My Top Five Halloween Costume Predictions

It’s Halloween. A time for candy corn, jack-o-lanterns and Halloween parties filled with completely predictable costumes. Sure, costumes may change with the times, but each year you can count on two things 1) Hundreds of Thousands of girls will spend hours thinking of ways to “slutty” up their costumes and 2) guys will pick a costume based solely on what’s popular at the moment: movies, politics, celebrities. You name it. With that in mind, as I prepare to go out for Halloween tonight (because I didn’t go out Saturday like the rest of America apparently did) these are the five costume variations that I know I will see.

5. Borat (the token comic blockbuster of the moment costume)
The irony of dressing up as Borat is that since the movie hasn’t yet been released people can and will look cool wearing a Borat costume. But if the same people wore it next year, they’d look like complete retards. Just like Napoleon Dynamite and Austin Powers before it, this costume will be the token Hollywood comedy costume of the year. I pity the Junior High School teachers of America. After this movie is a hit, every 7th grader in America will be speaking in fractured Kazakh and making blatantly anti-semitic remarks. Following this Halloween, people hopefully won’t wear this costume for at least a decade, at which point it will be ironic. Then again, judging from the recent news, I can also predict their costume for next year: Bruno.

4. Kim Jong Il (The Token Menacing Foreign Dictator of the Moment Costume)

I can’t deny that I’ll get a good laugh out of this year’s token menacing foreign dictator costume poster boy, Kim Jong Il. From what I hear, Sadamn is out this year and Kim Jong Il is infinitely more fashionable, what with his puffy pompadour and easy to find split pea colored body suits (Banana Republic?). With Fidel Castro ailing in Cuba, Khadafi peacefully applying more makeup somewhere in the Sahara, and Hugo Chavez not registering enough costume recognition potential (c.r.p. for those in the know), the Kim Jong Il costume will be the bomb this year. Okay, poor choice of language. Hopefully, this costume will be passe next year. (doubtful), but by than we’ll probably have a bigger problem on our hands: the Mahmoud Admadinejad costume.

3. Jem from Jem and the Holograms: (The token misguided Female Attempt At Being Ironic Costume)
Do you see the picture of Jem above? Well,it looks like approximately 43 percent of the girls that populate your average Hollywood club. Therefore, its damned near impossible to tell which girls are trying to be Jem and which girls are just trying to dress like hookers.

Indeed over the past five years, I’ve met a half of dozen girls who claimed they were Jem. But in spite of their efforts to be ironic by dressing up in a dated childhood costume, they just look like extras from a porn flick that just stopped shooting in Chatsworth. Pity the poor girls who try to be ironic. Guys are blessed with ample ironic options: Magnum PI, Three’s Company, Miami Vice et al. But girls have few. So for the near future expect to see a whole lot of Jems, Strawberry Shortcakes and Rainbow Brites. This trend could last indefinitely, at least until the next generation comes of age and starts ironically dressing as Bratz dolls.

2. Dr. McDreamy (the Token TV Doctor of the Moment Costume)

I just know that I’m going to run into some jackass tonight who I’ll struggle not to call Dr. McDouchy. Some guy who thinks he’s exceedingly clever because he’s slicked his hair full of mousse, put on a stethoscope, a smug grin and a name tag that says Dr. McDreamy. Real clever. These are the same guys who recycle the same Dr. outfit every year, changing the name of the TV doctor du jour each Halloween. You know the type, the guys who were J.D. from Scrubs and before that Clooney’s Doug Ross character from ER.The type of guys who you just know were Doogie Howser as a kid. C’mon guys, we all know that you’re only doing this because you’ve heard that women find doctors attractive. The jigs up.

1. Mark Foley (the token American Political Scandal of the Moment Costume)

Thank God we live in America, if nothing else but for how easy is to dress up each Halloween as the American Political Scandal Du Jour Costume. Yes, every year there’s another scandal that revelas the festering corruption of Washington DC, and in the process provides the American people with an array of great Halloween costume ideas.

Whether you want to be disgraced Democratic Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson (complete with a sack full of $100,000 in $100 bills) or disgraced Republican leader Tom Delay (complete with your very own certificate of conspiracy in fund raising), there are costumes for every political stripe. But even if there isn’t any bi-partisanship in Congress, at least everyone can agree on this year’s Political Scandal of the Moment Halloween Costume: The Mark Foley.

But be forewarned, people wishing to maximimize on Mark Foley’s CRP (lol), the costume won’t be complete without your very own congressional page. Don’t get lazy like you’ve been in past years. You know the time when you dressed up as Dick Cheney but forgot to bring the duck-hunting rifle, or the time when you were Bill Clinton but forgot the cigar, or even when you were Clarence Thomas and forgot to bring in a coke can filled with pubic hair. Details count. So get going America. Halloween is mere hours away. Find yourself a page to seduce, I mean to bring to tonight’s Halloween party. Hurry up, log onto your Instant Messenger account. All the cool kids are doing it. That’s all for this year. Until next time, Brb.

Download (In Honor of Halloween)

Bunny and the Wolf Sisters: “Big Bad Wolf” (from the Teen Wolf Soundtrack:(left-click)

RJD2: “The Horror” from Deadringer (left-click)

Posted in Best Of, It Got Weird, Didn't It? | 10 Comments »

Danger Mouse Says You Should Rent Deconstructing Harry (and so do I)

“When I got to college, I saw ‘Manhattan’ and ‘Deconstructing Harry.’ I thought to myself: Why do I relate so much to this white 60-year-old Jewish guy? Why do I understand his neurosis? So I just started watching all of his movies.”
-Danger Mouse, New York Times Magazine

You may think the Gray Album was overrated (I do), you may wish that the Dangerdoom album was more consistent (check), but you thing you cannot attack about Danger Mouse is his taste in movies. Particularly, his admiration for Deconstructing Harry, one of the best films of the 90s.

But alas when Deconstructing Harry was released nine years ago, both Danger Mouse and my sentiments weren’t shared by everyone. While some critics reveled in its scathing and razor-sharp humor, Slate magazine found it less the sum of its own parts, while The Onion called it “self indulgent, hateful and not worth seeing.” Indeed the film garnered just one Oscar nomination, for Best Original Screenplay, ultimately losing out to the infinitely safer, less imaginative and more heart-warming, Good Will Hunting. (Boogie Nights somehow lost too, but that’s a different rant for a different time).

If I had to guess at the underlying reason behind some of these mixed reviews, I’d say that they can be summarized in one sentence: it’s not Annie Hall. Then again few films (if any) can match Annie Hall’s poignant, hilarious and mindblowingly imaginative look at failed romance. Either way, watching Deconstructing Harry this weekend, confirmed what I’ve long suspected: that Woody Allen is the greatest comic filmmaker of all time.

