Review: Marianne Faithfull: Easy Come, Easy Go

My review of Easy Come, Easy Go can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

Marianne Faithfull
Easy Come, Easy Go
Naïve
2009

Throughout her elegantly infamous career, Marianne Faithfull has lived her life through songs with this creed: "Music is best when it's sexual…and if it's not there's something wrong." This is why I have adored her for so long. In my ears, Faithfull today is sexier than she has ever been. To me it starts with the voice. Nothing is sultrier than the voice of a chanteuse, and Faithfull is one of the originals. Since the '60s she's been taking on cover songs like "As Tears Go By" so fluidly, like slipping on the sexiest dress, she inhabits these songs and eventually takes them over, making them her own.

She hasn't stopped since her comeback with 2002's Kissin' Time, and its fabulous follow up, Before the Poison. Faithfull has become Bowie-esque by surrounding herself with modern day collaborators like Beck, Polly Jean Harvey and Jarvis Cocker. With her latest Easy Come Easy Go Faithfull has shown that she is a timeless siren, seducing us with her memorable vocal prowess that continues to excite and astound us with her unique style that oozes sensuality.

Easy Come Easy Go is Faithfull's collaboration with legendary composer, curator and producer Hal Willner. Willner orchestrated Marianne's first major sonic return with 1987's Strange Weather. More than 20 years later, Willner and Faithfull have teamed up to tackle a new set of songs, modern and classic alike to give them an everlasting feel with Marianne's alluring voice as our sensual guide.

With Willner's assistance, Faithfull set out to capture the feel of a collection of songs from her past and some post-modern selections to inhabit with her passionate presence. Easy Come Easy Go starts off with Marianne's very eloquent interpretation of Dolly Parton's "Down from Dover," but Faithfull's version becomes more than a country cover. With the help of Willner and his magnificent backing band it's more of a jazz-filled glory, with shades of bluesy guitar riffs that fuel Faithfull's vocal of luscious longing.

From the outset you will hear that Easy Come is quite the eclectic endeavor with Willner's decision to use an all star selection of session musicians to back up Faithfull with the grace and desire that her voice deserves. It's this dynamic combination that makes Easy Come a climactic success.

Not only did Willner pull together the best band, but he also assembled a collection of heavyweight vocalists. You may recognize the backing vocals of one Ms. Chan Marshall on Marianne's splendid cover of Neko Case's "Hold On, Hold On." Although I would have loved a straight and proper duet between Chan and Faithfull, just like she did on Beck's Modern Guilt album, Marshall's voice fuses perfectly with Marianne's throughout this organ-filled cover. It's incredible the way Marianne becomes the protagonist in "Hold On." Listen as Faithfull sings,

"In the end I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in-between girl
Now it's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love."

You'd swear she's singing about her own life. But that's the power in her performance, the way she inhabits Case's words and reflects them with her own personal world. If you get the feeling that the arrangement has a Bad Seeds, end of the world vibe, you're right, thanks to the explosive electric violin solo by Cave's right hand man Warren Ellis.

Faithfull goes the classic route with her very voluptuous cover of Duke Ellington's "Solitude." Guitarist Marc Ribot's wailing guitar riffs match Marianne's tempting torch song vocal that's perfect for a late night candle-lit dinner for two. Put this song on, start a little slow dancing and you will feel the inspiration.

With help from Nick Cave, Marianne takes on The Decemberists' "The Crane Wife 3." Marianne's captures the emotional resonance of the songs theme when she sings "I will hang my head low." No offense to Colin Meloy, but her vocal delivery makes her the perfect candidate to sing this song. She makes this character come alive. She becomes real; you feel all of her vulnerabilities throughout Marianne's aching vocal. Just like Johnny Cash did with Trent Reznor's "Hurt," Faithfull's version is the definitive one.

