Nine Inch Nails - [With Teeth]

Nothing/Interscope

The ruptures of "All The Love In The World" tear [With Teeth]'s introduction from a sedately bubbling 808 beaten and piano guided track into a dance track. An odd opening for the pop autuer Reznor, as Falling, his previous 1999 release, was a often bleak look into fragility. Possibly, "All The Love In the World" is an apology, or a dive into vintage NIN. "You Know What You Are?" suggests that the opener is a resolution to return to the psuedo-industrial hard-pop, which made The Downward Spiral such a monument to alternative-rock. "The Collector" moves into a guitar based rock mood and Reznor, with the help of Dave Grohl, and the NIN gang, produce an energetic and honestly fun ride into the hard rock genre, albeit with an antiquated style; the track feels like the 1999 rock of Powerman 5000.
The driving tones of "The Collector" continue on Reznor's political treatise, "The Hand That Feeds." Touted as a warning not to blindly accept authority, the song pounds with a guitar led body, and then drops into a distorted hoovering electronic melody, a la "All The Love In The World." This track's repetition drives home the chorus "will you bite the hand that feeds you?" This concrete construction may be aimed directly at el Presidente Jorge Dos, but there is nothing in the song to direct the listener to its meaning outside of the universal rejection of authority. Perhaps, taking on the authority of the US Government must be placed in these elusively focused concrete statements, but the power is blanched from these constructions when they are so ambiguous.
"Every Day is Exactly the Same" moves in the same fragility and vulnerability of "Hurt." However, the synth backed and hoovering guitar driven song lacks the emotion of "Hurt." It is a well placed examination of homogeny and repetition. The track is oddly dancey, and displays why some consider him the "Frank Sinatra of Rock'n'Roll." Not because of his eyes or a comparison in releases (Old Blues Eyes was prolific, and Reznor fiddles with each album for years), but because of the feelings transferred into each syllable and phrase; when the lyrics are depressing, Reznor draws out a openness and pain not found in the confessions of today's emopopsicles. "Only" starts with a deejay single like four on four beat, that builds into a funky guitar riff, and is filled with the most reticent and lucid lyrics Reznor produces on [With Teeth]; his phrasing stands between John McCrea and M. Doughty. The trance-like bells and hoovering noises pulls the track along, and belies its roots in late-eighties techno and industrial. The first half of [With Teeth] is ear marked for the radio; tracks steeped in rock and pop palettes. The second half. from "Only" to "Right Where It Belongs" bring the album under the influence of NIN's early work, with diabolically pleasing industrial-rock-confession clashes par excellence. With five years behind the production of [With Teeth] it shines as another well produced, aptly vocalized and thoroughly bittersweet series.

The Appalachians - The Appalachians

Dualtone

Appalachia, when uttered openly on the West Coast, may conjure the Deliverance theme in peopleÕs ears and thoughts of incest in their minds, but that region is greater than the sum of its pop culture stereotypes. The Appalachians Mountains were the United State's first frontier, and can be cited as the reason why we pushed on West. So, where is this mythical birth place of Manifest Destiny? Appalachia can be geopgraphically defined as all of West Virginia, and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
The brave pioneers who settled this once great wilderness played a distinctive part in the nation's history, and their story is uniquely told through the use of song. These songs are the story of early America: immigration, settlement, the Revolution and the Civil War, the growth of industry and the use and abuse of land. In addition, Appalachia has had a great impact on American Music, folklore and culture, giving birth to what we know today as country music. The Appalachians collection displays some of the original "Mountain Musicians" including the Carters, Jimmie Rodgers, Addie Graham, Grandpa Jones and Ricky Skaggs. These musicians are featured from original recordings of the singers and players, and these talents present the tales and views of Appalachia in a series of gritty and heart-wrenching songs. Addie Graham's "We're Stole and Sold From Africa" typifies the pain and grit in the Appalachian voice.
Appalachians is also a special television event that presents a dramatically human overview of the Appalachian United States. Following an historical chronology, the narrative thread features the colorful writings of common people and historical figures. Check you local public television listings for the three hour documentary.

