Typically Sunday Morning Sessions albums are relaxed.  Calming.  Contemplative, if you like.  But this isn't just any Sunday.  Super Bowl Sunday is not a day for introspection.  Uninvisible will treat you right today.  Let MMW's jazz-funk from outer space get you fired up for the big game.  

Happy Super Bowl all. 

LC's Prediction: Giants 31, Patriots 27.

It's about time to reignite the longest-running list in the history of the internet...

The White Stripes' debut record is like a homemade bomb going off in an empty oil drum lined with tin foil.  It's loud, it's raw and manohman does it kick some righteous ass.  CNN might credit the American auto industry for bringing Detroit back, but nobody really believes that.  Without the White Stripes, we probably would've annexed Michigan to Canada around 2005, and that would have been the right thing to do.    

Jack and Meg's cover of "Stop Breaking Down" is really all you need to know about this band - then and now.  This is punk versus the blues in a knockdown, dragout streetfight to the death.  

It is literally impossible to play this album loud enough.  Thank God for the White Stripes. 

Zeppelin Division:  I'm not even going to offend you with an explanation.

Honorable Mention: My Morning Jacket's The Tennessee Fire 

Justin Townes Earle's country-royalty pedigree is well-documented.  The son of Steve Earle and named after the legendary Townes Van Zandt, JTE is as steeped in outlaw country as anyone is going to get.  Needless to say the expectations have been high.  

From what I can gather, Earle has been beaten and bloodied by drugs and the road since he was a teenager.  But he's come out the other side recently, seems focused, and is starting to live up to that heritage.  A couple of good records have followed, most notably his latest, Harlem River Blues.  As good as Harlem River Blues is, its satisfaction comes from its polished country-folk reserve; not necessarily in its back porch abandon.  

This video of "Ain't Waitin" on a balcony in Nashville really blew me away a couple of weeks ago.  Really a fantastic stripped-down version of a good song and a peek at what JTE can do with nothing but a guitar and a little Tennessee attitude. 

Cheers to my buddy Brent for another great heads up.

Broken Social Scene.  Regardless of what came after, BSS's debut effort Feel Good Lost is great, ambient background music for thoughtful...well, whatever.  

You get from this album whatever effort you put into it.  Really a perfectly titled record.  Kick back and enjoy what's left of the quickly diminishing weekend.  

Happy Sunday all. 

No matter how hard we try to push the idea of keeping an open mind, it's a myth.  I don't need to tell you this.  It's bullshit.  Expectations and predispositions are part of being human.  And they're guided by past experiences.  When something veers off the path of your expectations, more often than not it's a letdown.  A big, crappy letdown.   

Let's just get it out of the way.  I'm a Wilco fan.  Have been for a long time.  I think they're maybe the best American band in the past 25 years.  But, even great bands have peaks and valleys, and Wilco's last record and tour was a little stale and gimmicky.  It felt like a concession.  A resignation.  Though the suits were excellent.  

What I'm trying to say here is that while Wilco live is always great, the prospect that they are going to continue to push the envelope really wasn' t there anymore.  Not that that really matters.  Hell, I'd be happy if they came out and played A.M. front to back.  But there's always going to be an important difference between being loved and being relevant.    

After a White Denim opener (missed it...bummer), Wilco opened softly with the slow burn of "One Sunday Morning".  And then 5 of the next 7 songs were...loud.  Dissonant.  Chaotic.  Dark.  Unexpected.  "Poor Places" tailed off into at least 20 seconds of blaring white noise.  The bleeps and blips of "Art of Almost" gave way to jagged, splitting guitars.  "Bull Black Nova" chugged into an unsettling groove.   "At Least That's What You Said" drove the point home: this isn't (necessarily) your older brother's Wilco.  It was a pretty clear message from a band that doesn't seem done exploring after all.  

Oh yeah, and the rest of the show was good too.  For all of Jeff Tweedy's strengths, sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle that he is a fantastic pop songwriter.  I mean, that clever bastard can write a hook.  The band charged through some of the new poppier material ("Dawned On Me"; "The Whole Love") with typical veteran expertise.  And Nels Cline's solo on "Impossible Germany" is still one of the prettiest things you'll hear at a rock & roll show.  

Going into last night, I was ready to appreciate Wilco for what they were.  Ready to ride off into the sunset with them on a few more albums of mellow contentment.  OK with having to reminisce back to when this was an exciting and original band.  Ready to pass the torch on to bands like My Morning Jacket and The National.  But, well...fuckin' a.  Wilco snuck up on me again.  

