― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:36 (eighteen years ago) link
otoh, i'd hate to think of where we'd be if our favorite wackos had never been allowed to free-express.
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:46 (eighteen years ago) link
But yeah, of course, total rulelessness can be pretty fab.
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:49 (eighteen years ago) link
i think if anything waits has gotten more like that over the years -- it's a shame his frank's wild years/black rider phase had to turn into stuffy elderstatesmanship rather than the full-on nihilism it should have progressed into. he's had a similar career arc as neil young (who shouldn't be doing that grandfatherly folksy twaddle either).
the early tom waits records were fun innocent L.A. hedonism. dirty jokes. good times.
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:52 (eighteen years ago) link
I would still rather listen to Small Change, it must be said.
― sleeve (sleeve), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― sleeve (sleeve), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:46 (eighteen years ago) link
New album Sermon On Exposition Boulevard is a big mess. She walks in the sandals of Jesus when there was nothing wrong with her boots; she also does this mewling speaking-in-tongues thing on a few songs. Not good. And yet, and yet--the first song, "Nobody Knows My Name" rocks harder than she ever has. Drone-mantra, post VU throw down. We don't need another song about Elvis (the Son of God, of course) and Cadillacs, but this one has a groove that gets her over the silly name dropping (I think it's available for download on her website somewhere). And her voice is really terrific, when she's not mewling, and some of the best tracks just about reach the Vanological gospel trance state she's always loved. I give it a solid B.
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 02:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― chuck e. (xhuck), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 09:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― Monty Von Byonga (Monty Von Byonga), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 09:45 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm really digging 'Magazine' right now.
― baaderonixx, Friday, 11 January 2008 09:41 (sixteen years ago) link
That album has one of the most wtf reviews on AMG:
The reason The Magazine was such a disappointment was that Rickie Lee Jones had proven herself a major artist with her first two albums and turned into a self-conscious, pretentious, minor one on this, her third. Once, she made art by observing street people and describing them carefully; now she tried to make "Art" by navel-gazing. What a letdown.
― baaderonixx, Friday, 11 January 2008 09:43 (sixteen years ago) link
"The Magazine" is one of the greatest albums of the 80's..."Deep Space" is just breathtaking
― sonnyboy, Friday, 11 January 2008 12:29 (sixteen years ago) link
classic
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 11 January 2008 12:31 (sixteen years ago) link
However the AMG review of her last album Sermon on Exposition Boulevard makes it sound amazing. Thom Jurek is so the best "I'll have what he's having" reviewer of AMG. He likes recent Maria McKee too though which makes me inclined to trust him.
― Tim F, Friday, 11 January 2008 21:43 (sixteen years ago) link
So I need to go back and read through whole thread, but I'm really curious: After her debut LP, did Rickie Lee ever do any tracks with anywhere near the bounce, energy, hooks, and humor of "Chuck E.'s In Love" and "Danny's All Star Joint" again? They're far and away the best things on that album (I'd take "Weasel And The White Boys Cool" third, then probably "Easy Money"), most of the rest being dull tasteful ballads (tasteful musically, anyway, even when asking you to stick it into coolsville.) I've never heard Pirates or Magazine, and I'm guessing they'd bore me (like her Girl At Her Volcano covers EP did), but maybe I'm wrong. (Also, if she didn't ever do anything as catchy as "Chuck E.'s" again, I'm wondering if she ever explained why not. Was she just embrassed about having an actual hit?)
Also starting to be convinced, though, that she was probably at least a somewhat relevant influence on Teena Marie's beatnik jive-talk side -- even ballads like "Company" on the debut sound kinda proto-Teena, and the lyric sheet looks a little like It Must Be The Magic's inner sleeve. They both even include photos of themselves as little girls. Teena's debut LP came out in 1979, too, but she didn't really reveal her beatnik side until later. Of course, it's possible they were both just channeling Joni Mitchell in vaugely similar ways.
― xhuxk, Monday, 26 April 2010 02:11 (thirteen years ago) link
The timbre of her voice has always bothered me, but if you're looking for settings that complement it check out her Walter Becker collaboration from 1989. It won't convert you -- it reminds me a little of what Joni failed to attempt at the same time -- but it ain't much different than what you're used to from her.
― Throwing Muses are reuniting for my next orgasm! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 April 2010 02:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Chuck Pirates is dreamy and jazzy so if you don't like the ballad parts of the debut I wouldn't recommend it as an album, but "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" is an awesome party joint.
"Living It Up" and the title track swing between uptempo and morose with a vertiginous intensity that is pretty rare I think but I'm not sure you'd enjoy that.
