My Morning Jacket: Bridges Gap between Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd

An interesting article on My Morning Jacket in the Corvallis Gazette-Times (Oregon) by Jake TenPas. The premise is that there are two kinds of people in the world:

Neil Young fans and Skynyrd fans.

The feud between Neil and Skynyrd has been well documented before on the dueling lyrics of Young's "Southern Man" and Lynyrd Skynyrd response "Sweet Home Alabama."

There are some great lines in the article linking the three bands, such as:

"Happily, the fine, Bourbon-laced state of Kentucky delivered a four-headed baby named "My Morning Jacket," who fulfilled my imaginary prophecy like a doom-drenched royal family in a Frank Herbert book.

If Santa Claus' belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs, then My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James' hair shakes like a pyramid full of Cobras when he wails on his Flying-V guitar.

No, My Morning Jacket are the real thing, creating narratives with backdrops that range from smoky, folky ditties about barroom dropouts to epic, multi-part compositions about the majesty of the open road. Plus, they totally rock.

From the spare, emotionally evocative lyrics of Neil Young to the pummeling solos of a Skynyrd record, My Morning Jacket runs the gamut of everything that made '70s rock so classic."

The article continues a rundown of My Morning Jacket's albums including ‘The Tennessee Fire', ‘At Dawn', and ‘It Still Moves'. TenPas writes:

" "Run Thru" has a Neil Young "Cortez"-the-killer psychedelic swagger and one of the most intense Moog-bass breakdowns of all times. Sometimes, when the drums and guitar start to rise back out of that breakdown, I feel the urge to throw myself off the tallest cliff I can find and will myself to fly."

For more, here's a concert review of My Morning Jacket.

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The Bronx Cover Neil's "The Needle And The Damage Done"

The Bronx covered Neil Young's "The Needle And The Damage Done" at Amsterdam's Paradiso Club according to a review in New Musical Express by Pat Long:

"The plush Paradiso is a former church with a neat village hall atmos, managed by people who believe the optimum start time for a headline band is half past eight. This means that as The Bronx rip into, say, the 500mph goth-punk hammerblow of 'Bats', the spring sun is still creeping in through huge bay windows. Plus, it being a Monday night, the place is pretty much only half full. Dutch audiences are generally well-heeled, polite and very, very stoned anyway, which means that the beery shirts-off crowd-surf heroics The Bronx usually feed off are entirely absent.

They opt instead to play very fast, very loud and very short: almost exactly on the stroke of nine Matt drops his mic and they amble offstage. Still, 30 minutes is enough for The Bronx to exhibit both a depth and a wink that removes them from the grimacing Warped Tour rabble: few other hardcore bands would dare to play a fragile version of buckskinned hippy icon Neil Young's early-'70s anti-smack anthem 'The Needle And The Damage Done'. Still fewer would be able to make it sound so good. But - oh yes - just like Amsterdam, The Bronx thrive on contradictions. Much more fun than anything the red light district has to offer, this is a different kind of Hot Fucking Live Show."

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Rock of Ages

A very thoughtful and provocative article in The New York Times called "Rock of Ages " by NICK HORNBY. Hornby again deplores the state of rock music and its relevance. But manages find hope for today's and yesterday's generations.

"Thirty years ago, almost to the day, Jon Landau published his influential, exciting, career-changing, and subsequently much derided and parodied article about Bruce Springsteen in The Real Paper, an alternative weekly. The article included the line 'I saw rock 'n' roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.' I had never read the rest of it until recently, and it remains a lovely piece of writing. It begins, heartbreakingly: 'It's four in the morning and raining. I'm 27 today, feeling old, listening to my records and remembering that things were different a decade ago.' I'm only guessing here, but I can imagine there are a number of you reading this who can remember what it was like to feel old at 27, and how it bears no resemblance to feeling old at 37, or 47. And you probably miss records almost as much as you miss being 27.

