see what you hear.com

1. Fela Kuti – Water Get No Enemy – The Black President
2. Willie Bobo – Psychedelic Blues – A New Dimenson
3. Funkadelic – Can You Get To That – Maggot Brain
4. Funkadelic – Hit It & Quit It – Maggot Brain
5. Jerry Butler – I’m Your Mechanical Man
6. Lounge Lizards – Big Heart – Live in Tokyo
7. Boards of Canada – Aquarius – Music Has The Right To Children
8. Boards of Canada – Olson – Music Has The Right To Children
9. Grant Lee Buffalo – Stars’n'Stripes – Fuzzy
10. M. Ward – Undertaker – Transfiguration of Vincent
11. M. Ward – Duet for Guitars #3 – Transfiguration of Vincent
12. Cramps – New Kind of Kick – Bad Music for Bad People
13. Willie Bobo – Lisa – A New Dimenson
14. Kaleidoscope – I Found Out – A Beacon From Mars
15. Yo La Tengo – Tired Hippo – And Then Nothing…
16. Peter Ivers – In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)
17. Kaleidescope – You Don’t Love Me – A Beacon From Mars
18. M. Ward – Let’s Dance – Transfiguration of Vincent

Popularity: 1% [?]

            Grant Lee Buffalo’s Mighty Joe Moon is a stellar album–and perhaps my favourite of all time–a perfect pairing of Grant Lee Phillips’ incredible voice and song-writing abilities, with Paul Kimble’s outstanding production values. ‘Lone Star Song’ bursts the album open with a powerful, crunching riff that, at the appropriate volume, will blow anybody back. Spinning into action, the sharp, pounding drums graft out a rhythm that take us through the cowboy West. Hues of green and orange are being conjured up along the way before the sauntering, hazy hook of the harmonica creeps the song into a swampy finish with a magnetic, mesmerising guitar slide.

             The light, airy ‘Mockingbirds’, with its escalating falsetto refrain, is as instantly affecting. Thunderous, heavy strings weave in as Phillips delivers a dreamy, self-reflecting ode with ease against the fantastic imagery of being chained to the helm of a ship with its sails ablaze. The stripped-down, dark green of ‘It’s the Life’ shows how Phillips’ gift for the melodic can more than decorate a song of just two chords with his lyrics of worldly wisdom.

             ‘Sing Along’ wastes no time in tearing apart that calm, thrashing and roaring past us with a full-on, heavy-as-it-needs-to-be feel before sweeping us into a chorus of a completely different sound, time, and place. Once there, the dipping harmonies between “man built a market for Muhammad Ali, Evel Knievel and the legacy of John Wayne, Gacy, Gacy” descend before ripping back into the “mother-load” of the verse. Bending, hanging notes from the guitar sustain themselves, cutting their way through the track until the delicious, hushed end of creek and camp fire fades in.

             The stunning ‘Mighty Joe Moon’ has a panoramic quality to it, one that perhaps recreates a sense of America’s beginnings on the frontiers, as the beautifully drenched ‘oh no’s reverberate around the “Cumberland Gap” from Phillips’ view in a log-burning cabin. Inspired by the life of Johnny Cash, ‘Demon Called Deception’ is a silvery, thudding force of helpless loss and regret, the words “as I am” repeated until they’re buried deep. The track ends magnificently with just a piano, exhausted but grateful, pausing to praise a mysterious salvation.

             The slow and winding ‘Lady Godiva and Me’ is an almost mournful lament: an absorbed, eerie country feel about it before the song shifts into an unexpected, electrifying climax. There’s something about ‘Drag’ that brings a smile to the face, a simple, crazy-with-love shrug of the shoulders, the guitar sliding up and down like the balance of an indecisive mind, singing with exasperation: “You got to drag me right back here / Here to love.” The lovely ‘Last Days of Tecumseh’, reminiscent of Neil Young’s ‘Deep Forbidden Lake’, takes us back to the Mid-West again, a ready-made slice of folklore of another time. ‘Happiness’ is a sad, ghostly introspection on the darkest, lowest keys of the piano; the solemn frustration of a voice left-out but not yet given up.

             ‘Honey Don’t Think’, meanwhile, is one of those anthemic tunes that couples everywhere can relate to, a song about the understanding between star-crossed lovers. ‘Side by Side’ has a great upbeat motion, a foot-tapping, head-nodding energy with a slamming chorus that wants you to jump before slinking into the secret track ‘El Dorado Motorhome’; a perfect embodiment of the overall sound of the album (a sylvan landscape), its drone sounding perfect for a Jim Jarmusch film. ‘Rock of Ages’ is an enormously weighty piece that acts as an appropriate closer to this album; an insightful, enduring meditation that ends a superbly cohesive collection of songs from a dreamland of archaic instrumentation.

Artist / Group:
Grant Lee Buffalo
Album:
Mighty Joe Moon
Label:
Slash
Released:
1994

Popularity: 1% [?]

             This was, quite simply, an amazing gig to go. With gargantuan levels of energy present, I couldn’t quite figure out (age factors aside) how they do it. At first, it seemed like they were playing all of their best songs at the start, and, fearing that the set would take an inevitable nose-dive, I was left wondering how they would maintain themselves.

             It wasn’t long before I realised, however, that in fact, they’re really just that good. This is real rock’n'roll, the kind that has your ears still ringing badly 24 hours later. The seemingly eternally-young Iggy Pop got everyone from the crowd to fill the up stage for two songs, providing hilarious entertainment for the rest of the crowd, who watched on in uncomfortable amusement. Unfortunately, the show ended a bit earlier than I hoped it would (and I’m sure some of us hoped it would never end), although, to be fair, they had done everything (including ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ twice). Plus, as Iggy said himself, he’s never been one for encores — so who’s to argue?

             On the plus side, the early end to the show meant that I could catch (one member of) DJ Food play in the tiny, dank Metropolitan on the other side of town. With sweat materializing as condensation on the low ceiling, and dripping back down over our heads, I stood largely in disbelief at how well ‘Strictly Kev’ mixes everything together. Obviously taking a great deal of time and effort to prepare, and then bucketloads of concentration to know what you’re playing next, hour after hour, every tune ran seamlessly, but thoughtfully, into the next. At one point Strictly Kev played a soul cover-version of Purple Haze, and two or three songs later, it was still the same rhythm and chord changes while being completely different songs.

Popularity: 1% [?]