Circuses and Carnivals: That Song About the Midway

Joni Mitchell: That Song About the Midway

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In British folksongs, gypsys represent freedom, or the yearning for it. A woman in the song runs off with a gypsy, but she is really seeking to escape the yoke of class expectations. In the United States, class consciousness is less overt, but the urge to run away is still there. We represent it in popular culture as the urge to run away and join the circus. Joni Mitchell’s That Song About the Midway combines these two archetypes, by presenting a woman who wants to run off with a potential lover in a traveling carnival. Mitchell’s narrator knows that this man probably won’t be good for her, but the “urge for going”, if you will, is still strong.

Circuses and Carnivals: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

The Beatles: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite

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A blog request!

This poster, nabbed in an antique shop, was the inspiration for John Lennon to write Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite, one of the stellar songs from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Apparently he wanted this song to recreate the sounds of the circus, down to the "sawdust on the floor." How many lyrics can you spot?

Not only didn't I know about the cribbed poster, I also didn't know this factoid, courtesy Wikipedia (aka, the blogger's bible): It was one of three songs from the Sgt. Pepper album that was banned on the BBC, supposedly because the phrase "Henry the Horse" combined two words that were individually known as slang for heroin.

Circuses and Carnivals: Five From The Midway

Dan Zanes: Wonderwheel

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I went to a weekend fair
met someone while I was there
we put flowers in our hair
and rode the wonderwheel...

It sure sounds like a carnival, thanks to a rollicking accordion, a bouncy beat, and a subtle surfer's acoustic groove. And that's the point, for sure: after all, Dan Zanes is a master of the seemingly-casual kidsong, when in actuality, every note and tone is designed to add to the perfect festive mood, the inner child called to exquisitely.


Richard & Linda Thompson: The Wall of Death

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Roller coaster as metaphor for the nauseating thrill-ride risk of the love affair? Yes, please. REM covers this one, but the Richard Thompson original is better by far, a perfect take from his mid-eighties solo work with ties to both true-blue rock and roll and his early folk rock sound with Fairport Convention.



David Wilcox: Top of the Roller Coaster

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A bit more specific, softspoken southern folkie David Wilcox - a master of the sustained metaphor - looks at the roller coaster's moment of anticipation as a model of the inner heartjump turning thirty can bring. Love the way the bouncy tonality and sweet harmonies bring midlife crisis alive. So much joy.



Norah Jones: Carnival Town

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A broad title belied in the first few lines - this is actually a song mostly about carnival rides and their motion as a reflection of life-movement, with each of the first two verses taking on a different ride (the third verse covers clowns). Loneliness on the downswing makes this a perfect lullaby.


Mary Gauthier: Merry Go Round

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Gauthier holds off on her titular metaphor until the chorus, setting the stage with the violent and stark images of an early life of drug and family abuses that fit cleanly among the rest of the songs on powerful third album Filth & Fire. The carousel "horse" here is heroin; the turning of the wheel a path of addiction and recurrence - and so we come full circle, as it were, from the cheerfulness of Dan Zanes, proving the versatility of midway as macrocosm, reflecting the vastness of the inner world.

Circuses and Carnivals: Crocodile Man

Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer: Crocodile Man

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Our Circuses and Carnivals theme is almost done, and no one has visited the freak show until now. There must be other songs that would work, but let me at least share a favorite of mine. I suppose that the term “freak show” is not appropriate for this song. The crocodile man tells the story from his point of view, as a human being just trying to get by as best he can. And that is exactly what makes this song so special. Oh, and a killer groove doesn’t hurt either.

Circuses and Carnivals: Send in the Clowns

Pat Martino: Send in the Clowns

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Send in the Clowns, now a jazz standard but originally a 1973 show tune by Stephen Sondheim, is a slow, regretful ballad. This guitar version by Pat Martino, one of my new favorite artists (and I can't believe this is the first I've posted by him!), brings out the most soulful, introspective nuances of the song.

