We will admit that we have fallen short.  Again.  Life shifted into vitesse-mode in the last month, and we neglected a muzzle-load of new music that was shot out in May.

On one of our favorite days of the year (May 18th), Band of Horses released their third record, “Infinite Arms.”  Like their last record, “Cease to Begin,” the new one took a while to grip us.  But now we can’t escape its clutches or get it off the player.

We have been fans of this band from their beginning.  On the new release they have bolstered their sound and added even more harmonies, supplementing the normal guitar-driven, reverb-heavy lead vocals to great effect.  Though it’s getting to be a bit cliched, we cannot get enough of this new epoch of harmony-heavy vocals (with allusions to the Beach Boys and other harmonic convergences), and the Band of Horses have favorably joined the fray.

While we lament the Horses’ frequently tenebrous, homily-ridden lyrics, we admit that when combined with their oft-majestic music, the soulful effect is repeatedly breathtaking.

So check out Laredo and Older off the new one, and then a few of our favorites off of “Cease to Begin.”

In Laredo, Ben Bridwell stakes out heartbreak and hope while the sound pays homage to Nada Surf:

“Gonna take a trip to Laredo
Gonna take a dip in the lake
Oh, I’m at a crossroads with myself
I don’t got no one else”

Band of Horses–Laredo

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Laredo.mp3|titles=03 Laredo]

In Older, the band repeats the chorus five times, and the twangy-lament easily catches hold of your ears and heart:

“And after all my plans
They melt into the sand
Yeah you will be there on my mind through all
Don’t want to understand why you never get older.”

Band of Horses–Older

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/09-Older.mp3|titles=09 Older]

From “Cease to Begin,” check out Ode to LRC and its nostalgic slap at small-town life:

“The town is so small
How could anybody not
Look you in the eyes
Or wave as you drive by”

Band of Horses–Ode to LRC

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Ode-To-LRC1.mp3|titles=02 Ode To LRC]

On No One’s Gonna Love You we hear in the repeated chorus a comforting voice from on high.

Band of Horses–No One’s Gonna Love You

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-No-Ones-Gonna-Love-You1.mp3|titles=03 No One’s Gonna Love You]

And finally, on Detlef Schrempf, despite the red-herring title (former NBA basketball star from Germany), we like this proverb:

“So take it as a song or a lesson to learn
And sometime soon be better than you were
If you say you’re gonna go, then be careful
And watch how you treat every living soul”

Band of Horses–Detlef Schrempf

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Detlef-Schrempf1.mp3|titles=04 Detlef Schrempf]

And here’s the band performing Laredo on Letterman:

We have been fans of Josh Ritter since his first formal release, “The Golden Age of Radio,” back in 2001.  Though the spawn of two neuroscientists and raised in Idaho, Josh had a Midwestern air about him (with his references to Lawrence, Kansas and “dry land farming”).  And we Leforts are suckers for the Midwestern touch and so were immediately smitten with Ritter.  But beyond the geographical allusions and pull, we have come to know Ritter as a phenomenally talented and engaging songwriter, regardless of locale.  He has a flair for both bereaved ballads and upbeat ululations filled with mark-hitting melodies and well-turned phrases.

Ritter recently released his new record, “So Runs the World Away,” and it is filled with his usual song gems, with their stories, historical tales and parchment parables.  The songs feature cascading wordplay and atmospherics provided by maudlin horns, and come across as alternately funny, bittersweet, and strangely striking despite the eclectic and detailed subject matter (he has been inclined to history-based lyrics, ever since his 2001 Harrisburg song).   The record title and the music on this new record speak to mankind’s exploratory exploits, but also the dejection and realism found in the unobtainable.   Ritter suggests that our exploratory campaigns will continue unceasingly though much will be ventured and lost in the process.  Such is life, we murmur.  And we hum “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Check out a few of the gems off of each of his new one and his first one below.

