Washington Phillips

Witnesses, both extended family and friends, still differ on the description of what exactly Washington Phillips played, with layman terminology descriptive of anything from a “home-made banjo” laid flat, to an organ or a contraption made from “the insides of a piano”.
–Pat Conte, from the liner notes of the 2005 Yazoo Records release, The Key To The Kingdom

In 1927, 47 year old George Washington Phillips entered a Dallas recording studio with a couple of mysterious homemade instruments, recorded 16 cuts, and proceeded to baffle musicologists for the next 80 years. The sound on record was warm and angelic. Phillips’ articulate and friendly voice quilts around an instrumental body that at once resembles a harp, a banjo, and a toy piano while sounding nothing like any of those. The debate is exacerbated by the lack of evidence surrounding the player in question. Aside from the tracks recorded that day and a couple of photographs, the best facts deduced have been that Phillips was a rural Texan that came from a musical family. He spent his youth in a string band with his brothers and at one point a young Blind Lemon Jefferson. His unique take on gospel music caught the ear of Columbia Records A&R man Frank Walker, who rushed Phillips into a studio for a run through of some reworked standards, some original numbers, and some sermons with musical accompaniment. The songs were released on a run of 78s that were marketed as “Gospel music with ‘Novelty’ accompaniment” and sold rather well. While never attaining legendary status, Phillips did retire to his farm where he lived until his death in 1954. His music even has a handful of admirers - Gillian Welch, Will Oldham, and most notably Ry Cooder all did their part in proliferating Phillips’ influence to subsequent generations.

Like any good early 20th century recordings, all other related information is based on hearsay and red herrings. Roots music powerhouse Yazoo Records even went as far as to write about the wrong Washington Phillips on their first reissue of his complete discography! Yet his wonderfully friendly take on Christianity, pleasant voice, and especially his still unidentified instrumentation continue to inspire curiosity decades after their recording. To speculate on the identity of his instrument is to explore a world of antiquated futurism and forgotten crazes of new instrument technology. The celestaphon, the phonoharp, the dolceola, and the fretless zither are all potential candidates, each equally as likely and unlikely to be making the sounds in question. In writing the liner notes for the most recent Yazoo reissue of Phillips’ music, Pat Conte makes a strong case that we’re hearing a pair of modified dolceolas. Yet while researching this entry, I came across this article which specifically cites the impossibility of this being true and attributes the instrumentation to a pair of common fretless zithers. There is consensus that Phillips played a pair of instruments that he modified somehow, maybe with an extended bridge and restrung with strings taken from an entirely different source. These were laid flat in front of him on a tabletop and he proceeded to fingerpick with one hand on each instrument. The ingenuity continues down to his picking style - Phillips would hit as many as a dozen notes at once to weave a rich but surprisingly uncluttered tapestry. Simply put, the sound is heavenly. The Key To The Kingdom is a testament to the beauty of selfless, loving faith - an absolute rarity in its sincerity and pureness.

Washington Phillips remains relatively unknown outside the roots and gospel communities which is a bit of a shame. His recordings display a true original in action and come off as strikingly sublime even today. Fortunately, I was able to find some clips of his songs on YouTube. The visuals are a bit garish, but it’s the music that matters. Enjoy!

What Are They Doing In Heaven Today

Train Your Child

Denomination Blues - Part 1

Greetings from Arizona…

…where the weather is a mild 110 degrees in the afternoon and you drink fluids constantly regardless of thirst. It’s gorgeous and bright. I have lizards and cacti in my backyard. There’s also a fire pit where we have occasional cookouts, but we have to be careful about where we get the branches. We have oleander bushes growing in our backyard and that shit is toxic. Just like the band of the same name.

For the curious ones among you the trip west was a blast. It took about five days with stops in DC, Nashville, New Orleans, and Houston. It’s a big country! I’d love to do it again sometime.

Anyway, I’ll start off the Tucson chapters of this blog with an entry about the favorite sons of the area, Calexico.

