Califone - Roots and Crowns - Thumbs Up

[Snowbunny]

Its so hard to categorize this band, and I find it even more difficult with Roots and Crowns.

The Pitchfork review calls it americana or post rock and that may put some possible fans off.

Anyone craving a quick schooling in vintage Americana can spin Harry Smith's The Anthology of American Folk Music or Dust to Digital's Goodbye, Babylon, memorize Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings, or waddle through In the Shadow of Clinch Mountain, the Bear Family's gorgeous, heart-skewering Carter Family box set. But if you're more interested in hearing ancient mountain and Delta traditions synthesized-- scratched up, muddied, and re-imagined for an America more reliant on machines than the grace of God-- curl up with Califone's Roots and Crowns, the Chicago collective's staggering homage to starts and finishes, computers and cornfields, dirty feet and throbbing foreheads.

Pitchfork Review: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/38893/Califone_Roots_and_Crowns

I mean really, what does that tell me???

Thanks to Swishy's generous soul, :) I have a demo copy in my player at work and I'm pretty much besotten with Roots and Crowns. The cd has 13 tracks but its seems to end way too soon! And how can you not love an album with songs like, Our Kitten Sees Ghots 3 Legged Animals and Black Metal Valentine. I couldn't say which song I like best but I love the beginning of Orchid!

Try it before you buy it but keep in mind its a grower.

Snowie

Note to Swishy-Baby: Does Alejandro always sound like Waits?

[Slosh]

Don't mean to sound querulous but I haven't been besotten for what seems like ages :rolleyes: Too much information? :confused:

[Davey]

Yea, good one. Been playing it a lot for the last few weeks, usually stays in the player for days. Just keeps going around. Steady stream of nourishment for my brain. And my heart. And my soul. Am I besotten too? Is that even a real word? I think I might have been a little besotted a few days ago when those bottles of Guinness were close at hand, so maybe I am (and I only use the kissy-winky with you) ;)

Ultimately, may wind up being my favorite collection of Califone. It's the one that best brings forward the sound I love from their early days as Red Red Meat, and combines it with that old folk core sound, the Appalachian charm, the Harry Smith cookbook of American folk that Pitchfork mentions, the Dock Boggs deconstruction, hammering it all into that Califone sound I love so much using rusty old car parts found around the junkyard. Nearly perfect. Probably album of the year around my junkyard. Too many good moments to fit into one post, but that bridge between "Our Kitten Sees Ghosts" and "The Orchids, that little unassuming and quaint 37 second instrumental called "Alice Crawley", now that's where it almost turns to genius. I've never heard the Psychic TV original of "The Orchids", but can't believe anyone could do it better. And how fitting since Tim Rutili said he discovered it on a comp that a friend had given him, long forgotten, found stashed in a box he was unpacking after moving to LA, and listened to it over and over, besotten I guess you could say ;)

[Snowbunny]

Don't mean to sound querulous but I haven't been besotten for what seems like ages :rolleyes: Too much information? :confused:

Hahahaha... obviously, neither have I!

be·sot (b-st) Pronunciation Key
tr.v. be·sot·ted, be·sot·ting, be·sots
To muddle or stupefy, as with alcoholic liquor or infatuation.

Okay, maybe the liquor form of besotted. :)

There's no such thing as TMI in my mind...

I sure wish you hadn't figured out how to use the computer to make comps. :incazzato:

[Snowbunny]

Yea, good one. Been playing it a lot for the last few weeks, usually stays in the player for days. Just keeps going around. Steady stream of nourishment for my brain. And my heart. And my soul. Am I besotten too? Is that even a real word? I think I might have been a little besotted a few days ago when those bottles of Guinness were close at hand, so maybe I am (and I only use the kissy-winky with you) ;)

Ultimately, may wind up being my favorite collection of Califone. It's the one that best brings forward the sound I love from their early days as Red Red Meat, and combines it with that old folk core sound, the Appalachian charm, the Harry Smith cookbook of American folk that Pitchfork mentions, the Dock Boggs deconstruction, hammering it all into that Califone sound I love so much using rusty old car parts found around the junkyard. Nearly perfect. Probably album of the year around my junkyard. Too many good moments to fit into one post, but that bridge between "Our Kitten Sees Ghosts" and "The Orchids, that little unassuming and quaint 37 second instrumental called "Alice Crawley", now that's where it almost turns to genius. I've never heard the Psychic TV original of "The Orchids", but can't believe anyone could do it better. And how fitting since Tim Rutili said he discovered it on a comp that a friend had given him, long forgotten, found stashed in a box he was unpacking after moving to LA, and listened to it over and over, besotten I guess you could say ;)

Oh, maybe its the Alice Crawley that I'm thinking is the beginning of Orchid? I don't have the track list handy at my desk, and I even though I got a new flat monitor at work, I don't seem to have any sound.

I still can't get past my aversion to the band name, "Red Red Meat". I like that they named this band after a turntable.

[Davey]

I like that they named this band after a turntable.
Yeah, it was actually one of those junky old all-in-one units one of them bought from a thrift store. Had a mic input and everything, so of course they had to plug a guitar in and record with it. Goofs. The first EP ends with about 10 minutes of noise from that old record player spinning around - I guess the name just stuck. Funny how some bands that are so original sounding can come up with the most mundane of names. That first EP is most excellent, although I do always skip that last 10 minutes, unless I forget to flip the record :)

http://members.mailaka.net/davey/np.jpg


Got what seems like a neverending stream of Califone music playing here...just clicked on "Silvermine Pictures" again. That line about "motel sex still fresh on your hand, razor to the tape" just always makes me smile. "She's a loose tooth, and she's a bare wire, unholy fine, with a broken charge..."

[Swish]

Note to Swishy-Baby: Does Alejandro always sound like Waits?
...although I'm sure his hard living has taken its toll on his vocal chords. It's really a surprise that he's still walking the earth, much less making music.

Swish