EASE DOWN THE ROAD

Luckily for the Ease readership there has been plenty of fresh music news since we last spat the facts. Most of it ranks as filler news, but that’s never stopped us before. Like the tabloids do each week, we’ll do our best to “dress it up likes it’s naked” – or at least try to make underwhelming factoids appear momentarily interesting. No spins. Maybe some word noogies, rants and whining. Maybe some indulging in the good things.

While writing and recording their excellent 2006 album, You In Reverse, Built to Spill found themselves buried in songs. Cutting that album down to a 10-song tracklist out of a rumored 20-plus songs probably didn’t seem like a big deal to the band at the time, as they had originally planned to quickly dump out another album. Lucky for us, the band recently announced that they’ve been in the studio bringing those nearly forgotten songs back to life. While Reverse was recorded very organically – live in the studio on analog tape – the band has reported that the new album is much more of a ProTools creation. “You have endless tracks [when using Pro Tools], so all three of our guitarists can be in a room together and do five takes,” offered BtS leader Doug Martsch in a recent interview. As of right now the band has 15 new songs recorded and nearly finished; they plan to head back into the studio in June to wrap things up. See, analog tape purists, ProTools – evil monster of the new school that it is – can be your friend, too. Dug says so.  

A fatal gunshot wound to the mouth: now there’s something we don’t need to dress up. Legendary pop producer Phil Spector is headed back to court to blah, blah, blah. Bring on those mocking hairstyles! Yes, it’s sad that actress Lana Clarkson took some lead, but we, the people not related to her, will remember this whole mistrial business as little other than a hair parade. Spector says that Clarkson shot herself; Spector’s driver says that his boss did it; Spector’s hair stylist was not available for comment. Borrrring …

Death Cab for Cutie’s new album, Narrow Stairs, topped the charts last week, beating out new releases by the Frank Sinatra estate, Jason Mraz and something called “Duffy.” DCFC also beat out recent albums by Madonna and Mariah Carey. Stairs is the fastest-selling album in DCFC’s catalog while the new Madonna, Mariah and Mraz albums are all the slowest-selling albums of those artist’s careers. Not that I’d claim DCFC as one of my own (they just don’t fit into my snooty world), but they do kinda, sorta still represent the indie rock everyman, making this a half-success for the folks out there who root for the underdogs. Or, you know, just plain ‘ol can’t stand phonies like Mariah.

“Seven 50-year-old men together in a room is not very pleasant, no matter who you are. But we’re getting along great, and that’s all you can hope for, really,” offered Specials leader Terry Hall in a recent interview. The band, which claims to have spent the last five years trying to put together a proper reunion, hope to schedule a few club dates, claiming they have no interest in playing arena shows. “We’re going to play just the first and second album,” Hall added, “the first album probably in full.” Anyone familiar with the Specials’ catalog will agree that this is good news, not because the band’s other albums were bad, but because their first two (especially the first one) were so good. If you’ve never heard their debut, produced by Elvis Costello, we highly recommend that you head over to Half.com – or wherever you shop – immediately and make the investment.

Director Abel Ferrara recently debuted his Chelsea on the Rocks, a new documentary about New York City’s famed Chelsea Hotel. Known as a squatting place for artists of all levels of success, the hotel has gone through some changes recently, mostly due to the departure of longtime hotel manager Stanley Bard. One of the last authentic vestiges of the 60s and 70s rock n’ roll era, Ferrara’s documentary looks at the hotel’s history, focusing on the many celebrities who lived there at one time or another, including Ethan Hawke, R. Crumb, Dennis Hopper, Milos Forman, Sid Vicious, William Burroughs, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Ryan Adams, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Stanley Kubrick and countless others.

Also in the news: Okkervil River will release a new album titled The Stand Ins on September 9; the album is a sequel to last year’s excellent The Stage Names, which was originally designed to be a double album. Jonathan Demme has taken over Martin Scorsese’s directing duties for a documentary film spanning the life of reggae legend Bob Marley. The film, though not yet started, will be released on what would have been Marley’s 65th birthday, February 6, 2010.

Throwback album of the week: Palace Brothers’ Days in the Wake – About as unapproachable as they come, Days in the Wake is a mysterious, literate album released by Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Will Oldham in 1994. We mention this album this week for two reasons: 1) Bonnie’s first-rate new album, Lie Down in the Light, his best work since Master and Everyone; 2) The release of Lee Miles’ new album, Heathen Blux, certainly a distant byproduct of Oldham’s oeuvre. Whether or not Oldham could really arrange a song or not in 1994 doesn’t matter; the man could – and still can – write a song just about as well as anyone out of his time. This no-frills minimalist songwriter album features a slew of Oldham classics in its 27 minutes, including “Pushkin,” “No More Workhorse Blues,” “I Send My Love to You,” “You Will Miss Me When I Burn” and “I Am a Cinematographer,” all of which were given the fleshed-out arrangements they deserve on Bonnie’s 2004 album, Sings Greatest Palace Music.

Current six-disc rotation: Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Lie Down in the Light; Lee Miles’ Heathen Blux; The Breeders’ Mountain Battles; Robert Forster’s The Evangelist; Bodies of Water’s A Certain Feeling; Billy Bragg’s The Internationale

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