Josh Ritter–Change of Time (from the new one)

“I had a dream last night
I dreamt that I was swimming
And the stars up above
Directionless and drifting
Somewhere in the dark
Were the sirens and the thunder
And around me as I swam
The drifters who’d gone under

Time, love
Time, love
Time, love
It’s only a change of time

I had a dream last night
And rusting far below me
Battered hulls and broken hardships
Leviathan and Lonely
I was thirsty so I drank
And though it was salt water
There was something ’bout the way
It tasted so familiar

The black clouds I’m hanging
This anchor I’m dragging
The sails of memory rip open in silence
We cut through the lowlands
All hands through the saltlands
The white caps of memory
Confusing and violent

I had a dream last night
And when I opened my eyes
Your shoulder blade, your spine
Were shorelines in the moon light
New worlds for the weary
New lands for the living
I could make it if I tried
I closed my eyes I kept on swimming

(rough seas, they carry me wherever I go)”

Josh Ritter–Change of Time

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Change-Of-Time.mp3|titles=02 Change Of Time]

Josh Ritter–See How Man Was Made (also off the new one)

Here’s a self-explanatory beauty.

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/10-See-How-Man-Was-Made.mp3|titles=10 See How Man Was Made]

From his first album, we liked Other Side, and the following lyrics:

“I’m still waiting for the whiskey to whisk me away
And I’m still waiting for the ashtray to lead me astray
I twist the cul-de-sacs into one way signs
I’m going round in circles on the other side”

Josh Ritter–Other Side

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/08-Other-Side.mp3|titles=08 Other Side]

And perhaps our favorite Ritter song, Lawrence, Kansas, from his first:

“Dirt roads and dryland farming might be the death of me
But I can’t leave this world behind
Debts are not like prison where there’s hope of getting free
And I can’t leave this world behind

I’ve been from here to Lawrence, Kansas
Trying to leave my state of mind
Trying to leave this awful sadness
But I can’t leave this world behind

South of Delia there’s a patch out back by the willow trees
And I can’t leave this world behind
It’s a fenced in piece of nothing where I hear voices on my knees
And I can’t leave this world behind

Some prophecies are self-fulfilling
But I’ve had to work for all of mine
Better times will come to me, God willing
Cause I can’t leave this world behind

This world must be frightening everybody’s on the run
And I can’t leave this world behind
And my house is a wooden one and its built on a wooden one
Seems I can’t leave this world behind

Preacher says when the Master calls us
He’s gonna give us wings to fly
But my wings are made of hay and corn husks
So I can’t leave this world behind”

Josh Ritter–Lawrence, Kansas

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Lawrence-KS.mp3|titles=04 Lawrence, KS]

And check out Ritter’s simple, but affective cover of Modest Mouse’s Blame it on the Tetons here.

Years can go by and then you hear an older song anew, and you shudder and think of all that has escaped from the funnel of musical truth.

We experienced this the other day when we rediscovered the song below by Lullaby for the Working Class (on Saddle Creek Records and featuring Ted Stevens who would move on to be a part of the grand Mayday and Cursive) and later debated whether it was the locale, the group of talented artists or the meteoric, creative scion that ultimately gave Omaha its new meaning.  Talent and horizons for days, regardless.  Athens, Seattle, Omaha, Brooklyn, Portland–the circle remains unbroken.  Next?

Listen in.  Vincent Van Gogh comes to a lawn chair near you.

Lullaby for the Working Class–Spreading the Evening Sky with Crows.

“An old women she just told me
this is the loneliest life she has ever seen
every wrinkle is a monument
meant for dust and decay
the painter understood this
spreading the evening sky with crows
the sky all black placenta
it’s too big to ignore

pull out the lawn chairs,
and watch the angels rip out their wings
my sweet eternity,
you were more than i bargained for
i guess all good things come to an end

each breath is a monument
every blink of the eye
or is it like a photograph,
another day gone by

pull out the lawn chairs,
and watch the angels pull out their wings
my sweet eternity,
you were more than i bargoned for
all good things come to an end (x2):

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2-18-Spreading-The-Evening-With-Crow.mp3|titles=2-18 Spreading The Evening With Crow]

Wielding “hits,” hair and high-vocals, Built to Spill came to Soho on Tuesday and easily satisfied their ardent fans.

The Built ones caught our attention when we first heard their “Perfect from Now On” record in 1997.  From the beginning the band has had an uncanny ability to mesh a heavy, but intricate, choral-guitar sound with the high, oft-forlorn vocals of leader Doug Martsch, and to stitch it all together with oblique, but weighty and galvanizing lyrics.  They accent the sound with a dollop of prog, a mantle of metal and, most importantly, marauding melodies.  We have always been fans of male vocals at the high, nasally end of the register, and Martsch’s vocals fit perfectly in that genre’s continuum from Neil Young, to Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips), to Ben Gibbard, to Yoni Wolf (Why?).

