Brian Newcombe

THE HAZARDS OF LOVE, The Decemberists (Capitol)

2010-07-06T22:47:11Z

Like many music fans, I found the 2006 arrival of Portland, Oregon-based quintet The Decemberists' "The Crane Wife" to be a breath of fresh air. With alternative rock and every form of pop worth listening to in a bit of a creative doldrums, this band's intricate instrumentals, mixing old school British folk a la Fairport Convention with older still influences from madrigals, Celtic origins and classical compositions and the progressive leaning blues/metal amalgams.

Remember the way the Yardbirds morphed from hard rockers to strange folky storytelling, which may have reached a creative climax on a record like "Led Zep III," with its strong acoustic, Celtic folk leanings. The Decemberists echo all of that, along with Richard Thompson's fascination with the evolution of western pop music styles, from the baroque period, through tavern tales on to the likes of the RollingStones and Britney Spears. Okay, I don't hear any Spears at work in The Decemberists, but you get my point.

(Am I the only one who really misses old school prog-rock? And I'm not just thinking Yes, and early Kansas and Genesis, less so ELP, but does anybody else remember Gentle Giant, and PFM [Premiata Forneria Marconi]? What about Renaissance? When I listen to The Decemberists new one, "The Hazards of Love," I can't help but start to miss all that... and think of Fairport Convention and Renaissance and the like. But then it's a function of middle age, to spend a bit of time looking back, as taking in what's new, and imagining what's to come. But, Mars Volta may be the best modern take, and while it's fun enough, it's just not quite cutting it for me. And don't get me started on Incubus and Linkin Park. So, go figure.)

But for my money, "The Crane Wife" was just a warm up for the deeper, more impressive "Hazards of Love." Still as diverse, echoing early folk song forms, with instrumentation that recalls when the harpsichord was all the rage (and I don't just mean the era of Rick Wakeman), and banjo or accordion, lush orchestrations, and raw, cutting guitars, "The Hazards" feels like a fuller, more complex whole.

Borrowing its title from a 1966 EP of the same name by Anne Brigg's, writer Colin Meloy follows classical composers and classic rockers in producing variations on a series of musical themes and lyrical concepts, ultimately fleshing out a narrative in rich detail. It's a story, as the title suggests, ripe with danger and loss, where one is invited to "Wager All," knowing that the "Wanting Comes in Waves." And you can't walk through the underbrush of life and love without prickly thistles attaching themselves to you... oh, the hazards of love are many.

And that's the fun of it all. As the band moves from conventional folk pop to more aggressive electric guitar riffing and back, the songs unfold, repeat, offer a variation and then evolve and respond. It's a lush audio banquet for the ears, and a pleasure to sit back and allow its narrative and diverse musicality to have its way with you.

Now, remember back when guitarist Chris Funk had a contrived shread head to head with Stephen Colbert, who ultimately relied on Peter Frampton to come to his aid. At first blush, multi-instrumentalist Funk is no Satriani or Vai styled guitar hero. Still, here on "Hazards," we get a better taste of his somewhat classic rock leaning tableau of sounds and textures. In the end, we don't need shread heads, we need guitar players that paint pictures, and Funk alongside Meloy and company is an artist. Worth a few thousand words a track, actually.

And, while it's an impressive whole, there are some truly inspired parts, especially as "HoL Parts 3 and 4" sandwiches the reprise of "The Wanting Comes in Waves," with the way a children's chorus echoes the vocals of "HoL part 1" and moves toward climax. And, the way "Part 4" leans toward contemporary country music, seemingly out of left field but somehow bringing it all around full circle.

The continuity of any lengthy (17 songs) cycle depends not only on the strength of its individual pieces, but the broad scope when the considering the sum of the parts, there total impact when considered together. Which gladly marks "The Hazards of Love" as a complete and fully realized success, creatively conceived and masterfully rendered. -Brian Quincy Newcomb

Wilco Live DVD - "Ashes of American Flags"

2010-07-06T22:26:04Z

Friends, I've been on a brief hiatus... got the flu, then I got Holy Week and Easter, then I got a few days off to go see John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg at Eden Seminary's Spring Convocation, and then it was back to work...

