"One-two-three-four" words about 'Lonely Avenue...

ok, I'll play...

I've given it 3 full listens now.

First, let me say that "any Setzer/BSO is better than NO Setzer/BSO."

Anyway, all 3 instrumentals are great, as is Trouble Train, Lonely Ave (brilliant), and Passion of the Night. The rest isn't bad, but it's not very memorable either. I can put on BSO, GS, TDB, Ignition, and listen to them front-to-back. I FF my way thru NBFD & Vavoom, but they still have some good stuff on there.

SFLA falls into the latter category for me. I'm glad to have some new BSO, but I wish it was a front-to-back listen for me, which it isn't.


FWIW, it's the mediocre MATERIAL that's bothering me. I think Brian's voice still sounds pretty darned good, and he can still play his ass off, I just don't have a desire to listen to this disc front-to-back, over & over. And THAT, folks, is due to the material.

If Brian ain't gonna' Dirty Boogie anymore with the BSO, I would almost prefer he do an album of standards... no rockabilly beats, no guitar gymnastics, just honest swing classics. And I'm a GUITAR PLAYER! This album, to me, almost belongs with my Harry Connick Jr CDs... not my BSO CDs...

And, to close, ... "it's still a helluva lot better than I could do!"

ruger9 wrote:

I would almost prefer he do an album of standards... no rockabilly beats, no guitar gymnastics, just honest swing classics.

That's something I've already been thinking too. How great would a Cover of maybe "It don't mean a thing" , damn there are sooo many great Standards!

ruger, just curious - what do you think of WBNO?

Edit: Ooh, hey! Ya'll just gave me an idea! How 'bout "Big Band Riot Vol 1," where Le Setz rocks the holy hell out of lesser-known or underappreciated swing classics like nobody else can! Webby's suggestion of "It Don't Mean a Thing" is killer, then I'd add Jimmie Lunceford's "T'Ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It)"... I'm sure there's a whole record's worth of classic tunes that are under-covered, as the Rockabilly Riot tunes were!

But now we're just gettin' ahead of ourselves.

you'll have to educate me - WBNO? I used alot of acronyms in my post, but I'm not getting that one!

ruger9 wrote:

you'll have to educate me - WBNO? I used alot of acronyms in my post, but I'm not getting that one!

Haha! Glad it's not just me Wolfgang's Big Night Out, BSO's 2007 release!

Andi wrote:

ruger, just curious - what do you think of WBNO?

Edit: Ooh, hey! Ya'll just gave me an idea! How 'bout "Big Band Riot Vol 1," where Le Setz rocks the holy hell out of lesser-known or underappreciated swing classics like nobody else can! Webby's suggestion of "It Don't Mean a Thing" is killer, then I'd add Jimmie Lunceford's "T'Ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It)"... I'm sure there's a whole record's worth of classic tunes that are under-covered, as the Rockabilly Riot tunes were!

But now we're just gettin' ahead of ourselves.

HOLY CRAP. Setzer should HIRE YOU NOW!!!! That would be incredible.

You know WHY I didn't get that? Because I don't LISTEN to WBNO. I didn't even THINK of it when I was counting the Setzer albums. Again, some awesome playing, but something doesn't jive with me on that disc. I'm afraid that's how I'm feeling about SFLA. WBNO has got great tunes, great musicianship, but something just ain't right. I think he won a grammy for something on there, right?

I'm a fan of classical, but I consider WBNO to be a "novelty."

lesser-know OR well-known, but I'd prefer he didn't put words to them like he did on Vavoom. If you're gonna' play Sing Sing Sing, just play the hell out of it! No lyrics neccesary!

ruger9 wrote:

HOLY CRAP. Setzer should HIRE YOU NOW!!!! That would be incredible.

Yes, that WOULD be incredible if he hired me! Hahahaha!

ruger9 wrote:

You know WHY I didn't get that? Because I don't LISTEN to WBNO.

Yeah, me either. I really need to rectify that, I know there are some major gems on that record.

ruger9 wrote:

lesser-know OR well-known, but I'd prefer he didn't put words to them like he did on Vavoom. If you're gonna' play Sing Sing Sing, just play the hell out of it! No lyrics neccesary!

I specified lesser-known because with all the big band folks out there these days there are some songs that just get done too often. As for Sing Sing Sing, that's done to death by every swing band across the land, and Royal Crown Revue already gave it their own lyrics for "Barflies At The Beach," which was on a Music for our Mother Ocean benefit CD and which they also play live. Which is funny, since when Louis Prima wrote it, it HAD lyrics. It's just that nobody uses them 'cause they all wanna sound like Goodman and Krupa.

Well, what the Heck. Guess I'll just respectfully chime with my 1-2-3-4+ words on the album.

I'm mostly in agreement with Bad Kitty and Twenty Flight Rick. It's an album I wish I loved, but don't. I just didn't have a lot of fun listening to it. I certainly know it's musically, conceptually, technically a fine album. I think the Setzer/Comstock collaboration is golden in terms of the orchestration. I'll agree that things about it sound like we've heard them before. There are those standard Setzer licks that I think are fated to be buried somewhere in any Setzer album. I won't bag on those. I think the album feels very "familiar" because of it, though, at least for me.

