TybeeDawg’s Pick of the Litter 2013

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When we finally rip that last month off from the auto parts calendar on the wall, its just human nature to look back at the previous year and reflect on what we saw, heard or felt. That remembrance is always a mixture of reality and perception, of what we wanted to have happen and what really did.

But that’s life.

John Lennon said “life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” and Warren Zevon famously quipped in his song that “life’ll kill ya.” Both are true and unfortunately, on January 18^th of 2013, Craig Lieske was snatched, untimely, from this world.  Craig was more than the “merch guy” for the Drive-By Truckers; he was, to many, the face and soul of the band, the person fans talked to at every show, who always had a smile and a kind word. Craig passed away in the night during the band’s three-night homecoming stand at the 40 Watt and if anyone ever doubted the transformative, healing power of music, well, just talk to anyone who attended those shows.

The 2013 Pick of the Litter is dedicated to Craig Lieske: music lover, musician, music fan.  As Patterson Hood sings in Grand Canyon, a goodbye of sorts to Lieske from their upcoming release English Oceans, “I’ll lift my glass and smile.”

Album of the Year – Jason Isbell - Southeastern – Isbell’s new record is a finely polished dark gem, gleaming with addiction, redemption, and gumption.  Jason Isbell, through force of will and lack of alcohol, has forged his most complete set of songs yet and easily the finest record of the year.

Debut record of the Year – Willie Sugarcapps - Nurtured in the fertile soil of the Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm in Silverhill, Alabama, Willie Sugarcapps is roots music at its most organic. Five musicians who discovered that they love making music together and that people love what they do. Will Kimbrough joins with Grayson Capps, Corky Hughes (Capps’ guitar player), Anthony Crawford and Savana Lee (Sugarcane Jane) to create a mixture of bayou blues and country-rock with outstanding harmonies and incredible musicianship.

Song of the Year – Jason Isbell – Elephant - As a songwriter, Isbell is operating at a stratospheric, Guy Clark level, constructing lines like “sharecropper eyes and hair almost all gone.” Inside of Elephant, Southeastern’s emotional centerpiece, a tale of watching a friend suffer from cancer, he creates a place all too real.

Billy Bragg at Americanarama.

Live Performance of the Year – This is probably the hardest one to fill in given the elusive nature of the category. There are so many variables that don’t exist in the studio…sound, weather, the attitude of the artist or the audience…and my own subjective experience. But, I’ll have to give the nod to two of Billy Bragg’s Americana Festival appearances in Nashville. A radio interview as part of the conference and a solo performance at Americanarama, a sidebar daytime festival held in the backyard of Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, were both illuminating. Billy Bragg proved that punk can grow up, that attitude doesn’t have to disappear at 30, or 40, or even 50, that we can still rail against injustice with grey in our hair or with no hair at all, and we can do it with style, humor, panache and intelligence.

Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott.

Music Festival of the Year – The Americana Music Festival and Conference – Nashville has hosted this amazing collection of showcases, conference panels and an incredibly well-done awards show each year for the last fourteen years, and each year, it’s grown in popularity. The awards show at the Ryman sells out and many of the nightly showcases are standing-room only, but the showcase wristbands are still a good deal and the quality of music is unparalleled. Highlights of the 2013 festival were St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Darrell Scott and Tim O’Brien, Scott Miller, and Houndmouth, but no matter where you end up, you’re bound to find some of the best and brightest Americana artists playing for a crowd of music lovers.

What else was good last year? Plenty:

My Favorite Picture of You – Guy Clark

The Marshall Mathers LP2 – Eminem

Tooth & Nail – Billy Bragg

Live in San Francisco – Ry Cooder            

This River – JJ Grey and Mofro

Opening Day - Peter Cooper

From the Hills below the City – Houndmouth

Down Fell the Doves – Amanda Shires  

Memories and Moments - Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott                              

My Dearest Darkest Neighbor – Hurray for the Riff Raff

Looking back, 2013 was truly a fine year of music from both new and established artists. 2014 is already off to a good start as I type this, with very strong releases from Rosanne Cash, Tinsley Ellis, Bruce Springsteen and the Hard Working Americans, a “super-group” with Todd Snider and Dave Schools (Widespread Panic), which is leading the early pack for album of the year.

My friend Anthony knew Craig Lieske.  My friend Anthony just celebrated his 40^th birthday and his birthday wish for us was for “everyone to read good literature, listen to good music, and love one another a little more on our next trip around the sun.”  I concur.  I’m pretty damn sure Craig would too.

