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Time for a Game of: Name That Tune!

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The back-story: I recently found a labeled but track-list-less mix-tape in my tape box. I’ve listened to it, and I’ve been able to identify all of the songs on it except for one. I’ve dutifully Googled several of the more unusual lyrics, and found nothing relevant or useful. So now I’m bringing it here, in hopes we have a late ’90s Christian rock expert in the crowd who can help me identify this tune.

Clues, or, Things I Know For Sure:

1. The mix-tape was made in the Fall of 1996, probably in late September, so the song had to have been released by then.

2. The song is an up-tempo rock number with a mostly-folky flavor; there are two male voices. They also deploy a harmonica at key junctures. I made the assumption it is Christian rock because of both style and lyrical content.

3. That said, the lyrics also reflects that somebody was really into Moby Dick.

The lyrics of the first verse and chorus, transcribed by me, as best I could:

(spoken) Eagerly peering towards the horizon
you would have thought he was a prophet or a seer,
beholding, beholding, behold

(singing) Look up with a silent graceful movement whispers
Tonight on film I saw him there he was so big
Tonight I [something] myself from the hands of Jesus
Tonight the drank the deepest from the [something] spring
Tonight I took your rainbow by the tail, by the tail
You said my friend it’s the simple things
What a child trim the sails
Tonight it’s gone (tonight it’s gone)
The book of whales
Tonight it’s gone (tonight it’s gone)
To trim the sails
God is [dead?] to the mighty ones
God is [dead?] to the strong
those of us who have seen the book
search the sea the whole night long

So. Anyone recognize it?

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Shivering Timbers Album Release Show

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If you loved the Shivering Timbers Dan Auerbach-produced debut We All Started in the Same Place, be ready for a little shift. Sing Sing, the Kickstarter-backed album for which they’ll be playing an album-release show at Music in Akron this Friday, diverges from the quirky nursery rhyme tunes of their debut, instead reflecting more accurately the band’s live sound, with Sarah Benn’s strong vocals soaring open wide while Jayson Benn’s gorgeous guitar weaves and fuzzes out back on earth.

As Sarah noted in her interview with Tim Quine over at Rubber City Review, We All Started… was largely an on-the-spot creation. But through all the subsequent gigging, Shivering Timbers have grown confidently and reflect that growth, their stronger self, gloriously on the Brian Olive-produced Sing Sing.

 

Shivering Timbers – Generations from TurnStyle Films on Vimeo.

 

While the album begins on lighter, brighter notes with title track “Sing Sing” and Neil Diamond cover “Holly Holy”, the stream of the album roils with the kind of darkness born from standing resolutely against life’s foes, reflected here in the Chuck Auerback-penned “Annalee”, as Sarah asks, “Who told the Lord I didn’t need her? Who told the Lord I didn’t love her? Who ever said He could take her? When I find Him, I’ll put Him in His grave.”

 

06 Annalee by Shivering Timbers

 

The clouds begin to clear by the end, and the playfulness of the Shivering Timbers’ first album is revisited in the charming blues tune “The Mopping Floor”.

 

12 The Mopping Floor by Shivering Timbers

 

We All Started in the Same Place was Shivering Timbers’ calling card to get your attention. With Sing Sing, they’re ready to show you what they can really do.

Sing Sing will be released to the wide world on September 4, but if you can make it to Akron this Friday, you shouldn’t hesitate.

 

Shivering Timbers album release show
at Musica
Friday, August 31, 8 PM
with
Good Morning Valentine
White Pines
Light of the Loon

$8.00 advance / $10.00 door
Advance tickets available via TicketWeb.

 

Shivering Timbers Official Website

Shivering Timbers @ Facebook

Shivering Timbers @ Daytrotter

 

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August Video Challenge: Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels, Head is a Stone

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A little something to get your blood moving on Monday morning: Head is a Stone by Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels, the creation/alter ego of poet and multi-media peformance artist Michael David Quattlebaum Jr. In addition to his musical endeavors he’s also just put out a book of poetry: From The Silence of Duchamp to the Noise of Boys.

I like this video / song because: those drums are relentless and there’s some excellent use of the rooftops of New York.

 

 
Director: Nick Hooker
Director of Photography: H. Spencer Young
Editor: Sloane Klevin
Additional Photography: Nelson Hancock

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August Video Challenge: Marianne Faithfull, Ballad of Lucy Jordan

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The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, by Marianne Faithfull, brought to you, in a roundabout way, by a labeled but track-list-less mixtape I found in my tape box this weekend. I had to listen to it to find out what was on it, and this song was both the end of Side A and, then, because it got cut off, the start of Side B.

The mixtape was made in the fall of 1996 by one of my professors, as part of a class project. The first time I listened to it was probably the first time I heard this song. I was 21, and 37 seemed very far away. I read it as a cautionary tale. A warning, left by others: watch out, danger, here be quicksand.

