The Time Between

I figure if you want to know what’s really happening in today’s Pop Music world you don’t have to go much further than to listen to Brit Girl Groups. They have the cream of the crop writing and producing their albums and some of them are actually listenable – some of them are quite brilliant actually. The three groups over the past 5-6 years I’ve learned to love are (in order of consistency and general quality) Sugababes, All Saints and Girls Aloud. The first three Sugababe albums are great. Modern Pop at it’s best. Loud, catchy, sing in the shower stuff – and occasionally even a little bit soulful. It’s a weird group – with many personnel changes. I think the last original member has now left but that doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with the quality of their work – although if I had to pick only one album I’d probably go with ‘Three’. All Saints were a bunch of girls with famous boyfriends/husbands – with great connections obviously – and really well produced and played songs (they disbanded after the first album and just came out with a follow up that’s very disappointing). Girls Aloud are the current monster group in the UK – well Cheryl Cole (a judge on the X-Factor) is. She’s kind of huge there. The Girls Aloud album I’m most familiar with is ‘Chemistry’. If you want to follow up on this (and I think you should) here’s the best stuff (in my mind) that these groups do:

Sugababes:
Too Lost In You
Stronger
Hole In The Head
All Saints
Black Coffee (produced by William Orbit I believe)
Pure Shores
Girls Aloud
Whole Lotta History (this is as good as any 60’s girl group song – in fact it’s an amalgam of a ton of them. Brilliant stuff)
See The Day

As I mentioned in a previous blog I was in London recently working with my partner in crime - Gwyn. We completed about five songs (we usually do that many songs in as many hours everytime I go over - I do all the music before I go in my LA studio and Gwyn adds vocals when I get there). I mostly have words but Gwyn being a bit of a poet usually rewrites everything - he has a complicated life and it leads to many good stories.....and songs. In this case I had the title and not much more and Gwyn took that and came up with the rest of the song - doubled the length of the chorus I had and generally mucked about with it. I originally had a geetar solo but Gwyn thought that a pedal steel thing would work better - and he was right. So here it is. It's pretty darn good we think. Very country. Gwyn does his George Strait/Randy Travis/George Jones thing. The harmonies are terrific. Hope you like it. It's on the left of this post.

I don’t know who gave me this album, or who recommended it but I had a vinyl copy in my teens and have listened to it consistently since then. To start with I really didn’t know what to make of it. “Snot against my pants” indeed! But there are few records you keep going back to and never seem to tire of. This is one them. There’s are others – Grievous Angel, Pet Sounds, The Stone Roses, The Best of the Shadows (the black album), Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks, Exile or Sticky Fingers. These are all amazing records. Brilliant, shiny things that transport you to another planet. Records that make you wonder who these people were who made them. What special forces joined together to create this brilliance? What were these guys thinking? And why has it been so hard to recreate that brilliance (in Gram’s case it’s pretty obvious). I think FC is my favorite. It still has bits that remain unexpected, that surprise. That’s what’s frustrating about Love. The albums leading up to FC are decent but not brilliant. The ones that followed it were mixed (and I’m being nice to some of them). They were of their time definitely – and haven’t aged well. I think it’s interesting listening to albums from bands from the mid-60’s – especially on Elektra – that they are so electric even when they cry out for acoustic guitars in the mix (the early Love albums are like this, the Clear Light album, there’s a bunch more) but then came FC. It’s almost all acoustic – and it’s got strings. It’s produced like a Frank Sinatra record. If Frank had made a psychedelic, mariachi album. There’s something about it that hasn’t dated. Maybe it’s because it’s so familiar – or maybe it’s because so many people have ripped it off. Who hasn’t played those chords at some point and thought – cool…just like Arthur Lee.