Seal - Live in Paris

Warner Bros. [CD/DVD]

Best New Album of the Week:
When the infectious single "Crazy" hit the mass market radio in 1991, it shot the otherwise only Untied Kingdom known soul-house singer, Seal, from obscurity to #7 on the pop charts, and it made the seventh grade dance at Los Osos Junior High pulse with perspiration and the percolating sexuality of eleven, twelve and thirteen year olds. Even the most square among the attendees, I, had to move to the granulated soul vocals, strobing dissolves and the pulsing house beat. The power of Sealhenry Samuel and Trevor Horn was that the duo could place Seal's powerful vocals with incessant music that transcended the space between the burgeoning rave scene and pop, like they were never separate.
Live in Paris is the fifth album from the Englishman, born to Brazilian and Nigerian parents, and it recounts the more than the thirteen years of Seal's production that Stateside fans recognize. "Crazy," of course, starts off the night in Paris. Then, it is followed by the pop-funk fusion of "Get It Together." The funky beats and house pulse are melded with a soulfully optimistic view on life reminiscent of seventies funk. "Killer," Seal's first UK #1, produced by Adamski, combines a late eighties style techno grind with a marching beat and the singer's always sublime tones. The romantically dark single "Kiss From A Rose," featured on the Batman motion picture, makes an appearance in the live set. Live in Paris allows Seal and fans to get a double pleasure, as the album encompasses the very best of the previous four discs, and is, of course, live; basically Live in Paris is a greatest hits collection, live and in video on the DVD.

Various Artists - Music From The Motion Picture "Lords of Dogtown"

Geffen/Universal

When the Coney Island look-a-like Pacific Ocean Park pier on the Venice coastline lost the pulse of pleasure seeking tourist and Angelenos, sections of Venice became a blight. Amid the crushed creosote pilings of the pier and the scarred boardwalk, junkies, drunks and the Zephyr surf team braved falling lumber and a wicked break to get their kicks. This area between the pier, Malibu and West Los Angeles was known as Dogtown. There, the Zephyr Surf shop supported the local surfers and up and comers. Among those counted on the Zephyr team were Tony Alba, Stacey Peralta, Jay Adams, Bob Biniak, Paul Constantinuea, Paul Cullen, Skip Engblom, Jim Muir, Nathan Pratt and Shogo Kubo. These children of Dogtown came out of the water and on to the asphalt. They took skateboarding from the acrobatic stunt oriented novelty of the Wide World of Sports and odd aesthetics, including handstands, belly riding and shoeless maneuvers to a vibrant sport. They utilized the aesthetics of surfing and brought that to pools, inclines and the asphalt margins of schoolyards. These kids of working class neighborhoods made the sport of skateboarding, taking a sport fad, often compared to the hullahoop, and turning it into a phenomenon.
The Z-boys (and girl) of Dogtown are immortalized in a 2001 documentary Dogtown and the Z-boys (Highly Recommended), and now, in the Catherine Hardwick directed The Lords of Dogtown. This movie brings viewers into the lives of the Zephyr skate board team as they reinvent skateboarding in the pools of drought ridden Southern California, circa 1976. For the movie, Hardwick, Paul Kremen and Lia Vollack have compiled a collection of period songs that are actually well placed and a reflection of the Dogtown scene. The bulk of the Lords Of Dogtown consists of vintage classics including the Jimi Experience "Fire," David Bowie's "Suffragette City," Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog," the Stooges' "T.V. eye," Iggy Pop's "Success," T Rex's "20th Century Boy," and Rod Stewart's "Maggie May." Among these classics is a gem by Social Distortion, as they cover Clash's 1979 classic "Death or Glory," and Rise Against's Black flag cover "Nervous Breakdown." If the movie is a well done as the 2001 documentary, and as well thought out as this soundtrack, we are all in for a treat at the movies this summer.

Shakira - Fijacion Oral Vol. I

Epic/Sony BMG

In an age of inflatable, pitch-corrected plastic pop female vocalists, Shakira is a real talent. The Colombian born singer had garnered a large fan base among Spanish speakers, before she dyed her hair blonde and release Laundry Service. That album brought the full force of Stateside pocket books, and she sold a remarkable thirteen million copies worldwide. That album featured clunky translations of her Spanish songs, and though a clear pandering to the pop market, it resulted in a great primer to this international star. Fijacion Oral Volume One is the first half of her opus; the second part will come in November. This is her mostly Spanish edition of the Opus, and it is filled with a relaxed tone extending Shakira.
"En Tus Pupilus" starts off the album with Shakira placing her voice with a sedate and relaxed tonal space. She follows this tone to the pleasingly laid-back "Para Obtener Un Si." Her voice on these tracks mirrors the Brazilian Jazz vocalist Astrud Gilberto. The first single "La Tortura" features Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz, and it runs through a song of pain and yearning for an estranged lover. The move to release an almost completely Spanish language album may not make sense to those in the North of the country, but many in the southern climes of the States are Spanish speaking, and Shakira did make her living as a Spanish only singer prior to 2001's Laundry Service. She comments this about writing songs in Spanish and English: "I did not set out to make two albums when I began the writing process, but suddenly I realized I had written sixty songs, some in English and some in Spanish. Twenty of these songs were selected and divided up by language to make different albums. As I write songs, sometimes they come to me in English, and sometimes they will come to me in Spanish. Many times I let the melody suggest which language the song should be."