It's a bit like John Cleese in "The Holy Grail" when he claims that a witch turned into a newt. And, once everyone is looking at him and obviously though he looks a bit newtish, he's not a newt. The punch line is "I got better."

So, although I've been listening to a lot of great new music, I haven't been here writing about it in a while. I got sick, got busy, got distracted and then got better. Maybe soon, I'll just have to write a quick recap of discs that slid by in the mean time... but first:

"ASHES OF AMERICAN FLAGS," Wilco, (Nonesuch/Trixie DVDs)

If there's a better, more interesting, more fun American band working today, I don't know about them. Look, I'm not saying anything bad about Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers or Kings of Leon - two of the classic American rock genre bands that come to mind, one a classic the other a crisp, gritty bright spot that may turn out to be more than a flash in the pan - I'm just saying that I find the unique, smart blend of Americana roots music, an educated appreciation of the rock music lexicon, and commitment to make something of all this that is an honest expression of the here and now. It's as connected to the music of the Mississippi valley from Minneapolis to Chicago and down to New Orleans, yet remains profoundly fresh and thoroughly modern. It's got something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue... and so much more.

And of course, when I say Wilco I mostly mean Jeff Tweedy. I first interviewed Tweedy back with his then partner Jay Farrar, back Uncle Tupelo was still a three-some. I remember sitting in the kitchen of their run-down apartment, being grilled about what I was listening to, before they would really settle down and answer my questions about their new, third album. I have a couple great memories of beer drenched nights with that trio at their early best, playing crowded confines of Cicero's Basement Bar. Later, I would get to sell some quotes to RollingStone magazine when the 5-piece Tupelo was breaking up, just as I thought they had matured enough for prime time... It's still not clear to me how it all went down, but Farrar was out and Tweedy went on with the remaining Tupes to form Wilco. I interviewed the entire band for Billboard magazine, sitting in the cramped upstairs office of Tony Margherita in Maplewood, MO, around their debut, "A.M." Jeff and Tony moved on, but I lived and worked near there for another 13 years or so... and loved walking by that old building, above an empty, abandoned pharmacy, and looking up at those empty windows and thinking... it's places like this that real music, real rock & roll gets birthed. Well, at least conceived, it's birthed on the stage.

And if that's the case, then this new film, about the last incarnation of Tweedy's sojourn as a post-modern, rootsy Americana, singer-songwriter, troubadour, noisy rocker and paradox, is capturing some rare, lovely live birth footage.

But it's not Wilco's first movie either. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" captured the then-Wilco at the time of the making of "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel," which was really as much about the ending of the band as it was as it was the creation of Tweedy's next masterpiece, this time a commercial breakthrough. You see, Wilco's second and third albums, "Being There" and "Summerteeth" were pretty amazing... I mean brilliant. And to my mind, the Ken Coomer/Jay Bennett era Wilco had finally returned to the musical potency and depth of the "Anodyne"-era Uncle Tupelo when performing live. It's like Tweedy gets something built up, both in catalog, musical chops and personal chemistry, until it reaches it's creative potential... and he has to deconstruct it, switch it up, move on to the next set of creative challenges. But again, it's a paradox. He kept bassist John Stirrat by his side, even as he let go of Coomer and Bennett, and I remember mourning the loss of that band, that unique unit, almost as much as when the Tupelo quit. But I'm not a slow learner, and I began to suspect that Tweedy would do it again.

And, of course, he has. But again, the transition wasn't immediate, and required time to ripen, evolve, come of age. The first couple times I saw them as the new version was coming together--Glenn Kotche on drums/percussion, Mikael Jorgensen on piano, and Leroy Bach on guitars, etc.--I loved the powerful new Tweedy songs from "Foxtrot" and Grammy winning "A Ghost Is Born" but was still less than blown away by the band live... but it got better. When Bach left and rock god guitarist Nels Cline and guitars/key player Pat Sansone came on board, the "Kicking Television" live album and tour not only found things coming together in a great way live, but again Tweedy & Co. had taken it to the next level. And that band is the band on the quieter, more songwriter driven "Sky Blue Sky," which some found underwhelming, but again... after all this time, I don't take anything for granted as Tweedy's ongoing, unfolding, multi-layored talent. Like Dylan and Van Morrison, and not unlike R.E.M. and Radiohead, I'm willing to put up with some ebb as long as there's flow... I don't mind the valleys as long as there's another mountain on the other side... at least nobody turned him into a newt.