It's hard not to think about one's age and how it relates to rock music. I just turned 47, and with each passing year it becomes harder not to wonder whether I should be listening to something that is still thought of as more age appropriate like jazz, folk, classical, opera, funeral marches, the usual suspects. You've heard the arguments a million times: most rock music is made by the young, for the young, about being young, and if you're not young and you still listen to it, then you should be ashamed of yourself. And finally I've worked out my response to all that: I mostly agree with the description, even though it's crude, and makes no effort to address the recent, mainly excellent work of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Mr. Springsteen et al. The conclusion, however, makes no sense to me any more."

A number of interesting bands are mentioned including the up & coming Marah. Read the whole thing.

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Wilco: A Dream Can Mean Anything

Wilco performed at Otto's Niteclub in Dekalb, Illinois, on Wednesday, May 19, 2004 and gave fans all the reassurance they needed that Jeff Tweedy is back from the road to recovery. From Glorious Noise review "A Dream Can Mean Anything" by Jake Brown:

"From the moment they took the stage to the whining riff of "Ashes of American Flags," this was a band who had their shit together. They sounded like they had been playing together for years. Guitarist Nels Cline knew exactly when to take control and when to step back and let Jeff Tweedy show off his newfound skills at lead guitar. Together, they tore shit up. In their most boisterous and indulgent instrumental passages, like at the end of "Muzzle of Bees," they sounded like a noisy Grateful Dead. And that's not an insult. I was not on drugs, yet at times I felt moved by the sheer ruckus of the sound to an almost transcendent place. They rocked.

"Before the final encore, Tweedy thanked his fans for our support during his recent stint in rehab. 'I had a rough time recently and you guys have been amazingly great.' A renowned music fan himself, Tweedy ended the evening with a tender rendition of Wilco's ultimate ode to fandom, 'The Lonely 1,' and we all knew he was singing through us, for us, and about us: 'When you perform it's so intense / When the critics pan I write in your defense / I understand I am just a fan / I'm just a fan.' And never has there been a band that understands the fan-star relationship better than Wilco."

Full review, photos and setlist on Glorious Noise. Bit torrent download is available at Sharing the Groove . Thanks to chromewaves.net for tip. Also, see Jeff Tweedy and Neil Young influences page.

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David Crosby on PBS's "The Way the Music Died"

David Crosby is interviewed on PBS's upcoming Frontline program "The Way the Music Died", scheduled for broadcast on May 27. From the press release:

"In the recording studios of Los Angeles and the boardrooms of New York, they say the record business has been hit by a perfect storm: a convergence of industry-wide consolidation, Internet theft, and artistic drought. The effect has been the loss of billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and that indefinable quality that once characterized American pop music.

"It's a classic example of art and commerce colliding and nobody wins," says Nic Harcourt, music director at Los Angeles's KCRW-FM. "It's just a train wreck."

"The Way the Music Died" follows the trajectory of the recording industry from its post-Woodstock heyday in the 1970s and 1980s to what one observer describes as a "hysteria" of mass layoffs and bankruptcy in 2004.

"FRONTLINE follows the trends in the record business that led to unprecedented growth of more than 20 percent per year in the 25 years following the industry watershed at Woodstock. David Crosby, for example, recalls how his new band's album made millions after Crosby, Stills, and Nash performed at the legendary rock concert.

'It was the moment when all that generation of hippies looked at each other and said, 'Wait a minute! We're not a fringe element. There's millions of us! We're what's happening here,'' Crosby tells FRONTLINE."

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Kathryn Williams Covers Neil Young's "Birds"

Kathryn Williams.

Kathryn Williams covers Young's song "Birds" on her new album Relations, according to the Sunday Herald . Here are Kathryn Williams notes on the cover of "Birds":

"There are loads of songs by Neil Young that would be great to do. He's such a man's man, but writes with such tenderness and feeling. I think this is a really good example of the way I try to do things. It's a band doing as little as possible for maximum effect."

Also covered on Kathryn Williams' new album are Kurt Cobain's "All Apologies", "These Days" by Jackson Browne, and "Candy Says" by Lou Reed, among others. For more, see Kathryn Williams.

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Josh Ritter Covers Neil Young's "Long May You Run"

Josh Ritter covers Neil Young's "Long May You Run" on his latest album `Hello Starling' according to London's The Independent via Bad News Beat.

