Your Sweater's Fuzzy Against My Skin

Ah dear readers, welcome back to the Cuddle. After a re-energizing week's vacation from work, including 3 days in the Boston area (that's Rockport, MA above), it's back to the daily grind tomorrow. Before then, I would like to wax poetic on my newest musical obsession - Lambchop.

My latest love affair was spurred by reading the recent history of Merge Records, Our Noise, an oral history of the label and some of its flagship bands, primarily narrated by the label's two founders, Mac MacCaughan and Laura Ballance (who also happen to be founding members of legendary power-pop band, Superchunk). The book is a wonderful testament to the perseverance it takes to maintain an independent label in our world of major-label giants. It makes a compelling argument for bands NOT signing with a major label (and the pitfalls, loss of creative control, and nightmarish relationships related with that process).

Merge has always been home to some of our favorite bands - Spoon, The Arcade Fire, Camera Obscura (until they jumped to 4AD with My Maudlin Career), Destroyer, M. Ward, and The Magnetic Fields to name a few. It is interesting that, to survive as a label, Merge not only required the smarts that Ballance and MacCaughan provided, but the luck to have ownership of some of the past 20 years' greatest independent label hits, such as The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, Spoon's entire catalogue from Girls Can Tell onward, and The Arcade Fire's Funeral - the surprise juggernaut of the Merge catalogue.

Those bands are all fantastic, but not the focus of today's post. The band in question is Nashville's Lambchop, an ever-changing conglomerate of musicians, helmed by songwriter, lead singer, and indie-music original, Kurt Wagner. A cross between Porter Wagoner, Dean Martin, and Dan Bejar, Wagner weaves strange non-sequitors with gorgeous melodies of almost every genre. The entirety of Lambchop's discography lives on Merge (except for early, privately released material), some volumes can be hard to track down in "typical means" (i.e. independent record stores), but the Merge website has you covered - almost every disc is available through their web store (accessible here).

The Lambchop sound cannot be pinned down (although I love Merge's description most - "Nashville's most fucked-up country band"). Their songs range from chamber music dirges to funky R&B rave-ups, all fronted with Wagner's plain-speak drawl. The band isn't an "easy" one to just jump into, so, by point of explanation, some starting points (click on the titles to go to Merge's web site for samples of each song on each record) :

2000's Nixon - A broad jump into a retro-soul sound previously unexplored by the band - consistently ranked amongst Top Records of the 2000's lists. May have made this blog's list, had this writer not stumbled upon it so late in the decade. Highly recommended.

1996's How I Quit Smoking - Consistently rated as one of the band's best, this album gives a more broad swatch of the band in full force.

2002's Is A Woman - A purposeful step into more quiet, piano-driven balladry. This album is almost hushed from start to finish, with only small flourishes of saxophone, drums, bass, and guitar.

2008's OH (Ohio) - An album that matches the pastoral beauty of Is A Woman with the full band sound of How I Quit Smoking in a more mature and well-thought-out direction. Not to be missed.

2009's Live at XX Merge - I was lucky enough to find a CD copy of this disc at Newbury Comics in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It hasn't left my CD player since. The album includes an HD video of the show, shot beautifully at their performance at the Cat's Cradle. Anyone who was at there insists that Lambchop stole the show from other more high-profile label-mates such as Spoon and Superchunk. I wasn't, but can't imagine that anyone else could put on a show full of such musicianship, fire, and joy. Each song seems faster in tempo than the one that preceded it, and each song is a gem. From the off-kilter romantic observations of everyday life in "I Will Drive Slowly" to the barn burning set closer, "Give It" with its quotes of "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads, Wagner, despite minimal interaction with the audience, has them in the palm of his hand. The show is a tour-De-force and could not be more highly recommended.

Check the songs out below and please, visit the Merge Records website for more info on Lambchop and many, many other bands worth your time and cash. The label stands as a success story in a field littered with failures and the indie level.

Lambchop - "Your Fucking Sunny Day" - From Thriller

Lambchop - "I Will Drive Slowly (Live on KCRW)"

Lambchop - "Grumpus" - From Nixon

Lambchop - "Slipped, Dissolved, and Loosed" - From OH (Ohio)

Until next time, be well, check out the fucked-up poetry of Kurt Wagner and Lambchop, and listen.

Lock Your Bedroom Door and Listen To Your Records...

Yes, Ideological Fans, the drought is over. After two long hiatuses, we are back at it at the Cuddle. And what a hiatus it has been. Since Record Store Day, we have been working hard at keeping up with all of the new vinyl releases out there, while stocking our shelves with old favorites as well.

That beautiful creature you see above is none other than the Ideological Dog, Jack, with two of his favorite new purchases. On the left, you'll note a beautiful 12" single of Billy Bragg's classic, "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", a single more famous for its first B-side - "Ontario, Quebec, and Me", a song that holds an esteemed place in Bragg lore. The sleeve has a couple of blemishes (note the slight peel on the record sleeve's lower right corner) and the vinyl has been well-loved (at least on side A), but it's still a welcome addition to the Cuddle's vinyl museum.