So, as you've figured by now, "Ashes" captures this current era of Wilco, again at the top of it's game. Film-makers Brendan Canty & Christoph Green captured 13 live songs for their movie (there are seven more in the DVD Extras) in five distinctive American venues, several legendary--Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Tipitina's in New Orleans, Mobile Civic Center in Mobile, Al., the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. Most of the music is from the more recent releases, but "Kingpin" goes back to "Being There," and "Shot in the Arm" from "Summerteeth" bring the best of the earlier era.

But the unique mix of singable pop/rock like "Handshake Drugs" and "Heavy Metal Drummer," the hints of country here and there and in the title track, the unashamed classic rock references and the unrepentant love of feedback, noise and the crash & burn frenetics that Cline can unleash like few modern rockers that come to mind--these are the makings of some of the most masterful, emotionally raw and vital rock music that you're likely to hear anywhere.

Cline is a monster, but this band all rocks hard when the chips are down, and they also know the power or reining it in, the pull of the quiet that makes the loud all the more potent. Kotche also shines, but it's the way this combo works together, churning and grinding, yet not losing sight of the song, Tweedy's lyrical and melodic intent in all the frenetic energy. Take "Via Chicago" which finds Tweedy in folk ballad mode which must have been imagined on an underpass near Ohare, as it sounds like a 747 is landing right on top of the band, twice. This is a great band, and good, very good movie, that catches these fun, flashy, yet often humble and workmanlike performances. When they achieve greatness, they never lose sight that they are all cogs in the wheel, but they are always in service to this bigger thing.

Together with the music and the fine performances, Canty and Green give a glimpse of life on the road, beautiful highway visuals, views of the cities where they play, and storytelling of what makes this band, these venues, this musical experience so very special.

As for Wilco, there's talk for a new, seventh CD by summer. I can't wait, but this quick burst of live music, some with Wilco backed by the Total Pros horn section, gives a bright, beautiful time capsule. I hope this doesn't mean that Tweedy's about to be turned into a newt again... but either way, I'm confident he'll keep getting better.

"TOWNES," Steve Earle (New West)

2010-07-06T22:21:20Z

When an artist, even one as independent and free-thinking as Steve Earle revisits the songs and legacy of their major influence, mentor and/or hero, it can be a somber, more bitter than sweet affair. When you add to that Townes Van Zandt's various demons--depression, alcoholism/addiction, and love/hate relationship with art and commerce--which match those that have haunted Earle's own life and work, together with the stark, honest content of Van Zandt's songs and his early death at 54 years of age, and you have a formula for a painfully faithful but lifeless "tribute." Thankfully, Earle is dutifully reverential without sacrificing the song's verve and passion. "Townes" works both as the next fine Earle disc, as well as the true tribute that Van Zandt's contribution deserves.

It's no surprise to anyone that Earle has a (to borrow a phrase from Anthony DeCurtis' fine feature in Sunday's NYTimes A&E pages) a "tortured" relationship with the memory of his early friend, who's influence was such that he named his son, Justin Townes Earle, himself a singer/songwriter. But all that weight, bad karma and sad psychology manages somehow not to get in the way on "Townes," so that Earle serves up these great, time-tested testaments to their writer's tired torments and his alchemist's ability to turn life's hard truths into golden, even transcendent songs.

Take the great "To Live is To Fly" with it's grim assessment that "living's mostly wasting time" and "everything is not too much, and nothin's too much to bear." The song settles on death as the final truth, but includes an ode to life out making music on the road: "Here's to all the poetry and the pickin' down the line. I'll miss the system here, the bottom's low and the treble's clear. But it don't' pay to think too much on the things you leave behind. Well, I may be gone, but it won't be long. I'll be bringing back the melody and the rhythm that I find."

