Adrian Belew

Adrian Belew is an extremely prolific songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known primarily for his guitar wizardry. He sure gets some great, freaky, and fun noises out of his guitar. He's got a voice with lots of character too, and a great sense of melody. I don't know why he seems British, but he's American - born in Kentucky, actually. Perhaps my misunderstanding is because he is best known for leading and playing guitar for British prog-rockers King Crimson. Awkwardly, he wasn't a founding member of that band, but joined and influence their sound during their middle-era from 1981 until he left in 2013. Before that he played with Zappa, Bowie, the Talking Heads, and several of his own bands (GaGa and later The Bears) all before beginning an elaborate and length solo career that spans before and after these great bands and associations with others like Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, and Herbie Hancock. He played on key Nine Inch Nails albums, The Downward Spiral and others, and when it was more recently announced that he would be their touring guitarist it certainly made me sit-up and take notice, but it "didn't work out."

However, I didn't really listen to all that. This was the first case I encountered of an artist's cataloging being seriously curtailed by the streaming platform. Sure, I listened to about 11 albums and EPs, but he has his name on over 20 (to say nothing of all those King Crimson albums and various other projects). I was not sure if it was because he's released different things on different labels that have different deals with different streaming services, but I am confident what I heard was a representative, if not complete, cross-section of Belew's repertoire. It turns out his first three albums are now actually "out of print," although it's not entirely clear why that makes it so they aren't available streaming.

Here's a juicy bit: Apparently when things were getting rough in Talking Heads, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, clandestinely approached Belew about replacing David Bryne as the front-man. He declined, but did end up playing with Tom Tom Club, who might have taken credit for some of his songwriting. Those same sessions, though, led to his first true solo album, 1982's Lone Rhino. I didn't hear it, but I heard 1991's Desire of the Rhino King, which compiles tracks from his first three albums for Island Records. That's where I heard his sorta-thesis statement "The Lone Rhinoceros," which is memorable, and not only for his ability to make rhino noises on the guitar. The awesomeness of "Big Electric Cat" almost speaks for itself; it's a hit with youngsters and the aged alike, and the video is worth seeing:

On 1983's Twang Bar King he plays with Elvis's drummer, but that doesn't get streamed either. The first thing available was Desire Caught by the Tail, a somewhat experimental and indulgent solo offering that makes more sense in the context of a burgeoning and complex musical career. It's an all instrumental album, so I can dig it. However, the lack of commercial potential apparently cost him his contract with Island. Perhaps that partially explain why he subsequently forms and leads a straightforward pop band, The Bears (not as gay as it sound). It seems like Dad Rock, a low-priority, low-stakes project that revolves around their other obligations. Thus they continue to record and tour occasionally.     

His  tenure in King Crimson is as long as just about anybody who has been in that band, other than founder Robert Fripp. It really begins as work on Fripp's solo project, but everyone quickly realizes it would be better to just call it King Crimson. Crimson super-fans can decide how they feel about that. (I imagine they have mixed feelings; I know how I feel about Momentary Lapse of Reason.) That version of Crimson stumbles through various albums, tours, and line-up changes before Fripp reinvents them again, this time without Belew, in 2013. But hey - at least they held it together long enough to open for Tool in 2001.

In the wake of Crimson and The Bears, he has a genuine solo hit single with "Oh Daddy," (not to be confused with the Fleetwood Mac song of the same title) from his fourth solo record, 1989's Mr. Music Head. The video features some of his most wacky guitars. The song itself is cutesy and hilarious self mocking- a duet with his own daughter asking him when he's going to be a real rock star. His next solo album, Young Lines, comes out in 1990 and features a couple duets with Bowie; I heard that one and it was a solid collection of good songs.

Before I even knew Belew as the guy from King Crimson, I knew him only as the guy who played "Standing in the Shadow." It's from his 1992 album Inner Revolution, which offers one his most fully formed and consistent visions and sounds for a solo album.  There's a lot of great distorted guitar, looped and rehashed and everything. I loved the single, having caught it on some free compilation somewhere, but it was all I knew of his work for years. This is a divorce album, for what it's worth. It's no Blood on the Tracks, but it is pretty salient pop rock. Two years later he puts out another straightforward rock-pop album, 1994's Here, and although there's no reason to believe that one is out of print too, it was not available for me to listen to.

