Elvis Perkins:
I don’t normally write about up-and-coming musicians that much for one primary reason: most of them aren’t very good. This isn’t necessarily a knock at other bloggers that seem to keep up a steady drum-beat of hype for a bunch of no-name musicians. But as Jack White says in one of the essays in Chuck Klosterman IV: “Usually when somebody brings up something obscure, I assume its not very good, because–if it was–I would’ve heard it already. Music collectors are collecting. They’re not really listening to music.”
Fair enough. But in the past few weeks, I’ve been exposed to three particular musicians who deserve to be more well-known than they are. So I’m gonna’ write about them.
Okay, so Elvis Perkins, the first of the trio, isn’t exactly an unknown. He’s been featured on Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, So Much Silence and Floating Away, so he’s not exactly starving for attention. But the truth is that his performance about two weeks ago at the Troubadour warrants high praise. Opening for the Cold War Kids and Dr. Dog, Perkins delivered the best set of the night.
This was surprising for two reasons. The first because Cold War Kids and Dr. Dog are well-known commodities in the Internet music world, both of whom turned in very respectable and entertaining, if not transcendant sets. The second because Perkins’ album is a wonder of hushed vocals and restraint. A collection of 11 haunting and beautiful tracks, Perkins’ Ash Wednesday is mostly acoustic, the types of rhythms that will winnow their way into your head for days, but usually not the kind of songs thatI assumed would translate well to a live setting. (I’m looking at you Destroyer).
I was wrong. Perkins along with his backing band, Elvis Perkins in Dearland ripped through a rollicking set of numbers, channeling a feel somewhere between Elliot Smith, Bob Dylan and a bluegrass band (I attribute this to their strange garb and the oversized violin that one member of the band was playing, an instrument I’m rather sure isn’t actually called an oversized violin).
Elvis Perkins might just be the most impressive singer/songwriter to debut this year. His album is full of lush sounds and earnest tasteful vocals. And the production, coming from Ethan Gold (also a top-flight songwriter in his own right) manages to turns tracks that could’ve sounded thin and tinny into a masterpiece of strings, guitars and emotion. The album isn’t available in stores, just at Insound. However, rumor has it that some of the big indie labels are currently in a bidding war to sign Perkins. Either way, it’s a must purchase especially if you’re into guys like Iron & Wine or Sufjan Stevens, which I assume most you are.
Elvis’ Myspace page is here. And be sure to download “While You Were Sleeping,” which at this point seems like a lock to make my top 10 list of singles this year.
Mezzanine Owls: Actual CD May Not Contain Owls or Mezzanines. No Owls Were Harmed In the Making Of This Album
The first thought that came into my head when I saw the Mezzanine Owls a few weeks back was that these guys are way too good to be opening for The Like Young on a Tuesday night at the Silverlake Lounge. The Owls used to be known as The Few up until last year, when after going through a variety of line-up changes, they decided to finally just change their name and become full-fledged owls that roost in mezzanines. This may or may not actually be true.
I’d actually caught the Mezzanine Owls once prior, in their days as the Few, last November when they were headlining a residency at the Silverlake Lounge. The band before them was a bunch of then-unknowns known as the Cold War Kids. Needless to say, it was one of the better nights of music that I’ve ever randomly stumbled into.
Live, the Mezzanine Owls unleashed a loud and glimmering whirl of guitars, set against Jack Burnside’s plaintive resonant vocals. Drummer Pauline Mu might be the best female drummer in rock now that Janet Weiss has laid down her sticks, keeping a steady-beat for the band’s blend of Jesus and the Mary Chain meets Radiohead sonics. In the course of their 45 minute set, the band whipped through an raucous energetic set, filling the walls of the dingy bar with waves of blistering reverb and emotion. Hell, they even played a cover of a Ride song. Not only was I impressed, but notorious cynic Ian “Sexy Results” Cohen also walked away a fan of the Owls. I know.
I haven’t heard the album, but its produced by well-regarded industry veteran Andy Lemasters and it’s sure to be pretty excellent, judging from the cuts I heard at the Silverlake lounge. The Owls are playing a free show at Spaceland this Sunday night. If you’re in the area, check them out. You won’t be disappointed.
You can buy their CD at Sea Level Records or Amoeba Records or here. According to Tripwire, it’s the sound of “Indie Jayhawks meets shoegazer Ride/Jesus and the Mary Chain. Your stereo will thank you.”
Clean Guns: Or What Happens When Firearms Get OCD
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to listening to this album. The reason is such: it’s a rap album made from Zilla, a frequent commentator on this very blog, a guy who I’ve e-mailed back and forth with many times on the nature of hip-hop and a guy who I consider a friend, inasmuch as you can consider someone a friend when you really don’t know a damn thing about them other than their tastes in music and film. And because of this relationship, I knew that I’d have to say something nice about this album no matter what. And the truth is I sound ridicuously insincere when I lie, so If I was lying I’d come-off looking like a complete jack-ass. Awesome.
Lucky me, that this album not only doesn’t suck, it’s actually pretty awesome. Even if I didn’t know the guy, I’d be hard-pressed not to lavishly praise this record. I like Lupe Fiasco’s album quite a bit, but in my opinion this is the rap debut of the year. Too much of Lupe’s record is bloated with filler, including his unconscionable decision to tack a 12 and a half minute thank you song onto the end, where he ridiculously thanks seemingly everyone he’s ever met. It’s pretty fucking stupid. Clean Guns’ record is what you’d expect: clean. Just 12 raw songs, sans the filler or skits that plague most contemporary rap records.
Like Lupe’s album, Clean Guns’ record is for the hip-hop purists. A hard-hitting collage of breakbeats and clean 16-bar syllable rhyming. It’s reminiscent of early Atmosphere meets present day Cage, before Slug started making records for the ladies and after Cage had decided that introspection was a far better career tactic than gross-out humor. The album is decidly underground, the beats hard-hitting and grimy, filled with piano loops, turntable scratches and eerie synths. But what’s perhaps most impressive about the album is how Clean Guns walk the line between being sounding hard on wax and just being themselves.
A whole lot of indie rappers think that being as real as possible (read: nerdy) will endear them to their fanbase. A whole lot of mainstream rappers think that their audience merely wants them to present a gangsta facade. Clean Guns walk the line between indie intelligence and mainstream accessibility.
The CD is currently available at CD Baby for just $8. If you’re looking for a great underground CD in a year that has only produced one by my count (Murs’ Murray’s Revenge), pick up this album. To be honest, I’m shocked how many spins I’ve given it and I can’t wait to see more from these talented Illadelphians.
Even if you don’t buy the album, add Clean Guns on Myspace and download the two tracks below.
You may or may not have noticed that I’ve updated my blogroll again, adding some blogs I’ve been reading for a while. All of them are worthwhile reads, but a few particularly standout.
First off, is Dallas Penn, a blog that many of you probably already read. For those of you who don’t know, Dallas is currently embroiled in a death match with Byron Crawford,Straight Bangin’ and Oh Word to determine the most literate and well-written hip-hop blog around. His site is definitely worth book-marking.
