Guest Post: Michelle's Favorite Record

My Favorite Record

by Michelle Cornelison

My favorite vinyl record in my collection is The Creek Drank the Cradle by Iron
& Wine, released on Sub Pop records in 2002. I won’t go to much into the context and specifics of its release because I want to focus on its structure in the LP format.

This is my favorite record to listen to. The album art is, on the whole,
unremarkable—no fancy heavyweight double LPs with full color storybooks here, which is pretty typical of a Sub Pop vinyl release. It does have a modest insert with lyrics and a few images, one of which I actually just realized looks like a drypoint etching, which is a pretty cool side note. I call this my favorite because it is the one I listen to most often (the record that is, not the album in general). Many of us have certain albums or bands we enjoy especially during a specific season or time of day. In The Creek Drank the Cradle I have found a collection of songs that fit all seasons, all moments.

The first time I ever listened to this album in full was in the vinyl format. I know this is cheesy, but I remember the day clearly. I spent nearly the whole morning in my room painting the walls green, with the sun shining in the windows, taking breaks to flip records. I remember thinking how perfect this album was for the occasion, specifically “Rooster Moans,” the fifth track on side one.

Another thing worth noting about The Creek Drank the Cradle is the first song. First songs are so important for an entire album to be good. I don’t know about you, but I am very much an album person when it comes to listening to music. Maybe it comes from being an artist, but I really value experiencing the songs the way the artist intended. But if I find myself needing to skip over songs when listening to an album, I will certainly still listen to it, but it will most likely never become a favorite. All that chatter to say, the first song, “Lion’s Mane” is spectacular, and anyone who has listened to it must know that it is the auditory equivalent of basking in the sun with your eyes closed. It’s a great one for waking up. Records always have two first songs though (or four, etc.; one for each side). The second first song, “Southern Anthem,” is also strong.

Last songs are equally important (and again, this record has two). Maybe I am being ridiculous, but when the break between sides of a record does not feel like a natural pause it makes me uneasy. (But I shouldn’t complain; I suppose the more abrupt the changeover is the less likely I am to accidentally leave the needle dragging around the center of the record for half an hour). The last song on the first side is both heavenly and haunting. It is without question my favorite on the album, and possibly my favorite by the artist. It is definitely a falling asleep song. I encourage you to find it and listen—even as
a single track, from your computer, although it is even better with the whole album. The actual last track is a good one (“Muddy Hymnal”), but I think some of the previous songs could have better served as the finale, especially “Weary Memory.” I think it might be because “Muddy Hymnal” is such a short song, at less than three minutes.

And so ends my endorsement of this excellent release from Sub Pop, which I recommend to listeners of all ages and backgrounds (I guess except for the fourth track, which contains a certain contentious word. But every other song is lullaby-appropriate). I will conclude with the lyrics to my favorite track, “Upward Over the Mountain.” Cheers.



Mother don’t worry, I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed.
Mother don’t worry, I’ve got some money I save for the weekend.
Mother, remember being so stern with that girl who was with me?
Mother, remember the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body?

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten.
Sons are like birds, flying upward over the mountain.

Mother I made it up from the bruise of a floor of this prison.
Mother I lost it, all of the fear of the Lord I was given.
Mother forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to.
Mother forgive me, I sold your car for the shoes that I gave you.

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten.
Sons can be birds taken broken up to the mountain.

Mother don’t worry, I’ve got a coat and some friends on the corner.
Mother don’t worry, she’s got a garden we’re planting together.
Mother, remember the night that the dogs had her pups in the pantry?
Blood on the floor, the fleas on their paws, and you cried ‘til the morning.

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten.
Sons are like birds, flying always over the mountain.

Live Trumps All

Although records are wonderful ways of listening to music (especially for a personal experience and contemplation/analysis) any sort of recording will most often be trumped by a genuine live performance.

Last night I had the pleasure to view a few local Atlanta bands play at the Drunken Unicorn. The show overall was not bad, with the Society of Ghosts opening the night and Street Violence as the final act. I was personally captivated the most by the band that performed in between the two, named Red Sea. They played a great set, coming primarily from their newest EP titled, Weird Problem..

