From the Vaults: Great Albums That Aren't New Releases: Kim Richey, Chris Isaak, Alison Krauss

I might make "From the Vaults" into an occasional little series; I think there's a need. In the mad rush of new music that floods us, it's easy to be overwhelmed and forget about sentimental favorites, old chesnuts, best friends. These are some albums that I had to actually retrieve the CDs from my old book of CDs -- how carefully I would remove the liner notes and disc from the jewel case and slip into their protective plastic sleeves in my big black book of CDs! -- and rip the albums into iTunes. In fact, these are probably some of the very first albums I ever imported into iTunes. They are also some of my all-time favs, and when I am deluged with quick and easy digital music from all over, these are some of the albums I always like going back to.

Kim Richey - Kim Richey: one of the most uniquely pleasurable albums to listen to straight through that I have ever known. I don't even necessarily know why that is, but it's true. Richey has taken some different and varied approaches in the intervening years, some I really like, some I only like so-so. But this album -- her 1995 debut -- is about as good as it gets, and certainly one of the best "driving albums" one could ever hope for. (Good "driving albums" should obviously be a whole separate category...) Simple, straightforward songs that are catchy, well-sung (I love that little yodel-catch in her voice), and have a chugging, toe-tapping, thigh-slapping beat.

Chris Isaak - Speak Of The Devil: some of Isaak's other albums tend to sound a little redundant, some are a little flimsy, some recent ones are trying to hard to be poppy and mainstream-y and slick. (Forever Blueis a notable exception, and is really a damn-near-perfect album from beginning to end.) But Speak of the Devil has a little bit of everything -- soaring balladry, rockabilly twang, a good sense of humor, and some classic, no-frills, straight-ahead Rock & Roll -- while still being meaty and authentic and totally accessible. When Isaak is good, there's nobody better, and this, for me, is Isaak at his most versatile and best.

Alison Krauss & Union Station - So Long So Wrong: the most perfect expression of the pop-bluegrass meld so far (in human history). Since this album, others have tried, but none have achieved the same level of perfect picking and pristine production (too much?). It's authentic bluegrass that sounds like bluegrass while also functioning perfectly well as pop music. I would further argue (tangentially) that Alison Krauss & Union Station are almost singlehandedly responsible (w/maybe a little assist from the Dixie Chicks) for reintroducing the banjo back into popular music, where I would argue it is currently exploding. AK+US’ beautiful, virtuosic use of the banjo showed everybody from Sufjan Stevens to Ron Sexsmith to Band of Horses to the Great Lake Swimmers that there is a primal, rootsy appeal to the banjo that is undeniable, and shouldn't be sniffed at or excluded to the sole domain of the bluegrass/Americana scene. At any rate, So Long So Wrong is a beautiful, sad, catchy, well-produced album that should be in everybody’s record collection, regardless of your overall genre preferences.

Scott Miller, For Crying Out Loud, the V-Roys, The Commonwealth, the Mountains of Virginia, and the Necessity of Self-Editing

Scott Miller has been on my cultural radar-screen since he fronted the late, great band The V-Roys, whose small but awesome output consisted of 2 albums and a live disc in the mid-to-late 90s, before the band broke up and everybody went their several ways. Their tiny, meteoric career culminated (as far as I’m concerned) with the amazing-from-beginning-to-end album All Over Town featuring some great, great songs, and co-produced by Steve Earle, who I think also helped write some of the songs. It was excellent country/rock, alt-country, Americana released into an uncaring 1996-1998 world just slightly ahead of the country/rock, alt-country, Americana revival. It’s too bad, because The V-Roys were consistent (in their short lifespan) in a way that Scott Miller has never quite managed to be, solo.

Post V-Roys, proud Virginia-boy Scott Miller put together a new band for himself called, naturally, The Commonwealth, and continued roots-rocking. His first album as Scott Miller & The Commonwealth, Thus Always to Tyrants, was excellent as well, but the next two albums left me a little flat. There are still some great songs on each, but his second effort Upside Downside suffers somewhat under the heavy-handed premise of an electronic side one and an acoustic side two (like a record, get it? Except that it’s a CD!), while Citation just isn’t Scott Miller’s finest hour of songwriting. (Though as usual, there are some real winners, like "Amtrak Crescent" on Upside Downside and "Wild Things" on Citation.)

