Reel Big Fish: Greatest Hit and "more"

The title of this Greatest Hit album tells you something about the band it covers. Tongue planted firmly in cheek this high-energy ska band sends up a lot of things, especially the music industry and themselves.

The lyrics are consistently sarcastic but the music packs a lot of toe-tapping energy into the album's 19 tracks.

There may only be one hit here (that's "Sell Out", a hit you actually might have missed). But as for the more, there's a lot that's great, from a cover of 80's hit "Take on Me", to a song about Beer, called, well, "Beer" to a couple of great tracks about wanting a girl who doesn't want you, either because she has a boyfriend "I want your girlfriend" or because she has a girlfriend ("She has a girlfriend now").

Reel Big Fish's brand of rock might not be ready for primetime, but it's certainly infectious and a great pick for a rainy day or just when you're tired or bored.

James Brown will be missed

A music icon died today. Let's take a moment to remember the Godfather of Soul on this Christmas day in the best way possible.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So on the advice of my first comment (that's right, posting the first comment gives you REAL POWER) I tweaked the template, and changed a few other things while I was at it, including moving the ad banner to the side and adding an email link at the bottom of the page where you can drop me line.

So if you have a comment about the changes, go to the bottom of the page!

Santa thought I was good this year... sucker!!!!

But he did get me a 1 GB mp3 player compatible with Napster to go... meaning my music addiction is about to get worse.

Nickel Creek: This Side

For a band I discovered not that long ago, Nickel Creek has quickly become one of my favorite bands. A jazz-inflected bluegrass, Nickel Creek is one of the tightest bands I have ever heard, and they gained their virtuosity the old fashioned way: playing together. A lot.

The band's three core members are in their 20's and have been playing together for 12 years. In other words, they have spent more of their lives as a band than not.

Their second album, This Side sees the band pushing the boundaries of bluegrass a little more in the direction of folk rock while still keeping the jazz and classical overtones that marked their first album. The result is an even richer and more satisfying album. It's like chili- more ingredients just make it better.

Like their first album, This Side establishes itself right away with an instrumental, just in case you thought the band had all started drinking heavily and lost their chops between albums, they decided to let you know right away they still got it. The song is called "Smoothie" and it lives up to its name, with a smooth groove sure to have you tapping your feet.

Another good trait carried over from their first album is that this is album you will want to listen to all the way through. Alison Krauss has returned as a producer and helped craft an album without a weak link and the song arrangement is excellent, without a lag caused by too many mellow songs in a row or too many similar-sounding songs in a row. In other words, you will want to listen to the whole album.

Other stand-out tracks include "Speak", "Seven Wonders" and perhaps my single favorite Nickel Creek song on all three albums, "Beauty and the Mess" which is interesting lyrically (in other words you want to know the words- they actually say something) as well as a fine showcase for Sara Watkins' vocals.

A lot of bands with great debut albums suffer a sophomore slump. I'm happy to report that wasn't the case with Nickel Creek's second album, This Side.

Speechwriters LLC: Bull Moose After Party

Speechwriters LLC is a funky, California-based acoustic pop quartet. Bull Moose After Party is their 4th CD since 2001 and is a great testament to all the work this band has put in on the road of late.

While the instrumentation is acoustic, this album is pure pop-rock, the kind of music you want to tap your foot to. Every track on the album is loaded with hooks and the guys can really play. A lot of places categorize it as "folk" because (I'm guessing) you need electric guitars, a lot of synthesizers and a sexy girl or two for it to be pop. But unless you're allergic to real guitars, it qualifies as pop to me (which isn't necessarily a bad word either- it isn't all soulless crap).

Though this one of those albums without a lot of filler (in other words the entire album is worth a listen), the strongest tracks are track 2 and track 6. I think track 6, "Blood on the frets" is the best track on the album. It has a real dark energy to it that a lot of acoustic music lacks.

Track highlights:

Track 2: Spaghetti Streetwalker
Track 6: Blood on the frets

Blood on the Frets

Weird Al Yankovic: Poodle Hat

Weird Al takes another acerbic look at modern music and shows he hasn't lost his touch. On display are the usual things one expects from a Weird Al album: plenty of spoofs of current hot songs, songs about food, songs that are really gross and a scalpel-like take on modern pop culture.

