Playlists

At any given time there’s at least a hundred thousand LPs in the shop for your browsing pleasure.  100,000 records you can take to the listening station and sample (this is, assuming an average album length of thirty-five minutes, just over six and a half years worth of listening entertainment).  If I were you I wouldn’t bother with a record store that doesn’t have a listening station.

Fortunately for Laura and I, few regulars fail to put the records they’ve played back where they belong.  That’s good because it’s hard to keep everything in order, given the size of the shop and the nuances of it’s layout and our organization of the browsers.  Still, from time to time, records wind up in the wrong place (hopefully it’s not the one you’ve been looking for).

Sometimes the wrong record is in the jacket, and some of the mismatches make you think…

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Of course, this is a little more conceptional than what we usually do here at Hymies Records dot com.  I mean, you have to put it together.  Eric Carmen is singing about being “aaaawwwwl by myself” and Jackson Browne really is all by himself in a crowd.

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Less of a “thinker”.

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If you think this one was offensive (Tiny Tim died of a heart attack on stage, here in Minneapolis in 1996) then you should probably skip the next couple…

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Man I wish I had ten dollars for every time some know-it-all with a copy of the ultra-rare discontinued “flames” jacket came into the shop demanding a fortune – Yeah, ten bucks would be perfect because that’s about what they should sell for.

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Actually, in his defense what Phil Spector said to the limo driver was a little less definitive than the Misfits lyrics.  He said “I think I’ve killed someone.”  See, there’s some ambiguity there.

Jonathan Richman is one of my favorites, and also one of Laura’s least favorites, so I listen to his great records on the days when she’s in the shop.

How awesome is Jonathan Richman? I was at a show where women threw flowers on the stage. He wrote “Roadrunner” and was a punk rocker before there were even punk rockers, he even got bored with punk before anyone else. He was already post-punk before there was punk to be post- to. He played mini-golf with Gram Parsons the day before the Grievous Angel overdoesed. He dodged a bullet in a Farrely Brothers movie. That’s how awesome Jonathan Richman is.

And he could rhyme better than anyone else. For instance…

In the park, near the dark
What do I now hear, hark hark
- “Rockin’ Rockin’ Leprechauns”

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If you listen to all your Jonathan albums back-to-back, Rock n Roll with the Modern Lovers has got to be the silliest – in fact, “Rockin’ Rockin’ Leprechaun is nowhere near the silliest song, although it is the only one that contains the word “hark”. I think it’s the only song I own on any non-Christmas record that contains the word “hark”.

Elsewhere on the album Jonathan extols his “Dodge Veg-o-Matic” and actually, seriously, sings “The Wheels on the Bus”.

 I’ve been all over the world but I love New England best
I might be prejudiced.
- “New England”

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I feel the same way about Minnesota, but I just don’t think I could express it so poetically.

They’ve tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo
But there’s something about Mary that they don’t know
- “There’s Something About Mary”

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It’s kind of hard to imagine which came first, the title to the Farrely Brothers’ 1998 comedy or the chorus to Jonathan’s song.  In the film he and drummer Tommy Larkins perform together in the tradition of a Greek chorus, appearing alongside the actors and commenting on the story through song.

The question is, who the hell is named Indigo?  That’s not a real name, that’s a stripper name.

Well I walked past just like I say
And I felt this hurt that would not go home
I can’t expect that you’re gonna see it my way
But you may not know the trees I’ve known

- “Corner Store”

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Is it just me, or does he laugh at his own rhyming in the middle of the second verse of “Corner Store” (which, incidentally, has got to be Jonathan’s only “message song”)?  It’s not that unusual for Jonathan to laugh in the middle of a verse, and I think in this case what’s funny is that the line would have been better finished “a hurt that would not go away” which of course would rhyme with the wrong line.  He has to sing something different to retain the ABAB structure of the song – In fact, Jonathan’s steadfast reliance on formal song structure is what leads him to invent the sort of goofy rhymes we have grown to love.  But never was it as magical as in this last song…

 Abdul’s not seen Cleopatra
It’s been almost now a year
How I wonder where she’s at-ra
And I wish the old girl were here 
- “Abdul and Cleopatra”

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Actually, out of the hundreds of records I own this is the best rhyme, period.  The only thing more awesome than rhyming “at-ra” with Cleopatra is doing it three times.  And doing it in the first line of the first song on the record.

