Into the Distance Music 6

Waterfront Blues Festival 2015 - Ty Curtis - Five Long Years

Ty Curtis, Key To My Heart - Water Under The Bridge

Bourbon Music

Ty Curtis Band - Waterfront Blues Festival, Portland, Oregon - 3rd July, 2015

Bootleg Reassurance

Picked up and am listening to a bootleg of the Ty Curtis Band a few days ago in Portland, Oregon. Mentioning because I do recommend Curtis' latest album, reviewed here, and of course it is always reassuring to hear that an artist can do it live, and this confirms. Great guitar playing, and Ty gives it some grit vocally. Lovely live rendition of the ballad Seen My Chance from the album Water Under the Bridge. And a sublime performance of Five Long Years from his 2010 album Cross That Line, here with King Louie [Louis Pain] on B-3 - see clip on later posting.

Legs Music 5

Anderson East - Delilah, album review

T-Cut

Blue-eyed soul than transcends its adjectival descriptor, this is simply hot and sweet, sweet and hot to a T. Opener Only You mixes soul sass with 50s rock'n'roll, and third Find Em, Fool 'Em and Forget 'Em is three contractions to emphasise a a funkfest-cum-60s cop TV theme tune. Fourth Devil in Me is a fine example of the buffed gravel of the voice, and this, as with others, is pumped with horns and female vocal chorus backing. The first ballad is fifth All I'll Ever Need and it soothes sweetly, organ and chorus swooning appropriately in the background. Seventh What a Woman Wants to Hear has a little of the Ryan Adams about it. With Leon Bridges, proving a good time for retro-soul.

Tree Music 10

Whitey Morgan & The 78s - Born Raised & Live From Flint, appearance review

Long Hair Gripe

Good ol' boy Country with a cracking backing band, playing a stonker live in Flint Michigan, but that's all I'm going to say about the music because I'm just pissed off that it's fine and dandy today for a long haired [and bearded] guy to engage the rednecks - and all the other outlaw music lovers - because it's cool enough and accepted to look like this across the cultural divide, whereas back in the late 70s I got run out of town, more or less, for having semi-long hair and wearing a tie-dye T-shirt. Indeed, the intolerance I experienced just outside Flint at that time drove me back to the relative tolerance and tranquility of England.

A quick gripe as I continue marking.....

Into the Distance Music 5

Neil Young Performing his song "Monsanto Years"on Maui at OUTGROW MONSAN...

I want to play with Neil's alfresco, far-out 'family'! Such fun.

Sign Music 2

Metallica - St Anger, album review

Lyrically Speaking

This is indeed an album full of anger, manifested in the thrashing sounds primarily of drums and guitar, and the thrashing catharsis of James Hetfield’s lyrical commentary on the demons inside his head, those he had tried to expunge in rehab – putting the recording of this album into a two-year hiatus from 2011 to 2003 – and those which he continues to unleash and share through the music on this release.

It should be noted that this is a famously collaboratively written set of songs [revealed and therefore confirmed in the movie Some Kind of Monster that I haven't seen] and  much of the lyrical account of turmoil could also inherently reflect this, though it does seem to be a focus from Hetfield's personal struggles.

Reviewing this album can be best traced through the songs’ stories: the lyrics tell us more about the mood than the music, the latter primarily fast and furious to carry the angst in the confessional narrative, the first

Frantic

My lifestyle (Birth Is Pain)
Determines my death style (Life Is Pain)
A rising tide (Death Is Pain)
That pushes to the other side (It's All The Same)

begins with a machine-gun rhythm, and is linguistically as transparent as one could be in terms of its nihilism. Second

St Anger

Fuck it all and no regrets
I hit the lights on these dark sets
I need a voice to let myself
To let myself go free
Fuck it all and fuckin' no regrets
I hit the lights on these dark sets
Medallion noose, I hang myself
Saint Anger 'round my neck

has a long thrusting intro before expressing its cathartic abandon, suggestions of genuine darkness in that despair. By third

