Adam Salsman [dot] com

I don’t think a day goes by where I’m not amazed at all the musical connections I’ve made since late in 2005.

Case in point: Ms. Mieka Pauley.

Late in the Summer of 2005, I went with a number of friends to a Jim Boggia concert at the Paradise Lounge. While we snacked and waited for Jim to start, I noticed little yellow cards littered around the joint announcing some gal’s upcoming show. I pocketed one, out of curiosity, and assured myself I would go look on the internets when I got home. I didn’t.

Fast forward some amount of time. I find the yellow card in my bag and decide to take an hour investigating. Found a couple of free (Free and LEGAL!) MP3s and gave them a listen.

“Wow,” is all I had.

I was unable to, at the point, afford or find any albums of hers, and left it at “Hey, at least I got a couple of free tunes.”

Fastforward, AGAIN. Myspace alerts me that Ms. Pauley is attempting to self-fund her album, and is looking for donations. Needless to say, I had my credit card out faster than my gal pal at a shoe sale.

A few months later, the benefits of that donation returned to me many-fold: Elijah Drop Your Gun is a piece of art by someone who has worked long and hard, crafting a cohesive, wonderful collection of songs.

I’m going to start with what I consider the bad of the album, which there is only one point:
It’s too damn short. 11 tracks at just under 41 minutes barely gives me time to fall in love and have an entire relationship with the album. Thankfully, though, front to back, the album’s lack of quantity is made up in quality.

Listening through Elijah you, the listener, pick up two things about Ms. Pauley:

1. She would be (and sound) equally comfortable and amazing in a small venue with an acoustic guitar as she would be in a large rock venue, with full band.
2. There’s an undercurrent of religiosity that doesn’t slap you in the face, but is quietly and proudly embraced.

While I feel the whole album is a gem, tracks to jump on include the lead off track, All the Same Mistakes, Be Like the Man, the quieter, beautiful Devil’s Got My Secret, and the tune caring the lyrics which are the album’s title, Run.

In the end: Elijah’s solid flow, consistency in quality, and excellent production all make it a must listen to for Boston music fans. Mieka’s talent is just

On the web: You can find a number of her concert bootlegs at the Live Music Archive. Might I suggest the 2005 Paradise Lounge concert?

I’ll just start off by making a bold statement:

While not being the best of 2007, Kate Nash’s Made of Bricks is most assuredly my favourite and will be so for years to come.

There, I said it.

Take Lily Allen. Please. (Couldn’t resist). Seriously, take Lily Allen, take out some of the attitude and fill it with cute. Take Lily Allen, and add some hotness. Take Lily Allen and make her more awesome. Yes, *more* awesome. And that is Kate Nash.

The album is 12 tracks (well, 13, really, but it’s a SECRET) coming in at 56 minutes. So far so good.

Bricks, sadly starts off on an odd, and perhaps jarring, foot with Play, which is just lots of distorted drum machines and Nash “singing” “I like to play.” It’s not so much bad as, arguably, setting the tone of the album wrong. After that “tune,” however, the album just keeps climbing.

To be honest, with the exception of “Play,” I love the whole damned album. Foundations, Dickhead, Mariella, and Skeleton Song are super favourites in an album of favourites.

In the end: Did you like Lily Allen? You’ll love Kate Nash. Were you iffy on Lily Allen? You’ll love Kate Nash? Did you hate Lily Allen? You might like Kate Nash.

Technorati Tagged: Kate Nash | 2007 | Brit-Pop | Best Of

People bash on the internet. They really do. But if it weren’t for the intertubes, I would never have found my latest musical crush, Ms. Sara Bareilles.

I don’t really know much about her, to be honest. I’ve been busy, I’ve been lazy, and I just haven’t done my research, shame on me.

All that being said, she’s amazing. A sweet voice, piano-driven music, with jazz, blues, and folk influences. She’s not reinventing the wheel, she’s not blowing us away with some amazing new thing. Sara Bareilles is just enjoyable, delicious pop/rock music.

Did I mention she’s cute? Yeah, there’s that too.

Before the accolades-o’-plenty, there’s one thing that disappoints: The album, all 12 tracks, come in under 50 minutes. Selfishly, at 12 tracks, I have expectations of 55 - 60 minutes.

Anywho, on to the good stuff: The album, all 12 tracks, are fun, playful, easy on the ears, and make you pray you could have one evening with Ms. Bareilles (Dinner only! Not even all that other stuff).

Of the dozen offerings, Love Song, Love on the Rocks, Bottle It Up, and Many the Miles are my favorites. That jazzy/pop style that Norah Jones brought back to mainstream, but in a sleepy way, Sara brings with a pop kick.

In the end: It’s a solid, if short, offering in the “best of 2007″ list of my heart. Not too sweet, not too serious, just good music. And, hell, I even pick up distinct flavourings of Bonnie Raitt. So, you know, that can’t be bad.

Technorati Tagged: Sara Bareilles | 2007 | Pop Rock | Best Of

And then there is the other side of an album of covers. Patti Smith’s “Twelve.” Yes, the “Twelve” refers to the number of tracks.

From Jimi Hendrix to Tears for Fears, Nirvana to the Allman Brothers, Smith manages to at least break even, if not come up a little bit ahead by the time of the album.

When doing a cover (just one or a whole album), you have to take in to account how the fans will respond. If you end up just doing an uninspired, flat out cover (see: Bryan Ferry’s “Dylaneseque”) you could alienate the fan-base. If you do too much experimentation and alteration, you may be heralded for creative, but again shunned for destroying a “classic.”

