Archive for the ‘Maria McKee’ Category

First Impressions: Maria McKee’s La Vita Nuova

Posted: March 13, 2020 in 2020, 2020s, First Impressions, Maria McKee
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As I write, the world has been swept into a whirlwind of worry, fear and panic previously known only within dystopian novels, movies and TV shows. A simple trip to the supermarket turns into a bumper-car battle of grocery carts for most, while for others it graduates into a fistfight over something as mundane as toilet tissue. Yet, today, a sense of calm enveloped my being thanks to Maria McKee’s first studio album in 13 years, La Vita Nuova.

The 14-song, 65-minute set conjures the operatic stylings of Life Is Sweet and High Dive, though more the latter than the former, and taps into the collective unconscious in ways that belie articulation. In some ways, “Effigy of Salt,” echoes Kate Chopin’s The Awakening…

I hate the things I know
I wish I could retrace my steps
Before I went down to the sea
Where I crept along the depths
And prodded underneath
All along and far too deep

…though there’s far more packed into its four minutes than that. As with Life Is Sweet, the lyrics may seem to be stream-of-consciousness admissions of the heart and soul, but – as with Life Is Sweet – they’re well-crafted odes to the Archetypes of Life Internal and External. The title tune, for instance, finds Maria musing on her long-ago youth…

Once heady in the Pentecost
With tongues unknown and full of praise
Then one day all of that was lost
Now I’m a drone bereft of faith

It’s not quite Frank O’Hara’s “Poem (All the mirrors in the world),” yet that’s the first thing that popped into my mind when I listened to it this morning. Looking away from what O’Hara calls the “overgrown bludgeons” of his youth eases the pain, just as eyeing the other reflections at the bar enables him to brush aside what he’s become. In Maria’s case, however, she’s facing her life’s journey head-on: “Now when I face what I’ve become/I laugh into the ashen gloom.”

(That said, after only a few listens, I’m sure my interpretation is daft.)

There’s far more to unpack with La Vita Nuova. For now, however, after a day of worry and supermarket waits, I’m content to let the music wash over me, Maria’s voice to course through my veins, and for the lyrics – about life, love, youth and more – to settle into my subconscious. As a whole, it’s operatic, dramatic, poetic and, always, always, heartfelt. “However Worn,” the closing song, is proof of that. (I’ll undoubtedly have more to say about it in the weeks to come.)

The track listing:

Today’s Top 5: New Music, Vol. MMXX (AKA “Ars Musica”)

Posted: March 7, 2020 in 2020, 2020s, Courtney Marie Andrews, Emma Langford, Hazel English, Jane Willow, Maria McKee, Today's Top 5, Top 5
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From pandemics to politics, and the associated panics therein, there’s much going on in the world that I could comment on. By and large, however, they lead me to this line from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “What’s past is prologue.” Everything that was has led to what is; and we, as a collective, are responsible. (As I wrote a few years back, “it’s never us vs. them, as much as we sometimes wish it so. It’s us vs. us.”) Yet, this morning I found myself instead dwelling on matters of art instead. In the celebrity-driven daze that is the Social Media age, it’s become commonplace to confuse artists, who are as flawed as the rest of us, for their fevered imaginings.

Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) said it best in “Ars Poetic”: “A poem should not mean/but be.” That is, its success rests on the words, rhythms and rhymes therein; it lives and breathes, figuratively speaking, on its own, divorced from its creator. The same is true, I think, for all art. What do we know of Thomas Pynchon? Must we know his life to enjoy and decipher the torrent that is Gravity’s Rainbow? Must we know of the inner demons that haunted Sandy Denny to find meaning in her songs? 

Of course not.

And, with that, here’s today’s Top 5: New Music, Vol. MMXX (AKA “Ars Musica“).

1) Courtney Marie Andrews – “If I Told.” CMA announced this week that she has a new album due on June 5th. (You can order it from her site.)

2) Hazel English – “Combat.” Hazel English is an Australian-American indie pop musician based in Oakland whose songs conjure the swaying psychedelia of the mid-‘60s as well as the Paisley Underground. 

3) Emma Langford – “Sowing Acorns.” The second single from the Irish singer-songwriter’s forthcoming sophomore album is, in a word, mesmerizing. (That’s her mom, at about 12 years of age, in the picture.)

4) Maria McKee – “Let Me Forget.” It’s Maria. Need I say more?

5) Jane Willow – “Give It Time.” The Dutch-Irish singer’s latest single is unadorned – just her gorgeous voice and piano. It’s sad and hopeful at the same time.

An Old Grey Cat Anniversary, Part II: The Top 5 Concerts of 1998

Posted: February 9, 2020 in 1990s, 1998, David Crosby, Lucinda Williams, Maria McKee, Steve Earle, The Old Grey Cat
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In celebration of the 23rd anniversary of The Old Grey Cat (sans the hiatus of about seven – or was it eight? – years), here’s a post from the original website. Just as I do on this blog at year’s end, I recapped one aspect of 1998 once December rolled around…

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DECEMBER 14th– This time of year, magazines, newspapers and the broadcast/cable networks look back at the year that was. And why not? It’s a cheap, easy way to fill space. Of course, few new insights are proffered; instead, we’re served clipped headlines and predictable analysis. For instance, 1998 is already being called “The Year of Monica.”

