Well, I've had a good run here on Blogdrive, but tiring of their look, feel and functionality, I'm moving away from this site to a blog using WordPress.

I'm going to get all the entries from here ported over and on that site and be blogging from there.

Update your links, ladies and gentlemen: http://thevoiceofenergy.wordpress.com

Spent the last hour or so getting caught up in Horse Feathers' gorgeous new album. I'm going to be writing a review of it for Willamette Week tonight but my initial thoughts have helped solidify something that has for some bizarre reason been troubling me for a while now - why I can't seem to get into Fleet Foxes.

On a face value glance, both bands are fairly similar in their approaches to this neo-folk genre that has the Northwest under its sway lately, but Horse Feathers seems to capture something that FF just can't. Listening to the HF album, I think I've narrowed it down to two key things:

1) Justin Ringle's voice - all buttery midrange with clipped ends and an oddly rounded pronunciation - cuts right to the heart of me every time I hear it. FF's vocal harmonies are laudable, but they hold no weight, pixelating into the air like a simulated fireworks blast.

2) Peter Broderick - the band's secret weapon. His instrumental accountrements are essential to every song in the HF oeuvre, adding the whiskey sting to Ringle's water smooth singing and guitar work. The music on both FF releases I've heard feels like an afterthought, a begrudging necessity to keep the group from coming off like some hipster barbershop quartet.

I had much more written about this but managed to lose it in some odd keystroke accident, but I think my point is still being made here. I would like to hear from someone out there who is willing to sell Fleet Foxes to me and let me know what I am missing.

I'm working through my healthy iTunes library (as of this moment: 9912 songs, 26.8 days, 50.01 GB) song by song and in alphabetical order (by song title). I've only gotten part of the way through the As.

For highlights, I suggest tapping into my Muxtape where I will be updating as regularly as I can the best stuff that I come into contact with during this little journey into the unknown.

Like most musicians relegated to the "oldies" section of record stores and radio stations, Fats Domino is strictly associated with a few songs in the collective unconscious of most U.S. citizens: "Blueberry Hill", "My Blue Heaven", "I'm Walkin'", "Ain't That A Shame", "Whole Lotta Loving" and "Blue Monday."

Granted, those tracks alone are more than enough to relegate Fats to the higher echelons of rock 'n' roll infamy, but I think it is a testament to the vast catalog of brilliant material that he has recorded in his lifetime that an album of so-called million-sellers features none of those aforementioned songs.

Instead, this album seems crafted, in both title and cover art, to dupe prospective record buyers into picking this up looking for those songs. The cover features a tell-tale gold record on the cover and uses the words "million" and "hits."

Now, you might be saying to yourself, "Surely, people are smarter than to be tricked like that." In response, I direct you to your local video store to look at the many direct-to-DVD knock off titles meant to confuse people into thinking their renting a copy of, say, Swingers and not Late Last Night. And more often than I'm sure people will care to admit, it works.

Another good example comes from my elementary school days, when my friends and I were positively obsessed with Ghostbusters. One kid I spent time with had the Ghostbusters soundtrack on cassette and we listened to that relentlessly, dancing in our maniacal, unrhythmic way to each and every song. I really wanted that soundtrack for my own, so I asked my mom to get it for me when she was off shopping one day. What she came back with was a copy of Ray Parker, Jr.'s greatest hits collection Chartbusters. Same font, same "anti" logo, but not the same record. My well-meaning mother simply wasn't looking hard enough to know the difference.

As a writer and a grammar nerd, the title is hard for me to get past: Fats Domino Sings Million Record Hits. Looking past the fact that there is no song on the album entitled "Million Record Hits", this title is horribly constructed and feels like there's a few nouns that were left off the cover by a lazy printer. As a marketing ploy, though, it is pure genius, and could be the very reason why this album was in the collection of my wife's grandfather.

Title concerns aside, this is a great compilation, capturing Fats Domino during the most creatively fruitful period of his long and still-thriving career. Each song dances around his zydeco/Dixieland roots while still staying firmly rooted in the worlds of blues and R&B, particularly on his hot rendition of "I'm Ready" and the charmingly pleading "I Want To Walk You Home."

What is especially gratifying about this disc is when I realized that almost all the songs on here were written or co-written by Domino himself. As most know, this was a time when so many popular artists were relying on the proven formulas for songs cooked up by producers and songwriters like the Brill Building and Holland/Dozier/Holland. No, Fats was doing his own thing and, by all accounts, doing it very very well. This record, if nothing else, proves that point and showcases his giant personality and talent before the long slow burnout that so many artists of that era went through.

Muxtape updated. Leave comments here. Favorite there. 

I've never understood the mindset that forces people to try to seek out a "crossover success." Obviously its all about adding to one's already overstuffed coffers of cash that convinces a musician that they should act or vice versa and pushes a musician to do something like try to appeal to a completely new audience.

If history has proven anything, it's that experiments like this - with few exceptions -usually result with the person in question sounding or looking absolutely ridiculous and out of place. This is especially true of country music stars. All I have to do is say the two words "Chris Gaines" and for most of you, a cold chill should run up your spine at the thought of Brooks playacting as a tortured rock star.

