Yellow Moon

Neville Brothers. A&M 1990, Audio CD, $4.14

A review of The Neville Brothers’ Yellow Moon

Sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, I became interested in Daniel Lanois‘ music. Here was an enigmatic producer who had worked with Brian Eno, U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, Jon Hassell and Bob Dylan. For each, he had forged important, sometimes career-changing records, yet somehow he had put his own unmistakable stamp on each record. Regardless of genre differences, it’s quite possible to immediately identify a Daniel Lanois produced album when you hear it. It’s a very specific style: there’s a groundedness, a deep connection to all archetypal American music, a solid base in folk, funk and the blues, an earnest honesty, a certain electronic sheen- slightly industrial, but never jarring, a lo-fi hiss, a generous and well-balanced depth of field, a core musicality that shines through everything. Above all, Daniel Lanois has a deep repect for each performer’s musicianship.

The Neville Brothers – best known to most listeners because of brother Aaron’s unusual high tenor – had a patchy history of local New Orleans success prior to constituting themselves as an R&B outfit in 1975. Commercial success, however, remained elusive through subsequent studio and live albums. In 1988/89, they teamed up with Daniel Lanois and his then-engineer Malcolm Burn (now a renowned producer in his own right) to record what would become their career-high.

A deeply unique record in many ways, Yellow Moon is an atmospheric CD. Full of percussion, Lanois’ trademark dark synth pads and Charles Neville’s saxophone, the sound is a sort of lo-fi funk with a strong pan-African identity. There’s a definitive version of ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ here, two out-of-left-field but excellent Dylan covers (‘With God On Our Side’ and ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’) and a number of brilliant self-penned tracks.

While the radio single ‘Sister Rosa’ sounds slightly dated today due to its ‘early rap’ vocals, the most outstanding piece of music here is of course the title track. ‘Yellow Moon’ is a brilliant piece of sophisticated, bluesy, swamp-reggae, carried by Hammond licks, a tireless, lively bass line and propelled by Aaron’s plaintive, longing vocal.

Is she hid out with another? | Or is she trying to get back home? | Is she wrapped up in another’s arms? | Or is the girl somewhere all alone?

Like all the best pop music, this is pure emotional pain wrapped in transcendent musical beauty. It’s the kind of song that you have to play again and again when you first hear it. The sort of song that you’ll have in your headphones, late at night, and suddenly you’re standing in the middle of your living room swaying, with your eyes closed. The rest of the record – which is truly excellent, fantastic even – does fade slightly against the bright shooting star of this song. It’s a traditional R&B track at heart, something Sam Cooke might have written, timeless and traditional despite its electronic touches. Lanois, as always, finds how to be the conduit for this music and elevates great R&B to become part of the canon of classic American music, transcending the genre.

The Dylan covers mentioned above are quite incredible, too. ‘With God on Our Side’ becomes a gospel meditation, all low synth pads – the music itself is self-effacing here, almost not there at all – as a frame for Aaron’s heartfelt vocal. It’s a genuine surprise to hear this song – part of the core folk repertoire – so significantly transformed here. The Nevilles make it their own. ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’ is a lo-fi blues track, a dark, driving story song with an excellent slide guitar. Both tracks are great examples of how Aaron Neville’s voice, so fraught with adult contemporary meaning post Linda Ronstadt and one too many Christmas albums, can sound organic and authentic in the right context.

The Nevilles also do a version of A.P. Carter’s ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken,’ at first glance a hard-to-believe pick. But in the context of Lanois wall of amorphous synth sounds and a simple heartbeat thud as the backbeat, the brothers’ four-part harmonies affirm what you already know: American music really vanquishes racial boundaries and is rooted in a single sound. Johnny Cash and Elvis knew this, and so do the Neville Brothers and Daniel Lanois.

Hearing Yellow Moon 20 years after it was released continues to be a great joy. For those of you who don’t know it, this anniversary is a good time to get acquainted with a classic of the American repertoire.