Martino has an astounding musical history: a prominent guitarist by 1980, he suffered an aneurism followed by brain surgery that caused him to lose all memory of how to play guitar. Painstakingly, he relearned, regaining his former abilities the hard way. You'd be hard-pressed to hear the difference between his "before" and "after" recordings unless you looked at the date. This one is from 1976.

Circuses and Carnivals: State Fair

Rasputina: State Fair

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It may not be about a specific attraction at a carnival, but this song definitely fits the bill as far as being about the wonders of the summer carnival, or as we here in U.S. are accustomed more often than not, the fair. State fairs are notoriously pretty cheesy, and lacking integrity. Of course, if you ask me, that's part of the appeal. Where else can you ride a ferris wheel after eating your weight in food items that were unhealthy to begin with, but then the good people at the state fair had the good sense to fry and put on a stick, all while enjoying the lovely smell of menure? It really is a miraculous event. All that, and pig racing as well? The Ohio State Fair is currently running and I am not sure I am going to have a chance to go. This makes me sad. I do so love funnel cake.

But listening to this song helps ease the pain. Rasputina, the all cello rock band fronted by singer-songwriter Melora Creager in her creepy dusty corset collection sings her tongue-in-cheek ode to the State Fair. I am sure her tongue is in cheek as much as mine is. The events can hardly be taken too seriously, but are still seriously fun to attend.

Circuses and Carnivals: Tight Rope

Leon Russell: Tight Rope

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I'm up on the tightwire,
Flanked by life and the funeral pyre,
Putting on a show for you to see.

Leon Russell is best known as a session player, where his distinctive keyboards (mainly) and guitar back up too many rock, bluegrass, country, blues, and pop musicians to even begin to list. He wrote early hits for diverse folks like the Carpenters (A Song For You), George Benson (This Masquerade), Joe Cocker (Delta Lady)…and himself – this song was his first hit in 1972. Russell was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last March.

Allmusic calls his style "swamp fusion," punched up by his Oklahoma-tinged vocals and bayou-laced lyrics. I'd certainly never heard music like this when I left suburbia for Ann Arbor. This album, Carney, became the most-played of my first freshman term, and I even got my roommate, a classical music kind of girl, hooked too. Goes to show that sometimes all we need to fall in love with new music is enough exposure.

Drums => Circuses and Carnivals: Tears of a Clown

The English Beat: Tears of a Clown

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The sad clown is an irony that many artists have found irresistible. Smokey Robinson took it and created a pop music classic. But, for me, this version by The English Beat really does the job. The opening rat-tat-tat of the drums sets the stage musically, and that figure reappears throughout the song to push it forward. Tears of a Clown was the first ska cover I ever heard. The sheer surprise of it, plus the undeniable energy of the performance made this version a classic in its own right. Since then, I have noticed that many ska bands include an unlikely cover in their repertoire, and many of them are great. But, for, me this one has never been topped.

Drums: X

X Japan: X

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Man, it's almost too hot to blog here.

Almost.

I can't let Drum Week go by, though, without paying tribute to one of the hottest drummers I know. We've actually seen him before on this blog in his pianist incarnation, but he's also one of the world's most intense, diva-like drummers on any continent. I'm talking, of course, about Yoshiki, the prima donna, leader, and producer of J-rock group X Japan. He's one of those musicians who's larger than life.

This version of their self-titled anthem was recorded in 1989. After a ten-year hiatus, X Japan is back touring, and as you can see, Yoshiki is a bit worse for wear. That neck brace protects him after years of headbanging and recent spinal surgery.

The song, though doesn't do him justice. For that you'll have to check out some concert footage, where his over-the-top antics during extended drum solos sends the crown into a screaming frenzy. He's got it down: first there's the slow build-up, then his drum platform takes off into the sky and circles around, then there's water fountains, then fireworks, then a rousing finish followed by Yoshiki collapsing and crawling off the stage. The whole thing takes long enough for the rest of the band to catch the first half of the Lakers game.

Here's one from last year in Yokohama. You can check out YouTube for a boatload more ("Yoshiki drum" will get you all you need).

