A Hair Off Square   custom cards

Quick post to share a link: Here is a great article on some weird variations in the 2011 Topps Heritage set.

http://lifetimetopps.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/2011-heritage-1962-topps-variations/

Alright the music hasn’t died, it is getting moved. A Hair Off Square is now totally devoted to sports and custom cards. I have created a separate blog to track my musical tastes. I will keep both blogs up and running. Now A Hair Off Square won’t have an occasional interuption from a music post and I won’t fill Goose Joak’s blogroll with stuff about hippie music.

The new blog is called “Vocals on Top” I encourage you to head over there for any useless and pointless knowledge on music. But now, more custom cards coming very soon.

So I missed a day posting anything on the website and this is why. Lawrence, KS is a comfortable 75 minute drive from St. Joseph, MO so I decided to go see the Justin Townes Earle on a Thursday night. The Bottleneck in Lawrence is a great venue for the music I listen to which can be summed up this way as put by Matt at TruerSound:

Q: What kind of music do you listen to?

A: The kind of shit they play in bars.

The Bottleneck is a bar. It has several publicity photos on the wall of the now legendary names including Soundgarden, Wilco, Foo Fighters, Spoon, Cake and this list goes on a while. It is a roomy conformable venue for shows. It’s size is properly suited for an artist such as Justin Townes Earle.

I first heard Justin Townes Earle when he opened for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit a few years ago at Knucklehead’s in Kansas City which is a horribly uncomfortable place to see a show by the way. I only knew that Justin was as he puts it; his father’s son. Son of Americana legend Steve Earle, he didn’t mention his father on that night but since has furthered himself as a legitimate performer in his own right. He made a believer out of me on that night, I now spin all his records so the Lawrence show was all but a must attend.

Earle came on stage about 10:10 and pounded through an 80 minute set spanning his three records. The new(and brilliant) Harlem River Blues was hit very hard by Earle, and appropriately so. I don’t have a complete setlist of the show but I can confirm the setlist contained among many others; South Georgia Sugar Babe, Midnight at the Movies, They Killed John Henry, Mama’s Eyes, Can’t Hardly Wait, Halfway to Jackson, Harlem River Blues, I Don’t Care, One More Night In Brooklyn, Learning To Cry, Ain’t Waitin’ Cadallac Blues and Racing In the Streets.

The songs from the new album were slowed from the album versions. They were simplified from the brilliant Jason Isbell guitar on the album and made to fit just Earle’s acoustic guitar and single violin accompaniment. Cadallac Blues, Racing In The Streets and Can’t Hardly wait were covers Earle mixed in throughout the evening. The last two songs composing Earle’s Encore that left the crowd happy and satisfied.  An encore of songs written by Bruce Springsteen and Paul Westerberg will always get my approval.

Earle was upfront about his thoughts on his father and his issues with as he put it “problems with chemical dependence and incarceration.” Both subjects can be summed up by Earle’s comment about what his father once said about him, something along the lines of: I’m a hard dog to keep under the porch.

The highlights of the evening for me were a great singalongs of “They Killed John Henry” and “Harlem River Blues.” Always great was hearing Earle’s brilliant reading of  the Replacement’s “Can’t Hardly Wait.” Earle’s banter may have been the highlight of the evening. he was funny, charming and honest in his between-songs banter. The guy is a great performer and should have a future of many great albums and shows. My ears will likely be involved with each.

