Holy cow, am I late with this one. I don’t know if I mentioned this here yet, but I’ve recently taken on a pretty good amount of writing work for decider.com, The Onion’s new Austin-specific website, and it’s definitely not helping me free up time for the blog. I’m still working on finding a way to balance the paid writing with the free stuff.

In lieu of further excuses, please enjoy, two weeks late or so, the sounds of November 2008.

“March Of The Iron Army”, Monkey: Journey to the West
This comes from the opera Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett put together, based on the Chinese tale of the Monkey King. Sounds fucking punk rock, right? I don’t claim to have much to say about opera, but I dig the driving, chanting sound of “March of the Iron Army”, and I’m trying to diversify this month.

“Love Lockdown”, Kanye West
I have no idea what Kanye’s up to right now. Which is awesome. I’m a fan of all three of his records, but I thought Graduation was running on fumes, to a certain extent- it was more focused than his first two albums, but less catchy and less fun. “Love Lockdown” isn’t exactly catchy or fun, but it’s sure as hell interesting, and for someone as huge as Kanye West to completely abandon everything that made him famous in favor of doing something new- I’m definitely paying attention. It reminds me a little bit about something Prince would do, or would have done a decade or more ago- even stripping the song of a drum track, except on the chorus, recalls the way Prince yanked the bass off of “When Doves Cry” back a hundred and fifty years ago. I have no idea if I’ll like the new Kanye record, but I’ll for damn certain be listening. You have to wonder what records he’s listening to these days.

“No Matter What”, T.I.
T.I., on the other hand, seems to have been listening to nothing but power ballads this year. The song’s nothing but straight braggadocio, talking about how he doesn’t give a fuck, no matter what anyone says he’s not going anywhere, etc… But it’s all done over this big John Bonham-style beat with a handful of different guitar solos bringing it all home. No matter what you may think of T.I., he’s definitely picked up on the fact that best feature of the eighties rock he’s aping here is the fact that it remains triumphant regardless of the circumstances. What the fuck? I’m on his team. He makes it sound so inspirational.

“Dancing Choose”, TV On The Radio
“Dancing Choose” is a weird song. I have no idea what it’s about, and I always felt like TV On The Radio was one of those bands I was supposed to like, even though they never connected with me. I’d be all, oh, yeah, they’re really innovative, but I never ever felt the need to listen to them on my own time before. But I like this one- it’s poppy and fun and kinda dance-y and a bunch of rock and roll. It kinda sounds a little bit like “We Didn’t Start The Fire” at one point, and the world needs more things that remind me of Billy Joel in it.

“Heavy Petting”, Dead Confederate
I get the feeling that Dead Confederate is going to be a disposable band for me. I’m gonna use ‘em up and throw ‘em out, and it’ll be a very trashy affair for everyone involved. Things like this aren’t meant to last, and a band that manages to hit the grungy, stoner-rock spot this effectively just as the weather is turning cold will probably forever be associated with the time I just moved back to Austin after a year in London, and I won’t ever want to listen to it by the time the weather either gets warm or a little colder. They’ll release a new album eighteen months from now and I’ll think about checking it out, but even if I download it, I won’t ever get around to adding it to iTunes, and they’ll sit with Decibully and the Soulsavers and the Icarus Line among all of the rock bands that sounded good one year, but scratched a nostalgic itch, rather than turned in something that made me want to stick around even after I used it all up. And I realize that tells you nothing about “Heavy Petting”, which is a great song- big-time rock and roll, and loud and sassy enough to be awesome. I’d love to see them play it live, but only if they come through town before the end of January.

“Oceans and Streams”, The Black Keys
You know all that stuff I said about Dead Confederate just a second ago? That’s how I was pretty sure I felt about the Black Keys back in March. I really loved their record for a little while, but it never quite stuck- I never picked out favorite songs, except maybe the closing track, and they were too much of a creaky blues-rock thing for me to believe in them as something to invest myself in. But I couldn’t quite get their record out of my head, and every time I revisited it, there were more songs that stuck out. “Oceans and Streams” sounds like it came off of the soundtrack to a movie that hasn’t been made yet, but it plays right before somebody gets into a fight, or starts fucking on a pool table, or something. It’s a little bit mournful, but totally committed to whatever course of action it’s set upon now.

“The Beaten Side Of Town”, Barry Adamson
Last winter, at the London International Jazz Festival, we went to see Barry Adamson, even though I couldn’t remember who he was, because his set was billed as featuring guest star Nick Cave. Nick Cave did come out, albeit just for a single song- but the way he tore through “Enough” by Jacques Brel was totally worth the £30 we paid, and that was back when the pound was worth more than two dollars, instead of a buck-forty like it is right now. He was the original bassist for the Bad Seeds, but his current material sounds nothing like that. It’s jazzy work inspired by film scores, and it sounds like nothing so much as a lost Morphine record. His band’s probably better than Morphine ever was, at least in terms of musicianship, but there’s not quite the same amount of soul to it. It doesn’t matter- “The Beaten Side Of Town” may be pastiche, but it’s fucking great pastiche. It’s got finger-snaps and reminds you of when jazz was genuinely cool shit, rather than a thing that old Eastern European dudes were the standard-bearers of.

“Corrido Por Buddy”, Jolie Holland
Talk about a voice that totally clobbers me every time I hear it. Jolie Holland sings with a ton of soul, even if it kinda sounds like she’s, I dunno, chewing a banana when she starts belting it out. There’s a real passion to her music, and one thing that I love about “Corrido Por Buddy” is that it sounds like something you’d hear on a Lucinda Williams record, maybe, or another progressive female country singer, but it’s in this voice that’s so unconventional and sincere that it really elevates itself beyond its genre. I think it’s about a boy or something, but it doesn’t make much difference- when she sings, “I wish I’d been a better friend”, it’s about all of the people you didn’t pay enough attention to, not some fucked-up kid she met in Texas one night. That’s a trick that only a person with a voice like hers- and there aren’t many of them- can pull off.