Drums: Tales of Brave Ulysses

Cream: Tales of Brave Ulysses

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I remember the first time I heard Cream. My oldest brother bought the album Disraeli Gears when it came out, and my other brother and I had to hear it. We listened in silence until the end of side one, and before my oldest brother turned the record over, he said, “and that’s only three guys!” Listening to Cream now, I can hear how the trick was done. Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce each has a big sound, and each covers part of the rhythm guitar part. And Ginger Baker thunders along, covering both the drum part and part of the bass. Most drummers in rock hit the beat, and play fills in between. Baker plays a continuous rumble of pulses, varying the pattern in unexpected places but always keeping perfect time. And he makes it sound like it’s something that just happens; it is forceful, but never forced. Tales of Great Ulysses shows this off beautifully. The song opens with Baker playing just a wash of sound on the cymbals, but then the drums kick in. In the course of the song, there are spots where Baker goes back to just the cymbals, and then back to his full kit again. The contrast between these sections makes it easy to appreciate just how important Baker’s playing was to the band’s sound. The other trick to Baker’s sound was that he had two bass drums in his kit instead of the usual one.

Drums: Pursuance

The John Coltrane Quartet: Pursuance (Part 3 of A Love Supreme)

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I may be coming to this week's theme the wrong way round. I suspect that the rest of the SMM gang will first think of a song with a striking drum part; instead, I'm checking out some of my favorite drummers and looking for songs where they really shine. And for me, the shiniest drummers are found in jazz.

Elvin Jones played on a bunch of jazz albums you've probably heard, or heard of. His lengthy recording career (from the 40's to this century; he died in 2004) saw him backing major artists such as Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Art Farmer, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Burrell, Yusef Lateef, Freddy Hubbard, Grant Green, Ornette Coleman, John McLaughlin, Dewey Redman, Bill Frisell…well, you get the idea. But one of his greatest periods was during his 5 year stint with tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. The Quartet also featured McCoy Tyner on piano and Jimmy Garrison on bass.

A Love Supreme is one of the best examples of modal jazz, a free-form style pioneered by Miles Davis and John Coltrane in the late 50's and 60's. This four-part suite, released in 1965, is widely considered to be one of the best jazz recordings ever. Part 3 begins with a 90 second solo by Jones and demonstrates his polyrhythmic style, which is why I chose this track, but I encourage you to listen to the entire album, which was powerful and spiritual enough to launch the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church of San Francisco.

DRUMS: I'M CHIEF KAMANAWANALEA

The Turtles: I'm Chief Kamanawanalea

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For their 1968 concept album, Battle of the Bands, The Turtles tried to sound like a different group on each track. They even had photographs taken of themselves disguised as each group. The Turtles recorded the Top 10 hit "You Showed Me" as Nature's Children and another big hit, "Elenore" , as Howie, Mark, Johny, Jim & Al.
   As Chief Kamanawanalea and his Royal Macadamia Nuts, they let drummer John Barbata lead the way. Kamanawanalea ( named after the fictitious "God of Lust and Perversion") is of course the kind of silly pun that makes Hawaiians roll their eyes.
    But it's those drum breaks that make this 94-second song irresistible, especially to rap artists like The Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane and De La Soul, the latter of whom used the breaks ( and samples from "You Showed Me") without crediting the Turtles. De La Soul met the fury of the litigious lead singers, Flo & Eddie. They won a share of the royalties and punitive damages.
   Today Eddie ( Howard Kaylan) looks back on the critical reception this album received with disappointment.
  "Battle of the Bands was our Sergeant Pepper." He told blogger Cody Conard ."And it still bugs me, all these years later, that it was under-appreciated by the music critics upon its release. I was happy with it then, and I still think it's the strongest stand-alone album that the band ever recorded".

Drums: Saved

LaVern Baker: Saved

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Could I be asked to choose a favourite drum track between the percussive detonations on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Uptight’ and the assault of drums on Tim Rose’s pre-Hendrix version of ‘Hey Joe’? And if I do, will I not be lacking in fidelity to the pulsating flourishes on The Five Stairsteps’ ‘Ooh Child’?

I suppose none of those would qualify in terms of this week’s theme, with its expectation that the drums be part of the song’s essence.

