Or Something Like That...

Concert review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

2009-12-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

Max Weinberg. All you need.

So I saw Bruce Springsteen live over a month ago and I immediately wrote a review of it. Because I'm a lazy bastard, I'm only posting it here now. I wrote the article in The Observer office though, meaning that I don't have the original, unedited article on hand, and copy had to cut a bit of it due to length issues. So, this is the version that ran, verbatim, in the paper, not the UNCUT, UNCENSORED version that I would normally post here (really I think there was an extra sentence about how great Clarence Clemons is that got cut and that's probably it). Long live Broos. Etc.

Bruce Springsteen may have turned 60 years old less than two months ago, but as soon as he and his "mighty" E-Street Band launched into a performance of the entire Born to Run album last Tuesday night at the Quicken Loans Arena, the reckless, romantic, eighteen-year-old spirit that drove the seminal record into the hearts of millions took hold and did not let up. This was a spirit that spread quickly through the sold out crowd and ultimately showed proof of Springsteen's relentless showmanship and passion.

As the crowd still kept piling in at the concert's proposed starting time of 7:30 p.m., tensions began to mount while an increasing number of people restlessly awaited the band's performance. One particularly cruel move had the arena shut its lights off, only to light up again. Nearly 45 minutes after the band was slated to perform, though, Springsteen and the E Street Band finally took the stage.The ensuing performance was well worth the wait.

Springsteen surprisingly enough started the show not with a bang, but with the mere strumming of his guitar, slowly but surely building up speed and energy on his new track, "Wrecking Ball," about the demolition of Giants Stadium earlier this year. Opening a show with a brand-new, non-album track was a welcome, yet odd decision on his part, but following it up with classics "Prove It All Night" and "Hungry Heart" was an even better decision. Springsteen crowd surfed back to the stage during the latter song and never sang a word of the chorus, letting the audience take over.

From there, he moved on to his new staple, "Working on a Dream," a song whose homecoming to Cleveland was truly significant, as just over a year ago, Springsteen premiered the song during his performance at the Cleveland campaign rally for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In the first break since starting the show, Springsteen had a brief talk with his thousands-strong audience, mentioning how in recent shows, he had performed entire albums from front to back. Cleveland lucked out with a full performance of what many argue is Springsteen's high-water mark, 1975's Born to Run. The album, which features such epochal tracks as "Thunder Road," "Jungleland" and the wall-of-sound-affected title track, translated almost perfectly live. For an album performed by most of the same people who initially recorded it over thirty years ago, its songs still managed to retain the same vitality they possessed when Born to Run first hit shelves.

The rest of the concert continued along as a revue through Springsteen's extensive catalog and displayed the man's versatility, able to crunch out gospel covers with the same energy that he put into his ballads. There were also plenty of moments where the show transitioned from being a mere concert into a full-blown spectacle. During one song, he collected a considerable amount of posters made by adoring fans, and displaying certain song-specific ones as he played the respective songs throughout the night. Toward the end of "Waitin' on a Sunny Day," he pulled three young girls out of the front row to make their arena show debut and lead the crowd in two choruses.

Springsteen's enormous persona filled up the arena as much as the band's sound did. He played the roles of bandleader, preacher, Good Samaritan, and marriage counselor through the course of the three-hour long performance. The latter occupation was exemplified during a heart-wrenching performance of "Back in Your Arms," which featured him dropping to his knees and urging his crowd to "fight and beg" for whatever romance in their lives they had let go.

There were a few minor missteps throughout the night, the greatest of which was the crew's decision to turn the house lights on for several entire numbers, an effect that killed some of the mood in several key songs. Additionally, Springsteen's choice to nearly conclude the show with covers and folk songs, while serving well to showcase different facets of his music, could have been bettered with perhaps something from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Thankfully, he had the good sense to end the show with a blistering performance of "Rosalita," a perfect concert-closer.

Few artists have managed to maintain vitality over the great length of time that Bruce Springsteen has. Early on in the show, he demanded that his audience "build a house out of Cleveland spirit" and it's likely that house still stands on the court in the Q.

Setlist:

Wrecking Ball

Prove it All Night

Hungry Heart

Working on a Dream

Thunder Road

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Night

Backstreets

Born to Run

She's the One

Meeting Across the River

Jungleland

Waiting on a Sunny Day

Raise Your Hand

Red Headed Woman

Pink Cadillac

Back in Your Arms

Radio Nowhere

Lonesome Day

The Rising

Badlands

No Surrender

Bobby Jean

American Land

Dancing in the Dark

Can't Help Falling in Love

Higher and Higher

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Here are a few videos I found on youtube from the evening...

Full performance of "Jungleland." Clarence's sax solo was one of the most transcendent concert-going experiences of my life:

Full performance of "Thunder Road." Video is shaky but audio is good:

Bruce doing his thing in the middle of "Hungry Heart." Whadda guy:

Ultra-belated mini-reviews!

2009-12-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

In a sad attempt to defibrillate this nearly dead blog, I will post a couple Observer articles I've had sitting on the back-burner for a little while now. The first of these is a little set of mini-reviews I wrote a few months just for the hell of it. Look out, peoples! I get scathing and negative for once! Whoahhhhhh. And on top of that, the very day this article hit the racks, Pitchfork gave Girls' Album a 9.1 comparable to my 4 and a half stars. Not that anyone really gives a shit, but maybe I can be a tastemaker too! Look out, Chicago and/or Williamsburg!

Be glad they didn't use anything from the "Lust for Life" video...

Girls – Album

Any hype-driven band is subsequently met with its fair share of skeptics, and more often than not, the skeptics win and the hype flutters from group to group. Every now and then, a young band manages to live past the hype, and judging from the strengths of this debut, the androgynously named Girls (a band consisting of two guys who start the album by singing, “I wish I had a boyfriend”) should be sticking around for a while.

The album is easily one of the best works of modern indie pop released this year, and its range of emotion and relentless attention to pop hooks should endear it to an audience far beyond the hipster set. Songs like “Morning Light” and “Big Bad Mean Motherfucker” are up-tempo bursts of fuzzy rock while “Laura” and “Darling” admirably channel sunshiny, infectious ‘60s pop. The album’s centerpiece, however, the lofty “Hellhole Ratrace,” is an affecting torch song for the wistful pop geek inside all (or at least most) of us.

I have nothing to say about this album cover.

Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited

For what it’s worth, the current resurgence of scuzzy, no-budget garage rock has become a reputable force in the current independent rock scene, and Columbus trio Times New Viking have been one of this aesthetic’s most visible bands. Regrettably, the band hardly moves beyond this aesthetic, producing a sound that amounts to little more than all-style, no-substance, and Born Again Revisited barely follows through on the band’s promise of 25% higher fidelity than their first Matador release, Rip It Off.

Even so, there are glimpses of true songwriting talent hidden underneath the feedback, and tracks like the relatively understated “Those Days” and the powerful rushes of “No Time, No Hope” and “Hustler, Psycho, Son” justify much of the hype that persistently surrounds the band. It’s a shame then that the rest of the album uses an avoidable lo-fi sound to bury these song snippets and prevent whatever hooks (which may or may not actually exist) from flourishing. That may be part of the point, but even the experimental, filler tracks on Guided By Voices’ best albums were catchy.

Tetris!

Lou Barlow – Goodnight Unknown

Lou Barlow is one of the most unquestionably prolific songwriters in independent music history, having released massive albums of material under several different monikers. Apart from his contributions to the Dinosaur Jr. reunion, he’s been working steadily under his own name, casting off much of the rough, lo-fi sounds that he helped revolutionize and showing proof of graceful aging.

It is impressive that after so much material, Barlow is still able to craft unique melodies, and strong tracks like opener “Sharing,” “Don’t Apologize” and “One Machine, One Long Flight” bolster a collection of fine tunes. Perhaps even more notable is the manner in which Barlow, one-third of one of the loudest bands in alternative music history and one of the men most responsible for the noisy lo-fi movement, is able to pen songs like the Elliott Smith-esque “Thinking…” and love song “The One I Call” and still come out sounding more earnest than most balladeers.

Okay, that's all for now. Hopefully soon I'll post another old article and then put together a final list of the top albums and songs of the year! Hopefully...

Free to Be Evil, Free to Believe: The Flaming Lips' "Embryonic"

2009-10-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

...The fuck?

Over the last twenty-five years, Oklahoma City prodigal sons The Flaming Lips have developed a completely symbiotic relationship with alternative rock music. They’ve had an uncanny ability to both adapt to whatever modern styles were being popularized and in turn, set trends themselves. The band’s breakthrough 2002 release Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, in particular, despite its major label, was still able to help define the “indie” sound that would overtake much of this last decade. This isn’t to pigeonhole the band into a genre; from sloppy Replacements-meets-Syd Barrett garage punk to the capital-“A” Alternative rock of the early ‘90s to the Brian Wilson-esque Soft Bulletin through the dream pop of the last decade, The Flaming Lips have a compelling, versatile and rewarding back catalogue. It is all the more impressive that at the peak of their popularity, the group has managed to practically sum up their entire career in their latest release, Embryonic, an enthralling, invigorating and even challenging work that immediately manifests itself among the band’s best music.

When the band first announced plans for a double-album, it only seemed to be a logical progression for a band undaunted by ambition. Using the studio as an instrument, spending thousands of dollars on confetti per live show and releasing a quadraphonic album meant to be played on four stereos at once are all fair game for the Flaming Lips, so the thought a double album seems almost pedestrian in comparison. That of course, still means that there’s a lot of space to fill over two discs, and the lukewarm reception to 2006’s whimsical At War With the Mystics, coupled with the frightening lucidity of their 2008 feature film, Christmas on Mars indicated that the Lips were bound to look backward to their youthful weirdness for inspiration for the new record. The prospects for a retrospective, off-kilter collection of new Flaming Lips music was thoroughly enticing, but it also immediately seemed difficult for a group who earned their pedigree through the great sonic disparities of their lengthy career to pull off a summarizing record that would play as a solid, cohesive whole.

Embryonic wisely takes cues from the Lips’ current high-watermark, the decade-old masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, weaving together an assortment of lyrical songs around various instrumental interludes, and deviating little from the Lips’ proclivity to add layers and layers of dense, rich sound. There are key differences in Embryonic’s approach in that the songs are less traditionally formed, the interludes are more numerous and less structured, and the sound is more often than not designed to assault rather than ease. On The Soft Bulletin, harp glissandos would add texture to a particularly calm passage, whereas on Embryonic, they rush in and rapidly build to an in-the-red assault of turbulent percussion, courtesy of the ever-impressive Kilph Scurlock, who arguably gives the best performance on the record.

Lyrically, the album isn’t too far removed from the ruminations on man’s nature and ideas of free will that have cropped up on the last couple of albums, but the statements are far darker, and they lack the immediate, sugarcoated optimism of songs like At War…’s “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.” Lyrical ideas often combat themselves within the album, just as apt at one person’s own indecisiveness on human nature. Frontman Wayne Coyne sings on slow-burner, “Evil,” “Those people are evil / And they’ll hurt you if they can / I never understand,” only to be countered by multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, who, after clearing his throat, sings on the calming “If,” “People are evil, it’s true / But on the other side / They can be gentle too / If they decide.” The concepts are simple, but charming and affecting, and the otherworldly rush of the music would render the normal incomprehensible musings associated with this sort of progressive rock to be useless and overwhelming.

The album plays out as one steady whole, with recurring musical and lyrical themes holding the diverse mass together. It ebbs and flows from massive, bombastic centerpieces, like “Worm Mountain” and “The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine” to tempered interludes like “Sagittarius Silver Announcement” and the vocoder-laden “The Impulse,” which augment the album with welcome, subtle breaths. Embryonic is also an album full of highs. The disarmingly seductive rhythms of “Convinced of the Hex,” the dark, vibrant pulse of “Silver Trembling Hands” and the climactic chants of “Watching the Planets,” all rank with some of the Lips’ greatest songs. Additionally, “See the Leaves” with its violent groove and sepulchral coda is arguably the most menacing song the band has written since “Jesus Shootin’ Heroin.”

So, for the umpteenth time, the Flaming Lips have risen to meet and surpass the challenges they’ve devised for themselves. Here was a band with a canon of excellent albums, a few of which could easily hold their own among the best of the last twenty years. In fusing together nearly every one of their strengths, with Embryonic, they may very well have outdone themselves, and it’s difficult to imagine them being able to top this. And even in the somewhat unlikely situation that this is, as Coyne declares, “The ego’s last stand,” they’ll have gone out in a brilliant way most bands can only dream of.

WRUW's 28th Studio-A-Rama and Mission of Burma

2009-09-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Alt-rock legends, Mission of Burma.

So, this is some old news. The event itself happened on September 5th and it went to print on the 11th, but I wrote so much about the event that I had to cut out about 1,000 words from the article. So, here's the whole thing, as it was originally written, augmented with wonderful photos courtesy of my friend and colleague, Adam Wisniewski. Enjoy!

Since its first inception in 1981, 91.1-FM WRUW’s annual Studio-A-Rama music festival has been an exciting yet humble event full of free local music, usually bolstered by a headlining act that is moderately well known in the independent music community.

Since their reunion in 2002, alternative rockers Mission of Burma have released more material than they did in their original run, and have had difficulty comprehending their status as independent music legends.

On Saturday, September 5, these two entities met for what may have been the most intense, enjoyable and well attended Studio-A-Rama in history, and a further assertion of Mission of Burma’s importance in rock and roll.

This, the 28^th Annual Studio-A-Rama, was organized primarily by Neal “Dare Waves” and Steven Barrett, and was under the direction of current Station Manager and CWRU student Daniel Hill. The event, like every year preceding it, was held in the Mather Memorial courtyard and spanned ten hours worth of live music.

Although past Studio-A-Ramas have hosted such notable headlining acts as Guided By Voices and Naked Raygun, Mission of Burma, despite still being relatively unknown in the vast world of popular music, are arguably the biggest band the event has ever hosted.

Certainly, the headliner’s notability earned the festival more press coverage and hype than usual in the weeks preceding it, even making the front page of alternative Cleveland weekly Scene. Still, this is not to downplay the importance of the event’s eight local opening acts, who made up the bulk of the festival’s music and provided a continuous vitality that Burma could not have created on their own.

The Kyle Sowashes play as the courtyard starts to fill.

These eight Ohio-based acts ranged in style from heavy, bass-driven punk to experimental solo vocal improvisations. Each performance brought something new to the persistently amassing crowd and there wasn’t an act throughout the ten hours of music that failed to energize and captivate the audience.

Opening with a faint whimper that slowly developed into a sweeping, cinematic stomp, the festival began with the multi-layered sounds of Cleveland’s Chief Bromide. The six-piece band, which features dual keyboard players and slide guitar used for experimental effect, covered much stylistic ground, from loud, brash punk to dense, moody progressive rock. As an opening act, Chief Bromide provided welcome insight into the variety of sounds that would surface throughout the rest of the evening’s performances.

Consisting of young men not unfamiliar with Case Western Reserve University, garage punks the Neon Tongues took cues from the hazy, ramshackle sounds of bands like the Black Lips and NODZZZ and brought spastic, youthful aggression to the Mather stage. Fronted by current CWRU student Dylan Baldi and former CWRU student Adam Upp, the band was a recent collaboration between the two and despite the positive reception after a three song demo CD and only a few shows, the band’s state might be jeopardized by inconvenience.

