Music Recommendations

Well, I've been a DJ for a long time, and a music fan a lot longer.  I own over 1300 CD's and I try as hard as possible to introduce people to good music they may not have heard of.  There is a lot of good stuff out there that goes ignored.  There used to be some MP3 files on this page, but I'm afraid I had to remove them because I was taking up too much server space.  Maybe someday I'll find server space for them again.  The pictures should all click to official websites.

The Adventures of Jet are a band out of Dallas with a very Cheap Trick/Buzzcocks feel.   They used to be called Bobgoblin, and put out an album on MCA called The 12-Point Master Plan that I think was the best album of 1997, other than Radiohead's OK Computer.  Unfortunately, their record company screwed them and they got dropped.  If you look in the bargain bin of a local used CD store, you can probably get the Bobgoblin record for $2 or less.  The band resurfaced as The Commercials, now unsigned, and then it turned out that there was another band with that name so they are now called The Adventures of Jet.  They put out a great record called Part 3: Coping with Insignificance and another CD, Muscle, comes out sometime in 2003.  One of many bands I like that have a keyboard/guitar power pop, 80's retro feel (Menthol and 12 Rods also fit that description).

• This article I wrote about them for Instant Magazine (currently offline)
• The Adventures of Jet page at MP3.com

I was in California and I discovered this amazing thing - a record store where you could listen to the bargain bin records before you bought them!  I was on my way to Bakersfield to start my weekend of California sightseeing with some desert panoramas but I did manage to spend a few minutes in the store.  Something about that little devil logo to the left inspired me to listen to an album by a group called Blithe.  I had never heard of them but I like a lot of stuff on Alias Records so I gave it a listen.   Listened to the first song for about a minute, the second song for about thirty seconds, and plunked down my 99 cents.  Then I couldn't stop listening to the album for a month.

How to describe this group?  Well, this is what the Pixies would sound like if after Black Francis had left, they had recruited Lou Barlow to sing rather than just folding up the tents.  Other than the absence of a Kim Deal-esque backing female, this band has the Pixies formula down pat.  Lots of bass and drum bits, then the guitars come from out of nowhere, pop melodies turn into loud speed bursts, and everything charges forward.   At the same time, Blithe tosses in a couple of acoustic guitar pop tunes like "Losefer" that have that sensitive side.  Lead singer Emil Odling sings about relationships between people, both friends and lovers.  He often sings from a female point of view as well.  It all adds up to a very catchy album which stands heads above all the other bands which cloned the Pixies sound after their breakup in 1992.  You'll never believe these guys are Swedish.   I think they've broken up but you should look for the Verse Chorus Verse album if you can find it.

Gram Parsons, the father of country-rock, used to refer to his music as "Cosmic American Music."  Gomez sounds nothing like Gram Parsons, but that phrase comes about as close to describing Gomez's music as possible.  This is Cosmic American Music, but influenced by Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker as opposed to Buck Owens and Hank Williams.   How strange, then, that the men making this music are not Americans but rather five Brits in their early twenties from the town of Southport outside of Liverpool.  My man Howard P. from Virgin Records turned me on to them.  He described Gomez as what a band would sound like if all the music between 1972 and 1995 never happened: classic rock and blues mixed with a few modern trimmings -- a bit of distortion, a taste of sampling, a dash of drum n' bass rhythm.  Don't confuse Gomez with one of the tons of banal American jam bands littering the local landscape.  While their rootsy sound and tendency to double the lengths of their songs in concert might appeal to the Phisheads of the world, this is a band that that doesn't have to depend on wankerish noodling or hallucinogens to embellish their strong, cohesive tunes.  Not that they probably don't use plenty of hallucinogens.

Gomez features three singer-songwriters: Ian Ball, Tom Gray, and most importantly Ben Ottewell, who may have the most incredible voice in all of rock music today.  The sound of a whisky-soaked sixty-year old Delta Bluesman comes from the body of an MIT Engineering TA.   Ottewell is a remarkable singer, and what's more remarkable is that rather than depend on his otherworldly, gruff tones to carry all their music, Gomez mix Ottewell with the smoother voices of Ball and Gray.  The three singers harmonize in one song, then trade off verses and choruses in the next.  I would recommend them to folks who like Guster and Dave Matthews and aren't afraid of something a bit more daring.  Start with Bring it On and then move on to Liquid Skin (the album art, as you may notice, is quite original as well).  The newest record, In Our Gun is great too, but doesn't have quite as many transcendent songs.  Unfortunately, you won't hear much of Gomez on the radio - their great tunes just don't fit into any convenient "alternative rock" category -- but you always have your CD player, and by all means DO NOT miss their amazing live shows.

