It's time to level with our readers: As you've noticed, we haven't been giving SWR its due lately. A short exchange of emails revealed no one has the time to make the writing what it ought to be. We heartily thank everyone who read, commented, linked, and most importantly, listened over the years. You may see us in the future when the Internet is obsolete and blogs are as outmoded as the telegraph. Until then, Jordy, Glenn, Adam, Phil, and Jeff
Cat Power: Moon Pix (1998) Phil : A handful of winters ago I met up with an old roommate of mine at a Belgian beer bar for happy hour that happened to have half-off Belgian draughts from 4:30 to 6:30. So there we were, in the glow of yellow lights and green carpet, talking about those kids we hadn't seen in forever, about ex-girlfriends and abandoned buildings and photographs, just getting pretty damn drunk. So I walk out of the bar, and stumble the few blocks to the bus station, trying to make [...]
Rolling Stones: Exile on Main St. (1972) Jordy: The history of the writing, recording, and mixing of this album is so convoluted as to render it fairly moot to the modern listener. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter one fig who was having tax, drug, or lady trouble or who wasn't getting along with whom or who was bored with rock and roll. What matters on Exile on Main St. are the songs and there are a lot of them here [...]
Townes Van Zandt: Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas (1977) Adam : Legend (by which I mean Wikipedia) has it that the Old Quarter could "Comfortably accommodate 60 patrons" and that "More than 100 jammed into the room" for this week of shows in July, 1973. Now, being the middle of July in Houston, it was tremendously hot. Early on the album, Townes mentions something about the air conditioning being off, and how it's really hot. Thus, this album is best experienced on a [...]
One our goals with this newishly re-booted So Well Remembered blog is to highlight excellent music writing around the web. Here's today's entry: a brief review of the new crop of Destroyer reissues. "Destroyer is involved in the same exercise but in a different medium: world-building. Not a world in which there is necessarily a narrative to tell, but rather one in which patterns are created and fleshed out, a world in which connections are made between songs and albums, where characters and words repeat, and repeat often enough that they gain meaning [...]
Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves (1995) Jeff: What, you might ask, is the prestigious and well-esteemed SWR blog doing reviewing a derivative 90's pop-punk-revival album? The answer is multifaceted but the first component of it is that it's an amazing album. Another part of that answer is that I for one first began coming of age in musically the mid-'90s-the major labels were well into their signing spree of "alternative" bands, and MTV was playing music that was like nothing else I'd ever heard (it's not Debbie [...]
Neil Young - Tonight's the Night (1975) Glenn: There's a spot on I-77 between Fancy Gap, Virginia, and Lambsburg, just north of the North Carolina border, where the road rises sharply to summit the Blue Ridge. The interstate clings to the hills and winds along steep edges and narrow passes for 10 miles. The air gets wet up there - fog seems to rise out of the rock - and if you are lucky enough to be heading south and riding shotgun you can look southeast from [...]
The Kinks - Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround: Part One (1970) Adam: The Kinks' early career closely resembled that of most of the other British Invasion bands. They were singing blues-based songs about girls (e.g. "You Really Got Me," "All Day and all of the Night"). In the late 1960's, as the themes that rock music addressed became ever darker, the Kinks went the opposite way with the Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society , which focused on nostalgia for simpler times. By the [...]
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1966) Jordy: Of all the great musical leaps forward in the 1960s, none is as beautiful or as much fun to listen to as Pet Sounds . The Beach Boys certainly did not have the sustained and focused creativity of Bob Dylan or the Beatles, but they were superior vocalists and more aggressive in exploring contemporary studio possibilities. Consequently, Pet Sounds stands above any other album of that era, both technically and melodically. [...]
Beck - Odelay (1996) Glenn: Odelay 's stylistic diversity, junkyard-dada sampling aesthetic, and anticipation of the mash-up have been justly praised . However, what strikes me 14 years out is the sheer range of moods Beck's masterwork strikes. Is there any other record with this much emotional variety? From the goofball hick-hop of "Sissyneck" to the monster-movie drone of "Derelict" to the melancholy sigh of "Jack-ass" (a personal favorite) to the sheer fun of "Hotwax," Odelay makes you feel joy, [...]