I’ll admit I didn’t think to check these guys out until I started preparing for the move. For a long time, they’ve been on my mind as a vaguely alt-country-ish act that tended to get favorable reviews. I didn’t know too many folks that were into them so I didn’t have too many points of reference. More than once I confused them with Califone, who are pretty good themselves although quite different. Anyway, I decided a few weeks ago to head down to the local record store where I arbitrarily picked out their third album, 2000’s Hot Rail

Maybe it was the wishful thinking over the move, but this one registered with me from the first listen. The guys shift flawlessly over many different moods which is always a huge plus for me. They cover a lot of ground from airy barely-there meditations to epic tone poems to mariachi to tango ballads, along with a couple of straight-ahead songs that complement their context and stand up on their own rather well. The mix of influences is balanced and seldom kitschy. Even when it does veer to the too-quirky-for-it’s-own-good side I give it points for tackling some relatively obscure genres, such as Ballad of Cable Hogue - a traditional country story-song with lyrics in two languages.

The guys really shine with lush yet understated arrangements that unfold over repeated listens as the subtleties of the relationships between clashing instruments and musical motives become more familiar and obvious. My personal fave, Sonic Wind, centers around an acoustic hook built on a couple of off-beat 8th notes that is introduced, then buried in the arrangement, then thrust to the forefront as the other instruments suddenly match it. The effect comes on the chorus and makes for a pretty thrilling and deceptively epic song. Similarly, Fade, presents itself as an ominous lounge jazz number before expertly setting up a cacophanous twist. It gives me chills, it does. Not many things give me chills with the desert life and all.

More than anything, I think I’m in love with the sound and arrangements. I’m not very knowledgable about Southwestern music, but the clear influence I hear is Ennio Morricone and spaghetti western soundtracks. I shudder a bit at saying so because the music is clearly sophisticated and comes from composers with rich tastes in styles I’m only vaguely aware of. This still sounds pretty otherworldly to me and I look forward to exploring their catalogue.

Tecumseh Valley is moving!

No post this week as I move my place of residence from New York City to Tucson, AZ. Wish me luck!

How to be an asshole at an open mic night

There are a variety of reasons to play an open mic night. They’re a quick and easy way to play in front of a large (if largely unresponsive) audience, so if you’re a newbie it’s some easy experience. I play out regularly as a solo artist and I enjoy the occasional open mic for practice in front of a tough crowd. Typically the viewers are nothing but other performers who have no desire to listen to anyone but themselves. If you can catch their attention, well you get the idea.

The basic format of an open mic goes something like this - a local bar has a eureka moment when they realize all musicians are alcoholics and cheap attention whores. So on a Tuesday or Wednesday when weekly business is slowest they host one of these starting sometime in the evening after happy hour. You come, you sign up, you shuffle through 2 or 3 songs, thank everyone, and go. This is the format for EVERY OPEN MIC NIGHT in the history of open mic nights. It’s a universally effective system that allows for any number of possibilities for one performer while maximizing everyone’s chance at some stage time.

You would be AMAZED at how many people can’t grasp this. An open mic is obviously nothing close to an actual show. Still people bring their egos along with their instruments and put on displays based partly on selected single experiences by some assholes they read about in a rock bio, partly on bullshit. Here’s a list of some of the ways you can not only make yourself look like a moron, but also ruin the night for everyone in the room.

