"She Used to Love Me A Lot"

Johnny Cash - "She Used to Love Me A Lot" from the 2014 release, Out Among The Stars-- a "lost" Cash album from the 80's.

Video is directed by the great Australian director, John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road, Lawless).

Anodyne

Uncle Tupelo - "Anodyne" (1993) - Sire Records

an·o·dyne  [an-uh-dahyn] 

noun

1. a medicine that relieves or allays pain.

2. anything that relieves distress or pain: The music was an anodyne to his grief.

adjective

3. relieving pain.

4. soothing to the mind or feelings.

Hello Friends,

They say parting is such sweet sorrow and Anodyne is the sound of a band coming apart at the seams.  

By 1993 Uncle Tupelo were ready to conquer the world.  Anodyne was their fourth record as well as their major label debut (Sire Records).  By now, the Tupelo sound really developed into a perfect balance of angst-ridden, early 90's indie rock and more traditional country music.  However tensions between founding members, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) and Jay Farrar (Son Volt), were at a breaking point.   So much so that Farrar would refuse to play on Tweedy songs live in concert!  (What a jerk!)  As is often the case with bands (or artists, in general), its this kind of unflappable tension that helps create one of the early 90's great records, both musically & lyrically. 

The 12 songs on Anodyne are part early R.E.M., part Replacements, part Sticky Fingers, part Neil Yong and with a healthy dose of Hank Williams, The Louvin Brothers, Johnny Cash and the Bakersfield sound. (Actually, as I listen to this record 20 years since I first heard it, I'm thinking Sticky Fingers is the closest comparison to Anodyne in sound, style and mood!)

So many great lyrics too.  Overall a very sad record...

"A worn out joke to keep the flies away
Carried it this far
Got the west side winds to keep it steady
We bury the hatchets we find
Could carry that heavy load" (Slate)

"When jousting is for pleasure
Pleasure is way out of hand
The time is right for getting out while we still can
Chickamauga's where I've been
Solitude is where I'm bound
I don't ever wanna taste these tears again
I don't ever wanna taste these tears again" (Chickamauga)

"All my daydreams are disasters
She's the one I think I love
Rivers burn and then run backwardsFor her, that's enough" (New Madrid)
 
"You threw out the past
When you threw out what was mine
Throughout the years
It was hard to make it last
Anodyne" (Anodyne)

"There's a guitar leaning on a Marshall stack
Used to sound like the sun on the horizon
Now I think we've been had" (We've Been Had)


"Slings and arrows completes the score
Always leaving, wanting more
And I try to throw it away
Strings that pull, strings that bend
This song and dance never ends" (Fifteen Keys) 

"So long since I've seen you
Haven't we both been living the high life
It flows to the bottom
No more, no more will I see you
No more will I see you
No more will I see you" (Steal the Crumbs)

Smack dab in the middle of Side One is the one cover on the album.  A great version of Doug Sahm's (of The Sir Douglas Quintet) "Give Back the Key to My Heart" with Sahm himself accompanying on guitar & vocals.

Here's Jeff Tweedy's The Long Cut live on Conan O'Brien (sadly, the band's only nationally televised performance):

Fucking crazy how young they all look back in 1994 (including Conan!!)

Great... now I'm sad!  

Thanks to Amy & Jim for the sweet 180 gram vinyl re-issue! 

RATING: 4.5 Mister Browning has a Prediction out of 5

13th Floor Elevators: Music of the Spheres

Hello Friends,

Your old pal Ned Tugent celebrated a big birthday this month (hint: its a birthday with a Zero in it) and to help mark the occasion, Miss Tiki Tuscadero scrimped and saved in order to buy MUSIC OF THE SPHERES - The Ultimate 13th Floor Elevators Vinyl Box Set.  A beautifully packaged 9 LP Box with a companion book, some groovy psychedelic prints and pretty much EVERYTHING from the Elevators' tragically short- but hugely influential-- rock n roll career.  The damn thing weighs about 10 pounds!

Fucking incredible is what it is! And we're really going to enjoy the hours of psychedelic music courtesy of Austin, Texas's greatest garage band!  

Over the course of the next couple of months we're really going to sink our teeth into these records and review them here one at a time.  We can't wait!  Especially as this long, cold winter draws to a close and our small corner of the world thaws out and are nights are greeted with brilliant sunsets, dizzying cocktails and some mind-expanding music.

Rarely in life is two minutes quite this satisfying!

Stay Tuned...