Track 1: Couch Potato spoofs Eminem's "Lose Yourself" but saves its most wicked barbs for the state of television with lyrics like "Fear Factor I watched maybe a half hour/after that felt I needed a long shower" and "next week on Fox watch lions eat Christians". When Al decides to put you in the crosshairs, he doesn't pull any punches and as someone who looks at the current flood of reality shows and says "WTF" I was laughing with every jab.

Track 2: Hardware Store is one of Weird Al's originals about, well, a hardware store opening in town and how orgasmically happy it makes him. One thing (among many) to like about Al is that he has a tremendous band, I love to see him live because his backing group is a tight, professional unit. Often the songs he covers don't give them the chance to show it. Al's originals however, are always written with his band in mind and are thus some of the most interesting songs on his albums.

Track 3: Trash Day is a parody of Nelly's "Hot in Herre". Al takes a groovy original and makes a groovy remake that is laugh out loud funny as he sings about deciding not to take the trash out for a few months.

Track 4: Party at the Leper Colony Just cataloguing all the gross double entendre in this song, in the style of songs like "Footloose"(though not directly spoofing any particular song). With lines like "met a pretty lady so pretty and young/she was quite a talker till the cat got her tongue" and "there's a guy in the hot tub I don't know who/wait a minute it looks like Stu!". Plenty of the lines in this song make you laugh and then go "ewwww" and not always in that order.

Track 5 might just be the best track on Poodle Hat and as is often the case, it's a polka, a genre of music Al loves. His polkas are much loved by his fans and this track, Angry White Boy Polka, which takes a look at "angst rock" like Pearl Jam, Rage against the Machine and similar bands shows that anything is better (and funnier!) when you make into a polka. Having listened to this track about 100 times, I am STILL trying to catch all the songs he blends together. Sometimes he gives you one line of a song and moves on.

Track 6 Wanna B Ur Lovr is another hilarious original and contains every bad pick up line known to man. Seriously. Plus a few that I hadn't even heard before like "maybe you've seen my picture it's in the dictionary under kablam".

Certainly not every track on the album is as good as these first 6, which are all winners. I think Track 9, Ode to a superhero, a spoof of the Billy Joel classic "Piano Man" is the weakest track on the album, despite being about Spiderman. While Al had a big hit as well as a tremendous success spoofing an enduring classic on his last album with the American Pie-inspired Star Wars Episode 1 send up "The Saga Begins", this track is much less successful and I can't put my finger on why.

In other places, such as Track 11, Ebay, a spoof of Backstreet Boys' "I want it that way" Al shows how much his sense of humor has entered the zeitgeist, since this song had been used in an Ebay commercial before his album was released! That said, Ebay is not one of the album's weak tracks, thanks to Al's fantastic wit and love of pop culture kitsch. Lines like "I bid on Shatner's old toupe" and "a smurf TV tray" are two of MANY lines in this song that will have you laughing, especially if you're a geek like Al (and me).

Another nice track on this album is Bob, a send up not of a specific song but of a singer, Bob Dylan. Immitating the singer's delivery and musical style, Al speak volumes about Dylan's supposedly deep lyrics and when you realize every single line in the song is a palindrome (saying the same thing forward then backwards) from the first line "I man am regal/A German am I". This song makes me laugh every time I hear it (especially the line "do nine men interpret/nine men I nod" because it's the kind of crap stoned Dylan fans have been trying to tell me was deep for decades) and has a great Dylan-inspired video to boot.

In short, Poodle Hat shows that Al hasn't yet lost the midas touch. He makes fun of us, he makes fun of our sex symbols, he makes fun of our music and we thank him for it, laughing all the way. Since a good laugh is always welcome, thanks Al.

Live on Letterman: Music from the late show

I am a part of the "Letterman Generation". If you don't know what that is, either you go to bed early or you're a part of it too.

See there used to be this guy named Johnny Carson who was on the Tonight Show before Jay Leno. His show was the grand tradition of late night TV. And then there was this guy behind him who my parents didn't get.

They didn't get his sarcastic sense of humor. They didn't get why that sarcasm was frequently trained on his celebrity guests. And they didn't get his music.

Along with his comedy style, the other reason to watch Letterman for me was his musical guests. He had people on I listened to, people Carson would never have on in a million years.

