St. Vincent

I wanted to write about a very original artist on the current scene, St. Vincent.

Her given name is Annie Clark. A little background check reveals that for three years, she went to the prestigious Berklee College Of Music in Boston, MA before dropping out. She was a former member of a cool band called The Polyphonic Spree, an elaboration of this unique band requires a separate entry. She also was part of Sufjan Stevens' touring band. Now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about her solo work.

Her first release, Marry Me, came out in 2007 on Beggars Banquet. You can tell immediately that she has a non-traditional voice and instrumentation in her music. Starting off with the first tune, diversity abounds. The song is "Now, Now" and it starts out with her explaining to someone about what she is not. Potentially to an abusive significant other. There are hints of orchestration, several backing vocalists layered as they sing the chorus of the title and other key lines. The end of the song builds to a crescendo with heavy guitar work and ends with a crash. Very nice introduction to her solo career!

She has a few songs on her first album that for some might seem irreverent to certain beliefs. In "Jesus Saves, I Spend" she makes references to Jesus and compares her differing role in life with his. The context is a little disjointed as is the constant infusion of different non-traditional pop instruments and sounds. She has a beautiful love song called "All My Stars Aligned" that showcases a traditional vocal style that is truly lovely. She sings about a special someone that she is setting her sights on and how she is hoping for a future with them.

On her second album, released earlier this year called Actor, she continues to expand on her ability to put forth sounds and noises not often heard in today's pop scene, one of her most endearing qualities. The first song to strike me on this release was "Save Me From What I Want". Again, her vocal layering on the chorus is intriguing. The marching beat of the snare drum gives the song a drone feel, much like the lyrics bemoaning the drab quality of the relationship she's in. The song "Actor Out Of Work" is very upbeat and catchy. I could see this hitting the clubs with a remixed version. It revolves around the comparison of her significant other's personal qualities to that of an actor. Check out the cool video below (with lots of crying).



The last song to discuss is "Just The Same But Brand New". Again, it highlights her abilities to successfully emit emotionally in a slower song. It has elements of dreampop with her continued non-traditional use of percussion.

St. Vincent is great for so many reasons. She wrote all but one song on both of her releases. The lyrics are intelligent and most songs deal with metafor in some way or another. Some songs make no sense at all but that's part of her appeal. She constantly changes the mood and tone in each song. Her unique insertion of electronic and traditional horns and percussion is refreshing. She has her own branded style after two releases that keeps you wanting to come back for more. I find myself drawn to her latest release for it's ability to show you something that you missed the first five times you heard it.

Like me, if quirky lyrics, delivery and instrumentation are your thing, you cannot go wrong with either one of these releases. Look for St. Vincent to continue to make a lasting impression on the music scene. I am pretty confident that Actor will be gracing my year-end Top Ten list.

K

Emiliana Torrini - L.A. El Rey Theatre 8/19/09

Hi,

I was fortunate enough to see one of my favorite current artists live this week in L.A., Emiliana Torrini. The show was at a converted movie theatre, alot like the Wiltern but smaller, called the El Rey Theatre. This venue wasn't used for concerts when I lived in L.A. before '98. It is very intimate but the acoustics are good and the ambience is nice.

The opening act was Anya Marina. I must admit that I wasn't very knowledgeable about her catalog but she was entertaining nonetheless. She was personable, witty, intelligent as her songs reflected. She played for about 45 minutes and was well received by the audience.

Emiliana and her band went on stage around 10pm. She was dressed in an outfit that needs to be seen and not described, see it below this paragraph. It looked like a round piece of material with holes cut in it so her arms could protrude outwards. Occasionally, her arms would disappear into the dress. Someone yelled out, "What are you doing in there?". She replied, "Pulling up my trousers". Everyone laughed at this response.



Her setlist included most of my favorites, sans three. She started out with the song called "Fireheads", the first song on her latest release Me & Armini. She was in good spirits throughout. She played several more songs from the latest album and mixed in a few from the other two.