“We were originally all going to meet up here at Case this year while everyone was still back home,” explained Upp. “Now they’re all here and I’m at Baldwin-Wallace, so it’s kind of problematic.”

Despite this issue, the Neon Tongues are still set to open for the Antlers when they perform at the Spot on Wednesday, September 23, 2009. (Edit: This already happened.)

The uncouth noise of the Neon Tongues was followed by the more systematic, shoegaze and gothic influenced noise of Flowers in Flames, who sound like the possible musical offspring of Sonic Youth and Bauhaus. The band, which has been receiving positive press from locations as far as France and Russia, gave a tight, energetic performance worthy of such distant praise.

Guitarist and vocalist Dave Chavez, who has performed with Flowers in Flames at Studio-A-Rama prior and who has appeared on WRUW’s “Dare Waves” show as a guest, offered an explanation for the European appeal. “They’re just really far more into the post-punk gothic thing,” he said, “And while bands like Interpol and The Editors have made it big in America, there’s far more of a niche for that sort of music abroad.”

Keyboardist, guitarist and singer Cynthia Dimitroff confirmed this notion. “They have a festival over there, the Drop Dead Festival, which is basically a Glatsonbury for gothic rock,” she said. “We’re hoping we can gain a following in Europe and have that travel back over here.”

Changing gears completely, the next act, Uno Lady, featured no more than a woman, her own voice and an effects/loop console. Her compositions, initially improvised and since composed, lyric-less and melismatic, are ethereal, haunting and compelling.

“The whole thing was a happy mistake,” said Christa Ebert, the Uno Lady herself. “I really wanted to create music in some way so I just sat down at a computer and started singing to it and it all just happened right there.”

Mike St. Jude and our giant banner.

After the experimental vocal aerobics of Uno Lady came a triad of punky power-pop bands, who together performed three hours worth of high-energy, fast-paced, irresistible rock and roll. The Columbus-based Kyle Sowashes played early 90s alt-rock in the vein of early indie heroes Superchunk and went so far as to close their set with a cover of Guided By Voices’ “Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory.” Kyle Sowash, the band’s titular frontman, at one point expressed an ironic surprise when the audience was clapping, although the band’s hooky sensibilities rendered his own shock shocking.

Having recently had the distinction of being the band to initiate this year’s Spot Nights at CWRU, Mike St. Jude and the Valentines followed up with a more modern take on power-pop, reminiscent of bands like the New Pornographers and the Apples in Stereo. The songs had a straightforward, danceable, good-times aesthetic with occasional ‘60s pop and surf influences thrown into the mix. St. Jude gave a heartfelt performance, having sung himself hoarse by the end of the set, and drenched himself in his own sweat.

Kid Tested doubtlessly leaned far more toward the punkish end of popular music, although their songs were still catchy and tuneful enough so as not to mark a significant change of pace from the prior two bands. These three Clevelanders wear their influences well on their sleeves, performing songs with titles like “Between the Devil and Daniel Johnston” and “Hüsker Don’t.” Although they don’t meet the nearly impossible challenge of living up to such artists, they did manage to deliver a thoroughly infectious and enjoyable set.

MEGACHURCH

Certainly the most intense and abrasive of the local openers, Megachurch, consisting of two bassists and a drummer and using tape loops of found sound instead of vocals, pummeled the now-massive audience with glorious and gratuitous amounts of low end. The band played with a post-hardcore and math rock nuance at blazing punk speeds, only pausing to let the bizarre tapes of religious sermons enrapture the audience further.

By the time Megachurch finished, everyone was ready for the headlining act, a band which had earned its legendary status through an assimilation of the sounds heard throughout the eight prior acts – deft experimentalism, pop songcraft and acerbic punk.

Regardless of all of this, the humble men behind Mission of Burma were still baffled by the effect they’ve had on underground music.

“The whole thing has just been mysterious from start to end,” said Burma bassist and vocalist Clint Conley, “I just know I’m in a very lucky position right now.”

Burma guitarist Roger Miller, entertainin' for the now-massive crowd

Mission of Burma formed in 1979 out of the ashes of the Moving Parts, a Roxy Music-influenced art-rock band that featured Conley as well as guitarist and vocalist Roger Miller. Burma drummer and vocalist Peter Prescott went through three tryouts to be involved in a new guitar-oriented project that Conley and Miller were putting together.

“The new sound that they wanted was going to be much more of a response to the band they really were, with much more feedback,” said Prescott. “I mean, their old frontman played the bassoon and looked like Fidel Castro.”

After recruiting Prescott, the band finalized their sound with the experimentation of friend Martin Swope, who during performances, would record the band playing, manipulate the sound and play the loops back live. This experimentation carried into the band’s first EP and LP, Signals, Calls and Marches and Vs., respectively.

“On the first round, well, we certainly toured enough,” said Miller, “But nothing was well organized.”

“We were very worried on the first go-around,” said Conley.

The worry and lack of success combined with Miller’s developing tinnitus caused the band to break up in 1983. In the twenty years that followed, however, the band’s influence began to burgeon in ways the members of Burma could have never predicted. Their post-punk anthems, “Academy Fight Song” and “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” were covered by R.E.M. and Moby respectively and they were featured with twelve other independent bands in Michael Azerrad’s seminal book on American independent music, Our Band Could Be Your Life.

“People say that we’re the first American post-punk band,” said Miller, “But that’s just what we’ve been told. The legend has completely exploded.”

In 2002, after years of relative inactivity, either in smaller groups or abstaining from the industry altogether, the band was asked to reunite for a one-off show in New York City, with Shellac bassist and recording engineer Bob Weston taking Swope’s place as tape manipulator.

“It was terrifying,” said Miller. “I asked Clint about it and I was hoping he wouldn’t want to do it, but he said, ‘Sure, absolutely.’ And then I talked to Pete thinking, ‘Oh, he’s not going to want to do this,’ but he was in.”

Burma drummer Peter Prescott, probably swearin' up a storm.

Since their reunion, they released two acclaimed LPs on Matador records, 2004’s ONoffON and 2006’s The Obliterati. Their third post-reunion LP, The Sound, The Speed, The Light arrives in stores on October 6, making Mission of Burma one of the few bands in existence to be more productive since its reunion than it was in its initial run. The band was characteristically ambiguous about their upcoming release.

“Everything is unpremeditated and unstructured and there’s no guiding approach when we go in and record a new album,” said Conley. “I guess it might be a bit more melodic than what we normally do.”

“Not too much has changed since the early days,” said Prescott, “We approach everything the same way we used to.”

“It’s extremely difficult for me to gauge how an album is going to sound until I receive feedback on it,” said Miller. “I thought The Obliterati was just not going to work and that would be the end of our run. Then it came out and started getting all these great reviews and I was shocked.”

The band ran through several new tracks from the new record, including the single “1, 2, 3, Partyy!” which, according to Prescott, “…Is just made up of a bunch of crap Clint’s dad used to tell people.” The new songs blended in well with other post-reunion tracks as well as the pre-reunion classics.

Despite initial technical difficulties that required Miller to make a last minute amplifier switch, the show was an hour and a half long stream of post-punk aggression, off-kilter rhythms, frenetic, energetic tempos and anthemic, fist-pumping singalongs. Highlights included fan favorites “Academy Fight Song,” “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” and “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate,” as well as newer highlights, “2wice” and “Donna Sumeria” and diehard fan favorites “Heart of Darkness” and “Peking Spring.” At this point, the Mather Courtyard was full of concertgoers, likely the largest crowd any Studio-A-Rama has ever seen.

The concert’s only disappointment came in the encore when the band charged through a verse of classic “Max Ernst” only to stop and change their minds. Prescott kept the crowd amused by joking, “Sometimes we stop songs in the middle for conversation, what the f***?!”

Burma Bassist Clint Conley, shouting out one of his many anthems.

Such abrasiveness is completely essential to Mission of Burma’s aesthetic and is the sort of thing the band wishes were far more prevalent in today’s music.

“There have been lots of bands since we first broke up who’ve really impressed me,” said Prescott, “The Jesus Lizard, Andrew W.K. and most recently, F****d Up. But it really lets me down just how many bands out there lack that sort of confrontation. For me, there’s just a need to grab the audience by the neck.”

“There’s a lot of music around whose popularity just baffles me completely,” said Conley. “It’s just very bland music that gets a lot of attention for some reason.”

Even so, despite their own drive for intensity, their newfound success still shocks them.

“The most telling moment,” said Miller, “Was when I was looking through a reissues section in Rolling Stone, and they had music from Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Van Morrison and us. It just freaked me out and I’m still not used to it.”

“Having our songs covered by big names is still shocking and there have been many more shocks along the way,” said Conley

Prescott, however, felt differently about the ordeal.

“Nothing’s really shocked me at all,” he said. “I don’t see it in any sort of historical context. I’m just living in the here and now, which is really the only place to be.” He then paused and laughed, “Until it no longer makes sense. That’s when we’ll quit.”

For a band whose parts are generally absurd – the tape loops, the twenty-year hiatus, the songs about surrealist painters – seeing Mission of Burma live, the final whole, assures that it all makes perfect sense.

The 29^th Annual Studio-A-Rama has a lot to live up to.

Your faithful blogger, after babbling incoherently to a poor, confused Clint Conley

Hand in Hand: Yo La Tengo's "Popular Songs"

2009-09-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

I am curious to hear a song called "Hippies and a Oujia Board," quite honestly.

Wrote this one for The Observer a few weeks ago, only getting around to posting it now. I'll try and be better about this folks, if anyone's reading.

Anyway, this album... remember that post I did a while back about albums that shaped my life? Well, add this one to the mix. No doubts about that at all. Here we go:

Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, who make up two-thirds of legendary indie stalwarts Yo La Tengo, are married. This is an important fact to have in mind when listening to their music, as so much of it sounds like the work of two people, long married and still deeply in love. The hushed, nuanced vocals, the subtle, yet passionate performances and the endearing lyrics are all indicative of their marital status and essential components of Yo La Tengo’s sound. Still, with a lengthy catalog boasting such heartwarming indie staples as “Autumn Sweater,” “Sugarcube” and “Our Way to Fall,” with Popular Songs, Yo La Tengo may have released their most overtly romantic album yet, and in addition to (or perhaps because of) this, it is also one of their best.

Immediately, the band makes this romantic disposition clear with “Here to Fall,” a career highlight that pits Kaplan’s vow to nosedive into devotion against all odds over an unusually seductive rhythm and string punctuations and flourishes straight out of a Paul Buckmaster arrangement. Unashamedly bombastic, the song helps push the band into new sonic territory while still looking backwards to the band’s beloved 1960’s for inspiration. Similarly retroactive is “If It’s True,” which bases its opening lick around that of the Four Tops’ Motown classic “I Can’t Help Myself” and builds an infectious new pop song from there. The group also drags the Farfisa organ out of the garage for the catchy retro groove of “Periodically Triple or Double.”

Still, Yo La Tengo have never been the sort of band to exclusively look backward (they cheerfully let off a lot of steam while masquerading earlier this year as the Condo Fucks on the sloppy, yet infectious cover album, Fuckbook) and the rest of the album hosts several tracks archetypal of their own unique style that rank with their best work. “Nothing to Hide,” in particular, is the most perfect slab of fuzzy power pop Yo La Tengo have released since 1997’s “Sugarcube.” Perhaps most representative of the band’s true sound is “Avalon or Someone Very Similar,” a hazy, jangly Hubley-lead track that sounds like an exceptional outtake from 2000’s delightfully low-key And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. Closing the album, “And the Glitter is Gone” envelops listeners in swirls of feedback and holds tight for nearly sixteen minutes, continuing a tradition of lengthy, trancelike tracks that have emerged on many of the band’s albums.

Still, it is in the three tracks which precede that closing behemoth where Yo La Tengo present some of the most emotionally resonant, breathtaking and ethereal work of their career. “All My Secrets” boasts one of the album’s most gorgeous and captivating melodies, over which Kaplan meditates about honesty and love as Hubley harmonizes in the background. The warmth generated by the following track, “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven” is nearly unparalleled in popular music. Layers and layers of sound are added over the course of the song’s ten minutes, and the subdued yet omnipresent chorus echoes repeatedly, “We’ll walk hand in hand.” With a discography full of meditative moments, few come close to matching the serenity of “The Fireside,” an exercise in post-rock minimalism without all the pretention the genre is burdened with. Concluding with the sentiment, “Sometime/Please think of me,” these three songs culminate Yo La Tengo’s vast exploration of beauty and romance in their music and distinguish themselves as clear highlights on an album full of them.

Popular Songs finds Yo La Tengo at the top of a game they mastered years ago, continuing to refine their unique mix of subtlety and grandiosity, of past and present and of passion and detachment. So long as the chemistry between Kaplan and Hubley never dies out, listeners can expect the group to continue to refine this sound for years to come, and judging by the devotion that lies inherently behind this record alone, it seems like they’ll be together for a long, long time.

And hey hey! There are a bunch of wacky promo clips for these tunez. And the "Nothing to Hide" one features Times New Viking, a band I'm not even all that crazy about!

Written As I Listen: The Mars Volta’s “Octahedron”

2009-06-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

For once, the artwork of a Mars Volta makes far less sense than the music within

Before I begin, I would like to thank my good friend, Paul Grigas for inspiring me to do this, based on a short write-up on the Mars Volta’s Amputechture, where he wrote down what he heard as he heard it. Normally, this method of reviewing would yield a disjointed and likely boring result, but when it comes to writing about the sounds on a Mars Volta record, hopefully I’ll wind with something a little more interesting.

My disposition on The Mars Volta is currently mixed. I still enjoy most of Deloused in the Comatorium and enough of Frances the Mute to consider me a fan, partly out of nostalgia and partly that I think the music on those two records is interesting and at times, even hooky. By the time Amputechture and Bedlam in Goliath came around, however, the band’s sheer preposterousness – the nonsense lyrics that try their darndest to be cryptic, Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s inhumanely high vocals and ridiculous hairdo, and just how similar so many of the songs began to sound – all caught up with me. Still, I find a certain charm among it all, that the whole act is so outrageous that it’s impossible for me not to like this band. I even wound up seeing them live a year and a half ago (the one thing about the concert I remember most was how no one in the audience was smiling). So, I would feel just slightly incomplete if I didn’t listen to a new record of theirs.

Octahedron seems, without listening to a single second of it, like a slight departure for the band. It is only the second Volta album that isn’t unified by some overarching theme about dead band members and Israeli Ouiji boards (the other being Amputechture), it’s the shortest album the band has released yet, clocking in at a mere fifty minutes in length, and it’s the second album of theirs to feature no songs over ten minutes in length (the other being The Bedlam in Goliath). Most of the songs still fall between five and eight and a half minutes in length, but there are only eight of them total. Also, many of the song titles are somewhat discernable! Looks like we’ve got songs on here about death, bad decisions, Satan, astronomers, non-stick kitchen spray and a best-selling young adult novel about vampires. Wowee!

So what does this mean? Have these guys gone pop? Are they abandoning the coqui frog solos? Will they still sing about ocular anatomy? We shall find out now!

