Wheels Keep Turnin': Lucinda Williams and the rocky road to a masterpiece

 

Her recent apparition in the Best Album Eliminator and the admission of a certain featured reader that he doesn't know anything about Lucinda Williams makes me think that we should change that. 

When Car Wheels On A Gravel Road finally arrived in stores in 1998, it had been a long time coming. A full six years to be exact. Williams was a notoriously slow worker, needing years to follow her breakthrough, the excellent self-titled album from 1988 with Sweet Old World, an album that, like Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, she re-recorded entirely. The even longer wait for Car Wheels was mainly due to its extremely long and difficult production history. Williams herself has described the making of that album as a "total clusterfuck", which it no doubt was, taking more than two years (plus another due to label complications) and no less than three different producers. It also cost her the friendship and services of her musical director and bandleader of twelve years...

Lucinda had, in early 1995, recorded an entire record of fifteen songs, as before produced by said bandleader and musical director, the improbably named Gurf Morlix, who basically can play anything with strings and did so on those two records mentioned above. Ex-Small Faces/Faces member Ian McLagan engineered the sessions and playd organ on several of the numbers. That original version of the album is very much in keeping with its predecessors, but Williams wasn't happy with it, notably with a couple of her vocal performances. She wanted to recut not just her vocals, but the music tracks as well, basically starting from scratch. After doing guest vocals on a Steve Earle song and being mightily impressed by the work of Earle's producer Ray Kennedy, she convinced Earle and Kennedy to rerecord the songs she wasn't happy with, leading inevitably to Morlix either stepping down or being fired. Earle and Kennedy, credited as The Twangtrust, continued working on the material, emphasizing her vocals and the live sound of her band, though Kennedy added tons of overdubs later. With the main parts done Earle went off to finish his own tour, under the tacit understanding that after the tour he would wrap up the record. 

But Williams was unwilling to wait, instead hiring E-Streeter Roy Bittan and giving him the tapes, on which he overdubbed a bunch of accordion and some organ (plus tons of guitar work by a who's who of stringbenders, including Charlie Sexton, Greg Leisz and Buddy Miller). Bittan's work is really subtle, his overdubs are woven into the arrangements without drawing attention to themselves. If you'd asked me without me knowing the answer "On how many tracks do we hear an accordion?" , I'd probably say one, maybe two tops. It's seven. That and his organ added to three songs (an instrument she used relatively extensively on Sweet Old World as well) give Car Wheels a unity of sounds that work on an almost uncosncious level. You don't really hear the accordion all the time, but you feel that it's there. 

Lucinda's decision to continue reworking what became Car Wheels was probably down several factors. For one, to her being more and more confident in her own choices - and the insistance that her choices were heard and respected. But maybe the musical divorce from Morlix also was rooted in this - a need - however conscious - to break away from what had worked before, but had probably also become a little routine. Her insistence of more focus on her vocals - as opposed to a band sound that band leader Morlix would obviously prefer- was one of the official reason for the rift between her and Morlix, but maybe after that long of a time, it was just time to move on. Almost twelve years is a long time to hang out and work with someone, so maybe it was time to separate for these two either way.  

The original Car Wheels are probably easily listenable and/or acquirable on the Net, and since I aim to feature the rare and the reworked here on One Buck Records, today's download is the Gurf Morlix version of the album, whih is essentially an entire different album (different vocals and instrumenst), despite the familiarity of the songs. It also features two songs that weren't kept for the final version. ("Out Of Touch" showed up on follow-up Blue). 

While the final version of Car Wheels is an extremely produced, big-budget record where you can hear the time and money invested in it (well...maybe not three years worth...), the early Morlix version is... not. He isn't wrong when he estimated that the record is "90% finished". There is a feeling of the last coat of paint missing to some of the numbers, but these aren't raw demos, either. They are fully produced songs with a very solid country rock band, though they do miss the swing and hip-hop influenced groove that the final record has, as well as the many fine touches Earle & Kennedy and then Bittan brought to the table. There is no question that Williams was right and that the published version of Car Wheels is the strongest. But the Gurf Morlix version has its own modest charms. I personally also don't hear much that is wrong with her vocals. Phrasing is different, but that is expected from what is now essentially a first stab at an album. It's a rewarding "alternative" version of a modern classic, or, you know, an interesting way to relisten to these songs, at worst. 

So, go get the original set of Wheels. Get this set of  Wheels. And let 'em spin...

