#meg baird

[nofatclips-home]

Twelve Saints by Meg Baird, live on KEXP

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

All One Song: "Interstate" w/ Meg Baird & Charlie Saufley

I admit it — I have what is probably an unhealthy obsession with Neil Young.

But I’m not alone in this obsession! There are many great musicians and writers out there who also can’t get enough of the Shakey sound. And on All One Song, I’m talking to some of those great musicians and writers about their one favorite Neil Young song. Or at least one of their favorite Neil Young songs. When you’re obsessed with this guy, you’re going to have lots of favorites, believe me.

This week, you’re getting two fantastic guests for the price of one: Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley. Meg first came to my attention thanks to her work with the innovative Philadelphia psych-folk collective Espers, and since then she’s created a pretty much flawless solo career — her most recent record, 2023’s Furling, is a perfect showcase for her pristine guitar work and beautiful vocals.

Charlie Saufley co-produced that record with Meg and the duo also played in Heron Oblivion with Ethan Miller and Noel Von Harmonson — a group that only managed one studio record during their existence, but that’s ok. That one studio record was awesome. Charley also played in the Bay Area psychedelic rock group Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound; he’s a killer guitarist, and — like Meg — is a serious Neil head.

That last fact should be apparent in the tune Meg and Charlie selected for their All One Song appearance: “Interstate.” This brilliantly moody number is a strong candidate for the best Neil Young song that barely anyone knows about. Though you probably know about it if you’re here. Neil debuted “Interstate” onstage in 1985 with the International Harvesters. But like so many of his strongest songs during that era, it was set aside for reasons that only Shakey can fathom.

A few years later, producer David Briggs convinced him to cut the song with Crazy Horse during the Ragged Glory sessions. It’s an incredibly haunting performance, with skeletal acoustic guitars and high, lonesome Horse harmonies. But Neil still wasn’t feeling it — I guess “Farmer John” needed to be heard! Finally in 1996, that Ragged Glory performance was released on the "Big Time" CD single and as a vinyl only bonus track on Broken Arrow. These days, you can get it on the recent “Smell The Horse” edition of Ragged Glory.

So yeah, it's a long, twisted story, as is the case with a lot of things in the Neil Young world. But “Interstate” deserves a place in the pantheon of Neil classics, regardless of its relative obscurity. It’s this kind of song that turns a casual fan into, well, an obsessive like me, promising that there’s always more buried treasure lurking in the Shakey archives. Tune in wherever you get those podcasts.

Bonus Track: Floating around on YouTube is an alternate mix of the Ragged Glory "Interstate" with some wicked Old Black overdubs from Neil. It's cool, though maybe not an improvement over the released version. I'd still love to hear the Horse doing this one in full electric mode ...

Bonus Bonus Track: It doesn't come up in our discussion of various Neil covers, but this one is too great not to share — Meg, Georgia Hubley, Lee Ranaldo and fellow All One Song Guest Steve Gunn playing "Revolution Blues" a few years back. (Georgia and Lee, please come on All One Song!)

[dustedmagazine]

Jennifer Kelly’s 2023 in Review: Still Human FWIW

I finally saw Sun Ra Arkestra

I first heard about Chat GPT in January this year, and it sounded bad from the start. I make most of my living writing things for big faceless corporations who view me as a cost. Cut that cost to zero and I’m out of a job. But for the first five months of 2024, I continued to be busy and I thought, well maybe it’s nothing. Then in May, like a light switch, everything stopped. I had one regular client who continued to pay a monthly retainer. Nothing else. And the usual mailings, pleadings with old clients, etc. had no effect. I’m close to retirement age. This summer, I thought I had arrived early.

Things have picked up since then, and right now, I’m in a good place. People are starting to notice Chat GPT’s ignorance of anything post 2021, its refusal to factcheck or footnote and its relentless blandness. Clients are coming back, but the floor doesn’t feel very solid under my feet. It could all go away at any time. (This is the lesson we all learned from COVID-19…that you could fall into the pit any time.)

The one thing that didn’t stop was Dusted, and for that I am very grateful. As I’ll explain to anyone who asks, there’s never been any money in Dusted, so there can’t be any less. We are more or less immune to economic pressures. And as long as we’re here, there is lots and lots of good music to write about.

My year started with two records that blew me away in January (and maybe December 2022) and held #1 and #2 slots all year. They were Meg Baird’s Furling and Robert Forster’s the Candle and the Flame. Next, came an email from Rob from Sunburned with a link to Stella Kola’s extraordinary debut, and then gosh, Sub Pop still sends me promos and here’s one from Mudhoney! Every time 2024 succeeded in getting me down, I’d get music from someone.