Also check for Handsome Bobsled, Handsome Commando, whose content is as strange and funny as its name is. Needless to say, I like my blog comedy the way I like my women: weird and slightly unhinged.
Speaking of comedy, you should also check for Scott’s Blizzog. In addition to being outright hilarious and someone with fine taste in music, Scott was the writer’s assistant on Season 3 of Arrested Development and even got in one episode, as this post details. Needless to say, the man was in the room for what might be the best season of the best television show ever made (the only other possible answers are Seinfeld and The Simpsons). Need I really advertise his blog any further than that?
Lastly, I’m not sure how I never discovered this blog before, but check for The Rawking Refuses to Stop. There aren’t all that many LA MP3 blogs (though I must say that with Aquarium Drunkard, Audio Deficit Disorder and You Set the Scene, there are some damn good ones). Not to mention the recent addition of Gerard Vs. Bear (which is so damned funny that I pity you if you aren’t reading it by now). However, the Rawk blog definitely holds its own.
Last night, I was at dinner with some friends and in the course of conversation, the topic came up thatone of us had once bought a bag of weed from the rapper Skee-Lo. I can’t vouch whether or not the story is true because my friend got it second-hand from someone who’d purchased it from the one-hit wonder. However, I’m choosing to believe the story, mainly because you’d have to be a pretty weird dude to make up buying a sack off Skee-Lo. Think about it, if you were going to make up a celebrity drug-dealing story, Skee-Lo would probably the last person you’d think of (Woody Harrelson obviously being the first).
Of course, I relate this story not to mention drug use (hey…we have Justin Timberlake interviews for that) but more out of how remarkable it is that the man who wrote the most universally well-liked song in the history of rap usic may (or may not) be controlling the block. Granted, there is no tangible evidence to support the theory that Skee Lo’s “I Wish” is the most well-liked rap song of all time. There are no Billboard Charts or Soundscan numbers to record likeability (though both “I Wish” the single and album were both certified gold).
However, I’m reasonably certain that “I Wish” is the one song in the hip-hop canon that is beloved by all segments of the population. Indeed from the elderly to the hipsters that clog the arteries of Los Feliz, there isn’t a soul alive who doesn’t know the words to “I Wish.”Don’t believe me? Just wait for the next time you’re chatting with someone and an awkward pause in the conversation arises. All you have to do is calmly scratch your head and say: “Hey, you know what song was awesome?” Then of course, they’ll ask you “what?” To which you’ll calmly reply: “Skee-Lo’s, “I Wish.”
The joy of bringing back images of the spritely (yes, spritely) Skee-Lo mugging aroung on the basketball court and dressed up as Forrest Gump will inevitably make your conversation partner overjoyed. The two of you will reminisce over the halycon days when popular rap music wasn’t dominated by songs about popular soups commonly served at Jewish delis or by rappers who brag about slanging ‘caine (sadly, not made of candy).
There are other songs that come close to matching Skee-Lo in universal affability, with the Pharcyde’s “Passing Me By,” Coolio’s epic “Fantastic Voyage,” Young MC’s “Bust a Move,” and Snoop’s “Ain’t No Fun (if the Homies Can’t Have None”) coming to the forefront of my mind (despite “Ain’t No Fun’s tendency to cause seizures in the elderly.) Yet no other song brings joy to one’s s face faster than “I Wish.”
Coolio….Coolio…wherefore art thou…Coolio?
The genius in Skee Lo’s “I Wish” isn’t that it’s a very brilliant song. It’s not. But that’s why it’s so well-liked. It never even tries to be anything but what it is: a self-deprecating and funny look at a day in the life of Skee-Lo. Indeed, Skee-Lo seems to have learned the secrets of the Jews well: i.e. if you complain enough people will find you funny. Therefore, Skee-Lo artfully illustrates the plight of all short, bald, unathletic people everywhere. It’s like the “Revenge of the Nerds” but for rap music (or like Paul Barman except actually funny).
How bad was it for young Skee-Lo? Pretty bad, at least if you believe his video, where in the course of four minutes, Skee-Lo manages to dress up like Forrest Gump and lose his girl to a guy rocking a black tank-top and short shorts. Skee-Lo only manages to attract hood rats, he sits in the bleachers watching the other dudes play basketball, he drives a fucking hatch back, in which he of course, gets laughed at. Hell, Skee-Lo can’t even cruise Crenshaw. Times were tough.
But apparently, times still are tough for the little guy and in a way I feel pretty bad. It’s sort of impossible not to root for Skee-Lo. After all, all he ever really wanted was a “rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six-four impala.” Is that really so much to ask? Apparently, it is. So right now right here, I declare that what America needs most in 2006 is more Skee-Lo. Like the Wyld Stallions from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Skee-Lo has the power to align the planets and cause world peace.
Odds of Skee-Lo Dealing Weed to Keanu Right Before This Picture: 74 percent
But most importantly, now that Skee-Lo has built up the street credibility that he so sorely lacked in 1995, he will be able to fit seamlessly into the rap world of 2006. After all, if mediocre at-best crack rappers like Young Jeezy,The Clipse, L’il Wayne, and Rick Ross, can become rap’s newest darlings, why not Skee-Lo, a man we can tangibly (sorta’) prove deals drugs. So record labels, here’s your chance. You have a proven commodity who happens to have produced the most well-liked rap song of all-time, and also deals drugs, enabling him to get the support of the all-too-important crack-rap obsessed world of music critics. You can’t lose. Skee-Lo’s wish is your command.
Last week, two albums debuted that couldn’t be any more different on the surface. The first album, Justin Timberlake’s Future Sex/Love Sounds made its bow to unaminous unqualified critical praise, strange considering that most pop albums are usually disdained or ignored in “hipster/indie/[insert meaningless adjective here]” music circles. After all, Pitchfork never even bothered to review Timberlake’s multi-platinum debut, Justified. Yet flash forward two years later and now the same artist formerly deemed not even worthy of being written about was declared “brilliant” in his 8.1 Pitchfork review.
Meanwhile, the website I write for, Stylus Magazine, also issued similarly effusive praise, giving the album a B+ and declaring Timberlake “the King of Pop.” Clearly, no one was aware that calling Justin Timberlake the King of Pop is like calling Ray Romano the king of the sitcom. It might be true. But it says more about the dreadful state of the art form than the merits (or lack thereof) of the artist. Nonetheless, regardless of its quality (and it’s really fucking bad…), Future Sex had one of the biggest debuts of the year, taking Billboard’s #1 slot and moving damn near 700,000 units.
Meanwhile, that same week, the Akron blues duo, The Black Keys saw their major-label Nonesuch Records debut fall flat, with a sales performance that could only be charitably described as disappointing. Despite being able to sell out the reasonably large Avalon when I saw them last week, the Keys sold just under 10,000 copies of Magic Potion, coming in at 95th place. But the Keys couldn’t take any consolation in positive album reviews either, as Pitchfork gave it a meager 6.0. To add insult to injury, the albums’ reviewer took a cheap shot at the end of the piece, claiming he’d rather listen to “Blueshammer,” the crappy inauthentic blues band from the brilliant comedy Ghost World. Stylus wasn’t much more favorable, handing out a C+ review.” To be fair, the album isn’t the Keys’ best (that would be this year’s brilliant EP, Chulahoma), but the album is a solid 8.0 and definitely worth owning.
Justin Timberlake: Trying To Prove That By Virtue of Staring at the Floor One Can Appear “Deep”
At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m comparing the two seemingly polar opposite acts. After all, Timberlake is a former Mickey Mouse Clubber/Bop Magazine Hearthrob/ N’ Sync member/corny solo Prince/Michael Jackson imitator. The Black Keys are two middle-class kids from Akron Ohio, who’ve paid their dues for a number of years, issuing four excellent albums on independent Fat Possum Records, a label best known for being the home to Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and of late (shudder) the Fiery Furnaces. Furthermore, the two acts’ sounds couldn’t be any more different. Timberlake seems like the logical conclusion of what would happen if Hall and Oates had an untalented lovechild with Barry Gibb, and said child turned out to a huge “wigger.” Meanwhile, the Keys have studied faithfully at the alter of blues giants like Kimbrough, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, etc. etc.
Yet upon closer inspection, the two acts have one crucial similarity that binds them, in that they are both white men plying their trade in a black art form. Of course, the debate over white boys playing the blues is a tired one. For the four of you who aren’t aware, white Englishmen during the 1960’s essentially co-opted the American blues sound, in the process reviving the dying art form. Acts like Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones and Led Zep made careers based on this electrified blues sound. Not to mention crackers like Paul Butterfield, Michael Bloomfield and John Mayall who all recorded seminal albums during the period. Hell, even Pink Floyd owes its names to two ancient Southern bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
Unquestionably, the development was a good thing for music. Once forgotten bluesmen like Son House and Robert Johnson were dusted off and elevated to the legendary status that they now receive. Additonally, black performers like BB King, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf saw their careers resucitated and managed to make large sums of money, something that had previously eluded him. In fact, the only downside I can see about this second wind of the Blues is the career of John Mayer.
Howlin’ Wolf: On Par With Wolf Parade, Thomas Wolf and Teen Wolf But while there is a storied history of white men respectfully doing their take on the blues, there is no such precedent for what Timberlake is doing. Indeed, contemporary white R&B stars are few and far between. With the exception of the not-so-creatively monikered Jon B., there haven’t any white R&B stars in a long time. Well, unless you count one of the dudes in All-4-One. I’m pretty sure, one of them was a honky. So in theory, Justin Timberlake is ground-breaking. Sort of.
Shockingly, Timberlake managed to succeed in making the transition from Boy Band joke to mainstream pop superstar joke. The reason for Timberlake’s success (while other boy-banders have been forced to announce their homosexuality to stay in the limelight) is simple: when white guys do a black art form people are loathe to respect them until their credibility is proved, This is why in the 60’s guys like Clapton and the Rolling Stones often played with the blues legends of the past, even going as far to cut records with them (see their excellent collaboration with Wolf : The London Sessions.) This is why Eminem needed Dr. Dre’s street cred to launch a viable career as a white rapper. And of course, Timberlake is no different. If not for collaborators like Timbaland and Pharell Williams, Timberlake would’ve been written off as an afterthought of the boy-band era, rather than as the new King of Pop.
“Hey Timbaland, now that we’ve made Timberlake a star, we need a new challenge…I wonder what Vanilla Ice is up to?”Unlike Timberlake, the Black Keys weren’t created in a laboratory by Jive Records and/or the guy who used to rap with a partner idiotically named Magoo. They came up the old-fashioned way, by taking risks, by being creative and most importantly, by being prodigiously talented at music. Unlike Timberlake, who has by all standards only a decent voice, the Keys’ lead singer Dan Auerbach sings in a bruised and soulfoul blues caterwaul. The first time I heard the Keys, I was convinced that they were an old Missippi blues act recently discovered from some old cluttered Alan Lomax archive. Rather than dance and hide themselves in an array of pre-packaged sonics, the Keys wrap their songs in gritty and blistering guitar licks, in simply written but effective lyrics, and in their art that obviously means so much to them. Live, they are nothing short of a revelation, as Auerbach draws from a grab-bag of vicious guitar riffs both haunting and savagely brutal. Patrick Carney pounds the drums with a primal fury that hasn’t been seen since John Bonham or Keith Moon. He may be the best drummer in rock music today.
In contrast, Justin Timberlake sings lewd come-ons in an falsetto voice clearly lifted from Michael Jackson, with lyrics probably written by someone else, with the production handled by someone with true talent. The differences between the Keys and Timberlake are as stark as those of the artist and the apprentice. While the Keys may borrow the simple song structures of their blues forefathers, they have breathed new life into a dying art form, carrying on the legacy of not just Robert Johnson, Junior Kimbrough and Howlin Wolf, but later inheritors of the mantle such as Clapton, Bloomfield and Keith Richards. Their last album might not be perfect, but it’s always entertaining and the perfect thing to put on if you’re getting drunk and rowdy. It’s the kind of music that bar jukeboxes were made for.
Dan Auerbach on Guitar: The Next Best Thing to a Young Eric Clapton But if the Black Keys make transcendent bar rock, Justin Timberlake’s latest album is the soundtrack to a poorly executed date rape. As the lyrics to “Sexy Back” read: Dirty Babe/You see these shackles baby I’m your slave/I’ll let you whip me if I misbehave/It’s just that no one makes me feel that way.”
Rimbaud couldn’t have said better. Ah Romance.
Essentially, the critics have been raving about an R-rated N’ Sync CD produced by Timbaland. Yet because Pharrell and Timbaland have sanctioned this R&B CD that neither has rhythm nor blues, critics have opted to duck the authenticity question that hangs over Timberlake. The fact that he’s basically doing an impression of a black man.
But when push comes to shove, it’s not about doing an impression or not doing an impression. One can’t argue that Auerbach isn’t trying to sound like an old blues man. He is. It’s just he’s so prodigiously talented that he manages to write catchy blues songs that you’ve always heard even if you haven’t. When their career finally ends, The Black Keys’ will have managed to add a new chapter onto the end of a book that everybody had already thought had been completed.
The Poster Hanging Up In The Pitchfork Offices
And as for Timberlake, I’m not worried about his career. He’s the perfect icon for our times, a copy-cat like a James Frey in his theft of Michael Jackson and Prince’s styles, reliant on illicit performance-enhancing substances (Timbaland productions) like Barry Bonds and quite frankly, his disgusting and vulgar song lyrics reflect a dumbing down of pop standards. Whereas once, pop songs made a pretense of talking about “true love” and all that bubblegum junk. All that’s needed today is a few lines about being a slave and being whipped, and some Timbaland beats and its enough to get the music critics of America and 700,000 other souls into a feeding frenzy, despite the fact that the album’s bloated and grating sonics could’ve been used to torture people at Abu Ghraib.
