If you’re unfamiliar with Hurray For The Riff Raff the prefect introduction is their recently released Daytrotter session. I feel like you can get a pretty good feel for a band by looking at their record collection, analyzing their favorites and the albums that mean a lot to them. Take one look at the albums chosen by Alynda Lee Segarra for our 5 Albums feature and regular MoB readers will find a group they can get behind. Take our recommendation and pick up Hurray for the Riff Raff’s album It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You and hope this New Orleans three-piece makes it to Wisconsin on their next tour.

Townes Van Zandt – Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas
Townes Van Zandt is by far my favorite songwriter of all time. Townes’ lyrics are gentle, comforting, straight forward and yet also staggering in their poetic genius. When you are down, this is your man who will bring you back up. His music means more to me than I can explain, this album is the first Townes album I ever heard, sitting in my buddy’s truck outside my house in New Orleans. There are some voices we’re just searching for, a certain sound with certain words that we look for in music to soothe our troubles, and this was mine. Thankfully it even exists! There are few Townes albums that were produced simply and well. A lot of his album’s are decorated with terribly corny overdubs and synthesizers (damn you the 1980’s! Ruining country music!) But this is him in his prime, on stage, with his guitar, telling you jokes and singing to you. Songs like “Don’t take it to bad”, “If I needed you”, “White Freight Liner”, and of course “Poncho and Lefty.” These are classic songs that will live on for a long time, they cut right to the heart of any human willing to sit and listen. They ring true to any lonesome wanderer. These songs are honest and brilliantly crafted, I can only hope to write songs like these one day.

Neil Young – On the beach
I want to make a record like this one day! It is a dream come true. The story behind this album is the whole band drank tons of tequila and got incredibly stoned on some kind of honey and weed concoqution. And apparently that combined with the band only hearing the songs once or twice before recording created this blues driven master piece. I can’t even hold a coherent conversation after some tequila nevermind create a classic rock and roll album. Neil is where it’s at. From start to finish this album is everything you want from Rock n’ Roll. Starts out with some clean electric guitar driven pop song “Walk on” (The slide player is amazing!) to the spaced out glory of “See the sky about to rain” which has the best ending ever (wait for it.) Then there’s some dark borderline evil droning blues in the middle “Vampire Blues” “Revolution Blues” And don’t forget the mysterious “For the turnstiles” Which includes the highest male harmonies I’ve ever heard! Where did that song come from?! Another planet, I’m telling you this man is an alien. Sent to bring us the last couple of songs on the album that bring me to tears everytime. “Motion Pictures” and “Ambulance blues” They are just heartbreaking, it’s like you’re right there with Neil in some shitty motel room, he’s wasted, it’s been a tough year and he’s just singing all about it. The songs are looping and strange, don’t seem to planned out. I will always strive to create that magic in a recording. Thanks Neil, you rule.

Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
Bob is a tough one. I love so many albums, they all carry such different feels. It’s hard to pin one down and say “this is what has influenced me” because I’d say 70% of Dylan’s huge body of work has inspired and effected me (Yes even ‘Slow Train Coming‘). And it’s a hard tug of war between his early bootlegs and his later explosion into Rock and Roll. Those early bootlegs and albums some of the most magical, honest and childlike (meant in the best way possible) recordings ever made. They definitely carry a lot of qualities that all musicians strive for (such as the ability to stop time.) But anyways, the point is Highway 61 Revisited will blow your mind! Every song on this album starts in a incredible way, whether it’s the bang of a drum and a screaming organ in “Like a Rolling Stone” or the calm country pace of “It takes a lot to laugh..” This whole album is a work of art. His lyrical senses were at an all time strange and dark place, Dylan was definitely dancing with some demons while making this album and it shows. He is full of youthful ego that is contagious and can pick you up no matter how low you are. But you can hear that faint trace of the human boy Dylan sometimes, and you realize he’s just human just like you (Which is a very strange thing to realize.) and he’s not a demon, he’s a very confused young genius going through some shit. Then he’ll come out of it and make something like John Wesley Harding. Whatever you create, do it to the fullest and with all you got, that’s the lesson here folks.

Des Ark – Live at Radio WXDU
I first heard this album about 4 years ago before I started Riff Raff. I was still just recording some songs by myself and handing those recordings out to very few people. (One of which being Walt) Walt gave this record to me after meeting Aimee on a tour he just went on. A very simple radio recording of Aimee and her guitars and banjos. It blew my world apart. I was a very, very new to songwriting at the time, with few influences I could name and no sense of purpose in my songwriting other than to expell some personal demons. Des Ark unwound a world I wanted in on, Aimee sings with a warm drawl that you ethier have or you don’t, songs that are brutally honest. That are on a mission to straighten things out but are not going to try to sugarcoat anything. I felt like it was the first time I’d heard songs that didn’t lie. She doesn’t claim to be perfect, and she admits she‘s got the devil in her sometimes. They are complicated and rough and beautiful. I feel like we are embarking on a new world of music as I see more and more female songwriters and band leaders. Well, Des Ark definitely is making that process of coming out of the wood work possible. Aimee totally inspired me to do whatever it is I do today.