― Tim F, Monday, 26 April 2010 02:23 (thirteen years ago) link
there was a bunch of stuff on The Magazine that was hookier than anything really on Pirates - I think "Runaround" and "It Must Be Love" were both on that one, which were both RLJ at her most hummable
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, 26 April 2010 02:36 (thirteen years ago) link
also Alfred if "what Joni failed to an attempt" is a Night Ride Home dis, know that I will cut you
"Jukebox Fury" is the most hooky thing on The Magazine I think ("It Must Be Love" is a great great ballad though!) but by that point she'd really shed the whole hepcat vibe which I assume is at least part of what chuck is looking for.
― Tim F, Monday, 26 April 2010 02:42 (thirteen years ago) link
I like that one; it's her other eighties albums that drift.
― Throwing Muses are reuniting for my next orgasm! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 April 2010 02:43 (thirteen years ago) link
Thanks, guys. And yeah, I'm pretty convinced that her hepcat side is where her fun is; the amrorphous, theoretically "jazzy" ballads haven't been reaching me at all. But I'll keep the tracks people mentioned in mind should I come across dollar copies of Pirates or The Magazine, even though I still expect I'll find them even more frustrating than the debut. Meanwhile, here's a talk on Frank Kogan's livejournal last year, centered around a '90s track by her than I do like; also curious if she ever did anything else like "White Girl":
http://koganbot.livejournal.com/172216.html
― xhuxk, Monday, 26 April 2010 03:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Woah, so weird. Didn't see this thread, but I'm listening to the self-titled right now.
― Mordy, Monday, 26 April 2010 03:31 (thirteen years ago) link
I kind of think that me trying to really interest Xhuxk in RLJ's career is the definition of insanity, but I guess if there is any explanation for why she didn't do a lot of happy songs like chuck e's in love it was the huge writer's block that killed her after Pirates.
I will represent The Magazine forever because it saved my life one summer, and Pirates has at least two songs I cannot listen to because they are too much in my heart. Anyway, there's a lot of great stuff floating around from the rest of her career, as I've been learning by combing dollar bins. Here's a brief alternative Top 10:
"Nobody Knows My Name" (kinda like an alt.dylan version of "white girl" if you stretch your mind)"Show Biz Kids" (actually the whole "it's like this" cover album is amazing-pants)"Altar Boy" (about as punk as sinead o'connor)"Tell Somebody (Repeal the Patriot Act)" (aka "chuck e hates george bush" with gospel seasonings)"Ghost Train" (beat as fhuxk)"Wild Girl" (loose, easy folkie pop from last year's balm in gilead)"Love Is Gonna Bring Us Back Alive" (live at red rocks, barely over her version of "gloria")"Dat Dere" (oscar brown jr song from pop pop, love the songs where she just sounds happy)"Lucky Guy" (country weeper, probably written about tom waits' roving ways on the road)"The Real End" (most underrated jam from 'the magazine')
― T Bone Streep (Cave17Matt), Monday, 26 April 2010 04:00 (thirteen years ago) link
I will represent The Magazine forever because it saved my life one summer, and Pirates has at least two songs I cannot listen to because they are too much in my heart.
which ones?
― Tim F, Monday, 26 April 2010 04:08 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah "Lucky Guy" is a sleeper on Pirates but the whole album is great. I will also stand up for "Juke Box Fury" on Magazine.
Maybe I am the only person who has heard Traffic From Paradise from 1994? It inexplicably became my very favourite album when it came out (I was 11 at the time) and I still really enjoy it. produced with Leo Kottke.
― derrrick, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 07:49 (thirteen years ago) link
don't forget -
Rickie lee Jones, S/D?
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 09:19 (thirteen years ago) link
wow Matt we are kinda identical twins on this question
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 12:13 (thirteen years ago) link
So -- as Tim F basically predicted -- I've decided I pretty much can't stand Pirates; don't hear at all what others hear. Even the only two cuts with any hint of energy at all -- "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train To Peking" and maybe the title track -- don't come close to the stuff I like on her debut, beatnik scat schtick or no. And the rest, gawd, what a vague, empty snooze of a record. Thing is, I do like her writing in a few songs -- all the very-early -Springsteen type street characters and situations in "We Belong Together," "Living It Up," "Skeletons," "Traces of the Western Slopes" But the only way I know is from the lyric sheet, and given her nodded-out mumbling, which annoys the heck out of me and leaves me cold, I'm not even sure it'd work to read along while listening, which I'm not about to try.
― xhuxk, Monday, 25 October 2010 00:41 (thirteen years ago) link
Haven't heard Pirates in a long time, but you know what I really used to like was that covers record, Pop Pop.
― Mark, Monday, 25 October 2010 00:51 (thirteen years ago) link
she is doing dates performing her first two lp's!
― dude (del), Monday, 25 October 2010 01:11 (thirteen years ago) link
xpActually, even in the songs where I said I liked the lyrics on paper, it's usually only a verse here and there, not entire songs. Basically just impressed when the writing gets specific, even if it's an idea she pretty clearly swiped from elsewhere. And I'd be way more impressed if the music wasn't too quiet and sleepwalked-through to hear the words.
