for me, 2nd for him) -- I just discovered this while checking his age, but it IS kinda fascinating....
3) I first discovered him when we were BOTH in college (he was a junior; I was a freshman).
4) Heck, ask any of my friends in high school about how I used my down time -- heck, go check out that Cosmic Bud link on the left -- and one realizes that in an alternate universe, I might have BEEN this guy.
5) Two out of the last 3 prior albums have been the best of his career. Somewhat corollary to this...
6) If you haven't been paying attention the last 10 years, the guy has actually developed some significant musical chops (although I hasten to add that this latest album doesn't show them off much).

And last but not least....

7) When he's on his game, Albert Matthew Yankovic is just a freaking funny guy.

So with that, let's deal with this new one, which if nothing else features the best CD cover we're probably going to see this year....

Weird Al Yankovic -- Alpocalypse. With all those old-guy qualifiers now in place, it probably is worth noting a couple "new" wrinkles -- really, caveats -- off the bat: 1) There's actually a couple songs here that could be considered political, but they're such baby steps (read: tepid and obvious) that frankly, they don't work; 2) I wonder whether Al himself might be a little tired of doing the song parodies -- only 5 of the 12 are (not counting the obligatory polka medley, which aside from its title -- "Polka Face" -- might well be the lamest one Al's done over the course of now 13 albums). Of course, this might really say as much about the state of popular music in the first decade-plus of the 21st century as it does Al's potentially diminished prowess. Yr call. Still, when the greatest song parodyist of the last three decades resorts to Miley Cyrus as a reference point, someone or something is clearly scraping the barrel.

So, THAT said: This has improved on repeated listens, especially as it leads with its best feet forward -- and actually, the most recently written one as well. "Perform This Way" is everything you want from a Weird Al parody -- catchy, acerbic and every bit as hyberbole-ridden as its subject matter, in this case the both real and imagined exploits of one Lady Gaga. Meat dress, check (and props for the line "I'll bet you've never seen a skirt steak worn this way"); and while I'm pretty sure she hasn't wrapped her small intestines around her neck yet, I'm not at all sure about the setting-herself-on-fire thing. Still, I can't help thinking there's a bit of self-identifying bravado in Al's first time around the chorus: "I'm sure my critics will say it's a grotesque display / Well, they can bite me, baby -- I perform this way."

Next comes another one of my favorites, "CNR," a stomping John Henryesque tribute to one Charles Nelson Reilly (now that's dating yrself). I don't want to betray all our hero's exploits, but "He ate his own weight in coal / And excreted diamonds every day... Charles Nelson Reilly figured out cold fusion / But he never ever told a soul" oughta give you something to work with. "TMZ," a parody of Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me," works well, too, especially given its treatment of our obsession of celebrity. And I love the line, "It's gettin' to the point where a famous person can't even get a DUI or go on a racist rant."

"Skipper Dan" takes the Hollywood angle in a different direction, as it's a quirky tale of a classically trained actor whose career track goes horribly wrong, and winds up "laughin' at my own jokes but I'm cryin' inside / 'Cause I'm workin' on the Jungle Cruise ride."

Then comes the aforementioned "Polka Face." All momentum comes to a halt for the next five minutes.

Then comes probably my favorite, the Doors-styled "Craigslist." I mean, if you're going to sing a song about Craigslist -- especially one featuring the line "I was wearin' red Speedos and a hockey mask / Come on, let's find that love connection that we missed / On CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIGSLIST!" -- it might as well have a Morrisonesque howl and a general musical creep factor.

The momentum comes to a screeching halt again with the aforementioned Miley Cyrus parody with the aforementioned unfunny political slant, "Party In The CIA." I mean, if y'r gonna take on waterboarding and black ops, you gotta draw blood. It's not funny, any way you look at it. Nor is the latter-day-Queen-styled "Ringtone," but that's because it's just plain lame.

"Another Tattoo" (a parody of B.o.B's "Nothin' on You") gets things closer to back on track. It's middling, but at least amusing -- "At every job interview, they're just so impressed /  'Cause I got all my ex-wives on my chest." As is the pseudo-love-song "If That Isn't Love," in which the singer proves his love with any number of questionable gestures: "i'll even tell you, girl, when you start looking fat / cuz all your so-called friends will probably neglect to mention that...  even though you make me sit through "Mamma Mia!"/ well, I still adore you..." As is "Whatever You Like," parodying the T.I. song of the same name, which starts with "Hey girl, you know our economy is in the toilet / But I'm still gonna treat you right..." and once more commences with the questionable proof:

You like my Hyundai, see my Hyundai?
I can take you to see your cousin Phil next Sunday
But that's kinda far, and I'm not made out of cash
Do you think you could chip in for gas?

And then there's the closing Meat Loafesque epic "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me." BTW, notice the age of most of the musical reference points here? Yeah, me too. That said, we all know someone like this -- and Al makes the fairly astute observation that most of them also tend to be conspiracy theorists, even when they're otherwise sending the most inane stuff imaginable...

no it isn't ok if you brighten my day
with some cut and pasted hackneyed Hallmark poetry
and I didn't request a personality test
stop forwarding that crap to me

Ahhhh you're sending virus-laden bandwidth-hogging attachments to every single person you know
you're passing around a link to some dumb thing on YouTube that everybody else already saw three years ago
and wacky badly Photoshopped billboards were never that amusing to me
and I just can't believe you believe those urban legends
but I have high hopes that someone will point you toward Snopes
and debunk that crazy junk you're spewing constantly.

