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  • Transition songs…

    Transition songs…

    Lately there have been some big changes looming in my life, which has led me to think about transition songs…

    A lot of big things have been happening lately. My husband, Bill, is about to retire from the Army. He’s held a commission for about 30 years and simply isn’t allowed to stay in the military any longer. He has reached his “MRD”, that is, his mandatory retirement date. Naturally, it’s a little nervewracking and scary to end a 30 year military career (27 of which were years spent on active duty). It’s nervewracking for me, too, because being an Army wife has sort of had a deleterious effect on the career I had planned for myself. It’s worked out fine so far, and I’ve gotten to do a lot of things I love to do. But the constant moving hasn’t been so good for my own career plans and I may end up having to start over. So, in the interest of making myself feel better, I’ve decided today’s post will be about transition songs.


    The Silhouettes sang “Get A Job” in the 1950s. I certainly hope that’s what comes next in this transitional phase.

    Personally, I’m also kind of partial to Ken Turetzky’s song, “Why Don’t You Get a Job”…


    Having corresponded with Ken online, I know he knows intimately about this subject…

    At the beginning of the above clip, Ken talks about his father telling him he should stop “sponging” off him and his mother. I have had similar conversations with my own parents. Sadly, they are no longer in a position to host me, Bill, and our two dogs. So if unemployment lingers, there could be a problem. We might end up living in a van down by the river.

    I heard Ronnie Dunn’s song, “Cost of Livin’” on an episode of Dr. Phil.


    I think this song is very applicable to a lot of folks… especially people like Bill who have been in the military.

    Our situation is not as desperate as the one Dunn sings about in this song. Job hunting can be stressful and difficult, though. Also, Bill has been in the situation Dunn sings about. Back in the mid 90s, when he was married to his ex wife, Bill temporarily got off active duty. It was at a time somewhat like what the military is dealing with right now. Things were being downsized and people were being asked to leave. Bill’s ex didn’t like being an Army wife and Bill wasn’t that successful as a young officer. So he got out of the Army temporarily… and ended up in a factory in Arkansas making toys. The money was not really enough to support their family. The work was boring and unfulfilling and it left him little time to spend with his family. He later got a job at a Whirlpool factory making refrigerator doors. The money was significantly better there, but it still really wasn’t enough and they ended up in dire financial straits. This, even though he is a graduate of American University with a degree in international relations. Needless to say, he doesn’t want the same thing to happen this time. I don’t think it will, though. He’s come a long way… and this time, his wife is willing to move where the right work is.

    At this point, it looks like we could be moving again. Tomorrow, Bill is going to New York City, where he will meet with a recruiter from a large company to interview for a job in Seattle, Washington. It seems kind of ironic to me, since when Bill got out of the Army in the 90s, he was in Washington State. He loved living up there, but his ex wife preferred a small town in the south. So if this works out, he’ll get to enjoy Washington again. I think I will, too. I have only been there once. It was in 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina. Bill had been working hard because he’s in the National Guard and the Guard was heavily into the Katrina disaster. We were worried we would have to cancel our plans. Fortunately, we were allowed to go to Washington for our modest vacation. It was our first trip as a married couple and we had a wonderful time. I certainly wouldn’t mind moving there, if that’s where life takes us. San Antonio is fine too, as long as we aren’t homeless.


    I never thought this song by Public Image Ltd would mean anything to me…

    Anyway, wish us luck. If this interview leads to a dead end, Bill’s resume is still circulating. I suppose I could try circulating mine, too.

  • A review of Nickel Creek’s A Dotted Line…

    A review of Nickel Creek’s A Dotted Line…

    Nickel Creek is back! Here’s a review of their latest album, A Dotted Line!

    I first heard the “new grass” band Nickel Creek about seven years ago, when I bought a greatest hits compilation they put out. At the time, my husband Bill was in Iraq and I was listening to a lot of music because I was sending a lot to him. He needed something to keep up his spirits out there in the desert. Over the years, I’ve come to really enjoy the musical stylings of Nickel Creek, which consists of Chris Thile (mandolin) and sister and brother Sara Watkins (fiddle) and Sean Watkins (guitar). This band, which originated in southern California, has been around since 1989. They had a breakthrough in 2000, when Alison Krauss produced their self-titled album. They continued to put out new music until 2007, when they went on a seven year hiatus. This month, they released their latest effort, A Dotted Line. Naturally, I had to download it immediately!

