This is my favorite They Might Be Giants album and not just because John Linnell was working on it while renting out my ex-wife's basement in the condo I barely lived in but bought with her.
Late '90's Brooklyn. Prospect Park is quickly becoming Baby Central and I am helping it along. My son is almost two and the light of my life. Which is dark otherwise.
We'd signed the papers on the condo simultaneously discussing divorce. When we were getting ready to move in, I packed my things separately and almost got my own place. After a few fitful unhappy months in the condo, I got a basement apartment right around the corner and started the new deal.
Her family are notorious for buying property and then completely redoing it. This first floor brownstone had a gigantic unfinished basement which her brother, father, and mother transformed into a nicely lit railroad apartment, only with no kitchen or shower. Bathroom.
She put out a hand written cardboard sign on her front stoop advertising a studio for rent for an artist. I was skeptical. When I am skeptical of her she is usually right. And vice-versa. Which is why we are much better off divorced. A mere 15 minutes later a nice guy stopped by and inquired after the space. It was John Linnell.
He lived in the building next door and needed a work space. He was installed within a week and the lovely sounds of They Might Be Giants and John Linnell would often waft up into the kitchen as I made my son a PBJ while waiting for his mom to get back from work. Then I'd trudge over to my own basement and record some strange concoction of my own.
The songs on 'No!' are right for kids because they seem as if they were written by kids. Most kids music is heinous, almost like religious music that is only intended for the choir. The makers of most kid music seem to think that if they sing really slow and over-enunciate then kids will fall all over themselves with enjoyment. I've rarely found this to be the case.
'No!' is scary at times. It is angry. It is confused. It is hilarious. It is sad. In other words, 'No!' sounds like what it FEELS like to be a kid.
At that time in my life I needed a kids album to make me feel like I might be okay in the end. And like most kids, I wasn't really a kid.
I was a person.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
38 Greatest Albums: The Replacements - 'Let It Be'
I have written at great length about The Replacements on this blog. I will continue to do so. I write about them in my head ALL THE TIME. I never thought of this list as being numerically accurate and this album proves it. Because if there was one album I had to have on that deserted island everyone is hoping to be banished to it would be this. It is my favorite album of all time, bar none. It may say 38 in front of the post but this is the 1.
I've written about the context in which I first heard this album on my sister's blog.
SIDE ONE
I've written about seeing The Replacements in concert.
1. I Will Dare
I've written about seeing Westerberg solo and almost turning my back on him.
2. Favorite Thing
I've written about the flip side of that almost treason and how his solo work has become just as important to me.
3. We're Comin' Out
So what am I going to write today?
I'm not. You are going to write this review. To do this, you are going to travel back in time to a night in your life when everything came together. You are probably a teenager, but closer to 20 than 12. You've probably also just realized that you aren't immortal and that realization has led you to embrace absurdity and intoxication.
4. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
On the night in question you go to a party somewhere with some people you just met. The unfamiliar nature of these people leaves the night with a quality of danger, as if everything could go wrong at any moment. You still live at home and you've lied to your parents about where you are so if anything does go wrong you are on your own.
5. Androgynous
The party is over crowded and over loud. Feeling untethered doesn't impede your confidence, it merely spurs over-compensation. You are broader than usual, funnier than usual, drunker than usual, angrier than usual, more entertaining than usual, more dangerous than usual, more everything.
6. Black Diamond
Your extremity attracts someone at the party and before you can drop your act and admit that you are young and far from home you are in a dark room doing things you've never done before, or at least doing them in different ways. Still in the dark, things start to go a bit haywire and the tenuous connection you have with this stranger starts to seem ominous and oppressive, not youthful and free.
END SIDE ONE
You extricate yourself with a little bit of drama.
SIDE TWO
The party hasn't noticed but you approach it all differently now. After all, you've just been through the death of a romance.
1. Unsatisfied
Your absence was not noted by your new acquaintances and this leaves you feeling like a balloon without a string. Why don't you just float on out of here? You do. The streets are dark and shiny from the rain and your breath is visible. You only know that your childhood home is east of here. You begin to walk.
2. Seen Your Video
Cellphones do not exist yet.
3. Gary's Got A Boner
After an hour of wandering, things start to look vaguely familiar, residential/business giving way to business/residential. Your buzz is wearing off and the combination of the cold and the cigarettes is edifying. Fuck that whole scene. You won't be hanging out with those morons anymore. And what the hell was up with that slut in the bedroom? Lucky you cut that shit off when you did or you might have woken up with more than just a hangover tomorrow.
4. Sixteen Blue
Quarter for a cup of coffee. Why do you feel so much older than you are? Aren't you supposed to be a teenager? Why are you huddling against the cold and feeling the weight of the world? Why couldn't you Star Trek right back into your bed?
5. Answering Machine
You throw a rock at a sign and hit a parked car.
It hurts to run but you don't feel quite safely far enough away from the scene of the crime. How dumb was that. What is your deal? You just don't give a fuck about a shit or a shit about a fuck. Fuck a luck a duck.
Should have gotten that other girls number, not the slut. Maybe next time. Almost home. Fuck home...quarter for another cup. Wait for your real friends to wake up and save you from this nightmare. Which was actually fun. So what the fuck do you know?
Let it be.
If it was good enough for The Beatles, it's good enough for you.
I've written about the context in which I first heard this album on my sister's blog.
SIDE ONE
I've written about seeing The Replacements in concert.
1. I Will Dare
I've written about seeing Westerberg solo and almost turning my back on him.
2. Favorite Thing
I've written about the flip side of that almost treason and how his solo work has become just as important to me.
3. We're Comin' Out
So what am I going to write today?
I'm not. You are going to write this review. To do this, you are going to travel back in time to a night in your life when everything came together. You are probably a teenager, but closer to 20 than 12. You've probably also just realized that you aren't immortal and that realization has led you to embrace absurdity and intoxication.
4. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
On the night in question you go to a party somewhere with some people you just met. The unfamiliar nature of these people leaves the night with a quality of danger, as if everything could go wrong at any moment. You still live at home and you've lied to your parents about where you are so if anything does go wrong you are on your own.
5. Androgynous
The party is over crowded and over loud. Feeling untethered doesn't impede your confidence, it merely spurs over-compensation. You are broader than usual, funnier than usual, drunker than usual, angrier than usual, more entertaining than usual, more dangerous than usual, more everything.
6. Black Diamond
Your extremity attracts someone at the party and before you can drop your act and admit that you are young and far from home you are in a dark room doing things you've never done before, or at least doing them in different ways. Still in the dark, things start to go a bit haywire and the tenuous connection you have with this stranger starts to seem ominous and oppressive, not youthful and free.
END SIDE ONE
You extricate yourself with a little bit of drama.
SIDE TWO
The party hasn't noticed but you approach it all differently now. After all, you've just been through the death of a romance.
1. Unsatisfied
Your absence was not noted by your new acquaintances and this leaves you feeling like a balloon without a string. Why don't you just float on out of here? You do. The streets are dark and shiny from the rain and your breath is visible. You only know that your childhood home is east of here. You begin to walk.
2. Seen Your Video
Cellphones do not exist yet.
3. Gary's Got A Boner
After an hour of wandering, things start to look vaguely familiar, residential/business giving way to business/residential. Your buzz is wearing off and the combination of the cold and the cigarettes is edifying. Fuck that whole scene. You won't be hanging out with those morons anymore. And what the hell was up with that slut in the bedroom? Lucky you cut that shit off when you did or you might have woken up with more than just a hangover tomorrow.
4. Sixteen Blue
Quarter for a cup of coffee. Why do you feel so much older than you are? Aren't you supposed to be a teenager? Why are you huddling against the cold and feeling the weight of the world? Why couldn't you Star Trek right back into your bed?
5. Answering Machine
You throw a rock at a sign and hit a parked car.
It hurts to run but you don't feel quite safely far enough away from the scene of the crime. How dumb was that. What is your deal? You just don't give a fuck about a shit or a shit about a fuck. Fuck a luck a duck.
Should have gotten that other girls number, not the slut. Maybe next time. Almost home. Fuck home...quarter for another cup. Wait for your real friends to wake up and save you from this nightmare. Which was actually fun. So what the fuck do you know?
Let it be.
If it was good enough for The Beatles, it's good enough for you.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
39 Greatest Albums: Sinead O'Connor - 'The Lion And The Cobra'
Madonna. Cyndi Lauper. Laura Branigan. Cher. Debbie Gibson. Tiffany. Whitney Houston. Janet Jackson. Jody Watley. Suzanne Vega. Gloria Estefan. Sheena Easton.
These are some of the female names I saw while quickly glancing at '1987 Music' on Wikipedia.
In November of that year, a 20 year old Irish chick with a shaved head released the album she'd recorded while pregnant. I know her following album was the one that sent her into the stratosphere, but when you consider the context in which it was released, this album grows in its importance every year. It is also still ahead of its time sonically.
