MAR* SONGS: March 11th 1962/Mary Gauthier

When this assignment was sent out, it was on the understanding that March might be too restrictive a heading, something the plethora, perhaps, of military band favourites will demonstrate as being a tad pessimistic. But are there many songs about March the month? April, July and September seem to have plenty, I have learnt, but few seem to acknowledge this month, variously either that of the roman god of war or of, largely, the zodiacal fish. Actually, there are a few about pisces. So what could be better than a song that actually references a date, a birthdate, even. (OK, a birthdate that follows, by a day or so, the end of this fortnight, but.......)

Mary Gauthier is somewhat of an unexpected success story, not writing a single song until she hit 35, and probably then never expecting to have an 8 album and counting career. All at the age of, do the math, 55, for March 11 1962 is her true birthdate, as well as being the title of the song above. The Foundling, from 2010, is an inherently autobiographical song cycle based upon her always less than mainstream life. Given up for adoption at birth, truly a foundling, she spent her childhood in the care of an italian catholic couple, from whom she ran, aged 15. Seeking, I guess, herself, she found little but drugs, alcohol and trouble, spending her 18th in jail. Via an abortive period studying philosophy, she learnt cooking and opened the restaurant she ran for 11 years, 'Dixie Kitchen', also the name of her first album, the sale of which funded her 2nd, and breakthrough album, 'Drag Queens and Limousines'. Her almost instantly recognisable drawled tones, imagine an even more raddled Lucinda, often portray tales of life between low and the gutter. Perhaps her most famous song is this, 'I Drink', featured in these very pages some years ago. Here's a link.

But that would do her disservice, to attribute her merits solely to a quasi-Tom Waitsian underworld of squalor and disappointment. Her songs can also lift the soul. Eagerly awaited as I scribble is her latest, a work in conjunction with U.S. army vets and their families, described here. Not out yet in my home country, she is over for a short tour later in the year. Never yet having caught her live, I hope to remedy that. And here is a song from the forthcoming.

Never cute, never gentle, always acutely precise and demanding of thought, here's to you, Mary, have a great 11th.

Dig in!

The Number Nine/September: Big Star, September Gurls

Purchase:
Big Star, September Gurls

In terms of musical discovery, I find myself often turning to the influences of those who influence me. Reading about an artist’s musical education often effects my own explorations into past genres and movements. In a beautiful, somewhat karmic turn, the influences of my influences become my own influences.

I find musical biographies the most interesting way to discover new, or otherwise unheard, music.  Digging deep into the history of music is as interesting and digging into actual, archeological history: what you find from the past informs the future. That’s why Magic Sam is almost daily listening for me. That’s how I discovered the Red Dirt Music movement, Jimmy LaFave, Stoney LaRue, and Jason Boland. 

In the same vein, I love a good name drop in songs. A few songs come to mind: Adam Duritz lamented Richard Manuel’s  (The Band) suicide along side the metaphorical impermanence of his own life in If I Could Give All My Love. John Mellancamp is pretty big name dropper (R.O.C.K in the U.S.A). The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon has made a brilliant career out of not only name-dropping, but wholesale lyrical montage, or is it collage, by taking lines from famous rock songs and seamlessly weaving the lyrics into his own. And, as we shall explore further later on, Paul Westerberg famously paid reverential homage to Alex Chilton and declared we could all use a ‘little Big Star” in the class ‘Mats track, Alex Chilton. 

I’m spanning across some divergent ideas here, but the point is: I feel listening to an artist who really moved you necessitates digging into their musical heritage. The same holds true for contemporary artists who run in the same packs. But, this is September, and history class is in session, so let’s dwell there, back there, not in the back of the classroom, but in the stacks. Dust off your vinyl, pull out your vintage t-shirts that you bought when brand new and let’s talk about a band I have always loved, to a degree, but have a complicated relationship with: I'm talking about the aforementioned Alex Chilton's Big Star.

I came to Big Star, and Alex Chilton, because of Paul Westerberg and The Replacements. Big Star, I know a little about; The 'Mats? I worship at their altar, so it was almost a necessity that I dig into someone they wrote a song about.

