Love, Peace, and Your Favorite Setlist: Looking Into The Next Decade

Where does one even begin when documenting not only the last year, but an entire decade. 100 years ago we celebrated women's suffrage and  rallied against prohibition. The roaring 20's were a turbulent time of post War and ongoing gilded age. We go into 2020 framed with the perfect filtered selfie, a perfect Spotify playlist, with memories of a decade with loss, hope, and many uncertainties of what the next decade will present us with ... oh wait, this is a music blog. 

The last decade gave us streaming platforms and access to music to satisfy anyone's musical mood. And with music streaming came concert streaming and it is getting tougher to actually want to leave your home to go to a show. But, other than your cell phone in my face for hours on end, nothing beats a live show. 

It's a weird time folks, that's really what I am getting at. In ten years, we're in this awkward tipping point of social media and internet. You can have access to news, music, and art 24/7 from around the world. And yet, with this access, it's used to silo us into worlds that create more of a chasm than uniting us into what Coca Cola would like to see...and we're all able to break free of these silos, you just have to peek over that electronic fence in the interwebs. 

I am happy to report Rock and Roll is alive. So is jam music, hip hop, freestyle, blues, jazz, Americana, etc, etc. It's all still there and better than ever because artists are free to kickstart and fund themselves into freedom from contracts and big labels. BUT this comes the responsibility of US the fans to support their tours and live music and the merch table. Get our there and educate yourselves and learn about musicians, support local, and get to as many shows as you can (just please leave your phone out of my face).


The music we each individually love may not be on the radio stations we so long for, and it does require some work, but you will find the music and musicians you love - and then some. While many of us regale tales of waiting on line for a midnight release and listening to albums track by track, our world has become binge obsessed and that includes the music world. Finding new music, bands, and artists does require some homework and there are so many resources. Magazines like Paste and Relix,satellite radio, and yes, live shows and festivals are a great place to see new bands that you may not hear on the radio. Another tip, the NYC Subway system is a great place to see great music. Did you know the Felice Brothers started there?

So as the decade comes to a close, here are some of my favorites albums in no particular order below. I am excited to hear new bands, witness music platforms continue to evolve. I am anxious for the many ways that music will continue to bring us together in the next decade. I wish you all love and peace and your favorite set lists.

Nicole Atkins – Goodnight Rhonda Lee 
Beyonce - Lemonade

Umphrey’s McGee – Similar Skin

Patty Griffin – Patty Griffin

War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream

David Bowie – Blackstar

Kendrick Lamar – Damn

The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

Adele – 25

Gogol Bordello – Pura Vida Conspiracy

Depeche Mode – Delta Machine

The New Basement Tapes – Lost on the River

The Struts – Everybody Wants

Marcus King Band – The Marcus King Band

Hozier - Hozier

Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator

Florence and the Machine – How Big, How Beautiful, How Blue

Hannah Williams and the Affirmations – Late Nights & Heartbreak

Hamilton – Musical Soundtrack

Ryan Adams – 1989

U2 – Songs of Innocence

Gary Clark Jr – The Land

Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression

Wolf Alice – My Love is Cool

Claypool Lennon Delirium – South of Reality

REM – Collapse Into Now

Cranberries – In the End

Matt Reynolds – Been Long Gone

Red Hot Chili Peppers –The Getaway
Dave Matthews Band - Come Tomorrow

And as we go through the years, those we lose who are our creative heroes because seem to happen more often and hurt deeper because of their influence on our lives.  May we carry on their spirit in the soundtracks of our lives.

You my love are allowed to forget
About the Christmas
You just spent stressed out
In your parents' house
You my love are allowed to shed the weight
Of all the years before like bad disco clothes
Save them for a night of dancing
Stoned with you lover
You my love are allowed to let yourself
Drown every night
In bottomless wild and naked
Symbolic dreams
You my love in sleep can unlock
Your youth and your most terrifying magic
And dreaming is for the
Courageous
You my love are allowed to grab my guitar
And sing me idiot love songs if
You lost your ability to speak
Keep it down to two minutes
You my love are allowed to rot
And to die
And to live again more alive
And incandescent than before
You my love are allowed to beat the shit out of your television
Choke it's thoughts and corrupt its mind
Kill, kill, kill, kill, the motherfucker before the song of Zombiefied
Pain and panic and malaise
And its narrow right winged vision
And its cheap commercial gang rate
Becomes the white noise of the world
(Turn about is fair play)
You my love are allowed to forgive
And love your television
You my love are allowed to speak in kisses
To those around you and those up in heaven
You my love are allowed to show your babies how to dance full bodied
Starry eyed, audacious, supernatural and glorified
You my love are allowed to suck
In every single endeavor
You my love are allowed to be soaked
Like a lovers blanket
In the New York summertime with the wonder
Of your own special gift
You my love are allowed to receive praise
You my love are allowed to have time
You my love are allowed to understand
You my love are allowed to love
Woman disobey
Little man believe
You my love are a rebellion