Various Artists - Music From The O.C. Mix #4

Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.

When the orange groves were all plowed over, and the public access to California beaches was subsumed by multimillion dollar "houses," the home of Disney and the 91 freeway finally got a television show; but it already had that abomination of religiosity housed in the Crystal Cathedral, the ISBN network. Christian Evangelists aside, the OC is a television show depicting the trials and tribulations of a groups of teenagers, and their parents, as they try to navigate the wilds of an extremely affluent neighborhood; real invigorating stuff. Most of Orange County is not the rich, well furnished homes of those portrayed on the television show, it is: the Vietnamese immigrants in Orange, the Chinese Bakeries and Dim Sum restaurants in Diamond Bar, the barrios of Costa Mesa, the Korean bakeries of La Palma and nearly endless stretches of five lane highways. Moreover, most of Orange Country, California is the perpetual homogeny, that will soon be coming to farmland surrounding your favorite city, the tract housing unit. The oranges that lend themselves to name the OC are all but gone. In their stead is an crop of another kind, fat, shut in, bratty children; the products of middle income and video games. They play under the tile roofs of the spanish styled tract homes. These five or six floor plan tracts hang off the side of the OC's freeways like detritus. The hills once blanketed in the greens of trees are now clothed in a endless red bane of spanish tiles; when the Santa AnaÕs blow they scream.
Though the OC may be devoid of any reality or depiction of the diversity and wealth of culture that actually exists in Orange County, it does have music coordinators with heads on their shoulders. The OC Mix #4 includes East WashingtonÕs patron saints of rock Modest Mouse, and their song "The View." The song's inclusion seems odd; it concerns the powerlessness of those in busted and broke situations, and how emotional pain feels softer and softer as time passes. What could that have to do with rich kids from an affluent neighborhood? Nonetheless it is a good song. The Futureheads lend their English brand of neo-ska to the mix; think "Our House" with an edge. A Scottish band, including members from Belle and Sebastion, named The Reindeer Section lends "Cartwheels" to a scene when Seth (?) sketches his ex-girlfriend Summer (?) and they have a moment where they almost kiss, and we all remember that scene; the song is much better than the scene's dynamic. Matt Pond PA gives an absolutely flaccid version of "Champagne Supernova," seriously, Oasis did it much better. The music is a great cross-section of up and coming acts and some indie groups. AC Newman, Flunk, The Reindeer Section and Sufjan Stevens are must listens, and this album is a great primer for them. Just so long as you don't listen and reminisce over scenes at the boathouse where Seth accidentally slips on his billfold and stabs his father's wife in the neck with the wine bottle opener he was going to use to pour his underage ex-girlfriend, Summer a drink.

Hayes Carll - Little Rock

Highway 87

This is the music I love. Country with spit in the eye, bourbon on the breathe and a twang that says Hayes Carll is doing it for the love, rather than the money. And on Little Rock, he comes across with a honesty often left out from the clearchannel, Kfrog country rotation. His song, "Wish I Hadn't Stayed So Long" starts the eleven track definition of Carll. The song is original material, and its opening line "Shooting Stars and whiskey bottles all scattered cross the yard" makes one wish they had written the line. If the opening line was not enough to hook one's ears to the speakers, then the rest of the song will surely please with its honky-tonk lamentations and "Bourbon eyes." "Take Me Away" is aptly vocalized and backed with a sublime female talent; she is unlisted on the credits. Her vocals appear on the growin' up pains of the late twenties and early thirties on "Good Friends." That song delivers a hilarious litany of the places where those bosom buddies of younger years end up in a western swinging boogie. Listing seems to be one of Carll's strong suits in songwriting. He uses this technique in a humorous catalog of the sights and tastes of a night walk through a collage of streets including a reference of some distinction: "My grandfather's name was Spiller/ Michael Jackson peaked at Thriller/ And its all gone down on the road tonight."
If the people ran country music, and the Nashville high rises housed people free from harsh profiteering mantras, Hayes Carll would be on the radio every hour. However, he at least deserves a slot on Watsonville's KPIG (one of the last great independent radio stations www.Kpig.com). His talents are evident on each cut on the album. Specifically, the co-written cuts ÒRivertownÓ and ÒSit In With The BandÓ will please. The latter is another backhanded humorous song about all the great songwriters without bands, and all the country crap artists who have them. Little Rock is a great introduction to a songwriting talent of some note, Hayes Carll.
Shelton's Single of the Week: Hayes Carll's "Take Me Away"

