Trendy Monkey
Reviews
Lisa Ann Wright "Sweet
Bye&Bye
Jack Johnson "Sleep Through the Static"
Dutch
Cousins 'Traveling Songs"
Pete and the Pirates "Little
Death"
The Wombats "A Guide to love, Loss and
Desperation"
Vampire Weekend "Vampire
Weekend"
Lisa Ann Wright
Sweet Bye&Bye
It is probably only a coincidence that Lucinda Williams’ long-awaited new album was released the same week as Lisa Ann Wright’s debut CD, Sweet Bye&Bye, but there are more than a few similarities between the two. They both deal with loss and death; Lisa and Lucinda sing about the recent deaths of their mothers. Lisa goes a step further and takes women as her major theme – all kinds of women -- including victims of serial killers, victims of Japanese gangs, white female blues singers, women who have been disappointed and those who disappoint. Lisa takes a wry look at religion and death, and her songs are populated with serial killers, the rich, parents, daughters, friends and preachers, all who may need redemption.
The first song on Sweet Bye&Bye is about Lucinda Williams herself
-- one of Lisa’s personal musical heroes. In the rave-up, accordion-driven
“Lucinda,” Lisa sings, “Lucinda you're still around, Gotta be so hard to wear
that crown.” The song has a swampy beat with a
Like Lucinda Williams, Lisa is from rural
Lisa recruited some DC-area all-stars players for her album, including former band mate guitarist Mike Woods (Honky Tonk Confidential, The Fabulettes), DC folk hero (and Grammy winner) Al Petteway on guitar, Ira Gitlin on banjo, jazz great Davey Yarborough on sax, Robbie Magruder on drums, and her own son Justin Mathews, who is a young jazz guitarist in NYC, as well as other fine DC musicians such as Benjie Porecki, Brian Simms, Jay Britton, and John Nazdin.
Ira Gitlin’s banjo dominates “Wendy’s Song,” or
“Green River Gary,” a spooky tune about Gary Leon Ridgway, the
“How did it feel with your hands on the necks.
Did you kill us before or after the sex?
We don’t remember if we fought or we cried.
God only knows how we felt when we died.”
The banjo and mournful cello are the musical drivers of this song, accompanied by an eerie chorus of ghosts.
“The Letter,” which begins with Lisa and a lone guitar, is about the suicide letter a Japanese woman writes, asking for forgiveness. The song, like many on the CD, is based on truth. Akiro Nishihira borrowed some money from a Japanese gang and when she couldn't pay the money back, she squatted on a train track with her husband and brother, letting the train bear down on and kill them. The lilting, melancholy lyrics go, “‘Please forgive me truly,’ said the letter. ‘I cannot apologize enough.’” The letter continues, “‘How strange these words upon the pretty paper. I ask for your forgiveness with my death.’”
“Preachers and Slaves” is a send-up of the 1911 “Joe Hill” IWW (Wobblies) union song, "The Preacher and the Slave," which itself was a cynical parody of the hymn "Sweet Bye and Bye.” The latter tune mocks the Salvation Army for its hypocrisy in being more interested in feeding itself than the poor. In “Preachers and Slaves,” Lisa takes a turn at middle class Americans who praise farmers (i.e. Farm Aid) but whose knowledge of the “working folk” comes from the movie screen: “You knew a farmer once, you said, a real upstanding guy. But somehow he just made you sad, you never wondered why.” Lisa bares her soul and tells us who she is when she sings:
“So you've sold out and so have I, we're really just the same
My
pretty face has set my place, you play a rich man's game
But I'll
console myself with thoughts that I'm my daddy's girl
A farmer's daughter
honoring a working person's world.”
In the beautiful, slow, gospel-feeling “Friend in the Fall,” the singer wonders if she deserves the treatment she receives from her “friend” who abandoned her. The song starts out with sparse guitar, then is layered with a Hammond B3 and backing vocals until it becomes a large, sorrowful and soulful lament.
