2008 BEST ROCK & POP CULTURE

Hi folks. Here’s my list, kept since the ‘60s. Be fine in 2009!
{;-) Bruce Scholten 30 Dec. 2008 (visiting Ulm, FRG)

COVER
* Seal ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’. Heard it thrice before realising it wasn’t Sam Cooke. No wonder people keep saying what an incredible vocalist is Seal. Barack Obama thinks so too: http://uk.truveo.com/a-change-is-gonna-come-seal/id/4123791762

* SONG OF THE YEAR - FEMALE
* Duffy ‘Mercy’. Great Motown-like sound! ‘I’ll Rain on Your Parade’ has same beat as Mercy, but still shoots you back to high school. Buy the CD: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ
*Runner-up: Grace Jones ‘William’s Blood’. Voice and rhythm to rival Nina Simone. For a treat hit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixMYI3Z7m0c OR her best ‘Slave to the Rhythm’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iixnisd7kyo&NR=1
* Runner-up: Adelle ‘Should I just keep Chasing Pavements?’ [Jan’08 big single] could be new star!
* Sharleen Spiteri’ (formerly of Glasgow’s Texas) ‘All The Times I Cried’: http://www.last.fm/music/Sharleen+Spiteri/+videos/6613587
* Dido ‘Don’t Believe in Love’. Yep, she’s a whiner, but one of the best. Clean percussion: http://www.didomusic.com/gb/home/

SONG OF THE YEAR – MALE/s
* Tom Jones ‘If He should ever Leave You’. This 1950s’ style was scorned for years as impossibly bombastic, the ken of Vic Damone & other croonsters. But Tom’s authenticity dispels that misimpression. Best of all he weaves a tale of chivalrous love from afar.
* Runnerup: * David Byrne & Bryan Eno ‘Strange Overtones’. Eerily brilliant. Hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu9LhFXymxs&feature=related
See: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/142771-new-music-david-byrne-and-brian-eno-strange-overtones-mp3

ROCK
* Oasis ‘The Shock of Lightning’. Exciting sound! As good as Bruce Springsteen’s 2007 top rocker ‘Radio Nowhere’. Hit: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=87IQhui_Yy8
* Runner-up: ‘Come in Come Out’.
* Kings of Leon ‘Closer’. Cool special effects; even cooler voice.
* Runner-up: AC/DC ‘Rock and Roll Train’. In my 20s I was too sophisticated for AC/DC. I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.
* Runner-up: Queen ‘Celebrity’. Excellent vocal by ex-Free, ex-Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers. Slightly different machismo than Freddie Mercury’s. More please.
* Killers ‘Human (or are We Dancers?)’. Are the Killers reading too much Hunter S. Thompson? Refreshing song, synth & all. Wonder if it’ll last like Zagar & Evans 1969 hit ‘In the Year 2525’.
* Snow Patrol is one of many good bands on the charts, some going nuts like it’s 1965.
* Razorlight ‘Wire to Wire’: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wegOJS02znY.
* McFly? Often too derivative. Gimme Goldfrapp. Recycle Garbage!
* Kirk W. recommends Arcade Fire: ----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 4:43 AM Subject: The next band
I have seen & heard perhaps the strongest musical hyperrush ever. If you ever feel like raging at the powers and storming the gates, or at least want somebody other than a rap or metal group to do that for you, see Arcade Fire. “See” because you wouldn’t get it on CD, and you wouldn’t play it loud enough. TV (Austin City Limits) would be OK if you could banish distractions and crank it through speakers big enough. It’s like The Revolution Itself, and you’ll want to rip off your clothes & go nuts. Think a futuristic version of Pink Floyd, Talking Heads& B-52s, all onstage at the same time, all on the same page, mainlining adrenalin, all layering up equally on every instrument ever invented, including cathedral pipe organ. Yow! ...Kirk

POP MALE & FEMALE
* Estelle ‘American Boy’. Reportedly, the new UK star performed at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival on August 30, 2008.
* Runner-up: The Feeling ‘I Love it when You Call’ is good pop – like all their songs.
* Runner-up. Ting Tings ‘(I don’t wanna) Be the One’ Making all the Noise’.
* Runner-up: Elbow ‘Looking Like a Beautiful Day’. Guy Garvey’s warm vocal, interesting composition & backing cellos permeate the album. It took Elbow 18 years to win a Mercury Prize, but it was worth it: www.tdpri.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-122570.html
* Runnerup: Jason Donovan (yes, Kylie’s ex) ‘Dreamboats & Petticoats’ with guitar by Shad Hank Marvin on Let it be Me, a 1962-era album with a fine cover of Cliff Richard’s ‘It’s All in the Game’.
* Alesha Dixon ‘The Boy Does Nothing’. But boy does he clean up.