It speaks volumes of his skill as guitar player, singer, and song writer that I was even able to enjoy Salad Days, a compilation of acoustic version of songs from throughout his career. I normally get bored quickly when it's just a guy and his guitar, but the playing remains interesting and the songs are strong.

This was also the point I discovered Back Against the Wall , which is not fantastic in Praxis, although it is a great concept: little configurations of various prog-rock super-groups covering The Wall in it's entirety. Belew starts it off and plays with the guys from Yes, Asia, Zappa, Styx and more. Later they do Dark Side too, but Belew isn't credited as the artist on any of the tracks (so I didn't get to listen to it this time), though he does play on it. It's not clear under which conditions this blog project will allow me to listen to that other collection.

Belew brings his career to a fitting climax with the Sides albums between 2005 and 2007. Side 1 features Les Claypol, and although he only plays on a couple songs he looms large over the sound. There are some great hard rockin noise jams and thrashy bits too. Side 2 is all him on every instrument; he even painted the cover. Side 3 brings back the guest starts, including Claypool again and Fripp on flute. Side 4 is a live album, but why I can't hear it streaming is anyone's guess. But the Pretty in Pink EP is available - despite being absent from Wikipedia's discography list! It effectively groups an excellently representative brief collection of songs, including "Oh Daddy," an atmospheric instrumental, and a remastered version of the titular Bowie duet, which is well-deserving of a revisit and the single treatment. Besides a single song from the soundtrack to something called Piper, the EP was fitting closing statement from a wildly talented and entertaining artist.

    

The Advantage

The Advantage covers the songs from various Nintendo game soundtracks using traditional guitar, bass, and drums instrumentation. They stick strictly to original NES games. There are never any vocals, and usually there aren't any keyboards either. It's a bit of a novelty act, but it seems they were one of the first to do it. In fact, they are given credit for creating the genre known as Nintendocore (although Horse The Band actually coined the term). There are several other bands subsequently doing this type of thing; Powerglove and Minibosses come to mind.. These guys started doing it in high school in California in 1998. They play with the drummer from Hella. They have two albums. I listen to them a ton because of my obsession with instrumental music. I've heard each of the 30 songs on their 2004 self-title album many times, though rarely in order as a full album. Some of these works so well as real rock songs. Sure, we all love hearing the Mario songs, but who knew "Metal Gear (Jungle)" was such a slamming metal song? This was also the first time I noticed that the soundtrack from the Goonies video game contains  an allusion to the Cyndi Lauper song from the movie soundtrack (,which from now on I will always associated withe the time I saw Corey Feldman and his Angels sing it live). I was less familiar with 2006's Elf Titled, but it is more of exactly the same. Only their 2010 B-sides anthology adds occasional electronica elements. Some of the songs on that album are labeled: (2005 tour). They don't sound live, so maybe these are just additional songs recorded for a CD to sell on tour. As a matter of fact, I saw them on their 2005 tour, downstairs at the Middle East in Boston. It was good, packed, and well-received, as I recall. It went something like this:

Adia Victoria

I was first introduced to Aida Victoria by local "adult-alternative" radio station, WTMD. I may have even heard an interview and live performance she did there. She's only got one album under her belt so far, but besides great music she's got really compelling ideas about music and politics and such- some of which we might have to talk about. She's got interesting, complex ideas about the contemporary social landscape that she's adept at expressing effectively, not just in song.  She's penned some great articles dealing with race and gender (and one can assume, indirectly, class), and her interviews are always refreshingly fierce. Yes - there is also poetry.

It's crazy-girl modern Southern gothic psychodrama and social commentary.  She is both of the South and loudly proclaims, "Fuck the South!" That dichotomy is exploited fruitfully, brilliantly. She's from Spartanburg, SC, tried NYC, and is now based in Nashville. Her work is both deeply personal and lushly literary. The radio needs more of this, please. Contemporary music needs more harsh and unflinching critics from within like this.