Of course, the use of drums reached a zenith in a gospel song recorded on 12 June 1960 by the R&B singer LaVern Baker, who had been recording since she was a teenager in the mid-’40s, going by several names, most famously Little Miss Sharecropper .

‘Saved’ was written by the legendary songwriting and publishing team Leiber & Stoller. Fans of Elvis’ Comeback Special in 1968 will know it as a decent little gospel number, but Elvis couldn’t possibly hold a candle to Baker’s explosive version. She sings it forcefully, but it’s the thundering bass drums with which she proposes to do her missionary work that makes this track rock furiously. Try and sit still to this!

Album Cover Art => Drums: Dance of the Hunter’s Fire

Mickey Hart: Dance of the Hunter‘s Fire

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Planet Drum became the first album to win a Grammy for World Music in 1991. But that was only part of the story. I got it as a book and CD set, and the book was amazing. Mickey Hart, of Grateful Dead fame, had traveled the world on tour, and had learned about the local drums and drummers wherever he could. The book was a highly readable and fascinating survey of the world of percussion, with lavish illustrations. The CD was just as amazing. Hart gathered some of the greatest percussionists from various parts of the world, and gotten them to work together to prove that drumming is a universal language. Players on Dance of the Hunter’s Fire include Babtunde Olatunji from Nigeria, Airto Moreira from Brazil, as well as players from the United States, Puerto Rico, and India.

The album cover shows the planet earth, with drummers and dancing animals circling it. The whole thing appears on a drumhead. Artist Nancy Nimoy perfectly captured the spirit that Mickey Hart was trying to present.

Album Cover Art: Kagrra, - Miyako

Kagrra,: Urei

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Kagrra, (yeah, with the comma as part of the band name) was a J-rock band whose style deliberately blended classical Japanese traditions (both musical and sartorial) with rock. Sadly, they just disbanded a few months ago, but they were pretty decent for the ten years that they lasted. During that time they released nearly a dozen albums (depending on how you count), a slew of mini-albums, a raft of maxi-singles, a bunch of concert DVDs, and some stray singles.

In Japan, artists don't merely release one album or one single; there are commonly multiple versions: a regular version, a limited version, perhaps an 'A" version, and 'B' version. They've all got the same single, but each variation has a different second or third song, some may have a version with the vocals stripped out for karaoke, and the limited version will have a DVD with the promotional video of the song. And a diehard band fan will buy each version (and each purchase counts separately to determine the Oricon chart rating, which is how it evolved into such a racket).

Can you tell where I'm going with this? Each version also has a unique cover.

Kagrra, was unique in that the group had a long-term relationship with one artist, Fukaya Yuichiro, who created most (but not all) of their artwork. His style similarly merged classical Japanese themes with a modern feel to them. Check out more of his artwork for Kagrra, on his Facebook page. He would create a series of related pictures for the various incarnations of a release, often with a bit of subtle humor to them. Notice some of the paired images of the regular and limited covers in the Facebook examples (and he doesn't have all of his stuff here, so Google 'images' can find more for you).

The artwork above shows the expanded cover for the 2004 album, Miyako. The right side of the artwork was featured on the front of the CD, showing only the kanji and a bit of hair and sleeve, and the left wrapped around to the back cover. Pretty, ne?

Album Cover Art: Okkervil River - The Stage Names and The Stand Ins

Okkervil River: You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man

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Okkervil River: Calling and Not Calling My Ex

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Okkervil River is an indie rock band mostly based out of Austin, Texas. The cover art for all six of their full-length releases and some of their EPs has been done by artist William Schaff. Many other bands use the same artists for all of the their album art (Steve Earle has featured Tony Fitzpatrick's artwork since 1995, and the Drive-By Truckers featuring Wes Freed's art since their 2001 opus Southern Rock Opera. What I particularly love about Schaff's artwork for Okkervil River's 2007 release The Stage Names and 2008 album The Stands Ins is that first, they were both done entirely in embroidery. Second, the album covers were designed to go together (to get a closer look, see Schaff's Flickr album art page). But fans didn't realize this when The Stage Names came out in 2007. We fans just thought is was another cool William Schaff abstract creation. The album itself is a loose concept album of the perils of being an entertainer, be it as a touring musician, a poet, or even a porn star. The Stage Names and The Stand Ins were recorded at the same time, and the music on The Stand Ins mostly doesn't fit The Stage Names theme. But how delighted were we fans when The Stand Ins was released a year later and we found out that the hand reaching out of the gerpy water
was actually that of a drunken skeleton-man, reaching out for help? Wonderful concept, and a very unique design.

