Instant Classic: The Live Anthology

Santa’s elves left a nice little gift under my tree this year: the 7-LP edition of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ The Live Anthology. I had assumed that this was strictly a chronological, greatest-hits-style live collection – thankfully it’s not. The individual tracks bounce from era to era, but Petty et al have mined the same sound for so many years that the leaps in time don’t feel the least bit disorienting (a group like U2, for instance, would be hard pressed to pull the same trick). One three song sequence on sides 5 and 6 goes from 1997 (‘Friend Of The Devil’) to 1981 (‘Woman In Love (It’s Not Me)’) to 2006 (‘It’s Good To Be King’), but feels entirely coherent. As Petty writes in his introduction, “We threw out the idea of ordering the songs chronologically – we were far more intent on getting a sequence that felt right, one musical and emotional moment leading to the next.”

Well then, mission accomplished. The songs are off the beaten path, but make for a revealing set about the band playing them. Petty’s intro to ‘Spike’ tells the story behind the song, provides some context, and leads perfectly into the tune itself. The covers (Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac, Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Willie Dixon, Booker T & The MGs, Bobby Womack and more) are a telling pastiche of the the band’s influences. In total this anthology is about one-third established hits, one-third oddball tracks, and one-third covers – selected with enough care to follow the typical pacing and trajectory of a live show (albeit a very long one).

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are at their best on stage, so all of these songs feel organically, inherently correct. Also, the sound quality of this entire set is remarkable. It’s billed as “Long Playing Microgroove” but I’ve learned to eye such claims as so much snake oil – if the source material is poor, all the long-playing microgrooves in the world won’t get you there. Santa’s elves also brought me Tom Waits’ recent live release Glitter & Doom, which has such a muddy sound that it makes me feel like I’m sitting in the balcony of the Berkeley Community Theater. By contrast, the Petty set puts you right inside the speaker cabinet onstage.

This set also includes a 24-page booklet that contains liner notes and essays from various people associated with the group. SF Chronicle critic Joel Selvin weighs in on the band’s month long residency at The Fillmore in Janaury/February of 1997 (I was fortunate enough to attend a couple of shows in that run), during which he writes, “The guys played what they wanted to play. They did their songs the way they wanted to do them… It was music for the music again for Petty and the Heartbreakers, the kind of rough-hewn, hand-made music, rich with the feeling of the moment, usually only heard in rehearsal halls or sound checks.” The Live Anthology is seven LPs of such music, and a vivid reminder of why Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are such an essential American band.

Instant Classic: The Way I See It

[Today: Raphael Saadiq fires up a Motown-fueled time machine...]

Good from the first drop of the needle, The Way I See It is a welcome throwback to the Motown Sound® of the 1960′s. Rapheal Saadiq channels The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Jackson Five, and more into an album that could have dropped 40 years ago. But Saadiq – a former member of 90′s hit-makers Toni! Tony! Tone! and producer of Snoop Dogg, John Legend, Joss Stone and others – doesn’t just mimic the dusty sound of yesteryear, he matches his musical heroes hook for hook, layering in honeyed doo-wop harmonies, and creating the kind of no-filler album that could have been the soundtrack for my parents’ senior prom.

On his website, Saadiq reveals the unlikely inspiration for this album: “I was out of the country, cooling out in Costa Rica and The Bahamas. I was surfing and ran into people from all kinds of places… and I noticed everybody was listening to this classic soul music and when I came back home the music for this album flowed organically, naturally.” But that doesn’t mean that Saadiq just knocked the album out in a long weekend – he had the luxury of many months, and drew upon his considerable production skills, to re-create the sound and spirit of those golden oldies.

A minor quibble – wholly unnecessary cameos by Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z break the musical spell that Saadiq has worked so hard to weave. Wonder’s harmonica solo fits the mood just fine, except for the lavish (“I’d like to invite Mr Stevie Wonder to my album… come on Stevie!”) introduction that draws too much attention to itself. Jay-Z’s place here is more difficult to square away, but if his brand name appeal helps bring Saadiq’s neo-soul to the attention of a younger audience, then it’s well worth any Hova-related disassociation. Regardless, The Way I See It has me looking forward to spending more time with those old Motown albums, and picking up a little of that Bahamas vibe for my own self.

