The year 2009 has come to a close. As the end-of-the year and/or decade lists pile up in the blog world, it’s hard not to wonder which musicians have been overlooked. As much as we try to follow our intuition and stay on the cutting edge, sometimes we can’t help but feel like we’re in the middle of a pack of lemmings, all hurtling in the same direction at cyberspeed. That’s why we thought this story seemed fitting as a sort of atypical end-of-the-year post. It reminded us that it’s hard to say which of our favorite bands of 2009 we’ll want to revisit in ten, twenty, thirty years, and it’s exciting to think that a group we’ve overlooked this year might get a break long after we thought that time had passed.

Chicago’s Walter Smith, Cliff Frazier, Brad Donaldson, and Keith Donaldson (along with Brad and Keith’s brother, David, now deceased) recorded in the sixties and seventies as the Green Berets, High Society, Walter & the Admerations, and, with Andre Williams, as Velvet Hammer. They started singing soul music together in their early teens, and like so many young artists, they came away from the studio with no money and none of the rights to their records. Because they were all drafted during Vietnam – just as one of their records began to chart highly – the Green Berets could never fully take advantage of their shot at stardom. But in the forty years since their studio days, the Green Berets’ records have become much-desired by collectors, selling for up to $5000, and in June they were contacted by Bob Abrahamian to conduct an interview on his Chicago-based radio show, WHPK’s “Sitting in the Park.”

As the story goes, Richard Lewis of Dig Deeper heard them singing on the show and just had to get them out to New York to perform in concert. Richard, and Michael Robinson, the other man behind Dig Deeper, track down their favorite soul singers, many of whom have fallen off the radar for decades, and bring them to Brooklyn to perform in their monthly Dig Deeper concert series. JezebelMusic.com recently talked to Richard and Michael about what it means to them to get an opportunity to see these artists perform their own songs live, so we decided to talk to the artists, too, to see what this comeback show of sorts meant to them. Erin Sheehy sat down with the Green Berets just hours before their Dig Deeper show at Southpaw in late October. You can also read her interview with the Dig Deeper guys here.
More on Green Berets

The year is drawing to a close. I can’t speak for you (though oh, how I try!), but I’m getting ready to put on my sparkliest outfit and go out to some lame New Years party where I will inevitably drink too much and end up trying to kiss too many people when the clock strikes midnight. That’s how I roll.

Do you know what’s as earnestly convoluted as my New Year’s intentions? The Holy Ghost remix of Van She’s cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” (See, I told you it was convoluted.) But as convoluted as this mixture seems (a remix of a cover) it’s really quality. The work and care is present, hence the earnestness of this equation. This wasn’t Van She just crapping out a cover, and Holy Ghost deciding they’ll fuck around with it a little. There appears to be actual effort here, which is something I can certainly appreciate.

A fairly mellow remix (to be fair, “Don’t Fear The Reaper” isn’t exactly a booty-shaking jam), I would imagine this would enter the New Year’s party rotation after the ball dropped, when people are still going, but not with quite the enthusiasm they were previously. A collective breather, if you will.

Van She doesn’t really take too many risks with this cover, instead going with the flow and sticking to the roots of the original. Holy Ghost throws in enough of a backbeat to keep you moving. And it intensifies, hitting the first peak around 1:50, throwing in some swelling piano in the background to add a little drama.
More on Van She | Don’t Fear The Reaper [Holy Ghost’s B-Live Mix]

THIS WEEK IN HIP HOP
In terms of rap music, 2009 has been both utterly depressing and magnificently awe-inspiring. Through the years, music has slowly become more and more diverse but also more and more fragmented. That fact has never felt more palpable than now. Think about it: in 2019, what will we think of 2009? A decade from now, what song from 2009 will we be able to say “Now THAT was our song”? What song will come on the radio unexpectedly in 2019 (if we still even have radios by then) and unite us all in head-nodding, booty-shaking, lyric-mouthing merriment? It’s a scary thought to think that 2009 might not have contributed anything more to the collective hip-hop canon (if we still even have that by 2019) than Drake’s “Best I Ever Had.”

On the other hand, this fragmentation has led to a ton of really great music. Since we aren’t buying records en masse anymore, most artists kind of stopped giving a fuck about scoring radio hits and have taken rap into bold new territories. DJ Quik busted out the world music crates. Mos Def crafted a cohesive album with approximately one and a half hooks altogether. Gucci Mane came up with 1,000 synonyms for his jewelry. Ghostface Killah formally legitimated the art of “Rap & Bullshit.” Some kids from LA revived hyphy while doing the Running Man backwards in bright skinny jeans. Fuck, even Soulja Boy started experimenting with backpack rap. Yes, God exists. And he’s got his swag turned on.

But before we jump into this “Best Of” list, an editorial note: this is one moonlighting critic’s personal taste in rap, which carries with it plenty of limitations. Not the least of which is time and energy. Try as I might, it takes special circumstances for any one person to really keep up with rap. This is not at all a definitive list. It’s merely a jumping off point to share good music with you. Actually, I’m hoping fellow Jezebel Music rap head, Matt, tells me I’m completely full of shit and then clues me in on everything I missed. And I hope you do the same for me too. (For “The Best Rap Albums of 2009: Part 1” go here.)

