My Vinyl Solution is simple: I’m listening to my records. As my collection has grown, I’ve realized that I’ve been spending too much time amassing lps, to the point that I have no idea of what I even own. Hence, this column.

Asia, Astra

So the first thing you may notice if you read my last column post, is that regardless of what kind of writer I am, I clearly don’t have a grasp of the alphabet. Or more to the point, I’ve done a really crappy job of organizing my records. Now I could waste a bunch of time going through and making sure that my records are indeed, alphabetized. Or I could spend the time actually listening. Clearly there is only one choice here, and that’s to forge ahead and pull the lp’s off the shelf in whatever order they are in and call it good.

Thinking about the last time I did go through the arduous task of alphabetizing all these records, I seem to recall at least getting them close enough such that all the A’s are together, all the B’s follow, and so on and so forth. That will just have to suffice here. But it also brings up another point, which is that all my jazz albums (and I think blues, as well) are separated out from the rest. Which means this is going to be a very rock-centered endeavor, unless, of course, I mix the jazz in as I go along, which I think I should do.

In fact, since I’ve established that things are only going to progress along in a poor facsimile of order, I’m going to give myself free reign to toss in whatever albums I feel like to mix things up. Besides the jazz and blues, I also have a substantial stack of records that are unfiled simply because I lack the shelf space. Hopefully as I free some up by discovering crap that I have no reason to keep and then getting rid of it, I can integrate these many records that are still living in milk crates.

And that brings us to Asia’s Astra, fittingly enough. Side one kicks off with “Go,” which has an interesting chorus. Yeah right. “Get up and go” is, however, an ominous beginning, because despite my love of arena rock, it’s exactly what I want to do. This album really sounds terrible from the first note.

“Voice of America” may be a tribute to the military radio station, it may not. I really don’t care, because despite liking the chorus quite a bit, this song sounds like it’s about twice as long as it needs to be.

“Hard On Me” is, indeed, hard on me. The synths are just embarrassing. I mean, I could listen to something like Yes’ Big Generator all day long and not get tired of it, and Tony Kaye is using gear from the same era, recording in the same sorts of studios, and the sound is somewhat similar. Except that it doesn’t suck.

Which brings up the big question I am asking myself as I try and ignore this mid-tempo ballad, “Wishing,” while resisting the temptation to write another bad pun based on the name of the song. Who the hell are these guys in Asia? Now I’ve never listened to this record before, but I’ve kept it around for a few years since acquiring it, thinking that Asia was one of those bands that I’d be instantly familiar with from years of listening to classic rock radio.

But as this first side ends with the insipid “Rock and Roll Dream” (which rhymes “reality” with “never see”), I’m realizing I’ve never heard any of these awful songs before. And thank goodness.

Despite not wanting to flip the album and debating just cutting it short, side two starts with a song called “Countdown to Zero,” which is actually kind of good. It begins with something that sounds almost exactly like the THX “Deep Note,” and for the first time I am motivated to actually pull out the sleeve and look at the liner notes, which are as uninteresting as most of the music. “Zero” at least turns into a perfect ’80s Cold War paranoia song, worthy of being included on a mix tape right next to Sting’s “Russians.

It’s here though that I’ve had it. Clearly this record is going to Encore in the hopes of generating some trade credit. The remaining songs, “Love Now Till Eternity,” “Too Late,” “Suspicion,” and “After The War” aren’t as bad as the truly atrocious first side, or maybe I’m just growing comfortably numb. At least this album was not released during the CD era in the ’90s, as then I could have had an extra 25 minutes to slog through.

Runout Groove: This is not the Asia record with “Heat of the Moment” on it. That’s the one you want.

Geffen GHS 24072, 1985

Asia: official reunion website, allmusic.com, Wikipedia, Amazon
Original photos copyright 2012 Jeff Sabatini

Wurlitzer electric piano, acoustic guitar, then:

I want love to roll me over slowly, stick a knife inside me, and twist it all around. I want love to grab my fingers gently, slam them in a doorway, put my face into the ground.

