Above is one of my favorite songs of the year. James Blake absolutely nails this song, originally penned by Joni Mitchell. Watch the video above and then give the original a listen here.

Buy: James Blake – Enough Thunder

I first saw Haley Bonar opening for Andrew Bird at the High Noon Saloon in 2006. I was hooked and have since lost count of how many times I’ve played her fabulous album, Lure the Fox. Since then, Madison has been fortunate to have Haley return on many occasions, most recently behind her equally great album, Big Star.

Haley Bonar returns to the High Noon Saloon for a $10 show on Friday, November 20th. Haley was kind enough to share with us 5 of her favorite albums, one of them being her own. I have no problems with artists feeling proud of their own work, and her selection is one we have no problem lending our recommendation to.

Nirvana – Nevermind
I got this record from my cousin when I was all of 12 years old, and remember listening to it on headphones while laying in bed at my grandma’s house. It was one of the best feelings I have ever had about music. It was so loud and naughty and I barely understood it at all. And there was a naked baby fetching a dollar bill under water. It seemed so… wrong. I loved it. When “Something In The Way” came on at the end, I remember thinking it was so strange to end a loud, bizarre record with a song with a cello in it, and then those last haunting notes of Kurt’s voice. I thought it was the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. I don’t think I slept without listening to Nirvana until I was about 16, when I discovered Low.

Low – Secret Name
I bought it on vinyl when I was 16 and visiting a relative in Duluth, MN, where I eventually moved to go to college. I had heard some of their songs, but never owned any of their records. I chose this one in the store because I liked the pretty flowers on the front. When I listened to it back in my room in South Dakota, I felt like I was the only person in the world who owned it, like it was my secret. I felt alone, but comforted. The first song, “I remember” is so strange and beautiful, especially to a girl who knew little or nothing about “indie rock music”. But then “Starfire” comes on, and you feel like you are riding through a cold night in a car without a roof, the sky opening up above, stars shining bright, driving toward something great and unknown and amazing. “Two Step”, which was one of the first Low songs I had heard, is another song that transports you to another place. When Mimi Parker’s voice comes in, its like a blanket. Their harmonies never cease to amaze me to this day because they are so simple and yet no one can sing quite like they do together.

Joni Mitchell – Blue
My mom used to put this record on when I was little, and Joni’s voice may as well have been an alien it sounded so strange and foreign and fluttery. I only remember how high she could sing, and how I was neither impressed nor annoyed by it, only used to it and the reedy sound of the piano and guitars. I must’ve been about 18 when I purchased it for myself, and it took me a long time to warm up to her style. But once I got there, it was like “where has she been?” Or, “where have I been?” Sure, Joni Mitchell is pretty famous, and regarded as one of the moret important songwriters of the 1960′s and 1970′s, but for some reason, I think she is highly underrated. Is it because she’s female? Is it because a lot of people need ‘warming up’ before they fully comprehend how truly amazing she is at writing, playing, and singing? To this day, nobody sounds like her. Joni Mitchell is royalty. Blue is the people’s record. Her metaphors for the worship of a lover are unlike any I’ve come across- “I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet” or “he’s the warmest chord I ever heard, play that warm chord, play, stay”. Or one of my favorite verses on the record, from “My old man”, “But when he’s gone reeling lonesome blues collide, the bed’s too big, the fryin’ pan’s too wide”. I think I listened to “Carey” on repeat for a month. She’s political, but never preachy, love sick but never desperate, complicated but never over the listener’s head, and always honest.

John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band
Growing up listening and obsessing about the Beatles is a rather common story, and mine is no different. Though I loved the McCartney jams, I usually favored the more brooding songs of John Lennon, and when a friend played this record for me when i was 19, it knocked my socks off upon the first listen. Apparently, this was Lennon’s “therapy” record- there were issues from his childhood that he hadn’t dealt with, along with breaking off from the crazy fame of The Beatles. He rages, swears, lays it all out on the table raw, and manages to pull it off without a completely sour taste in the listener’s, or his own, mouth. Songs like “Look at me”, “Mother” and “my mummy’s dead”, reveal the sad and innocent side of him- just look at that haunting picture of him as a little boy on the back- while songs like “God” (‘I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me’), “Working Class Hero”, and “Isolation”- (‘I don’t expect you to understand after you’ve caused so much pain, but then again, you’re not to blame, you’re just a human, a victim of the insane’) reveal the dark, at times bitter, bleeding heart. And then you have the song “Hold On”, for Yoko Ono, where a growly and panned voice says “cookie”? I do not, however, like the digitally remastered version that includes the incredibly annoying “Do the Oz” and “Power to the People”. Stick with the original master and you’ve got yourself a solid work of art.

