Unknown Pleasures: Dakota Suite

Dakota Suite is not so much a band, more the brainchild of Chris Hooson, a social worker from England. He manages to hold down a full-time job while also producing some affecting music.

Their early singles were compiled on an album entitled Alone with Everybody. That title alone should give an indication of the music contained within, it's not the most cheerful. Hooson conveys resignation more than angst. It's been said before that his music is very informed by American Music Club and Red House Painters, and that is undeniably true of his 'singer-songwriter' material. This compilation is quite varied, with some singer-songwriter type material, slightly countrified rock, and some jazzy / classical instrumentals. All the songs are uniformly slow, some feature deep strums of an acoustic guitar, whilst others are piano-based. One of the finer piano-based songs is Autobiography, which is nicely underpinned by some cello.

Their first full album proper is, to my ears, somewhat disappointing. Entitled Songs for a Barbed Wire Fence, it presents a slab of grimness, though not in a good way. The vocal songs are punctuated with instrumentals, and the album was followed up with Dakota Suite's first instrumental album, Navigator's Yard, a series of chamber pieces strongly featuring piano. In other words, classical music. It's quite soothing and tranquil to listen to.

In 2000, they released Signal Hill, a major step forward. The album is back to mostly vocal songs, with some excellent mood-piece style instrumentals. Close Enough to Tears is a fragile, plaintive ballad, begun on acoustic guitar around Chris gently singing 'never let me go'. Other highlights include the wonderful pair of songs: Riverside, recorded beside a train station and consisting only of acoustic guitar and Chris repeating the phrase 'is it true, are you breaking up inside', he is then joined by some trumpets. It sounds awful but works wonderfully, then leads into Raining Somewhere, an instrumental played on electric guitars, somewhat reminescent of Red House Painters' Katy Song, it creates a lovely autumnal Sunday afternoon mood. It's the sound of loneliness. The album ends on an upbeat note, with When Skies Are Grey which Chris says is about football, specifically Everton.

They then released a mini-album, Morning Lake Forever, which was dominated by Chapel Rain, a lengthy piece with the refrain 'I must be evil' (another RHP reference?). The album also contained some experimental type pieces. Lesseps is almost completely electronic, a nice departure for them, incorporating some new sounds. Turk 1 is a propulsive (for them) instrumental with jazz overtones.

They then released another instrumental album, this time using an orchestra, The Way I Am Sick. This River Only Brings Poison, followed. This album featured contributions from ex-American Music Club members, Bruce Kaphan on steel guitar and Tim Mooney on drums. The album featured some of Chris' loveliest songs, the duet featuring a female vocalist (Laura Donohoe?) on How Safe We Must Seem being a particular high point. It's very chilled out and mellow.

A four-year silence followed. I had some email correspondence with Chris around this time, and he was disappointed with how This River was received and the whole process of releasing an album. He spoke about not releasing any more music. I was glad to hear then that he was releasing Waiting For The Dawn to Crawl Through and Take Your Life Away. The album is a mixture of singer-songwriter oriented songs and some instrumental pieces. It came with a free DVD, Wintersong, which was a documentary about the band, and contained some interesting observations from Chris and his life.

Which brings me to their latest album, The End of Trying. The title is so resigned, and this follows through to the music. It's an instrumental album for piano and cello where he collaborates with notable cellist David Darling. The album works well as a mood piece. It's hard to pick out individual tracks. I ordered mine directly from Chris.

Dakota Suite are not the first band in the world to play somewhat slow, sad moody music. But I think the jazz / classical influence gives them a fresh twist. Their distaste for live performance means they will probably remain underappreciated by most.

For more about the band, check out http://www.dakotasuite.com/

Ron Asheton RIP

It hasn't been a good start to 2009 musically. Just when the Stooges had made a comeback and started to receive some real acclaim, I was sorry to hear of the death of their guitarist, Ron Asheton.

I have had to take a month to digest this news. Ron Asheton's riffs were central to the first 2 Stooges albums. The first album, The Stooges, was some of the most basic rock n roll ever recorded. The songs were basic, childish, bratty, repetitive and downright puerile. Which is what made them great. Mostly using 2 or 3 chords, Ron's chords formed the basis for 3 of the greatest ever songs: 1969, I Wanna Be Your Dog, and No Fun.

