Under the Covers

I appreciate a good cover. When I discovered Ryan Adams's cover of "Wonderwall" from Brit-pop superpower Oasis, I couldn't believe how he transformed such a catchy/vapid/stuck-in-your-head-all-day song into a sad/haunting/put-on-a-mix-tape-and-convince-a-girl-you're-sensitive, song. Or Andrew Bird's* cover of Dylan's "Oh Sister." He puts some of those sweet avian sinews on the skeleton of an otherwise great tune.

It's also nice to hear a cover that is not trying to reinvent the original. The Aimee Mann/ Michael Penn cover of the Beatles "Two of Us" is just Aimee Mann/Michael Penn singing "Two of Us". I sometimes tend to think if the song was great in the first place, leave it the hell alone. Sort of like chili. Stop adding. Serve it up. I can even swallow this Calexico/Iron&Wine covering the Stones "Wild Horses," which is one of the most over-covered songs of all time and was played no fewer than 100 times during Lilith Fair in 1999.

This is where you, dear reader, stop asking questions because I will never say why I was at Lilith in '99. And '98, for that matter. Some things are better left secrets. But my God did those Indigo Girls lay down some sweet harmonies while I was swaying and searching for my manhood.

Also at Lilith, fresh off her fame from one of the stupidest songs ever, is Joan Osbourne. I remember her being disheveled and uninteresting. Or maybe I was too busy smoking a clove cigarette to pay attention. In any case, it is Joan Osbourne upon whom my wrath is about to turn. It was a few days ago when I learned that she has taken up "Cathedrals" by Jump Little Children. Now, in interest of full disclosure, I love Jump. They were one of those bands that provided the soundtrack to my formative years, and to many others who went backpacking in Europe after college. They weren't at Lilith Fair. They had great live shows. The song "Cathedrals" had a brief moment in the sun, I would say it is their most widely played tune, and I always loved its orchestration. It's a damn good song. So here is Joan, who successfully puts a grinder to the sharp edge of the song, and makes it dull as a dinner plate. If God was one of us, he would turn vengeful and angry and do a little smiting.

However, I guess I should reserve my own wrath to fighting the real darkness. Like when Hillary Duff gives my generation the onus of allowing this cover to be played in a packed arena. No Hillary, it's not your generation. And please, please, fade away.

My Melancholy Ladies

I little while back, I introduced all of you – my poor, culture-curious, gentle readers – to a Scandinavian singer/songwriter, Ane Brun. Surely enraptured with the surreal video I posted of the leadoff track from her new album Changing of the Seasons, and enticed by my brief words of praise for her concert, you spent some time listening to the tracks posted to her MySpace page, and wondering what to make of the 74 rating the album garnered on the review-aggregating website Metacritic (albeit from a very limited number of reviews). Don’t worry, my culturefellows, I’m back to weigh in with the definitive review of this engrossing new album. Yes, it is engrossing. Just as her live show, wherein she performed solo, accompanying herself only on a huge (classical?) guitar, Changing of the Seasons is a quiet, intricate album, lyrically poignant and generally melancholy. The album fleshes out the simple sound of her live performance, but keeps the wistful fragility very much intact. I’ve found that with repeated listens, the album indeed improves; each time through I find a new song to be captivated by. When Ane Brun speaks, her accent may make her sound ever-so-slightly Scottish, but when she sings, her high warble actually has a huge range and an abundance of empathy for the characters in her self-penned songs. Believe me, my discerning culturephillic friends, though I may have an inveterate fondness for melancholy lady-singer/songwriters, Ane Brun stands tall with any of the cadre of like-minded ladies that overflow my iPod.

