I’ll make it up to you right now at the Lazy Saturday.

(Editor’s note: Saturn’s rings look like a slab of vinyl; I want to drop a needle on ‘em and blast that interplanetary funk into the vast wasteland of space.  If Saturn’s rings are indeed encoded with sonic information, it has to be funk, right? The Mothership is pretty clearly floating off in the dark bit of Saturn there, right?  Just turning out  the jams, keeping the little green cats grooving?  To celebrate the glory of the universe, we’re kicking off today with some vintage Parliament/Funkadelic, recorded live in Detroit in 1978.  I’ll drop one of these tracks on you every couple of weeks or so, try to keep some glide in your stride and some dip in your hip during the winter months.  For the record, if you hear any noise, it’s just me and the boys.  Hit me.)

Parliament/Funkadelic – Mothership Connection – Live 1978

You know how ridiculously high my intentions were for last Sunday’s Death show, right?  I’ve been wrapping my brain around the show all week and finally feel ready to drop my impressions on you.  Justin, Rob and I rolled in, fully expecting for our faces to melt off from the hammering sounds of re-discovered proto-punk.  Local heroes This Moment in Black History opened the evening off in fine fashion, with a rousing set of raucous loudness.  We’re going to hit this band more critically and carefully the next time we see them; for now, hopefully, it’s enough for us to say that they are talented and entertaining; the songs are good and their delivery is top-notch.  Look for more from us on these folks in the near future.  Full disclosure:  we skipped Rough Francis to stand outside and chat with the cognoscenti.  I feel like a shit “journalist,” but I was enjoying rapping with the peeps.  the benefit to skipping out on Rough Francis (who we heard from others who toughed it out were raw but intriguing) was that we had the opportunity to catch up with erstwhile Black Key, Dan Auerbach.  Dude was in Collinwood to catch Death, so we hit him up for information on the upcoming Blackroc project.  Auerbach kind of big-timed us.  Brushed us off.  Wasn’t super-cool.  Maybe he had a hard day at the office, maybe he doesn’t like the internet, maybe he lost his fucking car keys.  Whatever.  We’ll still evaluate his music with alacrity, but he’s no longer on the Citizen Dick Christmas card list.

When Death finally rolled in, they kind of forced two theses into my barely-functioning brain. (it was a Sunday.  I was tired.)  Here they are:

1. People get old. You ever hear the smartass who wonders what kind of music Hendrix would be making if he was still alive?  Easy.  It would suck.  We get to unabashedly love Band of Gypsies and  Electric Ladyland and we get to mythologize them (and Hendrix himself) at least partially because the cat didn’t have the chance to put out a god-awful flamenco record in the eighties (or some such shit).  Death turned into a reggae band in New England at some point between 1968 and now.  There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but seeing Death in 2009 at the Beachland is functionally different than seeing them at Clutch Cargo’s thirty years ago.  They played all of the songs on …For the Whole World to See, but there was a lot of way less rocking material in between those seven cuts.  All this to say that there is no way for Death to be the same band they were when they were all twenty years old.  This isn’t intended pejoratively at all, but I was hoping for a more punk experience.  This is my fault, not Death’s.

2. Things you don’t know about are always cooler than things that you do know about. Imagine if there was somebody writing things as good as Faulkner’s stuff, but that nobody ever heard of.  (This kind of happened with Breece D’J Pancake and his recent re-emersion into the literary conciseness.  He actually works well as a comparison to Death: somebody with a really small catalog (one collection of short stories, one album), working in a medium that became wildly lauded later (neo-southern gothic, proto-punk) in obscurity until rediscovery.  For this discussion, Faulkner is, essentially, The MC5 and Pancake is Death, except that Pancake worked way later than Faulkner.  Not perfect, but whatever.)  Is there anything past “Kick out the Jams” as good as any of the songs on …For the Whole World to See?  That’s a really tough question to answer, only because it is inherently thrilling to find something that you didn’t know existed.  That Death record is very good, but it’s a good bit better because of the narrative behind it.

All told, the Death show was awesome.  I enjoyed myself and got to hear all the songs I wanted to hear.  So that’s a clear win.  Rob, as usual, took killer video.  The cats from Rough Francis (related to Death by blood somehow) join Death onstage for “Politicians in My Eyes.”  I’m not super high on the young guy’s pipes, but it was about as energetic as you can get on a Sunday.  Particularly awesome is the kid who saunters out to hit the high note around 3:21 and then wanders back offstage.  Enjoy.

The tracks below, from New York quartet The Voyces have been floating the internet for awhile, but I wanted to mention how good they are today.  The mellowed out, openly nostalgic vibe of “Let Me Die in Southern California” is perfect for the oncoming autumn.  It sounds, to me, like what The Eagles could have sounded like if they didn’t suck so hard.  (I had a rough night and I hate the fucking Eagles man.)  “You Can Never Know” works in the same mode; working its way into your brain with its gentle harmonies and persistent groove.  I haven’t listened to the rest of the record that these two tracks come from, but I’m going to, because I’m certain I’m going to dig it.

The Voyces – Let Me Die in Southern California

The Voyces – You Can Never Know

I was thinking about how much I disliked Evil Urges today.  Not quite sure why, it was just in my brain.  Diamond Jim loves that record, but I’m more about pre-Z material.  Is there a better My Morning Jacket song than “Phone Went West?”  Is there a more complete album than It Still Moves? Dunno.  All that said, the end of Evil Urges (and maybe the beginning) is as good as anything in the catalog.  When they kick into “Smokin’ From Shootin’” live, you’re glad you sat through drivel like “Librarian.”  Jim and the boys are still (obviously) in the top five for me, and I’ll be sleeping out the night before the next record hits (Soon?  Hopefully?  Anybody?) and I have no problems letting them off with the (for me) undeniable clunker that was Evil Urges, but if I ever have to hear that peanut butter pudding surprise thing again, it might get ugly.  (Aside:  I tried really hard to like Evil Urges.  I listened a lot, trying to talk myself into it.  A year later?  I listen to three songs from it and Okonokos the rest of the time.  Just saying.)  So.  To close out this fine Lazy Saturday, the two tracks worth keeping from the most recent MMJ record and, cause I like you,”Cobra.”

My Morning Jacket – Smokin’ from Shootin’ – Live 2008

My Morning Jacket – Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, pt. 2 – Live 2008

My Morning Jacket – Cobra – Live 2008