Three of my favorites from the first album, Love In The Time Of Science called "Summerbreeze", "Unemployed In Summertime" and "Tuna Fish" were executed to perfection. She didn't sing my favorite song from the same album called "Telepathy". Perhaps it was due to the large orchestration backing needed to pull it off.

She sang several songs from the second release titled The Fisherman's Wife. This included mainstays "Nothing Brings Me Down", "Lifesaver" and "Heartstopper". Noticeably missing, though, was "At Least It Was".

From Me & Armini, she also played "Ha Ha", "Hold Heart" and "Beggar's Prayer" among others. In several countries around the world, including her native Iceland, the song "Jungle Drum" reached #1 on the charts! I really had hoped to hear "Birds", which she played, and "The Bleeder", which she did not.

Describing Emiliana's presence on-stage is a pleasure. She was constantly smiling throughout the show. She appears to be a very happy person. It was infectious as I found myself smiling throughout as she sang. She talked to the crowd before many of her songs. There were stories about the construction of the songs and anecdotes regarding the writing or instrumentation. In her story before she sang "Nothing Brings Me Down", she talked about the hot weather after a long rain storm. She opened the windows for the warm breeze to come through, drank a bottle of wine and turned the stereo up to 11 while listening to Megadeth.

She was in the middle of another interesting story when a girl from the crowd yelled, "Just sing it already". She got this surprised look on her face and, without skipping a beat, said in a friendly voice "I have the mic, you don't". This drew a strong round of applause from the audience.

She talked about her show performed the previous night in San Francisco at a beautiful venue called The Great American Music Hall. She said that it was like performing on top of a cake with the ornate decor looking like "yummys" and such.



If I had to give a one word description of the performance, it would be "heart". Emiliana spoke, sang, smiled and related to us all from the heart. Her demeanor, expressions, and inflections emitted an inner beauty that I have always taken from her music. She appears as if she really enjoys her journey through this life through everything that she does.

I am so glad that I was able to make it to her show and plan on making it a ritual to see her everytime that she hits the west coast with a tour. I strongly recommend catching her show if she passes your way.

K

Rude Boy - The Clash (1978) DVD

It had been a long time since I have watched this movie, or rockumentary, or whatever you want to call it. I originally saw it on the only format available until it's re-release on DVD in 2006...VHS!!

Here are my observations of this film:

The movie is disjointed as hell as a feature motion picture. I can forgive this for many reasons, which I will go into throughout this posting. The lead character is this guy named Ray Gange. They used his real name even though he is not playing himself in the movie. As was true in real life, he knew Joe Strummer. This is the reason why he was put into the movie in the first place. Ray is "on the dole" as the term goes, meaning he is on welfare. He's not the most hard-working or ambitious guy in the world. He loves music, though, and The Clash in particular. He works in a sex shop selling adult magazines and devices. This helps supplement his meager unemployment checks that he receives. He ends up talking his way into being a roadie for The Clash after Joe tells him that there's no paying gig available. That is really the gist of the whole movie plot as it pertains to him.

The artistic plot of this movie is really strange for lots of reasons. From the beginning, they try to interlace issues that were prevalant in late-70's, pre-Thatcher England. The biggest issues at that time were racial, social differences between right and left-wing parties(surprise!), and hard economic times. They bring these scenes in at strange times and succeed in confusing just what the point or direction of the movie is about. A speech by Margaret Thatcher regarding prevailing violence of the times was thrown in for good, or not so good, measure. There are several scenes with Ray and Joe just shooting the shit or drinking beer. Mick Jones really doesn't speak much in the film except to tell Ray that he is "keeping an eye on him" as he gives the impression that he doesn't like him too much. These are the critical views of what I saw.

