#phil cook

[yourfavealbumisgender]

Beat The Champ by The Mountain Goats is Butch!

requested by anon

[sinceileftyoublog]

Hurray For The Riff Raff Album Review: The Past is Still Alive

(Nonesuch)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On The Past is Still Alive, the latest and best studio album from Hurray For The Riff Raff, Alynda Segarra looks back at a specific era of their life to pay tribute to chaos and imagine what could come from it. Their seemingly legendary but very real past is well-known by now: At age 17, Segarra left their home in the Bronx and hopped freight trains, played in a hobo band, and settled in New Orleans, a formative period of simultaneous struggle and freedom. That combined ethos has pervaded all Hurray For The Riff Raff records, but on The Past is Still Alive, Segarra's finally telling the tale, applying what they learned to the present day.

Notably, Segarra started recording The Past is Still Alive a month after their father died; while his voice appears literally on the album's final track "Kiko Forever", his musical uplift acts as a buoy for Segarra throughout the whole thing. Though they had worked with producer Brad Cook and drummer Yan Westerlund prior, Segarra had never recorded with the rest of the album's laundry list of stellar contributors, from Meg Duffy of Hand Habits, and Mike Mogis to guest vocalists Anjimile, Conor Oberst, and S.G. Goodman. That Segarra conquered a period of vulnerability to record the album with bonafide strangers is a terrific feat, but not necessarily surprising: This is a person who has the ability to treat even their fellow band members like the audience, recipients of some remarkable stories full of biography and symbolism alike.

Throughout The Past is Still Alive, Segarra alternates between timeless metaphor and hyper-specific details. On "Buffalo", they remark, simply, that "Some things take time," whether presently forming love or society's death-by-1000-cuts treatment of the oppressed. Segarra sings over strummed acoustic guitar and Mogis' pedal steel, the perfect accompaniment to earned wisdom. "Hawkmoon", on the other hand, is more electric, full of Duffy's bluesy riffing, akin to the epic sound of The Navigator, fitting for a song inspired by a lasting figure: the first trans woman Segarra ever met. As if to project to a stadium full of folks looking to honor Ms. Jonathan, Segarra sings a heartland rock-style salute: "She opened up my mind in the holes of her fishnet tights / Dildo waving on her car antenna and / I could've ridden shotgun forever." Pseudo title track "Snakeplant (The Past Is Still Alive)" juxtaposes both memories of chaos and lessons learned. As Segarra recounts shoplifting and having sex on top of an island of trash, they make sure to tell you what they took from a life among "the barrel of freaks": "Test your drugs / Remember Narcan / There's a war on people, don't you understand?" Duffy's distorted guitar and Matt Douglas's skronking saxophone create beauty from Segarra's warnings of disorder.

Some of the best songs on The Past is Still Alive are incredibly life-affirming. Opener "Alibi" is a plea to drug-addicted childhood friends, a promise that, "Maybe we'll start a band," on a song that introduces the swath of instrumentation present throughout the record, like gentle piano, steady drums, echoing guitar, and pedal steel. "Ogallala" and "Colossus of Roads" prioritize survival in a harsh world--Segarra compares themselves to the musicians still playing on the deck of a sinking Titanic--but not without a wish that the world itself would burn. Westerlund's crashing drums take the former to its logical conclusion, while the latter, inspired by the 2022 Club Q shooting in Colorado springs, makes the case for empathy along the way to the apocalypse. "Wrap you up in the bomb shelter of my feather bed," Segarra sings, fighting cruelty with compassion atop Phil Cook's mournful dobro and organ and Westerlund's funereal drum rolls.

It's a line in "Hourglass" that sticks with me the most among the lyrical and instrumental brilliance of The Past is Still Alive. Recounting feeling out-of-place among the status-obsessed, Segarra shifts their perspective. "Suddenly, a boulder's just sand in an hourglass," they sing. Though they spend much of the album concentrating on time and place, they recognize that our mark on earth is statistically insignificant, something we can use to our advantage rather than something that makes us feel small. What many in society consider important--celebrity, power, money--is volatile compared to the power of your own agency, of giving life to the past.

[mixtapemag]

THE PIANO RECITAL AT CARNEGIE HALL.

Photos by Christopher Hall.

Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast

Kevin Morby

Nathaniel Rateliff

Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats / Bonny Light Horseman

Courtney Marie Andrews

Craig Finn of The Hold Steady

Uwade

Phil Cook

Johanna Samuels

Previously on Mixtape:

Photos of Japanese Breakfast at Baltimore Soundstage.

Christopher Hall tweets over here. Carnegie.