• Show up without an instrument and bug every other musician into letting you borrow theirs. If successful, take it and leave the room without telling anyone. When found say you tune by ear and it was much too loud inside to get a good sense of pitch.
• Two words - vocal improv. It might be just you and a guitar on stage, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stretch your plunking 3-chord hoohah into the 7 minute range.
• Get a bunch of your asshole friends to come watch you play. When your time is up, get them to whoop and holler for an encore (note: please be sure to be particularly terrible if you do this).
• Play covers.
• Don’t tune your guitar. Get up on stage, launch into the first chord of your song, let out a loud “WHOOPS! Sorry, I’ll be just a moment…” and spend minutes making awkward tuning noises on stage. If possible, be tone deaf and insist you can do it by ear.
• Engage in extended stage banter. Try to see if you can spend more time making bad jokes and awkward conversation than you spend actually playing.
• Play original songs.
• Bring a backing band with you. Spend 20 minutes setting up and 20 more tearing down.
• If you have an upcoming show, announce it between every song. Don’t be afraid to give everyone a hard time about how awesome it would be if they came and how much different you sound with a full band. Hand out flyers when other people are playing.
• Medley several songs together and insist it counts as only one number.
• Start playing a song and a few seconds into it, stop in anguish. Go off into a long-winded rant about how you “just can’t do that one anymore” because you broke up/are fighting with/are being cheated on by your significant other. If you have time, try to play it again later in your set and repeat the process.
• Occasionally open mic nights will have themes (e.g. hip-hop, poetry, country, folk, etc.). It is absolutely important that you disregard this theme even if it factors prominently into the name of the event. Show up with an acoustic guitar at a hip-hop night and insist on playing anyway.
• Get really drunk. The best judgement is always pint-sized.

and of course

• If you can’t play a song, you can always stop cold at your mistake and insist you’ve been “practicing” and you “know you can do better than that”. Start over. Make another mistake. Repeat.

I should note that none of these are imagined. I have seen each of these occur pretty much to the letter at various nights over the years. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about here. I committed more than a few of these myself.

A favorite of mine lately…

…is a record from a couple of years ago that I didn’t get to hear the first time around.

After playing a significant role in all-girl punk rock with Autoclave and after aiding in the development of contemporary freak folk with Helium, Mary Timony came out with an unbelievable collection of proggish folk-punk with Ex Hex. This record was a bit of a WTF?? moment for me because I’ve never heard anything quite like it before. Timony’s spiral staircase songwriting meets some truly excellent guitar work in a band you swear to god couldn’t just be a duo. Her pleasant voice and surrealistic songwriting is a wonderful counterpart to kaleidoscopic song progressions that don’t hint at their epic nature until a song is well underway. The listens are rewarding, particularly for any fans of the best of 90s indie rock. Imagine that period of time after Don Caballero 2 and before Emergency & I combined with all those old arena prog records you’ll never admit you still love. That still only scrapes the surface of what a unique sounding record this is. The songwriting is dense and the lyricism is wildly imaginative. The sound is a mental workout that chameleons its way through permutation after permutation and takes your breath away with its sheer originality. And have you ever seen a picture of Mary Timony?

Yeah needless to say I’m a little in love. Check out a free legal stream of the album in question here and see if you don’t agree with me.

In Memoriam Bo Diddley

The first time that I heard the term “Bo Diddley Rhythm” I was 16 and really into the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was at my guitar lesson and we were going through Blood Sugar Sex Magik song by song when my guitar teacher casually remarked that it all goes back to Bo. He then demonstrated the basic rhythm and all of its derivatives through rock history. I was fascinated. It took away some of the gee-whiz impressiveness of the funk metal I was listening to, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I could have grown up a RHCP fan.

Bo Diddley and his playing style was a eureka moment in rock history. I guess you can credit him with being the first musician to really focus on developing dancy grooves. Some of his songs predate the dub idea of getting a rhythm going and improvising vocalizations on top. Personally I love his eccentricities. He was great at combining the truly clever with the truly absurd, which could have been the genesis of some of his more radical ideas. I mean, rock at that point had always been fairly minimal but reducing it to one chord and a rhythm was pretty ballsy. To make it work was brilliant.

Bo pointed us towards the future of R&B and gave us the launching pad for funk. He gave us Who Do You Love? and Love Is Strange. Bo Diddley was a gun slinger, a twister, and a lover. He walked 47 miles of barbed wire, he wore a cobra snake for a necktie, and he invented the elephant. He was active for fifty years and had five decades’ worth of musicians look up to him and continue to find inspiration in his example. Hey, Bo Diddley! I think you did alright.

