Scott Faingold Listens To Everything

2006-08-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

The Walkmen
A Hundred Miles Off
Record Collection

It almost never fails - just when I'm ready to wash my hands of Listening To Everything as an active lifestyle choice, cursing my self-inflicted lot as a sucker's bet or worse, I stumble on something that's actually good. What's so good about this particular record, you ask? Hard to say. It's certainly not "original" - the singer sounds like he's been eating a steady diet of Basement Tapes for a decade or more and the musicianship doesn't exactly beat the rock thing into any unrecognizable shapes. The difference, kids, I'm afraid, amounts to admittedly intangible stuff like passion, conviction, ETC, which, since this is my blog, I'm allowed to proclaim is here in spades. The backing track of "Good For You's Good for Me" sounds like an overdriven Crickets guitar part with someone beating on a plank of metal underneath and a Bringing It All Back Home vocal outtake pinned on top like a birthday ribbon. And it works, somehow, unimaginable as that seems. There's also a song where they sing the phrase "lost in / Boston" and later assonantly rhyme it with "Exhausted."This, I submit, is the thing called rock. And if this is also where we part ways, I can accept that. Adieu, motherfuckers.

2006-08-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

Rocky Votolato
Makers
Barsuk

Okay, Elliot Smith is in fact dead, and therefore this kind of thing is inevitable - if it didn't happen naturally then the indie labels would damn well make it happen, that's how market niches work. Course,this is part of a long tradition of downed balladeers, stretching back past Elliot and Bright Eyes and even Uncle Paul "Here Comes a Skyway Regular" Westerberg over the horizon to, at least, um, James Taylor. This isn't bad, really, but it's not much else, either.

2006-08-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Transition
Get There
Floodgate

What a lousy name for a band - so non-commital, so lacking in what the plebs call "color." And what a blah title for a CD, too - although at least it's of a dull piece with the group's moniker. So this is where "punk" is today - as if I didn't know: A wilted bowl of emo salad garnished with the occasional chewy, post-expiration-date Cuomo/Billy Joe "pop" bacon bit. I'm not generally one to advocate violence, even in the abstract, but...someone needs their asses kicked - perhaps the attendant trauma would produce something of "artistic worth." But probably not.

2006-08-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

Bob Schneider
The Californian
Shockorama

If it was 1981 I might think this was acceptably conventional, if the last record I'd bought was something by George Thorogood, I'd think this was avant-garde and I might even be shocked by the occasional self-conscious "F-bomb"...But the fact is it's 2006 and I'm just not that guy. What I'm hearing is bar music for a bar I'd never go to. The cover art seems to be based on the distorted portraiture on Tom Waits's Alice but the tropes being exploited and the personality on display here do nothing to offset the derivation. And the funk / rap "workout" going under the name "Mudhouse" might fly as a live encore, but it's a tedious-as-hell penultimate album track. And the faux-scratched-78 rpm beer-barrel singalong that ends the disc musically justifies my Waits comparison from before. But sucks, too. Just sayin'.

2006-08-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

Rogue Wave
Descended Like Vultures
Sub Pop

This is good pop/singer-songwriter stuff, solidly played and recorded and sung with feeling, while not overly formulaic in composition. On first listen, though, Zach Rogue's songs seem like a closed universe - not a real problem since the same can be said for many of my favorite artists - I just have to decide whether it's worth the time and effort to find my way in. As of now, the jury's still out.

2006-08-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Swamp Tech
Tigerbeat6

The transformation of Mr. Quintron from Chicago avant-nuisance to New Orleans retro-futuristic, post-ironic party maniac / mad inventor was complete a few years back - a proposition to which this record, made shortly before he and his puppeteer paramour Pussycat nearly perished in the perilous path of Hurricane Katrina, attests handily. More ?-esque organ grinding, more Jon Spencer-like swagger, more early-B-52's-style dance rhythms. The schtick remains entertaining (although my promo copy didn't come with the "Electric Swamp" DVD so I can't claim to have the whole picture) but this many albums down the line, there's not a whole lot of surprise left. Nice KISS cover, though.

2006-08-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

John Jacob Niles
An Evening With John Jacob Niles
Empire Musicwerks

The late Mr. Niles may not have technically hailed from another planet, but the sound of his swooping, trilling voice is certainly an otherworldly phenomenon. This is another amazing reissue of stuff from the pre-Dylan folkie fifties - apparently a time when folk music was anything but staid. As I may have pointed out before, Niles is nothing if not the progenitor of "freak folk" - this stuff easily out-weirds Devendra, Joanna and all the other legitimate nutballs on the current scene.

2006-08-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

Mardo
The New Gun
House of Restitution

Kind of like the Jon Spencer Heavy Metal Explosion or Ween if they did a Zeppelin pastiche and then got stuck like that, the way your mom said your eyes would stay crossed if you weren't careful. Tom Lord-Alge's magic touch at the mixing board and a little more sincerity / obscenity on the part of the band help put this a cut or so above the band's obnoxious-if-rockin', glammed-up debut. Not sure if Pete Townshend would object to them using "see me, feel me, touch me, heal me" (a familiar refrain to all you musical theatre enthusiasts, I'm sure) as the chorus of their own 'original' song, but hey, I always give extra credit for sheer nerve.

2006-08-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

Blaine Larsen
Rockin' You Tonight
BNA

This fella looks like he's barely hit all the stops on the long voyage to puberty, but his voice sounds old enough to drink, anyway. This perfectly listenable, straight-up commercial country disc is populated by-and-large with solid, witty little tunes, delivered with self-effacing charm and easily relatable, occasionally self-conscious pop culture references ("J Lo had nothing on her," etc) to let us know we are indeed walking the same wired-up planet at the same over-stimulated time as our down-to-earth bud Blaine. The cover of Mac Davis' bastard-stud anthem "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me" is such a no-brainer, I'm surprised every current c&w mack daddy hasn't already re-recorded it. (Maybe next time he'll do "Never Been This Far Before" - as a medley with KISS's "Christine Sixteen," even...) To keep us guessing, diametrically opposed lyrical territory is explored in the gorgeously manipulative "In Love With A Married Woman." He even votes "no" on the issues of spray-painted swastikas and the Mr Pink-ing of waitresses on the pro-activist "Someone Is Me." Wotta dreamboat!

2006-08-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

Karsh Kale
Broken English
Six Degrees

All-over-the-place techno/pop/hip-hop/world/ambient melange presided over by a guy with an untrustworthy-looking goatee. Easy enough on the ears and not exactly boring, this fades into the background fairly subserviently. Which I guess is okay, if that's your cup of lassi....

2006-08-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

Michael Johnathon & the Folkboy Orchestra
Live
PoetMan

"The only part of life that will ever stay the same / Is that everything will change," sings our gracious host with a detached, somewhat cold-blooded existentialism odd for someone dedicating his life to the wide-eyed task of upholding eroding musical traditions. Of course, folks change, folk changes and yesterday's call to revolution inevitably becomes today's museum piece. In cases like that of the Barbara Dane reisssue I reviewed a few days ago, it can become a riveting piece of history that carries with it some of the ambient excitement and possibility of the time it was made. Or, in the case of this disc, it can become a mere trotting out of shopworn tropes played for an audience that wouldn't dream of disagreeing with a thing their well-fed troubadour says, let alone spend an 18th part of their disposable folky income on actually affecting the change they so love to hear people sing about (even when he actively chides them for this exact thing, as in "World We Made"). In truth, artists like iLL TACTICS or even X-TRCT are singing the 'music of the people' of today far more than this overly precious, retrograde, middle class, liberal, well-intentioned bore.