NEW FEMALE ROCKER
* Katy Perry – check this LA girl’s songs like ‘I Kissed a Girl’. Madonna seal of approval notwithstanding, she’s fresh: http://www.last.fm/music/Katy+Perry/_/I+Kissed+a+Girl

BALLAD
*James Blunt (31Mar08) ‘Carry You Home.’ Best single since Al Stewart’s ‘Guderian’.
* Runner-up: The Scripts ‘The Man who can’t be Moved’.
* Runner-up: Will Young ‘Changes’. Two plays and the song goes strong.

RHYTHM & BLUES
* Duffy’s ‘Mercy’ is as great as early Motown. Intoxicating rhythm. Boom! Boom! Go the drum.
* Tom Jones ‘If He Should Ever Leave You’ is a retro-1950s example from 24 Hours, a great album co-written with other writers and recorded with horns & a blasting orchestra reminiscent of Nelson Riddle. Mr. Jones is more hero than anti-hero! Http://www.musicloversgroup.com/tom-jones-if-he-should-ever-leave-you-lyrics-and-video/

SOUL MALE
* Al Green – ‘No One Like You’. Perfect new soul album Lay it Down:
http://www.last.fm/music/Al+Green/_/No+One+Like+You
* Lamaar ‘If She Only Knew’. Fetching harmonies make this almost as good as his breakthrough hit ‘If this was a Perfect World I’d have You’.

SOUL FEMALE
* Annie Lennox ‘Money Can’t Buy It’. Is this is a 2008 release? Is so it’s her best, wisest single in 10 years – in eUrythmics derived sound. Whatever gets you through the night: http://video.google.com/videosearch?rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLJ&q=*+Annie+Lennox+%E2%80%98Money+Can%25E2%80%99t+Buy+ It%E2%80%99.&um=1&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#
* Runner-up: Leona Lewis ‘Bleeding Love’. She won one of those awful TV talent shows, a pearl before swine: http://www.leonalewismusic.co.uk/run/
* Runner-up: Jennifer Hunt ‘Spotlight’. ‘Whooh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!’
* Runner-up: Beyonce ‘If I was a Boy’. Hardly.
* Runner-up: Dido. Actually shouts louder than she moans on early hits like ‘White Flag’. Mick Fleetwood loves ‘White Flag’ & drummed on her new album Safe Trip Home.
* Runner-up: Mary Wilson ‘Make Happy’. Supremely good beat. The old ways are the best ways.

SOUL DUO
* James Morrison & Nelly Furtado ‘Broken Wings’: http://nellyfurtado.me/tag/lyrics/

COUNTRY VOCAL FEMALE
* Dolly Parton ‘Better get to Livin’’. Good attitude.

COUNTRY VOCAL MALE
*Glen Campbell ‘Time of Your Life’. This legenday LA session guitarist & sometime Beach Boy is stunning us with his ironically titled album Meet Glen Campbell. Who’d a thunk Glen’d sing a Green Day song? See: http://www.prefixmag.com/media/glen-campbell/good-riddance-time-of-your-life-green-day-cover-vi/20158/. ‘Grow Old with Me’ has heart too.
* Runner-up: Teddy Thompson ‘In My Arms’. Son of twins makes good. We say him open for Lucinda Williams in 2007 in Gateshead’s fantastic SAGE. Excellent.
* Tony Christie (Way to Amarillo) ‘Born to Cry’ from the album Made in Sheffield written and produced with Richard Horley and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. Roy Orbison would love it.


COUNTRY DUO
*Allison Krause & Robert Plant. Yet another hit from the hick album that put the Led Zep reunion tour on hold!