Curtis Lynch
Playgrounds Magazine January 2014

Photo of Craig Lieske courtesy of Beth Branson-Lakes.

Peter Cooper - Opening Day

Peter Cooper

Opening Day

Red Beet Records

http://redbeetrecords.com/ 

The studious eight-year old in a Braves cap on the cover of this record is indeed Peter Cooper, the guy who thirty-five years later is writing the liner notes for his third solo album from Australia.  The man has clearly come a long way, and it’s those parts in between Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and a continent a half a world away that make this record such a delight.

The first of eleven tracks is the autobiographical Much Better Now, where Cooper details some of his employment history (among others, a waiter in a buffet restaurant where the people “can’t see their feet.”) The man who gave us the best song ever about baseball (715 (For Hank Aaron) from his 2008 debut release Mission Door) comes back with another excellent one in the title track, where unbridled optimism at the beginning of the season when “we’re tied for first with the whole season left to play” gives way to grim reality (“with a couple of breaks we might take fourth place”) by the end of the first verse.

Cooper’s songwriting has matured tremendously on this record. Always able to turn a phrase inside out effortlessly, here his attention to detail in each song complements the clever word-play.  As with his always excellent columns in the Tennessean, he writes with a detective’s eye, picking out details that define people, moments, situations. He takes a subject, builds on it, expands it, makes his point and most importantly, since we’re talking about songs, he makes it rhyme. The mood shifts from light-hearted (the eye-rolling Grandma’s Tattoo, co-written with Tommy Womack) to serious (Quiet Little War is about drone warfare and how you can fight a war in Afghanistan from New Mexico and go home to your wife each night or Jenny Died at 25, the type of death where you go on living.), but all the tracks are finely honed pieces, illustrated by pedal steel legend Lloyd Green, Jen Gunderman on keys, bass from Dave Jacques and Dave Roe, vocals from Eric Brace (with whom he’s recorded two fine albums), guitars from Richard Bennett (Mark Knopfler Band) and producer Thomm Jutz.

Peter Cooper is a journalist, a college professor and student of country music, a guest DJ on radio, a baseball fan and luckily for us, a songwriter and a musician.  With Opening Day, Cooper steps up into the bigs.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

September 2013

Jason Isbell - Southeastern

Jason Isbell

Southeastern

Southeastern Records

www.jasonisbell.com

On Cover Me Up, the opening track of Southeastern, Jason Isbell sings over an acoustic guitar and a moaning slide that “someone needs medical help or the magnolia’s bloom.”  That the couplet is at once unexpected and perfected crafted is what makes this record a finely polished dark gem. Fulfilling the promise of the young twenty-something whose songs and guitar energized the Drive-By Truckers, fleshed out their southern vision and contributed to what is arguably their two best records, The Dirty South and Decoration Day (the title cut belongs to Isbell) and washing away the inconsistencies of his solo and band recordings, this newfound creativity and sobriety was hinted at on last year’s release Live from Alabama.  On those performances, you could hear a man and a band that was operating at a higher level and with a resolute purpose and focus.  Jason Isbell had something to prove.

Whatever wreckage Isbell caused, created or enjoyed while partying his ass off gave fuel to his creative fires, at least when the smoke in his head cleared enough to write down what he remembered.  Painful and honest in a way that allows no self-pity, Isbell ponders his new life. On Live Oak, he realizes “there’s a man who walks beside me it’s who I used to be/and I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me” and on Different Days, he sees that “ten years ago…I might have offered up my help in different ways/ But those were different days.”  The dozen tunes here are mostly built around acoustic guitars, relying on the strength of the songs and lyrics rather than raging electric riffs. The exceptions are Flying over Water, which utilizes a quiet/loud dynamic and Super 8, a snarling, undeniably great rock n roll tune the Faces would be proud of. In a recent interview, Jason said that he wasn’t going to leave a good song off the record just because it didn’t fit the mood,  but its placement is still jarring.

As a songwriter, Isbell is operating at a stratospheric, Guy Clark level, constructing lines like “sharecropper eyes and hair almost all gone,” from Elephant, the album’s emotional centerpiece, a tale of watching a friend suffer from cancer or the chilling, gothic Yvette, a story of abuse where the narrator, in a flat voice sings about “a bedroom upstairs/it’s a family affair” and how he’s “cleaning my Weatherby/and sighting my scope.” 

