The Random Ten #15

1) Elliott Smith - "Speed Trials" - Either/Or (1997)

"Speed Trials" plainly displays the late Elliott Smith's minimalistic pop sensibility. His vocals match the twanginess and relative quiet of the instrumentation, and no one instrument stands out above the others. Everything is kept on an even keel, yet the song is melodic enough to make an impression. There's not much meat on the bones, but what is here is quite enjoyable.

2) R.E.M. - "Harborcoat" - Reckoning (1984)

"Harborcoat", as with much of R.E.M.'s early to mid-80s output, has an unmistakable 80s pop sound, distorted and dimmed and sounding similar to Talking Heads material of the same era. Like Elliott Smith, Michael Stipe is forceful with his vocals in his own way; there is no screaming or soaring pieces (though he is capable of them), just confident, understated, and complementary vocals.

The song features some nice "R.E.M.-like" guitar work (because their sound is so distinctive that they've practically created their own qualifier), intertwined with swirling vocals from Stipe and the band. It's been done by them before and since, but the formula is a proven winner, and it shows again here.

3) Machine Head - "Blood of the Zodiac" - The More Things Change... (1997)

Wow; this is the first metal song to appear on one of my Random Ten columns! I usually leave the metal stuff to an expert like Steele, but the Random Ten cannot be denied. "Blood of the Zodiac" is sufficiently foreboding, with a minute-long introduction that unleashes into some really solid and heavy guitar/drum work.

Steele might disagree, but The More Things Change... strikes me as one of the original distortions of the classic thrash sound into something louder, but not necessarily heavier, e.g. Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God and similar bands. There's an ethos in older thrash music (Metallica, Megadeth, etc) that makes it heavier and more ruthless, above and beyond how loud it actually is. Machine Head slows that style down here. It's made slower and stronger, but actually suffers for it. "Blood of the Zodiac" is a fine metal song, but it lacks that feeling of power and forbiddenness. The band Slayer sounds like a band you should not be listening to. Machine Head sounds like Slayer except burly and lumbering; more palatable. It's not bad, but metal should sound dangerous. This doesn't.

4) Nine Inch Nails - "Ruiner" - The Downward Spiral (1994)

There's something about the creepy, downtrodden industrial music of Trent Reznor, the brains behind Nine Inch Nails, that is very respectable to me. He's doing something different, creating his own sound, and is unapologetically indifferent to what is popular. No matter the genre of music, you can't not like that.

His music is good, too, with "Ruiner" full of unintelligible gnarling and yelling, which opens into a melodic passage. There's beauty even in Nine Inch Nails' hopelessness and dread, and "Ruiner" does well at showing both ends of Reznor's spectrum. There's also a cool classic rock-esque guitar solo that is distorted and filtered into a barely-hearable mess. As always with Reznor, it's an interesting and well-done sonic collage that occasionally is more than that.

5) Sepultura - "Jasco" - Roots (1996)

I cannot seem to shake metal or metal-related genres of music right now. Witness Sepultura, the classic Brazilian thrash outfit that was on the last of its original legs when their 1996 album, Roots, was released. There isn't much to discuss here. "Jasco" is an acoustic guitar piece that lasts for two minutes. Decidedly un-metal, but most likely a mood setter to break up what comes before and after it.

6) Failure - "Segue 1" - Fantastic Planet (1996)

Well, this is part metal, part alt-rock. Does that continue the streak?

Best known for their minor hit from this same album, "Stuck On You", Failure hits the right notes on "Segue 1". You can guess by the title that it isn't very long, but "Segue 1" opens with an undulating guitar part which opens into a rather enjoyable riff repeating itself for the duration. When a band's interstitial album cuts are clicking, you can tell they're onto something.

7) Phish - "Harpua" - Live Phish Vol. 13 (originally recorded in 1994, official release in 2002)

Here we have a live performance of the relatively rare "Harpua", from the same Halloween live performance where the band covered the Beatles' self-titled "White Album". The song begins with a pleasant bouncy jam, which soon opens up into frontman Trey Anastasio telling a history of the Halloween holiday (based of course in Anastasio's fictional, mystical land of Gamehendge), which takes up most of the song's fifteen-minute run time.

It sounds funny, because by reasonable standards the story is boring and the song terrible, but these types of performances are part of what made the band what it is, and they don't do enough shit like this anymore. There was a youthful joy within the band then, something rarely seen these days. This version of "Harpua" is absurd and long-winded, but it is actually indicative of a band that was firing on all cylinders at that point.

Oh, and the story involves the band playing Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" for a short time.

8) Drive-By Truckers - "The Opening Act" - Brighter Than Creation's Dark (2008)

Drive-By Truckers, a Southern rock band with Northern intellectual sensibilities, are capable of playing all sorts of different musical styles. Here we get a melancholy mixture of twangy blues and alt-country, punctuated by the vocals and lyrics of guitarist and vocalist Patterson Hood. Hood sounds melodic and gruff at the same time, perfectly suited to the balls-out rock of the Truckers, but also to their slower pieces like this.

Bassist Shonna Tucker sings backup, providing a nice complement to the moroseness of Hood's vocals. Not one of their best or most powerful songs, but a solid entry on a solid album.

9) Red House Painters - "Another Song for a Blue Guitar" - Songs for a Blue Guitar (1996)

I wrote about Mark Kozelek's new band, Sun Kil Moon, early in January. The Red House Painters were his previous band, and by the time Songs for a Blue Guitar was released, he had already found his current vocal cadence and was making some of his best music.

As I mentioned in that previous article, Kozelek has a way of making banal past triviata sound like life-defining milestones. His music has an air of importance surrounding it; his style commands it, and he can't help it. We hear it again here, with nothing but his vocals and a light acoustic guitar managing to sound booming and enormous.

10) Duke Ellington & Count Basie - "Blues in Hoss' Flat (Blues in Frankie's Flat)" - The Count Meets the Duke (originally recorded in 1961, official release in 2008)

Culled from a meeting of the two legendary musicians and their bands, "Blues in Hoss' Flat" is swinging big band music mixed with blues and jazz influences. It sounds as polished as you'd expect the bands of two musical giants playing together to sound like. Tremendous music from two legends.

John Lacey