Woody Allen: Giving His Best “If You Want My Body and You Think I’m Sexy” Stare

In particular, Deconstructing Harry supports this statement mainly because its often regarded as minor-Woody Allen (to be said with the voice of Jeff Daniels in the Squid and the Whale). Most critics regard Manhattan, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Hannah and her Sisters as the first tier (at least, if we’re going by Oscar nominations), with Deconstructing Harry as a less universally acclaimed but still very good work.

But even if it is, Deconstructing Harry remains nothing short of brilliant. At first glance, the film’s plotline is rather simple: an examination`of the tragic philandering life of novelist Harry Block (played by Allen, of course) and how he has systematically ruined every relationship he’s been in since he was a young man, thanks to an all-too-healthy sex drive. Compounding the destruction that Block has already caused, he can’t help but spill all the details of these failed romances via his thinly veiled highly personal novels.

While the plot is none-too-revolutionary, the way in which it unfolds showcase the work of a true master. Fact and fiction continually blur as Allen effortlessly shifts between past and present, examining the life he’s led and the myriad rationalizations behind each of Allen’s bad decisions . What makes it even more interesting is the fact that the film parallels Allen’s own tabloid-worthy personal life as it was made at the height of the Soon-Yi fiasco. Destructing Harry allows a much fuller portrait of Allen, not just as a human being but as an artist using his fiction very much as a coping mechanism to excise his feelings of guilt and self-loathing.

And Some Things Just Never Change

Indeed the film is self-hating to the point of masochism, as Block/Allen is the first one to admit that the only person worse than him is Adolph Hitler. Yet while the plot may be full of melodrama and gloom, Allen successfully balances its cynicism with wit and humor. In particular, the scenes ripped from the pages of Block’s novels are not only hysterical, but they also shed light on how all writers struggle with the question of how much of their own life story is too much to throw into their “fiction.”

Allen’s prodigious skill behind the camera also greatly enhances the film’s merit. Utilizing fractured jumpy cuts during the scenes of the novelist-Block’s “real life,” Allen manages to imbue a sense of the unsettled and tumultuous state of the character’s non-fiction existence. By constrast, the scenes replayed from Block’s fiction are shot in a smooth and orderly dream-like world.

Deconstructing Harry might tread on ground that Allen has covered before, but despite its thematic similarity to Allen’s earlier work, it’s every bit as outstanding. I can’t recommend a film much more than this one. So if you’re looking for something good to Netflix, this is it. Even if you can’t trust every album Danger Mouse makes (c’mon we all know the Gnarls Barkley album only had three good songs), you can at least trust his taste in movies.

Rating: A

Download:
The Rapture (produced by Danger Mouse): “Pieces of the People we Love” (left-click)

Dangerdoom: “Korn Dogs” (left-click)

Posted in Miscellany | 5 Comments »

Food and Liquor: Not Actually Bad for You After All

Such is life in this strange Internet age that by the time Lupe Fiasco’s debut record, Food and Liquor dropped last month, I was already over it. But it wasn’t lack of talent that led to my apathy, it was more a combination of the dude’s ubiquitousness paired with his brash arrogant attitude, paired with the fact that he hadn’t actually done a thing. Before he’d even released one LP, I’d already felt like I could capably recite his biography, I’d already seen him turn in a decent but unspectacular live performance , and I’d already read his slander of Bol on the XXL blogs.

So when I finally got my hands on the official release, I gave it a few cursory listens on my computer and forgot about it for a month. Then last week, I actually decided to burn it to a CD to listen in the car, not expecting much more than three or four good tracks that would allow me a respite from making savage and wild declarations about the poor driving ability of LA drivers. But listening it in the car something changed. I realized an unmistakable fact that I’d nearly forgotten: rap was meant to be played in an automobile (And to think, I’d nearly forgotten this in spite of all the Masta Ace albums I used to listen to)

Indeed no other genre of music commands to be blasted from a pair of good strong speakers with the bass cranked up to levels capable of wounding the ears of small animals. Freed of my tinny apartment sound system, Fiasco’s Food and Liquor album came alive, a symphonic mess of diving strings, shaking bass and of course, Fiasco’s agile and dexterous flow.

Perhaps the Geekiest Album Cover of All Time

What struck me the most was how rarely Fiasco wastes a verse. People on the Internet wax philosophic about the greatness of mediocre rappers like L’il Wayne and T.I., as though they were making a Faustian bargain: forgetting the fact that 90 percent of what most rappers say is retarded, in exchange for the occasional clever punch-line. Look, I thought Wayne’s “Leave you missin’ like the O’ Bannon’s” line was relatively funny too, but it can’t even begin to touch any of the dazzling wordplay on Food and Liquor. Take the complicated rhyme schemes of his first verse of “Pressure: “And so it seems that I’m, sewin jeans/And, 1st and 15 is just a sewin machine/So I, cut the pattern and I, sew in seams/And, button in this hustlin then publically I’m Buddy Lee.”

It might not be the deepest thing I’ve ever heard but Fiasco can construct a rhyme as well as any rapper working today. Hell, even Fiasco’s mixtape verses seem to bear the hallmarks of serious revision and an eye for alliteration, clever synonyms and double-meanings. Even though the “Intro” from Food’s leaked version didn’t make the final cut, his declaring himself to be “evil minded like Krang” reference has been stuck in my head for months.

But great lyrics wouldn’t mean a thing if Lupe couldn’t rap, but he can, as he displays the confidence of a veteran throughout, with a cool, calm and collected style. And unlike 99 percent of rappers working today, his songs actually having meanings attached to them. Throughout, one gets a sense of Fiasco as a human being, rather than the two-dimensional guns, bitches and coke canards that most mainstream hip-hoppers spit.

But For the Love of God Somebody Please Give Me This Guy Album Cover Advice

Is the album perfect? Not quite. “I Gotcha” has a pretty lackluster beat and Fiasco has yet to figure out something the Wu perfected many years ago: not every song needs an R&B singer on the hook. Occasionally, his hooks just don’t blend, most notably on “The Instrumental” Jonah Matranga sounds sort of like a pedophile trying to seduce a young child, rather than a guy singing a few bars on a rap song. Furthermore, the last track “Outro” is a ridiculous 12 and a half minute shout-out to basically every person Lupe seems to have met since the 4th Grade. Yet there are more than enough bright spots to make up for a few bad moments. Hell, even Jill Scott sounds interesting for once on the dazzling cut “Daydreamin.”

Additionally, Fiasco’s braggadocio, self-righteousness and occasional conspiracy mongering can get a bit grating at time, reminiscent of the man who brought him into the game:Kanye West. Except whereas, Kanye relies on good beats to mask his torpid and average-at-best flow, Lupe has the rapping ability to merit such conceits.