~Jeff Buckley - New Year's Eve Prayer 

Bring It On Home: Led Zeppelin II at 50

How years ago in days of old

When magic filled the air

Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor

I met a girl so fair

But Gollum, and the evil one

Crept up and slipped away with her.

~Ramble On

Released on October 22, 1969, Led Zeppelin's second album is regarded as the "quintessential heavy metal album." Arguably the most heavy album they produced and influential for future guitar shredders, Led Zeppelin II still wove the blues into the mix. Every song is a classic, however it was not seen as such immediately - but ultimately relented once they listened to the complexities and purposeful placement of experimental sounds, peddles, riffs, and Robert's unmistakable golden voice. Jockeying on the charts with Abbey Road, the album sold well and to this day is considered to be within the top albums every made and sold. 

And of course it has Tolkien in Ramble On and Robert Plant first full writing credit on Thank You. Bonzo gives his all on Moby Dick as they shift into low for a tease on Bring It On Home.But the blues remain so distinctly evident ... especially in the homage to blues legend, Robert Johnson: You can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my leg, is a tribute to Traveling Riverside Blues.

The album gives us the past, and a glimpse into what the next two albums have in store for the listener and rock and roll generations to come.




Whole Lotta Love
What Is And What Should Never Be
The Lemon Song
Thank You
Heartbreaker
Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)
Ramble On
Moby Dick
Bring It On Home 

(c) Neal Preston

Leave All The Lights On: Under The Table And Dreaming at 25

Putting that in context, it’s clear Sept. 27, 1994, is a significant date for American music. It signaled the arrival of a band comprised of a lineup unlike anything that had ever been signed to a major label: a crowd-pleasing, goofy-yet-physical freak of a black violin player; a mysterious sax maestro; a shy teenager on bass who looked like he lived in the band van; a lanky South African frontman who didn’t play electric guitar and preferred to wear pajama pants on national television; and the oldest guy in the band, oh by the way, would prove to be one of the most dynamic and talented drummers in the history of popular music.

So that seems like something worth reflecting on.  

Relix Magazine - Matt Norlander

 

When the band recorded these tracks in Bearsville, NY, did they really have any idea the course they would set upon? That this first album alone would sell millions of copies? Sell over 100 million of concert tickets? 40 millions albums in total ... We love the silliness, the seriousness, the community.

September 27, 1994 changed the music universe for many. With the release of the Dave Matthews Band, Under the Table and Dreaming, a new branch of live concert going was about to be born. While these are the songs that we all head on the radio and scratched out heads because none of us had heard anyone like Dave, or seen anyone play like him.

The Best of What's Around is a misleading first song on the album, especially when What Would You Say what the album's first radio release, but still it didn't capture the full essence of the band in it's truest form...and while now you're looking for a song on this album that does ... you have to look to the live show. 

While Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash, and Before These Crowded Streets have given us songs that remind us of our youth (and that everything hurts now when we move and that we can't drink as much as we used to be able to so carelessly), it's the live show that has been the bastion of what DMB is. We love the original, seven minute, young Dave album version of Warehouse ... we really love the 17 minute jamming version.

Under the Table and Dreaming ushered in a the platform for a fanbase of those who will travel and unite for DMB. The band's legacy is touring and faithful fans view these albums as some thing new that was offered up in the early 1990's ... and we're still getting presents from these albums. Each show we are gifted an old favorite in a new package. What is old is new again every single time.

