Album Review : Paradise Valley – John Mayer

After having a long list of albums I've wanted to review, I chose to start somewhere and am going with John Mayer’s 6^th outing – Paradise Valley. I rather enjoyed the opening song of Wildfire and had a lot of expectations from the rest of the album. Unfortunately, considering the space that John Mayer has created in my books of being an artist who excels with each passing album, I found the album to be a letdown of sorts.

I've heard and reheard the album at least 5 times in the last one week and I just don’t find a single tune that I can remember instantly and want to come back home and learn on the guitar. With songs like Gravity, Vultures, Daughters and more to his credit, I expected a lot more from Mayer on this outing. I honestly don’t understand Mayer’s pet-peeve of having his current girlfriends sing on his albums. It was Taylor Swift on Battle Studies and Katy Perry (on Who you love) on Paradise Valley. I guess it’s one of those things you can get away with if you’re at the level of John Mayer.

Most of the songs felt like what was left over during the song-writing process of Born and Raised. The previous outing of Mayer was a move away from his blues avatar and had a lazy country ‘listen to my life story’ sort of feel to it, and I loved it. Mayer has tried to recreate the same in Paradise Valley, but falls short. The song writing in bits and pieces on a couple of songs was good, most notably on Dear Marie (which I assume is about his first real love), Wildfire and  On the Way Home. Mayer also does an enjoyable cover of J.J Cale’s Call Me the Breeze which is poignant considering J.J Cale passed away recently. Talk about timing.

I’m giving the album 2 out of 5 stars. It’s an easy lazy listen that doesn't really have you eager to want to listen to it again. Paradise Valley offers nothing new to listeners but just might satisfy the appetite of the really-hard-core John Mayer fan. To me, Mayer’s benchmark will continue to be the Continuum album.

Gig Review - Skrat @B-flat B'lore

Skrat’s back in town. Considering that I really love this band, it would be unfair to do another review in such a short span of time because we all know I’m just going to say nice things. 

Skrat at B-Flat B'lore

Nevertheless, just a quickie (not what you are thinking) about last night’s gig at B-Flat in Bengaluru. Great sound, packed house, a lot of people dancing, a few new covers (including ‘Born to be Wild’ which is one of my favourite songs which I've played in the last 3 bands I was in), top class energy. The evening's set list covered a lot of material from the new album (Bring Out the Big Guns) that was interspersed with material from the older album and a few Black Keys, Raconteurs and Johnny Cash covers.

The biggest thing I like about the band is their raw simplicity. No fancy processors or pedal boards. Just comes to show that you don’t need to know about a 1000 chords and scales to make music that moves people.

The last time I saw Skrat play in Bengaluru was at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was a letdown considering the acoustics of HRC needs a lot of work. B-flat was a much better venue in terms of acoustics and a far more intimate venue because the band wasn't standing 8 feet above you where you can’t see the drummer. 

The only downside to the show was that I didn't get a free cd. I hope the Yankee who did get the cd takes it back to his homeland and plays it for people there. Let the world know that India is much more than Bollywood. 

And now a word from our Good Times partner for the evening

(PS: I’m trying to learn a bit of proper photography so the pics are a little off because there is only so much customization I can do with a point-and-shoot camera)

An original approach of covers

While running through random music clips on YouTube earlier last week, I came across the’ Kennedy Honors’ which featured Led Zeppelin and a whole host of artists who covered their songs. While the covers were not particularly memorable, there was this one cover by Heart who did ‘Stairway to Heaven’ which was so moving that all the members of Led Zep had tears in their eyes at the end.  The video is at the end of this post for you watch and bawl along. (I saw the video multiple times and had tears in my eyes because it was just so well done).

At some point later in the week, probably during a mindless corporate meeting, a question struck me. If a band were to go about establishing themselves, what’s the right way to go about doing it? Is it through playing killer covers of other bands or making original music right at the start?

So how does Led Zeppelin come into this?  I take the example of the folks in the band, who are ‘Gods among Gods’ in my book. It is a known fact that they started out going about mastering covers of other early blues artists from across the Atlantic, probably an influence from Page’s early days as a session’s guitar player. And it was this exercise to sound like them that started the Led Zeppelin saga.  An outcome of this was that along the way, they did have a fair share of covers that found their way into their albums. Take a song like ‘Gallows pole’ or ‘Babe I’m gonna leave you’ which are a folk songs (The latter got them into a bit of a legal soup with Anne Bredon who wrote the original). There’s even the song ‘Trampled under foot’ which sounds a lot like Robert Johnsons’ ‘Terraplane Blues’ (which the band acknowledges was the inspiration).  ‘You shook me’ is a known Willie Dixon number (Thankfully credited by the band). The band has been known to put their twist on a lot of blues songs during their live gigs.