After “Perfect”, the band followed 1n 1999 with universally-acclaimed “Keep it Like a Secret,” which took the band to further exalted heights.  And it wasn’t long after the latter’s release that BTS came to the lamented Yucatan in Santa Barbara and regaled the crowd with its extended, innervating floor show.  Martsch’s inventive, Stratocaster-anchored guitar-playing has always been at the core of the band’s appeal, and at the Yucatan Martsch and the band were incendiary, burning down that hot-house that night.

We confess, though, that while we appreciated their subsequent “Ancient Melodies of the Future,” after the Yucatan our interest in BTS somewhat waned.  First to contribute to the ebbing was a good, but comparatively disappointing, show at Slim’s in San Francisco.  And then their “Live” record, with its 20-minute (each) Cortez the Killer and Broken Chairs cuts, left us reaching for the skip button.  And then the band went on hiatus and released a couple of, for us, marginally interesting records.

But when we heard the Club Mercy call and a couple of musically-respectable friends chimed in, we decided to venture down to the sold out show in Santa Barbara.

So we were somewhat surprised that when the band took the stage, we were immediately mesmerized again.   They led off with Liar off of 2006’s “You in Reverse” (one of those “marginally interesting” records we mentioned).  With his bobbing head and swelling vocals, Martsch (each time looking more and more, for you historians, like 20th U.S. President, James Garfield) drew us in.  It’s a great, newly-appreciated song, and for us was the highlight of the evening.  Which is not to say that the rest of the show was not similarly captivating, as the band’s head-tossing, lyric-echoing, dancing fans will attest.  Soho held a great, devoted crowd who knew every lyric to every song, and let the band hear it.  The band delivered all their “hits” with admirable aplomb, and we enjoyed the hirsute, melodious attack throughout.   But we may have been spoiled by the lofty-heights of that early Yucatan show and the brilliant immediacy of “Keep it Like a Secret.”  Perhaps it’s a mellowing with their and our age.  Who knows?  While we love this band and seeing them live, these days the passion has understandably played out a bit.  And that was the missing link for us Tuesday night.

Regardless, the band delivered a completely satisfying show to its sold out throng at Soho.

If you haven’t heard or listened recently to Liar, check it out below.  And if, for whatever reason, you haven’t heard Built to Spill at all, listen in to a few of our long-time favorites below it.

Built to Spill–Liar

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Liar.mp3|titles=03 Liar]

Built to Spill–Carry the Zero

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Carry-The-Zero.mp3|titles=03 Carry The Zero]

Built to Spill–Time Trap

Check out this song’s slow-burn build until the core of this gem kicks in at 2:04.

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-Time-Trap.mp3|titles=06 Time Trap]

Built to Spill–The Plan

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-The-Plan1.mp3|titles=01 The Plan]

According to Tom Waits, sometimes you fall out of a window with confetti in your hair.  At other times it’s a song that falls like confetti into your consciousness from beyond the constellations.

We were driving home this week when Broken Social Scenes’ Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl suddenly came on the car stereo, with Emily Haines (now Metric, or solo), Feist and friends nailing it.  Once again the favorable force of music met us head-on.  Ask those who know us, and they will attest to our (some would say annoying) willingness to take any two-to-three words you might suggest, and invoke the lyrics of a song from years past.  We can’t help it.

But at other times, we are caught out and have no words to match the visceral slam of a song.

When Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl came on we happened to have with us a girl who just turned seventeen years old.  It had been a long time since we had listened intently to this song, but suddenly the song floated ponderous and weighty into our ears.  When moments like this happen, if you’re not careful, these convergences of music and circumstance will leave you in a heap, murmuring, maundering and muttering.  We reckon a reckoning is coming next June, and we are dreading the emotional wreckage.

As set out below, the song seems to be about a girl’s loss of a girlfriend to change and transition.  You could, however, construe the lyrics in other obvious ways.  But for the first time, we heard the lyrics to be about our seventeen-year old passenger and her seemingly imminent departure to a life all her own.  And the effect was enough to stop the world and our car, in addition to our words.

Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl (emphasis added):

“Used to be the one of the rotten ones
And I liked you for that
Now you’re all gone, got your make-up on
And you’re not coming back

Bleachin’ your teeth, smiling flash
Talking trash, under your breath
Bleachin’ your teeth, smiling flash
Talking trash, under my window

Park that car, drop that phone,
Sleep on the floor, dream about me

Used to be the one of the rotten ones
And I liked you for that
Now you’re all gone, got your make-up on
And you’re not coming back.”

As we have often found with the songs of Broken Social Scene, it’s the music that carries the day and the lyrics oft-times supply the missing element that conveys the life-and-death situation.  Anthems is certainly not the best song from the BSS discography (more about this soon), but when it came on during our drive it seemed near-perfect.

Broken Social Scene–Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/07-Anthems-For-A-Seventeen-Year-Old.mp3|titles=07 Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old]

And here’s a worthy live rendering to check out, with Emily and Feist firing towards the end.

Oh sure, we could pull up John Philip Souza, Aaron Copland, or Bernstein.  But as good as they might be, their music wouldn’t be the soundtrack to our Fourth of July.  And what’s the point of an instrumental version from U2?  We can think of a million (and one) songs that subtly evoke our Independence Day and its history.

But for explicit musical reference, we always turn to two of our favorite songs on the 4th.

First is X’s fine cover of Dave Alvin’s song, Fourth of July. We have been X men (and women) since we first bought their 7″ vinyl, Adult Books, in a prior lifetime (when “Slash” magazine ruled the California punk scene).   X always had drilling deliveries and literate lyrics, but the gift was in the beautiful meshing of Exene’s high-edgy-monotone vocals with John Doe’s more melodic intonations.  The world hasn’t heard anything like it since, and it won’t again.

X–Fourth of July

“She’s waitin’ for me
When I get home from work
Oh, but things ain’t just the same
She turns out the light
And cries in the dark
Won’t answer when I call her name

On the stairs I smoke a
Cigarette alone
Mexican kids are shootin’
Fireworks below
Hey baby, it’s the Fourth of July
Hey baby, it’s the Fourth of July

She gives me her cheek
When I want her lips
But I don’t have the strength to go
On the lost side of town
In a dark apartment
We gave up trying so long ago

On the stairs I smoke a
Cigarette alone
Mexican kids are shootin’
Fireworks below
Hey baby, it’s the Fourth of July
Hey baby, it’s the Fourth of July

What ever happened
I apologize
So dry your tears and baby
Walk outside, it’s the Fourth of July

On the stairs I smoke a
Cigarette alone
Mexican kids are shootin’
Fireworks below
Hey baby, it’s the Fourth of July
Hey baby, baby take a walk outside”

Our other favorite 4th of July song is by Aimee Mann.  Ms. Mann has stood the test of time, both in the band Til Tuesday and solo, and has been one of America’s best female songwriters.  Having intermittently abhorred fireworks (so shoot me!) and the resulting throngs, certain lyrics (“what a waste of gunpowder and sky”) from this song have always resonated with us.

Check it out.

Aimee Mann–4th of July

“Today’s the 4th of July
Another June has gone by
And when they light up our town I just think:
What a waste of gunpowder and sky

I’m certain that I am alone
In harboring thoughts of our home
It’s one of my faults
That I can’t quell my past
I ought to have gotten it gone

Oh, baby, I wonder
If when you are older someday
You’ll wake up and say
My God, I should have told her!
What would it take?
But now I am here, and
The world’s gotten colder
And she’s got the river
Down which I sold her…

So that’s today’s memory lane
With all the pathos and pain
Another chapter in a book
Where the chapters are endless
And they’re always the same
A verse, then a verse
And refrain

Oh, baby, I wonder
If when you are older someday
You’ll wake up and say
My God, I should have told her!
What would it take?
But now I am here, and
The world’s gotten colder
And she’s got the river
Down which I sold her…

Yeah, she’s got the river
Down which I sold her… “

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros came to the Lobero in Santa Barbara last night and drew this this town to them yet again.  With this band, the sum is always greater than the parts, and infinitely beyond zero.  Have Mercy!

We had seen the band in March at SoHo and were blown away by the collective sound and stage presence of this charismatic, patchouli-hurricane, 10-person ensemble.  They delivered stupendous songs with vital verve that night.

