Tag Archives: Rock

Sweet Warrior (Richard Thompson) – Album Review

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Released In 2007, “Sweet Warrior” Was Arguably The Most Elaborate Album Richard Thompson Recorded In The Whole Decade

Released In 2007, “Sweet Warrior” Was Arguably The Most Elaborate Album Richard Thompson Recorded In The Whole Decade

After “The Old Kit Bag” and “Front Parlour Ballads” (two albums defined by their interpretative intimacy) Richard Thompson undertook the recording of one of the fullest-sounding albums of his career. Completed and released in 2007, “Sweet Warrior” was named after a composition by Spenser, the poet who sparked the sonnet craze of the 17th Century, and who unwittingly encouraged Shakespeare to come with his finest body of non-dramatic work ever.

“Sweet Warrior” brings to mind key albums of Thompson’s career such as “Rumour And Sigh” and “Mirror Blue”. But not in a sonorous sense – for worse and for better, both “Rumour And Sigh” and “Mirror Blue” had been the subject of Mitchell Froom’s flamboyant studio techniques. No, the connection here is one of scope. Starting with 1999’s “Mock Tudor”, Thompson’s previous albums had been conceptual or thematic works. “Sweet Warrior” stood as a deliberate detour that took Thompson back to non-conceptual territory, and freed him to write about a much larger set of characters within the same record.

The one that was better-observed (and better-appreciated, too) was the American soldier stationed in Iraq of the song “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me”. As you probably know, “Dad” is slang for “Baghdad”, and the song careens from triplet to triplet describing the horrors and tragedies of war without any kind of palliative. If anything, “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me” conveys the idea that in war only the suffering is equally-distributed, along with a sense of doom that marks those involved for life. A song to listen to attentively, and ponder on for a long time…

But not certainly if you are listening to the full album in one sitting. “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me” is directly followed by the masterful (and utterly unconnected) vignette of “Mr. Stupid”. A rocker with a phenomenal drive, “Mr. Stupid” has Richard digging deep in his repertoire of abandoned and dysfunctional characters, and coming with karat gold yet again. So does the Gaelic-inspired “Johnny’s Far Away” (with a couple that simply highlights the fallibility of human beings), and the tragedy-laden “Poppy Red”. And characters that embrace the violent side of affection are not absent, either – just listen to “I’ll Never Give It Up” for a precise example.

The one criticism that might be leveled at the disc is that it runs just a little too long. There are a series of songs in the middle that are not key to the appeal of the album, including “Bad Monkey”, “Sneaky Boy” and “Too Late To Come Fishing”. And I find the ska of “Francesca” a bit trying, even when the sax work has to be commended for its finesse. Continue reading →

Radiohead – General Introduction

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Radiohead Are: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood & Phil Selway. All Five Members Met While Attending School At Oxfordshire.

Radiohead Are: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood & Phil Selway. All Five Members Met While Attending School At Oxfordshire.

Innovators in the truest sense of the word, the name of Radiohead is synonymous with the best music that came from the ‘90s. Conformed by five school friends from Oxfordshire, the band led by Thom Yorke mutated from a grungier outfit into electronica linchpins over the course of just three albums, writing the rule book as they went along with the songs they chose to release as singles.

Radiohead is also remembered as one of the biggest emotionally-tumultuous bands this side of Joy Division, The Sisters of Mercy and related acts. Yorke’s recurrent themes of paranoia and self-loathing surfaced as early as their first single, “Creep” (from “Pablo Honey”, 1993). The song was actually banned in England by Radio One on grounds of being too depressing, but when “Creep” became a surprise hit in Israel and then in San Francisco the band gained recognition in their home soil. They were thrown into an onslaught of live shows that left everyone dour, and the subsequent album was to be named after the mental condition that affects drivers that have risen to the top too quickly

“The Bends” (1995) included the desperate “Street Spirit”, the turmoil-weighed “High and Dry” and the we-have-fucking-had-it title track. But nowhere was the frustration expressed as clearly as in “My Iron Lung”, a song in which the music could barely sheathe the vitriol. Also included was the turbid yet beautiful “Fake Plastic Trees”, composed by the band the night after they attended a Jeff Buckley gig.

None of those songs managed to make them feel better as a performing unit (or as individuals, for that matter), and the sessions for their next album were the most trying ever.

