Music and Lyrics

I meant to write about this pair of new albums from electric bass master Victor Wooten a couple of months ago. This past week, I failed to go see him perform live in Seattle, and I'm disappointed about that. Procrastination mixed with being too busy. In the end, I didn't really want to leave the family for the evening when this overseas trip got added to the mix.

Anyway, Victor concurrently released a pair of albums in September 2012. They form a really interesting concept, by releasing much of the same music in two forms on complementary albums.

Sword and Stone is a mostly instrumental release. Its complement is Words and Tones, which presents mostly the same songs with vocals. Victor points out in interviews that the two titles are formed from the same letters, rearranged.

As an aside, I hadn't seen any mention of this, but when writing this article I realized that Victor is known for playing a Yin/Yang style bass (such as shown at right), and that this pair of albums really does represent the Yin and Yang of instrumental and vocal performance.  Very cool.

At the time of the release, I wasn't willing to pay for two albums at once from the same artist. I test listened to the tracks of both, and ended up instead buying half of each album. For the most part I bought the same songs in both instrumental and vocal forms.

My music friends know me as the guy who really doesn't listen to vocals. I'm pretty satisfied with instrumental music, but I have to admit that it gets a bit boring, and vocals add something significant to the experience. I still don't necessarily listen to the meaning of the words, though.

After listening to both sets of music, my conclusion is that I quite like both. Frankly the singers on some of the Words and Tones album are barely good enough, but I found they grew on me. After all, most of the great 70s rock that I loved was sung by less than perfect voices.

Anyway, Victor's playing is excellent, as always, and the music is pretty great. My one peeve is that there is an extended bass solo in the middle of one of the best tracks on the album Keep It Low. In my view it's the sort of thing you can get away with live, but it detracts from the studio album.

Check it out. Feel the groove...

Long Hair and Mid-Air

I haven't written many blog entries in the past year, and I'm finding it odd that the reason is that I haven't been doing much business travel.

Well maybe this year will bring more. I'm once again writing from 37,000 feet in the air, over central Greenland.

This is my first flight to Europe since late 2011. And I have been growing my hair since the last time I was there. I've gone from a short-haired computer geek to a rock star wanna-be in that short time.

After watching two movies it seems time to settle down during the dark of the winter night. Sadly, I started the trip with a discharged laptop battery and the Lufthansa A340 I'm in has no seat power (at least not in economy). So although I had hoped to put in a few hours of office work, I'm out of luck. And I'm thus writing another blog entry on my iPhone.

The soundtrack to this blog is Peter Frampton's incredible Grammy-winning Fingerprints album. It's now been a top pick for me for a few years. Not yet at the level of Miles' Kinda Blue, but getting there.

In the past few weeks I had arrived at the point of feeling like I needed new music, and have been a bit disappointed in the process.

First off, I had been waiting quite awhile for the North American release of an album I'd seen buzz about on Twitter. Sweet Billy Pilgrim (@sweetbillyp) is an indie band from the UK, and I found myself oddly compelled by their latest album Crown and Treaty. In the end, they did not release it on iTunes in Canada, and I waited while their website finally got able to sell direct.

Now, I can understand the view that you'll make more money per sale when selling direct. But honestly, my opinion is that this is creating a barrier to entry that will not maximize total sales. The same reason that iPods took over the digital music player industry holds for music sales as well. On a whim, anywhere I happen to be, I can buy a track in the iTunes store for a good price and have it immediately available to listen to. I have a few examples from past business trips where I bought music on the plane before we left the gate.

In the case of the Crown and Treaty album, when I finally got access to their store, there wasn't even a simple way to buy the whole album. You had to select each track separately, at a total well above a typical album purchase for me. So in the end, instead of buying the album, I bought only the one song from it that had been haunting me: Archaeology. If the album had been available on iTunes, they would have made $7 or so from me. Instead they got probably $2. And frankly I'm sorry, but that's business. The album's tracks can be streamed from sweetbillypilgrim.com. Check it out.

So, the other "new" music I bought was intended to re-inspire me, but has been less than totally awesome.

Beth Hart released a new album recently called Bang Bang Boom Boom. It's very good, but a bit further from my favorite tastes than the previous one with Joe Bonamassa. I think the new one feels a bit more "country", but my wife disagrees. And she is quite keen on this new one. Beth's voice is fantastic.

I truly loved the last Dream Theater album A Dramatic Turn of Events. That was my first Dream Theater, so knowing they're again recording a new album, I thought I'd buy something from the back catalog. In the end, I bought the previous one, Octavarium. It's quite good, but I found it "less" interesting than the Dramatic Turn one. It didn't floor me on initial listen, and although it's grown on me, I'm still not enjoying it as much.

I got in the mood for some ragtime and bought The Very Best of Scott Joplin, which was very cheap on iTunes and includes dozens of tunes. Very solid, though a bit much to listen to all the way through in one sitting.

