New Cassandra Jenkins: Only One

Video: Cassandra Jenkins – “Only One” Directed by Lydia Fine and Tony Blahd. From My Light, My Destroyer, out July 12 on Dead Oceans. An Overview on Phenomenal Nature hit me hard when it was released a few years ago. It had been a while since I listened to an album on repeat for days and I don’t think it’s happened again since. I was immediately drawn into the album’s world of grieving and escape and was surprised how much I enjoyed the soothing yacht rock atmospherics. “Only One” didn’t grab me by the emotions as quickly but it sounds like it might be a grower. There are mysteries inside that are waiting to be unlocked. Stick figure Sisyphus Behind massage parlor window glass How long will this pain in my chest last? There’s a 70s AM radio vibe that my friends and I have dubbed “creepout music” and this absolutely falls into that category. Have you never been mellow? Cassandra Jenkins: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 1 May 2024 | 8:49 am

Understatement: Taylor Swift sells a whole lot of records

Over the years we’ve repeatedly pointed out how rare it has always been for an artist to sell a million copies of an album in a week. And now Taylor Swift did it in a day. She sold 1.4 million copies of The Tortured Poets Department on April 19 alone. 600,000 of those were on vinyl. In one day. I own one of those first 600,000 records. My wife picked it up for me at Target while she was out running errands on release day. (That’s love!) In its first week of release, ending April 25, The Tortured Poets Department sold 1.914 million albums with 859,000 on vinyl, 759,500 on CDs, and 21,500 on cassette, plus 274,000 digital album downloads. That’s the the third-largest sales week for any album in the Soundscan/Luminate era (i.e., since 1991). The only two albums to have sold more in a single week are Adele’s historically bonkers 25 with 3.378 million in 2015 and *NSYNC’s No Strings Attached with 2.416 million in 2000. The fact that TTPD is available in 19 different physical configurations (nine CDs, six vinyl LPs and four cassettes) didn’t hurt, of course. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 30 April 2024 | 9:30 am

Bed(rock): A Cultural Quiz

Here’s a quiz. What do the following groupings have in common beyond all of them being, well, musical: “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie “How High the Moon” by Les Paul and Mary Ford “Respect” by Aretha Franklin == “Crazy” by Patsy Cline At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry == “Stormy Weather” by Ethel Waters “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Nevermind by Nirvana == “Dancing in the Street” by Martha and the Vandellas “That’ll Be the Day” by the Crickets “Straighten Up and Fly Right” by Nat “King” Cole == “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes “Wildwood Flower” by The Carter Family == “Call It Stormy Monday But Tuesday Is Just as Bad” by T-Bone Walker “Tracks of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles “Oh, Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison == “Boogie Chillen’” by John Lee Hooker “At Last” by Etta James The Who Sings My Generation by The Who == “Dear Mama” by Tupac Shakur “Radio Free Europe” by R.E.M. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 29 April 2024 | 11:03 am

New Hallelujah The Hills: Here Goes Nothing

Video: Hallelujah The Hills – “Here Goes Nothing” (ft. Patrick Stickles) Directed by Ryan H. Walsh. From DECK, their forthcoming 52-song, 4-album collection. A new anthem for our doomed timeline! Featuring Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus. Walsh says, “Back in 2010, Titus Andronicus’s Patrick Stickles asked me to sing on ‘A More Perfect Union’ with him, which turned out to be the stunning opener of their classic album The Monitor. I’ve always hoped he’d return the favor and sing one alongside me, but I knew it had to be the right match. Fourteen years later (!), I finally had one that felt like the perfect fit and he happily reciprocated with ‘Here Goes Nothing’ from our forthcoming DECK project.” The results are as uplifting and triumphant as you could hope for: Crazy Horse guitars and first-pumping chorus. You can imagine a sweaty crowd spilling their drinks and hollering, FUCK! I’M STARTING OVER AGAIN! And you can to see it in person when they play Brooklyn’s Gold Sounds on May 10 and at Deep Cuts in Medford, Massachusetts on May 11. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 24 April 2024 | 8:42 am