The truth is that most of the songs on the album have been floating around the Internet for some time, blunting the impact of this debut. If the album hadn’t leaked and the best tracks from the earlier version had been merged with this, Food and Liquor would’ve been a sure-fire 5 mic classic. As it is, it’s probably the best major label rap album you’ll hear this year from a man not nicknamed Tony Starks. Fiasco might not be hip-hop’s savior, but with this debut, he’s staked his claim as one of the best rappers in the world.

Passion of the Weiss Rating: 8.4

Download:
Lupe Fiasco: “The Emperor’s Soundtrack” from Food and Liquor (left-click)

Lupe Fiasco: “Daydreamin’” from Food and Liquor (left-click)

Lupe Fiasco: “Intro” from the early leaked version of Food and Liquor (left-click)

The Round-Up
So I’ll be honest, I disagree with the blog Last Night a DJ Saved My Life on a few crucial issues, most namely his love of Justin Timberlake and My Chemical Romance. But hey, we all have our differences. However, those two gripes aside, it’s author runs a pretty damned good site. One worthy of being added to your bookmarks.

As is Styched, whose writers recently turned in this very clever post on the fickleness of blogger tastes.

Songs For Silence just got the Elvis Perkins album this week and was very impressed. It’s hard not to be. The album is flat-out outstanding. It’s only available via Insound for now, but from what I hear, he should be announcing a deal with a relatively well-sized indie label in the near future.

Lastly, Ian Cohen delivers the best review you’ll read all week, with his Stylus takedown of P. Diddy’s gay dance club-inspired Press Play album. Sure, I have no proof that it was made for gay dance clubs, but as Straight Bangin’ has already declared: if you’ve listened to it, it’s the only logical conclusion to draw.

Posted in Album Reviews, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 2 Comments »

Peter, Bjorn and John and Maybe Mary But Definitely Not Paul

I have exactly one problem with the Peter, Bjorn and John album and it doesn’t have to do with the album’s sonic quality. It has more to do with the fact that the band’s name sounds like a description of a weird Swedish orgy, rather than the name of a group that produced one of the finest albums of 2006. This is why a few weeks back when someone thankfully put this album up on the good ol’ Stylus message board, I was skeptical. Even if Peter, Bjorn and John isn’t some the title of some sort of twisted Swedish skin flick, at the very least the name sounds like the low-budget Swedish equivalent of Peter, Paul and Mary, except that each member should be 6′4 and look as though they just stepped out of an Ikea ad. Schmergen! (or not)

The point is that despite their woefully bizzare name, this album is the closest thing you’ll find to a perfect pop album in 2006. It was described on the message board as 1 tbsp Arcade Fire
1/2 cup Camera Obscura, 2 pinches Beatles,1 pinch Belle & Sebastian, 1 tsp British Sea Power
and 1 tsp Cure and a whole lotta Sweden, and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Brimming with obscenely catchy melodies, whistled hooks, warm harmonies and icy synths, Writer’s Bloc is that rare album that is almost impossible to dislike. People whose musical tastes run no edgier than Justin Timberlake will find comfort in the band’s prodigious talent for writing foot-tapping pop confections. More discerning listeners will find solace in the deceptively complex song structures and the frozen layers of shoegaze noise that give the songs a richer and more lush sound.

The lyrics might not be the stuff of legend, but they’re good, particularly considering they tend to hew to one topic: love. But despite this one-dimensionality, the band seems to have a knack for grounding listeners in a scene. For instance, on “Paris 2004,” the song’s opening lyrics begin: “Sunday morning/on the bed having fruit and croissants.” It might not be Rimbaud, but god damn if that isn’t one of the best openers I’ve heard in a while. Is it possible not to love lying in bed on a Sunday having fruit and croissants? Maybe. But if you don’t love such a thing, you’re probably a Communist. Or at the very least a Godsmack fan.

As much as I liked Belle and Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit, the Peter, Bjorn and John album almost feels like what I would’ve guessed if someone had asked me to predict B&S’ future following If You’re Feeling Sinister. I could go on and hyping this album, but I won’t. If you’re interested in reading more about it, then check Stylus’ A- review or go over to the evil empire and read their review, which awarded the album an 8.5 and Best New Music honors.

Also Rewriteable Content posted two tracks from the album the other day (i.e. different ones than what I’m about to post), so go over there and get them.

Download:
Peter, Bjorn and John: “Paris 2004″ (right-click, save as)

Peter, Bjorn and John: “Let’s Call It Off” (right-click, save as)

Buy the album here

Passion of the Weiss Rating: 8.9

Young Jeezy: Just Like Biggie Smalls Except Without Talent, Charisma or the Ability to Rap

So the other day I was surfing these Internets (as Dubya likes to say) and came across this nugget of information. According to this article, Young Jeezy has recorded 114 songs for his new album. Now I might not be a rocket scientist but something tells me that it’s practically impossible to write 114 songs for one album alone. I mean Joy Division are regarded as one of the greatest bands of all-time and Ian Curtis only wrote 30 songs or so. So all this feat does is demonstrate Jeezy’s phenomenal lack of talent. In order to write that many lyrics, you basically have to treat them as something disposable and absolutely devoid of any art. Or purchase the How-To-Write Rap Lyrics/Madlibs from Jadakiss.

Inevitably, I’m sure that most, if not all, of Jeezy’s 114 verses deal with three themes: 1) He’s a hustler (wow…I’m so impressed) 2. He likes cocaine (yeah…so does most of the population of Los Angeles…I wouldn’t give any of them a record deal either) and 3. He’s a great rapper.

Clearly, this is what the world needs,another rapper proficient at rapping about how good he is at rapping. Listening to all 114 songs at once might actually make you a dumber person. No, scratch that. It will make you a dumber person.

And Sometimes The Jokes Just Write Themselves

Speaking of dumb, will someone at Island Def Jam please buy a clue and tell Brandon Flowers to shut the fuck up. I know that he’s become convinced that he’s an artiste because Hot Fuss sold 5 million copies, but somebody needs to tell him that he’s an answer to the question what would the Cars sound like if they really really sucked. The Killers’ initial success was a complete fluke., one of Barenaked Ladies proportion. Yeah, I know Sam’s Town sold a lot of copies in its first week, but it’s sinking like a stone. It’ll be a miracle if it goes platinum. And I only guarantee that by comparison, the band’s third album will actually make Sam’s Town seem like Born to Run.

It’s bad enough that the album’s second single “Bones” has a hook with the cringe-inducing line “Don’t You Want to Feel My Bones” (uh…no dude…maybe you should leave those sentiments off the album next time), but now Flowers has taken it upon himself to attack…I kid you not…Green Day (thanks to Crime Notes for putting me onto this one)

In this article in the NME, Flowers declares that “You have Green Day and ‘American Idiot’. Where do they film their DVD? In England. A bunch of kids screaming ‘I don’t want to be an American idiot’ I saw it as a very negative thing towards Americans. It really lit a fire in me.”