"A 26-year-old American songwriter who is already a household name in
Ireland, Ritter looks set, with the help of Radio 2, to repeat that success
here with this friendly, wistful, acoustic-driven number which fuses soul
and Americana. The B-side, a cover of Neil Young's "Long May You Run", is
throwaway, and is also on Ritter's latest album."

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Jonathan Rice Covers Neil Young's 'The Old Laughing Lady'

The Cardigans photo by chromewaves.net.

Jonathan Rice covered Neil Young's 'The Old Laughing Lady' @ Lee's Palace, in Toronto, May 13, 2004 according to a review over on chromewaves.net. Rice opened for The Cardigans. From the review:

"Opener Jonathan Rice was decidedly underwhelming. It became apparent three songs into his set when he decided to 'go local' by covering Neil Young's 'The Old Laughing Lady' that this boy had little concept of restraint or delicacy. Pretty much everything was drowned in overwrought and over-emoted delivery that overwhelmed any redeeming qualities his songs might have had. Only Chad Kroeger can get away with holding a single syllable that long, and Chad Kroeger still sucks. By the end of his set, I was rooting around in my bag looking for a Game Boy, and I don't even have a Game Boy. "

Oh well. But the Cardigans were great. Read the review and lots of super Cardigans photos over on chromewaves.net.

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Cowboy Junkies Cover "Helpless" on One Soul Now

The Cowboy Junkies will release their ninth album, 'One Soul Now', on Cooking Vinyl later this month, according to Ireland's RT'.ie. The first 10,000 copies will be released with a limited edition EP, featuring an eclectic selection of covers including 'Thunder Road' (Bruce Springsteen), 'Helpless' (Neil Young) and '17 Seconds' (The Cure).

And from an interview with lead vocalist Margo Timmins in Glide Magazine, she is asked about the writing and recording process.

Margo Timmins: "You know, not any more. This is like our ninth or tenth record. At this point, we have our sound and we know what that sound is and we know how to do our part. So, it's not like in the old days I used to get a song and think, 'this is sort of a Neil Young kind of song,' so we should do, you know, whatever style Neil Young was doing or being associated with, and then try to do what he was doing, and then try to incorporate that.

But I don't really do that anymore; now I sort of hear a song and figure out the way I want to do it. Sometimes when we're working on a song and trying to create a groove, if we're having difficulty, we'll talk in terms of that and say, 'well this is sort of a Neil Young and Crazy Horse sound,' something like that, and it will put us all to say 'ok, yeah, got it.' So we sort of talk in terms of that, but again, none of us feel like we have to do it that way."

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Winged Life: Like "the second coming of Neil Young's Americana/folk stylings"

The group Winged Life are like "the second coming of Neil Young's Americana/folk stylings" according to a review in Up & Coming Magazine (from Fayetteville , NC) by Brian Dukes:

"In fact, the seamless musicianship on Winged Life harkens back to a time when bands were ... well ... bands. Remember Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young)? Remember bands that knew how to play music, and could take turns at various instruments with equal exuberance? Well, that's the fell that Winged Life exudes - a competent confidence in the music. They play a tambourine for heaven's sake! Can you recall the last time a tambourine was used in any other genre other than bluegrass?

That leads me to ponder what niche to fit these guys in? They're not really bluegrass - but they are what bluegrass ought to be. They're not country, nor are they rockabilly. Perhaps Winged Life is a culmination of what's best in all these genres. It's like the second coming of Neil Young's Americana/folk stylings, but with pop sensibilities and lyrics that don't so much preach at you as they narrate.

Winged Life is a delicate, precise album that doesn't waste anything. Every effort is made, and successfully, to insure that listeners pay attention to the music. And not just one facet, but the entire composition. The best examples of this come early on, with 'A Hush,' 'My Good Deed' and 'Whipping Boy' providing a one-two-three combination of excellent tunes that are hard to get past - you want to keep hitting replay. It's 'Wedding Bells are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine' that rings home best with listeners. It's something that could have come straight out of the best of Bob Dylan or Neil Young.

It's a slice of Americana that may be one of the most well-written songs this year."

More on Bob Dylan and Neil Young and their musical influences on one another.

