Tag: Lucinda Williams

EMMA SWIFT

emmaswiftI know I stated last time that My Top Ten was done and dusted for the year but we now officially have one lucky last! Emma Swift will be doing a run of dates in Australia in December (one of those includes supporting the great Ryan Adams). Emma has garnered a massive following, splitting her time gigging and recording between Sydney, Australia and Nashville, Tennessee. She was duly nominated for an Aria award for her debut self-titled record that you must indeed check out. She has also recently recorded a Limited Edition vinyl-only single with Robyn Hitchcock (of The Soft Boys fame). You can also catch Emma along with Robyn Hitchcock & The Soft Boys at The Tote, Melbourne on December 20. Here’s Emma’s most awesome list. Merry Xmas! LT

 

I’ve never been very good at absolutes, so putting together a Top 10 list is a fun way to try and stick to something, even though I know that this list belongs only to this moment in time, November 2016. I hope some of these records resonate!

T. REX Electric Warrior [Deluxe Edition] (1971 / 2012)

emma-trexThe shimmering galactic eroticism of this record blows my mind. From the quivering vibrato in Marc Bolan’s voice on “Cosmic Dancer” to the vampiric lust pulsing throughout “Jeepster”, each track is a joy. Whenever I feel down and out, I close my eyes, listen to T Rex at maximum volume, and think about getting a fresh perm and a silvery jumpsuit. The best part of the deluxe re-issue is the addition of “Hot Love”, my personal favourite Bolan track. I will always get a pervy kick out of the following lines:

Well she ain’t no witch and I love the way she twitch, a ha ha
Well she ain’t no witch and I love the way she twitch, a ha ha

Marc Bolan & T.Rex – Hot Love

 

ROWLAND S. HOWARD Pop Crimes (2009)

emma-rowlandI love this album so much I almost want to record a cover version of the whole thing. It is however, already perfect and needs no re-interpretation. The title track is a devastating masterpiece with the coolest groove and mesmerising, howling guitar and the verses show off the very best of Howard’s sardonic wit:

The Catholic church cannot verify
That there’s a single soul in hell
It’s just a wasteland of adversity
Devoid of all but the sound of wedding bells
From this vast expanse of nothing
Nothing good will come of this
But the hole in the zero
And an open-heart-surgery kiss

I am working on songs for my new record at the moment and there’s a decent amount of weird Catholic shit bubbling beneath the surface there. I know Rowland gets it.

Listen to Pop Crimes on YouTube

 

MARIANNE FAITHFULL Broken English (1979)

emma-marianneOnce upon a time, in a small country town far, far away, I lived with my parents and their very limited selection of CDs. As far as fathers go, I had the classic Australian “fuck-up disguised as a top bloke” Dad. He taught me many dubious skills, including how to place bets at the TAB and how to smoke a bong. He also passed on how to obsessive-compulsively listen to the same record over and over again until you live it and breathe it and feel like it’s in your DNA. And that’s how I came to discover Broken English. Now, I don’t know any other kids whose father blasted “Why’d D’ya Do It?” at maximum volume to their 13-year-old daughter as a rite of passage but I’m glad mine did. Among many revelations this album delivered, I’m certain it was the first time I’d ever heard the word “snatch” used in a couplet.

Marianne Faithfull – Why D’ya Do It?

 

THE SMITHS Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)

emma-smithsIn fairness, I could put any Smiths record in my Top 10 but I’m going with Strangeways because “Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me” is absolutely perfect and always makes me weep. Every songwriter knows that unrequited or doomed love is the best muse and none knew it more than 1980s Morrissey. There’s enough pent up longing in this track to fill a million teenage bedrooms and yet as a fully grown adult woman I still feel that desperation acutely. And thus, Strangeways.

The Smiths – Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

 

NEIL YOUNG On The Beach (1974)

emma-neilyoungMy love, my one true musical love. A loner’s masterpiece rich in woozy guitars and bleak imagery, I never loved Neil truly until I played this record on repeat one summer in Sydney in the early 2000s. I remember the rain on my bedroom window, piles of clothes on the floor, a creepy landlord, an angry boyfriend and being utterly hypnotised by “Ambulance Blues” with its subtle jangle of tambourine and haunted harmonica. I listen to this record a lot.

Neil Young – Ambulance Blues

 

LUCINDA WILLIAMS Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (1998)

emma-lucindaLike The Smiths, there’s a place in my heart for all of Lucinda’s records. She’s rock and roll and sadness and beauty and poetry and sex and all life’s great offerings. Listening to her is the closest I get to going to church. I find so much comfort in her words and melodies I should pay her for therapy. I’m going with Car Wheels On A Gravel Road because I’m listening to “Metal Firecracker” right now and I’m admiring the sweetness in her voice as she sings “All I ask is, don’t tell anybody the secrets, don’t tell anybody the secrets that I told you…” What a line! There’s a very subtle harmony vocal on the chorus being sung by Jim Lauderdale too and that makes me think of people in country music with really fucking good hair and that’s a thought vortex I could stay in forever.