• Preview tracks from In Our Gun
• Here's a review from Salon.com from someone who doesn't like Gomez.  I think he's an idiot.

One night, a couple years ago now, Jason Beattie and I were at The Burren in Somerville for a typical weekend evening from my Clay Street days: beers and whatever band was on stage.  The band of the night was playing some great country-rock, so I ordered my Guinness and settled into a booth in the back.  There was a crack piano player, some great fiddle, and a lead singer who showed a bit more soul than the average back-of-the-Burren white funk crooner. Then I noticed myself singing along. The songs were catchy enough that you could learn the hook in two minutes, and every few songs the band would play a cover -- some you would expect from a country-rock band (Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee") and some you wouldn't (Radiohead's "Lucky"). I found myself singing harmonies on a song I knew, Gillian Welch's "Tear my Stillhouse Down," and the piano player heard me in the corner and actually motioned for me to come sing into his microphone.

So that was my introduction to the wonderful world of Jabe.  Here we are a few years later, and Jabe Beyer and his band have put out three albums now full of what he calls "Locomotive Cowpunk High Velocity Roots Songster Music."  I don't quite know how the national labels that specialize in this music, like Bloodshot and Rounder, have missed these guys, but that's ok with me because it keeps them playing locally.  Jabe's website lists all his shows, and has a special page devoted to chicken.  Don't ask me why.

When I worked at WBRU, we had this thing called the free bin.  In it, they threw all the records that the station didn't need any more.  Mostly it was extra copies of horrid major label singles, but every so often you would discover some incredible full-length record by an indie-label band or a band that a major was ignoring.  Like Bobgoblin, Menthol got ignored by its label (Capitol).  On an album full of amazingly catchy tunes, they picked as the single the song "Stress is Best" with a swear word as its hook, so there was no way it could work on the radio!  But this record is unbelievable and I bet I have seen one for about a dollar in every CD store in Boston.  It is extremely loud, angular rock n' roll, the guitar and bass play off each other heavily while Balthazar se Lay sings like a frat boy who has both been taken over by aliens and ingested the yearly crop production of North Carolina in one long, soothing cigarette drag.   And the lyrics... I am not often one for lyrics, but the ones on this record cannot be beat.  From "Francis Scott Key": Francis Scott Key, anchored far out at sea, humming tunes on the deck as the ship lay in tatters.  The captain looks over and screams at the writer, 'Hey don't stand their idle. Have you no shame? Get your fanny back in battle!'"  Or how about this from "Perfect Spirals," a song about either Joe Montana or Joe Theismann (I don't remember which): "His stare is cold as hell, his grip is firm as well, this throw is sure and true, he's sure to ring your bell.  He scrambles at the line, he makes it every time, the sideline bench is tense, we fall into a trance, the field has turned to mud, the crowd is out for blood, he takes the field so full of love -- the king is here the king is here."  Have you ever heard a better description of quarterback as messianic hero?

Menthol was originally called Mother, and put out an album in 1993 on a small label called Mud Records.  I looked for that album for three years.  I couldn't find it in any CD store, and no online CD website offered it either.  Then on vacation in California in August I found it in the bargain bin of a Santa Barbara record store for a dollar.  I could not have been happier.  Menthol recorded a third album, called Danger: Rock Science! but Capitol never put it out and for about six years I thought the band had disappeared.  Suddenly in late 2002, the boys resurfaced and Danger: Rock Science! came out on Hidden Agenda records.  They even found this page on the Web and emailed me to let me know the record was coming out.  Their sound is now much more 80's retro, with the guitars much less prominent and lots of keyboards, plus de Lay's voice is much less cratchy and much more spacey/Ric Ocasek.  The new record is nowhere near as good as the first one, but it is pretty damn catchy.  According to de Lay, I was the first person to catch that the lyric on "The Professor" is completely stolen from Throwing Muses' "Hate My Way."

