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by Henry Lipput
“Like You Live”
According to the bylaws of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Professional Music Appreciators Society, live albums, compilations and best-ofs, and soundtracks can’t be included in year-end top ten lists like the one I wrote for last month’s Boomers. An exception to this rule was the “About A Boy” soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy that was in my Top Ten for 2002. This was an album of all new songs written for the movie, not the usual mix of a few new songs and stuff that’s been around for a while. The three albums reviewed below are all live albums and, as good as they are, could not, sadly, take part in the Top Ten celebrations.
Pernice Brothers released what I thought was the best album of 2003. As I’ve often said, the album, “Yours, Mine & Ours,” is a melancholy pop gem. Their latest release, “Nobody’s Watching/Nobody’s Listening,” documents the group’s tour behind the 2003 disc, and was recorded at the Mercury Lounge in New York City in January of 2004. The lineup for the show included Bob Pernice, songwriter and group leader Joe Pernice’s brother, who rarely tours with the band. Peyton Pinkerton, the group’s lead guitarist, is also on hand and, once again, comes through with clean, crisp solos. With new member James Walbourne on keyboards and guitar, who joined the band at the start of this tour, the group rocks harder, especially on the all-out guitar onslaught of “Flaming Wreck.” A DVD comes with this CD and contains a tour diary and two videos of songs from the “Yours, Mine & Ours” album.
Aimee Mann’s CD, “Live At St. Ann’s Warehouse,” is included as a bonus disc accompanying her concert DVD. The DVD and CD were recorded at a multi-use performance space in Brooklyn, NY, in July of last year. Mann is one of the smartest, most literate songwriters we have and her songs almost always carry a hint of the influence of the Beatles. There’s little difference between the songs as performed in concert and the way they sound on her albums but I think that’s because, despite how good her band is, the emphasis is always on the lyrics. Speaking of her band, the standout musician is lead guitarist Julian Coryell who not only recreates the solos originally performed by producer/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, but, on occasion, goes the extra mile and makes these parts his own. The song listings differ on the CD and DVD and the CD gets extra points for having “That’s Just What You Are,” from her album “I’m With Stupid.”
If you could clone a combination of Patsy Cline and Kirsty MacColl (which is entirely possible with today’s technology), you’d end up with Neko Case, a young woman with a very big voice. Her live album, “”The Tigers Have Spoken,” includes a few original songs but is mainly filled with tunes by the likes of Buffy Saint-Marie, Loretta Lynn, the Brill Building songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. The early-60s-girl-group-sounding Barry-Greenwich song, “The Train From Kansas City,” could have been the B-side to MacColl’s early 80s single “There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop (Swears He’s Elvis)” and “Loretta” rocks like an early Sun Session. Case and her band turn the traditional song “This Little Light” into a rousing hootenanny and “Wayfaring Stranger” is as lovely as any ballad on the disc.
By the way, Rufus Wainwright’s latest album, “Want Two,” (number 9 on my Top Ten for 2004), comes with a concert DVD. The concert, filmed at the legendary Filmore West in San Francisco, is terrific. Rufus and his band sound great and they perform songs from all three of his albums along with a few tunes that I haven’t heard before.
