Perfect (Cover) Songs - Don't Worry Baby

Today I'm going to talk about a cover song that manages to bring to life both sides of the story in a way that is breathtaking to say the least, forever changing the original for me. This cover really epitomizes what this blog was meant to be about, even though I have strayed away from that many times. When Rachel Fannan's cover of The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby" dropped, back in May, I heard it about 12 times in a row, each time wishing it wouldn't end. Produced by The Ravonettes Sune Rose Wagner, this version is less doo wop-y and more twangy with a lot of bottom and reverb as you'd expect from The Ravonettes, but more subdued and even airy. It's nostalgic and retro but in a way that glues it to the meaning of the lyrics and gives the song a new purpose beyond just being a retread. Basically, it's a perfect cover.

It's important to note that this cover is part of a series from Instant Records called Instant Love, where every two weeks different artists, all female, record a famous love song keeping the gender between women. In their own words: "INSTANT LOVE supports feminism, girl power, and the LGBTQ community." So, go check that out.

I can't fault the Beach Boy's original. It was always one of my favorites of theirs, though not my number one. But in comparison to this version, their sweet song comes off somewhat rushed and typical of a teenage boy who doesn't quite know how to express himself, which actually kind of makes it brilliant in it's own way (yet another reason this cover is great is that it has actually made me reevaluate and find new appreciation for the original). After all, this is really just a hot rod song about a guy worried about a drag race and how his girl calms him down. This is all well and good, but Rachel Fannan's delivery here is more focused on how her lover makes her feel and it's absorbingly believable to the point that the same words Brian Wilson sang, now sung by Rachel, somehow make the lovers completely three dimensional and the emotion is palpable. Where the Beach Boys gave us a beautiful song, Fannan is giving us a blissful soliloquy wrapped in a breathless sigh of ecstasy. Every time I hear her sing "Oh what she does to me when she makes love to me and she says 'don't worry baby'" with the hint of a smile (remembering or emulating the way she said it?), I get chills. Every single time. I can see her eyes twinkle thinking of her girl and beyond that, I think I understand why, because the way she quotes her, the obvious reverence and awe in her delivery, brings her lover to life. This is not the sort of thing I can put my finger on, but I don't have to. Just listen and feel. It's perfect.

By the way, this is the first time I've written about the same artist twice as a perfect song. In this case, both the Beach Boys (for "God Only Knows") and Rachel Fannan (with Only You for "The Pressure") have made an appearance.

Perfect Songs - The Pressure

I've written about Rachel Fannan several times here, and this was the first of her songs I heard and instantly loved, so it's time to make it official. Only You's "The Pressure" is not only one of my favorite songs of the last several years, it's fucking perfect.

That melancholy, twangy intro, that feels almost like something out of a Spaghetti Western romance with a sad ending, sets a mood that is only strengthened by the mix of things that come up in the rest of song. You can feel the hair stand up on your arms and neck when that moment of fuzzy distortion hits taking us from that lonely desert to whatever smokey chamber of despair Rachel is screaming inside of. There are elements of 80s new wave, more 60s guitar twang, and an overwhelming sense of haze that can't be denied, since the whole thing obviously "came from the smoke rings around your hair." The strange sound effects and distortions throughout add a perfect amount of psych instability that heightens the anxiety of Rachel's impassioned anguish over unrequited love, infidelity or just the general drama of love. I'm not even that concerned with the literal lyrics, because this is all about mood and atmosphere and energy that bubbles around this amazing voice, unleashed from within your deepest whatever to surprise you with a confession of some kind that the whole world will have to deal with. Listen to this anytime, but I particularly have enjoyed this when driving alone at night. It goes well with empty highways and wandering thoughts. 

Streaming and Discovery: Where I'm At

Lately, I've been finding it harder to get excited about music. Just yesterday, I started going through the Spotify New Music Friday playlist, which I do each week, and it was an exercise that seemed to be adding digits to my age with each skip. I was wondering if it had finally happened. Had I reached the age and moment where I was going to be the guy saying music today is crap? The guy I hate? It was getting close to it. At this point any song that contains the phrase "in the club" is going to piss me off with how shitty it is, but there has to be something else on this playlist, I thought. And eventually there was, but the percentage was lower than usual. Of course the issue isn't one of age or "music today." It's a complicated one because the very thing I love so much about "music today" is also now becoming the thing that is making it, ironically, harder to find new music I will love. I'm talking about the easy access to everything and how that leads to an almost impossible world of choices in one sense, but no choices in another.

