Shier than what?

DISC-O-Graphy part 5

I have to admit as a fan of music, and a collector of it as well, I kinda dropped the ball along the way. I never became a fan of Rage Against the Machine (I did play hockey on a team called Rage Against the Zamboni however!). Rage to me was a metal rap band – I love almost all kids of music but this just never appealed to me. A while ago I read about this guy named Tom Morello, the guitarist in Rage who was releasing an acoustic CD under his alter ego name the Nightwatchman. It wasn’t his first, and probably won’t be his last. The disc was given to me as “something you might like” and I promptly place it among my 5000 other artists in my iPod and forgot about it. The disc came out in September of 2008 and it’s 6 months later when I discover the disc. Ooooops, my bad as they say

Really, I don’t know what to make of The Nightwatchman’s The Fabled City. Firstly Morello encompasses a ton of style and sound that appeals to me. Think Dylan and Warren Zevon teaming up and singing with Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. Think way outside the box on this one and then put it on and stop thinking. The lyrics are very intense, well scribed and very different, the mood is somber, but unlike most of Len Cohen’s somber music, this one didn’t make me feel like killing myself!

The lyrics are thin at one end and deep at the other, with biblical references throughout as he pleads with politicians and the entire autocratic society that this universe needs change from it’s greedy ways, in the next verse he’s commenting on the one legged bird knocking on your window - somehow, as off as it seems and sounds, it actually works and is very cool.

It’s not a perfect record (but there are few of those around), but I’m glad I listened to it finally, it’s certainly one I will include in my rotation!

Springsteen’s latest number “Working on a Dream” is his third record this decade with the E Street Band and his 5th this decade over all. As a monster fan of the New Jersey god, I am having a tough time coming to grips that the Boss isn’t really in charge anymore. His early style involved writing, ripping, destroying, re-writing, touring, destroying, writing and maybe recording. His new image embodies a man who seems to have given into the temptations of mediocrity. It seems that when Bruce is hungry he calls the boys (I know...and the girls now) and they head into a studio, spend a few days, maybe a week together and presto, a new album is born. Working on a Dream was mostly made from songs he wrote while putting Magic together last year in fact, and for me the preparation for mediocrity was well underway when that story broke. What resulted in the releasing of Working on a Dream isn't mediocre though. Working on a Dream is the only E street band that he’s released in a while that captured my ears and made me realize that the Boss is still the man.

The CD begins with Outlaw Pete, which surely is another Pete Seeger classic that he’s covering, but the liners state it as being written by Bruce, it’s quite simply a neat little ditty that would feel at home on this album or the Seeger Sessions disc. We continue through the CD with songs that captivate the bluest collar within and he even takes us to the supermarket in what can only be a song that he wrote in the early seventies (Wild, Innocent and the E Street Shuffle cast off perhaps). Supermarket offers Springsteen’s first “f” bomb in a song, which now means to me the F word will be in the Oxford dictionary any day now! Overall I didn’t love the effort, but I liked it enough to listen a few times, and in the end it’s probably my favourite E Street effort since 1984’s Born in the USA and quite possibly my fave Springsteen effort since then as well.

On another note, I am careful to not overplay my love of Springsteen in talking with friends, however I have to say that if you didn’t catch his halftime performance at this year’s Super Bowl, then you missed what can only be described as the best halftime show ever!

U2 – I’ve listened to this new CD a grand total of once. While it’s not fair to criticize or praise anything based on a cursory listen, I have to say that this is a pretty cool sounding disc at first blush. What I liked most about it was the fact the catchy pop-ridden ditty that is the first single, Put on your boots, isn’t even the best or most popular sounding song on the record. Don’t get me wrong, Boots works as a first single, because it’s fun, it’s hip and it’s good, but by the time you get to it on the CD (track 6) you are already caught up in two or three other tunes, and that’s something that for me sets the great CD’s apart from the good ones. I need to listen to it a few more times, however I so far have no problem telling U2 fans around the globe, it’s a pretty good record, I think it’s worth the 15 bucks!

Other Stuff to listen to:

The Airborne Toxic Event (40 listens and it’s still my fave)

Bon Iver – Blood Bank (cool and different, mellow stuff)

Glasvegas – Glasvegas (from my fave city, great sound, well written, hard rock at times)

Lily Allen – It’s not me, it’s you (It’s an interesting piece, still not convinced that it’s great tho)

posted by G.M. Shier @ Thursday, February 26, 2009