Okay, forgetting the fact that a) Green Day are also heinous and b) they haven’t been relevant since 1994, what makes Flowers think he has the right to criticize their anti-Americanism. I don’t even care that he’s right, (which truth be told, he probably is), dude needs to stop picking beefs with people. Honestly, I can’t believe that no one has beaten the shit out of him yet. Oh yeah, that’s right. He hasn’t picked a fight with a band that doesn’t wear make-up. Notice a pattern here: The Bravery, Panic at the Disco!, Green Day? I’d love to see him start some shit with Jack White and end up like the dude in the Von Bondies. That’ll show him.

Brandon Flowers Meet Jack White’s Fists

And with that grotesque image, I bid thee farewell.

Posted in Album Reviews, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 8 Comments »

Beards, Blazers & Glasses: The Secret Machines or Whither Goest Stoner Rock?

These are not the salad days of stoner rock. In the 1960’s, it seems like nearly every album was made for the narcotically inclined: 13th Floor Elevators, Hendrix, The Beatles,The Dead..et al. This proud trend carried into the 70’s , with the prog-rock bombast of groups like classic Pink Floyd and King Crimson,the roots reggae heydey of Bob Marley and the thumping dub of King Tubby. After a dry-spell in the 80s (Flock of Seagulls? Not so great while high), stoner rock made a resurgence in the 90s with groups like Mercury Rev, Phish, The Flaming Lips and Ride, not to mention England’s Primal Scream/Happy Mondays Madchester trip. But today in the year 2006, potheads have few options.

I suppose you could pretend to like the jam band scene, but let’s be real, no one REALLY likes Widespread Panic or Moe, or heaven forbid The String Cheese Incident. And don’t get me started on the Mars Volta. They’re an answer to the question of what would happen if Otto the bus driver from the Simpsons, decided to form a band. So where does that leave the Pothead nation? My Morning Jacket. Okay, that’s one. But even so, My Morning Jacket’s music feels better suited to soundtrack an illegal grain whiskey binge than heavy clouds of reefer smoke. Wilco? A great band for sure, but it’s rumored that the fastest way to a panic attack is hearing “Ashes of American Flags” under the influence.”

And then there’s the mellow lazy Sunday vibe of groups like Brightblack Morning Light, Espers, and Devendra Banhart, but those groups are more folk than rock. In particular, Brightblack Morning Light can probably be used as a cure for insomnia (a good cure mind you). So by my count, there are only two good bands working in rock today that can be classified as stoner rock: Comets on Fire and The Secret Machines.

The Machines’ Love of Getting High? Not So Secret

It’s the Secret Machines’ ability to fill this specific niche, that brought me out to the Avalon on a Monday night, despite the Avalon’s status as the most inconvenient venue in Los Angeles ($10 drinks, $20 parking and situated smack dab in the middle of Hollywood). Now the Machines might not be a world-beating band. But they’re a good one and their brand of machine gun drums, spacy synths and spiraling jams are unlike any other band working in music today. Channeling Dark Side/Obscured By Clouds era-Pink Floyd, the Machines turned the cavernous Avalon into psychedelic spectacle, complete with retina-searing strobe lights and an “In the Round” stage set-up, where fans circled the band members playing on an elevated platform.

The Machines are a streaky band if there ever was. Every time you see them you’re running the risk of mediocrity, but also the prospect of greatness. And sometimes, there are nights lfilled with both. I can perfectlyunderstand someone going to a Secret Machines show and ending up bored, something that happened to the great Slack Lalane earlier this month. Not every one of the Machines’ songs is a gem and when the songwriting suffers so does its live rendition. No amount of ethereal prog-rock arrangements and maniacal drumming can make “Daddy’s in the Doldrums”tolerable for 12 minutes. But as their catalogue has expanded to three LP’s and one EP, the band thankfully has enough good songs to make their live show worthwhile.

On Monday, the band got off to a slow start, meandering through the first 45 minutes of their set, with some notable high-points, (”Faded Lines” and “Alone, Jealous and Stoned”) but some slow ones that made the glass of whiskey that I was drinking far more interesting than the mostly sedentary plodding band.But after the 45 minute mark the band seemed to pick up steam. Benjamin Garza’ s drums took on a bayonet-sharp stomp, Brandon Curtis’ singing seemed to grow more intense and Benjamin Curtis started moving around the stage, locked into a pose of extreme concentration.

The Secret Machines Get Around, Round and Round, Round They Go

By the time the encore rolled around, the band was hitting on all cylinders, a blur of adrenaline and volcanic drums. They tore through a spell-binding kinetic rendition of “Lightning Blue Eyes,”complete with hard guitars, stoned vocals and rolling hypnotic percussion. They followed it with two more songs that the whiskey has compelled me to forget. But on their the last song, “First Wave Intact” the band approached levels of greatness, as its members turned the nine minute track into a symphony of crunching guitars and booming sound that shook the foundations of the Avalon.

This band can get LOUD and when the crowd gets into it, the Curtis Brothers and Garza seem to pick up those wild streaks of energy and harness it into soaring and stoned prog-rock anthems, that build with each note until the energy is towering and dangerous, sinking into a slow lull then at once exploding in a blast of white lights that explode off-stage into the stunned head-nodding crowd. And for the final ten minutes of the show, the band proved that even though they might be inconsistent, they are capable of hitting heights that many bands can only dream of hitting.

As a whole the show was just pretty good, but the thing about the Secret Machines is that they don’t have to be great all the time, just some of the time to make their live show worthwhile. Are they a great band? No. But they’re a good one and almost always a fun one to see. Plus, they understand their role as America’s best stoner rock band quite well, utilizing a unique stage set-up and flashing lights to maximize their ability. So sure, to quote Jon Stewart in Half Baked, they might be better “on weed.” But in these fallow days the stoners of America need a band to turn to for good high headphone listening sessions and right now, there might not be a better one than the Secret Machines.

Download:
The Secret Machines: “Alone, Jealous and Stoned” from Ten Silver Drops (right-click, save as)

The Secret Machines: “Faded Lines” from Ten Silver Drops (right-click, save as)

The Secret Machines:“First Wave Intact” from Now Here Is Nowhere (right-click, save as )

Posted in Beards, Blazers, & Glasses, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 2 Comments »

Mark Foley Needs a Hot Boy

Over the past month, the nation has been riveted by the Mark Foley scandal, in which the former Republican congressman got himself in trouble for allegedly attempting to seduce young Congressional pages via IM. Most recently, two days ago The Washington Post reported that Foley made friends with a wide circle of teenaged House of Representatives pages, then singled out “hot boys ” to write to. Naturally, the press has not given names of exactly who these “Hot Boys” were, but in a Passion of the Weiss exclusive, I’ve uncovered the identies of these Hot Boys, as well as new previously unreported IM messages between Foley and the four young Hot Boys who apparently go by the names: Juvenile, L’il Wayne, BG and Turk.