Electric Guitar

George Barnes is credited with the first recorded performance on the electric guitar, playing the new instrument on two tracks by Big Bill Broonzy. His performance predated Eddie Durham’s recording with Count Basie’s Kansas City Five by fifteen days – a stupid distinction because Durham’s recording is so much more interesting. In fact, the very best of the early innovators in the history of the electric guitar were jazz musicians, most of all Charlie Christian who was first recorded six years later.

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(“Wholly Cats” by the Benny Goodman Sextet)

Amplification shifted the guitarist from the rhythm section to the forefront of the jazz ensemble, but Charlie Christian’s few recordings are remarkable because he was already ahead of the new fold, preforming a primordial bebop on the guitar before the horns had even imagined it.

Charlie Christian, taken by tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five, finally got his due in the early 70s when Columbia compiled his best solos into a double disc set called Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian.  The set exemplified all the best of 70s archival LP releases – great sound, great selections, great notes.  It also highlighted a previously overlooked innovator in the short-lived Christian, who was taken by tuberculosis at the age of 25 in 1941.

Representing Christian’s contribution to the development of the electric guitar are “Wholly Cats” from a 1940 Benny Goodman session that also featured Count Basie on piano (up above) and a roarin’ take on “I Got Rhythm”, which Charlie Christian recorded with a quintet here in Minneapolis in 1940:

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(“I Got Rhythm” by the Charlie Christian Quintet)

Electric Sitar

Dozens of bands – from Yes and Genesis to the Clash and Van Halen – have used an electric sitar for color and effect.  The instrument is actually closer to a guitar than a sitar, being built and fretted in a way familiar to guitarists.  Most still have a “buzz bridge” to help recreate the sitar’s distinctive sound, and many also retain the sitar’s “sympathetic strings” although the electric sitar does not generate enough resonance to create the rich sound “sympathetic strings” add to a traditional sitar’s tableau.

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(“Don’t You Try to be my Baby” by Moonquake)

Joe South played an electric sitar on “Games People Play”.  He is one of the most underrated innovators of his era, and we’ve already written about his awesome-ness before (click here to read it) – so I chose a track by the short-lived prog group Moonquake instead.  The electric sitar is played by Havaness Hagopian,

Electric Saxophone

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(“Listen Here” by Eddie Harris)

Eddie Harris is heard here performing on the Veritone, an electronically amplified saxophone introduced by Selmer in 1965.  Controls put a variety of effects at the performers fingertips, including an echo, tone control and – significant in this recording – an octave divider.

Harris reworked “Listen Here” several times in the several years that followed the success of The Electrifying Eddie Harris – My favorite record by Eddie Harris, The Reason I’m Talking Shit, features some great work on the instrument (sampled by De La Soul in “I Be Blowin’” years later – although most of the album is actually Eddie Harris talking shit).

Electric Cello

The Twin Cities own Aaron Kerr (the Sleeper Pins, the Swallows, JazZen) performs as often on the electric cello as on acoustic instruments, and often in unique settings.

His instrumental collaboration with the Swallows, Dissonant Creatures, captures the surprisingly big sound that comes from the small instrument.

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(“Doctor Phibes” by Aaron Kerr and Swallows)

Electric Violin

It’s not really fair to everyone else to end with a track from this album – Violinski’s first album was distinguished on the cover for it’s inclusion of ELO’s Mik Kaminski, but it’s not really as awesome as an ELO album.  Here is the title track, “No Cause for Alarm” – Kaminski is featured on the Barcus-Berry electric violin, which I think was actually blue.