Southeastern is filled with addiction, redemption, and gumption.  Isbell, through force of will and lack of alcohol, has forged his most complete set of songs yet and one of the finest records of the year.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

July 2013

The Comeback Album - Eric Brace & Peter Cooper

The Comeback Album

Eric Brace & Peter Cooper

Red Beet Records

www.redbeetrecords.com

A comeback album?  Only these guys would slap such an ironic title on a record. 2011’s I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow was a remake of Hall’s classic children’s record, nominated for a Grammy, one of my favorite albums that year, and Eric Brace and Peter Cooper were all over it, organizing, producing, coordinating,  singing. Their 2010 duo record, Master Sessions, featured pedal steel king Lloyd Green and dobro wiz Mike Auldridge (The Seldom Scene). On this, their third record together, Brace and Cooper complete each other’s lines like a married couple finishes each other sentences. This familiarity breeds not contempt but better performances.  Brace is the more emotional songwriter, while Cooper is adept at wry lyrics. Brace is literal, where Cooper is literate. But instead of each song being a Brace song or a Cooper song, this time out they’re Brace and Cooper songs. On Johnson City, Brace takes the more direct route, singing about being locked up in the Tennessee town’s pokey (“I know the way to Johnson City/ now I just gotta find my way out”) while Cooper comes in on the bridge detailing a surreal jailhouse conversation with God.  

The opener Ancient History is one of their tradmark clever, up-tempo tracks, a meditation on the impermanence of existence using stage names and nicknames as a metaphor for change in life. (“Richard Nixon was Tricky Dick/Dick trickle was a race car driver, no really he was a race car driver, a talented popular race car driver”). Baseball references are scattered throughout (also from Ancient History: “Sid Bream was safe at home…the eighth world wonder was the Astrodome”), although I wish they had included Cooper’s fine song Opening Day on this release.  Nine of the twelve tracks were written by Brace and/or Cooper, with one of the covers coming from the aforementioned Tom T. Hall, Mad, which features guests Duane Eddy, Mac Wiseman and Marty Stuart (“When she’s mad, that’s a dangerous game/in the obituary column, they’ve already printed my name.”). Recorded in Nashville (of course) by Thomm Jutz, the album features a core of stellar musicians, including Paul Griffith on drums, Dave Jacques on bass, Green on pedal steel, and Jen Gunderman on keys.

 

The overall theme here seems to be one of uncertainty, whether the protagonists in the songs are in jail looking for bail, a perennial loser buying lottery tickets or a sailor adrift in the darkness. But that doesn’t mean the album is dark or completely introspective. Eric Brace and Peter Cooper see to that through their solid songwriting, singing and impeccable harmonies. The Comeback Album may not be an over-the-fence, Ruthian home run, but it’s a solid rap into the gap, a triple and with a combination of determination and talent, Brace and Cooper score.  Just like Sid Bream.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

May 2013

Hundred Word Highlights - February 2012

Hundred Word Highlights

Each CD review is guaranteed to be a full one hundred words, because sometimes ninety-nine and a half won’t do.

Mike Cooley

The Fool on Every Corner

Cooley Records

 

In November of last year, Hundred Word Highlights reviewed Patterson Hood’s record Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance and this month is his partner Mike Cooley’s turn.  The Drive-By Truckers’ other half may be less loquacious and prolific than Mr. Hood, but he is just as talented of a songwriter and performer.  This live acoustic solo recording showcases finger-picked versions of his rock tunes along with a full glass of wit served with a side of sly winks and surprisingly keen insights. Cooley even picks up the banjo for an eerily wicked take on Cottonseed. Picks: Cottonseed, Carl Perkins Cadillac.

Buddy and Jim

Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale

New West Records

Two of the brightest stars in the Americana firmament team up for this collection of country, R&B and good-natured rock. Buddy and Jim are well-respected musicians, with shelves of awards between them, but more than that, they’re friends and this record has that easy vibe of two buddies making music together. There’s not a Buddy song or a Jim song, they both own them, especially when their harmonies remind you of the Everly Brothers with a twang. The eleven songs won’t break any new ground, but that’s kinda the point.  Picks: Vampire Girl, I Lost My Job of Loving You.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

February 2013

Mary Gauthier

Live at Blue Rock

In the Black Records

http://www.marygauthier.com/

Mary Gauthier’s songs, like the artist herself, require your attention before their brilliance becomes apparent. This is music that involves and captivates, not background music that slides underneath whatever else you have going on. In the same way Bob Dylan’s early lyrics held meaning and weight, her songs are carefully crafted, whittled and polished until what remains is gleaming, straight and perfect.  Gauthier, Louisiana-born but now living in Nashville, has a lyrical preoccupation with outcasts and outsiders and her songs are imbued with a sense of her real life, a hard life, and so are the three covers she chose for Live at Blue Rock, all from another fine songwriter, Fred Eaglesmith. A teenaged runaway and recovering addict, Gauthier sings about what she knows, or as another cinematic songwriter, Guy Clark, put it in his song Homeless, “the bums, the whores and the abused.”

