Welcome the Spring
Twisted Teens, Bill Callahan, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and more of the best music from February.
Every year in L.A., it rains for two weeks in February, and we call that winter. The biggest problem with this arrangement is that it makes it hard for me to wear my favorite leather jacket.
Two years ago, on a trip to Mexico City, I found the platonic ideal of a leather bomber jacket in a vintage shop. It’s beautiful, a perfect caramel color patinaed by time, and it fits me like a glove. It’s one of the more expensive pieces of clothing I’ve ever purchased, but I knew that if I left that store without it, I’d regret it forever. The jacket was too bulky to pack into my suitcase, so I wore it back on the plane. And immediately, I knew there was a problem. The jacket is warm. I live in Los Angeles, where it is also warm. When the hell am I gonna wear this thing?
But, I figured, that’s okay. We get weird little cold snaps in the winter, and the dry climate means the nights are chillier than you’d expect. I’ll be the cool L.A. guy who wears his leather jacket in the winter. That’s me. That’s who I am.
Another problem. It rains in the winter. Rain ruins leather. So now, I’m losing about half of my potential leather jacket days. All of this means that I have to pick my spots very carefully. In January and February, I watch the weather app like a hawk, looking for those perfect cold, dry days to put that shit on and stunt on ‘em. Last month, we had a perfect one. It was the day after a big system rolled out, but the cold front was lingering. High of 52 degrees. That, my friends, is leather jacket weather. I wore it out to a comedy show that night. As I scooched past a cramped row of people to my seat, a guy looked me up and down. “Hey man,” he said, “I like that jacket.”
When I first moved to L.A., people warned me that it’s hard to remember things because you don’t have the context of seasons. That is true. But the opposite is also true. I will remember every day of every year that I get to wear my leather jacket.
PUNK ROCK WITH STEEL GUITAR. It’s punk rock with steel guitar. I’d hate to bury the lede on this one, it’s just such a great idea. New Orleans’s Twisted Teens is Razor “The Razor” Ramone on steel guitar and C.P.N. “C-Bird” Hollywell on “everything else.” Jesus Christ, guys, save some swag for the rest of us. Blame the Clown is their second record, eleven tracks of fuzzed-out, deep-fried garage rock with a gorgeous honeyed twang. It’s easy to play hard, fast, and sloppy (fun, too). But it’s rare to see a band this young and scrappy have such a fully-formed understanding of melody, their desperate and noisy sound belying an impressive grasp of structure. The Teens have wunderkind rock sensibilities informed by the unique cosmic gumbo of their particular regional scene. They sound like if the Strokes decided to make an album of Dr. John covers instead of Is This It. Album opener “Is It Real?” kicks things off with a bang, Honeywell’s raspy growl ripping through the speakers while Ramone’s steel strings writhe behind him. On songs like “I Operate” and “100 Bill Is Gone!” the band plays to their punk bona fides, keeping the melodies simple and the riffs chunky. “Peekaboo Hand” and “White Hot Coal” are chicken shack stompers that give away their redneck roots. The latter even features accordion, in a nod to their hometown’s Cajun and zydeco scene. AND THEN? Album closer “Corpse Pose” abandons everything that’s come before in a synth dirge that sounds like an Amnesiac outtake. There’s absolutely no reason for this record to work as well as it does. This is dark magic, rock n’ roll alchemy of some forgotten order. Blame the Clown is one of those albums that does more than just reassure you that the kids are alright. It’s a bold announcement that they’ve figured out something no one before them has put together.