There were almost no female auteurs/pop stars at this point. They were either packaged dance music stars or singer/songwriter hippie chicks. Sinead was like the appearance of The Sex Pistols to male rock music. She changed the rules and left so-called 'edgy' females in the dust. I mean, Melissa Etheridge? Compared to Sinead she seems like a boozy karaoke artist.
Just like punk music exposed the myth of hard rock by being infinitely harder, Sinead showed that whatever was passing for female aggression in those days was merely a come-on dressed up to look like rebellion. Sinead was not trying to turn you on if you were a man. She'd had it with men in general and she was only 20. This of course turned her into a giant sex symbol to both men and women.
The song I'm going to single out is the epic 'Troy'. It showcases the genius O'Connor has in blowing the personal up into some unholy conflagration of myth and history. She describes a passionate youthful love affair in the specific context of modern day Dublin. Long grass, summer rain.
But something has gone wrong and the affair has ended. When she sings, 'There is no other Troy/For you to burn' the song stops being simply about these two specific people, or about O'Conner at all. Who can sustain a love affair in the modern age? How can such passion be free to live in the context of a grimy urban shattered landscape of divorce and religious oppression? How is it that the carnal embrace of two young lovers no longer means anything pure or wonderful? How do those young lovers view themselves under the weight of a world that has turned its back so firmly on purity or wonder?
These are the questions that she leaves me with. Without her there is no Alanis, there is no KT Tunstall, there is no Pink, there is no Lily Allen, maybe not even a Courtney Love. She single-handedly dragged female rock music into the modern age. And she did it with 9 songs in 1987.
1. Jackie
2. Mandinka
3. Jerusalem
4. Just Like U Said It Would B
5. Never Get Old
6. Troy
7. I Want Your (Hands on Me)
8. Drink Before the War
9. Just Call Me Joe
She's crazy. But it just might be a lunatic we're looking for.
These are some of the female names I saw while quickly glancing at '1987 Music' on Wikipedia.
In November of that year, a 20 year old Irish chick with a shaved head released the album she'd recorded while pregnant. I know her following album was the one that sent her into the stratosphere, but when you consider the context in which it was released, this album grows in its importance every year. It is also still ahead of its time sonically.
There were almost no female auteurs/pop stars at this point. They were either packaged dance music stars or singer/songwriter hippie chicks. Sinead was like the appearance of The Sex Pistols to male rock music. She changed the rules and left so-called 'edgy' females in the dust. I mean, Melissa Etheridge? Compared to Sinead she seems like a boozy karaoke artist.
Just like punk music exposed the myth of hard rock by being infinitely harder, Sinead showed that whatever was passing for female aggression in those days was merely a come-on dressed up to look like rebellion. Sinead was not trying to turn you on if you were a man. She'd had it with men in general and she was only 20. This of course turned her into a giant sex symbol to both men and women.
The song I'm going to single out is the epic 'Troy'. It showcases the genius O'Connor has in blowing the personal up into some unholy conflagration of myth and history. She describes a passionate youthful love affair in the specific context of modern day Dublin. Long grass, summer rain.
But something has gone wrong and the affair has ended. When she sings, 'There is no other Troy/For you to burn' the song stops being simply about these two specific people, or about O'Conner at all. Who can sustain a love affair in the modern age? How can such passion be free to live in the context of a grimy urban shattered landscape of divorce and religious oppression? How is it that the carnal embrace of two young lovers no longer means anything pure or wonderful? How do those young lovers view themselves under the weight of a world that has turned its back so firmly on purity or wonder?
These are the questions that she leaves me with. Without her there is no Alanis, there is no KT Tunstall, there is no Pink, there is no Lily Allen, maybe not even a Courtney Love. She single-handedly dragged female rock music into the modern age. And she did it with 9 songs in 1987.
1. Jackie
2. Mandinka
3. Jerusalem
4. Just Like U Said It Would B
5. Never Get Old
6. Troy
7. I Want Your (Hands on Me)
8. Drink Before the War
9. Just Call Me Joe
She's crazy. But it just might be a lunatic we're looking for.
Friday, December 12, 2008
40 Greatest Albums: Elvis Costello - 'King of America'
My junior year of college was Dickensian. Best and worst. I rented a house right near the ocean with two insane good friends, I was in a string of great plays which were insular universes of creativity and sexual tension, and I drove a Karmann Ghia, a car I'd always wanted to own.
The first play of the year was 'Biloxi Blues' and it was a magical process. The combination of the military content and the freewheeling nature of a college theater crowd made for an amazing atmosphere. We all shaved our heads and started doing pushups without provocation.
My soundtrack for this play was Elvis Costello's 'King of America' which had been released a couple of years earlier.
Now, Elvis and I have had to break up. Once I started writing songs his influence was so immense that I sort of had to denounce him and concentrate on other artists. But my singing and writing style will always be very indebted to him and to this album in particular.
While working out to get in shape for the play I would sing along to this album. This doesn't sound like a big deal but when you try to sing along it is a workout all on its own. He holds notes, bends them, modulates the intensity of his delivery...it is truly masterful singing.
The cast party for 'Biloxi Blues' is still burned into my brain. People were on the roof. A mass leap from the porch to the backyard occurred. My roommate had purchased 50 shot glasses for like 10 bucks and insisted that the party kick off with a ritual. He laid out the shot glasses along the railing of the porch and filled each with Southern Comfort, I think. Everyone had to do the shot and then jump off the porch into the backyard, a drop which varied from 5 to 12 feet depending on where you were.
Everyone celebrated in a way that I yearn for today, a simple exuberance that was unfettered by any sense of loss or fear. We were young, talented, and proud. The girls were hot and innocent and the boys were cool and tough. We were artsy-fartsy but unpretentious. We didn't take ourselves too seriously but we were truly dedicated to doing good work. And we did. And once we did it, we partied as hard as you would expect.
The show used a lot of music from the 30's and 40's to set the mood and we blasted the soundtrack at the party. I'd made a mix (cassette!!!) of appropriate tunes from my own collection. One of those songs was 'Poisoned Rose' from the 'King of America' album.
Somehow a lip-synching show spontaneously occurred with the army troop serving as a back up band. The party morphed instantly into an audience and allowed this to happen, mostly as a way to celebrate us for our performances in the play itself. It was exhilirating. To have your whole peer group validate you so unconditionally is truly wonderful.
I could go track by track and describe how perfectly played and written this album is. I could talk about how the lyrics, even on the page, are little diamonds. I could marvel at the fact that during the same calendar year that he recorded this album he recorded another with The Attractions called 'Blood & Chocolate' that is an evil twin so different it is.
But for a solid year I listened to this album in its entirety at least once a week, usually singing along at the top of my lungs. I was young and beautiful. I was the King of America too.
The first play of the year was 'Biloxi Blues' and it was a magical process. The combination of the military content and the freewheeling nature of a college theater crowd made for an amazing atmosphere. We all shaved our heads and started doing pushups without provocation.
My soundtrack for this play was Elvis Costello's 'King of America' which had been released a couple of years earlier.
Now, Elvis and I have had to break up. Once I started writing songs his influence was so immense that I sort of had to denounce him and concentrate on other artists. But my singing and writing style will always be very indebted to him and to this album in particular.
While working out to get in shape for the play I would sing along to this album. This doesn't sound like a big deal but when you try to sing along it is a workout all on its own. He holds notes, bends them, modulates the intensity of his delivery...it is truly masterful singing.
The cast party for 'Biloxi Blues' is still burned into my brain. People were on the roof. A mass leap from the porch to the backyard occurred. My roommate had purchased 50 shot glasses for like 10 bucks and insisted that the party kick off with a ritual. He laid out the shot glasses along the railing of the porch and filled each with Southern Comfort, I think. Everyone had to do the shot and then jump off the porch into the backyard, a drop which varied from 5 to 12 feet depending on where you were.
Everyone celebrated in a way that I yearn for today, a simple exuberance that was unfettered by any sense of loss or fear. We were young, talented, and proud. The girls were hot and innocent and the boys were cool and tough. We were artsy-fartsy but unpretentious. We didn't take ourselves too seriously but we were truly dedicated to doing good work. And we did. And once we did it, we partied as hard as you would expect.
The show used a lot of music from the 30's and 40's to set the mood and we blasted the soundtrack at the party. I'd made a mix (cassette!!!) of appropriate tunes from my own collection. One of those songs was 'Poisoned Rose' from the 'King of America' album.
Somehow a lip-synching show spontaneously occurred with the army troop serving as a back up band. The party morphed instantly into an audience and allowed this to happen, mostly as a way to celebrate us for our performances in the play itself. It was exhilirating. To have your whole peer group validate you so unconditionally is truly wonderful.