Lucinda Williams – Metal Firecracker

 

YOU AM I Hourly, Daily (1996)

zac-you-am-i-hourly-dailyI was 15 in 1997 and had never been to a rock show before I attended the Big Day Out festival in Sydney. I wore a purple t shirt, purple corduroy pants, silver Doc Martens and a goofy grin. I watched Patti Smith preach to thousands. I cried seeing The Clouds. I soaked up Tiddas and their magnificent harmonies. And… I got concussion while crowd surfing in the mosh pit to You Am I. It was the best day of my young life. Hourly, Daily makes me think of being a teenage girl growing up in Wagga Wagga, which isn’t a place I think of with great fondness usually. But when I hear this, I’m happy. I think about my suburban bedroom strewn with candles, I think about my twin baby brothers in nappies, I think about my sister playing this record on repeat, I think about having lustful thoughts about boys who played guitar and yearning to be a fully grown adult woman living in the city and going to see rock bands every night. I love that this record gave me something to grow up for.

You Am I – If We Can’t Get It Together

 

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN Honey’s Dead (1992)

emma-jesusmarySince the apocalyptic US election result, I’ve been listening to the first single from this album, “Reverence” with some devotion. The noisy guitars are suitably chaotic from the get go and build to an instrumental that sounds like an amplified emergency room. This is how my brain feels when I’m walking down the streets of my adoptive American hometown at the moment. When Jim Reid sings “I wanna die” over and over again, I feel suitably adolescent and ready for the end of the world.

The Jesus And Mary Chain – Reverence

 

LINDA RONSTADT Living In The USA (1978)

emma-lindaLinda is the first singer I heard that made me want to be a singer. A lot of other ladies have followed – from Hope Sandoval and Harriet Wheeler to Sandy Denny, Tammy Wynette, Karen Dalton and Emmylou Harris, Dusty Springfield, Joni Mitchell… I’ve studied plenty of female voices… But Linda was the first one I listened to repeatedly. I was eight years old when I heard her version of Elvis Costello’s “Alison” and decided I wanted to be able to sing like that. This record not only introduced me to Linda and Elvis but also to Warren Zevon and that’s a musical crush I’ll have until the end of time, so there’s a lot of gold here. A sentimental favourite for sure but I’m a sentimental girl.

Linda Ronstadt – Mohammed’s Radio

 

ELVIS COSTELLO Imperial Bedroom (1982)

emma-elviscIn the mid-1990s, I was very much into the Britpop music that dominated the charts. I imagined England as a kind of art paradise, home to my favourite young bands as well as all the dead poets my teenage heart could handle. I discovered Oasis, Pulp, T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath in the same year: 1996. This was also the year I discovered that the local bakery had weekend work and if I was willing to set my alarm to six o’clock in the morning every Saturday and Sunday, I would earn enough cash on the weekends to start building a real music collection instead of taping songs I liked off the radio. I spent all my money on mostly British albums and more money on Elvis Costello than anyone else. A teenage word nerd, I was drawn to his verbosity, his lyrical ambition and the way he sounded slightly pleased with himself whenever he’d come up with something really tasty. Imperial Bedroom is my all-time favourite Costello record. Time stops when I listen to “Kid About It”.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Kid About It

 

Emma’s website

Emma’s Facebook


MICK THOMAS

mick-thomasLegendary Australian songsmith Mick Thomas shares his top ten records with us this fortnight. He has famously become known for his storytelling through his songwriting and as you might expect, there’s a great story to be told about each of his favourite records here. Mick has written countless tunes over the years and produced some great records. Amongst these, I strongly recommend checking out Mick’s solo record The Last Of The Tourists, recorded in Portland, Oregon and produced by Darren Hanlon. It’s a ripper. Here’s Mick’s Top Ten!

 

THE (EX) CAT HEADS Our Frisco (1990)

mick-excat-ourfrisThere seems to be a lot written about this album and this band on the web. It appears they are/were in some way an important part of the San Franciscan local music scene in the early nineties. But the night we wandered into their gig there weren’t a lot of people there. It didn’t feel like an important show and we were surprised when we spoke to the band and they said it was their last performance.

The record is a weird classic to my mind – strangely-lo-fi and quite unsettled, it seems to jump between a fully-fledged concept album about San Francisco (bookended by two instrumental tracks, “Fog Rolls In”/ “Fog Rolls Out”) and a collection of demos (three vastly different versions of one song). It’s sprawling and ambitious, as pretentious as it is unassuming and when I hear it I am back in San Francisco at the end of a tour. Or in the van driving up the Pacific Highway three months later listening to a cassette dub of it.