I was also lucky enough this week to see a live performance from another in this selfsame coterie: Chicago-based singer/songwriter Rachel Ries. Her performance, with Chicago-based improv-comedy mainstays, Cook County Social Club, limited her to three scant songs, but accompanied with Ari Bolles on standup bass and harmony vocals, it was clear that Ries deserved inclusion in my league of lonesome ladysingers.* I have enjoyed her debut album For You Only for some time, but the show inspired me to pick up a copy of her most recent release Without a Bird, which is similarly excellent. Ries’s vocal warble is a little more folksy than Brun’s – and were both ever to sing in a quartet with Sinead O’Connor and Martha Wainwright their vibratos combined might well dislodge the last remaining vestiges of the polar icecaps – but in the performance I enjoyed, Bolles's harmonies were simple and sweet and grounded Ries’s vocal idiosyncrasies beautifully. Without a Bird is even simpler in production than Brun’s Changing of the Seasons, but both share a mellow, introspective core; if I could assign the perfect setting for listening to both albums it would be a lazy Sunday midmorning with late-winter sunlight tendrils splashed on the cool apartment floor, wrapped in a blanket with a coffee on a plush couch with the thick culture-filled heft of the Sunday paper, waiting emotionally for the (uncertain) return of a lover. Ane Brun, frankly, writes better songs, pound for pound – there is more melody in her songcraft, and she deploys brain-infiltrating hooks both effortlessly and with greater frequency; Rachel Ries tends to stick in one musical gear. But Ries also has some excellent wordplay in her lyrics that in songs by lesser writers could very easily come off as affected or trite, but instead are near-uniformly clever.

None of this is challenging music, naturally, but it is evocative and plaintive and generally gorgeous. Which, frankly, is just how I like my music, my moods, and my lady-singer/songwriters. Similar-minded culturefreaks, rejoice!


*All alliteration in this post appears with abject apologies to Tamalehawk’s terrific gastrointestinal tracts and treatises.

The Brief Sort-of-Interesting Life of A Guy Whose Ancestors Were Much More Compelling Than He Ever Was

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have to preface my remarks (not to be confused with 'review') on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by saying that for whatever day-to-day-life-related reason, I took a much longer time to finish the book than I perhaps should have. And in the end, I liked it, but didn’t love it. Now I'm left feeling somewhat apologetic for not loving this critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning, smash hit of a novel, and I’m prepared to say that taking a relatively long time to get through it hurt my relationship with the book. I didn’t give the proper time to reading, to forging that all important book-reader relationship, to lying on my back and allowing the warm river of prose to carry me away. (Metaphorically speaking.) At the same time, hold on just a minute here! Why didn’t the book pull me in more? Why wasn’t I captivated? Engrossed? Enraptured?!?! On second thought, this is all Junot Diaz’s fault! This book should have grabbed me by the throat and throttled me! (Metaphor!)

At any rate, I’m sad to say that I didn’t love this book; I feel a little behind-the-curve about it. Though I enjoy being a self-styled contrarian, I’m also perpetually worried that I simply don’t understand the things I don’t like, and that smarter people enjoy the same things because of their hugely elevated understanding. (To some extent, the massively popular Wicked by Gregory Maguire was like this: I HATED that book and felt like I just must not be “getting it.”) I liked Oscar Wao without ever feeling completely involved in the story or the lives of the characters. I appreciated the complex construction of the book as a whole, and there were certainly some powerful moments – especially in the historical/"past" sections of the book. I was least engaged in the “modern day” portions, featuring our eponymous protagonist Oscar, who I never felt was particularly vital or important to the narrative.

At the same time, portions of the book (especially regarding the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo) were fascinating. Some of the characters (La Inca, Beli, and Abelard for example) were charismatic and genuinely tragic. If I could give this book an extra half a star, I would.* I enjoyed it; I just didn’t love it. I didn’t perpetually count the minutes until I could dive back in, fire it up, soar away on its wings, soak it in, and/or travel its dusty path. (You know, metaphorically.)


*Probably. Maybe. It’s for the best that I don’t actually have to consider half-star possibilities.


View all my reviews.

New Song, Old Soul

I love it when someone sings and their voice is a total surprise. Winner in this category is undoubtedly Paul Potts, British mobile phone salesman turned opera star. If you haven't seen him win the hearts of every English old woman in this segment, you are missing the gold standard of reality TV.

A year or two ago I met Joe Pug through some mutual friends. I learned he had moved to Chicago to do some carpentry and music. Low and behold, he turns up on this month's Paste sampler with this single called Hymn #101.

Pug's voice is war torn at 23. There's obvious Dylan in there, and about 12 other singer-songwriter-Civil War soldiers. What struck me most about this track is that it is an honest to God piece of WRITING. So much of what we listen to now is either obtuse enough we think its good, or so over written that their isn't a bit of mystery left to the lyric. I like that Pug is almost aggressive in his word choice and imagery. There's word play, emotion, and you feel a little smarter for listening. Songs with stories. That's my style right now.