Cash and his late creative resurrection with Rick Rubin is the perfect foil for Faithfull's current resurgence with Willner. Both singers took words from modern day troubadours and gave them their distinctive touch. Even songs that should be somehow out of their vocal reach became effortlessly flawless under their unique vocal direction. Cash did it with Danzig's "Thirteen," Faithfull does it with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Salvation." Sean Lennon's guitar and vocal escort Marianne on this exceptional cover. When Faithfull sings, "Do you feel alive?" this becomes more than a cover, it's a personal anthem and a symbol for her creative rebirth.

Unfortunately if you purchase the American version of Easy Come Easy Go you will not be hearing this cover and a plethora of others. The release on Decca U.S. only gives you half the story. I recommend you dishing out for the three-disc import version (2 CDs and one DVD documentary on the making of the album). My fiancée gave me this for Navidad. Eighteen songs from my favorite chanteuse reflect the best gift I got last year. Not only is "Salvation" missing but so is Faithfull's cover of Sarah Vaughan's "Black Coffee" and her incredible duet of "Somewhere (A Place for Us)" with Jarvis Cocker. Invest in the super deluxe edition, think of this as a directors cut, more Marianne for your money.

If you're on a budget like the rest of us, the American version of Easy Go does include covers of Morrissey's "Dear God Please Help Me" and her awe-inspiring duet with Antony Hegarty on Smokey Robinson's "Ooh Baby Baby." I can't forget her collaboration with Rufus Wainwright on "Children of Stone" and the countrified cover of Merle Haggard's "Sing Me Back Home" with Keith Richards. "Home" sounds like two friends crooning this classic at an empty dive bar, ready to call it a night. It's a very intimate performance between two friends with who were closely connected professionally in the swinging '60s.

How do I love Marianne's voice, let me count the ways? The 18 songs on Faithfull's Easy Come Easy Go easily place it up there as one of the front runners for album of the year. Are ready to feel her sensual vocal touch? Dim the lights, pour a glass a wine and light a cigarette. She will ravish you from beginning to end of this spectacular album.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
03.31.2009

Review: Peter Doherty: Grace/Wastelands

My review of Grace/Wastelands can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

Peter Doherty
Grace/ Wastelands
Astralwerks
2009

At the beginning of the Libertines' short lifespan, Carl Barât and Peter Doherty had a motto, "It's either top of the world or the bottom of canal." Since the demise of their band, Doherty's public persona has been in the tabloid guise of the latter. The dream of being one of the greatest British songwriters disappeared with by the appearance of this media-fueled alter ego. I thought it was just me but even Mr. Doherty is baffled by his dark sided twin whom he calls the evil one. He told NME, "I call him my evil twin…I don't see it as me in a way, he's a media creation..." I was fed up with the acts of this doppelganger, I started to lose hope that he would never find Albion and would end up with a sudden Death on the Stairs. His evil twin had been taking all the promise away from the creative side of one Peter Doherty. Now that's he's dumped Kate Moss, finally gone clean and excised his overindulgent entourage, has Peter actually curbed his bloody demons? By moving alone to Paris, it seems that the evil one has at last gone into (permanent?) hibernation.

All of his trialed turbulence may have had much to do with Doherty's age and his raging exuberance. C'mon, Doherty wasn't the only rocker to fall prey to addiction. Jeff Tweedy, Ryan Adams and Trent Reznor have all had their battle with excess but Doherty's was more public. For years, police and judges tried everything to help Peter go clean but everyone knows you can't force an addict to quit cold turkey. Yet it appears that Doherty has finally seen his light and it's still not ready to go out, as of yet. I've been waiting all these years for this Peter Doherty to arrive. The talented poetic-singer, songwriter is finally starting to his spread his creative heights from Albion and beyond.

