Tag Archives: Rock

Translator: Sometimes People Forget

Translator_SometimesPeopleForgetA treasure trove of demos from 1980s powerhouse

Translator’s 1982 modern rock classic “Everywhere That I’m Not” turned out to be an ironic title, since it was itself everywhere. The record’s canny combination of an impassioned post-punk vocal, a singalong chorus and the rocket fuel of Columbia Records’ distribution network launched the single on both college and commercial radio. Translator formed in Los Angeles, but found their home on Howie Klein’s San Francisco-based 415 label, alongside Romeo Void, Wire Train and Red Rockers. The group’s debut, Heartbeats and Triggers, gained deep album play on college radio just as the medium was itself was gaining traction as a tastemaker. The band recorded three more albums, showing off talent and imagination that spanned well beyond their new wave breakthrough, but they never again caught the popular heat of their debut.

This volume of demos is centered around that key year of 1982, collecting early, pre-LP material from 1979, and extending through tracks recorded at the time of their self-titled third album in 1985. Most familiar to most listeners will be the demos of “Everywhere That I’m Not” and its album-mate “Necessary Spinning.” Each is surprisingly finished in its attitude and arrangement, sounding ready for both the studio and stage. The former is among four recordings by the original trio lineup, waxed before guitarist Robert Darlington joined the band. The band’s first two demos, “Translator” and “Lost,” show how the band merged rock ‘n’ roll roots – rockabilly, surf and mod – with a harder punk delivery. By 1980 the group had grown into the quartet that would stay together throughout their four 1980’s albums, and regroup for 2012’s Big Green Lawn.

The demos include material from each of those four original albums, including an early version of “Beyond Today,” titled “Get Out.” The demo’s raw sound – particularly its dry vocals – contrasts sharply with the album’s polished production; the original on-the-nose protest lyrics were smartly replaced by more open-ended, philosophical thoughts. In many cases, the album versions only lightly brushed up what was already in the demos, clarifying the acoustics, enlarging the drums and tightening the guitars. What will be especially interesting to fans are the songs that never made it past demo form, including the post-punk “Lost,” prog-rock “Fiendish Thingy,” punk rock “Optimism,” neo-psych “We Fell Away,” French language “My Restless Heart,” hard-rocking “Brouhaha” and the superb set closer “I’ll Be Your Summer.”

Those looking to expand on their memory of “Everywhere That I’m Not” should start with the group’s debut or a compilation of album tracks. But if you’ve already picked up the group’s catalog, this 22-track set, curated by Steve Barton, is a great place to continue. In addition to songs that never made it to a final studio version, the unrefined edges of the demos provide insight into the band’s vision of themselves. Better yet, several of the tracks were recorded live-in-the-studio, giving fans a chance to re-live the band’s stage dynamic. Translator’s breakthrough in the post-punk new wave era turns out to have been more a matter of timing than of musical destiny, as these demos show their range was a great deal wider than could make it on MTV or commercial radio. The disc’s 20-page booklet includes quotes from David Kahne, Ed Stasium, Steve Berlin and detailed liners by Steve Barton. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Steve Barton’s Home Page
Translator’s Home Page

Dion: Recorded Live at the Bitter End, August 1971

Dion_RecordedLiveAtTheBitterEndBrilliant 1971 solo acoustic performance

Scott Fitzgerald is often quoted as saying there are no second acts in American lives, but as he observed for himself, second acts abound; not least of which was his own. But third acts are indeed rare, and particularly in the fad-driven business of music. Dion DiMucci is one of the few who successfully reinvented himself twice, transitioning from 1950s doo wop to swaggering 1960s solo stardom, and when that spotlight dimmed, reinventing himself as a sensitive folk artist with Dick Holler’s “Abraham, Martin and John.” Although this latter hit marked the end of his mainstream chart success, it spurred a period of creativity that fueled this solo show at New York’s famed Bitter End, a renewed focus on songwriting and an award-winning career as a contemporary Christian artist.

With just his guitar in hand, Dion proved himself to be a consummate entertainer, seamlessly assimilating his recent folk material with earlier pop hits and cover songs. It’s a virtuoso performance that shows off his dexterity as an acoustic picker, his versatility as a singer, and his absolute command of the stage as a performer. The set list spans 1950’s blues and rock, Dion’s early ‘60s classics and late ’60s folk songs, and a generous helping of deftly picked covers of material from Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin’ Hopkins and the Beatles. Dion opens the disc with a sensitive reading of Dylan’s “Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind,” and sings out strong and clear in a riveting take of his original B-side, “Brand New Morning.”