December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008

No update this week

This is more crucial than anything I’d have to say…

Pitchfork.tv: TAD: Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears (One Week Only)

Seattle’s legendary TAD, a band that was heavy in every conceivable sense, is the subject of the documentary Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears, playing on Pitchfork.tv for the next week. Sometimes overlooked when the story of Seattle music is told, TAD were there almost from the beginning, releasing their first single on Sub Pop in 1988. Producers Ryan Short & Adam Pease track their story all the way through and talk to key players along the way, interspersing choice live footage with the interviews.

Once again, big thanks to our friends at Music Video Distributors, whose archives also include films like LoudQuietLoud and the incomparable GG Allin: Hated, for helping us to share these documentaries. These and hundreds more are available for purchase at their official website SeeOfSound.

Link to video: http://pitchfork.tv/week/tad/chapter-1

Killer Filler

Filler songs have historically received a bad reputation as being actively less spectacular than the rest of an album. They don’t pull their weight compared to the “real” numbers and are generally seen as keeping a collection of songs from reaching its maximum potential. Now that may be true in a lot of circumstances. Cases of one-hit wonders and lazy songwriters are like the Styrofoam packing peanuts of music history - largely ignored but more plentiful than what’s remembered. But what I propose to you, gentle reader, is to think of how difficult it is to pay complete devoted attention to every second of a record. Sure there may be a few in your life that you’ve listened to backwards and forwards, have memorized every second, have developed strong emotional bonds with specific drum fills, etc. You might even be the type of music fan that seeks out records that encourage these types of attachments. But to me it’s rare that I find an album that’s heady and dense that I can put on anytime. I NEED that filler in there as background music sometimes.

However, the main reason to reconsider the filler songs in your collection is many of them aren’t filler at all. I love songwriters that structure records with pauses like these. They give the listener time to process the denser songs without breaking up the mood by pausing the album. What’s more is repeated listens reveal these moments to be just as noteworthy as the more noticeable ones. Examples to watch out for are short instrumentals (90 Day Men’s “Sequel”), sudden shifts in style and intensity (Oneida’s “Dead Worlds”), comic departures (Pavement’s “Brinx Job”), etc. Great filler is a confirmation of great conscientious songwriting and a desire to explore types of writing while acknowledging the demands of the listener. Hell, some bands have done records that could be defined as nothing but this type of songwriting (Alien Lanes, Exile On Main Street, every Need New Body record)

The problem is filler is one of those things that’s defined by the ear of the beholder. I guess a general definition is it refers to place marker songs. Tunes that create some breathing room without breaking up the tension. That would be good filler. Bad filler would be those songs that sound like weaker variations of the better songs and awkward half-assed genre experiments. I could cite some examples, but chances are you can find your own by picking up any record by a famous band that seems to only get airplay for the same two songs it debuted with.

The last thing I’d like to point out is that there are many excellent songs out there undervalued as filler. Here’s a quick YouTube roundup of tunes I feel fall squarely into that category. Feel free to add your own.

Velvet Underground, “Black Angel’s Death Song”

The Police, “Miss Gradenko”

Unicorns, “The Clap” (some dork posted this as the soundtrack to a bunch of Doctor Who clips)

and quite possibly the greatest “filler” song of all time,

Happy Birthday Thomas Pynchon!

The Elusive One turned 70 today. Let’s hear it for him!

