David Letterman is into the home stretch of the late-night TV era over which he presided phenomenally.  So we can expect the great music acts on Late Night to be anted up over the remaining stretch.  To wit, Late Night musical matters were represented well last night when one of our faves, the brainiac Brooklyn band Parquet Courts, showed up to impress with their track Bodies Made Of off of their critically-acclaimed 2014 album Sunbathing Animal. We love everything about this performance, including the sounds and delivery from The Fall/Pavement/Silver Jews continuum, as accented by Television-like guitar lines and the closing guitar-ferocity.

Not to mention that Andrew Savage is quickly establishing himself as one of the most gifted wordplay-enthusiasts on the scene.  If you don’t believe us, after the Letterman performance check out one of the Best Songs of 2014 (list soon come), Uncast Shadow Of A Southern Myth, from the band’s alter-ego Parkay Quarts’ album Content Nausea.   It’s got everything we could want in a song.  The incredibly well-wrought lyrics (emphasis added below), which are up to the standards of David Berman, follow at bottom.  Bravo!

Uncast Shadow of A Southern Myth

“I’d seen the bloodlands of Antietam
The shotgun shack in Tupelo
But a brick circumference left hollow by Sherman
Crumbling before me how it moaned

His shape swallows my recollection
That phantom silhouette implied
Strange fruit rotting from an airborne and hotter than hell
Is this the king’s last man I’ve spied?

I stood there beside my companion
Scratching a rumor he had heard
Do you have a gun?
What? He said, yeah, you mean this one?
Straight down the barrel was his word

And I smelt the fumes he inhaled swiftly
Each word was hinged upon his choke
Like kudzu creeping up a state tree discretely
Forever bending as it broke

And I heard the jangling keys of Graceland
Ring from his teeth stained brown from coke
Drunk and stumbling like a man of distinction
They clamored shaking as he spoke

Of droves of pilgrims at his doorway
Of Reagan, Carter, Clinton, Gore
Fortunes offered them, refused routinely
This ain’t no damn auction house he swore

Black male standing around 6 foot something
Ebbs through the waves of small town blight
A minute coldly from southern affection
Collides secretly into night

Forgive those who trespass against us
Began as the dead intruders plea
Into the very muzzle I’d once peered into
He gives the last words he will speak

But that broken glass supports forced entry
Reminds his lawyer through the phone
What southern judge do you know, comforting gently
Who jails white men who defend their home

No souls were present for the moment
His bombed out brick walls finally fell
Lying face down in the throes of atonement
Checked out of the Heartbreak Hotel

He was the uncast shadow of a southern myth [x5]

God bless Jimmy Fallon and The Roots for their good musical taste and support.  Yes, there have been rare blunders, but the entourage’s overall good musical taste and acumen was borne out (again) last night when Big K.R.I.T. performed on The Tonight Show.  Big K.R.I.T., backed by the great Raphael Saadiq and The Roots, performed the fantastic track Soul Food off of his critically-acclaimed 2014 album Cadillactica.

Check it out below with K.R.I.T. teaching, Saadiq killin’ on bass and vocals, and The Roots propelling the whole thing along perfectly.  Notice mid-song when the ensemble locks in and the group’s knowing smiles become irrepressible.  Outstanding!  That’s the way to start the New Year!  Check the performance below, followed by the song’s official video, and the worthy lyrics (lamenting diminished foundations) at bottom.

“What happened to the soul food?
What happened to the soul food?
I’m talkin’ good eatin’, good seasonin’

Out here in this world, just tryna make it
Everything I see, sometimes I can’t take it
But damn I really miss those times
That soul food’s on my mind
Mind, mind, mind

Grandma’s hands used to usher Sunday mornings
Now before Sunday school, I hustle and I’m on it
I can’t slow down, nah, a dollar and a dream
In this life you live, you’re either the dealer or the fiend
Leanin’ horizontal
The acrobats on the corner, they flip
So when them white vans pull up, shawty, we dip
Out of view, could’ve been a track star at the school
But it took the police just to get that .44 out of you
Dash, sprint, hurdle, over those steel gates
They keep us in and keep folk out but we don’t feel safe
As we used to back when we was in a booster
Watchin’ our uncles drink coolers, talkin’ pound-for-pound bruisers
Over rib bones
Now I sideways tote
How did Bobby Johnson hold it?
Pull the trigger ’til the clip gone
Potato tip, no potato salad
That American pie ain’t even snappin’