So in short, this is pretty hit-and-miss. I'm not one to recommend breaking up albums, but you just might want to with this one. And hope that Al is back in full form by next time. I'd never rule the guy out.

Posted by: burninglight at 17:01 | link | comments

So, here we are.

Boy, I’d like to have better personal news than I do, but really it’s just more of the same. A couple irons actively in the fire – and one decidedly more attractive then the other – but they’re just in the fire for now.

By the way, since I haven’t mentioned it before – public blog here. Enjoy. I'm working it, in any case.

And so on to the music we go….

Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive. As Steve Earle albums go, this one’s more Townes or The Mountain than Jerusalem or El Corazon – or even Washington Street Serenade. And I’m of the latter persuasion, although I know people of the former (heck, there’s plenty of pre-rehab badass-Steve fans, too, and I’m sure SOMEone thought The One-Sided Demagoguery Revolution Starts Now was a stroke of genius). But anyway, if you’re one of those mellow-Steve fans, this one’s for you.

Not to say that I don’t have causes to enjoy it, too. “Waitin’ on the Sky” is a nifty little Tex-Mex opener, and the coolish “Little Emperor” is the latest fiddle-swinging entry in the I-still-hate-Bush sweepstakes: “Hey Little Hypocrite / What you gonna say? / When you wind up standin' naked on the final Judgement Day? / How you gonna justify it? / Who you gonna call? / What if it turns out that / God don't look like you at all?” “The Gulf of Mexico” is a gather-ye-round tale of the BP disaster, as told from the oil-rig roughneck's perspective.

The highlight here, though, would be “God Is God,” a declaration of belief as far as Steve is able to take it, and thus might be short on orthodoxy but nonetheless long on perspective…

And as our fate unfurls,
Every day that passes I'm sure about a little bit less….
God, in my little understanding, don't care what name I call.
Whether or not I believe doesn't matter at all.

I receive the blessings.
That every day on Earth's another chance to get it right.
Let this little light of mine shine and rage against the night.

Just another lesson
Maybe someone's watching and wondering what I got.
Maybe this is why I'm here on Earth, and maybe not.
But I believe in God, and God is God.

Elsewhere, we get the gritty-swampy “Meet Me in the Alleyway”; an interesting duet between him & wife Allison Moorer, “Heaven or Hell,” and one of the 2 best love songs I’ve heard this year to same in the lovely “Every Part of Me”: “I can't promise anything, except that my last breath will bear your name.” That says it all. And it says enough for this one.
 
Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What. It occurs to me that I’ve employed some version of “get him now – while you still can” a lot lately. As well as “his best since…” or an assessment of someone else’s saying same. But there you are. And 1) since Paul Simon isn’t the most prolific songwriter out there these days and IS 45 years into his career… well, there you are again. And to be fair, the album is rife with references to his own mortality. And 2) to be “his best since Rhythm of the Saints,” let’s face it, only requires it to beat Surprise (the fact that it already beats Songs From the Capeman is, of course, a foregone conclusion). And as with Stipe & Co a couple entries back, I’m not sure it beats said last album, but it certainly bears mentioning in the same breath.

Really, So Beautiful or So What is almost a mashing-together of Simon’s entire solo career – and sometimes even of close-to-disparate musical ideas within the same song. Heck, you can hear the seams in the ethereal “Love and Hard Times.” But when it works, it works well. And while there’s only one song here that comes close to a chest-thumping, it’s all very well done, and for that matter impeccably produced by Simon and Phil Ramone.

“Getting Ready for Christmas Day” is a duly Gracelandish opener, replete with 60-year-old spoken-word pieces from the Rev. J.M. Gates and dollops of peppy irony from our hero: “I got a nephew in Iraq /It's his third time back / But it's ending up the way it began / With the luck of a beginner / He'll be eating turkey dinner / On some mountain top in Pakistan.” “The Afterlife” pre-counts Paul’s arrival in heaven: “You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line…. / Well it seems like our fate to suffer and wait for the knowledge we seek / It's all his design, no one cuts in the line, no one here likes a sneak… After you climb, up the ladder of time, the Lord God is here / Face to face, in the vastness of space, your words disappear / And you feel like swimming in an ocean of love, and the current is strong / But all that remains when you try to explain is a fragment of song / Lord is it Be Bop A Lu La, or Ooh Poppa Do?”

After a Saints-worthy “Dazzling Blue,” we get the quirky tale of a Vietnam vet who’s not all there, looking for a “Rewrite”: “I'll eliminate the pages / Where the father has a breakdown / And he has to leave the family / But he really meant no harm / Gonna substitute a car chase / And a race across the rooftops / Where the father saves the children / And he holds them in his arms.”

The highlight for me is the rollicking “Love Is Eternal Sacred Light.”The lyrics, “Earth becomes a farm / Farmer takes a wife / Wife becomes a river and the giver of life / Man becomes machine / Oil runs down his face / Machine becomes a man with a bomb in the marketplace / Bomb in the marketplace,” is pure Simon. Then the extended blast in the bridge… well, it might be the best musical moment of the year so far.

