Why Rilo Kiley is My Favorite Of Favorites

If there is one band that I tend to revisit the most frequently, it's Rilo Kiley. 

Every few months, one of their songs will pop up somewhere or I'll read an interview with Jenny Lewis or I'll see Blake on a rerun of Boy Meets World and it will inevitably lead to a week-long RK binge. There's something about the honesty of the lyrics or the way that Jenny sings them or Blake's guitar parts or those charming little interludes on Execution of All Things that make me love the shit out of that band (possibly more than I love any other band). Part of it comes from my California DNA thing, I think. There is something ingrained in Rilo that is just totally LA and it brings out all of the parts of my West Coast upbringing that I love the most. 

But when the palm trees bow their heads...

Anyway, I love LA. Back to business. 

I absolutely hated the way that Rilo Kiley ended. It was one of the most anti-climactic things that's ever happened in the music industry, as far as I'm concerned. Here was a band that was poised for global domination. They had a great back story, musical chemistry, songwriting chops, an exceptional lead guitarist, and a female vocalist who was ready to seduce the entire fucking world. They had two great independent full-lengths which they followed by More Adventurous, a fantastic breakthrough album that got them tons of attention. At the same time, Jenny was doing fantastic work with on her solo project with the Watson Twins and charming the shit out of everyone, while Blake put out two stellar albums with his own side project, The Elected. There was just so much momentum propelling these guys forward.  It was crazy.

And then, it was like the bus broke down. On the highway. In the middle of July. No one was happy. 

The band's major label debut, Under the Blacklight, was totally underwhelming. It had its moments (the song "Silver Lining" is as good of a song as they ever wrote), but gone were the days of indie-pop rock with a hint of country folk sensibility and emotionally resonant lyrics. They were playing around with synthesizers and singing about porn stars and swinging for the Top Forty fences. 

They struck out.

Jenny went on to moderate solo success and made friends with Elvis Costello but the rest of the band totally disappeared off the face of the earth. There was no news of Rilo Kiley until the announcement of a hiatus and then an unofficial break-up.

For me, time has actually been kind to Under the Blacklight. I like it much better now than I ever thought I would. The melodies are catchy and the production is solid and Jenny's voice sounds great. But there are still also things about the album that I don't like (mostly "Dejalo" and "15" and "Smoke Detector") and I still hated the idea that this polarizing, inconsistent effort was the swan song of one of my favorite ever bands.

So when the band announced that the long rumored B-sides and rarities compilation was finally happening, I was completely ecstatic. But my expectations also weren't very high. I assumed that most of the songs would be ones that I had already heard. Things like "Emotional" and "Jenny, You're Barely Alive" and their fun cover of"After Hours." I thought if I were lucky, I might get a few studio versions of songs like "Room 8" and "Butcher's Paper." What I absolutely did not expect were no less than seven songs that I have never heard before, in any context. 

What I really didn't expect was that a majority of them were recorded at the same time as Under the Blacklight. And that they would be just as good as everything else that RK ever did. Because of that, this album has turned Rilo history on it's head for me. I no longer see UtB as a record by a band that was seriously overreaching and broke under the pressure of major label scrutiny (not to mention internal turmoil). Now, I see late-Rilo Kiley as a band that was still prolific and had great songs to offer the world but for whatever reason chose to keep them hidden.

RKives begins with the long awaited studio version of my favorite Rilo song of all time. For years it's been called "I Love LA," but the official title is now "Let Me Back In." It's very similar to the live at ACL and radio recordings that I've been listening to forever, but when those strings came in on the second verse, I nearly burst into tears. I don't understand how a song as great as that one didn't make it onto an album until now. 

I feel the same way about a lot of these songs. "It'll Get You There" would have been right at home with RK's best on Execution of All Things. "Well, You Left" is better than all of Blake's other songs (except Ripchord) and it has a shredding guitar solo at the end that rivals "Spectacular Views". "Bury, Bury, Bury Another"  is country-flavored goodness that easily could have found a spot on More Adventurous. "All the Drugs" and "I Remember You" could have been the best two songs on Under the Blacklight.

My only real complaint about this collection is that they chose to include things that were readily available (like "American Wife" and "The Frug") when I know for a fact that there were other unreleased songs we could have gotten instead. I heard that the Deluxe Edition (which I ordered and should hopefully get sometime before Christmas, due to an industry wide vinyl production problem or some nonsense) comes with a special cassette tape that contains a studio version of "Pull Me In Tighter." That song is phenomenal and deserves a legit release, more so than that "Dejalo" remix that doesn't make me hate that song any less (sorry, Jenny, but "Dejalo" is never going to happen). 