Babyshambles' Shotter's Nation was the first good step, but producer Stephen Street knew that Peter could go deeper. With his head clean of drugs, Doherty went back to some of his unreleased treasures and with the help from his friends like Street, Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, singer Dot Allison, Libertine lyricist Carl Barat and his carnales from the `shambles, Doherty's solo album is a fucking delight. Half the time, I don't know what the hell Peter is singing about, but just like the sub-cultured language in Irving Welsh's Trainspotting, Doherty's underground world of outcasts from the gutter longing for glimpses of love in the stars are simply fascinating. Case in point, the lyrics to "The Last of the English Roses":

"She knows her Rodneys from her Stanleys
And her Kappas from her Reeboks
And her tit from her tat
And Winstons from her Enoks"

Who is Peter singing about? It doesn't really matter, because his vocalized lyrics sound divine. You can hear a confidence in Doherty's vocals that reign supreme throughout Grace/Wastelands. It's as if overcoming his demons has lit Peter's creative fire. He hasn't sounded this alive since his days as a Libertine. We heard some shades of this in the last Babyshambles album, but songs like "New Love Grows on Trees" signal a new direction for Doherty, with the help of Coxon playing his best Marr-esque riffs, creating a Smiths-like template as a tribute to Peter's favorite band (with whom Street had the honor of producing in their heyday of The Queen is Dead.)

One shouldn't expect Freewheeling acoustic demos like those circulating online post-Libertines and pre-Babyshambles. You probably would have sampled some of these songs in their early incarnations. Those rough drafts were sketches and like the work of any good writer, a song is never finished, it only keeps developing. One example of this is very atmospheric "A Little Death Around the Eyes," co-written by Barat. I love the sweeping feel of this song; I imagine walking around the Seine in France. Doherty captures some the cultural feel on his new home city with the addition of the accordion on "Eyes." You hear a lot of texture and depth on all the songs from Grace/Wastelands. There's a vintage 1930s vibe on songs like swinging "Sweet By and By" and the aptly titled "1939 Returning." I am awed with the creative direction Doherty is taking. It shows the versatile nature in Peter's artistic arsenal. He can croon, seduce and even belt out rockers like "Fuck Forever." But it appears that he wants to go past his "Fuck Forever" phase and move into a more eternal and seductive mode of vocal style. This is a winner to my ears. Grace/Wastelands is light years ahead of some of tracks heard on Down in Albion. Doherty is not only growing but also evolving as a songwriter.

My favorite song on Grace/Wastelands has an infamous history; "Sheepskin Tearaway" has the distinction of being the only Doherty original to be included in Judd Apatow's 2005 film, The 40 Year Old Virgin. This version has vocals from Peter's lovely ex, Dot Allison. But it's that acoustic riff that I first heard on Virgin that's most memorable. Allison's and Doherty's tender duet make this a romantic jazzy number that you'll be singing in your daydreams.

I would love to call Grace/Wastelands a masterpiece but it's not, "Broken Love Song" just doesn't do it for me. To me it seems out of place on the album. This is the only song where Doherty's vocals sound drowsy and unmoving. I don't see why Doherty couldn't have left off "Broken" and replaced it with "Through the Looking Glass." Doherty eliminated this last minute Libertines original for the inclusion of the very personal "I Am The Rain." I speculate that "Glass" was slice of Peter's past and "Rain" is more of a poetic manifesto of who Doherty really is right now. Personifying himself as a symbol for rain, Peter sees himself as someone whose life and words have become inspirational and controversial. Although I really love the way "Rain" ends with a chorus of harmonies and sped-up melodies, I would have loved to have seen the guitar heavy "Glass" included on the album. Coxon's riffs really shine on this song that has been unfortunately relegated to b-side status on the album's first single, "The Last of the English Roses."

For some reason, one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Jeff Tweedy refuses to understand why some of us cherish the music of Peter Doherty. All I can suggest to him is to listen to the magnificent wonder of Grace/Wastelands. There is a beauty and pain in his ever-evolving life, reflected on this impressive first solo album. It's good to have you back Mr. Doherty, let's keep the evil one inside the guitar case as you reach for the top of the globe. Cheers, lad!

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
03.24.2009

Book Review: A Pure Drop: The Life of Jeff Buckley: by Jeff Apter

My book review of A Pure Drop can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

A Pure Drop: The Life of Jeff Buckley
Jeff Apter
Backbeat books
2009

Bono once described Jeff Buckley as "…a pure drop in an ocean of noise." I used to wish there was a book that could capture the complete life of Buckley just as succinctly as Bono's quote. But it seems that there's been a lack of candid biographies willing to sift through the amazing myths about the man. I don't know if it's because of the estate of Jeff Buckley, or the fact that so many of his closet compadres have been so protective of him. I don't blame them; many have refused to share any details about the friend they once knew intimately, professionally for otherwise.