2006-08-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

iLL TACTICS
"Lookin So Good"/"Rap Idol"

OK, I realize that this says more about me than it does about my man iLL TACTICS but my first thought upon hearing the hook "Lookin' so good/When I walk through the door" was that it might be in reference to his waiting girlfriend (or shorty or ho or bitch or whatever the kids are calling 'em these days) and not, like, his own ass. Guess I'm just not down enough with the self-love. The aggrandizement continues unabated on "Rap Idol" which I'm supposing is some sort of reality TV fantasia. Musically, the tracks are typical played-out, slicked-up, post-dutty souf: a little screwed, not all that chopped, nothing new, nothing super-bangin'. Big deal.

2006-08-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

Allan Harris
Cross That River
Love Productions

Passing strange...Acclaimed jazz vocalist Harris composed and arranged this suite of Western (as opposed to Country) songs, dealing with the theme of the role played by the black man in the settlement of the old west. Unsurprisingly, the singing is pretty incredible, the songs less so. Still, its unique and impassioned - commodities always in short supply. The sound is something akin to Marty Robbins' "El Paso" but with occasional anachronistic sonic flourishes (paticularly on "Muleskinner") and lyrics about "being broken to the will of the white man's law."

2006-07-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

Greta Gaines
Can't Kill The Flavor
Big Air

Seven songs worth of laptop folk-pop by a former MTV sports anchor, Uma Thurman classmate and Sheryl Crow opening act. And it's about as inspiring as that sounds.

2006-07-31T12:20:00.000-07:00

Various Artists
Friends of Fahey: John Fahey Tribute
Slackertone

In contrast to the recent, more alternative-minded I Am The Resurrection CD, this tribute is focused on the more traditionally "folkie" side of the late, multi-faceted and cantankerous guitar genius. While IATR featured noisy and/or wiggy contributions by the likes of Lee Ranaldo and Devendra Banhart, this one boasts mellow-yet-intricate miniatures by Trad/New-Agey dudes like George Winston and John Renbourn. Like I said, multi-faceted. And while my personal tendencies would lead me to prefer the other disc, my innate sense of useless integrity forces me to inform you that neither is the full-on Fahey story - nearly any of the man's own voluminous number of releases would be more instructive and enjoyable than any old tribute, however well-intentioned or heartfelt.

2006-07-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Edgewater
We're Not Robots...
Forevergreen

[midway through track # 1]A dazzlingly literal answer to that eternal musical question: What if Foreigner was emo? [start of track # 5]Hmmm...First thought, best thought? [Five minutes after last song] Nothing to add. Huh.

2006-07-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

Barbara Dane
Anthology of American Folk Songs
Empire Musicwerks

"Oh death and grief and sorrow and murder..."Remember that old Steve Martin routine where he'd whip out his banjo and proclaim the impossibility of singing a sad or disturbing song with banjo accompaniment because the sound of the instrument was so intrinsically happy? It took me years of random music listening to figure out that, as usual, the real joke was on ol' Esteban: The traditional American song catalog is nothing if not lousy with all forms of morbidity, banjo-centric and otherwise. (It could even be argued that the only American tradition that goes back further than the murder ballad is murder itself.) This wonderful 15-song collection, recorded in 1959 by an angelic blonde sprite (albeit one who once recorded an album of duets with Lightnin' Hopkins) is melancholy and hard-boned and free of false-feeling. And just dripping with death and grief and sorrow and murder.

2006-07-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

Calhoun
Calhoun
Many Happy Regrets

All in all, a slightly better than average mid-period American Music Club impression. Main Calhouner Tim Locke has a less distinctive (albeit possibly more commercial, with a wider technical range) vocal style than mean ol' Mark Eitzel, but the music is austere enough that the delicate balance unfortunately tips toward the faceless. Lyrics and titles are agreeably dispeptic ("I've got a kick drum mind"; "Six Flags Over Hell") but sometimes it sounds like...Dave Matthews or Jack Johnson or some shit. I mean, those guys in a bad mood, but still..

2006-07-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

Bane
The Note
Equal Vision

"I'm not all that sure how much longer my voice can hold out for," bellows vocalist Aaron Bedard on "Hoods up" and it's not hard to feel his pain - this guy seems to take his cue straight from early Minor Threat-era Ian and is apparently satisfied with this state of affairs. "This is my therapy, "he observes forcefully on "My Therapy," which is fine for him and his somewhat unimaginitive, instrument-toting pals, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what place this has in my own life. Well, actually, that's a lie.

2006-07-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

Adenosine
Fire Away
TEG Entertainment

The upbeat stuff sounds like Eagles of Death Metal without groove or humor, the rest sounds like the most excessive late-era Pink Floyd without the chops or production values. In other words, retrograde "hard rock" with no excuse for itself. "Nowhere to Run" is actually more of an attempt at '80s- power balladry, but at least Night Ranger were professionals, y'know? And the opening of "Rhythm" consists of a blatant, er, homage, to "Kashmir" before settling into its rote, wannabe Journey-isms. Sheesh. Oh, and they rhyme "riot" with "quiet" in case you require further illustration.

2006-07-26T16:01:00.000-07:00

zelazowa
Rest Easy

Songs, now there's an idea...Although these guys seem to have ridden a timewarp to the post-Nevermind grunge-whatever A&R feeding frenzy, which infamously resulted in more dropped contracts and fired A&R staff than any other era in history. Though I'm not sure these guys woulda got signed even then. Still 'n' all, if you let this play and flip randomly through muted cable channels it seems like a comment on our fast'n'loose consumer culture. Of course, so does everything else, too. Representative refrain: "Have we lost our fucking minds?" No, dudes: That might've been interesting.

2006-07-26T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yellow Swans
Drift
Acuarela

Here you gotcher basic 37-minute "ep" of feedback-laden, noisy-ambient electronic soundscapes, these ones sporting a distinct '90s flavor, bringing back memories of that Blind Idiot God guy's solo disc for Bill Laswell (what a day that was, eh?). There are three (count 'em!) tracks, each considerably longer than the one before it, not to say more tedious. Not to not say that, either. It's on a Spanish label, always a signifier of quality ("Nobody understands us here in Cali, man, let's send the shit to fuckin' Spain "). Mood music for a foul mood indeed.

2006-07-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Wailin' Jennies
Firecracker
Red House

Stripped down, facile, femme-centric country. Opener "The Devil's Paintbrush Road" sounds like, I dunno, a girly Bad Livers? But the remainder is more conventionally folkie, more Tres Dixie Chicas than Freakwater. Certainly has Shooter beat all to hell...but how much of an accomplishment is that, really?

2006-07-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

Thom Yorke
Eraser
XL

What's a man to say when faced with the task of commenting upon a solo CD by the guy from Radiohead? That it sounds like a solo CD by the guy from Radiohead? That won't really do, will it? Or will it? This is droney, minimal electronica likely recorded on a laptop or something. The vocals, however, sound like Radiohead. Exactly.

2006-07-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Punchline
37 Everywhere
Fueled By Ramen

Not exactly sucky post-Weezer emo. I guess girl trouble, social unease and political impotence never go out of style. Nice harmonies, but the hooks are a little samey. "Don't Try This At Home" is a sort of cute metaphor about reality TV and the intro to "The Fake, The Snake, And The Birthday Cake" hints at some possible future depth.

2006-07-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Indian jewelry
Health and Wellbeing
Girlgang

Post-psychedelic, as in, like, Chrome or Spacemen 3. This four-song sampler is meant to be a teaser for an upcoming full-length, but feels like a pretty filling meal on it’s own. More atmospheric than memorable, but not unpleasant. No standouts.

2006-07-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

Richie Hawtin
De9 Transitions
Mute

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beat! Beat! Beat! Please write and tell me if I’m missing something here. Honestly. I want to learn.