Some Kind of Monster

This is the test of flesh and soul
This is the trap that smells so good
This is the flood that drains these eyes
These are the looks that chill to the bone
These are the fears that swing over head
These are the weights that hold you down
This is the end that will never end
This is the voice of silence no more

the linear repetition that describes the inner self and the outward appearance is as hypnotic as the chugging riff, a list-lyric that emulates the relentless pace of the music. Next

Dirty Window

I see my reflection in the window
It looks different, so different than what you see
Projecting Judgement on the world
This house is clean baby
This house is clean

Am I who I think I am?
Am I who I think I am?
Am I who I think I am?
Look out my window and see it's gone wrong
Court is in session and I slam my gavel down

projects the questioning through the lightning pace of a quick riff and there seems to be self-judgement in its uncertainty. Fifth

Invisible Kid

Invisible kid
Suspicious of your touch
Don’t want no crutch
But it’s all too much

I hide inside
I hurt inside
I hide inside, but I’ll show you...

could be autobiographical and therefore could be looking at the root of this narrative of anger and despair, but I am no expert and it is important not to ignore the melodramatic in the telling for effect. Sixth

My World

Who's in charge of my head today
Dancin' devils in angels way

It's my time now

Look out motherfuckers here I come
Gonna make my head home
The sons of bitches tried to take my head
Tried to make me someone else instead

shifts to assertion. The poles of uncertainty and defiance would seem to be the far reaches of psychosis, though the music is itself much more static in delivering that range. Next

Shoot me again

All these shots I take
I spit back at you
All the shit you fake
Comes back to haunt you

seems both acquiescent and then defiant, the grunge tone and spoken chorus mixing brooding reflection with the natural defense of being brave. Eighth

Sweet Amber

Chase the rabbit, fetch the stick
She rolls me over 'til I'm sick
She deals in habits, deals in pain
I run away but I'm back again

Oh then she holds my hand
And I lie to get a smile
And she squeezes tighter
I still lie to get a smile

would seem to recall fickle love or addiction to another transitory comfort, though there are accounts online that the meaning is much more prosaic, an expression of anger at a management request, and this must be the caveat for any and all of this analysis: it is surmise, it doesn’t matter, and the music may or may not inject the meaning for the listener. Ninth

The Unnamed Feeling

I'm frantic in your soothing arms
I can not sleep in this down filled world
I've found safety in this loneliness
But I can not stand it anymore

would have seemed a natural appendage to what precedes, but with doubt about that song’s meaning, this has less immediacy. The music is more thrash than anywhere else, and that caustic vocal seems at odds with the suggestion [just] of romanticism. Perhaps the ambiguity is in the title. Next

Purify

Tear it down
Strip the layers off
My turpentine
Old paint, old looks
Cover up the past
White heat, white light
Super white bones
Bones of you and I

has a garage, staccato sound, and I like the paired down simplicity of the lyric. It is clear that the purpose of the lyrics to these song is collectively to strip thought and feelings to their raw bones. Closer

All Within My Hands

Hate me now
Kill all within my hands
Hate me now
Crush all within my hands
Squeeze all within my hands
Choke all within my hands
Hate me now
Trap all within my hands
Hurry up and hate me now
Kill all within my hands again

I'll die if I let go
Control is love, love is control
I'll fall if I let go
Control is love, love is control

I will only let you breath
My air that you receive
Then we'll see if I let you love me
Kill Kill Kill Kill Kill

is as angry as it can, and does, get. The final stanza embraces the turmoil and contradictions within the whole – though the anger is a constant – and the juxtaposition of love and kill is quite direct in its confusion, though sounding certain, and frankly, the final singing of that final line is as demonstrative as it can be. This is the most accomplished of the songs in its variation, though still following the consistent hardcore template of the album. 

Other Vehicular Music 9