“Amulet” is a rare and pretty instrumental that gives way to the equally gentle “Questions for the Angels.” Then comes the last montage, in “Love and Blessings,” which veers from atmospheric to a bridge that nonetheless sounds like the African version of “Loves Me Like a Rock.” The closing title song is a bit a Cajun flavoring with a pinch of Knopfler, and a fitting closer:

I'm gonna tell my kids a bedtime story
A play without a plot
Will it have a happy ending?
Maybe yeah, maybe not
I tell them life is what you make of it
So beautiful, or so what.


Robyn Hitchcock – Tromsø, Kaptein. This time I AM on board with the “best since” appellations on hthe artist’s behalf – and in this case, that means I’m reaching back past Ole Tarantula…. and looking at YOU, Jewels for Sophia… for something this good from Robyn. I really wanted to reach as far back as Moss Elixir – since Tromsø, Kaptein (Tromsø being where one heads as far north as possible after saying goodnight to Oslo) has a whole lot more in common with that one’s baroque pop melancholy than with the generally more rollicking Sophia. There’s no “Viva, Sea Tac” to be found here, and in fact this one’s even more subdued than Elixir. But we have what we have, and what we have is a good one.

Eight of the 10 songs here are new, and the two redos are good if odd choices – Eye’s “Raining Twilight Coast” and… OK, given the album’s title conceit, the again-closing title song from Goodnight Oslo -- sung in Norwegian – does have an internal if decidedly uncommercial logic. I can’t say either’s an improvement on the original, although anyone hearing them for the first time should like them plenty. I do need to say that the usually harmless female backups are at their most onerous on the former – “supporting” the poignant“Just one thing, baby -- you forgot my heart” with “just one thing, baby, gimme gimme one thing” – really??? The string sections here, and elsewhere, work just fine, though.

On to the others. There’s no obvious standout, but it’s solid from start to finish. The opener “Light Blue Afternoon” finds Robyn at his most peppy and Beatlesque, while the almost Smiths-like “Dismal City” is Robyn at his, well, most Robynish: “Sunlight falls, it’s much too harsh / I’d rather float in a cool, dank marsh / Dismal City -- that’s where I belong.” The obvious deep-album cut song here is “August in Hammersmith,” with its driving minor baroque verses and brighter major-E chorus. The penultimate two songs, “Everything About You” and “The Abyss,” are bluesier in nature, the latter being the less bluesy and more successful of the two.

My favorites here might be “Savannah,” with its more subdued Beatles vibe, and the autumnal “Old Man Weather,” which almost recalls I Often Dream of Trains, albeit with a back-up band. Although “Erasing Your Life” has that nonassuming sleeper-song vibe that I tend to be a sucker for, so we’ll see.

Let’s bring this home....
 
David Bazan – Strange Negotiations. So, how DOES one follow up one’s break-up album with God? By extending an olive branch – then whipping people with it.

That said, I dare suggest that it’s David’s most accessible album to date. Not his best, mind you, but the one you hand to friends to ease them in before throwing them in the deep end. It’s certainly his most “band album” – and thus, also his loudest -- since Control. The lyrics, while still good, are more general and thus easier to swallow – i.e., most times you have to guess at the subject matter, but generally he’s still pissed at SOMEone. Also, David’s singing – generally the listener’s biggest obstacle – is at its most comfortable. Yeah, he can still mope with the best of them, but he pushes himself hard in places, and even when the note ain’t pretty he’s still hitting ones we hadn’t previously heard out of him. And the album is better for it. And here’s what’s on it:

The opening single “Wolves at the Door” comes on like some shoegaze version of Joy Division: “they took your money and they ate your kids / and they had their way with your wife a lil’ bit / while you wept on the porch with your head in your hands / cursing taxes and the government / ‘cause you’re a goddamn fool / and i love you.” The almost as driving “Level With Yourself” kicks butt and takes names in both directions, while probably being the one of the two songs that’d’ve fit on Curse Your Branches – although having had it out with God last time out he’s focusing more on the flock this time:

level with yourself
and be at peace with thee
we’re making a list of all
the negative side effects
that come with the shit you let
yourself get away with…

riches i heed not
nor man’s empty praise
means fuck the gatekeeper
cause i’m fine outside the gate

i wanna level with myself
i wanna level with my friends
i wanna level with my kin
and be at peace with them
i’m making a list of all
the negative side effects
that come with the shit i let
myself get away with.

Things drop down a bit with the draggier “Future Past,” then alternate between quiet and loud on “People,” which seems to also play on the “if God is really there, then I can be as honest as I damn well please and it’ll work itself out” undercurrent from Branches:

and i know that it’s dangerous to judge
but man you’ve gotta find the truth
and when you find that truth don’t budge
until the truth you found begins to change
and it does i know. i know.

when you love the truth enough
you start to tell it all the time
when it gets you into trouble
you discover you don’t mind
cause if good is finally gonna trump
then man, you’ve gotta take stock…
i wanna know, who are these people
blaming their sins on the fall?
who are these people?
if i’m honest with myself at all
these are my people
man, what else can i say?
you are my people.

“Virginia” is a slow, sweet song for an old friend who Dave guesses wassn’t all that far off from where he is now: “we were worried about your personal salvation / was it heaven or hell that you saw when your eyes closed / you smiled at us floating high above the question / like you knew something we didn’t know.” “Eating Paper” goes back into nasty-shoegaze mode, even as Dave hits some of those previously unattainable high notes.