All this said, Led Zeppelin still have their own original songs which are classics and immortal. But the question still remains (much like the song) of whether covers are the path to writing great originals or do originals evolve themselves. I listen to a song like ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and all I want to do is learn the blues. I take the example of another great guitar player - Eric Clapton who shot to fame with covers such as ‘I shot the Sheriff’ (Bob Marley) and 'Cocaine' (J.J.Cale), but still stands out on all his originals. Even bands like Metallica covered Diamond Head, Motorhead and the early metal bands before coming out with their mind-blowing debut album ‘Kill Em All’.  

Now let’s look at those musicians creating a completely original sound.  The first band that comes to mind for me is Nirvana. Grunge was a completely unknown concept until Nirvana, along with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, broke through from Seattle and gave the world a whole new sound. While I’m not extremely well-versed in rock history, I don’t think there was a sound like Nirvana before Nirvana. Take a band like ‘Rage against the Machine’. I don’t know of any band that dared to take the respective holy houses of rap and metal and put them together and actually have commercial success. I vaguely remember reading of earlier collaborations, but they did not go so well considering I don’t have immediate recall. 

So here are two very distinct approaches to becoming a great band. On the one hand, you've got bands like Led Zeppelin who've tried to emulate blues artists before them and introduced a contemporary sound. And these bands have chosen to blend covers and write mind-blowing original songs. And on the other hand, there are bands like Nirvana who don’t have any known predecessors and yet find themselves being equally revered. So what’s the best route for a band? Start out with mastering covers and blend your feel into them, or start out completely original and uninspired by anything that exists before them.

Being a guitar player who’s struggling to write his own material, I've no answer. I tend to find myself blending bits and pieces from tons of artists I listen to. Hope fully better and more accomplished musicians have an opinion on the matter. Look forward to hearing from you guys.

PS: Here's probably the awesomest cover (yes... I used 'awesomest') of 'Stairway to Heaven'. Much respect to the ladies from Heart

Gig Review : Swarathma at HRC B'lore

This is the sixth time I’m seeing Swarathma live, and it was definitely not the best gig of theirs. The band has sort of templatized (word we use in the corporate circles which means ‘to make a template of’) their shows. So like the plot of most romantic Bollywood movies, you know what to expect. While they did try and change things around a bit this time, by trying new things, it wasn't overly different from their previous gigs. That’s not to say it wasn't a fun evening.

Swarathma at NH7 Weekender B'lore 2012

The band started the evening with Aaj Ki Taaza Fikar which got the crowd grooving along. The band went on to play some of their classics which included Duur Kinara (the collaboration with Shubha Mudgal from the first season of The Dewarists), Ee Bhoomi, Koorane, Sur Mera, Topiwale and their trademark Pyaar Ke Rang where Vasu Dixit mingles with the crowd on the Rajasthani horse.  There was a rather interesting limerick shared by bassist, Jishnu – 'Shaadi ke pehle ladka ladki bane love birds.... Shaadi ke pehle ladka ladki bane love birds... Shaadi ke baad ladka ladki bane angry birds.' (I’m unsure if it was the beer, but that line had me in splits.... which is odd considering I’m not married).

The band did try to change things by going all acoustic on Bolo Kya Hain . During the course of the evening Swarathma introduced the crowd to a few new songs and a new video. The new video for their song Rang Zinda Hain was premiered at the Bangalore show. Not the most memorable video I've seen. I don’t want to be the grouch who trashed the first time effort of the team that put the video together, so I’ll just leave it at that. The band also played their latest collaboration of Naane Daari , which was done with Delhi-based electronic act Dualist Enquiry. While the crowd was going crazy dancing away, I’m yet to cozy up to electronic music. 

The evening closed with a new tapori-esque song of the band called Haste Rahenge which they said would be available on their website for a free download.  Yup, you heard me, free download.( Somewhere a pirate just died). The crowd kept demanding the band play Pyaasi, but the infamous 10 PM witching hour of Bangalore was upon us. An entertaining evening , but not a very memorable one.  Unfortunately, I managed to successfully delete all the pictures of the evening from my camera for which I am giving myself a time-out by standing in the corner.

Here's a older video of theirs to keep you company.