Sound City: Real to Reel

"Sound City: Real to Reel" Soundtrack (2013) - Roswell Records 

Hello Friends,

Sound City: Real to Reel isn't so much a soundtrack to the Dave Grohl documentary as much as it is a companion piece.  This is not a compilation of all of the great songs recorded at the legendary Sound City recording studios, but rather a labor of love by Grohl (and a hodgepodge of friends) who got together to create some totally new music in celebration of his film.

Most of the 11 tracks here were recorded by Butch Vig and ALL were recorded in Grohl's private studio on "the" Neve 8028 console from the original Studio City.  

Surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly) its an incredibly listenable double LP set with every song pretty much being good.  

Side A has Grohl and the Foos jamming with such strange bedfellows as members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club ("Heaven and All"), Masters of Reality, Rage Against the Machine ("Time Slowing Down") and Miss Stevie Nicks ("You Can't Fix This").  At first, we just figured this was going to be a throwaway novelty song, but the Stevie Nicks song is great! It sounds as if it would have been right at home on Fleetwood Mac or Rumors.

Side B begins with "The Man That Never Was" featuring Rick Springfield and the song sounds exactly like a Foo Fighters song if it were sung by Rick Springfield!  Things take a (welcome) punk turn on "Your Wife Is Calling", featuring the vocals and harmonica(!) of Mr. Lee "Fear" Ving.  The side concludes with "From Can to Can't" featuring a passionate Corey Taylor (Slipknot) on vocals and the inimitable Rick Nielsen on lead guitar.

Side C starts out with two songs featuring longtime Grohl collaborators, Josh Homme and Alain Johannes ("Centipede" and "A Trick With No Sleeve").  Speaking of collaborators, Nirvana bassist, Krist Novoselic, joins Dave and Pat Smear on the Grammy-winning, "Cut Me Some Slack" which features septuagenarian Paul McCartney on vocals and guitar.  Again, the result is far from the cheesiness one might expect; it sounds like a loud and grungey update of Helter Skelter-era Paul.  A fusion of two of the most important Rock & Roll bands of all time, what's not to like?

Side D begins with Grohl going mostly acoustic on the ballad-y "If I Were Me" (again, this would fit right in on a Foo Fighters record!).  And the album closes with the 8 minute climactic, "Mantra", featuring Grohl, Homme & Trent Reznor-- a fitting conclusion to an overall great record.  (Plus, Reznor & Homme harmonizing sounds really good!)

Our fear here was that this was going to sound like a hastily put-together "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame" Jam Session, but instead, the artists here (lead by Grohl) really give their all and come up with 11 really enjoyable songs.  There's not a stinker in the bunch and because of Grohl's presence throughout the record has a good flow, a solid sound, from start to finish!

RATING: 4.5 Your Wife Is Calling (Tell Her I'm Not Here) out of 5

Movie Night: Sound City (2013)

Hello Friends,

Grab your popcorn and pull up a stool, its Movie Night again on Vinyl in the Valley!

Tonight we're watching Sound City, a 2013 documentary about the legendary recording studio in Van Nuys, California.

Directed by Dave Grohl, the documentary tells the story of the rise and fall (and rise again, sort of) of the seminal rock & roll studio that in its heyday produced some of rock's greatest acts including Fleetwood Mac, Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, Nirvana, Neil Young, Elton John, The Dead, Nine Inch Nails, Dio, Slayer, Tool and Rick Springfield to name a few!  

Grohl spends the first two-thirds of his film on the history of the studio, the artists who performed there, and the legendary music created there.  The last third of the film shows Grohl restoring the Studio's one-of-a-kind NEVE 8028 analog mixing console in his private studio (Studio 606) and inviting various musicians who have recorded at the original Studio City over to jam.  

These are some of the best scenes in the movie.  Its a lot of fun to see Grohl and friends write & record with the likes of Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, Lee Ving, Josh Homme, Trent Reznor and (especially) Paul McCartney.

In recent years, digital music has really put the screws on more tradtional, analog recording methods.  A song recorded and mixed on a lap top using Pro-Tools regularly becomes a top-selling hit.  Thunderous drums have been largely replaced by heavily-programmed machines; crisp and delicate vocal tracks have been supplanted by Autotune.

Of course, here on "Vinyl in the Valley", we're always suckers for nostalgia and (generally speaking) we prefer the sound and feel of analog over anything digital. We like our music like we like our women: a little rough around the edges, with charming flaws and full of tiny little mistakes.  Give us the crackle and pop of listening to vinyl over the electric hum of a spinning Compact disc (or, worse, the souless silent processing of an mp3). 

As Grohl ponders in his film, "How do we get music to sound like people?"  Agreed!

We give Sound City two cocktail glasses up! 

We'll see you next time, friends, until then the Tiki Bar is closed*.  

(* not really)