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Jeff Tweedy Interview in RollingStone

From RollingStone.com, Jeff Tweedy discusses the new album "A Ghost is Born", rehab, and the state of affairs. The interview is by Colin Devenish (May 11, 2004)". On Tweedy's recent treatment:

"It's something I've struggled with for a long time and even further back, I struggled with depression and anxiety and panic disorder. I went to a dual diagnosis center that treated the chemical dependency and the depression. I had never put it together that these things were intertwined, the depression, the migraines and the medication. I'm not embarrassed about it at all. It was a really beautiful experience. I spent a lot of time sitting in a room with crack addicts whose lives were total wrecks, but they were putting their lives back together. All my best friends now are crack addicts."

Tweedy on the current state of affairs:

"I think it's a really dismaying and disheartening period of time to live in America, to be honest. I find myself really struggling with having so much stuff out of my control that I can't change. I feel so powerless over so many things that you wish you could fix and just inundated with deception and lies and this horrible feeling about our future. And that's all real external stuff and it is stuff that's probably not that unique to any period of time. Any period of time you want to pick there's probably a really shitty place in the world to live and horrible stuff. But it also has to do with getting older and having kids and seeing them forming identities and having your identity change. Maybe that has something to do with having a bit higher profile in the last few years then I've ever had in my life and I wonder how much is real and how much has been projected on me. And I think the conclusion is that none of it is real, what do you define yourself by? You define yourself by the people you love and that's enough."

More on A Ghost Is Born. Thanks to Chromewaves on the heads up!

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Rock's Big Bounce... or Get A Clue

photo by John Shearer

From a Newsweek article on MSNBC by Devin Gordon on how alternative rock is making a comeback and saving the music industry from iteself. Similar to an earlier story this year where the mainstream media is a couple of years behind what is actually happening with Internet radio. The sub-headlind of the article implies that it has taken 10 years since Kurt Cobain died to make it safe to go back into the mosh pit. Here's the timely analysis:

"If you tuned out on rock music a few years ago because you just couldn't stand to hear another Creed song, it's time to come back to the flock. For too long that giddy sense of digging up buried treasure that comes with discovering a new band was a once-, maybe twice-yearly occurrence. Now, thanks in part to file-sharing and iPods, which have turned even graying rock fans into music collectors again, it's hard to get through the week without making a find. We're in a golden age for pure songwriting, with rare talents like Gibbard, the Shins' James Mercer and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy revitalizing the four-minute pop song and making a case that, in fact, it hasn't all been done before. If there's one knock against this new school of rock, it's that no one seems willing to step up and become class president. 'At some point, Bono looked at Elvis and said, 'Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do,' ' says former Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. A fractured pop climate and a general cynicism about musical saviors, he argues, has made young bands even less likely to pursue grand visions than Pearl Jam and Nirvana were. 'There's just as much talent in this generation, but the constant message to kids starting new bands is: this is really not that important.'"

And more on the impact of digital downloading on the industry:

"'Each month we get our statements from Applefor our music bought on iTunes and we're starting to make some serious money there,' says Jonathan Poneman, founder of Nirvana's original label, Sub Pop Records, whose roster now includes the Postal Service, the jangling guitar rockers the Shins, and Southern-smoked folkie Iron & Wine. 'If that model's working, and it appears to be, that changes everything.'"

An interesting discussion thread on the article on Donewaiting - Is Rock Improving?.

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Patti Smith covers 'Ohio'

From RollingStone.com News:

"PATTI SMITH covered NEIL YOUNG's 1970s protest song 'Ohio' Tuesday night during a performance at Brooklyn, New York's Warsaw. Smith played the song to mark the anniversary of the May 4, 1970 massacre at Kent State University, when the Ohio National Guard killed four students protesting the Vietnam War, and she likened it to the climate of fear in America today. As a backdrop, Smith used the iconic image of a woman screaming over the body of slain student Jeffrey Miller."

Smith likened the tragedy to the climate of fear in America today.

More on Patti Smith and Neil Young's protest song "Ohio". Also, more on covering the song "Ohio" on the Tell Us The Truth tour.

