Concert Review: MOKB Presents Yuck at Radio Radio
Operation Indy: A Saturday Night with Yuck
If you have observed this blog since its inception you already know that Thought on Tracks likes Yuck… a lot. For me, they contribute to the renaissance of the 90’s indie rock sound. A period of time where friends were collaborating in basements with beers, determined to dominate college radio with distorted guitars. While J Mascis, Robert Pollard, and Stephen Malkmus continue to make new music, they have also inherited the title “Grandfathers of Indie Rock.” This designation makes it possible for developing bands like Yuck to pull from their sound.
Yuck’s debut, self-titled release has been the topic of hundreds of blogs and has maintained major staying power in 2011. The album was released on Fat Possum on February 21 and continues to remain relevant. I continue to say that 2011 has been one of the best years for new music in recent memory and Yuck has found a way to continue to build a fan base during this time. Songs such as “The Wall”, “Get Away”, “Holing Out”, “Georgia” and “Operation” all are in the conversation as favorite songs when you talk to Yuck fans. The fact that this band does not rely on one song to carry their message makes them extremely valuable with only one release under their belt. The power of having a handful of songs to connect with was displayed Saturday night as the British quartet invaded Radio Radio.
As mentioned previously, this was my third time seeing Yuck. This has not only made me think that I am beginning to form an addiction to the live music experience, but also made me realize that there is something about these guys that resonates. I attribute it directly to my love of bands like Pavement, Guided By Voices, and Dinosaur Jr. I caught these bands halfway through their formation while Yuck offers an early invitation to jump on their bandwagon. I saw Yuck play at Pitchfork and hit their after show at Schubas in Chicago in July. The maturation process shined on Saturday night. This was the strongest performance of the three and after witnessing the fan reaction, I knew something special was brewing.
On a night that brought the Avett Brothers to town, like-minded individuals still swarmed to Radio Radio to embrace a band that they had a mere six months to connect with. The crowd was pumped, they knew the words, and Yuck delivered. “Operation” stood out to me and I contend that it is their best song. Blasting guitars and a plea to become someone else for somebody else. This is the type of music that I eat up.
Yuck went up and down their album and even offered us newer songs like “Milkshake.” An invitation to the crowd to meet up for drinks after the show made me realize that this group knows how to maintain their fan base. This band is only going to get better with time and building a fan foundation seems important. A valuable asset held by a young group with mounds of potential. Give us a half a year more and another handful of songs and I might be anointing Yuck as one of my favorite current bands. I can only hope.
Yuck’s introduction to the Circle City and through the checkered flags made me proud to be a part of a growing music scene in Indianapolis. I think more people in Indy are beginning to get it and I could not be any happier. As the culture of Indianapolis grows, so do the wishes of bands like Yuck. Who knows? They could be our next Pavement. We all have high hopes.
Story and Photograph by Brett McGrath
Album Review: Chris Brecht & Dead Flowers ‘Dead Flower Motel’
Paula Cole begged the question “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” on her mid-90s mega hit of the same name. Apparently Paula, a few of them are hanging out in Austin, Texas.
Chris Brecht and his band Dead Flowers are responsible for one of the more underrated releases of 2011. Dead Flower Motel is a 3 AM barnstormer of a record that would prove a welcome addition to the jukebox of any West Texas honkytonk. Brecht has an artist’s eye for detail that provides the story for this smoky, whiskey-infused backdrop.
Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller wrote of Brecht, “We know it in our hearts – that we’re weak and expendable – but we also can see the beauty in that. We are brief and we are supposed to make the most of it. Brecht does this by finding the beauty in the smallest things, those toss-away details that, for many, are imperceptible, but they’re the bits that make a writer great and make a satisfied person.”
Concise, vivid songwriting is too often taken for granted in the indie scene. Blogs like Pitchfork appear willing to promote acts that fit a certain image, while the music itself plays second fiddle. (See: We Listen For You) As a result, artists like Brecht tend to slip through the cracks.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, Dead Flower Motel keeps the music simple and employs Brecht’s unique perspective to elevate the songs. I don’t wish to short change Dead Flowers. Their play provides a solid foundation for Brecht to draw from. The music has a subtle, haunting quality that pairs well with his mellow angst.
Brecht appears keenly aware that his message is lost on certain crowds. On “Not Where You Are”, Brecht writes “If you think that I’m wounded/It’s my soul that bleeds/Cause you’re judging a man/By the brand of his jeans/You have everything you want/Because you’re parents were rich/And you sit around and pretend/ How hard it is.” The lyrics read like a giant middle finger to the snobs whose club Brecht has never been allowed to enter. He continues, “I don’t want you to get it/I don’t want you to end/You can’t even pretend/To know where I’ve been.”
Dead Flower Motel is a tough sell. The music is too country for indie fans, and Brecht’s delivery is too indie for traditional country fans. Regardless of which crew Brecht eventually falls in with, his story is worth hearing. Click HERE for a free stream or download of his Daytrotter session.
Written by Rob Peoni
In The Dust #1: Sam Cooke’s ‘Night Beat’
Once a week In The Dust rolls up its sleeves and digs to the back of the rack to find that record, the one you never knew you always wanted, the one that’s lost, but not forgotten. (Listen via Spotify)
Most of you probably know Sam Cooke best for his seminal classic, “A Change Is Gonna Come”. Some of you might know Sam Cooke best for his 1964 album, Ain’t That Good News. A few of you might even know Sam Cooke best for his active role in the American Civil Rights Movement. No matter how you know him, the fact is, you do.
He is commonly known as The King of Soul, widely regarded as a pioneer, if not a founder, of American Soul music. His brilliant career was cut short at the age of 33 when he was shot to death in an altercation with the manager of the Hacienda Hotel in Los Angeles. His legacy and unsurpassed talent continue to shine, perhaps brightest on his 1963 classic, Night Beat, an album that was well received when it was released but is now routinely overshadowed by others in his oeuvre.