I could go track by track and describe how perfectly played and written this album is. I could talk about how the lyrics, even on the page, are little diamonds. I could marvel at the fact that during the same calendar year that he recorded this album he recorded another with The Attractions called 'Blood & Chocolate' that is an evil twin so different it is.
But for a solid year I listened to this album in its entirety at least once a week, usually singing along at the top of my lungs. I was young and beautiful. I was the King of America too.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
41 Greatest Albums: Guns N' Roses - 'Chinese Democracy'
I know.
Really.
You fall into one of two camps.
Camp 1 hates Guns N' Roses but hates Axl Rose more. You consider him to be Journey on steroids or Poison with pretension. You can't fathom how a sensitive, educated, progressive, avant-garde leaning artist like myself could waste any brain space on Guns N' Roses. You probably think less of me for it. I have nothing to say to you.
Camp 2 loves Guns N' Roses, but only the first Guns N' Roses. The scruffy glamour scumbags who bummed cigarettes from hookers in front of the Whiskey and then threw up on the whole world with 'Appetite For Destruction'. You cringed at the racism of 'One In A Million' and were old enough to be turned off by the MTV over-saturation of 'November Rain'. The fact that the dirtbags now wanted to be IMPORTANT left you cold. You are predisposed to ambivalence. To you I shout, 'Let NOT the past deprive you of the glorious present!'
This prelude to the actual review is for those who fall into Camp 2. If you ever had any love for Guns N' Roses, I implore you to open your heart one more time. Try to listen as if you'd never heard of these guys. As if your hard rock itch had never been scratched, as if your adrenaline cherry had never been popped by 'Welcome To The Jungle'. You will feel like a virgin, touched for the very first time. Well, no...you'll feel like you're touching a virgin for HER very first time.
For 'Chinese Democracy' is not only easily the best Guns N' Roses album, I am, two weeks into listening to it, very comfortable putting it on this Top 50 list.
I have to start the fuck over. FUCK. This review sucks and YOU suck for taking it the wrong way even though it isn't actually the review I intended to write. So take your lack of patience and wrap it up in a live lemming and let 'em drag you ever the edge, buddy, coz' I ain't gotta put up with your misinterpretation of my elaboration.
See? Axl's vision is contagious. And if you don't let yourself get swept away, you are missing the fuck out.
What else kicks things off but 'Chinese Democracy' which, of course, is about Axl Rose making the album 'Chinese Democracy'. This whole album is like one of those photos where someone is looking into a million mirrors and each reflection stares back at them from a little bit further away. The power chords ring in but are immediately stifled, falling away in a gust of wind that conjures up Genghis Khan on the Steppes braving the 1,000 mile blast of snow. I admit I felt a pang of fear here, as if the entire affair was going to be Axl striking-curious-poses-they-feel-the-heat-the-heat-between-me-and-you.
And Axl anticipates this reaction in the first line...
It don't really matter
Gonna find out for yourself
No it don't really matter
Gonna leave this thing for somebody else
With that salvo, he breaks the funhouse rigidity into a billion little pieces, each one reflecting your own prejudices towards him and his band. Er, him.
I'm sorry for swearing at you earlier, it's just when I start off wrong I get so fucking angry. Can I please start this whole fucking thing over again? Oh, you're just gonna keep on fucking reading now even though I just asked you if I could start over? You've got a lot of fucking nerve and you're on my last one you fucking hypocrite. I love you more than you'll ever know and you know it's true because I'm standing on top of the Concorde as it takes its last flight into the Indonesian night.
That's it, I've had just about e-fuckin'nuff. I'm skipping ahead to the crown jewel of this whole sexy mess, 'Sorry'.
I like it more than 'Sweet Child O' Mine', '...Jungle', 'You Could Be Mine', 'Breakdown', 'Civil War', more than all of it. It is my favorite Guns N' Roses song.
It is also absurd.
Backtrack time I can do what the fuck I want it's my fucking review.
In the early 21st century I became aware that Guns N' Roses would include a song called 'Riad n' the Bedouins' on 'Chinese Democracy'. I wondered just what Axl Rose would have to say about a nomadic desert tribe. Well, the waiting paid off with this opening line...
Riad n' the Bedouins had a plan and thought they'd win
But I don't give a fuck 'bout them coz' I am crazy
See? He lets you conjure the image of the proud sand blasted warriors all by yourself and then looks right back into the broken fun house mirror.
I know you're tired of this album even though you've never heard it. I know Axl long ago forfeited any right to anything but skepticism. But even that adds to the pathos of this music. Here is a guy who KNEW he had a great album in him. He knew it wouldn't sound like the band he'd forced upon the world, making it the biggest baddest band on the planet. He believed in the album to the point that he let himself be the posterboy for all that is wrong with big label excess. He didn't say, 'Fuck it, I'll put it out now, it's good enough.'
No, he waited until it was too late to save his reputation.
And lo, there came unto him an angel who said, 'Fuck that...this album restores your motherfucking reputation, dog.'
This review sucks and I'm gonna start over. If I keep working on it until 2024 I'll have mimicked Mr. Rose. Don't be fooled, folks. This sucker is the real deal.
p.s. There's also the amazing fact that Tommy Stinson of The Replacements plays the bass. Which is absolutely bizarre. And awesome.
Really.
You fall into one of two camps.
Camp 1 hates Guns N' Roses but hates Axl Rose more. You consider him to be Journey on steroids or Poison with pretension. You can't fathom how a sensitive, educated, progressive, avant-garde leaning artist like myself could waste any brain space on Guns N' Roses. You probably think less of me for it. I have nothing to say to you.
Camp 2 loves Guns N' Roses, but only the first Guns N' Roses. The scruffy glamour scumbags who bummed cigarettes from hookers in front of the Whiskey and then threw up on the whole world with 'Appetite For Destruction'. You cringed at the racism of 'One In A Million' and were old enough to be turned off by the MTV over-saturation of 'November Rain'. The fact that the dirtbags now wanted to be IMPORTANT left you cold. You are predisposed to ambivalence. To you I shout, 'Let NOT the past deprive you of the glorious present!'
This prelude to the actual review is for those who fall into Camp 2. If you ever had any love for Guns N' Roses, I implore you to open your heart one more time. Try to listen as if you'd never heard of these guys. As if your hard rock itch had never been scratched, as if your adrenaline cherry had never been popped by 'Welcome To The Jungle'. You will feel like a virgin, touched for the very first time. Well, no...you'll feel like you're touching a virgin for HER very first time.
For 'Chinese Democracy' is not only easily the best Guns N' Roses album, I am, two weeks into listening to it, very comfortable putting it on this Top 50 list.
I have to start the fuck over. FUCK. This review sucks and YOU suck for taking it the wrong way even though it isn't actually the review I intended to write. So take your lack of patience and wrap it up in a live lemming and let 'em drag you ever the edge, buddy, coz' I ain't gotta put up with your misinterpretation of my elaboration.
See? Axl's vision is contagious. And if you don't let yourself get swept away, you are missing the fuck out.
What else kicks things off but 'Chinese Democracy' which, of course, is about Axl Rose making the album 'Chinese Democracy'. This whole album is like one of those photos where someone is looking into a million mirrors and each reflection stares back at them from a little bit further away. The power chords ring in but are immediately stifled, falling away in a gust of wind that conjures up Genghis Khan on the Steppes braving the 1,000 mile blast of snow. I admit I felt a pang of fear here, as if the entire affair was going to be Axl striking-curious-poses-they-feel-the-heat-the-heat-between-me-and-you.
And Axl anticipates this reaction in the first line...
It don't really matter
Gonna find out for yourself
No it don't really matter
Gonna leave this thing for somebody else
With that salvo, he breaks the funhouse rigidity into a billion little pieces, each one reflecting your own prejudices towards him and his band. Er, him.
I'm sorry for swearing at you earlier, it's just when I start off wrong I get so fucking angry. Can I please start this whole fucking thing over again? Oh, you're just gonna keep on fucking reading now even though I just asked you if I could start over? You've got a lot of fucking nerve and you're on my last one you fucking hypocrite. I love you more than you'll ever know and you know it's true because I'm standing on top of the Concorde as it takes its last flight into the Indonesian night.
That's it, I've had just about e-fuckin'nuff. I'm skipping ahead to the crown jewel of this whole sexy mess, 'Sorry'.
I like it more than 'Sweet Child O' Mine', '...Jungle', 'You Could Be Mine', 'Breakdown', 'Civil War', more than all of it. It is my favorite Guns N' Roses song.
It is also absurd.
Backtrack time I can do what the fuck I want it's my fucking review.
In the early 21st century I became aware that Guns N' Roses would include a song called 'Riad n' the Bedouins' on 'Chinese Democracy'. I wondered just what Axl Rose would have to say about a nomadic desert tribe. Well, the waiting paid off with this opening line...