So prior to the Lobero show, we held concerns that, with the change of venue to the more staid Lobero and the added effects on the band of another four months of incessant touring behind the same record, the Magnetic Zeros might be somewhat de-magnetized and less than zeros.  As the old Faces song goes:  shows how wrong you can be.

The evening opened with an interesting set by the band’s piano player, Tay Stratham, accompanied by various members of the band (but especially the pixie-ish Jade).  While the songs were melodic and the singing somewhat enchanting, Stratham’s lyrics and between-song banter were naive and insipid enough to make an aspiring kindegartner poet blush.  Still, the net effect was disarmingly enjoyable.

After a short break, the entire band took the stage and from the first notes of their childrens-song sounding, Janglin’, Alex and the band were in full rippling and janglin’  control of the Lobero crowd.  The full stimulus package of the band didn’t really kick in until a few songs later, but once it did there wasn’t a person in the theater who would have wanted to be anywhere else.

Lead singer Alex Ebert was in shamanic control of both the band and the audience with his dancing, crowd-involvement and beautiful voice.  Co-vocalist, Jade Castrinos, engagingly employed her perky-pixie, Bjork-sque habitude during the proceedings, although she wasn’t featured quite as prominently as last time around.  Nevermind:  she still beguiled and significantly contributed to the night (and particularly on her own song, the soulful Fire Water-River of Love). Onstage she flaunted the spectrum from seemingly drug-addled to crafty, controlled entertainer, but always with a gestalt of love and care.  A rare gift.

On this night we especially appreciated the musicality and significant contributions of the band’s supporting members.  Nico Aglietti and Christian Letts supplied deft lead and rhythm guitars (with Letts adding stellar harmonies), Stewart Cole held sway with his sonorous trumpet sounds and vocals, while drummer Josh Collazo vacillated between pounding and soft-malleting his drum kit to great effect.  To round it out, bassist Airin Older supplied a steady, melodic bottom, Stratham added pounding piano, Orpheo McCord contributed great vocals and percussion, and  Nora Kirkpatrick supplied keyboard and accordion effects.  These are dexterous and talented musicians, and all contributed mightily to the collective sound.

The band played a significant setlist comprised of most of their debut record, “Up From Below.”  The set included the obligatory crowd pleasers Home (five to six minutes when the world smacks of heaven) and 40 Day Dream, but also Desert Song (on which each member turned eyes heavenward and seemed to be playing and focused as if their lives depended on it), Carries On (with its message of caring love), Up from Below, Black Water, Simplest Love and Om Nashi Me, along with a cast of others.

One of the highlights of the evening was the obscure, audience-requested (not the first to be obliged) Man on Fire. The band had to spend a few moments figuring out the song’s chords and spent a few moments early in the song fleshing out the vocals and sound, but by song’s end the power and glee found by the band in playing this song were apparent to all.

And for the finale Alex tightrope-walked the first few rows of seats and sat atop the seat next to Mrs. Lefort to regale the crowd with the band’s standard fine finale, the haunted and haunting Brother.

Afterwards, Alex and other band members stayed on stage for their usual catch-up with their fans.  It warms the heart to see this band and others taking a more friendly stance with their fans.

We can’t wait for the next time and a new set of songs.  Don’t miss it.

In the meantime check out some of their videos below and the stellar cover of Sharpe song Carries On by the band “Dawes.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Obs9t5nTyI

Blue skies, the Dutch over Brazil in World Cup soccer, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros tonight at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara.  Life can’t get much better.

Ah, but it can.  Tomorrow begins the Tour de France, what many consider the Greatest Show on Earth.   We concur, though the World Cup is making a strong play for that title.  This year Lance Armstrong goes for his last turn of the French countryside against his arch-nemesis and former teammate, Alberto Contador of Spain, the Brothers Schleck from Luxembourg, Bradley Wiggins of England, and countless other contenders (including a host of “Eastern Bloc” athletes that have spent good amounts of money and risked their lives to get the good stuff coursing through their veins).  It’s going to be great.  Perhaps in homage of the anticipated Dutch performance in the World Cup, the Tour will begin tomorrow with a Prologue in Rotterdam, Netherlands.  You can find coverage on the Versus Channel and all over the inter-web.