One of the best things about music is being pleasantly surprised.  Sometimes your expectations are wrong and you don't end up crestfallen.  You just have to keep an open mind.

Check out "Art of Almost" from earlier in this tour...

The Avetts do a nearly impossible thing.  They manage to write earnest and honest songs without coming across as cheesy.  That's not easy and not something you can underestimate.  A mustachioed gentleman I know once said, "The Avett Brothers write great songs about being a young man."  Couldn't have put it better myself.

This one's from their Mignonette record and young men should listen up and listen good.   

It's been medically proven that The Band can cure the holiday blues. There are not a lot of albums that I'd call perfect, but Big Pink is one of them.  There's a lot that can be said about this record, but needless conversation isn't what Sunday mornings are all about.  Just listen and let your problems melt away.

Back next week for the pre-Xmas push.  Will Christmas in the Heart be discussed?  Likely.  

Listen to Big Pink in its entirety below.  You're welcome.  Happy Sunday all.

Some marriages work and some don't.  It all depends on the dynamic, really.  A great man once said that relationships are about filling gaps.  Bringing out some of the better qualities and pulling back the reins on some others.  A Go Go was the first collaboration between Scofield and Medeski, Martin & Wood and man did they hit it off from the start.  

MMW has always been great but has a tendency to drop off the deep end for long stretches in between flashes of brilliance.  Scofield has had a long and good career, but like a lot of jazzmen, can stray a little too far from home (drum 'n bass albums were bad idea, Sco).  

With A Go Go, MMW keeps Scofield on the jazz-funk beaten path while Sco keeps MMW from 15-minute spats of stoned wandering.  It's also another shred of proof for the case for Billy Martin being maybe the best drummer of his generation.  The guy is an absolute machine.  Great album.  

Check out the clip below from the Estival Jazz in 2007.  

Miles Division: Sco and Miles came together for a three-album run in the early eighties.  One of these albums, You're Under Arrest, was once described to me by a buddy as "the shittiest record ever put out by great musicians", which is pretty much the exact opposite of A Go Go.  Not sure what that means, but it feels like we just came full circle in some way.

Honorable Mentions: Scott Weiland - 12 Bar Blues; Outkast - Aquemini

Release Date: October 24, 2011
Label: Anti-

Tom Waits can be intimidating.  I mean, his shit is dense.  Sometimes listening to a Waits album is like reading a confusing but satisfying book.  You don't fully understand the message, but it's been intentionally left open so you can form your own individual impressions.  Art that's meant to allow for participation from the observer.  

Bad As Me is no exception and it continues Waits' explorations of the bitter and the sweet, though rarely at the same time.  The angry turns range from the sad and matter-of-fact in "Face to the Highway" to the jittery accusations in the title track "Bad as Me".  "Talking at the Same Time" has the feeling of creepy paranoia that's tough to describe (Waitsian?).  "Kiss Me" is the great smoky noirish piano bar tune that Waits can drop on you at any time.  On the sunnier side of the street, "Back in the Crowd" is the best Roy Orbison cover you'll hear this year.  "Satisfied" is an aggressive declaration of Wait's pre-death intentions.  Or maybe it's just a tongue-in-cheek rocker.  

Look, I'm not going to pretend to understand the exact message that Waits is trying to convey with Bad As Me, but I don't think that's the idea with this record or TW in general.  Again, we'll leave that to dickheads like Rob Sheffield, who are too caught up in themselves to admit that maybe something isn't meant to be perfectly understood.  

I will say that Waits has been consistently interesting for over 30 years and shows no signs of slowing down.  Really the only person you can compare him to is Bob Dylan.  And you probably won't hear any greater compliment in this humble column.

Happy Thanksgiving all.  Here's a tune for those of you traveling back to where you once belonged...

Devendra Banhart's a weird guy.  But he's slowly coming back to the middle.  This one's from his latest album,  and...wait...oh shit...is that Marshall Tucker Band?  Nope, it's your friendly neighborhood freak-folker.

I was on the fence until I saw Devendra's cover of Townes Van Zandt's 
"Colorado Girl" awhile back on the great documentary "Be Here to Love Me" (more on that later). 

We're taking a break for the rest of the week.  Tune in Sunday for the latest post-holiday edition of SMS.