[very good vintage article on Lucinda and Car Wheels here: Lucinda Williams - Setting the record straight - No Depression. And a pretty good retro one here: PAIN IS NOT THE POINT: REFLECTIONS ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD - ANTIGRAVITY Magazine]

All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 6: Where Things Get A Lot Eighties-ier...

 ...and yes, that is a word I just made up. Eighties-ier it is, because after having the first foray into the Eighties of our All Pearls, No Swine series still firmly with both feet in the sound and sensibility of the 1970s, it's obvious from the opening track, Australia's Triffids and their mighty "Wide Open Road" that we have fully arrived in the decade of the synth swirls, gated drums and echoey production. And if that isn't enough, then track two, The Lover Speaks' synth anthem "No More I Love You" should seal the deal. That song only scraped the lower regions of the charts, but became a huge hit for Annie Lennox almost a decade later. From there we get to ol' Fleetwood Mac alumni Bob Welch and his best stab at a New Wave sound with "I'll Dance Alone" and Men At Work's original version of "Down Under". It was originally a b-side to a forgotten single and didn't yet have the famous/infamous flute melody that got them sued and ultimately led to the self destruction of Greg Ham. Instead it is a weird country-flavored regatta da blanc. Then we get two saints replacing one madonna, as Canada's Sophie St. Lauren does her best stab at Madonna-style pop with the absolutely irresistible "Sex Appeal", before Tera St. John kidnaps Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wildside" for a synth-pop joyride as a self-published one-off (on the impeccably titled Didit M'Self Records!). Plus more sultriness from Rosie Vela, aurally and visually (see below). 

We also get new wave goodness from Randy VanWarmer and Sniff'n'the Tears, both soon to be getting their own write ups and home-made compilations here, an underrated synth-pop number from Tears for Fears' first album that The Americans used for an amazing sequence, more Aussies with Big Pig, more Canadians with brainy synth-poppers Strange Advance, a trip to Italy for Raf's (as in Raffaele) original version of "Self Control", issued months before Laura Branigan took over the song and rode it into the Top Ten. That lady sure had a knack for picking up Italian hits ("Gloria") and turning them into world wide smashes! And a trip to France for post-punk psych band The Vietnam Veterans and their take on "The Days Of Pearly Spencer". And out of the 'huh?' department, folk rock veteran Iain Matthews, who after forays into soft rock and new wave ends up in power pop outfit Hi-Fi, covering Prince's "When U Were Mine". How much more Eighties-ier than that can you get?   

Have no fear, fellow musical travelers, for even the Eighties, that most dreaded decade for fans of classic rock look better with every passing year, and have some treasures to unearth, starting right here and now...

Good Grief! Patty Griffin and 1.000 Kisses' closeness to perfection

One side effect of the Best Album Eliminator game that is currently under way here at One Buck Records is it makes you ponder what makes an album great. I have some theories on the subject. The main condition: it has to be chock full of great songs, obviously. The ol' "All Killer, No Filler" mentality. Duh. And secondly, as more of a personal criteria, it should have its own inimitable mood, a coherent atmosphere that makes it an album, not just a collection of songs. Something that is distincly its own. 

So, by these, or any other criteria, does the perfect album even exist? And what about the ones that are almost perfect? How do you account for an album that almost gets there, right up to the finish line, but doesn't quite cross it? 

When I first heard Patty Griffin's 1.000 Kisses, I didn't expect much. I had fished it out of a bargain bin, vaguely remembering the name and a positive review that might or might not have been about this album. But the moment "Rain" came on, this album grabbed me, and wouldn't let go. It still doesn't. 

1.000 Kisses is, for the most part an album about broken hearts, due to a break-up, or even worse, due to staying together in a loveless relationship. A fearful symmetry links its cornerstones. Griffin's first words are "It's hard to listen to a hard, hard heart / beatin' close to mine". Six songs later, in "Nobody's Crying'" she bids adieu to a lover she has to send away: "It says that love is all gone / Every move I make is all wrong", while still being determined that sending him away despite her doubts is the best thing to do. 

When I check the back of the album, I always wonder how come I don't remember much, if anything, about the last two songs. And then I remember when I put them on, as they are genre pieces that don't have much to do with the rest of the album and, more to the point, are missing the emotional depth that the rest of the album has. I mean, it's totally fine to do a jazz-flavored torch song, then a Latin number, but these two songs absolutely break the spell that Griffin has woven before throughout those amazing first seven songs. There is one other cover song in the middle of that cycle, but it is much better chosen, and as emotional as Griffin's own songs: Her cover of "Stolen Car" arguably bests the original, outspooking the Boss' spooky tale of unfulfilled, despairing quest for redemption by a country mile. And the two closing numbers aren't bad, quite the opposite, but they don't fit with the rest of the bunch. That stuff I said above about the coherent mood? Exhibit A! 