There is one other funny Menthol story.  For some reason when they came to Providence touring behind this record, they were booked into Club Babyhead.  Now WBRU was the only station playing the single, but we were in the middle of a fight with Babyhead (they owed us money, I think) so we couldn't mention the show on air.  So nobody who liked Menthol knew about it except me.  Meanwhile, Babyhead somehow scheduled this loud rock band between two ska bands.  I get to the show and it is a hundred ska-punks and me.  When Menthol came on, they sounded great except it was obvious nobody got it.  They were booed off the stage.  Probably the worst gig they ever had.  In fact, when they found this page and emailed me, they couldn't believe that I was actually there.  They still remember it as their "Spinal Tap moment."

Hey, doesn't that guy on the right look familiar?  Yep, this is the pride of the Northampton/Amherst music scene, The Mobius Band, featuring the one and only Noam Schatz (my brother) on drums. Now, I have to admit that my brother and I have different musical tastes, and his band is quite avant garde.  After all, they learned many of their tricks from Anthony Braxton.  But I'm getting to enjoy them more and more as they've moved away from jazzy noodling and towards the idea of entrancing musical soundscapes, anchored by Noam's rhythms.  According to their website, "The Mobius Band filter the standard rock trio through post-rock texture, Krautrock repetition and modern electronics."  I'm not sure what that means.  I describe them as "imagine Radiohead's last two albums without Thom Yorke singing."  A bazillion bands have been described as the "American Radiohead" but my brother's band actually kinda is the American Radiohead.  The difference is that you can see them in clubs for cheap.  The website offers downloadable clips and sells CDs, so support 'em.

Scarce is the greatest live band I have ever seen.  Back in the day of grunge, when bands would just get on stage wearing flannels and jeans, Scarce put on a show.  Bassist Joyce Raskin would wear a formal dress and gallop all over the stage, while guitarist Chick Graning, in a tux or a silver suit, would look wild-eyed at the audience as if he was about to come out to attack us, then rip off an incredible slide guitar solo only to toss the slide aside at the last minute and resume the song.  I saw them more than ten times, and everyone in Providence where I lived thought they would become huge rock stars.  My band Salty Timmy even opened for them once.  Then the accident happened.Scarce is the greatest live band I have ever seen.  Back in the day of grunge, when bands would just get on stage wearing flannels and jeans, Scarce put on a show.  Bassist Joyce Raskin would wear a formal dress and gallop all over the stage, while guitarist Chick Graning, in a tux or a silver suit, would look wild-eyed at the audience as if he was about to come out to attack us, then rip off an incredible slide guitar solo only to toss the slide aside at the last minute and resume the song.  I saw them more than ten times, and everyone in Providence where I lived thought they would become huge rock stars.  My band Salty Timmy even opened for them once.  Then the accident happened.

Scarce was about to release their first major label album, Deadsexy, when one morning Chick didn't show up for practice.  He actually lived next door to me and Big John Lund that summer on East George Street in Providence, and when he didn't answer the door Joyce freaked out and broke the door to his apartment down.  Chick had experienced a brain hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital.  The single, "Honeysimple," was pulled off radio after one play, and the album, which had come out in the U.K., was postponed over a year in the U.S.   Chick spent the next year relearning how to walk, talk, and play his guitar.   After a year Scarce reappeared and the album finally came out (in a slightly different form) in the States but things just weren't the same.  Something had happened to everyone's worldview during that year and after a few months the band broke up.  They left behind an album, Deadsexy, that despite its greatness simply cannot do justice to the power that was Scarce live.  The music was like the Pixies with all the David Bowie influences cranked up to eleven (they covered "Ashes to Ashes," which was amazing and is only available on a U.K. single).  Then throw on some slide guitar, courtesy of Chick's southern upbringings. Chick sang like he had seen everything real in the world, and after the hemorrhage you can argue that he had, while Joyce had a voice which could go from sweet to sour to longing, all in the space of about five seconds.  Her best songs, "Dozen" and "Hope," didn't even make it on the album - you'll need to find the extremely rare Red EP.  Luckily, there is still a website devoted to the band that should have been kings.  You also want to check out this site devoted to Chick's solo career.

