Runaway's Diary - revisited!

To revisit an album on its day of release might seem a rather strange thing to do. Here is why I am doing it. I mentioned Runaway's Diary only a couple of months back. It was released only this week but Amazon has been bombarding me with the suggestion that I should buy it...
This was more correct than Amazon could know. I have had it for much of the last week, it cost slightly less but probably more of that went to the artist. Here it is (the digipack CD version).

It is signed too, but musically it is everything hoped for and that matters much more.

LaVere has over the course of her four solo LPs not been the most prolific of songwriters but when she does it tends to work well. Cupid's Arrow from the 2007 LP 'Anchors and Anvils' is a good case in point, but so is the title track. Rarely are they cheerful songs but that is of little consequence.
There are five on this disc and two co-writes with Tim Regan and they don't suffer by comparison with the four covers, one of which is Townes Van Zant's 'Where I Lead Me'. This also makes a point that I wish to raise, which is that like several other Americans of her generation, she is a fine interpreter of the songs of others. My first impression is that I like 'Runaway's Diary' more than the LP 'Stranger Me' (2011) that was released between these. I think however that I must now revisit that.
I never did get to the end of the lyric of the song Anchors and Anvils although I promised to. That's not a problem with Runaway's Diary as the CD comes with a lyric booklet.
Finally, you need to read a review written by somebody far more knowledgeable. The one that I proffer is this.

New Music 2011 goes Americana again.

This is something that is too good not to mention straight away. 
  

July 19 is the US release date for Stranger Me, the third studio album from Memphis, TN based singer songwriter Amy LaVere. It is, as were the preceeding ones, released by independent label Archer Records.

I have, quite literally, only just found out about it and currently know nothing more. I shall be equally surprised and disappointed if it has not been worth the wait since Anchors and Anvils (2008) and the amazing Died Of Love EP (2009).  I'll add more, and relevant links, asap but for now I just wanted to share the excitement!
It will be available, at least in the US, on vinyl too. Count me as being on-board. UK CD & d/l date is slated as July 4 and the track listing is as follows: 

• You Can't Keep Me
• Red Banks
• A Great Divide
• Often Happens
• Lucky Boy
• Tricky Heart
• Stranger Me
• Candle Mambo
• Cry My Eyes Out
• Let Yourself Go (Come on)

The album is produced by Craig Silvey whose recent production credits include 'The Suburbs' - Arcade Fire (2010) and 'Suck It And See' - Arctic Monkeys (2011).

Pointless Drinking - Amy LaVere - lyric

This is the other song about drinking to which I alluded in my post yesterday.  It seems quite simple just listening to it, as do many of the songs on the album 'Anchors and Anvils', until that is you decide to try and dissect them.
  
Pointless Drinking
Pointless drinking. Where does it end? Where to begin?
Who are your friends? Who are your foes?
You'll never know, long as you go.
  
Pointless drinking: 'Til it seems they're all speaking poorly in Spanish
Who do you wish would totally vanish?
It's only you and all you can do.
  
I'm not an actor but I act like I am
I'm really awful but act like I'm not
Pretending my days hold the value of gold
They only hold one thing and it's all that I've got.
  
Pointless drinking. Keeping my healthy dose of resentment
Keeping me waking with an empty repentment
Keeping me broke, broke as a joke.
  
Pointless drinking took all the days that I should have felt young
Took all the joy from the songs that I have sung
Took me a while, took me a while.
Oh I'm not a hater; I love you all so
But I look at myself and I don't really know.
Can I dig myself out of the wreck of my past?
Will I ever unharden and stop showing my ass?
Will those eternal bartenders ever stop filling this half-empty glass?
  
Pointless drinking. Hate the effect, even more hate the cause.
Hate to admit that I'm tragically flawed
I would just keep going but that's past recall.
  
Pointless drinking. Why do you do it? You always go through it.
Drink to forget all the times that you blew it
Think everyone knows, think everyone cares.
  
Pointless drinking. Keeping you drunk on your dreams of great heights
From the bottom to the top and back down overnight
You know it's not right. You know it's not right.
  