But back to 1.000 Kisses. It's not all slow doom and gloom either, but even when Griffin picks up the pace a little bit, the undercurrent of deep emotions bubbling are in every song - whether it's the deceptively bouncy tale of a Native American war vet in "Chief" or the tale of an aged widow distracting herself from her grief by "Making Pies", 1.000 Kisses is an album that is all heart, tugging at yours at every turn. I might be a too emotional, or a wuss, or what have you, but at least one of the three emotional cornerstones of the album, "Rain", "Be Careful" or "Nobody's Crying" always choke me up. If it isn't done before, "Nobody's Crying" does it. There is something about the way she sings "I wish you well...on your way to the wishing well" that just gets to me. Every. Single. Damn. Time. 

That song also has one of the best run-on lines ever (or, if not a real run-on line, the best use of pauses for comedy-dramatic effect. When describing the lover she decided to get rid off the says that he was off fighting some demon...[Wait for it]...dragon...[WAIT FOR IT]...fly. Ha, she can be funny and dramatic and sad and comforting, all at the same time. And this isn't a studied, maximized for effect effort in weepiness, either, as most of the songs on the album where cut live with her band in the studio, which happened to be her guitarist's basement. And again, the two original closing numbers don't feature the same band that the first seven did, furthering the impression of being added to make up the album. So, without any regret I deleted these two, keeping the mood and spell of the album intact. At now only a little less than 30 minutes it's more of a mini-album, actually. But it'll be an amazing half hour, that I can promise.    

There are most definitely albums that are better than 1.000 Kisses, or more varied, or more groundbreaking. But I wouldn't miss the almost perfection of this album for the world. I bought other Patty Griffin albums, some of them very good. But it's not the same. There is a magic to 1.000 Kisses, or rather 8/10th of 1.000 Kisses (erm, 800 Kisses?!) that can't be replicated.

Fight Night! It's the return of the Best Album Eliminator!

Okay, folks, time for bracket no. 2 in our moderately popular feature featuring fights to the death between critically acclaimed albums. The first bracket saw Pink Floyd booted back to the dark side of the moon and Van the Man packing, so which heavyweights will fall or stand tall at the end of this bracket? 

Get your votes in, folks, if possible with a little comment on what you like or don't like in these albums,or why you prefer one to the other. Tonight we have the following fights on tap:

Blue (1) - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (Lucinda Williams) (8)

Revolver (4) - The Doors (5)

Rumours (3) - The Band (6)

Blood On The Tracks (2) – Exodus (7)

He could've been a contender: Wayne Berry and the fickle footpath to fame

Some folks are unlucky, some are somewhat responsible for their own bad luck, some are a bit of both. Wayne Berry is one of those folks. Here's a guy who had all the goods and who could've conceivably become a star in the early to mid-1970s, if things had broken his way. But a mix of bad luck, jeaousy (fuck Billy Joel and his management!) and his own pigheadedness meant that Berry never made it above the level of also ran and never was. But he could've been somebody...he could've been a contender. The long and winding road of Berry into, then out of the music business has been told very well already, in an in depth article of No Depression (https://www.nodepression.com/wayne-berry-nashville-cat-home-at-last). If, like me, you don't necessarily like to scroll through dozens of screens to read an article (and there are a lot of screens, the whole thing is about 5000 words long...) I've included the article as liner notes of sorts to our album of the day. 

To cut the story very short: grew up in Nashville - hung out with Félice & Boudleaux Bryant and J.D. Loudermilk - moved to L.A., joined the Underground and helped draft dodgers - got signed ton Capitol as a solo artist, but preferred starting a country band, Timber, with George Clinton (not that one, the other one) - solo debut album shelved as a result - after two albums, Timer falls - does a bunch of demos and finally a solo album, the utterly fantastic Home At Last - on his first big tour upsets headliner Billy Joel by doing fantastically in his support slot and gets dumped from his national tour - album thus flops - follow up album Tails Up comes out in a tiny pressing number for about five minutes - hooks up with George Clinton again, for mainstream soft rock project Volunteers - after another failure hangs up his rock'n'roll shoes, goes back to Nashville and becomes a minister. The End.

