The Benja-man Is Verbose

  4:  "If You Start Again, It Will Be As Though You'd Never Stopped" Lanegan doesn't really go into the reasons why he refuses to tour or do any promotion for  The Winding Sheet .  I already mentioned that he seems to just be one of those people who'll be constantly conflicted about his own work.  Sure enough, he'd "done my own record, written all the words and the bulk of the music myself... Although I felt the songs weren't great , they were a true representation of myself and had some personal meaning" [emphasis mine].  That turns the narrative back to Screaming Trees, which he's decided is still his main gig, and his ongoing attempts to make that into something that he can be proud of.   We actually get an extended discussion of the making of the Trees' major-label debut,  Uncle Anesthesia .  This part has both some of the more enjoyable writing in the book so far, in which he talks about how much he enjoyed working with producer Terr...

The "Mark Lanegan Band," such that it is, at this point includes: Mike Johnson (guitar), Jack Endino (bass), Mark Pickerel (drums), Steve Fisk (keys) With guest appearances from:   Kurt Cobain; Krist Novoselic; Justin Williams Although we're multiple records into this writing project now,  The Winding Sheet  is really the first chance to hear Lanegan's voice as an artist, in the way I wanted to blog about.  These are his songs, his lyrics, his vocal melodies.  So, what does it sound like? Track One:  "Mockingbirds" This one embodies everything that could be great about this project.  Whether it's Lanegan or Mike Johnson who came up with it, that is one haunting chord that backs the main verse and an equally haunting counterpoint for the piano bridge.  That in turn lets Lanegan go deep and resonant to carry the track.  Two and a half minutes, and done.  So, we're definitely starting strong.  Most gorgeous melody on the record. L...

A Sultan's Ransom  is kind of a tale of two records.  Or at least, Cloven Hoof sound like they're being pulled in a few different directions whilst they try to provide a variety plate of '80s metal. One version of this post would have fervently wished that the whole record sounded like "Astral Rider," although I won't go quite that far given how the other songs grew on me.  Still, "Astral Rider" is something special and goes to heights above and beyond the rest of the record.  On this track they demonstrate that having killer basic song components don't keep one from throwing in other elements to keep things interesting.  We've covered some great bands from this era who usually stop once they have a riff, maybe a big prechorus to offset what's about to come, and a big chorus (and musicians with the chops to pull off the solo).  "Astral Rider" already has those things, and didn't inherently "need" to repeat the titl...

Remember how in my last post about  A Pleasant Shade Of Gray  I noted being frustrated by the lack of forward momentum, the way I'd want in a concept album?  And I hinted that I'd have a longer discussion about the contrast between proper rock operas that talk in complete sentences, have characters, versus this record offering basically a series of samey poems about rumination?  I was going to quote some typical lyrics, like: Stare from the darkness Hear the silence call Devise divisions; * delay decisions Watch the hours crawl Let nothing bleed into nothing, and do nothing Let nothing bleed into nothing, and do nothing at all And follow up with a pithy comment like "do nothing, indeed." Well, you can go ahead and forget about all that.  My stance now is that in its way,  Pleasant Shade  is absolutely an epic, on equal footing with whatever your other favorite prog-rock/metal records are serving up. Prog being prog, it was around listen #4 or #5 tha...

After just a few listens, my categorization of a record isn't going to be crystallized, and I may or may not know how much I like it  - that's kinda the whole point of these "early impressions" posts.  Those posts in which I'm uncertain what I'm hearing aren't all the same.  Sometimes you get something as entertaining (to me, anyway) as that time I came into a Wuthering Heights record without context and just had no idea how to even process what I was hearing.  Other times, it's more that I have some broad impressions but I can't say exactly why.  Main impressions of  A Sultan's Ransom  - I like it, and it seems somehow unusual. The part about liking it is pretty easy to explain - it's good solid metal.  Lively energetic songs, good vocal performance from Russ North, numerous hooks that I'm pretty certain are going to grow on me big time.  Boom, that's my early impression.  This'll be a short post! But not quite that short.  ...

3:  "Seduced, Fucked" In what seems to be a clearer assocation in his mind than it is to this reader, Lanegan starts this chapter about getting fucked over in the music industry machine by talking about sex a lot.  Here it's nice that he favors vignettes rather than limiting himself to just generalities about his life as a low-wage grunt in a tense relationship, and then living in squalor due to need to get out of said relationship.   Notwithstanding some somewhat freewheeling anecdotes about the formation of the band Earth, and going out of his way to shit-talk one of (future collaborator) Dylan Carlson's friends and contradict some ancient allegations about him that nobody has ever heard or cared about to begin with, we get a fair amount of detail, by this book's standards, about the creation and release of solo debut  The Winding Sheet.   That story really begins with Lanegan's surprising chill warehouse job and his discovery of "mainly acoustic, perso...

We haven't even gotten to all of the slagging the Screaming Trees' indie records get in Lanegan's book.  The next chapters of Sing Backwards And Weep , that I haven't written about yet, just keep piling on the abuse.  Besides continuing to go out of his way to emphasize that his "only contribution to Screaming Trees songwriting had been attempting to change the most egregious of Lee Conner's lyrics to something less embarrassing to sing," he has a few more digs at how his perception that their work was second rate shaped everything that he did at this point.  He describes mortification every time he hears one of their songs in the wild, hammering on his involvement in this band as a source of humiliation.  Pretty strong stuff.  This is what he's reacting against when talking about trying to make something that was authentically his with  The Winding Sheet .  So given that Lanegan himself is almost violently dismissive of his own breakthr...