Category Archives: folk

Set My Soul At Ease

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It was during season 14 of Saturday Night Live that I first heard of Edie Brickell. I watched every episode religiously that year, so that I could return on Monday to the first of many Algebra classes I had failed and re-hash the entire episode with Mike Popowski. We would roll in the aisles laughing about Giant Business Man, Church Chat, Girl Watchers, Sweeney Sisters, The Anal Retentive Chef, Hans and Franz, Pat Stevens, eventually Wayne’s World, then to close out the season the sketch that would absolutely kill – Toonces! Then there were the “commercials.” The Change Bank. I have always loved this one. We can handle requests like that; usually the same day.

Back to Edie Brickell. I watched SNL in the TV in my teenage bedroom. I didn’t have a DVR. There was no such thing. I didn’t have a VCR. Never mind what that is. There was no pause, no rewind, no let’s go look that up online. I had one shot to remember these sketches and one shot to be introduced to some of these artists.

So when this mousy girl from Texas got up and started singing strung-together existential silliness in the song “What I Am”, I just wasn’t sure how to react at first! I joked about it at school. But I looked further and I kind of got into folk sensation Edie Brickell and New Bohemians.

SNL has played a major role in Brickell’s life, since it was during her performance on the show two years later that she met her future husband, Paul Simon. Literally, she was performing a song, he got in the way of the camera, she flubbed her lyric, and then the two were married two years later in 1992. Following this union, they had three children, Brickell released two solo albums, and then reunited with the New Bohemians to record another album. After that Edie and Paul’s son from his first marriage formed a band called The Heavy Circles with a few other famous children. She formed another band with yet more artists last year. The indie and folk flow and creativity that must be going through this woman’s life at all times… Speaking of Bohemian!

So here we are in 2011, and we have a new album not only from Edie Brickell but also from The Gaddabouts, her most recent formation.  Brickell writes a lot of songs on the fly – some get written and recorded the same day – and to keep the sound of her latest solo album pure and organic, she has included several live tracks.  It’s not that she tours, but she does perform live shows here and there.  She opened for one of our favorites, Iron and Wine.

Maybe one of the cleanest, sweetest songs on Brickell’s latest release (self titled) is Track 3, “Been So Good.”

Click to Enjoy Edie Brickell – Been So Good

Don’t forget you’re the best one that I’ve ever known.

Grab the album. Edie Brickell is a talented musician who isn’t always around when you expect her.

crooning from the darkness

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What do you do after you’ve nailed multiple genres and been in highly-respected bands like Murder City Devils and Pretty Girls Make Graves? You change it up again, of course.

Derek Fudesco, of the previously mentioned bands, is now a member of The Cave Singers. Their third album No Witch dropped this week. It’s a folksy romp of an album full of understated guitars and melodies that could bring the Hatfields and McCoys together for an afternoon luncheon. It made me want to drink a bottle of moonshine and dance around in bare feet. In other words, it’s got a downhome swagger that you just can’t avoid. Here’s the opening track as an example.

Click to play The Cave Singers – Gifts And The Raft

The key is the album’s simplicity. The production is very clean but there’s never too much going on. These guys aren’t trying to overwhelm you with a ton of music, they just want to overwhelm you with GOOD music. It works. I’m particularly hooked on the slinkly track “Falls” right now.

Click to play The Cave Singers – Falls

I’d put this album right up with some of the better folk/blues albums around right now. The Cave Singers can hang with The Black Keys, sure. Just let me know so I can be around to listen in.

Click to play The Cave Singers – Haystacks

A bit of a sidetrack on what to post

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So I had a grand plan on what to post this week. After a long Sunday night in which I went to see “Little” Louie Vega play, I was dumbfounded by the number of songs I hadn’t heard in literally years. However, as the typical man with a problem involving his attention span, that has changed. Last night I heard a track that made me rack my brain to find out what it sounded like.

The band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros seems to have made quite the splash amongst the indie rock gods that be. Their strange overly melodic songs are reminiscent of a mish-mash of older artists ranging from David Bowie to Billy Joel to the artist I will make comparisons to here – Elton John.

The track “40 Day Dream” is the first off of their debut full length album Up From Below. It’s an epic beginning to an album that signifies what the band is about. Full sound melding different genres in music ranging from folk to blues to rock. It’s an unbelievable track, to say the least. It elicits quite the emotions from me, personally.

Well, when I first heard it, I heard the chorus as well as the tempo of the song, and I was absolutely kicking myself wondering why it sounded so familiar. It isn’t that it’s directly similar to the song I’m about to give you all, and I may also have been thinking of a different song.

Well, I kid you not that I woke up this morning out of a total slumber having realized what it sounded like to me. I can’t even say if it was my subconscious helping me while asleep, but that would be great if it was. The song I instantly woke up with in my head was Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, and I am going to leave everyone here with both to compare the two for themselves. All music is most certainly influenced by music of the past, so my comparison here is certainly not a slight against the band. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! Enjoy!

Download Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – 40 Day Dream

Download Elton John – I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues

And yes. Buy this stuff. If you don’t, you will get a phone call from your mother telling you you were actually adopted. True story.

In the truest land of opportunity

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“Obviously, sometimes you can’t shut your feelings off,” says Keene. “If we’re having a problem, we try not to bring the band into it, but we’re all best friends, and everyone [in the band] understands.” In that sense, the music (and friendships) can be therapeutic. When any Mean Creek member comes to practice feeling unhappy about something, he says, “More than half the time we leave feeling a little bit better.”

The pair that is Aurore Ouinjin and Chris Keene shared their thoughts for a Boston Phoenix post on “Couple Bands” back in 2008. After playing acoustic folk and simply calling themselves Chris and Aurore (like Matt and Kim!) for a few years, they added a rhythm section and are happy with permanent additions Erik Wormwood and Mikey Holland. For three years now they have been known as Mean Creek.

And yes, they do take their name from the 2004 indie movie starring Rory Culkan about secrets and bullies. I don’t actually see the connection, although I could easily throw words around like “melancholy” “dark” or “intense” and try to make them fit. You can find a melancholy song on any album. And to be quite honest I don’t even know what in the hell they do sing about. But The Sky (Or The Underground) is a clean record with tracks that mesh, vocals that complement each other, and music that can be appreciated.

I do know what this song is about though. With its simple, repetitive chorus and verses that peacefully address a specific social problem it is a traditional folk song. Opening screeches and escalating bridges that threaten to rip your face off, though, expertly take this track into modern day and place this band at a House of Blues or a Slim’s rather than your local Cuppa Joe Joint. Check out Not To Dream:

Download Mean Creek – Not To Dream

Buy their first album and be the first to review it for Amazon! Come on, you know you’ve always wanted to be the first to know about music. Now you can be famous too.

Then you can go over to iTunes and get the newest album. Hell, be the first to review it there too!! Look at you!