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Bob Dylan, Good As I Been To You (1992)
Last year was a big year for me reconnecting with Bob Dylan – he’s always there of course. But the gig last year (which was great) had me going back through everything. Everything! I was in deep – going through the podcasts (many) and all the albums and Dylan’s own radio show archive and a couple of books. It was a deep-deep dive. And it was wonderful. And the revelation in all of it – the big ‘find’ was how great Good As I Been To You is. I mean I always kinda dug it – and saw it as the starting point for Dylan’s ‘comeback’; the thing that got him towards Time out of Mind and all that’s followed. But what I didn’t know/had forgotten was just how good ‘Good’ is – it’s a subtle gem. His first solo acoustic album since 1964 – his first all covers set since 1973 and some of his best vocal and guitar duets ever. Just a sublime jukebox/treasure trove of folk goodies and goldens; little musical breadcrumbs, little clues and hints and reminders of not only where he was going but where he had been. It’s all a continuum with Dylan after all. One of popular music’s best – biggest – statements of artistry over fame. I found this – a white vinyl (unauthorised, but a fine pressing) just recently on a trip to Melbourne. In an amazing store called Play – which is mostly a DVD store. A weird relic of a thing. It sells almost every film or TV show you could think of…more of a graveyard than music stores. But it has CDs and vinyl too. There were many things I could have bought but I had no real justification money-wise, until I saw this. Had to have it. And glad I now do. Read More »

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April 18, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Sweetman Podcast: Episode 164 – Heather O’Carroll

Welcome to episode 164 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and La Petite Chocolat.

Now – as you probably know, as well as the usual platforms (this site, soundcloud, iTunes/Apple) you can now get to Sweetman Podcast on Spotify– follow it there and have it saved in your Spotify library.

This was recorded just last week. We rushed this one through – and I’m glad it got to happen – a chat with actor Heather O’Carroll. Read More »

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April 18, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Stubs: # 224 – Cigna Saints, Wellington, 2019

I had a really great chat with a Facebook friend the other day. We had never met. But he recognised me and got chatting about things I’d written and from there we had a huge conversation about the arts and culture and content and contributing and how being an audience member, a consumer, is part of the process – part of the conversation. But that conversation that we had started with him saying, “Hey Simon, I didn’t know you had a dog!” And his reason for saying that was that he saw me out walking my dog. He rightly pointed out that I had never really written about being a dog-owner. (Well, I did write this poem! But I know no one comes here for the poems!)

Anyway, this made me think about how last week I posted that I was off to the basketball and a Facebook friend said something along the lines of “didn’t pick you for a Saints fan” or a basketball fan – or some such.

And so now I’m thinking that maybe the problem there is – also – that I didn’t write about it.

I love basketball. Was big into it at school. Was a fan of the Detroit Pistons in the Isiah years.

And I’m just newly enthused, admittedly, in attending the live local games. But really into it. The first one for the 2019 season was pretty good. The Saints crushed the Bay Hawkes. And that felt good!
Stubs is an occasional feature here at Off The Tracks – looking back through the ticket-stub box and remembering how the show went down.

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April 17, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Phil Judd: Flightless Bird

Phil Judd

Flightless Bird

(Independent/Bandcamp)

For the last decade and a half Phil Judd’s musical voice has been sneaking out into the world via a handful of idiosyncratic solo releases – you know that voice, instantly. And vocally there’s still every power in it, reminders of all that was always great. There are musical motifs – and the spirit of vaudeville – that still haunt, that Judd still taunts with…a 2019 song from Phil Judd might just sound like it could have been released in 1976.

And the latest – and I think greatest – of his solo releases is Flightless Bird.

Here we can hear little traces of Schnell-Fenster on the opening brace (THIS is THEN and THAT was NOW and Surrounded) as well as the sound of what should have been captured on an official – actual – second album from the Mental Notes-era of Split Enz.

These are pop songs beamed in from an alternate universe (the title track here almost brings to mind Late Last Night’s musical changes) and for a fan of anything Judd has done previously there’s much to delight in here.

The past is very much on his mind, throughout.  Lilydale Sation pays tribute to an imaginary band but “the drummer goes la-de-da”, a wee tribute to Swingers stickman Buster Stiggs (it was Buster that came up with the idea for the “la-da-de-da” lyrics of Counting The Beat). Later in the song Judd will talk of a singer that says things that sound clever but mean nothing – he could be talking about almost anyone of course, but there’s so often self-effacing humour in his present-day songs.

