Music Blog

We see the return this week of some names you've likely known for a long time, if it can be said they've ever gone away at all.

That's most certainly not the case for Mr. Elvis Costello, who tends to inhabit one of his other selves as opposed to ever laying low. If he's not making a rock record with his longtime cohorts The Attractions, then he's recording a slightly rootsier version of himself with more recent collaborators The Imposters. If he isn't recording a live jazz album with a full orchestra, then he's writing a symphony. Then again, maybe he's just wooing one of the world's great female jazz vocalists, who also happens to be his wife. His latest is the hastily planned, hastily recorded, hastily released Momofuku, which finds him joined by Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis and singer-songwriter Jonathan Rice, in addition to personnel from The Imposters. For all of its thrown-together nature, it's perhaps Costello's freshest-sounding batch of songs in a while. It comes out in CD format Tuesday after an initial issue on wax and megabyte.

A couple of familiars on the live front, too, as Joe Jackson and The B-52's play shows this week in support of recent releases. If you close your eyes, it almost feels like 1989-- which is not to say the current versions of the artists are dusty museum relics, quite the opposite. Joe Jackson released Rain back in January marking his first set of new material in five years and just his second foray into pop material in the past twenty-five. In other words, the man that made a splash with his Look Sharp! debut back in 1979 has followed his own muse, opting for an output that reads more Gershwin or Cole Porter than Nick Lowe or XTC. It seems likely we might get a bit of both Tuesday night at the Aladdin Theater.

MP3: Joe Jackson, from Rain- "Invisible Man"

As for The B-52's, well, they certainly don't look any different, do they? One wonders what kinds of chambers they've been housed in these sixteen years since their last full-length. But as if almost defying time and gravity, there are the beehive hairdos (depends on the photo), Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson still belting out harmonies beneath them, and the zany Fred shouting out zany lyrics. Funplex is the return to form of the other band from Athens, GA, albeit with a synth-sheen that is a new addition. The B-52's play with opener Eagle*Seagull Wednesday night at Portland's Roseland Theater.

MP3: The B52's, from Funplex- "Hot Corner"

Also this week, the return of the Brooklyn-based band Firewater, who release their first album of new, original material in six years this week with The Golden Age. Frontman Tod A undertook a travelling sabbatical of sorts back in 2005, makng his way throughout the middle east while collaborating with local musicians he met along the way (and also getting drugged, robbed, detained, and mightliy ill while he was at it). It's much of that experience that informs the new album, with politically charged numbers alongside others that seem at once world-weary and defiant in the face of it all. One might call it world-circus-punk. Firewater comes to Portland on June 4th.

MP3: Firewater, from The Golden Age- "Borneo"

Meanwhile, performances in the area include the CD release show for Silverhawk's Hangover Bicycle Ride. The Portland-based band plays Friday night at the White Eagle. Elsewhere Friday, it's the IPRC's 10th Birthday Bash at the Towne Lounge Someday Lounge. The night features a host of Portland musicians offering up solo sets, including the Helio Sequence's Brandon Summers, Quasi's Sam Coomes, The Dharma Bums' Jeremy Wilson, and more-- plus The Thermals' Hutch & Kathy, Iretsu, and Ghost to Falco at Backspace.

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts, inspired commentary, and fruitful questions-- the thread is yours...