Songs I Wish I Wrote: “Red Right Hand”

Ever hear a song that just grabs you the first time it hits your ears? The instant connection you feel while thinking you understand exactly what the songwriter/artist/band wants you to hear? While I can easily say I love hundreds, if not thousands, of songs, there are still a few out there that I hear and just think, man, I wish I wrote that song!

In the first of a new series entitled, “Songs I Wish I Wrote,” I am going to start with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds 1994’s classic “Red Right Hand” off the Let Love In album. There is a good chance you have heard portions of this song used in movies such as Scream and Hellboy, or the television show The X-Files. With its minimalistic structure and just-creepy-enough musical interlude it’s as close to a perfect piece of you music you can get for a film or show with spooky undertones.

I came late to the Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (birthday) party. I recall seeing him perform in the mid-90’s at one of the Lallapalooza festivals and using his set as a beer and bathroom break. My younger self was not ready to intake his bands atmospheric grooves and heavy-handed lyrics. I just didn’t “get it” at the time. If only we could go back in time…

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Top 10 Best 3-Consecutive Album Runs

I think the title is clear enough: these are the 10 best 3-consecutive album runs. The only general guidelines were: no live albums, no ep’s, no greatest hits/collections, and of course they had to be 3 in a row by the same artist. here’s the list, in no particular order:

1. Bob Dylan
Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. If you don’t automatically nod your head in knowing concurrence with the greatness of these three releases, stop wasting time on the computer and go buy these CD’s. And to think that 40 years later he posted Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times. A solid run that late in a career, but not great enough to make this list.

2. Rolling Stones
Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street. Steven Van Zandt (Silvio Dante, E Street guitarist, and underground garage rock DJ extraordinaire) once said, “Beggars Banquet to Exile on Main Street make up the greatest run of albums in history—all done in three and a half years.” Sorry Little Steven, we only have room for three on this list.

3. The Beatles
Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Or: Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and the white album. Or: Help!, Rubber Soul, and Revolver… or… you get the idea.

4. Jimi Hendrix
Are You Experienced?, Axis Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland. Wow. Three amazing albums that each stand on their own as bonafide “desert island classics” on their own. Not bad considering this was almost his whole studio output during his lifetime. Incredible considering this was done within about two years.

5. Neil Young
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest. Once again, with an artist this good you could pick a different three. I picked these.

Rick Rubin’s Resume

Actually, Rick Rubin’s Resume would be a cool name for a band, assuming he didn’t sue you. Anyway, wow. He not only has produced influential debuts from the Beastie Boys to LL Cool J to Run DMC to Public Enemy, but in the process proved that rock and rap could co-exist. He’s pretty much responsible for Johnny Cash’s late-career comeback and produced the flourish of albums at the end of Cash’s life. He produced a mid-career masterpiece for Tom Petty, almost all of the Slayer albums, and I think every Chili Peppers record since and starting with the classic Blood Sugar Sex Magik. He’s done solo/acoustic records for Neil Diamond and Jakob Dylan, alt-rock stuff like Slipknot, and produced the album that contains “Baby Got Back.” Most recently he got the unfocused and feuding Metallica to stop putting out crap and make a classic-sounding Metallica album and then produced a great rootsy folksy ditty for indie favorites the Avett Brothers. That kind of variety is what makes him incredible. He’s done everything at every end of every spectrum and everywhere in between and most of it is great. Sometimes all within the same year.

Sonic Youth – Simon Werner A Disparu

The mere mention of the band Sonic Youth conjures images of the ultimate alt.rock pioneers; among the most respected bands in all of rock, the noise-rock veterans are critics’ darlings on one side and the ultimate indie-cool band for at least two generations of music fans on the other. But once the buzzwords are stripped away, they are a group of musicians who make engaging and unique sounds and their new soundtrack album Simon Werner a Disparu is yet another stunning example.

Last year, Sonic Youth gathered at their studio to view working footage of French director Fabrice Gobert’s new film about the mysterious disappearance of teenagers in an early-90’s Paris suburb. Over the next few weeks, they recording music eventually edited to fit the various scenes. But for this album, instead of just releasing the music clips from the film, the band returned to the original tapes and re-organized the assortment of musical sections for this new release on their own Sonic Youth Records label, sometimes combining multiple tracks, other times extending parts into new ventures entirely.

However they did it, Simon Werner a Disparu works as a fine instrumental Sonic Youth album. While the arrangements and vocal sections of their recent more-traditional album work is occasionally missed (life is always better with more moans, whispers, and screams from Kim Gordon), the tracks here are still engaging and at times hypnotic and transformative. That said, it never gets too weird or noisy, especially considering this is Sonic Youth. It’s mostly on the mellow side, but far from catatonic; it stays interesting without getting too frantic.

At times pulsing with steady grooves, and yet dreamlike and drifting in and around other spots, this is the sound of electric guitars screeching and crashing with drums beating like hearts in that mysterious place between sleep and consciousness. Maybe they ain’t that young anymore, but thankfully they are still thundering down the road less travelled, and they are still sonic.

Top 10 Best County Albums Ever

Keep in mind, these are just the ones that I love the best. NOT a list of the Most Important/Influential or what have you. Just my favorites. Some might be considered classic country, folk, alt.country, country-rock… doesn’t matter. I promise these are all great records. In no particular order, but numbered anyway. Ah screw it, I’ll give ya 11:

1.Whiskeytown – Strangers Almanac
2.Gram Parsons – G.P./Grievous Angel
3.Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
4.Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
5.Johnny Cash – The Legend of Johnny Cash
6.Ryan Adams & the Cardinals Jacksonville City Nights
7.Old Crow Medicine Show – Big Iron World
8.Old 97’s – Too Far To Care
9.Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline
10.Drive-By Truckers – Decoration Day
11.Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead