Playlist: The Meaning of Live

Web posted November 25, 2010

By Libby Sterling | Juneau Empire

The live album — it's no new phenomenon. The first musicians to make recordings did so in a live setting, and they probably never imagined the possibility of the multitrack technology that has now become the norm in the industry. But there's something about capturing the many elements of an unperfected stage performance that keeps the live albums coming.

Bluegrass/country sensations The Avett Brothers like live albums so much that they've put out three, the most recent of which was released last month. After a month of studying "Live Volume 3" in addition to years of listening to their previous releases, I have lots of thoughts.

This is a band whose music takes me to both high and low places, whose songs make me cry one minute and laugh the next. Their ballads are sung with words that reach deep inside me and conjure emotions I didn't even know I was capable of feeling. What's more, their hoedowns are fun-filled and cause every muscle in my body to involuntarily dance along. The Brothers do it all, and they make me want to do it, too.

Having spent so much time with these boys singing their songs in my ears, I have fashioned in my mind how I imagine them to be as people. I've gathered from their soulful, loving lyrics that they must be the most passionate partners a girl could ever want — lovers who say the right things, who sing lyrics that rival those of any love song ever written. Then again, there's always the possibility that they're just faking it all for ratings. If so, they've got a really good gimmick going, and have caused lots of fans to genuinely fall in love with them in the process.

So, after more than a dozen releases, including two other live albums, why release a third? The songs have been heard before, and in their original recordings they can be enjoyed sans screaming audience. Shrieking fans bother me enough at shows, so why would I invite them into my living room?

Charlotte, North Carolina's enthusiasm elevates as the album rolls along. Luckily, they don't sing along with all the words in every song, just the lines that are easy to remember. They offer tumultuous support when an unfixable fib is made in one of the first songs in the show. Their rapturous cheering also buys them a three-song encore. Though less fanatical, the band appears to have just as much fun as the crowd, voicing their appreciation for their fans multiple times throughout the set.

"It's real difficult to sound sincere on a microphone, but we love you all, too, in a very big way," Seth Avett says in response to thunderous applause after the live rendition of one of my favorite tunes of theirs, "When I Drink."

The production quality is a bit higher in this album than in the first two live recordings. Each musician is clearly heard and balanced well with the other stage elements. The clinking of bar glasses that can be heard in "Live Volume 2" don't appear in this latest release, nor does the occasional out-of-tune note with which their first live title is littered.

If it is personality that a listener is seeking in their musicians, they'll find much more of it in a live recording than in a product that has been perfected — and possibly dehumanized — in the studio. "Live Volume 3" contains minimal music recesses between tracks, but each tidbit of banter reveals another side of the music and the songwriters behind it.

The live aspect of each song, sung a bit differently than we're used to hearing it, gives a fresh perspective on tunes that have been spun the same exact way hundreds of times. Here and there, a vocalist will take a liberty, embellish a line, revise a lyric or simply change the emphasis of a certain phrase to breathe new possibilities into interpretation. Songs that have provoked so much thought and emotion in the studio recordings are now taking a second shot at the hearts of their listeners, and their shot is right on target.

I'd still rather see them live with my own eyeballs, but if a live disc is the closest I'm going to get, I'll take it.

'Dance' a delight even for a couch potato

Web posted November 11, 2010

By Libby Sterling | Juneau Empire

Hundreds of fiddlers record albums full of tunes each year. Some write their own original music, while others attempt to play tunes as closely as possible to the way they are traditional rooted. Others still cling to the traditional aspects of tunes they have come to love, but also infuse them with their own spices and interpretations.

Vermont-based Lissa Schneckenburger is a fiddler of the latter persuasion. Her September release, "Dance," features 10 traditional tunes with her twist put on them. She chose to record tunes that have been played by fiddlers over hundreds of years, translating them in her own way to speak to what she called "a new generation of musicians."

