Turn It Up - 9/30/2024

Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

It’s a new week, so we’re back to share some things we’ve been listening to. David first, then Charles, and a bunch of reading recommendations at the end.

Ira Dean and Ronnie Dunn – “Tele-Man” (single, 2024)

A fun tribute to the Fender Telecaster and the country guitarists who’ve played them. Well, sort of. It’s true enough for Ira Dean and Ronnie Dunn to join voices and sing: “Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Willie & Waylon / Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, Patsy and the Possum… / Never woulda got a hand without a finger-lickin’ chicken pickin’ Tele-man.” But note that it’s true not because those stars’ guitarists laid down a bunch of hot solos, the way guest pickers Brent Mason, Vince Gill and John Osborne do here. Rather, the applause generated by Owens’ “Tele Man” Don Rich or by Haggard’s “Tele Man” Roy Nichols (or by his studio “Tele-Man” James Burton) was primarily because they specialized in guitar hooks—which weirdly, given its subject, this song lacks. Plus, Patsy Clines’s hits were never known for their telecaster parts anyway, so I’m not sure why she’s roll-called. Although I second the record’s sentiment, then, I feel as if it doesn’t quite understand what it’s about. Still: I recommend “Tele-Man,” because it’s a serious boot-scooter. I couldn’t find out who’s playing that driving, skittering beat on the kit here, but I want to give the drummer some. He doesn’t do any soloing, but it’s a mother. –DC

Bill Anderson – “I Love Us” (from Forevermore EP, 2024)

Nothing is more potentially cringe than another couple’s pillow talk. Hats off, then, to Bill Anderson not only for cutting this behind-closed-doors, romantically gooey and unabashed devotional but for making it his new EP’s lead track. He’s 86 now, long recognized as one of country’s greatest songwriters, and his cowriter here, Steve Dorrf, is 75 and no slouch himself, both men at that age when (so I’m told) you don’t give a shit anymore about looking cool or foolish. Then again, uncool whispered recitations have long been Whisperin’ Bill’s brand, his vocal limitations elevated to a signature superpower via gulped intimacies like “I felt magic the first time that I saw you” and “I woke up in love with you again this morning.” And don’t sleep on what’s always been Anderson’s secret superpower: Melodies that hold you like a lover’s gaze. – DC

Dave Guy – “I’ll Follow You” (from Ruby, 2024)

Speaking of intimate melodies… Trumpeter Dave Guy, best known as a Dap King and one of The Roots, has released his first album. My hands down favorite cut is the devoted ballad “I’ll Follow You.” Guy and drummer Homer Steinweiss sound a little like Donald Byrd playing over a hip-hop groove. When Guy’s warm horn is joined in harmony by a second trumpet, it feels like lovers embracing.  – DC   

Alemeda – “I Hate Your Face” (from FK IT ep, 2024)

Ethiopian-Sudanese American songwriter Alemeda starts out with arolling beat slow and steady behind her, her rage at a lover or a friend simmering but under control: “I’d like to speak to who the fuck raised you…” She keeps it under control too, even as the music behind becomes shriller, more power-chord noisy. “I’m not a hater but I sure hate you.” The record stops abruptly then, like a door slammed shut, but if she kept going, and if Alemeda is as strong and smart as she sounds, the next verse would likely involve packing her suitcase.  – DC

Billy Strings – “My Alice” (from Highway Prayers, 2024)

I like that while the size of his venues grows, Billy Strings’ songs are mostly staying small. My favorite from the brand-new Highway Prayers, at least so far, is a story song/character sketch called “My Alice.” Strings makes his rhythm guitar brooding and quiet as he obsesses over the way his rich boss stares at his wife—and as band member Alex Hargreaves pokes at those fears on fiddle. It’s a murder ballad, maybe, or maybe it’s only a dark, twisted fantasy. Maybe the man himself doesn’t even know what comes next. Strings, and his cowriters Aaron Allan and NFR friend Jon Weisberger, aren’t telling. They start a lot lines with “if” and just leave their man there with his thoughts, staring into the fire. – DC

Wayne Graham – “I Had Plans” (from Bastion, 2024)

There’s a change in the air when it starts to snow. This lovely little song, with its piano curlicues and airy melody, reminds me of that feeling so much that it triggers a sense memory from my days in the frozen north. It’s a highlight of Graham’s fine new album Bastion, which is at its most successful when the singer-songwriter recalls Wilco in his ability to balance the soft cushions of country and folk with the sharp edges of rock guitars and electronic punctuation. “I Had Plans” has that winter feeling in its melancholy narrative of self-reflection, too. But the chilliness is at its most pronounced (and most welcome) through the snow flurries of melody and arrangement, as Graham brings “I Had Plans” falling gently down around you. – CH

