The Wheel's Still In Spin

Best Albums Of June 2007

1. The White Stripes - Icky Thump | buy it at insound!

   After taking a break from the White Stripes to record with The Raconteurs, Jack White has gotten back with Meg to record a very strong record with renewed passion. The title track deals with immigration at a rightly time. The second track, “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)” is a classic classic rock tune. “Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” showcases the diversity of the album. The rest of the album is full of great classic rock and blues tunes.



2. Rocky Votolato - The Brag & Cuss | buy it at insound!

   Keeping the personal touch that Votolato created with his previous release, he has added a full band sound to this album. The musicians on this album have played with Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power, Hank Williams Jr., Pedro The Lion, and Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter. The end result is an album that has an album that is full of songs about scappers and fighters, but somehow leaves an optimistic and hopeful feeling.



3. Blitzen Trapper – Wild Mountain Nation | buy it at insound!

   It’s an eclectic album full of high energy indie rock, intelligent lyrics, peaks and valleys of dynamics, catchy melodies, and sugar sweet guitar licks. You can hear the influence of Pavement, but with a little bit more of a rural sound.



4. Hallelujah The Hills – Collective Psychosis Begone | buy it at insound!

   This album has some mellow moments and some appealing upbeat melodies. The instrumentation and sonic quality of the disc is wonderful. At times, there are musical echoes of Beulah, sometimes the influence of The Decemberists can be heard. The lyrics are original. Overall, this is a very strong album.



5. Mooney Suzuki – Have Mercy | buy it at insound and receive 2 FREE MP3s!

   This album is kitchy, but it keeps drawing in the guy who grew up listening 70’s and 80’s classic rock in me. And then there was the song “Good Ol’ Alcohol.”



6. Amandine – Solace In Sore Hand | buy it at insound!

   This album sounds a lot like Sufjan Stevens. The banjo, sparse arrangements, and the voice are very reminiscent of the state-chronicling musician. At times, the album can sound big, but always retains a relaxed, mellow setting.



7. A Band Of Bees – Octopus | buy it at insound!

   There’s a very diverse and full sound to the album. There are lots of 60’s pop influence in this album. It sounds like the kind of album should be released on vinyl – not because it would sound better on vinyl, but it would fit the mood of the album.



8. Porter Wagoner – Wagonmaster

   This album is a revived original album by a country great. The story behind the album is that Johnny Cash wrote the song “Wagonmaster” for Wagoner. After Cash passed away, Marty Stuart made this album with Wagoner first based on the song Cash wrote. It turned out to be a great country album complete with Wagoner telling stories about songs and the lifetime as country musician.



9. Two Gallants – The Scenery Of Farewell EP | buy it at insound!

   A damn good album by this band. This time it’s acoustic. It still has the powerful dynamics and convictive tone for which this band is known.

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Once

It’s been awhile since I truly got lost in a movie. You know that feeling where you forget that you’re watching a film flashing before you. You think you’re getting to know some new friends and getting sucked in to their story as though you were a part of it.

Once does that.

This movie captures a time, not in a historical respect, but in a very personal sense. It deals with a few days in Dublin, when two characters meet. It’s a classic guy meets girl film (quite literally – the credits role the characters names as “guy” and “girl”). The force drawing the two together is music. The guy is a vacuum repairman who plays his acoustic guitar at night on the street. The girl is from the Czech Republic and was taught to play the piano by her father.

The true power of this movie is felt in its presentation. It feels very realistic without dipping into a voyeuristic style. There are a few key elements that give this movie which feeling that few movies capture.

Rocky Votolato - The Brag And Cuss

Release Date: 19 June 2007 (Barsuk / Second Nature Recordings)

Rocky Votolato picks up where Makers left off. The Brag & Cuss has the same raw, emotive power as the previous release, but adds a fuller sound with the help of musicians that play with Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power, Hank Williams Jr., Pedro The Lion, and Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter. Throughout it all, Votolato’s unique vocal phrasing gives the songs an original sentiment.

Postcard From Kentucky (mp3)

The Edges Of Character

Tom’s face, scraped up and decorated with a black eye, solemnly gazed at the pitcher of beer. The torn knuckles on his hand held his cigarette. Tom’s teeth made an indented ring around the filter. It had been almost a year since Tom & Lenny had seen each other. Now they sat with a pitcher of beer between them.

“Howya doin’,” asked Lenny. It was a casual question, but he didn’t intend for it to sound as offhand as it did.

As Tom’s chiseled face broke into a smile, Lenny noticed two things. First, a few chipped teeth and some random scars showed signs the continual fights. But behind his guarded eyes, Tom still had that golden look that made everyone around him feel comfortable. It was that same glow that helped create all the best and worst moments of Tom’s life. Lenny never noticed how his friend’s essence held the desire for the extremes of his character.

After the brief pause, Tom answered, “Not bad. I guess. You?”