Berry saw J.D. Loudermilk pitch tunes to artists and agents, "that affected me in a 'Tin Pan Alley' sort of way", and you can definitely see and hear it in his music. Instinctly, he could craft music that was both worthwhile and commercial, without being pandering - if, you know, the commerce and then the public had wanted any part of it. If you listen to Berry's music, you really think he should've been bigger. Not because the music is excellent and it woud have been only fair - the music is excellent, but unlike some other musical heroes of mine (*coughGENE CLARKcough*), it is not wishful thinking to imagine hearing a Berry tune on Top 40 radio. He had a knack for writing memorable hooks, as well as being able to write in a number of styles, incorporating country and folk elements, a whole lot of pop, some reggae...this is where the 'Tin Pan Alley' sort of way really comes into play.  

The attached album is a primer on Berry and his music, a Greatest Hits if you will that just accidentally has no hits in it, but sounds like it should. It breaks down as follows: one track to represent the shelved Capitol Records album (which drowned an insecure-sounding Berry in an ill-fitting countrypolitan sound), three tracks from Timber (from their second album, where Berry really started to find his voice, and a follow-up single), four (high-quality) demos sandwiching his lone single for A&M, the lovely "Beachwood Blues", six tracks from his classic Home At Last album, three from patchier follow-up Tails Out and three from the Volunteers project.  21 tracks to familiarize yourself with Berry and his music, or dive back into it, with some music here that you probably haven't heard before. 

This is also just an appetizer, for a much larger reclamation project to give Berry his due. In the following weeks I will post no less than three Berry albums that never were. High quality stuff all around, from a man who could've been a contender, who could've been somebody. To some of us, he is. 

PS.: If someone needs Home At Last, just say so...

All This Is That: repolishing the Beach Boys' diamond in the rough

 

“Carl & The Passions - ‘So Tough’” is just about the weirdest album imaginable. I love it, but nothing about it should work. That already starts with the album art and its title. The red sports car in a beach setting image is pretty cool by itself, presaging about a half dozen Beach Boy compilations by over a decade. But it isn’t representative of the music within. Like, at all. The title makes it even worse, other than not even identifying whose album this is (until the CD version akwardly plastered the band name on the cover). Besides being weird as hell, having the Beach Boys adopt a moniker like Carl & The Passions (the name of Carl’s music group as a teenager, ostensibly to cheer him up) and having the ‘So Tough’ title, together with the cover makes it sound like it’s some sort of retro exercise – a return to car and surf songs, maybe, or an exercise in doo-wop. Instead, it is of course none of these things. It’s rather the loosest, and in some ways earthiest album the band would ever cut. By 1972, the popular emphasis on roots music had even reached the Beach Boys, who had experimented with country music as early as the 1970’s single version of “Cottonfields” with its very prominent pedal steel guitar. There’s some pedal on ‘So Tough’, but it really is more about the harmonies, which in places recall the loose harmony style of The Band rather than the Beach Boys.

In tow with the non-fitting album cover and title, none of the musical ingredients on ‘So Tough’ should really go together. Besides the relatively rootsy atmosphere, these songs don’t really have much in common, besides the transcendental meditation undertow to “He Come Down” and “All This Is That”, courtesy of Mike & Al of course. Part of it is that ‘So Tough’ is clearly an album assembled to bring out a Beach Boys product, without the band necessarily having the requisite songs ready, which means that half of the tracks here are hardly Beach Boys tracks at all. The two Ricky Fataar-Blondie Chaplin compositions, fascinating as they are, don’t really seem to feature any other Beach Boys on them, much less a specific Beach Boys sound. Dennis’ two numbers aren’t Beach Boys numbers at all, having been taken from a finally abandoned first attempt at a solo album. Their heavy instrumentation doesn’t really jibe with anything else on the album. Even Carl gets in on the more exotic sounds game, with his “You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone” graced (if that's the word...) by a rather noisy and unusual instrumentation and an even more unusual gruff and growling vocal delivery by the usually most angelic of Beach Boy voices. That leaves just three songs that really truly sound like the Boys: the fantastic retro number “Marcella” and the two aforementioned tracks by Mike & Al. And even Mike’s faux gospel is quite a bit out of his usual wheelhouse.