 Perhaps history this century, thought Eigenvalue, is rippled with gathers in its fabric such that if we are situated, as Stencil seemed to be, at the bottom of a fold, it’s impossible to determine warp, woof, or pattern anywhere else. By virtue, however, of existing in one gather it is assumed there are others, compartmented off into sinuous cycles each of which had come to assume greater importance than the weave itself and destroy any continuity. Thus it is that we are charmed by the funny-looking automobiles of the ’30’s, the curious fashions of the ’20’s, the particular moral habits of our grandparents. We produce and attend musical comedies about them and are conned into a false memory, a phony nostalgia about what they were. We are accordingly lost to any sense of continuous tradition. Perhaps if we lived on a crest, things would be different. We could at least see.
–from V, 1963

Loudon Wainwright III, “Attempted Moustache”

Loudon Wainwright III strikes me as a habitual goof. He seems to be one of those good natured guys that promises great things and never delivers them. Whether that makes him a romantic idealist or a wishy-washy mess is up to the listener, and it makes his 1973 anti-classic Attempted Moustache very frustrating.

Simply put, Wainwright doesn’t take himself very seriously. Several of the songs are jokes that run on too long. The novelty isn’t bad but there are moments on the record of truly poignant universal folk music that take your breath away. It’s heartbreaking to be impressed by the poetry of Swimming Song and then have to sit through a fake coctail-jazz number driven by the assumption that hearing the phrase “bell-bottom pants” over and over is hilarious. And then sit though some obnoxious a-cappella chanting about Liza Minelli. And then a fratboy-esque redo of Woody Guthrie’s New York Town to half-ass a joke about Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene making out.

Between the highs and lows, there’s a lot of bland music with painfully unclever lyrics. Want to hear what a stock 70s studio band sounded like? Imagine a mix of unspecific country and roots rockplayed by guys hired by a label to go through the motions. And then put the sloppy booziness of Wainwright’s personality on top. Tracks like Clockwork Chartreuse and Nocturnal Stumblebutt tempt one into writing him off as selfish, sexist, baselessly angry, and just plain unfunny. The Onion AvClub once commented that Nocturnal Stumblebutt is an excellent instance of a man coming to grips with the realization that his alcoholism has made him pathetic. I don’t think they were talking about the actual content of the song though, which sounds like it was scribbled seconds before recording. Lines like, Eureka! I’m in luck/Found some matches and a crumpled butt, leave you shaking your head in exasperation.

The album’s most cringe-inducing moment, however, is Lullaby, where Wainwright takes his frustration out on someone keeping him awake. He has later revealed that the song is about himself, but that didn’t stop him from making it clear in the printings of the lyrics he’s pronouncing “ruthless” as “Rufus”. If anyone wants to know why the Wainwright kids are so crazy there’s your reason.

Most albums with lows that low are irredeemable, but part of the drama of the record is the soaring highs of tracks like Swimming Song, Come a Long Way, and The Man Who Couldn’t Cry. Alternating between these moments of supreme lucidity and the other tracks make this an album with which you can have a fruitfully dysfunctional relationship. The Man Who Couldn’t Cry is a bitter epic that gives worth to all the other middling ideas heard up until then. Wainwright flexes his narrator muscles and successfully assumes the voice he’s been hinting at all over the album to tell of a Job-like figure persecuted by others and by life itself for his inability to show sympathy. The story ends with the death of our hero and his satisfaction at seeing ruin come to those who wronged him. Come A Long Way is one of those classic folk songs that exists to give wisdom for when you need it. Penned by Wainwright’s then-wife Kate McGarrigle, the song lists some bittersweet truths in the form of a reconciliation between two people coming to the end of a grudge.

It’s the opening track, Swimming Song, that is the clearest reason for the necessity of this record. The twin banjos of the intro greet the listener into a deceptively cinematic production of a full country band in action. The music rises and falls in waves and effectively evocates images of Southern US lakes and rivers. Wainwright complements it with one of the greatest sets of lyrics ever put on tape. You see, this summer he went swimming. This summer he might have drowned, but he held his breath and kicked his feet and he moved his arms around. The symbolism is striking.

Those three tracks are absolutely essential, the rest of the album not so much. It’s worth a listen though, especially if you enjoy psychoanalyzing folks based on their writing. Wainwright was going through a difficult period then and it shows. Artistic or not, it’s can be a rewarding study in a volatile personality trying to keep his priorities in line despite his tendency to self-sabotage.