Still, we loyalists take what we can get. Truth be told, RKives is better than it has any right to be, considering it's a collection of B-sides from a band that was hardly a household name. It's an extremely generous present to the fans, one that I am going to appreciate for a long time. Furthermore, if Rilo Kiley never reforms and gifts the world with another album, RKives will remain as an impressive bookend to a phenomenal catalog of tunes.

But, for the record, I'm still holding out hope for a reunion, the eternal optimist that I am. Fleetwood Mac did it, after all.

Bottom Line: Very strong for a B-Sides collection, RKives effectively highlights all of the reasons that made Rilo Kiley a great band to begin with.

Why You Should Give Ghost on Ghost a Chance

Of all of the artists that have consistently secured a place on my "favorite bands" playlists over the past decade, Iron & Wine is the one that has changed the most dramatically.

It's been ten years since I&W released the practically perfect Creek Drank the Cradle. It was a breath of fresh air for a lot of people. It didn't rely on studio gadgetry or production values. In fact it was nothing but Sam Beam's hushed vocals, an acoustic guitar, a four track recorder, and the incredible power of phenomenal songwriting.

I remember reading that some people thought it was some lost recording from a forgotten 1960's singer-songwriter. That's how good it is. It didn't seem like it could be a thing from modern times.

Since then, Iron & Wine has evolved into a musical behemoth, incorporating nearly every instrument on the planet and churning out bright 70's style pop music with plenty of oohs and aahs and even elements of jazz and funk. Truth be told, I miss Creek era Sam Beam. Going back and listening to that album, Endless Numbered Days, and "The Trapeze Swinger", I become aware that these new batches of songs just don't move me the way that the old ones did. Sure, Sam Beam can still write an amazing song, but sometimes those songs are overpowered by their arrangements. I still like a lot of them, but I also catch myself envisioning what they would sound like if they were stripped down into their most fundamental parts. 

It helps to think of Iron & Wine as two separate bands. To listen to the newer albums without the context of the earlier albums. The old Iron & Wine was really, really great. But if you packaged up the new Iron & Wine and sold it to me as a completely different band with no preconceived notions of what one of their albums should sound like, I would think they were pretty great as well.

Ghost on Ghost continues on the trajectory established by Kiss Each Other Clean. There's lots of warm, upbeat music here, a la "Tree By the River." Lots of horns, lots of background vocals, groovy bass lines, and even a couple of really strange instrumental breakdowns and time-signature changes. The record starts with a percussive crescendo that stops and leads into the acoustic guitar of "Caught in the Briars." It's that kind of weird shift that actually characterizes the album as a whole.  There are many instances where a song will abruptly and unexpectedly shift styles or sounds to become something else entirely.

It should be jarring. It should be disruptive. But somehow, this is a much more coherent album than Kiss Each Other Clean. Maybe it's because there's a thematic symmetry that weaves this set of songs together. They seem to tell a story about a couple who is on some sort of journey. Maybe a physical one or maybe an emotional one. Maybe they are running away or running towards something. Either way, this is a record that definitely tells a story and I like that. It's a very listenable album. It's the kind of album that you can put on and jam to from start to finish and enjoy without thinking too much into it. It sounds like a warm summer evening, sitting on the porch and drinking a beer and watching the lightning bugs flash in the grass.

When you start to think too hard, it becomes less enjoyable. It's apparent that certain songs are much grander than they need to be. Sometimes it feels like Sam Beam is trying to get as far away as possible from his bare bones indie-folk roots.  A quiet, lovely little number like "Joy" would have sounded great with nothing but an acoustic guitar. Instead it is kind of a layered clunky thing with tinkling synths and shimmery vocal runs that overrun the potency of the lyrics. It's still a nice song, but I can't help but feel there is an alternate version of it out there that I like much better.

My favorites are the ones that sound like "old Iron & Wine." This has been the case since The Shepherd's Dog when I listened to "Flightless Bird" and "Resurrection Fern" on repeat and neglected most of the rest of the album. My favorites on Ghost on Ghost are "Winter Prayers" and "Baby Center Stage." The latter in particular is a masterpiece for me and probably one of the few times where I feel like everything works. Like Iron & Wine don't have to be two separate bands, as long as they can meet somewhere in the middle and makes beautiful little tunes like this. 