So, it shouldn’t really work. And yet I love this album dearly. Because the Durban Beach Boys era was definitely the most interesting of the band, making them sound contemporary with their era for the first time. Because lovelorn Dennis is always a winner, over-instrumentation or not. Because Mike and Al arguably provide career highlights. And because this exact incongruous nature of ‘So Tough’ gives it an element of, if not anything goes, than a certain je ne sais pas quoi that other albums don’t have. And while I love a lot of it, warts and all, there’s no doubt that the album is far from perfect.

So, does my re-imagining make it so? Of course not, but it's – I hope – a valiant stab at something slightly more coherent. Before 2022’s Sail On Sailor: 1972 box set, there was of course no way to think of making an alternate album for ‘So Tough’. There simply wasn’t any material, even from a band as much and as well bootlegged as the Boys. The Sail On Sailor box set finally unearthed a couple of outtakes, but I decided not to use them. On an album as divergent as this as is, this seemed counterproductive. They will come back into play when I get to my reimagining of Holland as a double album. But that box set notably proposed a number of different mixes for half of the album’s line up. New mixes for the two Dennis numbers strip them of the overcooked orchestration by Darryl Dragon. “Here She Comes” loses its puzzling original mix in which Fataar’s drums occasionally drowned out Chaplin’s vocals. The changes to “He Come Down” seem minor in comparison, going for a 'drier' sound and more focus on the vocals.

Another idea was the need for better sequencing. People who bought this album in 1972 might’ve checked their turntable twice to make sure they put on the good record, when ‘So Tough’ opened first with the uncharacteristic, though possibly prophetic “Mess”, then followed by the decidedly non-Beach Boy-ish “Here She Comes”. So the idea for All This Is That was to frontload the album with the classic Beach Boys sound of “Marcella”, more evenly distribute the two Dennis numbers and give it more coherence by building around the now new title track “All This Is That” as a unifying element. Part of Al’s original demo, based on Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” gets transformed into the charmingly simple, acoustic “All This Is That” prelude, the reprise at the end is built around an alternative verse and the a capella version.

So, that's it. All This Is That. It really is. Enjoy.

All Pearls No Swine Vol. 5: Long time no see, old pal! How're you doin'?!

Been a while that I posted one of those. We're back to the Seventies once more. By now you know the drill. Some semi-famous folks, on this volume one famous person, and a bunch of rather unknown folks from the self-publishing side of things. The famous person is David Bowie, obviously, whose "Shadow Man", a Ziggy Stardust outtake, is one of the man's finest moments, a splendid doppelgänger ballad unfairly relegated to the dustbin. You might also know Native American guitar player Jesse Ed Davis (also a part-time producer, for One Buck Favorite Gene Clark), soft rock/country-rock combo the Pousette-Dart Band, or guitar hero Harvey Mandel, a Canned Heat alumni. And maybe Bonnie Koloc, a folkie from Iowa who had a modest but enduring career. As for the one-off and self-published artists, there's a colorful mix of folks, again mostly from the country rock, folk and singer-songwriter ranks. 

Jack Veronesi was a songwriter from Boston, whose beautiful "Northeastern Wind" is a standout track here. It's also a real one-off. Most private pressing folks here made at least (and in most cases only) one album, Veronesi seemingly just published a single, where this song was the b-side. Bearded country folk weirdo Ken Saul had at least two LPs on his own Seashell label, complete with self-drawn covers and LP back cover text written on a typewriter. His "Lord Of The Skies" is, for me, one of the highlights of the set, directly followed by other bearded country folk weirdo Huckle, from  - you guessed it - Ontario, established in previous volumes as Canada's inofficial home of country folk weirdos. Diggory Venn was a British group built around the talents of brothers Martin and Robin Peirson. Two Friends were what the title says, friends Bucky Wiener and Chip Carpenter with some mellow Californian soft rock that recalls America, especially during it's "lala-lala" chorus. Young Jim Keltner on the drums! Wheatstone Bridge were a heavy rock band from, of all places, Nashville. Ward 6 was a Canadian trio from - you guessed it - Ontario, who mainly covered material by others, but did it pretty well.  

So, here we are again. Almost seventy minutes of mellow-ish, beautiful music from the best decade in music, here at One Buck Records where the sweet sounds of the seventies just keep on truckin'...

So, he's gone to the great power pop palace in the sky, right?!

 

R.I.P.  Dwight Twilley

1951 - 2023

Didn't see this until yesterday. Feel like listening to some Twilley. Looked for "Twilley Don't Mind" but didn't seem to have it, so had to change that. Twilley always kept that power pop flag flying high. Let's listen to some Twilley then, Twilley don't mind you know...