I met Chick at WBRU in 1993 when we were interviewing his then-fiancee, Belly's Tanya Donnelly.  We hit it off immediately, and I used to visit him at work at Geoff's sandwich shop on Benefit Street.  Scarce's first gig was opening for Belly the same night as my band, Salty Timmy, had our first gig.  Their last gig was the night before I left for my new job in Daytona Beach.  The entire history of my four years in Providence is summarized in the music of Scarce.

I've never understood why "World Music" afficianados have never discovered the music of Israel.  I mean, I love Brazilian music and I'm from New England, so you don't have to be Jewish or speak any Hebrew to enjoy Israeli pop music, if it is good.  And the best Israeli band, by far, is Teapacks (aka Tipex - it is spelled both ways, and I believe the name comes from an Israeli product similar to Liquid Paper).  Teapacks somewhat revolutionized Israeli pop music in the 90's by blurring the line between Sephardic and Ashkenazic music.  They combine both styles along with western pop music, and while most of the band comes from a Sephardi development town in the Negev, the guitar player, Rami Yosopov, is Russian.  The brainchild behind the band is the singer/songwriter Kobi Oz who, honestly, deserves to be considered one of the best songwriters in the world no matter what language he is writing in.

The band's first album is often thought of as a knockoff of the popular Israeli synth-pop band Mashina, but you can see within it the seeds of Oz's amazing songwriting.  The second album, Last in the Bottom Percentile (right), introduces the prime Teapacks sound  - the band plays acoustic instruments, no synthesizers, and Oz's lyrics are more personal.  The mix of Eastern and Western Jewish melodies is superb.  The next album, Your Life in a Lafa (above left), was the band's masterpiece, akin to a classic like Sgt. Pepper's or OK Computer (a "Lafa" is a large, Iranian style pita bread, and I have no idea what that has to do with the album).  It is a mishmash of styles which form a cohesive whole, from the instrumental opener which sounds like you are just hanging out in Tel Aviv to great pop like "Lamah Halakht Mimeni" ("Why Did you Leave Me?").  "Yesh Li Chaverah" ("I Have a Girlfriend") features just accordion with Kobi Oz singing about his girlfriend while the rest of the band sings along in the chorus. "Even in the noisy market, she and I are alone," he sings, "She has twin lips of red, like in advertisements." Teapacks' greatest tune is "Ma'ale Avak," as Oz sings of the meaningless life of a development town formed because the government decided "there was too much space on the map" -- Not to mention that the Rami Yosopov's guitar intro to "Ma'ale Avak" deserves to stand with the intros to "Stairway to Heaven" and "Under the Bridge" as required learning for any self-respecting guitar player.  After doing the soundtrack to the movie All Dogs Are Colorblind, Teapacks came back with probably their most accesible album, Kiss For Uncle (below left), which while not the masterpiece that Lafa is remains a near flawless Israeli pop record and probably the best Teapacks album to buy first.

For a while, Teapacks devolved into Oz and a revolving cast of players, including a producer/samples guy named Big M.  That version of the group put out an electronic-influenced record called Disco Menayek that I didn't like so much.  On my last trip to Israel, however, I bought their latest record Yoshvim v'Beit Cafe and happily discovered that guitarist Yosopov was back playing on every track, and Teapacks are back to a more acoustic-sounding sound, albeit with some electronic embellishments from Big M.  Teapacks also has a website - you'll need to be able to read Hebrew but a lot of the site has images rather than typewritten words so you don't need Hebrew fonts on your computer.  If you email them, Oz himself will respond.   He wished me Shana Tova, which was quite cool.  This article from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains a bit of Oz's philosophy.

12Rods come from Minneapolis.   I'm not sure how to describe them... maybe Duran Duran meets grunge, although their bespectacled image and "nerd rises up" lyrics have a definite similarity to Weezer's whole schtick.  12Rods are much different, however; for example, a number of their songs are written from the point of view of someone questioning their sexuality, and in fact their first EP is entitled gay?.  Their first major-label album, Split Personalities, bombed, and I was able to pick it up for $4 -- once again, scouring the bargain bin pays off.  I bought it based on the glowing review from Pitchforkmedia.com that you'll find below.  It took me a few listens to get into it, which is rare for me; normally, I like an album or don't like it almost immediately.  But after a few times through I fell in love with the complexity of their music and lyrics.  One of their songs describes the music perfectly: "Easy to swallow, but hard to digest."  Their second album, Separation Anxieties, was produced by Todd Rundgren but also bombed.  In fact, the Pitchfork guys hated it, feeling it had too much Rundgren influence and horrible lyrics.   I still like it, though it isn't as good as the first.  After getting dropped by their label (no shock) they just put out their third record Lost Time which is only available on their website.  