Pushing play…

Track 1: Since We’ve Been Wrong

Silence. Complete silence. Now a single drone fading in 30 seconds into the album. 45 seconds. One minute. 1:15. 1:30. And at 1:37 we get finally get something! A bit of arty, proggy acoustic arpeggiation. And here’s Cedric, mentioning “eyelids” as the second line in the album. Knew he wouldn’t let me down! Now his vocals are double tracked. It’s very pretty, but at the same time, I don’t think he’s ever sounded more feminine than he does here. I guess it’s kinda Houses-of-the-Holy-Led-Zep influenced, and I can’t really tell if this is a good thing or not. Okay, five minutes in and I’m starting to seriously doubt the song’s single potential… oh there we go. Drums come in at 5:15. Still, they picked this as the single?! It’s so damn slow! Ah, well. The lyrics are pretty linear: “You will never ever know me”? Makes me miss the days of “transmark amoeba lanscraft.”

Track 2: Teflon

Alright, this is a bit more like the Volta I’ve grown used to. Pretty neat drumming actually… it’s a 4/4 rhythm but it sure doesn’t feel like it! “Stack the tires to the neck with a body inside.” Alright. Some pretty cool reverbed slide guitar work on here. Lyrics about shooting hostages in the Oval Office. Pretty cryptic, but still too linear for my Volta tastes. Well the song just ended and there’s still 30 seconds left. Color me surprised. I quite liked that song though.

Track 3: Halo of Nembutals

What the Christ is a Nembutal? It must be pretty morose cause this is a moody intro. Man, the way he says “Dee-vee-ate” is pretty funny. Eh, I’m not feeling this. Another kinda sluggish tempo on our hands. “Cables of ringworms have hung themselves.” “They sent in the necrophiliacs.” At least the lyrics are getting more absurd. And there’s a bizarre piano outro. Meh.

Track 4: With Twilight as My Guide

Here’s the one we’ve all been waiting for, the song about our generation’s Hamlet. Over one minute in though and the only vaguely vampiric lyric we’ve got so far is “By the longest tusk of corridors numb below the neck.” Where are the werewolves?! Forks, WA?! Vampire baseball?! Glitter?! Musically we just have more acoustic picking and moody atmospherics. Four and a half minutes in and we still don’t get a backbeat. Gah, what happened to the frenetic tempos of “Cygnus, Visimund Cygnus” or however the hell you spell it? Or “Eriatarka”? And furthermore, the only Twilight-y thing about this damn song is that I could see it fitting in nicely with one of those boring-ass scenes in the movie where Edward blankly stares at Bella and they discuss how much they want to die. Disappointment of the year.

Track 5: Cotopaxi

This song, at 3:39 is the fifth-shortest song in the Mars Volta discography and finally, we get some energy! Even if it does kinda sound like dumb funk-metal, at least the rhythms are broken-up enough to maintain a good amount of integrity. Whoah, where did this breakdown come from? Sounds almost Tull-ish. “That’s when I’ll magnify a hole in your abdomen.” Ho ho ho.

Track 6: Desperate Graves

Alright, this may be the single most straightforward vocal melody that the band has put together in its career (maybe discounting “The Widow,” although so far this is much more interesting than that track.) “Dressed in the slurs of bovine engines/To feast upon the carcass of your mother.” I dunno if they’ll be able to top that one on this album. This might also be the best song on the album; at the very least, it should have been the single, hands down.

Track 7: Copernicus

Another slow one. A minute and a half in and it’s got the same exact feel as “Since We’ve Been Wrong” and “With Twilight as my Guide.” Still, it just feels like it’s waiting to explode. I’m just gonna prepare myself and hold out for it. Okay, here comes another verse. Alright, verse two ended. Here we go… EXPLODE! … … Goddamnit, all we get is some light programmed percussion for the bridge. 4:30 in and now the programmed percussion has even gone away. I mean, to be fair, I guess it’s kinda pretty at best, but really, this slow, unenergetic balladry just isn’t cutting it, especially when it lasts for seven and a half minutes at a time. Don’t get me wrong, I love lengthy ballads. “Ambulance Blues,” “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” etc. But I don’t think I need to explain how the Mars Volta aren’t Neil Young or Bob Dylan, do I?

Track 8: Luciforms

Okay, here’s the final, and longest track, clocking in at 8:22. Let’s see how they bow out this time around. Alright, well, they’ve spent a minute of it letting nothing happen. Alright, over a minute and a half in, we finally get some phased vocals over a slow, but swinging beat. And two minutes in we get some pounding drums! Yes! The song is pretty bluesy, which is neat although not particularly exciting. Pleasant piano tones in the bridge. Bridge. Man, I’m writing about bridges in Mars Volta songs as if they’ve always stuck to standard song structures. A blistering guitar solo five minutes in, the only one I’ve really noticed on the entire album. I suppose that’s a good thing, which is nothing against Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s playing so much as it is against his prior artistic decisions. But aww hell, I can’t blame em for being a modern prog band, and the only one I can tolerate, never mind enjoy. And it looks like we’re ending with a weird piano solo outro and some weird noises. Actually, this ending reminds me of the last minute or so of “Starless” by King Crimson, except obviously not as good.

Okay, well I think 1,500 words on the Mars Volta is enough, and now you don’t even have to listen to the album if you don’t want to! Although hey, if you’re a fan, you’ll probably enjoy it, and if you’re not, it definitely won’t convert you. It’s a lot slower and more plodding than their other albums, but it’s also mercifully short, never dwelling the jam-band, masturbatory excess of plenty of their prior work. Okay, I’m done. Time to go secrete a monument with my hands.

Going All the Way: The Raspberries' self-titled LP

2009-06-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, gentlemen.

This review is meant to be read in conjunction with the (probably superior) review of the Raspberries' second album, Fresh Raspberries, written by Sean Rose at his blog. By that, I mean, you're supposed to read them both at the exact same time.

It's truly a wonder and a shame that despite four solid albums and some of the best pop singles of the '70s that the Raspberries have been relegated to used record racks and hard-to-find CD compilations. Their body of music, consisting of four LPs has generally become esoteric, and were it not for a few oldies radio stations that'll play "Go All the Way" and "I Wanna Be With You," the band would be at the extreme risk of fading into complete obscurity, a mere footnote to be mentioned with similarly ill-fated power-pop acts like Badfinger and the Dwight Twilley Band. Big Star was at least able to gain a massive cult following as well as (or because of) accolades from the hip, modern, indie power-poppers. Maybe if Bob Mould wrote a tune called "Eric Carmen," the Raspberries could have their discography remastered and get a shitty rating from Pitchfork as well.

Sadly, that prospect looks doubtful, and while this is unfortunate, it personally made stumbling upon the band's first two records at Merle's Record Rack that much more rewarding. Here, on the Raspberries' self-titled first (and arguably best) album, the band finds itself immediately in top form, recently graduated from the McCartney School of Songwriting and showing off their chops. This album has it all - "come on, come on"'s, "baby, baby"'s, syrupy strings, canned horns, jangly guitars, little verses, big choruses and hooks to spare. If that sounds formulaic, it's because it is, but for this band, and the entire power-pop genre as a whole, sticking to the oldest tricks in the book yields the most immediate results.

For an album featuring songs that rarely stray from an established rubric, Raspberries displays the full range of the band's songwriting capabilities and proves itself to be an entertaining and diverse listen. Sure, they're all love songs, and they never move past the typical clichés lyrically, but here that only helps maintain consistency and naturally keeps the songs from becoming overbearing. Musically, though, they milk the love song for all it's worth, and run through all its possible motions, letting good-times, boogie-woogie tunes ("Rock and Roll Mama," "Get It Movin'") sit alongside tender ballads ("I Saw the Light, "Waiting"). Again, the McCartney-isms are pretty blatant, but the Raspberries have the good judgment to borrow songwriting styles from the man's entire career. "Come Around and See Me" recalls "I've Just Seen a Face" with its joyful demeanor and folksy acoustic work, while the oompah horns of "With You in My Life" come straight from "When I'm Sixty-Four." The most obvious influence is on the saccharine "Waiting," a song that lifts both its structure and mood from "Yesterday," although Carmen's aching and sentimental vocals help the song stand on its own to jerk the tears out of listeners. (Retroactively, the tune also provides great foresight. Carmen would alter it a little bit, add some Rachmaninoff and come out with the song that defined his solo career, "All By Myself.")

It would be foolish to write Raspberries off as just a bunch of Beatles rewrites, however, and Carmen's hyper-romanticism helps shape out some of the album's best songs into golden works no one else could have written. I was tempted to write that the songs had a strong air of naïveté to them, although opening track and lead-off single "Go All the Way" immediately disproves this, due to its obvious sexual implications. Still, Carmen's suave, yet innocuous delivery and the band's proficient tight playing help establish the song as an absolute power-pop gem and it may be the best tune the Razzies ever wrote (and as a further note, the arpeggiated descending lick that comes after the final "don't ever let me go-oh-oh!" is one of the greatest moments in pop history. Good God). "Don't Want to Say Goodbye" starts off as a slow-burner, but ultimately rewards listeners with a defiant chorus backed by a strong groove from Carmen and drummer Jim Bonfanti. For the grand finale, the group assembled "I Can Remember," a (relative) behemoth of a track at eight minutes in length, and one that embodies everything excessive and subsequently wonderful about bombastic love songs. It moves from piano ballad to jangle-pop rocker and even contains a pompous fanfare that would end the record, were it not for a massive reprise of the tune's chorus.

Over the band's next three records, they would find themselves maintaining their impeccable songwriting skills over both singles ("I Wanna Be With You," "Tonight," "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)") and album tracks ("If You Change Your Mind," "On the Beach"), but their self-titled debut manages to best capture the full realm of the Raspberries' capabilities. With such songwriting sensibilities as proven here, the fact that they never maintained a stable audience past the '70s makes the Raspberries one of the greatest hidden treasures in the pop canon. Blame it all on the bouffants.

Mini-reviews: The week of Sunday, May 24-Sunday, May 31!

2009-05-30T22:02:00.001-07:00

'Dem's the stats.

Hey-ho, kids! For lack of any better ideas, I've decided that I'm going to give you the lowdown on all the albums I've listened to in the last week. Many of these are first listens to begin with and I don't think I've listened to any album more than once this week, so many of these opinions will be pretty half-baked. Of course, first impressions are pretty significant as is and normal people who don't write record reviews, and therefore don't listen to entire albums they may not even like at length, can and generally will base their entire outlook on certain artists based on first impressions (hell, normal people don't even listen to albums to begin with!)

But enough bullshit justifications, here are the reviews!

AC/DC - Highway to Hell and Back in Black: Alright, so the chart only has 11 tracks scrobbled for the week, but I did listen to 20 AC/DC tracks in just over the past week, so there. At the recommendation of fellow blogger Sean Rose, I finally dug these gems out of the library and gave 'em a spin (for the first time in complete length, whoah!). Goddamn they're good. It'll probably take another few listens to really distinguish each tune, cause they're all similarly heavy, good-timesey rock 'n' roll (which is a fantastic thing). Although I've always enjoyed Bon Scott's voice more, I may take Back in Black as the better of the two, for now at least, probably just because it had more of the radio hits I knew (and was able to sing along to), but I'll be damned if I wasn't rockin' out to "You Shook Me All Night Long," a song which typically kinda annoys me but felt perfect in context. Maybe I was just in a good mood. Then again, it's tough to feel like shit in the presence of AC/DC.

The War on Drugs - Wagonwheel Blues: Another one per mention by Sean, although word came to him from Mark Prindle, who gave the band a rare boldface recommendation via his "Hip New Bands That the Kids Dig" mini-reviews. I wouldn't say it's unjustified but frankly, the album didn't do all that much here. It's got a nice psych-folk atmosphere but isn't particularly memorable. Alas, you may disagree (especially if you are Mark Prindle).

The Dictators - Go Girl Crazy: And speaking of good-times rock 'n' roll, here's another bona-fide, yet lesser known record that seems to stay in the shadows of the New York Dolls' debut album, but in actuality might better it. It's proto-punk that thrives not only on musical lunkheadedness and snotty attitude like its peers, but adds the extra joy of ultra-stupid lyrics like, "Oh weekend / Soon he threw up in the store (a McDonalds) / But if he does it anymore / I'll make him eat it off the floor" and "I drink Coca Cola for breakfast / I've got Jackie Onassis in my pants." Poetry comes not in finer forms. They've got some ridiculous covers of "I Got You Babe" and "California Sun," and tunes like "The Next Big Thing" and "(I Live For) Cars and Girls" are just thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended, and honestly I feel like stopping here and re-listening to it... but alas, I must press on!

King Missile - They: Last.fm kept tossing these guys at the top of my "Recommended" section, comparing them to Ween and the Dead Milkmen. If you don't know (probably not), they're the guys who do "Detachable Penis" (collective "Ohhhhhhh!"). But they do much more. Much, much more. In fact, something like ten albums more, each with at least fifteen songs. I started myself on the Prindle-commended They, which seemed daunting at first due to its twenty-two song length. By the end of the first song though, it became clear that it would be a highly enjoyable trip through mostly jangly, early lo-fi indie rock with some truly bizarre lyrics, in the vein of (guess who!) Ween and the Dead Milkmen. "He Needed" is a list of things some guy needs. "If Only" explains the woes of the inhuman ability to turn one's head into a food item. "Hemophiliac of Love" is self-explanatory, and for some reason I remember "As I Walked Thru Queens" to be downright hilarious. And that's only what I explicitly remember almost a week after listening to it once! Naturally, this sprawling mess of off-kilter humor requires some more listens, and I look forward to when I get around to tackling this again.

Wilco - Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: Re-listened to both of these for the billionth time after hearing the news of Jay Bennett's passing. They are still really great. Not that that surprises anyone.

Jarvis Cocker - "Further Complications": Nope, not again. Scroll down.

Guillemots - Through the Windowpane: I accidentally found this on the ol' hub back at Case sometime during my freshman year (about a year and a half ago) and forgot it was there. I finally decided to check it out and I subsequently discovered an album full of indie pop goodness, sadsack balladry and best of all, huge, bombastic, sweeping orchestral passages. Now, it all may seem pretty overblown yet simultaneously run-of-the-mill, but Guillemots manage to pull off the bombast with a great deal of eloquence, space and restraint, and it helps that the singer has the sort of tuneful, almost Jeff Buckley-esque voice that justifies the grandiose heights the band hopes to scale. Some of the slower stuff has a real somnolent quality to it, but songs like "São Paulo," the nearly twelve-minute long showstopping closer, pull no stops. A massive orchestra, songs-within-a-song, an adrenaline, climactic finish - I loves me that stuff. Modern day ELO maybe, but even more exaggerated and a little less corny? Recommended.

Shearwater - Rook: Very similar, mood-wise to Guillemots, just much more subdued, and the singer's voice is a lot more ethereal. Consequently, it's also a lot more dull, but still has enough moments of beauty for it to be worth listening. "The Snow Leopard" is gorgeous, "On the Death of the Waters" is quite startling and I think I remember liking "Home Life" a lot.

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: A jolly good funtimes pop record full of synths and clean electric guitars and tight drums and what-have-you. It'll probably take a few listens to develop itself fully, although it's not the sort of record I'm jumping at the chance to listen to again. Still enjoyable through its duration!

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest: One of the most anticipated records of the year in the indie realm turns out to be basically what it's been cracked up to be. Lush harmonies, dense instrumentation, very reminiscent of Pet Sounds (although obviously not quite as good, maybe more on par with Surf's Up?). I'll certainly head on back to this one as it seems like the sort of record that not only fleshes itself out and distinguishes itself with each listen, but also the one where new details pop up. On a related note, I'll also mention that in the twitterverse, of all the musicians I'm following, @EdwardDroste seems like the nicest and most genuine. It shows in the music.

