Read on for a selection of songs from the fevered brain of Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Chain and the Gang, etc.) and a firsthand account of a basement seance he conducted to promote his book, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group.
Read MoreWhat do the the Ramones, Snoop Lion (né Dogg) and Vanessa L. Williams have in common? Very little — but they've all recorded Christmas songs! With this in mind, I present a Spotify playlist guaranteed to warm even the hardest-core humbug's heart.
Read MoreSecretly Canadian recently released I Know What Love Isn't, Jens Lekman's most self-assured album yet. As someone with a host of social anxieties, I started wondering if he was slowly overcoming his own. Join me as I examine his most nerve-addled songs to find the corresponding phobias — and the turns of phrase that make it all okay.
Watching Shuggie Otis's ill-starred Echoplex show on Wednesday, my native Angeleno companions and I got to debating whether there is an “LA soul” sound — one that captures the soul of the city itself. Here are five of my personal choices for quintessential soul-of-LA artists.
Read MoreWhen Japanese animes get dubbed into English, it’s hit or miss. Nudity is covered up, violence is dumbed down, and (most) bestiality is glossed over. It’s the theme songs, though, that truly suffer. We’ve collected the most awful English dubs and made a list of artists — from Taylor Swift to GWAR — who could come up with epic alternatives.
Read More"A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit" —Phil Ochs
As we march past the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street (or politely make our way around it), I’m reminded that nothing keeps a good protest going like music. Long before Tom Morello and Jeff Mangum played Zuccotti Park, musicians have been harnessing and amping up the power of the people in song. Here are a few personal favorites.
"Which Side Are You On?" (Traditional)
This union anthem’s central thesis never gets old. There may be some complicated situations in the current political climate, but really it all comes down to what I like to call the Star Wars test: are you on the dark side of the force, or are you with the people — the rebels and the workers, the downtrodden, the mothers, the regular folks against whom the system is most often rigged? Pete Seeger leads it off here:
"Bella Ciao" (Traditional)
Out west in the little town of Oakland, we have a radical marching band called the Brass Liberation Orchestra. Rain or shine, they keep protest crowds animated and motivated with their kick-ass brass action. Although they don’t play it much anymore, "Bella Ciao" is one of my favorite BLO numbers. The song was originally an Italian anti-fascist tune, and despite the language barrier it never ceases to get everyone singing along. Here’s a mostly English version by Chumbawumba:
Nina Simone: "Mississippi Goddam"
It feels almost wrong to try and write any words about this stark, furious classic. It’s that good. We should all bow down before Nina Simone, and listen as she lays the horrors of racism in America across her keyboards and pounds them out the way only a genius can. God damn.
Public Enemy: "Fight the Power"
It’s hard for me to separate this song from Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, in which it serves as a key narrative catalyst. Together, Lee and Public Enemy broadcast a potent cultural one-two punch that told America to wake up: racism is alive and well, and it's not going anywhere without a fight. As Chuck D says, "My beloved, let's get down to business."
Whether you love or hate its raw sound, riot grrl was the real deal, and this song is a chillingly straightforward “fuck you” to dudes who disrespect women. Hear it for the first time as a teenage girl, as I did, and you will never let misogyny go unaccounted for again.
Pulp: "Common People"
Okay, I wouldn’t technically categorize this as a protest song, but it’s an awesome, sneakily angry class-war fairytale. Brit-pop: dancin’ it out for the working-class since the fey 90s.
Bonus protest classics!
Woody Guthrie: "This Land is Your Land"
Phil Ochs: "I Ain’t Marching Anymore"
Sam Cooke: "A Change is Gonna Come"
Bob Marley & the Wailers: "Get Up, Stand Up"
Bob Dylan: "The Times They Are A-Changin’"
N.W.A.: "Fuck Da Police"
Billy Bragg: "Help Save the Youth of America"
Crass: "Do They Owe Us A Living"
Dead Kennedys: "California Über Alles"
…and about a million more. Leave your own faves in the comments. And then hit the streets.
Image: hiphop-n-more.com
I've always surrounded myself with music, beginning with my parents' vinyl collection. Spilling from their tattered jackets, these albums kicked off my life soundtrack, prefiguring my omnipresent iPod and my NYC record-store route. This same LP-love forms the soul of Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon's hot-blooded and utterly human novel, which drops today.