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“Superstition” may be one of the most universally beloved songs on record – few and far between are the freaks who won’t freely admit Stevie’s mastery of funkiness

Remarkably, Stevie Wonder – strangely inured to his own genius – nearly gave the song away to instrumental rocker Jeff Beck. The well-known guitarist is credited with creating the drum part which opens and propels “Superstition”, although it is of course Stevie who pl

The question is why do we love “Superstition” so much? In a larger sense what is it about Stevie’s seminal 1970-1972 albums (Signed, Sealed & Delivered, Where I’m Coming From, Music of my Mind, and the boy wonder’s magnum opuses Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale)? Believe it or not the answer to our questions is first found in the music of the Baroque period…

Although the clavichord was invented in the fourteenth century, it was during the Baroque period that it achieved it’s greatest popularity, especially in Bohemia, the Iberian Peninsula, and Scandinavia. It’s assumed that many of the leading composers of Baroque music enjoyed performing on the clavichord in their homes, even if little music was specifically composed for the instrument.

Clavichords are too quiet for the concert hall, unfortunately. They are also among the most expressive keyboard instruments because the player has so much control over the duration and volume of each note. Pressing a key on a clavichord causes a hammer to strike the string in a way more similar to a guitarist’s “hammering” technique than a similar action inside a piano. The hammer remains in contact with the string, and as the player’s finger releases the key the string is dampened and thereby silenced. This allows the performer to create a punchy, percussive – potentially funky – sound on the instrument. See where this is headed?

In the 1960s Baroque music experienced somewhat of a short-lived revival, both in the classical world and in pop music. One of my favorite composers of the era, Burt Bacharach, began writing elaborate, narrative melodies often orchestrated with traditionally Baroque instrumentation. Bacharach’s orchestrations from this period frequently rely on flugelhorns for accent and color.

Early psychedelic rock is filled with Baroque influences,

The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is often identified as the high point of “Baroque pop”, fitting as Brian Wilson had been one of the first to explore the high-falutin’ sub-genre with his elaborate work on the second side of the 1965 album The Beach Boys Today! The era’s other leading acts followed suit: The Rolling Stones with “Lady Jane” and the Beatles with “Eleanor Rigby”, a track on which their voices were backed only by a string quartet arranged by George Martin (like many of the Beatles’ passing fancies, Baroque music was by and by the subject of ridicule, this time via George Harrison’s parody “Piggies” on the White Album).

Sophisticated baroque arrangements became commonplace in pop music, often occupying the upper echelon of the charts (Although remarkably many of the perennial favorite to come out of this era – the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed, the Bee Gees’ Odessa or the Zombies’ Odyssey and Oracle, for instance – would top Billboard’s US albums chart). Although it was enormously popular for a short time, inspiring not one but two Bacharach Baroque albums, the sub-genre faded rapidly as pop music took a turns towards rootsy-er, more basic influences like blues and classic country.

In this brief Baroque flourishing, Hohner introduced the Calvinet, an electronically amplified keyboard instrument based on the clavichord. It used electronic pick-ups in the same way as a guitar, although it was initially marketed at enthusiasts of Baroque and Renaissance music, not rock and soul performers. The Clavinet retained the intimate action of the clavichord as well as it’s percussive potential, and as an electronic instrument could be run through pedals the same as a guitar. It was only a matter of time before this modest, wood-paneled 60-key Baroque instrument would change popular music.

The earliest appearance of this instrument, first introduced by the German manufacturer in 1968, may have literally dropped out of the sky. Sun Ra’s 1969 album Atlantis is of greatest interest to his fans for establishing the framework in which he would work for the following decade with its side-long title track, but two songs on the flip of the disc feature “the solar sound instrument”, something that sounds distinctly like the Clavinet.

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With some irony, it is an American-roots band (from Canada) who next fold the new instrument into the rock tableau – The Band’s keyboardist Garth Hudson played the instrument through a wah wah pedal on the group’s hit single “Up on Cripple Creek” the same year Sun Ra was exploring the distant expanses of the deep sea.