Carbon Leaf – “Backmask 1983” (from Time Is The Playground, 2024)

I’m a pretty nostalgic dude, but I must confess: I don’t usually go for this kind of retro listicle, where a singer rattles off a bunch of cultural signifiers meant to evoke an earlier time (usually their youth) to provoke a reaction of sincere or ironic appreciation for the way things used to be. But I’ll be damned if the slick power pop of “Backmask 1983” didn’t win me over. The lyrics are typical for this subgenre, and on paper I’d probably ignore or even cringe a little. But Carbon Leaf’s performance is so winning - from the rock-solid melody through Jesse Humphrey’s pounding drums, from the crunchy-sweet guitars to the casual precision of Barry Privett’s vocal - that I turn it up almost in spite of myself. If we must reminisce, and I guess we all must reminisce in some way, then I hope that we do it with as much joyous energy as the longtime Virginia band do here. Because it worked in 1983, it works in 2024, and it’ll work a few decades from now when this era gets its own version. – CH

Maxo Kream and Tyler the Creator – “Cracc Era” (single, 2024)

Hard as steel and crisp as a new dollar bill, “Cracc Era” is a brief blast from two MCs who know just how to dance across this kind of rumbling beat. Tyler the Creator is back in Odd Future mode, popping in and strutting around like a devil on your shoulder before Maxo Kream brings the Houston heat in a verse that seems ready to tip over at any moment. And then, in less than two minutes, it’s over. “Let that go, man,” Tyler suggests in the song’s spare hook, and it’s a pleasure to hear this dynamic duo take their own advice. – CH

Bizhiki – “Trying to Live” (from Unbound, 2024)

Bizhiki is a Wisconsin-based group composed of two Ojibwe powwow singers, Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings and Joe Rainey, and multi-instrumentalist Sean Carey, a member of the Eau Claire-based musical community that’s most famously represented by Bon Iver. (Read more about them here in a great Wisconsin Public Radio profile.) The band’s striking debut album, Unbound, is a fitting combination of these constituents, with Jennings and Rainey’s soaring, piercing vocals lifting off arrangements that blend spare instrumentation with restless electronic rhythms. On “Trying to Live,” the synthesis becomes even more pronounced, as a powwow chant drifts into a stirring blend of circular phrases (delivered in both English and Ojibwe) and booming drum loops. The song’s central insistence – “That’s how it is, that’s just how it is/They don’t want us to live here, we’re just trying to live” – is a bluesy mission statement for the album’s larger musical and thematic interest in both everyday practice and larger re-imagining. It’s an anthem and invocation, and just one of the reasons why Bizhiki is so exciting. – CH

Rocky O’Riordan – “Shane” (from Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin, 2024)

I’ve written before about Silver Patron Saints, the wonderful new collection paying tribute to New York rocker and good dude Jesse Malin. Not surprisingly given the personnel, this is a great set that captures the range of Malin’s talents and beats with the same big rock-‘n’-roll heart that characterizes his work. My current favorite track is “Shane,” Malin’s 2019 tribute to Shane MacGowan. The song’s taken on extra poignance since MacGowan’s death in 2024 and takes on even more here since it’s sung by Rocky O’Riordan, the current performing name of former Pogue Cait O’Riordan. Building from lonesome piano into a stately full-band march, “Shane’s” loving tribute to its subject is worked for every drop of teary sweetness by O’Riordan. When she sings of the angel on both Shane’s shoulder and her own, or especially when she reminds that “Everybody sends their love,” it’s not hard to hear her nodding in Malin’s direction as well. Here’s to them all. – CH

Recommended readings:

-Michael Elliott talks with Shelby Lynne, for Pop Matters

-Ciara Moloney on the unreleased Will Forte comedy Coyote vs. Acme, and on capitalism vs. art, for Current Affairs

-Matt Mitchell, etc. pick “The 100 Greatest EPs of All Time,” at Paste

-Natalie Weiner on the bilingual popularity of Midland’s “Drinkin’ Problem,” for Texas Monthly

-Isabelia Herrera on the question of copyrighting Jamaica’s dembow rhythm, for Pitchfork

-Simon Reynolds talks to Butthole Surfers, for Pitchfork

-Jewly Hight profiles MJ Lenderman, for Bitter Southerner

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