In the Bay Area sweet spot bordering Berkeley and Oakland, Chabon gives dap to card-collecting culture, comic books, and kung fu. But it's music that reigns supreme, underlining Chabon's prose, so I've devised a playlist inspired by Telegraph Avenue's tracks and my own personal experience in reading it. Tune in:
Jimmy Smith “Root Down (And Get It)” (Root Down Live, Verve Records, 1972)
"Good heart is eighty-five percent of everything in life." —Cochise Jones
At Telegraph Avenue's core is Brokeland Records, co-owned by childhood friends Archy (cool-headed brother) and Nat (kvetching hothead). Their spouses Gwen (very pregnant, very independent) and Aviva are the Berkeley Birth Partners, midwifing for a mostly white, well-to-do clientele. All good, right?
Miles Davis “Thinkin' One Thing and Doin' Another” (On the Corner, Columbia, 1972)
"I am building a monastery, if you like, for the practice of vinyl kung fu. And I am asking you to come be my abbot." —Gibson Goode
Then the stylus skips. Archy's got a fuckup or two in him yet, like unacknowledged teen son Titus reentering the picture and drawing the infatuation of Nat and Aviva's film-freak son, Julius (call him “Julie”). Add Archy's dad Luther and Jet-espoused entrepreneur Gibson Goode, whose planned Dogpile Megastore (think Tower Records on soul-jazz steroids) spells Brokeland's demise, and shit gets real.
Carole King “It's Too Late” (Tapestry, Ode Records, 1971)
"Swear. On the soul of your mother, who raised you to be a better man than that." —Gwen Shanks
Like in his pulpy whirlwind The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Chabon's multisensory prose plunges us into the souls of his players. Heady aromas from an Ethiopian restaurant mingle with the intoxication of a man's infidelity. Lingos befitting hotrods and honeys blend in degrees that would make Quentin Tarantino blush. Chabon knows when to pare it down, too, turning an affectionate gesture between teenaged boys into something deeper: "They hooked hands at the thumbs and bumped chests. Titus wrapped an arm around Julie. Julie felt protected in the lingering embrace, though he knew that when Titus let go of him, he was going to feel nothing but abandoned."
The Winstons “Amen, Brother” (Color Him Father, Metromedia, 1969)
"Do what you got to do, and stay fly." —Valletta Moore
Soul, in at least two senses of the word, figures into the book's most scene-stealing, goosebump-inducing cameo. While Archy pinch-hits on bass at a fundraiser, a certain former Senator from Illinois approaches Gwen, reflecting: “The lucky ones are the people like your husband there. The ones who find work that means something to them. That they can really put their heart into, however foolish it might look to other people.”
DJ Shadow “Midnight in a Perfect World” (Endtroducing....., Mo' Wax, 1996)
Crate-digging memories and dreams in my own Brokeland. [—author]
HarperCollins unveils Telegraph Avenue today with an enhanced e-book edition, featuring Chabon's own playlist, audio clips narrated by Treme'sClarke Peters (I internalized his voice while reading Archy's part), and more. Plus, for you lucky locals: Oakland's Diesel Books has become a “Brokeland Records” pop-up store through September 14, replete with requisite jazz LPs for sale. Time for that overdue trip out West.
If you, like me, grew up in the '90s, you're probably familiar with the dilemma of blocking out parts of that decade whilst embracing others. For every instance of President Clinton ripping into a sax solo on The Arsenio Hall Show, there is smooth-jazz circular breather Kenny G butchering the damn instrument. Another case in point: the Awl's profile on Dustin Mikulski, known to the world as the Dancing Baby from Ally McBeal. The fact that this man, once a cha-cha-ing child whose birth coincided with that of viral video, can still draw a crowd, proves our enduring love/hate relationship with that schizophrenic decade.
Whatever. Dancing Baby can oogachaka his animated ass outta here. It's one facet of the '90s I wish would disappear, like JNCOs and Beanie Babies. Now '90s music...that's a complicated one, encompassing both Kurt Cobain's suicide and 2Pac's murder. Then again, with 'Pac's hologram sharing the stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at Coachella, the '90s have never felt so close. Below are a few songs that, to me, define the decade and its transitions between Kurt and that demonic dancing baby—but I'll be damned if I include Aqua.
1994: Nirvana, “Drain You” (live on French TV). Recorded just two months prior to Cobain's suicide, and his chill-eliciting scream still hits me hard. I was just a kid but Nirvana meant the world.