The pretty “Don’t Change” puts a interesting spin on our need for change, even while making the alternative a strangely appealing option: “I’m so deep / that only in my sleep / do the secrets that i keep float to the surface / so i hold them down / ‘til they don’t make a sound / like they accidentally drown except on purpose / then when i wake up in the morning / i tell myself today i’ll make a change / but falling into my bed at night / i think, man, it was a beautiful day / to stay the same.”

The best guess I’ve heard about the long, moody title song is that it addresses the financial crisis, and if so it fits: “you blew all your inheritance / and now you’re trying to pin the blame on me / and i could write you off so easily / except a hundred million other people agree… / you got the market it’s own bodyguard / and all the people are getting hurt.”

And there’s the closer, the almost U2ish “Don’t Let Go” --  think “With or Without You” with depth. This time out, Dave not only gets his ending right but doesn’t tank it at the end. It’s a straight-up love song for his wife, and I’m pretty sure I cried the first time I heard it:

who or what controls
the fates of men, i cannot say
but i keep arriving safely home to you
and i humbly acknowledge
that i won’t always get my way
but darling death
will have to pry my fingers loose
cause i will not let go
i will not let go
i will not let go
of you.

Again, Dave Bazan (and that of Pedro the Lion) is admittedly an acquired taste. But this might very well be the easiest time to acquire it. So go fetch. And we’ll talk again, soon.

Posted by: burninglight at 14:12 | link | comments

Shameless Plugs #31 & 32

It dawned on me that despite what's going on close to 5 months since The Great Purge, I still have the right to share these, 'cause dagnabbit I put a lot of work into them -- edited, advocated and developed both. Even wrote the small-group sessions for the first one....

                       

So go fetch. And the rest of those music reviews later this week, I hope.

Posted by: burninglight at 12:06 | link | comments

The Case Is Shut / The Song Is Sung

This one is actually gonna wind higher up the list than my progression of the last few entries suggests, but I’m ready for it – and not for any of the others -- and I've got critical mass wordwise, so let’s do this:

Van Der Graaf Generator – A Grounding in Numbers. Present was a welcome comeback. This time around, the 60something-or-so lads have stumbled into something akin to New Wave music, even if it more resembles Genesis creating King Crimson’s Discipline album. In fact, 40-plus years in, Peter Hammill may have created the most accessible album of his career (Nadir’s Big Chance and Sitting Targets possibly notwithstanding). Musically, at least.

Lyrically, A Grounding in Numbers often lives up to its name – obscure mathematical references abound. Witness, for example, Hammill’s shouting the titular chorus of “5533” (“double! two! three!”) – apparently a reference to matrix patterns – over a time signature I won’t even try guessing at. Or the pronouncement, in typically Hammillian dramatic fashion, within the appropriately titled “Mathematics”: “e to the power of i times pi plus one is zero / e to the power of i times pi is minus one.” Think of it as the doctorate-level edition of Schoolhouse Rock.

Not all is buried in such “simply pure beyond belief” mathematical jargon, though. Even with its significant Frippisms, the appropriately named “Highly Strung” has single-that’ll-get-ignored written all over it. And “Embarrassing Kid” is almost as catchy and a lot slyer, as Hammill mocks both subject and self:

Embarrassing kid looks into the mirror
and grins like an idiot at his own face.
For as long he lives he will not be delivered
from the stuff that he did, from his teenage mistakes….

Take a look at yourself and you might have to laugh a bit
but the teeth that you grit, well, at least they're your own.

And yes, at the end of the day
we get what we've given away,
you bet: our eternal embarrassment.

Elsewhere, “Snake Oil” is decidedly early-Genesissy both lyrically and musically (and how is it I’m the first to come up with THAT adjective?); “Splink” is essentially two songs playing at once and therefore more interesting than compelling but definitely the former; and “Smoke” is just danged funky stuff for a bunch of aging prog-rockers.

But it’s the opener and closer that frame all of this. In the moody yet uplifting “Your Time Starts Now,” we find Peter once more contemplating his mortality: “With self-belief / you've pulled through, but you belong here no longer…. Your time starts now / and that's the poser / You're going to need / all the help you can get / for the ride's nearly over… / You're ploughing forward nonetheless / as though by simple doggedness / the far side'll see you saved.”

“All Over the Place” is pure Hammill. Starting as a disjointed waltz, escalating into melodrama, then descending into discord, it’s an epitaph for the living:

He scattered himself all over the place
While hiding behind closed doors
And day by dull day fell more off the pace -
A life suspended in live pause
He gave of himself in fractional clues,
Oblique synchronicities
But nobody knows how alien he grew,
How, drained away behind his open face,
He'd lost his identity.

Now nothing else is left behind,
Just the fallen side of the sky,
A thousand miles away from home
I feel the cold ghost breath fly by
Out of the dream.
Now the image blurs
Of how we seemed,
Of what we were.

It’s Peter Hammill, people, and about as easy an “in” as you’ll ever get. And probably one of your last chances. So dive on in, and go from there.

Posted by: burninglight at 13:12 | link | comments

Catch Up! Where’s the Catch-Up At?

So on we go….. I ‘ve got a few more queued new ones up and at least a couple more immediately, so I figure I’d better go with what I can right now. Still working my way up the quality ladder here, although it’s worth adding that the last entry here might move up further before the whole end-of-year thang hits….