The first IM transcript contains a chat between Foley and the youngest member of the Hot Boys: L’il Wayne.

Maf54: So Wayne…can I call you Wayne?
Weezie16: How they do…this is L’il Weezie bitch…I’ll leave you missin’ like the fucking O’ Bannon’s.
Maf54: Fair enough L’il Weezie…so tell me…exactly how old are you.
Weezie16: Lil’ Wayne in the twat have it hurtin and thumpin
They be like, “that n***ga small girl but he workin wit somethin”
Maf54: So you’re small…I take it you’re the youngest of the crew…perfect.
Weezie16: Lil’ Wayne on fire…I’ll smash on your boo before a hot girl bang
What’s the matter with you?
Maf54: Nothing’s the matter with me….nothing’s the matter at all…so Weezie…tell me…are you a hot boy?
Weezie16: I like’em hot, the ones that don’t tell me to stop.
Maf54: I’ll take that as a yes. So tell me…are you horny?
Weezie16: It’s time to slang dick and fuck a ho.
Maf54: lol…..so tell me…what you need boy?
Weezie16: I need a hot girl.
Maf54: Are you sure that’s what you want…do you want boys?
Weezie16: I want a hot girl..brb.
Maf54: I am hard as rock.
Weezie16: I’m one egg short of an omelette.
Maf54: I like omelettes. Y’know what else I like. Oral sex. Y’know Weezie…if you’re ever up in Washington you could always stay at my place. I’m always here, I’m always lonely, and I’m always up for oral sex.
Weezie16: I don’t spit I vomit.
Maf54: Ooh….you don’t spit…perfect.
Weezie16: I’ll shoot you in your thigh and leg…
Maf54: mmm…you can shoot me anywhere you want.
Weezie16: I’ll make you ketchup like mayonaise.
Maf54: Mayonaise? Is that what they call it in Magnolia….tell me more young man…tell me more.
Weezie 16 signed off at 4:54 a.m.

While my sources could not verify whether or not Foley spoke with BG and Turk (has anyone spoken to them since 1999?), I was also enable to procure this IM conversation between the disgraced Florida congressman and the Hot Boy, Juvenile.

Maf54: So Juvenile…I must tell you I like your name…Juvenile…it’s so naughty…haha…
Juvie69: You ain’t scared ha…you know how to play it ha?
Maf54: Oh…I know how to play it haha…I know how to play it.
Juvie69: That’s how you keep yo’ old lady because you keep fuckin’ her friends ha
Maf54: No, I don’t have an old lady. Not quite. So tell me, Juvenile…how’s my favorite young stud doing?
Juvie69: Shit ain’t hard as it seems ha….you keep your body clean ha…you got a lot of Girbaud jeans ha…some of your partners dope fiends ha…you really don’t want to fuck with them n***gaz ha.
Maf54: So you’re wearing Girbaud jeans…um so a big bulge?
Juvie69: That dick got hard ha…when you were looking at them little broads ha…you don’t know when to quit ha…that’s you with that shot calling shit ha
Maf54: Well…I’d like to think that I call some of the shots. After all, I am a United States congressman…but enough about me….so tell me Juvenile…did you spank it this weekend?
Juvie69: I be slangin’ wood yeah…out the hood yeah…let it be understand yeah…it’s all good yeah.
Maf54: Slangin’ wood you say? Love details.
Juvie69: I’m sweatin’ in the drawers yeah….hard and long…yeah…wanna walk you like a dog yeah…break you off yeah…
Maf54: Do you really do it face down?
Juvie69: Get mine…you gonna’ get yours yeah. That’s for sure…yeah..
Maf54: Cute butt bouncing in the air.
Juvie69: Call me big daddy when you back that azz up.
Maf54: Ha ha…great visual…I may try that.

Maf54 signed off at 2:23:35 PM

Download
Hot Boys: “I Need a Hot Girl” (right-click, save as)
DJ Drama and L’il Wayne: “Cannon” (AMG Remix) (right-click, save as)

Posted in The Fakest News in Town, Best Of, It Got Weird, Didn't It? | 11 Comments »

Beards, Blazers & Beirut: The Best Debut of 2006

2006 has not been a kind year for rookies. Whereas 2005 featured a spate of outstanding debuts (Clap Your Hands, Wolf Parade, Bloc Party, Go! Team), this year has been a mixed bag. From disappointing (Birdmonster, Annuals) to promising (Cold War Kids, Silversun Pickups) to straight-up very good (Voxtrot, Little Ones). Yet out of 2006’s first-year class the only great first album has come from a kid from New Mexico who can neither shave nor legally drink alcohol. I’m talking about Beirut, or Zach Condon as the government knows him, who dropped his brilliant debut Gulag Orkestrar, earlier this year.

Blending pianos, accordians, mandolins, xylophones, melodicas and haunting, spectral trumpets, Gulag Orkestrar sounds like few albums ever made in America. Inspired by a trip he made to eastern Europe, Condon appropriated the gypsy sounds of Balkan Brass bands to create an album that makes you feel as though you should be listening to it while sipping tea in a Sarajevo cafe, overlooking a large body of water, watching accordian notes and cigarette smoke crash through the clean air.

But these sounds that conjure images of distant times and remote places seemed like they would be hard to translate to the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood, 2006. Compounded with the fact that Condon’s band had been reportedly underwhelming at their first NYC shows, I certainly wasn’t expected to be blown away by the Beirut show. But I was. Though not at first. At first, I was stunned to see Condon leading a full-on nine-person miniature symphony, while looking more like a lost UCLA student than a guy about to rock the cooler-than-thou Troubadour crowd.

Beirut Live: Ain’t Nothin’ But a Gypsy Party….

But there he was, entrancing the crowd from moment one, with every trumpet blast seemeing alternately tragic and celebratory, set against the very solid drummer’s hard clockwork percussion. Two violinists stood camped out in a corner of the stage floating mournful strings. In front, to the right of Condon, beat a tamborine player, shaking and writhing and keeping the mood buoyant. To the right of him was a mandolin and ukelele section, making it the first show I’ve ever seen with a mandolin and ukelele section.

And Condon of course led the loose and festive madness, with the world-weary and wonderful voice that he’s been blessed with. A deep, extra-terrestrial baritone that seems to come from ancestral lands. If you’d closed your eyes you’d have pictured an ancient gypsy, with them open you see your kid brother who failed his Chemistry 101 final.