This CD collects some of the best live performances on Letterman's CBS Late Show and it's a knockout live sampler that shows how great a muscial venue the Letterman show is. I used to consider Saturday Night Live to be the best live music on TV but this CD shows Letterman now deserves that mantle.

The CD opens with an acoustic performance by David Grisman and Jerry Garcia, then moves to another acoustic performance, this one by Sheryl Crow performing "Strong Enough". Both songs are quiet and ease you into the album, allowing the virtuoso musicianship of Grisman and the pure Americana of Crow to shine through.

After this the album takes it up a notch in a big way, with the Dave Matthews Band performing "Too Much" and showing why they might just be the best live band touring today.

For a lot of albums this would be the high point but the next track is Aretha Franklin bringing the house down with one of her many seminal classics "Think".

After these two amazing tracks the album goes for another quiet song with Paula Cole doing a simply beautiful rendition of her hit "I don't want to wait".

After some very nice numbers by Elvis Costello, Lyle Lovett and Rod Stewart, the album takes it up again for the finish in a big way, beginning with one of my favorite REM songs "Crush with eyeliner". REM is a fantastic live band and this track is often overlooked among their many hits. This driving, raunchy live rendition is simply not to be missed and for me is the "must have" track on this CD.

The CD follows this track with Lenny Kravitz performing "Are you gonna go my way". Lenny is a great performer and always brings a ton of energy to his live performances and this track does not disappoint.

In short if you're looking for a live anthology or are a fan of any of the artists on this disc and want to pick up a live rarity that you may have missed, this CD is one you won't want to miss.

Jerry Douglas: Best Kept Secret

Well the album's name might be the Best Kept Secret, but it's no secret that Jerry Douglas is one of the finest musicians alive today.

A member of Alison Krauss' Union Station group, Douglas routinely writes blazing bluegrass instrumentals for their albums. Here, he shows he's at home playing rock ("She makes me want to sing"), Funk ("Back in Love" with Alison Krauss providing vocals), Bluegrass (with Bela Fleck playing Banjo), and Blues (with John Fogarty supplying vocals).

It's a tour de force album that might annoy some bluegrass die-hards but should delight everyone else.

Nice Soul Coughing Video

Soul Coughing is an awesome band, and this old cartoon fits so perfectly with the song.

Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Napster's free site

BTW, I've been including Napster links for a lot of the tunes I've been reviewing of late because I think it helps if you can actually, you know, hear the music rather than just read what I think about it.

For those wondering how this works, you do need to register at the site but it's totally free. You can listen to any track 5 times without paying for it. It's a pretty neat set-up all in all.

Chuck

Pickin and Grinnin? Not. Nickel Creek

Beauty And The Mess

Bluegrass is probably my second favorite genre of music, for all the same reasons I like a lot of rock and punk. I like intricate music that makes me marvel at the skill of those playing it, whether it's Union Station or Primus.

Nickel Creek, a bluegrass band whose sound is so complex and unusual that it defies easy genre-slotting, blends folk, country, blues and bluegrass, along with a healthy dollop of classical influences into a sound as unique as it is arresting.

Track of the day: Pearl Jam "Worldwide Suicide"

Best album from Pearl Jam in a decade. Which is saying a lot, because Pearl Jam is the greatest rock band of my generation. Period.

And since seeing is believing...

Matisyahu performing "King without a Crown" from Live at Stubbs

Matisyahu: Live at Stubbs

Ok, when I first heard of Matisyahu, I thought it was a gag act. Nothing wrong with that. Heck some artists, like Ray Stevens and Weird Al have made a career out of it.

For the uninitiated, Matisyahu is a Hasidic Jew who sings about spirituality and philosophy in front of a Reggae band.

And he stage dives.

And performs in front of large enthusiastic crowds.

And has a major label record deal.

Did I mention he's totally serious and extremely talented?

All I can say is, listen to this CD that shows him interacting and feeding off a large crowd and marvel at his voice and how tight and excellent his backing band is.

It's rare to come across something different let alone unique. Matisyahu isn't a gimmick. He's the real deal. If you listen to this CD you won't be sorry.

Check out Matisyahu's official site, where you can hear the title track from his new CD, Youth.

Track Highlights

Track 2, "Chop 'em down" a song that meanders through several different emotions, starting softly and building in energy and fire. This song showcases all the strengths of Matisyahu: his amazing voice, his sincere and effective Marley-esque reggae delivery and his amazing band.

