teabowl

Live

Seeed. Downbeat 2006, Audio CD, $26.13

Reggae from Germany. Why not? Is it surprising that Germans can get their groove on and sound indistinguishable from Jamaicans? Francophone Europe has a long tradition of embracing reggae, particularly reggae from Africa (Alpha Blondy, Lucky Dube, etc.). Germany has, in the last few years, developed its own authentic reggae/dancehall scene with acts like Gentleman, Mono & Nikitaman and Nosliw. But the biggest, most popular reggae outfit from Germany is without a doubt Seeed (yes, three e’s). In the (apparently spectacular) live configuration, there are 11 band members, a whole soccer team’s worth.

So far, they’ve made three studio records (four if you count a somewhat silly ‘compilation’ for the English-speaking market) and the Live record I’m talking about here. The music is a blend of modern roots reggae and dancehall. The lyrics are half in German and half in English (the English is a very authentic-souding Jamacian patois, no less). The fun factor is writ large, and this is immensely entertaining summertime music (as is most reggae… but then I’m a bit of a reggae aficionado). As an English-speaking person, your entertainment and amusement mileage may vary with this. Musically, it’s fantastic - in my opinion more elegant, musically spirited and better arranged and produced than much of commercial new reggae out of Jamaica these days (excepting, maybe, Damian Marley’s recent records, which are lovely).

Seeed often celebrate Berlin, their city, so there’s a lot of ‘local patriotism’ in their lyrics. A lot of ‘Berlin’ boasting to go with the Seeed boasting. Seeed’s message is empowering. Lyric sample (with loose translation):

[Du] befreist alle Tiere aus allen Zoos | Bringst den Frieden direkt nach Nah-Ost | Jeder fragt sich, woher hat der die Power bloss? | Seeed Sound macht kleine Typen gross

You free all the animals from all the zoos | You bring peace to the Middle East | Everybody’s asking, how did he become so powerful? | Seeed’s sound makes little guys huge

Seeed has apparently had some success in Jamaica, with tracks like ‘Waterpumpee’ (Anthony B guests) and ‘Dickes B’ (with Black Kappa). That’s a big stamp of approval for a band from Germany.

This is party music, drive-your-car-with-the-windows-down-and-turn-it-up music. There will be summer wherever you decide to play this. And if you happen to understand German, you’ll laugh a lot. (As I’m writing this I realize that perhaps, this is the ultimate in ‘long tail’ music: there’s me and, like, ten other devoted reggae fans who will fully appreciate this music, bilingually, for the humour in both languages.)

It’s All Too Much

Peter Walsh. Free Press 2007, Paperback, 240 pages, $7.75

Intelligent review and notes here: Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools.

Funky Nassau

Various Artists. Strut Records 2008, Audio CD, $11.00

This is a really great little compilation that neatly summarizes an era and a particular sound. Compass Point was Island Records’ founder Chris Blackwell’s studio in Nassau in the Bahamas. It was a very popular recording studio in the early 1980s - lots of ‘big’ acts recorded ‘big’ records there, like AC/DC’s Back in Black and the Stones’ Tattoo You and countless others.

But Chris Blackwell had also assembled a kickass ‘house band’ consisting of Sly & Robbie and a few other reggae and new wave greats. This band supported artists like Grace Jones and is responsible for creating the legendary ‘Compass Point Sound,’ a blend of reggae, disco and new wave/no wave.

This compilation presents an informative and entertaining cross-section of Compass Point’s 1980s output. The liner notes are excellent and (almost) worth the purchase price by themselves.

A related recommendation:

Private Life

Grace Jones. Island 1998, Audio CD, $9.70

Vastly more entertaining and vital than you probably think. Most importantly, there’s something very contemporary about this sound. I’m not sure what it is, but it still sounds relevant. Maybe this band really was so far ahead of its time and it’s full relevance is only now coming into orbit. For me, anyway :)

Bookmarks for the last few days:

• 5 Whys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - The 5 Whys is a question-asking method used to explore the cause/effect relationships underlying a particular problem.
• Five Easy Ways to Go Organic - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog - The key is to be strategic in your organic purchases.
• Village Telco - an easy-to-use, scalable, standards-based, wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit

Sad news this morning on CBC Radio 1: Toronto fiddler Oliver Schroer died from leukemia on July 3, 2008.

I had only recently discovered Oliver’s music and blogged about it at length. Sensitive obits from TheStar.com here and here.

The New Yorker recently ran an article about American Idol in which its (very perceptive) rock critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, observes that “pop is too old to have a single, collective memory anymore.” He saw evidence of this during the show’s Beatles weeks, where it was clear that many of the (young) contestants didn’t know the original songs at all and had to learn them literally from scratch, something that for most people over, say, 30, would be incomprehensible.

This led me down a path of thought regarding my own Gen X musical journey, and how I’m able to see parallels where others may not.

Much of pop today seems self-consciously ‘retro’ in some way; in fact, that may be its main mode right now. Uniqueness today stems from an act’s ability to differentiate itself from the morass of other vaguely, or not-so-vaguely, retro acts. What makes Franz Ferdinand stand out from all the other British ‘indie’ bands, for example? They’re good musicians and songwriters. How about Arcade Fire? They’re a wacky Montreal troupe with grand ambitions and a big sound (and you can hear them inch, album after album, closer and closer to U2 circa Rattle and Hum).