Each song that felt like muted black and white postcards on the album, seemed to explode with richness and color, fleshed out with the horns, woodwinds and strings. I haven’t seen Devotchka or Gogol Bordello live, but other than that I can’t imagine anyone else making music right now as uniquely sounding as Beirut’s sad and beautiful noise. For a 20-year old to be able to sing and arrange such fully-formed songs is pretty startling. And from the excellence of his live show, Condon seems to just be getting started.

Actually Going to Beirut: Much Less Fun Than Going To a Beirut Concert

The set was an hour and ten minutes. Condon had told the crowd that normally the band didn’t play an encore. On Saturday night they played two. During the final encore, Condon and his maniacal tambourine playing bandmate, stormed into the crowd, singing and blowing his trumpet in wailing pitch-perfect peals of sound.

During the course of the show, Beirut managed to play nearly every track off Gulag Orkestrar, as well as several from his new EP, Lon Gisland. Perhaps the highlight of the show, other than when Condon played “Postcards from Italy” and “Mt. Wroclai (Idle Days),” the two stand-out tracks from Gulag Orkestrar, came when he played his newest single, the recently Pitchfork lauded “Elephant Gun.” While the song bears a resemblance to the tracks on his first album, it does point towards a continued growth for the Albuquerque native. If there’s more stuff like this on the way, than Beirut will certainly be around for a very long time. Maybe even longer than the perpetually war-torn city.

Not many musicians can craft songs both uplifting and tragic, it seems as though you either get the pop sensibility and unadulterated fun of acts like the Go! Team or the maudlin moroseness of Sufjan Stevens. Despite his tender age, Condon seems to have a preternatural knack for doing both, at times even during the same song. At any age that’s a rare thing. The band has just completed its first-ever US tour, save for a few dates in New Mexico. However, the next time they come through your city, go see this band, they’re definitely worth checking for. The hype is for real.

If you haven’t bought Gulag Orkestrar, you can purchase it here. It’s highly recommended and seems a lock to make my list of the year’s top releases. But before you do, sample these tracks.

Also check out Audio Deficit Disorder for pictures and more about the show.

As well as Rewriteable Content’s also very excellent post.

Download:
Beirut: “Elephant Gun” (right-click, save as) from Lon Gisland EP

Beirut: “Mt. Wroclai (Idle Days)” (right-click, save as) from Gulag Orkestrar

Beirut: “Postcards from Italy” (right-click, save as) from Gulag Orkestrar

Posted in Beards, Blazers, & Glasses, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 10 Comments »

Beards, Blazers & Glasses: Justin Timberlake Or Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles

100 years ago, a deranged Pole with a superior command of the English language wrote:

…before I could come to any conclusion it occured to me that my speech of my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach and beyond my power of meddling.
-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

But sometimes your ability to question this futility, this inability to meddle is questioned severely and shockingly, inside of a VIP suite at the plush Boulevard 3 nightclub in Hollywood, tucked onto the second floor overlooking Justin Timberlake and Adam Levine doing feeble imitations of musicians, parading pathetically across a black wooden stage. To my right, Paris Hilton couch-danced on a plush white sofa, screaming “whoo” abrasively into my right ear. Five minutes previous, Timberlake, backed by a group of talented session musicians, had broken into a tepid and nausea-inducing version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit. ” The entire time he spent mangling one of my favorite childhood songs, I had considered Kurt Cobain and his shotgun.

And how with three precision-placed bullets, anyone could play their own version of Dick Cheney goes hunting. Except rather than take out some lame-duck Texas lawyer, the assassin in question, could carefully snipe Timberlake, Levine and Hilton, thereby eliminating three of the power players in the scab-infested world of pop culture in 2006. It was a question almost akin to being in Berlin, Germany in a beer hall in the late 20’s. Some jackass with a Junior varsity mustache is approaching you, telling you his name’s Adolph and that he hates the Jews and those filthy gypsies. We all know that murder is wrong but still….

Now I’m not advocating the murder of innocent-in-name only pop stars, nor am I really comparing cultural holocaust to a real one. Those are wild accusations to make, even for me. Though watching this sham show, that old refrain from Bob Dylan popped into my head: “if my thought dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.”

Paris Hilton: Concrete Proof That There is No God

You’re probably wondering what dragged me out to the William Rast party to watch a Justin Timberlake concert. To appropriately answer that you’d question you’d need several dozen hours and a highly-paid team of Swiss psychiatrists, but the short answer was both a desire to burrow into the belly of the beast and the promise of free whiskey. Both of which I received in spades. Thank the heavens.

Because the only way to handle something like this was under the influence of some substance, no matter how mundane. Good god, to see Timberlake doing a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit?” There aren’t enough drugs in the world to handle such spectacle. But I’m rambling now, which is easy to do when you’re trying to forget the sight of Will I.Am. staggering on-stage to perform a duet with Timberlake, a duet abominably named “Damn Girl.”

Within seconds, Will.I. Am. proved once again why he’s in the running for the title of “America’s worst rapper,” butchering syllabes and rhyme schemes wearing an outfit more suited to a geeky Batman villain reject: lime green shoes, candy cane socks and an oversized newsboy hat that made him look like the most poorly dressed 11-year old in the world.

But the concert continued with Timberlake doing a sans-TI version of his hit single “My Love,” complete with unctuous writhing that included him rubbing his chest repeatedly. I’m not sure what that had to do with his love, but I didn’t want to know. At this point, the crowd (consisting of your typical array of Los Angeles club-goers: blondes with fake breasts and the men who love them, mixed with a smattering of celebs) was going wild. The dance floor below me was filled with women shouting out Timberlake’s name like a tribe of poorly trained seals, the men trying to hit on them played it cooler, tapping their feet rhythmlessly, as if to show solidarity with the musical massacre taking place.

But the VIP suite was even more hectic, as Hilton returned from a prolonged “trip to the bathroom” suddenly filled with all sorts of energy, presumably the result of a reunion with the good ol’ Bolivian marching powder. Re-joining her party, which included Nicky Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Nick Cannon, Hilton grabbed Kardashian and made her start couch-dancing and grinding with her, approximately one foot away from me and my friend.

At this point, my friend, whispers to me, “this is your chance to tell Paris Hilton whatever you want to say to her.” Alas, what I want to say would take up several novels and perhaps a few movies, so I held my tongue and watched Hilton start faux-spanking Kardashian. It was weird. But as Hunter Thompson once eloquently stated, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Indeed, watching the two celebutards grind was infinitely more entertaining than watching Timberlake play musical dress-up, strapping on a guitar at one point and giving some strumming that could at best be described as punk, at worst described as the musical equivalent of a man trying to milk a horse. At one point, Timberlake went behind the keyboard, clattering off-kilter like a drunken man discovering a baby grand at a hotel bar.