SUMMER SONGS
Here’s a new category celebrating songs that make summer pop memorable, songs like Bruce Springsteen’s (2007) ‘Girls in their Summer Clothes’. I still remember our strawberry-raspberry-cucumber pickers’ day at Birch Bay in 1964, hearing Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’…
* Eva Lee ‘Mad about the Boy (I love him I love him, I love him)’ .
* Noah and the Whale ‘In Five Years Time’. There will be love, love, love.’ A silly song to sing around campfires at Kalaloch Beach.
* Kid Rock ‘All Summer Long’ referencing 1977 or so when he was halfway between boy and man, and a girl in northern Michigan was far advanced. All to a Lynyrd Skynrd riff.

BIG BAND
Michael Buble. This Canadian is no second-rater. Yep, I mentioned him in 2007. Probably 12 months from now too, should, should we be spared (Pace! BBC’s Sarah Kennedy!).

COMEBACK
* Grace Jones ‘William’s Blood’. This is so scary good.

OBITS
* Richard Wright, keyboardist for Pink Floyd. Died September 2008. Part of our pINK heart gone. See David Gilmour’s Live in Gdansk for the keyboards. We’ll never forget him in Hec-Edmundsen or Paramount Northwest.

* Levi Stubbs, 72, passed away Oct. 16, 2008. Lead vocalist with the Four 4 Tops for hits like ‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’, Smokey Robinson called him a friend. Once in northwest Washington a disk jockey wannabe loved the 4 Tops so much he devised the moniker Levi Soul. The nickname didn’t fly, but Levi Stubbs’ songs still do.

* Isaac Hayes died August 10, 2008. At 65, Hayes said he was grateful every day he heard his songs get radio airplay. Best known for his soundtrack on the 1970s Blaxploitation flick Shaft. Recent voice of Chef on South Park, though apparently he left in a huff over dissing of Scientology. Reportedly found in his home gym next to a running machine (Those things are dangerous!). In 1964 Stax hired Hayes as a studio musician, backing Otis Redding and others. Isaac Hayes first caught my ear in 1969 with ‘Hot Buttered Soul’ - just 4 beautiful songs including Burt Bacharach’s ‘Walk on By’.

* Mitch Mitchell, 61, in a Portland, Oregon hotel room ca. 13 Nov. 208. Authorities cited natural causes. Mitch’s jazz based drums filled the trio Jimi Hendrix Experience. Only about 20 when he joined, and served on Are You Experienced, Axis Bold as Love, and the supreme Electric Ladyland. I felt it was a mistake for Jimi to forsake Mitch for the heavy Buddy Miles downers like ‘Machine Gun’. Not to be too hard on Miles, who died in Feb. 2008 of heart failure, 3 years after a stroke. Buddy Miles was named after drummer Buddy Rich, played in his dad’s bands, and co-founded Electric Flag.


BOOKS

Robert Greenfield (2006) Exile on Main Street: a season in hell with the Rolling Stones. USA: DaCapo Press/Perseus Books. ISBN 10: 0-306-81563-8.
Finished after midnight 27oct08. Well written book that seamlessly inserts Stones song phrases to illustrate the text. Now I’m vague on the author’s connection to Villefrance, France, but on page 30 he writes: ‘Neither Mick, Keith nor Anita attended Brian’s funeral. The psychic toll exacted of those who do not bury and honor their dead can never be overestimated, not even in the topsy-turvy world of the Rolling Stones.’ This is where Gram Parsons met his match. These preface quotes are apt:

‘Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.’ Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer

‘I think it was just a bunch of stoned musicians cooped up in a basement, trying to make a record.’ Mick Taylor, then of the Rolling Stones

‘It was a shell out of which all sorts of amazing, amazing behaviour happened. People became themselves. You couldn’t lie there. The vibes were just too strong. You’d be found out in a second.’ Tommy Weber, house guest at Villa Nellcote.