As with previous releases such as UniQue – there’s a mix of introspection and BIG – songs that feel ready for stadiums (One Of Those Days) even if their singer isn’t.

And as with previous releases it’s largely a one-man-band operation, self-produced, engineered, recorded – made with love and folly and full indulgence in the home studio, which means that – particularly for this day and age – it’s probably a song or two too many, but the very best of this stands very strong. Certainly his best solo effort. And the most consistent.

The magical sprinklings of dream-pop across Fairy Dust, more Enz/Fenster flashbacks and even more self-effacement/introspection-writ-large on Talking To Myself, more beguiling backing tracks to strange musical reveries with Mono Into Stereo.

If you’ve never been a fan then this is a closed-door situation. There’s no reason to make acquaintance with this – but if you were ever hooked, or even curious, Flightless Bird has everything you could need. And more.

And then, with The Day Before Yesterday, Judd repurposes the mandolin strum and acoustic dance of the earliest Enz to tell a story of the loss of musical friendship between him and Tim Finn. Though not named it’s very clear that he’s singing about the early days of Split Enz, of Split Ends even, the folk troupe that turned songs on their ear, that spun the heads of a then still conservative listening base.

Judd pines for Finn the co-writer, his “brother”. He laments the door being shut, he is calling for a connection – or at the least fondly remembering the pair at their very best. Asking, even, to get back to where they were before “they came unstuck”. Asking to start over.

It’s both affirming and heartbreaking. For anyone caught up in the story it’s a fascinating lament, a soul-stirring meditation.

The more willful experimentation comes out on the closing brace of Wah-Wah and 2KindsOfLonely – Wah-Wah being a silly little homespun ditty based around cataloguing his guitar pedals – but married to a great wee stomper of a riff and groove.

There are two kinds of Judd songs – silly and serious. If Day Before Yesterday is the heart on sleeve type, then Wah-Wah is just a rocking old pisstake. But wait, can those two sorts of songs coexit in one? Because it’s the closer, 2KindsOfLonely that is the real flash of bottled lightning.

It was very clear across the 1980s and into the 1990s that Judd was listening to Prince and if you need a reminder you’ll hear it hear, it’s like something off Around The World In A Day, and there’s an obvious parallel – the auteur-type, left to own devices. Control freak. Getting freaky but still in control. And so is Judd tongue-in-cheek or heart-on-sleeve as he drawls about the two kinds of lonely that exist, “There’s lonely. And fucking lonely”. Well, can’t it be both…sincere and silly, serious and taking the piss. That’s the psychological play that’s always been at work in Judd’s best lyrics – and here with a screaming guitar solo that’s about as onanistic as can be, his finest solo album comes to a close. It should send you back through the catalogue. And though this is dense and requires several listens to unpack it should remind of the power of one of our greatest musical talents – toiling away, owning his muse while it’s there, wrestling with it, serving up the goods as best he can.

Buy the album directly from Bandcamp.

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April 17, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Smells Funny

Hedvig Mollestad Trio

Smells Funny

Rune Grammofon

I like to check in with the Hedvig Mollestad Trio for every second album. Otherwise it can feel like the same line-up doing the same things. Which it still kinda does…but with a bit of breathing space you can see some new things, you can hear some slight variation. Where Black Stabat Mater was proto-Hendrix-hurricane at least Enfant Terrible had something of the Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog feel to it. Still Hendrix as a base. Still some middle ground between the jam-band version of metal and a punk-rock take on prog. And so it is with Smells Funny, the trio’s latest. But here you hear even more of the John McLaughlin sound (Sugar Rush Mountain) and some genuine jazz shapes (Jurasek). Albeit the sort of jazz that Sonny Sharrock and Carlos Santana aspire to.

I like this stuff though, it’s easy to. Hard not to, even. I mean Mollestad just straps on and goes for it. Her guitar ploughs through these songs – it’s almost a race. And she’s more than ably assisted by Ellen Brekken (bass) and Ivar Joe Bjornstad (drums) – a hell of a rhythm section in fact.

It’s all breakneck-hurtle, see you at the end. Very J Mascis in his Heavy Blanket guise. Very chomping-bite. But oh for the moments when they really burn (Bewitched, Dwarfed and Defeathered). For it’s a hark back to a psychedelic 60s that some of us were never ever there for. And it’s something else too. Not just nostalgic. It’s a version of the transcendence you find just to the left of the indulgence in not every extended guitar solo. It’s not always there for looking. But when you feel it, and when you know they’re feeling it – it’s there.

A little always goes a long way with Hedvig – and her albums are usually six searing, searching instrumentals, with a run time in total of 30-40 minutes. And arriving every other year, and cherry-picking every other album within that is just enough for me.