Star Trek. That is all. No, really, one of the most exciting things to me watching Star Trek back in the day was the "Library Computer." They had access to everything on request. They could say "Computer, play The Beatles' Abbey Road" and it would instantly happen. The fact that we actually live in that world now is not something I foresaw but it's something that excites me to no end. All this music that growing up I'd only read about but couldn't find and/or afford (I know, pay the artists and all that, but that's for a different post), I can now listen to on a whim. And the stuff I'd never even heard of is mind-boggling. So much catching up that I've done in the past several years. But I may have reached a point where open exploration has hit it's limit for me. Maybe it's a time thing, too. I just don't have the time to wander through the infinite possibilities to find something I might actually like.

The crew of The Enterprise working on a killer playlist.

Sure, Spotify and others have algorithms to help you and they can be great. Even before streaming, Amazon recommendations lead me to discover The Black Keys (before they were cool) among many others. There's nothing wrong with that. But algorithms are limited. I recently started listening to The Earfuel Podcast, hosted by Joel Freimark, who I had gotten some recommendations from through his YouTube channel The Daily Guru in the past. On a couple of episodes he's spoken about this very issue: how streaming has somehow limited the discovery of new music because the human element is missing. He also talks about how the whole experience of music itself can be very disconnected and empty. And I've been feeling just that for at least a few months now.

Way back in jr. high school, as I've mentioned before, I met a few kids who introduced me to metal. As the years went by, we would all trade cassettes and even vinyl and that's how I would get into everything from Ozzy to Metallica and Mötley Crüe and Guns n Roses, and all that stuff. And that's all great. But the thing is, I was (I can only assume, but fairly sure I'm right) the poorest kid in that collective. I also lived further away and was, frankly, a bit overprotected by my parents. So I wasn't the one going to the record store on my own (or anywhere else) exploring the music bins and just getting whatever looked cool (this would come much later). Hell, we didn't even have cable on a consistent basis so my exposure to MTV was sporadic at best. And radio was just not going to cut it. I got everything filtered and second hand via The Rockers at Kinloch Park Jr. High in the mid 80s. I won't even go into what happened in high school, but the point is, it wasn't easy for me to access music back then, but at least I had a shared experience with friends over what I did get access to.

My section.

Fast forward to now and it's basically the opposite. I'm the one making recommendations to people, except that everyone is so overwhelmed or, frankly, old, that they don't listen, don't care or I don't know what. The thing is, after a certain point, I was always the outlier among any group of friends I've ever had where I'm listening to stuff way off their beaten paths. Sometimes they listen, but it's mostly just Carlos (Mostly Just Carlos is his new band). And he's gotten me into a few artists too. But it's just two of us and there's a whole world out there. It gets hard to navigate and we need guides sometimes.

So I think the next step in the evolution of music streaming is pretty much what Earfuel and others like Stephanie Kibbe at Some Kind of Awesome do. On the face of it, it's not that revolutionary. They have blogs or podcasts and post about artists they like. There are millions of those (you're kind of at one now). But what I think they do that's a little different is the attitude and approach. For starters they are not focused so much on known entities (though Joel will review bigger albums on the podcast at times), but instead focus on artists that you may not hear about elsewhere, whether new or established. They both also have Spotify playlists they update weekly that you should get here and here. They have a goal in mind with what they do. Their intention is to expose you to music you may not find on your own. They are not interested in just being part of an echo chamber where everyone is talking about the same music. But there's one other thing about them specifically that I think sets them apart, as I see it.