Pixies - Trompe le Monde: Felt the need to reacquaint myself with this classic for some reason, and it certainly gets better. Never realized how nasty "Planet of Sound" is or just how pretty "Motorway to Rosewell" is. And of course, "U-Mass," "Space (I Believe In)," "Alec Eiffel," etc are still great.

Motörhead - Ace of Spades: I'd recently developed an affinity for this album's title track (ashamedly due to its deserved inclusion in Rock Band 2, but it was bound to happen sometime), so I decided to (belatedly) check out the rest of the record. Goddamn, whattan album. These guys are just relentless, pounding out riff after riff of fast-paced, trashy, insane rock and roll. You can smell the whiskey on Lemmy's breath. So "The Hammer" may be a rewrite of "Ace of Spades," but few songs deserve to be rewritten more than that on. And "Love Me Like a Reptile," "Fast and Loose," "The Chase is Better Than the Catch" and the charming "Jailbait" simply destroy. Take this one for a drive now. It's nice out.

Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You: Is this one a challenge or what? I've heard Repetition before, which sounds a lot like Fugazi, and I was expecting the same here, except just 75 minutes of it and two songs that go on longer than 9 minutes. Much to my surprise, I got something much more subdued, a few kinda poppy tunes ("December," "Demons Sing Love Songs," if I remember correctly) and it ended with some really creepy, lengthy instrumentals (actually, I don't think they were instrumentals but it was certainly the case where the vocals were subservient to the music) and the album just ends cold with a completely out-of-place old-timesy trombone solo that, in context, is quite frightening. This is an interesting one.

Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane and Sugarcane: Who ever thought that a 54-year old, British new waver could pull-off such an excellent and consistent Americana-country record? Then again, with his relentlessly clever wordplay and rhyme schemes, Costello could pull off any genre that relies so heavily on lyrical content, and although the album contains some excellent performances from expert bluegrass and country musicians (and his old friend Emmylou Harris sings backup on "The Crooked Line"), it's those lyrics that yet again keep Costello moving beyond his third decade in the business. Highlights include murder ballad "Complicated Shadows," the desperate "She Handed Me a Mirror" and the album's centerpiece, the jaunty "Sulfur to Sugarcane," which marks a roadmap of women with great lines like "Down in Bridgeport / The women will kill you for sport / The women in Poughkeepsie / Take their clothes off when they're tipsy." Good stuff, and much livelier and more entertaining than Beware, Bonnie "Prince" Billy's similarly countrified offering from earlier this year.

Boris - Pink: I saw some live footage of this Japanese "stoner/sludge/drone metal" group a while ago and was very much humored and awed by their translucent pink drum kit and what I recall was a double-necked guitar. It seemed quite ridiculous and I moved on with my life, but the sheer audacity of that look more than anything else stayed with me until I spontaneously decided to give this album a listen yesterday. I got hold of the vinyl edition, which is much longer than any CD version (probably for the worse) and sort of expected something I wouldn't go farther than three tracks into. I'm not much of a metalhead. However, after the album's title track, and the two songs that follow it, which all sounds like Motörhead meets Queens of the Stone Age, but heavier and in Japanese (without the obnoxious METAL vocals that bug me), I was completely floored. What followed those tracks, then much more suited the descriptions of Boris I'd heard, although the extremely heavy production helped maintain interest while the tempos slowed down and even dropped out. One recalled The Melvins, while a few others were even dirgier. A couple songs are actually quite pretty, "Farewell" and "My Machine" inclusive (although the latter goes on, on this version of the album, a bit too long at over ten minutes in lentgh). Perhaps most absurd, and why the shorter versions of the album might be a bit better, is that at least 14 minutes of the 72 minute long album is just ungodly noise. Now, I wouldn't be the first to complain about this, but that might be a little excessive. At least eight of these minutes though, follow the propulsive, violent ten minutes known as "Just Abandoned Myself," which closes the album and harkens back to the album's first three tracks. So, this is really a diverse, fascinating and LOUD record. In Japanese. Highly recommended.

Alright, I'm done. Happy hunting. Can you guess where I stopped writing last night and picked up again this morning?

Songs About Fucking: Jarvis Cocker's "Further Complications"

2009-05-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

That is Jarvis Cocker.

A bit of backstory first: Jarvis Cocker got his start in the mid-80s when he went to work with nothing but a four-track and a drum machine, unwittingly bashing out some of the biggest hits of the era with "Do You Remember the First Time?," "Razzmatazz" and "Pigeon Kill." Later, he formed the band Pulp with former members of Scratch Acid, penning timeless classics like "Common People," "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time," and "Tiny, King of the Jews." After starting Rapeman and releasing This is Hardco-

Hold on one second...

Okay, sorry folks, I seem to be a bit off with my history here. Let's try this again.

Sorry, that's Jarvis Cocker. Didn't recognize him with that beard!

Boy did I get confused there! I hope you understand, though, because Steve Albini's presence is nothing short of painfully obvious, what with the loud, violent drums, ugly guitars and few frills, especially in relation to Jarvis Cocker's past work. Even on the album's Pulpiest number, closer "You're in My Eyes (Discosong)," which goes so far as to feature female backing vocals, strings and horns, it can't help but end with two minutes of feedback and noise. And when Cocker diverges from his Pulp past, we get tunes like "Pilchard," which sounds like the goddamn Jesus Lizard.

It's easy to credit Albini with making the album work, and in the hands of anyone else, it would almost certainly lack that distinct, propulsive and powerful sound. Still, it would be foolish to imagine anyone other than Cocker at the helm and heart of this record, and as soon as his voice enters past the dirty hook that kicks off "Further Complications," Cocker assumes complete control, his voice lurking and twisting in his usual manner over a rougher sound that suits him better than anyone could have predicted. Songs like the grungy title track, the dirty sax-laden "Homewrecker!" and the raucous "Caucasian Blues" find Cocker yelping with a vitality and passion lacking in his more recent works, which were more drenched in ennui and reluctant placation than anything else. "Fuckingsong" and "Angela" (which initially seemed unremarkable as a single but grooves perfectly in the context of the album) show him at his most lustful; in the former he uses the song as a virtual replacement for sex while in the latter he struts along, his 45 year old self longing for its 22 year old titular figure.

"Further Complications" has its fair share of relaxed moments, though, which evoke the material of his debut solo album, 2006's Jarvis, a fine album that was weighted down by the same sorts of slower songs that diversify and benefit this record. Here we see the Jarvis we all know, and the soulful pace of the songs leave room for his notable aching wit. "Leftovers" makes use of an old trick, the typical, "I wanna be your lover" line found in thousands of pop songs, yet his desperation, wit ("He says he loves you like a sister / Well, I guess that's relative / He says that he wants to make love to you / But instead of 'to' shouldn't that be 'with'?") and self-awareness ("And at the risk of repeating myself, I'm gonna say it again!") keep such "leftovers" fresh (kill me now). "I Never Said I Was Deep" is another showcase for such cleverness with an instantly quotable, catchy and downright huge chorus, while "Slush" almost seems like a counterpart to Morrissey's similarly moody "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore" from his latest record.

More than anything else then, "Further Complications" finds Jarvis Cocker out of his element, yet feeling more comfortable and assured than he has in years, and with the help of Steve Albini, he's crafted a sonically powerful and lyrically masterful record. Whether or not Cocker really is as "profoundly shallow" as he claims is irrelevant. When an album bites this hard, all of that extra depth found here is a great added perk.

In memoriam: Jay Bennett (1963-2009)

2009-05-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

Doing what he did best.

Sorry, folks. I gotta get sappy for a sec. Any musician who I respect and passes on affects me. Thankfully the last time this happened at the magnitude that a blog entry was necessary was back in February with the death of Lux Interior, and at that point, this blog wasn't even functioning. I just feel obligated to contribute to the tributes.

Yesterday and today have been unfortunate days for the music community, as it's lost one of the progressive voices for one of its finest bands. Former Wilco member, multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, who played in the band from its inception in 1994 through the release of one of this decade's most acclaimed albums, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2002, was found dead yesterday afternoon at his home in Illinois at the age of 45.

Bennett, more than anything, served as the innovative, forward-thinking foil to Jeff Tweedy's roots-rockin' traditionalist. Although Tweedy wrote of the songs, Bennett was a primary architect of Wilco's sound, particularly on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and seemingly exclusively on 1999's Summerteeth, a pop masterpiece removed almost exclusively from the alt-country sound that Wilco initially embodied. For more on my thoughts on Wilco, check out the kinda crappy reviews I wrote about a year and a half ago for my first blog attempt, which wound up being nothing but five Wilco reviews. Whatta band.

Bennett left the group due to increased creative tensions between himself and Tweedy after the YHF label debacle that stalled the album's release. Since then, Wilco has kept going, temporarily hiring producer Jim O'Rourke to fill-in for Bennett's spot on 2004's A Ghost is Born, which is a damn fine album, albeit one that loomed meekly under the shadow of its predecessor. Regardless, the band hasn't reached the musical peaks set when Bennett was an active member of Wilco, and I'm not sure if Wilco The Album will be able to do the trick.

Bennett, after leaving Wilco, worked on several solo albums, one of which will remain incomplete due to his untimely death. His passing, however, comes at a curious time. Not only are Wilco releasing a new album (apparently, THE album), but Bennett sued Tweedy earlier this month for breach of contract with regard to the albums he made with the band and his appearance in the excellent documentary that chronicled the creation of YHF, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, presumably to pay for hip replacement surgery he needed due to one-too-many stage dives he took as a young'un. This issue suddenly came to a tragic conclusion.

Below are some clips of Bennett working with the band, notably the first one, a clip from I Am Trying to Break Your Heart where Bennett helps the group shape "Poor Places," which might be my favorite Wilco song. In one article I read, he was described as a "mad scientist," constantly twiddling knobs and relentlessly sculpting sound to his liking on stage and in the studio, and he always seemed to have a cigarette in his mouth, a look he was able to pull off quite well. Jeff Tweedy once sang, "You have to learn how to die / If you wanna be alive." I guess Jay Bennett studied a bit too hard. He will be missed.

Suck it, Sonic Youth!

2009-05-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Alright, one thing that everyone knows about Sonic Youth is that they love noise. In most of their songs, they'll either a) start it with noise, b) end it with noise, c) feature a noise breakdown in the middle of the song or d) lace the entire track with subtle background noise. They love the stuff, and they've been credited with revolutionizing guitar noise and its use in popular music, creating a wealth of incredible sounds using unique experimental techniques and countless strange tunings. They've been the proud students of the No Wave scene and electric guitar ensemble composer and performer Glenn Branca.

But alas, ladies and gentlemen, I know who Sonic Youth's true predecessors are.

I was perusing through my iTunes library the other night (shuffle mode strikes again!) and I came upon this little gem from 70s AOR, adult-contemporary-demigods Chicago off of their 1969 debut Chicago Transit Authority. It's a solo piece by their guitarist, Terry Kath entitled "Free Form Guitar," and it's exactly what you'd think it is. The piece consists of nearly seven minutes of ungodly, brutal, headache-inducing guitar noise. Half of it sounds like a cross between a particularly obnoxious motorcyclist revving up his machine and a lawnmower exploding. It's exactly the sort of thing that Sonic Youth built an entire career out of, yet Chicago was doing this over ten years before New York's prodigal hipsters came into existence. Don't get me wrong, I love Sonic Youth as much as any indiephilic twenty year old would (The Eternal is my most anticipated summer release), but whether or not Sonic Youth would like to admit it, these guys, who later wrote this song, beat them to the punch and did a damn fine job at it.

Below is Terry Kath's monstrous solo. Enjoy!

Addendum: Right around the same time, the Grateful Dead were also doing the exact same thing that Sonic Youth eventually did. While Chicago's turbulent noise came from one man and his amp, the Dead were doing full-band freakouts, also similar to what Sonic Youth would do. While this was brilliantly captured on 1969's Live/Dead album, here's the sound of the Dead doing their thing in 1968. Have fun!

They Walk the Thinnest Line: The Dead Milkmen's "Beelzebubba"

2009-05-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

Goddamn, I love this album.

Everyone knows that legendary quote from Rob Reiner’s brilliant mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap: “There’s a fine line between stupid and clever.” Although the film parodied the mid-80’s hair metal movement, the one band that I feel exemplifies the balance between those two qualities the best is none other than Philadelphian punk-goofballs The Dead Milkmen, and their magnum opus, Beelzebubba proves the point more consistently, tunefully and hilariously than anything else they’ve ever done.

It’s easy to go on a song-by-song basis and mark each one as being either “stupid” or “clever.” Naturally, the international smash hit “Punk Rock Girl” would be clever, while the repetitive, childish “Everybody’s Got Nice Stuff But Me” would be stupid, and likewise, “Smokin’ Banana Peels,” a satire of post-hippie culture would be clever while “Ringo Buys a Rifle,” which is exactly what you think it’s about, would be stupid. Of course, that would lead to a superficial analysis of an album that deserves further attention, and yes, I am saying that an album with songs like “My Many Smells” and “Born to Love Volcanoes” does go pretty deep. The cleverness is in the subtle details, the stupidity is in the big picture, and the supreme brilliance is in the almost effortless combination of the two.

Perhaps the first great shock of Beelzebubba, especially when compared to earlier Dead Milkmen efforts comes in the stylistic diversity of the record. It isn’t until track four, “I Walk the Thinnest Line,” that we get to the first “normal” Dead Milkmen song here. It isn’t that the first three songs don’t sound like Dead Milkmen tunes; no, no, no, that is clearly none other than Rodney Anonymous spitting out those lyrics with snide humor and bile, but opener “Brat in the Frat” takes cues from polka, complete with mandolin and accordion (on a Dead Milkmen record!), “R.C.’s Mom” is a James Brown parody, complete with a horn section (on a Dead Milkmen record!) and “Stuart” is a weird spoken-word diatribe. The rest of the album is a bit more straightforward, but there are deviations on songs like “The Guitar Song,” a cute waltz heightened by the naïveté of Joe Jack Talcum’s nasally vocals, the multilayered melodies of “Sri Lanka Sex Hotel,” “Smokin’ Banana Peels” and “My Many Smells,” and the violin on several of the last few songs. While they’d shown musical development from the start on songs like “Dean’s Dream” and “I Hear Your Name,” the fruits of their musicality ripen here.

Alas, that musical diversity, combined with fantastic melodies (honestly, applicable to almost every song here, the guys were on a real mean streak with this one) makes up part of what lies on the “clever” side of the record. Still, the great appeal of the Dead Milkmen lies in the lyrics, be it the frequently hilarious one-liners they spit out or the unique subject matter they tackle, with a faux-juvenile brashness applied to the whole thing. Or something like that. That was a horrible sentence.

Regardless, there are plenty of lyrical touches, and otherwise that fall into the clever side of the debate. Before “Bad Party” begins, you can hear some guy amidst the party sound affects saying, “I mean, the Captain and Tenille! They’re like, so innovative!” which I honestly just noticed for the first time while writing this review. The bizarre Who parody that comes toward the end of “My Many Smells” (“See me / Hear me / Touch me / Smell Me!”) is entirely out of place, fitting next to nowhere on a punk album released in 1988. The seminal “Punk Rock Girl,” where Talcum’s endearing vocals shine through again surely benefit such understandably misguided lyrics like “And someone put a Beach Boys song on the jukebox / It was ‘California Dreamin’’ / So we started screamin’ / On such a winter’s day!”