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With Hudson’s innovative performance in “Up on Cripple Creek” (credited on the back of The Band as the “clavinette”) the potential of this mysterious new machine was revealed.  Stevie Wonder was an early innovator, presaging “Superstition” with his reworking of the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out”.

Sly Stone tapped into the Clavinet’s potential for subtlety with “Family Affair”, a song also remarkable as an early drum machine experiment.

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On the flip side to his hit single “I Wrote A Simple Song” Billy Preston took the instrument to new funky heights in his first piece written for it, an instrumental called “Outta-Space”.

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And then there was “Superstition”: All hell broke loose because everybody wanted to use the Clavinet now, yet few could engineer and perform at the level of Stevie Wonder. A year later, his own “Higher Ground” was the closest anyone came to the total awesome-ness of “Superstition”. My choice for a close second? Dr. John’s “Right Place, Wrong Time”:

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Oftentimes in this period the Clavinet was used to establish a funky backing track, as with several tracks Bob Marley and the Wailer would record in the early 70s. Their first to feature a Clavinet, “Concrete Jungle”, remains one of the best, with the keyboards bubbling with lively energy underneath a searing guitar solo.

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The Clavinet never played a central role in jazz fusion, despite the coincidental appearance of each in the late 60s and the instrument’s feature on what I imagine must be the genre’s most popular album, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters. The fifteen minute “Chameleon”, not surprisingly a dancefloor favorite then and now, is entirely unimaginable without the Clavinet.

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In fact, Hancock is pictured on both sides of the jacket seated at a Hohner D6 Clavinet, the most popular model.

So there you have it: Strange connections, unimagined consequences, and technological innovation driving new creations. I’d be surprised if you didn’t have several of these records on your shelves, or at least several of these songs saved in the computer through which you’re reading these words. Although very different from one another (you can’t get much further apart than Sun Ra and Garth Hudson, can you?) each owes it’s unique sound to an instrument that has not been made for years. In fact, more often than not the only appearances of a Clavinet in pop music are in the form of samples from songs recorded between 1969-1973.

When I tell people that listening to records and collecting them and reading the notes inside the jackets should be fun, this is what I’m talking about.

Today we reach the mid-point of our “top ten” list of local albums from 2011.  This morning I voted on the Current’s “top 89 albums of the year” poll, which you can do here.  I will caution, however, that the ballot offers discouragingly few local releases (sadly neither of today’s picks, for instance) and you are only allowed six write-in selections.

Saturday’s post will feature several previews we have been given by local artists, highlighting some of the records we’re looking forward to hearing in 2012. 

#6 Wrecks by CLAPS

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(“Across the Floor”)

I don’t suppose at the beginning of the year I would have imagined myself adding two electronic albums to my collection (the other was Ghostband’s Verdical cassette on the Moon Glyph label).  In fact, even after several listens here in the record shop I would not have imagined myself taking a copy of CLAPS’ first full-length, Wrecks, home to play.  But, by and by I found myself remembering passages, lyrics and melodies, and humming them – sometimes even singing them.  This is how an album becomes a favorite, whether you like it or not.

And this is also the idea behind the album’s stark minimalism, unless I (like a number of music writers before me) am misunderstanding CLAPS altogether.  Stripped down it bare essentials, the only thing that’s left is melody and rhythm (that’s right Big Audio fans, “rhythm … and melody”).  The way I have taken to appreciate this album is that a track like “Across the Floor” or “Book of Love” is less a stripped-down song than it is a song in its purest form.

In fact, it’s purity that seems to define the approach CLAPS have taken to performance – Synthetic yes, but everything on which this trio performs is analog.  And the word synthetic does not imply, as commonly assumed, artificiality.  In fact, traditional analog synthesizers produce a sound no more removed from the performer than electric guitars.