Enter Australian scribe Jeff Apter, who spent five years as editor of Rolling Stone magazine in his native homeland. Apter is no stranger to the music industry, having already written acclaimed biographies on The Cure, Dave Grohl and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Apter had the challenge of uncovering the many lives of Jeff Buckley that included the loner, the lover, the dreamer, poet and other surprising aspects, even to longtime fans.

This is where I come in to the picture, the critic and a J.B. devotee who is such a follower that I've actually ended relationships with the women I was with because of their lack of respect to Buckley and his music. I was disappointed with David Browne's Dream Brother, a dual biography of Jeff and his father Tim that seemed an unfair portrait to the son's legacy. What Browne touched upon and Apter expanded on was Jeff's desire to exorcise himself from his father's creative and professional music career. So many critics and admirers linked him with his troubadour father, a mistake that first official Buckley biographer Browne should have known before taking on this very elusive subject.

Apter takes a different and more original path in dissecting Buckley's life. Every step of the way, even from the first chapter, Apter ties the younger Buckley's upbringing and past to his future exploits as an artist on the Sony label. This one of the aspects that I most appreciated in A Pure Drop. Unlike most critics and readers, I am not so much a fan of the early life of an artist. I love to get to the chase—cut out all the grade school and teenage crap and give me what I desire most, the artist on his peak of creativity. Apter's writing style is like a dramatic mystery where every little step of Buckley's life was a link to his eventful future. Even when describing the life of his mother Mary, his infamous father Tim and their life in California, the focus is always on Jeff and his artistic rise.

To Apter's credit, and unfortunately for Browne, he had more access to Buckley's closest confidants, including his Los Angeles comrade Chris Dowd, guitarist Gary Lucas, New York producer and music curator Hal Willner and, much to my surprise, Glen Hansard of The Frames and Once fame. They first met in New York when Buckley's band opened up for The Commitments touring band that Glen was on the road with. This led to a long friendship between Hansard and Buckley.

Another surprise was discovering the many sessions that Buckley had recorded for Sony and left in the can. Apter spoke to producer Steve Addabbo who spent time in the studio with Jeff before Buckley hooked up with Andy Wallace. Addabbo recorded some seven and half hours of Jeff doing some covers of The Smiths, Bob Dylan and early versions of songs that would end up on Grace. As I read this I literally screamed out, release these sacred tapes already will you Sony?

While I was reading A Pure Drop, I could not put it down. It was as if through every page I was watching the simultaneous coming of age of an artist and demise of an eventual legend. Get ready to bring out your Buckley CDs and rare songs like the unreleased duet with Elizabeth Fraser "Flowers in Time," because it's hard not to be drawn back to them as you read through Buckley's electrifying life.

The best part of Apter's book is that he gets past the myth, and what comes across is a true, imperfect human who's trying to find his voice and space in the world without giving up his integrity to the demands of corporate major label. Buckley hurt friends and fellow musician, and certainly broke hearts, but through out A Pure Drop you get a more complete sense of who Jeff really was. Buckley was a demanding friend who would wound you with words like he did with photographer Merri Cyr and would try to lure you back with his charming ways to make amends by his unpredictable behavior.

What I cherished about Apter's book was the little stories that bring out the amusing characteristics that made Buckley unique, like the way he would stalk dogs in New York City. The owners thought that this weird guy would be trailing them but in reality Jeff was following the mutt. He had this strange connection and fascination with dogs.

Jeff Apter's insight to the life of Jeff Buckley is rarity in this age of celebrity commercialism. He's not about myth making; Apter shows us the true Jeff, flaws and all, as he was from his beginnings in Orange County till his tragic end in Memphis, Tennessee. With A Pure Drop, Jeff Apter has done the legacy of Jeff Buckley right. He has managed to show us a complete portrait of the imperfect man within the gifted artist before he soared among the stars.