Aromas on the corner, these the soul, they say
Some greens just can’t be cleaned and you can’t wash out the taste
Of rotten roots
Salted looks and herbs
If it ain’t made with love then it ain’t fit to serve, I heard
Some get bruised and battered
Thrown away half eaten as if their seeds never ever mattered
It ain’t ripe, it ain’t right
That’s why most people don’t make love no more
They just f@#k and they fight
What happened to the stay-togethers?
Yeah, I’m with you. And that means forever
Grandparents had that kind of bond
But now we on some other shit
Nah, we ain’t got no rubbers here
I know she creepin’ so that ain’t my son
Apples fall off of trees and roll down hills
We can’t play games no more cause we got bills
Back in the day, the yard was oh so filled
Now nobody comes around here

We gather ’round and lie, bow our heads and pray
And I
I still remember, the family parties
The happy faces, no broken hearts
Nobody starvin’, but all that there is old news
What happened to the soul food?”

In 2014 novelist/songwriter Willy Vlautin (of Richmond Fontaine, one of our faves) determined a different direction and delineated The Delines for which he wrote a new album’s worth of songs.  That album would be released as Colfax, which would turn out one of our favorites of the year.  The band features singer Amy Boone (Damnations), Vlautin, Sean Oldham (Richmond Fontaine), Jenny Conlee (Decemberists), Tucker Jackson and Freddy Trujillo.

The idea for The Delines evidently occurred while out on a Richmond Fontaine tour on which Boone was backing up the band on a couple of songs.  During the tour Boone would sing soul songs to warm up.  Some of Boone’s soul-singing made on impression on Vlautin who later penned several songs he hoped Boone would sing.  Vlautin then demoed those songs at producer John Askew’s (Dodos, Neko Case) studio and shared them with Boone.  Long story short:  Boone liked the songs, the band was culled, and the resulting recorded parts were mixed expertly by Askew into what would become the affecting album Colfax, which was released on Decor and El Cortez Records.

We love Vlautin’s short-story tellings in the songs, and The Delines’ country-soul musical mien fits the songs perfectly, with Boone’s honest vocals telling the deceptively simple tales so well.  Colfax is a fantastic listen from stem to stern.  To get a feel, first check out below four songs performed by the band for KEXP.  Though set in the Gulf, The Oil Rigs at Night strikes home in particular given our rigs offshore in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Afterwards, and since it bears repeating, check out a live recording of the album’s evolved title track for NorderstedtMusik.

Kanye West kicked off 2015 in fine style by releasing a collaboration with Paul McCartney, the song Only One.  The song is the first single from West’s next album.

Stream the track and check out the lyrics on Kanye’s site HERE and/or buy it HERE.

Only One (lyrics below) is a beautifully simple, touching ode sung from the perspective of Kanye’s mother, Donda, who passed in 2007.  Kanye released this statement about the song:

“In early 2014, Paul McCartney and Kanye West first began working together in a small bungalow in Los Angeles. The process that would result in “Only One” began with a simple brainstorming session between the two: With McCartney improvising on the keyboards and Kanye vocally sketching and shaping ideas in a stream-of-consciousness riff.

When they played back the recording afterward, something remarkable happened. Kanye sat there with his family, holding his daughter North on his lap, and listened to his vocals, singing, “Hello, my only one . . . ” And in that moment, not only could he not recall having sung those words, but he realized that perhaps the words had never really come from him.

The process of artistic creation is one that does not involve thinking, but often channeling. And he understood in that moment that his late mother, Dr. Donda West, who was also his mentor, confidante, and best friend, had spoken through him that day.

“My mom was singing to me, and through me to my daughter,” he said, astonished.

The small group in the room kept listening: “Hello my Only One…just like the morning sun…you’ll keep on rising till the sky knows your name.”

To some, Kanye’s insight didn’t immediately register. But then he explained: The name Kanye, which his mother had chosen, means “only one.”

And then it dawned on everyone there: Something powerful and undeniable had occurred through the power of music and of letting go. A message had been passed down through generations.”

The song bodes well for Mr. West’s impending album.