Inspired by my recent 1,227 mile trip to see Jonathan Coulton for the 9th and 10th times (a trip I would, under normal circumstances, probably not have made to see any band but TMBG, but desperate musical times call for desperate travel measures, plus he had Marty with him), I have been meaning to do an Audience Participation entry on other bands and musicians that inspire your love and dedication.
Then John suggested putting together a playlist or "mix-tape" of completely non-TMBG (or related projects) songs for each other to share other musical interests and see where else we overlap, or don't as the case may be. And I thought that was a pretty great idea too. So I am going to do both. And at the same time too, to make up for all the recent weeks without Audience Participation entries. It'll be in two parts, the first now and the second when I finish work today.
So, first off, my list of other artists who have even come close to inspiring TMBG levels of dedication. Although really, only one of the artists on this list can even begin to compare (though I think there is another one or two heading in that direction).
Brad Paisley - I am not a country music fan. Repeat: I am NOT a country music fan. But I am however, a Brad Paisley fan. Go figure. His funny songs are just too damn funny and his romancey type songs are really sweet and damn, that guy can play a guitar. I credit my dad for turning me on to him a few years back. He does have the occasional song that is just a little too country for me, but how can you not appreciate a guy with a whole song about how the best gift you can give a woman is to put the toilet seat down?
Paul Simon - I have been a Paul Simon fan for pretty much as long as I can remember. Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints played in my house from the time my parents bought their first CD player. There is one track on Rhythm of the Saints with this really killer drum solo that my dad used to blast out of the stereo to wake me up for breakfast on Sunday mornings (when he didn't use the 1812 Overture). Then at some point in high school my grandparents gave my mother a boxed set of Simon & Garfunkel CDs for some occasion and I pretty much stole it until I left for college. I just adore his song writing. And the music. When I was still playing piano regularly (read: when I still had a piano instead of my sad, doesn't-even-have-88-keys keyboard) I would sit around pounding out Sounds of Silence from memory. I've seen him live twice. The first time was a concert when he was on tour for his album You're The One. I went with my parents but we could only get single seats in the theater so we didn't get to sit together. It was kind of insane but wonderful. The second time was a reunion tour of Simon & Garfunkel at the Fleet Center with my roommate at the time. We could barely see but it didn't matter because it was so amazing seeing them perform together. Excuse me a moment. I need to go pull out my keyboard and play Sounds of Silence again for old times sake. (Note: Wow, I am terribly out of practice.)
John Denver - This is another one I got from my parents. I have been listening to JD, literally, all my life. My parents went to a concert when my mother was about eight months pregnant with me. When I was little I loved the song Grandma's Feather Bed. Then I got into my tween years and got super into musicals and didn't listen to much else for quite a while. But I remember quite vividly the morning in high school when my mother woke me up and told me that John had been killed in a plane crash. I remember going to school and trying to talk about this with my friends and being absolutely horrified that most of them didn't even know who he was. That was definitely the turning point for me. I did my own personal tribute to him, performing A Baby Just Like You at the Christmas chorus concert that year, partly for myself and partly to begin to educate my classmates about his music. And in the process fell back in love with his music myself. I did Annie's Song for an audition (which I didn't get) and both Montana Sky and Friends With You for my senior recital (the later with all my girlfriends on stage with me singing back-up). I think one of my biggest regrets will always be that I never got to see him perform live.
Queen - I discovered Queen in such a bizarre way. For the most part, if an artist was not either someone my parents listened to or someone who was played on the Oldies or Soft Rock radio stations I listened to throughout my youth, I was completely unfamiliar with them. For years and years, all I knew of Queen was Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You. Then I went to work in London after college and saw a lot of theater because I didn't have much else to do after work. One of the shows I saw was a musical based around the music of Queen (ala Mamma Mia/ABBA) called We Will Rock You. It was a wonderfully bizarre, campy, futuristic sci-fi story and I just got addicted to the music. I bought the soundtrack and a big 3 disc box set of Queen music and listened to virtually nothing else for several months following. It hit me right at a time when I was craving something harder rocking than the folk music and oldies I had been listening to but wasn't sure where to go. Queen hit the spot perfectly.
OK Go - Like TMBG, this is one I got from my boyfriend. I'm pretty sure he discovered them as a TMBG opener. I know he played their CDs when I was around a number of times but it was, of course, the treadmill video he showed me that made more of an impression. I finally started calling myself a fan right about the time their most recent album came out. It was a combination of the album, the Rube Goldberg video and the first time I saw them live. Those guys sure know how to put on a show. And they make the best music videos I have ever seen. I've seen them thrice more since that first time, putting them in fifth position on the list of bands I've seen most frequently.