So maybe it’s fitting that the Black Keys album will be barely heard and sorely underrated, while Timberlake assumes his new throne as the King of Pop. Maybe he is the King of Pop. If anything, he’s an icon for our times, while the Keys are a throwback to a rapidly disappearing world. It’s too bad. If that’s the case, you can count me out.
Fucking hipsters. You’ve done it again. Just when I think that I’ve got my pulse on the burgeoning hipster trends of this fine metropolis (beards, blazers, cheap plastic glasses, the ocasional Rollie Fingers mustache) you guys do something that to quote Bob Dylan, “blows my mind most bitterly.”
The other night, I was at the Serena Maneesh concert with non-other than blogger/pigskin pundit/Hollywood big-wig to be, Ian Cohen, analyzing the profoundly strange demographics of the show. The concert turned out to be a slight disappointment, especially compared to this March’s stellar Spaceland performance), so there was much time to scan the crowd. Accordingly, who knew that going to a Norweigian shoe-gazer/space rock show would draw such a motley array of freeks, geeks and the ocassional dweeb. (insert joke here). Yet out of this wack-pack, I unearthed the newest species of hipster. Yes, I discovered a hipster who had gone as far as to cultivate the Ron Jeremy look.
Now, the idea of hipsters cultivating the look of a famous person is nothing new. One only needs to turn to cinematic classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High to recall that there were at least four girls at Ridgemont cultivating the “Pat Benatar look.” But for the love of God, who would actively seek to look like Ron Jeremy. Apparently, the retard standing to the right of me at the show, clad in a ruffled floral dress shirt, red and white cowboy boots, 30 lbs. of excess flab and a dead rat splayed dead on his upper lip (I presume it was a mustache). It was too much to handle
The guy looked exactly like Jeremy and yet it clearly wasn’t Jeremy. It was eerie. Not Eeerie, like the ill-fated Fox television show, Eerie, Indiana, but more eerie as in, this guy is probably two drinks away from propositioning every girl in the bar with the line: “nice shoes wanna’ fuck.” Creepy.
On one hand, part of me wants to condemn this surely soon-to-be ubiquitous /hilarious trend, after all, Ron Jeremy looks like Ron Jeremy because he’s a trashy gluttonous porn star, not because he’s an upper middle class white kid with a trust fund and a 10-hour a week job as a graphic designer. However, on some level, I think it’s sort of awesome that people can be so desperate for an identity that they feel the need to grab onto a washed-up porn star whose “hedgehog,” nickname is easily the most appropriate alias since the Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
Well played, hipsters. Well played. But the buck must stop here. Please guys…no porn star ponytails. I just don’ t think I can handle it. My capacity for mockery might just short-circuit.
The Future of Hipsters: Behold The Ponytail!
The Round-Up First things first….Gerard Vs. Bear is the best new blog on the Internet. Go there now and read his post about how upset he is that Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance shares the same name as Gerard the blogger.
Josh Levin’s outstanding Slate article taking down the wildly overrated Zach Braff might just contain the best line written on the Internet this year: “If Zach Braff is the voice of my generation, can’t someone please crush his larynx.”
Jam Bands.Com has an article about why so many Deadheads were/are Jewish. It fails to mention my theory: the only way for many Jews to minimize their anxiety/neuroses is by smoking weed. Marijuana might not be a gateway drug to harder drug use but it certainly leads to liking the Dead and Pink Floyd.
Okay, no naked midgets. Despite the constant requests to turn my site into one touting midget pornography, to paraphrase and invert a statement once made by Guru: that ain’t my steez. However, today’s posts concern two albums that are technically my steez (if indeed that is your preferred nomenclature): ones by the Decemberists and Of Montreal.
Now in theory, if you’d have described the Decemberists to me without letting me hear any of their music, I’d probably despise them, considering I don’t typically care for sea shanties, fake British affects and anything to do with Barrow Boys (my disdain for barrow boys dates back to the war, when I was attacked by a marauding gang of Barrow Boy thugs)
Despite my irritation with the idea of a group like The Decemberists, I happened to find their first three albums pretty damned good. Yet I often found myself reluctant to listen to their music, as though it were some kind of chore. Maybe it was the fact that I went to high school with at least four girls named Leslie Anne Levine and three named Myra Goldberg. Or maybe it’s the fact that Colin Moloy sounds like he spends most of his weeknights holed up in a room he calls his “study,” analyzing the intricacies of the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. Either way, their first three albums were a lot more impressive than they were actually fun to listen to.
Perhaps that’s why I’m surprised how much I love their forthcoming album The Crane Wife, an album which features a vast musical and artistic growth and fleshes out the Decemberists sound more than any of their previous works to date.
The album starts out innocously enough, with “The Crane Wife 3,” a song that could fit comfortably on any of the band’s earlier works. But by the second song, the equally pretentious and outstanding 12 minute and 42 second epic “The Island, Come And See, The Landlord’s Daughter, You’ll Not Feel The Drowning” one gets a sense of the bands new direction. Moloy
himself describes the sound as folk-prog and that’s a pretty good enough description for me. The album sounds like what would happen if after Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, they replaced him with the lead singer of the Fairport Convention and/or Herman Melville and not David Gilmour.
Other standout tracks include “The Perfect Crime 2,” in which the band employs an almost disco-sounding keyboard and drum beat to produce a song that might be the closest thing the Decemberists will ever come to making something danceable.
“Summersong,” the single already leaked from the album shows the Decemberists doing what they do best. Essentially, it’s a simple love song filled with imagery of sand and swallowing waves and all that literary stuff that manages to keep you simultaneously entertained and reminded of the fact that Colin Meloy has an MFA and you don’t.
If you liked the Decemberists previous albums, you’ll probably still like The Crane Wife. Meloy and his gang of merry minstrels (because they seem like the kind of guys who’d like to be called minstrels) have more than enough literary chops. Their album is chockful of well-constructed songs that will have you turning to old Japanese folk tales to see what the hell they’re referring to. But with their latest work, the band has evolved into a more varied and mature sound that just might win the band a bigger fanbase. Which would probably be a good thing, since I imagine Capitol has already begun re-thinking this whole investing in indie bands strategy in light of what happened to Sound Team. Barring any upsets, The Crane Wife is a lock to make my Top 10 albums of the year and it’s a definitely a recommended purchase.
Of Montreal: Using That Old Excuse of Just Being Very Very Drunk
Poor Kevin Barnes. As you can see the dude’s always been a little weird. Whether it’s his predilection to appear on-stage in a wedding dress or his tendency to pair uplifting melodies with terribly depressing lyrics, one gets the sense that something is always awry in his life. And to make matters worse, his upcoming album, the hideously titled, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer has already leaked, despite the fact that the Polyvinyl Records album isn’t supposed to be released until January 23rd of next year. I imagine hearing this news made poor Kevin so angry that he had to run out and buy three new wedding dresses just to cope with the tragedy. Retail therapy never fails, eh big guy?