Beyond the Bloodhounds  comes out in 2016, but she put out one of the best tracks, "Stuck in the South," a year earlier, making this a "highly anticipated" debut album. And it is really impressive for its already fully-formed artistic vision and sound. The band jams well, and they sound like they have been playing together forever; they have not. If you guessed that the title of the album is a reference to escaping actual slavery you'd be correct. However, even more specifically, it's apparently a direct reference to Harriet Jacobs's slave narrative, which is pretty famous if you're a scholar of early American literature but is otherwise a fairly deep reference. The album's producer also worked with Sleater-Kinney and Yo La Tengo. Despite being ostensibly roots-music she says her favorite band is Nirvana, and also cites Miles Davis and Fiona Apple as influences, which makes for a nice American-music gumbo. She unabashedly rocks out hard like Kurt Cobain, she gets expansive like Miles, and she's got that crazy glint in her eyes like Fiona Apple. Crazy, but salient- in a good way. Besides the modern influences, she seems to be really into the deep tradition of American blues. You know - the black people the Led Zeppelin ripped off. 

As this great Washington Post piece suggests, listeners can virtually hear the ghost of Nina Simone wailing on this album. (The article outlines a political spat she was in, one of several, after she felt like the "Americana" music folks we're co-opting and unfairly appropriating her sound, claiming it as their own when shes sees it as much more in an African-American insurgent tradition, as opposed to country music for enlightened hipsters; it offers a sample of her unflinching racial and musical politics.)

"Stuck in the South" got all the buzz for it's frank look at the South's, let's say, "complicated legacy," and it's a great song, but it gets buried here towards the end here- almost deliberately as if she wants to emphasize that's not the only thing she has to say on the subject. "Dead Eyes, " at a tight 2.5 minutes, got played on the radio a bunch, so that's a good one too; it's appealing to me because of it's vaguely wicked yet cutesy delivery, but many of her songs have the same allure. "Head Rot" is another enjoyable rocker. Perhaps the album's central track, and a favorite stand-out, is "Sea of Sand," at over five-minutes an almost prog-rock, self-aware song about touring and everything else. I love the heartfelt sarcasm of this drawled line: "Here's a song for all my friends, I hate every single one of ya'll." "And then You Die" is alternately eerie and tight rocking- so that's good too.  Much has been made about her impressive guitar playing as well, and how she can coax a slinky drawl out of her ax that's like a lazy Southern belle sipping sweet-tea on Sunday. But of course she don't know nothing about Southern belles, but can "tell you something about Southern hell." No doubt. I've been down there, and can only imagine her experiences beyond my peripheral view. 

She's not one to ever shy away from expressing her views. This MTV article has an awesome quote from her: “When I’m onstage, I don’t want men thinking about fucking me...Because one, I ain’t gonna fuck you. And two, I’m telling you real stuff." Fair enough. I have a very complex reaction to that quote. In one sense, I want to stand up and cheer; this is the exact opposite of what we might expect from a modern American rock star, especially a rocking lady, but it needs to be said. Especially when we've got pop stars like, say, Tove Lo at the logical extreme on the other end of the spectrum, up there on stage trying to make a virtue of trashiness and literally flashing her tits at every opportunity.  We should all be there for the music after all, right? However, as both a feminist and a guy who like girls in bands, I feel a bit maligned by the quote. If I'm looking at a pretty girl singing a good song then I might be enjoying that more than, say, looking at a 300-pound man singing the same song, but it's not because I'm thinking about fucking anybody. Is that what attraction means? Can't one find someone aesthetically pleasing without wanting to fuck her or him? While I certainly appreciate where she's coming from, and don't begrudge her resistance to being unfairly objectified, the stance seems to be a bit reductive. Sorry as I stumble with my male gaze through the pitfalls of 3rd wave feminism and it's intersections with popular culture. Maybe she's just not talking about me. Then again-  as an ostensibly-heteronormative cis white American male, if she's not talking about me then who is she talking to?! 

She did a Tiny Desk Concert that is extremely compelling, despite all the lights being on (and the set-up in no way being interestingly tiny). It does confirm that this awesome band is kinda proggy, and she might be super impressive in many ways, but she's lucky to also have a super smart and tight band backing her up and jamming with her. This band has only been together since Jan. of 2016, but they jell  greatly. It's another paradoxical dichotomy: the solo-artist with an incredible full-band sound. 

