I liked The Epic, but the size intimidated me a bit too and to this day I don't know those tracks THAT well.
That said, I love Kamasi. The EP Harmony of Difference is really good (the finale track in particular, "Truth") and Heaven & Earth was my favorite release of 2018, which never happens for me with jazz in the 21st Century. It's still two "disks", but the shift from The Epic having three to H&E just having two made a big difference for me on digestibility. I slightly prefer the second disk if I have to choose.
For a few select favorites:
"Truth" (Harmony of Difference EP)
"Vi Lua Vi Sol" (pretty, psychedelic number with some minimal vocals; off H&E D2)
"Fists of Fury" (badass reinterpretation of a Bruce Lee movie theme from the 70s, also has some vocals; off H&E D1)
"Street Fighter Mas" (badass, hip-hop-leaning single, off H&E D2)
"Hub Tones" (that pure hard jazz; H&E D1)
Oh shit, I hadn't looked at the lineup since it wads announced, but now that Saint Cloud has dropped and been so awesome I'd be even more stoked for the lineup.
Yeah I was going to say the same. Lame site, quality festival year in and year out (well, I can speak to the line up in terms of every year, I only went once in 2017 and it was good. I also have a number of friends who went other years who have similar positive reviews).
Bubblegum (and the Here Comes That Weird Chill EP that preceded it) & Field Songs are my favorites from his solo catalog.
So much great guest vocal work, too - Twilight Singers, QotSA, Soulsavers, etc.
Trees rocked, too, but they aren't my favorite part of his career.
Dune is overrated, in large part because they write your namesake as way too superior to every other character in the book. Also the dialog sounds like something Stan Lee would have written for Thor in 1965.
I would take it as a putdown coming from Liam Gallagher, who was at the top of the world, aware of it, and a known petulant shit-talker egomaniac. Not saying it warranted scheduling a fight, mind...
This is amusing but also cringeworthy - Lanegan really really likes to fight, we get it! I'd heard of the Screaming Trees breaking into fist fights on stage, though, so it's not a huge surprise.
That said, he has given us a truly vast amount of incredible music over the last thirty+ years and his assessment of where the talent lies in the Gallagher family is spot on, as is the fact that Liam is clearly a bit of a bully. And ...and you will know us by the trail of dead are still one of the only bands I've ever walked out on.
So, Lanegan sounds like a bit of an ass, but his targets suck and he's an awesome singer and songwriter.
I saw him come out with the Twilight Singers, too, who I still think had a better catalog than the Afghan Whigs (Blackberry Belle is the best thing Dulli ever released).
Always loved when Seinfeld pulled this out (there was a second episode, too, right?).
Oddly harsh ratings for pleasant pop songs lately (this & the Hall and Oates one come to mind, I guess). After some of the dreck that got high scores from the late 70s, I guess Tom always keeps us on our toes.
Three cheers for that Khruangbin jawn!
Also thanks a lot for not mentioning the new Chicano Batman album was out today on the AotW list, SG! It affected me in...no way whatsoever, actually. But still. You listed a Cramps tribute album.
They also have some songs that are supposed to be funny but really aren't.
Ween is hit and miss for me on humor, albums, and live, but they've created enough music I really like that they're cool by me.
I'd watch that one again - over a number of much better ones - just because I remember so little of it from the one time I did watch it, possibly drunk.
Cool story. And yes, he is - I demand more Josh Homme collaboration with him behind the kit. Let's get that second set of TCV material out while we still have John Paul Jones around!
See also: Midnight Vultures
I hated how hard it seemed for reviews to not focus primarily on whether or not Beck was sincere on it. It's a blast of an album, he clearly loves the music he was drawing inspiration from, and yes, he inserted plenty of tongue in cheek moments of humor, too. Not hard to wrap your brain around.
White Pepper - the most straight forward, accessible one
Mollusk - far and away the best one
Chocolate & Cheese - the one that probably most people started with, and maybe the most honest about the Ween experience (genre exercises left and right - some great, some tedious - brilliant pop moments, utter trash, their most famous tracks, etc).