To get a new Telecaster or not is the question? I have one already. It’s nice but I’ve always thought the neck was too big – especially when I compare it to the neck on my Strat – which I love. The Strat however doesn’t sound like a Tele – and I’m thinking about B-Benders (having just seen Marty Stuart play the hell out of one). I have a hipshot on the Tele I have but to be honest I’ve never really liked it – it just never seemed natural and it was really hard to control. I read a article with Marty recently where he said it wasn’t until he got Clarence White’s Tele that the B-Bender made sense – it had a longer pull on it and it was easier to control. So what to do. I originally thought about getting a Strat/Tele hybrid – Fender Custom Shop actually do make such a thing (and Eric played one at the Hyde Park Blind Faith show). The problem is that it looks like a mutt. It’s a very expensive way to get the right neck on a Tele – and I’m wondering what it sounds like (it’s not easy to get to play these Custom Shop guitars without buying them). So now I’m thinking of the Clarence White Custom Shop Tele. Same problem – you can’t play it first. So I emailed the Custom Shop for info and they said I had to order it through a dealer. So I emailed TruTone in Santa Monica – if you haven’t been there you need to. What a great shop – there web site gives you some idea but you have to really experience the physical thing to get the real feel. Guitars stacked up, good people, unbelievable gear (you want to try out an old guitar of Ry’s?). Can’t recommend them enough. Anyway they back to me and now we’re trying to find out what the options are around necks (C-shaped vs. V-shaped?) and we’ll see where we go. Still think it’s a lot of money – and as my wife said “you can only play one guitar at once”, and it would be nice to actually play one first. I’ll keep you updated.

I’ve heard a lot about Jon. First time I heard him was years ago when he was featured in a NY Times article. It was after the start of his Los Angeles weekly residences at the original Largo. They sounded like great shows – multi-instrumentalist, Magnolia soundtrack making, boy wonder alone – and together with his glamorous friends (Aimee Mann, etc). He’d do his own stuff, he’d do inspired covers, etc. Sounded great. Gotta go I thought.


Well now I live in LA – although I travel out of town way too much – and I have the chance to go see him. Still haven’t. I am pathetic I know. But I was still intrigued and thought I’d at least listen to his music. So I have. And….it’s OK. It’s what you’d expect from a guy who really knows what he’s doing – decent songs, very clever, obvious Beatles influenece (I heard Emitt Rhodes in there alot too) but nothing soul inspiring.

And then I found his version of Sorry Suzanne – and it all made sense. His over 7 minutes long version of the Hollies classic. It’s terrific. He throws the kitchen sink in and makes it all work. Great vocals – channeling Graham Nash a little, nice guitar work and a percussion break. What else can you ask for? Before I found this I was about to file under “OK but there’s better stuff to listen to” but now I’m back to the other stuff looking for gems.

I spent the weekend in London with Gwyn working on some new material. I had about four songs prepared - usually I do all the music, throw some lyrics down to give Gwyn an idea and then when we get together he plays with the words - or brings stuff he already has - and we add his dulcet tones to the recording. All on my little laptop! Isn't technology wonderful? Anyway we did six songs - one something new Gwyn brought and that I now need to go back home and add music to, and the rest using our tried and tested formula. And wow. One of them - There's so much more between us than a thousand miles of Texas - came out brilliantly. It was one of those backslapping, high-fiving moments when you just know that what you did was good work - and something that was bigger than each of us. The others aren't too shabby either. Now the question is - what does the album look like? We've been tweaking it, adding here, subtracting there to get the strongest set of songs together. Maybe we should just leave well alone or maybe we'll tweak it one more time. Anyway when I've finished mixing these songs I'll post them so you can hear them - and let us know what you think. On my way back to the States now. I will say I'm exhausted.

The Time Between were recently featured as the Spotlight Artist on www.ukcountryradio.com. It's a really well run, well done station out of the UK (obviously) that is devoted to country music from all parts of the world. It's really worth a listen. They were nice enough to play us every hour, on the hour for a weekend and included a nice interview with Gwyn that is available online for your listening pleasure at:
http://www.ukcountryradio.com/Interviews/The%20Time%20Between.mp3

Enjoy

Here's a couple of snaps to give you some idea of what you saw or missed....Here's Boz with Buddy Miller, James Cotton, Jimmy Vaughn and the token Brit!