The subject matter being satirized at hand is diverse, and it's all tackled just as effectively through simple mockery as it could be with serious, thought-provoking sentiments. The guys run through spousal abuse (“R.C.’s Mom”), post-hippie nightmares (“Smokin’ Banana Peels”), PBS telethons (“Born to Love Volcanoes,” which I still think is one of the greatest song titles. Ever.), teenage boredom (“Bleach Boys”), fraternities (“Brat in the Frat,” which, in addition to fellow mortuary-minded punks, the Dead Kennedys’ “Terminal Preppie” still stands as one of the great anti-college anthems) and American ignorance (“Stuart”). Sure, it ain’t politically correct, but come on. Come onnnnnnnnnn.

Now, the stupid end of the deal? Well, I’ll illustrate that through a bunch of wonderful lyrical passages.

- “Don’t you wanna hang out with the Bleach Boys, baby? / In a world where ministers murder golf pros? / Don’t you wanna drink some bleach tonight?”

- “Take Elvis for a walk and shut up!”

- “Maybe she loves volcanoes too / I’ll just have to take a guess / She looks like a volcano / With her red hair and brown dress”

- “The kids must be part of the conspiracy / Mr. Rogers works hand in hand with the KGB”

- “Maybe we’ll take the host hostage / Ooh, what a clever play on words!”

- “Let’s have sex without birth control / Sell our offspring to some dirty old men / Let’s play Big Black at 3 AM / And tell the neighbors they can all get fucked” (That whole verse is nothing short of genius.)

And there’s much more where that came from. Ultra-stupid, but you’d have to be numb to not find it amusing in the least.

I suppose it isn’t all fun and games either, though, as album closer “Life is Shit” ends the proceedings on a bit of a somber note. So there’s a vulnerable emotional core to the band in the end, even if it is a pretty simple and even banal one. Regardless, I still think those three lines say more than some of the most verbose, elegant poetry, which is clearly reflected in the sing-a-long reprise of the tune’s direct and universal chorus, “Life is shit / The world is shit / This is life as I know it.” C’est la vie, boys.

Stupid? Clever? Both? You make the call. Whatever the case, go track this album down because it is absolutely worth your time, and if you give yourself in to its puerile charm, there’s a lot to enjoy here, and far more than I’ve even been able to mention in this already too-long review. Hell, I don’t know if the Dead Milkmen knew they were creating something so complex when they were making the record. That’s not to undermine them, but I like to imagine it was created that way. Makes it all a bit more brilliant in the end.

(And, if you so desire, check out the “Smokin’ Banana Peels” EP! Skip past the stupid dance remixes of the title track and stick around for the other five tunes, which are apparently re-recordings of old demo tunes. If you thought “Life is Shit” was depressing, you’ll love “I Hate Myself” and “Death’s Alright With Me,” and “The Puking Song” is probably the single most stupid song the band ever recorded, and that includes “Takin’ Retards to the Zoo.”)

Here’s the video for “Punk Rock Girl”! I think there may be one for “Smokin’ Banana Peels” as well, but I’m not sure. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Frank Zappa's "Packard Goose" and why I'll never be a rock writer

2009-05-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

“Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read.”

- Frank Zappa, 1993

“The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchen; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty'”

- Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

Every now and then, some song will come on the ol’ iPod that will really get me thinking, and it’s generally something that I haven’t heard in a while and it’ll usually wind up with a full-fledged attempt for a blog entry, if not a successful one, which this should be. While cruising down Route 1 in Milford, CT, this gem of a tune from Mr. Zappa entitled “Packard Goose” came on and I was reminded not only of why it’s such a fantastic song but also why I could probably never wind up as a rock and roll journalist for the rest of my life.

“Maybe you thought I was the Packard Goose

Or the Ronald MacDonald of the nouveau-abstruse

Well fuck all them people, I don't need no excuse

For being what I am

Do you hear me, then?”

First, a few words on the song. Maybe it’s because of the swearing, the fellatio references, or the somewhat overlong guitar solo in the middle (the whole thing is eleven and a half minutes long), but I really can’t figure out why this song isn’t one of the man’s most beloved works, at least not outside his hardcore fanbase. It comes as the climax and conclusion of the Joe’s Garage saga, where Joe has the great revelation that makes up the core of the song’s content and essentially ends the story (although there’s roughly twenty minutes of album after that, but that’s just another guitar solo and a really stupid (read: great) song about muffin frosting). Plus, it contains perhaps the greatest mantra of Zappa’s career, read by Dale Bozzio, one that I’ve taken so close to heart that I have it inscribed on the back of my aforementioned iPod, because I’m a cheeseball at heart.

“All them rock 'n roll writers is the worst kind of sleaze

Selling punk like some new kind of English disease

Is that the wave of the future?

Aw, spare me please!”

So, I also suppose a few words on Frank Zappa are in order as well. Really, he is probably rock and roll’s greatest philosopher (a title he’d probably despise) and its greatest cynic (a title he’d probably despise a little less). Despite his somewhat radical ideas, almost anything that came out of his mouth was right on the money. I’d go on, but instead I’ll just recommend that you all give his pseudo-autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book a read. It’s utterly fascinating and almost always hilarious, and it’s not so much an autobiography as it is a discourse on his social, political and philosophical ideas. But anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that, for all intents and purposes, Zappa may very well fit the prototype of the “punk” – non-conformist, free-thinking, doesn’t-take-shit-from-anybody-especially-not-the-government, musically-gifted, dark-yet-well-humored and autonomous. Maybe if he were alive now, he’d appear on some celebrity reality TV show and sell his soul to VH1 for eternal interviews like poor John Lydon, but with Zappa (and really no one else because he was so damn sincere), it simply seems disrespectful to imagine such a fate to fall upon him.

“Oh no, you gotta go

Who do you write for?

I wanna know

I believe you is the government's whore

And keeping peoples dumb

(I'm really dumb)

Is where you're coming from

And keeping peoples dumb

(I'm really dumb)

Is where you're coming from”

And “Packard Goose” is certainly one of his greatest platforms for his punkish ideologies, despite insulting the genre in the second verse way up there (although that’s no doubt a greater stab at the rock and roll writers thank at punk itself). In the context of Joe’s Garage, the titular character, played by Ike Willis, was just released from prison after plooking a tiny chrome-plated machine that looks like a magical pig with marital aids stuck all over it to death. Oh yeah, and the big thing is that this all takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where music is banned in all forms. That’s the important part. The gay robot sex is stupid in the great Zappa tradition, but Joe’s revelation when he leaves prison is simply, “fuck all those guys” because he can sing whatever he wants to and play whatever he wants to and run through all the beautiful imaginary guitar solos in his head that he wants to, goddamnit. And that’s the crux of the biscuit right there.

“Fuck all them writers with the pen in their hand

I will be more specific so they might understand

They can all kiss my ass

But because it's so grand

They best just stay away

Hey, hey, hey”

WARNING: TRAIN IN DANGER OF DERAILING

On several different occasions in the last week, I’ve found myself at different bookstores, perusing about and eventually flocking over to the “Music” section of each. And each time I’ve left, I’ve wound up feeling depressed, even after merely looking at the titles of some of these books. Clearly, there are some rock writers who really know what they’re talking about, who’ve done all of the research they can and compiled thorough, comprehensive works of near literature. But honestly, how many Pink Floyd biographies does the world really need, especially if there’s already an extremely detailed one written by their drummer (famously the non-partisan one, and also the only one who was in the band for its entire existence…)? Do we need biographies of bands that are barely into their second decade of activity, still presumably going strong? And I’m sincerely trying not to offend anyone, but what sort of person spends their life’s work chronicling the life and times of some group that no one will remember ten years from now? I can’t recall the specific artists, probably because I’ve tried to block them out, but there were some titles that left me wondering, perplexed, why in God’s name someone cares so much about this particular artist.

“Hey, Joe, who did you blow?

Moe pushed the button boy

And you went to the show

Better suck a little harder or the shekels won't flow

And I don't mean your thumb

(Don't mean your thumb)

So on your knees you bum

Just tell yourself it's yum

(Yourself it's yum)

And suck it 'till you're numb”

But those publications are by and large factual, or as close to being factual as anything else out there. What are worse than those are those books that push opinions. You know, list books. Books that try to falsely, objectively sum up rock and roll culture in fifty albums or one hundred solos or five hundred songs, rendering the presumed objectivity impossible immediately. Sometimes, these are okay. I own that 1,001 Albums You Need to Hear Before You Die book because it’s just so ridiculously sprawling that it’s as close to covering all of popular music as anything else I’ll find. But the sheer multitude of these books is astounding, and yes, ultimately depressing, particularly when they seem to have no damn clue what they’re talking about. I found Elliott Smith in a book of “bands you’ve never heard of” and even that 1,001 Albums book not only gives the shaft to Zen Arcade but also includes Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. Christ, that is almost unforgivable (seriously, the editor has the good judgment to include five Tom Waits albums and all three Dexys Midnight Runners releases, but after 2000, he has no idea what is going on. Even in 2006, you’d have to live in a cave to think Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit are essential listening experiences. Gahh).

“Journalism's kinda scary

And of it we should be wary”

But hey, who am I to subject other lousy opinions to my own? Like Frankie says, “If it sounds good to you, it’s bitchen.” So, there. Well, after that, he also says, “The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of_____ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like.” This is also a valid argument, and there’s no doubt that the rock writers, journalists and critics have some greater degree of authority on the subject than most people (let’s assume that; sometimes I doubt this is true), which I guess gives them a right to get their opinions published under the guise of a definitive guide to trick people into objectivity…?

“If you're in the audience and like what we do

Well, we want you to know that we like you all too

But as for the sucker who will write the review

If his mind is prehensile

(Mind is prehensile)

He'll put down his pencil

(Put down his pencil)

And have himself a squat

On the Cosmic Utensil

(Cosmic Utensil)

Give it all you got

On the Cosmic Utensil

(Cosmic Utensil)

Sit 'n spin until you rot

On the Cosmic Utensil

(Cosmic Utensil)

He really needs to squat

On the Cosmic Utensil

(Cosmic Utensil)

(Cosmic Utensil)”

The bottom line is, I can’t do it. Maybe rock criticism could be a lucrative outing for me someday, but I could never see it as a profession (then again, I never thought I’d get into the music program at CWRU, and I did, and I also used to think I wouldn’t live past age 30, which I’m doing just fine with). I wouldn’t want to get stuck either foisting my opinions on people who couldn’t care less or spending my entire life devoted to detailing the minor incidents in a music scene that, again, no one will care about ten years after the book gets published. Why even blog? Well, I do personally enjoy writing about music. It’s something I’m passionate about. It’s a way to kill time. It’s a means to try and become a better writer. Reviews to me aren’t so awful either, particularly because it’s clear that those are merely opinions (and it’s particularly obvious if the writer has a distinct style, which is why Mark Prindle is a genius). Plus, I just bank on the fact that next to no one reads this, anyway, so I’m not contributing greatly to the sludge.

“Information is not knowledge

Knowledge is not wisdom

Wisdom is not truth

Truth is not beauty

Beauty is not love

Love is not music

Music is THE BEST . . .

Wisdom is the domain of the Wis (which is extinct)

Beauty is a French phonetic corruption

Of a short cloth neck ornament

Currently in resurgence . . .”

- Frank Zappa, “Packard Goose,” 1979

And I guess that above passage is what it’s all really about. Music is the best, there are no objectives and the rock critics are all bullshit artists. Well, that’s all just speculation. Until then, let the Bangs’ and the Prindle’s and many lesser authors keep doing their thing and let the artists make the real statements. Now, pardon me while I go squat on the cosmic utensil.

In other news: Proof of my theory that no one reads this blog was made evident by the fact that my over-a-year defunct Wilcophilic first blog attempt has been getting way more hits than this. Why? Because somehow, google’s top image result for “Wilco A.M.” leads to it. Life’s a funny thing, innit it?

He's Okay By Himself! Morrissey's "Years of Refusal"

2009-05-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

Careful now. We know that's not your kid.

Poor, poor Morrissey.

Which is exactly the sort of sentiment generally fostered by critics and fans with regard to both the man’s work and his personal life, although I feel that Years of Refusal, his latest album seems more subject to that distanced pity than anything else the man has ever done. For the first time, Morrissey is outwardly declaring that being alone in life is alright, and he’s doing so with such vigor and verve that he almost seems happy to admit this. Perhaps because of this newfound energy, he seems like he’s trying too hard to get that message across, as if he’s still desperately attempting to convince himself of these beliefs (which seems quite likely), never mind the rest of us.

I mean, look at some of these lyrics! “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” explains that he’s finding joy in the city with a gorgeous, cinematic sheen, but because “only stone and steel accept my love… in the absence of human touch.” Yeesh. And how about “That’s How People Grow Up,” where he decides that getting into a paralyzing car crash is worse than “never being someone’s sweetie?” But Steven! How many times have you broken your spine? And then there’s the grand finale that says it all, “I’m OK By Myself.” If you think Morrissey’s found some sort of true zen in solitude, think again, because the only reason he’s “OK” with this fate (and no greater than “OK”) is because he can’t trust anyone who’s ever loved him! Why change now? He’s throwing in the towel, at long last. Or something like that.

And that’s why Morrissey is a poor, poor, forty-nine year old, “asexual,” pseudo-celibate bastard, and that’s why this is the first album that’s prompted such a reaction from me. Sure, he’s been doing the loneliness-and-pathos thing for years and years, but he always had a true wit about it, so it was easier to take a grain of salt with the whole act and while it all never seemed insincere, there’s no doubt that he worked off of an established formula that worked and resonated with millions of young (homosexual Latino males?) people across (~~Latin America?~~) the world. Here, it truly seems like he’s writing about no one other than himself. We’re all lonely for extended periods of time, but very rarely do we find ourselves alone for forty-nine years. Ah, well. Perhaps we can expect Years of Denial to come out in 2019.

Alas, he has done a pretty good job of trying to convince himself that everything is alright because he sings with such conviction and energy that Years of Refusal is anything but a pity-fest for the guy. This is clear from the get-go, with “Something is Squeezing My Skull” launching the album immediately into punkish territory with Moz railing against antidepressants with a catchy “Don’tgimmeanymore” vocal hook. From there, he croons and moans throughout what may be his most stylistically diverse album. He’s got military drums and church organ (“Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed”), mariachi horns (“When Last I Spoke to Carol”) and minor-key dirges (“You Were Good in Your Time,” the only time the album lets down its energy and as a result, is its worst track – but it’s kind of a breather!).

Since his "comeback" record, 2004’s You Are the Quarry, Years of Refusal has laid out a trilogy of albums that have marked a real return to form and renewed vitality for the singer. Just listen to the final minute or so of the album’s bombastic emotional centerpiece, “It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore,” where he wails tunefully over a meaty backing performance. The man not only has an impressive vocal range that he does not display often enough, but he also sounds younger here than he ever has (and also, curiously a lot like his greatest musical offspring, Jarvis Cocker). This sort of youth (no doubt stemmed from his acceptance/denial of solitude or whatever) is felt all over, and certainly the backing performers should be given credit, providing an up-tempo, loud, albeit clean template for Morrissey to do his thing over (Colin Meloy tweeted that it was “cock rock;” he should tweet for himself). And I’ll be damned if there isn’t something liberating about hearing him proudly declare, “And when I die, I want to go to hell.”

