Ryan at WMSE introduced me to The Woes during our 26th podcast. The band is aptly described as “a stew of Delta blues and early Country, of bluegrass and New Orleans marching band music, dished out by banjo, harmonica, accordion, French Horn and organ.” The culmination of all these sounds and influences cultivates into the beautiful new album, Heaven Knows
, which has been in heavy rotation since arriving weeks ago.
The Woes play The Stonefly in Milwaukee on Saturday, November 14th. Before they arrive they were kind enough to expand our recurring 5 Albums feature to seven in order to accommodate the size of their group. You’ll see from the choices below that their influences/favorites are as varied as their music evokes. A band and show that’s not to be missed in Milwaukee.
Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
| Osei (voice, banjo, guitar)
When charged with selecting and then writing about a favorite album, I found myself combing through musical histories populated less by entire albums themselves than with events associated with them. And so, when settling down to write this I decided on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. There are albums by Bob Dylan to which I enjoy listening to more than I do Freewheelin’ – likewise, there may be a hundred albums by others which when stacked against Freewheelin’ not only hold their own, but perhaps would defeat it in a bare knuckle backyard brawl. However, its significance on the occasion of sharing thoughts on a favorite album is not as an album in and of itself, but rather one that is personal. It was after hearing this record for the first time that I decided to put down the bass bass guitar, which I’d played for years in a series of punk and noise influenced rock bands and to pick up an acoustic guitar & write words to sing. Hearing The Freewheeelin’ prepared me for the Dylan to come, later VU, then Can, Hawkwind, etc. It also brought me to Woody, Leadbelly and then on to innumerable field recordings, American and non. After a time that led to Afro Beat, Hi Life, Samba and all the other world music that followed. Maybe the only record that’s done as much was Mingus’ Town Hall Concert of ’68
which led me to think about what instrumentalists could bring to compositions outside of “the solo”. But it was The Freewheelin’ Dylan the set the spark, I should remain true to it, and so as I’m sitting here in this Turkish Caffe in Columbus, OH, half dazed with reminiscence and floored by a lack of sleep, it makes the most sense. Yep, for its songs alone, for ever wanting to write one song as good any contained there and for the all the music that’s been heard since hearing it that first time, it’s precious.
Brian Eno – Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks
| Philip (pedal steel, voice)
There are many reasons why this record is important to me, but the main is that when I listen to Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, it makes me feel as if I’m floating. Like the calm you feel just moments before you fall asleep. Your mind is clear, and your breath is calm. I wouldn’t fear the term “out of body”.
The album effortlessly moves through themes of textured electronic and organic noise. Often these textures are coupled with lush angelic pads and brief melodic, almost “country and western” inspired ballads. It was possibly the first time I heard/recognized the use of a steel guitar in a non-traditional format. Synths and steel guitar may have never appeared together in such a ethereal fashion.
This dark collaboration between Eno, his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois envelops the beauty, mystery, and endlessness of the last great frontier.
David Bowie – Scary Monsters
| Andrew (Bass, Organ)
When I was 15 I got a job handing out flyers on the street for a local music store during the holiday season. The pay was less than minimum wage, it was freezing, and the animosity I felt from the people I was trying to hand flyers to was tangible. Someone actually spat on me at one point. The one saving grace of the entire experience was a somewhat older and wiser co-worker who gave me this record on cassette, which I then listened to on my walkman seven or eight times a day for the five week duration of the job. Scary Monsters falls directly in between Bowie’s Eno period, during which he released several records with an A side of slightly-to-very unconventional pop songs and a B side of ambient pieces, and his 80’s pop period when by his own admission he released songs like “Modern Love” and “China Girl” just to make a ton of cash. You can hear the transition taking place on Scary Monsters, but it always seemed to me like this was Bowie’s attempt to make a “cross-over” art rock record. Many of these songs became popular singles- “Ashes to Ashes”, “Fashion”, and the title track, which all have undeniable pop hooks, though they also probably feature the most dissonant guitar soloing ever on a mega hit record, by King Crimson’s Robert Fripp. I could go on about the balance of brilliant pop songwriting and total fucking wierdness (Pete Townsend plays some psuedo-metal guitar on “Because You’re Young”, while “Scream Like A Baby” is the most unsettling upbeat pop song I know) but if you somehow haven’t heard this record already you should just go listen to it.