But it’s more exciting to discover an unexpected parallel; a moment of intersection that isn’t planned or intentional, and therefore not self-conscious. When somebody does something not in order to be like somebody else, but when it ends up being similar anyway.

Genuine parallel developments often happen in history. Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece ‘In the Air‘ points out that the history of science is littered with ‘multiples’ - simultaneous discoveries of new technologies, for example, by different people and in different geographic locations. Often, it’s commerce (or chance) that determines which of the equivalent inventions makes it, and which does not.

Music is very far from science in this way. I think it’s reasonable to say that there are few truly parallel developments in music where two different geographies create the same sound at the same time. Music travels, is heard, musicians are influenced. There’s always a fascinating ‘travel’ story at the heart of unexpectedly great musical discoveries: for example, Senegal’s own version of Cuban son/salsa, which was brought to Africa by seamen in the 1960s.

Bring on the Night

Sting. A&M 2005, Audio CD, $12.89

Live at Piedmont Park

Dave Matthews Band. RCA 2007, Audio CD, $11.34

I like the more ’roundabout’ musical parallels I sometimes discover. For example, Sting’s Bring On the Night and the Dave Matthews Band’s Live at Piedmont Park. It’s all there even if it’s 20 years apart: the extended jams, the long, long tracks, the jazzy improvisations that painstakingly make sure their rhythmic footing remains rock not jazz, etc.

In terms of instrumentation, Dave Matthews Band is the least guitar-focused band of the big stadium touring bands. Dave’s guitar is always acoustic, mostly used for rhythm purposes, and never in the foreground. Sting, on Bring On the Night, played guitar for the first time (or at least in recorded history), having been a bass player throughout his tenure in The Police. As a result of doing double-duty on vocals and guitar, his playing is subdued, rhythm-focused, and not in the foreground.

Another striking point of similarity is the extended piano improvisations by Kenny Kirkland (for Sting) and Butch Taylor (for DMB). Decades apart, the stylistic similarities are too eerie to be ‘planned’ and Taylor is too independent a musician to have deliberately chosen to sound like Kirkland. But as the piano element became more and more pronounced on DMB live recordings during the 2000s, the overall sonic impact of DMB live - to me - became more and more like Sting’s circa 1986.

I’m wondering what other accidental musical parallels you may know about similar to this. Leave a comment if you like.

The Visitors

ABBA. Polydor / Umgd 2001, Audio CD, $5.42

I’ve had a 26-year love affair with this album. This was one of the first records I bought with my own money. I was 11 or 12 when it came out. ABBA was accessible, wonderfully well-produced, very very catchy yet musically complex pop. In a way, perhaps the last 2 or 3 ABBA albums are a good example or the ‘autumn years’ of complex pop.

They occupy a point in time before music like this became associated primarily with show tunes, gay people and retro disco parties, but after studio technology was audibly a hurdle to be overcome. Andersson and Ulvaeus were masters of composition, arrangement and studio technology. For me, it’s with ABBA’s work after the mid-1970s (and perhaps Fleetwood Mac’s work from the same era) that the limitations of studio technology become truly inaudible for the first time.

I have marveled at different things related to The Visitors at different times. As a kid, the melodies and harmonies burned themselves into my brain. This is music I’ll never forget, like riding a bike or swimming. Today, I can appreciate the timeless nature of the balanced arrangements and production values, especially since I now understand how much work it must have been - back then - to achieve something that sounds so effortless. I can also appreciate the songcraft better today: Andersson & Ulvaeus, like Lennon/McCartney, wrote great songs even when they were tossing off album filler tracks. And the lyrics! Everything rhymes! This is almost completely unheard of in popular music today, where cadence and rhythmic delivery compensate for a complete absence of rhyme. The rhyming bit is particularly impressive for two Swedish guys.

The women’s voices are also as wondrous today as they were back then. They bring great clarity and simplicity to these songs; nothing is over-sung or over-emoted. It’s just sung, beautifully, in musically dense arrangements, with lots and lots and lots of overdubbed backing vocals. The backing vocals themselves are interesting, because they employ elements more typical to choral singing (canons, etc.). Choruses are often underpinned by backing vocals that use the same lyrics, slightly changed or syncopated; this is something that wasn’t done much after the Beach Boys’ heyday.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t comment on the musicianship. In a way, it goes without saying that ABBA’s Swedish studio band was an ace team of professionals - ABBA was, after all, the world’s biggest-selling pop band at the time, true superstars deserving of a killer backing band. Yet I still marvel at Ola Brunkert’s and Per Lindvall’s precise, groovy drumming and Rutger Gunnarsson’s rumbling, melodic bass; neither of these have lost any of their original impact in the 26 years since I first heard them.

Most remastered editions of this record contain ‘The day before you came,’ one of three post-The Visitors singles that were ABBA’s final releases. ‘The day before you came’ is possibly one of the most melancholy pop songs ever written. I can see direct lines from it to the Pet Shop Boys’ ’story songs’ on Actually five years later.

The Visitors will always be in my personal Top 10, I think. I don’t care if that’s cool or not… and I’m not saying that to be provocative or retro :)

Reasonable critical review here. Complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation by Rolling Stone here (perhaps an indication that North Americans never completely ‘got’ ABBA? :)