The band consists of four members: Kyle Sherrill and Stephen Luscre, playing back and fourth harmonies on guitars; Mick Mayer, playing bass and singing vocals with Kyle; and Rick Mayer on the drums. Their sound is unlike most that I have heard coming out lately, keeping things simple while using harmony and layering to provoke interest and add complexity. Many bands that have been popping up recently are composed of as many people with as many instruments that can fit on stage (which by no means is a bad thing), which leads to a exciting and chaotic atmosphere. Staying away from this template, Red Sea seems to be much more focused, concentrating on the science and technique of music writing and working within the realm of few instruments to organize the sounds amplified and create a landscape that is not completely revealed in a single listening.

I saw Red Sea perform in the Fall at a small house show and remember being intrigued by their music then. In the last week they popped back into my head, like a memory that got temporarily buried. When I was informed that they were playing by a mutual friend, I decided to go watch them again. Before the show I listened to a few of their songs online, because I truthfully had forgotten what I had heard in the Fall.

While experiencing the live show I realized a few things about their music that did not jump out at me during that exclusively auditory preview. For example, the two guitarists have certain techniques for creating these captivating harmonies; they often play the same chords while using different strumming or picking patterns or strum the same pattern while playing different chords. Also, getting to see people sing harmonies live is more revealing than when they are recorded.

Overall, Red Sea seems to be a band that could go somewhere, taking influences from post-rock and pop-rock, with the sense of pulling grunge out of the swamp of ambiguity and giving it a little more of a backbone. I am excited to see what might come next.


*While this video is not of the best quality, I wanted to use a media that most closely would represent the live performance. But I highly recommend the procuring of these songs to be listened to with quality headphones.

LP Art: Explosions in the Sky

As records are becoming more of a collectors item and something that both the creator and buyer puts a heavy penny into, they are also being thought of as a more visual implementation of artistic expression to assist the auditory.

One band that has utilized album art in many of their records is Explosions In The Sky. I own three of their records, two of which (All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place) are among the most beautiful and intricate on the shelf. E.I.T.S. is a four piece, American instrumental post-rock band from Texas that uses intricate layers of guitar melodies backed by bold and often sporadic drum beats to create expressive and emotional experiences. They began in 1999 and were heavily influenced by bands such as Mogwai and Dirty Three, two other instrumental bands often placed in the post-rock genre.

One of my favorite albums to pull out and show people as an example of really great album art that could not be replicated by a CD or digital media is All Of a Sudden I Miss Everyone.

This record was released in February of 2007. The art within it was done by Esteban Rey, who is also the band's tour manager. Not only is the image that appears on the cover, alone beautiful and reminiscent of the art of Van Gogh and Manet; it is also replicated on the D side of the record itself through an etching.

The use of this extra space on records is being more and more often used for these types of etchings (and as someone who has been through an undergraduate degree in Printmaking, I find this detail to always be a wonderful surprise).

In terms of the listening experience of this record, it is definitely one of a continuous nature. Each song feels like a part of the whole and the entire record has an ebb and flow that begs not to be disrupted.

There has been speculation that the themes of the song titles and the title of the record has a direct relation to the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. The title is a short summary of the last part of the book, when the main character Holden tells the reader, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." There are also major themes in the book of isolation, fear, home, normality, and tragedy. These ideas could be alluded to in song titles such as, It's Natural To Be Afraid, What Do You Go Home To?, and So Long, Lonesome. I am not sure if this is the exact intention of the musicians, but it is an interesting idea and literary relation to ponder.

In this post I have included a digital representation of the album, but if I could I would invite you all over to hear and watch it spinning on my turntable.

*Extra Note: The band is releasing a new record Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, this month and they have gone even further with the album art included. It is another visual creation by Esteban and is tempting me to splurge of the rather high price and add it to my collection....

Vinyl Week!

In congruence with Records Store Day, which occurred nationwide this past Saturday, I will being doing a week long tribute to Vinyl.

There is a recent surge in the vinyl industry that has been taken place within the past few years. Many people attribute the rise in records to the "trend" factor that has also been attached to antique toys and vintage clothes, but there is a specific rationale behind this social instinct.

FIRST of all, there is a beauty in the technology of record players themselves.
Invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, its earliest form of the recorded audio technology consisted of cylinder shaped tinfoil sheets that had audio recordings engraved on the outside surface and were then read and played by a mechanical "phonograph". This later developed into what we now recognize and still produce as vinyl records.

