Desert Island Discs Pt ii

As I mentioned at the beginning of my last post, these are my top 12. I couldn't do 10. The last 6 are so minisculey separated that you would need a scalpel and a top surgeon to divide them. Most of these records were gifts to me - not in the physical sense, but in the emotional and spiritual sense. In each case there was something precious given and discovered together. Most of those people are folks who I've loved or still love. In may cases the record represents the person who helped to shape who I am. These are the kind of debts that can never be repaid. The best you can manage is remembrance and a refusal to let that ghost die. And so I carry them with me in the music...as do many of the artists that I cherish. It was really, really hard to whittle it down to these 12. I've honestly revised and edited this blog about 7 times over the last six months. But this is my definitive version (were my plane to crash in the next two weeks).


7. Crash - Dave Matthews Band

This is the record that launched Dave and his boys in the stratosphere and rightly so. These guys are ALL in the top 1% of musicians in the world. They are astonishing players and this record gives them all moments to shine. 'Two Step' is one of the great #2 tracks of all time. It starts out so dark and forboding but positively bursts into the joyful chorus of 'Celebrate we will 'cause life is short but sweet for certain.' It's a perfect bittersweet song with a very rare rock/pop feel. 'Crash into Me' is a lovely, twisted song - again with that very unusual groove that no other band does quite as well as these guys. And 'Live in Our Graves' is the band in a nutshell. A perfect, head-nodding tempo that gets jammed out, broken down and ramped back up again beneath a great melody and a bunch of great hooks. And I guess that's the strength of this record. Apart from the amazing singer/guitar player, incredible sax player and unbelievable violin player. The rhythm section is dyn-o-mite. Seriously. It's a bass prodigy (who could probably play the hardest music in the world while running a marathon and juggling kittens) and an ambidextrous drumming machine (who is like the Deep Blue of drumming machines in that he's more consistent, more brilliant and more creative). I feel confident the two of them could have a conversation with Stephen Hawking about astro-physics during a DMB concert and not get lost in either event. The thing I love about all of these records - but particularly ones worked on by Lanios or Lillywhite (he produced this record, but also worked with Guster, U2 and Counting Crows) is the sense of being on a journey. There is a beginning, a middle and an end to each record. There are ugly turns, run down towns, beautiful landscapes, unforeseen mishaps and picturesque sunsets. You have to be a passionate, committed genius (or group of them) to make such a journey possible in someone's head. These guys are all of those things and then some.

8. The Bends - Radiohead

A lot of folks think OK Computer is the better of these two records. But for my money this record has more diversity. More guitar tones, more mood changes, more haunting vocals and more creative playing. My band and I have often discussed what the hell the writing process must be like for this band. Their arrangements are so complex and so detailed that - having some production knowledge of my own now - it must be an incredibly laborious process. But the result is always worth the wait. I always find it very interesting that these guys followed a similar path to U2 (and Thom Yorke has consitently voiced his love of U2). They made a good record, an incredible record, another incredible record and went too far with the 4th in the sequence. But it's only the willingness to go over the line that makes these bands great. You can only accomplish greatness by taking a running jump at a brick wall and putting your faith in research into 4th dimensional travel.

9. Woodface - Crowded House

This is probably the most flawed record on my list. And some of you might ask, "Then why the hell is it #9? Or why the hell is it on the list in the first place?" And the answer is because even at his worst, Neil Finn is a better songwriter than 95% of the songwriters that make a legitimate living in the world today. If I could cheat and put a 'best of' on my list, it would be for Crowded House. "Recurring Dream" is an amazing collection of their best material. Any child of the 80's who didn't avidly follow them would be hard pressed to name 3 songs but would find themselves singing along halfway through the first verse. That's a testament to incredible songwriting. Woodface is as close as they came to a great album. Neil & his brother Tim did the writing together and there's something intangibly beautiful and remarkable about siblings harmonizing. Maybe it's DNA manifesting as an audio signal. Or maybe they're just both really interesting singers. Whatever the case, they do it on most of this record and although there's a few so-so tunes, at least half of the songs are the ones you wish you wrote. "Fall at Your Feet", "Weather With You", "It's Only Natural", "Four Seasons in One Day" and "She Goes On" never fail to inspire me. Crowded House is one of the biggest reasons that I make music. You can thank them or damn them for it, depending on your feelings towards me.