Pointless drinking. It's just the one thing your overachieving
Feels like you never will stop believing
That you'll never win, you'll never win.
  
Maybe one day you might.


This song is credited to Paul Taylor in the album notes but the whole album is quite an underrated gem. Anchors and Anvils (2008) is one hell of an album and so is the Died Of Love EP (2009). I've struggled with the lyric to at least one other track, 'Overcome' from it already and, but for the fear of attempting it, I'd try others too - especially the incredible and bipolar 'Cupid's Arrow'.
  
I gather that she and her band are just about to tour again (in the US to start with) and hope that this means a new album is imminent...
Amy LaVere is another artist that I would dearly like to see live.
I feel like I deserve a drink now...
  
A drink to make me brave?  I'm going to attempt 'Cupid's Arrow' - but not until tomorrow! I think I know the basics and also most of the tune already, both of which should make it easier than 'Pointless Drinking' and if I just have to listen to that slide guitar part a hundred times for my sins then I'm clearly not concentrating on the lyric!

I'm On My Own Side Now

The title is taken from one of the best songs on one of my favourite albums of last year by one of the most impressive new live artists I saw.  This version of the lyric is a close as I can get to that which she performed at EOTR 2010 (twice, on different days and on different stages). It is almost identical to the version on the album 'Own Side Now' though the live instrumentation was somewhat different.


Own Side
I'm goin' out on the town
Said I'm tired of chasin' you down
And it's not my right
To always push you around
I'm on my own side now


Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?


I'm gonna find me true love
Said I'm through asking you if you knew, love
How much it meant to me?
How it was meant to be?
And how it all feels empty?


Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?


Who? [repeat x4]
And who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?


Who's gonna take me home?
Cause I don't wanna go it alone
Who's gonna want me when I'm just somewhere you've been?
Who's gonna want me now?
And who's gonna take me home?


I'm goin' out on the  town
Said I'm tired of chasin' you down
And it's not my right
To always push you around
I'm on my own side now.


Own side now.


What I particularly like about it, and many of her other songs too, is its ambidextrous balance of emotion - it is outwardly-assertive indignation and gnawing self-doubt rolled together.  It is far from the only example in her song-writing canon - Learning To Ride, the first song on this, her début album proper, is another.  But then, listening back to the 10" vinyl mini album 'Dead Flowers' that is similar, for all its cover versions also themed likewise, and includes the splendid self-penned - and her live audience-sing-a-long anthem of the summer gone - Answer In One Of These Bottles.  I'll add the lyric for both as soon as I can.
This latter song also has an interesting parallel in a track by another of my favourite artists out of Nashville - Amy LaVere.  I believe that she has been busy writing and recording new material with her band for a forthcoming third LP...  The song to which I am referring, however, is from her 2007 (2008 in the UK in effect) album 'Anchors and Anvils' and is the track Pointless Drinking, credited to Paul Taylor.  That is verging in to New Music 2011 territory, but why not?


As a sting in the tail, I'm now well and truly cross with myself to have not managed to see 'She Keeps Bees' at EOTR 2009. I have read so many good things about the Brooklyn duo lately...  and they are readying their new album too.
  

Note added March 8, 2011:

Caitlin Rose is now confirmed to appear at EOTR 2011.

Note added February 3, 2011:
[If you are currently at The Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London, where 'She Keeps Bees' is supporting Smoke Fairies this evening then you can buy it pre-release.


More Caitlin Rose posts:
Docket - Caitlin Rose - lyric
Live at End of The Road 2010
Answer In One Of These Bottles - Caitlin Rose - lyric
Shotgun Wedding - Caitlin Rose - lyric


  
Pointless Drinking - Amy LaVere - lyric

The World Is Not My Home, but the good get better...

Another day, another EP but this time it is one quite genuinely from across the Atlantic and it was released on CD in the US - on April 1, 2009 - again on Archer Records. The title track is a cover of the traditional 'Railroad Boy (Died of Love)', 'Lazarus' is a take on a traditional lament and 'Green Grass' is a cover of the Tom Waits song and that is just half of it.