Pages 242-243: ‘Asked by John H. Richardson in Esquire magazine to list some of the things he learned over the years, Keith said, “To me, smack is the big deal. That is such a cheeky, cheeky, cheeky little drug. That one can get you right by the tail before you know it, man. It’s a real leveller. I’m a fucking superstar but when I want the stuff, baby, I’m down on the ground with the rest of them. Your whole lifestyle becomes just waiting for the man and talking to junkies about whether the shit’s good or not – ‘It’s not as good as the last lot is it? I’m not going to pay him then.’ And guys pulling shooters on you, ‘Give me your stuff!’ and all that. You just become a wreck. Which is kind of disgusting in a way, but at the time, I can’t say I regret going there.”’


Slash with Anthony Bozza (2007) Slash. London: HarperCollins. 461+pp.Read late July 2007, picked up with a Lee Child ‘Jack Reacher’ novel in Newcastle. It’s a fast read of a fast life. As he says, ‘Just because it sounds EXCESSIVE doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.’ Slash? Good guitarist, poor role model for troubled youf.
**

Donovan Leitch (2003?) Donovan: Autobiography of Donovan
Read July-August 2008. Glaswegian folkster meets Dylan & sings with Jeff Beck (Barabajagal 1969) before cleaving to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation. Much work w/ studio dude Jimmy Page too. Believe it or not, the Sunshine Superman and film maker David Lynch publicly called for TM to be part of the UK secondary school syllabus. Who knows, it might stop the knifing fad. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7lN4ZlTYFk

Patrick Humphries (2007) The Many Lives of Tom Waits. London: Omnibus: 354pp.Finished 14the July 2008 Bastille day. Waits has done more TV & cinema than I realised. I admit he’s a worthy artist (Frank Becks insists its so, but he’s young enuf 2 like bohemianism for itself.). I liked the remark that Tom dinna miss the booze & bars much ‘because the stories I heard in AA were better’. He seems smokeless & teetotal since meeting his wife at Warners. Didn’t seem she was an artist, but has emerged as an important collaborator – enuf to send their 3 kids to college. At least she doesn’t thrust herself like Sharron Osbourne who saved Ozzie by overwhelming him. ‘I learned I didn’t need to be a murderer to write murder mysteries,’ says Tom. All power to him. Rod Stewart’s rendition of his ‘Downtown Trains’ is enuf worth for any writer.
Peter Biskind (2004) Down and Dirty Pictures. London: Bloomsbury.Necessay reading on devt of independent ‘indie’ productions via Sundance and similar indy film festivals. Details rise of NYC muscular Jews Ben and Harvey Weinstein’s MiraMax distribution co named after folks. (Dad a diamond merchant, scary mom a housewife.). Both brothers, esp. Harvey a yelling bastard, but essentially good for film quality. Quentin Tarantino was ‘the son’ Harv never had. Harv almost destroyed directors & producers like Anthony Menghella. Had odd partnerships as subsidiary of Disney. Many of his Indywood films are more violent than Jack Reacher novels. Harvey became Friend of Bill Clinton (FOB). Asked Tina Brown to head TALK magazine, a $24m failure in the 1990s. Good index.
Graeme Thompson (2004) Complicated Shadows: The life and times of Elvis Costello. Edinburgh: Cannongate: 342pp + pix.
Well written book about Declan Patrick MacManus, fairly boring if talented musician, a 4th family generation muso with his son the 5th. Ray Charles excused Costello’s 1979 Columbus Incident, the outburst to Stephen Stills & tattling Bonnie Bramlett.
Stills (formerly his hero) asked: ‘If you hate us so much why are you in our country?’
Elvis: To take your money and your women.
Page 1 quotes Elvis Costello who “‘branded James Brown a ‘jive-ass n*&&er’ and Ray Charles as ‘nothing but a blind, ignorant ni*%%er’. Costello oughta ‘watch out for them bricks’. Never keen on half measures, Elvis also described the British as ‘original white boys’ and Americans as ‘colonials’.”
Page 5: “Ray Charles was later asked for his opinion on Elvis Costello’s comments, and showed class that few on the battle-lines displayed ‘Anyone could get drunk once in his life,’ said Charles. ‘Drunken talk is not meant to be printed in the paper.’
Well, Ray got MORE than drunk in his life. But I prefer his music and willingness to entertain to Costello’s baseless anger. The only beautiful song Costello wrote was ‘Allison, My Aim is True’. He should thank his Dad, who inspired him, that he got a chance to work with Burt Bacharach.
First wife Mary forgotten, as he also blew his affair with beautiful Bebe Buell. Cait O-Riordan, 2nd partner, the Pogues’ bassist who got a PhD in classics put up with him for years. Eventually he married boring Diana Krall, and plastered himself all over the 1995 Meltdown Festival on London’s South Bank. OK, I protest too much. His Brodsky Quartet collaborations are interesting. Still gotta finish 4 pages. Later: Interesting that he learned music notation. But a boring book. **
RADIO
MOST IMPORTANT SHOW
* Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour. Brings popular music full circle, uniting blues, country, jazz, pop, rock, whatever. Uncle Bob is funny as a crutch! Not sure if it’s downloadable in the United States of Clearwire, but in Britain it’s free on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/