Can - Tago Mago (1971) Glenn: Deep funk you'd feel weird shaking your butt to. Crisp production, with oddly EQ'd drums - muted. Like what you hear with a head cold or a fever. Two long sound collages - one of which contains my all-time favorite 2 minutes of Can (that'd be the opening of "Aumgn"), and the other of which is made up of shouting, carnival blee-boop organ licks, and delay pedal fuckery. A distanced feeling throughout. So is this emotionless post-rock jamming more to be [...]
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (1969) Adam : What can we say about Trout Mask Replica ? Jordy: Probably too much. Glenn: Yes, but I have a question for you fellows. When you play TMR , which songs do you skip? I tend to skip both "Hair Pie"s, "When Big Joan Sets Up," "My Human Gets Me Blues," and "Neon [...]
Friends, we're taking a little break for the holidays. We'll be back in full force on or about the fifth of January. Stay tuned.
Tom Waits: Rain Dogs (1985) Glenn: Now is the time of the year that Rain Dogs makes it to the stereo and my girlfriend asks me, "Why does Tom Waits sound so romantic?" Phil: I can't speak to this one: all I can say is I hate this version of "Downtown Train" as much as Rod Stewart's. And it's a great song. You should probably ignore me on this post. [...]
The Band: The Band (1969) Glenn: I should probably admit up front that until about six months ago I had no feelings whatsoever for The Band. Sure, they rocked it with Dylan , and I'd seen enough of The Last Waltz to be glad that punk rock was able to dispose of the coke-crusted cremains of dinosaur rock (seriously, there's so much self-congratulatory bullshit smeared all over the celluloid that it's hard to see what's happening). But I'd never been interested in The Band's music, per [...]
The Microphones: The Glow, Pt. 2 (2001) Phil: I don't remember the first time I heard Phil Elvrum's (now Elverum, see his interview with The Believer ) masterpiece of separation and personal discovery, but I can say I have listened to this album several times in several different contexts and it stands apart as one of the finer releases of the Pacific Northwest's Indie scene. A friend of mine once told me she thought that every Microphones album sounded like the band [...]
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005) Jordy : It's hard for me to believe that it's been four years since this album dropped. I remember hearing it that fall of 2005 and thinking "This is exactly how I want rock to sound: fast, hooky, dark, and triumphant." Isaac Brock earned his short keep as a Sub Pop A&R man and producer with this record and, in that light, I can only hope that his last four years' energies haven't been wasted on mere Modest Mouse albums. He [...]
Nirvana: In Utero (1993) Adam: I was 12 years old and my family was on vacation in Florida when I saw the news reports on TV in our hotel saying that the singer from a band I was vaguely familiar with had killed himself. I was just beginning to be interested in rock music in 1994, and after Kurt Cobain's suicide, I wasn't allowed to own any Nirvana albums. I had to get my Nirvana fix [...]
One of our goals with this new version of So Well Remembered is to highlight excellent examples of music writing, old and new. Here's a brand-spanking-new essay that treats Steve Winwood's shit-chestnut "Higher Love" as a gateway into grief, memory, and politics. The essay is a really wonderful illustration of the way that music can be both a sovereign work of art and a method of considering much larger ideas and emotions. Plus, it happens to be by one of my favorite writers, Rick Moody , and appears on one of my favorite new blogs, [...]
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (1969) Glenn: Let's clear one thing up: "The Murder Mystery" is awesome. Anybody who disagrees hasn't caught onto the Velvet's project, which is to use drones, pulse, and deadpan-specific lyrics to create a trance that contains an entire world. Anything else the Velvets do - sing, change chords, play feedback, take speed, let Nico do her thing - is extra. While "The Murder Mystery" isn't a typical Velvets song, it does have the elements I've just identified, plus a wild bouncy-piano-with-vocals outro. [...]
So Well Remembered
My Funny Valentines
Download: James Blake Live Album (Unofficial)
Lana Del Rey - Without You (Kill Paris Remix) [Dubstep]
Miike Snow - “Paddling Out” Jacques Lu Cont Remix (MP3 Stream)
Iron & Wine and Patty Griffin