I missed the original Premiere/RZA one and for some reason thought I couldn't watch it after the livestream. I learned otherwise yesterday and checked it out for a few minutes, with the intention of revisiting it later when I could give it my full attention. But I guess I had the whole idea of it wrong, to my disappointment. Realistically or not, I had it in my head that they'd be doing a fluid battle somehow, transitioning songs to song, etc. But is it just them talking about tracks or random thoughts and then playing the song? Like, not fluidly or club style?
Yeah they tend to get salty over that sort of thing. My friends claim I did something similar in the back of the car when we hit a bump on the way to what turned out to be a pretty lame Black Crowes show in '06. I think their version is a bit exaggerated, but it's the funnier version of the story, so more power to them.
This was my first Ween album. I liked it but didn't love it, which is basically still where I stand on this and most of their non-The Mollusk albums, for that matter. I tend to listen to the first four tracks and maybe "Back to Basoom" and not much else from it. Maybe "Stay Forever".
I'll be interested in hearing what this Man Man album sounds like. I know Honus dropped the rest of the original members (unless that's changed again), but the advanced song or two I've heard haven't been awful.
Looking back at last week and something I wasn't excited for but should have been - anyone check out the live Sylvan Esso album? I'd seen them open for David Byrne and I like their albums well enough, but this album cracks! Full, crisp sound from the expanded band and a monster vocal performance from Meath.
They put out the only two 5-star solo albums to come out of the band's breakup, and it was each of their first PROPER albums. From there they both put out strong-but-inferior follow ups and then became generally hit and miss.
And shit yes, the worst thing about the big charity ones is hour dour and self serious everyone is in them. They don't have to suck nearly so much as most of them have.
I've enjoyed some full-band, pre-quarantine concert livestreams in the past year or two, usually festival sets at fests I'm not attending. Seeing Tame Impala headline a night of Coachella was cool, and livestreaming is the only way I've ever see Janelle Monae or Miguel live, unfortunately. They're acceptable for jam bands, too.
But I haven't gotten on the Quarantine Livestream train much.
Yeah I like Gigaton a lot, but the closing two are the album's weak point ("Retrograde" being the far worse offender). "River Cross" worked pretty well for the benefit, though.
Lennon was shitty, especially early on. He hit women, had homophobia issues , all kinds of misplaced anger that he took out like a shithead on others. It's a tough, disappointing thing to initially accept if you grow up loving his music and what his cleaned up image represented.
But for whatever it's worth, I think Yoko had a genuinely good influence on him early on and it seemed like he tried to sincerely do better, especially as a public persona. I think his vocal support of progressive issues in the early 70s - anti-war, women's issues, race, legal reform, etc - seems to have been genuine and was pretty risky stuff in some cases to get behind or associate with.
Now there's no excuse for any of his shameful behavior, and certainly no redemption angle that I'm aware of for how he treated his first wife and son, and he clearly remained a basketcase with serious dependency issues throughout his life. But none of that changes that he's one of the all-time elite songwriters and game changers in popular culture, and those cultural changes were positive. "Isolation" is a bomb song (though not as much as "Remember", which actually has an explosion).
Also, George could be hella preachy and hypocritical himself...into addition to warm, funny, and kind. And Paul sounds like he was an egomaniacial control freak, in addition to, I think, being a pretty alright guy, probably the best of them in that regard.
Lennon almost certainly has the worst rap sheet of the band, but he gave arguably the most to Western culture and good luck getting everyone to abandon their appreciation of that at this stage of the game. His reputation has deservedly taken a hit as more people have read about what a thug he was, but just like Miles Davis is still regarded as one of the handful of super-duper-upper-elite jazz musicians in history, Lennon isn't going anywhere in terms of great songwriters.
I think the notion that it was weak primarily because it was about how happy he was with his domestic situation is kind of bs.
That said, I still can think of few more monumental let-down bombs that I've followed the release of. It's just so bereft of anything interesting, memorable, or compelling. I still hope he finds his feet again and gives us some more good material. I liked a couple of those singles he released the year or two before The Big Day. I still like the majority of Coloring Book. But he can't afford another The Big Day, that's for sure.
Comments