The best reasons for watching this film are everything about The Clash. The live songs by The Clash are first-rate. The first one is at a small club in Birmingham called Barbarella's. The song that they play is called "Police And Thieves" and it kicks ass! This is the kind of gold that you hope to get as a Clash fan, if you've never seen it before. Since these are real gigs that they are playing, it is genuine to the form. Here is the song from the movie:



The other live performances of note are The Clash sharing a bill at Victoria Park with Tom Robinson Band, Steel Pulse, and X-Ray Spex. Their version of "White Riot" is pure, raw Clash at their best. Joe Strummer is animated and in great form. The performance of "White Man In Hammersmith Palais" at the Glasgow Apollo is a gem. They also do a great version of the song made famous by the Bobby Fuller Four called "I Fought The Law" here live at The Lyceum in London:



The extras on the DVD have a few really nice features. They show two live BBC performances never seen before of "Clash City Rockers" and "Tommy Gun" that are also worth the price of the DVD. They throw in two additional live songs that didn't make the final cut of the film. They are a different version of "White Riot" and a song called "English Civil War". The interviews with Ray and with The Clash's real life road manager, Johnny Green, playing himself in the movie, are also very honest in revealing their perspective on just what it meant to be there. They both talk about their fondest Joe Strummer memories, too, as the DVD production was done about one year after his untimely death.

If you are looking for The Clash's version of "Hard Day's Night", you will be disappointed. If you are a hardcore Clash or Joe Strummer fan, you will love it for all of the live performances that you will see. This film really gives you a great peephole vision of what it was like to be on stage with The Clash in their punk rock prime. For this reason, I will recommend it to any Clash fan or anyone interested in good, raw, live music during punk rocks heyday in late-70's England.

Cheers!
K

Bat For Lashes

This entry centers on a talented young artist known as Bat for Lashes. Her real name is Natasha Khan and she is 29 years old and is from Brighton, England, on the coast. She is of Pakistani and English descent.

Right off the bat, no pun intended, she impresses me not only because she writes all of her own songs but she is a very decent musician. She plays guitar as well as keyboards and autoharp. In the first song, "Horse and I", on her first album called Fur and Gold, she plays the harpsichord. This plays on my impressions of her as being a very unique, non-traditional artist that is willing to take chances. This goes a long way with me. Some have dubbed her as the first Brit artist to successfully join what has come to be known as the "freak folk" movement.

On Fur And Gold, released in 2007, she captures a mood of a reticent gothic and a lingering renaissance feel. It almost reminds me of a song that you could hear while watching a scene in any of the LOTR Trilogy on a rolling landscape of green fields. Very mystical and image-provoking qualities in her approach.

The song that really impresses me the most is called "Sad Eyes". This ballad is heartbreaking in so many ways. The piano is very understated as her smoldering vocals imprint a desperate feeling of resignation to a love that may never happen. Easily, my favorite song on her first effort. Here is a short, live version:



I also want to point out another great effort on this version for the Bruce Springsteen song called "I'm On Fire". This song was not on the first release but was added later as an extra track version. The song was already a slower song but she really brings it to a crawl. It accentuates her brilliant ability to sing a ballad and is breathtakingly beautiful in it's delivery.

Her debut was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize for 2007, a worthy accomplishment, indeed. She did win the Vanguard Award at the 2007 ASCAP Awards for her efforts.

Her second album was released earlier this year and is titled Two Suns. It is a concept album where she adopted a personna of a woman named Pearl. The album has immediate differences heard on the second song. There is a deep bass and beat that do not appear on the first album. This is due to the collaboration with an artist named Yeasayer. The overall feel is still of a medievel nature but has raised comparisons to Kate Bush in her vocal styling of the songs. I believe Kate to be more technically precise but understand why the comparisons are made.

My favorite song on this album is called "Siren Song". She calls herself by her alter-ego, Pearl, in this song and proceeds to seduce you with her honesty and devotion to her man. She accepts her evil nature as who she is and knows that her lover will leave her due to this eventually. Very captivating delivery and enthralling in it's execution.

Another song of note is called "Traveling Woman". It is a song that may be an autobiography to inspire other young women like herself to not give up on the dream. She insists to stay true and not be taken down by the lies that can pull you down.

This second effort was also nominated for the Mercury Prize for not only the album but for the song called "Daniel".

I am very impressed by Bat For Lashes. I expect to see continued success for her and look forward to her next release.

K