But the truth is, Barnes needs to chill out a little bit and bask in the fact that Hissing Fauna might just be his best album yet. Now I was never a fan of early Of Montreal. Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse is one of the most awful things I’ve ever heard and one of the few albums I’ve never been able to get fully through. But over the last few years, Of Montreal has put out some of the best indie-pop albums around. Satanic Panic in the Attic and The Sunlandic Twins are both outstanding, even if I’m sure I’ll never be able to hear “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games,” again after Outback Steakhouse has suitably desecrated its reputation.
But with their latest album, the band that rose out of the ashes of the Elephant 6 collective has made perhaps their finest work. While Pitchfork and Stylus are both shamefully rushing to annoint Justin Timberlake the next Prince, Barnes has quietly staked his claim to that title. Hissing Fauna is very much an Of Montreal album, with catchy drum machine beats, his own disco keyboards and electronic beats and flourishes.
But while the songs on Hissing Fauna are as ridiculously catchy as the ones on their last album, Barnes has matured as a songwriter. Sure, his song titles are still absurd and pretentious. The new album has tracks entitled, ” Heimpalsgate Like Prometheus Curse,” “Faberge Falls Shuggie,” and “Cato as Pun,” (whether he named it after Cato’s Letters or the sidekick of Inspector Clousseau, I’m unsure). However, Barnes has become more instropective in his songwriter, a trend best evidenced by his strangely affective 12 minute break-up song”Past Grotesque Animal.” Yet his pen isn’t just directed inward, as several songs either indirectly or directly lampoon the church.
The only problem with the album is that sticking a 12 minute song right in the middle of it, kills its momentum, particularly considering the song easily contains the album’s gloomiest lyrics. Either way Of Montreal has produced another classic album, one that can easily stand beside their last two works. In fact, it might even be their best. You won’t be able to legally get your hands on this one until January, but when it finally does come out, I strongly encourage you to pick this one up.
It’s not a good time to be Spinach. First there’s that whole E. Coli outbreak and then in the same week Spinach Dip, one of the finest blogs on the Internet, announces his retirement from the blogging game. Personally, I think there’s some sort of serious spinach conspiracy afloat, perhaps one started by someone on the Iceberg Lettuce Promotions Committee.
At any rate, it’s a bit futile to go tell you guys to check out the guys blog if you haven’t already, but why not? Go over there if you’re feeling up to it and check it out. There’s a hell of a lot of good writing over there and its a sad thing to see Spinach Dip bow his head from the cantankerous world o’ blogging. His blog is one of the first I ever read and still one of the best. As others have said, here’s to hoping that his retirement goes the way of Jay-Z.
Just Like MJ: If MJ had a 42 Percent Career Shooting Percentage
Speaking of whom, Straight Bangin’ has already written a pretty poignant assesment of the artist formerly known as Sean Carter, which seems to eloquently sum up most of what I’ve read on the Internet since Jay-Z announced that he’s returning with a new album, entitling Kingdom Come. I can’t say I’m expecting much from this album (maybe Jordan’s first year with the Wizards rather than his first un-retirement), but aside from the fact that it seems like Jay-Z is now taking album titling tips from 1970’s porn flicks, it’ll still prolly be one of the best five rap CD’s made all year. And even though I’m sure the Internet will tear Kingdom Come to shreds, I guarantee it’s better than Tha Carter III and Hell Hath No Fury. If nothing else, I’m excited if nothing else for the fact that I might get four new songs to play while I’m at the gym. Because honestly, major label rap music made in the year 2006 might’ve only contributed 10 new songs that I’m not sick of–and 90 percent of them are from the Method Man, Masta Killa and Ghostface albums. And I’m aware Masta Killa isn’t even on a major.
For the last several days, I’ve been out of town, which means several things. First, I don’t have to deal with the maniacal dancers and naked nose hair clippers at the freak show otherwise known as the Hollywood Gold’s Gym. Two, I’ve been reminded of the fact that I don’t necessarily hate the beache, just the filthy Southern California ones. And third, I’ve been watching a lot of television.
Indeed, you may have noticed that I rarely mention any television programs on this blog. In fact, other than Colbert Report,The Daily Show and Entourage, I don’t watch anything else on the air. So it was pretty much news to me that Flavor Flav still had a show on the air. Sure, I’d heard about his turn on the Surreal Life, where he and Sly Stallone’s ex-wife got “hot and heavy,” to quote a certain Seinfeld episode. And I was reasonably aware that VH1 had given him a show called Flavor of Love. But little did I know, the aforementioned show would turn out to be a hit and would spawn a second season, which I had the misfortune of tuning into the other night.
Now I’ve never been a Public Enemy fan. I’m a little too young to have liked hip-hop during their heydey and I never really understood why a cracker like me would go out of his way to like a band like PE. After all, they never really struck me as liking white people all that much, and they especially didn’t seem to be all that Jew friendly. To be perfectly, honest, If I’m going to like a ragingly anti-semetic artist, you best believe it would be Voltaire.
Voltaire: You Should Hear His Song “Louis XIV is a Joke.” It’s Shall We Say, Saucy.
But on some level, I’d always respected Public Enemy. Their lyrics were intelligent if ill-informed, they inspired many of my favorite artists and their style was clearly original. However, after watching an episode of Flavor of Love, it’s safe to say that any goodwill they may have engendered in me was shot to pieces. Out of all the reality programs ever made, Flavor of Love might be the worst. Not only does Flavor Flav manage to ridicule himself in every scene (peep the Viking Hat if you don’t believe me), but the dialogue might be the most patently absurd. In the episode, I watched Flav proclaimed his undying love for a woman named “Boots.” Whether this was a play on the Shrek 2 character, Puss in Boots, remains uncertain.
Puss In Boots: Also the Name of a Forthcoming Movie Where Justin Timberlake Joins The Army
Either way, Flav is shocked when Boots tells him she won’t sleep with him until marriage (which triggers the love declaration). Meanwhile, the show’s directors try to play it off like Flav isn’t just trying to sleep with Boots and instead is looking for a deep soulful romance, while dressing up like Erik the Red. The bottom line is as disgusted as I was watching this show which seems to prove everything Idiocracy warns against, I was more disgusted with Flav’s lack of wit. How in God’s name could he talk about sleeping with a woman named Boots and not mention once mention H-Town’s epic song “Knockin’ The Boots.” C’mon Flav, where’s your sense of history?
H-Town: Presumably, Advertising A Safe Driving Campaign
Idiocracy might not just be funniest movie you’ll see all year (Borat excluded), it might be the
most hilarious made in the decade thus far. These are strong words, but such is the regard that I hold for the no-holds barred satire and all-around-genius of this picture.