Doesn’t Feel Too Festive

Lana Del Rey headlined both Fridays. Tyler, the Creator headlined both Saturdays. Doja Cat headlined both Sundays. And there were some 143 other acts that performed at this year’s two-weekend Coachella at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Some people suggest that this, the 23rd Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, doesn’t portend well for the future of festivals because rather than selling out in a jiffy like recent concert tours have of late, approximately 20% of the ~250,000 available tickets weren’t sold. This is not a boo-hoo situation for the event organizers because it is still the major festival in the U.S., but it could portend unhappy times ahead for other music festivals. Two days after the lights were shut off at this year’s Coachella, on April 16, on the other side of the planet, the organizers of the 2024 Caloundra Music Festival, which is held in Queensland, Australia, was pre-emptively canceled after a 17-year run. Festival director Richie Eyles told ABC Business (as in the Australian outlet, not the one that shows “The Golden Bachelor” and “Dancing with the Stars”), “People are doing it tough, disposable income is not there, and ticket sales, concerts, festivals are one of the first things to go.” Yes, when given a choice between, say, paying the rent and catching an act, guess what is likely to win (at least for the largest percentage of people)? Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 22 April 2024 | 8:14 am

Phish &: Aces Full of Kings

Phish isn’t exactly a sizzling topic on GloNo. I just ran a search and discovered that there are 20 pieces that mention the band, and in some instances a mention is pretty much just that. And while I am indifferent to the band and, overall, its genre, it probably deserves a bit more mention. (After all, Thin Lizzy has 10 mentions, and while I know that Phish still exists—with essentially two member changes, addition of keyboardist Page McConnell in 1985 and the departure of guitarist Jeff Holdsworth in 1986—despite plenty of time searching (including on what claims to be “The Official Thin Lizzy” website, which has on offer a live album that is the band “at the absolute height of their powers”—recorded in 1977), I can’t figure out whether Thin Lizzy exists in any form, and even when it did, members changed as frequently as Cher did dresses on “The Sonny and Cher Show,” which also appeared in 1977.) A couple years ago, when John Hodgman was still answering the questions in The New York Times “The Ethicist” column, he was presented with: My fiancé, Steve, wants me to go to a Phish show—he has been to more than 60—but every time he turns on Phish, it puts me to sleep. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 15 April 2024 | 9:19 am

New Orville Peck: Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other (ft. Willie Nelson)

Video: Orville Peck & Willie Nelson – “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other” Directed by Ben Prince. From Stampede, coming soon on Warner Bros. Orville Peck is a phony. He’s about as “country” as Elon Musk…although Peck looks way better in a cowboy hat. He’s a phony, but he’s a real phony. You can tell he believes his own bullshit. But he still needs to recruit Willie Nelson to boost his credibility. And I guess it works. This is a good song. It was originally written and recorded by Ned Sublette in 1981 and released on an arty compilation that also featured William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Jim Carroll. Willie covered it in 2006 after Brokeback Mountain came out and redefined manliness. And, really, Willie’s version is all you need. Peck would probably agree. He told Out, “Being around Willie Nelson, it’s like when you’re a kid and you meet Santa at the mall. It’s the most unabashed, raw, unfiltered joy that emanates from that man. And he’s just such a legend. He’s 91 and he’s still just so cool and tours all the time, you know, still playing Trigger, his guitar that he’s had for… I think that guitar is almost as old as he is. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 12 April 2024 | 2:21 pm

Marx, Monks & Music

“Morris believed passionately in the importance of creating beautiful, well-made objects that could be used in everyday life, and that were produced in a way that allowed their makers to remain connected both with their product and with other people. Looking to the past, particularly the medieval period, for simpler and better models for both living and production, Morris argued for the return to a system of manufacture based on small-scale workshops.” That is from a essay by the Victoria & Albert Museum describing Willam Morris and his contribution to the Arts & Crafts movement, which grew in the U.K. in the mid- to late 19th century. It was in large part a reaction to the industrialization of production of goods of all type. There was a belief among many that the manufactories that were becoming part of the landscape of commerce—which certainly provided a benefit for regular people in that objects being made in mass quantities were less expensive than those that were produced for the rich—were stifling the artistic aspects of people, replacing it with undifferentiated commodification. This was not a total reaction against making things such that they would be accessible. As John Ruskin, who was an important commentator on what was going on in his time, wrote: “Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.” While it is somewhat inconceivable for us to imagine what things were like in the 19th century, when Blake’s “dark Satanic Mills” rose up and those who had been working in crafts jobs became cogs in the machinery. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 8 April 2024 | 8:13 am

What Stories Will the Superfans Have?