“Soup, Soap and Salvation” is a tongue-in-cheek look at the McDonalds (as in burgers and fries) charities, including more than $200 million that Ray Kroc’s widow, Joan, bequeathed to NPR. Although it was a “no-strings-attached” gift, NPR’s Susan Stamberg joked to reporters, “I’m changing my name to McStamberg.” The chorus goes, “Soup, soap and salvation will never make you fat. But here’s your new McBible, do you want fries with that? ….We’ll save your souls with a cheeseburger and a cold McFlurry shake.”
“The Shore,” dedicated to Lisa’s mother, is a tear-drenched goodbye from one woman to another. Lisa sings,
“Asleep, I let you drift away
I know the boat was there, that you couldn’t stay
In slumber I was lost
The river then, you surely crossed
And alone, you left me, on the shore”
“Someone” is a jazzy love note to an old friend (or, possibly, old flame), who is worth remembering, wistfully, with no regrets. Benjie Porecki’s piano transports the listener into a dark, smoky jazz bar, and the effect is lovely.
“Everywoman’s Blues,” while bowing to the great Billie Holiday, is a paean about women who speak their own minds, even if they can’t do it as well as others. Lisa pokes fun at herself with the chorus, “Singing the blues, hey yeah I’m singing the blues. Now Billie sang ‘em better, but we share the same views, and I’m just another white girl, singing the blues.
Lisa’s mother’s only instruction for her own funeral was that “Sweet Bye and Bye” be sung. Lisa writes, “Somehow, that corny old hymn doesn’t sound so corny any more.” Lisa’s son Justin Mathews ends the CD with a haunting solo guitar piece based on the tune. It doesn’t get any less corny than that. -- DQ
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Jack
Johnson
Sleep Through the
Static
Pro surfer, film maker and musician Jack Johnson
now comes out with his fifth album release, “Sleep Through the Static.” The Hawaiian singer moved away from his
Having successfully
created four albums, most of them multi-platinum, Johnson is most famous for his
upbeat, lazy reggae songs. Most of
these contain lyrics inspired by nature, and that theme is present on his albums
“In Between Dreams’ and “Bushfire Fairy tales.’ His new disc introduces a more somber
and dark tone. According to
Johnson's website, “Sleep Through the Static” is intended to be a shake up of
sorts.
Maturing as a person and an artist, Johnson expresses the modern
fears and common realities that we all find, even in his laid-back home of
little toy tanks/Learn how to use them, then abuse them and choose
them/Over conversations relationships are overrated” about the Iraq war. For many who believe that artists need
to be more political, Johnson's song is definitely one of the better of the
crowd.
Overall, the album portrays Jack Johnson's brilliance in creating
up beat tunes such as “Hope.”
Some reviewers of “Sleep through the static” believe that events in
Johnson's family such as the death of his cousin and world events have inspired
this darker change. However, for people new to the musical styles of such albums
as “on and on,” Johnson's new style has barely departed from those in his
previous albums.
The CD is the first album recorded for a mainstream
audience that is recorded wholly with solar power. Johnson is one of the leading musicians
covering environmental issues in songs and documentaries about pollution in
Best songs of the Album:
All at Once - (3/5) Expresses
feelings of loss, and creation perhaps of a family
Sleep through the Static - (5/5) Great Reggae beat, about the
Hope - (5/5) About death: “Your reflection is a blur/out of
focus”
Angel - (3/5) About Jack Johnson's love
If I Had Eyes - (5/5) About
relationships
Losing Keys- (5/5) About care and
loss
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Dutch Cousins
Traveling Songs
Rock band
Dutch Cousins, from the suburbs of DC,
formed in 2003 and played its first show in 2004. The band’s self-released full-length LP,
“Traveling Songs,” is available via itunes and on the internet. Since 2004, the band, headed by singer
Tom Karpf, went through several guitarists after original guitarist Dan Hughes
left the group. “Traveling
Songs” contains tunes recorded in drummer Barry Blankenship’s basement as well
as tracks recorded at Chicken Coop Studios, in rural Howard County, MD.
Dutch Cousins
is a group which definitely has done its homework. The band sounds like a cocktail of Tom
Petty, James Taylor, Weezer and REM.