Live music was another solace. Shows that made me happy this year included Warp Trio, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Dear Nora, Vieux Farka Toure, Bridget St. John with Stella Kola, Sun Ra Arkestra, Kid Millions with Sarah Bernstein, Faun Fables, Sweeping Promises, Daniel Higgs, Constant Smiles, Baba Commandant (RIP), Xylouris White, Joseph Allred with Ruth Garbus and Ryan Davis with his Roadhouse band. Special mention goes to the always astonishing Thing in the Spring with Editrix, Rough Francis, Thus Love, Gorilla Toss, Equipment Pointed Ankh. Susan Alcorn, Marisa Anderson and Jim White and Bill Callahan.

The best show of the year, however, came late in the summer with William Tyler and the Impossible Truth band, an unbelievably talented, seasoned crew with Luke Schneider on pedal steel, Third Man mainstay Jack Lawrence on bass and Brian Kotzgur on drums. The way they opened up and fired up Tyler’s songs was a revelation, even to someone, like me, who’s been a fan since Behold the Spirit. Garcia Peoples opened, and they were great, too.

I should mention that we have recently been blessed with a bunch of excellent music venues nearby—Nova Arts in Keene and Epsilon Spires and the Stone Church in Brattleboro. Going to music used to always mean driving back from at least Northampton, sometimes further, late at night, and, as I get older and my night vision fades, it has been really nice not to have to do that. (Also, to all my Dusted-reader-musician-friends, if you play one of these venues, thank you, and let me know when you’re coming.)

With that, it’s time to talk about 2023 favorites. I’ll write about the first ten and then just list the rest.

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Meg Baird’s gorgeous solo album alternates between ghostly, inward-looking piano songs and bright swirls of 1960s psychedelia. Her extraordinary voice, high, pure, and unearthly, joins lush, burnished guitar grooves. Sometimes I think I like the swaggering bounce of “Will You Follow Me Home,” the best, but other times, the disembodied otherness of “Ashes, Ashes” is the prettiest thing I know.

Robert Forster — The Candle and the Flame (Tapete) 

Forster’s solo records are always good, wry and funny and stuttering with strummy punk energy, but this one, recorded with family while his wife battled cancer, is his best yet. “She’s a Fighter,” a group sing-along is prickly and defiant, the only song specifically written about Karin’s illness, but threads of enduring, life-long love run all through this album. “Tender Years” is especially moving, as Forster sings, “I’m in a story with her, I know I can’t live without her, I can’t imagine why,” in a voice cracked with sincerity and feeling. Very few albums make me cry, but this one does.

Anohni and the Johnsons—My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross (Secretly Canadian)

The sound on Anohni’s fifth album with the Johnsons smolders in the pocket, its textures a nod to Marvin Gaye’s classic What’s Going On? It’s velvety smooth but taut with urgency, as the artist contemplates climate disaster and personal struggles. “It Must Change,” trills with the coolest falsetto, while “Sliver of Ice” reverberates with a low, hushed passion. Every song lands a punch, soft when it happens but ringing for days in your ears.

The Drin — Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom (Feel It)

“Venom” lurches and blurts, bass thumping, drums clashing, monotone vocals drenched in menace. It’s a punk song distilled to essence, a world in itself, a short, brutal blast that is also somehow psychedelically expansive. The Fall, the Swell Maps and Adrian Sherwood haunt this disc in various places, but the Drin is its own mysterious thing.

Wreckless Eric — Leisureland (Tapete)

“Get yourself a one-way ticket for the merry-go-round,” sings the Bard of Hull on the last and most exhilarating song from his ninth full-length. That’s “Drag Time,” with its indelible hook, its enveloping harmonies, its hint of Amy Rigby in the chorus. Let’s just go way out on a limb here and say it’s as good, maybe better, than “Whole Wide World.”  

En Attendant Ana — Principia (Trouble in Mind)

Good lord, was Trouble in Mind on a roll this year or what? I could put Melanas or Tubs here, with FACS not far behind, but instead, let us contemplate the light-and-dark wonder of “Black Morning,” with its giddy counterpoints, its bright, sustaining trumpet, its boppy beat and its underpinning, somehow, of shadowy melancholy. Or the skanky bass that kicks off “Same Old Story,” in a prickly way, the lone element of dissonance that gives a daydream teeth.