Alexi Murdoch – Towards the Sun. Put simply, this is the epitome of a “3½ stars out of 5” album. The Scottish Nick Drake’s long-awaited follow-up to Time Without Consequence is perfect background music for the coffee house of your choice – heck, way better than what they’re playing right now, I’ll wager -- and that’s it. No single in the vein of “Orange Sky,” no envelope-pushing “Wait”… just 7 fairly long and well-written songs (with the exception of “At Your Door,” they’re all around the 5-minute mark) that strike the same Drakean note and sound great while they’re playing and immediately are forgotten once completed.

I’ll point out the closer, “Crinan Wood,” as the standout by default, if only for the “old-style guitar” riff that carries it  – it’s really 5½  minutes plus 3 minutes of ambience, but has a little more feel to it than the others. And again, all the sweet melancholy you can eat: “When I was younger I heard angels on the roof / a thousand voices singing; each note was the truth / all the wise and light, I have left them in my youth / and I have only just my memory for proof.”

Again, you could do much worse. And you can also do better. As can I. So here we go….
 
R.E.M – Collapse Into Now. So, for our first entry in the “their best album in/since….” department. But let’s face it – Stipe, Buck, Mills & Co. could claim “best album in 20 years” simply by topping 2008’s Accelerate. But when you put it up against that career defibrillation, I’m actually not so sure it pulls that feat off. But there’s a whole lot of people who disagree with me, so there you are.

Still, it’s certainly of a piece with Accelerate, and there’s more than a couple hints that after 30 years the boys may be wanting to go out with a bang – from Stipe waving (goodbye?) on the cover to declaring on the in-the-title-itself-revealing “All the Best,” “I'll give it one more time / I'll show the kids how to do it fine …  It's just like me to overstay my welcome.” There’s a lot of stuff here reminiscent of great-old R.E.M., but really only one song here reaches that height. The rest is reminiscent enough to bring a smile – and the faster stuff works well -- but not a thump in the chest or even the shiver of recognition of the spine that Accelerate’s “Until the Day Is Done” provided.

So let’s review, basically starting from the bottom up:

The slow stuff: I didn’t like “Blue” when it was “Country Feedback” on Out of Time; and even the presence of Patti Smith singing the “chorus” doesn’t redeem it here either. And “Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and Me” and “Every Day Is Yours to Win” are nice enough, as long as you don’t pay attention to the lyrics. And if “Walk It Back” had a little more support around it I suspect I’d really like it instead of just like it.

The mid-tempo stuff: “It Happened Today” is the one other place where it almost sounds new, even if the lyrics are the usual mid-period insipid profundity. And the also-Out of Time-ish “Uberlin” and “Oh My Heart” work as perfectly good background music. But it’s when the boys push their way to the foreground that things get really enjoyable.

The loud, fast stuff: “Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter” and “Mine Smell Like Honey” are loud, fun nonsense, and the chorus on the latter actually reminds you what these guys used to be able to do.  The aforementioned “All the Best” is a swift kick in the pants that indeed shows these kids how it’s done. 
And then there’s the opened (and reprised closer) “Discoverer.” Put simply, it’s the best opener to an R.E.M. album since Document’s “Finest Worksong,” and that’s no accident. But aside from being a dead ringer for that 25-year-old ditty, it also sounds about as alive as that song. The 1-2 punch of this and “All the Best” show there’s life in this band yet. They just can’t quite sustain it for a whole album.

Bob Geldof – How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell. “Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears… Well tonight, thank God it's them instead of you.” These words, from the now-25-year-old song that will no doubt remain most popular of Bob Geldof’s career (“I Don’t Like Mondays” possibly but probably not withstanding) could well sum up the condition that Bob was in when we last left him musically, in the occasionally brilliant and bitterly autobiographical Sex, Age & Death -- written in the wake of his ex-wife Paula Yates’ overdose, in turn in the wake of her running off with friend Michael Hutchence and his all-too-publicized ending thereafter. The wonderfully and ironically titled How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell captures the 10 years of life-reassembly since then. It has its tough memories, but it moreso has a tone hope and happily-ever-after-for-now.

What it doesn’t have is much production value at all. More the shame since it’s a former Boomtown Rat at the helm (Pete Briquette, who to give credit where due, a) produced Sex, Age & Death as well and just fine thank you, and b) also wrote or co-wrote three of the better songs here). To be fair, there’s a couple occasions where it works in the material’s favor, most notably the raucous mock-blues of “Blowfish.” On the Knopfler-through-a-Sears-amp guitar solo of “She’s a Lover,” not so much. And Bob’s voice doesn’t always need an effect on it, although the vocoder moment on “Systematic 6-Pack” – a loud and literal ode to Bob entering his Viagra years and wanting to dose up HARD AND RIGHT NOW --  is so silly that it works despite itself.

Which brings us to the fact that Bob’s inherent egregious quirkiness – as it largely has throughout his career – largely provides both the highs and lows of this album. He’s never been an innovator, but he’s always been willing to shrug his shoulders, say “what the hell,” and try something different, and this is no different. The aforementioned “Blowfish” is one pretty fun example. “To Live in Love,” on the other hand, is over-the-top café music that you’ll either love or hate (and to be honest, I lean toward the latter), but it’s Bob all the way. The penultimate song “Blow” threatens to disintegrate in its own atmosphere, but he pulls it together – and pulls it off affectingly  –  with lyrics such as “Blow hateful wind / Cold on faithless skin / Higher than the highest high / Love will find a way to you again.” It’s that latter promise that holds this whole album together, in fact.

