Funeral to Finish

  Imagine for a second that the Grateful Dead never became the GRATEFUL DEAD with the tours and the Deadheads and the scene and everything and instead were just a semi-well-known psych-roots-rock band from Northern California.  Unladen of all the baggage, you might put this album on and think "Oh wow, this is a really nice record! I wonder what became of these guys." Because it is.  This is Americana before "Americana" was a genre, an extremely chill mixture of rock, country, bluegrass, blues, just about everything in American music.  Kicking off with "Uncle John's Band," an invitation to listen to the band and also a meditation on the liminal, semi-conscious state you enter when completely engaged with music, the album progresses through country-folk ("Dire Wolf"), straight rock ("New Speedway Boogie") and something like bluegrass-stomp-rock ("Cumberland Blues").  Then it ends with one of the band's best-known songs, ...

  How often do you hear a freaking Beach Boys album and think "Sounds like they just knocked this one out in about half a day in the studio, just fucking around, you know those lo-fi loving Beach Boys"?  How about fucking NEVER?  Well, sit down because I've got one for you. This was recorded post-Pet Sounds and the tortured Smile project, which both sound like hell with Brian Wilson in the studio demanding 735 takes just for the tambourine and taking 3 weeks to record one song.  So after that, naturally you'd just want to kind of take it easy and have some fun, right? And this album sounds fun!  There's definitely some R&B/Motown influence here.  Sometimes it's subtle and sometimes they just cover a Stevie Wonder song ("I Was Made to Love Her").  But the whole thing is interesting; you would know it's the Beach Boys right off the bat, but it's a mellower, less structured Beach Boys.  It sounds like they're having fun.   This came out...

  I started out not really liking this album, which I had never heard before, and then I listened some more and started to like it, and listened some more and liked it more, and now it's totally grown on me.  Then I went back and started reading reviews and so many thought this was just magical and wonderful and while I don't think it's QUITE as good as all that, it certainly is interesting. First, Bob's voice.  We're all used to the weird intonations and nasally lilt Bob Dylan sings with but here he's featuring a deeply craggy, seen-it-all, weary and maybe close to death.  It's a remarkable sound, enough to even be distracting at times, but it fits in with the overall themes of the lyrics, which concern loss and contemplation and looking back over life. Musically, it's all over the place.  Or, really, all over the place within its narrow confines of "music Bob Dylan listens to."  But there's pretty straight country, and some jazz swing, an...

  GodDAMN this album is good.  Like I knew all about "Tracks of My Tears," which of course is one of the best/most important songs in rock history, and "Ooo Baby Baby," which is instantly recognizable,  and I'm relatively sure I knew the title track and maybe "My Girl Has Gone" but there isn't a bad song on this record.  When I first heard "Let Me Have Some," I immediately hit replay and then again, and again.  I think I listened to it four or five times in a row yesterday. It's the piano riff and the handclaps and the incredible harmonies - incredible harmonies being a main feature of this record - but it's really the swingy vocal melody that does it.  Man, Smokey Robinson, why don't you save some melodies for the rest of us.  Also big shout-out to guitarist Marv Tarplin, who not only had the original vocal idea for "Tracks" but wrote the absolutely iconic guitar part.  Really, if you haven't listened to this al...

  Creedence was the original Just Us Guys band.  This album is named for the warehouse in Berkeley where they practiced.  The cover shot looks like you just walked in on some bros passing a joint around.  And the songs are such serious beer commercial Rock that they've become an indelible part of the collective consciousness. How about starting off an album with a 7-minute song that's mostly a (kind of boring) jam?  Sure, why not.  Then a cover song.  Then let's unleash one monster hit after another.  Man, when John Fogerty got on one the man could write the fuck out of a song.  "Lookin' Out My Back Door," "Run Through the Jungle," "Up Around the Bend," "Who'll Stop the Rain," and "Long As I Can See the Light" are all on this album.  Can you imagine?   There's also a (very not boring) 11-minute cover of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" that I dare you to listen to and not do the air-drum-crash-cymbal mo...

  It's Friday and that's great because this album is PERFECT FOR FRIDAY.  In fact, it's good for any day of the week.  Nothing like starting out a record with "Good Times," an obviously iconic song on its own that didn't do anything else except go on in life to be the backing track for "Rapper's Delight" and thus be a part of the foundation of rap.  Talk about a song delivering more than you asked it to. But there are other disco bangers on here!  You will swear you've heard "My Feet Keep Dancing" because it sounds so familiar, even if you haven't.  It also has the unexpected and charming tap shoes sound about halfway through, to really play up the "dancing" thing.  "Can't Stand to Love You" is a more straightforward funk vibe, and there are the requisite slow jams like "A Warm Summer Night."  You can hear so much of today's music just flowing out of this.   Let's pause here and talk abo...

  This is the kind of thing that would be playing during brunch at All You Knead restaurant on Haight Street in the early 90's.  I know because I used to go to brunch at All You Knead restaurant on Haight Street in the early 90's and I'm positive I heard this playing.  All You Knead had a really good brunch, and I specifically remember it was the first place I ever had a beer with brunch, mostly because back then I couldn't drink champagne so, you know, no mimosas.  Funny story: I didn't drink any wine or champagne AT ALL, not one sip, between the time I was about 15 and maybe 30 becaue when I was about 15 I drank way too much champagne at a restaurant opening afterparty and got violently ill and couldn't stand the smell of it for at least 10 years. Back to this record.  Of course, it has an absolutely locked-in funk groove, and one memorable song at least (the title track), but let me be straight with you, I am really not crazy about instrumental funk albums, o...