Stella Kola—S-T (Self-Release)

Everybody who’s anybody in W. Mass alt.folk does a turn on this magical LP—centered around Beverly Ketch and Rob Thomas but including PG Six, Wednesday Knudson, Jeremy Pisani, Willy Lane and Jen Gelineau. Despite the expansiveness of the ensemble, these songs are feather light and lucid, like Pentangle sprinkled with magic dust.

Mudhoney — Plastic Eternity (Sub Pop)

Psychedelic overload meets raw punk and potty humor in this 12th album from the grunge godfathers. I like the sheer rush and swirl of cuts like “Almost Everything” and “Souvenir of my Trip” best, but bare, belligerent “Flush the Fascists” is grade-A too, and how can anyone resist Mark Arm paying tribute to his best bud on “Little Dogs.”

Beirut — Hadsel (Pompeii)

Hadsel is surprisingly cheery for an album recorded on a remote Norwegian island in the dead of winter, with swoony harmonies and counterpoints, intricate synthesized beats and blares of an antique pipe organ. “We had so many plans,” Zach Condon sings, both mourning and subtly sending up his cohort’s response to the COVID pandemic, but this remarkably pretty album seems more like a happy accident.

The Feelies—Some Kinda Love (Bar None)

What a total pleasure it is when one jangly, drone-y, indie rock phenomenon pays tribute to the wellspring. In this case, it’s the Feelies covering many of the Velvet Underground’s best known songs at a live show in 2018 where everyone had a blast. Now you can, too.

More albums that I loved in the order that I thought of them.

Iron & Wine—Who Can See Forever Soundtrack (Sub Pop)

Melanas—Ahora (Trouble in Mind)

Sleaford Mods — UK Grim (Domino)

The Tubs — Dead Meat (Trouble in Mind)

Sky Furrows—Reflect and Oppose (Feeding Tube/Cardinal Fuzz)

Lonnie Holley — Oh Me Oh My (Jagjaguwar)

Yo La Tengo—This Stupid World (Matador)

The Toads—In the Wilderness (Upset the Rhythm)

Dan Melchior—Welcome to Redacted City (Midnight Cruiser)

James and the Giants—S-T (Kill Rock Stars)

Ben Chasny and Rick Tomlinson—Waves (VOIX)

Bonnie Prince Billy—Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You (Drag City)

CLASS—If You’ve Got Nothing (Feel It)

The Clientele—I’m Not There Anymore (Merge)

Devendra Banhart—Flying Wig (Mexican Summer)

Kristin Hersh—Clear Pond Road (FIRE)

Sally Anne Morgan—Carrying (Thrill Jockey)

FACS—Still Life in Decay (Trouble in Mind)

Setting—Shone a Rainbow Light On (Paradise of Bachelors)

Airto Moreira & Flora Purim—A Celebration (BBE)

Sweeping Promises—Good Living Is Coming For You (Feel It)

James Waudby—On the Ballast Miles (East Riding Acoustic)

Emergency Group—Venal Twin (Centripetal Force)

Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band—Sing Dancing on the Edge (Sophomore Lounge)

Tyvek—Overground (Gingko)

Wurld Series—The Giant’s Lawn (Melted Ice Cream)

Various Artists—STOP MVP (War Hen)

[kentuckyanarchist]

Songs of 2022

Year-end lists always seem doomed to become outdated. Am I really expected to have heard all the best songs of 2022 in 2022? It’s never going to work, they’ll seep through over the course of the following year or years. But giving it six weeks is better than nothing, so here we are in mid-late February.

1. Tomberlin, “Stoned”.

Stoned indeed: woozy, baffled, bodily undone.

2. Camp Cope, “Running with the Hurricane”.

Camp Cope perfected a bassy, blunt melancholy with How to Socialise & Make Friends; here they don’t so much break from that template as turn it to other—affirmative? aggressive?—purposes.

3. Caroline, “Good Morning (Red)”.

The year’s most something-new-on-every-listen song, its most capacious.

4. Christian Lee Hutson, “Age Difference”.

Lyric of the year: “Do my impression of John Malkovich critiquing food in prison / At first it isn’t funny, then it is, and then it isn’t.”

5. Big Thief, “Change”.

A panoply of possibilities on such a sprawling, immersive album by the absolute best in the game, but this most plaintive and stubborn lament just edges the rest.

6. Rachika Nayar ft. Maria BC, “Heaven Come Crashing”.

Sounds for the silentest disco.

7. The A’s, “Why I’m Grieving”.

A path not taken from an archive not delved-into; a peppy sad spurt of jolly heartbreak.

8. Black Country, New Road, “Snow Globes”.

I’m still not sure if this song’s about going mad, getting old, living through winter, all three, or none.

