Here’s the audio version - Woke Up With the Collar On

I used bandcamp.com today to pick this song. Here was how I ended up with this band.

(1) Bandcamp has a new feature where they show what’s “selling right now.”

(2) Because I’m desperate to get in on the front end of new trends, I’ll follow suit.

If you want exact science, you’re at the wrong place.

What you see below is my real time review of this song….

Artist: Cousin Silas
Song: “In One Corner of the Sky”
Album: The Path Between the Trees
Recommended by: bandcamp.com (somebody else was buying it)
On the internet: Twitter

Who it sounds like before I listen to the first note:

One of the Unknown Members of the Darling Family:I’ve only known one dude named Silas in my life, and he was about as country as they come and though I don’t remember what he listened to, I know that he was big into running jacked up trucks into muddy pits to see if he could drive farther than his friends before throwing a rod or smoking his engine. He reminded me of this other dude who used to wrestle in the WWF back in the mid-80s named Cousin Luke who was part of a movement spearheaded by Hillbilly Jim (and including Uncle Elmer). Those guys all looked like they got down to some mountain music like the Darlings played on the Andy Griffith Show. The Darlings was just a fake tv name for a real family called The Dillards. Anyway, if that’s how this works, Cousin Silas is going to be heavy on the banjo, the mandolin, a jug, and maybe a washboard. At this point if the Dillards are still playing county fairs in North Carolina, I’m guessing maybe only one of them is a blood relation, and it might be Cousin Silas.

Fishing the Sky: There’s this one man post rock band that I’ve been meaning to review on this very website for a few weeks because it’s good and more people should know about it. I don’t know if it’s because of the “Sky” reference in the Cousin Silas song (“In One Corner of the Sky”), or if it’s because of the album name, The Path Between the Trees, but both of those things sound like some serious post rock naming. If that’s the case, I’ll expect some instrumental grooves with cool bass lines, weird sound effects, and haunting melodies. In that case, Cousin Silas is going to be like Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch in that he’s some dude who got kicked out of his family home and had to stay with kin a few states over, but people at the new house were a little skeptical of him so they gave him a “room” back by the shed and nobody bothered him while he recorded stuff from a Casio keyboard, but at dinner when he wasn’t around they were all, “Hey, did you guys see Cousin Silas out there? He’s got lighter burns on his forearm and he keeps talking about Nikola Tesla. When is he moving back to Omaha?”

Iron Maiden: Remember how Iron Maiden had that corny ass mascot Eddie? I feel like somewhere, in a garage, there was a metal band who wanted to follow in Maiden’s footsteps and they created a mascot named Silas (shortened from “Cousin Silas”) and when they weren’t sketching pictures of Silas destroying their high school or Silas ollieing over a United Dairy Farmer convenience store on a skateboard with skull wheels, they played metal with screechy guitar solos and lyrics that tiptoe the line between a Tolkien short story and a British steel workers union fight song.

I’m going to shut off the tv, push play, and see what Cousin Silas is all about.

:11 there’s a haunting piano, and that’s always a quick way to my heart.

:40 so far this sounds more like the score to a movie than it does a standard 4/4 song. To that end, it’s effective, because it resonates emotionally. I sense loss. Heartbreak. The “oh, you just got fired and your wife is leaving you” moment in the black and white indie film.

:54 there’s all sorts of other ambient noises popping up here–static and crackle reminiscent of listening to vinyl.

1:13 the sound effects add depth and they also have a peculiar way of disorienting me as a listener (in a good way). In a way, they make it impossible to get too sleepy or too into the groove. It isn’t so much that you’re expecting something bad to happen in the way you know to get tense during Jaws when the music hits, but it’s more like when you’re just about to nod off to sleep and then a car door slams down the block or a dog barks and then you have to fight between being awake and present or drifting off to the strange world of dreams.

1:54 this is pleasant enough.

2:02 the piano bit that just finished sounds like the end of “Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Final Fantasy remix)” by Stars.

Final thoughts:

On its own, I’d listen to this song again. But I can’t help but feel that this song works as part of an album and that the whole of that album is a very lush tapestry. If I was going to guess, this album is instrumental the whole way through and would make a perfect thing to listen to while working on a novel.