Listen: 100 Yard Dash

Listen: Sure Hope You Mean It

Listen: Keep Marchin’

Instant Classic: Buena Vista Social Club At Carnegie Hall

On July 1, 1998 the full lineup of Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club played their only concert in the United States – at Carnegie Hall, no less. Not long after this performance, the political climate began to change in the US (to say the least), and Cuban musicians no longer enjoyed the welcome entry into this country that they had experienced for a scant few years in the late-90′s. Because of that, and the age of the musicians involved, there was a small window in which this concert could have taken place.

If this show has a stately feel to it, it’s because the group was acting as unofficial ambassadors of Cuban culture. Due to decades of strained relations between Cuba and the US, this was the first trip to the States for many of the artists included here. And for musicians such as Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez, and Omara Portuondo, it was a chance to finally show their stuff to an American audience, in one of the most prestigious venues in the country.

As bandleader Juan de Marcos Gonzalez remembers, “For Cuban musicians, it was something very special to play Carnegie Hall. We had not had the chance to perform in America for almost forty years because of the blockade. But I looked out from the stage and all I could see was smiles on the faces of an American audience.” The liner notes include an extensive selection of quotes from many of the people involved, and their memories of the chaos of the rehearsals, the excitement of the performance, and the relief afterward add another layer of enjoyment to this great recording.

Five of the musicians involved in this concert have passed away in the intervening 10 years, but this lovely package goes a long way toward preserving their memory. The cover is a sly nod to the original BVSC album, pulling Ibrahim Ferrer off that cover and photoshopping him into a night scene in front of Carnegie Hall. The double-LP edition is particularly magnificent, pressed on thick slabs of vinyl that are covered with stylish labels. It’s a bit of a splurge, but well worth it for this once-in-a-lifetime concert.

Instant Classic: Hercules And Love Affair

Just to set the record straight: disco didn’t suck, it was just misunderstood by middle America and misappropriated by greedy record labels. Likewise, disco didn’t die, it just dissipated into the underground, to be reborn in the guise of other, more acceptable genres. The music that pounded out of 1970′s Manhattan hotspots like the Paradise Garage and Studio 54 bears a striking resemblance to the house and electronica that popped up in Chicago and Ibiza in the mid-80′s. But as those genres matured, they began to sound less like disco and more like something else altogether.

Two decades on, disco hasn’t exactly undergone a cultural reappraisal, but at least it’s no longer a poison word. Throw in a whole bunch of people looking to escape the world’s problems, and now is definitely the time for an album like Hercules And Love Affair. Unapologetically wearing its disco influences on its sleeve, this is party music for a new century. The backbeat is strictly electronica, but the attitude is all disco, minus the troublesome cliches. Featuring tart splashes of horns, angelic backup singers, and anthems aplenty, this is powerful, uplifting music that works just as well on the dancefloor as it does on the headphones.

The band is made up of a collective of musicians based in and around Brooklyn, NY. Main man Andrew Butler holds the whole thing together, but he had the good sense to farm out most of the vocal duties on this album. Guest star Antony Hegarty (of Antony & The Johnsons) has morphed from a dour torch singer to a full-fledged disco diva – a stylistic change that may finally deliver him to the mass audience he deserves. On ‘Blind’ he sings like Gloria Gaynor in reverse – he might not survive, but he’s going to sound fabulous on the way down. Meanwhile, electric vocal turns by Kim Ann Foxmann and Nomi suggest that Antony isn’t the only diva in the mix.

The Greek themes sprinkled throughout the album are a wry touch, but the real history covered here is just three decades old. A full generation removed from its heyday, disco’s ancient roots have sprouted a fresh flower in Hercules And Love Affair.

Listen: Blind (full album version)

Instant Classic: For Emma, Forever Ago

The backstory is almost too good to be true: Justin Vernon, reeling from breakups with his band and his girlfriend, splits North Carolina to live in a cabin in the woods of his native Wisconsin during the dead of winter. He hunts game, survives on venison, chops his own firewood, and records an album of lush, majestic beauty under the pseudonym Bon Iver. Just a guy with a guitar and a broken heart, getting it all out in a cabin in the middle of the woods.

