I've Been Listening to Sharon Jones, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Viva Voce
I think I forgot to tell all of you what I was listening to last week. Oops. Well, carrying on. 
While I think it was probably Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings' (pictured) third album that really helped the band take off, I'm still partial to their second release, Naturally. I was cooking dinner and listening to it the other night when my least favorite song on the album, a cover of "This Land Is Your Land," came on. Normally, I would've just skipped it, but at that particular moment I was sticky with fruit juice, so I had to listen. And it was the first time I'd really noticed how great a cover it is, even though I've never been a huge fan of the song itself (Woody Guthrie's got better ones in his repertoire). The song has been widely misunderstood as a patriotic ode to Old Glory, but as most of you probably know already, is in fact meant to be a satirical jab at the American dream, and Sharon Jones nails that aspect of the song. She sings it playfully, and yet, underneath that, there's just a touch of, well...bitterness, was the word that popped into my mind as I was standing there cutting up grapefruit for salad. But that bitterness is entirely appropriate to the song, which is why I think it's a really good cover. Even though my favorite song on that record is, now and forever, "Fish In The Dish." Talk about sexy double entendres.
It might seem like a stretch to call Viva Voce "psychedelic," but I still maintain that that band makes some perfect pot-smoking music. Maybe that's because the first time I ever heard the band, I was sitting in a friend's truck, stoned out of my mind, and the song "Believer," from Get Yr Blood Sucked Out came on. We had been talking about some asinine thing pertaining to the 'zine we ran together when that song came on, and both of us immediately shut the fuck up and listened to it without saying another word. It's dynamic music that has a sense of purpose. They sometimes remind me a little of Black Mountain, except not as metal and a little more this century, if you catch my drift. Anyway, I just got Rose City, which will be the band's first release on Barsuk, and I think it's probably better than Get Yr Blood Sucked Out. Its planted a little more firmly on solid ground, and in this case, that's turned out to be a good thing.
In other unconventionally-stoney music news, Black Moth Super Rainbow is about to put out Eating Us on Tuesday, which is, just like everything else they've done, totally bizarre. This is the only band that can get away with the vocoder abuse that's been rampant lately, particularly in Top 40 hip hop (and it DOES NOT WORK, SO STOP IT PLEASE.) In fact, the only reason it works for Black Moth Super Rainbow is because all indicators imply that the band — whose members are very insistent on keeping their identities secret — is actually made up of aliens with a passion for Earth music. To me, everything BMSR does sounds like some Martians decided to steal their parents' van and come to Earth to try and make it in pop music, and this is the result. The live instrumentals juxtaposed with those eerie, mechanical effects is nothing short of alien. And it's going to be sweet live. I can't wait.
Comment