From "Petronella" to "Jamie Allen," the album is a delight. As its title implies, these are certainly dance tunes. Each of which is attached to a particular traditional dance of the contra persuasion. But unlike many dance CDs, "Dance" isn't just a marathon of marches. Its pace and tone changes from track to track, walking the line between lively and relaxing and therefore appropriate for both morning and end-of-day listening. So one may spin the disc while lounging on the couch, but it's likely that some of the livelier tracks will at least lead listeners to tap their toes in appreciation.

The fiddle is featured as the album's main voice backed by guitar, but a handful of other instruments are sprinkled here and there for good measure - a walking bass line, a few plinks of a banjo, toots of horns and a piano accordion that plays alongside the fiddle like a good friend.

Schneckenburger will bring the sounds of New England to the far west with series of performances and a workshop in Southeast Alaska. Accompanied by guitarist Bethany Waickman, Schneckenburger will begin this weekend in Sitka with fiddle and guitar workshops at noon at Blatchley Middle School, followed by a 7 p.m. performance at the Sitka Performing Arts Center. Waickman and Schneckenburger will then hit the road for a performance at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Juneau. Their last Alaskan appearance will be Tuesday at the College Coffeehouse in Fairbanks.

Lament of pumpkins gone to waste

Web posted November 4, 2010

By Libby Sterling | Juneau Empire

These few days after Halloween make me sad. All over town beautiful, juicy pumpkin meat left to rot in the rain. I think of all the soups, pies and other baked goods that could have been made with the food that is now nothing more than compost. All those seeds that could have so easily become toasted snacks for us are instead going back to the earth.

There is a bright spot in these post-jack-o'-lantern times - pumpkin prices drop dramatically as the demand for carving squash suddenly dies. They came a long way to get here; don't let all this imported biomass go to waste.

October gave way not only to a bountiful harvest, but also to a crop of new releases in the music world. As with any culinary recipe, some ingredients were mixed more successfully than others, but none are failures. Some selections fill the ears of their listeners with perhaps more auditory calories than are needed, but there are morsels of goodness within each one.

"The Fool" by Warpaint

My taste is very picky when it comes to vocalists. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what the qualities I look for in a singer; it's more of a case-by-case basis. To be honest, in this case I'm not completely thrilled.

Warpaint is a female quartet out of Los Angeles whose sound has been described as hypnotic post-punk. As far as instruments are concerned, these girls are doing alright. They use their guitars and drums to create a thick, layered sound. However, if this were a war between voices and instruments, the vocals may as well surrender - in most cases they aren't strong enough to compete with the music in what is supposed to be the background. Oft-flat vocal lines are consistently buried so far under the layers of instruments that there's no hope of understanding the lyrics. This leads me to believe that these ladies don't put much emphasis on their words - not that there's anything wrong with that.

That said, a certain track did catch my attention enough to be noted. In track six, "Baby," Warpaint stripped away enough of their usual layers for a beautiful song to emerge - the best track on the whole album. The vocals are solid and easily distinguishable above a simple acoustic guitar part. The background vocals are sprinkled on top in moderation, creating interesting intervals that probably wouldn't be most musicians' first choice, but they work very well in this piece. This song is so good, it makes me wonder if I missed something in the previous five tracks, so I go back and listen again. The verdict: it's a little better after another time through, but "Baby" still has something to it that the rest of the album just doesn't.

"Weather" by Annie Gallup

Annie Gallup is a poet. I was struck with this as soon as her disc began to spin in my player. Her chosen verbiage is satisfying and pleasant. She tells stories of important events in her own, unique way - just the way I like to hear them.

Gallup's backup band is fabulous, consisting of a traditional string quartet. This is rare for most singer-songwriters, but I applaud Gallup for taking the risk in ditching her guitar. It works. The entire album is backed with the strings bowing and plucking away to create a unique soundscape to highlight Gallup's vocals.

So Gallup's lyrics are great and the background music is great, but the two of them don't quite mix. I'm torn between the two sides - letting loose in the midst of beautiful string arrangements vs. listening to Gallup's truly interesting lyrics, which require intense focus. Her vocal parts are just too wordy and delivered too quickly to properly balance with the peaceful movement of the string parts.