[cbcruk]

Phil Cook - I Made A Lovers Prayer

[washdayradionetwork]

Watch "Queen Of Branches" on YouTube

[purpurussy]

frog boiling theory except dan didn't know you need to put water in the pot in order to boil something so they're just frying us alive essentially

[whatsitcalledfromthingy]

[dustedmagazine]

Phil Cook — From the Kitchen (WarHen)

From The Kitchen by Phil Cook

Phil Cook got his start with DeYarmond Edison, the band that supported Justin Vernon until just before he went mega with For Emma, Forever Ago. Cook and his brother Brad and the rest regrouped in Megafaun, one of the aughts best and most inventive folk-blues based bands, and later Cook began to thrive as a sideman for Hiss Golden Messenger, Bon Iver, Hurray for the Riff Raff and assorted other artists. From the Kitchen documents four dates from Cook’s solo 2018 tour, testifying to Cook’s deep knowledge and appreciation for older music, as well as his gleeful, headfirst dive into its pleasures.

The double-CD set allocates one side each to music from shows in Durham, North Carolina; Austin, Texas and St. Paul, Minnesota. The final side is a split, three songs from a Chicago date and one from Winston-Salem. The first side, from Cook’s home base, is the most lushly accompanied. In addition to his regular touring partners—James Wallace on keyboards and Michael Libramento on bass—he invites the singer Tamisha Waden (of the Foreign Exchange and Hiss Golden Messenger), Brevan Hampden on percussion, Joel Holloway playing piano and Matt MacCaughan on drums. The Austin show is the sparest—just Cook and his guitar and a trio of deeply felt covers (plus one original).

The covers, indeed, provide a way into Cook’s world. He pays tribute to Randy Newman (twice) and Charlie Parr, Allen Toussaint and Ted Lucas. A swinging, bouncing take on Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions’ “Talkin’ About My Baby” is foreshadowed by the original cut “Truth,” where Cook tries out a very credible Mayfield falsetto. This latter track is among the best in the collection—and the least like the others—scorching and driving and full of psychedelic soul. For the most part, Cook hovers near the intersection of country, gospel and blues, framing full-hearted melodies with stinging, corrosive guitar licks.

Many of these songs swagger with ballsy blues rock but Cook also knows how to pull way back. “I Won’t Crumble If You Fall,” by the singer and civil rights activist Bernice Johnson Reagon, is a marvel of wavering, shape-shifting slide, coalescing around a simple plaintive melody. It’s like the evanescence of smoke turning to muscle and fortitude, and if it’s mostly the song, Cook effectively lets that come through.

Cook and his band know how to follow a groove, too. The originals, like “Steam Powered Blues” push a sad lick into celebratory release; it must have been fun to be there in St. Paul to hear it all take off. And speaking of audiences, you can hear them just about the right amount. It’s enough to know it’s live, but not so much that you have to skip through the banter and applause on repeat plays.

You might have thought, in 2007, that Phil Cook had missed his window, but in the years since then, he’s built up a diverse and satisfying body of work, well-represented on this live double album. There are just the right number of cooks in this kitchen.  

Jennifer Kelly

[i-am-but-a-holyman]

just made my fucking mug cake thanks a lot dan and phil

[phandillion]

[evermorepeyton]

i’m sorry but leaving the MILK out is way worse than whatever is going on with the cereal, that’s disgusting

[mizgnomer]

Behind the Scenes of The Star Beast - Part Nine

Excerpt from Emily Cook's interview with Miriam Margolyes for Doctor Who Magazine #596:

It was Tom’s Fourth Doctor, albeit in comic form, who originally encountered Beep the Meep in Doctor Who Weekly’s comic strip Doctor Who and the Star Beast, published in 1980. Ten Doctors later, the story is revived for television featuring David Tennant as the Time Lord. As fate would have it, a couple of months before she was cast in Doctor Who, Miriam had lunch with David. “A mutual friend arranged it,” Miriam explains. “I’d never met David before. I was so nervous of meeting him on my own. I was worried he’d find me boring, so I thought I better invite somebody who would be more interesting than me. So I asked Julian Clary. I thought I was going to be affecting an introduction between David and Julian, but I hadn’t realised they knew each other already because they’d previously worked together. But it was wonderful. I loved meeting David and his wife Georgia. I thought they were heavenly. Lovely people. The sort of people who you’d want to know. I think David’s an exceptional performer. I love that thing he does with the Welshman [Staged, with Michael Sheen]. That’s terribly clever. I loved Broadchurch, too. And he played the serial killer Dennis Nilsen [in Des, 2020]. He’s able to convey a reality gap with characters on the edge so profoundly. He’s quite brilliant. So just knowing him is lovely. I couldn’t believe he wanted to know me. That truly amazed me.” As part of their lunchtime conversation, David expressed surprise that Miriam had never done a Doctor Who before. She has, of course, previously voiced a Blathereen in The Sarah Jane Adventures alongside Simon Callow. “I’d forgotten I’d done that,” says Miriam. “I mean, I’ll do anything for money. I was very jealous of Simon Callow who played Charles Dickens in Doctor Who [in 2005’s The Unquiet Dead], because he’s a friend, and a great Dickens scholar.