A Q&A with Jeff Apter

Treble: Why Jeff Buckley? What inspired you to write A Pure Drop?

Jeff Apter: I'd read so much about Jeff Buckley, especially since his death, that I was very keen to try and separate the man from the myth. Not to be iconoclastic in any way, mind you, I just wanted to understand him more clearly. I wanted to find out how it came to be that a guy who'd finished only one album in his lifetime engendered so much love and devotion from music fans, some who weren't even aware of his music while he was alive. That was my challenge.

T: Were you always a fan?

JA: As a music writer, I certainly took notice of Grace and the groundswell of interest in Buckley while he was alive — I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't. But I wasn't an enormous fan, no. On first few listens I actually thought My Sweetheart The Drunk was a disaster, but now that I understand much of the back-story, I find that album even more rewarding than Grace. I can't think of a vocalist who would rival him in the past 15 or 20 years, either: the guy could sing the phone book and you'd be asking, `My God, I wonder what's on the next page?' He was that good.

T: Jeff seemed to have a huge following in Australia. Did you ever meet him or see him in concert?

JA: If only. I was actually living and working in America at the time he toured Australia (twice). I was having unusual experiences with people like Patti Smith and Frank Black when Jeff was blowing away Australian crowds. But he did connect really strongly here and in France; I guess because he was very emotionally honest in his music and we respond well to that. Strangely enough, I was in Memphis soon after he took that fateful dip. I remember sitting near where he went in and thinking to myself, `You don't swim there.' And this from an Australian; we're born with gills!

T: Were you hesitant because of the myth of Buckley?

No, as I said above I was actually inspired by that, because from my experience — and I've now written 10 books — it's become pretty clear to me that no-one can live up to such an idealized legacy. A UK reviewer got it right when they said, and I hope you don't mind me quoting: `Apter resists mawkishness to reveal a difficult – if charismatic – man who doesn't quite match the idealized image of the gifted lost boy destroyed by fame and family.' I really thought that summed it up perfectly.

T: Did you have trouble getting some of Buckley's friends, colleagues and associates to talk with you? And a follow up, one slight criticism, a few spots in the book you attribute quotes to unnamed Buckley friends who wanted to remain anonymous. Did you struggle with that putting in quotes and words from people who didn't want to be recognized?

Not really. When I began the project some 10 years had passed since his death, so a few of those scars have healed, and those close to him could talk with a little more clarity about Jeff and his life than, say, if we'd spoken in 1997. Although I did have a few interesting conversations —where I'd be talking with someone on the phone for an hour, perhaps two, in some very heavy emotional detail, and then be told, `Oh, you do realize this is off the record, right?' Err, no.

T: While writing and researching A Pure Drop, what did you discover about Jeff Buckley that surprised you the most?

Many things, including his true and total love for such prog rock bands as Yes — `Never be ashamed about loving Yes' he told one friend. I was surprised at how canny he was, especially when it came to the business of music: he knew exactly who would be good for his career, and he gravitated to them whenever the chance arose. He was very tight with the McCartneys, for instance. He was goofy, too — `a real doofus,' according to photographer Merri Cyr — and genuinely funny. And he did indeed love the ladies, and they loved him right back. A very rounded and in some ways very flawed individual.

T: Favorite Jeff Buckley story or anecdote?

I do like the story, related to me by Danny Fields, a publicist who worked closely with Tim Buckley and also knew Jeff well, about a night at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame dinner. Danny was the go-to guy on the night, setting up backstage interviews and keeping the thing rolling. Jeff, who'd connected with some A-list people to swing an invite, spotted him — this was before Grace blew up. Jeff, who was decked out in a shocking pink Stephen Sprouse jacket, yelled out to Danny, then strode across the floor, grabbed him and planted an open mouthed smooch on the man, with the who's who of the music biz looking one, in absolute shock. He genuinely didn't give a rat's arse what they thought; he was just happy to see his friend Danny and maybe give him a thrill, too. He was an impulsive guy, no doubt about it — to his detriment, as it played out in the end.