• The article in Pitchfork which originally persuaded me to buy Split Personalities
• Another review in Pitchfork, this time of their first EP gay?, which blows so much sunshine up the band's ass I am surprised they didn't go supernova
• Then, Pitchfork turns on the band so hard that you can almost hear Jim Ross in the background screaming "Oh my god!  Pitchfork is attacking 12 Rods with a steel chair!  What's going on here?!?!  Is the despicable Paul Heyman behind this?"

For a long time, Versus was my favorite band in the whole world.  Versus took the type of open-chord, occasionally atonal sonic attack favored by Mission of Burma and Sonic Youth but channels it into amazing pop songs.   The Burma influence has actually been toned down a bit on each album as the band becomes more accessible and writes some softer material like the ballads "Jealous" (from 1996's Secret Swingers) and "Spastic Reaction" (from 1998's Two Cents Plus Tax).  Versus was formed by a Filipino kid from Detroit, Richard Baluyut (guitar) and an ex-cheerleader from Texas, Fontaine Toups (bass).   The band also has James Baluyut on guitar and for most of the band's lifetime, a third Baluyut brother Ed played drums.  He has since left to raise a family, and was replaced by Patrick Ramos before the Two Cents Plus Tax album.

In 2001, Versus apparently broke up.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  They still play occasionally, they all have side projects, and I can't tell what the heck is going on.  Richard has a solo project called Whysall Lane.  Richard and Patrick have a new band called +/- (that's plus-minus).  Ed plays in a side project called Pacific Ocean with Connie Lovatt, who plays in a side project called Containe with Fontaine Toups.   It's all very incestuous.  

I loved Versus but were never a radio-ready conventional rock band in the way that, say, Adventures of Jet is.  Richard and Fontaine truly mastered the male-female rock singer dynamic, between songs where they each sing lead and the songs they share like "Spastic Reaction."  Their live shows were blisteringly exciting, and I have seen them more than ten times  and never been bored, which is a rare comment about a band that does not "improvise live" in the way Moxy Fruvous or Barenaked Ladies does.  I also admire a band that is three-fourths Asian without ever claiming any kind of minority status, and I love that Richard has an "R" on his guitar, while Fontaine has an "F" on her bass.  The band's motto is "Sports, Meat, and Rock," and in a way that's my motto too, so Versus are my heroes.  I've met them, and they are nice folks too.  Versus' best album is their first, The Stars Are Insane.  Then you want to pick up the Two Cents Plus Tax, and then I guess Secret Swingers and the early singles collection Dead Leaves.  Maybe someday they will be really, truly back together for good.  Really.  Maybe.

• Pitchfork.com's reviews of Secret Swingers and Two Cents Plus Tax

You probably know Bill Withers as the guy who sang "Lean on Me" and "Just the Two of Us."  You probably don't know him as the guy who sang "Ain't No Sunshine," but that was a big hit too.  In fact, Bill Withers wrote a lot of great soul music in the 1970's that you have probably heard -- either covered or sampled -- and you had no idea that it was all by the same guy.  Mick Jagger and Isaac Hayes both covered "Use Me."  There was a horrible dance remake of "Lovely Day" back in 1992.  "Grandma's Hands" is the guitar riff that drives "No Diggity" by Blackstreet.  "Who Is He and What Is He to You" is the bass riff in LL Cool J's "Phenomenon."  Heck, Al Jarreau practically built his whole career on two things: Bill Withers covers and the theme to "Moonlighting."

Bill Withers early albums are ridiculously good.  Live at Carnegie Hall is one of the best live albums ever recorded.  His later stuff is a bit more smooth jazz-influenced, but still good.  Then in 1985, he stopped making music.  I have no idea why.  There's almost no information about this guy out there.  Luckily, they just started a website for him.  It has music samples.  Go listen to them right now.  Come on, go.  I'll still be here when you get back.  My father is not a music aficionado by any means, but he did introduce me to Bill Withers and Dave Brubeck.  Not a bad pair.

Other Bands I Like, You Might Enjoy Them Also