Riad n' the Bedouins had a plan and thought they'd win
But I don't give a fuck 'bout them coz' I am crazy
See? He lets you conjure the image of the proud sand blasted warriors all by yourself and then looks right back into the broken fun house mirror.
I know you're tired of this album even though you've never heard it. I know Axl long ago forfeited any right to anything but skepticism. But even that adds to the pathos of this music. Here is a guy who KNEW he had a great album in him. He knew it wouldn't sound like the band he'd forced upon the world, making it the biggest baddest band on the planet. He believed in the album to the point that he let himself be the posterboy for all that is wrong with big label excess. He didn't say, 'Fuck it, I'll put it out now, it's good enough.'
No, he waited until it was too late to save his reputation.
And lo, there came unto him an angel who said, 'Fuck that...this album restores your motherfucking reputation, dog.'
This review sucks and I'm gonna start over. If I keep working on it until 2024 I'll have mimicked Mr. Rose. Don't be fooled, folks. This sucker is the real deal.
p.s. There's also the amazing fact that Tommy Stinson of The Replacements plays the bass. Which is absolutely bizarre. And awesome.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
42 Greatest Albums: The Raunch Hands - 'Against The World'
If there is one album that evokes my childhood, it is The Raunch Hands 'Against The World'. Released in 1960 or 1961, this collection of folk songs is still one of my favorite albums today. My sisters and I knew the album by heart and even though my parents had bought it, I am sure they grew weary of the hootenanny bellowing from the den.
You might be able to pick up a copy on eBay but most likely you'll have to take my word for it. This is one of the great folk albums of all time. And as far as I'm concerned you can remove the 'folk' and say one of the great albums, period.
First of all it is hilarious. It came out at the height of the Cold War, before social unrest became pigeonholed into long hair and stinky underarms. These guys look like a Skull 'n Bones charter meeting but this is some of the most radical shit ever. They open with 'The Bomb Song' which chronicles a Slavic terrorist group as they keep having to come up with someone new to carry the suicide package.
Imagine 3 kids in Toughskins, faces smeared with Oreos gathered around a record player in 1976. Nerf football in the corner. Fisher Price Little People everywhere. They chant in unison, "Mama's aim is bad and the copskys all know Dad so it's Brother Ivanovich's turn to throw the bomb!" God I love my parents for having that album.
They then turn their laser aim on modern psychology in a song called 'Dr. Freud'. Again, picture 4 kids ages 2 to 11, faces upturned, nailing the harmony in a song whose refrain ends, 'Dr. Freud, oh Dr. Freud! How we wish you had been differently employed! For this set of circumstances now enhances the finances of the followers of Dr. Sigmund Freud!'
Simple arrangements, 4 or 5 voices in harmony, 1 guitar and a whole lotta attitude. After these two subversive songs, they dig back into the respectable canon for a religious rendering of 'Michael, Row The Boat Ashore'. I am not a religious man. But this song, coupled with their version of 'Jordan River' which is on Side B, is about as close as I come to feeling the spirit of the Lord.
Not a group to stay serious for very long, they jump to a folk medley using the song 'I Gave My Love A Cherry'. With spoken word segments explaining the path a folk song takes to the top of the charts, they interpret the song as an a cappella soprano aria, a hillbilly jamboree, a calypso romp, and an Elvis Presley rock and roll shouter.
There is another goofy song called 'A Horse Named Bill' and then comes the piece de resistance...
A song called 'The Old H.U.A.C.' Now, for the uninitiated, the H.U.A.C. stands for the House Un-American Activities which was Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt group. The Red Scare was in full effect and the fallout from McCarthyism was still rampant by 1960.
Here are the lyrics...
The Old H.U.A.C.
I am a college student
And I've come to sing this song
I've always been a liberal
I never thought it wrong
But I have come to tell you
Take warning now from me
Or you may have to tangle with
The old H-U-A-C.
Now, I am only eighteen years
Of age as of this date
It's hard to see how I could be
A danger to the state
But that's what the committee said
And so it has to be
For their sources are of
Unimpeachable integrity.
H-U-A-C, H-U-A-C
What a lucky thing it is for you and me
That our freedoms are well guarded
By politically retarded
Men of unimpeachable integrity.
I went and joined a picket line
Because I'd like to see
No more discrimination
If our land is really free
I'd like to see them put an end
To weapons testing too
But they say this is a dangerous
Subversive point of view.
I tried to be progressive
But I never was a red
I thought the first amendment
Meant exactly what it said
But now that that's gone out of style
There's just one thing to do
Be silent or conservative
The choice is up to you.
H-U-A-C, H-U-A-C
They're just lookin' out
For guys like you and me
So become reactionary
And of progress be most wary
Keep our country true and brave
And strong and free.
So listen to my warning
And reject each liberal view
And praise the men who govern us
No matter what they do
But even this is not enough
For those who would go far
You'd better make your mother
Join the local D.A.R.
Now please don't tell them who
It was that wrote this song
If anyone should ask you
Tell them I have moved along
I'm sorry that I have to leave
The evening has been great
But I have been subpoenaed
And I really can't be late.
Now, you might think those lyrics are quaint and I suppose they are. But when you consider the context and the source, it gives you a good idea that these guys mean business. They are not 'kumbaya-ing' us to death with platitudes about love and understanding. They are FURIOUS. In many ways this album reminds me more of the punk movement than the folk movement.
Now I could go on and on and on. And none of this really makes enough sense without the SOUND. It is catchy to an almost unbelievable level. And memorable. My mother had CD copies of the album made and gave all of us copies for Christmas (best mother ever) and so I did a little experiment.
My son (best son ever) is 11 years old. He is primarily a Beatles and John Williams fan with a dash of Green Day's 'American Idiot' thrown in for good measure. I popped The Raunch Hands in and within 3 listens he KNEW EVERY WORD.
AND COULD SING ALONG.
TO EVERY SONG.
Now, I could give him a whole bunch of gobbledygook about the folk movement and how important it was and the historical meaning of these obscure Ivy League freaks who cut one record. But is that what caused these songs to imprint themselves so fully and instantly onto his mental hard drive? Did that make it easier for him to memorize 16 songs almost instantaneously?
These punks conclude their battle 'Against The World' with 'Victory in Korea', singing in their beautiful pristine harmony-
Thank you dear God for Victory in Korea
We're thankful that the battle's won
We give you dear God praise for Victory in Korea
We're thankful dear God for what you've done
Now, I don't know what's punker than that. Just type in Iraq to see how raunchy these hands still are.
You might be able to pick up a copy on eBay but most likely you'll have to take my word for it. This is one of the great folk albums of all time. And as far as I'm concerned you can remove the 'folk' and say one of the great albums, period.
First of all it is hilarious. It came out at the height of the Cold War, before social unrest became pigeonholed into long hair and stinky underarms. These guys look like a Skull 'n Bones charter meeting but this is some of the most radical shit ever. They open with 'The Bomb Song' which chronicles a Slavic terrorist group as they keep having to come up with someone new to carry the suicide package.
Imagine 3 kids in Toughskins, faces smeared with Oreos gathered around a record player in 1976. Nerf football in the corner. Fisher Price Little People everywhere. They chant in unison, "Mama's aim is bad and the copskys all know Dad so it's Brother Ivanovich's turn to throw the bomb!" God I love my parents for having that album.
They then turn their laser aim on modern psychology in a song called 'Dr. Freud'. Again, picture 4 kids ages 2 to 11, faces upturned, nailing the harmony in a song whose refrain ends, 'Dr. Freud, oh Dr. Freud! How we wish you had been differently employed! For this set of circumstances now enhances the finances of the followers of Dr. Sigmund Freud!'
Simple arrangements, 4 or 5 voices in harmony, 1 guitar and a whole lotta attitude. After these two subversive songs, they dig back into the respectable canon for a religious rendering of 'Michael, Row The Boat Ashore'. I am not a religious man. But this song, coupled with their version of 'Jordan River' which is on Side B, is about as close as I come to feeling the spirit of the Lord.
Not a group to stay serious for very long, they jump to a folk medley using the song 'I Gave My Love A Cherry'. With spoken word segments explaining the path a folk song takes to the top of the charts, they interpret the song as an a cappella soprano aria, a hillbilly jamboree, a calypso romp, and an Elvis Presley rock and roll shouter.
There is another goofy song called 'A Horse Named Bill' and then comes the piece de resistance...
A song called 'The Old H.U.A.C.' Now, for the uninitiated, the H.U.A.C. stands for the House Un-American Activities which was Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt group. The Red Scare was in full effect and the fallout from McCarthyism was still rampant by 1960.
Here are the lyrics...
The Old H.U.A.C.
I am a college student
And I've come to sing this song
I've always been a liberal
I never thought it wrong
But I have come to tell you
Take warning now from me
Or you may have to tangle with
The old H-U-A-C.