Night Beat is named so for a reason. Much like In The Wee Small Hours (possibly Sinatra’s best album and arguably the first concept record), Cooke’s blues-tinged Night Beat is composed largely of carefully selected standards. It begins as a stoic, dimly lit expression of woe and the difficulties of life, as if delivered at midnight from a favorite chair at the end of a long, trying day.
The album’s opening track, “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen“, offers an immediate look into the soul of this set: positivity in the face of despair. Cooke croons, “If you get there before I do / Oh, oh yes lord / Don’t forget to tell all my friends I’m comin’ too / Whoa, oh yes lord / Still, nobody knows the trouble that I’ve seen / Nobody knows my sorrow / Nobody knows the trouble that I’ve seen / Glory, hallelujah”. In the face of everything, when all one knows is tumbling down, there is peace on the horizon for those with the constitution to persevere, a message Cooke expounds piece by piece throughout the album as a salve for the wounds of a much-maligned and mistreated fanbase, a message of faith with roots deep in Religion and deeper still in the blues.
“Lost and Lookin’”, the album’s stark, arresting second track, features the refrain, “I’m lost / And I’m lookin’ for my baby,” a phrase Cooke delivers with such emotion that it is clear his ‘baby’ is his only hope for a life worth living. “Mean Old World”, the next track and possibly Cooke’s finest vocal performance on the album, furthers that narrative with the refrain, “This is a mean old world to live in all by yourself.” Cooke howls with abandon, jumping from note to note with desperation, as if frantically trying to escape the impending darkness of a solitary future. The album proceeds in a similar vein with morose, shuffling “Please Don’t Drive Me Away”, a Chicago-blues plea for love and loyalty, followed by “I Lost Everything”, Cooke’s woozy, teary-eyed lament for desire fallen on deaf ears.
The centerpiece of the record, “Get Yourself Another Fool”, signifies a change in Cooke’s woebegone psyche. Cooke, in a delicate melody, cheery but not overjoyed, content but not satisfied, and with all the bitter-sweetness of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”, refuses to be played by anyone any longer, floating willfully over the gospel-smacked organ styling of a 16-year old Billy Preston (later a massively famous keyboardist/organist and the only non-Fab Four ever to receive a musician’s credit on a Beatles album).
With “Get Yourself Another Fool”, the spirit of the album changes and begins to rise, growing stronger with each remaining track. “Little Red Rooster”, an infectious, twelve-bar, AAB standard, echoes “Get Yourself Another Fool” and supposes that it’s the rooster’s time to do what he wants, everyone else be damned. The rooster does exactly that, despite anyone’s wishes, but as “Laughin’ and Clownin” shows, for newfound resolve like the rooster’s to stick, it needs constant reassurance. Cooke bemoans the difficulties of keeping a brave face in the mouth of heartbreak. “Laughin’ and clownin’,” he sings with shame, “just to keep from cryin’ … I keep on laughin’ and clownin’ / just to take my mind off you.”
“Trouble Blues” speaks directly to the struggle of “Laughin’ and Clownin’”, maintaining from beneath an ominous swath of reverb that while things seemed bright at first, there is turbulence now, there will be ahead and it takes yet even more will to see change through. He revisits his cycle of sadness, anger, acceptance and near relapse and surmises, “…You leaving, baby / you know that’s wrong / But oh, someday, someday darling /
I won’t be trouble no more.” To achieve this, Cooke holds firm, saying, in his bouncy, swinging cover of the Mississippi Fred McDowell delta classic, “If you keep on mistreatin’ me, baby / You gotta move”.
Finally, Cooke is fed up, and on “Fool’s Paradise”, over a tinkling, broken-finger piano that seems to be shaking its head right along with him, he looks back on a life of mistakes, “I often think of the live I’ve led / And oh, It’s a wonder, I ain’t dead / Drinking and gambling, staying out all night / Living is a fool’s paradise.” With a melancholy but grateful air, he emerges from his various stages of grief to conclude that things can and will be different, and they are his to change.
And now, he celebrates.
“Shake, Rattle and Roll”, the album’s closing track, is a joyous, rollicking boogie-woogie step out in which Cooke severs the ball from the chain of his emotions and approaches the world with wisdom, rather than self-pity. “Get out of that bed,” the song begins, “wash your face and hands.” Life begins now, the pain and darkness of recent working as propulsion to reach above and beyond the old ways, which are always looming. “When you’re wearing them dresses / the sun come shining through / I can’t believe my eyes / all of it belongs to you.”
Cooke, in the course of this suite, never sought to change his instincts or his urges, only his behavior. In the face of this temptress, he reflects a new way of responding to his carnal side. “Now I believe to my soul / you’re the devil in nylon hose / O, you won’t do right to save you / not your soul.” All she wants to do is, “Shake, rattle and roll.” She can do what she pleases, but Cooke won’t be any part of it. He was done dirty, but is washed clean. He chooses to dance and sing along rather than so soon be bogged down in the same sludge.
This is the message at the core of Night Beat. In the short 37 minutes of this 12-song suite, we followed Cooke down, cringed as he was pushed there and wanted nothing more than to pull him out, but this is not a be-there-for-your-brother story. Cooke found himself alone at the bottom, as most do, and so Night Beat is a guide to redemption, delivered in a methodically sequenced, soulfully crafted, soothing embrace for the lonely and low. For those alone on the bottom, with difficulty imagining what it looks like above, Sam is there to show you, to put hot soup in your cold winter hands and assure you that there is no hole too deep when there are always the tools to build a ladder.
Written by Ben Brundage. To see more of Ben’s work visit his Tumblr
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