The eleven tracks here were recorded in an intimate setting outside of Austin, Texas, with Mary on vocals and acoustic guitar, Mike Meadows on percussion and the wonderful Tania Elizabeth on fiddle and vocals. Tania’s fiddle perfectly accentuates the songs and is an essential element, while the percussion is solid throughout.  On some tunes, not a syllable is wasted, not a line thrown away and on others the words tumble out like coins from a Biloxi jackpot, especially on Wheel Inside the Wheel (a track covered by Jimmy Buffett, she sometimes jokes that his cut of this tune allows her to drive a nice car). It’s a Mardi Gras tune of a surreal sort (“Sipping wormwood concoctions/drinking absinthe and talking trash/it’s a red carpet, black tie all night celestial bash.”) that caps the record, rolling to a driving, joyous conclusion.

Her sixth record overall and her first live recording, Live at Blue Rock may not be an easy record to like, but it’s an incredibly easy record to love.

Curtis Lynch

Playgrounds Magazine

February 2012

 Mary Gauthier's "I Drink"

Y2KT10 September 1999

Y2K T10
(Y2K Top Ten Lists)
Curtis Lynch
Professor of Millennium Musicology
Playgrounds Division

OK, now that the term "Y2K" has been permanently seared upon everyone's retinas, the time has come to answer the question: what the hell is Y2K, anyway?

History lesson: In the nascent computing era of the 1950s, storage and memory were prohibitively expensive, so programmers adopted a convention using a two-digit field for years, with the programs automatically inserting the "19." Evidently, they figured we'd be using some Star Trek type computers by now, 'cause nobody  had a problem with that then.  The big problem in the here and now is that literally billions of microchips embedded in everything from the nation's powergrids to Mom's microwave won't be able to distinguish between 1900 and 2000.  Now, if you have to eat a cold Pop Tart because your toaster has PMS (that's Post-Millennium Syndrome, y'all), that's one thing; if Georgia Power's computer systems crash, then you might have to plan your day a little differently.

According to Family PC magazine, $600 billion will be spent by year-end to fix or replace computer systems, and even that won't guarantee 100% compliance and nobody really knows which systems will keep on truckin' and which ones will go flatline.

Let's check in with the Federal Government, shall we?  As always, it's the old "what I say" vs. "what I do" affliction.  On the one hand, they say there could be scattered disruptions, no worse than a severe snowstorm or hurricane. (Never mind the fact that those are random occurrences, this is something we've known about for a while now...)  On the other hand, legislators have passed bills limiting Y2K liability from lawsuits, as well as creating a Y2K "bunker," a government agency which ominously, will "be the framework for future disasters."

Amazing as it may seem, our Federal Government has not acknowledged the Y2KT10 problem.  After consulting with the Conspiracy Division of Playgrounds Magazine, it has been determined that this is a deliberate cover-up in order to avoid widespread panic (meaning rioting in the streets, not the band) and to discourage the rampant stockpiling of music.

Now without furthur adieu (a French word meaning, literally, "more crap"), let's bring on this month's selections. First up, the poet laudanum of Shadowville, Will Dockery:


 Gadzooks! Only ten?  OK, lessee...

1)Bob Dylan/Empire Burlesque- overlooked masterpiece from 1985.
2)John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band- yow! the finest, working class hero,
indeed.
3)Lou Reed/Berlin- this'll rip your soul out, the most
depressing/uplifting record ever made.
4)Patti Smith Group/Horses- she was America's greatest poet at one
time.
5)Rolling Stones/Exile on Main Street- gotta have this one.
6)Liz Phair/Exile In Guyville- this little lady gives me the "schwing."
7)Hole/Live Through This- ditto.
8)Nirvana/Unplugged in New York- the cry of the ages.
9)Pavement/Slanted & Enchanted- and it is.
10)Bob Nuewirth/99 Monkeys- if you don't have this, I'll tape you a
copy.

