Music
Section By Jeb D.
CRAZY FOR YOU
Best Coast
No offense to Katy Perry, but for my money, THE single of the summer of ’10 is Best Coast’s impossibly catchy “Boyfriend.” The laid-back sunshine that fuels the first full-length album from Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno harks back to the days of classic singles like “Be My Baby” or “I Get Around,” with a contemporary sheen of reverb that sounds like a perkier version of The Raveonettes-and like them, Best Coast seem perfectly happy to wrap an entire album in the echoing sound, without varying the arrangements much. Still, The Ramones’ sound didn’t vary much from song to song: it’s all in what you do with it, and Cosentino’s got a keen eye and ear for the paradox of lazy, hazy, crazy summer days: “I can’t get myself off the couch / I don’t wanna talk to anyone else / I lost my job / I miss my mom / I wish my cat could talk.” It’s that dangerous late adolescent period where the exuberance of youth begins giving way to the wariness of responsibility; when making an effort seems impossible: not because it’s too much work, but because the results might be even scarier; after all, grownups don’t get Endless Summers. Instead, they make albums that feel like one.
NIGHTMARE
Avenged Sevenfold
Another group of metal warriors, soldiering on in the wake of tragedy. Still, the death of drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan seems to have his bandmates reaching just a bit deeper into themselves than before, producing an album that actually might reward repeated listening. It helps that these guys are still fairly young in what is fast becoming a greybeard’s game, and they’re adaptable. The pop influences that leaven the sturm und drang are welcome, from the xylophone that opens the album, to the infectious chorus of “Welcome To The Family;” while the guitar shredding is as competent as you’d expect. The Rev himself puts in his final appearances, drumming on a few tracks and contributing vocals on his own compostion, “Fiction” (supposedly retitled after his passing: it was originally called “Death”). It’s no secret that I don’t have a lot of interest in the current crop of metal bands whose adoption of horror-movie clichés and ludicrously “badass” sounding names (“Zacky Vengeance”? “Synyster Gates”?) would embarrass any but the most completely stoned. But props to the ones like Avenged Sevenfold who at least make an effort: these guys may still be caught up in tedious bilge like “Tonight The World Dies” and “God Hates Us,” but at least they occasionally give the impression that they’re in on the joke.
PRAISE & BLAME
Tom Jones
It’s one thing for a B-list indie queen like Liz Phair to call out her label and get booted, but for a label exec to email people that the latest outing from a Knight of the British Empire is”a sick joke” and demand the return of his healthy advance? That’s evidently the reaction Island Records’ David Sharpe had to hearing the two million bucks they handed over to sign Jones be plowed not into a bunch of dance singles, but a down-and-dirty collection of blues songs. And largely gospel blues, at that: there really aren’t any familiar blues standards, Jesus gets name-checked regularly, and the album opens on the hoarse whisper of a relatively obscure Bob Dylan tune. That said, the band (including guitarist BJ Cole, keyboardist Booker T Jones, and a batch of background vocalists that includes Gillian Welch) deliver both fine musicianship and rock and roll punch. Much of the album’s production is in the familiar post-retro T-Bone Burnett style, but a few of the rockers actually recall the bluesy bluster of The Faces, of all people. As for Jones… well, there’s no question, he’s not very idiomatic in this material: when he repeats “Lawd he’p the waw-tawn pipples” over and over again, it sounds like he’s trying to figure out just how Van Morrison makes it work. Still, his love of the music is evident throughout, and let’s face it: a man who’s lived seventy very full years might actually have something to tell us about the approach of the ultimate set closer, and on numbers like “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” or “Ain’t No Grave,” the approach of death feels real, but not sensationalized; and the ache in “If I give my soul to Jesus / Will he stop my hands from shaking? / Will my son love me again? ” from “If I Give My Soul” might be the most affecting singing Jones has ever recorded. As for Sharpe: well, the guy sounds like a Philistine, and I’m sorry he didn’t like the album… but he’s right: this ain’t making anyone two million bucks.
MARCUS GARVEY & GARVEY’S GHOST 
(35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)
Burning Spear
In 1976, less than a year after Bob Marley’s first American release, Burning Spear brought American listeners a different kind of reggae: polyrhythms instead of easy grooves, and a darker, more overtly political bent. Where Marley’s message was always one of humanity and tolerance, even in the face of adversity, Winston Rodney looked the white downpresser man in the face, and demanded “Give me what is mine!” in a voice of eerie, frightening power. Ghostly horns float over definitive beats on songs like “2000 Years” and “Dread River,” and no concessions are made to mainstream ears-or what passed for mainstream at the time; an album this far ahead of its time sounds entirely relevant today. The 35th anniversary reissue has been remastered (subtly, but effectively), and includes a booklet with a great collection of essays and interviews, as well as the followup album, Garvey’s Ghost, a dub version of Marcus Garvey that is probably more responsible for the eventual popularity of the remix as a musical form than any other single album. An essential addition to anyone’s music collection.
Other Noteworthy 7/27 Music Releases
Robert Cray, Cookin’ in Mobile. Unlike a lot of his blues brethren, Cray doesn’t necessarily need a live setting to flourish, since the strength of his music lies in his material, not endless I-IV-V7 nattering, and since he already released a pretty definitive live set from London a few years back, this feels a bit superfluous. For what it’s worth, though, it sounds great, it’s light on the over-familiar (only two songs from Strong Persuader), and does unearth some underrated gems (“One In the Middle” “Time Makes Two”).
Jorn, Dio. The “Norwegian God of Metal” would like everyone to know that this album was actually recorded before Ronnie James Dio’s untimely passing. So, no jokes about this being enough to kill him
Charlie Louvin, Hickory Wind: Live at the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull. At age 83, you’d naturally expect Louvin to be the last word on songs like “Long Journey Home” and “I Still Miss Someone.” Nice to hear, though, that he’s still got a young man’s blood in his veins (“Hickory Wind”, “Cash On the Barrelhead”).
Menomena, Mines. Maybe not their most song-focused outing, but rich with inspiration, with nods to everyone from John Cale (“Queen Black Acid”) to Paul Weller (“Taos”), and enough musical textures piled on top of each other it’ll take a week of listening just to get to the bottom of it all. Thankfully, Harris and Knopf layer the dark emotion just as thickly, making the effort worthwhile.
Sky Sailing, An Airplane Carried Me to Bed. Evidently, before he began his wholesale pillaging of the Postal Service catalog, Adam Young was a genuine blue-collar guy (a steelworker, it says here). And, it would seem, one who dreamed of leaving it all behind for a world of butterflies and sailboats.
Emerson Lake & Palmer, Live at the High Voltage Festival. James Brown tried this once: he named an album James Brown Live At The Garden not because it was recorded at Madison Square Garden–it was actually recorded in a Jersey nightclub–because he was GOING to be appearing at the Garden, and wanted to hype that. Thus, this collection: a bunch of old ELP live stuff released in anticipation of the fact that they are going to be at something called the High Voltage Festival this summer. Perfect for everyone who thought last week’s release of four CD’s worth of live bombast JUST WASN’T ENOUGH.