Bible Belt

Diane Birch. S-Curve Records 2009, Audio CD, $3.99

A review of Diane Birch’s Bible Belt

It almost didn’t happen, my finding out about Diane Birch. My friend and coworker P. and I decided to visit our local Sunrise Records yesterday, on our way back from lunch. You know, two old people looking at CDs. And while I was mildly interested in seeing that Rodrigo y Gabriela have a new release out, the store guy kept telling us about what he was playing on the speakers: Diane Birch. How she was the new Norah Jones, “if this next song doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will,” that sort of thing. He was an older guy, too. And he was zeroing in on the only demographic that still buys CDs. It was a job well done, really, until he started telling us about how good-looking Diane Birch is. Neither of us could quite figure out why that should be a deciding factor, but I dutifully took a look at the CD cover where she appears dressed like Twiggy and gazes back at us with serious big eyes. I wasn’t buying it, or anything else for that matter.

P., on the other hand, rolled the dice and bought it. And so, back at the office, I made a copy, just to see if my on-the-spot judgment had been wrong.

And it was. Diane Birch is quite amazing, and this is a great record. The bio on her website summarizes the story to date: born in Michigan, spent her life in Southern Africa until she was about 10 (her dad was a missionary pastor), returned to the US, learned to play the piano, grew up, moved to LA to become a film composer, supported herself playing standards on the piano, learned to sing, learned to write songs, got a record deal, moved to New York. That’s the really short version. But since she’s only in her mid-20s, perhaps it isn’t really much longer than that.

The record is a remarkably likable blend of 70s female singer-songwriter styles with some pure r&b thrown in for good measure. Music people like to classify things by offering comparisons, and I’ve been thinking about that since yesterday. Everyone is comparing her to Norah Jones. There’s certainly something to that idea: she’s a singer-songwriter who got a young start, sounds mature beyond her years, plays a style that’s not “of her generation,” and uses authentic-sounding retro instrumentation. So that’s certainly one legitimate point of comparison. But it’s lacking in some core ways: this is the album that Norah Jones could have made instead of The Fall, her own new outing (which I’m not done listening to yet, but it certainly didn’t seem to provide the same level of immediate emotional resonance this has).

Other points of comparison might be Katie Melua (same clarity of voice, but Diane Birch has 1000% more substance and writes her own songs), Joss Stone (there’s some serious r&b singing going on here – Diane Birch is not in Joss Stone’s league but then again, that’s neither her game nor how she’s being marketed), or perhaps some of those white British retro-r&b singers, like Adele or Duffy.

The marketing bio on her website draws careful historical comparisons to Laura Nyro, Karen Carpenter and classic AM radio. I won’t comment on those alleged parallels, but this is big, friendly music with accessible melodies that had me humming more than once. The playing is tasteful and thoughtful throughout – she’s surrounded herself with the cream of the crop of New York session musicians, and the collective experience shows.

Ultimately, though, Diane Birch’s voice is the real star here: not too high, not too low, not too gritty – she has an everywoman voice, like Carole King perhaps. The most beautiful thing about her voice is that she never oversings, never strains, never becomes shrill. She displays a remarkable economy in her vocals that’s both admirable and really surprising in a singer so young. Her phrasing’s impeccable, too. Like other singers who don’t think of themselves as singers primarily, she knows how to shape her vocals with a self-effacing restraint that complements her music beautifully.

The songs are lovely, open, accessible and likable by the broadest cross-section of listeners. They are the sorts of songs you catch on the AM radio of your mind when driving on your imaginary California freeway. Another reviewer has said that the record should have been shorter by about three tracks but couldn’t really say which ones should have been cut. I’d counter that perhaps they all belong there. There really isn’t a weak song here. Even the slightly indulgent ones are charming and somehow work as part of the whole.