(I'll clone myself to keep 10 or 20 more such as... Henry Conley, Uncle
Grumpy, Digital Cricket, Blonde on Blonde, Desire, Smashing
Pumpkins, REM Murmur, Patti's Radio Ethiopia, The Velvets, Eno,
Cale, Nico, Beatles Rubber Soul, Henry Parker, The Clash London
Calling, Woody Guthrie, Billie Holliday, Miles Davis...ahh, this is
impossible, just gimmie the green Kool-Aid...) Will

(Whatever you say, Will.  Would you like that in a commemorative Y2K souvenir cup? - Curtis.)


Next is Brian Fowler, who says "I would like to plug my record, I should have it ready by October/November. It's called San Francisco Blue and features Bob Harvey, the original bassist of Jefferson Airplane, Robert and Rebecca Richardson and your own Mr. Mike Childree,  I (Brian Fowler), will be on mandolins and gtrs."

1. West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Child's Guide to Good and Evil. 1968 Psychedelic album, well written and cohesive. Michael Lloyd went on to
become one of LA's top producers with the platinum album Footloose. This gem
defined the era, although very rare and contained no big hits, this is the
holy grail for collectors. Luckily, I have it.
2. Jethro Tull Roots to Branches This is their last studio album. Although rock radio (at least here in Columbus) does not play anything from this album, It contains some of the best gtr work imaginable and the tracks Roots to Branches and Dangerous Veils are some of the best rock ever recorded.
 3. Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1967 This album was recorded in Abbey Road studio at the same time Sgt. Pepper was being recorded.  I hear a little Beatles in this and vice-versa. The scoop is Barrett would trip w/ Lennon and listen to each other's playbacks. A must in your collection.
 4. David Grisman Mondo Mando One of the hottest jazz-grass albums made w/ Tony Rice and Mark O'Connor. It makes me want to nail my mandolin case shut.
 5. Gong Angels Egg. David Allen's songwriting and gtr work shone on this jazz-rock classic.
 6. It's a Beautiful Day (I saw another Y2KT10 w/ this album mentioned. This was a classic and the violin just soared in this. I love this album.
 7. Hawkwind In Search of Space This is my "drive fast" album, crunching gtrs,
Lemmy's pounding bass, the cuts Master of the Universe and Shouldn't Do That are classics. I went to NY last year to see these folks and they are worth the
ride. They have a wild light show. Good fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 8. Jefferson Airplane Bark Lawman,  Wild Turkey, Pretty as You Feel, although the band was falling apart, they got it together enough to do this classic.
 9. Nektar- Remember the Future. One of the best progressive albums ever made. I have 3 LPs of this one. The sleeve art is pretty imaginative.
10. New Grass Revival-Barren County. I love this record. It is pre-Bela Fleck and some of the best albums ever made of acoustic music.

You readers are probably thinking this dude has some pretty weird CDs. Maybe so but, there is a lot out there and music is diverse...
  Thanks, Brian

(No, Brian, Playgrounds readers are probably wondering what " (insert something from it pays to enhance your word power) "  means. -Curtis.)

NME, England's preeminent music magazine has compiled a list of the top 100 rock'n'roll albums "since 4/4 time began," but they did it back in October 1993, "the last time we got around to doing it." The list is predictably Anglo-heavy, yet The Beach Boys snag number one, followed by Marvin Gaye (four),  The Velvet Underground (six),  and Public Enemy (nine). You can find the whole list at http://www.nme.com/reviews/top100.html, but here's the top ten:

1 Pet Sounds THE BEACH BOYS (Capitol, 1966)
2 Revolver THE BEATLES (Parlophone, 1966)
3 Never Mind the Bollocks THE SEX PISTOLS (Virgin, 1977)
4 What's Going On MARVIN GAYE (Tamla Motown, 1971)
5 The Stone Roses THE STONE ROSES (Silvertone, 1989)
6 The Velvet Underground & Nico THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (Verve, 1967)
7 London Calling THE CLASH (CBS, 1979)
8 The Beatles THE BEATLES (Apple, 1968)
9 It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back PUBLIC ENEMY (Def Jam, 1988)
10 The Queen Is Dead THE SMITHS (Rough Trade, 1986)



So, four months left before the clocks all roll over to two-triple-ought...till next month, I'll leave y'all with a bumper sticker..."Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its students!" Y'all study on your favorite musical selections, and send your top ten lists to:

Playgrounds Magazine
P.O.Box 8154
Columbus GA 31908