TRUE BLOOD SEASON 5: THE MUSIC

First off, I'm happy to announce "30 on 30," a challenge that some of my colleagues and I issued to ourselves: we're attempting a post a day to our blogs through the month of August.  I'm particularly "out of shape" (although I write a few posts at my day job every day, so it's not like I haven't been writing at all). I'm looking forward to it.

Last year, I posted about how much I enjoyed the music on True Blood, even as I thought season 4 was a total letdown. I even mentioned Music Supervisor Gary Callamar by name.  So, it's been one of the very fun parts of my new job that I've been writing a series of weekly posts on CBS Local websites that covers the music of True Blood. And I get to talk to Mr. Callamar himself!

This year has had some great music moments, both for the soundtrack and in the context of the show.  Here's a brief synopsis:

The season premiere, "Turn! Turn! Turn!" had some great moments, but none topped Jessica and Jason rocking out to The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" on Guitar Hero.  The episode's title track was a new take on the song by My Morning Jacket, which worked quite well.

"Authority Always Wins" featured a very cool and very different cover of John Mellencamp's "The Authority Song" by a rockabilly artist who I never heard of, Bosco Delrey, who I'd never heard of.  Actually writing this reminded me that I have to check him out, so I just downloaded another one of his songs, "Wild One," on iTunes.

"We'll Meet Again" features the World War II hit as covered by the great Los Lobos, a great musical moment.  The funniest music moment, however, was Sookie lying on her couch, drunk, singing "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)."

"Let's Boot And Rally" features a brand new song written for the episode, penned by Mr. Calamar himself.  Nice work if you can get it!  Read the story about it here. It is a duet between Iggy Pop and Best Coast singer Bethany Costentino. An interesting combination: I personally would love to see someone pair Iggy up with Kills singer Allison Mosshart, who would have been amazing on this song. You can buy "Let's Boot And Rally" on iTunes now (but Mr. Calamar told me the next True Blood soundtrack wouldn't come out until season six).

The episode called "In The Beginning" featured a song by the same name by an artist named K'naan. But the best music moment featured a karaoke version of "You Light Up My Life" that has to be seen to be believed.

The latest episode, "Somebody That I Used To Know," had an interesting music twist.  The episode originally planned to use the very odd smash of the same name by Goyte.  But as the song got more popular - and has been used on American Idol, The Voice and Glee - it got a little too popular for True Blood. They ended up not using it, instead opting for a song with the same name by the late Elliott Smith.  I think they made the right choice.  As unusual as Goyte's song is, it would have been a bit too obvious for True Blood at this point (I actually thought there'd be a cover by an unlikely artist).  But the best song in the episode was Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'" which was used during a particularly steamy scene.

I'm looking forward to the music from the rest of the season.  Also, I should mention that I ended my last True Blood post hoping that season five would make up for season four.  I'm glad to say that I think  it has, and then some: this season has been pretty great.  I really dig The Authority.

By the way, I'm not going to use my CBS stories as launching points for all of my posts this month.  Tomorrow I plan on writing a review of Helmet's show at Webster Hall. I haven't seen them in years, and I'm wondering if they'll be as great as I remember.

TRUE BLOOD VOL. 3 (THE MUSIC)

First off, I'll say that as a big fan of the True Blood series, I thought this past season (season 4) was bad.  Really bad.  Embarrassingly bad. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I'm more likely to like things than to not like them.  And I'm much more likely to write about things that I like than things that I don't like.  But from the awful season premiere (when they went to fairy land, I thought that sleestaks were going to start running around) to the finale ("can you let us down, we're getting a bit crispy," Sookie breaking up with both vampire dudes in one of the cheesiest scenes I've ever sat through on any show), it was just bad. And taking Lafayette - one of the show's best characters, mainly because of his dislike/distrust of anything supernatural, and making him into a conduit for the ghost of an evil spirit... well, I guess it could have been a cool idea, but it came off corny as hell. 

Of course, this is not a TV blog, it's a music blog, and right now, as I'm giving out candy to trick or treaters, I'm listening to the latest installment of the True Blood compilation series. And as annoyed as I am at the show's producer Alan Ball, I have to give it up  -- again -- to music supervisor Gary Calamar. Last year, I wrote about the second CD in the series, and expressed serious admiration for True Blood's music team, and I still feel the same way. They come up with songs that fit the mood, regardless of era and genre (it's the same reason why I love the greatest radio station in the world, the Underground Garage).

The album has a number of new tracks, which I imagine were recorded specifically for the show. I don't know if you could say that being on True Blood is the adult equivalent of being on a Twilight soundtrack, but I guess it is comparable.  Regardless, there are some really great tracks here. The opener combines stuff I love with stuff I don't:  Karen Elson (whose debut, The Ghost Who Walks, was one of my favorite albums of 2010) covers Donovan (who I've never been a fan of) with "Season Of The Witch."  Karen's ex-, Jack White produces and Donovan himself sings on the track.

The late Gil Scott-Heron covered Robert Johnson's "Me and The Devil."  Obviously a classic, and Mr. Scott-Heron brought his own thing to it. I guess this is one of the last things he ever recorded. 

Hipsters must be melting over the union of Neko Case and Nick Cave covering The Zombies' "She's Not There." But they should, it's pretty great, and I remember thinking that as it aired over the credits of one of this season's episodes. 

PJ Harvey and Gordon Gano of The Violent Femmes' "Hittin' The Ground" is the title track from Gano's debut solo album from 2002. It's a really fun song, and PJ sounds like she's really getting her Patti Smith on. It's not a new song, but it's new to me, and probably is to a lot of other people.

And in a combo made in Americana heaven, Jakob Dylan and The Jayhawks' Gary Louris do "Gonna Be A Darkness," which they co-wrote.  There are so many good songs here!  A group called The Heavy cover Larua Nyro's "And When I Die," and there's a cool Blackroc song (Blackroc is The Black Keys in hip-hop mode) called "What You Do To Me."  Then, there's some older songs, like Slim Harpo's "Te Ni Nee Ni Nu," Massive Attack featuring Hope Sandoval "Paradise Circus," and Siouxie & The Banshees' "Spellbound."

Here's hoping that the next season of True Blood makes up for this one, but I know that the music will always be on point.