Late Night Edition

Staff Notes: 3 strikes 5000 recently doubled our number of followers (from 1 to 2). Very exciting times here at the blog. We know however that there are other frequent readers out there. Perhaps some of them are famous musicians...I'll elaborate. I was looking at a few celebrity playlists on iTunes, which is a pretty cool feature of the site/store. Specifically I was checking out the musical recommendations from Hall and Oates. In his playlist created on Oct 26th, John Oates (the one with the 'stache) called Patty Griffin "ethereal and earthy". If that assessment sounds familiar to you it may be because on August 15th this blog described Rachael Yamagata's sound on the song "Don't" as "both earthy and ethereal." I'm flattered to know that Oates (and maybe Hall) are fans of the blog.

1. Me Just Purely- Brendan Benson

• "This is only temporary, these songs are my worst habits, my looks and my skin and my temper and this town, this place I call my home well it's me just purely." In 2006 Brendan Benson gained some mainstream notoriety as "the other guy" in the band The Raconteurs, with "the guy" being Jack White of the White Stripes. This minor breakthrough came 10 years after the release of his debut solo masterpiece "One Mississippi" which was a commercial failure. I've lost count of the number of people who I've talked up "One Mississippi" to...usually describing it as "the best album you've never heard". "Me Just Purely" is a mid tempo acoustic number with minimal (lo-fi) production, relying largely on the outstanding hooks, lyrics, melodies and harmonies which at times soar. Power pop maestro Jason Falkner co-wrote a number of songs on the album and his imprint is audible. I very recently caught Brendan in concert at the World Cafe in Philadelphia. "Me Just Purely" was requested but was not performed. Luckily, "One Mississippi" songs "Sittin' Pretty" and "Crosseyed" made the cut. The Cardinals (as in Ryan Adams & The Cardinals) Brad Pemberton played drums for Brendan at the show...word came yesterday that Cardinals bassist Chris Feinstein passed away. R.I.P. Chris.

2. Up Around the Bend- Creedence Clearwater Revival

• "You can ponder perpetual motion, fix your mind on a crystal day, always time for a good conversation, there's an ear for what you say. Come on the rising wind, we're goin' up around the bend, yeah." There is a certain Beatles quality to most CCR songs. The feel is very different with the raspy force of John Fogerty's vocals and the down home grit that defines the sound of the band. But in both cases we are talking about brilliantly crafted pop songs that last about two or three minutes often built around a few basic chords. These songs are brilliant in their simplicity. "Up Around the Bend" gives us a distinctive CCR guitar riff, a solid groove and Fogerty's vocals- do we need anything else? In case you do this song has hand claps as well (a lost art). I have a friend that always wants me to play/sing "Who'll Stop the Rain" in order to hear me do my best "Fogerty" vocals. Who am I to deny her? For your enjoyment here is the one of the great CCR pop culture references from the Big Lebowski:
• Younger Cop: And was there anything of value in the car?
• The Dude: Oh, uh, yeah, uh... a tape deck, some Creedence tapes, and there was a, uh... uh, my briefcase.
• Younger Cop: [expectant pause] In the briefcase?
• The Dude: Uh, uh, papers, um, just papers, uh, you know, uh, my papers, business papers.
• Younger Cop: And what do you do, sir?
• The Dude: I'm unemployed.

3. Dumb (Unplugged)- Nirvana

• "My heart is broke, but I have some glue, help me inhale and mend it with you, we'll float around and hang out on clouds, then we'll come down and I have a hangover...have a hangover." The "MTV Unplugged in New York" album brought us live acoustic versions of a number of classic Nirvana songs. In many cases hearing these songs in a different context gave them a new feel. In the case of "Dumb" it doesn't sound all that different from the original studio version, which is fine. "I think I'm dumb, maybe just happy" is brilliant at best and clever at worst. Nirvana helped define the grunge era in the early-mid 90s. Kurt Cobain's suicide forever cemented the bands legacy, giving them what most would consider a legendary status. It also deprived listeners of hearing how the band might have grown/changed through the years as popular musical tastes and styles fluctuated. Would their sound evolve over time (Metallica) or would it largely remain the same (AC/DC)? Another unfortunate consequence of the band's early demise is that it left us with a fairly sparse catalogue of material- Philadelphia radio is currently playing the same 5-10 Nirvana songs into the ground. Maybe this is why I rarely flip on the radio.