April 2018 – Fingertips

While I still remember it (Eclectic Playlist Series 5.04 – April 2018)

With the 2015 edition of the Eclectic Playlist Series in full swing, I thought I may as well review the concept here, for anyone who’s more recently been stopping by to listen.

Each month the Eclectic Playlist Series features a mix of 20 songs, which are purposefully blended to encompass music from at least six decades (typically the ’60 through the ’10s but as you’ll see this week, earlier is definitely possible). Along the way, a variety of rock’n’roll genres and sub-genres are visited; you’ll get your share of R&B and/or soul here too, along with the occasional foray into international pop, jazz, blues, and any other type of music that just happens to work in any given mix.

An important self-imposed restriction impacts these playlists: I will not feature one artist more than once during a calendar year (although I should note it’s happened by mistake once; oops). As of now no artists has been featured more than four times even as we have moved into year five. In this month’s playlist, only five of the 20 artists have been previously featured on EPS mixes.

Bonus notes and observations for April:

* Levon and the Hawks are, essentially, The Band–this was one of the names they used after they quit their gig as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band but before they became Bob Dylan’s backing band and then sequestered themselves in that big pink house with Dylan and emerged on the other side, once and for all, as The Band. This early single, though, has some rough signs of later greatness, and is just kind of fun to hear.

* Nearly two years after its release, I’m still slowly making sense of the moody but accomplished Radiohead album A Moon Shaped Pool. During a recent listen, “Present Tense” kind of jumped out at me, after my not much noticing it in the past.

* It’s easy to forget what beautiful, effortless-sounding songs James Taylor wrote back in the day. This one, from his Apple Records debut, which didn’t sell at all, quite obviously made an impact on George Harrison, who sang a bit of uncredited backing vocals on the album.

* It’s interesting how new-wave-y 10,000 Maniacs sound on this song. But hey they did form way back in 1981. And while most of their early stuff veered more towards R.E.M.-like proto-alternative/college rock, this one tells me how much they probably listened to U2’s Boy when it came out.

* And speaking, sort of, of new-wave-y things, how about this unexpectedly cool cover of a Chuck Berry song from England’s Ian Gomm, who is known, if at all, for the 1979 single “Hold On,” which somehow cracked the top 15 here in the U.S. that new-wave-y summer. The Berry cover comes from Gomm’s debut album, which came out in the U.K. in 1978 as Summer Holiday, but was slightly fiddled with and retitled Gomm With the Wind for U.S. release in 1979. Bonus trivia: Gomm was a guitarist in the legendary pub rock band Brinsley Schwarz, alongside Nick Lowe, with whom he co-wrote Lowe’s own top-15 U.S. hit, “Cruel To Be Kind.”

Full playlist below the widget.

“The Stone I Throw (Will Free All Men)” – Levon and the Hawks (single, 1965)
“Kick Me Where It Hurts” – The Booze (At Maximum Volume, 2011)
“Misty Blue” – Dorothy Moore (1976)
“Bachelor Kisses” – The Go-Betweens (Spring Hill Fair, 1984)
“¡Que Lleva!” – Juana Molina (Segundo, 2000)
“Lotta Love to Give” – Daniel Lanois (For the Beauty of Wynona, 1993)
“Whenever, Wherever” – Minnie Riperton (Come To My Garden, 1970)
“Present Tense” – Radiohead (A Moon Shaped Pool, 2016)
“Brite Side” – Deborah Harry (Def, Dumb & Blonde, 1991)
“Black Coffee” – Sarah Vaughan (single, 1949)
“Something in the Way She Moves” – James Taylor (James Taylor, 1968)
“Pattern Pieces” – Dive Index (Lost in the Pressure, 2014)
“My Mother The War” – 10,000 Maniacs (The Wishing Chair, 1985)
“Just Because” – Lloyd Price (single 1956)
“Gotta Get Up” – Harry Nilsson (Nilsson Schmilsson, 1971)
“In California” – Neko Case (Canadian Amp, 2001)
“I’ll Bet You” – Funkadelic (Funkadelic, 1969)
“Bedsitter” – Soft Cell (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, 1982)
“Come On” – Ian Gomm (Summer Holiday, 1978)
“The Bike Song” – Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Matapedia, 1996)

Free and legal MP3: Wye Oak(dreamy and driven)

When Jenn Wasner’s multi-tracked vocals arrive, they wash into the song in full-on School of Seven Bells fashion and, with the ongoing jig of synthesizers, conjure some sort of soaring, hopeful ache that seems to make life both challenging and worth living at the same time.

