As promised, this week we take a look at some of our
favorite songs of 2008 so far. But
instead of me blathering on about how great these songs are, I brought in some
ringers: my dad and his band, Koots, in their studio
in
MARLIN BROWN: We
started in college. We had a jug band
group.
DON SILL: I was playing with a couple of other people at times.
MB: I had been
playing with Toni Driver, a girl out in the desert, and she would come out here
to
DS: We’d be playing at the same concert.
MB: Right. And then Robin would come in and stomp his foot and click around and thump his guitar and do his thing, and we were real impressed with Robin.
ROBIN STRAHAN: I was the new kid in town.
MB: So that’s how we got started. Larry, Robin and I started trying to shop our music around. We ended up going into A&M studios and recording some stuff there that never went anywhere. I can remember being on the top floor of Capitol Records with our tape, sitting there with one of their A&R guys.
DS: I remember
putting huge hours into a tape, getting it done and handing it to
somebody. And never seeing it
again. And nobody ever listened to
it. I mean, I don’t know what happened
to it. But, you know, you’re twenty
years old. You do that kind of stuff.
RS: Well, Larry knew somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody.
DS: Right, that’s always who you gave your tape to.
MB: …and then life went on, and we all went our separate ways with marriage and kids and… And then four years ago, Robin and I went to the Guitar Center to look at the vintage guitars.
RS: And they were us.
MB: [Laughing.] We realized we were the vintage guitars.
RS: Then we sort of
dared each other to buy new guitars
MB: We started pluckin’ around. We’d do Simon & Garfunkel, and we’d do Buddy Mondlock.
RS: Then we started writing our own stuff, and decided we liked our own stuff. Marlin bought some recording equipment.
MB: [Laughing] And the rest is history.
RS: We put out our first album, and Don said “I want to be a Koot.” He joined midway through recording our second batch of songs.
MB: And then Larry said “I want to be a Koot.”
THE FACTUAL OPINION: If it keeps up, you’ll double the number of Koots after each album. Have you guys always been interested in music in general?
MB: Since high school. I think Don, too.
RS: I used to go to sleep listening to Hank Williams sing.
DS: I liked performing more than I liked the music. I picked up the guitar and in about twenty minutes I was ready to go on stage. I learned a song and I went up on stage and played. Then, they said, “I’ve got a request,” and I did the same song again.
TFO: That’s very punk rock.
RS: Back in the day, if you played guitar and sang on stage, you met a lot of people of the feminine kind.
DS: I showed up with a guitar and a bottle of Boone’s Farm I don’t know how many times.
RS: There were ulterior reasons for playing guitar.
DS: It wasn’t even ulterior, that was the primary reason.
MB: I’ve got a picture of myself sitting on the Atlantic Ocean coast, sitting on a picnic table playing guitar, this kid is at my feet, and all these girls are standing around.
DS: It doesn’t get better than that.
RS: Let’s do that again.
TFO: What kind of music do you guys like in general? What gets your attention?
RS: I like to be able to understand the lyrics. I really, really, really like Counting Crows. I know they’re not cutting edge.
TFO: What is it that you like about them?
RS: I like that they’re a throwback in a lot of ways. I like their lyrics, they’re meaningful.
DS: I like a little intellect coming through the words.
MB: Crosby, Stills & Nash; The Beach Boys; obviously The Beatles; Spanky & Our Gang. When you listen to the crossover between folk and jazz, it’s incredible. The first The Mamas & The Papa’s album was a jaw-dropper because of the four-part harmony. I like sound-scape music as well, when they paint an image with the songs—Enya or Sigur Rós. When we record, that frustrates the hell out of these guys, because that’s what I go for.
TFO: All right, let’s listen to the first song.
Fleet Foxes – “White
Water Hymnal”
MB: I think that’s great. I like the rhythm, I like the harmony, I like the a cappella at the beginning, I like the rounding.
RS: I thought to myself, “Marlin is going to like this.”
TFO: I started you guys off with a little bit of a softball, because I knew that this particular song is in your wheelhouse.
DS: I thought it was okay, but I’m waiting for the story. I need the story in the song. So it was okay, but I’m waiting for something to happen. It’s not mine.
MB: Is it something you would buy?
DS: No.
MB: I would explore this group based on that. I would say, “That’s really neat.” I might go on line and see what else they had.
TFO: Well, thumbs up for Fleet Foxes.
Santogold – “Lights
Out”
DS: It sounds cool.
MB: It’s a dance beat.
DS: It’s not exactly what I… I’m a Koot!
MB: It reminded me a little bit of Cyndi Lauper. Just a touch.
DS: Yeah, and I like Cyndi Lauper. But I like Cyndi Lauper better.