Sundown Songs – Like a Jazz Band in Nashville
I had the privilege to play with these guys this past summer. This is their first album, made before I jumped in. I can tell you, this album was on repeat all throughout the homes in New Orleans. They left it behind when they spilt up to embark on separate travels two years ago. The idea behind the band was to basically bring together three songwriters who loved each other’s music. Add some other friends who played Bass (Homemade bass in fact.) and slide guitar. The result is them sitting in a small room with recording equipment for a couple of days and creating a simple, beautiful, I’d even say life changing album. These people are for real. Their songs are the real deal, full of heartache and lonesome-ness. Tales of traveling for a long time with no home to speak of. But there is also a serious thirst for adventure, solitude and life behind every song.

Catherine Cavazos is my favorite female singer of all time, dead or alive. She’s right next to Billie Holiday in my mind, her singing is pure gold. She digs it out of her whole existence everytime she sings. Brings out that gold right up to you in the form of a song. She is a treasure and a real artist, on this record you get to hear the magic of her songwriting and voice captured for the first time. Hank Williams, Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, they’d all be proud of her, I’m sure of it. I am so thankful to know these people and I hope their music reaches others out there. Real country music aint dead, long live Sundown Songs!

Buy: Hurray for the Riff Raff – It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You
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MP3: Hurray for the Riff Raff – “Bricks”
Video: Hurray for the Riff Raff – “Bricks”

One of the many highlights of Andrew Bird’s two-night stint at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater over the weekend came on Saturday night during the show’s encore. After inviting opener St. Vincent back to the stage for selections from each of their catalogs, they also dug out an acoustic cover of Bob Dylan’s “Oh, Sister” from the album Desire.

This performance was special for a lot of reasons. It surprised the heck out of me as I had completely forgotten Bird covering this tune on his 2007 Soldier On EP. The song happens to be on of my favorites in the Bob Dylan cannon and hearing Annie Clark and Andrew Bird duet on it was simply sublime. There are various videos of them doing this song together in other cities, but below find the track from the aforementioned EP. It’s a worthy addition to your collection as is Dylan’s far to underrated Desire.

MP3: Andrew Bird :: “Oh, Sister” (Bob Dylan)

Buy: Andrew Bird – “Soldier On” | Bob Dylan – “Desire”

A belated birthday post in honor of Bob Dylan, who graced 68 years of age on May 24th. Though Dylan and I have never gotten along too well in concert, his albums are in ever revolving rotation on a monthly basis. This month, as I habitually tend to do when warm weather breaks, I’ve been spinning my favorite Dylan record Nashville Skyline, from which the above song can be found. The very first play on the record to be exact. Beginning to end, it’s an essential album. Sure to please even some ardent naysayers.

On a recent trip through a record store, I noticed that the Dylan remasters have begun to roll off the presses. Has anybody dropped any coin on them? Worth the ticket to ride the train?

Buy: Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline

The Grateful Dead were known to bust out a cover song at most of their live shows. Many of them wrapped The Dead’s signature sound around an already popular composition. In anticipation of the The Dead’s upcoming shows at the Allstate Arena on May 4th & 5th, I chose songs from the past (’03, ’04) and currently in progress tour. By all accounts the band is hitting on all cylinders and getting along nicely with Warren Haynes on guitar/vocals. Per usual, their sets are consistently sprinkled with musical hat-tip to Dylan. Enjoy.

MP3: The Dead – “She Said, She Said” (The Beatles)
MP3: The Dead – “Queen Jane Approximately” (Bob Dylan)
MP3: The Dead – “Me & Bobby McGee” (Kris Kristofferson)
MP3: The Dead – “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” (Bob Dylan)
MP3: The Dead – “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (Bob Dylan)
MP3: The Dead – “Samson And Delilah” (Reverend Gary Davis)
MP3: The Dead – “All Along The Watchtower” (Bob Dylan)
MP3: The Dead – “Turn On Your Love Light” (Bobby Bland)
MP3: The Dead – “In The Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett)
MP3: The Dead – “Hard to Handle” (Black Crowes)

Previously: Grateful Dead :: Covers
Previously: Grateful Dead :: Covers II