“The next couple of days your desk is piled up with all the great R and B records of the past, including a few original things which will knock everyone out. And then, right smack between all that sweet confusion, all the empty and grotesque coffee containers and crushed cigarette butts, it was there. I mean pow!” —Bert Berns (1929-1967)
What an age we live in. New vinyl records are pouring forth from an ever-expanding roster of Indie record labels. New Indie bands are drowsily springing up in the green fields like wildflowers. Thorny old major labels are waking up to smell the spring-sweet breeze of change, realizing they too can bud anew, reissuing long-missed classics, because we want them. We need them. And why put limit to what you desire? These are just a few of the LPs that have inspired, this discovering year, that have drawn me out of myself, to walk beside crystalline lakes and streams of the mind, into a new, bright sphere of long-playing dreams. As I reflected on the many kinds of lists I might prepare in this fast-fading final month near, I realized how few singles caught my eye in Twenty Fourteen, as forty-five. I wanted pure flame in Fourteen, I wanted my music pastoral and sweeping, I wanted my hands overflowing with bounty from my keeping. So I went for roads measureless, and spent my days dear… side by side, song by song, heart by heart, taking my time to discover and to savor wandering song. As I compiled this list I decided to stick to records that any might buy. Easy it is to love the hidden and the scarce, but it’s vexing indeed to know of beauty one cannot possess. Mine is an accessible bouquet (almost all on vinyl, if one does not delay). You know you miss the romance, the poetry of vinyl. Go on, make Twenty Fifteen the year of your triumphant arrival at what’s real, what’s elemental, what’s personal; what’s haunted, what’s holy, what’s you. Walk into the green, green hills and fields, in self-trusting yield, follow your heart, and find your own dream-plucked flowers new.
Rowland S. Howard: POP CRIMES (Liberation, reissued 2014)
Bob Dylan & The Band: THE BASEMENT TAPES COMPLETE (Columbia, 2014)
Jack White: LAZARETTO (Third Man, 2014)
Jimi Hendrix: BLUES (Sony, reissued 2011)
The Shivers: MORE (Silence Breaks, 2011)
The Shivers: CHARADES (Keeled Scales, reissued 2014)
The Mastersons: GOOD LUCK CHARM (New West, 2014)
Fear of Men: LOOM (Kanine, 2014)
La Sera: HOUR OF THE DAWN (Hardly Art, 2014)
Will Johnson: SCORPION (Undertow, 2012)
Sleater-Kinney: THE WOODS (Sub Pop, reissued 2014)
Owl John: OWL JOHN (Atlantic, 2014)
David Gray: MUTINEERS (iht, 2014)
Maximo Park: TOO MUCH INFORMATION (V2, 2014)
Various Artists: WHILE NO ONE WAS LOOKING: TOASTING 20 YEARS OF BLOODSHOT RECORDS (Bloodshot, 2014)
Jack White is all about authenticity. Forget talking about his tour rules, his family, his fights with other musicians, all the celebrity crap that the modern media shoves forward instead of engaged, genuine insight about the man’s art. Think about his music. Think about the songs and their sources. His heart is in 1930s retro, which includes the showmanship and attention to detail and his record label. Jack asks that fans not let their cellphone use obscure the SHOW happening right in front of their eyes. His opening tour spokesperson stepped on stage just before each show and addressed the crowd. He said our parents, and especially our grandparents, went to live shows to enjoy the spectacle unfolding in front of them.
Jack White is a time machine back to when the show was everything. Back to when going to a live show had both huge theatrical elements as well as deeply spiritual elements, for the fans who bought a ticket to see a show. Everything flowed from the live performance. I remember those days. I’m that old. In that way, in my opinion, Jack White is very like William Shakespeare at his Globe, as far fetched as that might sound. It’s all about showmanship and giving people something entertaining. High-flying words and buckets of blood, if need be. There are layers of meaning in White’s songs, song choices, lyrics, and the mighty sources from which they flow, far deeper and more emotional and real than digital technology can capture on a six-inch screen. It’s about the gritty live experience as a groundling, art and intellectual impact in one experience, which takes days and even weeks to access through memory and contemplation.
I attended both Seattle shows this week. These photos were taken by Jack White’s tour photographer, David James Swanson, which are all available on Jack White’s website. For free. I left my camera home so I could get lost in the music. One show I was at the stage, the other in a seat at the back of the room. Third Man Records has reminded everyone that their turntables aren’t dead, which should also remind everyone that the authenticity of the 1920s and 30s can still be conjured back into our lives, the best of the early Twentieth Century, if we want it. Music is life.
Photo by David James Swanson
Photo by David James Swanson
Photo by David James Swanson
Photo by David James Swanson
The Music of the World Is Never Dead 