But Smells Funny is certainly one of her best. If polar blasts of guitar are your thing – dive in and hang on tight.

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April 17, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Now We’re Getting Somewhere

I’ve only just
learned

– from Billy Collins no less! –

that poems
often
have two
subjects.

Commiserations…

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April 17, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

RNZ Reviews: March 2019

Once a month or so I have a chat on RNZ on their Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. These things start – randomly and stop in much the same way. I hope to keep doing this. For a while at least. I think I started in December of 2015, so now four years into it or so…

For my second session of this year, March reviews, I spoke about Alicia Olatuja’s Intuition: Songs From The Minds of Women and Ghost Note’s Swagism.

You can hear the chat and songs here.

I also wrote about Alicia’s album here and Ghost-Note’s album here.

So you can click there to read those reviews.

Click here to check out the previous reviews.
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April 17, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

The Vinyl Countdown # 316

V/A, Office Space [OST] (1999)
I was so hooked on Office Space as soon as I saw it. Watched it at the movie theatre twice – then it was a flat-staple on DVD and VOD-services – back in the days of “Saturn” as I recall…and the music was always a crucial component, but I never thought to hunt out the soundtrack until I stumbled upon it working in retail some ten years after the film was released. I love this soundtrack. It was a revelation to find the soundtrack CD and now – for this year’s Record Store Day the soundtrack was reissued on red vinyl. I could care less about having ‘red’ vinyl, but I couldn’t possibly care any more than I currently do about having Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta on vinyl. And of course everything else on this fine, fine soundtrack. The film, now 20 years old, remains a classic, remains relevant; prescient.

Sample Track: Down For Whatever (Ice Cube)
The Vinyl Countdown is a document of every LP I listen to, brand new discoveries and old-old favourites; extremely pre-loved, previously abandoned or with the shrink-wrap having just been removed it’s all here at The Vinyl Countdown

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April 16, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Norah Jones: Begin Again

Norah Jones

Begin Again

Blue Note

Somehow Norah Jones has survived. That might seem a funny thing to say for someone that burst on to the scene with one of the biggest surprise debut hits of the modern era. And has been in favour almost ever since and always…but it took a few years for Jones to emerge as more than just – seemingly – a record company puppet. In fact she was never that, arguably. She was a nightclub singer with a love of country and though the mainstream story had her serving up soothing piano balladry she was off in a blonde short wig playing punk tunes in disguise, or releasing an album of Willie Nelson covers as part of a country ensemble. Read More »

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April 16, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Playlist: MOJO Magazine’s 50 Greatest Fleetwood Mac Songs

The latest issue of MOJO magazine features a list of the 50 greatest Fleetwood Mac songs. It’s a pretty great list – taking in all versions of the band and cherry-picking from pretty much every album.

So I decided to make a copy of the list for anyone that wanted to hear it – in the order as chosen by the MOJO crew.

There are two songs I couldn’t include however so I’ve added one song from the record that wasn’t represented. (Legitimately a favourite song of mine). I’ve also picked one of the songs from Tusk that was – weirdly – not already on the list. So maybe you can work out my two additions. Read More »

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April 16, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

I Wrote The Foreword For Jan Hellriegel’s New Book/Album – Sportsman Of The Year

I wrote the foreword to Jan Hellriegel’s new book/album – in my defense I thought I was writing ‘Liner Notes’ – which is fine, the foreword to the book is still part of the liner-notes to the album…you see Jan contacted me and told me she wanted to send me her new album. I think I offered to write the liners, I can’t quite remember how it worked – but then she hinted at ‘more than just an album’ and was keen for me to write something. So I did. And now it’s the foreword to her book! I’ve read the book – you’ll be able to as well, in a month or so – pre-order now. You’re either buying a brand new album (which is terrific) with a whole book in support of it (a memoir/philosophy). Or you’re buying Jan’s “Suburban Philosophy” with accompanying soundtrack. Anyway, with the author and songwriter’s permission – and as a teaser of sorts, here below is my foreword to Jan’s book.

Owed To The Promise:

My favourite type of pop music is that written by outliers – people that don’t necessarily have the ‘formal training’ of aren’t part of the machine, but through their self-taught ways, their grit, their gumption – and huge abilities, and desire to communicate, to create – they have an instinct, an innate skill to make the best kind of ‘pop’ music. It’s true to who they are. It moves me. Hopefully it moves you too.