5. Juicy J | Hustle Till I Die
For Three 6 Mafia, 2009 was the year that the group went back its horrorcore roots (after all, “Three 6” = “666”). DJ Paul released an album called Scale-A-Ton. Juicy J dropped Hustle Till I Die. Imagine about 15 variations on the main theme from The Exorcist. Then set that to Southern rap drum programming. That’s the meat of Juicy J’s album. This is dark, heavy gothic crunk full of dissonance, minor chords and keys, ominous strings, and a level of aggression that, rather than letting up, usually only intensifies. Juicy J is an extremely dynamic producer. His beats frequently mutate mid-song into more exciting – albeit more grotesque – abominations. “My Niggaz” slows from an energetic bounce to a menacing, sledgehammer-like thump. The minimalistic “Purple Kush” consists of little more than some tinny drums, pulsating bass, and incessant chanting…until the second verse when guest rapper Gorilla Zoe raps through a bass-heavy voice filter…and then the third verse when grim church organs creep in, turning a relatively fun weed track into something wholly unsettling. Hustle Till I Die will get you amped to beat the crap out of someone and use their blood in a demonic ritual.
More on The Best Rap Albums of 2009: Part 2

Send in the folk (clowns?). Brooklyn’s Darrin James Band just sent over “The Lovely Ugly Truth,” the title track off their recently released sophomore album The Lovely Ugly. In 2009, it is hard to give great singer songwriters the attention they deserve – we receive so many submissions from guys with acoustic guitars, that it is sometimes easier to just talk about the ones that the big name blogs give the most press (I’m looking at you, Kurt Vile…I see you over there, smugly profiting off your questionably deserved hype).

But “The Lovely Ugly Truth” is such an enjoyable track: raucous, bluesy, and obviously classic, a composite piece of “rock and roll.” James has a such smokey gruff voice that it seems it would have been a rejection of his own birthright not to sing the blues. James isn’t going to invent any new genres, or get called a sonic pioneer, but with a song this genuine and immediate, who cares?

Darrin James Band – “The Lovely Ugly Truth”

by Max Sebela

THIS WEEK IN HIP HOP
In terms of rap music, 2009 has been both utterly depressing and magnificently awe-inspiring. Through the years, music has slowly become more and more diverse but also more and more fragmented. That fact has never felt more palpable than now. Think about it: in 2019, what will we think of 2009? A decade from now, what song from 2009 will we be able to say “Now THAT was our song”? What song will come on the radio unexpectedly in 2019 (if we still even have radios by then) and unite us all in head-nodding, booty-shaking, lyric-mouthing merriment? It’s a scary thought to think that 2009 might not have contributed anything more to the collective hip-hop canon (if we still even have that by 2019) than Drake’s “Best I Ever Had.”

On the other hand, this fragmentation has led to a ton of really great music. Since we aren’t buying records en masse anymore, most artists kind of stopped giving a fuck about scoring radio hits and have taken rap into bold new territories. DJ Quik busted out the world music crates. Mos Def crafted a cohesive album with approximately one and a half hooks altogether. Gucci Mane came up with 1,000 synonyms for his jewelry. Ghostface Killah formally legitimated the art of “Rap & Bullshit.” Some kids from LA revived hyphy while doing the Running Man backwards in bright skinny jeans. Fuck, even Soulja Boy started experimenting with backpack rap. Yes, God exists. And he’s got his swag turned on.

But before we jump into this “Best Of” list, an editorial note: this is one moonlighting critic’s personal taste in rap, which carries with it plenty of limitations. Not the least of which is time and energy. Try as I might, it takes special circumstances for any one person to really keep up with rap. This is not at all a definitive list. It’s merely a jumping off point to share good music with you. Actually, I’m hoping fellow Jezebel Music rap head, Matt, tells me I’m completely full of shit and then clues me in on everything I missed. And I hope you do the same for me too. (For “The Best Rap Albums of 2009: Part 2,” go here.)

10. Lil Wayne & Juelz Santana | My Face Can’t Be Felt
Lil Wayne fans have been hailing the No Ceilings mixtape as Weezy’s triumphant return to rapping form after a year or so of coasting on the superstardom afforded from Tha Carter III. And yeah, he has come back to snapping some pretty good punchlines. But I think his greater strength is in the raw emotion and truth he spills out from time to time. To date, two of the most memorable musical moments of Lil Wayne’s career have been the pained, pleading, nearly-crying hooks to Playaz Circle’s “Duffle Bag Boy” and The Game’s “My Life.” My Face Can’t Be Felt contains more of these vulnerable moments, including the heartbreaking “How Can Something” in which Lil Wayne confesses in great writerly detail the pain of love lost and what that’s meant for the child that’s left in between the two estranged lovers.

More on The Best Rap Albums of 2009: Part 1

FRESH BAKED
in NYC
Arms
Kids Aflame
2009 | Gigantic Records
C-

Kids Aflame, the debut record from Brooklyn group Arms, is an upbeat, shiny slice of capital-lettered Indie Rock, and reminds the listener of this fact with every note. While its lyrics treat a range of subjects, not all of which sparkle with the good-time haze of the album’s music, the overall impression is of a forced smile—technically flawless, if spiritually flaccid.