Centro-matic is a Texas band led by Will Johnson. Johnson is a folk hero of sorts. He is not like a Arlo Guthrie folk hero, he is more like a Paul Bunyan type folk hero. Centro-matic in many ways is the central ingredient in a small family of bands. Will Johnson has several projects going on simultaneously.  Johnson is the lead singer and guitarist for Centro-matic, and the lead singer and guitarist for the more low-fi South San Gabriel. Johnson also tours solo and has released numerous records under his name alone. Johnson’s strangest role may be as drummer for Monsters of Folk. Monsters of Folk is a supergroup made up of Jim James(Yim Yames, My Morning Jacket) Conor Oberst(Desaparecidos, Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band) Mike Mogis(Bright Eyes) and M. Ward(M. Ward, She & Him) and of course Will Johnson(Will Johnson, Centro-matic, South San Gabriel)

Here is a great chance to expose yourself to the music of Centro-matic and South San Gabriel; They have generously posted a compilation on their website of 24 songs as a sampling for the bands. The download can be found at: https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=UFhzT2pPZDVKV05jR0E9PQ

This is the cover art for the 24 song sampler provided on Centro-matic's website.

The band is really a unique talent. The core of the band is Will Johnson and drummer Matt Pence. Johnson is such a unique singer that no other band really sounds anything like them. I have never seen a singer in a band use his proximity to the mike as a weapon as Johnson does. Johnson is also bafflingly prolific. Centro-matic  just announced the release of their 10th record, that doesn’t even count Johnson’s many other projects. Do yourself a favor and check out the sampler.

There you go, now LISTEN TO CENTRO-MATIC.

This is the second entry into my “Listen To” posts, it focuses on Jason Collett.The only free music to get people to listen Collett that I know of is a very strong Daytrotter session featuring songs from 2010’s Rat A Tat Tat.

Click the picture to get to Jason Collett's daytrotter session

Jason Collett is a singer/songwriter from Canada. He is a one-time member of Canadian supergroup Broken Social Scene. His solo material is much different than his work with Broken Social Scene however. Collett is on the same record company as Broken Social Scene as well, Arts & Crafts. He is not “famous” and I doubt his record sales are all that impressive. He doesn’t tour much, I’m sure this has a lot to do with both his family and financial demands in touring. He rarely comes south of the border to the United States and has never played a venue close enough for me to attend.

His Career started with the 2003 release of Motor Motel Love Songs and has spanned a total of four proper albums of new material, one “stripped down” album of mostly old material and two eps. In 2010 he released two albums and one ep.

I must discuss how I came across Jason Collett’s music before I go into his albums. I was at a Cracker/Jason Isbell concert in Lawrence, Kansas back in 2007 when I first heard him. Of all places to hear new music it was the choice that night of the sound man to play Collett’s Idols of Exile for the bar while waiting for the bands to go on. I obviously didn’t know who it was but was impressed enough to ask the sound man and amazingly I retained the information. At first listen I actually thought it was Jeff Tweety of Wilco/UncleTupelo/Golden Smog fame. Collett’s music is similar to Tweety’s but looking back the connection is now hard to point out.

At the time I had not heard Tweety’s work with Golden Smog and thought that it may be that album that I was listening to. I then heard the lyric “I love it when my girlfriend calls me a cocksucking faggot…” at this point I ruled out Tweety and asked the sound man. I picked up that Collett album a few weeks later.

Now I will briefly run through Collett’s discography:

Motor Motel Love Songs:

Collett’s first release is a smooth listen and a good album but is overshadowed by every other record in his catalog. One song on the record, Blue Sky, was featured on “The L Word” soundtrack, gaining Collett some exposure. The albums better tracks are It Won’t Be Long, Blue Sky and Tiny Ocean of Tears.

Idols of Exile:

Collett’s first in a trio of fantastic albums. Features some of the strongest material in his catalog. The fantastic “Hangover Days” features vocals from fellow Broken Social Scene members Leslie Feist and Emily Haines who are each successful on their own with Feist’s solo career and Haines’ band Metric. In a perfect world this album would have had a ton of great singles on it. It features songs that will stick in your head all day and don’t get stale on repeated listens. The strongest songs on this record of strong songs are; Fire, Hangover Days, We All Lose One Another, I’ll Bring The Sun and These are the Days.