Then Joe Bonamassa has teamed up with a different sort of outfit and released a Funk album with a group called Rock Candy Funk Party. The album is We Want Groove, and it's actually pretty good. I'm a bit of a funk fan, and feel so vindicated that Joe has validated this love. Maybe I'm not the only one who thinks of his influences as Blues-Rock/Jazz/Funk. I still find it disturbing that Funk isn't a category on iTunes, actually. I'd probably find lots on speculation if I could search for it by category. Anyway this album reminds me of early 70s funk in many places. Feels like low-ceiling rooms, dark lighting and cigarette smoke. There are a few real grooving tracks, though. Overall, probably the best find of the lot here.

Then I bought the brand new Steve Lukather Transition album. I really liked his last one All's Well That Ends Well. This one is decent, but feels a bit less inspired. I think I'll queue it up for another listen next, hoping that it keeps improving for me. The singing, in particular, seems weaker than his last album, which is too bad. There are really some very excellent guitar parts, which isn't a surprise from this guitar legend, much-demanded session guitarist, and member of Toto.

Well, from the north coast of Iceland, I'll call it a night. Rock on...

Song Writing: The Influence of Lyrics

I love music.  I suppose that's clear from the rest of my blog.

When I look at what I enjoy about music, it's almost always the instrumental aspects of the music that appeal to me, rather than the lyrical content.  I have a few friends who are very focused on the lyrical, and we sometimes find it hard to appreciate the same pieces of music because of it.  But it's always an interesting process to discuss our different perspectives.

In one relatively recent occasion, I was (nearly) witness to the process of creating a lyrical tapestry... my friend Simon left a friendly guitar-playing evening at my place, and emailed me the lyrics of a new song about 2am that night.  It was something inspired by an image, and the lyrics were very powerful for me, and clearly had just flowed from Simon.

The Tin Man sits in my neighbor's yard, and I had pretty much forgotten about it, but this image is significant in Simon's life, and it was an immediate and strong inspiration.

I'm very impressed with the lyrics of The Ballad of the Tin Man, and had imagined a song around the words when I read what Simon had sent me.  I guess this is the power of the imagery that can be created by human language, and no doubt what my lyrically-minded friends find powerful and moving.  For me, that has always been a relatively rare occasion, yet I find nearly every piece of music I listen to powerful due to their musical rather than lyrical content.

It's not often that the lyrics are removed from the song, though.  In this case, because I had read the lyrics first, the song had formed for me in a personal customized "song" in my head.  Imagine my shock when I went to Simon's ReverbNation page the following week to hear the song played and sung... it was nothing like what I had pictured in my head.  Sure, the lyrical content was the same, and the end message is still strong.  But the mood of the song was significantly different than my image of it.  It's still cool, and in retrospect, the music as played matches both the format and subject matter of the lyrics.  In addition, the mood matches Simon's personality and not mine... in retrospect that shouldn't be a surprise either.

Here's the Ballad of the Tin Man... lyrics and music inspired by playing guitar outside on a beautiful summer evening and seeing a surprise image.  Thanks for sharing, Simon...

Reviewing a Few New Releases

The past month saw the release of quite a few new albums that I was interested in.  I bought a few of them, but can't seem to keep up with all the things of interest.  Still to investigate is the new Rush album Clockwork Angels, which is getting some pretty positive reviews. 

The ones I did get are [note: my ratings are: *** = solid;  **** = very good and memorable; ***** amazing]:

Joe Bonamassa - Driving Towards the Daylight ***

John Mayer - Born and Raised ***

Steve Lawson - 11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything ***1/2

Bees Deluxe - Space Age Bachelor Pad Blues ***1/2

First off, I have to admit that I'm quite fond of the past music of both Joe Bonamassa and John Mayer. In fact I'm sitting here in a Joe Bonamassa T-shirt... though that's primarily because his website has some of the best designs of Guitar-themed T-shirts I've come across anywhere... I bought the first one figuring nobody would actually notice the little Joe Bonamassa name on it, as the guitar picture was very cool.

Bonamassa's Driving Towards the Daylight has been a bit of a disappointment for me.  Overall, it's a solid rockin' blues album... it really is quite good.  However, something about the way it was recorded makes it less appealing than his last few albums.  Joe's singing voice is very very good these days, which has helped to differentiate him from all the other blues players out there.  Sure, he plays the ass off his guitars, but he can really sing well, with subtle expression and emotion that you hear rarely.  Unfortunately, few of the songs on this album show off his voice well, and the voice tone is thin... I don't know if it was a different approach to mic'ing or what, since the producer Kevin Shirley is unchanged from his past few albums.

My favorite tracks on the album are the title track Driving Towards the Daylight, A Place in My Heart, and Too Much Ain't Enough Love (with Jimmy Barnes).  This latter track doesn't feature Joe's singing at all.  I found Jimmy Barnes' voice almost too much, but I think the effect is very good in the end... it's a great song.

I have to admit that I [and a few of my friends] find that Joe's slower songs are always the highlight.  I think he really enjoys playing the rockin' tunes, but the slow blues stuff is just amazing.  This album was just rather short of that flavour. 

BTW, I also just received Joe's concert DVD recorded at the Beacon Theater in New York in 2011 on the Dust Bowl tour, and it is very very good.  I saw two of his shows on that tour in December, and a good portion of the show was the same.  The DVD has guests on it, including Beth Hart, who is really great, and I previously rated the Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa a solid ****. 

