On a happier note

This is probably the best recording I've ever heard come from Van Morrison. And I love Van Morrison. It dates from sometime between Moondance and Tupelo Honey and as such, there are traces of both rustic and religious ecstasies. Elements of what would become You're My Woman can be found in his cover of Like a Woman. Plus his version of Hound Dog (with a fake-out Doris Day intro) is an all time Rock and Roll gem. It's short, considering that one song lasts nearly 20 minutes, but it's just about flawless. Plus, Caledonia Soul Music might just be the closest a pop song has ever come to divinity. If I were more religiously inclined at the moment, it might push me further, but that isn't necessary. The song succeeds on its own terms. Absolutely inspiring. Really, this cannot be believed.


Van Morrison - Van The Man

http://www.divshare.com/download/2633678-094

Drunk Rock

The weather's getting colder and my tastes are growing steelier. Blue collar postures are a dime a dozen, and sometimes the Springsteen rugged-schlub pose just doesn't do it. Maybe it's a matter of expression, of the method. It's harder to get your point across when you're trying so fucking hard to say what you're trying to say. Sometimes ineloquence is the best vessel, the trojan horse of accidental truths. Those bred to speak, often speak above, high and mightily.

High, drunk, whatever. The Ramones had a glue muse (a white horse, indeed), Bob Pollard has booze. Some of these songs aren't that great. Bee Thousand is alot like digging through somebody's garbage, some shabby treasures covered in throwaways and castoffs. There's something majestic in the brevity of the songs. The harmonies sound effortless, tossed together, and are the better for it. And as far as Replacements albums go, Tim isn't my favorite, but then again, Bastards of Young is their best song. It's a trade-off.

Westerberg is a fascinating and overlooked figure. Arguably the American Morrissey, he sings about small-town futility, sexual ambiguity and emotion in a post-modern world. Back before the world was po-mo. Allmusic says it better:

"Paul Westerberg often railed against the coldness and distance-enhancing aspects of modern conveniences and technology. Witness: "Skyway" from the Replacements' album Tim (1987), their anti-video video for "Bastards of Young," and "Answering Machine." It seemed almost quaint later on when such devices became omnipresent. But in the early to mid-'80s, answering machines were not deemed as essential to daily life. Westerberg, though, is onto something larger than his problems with the machine; that just masks a larger truth. As with most of his almost-Luddite and contrarian songs, the starting point for "Answering Machine" is one of life's small details that comes to represent a gaping divide between people who wall themselves off from each other, oftentimes deliberately.

He sings: "Try to breathe some life into a letter/Losing hope, never gonna be together/My courage is at its peak/You know what I mean/How do say you're OK to/An answering machine? How do you say good night to/An answering machine?" Over a raging solo and heavily affected electric guitar, Westerberg's ravaged voice sounds genuinely frustrated and desperate, singing as if through gritted teeth. The solo arrangement is highly effective; it conjures a picture of Westerberg alone, alienated, enraged after finally working up the courage to call across time zones (another gulf to transverse) only to reach the machine: "How to do you say 'I miss you' to/An answering machine?" With a full band, the hard rock approach might have seemed overly heavy, the lyrical nuances plowed over. But the driving guitar on its own is hard enough to give the song an edgy and furious tone, while allowing Westerberg's ever-expressive voice to cover the rest of the emoting with gut-wrenching passion. The maddening sense of frustration is heightened as the song draws to a close with a looped recording of an operator's voice and noisy, rattling percussion. On a live version from the limited-edition EP Inconcerated Live (1989), the rhythm section kicks in for the final measures, driving the song over the wall.

While he had always shown signs of a songcraftsman behind his and his band's punk rock posture, Westerberg really started coming into his own as a songwriter on Let It Be (1984). He peppers the lyrics with ambitious and cutting lines like, "Try to free a slave of ignorance/Try and teach a whore about romance." The tension-release play between the verse and chorus themes of "Answering Machine" betray a writer with an ear for melody, whose musical abilities clearly transcend the Replacements' humble garage/ bar band origins, ranking him among the best songwriters of the '80s and '90s. Against the emotional context of this song, one ponders the significance of the band's name; Westerberg seems to fear that answering machines are serving as replacements for human contact. If nothing else, the band was always about heart, sincerity, and integrity. With songs like "Answering Machine" and "Unsatisfied," Westerberg seems to feel stifled in a world that places decreasing value on such qualities."

Springsteen had a novelistic approach. His characters felt like characters, and thus detached from us and our world. He was his own greatest character, and for all of his Marys, he was the one with union card and the wedding coat, the one driving down Thunder Road. It smacks of fantasy-play, unbridled middle-class egoism. Bob Pollard and Paul Westerberg are two pretty generic looking dudes who write about people who may or may not exist. The purpose is there, buried under disaffected poses. The sentiment is more real, for the efforts made to hide it. Both of these albums feel like honest extensions of the world from which they came. Even Bee Thousand, with its oblique lyrics dredge up lost emotions, like free association therapy. They're both painfully specific, but the details don't feel fussed over.


The Replacements - Tim
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WQ4SL3N2

Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YH1L77MS