In an interview before Wrecks was released, Jed Smentek said, “I think the worst thing you can bring on stage is a computer – It puts a wall up.”  I see his point, although I don’t know if it’s universal (see my choice for #5 below, for instance).  I can say that last week I went to an event where the DJ, with his computer, ruined the atmosphere.  Walking in I assumed the turtleneck guy behind the table with the laptop was taking reservations or something.  Nobody would actually get paid to play Motown remixes on an iBook, would they?  One I figured out he was choosing the songs, I felt sorry for the guy, having myself – hardly a professional DJ – spun actual records in two different places earlier the same week.

Each track on Wrecks would be ruined by digital samples and computers.  One of the best things about this record – Patrick Donohoe’s vocals – couldn’t be replicated anyway.  The reason CLAPS creates music ultimately compelling even to a listener like myself (who really did listen to Ernest Tubb while cooking dinner just a short while ago) is that in spite of the inherent simplicity of their music there is depth to each track that rewards repeated listens.  “Book of Love”, in particular, is a song that has been chosen by several of the guest DJs Hymie’s has brought to our night at the Turf Club this year – It may be the song that most often appears on our nights there.

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(“Book of Love”)

CLAPS have really honed a live act that far exceeds anything on Wrecks.  Donohoe really does it, although the group’s third member, Sara Abdelaal turns on bass really gives the band a solid sound and stage presence.  Yeah, I think everyone’s better live – It’s the damn truth.  CLAPS is a club band, in some ways it’s performance art if only because they’re so sincerely devoted to a largely anachronistic movement in pop music.  They play to the audience regardless.

My favorite moment on Wrecks is not in the well-worn grooves of “Book of Love” (It’s usually my copy we bring to the Turf Club, regardless of who will be playing it), but rather a track near the end of the second side, “House”.  Nowhere else does CLAPS sound so convincingly thirty years old and at the same time kick ass.  Like so many local acts in recent years CLAPS is rooted in a bygone era, maybe in fact more than most.  With “House” they nail it.  This song could have come off an 80s record I bought at Cheapo as a teenager. Shit, I would have loved it.

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(“House”)

Like I do now.

#5  LP by Liminal Phase

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(“Mugabe’s Blues”)

I guess you’re finally getting to be a big shot when Adam Levy brings in a copy of his new side project and asks you to give it a listen – it wasn’t long before LP, the first disc from head Honeydog’s new instrumental group Liminal Phase, was in our player, and less than ten minutes before it was a new favorite.

While there are moments of genuine groove throughout the disc, much of it expands into disparate, radio-unfriendly genres such as electronica, experimental, and even (ulp!) jazz fusion.

A friend of mine says there hasn’t been a good fusion record since the genre’s golden age (’69-’75, I think he says) and it’s my hope he’ll think different after reading this and hearing a few tracks by Liminal Phase.

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(“Rhapsody”)

LP (yes, a CD called LP – I’m told the album will see a vinyl release in 2012) was recorded live and contains no overdubs.  It is also a fraction of the material recorded by the six- and sometimes eight-piece group, ranging from unfettered free form to thoughtful narrative.  Liminal Phase, in name and in action, represents Levy’s interest in anthropology, drawing together old-time and modern instrumentation as well as the sounds and rhythms of various cultures.

Adam Levy is surely no stranger to projects of epic proportions – the Honeydogs’ 2004 album 10,000 Years was, of course, rock’s last great epic, equal parts Arthur (the record, not the movie) and Brave New World.  It’s ironic that LP, such a rewarding listen, is an instrumental project led by somebody usually so verbose on album.

But it is far from the work of a single artist – Each collaborator merits mention, and no one takes precedent.  Pianist deVon Gray’s role, especially in “Quantum Entanglement” is grounding, although his improvisational contributions are often the most soaring.  In interviews he has described his work with Liminal Phase as creating soundscapes more than as improvisation. At the end of “Rhapsody”, a nine-part piece you heard up above, Gray playing is far less reminiscent of any jazz record than of arrangements for solo piano by Aaron Copland – understated but sweepingly epic.