Elsewhere: The opener “How I Roll” is one of my favorites here, with equally ironic and ominous lyrics and music that fits it:

I feel good, yeah I’m feeling fine
I feel better then I have for the longest time
I think these pills have been good for me
I think they banished all my blues into infinity
That’s how I roll

Sometimes I wake up at night, I don’t know what it is
But I must have got a fright
I thought I heard a scratching underneath the floor
Does the devil come to get  you at a quarter to four?
It’s how he rolls

“Silly Pretty Thing” would represent the one “popular” song here, and it’s not unlike a lighterweight “Come On, Eileen.” “Dazzled by You” is a simple, sincere and largely acoustic song to Bob’s new lover that picks up where Sex, Age and Death’s “10:15” left off; “Mary Says” is almost Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young territory – “everybody is always saying goodbye… She says the problem with these Endless Summers / Is Endless Summers always have to end / The thinning sky is throwing loveless shadows / The Summer’s gone and Autumn’s almost spent.” And the official closer “Here’s to You” is positively Harrisonesque: “Here’s to you and all our friends / May God protect us until the very end / All the places that we go / And everybody that we know / And every single living thing… Yea I’m in love with Life tonight / And y’know I think that’s right / So, let it rain, let it rain.”

But being a Geldof album, I just KNEW there was a hidden track, and lo there was. The autobiographical piano ditty “Young & Sober” goes from downright silly to goofily funny to “yeah Bob”…

…and in the year of '75 is when I sang myself alive
And the Lord sat whistling on my shoulder
So I stood up and I sang, and that's when my life began
And I was young and sober
And in the year of '85 we watched the millions starve and die
And the Lord, perched like the vulture on my shoulder
So we sent some bread and water, tried our best to stop the slaughter
And we were young and sober

…to, well, the total devastation-to-redemption swing of the last two verses, which punch me in the gut then pull me back up every time:

But in the year of '95, I loved my faithless wife
And the devil must have muttered on her shoulder
So she left me for another, whom I'd once had thought my brother
And I grew drunk and older


Said in the year of '05 with a beautiful new wife
And the Lord, just sat there smiling on her shoulders
So we drank from lifers cup, watched the children growin' up
'Cause she had made me once again young and sober
 
And there you have it. How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell is no classic – nor even a Sex, Age & Death – but it’s Bob Geldof in all in his flawed yet candid-against-all-good-judgement and therefore fascinating Geldoffiness. And that in itself is once again more than worth the price of admission.

Posted by: burninglight at 16:17 | link | comments

Does Anyone Remember Music?

It’s probably time I did, anyway.

Some quick personal stuff before finally starting to try to catch up on another so-far feh year of music….
Deep in the Heart of Self-Promotion:

• The “official” blog is up, and getting some good feedback so far. Go fetch.
• And if you MUST tweet, you can do that, too.
• Although I’d much prefer you Liked this instead.

So, on to music. I’m gonna start near the bottom of my list and work my way up, banging out a few quick reviews, and maybe I’ll even get to the higher-ups next week. For now….

Bill Mallonee – WPA10: High Desert Hope. I think we’ve established that I love the guy to pieces, right? That said, this would be my least favorite WPA entry since #6. The songs are solid enough, but there’s no particular thump in the chest here. And if only by sheer volume, Bill’s repeating himself a bit here – a variety of “Shakers and Movers,” particularly, can probably be found on half the WPA entries. I like that there’s more instrumentation on here --  the last two, “Bring You Around” and “These Winter Years,” sound rather like VoL outtakes, in fact -- although I wish the drums were turned down more, especially early on.

My favorite of the bunch would be the autobiographical and somewhat swampy “Distance Changes Everything.” The bemused refrain, “Distance changes everything, for better or for worse,” rings true, and if you know anything about his recent adventures in Santa Fe (and if not, let’s just say it’s been interesting), you know it’s probably even truer than Bill intended ….

I don’t want to discourage you from buying this, though, especially as Bill’s preparing to get back in the studio to record his first real CD since 2006’s brilliant Permafrost. And with 10 demo-EPs over the last 5 years to glean from, it’s gonna be good. And he’s gonna need money to do it. I’d just say that if you’re not a Bill completist, the prior 3 WPAs (Eternal Dawn & Gloaming, Coal Dust Soul and Drifter Songs), are more rewarding places to dig in. But get digging SOMEwhere.

On to everyone favorite’s Bill Mallonee ex-lookalike (who these days is kinda more an Elton John lookalike actually -- although it's probably not fair to pick on a guy in his late 60s)….

Bruce Cockburn – Small Sense of Comfort. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty apt title for the most part. I’m thinking the best ways to describe this are as so:

• Speculate on what a Bruce Cockburn song called “Comets of Kandahar” would sound like…. Well, you’re wrong. But it IS a decidedly spiffy instrumental. In fact, the instrumentals here -- which are almost half the album -- display considerably more effort than the lyrical songs do. Which, given the chops the guy has, isn’t a bad thing; it’s just, well, you know, the lyrics this time out…. Which brings me to….