Van Zandt, like Hank Williams and Bob Dylan, at his best wrote in a way that elevated the common life, embodying a lyric that on the one hand feels cliché and on the other is all too true. Played in simple, direct acoustic formats, guitar and mandolin, the occasional full band but more often a haunting harmonica wailing, a laconic pump organ, throughout Earle eschews the over-produced excess that left many of Van Zandt's original recordings mired and overwhelmed. With Earle singing the most influential and best remembered of this oft favored repertoire, whether sung by Emmylou Harris or Willie Nelson, "Townes" matches its established task by letting the songs stand in their own light.

There's a hopelessness at work here, of course. When Van Zandt writes of his desire to change his ways for a "Brand New Companion," it's obvious thatthere's little chance that he really rise to the occasion. "No Place to Fall" may hope for a lover to catch him, but it's the song of a man much acquainted with falling on his own, alone. So, of course this collection, lovingly, faithfully crafted, is going to feel a bit bitter as well as sweet. If you want the songs of a happy drunk who died too early, by might look for the songs of Harry Nilsson. Wait, turns out those songs may not actually be all that happy either.

Rich, simple country songs, elemental blues and country, it's clear why Van Zandt is one of the heroes of Americana roots music. Catchy melodies and smart lyrical turns lend depth to time-honored sounds and forms. When Earle plays the finger-picking lead into "Lungs," I begin hearing a dozen other songs that have borrowed that sound pattern, like Pure Prairie League, Fleetwood Mac or Foo Fighters. It's clear that Earle sees how Van Zandt was a primal figure on to some of that special "something" that feeds the wheel of music's growth and evolution. And, to these ears, it's clear that he's got it just about right.

Music Review: Wilco (the album), (the band), (the concert)

2010-07-06T22:19:57Z

On its seventh studio album, Wilco gets comfortable in its own unique skin, albeit eccentric, noisy and emotionally complex skin, and delivers its best album yet. And calls it, of course, "Wilco (the album)." I've posted the review here

THE FRAY, The Fray (Epic)

2009-03-19T22:40:00Z

The Fray - a Denver based piano-based pop/rock quartet - have stumbled on the new century's best promotional devise for breaking new music: getting songs from "How to Save a Life," the band's '05 debut, placed on hip, young adult t.v. shows like "Grey's Anatomy." This was so affective, making "Over My Head (Cable Car)" and the disc's title track nearly omnipresent, that listening to the band's self-titled follow-up, that I find my self wondering which of the doctors will be leaving the bar alone in the rain, while two others are making love during the end of show montage for which the music seems designed. Which is to say, that this is commercially smart, but not very convincing or substantial music.

Besides the Coldplay like piano/drum play, The Fray's only real distinguishing mark is Issac Slade's tediously studied world-weary vocals. One wonders if the kids will think of this music as emo... whatever that means. I just keep wondering what happened to musicianship? For instance, these nondescript mid-tempo cuts have no "solos" per se. I keep imagining a Bruce Hornsby or even Elton John piano solo, which never happens, or a guitar solo of significance (okay there's an effort made toward the end of "Ungodly Hour," like David Lindley used to play over the warblely crooning and piano of Jackson Browne. It seems these songs would fell less like musical wallpaper, and perhaps Slade wouldn't sound so precious, if the emotional power of the song was dispersed throughout the band.

Of course, this is one of those bands where Christian audiences have begun to suggest that there is a subtle spirituality at work, and that would seem to be the case on the first single, "You Found Me." The image of God smoking a cigarette on an urban street corner seems contrived to feed such conjecture, but it also seems calculated (along with the "Ungodly Hour") to sound too worldly - that even though I like the image of looking for God only to be found a favorable one, it tends to lose points for heavy handedness.

But musically, The Fray feels to formulaic. Only "We Build Then We Break" suggests that there's a band in there with something they want to play, something they really need to say. I want to hear that band's next record.