But the struggle was worth it. “OK Computer” (1997) quickly became the best album not only of the year but also one of the most celebrated LPs of the whole decade. The band managed to beat lots of acts who had broader appeal like Oasis, whose “Be Here Now” was rebuffed by the public and found its way into the used racks pretty quickly. Continue reading →

Chris Rea (General Introduction)

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Chris Rea Was Born In 1951 in Middlesbrough.

Chris Rea Was Born In 1951 in Middlesbrough.

There are only two guitar players that make me stop whatever I am doing and listen as if each note they are playing were nothing short of irreproducible both technically and sentimentally by anybody else.

As you already know, Richard Thompson is one of them. And now I’d like to introduce you to the other one. Like Thompson, he is also from England. But their styles couldn’t be more different.

Chris Rea is a slide guitar player that spent the first part of his career playing rock & roll until a miraculous recovery from pancreatitis made him decide to devote the rest of his studio life to the blues.

And unlike Richard Thompson, Chris Rea did have hits. His 1989’s album “The Road To Hell” brought him out of cult obscurity across the whole of Europe. “The Road To Hell” will always stand as one of the most meaningful works in a decade that was not that remarkable otherwise. The album offered a razor-sharp study of the stray ways of modern life without ever stooping to the gratuitousness of other contemporary acts.

And the commencement of Rea’s career in 1978 was actually quite auspicious: the song “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” almost cracked the Top 10 in the US, and remains his most popular song in America to this day. Both that album (named “Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?”) and its follow-up were produced by no other than Gus Dudgeon. Rea has always bemoaned that Dudgeon’s approach was unsuitable for his blues-derived material. The truth is that Dudgeon made one thinly-disguised attempt after the other to have Rea sound like pop acts that had given him worldwide recognition such as Elton John. Chris was to eventually record some of those songs anew later on. Continue reading →

Joni Mitchell (General Introduction)

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Joni Mitchell In The 70s

Joni Mitchell In The '70s

The music industry can dent anybody’s enthusiasm and willingness to make art. But a true artist always keeps at it, not only because it is the only valid form of expression he knows, but because he realizes there comes a point his public needs him to articulate how they feel. It becomes something wholly reciprocal; they need each other, they feed off each other and they motivate each other to do their best.

That is the true moral that arises from Joni Mitchell’s career – a career that has seen wild commercial up and downs, but that has had Joni true to herself and to every single one of us.

Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan in Fort MacLeod (Canada). The year was 1943. She showed a precocious interest in music, studying first the piano and then the guitar. Yet, at age nine she was stricken with polio. That made playing the guitar difficult from that point onwards, and that was one of the reasons Joni developed the unique tunings she would be renowned for in her career.

She has defined herself as a “rebellious teenager”, and upon growing up she intended to attend art school in Calgary. She attended classes only for one year there before moving to Toronto, where she met a cabaret jazz singer named Chuck Mitchell that would become her husband in 1966. Together, they headed for the US to seek their fortunes as musicians. The marriage fell apart in 1967, and Joni went to New York City to launch her solo career in earnest.

Before ever releasing her debut album, other artists began recording her songs – Tom Rush sang the very first song she ever wrote, “Urge For Going”, and Judy Collins made the poignant “Both Sides Now” popular long before Joni did.

Joni’s big break came when she was discovered by David Crosby, who convinced his record company (Reprise Records) to sign her up. They did, and Joni’s first album (known as either “Joni Mitchell” or “Song For A Seagull”) was recorded and issued. Public interest began picking up, and a heavy schedule in support of both her debut and the follow-up record (“Clouds”, 1969) made the press take notice as well.

“Ladies Of The Canyon” was issued in 1970. It became her first gold record on the strength of “Big Yellow Taxi” (a top 30 hit) and her own version of “The Circle Game” (the song had been recorded long before by both by Tom Rush and Buffy Sainte-Marie). Continue reading →

Horses (Patti Smith) – Album Review

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A Classic Of Classics, The Photograph Gracing The Cover Of Horses Was Taken By Robert Mapplethorpe At Greenwich Village.

A Classic Of Classics, The Photograph Gracing The Cover Of "Horses" Was Taken By Robert Mapplethorpe At Greenwich Village.

Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.

What an unrepentant way to start an album and to announce a whole career. Patti Smith’s debut came in 1975, and it was the first piece of vinyl whose surges bristled with the unsurpassed fire that was growing within the walls of the mythic CBGB, and which would gloriously run rife before a year had elapsed.