From the moment the riff for 1969 kicks in, you are transported to a grimy, rough little setting. Helped in no small way by Iggy Pop's singing. He's not the greatest singer in the world, but he sings with just the right attitude to make these songs REAL classics. Forget the Beatles, the Stones, the bloody Beach Boys and all the other artists from the late 60s / early 70s that form the so-called 'canon' of rock. These songs take rock, screw it up into a little ball and trample on it. This song even coaxed some emotion out of Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters of Mercy in their cover version!

I Wanna Be Your Dog is even better. Possibly the greatest riff of all time, I defy anybody not to completely change their posture, walk or whatever they are doing when they hear it. No Fun, much-loved by the Sex Pistols, is equally basic. To me, it's like a theme tune for a mode of behaviour. I used to walk around with this in my headphones as an antidote to all the blandness out there. Also, these songs are great to sing because the words are equally basic.

They got more ambitious with the 2nd album, Fun House. TV Eye is solid guitar craziness. The guitar riff makes you want to go crazy and shout at the top of your voice. However the moment of genius in that song belongs to Iggy. Right in the middle of the song, he screams so hard that he starts coughing. And they just left it in!

Ron also perfected the quieter, slow release, heavy guitar dynamic on Dirt, which lopes along driven by the bass and beat, with Ron playing perfectly pitched guitar over the top to match Iggy's tension-filled vocals.

However for the 3rd album, Raw Power, due to events recounted elsewhere by better writers than me, Ron played bass. Anybody who's heard that album will tell you that due to the way it was recorded, it's hard to pick out the bass.

Of course it wasn't all good. We Will Fall is 10 minutes of tedium. Guitar-free if I remember rightly, think it was their answer to the Doors. And once you hear it, you won't be in a rush to hear it again.

The comeback album, The Weirdness, was nothing special either, but as a means to an end it got the Stooges to reform. I was lucky to see them play in Dublin in June 2008. The guitar had lost none of its power, even in a large outdoor venue, and Iggy's energy was both infectious and hilarious (in a good way).

Ron Asheton never achieved much else away from the Stooges. But for the first 2 albums alone, he deserves to be remembered as a cool guitarist. Forget the word legend, it's not very-Stooges. He was a cool guitarist.

A New Start

From now on this blog will change its emphasis. It will stay music-focused but will provide more balanced writing, about whatever I see fit.

There's enough negativity out there.

No.2 - Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams is, and has always been, a man in a hurry. Christened David Ryan Adams, he became known by his second name, which led to inevitable confusion with the similarly named Canadian singer (of whom more later!).

Whiskeytown was his first band, a county-rock outfit. They attempted to mix Gram Parsons and the Replacements. Two somewhat overrated outfits. Unfortunately for them, country music has never really been any good. It is one of the most reductive, backward sounding 'genres' of music there is. Nevertheless, although being a country album, their debut - Faithless Street showed some promise, with some charming lyrics ('so I started this damn country band 'cos punk rock was too hard to sing' from the title track).

This was as good as it got for Whiskeytown. Their follow-up, 'Strangers Almanac' got great reviews but was inferior and began Ryan Adams' sprint towards the mainstream. The band lasted one more album before imploding and Mr. Adams took the well-trodden 'solo artist' path.

'Heartbreaker', his first solo album got him his best reviews of his career. Not a bad album, though (like much of his early output) overrated. In his wisdom, he followed this up with an unashamedly mainstream rock/pop album, 'Gold', where he posed on the cover with the American flag a la Bruce Springsteen, and began fraternising with cutting edge artists like Elton John and Alanis Morrissette.

Much of what has followed has been an interesting mess. He has flitted from one style to another, straight-ahead rock ('Rock N Roll'), Smiths-style mope-rock ('Love Is Hell'), back to country ('Cold Roses' / 'Jacksonville City Nights'), singer-songwriter angst ('29') before settling on middle of the road, vaguely countrified soft-rock ('Easy Tiger' / 'Cardinology'). All the while keeping himself in the public eye through dalliances with somewhat well-known women (though none of whose identities spring to mind right now), 'accidents' involving falling off stage and breaking his arm, reports of substance abuse and on-stage tantrums.

Many of these tantrums were driven by fans shouting out requests for 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams. To which he sulked. Wouldn't it have been easier to make light of it? It's no more cheesy than some of his own hokey country songs ('Desperate Ain't Lonely') or 'rock' songs ('Halloweenhead').

His latest publicity stunt is that he is talking about retiring from music. He might be better advised to stop giving interviews, stop falling out with his record company (as he did with Lost Highway who have refused to release some of his albums), and definitely to stop releasing so much music. How is any fan supposed to avoid overload? In 2005 he released 3 albums in 3 months. God knows how many other unreleased albums lie in the vault.