And that’s how Jack White introduces his debut solo album, Blunderbuss, due April 24 on Third Man Records/XL Recordings/Columbia. Background vocals from Nashville-based, Ghana-born Ruby Amanfu add a creepy, old-timey vibe.

The lack of drums on this song is an curious choice for a lead-off single. It sounds great, but it’ll be interesting to see how well this does commercially. Will the mainstream audience who eventually embraced the White Stripes get into this? Will the rivalry with the Black Keys spawn a resurgence of listenable, commercial rock and roll? (I hope so.) Maybe the Hives and the Strokes and Mooney Suzuki can put out new albums this year and it’ll be like 2001 all over again! (Unlikely.)

You can order the single on vinyl from Third Man Records. The 7-inch includes a non-album b-side, “Machine Gun Silhouette.” If you’re impatient and don’t care about b-sides or sound quality, you can download it from iTunes right now.

YouTube: Jack White – “Love Interruption”

I usually hate animated videos but this one was pretty fun. It’s apparently “the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in more than 30 years.” Which is odd, because who knew that there have been any Popeye cartoons made in the past 30 years?

Even if you’re not impressed by the primitive animation and silly storyline (Olive Oyl picks Tweedy over Popeye and Bluto? Come on!), “Dawned On Me” is one of the highlights of Wilco’s The Whole Love. Sonically similar to “Kamera” off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with an added layer of Nels Cline dental drill guitar, it’s one of the sweetest love songs Tweedy’s written in years. “I can’t help it if I fall in / love with you again, I’m calling / just to let you know / it dawned on me.”

Dads across America will be putting this on mixes for our wives.

More info: wilcospinach.com (for real)

It was a challenge not to buy Kate Bush’s new album 50 Words For Snow when it was released last November, but I had to wait. I knew that someone would probably place it under the Christmas tree as a gift for me, as it’s well known around these parts that my love for all things Kate is quite pronounced.

Indeed, when that morning came, I found two copies of the record from different sources.

How strange then that when the moment arrived to finally dive into it, I felt restrained. Within the first few chords of the opener “Snowflake,” I began to consider that I might not be drawn to it in the same way that I was with other Kate releases. That feeling continued when I heard the first voice of the record.

It wasn’t Kate, but her son Bertie.

I tucked away 50 Words For Snow for a few weeks, and then in mid January we received our first snowfall. Suddenly, the fields transformed from dead blacks and browns into mysterious white. The snow dampened the sounds outside to the point where you felt like you could be the only living thing for miles around. The crunch of my boots became a cacophony of rhythm while the cold, blowing wind through the trees became an orchestra of strings.

It was at that moment when I felt ready to give 50 Words For Snow another listen.

I’m not suggesting that there needs to be snow on the ground before you can appreciate Kate’s 10^th record, but for me it provided the necessary motivation. Like those cold and silent evenings where the elements force everyone inside, Kate has created an album of such minimalism that it can force listeners into their own isolation as the music does not bode well in social settings.

The intimacy requires your patience, and with time, you begin to notice the flourishes with every quiet pause, each piano chord, and every twisted tale.

Suddenly, Albert’s voice becomes as high as the snowflake that’s forming in the clouds, Steve Gadd’s drumming swings with the slow pace of footsteps on snow-covered sidewalks, and Kate’s voice–deeper with age–becomes the focal point of arrangements that go past the ten-minute mark with intense and precise intent.

With so much time on your hands, you begin to notice things. For example, you discover that one of the album’s highlights (“Misty”) is about a woman who melts a snowman during a night of lovemaking. The following track (“Wild Man”) seems to be about Bigfoot, and the title track finds Stephen Fry reciting things like “avalanche,” “shovel crusted” and “ankle breaker” from Kate’s own personal thesaurus for the word snow.