RIYL: Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, early Tom Waits, that time Bob Dylan played Letterman with the Plugz, open containers, stick and poke tattoos
Would the brash young men of Twisted Teens dig the new Bill Callahan record? Callahan doubts it. “When I was 16, it'd probably be the last record that I would buy,” he said in a recent Stereogum interview. “But they're going to be 58. Maybe they can buy it now and just hold on to it for 40 years, listen to it later.” Over the course of twenty-some albums, first as Smog then under his given name, Callahan has allowed the muse to guide him through alt-country, folk, and experimental jazz. “Riding for the feeling,” as he once put it. But a recent cancer scare forced things to snap into focus, and Callahan is clearly taking stock of where he’s at in his life, what’s come before, and what could still be ahead. On “Why Do Men Sing,” Callahan questions the nature of making music, or really art in general. “Empathy” is addressed directly to a father who didn’t seem to think his role in his son’s life was all that meaningful, shaped by Callahan’s experience of becoming a father himself. But while the subject matter of these songs is literal life and death, there’s a looseness to the music. “Rollicking” is the word that kept coming into my mind on my first listen. Callahan has always had a wry sense of humor, but his music is at its best when it’s playful. As the man says on the goofily-named “Pathol O.G.,” “it’s important not to treat your lifeboat like a yacht.” While My Days of 58 is clearly shaped by that brush with mortality, it would still be hard to accuse Callahan of too much self-importance. In fact, if the album has a theme (besides that it’s weird getting old), that’s probably it. “We take life seriously, laugh in the face of death,” he sings on “The Man I’m Supposed to Be,” before ending the song with a legit Pillsbury Doughboy-ass giggle.
RIYL: Willie Nelson, Silver Jews, Leonard Cohen, impish old men with a twinkle in their eyes, suddenly understanding the zen of bird watching
Beverly Glenn-Copeland
Laughter in Summer
Beverly Glenn-Copeland has not had the most linear career, but it’s still one many artists would kill for. He’s been a folk singer, a playwright, an actor, and a writer for Sesame Street and Shining Time Station. In 1986, Glenn-Copeland holed up in his Huntsville, Ontario home with a Yamaha DX7 synth and a Roland TR-707 drum machine and recorded Keyboard Fantasies. Only a handful of cassette tape copies of the album were made, either sold or given away to friends and family. But over time, the record gained a cult following, and it eventually received a wide release. The popularity of that little home-brew ambient album brought new attention to Glenn-Copeland’s work as a musician, and in 2023, at age 79, he released The Ones Ahead, featuring his first new music in decades. One year later, Glenn-Copeland shared a dementia diagnosis, seemingly signalling that his comeback had been cut short. But instead of just fading away, Glenn-Copeland and his wife and creative partner, Elizabeth, have put together a career retrospective that allows the artist to consider his long, winding career in a new light. Glenn-Copeland revisits songs from Keyboard Fantasies, and elsewhere in his discography, with acoustic, stripped-down arrangements, many recorded in a single take at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango. It’s incredible to imagine Glenn-Copeland re-recording a song like “Ever New,” which was once a literal bedroom pop project meant to be heard by a few close friends, now carrying the potential weight of the artist’s life statement. I hope this isn’t the last music we get from Glenn-Copeland, but if it is, I can’t imagine a more fitting finale. What a privilege it is to age. What a joy it is getting old.
RIYL: Joni Mitchell, Laraaji, Nina Simone, renewing your vows, spending time with your grandparents before it’s too late
To hear songs from those albums, and more of the best music from last month, check out the legendary Adult Contemporary Playlist. Now available on Spotify AND Apple Music:
Here are the albums I’m most looking forward to in March:
waterbaby, Memory Be A Blade. Stockholm, Sweden’s waterbaby makes dreamy pop songs that combine elements of indie, electronic, and R&B. The singles preceding her debut full-length for the legendary Sub Pop Records have been promising, so I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s all been building to.
Grace Ives, Girlfriend. Ives has come a long way, from making glitchy bedroom pop on a laptop to opening for Robyn on her tour this summer. Her albums are always funny, surprising, and forward-thinking, and I do not doubt that there are some truly quirky bops in store for us on this one.
Green-House, Hinterlands. The ambient duo makes synth oddessies in the vein of Hiroshi Yoshimura and Mort Garson. On their new album, they aim to “take the listener from sea to mountains to somewhere more abstract and fantastical.” My bag is packed, and I’m ready to go.
Bye bye :-)