I, too, didn’t really want to like Diane Birch. I think her label’s marketing is not doing her justice, and the cover images (often the first and only thing you have to go on in a record store) produce some very strange cognitive friction. But the music is – unequivocally – glorious and deserves to be heard and loved.

Many of the houses on the Island are pretty basic but artistically adorned. This one’s shack is festively decorated with a universal pagan symbol.

This home struck us as the most modern and architecturally advanced on Centre Island. The view of the city skyline must be spectacular.

This seemed to be like a little Freecycle station: islanders appear to use this open air closet to get rid of unwanted junk.

The ‘parking lot’ outside the Rectory Café.

Footprints in the sand.

The Island seems to suffer from a high density of cast-off things stored in people’s yards. Here: a still life with Fender Rhodes. Fetching.

The Lake Ontario waves on a windy day.

Bicycles parked at the ferry dock, on our way back to Toronto.

Guy Garvey is a fabulously poetic lyricist and also a BBC Radio 6 DJ/presenter, but – alas – the BBC won’t allow downloads of his show outside of the UK.

So I’m there
Charging around with a juggernaut brow
Overdraft, speeches and deadlines to make
Cramming commitments like cats in a sack
Telephone burn and a purposeful gait

When out of a doorway the tentacles stretch
Of a song that I know
And the world moves in slow-mo
Straight to my head
like the first cigarette of the day

There’s a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall

Best thing to do is to find the ‘original’ videos on Youtube… the label turned off embedding, so I can only show the (also quite interesting) Abbey Road love recordings.

Mary’s Organic Crackers have become one of my staple foods lately. And since I use my blog/soapbox to write about things that I love and recommend, I felt that Mary deserved a shout-out.

Mary Waldner (interviews with her can be found here and here) was a psychotherapist for most of her career. A health-conscious mom and active baker, she was diagnosed with Celiac disease in 1994. Her son was also afflicted. Like many Celiacs (or those of us who find wheat gluten hard to digest), Mary soon discovered that it’s not easy to eat well because our society bases so many foods on wheat (wheat truly is in everything). When you also have a desire to eat healthily and avoid certain other foods (like GMO corn, trans fats, etc.), your options become so thin as to almost be non-existent.

Mary’s is a typical entrepreneurial success story: she developed her crackers at home, for her own use, and started to take them along to parties where should would eat them in lieu of chips or wheat crackers. relatives, friends and complete strangers started to like them, too. She made more and more crackers and started to give them away. In 2004, Mary’s Gone Crackers was founded and began producing the crackers more industrially (in the US, they’re sold as Mary’s Gone Crackers, and I can’t for the life of me work out why they would choose to change that in Canada). They now have US and Canadian distribution and are typically available in health food stores or healthy sections of regular grocery stores. At between $4 and $6 per box, they’re not cheap, but they’re totally delicious.

Mary’s Crackers are made from brown rice, quinoa, flax seeds, sesame seeds and (wheat-free) tamari. They have a hard bite and a satisfying nutty flavour and can be eaten by themselves, but they’re better with some hummus or another healthy dip/slather. Or you could serve them with cheese.

Best of all, Mary’s Crackers feel like they’re a sinfully delicious crunchy snack but are actually healthy food. When I have Mary’s Crackers around, I don’t feel any need to have chips (or other salty snacks).

Because every ingredient is organic and the crackers contain flax seeds, I’ve discovered that they’re best stored in the fridge. I do buy rather a lot of boxes when I go grocery shopping, and I’ve had the odd one go slightly rancid on me when I used to store them in my pantry, so now they’re in the fridge.

Breakfast these days is frequently: a bowl of oatmeal with organic maple syrup, a handful of cashews or almonds, a cut-up apple, and some Mary’s Crackers with hummus. Low nutritional stress, high satisfaction and good health. What more could you want?

