Musings From the New Guy

A couple of quick thoughts before my first reviews. First, on "Down Our Nose", you'll see me listed as "Jerry Williams Blog". Jerry was IMHO, the nation's most influential radio talk show host of the late '50's, '60's, '70's and '80's. I had the pleasure of learning radio at his knee through the 1980's and am the co-author of his biography, "Burning Up The Air". Second, I want to thank Jay Schultz for inviting me in. I've been an opinionated music fan for years and this seems like a great forum to express my views on music to which we listen with a critical ear. So here goes....

The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
I’m late to the game on them and this is my first listen, but from the first second I heard the guitar on the first track, I knew I’d really like them musically. And I do, but I tend to appreciate more of a ‘melodic hook’ in rock music and sadly for me, while the songs are great and the lyrics are interesting there is so little melodic structure to the vocals that it sounds like someone reading prose or poetry over an awesome rock bands music. “Sequestered in Memphis” sounds like Craig Finn wrote a book and this chapter was what he chose to read over a great rock track.

The music is heavily produced, but to my liking…reminding me of the kind of sound Springsteen sometimes got on “Born In the USA”. And the title “Slapped Actress” seems like a very clever homage to Bowie’s Aladdin Sane track, Cracked Actor. Pretty cool. All in all, it gets a 4 from me…a couple more vocal hooks and it’s a 4.5


Slobberbone – Best of Slobberbone

Another band I’m hearing for the first time…I can’t believe they’ve been out there for a dozen years and I missed them…they’re awesome. There’s nothing subtle about them musically, though. They play alt country with reckless abandon and there’s nothing better than two guitars, bass and drums blasting out three and four chord songs that are written intelligently. Problem is, if any of these guys went into AA I’m not sure what they’d write about. The subtleties they do exhibit come lyrically, and I bet as I listen repeatedly, I’ll find more and more of them. Big bonus points for a cool cover of ‘To Love Somebody’, too. They earn a 4.5 from me…and it would probably be a 5 after another dozen listens.

Whiskeytown – Stranger’s Almanac

Well, I think I gave this a fair listen…though I will admit I was cooking at the time. I figured the true test was that if the music distracted me it was good and memorable otherwise, it may have been good, but not so memorable. As it was, it sounded good out of the box, and I found myself singing to the second song, “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight”. Problem was, I was through a full verse of singing Jackson Browne’s “Redneck Friend” before I realized what had happened. After that, the CD just blended right into the background until the last track, which had some odd noises in it that drew my attention. All in all, I give it a 3.5 A little better than average because I like the genre. And that’s being kind.


Neil Diamond – Hot Summer Nights (1973)

I tend to dislike schmaltz and to compound matters, this is an artist my mom would enjoy, so I went in predisposed to not liking this. I figured I at least would tolerate the songs that I grew up hearing – “Holly Holy”, “Shiloh”, “I Am, I Said” , “Cracklin’ Rosie” and “Sweet Caroline” – but I really didn’t think I’d make my way through this. As it was, the first three tracks lived down to my expectations…but then, came Solitary Man. I was hoping for that up-tempo treatment of the single. Nope. And worse, these songs were getting the full string treatment with female background vocal ooh’s and ah’s.

It wasn’t until “Cherry Cherry” that I got a song I could listen to. On the whole, my biggest issue with this is that he seems bored singing these songs with the same melodies with which he recorded them, so not only do you get odd phrasing, but odd notes too. “You’re So Sweet” in someone else’s hands might have been an interesting country tune. Here, it’s camp. At least now I know why UB 40 picked “Red, Red Wine” to cover…it was very easy to improve upon. Soggy Pretzels? Yikes! I don’t think I made it through a full track until “Shiloh”. The only thing more difficult for me to listen to would be Hot Summer Nights II. I have to give it a 2 only because I’m a Red Sox fan so I can’t hate “Sweet Caroline”. So good, so good, so good. Too bad the whole album isn’t.

The Duke Spirit - Neptune
It reminds me of the first time I heard The Pretenders, except that I didn't fall in love with this CD right away. My favorite track is "Wooden Heart" and it's the only one that I had to listen to a second time, which I do when a track strikes me as special. I give it a 3.5.

Topic - 5 Fave Lyricists

1. Randy Newman - Because every song is written from a different person's point of view...sometimes as that person, other times as an observer of the scene. Listen to the songs "Rednecks" or "Political Science" or "Guilty" if you don't know his songs.

2. Chris Collingwood/Adan Schlesinger - "He was killed in a cellular phone explosion. They scattered his ashes across the ocean". For that alone, they're a favorite, but there are many other cool Fountains of Wayne lyrics, too.

3. Bernie Taupin - When I want to get in touch with my feminine side...or when I want to be depressed. Listen to "Someone's Final Song" from Blue Moves...

4. Patti Smith - "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine". She is the real deal. From "Ask the Angels", to "Pissing in a River" on Radio Ethiopia to all of the Easter album. And if Lenny Kaye helped, then he's the real deal, too.

5, The Glimmer Twins - Because wild horses couldn't drag me away...and because they are single handedly responsible for bringing the lyrics of American blues to generations of white folks around the world, yet they still can't get no...no, no, no.

There...no Bruce, no Neil and no Bob. Even though they are all three, favorites of mine. :-)