T: Favorite Jeff Buckley song?

It changes all the time. In the wee small hours I gravitate towards "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" or "Everybody Here Wants You." If my mood is more upbeat it's hard to go past "The Sky is a Landfill" or "Vancouver," which has the most fantastic, propulsive guitar groove. And his unreleased duet with Elizabeth Fraser, "All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun," is golden.

T: What about the unreleased recording sessions and songs by Steve Addabbo, did you hear them? When are they going to be released by Sony?

I haven't, aside from the odd scratchy one-off on some bootlegs (incidentally, the Buckley bootleg industry is as active as that of the Grateful Dead). Hard to say when the label might drop that one; perhaps because there's a lot of covers in the mix it might be copyright clearance hell. Or perhaps those who control his estate don't think it's sufficiently commercial. A shame, because I get the sense that it would provide an up-close glimpse of an artist-under-development. However, the next release from the vault is something called Grace Around the World, another series of live performances, which won't really offer any new insights.

T: Looking back was there anything that was edited out of A Pure Drop that you wish you would have left in the book?

No, not at all. I was very lucky; some really good people gave me a lot of their time and input, even though they could have easily told me to shove off. It was a clear indication as to how much his friends, peers and colleagues hoped that the real Jeff Buckley would emerge from my book. And judging from the feedback I've received by many people who knew him well, I achieved just that.

T: What's next for you?

I've finished a study of the Australian country star, Keith Urban, called Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise of Keith Urban, which was published by Random House in Oz and should have a North American release soon. I'm currently chipping away at a biography of the Finn brothers, Neil and Tim, of Crowded House and Split Enz legend, with hopes of publication in 2010. I'm always drawn to both the story and the music: how did someone become successful? Who knows the real story? How did that song come to be? What was happening in their life when they made this album and how did it affect the music? Those are the constants, the big attractors, for me.

03.23.2009

Book Review: Ryan Adams: Infinity Blues

My review of Infinity Blues can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

Ryan Adams
by Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
03.17.2009

Ryan Adams described his first literary tome, "Infinity Blues as" "…the jewel of my life's work. Who I am is this book." Many of us like to think we know who Ryan Adams is by his confessional songwriting style that we adore from his memorable songs. Adams' writing technique is a very personal one where the audience can immediately relate to the pain and heartache Ryan is singing about in his most treasured songs. Who hasn't asked for their records back from an unfaithful lover as heard on "Come Pick Me Up?"

Ryan's words and especially his lyrics on "Oh My Sweet Carolina" are what made me an instant fan. I loved the way his words brought to life a loner, a virtual gambler, on the road who on searching meaning of home. At the moment I heard "Carolina," I was following my wanderlust, moving from city to city just like the character in Ryan's song whose disposition would one day also, carry me home. Even though I wasn't from Kentucky and I never built newsprint boats, I could relate to the outsider in Ryan's song. It was the way that Ryan sang the lyrics I felt like that character who never been to Vegas but has always gambled up his life.

All it took was "Carolina" and I was a follower of one David Ryan Adams. When I first heard about "Infinity Blues" I was elated. Ryan's foray into writing poems and stories would seem like a leap to some but not the rest of us his loyal fan base. To me it seems that with every record Adams is expanding his songwriting craft away from the traditional song structure and moving more into story like prose. Look at albums like Love is Hell and Jacksonville City Nights as examples of more poetic short stories turned into songs.

In preparing for "Infinity Blues" there was one album I kept going back to, and that was the very often overlooked 29. I hear 29 as Ryan's first unofficial collection of short storied poems in song forms. All you have to do is listen to songs like "Elizabeth, You Were Born to Play the Part" and especially in the epic "Strawberry Wine" and you will hear the way that Adams' writing has evolved. You can hear Ryan and his quintessential lyrics like "Can you still have any famous last words/ if you're nobody somebody nobody knows…"

Ryan won't have to worry about not being famous because after reading "Infinity Blues"—he'll be able to add triumphant poet and writer to his resume. "Infinity Blues" has the essential Ryan Adams writing style we've grown to love within the poems of this eclectic collection.

