Music Write-Ups
How do you know Chris Earley?
How many MP3s do you have on your hard drive?
So I’m leaving San Francisco after two years of city living, moving back down to sunny San Diego. I’ve really enjoyed my time living in San Francisco and I think that, after this experience, my whole life will be impacted by my time spent here. I’m not even sure how. That’s hard to describe in words. But I’m also not sure this is the last time that I will live near or even in the city.
I like this song because it tells a story and it was written and produced by a truly California band, maybe this state’s most famous international musical ambassadors. I don’t know if we have a state song, but my vote would be for something by the Beach Boys - maybe this song or “Good Vibrations”. Second vote going to the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple” and 3rd selection going to Joni MItchell’s “California”. Although I think she’s Canadian, still a great song, especially for a Canadian (which is actually saying a lot considering the works of such famous Canucks as Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, John Candy, Terrence and Phillip…).
But I digress. As an amateur history buff, this song is a great dioramic peephole into the California state of mind. If you ever get a chance try and track down some of the film footage The Beach Boys shot of California around this same period. I’m not sure where or how I saw it, but I remember it being an amazing accompaniment to this California ballad.
But perhaps the greatest insight into the history of California and its people was written by John Steinbeck, a notable Californian author (ever heard of him?) that The Beach Boys pay homage to in this song. “Everything in California is owned….An’ them people that owns it is gonna hang on to it if they gotta kill ever’body in the worl’ to do it. You got to hear it. Purtiest goddman country you ever seen, but they ain’t nice to you, them folks. They’re so scairt an’ worried they ain’t even nice to each other.”
I don’t know about that last part, but I do have to get back to SD and “stake my claim”. But if you come visit, I promise I’ll be nice to you - civil even.
Enjoy the disturbing and quasi-insane genius of Brian Wilson. And if you happen to be wondering who is the biggest Beach Boys fan of all-time, look no further than my uncle who lives in Berkeley.
And if Steinbeck doesn’t do it for you, maybe Hunter Thompson will: “The destruction of California is a logical climax to the Westward Movement. The redwoods, the freeways, the dope laws, race riots, water pollution, smog, the Free Speech Movement, and now Governor Reagan — the whole thing is a logical as mathematics. California is the end, in every way, of Lincoln’s idea that America was the ‘last best hope of man.’”
Adios, muchachos. See ya on down the trail.
-Brendan Daly
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jaPVaZ1eS4U
My friend sent me this link from the NBA Finals, which the Spurs should win this evening (Thursday). LeBron James is a magnificent basketball player but I’ve come to terms with the fact that San Antonio has too many weapons. Duncan, Parker, Ginobli, Horry off the bench and Bowen on defense.
As for pre-game performances of the National Anthem at NBA Finals, this rendition by Ben Harper has to be right up there with Stevie Wonder on the chromatic harmonica.
If you have never seen Harper in concert, it’s a real treat. He’s a tried and true musician worthy of the highest regard and he travels with a talented band of musicians, The Innocent Criminals. The last time I saw them, well, I didn’t actually see them. We went and sat in the parking lot behind the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, up in the hills and hidden by the Eucalyptus groves.
We just hung out under the trees with some brews and a water bottle of vodka, talking and listening. We played a game with the vodka and another water bottle. We’d switch them around and each person had to close their eyes then open them and choose one of the two bottles. Great concert, fun night.
I’m excited remembering Ben Harper at the Greek because I am going to the Greek again next Saturday to see Norah Jones. It will be my last show at the Greek probably for awhile and my last weekend in the Bay for some time (as a resident at least).
As excited as I am to be moving closer to my fiancee and my family in San Diego, not to mention the surf and sun and friends and home, I can’t help feeling like I’m leaving all of those things too - surf (albeit frigid), sun (so nice when it’s rains down on SF like this week), friends (so many it’s hard to encapsulate) and home (I’ve live close to a third of my life to this point in NorCal).
So I bid all of you fare thee well and I Hope you enjoy this clip (isn’t YouTube amazing?) And one of these days I will sit down and write a long letter to all of those good friends I’ve known.
