Harvey Haddix

You'll have to forgive that last entry. I try not to be so maudlin most of the time, but I'll stop short of a full apology because it was sincere on what was a pretty important night. Back to music!

mp3: The Baseball Project - Harvey Haddix

I wanted really badly to fall in love with the first album from The Baseball Project. A group of veteran rockers telling the second-tier legends of guys like Ed Delahanty and Curt Flood had the potential to rise above the standard past-worship seemingly inherent in most baseball literature (speaking of maudlin). The music turned out to be pretty generic jangly guitar stuff. But the songwriting was a peg or two above average, and occasionally quite poignant. One such instance is their take on Harvey Haddix, who threw a perfect game for 12 innings in 1959 only to end up the losing pitcher in the 13th. A recap of the game itself is followed by a rumination on how "the search for perfection is a funny thing," making Ol' Harvey's story all the more tragic for its universality.

Learn to enjoy this type of upset

Just as summer was getting started, I was handed the unenviable combination of going through a tough breakup and being unemployed. Neither of those conditions changed over the subsequent few months, but I found a silver lining in the ample opportunity and sadsack inclination to listen to a lot of music. Some of this was of considerably poor quality, embraced only because it was easily (and lazily) relatable in a moment of vulnerability. But I digested a lot of really great stuff too, songs that had universal themes and broad appeal without resorting to the kind of uninspired platitudes you can hear from any coffeehouse singer. Here are six superb tunes that have helped get me through this rough patch.

The Weakerthans - Civil Twilight (2007)
Let's start with the somewhat scattered thoughts of a recently-dumped bus driver. The poor guy has to endure the torture of driving by the scene of the breakup every hour each day, his mind rearranging the faces of his passengers into the one face he doesn't need to see. He tries to distract himself by counting the seconds and reciting provinces (Canadian band alert!), but once the sun sinks out of sight, he has as much trouble keeping her off his mind as he does coming to a stop on the icy roads. There's just enough crunch in the guitars and drive in the beat to occasionally make you forget our hero's desperation, but as in his case, it can't be fought off all day.

Ron Sexsmith - Hard Time (2008)
The night is a challenge for Ron Sexsmith too, but his mornings aren't any better. This is a simple, straightforward song, but impeccably crafted. He colors the edges with muted horns and croons sharp lines like "since I lost her love, seems I've lost my balance."

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Meeting Place (2008)
"He struggles to sleep at night, and during the day he's worried she's waiting in his dreams to drag him back to the meeting place." The foggy, dreamy orchestral pop setting holds the tiniest hind of dread alluded to in this line. It also lends a more mysterious status to the titular location, which is not a material place but the echo of a voice. The lush instrumentation, outstanding songwriting, and slight surreality make this one of the year's best songs.

Bob Dylan - You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (1975)
Thematically, this song is a bit of a stretch, but only just. It's wonderfully sad and so well-written it seems useless to praise it with words that couldn't match up. So I won't even try. Just listen.

Belle and Sebastian - Another Sunny Day (2006)
Stuart Murdoch is one of the best lyricists in the game. The fondly-remembered vignettes of the first five verses paint a picture of a relationship as brilliant as the striking instrumentation. The present tense used in all but a few lines makes the scenes more immediate and engrossing. Of course, in the end all this acute bliss only serves to salt the wounds revealed in the final stanza. I've been trying to avoid the laziness of extended lyric quoting in this post, but this song is so near perfection from start to finish that I feel I would be denying you otherwise.

Another sunny day, I met you up in the garden
You were digging plants, I dug you (beg your pardon)
I took a photograph of you in the herbaceous border
It broke the heart of men and flowers and girls and trees

Another rainy day, we're trapped inside with the train set
Chocolate on the boil, steamy windows when we met
You've got the attic window looking out on the cathedral
And on a Sunday evening bells ring out in the dusk

Another day in June, we'll pick eleven for football
We're playing for our lives, the referee gives us fuck-all
I saw you in the corner of my eye on the sidelines
Your dark mascara bids me to historical deeds

Now everybody's gone, you pick me up for a long drive
We take the tourist route, the nights are light until midnight
We took the evening ferry over to the peninsula
We found the avenue of trees went up to the hill
That crazy avenue of trees, I'm living there still

There's something in my eye, a little midge so beguiling
He sacrificed his life to bring us both eye to eye
I heard the Eskimos remove obstructions with tongues, dear
You missed my eye, I wonder why, I didn't complain
You missed my eye, I wonder why, please do it again

The loving is a mess, what happened to all of the feeling?
I thought it was for real; babies, rings, and fools kneeling
And words of pledging trust and lifetimes stretching forever
So what went wrong? It was a lie, it crumbled apart
Ghost figures of past, present, future, haunting the heart

Stevie Wonder - Please Don't Go (1974)
It was tough to leave off Stevie's propulsive lament "Another Star" (and let me just say how disappointed I am that, per Google, two people have beaten me to the phrase "propulsive lament"), but for me, "Please Don't Go" has no peers among breakup songs. This one features a simple but heartbreaking melody, the kind of inventive chord changes that were falling out of his pockets those days, and one of his most soulful vocal performances ever. Just when he's got your heart strings firmly in hand (with help from some soaring backing singers), at three minutes in he swerves into an upbeat quasi-gospel number, and thirty seconds later a total left turn into gritty Ray Charles territory to the fadeout. An exhilarating ending to a masterstroke of musical expression.

Heard Around Town

Location: Wendy's, Main St just west of Mercedes, Norman OK
Time: Mon 24 Dec, approximately 3:15 PM
Heard: rockabilly take on 'Red River Valley' featuring psychedelic organ

Also spotted today at Norman's Barnes & Noble: a prominently displayed "Relationships for Dummies" in the Sports book section, possibly by a disgruntled wife, girlfriend, or mistress.

