Category: Compact Disc
Mark Cutler – Murder of Crows
75OL-384 Mark Cutler – ‘Murder of Crows’ digital download and compact disc
$12.00 S&H Included
Digital download and streaming available here
Track Listing
- A Good Day
- You Can’t Sweet Talk
- Move
- Keep an Eye Out
- Too Late
- Floating Man
- Remembering Wrong
- I Know What It’s Like
- Some Kind of Light
- Man on the Moon
- Find Out Who Your Friends Are
- Home
Mark Cutler has been a musical hero in my native Rhode Island for decades now, and his latest record cements his status as one of the great un(der)discovered songwriters of recent times.
On Murder of Crows, out on streaming services June 9, Cutler continues to make rock music that’s for adults but still actually rocks: direct while still artful, serious without angst, classic but not self-pitying retro, combining the personal and the universal in a way that’s authoritative and empathetic.
My personal favorites included “Floating Man” even before I spoke with Cutler and learned that the titular character is his biological father, who died 10 days before Cutler was born (“So many things he didn’t get to know/As he floats above the power lines/All the people walking to and fro/In and out a little ring of light”); the tough-minded “Find Out Who Your Friends Are” (“You find out who your friends are/They find out who you are too”). The closer “Home,” which Cutler describes as “a love letter to life” (“How high I have felt when the ice starts to melt/First green sings in the sun/A new day’s first sigh/Before you know, the checkered flag flies/Seems like the race has just begun”), is another highlight, as well as the Zevon-esque snarl of “Remembering Wrong,” with lyrics by the Rhode Island-native author, music journalist, and TV producer and host Bill Flanagan.
Cutler recorded a lot of the tracks himself, as well as with longtime bandmates Rick Couto and Jimmy Berger. Murder of Crows is one of two albums Cutler has planned for the year; some the songs are brand new, while some have been kicking around in embryonic form for decades. “I’m getting old, and I want to literally release songs — you know, free them out to the world,” Cutler says. “I don’t want to just have them sitting around on a shelf or anything. …
“It’s just to get my body of work out there — not to be immortal or anything like that, but I feel like if you create something, you owe it, not to the public or to the world, but you owe it to the thing that you created, to give it a fair shot.”
A new path
Cutler made his name with The Schemers and The Raindogs in the 1980s and ‘90s, touring the country and getting radio and video airplay, though the brass ring eluded both bands in the end. That said, he made the break into full-time music-making 11 years ago, quitting his longtime job as a quality assurance engineer. “Dan, who was my therapist, he really saved my life and came up with a plan. I quit my job; I had enough guitar students to hold me over, and I drained my 401k and all that.”
It wasn’t long after that that Cutler found a new musical avenue that’s changed his life.
Filmmaker Jim Wolpaw contacted him about writing the soundtrack for a documentary on the Ladd School, an institution in Rhode Island for nearly a century that served as a school for people with mental and developmental disabilities but in practice was a “dumping ground” with more than a little bit of a eugenical philosophy and with many human rights violations to its name.
Wolpaw wanted Cutler to collaborate with former Ladd School residents on the soundtrack, and while Cutler says he wasn’t sure what to expect at first, by the end of the first meeting “I just said inside myself, ‘Thank you, God — I know I made the right decision.’”
That led to a decade of work with people with disabilities, and that led to The Same Thing Project, which Cutler describes as a community songwriting workshop for people from all walks of life.
“My elevator pitch is ‘From the banker to the bricklayer,’” Cutler says. We all want to want something out of life, like love, happiness. Want to take care of ourselves. Want to be able to have something to look forward to.”
Workshops are held once a week, and roughly 30 people show up. “Their day is transformed,” Cutler says. “I won’t say their life’s transformed, but their day is better. And I know my day and my life are better because of it. So, you know, it’s nice to have that cause and that effect.”
While a lot of the people at the Same Thing Project are differently abled, many are not. “My goal is to not have the Same Thing be about folks who are disabled. They’re just part of it. You know? They’re like, ‘That guy’s retired; that guy has Down syndrome’ — it’s just, that’s a person, that’s a person, and we’re all part of this thing, that we’re writing a song together.”
A lot of people find it a difficult time to be creative, and Cutler says he feels the same way at times — “I’ve gone a year without writing a song; there’s been periods of time when that happens” — but on the other hand working with the Same Thing Project is a great way to keep the creative muscles in shape.
Memories
Now Cutler, 67, plays with his band, Mark Cutler and the Men of Great Courage, as well as solo shows and the occasional Schemers reunion (“I don’t have much family alive anymore. … Your bandmates, they become a family for you too”). He’s not the same person who wrote “I Want Some Fun” or “Remember” more than 40 years ago, but the songs are memories for him as well as the audience.
“In most of the songs that I wrote, I can remember where I was when I wrote them, and I can go back to that, basement, and feel the air. You’re not the same person, but recalling back to that person is something that that’s magic, because, not everybody gets to do that, you know? I mean maybe a carpenter or a stone mason who can see, like, the brick wall that they built for a house when they were in their 30s or 20s. I guess that’s like our little monument, or whatever.”
Meanwhile, the songs keep coming, and with Murder of Crows, they keep coming out. Cutler’s also a skilled, evocative painter — he did the cover of the new record, and his Instagram features his artwork regularly — but songwriting, he says, is like nothing else.
“Songwriting resonates,” Cutler says. “I can feel it vibrating in my body, my chest, like two cool notes hitting together. And I’m not like, religious or anything. I’m very agnostic. But I do feel like completing a song, the act of writing a song, especially with other people — like Jesus said, ‘Where two or more of you are there in my name, that’s where I am’? Well, that’s God. To me, when you get together writing a song, that’s God — writing a song with other people. It’s a spiritual thing, even if you’re writing the low-down nastiest song in the world. It’s great stuff.”