Guest post by Rock Star Aimz of My Aimz is True

Album Cover Art: Bee Gees - Odessa

Bee Gees: Suddenly

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   On the heels of their massive number one UK hit "I've Gotta Get A Message To You", The Bee Gees were ready to make their big statement album. That statement was the 1969 album Odessa, two lps wrapped up in a red velvety flocked cover with gold lettering.
"I think Odessa was an attempt to do a rock opera," Barry Gibb told The Guardian's Alexis Petridis in 2009. "It sort of turned itself into a bit of a mish mash, but our intentions were honourable. I think we wanted to do something that could be put on stage. There was supposed to be a thematic thing going on," he added, "but it just kind of wandered off into the distance."
  While it was nice to own an album cover you could actually pet, the flock reportedly caused a major allergic reaction among some of the workers during production.
   The reissues all came out in boring old cardboard sleeves.

Album Cover Art: Ramones - Ramones

Ramones: Loudmouth

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For their '76 debut, the Ramones were originally looking for an album cover that would be somewhat similar to Meet The Beatles!, but that didn't really pan out. Which proved to be a streak of luck really, as da brudders then decided to use a Roberta Bayley photograph which had already been published in Punk magazine. One look at it and you knew you were dealing with radically different stuff here. What you saw was what you got: Bayley had managed to epitomize the no-frills aesthetic of punk rock in just one shot. Four street kids from New York City - Johnny, Tommy, Joey and Dee Dee, from left to right - in stark black & white, standing in front of a dirty brick wall looking bored but confident in their trademark leathers, jeans, and sneakers. And boy, did they look cool... Anyone still wear that uniform on a regular basis? Thought so.

Album Cover Art: Grateful Dead - (Skull and Roses)

Grateful Dead: Playing in the Band

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How often does the album cover art give an album its name? This one came out as simply Grateful Dead in 1971. But the band’s debut album from four years earlier was also called Grateful Dead. The title Live Dead was also already in use. So, over the years, this one has come to be known as Skull and Roses. I put that in parentheses above, because it is not the official title of the album. The skeleton was actually drawn for something else entirely, a 1913 edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, That illustration was by Edmund Joseph Sullivan. Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse added the lettering and color, to create the image seen above. The skeleton with roses became a visual motif that was identified with the Grateful Dead for the next 25 years. Playing in the Band is the song I always hear in my head when I think of this album. The singer on this one was Bob Weir.

Album Cover Art: Joseph Arthur - Come to Where I'm From

Joseph Arthur: Chemical

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When I first read about this week's topic, my mind went straight to musical artists who are also visual artists.  I'm a sucker for artists who create their own cover art.

Akron, Ohio's Joseph Arthur has been responsible for the artwork on several of his releases, but his first foray into cover art design was with his 2000 release Come to Where I'm From.  While the image itself doesn't really do much to present a theme for the record or add any meaning to any of the songs, it does do a nice job of establishing the tone of the album.  Arthur's artwork, like his songwriting and arrangements, can often be described as abstract.  Few things say abstract quite like a stylized human head with scarabs for eyes.

Musically, this album ranks as one of the most important of Arthur's career (although 2004's Our Shadows Will Remain will always be my favorite) due to the exposure he gained from its breakthrough track "In the Sun."  It's also interesting due to the fact that it was produced by the Americana Midas, T-Bone Burnett.  It's an odd collaboration that finds Burnett expanding his typical palate while also reigning in some of Arthur's more adventurous eccentricities.

Since many of you may already know "In the Sun," I'm going with another track from the record here.  For more of Arthur's artwork, check out his Museum of Modern Arthur.