I think of Phil Judd. Shining example. I think of Dave Dobbyn – huge anthems, but there’s dark and weird stuff from ol’ DD too. I think of Chris Knox with his four-track, crusty guitar and drum-machine, his jandals not just a part of his brand, but a member of the band…

I think of Leila Adu. And Patti Smith. And Suzanne Vega…

There are many. (And then again, there are only a few).

We love music and we have our heroes. Just as I want more people in the world to hear Paul Ubana Jones, I look forward, always, to music by Jan Hellriegel.

When I first heard her – from out of nowhere (I’d later find out about the early bands, the formative Dunedin musical education…) – it was life-changingly good. It was “New Zealand Music” and there was no cringe. It was simply good music. Great music. She had a look. And a feel. A sound. She had tunes. Boy, did this girl have tunes!

And she still does. A hell of a voice delivering songs that come from the angels. Hard-fought songs. They stick around. Jan lets them ruminate. She doesn’t rush. But they find their way into your head and your heart all at once. And as soon as you hear them you feel like you’ve always known them.

At the core of it, for me, is believability.

In the early 1990s Jan’s music meant the world to me. Two albums that were both uniquely of their time and yet they felt like they were being beamed into my ears from another planet. New worlds. New great songs that felt like forever-classics. They sounded like that then. And now.

The big break never – really – came. The big break was – in fact – time out from music. A life. A family. The need to provide. But the songs never left her. They just hid from us for a while…

And then, in style, Jan delivered. Once again. A new song-cycle, with those wonderful phrases, and that delectable phrasing. A deluxe edition package; a vinyl LP with CD and booklet. It was something to hold – literally. And the music was so much to behold. Under her spell once again.

I’m told, by Jan herself, that my belief in her, that my belief in that album and in her music was a big part of her story. She says I’m part of her journey….

And, well, that’s lovely. I’m blushing. No, really. But, c’mon! Jan this music you make is the journey. And its’s yours. And we’re lucky and grateful that you share it when you do. And it’s always worth every step. And all of the footsteps and any of the heartbreak or headaches. And it arrives, seemingly fully formed. A big and brave new world of music.

And look! (And listen!) She’s done it again.

You’re one of my heroes Jan. May this music you make never stop. May you take your time and make it your own way always. Oblivious to trends, uninterested in genre or gender or tropes or trolls. Just making it as you can. Just making it work. Doing the work. Delivering.

Here then, Ms. Hellriegel, until the next time, is your new career-best.

Here then, dear listener, now and for a long time to come, is your new favourite album.
Click here to pre-order or for more information
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April 16, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Ghost-Note: Swagism

Ghost-Note

Swagism

ROPEADOPE

If Kamasi Washington is exploring the Albert Ayler/Coltrane connections in a modern landscape then Ghost-Note is doing something similar with templates created by Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock…which is to say on Swagism they hint at the late-80s/early-90s hip-hop influenced and inflected funk and R’n’B jams of those masters whilst also adhering to the types of grooves Hancock and Jones made far earlier in their careers. You know, the ones that laid the foundations for hip-hop.

Formed by the percussionists from Snarky Puppy, Ghost-Note is jam-band music-school nerd-stuff. Yet again.

But the time is right for this. Players like Chris Dave and Thundercat and figureheads from Kamasi to D’Angelo have shown that you can be technical and “punk” all at once. And that there’s an audience for it. And – beyond that – if you dress up jazz in cool clothes, make it appealing to indie-rock concert-goers, you can really have two swipes at the cherry.

So it is with Ghost-Note and Swagism.

One annoying component of this album is the attempt to make it a ‘concept’ by including recording-studio banter and spoken-word pieces. As with the skits on hip-hop albums, these are the parts you wish were excised. Sure, there’s a political element to Swagism’s concept, to the narrative – but you’d wish, more often, you could just concentrate on the groove as it flows (Bawllz) or chill back in the worlds previously explored by the likes of Ronny Jordan (Funk You Muthafunka).

There’s some broken-beat instrumental hip-hop (Nod To Dilla) and reminders of when this type of music – the jazzy hip-hop feels – was not cool at all (the title track takes me back to Branford Marsalis’ Buckshot LeFonque project) but all of it works. Guests galore too – Snarky’s Bobby Sparks cuts in hard on Pace Maker, Kamasi Washington is there to blow across No More Silence and trumpeter Justin Stanton (yet another Snarky alum) funks up the Prince-esque Shrill Tones.

Look, there’s something for everyone here. And that will likely calm down on future releases. But this is definitely one to check out.

And they’re coming to Wellington’s Jazz Festival in June 2019!
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