He’s warm and funny as he introduces Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business,” slowing the song into a croon that rides on a thumbed bass line, skipping through the verses, updating “Yokohama” to “Vietnam,” and adding some scatting for good measure. The song’s bluesy style was likely born of the material Dion recorded (but didn’t always release) in the mid-60s, exemplified here by covers of “You Better Watch Yourself” and “Don’t Start Me Talking.” He even turns his own 1961 hit “The Wanderer” into a 12-bar blues so compelling that you’ll be hard-pressed to match it to the original. 1962’s “Ruby Baby” combines a straighter reading of the melody with swaggering asides so easily interjected that they could only be the product of a decade’s nightly performances.

Dion’s resurgence as a folk performer includes Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings,” Leonard Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” and a soaring taking of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird.” His own songwriting is showcased on the singles “Your Own Back Yard,” “Sunniland” and “Sanctuary.” The former is a powerful piece about Dion’s then-recently-kicked heroin addiction, the latter two are notes of recovery and thankful living from the other side. Dion sounds content singing his love song “Sunshine Lady,” the breezy “Willigo,” and the nostalgic “Harmony Sound,” sharing the peace and happiness of his sobriety and new-found spirituality. It’s a powerful place from which to sing, and Dion let it all out for these stunning live performances. The live recording is crisp and clean, and Omnivore’s 12-page booklet includes a contemporary interview with Dion, photos and liner notes by Dean Rudland. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Dion’s Home Page

The Crags: Long Shadow Day

Crags_LongShadowDayIntoxicating combination of country, punk, rockabilly and surf

When last heard from, this Durango, Colorado band was sporting a charming lo-fi sound. Three years later, their production is richer, their arrangements more polished and their musical scope widened. Tracy Ford sounds like Patti Smith backed by a rockabilly band on the opening “It Can’t Be So Hard,” and just as you’re settling into the two-step groove, Tim Lillyquist lays staccato surf picking into “Walida.” The band’s punk-rock, country, psychobilly, doo-wop and surf sounds are surprisingly sympathetic to one another, with Lillyquist’s guitar and Ford’s varied vocal moods tying it all together. There’s chicken-picking (“Tokyo”), ‘50s styled balladry (“Where Can I Go”) and even drippy neo-psych guitars (“In the Breeze”), and the distance between them all is shorter than you might imagine. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

The Crags’ Facebool Page
The Crags’ Reverb Nation Page

Elana James: Black Beauty

ElanaJames_BlackBeautyA fiddler’s longing and guilty pleasures

James has made a name writing, singing and playing a unique combination of hot jazz and Western Swing with Austin’s Hot Club of Cowtown. Though known primarily for her virtuosity as a fiddler, her voice, much like fellow instrumental prodigy Alison Krauss, has always held special qualities. Her self-titled 2007 solo album combined the same talents she’d leveraged in Hot Club – fiddle, voice and songwriting – but in a wider context that glimpsed her influences through the selection of cover songs. Eight years later, her second album expands on the same premise, weaving together originals, instrumentals (“Eva’s Dance” and “Waltz of the Animals”), and a selection of covers that spans jazz (“All I Need is You”), folk (“Hobo’s Lullaby”), counterculture classics (“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and “Ripple”), ‘70s novelty (“Telephone Man”) and even ‘80s synthpop (“Only You”).

Impressively, James brings this wide range of material under one tent. Her plucked violin opens the album in place of Vince Clark’s synthesizer for Yazoo’s “Only You,” with a double-tracked vocal that’s lighter than Alison Moyet’s original. The song’s mood of longing is a fitting introduction to James’ originals, which include the unbreakable hold of “High Upon the Mountains” and the second-thoughts of “Reunion (Livin’ Your Dream).” The latter might have been the album’s most poignant moment, had James not turned a letter from a U.S. soldier into the eulogy “Hey Beautiful: Last Letter from Iraq.” Setting the words of Staff Sgt. Juan Campos to music, James evinces a longing for home that’s beyond homesickness, and in it’s true-to-life source, beyond the craft of lyric writing. It’s a touching complement to James’ original songs and the revelations she offers through her selection of covers. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Elana James’ Home Page

James McMurtry: Complicated Game

JamesMcMurtry_ComplicatedGameA welcome return of McMurtry’s experience and imagination

It’s been seven years since singer-songwriter James McMurtry offered up an album of new material. His last release, 2009’s Live in Europe, recontextualized McMurtry’s societal observations in front of a European audience, and though the songs took on new shades in front of a foreign audience, the CD was still more of a tour memento than a new statement. Which leaves 2008’s Just Us Kids as his last full thesis. At the time, McMurtry’s observation fell upon broad social issues of political disorder, social isolation, economic disruption and ecological destruction. Seven years later, his concerns haven’t abated, but his songs narrow their focus to witness these larger issues at human scale.

