Blitzen Trapper covers Ryan Adams To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)

 

This beauty version by Eric Earley et al (aka Blitzen Trapper) comes at a nice time reminding listeners of the enduring significance of the Trapper who embody in many ways the Portland and the new Sub Pop sound.  Apart from 2011's American Goldwing, which was a musical disappointment and a rare loss of momentum for a band who has churned out phenomenal releases in fairly short order (including their Rolling Stone attention grabbing Wild Mountain Nation (2007), Furr (2008) and Destroyer of the Void (2010).  Notably Goldwing, which sounded more like an Earley solo record than a full on Trapper record, was the bands last on Sub Pop with them moving to Vagrant for 2013's VII.   In any case here's a lovely rendition of our milllenial bard Mr. Ryan Adams as only Earley and the Trapper could.

Eric Earley - Up On Cripple Creek

In the second of a series called the Deschutes River Recordings (intended to raise money and awareness for the Deschutes River Conservancy in Oregon) features Eric Earley and a few of his bandmates from Blitzen Trapper.

Much like his SubPop labelmate Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats (who was the first in the series with a riverside recording of the Byrds Ballad of Easy Rider), Earley is a multi-instrumentalist and near prodigy having picked up music at something like the age of 3.  As a dyed in the wool fan of The Band I can't think of too many reasons to listen to Up On Cripple Creek these days even after Levon's passing.  Earley and the Trapper turn the song a bit on its ear and the outcome in the great outdoors is in perfect relief.

This rendition of Up On Cripple Creek can be downloaded for a donation (or not) of your choice.



Avi Buffalo's Long Beach Proud (opening slot for Blitzen Trapper)

In the course of trying to comprehensively cover the recent tourstop of Blitzen Trapper I was curious about who turned out to be their labelmates Avi Buffalo. I am to say the least a huge devotee of Eric D. Johnson and the various incarnation's of Fruit Bats (who also share a perennial bond to Portland, Oregon and SubPop) - a bond it turns out is shared by their forthcoming tourmates Blitzen Trapper (despite the label and geographic affiliation both groups are oddly but unsurprisingly unfamiliar with one another personally despite a deep kinship and respect) and as such am very grateful to their - well to whoever the fuck the A&R guy or gal is at SubPop these days.

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As it turns out Avi Buffalo was a solo project (born Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg). I have to admit when first meeting what turns out is the very young (18) Avi I did think one of two things: a) this man is incredibly small possibly a little people or person or whatever the PC term is or b) perhaps the combined affects of fatigue, pneumoniatic infection, seratonin/neuroepinephrin/dopamine/adrenaline depletion, stress, despair, moral and spiritual turpitude and occasional flirtations with pure amphetamine usage had warped my perspective ever so slightly. As it turns out he's just an incredibly talented kid and thank fucking god for that.

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I had the great fortune of meeting his band in particular his drummer Sheridan Riley who met Avi along with some of his former and current bandmates at Millikan High in Long Beach. I expressed to the young Sheridan in their sparse backstage beneath the Opera House's stage that she truly impressed me as an improvising drummer in a rock context particularly a female improviser. For whatver reason - and I don't believe this is misogyny- it tends that women perhaps by industry dictates move often towards singer/songwriter roles and that there are to my eye very few strong improvising female musicians working on stages today. For instance this spring and summer I can count on perhaps two hands the noteworthy female improvisers I've encountered and they include: a women whose name I've forgotten that played in a husband/wife ensemble with members of The Decemberists called Blue Giant who played a really tasty slide guitar, Lizzie Powell (of Land of Talk, whose drummer Andrew Barr - The Slip, Barr Bros. and Surprise Me Mr. Davis - is my hands down favourite improvising drummer drummer in a rock context) and a young drummer who frequents The Dakota Tavern and other stomps named Dani Nash who plays in an ensemble called The Sure Things.