2006-07-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

Gamble Brothers Band
Continuator
Archer Records

“E. Parkway Rundown” is no “10th Avenue Freeze-out” -- course, very little is, but that’s no excuse. The salient question here is: Does the world really need a jam-band answer to the most unburroughsian facets of Steely Dan? I’m afraid that any dude, major or minor, will tell you the answer to that one…gosh, it strikes me that (as an indicator of quality, anyway) “talent” can be such a misnomer. Because without something to…How you say? “Say”? Yes, without THAT, talent can so easily become just another bereft test tube. And at the very least, someone needs to turn up the Bunsen burner under these guys. And it ain’t gonna be me.

2006-07-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

Film School
Film School
Beggars Banquet

Question: So how come there’s no one band that brings together Seventeen Seconds-era Cure and, um, Interpol? Answer: Because it would have to sound like THIS. The '80s were, in fact, an entire decade, but really: Ya’d never know it.

2006-07-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

Howie Day
Live From…
Epic

This guy’s in his early-to-mid-twenties but he looks, like, 11 on the j-card (do they call these things j-cards? or was that just for cassettes?). Anyway, he does a Crowded House song, samples/imitates Jeff Buckley, in other words comes off like a perfectly nice, thoughtful fellow -- if I had a daughter he’d be welcome to date her. But know what? I don’t. And guess what else: I’m never gonna listen to this again.

2006-07-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

Catfish Haven
Please Come Back
Secretly Canadian

Stripped down garage’n’b, less specifically rootsy than the Flat Duo Jets, say, but culled from the same coiff -- not unlike if Them had been distorted US post-punk soulsters instead of clean Irish pre-psyche ones. Which, don’t get me wrong, doesn’t mean I think that this George Hunter clown has any sort of Astral Weeks in him, but who knows? Maybe he’ll be on Blue Note one day.

2006-07-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

Beck
Guerolito
Interscope

Here’s a weird full-disclosure kind of thing: I’ve been a Beck fan since I saw him hilariously interviewed by Thurston Moore on “120 Minutes” way back when Mellow Gold wasn’t even a fraction of the rage yet. Since then, believe it or not, I actually sought out and purchased each new Beck album as it came out…EXCEPT for Guero, which I still haven’t heard (and I’ll admit that the reasons for this lapse are mainly arbitrary but partially related to my own bitter media-derived bias against Scientology). Now, though, Interscope has sent me this thing, meaning I get to review a remix record without having heard the originals beforehand. What Fun! Of course, if I didn’t know they were remixes, I’d probably just be like: “Whoah, the new Beck: cool.”…Which turns out to be my reaction anyway. Everything I ever read or heard about Guero indicated that it was kind of a summing-up/amalgamation of the man’s career-thus-far replete with the wacky raps and the pseudo-Braziliana and the downed balladry and the infectious pop and the kitsch and the sink. All of which describes precisely what this here record sounds like to me. I wonder wherein the differences may lie? Hmmm…I may have to line the pockets of L. Ron Hubbard’s minions with Guero-gelt after all. Oh yeah, nice English Bite [twistandcrawltwistandcrawltwistandcrawl] running through Diplo’s “Wish Coin (Go It Alone).”

2006-07-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Armor for Sleep
What to Do When You are Dead
Equal Vision

A concept album that brings the ur-emo theme of being deceased-yet-omnisciently-sentient to a slicked-up, monolithic extreme of calculated poppiness. It’s a cold fact of marketing: A certain segment of the teenage population will buy this kind of thing if it’s there to be bought. And I’m sure it goes w/o saying, but no sin committed by Kurt Cobain during his lifetime can compare to the damage his absurdly-romanticized exeunt apparently continues to inflict on the youth-oriented lyrical landscape lo these eleven years. Okay, okay: I know teenage suicide scenarios are nothing new, but even disregarding KC, wasn’t one Quadrophenia enough? The evidence would seem to indicate otherwise.

2006-07-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

X-TRCT
God’s Gift
Southcoast Productions

Fucking hell. One day as I was trying to leave work this hulking, tracksuited guy pulled up in his garishly “wrapped” van and physically >chased< me into the office parking lot to make sure I got my copy of this CD and my “IN-vite” to his “video shoot.” Well, with brilliant lyrical observations like “every king / needs a queen / who’ll do anything / for her king” it’s a good thing he’s so enthusiastic ‘cause this shit ain’t gwine sell itself. For a guy who could (should?) be riding/riffing on the current houston screw-tip he sure makes a lot of antiquated Biggie/pac moves. I guess you could call it ‘old school’, but it seems more like the hip-hop equivalent of some over-confident conor oberst wannabe at the corner acoustic open mic. For the record, that’s pronounced “eks-tracked” not “eks-tricate” (like it makes any real difference). Regardless, the hands-down standout track here is the only one that doesn’t actually feature mr. x himself: the unintentionally hilarious “one love” performed unaccompanied by poet mitch mac who has the temerity to follow up “Fuck around and squeal / And I’ll kill your ass, nigga” with “if you get sick, I’ll heal your ass, nigga.” Ah, tender muse.

2006-07-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

We Are Wolves
Non-Stop
Fat Possum

Fairly convincing new wave garage psych, some kind of mild clusterfuck between (very) early Devo and those damn 13th Floor Elevators. And sometimes they manage to sound like actual wolves, impressive in itself.

2006-07-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

Vaz
The Lie That Matches The Furniture
Narnack

Post-punk prog with heavy guitars reminiscent of '90s grunge, back in the glorious five-minute period before that term was permanently reduced to shorthand for “imitation Nirvana.” This music is actually dirty-sounding, but also delicate, which is sorta cool. Too bad none of the songs grabbed me, but at least they’re trying, right?

2006-07-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

Triple Whip
Snake Creeps Down
KFHH Media

Helpfully subtitled “a kung fu art rock concept e.p.” this amounts to 18 or so spirited minutes of wall-shaking, minimalist basslines, propulsive, hyperactive cymbal work, stadium-sized guitar and enough variation in attack to keep things more than just slightly interesting. The sounds shift from quasi-funk to full-tilt aggro to midtempo jangle and back while Santanu Rahman’s vocals maintain an almost zen-like equilibrium amid all the instrumental heave and ho. More fun than a barrel of Shaolin monks.

2006-07-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Saxon Shore
The Exquisite Death Of
Burnt Toast

High-kicking, anthemic instrumental stuff for the most part. Not bad as background but can’t think of much else to say. Sorry band: It’s not you, it’s me.

2006-07-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

The Robot Ate Me
On Vacation
5 Rue Christine

“Jesus and Hitler were in the back seat trying to make out.” The first CD of this 2-disc set (each disc is about the length of an LP side) comes off like a secret soundtrack to the subliminal truth of the current US sociopolitical climate, sounding as it does like some lost sub-Brechtian nouveau-Weimar revue filtered through indie-rock technology. This sort of zeitgeist-capturing humor (“ I kill better when I drink Pepsi,” etc) would be pretty funny if the zeitgeist itself weren’t so unimaginably horrible. Actually it’s pretty funny anyway, come to think of it. And creepy. And catchy. The second disc takes the same approach to more typically lovelorn genre-bound lyrical territory with charming, if less individualized, results.

2006-07-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Kendall Payne
Grown
www.kendallpayne.com

There are times when one is leery of putting one’s instinctive reaction into words: They might come off as overly cruel or glib or disrespectful… but at the end of the day, the truth will out. And so, the following: This chick is nothing but a female Daniel Makins. Isn’t there some kind of law? Shit. Just kidding, almost. But you get the idea.

2006-07-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Okkervil River
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
Jagjaguwar

A companion EP to a full-length CD I haven’t actually heard provides a unique contextual challenge, but here goes: On its own terms this is a delicate, moody, restless (and brief) piece of work that should fit neatly and gratefully into any collection that leans toward the Neutral Milk Hotel and / or Will Oldham sides of the increasingly antiquated adult contemporary-indie rock paradigm, though not as immediately distinctive as either of those benchmarks. Still, beggars not choosers etc. And sometimes it almost sounds like ‘Love Cats’-era Cure, always a boon.

