My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

This 1981 collaboration from Brian Eno and David Byrne sounds as bracing and challenging as it did on its release over twenty-five years ago. The layers of electronic effects and funky beats merged with sampled vocals create an indistinct but highly suggestive world music groove. The recording sounds less aggressively strange than it once did, though, because it has been such a profound influence on subsequent electronic projects. One hears Eno's subtle atmospherics merged with contemporary percussion sounds throughout the world of electronic music. David Trop's liner notes summarize trends in experimental music back to the 1940s, and do much to contextualize Bush of Ghosts within the traditions of musique concrete, and work by musicians from Karl Stockhausen to King Sunny Ade.

David Byrne's own description may be the most eloquent. Talking about borrowing lo-fi "found" recordings of evangelists, angry radio talk-show hosts and Arabic singers, he says: "...we came to realize that high fidelity was a vastly overrated convention that no one had bothered to question, and sometimes the harsh megaphone-like quality of these vocals was actually much more characterful. They sounded like transmissions from a desperate planet."

People Take Warning!

People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938

"Songs that are roadside graves dug quickly with crosses made from kindling while the grief was still fresh. These are emotional obits and cautionary tales by brave and sobered survivors. The scratches on the 78s sound like the ocean in a shell and the songs are riding inside across time." So Tom Waits says in his introduction to this 3-cd set of early recordings documenting "cyclones, famines, floods, shipwrecks, pestilence, hurricanes, suicides..." and any other event the balladeers of the day found newsworthy. As Bob Dylan and other songwriters of the sixties discovered in Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music (also owned by HBPL), these songs from the early days of commercially recorded music provide a window into a weird, lost America.

This is a significant collection of Blues, Ballads, and Hillbilly music that movingly articulates the fears and concerns of its day. As somber as the subject matter sounds, though, the music here pulses with vitality, revels in the details of everyday life and finds reassurance in melody and tradition. It may sound strange and, at times, haunting, but overall the music embraces life and in the lively harmonicas, guitars and fiddles is almost celebratory.

For fans of Old Time Music, Country, or Blues, or anyone who wants a glimpse of an earlier time in our culture, perhaps less sophisticated at first glance, but one of great depth and complexity.

A Modern Classic

In the 1970s, a group of Texas songwriters and musicians emerged who had grown up as influenced by Bob Dylan as Hank Williams. Their sound was Country, to be sure, but the sophistication of their songwriting took the music places it had never been. Artists as diverse as Robert Earl Keene, Guy Clark, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the great Joe Ely infused this new sound with graceful and literate writing, a Rock-influenced abandon, and a return to the fiddle and steel sound of classic Country music. Perhaps the exemplar of this sound, this movement, is the classic 1978 recording by Joe Ely, Honky Tonk Masquerade. From the sawdust dancefloor of "Fingernails" to the lonely meditation of "Tonight I'm Gonna Go Downtown," Ely's heartfelt blues and rowdy honky tonk so endeared him to lovers of authentic music that even the Clash invited him to open their shows. When someone asks if you like Country music, listen to this one before you say no.

Youngbloods X 3

The Youngbloods were were a highly-regarded 60s Folk Rock ensemble who are not as well remembered as their talent would warrant. Only some "Best Of" compilations are available in their home country (USA) today, but a two-disc set including their first three albums is available as an import. This set, The Youngbloods, includes the albums The Youngbloods (featuring the hippie anthem "Come Together), Earth Music, and Elephant Mountain. The variety of the music here captures the spirit of 60s eclecticism. Tim Hardin's lovely "Reason To Believe" features folky harmony and steel guitar, "Too Much Monkey Business" and "C.C. Rider" provide the requisite blues covers, and classic originals like "Darkness, Darkness" show the band at its peak. Jesse Colin Young's (pictured) voice will evoke strong associations for those who were there, and suggest something of its time to those who weren't.

Two new pop culture titles

A couple of new books about Pop music:

Re-Make/Re-Model: Becoming Roxy Music

by Michael Bracewell

Bracewell enjoyes the input of Brian Ferry (pictured), Brian Eno, Andy McKay and Phil Manzanera is his story of how the 60s art school milieu, Pop Art and Swinging London set the stage for one of the 70s most original groups. The author has written on music and culture before and brings a level of sophistication and analysis that makes this much more than just a fan's book about a favorite band.

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon- and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller

Weller, an award-winning journalist, also brings a lot of depth and experience to her look at a generation of women in music. The book has been getting some good reviews, and is one of a recent spate of titles looking back at certain aspects of the 60s and 70s music scenes. "Girls Like Us," according to the publisher, " is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them - confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul." The book follows each of its subjects' stories up to the present, not focusing solely on the period of their greatest popularity, and their stories feel more resonant because of it.

The library's collection of recordings contains many of the recordings mentioned in these and other histories of popular music.

American Indie Underground

Michael Azerrad's book, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, chronicles the underground music scene of the 1980s. In his examination of American Punk, Hardcore, Indie Rock and other genres, he shows how a huge success like Nirvana's Nevermind, far from being an artistic breakthrough, is really a culmination of a decade long movement. Each chapter in Azerrad's book follows a band and looks at its goals, its reception, its influences and its legacy. He brings to life the independent labels, the tiny, obscure venues, and the influential 'zines that defined "underground" at the time. He is particularly good at showing how the Hardcore scene calcified and rejected the innovation and genre-busting that early Punk championed, while other styles grew and germinated new strains within the Indie scene. Minor Threat and Beat Happening illustrate what disparate musics fell under the term "Indie Underground." He also talks about the strong economic and political principles that drove some in the scene. Each chapter covers a significant band, and readers visit the grimy clubs, ride in cramped vans and experience the highs and lows of the road. Black Flag, Husker Du, Fugazi, The Replacements, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr. are all onstage in this vital, messy chapter in music history. For any fan of 20th century pop culture.

New Additions:

Black Flag - Wasted...Again

Mudhoney - March To Fuzz

Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me

Dinosaur Jr. - Green Mind

Beat Happening - Jamboree

Minor Threat - Complete Discography

Replacements - Tim

Vintage Americana

Although it can be difficult to tell from listening to commercial radio, there is (and always has been) a lot more to country music than casual listeners might assume. Each generation, it seems, finds its own alternative to mainstream country, whether it's rockabilly from the 50s, Gram Parsons in the 60s and 70s, "Outlaw" country from Willie and Waylon, smooth "country rock" from Poco or the Eagles, or contemporary Bluegrass from the likes of Alison Krauss. Singers like Dwight Yoakum have combined a revivalist bent, channeling Buck Owens and other legends, while bringing their distinct vision to songs of heartbreak, homesickness and longing.

Not everyone takes their cue from George Jones, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and other residents of country's Mt. Olympus, though. Some have exposed rock fans and mainstream listeners to some of the stranger corners of the country tradition. Two recordings from Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen exemplify that trend. This fun, irresistably goofy band brought Southern Boogie Woogie, Trucking Songs ("Dieselbilly"), Rockabilly, Western Swing, Rhythm and Blues, and good old Honky Tonk to 70s audiences barely out of the Psychedelic era. An immensely popular live act, Commander Cody often played this material tongue-in-cheek, and with a fair amount of humor. Listening to the recordings today, though, a love and appreciation for the music comes through, and they're as fun and wacky as ever. Listen for great guitarist Bill Kirchen on these CDs, crank up "Hot Rod Lincoln," and you might find youself digging in the closet for that old pair of cowboy boots.

CDs:

We've Got A Live One Here

Lost In The Ozone