“Snowed In At Wheeler Street” features Kate’s idol Elton John as her duet partner, a love song complete with melodrama and Elton’s penchant for throwing his back into the delivery without providing any honest emotional weight. It’s the album’s lowest point, which is expected when you consider the melodramatic garbage that Elton’s been releasing for decades.

The closer “Among Angels” is another disappointment, mainly for how out of place it sounds. It carries the same piano arrangement as the rest of the album, but thematically it’s off course considering the lack of a wintery theme and from the fact that the aforementioned title track seems like such a perfect ending.

In some respects, 50 Words For Snow is just as strange as The Dreaming, albeit for entirely different reasons. While The Dreaming relied on weird arrangements and challenging lyrical content, Snow lets the deceivingly strange themes stand right out in front of some very organic structures.

It’s a record that will definitely stand the test of time and it may rank as one her best pieces of work for some fans. But for me, 50 Words For Snow works best when the season that inspired it contains the right amount of wintery details to perfectly accentuate its primitive arrangements.

Video: Kate Bush – “Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe”

Video: Kate Bush – “Mistraldespair”

Video: Kate Bush – “Wild Man”

Kate Bush: Web, Amazon, Facebook, Wikipedia.

So here is the barest explanation of what you are about to read: I’m listening to my records. I have an embarrassment of riches in that I have come to absorb several substantial caches of vinyl from friends in the last five years. But as great as that is, it’s also left me with no idea of what I even own. So here goes, in alphabetical order.

Average White Band, (Eponymous)

If there was any justice in this world, the first platter I spin would be something from AC/DC. But alas, sometimes coming at the beginning of the alphabet is not a good thing, as my AC/DC records were damaged due to some bad choices in storage. The incident actually served as motivation for this project.

So instead, we start with Average White Band.

Wow, this has a real Yacht Rock sound, more so than I remember. I’m not so sure which of the vocalists, Alan Gorrie or Hamish Stuart is a better Michael McDonald, but together they do an entirely credible job of laying down smooth music. The first track, “You Got It” is absolutely a party, awesome white funk. Indeed, there’s good reason why I have this on my shelves, as I listened to this album many, many times in college, usually while drinking and doing bong hits, getting ready to take the bus to the Nectarine Ballroom for ’70s night.

“Got the Love” is a solid second track, but the real hit on the album is “Pick Up The Pieces,” the instrumental jam that comes next. I think I’ve probably heard this song enough times in my life, but maybe the fact that I’m typing on a laptop right now instead of slamming a 40 has more to do with my lack of enthusiasm. But thinking back, “Person to Person” always struck me as a far more interesting song, with what are unquestionably the most interesting lyrics on the album. “Work to Do,” which closes the first side, is another good one, and I’ve got to say, the first half of this album has me wondering why it hasn’t been on my turntable in years.

Side two starts with some nice guitar playing that leads into a slow jam, “Nothing You Can Do,” which is the first song on the album to sound dated in a bad way. I don’t know, I’m just making this up, but I imagine this song being a staple on AM radio. The next track, “Just Wanna Love You Tonight” is about as clichéd as anything on contemporary radio, and it’s causing me wonder if I’ve even listened to this second side of the album. Probably not, as the pre-partying would rarely allow for more than one side of any slab of vinyl before we’d move on to something else.

I’ll keep my thoughts on “Keepin’ It to Myself” to myself. And although at this point I’m certainly not as enthused about this album as I was after the first side, at least side two still has “I Just Can’t Give You Up” on it, which is well worth suffering through the rest. Stuart lays down a pretty wicked guitar solo on this up-tempo track and his vocals are outstanding as well. “There’s Always Someone Waiting” closes the album with a bluesy number that seems to channel ZZ Top, and it’s not so bad, though it’s a bit overdone.