A friend and former colleague is someone I consider to be a Deadhead*. The number of shows he’s seen of the Dead and its subsequent variants is in the double figures. Which strikes me as more than passing interest. He would regale me with adventures—not mere stories—of his attendance at various venues, with everything from blotter acid to grilled cheese sandwiches to hitchhiking to a show to looking for water. It always seemed somewhat ironic to me that he, the type of guy who is essentially a Chamber of Commerce Republication when such things existed, is such a fan of the band, something that’s completely analogous to the Harley riders who show up each year in Sturges and then go back to their lives as doctors, accountants, and school board superintendents. Last week I was in a conversation with a group of what I describe, for lack of a better term, “business people.” Or perhaps “professionals.” People who work more with their minds than their hands, have a mortgage and (probably) a two-car garage. One of them mentioned that he is going this week to Riviera Maya, Mexico, with his wife to attend My Morning Jacket’s “One Big Holiday” event. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 1 April 2024 | 8:40 am

House of Wax

When I was younger than I can imagine ever being, my parents took my brother and me to Niagara Falls for vacation. I remember that my dad and my brother were able to take the trip on the “Maid of the Mist” boat that allows you to “Hear the roar of 600,000 gallons of water crashing down around you every second!” I suspect that they went because he was older than me and had disaster struck, at least my mom would be left with someone. Not exactly a bonus, I think in retrospect. Another place I remember going to was the Tussaud’s wax museum. Instead of being interested in seeing the celebrities that didn’t seem more life-like than the mannequins in the flagship J.L. Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit (once the tallest department store in the country, at 440 feet; closed in 1986, imploded in 1998, and being turned into a mixed-use building that is to open this year), my brother and I spent our time wide-eyed at the scary exhibits (e.g., the guillotine and related headless individual). Until I started writing this I had always thought that we were at the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 25 March 2024 | 8:38 am

New Kid Congo: Wicked World

Video: Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds (ft. Alice Bag) – “Wicked World” Directed by Christopher Carlone. From That Delicious Vice, out April 19 on In the Red. You know the saying: “Old punks never die, they just stand in the back.” But sometimes they’re right up front. Kid Congo who made his name with the Cramps and the Bad Seeds has teamed up with Alice Bag of the Bags for a new song. If there’s such a thing as L.A. punk royalty these two could be its king and queen. “It’s really great to be playing with someone who I’ve known for over 40 years,” Kid says. “I respect her as an artist. I respect her stance as a feminist. I respect that she’s such a great role model for a lot of young Chicano kids. We have a lot of parallels that make it joyful.” Warning: This fuzzed out bass-six riff is guaranteed to get stuck in your head! Kid Congo: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 22 March 2024 | 3:14 pm

New Phosphorescent: Impossible House

Video: Phosphorescent – “Impossible House” Directed by Curtis Wayne Millard. From Revelator, out April 5 on Verve. I love Phosphorescent. Matthew Houck is one of my favorite songwriters and his voice never fails to break my heart. But there’s something decidedly weird about hearing him reference a dopey Macaulay Culkin movie as a metaphor for the sense of dread and abandonment looming over a relationship. Went to your palace and hid As the thieves approached the throne Like that McCallister kid You have been left at home alone. Does that work, or is it just goofy? It still might be too early to tell. We’ll have to give it some time and see how it sits in the context of the album. You never know. Maybe it will eventually hit me in the face like a bucket of paint. Phosphorescent: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 19 March 2024 | 8:36 am

“Something”