I'd rather like to hear her lyrics read as spoken word, and I get my wish in tracks four and six, "Sixty Eight" and "Late," respectively. In the first, Gallup speaks boldly above a strong cello's pluck, leaving ample reflection space between stanzas. In the second, Gallup's fast-paced delivery of words, which hurts her in other numbers, finally works to her advantage.

It's clear that Gallup has stuff to say, and it's clear that she has good taste in backup bands. This is, unfortunately, another example of very cool ingredients just not mixed as successfully as they could have been.

Playlist: Red Molly transcends electricity

Web posted October 7, 2010

By Libby Sterling | Juneau Empire
There's nothing like a power outage to focus a creative worker. I relearned this lesson firsthand during Tuesday's blackout.
I was home at the time, beginning to type this very column. I was fighting the many distractions that come with computer work - unanswered e-mails, breaking news updates and sales on winter gear. The lights had been flickering all morning as the wind and rain hammered down on us, so I wasn't surprised when the electricity gave out entirely.
I was unsure whether or not the outage was area-wide, but a call to the office confirmed that I shouldn't travel there in search of voltage.
Luckily, I had a pencil and paper handy and a stack of freshly split spruce begging to be burnt. I ignored my half-cycled washing machine, resisted the urge to organize the junk drawer (though I nearly had to in order to find a pencil sharpener) and sat down to write the old-fashioned way.
Abbie Gardner, Laurie MacAllister and Carolann Solebello don't need manufactured electricity to do what they do best - harmonize. The Red Molly members discovered their vocal compatibility at a campsite during an East Coast folk festival. That was six years ago, and since that first song they have brought their music to stages all over the country.
The buzz about these women has been everywhere; their music has been playing on radio stations locally and nationally, and I've been hearing rave reviews from friends in the Anchorage area, where concerts were performed over the weekend. The group will be in Juneau on Sunday to play a set in the folk-friendly Resurrection Lutheran Church, but not before first stopping in Sitka on Friday and in Ketchikan on Saturday.
Judging by their fourth and newest release, "James," I'd bet Red Molly is a fun group to see live. Anyone can create perfect vocal harmonies in a studio, but to witness the act right in front of your ears is truly special. I have loads of appreciation for anyone who puts in the hours of practice necessary to pull off three-part harmonies (and stay friends) in song after song, especially while taking turns singing the lead part as these three do.
"James" starts right off with such vocals in "The Last Call," featuring instruments in only the last half of the song. That's another thing: these ladies aren't just great singers. They also provide their own instrumental soundscape, complete with guitar, bass, banjo and Dobro on stage. "James" also features guest artists (all males, coincidently) on bass, percussion, fiddle, mandolin, piano and one vocal part.
"James" is a collection of songs, with two composed by Gardner. One of them, "Troubled Mind," is one of my favorites on the album. Its melodies are catchy, springing from the tune's minor base and accompanied by bluesy instrumentals. "Lookin' for Trouble" is my other top pick, which also features minor chords and a slow blues feel.
The album equally balances slow-paced tunes with quicker numbers, the quickest of which are "The End of the Line," "Troubled Mind," "Jezebel," "Tear My Stillhouse Down," "Poor Boy" and "Can't Let Go."
My official recommendation: go see this group in concert, at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Resurrection Lutheran Church. Even if the power goes out again, I'm sure it won't deter them from giving you an evening to remember.