The album’s opening track, “Copper Canteen,” finds its aging protagonists struggling to hang on to their small town life. The big box stores on the bypass loom over them, reframing broad questions about mass-scale marketing to personal issues of an individual town’s demise. Their fears find salve in nostalgic thoughts and the hope that they can hold on to retirement, as they remain fatalistic rather than desperate or bitter. Nostalgia threads through many of McMurtry’s new songs, with wanderers looking back to see where they lost the trail and community totems memorialized by those who remember. The portraits of hard-working fishermen, hard-luck ranchers and unemployed veterans are both inspiring and heartbreaking, and blend easily into songs of depression and escape.

Peeking through the darker scenes, there are a few glimmers of sunshine. The everyday details of “How’m I Gonna Find You Now” are rattled off in a monologue whose agitation reveals the narrator’s unspoken feelings, and the portraiture of “Things I’ve Come to Know” stems from the sort of intimacy that is born of time and devotion. On its surface, the album feels less overtly political than Just Us Kids, but the incisiveness of the lyrics turns these individuals’ stories into social commentary. McMurtry labels himself a writer of fiction, but the details he captures in songs like “Carlisle’s Haul” are too visceral to have been read in a book. He may fictionalize, but the people, places and language are as much experience as they are imagination.

Co-produced by CC Adcock (Lafayette Maquise, Lil’ Band O’ Gold) and engineer Mike Napoutiano, the guitar-bass-and-drums are augmented by well-placed touches of banjo and violin, and given added dimension from Hammond B3 (courtesy of Benmont Tench), moog bass (courtesy of Ivan Neville), Uilleann pipes, and various electric guitar sounds. The longer songs give the band a chance to play into the grooves, but the productions never lose sight of the vocals. McMurtry is a singer who tells stories, and a storyteller who sings melodies. At times he sounds like a more-melodic Lou Reed, with a half-spoken, half-sung style whose medium and message are inseparable. Seven years is a long time to wait for a new album, but in addition to McMurtry’s busy road schedule, songs this finely observed spring from experience rather than demand. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

James McMurtry’s Home Page

Gurf Morlix: Eatin’ at Me

GurfMorlix_EatinAtMeCircumstance, disappointment and nostalgia yield unexpected insights

Two years ago, Gurf Morlix’s Finds the Present Tense, found the singer-songwriter contending with noir-like inevitability and consequences. His protagonists were hung-up in the here-and-now, at intersections whose resolutions were one-way streets to the future. His new collection shifts the timeframe, looking back at a gritty childhood whose future was surprisingly open-ended. Unlike the fixed destinies of his fictional protagonists, Morlix’s own future was not set in stone by earlier events. The disappointments of “50 Years” yields surprises, and the smoke-filled air of “Born in Lackawana” didn’t obscure the choice between life in the steel mill and roads that led out of town. Morlix’s nostalgia is colored by the melancholy of time, and the distortions of his rear-view mirror leaves the temptations of “Dirty Old Buffalo” barely visible beneath the city’s newly polished exterior.

Morlix’s gruff tone and deliberate tempos are a piece with his songs of despondency, loneliness and exhaustion. But these emotional crucibles also produce resolve, such as that underpinning “Grab the Wheel,” and lifelines that remain visible in even the darkest of places. Redemption isn’t always at hand, however, and self-awareness isn’t necessarily a saving grace; some setbacks can only be moderated, and invitations, such as the bar in “Elephant’s Graveyard,” can turn out to be a trap. Morlix picks at the details of missed opportunities as if they’re a scab protecting healing flesh; but at the same time he’s searching for kernels of truth, such as found in a canine’s view of “A Dog’s Life,” or penetrating human insights, as essayed in the closing “Blue Smoke.” The search may be eatin’ at him, but it’s a fulfilling emotional and intellectual meal. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Gurf Morlix’s Home Page