The Cat Empire - Hello & How To Explain

Two Shoes/EMI

The Land Down Under often conjures thoughts of shrimps on the bar-be, life guards, and kangaroos. With The Cat Empire's blend of jazz, soul, hip-hop, Cuban, Reggae and gypsy music, the continent will have to induce thoughts of playful music along with all those memes from the Quantas commercial. The Cat Empire is a six-piece combo from Melbourne, Australia with a musical core that derives its flavor from a myriad of resources. They have charisma written all over their sound. The group has created a musical force that is uplifting. It will make you want to skank, and then turn into a salsa twist. Unfortunately, this is just an EP with a couple of songs. The bandÕs potential is evident, yet unfulfilled.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - London Flat, London Sharp

Telarc

At the forefront of the fifties and sixties resurgence of Jazz, through the idiom of "West Coast Cool," was The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Under their belts are a myriad of classic jazz tunes including "Take FIve" and "Blue Rondo ala Turk" from the groundbreaking Time Out. The original members of the Quartet do not appear on London Flat, London Sharp, as Paul Desmond has passed. In the place of those illustrious original members are the alto sax and flutist talents of Bobby Militello, bassist Michael Moore and drummer Randy Jones. They all perform elegently on the ten cuts of mostly Brubeck originals.
"Forty Days" features an inspired piano solo from the master of jazz, which steams up in choppy chord thumps and then turns into a steady, though muted, build. "The Time of Our Madness" is a playful tune in the spirit of swaggering West Coast Cool. London Flat, London Sharp, a title won from an experience Brubeck had touring in London, wherein a promoter stated, after a grueling road trip, the the members of the Quartet would be staying at a London Flat, and Brubeck answered "That would be sharp," is not groundbreaking. Yet, the album is another in the consummately tight and innovative playing of an eighty-five year old master. Happy belated Birthday Sir Dave, and we wish you many more!

Team Sleep - Team Sleep

Maverick

New Artist of the Week:
A short-wave radio broadcast starts the self-titled release from Team Sleep, and then the soft tones of "Ataraxia" come rumbling in. The fuzzy distortion riddled song is named for a calmness untroubled by mental or emotional disquiet. That sentiment is at the inception of Team Sleep, and it rules the sound of the album. Fans of the Deftones may be put off by Chino MorenoÕs lumbering and sedate vocals. The chunky guitars and full-throttle intensity of Moreno, which are the calling cards of The Deftones are absent. In the place of that immediately recognizable violence and directness are a series of orchestrated dreamscapes where programmed drums and effects flirt with the melancholy of the bandÕs live musicians. "Your Skull Is Red" indulges in a panorama of guitars and ethereal distortion. "Princeton Review" follows the decadence of expression in "Your Skull is Red" with another of the softly building tracks. Behind the sweetest tones to every flow from the mouth of Chino Moreno are a zippered tom driven beat. Vocal effects add to the disassociated feelings with which the tone is set.
The sound of Team Sleep is aimed squarely on an ambient target. The band formed through the purchase of a four-track recorder delivers a meandering sleep walk through their creative fields. After years of messing around the creative team of Team Sleep: Chino Moreno, Todd Wilkinson, DJ Crook, Zack Hill and Rick Varrett have produced a sound that defies the traditional concept of a rock band, or an electronic collective. The sound is driving at times, like "Blvd. Nights" and at others is completely drowsy, as on "11/11," yet throughout there is a common denominator: a wealth of sound restrained into an aural complexity depicting a disassociation. "Tomb of Liegia" typifies that space apart defined in the tone of the album through a "journey to the gallows" and time in correctional facilities. The vocals of Mary in Massachusetts are positively sadistic in their perfection for the songÕs tone. Team Sleep may not have the driving chunky guitars that enrage the senses and draw many to the Deftones, but what it has is an intelligence and patience left off out of many run and gun albums; it is closely tied to the space pop of Built Like Alaska and others.