So there it is. Morrissey has found new life. I personally think he’s kidding himself, but he’s making better music because of it, so good for him, and if he really is feeling better about whatever his problems exactly are, then all the power to him. Still, there are a couple of cracks in the structure: “As for me, I’m OK/For now, anyway.” Whatever. Denial is the first step toward acceptance. That’s how people grow up, isn’t it?

And oh, hey! Here he is playing the album's lead-off track on Jimmy Kimmel. Whaddaya know. Also, look for a couple promotional videos from the album, one of which has him playing with puppies, and in the other, he dicks around with a tambourine.

Stuffy Review #3: Bat For Lashes' "Two Suns"

2009-04-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

...well, then...

Not gonna lie, I'm not too crazy about this review. This was sort of a stop-gap deal, because I needed to write something, although there really hasn't been an awful lot that's come out lately that I've felt totally compelled to write about. Don't get me wrong, this is a fine album, but it's not the sort of thing that I was able to write 800 words on like I normally do. This is good though because it wound up being the perfect length for editing purposes, so I should make a mental note to continue to write reviews of albums I can't say an awful lot about for the paper. I guess other people liked the review though, so everyone wins, huzzah.

Here it is:

Bat for Lashes, the moniker for the young British musician Natasha Khan, begins her sophomore album, Two Suns, by claiming, “I will rise now.” Throughout that opening track, “Glass,” Khan’s reverb-drench, translucent vocals resonate the music builds in layers of strings, synths and tribal percussion. Just as she says that she will rise, the music follows suit, and as she reaches the end of the chorus, “Tonight, tonight, tonight, we ride,” the music takes off.

With 2006’s debut Fur and Gold, Khan established herself as a growing force in indie music, gaining critical acclaim with her trained, ethereal voice and knack for dark and gorgeous arrangements and soundscapes. She is caught somewhere in between the poetry and whimsy of Kate Bush and the emotional delivery and modern textures of Björk, and if anything, Two Suns proves that Bat for Lashes may someday be as vital an act as her brethren.

Khan’s power is evident in several key tracks, perhaps most notably in the aforementioned lead off track, “Glass,” as brilliant a mission statement as she can make. Amidst tom-tom thuds, her voice soars in its highest register, moody yet still subdued, and never overbearing. The energy that bounds throughout the album’s more up-tempo tracks, featuring members of Yeasayer, could be characterized into two types of songs. The first is marked by more abstract elements, with looser melodies and driven by the propulsive tribal percussion. The gospel-inspired “Peace of Mind,” and truly Björk-esque “Two Planets” fall into this category, and are among the album’s most intense moments. Likewise, other songs are held together by more traditional melodies, and pulsating, metered rhythms. The synth-pop highlight “Daniel,” as well as the somber “Sleep Alone,” where Khan sings a tragic chant of “Lonely, lonely, lonely,” over a strangely strut-able beat, mark the second category. Both groups of song provide contrast while maintaining a subtle energy.

It is in the ballads that the album’s greatest strengths and weaknesses lie. Songs like “Moon and Moon” and “Traveling Woman,” while pretty on the outset, leave little of a memory, and while the balladry fits well in the context of the album, it breaks up some of its flow. Still, two of the album’s best tracks are also some of its most reflective and gorgeous. “Siren Song” starts off innocently enough, but as its stately, slow melody wears on, it slowly builds until the lush orchestration gives way to violent percussion that causes the song to collapse upon itself, which then gives way to Khan drowning in her own reverberated voice. Likewise, the album’s closer, “The Big Sleep,” a duet with pop crooner-cum-avant-garde experimentalist Scott Walker, brings their two ghostly voices together in a truly haunting rumination on death.

Khan describes the record as “a record of modern-day fables exploring dualities on a number of levels,” even going so far as to create an alter ego for herself. The dualities certainly could extend beyond concept and lyrics and into the contrasting music that makes the record notable, but it is also in the sonic textures and Khan’s mastery of the crescendo that makes Two Suns a notable record. If Natasha Khan can maintain this sort of vitality, perhaps she can stake the same claim as her predecessors, earning the distinction of being one of indie music’s most resonant and otherworldly voices.

The end.

I apologize for not updating this thing ever, if you care enough for me to warrant you an apology. If you're that person, I have good news for you! Summer's almost here! And I don't have many concrete plans! This means that I'll be writing a lot, which is one of my top priorities for the coming months anyway. Additionally, there are plenty of upcoming releases that I'll probably have a lot to say about (new albums from Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Art Brut, etc.) So, everyone wins, huzzah.

Stuffy Review #2: The Decemberists' "The Hazards of Love"

2009-03-17T18:35:00.001-07:00

Let me bring you songs from the wood!

Hey everyone,

Here's my review of the Decemberists' latest record, The Hazards of Love, which will be published (in some edited, probably more grammatically correct form) in this week's Case Western Observer. You get another preview! Yay! I really like this album. I think I wrote the review as if I like it more than I actually do, but each time I listen to it I like it even more. Still don't know a goddamn thing about what the plot means, but the nice thing about this album is that the plot isn't the important part.

Here we go!

Over the last few years, a wide range of formerly maligned artists have achieved new levels of indie credibility thanks to sets of young artists taking inspiration from somewhat unusual sources. From the Human League to Bruce Springsteen, many popular artists that would have been scoffed at by the elite less than ten years ago are now “cool.” It was only a matter of time then when that the modern indie snobs would draw from Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and leave it to (former) indie stalwarts the Decemberists to do so.

Fans of the band shouldn’t worry though, as their latest album, The Hazards of Love isn’t riddled with twenty-minute long keyboard-and-drum solos, and due to its rock opera content, the lyrics are not impossible to decipher (though in the great Decemberists tradition, you may want to have a dictionary on hand). The progression that led up to this album also greatly predicts the band’s almost inevitable attempt at a rock opera. Not only have the Decemberists always had a proclivity toward drama, but the progressive and hard rock that dotted The Tain EP and songs like “The Island” and “When the War Came” off of 2006’s The Crane Wife leaves little surprise to the actual content of The Hazards of Love.

Still, it is a bit shocking at times to hear the sludgy blues riff that crops up as a motif throughout the album, particularly on “The Queen’s Rebuke / The Crossing,” easily the heaviest song the band has ever written. Once the shock wears off though, it becomes clear that the progressive move was a smart one for the group, as opposed to a rehash of their earlier, more conventional work.

Several moments on the album truly shine bright. “The Rake’s Song” tells a violent story where the song’s narrator kills his three children, and then proclaimins, “It never bothers me,” along to a catchy “Alright! Alright!” chorus and thunderous drumming. Similarly, the bombastic centerpiece of the album, “The Wanting Comes in Waves,” stands as one of the highlights of the band’s entire catalogue.

Even at their most rockin’, Colin Meloy’s distinctive vocals make it clear that this is still a Decemberists record, and for fans of the band’s earlier work, there is still much to be enjoyed here. “Isn’t it a Lovely Night?” is a tender ballad, while the accordion-driven “Annan Water” recalls songs like “Shiny” and “The Youth and Beauty Brigade,” which date back to the band’s inception. The slow burning “Hazards of Love IV (The Drowning)” closes the album on a reflective note.

One of the most positive aspects of The Hazards of Love (and one that otherwise could have led to disaster) is that the music is never subservient to the lyrics or the storyline. The story itself is thin; William, a shape-shifter, falls in love with a woman named Margaret, who gets pregnant and eventually gets captured by an evil forest Queen. It’s all a bit silly, and like all rock operas, a bit bloated, but what is significant and gives the story a different dimension comes from the performances from the guest artists who play the various characters in the story. Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden, who play Margaret and the Queen respectively, not only sing their parts well, but they also come to embody the characters they portray. Robyn Hitchcock and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James also provide backup vocals, although regrettably, they do not play any characters, and a children’s choir sings on “The Hazards of Love III (Revenge!)”

The entire concept of a rock opera still seems absurd and hackneyed today, especially since the big expensive progressive and art rock of the 1970s is long gone and rock operas typically point to overreaches of ambition and pretension and therefore disaster. The Decemberists however have managed to create a record that, through artful repetition of great musical motifs and stellar performances on the part of every musician involved, stands as a true cohesive whole. Right from the opening “Prelude,” which is no more than a slowly building Hammond organ solo, the album far more often recalls Thick as a Brick than it does Castaways and Cutouts. The Hazards of Love is one of those rare albums where this is a very good thing.

Okay! That's that one. See you kids next time when I continue to write with even worse grammar.

Some Holy Spectacle: Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"

2009-03-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Heil, Mrs. Tambourine Head...?

I think I may have figured out some sort of template for this blog. I hate writing negative reviews for albums, mostly because the process of doing so is much more laborious. It's just a lot more fun for me to write positive reviews, because then I can really absorb myself into the album, and I don't have to suffer listening through something I don't like multiple times just to analyze it. So, as it stands, it looks like this blog will be about albums that do weird things to me and my attempt to understand just why they do these things.

And this is the granddaddy of them all.

To be honest, I hadn't thought much about this album in the last couple of years until a late-night acoustic guitar sing-along with some friends a couple of months ago prompted me to go listen to it again. Suddenly, as I was singing the songs from that record for the first time in forever, apparently doing a pretty good Jeff Mayyy-eeeengum impersonation, and feeling more collegiate than I ever have in my life (take that however you'd like), I was taken back a few years and was instantly reminded of what those songs meant to me.

I was an impressionable fifteen year old with a broken heart and a wealth of hilariously unimportant problems, and amidst the very worst of it all, this album was there. I don't know why it was this one over any number of other albums that I was into at the time that tend to comfort people in their dire teenage years (Weezer's Pinkerton, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, The Arcade Fire's Funeral). Maybe Aeroplane just happened to be the one that I was playing at the time. Whatever the reason, it worked, and how couldn't it? Mangum sang lyrics that were emotional, but with enough abstraction that they never became overbearing or pathetic, at very loud volumes while straining to hit notes that he was just never meant to hit. It was also a pretty easy and fun album to learn to play on the guitar, so I felt like I was making the songs on this record my own on another level.

And how liberating it was to sing lines like "And we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for," "God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life," "And she goes and now she knows she'll never be afraid," "But for now we are young/Let us lay in the sun/And count every beautiful thing we could see," "Rings of flowers around your eyes/And I'll love you for the rest of your life." Hyper-romantic mini-manifestos are one thing, although they become even more powerful when cloaked around bizarre phrases like "Semen stains the mountaintops," "She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires," "And you watched as your brains fell out through your teeth," etc. And to top it all off, you get these other abstractions that mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, ("I love you Jesus Christ," and all the Anne Frank references in particular) but when plopped into the album they only add another layer of mystique to the ordeal. It probably all means something in Mangum's head, and I'm sure it's possible to decipher, although I can't do it, not just because I don't have the profundity to do so but simply because I don't want to. The lyrics are perfect enough as they are, little whirlwinds of the English language, obtuse observations of natural weirdness wherein can be found carefully constructed declarations of undying love and all that other hoo-hah. Or something like that. Contrived? Perhaps. But the immense amount of meaning that I've given to these words and that these words have given to me feels so genuine that any contrivance just seems irrelevant.

Naturally, another factor that develops meaning of words is delivery, and Mangum's distinctive vocal performance on the album has been one of the greatest areas of dispute when it comes to dissecting Aeroplane's merits. We all know how he does it, he'll start off quiet, begin dragging and changing one-syllable words, get really loud and then strain to hit those really high notes (and shockingly, succeeds with all of them, really). Regrettably, Mangun has basically set the precedent for any hyper-emotional acoustic troubadour, either wailing grade school level lyrics at one and a half tones from the correct pitch (I know I just went on about how it's nice to hear people sing out of tune, but if it's a third-rate carbon copy of the original singing worse lyrics, well, everybody's got their limits), or singing slightly-above-grade school level poetry, but really sensitively (read: lacking testicles). Unfortunate as this is though, what Mangum has that few or none of his spawn possess is a true organic feel to his voice. The whole thing sounds spontaneous and authentic, and I don't doubt that most of it was. If you turn up your speakers at the end of "Oh Comely," you can hear someone yell out "Holy shit!" in the background, apparently impressed that Mangum was able to complete the whole thing in one take.

And this is something that permeates the whole album, this organic quality. Rob Schneider did a damn fine job producing this record, because the thing really does sound like it's coming from a bunch of guys holed up in some shack in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by a bunch of instruments bought at yard sales that they've sort of learned how to play in the last year. I envision Mangum brooding in the corner while the rest of the band tries to figure out which extra instruments they can use to decorate the songs. With regard to the arrangements, I am a real sucker for slapping on all sorts of weird instruments onto any song, but the same organic quality that cuts through Mangum's voice, again helps the added instrumentation feel genuine and not so gimmicky.

Case in point, "Ghost," which held the title of my favorite song of all time for quite a while is perfect in almost every way. The build-up is sublime - acoustic guitar meets ultra-loud, distorted fuzz bass, soon to be backed by Jeremy Barnes' rickety drum fills and Scott Spillane's horns. Then the tempo picks up, Mangum starts wailing and the song drives and pushes along until finally, the whole thing bursts out at the climax, leaving Julian Koster to take the vocal line by means of an angelic singing saw. It's the apex, really, and it probably wouldn't have worked if one piece of that puzzle was missing. I'm going to stop before the drool short circuits my keyboard.

The album is sequenced pretty flawlessly as well, blending the solo works with the group efforts seamlessly, moving from something sparse like "Two Headed Boy" to the ornate funeral march of "The Fool" right into the fuzz-blast rocker "Holland, 1945" (I truly feel sorry for you if the "2-1-2-3-4" EXPLOSION that kicks off "Holland 1945" does nothing for you.) The anthemic instrumental "Untitled" could have very easily kicked the album off nicely, but instead leaves that for the statelier "King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1" and tosses "Untitled" as the second to last song on the album. The gorgeous "Two Headed Boy, Pt. 2" ends everything, leaving the sound of Mangum putting his guitar down and leaving (right after the final line of the album, "But don't hate her when she gets up to leave") as the album's final impression.

Despite it only being around for eleven years, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has had varying levels of critical success. It was released to mixed reviews, but eventually gained extremely high accolades from all around the indie community, quickly elevating Jeff Mangum from "singer of Neutral Milk Hotel" to "indie God." Right as this was happening, and also certainly due to the immense pressure to follow up Aeroplane (a difficult task for anyone), Mangum disappeared, a move that solved his problem temporarily, but also made him an unfortunate target for the indie paparazzi. Whenever the poor bastard shows up anywhere, it's news, and I don't doubt at all that he despises it. Perhaps his recent appearances, though are in response to a bit of backlash that Aeroplane seems to be receiving now that the hype has died down, with criticisms placed on Mangum's vocal delivery, the everything-but-maybe-the-kitchen-sink instrumentation, and most unfortunately, the album's reputation as a cornerstone of the hipster set.

And maybe if I heard the album for the first time now, I'd be a bit jaded, but as the way things go, it will almost certainly stay with me as a remarkable masterwork of modern music. I wasn't even sure if that would be the case that one night when I was playing these songs on guitar with friends. I wanted to listen to it when I got back to my dorm, but instead I kept putting it off and eventually kinda forgot about it again. And then just the other night, I was feeling kind of lousy and went for a drive and put it on. My doubts were alleviated. It still does it to me. Every goddamn time.

