GO! MAGAZINE •
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2010
PAGE 9
music releases Kate Nash
Merle Haggard
MY BEST FRIEND IS YOU Geffen Records Many of Kate Nash’s critics and fans were surprised when her 2008 debut “Made of Bricks” didn’t make her a star of Lily Allen-sized proportion. The British pop star is everything Allen is — sassy, beautiful, young, cocky, witty, bold and fearless. Like Allen, Nash also knows her way around a kicking melody and a thoughtful narrative. But “Made of Bricks” was never a hit in the U.S. With this follow-up record, Nash gives herself more of a chance for widespread stateside recognition, but will it come? Not likely. Nash is rougher around the edges than the airbrushed Allen. And that’s OK. Those of us who know Nash’s music are already obsessed with
I AM WHAT I AM Vanguard Records “I do what I do because I do give a damn,” Merle Haggard declares matter-of-factly on the title song of his new album. Everything that comes before that closing number backs up the claim by the 73-year-old country titan. Like Willie Nelson’s “Country Music,” Haggard’s “I Am What I Am” is a mostly acoustic set that is an exquisite blend of craft and soul. Unlike his old pal Willie, however, Hag wrote or co-wrote nearly all the material, and his muse remains as sharp as ever, even if he is obviously happy on the home front. “I’ve Seen It Go Away,” one
many of these dynamic, new pop jams — the jittery “Take Me to a Higher Plane,” the infectious “Do-Wah-Doo,” the clever “Pickpocket.” Yes, Nash is very young, something that shows in the moving, if a bit naïve, rant that closes “Don’t You Want to Share the Guilt?” But her winning charm and legitimate emotion saves her. — Ricardo Baca, The Denver Post
Here and there June 17 — Rogue Theatre, Grants Pass; 541-471-1316 or www.roguetheatre.com. June 18-19 — With Dwight Yoakam; Chinook Winds Casino Resort, Lincoln City; 888-624-6228 or www. chinookwindscasino.com. June 20 — Les Schwab Amphitheater, Bend; 800-7453000 or www.theoldmill.com. of his big-picture observations from the perspective of long experience, manages to sound both sad and comforting; “Oil Tanker Train” is a poignant childhood reminiscence; and several numbers are inspired
Trombone Shorty
Roky Erickson with Okkervil River TRUE LOVE CAST OUT ALL EVIL ANTI- Record Roky Erickson’s first album in 14 years, “True Love Cast Out All Evil,” is a reclamation, a crossgenerational collaboration and an elegy for lost years. Erickson, 62, performs songs he wrote in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when he was the Syd Barrett of Austin, Texas: a psychedelic-rock pioneer who became a casualty of drugs, mental illness and, for Erickson, prison. His LSD-loving ’60s band, the 13th Floor Elevators, had a hit with the wild-eyed “You’re Gonna Miss Me” in 1966. Three years later, he was arrested on marijuana charges, was found to be schizophrenic and was sent to a maximum-security mental hospital ward, where he got electroshock treatment. After release in 1972, he led bands with his “horror-rock” songs like “I Walked With a Zombie,” but he eventually stopped
taking his medication and his schizophrenia worsened. By the late ’80s, he was impoverished and alone, blasting televisions and radios simultaneously to drown out voices in his head. His youngest brother took over his guardianship in the early 2000s and gradually rehabilitated him. Erickson returned to performing in 2007 and at a 2008 show in Austin, he was backed by the songwriter Will Sheff’s band, Okkervil River, a literary-minded, finely textured group that can still rock out. Sheff was asked to produce a new album for Erickson, and he dug through 60 songs, many unreleased. The last lyrics on the album are “Thought-lost and never-known treasures/ Coming back to we.” Sheff and Okkervil River know the vociferous garage-rock Erickson used to make. There’s resentment in songs like “Goodbye Sweet Dreams,” which starts with folky fingerpicking and turns into a maelstrom of psychedelic, distorted guitars. But this album self-consciously pursues something else: music to reflect on and exorcise Erickson’s desperate years. Sheff chose more ballads than rockers for the album: waltzes, soul songs and hymnlike tunes like the album’s title song. Erickson’s voice has grown tattered and scratchy. And Sheff’s production acknowledges the ’60s without pretending to be vintage. — Jon Pareles, The New York Times
BACKATOWN Verve Forecast In the HBO series “Treme,” about post-Katrina New Orleans, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews has a walk-on part as a native son headed for musical stardom. His real-life CD is hopeful on that score but far less emphatic. The 14 tunes, produced by Ben Ellman of the New Orleans jazz funk band Galactic, are heavily funkified with big, splashy horns, chunky percussion and, yes, the steroidal feeling of an HBO series sound track. Some of it makes for good driving music. It’s also surprisingly repetitive. Andrews’ trombone seems
Hole NOBODY’S DAUGHTER Mercury Records Sometimes the most glorious thing that can happen to a haggard wildcat like Courtney Love is to get older, angrier and all the more vulnerable and wise. On “Nobody’s Daughter,” Hole’s first album since 1998’s “Celebrity Skin,” Love announces with little fanfare that the bloom is off the rose. In “For Once in Your Life,” she sings in her revenge-of-theone-night-stand voice, “I swear I’m too young to be this old.” In some ways, “Nobody’s Daughter” is a more arresting work than Hole’s savage 1994 breakthrough, “Live Through
by that contented domestic life. Throughout the album, you can also hear the mix of country earthiness and jazzy elegance that is one of Haggard’s unmistakable hallmarks. He is what he is — an American original. —Nick Cristiano, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Here and there July 1 — The Shedd Institute, Eugene; 541-434-7000 or www.theshedd.org. July 2 — Part of the Waterfront Blues Festival; Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Portland; 503-282-0555 or www.waterfrontbluesfest.com.
stuck on the blues scale. There are exceptions, of course. The title track gets some liftoff, and “One Night Only (The March)” seems to draw from the cultural broth that makes New Orleans special. The eminent Allen Toussaint
plays piano on a sleek remake of his “On Your Way Down.” Singers Marc Broussard and Lenny Kravitz also make cameos to juice things. All fine, but if Andrews is to fulfill his “Treme” destiny, he has more work to do. — Karl Stark, The Philadelphia Inquirer
This.” Love never had a honeyed voice, but now her ravaged growl sounds settled in. A woman this angry at age 45 still has the ability to scare the baby-men at the bar — and titillate a few too. Judging from the first single, “Skinny Little Bitch,” as well as the ragged “Samantha” and other vengeful tracks, the record company wants to present Love as all bloody nails, but there are softer moments on “Nobody’s Daughter,” too. For all her bitterness, Love is still willing to scrap up the mountain and feel the breeze. The biggest problem with “Nobody’s Daughter” is the mostly standard hard rock licks
provided by her too-merry band of youngsters. These boys don’t sound like they’ve lived through anything, much less Love’s torrid brand of “this.” — Margaret Wappler, Los Angeles Times