The plot of Mike Judge’s follow-up to Office Space is seemingly ripped from the pages of a Phillip K. Dick or Kurt Vonnegut novel. Joe Bowers (played by Luke Wilson, who miraculously manages to redeem himself for “My Super Ex-Girlfriend,”) is the most average man that America has, but thanks to his profile (no wife or close relatives), Bowers is cryogenically frozen by the government. The experiment is only supposed to last for a year, but when the Army Base that conducted the research is shut down and replaced by a Fuddrucker’s, Wilson is forgotten about. When he finally awakens, the year is 2505 and mankind has devolved to such a level that Wilson is now the smartest man on earth.
Using this premise, Judge spins out a dystopian fantasy of an America gone to seed. The president is a three-time “Smackdown” champion and a former porn star. Everyone is dressed in corporate sponsored apparel and Zubaz pants. Meanwhile corporations have taken over. The phone company has merged with several media companies, the U.S. government and, of course, Carl’s Jr (who seemingly runs the future universe.) Costco is home to the one of the nation’s finest law schools, not to mention it doubles as the central hub of civilization.
Due to mankind’s lack of intellect, the streets are covered in mounds of trash and the nation’s crops are fallow since water is something only used in toilets. (The people only quench their thirst with energy drinks filled with electrolytes.)
Judge’s bleak vision of the future is alternately chilling and hysterical and one doesn’t know whether the appropriate reaction is to laugh or cry. In the course of the film, Judge manages not only to knock the rampant unchecked state of American consumerism, but also the detorioration of our health care system, American militarism and political correctness. In short, the man touches all the bases.
I could go on and on about this movie for hours and hours. I earlier compared it to the work of Vonnegut and Dick, I meant what I said. I consider this film that good. With Idiocracy, Judge has turned in a masterpiece that might not be fully appreciated until after he’s dead. If anyone is discouraged by the current state of the nation, I highly advise them to see this film. And even if you aren’t, this film is flat-out hilarious. It not only packs as many laughs as Office Space but it manages to convey a deep and unsettled vision of the future.
Over the past year, bloggers have spent a whole lot of time hyping up Snakes on a Plane, managing to create a maelstrom of controversy. Controversy that may not paid off at the box office, but at least it managed to create a higher awareness for the film. But somehow I haven’t managed to read a single review of Idiocracy anywhere in the blogosphere. Yet no film released this year needs bloggers support more than Idiocracy.
For those who don’t know this film’s saga, Fox pushed back its release date for a year, releasing it just last week without any money spent on promotion. In fact, the studio didn’t even provide any screenings for critics. It seems the studio’s strategy has been to bury it from public consumption. If you have a blog and you’re reading this, please go out and see this film. And if you like it, write about it and try to spread the word. Brilliant and spot-on satires like Idiocracy are all too rare.
Please see this film soon. It only made a paltry $180,000 last weekend on just 130 screens and who knows how quickly it will be yanked from theaters. The few film critics that have reviewed Idiocracy have also given it good reviews, most notably the LA Times , the Onion, and Variety. So see it. Bring your friends. Blog about it. Please. A movie this good doesn’t deserve a fate like this.
Like many music festivals, Bumbershoot provided more than just music. In many ways, the set-up was like a county fair, with carnival games, rides, comedy shows and most importantly foot-long corn dogs. Now, before arriving at Bumbershoot, I wasn’t even aware of the possibility that humanity was capable of constructing a corn dog 12 inches in length.
At first, I was baffled by the fact that human beings actually eat an entire feet of corn and dog. I considered this might be the most disturbing development since the time I’d heard that they were frying twinkies at the Los Angeles County Fair. (Honestly, who needs to fry a fucking twinkie). But Bumbershoot seemed to evidence a nascent corn dog-mania rising on the American continent, as people throughout the festival queued to devour this delicious deep-friend processed meat.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a long-time fan of the corn dog. In fact, I regard it as one of the most underrated lunch-time cafeteria meals ever (next to the wicked good turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy slop that they used to serve at the Beverly Vista Elementary School). However, I remained uncertain that a corn dog could be satisfactory in such obscene quantities. Oh how wrong I was. Indeed, while it may represent the decline of American civilization thanks to our constant desire to consume more and more of everything, I can safely say that the foot-long corn dogs at Bumbershoot were/are delicious. Sure, you so-called health advocates might wonder about things like heart attacks, clogged arteries and triple by-pass surgeries. However, all I can say in response is to look to the foot-long corn dog for the answer. Sure, that doesn’t make a shred of sense. Logic be damned. To paraphrase something once said in Field of Dreams, If you deep-fry it, they will eat it.
It’s Just Like Miles Davis…If Only Miles Davis Were Clinically Retarded
Another strange element of the festival was an interaction that my friends and I had with a human statue. Of course, my first thought was what in God’s name drives someone to be a human statue. While staring at this monument of weirdness, I couldn’t help but picture myself one day as a father with a son who would do would approach me with a vision:
“Dad…,” my future son would say. “I know what I want to be in life. I want to go to festivals, fairs and crowded shopping areas around the country and stand still for hours at a time while people gawk at me.”
I think at that point, I’d know that I failed at parenthood. Who exactly are the people that become human statues? Has anyone ever discussed life with a human statue? These are all things begging to be answered. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of these things answered. I’d had an intriguing appointment with Samson about an hour previous and was in no mood to prod the human statue for details on the nature of life. That being said, I want to know how one practices becoming a human statue. How does one cope with such stupefying levels of boredom? I imagine they just watch episodes of Frasier over and over again.
At any rate, watching the human statue and watching people actually giving money to said human statue, made me decide to open a school for human statues. I’m sure I can buy Frasier Crane on DVD and I can probably get David Hyde Pierce to even guest-lecture. I’m sure he’s not doing very much of anything these days.
But David Hyde Pierce jokes aside, the real reason why I came to Bumbershoot was for the music, specifically the back-to-back bill of Atmosphere and A Tribe Called Quest.
Slug: Showing Off His My Chemical Romance T-Shirt and His Latest Attempt To Destroy Any and All Street Cred
I’ve seen Atmosphere three times now and written about it twice, so there’s no real need to write it again. He put on a solid but unspectacular set, practically the same one that he put on at Coachella this year. Atmosphere is a good live performer and a good rapper. His Overcast album is one of my favorite hip-hop albums ever made. And Lucy Ford and God Loves Ugly aren’t too shabby. If you like hip-hop, I advise you to pick them up. I just wish he focused on those songs live, rather than the ones off of his last two albums, 7even’s Travels and You Can’t Believe How Much Fun We’re Having. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. The only old songs that Slug played were “Woman With the Tattoed Hands,” “Shrapnel,” and “God Loves Ugly.”
On Q-Tip’s Command, No One in Tribe Called Quest is Allowed to Show Their Face So Tribe Called Quest rolled into Seattle for their latest stop of their “Getting the Band Back Together” Reunion tour ‘06. I’m not sure if the tour is actually called that, but if it isn’t, it should be. Going into the show, I was skeptical as to whether Q-Tip and Phife could still bring it more than a decade after their prime.