“The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs” – Wye Oak

Both dreamy and driven, the title track from the new Wye Oak album chugs to a brisk, intricate-sounding 4/4 beat, propelled by an array of synth lines with enough texture and zest to support the 57-second introduction. (Listen in particular for the pentatonic arpeggios punctuated by percussive stabs and distant twiddles on top.) When Jenn Wasner’s multi-tracked vocals arrive, they wash into the song in full-on School of Seven Bells fashion and, with the ongoing jig of synthesizers, conjure some sort of soaring, hopeful ache that seems to make life both challenging and worth living at the same time.

And okay that’s a lot to put on an indie rock song, or any song for that matter. So let’s get back to the music itself, and specifically the guitar work. Do you even notice it? There in the chorus, that distorted, antic melody underpinning Wasner’s repetition of the titular phrase, that’s her partner Andy Stack on guitar. The sound is charming and inventive as it intertwines with the staccato synths and Wasner’s plain-spoken vocals, producing in its entirety a song that feels very alive, very of the moment. So…can we lay to rest, yet, the streaming-induced hand-wringing about the death of rock? Is getting three million streams the only legitimate goal in musical life? There are smart young musicians out there who find artistic merit in extending the spectrum of rock’n’roll history to include what they’re trying to say and do. Part of separating ourselves from the 21st century’s digital trance involves remembering there is more to music than virality. There’s more to everything than virality.

“The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs” is available as an MP3 via KEXP. The album was just released this past week on Merge Records. Wye Oak has been featured on Fingertips three previous times, dating back to 2008 (see the Artist Index for details).

Free and legal MP3: Long Neck

Guitar-driven indie rock

“Elizabeth” – Long Neck

An homage of sorts to a city most people know only from the aromatic oil refineries adjacent to its exit on the New Jersey Turnpike, “Elizabeth” has an appealing, homespun vibe that unexpectedly recalls 10,000 Maniacs from their early days. Front person Lily Mastrodimus, a New Jersey native, has a rich, Natalie Merchant-esque quality to her voice, and a knack for the half-introspective, half-rousing melodies Merchant delivered in her younger years.

And this is all about guitars, isn’t it? Rhythm guitars, jangly guitars, ringing guitars, this one has them all, and if no one wants this sound anymore, don’t tell Mastrodimus, who has crafted maybe not so much an homage to Elizabeth, New Jersey as to rock’n’roll itself. “Elizabeth” is based on one of rock’s sturdiest riffs, the I chord to the IV chord, but Mastrodimus and company play it all with casual affection, and proceed to bury their most prominent guitar motif underneath enough general jangle as to tease the ear with its melody instead of flaunting its stoutness (listen, for instance, at 0:33, or 1:23). I keep wanting to hear this phrase more clearly but then kind of like that it takes until 2:56 to fully emerge, as the song at this point slows down for a marvelously constructed coda, which converts what had been a sort of unaccountable second part of the song’s verse into a memorable finish.

“Elizabeth” is the second track on Will This Do?, the second full-length Long Neck album. (I like by the way the built-in ambiguity of how by appearances this looks to be a song about a person.) Long Neck began as Mastrodimus’s solo project, in 2014, but has become a full-fledged band. Check out the extensive discography (there are a bunch of EPs and singles) on Bandcamp, where you can also listen to and buy Will This Do?, which was released in January on Tiny Engines. MP3, again, via KEXP.

Free and legal MP3:Mattiel(smart, stylish lo-fi rocker)

Propelled by a fuzzy, fluent guitar lick, the song evokes something lonesome and long ago in a package that feels nevertheless very up to date.

“Not Today” – Mattiel

I guess it turns out to be guitar month here on Fingertips. A smart and stylish lo-fi rocker, “Not Today” oozes confidence and wonderfulness through the course of its perfect 3:38 pop song length. Propelled by a fuzzy, fluent guitar lick, the song evokes something lonesome and long ago in a package that feels nevertheless very up to date. And I’m not sure exactly how that works, as fuzzy guitar rock isn’t exactly the most up-to-date sub-genre on today’s scene. But that’s the beauty of plumbing rock history for inspiration here in the year 2018—you can find sounds and attitudes from past decades and still, because you’re a 20- or 30-something person in the digital age, write and record a song that feels like now.

Beyond the foundational guitar lick, “Not Today” is dominated by Mattiel Brown’s arresting vocals, which are also fuzzed up a bit, and infused with a tone at once sharp and blasé that recalls Amy Winehouse, at least a little. Meanwhile, don’t overlook the unusually in-sync rhythm section, in which the smashy drums tumble around and about a bass line so deep and concise it too feels like percussion.

Mattiel is a trio based in Atlanta. “Not Today” is from their self-titled debut album, released back in October on Burger Records. It’s a KEXP trifecta this week; this MP3 found its way there in January, and here it is, some months later, as I could no longer ignore it. This one is definitely a grower.