2006-07-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

Joe Nichols
III
Universal

Blandly randy c&w product with titles like “Size Matters” and “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” delivering exactly what they advertise. Nice to be able to count on something in these dark times.

2006-07-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Daniel Makins
Daniel Makins
www.danielmakins.com

Sometimes one hesitates to put voice to one’s gut reaction because it seems rude or unfair or dismissive or whatever… But then one finally just has to let it out. Sigh. Okay, here it is: This guy is nothing but a male Dar Williams. How could this be allowed to happen? Is there a support group? Shit.

2006-07-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Lawless Element
Soundvision:In Stereo
Babygrande

“Stackin’ my paper, that’s what it’s all about.” Here’s a pair of youngish Detroit hip-hoppers trying their damnedest to walk the unenviable industry minefield between bling-bling bullshit and knee-jerk thuggery in a valiant attempt to stake out SOME kinda market share for their own respectably dressed-down old-school tendencies. Open your ears wide enough and you’ll definitely hear some Native Tongues-esque sonic freethinking: Many of the beats recall vintage DJ Premier and “The Shining” features an unnerving, Sun Ra-ish synth drone. As for the lyrics: Maybe if life on ‘the streets’ ever improved (or even changed just a little bit) the spoken truth about it wouldn’t feel so depressingly redundant. “You gotta love it, dog, you can’t beat it.” Indeed.

2006-07-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Josh Kelley
Almost Honest
Hollywood Records

Who does this fella think he’s singing to when he clamps those Koss cans onto his ears, bellies up to the panty-hose-protected microphone and closes his eyes? I’m guessing it’s the pre-menopausal soccer moms of today, specifically the ones who were too young to have swooned over Bon Jovi’s painted-on pantaloons but moved out of the dorm too early to get caught up in the whole funky-Jamiroquai thing (does that even make sense?). Sorry, but what we’ve got here is just another wanna-be Tom Jones lacking the gravity, the vulnerability AND the pipes to pull off his Chris Isaak moves. Give it up.

2006-07-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Juan Maclean
Less Than Human
DFA-Astralwerks

Meet the new Kraftwerk, same as the old Daft Punk. I mean Kraftwerk… um, Daftwerk?… er, Kraft Punk…. uh…Right... Now that we’ve got that all squared away, where was I? Ah, yes. This slab of retro-electro (e-retro?) manages at times to seem (that’s right, “seem”) as funky as vintage Melle Mel – a feat of simulation which I would contend renders it more than human, but who’s gonna quibble? So this guy used to be in Six Finger Satellite, eh? I suppose that makes sense. Well, I’m glad he found his way.

2006-07-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

Illbreak
The Flood
Imprint

Um. As a critic, am I allowed to disqualify myself on prejudicial or psychological grounds like at jury duty, say: “latent demographic perspective distortion”? Because I’m afraid that simply admitting to the fact that this sub-Stunned Tempo Pilates old-school modern-rock revival thing isn’t my particular cup of scarlet phlegm doesn’t really do any of the relevant parties justice. And you KNOW I’m all about the justice.

2006-07-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hawnay Troof
Community
Retard Disco

13:14 doesn’t seem like much time to explicate a manifesto, but it’s apparently enough in this case. Here we have banjo / trombone - inflected, Residents-influenced hip-hop of a dizzyingly high order. “You want us to want you to want us to stop you!/ What?/ Fuck you!” Bring it on! That is, if you’re into that kind of thing. Otherwise, not so much.

2006-07-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Robert Glasper
Canvas
Blue Note-EMI

Hey kids! it’s a piano jazz trio! I didn’t realize they still made these. Okay, we know it’s not McCoy Tyner because MT never grew dreads or got his brow pierced and we know it’s not Herbie Hancock because…Well, we just have to take that one on faith. Is it just me or did the closing credits of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood sully the appreciation of this kind of music for entire generations? Well, maybe now that ol’ Fred’s finally left us for the big cardigan-closet in the sky we can begin the long process of healing…What do you want me to say? these guys can definitely ‘play’, but that’s like saying the women on America’s Next Top Model are ‘attractive’. It’s on Blue Note, duh. The well-named “Chant” is sort of Mingus /‘Greensleeves’-ish and as such is kind of spookily compelling (if not particularly original) but otherwise: Further differentiation remains inaccessible at this time.

2006-07-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

The Fiery Furnaces
Rehearsing My Choir
Rough Trade

I’ve heard this band’s name bandied about in reverent tones for quite some time without having been exposed to their actual music until today. Surprisingly, this is almost too strange for me to comment on: At first blush it sounds like what might happen if Austin Wiggin fired his daughters and got talked into hooking up with some smart-aleck female confidence-slash-performance artists passing themselves off as session musicians to help ‘polish’ his wanna-be Murry Wilson post-The Velvet Underground answer record to Smile written in collaboration with the ghost of Earnest Noyes Brookings. Okay, maybe this whole multiple ‘dead daddy svengalis’ angle is a red herring: the point is, I can’t quite get my head around this. which might or might not be a good thing...

2006-07-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Eels
Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
Vagrant

How can you not love a CD featuring a song entitled “Whatever Happened To Soy Bomb”? Especially when it’s real good like this one is? Plus there are lines like “I’m so tired of living the suicide life / but that ain’t no reason to live” sung in a voice that sounds like what Paul Westerberg’s should’ve grown into instead of what actually happened. This is a pretty near unassailable double-disc with jaw-dropping guest spots from the likes of Tom Waits and Aly & A.J.’s unwitting pal John Sebastian (pretty unlikely likes, granted) boasting a huge range of mood and texture, not to mention hooks to die for. Quite good, yeah.

2006-07-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

The Dead Science
Frost Giant
Absolutely Kosher

Sam Mickens’s voice tends to dwell in a rarefied neighborhood: the same one where David Bowie’s hangs out right before making one of those sudden, patented, melodramatic pitch-shifts. Later, when Mickens does hit his falsetto stride, he sounds for all the world like a less angelic Jeff Buckley. Musically this power-trio makes more than most of its tonal options, with complex, intriguing basslines, fluid percussive buildups and subtly surging guitar…but vocally, once the Bowie-Buckley thing’s been identified, there’s not a lot left to discuss.

2006-07-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

Castanets
First Light’s Freeze
Asthmatic Kitty-Sounds Familyre

A gloomy yet trance-inducing piece of mood music, this CD perhaps succeeds at its chosen task a bit over-well. Emotional states are tilted at but never quite grasped, instrumental textures shift and bob. The whole thing left me feeling both flat and flattened…but maybe that’s just the Azithromycin talking. Have to listen to it again “straight” one of these days….

2006-07-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

Beat Cowboys
Ditch Rider
Baby Freddie

Six songs in 18 minutes by this New Mexico-via-Texas roots crew, recalling ye olde late-‘70s Edmunds-Lowe-Rockpile pubcrawl-from-the-wreckage as much as anything legitimately homegrown. And if you think that’s an insult, you haven’t spent much time riding in cars with me (at least not ones with functioning tapedecks). Still, by the start of track #4 my attention had wandered completely, so little was it given to dig into. And if you don’t think that sounds like a problem, you probably shouldn’t be reading this.

2006-07-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Aly & A.J.
Into the Rush
Hollywood Records

The very definition of “millennial bubble gum”: two squeaky-clean yet heavily made-up blonde sisters in a mid-period-Mary-Kate and Ashley mode (they’re 14 and 16) playing noticeably-less-rebellious than Avril pop with Matrix-meets-Mitch (Froom) production. The girls co-write most of their own understandably paper-thin tunes and then conclude the proceedings with covers of the Lovin’ Spoonful and Katrina & the Waves. Certainly no Smoosh, but not substantial enough to be truly disagreeable.