A funny thing about regret: The Butthole Surfers' "Locust Abortion Technician"

2009-03-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Oh God.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, son?"

"What does regret mean?"

I really don't know why this wasn't the first Butthole Surfers album I listened to. I suppose song titles like "I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas" and "The Fart Song" found on Hairway to Steven appealed to the inner fifth-grader in me. It was a fine album, as was Rembrandt Pussyhorse and the Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis EP (although the vomiting at the end of "Comb" is still a bit much.) Still, some of the finest albums in the world don't necessarily leave a fine aftertaste, so I decided to stay a bit away from the Buttholes for a while.

This mindset maintained until I decided to, out of sheer curiosity, check out this bastard spawn of a record on my way home from work last summer. Exhausted and sleep-deprived, I had no choice but to stiffle immense amounts of laughter and shock upon first listening to this, seeing as how I was on a crowded train. And if by chance, the poor soul next to me asked me just what I was listening to that was humoring me so much, and I placed the earbuds in his head only for him to hear the dreaded c-word repeated ad-infinitum at different speeds at the same time, he would call security, run to the next car and barricade the door.

Locust Abortion Technician is an album that nobody in their right minds (or really, in any mind) should like. That is why it is so great.

The ideas of anti-music have obviously been explored for years. John Cage's "4:33," Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and many other works have all tampered with the idea of non-music being music. Locust Abortion Technician however, seems to be a different matter altogether. It's something of an anti-album, a collection of actual songs with (mostly) recognizable song structures and forms. Because the songs are so inherently fucked, and because they're all slammed together mercilessly on the same album, it just shouldn't work. It should be a disturbing, vile, unlistenable mess, but it winds up transcending reason and being brilliant on the virtues of its own pure insanity. There's nothing else like it (which is good, because this world can only handle one Locust Abortion Technician) - it's an anomaly, a strange catch-22 of rock and roll where it works because it shouldn't. Why? Because it absolutely shouldn't.

Maybe it would be best to observe some of the songs on their own, and the album's lead-off track, "Sweat Loaf," sums up things quite nicely. It begins uncharacteristically, with some peaceful synth-string chords that fade in slowly. It's relaxing for about the first thirty seconds, but then it seems to just go on for a bit too long to stay comfortable. With each second from then on, it slowly becomes unnerving, leaving the listener waiting for something to happen, whatever that may be. Finally, the voice of a little boy (or rather one of the Surfers' voices altered in pitch) asks his father (Gibby Haynes... could you imagine Gibby Haynes as your dad?! Gahh) about the meaning of regret. It's a strange but somewhat normal question, although when the boy stutters in different pitches on the word "what," it is clear that something is desperately wrong.

Now, I'm not going to give away the father's response, but it sure caught me off-guard and makes for (no exaggeration) one of the greatest album-opening moments in the history of popular music. And then the band launches into a hellish take on Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf," with Haynes shouting, in his pitch-altered "Gibbytronix" vocals, the phrase "Rape a desire" over and over. Occasionally, the song will break down into a sort of pastoral, clean-toned guitar section for some reason before it goes back into the Sabbath riff. Yeah. I can't really figure it out either. And that's just the first song.

Throughout the course of the album, we visit ugly, blues sludge ("Pittsburgh to Lebanon," both incarnations of "Graveyard"), proto-grindcore ("The O-Men," in which Haynes spouts out nothing but indecipherable gibberish at lightning fast speeds) and a few tunes that are basically unclassifiable. (the frightening "U.S.S.A.," the sonically warped "Hay") "22 Going on 23," which has the nerve to close the album out, features a riff courtesy of guitarist Paul Leary that would make the Melvins tremble in fear, while the audio track of a woman calling in to discuss her sexual assault on a radio program will make the rest of us squirm in discomfort. Thankfully, the woman calling in turned out to be a pathological liar and would call the show every night (Don't think I'll ever say that again in my life), so it's not totally tasteless, although the endless repetition of the radio host's words, "depression, anxiety, rape programs," goes beyond the limits of taste into pure absurdity.

And how about that normal song? "Human Cannonball"? It's a fantastic tune! And no, that's not just because it's a miraculous breath of fresh air into recognizable tonality on an otherwise batshit insane record. Taken out of context, the song still retains its intensity and, believe it or not, catchiness. It features some of the best dual drumming that King Coffey and Teresa Nervosa contributed to a Butthole Surfers recording and additionally, it proves that these guys know how to emote! "Pardon me/I'm only bleeding/But you cut me/To the bone," sings Haynes, trying to get across the idea that beyond the incessant acid trip of a life that he led, he still bleeds like the rest of us.

Oh, and the inner fifth grader in me? The one that thought (and still thinks) that hearing things sped up and slowed down was (and still is) hilarious? Well, the infamous "Kuntz," in which the Surfers take some Thai pop song (completely uncredited in the liner notes) and warp the Thai word "kan" (which translates to "itch") so it sounds like a certain word in the English language, repeating it on top of itself, sped up, slowed down. The whole thing is one of the most bizarre, puerile and downright hysterical pieces of music I have ever heard. And the band doesn't even play on it!

From the ominous synths that start the album to the inexplicable crickets-chirping-and-cows-mooing that ends it, and taking the album cover into account (clowns are okay and all, but on an album like this it just seems like a sick homage to John Wayne Gacy), Locust Abortion Technician is an album like no other. And thank God there's nothing else like it out there. As it stands, the album hardly has a right to even exist; if it were any less bizarre, if its drug-addled pretensions had been any less severe, if the band decided to restrain itself in any way at all, it would just come off as an ugly mess, and an ugly mess it still is, but a brilliant ugly mess it is. It's not only a sonic nightmare of a record, but also a paradoxical nightmare of one, and for that reason alone, it is important and worth listening to, if you dare to, even if you will regret it after it's over.

"Well, son, a funny thing about regret is..."

On Beauty in Ugliness or Music Major Woes

2009-03-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: If this runs off the rails, I'm sorry. I haven't really planned this entry out well at all.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the common area of my suite, reading for class and listening to music. The John Peel sessions recording of Pavement's "Date W/ IKEA" found on the deluxe reissue of Brighten the Corners came on. It sounded awful. Stephen Malkmus was playing all sorts of wrong notes in his solo. Spiral Stairs certainly had a string on his guitar that was tuned way too sharply, and his voice was completely out of key. The whole affair sounded completely ramshackle and reckless. And I loved it. And I thought I should write about it.

As a music major, and I guess in the world of classical music in general, emphasis is quite understandably placed on perfection, or I suppose, as close to perfection as is possible. No wrong notes, everything has to be in tune, everything is formal. My particularly cynical view (probably shared by millions of like-minded cynics) is that classical performers are expected to perform music with the efficiency and accuracy of a computer.

In the 1980s, Frank Zappa wrote a bunch of classical pieces and had the London Symphony Orchestra perform them for a studio release. Zappa was extremely unhappy with the results of their performances and very heavily edited the recording in post-production, covering up out of tune instruments and wrong notes and whatnot. He also simply did not enjoy working with the orchestra musicians, and so for his next set of classical compositions, he decided to do away with the orchestra entirely. For many of his classical works after this incident, Zappa used a synclavier, an early synthesizer, as a replacement for human musicians. His synclavier-performed album Jazz From Hell won the man a Grammy.

Now, most people, for better or worse, do not think like Frank Zappa, and the Cleveland Orchestra won't be replaced by robots anytime soon. This is due to the powerful "human" factor, which Zappa identifies (sorry I can't pull any quotes directly from the book, I can't find my copy right now, so this is all paraphrasing) as some sort of weird notion that music should be performed by humans so that it maintains some sort of warmth or emotion or something like that. The inherent and obvious problem with this is that humans are flawed. Big time. They make mistakes. They play wrong notes. Percussionists slowly change tempos. Oboists squeak. Trumpeters miss partials. But it's all caught up in this paradox of perfection that even the greatest orchestras of the world fail to achieve much of the time.

And so, naturally and almost unnoticeably, I've been gravitating toward listening to music with glaring flaws. Furthermore, I'll gravitate toward music that not only embraces its humanity and imperfection but tries to achieve absolute ugliness. The whole matter has been extremely liberating, and I've learned an awful lot from it. Music does not need to be tonal. More music should contain squalls of deafening, piercing feedback. Singers do not need to hit notes, nor do their lyrics need to mean something profound or even distinct. More singers should scream non-sequiturs and obscenities in wrong keys. Hell, musicians don't even need to know how to play their instruments. If they've written a good song, then that's what matters.

And it's Zappa's "human" factor that makes such ugly music so appealing. Steve Albini and Calvin Johnston and David Yow know they're imperfect. They're not trying to be anything else. They are going for power, for sincerity, with guts and gore and passion, and that's what matters. This is why when I hear fellow music majors perform at recital class each week, I almost want to hear them play wrong notes, just to prove that they aren't totally automated just yet. And so long as they can get into their performances, no matter how poorly they may perform, I can never judge them harshly. If they've got that passion, and if the music itself is good (which is almost always is), then it's a job well done by me. (I also can't really judge them because that would be rather hypocritical since I'm not much of a clarinet player by any means but that's a different subject for a different day that will probably never come.) And all this is why I could never go into the classical music industry. Oh well.

And then after hearing people try to achieve perfection for an hour, I can go back to my suite and, much to the chagrin of my suitemates (sorry), figure out new ways to make godawful noise on my guitar. And then later on in band, I'll be one of the few to enjoy the weird, modern, kind of atonal piece just because it's a fresh break from the normal routine. I'll gladly embrace tritones. Minor seconds are my best friends in those moments.

Geez, have I just summed up my philosophies on music? I sure hope not. That was too damn easy. I'm sure there will be glaring omissions/contradictions.

I guess my love of noise rock was inevitable. Zappa's Varése and Stravinsky-isms worked their way into my head, and Tom Waits probably has the worst voice in rock and roll. It was just a matter of time until feedback would have the same beautiful timbre as the vibrato of a violin. And now, as it stands, Scratch Acid and Drive Like Jehu sound like Beethoven to me, even if to you it sounds vomit-inducing. That No Age concert last year was something of an epiphany too, even if I only noticed it long after I left the Grog Shop.

Obviously, I'm not outright rejecting tonality, nor am I listening to the Butthole Surfers just to get a rise out of people. Many days I need a good shot of Neil Hannon for a good balance. As I write this, Scott Walker is crooning out of my speakers. Early Scott Walker. Not the weird modern atonal stuff.

But, I guess my message is that limiting yourself to preconceived notions of what music should sound like is silly, and even sillier than that is the notion that everything needs to be pitch perfect. If it has that fervor behind it, and if you dig the composition, then that's what should matter. Humans should embrace their imperfections and work with them. There's an absurd amount of beauty to be found in ugliness. You know all this already. None of this is profound or revelatory, but maybe we all need a good reminder of all this every now and then. Basically, if you can't get past the noise of The Birthday Party, you're missing out on a lot of fun.

So, Mr. Kannberg, keep singing out of key. Don't you dare tune your guitar. And then maybe, just maybe, can you get Pavement back together? Sorry, we're all just desperate.

Next entry, I'll stop writing about myself. It'll be a music review.

I've succumbed to a meme to get this going again.

2009-03-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

Hooey, it's been a while. I'm sorry about this, if you feel that an apology is in order - I'll dole out the lame excuse that things have been getting busy on all sorts of fronts, plus I was flu-ridden for over a week. But now I'm home on break and I have all the time in the world to update this thing! I'd like to do it twice before I head back to Cleveland, so consider this the first of those two.

Regrettably, it's a meme.

But it's a pretty nifty one! You're supposed to just write the names of twenty-five albums that can essentially sum up your life in chronological order. I'm going to take it a step further an explain briefly how exactly each one has made a significant impact on my life. Hotcha! And it works nicely because since this blog is still in its development, you can take this as a sort of "get-to-know-your-blogger" kinda thingy or something like that.

Here we go:

1. Thriller - Michael Jackson - Age 2/3. What isn't an impressionable toddler to like about Michael Jackson? (insert joke of your choice/offensiveness here) He had style, rhythm, the moves, everything. So I spent hours trying to replicate those dance moves in front of a large mirror in my living room. This gave me the helpful revelation that I would never be a good dancer, but it also left me with what was the first album to make an impact in my life.

2. Out of Time - R.E.M. - Age 3. Mostly just "Losing My Religion," although my God, I was obsessed with that tune. There I was, at age three, singing "That's me in the corner/That's me in the spotlight/Losing my religion," over and over.

3. River of Dreams - Billy Joel - Age 4. What is so often referred to as Billy Joel's worst album happens to be the one I hold nearest and dearest to me. This was, for some weird reason, the soundtrack to my preschool years.

4. Junta - Phish - Age 6. This is where things started to pick up. My cousin made my dad a cassette copy of Junta for him to listen to and when he put it on, I was the one who got hooked. It was certainly the combination of album opener "Fee"s bossa-nova rhythms, story about a weasel and lyric, "She took that piece of paper and sliced him on the nipple" (I probably found that hilarious back then, shut up.) that captured me so intently. Soon that song and eventually the whole album led to what was the official start of the obsessive music-nerdism that I carry with me to this day. Blame Junta.

5. Any early/middle period Phish album - Age 6. Truth be told, although I normally tell people that A Picture of Nectar was the first album I really properly owned. It was most likely the first CD, although the more I think about it, the more I figure that something like Hoist or Rift, which I owned on cassette, came first.

6. Billy Breathes - Phish - Age 6/7. This was where the concept of a new release entered my brain. We received the CD in the mail via the Phish phan club on the day of its release. That's when the realization hit me that I was one of the first people ever to hear the studio recordings on that album. Blew my tiny mind.

7. Tarkus - Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Age 7. My dad had just received a 4-disc ELP box set from a friend and I heard the sounds of "Tarkus" coming from the computer room. I walked in, saw that the thing was twenty minutes long and divided into seven sections and became immediately intrigued. And suddenly, the seventh year of my life was awash with Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

8. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John - Age 8. Honestly, I don't really remember where I first heard this album or what song exactly turned me on to Elton John, but this was my favorite album of his when I was young. Yes folks, this teenage hepcat who digs Sonic Youth and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart grew up listening to jam bands, 70s prog and piano pop.

9. The Beatles (The White Album) - The Beatles - Age 8. Alright, this makes a little more sense, although what probably will still be a little baffling is that hearing "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" at my dad's friend's house is what finally burst the Beatles bubble for me. Heard that song, loved it, investigated further, discovered just what the first eight years of my life had been missing. My first sound manipulation experiments also came with this album. I ruined the grooves of "Revolution 9" in my determination to make that song(?) even weirder than it is. Then again, the white cover had a bunch of old phone numbers in red marker on it, so I didn't feel too bad.

10. Child is Father to the Man - Blood, Sweat and Tears - Age 9ish. My dad's favorite album. It rubbed off on me. Still one of my favorites, and probably the first album to give me a real appreciation of use of horns and strings on a record. Also furthered my sound manipulation because for some reason one day I decided to play this entire album backwards, manually. WHY?!