Now, I am only eighteen years
Of age as of this date
It's hard to see how I could be
A danger to the state
But that's what the committee said
And so it has to be
For their sources are of
Unimpeachable integrity.
H-U-A-C, H-U-A-C
What a lucky thing it is for you and me
That our freedoms are well guarded
By politically retarded
Men of unimpeachable integrity.
I went and joined a picket line
Because I'd like to see
No more discrimination
If our land is really free
I'd like to see them put an end
To weapons testing too
But they say this is a dangerous
Subversive point of view.
I tried to be progressive
But I never was a red
I thought the first amendment
Meant exactly what it said
But now that that's gone out of style
There's just one thing to do
Be silent or conservative
The choice is up to you.
H-U-A-C, H-U-A-C
They're just lookin' out
For guys like you and me
So become reactionary
And of progress be most wary
Keep our country true and brave
And strong and free.
So listen to my warning
And reject each liberal view
And praise the men who govern us
No matter what they do
But even this is not enough
For those who would go far
You'd better make your mother
Join the local D.A.R.
Now please don't tell them who
It was that wrote this song
If anyone should ask you
Tell them I have moved along
I'm sorry that I have to leave
The evening has been great
But I have been subpoenaed
And I really can't be late.
Now, you might think those lyrics are quaint and I suppose they are. But when you consider the context and the source, it gives you a good idea that these guys mean business. They are not 'kumbaya-ing' us to death with platitudes about love and understanding. They are FURIOUS. In many ways this album reminds me more of the punk movement than the folk movement.
Now I could go on and on and on. And none of this really makes enough sense without the SOUND. It is catchy to an almost unbelievable level. And memorable. My mother had CD copies of the album made and gave all of us copies for Christmas (best mother ever) and so I did a little experiment.
My son (best son ever) is 11 years old. He is primarily a Beatles and John Williams fan with a dash of Green Day's 'American Idiot' thrown in for good measure. I popped The Raunch Hands in and within 3 listens he KNEW EVERY WORD.
AND COULD SING ALONG.
TO EVERY SONG.
Now, I could give him a whole bunch of gobbledygook about the folk movement and how important it was and the historical meaning of these obscure Ivy League freaks who cut one record. But is that what caused these songs to imprint themselves so fully and instantly onto his mental hard drive? Did that make it easier for him to memorize 16 songs almost instantaneously?
These punks conclude their battle 'Against The World' with 'Victory in Korea', singing in their beautiful pristine harmony-
Thank you dear God for Victory in Korea
We're thankful that the battle's won
We give you dear God praise for Victory in Korea
We're thankful dear God for what you've done
Now, I don't know what's punker than that. Just type in Iraq to see how raunchy these hands still are.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
43 Greatest Albums: Prince - 'Purple Rain'
Now that Prince has played the Super Bowl it is hard to remember back to when he was still a fringe force. Sure, 'Little Red Corvette' and '1999' were smash hits but there remained an element of oddity to his presence. He pouted at the camera and stroked his guitar lasciviously but who the hell was this guy?
We were about to find out.
Nowadays it is common to see major musicians appear in the movies. It is almost like product placement. Britney, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, Lindsay, Harry Connick, Jr., J-Lo, Madonna, Dwight Yoakam, Tim MacGraw, Jewel-zegger, Ludacris, Ice Cube, Aaliyah, Queen Latifah, Eve, the list goes on and on.
Some reach for star turns, others try to find small parts in serious films, but the line between the music business and the movie business has never been more blurred.
But in 1984? MTV was still this giant baby, drooling all over us and crapping its pants on a regular basis. They barely played black musicians. The videos consisted of leotards and bizarre face makeup and sound stages. My parents refused to get cable TV, god love 'em, so I longed after MTV like a shipwrecked sailor staring at a distant freighter that I couldn't possibly signal.
Again, not to harp too much on the societal differences but without an Internet we didn't have too much warning. All of a sudden 'Purple Rain' was coming soon to a theater near you. Rated R. I was 15.
I remember seeing the video for 'When Doves Cry' first. Prince is in a bubble bath with flower petals. He insists on slowly climbing out of the tub. The groans of the song kick in and you get the uncomfortable feeling that you are looking in on someones porn collection. Interesting that they chose this song to kick off the airplay as it is a truly bizarre tune. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Somehow I got in to see this film. There were tits. Prince rode a little teeny motorcycle around and brooded in sequins. Symbolism ran rampant. Occasionally he would take to the stage and OBLITERATE it. The audacity of the whole thing was apparent to me even as my adolescent hormones raged for full control. My brain, while addled by blood loss, was still well aware that some cultural shift was happening. It was as if the rest of the country was one giant teen hormone as well, sighing in relief that someone was finally coming right out and admitting how horny they were.
Now to the music which is of course astonishing.
It opens with 'Let's Go Crazy' and the song itself invites insanity. A tightly wound little top spinning on a perfectly polished floor, it gallops along without effort until that guitar solo explodes it and then the top becomes a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the diamond studded mirror of a pimped out Cadillac.
'Take Me With You' lays it on the line and adds a layer of romance to the sheer cock rock of 'Let's Go Crazy'. It sounds vaguely feminine but Prince isn't afraid to let the girl wear the pants in the family so all we know is the intense longing that infuses the music with an almost tragic eroticism.
'The Beautiful Ones' starts to veer off into surrealistic territory. The keyboard figure that drives this song is a curlicue of obsession. It folds over and over on top of itself until Prince can no longer take it and he must scream out over the top of it and tear it down with the roar of his guitar. The universal pain of wondering whether you will be chosen by the one you crave gives this song an epic sweep that raises the stakes considerably.
Next up is 'Computer Blue' and it is an oddly prescient little ditty. Computers at this point were still off the radar of most folks every day lives. In comparing himself to these distant glamorous machines Prince carves an even stranger place out for himself in our consciousness. He barely seems human by this point, what with the metallic nature of his clothing, his other-worldly talent, and his deliberately obscure lyrics. At least, obscure until the next song.
One cannot overstate the effect that 'Darling Nikki' had on the young male population of this great country of ours. Prince had the balls to create a hotel lobby for us, one that had a girl sitting in it pleasuring herself with a magazine. The vaguely nasty tone seems to come out of his inability to trust lil' ol' Appolonia but the adult layer of twisted lust went right over all of our heads, pun intended. There she still is for all time, unconcerned with time or place, using whatever she has at her disposal to get the fuck off.
Now we come to 'When Doves Cry', the spark that set the tinderbox aflame. Apparently the album was ready to go to press and Prince pulled it back in order to make one change. He erased the bass line on this track. Go ahead and take a new listen. Once you notice the lack you realize how essential that space is to the effect of the song. It gives it that strange ethereal quality, that sense of alienness, of even alienation from itself, of OTHER.
Prince is about to put the album into a higher gear, revving the engine up for the home stretch. I liken this stage of the album to a flurry of fireworks right before the grand finale.
'I Would Die 4 U' is a perfect pop song, upbeat but not glib, intense but melodic, intricate but simple. Also, it is proof positive that Prince was ahead of his time. He was already texting.
After the insane variety that we've been happy witnesses to by this point in the album, can you blame Prince Rogers Nelson for taking a moment to brag? The joyous self-affirmation of 'Baby, I'm A Star' is well earned and it allows us the chance to agree. The darkness of the album falls away for a moment and Prince does indeed seem to be a light from the heavens, showing us the way. All we have to do is look up and there he is.
Lastly, 'Purple Rain', the title track. And if ever a title track deserved to be a title track then this surely is it. From the very first chord it is clear the kind of ride we are in for. And Prince doesn't disappoint, drawing every ounce of drama and tension into and then out of this song in moments of total release and abandon. It is 8 minutes and 41 seconds long and every inch an anthem.
Up til 'Purple Rain', we'd all been staring at a void. Bob Dylan, Prince's fellow Minnesotan, said a hard rain was gonna fall and it finally did. What he didn't say was that the rain would be purple and it would break its fall with a twirl and a split.
We were about to find out.
Nowadays it is common to see major musicians appear in the movies. It is almost like product placement. Britney, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, Lindsay, Harry Connick, Jr., J-Lo, Madonna, Dwight Yoakam, Tim MacGraw, Jewel-zegger, Ludacris, Ice Cube, Aaliyah, Queen Latifah, Eve, the list goes on and on.
Some reach for star turns, others try to find small parts in serious films, but the line between the music business and the movie business has never been more blurred.
But in 1984? MTV was still this giant baby, drooling all over us and crapping its pants on a regular basis. They barely played black musicians. The videos consisted of leotards and bizarre face makeup and sound stages. My parents refused to get cable TV, god love 'em, so I longed after MTV like a shipwrecked sailor staring at a distant freighter that I couldn't possibly signal.