9. Arctic Monkeys, “Body Paint”.

Searching, insistent: like Alex Turner’s got you caught in a lie.

10. Stella Donnelly, “Cold”.

This could’ve been any of Stella Donnelly’s songs where the lilt of her voice is always dropping into conversationality, but this one, where she ends the conversation, full-stop, shuts me up the most.

11. Martha, “Irreversible Motion”.

So many of these songs are about little things, like the bones of the inner ear; this one maybe more than all the others.

12. Florist, “Red Bird Pt. 2 (Morning)”.

A delicate retrospective collage, a slow bashful loving appreciation, a puzzled amazed asking-why, a cautious comfort.

13. Aldous Harding, “Fever”.

Aldous Harding’s songs have this wonderful, dignified refusal to cohere; this one just lopes, or loafs, in and out of view.

14. Meg Baird, “Will You Follow Me Home?”.

The way Meg Baird’s vocals stay half-submerged here is what gets me: “Will You Follow Me Home?” goes from lazy river to maelstrom without you quite noticing.

15. Brian Eno, “Making Gardens Out of Silence”.

If you ask me, “Making Gardens Out of Silence” is a panorama from the time after humans, built from salvage by whatever-comes-next.

16. Hurray for the Riff Raff, “SAGA”.

A lot of these songs express a specifically 2022 kind of bafflement. “SAGA” doesn’t know how to get past this condition either, but it’s pushing against the boundaries.

17. Lana Del Rey, “Watercolor Eyes”.

You think you know someone’s schtick, but they surprise you.

18. Black Belt Eagle Scout, “My Blood Runs Through This Land".

Alternating between wordlessness and breathlessness, either way keeping on building to something.

19. Jake Xerxes Fussell, “Love Farewell”.

Stoic and stolid, Jake Xerxes Fussell bets on metaphor but could’ve made do with just rumble, growl and twinkle.

20. Ezra Furman, “Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club”.

Secret-telling in movie-theatre darkness.

21. Let’s Eat Grandma, “Happy New Year”.

Let’s Eat Grandma have the saddest synths but this one’s rose-coloured.

22. Joshua Burnside, “Louis Mercier”.

Time-travel klezmer-pop that jostles you like a cobbled towpath.

23. Beth Orton, “Weather Alive”.

When talking songs become singing songs so sylphlike and effortless.

24. Sault, “Life We Rent but Love Is Free”.

Sounds like certain small parts of London, for certain small moments, on busy summer days in the past.

25. Bill Callahan, “Coyotes”.

One for slickrock and sagebrush, which are not without their romance.

26. Yard Act, “Tall Poppies”.

A self-consciously small story, a kitchen-sink drama, a talking head, no denouément.

27. Angel Olsen, “All the Good Times”.

A rhinestone widescreen production, a road movie on a soundstage.

28. Beach House, “Hurts to Love”.

Generationally speaking, the ending of Skins series 1 still packs a fair bit of a punch, so rewriting “Wild World” by Cat Stevens makes more sense than you’d think.

29. The 1975, “The 1975”.

Imagine taking “All My Friends” and making it about your cock and it’s still good; that takes rare talent.

30. Craig Finn, “Birthdays”.

Comforting because it really is nice to know there’s someone in this world who’s always known you, and comforting because it’s Craig Finn doing Craig Finn stuff with his big dumb Craig Finn voice.

31. Julia Jacklin, “Lydia Wears a Cross”.

A bodily song: knees, eyes, clothes, adornments.

32. Anaïs Mitchell, “On Your Way (Felix Song)”.

You get the sense Anaïs Mitchell finds nothing all that difficult—eulogising, philosophising, doing justice to a life, picking out the pithiest reminiscences, in just under three minutes she bowls it all over.

33. Billy Woods, “Pollo Rico”.

Intrusive thoughts, compulsion to repeat. A personal history of madness.

34. Bright Eyes, “Arc of Time (Time Code) (Companion Version)”.

This year Bright Eyes re-recorded some of the songs from the 2000s I love/hate the most. “Arc of Time” gets remade without the beats or the keys, but stays smart and wry and death stays on its mind. 

35. Fred again.., “Berwyn (all that i got is you)”.

Fred again..’s songs are urban explorations, entries to London’s subterrene.

36. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World”.

Cosmic.

37. The Big Moon, “Ladye Bay”.

Supersized, tectonic.

38. Drive-By Truckers, “The Driver”.

Grimy, grunting noir.