10. Goldberg Variations (1981 Recording) - Glenn Gould

This is the self-portrait or autobiography of a fascinating, disturbed and unspeakably talented man. Maybe it's the media documentation of the man that makes his music more remarkable than any number of other great piano players, but I don't think so. I researched him heavily several years ago when I was almost cast to play him and the stuff I found is just so incredibly rock and roll. He's a perfect mix of Brian Wilson, Peter Gabriel & Brian Eno. He loved to experiment with sound and noise. He hated concerts. He loved the studio. He ate scrambled eggs and drank black coffee at Fran's for every dinner of his adult life in Toronto. He only played piano on a brittle wicker & wood stool from his childhood. He had a bad habit of making inarticulate sounds when he played which made him really hard to record. And live it made him both ugly to watch and his hums, moans and whoops would break the spell of the music he was playing. He received an incredible amount of bad press and media taunting from such events and so at a very early age, he retired from playing live. And almost all his interviews were done in his own studio. He would interview himself. If you read the transcripts, they go something like this:

G.G.: I've often thought that I'd like to try my hand at being a prisoner.

g.g.: You regard that as a career?

G.G.: Oh, certainly -- on the understanding, of course, that I would be entirely innocent of all charges brought against me.

g.g.: Mr. Gould, has anyone suggested that you could be suffering from a Myshkin complex?

G.G.: No, and I can't accept the compliment.

An odd fellow, no question. But his playing is extraordinary. As much as I love the human voice and harmonies with it, there is something about the simplicity of a well played piano, cello or violin that just cuts straight to the emotional quick. Gould first recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955 when he was just 18 years old. It's incredible, passionate, flashy, concise, inhuman piano playing. He then decided that it was rubbish. Just youthful, boastful playing without enough thought or variation. He recorded the entire set of 30 variations again in 1981 just before he died (in 1982). And this is the album I'm speaking of. Johnny Cash did it, too - particularly on American Recordings IV. There's something about a man looking back across his own remarkable history and journey that resonates. He just wants to make one last, beautiful, honest piece of art. And Gould does that on this record. Everything it is to be human and feel joy, sorrow, loss and hope is encompassed in the peaks and valleys that GG finds in Bach's work.

11. Automatic for the People - REM

One of the darkest and most beautiful records I've ever heard. Without ever raging or weeping the record embraces the idea of losing the things we love. It's not an immediately accessible album - apart from "Man on the Moon" and "Everybody Hurts" (both of which are incredible songs and anyone who says otherwise needs to have their soul examined). But it's set of songs that rewards you the more you dig. "New Orleans Instrumental 1" which rolls directly into "Sweetness Follows" is some of the most interesting and moving music you'll find in pop/rock history. And "Nightswimming" is one of my top 5 favourite songs ever. There is not a better song about growing older and clinging to innocence in the english language. Everybody clings to those things - those wonderful, childish memories that we wish we could re-live.


12. Magic - Bruce Springsteen

Another amazing songwriter with an incredible band. And this cat's been writing songs (and writing them well) since before I was born. Older Bruce fans may disagree vehemently with me but I think this is his finest work to date. It's a culmination of all the great elements he's discovered and tempered over the years. From the crashing wall of guitars that starts 'Radio Nowhere' to the strings that positively sing out in 'Girls in Their Summer Clothes' down to the quiet, disturbing calm of the title track, 'Magic'. It's the best of the Bruce. The great songwriting from "Born in the USA" mixed with the urgency, darkness and honesty of "Nebraska". Familiar places, familiar characters and a familiar, charismatic storyteller. To make rock and roll for 30 years is an achievement very few people have accomplished. To make rock and roll for 30 years and still be RELEVANT is just a handful of incredible souls. There's a reason he's the boss.


Honourable Mentions: 5 Days in July - Blue Rodeo, Continuum - John Mayer, Keane - Hopes & Fears, Silent Radar - The Watchmen, Graceland - Paul Simon, You Were Here - Sarah Harmer