Playlist: The bliss of pop culture ignorance

Web posted September 23, 2010

By Libby Sterling | Juneau Empire

I was recently chided for my lack of familiarity with Casey Kasem, a radio personality and voice actor who apparently influenced much of America during his nearly 60-year career. For those who also don't know, Kasem is most popular for his role as Shaggy in the "Scooby-Doo" cartoon and as host of the "American Top 40" radio countdown show - he told America what to listen to.
My ignorance to Kasem's existence could possibly be attributed to my age. During the peak of his career, I was busy making stop-motion Playmobil films and dressing up my highly tolerant cats in costumes - being a kid, basically. But I'd like to think that my unawareness of Kasem's reach is due to the way I was brought up to experience the world.
I grew up without cable TV; in its stead, I clung to public broadcasting, the daily news and my local library as my main sources of what was hip and happening at the time. Ask me about LeVar Burton, the Mario Bros. or Bill Watterson's comics, and we'll have something on which to base our conversation. But when it comes to most items of the '80s and '90s mainstream, I've always been pretty removed, clueless when it comes to trivia.
Fast forward to present day. I'll admit, the Internet has enhanced the way that we experience pop culture. It's more difficult to opt-out of marketing messages. Nonetheless, I've found that I still embrace many of the anti-influence habits from my childhood as an adult. I don't much value television - at least not enough to pay for it. I quickly tired of Facebook, and my MySpace page sits dormant, all its direct marketing going to waste.
I don't seem to have trouble following the news of the local music scene, but when it comes to national and world music, it's easy to fall behind. I often don't learn of new releases from artists I think I'm following until well after used copies of the CD are available on Amazon for a penny plus shipping.
Subsequently, I'm forced from time to time to go on the hunt for some new-to-me music to add to my library. Sometimes a friend will supply a much-appreciated tip, but last week I decided to do some digging of my own in unknown territory, not sure of what I'd find. I tossed aside handfuls of mediocre titles, but four albums stood out that I deemed worthy of mention. For all I know, they may already be famous, winning awards and appearing on billboards across the nation. But to me they are simply a breath of fresh, musical air.

Paul Curreri, "California"
I have large respect for the album as an art form, and it's my guess that Paul Curreri does, too. Even from first listen, it's clear that this 2009 release has a clearly constructed beginning, middle and end. The album starts moderately and modestly with "Now I Can Go On," and things really start to warm up by track two, "Once Upon A Rooftop," in which Curreri's fancy, yet accessible guitar work begins to fly, accompanying his comforting vocals.
While it is cohesive as a whole, each piece in "California" has a different attitude. Some feel like the desert, some allude to the cowboy on the cover, and some make me get all existential. My favorite by far is the title track, "California," for its simplicity and equally for its technical complexity. The song is stripped down to fingerstyle guitar and vocals, and it is composed in a way that really gets inside of me. It makes me want to play music too, and that's one of the highest compliments I can give to any musician. But I have one complaint: I wish so much that the song would just end, rather than simply fading out - what a buzz kill.

Shayfer James, "The Owl & The Elephant"
This album is fun from the get-go, with a drum roll and bold piano chords beginning track one, "Life Is Beautiful." Lyrically, the song picks up somewhere near the climax of an adventure story in which the heroes are about to find their way to safety after having just faced some sort of perilous situation. The piano base continues throughout the album, accompanied by all manner of instruments from strings to bells.
The tunes range from ballady to epic, most featuring narrative lyrics that tell gripping tales. The most dramatic, "Every Fallen Feather," evokes pictures in my mind of the characters being sung about. Its impassioned storyline is set to an emotive tune.
If you're not one for paying attention to lyrics, I bet you'll still appreciate this album's musical arrangements. Even if all the stories were sung in a foreign language, "The Owl & The Elephant" would still make for an enjoyable listening experience.

The Rescues, "Let Loose the Horses"
I'm not as instantly drawn to this album as the others reviewed in this column, but something about it keeps me from dismissing it entirely. The Rescues create an interesting sound, featuring both male and female vocals over a traditional rock band grouping of instruments - guitars with varying amounts as well as the absence of distortion, drums that reverberate as if in a stadium, punchy bass lines and occasional instrumental solos. But even with standard instrumentation, it's the arrangements in this album that stand out to me. The sound that is created ends up being a few steps above the typical, often predictable alt-pop stuff you see everywhere these days.
If you only want to spend a few dollars on this band, spend them on "Can't Stand The Rain," "The City And The River," "Stay Over" and "Stranger Keeper." Coincidently, these tracks are all located near the end of the album, where the best stuff usually hides.