 

LOWEST OF THE LOW Shakespeare My Butt (1991)

mick-lowest-shakesI have written about this record a hell of a lot over the years but it continues to be one we play at our house at certain times and it never seems to lose its appeal.  Although it came into our lives well after we’d become regulars in downtown Toronto it still speaks to me of our time there. It still tells the tales of that city. We were handed the CD by great friend and promoter Bruce Eaton one tour and it will always take me to times we spent hanging around his house in Kensington Market. It reminds me of the Grange Hotel and The Cameron House, The Siboney and The Horseshoe, and of the times that were not so good. So broke, so cold and far from home,1990 coming in from a long drive out east drunk and hungry and finding the town pretty well shut up on a Sunday night. And then the Hungarian Goulash Party Tavern was magically open but payday was five days away and then for the first time in my life realizing that they would take a credit card and wasn’t that the start of something else totally? The Hungarian Goulash Party Tavern is gone now but my credit card debt seems a constant and Shakespeare My Butt still sounds as good as it did back in 1992. Weddings, Parties, Anything only ever played two shows with the Lowest of the Low. It was nowhere near enough.

 

THE WARNER BROTHERS Talking in Your Sleep (1992)

mick-warnerb-talkingWe did a stack of shows with them through the years – both as the Warner Brothers, then as Overnight Jones and ultimately back to the Warner Brothers again. They made a great record after that one, Dan and Stuey, the two writers made great records under their own names as well but it’s still Talking in Your Sleep that means the most to me – and also to a lot of people who were around Melbourne at a particular time. They reformed recently as a thirtieth (!!!) anniversary of their inception and it was pretty much that album that got the majority representation.

 

SEAN McMAHON Welcome to Gippsland (2008)

mick-sean-welcomeI was walking past the Last Record Store in Smith Street when I noticed this one in the window and I guess being born in Gippsland it got my attention. I’d just become aware of the band Downhills Home at this stage and had no idea that Sean was from there or any other band to be honest. But here was this brilliant concept album with guest character parts sung by Matt Walker, Liz Stringer and Laura Jean and when they finally played it live it was billed as a Downhills Home show and so it was a confused foray in a promotional sense but the record itself is really self-assured and quite timeless. The playing is understated, the singing is evocative, the songs are interlocking and self-supporting, the whole thing totally lyrical.

 

LUCINDA WILLIAMS West (2007)

mick-lucinda-westIt’s the record she wrote after her mother passed on and although it’s pretty painful I think it’s possibly the purest expression of her personal blues. Stylistically it moves around a fair bit but the whole thing seems underpinned with an anger and a resentment that is at times quite exhausting. I like most of her records actually.

 

 

JAKE THACKRAY The Very Best of Jake Thackray (1975)

mick-jakethackI first heard Jake Thackray songs in folk clubs back in the mid 70s and had no idea who the writer was. But the songs were acerbic and pointed – and they were funny. And when Darren Hanlon started playing an album of his to me a few years back it all made sense. They called him the working class Noel Coward but more than that he was a complex man from a complex tradition of European songwriting and it’s almost the few little serious snippets here and there that give the most away.

 

PAUL KELLY Post (1985)

mick-paulk-postI guess Paul has written better albums but this one is so much of its time and so simple and direct it’s hard to go past. We listened to it a lot in the early Weddings and when I went to a gig at the Club in Collingwood around the time it came out I remember people singing the words to each other, everyone with a kind of knowing camaraderie. Yep, I wanted a bit of that to be sure.

 

 

London is the Place For Me (Vol 1) (2002)

mick-londonI never thought Calypso is where I’d find really inspiring original songsmiths but the various writers that make up this testament to the West Indian experience in England are far more what I was looking for than the ones I found in the Anglo/Irish folk music scene of the 60s and 70s. “Lord Kitchener in the Jungle” is a kooky masterpiece. “Lady Want Rent”, “At the Coronation” and surely the best sporting ballad ever written, “Victory Test Match”. Classics. Lord Beginner, Young Tiger – folk music at its best.

 

 

THE KINKS The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society (mono version) (1968)

mick-kinks-villageI think this is my favourite Kinks album although Face to Face and Arthur which all came out around the same time are pretty close as well. But this has got Big Sky, Picture Book, Animal Farm – it’s got Last of the Steam Powered Trains and Village Green Preservation Society for Christ sake. And it’s got the best song about being drunk on stage ever written All of My Friends Were There. I guess everything I want The Kinks to be is on this record. Their lyrical, English version of rock n’ roll really finds it’s place here. But Arthur is still pretty good.

 

NEKO CASE The Tigers Have Spoken (2004)

mick-neko-tigersA cracking live album. Some spirited covers, great playing and incredible singing – and a stack of wonderful songs. It’s a beautifully weighted record and one that seems to have an interlocking lasting appeal for me. The title track is riveting. Simple yet so personal it’s almost embarrassing. Easily my favourite record by her.

 

 

Mick’s Website

Mick’s Facebook