I just really can't connect in any way with the lyrics. I think for me, right now, that's the why I don't love it. And I get that it's essentially meant as a love letter to "noir" soundtracks and I get the argument that it's not the point of the album to connect emotionally with it, so much as the point is to tell you a story. But I think songs meant as story can do both.

Go back and listen to Tom Waits' mid to late 70s heavily-film noir influenced stuff. Search YouTube for Waits' "Small Change" , "Romeo is Bleeding", or "Burma-Shave". I connect with those. They're pure poetry set to music. But then that kind of leads to one of the problems with my own expectations for the album. Setzer is in the top two of my all time favorites. But this album treads ground covered by my other favorite, work that long-ago shifted my entire perspective of what music could be and how complex and meaningful a storytelling medium it could be.

And right now, that's what I'm most interested in musically. Lyrics. Storytelling. As a result I've been devouring a lot of Tin Pan Alley stuff, a lot of Broadway stuff, old standards and a lot of Soundheim. Is it unfair of me to compare Brian to those folks? Probably. But like it or not that's what's on my radar right now and I can't help putting his lyrics up against theirs.

Certainly it's an album I'm happy Brian was able to make. And I was happy to support Brian and buy the disc. Maybe my perspective on the disc will change as it gets closer to the Ryman Christmas show and I get back into BSO mode. Hopefully there'll will be a song on the disc I'll come to love as much as "The Hennepin Avenue Bridge", my favorite Setzer-penned tune since "18-Miles To Memphis". But right now, I'm just not crazy about it.

jshea71 that's one of the most compelling critiques I've ever read - and I most definitely will check out the Waits stuff you mentioned. I've never given him much of a listen because I can't get to like his voice. But I'll give it a shot.

Andi wrote:

I specified lesser-known because with all the big band folks out there these days there are some songs that just get done too often. As for Sing Sing Sing, that's done to death by every swing band across the land, and Royal Crown Revue already gave it their own lyrics for "Barflies At The Beach," which was on a Music for our Mother Ocean benefit CD and which they also play live. Which is funny, since when Louis Prima wrote it, it HAD lyrics. It's just that nobody uses them 'cause they all wanna sound like Goodman and Krupa.

Well I'll be. Learn something new every day. Well, Lord knows there are TONS of swing gems out there... I haven't listened to my old big band & swing stuff in awhile, maybe time to go back... that stuff usually hits heavy rotation for me around the holidays, so it's coming up soon.

I gotta' say, of all the new big bands, and I've listened to a bunch of them, the only ones that, FOR ME, really took it and made it their own, were BSO & Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Everybody else to me sounded like a bunch of punks TRYING to swing. I don't mean "punks" in a bad way, I just felt like they were "white guys trying to dance", if you get my drift, whereas BSO & BBVD HAD IT ,MAN

Andi,

Yeah Waits' voice is pretty challenging. The things that really got me past it were his skills as a lyricist (I think he "gets" the inherent rhythm and music of the english language more than most songwriters) and when I first started listening to him, there was a VH1 special were he performed "Downtown Train", which he wrote but was famously covered by Rod Stewart. I felt like his gravely, ratted-out voice gave that song a depth and weight that Rod's "pop"-ed up version never even got close to. Made me really start to rethink notions I had about what a "good" voice was, versus how people who may not be textbook "good" singers use that to really deliver the emotion of what they're trying to say. Dylan being another prime example of that.

But now I've gone horribly off topic in this thread. Apologies.

Andi I love your Idea, hope somebody from the record company is watching this!!!!!

I should stop thinking about it, the more I do, the better it sounds!!!!

I'd like to add the Squirrel Nut Zippers are a great band that fills in with some Swing ans so on. But the reason I want to bring them up is, when you listen to them, you listen to them mainly to see where they take the song. Often not in uniform patterns and changes which to me is ALOT like the new Setzer Album. I listened to it and kept listening to it for where he was going with the music and the changes and tehn the lyrics and then how all of the pieces of the band fit in.

I've played guitar for 25 yrs now and anythnig new and outside the normal is welcomed, for ideas and just plain simple curiosity with folks like Brian that I love. Like where does he come up with it? Its his genius.

One other thing I'd like to address, as folks are semi-into this album and some not at all. Brian is what very few musicians are, and thats alot of things to alot of people.

He IS giving the ROckabilly's music. With his Nashvillians and so on. He is giving you the Stray Cats. HE also is giving you the BSO, and he then gave the Wolfgang album and this. Both outside his normal. But who knows who he just gave those too.

He then comes back around and does it again. Though each time alittle different. I for one look forward to what is next. I hope its a Rockabilly Riot Volume 2. (That first one is just literally one of my favorite disks.)

Anyway, he is only one guy with several bands making rotations to keep his regular fanbase and also grow out. All the while coming up with new stuff, touring and being a normal everyday Joe.

Just don'tforget, he is trying to reach other people too, not just you guys. Especially since you belong to a fansite...... I think he has you. Maybe you should try and find something else to do for a little bit to stay fresh...