Music

Dad’s Favorite Discs 2015

~ Randy Blazak ~ 8 Comments

December 28, 2015

SaturnspatternDespite the fact, now that The Beatles are streaming on Spotify, there is a whole new generation of kids that will never listen to Rubber Soul straight through, I’m still a firm believer in the album format. Artists like Kendrick Lamar can have a complete musical vision that can’t be represented by one track. Some, like Bjork, will actually wrap it in some wonderful album artwork. And some will release a set of songs that you just can’t stop playing. For me that was the 9 track album a hero of mine from my teenage days, Paul Weller. Andrea and I both played the hell out of it and it will still be on heavy rotation in the new year.

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It was hard to hang out in record stores this year with a wild monkey living in our casa. I even fell behind on my three favorite music podcasts (Sound Opinions, All Songs Considered, and Alt Latino). Most of the year was spent watching Cozy transform from a baby into a toddler, and on planes and writing my ass off. But there was still plenty of music in the house and the one thing we learned in 2015 is that Cozy Valentina loves to dance, especially to hip hop and Latin music. And she likes record stores, too.

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The six weeks we spent in Mexico helped to infuse her with her native rhythms. Our weekly “Sunday Funday” fix of Cuban music on the beach and the endless playing of Osmani Garcia and Pitbull’s single, “Taxi,” had her up on her feet and shaking her diaper. The other day I was playing some dreary Bob Dylan and she figured out how to get the CD out of the stereo and replace it with a Bomba Estero disc. She hit play, climbed on the table and danced. She’s mama’s girl.

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There was a great theme of classic jazz this year. The amazing DJs on KMHD got me through the ups and downs of 2015. They provided much of the soundtrack while I worked on my new novel, The Dream Police. The year culminated with a show at the Village Vanguard in New York City a few weeks ago. The Christian McBride Trio provided an evening of bliss in the world’s most historic jazz cellar.

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We actually did manage to get out and see some shows this year thanks to some much appreciated babysitting. We went to see Patti Smith, Algiers, Madonna, Genders, Emily Kinney, La Santa Cecilia and Paul Weller. Andrea made it to shows by Sleater-Kinney and Elle King. And Cozy went to her first two concerts with us this year, U2 in Vancouver and then The Waterboys in Portland.

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As I predicted, I bought a lot less music in 2015 (and a lot more diapers). But here are 20 releases from 2015 I really enjoyed. I’ve been a Paul Weller fan since he was in The Jam in the late 1970s and I think his latest is one of the best things he’s ever done. Seeing him play these songs at the Wonder Ballroom in October was beyond thrilling. And I have to say how excited I was about a new ELO album. It may really just be a Jeff Lynne album but it captures what was great about the group in the seventies; the music that inspired my last book.

  1. Paul Weller – Saturns Patterns
  2. Jeff Lynne’s ELO – Alone in the Universe
  3. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
  4. Algiers – Algiers
  5. The Waterboys – Modern Blues
  6. Bomba Estereo – Amanecer
  7. Sleater Kinney – No Cities to Love
  8. Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material
  9. The Decemberists – What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
  10. D’Angelo and the Vanguard – Black Messiah
  11. Madonna – Rebel Heart
  12. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
  13. Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Best of the Cutting Edge
  14. Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves
  15. Keith Richards – Crosseyed Heart
  16. Bjork – Vulnicura
  17. Brian Wilson – No Pier Pressure
  18. Lana Del Rey – Honeymoon
  19. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
  20. Pete Townshend – Truancy

You can stream tracks here on my Spotify 2015 Top 20 playlist.

Honorable mention: Waxahatchee – Ivy Trip, Bob Dylan – Shadows in the Night, The Flaming Lips – With a Little Help From My Fwends, Ringo Starr – Postcards From Paradise, Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect, Various Artists – PDX Pop Now 2015

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I love year-end lists. They typically serve as shopping lists (or at least streaming). SO much music to catch up on. I bought a Kedrick Lamar track over the summer but the album topped so many year-end lists, I finally purchased the whole thing and now I get it (but it loses points for all the “bitch” talk). It will be on heavy rotation in 2016. But it’s going to have to compete with the new David Bowie album out on January 8. And I know I need to get into Grimes and give that Sujan Stevens album another try. But what all about the great stuff that I’ll be ranking a year from now? When am I going to listen to that?

I have a lot of catching up to do. I’m sure when I get the latest albums by Alabama Shakes, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Dwight Yoakum, and Young Fathers I’ll wish I had listened to them in 2015. Cozy just wants more salsa and hip hop. I’m setting aside some album time when Cozy goes off the college.