And then I'll 

Sing and dance, I'll play for you tonight

The thrill of it all

Dark clouds may hang on me sometimes

But I'll work it out

 

 Under the Table and Dreaming

The Best of What's Around

What Would You Say

Satellite

Rhyme & Reason

Typical Situation

Dancing Nancies

Ants Marching

Lover Lay Down

Jimi Thing

Warehouse

Pay For What You Get

#34

With Honest Sounds I'll Paint Your Brain: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk @ 30

 

A pivotal album for the Red Hot Chili Peppers...if anyone doubted the pulsating power that leapt from the blistering opener, 'Good Time Boys', it took only a few bars of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' outrageous, and brilliant, interpretation of the Stevie Wonder classic 'Higher Ground' to prove that this new lineup was onto something special. Wrapping up with the aptly titled and truly punked-out 'Punk Rock Classic' and the band's own punched-up tribute to 'Magic Johnson', Mother's Milk was everything the band had hoped for, and a little more besides.

~Amy Hanson - All Music 

Rebounding from the death of founding guitarist Hilel Slovak, Mother's Milk turned the soul searching Red Hot Chili Peppers into a phoenix, rising into music charts and MTV videos. They found themselves without a guitarist and their drummer, Jack Irons, had left, leaving bassist Flea and lead man Anthony Kiedis searching for their sound. 

After a few false starts between albums two and three, the Chili's found 18 year old John Frusciante and power house drummer Chad Smith and set forth to create the sound that would catapult them into the band we know today. The tracks were an amalgam of songs written by old members and from jam sessions. It was these sessions that built the foundation since Smith and Frusciante were so new to the band. John's addition to the band is notable in the increased melody and complexity he brings to both the guitar and lyrics.

Mother's Milk hits you hard and then tries to help you up again with the funk. The album kicks off with Good Time Boys, a funk, rap, rock welcome to the new Chili Peppers. Songs like Knock Me Down, Pretty Little Ditty, and Sexy Mexican Maid, demonstrate their new complex sound. But, it would be the covers of Jimi Hendrix's Fire and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground that would put the Red Hot Chili Peppers into heavy rotation. 

 While the band has not had the easiest of times, this album proved the basketball and funk-loving musicians had serious potential to become mainstream rock pioneers. Just around the corner for them is superstardom with their next album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

Good Time Boys

Higher Ground

Subway to Venus

Magic Johnson

Nobody Weird Like Me

Knock Me Down

Taste the Pain

Stone Cold Bush

Fire

Pretty Little Ditty

Punk Rock Classic

Sexy Mexican Maid

Johnny Kick a Hole in the Sky

I'm a radio Joe of the biz called show
I'm a rockin' popstar with a get up and go
Rubbin' elbows with the big wigs at my sold out shows
I've been on every cover even rolling stone

Put us on MTV
All we really need
Begging on our knees
Please, please, please, please, please

Conforming to the norm straight out of the mold
Compromising each and every ounce of soul
I'm a doin' anything for the records of gold
I only want what I can hold 

-Punk Rock Classic-

Evenflow: Mindful Distance Running

Mindfulness: A mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

I never thought of associating mindfulness with running. I used running to practice mindfulness. Recently, I had an epiphany while running. But first, let me take you back a year to where this story begins, or so I realized after my epiphany. 

2019 marks my tenth year of running. A handful of marathons, a boatload of halfs, and many mornings crying at the top of the Harlem Hill because I was just tired. In 2018, I had set my sights on a race in every borough, and kicked off the year with three half marathons in three months. With my goal of each borough coming closer, I was getting busier at work. In late August, I mentioned to someone I felt like running was starting to feel like work, like a check in the box of my day. Then injury. Then mental fatigue. I missed the last two boroughs. I was really tough on myself and even more so that I wasn't enjoying the run anymore. Yes, I said it. It wasn't fun and it felt like a chore. But being so competitive, I decided to start my 2019 with a half marathon to make 2018's non-finished goals obsolete. 

Did you know that when you work and run yourself (and maybe party yourself) too much and don't get enough sleep, you can get sick. And did you know that after being sick for four weeks and you ask your doctor if it's still okay to run 13.1 miles in forecasted weather of 38 degrees and rain, he'll look at you the same way your mother would if you asked the same thing...and then lecture you about rest physically and mentally. 

Rest and the best negroni I've ever had in my life actually helped. It also gave me some good time for thinking. Why do I run? I run a 9 minute mile comfortably, so I'm not going to win any marathons. I'm only competing against myself, I realized. It was between that negroni hangover and getting am email about a distance medley in Boston that I made a conscience decision about running: be mindful.

I wanted to make running fun again. With only four races on my calendar this year, training would have to pass some standards: Have you slept enough? Are you hydrated? Do you really want to run? And then if those questions pass the test ... enjoy the run. Look at the sunrise, assess how you feel, and get into the groove of your tunes. Also, knowing one of my races is a half marathon for charity also helps in reminding me that I am running for a reason. With the continued help of sensory deprivation floating, I have found that I'm able to focus so much more while running.