39. Ethel Cain, “American Teenager”.

D. H. Lawrence would’ve liked Ethel Cain and her Great American Hauntedness.

40. Girlpool, “Butterfly Bulletholes”.

Such a shame to lose Girlpool in 2022 but they were four or five bands in just two people, they gave us a lot.

41. The Beths, “Expert in a Dying Field”.

This one speaks for itself.

42. Nilüfer Yanya, “Shameless”.

Breathless, almost somehow fleshless, rattling ribcage xylophone.

43. Mesadorm, “Soap Opera”.

Skew-whiff boiler-hiss robot pop.

44. Porridge Radio, “Back to the Radio”.

Porridge Radio’s skills are in cacophony, cataclysm, crisis, ruination, disaster mismanagement.

45. Wet Leg, “Too Late Now”.

Every introspection needs a wise-crack or two.

46. Wilco, “Tired of Taking It Out on You”.

Aged 29, I had chickenpox recently; I recovered but it’s made looking in the mirror interesting, all these new small markings on the same face.

47. Plains, “Hurricane”.

The lyrics to “Hurricane” read like an apology, but Katie Crutchfield’s voice always sounds a little barbed to me; that’s what makes this work, I think.

48. Daniel Avery, “Higher”.

Frenetic travel in place.

49. Kevin Morby, “Bittersweet, TN”.

Kevin Morby hits all the requirements, he straight-A’s being a country singer.

50. Beabadoobee, “You’re Here That’s the Thing”.

In 2023 I resolve to continue to love silly rhymes, campfire rhythms, dewdrops and holding hands.

[detroitlightning]

2022-11-01 - Meg Baird - Third Man Records, Detroit, MI

So stoked to share my recording of this show from a few weeks back! Chris' set will be coming soon...

I was incredibly thrilled when this tour was announced, and given all of the complexities of touring/life in 2022, that the show actually occurred! Not only that, it was so great!

Incredibly, this was the 2nd time I was able to see Meg play this year. This time with a full band, and with a bunch of great new tunes to play - I really loved the set, and can't wait for the record.

I recorded this with my Berliner CM33 mic's into a Zoom F3 recorder in full 32bit glory.

Pre-order Meg's new record on bandcamp, it sounds like a stunner -> https://megbaird.bandcamp.com/album/furling

Download: https://mega.nz/file/hKQVFaLD#HToWwnTDyA0gv3aMYU7Zl-Az3gwQ2uJhjMhoexczG4I

Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6nLy60-y0U

Ok, steaming is back! I think! Lmk if you have any issues…

[twitchytyrant]

[lmmendez]

2018, un recuento musical

Lo mejor de lo que pude escuchar, en orden aleatorio:

Marianne Faithfull - Negative Capability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndseNmYb4s0

Fire! - The Hands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpe0EnD9870

Jason Sharp - Stand Above the Streams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vc2qbOSBd0

Carla Bozulich - Quieter: https://carlabozulich.bandcamp.com/album/quieter

Efrim Manuel Menuck - Pissing Stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH6LD9aZ0IM

Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore - Ghost Forests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVpg4CcBpu8

Senyawa - Sujud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOP-lzob-M0

Félicia Atkinson - Coyotes: https://feliciaatkinson.bandcamp.com/

Stuart A. Staples - Arrhythmia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjY8IwjtPkY

Ian William Craig - Thresholder: https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/thresholder

Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqntnTfFcHE

Eli Keszler - Stadium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLdBYvpiJk

Low - Double Negative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEozu4Obfs

The Ex - 27 Passports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzFUjOksyME

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Something Else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCsaFEu7JxA

Hookworms - Microshift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TALpcCFupmw

Tirzah - Devotion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2EIDPpzXUE

The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvqi0Ietsmw

No Age - Snares Like A Haircut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7WiAVLqJOc

Mount Eerie - Now Only: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOqrnQdXhUs

Las Ligas Menores - Fuego Artificial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KnDY0D8ijg

Brigid Mae Power - The Two Worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMFLRowlFGo

Pendant - Make Me Know You Sweet: https://westmineral.bandcamp.com/album/make-me-know-you-sweet-ouest099

Adam Stafford - Fire Behind The Curtain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzayD7LIpRE

Miss Red - K.O.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRPARG-ZjBU

Pusha T - DAYTONA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7-0ugujS2U

Juliana Daugherty - Ligth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6UyzyLfgkA

Park Jiha - Communion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90hQltLDSBs

*La mejor canción chilena: El sueño pesa (ft. Chini Ayarza) de Niños del Cerro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gU_589413k

[willcallphotography]

Meg Baird live at Smith’s Olde Bar.

Atlanta June 15, 2017.