Dada was/is an amazing songwriter, but while I have much to appreciate on most other aspects of their catalog — their crafty songwriting, soaring vocals, subtly virtuosic guitar playing, and so on — lyrics, unfortunately, is where I usually have a disconnect.  They tend to stay on quirky, sarcastic or intentionally juvenile topics about some high school fantasies, and while they are all well-crafted, I just can’t relate to them.

This song is one of the few exceptions.  In fact, this song is responsible for hooking me to Dada to begin with — I believe I was sampling this song in a store somewhere (does that mean I was listening to it when it was new — back in 1996?  Possibly) and the chorus just blew me away.  It still does, in fact, I can’t believe they can make it sound so huge with just two voices.  Heroic, profound and surprisingly poignant at the same time, Dada puts their considerable genius into a timeless (pan intended) message, instead of capturing a snapshot of a certain time like they do with many of their other songs.

Time is your friend
Time is your pal
Don’t you try to fight her
Time is a mustang
That you cannot tame
So don’t you try to ride her

Time is a ship
Caught in the wind
It’s never always sinking
Time makes your bed
Then sleeps with your head
Sometimes I can’t stop thinking

I’m wasting so much of my life
Waiting for tomorrow

Ride the rocket
Kiss the locket
The sand is running down
Burn the candle
Turn the handle
I am here, I am now

I have to live now.  Because there’s no other time to live.  Past is gone, future is not here yet.  I know it’s so obvious, but yet those are two dimensions I occupy myself with most of the time.  It’s a message I heard many times yet I still need to fully embrace it.  But every time I put this song on, I have an inspiring reminder.

I just found out that Jerry Gaskill, the drummer of one of my Hall-of-Famers King’s X, has been hospitalized since late February because of a massive heart attack he suffered.

To help aid his mounting medical bills, a special download album of a 1991 live concert has been set up on their own label Molken Music.  I bought it, though haven’t actually listened to it — if they’re pulling this particular date out of their vault, I assume it’s a killer show.  But that’s really not the point.  It’s very conscientious of them to offer a product instead of a simple donate button, but in this case the latter probably would have been appropriate, too.

Their upcoming tour has been cancelled in the light of these events.  I believe they have to go on tour to make ends meet — particularly Jerry, who doesn’t have a plethora of side and solo catalog like Dug and Ty do — so if you are a fan, please spread the word and buy the live album.  I personally never understood why he’s not an in-demand session drummer — good drummers are always in demand and Jerry is certainly one of the greats.

Anyway, here’s to Jerry — get well soon!

The National strikes me as a fairly mellow band, thanks to Matt Berninger’s laid-back baritone, though even on the mellowest of their tunes the drummer Bryan Devendorf provide deceptively peppy beats.  On this one, he positively drives the band to a rare moment of outright uplift — and coming at the end of a 13 mid-to-down-tempo dirges, it just seems to catapult the mood.

I don’t know if this will strike the same way to female listeners, but from a man’s point of view, the self-assuring chant of “I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders” come straight out of some low-teen fantasy.  Stated without a hint of self-consciousness or embarrassment, it just plows over whatever self-restraint I may be feeling.  This is a soundtrack of a man who’s psyching himself up to take a stand, to finally become what he always meant to be.  And to get to that point, indeed we have to sound a bit megalomaniac and self-indulgent inside.

And it’s OK if that’s what it takes.  It’s better to talk silly in your head and be a man, than show up to be less than who you are.

This is nothing like it was in my room
In my best clothes
Trying to think of you

The English are coming
And I don’t know what to do
In my best clothes
This is when I need you

I’m the new blue blood
I’m the great white hope
I’m the new blue blood

I won’t fuck us over
I’m Mr. November
I’m Mr. November
I won’t fuck us over

 

Talking about this song really reveals which era I belong in, doesn’t it?  I had forgotten about it myself, only to remember it when I was thinking about songs that raise my vibe.  Believe it or not, this is the first song where I felt buying it off of iTunes was exactly what I wanted to do.  I’m old-fashioned that way and so far I’ve never bought a single song via any of the digital download stores, always preferring to buy a whole album on CD.  But this is the case where I really, really loved the song, but really didn’t want the rest of the album.

Listening to it now, what really works for me is the soaring melody, introspective lyrics and J.R. Richards’ thoughtful-sounding voice.  The chords, song structure and arrangement all seem fairly standard, almost generic to me otherwise — so it shows how I have a soft spot for the three elements I listed above.