Bottom Line: Another solid effort and overall enjoyable record from Iron & Wine, but the complexity of the arrangements on Ghost on Ghost sometimes overpower the songwriting.

Why I Swooned Over Chris Carraba

My favorite thing about experiencing live music is the nature of unpredictability. Anything can happen at a show, for both spectators and participators. Mistakes are made, toes are stepped on, the setlist is revised. You can discover something totally new about a song or about yourself. Your favorite band might ruin themselves in front of you. Everything is within the realm of possibility. 

Quite often, you get surprised. Which is exactly what happened to me last night at Johnny Brenda's. 

I went into this show for the Lone Bellow. Because their self-titled debut has been on constant loop in my life for the past few months and is already a serious contender for album of the year for me. Because I know that this band is going to be enormous and I'll never have another chance to see them play such an intimate venue. And because I have a very serious toner for hipster alt-country acts with really tight harmonies. 

The Lone Bellow @ JB's.

 The Lone Bellow did not disappoint me. They were every bit as magnificent as I knew they would be. Every single song was a show stopper. As I stood at the foot of the stage and sang my heart out to "You Never Need Nobody" the girls next to me were doing the same. We threw our arms around one another, strangers no more, and shared the joyful experience of loving music together. 

So, the Lone Bellow is going to be in my life for a long time. That was not a surprise. 

Also not surprising, Ivan & Alyosha were thoroughly enjoyable. They've been a mix tape staple of mine for a while and the song "Glorify" gets me going every single time. I'm not sure that they had the right set up for the venue (two electric guitars and the electric bass kind of drowned out the vocals in that small room) but no matter. It was still a solid set. That wasn't surprising either. 

Ivan & Alyosha @ JB's.

What I wasn't prepared for was Twin Forks. In fact, I had no idea who they were or that they were playing until five minutes before I left for the show. My brother barged into my room and said, "Did you know there is another opener tonight?" 

This is how the conversation went- 

S: They're called Twin Forks. 

LB: That sounds like the setting for a high school TV melodrama.

S: It's from the guy from Dashboard Confessional with people from Bad Books and the Narrative.

LB: Chris Carrabba? What is he, like, producing it?

S: I think he's the singer. 

LB: No way. 

S: I think so. 

LB: No way that the singer from Dashboard is opening at a bar for two unknown bands.

S: I really think he is, though. 

My disbelief changed into total shock when I checked the band's Twitter account and Soundcloud and they both confirmed what S had told me. Chris Carrabba is in a new folk group with members of Bad Books and the Narrative and they are called Twin Forks and we were about to see them play their  first show at Johnny Brenda's. 

Fucking surprise, dude!

Also, surprise! They are really, really good. 

I have to preface this by saying that I am by no means a die hard Dashboard or Further Seems Forever fan. Of course, those bands represent something quintessential about my coming of age experience that is rivaled only by the Garden State soundtrack and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For the millennial generation, Dashboard is everything about high school. There is no better Song to Fall in Love To than "Hands Down" and no Balm for a Broken Heart quite like "Screaming Infidelities." Of course I listened to them back in the day and sometimes revisit them now. 

Twin Forks @ Johnny Brenda's.

But while I will always have a soft spot in my heart for all of these things, my 25 year old self wouldn't go out of the way to see a Dashboard show, as great as those old songs are. 

Then Chris Carrabba walked out onstage at Johnny Brenda's and he is still the same tiny, tattooed man that I remembered from MTV Unplugged with a voice big enough to express every emotion. 

And he was singing honest-to-god folk songs. Think the Lumineers with less Ho-ing and Hey-ing and more introspective lyrics. 

Surprise! It was everything I never knew that I wanted. I fell in love with this group about thirty seconds into their first song, which is when I started trying to sing along even though I'd never heard it before. Maybe because the band was clearly having a great time playing together, maybe because they were just some great tunes, maybe because Chris' voice took me right back to some safe, warm place that I didn't know I'd been missing- but I smiled through their entire set. 

Obviously, this is a project that these guys are really excited and passionate about. That translates very well onstage. I also really respect that Chris isn't letting his notoriety from Dashboard sell this new band. I think that, ultimately, the songs will speak for themselves and that is the most beautiful thing of all. 

Not surprisingly, I am now a fan. The next time they come around to Philly, I'll be there with the same huge smile on my face.

Twin Forks @ Johnny Brenda's, 4/16/13