The only other thing she officially put out so far is an EP, How it Feels, that just came out this year (2017). It's fine, and interesting. I love the way speaking a few French lines classes-up an American song (see Blondie or an attempt by Billy Joel, for example ), but throwing some American lines into any otherwise French song is like dragging it through the mud for a hot second - in the best possible way. She knows this, and the EP is delightful, but I want more. I'd definitely give another full album from her my undivided attention. I look forward to hearing that, or the latest articulation of her societal views, soon.

Adele

I've got nothing bad to say about Adele. I'm not a mad man. It seems like everybody loves Adele. I've been shopping in Safeway and an Adele song comes on- everybody sings along. The people working there, the people shopping there. Teenagers and old people. Black, white, and everyone else. In era when nobody buys albums anymore, a stunning number of people got hers. It's the rare case of a top artist consciously and deliberately pulling her catalog from streaming services and making us buy a hard copy (Taylor Swift also comes to mind). And, yes, I did buy it - as a holiday gift for my wife in 2015. My goodness, with those omnipresent commercials I had to. Those Target commercials that kept popping up, ironically enough, on Hulu and YouTube, during the holidays really got to me. She's just like ripping out my heart while making eye-contact, and she's just looking at me, and it's just like- yes,fine! yes- please take my money and give me your record of these songs, please! I will pay actual MONEY for your PHYSICAL MEDIA. (One advertisement was with lead single "Hello," but the one for "A Million Years Ago" is the real killer.) It's an outrageous and widespread phenomenon, so clearly she is doing something very right. I suppose it's having raw talent, and the ability to tap into strong emotions through those talents. And that talent is almost all in her singing. It's not like she is famous for her dance moves or guitar solos. It's all about that voice. She does mostly write the songs (on guitar, she says), and I guess she plays some instruments sometimes, but just to hear this lady sing is an amazing experience. People pay good money to experience that live. As well they should. At one point the BBC says that her "melodies exude warmth, her singing is occasionally stunning and...she has tracks that make Lily Allen and Kate Nash sound every bit as ordinary as they are." Such a burn! It's sad but true, but Lily Allen and Kate Nash have other things going for them. And one need not always listen to serious or "good" music.

Adele only has three albums so far. They are all great- each slightly better than the previous one.  It's kinda crazy that she gets discovered and her record is put out by XL Recordings, who I had previously thought of as putting out (mostly?) house music and early techno.

She puts on 19 when she is only 19, so that's part of the impressiveness. It's the most stark of her albums, but it was a big hit with critics and the public, especially at home in Britain. "Chasing Pavements" is the standout track (and Grammy winner), but "Hometown Glory" started her career. I like the Dylan cover, "Make you Feel My Love," which erases the relevancy of Billy Joel's cover of the same song. "Right as Rain" will also be a good song for all time.

Apparently we have Sarah Palin to thank for Adele breaking into the American music scene. Her album wasn't doing much here until she appeared on the same SNL episode that Palin appeared on. It was their highest rated episode in years, and Adele's sales starting skyrocketing here after that, topping the iTunes chart (remember when that was important!) the next day. She cleans up at the Grammys that year.

Her second album, aptly titled 21, comes out and is an even bigger deal. Something like 31 million people bought this record! Besides earning the longest running #1 album on the charts by a female artist EVER, she also becomes the first woman in history to have three simultaneous Top 10 singles, and the first woman to have two albums in the Top 5 at the same time. OK! They keep throwing Grammys at her. I hadn't realized that Rick Rubin did some production here, but on the deeper cuts. I think of it as the album on which she discovered the drums that were occasionally sorely missing from the first album. And they really kick on numbers like "Rolling in the Deep" and especially "Rumour Has It." "Someone Like You" is the killer - and, again, it will probably remain so for eternity. "Set Fire to the Rain" was also another international Number 1, but it never registered with me as much as the other three. There are still plenty of the down-tempo contemplative numbers that largely made up her first album. Apparently they call her "blue-eyed soul," and we can perhaps tackle another time whether or not that's a racist term; Daryl Hall thinks so. The first albums are "soul" music in the sense that they deal primarily with heartbreak, suffering, and loss, while contemplating music's ability to transcend with hope; something about her emphatic phrasing too.  The second album is more folksy while still soulful, but the rocking bits help. It also sounds like the blues too me occasionally, but whatever you want to call it. "The album's success has been attributed to its cross-cultural appeal." It's also just pop falling into the chasm that is The Monogenre. The Singularity is always getting closer, of course...