― xhuxk, Monday, 25 October 2010 01:12 (thirteen years ago) link
dude, i gotta see this--is she planning on coming to NYC? If she'd throw in Live at the Volcano Live it would be truly perfect
― iago g., Monday, 25 October 2010 01:32 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean Girl at Her...smoking a bowl on a work night, not a good thing
― iago g., Monday, 25 October 2010 01:33 (thirteen years ago) link
looks like she is doing westbury and bergen PAC..
― dude (del), Monday, 25 October 2010 01:47 (thirteen years ago) link
too bad...that's what i thought
― iago g., Monday, 25 October 2010 01:55 (thirteen years ago) link
thanks
Is it obvious to everyone else what "cunt-fingered Louie" means?
― Tim F, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:15 (twelve years ago) link
Cos I have spent some 10+ years not knowing.
hah. poetic license? that combination of words just sounded good next to one another? or maybe he was some manhattan beach character that her friends knew who...eh
anyway, did anyone see her on that tour last autumn?? i still regret not seeing her. i am a huge fan and she played in town on my effing birthday :(
― dell (del), Monday, 22 August 2011 13:49 (twelve years ago) link
From Henry Green's Paris Review interview:
I got the idea of Loving from a manservant in the Fire Service during the war. He was serving with me in the ranks, and he told me he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what the old boy most liked in the world. The reply was: “Lying in bed on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to the church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers.” I saw the book in a flash.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:56 (twelve years ago) link
Correction - she's doing two shows each night, and only the "early" shows have sold out. They still have tickets for the late shows:
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/rickie-lee-jones-1623129
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 March 2023 03:37 (one year ago) link
Pirates can bring me to tears.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 17 March 2023 03:43 (one year ago) link
I think Ghostyhead is really interesting: sort of a "belatedly ride the trip hop wave" effort on the surface but that dismissive take belies what's really going on which is that Rickie makes the obvious connection that these more rhythmic but still-guitar-driven soundtracks provide the perfect foil for her to really lean into her beatnik impulses - most of the album takes that kind of 'spill over the lines of the song' profusion aspect of her vocal approach to its logical conclusion. And musically I'm not sure what I'd compare it to: I imagine it was sold to Warner Bros as being in the vein of the first Beth Orton album but it's almost more like if New Kingdom decided to produce a folk artist.
― Tim F, Sunday, June 20, 2021 3:12 AM (one year ago)
so glad someone besides me loves this album
Pop Pop is great too, that Jimi cover is perfect
― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Friday, 17 March 2023 03:54 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAPCmubduvk
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 April 2023 23:05 (one year ago) link
yo sleeve! Sean and I both spoke for Ghostyhead, way upthread, so that makes four of us who Know. She understood how trip-hop can play well with words, for one thing.
― dow, Tuesday, 18 April 2023 02:19 (one year ago) link
<3
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Tuesday, 18 April 2023 02:20 (one year ago) link
(Counting her, that makes five who Know.)
― dow, Tuesday, 18 April 2023 02:21 (one year ago) link
omgomg just lucked into a ticket to her chicago show! so so so excited
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 17:58 (eleven months ago) link
She put on a fantastic show last night. Opened w/ a solo piano version of "Living It Up" that she sang as though she'd written it last week. The set was mostly from her new album -- "There'll Never Be Another You" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" were highlights -- but pulled from Pop Pop and the first album. She played guitar on a couple songs, incl "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" and was very obv having a blast. Her band is terrific, too.
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:00 (eleven months ago) link
No Atlanta dates. :(
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:07 (eleven months ago) link
yeah, jealous
― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:11 (eleven months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_7YGRLoG8
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 1 August 2023 09:20 (eight months ago) link
Aw crap, she did a free show in Brooklyn on Saturday and I totally missed it. (I was at another show anyway, but still, would've considered going to hers instead.)
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 1 August 2023 18:45 (eight months ago) link
Xpost that video of Rickie Lee talking about movies was awesome. Great storytelling chops and humor but I guess that was evident in her songs.
― that's not my post, Wednesday, 2 August 2023 14:29 (eight months ago) link
I kinda love that she took The Blob.
― niall horanburger (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 2 August 2023 14:53 (eight months ago) link
No mention of that hefty Fellini box though, which was odd.
― MaresNest, Wednesday, 2 August 2023 15:39 (eight months ago) link
The set was mostly from her new album -- "There'll Never Be Another You" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" were highlights
― dow, Wednesday, 2 August 2023 17:35 (eight months ago) link
Happy birthday!
― hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 November 2023 15:54 (five months ago) link
well, I'm ugly toono, no, no, you're not beautiful no, you're ugly toocause you've been traveling in so many universes and you manifest here
― hogarth brooks (unregistered), Wednesday, 31 January 2024 02:59 (two months ago) link