D’Angelo – Voodoo
| Tim (Drums, Voice)
This is probably the one record I’ve consistently had in rotation since I first heard it. If someone had described this album to me before I heard it, I probably would have never given it a chance: a modern R&B album in which most of the songs clock in at over six minutes, several of which involve the singer boasting about his sexual prowess. Oh, and there’s a buff shirtless dude staring seductively at you on the cover. This wasn’t the sort of thing that would normally inspire me, a skinny 17 year old living in the suburbs, to go down to the indie record shop where I bought all my punk rock and commercial-radio rock albums and special order it. My drum teacher at the time introduced me to it and forced to me to play along to every track to teach me about playing with restraint and by the second time through I was hooked.
I was a kid who played in a bunch of high school rock and punk bands, and this was the first album to show me that everyone didn’t need to be playing as many notes as possible as fast as possible to wow the listener. You could just find a groove and stick with it. (For the record, I really hate when people talk about “groove.” In fact, if everyone listened to this album, nobody would have to waste time discussing “groove” anymore; everyone would just know.) To me the best parts of this record are in the small moments, the little things like a flub in the bass line or the unexpected, perfectly placed accented snare hit that only happens once in a 7 minute song.
Everything about this record is perfect. From the songs themselves, to the performances and the production, everything just fits together so well that I never minded that it’s a style of music that I’ve never had any interest in whatsoever. I’ve always found most modern R&B to be annoying and trite, but this album is timeless (except for one ill-advised reference to a TLC song, courtesy of Redman). I can’t describe why every choice made is the right choice. I don’t know exactly what it is that gets me about the layered vocals that sometimes sound like 100 tracks on top of each other or ?uestlove’s drumming or the why it is that the horns seem to enter at precisely the right moment every time. I think this is just the kind of record that you shouldn’t spend time describing. You have to just listen to it.
Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica
| Michael (Trumpet, Voice)
“My smile is stuck. I cannot go back to your frown-land” begins Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band’s classic work, Trout Mask Replica.
I was up late one night with my father the first time I heard it. I was twelve years old. My dad could, and did, imitate Captain Beefheart’s voice perfectly. He knew all the words to every song. The songs and stories on Trout Mask Replica left a deep impression on me. This impression gets deeper with time.
There is a current of contagious joy running through the album’s four sides. This joy is found even in the few dark and ponderous tracks on the record. The heavier songs on the album confront the listener with the social ideals prevalent in the sixties without a trace of corniness or sentimentality. Beefheart’s mirth and sincerity permeate songs about Dachau, civil rights, and drug addicted veterans. It’s a rare thing and it is representative of a theme that unites the entire work.
There are contrasting ideas at play throughout the album. This concept is clearly illustrated in the instrumental aspect of the music. The sound of the Magic Band playing two or more musical motifs against one another demonstrates a sense of cohesion that is very compelling. There is a unity of purpose in the chaos that carries the listener along.
The instrumentals are executed with a rough-hewn sense of swing. The a cappella numbers have this same rough-around-the-edges feeling. The three unaccompanied vocal pieces on the album illustrate what Captain Beefheart does best, combining syncopated rhythm with stream-of-consciousness wordplay.
Delivering this rhythm and wordplay is the unique instrument that is Captain Beefheart’s voice. His timbre, intonation, and inflection are constantly shifting. His voice will often change tone several times during a song, sometimes conjuring the voice of Howlin’ Wolf, other times invoking the spirit of gold-rush era prospectors, railroad men, and other characters of America’s past. Ultimately this music speaks with its own voice. It is performed with a sweeping love and enthusiasm. I smile whenever I hear it.