Lyrically, I liked the freshness of referring to God as “her” but what really hooks me in is the yearning I feel in the line “am I very far?”  Far from what?  From God?  Why is he going to see God — is he dying, or about to commit suicide?  I am not sure, but these words really work for me, because they just paint a picture, a very vague sense of a story– and let me fill in the blanks.  Beautifully done.

It’s getting cold, picked up the pace
How our shoes make hard noises in this place
Our clothes are stained, we pass money, cross our people
And ask many questions like children often to do

Tell me all your thoughts on God
‘Cause I’d really like to meet her
And ask her why we’re who we are

Tell me all your thoughts on God
‘Cause I’m on my way to see her
So tell me, am I very far?

I understand the reason, yet it also makes me sad sometimes.

Each of us has so much more depth.  We have stories to tell, past to study, lessons learned.  We have much to share.

But when they don’t ask for the whole of us, it’s hard to know where to go, to offer more of what we have.

When your whole life is spent that way, it’s easy to forget that there’s more, we have more in us than we are asked to give.

And then when we venture out, in search of the real hole we’re supposed to fill — they try to slap and shove us back in place.

Leeches
They preach to us
Words of wisdom from blocked minds

A tear for the poet
That can’t be heard
Praise the artist that steals

Spit me out
I’m glad I don’t belong
Save me the speech
You’ll be forgotten and gone

It burns
It rips it hurts
They make you bleed your turn
The chance of a lifetime
How does it feel to be alive?

The thing is, it hurts either way.  The life of being boxed in, or the life of spreading out.

There’s no question which one has the chance to be more rewarding and fulfilling.  But that path also hurts more in an immediate, vivid way.  The pain of reducing ourselves is more numbing, easier to suppress and ignore, at least for a while.

Just like breaking our muscles to make it stronger — some growth comes with pain.  If you’re not used to it, it can overwhelm and disorient you.

But I invite you to embrace it with open arms.  It’s not going to last, it’s not going to wipe you out.  It’s how it feels to be really alive.

Because a painless life is not really life.

If you want mass appeal, it seems that the easiest approach is to dumb down.  From news to politics to religion, I sense everybody getting shallower, shorter and quicker.  Fill up the depth, let people know that they are easy and approachable.  Look ma, you can see through to the bottom.  I can figure this one out.  It’s safe.

And certainly that approach probably gets the results.  The goal is to catch the most fish you can with each casting of your net.

But then what would happen to those of us who don’t swim well in shallow waters?

This city drains me
Well maybe it’s the smell of gasoline
The millions pain me
It’s easier to talk to my PC

I live to function
On my own is all I know
No friends to mention
No distraction, nowhere to go

Shallow, shallow
Give it to me, give it to me
Scissors cutting out your anger
Shallow, shallow
No good to me, not if you bleed
Bite your tongue, ignore the splinter

To me, what is worth while is a place so deep that the light doesn’t even shine down there.  You can reach but you can’t begin to guess how far you have to go down.  Just a simple step gets me knee deep.  I can allow myself to sink in, deeper and deeper, not worrying about hitting the bottom.  I can get immersed, and still I discover more, and most importantly, I know there’s much more to discover.

Music is such a place.  Life is such a place.

One liners are great, I use them too.

But if one-liners are all you have to offer –

Perhaps it’s time to stop and take a look at yourself.

You’re not that shallow.  No, you certainly aren’t.

Fortunately, this lead single from their new album Arrows and Anchors is a departure from that tradition between us.  Hooky and infectious, the glottal “ai-ai-ai” at the opening and the soaring choruses stuck with me from the very first time I heard it, which was at their gig in St. Paul earlier this year.

The band’s guitarist Cliff Campbell is on record saying that this song is about uncertainty of life — but the beauty of ambiguous lyrics is that it leaves room for so much more interpretation, for the audience to make up their own meanings and connect to a song.  With many religious allusions sprinkled throughout, I make out a cautionary tale about blindly accepting conventions, living a thoughtless life.

