Jeff Buckley – Live À L’Olympia | Live at Sin-é: I listened to these two back-to-back and they show completely different sides of Buckley’s immense talent. The first four songs from the concert in France demonstrate the raw power he could unleash with his full band, while the solo shows at Sin-é shine a bright light on his talent both as a singer and a guitarist as well as his goofy sense of humor. Both of these shows remind me why Grace was one of my most important albums of the ‘90s.
The Clash – The Clash: After my indifferent reaction last week, I spent a bit more time with The Clash this week. I heard a few things I missed on my first listen but I’m still not sure I’m hearing the lyrical depth that Bob was talking about. If I don’t get distracted by all the other music I’m excited to hear, I’ll keep trying with this one.
The National – First Two Pages of Frankenstein: This record is affecting me the same way that Death Cab’s Transatlanticism did. While the lyrics aren’t as creative as Ben Gibbard’s, Frankenstein is filled with little snapshots that immediately transport me to other places, some that I’ve experienced and some that I only know through the song. “Stuck in the car wash somewhere and you can’t stop laughing” is hardly a great lyric but it pulls me into the scene and gives me nostalgia for something I never experienced. If that doesn’t make it a great lyric, I don’t know what will.
Grateful Dead – 5/13/73 (Des Moines, IA): The shows I’ve heard from 1973 mostly don’t grab me, but when they do, they grab me hard. This show covers both extremes. I was excited to see a couple of long jams (“Playing in the Band” and “The Other One”) but both devolve into aimless noodling (recognizing, of course, that one man’s noodling is another man’s transcendence). However, the roughly 14-minute jams on “He’s Gone” and “Truckin’” are on fire. This show won’t make it into regular rotation for me but when it’s on, it’s really on.
Old friends who made it into rotation this week: Cardinals: Masquerade; Honey Dijon: DJ-Kicks; Laufey: A Matter of Time
Record store finds this week: Not exactly a “find” but I special ordered Pan American’s latest release, Fly the Ocean in a Silver Plane, a few months ago and it finally came in this week.