Scott Miller’s latest album (seemingly without The Commonwealth?), For Crying Out Loud sounds just like the last few – both in sound and in unevenness. Per usual, there are some great songs and some real duds. "Sin in Indiana" is wordy, clunky, and not at all funny, and is strangely slotted in the second spot on the disc (a high profile placement to be sure), while his duet with (the always wonderful) Patty Griffin, “Right Here My Love” is short, sweet, perfectly lovely. The beginning-through-the-middle of the album slogs without much distinction, but if you can hold out until track 8, you’ll be rewarded with the catchy "She’s Still Mine," followed by the absolutely awesome Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano-pounding rave-up, “Claire Maire,” which hearkens back to some of the best V-Roys tracks, like “Mary” and “Amy 88.” Why these songs get buried in favor of milquetoast, mid-tempo muddles like “Iron Gate” (track 3!?), I can’t understand. But it’s obvious that Scott Miller is a great songwriter, just one that I wish would release albums half as frequently, and spend that extra time more carefully separating his wheat from his chaff.

I’m critical of Scott Miller because I really do like his music a whole lot; I'd consider myself an actual Scott Miller fan, and I hear his live shows are phenomenal. I want him to succeed and get to that same level of success as a Patty Griffin, for instance. He’s got the chops. I just wish his albums were as strong from front-to-back as the V-Roys’ All Over Town. (Or Patty Griffin's 1000 Kisses.) It should also be noted for the purposes of this blog in particular that Scott Miller not only shares his alma mater with the Culturephiles, but also, again, grew up not far from Greg in the mountains of Virginia. For these reasons (and many more) I want to see Scott Miller succeed. His albums are well worth checking out, but his best album is the Greatest Hits compilation I made for him myself, in my iTunes.

A Review of David Mead's Mysteriously Disappearing New Album, Almost & Always Along With Some Fervent Well-Wishes for the Future

David Mead - Almost & Always

Apparently this is David Mead's most recent album, but you coulda fooled me. I found it only because he is streaming much (all?) of it on his MySpace page, but it's otherwise seemingly impossible to find (except in Japan, I guess?). After posting on a Googlegroup I found devoted to David Mead -- proof positive that there's room in the internet for literally everything -- a super nice stranger shared his copy of the album with me. Thank you very much, Bob Michael! You really went above and beyond, simply out of kindness and friendliness! If these are the kinds of people who consider themselves David Mead fans, I'm proud to be one too.

Anyway, as for the music itself, I don't think I'm way off base to say that much of the album seems focused on Mead's recent divorce -- which I wouldn't have known anything about, except that it is mentioned in the official blurb about the album. So this isn't any stunning psychological insight on my part, while at the same time I don't think it takes much interpretation if you listen to the album through. It feels pretty raw, but in a good way. It's safely on the "great-art-comes-from-great-pain" side of the despondent music divide; there is still beauty and plenty of catchy tunes. It also isn't self-indulgent -- it's quite stripped-down and has a definite "living room recording" feel, which I mean in terms of intimacy, not in terms of sloppiness or anything. It has a very spare feel about it, yet it's catchy and pretty (oh, and also super-sad, naturally) with tasteful, purposerful flourishes of production -- the occasional woodwind, the sporadic string section. I think this whole album will probably get a lot of play on those "sad latenight" playlists. Or am I the only one who makes those? Well, it'll get a lot of "spins" (that's for my DJ friends!) on MY sad latenight playlists at least.

I'm already humming half these songs. They are really pretty great songs on the whole. David Mead is at his best when he's plumbing the depths of melancholy -- I prefer the introspective Indiana over the carnival-pop of Tangerine. And while I don't wish him any personal ill (on the contrary, I wish him all the happiness in the world!) if something bad HAD to happen in his life, at least the rest of us get to enjoy some fruits of that pain. I don't know if that's any real consolation to David Mead, but it should be.

The final question: what's the story with finding this album? It's not available for purchase or download on any of the big sites: Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, nor is it even available any longer at the unusual-seeming, and potentially somewhat unnerving, pay-what-you-want site NoiseTrade, which seems to be David Mead's preferred distribution method these days. Whether Mr. Mead is shopping himself around for a record label deal, or whether he's just hard at work trying to crack the code of how one ought to make money in the distribution of independent music, is anybody's guess. On top of everything else, the blog he links to on his official webpage seems to have been taken down. Which leaves fans, like myself, finding themselves dependent on the kindness of strangers to even get their hands on this album. Very strange in this world of instant downloadification, to be sure, but who knows what's going on. This MySpace blog post from November 2007 strikes a pretty glum tone about the economics of the music industry, but that was certainly a while ago now.

I suppose that we can only hope things have picked up a bit, or may yet pick up, for David Mead. He's got a lot of talent, and a lot to offer. Bob Michael, myself, and the rest of the Googlegroup are all pulling for you, David!