The Guggenheim Grotto - I've talked about these guys a lot on this blog. Mostly because I discovered them while we were following TMBG on tour in the fall of '09. They opened for seven of the shows on our fifteen shows in eighteen days extravaganza. And they are good. Really, really good. Folk rock with some of the most beautiful lyrics. And Mick's voice is probably the most beautiful male vocal I have ever heard. I especially love their latest album because the mixing allows his vocals to come through so much more richly. I've seen them three times on their own since that tour, tying them for third place on that most seen list. They are one of a very few number of bands that I will see EVERY time they come around.
Jonathan Coulton - Again, no surprises here. I started following JoCo on Twitter before I ever listened to any of his music because both John Hodgman and Neil Gaiman mentioned him so much in their feeds that I had to figure out who they were talking about. I finally listened to a few tracks on his website and loved them and spontaneously decided to drag Gary to a show right before our big '09 road trip. Excellent decision. LOVED it. No turning back after that. Four shows opening for TMBG in '10, then the epic PAX East show. The first two band shows with Marty and Chris in July and the next two in January have tied him with TGG for third place. But the next PAX East show in three weeks will break that tie... for about a month until my next TGG show :-)
David Mallett - I could probably safely bet money on the fact that none of you have ever heard of Dave unless you've heard me mention him before. He's a folk singer that has been a presence in my life since my toddler years listening to him on the record player. He's a bit of a legend in Maine but hasn't gained much acclaim outside folk music circles in the rest of the world despite a career spanning over 30 years. If you've ever heard any of his songs the most likely is The Garden Song. "Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow." It's been recorded by everyone from John Denver to the Muppets. I saw my first Dave Mallet concert when I was maybe seven or eight, and sporadically over the years after that. But for a period of about ten years from the middle of high school to my first few years living in Massachusetts, I followed him like a groupie. I coerced friends into driving me to shows in college and dragged them to Cambridge to see him at Club Passim. I spent my days off from the summer camp I worked at trekking around Maine to shows. I got to be friends with his soundman Tom and with Dave himself. He did a tour in England while I was studying abroad there and I took a bus into the middle of nowhere England to see him perform. I sat at a table with his wife and kids and toured around the town with them the next morning before my bus came. For a while I didn't have to pay for his new albums any more because Tom gave them all to me for free. If you want to know where I learned to be a TMBG groupie look no further than right here. Admittedly, I pretty much stopped following Dave when I started following TMBG and I haven't been to one of his shows in a couple of years, but that doesn't mean I love his music any less. His songs are timeless and I return to them whenever I need something a little quieter or I'm just feeling homesick. I lost track of how many times I saw him live but it was something in the twenties so while TMBG passed it long ago, it'll be a while before anyone steals the number two spot on my list.
When I get out of work today (first day at the new store... little nervous) I'll put up my playlist of non-TMBG songs including tracks from all the above artists and then some. Stay tuned!
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The "other artists who have even come close to inspiring TMBG levels of dedication" criterion is hard to put my finger on, and as a result, I'm leaving off artists I love whom I'd consider musically superior to some on the list below. Okay, I'll go in backwards chronological order of discovery:
ReplyDeleteSufjan Stevens -- A friend turned me on to him back when the Illinoise album came out. I think he was a little hesitant about doing so as a christian, and with Sufjan being a thoroughgoing christian artist, and me being an atheist. But none of that mattered to me in the face of that music: Sufjan is incredibly gifted with a very unique sound and style (folk-rock-electronica?). There are albums I plan on buying simply because he's _produced_ them. Some songs are incredibly gentle, some are frenetically gentle, and some build and move with the slow inevitability of a glacier flow. Never seen him perform.
The Tragically Hip -- This is the rock band that was meant for me I think. I discovered them back from the days I had DirectTV and would do all my video watching on MuchMusic, the Canadian MTV. I had remembered "Courage" from the early nineties (which crossed over to US alt rock stations at least), and was seeing vids for their killer tracks from the Music@Work and Phantom Power albums, as well as classics like "Ahead By A Century" that never made it to the US. Very hard rocking, and as lyrically inventive as the Giants without any of the goofiness, so the lyrics never pull you out of that rock mindset. Plus Gord Downie on lead vocals is just insane, knotting up into spastic contortions as he sings, making up new lyrics and melodies during songs' instrumental breaks in live performances. Seen in concert once at The Electric Factory in Philly.
Matthew Good Band / Matthew Good -- This is another MuchMusic discovery. Similar to the Hip in the sense of being another Canadian rock band with distinctive vocals. But a tighter and more synth-heavy texture, as well as being darker musically and lyrically. This goes for MGB stuff as well as Matt's solo career. The lyrics are nothing particularly inspired (and Matt's anti-U.S. / anti-consumerism attitude can be preachy and annoying), but the music is incredible with some really great vocal lines and harmonies. Makes me totally wish I sang/played in a band sometimes. I saw MGB at a small club at the shore.