Patti (who was slightly older than members of most other acts associated with the famed venue) was certainly one of its most articulate participants, in no small part owing to her early explorations of different branches of visual and performance arts. She brought some of the most literate considerations to a scene that was also nurtured by the contributions of artists like Tom Verlaine (with whom she was briefly involved, and who actually added a typical all-or-nothing solo to the song “Break It Up”) and the Talking Heads (a band that I have never been that keen on – and I couldn’t love XTC more. Go figure.) And her actual romantic interest at the time “Horses” was released was photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she had met at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn) and who would make a vital contribution to the album: its actual cover shot.

This androgynous photograph has deservedly gone down in the history of music as an absolute visual achievement. It captured the willingness of punks to transcend the blandness of conventional categorizations as much as the music included on the actual record, which Smith herself defined as “Three chord rock merged with the power of the word”.

You can’t call “Horses” a punk record, mind you. You can (and should) term it a record that set the scene for the arrival of a more vibrant and violent force of expression than what was available before.

In many places, “Horses” is an album that asserts the role of women in rock, what with male characters who are sodomized as in the first segment of “Land” and songs about female characters that defy conventionalisms such as “Kimberly” (a song which Patti wrote to deal with the lingering feelings of the baby she had to give for adoption when she was much younger).

You can’t call really call a record with songs like “Gloria” or “Birdland” a punk album.  “Gloria” references the Them song by the same name, and it was a clear nod to fellow CBGB pioneers Blondie. And “Birdland” is a piece of jazz that might even mar the flow of the disc, but which was actually an important piece for Patti if only because it acted as a symbolization of her mother. Continue reading →

Patti Smith – General Introduction

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Patti Smith (AKA "The Godmother of Punk") Performing Live

Patti Smith (AKA "The Godmother of Punk") Performing Live

Patti Smith must be one of the clearest examples of evergreen artistry in the history of rock and roll, and I dare say in the whole of the 20th Century. After actively chasing what she termed herself a “career of evil” and releasing some albums that exemplified how music could be noise as organized or disorganized as one wanted and still be music, she settled down into a life of domesticity. And when she surfaced as a performer again, it was no longer as the rampant provocateur of yore. It was as a softer performer with excellent interpretative timing, able to take songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and sing them from a maturity that only emphasized how being tamed by others and resolving to tempter yourself down are entirely different things.

Patti Smith was born on December 30, 1946 in Chicago. She would find a creative outlet in music after having tried mostly everything else: poetry, playwriting, acting, painting…

Her first successes as a musician came well before “Horses” (her epochal debut, released in 1975). Before that, she worked as a lyricist for Blue Oyster Cult, and those collaborations were to result in the sole gold and platinum records of her career. More importantly, they gave her the resolution to carry her own tunes in public. The Patti Smith Group was then born, and this ensemble would become the first punk band associated with the mythical CBGB club to issue an album (well ahead of The Ramones). “Horses” came out in 1975 (preceded by the excellent non-album single “Hey Joe/Piss Factory”), and it fused the sensibilities of French poets like Baudelaire with some of the very first punk mannerisms ever put to tape. The merits of the album are appreciated even better when we realize that her writing style had already reached this maturity by 1972, the year in which she released “Seventh Heaven”, an accomplished collection of poems that blended symbolism and American beat aesthetics in a defiantly convincing way.

“Radio Ethiopia” was the PSG’s sophomore effort, and it was a mostly dissipated album that made the band reconsider what they were doing and come up with the triumphant “Easter” in 1978. Featuring the Bruce Springsteen-penned hit “Because The Night” and the ferocious “Rock & Roll Nigger”, it was to be their most ordered and cohesive collection of songs. Of course, an incident in which Smith fell offstage and fractured her neck vertebrae when touring the preceding album was also a life-changing experience. For a time, it wasn’t clear if she was ever going to even get up and walk again. Continue reading →

Soundays (Uruguayan Independent Artist)

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Logo Soundays

Soundays Are Pepelo Curcio (vocals and guitar), Fede Sacarelo (guitar), Juanma Oholeguy (drums) and Diego Placeres (bass).

Soundays Are Pepelo Curcio (vocals and guitar), Fede Sacarelo (guitar), Juanma Oholeguy (drums) and Diego Placeres (bass).