Find below the two albums by the Dwight Twilley Band, first one with bonus tracks.

The results are in! Album Eliminator Bracket One starts eliminatin'...

...and some high profile victims there are, notably Van Morrison, whose Astral Weeks didn't stand a chance against Lou Reed & company and Pink Floyd, the only high seed to lose in an upset, and lose decisively. And the number one seed (and overall top seed!) Pet Sounds fell behind early and had to claw its way out to live another day in the tightest decision of the bracket. A drink for Talking Heads who almost created the upset!

Not everyone voted for every album, but here are the scores: 

Pet Sounds (1) - Remain In Light (8) 6:4

Velvet Underground And Nico (4) - Astral Weeks (5) 6:3

Dark Side Of The Moon (3) - Led Zeppelin IV (6) 2:5

Nevermind (2) – Thriller (7) 7:2

Stay tuned, folks, the next first round bracket in our Best Album Eliminator coming up soon...

'Tis the day of the dead - who's grateful?

Phew. It's hard work to do theme work on time, however useless it may be. Halloween's gone, All Hallows has come and gone as well. In Spanish-speaking countries, it is of course dia de muertos, the day of the dead. And...wouldn't you know it...that does ring a bell...don't I have just the thing to go with that, even if it is a day or two later. 

An interesting trend in the music market of the last years was the way artists and record companies were going gargantuan with their music offerings. Generally speaking of course, not many folks buy music in a physical form anymore, so the few that do are targeted for all that they're worth. Before a special edition of an album meant a couple of bonus tracks added to the end, or maybe a bonus disc. Now, anniversary or special editions of albums often come as albums of four or six discs or more. And who can forget the ultimate collector's edition with the rare vinyl single and the coffee table book weighing four pounds that come with it. If the music market can not make money by volume, they try to make it by few items for lots of money. 

Interestingly, the trend of "more is more" has also carried over to independent record companies and their projects. In the old days, a tribute sampler celebrating an artist was just that. You got a dozen or so artists, they all picked a song they liked and wanted to cover and that was that. When I was young, I liked various artist tribute albums, as it was often a good way to get a bunch of high-profile artists together. Not all of my purchases worked (buying a Jimmy Rogers tribute album solely for the participating artists might have been an error of judgment if one isn't particularly a fan of Jimmy Rogers and his style), but generally I more often than not ended up with enough songs that made the album worthwhile. Recent tribute albums (or rather:album sets) have also gone gargantuan. Where before an artist had to struggle to decide on a song, today the compilers might just say "you know what, take both. Ah, what the hell, if you want a third one we can maybe find a spot for it". And so tribute albums that first morphed into double discs have now become triple or even quadruple albums. 

One such project is Day Of The Dead - A Tribute To The Grateful Dead, an AIDS charity project curated by The National's Bryce and Aaron Dessner. The whole thing ballooned to 59 songs (!) running almost six hours (!!). It's probably fitting that the subject of the set are The Grateful Dead, they of the ultra-long concerts and triple or quadruple albums. Still, sometimes too much of a good thing is too much, and not all the things on that good thing are equally good. One of the things I will post here at One Buck Records at semi-regular intervals will be slimmed-down volumes of such gargantuan projects, because I prefer to have a really good time with two and a half hours of music rather than having to sit through a bunch of dead spots for six. Obviously, the new set list will reflect my taste and preferences, though if this makes you want to check out the whole thing, all the better. 

My version of Day Of The Dead is a much easier to digest two (long) discs (for those that still count in discs), with some songs slightly edited for length or otherwise reworked in a way I liked. For example, I split up Bryce Dessner's long instrumental "Garcia Counterpoint" into three, so on the second disc it would function as kind of a prologue, interlude and epilogue). As usual with 4AD the line-up is hipster heaven, plus a bunch of old heroes like Lucinda Williams (who seems to be on every single tribute album ever recorded), Will Oldham a.k.a. Bonnie "Prince" Billy (who gets three tracks - and they're all excellent, so they're all present and accounted for) or one-time band member Bruce Hornsby. I was also happy to discover artists previously unknown to me like The Lone Bellow, Hiss Golden Messenger or Phosphorecent as well as international artists like the Orchestra Baobab from Senegal. 

So, who's grateful for this Day Of The Dead? Hopefully it's you, dear reader, because there is some fine music contained within...