But, as often happens, one man's treasure doesn't always turn out to be the same or the next. The reason I say my affinity for Big Star is complicated is simple: like a lot of short lived bands, their catalog runs the entire spectrum of absolute greatness to songs that, while I might not call them bad, do probably speak to why they never hit it bigger than they did. They wrote great songs, and they put of some junkers. I feel a band like The Who exists on the same level: some of the greatest rock songs ever written and some of the worst. Literary minded folks could say the same for say, Charles Dickens. Big Star has that appeal and occupies that strange place between greatness and…mehhhh. The great stuff is just that; a lot of the rest of it is filler, at best.

I think that inconsistency has kept me from making a total embrace. But this is also me being utterly, assholishly subjective...I've had this discussion about the Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons. I think his short lived career was marked with nothing but brilliant, but I know a lot of folks thinks Return of the Grievous Angle is the starting and stopping point when it comes to evaluating his output. 

Add to the fact that the hipsters have gotten ahold of Big Star  (at least their t-shirt) which makes any relationship to a band, movie, book or whatever a heck of lot more complicated. 

Big Star's Alex Chilton is an eponymously blistering tribute to one of Westerberg’s heroes. The lead singer of Big Star, Chilton never hit it huge, or as huge as he probably should have, but he was a critics darling, and many a rocker’s legendary founding father of power pop. You’ve heard Big Star, for sure, but a lot of you (not you, SMM readers), might not know it. Their most well known track owes its celebrity to serving as the theme song to That 70’s Show. In the Street. Google “Big Star Hanging Out”—you’ll know exactly what I’m talking out.

While Big Star had many great songs, my favorite remains, and believe me, this doesn’t put me in unique company—a lot of people love this song—September Gurls. It’s a brilliant, chiming, churning pop gem, as great a radio song as I’ve ever heard. It makes its way onto almost all of the mixes I make, and I can't think of a song I more want to hear when I’m sipping drinks on a summer day.  Or that goes better with any beautiful girl you fall in love with, even if it's from across the room or jsut walking down the street.  September Gurls is two minutes and 56 seconds of a pop jewel in the crown of love songs. And will always be the soundtrack for a heart that breaks way too often at meeting, and losing, one of many girls from one of many dreams.

It was never a big hit, but September Gurls makes multiple lists of greatest pop songs ever. The Bangles covered it on their 1986 LP Different Light, and much in keeping with the theme of this post, it was their version that led me down a long path to Big Star (influences of influences, remember?). Though I should state that since I was listening to The Bangles, in 6th grade,my musical tastes hadn’t quite refined yet to the point where I would not listen to The Bangles. The Replacements followed within a few years, after I’d grown a little more discerning. Yet, now that I’m even older, I can kind of get down with The Bangles, and see they had some great songs—their cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Hazy Shade of Winter has a fiery snarl that the original folk duo could never have achieved…not that they needed to, but again, I love seeing how the influence of a precedent setting artist informs the later one, and how different the sound becomes.

All that being said, influential or not, popular or not, Big Star deserved more. And not this enlightening bit of trivia from MTV.

Thanks, Katy Perry.

Side Projects: Golden Smog

Golden Smog: V
[purchase]

For the next couple of weeks, we will be writing about “Side Projects,” the musical projects that are created when an artist decides to moonlight away from his “regular” band. These projects happen for many different reasons—the desire to explore a different kind of music, the opportunity to play with different people, the chance for a sideman to step to the front, or even just to fill time between releases.

Golden Smog appears to have developed because a bunch of friendly, similarly inclined musicians from different bands had fun playing together. As befits their name (which was taken from the second episode of The Flintstones), the origins of Golden Smog are clouded in the mists of history. They started in the late 1980s in Minneapolis as a loose collection of musicians who joined together to play mostly covers, possibly at first in 1987 to support Kraig Johnson, of Run Westy Run, at a solo show. According to Marc Perlman of The Jayhawks, and a member of Golden Smog, that show included guitarists Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, Perlman on bass and Soul Asylum vocalist Dave Pirner on drums. Other early members included Chris Mars of The Replacements and Jim Boquist of Son Volt, and they became a regular feature of the Minneapolis bar scene. Gary Louris remembers it all somewhat differently, and if you really want more on the band’s origins, read this article from No Depression.

