Living in Los Angeles County, I have learned that we operate by a very different calendar than most. Here in La-La Land we see January not as the beginning of a new year, but the beginning of celebrating the year that has just ended. January though March we have a succession of awards shows extending the previous year into what most people consider the next year. And this extends into sports playoffs, stretching the previous year’s season to its next year’s conclusion.
So with the NHL and NBA about to conclude their seasons, I thought it was finally safe to offer a reflection on last year’s music. My goal here is not to offer a final word on the best of last year, but to reflect on music that stuck for me into the new year. Although you could make a case for either John Prine’s Tree of Forgiveness or Kamazi Washington’s Heaven and Earth as the best of last year I found myself listening to other, less prominent pieces of music more often. Here’s a sampling that you may or may not have heard.
There were some major releases that I thought worth noting. First Aid Kit’s fourth full-length Ruins, rises out of the ashes of the younger of the two Söderberg sister’s breakup with her boyfriend. Anyone who has ever heard or seen FAK knows that the Klara and Johanna’s sibling harmonies are what makes them worth listening too. The quality of their voices is often far superior to the material they are singing, which says more about the rapturous quality of their voices than their material. Seeing what they did with Paul Simon’s “America” when he won Sweden’s Polar Prize, when they were still quite young, is Exhibit A. Ruins is a step forward, expanding their musical and emotional palate a bit more—and truth be told the material matured as they toured it, growing in musical depth and complexity on stage (a crack band doesn’t hurt), but they are still not where they hopefully will be one day. With the girls from Stockholm’s suburbs on hiatus recovering from all the highs and lows life has brought them in the past decade, I am hopeful the next offering might be their turning point. Until then, Ruins is a fine piece of music and finds them singing (and being produced) better than ever with some solid—but not yet stellar—material. Maybe their next record will contain material that sound more like this or this.
Neko Case released the best piece of art I experienced last year, even if it wasn’t the year’s—or her best—recording. Hell-On was recorded in Stockholm with Peter, Björn, and John’s Björn Yttling joining her in the producer’s chair. While recording the record Case’s home and farm in Vermont burned down. With her animals safe, and her home gone, she wrote the song “Bad Luck” over night. With a 60’s girl group sound that must have been left over from her work with Case, Lang, Veirs the previous year, she seems offers an attitude of “worry about things you can do something about” that is good medicine in these crazy days in our world. The record is a sonic and lyrical smorgasbord. From songs about nature’s wrath, God, providence, an uncle you don’t leave small children with, and love and loss from a number of perspectives, this is a rich record. But it becomes an immersive experience if you listen to the vinyl double record, while reading the lyric sheet and contemplating the 12x12 glossies that accompany each song. It has been since The Who’s Tommy that I had a delightful rabbit-hole experience of being taken somewhere by so many senses in an LP. (Warning: The quality of vinyl of this record is iffy at best. It took me three copies before I found one that wasn’t annoyingly noisy. The copy I settled with still has some pops and cracks, but is over all not the bowl of Rice Krispies™ the first two copies were. Neko Case and those who buy this record deserve better.)
Back to the Bloody ‘OO. With news of a new Who record on its way (along with a requisite tour) in 2019, 2018 gives us a better option than the current Who-cover band fronted by Daltrey and Townshend affords us. This option was the official release of one of the great bootlegs of all time. On April 5th and 6th, 1968, immediately after King’s assassination, The Who were scheduled to play the Fillmore East in NYC; they would be the first British band to play that then relatively new venue. City officials fearing riots in Gotham imposed a city-wide curfew, which meant that The Who would only play one show instead of the typical double header that bands played at the Fillmores. The Who were touring Sell Out (my favorite Who LP) and were already beginning to develop Tommy. Seeing that it would be some time between records, they planned on recording a live record (fairly rare in these days) to hold people over until Tommy’s release. The Fillmore East had remarkable acoustics and was the home to numerous live LP in its three years of existence, and this would have been the first. The tape was damaged during the first night’s recording, capturing only about the first 30 minutes of the show on the 5th. The 6th was also incomplete, missing the first two songs that night, “Substitute” and “Pictures of Lily.” What was captured on that night became one of the great Who bootlegs. It was finally officially released on the 50th anniversary of the second show April 6, 2018. I own the two CD set rather than the three LP version. I have heard what was recorded of both shows streaming on some websites over the past ten years, and thought some of the songs form the 5th were superior to version on the 6th, “Little Billy” in particular. The second CD is only the encore, a 20 minute marathon version of “My Generation” which I have listened to, but may never listen to again. Beyond the Who as jam band not being my favorite version of the Who, the first CD is so good, you don’t need the encore. From their own songs to some great covers, it is the The Who in what I consider to be their best season making magic. Definitely worth at least a single listen just for curiosity’s sake, even if you are not a Who fan.
Speaking of fans, Juliana Hatfield did her best to be Olivia Newton-John’s number one fan with a tribute record that brings that 1970’s Aussie’s music to 21st century America. I thought the entire record was good, but her version of “A Little More Love” brought that song to life for me in ways the original never did. Definitely worth a listen.
And as a fan myself of Jules Shear’s work, I was again surprised and then appreciative of the turn he took on his last record, One More Crooked Dance. Armed with songs written squarely at the end of middle age and reflecting on life, love, and even art and career from the threshold of life’s last chapters, Shear decided to askew the singer-songwriter voice and guitar treatment for a more stark and surprising interpretation. Backed only by a pianist, a female vocalist, and John B. Sebastian on harmonica, this is a twilight sonic space that invites those of us entering life’s third period to pause and reflect. Having heard the record and then see Shear perform these songs live at the Grammy Museum (sans mouth harp) these songs became almost a guided meditation. Not many toe tappers in this song cycle, but will have you returning to the space created by these songs in those liminal moments of life, with youth now a blip in the rear view mirror.
So this amounts to my supplement to last year’s “best of” lists. With the year about a third over, its not to early to begin thinking about what cream will float to the top this year. Tacocat’s new record, maybe? And is Jenny Lewis’s On the Line really better than her almost-perfect pop record The Voyager of a few years ago? And will there be a better summer song than Rudy Willingham’s “Pool Party”? Stay tuned. By SoCal standards, there is a lot of 2019 left to consider.