Start here, then explore. Let me know what you find.

I used bandcamp.com today to pick this song. Here was how I ended up with this band.

(1) Bandcamp has a new feature where they show what’s “selling right now.”

(2) Because I’m desperate to get in on the front end of new trends, I’ll follow suit.

If you want exact science, you’re at the wrong place.

What you see below is my real time review of this song….

Artist: Wax Idols
Song: “Schadenfreude”
Album: Wax Idols
Recommended by: bandcamp.com (somebody else was buying it)
On the internet: Facebook and Twitter

Who it sounds like before I listen to the first note:

Creepy Ass Madame Tussaud Museum House Band: I’m not sure how I’d best describe this sound, but it would be one part haunted house, one part cartoon, and a heavy dose of 70s stylings that, when the museum opened up were fresh, but now sound dusty. There might be a little bit of a disco sound going on, but because it’s more than thirty years old and the batteries aren’t at full strength, it’s slowed down to a pace that’s more heroin than cocaine.

Pat Boone and a bunch of Pat Boone backup singers: The Wax Idols sound like they could have been a second generation doo wop band. And in my experience those bands fell into two categories–the real deal, soulful, talented AND the imitation knock off copycat versions–first we get Fats Domino and then Chubby Checker shows up. “It’s your cousin, Marvin Berry.” You know, that kind of thing. Anyway, I picture the Wax Idols as this family of four brothers, all of them with slicked back hair and plastered grins singing about holding hands and praying together at church. Offensive in their lack of edge.

Sparklehorse w/guest Billy Idol: I wish I had more than three guesses, because I’m not doing a very good job of narrowing things down to a likely candidate. I’d thought about that episode of the Brady Bunch with the tiki doll idol and how I always wished that tarantula would have torn Peter’s face off so we could have gotten “A Very Special Episode of the Brady Bunch.” And then I thought about Billy Idol singing “White Wedding,” but slowing it down to 64 bpm. Then that made me think about the Sparklehorse song “Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain” and I figured it’d be awesome if Billy Idol and the dude from Sparklehorse had collaborated on a remixed version of “Dancing with Myself” before the dude from Sparklehorse rode off into the permanent sunset.

I’m going to shut off Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See” and give Wax Idols a chance.

:04 Holy Shit! That opening riff actually sounds like “Dancing with Myself.” That might be the most random guess I’ve made that sounds scientifically accurate. I almost don’t want to listen to anymore of this song just so I can assume I’ve stumbled onto my genius.

:16 I kind of hear Berlin’s “The Metro” going on with this. If you told me that the Wax Idols recorded this in 1983, I’d believe you and would chalk it up to them being a band I’d never heard of but was probably famous.

:25 Either this was recorded twenty five years ago or the people doing sound are amazing and have captured it perfectly.

:26 I’m also hearing Joy Division in this. Maybe even Legacy of Brutality era Misfits (except not nearly as lo-fi as that album).

:50 We’ve run through the chorus once. I’m digging this. Though it isn’t anything complicated, the bass is really the backbone of this song. Driving. In its own way, it’s cinematic and makes me want to drive a car really fast and dangerously through rainy streets.

1:15 Ok, there’s absolutely no way this was recorded after 1985. There just isn’t. If it was, I’ll eat my hat. It so perfectly captures that sound from then, a mid-step evolution of punk into something a little more melodic and a little creepier.

1:29 This is really catchy. As we know, I love punkier/edgier bands with female vocalists and that’s what this is. If this is older stuff being reissued, I have no idea how I don’t know about the Wax Idols. If it’s newer, I’m glad I found it.

2:00 Going out with a little drum chaos.

2:12 Song is over. It was tight. Haunting. Lean.

Final thoughts:

I liked this. I’m convinced it was recorded a long time ago and I’ve just never heard of Wax Idols. There’s a little bit of the Creepy Ass Madame Tussaud Museum band going on. And I could totally see these guys hanging out with Billy Idol. So I was remarkably close, though the Pat Boone thing is way off. The note about sounding like Berlin is also not far from the truth.