The band’s first release was a 1992 EP of covers, On Golden Smog. Because of contractual issues, the band members used pseudonyms derived from their middle names and the street they grew up on, and included Murphy (“David Spear”), Pirner (“Anthony James”), Louris (“Michael Macklyn”), Perlman (“Raymond Virginia”), Johnson (“Jarrett Decatur”) and Mars (“Eddie Garfield”) who also created the cover art. The relaxed nature of the collaboration was demonstrated by the fact that one song had lead vocals from Soul Asylum roadie Bill Sullivan.

Over time, the members of the band started to bring original songs to the group, and this culminated in 1996’s release, Down By the Old Mainstream, in which Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (“Scot Summit”) replaced Pirner, and Mars was replaced with Honeydogs’ drummer Noah Levy (“Leonardson Saratoga”). The album contained mostly original songs, with two covers. At the time, Soul Asylum was already a couple of years past their breakthrough hits, The Jayhawks had released a couple of well received albums, but were reeling from the loss of singer Marc Olson, and Wilco was still gaining its footing. Tweedy, who as a Bellville West High School student had actually interviewed Murphy for a music magazine, reportedly appreciated the support he received from his fellow Smoggers following the breakup of Uncle Tupelo and the mixed reviews for Wilco’s debut.

As a fan of Wilco, Soul Asylum and The Jayhawks, I was inclined to like Golden Smog, and this album got me hooked. I especially loved the opener, “V,” featured above, a wistful remembrance of a friendly and supportive barmaid, that, nevertheless rocks. This was a disc that was played to death in our house. I know that some reviews, predictably, denigrated some of the songs as ones that were not good enough for the member’s regular bands, but I think that is too facile a critique. Not every song is a gem, but even the weaker ones are worthwhile.

It took a few years for the band members’ schedules to align to allow the recording and release of a second album, this time with Big Star drummer Jody Stephens instead of Levy. Weird Tales was released in 1998, and consisted of all originals (and all of the members got to use their own names). It has a somewhat more somber tone than the prior disc, but also has a few rockers, including my favorite track, “Until You Came Along.” One review described it as “long and sloppy and uneven and enjoyable, and thus easily pigeonholed as the kind of long, sloppy, uneven, enjoyable record that happens when a bunch of people who kind of know each other sit down with some guitars—yes, we understood, Golden Smog was a Traveling Wilburys full of people nobody really knew.”

My family enjoyed this album, and my wife and I saw the band put on a great show at Irving Plaza in New York. By that time, it was clear that Tweedy was getting most of the attention, as Wilco had released both Being There and the first Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg.

And that seemed to be pretty much it for Golden Smog, as the members’ regular bands and projects took precedence. I was, therefore, excited when the band announced a concert at the Bowery Ballroom in the summer of 2004, and my wife and I went. One of our favorite memories of that night was sitting in this little alcove in the balcony with our friends before the show started, and the actors Adam Goldberg and Christina Ricci, who were a couple at the time, came and sat with us. We became close friends and still hang out. Not really. They actually ignored us and we played the blasé New Yorkers and ignored them, but it was still pretty cool. It was a fun, very loose show, filled with Golden Smog songs and lots of random covers ranging from Carly Simon, to The Fugs to Neil Young to Talking Heads. No Tweedy this time, but the band included Louris, Perlman, Murphy, Johnson, Steve Wynn (of the Dream Syndicate) and his wife, drummer Linda Pitmon, David Poe, Jenni Muldaur, James Mastro (of The Bongos) and others.

The tour led to another album, Another Fine Day, mostly recorded in Spain, with additional material (including Tweedy’s contributions) added later. It is a good album, but I never really fell in love with it, nor did I love the also perfectly fine (but Tweedy-less) EP Blood on the Slacks. I can’t say that my lack of interest in these later discs is a result of their quality or just the fact that I didn’t listen to them over and over again, but it is what it is.

Golden Smog has turned out to be a pretty long-running side project, which allowed its members to have fun, try new things with different band members, but never seemed to get in the way of the members’ “day jobs.” And I think they put out a bunch of good music.

Jailbait: Thirteen

Big Star: Thirteen

[purchase]

I have to admit that like Susan, I too was a bit surprised by this week's theme. It took me a while to figure out what direction to go in for my post, but I found the answer in this innocent love song...