    A Dotted Line kicks off with strong guitar chords and strong vocals on the opening track, “The Rest of My Life”. As I’m listening to this song, I’m very impressed by how it blends the acoustic sounds of instruments typically reserved for bluegrass songs and fashions them into a song that sounds progressive and innovative. This song gets A Dotted Line off to a great start.

    Sara Watkins sings lead on the next song, the hard driving “Destination”, which seems to flow seamlessly from “The Rest of My Life”. Again, it sounds like the song evolved from bluegrass but turned into something very creative and eclectic. This song puts a smile on my face. Sara Watkins has an ethereal voice that blends beautifully with those of her brother, Sean, and Chris Thile.


    Sara Watkins really gets somewhere with “Destination”.

    A mandolin kicks off the pretty instrumental, “Elsie”, which immediately appeals to me. This was written by Chris Thile and gives the band a chance to show off what really good players they are.

    “Christmas Eve” is the next song. It’s kind of a sad song about a relationship about to break up. What strikes me most about this song is the complex musical arrangement. The melody is simple, but Nickel Creek has arranged an intricate overlay of harmonies and vocals to convey the sadness of breaking up during the holidays. Over the blend of mandolin, fiddle, and guitar are those voices, which somehow magically blend into a musical nirvana.

    “Hayloft” takes Nickel Creek’s music into a totally different direction. This song was written by Ryan Guldemond and is a complete departure from the previous songs. It almost sounds like something I’d hear in Europe, with more plugged instruments and sound engineering sleights of hand. This is a song you could dance to. I think it will definitely grow on me, though I tend to prefer the more acoustic stuff Nickel Creek does. I’m just impressed by how innovative “Hayloft” is. It’s almost like bluegrass dance music, if you can conceive of such a thing. The song’s subject matter is pretty cool, too. Young lovers are in the hayloft, giving into their passions, even though the girl’s daddy has a gun… you better run.


    A live version of “Hayloft”.

    “21st of May” is an original by Sean Watkins and is simply glorious, with perfect harmonies and spiritual lyrics that evoke going to meet the Saviour on the 21st of May. Maybe those who don’t like religiously oriented songs may not appreciate this. I love it, though. Edited to add, a fellow Nickel Creek lover tells me this song is satirical and is actually about the late Harold Camping, who predicted the world would end on May 21st, 2011 and before that in 1994. Obviously, he was wrong both times. Now that I know that, I like the song even more!


    The gorgeous “21st of May”.

    Quiet, tinkling mandolin opens the next song, “Love of Mine”, an original song with a gorgeous, moving melody and deep lyrics. I’m not quite sure what this song is about, but I’m so caught up in the hauntingly pretty melody that it doesn’t matter.

    “Elephant In The Corn” is another cool original instrumental, exciting and technically challenging. I love a good acoustic jam and this one delivers.

    “You Don’t Know What’s Going On” is an original song with a quick tempo and a cool modern sound played on acoustic instruments. Once again, I marvel at how Nickel Creek takes such a quaint style and turns into something new and innovative. The lyrics are about a guy who gets caught up with a woman who played him for a fool. Musically, this song delivers on the raw pain and angst that comes from an intense love affair that disintegrates.

    The last song is “Where Is Love Now”, which has sort of an ethereal opening as Sara Watkins’ fiddle leads off. The guitar and mandolin join in as Sara Watkins sings. She has such a pretty, angelic voice on this song by Sam Phillips. This beautiful, introspective song ends A Dotted Line on a pensive note.

    Overall, I think Nickel Creek’s A Dotted Line is a fantastic effort and it was worth the seven year wait. What a joy it is to hear some fresh music by the very talented Nickel Creek. Now I want to go to a concert! If you like acoustic, “new grass” styled music, I highly recommend Nickel Creek’s A Dotted Line. I predict this album will be getting a lot of spins at my house.

