Caribou - The Pixies

Rusty's waltz wednesday presents: Caribou, by The Pixies

Alright, it's been a while, but I've been listening to the pixies a lot recently, so here goes:

The Pixies:

Have you heard of the pixies? Once my friend LB and I went to their concert in Montreal in 2005. It was at the Uniprix tennis courts, you know, in Jarry park.

Anyway, they had a dual billing with Weezer, and came on first. They blew me away, and was probably the best assigned-seating concert I've been to. I had listened to them somewhat at that point but mostly through osmosis - that I remember the concert so well today I think is to their credit.

Kim the bassist has such a cool voice and is a badass proto-90s-style bass guitar player. Their guitarist Joey plays slow, textural, and sometimes dissonant riffs, yet didn't feel the need to call himself "the edge": fascinating. Their drummer David is solid - this isn't jazz so he's not pulling 3 minute drum solos, but you know what I mean. Black Francis is the pseudonym the singer/rhythm guitarist charles goes by. I love his songwriting. Sometimes he screams, but you can't tell if he's joking or serious. His lyrics are insane, and once he told jian gomeshi to frig off in not so many words before the latter's recent fall from grace.

Seriously, he does an alien voice to mock gomeshi's overwrought question.

When you listen to this track, think how different this sounds from music released in 1987. That was the time of hair metal. These guys must have been pretty stylistically unique when they released the album Come On Pilgrim.

I'm sharing a live version, it's them in their prime

This is a hard-driving pixies rock song in 6/8 timing. charles' rhythm guitar plays these triplets that keep the time, you'll hear it in the intro. Joey's opening guitar riffs are really typical of their style, as is Kim's single-note base playing - listen to how she plays entire chords one one note, 1 beat for each of the 6 beats per measure. This rocks. Then charles starts screaming "REPENT!", it's a great time. Hope you enjoy!

Listen on, especially the last track "Hey" which is a great song that's not in waltz form by this band.

The song:

Until next time, signing off, saying bye, check you later,
rusty.

Rills of the Nile - Beat Cops

Rusty's waltz wednesday presents: Rills of the Nile, by Beat Cops

We're back! Today, rock and roll. This album was released YESTERDAY (16/06/2015) so we are like riding the crest of the current-music wave here.

Beat Cops:

Beat Cops are these four guys:

I know Pat, bottom-left, of Trigger Effect fame, but not the other three fine musicians. What can I say, I'm slightly - 1/4 - alternative, but not 4/4.

The point is, these guys all have fine rock/punk/metal/other? pedigrees, and can play the heck out of their instruments. Their songs are aslo catchy, rockin', melodic and fun to listen to. God bless 'em!

In fact, I saw them at their album release last night at a fine venue - Turbo Haus - run by guitarist Pat and some other members of the montreal music/bar/restaurant scene. The show was sweet, and their performance of this tune really caught me.

On to today's song.

The song:

The singer introduced this song last night as the story of someone injuring themselves in the arctic, and falling into their ultimate sleep dreaming of a warm slumber on the banks of the river Nile.

The song begins with only the singer and his guitar, which makes a sweet transition when the electric guitar/drums/bass comes in at 1:20. Something about the muscular tone of the drums and electric guitar gives it a rockin' zeppelin sort of feel. As the song progresses, you start hearing some sweet double-guitar harmonies, and vocal harmonies.

The singer has a great range, and the song is chorded by a lot of suspended seventh chords which gives it a sort of breeze - dreamy - feel.

I think this is the first straight rock selection for RWW! press "play" on the embedded link below and enjoy. You can also check out the rest of the album and/or purchase it through the bandcamp landing page as well.

Until next time, signing off, saying bye, check you later,
rusty.

REM - Everybody Hurts

Rusty's waltz wednesday presents: Everybody Hurts, by REM

Wellsir, it's the week after valentine's day. I was having a movie night with myself last friday when I decided to watch The Dictator. It was pretty hilarious, especially the bit in the helicopter when they're yelling at each other in arabic (that's actually hebrew), I literally died from laughter, and am writing from beyond the grave.

The point is that "Everybody Hurts" - in Arabic - was on the soundtrack, and as soon as it started I jotted this song down on my notepad.

REM:

REM is one of those bands that I know I'll like when I get around to listening to them, but just haven't yet. They're credited with pioneering alt-rock, and its members were singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry. They've sold upwards of 85 million records worldwide, which is just staggering.

I hope to find another waltz by them when I start listening to their albums.

The song:

I'm going to talk about REM's own version of this song, even though I really like the arabic version.

Like last week's selection, this is another song that I had - perhaps again like you, dear reader? - only ever heard on TV, movies(, starbucks?). The song was first released in 1993, and made it pretty high on the charts, though not to number one.

I'm pretty sure the timing is in 6/8 here: each beat is tapped on the snare drum, and the fourth (of six!) beat always has a louder high-pitched "tock" sound.

The melody is really nice, Stipe's voice is set in a pretty high register, and he sings gently as the verse alternates between two chords (D and G). My favorite part of this song is when the piano steps down to the E-minor of the chorus and Stipes sings "don't let yourself go" for the first time. He kicks up the power behind his voice, and adds a waver to it that's more subtle than an overwrought vibrato.

As the song progresses, I confirmed that it was the first time I'd listened to this song, because I had no idea there was a bridge (2:23). Here, I find that his singing borrows from soul music, as he modulates his voice - like when he sings "don't throw your haa-ayyaa-aaaa-aand" (where he modulates on "hand").

The song ends with increased layering, and a pretty nice string arrangement - which Wikipedia tells me was written by Led Zepplin's John Paul Jones. All in all, it's a nice way to finish a pretty darn good song.

Don't forget to check out the Arabic version, and share this blog with your friends. If you're going to email it to anyone, I'd ask of you to please only type in allcaps with no punctuation, e.g. "CHECK OUT THIS BLOG ITS ABOUT WALTZES AN OFT NEGLECTED MUSICAL FORM TODAY LOVE GRANDAD"

I Aladeen this song...

Wilco - Side with the Seeds

Rusty's waltz wednesday presents: Side with the seeds, by Wilco

Wilco:

side with the seeds comes off of one of my favorite Wilco albums. Briefly the band is from Chicago, headed by jeff tweedy. To my ear their songs are roots/Americana, but they do wonderful things with the sound space to create weird, exciting, eery, or all of the above sounds to - in their words - not have every track sound like a folk song.

A great addition to the band when they recorded sky blue sky was jazz guitarist Nels Cline. I didn't know much about Nels, but his playing on this album is mind blowing if only for the breadth of styles that he can play. I'm not one to kvell over an electric guitarist, but Cline plays a style that's at once messy, but so refined.

I saw them play in Montreal when they were touring this album; it was probably the best concert I'd ever been to.

The song:

This song might be in 6/8, but either way - like I said in my selection criteria post: if I can count some threes in there, it's a waltz goddamnit.

I haven't given the words a close listen and probably won't. All's I care about is that they don't get in the way of me enjoying the song as a whole. Typically, Tweedy's voice has this raspy-yet-vulnerable tone that immediately hooked me on to wilco some years ago.

The melody rounds out into a bridge part at the two minute mark, where Nels takes the first of his two solos, but shows restraint. We then get another verse, and then it's Nels' turn again, and he brings out the slaymaker.

This recording is live, but sounds as good or better than the studio version. I don't want to turn this into a morality play, but <preaching> there's a lot to be said for the organic process of making music that's lost when much of the performance comes from canned sounds </preaching>. ENJOY!