On this flagship album, the first track, “All That I Can Do” has vocals
reminiscent of Bob Dylan and choppy riffs like Bruce Springsteen. Living life in such a depressing time,
the songs hit hot issues, such as
in “Down at the Top of the World.”
The album was recorded in the rolling farms of Maryland and the bucolic
life might have affect the recordings; there is a real country traveling beat in
the songs “Slowburn,” with the lyrics, “Onward and onward the twist in the
light, its all coming back to me now.” For a band that has only recorded
one album, the song ‘Never Loved Anyone’ ends so perfectly that it sounds like
something REM could have recorded. --AW
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Pete and the Pirates
Little Death
In the
British music scene, things over time have become very confusing. In the haze of rave and punk music
called “New Rave,” original rock bands, such as those spawned by The Beatles
during their “
With simple melodies and lyrics, P&TP
could almost prove that you don’t need a complicated knowledge of keys, scales
and chord progressions to make great songs. What Pete and the Pirates excel at
is making tunes which, once you download them, you listen to for more than 14
times. I’m talking about songs like
“Mr Understanding,” “Come on Feet,” “Knots,” and “Lost In The Woods.” However, like all simple bands,
their debut album splits in sections of excellent dance about songs to acoustic
songs which Simon Cowell would dub ‘Boring and Forgettable.” Even so, you shouldn’t lose faith in
this band’s debut album. Having
toured excessively over Europe and
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The Wombats
A Guide to Love, Loss and
Desperation
One of the things that made The Beatles
famous in the 1960s were their jokey wooh’s, and continuous “yeah yeah yeahs” in
songs like “She Loves You” and “With Love From Me to You.” The songs helped them to shape out a
career, with crying screaming girls following them where ever they went. In today’s ever serious society where
the news constantly shows terrorism, inflation and recession, much music has
also taken on a very serious and depressed state. However, a group of three mates from
The wombats debut album, called “A Guide To
Love, Loss and Desperation” from the very start shows a uniqueness which has
been part of the
From the beginning of the album, it becomes
very difficult to forget the great repetitive lines of “This is No Bridget
Jones” on “Kill The Director,” and the hook lines of Christmas has come early’ on “Moving To
New York.” Even if other critics
put the Wombats off as repetitive pop rock, they certainly now how to make great
music. Throughout the album you’ll
find hits such as “Lets all Dance to Joy Division,” with its funky punk tribute
to the old club bands such as New Order,
and to times when disco was played on the Hacienda dance floor. But
with The Wombats, what is most interesting about the album is their first
single, “Back Fire At The Disco.”
Matthew, Dan and Tord have done a good job,
but it is still only a “halfway there” album. Even so, they are the best thing
to come out of
7/10
Songs To
Download:
Kill the
director
Moving To
Lets Dance To Joy
Division
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Vampire Weekend
Vampire
Weekend
People who first get into music might define the genre of Indie rock through groups such as Block Party, Pulp, The Verve and The Libertines. However, if you look at the word, “Indie” means independent, and most of these groups are famous on mainstream labels and radio stations. Vampire Weekend, in my eyes, are a perfect example of what an Indie band should be and sound like.
In today’s ever evolving technological world, up
coming bands are getting their music out to the masses through blog sites,
websites and sites such as Limewire.
Vampire Weekend are no exception, promoting themelves on their websites
on African pop and modern music.
The group became a band of choice on
Their songs “Mansard Roof,” “Oxford Comma,” and “A-Punk” are so unique, that they sound like an acid trip while reading or watching a Jane Austin book or movie than listening to a record. These images are evoked through the simple interaction between violins, cellos and guitars which gives the songs an early nineteenth century feel. Lyrically, its easy to tell what their academic backgrounds are. “Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma? I've seen those English dramas too, They're cruel.”
What excites me most about VW is their interest
and use of African percussion and rhythm. The song “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”
evokes the styles of Paul Simon’s “
If trend-setting applies to the latest shoes, shirts or sunglasses, then Vampire Weekend will definitely cause ripples in the dark looming waters of the American and English music industries. So do take a look at this great debut, from a band which will be heard a lot about this year. --AW
Songs to Download:
A-Punk
M79
Mansard Roof
Bryn
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