On the right in the picture above is our favorite new release, the record that allows The National to stake its claim as the best, and most important, band of the moment, High Violet. While it's not the highly-sought limited edition version on violet vinyl (no stores in the Buffalo area carried it... closest location would be Lakeshore Record Exchange in Rochester and a trip down the Thruway after a long day at work was NOT in the cards this past Tuesday), it was the only vinyl copy that our esteemed Record Theater had (thanks, BFF!!!!).

Now, those of you who know me know of my extreme love of The National, so anything that I say about how amazing this record is needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Look no further than Metacritic.com's current metascore of 86 to see that almost everyone agrees with me. Pitchfork's review really hits the nail on the head of how I feel about this album. It is a literate, mature, brooding work by a group of upwardly mobile thirtysomethings lamenting the slings and arrows faced by upwardly mobile, literate, educated, thirtysomethings as they face the drudgery of everyday life, the realities of marriage and parenthood, the fears of one's future, the examination of one's past, and insecurities that each of these challenges creates. It is definitely NOT for those who like their music wrapped up into tidy, neat little pop-radio-ready packages, with easily understandable themes. You won't hear "Afraid of Everyone" or "Bloodbuzz Ohio" on Top 40 radio anytime in the near or distant future (waaaaaay too intelligent for the average music fan - and if that's snobbery, so be it). Matt Berninger's voice is in it's usual state of baritone perfection (and sounds even more sonorous on vinyl). "Bloodbuzz Ohio" perfectly deals with coming to terms with one's past and one's hometown with the stellar lines - "I never thought about love when I thought about home" and "I still owe money/to the money/to the money I owe" - words that anyone with higher education school loans can commiserate with. "Runaway" is my runaway favorite, as the singer stands in the face of his issues and boldly declares, "I won't be no runaway, 'cause I won't run", yet admits that he'd prefer to be elsewhere - "What makes you think I enjoy being left to the flood?". Rarely do the songs hit an uptempo, driving pace (no "Mr. November" or "Abel" to be found here), but they don't need to. The dour mood of the album reflects the subject matter. It sucks facing reality in all of our daily lives - whether you're a physician from Buffalo or an indie rock front man from Brooklyn...

The National - "Runaway" - from the 4AD release, High Violet

Adding to a banner three weeks of new releases (which will conclude with Tuesday's releases of The Black Keys latest barn burner, Brothers and an Audiophile 180g 2 LP remaster of The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street) were the newest gems from favorites The New Pornographers and The Hold Steady. Each of these records are gems, but one is more flawed than expected.

Whenever The New Pornographers choose to release a record, it's a time of rejoicing in indie pop circles. Together is, simply put, their strongest album since, their first, 2000's Mass Romantic. Each of the band's songwriters is in strong form throughout the record with Neko Case, Dan Bejar, Kathryn Calder, and Carl Newman trading lead singing duties. The Pornographers finally make use of the combination of Bejar and Case's voices together in the standout "Daughters of Sorrow". In an alternate reality, this band's power pop songs would top the Billboard charts. It's fine with me that they never will.

The Hold Steady have always had substantial buzz preceding their records. Unfortunately, their latest, Heaven is Whenever, had plenty of negative buzz surrounding it. Gone is keyboard and mustache maestro Franz Nicolay, and along with him goes some of the go-for-broke, over the top sound that the band has been famous for. Now, some of the reviews for this record have praised the fact that Craig Finn and company sound a little more in control - more "mature" as some would put it - but this truly works to the band's detriment. I can only get into a couple of songs on the record and album opener "The Sweet Part of The City" can't come close to touching any of the previous three openers - "Hornets! Hornets!" from Separation Sunday, "Stuck Between Stations" from Boys and Girls In America, or "Constructive Summer" from Stay Positive. I want to think that, when played live, these songs will take flight (a recent performance of "Hurricane J" on The Colbert Report seems to back this up), but I'm not holding my breath.

As for vintage vinyl that has come into our clutches lately, we've added some beauties by Miles Davis, including a pretty nice copy of In A Silent Way, each of the two different sleeves of Tribute to Jack Johnson, and a passable copy of At Fillmore. We were also able to snag a nice copy of the Concert for Bangladesh 3 LP set with beautifully intact booklet, a first pressing of Herbie Hancock's jazz-funk masterpiece, Thrust, and an excellently preserved first pressing of Rush's first live album, All The World's A Stage (which sounded AWESOME being blared on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning while Mrs. Cuddle and I puttered about). Mrs. Cuddle has even gotten in on the act, seeking out old pop/rap/dubstep/club records for her new DJing hobby. She even encouraged a trip to check out some record stores in St. Catherine's on this past week's trip to The Great White North (we had a lot of fun digging through dusty crates of LPs and finding her a copy of her favorite Aerosmith record, Draw The Line - lots of sentimental value with that one).

Hopefully there's much more vintage vinyl to be had, as the BFF and I venture to Boston to visit friends, visit The World's Greatest Sporting Venue for Red Sox vs. Royals, and do some shopping. I've already got my vintage record stores planned out for the trip...

Until next time, be well, for heaven's sake, pick up the new National record (vinyl preferred), and listen...