2006-07-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

Young People
Five Sunsets in Four Days
Too Pure

The Too Pure label gave the world PJ Harvey a bit over a decade ago and these People might actually be Young enough to have been Polly’s…not children, really, but toddler cousins, certainly, and they sorta sound it. Raw guitars, spattering noise and deceptively free-form arrangements organize themselves around Katie Eastburn’s vocals which recall…well, Polly Jean Harvey, right down to the North country accent, but also the Raincoats, Electrelane and that one girl who used to be in the Sugarcubes. Not a bad start really: There are far worse people to sound like.

2006-07-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Väsen
Live in Japan
Northside

“Sweden’s top progressive instrumental folk trio” caught making their somewhat unfamiliar but nonetheless pleasantly inviting sounds in a venue far from home. Unlike “Ultimate Pickin’” below, this has the feeling of a fluid, ever-expanding and even playful approach to ancient tropes. To a Western-pop-accustomed ear, this isn’t far from some Irish / Celtic stuff, but it’s noticeably light on the self-important new age thing that tends to creep in there. Otherwise, not a whole lot for a guy like me to say about a disc like this. Sure passes the time nicely, though.

2006-07-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ultimate Pickin’
The Best of Instrumental Bluegrass
Pinecastle

…and somehow the Random Review Generator spits out yet another slab of unrepentant shitkicking for my/our delectation, although in this case it’s the Highbrow Museum Piece version of unrepentant shitkicking. Amazing. This isn’t necessarily a ‘bad’ record, but I will say that if it’d been a 67-minute compilation of the original recordings of these standards I’d’ve been about 67 times more enthusiastic about sitting through it. Which might make me a snob, but let me say this:Mmere technical facility need not equal entertainment, let alone transcendence. And certainly does not in this case. Harrumph.

2006-07-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

Various Artists
Ten in Texas
Icehouse

Right, ‘cept it’s really more like ‘Twenty in Texas,’ since each of these artists arrives at your cochlea, ten-gallon chapeau in hand and bearing a fab cover of a materially absent lone star legend. So we’re treated to Joe Strummer’s old pal Joe Ely laying gingerly (and a tad too convincingly) into K. Kristoffersen’s career-best “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Aaron watson rescuing B. Holly’s “True Love Ways” from all those syrupy strings, etc… Pretty great all the way up to the point when his royal highness Sir Willie himself slurs his way good-naturedly through a looser-than-dysentary live version of Ed Bruce’s “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies [etc]”. Regional pride: Justified.

2006-07-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

Sawyer Brown
Mission Temple Fireworks Stand
Curb

One might not be in favor of boogie bands as a concept, but when actual boogie occurs (as it does on the swingin’, mildly hallucinatory title track and a couple other times over the length of this not-terribly-lengthy CD) how can the same One decently complain? I was all set to dismiss this out of hand, but a full 5 or 6 minutes of it’re totally fun. Now if only they’d ease up on the cheesy ballads that make up a full 80% of the disc… and possessed the necessary restraint to’ve refrained from covering that god damn Georgia Satellites song. Puke. Fave misheard lyric of the month: “Take me back to ol’ King Tut”

2006-07-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

Brandon Rhyder
Conviction
Bullcreek Productions

De facto title track “Man of Conviction” admirably avails itself of its intrinsic integrity/incarceration double entendre and the rest of the disc is about equally smart and heartfelt. This should appeal to anybody who doesn’t recoil at the whiff of macho singer-songwriter convention, i.e: there’s a certain undeniable Springsteenishness as well as a lingering Steve Earleosity lurking in the foreground here, but its pretty clear Rhyder’s (mostly) his own man. Not my cup of working class heroism, I’ll admit, but can’t find much honest fault either.

2006-07-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Pale Pacific
Rules are Predictable
SideCho

Opening track “Sucker Punch” starts out as not-entirely-mopey pop (like Haircut 100 mixed with Codeine or perhaps a male-fronted Helium) and then gradually builds to a sober and sobering crescendo. Which renders track 2, “Identity Theft,” the real sucker punch, as it breaks this carefully constructed mood with a spate of heel-clicking Imperial Teen-ish new wave. Then “All My Friends” ups and sounds like a more clearly articulated Let’s Active. Pretty impressive little EP in its way.

2006-07-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Octopus Project
One Ten Hundred Thousand Million
Peek-A-Boo Industries

So like what’s with all these atmospheric instrumental electronic bands that remind me of less adventurous versions of Tortoise? Okay, “Six feet Op” is pretty rockin’ techno-surf’n’spy metal on a foetus tip, but otherwise, whatever.

2006-07-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

Carrie Newcomer
Regulars and Refugees
Philo

I’m sorry, Carrie, were you just saying something? For like an hour? Only kidding, only kidding! (gosh these acoustic troubadours are soooo sensitive…) This here is kind of a chick-folk “Winesburg, Ohio” or “Spoon River Anthology” with a bunch of characters, all patrons at the fictional “Betty’s Diner” (an earlier CN joint, included here as a remixed bonus track, yo), each taking their turn speaking séance-style through the artiste. If I had a shred o’ decency I’d probably call this a “delicate masterwork of post-Joni literary songcraft with subtly shifting instrumental and lyrical shadings never quite distracting from the centrality of Newcomer’s soaring, supple voice” or something. Big “if”, that.

2006-07-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Laurnea
The Collection
Shanachie

Career retrospective encapsulating the ‘ouvre’ of an artist I’ll admit to having been less than dimly aware of before now. Apparently she used to sing with Arrested Development back howevermanyteen years ago when they were the Hot New Something, and from the evidence here she continues to evince whatever qualities put the flash in that particular pan. Sexy and smart and catchy and groovy as this all is, it’s easy enough to see why it’s not more popular. I mean, what have we here? Merely pleasant, consonant, eclectic r&b delivered with a fair amount of class and very little in the way of prurience. Where’s the hook? No wonder she’s on Shanachie, a label almost exclusively patronized by that insignificant market share: (ewww) grown-ups.

2006-07-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

Magnetophone
The Man Who Ate The Man
4AD

Atmospheric, funky, melancholy, exuberant (not all at the same time, of course not, are you insane?) these cheeky Brits have mastered the art of holding one’s attention without getting all obnoxious about it. The sort of background music that won’t fuss if you foreground it. Can’t have too many of those, in my humble estimate.

2006-07-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Snatam Kaur
Grace
Spirit Voyage

New Age Sikh music. Wow.

2006-07-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Jonx

The Return of the Death of the Legacy of the Revenge of the Jonx

Mustache

Stripped-down, arty, energetic, sarcastic Houston post-punkers presenting with a likably blatant, mid-fi Double Nickels-era Minutemen approximation (right down to a Watt-spiel impression on “Metal”: how’s that for realism?). I would normally complain about such obvious derivation, but seeing as the W. era so plainly begs for this sort of thing I can’t bear to seem discouraging. Thanks, kids!

2006-07-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Eric Idle
Eric Idle Presents the Rutland Isles With Your Host Nigel Spasm
iMusic-BMG

To say the least, this guy hasn’t changed much. But why would he? This is kind of an audio parody of former partner Michael Palin’s earnest travelogues acting as framework for a slight return to Idle’s Neil Innes collaborations from the ‘70s. Lots of silly songs and verrrry familiar (some might say recycled) jokes (“we apologize to purchasers of the beta version of this disc”; a restaurant specializing in pre-chewed food, etc.). So there you have it: 40-some minutes of pre-chewed comedy from a beloved former upstart turned Broadway mogul who both bought in and ran out of ideas a hell of a long time ago. Ha, ha.