Built Like Alaska - Autumnland

Sweat of the Alps/Future Farmer

Call Built Like Alaska space pop, call them Indie rock, but as long as there is a group of kids out there who love fuzz, ennui and the fragility in vocals this will just be charmingly sweet music. The Central Valley of California has played host to several noteworthy indie bands during the last few years: Built Like Alaska & Grandaddy among others. The flat land and the increasing sprawl between the Five and Ninety-nine asphalt arteries suffers from a numbing fog most of the year. This gray blanket lays over the valley, cutting down on visibility and closing point of view. The marks of this languorous fog are evident on the slow-stepping "Trainwrecks (don't sing of them). The deadpan disassociation in Neil JacksonÕs voice leads a gray series of guitars and a lost organ.
The more upbeat "Dirtymouth" shows signs of the enveloped aesthetic of the Central Valley with a higher tempo and stronger willed Jackson, as he recounts a tale of a river gazing fool. The song dives into the dementia of one who counts the ripples in the water below his dropped treasures; He "now spends his days/ cursing and laughing." "Heavy Foot" moves with another higher pulse than most of the album. This upbeat duo are hauntingly filled with high-pitched and Leslie spun organ tones. "Wet Hay in a Barn" is led by Susane Reis' keyboards into a raining day where the epiphany of desolation is rendered in the closing lines: "I still hang around/ but I'm feeling sad/ about how everybody's / Sort of taken in." "Controlled Climate," once again, displays the control of David Burtch's drums - the man is a machine - and Reis' keys. The guitar upstrums lead this song from a meandering melancholy haze into a defiant treatise as it closes with: "When you're dead/ you can't wish for pardons." What is a California band without an earthquake song? Not much of one, and Built Like Alaska ends the fourteen track ride through the hazy gray indie rock of the Central Valley with "Quake Song." The terror of the ground moving underfoot is articulated through a thumping board in the background and a pain filled guitar progression. Built Like Alaska may have the infrastructure of the last American Frontier, but they are born and bred from the agricultural center of California, and that unique landscape provides a one of a kind impetus. They have taken the tropes of indie rock and filled them with a gentle fuzz, gray disassociation and fourteen tracks of spacey, majestic music that is as smart as it is catchy.

Brett Dennen - Brett Dennen

Three Angels and a Saint/Flagship/UMVD /Fontana

Oakdale California is home to indie rockers Grandaddy and Built Like Alaska, but the gray fog and desolation of the arid plain have struck another Oakdale resident in a differing sense. Brett Dennen's music revels in his passion and natural sense of the world through music, which can best describe as Folk nouveau. This label is a rough approximation of the actual experience of Dennen's music. He has a rough finished, sultry tenor which is wholly unique. His gorgeously joyful vocals are just one of the layers that make his self-titled release filled with a feel-good vibe.
"Desert Sunrise" marks an auspicious start to Dennen's release. The song is essentially an miniature epic, which takes listeners from the desert sunset in the eyes of a lizard to the rising of the moon. "All We Have" places the politics of overabundance and abuse of power center stage, as Dennen pleas "we canÕt keep paving over this world." The song is funky and places his voice in its home ground. That most natural setting for Dennen's voice is the psuedo-reggae-funk of "All We Have." A strong song with a thoughtful message of anti-globalization and compassion. "Just Like the Moon" has the singer "hoping for a full Moon tonight," and there he makes Jack Johnson blush due to Dennen's passion and guitar work. The self-titled release from this Californian singer-songwriter ear marks Brett Dennen as heir to the acoustic guitar led musical throne. Kudos to this uplifting and fascinating lyricist.

The Boohers - Grandma's Songs

Lonesome Day

Time is an enormously long river, and our forefathers and mothers have placed wisdom and guidance in songs, stories and poems. We have only to dip out heads into these songs, hymns and stories by paying attention to our elders. They have more wisdom in a line from an olde tyme song than the entire pop female singer category. The title track starts Grandma's Songs with the Boohers plying out their captivating family-oriented show. The album bubbles over with clean fun, harmonies and a pristinely picked banjo. The female vocalist is the star of the Booher experience, as she has a lot of heart. "Bluer than Blue" is the consummate comparison bluegrass song, where the vocalist sets up a metonymy between the blue of the mountains and the sea with the blueness of their souls since their baby left. The banjo work is marvelous between the choruses. "Sometimes the Good News is Bad" follows the sadness of "Bluer than Blue" with a hard feeling song about an estranged lover resolving their heart before the vocalist does, a rough spot to be in, and a great title.
The Boohers are a family band that has plied their trade across the American countryside from their home base in Johnson City, Tennessee. Gary & Lora and their two boys Joseph & Jamey fit in a four person van, and they dedicated all they had to a musical way of life. They filled a heavy schedule, booking out almost every week. Today, with the help of great bluegrass releases like Grandma's Songs they have moved up to a shiny white trailer, as they had to make room for a fiddle. This album is good clean Bluegrass from the heart.

