How many Lee Ranaldo records is too many?

whole album streaming here: http://www1.rollingstone.com/hearitnow/player/leeranaldo.html

this is great so far!

yeah i'm digging it. nothing that wouldn't sound too out of place on a latter day SY record, but some nice touches -- I think that's Nels Cline on "Xtina As I Knew Her"...

Awww, thanks for that link. Good way to end my work day!

no prob.
medeski bits are sounding pretty rad too!

Hah, forgot that there are a bunch of guests on this (besides Licht). Got no problem with Medeski, great player

ha, i take it back, the country rock/pedal steel breakdown on "fire island" would sound out of place on a latter day SY record.

yeah it's gotten less sonic youth in the middle part

man this is a nicely produced record, who recorded it?

i bet this will sound soooo sweet on vinyl

i think it's the same dude who did the last few SY records? John Agnello?

Tommorow Never Comes is pure awesomeness cause it steps completely out of the box.
the rest is more or less latter day SY, which for me means boring.

on the other hand, regarding the personal issues which evolved SY lately, he might need to get used to record a SY album alone:)

Man, this really does sound good, liking it much better than the live clips I have seen. The guests and added instrumentation really make it work for me, and so far the songs are all good to really good. Really, "Off The Wall" and "Angles", the two songs that were getting pushed up till now, are my least favorite, though I like them alright. Just digging the moodier stuff (not done yet though!).

First listen: this was pretty good.
Still, ambient Lee >> songs Lee >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no Lee at all.

oh hey I am gonna listen to this now

You should, it's great - and better than (and different from) most SY of the past decade

I couldn't make it past "Hammer Blows" yesterday, giving it another try now but I dunno.

Guess I'm just not used to Lee as a straight ssw.

i did expect at least one noisy, out-there track, but i guess he wanted to keep this as straight-ahead as possible. really liked it on first listen though.

OK "Fire Island" is bringing it, this is much more of what I wanted

show you pictures of weirdos and lee ranaldo

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/1651/johnandlee02qm4.jpg

Throwing in other SYers for good measure.

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/118/7cae0693a8e442599bcc86fac96d8115/l.jpg

some serious weirdos in this pic
http://www2.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Fender+Jazzmaster+50th+Anniversary+Concert+TsdPZidXA-tl.jpg

wow that's like the first picture ever where Thurston doesn't look like a dorky teenager - looks pretty old actually

Passed Thurston a few times on the Lower East Side the last couple of years and, yeah, he is starting to look only 10 or 15 years younger than he is, not 30.

Also, I like the Lee record a lot. In my mind it really picks up after the first 4 songs (not that I dislike all of those songs, I just like the latter 2/3rds of the record a lot more). Licht's playing on the live clips I had seen didn't excite me that much, and neither did the versions of those songs ("Angles" and "Off the Wall" or whatever), but on the record all of the guitars/solos sound fucking great. Some really good textured playing on there, and to my ears way more varied than any of the 00's SY records (not that I didn't really like those SY records either, just in response to the "this sounds like late-period SY to me"). Anyone getting that feel should just skip the first 4 songs and return to them later.

Who are the two blokes next to Lee in the picture Tyler posted? They look kind of familiar but I don't know where from.

that's jimmy rip and tom verlaine (rip is verlaine's regular guitarist). both weirdos.

Aha! Thought that might have been Tom, but he looked a good deal balder than the last time I saw him.

nels and thurston also making him look uncharacteristically un-giant.

apparently married life is bad for nels's health and seperated life is bad for thurston's health

oh i thought you said 'un-gaunt' like they were getting paunchy, nevermind

all i can really look at in that pic is mascis. so great.

lee is live on wfmu right now!

Hey, thanks man. Just saw this and am tuning in now ...

Ranaldo sounding great on FMU. Always was my fave SY member.

lol, talking heads cover!

Hah, awesome

Man, missed most of it I guess. Gonna have to dig through the archives to hear the rest.

listening to the album this morning -- not sure if it's a masterpiece, but it's damn good. pretty much exactly what i wanted to hear out of a "song-based" lee record. would love to see this band live.

Really harsh Pitchfork review for some reason, not sure what the point of it was. I'll bring a point up with Lee that I do with SY all the time: how many other 50-whatever-year-old musicians still trucking in rock music would deliver a better record than this? Not a REASON to put a record out, mind you, but on the scale of similar efforts to his peers, this Lee record is pretty great.

Yeah, I thought that review was overly harsh as well.

It represents a chance for Ranaldo to nab a headline without having to talk about Gordon and Moore's Facebook relationship status.
blecch. annnnyway.

what a terrible, terrible review.

I've said this before, and I'm probably just projecting on the writers here, but I sometimes get the feeling that they toss a harsh review at sacred cows like this just to sort of prove they aren't beholden to the canon or something.

Kinda got that impression with this one, especially in light of the stuff that guy typically reviews/covers, but I am on a non-cynicsm train in my life these days, and would prefer to just chalk it up to a "dude was not feeling this album at all" moment. Bummer of a lead review and all that, though. Plus, calling the solos "banal" was particularly rich. If any dudes deserve to own their sounds on a record at this point, Licht, Cline, and Ranaldo are high on that list.

I mean, calling Ranaldo out for using a trick like supplying menacing guitar underneath a pretty finger-picked acoustic is also trying a little too hard, as again: didn't SY establish a whole range of variations on this idea? Why not just criticize him for making a guitar record?

I really like Grayson Currin's writing in general and find him to be quite thoughtful in general but this review is embarrassing. I'm not even enamored of the record, but this just misses the point so much. The Lee band, minus Steve, played the whole thing at Other Music in NY last night and it was mostly great, despite it being only their fourth or fifth show together. Lee and Alan's guitar interplay live is terrific to watch. Two songs I don't like on the album didn't open up for me live, though: "Fire Island (Phases)" and "Stranded." I think it's a lyrics things but they also felt musically clunky live. V. good album overall though and will make a point to revisit it throughout the year.

"in general"

You know what, hearing the live version of "Lost" on that WFMU broadcast has totally won me over. Lee playing with a fluid, accomplished player like Licht totally changes the dynamic (not that I would trade it for prime SY mind you), there are some great exchanges going on. I am excited to see this band now, with a few more weeks of playing under their belts they could be pretty fucking great.

most of the the other reviews aren't so postive too..

http://www.metacritic.com/music/between-the-times-and-the-tides/critic-reviews