Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases
Ian McLagan & the Bump Band
Maniac Records 2006
An Interview with Ian McLagan
Ian McLagan and Ronnie Lane, the keyboardist and the bassist of the famed UK groups the Small Faces and the Faces, eventually made Austin their home—Lane in the mid-eighties, McLagan about a decade later. Lane passed away in 1997, and McLagan pays tribute to his former mate on Spiritual Boy (at ianmclagan.com).
Why a record of Ronnie Lane’s music? Well, I’d been working on my own album. We had eleven tracks down, and then we cut [Lane’s] “Glad and Sorry,” and that went well. So I started recording. Actually, what happened is that I got a migraine one day, lay down, and woke up thinking of [Lane’s Small Faces hit] “Itchycoo Park.” I wasn’t going to do it because I never liked the song.
Really? I love it now. But I never liked the recording. Because [sings teasingly] “it’s all too beautiful” doesn’t really fit to me. I started thinking about the words and rediscovered the song. Then I realized, “Crikey, this should come out on Ronnie’s sixtieth birthday,” which was April 1. So I shelved my album and just worked on Ronnie’s.
Lane’s excellent work was overshadowed by superstars like Faces lead vocalist Rod Stewart. Ronnie was the most prolific writer in the Faces. And the sad thing was, when Ooh La La was recorded, he had more songs on that album than any, and he wasn’t going to be able to sing any of them live. Rod [could have] said, “Why don’t you do a couple songs in the middle of the set?” Then he could go and change his bloody shirt. Which he does all the time now.
T Bone Burnett
DMZ/Legacy and DMZ/Columbia
It’s years back, in a rowdy Jersey roadhouse, where a lanky performer peeks over his shades to see if anyone is listening. Most aren’t. Abruptly, he strides out the door. The curious follow him to the parking lot, where, perched on a station wagon, he finishes the show. T BONE BURNETT has always liked calling his shots, and the Fort Worth—raised musician—now armed with both a double-CD collection and his first album of new material in fourteen years—is a control freak with unerring instincts. From his mid-seventies stint with the Alpha Band to a series of stylistically varied and untrendy solo albums, Burnett stood out as an iconoclast. His sardonic, witty tunes (“Boomerang,” “Shake Yourself Loose,” “The People’s Limousine”), anthologized on TWENTY TWENTY: THE ESSENTIAL T BONE BURNETT (DMZ/Legacy), were sculpted in their precision; his labored-over recordings sounded anything but. He applied this skill to his producing career, creating albums for Elvis Costello and Los Lobos, hits for the Counting Crows, and the megamillion-selling O Brother Where Art Thou sound track. From there Burnett didn’t look back. He still hasn’t: Worth the wait, THE TRUE FALSE IDENTITY (DMZ/Columbia) is unlike anything he has recorded before. Tribal, melodic, pounding rock (many tracks feature three drummers) places Burnett’s satiric wordplay on an almost holographic soundscape. Marc Ribot’s guitar growls lend to the primal Plastic Ono Band urgency. Burnett jabs at a society where religion preaches hate, where decisions are based on fear. Unease with today’s world has allowed him to create one all his own.
The Black Angels
Light in the Attic
The best rock and roll stirs up a maelstrom, a surging wall of sound you can almost reach out and touch. It’s not about craft, chords, equipment, or even how many tickets or albums you sell. It’s underlying motion, propulsion; it’s finding the sweet spot and giving yourself over. Don’t believe it? Just ask the BLACK ANGELS, an Austin ensemble that’s unleashed one of the most ferocious psychedelic-rock oeuvres this side of the Velvet Underground. If you haven’t heard their full-length debut, PASSOVER (Light in the Attic), you’re missing one of the year’s undeniable bone-jarring pleasures. The Angels don’t play a tripped-out psychedelia—there’s nothing cute going on here—but an echo-laden, straightforward, mid-tempo churn of guitar rock. It’s difficult to make this kind of music without cozying up to cliché, but the Angels show no fear. “The Prodigal Sun” might sound a bit like Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom,” but neither they nor anyone else cares. The atmospheric, apocalyptic “The First Vietnamese War” alone, with helicopter blades swishing triplets against the opening power chords, makes the album a keeper, but it’s fare like the T. Rex—inspired “Black Grease” and the majestic “Call to Arms” that pushes this thrill ride into overtime.