Vincent Minor, "Vincent Minor"
By this point I'm way over my word limit, but I can't let this find go unmentioned. I have fond memories of listening to this album, even though I've only spun through it a few times. Officially released on Tuesday, this is Vincent Minor's debut album, and I eagerly hope this isn't the last that we will hear from him.
The music has a timeless feeling to it. It's also unassuming and natural. I picture Minor in his Los Angeles apartment, silencing the ring of his telephone as he composes piece after piece while hunched over his piano, all the while stylishly dressed.
The feeling I get from listening to this album reminds me of the fun I've had over the years listening to The Verve and Badly Drawn Boy, yet I hate to draw comparisons. "Vincent Minor" is unique, a mixed-media painting in a gallery full of black-and-white photographs. The album's tasteful integration of varying levels of orchestration into its songs is well-balanced; there's a lot going on all at once, but it all blends together to create one unit. With each listen of this album in the future, I foresee discovering something I never noticed before.

Playlist: 'The Way Out' is The Books' thrifting at their finest

Web-posted August 26, 2010

By Libby Sterling | Juneau Empire
In the first seconds of The Books' newest album, "The Way Out," listeners are greeted by the voice of a man offering the opportunity of a new beginning. He introduces the experience that is about to be had by noting that the following will be "music specifically created for its pleasurable effects upon your mind, body and emotions."
Apparently, the music is also "mixed with a warm, orange-colored liquid." After an instrumental interlude, a different man's voice appears, offering to be our guide in a journey. "I hope to be of help without intruding any more than is absolutely necessary," he says.
Plinks and planks of bass and guitar strings start softly, crescendoing as percussion and vocal lines drift in and out of the soundscape. More guiding voices appear and disappear, offering advice that seems to be building with the music until the track is over. Then it's on to number two.
This style of auditory collage is what characterizes The Books. For the past 10 years, band members Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto have scoured East Coast thrift stores for tapes containing interesting audio clips that they'd like to use in their songs. Backed by cello, guitar, toys and other instruments as various as the audio samples they acquire, they interject their own lyrics into multi-layered compositions.
The natures and topics of The Books' collected samples are endless. "The Way Out" begins and ends with "Group Autogenics," hypnotic recordings mixed in a lighthearted style, yet with thoughtful undertones. By track four, listeners experience "A Cold Freezin' Night," which features the voices of children expressing their anger at others using violent words, accompanied by a fast-paced musical backdrop.
Near the middle of the album, "Thirty Incoming" uses voicemail messages to paint a portrait of a man in love. Dial tones and answering machine beeps are remixed with strings, vocal tones and heartbeat-like drums that build and build, suggesting strong emotion. The song truly is a journey, as are most by The Books. Their ability to compile contrasting content into cohesive compositions is strong, and they pursue their craft with professional dedication.
In form with their previous albums, it's not necessarily necessary to separate each track as its own song. Actually, in most cases, to do so would rob the listener of the big picture that the individual pieces combine to create.
In a book, each chapter is partitioned by pages but is informed by and so informs the others. Similarly, each track on "The Way Out" acts as a bridge between the previous and the subsequent. But it also stands alone as its own unique work, perhaps sharing properties with others but also containing attributes all its own.
Like a good book, new things are noticed each time through. I've been listening to The Books' other albums, "The Lemon Of Pink," "Thought For Food," and "Lost and Safe," diligently for years and I still uncover fresh discoveries with each new spin.
Their current record label, Temporary Residence, catalogs the band as "eclectic, innovative electronic-folk-pop that are so ahead of their time that your kids will be ripping them off." Perhaps they are ahead of their time, but their music creates a listening experience that brings me back to simpler times. Perhaps their technique could be considered electronic, but the analog nature of their mixing implies splicing tape more so than manipulating code with computer software.
I've often been disappointed in the past at the lack of material available about The Books' music. Their CD jackets never came with lyrics, and it was difficult to find official commentary online. I want to know where they found this or that sample, why they chose to compile it in the way that they did and how they experienced their own music as they made it. Well, "The Way Out" is the first Books album that comes with full lyrics in the liner notes.
If that's not enough - and it isn't for me - their blog explains in detail much of what you'd want to know about each song on the album. But before you read it all, be sure that you're really ready to see what is behind the curtain - just because it has been opened doesn't mean you have to look inside. After all, half of the magic behind the music is in the mystery.
Learn more at www.thebooksmusic.com.