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I was happy in the least that the young Sheridan was familiar with the important work of singer/songwriter Lizzie Powell and her nineties lo-fi inspired (but not in the least derivative) ensemble Land of Talk.

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If Malcolm Gladwell is right, that it takes 10, 000 hours of practise to master a particular art form or skill, then that certainly that means that men (particularly of Mr. Buffalo's stature) need to practise that long just to get laid- all women need to do is say 'yes'. That's not mysogyny that's sociobiology.
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Here are 33 stills taken with my RIM Blackberry 9630 and synced to the recorded version of Avi Buffalo's Remember The Time. As they are taken in a strict chronology (no shots were omitted) and as the group I believe closed with Remember The Time and it's monstrous outro guitar solo where Buffalo can be seen 'pedal stompin' like a Dinosaur' - the photos and the audio oddly sync up literally although this singular guitar solo is best seen live and outstrips even it's expansive recorded rendition.

Blitzen Trapper - Evening Star (studio version/ Opera House live shots)

Here's one of a handful of projects I'm working on in a cinema verité style (meaning I guess candid unscripted documentary shots in this case shot entirely in chronological succession).  Essentially it's 31 still photos taken of Blitzen Trapper's equipment, a handful of members, the venue on the evening of Aug. 3.  All the stills were taken with a RIM Blackberry 9630 edited into a movie form using a fairly basic program and synced in this case to the audio of the studio version of Evening Star off of Blitzen Trapper's sprawling opus Destroyer Of The Void.

A setlist of that concert can be found on this site here.



And here is a particularly confident (as of course was Toronto's live rendition) of Evening Star from the El Ray Theater in LA about a month earlier (June 29, 2010).



You're a broken-hearted party girl
Your skirt's on fire, your hair's uncurled
Your dancing days are at an end
Yeah, you've got no one to call your friend
All you've got left is a silhouette,
An empty bed, and a cheap Corvette
You're a long way from your sweet sixteen
You need some stonewashed jeans
And a time machine

To take you back
To that railroad track
Where you first took flight
In the morning light
So take me back
To that first romance
Where you made your stand
You were hand in hand
With the black-eyed angel of the evening star

When you came to the city in your cheap perfume
And your ran through the room
But you grew up soon
Always dressed like a killer in the afternoon
Sipping warm champagne from a silver spoon
In the night you would travel in your lover's car
With your jewels so bright, like a shooting star
But your nightmares must have caught up with you
And all the pills and the prophets couldn't get you through

To take you back
To that railroad track
Where you first took flight
In the morning light
So take me back
To that first romance
Where you made your stand
You were hand in hand
With the black-eyed angel of the evening star


- lyrics by Eric Early

Blitzen Trapper setlist Opera House (Aug. 3, 2010)

Blitzen Trapper - Opera House August 3, 2010)
(Avi Buffalo opening)

Fire+Fast
Laughing Lover
Love+Hate
Gods Suicide
Destroyer
Evening Star
Tree
Silver Moon
Hurricane
Black River
Heaven+Earth
True
Takin It EZ
Lady On The Water
Furr
Dragons Song
Sadie
Sleepytime

E: Not Your Lover


The Man Who Would Speak True off of Destroyer Of The Void (released June 10, SubPop) was played solo by Eric (Early, principal songwriter) on acoustic with harmonica somewhere in there too.

Blitzen Trapper play Toronto's Opera House (Tues. Aug. 3)

These days it seems like the few highly credible alt.country outfits rolling the country these days find themselves, not surprisingly, on SubPop like my friend Eric D. Johnson's main project Fruit Bats.

In any case Blitzen Trapper is one of the very few 'honky' bands to make it through the 'Great Honky Ipod Expulsion of '10' and not without cause.  In this case it is their give-'til-it-hurts full length Wild Mountain Nation which continues to pay dividends well past it's release date.  The Trapper is now touring in support of Destroyer Of The Void (released June 10, 2010) and will undoubtedly draw on their catalogue of 5 full lengths as they visit our summer town of Toronto.