5 Songs Friday, September 27, 2024
I don't know what brings these together except I liked them all this week
Redd Kross – “S & M Party” 1980 from Red Cross. Before they had to change the spelling of their band name to avoid confusion with the aid organization, before Greg Hetson had left the band to join the Circle Jerks and later Bad Religion, heck before Steve McDonald (and maybe his older brother Jeff) graduated high school, this band debuted with a six-song slab of original punk rock that already hinted at the melodic bent they would turn into a signature approach just a few years later. “S & M Party” is a catchy little fast and loud fity-six second blast of energy. The lyrics are the kind of adolescent understanding of s&m practices you’d expect from a bunch of snotty teenagers – “Tell me that you love me / That you really care / But then you slap my face / Then you pull my hair.” Not that I’d have ever known that’s what they were singing without the helpful internet lyrics sites. These kids were helping to invent hardcore punk, putting their own spin on what they heard from New York and London, and making it seem California bright.
José James – “You Know What It Do” 2020 from No Beginning No End 2. Read an online bio of José James and you’ll find a lot of familiar names, from greats who influenced him to greats he’s worked with. I’m talking Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, and Billie Holiday for the former, and Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah for the latter. This particular song jumps from the start with a drum beat that isn’t used very often any more, but is always enticing when I hear it – that dum du-du du-dum thing, with acoustic guitar and organ adding more retro sonics to the mix. The count-off is in German, then James starts crooning about how good his girl makes him feel, balanced by a verse about how bad he is, before eventually letting us in on the secret that he has a different girl in every city he visits. Not exactly an original concept, but there is a lot of excitement generated in the telling. Oh, and there’s a funny line in the part where he’s naming all the cities and coming up with a cute rhyme, except “Nothing rhymes with Melbourne but y’all cool.”
Dungen & Woods – “Saint George” 2018 from Myths 003. I’ve been a fan of eclectic psychedelic Swedish rockers Dungen for a couple decades now but I know nothing about Woods, Every reference online to such a group says they are an American folk-rock band, and that Kevin Morby used to play bass for them. If that’s the group in this collaboration, they aren’t being very folksy, or really rocking. Instead, we’ve got a trance that lasts just over six minutes, but it’s a thrill ride of sonic meandering. Drums and bass lock in a tight groove, while guitars and keyboards shimmer and shine in the higher registers of things. Nothing stays in place except, I guess, whatever mode these notes and chords are working in. Sounds enter from all around your head – listen on headphones for maximum effect – and your attention wanders to different instruments all the time. Subtle shifts - in dynamics, in tempo, in beats, in intensity -are the order of the day. It’s like all those things people say electronic music does, only with analog (and some digital) instruments. By the end of the song, you’re in an entirely different space than where you started.
Leon Russell – “My Father’s Shoes” 1975 from Will O’The Wisp. The 1970s were a time when songs about parenthood became common fodder among pop musicians. Some of them, like the fairly odious “Cat’s In the Cradle” by Harry Chapin and the less bothersome “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens, became big hits. This one, never released as a single, is a little more introspective, a little less treacly. Russell sings, over his sparkling piano lines and what I assume is a mellotron or some other early synthesizer, of the ways the generations don’t completely understand each other until it’s too late. Russell knows what his son is feeling, because he was a son once. And he knows what his father felt because he is a father now. But the son can’t understand Russell, and the father is gone. It all leaves Russell plaintively asking, “What are the words I can say?” The melody is fairly simple, especially for a Leon Russell song, but it’s highly effective.
Celia Cruz – “El De La Rumba Soy Yo” date unknown, available on Antología de la Salsa. It’s not easy for me to research this one (or a lot of Celia Cruz’s music, for that matter), but I know what I like. This sounds like Cruz when she was younger and still in Cuba – the music is a rhumba, and the whole record is meant to get those hips to gyrating. Cruz is as brassy as the horn section, the congas and the piano are driving that rhythm across the highway of the open dance floor, and the whole affect is stunningly vibrant. I’m not sure about the weird audience clapping at various points in the recording – it really doesn’t sound like it was live. But that only took me out of my body’s free motion and into my head once. After the first time, I just ignored it and kept on dancing like a star. (That last image might simply be what I felt like doing if I was actually capable of moving in such a coordinated manner.)