Mid Year pop music report

In alphabetical order, here are the 11 CDs that seemed to hold my attention the longest since the start of the new year. It's hard to say whether any of these will make my annual end of the year list. I need to listen to all of them more carefully between now and December. It's hard to know now whether they will bear up to repeated playing. And we haven't heard what else the year may bring. But, for what it's worth, these are 10 discs from the first half of 2012 worth seeking out.




Europe by Allo Darlin'. Tuneful ear candy from a young London band lead by songwriter Elizabeth Morris. The four-piece band plays soft, jangly, guitar-oriented indie pop and occasionally extends the music palette to ukelele. Morris's earnest vocals are easy to embrace; her lyrics are amusing and confessional. Highlights include "Capriconia" and "Neil Armstrong," a whimsical tip of the hat to the first man on the moon.

 
Bloom by Beach House. This CD, the fourth from Beach House, may be their most challenging CD yet. Victoria LeGrand and Alex Scally have crafted a record that seems more like a suite of that meshes together in a dream-like sequence than individual songs. "It's not the band's most immediate music, but the album's challenging mix of heartbroken words and aloof sounds rewards patient and repeated listening," trills the All Music Guide.

Locked Down, by Dr. John.   Mac Rebbenack is back with a blistering set of hoodoo voodoo and he still sounds ticked off at the Army Corps of Engineers for what they done to his hometown, N'Awlins.  (They left the city unprotected to the wrath of Hurricane Katrina by allowing the city's levees to remain in a weakened state for decades). Locked Down isn't as swampy as his 1968 record, "Gris-Gris" but it may be his best record since that classic.  Its grooves are  raw and immediate; its lyrics are charged with righteous indignation. It melds primal rock, careening R&B, and electric blues in a downright nasty brew.

Voyageur by Kathleen Edwards. I'm a sucker for Kathleen Edward's alt-country sound and this 2012 release is up to her usual high standards. Her lyrics give listeners personal glimpses into life lived on an emotional roller coaster: the "voyage" at the heart of the record is a misguided love affair. Her lamentable choices, sung with heart-torn regrets and played with ragged glory by her band, go down as easy as Jack Daniels over ice.

Clear Heart Full Eyes by Craig Finn.  Finn's first solo CD feels like a return to form after the relative disappointment of Stay Positive, the Hold Steady's 2008 effort. Finn's songs on Clear Heart are fixated on the American fascination with religious experience, personal pilgrimage and eventual loss of faith. It's a journey worth taking. The band doesn't rock quite as hard as the Hold Steady does, but their performance seems to serve the contemplative nature of the songs.
 





Grifter's Hymnal by Ray Wylie Hubbard. Long associated with the outlaw brand of West Texas country music, Hubbard was introduced to the music world in 1973 when Jerry Jeff Walker recorded his classic, "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." For years, he's burnished his outlaw reputation with a rawboned version of country music that skews close to the heart of rock 'n roll. Put "Coricidin Bottle" on and hear the sounds of a band coming unhinged from the git-go. Lucas Hubbard, Ray's son, plays lead and makes his Papa proud. Ringo Starr has a vocal cameo on "Coochy Coochy."

 Home Again, Michael Kiwanuka. Rippling with a sweet and soulful vibe, this is the best world music I've heard so far this year. Home Again is getting huge support from Philadelphia's public radio station, WXPN, which has placed the  title track and a lilting blues called "I'm Getting Ready" into heavy rotation. You can hear echoes of Van Morrison and Bill Withers in his plaintive vocals.





Signs & Signifiers by J.D. McPherson. Not sure this one will have the staying power needed to make my end of the year list, but I'm pretty certain "North Side Gal" is gonna be one of my favorite songs of the year. McPherson and his band, wearing hairstyles straight out of "Grease", channel the swagger and swing of Elvis Presley's Sun Studio trio (Elvis, Scotty Moore and Bill Black). If you can resist tapping your foot along to the dozen rockabilly-tinged songs on this record, you better have your pulse checked.

On the Impossible Past by the Menzingers. A short, sweet, burst of power pop/punk from Scranton's favorite sons. Sounds like Green Day ramped up on amphetamines that have been washed down with Red Bull. "The Obituaries" may be the best song you'll never hear on the radio all year, featuring hooks galore and a refrain replete with F'bombs that make it difficult to resist wanting to sing along with your car windows open. Dead solid certain to embarrass your 15-year-old if she's traveling with you. I speak from experience.  


Wrecking Ball by Bruce Springsteen. A return to form for Springsteen, Wrecking Ball contains his best songwriting since Tunnel of Love IMHO. Springsteen's songwriting can be called calculating on this record, if only because he's so obviously penned a soundtrack to the 2012 election season for President Obama and the Democrats. You may not be okay with that, but count me all in. The stakes are high. "Easy Money" doesn't just rail at the fat cats on Wall Street, it's a bald face call to armed insurrection for their theft of the treasury. Woody Guthrie famously painted "this guitar kills fascists" on his instrument. Don't be too surprised if Springsteen  doesn't borrow that line for his summer tour.