I admit that when I told people my first race this year was going to be a 5K, I was a little embarrassed. A 5K? But I was going to own that 5K. This 5K was also going to cross the famed Boston Marathon Finish Line on Boylston Street.

 After some good weeks of training, and two days of eating my way through the North End, race day was here. I consciously decided not to run with my headphones. I only did this before for the NYC Marathon, because the crowds carry you most of the way. I wanted to experience Boston. Little did I know that people would actually line Commonwealth and Boylston and cheer us on. As we passed mile 2 and rounded up to Boylston Street, the impact of where I was hit. And then I realized, Pearl Jam's Even Flow was playing as I neared the Library. It was the moment that I crossed that line that the crescendo in the middle of the song hits, as if the music gods blessed me with an impromptu soundtrack. (see 4:10 in the video). I probably had the same silly grin that Eddie has as he hits the sea of welcoming mosh pit hands (at 4:15).

All the way to the finish, the "just a 5K" was behind me. The year of pushing myself to not enjoy the run seemed behind me. And in front of me was the finish line ... and then the rush to Record Store Day.

It was an exhausting way to find out all of this, but really, I had to take the journey to get it. It's okay to say you're tired mentally and physically for a run. It's okay to say you're going to hit the pool instead. Just like mindful practice at work or in your life, you need to be present in running. I don't have to run every race and I don't have to run every day. Sometimes, running is good for your mindfulness practice, but if it's just running from a stressful day or your running to work out frustration, the run itself becomes frustrating. 

Even flow
Thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh he don't know, so he chases them away
Someday yet he'll begin his life again
Life again, life again

~Pearl Jam

Years Go By On An Innocent Face: INXS The Swing

And I imagine you standing here
It's subliminal, so inspirational
Man of the world for all the good reasons
Take away the pain and drink the wine

~I Send a Message~

The fourth album from INXS, The Swing, continued to move the Australian band towards international stardom. While sticking with the similar sound of its first three albums, the leap they make in 1986 to Kick is nothing short of revolutionary. Also, I am the only one who is wondering where the sax is on this album?

It was my real intro to a band I love. This cassette was played adnauseam to my family, but I couldn't get enough of it. It wasn't mainstream US radio and it was so different. And trivia for you all, because I grew up nowhere near an ocean, I thought it was "jelly" not "jetty" because I had no idea what one was.

The opening track and most widely known in the States, Original Sin, also featured Daryl Hall singing with Hutchence on the chorus (because why not?).

The album is dance and keyboard oriented, and also more socially oriented, taking themes of peace, love, and social equality to test in songs such as Face the Change, Dancing on the Jetty,  and All the Voices. The band wanted Swing to echo many of their rock and funk influences. By a chance meeting, one of their influences, Nile Rodgers, who loved the band, would also become the album's producer. 

The Swing also saw the band's videos become more sophisticated and what we would continue to see with Kick. While the album did not see them rise to international fame they were seeking, it would only be a few more years before INXS would considered one of the world's most popular bands.

Track Listing
The Orignial Sin
Melting in the Sun 
I Send a Message
Dancing on the Jetty
The Swing
Johnson's Aeroplane
Love Is (What I Say)
Face the Change
Burn for You
All the Voices

 

Stick It To Ya - Slaughter

Released on January 27, 1990, Stick It to Ya was released at the end of the makeup era of the hair bands. The PMRC need not worry about the content of this album. The songs were heavier and however the power ballads were all seemingly an octave higher. This album was also safe. It wasn't filled with the angst of Guns N Roses, the songs became anthems, like Up All Night and Mad About You. 

While the band was at first synonymous with Up All Night, many of us remember where we were the first time we saw and heard Mark Slaughter singing Fly to the Angels. That voice hitting those notes of song written for someone long lost, of course romanticized by a Amelia Earhart figure in the video.

Even with a follow up album and a song in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, coupled with the loss of their guitarist, Slaughter wasn’t a long standing 1990’s band. However, their impact still stands as a great of our 90’s music legacy.


Eye to Eye
Burning Bridges
Up All Night
Spend My Life
Thinking of June
She Wants More
Fly to the Angels
Mad About You
That's Not Enough
You Are the One
Gave Me Your Heart
Desperately
Loaded Gun