John and Ruby Lomax 1939: A Southern Journey
| Will (Organ, French Horn, Voice)
John and Ruby Lomax 1939: A Southern Journey is not an album but a collection of field recordings that – to my knowledge – are only available streaming or as individual downloads from the Library Of Congress website as part of their Memory project. The hundreds of recordings the husband and wife team made of people in Alabama and neighboring states inevitably suffer from primitive, “in-the-field” sound quality. Some are just snippets, barely 30 seconds long. Occasionally, fine performances are marred by surface needle scratches or low frequency hum. But, as with all field recordings, concentrating on audio fidelity is beside the point. The renditions of traditional songs such as Bad Lazarus, Boll Weevil, I Ain’t Got Nobody or Wouldn’t Mind Dyin’, are full of undesired sounds or abrupt endings, and yet are deeply moving- stark, unsanitized documents of the songs and sounds of everyday life, from chicken-calling to Mexican cowboy music.
Though there are certainly some standouts among the performers (few of whom are known to the larger public – the exception being the transcendent, otherworldly Vera Hall, who certainly deserves wider recognition), the great thing about this body of work is that the individual performers are not professional recording artists but simply folk in the truest sense: anonymous voices (though, except for the odd chain gang or group of children, everyone is credited by name), singing for a microphone that, but for chance, could just as easily have never been in front of their mouths.
In the 70 years since the Lomax family began their work, “Americana” has become a bona fide genre and marketing designation, and these recordings could quite conceivably be labelled as such today, though there is nary an alt-country hit among them. But regardless of the label attached to it, the music in A Southern Journey made me understand that some of the most beautiful music in this country and in the world was never and will never be heard by more than a few (and in some cases, by more than the one making it). Recognizing that, in an age of commodification and digitization, music still exists as a thing apart from the business and technology of music- that it is simply the unadulterated expression in sound of the way people feel at a given time and place- has given me great comfort. That a computer and an Internet connection made this realization possible is an irony not lost on me.
And ultimately, this is the music that matters most to me, the songs we sing to ourselves, the music of the house and the yard, the church and the field. That no one may ever hear your sound takes nothing away from it; music is not always about communication with an audience, but rather communion with something beyond yourself, of which you are still a vital part.
Caetano Veloso – Transa
| Maria Christina (Saxophones, Voice)
My love of Caetano started in high school, when I discovered his 1997 album, “Livro”. It was a beautiful work, filled with lush horn and string orchestrations, and that unmistakable velvet voice of Veloso. The songs were beautiful, and the whole thing was polished perfection. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered an album by him that was in many ways the exact opposite; bare, stark, and simple…and it was that album that made me really fall in love with his music.
Caetano Veloso, native to Bahia, was exiled by the military government in 1969, and lived in London during his exile. Transa was the first album he recorded when we was essentially back from exile. He had sung in English while in London, and in this album both English and Portuguese are sung side by side…often in the same song. The transitions are seamless, and natural.
From the very first song, “You Don’t Know Me”, with its delicate guitar work, a blend of Bossa Nova and Blues, I was very taken aback. It was as though I became completely immersed in the story of the song. “9 out of 10”, the second song on the album, is about his time in exile in London. It is a gorgeous up-tempo bossa, with amazing words. The lyric in the chorus “9 out of 10 movie stars make me cry, I’m alive” haunted me very deeply, when I first heard it. Texturally, this album is fairly sparse, with just guitar, bass, and drums/percussion. “Triste Bahia” has some of the traditional capoeira percussion, such as the berimbau. The way the traditional calls of that berimbau are used in the arrangement of the song is a nod to his roots, in contrast to the experimental track “Neolithic Man”, entirely in English, and very much rooted in the avant-garde things he did in London. “Mora Na Filosophia” is a Brazilian standard, but on this album it takes on a very dark vibe, with a relentless bass, and an almost eerie acoustic guitar line above it. The and of the songs features some of the most beautiful rock n roll wailing I have ever heard. Throughout the album, the way Veloso uses his beautiful voice, making it one moment sweet, and the other full of pain, is ultimately seductive. It pulls you into the story this whole album tells.
There are very few albums I can listen to beginning to end, and Transa is definitely one of them. Its one of the few albums that truly takes me somewhere, that I can just get lost in. Its atmospheric without being ambient. It is a gorgeous, bilingual work of art, romantic, political, Portuguese, and English; all at once.
Buy: The Woes – Heaven Knows
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Myspace: The Woes
MP3: The Woes – “For Nothing”
MP3: The Woes – “Hanging’s Fair”
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