Just slow down Ryan. You don't have to burn out, in the words of Neil Young.

Concert Review: Greg Dulli / Mark Lanegan - Dublin Academy Jan 2009

Digressing from the 'cowpat theme', think it's important to review this gig, I've reviewed every other Lanegan gig I've been to (posted on http://www.onewhiskey.com/)

When we bought tickets for this gig it was a Gutter Twins gig, but subsequently changed to an evening with Greg Dulli & Mark Lanegan. Arrived at the venue to find that it was an all seater gig. And all the seats were taken! Never mind, got a space at the bar. Mark and Greg came on early, just after 8.30. Greg alternated between guitar and keyboard, and they were joined by another guitarist. They began with 3 or 4 Gutter Twins songs, considerably reworked to suit the format of the gig. Greg was the more vocal but Mark did speak on occasion, notably when the somebody in the quite vocal crowd shouted 'give him a kiss', Greg said 'did we kiss?' and Mark replied 'apparently'. Had never seen Mark sit down at a gig before, he didn't really know what to do with his hands without a mike stand to hold!

As the gig progressed they played songs from each others' back catalogues, mainly Twilight Singers and Lanegan solo tracks. Greg was goading Mark to play Screaming Trees songs, but it didn't happen. None the less he covered tracks from Bubblegum, Field Songs, I'll Take Care of you and even as far back as Whiskey for the Holy Ghost. They also played a couple of covers which I didn't recognise, sounded like some old folk songs. Greg looks a little like Elvis in his Vegas period in terms of size.

After a short encore with 2 songs, then a cover of 'All I have to do is dream' they were gone by 9.55. A little short! Lanegan was in fine voice but I think this collaboration has run its course.

No.1 - Sonic Youth

Godfathers of the NY art-rock scene? Or just a bunch of over-age rockers who infest the mildest of melodies with ear-splitting noise? I mean what is it with the noise? They are perfectly well able to crank out serviceable 'indie/alternative' melodies but then poison them with feedback. There's nothing wrong with a bit of noise used in the appropriate manner. Jesus and Mary Chain have feedback as an integral part of the songs (hmm... or do they? maybe a future sacred cowpat?). It's scarcely believable that these guys appear to be as 'cool' as they are. All the bands they reference are either unheard of or unlistenable to. I bet Thurston and Kim listen to the Eagles at home.

What's worse is the Sonic Youth fans. They all despise the prettier, easier-to-listen-to SY songs, typified by their last album, Rather Ripped, which junked the 7-minute long, punctuated by quiet bits, then loud screechy bits SY template in favour just really good, catchy tunes. In general their last 3 albums (Murray St, Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped) are a lot easier to listen to right through than their so-called seminal albums (Sister, Daydream Nation, Goo)

Don't get me wrong, I like a bit self-important, pretentious twaddle as much as anyone. But albums really ought to be enjoyable to listen to. I defy anybody to listen to their most revered-album Daydream Nation right through. Sure Teenage Riot is a class song, but Providence? What were they thinking? It's a real nothing, just a machine hum all they way through. I think it was meant as a joke but there are very few incidences of 'musical jokes' that are actually funny. Email any you can think of to klaher@eircom.net - if you find any. They are fond of extended guitar workouts within songs - not very punk - though the majority of those are tedious in the extreme. A friend of mine said many years ago that Sonic Youth sound like 'they have their heads up their holes'. Unfair? Perhaps.

Then there is the Kim issue. Undoubtedly a cool looking lady, and a good musician. But just don't give her any songs to sing. The results are never pretty. Though 25 years down the line, she is learning (her contributions to Rather Ripped are actually good to listen to), she has shrieked her way through dozens of painful songs over the years.

And as for their collaborative projects, 2 words: Don't. Bother. Kim's contribution to the 'Hidros' thing with Mats Gustafsson is one of the most irritating things I've heard in a long time. And I paid €20 for it!

Sonic Youth are in their fifties now and still look cool, and tick all the 'cool' boxes: listen to the 'right' music, read the 'right' books, films etc. If they stopped trying to be so cool and just concentrated on making music that people actually like listening to we could yet get some great music.

Intro

Hi - I've started this thing as an outlet for me to poke fun at things I hold dear, mainly music-related stuff. I've no idea how long I'll be at this for, or how often I'll update it! Any suggestions as to who should be taken down a peg or too should be sent to klaher@eircom.net