Now I am 37, and, while Lucy Jordan’s despair is definitely not mine, the weight of it feels different. Heavier, I think; more real. When the path diverged in the yellow wood, I took a different one, but I can see hers through the trees.
 

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Give Away: One Paramore Tote Bag

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The bag is surplus to my requirements and I thought it should go and live with someone who will appreciate it. Comment here or on Facebook or tweet the link (ONCE, no points for multiple tweets!) with what you’ll be keeping in the bag if you win and I’ll pick a winner next Saturday.

nb: I don’t smoke but I do have cats, but it’s freshly washed; and I’ll ship it anywhere the US Postal service goes.

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August Video Challenge, Green Day, Oh Love

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Because sometimes I just have to take a moment and be full of love for Green Day.

This is Oh Love, from ¡Uno!, due in late September. It reminds me, again, how Green Day is one of the bands that made the chords that remade the world for mall rats like me, who grew up in suburbia, planning for / dreaming of the day we were going to break free.
 

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Friday Link Session

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  • Some recommended listening over at Daytrotter coming from: former Soul Coughing lead man Mike Doughty, the Builders and the Butchers, Wildlife – a live recording from the Barnstormer 5 tour, and one of my favorite live bands (and Barnstormer 5 alumni) Hacienda
  • There’s an interesting interview with Joe Strummer at Dangerous Minds that makes a nice companion to our Latino Rockabilly War post.
  • Someone has posted the entirety of Faith No More’s 1990 concert film Live at Brixton Academy, which your friendly blogger had a on VHS about 20 years ago.
  • While you’re out strolling the internet, check out the facelift given to our friend Nate Burrell’s site, Before the Blink. There are great shots of everyone from Pokey LaFarge and The South City Three to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a lot of favorites in between like the Black Keys, Patrick Sweany, mr. Gnome, and Shivering Timbers. (Yes, those last four artists are all Ohioans. Shush.)
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August Video Challenge: Rose’s Pawn Shop, Dancing on the Gallows

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Because I always enjoy bluegrass fused to rock and roll and played at punk speed, and most especially so when the fiddle is good. And Tim Weed, who is playing the fiddle for Rose’s Pawn Shop, is very good.

The rest of the band is Paul Givant (lead vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo), John Kraus (banjo, electric guitar, vocals), Stephen Andrews (upright bass) and Christian Hogan (drums), they are from Los Angeles, CA, and this is a video for Dancing on the Gallows, the title song for their second record.

 

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Firewater: The Story So Far…

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Let me get this out of the way first: Cop Shoot Cop was a fucking rad band. When I was introduced to their music, via their album Ask Questions Later, I had the experience that music lovers rummage through record shops, plunder blogs, and scan magazines seeking to replicate again and again: I found a band who was making exactly the kind of music I wanted to hear. Dual basses, steel wool vocals, no guitar, and a lot of anger: it was heavenly.

The hard truth of the matter, though, was that CSC had ended before I discovered them. In fact, lead man Tod A was already two albums deep in Firewater… though I wouldn’t learn about Firewater for a few more years when I was stopped in my tracks by “This Is My Life”.

 

“This Is My Life” – Firewater

 

Tod A was once again giving me exactly what I wanted, and it’s impossible to sit still during this song, which came from the sixth Firewater album (and first one released on the Bloodshot label) The Golden Hour. If you, too, missed the beginning of the Firewater train, Bloodshot has given you a hand up by reissuing four of the first five Firewater albums: Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire, Psychopharmacology, The Man on the Burning Tightrope, and covers album Songs We Should Have Written (1998’s The Ponzi Scheme remains a creature of the wild).

Within the breadth of the first Firewater album, Get Off the Cross…, you hear a hint of transition from the hard-edged attack of CSC to a warmer – though no less angry – sound heavily influenced by eastern and old European styles. Romani fiddles, klezmer, Russian folk, even shades of sea shanties and cabaret… all injected into groove-heavy, fiery rock, embroidered with Tod A’s life-worn and knowing vocals.

 

“Bourbon and Division” – Firewater

 

But even on albums where the folk styles of the larger world takes a backseat, like 2001’s Psychopharmacology, Tod A’s sustained fire keeps things compelling.

 

“Get Out of My Head” – Firewater

 

And the covers of Songs We Should Have Written read like a sinister and sexy lounge act for those about to make their best worst mistake.

 

“Is That All There Is?” – Firewater

 

So much time has passed since Firewater’s last album that you’d be forgiven for thinking Tod A had abandoned ship just as it had set off into international waters. Is that all there is? Oh, no. Take this break to familiarize yourself with Firewater’s story so far, then keep your eyes and ears ready, for this story is… to be continued.

 

Firewater @ Bloodshot Records

Firewater @ Facebook