Uh, excuse me? As far as I’m concerned, 1998 was “The Year of Lucinda.”

Aside from being an instant classic, Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Dirt Road was the best album of the year, hands down. In years to come, folks will write about it with the same reverence that they share for such albums as Gram Parson’s Grievous Angel or the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, a genre-busting effort that is more than the sum of its parts. In a live setting, backed by a powerhouse band featuring the likes of guitar slinger Kenny Vaughn and vocalist extraordinaire Jim Lauderdale, Lucinda offered a stew of sublime, superb and incredible songs, tasty morsels all.

1) Lucinda Williams – June 26th – Philly/TLA – The circumstances were suspect, at best. Due to thunderstorms, Lucinda’s plane was detoured to NYC; she took a train south, and didn’t hit the stage until 10:30 p.m. Add to that the fact that she’d had two hours sleep the night before…but, to quote Stephen Stills, it’s “No matter. No distance. It’s the ride.” And what a ride this night was! She and her band were right in time; and we, the audience, were left moaning at the ceiling… especially on the extended guitar jam that brought bliss to “Joy.”

2) Steve Earle & the Dukes – Feb. 7th – Philly/TLA – The term “ragged glory” must have been invented to describe a Steve Earle show. After opening with the timely “Christmas in Washington,” Steve led the audience on a two-hour, 20-minute tour of society’s “other side”… “Taneytown,” “Copperhead Road” and Fort Worth were just a few of the stops. Others: “Guitar Town,” New York City and … the soul. This was a night of glorious, guts-first music that rocked the soul even as it connected with the intellect. I was lucky enough to see Steve twice this year, four months apart. The main difference? The band. Here, he was buttressed by Buddy Miller on guitar and Brady Blades on drums (half of Spyboy, in other words). Small wonder that, after Steve and the Dukes left the stage, the Philly crowd took up the chorus of the night’s closing song, “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied,” and brought him back for more.

3) CPR – July 1st – Philly/TLA – A sparsely attended show, but you’d never know it from the way Crosby, Pevar and Raymond played. Same goes for the magical opening act, Anastasia & John. An incredible, magical night. CPR remind me of Steely Dan, but minus (what to me is) the Dan’s smarminess. Crosby was in exc. voice, and the new songs are among his strongest. That’s not to say the old songs weren’t appreciated… don’t pass on seeing CPR, if given the chance. These guys rock (and Pevar’s guitar playing blows the mind).

4) Maria McKee – Dec. 6th – Philly/Tin Angel – This year, the Absolutely Sweet Maria undertook a brief tour billed as “A Close Encounter with …” At the Tin Angel, those words are oh-so-true. It’s a small venue, fitting no more than 125. Despite suffering from a cold and “airplane throat,” Maria took hold of the audience for a good 75 minutes… yeah, 75 minutes. Too short, to say the least, yet it was a riveting show. Suffice it to say, she is not collecting dust. She opened with “Life is Sweet,” played a hand-full of new songs and just a few of her older classics. “Panic Beach,” for example, tho’ these ears missed “Breathe.” The night’s highlight: An intense “I’m Not Listening.”

5) Steve Earle – July 15th – Philly/TLA – Minus Buddy Miller and Brady Blades, but still damn good. “Won’t get far on 37 dollars and a Jap guitar… WANNA BET!” See him, buy his albums, help him pay off that 16,000 pound phone bill he racked up in London last year… I could go on, but why?

The Year of Visual Acuity: Resolve to Revolve

Posted: December 31, 2019 in 2010s, 2019, Maria McKee, The Muffs
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“Resolution” differs from “revolution” by a letter, but – as the Oxford Dictionary definitions demonstrate – there’s more than a consonant that differentiates them. A resolution is “a firm decision to do or not to do something” while “revolution” is “a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system.” In colloquial terms, however, a resolution is what we often make on New Year’s Eve and sometimes break a few weeks or months later. Revolution, on the other hand, has become synonymous with non-violent change that upends society – the first and second industrial revolutions, for instance, or the (mis)information age we now live in. The secondary definition of revolution, however, is “the movement of an object in a circular or elliptical course around another or about an axis or centre.” 

As I see it, a resolution can result in a personal revolution that spins out a new you. It’s not easy, as we humans are flawed creatures: stumbles are as likely to happen as perfect pirouettes. But resolve to revolve, anyway. It takes time, patience and stick-to-itiveness, and the willingness to forgive yourself when or if you tumble.

To that end: There’s a new wave coming…

One thing that struck me when compiling my Top Posts of 2019 was that my Top 5 lists accounted for an astounding 35 percent of posts over the past 12 months, while my First Impressions came in at just 27 percent and Essentials at only 13 percent…and, of my now-70 posts for the year, only two were Of Concert Pasts. Concert reviews were minimal, as well.

Which leads to this: In 2020, I resolve to overthrow that status quo and focus more on new releases and old favorites, while reducing the Top 5s. Already, the Year of Visual Acuity is shaping up to be a magical, momentous 12 months of music due to forthcoming releases from such longtime favorites as Diane Birch, Maria McKee and Rumer. New favorites, including Emma Langford and Harriet, also have albums due, too, and a slew of archival wonders are sure to be shared by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, among others.

See ya in the new year.

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