If you’re familiar with music from that time period and you liked it, you’ll feel at home immediately with the sound. From an instinct/buried memory standpoint, this song resonated with me faster than most of the things I’ve reviewed favorably as part of this series.

Take a listen while I go investigate. I need to know the story here.

I kept a notepad to record the following nine verbatim clips of high school students’ film analysis and critiques I overheard in the classrooms and hallways of the high school where I teach:

1. An obvious starting place – a freshman boy in my English 9 class:  ”Have you seen The Hunger Games yet?  Oh, man, it’s like the best movie ever made.  No joke.  The best ever.  Ever.”

2.  Another freshman boy who stands up while speaking:  ”Yeah, it’s a requirement.  Fact.  You have to see this movie.  You haven’t seen it?” he points around the room. “What? You haven’t seen it either?  Show me your hands, everyone.  Who’s seen it? What?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  This is ridiculous.”

3. A sophomore boy in the 200 Hall talking to his friend:  ”That chick in The Hunger Games, she’s, like, so fine.  A super fine poor girl.  When her hair’s all wet and shit?  I’d like to fight her, you know? Not kill her and all, but you know what I mean, right?  Get it?”

4.  A sophomore girl standing outside the library talking to a friend:  ”I don’t know why Katniss is so beautiful, but she is.  And she’s amazing, you know?  Like what all she can do?  I’d carry a bow everywhere if they’d let me.”

5.  A quick back and forth between two freshmen girls in the 300 Hall:  ” Oh, and the ending.”  ”Oh, I know.”  ”Yeah, I was like, ‘no…’”  ”Oh I know.  Me too.  I was like ‘no’ the whole time.”

6. Senior boy talking to his friend at the drinking fountain in the 400 Hall:  ”Yeah, people say it’s kinda sad in parts or whatever but mostly I just wanna do that sort of thing.  The way I play COD, I know I wouldn’t have any trouble.  I can go up behind a gunner post and slit a throat.  For real.  No literally, for real.”

7.  A freshman girl in the front hall: “Peeta’s too cute.  When he’s looking at Katniss all serious and stuff?  I don’t even know what she’s thinking.  What would you be thinking?  I know what I’d be thinking.”

8.  A Junior girl waving her hands around like she’s swatting at bees:  ”Are you fucking kidding me?  Really?  Peeta over Gale?  Are you totally fucking blind?  What the fuck? For serious?”

9.  A junior girl to her friend as they copy chemistry notes at a desk in the English office:  ”I don’t know, but basically.  Yeah.  I know it sounds weird but I wouldn’t mind being a girl who has to fight to feed my district.  Would you?  And some of those other kids were evil too, so I could justify things.  And they made the right choice in the end, don’t you think?”

I used bandcamp.com today to pick this song. Here was how I ended up with this band.

(1) It’s Easter and I figured there had to be a band or a song called “Easter” and I found it on bandcamp.

If you want exact science, you’re at the wrong place.

What you see below is my real time review of this song…

Artist: Easter
Song: “Damp Patch” 
Album: Innocence Man
Recommended by: bandcamp.com after searching for “Easter”
On the internet: Twitter  and Facebook 

Who it sounds like before I listen to the first note:

Seven Mary Three: This is more based on the song name than anything else. “Damp Patch” sounds like the best fourth generation Pearl Jam band out of Seattle (debuting sometime in the early 2000s after we’d all grown tired of grunge). The punk version of this band would have been called “Wet Spot” but because the A&R people at Geffen thought that might be offensive, they changed it to “Damp Patch” to make it sound a little more cultured. All of that said, if this sounds like the fictional band Damp Patch, it’ll likely be heavy on the distortion and will do the whole loud quiet loud quiet loud formula.