Best to you over the holiday season. Look for the first installment of a 2007 music review later this week.

Heard Around Town

Location: McDonald's, NW corner of Porter and Robinson, Norman OK
Time: Sat 15 Dec, approximately 6:00 PM
Heard: lite-jazz version of Tower of Power's "Don't Change Horses (In the Middle of a Stream)"

Ethiobirds

mp3: Andrew Bird - Ethiobirds

Andrew Bird is probably the only artist whom I would be willing to give my attention for a ten and a half minute violin instrumental. If you are not so generous, that's completely understandable; I've just been captivated by this song recently and wanted to get some quick thoughts out there. If you're willing to give it a shot (and I hope you are), it's probably best to get some headphones and really concentrate on it.

"Ethiobirds" is from his Fingerlings 3 album, released in 2006 and the (obviously) third in a series of live collections. This track was recorded in his barn studio in rural Illinois, using a looping device which allows him to record a few lines and then play them back as long as is needed to create layers and layers of sound using just one instrument. It's a tough concept to describe (at least for me), but I think when you listen it will become pretty clear. He uses this method extensively in his live shows.

Mr. Bird sets things up by creating a nice little almost-rollicking groove with some pretty picking. At 1:23, he brings in more emotive, swooping lines that undulate in intensity and ride nicely along the staccato base. But things really start getting good around 5:03 where achingly beautiful phrases float above the still chugging beat. This gradually builds into a seriously gorgeous passage from about 6:40-7:20 that swirls and trills and just plain does it for me. From that apex, a slow fade into a pulsing pedal-effect drone finishes off the song.

I suppose I don't have anything particularly novel to say about this one, but I hope that my gushing helped you appreciate it at least a little more than you would have.

Pinklon

mp3: The Mountain Goats - Pinklon

Melodrama gets a bad rap, and no one does it better these days than John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. I love the vivid imagery in this song:

Let the bright colors come blushing gently back
to the cherry blossom trees around Pontiac
and guys in powder blue Starter jackets down on the street
let them come up from the corners, so light on their feet

Let the ticker tape come cascading down
above the Greyhound station out at the edge of town
and at the schoolyard fences where the children shout
let the chains fall away and let 'em all rush out

And though all good things in time will melt away
Pinklon Thomas is getting out of prison today

Out to the curbside let the grandmothers come
and stand in red gingham dresses in the afternoon sun
and from the windows high above the street, let the trumpets sound
and let confetti fill the air and gather on the ground

Let the guys all hurry on down to the gym
and throw the doors wide open and clear a space for him
let messages from strangers, spray painted on cheap drapes
hang from all the fire escapes

Let them spell it out on marquees and on window displays
Pinklon Thomas is getting out of prison today

You can get this and two other songs at the Daytrotter website, where Mr. Darnielle writes a paragraph on each. The rendition of Red River Valley is particularly of note. The fourth song is no longer available, but was the least worthwhile anyway.

I sincerely doubt that this is the last time you'll see the Mountain Goats mentioned around here.

Inside & Out

Feist's "Inside and Out". A slinky little number. Bee Gees cover (1979's "Love You Inside Out"). Outstanding start to finish, but beginning with a dissonant hum, grooving bass, sharp piano, and broken up sax sample, the 20 second intro is sublimity on a whole other level.
mp3: Feist - Inside and Out

Go home, kid

A disturbing pattern which had emerged in the last few months propagated itself once again Sunday evening. Ghostface Killah, east coast hip-hopper extraordinaire and creator of Fishscale, one of 2006's finest records, was scheduled to play a free(!) show at the University of Oklahoma. This was to take place outdoors on the east lawn of the student union. Clouds began threatening a few hours before showtime, but three acts took the stage with occasional sprinkles and far distant lightning causing no worry. So of course, as you have probably surmised by now, the heavens poured forth upon completion of the third opener's set. The crowd was advised to head indoors so as not to be struck by the not-so-distant lightning. 20 minutes later, security made the rounds, informing us that Ghostface would not be taking the stage that evening. Who needs an inclement weather backup plan, anyway? It's not like there was a huge building with several large gathering spaces thirty feet away.

At least I didn't pay for this one.

Neko Case, who also released an outstanding album last year with Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, had planned a stop in Oklahoma City in April of this year. I made the short drive and paid the Bricktown parking fees only to discover upon arrival that she and her band had decided the sound equipment was poor enough to warrant a cancellation. From what I hear, they had been a little unreasonable about this, but it was a huge disappointment whatever the circumstances.

Not through yet!

of Montreal stopped by Norman to play a free show in February. A few songs into their set, the power in the auditorium (indoors? this is possible?) cut out. Order was restored in a few minutes, but they couldn't get through one song before it was lost again. After the second outage, the band was forced to abandon their elaborate stage show and play an acoustic set. Kind of a fun change of pace, especially for those of us who had seen them before, but it's always embarrassing when your venues can't get simple things right like, you know, electricity.

This forehead-slapping series of '07 shows had precedent back in October of 2004. Ben Folds, my personal object of superfandom at the time, was playing at Lloyd Noble Center on campus. Why they decided to put someone like Folds in a full-size NCAA basketball arena is beyond me, but digression, etc. Long story short, the sound check exposed the equipment as inadequate (sound familiar?) and the show was cancelled. This was especially great news for my four friends who had driven in from Kansas that afternoon.

Something in the water? Am I just catching all the bad nights? Whatever it is, I'd sure like to see the percentage of shows with no major problems go way up around here.