Again, not to harp too much on the societal differences but without an Internet we didn't have too much warning. All of a sudden 'Purple Rain' was coming soon to a theater near you. Rated R. I was 15.
I remember seeing the video for 'When Doves Cry' first. Prince is in a bubble bath with flower petals. He insists on slowly climbing out of the tub. The groans of the song kick in and you get the uncomfortable feeling that you are looking in on someones porn collection. Interesting that they chose this song to kick off the airplay as it is a truly bizarre tune. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Somehow I got in to see this film. There were tits. Prince rode a little teeny motorcycle around and brooded in sequins. Symbolism ran rampant. Occasionally he would take to the stage and OBLITERATE it. The audacity of the whole thing was apparent to me even as my adolescent hormones raged for full control. My brain, while addled by blood loss, was still well aware that some cultural shift was happening. It was as if the rest of the country was one giant teen hormone as well, sighing in relief that someone was finally coming right out and admitting how horny they were.
Now to the music which is of course astonishing.
It opens with 'Let's Go Crazy' and the song itself invites insanity. A tightly wound little top spinning on a perfectly polished floor, it gallops along without effort until that guitar solo explodes it and then the top becomes a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the diamond studded mirror of a pimped out Cadillac.
'Take Me With You' lays it on the line and adds a layer of romance to the sheer cock rock of 'Let's Go Crazy'. It sounds vaguely feminine but Prince isn't afraid to let the girl wear the pants in the family so all we know is the intense longing that infuses the music with an almost tragic eroticism.
'The Beautiful Ones' starts to veer off into surrealistic territory. The keyboard figure that drives this song is a curlicue of obsession. It folds over and over on top of itself until Prince can no longer take it and he must scream out over the top of it and tear it down with the roar of his guitar. The universal pain of wondering whether you will be chosen by the one you crave gives this song an epic sweep that raises the stakes considerably.
Next up is 'Computer Blue' and it is an oddly prescient little ditty. Computers at this point were still off the radar of most folks every day lives. In comparing himself to these distant glamorous machines Prince carves an even stranger place out for himself in our consciousness. He barely seems human by this point, what with the metallic nature of his clothing, his other-worldly talent, and his deliberately obscure lyrics. At least, obscure until the next song.
One cannot overstate the effect that 'Darling Nikki' had on the young male population of this great country of ours. Prince had the balls to create a hotel lobby for us, one that had a girl sitting in it pleasuring herself with a magazine. The vaguely nasty tone seems to come out of his inability to trust lil' ol' Appolonia but the adult layer of twisted lust went right over all of our heads, pun intended. There she still is for all time, unconcerned with time or place, using whatever she has at her disposal to get the fuck off.
Now we come to 'When Doves Cry', the spark that set the tinderbox aflame. Apparently the album was ready to go to press and Prince pulled it back in order to make one change. He erased the bass line on this track. Go ahead and take a new listen. Once you notice the lack you realize how essential that space is to the effect of the song. It gives it that strange ethereal quality, that sense of alienness, of even alienation from itself, of OTHER.
Prince is about to put the album into a higher gear, revving the engine up for the home stretch. I liken this stage of the album to a flurry of fireworks right before the grand finale.
'I Would Die 4 U' is a perfect pop song, upbeat but not glib, intense but melodic, intricate but simple. Also, it is proof positive that Prince was ahead of his time. He was already texting.
After the insane variety that we've been happy witnesses to by this point in the album, can you blame Prince Rogers Nelson for taking a moment to brag? The joyous self-affirmation of 'Baby, I'm A Star' is well earned and it allows us the chance to agree. The darkness of the album falls away for a moment and Prince does indeed seem to be a light from the heavens, showing us the way. All we have to do is look up and there he is.
Lastly, 'Purple Rain', the title track. And if ever a title track deserved to be a title track then this surely is it. From the very first chord it is clear the kind of ride we are in for. And Prince doesn't disappoint, drawing every ounce of drama and tension into and then out of this song in moments of total release and abandon. It is 8 minutes and 41 seconds long and every inch an anthem.
Up til 'Purple Rain', we'd all been staring at a void. Bob Dylan, Prince's fellow Minnesotan, said a hard rain was gonna fall and it finally did. What he didn't say was that the rain would be purple and it would break its fall with a twirl and a split.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
44 Greatest Albums: The Descendents - 'Milo Goes To College'
In 1982 The Descendents put out their first full length record, 'Milo Goes To College'. Anyone who was familiar with the band, and there were several hundred of us across the nation, knew that the title of the album was not code of any kind. Milo Aukerman was their lead singer and he had gone off to college. To us they were already superstars. Their debut album announced that they were no longer really a band thanks to higher education.
If you heard The Descendents right now you might not think twice about them. But in this case context is everything. Hardcore punk music was rapidly transforming the music business against its will. Much like rap, it began to succeed in spite of the rigorous attempts of those in charge of mass media to squelch it. Most of the hardcore music was angry, political, naive, and boring. We listened to that section of the genre almost dutifully. But The Descendents were LIKE US. So like us that one of them was going to college. They weren't Wham! They weren't The Thompson Twins. The music they made that we loved so much was not lucrative enough for Milo to abandon his education.
There are 15 songs on the album, none of which clock in at longer than 2 minutes 14 seconds. I don't even know if I should bother singling anything out. This album is like a time machine for me, instantly dropping me back into my buddy Tom's room. We probably walked to his house from high school. We might have gone into a record store. We might have bought sodas at the 7/11. When we got to his house we rummaged through the cupboards and found something to eat.
We turned on his amplifier, he plugged his guitar in and we started playing the songs we wrote. We were no different from The Descendents who we probably just listened to. Tom's Mom would shout up to us and tell us to turn it down. So we would. Then we'd probably do our homework.
Justin would show up and we would bust each others balls mercilessly. Someone would get their feelings hurt, usually me. Feathers would be ruffled and then smoothed somehow without any real discussion. We longed for booze and weed. We lusted after chicks. We talked sports. We talked smack.
In the background Milo would be singing 'Suburban Home'. California pop run through a wood chipper. Imagine The Ramones are supposed to do a show in a garage that opens out onto Venice Beach. Their equipment is all set up and ready to go. But The Ramones can't do the show! The Beach Boys circa 1964 stroll up to the stage and offer their services. They play their set without changing the amplification at all.
This might capture the spirit of The Descendents. Throw in a dash of potty humor, outsider resentment, teenage hormones and you've got quite a brew.
I just came here from Facebook. If The Descendents happened today they'd have a myspace or facebook page 2 days after they got together. By the time I heard about them in 1984, Milo had already completed his freshman year.
I only wish they'd recorded the sequel. 'Milo Completes Grad School'. Which he did.
If you heard The Descendents right now you might not think twice about them. But in this case context is everything. Hardcore punk music was rapidly transforming the music business against its will. Much like rap, it began to succeed in spite of the rigorous attempts of those in charge of mass media to squelch it. Most of the hardcore music was angry, political, naive, and boring. We listened to that section of the genre almost dutifully. But The Descendents were LIKE US. So like us that one of them was going to college. They weren't Wham! They weren't The Thompson Twins. The music they made that we loved so much was not lucrative enough for Milo to abandon his education.
There are 15 songs on the album, none of which clock in at longer than 2 minutes 14 seconds. I don't even know if I should bother singling anything out. This album is like a time machine for me, instantly dropping me back into my buddy Tom's room. We probably walked to his house from high school. We might have gone into a record store. We might have bought sodas at the 7/11. When we got to his house we rummaged through the cupboards and found something to eat.
We turned on his amplifier, he plugged his guitar in and we started playing the songs we wrote. We were no different from The Descendents who we probably just listened to. Tom's Mom would shout up to us and tell us to turn it down. So we would. Then we'd probably do our homework.
Justin would show up and we would bust each others balls mercilessly. Someone would get their feelings hurt, usually me. Feathers would be ruffled and then smoothed somehow without any real discussion. We longed for booze and weed. We lusted after chicks. We talked sports. We talked smack.
In the background Milo would be singing 'Suburban Home'. California pop run through a wood chipper. Imagine The Ramones are supposed to do a show in a garage that opens out onto Venice Beach. Their equipment is all set up and ready to go. But The Ramones can't do the show! The Beach Boys circa 1964 stroll up to the stage and offer their services. They play their set without changing the amplification at all.
This might capture the spirit of The Descendents. Throw in a dash of potty humor, outsider resentment, teenage hormones and you've got quite a brew.
I just came here from Facebook. If The Descendents happened today they'd have a myspace or facebook page 2 days after they got together. By the time I heard about them in 1984, Milo had already completed his freshman year.
I only wish they'd recorded the sequel. 'Milo Completes Grad School'. Which he did.
Monday, October 13, 2008
45 Greatest Albums: Bruce Springsteen - 'Nebraska'
I don't like the E Street Band. There. I said it and I don't care who knows it.