And it’s as important as ever. “I know where I stand in the pantheon, but — you know, sometimes they find diaries of people [from] during Nazi wartime, and sometimes those little diaries say so much more. I’m not even talking about Anne Frank, although they found her diary. But you find these little snippets of life, and that’s what I’m trying to do, is leave little clues. And let people know ‘This is what was going on. And in my corner of the world, this is how I was feeling.’”
The Spectacular Fantastic Fantasy Clouds
75OL-382 The Spectacular Fantastic – Fantasy Clouds CD & USB Combo
Digital download and streaming available here
$10.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- Greed 03:23
- Heart Disease
- Written On the Stone
- Everything Will Be Ok (They Say)
- Between You and Me
- Vacant
- Don’t Worry
- When You Left Me
- Consequences
- Weight of the World 02:53
- All I Ever Do
- What I Know
Jacob Haller Totally Awkward
75OL-370 Jacob Haller – Totally Awkward / Lauren Monroe, Richard Haller, & Jacob Haller – Good Old Wagon combined CD
$15.00 S&H Included
Streaming and download available here and here
Track Listing
Totally Awkward by Jacob Haller
- Totally Awkward 01:35
- Modern Murder Ballad (Pretty Polly) 02:45
- The Evolution Of My Facebook Feed Every November Through February In New England 01:16
- The DMV of Broken Dreams 03:29
- The Christmas Lobster 02:24
- VR 01:51
- Walking Facepalm 01:58
- Do Not Disturb 03:16
- Poor Innocent Boy 03:02
- A Haller Family Story 01:37
- Mother Earth (Memphis Slim cover) 03:42
- No Naked Babies 02:45
Good Old Wagon
by Lauren Monroe, Richard Haller, & Jacob Haller
- Rooster Crowing Blues 05:19
- Ain’t Gonna Marry 03:08
- Fourth Street Mess Around 03:18
- He’s In The Jail House Now 03:31
- You’ve Been A Good Old Wagon 02:43
- I’m Going To German 02:38
- Your Feet’s Too Big 01:44
- Somebody Fix Me 04:19
Bill Cole Thomas Needs Medication
75OL-369 Bill Cole – Thomas Needs Medication CD/USB Drive
$9.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- Boomerang
- I Don’t Have a Soul
- Thomas Needs Medication
- Locals
- Return Address Girl
- Imagine the Nerves
- Probably Damned
- Please Don’t Play Your Music on Our Porch
- I’m a Millionaire
- Friends Stateline Cemetery
- Parallel Lines
Prescott Cronin Voices of Destruction
75OL-364 Prescott Cronin – Voices of Destruction digital download and CD
Digital download and streaming available here
$9.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- Voices of Destruction
- Mother
- Corrupted Bravado
- Meet Me on the Corner
- Maribel
- When I was a Young Boy
- Reasons
- Pillows
- Sandcastle King
- Down
Matt Fraza Band Phrases
75OL-362 Matt Fraza Band – Phrases EP
Streaming and digital download available here
$8.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- Daydream
- Drugmath
- Kingstown Road
- Skeleton Fever
- White Mice
The Underwires Cheap Seats for the Scrap Heap
75OL-357 The Underwires – Cheap Seats for the Scrap Heap Digital Download & CD
Digital download and streaming available here
$9.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- Pigs Like Us 02:03
- The Fuzz 03:16
- Might Be A Maybe 03:28
- Nation Of Pussies 03:45
- I’m Nailed Right In 03:01
- Beehive On My Head 04:08
- Parking (Lot Of Suckers) 03:36
- The Rulers 04:44
Glare, The – Monday Morning Telephone Calls
75OL-363 The Glare – Monday Morning Telephone Calls cd and digital download
Streaming and downloads are available here
$10.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- Why No Minus? 03:37 (video)
- Opening/Closing 03:45
- I Can Hook You Up 02:42
- Don’t Beat Yourself Up 01:55
- Stray Dog 03:18 (video)
- Did I Wake You? 03:32
- Caveman Serial Killer 04:06
- I Want What You Want 03:21
- Monday Morning Telephone Calls 04:40
- Exhaust 04:04
The Glare play folk-rock.
They sing songs about panda bears, lonely people, cults, and the end of the world.
Unexpectedly funny stuff.
The songs combine sunshine pop, 1960s Elektra Records weirdness, 1980s college rock, and film noir.
credits
Music written and recorded by Kraig Jordan.
Lyrics by Guy Benoit.
all rights reserved
Dennis Most – If I Wrote ‘Em Vol. 1
75OL-359 Dennis Most – If I Wrote ‘Em Vol. 1 CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- 1984
- The Shape of Things to Come
- Eve of Destruction
- When I was Young
- I’m Waiting for the Man
- Signed D.C.
- The Rocker
- Sunshine Games
- Hungry Like the Wolf
- Draggin’ the Line
- Communication Breakdown
- Lean Woman Blues
- I Didn’t Know I Loved You(Till I Saw You Rock and Roll)
- Twilight Zone
Patsy Decline Self Titled
75OL-354 Patsy Decline – Self Titled CD and Digital Download
Digital download and streaming are available here
$8.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
- The Price 02:39
- Mt. Fog 03:41
- Behind Closed Doors 04:09
- The Other Way 03:04
- Flames and Waves 03:56
- Let Nature Run Its Course 03:47
- The Modern World 02:51
- Fades In The Sun 03:46
- Gone 03:16
- Inside The House 03:36