Go back 1 year! Dad’s Favorite Discs 2014

Even Better Than The Real Thing: Cozy’s First Concert

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

May 19, 2015

First concerts are a big deal. When I taught my Youth Subcultures at Portland State, BP (Before Purge), on the first day I’d read the role and ask students to tell the class their first concert. It typically went two ways. You might have some cool obscure punk band or you might have something completely cheesy (a lot of New Kids on the Blocks). There’s also a subcategory called “Christian Rock Fest.” I used it to start a conversation about generational experiences. My first concert locates me in time and space (Elvis Presley, 1973, Atlanta, Age 9, thank you, Mom and Dad). There are also first concerts that you wanted to go to and ones your parents took you to.

So Cozy will probably have a concert she will claim as hers sometime around 2028. But I wanted to give her a Point A that she could start from and maybe brag about 50 years from now. I think she’s got it. On Friday we took her with us to see U2 in Vancouver, BC. You might know that I have a bit of a history with this band that started when I first saw them play at the Agora Ballroom in 1981. Personal relations aside, a U2 show is always an emotional, exhilarating event. And Andrea had never seen them, so there was no way we were going to miss the northwest stop of the 2015 Innocence and Experience Tour.

The original plan was to dump Cozy with a babysitter and make the 5 hour drive up to Canadia. But overnight babysitters are in short supply and the folks at the Rogers Arena said babies don’t need a ticket. (Canadians are so nice.) Andrea made a reservation at an Airbnb and grabbed the passports and I burned a few Alt Latino podcasts for the ride. So with a good set of baby headphones we strapped the kid to the Prius and fled the country. Thanks to the horrid Seattle traffic, I got a little stressed about making the 7:30 show time and brought the fun-level down a bit, but Cozy was fine the whole way up.

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Gone are the days of getting on U2’s guest list. It’s probably easier these days to get backstage to see the Pope than Bono. So we ended up with tickets in the top row from the evil StubHub. Although, I did bombard U2’s new manager, Guy Oseary, with a bunch of tweets and pictures, including of a letter that Bono wrote me. Top row. But with this stage set up, pretty damn good.

Cozy loves a crowd, so her eyes were open wide as we made our way to the seats. On the way, in the ladies room, some middle-aged “lady” with a wine glass and a Coach purse stopped Andrea and asked, “Why did you bring your baby to this?” (Obviously not a Canadian.) Andrea gave her the Mexican finger. But everybody else was charmed by Cozy, as usual. Then the lights went down and the Ramones came on the P.A.and the band took the stage, playing “The Miracle of Joey Ramone.” Crowd goes wild. Cozy, head phones on and in a pouch on my chest, seemed a little freaked out. What’s this craziness? she cried out.

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By the second song, “Vertigo,” there was a big smile on her face. She loved the colors and vibrations. The staging was massive with a huge screen the band could climb inside of. She was transfixed. The fourth song was “I Will Follow,” from their first album and sounded as explosive as it did when I saw them in 1981. I looked down and Cozy was asleep. She’d wake up every few songs, including for a powerful version of “One” that ended the night. She seemed to love it. She won’t remember any of it, but I will tell her how much she dug it.

Of course her parents were blown away. Andrea loved Bono’s tender tribute to his mother, “Iris,” and I was happy to see them play “When Loves Come to Town” for the recently departed B.B. King. The band was tight and grand, tackling issues like AIDS drugs and the unpunished murders of the Irish citizens from the 1972 bombings and then keeping it light by pulling a fan on stage or Bono making jokes about The Edge falling off that stage.

There are better reviews of the show. It’s must have been the 25th time I’ve seen the band play live. Maybe 35th. I’ve never missed a tour, even when they opened up for the J.Geils Band on the 1982 October tour. But this one was special. I think Bono would have loved Cozy’s wide eyes at the whole thing.

One day you’ll look back

And when you see

Where you were held

By this love

– U2, “Mysterious Ways.”

I wanted to just let go of everything throughout the concert. I did during the rare performance of “Bad,” a song I saw take shape in the studio in Dublin in 1984. But I just kept looking at Cozy and imagining her 20 years from now playing the first concert game.

Snotty brat: “Well, my first concert was the Flip Flerps at the Massengil Amphitheater in ’24.”

Cozy: “OK, but my parents took me to see U2 when I was 9 months old.”

Game, set, match.

Screen Shot 2015-05-19 at 12.53.10 AM Cozy sees U2, 15 May, 2015, Vancouver, BC.