Joey Van Phillips drum work on the disc is never out of sync with the group, remarkable considering the entire project was unplanned.  Appearing on the Current’s Local Show they describe going into the studio with a handful of untitled arrangements and recording for hours.  Nowhere in the 59 minutes of LP would you find Joey Van Phillips inattentive of the direction in which his bandmates are moving – Amazing!

The worldy sound that distinguishes LP from traditional fusion records, and places it soundly in the realm of chamber music, is that of the harmonium, a nineteenth century keyboard instrument that moves air through reeds.  It’s sound is often compared to that of the accordion although functionally it’s as close to bagpipes.  Lisa Hirst Carnes performed the harmonium on LP, and also – notably in the hypnotic “Loose Change” – oboe.

Another remarkable feature of this unique collaboration is the presence of cello in place of string bass (or electric bass, I suppose).  Cellist Daniel James Zamzow ranges from plucky jazz in “Loose Change” to the refined strumming of chamber music in “Quantum Entanglements”.  Add in the additional percussion by Peter Legett and Tim O’Keefe heard on two tracks, including the first one up above (“Mugabe’s Blues”) and Liminal Phase can really cook.  The second of those tracks is a 10 minute jam called “3 Etudes” and features O’Keefe on oud (!) and some of Levy’s sharpest guitar work, a wild solo that sounds like Jimi Hendrix sitting in with Gabor Szabo’s band.

A final element to Liminal Phase’s sound is likely to a cynical response from a number of readers, although it is essential to the groups success.  I refer to Nathan Brende, credited on the disc with “computer, electric arcana”.  I’ll leave it to Lincoln Center to judge the role electronic sounds can play in jazz and stick to enjoying music for the sake of enjoyment – Brende brings more than something modern, new or novel to the group.  The use of turntablists in jazz is a couple decades old, and hits its mark from time to time (Courtney Pines’ mid-90s albums, for instance).  The use of additional electronics (ie computers) is also firmly established, playing a central role in one of my all-time favorite jazz albums, in fact (Dave Douglas’ Freak In).

Of course, LP is as much chamber music as it is jazz, but again there is a tradition of innovation and experimentation to build upon – Just as the harmonium has become a common feature in modern classical music (appearing in compositions by William Bolcom, Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg, and also – along with the kitchen sink – in Mahler’s 8th symphony).  Electronics have just the same become part of the landscape of classical music, whether in the form of the mid-century musique concrète or the experimental work of Karlheinz Stockhausen.  Like it or not.

Nathan Brende’s contribution to Liminal Phase is essential to its sound, even if he is heard less often than his bandmates.  His subtle additions bring tension and excitement to slow-building pieces like “Quantum Entanglement” and downright soul to “Mugabe’s Blues”.  If ever there were a case for the role electronics can play in jazz, it’s Brende’s performance on this disc.

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(“Loose Change”)

This isn’t a record that you’re going to enjoy if it’s playing through computer speakers while you tippity-type.  It’s music for people who are actively doing things, not being things.  I have found that I work well when I am playing this record – that is, although it is a very cerebral piece of music I find myself more focused in doing tasks around the record shop, as opposed to the oftentimes distracting patterns in a more conventional pop record.  Maybe that doesn’t make sense.

I should be listening to as I write just now, instead of eavesdropping on the surreal exchange my two toddlers are having by way of their Star Wars figures.  Probably, I would be better prepared to explain myself.  Inside the sleeve (and Daniel Levy’s cover art is one of this year’s very best, by the way) is a short description:

We went down to our basement.

We stayed for hours and days; weeks, months and years.  We listened and we played.  Alone.  Together.  With what we had.  With what we could get.  Hierarchies reversed.  Outcomes were uncertain.  Structures were disclosed.

We went upstairs.

If there’s a great record for the active listener this year it’s this.  If there’s a record that captures the thrill of making music, and of collaboration, this is it.  Eventually I’m at a loss for words, or maybe the choices I’m making are for the best – This is all happening in real time, my typing and your reading, whether we like it or not.  I feel like that’s an attitude square in line with Liminal Phase.

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(“3 Etudes”)