Ron Nagle: Bad Rice

RonNagle_BadRice1970s cult classic gets the deluxe reissue it’s always deserved

If you’ve worked at a college radio station with a deep library of vinyl, you might have been tipped to Ron Nagle’s 1970 album by a knowledgeable elder. Assuming it hadn’t been stolen, of course. Or maybe a songwriting credit (Barbra! The Tubes!) or the music he made on 1979’s Durocs prompted you to ask questions. Questions that led you on a journey through used record stores, flea markets and collectors’ forums. Perhaps an indie record store clerk even shelved a copy of Edsel’s 1986 vinyl reissue behind the counter for you. But more likely, and like the many fans of Nagle’s ceramics, you’ve never heard (or even heard of) this album. And that’s a wrong that’s finally being righted forty-five years after the fact.

Nagle’s one and only solo album was something of a lark, and was conceived at the intersection of his music and art careers. With his group the Mystery Trend having folded a few years earlier, he was focused full-time on ceramics. To help promote his first solo gallery show, he recorded the original “61 Clay,” and when the recording made its way to San Francisco’s KSAN-FM it caught the ear of the station’s major domo, Tom Donahue. Donahue got Nagle signed to Warner Brothers, and stayed on to co-produce the album with the legendary Jack Nitzsche. Recorded in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, the result drew heavily on Nagle’s Bay Area connections. In addition to his impressive vocals and keyboards, the album includes Beau Brummels Sal Valentino and Ron Elliott, Commander Cody’s steel player Steve Davis, Stoneground guitarists John Blakeley and Tim Barnes, and soon-to-be Pablo Cruise founder David Jenkins.  

Beyond the San Francisco connections, Nagle drew upon the talents of guitarist Ry Cooder, and legendary drummers Mickey Waller and George Rains. But even with all that talent on board, Nagle remains very much the star of the show. Launching his songs from biographical seeds, he sings of a childhood crush, his parents hyperbolic storytelling, and his marriages – the first dissolving in an ex-wife’s identity crisis, the second providing him the support to turn back alcohol problems. He adds a twist to the neighborhood bodega of “Frank’s Store,” creating heartbreaking pathos with his vocal and Nitzsche’s string arrangement. Nitzsche’s production is spot-on throughout the album, ranging easily from ballads to guitar rockers to the steel-lined country rock of “Something’s Gotta Give Now.” This is the mix of sounds that made the transition from ‘60s jams to tighter ‘70s songwriting so riveting.

So what happened? Why isn’t this universally known as one of the era’s great rock albums? Reportedly, Nagle’s reluctance to tour and FM radio’s lack of support caused the album to disappear almost immediately. Looking at underground FM playlists from the era, it’s hard to imagine how this failed to gain major turntable time, particularly with Warner Brothers’ publicity machine and Tom Donahue’s connections. But disappear it did, and despite two more attempts at stirring some commercial interest (the post-album tracks “Berberlang” and “Francine”), Nagle’s music career moved out of the spotlight. He’d return with Scott Matthews in the Durocs and Profits, write with Barbra Streisand (“Don’t Believe What You Read”) and the Tubes (“Don’t Touch Me There”), produce, and create sound affects for film, but as a solo musical act, he never returned.

Omnivore’s reissue augments the album’s original eleven tracks with material mined from Nagle’s vault, including two alternate mixes, a pair of period radios spots and a full disc of demos. The latter includes both material that was later re-recorded and Nagle originals that have otherwise gone unheard until now. Among the former is the original version of “61 Clay” and an early take on “Saving it All Up For Larry” that differs markedly from the Durocs version. Of the fourteen demos, only “From the Collection of Dorothy Tate” and “61 Clay” have been previously issues – the remaining dozen are heard here for the first time. As with the album tracks, Nagle drew heavily on his personal life, mining his relationships and emotions, and sharing his perspectives on the people he knew.

The production quality of the demos is surprisingly thoughtful and full, sounding more like outtakes than writer’s samples. Omnivore’s deluxe reissue spans two full discs housed in a tri-fold digipack with a twenty-page booklet. Gene Scalutti’s liner notes include fresh interviews with Nagle, and provides details on each of the demos. The booklet also features lyrics to the original album’s eleven songs. Bad Rice has appeared on most-wanted-CD lists for decades, and it’s hard to imagine a more fitting renewal than this lovingly crafted set. Though it’s only February, this may be the set to beat for reissue of the year. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Ron Nagle’s Home Page