The cleverly-titled but mostly non-musical opener “Sabretooth Typist” is merely a prelude to “Whirring,” which sets a pattern that will prove difficult to break for the rest of the album. Cheery pop instrumentation (complete, on this song, with a quiet guitar/jingle bell interlude) is the rule, while singer Todd Goldstein’s voice glides smoothly over the top like a young lounge singer’s, delivering ever-so-slightly sneering social commentary packaged with a retinue of ooh’s and aah’s. The guitar riffs that drive the song are pleasant and catchy enough, if ultimately not too memorable, and the percussion stays politely in the background, offering only the slightest of kicks when necessary to keep the song moving.

The vocals start inducing motion sickness on “Construction,” where Goldstein’s nasal delivery slides languidly from end to end of the major scale while quiet guitars and near-nonexistent percussion shuffle around trying to look busy. The jingle bells are still here, now joined by a few hand-claps. It’s enough to almost make you want to pinch the song’s cheeks, until the vocals slimily chime back in.

The title track continues in the nauseatingly precious vein, with strummed ukulele echoing over warm harmonica-like programming and Goldstein’s whiny, unctuous lilt interrupted by sunny arpeggiated nonsense syllables. This song has some staying power, with its catchy melody and general unrelenting cheer, but repeated listening induces tooth-grinding unless you’re prepared to throw yourself headlong into the album’s grating, near-senseless positivity.
More on Arms | Kids Aflame

FRESH BAKED
in NYC
Talk Normal
Sugarland
2009 | Rare Book Room
A-

The first word that pops into my head listening to Sugarland, the first full-length from Brooklyn duo Talk Normal, is “industrial.” I’m hesitant to use the word, because I think it dredges up sonic images of the band Ministry and early Nine Inch Nails, and Sugarland definitely has none of the amped-up speed of those folks. (Yet, despite its ambient leanings, Sugarland isn’t a snooze either.) The “industrial” sound I’m referring to above most closely resembles the sonic landscape of the film Eraserhead by David Lynch.

The second and possibly strongest track of the album, “In a Strange Land,” features a start-stop guitar crunch punctuated by percussive crashes that sound like being stuck in a stylized assembly line or a particularly antiquated elevator. Layered on top of this foundation is a frantic, almost tribal drumbeat, and intermingling vocals by guitarist Sarah Register and drummer Andrya Ambro that shriek, pant and float serenely, delivering lyrics like “Help me/ I’m a stranger/ In a strange land/ Don’t push me away.”

The band’s Downtown New York/No Wave influences are pretty apparent (they’re even named after a Laurie Anderson song, for gosh sakes), and the comparisons to Lydia Lunch and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O that are frequently lobbed at them seem fair enough, but the band is far from hamstrung by their predecessors. Register and Ambro are equally inventive as performers and writers, easily distinguishing themselves and defining their sounds as their own. Ambro’s drumming is primal without being primitive, and it maintains much of the forward momentum of many of the tracks. Register, for her part, very rarely gets into conventional guitar heroics, instead preferring dirge-y guitar squalls, which, on most of the tracks, are layered into soundscapes of fuzzed-out tones.
More on Talk Normal | Sugarland

FRESH BAKED
in NYC
Bluebird Handwriting
Tortulous EP
2009 | Dedpop
B

A newer band’s initial EPs are tasting plates, of sorts; ideally, they’ve created a sampling of their style and potential, of which they’ll elaborate the better parts in their subsequent, more comprehensive LPs. Connecticut’s Bluebird Handwriting claims the usual suspects as influences (their MySpace account lists Radiohead and Sonic Youth), but it’s with Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, M83, and My Bloody Valentine that they share the most in common. Though these comparisons are lofty and divergent, Bluebird manages to meet them.

They have the spastic rhythmic flourishes of Aphex Twin; the subdued industrial simplicity of Boards of Canada; the brash keyboards of M83, with all of their romantic undertones; and the static dreamscape of My Bloody Valentine. Some of it holds up, and some of it doesn’t; one can’t really fault a band too much for this so early in their career.

The Tortulous EP is at its best during its more ruminative, ambient moments. It’s at its weakest when it attempts Aphex Twin and the louder side of M83; these sounds are dated, and can’t be sustained by any amount of revision or nostalgia. Considering what they get right, though, Bluebird Handwriting manages the rare ability of making the most simple arrangements resonate, with little need to dress up their sound in overwrought production or theatrics.

Bluebird Handwriting’s best moment is at the end of “It Is Broken Soon:” the song hardly moves beyond its simple theme and metronomic beat, before the rhythm drops out and we have just the keyboard hook. It’s a great moment, conveying the bittersweet sound of an orchestra leaving the stage after a beautiful performance, or the temporal escape from the shortest day of winter. They’re most definitely a band to check out.

You can download Tortulous for free here.

Bluebird Handwriting – “It is Broken Soon”

by Joe Veix