Sure, social media makes everyone seem accessible, but not everyone is and it's a weird, tricky thing when they are. I hate people and am not one to talk to strangers in general. Never have been and being in my 40s means I am actually comfortable with that fact now. I have no idea how I managed to get married and have children. But I digress. The thing about Freimark and Kibbe is they are actually very accessible and un-intimidating.  And I feel like that is what actually brings the human element back into the mix. You get a recommendation from a blog where you know nothing about the person writing it and it may as well be an algorithm. But you get something from Kibbe's playlist and read her posts and twitter feed and it somehow makes sense. And if you later hear something, you might find yourself thinking, strangely, that this stranger might enjoy it. And what's more, you can actually share it with her and she might like it. Star Trek's library computer couldn't do that, but that's the thing about music. It's supposed to do that. It's supposed to connect humans together that maybe have never met and have no idea about each other, but somehow this thing is shared.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough. I have no conclusion. There is none. It's a an ongoing thing, I guess. I hadn't posted in a while and all this was sitting in my brain so there you have it. Go listen to some music. For example, this new song from Rachel Fannan's new band The Bomb. Play it loud and get your air guitars ready.

2015 Week 52: The Last Playlist

And just like that, the year is over. I actually stuck to this weekly playlist thing the whole year, even though I honestly had a hard time coming up with anything resembling a theme most of the time. I will not be doing it next year, though. I want to try to listen to some audio books next year which is going to be an interesting experiment in time management. It's weird that I sometimes wish I had a longer commute. I might post playlists form time to time, when I think of a good theme, but it won't be steady. And I need to get back to the Tom Waits discog soon.

The year started out with me writing for FDRMX, but that quickly stopped for several reasons. They've since changed their name and my stuff is still there (they've actually republished a couple recently for some reason) but since I'm not actually paying bills with my writing, I'd rather find a better match or just try to somehow (impossibly) grow my own site. I don't know, I could use an editor, though. A good one. But it's not like I have all the time in the world for writing, either. The year is ending with this sort of becoming harder for me to find the mental energy for and I feel like it shows. So, while having some sort of consistency throughout the year was an accomplishment, I'm not sure I'm in a place where I can really force this.

Next year I'm anticipating several new albums. There's The Last Shadow Puppets and Lucius and possibly Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I'm hoping to see some good shows. Right now, my list of people I most want to see is, in no particular order:

Nina Diaz/Girl in a Coma: Nina's solo album is due out next year. I'd love to see her with Girl in a Coma or solo. Either way.

Rachel Fannan/Only You: One of my favorite songs this year was "The Pressure," but everything I hear from her and see on YouTube is right up my alley. A full album would be great too.

Ruby the Hatchet: My number 9 album this year was Valley of the Snakes. I want to see it live.

Royal Thunder: My number 1 album of the year was Crooked Doors. Been wanting this for some time. There's a slight chance.

The Fantastic Negrito: Also one on my top albums of the year. This guy is electric.

Nathaniel Rateliff and The Nightsweats: Number 2 album of the year was. . .

The Last Shadow Puppets: With a full orchestra, of course.

Anyway, for the last playlist I gathered some songs that I feel captured the year for me. It was a year with some struggles and some good stuff in there too. Which I guess is every year, really. It's kind of stupid to try to some up 365 days of the complexities of everyday life with one big generalization. Still, I think this comes pretty close. And it features some of of my favorite songs to come out this year. So, there it is.

2015 Week 4: Existential Salad

Tom and Tom.

One month down. I've decided to skip the next album on the Tom Waits discography, which would have been the soundtrack to One From the Heart. I'm skipping it because honestly it bored me to tears and I couldn't get past like 4 songs.It would be one thing if I just didn't like it after listening and wrote about that. I didn't like Heartattack and Vine. But this, I couldn't even bring myself to continue to listen to. Plus, since it's a soundtrack and half the songs are actually sung by Crystal Gayle, there's reason not to include it in the overall project. So next up will be Swordfish Trombones, which I expect to have posted on FDRMX soon. Stay tuned.

Shout out to Ryan for bringing Rachel Fannan and Only You to my attention this week. Loving everything I've heard from her so far, be it solo work, with Only You or some of the other collaborations she's done, one of which closes off this week's playlist, so be sure to grab that. Anyway, Only You released a new single this week called "Pressure." Twangy reverb drenched guitar leads the way to fuzz and Siouxsie style drama. Awesome stuff. Listen and explore the rest of her music, it's worth it and you'll be amazed by the range. I hope there's a full album soon.



So this week's playlist is the sort of thing you want to crank up and ponder your place in the world. In a round about way, it's about time and mortality. It's about living in the moment, on the one, and how we are always like Schrodinger's cat. Oh and hey, a new Vaccines single! So ponder, but then move on and live.