MOST WELCOME BACK
* Danny Holiday (KPUG Bellingham c.1962-6) relaunched The Rock & Roll Time Machine (TRRTM) at public station KSER in his native Everett, Washington. Listen online: http://kser.org/onlinestream/index.html or find it via Danny’s webpage: http://www.kser.org/content/new-weekend-music. Thanks to Danny for this Oct. 2008 playlist:

Jailhouse Rock-Elvis-Master take in studio Elvis 1 cut 5
I Got A Woman-Alternate take Evis 2 cut15

Take You’re Time-Buddy Holly CD 2 cut 10
Peggy Sue Got Married-Naked version cut 5

Needles And Pins-Jackie DeShannon Cut 3
When You Walk In The Room Pats CD cut 19

Best Part Of Breakin’ Up-Ronettes CD 2 cut 9
River Deep Mountain High-Tina Turner CD 3 cut 11

Leave My Kitten Alone-Beatles CD 2 cut 22
Saw her Standing There-Alternate take cut 2

Waitin’ In School-Ricky-cut 1
String Along-Dan’s Favorites-1 cut 1

Easy To Love, So Hard To Forget-Chiffons- CD 1 cut 14
Out Of This World CD 2 cut 6

Unfaithful Diane-Don Deal Dan’s Favorites-cut 10
Deceiving Doreen-Don Deal CD cut 31

What’d I Say-RC cut 15

Memphis-Chuck Berry CD 1 cut 23
Memphis-Lonnie Mack cut 1

More Than I Can Say-Bobby Vee cut 19
Susie Q-Bobby Vee cut 9

My Boy Elvis-Janis Martin cut 4
Bumble Bee-Lavern Baker cut 24

Off The Hook-Stones Dan’s Favorites cut 5
It’s All Over Now cut 1

Wake Up Little Susie-Everly Bros Alternate take cut 4
This Little Girl Of Mine-Alternate cut 20

Such A Night-Clyde McPhatter CD 1 cut 6
Such A Night-Elvis cut 1

It’ll Be Me-Jerry Lee Lewis CD 1 cut 16
Milkshake Mademoiselle CD 2 cut 5

You Really Got A Hold On Me-Beatles CD 1 cut 24
Tell Me Why CD-2 cut 6

Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie-Danny Cedrone and the Esquire Boys cut 5/6
Skinny Minnie-Bill Haley cut 8

Pollyann-Billy Saint Dan’s Favorites CD-2 cut 8
Mystic One-Jack Bedient Dan’s Favorites 1 cut 11

IF NECESSARY
Rock & Roll Medley-Ventures-Live cut 15 cue in **

HONOURABLE MENTIONS
* Paul McCartney for an airy, near psychedelic CD with the FIREMEN!

* Ringo Star is ‘Grouch of the Year’ for telling us a little too insistently that he’ll accept no more gifts or autograph requests after Halloween 2008. Ringo, we love you, yeah, yeah, but ya need a better press advisor. Peace & Love! Peace & Love!


BANDS TO LISTEN FOR IN 2009
* Glasvegas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHAGj1PXOM
* Mirror the Ghost, of Seattle. Singer Jakob Bevan Spiegelgeist predicts new musical directions in 2009. Who knows? MtG might adapt Hank Williams to their aural machine. Hear ‘em on: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=11234639


What’d you like about 2008? Stay safe in 2009.

{;-) bruce.scholten@btopenworld.com