Music In - Yeouch!

I am so far behind on Music In. When I go to Florida, I put 2 star and up on an iPod, around 18,000 tracks, and mostly listen to that in Florida. This year, the iPod died a couple of weeks in. Luckily I have ~5,000 tracks on my phone, and another 1,200 or so in the iTunes on my MacBook. But I got way behind on processing new music. So these albums go back to September, 2017.

• "american dream", LCD Soundsystem, 2017. Nice tunes, great beats, great dance music. 4 stars. Here's "emotional haircut".

• "Redneck Jaxx Explosion Vol. 1", Danny Gatton/Buddy Emmons, 1978. I think recommended by my friend guitarist/vocalist Brent Carter. A great blues, rockabilly, jazz, and country guitarist, paired with the world's greatest pedal steel guitar player. Per the wikipedia page, Emmons actually invented the 10 string pedal steel neck, and was one of the founders of Shobud, the top pedal steel manufacturer for decades. Great stuff, 4 stars, I will have to remember to get Vol 2 after my music processing backlog has gone down some. Here's "Rock Candy".

• "Sleep Well Beast", The National, 2017. Somehow their earlier album only got 3 stars, so I will stay with 3 stars for this one. Good songs though.
• "Mountain Moves", Deerhoof and guests, 2017. This eclectic band continues to regularly produce high quality new albums. 4 stars. Here's the decidedly all-over-the-place "Your Dystopic Creation Doesn't Fear You" featuring Awkwafina.

• "The Nashville Sound", Jason Isbell, 2017. I don't know where we found the song "White Man's World", but we put in the book and have performed it. People seem to like it. Isbell is a Drive-By Truckers alum, and is writing good, socially conscious songs. 4 stars.

• "Something More Than Free", Jason Isbell, 2015. We went back to Isbell's prior album and are doing 2 songs off of it. 4 stars. Here's "Hudson Commodore" and "Something More Than Free", both paeans to the pains of working folk.

• "Greatest Hits", Ian & Sylvia, 1966. Gene Clark covered a song "The French Girl", and I was like, where do I know that song from? I found out it was written by Ian & Sylvia, a very popular Canadian folk duo from the mid-60s. According to the Wikipedia article "they caught the attention of manager Albert Grossman, who managed Peter, Paul and Mary and would soon become Bob Dylan's manager."

  I figured I had heard them via my older brother who was a folk aficionado Back In The Day. I emailed him and, sure enough, I got back a major infodump on them and also other obscure folk acts of the time.

  "The French Girl" probably stuck with me because the lyrics were suggestive for the time. Wow, who knew, Dylan covered this song with the Grateful Dead in the late 80s.

  They also wrote ""Some Day Soon", which was a big hit for Judy Collins. 4 stars for the 2 songs mentioned, 3 stars for the rest - Sylvia really did not have a very good voice.

• "Roll With The Punches", Van Morrison, 2017. Wow, Van the Man just keeps on keepin' on. Another solid album. 4 stars except for an odd version of "Bring It On Home To Me". Here's "Ride On Josephine".

• "Wide Open", Michael McDonald, 2017. I loved his stuff with the Doobies and right after he got out - what a great voice. Apparently this is his 1st album in a while. Very listenable, 4 stars. Here's the 1st song, "Hail Mary".

• "Cry, Cry, Cry", Wolf Parade, 2017. A very good album by this excellent Montreal band, but a bit too energetic for me at this point in life. 3 stars.
• "Colors", Beck, 2017. Another musician with staying power. This album seems somewhat more commercial than usual for him, but still, 4 stars. Here's "Squuare One" - kind of reminds me of Phoenix.

• "Masseducation", St. Vincent. Annie Clark continues to aggressively push boundaries in her music. This album cover is over the top suggestive, good for her, she clearly owns her own narrative. 4 stars. Here's "New York".

• "Uptown Special", Mark Ronson with guests, 2015. "Uptown Funk" may be the catchiest dance number of the last decade, I was surprised it was on this album rather than a Bruno Mars album. Mark Ronson is "an English musician, DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer." He produced Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black". Lots of other guests on this album including Stevie Wonder. 4 stars. This is such a great video.

• "White City: A Novel", Pete Townsend, 1985. For years I had this album on cassette in my car and whenever I was getting drowsy I would play "Face The Face" loud. A great album, 4 stars. Here's 2 videos of the song. The 1st is the album version, which is what was on the cassette, which has an intro. The 2nd is of a live version - wow, are they having fun or what? What a wall of sound! There are a couple of other good live videos on YouTube.

• "Cannonball", The Howlin' Brothers, 2017. These guys are a 3-piece power bluegrass band out of Nashville I saw at Willie's Locally Known. I joked with them that they needed 2 clones of their fiddle/mandolin/banjo player to have a standard 5-piece power bluegrass band. The guitarist also played harp. Very tight, great vocals, good tunes. 4 stars. Here's "Love and Alcohol".

• "Eyes of the Sun", Otis, 2017. Otis is a great local band recommended to me by the most excellent young guitarist Harlan Cecil and/or his mom "chick drummer with balls" Sherri McGee. Harlan's band Sour Cream Band opened for them at The Burl last Friday.

  Really tight, authentic southern rock, worthy of the Allman Brothers or ZZ Top. The album's engineering is top notch. 4 stars. Here's the 1st single from the album, "Blind Hawg".

Whew. That only brings me up to the middle of November?!?!? 16 albums! But still 215 songs in the _Unrated folder. :-O

Miles to go before I sleep, but that's enough for now, I'm tired.