John Mayer's Born and Raised is kind of in a similar boat for me as Bonamassa's new album.  I have really enjoyed Mayer's previous albums, and my view is that this one is just not quite as good, after a handful of listens. In the case of this album, it's not the production that I'm unhappy with, but just that the material doesn't appeal to me as much.  Much of the album has something of a country flavour to it, and I'll openly admit that Country music is one of the few genres that I find unappealing [along with Opera and musicals].

I'm mostly influenced by music rather than lyrics in the majority of my music consumption. Oddly, Mayer is one of only a very few where I do tend to listen to the words, and I've always really enjoyed the (apparent) sincerity of his writing.  These songs mostly failed to touch me, and I found most of them less interesting than most of his past material musically as well.  Lyrically, I do find the song Something Like Olivia to be quite interesting.

The one song that sticks out for me as very very good is If I Ever Get Around To Living, and my wife feels the same way about it... if you're thinking you might skip the album, try this track out at least.  The final track on the album is Fool to Love You, and it's pretty good, and definitely catchy.

Before I leave John Mayer, I will say that I recently got his live album Where The Light Is.  I've seen the concert footage from this show on HDNet.  I have to say that it's a very very good album.  If you don't have any John Mayer music, and are interested in checking him out, this is a really great place to start.  The show is done in three parts, with an acoustic set, a blues set with the John Mayer Trio, and then a full band playing more of his material.  All the parts are very good, and there is very little on the recording that I didn't enjoy immensely.

Steve Lawson is a UK-based bass guitarist, who specializes in solo electric bass performance.  To me, his music is much along the lines of what I find in various acoustic solo guitar performers, though his expert use of looping and various effects ensures an interesting musical palate.  I actually bought a few individual tracks of Steve's at the same time as this album (via iTunes), and in particular I really liked the tunes Blue Planet, Scott Peck, and Grace and Gratitude.

Overall, I'm finding the 11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything album to be solid, but not consistently engaging for me.  There are a few songs that stick out for me, but overall it's going to be dinner music, rather than something I go out of my way to listen to directly.  The tapestry that Steve weaves with his bass is generally enjoyable, and occasionally quite intoxicating.  The highlight tracks for me on this album are A Year Afloat and Take Your Time, Choose Your Route, Pick Your Tunes.

BTW, Steve Lawson is an active and engaging fellow on Twitter... check him out.

Finally, I somehow stumbled across this band Bees Deluxe a few months back. I think I mistook their name for Blues Deluxe, which is a great Joe Bonamassa tune.  Anyway, at the time they were offering up a free download of a tune called Blues for the Decline of Western Civilization.  This instrumental blues tune is nothing short of brilliant in my view.  Go find it!  The tasteful guitar playing and really great Hammond organ tones are just delicious.  The band are an active live group in the Boston area.

Anyway, I saw that they had an album coming soon, which has now arrived.  It's... interesting.  As expected, the band is really solid, and the guitar and organ tones don't disappoint.  None of the material is quite as brilliant as the above-mentioned single, but there's a lot of very good music here, and a few really great moments.  However, the singer in the band put me off... his voice is just not at the same level  as the rest of the playing, and takes away from the effect of the album.  Although, I have to admit that I suspect this voice will grow on me... perhaps 6 months from now I'll love the voice as much as the rest of the album.  Strange...

My current impression is that my favourite track on the Space Age Bachelor Pad Blues album is the opening number, 3454 Miles.  It's another instrumental.

This is a band that intruiges me, and if I lived on the East coast, I would go out of my way to try to catch them in one of their frequent live shows.  My guess is that they would be very good.

I didn't attend the Van Halen concert tonight

Seems like a weird thing to post, but I found myself almost surprised that I did not go to see this seminal band tonight in Vancouver.
To give them credit, this was the first arena concert in more than a dozen years that even tempted me. I really love intimate shows, and no longer really appreciate the spectacle of the big concert scene.
Van Halen is perhaps the one band which was most instrumental in my own development as a musician. Not that I play like Eddie Van Halen, nor even really play that kind of music in particular. But somehow the band was really important in opening my eyes to "possibility". Eddie played like nothing I'd ever heard before, when I first heard the band in the late '70s. And few have come along since who blew me away the way his playing did. But it was a lot more than the showy super-fast guitar work... the band just rocked in a way few others did, and I dug it.
I don't nearly own the entire Van Halen collected works. But I do have Van Halen (I) and their newest album, A Different Kind of Truth. I'm inspired by the return of David Lee Roth to the band, as I wasn't particularly a fan of Sammy Hagar in the VH role. Sadly, Roth's voice really isn't quite what it once was, and I found it takes away from what otherwise is a very solid album, very much in the vein of the early Van Halen music. The band rocks, and some of the songs are quite good.
Overall, though... I just couldn't quite get past Roth's voice to convince me to give up a pile of money and an evening with my family to go out and lose another slice of my hearing. I guess you might say it was Woman and Children first.
I did listen to all of my Van Halen recordings on my iPhone today, though, to celebrate the band being in town. So thanks for the great music, dudes!