Jesse Dee - Alright

This is the opening track to Boston based soul man Jesse Dee's wonderful debut album, Bittersweet Batch. It's like a contemporary summing up of everything that was great about soul music. Funky bass lines, throbbing hammond organs, great big band writing, good lyrics sung with feeling. And boy, Jesse sure can sing. His voice can be delicate or powerful, soft or harsh, and he can jump an octave apparently without thinking. Highly recommended.

Jesse Dee - Alright

Monsters are Waiting - I Wanna Be Adored

Los Angeles based Monsters Are Waiting have a new EP out called "Ones And Zeros". I haven't yet heard the whole thing but the title track is currently spinning through my head like a catherine wheel in a gale (you can check out the video at the bottom of the post) and if that's any indication it should pretty awesome. Here's a preview of the EP, track 5 of 6, a mental cover of The Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored". You can preorder it on their website (I never understand why bands don't do this more often).

Monsters Are Waiting - I Wanna Be Adored (alt)

Monsters Are Waiting - Ones and Zeros

The Bamboos - King of the Rodeo (Kings of Leon cover, feat. Megan Washington)

Oh my good god this is funky. Since listening to that documentary about Brian Wilson's production methods yesterday and hearing the hammond close up I'm thinking there should be more funky organs. I might just have to purchase one. Anyway.

The Bamboos are "Australia's premier Deep Funk outfit", or so gushes last.fm. I'll be honest, I've never heard of them before today but I caught this track on Gary Crowley's show on 6 music just now and fell just a little bit in love. I shall find out more and report back.

The Bamboos - King of the Rodeo (feat Megan Washington) (alt)

The Beach Boys - I Know There's An Answer

I was originally going to post this track because I think the bass harmonica solo is fucking awesome, but I was just reading the lyrics and noticed how rich they are. Could Brian Wilson's words be addressed to himself? Either way, he's a very talented lyricist.

EDIT (30/08/08): Embarrassingly, Brian Wilson didn't write the words, Mike Love and Terry Sachen did. Noone told me this, I just happened to wonder about it about a week after writing the post. Goddamn. Still, bloody good lyrics!

I know so many people who think they can do it alone
They isolate their heads and stay in their saftey zones

Now what can you tell them
And what can you say that won't make them defensive

I know there's an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself

They come on like they're peaceful
But inside they're so uptight
They trip through their day
And waste all their thoughts at night

Now how can I come on
And tell them the way that they live could be better

I know there's an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself

Now how can I come on
And tell them the way that they live could be better

I know there's an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself

The Beach Boys - I Know There's An Answer (or here)

EDIT: There's a fascinating and in depth documentary available on the BBC iplayer from a couple of days ago about Brian Wilson's record producing technique - clicky here.

Radiohead - Idioteque

Who's in bunker?
Who's in bunker?
Women and children first
And the children first
And the children
I'll laugh until my head comes off
I'll swallow till I burst
Until I burst
Until I

Who's in bunker?
Who's in bunker?
I have seen too much
You haven't seen enough
You haven't seen it
I'll laugh until my head comes off
Women and children first
And children first
And children

Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time

Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Throw them in the fire
Throw them in the fire
Throw them in the

We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
Mobiles quirking
Mobiles chirping
Take the money and run
Take the money and run
Take the money

Radiohead - Idioteque (alt)

Eels - P.S. You Rock My World

I confess, I've barely listened to anything but Frank Bango since I got his album, so I'm finding it hard to think about any other music. HOWEVER. I'm posting this track because some of his lyrics remind me of the Eels. You'll need to read yesterdays post if you're not sure what I'm on about - Frank Bango is very highly recommended.

E of the Eels has had a very dark life and is very capable of dwelling on it - there have been a couple of times when I confess to having found him a bit self-indulgent - but can be brilliant and he's at his best where he works through all the shit to get to some kind of optimism. That's the basic narrative of two of his albums, most obviously the most recent one, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, but also 1998's Electro-shock Blues, which opens with the destitute "Elizabeth on the bathroom floor", the lyrics of which were assembled from the diary of E's late sister Elizabeth - she had committed suicide. Choice lyric: 'My name's Elizabeth / My life is shit and piss'.



I'd argue that Electro-shock Blues is the best album E has ever produced, partly because the lyrics and music are great all the way through, but due in large part to fact that there's a really coherent narrative in which you can follow E's reaction to his sister's suicide (and other horrid happenings). It literally goes from dark to light - via mental. "P.S. You Rock My World" is the final track and what a way to go out.