Better yet, he's giving his music away. Check out his site and send him some postage. You got yourself a new album.

Sigh of Relief (or: Back to the Culture)

And now, back to our regularly scheduled culture:

-Saw Ane Brun live at Schubas the evening after Halloween; she was great.
Ane Brun - The Treehouse song


-Arrived late; missed Theresa Andersson, who was mostly the reason I wanted to go to the show. Argh!!


-Re-reading A Confederacy of Dunces right now. I don't remember the last time I re-read a book, but I felt suddenly compelled to revisit the novel I regularly trot out whenever I'm asked for my all-time favorite book (SO many people want to know). I think the last book I re-read might have been Watership Down, my favorite book when I was younger. I'm not big into re-reading. But now that I mention it, I kinda want to read Watership Down again...

Yes We Can

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Ryan Adams, Totally Normal. Who'd Have Guessed?

Ryan Adams is just the singer in the band. For real, he’s just the lead singer of The Cardinals! His new album, billed as “Ryan Adams & The Cardinals” is called Cardinology, in case there was any doubt. It’s all about the BAND, man. He tells the press with some regularity about his happiness with the band and how comfortable he is with their sturdy, ensemble-support. Critics far and wide, too, love the new “Ryan Adams: Just A Bandmate” angle, and lavish praise on The Cardinals and how they manage to focus his songwriting and craft.

But I miss old Ryan Adams. Crazy, restless, unfocused Ryan Adams. Inconsistent, uncategorizable, brilliant Ryan Adams. I don’t really get why everybody is so eager for Ryan Adams to “settle down” and focus his songwriting. (I refer to his “settling down” only in terms of music, of course; I am unequivocally glad that he has apparently kicked the drugs these days.) Anyway, why should he settle down? Why can’t he make all kinds of wildly different, wide-ranging albums with distinct and varied songs? I guess critics like focus and consistency. Solidity. Whatever. I will stand up, however, and proclaim that I like the variety – not knowing what kind of song might come next on a Ryan Adams album. If I could play so many different types and styles of music, you can bet that I would. Why should Adams just stick to middle-of-the-road country-rock, like The Cardinals aptly display on Cardinology? They are a great country-rock band; they can jam and everything (I saw them live). That’s great. And sure, there is something to be said for playing to your strengths: I wouldn’t buy a Ryan Adams electronica hip-hop album. But I also seem to be in the minority in that I love the freewheeling Ryan Adams. I miss Love Is Hell, an album most people besides myself seem to consider one of the low points in the “inconsistent” Adams oeuvre. But I love that album – dense, sad, maybe a tad overproduced…doesn’t matter. I still think it's a great, tragic, powerful record, full of moodiness and heartbreak. I wish that a mere 1/10th of the heartbreak on Love is Hell made a cameo appearance on Cardinology.

I understand the case for consistency. And let's be clear, Cardinology is a solid album from beginning to end: no tracks you have to skip every time you listen through the record. But you know what? I would sacrifice all that consistency for some brilliance. I don’t mind skipping “Halloweenhead” on Easy Tiger because I get “Two” and “Everybody Knows.” I don’t even mind all the total crap on Demolition (in fairness, not a proper album) because “Desire” and “Dear Chicago” are brilliant and beautiful. Maybe Cardinology hangs together as a more coherent album, but there’s no standout track (no furious beauty or wild brilliance), no song that jumps out and punches you in the gut (remember “La Cienga Just Smiled” and “Sylvia Plath” from Gold? Wow! Worth mentioning: "Enemy Fire" has to be skipped every time through the same album). Usually, I can count on at least a couple of those transcendent songs on a Ryan Adams record (and a dud or two). To me, Cardinology is a safe record, a fine record. A consistent record. But what price consistency? It's the kind of record every critic has always asked Ryan Adams to make. But the Ryan Adams I really love would have told those critics to fuck off and made an album of electronica hip-hop.



edited to add: The review of the album at Paste is actually pretty much right in line with my feelings. In case you wanted a second dose of the same opinion.