There is a 1975 movie named “Dog Day Afternoon” which tells the story of a pair of bankrobbers who are led by Sonny Wortzik (played by Al Pacino). The movie was directed by Sidney Lumet, and it is still considered a seminal work in the history of anti-establishment films.

I remember that movie every single time I come across any Uruguayan brit pop band. It is the perfect summation of what these bands are attempting to do over here, and I specially think of the scene in which Pacino starts screaming “Attica! Attica!” (an allusion to the Attica Prison riots) in a desperate attempt to make those who have been forced into their company to join them and fight against the system. It just reminds me all too clearly of the fight that such Uruguayan bands aim to put up, and the reactions they cause for all the right and wrong reasons.

I was already disenchanted with the first wave of brit pop bands that emerged in Uruguay (led by Astroboy and Boomerang), if only because those bands always propounded that paying an unveiled homage was synonymous with being creative, and that singing in English challenged the status quo of Uruguayan music. It did not. The ways those bands imitated the music created elsewhere only spoke of a lack of imagination, and it polarized the music scene in a way that meant you couldn’t like La Vela Puerca or No Te Va Gustar if you listened to the Beatles or The Who. I just wonder how many of the musicians involved in Astroboy or Boomerang actually realized that the favorite album of Sebastián Teysera (La Vela Puerca’s singer) was no other than “Tommy” by The Who.

Soundays is a little different from these bands because their influences are certainly wider and that they are very good instrumentalists, but the band is not far removed from other Uruguayan ensembles that sing in English in the sense that you don’t have a thorough understanding of who they are when you listen to their songs. When you listen to their latest EP (“OLHA”; it can be downloaded for free on their site), you just get a mix of styles and influences that don’t add to a cohesive identity. You get to know the bands they appreciate, not the band that they think they are, or the performers that they want to become.

The British influence is all over “Colourful Face” and “Locked Love”, songs that are reminiscent of bands like Blur and Franz Ferdinand – and not necessarily in the best way. For its part, “To Hawaii” adds a West Coast vibe through harmonies that are a bit uneasy, as is the garage rock of “She Feels Like The Weather” (a cut that sounds like The Jam at their most primeval). But it must be said that both “Ghost In My Town” and “Don’t Matter If It Hurts Lights Will Guide Us To The Sun” are distinguished compositions that elicit full-on performances. The latter in particular provides their drummer with a ready chance to take off, and I have to say he is one of the most exciting Uruguayan drummers I have listened to in quite some time. Continue reading →

Los Amigos Invisibles (Sordromo) – Uruguayan Music

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“Los Amigos Invisibles” was Sordromo’s Final Album. It Came Out In 2004. Julio Berta Had Been Replaced By Martín Craciun, But Otherwise It Was The Same Lineup.

Sordromo’s fourth (and valedictory) album, “Los Amigos Invisibles” [“The Invisible Friends”] contains some of their best music together, but also a number of compositions that sound like nothing but rehashes of songs they had previously offered up. These compositions do not dominate the album in any sense, but they speak of a strained creative process, and upon listening to the album today it becomes evident why Rodrigo Gómez left the band shortly after the album had been issued.

To shunt the negative songs out of the way once and for all: “Lejos De Casa” [Far Away From Home] derives its melody and tonal structure from the song “Desnorteados” from the previous album, only that this time it lacks all punch. “Tanto Control” [So Much Control] and “Llamame” [Call Me] are clear examples of volume that tries to convey sentiment and that only ends up conveying patchiness.  “Nota Para Un Viaje” [Note For A Travel] is no much better, but it is placed right before the first truly good composition of the album (the title track), and there is a thematic bond at play that makes it more palatable.

But the one song that can’t be stomached no matter how much you try is “Un Secreto” [A Secret], where Sordromo apes the brit sound of bands like Astroboy. This song alone tarnishes the first side of the album irrevocably – and most of the compositions I criticized above were already segregated there to begin with.

Still, it is on the first side of “Los Amigos Invisibles” where we find one of Sordromo’s most memorable hits, “Lucerito” (a tale of broken farewells and reconstituted memories). The song has really exciting dynamics, and the breaks are as good as the ones found on “2 + 2= 3”, where the drums virtually jump from the speakers and run over you.  And the first side also hosts the angsty “El Filo Del Tiempo” [The Edge Of Time], a song that anticipates the hat trick that will close the album. “La Calma Y La Tormenta” [The Calm And The Storm], “A Punto De Equivocarme” [Just About To Make A Mistake] and “Inevitablemente” [Inevitably].