• Let’s step back to Life Short Call Now – down a ways from You’ve Never Seen Everything, sure, but rife with moments. Still, you’d have to refer to “Mystery” from that one – and rather than being the low point, set it as the bar for Small Source of Comfort. “Called Me Back” is even lower…. um, further… down that road. And “Call Me Rose” – a song about Richard Nixon being reincarnated as a single mom from the projects – is pretty much as silly as it sounds.

Not all is lost here. The opener “The Iris of the World” is a low-key driver that fits Bruce well, and the ostensible title song “Five Fifty-One” even moreso. And again, nice instrumentals throughout. But whatever I haven’t already mentioned, well, really doesn’t require mentioning. So onward….


David Lowery – The Palace Guards. After the last two great Cracker albums (Greenland and Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey), David Lowery deserved a breather. And this is it. It’s more than a little thrown together, but it has its moments. So let’s broach them.

“Raise ‘Em Up on Honey” is a jaunty kinda folky opener, with typically screwball lyrics from David (“Homeschool the children, give ‘em weapons training / Just in case the DEA comes snooping round again.... Well, they'll be fine; they'll move into the city, start black metal bands / give it up & move back up the mountain again.”). Which in turn is followed by the title song, which opens  every bit like a Syd Barrett tune before morphing into something more Crackerish halfway in -- via a bridge of veiled Lowerian threats to the significant other such as "I love you and 'cause I do / I’ll never let you go / to London without me along / I love you and 'cause I do / I hid your passport / I put you on a no-fly list" -- culminating with the repeated howl, “I rip my heart out every day for you.”

“Deep Oblivion” and “Ah, You Left Me” amount to a long lull, before the stomping, fuzz-pedaled Forever-ish “Baby, All Those Girls Meant Nothing to Me.” You already know how it sounds, and you like it. And before the album fades into meh-ness again (OK, "Marigold" and "Big Life" are decent, too), we get probably the best thing here, the child’s-story-that-isn’t “I Sold the Arabs the Moon” (who might also double for The Man Who Sold the World). To a dreamy folk waltz -- and you can imagine for yourself what a David Lowery dream might look like -- and a Camper-ish violin, we get:

And I was the man who sold the Arabs the moon
They festooned their flags with crescent moons….

And I was the man who sold the English the sea
I cowered before great battleship guns….

And I was the man who sold the Yankees the sky
The black of the night and the blue of the day
The endless horizon of hope and desire
And I was the man who sold the Yankees the sky,
The English the sea
The Arabs the moon.

The Palace Guards ain’t the place to start in the David Lowery oeuvre by a long shot, but if you’ve already spent time spent there, you could do worse than chip in to pay for what’s clearly been his vacation time here.

Posted by: burninglight at 12:32 | link | comments

The Times They Are a'Changing... and They Damn Well Might Again....

One more personal one to catch up, then we actually get back to music next week....

• So, another good show from Bill 'n' Tim a couple weeks back, and another good morning-coffee time with Bill afterward. Love the guy to pieces. Even if y'r waiting for Bill to get past the WPA stuff and back into a studio -- and you know who you are -- there's still a dignity about everything he does that you can't help but be moved by.

• Job stuff: 5 interviews down, 5 rejections. The last one was especially nerve-rattling, as it was another one out of Nashville -- which came about 2 weeks after Marion & I decided we would stop looking out of state. I was repeatedly informed of how impressive I was and that I was definitely a viable candidate, and it WAS a upward move/salary increase from what I had at Group. Thus, the next 48 hours were spent wrestling with the "what we want" vs. "being open to what God wants" thang. We decided we'd take our chances on the job and tell them I was still in the running. Two weeks later, after hearing nothing and dropping another e-mail, I found out there were 2 people left and I wasn't one of them. Guess I wasn't that impressive. :P

• But all is not lost, kidlings. The day before I got said slapdown, it was revealed that Loveland had landed a deal with NASA, and that we're looking at 7,000 new jobs coming to town by end of year. You'd think I'd be good for ONE of them. And even if not....

• Finally scored a freelance gig with a publisher I've admired for close to 10 years, at $30/hour no less. Finished said gig 30 hours later last week (do the math), and it sounds like both publisher and author are happy with the results. So hopefully this leads to a steadier gig here and elsewhere. I'm gonna try working it, in any case.

In other news that has the potential to open up a whole new world....

• Found myself -- or specifically, Growing Out Season 1 -- back on the Amazon charts last week. Which in turn got me thinking, "I wonder if Amazon has an app for authors?" They do. So I spent a few hours last week setting up the Carl Simmons author page. Which...

• ...in further conversing with my friend who conceived Growing Out in the first place, led to the idea of a more public blog. I have an idea for another book already, which I've been noodling at for the last 3 months. But I think it might finally be time to get serious, and having a regular blog out there would help keep me on task. I'll still do the musical/personal stuff here, but I think it may be time to go public with all the ministry/author stuff. 'Cause again, ain't nobody else going to do it for me anymore.

I may even have to (gasp) start a Twitter page. I feel dirty already.

More details as they come, and they'll probably come soon enough.

• In the meantime, if you haven't already, join that Growing Out Facebook page, dagnabbit. It's good stuff. It had to get past a critic like ME, didn't it???

THAT said, this ALL could 180 yet again next week. 'Cause that's just the way this see-saw of the last 3 months has gone. But I feel like there are possibilities out there, and that's a good thing no matter how you slice it.