"Skyfall" is the excellent theme song she contributed to the James Bond movie of the same name. It charts well and gets her another Grammy. I don't know how we are supposed to hear it though. Buy a damn single?! It inexplicably appears on neither her album nor the movie's soundtrack album. So let's watch the official video:

In 2012 she gets Arts of of the Year and Album of the Year from Billboard

Finally, she kicks it up yet another notch for her third and most recent album 25. Guess how old she was when it came out. It sells so many albums it floats the whole Billboard charts, erasing a previous year's decline in album sales, and makes tons of journalist write about how CDs aren't dead... yet. Whereas the previous was her break-up record, she calls this one her "make-up album." It's funny because, she made it when she was 25 and this is the album where's singing about getting old. The lyrics are like The Avett Brothers, all responsible, deep adulthood, while yearning for the days of youth. Oh, Adele - hang in there! It's the fasting selling album in UK history. It is the most produced of her albums. She said it was a chiefly inspired by Madonna's Ray of Light; it's not that electronica-y, but where it is it benefits from the more modern sounds, which blend seamlessly and effectively with her timeless voice. One story goes that she heard a Taylor Swift song on the radio and said, "Can I have a song like that?" She got Tay's producer, Max Martin, and the results are "Send my Love," which slickened up her sounds with pop-music beats and such. Hey, if it gets Adele played on pop radio (it does) and headlining festivals (it did) then I'm all for it. "River Lea" is a another strong track, even if it's not a single. "Water Under the Bridge" is great too. As is "When We Were Young." This a truly great album with ton of excellent songs. Of course, the multi-award winning "Hello" dominated the singles charts and the public consciousness during this period. When the video was released a million people every hour were watching it on YouTube, breaking more records, even Tay's for "Bad Blood." She performs live at Radio City Music Hall, which is recorded and broadcast by NBC right around Christmas, so everyone watched it - my entire family included. She closes out her tour, and trilogy of albums, with Finale shows at Wembley Arena. Those picking up on the theme should not be surprised to learn that the events broke all previous attendance records.

So we are left to wonder- what is it about this woman that make her 10, 50, 100 times more successfully than other contemporary musical acts? Surely, it can't be just her voice. It might have something to do with her humble begging and demeanor. An (at least) acceptable backstory is absolutely essential for cross-over mainstream gargantuan success of this magnitude. To people in the UK she defines pop culture. She might have one of the greatest voices in the world today, but she doesn't seem too full of her self; she's always very down-to-earth in her performances, and she's not afraid of making a mistake either. Hasn't she restarted a performance mid-way on more than one televised occasion? It makes her seem human, rather than super-human, despite her stunning abilities. Add in her extensive philanthropy plus occasional nods to feminism, the LGTBQ+ community, and her working-class roots, it becomes increasingly clear that Adele is entirely deserving of all the attention she gets from nearly everyone.

Acid Horse

Good band name!

This band is a one-off. Literally. They seem to have just created this one song. It's the only one I ever heard, at least, and as far as I can tell the only thing they ever released, as a single in 1989. I heard it on that Wax Trax records box set. There's something kinda cool about a band, a project really, only releasing one song ever. The song is good, sure, but does it justify the existence of the band? Considering the inclusion of both Industrial music heavyweights Al Jourgenson and Chris Connelly it's easy to see how it would be difficult to live up to expectations.

I like how Wikipedia refers to the track's "serious, yet slightly comical tone - a trademark of many Ministry side projects" and compares them to another Ministry side project, PTP. AllMusic reveals more: that the single had two completely different versions of the song; one is in the style of Ministry and the other more like Cabaret Voltaire, which also shares members with this band.