"Thirteen" is a sweet song of adolescent love from Big Star's first album, the simultaneously appropriately titled and ironically titled #1 Record. (It didn't get anywhere close to #1 on the charts.) Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz does a better job than most at describing the song, and even he resorts to sharing some of the lyrics:

Won't you let me walk you home from school
Won't you let me meet you at the pool
Maybe Friday I can get tickets to the dance
And I'll take you, ooh

Won't you tell your dad, "Get off my back"
Tell him what we said 'bout "Paint It Black"
Rock & roll is here to stay
Come inside girl, it's OK
And I'll shake you

If it's so, well let me know
If it's no, well I can go
I won't make you.

It's a brilliant song that captures the mood perfectly, with a simple, acoustic arrangement.


Jim Boggia: Thirteen

[out of print]

The very talented Philly singer-songwriter (and human jukebox) Jim Boggia lo's the fi considerably for his solo version, recorded in 2003 on a 1960s Concord Transistorized 220 reel-to-reel tape recorder and released on one of his "homemade records", Transistorized 220 - Volume 2.

Autumn and Harvest : September Gurls

Big Star : September Gurls

[purchase]

I'm surprised nobody posted this song yet, thanks to the cult status of Big Star. Their music, although 30 years old, sounds so modern that the band is particularly praised now in the 2000s while it went practically unnoticed when it came out
These are the laws of rock history.
Whatever, the music of Big Star (here, of Alex Chilton, since Chris Bell had left the band)is full of power, great pop music both fierce and delicate, with that drop of venom that charecterized the post-hippie era, and which is still palpable in indie rock.

Shorties: Alex Chilton Edition

The Box Tops - Chilton standing center


Big Star (as trio) - Chilton slouching right

The Box Tops: The Letter [purchase]

Big Star: I'm In Love With A Girl [purchase]

Alex Chilton has had his hand in a few pithy pop classics. As the 17-year-old lead singer of The Box Tops, he pushed his voice way down soul deep for The Letter. The result was the second shortest No. 1 hit in the history of pop music. (Guess the shortest No. 1 hit in the comments below.) As a kid and teenager I probably heard The Letter a hundred times before I realized that it was sung by a teenaged Chilton. The guy sounds at least 24.

When Chilton actually did reach 24, he was still churning out catchy little pop numbers. On I'm In Love With A Girl, Chilton pushed his voice in the other direction, up into the falsetto range. It's hard to believe it's the same singer.

Unfortunately, circumstances conspired to prevent Big Star from timely receiving the popular success their music deserved. The consolation prize was to be adorned with cult-like hipster status by the college rockers of the 1980's.

(OK. I better stop now. This post is getting too long for me.)

Cars: Big Star Edition

Big Star: Back Of A Car

[purchase]

Big Star: Big Black Car

[purchase]

I love Big Star. Luckily they have two great songs about cars.

The Moon: Blue Moon

Big Star: Blue Moon [purchase]

Gleeson: Blue Moon [purchase]

No, not that "Blue Moon." This is the "Blue Moon" written by Alex Chilton for Big Star's underground masterpiece, Third/Sister Lovers. Like most of the songs on the record, this one is arranged with minimal adornment, featuring a pair of acoustic guitars, a standup bass, what sounds like a mellotron, and maybe light synthesizer. Beautiful, simple, in-and-out in 2:06.

Austin's Gleeson covered this one for Thank You Friends: An Almost There Records Salute To Big Star, and it's like they took the arrangement for "Holocaust" and sang the words to "Blue Moon." Haunting stuff. Where Chilton's take has a sweet, tender quality, Gleeson's is almost funereal. True, it helps to have Jim Fredley singing, the guy has an awesome voice. But, a big voice could overwhelm the song and that doesn't happen here. The simple arrangement stays true to the original vision, with Ty Chandler's mournful piano part essentially replacing the acoustic guitars and bass. Meanwhile, Michael Crow of Grand Champeen ... doubling as producer/engineer of this track ... provides a faux string quartet part that echoes the mellotron. In both cases, it's pop music at its most direct, beautiful, and simple.

"Let me be your one light,
And if you'd like a true heart,
Take the time to show you're mine,
And I'll be a blue moon in the dark.

While you sleep, you'll see me there,
Clouds race across the sky,
Close your eyes and don't ask why,
And I'll be a blue moon in your eyes.

Morning comes and sleeping's done,
Birds sing outside,
If demons come while you're under,
I'll be a blue moon in the sky."