The Duke - My Kung Fu Is Good

Spitfire

The latest from concrete lyricist The Duke features the talents of Rich Ward. He is best know as guitarist and songwriter of Stuck Mojo, a band that has released seven albums to date. The band pioneered a fusion of reggae, hip-hop and hard rock which opened doors for some of the nu-metal fusion bands playing today. Ward is also the guitarist and founding member of the band Fozzy, featuring WWE wrestler Chris Jericho.
On My Kung Fu is Good, Ward ventures into a self-indulgent space, as his lyrics run from the opener: "Lying to myself about where I need to be" to the defiant "Immune" with its opening line: "You think you know me, but you donÕt." Next "Used To Be" starts with "I donÕt know what the hell I'm saying anymore" and finishes with "Will you miss me when I'm gone?" The album seems to be a chance for Ward to work out his personal problems that have built up over the last few years. The rock'n'roll of The Duke is a quarter arena rock, some metal, a little eighties dandy and all Ward. He is at his best on "Suicide Machine" and "Running," and at his worst when he is overly confessional. His Kung Fu Is Good and his songwriting is affable.

Various Artists - The Greatest Songs Of Woody Guthrie

Folkways/Vanguard

Political Album of the Week:
When the annuls of music history try to define Woody Guthrie they are reduced to distilling his life of music and activism to something like "Woody Guthrie was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century" (William Ruhlman). Though lucid and true, that statement conveys little of what Guthrie produced, meant and lived. His music is a far better entrance into his life, as are his tales of the rails and roads in Bound For Glory. The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie is not just a collection of him singing the songs that placed him in league with Walt Whitman as AmericaÕs National Poet Laureate. The collection is a series of Guthrie songs sung by the man and a group of artists whose lineage can be traced to the Okie who killed Fascists with his guitar.
The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie contains twenty-three originals as sung by Woody Guthrie, close friend Cisco Houston, Pete Seager's Weavers, the amazing Odetta, Country Joe McDonald, Jack Elliot, Joan Baez, Jim Kweskin and Sonny Terry. "This Land Is Your Land" starts off the overview of Guthrie's musical life. Then, the California critical "Do Re Mi" calls to the border tolls and bosses to end their tyrannous rule over the gateways to the Golden State. Odetta's rendition of "Pastures of Plenty" is possibly the most heart-wrenching version of that Columbia River song ever sung. This is a collection of great Woody Guthrie songs as performed by the next generation of American Folkies as well as Guthrie himself. It serves as an excellent overview of his music. This is very special music, born of the dusty fields and desolation of the depression, the rage of anti-classism, the pain of diaspora and the unsinkable belief in a Union forged in the rights of the common folk. Don't forget, as Woody says: "I have seen a lot of funny men / Some rob you with a six gun / Some with a fountain pen... you will never see an outlaw drive a family from their home" From "Pretty Boy Floyd"

T.O.K. - Unknown Language

VP

In the island nation of Jamaica an epidemic of murders have been sweeping the tropical landscapes. In 2004, the island lost nearly 1500 people to violence. Shockingly, the number of people killed in Jamaica is almost equal to the number of U.S. soldiers killed in the American invasion of Iraq. In an effort to salve the populationÕs distress over the rising tide of violence T.O.K. has composed the R&B song "FootPrints." The song is a heartfelt tribute to all the victims of violence. With the murder rate steadily climbing in Jamaica, "Footprints," has been used as a vehicle of healing for the band, and all the people who have lost loved ones to the war plaguing the ghetto areas of Jamaica. The songÕs first verse, "Hurry up and come back was the last thing she said to her son, the day his life was taken. She didn't know he wouldn't comeback, he died from the bullet of a gun, and now her little boy is gone," was written as a tribute to crooner Alex's own brother who was killed by a stray bullet. The song is soft, smooth and passionately sung.
The Shaggy fortified "Deja Vu" features a loop lifted directed directly from a synth-string version of "Louie, Louie." It is a dancey, if a bit repetitive. The song recounts a meeting with a woman in a dance hall. Miami's Pitbull adds his Cuban flow to "She's Hotter," which concerns a meeting with a woman at a dance hall. Most of the reggae-infused R&B album concerns the dancefloor. The youthful quartet mixes a varied field of musical influences on their way to their most solid release. The piano and gospel influenced "Wah Gwaan" is a organ breathe of fresh sounds after the heavy "Footprints." The stomping pulse of "Wah Gwaan" is a highlight on Unknown Language, as "Haters" is a reggae influence Crunk song, "Hey Ladies" is a throwaway dance track and "Music Pumping" is a bland party anthem. Though these tracks pull the otherwise decent record down into a disposable world pop classification, T.O.K has enough talent, musicality and charm to garner head-nods and club air time.

