NPR THIS AMERICAN LIFE - Episode 359: Life After Death
features Ghost by Terese Taylor
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PROLOGUE
One day at church camp, David Maxon challenged the devil to show himself. Just then, a huge thunderstorm started, and David felt sure the devil was behind it. So when the thunderstorm led to two campers getting killed, David couldn't help but blame himself. Twenty years later, host Ira Glass talks to David about being innocent but feeling guilty. (9 1⁄2 minutes)
Act One. Guilty As Not Charged.
Everyone told Darin Strauss that there would have been no way to avoid hitting the bicyclist who swerved into the path of his car. When the girl died, the police said Darin wasn't at fault. Darin tells the story of what it's like to live with being the accidental cause of someone's death. Darin is the author, most recently, of the novel More Than It Hurts You. (23 minutes) Song: "Ghost," Terese Taylor
Act Two. Soldier of Misfortune.
When John came back from fighting in Iraq, he refused to leave his house. He was paranoid. He had violent nightmares—the same ones every night. Unlike a lot of vets, John got treatment. His doctor at the Veterans Affairs hospital felt optimistic about his case. And then John attacked his fiancée and her mother. Chris Neary tells the story of one veteran's struggle to return to being the person he was before the war. (21 minutes)
Source: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/359/Life-After-Death
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Terese Taylor was certainly the surprise show of recent outings. While listening to her CD on the way to the show, it seemed like her music was almost out of place for this venue. With music more on the dark, distorted side, it just wasn’t setting the mood for an uplifting live performance experience. But surprise, when Ms. Taylor came out on stage with her other two band members, and the bassist playing an upright variety, all assumptions went away about what to expect. She seemed to start off with more of a country feel then one would expect from a San Francisco based artist, but it quickly changed gears turning into Bass slappin’ rock music which then turns to various shades of dark. This set goes from dark to upbeat, ethereal to despondent. We are treated to gems like “Doesn’t Shine”, which sounded like a George Martin/Trent Reznor production. Moving right along the next surprise is “Drug”, and it sounded like vintage Jeff Beck. This is made all the more enjoyable as her petite frame and agile fingers frame firmly command the old Gibson SG that she plays, and often with lots of distortion pedal. Ms. Taylors’ got much to offer in the way of true musical talent, and that combined with a true to form “tortured soul”, makes for some great art, albeit on the dark side. In the end, you can’t help but to be a bit awestruck by Terese and her two outstanding band members. This show is a must if she passes through your town.
- Mark Trout (All Access Magazine), 28-October-2010
http://allaccessmagazine.com/2010/10/28/terese-taylor/
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"Terese Taylor started off the evening. If you’re an emo kind of person or like to howl at the moon, this artist is for you! Her songs tended to be darker and more introspective, sort of angsty and heady all at once. As a vocalist, she had a lyrical soprano voice that she projected through a tight jaw, all the while keeping a piece of chewing gum in her mouth. (Fascinating!) And she didn’t sing with any vibrato; it was just a straight, poignant, clear voice reaching out across the room and taking you by the shoulders (if that makes any sense). Instrumentally, she was a very agile guitarist, deftly moving from one chord to the next. Her strumming style indicated that at some point she probably had classical guitar training (we learned the same technique in a beginning classical guitar class I started to take out at City College…twice…). And she seemed to like to play with time signatures and tempos, which made her compositions interesting and attention-grabbing. But, boy, did this woman love her distortion pedal! She’d be toolin’ along, strummin’ away her broken and/or disillusioned heart, and all of a sudden — BAM! DISTORTION! No more acoustic ambient guitar! The effect was jarring and much too loud for that particular venue. And, having previously listened to the songs available on her Web site, I can honestly say that if she had been playing those same songs with her full band, the use of the distortion effect would not have been an issue. As it was, however, the result was odd and awkward. But, all of that aside, I largely enjoyed her music. (I guess I’m one of those angsty types; plus, the girl can seriously play the guitar!) By far the best song she did was “Sweet,” which was a lovely waltz that sat lower in her vocal range and was slightly reminiscent of Sheryl Crow’s “Globe Sessions” album. Beautiful, haunting, a masterwork."
Source: http://www.hearfreelivemusic.com/2009/10/21/tippy-canoe-rick-quisol-terese-taylor-misisipi-mike/
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"Taylor is no copycat. In fact, Taylor owes more to American roots rock than PJ's punk bloodline. Anybody remember the group Come from the '90s? Taylor's blend of Velvet Underground gloom and bluesy Americana actually recalls them more than PJ. However, Come fell of the face of the planet so none too many will namedrop them in a review of "Good Luck Investigationship." Furthermore, Taylor has probably never even heard of Come. If anything, they have a mutual affinity for Neil Young, whose spiritual fingerprints are all over "Dirty" and in Taylor's well-soiled guitar riffs. Taylor thankfully provides a lyric sheet, which is helpful because there is some enigmatic songwriting here. "Doesn't Shine," "By My Grave," and "Prodigal Son" have a Biblical bent to them. No, not in the Christian music sense but more like the songs of Nick Cave, God-fearing folk tales with an Old World feel. You can almost imagine Cave singing, "Bury my love next to me/Bury the one I love the most," in "By My Grave." "Good Luck Investigationship" is a compelling, dimly-lit effort from a new talent that just might propel to the atmospheric heights of her idols."