2006-07-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

Frank Hart
Human Liturgy
Feverdream

Orchestrated, acoustic-based solo ‘rock’ songs with spiritually “searching” / existentialist-lite lyrical themes by ‘church leader’ and member of supposed major label rockers Atomic Opera (whoever they are). Hart’s vocals are a tad more conventional (i.e. faceless) than I might prefer – in fact, the cryptic phrase “Dave Matthews” keeps popping into my consciousness, not sure what that means. All in all, I feel like a hypocrite and curmudgeon for not cutting this fella some slack: I tend to bitch about the tendency toward disingenuousness in this sort of endeavor, but while this is nicely executed and all, it’s also downright hyperingenuous. And as such, no thanks.

2006-07-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ginuwine
Back II Da Basics
Sony Urban-Epic

“I’m here to make a mark like a crayon does” asserts guest-rapper Knight on “Oh Girl” and we all have our ambitions, I suppose. While I’m not sure that “let’s put on our velvet blazers for this one! What is that, velvet? She’s a super model!” is any less coherent than, say, the average overheard streetcorner rant, “if I feel like she’s diggin’ me enough to make love on the first night, that's a good look” is, at its core, irrefutable and “she’s like the diamonds in my figurine” may be the simile of the year. I’m serious. However, “I deeply regret everything I’ve done to you” seems like a bit of an extreme statement, even for an inveterate love man in hyper-apologetic mode.

2006-07-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Clay Farmer
Another Day
Hobo Soul

Somewhat anachronistic-sounding Houston folk-country. At one pont he claims he's "loading his shotgun with rock, salt and nails" which doesn’t seem very nice, but from his sunny baritone you'd never know it. All hail the great god dichotomy. This isn't exactly bogus, but something's keeping me from engaging with it. Happens sometimes.

2006-07-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

Easy action
Friends of Rock & Roll
Reptilian

Angry, gravel-throated, retrograde punk. There’s a song called “Get the Fuck Out of My Way” if that gives you any idea. “What’s Going Down” sounds like an attempted “Raw Power”-ballad with some trashy organ. Big fuckin’ deal.

2006-07-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

The Deadly Snakes
Porcella
In The Red

These guys are pretty defensive about being on a “garage rock” label – they make a big point of listing their influences in the press notes, these being: Zombies, Kinks, Love, Beefheart, Nico, Cohen and Cave. Which shows they’ve got some damn nerve, as I’d personally think twice before stacking myself against that particular list of heavy hitters. Miraculously, the Snakes manage to withstand their self-inflicted Godhead-comparisons, and if they don’t particularly expand the lexicon, how could they, really? The disc itself sounds excellent: Sandpapery and lush in equal parts, presenting a variety-pack of dark comedy, wistful pop and soul-searching melodrama amid an admirably stubborn refusal to settle down and graze in any one sonic pasture for long. Might could grow on one.

2006-07-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

Caribou
Marinoaudio
Domino

I can’t believe Handsome Dick Manitoba sued these guys and effectively forced them to change their name to a Pixies song. What a…Anyway, this 10-track compilation lets us know what Caribou thinks it’s all about, that being apparently some kind of instrumental psychedelic-drone thing. Again, I’m thinkin’ Olivia Tremor nostalgia. (or is that Love Tractor? Again.) Some of this reminds me of the old Mr. Partridge album, though I would’ve preferred the Dukes of Stratosphear …Dude, I’m definitely calling my next band Wallpaper Trails. And no, I don’t always get my own jokes.

2006-07-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Bang Sugar Bang
Thwak Thwak Go Crazy
SOS

At first vocalist/bass player Cooper comes off like Joan Jett’s spiritual sub-post-riot-grrrl daughter, with a little early (that’s pre-Gottehrer) Go-Go’s tossed in, but later on she displays some striking Sally Timms-like range (vocalist/guitar player Matt Southwell is a bit less distinctive but thankfully, ‘the chick’ sings more). Overall, this is decently spirited old school power trio pop-punk with sprightly harmonies and a sense of internal justification. Whatever that means. Plus they’ve got the skills and good sense to pull off a simultaneously sultry/frenzied version of the Gun Club’s “Sex Beat”. Sign me up.

2006-07-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

zZz
Sound of zZz
Howler records

Organ-drenched distorto garage rock from Amsterdam in a suicide / Mysterians mode. Coming to think of it, singer Bjorn could be a reanimated Jim Morrison if JM were somehow to rise from his empty Parisian grave more interested in behaving like a rocked-up animal than in posing as the Immoral Bard or whatever. In other words: Getting it right this time. Weirdly, Bjorn is a bit less Lizard King and a bit more King (Ian) Curtis on “Sweet Sex”: something the poor bastard might’ve used a bit more of, eh? Or not.

2006-07-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

Yerba Buena
Island Life
Razor & Tie

Oh-oh. This has been on for over thirty minutes and I haven’t thought of anything to say about it. Or hardly noticed it was on, actually, except during some momentary sketch that featured John Leguizamo, during which I checked to make sure I had correctly identified his voice. This is…nice, I guess: Party music with Carribean, Latin and hip-hop influences and undistracting, non-English massed vocals. That seems accurate. And accuracy is what we’re all about here at SFLTE. (Full disclosure: About halfway through the disc there are a few songs [notably “Bilingual Girl”] at least partially in English, but it made little overall difference to how much notice I was roused to pay. And for what it’s worth “Bla Bla Bla” is organized around G W Bush soundbites. Mm hm.

2006-07-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

Wammo
Lowriders on the Storm
Spanks-A-Lot

From the cover art on in, Wammo strains to cover all the bases: Yhat’s to say ‘lowriders’ is made literal as both Chicano automotive preference and glute-tatted ladies jean-tailoring trend. “Successpool” is a pretty funny song title, I guess, but the line between Kid Rock parody and KidRrock impression comes off as too thin to discern. In fact, the whole disc is too clever by perhaps 3/5ths. To wit: the title track is a seamless conflation of the titular Doors and War tunes along with ‘Day Tripper,’ ‘Godzilla,’ ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ ‘Sweet Jane,’ ‘La Bamba,’ ‘Louie Louie’ and ‘Stand.’ All of which amounts to a fair chordal cop, but is still not as enlightening as, say, side two of The Third Reich ‘n’ Roll for example. Wammo would appear to have it all: Aural variety, a sharp observer’s eye and a gang of Austin musoes capable of whatever tricks he requires. What’s missing, sadly: Any vestige of soul or even a reason to exist beyond self-aggrandizement. Which places W on the opposite side of the pendulum-swing from the army of self-effacers elswhere chided, but fails to render him any more ingenuous. plus ‘Mulletica’ is about as unfunny and elitist as Dennis Miller channeling Zappa. Sorry, can’t hang.

2006-07-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Vanity Project
The Vanity Project
Flagship

The packaging boasts that this is basically one of the Barenaked Ladies guys, so it registered pretty low on my personal anticipation scale. Of course the self-effacement argument principle applies to the project name here, although these guys plainly don’t believe that they suck, they’re just perhaps mildly (and justly) shamefaced about their outsize market share. Like BNL, this stuff is affable enough if a tad generic ‘n’ self-satisfied, like some stitched together Frankensteinian They Might Be Hootie, having surgically removed the point of both of those bands. “Wilted Rose” is an apparent lament for the decline of the Canadian nation, which shocked me a bit since I fantasize about relocating maple-ward every two weeks when I do the health insurance math on my meager US rock critic paycheck. It’s all a bit more melancholic than I might have predicted, but none of it really grabbed my attention.