Not very many singer/songwriters can claim to have written an accomplished tome of books and short stories. Jeff Tweedy and Billy Corgan tried unsuccessfully, so Adams can join the likes of Dylan, Cohen and Lennon as artists who made the jump from songs to poems.

Throughout "Infinity Blues" you'll read Adams' Southern Gentlemanly charm mixed with his canny downtown bohemian insight inspired by his days on tour and his nights living in New York City. This dichotomy makes poems like "Time Ain't Nobody's Friend" and "Home Safe-Heartsickness" comes alive with Ryan's trademark literary wit and ear for explicit beauty and sadness.

One theme you will see throughout of "Infinity Blues" is Ryan's trademark search for love. Even though "Blues" was dedicated to her, pet name for his honey Bug, "Infinity" was written before his nuptials to his now wife Mandy Moore. Poems like "Snow Lady, I Wished You" and "Enough Rope" has Ryan penning his desires and romantic notions on the page with such lines as "I would lasso that moon down and deliver it you."

Scattered throughout "Blues" are 3 short, short stories that you will have to seek out, the best one being "27 Steps." This one about Robert from the docks reminds me of Dylan's writings in Chronicles. Just like Dylan, Adams has some vibrant descriptions it's like you're right there with this girl on the pier. Adams always has this knack of slaying me with his words, "27 Steps" is no different. My favorite lines have to be, "Claudia's voice mumbled through, in a steady up-and-down notation, almost a bird's song with words really. And you hear the coffee in her." "27 Steps" is like a snap-shot of a scene between two would-be lovers. My only complaint is that this story is too short. I'm dying to know what happens next.

We'll have to wait a year or two for Ryan Adams' true novel. He's got another poetry collection, "Hello Sunshine," coming out later on this year. "Infinity" is all about the poems. As poet, Adams is a natural. Although it seems that he may have fears about his own words. In my favorite poem, "Writing, Dying, for the Trying," Ryan writes: "I will be sitting here, with you, or not, buried inside this, almost alive, Talking to no one/ writing dying for the trying to get it right."

I don't know what Adams was worried about because with "Infinity Blues"—he got it right. The poems in "Blues" are some the best verses Ryan Adams has ever written, and this is just his first foray into publishing. What a beginning. If Ryan Adams said "`Infinity Blues' is who I truly am"— I'm glad to have finally discovered the poet inside the songwriter we have admired all of these years.

Available from Akashic Books

Review: U2: No Line on the Horizon

My review of No Line on the Horizon can be found (click here) on treblezine.com

U2
No Line on the Horizon
Interscope
2009

Can you believe that it's been 18 years since U2 released Achtung Baby? It seems that U2 have been overshadowed more by the mystique of that Baby than any other album in their recent canon. Achtung Baby was the album that Bono claimed was the sound of U2 chopping down the Joshua Tree. Yet U2 has seemingly been cursed creatively since then? The band has gone through a successful string of albums, sales wise, but something has been missing. What I've been craving from U2 is a return to their unique, unbridled devotion to transform the sound of popular music with their dynamic sound. Since then, U2 have written some terrific songs but Baby was the album that signaled a change for the band away from pop sensibilities into the experimental depths of a lyrical canvas filled with painful darkness void of true love. To me, U2's dramatic legend has been unfinished since the notes of "Love is Blindness" faded out on my favorite U2 album.

"I haven't been with a woman, it feels like years/ thought of you the whole time, your salty tears…" are the lyrics reflecting lyrics recalling the aches of Achtung you can hear in No Line on the Horizon's finale "Cedars of Lebanon." Even in this war torn epic, Bono has yet to give up his search for the light of amor: "They're not at the beginning but when your story ends…." It seems like U2 has left me hanging there, waiting for their story arc that started back in 1991 to have a fulfilling dénouement.

