Paging Mr Proust

For a while The Jayhawks were just about my favourite band on the planet.
I have a copy of their 1986 debut album The Jayhawks/Bunkhouse Tapes and then the next six all the way up to  2003's Rainy Day Music. I also saw them on a number of occasions during that period.

Since then they have been much less prolific releasing only four further albums from 2011 up to this year's XOXO.
I've recently been making it my business to *ahem* acquire these later albums.
One such album is Paging Mr Proust from 2016 on the Thirty Tigers label and produced by Peter Buck.
The band's line up is Gary Louris, Marc Perlman,Tim O'Reagan, Karen Grotberg and Kraig Johnson all of whom have featured on previous albums (all of them in Louris and Perlman's cases) and is the same personnel that played on 2000's Smile

I wasn't that impressed on first listen but after another couple of plays I'm beginning to find one or two things that suggest that whereas it is not a patch on the band in their prime it coul well become a grower. Some nice acoustic type tunes and harmonies with Gary Louris enjoying a brief thrash on the guitar on a couple of occasions.

The Jayhawks - Lovers in the Sun

The Jayhawks - The Devil Is In Her Eyes

Second is Better than First. Part 7.

George writes:
I was wondering how I could communicate the first two albums of Furgone di Piufiglio without incurring the wrath of the takedown squad. But it turns out that the tedious Astral Weeks is his second release. Instead I will turn my attention to the makers of the at-times My Favourite Album Of All Time. Like many albums I have written about and will write about, the albums today were purchased out of sequence, the first Calexico album I bought was Hot Rail. I suspect that the (at-times) MFAOAT was the second one of theirs I acquired. Then that well-known Collector Syndrome kicked in and The Black Light and Spoke were purchased (the latter from Reveal Records in Derby, who labelled it a bargain at £9).

Spoke is a perfectly fine album, plenty of good tracks on it. There’s a range of musical styles, “Scout”, for example, is a twangy-surfy instrumental, “Navy Cut” is very much an americana track, as is “Point Vicente”, there’s some of that mariachi/latin influences in some tracks (“Mazurka”), and interspersed are some brief ambient instrumentals. And here’s the album stand-out wistful americana track:

Calexico - Removed

The Black Light is a more musically consistent album than Spoke, the songs all have that mexican-latin feel that is associated with the band (although the piano in “Chach” does veer into Aladdin Sane territory). There’s plenty of steel guitar on this album, as can be heard on here:

Calexico - Missing

And there’s this mariachi track (that reminds of the theme tune to The High Chaparral - I wonder if Calexico were fans, there is the Arizona connection.)

Calexico - Minas de cobre (for better metal)

This album is one of those that, a few tracks in, you realise is better than the sum of its parts, it just seems to get better as you are listening to it. Of course, they have done better albums, and they have also done worse. And Spoke is by no means a “why oh why did I buy this” album, but The Black Light is one of those Second Is Better Than First albums.

Thank you kindly

CC writes

Now that’s more like it!

The Black Light also has the better cover

Stranger in the Alps

I bought Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers with some of my birthday money.
Given my warped logic I figure that this enables me now to feature a track from her previous (and debut) album Stranger in the Alps released on the Dead Oceans label in 2017.
Until just reading it I was unaware that the album's title is a reference to the edited-for-TV version of The Big Lebowski. I bet Rol knew that.
The cover is somewhat strange but I quite like it.

This is just a coincidence  (honest) but the featured song Motion Sickness is about her emotionally abusive relationship with Ryan Adams (moral dilemma)

Stranger In The Alps alchemizes sorrow into redemptive beauty. - Josh Modell of the A.V. Club


Phoebe Bridgers - Motion Sickness

Heaven or Hell 15

Another reasonably straightforward victory for Heaven as The Jayhawks triumph over the Pistol Annies by 6 votes to 3
That's 3 out if the last 4 for Heaven taking the score to Hell 9 Heaven 5. Some of you are maybe getting cold feet but at the same time are reluctant to warm your tootsies in the fires of Hell.

Will this be the one that takes us over the edge?
Two splendid rackets for you this week as Glasgow takes on Saint Paul, Minnesota.