OK, fine, 'Born In The U.S.A.' is a perfect album but I think 'Born To Run' is overrated, 'The River' sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of one, and 'The Wild, The Innocent, and The E-Street Shuffle' is just embarrassing. At their worst they remind me of a coked out middle manager over-dancing to Journey in white jeans.
Most bands are BANDS. You can't separate one of the members from the rest. This is why the E-Streeters are ultimately session players and not members of a band. I don't care how many photos they put on the cover of Bruce leaning on Clarence or Little Stevie or Max. It is Bruce and whoever he brings along for the ride.
Which is why 'Nebraska' is perfect. Much of Springsteen's music in the '70's suffered under the weight of ambition. I SHALL NOW CAPTURE THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA IN 4 MINUTES OR LESS, AND BY SPIRIT I MEAN THE DIRTY UNDERBELLY AND THE SOARING HOPE, THE PASSION AND THE DESPAIR, THE EVERYTHING AND NOTHING, THE OVER AND THE UNDER, WHAT THE HELL WAS I SAYING?
The E-Street Band did their best to uphold this mandate but who could live up to an all-encompassing quest for immortality? The true anthem occurs not with forethought, but with humility. Listen to 'Born To Run' and try to find a humble moment. You can't do it.
I also find it ironic that 'Nebraska' is considered Springsteen's first solo album. In my opinion his albums were all solo records, this one merely was honest enough to admit that he didn't need all those other guys, they were just part of his show.
Admittedly to this point this has not been a review of 'Nebraska' but a referendum on The E Street Band. While this might seem unnecessary it is vital in understanding just what makes this album so great and such a departure. Bruce recorded the songs you hear on 'Nebraska' as templates for the band to build from. They took these home demos and expanded on them in typical E-Street fashion.
Bruce then decided it was time to let the dream die. He scrapped the full band recordings and released 'Nebraska' as he'd recorded it...alone.
'Nebraska' begins with 'Nebraska'. As Bruce brings us along on a murder spree that spans the Badlands he immediately announces that this isn't going to be your father's Bruce Springsteen record. There is no glory, just a polite sociopath who is not sorry for his crimes, but glad to have at least 'had us some fun'. America is not the breeding ground for dreams but merely monsters who kill them.
'Atlantic City' brings us back East and into the shoes of a man who is about to commit murder for money. He's in a jam and can't see any other way out. He consoles himself by saying, 'Maybe everything that dies one day comes back' but it is small consolation indeed. Juxtaposing these two murderous narratives, Bruce dares us to find sympathy for either devil. Sure the down-on-his-luck would-be gun-for-hire of 'Atlantic City' is a pawn in some bosses game, sure his victims won't be quite so innocent as the drifter's kill in 'Nebraska', but victims they will be.
'Mansion On The Hill' is simple is as simple does. Poor man looks at rich man's house.
Next up on the docket is 'Johnny 99' in which a man is sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing a night clerk. The line 'I got debts no honest many can pay' reoccurs here and the economic thrust of the album becomes clearer. Is a man's guilt lessened by his circumstances? The men accused seem to think so but the horror of these tales doesn't allow us that kind of certainty.
Until this moment, the album is stark, finely carved, emotionally resonant, and haunting. It is about to rocket into tragedy and genius.
'Highway Patrolman' packs so much action into its 5 minutes and 38 seconds that Sean Penn made a movie out of it. It tells the story of two brothers who grow up on a farm. One goes off to fight in Vietnam, the other stays behind to work the land. They may or may not be in love with the same girl who marries the one who took over the farm. The farm goes under and the farmer becomes a cop to provide for his family. The Vietnam Vet comes back and can't seem to stay out of trouble, as much as his cop brother looks out for him. Finally he gets into a scrape that turns fatal and a car chase ensues. The Patrolman allows his brother to escape across the Canadian border. How Springsteen manages to pull this all off in rhyming couplets is astonishing. The human cost of crime and its collateral victims is brutally apparent.
'State Trooper' flips the coin to view law enforcement from the point of view of a criminal driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. He says, 'I got a clear conscience 'bout the things that I done' but still he prays that the State Trooper won't pull him over. After the first 5 songs, we share that prayer because the desperate men that people this world use murder as a means of escape.
'Used Cars' returns to the mind of the poor, as a young boy dreams of being able to afford a new car some day. The violence of the other songs persists, however, and that very dream of wealth seems like a surefire path to destruction.
'Open All Night' might have been an outtake from 'Born To Run', it's all chrome and wheels and late night driving and nowhere and no-how. But again, the context has changed so drastically that even these declarations of love and fidelity seem as if they'd been wrought with weapons, bathed in blood, cured in filth.
'My Father's House' drops an emotional A-bomb into the proceedings. A man dreams of his father's house. He wakes determined that their relationship will be repaired, that they won't hurt each other anymore, that they will love as father and son. He rushes to his car, drives to his father's house, and finds that his father doesn't live there anymore. The primal relationship is forever scarred.
'Reason To Believe' seems innocuous enough, a litany of woes that end with Bruce saying, 'Still at the end of every hard earned day/People find some reason to believe.' Upon closer inspection, this is hardly the uplifting gospel moment it appears to be on the surface. In the first stanza the narrator is laughing at a man who is prodding a dead dog with a stick. In the second, a scorned lover waits every day for the man who will never come back to her. In the third, he compares a baby being baptized to the death of an old man. In the fourth, he witnesses a marriage but later sees the groom waiting for the woman who has spurned him. The singer of these songs doesn't sympathize. There is a glint of amusement in his jaded eye, the eye of a man who laughs at the weak, manipulates the uncertain, kills the inconvenient.
This is not the sound of a man who is in a good time rock and roll band. This is the sound of a man who has decided that his band is for shit, his fans don't get the message, his image has preceded him like some sort of bullshit carnival barker, and the only connection he is able to muster is with drifters who kill for pleasure, money, or panic.
The album isn't called 'Reason To Believe'. It's called 'Nebraska'. The almost deserted setting that housed a man who thought it would be 'fun' to steal a car, drive off into the sunset, and kill everything in his path.
The scary thing is? He was born to run.
OK, fine, 'Born In The U.S.A.' is a perfect album but I think 'Born To Run' is overrated, 'The River' sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of one, and 'The Wild, The Innocent, and The E-Street Shuffle' is just embarrassing. At their worst they remind me of a coked out middle manager over-dancing to Journey in white jeans.
Most bands are BANDS. You can't separate one of the members from the rest. This is why the E-Streeters are ultimately session players and not members of a band. I don't care how many photos they put on the cover of Bruce leaning on Clarence or Little Stevie or Max. It is Bruce and whoever he brings along for the ride.
Which is why 'Nebraska' is perfect. Much of Springsteen's music in the '70's suffered under the weight of ambition. I SHALL NOW CAPTURE THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA IN 4 MINUTES OR LESS, AND BY SPIRIT I MEAN THE DIRTY UNDERBELLY AND THE SOARING HOPE, THE PASSION AND THE DESPAIR, THE EVERYTHING AND NOTHING, THE OVER AND THE UNDER, WHAT THE HELL WAS I SAYING?
The E-Street Band did their best to uphold this mandate but who could live up to an all-encompassing quest for immortality? The true anthem occurs not with forethought, but with humility. Listen to 'Born To Run' and try to find a humble moment. You can't do it.
I also find it ironic that 'Nebraska' is considered Springsteen's first solo album. In my opinion his albums were all solo records, this one merely was honest enough to admit that he didn't need all those other guys, they were just part of his show.
Admittedly to this point this has not been a review of 'Nebraska' but a referendum on The E Street Band. While this might seem unnecessary it is vital in understanding just what makes this album so great and such a departure. Bruce recorded the songs you hear on 'Nebraska' as templates for the band to build from. They took these home demos and expanded on them in typical E-Street fashion.
Bruce then decided it was time to let the dream die. He scrapped the full band recordings and released 'Nebraska' as he'd recorded it...alone.
'Nebraska' begins with 'Nebraska'. As Bruce brings us along on a murder spree that spans the Badlands he immediately announces that this isn't going to be your father's Bruce Springsteen record. There is no glory, just a polite sociopath who is not sorry for his crimes, but glad to have at least 'had us some fun'. America is not the breeding ground for dreams but merely monsters who kill them.
'Atlantic City' brings us back East and into the shoes of a man who is about to commit murder for money. He's in a jam and can't see any other way out. He consoles himself by saying, 'Maybe everything that dies one day comes back' but it is small consolation indeed. Juxtaposing these two murderous narratives, Bruce dares us to find sympathy for either devil. Sure the down-on-his-luck would-be gun-for-hire of 'Atlantic City' is a pawn in some bosses game, sure his victims won't be quite so innocent as the drifter's kill in 'Nebraska', but victims they will be.