Jimmy Thackery - Healin' Ground

Telarc

For more than three decades, Jimmy Thackery has carved out a unique niche in the blues landscape by developing and honing a style that is equal parts traditional blues and electrified blues-rock. Armed with fiery guitar chops, a growling vocal attack and a lean, but powerful, bass and drum backup unit know as the Drivers, Thackery has crisscrossed the blues circuit, with a multilayered style that pays homage to every spectrum of the blues experience from Delta Blues masters to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
The cat can play so many notes, and his work on the oddly familiar sounding "Fender Bender" attests to this talent. The instrumental song is steeped in the Blues'n'roll tradition with just a hint of arena rock (a chord here and there sounds like "Rock You Like a Hurricane"). The opener is rollicking thursday night blues down at the local beerhall, and Thackery displays his growling vocals in "Let The Guitar Do The Work." The song is an entrance into a story of a musician that has to let his guitar be his opening line for an rendezvous with a crowd member. "Had Enough" pulls his voice up into the Mountain Blues tradition, and the soaring guitar portions run counter to this otherwise heartfelt and gritty sentiment. "Devil's Toolbox" is a straight-up eighties blues-based heavy metal song, with a touch of the sadness in the use of breaks and the organ; a good, yet off-kilter song. "Weaker Than You Know" returns Thackery and company to their most fertile ground. He turns to a tale of heart break and hard-timing with a blues-pulse that builds into a early-piano based rock'n'roll song. It is great roots rock and blues. The optimistic, yet bitter "Upside of Lonely" is a wonderful litany of the freedoms delivered from the end of a relationship. Healin' Ground is a hard won tribute to the talent of the former Nighthawk guitarist. Though some of the songs find Thackery out of his element, "Upside of Lonely," "Let the Guitar Do the Work," " Get Up," and "Can't Lose What You Never Had" make the record worth more than its weigh in coin.

Greg Trooper - Make It Through This World

Sugar Hill

The folk infused and rootsy rock'n'roll of Greg Trooper has a special place for country and western music. He has built a solid reputation as a singer-songwriter whose works have been covered by Steve Earle, Billy Bragg and Vince Gill. Though a native of Jersey, he has spent enough time in both Nashville and Austin to be considered a local in both places. The guy has developed his talent over time, continuing ever-forward on to a more refined sound. His records are deliveries on promises he has made to himself in dreams. Trooper gets to the root of what he has always been, yet never completely accepted: a rock'n'roll songwriter who is enamored with the raw stinging tone of a Telecaster and pugilism of a drum kit to go with occasional peddle steel guitars and fiddles.
Make It Through This World is another expression of that fact that Trooper has the knowledge to recognized how great he is, a watermark. He will certainly be judged from now on by the songs and sentiments in the strong, road wise hooks and melodies contained on Make It Through This World. The brilliance of Trooper comes in his outlook conveyed through lyrics, as he balances the wide-eyed glee of a young man looking for a good time in a honky-tonk with the sagacious tone of an road-worn troubadour. "When I Think Of You My Friends," stands as the literalization of that description. The song moves through a catalog of the people he has met on the road and the times he has liven through. "Sad, Sad Girl" is much more than the uproarious tunes like "This I'd Do" and "Green Eyed Girl." The tension of a mood disorder creeps into the melody, as it echoes the destruction of small-town life on the body of a woman. Trooper sings, "She's a mining town, after the mine's shut down... Coal turned to diamonds, but she won't let you find them. She's a mining town." The true gift of Trooper is that he has always improved from his last outing, which is saying a mouthful, as Trooper has never produced an album less than great.