In an effort to flesh out the performance, Timberlake also trotted out Adam Levine and JC Chasez at various junctures during the evening. The three of them seemed to form an unholy triumvirate, all of them desperate to show exactly how much soul they had. (Answer: very little). Indeed, it was particularly uncomfortable watching the extraordinarily talented backing band being forced to smile and nod at their tuneless caterwauling. Making the whole thing even more awkward was the fact that every member of the 10-person backing band was black, while each performer was white (except for a 30 second sequence when Timbaland was brought out to dance alongside Timberlake, as though he were his errand boy). It’s not really my place to raise any accusations of culture stealing (after all, we have the Source for that), but if I were black and I were watching these lily-white pale men do imitations of black men, I would’ve been enraged.

As it was, I was angry for different reasons. I was angry because the truth is that between Hilton, Levine and Timberlake, this performance was the most accurate representation of my generation thus far. All that was needed was for Kevin Federline and Britney Spears to have arrived clutching cans of Red Bull and fingers stained neon-Cheeto orange. 40 years ago they had Hendrix and Dylan. Now we get Maroon 5 and N’ Sync.

So the night continued on into the stiff fingers of a cold dawn, every fracturing note crashing hard around my drunken head, The party kept on filling up with celebs by the second. Cameron Diaz, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Busta Rhymes. Eddie Murphy, head shriveled and eyes guarded by dark sunglasses, engaged in a long conversation with Paris Hilton. Good lord, things were going awry. Then as the performance ended, Paris Hilton finally climbed down from the couch where she had been dancing for the last 45 minutes, and turned to smoke a joint with her entourage.

Perhaps the most peculiar thing about it was that the entire time Hilton was dancing, her face was locked into a frozen and joyless pose. As though she was only going through the machinations of having fun. More important was being prepared for her close up, which everyone around me was only too happy to provide, snapping impromptu shots of Hilton from every angle.

Meanwhile, back on-stage, Timberlake was engaged in a similar manner, dropping the ad-libs that he was supposed to say, gyrating around the way Lou Pearlman had taught him so long ago, everything perfectly arranged and decided beforehand, as though his life had only been clean, sanitary and organized. His performance was like one long karaoke show, with all the artifice and mimickry of a great performer, yet none of the substance. This was most clearly displayed when he did a cover of the Stones’ “Miss You,” where in comparison to Mick Jagger’s soulful pitch, Timberlake sounded like a lost and scared child abandoned to the elements.

Finally, the set ended, Hilton, Kardashian, Cannon et al. left to join Timberlake’s cordoned -off after-after party, but as for me I’d had enough of my harrowing descent into musical hell. With a whiskey-afterburner taste lingering distastefully in my mouth, I walked back to my car, sober, tired and reeling from this rendesvous with the worst minds of my generation. But then again, every now and then you need to bury yourself deep into the clogged arteries of the beast to realize that it has no heart.

Posted in Beards, Blazers, & Glasses, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought?, Best Of | 15 Comments »

A Tale of 2 Dreams

Just last week, The Streets released the single “Prangin’ Out” from his The Hardest Way to Make An Easy Living album that dropped earlier this year. The album wasn’t without its charms but even so, it was easily one of the most disappointing releases of the year. The Streets’ once-bleak and resonant confessionals were replaced with smug arrogance and shallow cocaine introspection. And his live show wasn’t much better, a fact that I also discovered a few months ago.

However, “Dreams” one of the “Prangin’ Out” B-sides has been pretty much stuck in my head all week. I don’t know how this song missed the album, as its typical vintage Streets. The story of a recurring dream that he’s been having about bicycles, set against the drug-addled and drunken realities of his everyday life. Meanwhile, the beat is one of the finest he’s ever made, simplistic accordian/electro chords smothering hard skittering drums. Dealing with the hedonistic themes that dominated Mike Skinner’s latest album, it would seem to have been cut during The Hardest Way sessions, except it seems more fully-fleshed and real than almost everything else that actually made the cut.

But it’s the title that I couldn’t help but wonder about. An avid fan, Mike Skinner even name-dropped Biggie on his song “Two Nations.” One couldn’t help but wonder if his “Dreams” track was an homage to Biggie’s classic “Dreams,” where BIG discusses all the R&B singers he wants to sleep with.

Well, At Least He Got Faith (literally)

If you haven’t heard Big’s “Dreams,” you’re in for a treat, as it showcases vintage Christopher Wallace. A hilariously simple chorus: “Dreams of Fucking An R&B Bitch/I’m just playin’ but I’m sayin,” and a basic roll call of every single R&B singer working during the mid-90s.

I’ve got to say that as much as I like The Streets “Dreams,” nothing can top Biggie’s crude, lewd and brilliant track. The rhyme schemes are flawless: “Even SWV and TLC can’t see B.I.G. with telepathy.” Biggie brags that he’d “smoke a stog/fucking En Vogue cause there’s 4 of them.” He claims that that “if that bitch Toni Braxton gives me action…guaranteed satisfaction.”

Listen to them both. Hopefully, the new “Dreams” augurs the beginning of a comeback for The Streets. And while Biggie isn’t coming back soon, it provides yet another reason why the rap world so desperately needs another Biggie, someone capable of making good songs for mainstream audiences, ones filled with sly humor, menace and intelligence.

Download:
The Streets-“Dreams” (right-click, save as)
The Notorious BIG-“Dreams” (right-click, save as)

The Round-Up

I don’t know if anyone’s been following the continuing saga of Devendra Banhart’s Jane Magazine blog, but you can pretty much make the claim that the man is mentally retarded. Just read some of those so-called “deep thoughts.” My personal favorite quote: “my Friend Awalt has just told me to invest in a pumpkin , he’s gonna win that carving contest and we are gonna start the month off right,pppuuummmpppkkiiinnn, it is a lovely word.”

Speaking of retarded, this Yahoo news story epitomizes the word with an entire 500 words spilled about young Americans abusing caffeine pills. I’m no scientist, but you think they’d be more concerned about the millions of young speed junkies that we’re pumping full of adderal. Who does Yahoo take news tips from? The writers of Saved By the Bell? I’m surprised the article doesn’t have a pic of Jesse Spanow and the caption: “I’m so excited…I’m so…I’m so scared.”

But caffeine pills be-damned, this other Yahoo headline, might be the dumbest one yet: “Teen’s tongue piercing linked to pain.” Oh really…you don’t say? I never would’ve guessed that being stabbed in the tongue with a metal spike would hurt. Thank god for journalists to tell me that.

Continuing with today’s all-retard, all the time Thursday theme, check out Crock Tock’s venemous post on the 10 most Annoying Hollywood Idiots.