All over Toronto, “Urban Fresh” Sobeys have sprung up in the last two years. For those not from Toronto, Sobeys is a large Canadian grocery store chain. The “Urban Fresh” stores are unholy, small ’boutique’ grocery stores aimed squarely at cooking-challenged young urbanites. They present themselves as filled with ‘healthy’ fast food options (there’s lots of prepared food, expensive luxury brands, frequently to the exclusion of regular budget brands, an olive bar, a whole display case of individual cake slices, etc.) but ultimately, they’re the worst of the industrial food compex: limited, expensive, unhealthy and wasteful. Sobeys “Urban Fresh” is where self-respecting, right-thinking people who care about their bodies and our world shouldn’t buy groceries. It’s the sort of place you should only go to when you’re in a pickle.

Almost Perfect is the anti-Sobeys. Located near Sheppard and Keele, it offers brand name food at dramatically reduced prices. The food got there because of damaged packaging, manufacturer closeouts, overstocks or changes of packaging. Almost Perfect is clean, reasonably well presented and looks like a grocery store. Most brands are recognizable, and in 95% of cases, it’s clear why the food is there: cans are dented, outer cardboard packages may be slightly torn (but the inside vacuum packages are perfectly intact), outer wrappers may be missing. Some items are past their manufacturer’s expiry date but have been frozen before that date was reached; the store has a helpful sign that assists with decoding the various “sell by” and “use by” dates on packages, and what they mean here.

It’s the sort of place that does well on the fringes of suburbia, and there’s only one in Toronto proper; the others are in Ajax, Oshawa, Whitby or Peterborough. The typical clientele, I imagine, consists of young penny-pinching families, those living just above the poverty line, and older, retired folks who are on a fixed income, and whose dollars go much further at Almost Perfect.

Unfortunately, Almost Perfect is also the sort of place that hip ecologically conscious urbanites wouldn’t be seen dead in. You don’t see any Zip Cars in the parking lot on Saturday mornings. No urban warriors cycle here to fill their baskets with fabulously cheap foods.

If saying no to industrially produced imported food is one side of the personal activism coin, surely Almost Perfect is the other side. In the same way that we think Second Harvest is a great idea (collecting unused food from fast food outlets and delivering it to social service programs), we should also rally around Almost Perfect. Not primarily because of the savings (though these can be considerable in these recessionary times; we bought about $80-$100 worth of various soy meats, sweet potato chips, loose leaf tea and other veggie-friendly stuff for around $30), but because things shouldn’t be thrown away when they’re slightly damaged or don’t look perfect. And as anyone who’s ever opened a can or frozen package well after its expiry date and found the food inside perfectly fresh can attest, those dates mean very little when things are stored properly.

Buying frozen food at Almost Perfect should be cool in the same way as buying a “pre-loved” pair of recycled jeans at Value Village, or getting a weekly organic produce box directly from a local farm. These may be small things in the greater scheme, but the greater scheme will benefit tremendously from them, as will your savings account.

How would you move house without these? This is the ideal moving bag. From humble beginnings as a $1 useful item available in large boxes at the Ikea checkout, these are now officially one of the most useful things I have in my household. While they’re obviously too large to take them grocery shopping, they’re ideal for moving soft things (pillows, blankets, clothes) and assorted lighter ’stuff’ that doesn’t mind being jumbled together, like shoes.

They also have a satisfying crumple sound – a bit like a sail maybe, or tarp. While you certainly can’t use them to sneak stuff around in, their crunchy nature signifies that they don’t mess around. Apparently, you can carry up to 60kg (130 pounds) in them.

When it’s winter, I find I let things slide. Or maybe they slide all by themselves, and I just don’t do anything about them. That’s often because I find I’m quite unaware that something needs doing. Take, for instance, some inflation issues I encountered recently (no, not of the economic kind…).