Haley Bonar – Lure the Fox
Not sure if I’m allowed to write myself in here, but oh well. This is one of my proudest moments as a musician. It was recorded at the famed Pachyderm studio in Cannon Falls, MN, a small, semi-industrial town about 50 minutes south of St. Paul. I was under a fair amount of stress before it was recorded, having already recorded it and in Duluth a year or so before, had it mixed, mastered, and decided that I couldn’t live with it the way it was. So I decided to redo it. I had no money, no label, and a woman named Mary Lewis (Mike Lewis of Happy Apple/Andrew Bird fame’s ma) came to one of my shows and said she wanted to make an investment and pay for my record. Things fell into place in their own magical way, and this record was recorded and mixed in one week, on tape, while we camped out in the dilapidated 1970′s Pachyderm Mansion 20 yards from the studio. But it’s not just about the experience. Years later, every 6 months or so, I put this record on my headphones and find new things that I like about it. Not that I don’t feel a certain amount of pride or nostalgia for my other albums, but for some reason this one’s solid mood throughout stands out to me. It’s no pop record, not really folk, or ‘neo folk’, or rock, but just a bit of it all wrapped up into one weird little disc. I hope to release it on vinyl someday.

Previously: 5 Questions with Haley Bonar
Previously: Photos: Haley Bonar + The Dodos – Terrace, Madison

Buy: Haley Bonar – Big Star
++
Myspace: Haley Bonar
MP3: Haley Bonar – “Something Great”

I’ve dropped the ball on sharing the greatness of Roman Candle with you earlier. Their 2009 release Oh Tall Tree in the Ear has to be in consideration for most underrated album of the year. The Chapel Hill group carries the North Carolina torch from Whiskeytown to the present day with their own blend of folk and Americana.

Below, we’re happy to present 5 records Roman Candle enjoys via Skip Matheny:

John Hartford – Aereo-Plain
A couple years ago I found two mp3′s from this record — “Presbyterian guitar” and “Back in the Goodle Days”, and became obsessed with trying to get a copy of the whole (out of print) record. For several months I couldn’t find it anywhere legal or illegal, until Timshel and I had our kids at the Nashville public library and they had one CD copy in their system. This record has ever since owned an active portion of my brain. John Hartford was a such a clever, instinctual, deceptively-simple songwriter that I think it may be another 30-40 years before people chit chat about how good he was. Having scored a ton of cash from writing “Gentle on My Mind,” he was pretty much free to make whatever music he wanted to make. Unfortunately most people didn’t know what to do with this particular record, then or now (it’s still out of print). Every time I hear this recording of “Steam Powered Aeroplane,” I wish it was played at funerals and weddings.

Fat Boys – Self/Titled
This was the first cassette tape Logan and I ever bought, in a Roses’s in Wilkesboro, NC. I was 7 and Logan was 5, and my mom was kind enough to let us listen to this non-stop for a year in our Datsun hatchback (until we bought another tape). This record used to boggle our minds, with these epic 8 minute raps, introducing us to some of the biggies in life – hip-hop, beatboxing, being in jail with no bail and wishing you had a pizza. To this day it’s probably still in our top 10 records we’ve heard the most (if you consider number of listens straight through). I think it really informed/influenced how we consider rhythms and vocal delivery – I hope so at least.

Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
Of newer music, this record (apart from Keegan DeWitt + Megafaun), is what we’ve probably listened to the most this year. First heard it on BBC radio 6 months ago, and we were fortunate enough to share a bill with them in New York in Sept. Seeing them do the songs live, really made the whole album get under our brains and sprout like a bunch of mushrooms in the woods.

Oasis – Definitely Maybe
When we were younger, this record and its accompanying b-sides had a profound influence on our band. I had almost forgotten how much so until we watched the 10 year anniversary DVD when it came out. Being in high school in Wilkes county, NC, and hearing “Slide Away” “Cigarettes and Alcohol” “Listen Up,” etc., made us begin to think about *songwriting* as a thing that was much more interesting in the setting of a band (as opposed to somebody lighting an infinity candle and writing about their feelings on an acoustic guitar).

Joni Mitchell – Clouds
Timshel bought this record on vinyl when we were in college at UNC, and it was our first experience of Joni outside of people playing the Blue record in their dorm rooms (which is also a record that gets better every year, no matter how many times I’ve heard it). There’s a couple of solid hippie tunes, but for the most part these songs are out of this world. Lyrically, the level at which she is writing here is often as unmatched as her later records, and she was barely 26.

Hearing some of these songs reminded me of the first time I saw an Alfred Hitchcock movie marathon — Watching all of these movies made in the 50′s / 60′s which were so unquestionably more “modern” than any film I’d seen in my life up to that point. Both were confusing and educational. Alfred Hitchcock and Joni Mitchell probably made us re-think any connection we had presumed between quality of art and chronology.

Buy: Roman Candle – Oh Tall Tree in the Ear
++
MP3: Roman Candle – “They Say”

I’ve been raiding the vaults of my Neil Young collection and along the way gotten a few spins in on some of my CSNY. Young et al is usually my standard “go to” for winter listening, but lately sounds mighty fine in the summertime. Below catch Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with the added bonus of the guest vocals from Joni Mitchell on “Helpless.”