Mixed Media Music Roundup

By Staff Utne Magazine
Published on January 1, 2006

Bobby Bare: The Moon Was Blue (Dualtone)
The comeback album is a genre we’ll see more of as ’60s stars
twinkle one last time before they wink out. That’s good news if,
like Bobby Bare, they trade their hot blood for the mellow
introspection of old age. To hear the 70-year-old croon Fred Neil’s
‘Everybody’s Talkin’ (‘Everybody’s talkin’ at me. I don’t hear a
word they’re saying, only the echoes of my mind’) is to understand
the song for the first time.

In the 1960s, Bare was an independent-minded hit machine who
anticipated the Outlaws (he ‘discovered’ Waylon Jennings, as well
as Kris Kristofferson) and wrestled his music rights from the
studios. His song ‘Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of
Life’ and his collaborations with Shel Silverstein cemented his
reputation as one of the smarter numbers in the Nashville phone
book. And then came two decades of silence. His son, Bobby Bare
Jr., a second-generation Nashville rebel, coaxed him out of
retirement and produced this album.

The songs are old familiars — ‘Love Letters in the Sand,’ ‘Are
You Sincere’ — and Bare’s interpretations make even the love songs
sound wistful. Bobby Jr. layers oddball arrangements of ghostly
singers, whistles, and discordant piano riffs. But it’s his
father’s pensive, hickory-smoked voice that carries the music. He
always sounds like he’s alone on stage. Which at his age, I guess,
is the point. — Joseph Hart

Gangbe Brass Band: Whendo (World Village)
The term ‘brass band’ conjures pomp and spats, but Gangbe feels
more like a party than a pep rally. From the small West African
nation of Benin, the band plays an Africanized brass music that’s
exuberant and playful. Bright horn lines cut out crisp melodies
while warm-voiced singers shout call-and-response repartee. Deep
African drums are an earthy alternative to snares. Threads of jazz,
pop, and funk run through Gangbe’s rich fabric of sound for a
romping polycultural march. — Keith Goetzman

Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow (XL)
Known for his spare acoustic folk, Devendra Banhart apparently has
discovered that the best folk music isn’t about purity; it’s about
diversity. This is his first album with a full backing band and a
modern studio, and the result is a dense thicket of gorgeous
cello-backed melodies, psychedelic rock, and swinging Latin
serenades. Holding it all together is Banhart’s extraordinary
voice, with its scruffy-furred vibrato, going straight to the heart
of your inner flower child. — Robert McGinley Myers

The Juan Maclean: Less Than Human
(DFA/Astralwerks)
The album may be called Less Than Human, but its robot disco tunes
are decidedly sensual. Let ‘Shining Skinned Friend’ show you the
way through the lurid back alleys of a virtual city, but then hitch
a ride to the electric bonfire outside of town where ‘Give Me Every
Little Thing’ is rocking bodies and leading the crowd in a Village
Peoplesque chant. The 14-minute closer, ‘Dance with Me,’ will shoot
shimmery digitized fireworks over your head as you walk home. —
RMM

The Tragically Hip: Hipeponymous
(Universal)
Canada’s Tragically Hip plays gorgeous, blues-based pop-rock with a
literary bent. Front man Gordon Downie is idiosyncratically arty,
like David Byrne circa Talking Heads, yet brims with a passionate
integrity reminiscent of REM’s Michael Stipe. The band fills
stadiums throughout its native country (and pockets of the U.S.
Upper Midwest) despite its disregard for commerce and disdain for
marketing. It’s all very Canadian, and ironically faithful to the
ironic moniker. But for the hordes of uninitiated, there is now
Hipeponymous, an all-purpose primer that culls from the
group’s 10 CDs: 35 songs (plus two new ones) chosen by their fans
via Internet voting. There is also a DVD of a gig in Toronto; a
collection of 23 music videos; a behind-the-scenes minidocumentary;
and ‘The Right Whale’: music for the giant, mutating video images
that shape-shifted behind the band on its last tour. — Britt
Robson

Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham: Moments from This
Theatre
(Proper American Recordings)
Aretha’s ‘Do Right Woman, Do Right Man’? They wrote that. The Box
Tops’ ‘Cry Like a Baby’? That too. The fact is, Dan Penn and
Spooner Oldham have implanted, like mad scientists, numerous
melodies and lyrics deep in our brains. These 1998 U.K. concert
recordings find the team delivering their best songs in no-frills
form: just Penn’s acoustic guitar, Oldham’s Wurlitzer piano, and
their subtle, brotherly vocals. And that’s all they need to bring
these gemlike songs alive. — KG

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