The Innocence Mission: I know I’ve already given out multiple mentions of The Innocence Mission during the erratic and sporadic course of this music review column that only six or seven people read, but on account of the album’s name, I am moved to mention them again. If you haven’t heard Birds of My Neighborhood, go ahead and buy it and if you don’t like it, I’ll refund part of your purchase. Karen Peris has the most angelic voice and it is on full display on that album. If Easter is like the Innocence Mission, it’ll be all about the acoustic guitar, subtle percussion (really subtle), and a voice that comes down from the clouds. (Listen to The Innocence Mission)

Matthew West: I only know one Matthew West song (“The Healing Has Begun“). Not sure how it gets classified at the record store. It’s kinda gospel, but kinda soft rock. It’s really catchy though with great production and a big chorus. I think I got to Matthew West by thinking of what Easter is about (neglecting the whole rabbit/bunny/chocolate part) and thinking that maybe Easter is religious soft rock. I could be totally fooled, and it could be the ironic name for some really heavy death metal band from a particularly bleak part of Scandinavia.

I’m going to shut off Jess Hill’s wonderful “From Above” and give Easter a chance. Excelsior!

:10 only guitar so far, but I’m definitely buckled in. It might go in any of fifteen different ways, ten of which would be good by me.

:21 this might end up being way off, but the song is resonating in me the same way any given Weakerthans song would resonate in me. As I am a big fan of the Weakerthans, that bodes well for this.

:30 no vocals yet, but I’m really loving this. I just hope it continues down this path and that it’s not the ironic beginning to something crazier, because I’m totally buckled in at this point.

:40 vocals come in, British accent, and for whatever reason, I’m transported back to the halcyon days of my youth. This totally sounds like it could be the band we heard in the 80s that had enough of an accent to be exotic, and therefore desirable. Like Modern English, even if we only knew the one song, or The Psychedelic Furs based on “Pretty in Pink.”

1:55 we get our first shift. The song had been building repetitively (but not monotonously) on the same chord/tempo arrangement since vocals came in (and echoing back to a time before that), but now things seem to be changing direction a little bit.

2:30 the change is over, and we’re back into the body of the song.

Final thoughts:

Pretty far off on all of my guesses. It was much better than Seven Mary Three, didn’t sound a thing like The Innocence Mission, and the Matthew West/gospel guess based on the band name was also incredibly far off. Clearly, my powers of guessing weren’t in fighting form today.

I enjoyed this. It really did transport me back to a different era in pop music/jangle rock/accent rock, all the while feeling authentic. I noticed that one of the keywords the band lists is Manchester and that they’ve got a show coming up in Salford. That stands out to me because I remember that the Smiths were from Manchester and played a venue called the Salford Lad’s Club (or took an album cover photo or something in front of it). I could see Easter having been another band on the bill from those long gone days. I’ve been to England twice, and both times I’ve been fascinated by stories about northern England and the warning “It’s Grim Up North.” I’ve come to assume that northern England is something like the Midwest/Rust Belt here in the States, and that both areas are fine breeding grounds for honest, blue collar art in the way that people who don’t live in the flash and pomp of major cities, and have generations of family with dirt under the fingernails can.

Anyway, it looks like Easter has an album coming out this spring, and I’ll definitely set myself a reminder to check that out when it shows up.

For now, take a listen to “Damp Patch” by Easter.

I used bandcamp.com today to pick this song. Here was how I ended up with this band.

(1) I watched the entirety of the Ken Burns WWII series last week and am now in the middle of the Civil War.

(2) I’m traveling to Brockton, Massachusetts tomorrow.

I entered the keyword “Brockton” and was presented with a list of choices, I saw a band with the name Alongside a War, and figured that was the universe doing the picking for me.

If you want exact science, you’re at the wrong place.

What you see below is my real time review of this song…

Artist: Alongside a War
Song: “The Renegade” 
Album: Wooden Strings
Recommended by: bandcamp.com after searching for “Brockton”

Who it sounds like before I listen to the first note:

Nickel Creek: I think this has to do with the band’s album cover (it’s old timey), the album title “Wooden Strings,” and subconsciously, going back to all of the war stuff I’ve been watching, The Battle of Nickel Creek sounds like it might have been some Union/Confederacy dust up in South Carolina. My only real experience with Nickel Creek was a show in Milwaukee with Fiona Apple. Though I’m sure I’d like Nickel Creek if I listened to them singularly and with focus, I must admit I was there for Fiona, and Nickel Creek’s presence did not help the show. I remember tiny guitars (mandolins) and a stand up bass, though it is entirely possible that neither of them was present. Let’s assume that Alongside a War is folksy/bluegrass/ragtime/oldtimey battleground campfire music.