Smith plays it safe. There’s not a lot of stretching the musical boundaries (except for the banjo in “Smells Like Teen Spirit;” It works!), but she does some faithful work to bring her back to the front of pop culture.

Where I feel “Are You Experienced?” failed a bit in Smith’s hands, she manages an even-keeled “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” “Gimme Shelter” is belted out with some serious force to give Mick a run for his money, but Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble” feels a bit awkward.

Where she does things so very right is the Beatles’ “Within you without you,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and the Allman’s “Midnight Rider.”

In the end: Again, this is the good side of a cover album. It feels like Patti Smith took special care in picking these songs and worked them up to play nicely with her voice. Like I said, it’s no world-shattering re-imagination, but it’s 12 songs from the pop-vernacular performed for us with Smith’s unique vocal strains. Worth at least a once-through.

Technorati Tagged: Patti Smith | Cover Album | Rock | 2007

Bryan Ferry covers Bob Dylan. It’d at least be an interesting match up, right? One would think.

Yeah, not so much.

The entire process seemed uninspired, unimpressive, and downright insulting to Bobby Dylan’s work.

The problem may stem from having absolutely no attachment to Bryan Ferry or any of his work, my complete dislike of his voice, or just that these all seem to be bland interpretations of some major and minor Dylan tunes.

And, to be honest, I didn’t think anyone could screw up “Watchtower.” The song has been covered, altered, re-imagined, had the re-imagining become the definitive version, covered, altered, and replayed so many times. I don’t think you can be a band without covering “All Along the Watchtower.” Hell, even Battlestar Galactica did.

Yet, here is Bryan Ferry, shoving this pitifully lame, soulless version of a Dylan uber-classic.

In the end: The whole thing feels awkward and clumsy like a 15 year old unhooking his girlfriend’s bra for the first time. There are good cover albums out there, there are bad cover albums out there, and then there’s this one. Please, do us all a favour and pick up Patti Smith’s “Twelve.” At least she tried to mix things up a little bit.

Technorati Tagged: Bryan Ferry | Cover Album | Rock | 2007

Feist, oh darling Feist.

My love affair with this album started with a video for “1, 2, 3, 4″ which Caitlin posted at her internets music musings blog, Beginning to See the Light. I mean, really, metallic blue tube top pants suit? Genius.

Anyway, I heard the song, and then played it a dozen more times. So simple, so beautiful, so wonderful.

So what did I do? Well, two things: immediately (and illegally) downloaded it and the proceeded to purchase it because it’s so damn good.

That’s right. I bought the album. Baby don’t buy an album unless it’s good. It’s a good start.

The album starts a little slow, with “So Sorry,” most assuredly a break up tune. But, like a label pairing of opener and headliner, it’s good… just differently so.

I Feel It All and My Moon My Man (sounding remarkably Spoon-ish), however, kick things up. Mind you, kicking it up on this album isn’t exactly rock and roll. It’s just… pardon the pun… Feistier.

The whole album roller coasters up and down like this, but never wavers in quality.

There are some truly amazing tracks, ones that just jump out at me. My Moon My Man, as mentioned, is evocative of Spoon which immediately kicks it up in my book. Sea Lion Woman feels like it could have been ripped either from Nina Simone or Paul Simon (during his African tribal beats days). 1, 2, 3, 4 is just a light, airy tune, something you almost feel like you might here on a summer night, with your legs dangling off of a dock, making small waves in water of some secluded lake, dusk just approaching. The rough simplicity of Intuition gives the song a feeling of intimacy, as though this were just some acoustic demo being played for the first time in your buddy’s basement.

In the end: Fans of Jem (unplugged), Cat Power, or even that darling Jenny Lewis, will definitely enjoy this one. It teeters on the pop/acoustic/alternative edges, but never offends sensibilities; only warms them. Check it out, or, as Han Solo once said “Don’t be a fool!”

On the web: As mentioned, Caitlin has the video for 1, 2, 3, 4 on her blog. I’ll post her KCRW session tomorrow. Also, here are two tracks from her Radio performance a couple days ago: Feist: Live on Radio 1

Technorati tagged: Feist | Stripped Down | Female Vocalist | 2007

Oh women and their pianos, will you ever not be a weakness of mine?

After taking a look at the music section in the Boston Globe, I found a note that Ms. Dienel (a former Boston native) would be playing in town. Well, gee, she looked cute, and that was enough for me to check out her myspace page. Which led me to the opening track of Doctor Monroe. Four notes in, I was sold. I hadn’t even heard her voice but I knew, somehow, it would be good.

And so it continued. Wind-up Canary is 12 tracks spanning just shy of 50 minutes, and contains a lot of the playfulness that a similar songstress uses, that being Nellie McKay.

Unlike your standard woman-at-a-piano music, Dienel’s work isn’t just about longing, pain, and heartbreak, but also some fun narratives and keen observations. Plus, she ends up involving a banjo at one point, and I can’t lie: I’m a sucker for a banjo.

Doctor Monroe, Baby James, Frankie and Annette (and, please, tell me you don’t here the Ballad of Brenda and Eddie hidden in there), and All or Nothing are, perhaps, the most telling tracks of both the albums seriousness and light-heartedness.

In the end: I’ve got room in my heart for another Boston gal, and Casey happened to slide on in. This may not be Grammy award winning music, but it’s fun, it’s enjoyable, and it’s better than the shit that does win Grammys. To me, that says “good record.”

On the web: Behold the power of MySpace. And if that frightens you, there’s always her Official site.

Technorati Tagged: Casey Dienel | Female Vocalists | Piano | 2007