Track 5, "King without a crown" the first single off the album. This song has a TON of energy. It makes you want to move, even if only to tap your foot. Most reggae is too mellow for me, but this works. Live this number is close to frenetic and the audience loves it. Count me in.

Conclusion and Grade

It isn't often I listen to a new band and am totally hooked from the first song. This is one of those times.

A+

The Loop: Fall Out Boy "Of all the gin joints in all the world"

Of All The Gin Joints In All The World

Occasionally a track really gets its hooks into me (no pun intended) and I want to listen to it over and over again. Right now the track of choice is "Of all the gin joints in all the world" by Fall Out Boy.

Yes: 90125

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

You like that? I came up with it. Just now.

Ok not really, but just as that phrase by Dickens sums up just about every moment of human existence, so does it sum up this album, which showcases the best of 80's rock: its epic scope, it's willingness to try new types of songwriting and new technology. It also showcases the willingness to overproduce albums to death, hiding the actual music beneath layers of synths and echo vocals.

Even truly great bands like Rush succumbed to this technology, probably since it was just plain cool and as we all know any new technology is irresistable to men.

Since this flashy new production technology was a way to show you were hip, other bands from the 70's making comeback albums that wanted to make a splash and attract some attention also used this method, including the Blue Oyster Cult and Yes.

90125 took Yes from a band that made incredibly dense songs that featured virtuoso muscianship and lyrics that might make sense to you if you were very, very stoned and repackaged them as a radio friendly band perfectly situated for heavy rotation on MTV.

After a 3 year hiatus, longtime Yes members Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass guitar) and Alan White (drums) were joined by Trevor Rabin (guitar) and Tony Kaye, a member of the band in the late 60's and early 70's (keyboards). This album was given a slick production by former Yes vocalist Trevor Horn and sold over 6 million copies, making it Yes' most financially successful album.

With five of its 8 tracks receiving significant radio and/or MTV radio play, 90125 stayed on the charts for 53 weeks.

A further side note to illustrate how much electronics affected this album is the fact that its cover was generated on an Apple II.

Track Highlights

Track 1, "Owner of a Lonely Heart", one of the most sampled rock tracks ever recorded, an enormous radio and MTV hit, this song introduced Yes to a whole new generation of fans. This track is Yes' only #1 single to date and was even a hit on the R&B charts.

Track 3 "It can happen" another big hit from this album, this track is all about Jon Anderson's vocals.

Track 5, "Cinema" this incredibly complex instrumental, which was recorded live in the studio and won the Grammy for best rock instrumental proved that this new, slightly different Yes lineup could play with the virtuosity that had made their earlier incarnations famous.

Track 6 "Leave It" Another hit off this album which features one of the most stirring vocal tracks on any single.

Track 7 "Our Town" my personal favortie from this album, this track features some of the best synthesizer work you're ever going to hear.

Conclusion

A great album that still succeeds today despite how dated its electronics sound today (they were state of the art in 1983). In fact, today this album almost succeeds in spite of its production which seems to do everything possible to overshadow the music at times. Still, this is a great "classic" rock album (hard for me to think of it as classic since it hit the charts when I was in high school) that does hold up today.

Grade: A-

Top 5 Live Bands: #2

This one has to go to Tori Amos, who I saw at the Tampa theater. Tori is something else in concert, especially at a small venue (what she plays the majority of the time).

It's like meeting a stranger on a plane and being told an interesting story. When you leave you know you made a connection, but that you're not sure you will ever see the person again.

I think the #1 recommendation for any live act is "would you go see them again". In Tori's case the answer is definitely yes (though I'm not one of those people who follows anyone around on tour and watches them night after night).

Chuck

Elvis Presley

It's the 50th anniversary of Elvis' first album. To honor that event I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and review one of the most celebrated albums in rock history. In fact you might just say that rock history begins at this exact moment.

And if you did, you'd be right.

When we think of history, we tend to think the way things turned out was a forgone conclusion. Since the Allies won WWII we downplay all the near misses and lucky breaks that made the war go the way it did.

While not exactly on the scale of a world war, the career of Elvis is often seen in the same light. How could anyone not see he was destined to be the best-selling recording artist of all time?