  • #38 album of 2013 – Green Light Go by Redwood Plan

    Artist: Redwood Plan

    Album: Green Light Go

    For some of you, I can do a one-sentence review of the Redwood Plan‘s second album Green Light Go that’s reductive but useful: they’re like if Sleater-Kinney used catchy New Wave synthesizers and only Carrie Brownstein (the one who ended up in Wild redwoodplan_GreenLightCoverFlag)’s vocals. Or maybe like if X-Ray Spex featured a singer from Seattle instead of Brixton, better vocal pitch, and those catchy New Wave synthesizers instead of saxophone. Redwood Plan singer / keyboardist Lesli Wood doesn’t seem like she’d mind the comparisons: the punk/ riot-grrl scene, as a place to act out rebellion and personal liberation among friends, is a repeated concern of her lyrics. “We need to rattle at the cage, instead of staying silent”; “No one said it would be easy, or that it’s always fair/ You do it cuz you love it, that’s the motivation here”; “It’s been a long damn way to come/ to barely know which side you’re on”; that’s from three different songs. “Your mama gotta take it out on you/ and you are so vicious when you’re feeling so small/ but all the things that bug you don’t mean anything at all”, she sings elsewhere, on Your Fair Share. A song later you and she will “be strong” and “keep our stride” and “[not] waste a second” because “you and me, We are the Team“.

    “We don’t need to work it out in silence/ You know that you got to get a reaction”, from the title track, is the record’s central premise. Of course the adult world screwed you up, of course you’re weak and conflicted, of course sometimes you’ve done the wrong thing; but Redwood Plan are here, with forceful singing and pumping drumbeats and limber electric guitars and anthemic blasts of synthesizer, to bring you back to your best self.

    Lesli Woods’s full-time work is as a personal injury lawyer, which seems apropos, not because anything on Green Light Go is policy-political (it isn’t), but because hers is a misunderstood line of work whose clients, though often in the right, are looked on with contempt. Hundreds of urban legends circulate about personal injury lawsuits, in which greedy regular joes do something idiotic to hurt themselves, then sue innocent corporations and win millions of dollars. They virtually never hold up to Snopes-type investigations, which reveal that many of the legends are conjured from thin air — no burglar ever sued a homeowner for injuries Redwood Plansustained while robbing, nobody ever sued a nightclub over getting hurt while trying to sneak in a back window — while most of the rest look entirely legitimate with facts in hand. When a jury awarded 79-year-old Stella Liebeck $2.9 million in damages from McDonald’s, for example, headlines about idiot jurors rewarding some ditz for spilling hot coffee on herself dominated the headlines; the stories rarely bothered to mention that Liebeck had spent eight days in the hospital receiving skin grafts, that McDonald’s regularly kept its coffee 60 degrees hotter than safety allowed, that it had continued to do so while ignoring over 700 reports of 3rd-degree burns from its coffee over a decade, that the “outrageous” fee awarded was two days’ worth of the profit McDonald’s made from coffee alone, or that the judge reduced the fine to less than 20% of what the jury awarded anyway. Woods, when she isn’t singing, is presumably urging her clients, too, to take seriously the wounds inflicted on them by criminal negligence, and not blame themselves just because most of their neighbors are blaming them. No surprise if it carries into the music, and her words-first delivery.

    The arguable downside of the record is monotony: that however exciting one Redwood Plan song is, the others are doing the same thing. That’s not absolute, and there’s distinctions to be made. Panic On, the lead single, has an especially catchy clash of rhythmic elements hitting hardest at different beats. The Scenery & Melody is the prettiest song (though still at punk energy), the most plausible fake entry in 1983’s MTV rotation, and the strongest case for Woods being able to sing much more demanding kinds of music. Rattle has the most dance-club rhythm section, and even drops out twice for simple drum-machine solos. Your Fair Share shows the clearest awareness of Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, and the rhythms of public speaking. The One is sort of a synth-punk power ballad. It Goes Something Like This has a minor-key moodiness suggesting both goth-pop and Another Brick in the Wall, and the chorus rhythm is fierce and unpredictable, tied to the logic of rhetoric instead of beats. Green Light Go has lots of extra syncopation.

    Still, these are differences on the margins, of songs that are 70% alike, and I’ve been known to be picky about that. I’m not very picky here because, if you’re going to have a formula, it might as well be a fast, catchy, exciting one. Thinking is an extremely important (and underrated) thing to do *before* the protest. During the action, it’s as important to still feel like acting.

    – Brian Block

    To see the rest of our favorites, visit our Favorite Albums of 2013 page!