360 records from 2000: 78. Dead Meadow - Dead meadow

78. Dead Meadow: Dead Meadow

Country: US
Artist: Trio
Career: debut
Language: English
Genre: Stoner rock

Well, you can guess how this sounds by looking at the cover. That’s right, it’s heavy stoner sludge!
Just imagine Black Sabbath were completely clean when they recorded all that stuff. No really, just imagine it. Then imagine them getting really really stoned – this is what they’d end up with.
It’s one of those records that –very appropriately- starts with all of the instruments dropping in one by one, in order of importance: first is the hum, you’ve got to give them time to inhale, then you get the most fuzzed out guitar line, just a totally heavy one string groove. Then the drums and the bass fall in way behind – of the drums it’s mostly bass drum and cymbals you can hear, the rest disappears in the mud. The bass takes over about half of the guitar riff, while the guitar goes into a stuttering one note pattern. Sometime later there’s some chanting way down in the mix. Just a couple of lines. For the chorus, they just drop down into a massive chord, repeated twice for impact, then a little turnaround riff and all of them are into the main guitar riff together.

Awesome!

At its best: Sleepy silver door, Rocky mountain high

360 records from 2000: 79. Christy McWilson - The lucky one

79. Christy McWilson: The lucky one

Country: US
Artist: Female solo artist
Career: debut as a solo artist
Language: English
Genre: Roots rock

A bunch of ‘80s jangle and roots rockers get together to record a barnstorming barroom country album, like they used to do, and find exactly the right singer for it in Christy McWilson. Actually it’s the other way around, McWilson is very much in control here, writing all but one of the songs (a fine but not remarkable cover of the Beach Boys’ ‘Till I die’, which may have been suggested by guitarist Peter Buck), and they’re great songs, and singing the hell out of them, the weepers and the sweepers equally. She did get exactly the right band for it. Producer and leader Dave Alvin, Peter Buck, Greg Leisz, Don Heffington, Rick Shea and other guests play it exactly as is required –a sort of roots/jangle hybrid tailor-made for these country tinged songs (you didn’t really expect anything else, right?) -, and that’s all these songs really need. You’ve got desolate ballads like my favourites below (the ballads are always my favourites), and great stormers (check out ‘Little red hen’ –a searing putdown in song- and ‘Cryin’ out loud’ especially). Sure, it dips a little in the second half with Doug Sahm-like ‘Today is yesterday’s tomorrow’ and what could be an unused ‘80s REM backing track ‘Eloda’, but even then, the record just won’t let up, and it’s a ton of fun.

At its best: The lucky one, Ship song, Someday, Wishin’

360 records from 2000: 80. Cherry twister - At home with

80. Cherry twister: At home with

Country: US
Artist: Trio
Career: recording since 1993, 2nd album
Language: English
Genre: Indie rock / Power pop

As long as there’s guitar pop, people who are actually slightly too old, will make records chronicling the teenage experience. Love, school, loaning your parents’ car, annoying sisters and brothers, comics, hamburgers, dorks. We all know what it sounds like. Some of us have become immune. But if you’re not immune yet, Cherry Twister are top of the line. They make Fountains of Wayne sound like the Porky’s soundtrack they are. They’ve got the songs, they’ve got the hang-ups and let-downs, they sound like they can actually remember all that shit, but they’re still far enough removed from the experience to extrapolate into a more universal feeling. All that just means: this record occasionally hits at an emotional level most other practitioners can only dream of.

At its best: Charlotte B., She’s gone, Maryann, Why won’t you believe in me?

Capsule review: Reigning sound - Time bomb high school (2002)

15 songs that surge past - a garage riff, a heart tugging ballad, 'Stormy weather', a Rolling Stones cover etc. The band breathes this music. The listener can hardly catch breath. 35 minutes and it's over. Sometimes I play it again immediately.

Capsule review: Plush - Fed (2002)

Such a musical puzzle comes along only every other year. A clever facade (pictures in a supermarket) can't disguise Liam is composing from the heart. Only his heart is trapped in riddles too. Some of the most refined music in indie rock.

Capsule review: Gilberto Gil - Kaya N'gan daya (2002)

Minister of Culture-to-be practices some intercultural dialogue, covers Bob Marley - 17 times. Excuse me, ain't no easy skankin' for me.

Capsule review: Cody Chesnutt - The headphone masterpiece (2002)

On his porch his community is family. In the basement he's high and making up dirty rhymes. I'll forgive him Lenny Kravitz tribute 'Look good in leather' for the other 35 fragments of lo-fi rock/soul/hip hop. Tries to live cool, but his heart is too big.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 150 - 2015

150
20150225, Governor Hindmarsh hotel, Adelaide, Australia

Unknown song [Unto others you must do]
Pick up the spare
Unknown song [Love you better]

More new originals (at least I assume - they have that Malkmus melodic touch) from a lo-fidelity recording (the only one?) of a show on the february 2015 Australian tour. Sadly, I can't continue the good news of 'Kite in a closet' and 'Baby boomer blues'.

Both songs are obviously works-in-progress. I have a feeling those won't be the final lyrics on either. Nevertheless I'll give them some dummy titles for identification. 

'Unto others you must do (what you would have them do to you)' is 2 and a half minutes of proto-prog riffing again. Again? Yes, again. Son of son of 'Planetary motion' and 'Scattegories'. Partial rich inheritance? Not so much. For this fan the well has run dry. I know this song by now. Stephen should be able to write them in his sleep. I can only hope this turns into one of those discarded by-the-wayside songs - a messy secret for the tape collectors, known in only one or two recorded versions. 

'Love you better' (if these aren't dummy lyrics, I'll eat my hat) is a much better way to spend 2 and 1/2 minutes. Spends its opening 30 seconds on a sublimely catchy riff. The next 'Lariat'? Then verse, riff, verse again. From 1'25" to 1'50" there's a weird, random sounding bridge which leads chromatically upwards, ends in chaos. Then back into the riff with 'nanana' chanting. A good start, but this song is not completely written yet, right? It needs a chorus.

Nice sighting of 'Pick up the spare'.

Anyway, a couple months later there were reports of Stephen working on keyboard demos, having a re-evaluation of direction... Maybe for the best. I can't wait to find out what comes next.