Well things were not quite so clear in 1956. Elvis, skillfully managed by Colonel Tom Parker and gaining a growing following from a rigorous tour schedule, especially in the south, was looking to leave the small record label where he had been recording singles, Sun Records, for a larger studio and eventually landed a deal with RCA.

Parker was a ruthless negotiator and the deal was a great one for his client, and other studio executives felt that RCA owner Steve Shole had committed a blunder in signing the relatively unknown singer to such a deal. The secretly referred to Elvis as "Sholes' folley".

Even more controversial was Sholes' decision to place Presley in the studio to record a full length album. The teenagers his style of rock appealed to didn't buy albums, they bought 45s.

That album, titled, Elvis Presley, started off with a little track called "Heartbreak Hotel", the song that would also be the first single off the album. This track started slowly but by the end of the year, following a series of appearances booked by the tireless Colonel Parker on TV variety shows, the album began to move up the pop charts.

Following a string of successful appearances on the Dorsey shows, Elvis was booked to a performance on the Milton Berle show in which his hip gyrations caused a storm of controversy. Controversy is always good, especially a sexy one and multiple singles began climbing the charts from Presley's debut album.

Very shortly, "Heartbreak Hotel" was the #1 song on the charts, the first of Presley's 100+ #1 singles. The album that was considered such a risk was the first Rock album to reach #1 on the chart's and RCA's first ever album to generate more than $1 million dollars in earnings (something it has since done many, many times over).

The rest, as they say, is history.

Track Highlights

Track 1, "Heartbreak Hotel", it's impossible not to like to this song. Even today it sounds like nothing else, with sparse instrumentation, Elvis has nowhere to hide. Fortunately hiding wasn't his style and he carries the track brilliantly with a delivery we take for granted today but which was unheard of in 1956.

Track 3, "Blue Suede Shoes", another legendary track and another song we take somewhat for granted today because it sounds like so much of the classic 50's rock we've heard everywhere from period films to the Happy Days tv show. Of course all those songs we've been listening to for 50 years by Roy Orbison and thousands of other performers were likely imitating this track.

Track 9, "Tutti Frutti", one of the things that set Elvis apart early in his career was his willingness to sing the songs of African-American performers and his ability to do them right. Here we see Presley doing a great rendition of the Little Richard classic. Many white radio stations in the south refused to play this track and others like it at first, thinking from his voice that the performer was black.

Track 10, "Tryin' to get to you", among Elvis' many strengths, as touched on above, was his ability to perform so many styles and impart his trademark style onto them. Blues, Soul, Pop, Rock, Country and Gospel were just a few of the genres he had chart-topping hits with. It added to his appeal and made his albums infinitely listenable since they encompassed such a wide range of music. This track is a great country number and one of the tracks from this album to receive wide play on country radio at the same time tracks like "Heartbreak Hotel" were dominating the rock radio airwaves.

Track 14, "Blue Moon" another standard from this debut album, this Rogers and Hart ballad showed yet another side of Evlis' range and foreshadowed the numerous hits he would have singing ballads and torch songs later in his career.

Track 15, "Shake, rattle and roll", this Charlie Calhoun classic was considered far to sexually charged for radio or television of the 50's with lines like "the devil in nylon hose", "you make me roll my eyes, baby make me grit my teeth", and "you wear those dresses, the sun comes shining through" was turned into a hit by Bill Haley and the Comets, using a santitized version of the lyrics and a less bluesy more pop-rock arrangement.

Elvis uses Haley's radio-friendly arrangement but his single uses the original, bawdy lyrics.

Conclusion

The original 12 track album is an amazing accomplishment, one of the greatest first albums ever recorded. The version issued by RCA today is even more stellar, with DSD remastering that sounds like it was digitally recorded in 56 and 6 tracks that were only released as singles in 1956 and not included on the original album.

Grade: A+

Top 5 Live Bands: #3

This can only go to one band and as I think about it, I realize I really have to catch him again next time he's in town: George Thorogood.

One of the best days of my life, I got a pass to the Riverside waterpark here in New England, which was a day and also got you into the show for free. I hadn't even planned to go to the concert, didn't know who it was. When I heard it was the Destroyers, I decided to stay an extra couple of hours to see the show and man was it worth it.

George and the boys put on a great show, for over 4 hours. He would not stop playing until the park officials turned the lights out on him. An amazing show.