Lenny kept up his end of the conversation. No matter where the discussion went, he kept looking at Tom. He was an anomaly. He was a simple man, a scrapper who always seemed to get in fights. But he was full of an energetic spark that could turn the most stalwart individual into a lemming. It reminded Lenny of an album to which he had been listening.

The Brag & Cuss by Rocky Votolato was full of countrified electric picking and bass heavy guitar lines. Those full tones were rounded out by solid drumming – from the toms of “The Wrong Side Of Reno” to the snare drum that steered “Before You Were Born” like an 18-wheeler on a Sunday afternoon. Votolato’s voice sounded strong even when he sang tenderly and gravely. Always front and center, it allowed the lyrics and vocal phrasing to nonchalantly drive the songs.

Lewis And Clarke - Blasts Of Holy Birth

Release Date: 15 May 2007 (La Société Expéditionnaire)

If I had heard Lewis & Clarke's Blasts Of Holy Birth last month, it surely would have made my list of “Best Albums Of May 2007.” Usually, I’m not a big fan of long songs. This album is one of the exceptions. While the songs average about six minutes each (with an eight and ten minute song), my attention doesn’t wander as it normally would with songs of this length. It is a relaxing, soothing album.

Before It Breaks You (mp3)

Deliberately Free Contemplation

Henry laid down on the floor on his back. This simple action was the beginning of a ritual. He focused his mind on his feet and imagined they were made of lead. He visualized they began sinking into the floor. As the weight began to drift to his ankles, he allowed his hands to also gain the added mass. His extremities felt as though they were below the thick carpet. Slowly his arms and legs became entrenched in the floor. For Henry, the hardest part of this exercise was releasing the tension from his shoulder and allowing them to submerge into his surroundings. It took a while to visualize the entire process, but eventually this entire body was completely relaxed and immersed into the blue carpet that covered his living room floor.

Now that his body was calm and at ease, he began comforting and freeing his mind. Henry did this by concentrating on his breathing. He would feel the air enter his body and think about the motion that breathing created. He envisioned the cells contracting and dispersing. The act of breathing, the natural way he stayed alive, was how each individual molecule traveled throughout his body. Even in total rest, his body was continually in motion.

Henry would not try to limit thoughts from entering his mind, but he would try to free himself from controlling his thoughts. He let the ideas in his mind take their own flight. He tried to release the worries about his job and thoughts about his girlfriend. He tried to clear his mind into a blank slate and then begin letting thoughts enter one at a time until he had achieved some wisdom. Not always attainable, the birth of some wisdom was the final goal.

This particular day, Henry was having trouble wiping clean his psyche. He had been listening to Blasts Of Holy Birth by Lewis & Clarke. The album was full of deep moods, set and layered by the natural sounds of cellos, drones, acoustic guitars, pianos, double bass, and light drums. The difficulty Henry was experiencing was the biggest hurdle in his meditative process. Once he had relaxed his body, his mind would still hold on to the energy of his daily life. This predicament made his mind reflect on the title track to the Lewis & Clarke album with the lyrics “Are we sick of settling/ Is it because we’re doomed/ There’s a nervous kind of energy/ That slowly fills the room.”

Richmond Fontaine - Thirteen Cities

Release Date: 22 May 2007 (Union / El Cortez Records)

Richmond Fontaine’s Thirteen Cities is an incredible album. Deep within the layers of guitars, horns, pianos, lap steel, and organs there are eloquent and expressive stories of despair, alcohol, and redemption. Full of real life imagery, this album captures a mood and style rarely reenacted in musical form.

Moving Back Home #2 (mp3)

Drifters, Drunkards, and Delinquents

His pen scratched endlessly on the pad of paper. His cigarette burned away. He’d only taken two or three drags on it. It would end up a curled string of ashes before the writer would take a break from his stream of consciousness. In this dim lit bar there were a few booths with yellow lamps above them. In the late afternoon, after work, the writer sat in one of those booths with a pitcher of beer, his notebook, some pens, and a few personal belongings.

His latest collection of stories was an attempt of writing Southwestern stories in a Raymond Carver style. Where Carver’s stories represent the blue collar, white-bred lifestyle of a struggling class of Americans, our author was writing a new set of stories about grappling with daily life in modern Southwest America. Western America always seems to hold the ideals of the future. The writer was trying to encapsulate the country’s prospects with a backdrop of lives that are struggling to make ends meet.

On a different day, he would put a collection of quarters into the jukebox and let the music guide his pen. Today he had headphones on and was listening to Thirteen Cities by Richmond Fontaine.

The album was full of lap steel guitar, honky tonk pianos, trumpets, accordions, and steel string integrity. It was the perfect music to inspire tales about the land between interstates 10, 80, 25, and 15. The lyrics were descriptive and imaginative. They told tales of drifters, drunkards, and delinquents.