Additional parts of this set are in the #whoBtsBeast tag. The full episode list is [ here ]

[sinceileftyoublog]

Waxahatchee Album Review: Tigers Blood

(ANTI-); Album art credit: Molly Matalon

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On Tigers Blood, Waxahatchee's long-awaited follow-up to 2020's career-best Saint Cloud, Katie Crutchfield trusts her gut and doubles down on the styles of music she grew up listening to. Written while on tour in 2022, during which Waxahatchee opened for many of her musical heroes like Lucinda Williams, Sheryl Crow, and Jason Isbell, Tigers Blood is an album at ease with general unease. Saint Cloud was the first album Crutchfield wrote newly sober and in love with her current partner Kevin Morby, and it glowed. Tigers Blood, then, sees her fully entering a new phase, channeling life's trials and tribulations into poetry, finding new ways to appreciate old things.

Perhaps it's hindsight, but "Right Back to It", the lead single from Tigers Blood, exemplifies what the album does best. Crutchfield considers it the first love song she's ever written, and it's one of her strongest, both in terms of vocal delivery and lyricism. She's able to subvert traditional rhyme schemes by unexpectedly bending syllables, packing in just as many words as emotional punches when setting the scene. "Photograph of us / in a spotlight / on a hot night / I was drifting in and out / Reticent on the off chant / I'm blunter than a bullseye / Begging for peace of mind," she sings over Phil Cook's circular banjo and Spencer Tweedy's gentle drums. The chorus, then, is simply classic, a paean to rediscovering intimacy in a relationship. "I've been yours for so long / We come right back to it," Crutchfield sings in harmony with guitarist MJ Lenderman, her coo in perfect contrast with his nasal twang. "But you just settle in / Like a song with no end," they continue. That many of the songs on Tigers Blood employ a certain breeze, free of time and place, is a feature, not a bug.

More than ever, Waxahatchee's songs are easy to sing along to; despite complex turns of phrase, Crutchfield keeps her words metaphorical enough to stand out, abstract enough to be relatable, direct enough to be iconic. The qualities, in conjunction with her and her backing band's performance, lead to some breathtaking moments. "You drive like you're wanted in four states / In a busted truck in Opelika," she sings over Tweedy's drum roll on the rolling "3 Sisters", right before the song's forbearing beat drops. On "Bored", she belts the song's chorus--"I can get along / My spine’s a rotted two by four / Barely hanging on / My benevolence just hits the floor / I get bored"--alongside Lenderman's sharp riffs, Tweedy's pummeling drums, and Nick Bockrath's wincing pedal steel. In context of the song's inspiration--a friendship that ended badly--Crutchfield's admissions hit harder. "Lone Star Lake", meanwhile, has no chorus: It just choogles along between verses as Crutchfield reflects on her faults with wry humor: "Shirk every rule of thumb / I got more where that came from."

Crutchfield's voice, too, has never been more expressive. For every song like "Right Back To It" or "Crimes of the Heart", where her flow is deft enough to rival your favorite rapper's, there's a song like "Crowbar", where she stretches out "I" into so many syllables you can feel the shaking vulnerability. "365", a song about codependency and addiction, places her falsetto high in the mix, emphasizing her susceptibility: "I catch your poison arrow / I catch your same disease / Bow like a weeping willow / Buckling at the knees." Fittingly, Tigers Blood ends with everybody in the recording studio--even assistant engineer Natalia Chernitsky--singing the chorus, suggestive of the universality of Crutchfield's prose. Ultimately, she knows that there's strength in numbers. When she tries to take shortcuts alone, the chickens come home to roost. "Throw a brick through the window, leave your mess at my door," she sings on "Tigers Blood", "Lord knows sooner or later it'd wash up to shore." Tigers Blood lays it all bare.

[dandp]

I'm watching through the early Phil younows for the first time and boy, we understandably harp on Dan the most for the 2012 era denial/overcompensating but Phil's contributions are fascinating. So far my highlights include:

"Dan and I don't do everything together because then we would get sick of each other...as friends" ok no one was reading into it as if you weren't friends

Him willingly reading out "would you rather marry Dan or lick a hobo" and having an extended moment of silence that lasts way too long to be casual as he fights for his life trying to figure out what to say before saying hobo and quickly trying to move on. Then Dan joins later on and he unprompted tells Dan about this. Also should be noted shortly after he answered he was like "huh weird my chat is suddenly being slow and there's nothing for me to read out" which seems a little too convenient to me

[blossoms-phan]

my ridiculous lovely man who wears his heart on his sleeve. he is so so silly. why are you looking at your soulmate like this while doing an ad read 😭😭😭😭😭

[washdayradionetwork]

Watch "Ballad of a Hungry Mother" on YouTube