Most of us who own records find ourselves mesmerized by the way that a small wire (needle) can run its way along the canals and ridges of a record and produce the crisp and clear sounds of the musicians that we love.

Most importantly there is an intentionality behind the creation of a record, the purchasing of a record, and the listening experience.

CREATION
The term "concept album" is one that is now often thrown around in the music industry, but at one point in time concept albums were all that existed. Artists created albums as full hour or so long listening experience. The only times that songs would be isolated were for publicity purposes (giving the audience a small taste of the whole). Today this is lost in our MTV driven culture of hit singles and sound bites. Often people do not even take the time to listen to a single song all the way through, let alone an entire album.

The creation of a vinyl record forces the listener to have that all encompassing experience of the music. You put the beautiful black disc on the turntable and watch it spin.


PURCHASING
These are bulky, heavy, and weather sensitive objects that cost a bit to create and own; so people who purchase them do so for very specific reasons.

Whether it is an artist that you have loved for years or one which you compulsively decide to invest in, there is always a memory and sentiment that comes with the purchasing of a record. Like Rob does in the film High Fidelity, people can often think of the storyline of their lives by the records that they own.


LISTENING EXPERIENCE
When you put on a record it's an entire experience that you are investing time into. There is a location aspect--it can't happen while you're walking down the street or in class when you're distracting yourself from the lecture happening. When you decide to listen to a record it's because you want to really listen to the music. It is active and genuine.


In this next week I will be expanding on the topic of vinyl records by going into my own record collection and pulling out ones that I feel the experience of the music is drastically and genuinely heightened by the medium. I will be focusing in on the flow of the music within albums and also the art that is incorporated even more strongly in the contemporary production of records.

Live Music Alert

There is a show going on tonight at the Star Bar. The artists playing are ADRON, Little Tybee, and Beau Victrola. There is a $5 cover and the show begins at 9pm.

This is going to be a sort of family show, with musicians from each of the bands moving from one set to the other and performing alongside each other. All of them have been friends for a long time, which should lead to a great cohesive atmosphere.

Adron is a wonderful folk, tropical musician, gathering inspiration from many genres and creating songs that bring smiles to everyone in the crowd. Her voice is nearly flawless and she can whistle as well as any bird. Playing along side her are Josh Martin on the 8-string guitar, Colin Agnew on percussion (both of Little Tybee), and a few others. The entire show should be great so don't miss it!

Covers: Art they or aren't they?

Today we're going to be discussing the music of Cat Power and more specifically the wealth of songs that she has covered throughout her career. Cat Power, or Chan Marshall (age 39) has grown to be a fairly widely known singer/songwriter for her emotional breathy vocals, minimalist style, and simple but arousing guitar parts. She has produced nine records ranging from her first, Dear Sir, which exemplifies her grungy start, playing in Brooklyn warehouses; to her latest, Jukebox, which includes much more up-beat, polished, jazz and blues inspired songs such as "Aretha, Sing One for Me".

Though her style is one of originality--mixing the feelings of grunge and old blues or jazz--within all of the albums that Chan has made there are a large amount of songs thrown in that are not originals. In 2000 she came out with The Covers Record, in which she she recreates the songs of musicians including The Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Moby Grape, Smog, Nina Simone, Lou Reed and even herself.

To get more down deep into these songs and trying to figure out why or even if cover songs can be considered art, I am going to be

comparing one specific cover by Chan to the original version. Things I would like to discuss are questions such as: What happens when an artist's source for content starts somewhere outside of them? How can a musician creating covers get their audience to take them seriously? Can a cover ever be art?

AESTHETICS

The album begins with a song that we have all heard, but that Chan Marshall has rendered somewhat unrecognizable. The first track, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", originally a Rolling Stones classic, begins with a simple, but beautiful guitar part and Chan's calm, emotive, and almost haunting voice. The first feeling and device that she seems to completely alter in the song is the pace. She has taken it down (more than) a few notches, losing the up-beat, repetitive tempo that the song originally had. While the Stones version makes you sway your hips and want to dance around the room, Marshall's cover draws you into a state of calm or contemplation.