Finally, the always classically retarded Jim Jones is getting a reality show. I don’t know what it will be about. I don’t know what channel it will air on. But I do know that I will watch it. Jim Jones might be the most entertaining human being alive. I’m not sure if the world is ready for a Jim Jones reality show, but I’ve been waiting for something like that my whole life. I can now die a happy man.

Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 5 Comments »

Beards, Blazers & Glasses Or The Hold Steady: The Best Band in the World?

There’s a moment at every Hold Steady show when you look around to examine the crowd. And you see nothing but euphoric smiles and blurred bodies, moving in rhythm to the pulverizing crush of guitars and keyboards and hot soft lights exploding out from the stage, where a small inconspicious balding man named Craig Finn carries the audience through the closest thing that many of them will ever come to the feeling of pure rapture. These sort of things inevitably sound corny on paper and even cornier coming from an insincere caustic blogger such as this one. But every now and then a band will come along with the promise that it just very might change your life.

And we all know it won’t because it never does. But sometimes, there are those moments buried in the miasma of life that emerge stark and clear and perfect, as everything is as it should be.
And those moments are commonplace at the Hold Steady’s concerts, the closest thing to a Pentecoastal revival in rock music today.

Craig Finn, looking more like a law school professor than perhaps the greatest rock star in the world, rocks and flails, claps his hands maniacally, whirls across the stage guitar slung across his back, smile strapped on his face, burning bright with the pure joy that comes from getting to be the pointman for this transcendence. Tad Kubler stands to his left, looking more like Chuck Klosterman than one of the best lead guitarists in indie rock. Delivering bruising but beautiful guitar licks that pierce the smoke burning from the hot stage lights, the whiskey-chugging Kubler plays Jimmy Page by way of Bruce Springsteen, the ideal sidekick to Finn’s dynamic lead.

UCLA Law School Dean Michael Schill: Craig Finn’s Twin Brother?

To the right of Finn stands bassist Galen Polivka, also leaping around the stage joyously, delivering hard stern bass licks in perfect rhythm with the band’s buoyant pulse. To his right stands the keyboardist and back-up singer, Franz Nicolay, chugging wine straight from the bottle, delivering the best keyboard notes that Springsteen never wrote. And behind the drums beats the thunderous viking thump of Bobby “Ice Man” Drake.

The feeling that they create in their audiences is something that can’t be described on paper. I’ll just have to trot out that hoary cliche: you have to be there to understand. And those that are there do understand. The crowd seems to operate on a shared wavelength that whatever they’re watching on-stage is “It.” The feeling is akin to when you feel the first hot tremors of an ecstasy trip and you look out around you and for the first time in a long while everything seems alright. Everyone there is on the right side of the war and you get the feeling that you’re riding the crest of a very powerful wave that you think you’ll be able to ride out forever.

I suppose it’s appropriate that so much of the Hold Steady’s music deals with the dual themes of religious transcendence and drug and alcohol abuse because as it’s been pointed out
many times before me, they often draw from the same part of the brain. And it’s these twin ideas that seem to collide so viscerally in the Hold Steady’s live show. The feeling that you aren’t going to a show, you’re going to communion, to celebrate in both the horrors and ecstasy of life and walk out of the dingy club, baptized in a way that no other band can hope to match.

The Hold Steady: The Clark Kents of Rock n’ Roll

Now I’m not the only one to speak of the religious experience that is the Hold Steady’s live show. Uncle Granbo wrote a devastatingly accurate description of their live show earlier this year and the Cole Slaw Blog has delivered an outstanding series of write-ups on the band.
So it isn’t just me. This band is the real deal, which they proved in concert Monday night at the Troubadour.

Opening with the sublime “Stuck Between Stations” you could almost see the LA crowd trying to play it cool, stifling any and all desire to rock out to the infectious melody. But by the second song, lead album single, “Chips Ahoy,” the crowd had lost any and all ability to control themselves, plunging into a whirring and roaring mob. At one point, a college girl threw her underwear on-stage at Nicolay–the band’s KEYBOARDIST. I kid you not. That’s how awesome this band is: the keyboardist is getting thongs thrown at him.

Other songs that were played from the band’s latest classic album, Boys and Girls in America, included the tragic “Party Pit,” the raucous “Some Kooks,” the range-displaying “First Night,” and the tongue-in-cheek “You Can Make Him Like You.” But perhaps the stunner of the evening was their sublime rendition of the album’s final track “Southtown Girls,” that featured a particularly vicious guitar solo from Kubler and an unexpectedly beautiful harmonica solo from Nikolay. Of course, the band drew on last year’s equally brilliant Separation Sunday, playing “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” “A Multitude of Casualties,” a fierce version of “Cattle and the Creeping Things” and “Don’t Let Me Explode,” with the lyric about “Los Angeles” predictably drawing wild applause.

Craig Finn: Seeing Double After Three Straight Days

But the apex of the hour and half show came during the encore. The band came out to the brilliant and haunting “Positive Jam” off of Almost Killed Me, following it up with the album’s second track “The Swish.” But it was during “Most People are DJ’s” when the energy seemed to hit even higher peaks. Finn had earlier profusely thanked the crowd for letting him perform and his words were delivered with the utmost sincerity. Despite being mind-alteringly brilliant live, the band carries a humble and heartfelt feel with them, as though they really are trying to touch each individual in the crowd.

Indeed, a Hold Steady show feels personal in a way that no other band can match. And when the band lit into the fourth song of the encore, their finale “How A Resurrection Really Feels,” it seemed that everyone already knew the answer to that statement. A dozen people rushed the stage to dance along with the band and Nicolay and Finn even dragged more and more people on-stage to celebrate this resurrection.

Walking out the doors of the Troubadour, one felt a vague sense of conversion, as though the band had enlisted 500 disciples. In answer, to the question posed in the title of this blog: are the Hold Steady the best band in the world? It’s tough to say. I wouldn’t argue with anyone who answered My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Spoon or whatever band Jack White is playing in this week. Hell, I wouldn’t even argue if you answered the Arcade Fire or Wolf Parade. But on a cold night in the middle of October, for an hour and a half, the Hold Steady were the best band in the world. And everyone at that show would probably be hard-pressed to answer any differently.

The band is currently embarked on a nation-wide tour. You can find the dates on their Myspace page. If you go to one show this year this is the one to go to. I can’t stress that enough.

In the meantime, download these two tracks from Boys and Girls in America:

Download:

The Hold Steady: “Stuck Between Stations” (right-click, save as)
The Hold Steady: “Hot Soft Light” (right-click, save as)

If you like those tracks be sure to pick up their album here

Posted in Beards, Blazers, & Glasses, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought?, Best Of | 8 Comments »