It would seem as though writing about someone who just (March 17) turned 80 would be somewhat uncharacteristic in this space. But given that so many of those who are certainly distinctive and formative creators of the entire rock and roll sphere (Dylan. . .Jagger. . .Ono. . . Page. . .), it is, well, not out of the ordinary, but is becoming something that is rather regular. We should all hope we have similarly long runs. In this case the person of interest is Pattie Boyd, one of the quintessential figures of the Swinging ‘60s in the U.K., a model first (she was on the cover of Vogue four times) and foremost (then) who made her way into photography (later). What makes Boyd more famous than, say, Cynthia Powell, John Lennon’s first wife, is that she was married to George Harrison from 1966 to 1977 and then, two years later, married Eric Clapton. Their marriage lasted until 1989. (Looking at those dates it seems as though at about the 10-year mark things become unraveled.) Harrison wrote “If I Needed Someone” (1965), presumably to woo Boyd. And he also wrote “Something” (1969), presumably with Boyd being the object of the pronoun. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 18 March 2024 | 8:19 am

Steely Dan Meets Shawn Fain

Although Donald Fagen evidently thinks otherwise, since the demise of Walter Becker who died of esophageal cancer in 2017, Steely Dan has ceased to exist. On the Steely Dan official website (which is remarkably hacky for a vaunted band) on the home page, two of the four images are large photos of Fagen and Becker.* There is no red X through Becker’s visage. And it goes on to detail how the two started out as session musicians, including being members of the backup band for Jay and the Americans. Then in 1972 Steely Dan was formed with Fagen and Becker joined by Denny Dias and Jeff Baxter on guitars and Jim Hodder on drums. On the Can’t Buy A Thrill album, the group’s first, the lead guitar on “Reelin’ in the Years” was played by Elliot Randall. The vocal on “Dirty Work” was by David Palmer. And that was just the start. A quintessential characteristic of the band has been its amorphousness as regards membership. There has been a vast array of session and independent musicians as part of the crew over the years, including, but not limited to, Jeff Porcaro, Michael McDonald, Royce Jones, Peter Erskine, Tom Barney, Drew Zingg, Warren Bernhart, Bill Ware. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 11 March 2024 | 9:44 am

New St. Vincent: Broken Man

Video: St. Vincent – “Broken Man” Directed by Alex Da Corte. From All Born Screaming, out April 26 on Total Pleasure/Virgin/Fiction. Sounds like Annie Clark is getting back into guitars. That’s probably unfair, but Daddy’s Home seemed to focus more on Wurlitzer sounds and seventies creepout vibes. She’s also ditched Jack Antonoff and has self-produced the new album. So that’s promising. She told MOJO, “This record is darker and harder and more close to the bone. I’d say it’s my least funny record yet! There’s nothing cute about it.” Clark explained the decision to produce it herself: “I needed to go deeper in finding my own sonic vocabulary. I like to think of [the record] as post-plague pop, it’s a lot about heaven and hell – the metaphorical kinds. Which is appropriate, because sitting alone in a studio for that many hours I would say is a version of hell.” “Broken Man” feels claustrophobic and unsettled. And aggressive. On the street I’m a kingsize killer I can make your kingdom come. What a way to open a scene! Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 8 March 2024 | 10:30 am

POLJUNK: Don’t Be A Fucking Idiot

POLJUNK, the National Affairs desk of Glorious Noise Welp, the stage is set for the 2024 presidential election and it’s the rematch we all knew was coming. With Nikki Haley “suspending” (a misnomer for quitting) her campaign this week after getting trounced in a primary that was a race in name only, Donald J. Trump is once again the Republican nominee for president. Yes…we’re doing this again. With a shift to the general election comes a shift in messaging, usually. The most worn general election message is one that asks, “Are you better of today than you were four years ago?” It’s a simple question and one that gets trotted out every four years like clockwork. It’s one that House GOP Conference chair and all-around goofball Elise Stefanik had the gall to ask this week. Let’s see, what was going on in March of 2020…? Oh right…that. And lest ye forget, COVID was just the latest in a four-year shitfest of chaos and madness that defined the Trump years. Here’s a quick reminder of the damage he left behind: America’s global image was in shambles and he nearly broke NATO Family separations and the deaths of migrant children at the border. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 7 March 2024 | 10:30 am