Now, Buck Owens doesn't go quite that far on this 1971 album, but his attempts to appeal to the "Summer of Love" crowd here come off like an ill-fitting suit in spite of all his attempts to tailor it to his frame with the brooding cover art and quotes on the back cover like, "Take Bridge Over Troubled Water. It's got real nice, simple, meaningful words."

I can't help but think that his management or the executives at Capitol Records pushed this idea on him as a way to boost his profile even further. Owens wasn't hurting for publicity at this point in his career.

He'd already had a ridiculous string of #1 singles and albums on the country chart and was a bona fide TV star thanks to co-hosting Hee Haw, which had started up two years before this album hit the shelves. So, someone must have fed him a "strike while the iron's hot" line and told him to do some stuff the kids want to hear, which meant picking a bunch of hippie tunes to put his drawl to.

Owens even tried to speak to the kids with a song of his own here, "San Francisco Town", which hits all the popular reference points – dropping out of an upper class lifestyle, moving to Haight-Ashbury and bumming for change to eat – but through his own Bakersfield aesthetic. The song, like the album as a whole, is not particularly awful, but it feels like a bit of a blight on his otherwise work up to this point. 
 

Somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how this happened, my record collection became overtaken by country & western and bluegrass albums. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as I am a fan of both genres, but it isn't like I've been buying or been bequeathed with a collection of western swing 78s or rare Hank Williams singles or anything.

No, my shelves are now cluttered with mid-'60s to late-'70s country records featuring a bevy of old guard Nashville stars holding their credibility and stardom in a death grip and a few newcomers that, while not pushing any boundaries, settle into the modes and mores of their chosen profession like a broken in pair of boots.

The situation here at the house just got a little more interesting as my father-in-law just brought over a box of about 150 - 200 albums handed over to the (as he refers to me) "family music archivist." I pulled out about half of the records for keeping, as the rest are well worn easy listening classics, collections of showtunes and a ridiculous number of Christmas albums. Simply put: your basic mid-to-late 20th century working class home's record collection.

Also not surprising considering the original owner - an electrician by trade who loved casinos, fishing and traveling the countryside in his RV - there were a great deal of country records stuffed into this box that was dropped on my kitchen table.

I'm thinking as I listen to this Ferlin Husky album with the frightening, frightening cover art of using this opportunity to reintroduce the idea of reviewing these records one by one. Something akin to the A.V. Club's "Box of Paperbacks" blog entries. It will not only force me to listen to each one of them and argue for or against it, but it will keep me updating here on a hopefully regular basis.

I'm going to try to do it on a weekly schedule and tackle a couple at a time, but please don't hold me to that, my two regular readers. I am merely one man with a full-time job, a host of freelance work and a one-year-old son. Time is of a premium here, but I will do my best.

Expect my first report soon, though.

For my more observant readers, you'll note that I was only able to attend the evening performances on the Saturday of the PDX Pop Now festival. And I didn't make it all the way to the end of the night on Saturday. Nor did I show up on Sunday. My excuses: I had an early Sunday deadline and a wife and child to take care of. If that's not good enough for you...I don't know what is anymore.

Anyway, here are my hastily scribbled notes concerning the performances I did see on Saturday, which were, again, by and large, amazing. I don't know if my Oregonian review brought that to light or not, but I'll leave that for you punters to decide on your own.

Here we go:

SubArachnoid Space
best set of the fest thus far
beautiful sludge rock
tight as all get out
best drummer i've heard in ages

Reporter
"They should rename this Thoughtful Fest."
new wave
potato champion?

Nurses
more of a homespun animal collective raised on laurel canyon folk/rock than sounds of '70s NYC
very positive sounding stuff
lead guy looks like a young peter cook
MUST write about these guys

Blind Pilot
these guys are going to be HUGE
songs are so well-formed and sharp and free of any hint of pretension
humble as well
at least 8 people on stage

Living Proof
MCs and DJ don't seem on the same page
otherwise solid stuff
tepid response from the crowd
nice of them to give shout out to Blind Pilot
do they trust any other BPM?

Portland Cello Project
why is that guy howling?
can't hear the cellos through the singing
"Toxic" cover hilarious
guy holds up cello like a Gibson SG - should have smashed it

Thanks to the variety of sites that have been providing me with a surfeit of albums to download, my brain is getting thrown in about six different musical directions today. I find myself bouncing between Adam and the Ants' Dirk Wears White Sox, the new Vale Seinfeld-themed mixtape, The Divine Comedy's masterful album Casanova (especially the wry and cheeky song "In And Out of Paris and London", the first album by Blind Pilot (who had me gawking blissfully at the PDX Pop Now fest this year), and some nutty late '60s pop by The Groop. Sure, I can make some connections between the albums, but I'm preferring to turn off my critical mind and let the array of sounds and ideas send my sleep-deprived mind reeling.

Oh...and I haven't forgotten about my notes for day 2 of the PDX Pop fest...I just couldn't find my notebook until this morning. I'll get those up tonight.