MB: I do too, because you can hear the words. Robin has a thing about… we were talking about selling music, and doing stuff that would go into a lot of the TV shows, that you hear in the background and stuff. So we deliberately try to write what that might sound like.
RS: I can hear this very much as a TV soundtrack, or a movie soundtrack.
DS: Somebody’s running through the park.
RS: I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been used already.
TFO: A lot of money’s being made these days on licensing, because the record industry’s falling apart.
MB: We want to get in
on that.
Sigur Rós – “Gobbledigook”
DS: I like this the same way I like Joni Mitchell when she doesn’t make sense. I trust her.
MB: I like the rhythm. I recognized Sigur Rós right off the bat. I’m sitting here trying to figure out the timing. I think it’s 6/8.
DS: It’s 4/4. It works.
RS: Although it might be 8/4.
DS: It’s a multiple, and they’re doing a lot of backbeats on it.
MB: It’s really effective. This isn’t typical Sigur Rós, though.
TFO: No, no. That’s exactly what I like about it. I was really delighted about this song, because I feel like they’ve been doing the same thing over and over again for the last 10 years, and to have something that’s such a new direction that still retains what they’re good at is really awesome.
RS: Most people like that, to see bands change and evolve over time.
TFO: Some bands can get away with making the same album over and over again, because they can sustain it. But most bands who try to do that end up diluting their sound.
MB: [To Don] Exactly!
TFO: Which is why [Koots’ upcoming single] “Spank Me, Jesus”…
MB: …is gonna be a
hit!
Air France - "No Excuses"
RS: It sounds like something composed at the computer.
DS: It sounds like, “I need one of these, I need one of these, I need one of these, and let’s crank it up.”
MB: I have one in the works right now that’s the same thing, just made up of samples. That’s what that is, all samples. They just take a bar and repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. I think it’s fun to do. I enjoy stuff like that.
RS: And we expect you to enjoy putting out an album like that.
MB: I see what they’re doing. This is a dance tune for a club following, and it’s listenable. It’s contemporary elevator music.
DS: Fast elevator music. Freight elevator.
MB: I can make that music pretty easily.
TFO: Yeah?
DS: Not with us around.
MB: Don is much more of a “Give me a guitar and a voice and don’t mess with any of that other stuff.”
RS: I like it guitar and vocal driven.
DS: I think Robin and I are on the same wavelength on that.
MB: And I’m the stick in the spoke.
TFO: Do you think that’s because you’re fascinated by the technology, or do you like the kind of music that produces?
MB: We go through this all the time. This is our discussion when we’re working on a song. When we’re doing something, I hear it almost as a completed piece. I hear what the sounds should be. I hear what needs to come up underneath it. I hear the different parts, and I’m willing to experiment to get it to that type of sound. I think Robin and Don probably hear, “I really like the guitar here, and my voice needs to be a little bit louder here, and, wait a minute, the guitar needs to be turned up just a touch.” But I think that the computer gives you opportunities to do things… Well, first of all, it creates a democracy of the music, which allows anybody to tap their creativity, more than ever before. Because if you look at the stuff we did when we had reel-to-reel tape recorders…
DS: Oh jeez, that was painful.
MB: I had to build a 4-track tape recorder to do those first songs that Robin and I and Larry used to do. Anybody can do that on the internet now. What it’s changed, is now the talent has to be there. You can do anything with a computer. What really makes the difference is what you put into it.
DS: It’s way more inclusive. It’s a democracy now.
TFO: And the good stuff rises.
RS: Sometimes. Sometimes other stuff.
MB: I having a saying about everybody being in a band. Everybody’s in a band.
RS: But everybody’s not in a good band.
MB: You either have
to have a niche that you’re shooting for, or you have to be incredibly lucky.
Portishead – “Machine
Gun”
[Don and Marlin look at one another and laugh.]
RS: I’d really have to read those lyrics for a while to find out the justification for that particular percussion, because I find it distracting and annoying.
DS: Yeah. Why?
TFO: Well, the track is called “Machine Gun.”
RS: I picked up on that.
MB: It’s what I’d call experimental music. Although, she’s got a beautiful voice.
DS: I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, she’s just headed in a direction that I’m not in on. She has talent, and she’s not wasting her time, but she’s not reaching me. So, it’s probably my fault, not hers.
MB: I can see where she’s going.
DS: I’m just wondering why she’d want to go there.
TFO: The idea of the dueling drum machines is either brilliant or idiotic.
MB: It is brilliant.
DS: But that lasts about ten seconds.
MB: I would have mixed that differently. I wouldn’t have emphasized the drums as much.
RS: When I listen to music, I like to like the music I listen to. You may like this, but I don’t see anything to like. You might appreciate the effort and the intellectual thought behind it, but I don’t find it enjoyable.