Runout Groove: Average White Band is certainly worth owning, though I don’t think I’m going to be playing it straight – or straight through – very often.

Atlantic SD 7308, 1974

Average White Band: official website, allmusic.com, Wikipedia, Amazon
Original photos copyright 2012 Jeff Sabatini

“To commemorate the 20 year anniversary of the filming and inception of [Dazed and Confused],” Butch Walker says, “we brought a little someone from the film back to be the life of the party for our new video for the song ‘Synthesizers.’ The song lyrics really relate to just about anyone who has a hard time moving on with the changes that life throws at you.”

This video made my day.

Butch Walker’s The Spade is out now. Here’s another song from it:

Summer Of ’89 by Butch Walker

Butch Walker: Web, Twitter, FB.

Making the rounds this week is the President singing some Al Green, which is awesome enough. But it’s not the first time The Crooner in Chief has put his pipes to the test. Dig his repertoire.

Barack Obama Sings Al Green

VIA Rolling Stone 

Barack Obama sings Aretha Franklin

Barack Obama sings Dionne Warwick

Barack Obama Singing Happy Birthday

VIA Politico 

Happy Friday.

This is something else! Wolf is patiently trying to explain what the Blues really are, while he’s repeatedly heckled (off-mic, unfortunately) by an apparently loaded Son House. After not too long Wolf has had enough and rips into House.

“You had a chance with your life but you ain’t done nothing with it… See now you don’t love but one thing and that’s some whiskey.” You can hear House arguing something to the effect of “I wants her! Now she ain’t whiskey.”

Wolf then goes into the story behind “Meet Me In The Bottom” and plays a killer version of it. The sax in this jam is so tight, you won’t believe it. I guarantee that sax player had ladies knocking on his door after the show. So cool.

I’ve been getting into Howlin’ Wolf lately, having recently gotten a hold of Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters 1951-1960. It’s a great collection.

Found this video via the Hound Blog’s excellent Son House post.

MP3: Cold War Kids – “Minimum Day”

I’ve held a bit of an irrational grudge against the Cold War Kids since 2007 when we ran an interview with them by a new GLONO contributor whose writing read like P.R. copy. We tried to encourage him to put a little more personality in his stuff and he got offended. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth and for some reason I’ve taken it out on the Cold War Kids. It’s ridiculous, I know, but what can you do?

Anyway, this new song should clear away that baggage. It’s got more muscle than I remember this band having in the past. Not sure if that’s due to the addition of a new guitar player or what, but I like it. “Minimum Day” reminds me of the Go, which is certainly a good sign.

There’s also a dub version of the song available, but it sucks so don’t bother.

Tour Dates
Portland: Doug Fir (Feb 26, 27, 28)
Seattle: Columbia City Theater (March 1,2,3)
San Francisco: Bottom of the Hill (March 5,6,7)

Tickets available January 20 at coldwarkids.com.

I stumbled across this gem of a story while watching talkingheads dissect the South Carolina GOP debates and thank God for it. Author Craig Morrison gives a hilarious and detailed account of his “jazz-rock show band’s” trek across Canada in 1974. This isn’t The Song Remains the Same, gang. This is the real story of a real working band scraping by to play shows in the Great White North. The groupies are few and the flatulence is many.

How can you not love details like this:

In the middle of the night after our farewell hometown gig at the Empress Hotel we spent four hours determining the most efficient way to pack the Hammond B-3 organ, Leslie speaker, two PA systems (one for vocals and one for the horn section), an upright bass (not for stage, just for practicing), guitars, amps, horns, drums (in cases), stage clothes, and a hot plate and a cooking pot. When we first unloaded, we drew a two-level diagram to make sure we could get it all back in. We also had two bicycles on a rack at the front of the van.

That, my friends, is what it’s really like to be on the road without tour support and/or roadies.

Read the whole story, which is an an edited version published in Goldmine magazine in 1994 as “Wild Times On Tour in Canada”