Prodigals EP:

This digital ep is a good listen but it nowhere near the quality of Collett’s other releases. It features older songs that should see the light of day but are not high quality enough for albums in most cases. The best song is the outright dirty Diggin’ In The Carpet.

Here’s To Being Here:

Sometimes I am amazed how much an artist can say without actually saying a lot. This is what strikes me about Here’s To Being Here. Certain albums work really well as a whole and this is definitely an example. While Idols of Exile seemed to have the big choruses and radio friendly sounding songs, this record is a collection of songs that seem to fit together and form a fantastic album in the end. The songs don’t seem rushed, they play out as they should. The songs are not particularly slow or fast, it is a smooth mixture the begs for the repeat button to be pushed. The best songs are the Stones sounding Out of Time, the rocking Papercut Hearts and the fantastic duo at the end of the album, Nothing To Lose and Not Over You.

Rat A Tat Tat:

I recently listed this as my top album of 2010. While not as strong as Here’s To Being Here in my opinion, it is still another great listen and was obviously good enough to be my favorite album of 2010. It features another great radio quality song in Love Is A Dirty Word that should have been one of the best songs of the year. Love Is A Chain may be the best ’70s song not recorded in the ’70s. Other great songs on the record are Rave On Sad Songs and Cold Blue Halo. The album is best listened to with its companion ep, To Wit To Woo.

To Wit To Woo:

The songs on this ep are every bit as good as the songs on Rat A Tat Tat. They were presumably recorded in the same sessions and fit together very well with the album. It is a 6 song set that features two brilliant songs in my opinion Rainy Day Rain and Love Song To Canada.

Pony Tricks:

This one is tricky, no pun intended. It features 11 tracks, two of them new and 9 re-recorded, stripped down versions of their originals. A couple re-recorded songs are drastically different and very interesting listens although I don’t know if any top their original versions. The most interesting songs are Hangover Days and Papercut Hearts. The best track from the record is the newly recorded My Daddy Was A Rock N’ Roller.

There you go, now LISTEN TO JASON COLLETT.

You should listen to the Ike Reilly Assassination, you really should. I’ll get you started; here is a link to download 10 FREE Ike Reilly songs form amazon.com.

A brief background on Reilly:

Over the course of the last 10 years Ike Reilly has released 6 albums and 3 eps. That is a pretty productive 10 years. Some musicians want you to listen to their music, others need you to listen to their music. Ike Reilly belongs to the latter group. Ike and his band don’t tour much because they can’t really afford to. The last album, the spectacular Hard Luck Stories, was funded, in part, by the fans. The album was funded by a loan from the bank and Ike’s now good friend Max. Then the music was released in the fall of 2009 digitally. The money from this, I assume, was funneled to help release a hard copy version of the album in late winter of 2010.

Reilly really tried hard to promote this album, not so much with touring but through the internet. He started doing a series of greatly entertaining podcasts and promotional videos through his website.  He also started being accessible through facebook and doing live webcasts on stickam. It is hard to judge whether this promotion was a success or not but it really couldn’t have hurt.

I discovered Ike Reilly right before his second album, Sparkle In The Finish was released. My favorite band Cracker covered one of Reilly’s songs on their 2003 album Countrysides. I saw the the Ike Reilly Assassination listed in a local concert listing. The listing was in St. Joseph, Missouri, a place not a lot of bands comes to play. My brother and I went to the show not knowing really anything about Reilly and his band. The cracker album featured covers of work from Dwight Yoakam and Mearle Haggard, so I thought the Ike Reilly may well have a strong country influence. Not really true. Country influence? Yes. Country sound? No.

So let me set the scene; September 23, 2004 at The Bone in St. Joseph, MO. The Assassination comes out as a five man band, the crowd featured my brother and I, another table of three people and the sound guy. So essentially; five on stage, five in the crowd. On the plus side the special was $1 PBRs. The show was great, the band didn’t phone it in because of a small crowd and didn’t shorten the show either. It featured a heavy scattering of Reilly’s first two releases and a few covers. The covers I remember were; The Clampdown(Clash) From A Buick 6(Bob Dylan) and Dick In Dixie(Hank Williams III) He would return to the venue five months later to a much better reception, a crowd of about 40 people.