MB: It’s like Mahler. Wagner and Mahler I don’t like listening to, but it’s technically wonderful music.
DS: Well, it might be very difficult to insert a big toe during a kiss, but I don’t see why you would do it.
TFO: I couldn’t handle that song the first couple of times I heard it. Then I caught it one time and it blew my mind.
RS: I didn’t like Bob Dylan the first time I heard him.
MB: I think what happens is, your brain starts diminishing the effect of the drum, and you start listening for the lyrics. At least, that’s what was happening with me. I was feeling the rhythm, but not…
RS: I guess I’m very
suspicious of what I consider to be theatrics in music.
The Dodos – “Fools”
DS: I like it a lot more than you’d think I would.
RS: They’re not Australian, are they?
MB: They’re not Russian, are they?
RS: I like this one a little better than the one a little while ago, because this one has a little more of a traditional musical theme in it.
MB: Again, you’re going back to some of the African roots of rhythm, with some of the sticks, the blocks.
RS: They’re also doing something… I can’t quite get it, but I thought they had one time signature at the beginning, then they changed into a different one, then perhaps they’re doing two of them and meshing them together very well.
TFO: I think the drumming on this whole album, actually, is the best part of it.
DS: I would go back and listen to it.
Lele – “Breakfast”
[All three guys look at each other and laugh.]
MB: Let’s go to Don for this one.
DS: It’s like a mean spirited Flight of the Concords. I love Flight of the Concords, and if they had an attitude, that’s what they’d be writing.
RS: To me, this is not music at all. It’s beatnik poetry.
DS: Performance art. He’s painting an interesting picture, but I got the whole thing real quickly.
Re-Up Gang – “20K
Money Makin’ Brothers On the Corner”
MB: I think I can speak for all of us…
RS: Lay it down for us. What’d you think of this?
DS: “Shit, bitch. Sure I love you”
MB: When I hear this I wonder what I’m not getting. First of all, I admire when you see the kids do this, and I’ve seen them do it spontaneously, when they can do the rap stuff and rhyme, I think that’s really a talent.
RS: I thought it was mass hypnosis.
MB: How they pull it off so quickly.
RS: The first thing I thought of was my daughter’s old Sesame Street clock. It went bad over time. It wore down. It used to be Big Bird, and in the beginning, you’d set the alarm and it would say, “Wake up! It’s time to get up! This is Big Bird, and it’s time to get up!” But as time went on it slowed down and became very menacing, to the point where we were all afraid of it. At the end, it would say, “Iiiiits tiiiiime toooo guuuut uuuuuuuuuu. Thuuuuus uuuuuus Buuuuuug Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd.”
MB: This doesn’t move me in the least, and I’m always amazed that people can listen to this and it does something for them.
RS: Well, this is one of Martin’s favorites. We’re listening to your top 10. What do you like about this?
TFO: Some of it’s production. The effect you’re talking about—I like that about it. The lyricists on it are really great. It’s a little unfair. This year has been a really, really weak year for rap music. So, this song—I like it a lot, but it’s not totally representative of the best of rap music. You know, for this Shakespeare program I’m doing, we’re taking a poetry class where we bring in stuff that has nothing to do with Shakespeare. I brought in a rap song called “The F-Word,” because I feel like there’s a lot of similarity between what rappers do and what Shakespeare was doing. He was inventing words, and switching words’ meanings, and he has such a love of language and playing with language.
DS: And you’re getting that out of the rap, too?
TFO: Absolutely. If you listen to a great rap song, they’ll say lines with two or three meanings, they’ll invent words, they’ll twist the pronunciation of words, and it’s all crystal clear. The metaphors and similes they use can be really clever. There’s a hunger and curiosity about language that’s virtually nowhere else in our culture. And then you’ll get deeply personal, autobiographical stories. A lot of it does get obscured by the stuff that’s enormously popular, which is mostly two-dimensional. But a lot of the stuff that’s out there is really great.
RS: Then, is it music or poetry?
TFO: It depends on your frame of reference. I like what you said about “Breakfast” being performance art. But I think rap is… Sometimes it’s all merchandizing. But at its best, it’s definitely music. The best producers know their music theory, because right now a lot of the top hip-hop producers are crossing over into pop music, and in order to do that they need to know their shit, and they do. So when you get a really good producer working with a really good rapper, it’s great music.
RS: Once again I notice that every reference you made was about lyrics, and nothing about melody. I would probably be more attracted to it if I were reading it as poetry.
DS: I feel like I have to take a beating to listen to it, and if you just wrote it down I’d be fine.
TFO: But then it doesn’t quite translate to being written down, either. It’s almost its own thing.