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Protest Music Hard To Find

From MSNBC on the state of protest songs, "The age of oblivion: Despite volatile times, protest music hard to find on airwaves" by James Sullivan:

"On her new album, "Trampin'," the rock poet Patti Smith leads her veteran band through a squalling diatribe against the war in Iraq. The devastated Iraqi capital, she laments on "Radio Baghdad," was once the cradle of civilization, the world center of scholarship.

"We created the zero, and we mean nothing to you!" Smith thunders, putting herself in the historic shoes of her own country's latest mortal enemy.

You won't hear this song on commercial radio anytime soon, and not simply because it's a 12-minute noise mantra. War in Iraq and other policies of the current presidential administration are effectively off-limits on the popular airwaves.

It's perhaps not surprising that one of the top songs in America right now is called "I Don't Wanna Know." Despite mounting evidence that the war is dividing the nation, our pop music ¯ at least on the surface ¯ seems oblivious. We're clearly living in a much different social climate than the era that made No. 1 songs of Edwin Starr's "War" and Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction."

In the triangle of pop-music consumption ¯ artist, medium, audience ¯ who is to blame for this utter lack of topicality?"

The article goes on to question whether this situation is due to the audience's apathy, corporate radio playlists, or the artists themselves. Sullivan attempts to exonerate artists for the situation by citing the music of the Beastie Boys, Bad Religion, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Sum 41 and New Found Glory, among others attempting to make relevant music.

More on the state of today's music and protest music.

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ROCKERS AS POETS

And article in Chicago Sun-Times by Jim DeRogatis on his favorite "ROCKERS AS POETS". For the most part I would agree with these:

2. Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Tangled Up in Blue," "Masters
of War."

3. Kurt Cobain, "Heart-Shaped Box," "All Apologies," "Rape Me."

4. Jeff Tweedy, "Ashes of American Flags," "War on War," "She's a Jar."

6. Neil Young, "For the Turnstiles," "I Am a Child," "Hey Hey My My."

10. Patti Smith, "Gloria," "Because the Night," "Distant Fingers."

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A New Generation Seeks Pop Music With Meaning

24 years ago today, on May 4, 1970 a tragedy took place on the campus of Kent State University, Ohio that reverberates to this day.

From a WIRETAP article "A New Generation Seeks Pop Music With Meaning" by Michael Serazio:

"The summer of 1970 was not a quiet one on campuses across the nation.

"In May of that year, National Guardsmen left "four dead in Ohio" at Kent State -- and Neil Young's haunting wail immortalized the event. When student protests ignited at colleges throughout America, Young's song, "Ohio", became the anthem for an era of discontent.

[Now] we're at war again -- another war "without any foreseeable end." The anthems for our era? Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U," Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You," and Nelly's "Hot in Here."

"[In the 1960's], young people used music to confront issues like Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, and women's liberation. Nowadays, the crowd of youngsters outside MTV's Total Request Live -- the cultural Mecca of Generation Y -- gathers to scream themselves into a tizzy for an obedient pop lineup.

"The time is right for a new sound, a new voice to explode onto a complacent pop scene, much in the way Nirvana did a decade ago. The time is right for an 'Ohio' of our own. But that won't happen if we sit back and buy whatever we're sold."

More on music and politics.

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k.d. lang to Cover Neil's "After The Goldrush"

UPDATE April 4, 2005 - k. d. lang Sings "Helpless" for Neil Young at Junos and Neil Young Suffers Brain Aneurysm - Surgery and Health Update
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From Australia's Undercover, comes word that k.d. lang will be covering 'After the Gold Rush' on her upcoming album, 'Hymns of the 49th Parallel,' which is to be released July 27th.

"The album title is a reference to the Canada-U.S. border and will feature cover songs of lang's favourite homegrown writers. Some of the artists and songs she will cover are Leonard Cohen ('Hallelujah'), Neil Young ('After the Gold Rush'), Joni Mitchell ('Jericho' and 'Case of View'), Jane Siberry, Ron Sexsmith and Bruce Cockburn. Longtime collaborator Ben Mink (an original Recline) is back producing. The latest album was recorded 'almost live' with a quartet and is in the production process, which includes adding a symphonic string section. Her first-ever orchestra tour kicked off this week in Houston."

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