2006-07-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

James Blood Ulmer
Birthright
Hyena

This is a solo, mainly original companion-piece to the full-band covers disc Memphis Blood I reviewed a while back. Blood doesn’t play, sing or write like anybody else anywhere, infusing traditional forms with his exuberant, pained and singular personality. The results are spellbinding if a bit spare. More than anything it feels like thumbnail autobiography-as-blues-song-cycle, from the opening self-justifying“Take My Music Back to Church” through “Geechee Joe” the (presumably) true story of Blood’s iconoclastic grandfather who “never had a job unless he was the boss ‘cause he wouldn’t work for the white man.”

2006-07-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Tatu
Dangerous and Moving
Interscope

Talk about glasnost! These faux-lesbo Russkie teenyboppers (actually they’re 20 and 21 by now) are hawt enough to melt the ice right off the steppes. Which of course would be an ecological disaster, but don’t go bummin’ out my high, man. Thankfully, the girls’ English vocal coach still hasn’t quite eradicated their Old Country accents, a fact which allows me to shamelessly fantasize that Svetlana (you know, the one-legged blonde former-soviet bombshell from The Sopranos) is cooing right in my ear. Swoon! Of course the music is just paper-thin synth-pop and the lyrics are uniformly retarded, but when the girls periodically lapse into the mother tongue (most notably on “Obezyanka Noi”) they could be saying just about anything. Da! Da! A thousand times, Da!

2006-07-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Radio jetstream
Angelicdistro

When the first line on an album is “I’m shootin’ blanks” it makes you wonder where things could possibly go from there. These professional, earnest and unremarkable songs all seem very familiar, somehow recalling those heady days when Lou Barlow ruled the airwaves. “I’m no scholar, just a kid with a guitar speaking bad poetry,” warbles singer-songwriter Patrick Jonas Hickey. Hmmm…I’ve always contended that self-effacement was a slippery slope: like, I’m down with David Byrne’s notion that the “better” a singer’s voice is technically, the harder it is to suspend one’s disbelief in whatever they’re saying/selling. However, if an artist’s overriding lyrical thesis seems to be “I suck” and there are no transcendent epiphanies to give the lie to the ‘-loathing then what’s to stop us from accepting said thesis at face value and moving along to the next disc?

2006-07-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Brad Paisley
Time Well Wasted
Sony

“To the world you may be just another girl/ but to me you are the world” is a nearly perfect love-song refrain, straight from the untrustworthy heart of a major label modern country artist who seems to want to be thought of as a surrealist Marlboro man (he’s got a melting clock-face draped over his guitar amid the saturated scorched western landscape of the CD’s cover art). Paisley’s lyrical persona alternates between wheedling sweetheart and unrepentant dickhead like nobody since Lyle Lovett, even adopting the POV of “Alcohol” itself on the song of the same name (although the “helping white people dance” refrain is the sort of t-shirt sloganeering frat-boy crap that infects so many of his genre brethren). Somehow, though, he gets Dolly bloody Parton to harmonize with him on the sappier-than-sap-itself “When I Get Where I’m Going” while “Waiting on a Woman” dares to attribute the disparity in life expectancy between the sexes to increased primping time on the distaff side. Then there’s the tossed-off “I ain’t been in a room this clean since I got my appendix out” on “You Need a Man Around Here” and…oh, just go to his website and find the lyrics, space won’t permit a complete list of the snort-worthy bon mots. Or just buy the disc, what the hell?

2006-07-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

Tim O’Brien
Cornbread Nation
Howdy Skies-Sugar Hill

As super-critic Harvey Pekar likes to say: “You know my definition of a traditionalist? Someone who mimics innovators.” Wish I could think of something to add… (Relatively) notable track: “Running out of Memory,” a cute, (L) Wainwright-ish country blues about such down-home topics as zip-drives, jpegs and a crashed pc.

2006-07-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Aaron Neville
Orchid in the Storm
Hyena

Re-issue of a 1983 EP by this most puzzling force of vocal preternature, fleshed out with some bonus tracks. Starts off with a version of Johnny Ace’s spooky “Pledging My Love,” a song I can never hear without picturing shards of brain and bone splattering on a wall, thanks both to Ace’s legendary russian roulette death and the original song’s ill use in Abel Ferrara’s massively wrong Bad Lieutenant. Despite the surface hokiness of much of his output, I find that Neville exists on a plane somewhere beyond critical reproach, and this collection of down-tempo 1950s ballads manages to be equal parts eerie and tingly. The version of “Mickey Mouse March” (“M,I,C….see ya real soon!”) from Hal Willner’s old Stay Awake Disney tribute does break the spell somewhat, but at least it’s the last track.

2006-07-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

Magic Slim & the Teardrops
Anything Can Happen
Blind Pig

Oh man, a live electric blues album? Really? In 2005? And the MC actually starts his intro with “Put your hands together”? And the first song is really called “I’m a Bluesman”? And the first line of that song is “I’ve got the blues”? The mind, she boggles. Is it possible to be so retrograde as to become avant-garde? Okay, since ya asked, the big difference between this music and that of Sharon Jones is that SJ enlivens her tropes with what feels like an instinctive knowledge of her project’s innate anachronism which paradoxically seems to allow her to ignore just that and get down to the tear-jerkin and booty shakin’. This stuff, on the other hand, just feels like pandering schtick, right down to Slim’s periodic adoption (just for a phrase or two here and there, y’understand, for emphasis) of a phonier-than-early-Beefheart Howlin’ Wolf impression. Yick.

2006-07-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

David Lanz & Gary Stroutsos
Spirit Romance
Narada-EMI

The liner notes start with the sentence “We begin by coming full circle.” which really should save “us” a lot of trouble, but no, of course not…. sigh. There really aren’t many jokes left to make about this kind of stuff. The whole “newage rhymes with sewage” thing has whiskers, and the Mike Mann-patented “jazzzzzzz” label (you know, the cartoon log-sawing sleep-onomatopoeia) never qualified as actual ‘humor’ in the first place. I guess my only available option is plain old schadenfreude slapstick, so here we go: Picture if you will the intrepid, perverse reviewer, headphones clamped tight to his head, actually listening to this faceless, faux-relaxing hunk of vacuity for its full, seemingly endless duration, omniscient camera cutting to the CD player’s seemingly static “disc time remaining” readout every few minutes as our hero kicks and squirms in ever-mounting Buster Keaton-esque desperation. Pretty fuckin’ funny.

2006-07-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

The Katinas

Timeless

BHT

47 minutes of testicularly-challenged Christian pop-rock cover versions. If I were Jesus (or at least a Christian) I might actually take offense. “Shut de do’/Keep out the devil.” Um, sure. In certain theoretical ways this could be worse: There’s a breeziness here and some Beatles-Beach Boys-XTC harmonies, but it’s not nearly enough to distract from the unforgivable expressive bankruptcy at the core of something meant to be sacred and inspirational. Really, I’m not against being “lifted up” per se, I’m just not gonna pretend it’s happening if it isn’t. “I don’t care what label you may wear/If you believe in Jesus you belong with me.” And vice versa, one supposes. Oh man, no way: they do that Mike + the Mechanics song about Rutherford’s dead dad….God damn.

2006-07-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
Naturally
Daptone

This here is Soul Music, very pure and very simple, almost to the point where it seems like the whole band would’ve had to’ve lived in a Paddy Chayefsky-style sensory deprivation tank since 1969 in order to achieve it. Technically retro, this somehow doesn’t sound anything like schtick and I sense no irony whatsoever. As befits serious old-school diva drama, the lady’s pipes and her band’s chops are all of epic proportions. Authoritative pre-funk grooves (“My Man is a Mean Man”) bump up against unselfconsciously goofy take-me-back male-female duets replete with spoken sections (“Stranded in your Love”) and wide-eyed, tough-minded slow dances (“You’re Gonna Get It”). And those’re just the last three tracks on Side One (Yeah it’s a CD, but don’t tell Ms. Jones). Truly not a bad track in the bunch. All in all, hot, thrilling and …totally irrelevant (which is reality’s problem, certainly not Sharon’s). Inspirational lyric: “Nothing tastes better than your own fish.” Word. Fantastic cover of “This Land is Your Land,” incidentally.