From that point, I was a devoted fan, buying every album and patiently watching concert listings. I would recommend picking up his third album Junkie Faithful if you would like to start with an album after the free sampler I posted a link to. Here is a brief summary of his recorded career.

Community #9:

I don’t have it and have never heard it. It is a release from the early ’90s that I have seen one copy of in the seven years I have been listening to Reilly. I don’t know how many copies exist but it is not a lot. It sold for around $55 on eBay, I was sniped but that is beside the point.

Salesman and Racists:

Reilly’s only major label release. Republic/Universal released the album in 2001 to critical praise, apparently it didn’t pay too many bills for Universal because Reilly was dropped. The album features many Reilly classics including: Commie Drives a Nova, My Wasted Friends, Last Time and Duty Free(the song Cracker covered)

Cars and Girls and Drinks and Songs EP:

Five song EP sold at shows around the time of Sparkle In The Finish. Featured four songs from the album including a different version of I Don’t Want What You Got Goin’ On and a EP only song Farewell To The Good Times Pt. 2(later released on a b-sides album.)

Sparkle In The Finish:

A bold rocking album and his first on Rock Ridge music which is still his label. Loaded with concert staples including I Don’t Want What You Got Goin’ On, Whatever Happened to the Girl In Me, The Boat Song and It’s All Right To Die.

Junkie Faithful:

In my opinion, Mr. Reilly’s best album. Not as much as a rocking album as Sparkle In The Finish but the songwriting got better and the album is stronger as a whole. Best Songs are God and Money, The Mixture, Kara Dean, Suffer For The Trust and I Will Let You Down.

Sparkle In The Finish; The B-Sides:

Features four unreleased songs that are really strong and would have fit well on the album they were intended for. It was the first of two digital EPs released by the band. The best song is by far Trainbomber.

The Last Demonstration EP:

Another digital EP; features 6 songs, four of which appear on the Junkie Faithful album. They repeat songs are dramatically different and worth listening to. They sound almost like demos or solo performances. Has great songs on it including the short and powerful Lust Song ’78 but the true gem is the version of Suffer For The Trust that ranks high among my favorite songs of all time.

We Belong To The Staggering Evening:

Great album of new material featuring two old songs that had been played live for years. I still remember the excitement of reading the email in the library while I was in college when it said that “The Work Song” might just be on the tracklist. The Work Song is “Fish Plant Uprising” and is one of Reilly’s standout songs of his career. The other older song is 8 More Days ‘Till The 4th of July. The song had a video on Reilly’s website of Reilly playing it solo electric with a lit sparkler in his guitar while he ripped through the song. Other great songs on the heavily front-loaded album are When Irish Eyes Are Burning, Valentine’s Day In Juarez and It’s Hard To Make Love to An American.

Poison The Hit Parade:

A B-Sides album is the best way to describe this one. Of course, artists like Reilly don’t really have B-Sides but the album features EP tracks and alternate versions of album cuts. The two new songs are the highlight; Poison The Hit Parade and Janie Doesn’t Lie. The album also features Duty Free with the alternate lyrics that were featured on the 2003 Cracker album, Countrysides.

Hard Luck Stories:

I spoke a little about Hard Luck Stories earlier in this post. It is a strong album and perhaps his most “accessible.” Reilly gives a nod back to his friends from Cracker for covering his song by letting them guest on this album. David Lowery sings on The Ballad Of Jack & Haley and Johnny Hickman gets to play guitar on Girls In The Backroom. The shining songs from this album are 7 Come 11, Good Work and the duet with Shooter Jennings The War On The Terror and the Drugs.

There you go, now LISTEN TO IKE REILLY.