The Story (and Jonatha Brooke's and Jennifer Kimball's subsequent solo work) -- A late college discovery. The Story were a folk/rock band known for their vocal arrangements, and deservedly so. Jonatha and Jennifer met and sang together in Amherst I think, and developed a unique melodic/harmonic style. Their voices and harmonies really got under my skin, and I'd find myself listening to tracks over and over again until I could completely understand what was going on in each vocal layer. I was sad when they broke up after Angel In The House, but Jonatha has had a solid solo career, and although Jennifer went back to her day job, she's released a few great albums post-Story as well, and continued to play in folk venues occasionally. I've seen them all over, from Oberlin to the Tin Angel and TLA in Philly, at the Fast Folk, the Fez at Time Cafe, and Bowery Ballroom in NYC, Club Passim, hell, at some restaurant outside of Bar Harbor.
(cont.)
(cont. from above)
ReplyDeleteMission Of Burma -- turned onto them my first year of college by a tuba major, the same guy who introduced me to Steve Reich (although I would have found him for certain in the next few years). I was never really into punk, but -- what? you mean they have a fourth guy whose sole job is to do live tape loop manipulations? I guess this "post-punk" is something I can give a try! With or without tape, these guys make some incredible sounds for a power trio, and each does vocals in their own signature way, from Roger's declamatory Sprechstimme, to Clint's quieter hesitant melodicism, to Peter's campfire scream-along. They broke up in the early 80s, and I was really concerned about what their mid 00s reunion would be like 20 years after, but they put out one of the best albums of 2004, every bit the equal, in my mind, of 1982's Vs. I also like Clint's other band Consonant. I saw MoB at the TLA.
Negativland -- A friend happened across Escape From Noise in my senior year in high school and shared it with me (one of very few good things that happened that year). Not so much a band as a group of found sound manipulators. They do hilariously funny stuff, serious stuff, satire, and completely abstract musique concrète. Hard to describe, but brilliant. They're also outspoken advocates for copyright laws that better reflect the ways artists actually influence each other and utilize each other's work, as opposed to the way record companies wish they did. I was thrilled that they came by Oberlin in the mid 90s.
Rush -- I'm not sure why these guys were often lumped in with heavy metal acts when their sound was distinctly hard rock. But I guess the complexity of their stuff appealed to the Priest and Maiden crowd more than the AC/DC and Sabbath crowd. Anyhow, these guys could do no wrong during my high school years. For a music theory snob, their shifting keys and time signatures were a mental stimulant. I was in a band that was maybe 50% Rush cover band. I sort of fell off the Rush kick after the early 90s as my musical tastes kept expanding, but I've still been impressed with the recent stuff I've heard form them, and I know I need to catch up with their last 15 years. Seen them a bunch of times.
I guess those seven are a good place to draw the line. Sorry Sarah McLachlan, Suzanne Vega, The Sundays, Shawn Colvin...
(Kelly -- some cool stories there! Paul Simon is a genius, no doubt. I saw his Rhythm Of The Saints show in Central Park, and think that album is his masterpiece. As a kid, I would listen to Simon and Garfunkle's Greatest Hits album on the record player again and again, trying to understand what it was that made their music so much more interesting than the other music I heard around me. It was actually a very early music theory moment for me, learning just how bittersweet a i-to-v transition could sound when you would otherwise expect a i-to-V. Yes, I'm showing off :-) )
ReplyDelete(Oh, somehow I accidentally typed "frenetically gentle" in the Sufjan desciption above. I had meant to type "frenetically bombastic". A mistake anyone could make :-) . And I should have mentioned Rush's early influence on my objectivism, blah, blah, blah, I could go on about my musical tastes for a _long_ time...)
ReplyDeletePlaylist available by request? Little to no explanation:
ReplyDeleteThe Decemberists
Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five
Amanda Palmer/The Dresden Dolls
The Beatles (shamefully, I didn't know any of their work until 11th grade)
Cake
Buddy Holly
OK Go
Jonathan Coulton
The Mountain Goats
The New Pornographers (these guys, as well as tMG are recent acquisitions)
Weezer
Sufjan Stevens
Counting Crows (grew up listening to them)
Steel Train
Julia Nunes
Regina Spektor
Kinda lame? Yeah. I have others too. Like I said, a playlist is available, and other musicians will end up on there too, some in place of others.
Oooh, I remember The Dresden Dolls opening for Mission Of Burma. That Amanda Palmer is sure in your face. I've heard some of her solo stuff ("Leeds United" sticks out) on Y-Rock at XPN, my favorite sister station to my favorite station. The Decemberists, New Pornographers, and Regina Spektor (who I first learned of in her Ben Folds duet) are also regularly featured there. It's a really good radio station, and I listen to their stream when I can.
ReplyDelete