Eels - P.S You Rock My World (alternative download location)

I was at a funeral the day I realised
I wanted to spend my life with you
sitting down on the steps at the old post office
the flag was flying at half mast
and I was thinkin' 'bout how everyone was dying
and maybe it is time to live

I don't know where we're going
I don't know what we'll do

walked into the thrif-tee
saw the man with the hollow eyes
who didn't give me all my change
but it didn't bother me this time
'cause I know I only got this moment
and it's good

I went to the gas station
old woman honked her horn
waiting for me to fix her car
I don't know where we're going
I don't know what we'll do

laying in bed tonight I was thinking
and listening to all the dogs
and the sirens and the shots
and how the careful man tries to dodge the bullets
while a happy man takes a walk
and maybe it is time to live

Album review: Frank Bango - The Sweet Songs of Decay

Frank Bango - I Saw The Size Of The World (alt source)



It's 14 years since Frank Bango released his first record - The Sweet Songs Of Decay is his fourth. It's also one of the best records released this year and this is no small praise considering there's been Radiohead's In Rainbows, Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid, and Los Campesinos' Hold On Now, Youngster!, all of which are utterly fantastic. The Sweet Songs of Decay is complex but simple, emotional but funny, capable of being childish but adult in meaning, easily accessible but containing great depth, happy but sad. It is perhaps the ultimate bittersweet album.

Bango sets out his stall in an ironically titled opening track "You Always Begin By Saying Goodbye". The message is clear: savour how beautiful life is because your time is short. And in the ultimate of unfunny ironies, Frank Bango was diagnosed with cancer the day after he put the final touches to the mastering.

Well the moment is here, but the moment is fleeting
You walk in a room and it feels like you're leaving
I can't slow you down so I won't even try
You always begin by saying goodbye

Well the clock has two faces so it isn't surprising
That for each setting sun there's one that is rising
You can capture time but it's your hands that are tied
Because you always begin by saying goodbye

Before you drive to the ends of the earth you should just sit in the car
Before you go where you think you should be, allow yourself to be where you are
Becase the moment is here but without it's only a minute
It'll settle on somebody else unless you put youself in it
I would have been happy to meet you but you never even said hi
Because you always begin by saying goodbye

The music is pure and perfect power pop with beautifully constructed vocal harmonies. There's just something very special about Frank Bango's sound. It is at once familiar - you can hear echoes of the Beach Boys, the Kinks, Elvis Costello - and something new. Each time a track begins it's like you've just rediscovered a long lost but much loved song from your youth: hairs rise on the back of your neck with nostalgia; you kind of know where each song is going but you've forgotten some of the beautiful details and as the track sweeps past you experience the joy of uncovering something that you've been missing for years without being aware of it.

In each track Bango finds something new and wonderful (in the true sense of the word) to appreciate. In "She'll Miss The Spider" the female protagonist becomes fascinated by 'a graveyard without circumstance or saint, behind the mousetrap and the empy cans of paint', realising that 'there's something beautiful in everything that crawls'. She listens to 'the buzz of the captured flies, the sweet songs of decay' and realises that 'she'll miss the spider when the web is wiped away'. My favourite track has a slightly more conventional theme (though the same underlying message): it's the spine-tingle-inducing ode to love and the girl who 'could outshine the sun', "Summerdress". It's the music that gets me here: beautiful string countermelodies and bursts of vocal harmony sweep you away. It's maybe a bit early to say, but this could be one of my favourite tracks of all time.

But the message isn't quite as simple as 'everything is beautiful if you only took the time to appreciate it'. Life isn't perfect. In "I Saw The Size Of The World", Bango imagines the excitement that a worm - the ultimate agent of decay - feels when it crawls out of the ground . At one point the worm realises it will never be able to fly - but it throws itself into the wind. But as "If A Plane Goes Down" shows Bango believes that life's sadnesses and tragedies serve to make the good times all the more beautiful, giving more meaning to love:

I haven't seen you for so many years
But I still remember your face.
Still as each passing year brings more danger and fear
I only hope that you'll always be safe

And Bango is able to find beauty even in death. The last track with vocals on the album is "What This Place Needs", in which Bango suggests that the world will be even more beautiful once there are no humans around to fuck things up. And this is realised in the very final track, "Gardenvariety", which is nothing more than a three minute recording of birds singing. It's a striking way to end a wonderful album and what it says (I think) is: even when death - the ultimate Bad Thing - happens, beauty will still continue.

There is an enormous amount to be said about this album; I haven't written anywhere near as much as I could. Dear reader, there's still loads left for you to enjoy discovering - buy it now and enrich your life. The Sweet Songs Of Decay was released on July 22nd, and is available from iTunes (download only) and CDBaby (download and physical copy). And if you're in New York on August 26th (that's Tuesday night people!), get down to the Bowery Ballroom to enjoy the Frank Bango Bone-Marrow-Thon-Stem-Cell-A-Bration which features music from Simone White, Scott Matthew, Victoria Williams, Richard Buckner, Dean & Britta, Nada Surf (acoustic), Sam Champion and other special guests. Tickets are $20 and all money goes towards helping Frank through his treatment and to worthwhile volunteer organisations.