So, next week: The lesser of this year's musical discoveries, then sometime soon thereafter the greater (and usually newer) ones.

Posted by: burninglight at 13:18 | link | comments

No News Is No News

Thought I oughta at least check in....  Four phone interviews and one 2nd interview so far, but no offers. Days look pretty much like this:

• Check job openings and general e-mail first thing.
• Oh, and post a daily listing here.  I figure if no-one else is gonna promote the damned thing, *I* am.
• Go to the gym after that, usually -- although it's nice enough today to take advantage of the town rec trail; I'll walk the northern stretch today, about 4 miles.
• Meet with buddies during the week; and/or do my Adult Learning tutor gig Tuesday/Thursday nights; and/or do Bible study gigs Thursday night-er/Friday morning; and/or go to the Mandolin Cafe on Wednesday nights for Tim's weekly residence gig, replete with guests.
• And as fate would have it, schedule another Bill Mallonee gig 5 Wednesdays from now (with Tim once again warming up, at Bill's request no less). Given my situation, Bill's willing to do it for just the gate money, so HEY, I've already made $400+, the way I see it... :) And yeah, I've got a link for that, too.

But BIG news, or even reviews? Nope. Enjoy my minutiae. And I'll stop by again soon.

Posted by: burninglight at 10:09 | link | comments

Down, But Not Done

Well, it happened. Let's compare the predictions with the results:

• 10% casualties -- check, or close enough. The final number was 26, out of 280-290. To think we were pushing 350 when I showed up, during the last big wave of hires in 2005.
• All-staff as prelude rather than epitaph -- Nope. Went down Monday morning. My boss and friend -- and the finest person who will EVER walk that company's halls -- was the first casualty I knew about.
• My fate came down to what was decided about Adult/smallGroup -- check
• And Adult/smallGroup was eliminated. Therefore, so was I.

Basically, the Curriculum department -- the largest department in the company -- was dismantled. So most of the layoffs were people I worked closely with, including half my fellow editors and my Adult Marketing manager.

Right now, I'm still mostly in the anger stage of grief. And I'm far more pissed about what they did to my boss than what they did to me. My feelings about my own situation are more disgust, because I saw it coming more than a year ago and therefore knew how completely avoidable it was (see the last couple entries for hints). But her responsibilities were mostly children's -- supposedly the company's main focus now -- and one of the few people who knew what was going on, and busted her hump to make sure of that, including several new children's product lines. Letting her go was BEYOND stupid, and entirely possibly vindictive.

Adding to this, the indelible image of carrying her boxes out to her car -- and having to look at the party going on at the other end of the hall for one of the previously alluded-to money-sinkholes that CAUSED this to happen, each time I came back up for another box. Let them eat cake, indeed.

And yes, the fact that Growing Out just released seven and four months ago, then this, does not make me a happy camper. But as I've been saying all along, God guided this around WAY too many hoops for it to be dead now. Even though it might be totally ignored in an official sense, it nonetheless lives, and God can do what He damn well pleases. I know that. Still....

One more irony, on that note, was the "seminal" mandatory all-day event that Rick Lawrence, the Youth champion, offered around this time last month to all our creative people -- again, many of which are no longer there. Before I go any further, let me point out that Rick is a very good guy, one of a dwindling number of people concerned about biblical substance, and in fact the first person to champion Growing Out, calling it "brilliant, meaty, and just what the church needs." That said:

1) his message was one that he's been trumpeting for 4 years now, and remains unheeded;
2) he'd informed leadership some months earlier that he didn't want them publishing HIS Adult resources (and in fact went with a rival publisher) because of his own past experiences (before things came back to me, mind you);
And here was the kicker:
3) in introducing the subject, he presented reasons why the church in Europe is almost a non-entity, and why America's heading down the same path, the big reason being that we're no different from the rest of the culture, and want everything "more, fast, fun, easy." My immediate reaction was, "Hell-O????" That IS the culture of the company, in a nutshell, and until that's owned up to, this downward spiral will continue.

So there IS a part of me that feels like I've been released from a really long hostage situation; not sure that's healthy but right now it works for me. :) I was never with the "in" crowd, and that was a big thing in really anything getting done there, no matter how much or how little merit an idea had. Still, I thought I could make it work. I tried to buck the trend by being both-and (meaty/fun) instead of either-or.

At least on paper, I failed.

So, on to the future. Thankfully, I got a decent "separation bonus," so we'll be able to live "normally" for at least a few months. Unemployment isn't enough, but it's a decent chunk. I'm pretty sure I can find freelance work writing/editing to get me even closer (supposedly you can earn up to $100 more a week without it impacting yr weekly benefit). Marion's gig at Wings (she teaches art to developmentally disabled adults) isn't gonna save us, but again, it's another way of defraying expenses; and craft-show season will be upon us in a few months.

But I do need to find another job. I hate the idea of leaving Loveland -- more so than getting laid off, and again the pain of leaving stems more from the incredible people I knew there than the culture/philosophy -- but I'm not sure how we're gonna make it here. I'm willing to take a home-team discount, but the fact is there just aren't that many editorial jobs up this way. At least there's a few things in the Springs; staying in Colorado would be the 2nd-best thing. And I'm grateful for the leads that friends and acquaintances have been sending.

I guess that's it for now. We'll talk soon, though, OK?

Posted by: burninglight at 15:55 | link | comments (3)