The Exploited: The first cd I ever purchased was The Exploited’s Let’s Start a War. It was heavy and fast, filled with shouting (mostly directed at Margaret Thatcher, the English Ronald Reagan as far as punk rock targets went). Were it not for the album title Wooden Strings, I would have no problem declaring, with certainty, that Alongside a War was an angry punk band, and because I searched for “Brockton” I could imagine this angry punk band played frequent shows in Boston in the Combat Zone (except I don’t think the Combat Zone still exists because I went to a party in some five million dollar condo a few years ago and people were like, “This used to be the Combat Zone, but see how nice we cleaned it up?”)

Bob Dylan: I’m not going to pretend I know much about Dylan. I’ve seen the archival footage of him playing “Maggie’s Farm” with an electric guitar and how freaked out everybody got. And I’ve listened to Hendrix play “All Along the Watchtower” about a thousand times, but when people start talking about Highway 61 or Blood on the Tracks I just have to nod politely and feign familiarity where there is none. That probably kills any credibility I might have as some dude who reviews music from bands he’s never heard of on the internet, but that’s the cross I bear. Anyway, I can believe that Alongside a War has a dude singing protest/social justice songs and the backup band is a standard four piece rock n’ roll thing, but they only play acoustic guitars so they don’t freak out the people who got freaked out when Dylan went electric. I guess, in some ways, this answer would be if you took the musical stylings of Nickel Creek (that I may or may not really understand) and mixed them with the anger of The Exploited. Isn’t that exactly how they inducted Dylan into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame? Don’t they call him The Renegade?

I’m going to shut off The Fierce and The Dead’s “666…6” and tune in Alongside a War! Let’s go!

:03 I’m hearing faint traces of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” (with the exception of the “Yow!” loosed in the background). All we’ve got so far is acoustic guitar.

:08 Ok, now to make this get a little weird, I’m hearing just a smidge of Hendrix’s “Hear My Train A Coming” from the documentary about his life where he’s sitting in an all white studio, self conscious as all hell.

:10 We’ve got harmonica. So far I’m thinking the Nickel Creek guess isn’t that far off, but I think Dylan played harmonica, too, so I’m doing well. This is most definitely not The Exploited.

:20 Song kicks into a higher gear and I’m nodding along.

:25 There may be a female vocalist doing harmonies with the harmonica. Jury is still out.

:32 Male vocals come in little angrier/assertive than I remember Nickel Creek being. Maybe even as angry as Wattie from The Exploited.

:37 This recording says it’s of a live version. I don’t hear any crowd noise, and I’m inclined to believe that it was recorded in somebody’s living room.

:46 I just heard the line “Bring Your Best Six Shooter” and I’m reminded of how the universe dialed into my Ken Burns viewing habits.

1:45 I feel like there’s a lot of instrumentation getting lost in the lack of a mix. I think I can hear some nice guitar work going on, but the harmonica is dominating everything.

1:50 Second time through the chorus and I have to admit it’s catchy. But again, I think I’d love it more if it was recorded differently with dedicated tracks to each instrument/voice. There’s a bassy low missing from this recording that I think would add a lot.

2:20 Just had about twenty seconds of nice guitar.

2:43 Song ends the way it started, reminding me of “Hear My Train a Coming.”

Final thoughts:

Well, this one didn’t catch me full on. It’s very possible that I would enjoy the song under different circumstances, but the recording threw me off. Even that bit is likely subjective, and had I listened to it at some other point in the day, I would have enjoyed it more. I might go back later and check out more of the catalog, it looks like there might be a studio album, just to see if it sounds different.

Alongside a War’s “The Renegade” is below.

Nathan’s list

• Magic Jake & The Power Crystals - Brains of Rats
• Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
• Boris - Pink
• Young Widows - Old Skin
• Made Out of Babies - Mr. Prison Shanks