2006-07-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

Billy Idol
Devil’s Playground
Sanctuary

I guess if anyone has the right to step up to the mic and say ‘Seriously, mate, I started this whole Good Day Green Charlotte thing’ it’s Billy Idol. And, appropriately enough, Steve Stevens’s distorted chunka-chunka-chunka guitars on this record are for the most part closer to Generation X than they are to Idol’s ‘80s solo hits. Old Bill’s actually quite good at modulating from that trademark phlegm-throated growl to that trademark snot-nosed warble and back, a trick he pulls off here with post-nasal aplomb over and over (and over) for about an hour. Of course nearly all the lyrics are pretty dumb (it IS Billy Idol, after all) but on “Sherri” when he sings “Come on, there’s a devil to pay” I can’t help but hear it as “Come on, there’s a devil toupee” which improves things slightly but also makes me want to dig out my old Beck records. A pretty fab cover of the Cool Hand Luke chestnut “Plastic Jesus” is more in touch with the current zeitgeist than the Flaming Lips’s ’93 version was (if not riddled with the same level of broken pathos) and “Yellin’ at the Xmas Tree” ain’t The Kinks’s “Father Christmas” but it’ll do. Oh, yeah, “Lady Do or Die” is, um, alt- country(?) and “Cherie” (no apparent relation to “Sherry”) sounds like a sped-up neil diamond outtake.

2006-07-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hard ‘n Phirm
Horses and Grasses

Funny-guy music. “Carbon Cycle” is straight talk about the way our bodies behave: Think George Carlin meets They Might Be Giants. “American Dinosaurs” is a seemingly tongue-in-cheek protest song about neocons and the Iraq war- I’m guessing that its sincere about the actual politics but dubious regarding the effectiveness of protest song-qua-protest song. “She Named the Pony Jesus,” on the other hand, seems to be an attempt to one-up Ween’s “Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)” while channeling Billy Joel. Some challenges, perhaps, should not be met. In a better world, “Rodeohead’ wouldn’t be self-explanatory, but oh well. And even though it’s about twice as long as necessary, “Funkhauser” is actually pretty hilarious, charting the previously-unheard-of midpoint between James Brown and the Bonzo Dog Band.

2006-07-07T14:17:00.000-07:00

Giant Bear
Demo

Mild alt country combo (‘orchestral funkabilly’ according to the band’s website) with a girl singer and a flute. Opening track “You Were Cool” seems to be celebrating a one night stand. On its heels, “Morning Grass” is about making an appointment with an abortionist, maintaining a certain ineffable narrative flow. Hold on, the sleeve says that there are supposed to be four songs here but the disc only has three. And the third track sports the repeated line “you were cool,” so I guess I have no idea what I just listened to. Professionalism is overrated anyway.

2006-07-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

F5
A Drug For All Seasons
Deadline

“File under Megadeth!” howls the yellow sticker on the front of this disc. Which I probably would’ve done on my own anyway, despite Dave Mustaine being nowhere near...I guess this David Ellefson fella played guitar for them or something. This here's a prime case of “melodic” show-off metal, more concerned with pummeling rhythm than scorching solos, a detail for which we can all be thankful. Sort of. On track 2 when the singer yammers the word “dissidence” (“diss-id-deh-hentz!”) it sounds more like he’s saying “disinterred” (“dis-in-tuh-hurd!”) which would've been quite a bit better, don’t you agree? I always find it odd when metal bands include “God” in their liner note shout-outs. Seems disrespectful somehow…(to the metal ethos, that is… I have a feeling “the Lord” can handle it). What the fuck? They cover “What I Am” by Edie Brickell. Too funny: “Are you what you are…OR WHAT!!?!”

2006-07-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

Echo and the Bunnymen
Siberia
Cooking Vinyl

When I was a mere sprout back in the storied early 1980s these poker-faced jokers taught me some serious life-lessons about rock music, specifically regarding: 1. Acceptable levels of derivation; 2. The uses of self-mockery masked as arrogance; 3. Unpretentious appropriation of indigenous musics; and 4. The power of a true pop hook to transcend just about anything one might throw in its path. Here in the double-oughts, Ian M and Will S have gotten back together (again) and put together a record that effortlessly echoes (you heard me) earlier glories and matter-of-factly reminds us all that the B-men did in fact lay the template for U2 and then never got paid. Most of this CD is quite catchy but perhaps overly languid, such that the just-noticeable tempo-increases occasioned on “Sideways Eight” and “Of a Life” (the refrain of which contains the blatantly self-referencing phrase “songs to learn and sing”) feel like Big Adrenaline Rushes by comparison. Neat trick. This is no Ocean Rain, but what is? C-c-c-cucumber!

2006-07-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

Dead Can Dance
Memento
Rhino-4AD-Warner Bros

I always wondered if this band’s name was an assertion about the general terpsichorean abilities of the deceased or just the name of a particular dance performed with, like, dead cans. Regardless, I’ve never known how to relate to these guys. Is it fake world music from nowhere or real world music from somewhere? Or vice versa? I bet I could find out on the internet. Hold on a second…Okay, they’re a coupla Australian post-punks hung up on "renaissance music" or something. As long as they aren’t hurting anyone, I guess it’s okay with me. Some of this sounds like Egyptian techno, other parts sound like wanna-be Scott Walker. I guess this is some sort of retrospective compilation proving these guys to be pretty consistently inconsistent.

2006-07-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Tia Carrera
The November Session
Australian Cattle God

This is a psyche-noise band from Austin, mis-spelledly named after the exotic “Babe-raham Lincoln” wayne campbell hooked up with after dumping Donna Hayward in Wayne’s World. That fact doesn’t help me much here, however, nor should it you, but hey, I don’t have much to go on. This is all instrumental and no great shakes at that. Long, “heavy” guitar solos recorded during extended soundcheck jams: Could this be the missing link between the 13th Floor Elevators and Phish? And if so, what does that have to do with me? Nice wah-wah pedal, dude.

2006-07-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Various Artists
Back Against The Wall
Purple Pyramid

Haven’t I heard this before somewhere? It’s amazing: I haven’t listened to Pink Floyd: The Wall since sophomore year in high school at the latest, but apparently it’s just sitting there collecting lint in my memory. This “tribute” is pleasant enough in its way but so faithful to the original that the whole endeavor seems pretty silly. I mean The Wall IS still in print, right? And wasn’t there an all-star live version of this thing done in the 90s? Is this stuff really so deathless? And does anyone really need to hear Malcolm McDowell perform “The Trial?”

2006-07-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Against me!
Searching for a Former Clarity
Fat Wreck Chords

Wow, I guess this is what happens when hardcore kids actually grow up. Not a trace of emo posturing, just passionate bellowing, hard chords, handclaps, angry politics (“From Her Lips to God’s Ears” is an open letter to Condoleeza Rice for one instance) and a mercifully varied rhythmic attack. Almost enough to restore your faith blah blah blah. Nice song titles: “Unprotected Sex with Multiple Partners” (about the music business), “Even at Our Worst We’re Still Better Than Most.” No argument there.

2006-07-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

Aberdeen City
The Freezing Atlantic
Dovecote

The product of anglophiles from New England (new anglophiles?), this record has a distinct Smiths / New Order / British Sea Power north country vibe (or is this another case of the all-pervasive influence of The National?). Regardless, it's some pretty smart rock music with anthemic choruses, fun, percussive guitar parts, effective string passages and appropriately angst-filled vocals, just in case anyone out there still cares about such things. Funny lyric: ‘Catastrophic cutie-pie / You make me cry.' Wears a bit thin by the end, but who among us can claim otherwise?