'Mansion On The Hill' is simple is as simple does. Poor man looks at rich man's house.
Next up on the docket is 'Johnny 99' in which a man is sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing a night clerk. The line 'I got debts no honest many can pay' reoccurs here and the economic thrust of the album becomes clearer. Is a man's guilt lessened by his circumstances? The men accused seem to think so but the horror of these tales doesn't allow us that kind of certainty.
Until this moment, the album is stark, finely carved, emotionally resonant, and haunting. It is about to rocket into tragedy and genius.
'Highway Patrolman' packs so much action into its 5 minutes and 38 seconds that Sean Penn made a movie out of it. It tells the story of two brothers who grow up on a farm. One goes off to fight in Vietnam, the other stays behind to work the land. They may or may not be in love with the same girl who marries the one who took over the farm. The farm goes under and the farmer becomes a cop to provide for his family. The Vietnam Vet comes back and can't seem to stay out of trouble, as much as his cop brother looks out for him. Finally he gets into a scrape that turns fatal and a car chase ensues. The Patrolman allows his brother to escape across the Canadian border. How Springsteen manages to pull this all off in rhyming couplets is astonishing. The human cost of crime and its collateral victims is brutally apparent.
'State Trooper' flips the coin to view law enforcement from the point of view of a criminal driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. He says, 'I got a clear conscience 'bout the things that I done' but still he prays that the State Trooper won't pull him over. After the first 5 songs, we share that prayer because the desperate men that people this world use murder as a means of escape.
'Used Cars' returns to the mind of the poor, as a young boy dreams of being able to afford a new car some day. The violence of the other songs persists, however, and that very dream of wealth seems like a surefire path to destruction.
'Open All Night' might have been an outtake from 'Born To Run', it's all chrome and wheels and late night driving and nowhere and no-how. But again, the context has changed so drastically that even these declarations of love and fidelity seem as if they'd been wrought with weapons, bathed in blood, cured in filth.
'My Father's House' drops an emotional A-bomb into the proceedings. A man dreams of his father's house. He wakes determined that their relationship will be repaired, that they won't hurt each other anymore, that they will love as father and son. He rushes to his car, drives to his father's house, and finds that his father doesn't live there anymore. The primal relationship is forever scarred.
'Reason To Believe' seems innocuous enough, a litany of woes that end with Bruce saying, 'Still at the end of every hard earned day/People find some reason to believe.' Upon closer inspection, this is hardly the uplifting gospel moment it appears to be on the surface. In the first stanza the narrator is laughing at a man who is prodding a dead dog with a stick. In the second, a scorned lover waits every day for the man who will never come back to her. In the third, he compares a baby being baptized to the death of an old man. In the fourth, he witnesses a marriage but later sees the groom waiting for the woman who has spurned him. The singer of these songs doesn't sympathize. There is a glint of amusement in his jaded eye, the eye of a man who laughs at the weak, manipulates the uncertain, kills the inconvenient.
This is not the sound of a man who is in a good time rock and roll band. This is the sound of a man who has decided that his band is for shit, his fans don't get the message, his image has preceded him like some sort of bullshit carnival barker, and the only connection he is able to muster is with drifters who kill for pleasure, money, or panic.
The album isn't called 'Reason To Believe'. It's called 'Nebraska'. The almost deserted setting that housed a man who thought it would be 'fun' to steal a car, drive off into the sunset, and kill everything in his path.
The scary thing is? He was born to run.
Friday, October 10, 2008
46 Greatest Albums: The Shaggs - 'Philosophy of the World'
Some things are great because they achieve such clarity of talent and perception that they pierce you to the heart. Some things are great because they make you forget that your heart can be pierced and they transport you to a place of lighthearted enjoyment. Some things are great because they speak directly about our society in such a way that something seems to come further into focus.
The Shaggs are not great for any of those reasons. In fact, to use the word great in conjunction with The Shaggs is an iffy proposition.
The Wiggins sisters lived in Fremont, New Hampshire, a small logging town way up north. Their grandmother had had a premonition that her son would have several daughters and that they would become famous musicians. Austin Wiggins believed his mother so, after having married and produced several daughters, he set about the task of bringing his mother's prophecy to light.
It was the late '60's.
He bought a drum set, several pawn shop guitars, and some rudimentary amplifiers. The girls set about learning how to play and writing songs. They were a bit nervous when their dad suggested that they play the Fremont Town Hall Saturday night dance. They didn't think they were ready, even though they'd been taking lessons and practicing together for just over a year. But Austin insisted. They became a fixture there, playing weekly until Austin's death in 1975. The group disbanded after that.
Austin took them out of high school and home-schooled them so they could focus on their music. He also arranged for them to go down to Boston and record an album. Again they weren't sure they were ready for that step but what Austin said went.
The album they recorded is some of the most astounding music you will ever hear. You can't sing along to it, you can't tap your foot, you can't get lost in the melody, you merely try to keep your jaw from hitting the floor too hard.
At the time that they recorded the album their youngest sister Rachel was not yet accompanying them on bass for all the songs. She only plays on 'That Little Sports Car'. The lineup for the rest of the songs is as follows:
Betty Wiggin - rhythm guitar, vocals
Helen Wiggin - drums
Dorothy 'Dot' Wiggin - lead vocal, guitar, arrangements
It is almost impossible to avoid cruelty while describing this music. The girls seem to be playing different songs simultaneously. Legend has it that during the recording the girls would stop and say one of them had made a mistake. The engineer couldn't fathom how any of them could tell.
How can something so disjointed and crude be one of the 'greatest' albums of all time? Well, for one thing, you can't stop listening to it once you start. It leaves you flabbergasted.
I shall take a moment to try and invoke the sound.
Picture 3 very sad teenage marionettes with instruments. They would rather be back in their boxes; they don't like you looking at them or listening to them. But they have no choice so they start to play. Their only job is to keep playing so that the puppet master is happy. They don't realize that they have free will. This mixture of survival instinct and total oppression gives the music a haunted quality, the kind of music one might expect to hear in a concentration camp. Prisoners forced to play instruments they have no affinity for.
Apparently the locals would come out and taunt the girls while they tried to entertain at The Fremont Town Hall. But they kept playing until their father passed away. Then they didn't have to pretend anymore.
But, still, Austin's mother was right. His daughters are famous. Some have greatness thrust upon them.
The Shaggs are not great for any of those reasons. In fact, to use the word great in conjunction with The Shaggs is an iffy proposition.
The Wiggins sisters lived in Fremont, New Hampshire, a small logging town way up north. Their grandmother had had a premonition that her son would have several daughters and that they would become famous musicians. Austin Wiggins believed his mother so, after having married and produced several daughters, he set about the task of bringing his mother's prophecy to light.
It was the late '60's.
He bought a drum set, several pawn shop guitars, and some rudimentary amplifiers. The girls set about learning how to play and writing songs. They were a bit nervous when their dad suggested that they play the Fremont Town Hall Saturday night dance. They didn't think they were ready, even though they'd been taking lessons and practicing together for just over a year. But Austin insisted. They became a fixture there, playing weekly until Austin's death in 1975. The group disbanded after that.
Austin took them out of high school and home-schooled them so they could focus on their music. He also arranged for them to go down to Boston and record an album. Again they weren't sure they were ready for that step but what Austin said went.
The album they recorded is some of the most astounding music you will ever hear. You can't sing along to it, you can't tap your foot, you can't get lost in the melody, you merely try to keep your jaw from hitting the floor too hard.
At the time that they recorded the album their youngest sister Rachel was not yet accompanying them on bass for all the songs. She only plays on 'That Little Sports Car'. The lineup for the rest of the songs is as follows:
Betty Wiggin - rhythm guitar, vocals
Helen Wiggin - drums
Dorothy 'Dot' Wiggin - lead vocal, guitar, arrangements
It is almost impossible to avoid cruelty while describing this music. The girls seem to be playing different songs simultaneously. Legend has it that during the recording the girls would stop and say one of them had made a mistake. The engineer couldn't fathom how any of them could tell.
How can something so disjointed and crude be one of the 'greatest' albums of all time? Well, for one thing, you can't stop listening to it once you start. It leaves you flabbergasted.
I shall take a moment to try and invoke the sound.
Picture 3 very sad teenage marionettes with instruments. They would rather be back in their boxes; they don't like you looking at them or listening to them. But they have no choice so they start to play. Their only job is to keep playing so that the puppet master is happy. They don't realize that they have free will. This mixture of survival instinct and total oppression gives the music a haunted quality, the kind of music one might expect to hear in a concentration camp. Prisoners forced to play instruments they have no affinity for.
Apparently the locals would come out and taunt the girls while they tried to entertain at The Fremont Town Hall. But they kept playing until their father passed away. Then they didn't have to pretend anymore.
But, still, Austin's mother was right. His daughters are famous. Some have greatness thrust upon them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