Le Tour has always captured the attention of artists throughout the world, including musicians.  And so we give you two songs that pay homage to the Tour de France, the first only tangentially and the second wholly.

The first is Camera Talk from the loquacious Local Natives.  In the lyrics below, the band points their camera briefly on the Tour before moving on to examine the merits of travel, with its sensory-overload.  Local Natives deliver a driving, harmony-laden song, with a stellar time-change chorus.  Coming to SoHo in Santa Barbara on September 20th.  Highly recommended, along with their critically acclaimed debut record, “Gorilla Manor.”

Local Natives–Camera Talk (emphasis added)

“We’re running through the aisles
of the churches still in style
does this city have a curfew?
don’t you know it’s good to see you too

The riders on the Champs-Elysees
we are the tourists in the cafes
we drank our wine along the river
not believing where we were at all

It’s alright, the camera is talking
and even though i can’t be sure
memory tells me that these times are worth working for

The buffalo in Catalina
the colored stones and troop leaders
the voices of the canopy singers
ensured that we wouldn’t sleep for long

I knew this would be the part
my plane’s arrival catches me off guard
we’ll all be leaving with a broken heart
wallets empty and we’re back at start

It’s alright, the camera is talking
and even though i can’t be sure
memory tells me that these times are worth working for

The cistern is not even full
the sister is naughty
the cistern in not even”

Local Natives–Camera Talk

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Camera-Talk1.mp3|titles=02 Camera Talk]

Next up is a more explicit homage from the seminal German techno-band, Kraftwerk.  We give you their Tour de France single, first released in 1983.  The song includes sampled voices and sounds of cycling to mesh with a melody allegedly borrowed from the opening theme of Paul Hindemith’s “Sonata for Flute and Piano.”  The melodic song was a departure from the techno tone of Kraftwerk’s prior work and was meant to be a celebration of cycling.   The record cover design depicted the band in a paceline against an angled replica of the French flag.

Kraftwerk–Tour de France

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/12-Tour-de-France.mp3|titles=12 Tour de France]

It was in the fall of 1915 that I decided not to use any color

until I couldn’t get along without it and I believe

it was June until I needed blue.

–GEORGIA O’KEEFE

Amen, Georgia.  She must have been living in Santa Barbara at the time.

We desperately needed blue in June, but deliverance was not had until July.  July 1st to be exact.  Money and blue skies change everything.  I think that’s how that great song went (one-hit wonder band, The Brains, version please, not that Lauper thingy).

To match the change in mood brought by the big ole sun, we give you some sounds of summer.  Some by girls and another by Girls (the boy band).

First up are The Mynabirds and their song Numbers Don’t Lie. The song is a great throwback to the sounds of the Sixties and just says “summer.”  According to Mynabirds’ leader, Laura Burhenn, she had long aspired to have a band that sounded like Neil Young playing Motown. After recording some songs, she named her new group The Mynabirds.  Only later did she discover that Neil Young had made music with Rick James in 1960s Motown in the 60′s R&B group, The Mynah Birds.

Listen in to some piano, soul, a bit of grit, and vocals that recall Dusty Springfield, Bobbie Gentry and other 60s icons.

The Mynabirds–Numbers Don’t Lie

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Numbers-Dont-Lie.mp3|titles=Numbers Don’t Lie]

In a similar, throwback vein comes the self-avowed “blissed-out buzz saw” pop of the Dum Dum Girls in their song Jail La La, their first single for  Sub Pop.  With their ’60s-inflected songs and melodies, the Dum Dum Girls seem destined for sugary success.  Check ’em out.

Dum Dum Girls–Jail La La

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/10-Jail-La-La.mp3|titles=10 Jail La La]

Moving on to the boys, we give you Girls from San Francisco.   Listen to their driving, shimmering song, Summertime, off their phenomenal record “Album” (creative) released in the fall of last year.  It’s the Wall of Fuzz, and pop genius with an edge.  We saw this band at Muddy Waters late last year, and they delivered the goods.  Highly recommended.

Girls–Summertime

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/08-Summertime.mp3|titles=08 Summertime]

Finally, listen in to LA’s Active Child and its sparkling, 80s-esque pop in their song Voice-Of-An-Old-Friend-Summer-Camp-Bedford-Falls-remix.  We can’t help but hear heavy Thompson Twins and ABC influence in the mix, but there’s never been anything wrong with that.  Is Malcolm McLaren the referenced “old friend” of the song’s title?  Buffalo Dude and Gal have gone around the outside, indeed.

