From: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org (jinglejangle-digest) To: jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Subject: jinglejangle-digest V7 #51 Reply-To: jinglejangle@smoe.org Sender: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jinglejangle-digest Friday, April 16 2004 Volume 07 : Number 051 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Re: [MLL] Emm Gryner? and also Listening To ["olivier guitton " Subject: Re: Re: [MLL] Emm Gryner? and also Listening To OK, it's my turn ! here's my winter's OST : Damien Rice : "O" Herman Dune "mas cambios" Girls in Hawaii : "from here to there" Jesse Sykes and the sweet hereafter :"reckless burning" Aimee mann : "lost in space [special edition]" Turin Brakes :"Ether song" Elliott Murphy : "April" Jude :"king of yesterday" Jacob Golden : "hallelujah world" And many others but I think that's enought now.... - ------- Message original ------- De: Snsetblaze@aol.com Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 22:43:49 EDT Sujet: Re: [MLL] Emm Gryner? and also Listening To This is fun - reading what others are listening to. Thanks for the great question. I also like Emm Gryner. Another CD I just picked up over the weekend is Toby Lightman (at the same time I picked up Baby Blue which I will listen to tonight.) Lightman has a fantastic voice. She's a little bit rock and a little bit folk and pop - sort of like Liz Phair (the old Liz Phair before she hit top 40) but with a voice type more like a cross of Sheryl Crow and Nellie Furtado or Fiona Apple. She is actually a friend of my boss and I had known about her vaguely, but I did not make the connection though when I picked up the album until I started listening to the cd. Then the lightbulb went off. Damn I could have gotten the cd for free. Another singer if you like it a little more bluesy - Rory Block. I bought Last Fair Deal last month but I think she has something new coming out. She was actually at Newport with Mary Lou in the singer-songwriter circle 2 or 3 years ago. Some of her music does have a bit more of a religious slant - she will do old spirituals if she feels like it one moment and a country stomp the next. Other recent cd's I'd recommend: Jonatha Brookes' Back in the Circus Shannon McNally - Jukebox Sparrows. Folk/jazz and pop. Tantric - After We Go - This is a bit harder rock - almost a jam band and is probably right at home on a classic rock station but not on a rock station that plays Incubus, Fred Durst, etc., Linkin Park, etc. Sort of like a Rusted Root without the heavy drumming. Some of the band used to be the band Days of the New. Laura Love - Welcome to Pagen Place. She is very hard to describe. She can be a bit political. A blurb I saw described her as Afro-Celtic-Folk-Rock, which is appropriate. And she yodels when she sings - a lot - and extremely well. You would not believe how well yodeling and rock go together until you've heard her do it. This is a good album but if you want to listen to her best, try Octaroon or even the compilation put out by Putmayo (??) Records. Toshi Reagon - self-titled. She's a daughter of one of the Sweet Honey in the Rock singers. I'd describer her as folk rock. Jem - Finally Woken - this is a mix of styles with a singer reminiscent of Beth Orton or Dido. So far I like her better than Dido - the music is more interesting - but not as much as Beth Orton. Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me - A female singer who mix of styles from 40s caberet to rap to trip hop. This is a double album. The wierdest a nd funniest thing I have heard in a while. Groovelilly - Are We There Yet is their current release. I have seen this band a couple of times live and may see them again this weekend. Groovelilly is a trio fronted by Valerie Vigoda who sings amazingly and plays a mean electric violin. Her husband, the keyboard player, is also a fantastic singer and writer. The music is described as "eclectic folk." It treads the line between folk and pop (but is nothing like top 40 pop). TV and print ads for the army on CNN feature this band because Valerie used to be a lieutenant in the army so you may have seen her. Girlyman - this group is like the Indigo Girls with an Indigo Guy. I just saw them open for Mary Fahl a couple of weeks ago. Lastly, Antigone Rising. An all female band that rocks. Their latest release is a live album - Traveling Circus. I am partial to them because they are good (I've seen them live three times) and because they are from NJ near where I live. Well I'd better get back to studying. Alycia C est le moment de dynamiser votre bonte mail en dicouvrant les offres CaraMail Premium - http://www.caramailmax.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:39:45 -0400 From: Recordings@aol.com Subject: [MLL] Man Fatale >Based on his previous remarks, I'm guessing that if Dino happens to get his hands on this first, we'll be able to actually *hear* him shouting!!! We won't need no steenking list!< Oh yes. Funny story though: Remember I picked up the new Femme Fatales and it had Danny Trejo instead of Mary Lou? I know Danny (a familiar movie bad guy, as well as Uncle Machete in Spy Kids) because his wife Debbie is the agent who found our house. She popped in the other day and I said: "Hey, great article in Femme Fatales!" She had no idea what I was talking about, so I gave her my issue. Then Danny called. "Thanks, man! I didn't anything know about this!" Isn't that bizarre, that a magazine can come out with an interview and take pictures of you at your own house, and you'd FORGET? Not me - every time I'd release one of my pathetic homemade CDs I'd hike down to the newsstand, searching Alternative Press, Factsheet Five and the rest, hoping against hope for a review. When I did snag one, I had a copy in my hands before the ink was dry! Anyway, There's a newsstand on Hollywood Blvd. where I found my first pictures of Mary Lou aside from album covers, and that's where I search to this day. Dino ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:39:59 -0400 From: "Journey Bear" Subject: Re: [MLL] should be listening to... One more thing to look for ... Patti Rothberg is going to have a new album out soon, which, if it's anywhere near as good as her previous, "Between the 1 and the 9" and "Candelabra