Added: Thursday, 14 May:

I'm sorry that this post sort of ended prematurely. I was tired and I published it rather than saving it. Thanks to whoever added a comment to this asking for 'links' today and I assume that it was to this post you were referring. If not please let me know and I'll try to fix that.

If you want to buy or legally download 'Died Of Love' here are some links:

US & UK CD (cdbaby.com)
US Download (amazon.com)
UK Download (amazon.co.uk)

I do not know of any UK distributors of the CD version but independent music distributor cdbaby do shipping to the UK very well and at competitive prices. They publish reviews, both their own and those written by customers, too.
For more press reviews of Amy LaVere, see here.

Dog days, please smile down upon us...

This follows from a post I added last year, Soothing Music for Days That Bode Ill, which apparently still has resonance with others judging from the number of times that post has been visited in the last couple of weeks. It is no secret that I often still feel the same way too and, while I can recommend those albums no less a year later, the world has not stayed the same.
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan have since released Sunday at Devil Dirt and the remainder of the lyrics are here. As one of 'The Gutter Twins' Mark Lanegan has also released an album with Greg Dulli, which is another that I would like to hear but either the music, or merely my appreciation of it, has expanded again.

Empty dish is still sitting where I'm gonna leave it.
This lamp hasn't been lit in quite a long while,
The wick doesn't reach what's left of the oil.
And the rain is coming and I'm overcome.

These bad newspapers they pile up unread
Dogs gaze out the windows, I know how they feel.
Adventure! adventure! Or sit by the door?
Open, open sesame! I'm overcome.

Figurines, dripping faucets, laundry and dust,
I hate to leave this a mess but I must....

Keepsakes can be anchors and anvils and such.
Like pianos and pets and the people we love.
I can't change the world from this place on MySpace
Spiders tag walls with their names in this place.

Figurines, dripping faucets, laundry and dust,
I hate to leave this a mess but I must...

Oh its never a clean break when you're trying to leave
But song birds need homes in live oak trees.

Maybe I've just not got the right idea about what I think they might be but I can't yet figure out the lyrics for the two lines that follow:
I hate to leave this a mess but I must...

Can anyone help? The song remains however, despite the time I've spent trying to figure those lyrics, one of my favourite album tracks of 2008 and it is 'Overcome' from the album Anchors and Anvils by Amy LaVere.

Leaving that topic aside for a moment, here is another album that rather appealed when I read about it. Some might say that it is slightly twee folksy Americana and had I simply invented that which follows, just to amuse myself this evening, I know that you would not have believed me.

The thing is that I didn't tell fibs - indie label Static Caravan released it - and it is VAN161.

It is of the most improbable heritage. The two acts that combined to produce this met on MySpace. Neither of them come from America and, at least at the time of its release, never the twain had met!
One of them, Phelan Sheppard, is a Londoner signed to Leeds-based The Leaf Label best known in this blog as the home of Parisienne Colleen (Cécile Schott) and her beguiling ambient/electronica, while the other half of the equation is moomLooo in Tokyo.

It is supposed to be summer... Virtual Festival 3

This has to do with festivals both real and imaginary. On the real side, the latest Latitude 2008 update shows that a "special guest" will play on the Obelisk arena at midday Sunday. I can think of several that would be fit for purpose. There is however one, amongst them, that I would have deemed the most improbable...

...and that is Joanna Newsom.

She is often pigeon-holed as freak folk, which may or may not be a good call, but one thing is certainly true --- there are few artists, in this or any other genre, for whom the instrument of choice is a double-stringed acoustic harp.

One thing that I totally failed to predict for 2008 is just what an influence American music would have on me. Some of it I have mentioned already but, if more examples were needed, here are another couple of albums on my 'Want To Listen To' list.

She sings while also playing upright bass at the same time.

This is yet another, from New York, that has come to my notice in the last couple of days.

Perhaps the most wonderful thing about it is that these three albums have all been released on North American independent record labels. Three different ones as it happens and artists and labels such as these deserve our support.