Of course, like any hip-hop fan in the 90’s, I worshipped at the alter of Tribe Called Quest. I must’ve played Low End Theory about 8,000 times and still to this day I know every single word to the majority of the album. Of course, there was the greatness of Midnight Marauders and I’ll still throw down for Beats, Rhymes and Life and The Love Movement if even some of those songs were abominable (”Da Booty” anyone?). I’ll never forgot one fabled week my Junior Year of High School when Aquemini, Hard Knock Life Volume 2. and The Love Movement came out and how I might’ve been the most excited to hear the Tribe album (in hindsight, that was prolly the wrong instinct). Or when I saw The Source cover with the details of the Tribe break-up and immediately viewed this as a horrible blight on the face of humanity. Needless to say, I liked the group.
So it was a pleasant surprise to see that even at their advanced age, neither Phife nor Tip had lost a thing on the mic. From the first strains of “Buggin’ Out,” the crowd went nuts, as the duo, delivered a dynamic set, clearly reveling in their newfound status as hip-hop’s elder statesmen. As one might expect, Tip and Phife showcased unparalled chemistry on-stage, never missing a beat, chiming in on each other’s ad-libs and knowing every word of the other’s lyrics.
In particular, Phife was much better than I expected. Spending all “that time with his children” (because we’ll just pretend that that was the reason why he was absent from music for the last decade) seemed to pay off, as his voice has aged into a raspy but powerful growl. Gone is the boyish, non-threatening sounding Phife that you heard on the old albums. In his place is a fiery Junior Reid sounding voice that mixed well with Q-Tips’s timeless “I’ve just inhaled a tank of helium” pitch.
As it should’ve been, the set was heavy on their Greatest Hits, focused mainly on Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders material. “Buggin Out,” segued to a Busta Rhymes-less “Oh My God,” to “Jazz” to “Butta” to “Sucka Niggaz,” which provided an unintentionally hilarious moment when Tip exhorted the crowd to sing along. Needless to say, you will never see anything more awkward than 10,000 lily-white Washingtonites gulping their throats and trying to mouth the words “sucka nigga.”
From there, Tribe launched into “Steve Biko (Stir It Up)” which got the crowd going nuts, singing along to every word. Then weirdly enough, Tip performed “Vivrant Thing,” from his abortion of a solo album Amplified. One couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the group thought about that decision, considering it wasn’t like Phife was about to bust out hits from Ventilation: Da Lp. Then again, only three people actually listened to that album. All of them members of Phife’s family.
Following Tip’s solo track, the group launched into “Hot Sex On a Platter,” a little heard track from the Boomerang Soundtrack.
Sadly, Eddie Murphy Lost Out on His Original Goal: Replacing Robin Givens and Halle Berry with a Pair Of Trannies In Need of Rides Home
At this point, Tribe decided it was time to bring out the big guns, trotting out a hall of fame trio of songs, “Bonita Applebum,” “Electric Relaxation,” and “Can I Kick It?” After making the fans cheer for an encore, the group returned to deliver another stellar triumvirate: “Scenario,” “Check the Rhime,” and “Award Tour,” to rounds of thunderous applause.
All in all, Tribe definitely put on a good show, as good as you’re going to find in hip-hop, a genre of music sadly dominated by musicians who think a live show is playing abbreviated versions of songs punctuated by gun-shots (yeah..I’m looking at you Mobb Deep). Watching the group that had been my favorite in high school made me a bit sad, considering that no group since Tribe has emerged that could match their energy, charisma and mic skills. We’re pretty far from Hip-Hop’s golden age, but for an hour and fifteen minutes in Washington, Tribe Called Quest did their best to make you forget.
Okay, so there weren’t any beards at Bumbershoot and you’d have even been hard-pressed to find a cheap pair of black plastic spectacles on any of the festival-goers faces’. It seems the hipster/scenester/jeepster scene hasn’t made it’s way out to Seattle. Perhaps this is why I consider Seattle the most underrated of all major American cities.
In fact, the crowd at Bumbershoot was markedly different than any show I’ve been to in a long time. First of all, it was young. Really young. As in if I were a betting man, I’d say that half the crowd that gathered to see The New Pornographers and Spoon didn’t even have Driver’s Licenses. Of course, the next logical statement is: where were these girls when I was 15 years old.
Judging from the youth of the crowd and the fact that they seemed to know every word to both bands’ songs, my best advice to any man reading this blog is to head to Seattle in about six years. The girls might still be a tad on the young side, but compared to most of the girls that I’ve met in my twenty-something years in Los Angeles, I imagine they’ll be a vast improvement.
After all, this is Los Angeles, home to 3,000,000 Justin Timberlake fans. Most of the girls I went to high school with would probably tell you that Spoon is nothing more than dining utensil (albeit a very useful one) and the New Pornographers are an incipient adult film company that recently launched in Chatsworth.
The New Pornographers: Because Old Pornographers Are Just Gross
I didn’t end up making it to any of the shows prior to the New Pornographers 1:00 p.m. set on Sunday afternoon. Sure, there were shows on Saturday, but catching a 30 years past their prime Blondie didn’t really strike me as being all that appealing. Nor did catching the emo trifecta of Hawthorne Heights, AFI or Yellowcard. Of course, I woud’ve liked to have caught some of the other acts that played that day, most notably Rogue Wave, but there were more important things to do on a Saturday night in Seattle, like take back-to-back-to-back shots of Tequila, Jagermeister and Vodka, and then attempt to drink the rest of the town’s supply of inexpensive alcohol. Needless to say, I discovered two things that Saturday night. 1. Hot Dogs with Cream Cheese are surprisingly delicious and 2. Mixing Whiskey, Tequila, Jagermeister, Vodka and Beer together will give you one of the most savage hangovers of your life
So this was the state I was in on Sunday afternoon, my brain feeling like each of its synapses was embroiled in a screaming knock-down drag-out brawl and my contacts having picked a wonderful time to break (particularly outstanding considering I hadn’t brought a replacement pair).
Luckily if there was any band on earth designed to palliate the sorrows of a skull-crushing headache it would be the New Pornographers. I’d never seen the Pornographers before, but had probably listened to each of their albums at least 50 times each. And for good reason. You can search far and wide for better pop albums, but you won’t find anything finer than Electric Version, Mass Romantic or Twin Cinema. In a just world, Timberlake would be scorned and maligned and A.C. Newman and the gang would push “Sexyback” where it belongs, as the soundtrack to a lower-rung of purgatory.
As I was half blind, I had to manuever to get a good spot to see the band, which was quite easy, as Bumbershoot might be one of the most user-friendly festivals I’ve ever been to. Despite my close proximity, I wasn’t able to see the obvious fact that Neko Case didn’t travel with the band to Bumbershoot, nor did Destroyer. Nonetheless, the set was transfixing. Watching the New Pornographers live is like watching Greg Maddux pitch in his prime. They might not rock the hardest and they might not have the most amazing stage presence, but every note and transition sounds clean and perfect, the sound large and clarion. It all comes down to the fundamentals.
