Tag: listening

Lately I’ve assigned myself the project of listening to every album recorded by a band I like. This came about when, kicking the hull of my own ignorance, shook out that Depeche Mode has released 7 studio albums AFTER  Violator, home of their last chart hits, and I hadn’t the slightest idea what Devo had been up to since their 1982 video for “Peak a Boo” freaked me out as a second grader. 

This isn’t middle-aged memory loss. A more recent example might be that the album that brought Lizzo into our lives was her third, not her first. We can’t control when we learn of an artist’s work and it’s probably just some quirk of the human brain to believe, at least a little, that someone didn’t exist before we know of them. Nonetheless, it’s incorrect and I ain’t about to say “oh well” when I found out there’s more on offer from a band I already love. Give me all of it. 

The idea then that I only knew fractions of the output of artist who’d given so much to me felt selfish, like not knowing the date of someone I cared about’s birthday.  Over time, we’ll miss almost everything and all we have is what we chose to to do with our time and attention. So for something as important to me as music, I’d rather spend that time on long-term commitments and not unresolved affairs, on friends who have been with me through it all instead those I once knew or haven’t even met. 

I’m in the middle of my third “Listen Through” project (Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings). These efforts happen alongside listening to perennial favorite records and in tandem with the faucets I turn on regularly for drips of new music. Otherwise, deepening your romances comes at the expense of seeing and making friends. And nobody should be that guy.

How it Works

 Before I start in on an album, I will usually read its wikipedia entry as well as the review in AllMusic. I am curious about different performers, producers, engineers on different records and a little why the band might be trying something different this time around. I’m not musically smart enough to know what chromatic scales are or which studio results in this or that sound. But I like to have a sense of who had a hand in the choices that went into a record and who showed up on the day it became real. The answers are always more interesting than believing it all happened by magic.

 I will usually listen to one album every two or three days in the afternoons during the scutt-and-boring-tasks portion of the workday. I’ll jot initial notes after the first listen then 2-3 days later revisit those notes and be rigorously honest if I was being unfair, impatient, etc. If I was doing any of those things, I listen again. If not, I scrawl a quick review to a group of friends with two goals in mind:  1. To have it be fun to read even if whomever is reading it doesn’t like the band/hasn’t heard of them. 2. To be clear in such a way that whomever is reading can hear the music even if they haven’t heard it before. My opinion is a distant third priority.

Writing for a living, I feel a responsibility to do this. You can write down your thoughts just to have them. Or not. 

I focus on studio albums (meaning no live records, reissues or greatest hits compilations) usually with an artist who has more than 5 records in their catalog. The courage hasn’t yet arrived to take on the discography of a Nina Simone (40 studio albums) or a Dolly Parton (51 and still going). It also helps to at least start with musicians who have died or retired or bands that have broken up. Then you know exactly how many records you are dealing with and they won’t release a new one while you are mid-swim. 

Listening in chronological order renders the clearest picture of where an artists sound began and where it ended up. The second option, equally valuable, is to enter an artists catalog during their peak “accessible phase” (i.e when they hit the pop charts or became a star) which gives you great appreciation for when they zig and zag. Like wading in off the beach but appreciating the depth and mystery of the ocean.

Format really doesn’t matter. I happen to love vinyl records but the project is the same no matter how the music gets to you.  

Also try to avoid running a segregated lunch counter (musically speaking) and only listening through to bands you remember fondly from 9th grade or who are all of one genre/race/gender/moment in time. It’s fine to start out that way, led by the same question I was: “What’s doing with that old friend I haven’t spoke to in a while?” But it’s just as valuable to visit undiscovered countries than to stay close to home.  

What I Learned

Even the great treasure of music can seem dull at times. I’ve found that giving over real considered time to an artist’s work has taught me so much–about art, about creative decisions and really just about how we all get up in the morning and have to make that day happen in a way that it mattered. 

I’ve quit making thoughtless judgements about how successful a band actually was. I’ve learned through enjoyment. If we need to change into our relationship with music to keep it from dulling, Listen Though has provided the shine. 

Try it. I bet you end up in the seat next to me, alongside your favorite artist, both receiving their music and piloting the sonic skies with them. 

Produced by: John Norwood Fisher (the band’s bassist)

Released: April 24, 2007

Assessment: 

This is Fishbone’s party record. It whirls, dip-dives, then bum rushes the garage door and spills out on the street under a pulsing moon. We could argue that all Fishbone records are party records (despite also being genre experiments, satire and social commentary) just as all John Waters movies are black comedies despite doing a lot of other things too. But Still Stuck is their purest example of a record you throw on not to get the night going but to keep it at its peak.

Why does it feel so perfectly Fishbone to throw out your best party record in your 40s rather than late teens? Maybe because a band made up equally of manic energy, pinpoint musicianship and innovative spirit plagued by terrible career choices could only do it this way: The sweatiest, danciest record of their career comes at the moment in life when limbs start to hurt and we consider going to bed before the joint gets jumping.

12 songs. The opener “Jackass Brigade” donkey-kicks you out of your chair (horse noises on the backing track and all) then scrambles to a summit almost immediately. Tracks 3-7— “Skank’n Go Nutz” to “The Devil made him do It” are a high wind of furious funk and mighty horns. Stop moving and the songs might exhale you right over a twisted ankle. The album then catches its breath for just a sec, whirls about and kicks out the garage door with “Premadawnutt” in position number 10. By the moment of the final track, a damn funny song called “Date Rape” about a sexual felon getting his just desserts, you’re already on the sidewalk gasping for air. You’d chuckle if you had any lung left for it.

Still Stuck in the Throat is both a play on Fishbone’s name and the fact that, although they only recorded about once a decade now and only Angelo Moore (lead singer) and John Norwood Fisher (bass) remained from the original lineup, Fishbone never stopped touring the world, playing together and in support their friends. More than that, I like how the title of this album describes both the pain and joy of being a Fishbone fan: These artists sabotaged their own career more than once and had a bad habit of valuing funny over good. These are forgivable errors when compared to the sheer chops, verve and boundless drive to challenge themselves they showed as players and the far more successful bands (No Doubt, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus) that looked up to them. And these errors would have cost less, I have to believe, had Fishbone been a band full of handsome white people.

Still Stuck in our Throat is where they should be. As a reminder that great bands don’t always make great choices or have great luck. In a perfect world, that shouldn’t matter. The genius of their music should be our reminder, persistent, even annoying, they count too. The phrase “brought the funk to the punk” is overused when describing Fishbone’s influence. But can you really apply it, with anything like a full heart, to anyone else?

Is it time for the Fishbone biopic to get them back into the conversation? How about a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination? Cuz I’d be down for both.