Soundtrack to the Month
Click to viewThe Corin Tucker Band, "Riley"
The Corin Tucker Band's album 1,000 Years is solid straight-up indie rock, with the driving rhythm and howl typical of Tucker's sound, but I have to admit it mostly made me miss Sleater-Kinney. It's really really good, but I kept missing Carrie's vocals playing off Corin's. I feel bad saying it, but 1000 Years is a bit too much Sleater-Kinney redux.
Indigo Girls, "True Romantic"
Would I still be the girl
Who suits your fancy
Would I still be the boy
Who rocks your world
I love Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, and the acoustic sessions on the delux edition are like an amazing parallel album to the first disc. It's a sign of the Girls' masterful songwriting chops, that the acoustic versions don't feel like superfluous extras, but more like complementary reinterpretations. The first disc's rock anthem "True Romantic", which has Amy Ray doing her signature wailing delivery, works just as well as a melancholy ballad on the second disc.
Tori, Little Earthquakes
yellow bird flying
gets shot in the wing
good year for hunters
and christmas parties
Yeah, so my psyche is finally ready to accept Little Earthquakes, the Tori album that is the most essentially my autobiography, and consequently the one I've had the hardest time getting into. Tori Amos: Cheaper than Therapy!
Aimee Mann, "Medicine Wheel"
Black marker on cardboard
Little drawing of a medicine wheel
Everything that's good you steal
Aimee Mann's just more awesome than you are. That is all.
Ani Difranco, Carnegie Hall 4.6.02
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you dont mind
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine
One of my favorite musicians performing one of my favorite poets (Judy Grahn's "Detroit Annie, Hitchhiking"). The Carnegie Hall bootleg is the next best thing to actually being at an Ani concert.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Heritage
In my dream history falls in on itself and in my dream there is no blackface, no misappropriation, no misdirection, no diasporic disconnect from the hammering of our great grandfathers’ fingers. Instead banjo sounds frequent the air waves like the most insidious hip-hop beat.
Having grown up on (and playing) Americana and Celtic trad music, I really appreciate how the Drops bring out the African roots of the bluegrass country genre. You can't get more traditional, or more radical, than this album.