Log #101 - A Rush of Lambs and Modest Mice Dressed In Suede

More Rush this week, with possibly their three best albums? I've played a lot recently and my current favourite album is 2112 which is joined this week by two of their best 80s "synth" albums Moving Pictures and Signals - plus a Modest Mouse and a Lambchop finished off in Suede.

Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News

Rush - 2112

Rush - Signals

Rush - Moving Pictures

Lambchop - Nixon

Suede - Suede

Modest Mouse take a bit of getting used to, which is a good thing. It means they're a bit different. I'm thinking Pixies with a touch of Vampire Weekend, Tom Waits, Beck, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and even The Clash. The singer  Isaac Brock is a real squawker a la Black Francis but I like it - he certainly doesn't lack passion.

The intriguingly entitled Good News For People Who Love Bad News is the Seattle band's 4th album and comes before We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (which I have somewhere but can't lay my hands on at this juncture) and after a debut in 1996 called This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About - great titles.

Unlikely Rock Trivia Fact No. 1: Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank album features Johnny Marr.

And it's true we named our children

After towns that we've never been to

And it's true that the clouds just hung around

Like black Cadillacs outside a funeral

3 top Rush albums in the player this week following on from the clean sweep in log #100. I'd forgotten what an amazing album 2112 is.  The first side is a 20 minute concept piece about a future dystopia ruled by "The Priests of the Temple of Syrinx" who dismiss a man (/young boy?) who discovers an ancient guitar in the dirt:

What can this strange device be?

When I touch it, it gives forth a sound

It's got wires that vibrate and give music

What can this thing be that I found?

See how it sings like a sad heart

And joyously screams out its pain

Sounds that build high like a mountain

Or notes that fall gently like rain

I can't wait to share this new wonder

The people will all see its light

Let them all make their own music

The priests praise my name on this night

The ruling priests respond with:

Yes, we know it's nothing new

It's just a waste of time

We have no need for ancient ways

The world is doing fine

Another toy will help destroy

The elder race of man

Forget about your silly whim

It doesn't fit the plan

The whole piece is stupendous musically with mind blowing musicianship and gravity defying changes. My favourite part is where the boy learns to play the guitar - starting from tuning it to strumming a lovely ascending scale (all in about 2 minutes).

The only disappointment is the story ends suddenly without resolution with:

Attention all planets of the solar federation

We have assumed control

What's that all about, eh? Any Rush fans know?

Side two consists of 5 excellent regular sized tracks (a high proportion for a 70s Rush album and the quality is maintained through all of them). Check out Twilight Zone below - it's got a lovely Rush "bounce".

As ever with early Rush you do have to contend with Lee's ear splitting vocals. There are moments where he sings normally (as in the above track) and he has a great regular voice which I wish he had used more.

Unlikely Rock Trivia Fact No. 2: The cover of Rush's 2012 album Clockwork Angels shows the time of 21:12

In the early 80s Rush trimmed down their progressive pretensions and produced a series of accomplished synth/pop/rock albums including Moving Pictures and Signals. The former is more revered but I actually prefer the latter now which was arguably Rush's last great album -  they are both very good albums which stand up well today. 

Unlikely Rock Trivia Face No. 3: Geddy Lee's full name is Geddy Lee Weinrib and Alex Lifeson's orginal name was Alexandar Zivojinovich.

By the way while researching Rush albums (I am preparing an album ranking) I came across this. At first I thought what a talented band to be able to reproduce Permanent Waves so closely, then on looking more closely I realised it was the same person playing all parts, including the singing! Incredible.

Lambchop are so lo-fi, down tempo, and laid back, my wife actually fell asleep at one of their concerts (but she also fell asleep during Kraftwerk so maybe that’s not so significant). I think they were the sort of classy Americana band that enjoyed a very brief moment of fame just around the turn of the millennium when that kind of music became very popular. Previously a bit of a cult underground band they reached a level of commercial success first with this album Nixon (2000) and then the follow up Is A Woman (2002). I haven’t followed them since then but understand they are still going under the stewardship of regular leader Kurt Wagner (the only original). 

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Log #50 - Some of Neil Young's Greatest Acoustic Numbers Together at Last

1. Afro Celts Sound System- I
2. Quantic - The 5th Exotic
3. Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps
4. Lambchop - Nixon
5. Steely Dan - Aja
6. Cat Stevens - Icon

News of two musical deaths have reached 6 Album Sunday HQ this week: Walter Becker from Steely Dan and Holger Czukay of Can. Surviving founder member Donald Fagen of Steely Dan has committed to continuing and has just announced a tour. Their classic album Aja makes a reappearance here. Czukay's passing barely registered in the press. Three Can members have now gone - Czukay joining Liebezeit and Karoli at the Great Gig in the Sky. Can formed in the 60s and were not young then - both Czukay and Liebezeit were in their late 70s.

Becker and Czukay 

Still going strong is Neil Young. I heard he was releasing a new album and gave it a spin on youtube (before it was taken down). Hitchhiker isn't actually a new album in so much as it is a release of a recording made in 1976. Some of the songs have been released elsewhere either in part, or in their entirety, or in different versions. For example there is a beautiful acoustic version of Powderfinger which is mournful and sad, revealing lyrics I've not picked up before in the electric version on my featured album Rust Never Sleeps.

Fascinatingly there are also parts of these songs that have gone on to form different songs and it is fun to try to remember where. It's like meeting a very familiar face but not being able to put a time, name or place to it. For instance parts of the autobiographical title track Hitchhiker resurfaced some years later and in the most unlikely of places - on Young's ill advised electronic album Trans as Like an Inca. An electric version of Hitchhiker also appeared on Young's Le Noise album which I've tried many times to like but frankly is pretty lame. Actually up until about Sleeps with Angels time I bought every Neil Young album. Hitchhiker sounds wonderful and will probably be my first Neil Young purchase in quite a few years.

It is odd (although not surprising knowing Young's unpredictability) that such a well rounded acoustic album was overlooked in preference for some below par or less than consistent releases around the mid to late 70s such as American Stars 'n' Bars, Comes a Time, Hawks and Doves, and Long May You Run. It's also odd that a classic track like Campaigner, with its famous "even Richard Nixon has got soul" line, has not before been released on any official album other than in edited form in the Decade boxset.

Hitchhiker sounds wonderful and will probably be my first Neil Young purchase in quite a few years.

In a bid to recreate the vibe at home, from my existing collection, and to check differences in Pocahontas, I popped Rust Never Sleeps in the player with an emphasis on side one. This album contains some of Young's greatest songwriting presented in contrasting acoustic and electric settings. Check out the lengthy Thrasher with Young's thinly veiled criticism of his CSNY colleagues (and a couple of understandable memory stumbles!).

Below is a handy tracklisting for Hitchhiker courtesy Wikipedia. Some fans have said this collection is unjustified on account of the paucity of new tracks but as an albums man I disagree - this again demonstrates an album summing to a greatness beyond its individual parts.

Search for Neil Young's Hitchhiker

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