Listening Too Long To One Song: John Cale "Charlemagne"

Is it just me, or do we all have a handful of songs that we have to hear again and again, try to unravel until we can finally pinpoint what it is that makes them so good, and why exactly it is they have the effect that they do on us? The Hold Steady have song called "Certain Songs" which states that, "Certain songs get so scratched into our souls." John Cale's song "Charlemagne" has been one of those for me for a long time. I recently noticed it on a playlist that I made awhile back. I put it on, and sure enough, I have found it difficult to listen to anything else. "Charlemagne" shows up a little over half way through the album Vintage Violence. Though the entire album is great, I always seem to get stuck on that particular song. There is something about the lovely intro, beginning only with piano and viola while the rest of the instruments unassumingly filter in. Something about the line "Many tries, many tries, simple stories are the best." Something about the vocals, the outro...

You can buy a copy of Vintage Violence through either of the links posted below:

John Cale Vintage Violence

John Cale Vintage Violence-Remastered

Top of the Pops!

Art Brut may very well be my new favorite live band. They rocked through their catalouge last night at the Henry Fonda with exactly the kind of energy and sense of fun that you would expect to see from Art Brut. I've missed them almost too many times to count now, and I was beginning to think that they might turn into a band that I would never see perform. Due to this, I'd been imagining Eddie Argos' stage banter as the stuff of legend, I was not disappointed. My personal favorite line of the night came when he introduced "Good Weekend:" "It was number one, in Narnia... Aslan bought the first copy." Am I going to hell for thinking that is hilarious? Excellent local band Kissing tigers got um, a shout out later in the song. So did the Mighty Lemon Drops. This resulted in a good ammount of celebration where we were standing, with members of both of those bands in attendance. Makes sense as Dave Newton (the Mighty Lemon Drops) produced albums for openers the Blood Arm (who I sadly missed due to Santa Monica traffic,) and Kissing Tigers. He is producing the new album for the Henry Clay People as well. I'm going to take a wild guess that it will be fantastic, because they are fantastic. And since I attended this show with Joey from the Henry Clay People, I was introduced to Dave. Amazingly, I managed to make it through the evening without asking him a single nerdy C86 question.

Then of course "America's number 1 bar band" the Hold Steady are always a good time, I can't descibe what it is that makes me love this band so much. Something about the way Craig Finn presents his stories of kids and "killer parties," mixed in with a fair ammount of religious imagery is completely endearing (he even tends to act out moments of dialougue in the songs.) Everyone else in the band the band knows how to put on a good show, and it is near impossible to watch them without smiling. I can't imagine ever getting tired of watching them, and I really can't believe that I almost talked myself out of this one because I was feeling anti-social. No longer, the upcoming week brings me back to my usual schedule of a show nearly every night culminating with the Radio Free Silver Lake/Rock Insider/Squaregirls (!) presented night with the Valley Arena/the Forms/the Bentleys/Signal Hill on Wednesday the 14 at the Scene Bar in Glendale (ahem.) The Hold Steady/Art Brut was just the thing to get me back on track!

Check out Art Brut performing a similar rendition of "Good Weekend" to the one I saw last night posted below.