11. Aqualung - Jethro Tull - Age 9. I'd already seen Jethro Tull live at this point, although I never fully explored their discography until I was about nine years old. This was an absolute favorite, although the culmination of my Tull obsession was at a life-changing karaoke performance of the album's title track at my relatives' block party in Central Jersey. Man, that was still back when people waved lighters!

12. Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd - Age 10 (roughly). I remember asking my parents permission before I listened to this one just because I knew Pink Floyd had a reputation for being weird. But I was given the full go-ahead for this bad boy. Wish I could go back and listen to this one for the first time again, probably more so than any other album on this list, and I'm not sure why.

13. Tommy - The Who - Age 11. At this point, my major musical discoveries were a succession of classic rock bands, marked by some album I'd heard about somewhere or another, and these obsessions would usually last from a few months to a year (as opposed to right now where I just get a bunch of different stuff and try to listen to it all once, at once). Why Tommy over Led Zeppelin II or Days of Future Passed? Because I still think the Who are as incredible now as I did back then. (Postscript: You can also replace this with the Kinks' Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, although that didn't happen for a few years.)

14. We're Only in it For the Money - Frank Zappa - Age 12/13. I'd known about Frank Zappa for many many years at this point, mostly as that weirdo guitar player who did "Joe's Garage," "Muffin Man" and that song about dental floss my dad used to sing to me. Hearing this one for the first time I guess sort of started me on my second phase of music-listening - my slow descent into weirdness and experimentation. That and my years-long Frank Zappa album collecting, still leaving him as (far and beyond) the most represented artist in my iTunes library.

15. OK Computer - Radiohead - Age 14. You know, I kept seeing all these "Best albums of all time lists" and most of the entries made sense. Sgt. Pepper's, Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin IV... I knew all those albums inside out. But what is this OK Computer thing I keep seeing at number 7? I had to find out. And it's a good thing I did; if not I might still think that the only good albums made after 1980 were by Phish, Pearl Jam and Primus... yikes!

16. Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan - Age 15. I'd tried to give Dylan a chance prior to my sophomore year of high school, but I had a difficult time doing so. His out-of-tune voice, relatively simple song structures and acoustic strumming hadn't appealed to my prog-addled mind. Once I gave this record (the earliest Dylan album in the vinyl collection) a spin, suddenly the lyrics jumped right out of me and I found something beautiful in his weary voice. Also, with my new-found ability to play the guitar, Bob Dylan became the first musician who I really, truly aspired to be.

17. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand - Age 15. This album essentially taught me that not only was there plenty of good music produced after 1980, but that there was plenty of good music being produced today. Plus, I got very lucky in that this was the big party album during my sophomore year of high school. And dear God, it could have been so much worse.

Here, things start to get shaky, because around this time I started making weekly trips to Best Buy and just splurge on music with friends. This is probably where my "modern" listening era starts, or something like that.

18. Funeral - The Arcade Fire - Age 15. A friend of mine bought this due to its rapid accumulation of praise, and upon looking at the packaging, I originally wrote it off as some artsy-fartsty abstract pretentious thing I wasn't going to like very much. This impression lasted for about forty minutes until we put the record on. I learned that not only was there good music being produced today, but that following new releases was something I should really start devoting some effort to doing.

19. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel - Age 15/16. Took me a few listens to get into it, but oh boy... this was the big healing album of my emotionally crippling, retrospectively hilarious teenage years. Typical, but sincere - not to mention that it was the first album (of only two) to knock The Beatles off the number one spot of my non-existent "favorite albums of all time" list. (Postscript: As it turns out, it's still got 'dem magical healing powers! For me at least. I've been wanting to write about this one for a while. Expect it soon.)

20. Rain Dogs - Tom Waits - Age 15/16. Picked this one up on a bit of a whim and gave it a few listens, thought it was interesting, but I didn't really return to it until, for some reason, I almost impulsively decided to explore the rest of Waits' discography. Still, this is the one that introduced me to my current favorite musician and for that reason alone it is one of the most significant albums of my entire life.

21. Double Nickels on the Dime - The Minutemen - Age 17. A friend of mine bought this one for me for my seventeenth birthday. In doing so, he inadvertently gave me my single greatest jumping point into the underground. Thanks, Luke!

22. GodWeenSatan - Ween

23. Flood - They Might Be Giants

24. Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

(Age 17-18)

Those three essentially just turned me on to three of my current favorite bands. There's nothing terribly significant about them in relation to personal events or development really, nor are they my favorite albums from those artists (Those are The Mollusk, Lincoln and Henry's Dream, respectively), but they introduced me to artists who did have some sort of big impact on me, so there.

25. Mclusky Do Dallas - Mclusky - Age 19. This one will change each time I look at this. It's just an album I'm really listening to more than normal at any given time.

So there we go. That's my life in 25 albums, or something kind of close to it. Many of those won't end up on any all-time favorites lists, but it would be a crime not to give them their dues, so enjoy it while you can, River of Dreams!

In conclusion, I should have the patience to read over these entries for obvious spelling and grammatical errors. I'm sure there are some in there. Maybe I can make a contest out of it!

Stuffy Review #1: Antony and the Johnsons' "The Crying Light"

2009-01-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

GYARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I'll tell ya, writing reviews for official publications can be pretty tough sometimes. I can get away with so much garbage here that could never fly in something like The Case Western Reserve University Observer, which I write stuff for. I can write incomplete sentences, I can curse all I want, I don't need to thoroughly explain things so much, I can assume the readers already know so much information about any given artist - otherwise, why would they care to even read the review right? And thus, the great popular draw to blogging.

What's even more difficult, however, is writing a formal review of something you're really emotionally attached to. Like Antony and the Johnsons. I swear, maybe I'm just susceptible to displays of hyper-emotion and grandiosity, and that's very possible, but their music drills nails into my heart every time. I do love me some melodrama and sappy orchestral arrangements just as much as I love me some raw, nasty punk shit (see Mclusky review below), and most of the time, Antony and the Johnsons is my number one prescribed drug for just that. Usually, it'll leave me feeling melancholy in the very least, and at some times, just downright depressed! Hey, if you ever see me lookin' down and out, there's a durned good chance that Antony Hegarty was a part of my day in some way!

BUT IT'S JUST SO FRIGGIN' BEAUTIFUL... GAHHHHH

And "durned" is apparently a word! Didn't know that.

Now you see, folks, that stuff could never fly in The Observer and that's why I have this blog - so I could ramble on about crap incoherently and see if people can take it as (semi-) serious criticism. Or something like that. Anyway, here's what CAN fly in The Observer, and it will fly this Friday somewhere in the Focus section, probably in a somewhat cleaned up and edited version, courtesy of my friend, colleague and co-worker Cory. But here's the original manuscript, warts and all:

ACTUAL REVIEW STARTS HERE:

Antony Hegarty is nearing forty years old, yet his music bears out the notion that he has the wisdom of an eighty year old and the spirit of a child, and most certainly, a voice that is ghostly, too surreal and sublime to even come from a living thing. If 2005’s I Am a Bird Now suggested that Hegarty and his revolving door of musicians, The Johnsons, were an emotive force to be reckoned with, their latest, The Crying Light solidifies it. This is a truly gorgeous work of modern music, transcending the limits of beauty and creating something otherworldly, yet still ultimately human.

The beauty of Antony and the Johnsons’ work is easy to miss out on, particularly because Hegarty’s warbly croon is an acquired taste. He sounds like no other singer out there, lost in time somewhere between 1920s cabaret, 1960s soul and today’s indie vocalizations. He knows that his voice is a unique instrument of its own, and he uses it wisely. Whether he is belting his lungs out, on the soulful “Aeon,” or if he’s filling in negative space with a soft croon, as on something like “One Dove,” his voice is always effective. When backed by modern classical composer Nico Muhly’s rich arrangements on The Crying Light, the result is nothing short of sublime.

Sonically, The Crying Light is very similar to his previous efforts, although a few subtle distinctions reveal that Antony and the Johnsons are not simply repeating themselves. First of all, Hegarty’s lyrics deal less and less with his personal issues of transgenderism, a subject that no matter how universal he could make it appear, was still alienating to some extent. Those themes found in songs like “For Today I Am a Boy” and “You Are My Sister” are gone, and much broader, wide-reaching themes of alienation, desperation and a need to escape the physical and spiritual confines of Earth that were found in songs like “Hope There’s Someone” are now given fuller detail.

The main difference between a song like “Hope There’s Someone” and something like “Another World,” from The Crying Light, however is that in the former, Hegarty fears the inevitability of death, but in the latter, he welcomes some sort of passage to another world, despite the devastating sentiments of “I’ll miss the animals/I’m gonna miss you all.” Elsewhere, themes of a need to find comfort outside of this world are found in some of the album’s most melodramatic moments. After a sudden flirtation with the minor key in “Daylight and the Sun,” the great revelation is revealed in a lifting major section, as Hegarty sings, “Now I cry for daylight.” The album’s final track, “Everglade” concludes these thoughts. “When I’m lying sweetly in my bed,” he sings, “Then I stop/My body stops crying for home,” amidst a rush of oboes and violins.

The second great difference between The Crying Light and I Am a Bird Now is that Antony no longer needs to place focus on guest artists like Devendra Banhart and Rufus Wainwright. Now, he goes it alone, a suitable move for a man whose voice does not need accoutrements and support from others, no matter how notable they may be. Proof is found in the uplifting “Aeon,” which rivals I Am a Bird Now’s neo-soul rave-up, “Fistful of Love,” which featured guitar and vocal work from Lou Reed. Elsewhere, the bouncy “Kiss My Name” and gentle waltz, “Epilepsy is Dancing” also provide respite from the darkness, marking not only some of the album’s lighter moments, but also some of its best.

Perhaps his hyper-emotiveness could become overbearing, but the sincerity and earnestness of Hegarty’s voice and the lush performances of the Johnsons prevent any moment of the album from sounding contrived or banal. And if the melodrama is too much, one only need turn toward one of the album’s highlights, “Dust and Water.” Similar to the album’s stark cover, displaying butoh dander Kazuo Ohno in an epiphanic pose, almost on the verge of death, it is easy to picture Hegarty singing this song’s melismatic chant in a similar position, with his trembling, yet assured voice backed by nothing but a quiet drone. It is a moment of utter beauty in an album full of them, from an artist known for them, and while The Crying Light may not find itself too far removed from Hegarty’s previous work, it cements the singer’s reputation as one of the most unique and important voices in today’s popular music.

Phew. So that's as much about the album as I'd like to muster up for now. I've listened to it a lot over the last week and it still hasn't worn its welcome. So ch-ch-ch-check it out. It's pretty incredible.

And while we're at it, apparently, Antony and the Johnsons were on an episode of Later with Jools Holland! Neato!

And thanks to Bert and Bruce for helping me out with analytics.

And damn you blogger for leaving everything bold.

Reviewing the Reviewers: "Mclusky Do Dallas"

2009-01-17T14:54:00.000-08:00

My former colleague, good friend and fellow Blogostar, Sean Rose mentioned in his most recent blog post, a set of reviews of Todd Rundgren LPs, that I should "UPDATE [my] BLOG, you bastard."

To be fair, it has been a while, since before the new year to be specific, that I've updated this blog. I guess it's just because nothing has really jumped out at me yet that has seemed like good and obvious fodder for me to review. A few things have happened in the last half month though that have helped me arrive to this bit of writing.

a. I've been plowing through a whole bunch of records I haven't heard before. Now that I'm back at Case Western Reserve, I've got all sorts of access to all sorts of good stuff, so I'm taking full advantage of it.

b. I've sort of pseudo-officially adapted songwriter/musician/recording engineer/honest businessman Steve Albini as a professional role model.

So, I kinda wanted to write about something Albini-related. Initially I wanted to do a sort of in-depth, stream-of-consciousness analysis of Shellac's "Prayer to God," probably the most frightening song I've ever heard (and regrettably, still the only Shellac song I've heard... what college radio station doesn't have Shellac CDs?!). But something like that could obviously get very wordy and obnoxious. Thankfully, one album has recently stood out as great reviewing material, and it happened to be recorded by Mr. Albini! Even more important though is that it features the talents of three young, pissed off Welshmen.

ACTUAL REVIEW STARTS HERE

Hoo boy. Right from the get-go, we've got these subdued, rapid-fire hi-hat hits that are just waiting to explode. And then we get an urgent, bleating voice shouting out surreal lyrics, "Eat what you are while you're falling apart/And it opened a can of worms!" And before we know it, we're on a speedy start-stop-start-stop roller coaster of reckless punk youth blasting and beating away at their instruments, heightened by that voice which just will not stop screaming "ARE YOU COMING?!" over and over again, somewhere blurring the line between intense sexuality, and, [gulp], violence. And then it's all over in under two minutes.

Indie-punks Mclusky (or mclusky, but my OCD just tells me to capitalize the band name. Sorry.) assembled a rough-around-the-edges, yet tightly performed album in 2002 with their second release, Mclusky Do Dallas. The band, coupled with produce- I mean, recording engineer Steve Albini's no-bullshit production puts forward thirty-five minutes of turbulent, FCC-disapproved punk rock.

I suppose if Mclusky Does Dallas calls to mind anything in particular, it would be the Pixies, Surfer Rosa era, due to the Albini engineering and Andy Falkous' ranting, schizophrenic, Black Francis-esque vocals. To pigeonhole the band in this way, though, would do Mclusky a great injustice. What they've done is they've taken a beloved formula and built upon it, amped it up with even more violence and vitriol and the end result is stunning.

That opening song, "Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues" serves as a brilliant mission statement from the group, and a host of speedy, blistering tunes follows. Leaving the listeners no time to catch their breaths, "No New Wave No Fun" follows immediately, with the abrasive chorus of "Try and find a better way/There is no other better way" threatening to knock the listeners directly on their sorry asses. Additional hardcore goodies follow, in the form of the self-explanatory "The World Loves Us and Is Our Bitch," the good-advice-offering "Chases" ("Don't go fucking in the barn because the barn's on fire!" Thanks, guys!), and the album's single, and perhaps its best song, "To Hell With Good Intentions." That track revolves around simple playground taunts, "My dad is better than your dad," "My band is better than your band." The one that comes up most often though, is "My love is bigger than your love," an overtly sexual taunt that, when coupled with Falkous' acerbic delivery and the band's persistent dissonance becomes downright threatening. And with every punctuated "Sing it!" you can almost feel Mclusky shoving your face even farther into the mud. It all culminated with a firestorm of noise and Falkous screaming over it all like a mad preacher, "And we're all going straight to hell!" Well, if you say so...

But alas, this is an album with multiple dimensions and tempos. The band can be just as menacing when they slow things down a bit, as on the humorous, mocking "Collagen Rock" or the most Pixies-esque track on the album, "Alan is a Cowboy Killer." (or should I say, ALANISACOWBOYKILLER!) "Fuck This Band" has no guitar at all, just a clean, slinky bass line from Jonathan Chapple and slow, steady drums courtesy of Matthew Harding, with Falkous muttering a host of self-deprecating lyrics on top (the best of which is "Fuck this band/Cause they swear too much.") The end result is exceedingly creepy.

Unfortunately, some of the sentiments of "Fuck This Band" might have been a bit more true than anyone would have figured at the time, because Mclusky broke up three years after Do Dallas was released, with only one more album to follow. Still, in today's world of ultra-slick pop and hyper-orchestrated indie, it's always a thrill to listen to something from this era that will kick you in the balls as hard as Mclusky Do Dallas does.

Now if only I could play it on the radio...