This is the first year I am parking outside overnight. Previously, I had been in nice, hermetically sealed shoebox-like condos with underground parking. There, my car didn’t really encounter winter until I drove it outside. It got a little crusty as I drove it from parking garage to parking garage, but really, winter was something we both ventured into only for brief periods of time. So tire inflation issues weren’t really something I was particularly familiar with. Imagine my surprise when I realized just how much tire pressure (10% or more) my brand new tires lost over the course of a couple of weeks at -20°C! I found myself wondering why my Subaru’s steering was off and things were feeling a little, well, sloshier than even the sloshiest of Toronto’s icy streets should. I was also mystified about why my fuel consumption seemed way up… I thought, “Okay, a cold engine might use more fuel, but…”

So I stopped by my friendly neighbourhood gas station (okay, it’s actually a completely impersonal chain gas station that gives you ‘points’ every time you fill up; I just like saying ‘friendly’ and ‘neighborhood’) and properly inflated my tires. What a difference!

Another thing I realized a month or so ago was just how bad my mattress had become. When bought, a number of years ago, it seemed like a good one – expensive and properly supportive. Maybe a little too fluffy in that 18″ pillow top kind of way. But okay. What the pillow top masked, for me at least, was how unsupportive the underlying structure had become. It was sagging in the middle, and its occupants would sort of roll into the centre. When this was pointed out to me recently, I bit the bullet and went to my friendly neighbourhood mattress store (there is actually one in the neighbourhood but it, too, is a bit soulless, filled with salespeople pretending to be sleep consultants). $700 later and I’m now the proud owner of a brand-spanking-new mattress. My back thanked me immediately and continues to thank me every day.

Clearly, winter is a season that requires me to be more structured and organized than I normally need to be. Nothing feels naturally as if it needs doing; my caveman instincts tell me it’s time to bury myself in my home, stay inside, consume the food I have stored in my cupboards and hibernate. From now on, I think winter will require me to make lists and check items off as I go. The relief of addressing these two things was immediately tangible, so I think I’ll continue to go through my list of things I don’t want to know about (or do) as winter turns into spring.

YourFonts offers a free online utility to create a TrueType font based on your handwriting. Basically, you download a 2-page PDF form that you print out and fill in, in your handwriting. Then you scan the two pages and upload them to YourFonts. There, they are processed into a TrueType font that you can download and install. Instructions are pretty clear throughout. The site seems to be a bit shaky at times… I think it’s related to volume and time of day. Also, there’s a field for “signature” on the first page of the form template that I chose not to fill in. I assume the idea is that you’d get your signature as part of your font but I’m not too comfortable with uploading my signature anywhere (it works fine without the signature).

At Peter and Annette’s house, 6-10 writers regularly congregated as the “Lansdowne Local.” Originally conceived as a ‘local’ chapter of the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW), my memory now suggests that it may never have been formally constituted as such, probably because politics, though ever-present (these were heady times in South Africa), were never the primary reason to meet and read. I met a number of past, present and future luminaries of the South African literary scene and was lucky to have them listen to my often meager novice attempts at writing poems. I wrote and wrote and wrote… after realizing, through Peter’s thoughtful mentoring, that writing creatively was 90% sweat. You had to show up and do the work.

Reading in front of others was initially hard but became easier after the first few successes. Poets are a welcoming lot, and the encouraging words from people who wrote much better than I helped me a lot. I was published in a few “Landsdowne Local” anthologies, small publications created on Peter’s then cutting-edge personal computer and printed locally (university printers, undoubtedly).

In 1994, I moved away and stopped being part of the small community that supported and encouraged me. So I stopped writing poetry. Simple as that.

Lately, I have found a few of my old poems, dusty and hidden under layers of digital debris, strewn across the far reaches of the Internet. Two were posted by myself almost exactly 15 years ago in rec.arts.poems. The Wayback Machine has a few more, published by Peter on a no-longer-there version of UCT’s website. I must have 3.5″ floppy disks with many more on them somewhere. Of course, I don’t have a floppy disk drive anymore, so it’s anyone’s guess if I’ll ever be able to retrieve them (or whether the disks would still work after all these years in storage).

I’ll post one or two of the better ones from 15 years ago here. And maybe I’ll write some new ones one of these days.