You should be counting your blessings
From the sky, your eagle eyes found a great blind faith
I could be kicking the bucket
But, you should know, I never had very good aim

If I worship the ground that he walks on
And it winds up that he has two left feet
Will he be walking on water?
Cause, you should know, we never liked to get our feet wet

The right of way is a wild goose chase

It makes you wonder
If shooting for stars is like darts in the dark
It makes you wonder
If the beaten path is the promised land

I can so relate to the sense of questioning, wondering if I am following the right path, the right leader.  Most large institutions are guilty of making over-simplified and assumption-ridden blanket statements about our needs, and it always makes me uneasy about belonging, because I have so much more than what they say I do.  We don’t want to be reduced to mere caricatures.  Each of us has a story to tell, a life like no other, with deeply individual sense of what makes us who we are.  But if we stay safe, if we don’t shoot for stars, then we are guilty of letting them reduce us.  The real question lies here: it may feel like it, but is shooting for stars really like darts in the dark?  Or is the beaten path really the promised land?  Which takes more courage — taking a chance in sights unseen, or walking on neat and well-lit roads?

Yes, it may look futile, it may even be so.

But blessed are those who dare to be different.

Here’s another reason to be more than content with the amount of talent available in our local Minneapolis/St. Paul scene.

I first learned about Brynn Andre through grapevines of other local music blogs I follow, and I immediately noticed her talent upon listening to her 2-song Valentine’s Day single.  When she opens her mouth, she doesn’t just sing.  She makes you feel something.

And that something is heartache.  What she and I must have in common is that we’re suckers for sad songs — not just bummer songs, but more like, I want something and I ain’t gettin it, and look at the mess we made while we’re tryin’.

It takes two for the music to click — the performer and the listener has to share the feeling.  No virtuoso can give you a feeling s/he doesn’t have.  But it’s safe to say that if you have any emotional sensibility at all, you’d be familiar with this longing, this feeling-unresolved-and-being-not-quite-where-you-want-to-be feeling.  Brynn pulls off an oft-aimed but rarely achieved balance of being distinctly personal and universal at the same time.

That’s not to say that her self-titled album is a collection of funeral dirges.  Neither slow nor whiny, it’s a well-assembled collection that is both excellently consistent and varied at the same time, which is another tricky balancing act.  Quite a few of the songs have a brazen momentum to it, and you can’t help notice that her naked voice has something in common with the best of country balladers.  The fact that the album was produced by Neilson Hubbard, who apparently is a Nashville vet, may have something to do with it.  No, it’s not a country album, but it has this quality that I wish country had, and could have: plaintive, unadorned honesty.  I very much admire the fact that Brynn doesn’t hold back — you get the sense that you’re looking at her dirty laundry, a wish-I-hadn’t-seen-it personal side, but her open brokenness makes you want to hug her and confide in her that you, too, have skeletons in your closet.

Clocking in at around 40 minutes with 10 songs, the album’s on the concise side, which is actually part of its charm.  The songs all seamlessly meld into one another, with the aforementioned heartache as the common thread, and the album feels tight and focused.  The quality of songwriting is impressive throughout, making it hard to single out stand-outs.  ”Champagne” starts things out nicely with tension-ridden understatedness leading to a climactic chorus.  ”Fire Escape” features that almost-cringe-inducing confession about why we get into wrong relationships (oh we had chemistry but chemistry went bad/I came and I saw you, and you conquered me/I’ll say it, I’ll be honest I was just lonely) that sounds crude in writing yet in her voice you can’t help but admit its truthfulness.  ”Granite” tells of a road trip where she realized she wasn’t as strong as she wished, but its upbeat groove somehow makes it feel uplifting.  The album slows down in its middle section but picks back up with “Shot Glass,” an unabashed rocker whose thinly veiled attempt at fun is really a rebound from a bad love.  Then ending with an anthemic chorus of “Ocean,” a plea for transformation, leaving you with an affirming touch.

All this adds up to an album that I am going to enjoy for quite some time.  It’s not without niggles but they are very minor.  The vocals are appropriately unlayered for most part, which adds to the sense of intimacy and rawness.  But when the producer Hubbard opens his mouth to sing some backups in a couple of songs, it feels like an intrusion into Brynn’s personal space, instead of adding depth to it.  I’m not always an advocate of a single singer doing all vocal parts, but in this case that may have been what it calls for, given that vocal harmonies are sparse and the personal nature of the songs.  And the mix is a bit heavy on drums and other instruments — they don’t obscure Brynn’s fine singing, but had her voice been placed the closest to the listener, instead of floating on top or behind her band, it would have further maximized the sense of personal connection to the artist.  Again, I’m not always a fan of big-ego-singer-with-back-up-band mix, but in this case I think tipping a bit more in that direction would have been appropriate.