But for now, this will have to do. Have a great 4th!
-Brendan Daly
Mother´s Day a little belated.
I have to make this quick and short because I have very little time. i love this song because my dad used to play this album for my mom on Sunday mornings, not just Mother´s Day. A great album to wake up with and deserving of much more than this. But I love me Mom and I love the reference to Spain ‘ went to a party down on Red Dirt Road there were lots of pretty people there, reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue.
Oh and I can´t wait to get back to California, although I´m having a great time. I love you Mom.
-Brendan Daly
A Poor Tribute to Chris Earley’s “Piano Delivery” email.
Too often artists gain notoriety well after their death…Vincent Van Gogh, Herman Melville, Jonathon Larson… and Gram Parsons.
Gram Parsons never truly burst on the scene while he was living. He joined The Byrds just in time to coast with the band out of their mega-stardom phase. His subsequent stints forming The Flying Burrito Brothers and pursuing solo and duet work with Emmylou Harris were not recognized for their musical importance until well after his accidental drug-induced death at Joshua Tree in 1973.
Parsons was a more influential figure than many of the people that have been influenced by him may even realize. His close friendship with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones was an integral influence on the Stones’ infusion of country, blues and soul elements (see “The Girl with the Faraway Eyes” and “Wild Horses” to name a few). And Parsons is widely considered to be the creator of “country-rock” although he despised that term. He preferred to label his musical interest (if it needed labelling) as “cosmic American soul.”
Some Parsons fans would pick “She” or “Sin City” as their favorite Parsons song. While I am not necessarily representing “Hickory Wind” as my favorite Parsons song (I may give that dubious honor to “A Song for You”), there is a clear honesty and attention to Gram’s experience that comes across more clearly in “Hickory Wind” than in some of Parsons’ other songs. The eerie sentiment of the song’s storyline is more fully developed and explained in Ben Fong-Torres’ biography of Gram Parsons, also entitled Hickory Wind.
I don’t have a great reason for choosing Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ arrangement of this song other than the fact that I love Welch and Rawlings’ rendition of this song.
I’m not a religious man, certainly not a true believer. However, I do believe that Gillian Welch is an angel that was sent to Earth to convey the “beautiful mess” of life more coherently to us fortunate enough to be exposed to her talent. David Rawlings was brought along to protect her from danger and provide some kick-ass guitar accompaniment.
I own two of Welch’s albums - Revival and Time (The Revelator). They hold a special place in my collection and I would place Welch in the company of Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Kate Wolf as one of the finest female folk songwriters of the last 40 years. (I’m sure there are many other amazing female folk musicians that were left off this short list and, for that, I apologize.)
I know many Gram Parsons fans would be upset that I would ”cheat” on Gram’s long-time singing duet partner Emmylou Harris by picking Gillian’s rendition. I’m sure Emmylou has a great rendition of “Hickory Wind” as well and there’s nothing I would be less likely to do than to choose another woman over Emmylou.
But SongOTheDay is where I get to espouse my limited musical knowledge. And to anyone that hasn’t yet been exposed to Gillian Welch (if not, you should additionally check out song #46 submitted by Casey Mills here), I hope this song will encourage you to seek her out. If not, it’s certainly a fine way to hear some Gram Parsons as well.
-Brendan Daly
“I’ve been singing this song. It’s time it was sung. I’ve been putting it off for awhile…”- Tom Waits, Closing Time
… ’cause it’s about time I stepped up to the plate and contributed to Song O’The Day. I will apologize in advance for the length of this posting
The question: A good friend of mine from high school asked me the other day… “What musicians did you listen to in high school”. I thought this was a funny question from her because we went to high school together and now we talk about music all the time – shouldn’t she know? But I guess back then we didn’t do that much talking. Anyway, as I struggled to list off some of my high school favorites - Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Jackson Browne, John Prine, The Moody Blues … a lot of Jackson Browne and John Prine - I thought about how the screenwriter/director Cameron Crowe (Say Anything, Jerry McGuire, Almost Famous) used to keep mixed tapes of the songs he listened to each month. So he could always go back, revisit the songs and think about that time in his life. And I remembered Closing Time.
