This blog is intended to do "exactly what it says on the tin" so below are some of my 'Thoughts on Music'. They predominantly concern recent matters but will not always do so. I'll also happily turn to matters of the music industry more generally if and when I feel so inclined. So there!
If you don't agree with something please feel free to add a comment. They are moderated by me (so I'll get to read it) and I might even reply. Above all however just enjoy whatever music you like!
Richard
This is another release from 2017 that has just appeared on my radar and it is the debut full-length from Cat Clyde who hails from Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
Ivory Castanets - Cat Clyde (RED distribution, 5 May 2017).
Cat Clyde - Ivory Castanets:
Sheets Of Green
The Meadow
Running Water
Like A Wave
Heavy Weight
Mama Said
The Man I Loved Blues
Move Along
Walkin' Down The Road
Chimes In The Night
I have listened to the album end-to-end three times this evening. This is fairly unusual behaviour even by my own standards. It is certainly somewhat old-time but that's not really the issue here because the combination of voice, guitar (sometimes slide-acoustic) and keyboards is sublime. The production is not lo-fi but neither is it polished to a point that it might impact on the experience. I'm not going to select a track from the album just now. Instead, and because I suggest that it indicates her desire to push on, this is a track that has been released since then.
The River - Cat Clyde (November 2017).
What we need now is to see her touring over here in the UK.
The first I heard about what is to follow was just a song. Three things struck me about it all at once:
The vocals - my first thoughts were Melanie and Lindi Ortega.
The lyric and attitude - reminiscent of those of Loretta Lynn, not to mention the above.
The falling-scale slide guitar arpeggio.
'Desperate and Depressed', for that was clearly its title, is not perhaps the most welcoming of introductions but that wasn't going to evince anything other than an immediate need to find who was singing and what is going on here. A fourth thing and an assumption, which turned out to be correct, was that it wasn't a cover of a song that I simply hadn't heard before. If it had been such then it was certainly due some time in the sun anyway... Let us start with the lyric, if only because I haven't featured them so much of late.
Desperate and Depressed
I'm pissed off at the number of people that I meet
Who go to shake my hand with a viper up their sleeve.
They freeze me out in winter, burn me up all summer.
Try to take my money when I'm desperate and depressed.
Ain't it a mess.
I've played for free and paid for the miles on my truck.
Got no sleep in motels cause the worry keeps me up.
It almost drives me crazy thinking about my baby
And how he's gonna love me if I'm desperate and depressed
Can't get no rest.
Momma never told me that things would be this way.
Daddy tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.
If I can't find the money then I can't buy the time.
I'm stuck here making someone else's dime.
We busked in Sarasota. I made twenty-seven bucks.
I wept for Richard Manuel thinking I might have his luck.
You talked behind my back but only stabbed me in the front.
But don't think you can hurt me cause I'm desperate and depressed.
Ain't it a mess.
Please, somebody tell me how to make it stop
This world feels like a roller coaster I just can't get off
Tried rehab and probation, tried self-medication
But none of that can cure you when you're desperate and depressed
Ain't it a mess
Momma never told me that things would be this way.
Daddy tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.
But if I can't find the money then I can't buy the lie.
Oh, ten percent of nothing ain't a dime.
So don't you try to sell me back what's mine
I'll be desperate and depressed until I die
This song is the b-side of a vinyl 7".
You can give it a virtual spin here...
...but this track didn't make it on to the LP.*
The a-side is Hurtin' On The Bottle (a co-write with Caitlin Rose and others) and the single was released in late 2015 to promote the soon-to-be-released début LP, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, by East Nashville's Margo Price.
A point that is worthy of note is that this LP was recorded, mixed and mastered before it was presented, fait accompli, to would-be labels. Most of them simply said "no" or, if not exactly that, wished to mould it to the sensibility of their perceived market; in other words suck all the originality out it. This is the track-listing: Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter
Note added 15 April 2016: * Desperate and Depressed was, in the event, added to the UK release of Midwest Farmer's Daughter. At least on Spotify about five minutes after it's release there.
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