CONTENT

In the last verse of the song she sings the lines, "When I'm riding around the globe, and I'm doing this, and I'm signing that, and I'm trying, and I'm trying". She seems to be professing the lyrics to the listener with a sensibility and passion, which is quite different from the version by the Stones. Jagger sings the lyrics with a far more blunt tone, referring more to that of protest and frustration.

Marshall's subtle but expressive singing style is a huge attribution to the emotions expressed in the lyrics. Also by including only her own acoustic guitar part in the song, the minimal style places a larger emphasis on the lyrics themselves instead of creating a greater musical landscape to get lost in.

SOCIAL/HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Rolling Stones song, "Satisfaction" is played in restaurants and bars around the nation and is known as a quintessential song of rebellion against consumerism and the status quo. Released in 1965 it has a very specific context that it belongs to. Cat Power's covers are often from artists such as the Stones or Bob Dylan, musicians who have become idols in our popular culture, even reaching into today.

Even though she chooses these artists that are constantly covered and played, the songs she re-creates do not seems to be simply tributes to them. There is a sense that in the way that she strips down the lyrics and music of these songs, she exposes parts of them that were once more difficult to pull out.

*I of course have to admit that as an avid Cat Power listener and I fan of a lot of slower, emotive music, my writing might be somewhat swayed. Because of this fact I would really enjoy other's opinions on the topic, including the bringing up of other covers and reactions.

The Books in Athens

So last night I had the great privilege to see the band, The Books, play live in Athens, GA. The show was at the New Earth Music Hall and included an opening performance by my good friend Graham, playing under the title of Thick Paint. Both sets were great and got positive feedback from the large audience that came out for the show. This was my second time seeing The Books play live and was as inspiring and engaging as it was last October in Atlanta.

Now onto the music...

AESTHETICS
This pensive performance created an atmosphere which seemed to be a state somewhere between a meditation, a compelling documentary, and a lighthearted but truthful comic act. They use samples from various sources, including talk boxes, old obscure videos, acupuncture tapes, and geese, mixed with their own instruments (cello, five-string base, guitar, violin, keyboard, and vocals) to sculpt an auditory landscape that is dynamic, contemplative, and often quite captivating. Each song usually is formed around some sort of found content or a theme which all of the layers are then built off of.

Another large component to the overall experience of their music, especially as it is performed live, is visual. A portion of their samples come from some sort of video footage, so it is intuitive for them to then created a video expression for each song. They have been creating these videos pretty much since they have been creating their music. Seeing it all live, unable to escape this visual part of the experience, lets the viewers get the experience in its entirety.

FORM/CONTENT
The band itself is made up of Nick Zammuto (guitar, bass, and vocals) and Paul de Jong (cello) and more recently has acquired a new member, Gene Back (violin, guitar, keyboard). The form of the music that The Books create is atypical and unlike much else. It correlates to collage work in the visual arts world it the way that it cuts things out of their context and places them together to create a new revelation. They use the composition process of music to link together various different clips from an assortment of sources, often that would not otherwise be connected.

In the song that I am looking more into today, Take Time, there are clips from Medea by Pasolini, an Italian film maker; an audiobook of Ecclesiastes read by an Israeli diplomat; and others of more obscurity. The repetition of the artists singing "take time" with the inclusion of relating phrases from multiple cultures and time emphasizes a sense of this concept of patience and intention being one of universal truth.

The song begins with the phrase in Italian:

"Tutto è santo. Tutto è santo. Tutto è santo. Non c'è niente di naturale nella natura ragazzo mio. Tienilo bene in mente."

Translated to:

"All is sacred, all is sacred, all is sacred. There is nothing natural in Nature, my lad, remember that!"

This is a beautiful thought that we often do not meditate on. What makes certain parts of our world worth more than others. Why is the leaf of a tree considered a sacred part of nature while the small piece of metal in your computer is not? Both serve a significant purpose for a greater system and serve their time while eventually coming to an end. There is nothing that can ever exist that will not have implications or impact on something else in the world. Often in our culture we rush through our routines and days without noticing the details that compose to make a whole.

The Books are giving us this song as a meditation on time and contemplation. Maybe all of these small parts of life are in all actuality the most significant or gratifying and by overlooking them, we are missing out of the greatest part of existence.