But For Emma, Forever Ago isn’t the typical sad-sack, singer-songwriter fare. Here Vernon’s multi-tracked falsetto is layered into symphonies of aching despair. Heartbreak this stark shouldn’t be so arresting, and music this simple rarely sounds so complex. Each song seems to contain ghosts that hover just beyond the music, infusing the whole album with a spooky, magnetic edge. “I can’t take full credit for it, and I was the only one there,” says Vernon.

His physical and mental isolation are knit into the grooves of For Emma, and yet at times the sun breaks through those winter clouds to release the inner pop album hiding behind the gloom. But as quickly as those passages appear (like the catchy strum that drives ‘Lump Sum’), they retreat behind Vernon’s icicle falsetto. It’s a voice as impossible to ignore as if you were trapped in that cabin with him, cutting the head off your dinner while the ghosts of winter bang and howl at the door.

Listen: Lump Sum

Instant Classic: Flight Of The Conchords

Far from a grin-and-bear-it novelty album, Flight Of The Conchords is a genuinely funny series of musical jokes that skewer and celebrate everything from French Pop to Hip-Hop to Jamaican Dancehall to David Bowie. This full length debut album fleshes out many of the songs featured in Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement’s popular HBO series, bringing a high buff production gloss to the duo’s nutty ideas.

Flight Of The Conchords has more in common with Ween’s Chocolate & Cheese (gifted musicians wickedly lampooning a variety of musical genres) than it does with traditional musical joke-peddlers such as Weird Al Yankovic, Barenaked Ladies, or They Might Be Giants. In other words, the tunes here aren’t just vehicles for jokes – in many cases they actually are the joke.

‘Robots’ – set in the distant future of the year 2000 – imagines a world run by party loving robots. ‘Prince Of Parties’ nails the hippy dippy didgeridoo sound of faux world music. ‘Hiphopopotamus Vs Rhymenoceros’ busts a hilarious cap into the carcass of rap convention. But the highlight of highlights here is ‘Bowie’, a three-minute musical encapsulation of David Bowie’s entire career. The Thin White Duke himself would be hard-pressed to resist the brilliance of this parody. In their best Ziggy Stardust/Major Tom voices, McKenzie and Clement drop lines like “Do you have one really funky sequined space suit, Bowie? Or do you have several ch-ch-ch-ch- changes?”

Not every song on Flight Of The Conchords hits the musical funny bone, but there are more than enough bright spots to make this album a very worthwhile investment of earspace. Consider yourself warned: the band that describes itself as “New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo” is on the prowl, and making some of the finest musical spoofery this side of Spinal Tap and The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band.

For those about to laugh, we salute you…

Listen: Bowie

Listen II: Robots

Instant Classic: Attack & Release

[Today: The Black Keys + Danger Mouse = instant classic...]

The Black Keys’ formula is a deceptively simple one: Patrick Carney beats up his drum kit while guitarist Dan Auerbach rolls through a series of blues/rock licks and sings like a chimney full of smoke. The Keys sound like the world’s greatest bar band, and their records are notable for what they don’t include: production gloss, complex song structures, showy solos, exotic instrumentation. So the choice of Danger Mouse as producer of their new album was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. One could be forgiven for wondering what kind of hip-hop/electronica rinse the group’s sound was in for, but Attack & Release proves that any such concerns were entirely unfounded.

The Keys are probably the only group in the world who could make the addition of a couple of backup singers and a banjo sound like the transition to Phil Spector’s wall-of-sound. Recognizing this, Danger Mouse uses the slightest flourishes to enhance the group’s strengths. Rather than tweaking their formula, Attack & Release shows that the band’s tough blues/rock will cut through a more fully rounded sound. From the church organ that finishes off ‘All You Ever Wanted’ to the electronic bubbling that lies underneath ‘I Got Mine’, the album is full of small touches that frame Carney and Auerbach center stage.

The Black Keys have quietly emerged as one of the most consistently and prolifically rocking groups of this decade. They’re good for at least one album every year, and each of their records has been better than the last (with the exception of 2003′s Thickfreakness, which is just off-the-charts awesome, and might remain their defining album). That Carney and Auerbach are from Akron, OH and have continued to live there and stay close to their roots is no surprise. If that’s what it takes to achieve their brand of small town blues, then I hope they never move.

Listen: All You Ever Wanted