The three songs are linked by the despondency of the lyrics, and in “A Punto De Equivocarme” [Just About To Make A Mistake] Rodrigo’s voice sounds as if he were about to break down at any moment. It is a song in which emotions strafe the listener, and not a single bullet misses the target.

It works perfectly as the prelude to “Inevitablemente” [Inevitably], of course. The song is rendered solely by Rodrigo (he sings and plays the acoustic guitar), and his voice sounds bitten, as if after the previous caterwaul of emotions he has finally wiped the tears away, but tearing a bit of skin in the process. The song makes me think a lot of The Smiths’ final song, “I Won’t Share You”. Similar circumstances (creative differences), same message (it was good until it lasted, but that was it). Continue reading →

Mal Yo (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist)

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Mal Yo

“Mal Yo” [My Fault] is a Uruguayan trio that plays good ol’ rock & roll. It comprises guitarist/lead singer Diego Da Silva, bassist Martín Bernasconi and drummer Sergio Alastra. Sergio is actually slightly older than the rest, and (to my ear) he is the standout musician in the band. Yes, I have some catching up with the doctor to do.

Seriously, now, he provides the most memorable passages in their songs – look at the way in which he sustains the tension during the choruses to “La 22”, or the killer triplet that he uses to wrap up “A Tiempo” after having shifted beats all through the song. Besides, any person who has had the nerve to play in a band named “El Tatú Lunar” [The Lunar Tattoo] and then in another that was named “Monos Con Navajas” [Monkeys With Blades] has earned my absolute admiration. He must get invited to fewer parties than me.

The band is currently recording its debut album, and a couple of their songs can be downloaded for free on their website. (They can also be streamed on their MySpace page). These are “A Tiempo” [In Time], “Tu Lugar” [Your Place] and “La 22” [Table Number 22]. I have to admit that I am not really bowled over by their music on the whole, but one of these three songs has got me interested like little else. I must have listened to the song “A Tiempo” more than the three guys combined with all of their families and friends. Cubed. I honestly don’t recall having done something like that before, and that was the reason I decided to write about them. Because I don’t really like the other two songs they have, as I find the main riffs just a tad too generic – the main riff in “La 22”, for example, reminds me too much of songs like “Tu Dei” by Dsus4 (another Uruguayan band, and one that is sadly playing the great gig in the sky after having released a reasonably good debut album in 2006 entitled “Nada Permanece Quieto” [Nothing Remains Still]).

Mal You Playing Live: Martín Bernasconi, Sergio Alastra & Diego Da Silva

Mal Yo Playing Live: Martín Bernasconi, Sergio Alastra & Diego Da Silva

“A Tiempo” is the one song of theirs that sounds fresh and invigorating, and the lyrics display a very realized use of alliterative figures. Each verse is topped and tailed with the expressions “A veces” [Sometimes] and “A tiempo” [In Time], and the chorus is quite impacting, especially the second time around. The song also has a distinctive structure, as it comprises only two verses and a chorus that is played once and then repeated after the solo before the song concludes. That shifts the thematic emphasis of the lyrics, which being topped and tailed as described above would be imbued with a sort of conciliatory (or at least conclusive) air. This turns the song into something that ends up expressing losses that one would have thought were to be averted: “Y nosotros dos añoramos/nuestra vida perfecta” [And the two of us long for/our perfect life]. Continue reading →

Retrocedonia (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist)

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Retrocedonia Are Pablo Sassi, Sergio Astengo, Ana Garland & Alejandro Tuala

Retrocedonia Are Pablo Sassi, Sergio Astengo, Ana Garland & Alejandro Tuala

A band that got me quite intrigued, Retrocedonia is more pop than rock, but it can rock far more than your conventional poppy outfit. More than anything, it is a band whose sound melds old and new Uruguayan traditions in a very idiosyncratic way – they clearly know what has come and gone before and they make sure indicators are dropped all over the place, but not in a way that would devaluate what they are actually doing.

That is something tricky to pull off – to many younger listeners, the musical history of the country is often anything but cool or hip. They won’t necessarily listen to someone who plays an accordion and sings about the Mama Vieja (one of the most representative protagonists of Uruguayan Candombe) as this band does. Continue reading →