Cadabra," ought to be great. I'm also eagerly awaiting the new one from Amy Correia. JB _________________________________________________________________ MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page  FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 15:07:02 EDT From: Concertina9@aol.com Subject: Re: [MLL] should be listening to... Alright. I've actually never written to the list before, just enjoyed reading everyone else's postings, but I thought I would contribute this time. I hear Mary Lou for the first time the summer of 2002 right after I graduated from high school - yes, I'm only 20 - when I was living in Cambridge for the summer. I'm from South Carolina, so until that summer my music taste was rather, um, limited. I fell in love with her music listening in Harvard Square. In fact, sometimes I would sit for the entire 3 hours she would play and listen. I appreciated how Mary Lou was so kind to me when I would try to talk to her and just stutter like a complete idiot! Despite the fact that she always talks about how old she is, I had quite a crush that summer. It was a little obvious. Anyway, I've been a fan ever since and my dad also fell in love with her music when I played it for him. I think everyone needs to check out the incrediable Julie Loyd at http://www.julieloyd.com. She is amazingly talented and getting ready to release a new cd. I think next to Mary Lou, she is my favorite. Thanks for all the new artists to check out and the interesting reading!! Leigh Hendrix ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 22:03:10 -0700 From: Michael Zwirn Subject: [MLL] Surprised no one has mentioned the reviews of Baby Blue Some positive, some negative. I just got the record in the past few days and have only listened twice, so I'll refrain from commenting on the following: Pitchforkmedia.com Mary Lou Lord Baby Blue [Rubric; 2004] Rating: 5.7 Mary Lou Lord doesn't fit into your indie world. At least not lately. Back in the early 1990s, she was an alt-pin-up girl with a throwback hairstyle, breathy voice, and smart, stripped-down songs-- mostly other people's, but who really cared? She released a few seven-inch singles and two EPs (one of which contained the fabulous fanboy rebuke "His Indie World") before finally signing with then-Sony subsidiary The Work Group. On a cold day in January 1998, she released Got No Shadow, a charming collection of covers (Freedy Johnston, Elizabeth Cotton [sic]) and impressive originals ("Western Union Desperate"). And then she promptly disappeared, rumored to be battling a drug addiction, with only a live album and a split single with Sean Na Na to hold fans over. Six years later, Got No Shadow still charms, but Lord has lost most, if not all, of her indie relevance, despite returning to an indie label-- pal Nick Salmon's Rubric Records-- for her new album, Baby Blue. The move away from the majors coincides with a shift from the precise, pristine pop of Got No Shadow to a looser, janglier sound that, unfortunately, recalls early Shawn Colvin. For a singer who idolizes "my Joni, my Nick, Neil, and Bob," this is not an unexpected move, but neither is it a successful one. As on all of her previous releases, Lord believed above all else in the power of the well-written song, in its commanding ability to convey intimate emotions and complex ideas equally well. But her stalwart devotion proves both a strength and a liability on Baby Blue. For one thing, she has strong material that makes for memorable tracks like "43", in which she questions her relationship with either a young lover or her young fans: "Seventeen/ Wonder what you see in me/ I'm going on 43." Tracks like "The Wind Blew All Around Me" and "Farming It Out" reveal Lord's insecurities, mostly about her career, with surprising candor, while "Ron" is a tearjerker about a single mother waiting for her daughter's father to return. But too often, Lord's approach to her lyrics is overly reverent, to the detriment of the music itself. Especially in the album's midsection, her backing band churns out country-rock rhythms so bland they seem designed specifically not to distract from the words. But it's not always the best package for the lyrics-- the effect is much like wrapping sparkling jewelry in dull newsprint. On songs like "Because He's Leaving" and "The Inhibition Twist", the music either sounds completely disconnected from her vocals or completely drowns them out. "Stars Burn Out" slows down until it almost stops completely, and Lord's cover of Pink Floyd's "Fearless" is a showcase more for the reined-in band than for her vocals, resulting in an attention-straining five-minute anticlimax. Fortunately, Baby Blue ends not with "Fearless", but with "Old Tin Tray", a modest little jingle reminiscent of Got No Shadow's "Shake Sugaree". In its simplicity and unpretentious directness it recalls Lord's early work, which is appropriate: Baby Blue sounds like the work of a much younger, less confident artist-- one who's closer to 17 than 43. More than a decade into her unpredictable career, Lord seems like she's still grasping for a comfortable mix of guitar and vocals, not quite sure what works best with her unique voice. - -Stephen M. Deusner, April 15th, 2004 On a more vastly positive note, Tablet, a press mag in Seattle/Portland, gives the record a 9 out of 10, and writes: "Mary Lou Lord continues her tradition of cover songs with Baby Blue, collaborating with Bevis Frond mastermind Nick Saloman. Much of the album is peppy and upbeat, but she works the Frond's melancholy "Why Stars Burn Out" to her longtime friend Elliott Smith. Lord adopts the songs to her own voice so seamlessly that this solid album can only be considered her own. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:11:05 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [MLL] Surprised no one has mentioned the reviews of Baby Blue I usually don't like shamless plugs, but since reviews were mentioned, read mine at toneandgroove.com. I think you will like it, it's a postive one. The comparison with me is not Colvin, but Bonnie Raitt, in a good way. Bonnie is one of the best interpreters around, and so is Mary Lou. Andrea ------------------------------ End of jinglejangle-digest V7 #51 *********************************