Late 1994: The Prodigy, “Voodoo People.” Charred breakbeats collide with a sampled punk guitar riff. If America could only predict dance music's ubiquity in the following years: just look at the damn commercials, like Mr. Oizo's "Flat Beat" advertising Levi's or that Mitsubishi honey popping to Dirty Vegas' "Days Go By."
Late 1994: Lush, “Hypocrite.” I fell I love with a girl, and she was the Kool-Aid-coiffed frontwoman for Lush, Miki Berenyi. They and (London) Suede were sharp answers to the Britpop.
1995: Massive Attack, “Karmacoma.” The Bristol sound: suffocating sonics and sinister soul. Plus, Tricky (who released his superlative debutMaxinquaye that same year) shares the mic.
Late 1995: 2Pac, “California Love” (feat. Dr. Dre). Pac's comeback track was a sunny exhale of West Coast love, but it was shadowed by his untimely death less than a year later.
1996: Smashing Pumpkins, “1979.” Emo wasn't a widespread term in Texas back in '96, but this guitar-glistening anthem provided the emotional background music to my formative days.
1997: Roni Size/Reprazent, “Brown Paper Bag.” So technically this live clip is not from '97, but this Bristol-based drum-n-bass ensemble won the 1997Mercury Music Prize for their jazz-inflected tracks (beating out Radiohead'sOK Computer and Spice Girls' Spice, just to keep the whole thing in perspective). All you dubstep heads: this is how you bring the bass.
1998: Usher, “Nice & Slow.” Check it: 1998 is the year Dancing Baby debuted on Ally McBeal. It's also the year R&B phenom Usher dropped this breathy single. Just think what this track meant for a sensitive young high-schooler with a learner's permit. As Usher croons: "now here we are, drivin' 'round town. Contemplating where I'm gonna lay you down." Poetry, man. Grunge felt a decade away.
Long live the '90s, I say!
Image: Memesgroupproject (Dancing Baby) and Wikipedia (Tupac Shakur), slightly photo-chopped by the author
Few record stores match a serious selection of wax with proper in-store performances—and that addictive indie spirit—like London's Rough Trade East. Now BrooklynVegan announces that Rough Trade is coming to Williamsburg this autumn. To a live-music lover and vinyl junkie, this just sounds sweet.
There is little to go on beyond Rough Trade's press release, which uses the term “saturnalia” (noun: unrestrained revelry; orgy) in the second sentence. Oh yeah, and the somewhat divisive news that they've partnered with Bowery Presents for live shows. Look: I whine about Bowery Presents ticket prices less now after acclimatizing to the expense of seeing live music in Tokyo. If it's dope, I'll pay.
Chris & Cosey. aka Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, or Carter Tutti—one half of industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and among the most seductively sinister soundscape duos today. Performing: '85 darkwave classic Technø Primitiv.
Super Furry Animals. Golden-voxed Gruff Rhys and his Cardiff mates released two slabs of psychedelia on Rough Trade (2007's Hey Venus! and 2009's Dark Days/Light Years) plus Rhys' eclectic Candylion. Performing: A selection from their back catalogue (including wobbly-edged burner “Juxtapozed with U”) plus some Welsh a capella would entice quite nicely.
A Cabaret Voltaire reunion. Hey, this is my wishlist, dammit! The Sheffield-based post-punk avant-guardians, as danceable as Joy Division but thrice as dour—if you can wrap your head around that one. Performing: Red Mecca, a startlingly salient comment on Islamic and Christian fundamentalism...recorded over 30 years ago.
Mazzy Star: Hope Sandoval (gossamer crooner) and David Roback (über-musican) with band tour Europe this summer and have a new LP—their first in 15 years—on the way. Performing: Hell, they could do nothing but Bieber covers and I'd be happy.
Before visiting a new city, I make a prioritized shortlist, and “best record shop” falls just after “best dive bar.” I usually eschew Austin's renowned Waterloo for its quirkier southside kindred, End of an Ear. I get hyphy within Haight-Ashbury's mega Amoeba, and while in Tokyo I alternate between Disk Union's punk-postered walls and Spiral's exquisite audiophilia. NYC claims top for noise (subterranean Hospital Productions) and electronic (DUMBO's designer-y Halcyon).
Rough Trade NYC's imminent arrival is probably making Other Music a little nervous (watch this immediately), not to mention the longstanding Williamsburg stores Sound Fix and Earwax. May the spirit of saturnalia unite us all.
Image: BrooklynVegan
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