- Whisperin & Hollerin, U.K., Adam Harrington
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"Terese Taylor can veer from lonely backwoods laments to precise, grinding Mission Of Burma-like instrumentals and back. Her music is intuitive and mysterious, filled with personal in-jokes and painful memories, a puzzle that is meant to be felt and experienced, not solved. At times, her songs remind me of Neil Young in his youth, writing lyrics in his sick bed while suffering from a high fever and coming up with stuff that was troubling and moving, but impossible to understand on a literal level, even by himself. The details in her songs tend to be small, but you can feel powerful, unspoken undercurrents beneath the prosaic details of songs that are ostensibly about such things as watching a refrigerator defrost or washing a puppy's feet. You get a clear picture of her personality from her music: a strong yet hyper-sensitive character who's been through some serious struggle and come out of it looking at the world with wry humor and amazement. Her voice is an expressive moan, her guitar playing is slashing, gut-level stuff on the rockier tracks and woozy, cracked shards of country-western on the slower ones. (Once again, the Neil Young parallels apply.) She deserves to be huge."
-J Neo Marvin, ballot for Village Voice Pazz & Jop best of 2006
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"Deliciously miserable music..." ~ the NYTimes
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"One of San Francisco's local treasures." ~ V.Vale, RE/Search
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"Why aren't you guys famous?" - Kristen Hersh
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"She categorizes her music as "Folk", but don’t expect to hear strumming on an acoustic guitar and mandolins and violins all day long. This body of work is a fuzzed out rocking jaunt into the backyards and back woods that is at times dark and beautiful. Terese..s voice can be delicate enought to convey loss, longing and hurt, but never do you get the sense that it overwhelms. In fact these songs are a testiment to someone who survived."
-DJ Nylon, PirateKat Radio
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"Waify and one of the most charmingly self-deprecating alternative rockers, San Francisco-based Terese Taylor defines herself and her music best (of course): "I'm an outskirts, pavement-to-dirt road kind of un(musak) industry gal." Her record is through and through one of the most superlative releases of the year. This record... has that almost indefinable oddball spark that sets some musicians apart from the norm. Lyrically, it's as if Taylor is telling a story on a dusty back porch, and her songs have the feel of a hazy, grainy black and white photograph. Although she gets plenty of them, Taylor defies any accurate comparisons to other musicians. Her signature blend of folk-funk, rock and hopeful doom places her in a well-deserved category of her own. She's a weirdo who makes music that feels like a long drive on a barren road as sunlight flashes through tired, old tree branches. And it's only off this beaten path that you'll find your way into her beautifully sad and addictive sound."
-venuszine, USA
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Every now and then I encounter an artist whose work I enjoy, but have a difficult time deciding exactly why. After a few weeks of listening to Terese Taylor, I was still no closer to understanding why I'm drawn to her work, so I played the disc for a few friends to help me out. The unanimous response was, "I like it. She sounds like...hmm", which led me to the following thesis: Terese Taylor's music inspires a universal pleasant feeling of déjà vu. You've almost heard it before, but can't put your finger on when, where or any of the other particulars. Taylor's influences never surface enough to allow direct comparison, though ghosts of PJ (in the music) and Liz (in the vocals) haunt her work. If anything, her work music follows the innocent aesthetic of early '90s College Radio artists -- acts that pioneered simple-but-clever ideas without any hope of mainstream success (think Pixies or Throwing Muses).
"Goats for Daddy" is of many examples of Taylor's ability to craft something interesting from a naïve concept. It's structured around a three-bar-chord gesture, sliding up the guitar neck as Taylor spins a Biblical tale of climbing a mountain path with a "billy mountain goat / red ribbon 'round his neck, a present for my dad". The orchestration is almost too simple, stripped down to guitar and a subtle bass-drum/com figure (by Taylor's right-hand man, Rob Johnson) during the verse, then expanded with distorted guitars and full-on bashing drum kit during the chorus. "Your Hand" uses a similar technique, vamping over a simple guitar lick that Taylor could have come up with in twenty seconds. A straightforward backbeat and a wandering bassline provide a complement and a backdrop to the stalker-inspired lyrics ("take a look in my window, open all night / I shut your hand in it / don't you worry about a thing, love"). "Sweet" tries to find home somewhere between Delta blues, country-western, psychedelic rock and the Middle East, but settles for all of the above, like something you might hear on Led Zeppelin's III. Taylor shows her range, both musically and vocally, on "Ghost", strumming her acoustic and singing in a falsetto. The song rises from a whisper to a scream, pulling in something that sounds like field recordings of subway stations combined with ebow feedback, as Taylor's clever words reveal her ghost to be merely a sheet, a façade that's "tired of white sheets / these holes that are my eyes watch as you pass out of sight". The band decides to end with a bang on "Candy", pulling out the stompboxes as Taylor sings her ambiguous request: "candy, I really want some candy". It seems innocent on paper, but the traces of Kim Gordon that have suddenly seeped into Taylor's tone suggest something a bit more devious.
Taylor's no-nonsense approach to her ensemble is accentuated by the naked but well-crafted mix, and will only be further revered when you learn that the entire disc was recorded to two-inch tape by student engineers in two five hour sessions, using "scratch vocals, no overdubs". The "no time to mess around" attitude may be the secret ingredient that gives The Cryingness... its charm and grace; there is a spirit and a depth here that would be lost if Taylor and her performers took a "we'll fix it in the mix" (read: ProTools) approach.
When I'm prompted to explain why this disc holds a special place in my heart, I think about Taylor's musical approach (which I thought was exhausted), the melodies that I can't ignore and the words I can't escape -- and I'm still left with questions. Thank heavens.
Taylor waited five years to release this sophomore outing. I hope she won't be so stingy with her art in the future.
- Splendid Magazine (27-August-2004)
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