New PJ Harvey: Seem an I

Video: PJ Harvey – “Seem an I” Directed by Colm Bairead. From I Inside the Old Year Dying, out now on Partisan. When I first heard this song my inclination was that it must be adapted from a Robert Burns poem or some other barely English literary source. The sounds of the words are emotionally evocative on their own, but thankfully PJ Harvey provides a glossary in the lyrics section of her website. Seem an I – seems to me; bedraggled angels – wet sheep; blether – to bleat or blare much, take noisily; bwoneyard – graveyard, churchyard; rangle – to reach about like a trailing or climbing plant; archet – orchard; conzum-ed – consumed; twanketen – melancholy; dummet – dusk; zun – sun; wordle – world; lwone – lone; quartere’il – a disease of sheep, a corruption of the blood; vog – fog; devil’s bird, chattermag – magpie; chilver hog – a yearling ewe lamb; fleecy – fleece; drunk, drunken; nuts – joy, testicles; reapy – reap So now you know! The video stars English actress Ruth Wilson. Harvey says, “Ruth and I became friends after working together on Clio Barnard’s film ‘Dark River’. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 6 March 2024 | 12:55 pm

New Isobel Campbell: 4316

Video: Isobel Campbell – “4316” Directed by Richard Heslop, Vee Vee and Natalya KD. From Bow To Love, out May 17 on Cooking Vinyl. The world is a mess and Isobel Campbell is tired of it. Campbell says, “I was talking to an Uber driver the other day and I said, ‘I don’t want to be living in a video game.’ And he said, ‘Well, we are.’ I feel like I’m offering a human element in these transhuman days of artificial intelligence.” With her signature breathy vocals over a chugging acoustic guitar with bloopy, pulsing synths, “4316” is an anthem for the fucked up times we’re living in/ Isobel Campbell: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 5 March 2024 | 11:10 am

“There’s 1 for You, 19 for Me”

Historically—with that history being also what we’re living in today—British music has pretty much defined what “music” is for many of us. There is no band that has definitionally described “music” in a way that the Beatles did. While some may point to Elvis or Dylan as American analogues, did either of them really change things in a way that they continue to be changed? Wasn’t Elvis something of Bill Haley’s successor or Dylan Pete Seeger 2.0? And didn’t the Beatles perform songs that would have been perfectly comfortable in the contexts of those two musicians? What American band can be pointed to as being as influential as the Beatles? The Beach Boys? The Doors? The Eagles? Aerosmith? The Doobie Brothers? I think not and it would be arguable that the Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac could be stood up against them. The point of this is not to make the “who is better than whom” argument but to say that it seems that there is better care, feeding and concern for musicians in the U.K. in a way that is lacking in the U.S. This week (on March 6), the U.K. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 4 March 2024 | 10:42 am

New Vampire Weekend: Gen-X Cops and Capricorn

Video: Vampire Weekend – “Gen-X Cops” Directed by Drew Pearce. From Only God Was Above Us, out April 5 on Columbia. In retrospect Father of the Bride was a disappointment. It was too long, too many guest vocals. It sounded “mature.” Boring. Maybe Modern Vampires of the City had set the bar too high and nothing they did could’ve lived up to it. Which kind of makes me think it might be time to give it another spin to see if it really does suck or if I was just heaping my own baggage and expectations onto it. Regardless, they made us wait another five years since then before putting out something new so maybe this time it’ll be worth the wait. These first two songs are pretty dope. On first listen “Gen-X Cops” and “Capricorn” both sound more akin to Modern Vampires than anything on Father of the Bride. That’s not to say it sounds like a step backwards, but more like a return to form. The upside to waiting five or six years between albums is that everybody gets all excited for something new and forgets about the stuff that bugged them last time. Read more at Glorious Noise...

Posted on: 1 March 2024 | 10:30 am