But those complaints are just the producer in me being nit-picky.  Brynn Andre’s self-titled album is a real gem, and it’s just heartening to hear that such finely-crafted music can come out of a local indie artist.  It’s hard to stand out of the crowd when you are just another white female singer/songwriter, but Brynn does in spades and makes it look easy, even if the life she sings about is anything but.  If you’re like me and have a soft spot for sad-songs-with-groovy-momentum, then Brynn Andre will hit you hard, right where you want to be hit.

In Flames’ latest is yet another gem in their long history, chock full of crazy good and meaningful songs.  But ballads are traditionally not what they do best — the slower experiments on this album aren’t exceptions, unfortunately, as they are awkward mess.

Not this song.  The closing track is a magnificent call to action, a rousing voice of Divine — reassuring, challenging and encouraging us to rise above and be everything that we can be.

I know what it takes to break you
You know I never sleep
Just because you made them think
Doesn’t mean the world will fall into place

Took some time but now you know
Tomorrow is too late
Close your eyes, walk with me, I set you free
And everything you ask for

I found the way
And I’ll return here soon
I have to see those who do not know
Rest in peace, I’m coming for you
And I will be, I will be with you tonight

This song particularly resonates with me because I know that good intentions and great ideas don’t make a difference — it’s what we realize, these thoughts turned into actions.  I still have a problem in that area, in that I do too much thinking and not enough doing.  If you don’t know what to do, then you shouldn’t just do anything.  But if you do know what you should do, then doing even a tiny, insignificant bit is better than not doing anything at all.  

In Flames don’t play coy or subtle here, the chorus is dramatic, uplifting and inspiring.  It makes you want to stand on top of a tall building and yell I’m alive, I’m here to make a difference!

That’s the power of music.  And I have to be with those who do not know, because this is good news, this is what I want to tell the world.

Fair to Midland is an amazing band.

The cohesiveness and virtuosity of the instrumentalists, fronted by Darroh Sudderth’s incredible wide range of vocal expression, all coming together to deliver densely creative and hypnotically accessible tunes.  At the current rate, I’m going to have to add Fair to Midland to my all-time favorites list.  This album builds upon their signature sound of Fables from a Mayfly…, their previous album.

The thing that continues to fascinate me is how Matt Langley, their non-technical-dazzler keyboardist, really dominates and steers this prog metal act in a distinctively medieval direction.  From the band name to its impossible-to-decipher lyrics, the band somehow manages to infuse the unlikely element, the feel of Renaissance-era Europe into modern metal, and Matt’s keyboard work is the major contributor of that distinctness.

And the songwriting is of such a high caliber, virtually all songs are single-worthy, with soaring melodies and memorable hooks.  It’s nearly impossible to pick stand-outs out of this bunch, except perhaps for the single they did pick to lead off, “Musical Chairs,” which is indeed a gem of a song.  But the keyboard riff that anchors “Coppertank Island” is irresistibly groovy and the stratospheric chorus of “Short-Haired Tornado” will keep you humming all day after a single listen.  And I can go on like that for just pretty much all tracks.  An album packed with this many good songs offer just superb value — money well spent.

My only gripe, and one that probably doesn’t bother most listeners, is their production.  It’s a slick and competent job, but just like their last effort suffered from garbled-sounding vocals (probably from liberal use of pitch correction), this one also suffers from really fuzzy sounding treble.  It’s OK for everyday mp3-playing-in-the-background usage, but it really doesn’t stand up very well if you turn it up loud on a pair of decent speakers.  It’s a minor niggle but what a bummer it is, to have that blemish on an otherwise perfectly executed package.   Someone like Rick Rubin can pare down on excess echos and ambiance to create a much more crisp and clear imaging — as it is, all instruments blend together too much, creating a slightly mushy impression.  Darn.

But that doesn’t prevent me from marveling at what an amazing band they are, and what an amazing batch of songs they created.  Their lyrics are just so out there that it’s hard to discern any meaningful emotional engagement, but their writing and performance are more than enough to make up for it by filling every song with intrigue, surprise, and ingenuity.

Truly a thinking person’s rock masterpiece.  I’m going to enjoy this one for a long time.