1996: In high school, our friends used to joke that we were the TF’s (Time Fillers) for the “90210’s” (the Valley girls/Miss Populars) at our school. We thought of ourselves as the group of guys that they would come talk to when all other options for interaction and conversation had been exhausted. So funny to think back about high school socialization, like S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. All that wasted adolescent innocence. Unlike many people, I have a lot of good memories from high school. Call me Pony Boy (Nothing Gold Can Stay). Middle school stunk but by high school I had a pretty good head on my shoulders. I felt like I knew who I was (or at least I was figuring it out) and I appreciated being me most of the time (unlike middle school). I was a TF and my friend was a “9-0.”
A place in time: That’s why I love this song - it always takes me back. It’s the first on Tom Waits’ debut album - at least I like to think of it as his debut. I could go on forever about the brilliance of Tom Waits. This song is such a rush for me. It sounds slow and sad but there’s a strong current of hope and optimism that ebbs and flows.
A manufactured memory: I always wanted to put it on during our grueling morning practice swim workouts as an escape from the drudgery; but I never did. Still, I had that thought so many times that I can transport myself back to swimming at my high school pool at 6 in the morning, with Waits blaring from the speakers in the observation booth. It’s my manufactured memory: I breathe and swim, breathe and swim as the slow 1, 2, 3, 4 beat sways in the background and Wait’s lays down an early piece of his ancient soul.
The amateur music critic: Many would say that this doesn’t qualify as Waits’ greatest work. It was more like his coming out party. His voice is less scratchy, the songs are more classic in feel than his later works that ventured into new ground. But there is something comforting as an old blanket and yet clean and crisp as twilight in this album. The whole record is phenomenal and I highly recommend it. And I’ll take issue with anyone critical of my claim that this deserves consideration as Waits’ best work. If for no other reason than to acknowledge that Closing Time, at the very least, deserves an honorable mention.
On a side note, the Eagles covered this song, as they did many brilliant songs by lesser known SoCal songwriters in the 70’s (see Jack Tempchin’s Peaceful Easy Feeling and Jackson Browne’s Take It Easy). Whether or not you like the Eagles, you have to respect their musical taste. Waits’ version is far superior; that’s not opinion, that’s fact.
Burgeoning musicianship: Going back to the Songo’TheDay theme of musical beginnings a few weeks ago, when people were sharing the songs that they first learned how to play, Ol’ ‘55 is a great example of a personal instrumental transition. Here, I use instrumental in the musical sense. It marks a shift from the piano to the acoustic guitar. Most people would pick out the piano in this song, but when I listened to it over and over again on headphones, in my room, on the bus home after water polo games, going for a run, I couldn’t wait to hear that acoustic guitar filling in the spaces. When I picked up the guitar for the first time, I struggled to learn it no matter how much I wanted to be able to play it (I think Alby can relate) and ended up putting down the guitar for a few months before I came back to it and found Prine’s songs much more playable. Now I know why Ol’ 55 was so tough: it’s in F#. That’s a hard key for beginning musicians. I felt a real sense of accomplishment last night when I finally tried to play it again and at least figured out the key and the chords. How far I’ve come - with a long way still to go. So it might be a while before I do it any semblance of justice.
“I can see by your eyes, it’s time now to go”: I could write forever about the interconnectedness of this song and how it relates to my past, present and future. But I’ve written too much as it is and I apologize that I’m all over the place. Maybe future posts willbe more coherent. The past is all I’ve had time to process so far. For the present, Closing Time resides in my new CD/Alarm clock radio. I awake almost every morning to Wait’s talking about his time going so quickly - a nice reminder for me to get my drowsy bones out of bed.
*And if you didn’t like my take on it (or even if you did), ask Chris Earley about the music video his friend sent to Tom Waits. Earley’s friend’s music video made Waits cry (no joke, a great story).
-Brendan Daly