In the Glasgow corner and banging the drum for Hell are The Primevals with Living in Hell. With a name like that it was unlikely that they would be singing about heaven I suppose.
I refuse to believe that Saint Paul is more heavenly than Glasgow but Hüsker Dü appear to think so as they pay homage to The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill
Heaven Hill is a distillery in Bairdston, Kentucky - maybe there is method in their madness after all.

Who's it going to be
Heaven or Hell, the choice is yours.

Huskur Du - The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill

The Primevals - Living in Hell

ChangesNowBowie

ChangesNowBowie was recorded in 1996 on the run up to Bowie's 50th Birthday Concert at Madison Square Garden and featured on the BBC along with an interview and a number of tributes on his birthday on 8th January 1997 and only recently released as part of this year's Record Shop Day.
Only nine mostly acoustic tracks on which he is joined by Gail Ann Dorsey (bass/vocals), Reeves Gabrel (guitars/vocals) and Mark Plati (keyboards and Programming).

David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World (ChangesNowBowie)

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (ChangesNowBowie)

Lovely stuff

50 Americana Albums You Should Hear Before You Die - Faithless Street

Whiskeytown  from Raleigh, North Carolina were always going to feature in this series
It was just a toss up as to which of their three studio albums to feature. Good though it is the final one 2001's Pneumonia was fairly quickly ruled out.
So a toss up between 1995's Faithless Street and 1997's Stangers Almanac. A close call but Faithless Street won the day mainly because I  have the re-issued extended version from 1998 on Outpost Recordings which omits Oklahoma but includes 9 extra tracks including Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight which is probably the best song on Strangers Almanac.

One of the seminal Americana bands the line up on Faithless Street was Ryan Adams (Guitar and vocals), Caitlin Cary (violin and vocals), Eric "Skillet" Gilmore (drums), Steve Grothmann (bass) and Phil Wandscher (guitar, vocal)
Listed in alphabetical order but perhaps no surprise that the two most well known artists feature first.
Ryan Adams obviously went on to enjoy an extremely successful solo career  but has caused me a moral dilemma which I will touch on below.
Caitlin Cary also enjoyed some solo success and recorded with Tres Chicas, The Small Ponds,NC Music Love Army and Thad Cockrell (thanks for the copy of Begonias Ernie ) She takes the lead on the wonderful Matrimony

Whiskeytown - Drank Like a River

Whiskeytown - Faithless Street

Whiskeytown - Matrimony

Moral diemma time.
Ryan Adams has always been  a spoilt brat with an ego the size of Texas. While annoying I can live with that.
As things stand he is scheduled to feature later in this series.
However he has been accused of  a pattern of manipulative behaviour in which he dangled career opportunities while simultaneously pursuing female artists for sex.  here
The accusers include a girl who was 14 at the time and the singer Phoebe Bridgers. Adams has always protested his innocence but has recently apologised for "mistreating" women

I'm inclined to believe the women although  it appears that he is now contrite possibly because his career and reputation are on the line. Given this I'm in two minds as to whether to feature him or not and would welcome your views.
I've no qualms about featuring him as part of Whiskeytown because there are other band members who do not deserve to be tainted by association. A bit like Morrissey and The Smiths

Kite

2020 Charity Shop Purchase 28   - Kirsty MacColl - Kite

The second time Kirsty has appeared via a charity shop this year following my gift of Don't Come the Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim! which coincidentally is a track from Kite.
Also the second time that Days has appeared here in as many weeks

From 1989 Kite is Kirsty's second album and her best.Her first album on Virgin and produced by her then husband Steve Lillywhite.
Up til now there wasn't a copy on the shelves but I found myself singing along to every song as I had a copy on cassette many moons ago.

While everyone remembers Kirsty as a great singer it is easy to forget that she was also a terrific songwriter.
Taken from us much too soon when she was hit by a powerboat when diving off the coast of Mexico. As the powerboat was owned by a multi millionaire money talked,  there was a cover up and it took a lengthy campaign to get some but not all the answers

Kirsty MacColl - Days

Kirsty MacColl - Fifteen Minutes

Kirsty MacColl - Dancing in Limbo

Has anyone else been switched to the new Blogger format?
It's very hard to navigate, work out how to schedule posts and put on pictures.
I've reverted back to the legacy version