Active Child–Voice-Of-An-Old-Friend-Summer-Camp-Bedford-Falls-remix

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Voice-Of-An-Old-Friend-Summer-Camp-Bedford-Falls-remix.mp3|titles=Voice Of An Old Friend (Summer Camp Bedford Falls remix)]

A shocker.  Another drab, dreary day in Santa Barbara in June.  And so, naturally, we think of prison songs.  We remain under gray lock and key, and sick for the big sun.

Our first thoughts are of the Prisonaires, a group formed by five inmates at Tennessee State Penitentiary, and their song Just Walkin’ In the Rain.  They recorded the song for Sun Records in ’53 under armed guard following a special leave granted by their biggest fans, the Governor of Tennessee and the prison warden.  In this song the Prisonaires sing of those that skeptically eye them from “the window”:

“People come to windows
They always stare at me
Shaking their heads in sorrow
Saying, who can that fool be?”

The song captures well the longing for the prisoners’  lives and loves before the Big House:

“Just walkin’ in the rain
Getting soaking wet
Torturing my heart
By trying to forget”

Check it out.

The Prisonaires–Just Walkin’ In the Rain

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Just-Walkin-In-The-Rain.mp3|titles=04 Just Walkin’ In The Rain]

In a similar vein, David Ackles great inmate song, Down River, was given a stunning reading by Elton John and Elvis Costello two years ago on the first episode of Costello’s “Spectacle” show.   Elton covering Ackles’ might seem strange at first, but it turns out Ackles co-headlined with John at the Troubadour in 1973 in Elton’s debut American performance.    In Down River, Ackles wrote of the heartache of an ex-con confronting the loss of his love, Rosie.

Check the song’s grievous lyrics and the John/Costello killer cover below.

“Good to see you again, Rosie
I know I’ve changed a lot since then
You’re lookin’ fine, babe

Three years that ain’t long, Rosie
I still remember our song
When you were mine, babe

Times change, times change I know
But it sure moves slow
Down river when you’re locked away

Hey why didn’t you write, Rosie?
I stayed awake most every night
Countin’ my time babe

Oh no I ain’t mad Rosie
I know you had to mind your dad
But just a line babe

Oh sure I remember Ben
Why we went all through school
Is that right?
Well he ain’t no fool

He’s a good man Rosie
Hold him tight as you can
Don’t ask me why babe

Yeah nice seein’ you again Rosie
Me I got things to do
Well good-bye babe

Chorus”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNwr7QsCb5M

And finally, we give you the more modern, deceptively upbeat (the lyrics mournfully  cross-cut the beat) Countdown (Sick for the Big Sun) by Phoenix.  Phoenix is coming soon to the SB Bowl and are avowed to be wowing live.   In Countdown, the band assays the inevitable loss of youth’s bright big sun.  We are sick for the big sun.

“Countdown unless you’re juvenile let’s go
God bless your miss somewhere
We’re sick for the big sun
It doesn’t matter what you did
and if you did it like you been told

True and everlasting that’s what you want
True and everlasting that’s what you want

Don’t say no your breakfast tears are gone
Resist or let go, you’re borderline withdrawn
Down, unlit from the bottom there is a misfit
Better than it looks, better than it looks
Better than it looks, better than it looks

We’re sick
We’re sick for the big sun
We rumble and trip
I realize that too

Hear the lonesome bell, is this knowledge?
Ask forgiveness you know somewhere
You’re fixed to an atom
It doesn’t matter what you did
And if you did it right let’s go

Cruel and everlasting that’s what you want
Cruel and everlasting that’s what you want

Don’t say no your breakfast tears are wrong
Do you remember when 21 years was old?
Down unlit does it matter that you care the less?
Better than it looks, better than it looks
Better than it looks, better than it looks

We’re sick
We’re sick for the big sun
We rumble and trip
I realize that too

True and everlasting, it didn’t last that long
We’re the lonesome, we’re the lonesome yell
True and everlasting, it didn’t last that long”

Phoenix–Countdown (Sick for the Big Sun)

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Countdown-Sick-For-The-Big-Sun.mp3|titles=02 Countdown (Sick For The Big Sun)]