Johnathan Rice - Trouble Is Real

Reprise

A dreamscape of strings opens Johnathan Rice's first track, "Mid-November." The scottish native enters the scene with a phrasing structure reminiscent of Conor Oberst, and that may come from the time Rice spent at the Presto! Studio in Lincoln, NE. The lyrics and sentiment are accessible only after a few listens, which is a shame as Rice's slurring vocals do well to convey sentiment, yet he can swallow entire words between beats. The mid tempo thrashing "Kiss Me Goodbye" is a better representation of the prowess of both his songwriting and voice. The chorus expresses more than the verses, as once again, the tongue on the vowels, breathy style of Rice corrodes the choppy verses. A slower tempo and an emphasis on enunciation would help the immediate uptake of the lyrical content, yet that would blanch the character from his delivery.
That delivery finds itself with the perfect musical mates among the hoovering synth strings and guitars of "Salvation Day." This uptempo and full-electronic style is befitting of his both his voice and his delivery; an enjoyable cut. The acoustic introduction of "My Mother's Son" leaves as the sun disappears behind the moon during a solar eclipse. With the alleviation of the sun's gaze, a rush of strings lights the track's chorus. These strings dominate the track, and are a bit overpowering for the muted and raspy tones of Johnathan Rice. Trouble Is Real shows that, yes, Rice can sing, and he can write, but the production does much to counter the words on his tongue and the pictures in his mind. Hopefully, he will get another shot at this recording artist gig and come up with a more minimalist technique; maybe an homage to the days playing in the 14th Street tunnel.

Butch Zito - Butchie Songs

Swordfish/Solar Pig

From the big sky country of Montana and the little white Pontiac of Butch Zito comes the Butchie Songs. The songs of Butchie are simple and uninhibited songs that focus on an acoustic musicality and the words of Zito. "Your Love" starts off the twelve tracks with a vocal harmony lauding the love of a person met in the white winter grounds. The song delivers love in a realistic, rather than romantic mindset; Zito tells the lover, "There is going to be hard times." "Roslyn Town" uses an acoustic guitar and strings together with vocal harmonies to relate the pain of being geographically estranged from the place where one has buried their heart. The mandolin plucks and clucks in time as Zito's sad-eyed tenor tells the town, "I think of you all the time." "When I Was On the Road" pulls bit of swing from the downtrodden bluegrass infused music of Zito. Butchie Songs is a great entrance into the vocal, and lyrical view on life and love contained in the music of Zito.

Jack de Johnette & Foday Musa Suso - Music from the Hearts of The Masters

Kindred Rhythm/ Golden Beams

Each and every time that the Top 21 is edited the only thing music that will not muddle our illustrious editor is the tones of Jack de Johnette's Music in the Key of Om. That hour movement through a sedate musical dreamscape is the perfect backdrop for cutting, pasting, editing and typing; serenity is key when editing. These two Africans are masters of their respective instruments: Jack de Johnette handles the percussion and Foday Musa Suso handles the Kora and the Dousinguni. The Kora and Dousinguni provide an alternative to more familiar string instruments. This pairing is truly unique.
Foday Musa Suso is a master musician with one foot on the club's dance floor and the other squarely planted in the villages of Africa. Suso is the last in a thousand year old line of Griots (Traditional singer and story tellers, often the keepers of oral traditions in Gambian/African traditions). He has never ceased to be an enthusiastic disseminator of African music and culture to all corners of the globe. He plays a myriad of instruments, which can be basically called African Folk instruments: Kora, Dousinguni, Kalimba (thumb piano), Nyanyery (one string Violin) and Karinyan (a metalliac scraper). He, also, leads an electro-funk fusion band, which has been known to blow the roof off hip-hop, funk and house clubs.
Jack de Johnette is one of the world's foremost percussionists and drummers, hailing from Chicago, IL. Though known mostly for his efforts with rhythm, de Johnette is also a pianist, composer, melodic soloist and electric keyboardist. He has been a familiar face on the jazz scene since the sixties. During that time he collaborated with John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Sun Ra and Thelonious Monk to name a few. He has distinguished himself in every context he has entered, whether as the producer of Songs in the Key of Om, as a band leader or as a soloist.
You wonÕt hear the infectious and interesting music produced by these two masters anywhere on the ClearChannel network of radio. The entrance into world culture can be an interesting and invigorating experience for all Americans. We need to make sure that we listen to the songs, read the tales and eat the food from other regions, countries and cultures, so that we can come into contact with beneficial relationships with regions and cultures. If everyone in the United States had a friend who was Iraqi, or a neighbor, or a great Iraqi restaurant in their town would our soldiers be killing the Iraqi people?