RS: Perhaps the beat provides the meter.
TFO: It does. It’s all about form.
RS: It’s just totally lacking in melody.
MB: It’s all repetitive. Again, they just have a sample. I would doubt they spend more than 15 minutes figuring out if there’s a melody line at all, and it’s all just repetitive.
RS: Well, I haven’t given 15 minutes of thought to rap in 15 years.
MB: It must be striking some chord with a large audience, that at first, obviously, was black. But there must a lot of cross-over, because it sells.
TFO: Well, it’s the dominant form of music right now.
MB: It moves people in some way that it’s not moving me, which I find interesting.
Gnarls Barkley –
“Going On”
RS: I would perform it differently, but I like it okay.
DS: I like his voice.
MB: It’s almost like it’s a hybrid.
RS: It almost sounded like it had Irish pipes in it.
DS: A penny-whistle in the background.
MB: The rhythm is very computer-driven, but some of the recording techniques they use are 70’s-ish.
DS: Like The Four Tops meet electro.
TFO: This is a perfect example of a hip-hop producer crossing over.
MB: You can certainly see that.
The Mountain Goats –
“San Bernadino"
MB: It’s a hit!
RS: I would say, out of all the songs you’ve played, I really like this. I like it.
TFO: This is a group called The Mountain Goats.
MB: Very classical influence.
RS: Thoughtful words. You can hear the lyrics. The synthesizer is restrained.
MB: He uses the bow as the rhythm. There’s no drums. Does a wonderful build using very simple parts. Sounds like two cello parts. Very effective.
DS: I like it.
RS: So we all like it. The Mountain Goats? I’ll tell you, that’s the only name I’m going to try to commit to memory.
MB: I like this song, I liked the Sigur Rós. I certainly remember the “Machine Gun.” I think this was a good cross-section of current music.
TFO: Any closing thoughts?
MB: I’ll tell you, I
think what’s happened in modern popular music is wonderful, in terms of what
tools are out there now to give young performers and composers a wide variety
of music. This piece of equipment you’re
recording on is 32 tracks of double CD resolution. 20 years ago, you could never have… This
would have been a major studio, right here.
But to put this in the hands of some of the major artists… Sigur Rós,
I’m sure, when they started out were not using much more than this. I can tell by the quality of their first
album, that it was fairly low quality recording. They over-sampled so much that you’re sort of
surprised. This computer made it
possible for anybody with talent and not talent to create music that was almost
impossible.
Koots’ latest album,
Buffalo Dreams, is available on iTunes.
Great concept for an article to bring in your Dad's band. Now if you could have snuck some Koots in there. . . I really do like Koots. Not what I'm normally attracted too, but like what they seem most interested in, their lyrics capture me and draw me into a story. The simplicity, on a certain level, frees up the lyrics to engage me where a lot of other bands add a lot of other components that cause the music to fade into the background for me. I can't study while listening to Koots, because they steal the show, but most of the other music I own recedes.
Posted by: Clovis Blackwell | 2008.07.18 at 12:51
I am surprised at how open they were to the music. I definitely feel that rap is a dense form and needs training to be listened to. We lucked out by being born in an era where we couldn't (and can't) help but be subjected to it. I can also understand what happens when you kind of "check out" from the present of pop culture. Either you've re-prioritized or you've been jaded. You retreat into what you know. I think the fact that they are making music again has put them back in the ring, no matter how they might want to fight it. It's a good lesson; You can always get back in the fight.
Posted by: Mr. Rendon | 2008.07.18 at 15:00
Great interview, my illustrious nephew. You captured those three perfectly. I always liked the "headphone" tests. Great way to hear what influences the artists and to show them new things. And you got my curiosity going about a couple things. Very entertaining. Now, spank me, Jesus.
Posted by: Andydammit | 2008.07.20 at 16:33
As far as pop-rap goes, I'm starting to feel like any year without a Kanye West produced album is a weak year. On the other hand, I can't agree with the assessment this has been a weak year for commercial rap. Lil Wayne put out an amazingly fun album. Sure, he's all marketing, but just try not singing along to "Lollipop" or "A Milli." The Roots came through with their second best album after Things Fall Apart (it's almost a shame they set the bar so high with that one...). And Nas's Untitled is the most focused and socially poignant commercial rap album ever. It totally delivers upon every promise his potential made on Illmatic.
Posted by: Kenny | 2008.07.21 at 08:25
This was a highly enjoyable read and a lot of their character came through their words. Marlin Brown really has an admirable perspective for a Koot.
I have to agree with Clovis' comment above, in that I was dying for a Koots sample at the end!
Posted by: Squidhelmet | 2008.07.23 at 19:22