My Moment of Surrender occurred during the third song of New Line on the Horizon. My wish finally came true throughout the sound of this post modern gospel gem. With Bono's heartfelt vocal I heard the light. The first great song on the album was written not only by Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry, but for the first time in their history, producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois get songwriting credits. You can hear it in the rays between rhythms. There's this new dimension to the U2 sound thanks to Eno and Lanois. It's subtle but you can feel it in the beats. It's in the cello in the mix below the organ and hand claps. And I can't forget Edge's bluesy guitar riff that lifts "Surrender" to a blissful conclusion.

There's a musical depth within the songs of Horizon, a maturity that's been missing from most of the last few pop sensible albums released by these Irish music pioneers. There's nothing wrong with a pop song like "Beautiful Day" or rocking out to "Vertigo." We dig a little of these styles but what made me a U2 devotee was their dive into substance-layered beauty within the canvas that we cherish in some of my favorites like "Running to Stand Still," "Love is Blindness" and "Stay (Far Away, So Close)." The classic dichotomy within U2's classic sound of taking complex themes with sonic simplicity is what made them one of the most innovative bands of our generation.

This is what I have rediscovered within U2 and the new post-modern songs of their No Line on the Horizon. Listen to the first single "Get On Your Boots." The song goes through so many changes rhythmically, something that The Beatles did so brilliantly in the sixties and Radiohead with "Paranoid Android." That's what makes "Boots" such a revolutionary punk song. They captured the punk spirit without imitating it like they did in "Vertigo." Not only do The Edge, Adam and Larry play incendiary rhythms but Bono's lyrics in "Boots" are… wait for it…legendary. "Boots" is a "Fly"-like song about love in this age of socio-political uncertainty. "You don't know how beautiful you are" is global call to arms for all of us let our hair down and feel sexy. Just remember when Bono sings "I don't wanna talk about wars between nations," it's a signal to turn down the rhetorical lights and feel the love again.

If Achtung Baby was the sound of the clock striking midnight of a broken affair, then Horizon is the dawning of a resurrected love—"It's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me/ oh believe in me." Those simple lyrics from "Moment of Surrender" reflect the essential theme of No Line on the Horizon. It's this transcendental exploration of the heart that U2 has been searching for since Achtung Baby. Songs like "Magnificent" with lyrics like "Only love can make such a mark and only love can heal such a scar" reflect U2 reflecting the lyrical antidote to those songs like "So Cruel" that ached with betrayal. Why did it take so long to get over the pain from those reflective melodies? The answer is in the lyrics to "I'll go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight": "A change of heart comes slow…We're gonna make it all the way to the light."

Adding another layer to their lyrical heart are the beats in between these quixotic melodies. Horizon showcases the band expanding their rhythmic pallet with atmospheric soundscapes layered with the help of Eno and Lanois. You can feel Eno's experimental flourishes in "Moment of Surrender" and "Fez-Being Born." Lanois can be heard with his trademark guitar and tender productive tones in the very eloquent "White as Snow." Listen for both of their reflecting backing vocals harmonizing throughout the halls of these breathtaking horizons.

I am not trying to dismiss any of the albums that came between Achtung Baby and No Line on the Horizon. All That You Can't Leave Behind holds a personal place for me in my corazon. It came out when I first lived by myself in my first bachelor apartment in New Orleans. That was the soundtrack of my rebirth. But there's something about Baby that makes it my favorite U2 album and the record of theirs that I keep coming back to. It's the vivid sound and the timeless feeling within the heartbreak of Achtung that reigns supreme. But I've been waiting 18 years for the cure and finally Horizon has distinguished Baby's blues.

Those hits from Pop, Behind and the Bomb may have been memorable but to me they were lacking the emotional depth found within the confines of the beautiful melodies of No Line on the Horizon. Just like your favorite novel or a film you have to watch over and over again, Horizon calls for repeated re-visitations. For every listen you will discover something you may have missed your first spin, fans of Behind may notice similarities in the "Walk On"-esque guitar part in Horizon's "Unknown Caller." U2 have finally come full circle with an album worthy of their legacy. Get ready to surrender to beauty in U2's post-modern treasure that you will need to savor over and over again.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
03.04.2009