The Lost Kerosene Tapes, 1999 by Bob Woodruff. Woodruff is barely  known, even among diehard alt-country fans. What a shame! Dreams & Saturday Nights is a hard to find, out of print classic from 1994. If you like Steve Earle's early CDs, (especially Guitartown and I Feel Alright) you'll probably dig Woodruff. The Lost Kerosene Tapes, 1999 are just that: an incredible collection of incendiary songs songs that were lost in the vaults of time for the last 13 years and recently recovered and released. Not likely to make him a household name but epic none the less. 

Father's Day will never feel the same

Father's Day will never feel the same. Not after last year.


My father was diagnosed with lymphoma one year ago on Father's Day 2011. Three months later the tenacious cancer claimed his life. The picture above appeared on his obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sept. 15th of last year.


I have been thinking a lot about my father these past few weeks and a lot about this holiday. I miss my dad, but I have been miffed at him recently. Sometimes the telephone will ring and I half expect it to be him, telling me about a PBS special he thought I should watch or about a New York Times column by Maureen Dowd I need to read. I usually fielded these calls as gracefully as my personality would allow: not very.


I didn't like to be told what to do by him when I was growing up and, after I left home, I didn't like it any better. After bristling for years about being told what I should do with my free time, I wasn't always as patient as I could been. Now, of course, I wish I could take his call and agree with him: "Yes, thanks Dad, I should watch that Pete Seeger documentary. I will as soon as I get off the phone with you." I miss him. I even miss his unsolicited advice.


When my semester ended several weeks ago, I decided to finally begin the task of cleaning out my garage....a space my Dad appropriated soon after I took ownership of my home in Downingtown. In fact, his request to use my garage for storage came on the day of settlement. I received one of his hand-written notes in my mailbox on the afternoon the deed was signed over to me. I was impressed by his thoughtfulness when I tore open the envelope. How good of him, to wish me well in my new digs and to calculate the arrival time of his wishes for the precise day the house became mine. He had sent it three days earlier from Wisconsin, where he was visiting my sister.


Then I read his request and I had to stifle the urge to laugh. Two of my sisters had turned aside his request to use their basement or garage to store his stuff. Now he was making this request of me.  I was an easy mark. Unlike my sisters, I was divorced. I didn't have to answer to a spouse. On top of that, my brother had been helping my dad pay his bills. For years my father had used his homes as an ATM machine, borrowing against the equity to pay his bills. I knew I could save my dad (and the rest of us) nearly $300 a month if we stopped paying monthly rent on a storage unit in  Jenkintown.


I made a deal with my dad. If he would allow me to use half the garage to store my things: golf clubs, my lawn mower, two bikes, some boxes of books, he could use half of my garage space. But he would have to empty the storage unit and get rid of most of the stuff there. Although this pained him, he agreed. The local siblings rented a dumpster, had it delivered to the storage unit, and spent six hours filling it up with the stuff he couldn't squeeze into his allotted space in my garage. 

It was a sad day for my father. My mom, who dealt with my father's hording issues for decades, was happier than I had seen her in years. She couldn't conceal her delight in his misery. She smiled the whole day long.

Six months later, however, my mower and bicycles were stuffed into one corner of my garage. The rest of it was packed with his things. My golf clubs were transported to a basement closet. Boxes and boxes of his things filled the garage. Much of it was fishing and camping equipment; enough to outfit a small sporting goods store. There were tools. A variety of hammers and saws and shovels. And plastic tool boxes (some full, a few half-full, many totally empty). There were boxes of Gerber baby food jars full of screws, nails, bolts and tacks. This was stuff in plain sight. Other things he wisely kept hidden from me.

On the weekend of his funeral service, I invited my brothers, brothers-in-law and nephews to come and claim some of his camping and fishing equipment. Dozens of rods and reels, a gaffer hook, several sets of waders and fishing nets, pup tents and sleeping bags all left the premises. But in the last few weeks I have filled two garbage cans full of junk every time the trash collectors come, slowly emptying my garage of stuff he'd been gathering for years. 

Why he kept the stuff I've tossed out is hard to imagine. A few boxes were full of things that still had use. His clothes and several boxes of books I gave to Goodwill. Four spare wheels/tires I dropped off at Goodyear Tires. The rest of it boggled my mind. Scraps of wood. Dozens and dozens of empty 35 mm film cannisters. A box of half filled cans of paint, decades old and rusted shut. A box of spray paint cans, all empty. A box of old turpentine cans, also empty. A box of empty baby food jars. Several boxes of rags. A box of empty coffee tins. A box of rubber bicycle tire innertubes.Chemicals for his camper commode.

I feel a sense of some relief now that I can see space for my car. But there is a sense of sadness, too. A sense I had been used by my father for all those months, that he had needlessly appropriated garage space for this junk. All I really had done was enabled his hording pathology right to the bitter end. The stuff was so well hidden from view that, it occurred to me, he realized I would have tossed it all out once I discovered the contents of those boxes. 

As I unburden my garage of the flotsam of father's life, there is also the sad realization my father's hording issues have been passed on to me and some of my siblings. My own home is awash with "stuff." Thousands of CDs and records. Hundreds of books. Dozens and dozens of ball caps and sports jerseys. Things I don't really need but can't yet part with. I have a high tolerance for clutter and it bothers me.

Is seems inordinately difficult for me to unburden myself of my junk. I am not my father; I am not that "bad".

Not yet. 

Unfortunately, we can't always throw away the things our parents leave behind. Some of the stuff just sticks to you.