So here's the version I heard, which sounds like a tamer Ministry:

And here's the  b-side remix, which as the YouTube image suggests might also be available on anther Wax Trax collection :

Now you've heard the band's entire discography chronologically too!

To see how they fit into the whole Wax Trax family tree, including previous blog selection 1000 Homo DJs, here's a hand drawn diagram that I made when I purchased the box set from a little record store in downtown Lake Charles,LA in 1994. (Although, based on what I've learned, Acid Horse is missing a link to Ministry.)

Adam Payne

I feel bad because this guy probably got in my music library because he is a friend of a friend, or something. Someone thought enough of him to think that I might like it, so it hurts to have to spurn that effort. He might be from the Massachusetts area, or he might be from Georgia. There might be multiple guys named Adam Payne around, so I'll try to be specific about what I listened to. It's unclear if he's still active. He's got a definite early-2000s feel about him. I have to be honest - I'm not a fan.

To be even more honest, the first album I listened to was awful fucken music. Just Me, as the title suggests, is just him and guitar. In his defense, I am always far more interested in a full band sound than this sort of thing, but singer-songwriters on their own need to really impress with both their singing and their songwriting. And that just doesn't happen here. I just don't find the voice salient. I was already cursing his name before the end of the first song, which--at six minutes--felt like it was a week long. By the end of listening to the second song I was  yelling, and before the album ended I was screaming at him: "Oh! Come on! Shut up!" The emotive over-singing was unendurable. Every forced rhyming couplet was irritating, predictable, and trite. For example, he rhymed "calculating" with "waiting" and "hating" and "manipulating" in consecutive lines. When he rhymed "girl" with, "just like the Duke of Earl" I literally screamed. The lyrical themes were hackneyed and brought no original insights to tired topics. The song writing, like the vocal style, was aimless and redundant. I literally thought the track was skipping multiple times, but no- that's just a thing he does. Musically, there is nothing impressive either. He doesn't do much to that acoustic guitar. For me, the album was a completely disappointing failure.

Then there was a single song "Chiclets in My Pocket," which was at least better in that it had some interesting electronica elements, but it was still irritating, especially the rapping, and commits all the same sins of the earlier work.

Then I listened to an EP of sorts called Organ, that was actually fine. It's not great, but the instrumentation is a million times better than the raw solo stuff. The band jams well and even gets a little spacey. It showed a lot of potential and made me realize there's probably other material out there that wouldn't disappoint me in the same ways that the solo record did. Just those three things were streaming though. It's not really enough.

A Facebook profile says his influences are "Alcohol, Women, and Bacon," and I just wanted to puke about that. However, that might actually be the other Adam Payne because this one, at least, seems to be actively associated with multiple worthy causes. That confusion has got to hurt both of their chances at success though.

I'm sure he has talent that others might appreciate more. Nonetheless, I never want to hear any of this ever again.

The Acid Gallery

This relatively obscure band does not even make it to Wikipedia. Even Discogs only reference their one single. According to the guy responsible for posting the YouTube video of their only single playing(!), The Acid Gallery began life in the mid 1960s as The Epics, but changed their name in 1967, better reflecting the psychedelic scene of the time. However, their sound is more British Invasion pop than psychedelic space out. As their brief biography at AllMusic points out, they never met the expectations set-up by their daring name. If only the band evoked some sort of organized display of LSD freak-outs! Alas they do freak-out, but ever so gingerly, on their one and only extant song, "Dance Around the Maypole." There's some evidence of at least a b-side ("Right Toe Blues"), but nothing else makes it to the streaming music catalogs of the 21st century.  It also gets another rock history footnote for having been written and produced by Roy Wood, from The Move and co-founder of both ELO and Wizzard; both he and Jeff Lynne contributed backing vocals to "Dance Around the Maypole." People might recall the song from Nuggets (actually it's on Nuggets II: Original Artifacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969); even buried on disc 4 and clocking in at less than 3 minutes, it distinguishes itself. (Or maybe I've just heard it more than other songs on the collection because it made my Summer Playlist.) It's a delightful number that, after just a single listen, can easily lodge the cheery chorus into my mind for a full day.