In spite of the fact that they didn’t have Case, the band ran through her songs anyway, including soothing note-perfect renditions of “The Laws Have Changed,” “July Jones,” and “The Jessica Numbers.” Whoever they’ve got playing the Neko Case role did a damn fine job.
Naturally, the AC Newman songs were the stand-outs, if nothing else for the fact that he was the only songwriter in the band who showed up to play live. This was fine with me, as AC Newman might be the most underrated songwriter in music today. It’s not that critics don’t give the New Pornographers enough respect, they do. It’s just that you don’t hear AC Newman mentioned in the same breath as Sufjan Stevens. Ever. And while his songs may not carry the same emotional depth as Stevens, that same logic never stopped anyone from comparing Brian Wilson to John Lennon.
At any rate, Newman ran through his own songs with skill and aplomb, including “Twin Cinema,” “Use It,” and the closer, “Sing Me Spanish Techno.” All in all, The New Pornographers might not have delivered the most electrifying set I’ve ever seen, but they definitely delivered one of the more entertaining ones. I’ve been long convinced that the band doesn’t have the capacity to write a bad song, and seeing them live only deepened that conviction.
Britt Daniel and His Friendly Goblin-Friend Performing a Cover of “The Beast and Dragon, Adored” If someone told me that Spoon was the best working band in the world I probably wouldn’t disagree with them. After five full-length albums and several EP’s, I’ve come to the conclusion that Britt Daniel is clearly a genius. No other band other than maybe Wilco has been as consistently brilliant as Spoon. As far as I’m concerned Series of Sneaks, Girls Can Tell, Kill the Moonlight and Gimme Fiction are certifiable classics and Telefono is a lot better than most people give it credit for. Sure, it sounds a lot like a Pixies album, but if you pretend that it’s Frank Black on vocals, it’s still probably better than Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde.
But despite the fact that Spoon has been on a Cal Ripken-esque streak of greatness since at least ‘98, I’ve never seen the band live. Chalk it up to my stupid names theory. Honestly, who’d have thought that a band named after an eating utensil would turn out to be so damned good (Knife fans get angry).
So needless to say, despite being halfway blind, hungover and sweating in the baking mid-day sun, I was amped to see one of my favorite bands, and in no way did they disappoint. Blasting out with “My Mathematical Mind,” from Gimme Fiction, Britt Daniel and his gang immediately exploded into blistering waves of spiky sound spreading out across Seattle’s Memorial Stadium, The stadium is built more for arena-rock acts like U2 or Radiohead, but Spoon had no problem filling the air with noise, as Daniel rifled off fierce and jagged riffs that could be heard outside the festival grounds. Meanwhile, Jim Eno kept a sturdy and thudding beat that revealed him to be the band’s unsong hero.
From “My Mathematical Mind,” the band launched into an explosive version of “Everything Hits At Once,” as the energy of the set and the crowd continued to rise from the already high level that The New Pornographers had left it at. Other high points of the set included a raucous rendition of “Two Sides/Monsieur Valentine,” and of course, “I Turn My Camera On,” which along with “The Way We Get By,” predictably drew the biggest reaction from the crowd.
Most festival sets are abbreviated and are often rushed as the band tries to sneak in as many songs as possible. Yet Spoon’s set was one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen at a show of this stripe. Alloted a full hour and fifteen minutes, the band took up each second with cuts from all of their last four albums. During “The Beast and Dragon,Adored” Daniel even introduced comedian David Cross who did a hilarious pantomine to the words of the song, jumping, mincing and writhing across the stage, as though he were Tobias Funke. At one point, he even mooned the crowd.
By the time the band played its encore, “Small Stakes,” they had proven their merit many times over. If you’ve never seen Spoon live, you’re missing out. Full of charisma and prodigious guitar chops, Britt Daniel is one of the few front-men in indie rock that can be called a legitimate rock star. If they aren’t the best band in the world, they’re pretty damned close.
As you know, a good name is one of the most essential things for any brand. This is why my blog is named The Passion of the Weiss rather than Jeff’s Emporium of Cynicism and Mirth (the runner-up). This is why Starbucks is called Starbucks and not Java Hut, the name of a rarely frequented Los Angeles coffee hut. (after all, huts are good for many things but coffee isn’t
one of them.)
Yet a bad name often scares off people who may be interested in your product. This is why I still haven’t picked up Final Fantasy’s He Poos Clouds despite liking a few of the songs I’ve heard off the album. This is why I didn’t get into My Morning Jacket until Z. This is why I’m reluctant to tell people that I like the new Asobi Seksu album.
The first time I heard someone refer to Washington Mutual as WAMU., I considered the possibility that they were like Rita, Charlize Theron’s character from Arrested Development, (i.e. a mentally retarded person capable of tricking us all.) However, this insidious nomenclature has spread like wildfire, as apparently everyone has disregarded the clear-cut fact that WAMU is one of the most terrible nicknames ever given.
Trust me, I know a good nickname when I see one. The Ol’ Dirty Bastard=great nickname. Tim “Rock Raines=great nickname (if only because of the double-meaning, inherent in the fact that the dude allegedly freebased more crack than a young Richard Pryor).
Can You Smell What the Rock is Cookin?
But WAMU? It sounds like Shamu’s low-budget Mexican equivalent. Which is totally cool if you’re trying to name a new killer whale, but not so cool when you think that you’re basically giving all your money to a financial institution without the foresight to at least give themselves a good nickname.
Needless to say, I’ve spent the last several hours debating two things: 1. whether I should take my banking needs elsewhere and 2. debating whether or not Justin Timberlake’s new album is the worst album ever made. The last point needs a whole blog unto itself and I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to pull my money away from the bank formerly known as Washington Mutual. I doubt it. I’m that lazy. However, I have decided to console myself the only way I know how: by watching the video for Cameo’s “Word Up.” I promise tomorrow I will have a real post describing my recent trip to the Bumbershoot Music Festival in Seattle. But in the meantime, enjoy the sweet musical stylings of Larry Blackmon and the gang, and ask yourself, was the codpiece really necessary?
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Elvis Perkins: 
The first thought that came into my head when I saw the Mezzanine Owls a few weeks back was that these guys are way too good to be opening for The Like Young on a Tuesday night at the Silverlake Lounge. The Owls used to be known as The Few up until last year, when after going through a variety of line-up changes, they decided to finally just change their name and become full-fledged owls that roost in mezzanines. This may or may not actually be true.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to listening to this album. The reason is such: it’s a rap album made from Zilla, a frequent commentator on this very blog, a guy who I’ve e-mailed back and forth with many times on the nature of hip-hop and a guy who I consider a friend, inasmuch as you can consider someone a friend when you really don’t know a damn thing about them other than their tastes in music and film. And because of this relationship, I knew that I’d have to say something nice about this album no matter what. And the truth is I sound ridicuously insincere when I lie, so If I was lying I’d come-off looking like a complete jack-ass. Awesome.
