Top Ten Songs of the Week 8/23/10

OK, we’re a day late with this, but we’re on vacation – who’s counting, anyway? This is sort of our luddite DIY version of a podcast. We try to mix it up, offer a little something for everyone: sad songs, funny songs, upbeat songs, quieter stuff, you name it. We’ve designed this as something you can do on your lunch break if you work at a computer (and you have headphones -your boss won’t approve of a lot of this stuff). If you don’t like one of these songs, you can always go on to the next one: every link here will take you to each individual song. As always, the #1 song here will appear on our Best Songs of 2010 list at the end of the year.

1. Norden Bombsight – Help Desk

We don’t usually carry over a song from one week to another but this one’s a gem, a real #1. Noir art-rock with a cool, really professional David Lynch-style video.

2. Ninth House – Fallible Friend

Keith Otten’s evil, cynical guitar owns this song. Delicious Nashville gothic rock from their upcoming Cemetery & Western Classics album.

3. Julie Christmas – July 31st

Kinda creepy ballad that explodes into noir rock on the chorus.

4. The Jesus Taco – The Meek

Genuinely pretty, vividly lyrical acoustic ballad: “I had bruises on my brain so they put me on ice, the charity wards were swollen with sorrow but the nurses were nice, I wanted to kill so they put me on pills seven days a week.” Another good band from the Weak Records stable.

5. Brooklyn Rider – Debussy String Quartet, 2nd movement

Live on Soundcheck with John Schaefer, a fan favorite from their latest cd.

6. Rupa & the April Fishes – Une Americaine a Paris

Delicious gypsy jazz. They’re at Joe’s Pub on 9/1 and at Barbes on 9/3. Very cool lyrics if you speak French.

7. The Rebel Set – Heartbreak Waiting

Better than average surf/garage rock- like an all male Go Go’s. Thanks to the folks at Blurt for this one.

8. Bee vs. Moth – Pancake Factory

Beyond weird but very cool. Janglerock meets no wave with horns. Completely unique.

9. Hot Rize – Keep Your Lamp Trimmed & Burning

Country gospel, bluegrass style, live at Bonaroo. Coming to B.B. King’s in November.

10. Sebastian Tellier – Look

The song sucks but the video is hilarious – if your sense of humor extends to Simpsons-style fart jokes. C’mon, admit it, you love it.

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Album of the Day 8/25/10

Every day, we count down the 1000 best albums of all time all the way to #1. Wednesday’s album is #888:

Black 47 – Iraq

Our pick for best album of 2008, this rivals anything the Clash ever did. Black 47 frontman Larry Kirwan is also a novelist and playwright, with a terrific ear for dialogue. The album succeeds as well as it does as an antiwar statement because it simply recounts the daily stress of combat as seen through the eyes of the American soldiers there. Some are profiteers, but a lot of them ended up over there because the promise of a payday was better than anything they could get here. Now they can’t wait to leave, they’re scared as hell, and not a little disillusioned. Kirwan doesn’t preach: he lets their anxiety and dread speak for itself. Over catchy, anthemic, Celtic- or blues-tinged rock, Kirwan offers an eyewitness view of the war that the corporate media types “embedded” with the soldiers were never allowed to depict: the guy from Brooklyn who finds himself shocked by the natural beauty of the Iraqi desert; the embittered, cynical GI who can’t wait to get home to watch his beloved San Diego Padres; a heartwrenching account of Cindy Sheehan’s transformation from war supporter to iconic antiwar activist following the death of her son; and finally, the savage Battle of Fallujah, whose narrator leaves no doubt that “If there’s a draft you know damn well yourself this war would be over by dawn…your tax dollars can go to building it all back over again.” What Frankenchrist by the Dead Kennedys was to 1985, what Wallace ’48 by the Hangdogs was to 2002, Iraq by Black 47 was to 2008: an important historical work that also happened to have some good tunes.

Concert Review from the Archives: Jimmy Cliff and Burning Spear at the New Ritz, NYC 8/25/92

[Editor’s note – this is what we do when we’re on vacation: raid our archive of over a thousand, mostly unpublished accounts of New York concerts for some blasts from the past. In the old days, August was reggae month – here’s a classic example]

Majek Fashek opened with his innocuous, percussive blend of reggae and afropop, surrounded by an entourage that included a midget percussionist and undulating female backup singers. Surprisingly, the Man from the Hills was next on the bill instead of headlining, playing mainly new and unfamiliar tracks from his just-released Jah Kingdom album (including the title track, a bouncy number, the only recognizable one of the new songs). He also did a handful of similarly pop-oriented, upbeat cuts like The Youth, from his Live in Paris album. Peering through slits of eyes, he delivered his signature loose extended jams on give-thanks-and-praise lyrical motifs. His hot band included a three-piece horn section, and a guitarist whose effects boxes provided organ and Stevie Wonder harmonica sounds. Jimmy Cliff followed with a driven and inspired performance: he’s political, pissed as hell, getting inspiration from all over the place and it shows. He told the crowd that the UN had made him a “spiritual ambassador.” He opened with War A Africa. Another new one, a slow, lush keyboard ballad, How Can There Be Peace attacked the Rodney King verdict. A surprisingly fresh version of The Harder They Come appeared as well as an even more surprisingly inspired, sweepingly majestic, powerfully rendered Many Rivers to Cross. His excellent band included three percussionists (four if you count Cliff) and two keyboardists, not to mention Cliff’s kids wandering the stage and toying with all the drums. The show ended with Cliff solo on acoustic guitar (he’s a lefty, as it turns out), playing A Higher and Deeper Love, the band finally joining him on the last chorus. An uplifting, redemptive note to end the night.