insta-review

Minute-by-Minute Review: I’m Not There

Posted by KingEd

Oct 262007

Updated!

You all know more about this I’m Not There pseudo-bio-flick that Todd Haynes, I believe, has had in the works for a number of years. Buskirk knows everything there is to know about this film, I’d bet. I’ve been looking forward to it. I love Dylan, I love many of Haynes’ films, and I like the concept of having various actors play Dylan at various points in his life: Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Tom Arnold, Charles Grodin…

So Phawker drops this soundtrack album on us, and what’s a poor boy to do but blow off an evening with a Minute-by-Minute Review? Why don’t you turn on your love light and listen along with my thoughts as commentary? I’m not there, but if you’re lucky it may seem like I am.

Disc 1

1. “All Along the Watchtower” – Million Dollar Bashers, Eddie Vedder: What’s this, a Ricky Martin song? Oh, here’s Vedder, adding his one-dimensional, well-intentioned yarl to something that sounds as canned as a recent Santana album. Where’s Rob Thomas when you need him to throw down vocals on a backing track like this? Jeez, listen to the hand-cupping-the-ear harmony on the “two riders were approaching…” line, which he then has the bad taste to repeat a few more times with that cheesy harmony. All the while, pointless guitar solos howl, trying in vain to stand out from the mess of horns, Hammond organ, and lord knows what other muck.

2. “I’m Not There” – Sonic Youth: Is it integrity or mediocrity that keeps Sonic Youth sounding like a 1000-run pressing indie rock band on a self-financed label whenever they try to sing a simple song? This might as well be Galaxie 500’s first indie release, or a debut release by any of 50,000 bands that have followed in their wake. And I mean this as a relative compliment.

3. “Goin’ to Acapulco” – Calexico, Jim James: Yeah, the Jimmy Webb arrangement model…so cool, so hip, and so affordable when picking through used record bins. Good background music, but not too inspiring for writing these Minute-by-Minute reviews. Let’s break it up, boys…

4. “Tombstone Blues” – Richie Havens: Eh… All I can think about his how Havens wraps his thumb around the neck.

5. “Ballad of a Thin Man” – Stephen Malkmus, Million Dollar Bashers: Low expectations here. Unless I can let it wash over me, I usually find the original hard to listen to with all my attention. Malkmus can’t get away from the Dylan arrangement and phrasing, and although I like Malkmus, he’s no Dylan. Sorry, folks, I’ve got to hit Skip.

6. “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” – Cat Power: What’s this, one of those tolerable Natalie Merchant tracks? How many negroes were called into service to make this recording more authentic? What’s the setting for that stock Steve Cropper Tasty Guitar Lick again? Actually, this went from being “enjoyable for a Cat Power recording” to unbearably overblown with the addition of the 7th or 8th layer of stock textures: Memphis horns, Steve Cropper-style guitar, two sets of organ fills, three sets of backing vocal parts… Natalie Merchant showed more restraint. The Blues Brothers showed more restraint.

7. “Pressing On” – John Doe: I’m afraid of what’s coming as I listen to this Jackson Browne-style piano intro. I see…Doe sings well and with passion, and the gospel backing singers give it all they’ve got. As the song builds, however, Doe starts to reach the threshold of Layered Authenticity Gimmicks, don’t you think? I’ll have to give that exact point at which one too many tasty guitar licks or Hammond organ fills is too much, but although I got all I could get out of this song a couple of minutes ago, I’ll press on. OK, finally over.

8. “Fourth Time Around” – Yo La Tengo: These guys, in their mellow Fakebook mode, are masters of the art of staying out of the way of a great song. So with a feint voice and a simple arrangement, they make this song work like a charm. I’m going to shut up and simply get into the music for the next couple of minutes…

9. “Dark Eyes” – Calexico, Iron & Wine: Well, this is a nice change of pace. I sense it’s going to go on much longer than I’d like. Calixico is like The Band of the Urban Outfitters set, no? Let’s move along, boys…

10. “Highway 61 Revisited” – Million Dollar Bashers, Karen O: What is this, Halloween? Why so closely ape the original arrangement and then throw in an occasional “Monster Mash” voice? She and these Million Dollar Bashers, whoever the hell they are, perform this track with all the enthusiasm of a sweet publishing deal and a freshly bought Fake Book. This really sucks. How the mighty have fallen that Dylan once felt the need to shame Donovan on film and now he’s signing off on a crap cover like this?

11. “One More Cup of Coffee” – Calexico, Roger McGuinn: McGuinn’s always struck me as perhaps the first person in rock who needed a wedgie, and this performance confirms that the wedgie is still long overdue. He became religious, or got back to his Christianity, at some point, right? Was that the day he realized he’d achieved what he achieved in The Byrds thanks to not only the grace of God but the stronger supporting voices of his original bandmates? This reminds me, I was in a record store tonight and I was shocked to see a Best of Leo Sayer CD. “Who would have thought that Leo Sayer warrented transfer to CD” I thought to myself, “and who would buy this CD?” I have similar thoughts about those who would purchase a solo Roger McGuinn recording.

12. “Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” – Mason Jennings: This is fine and performed with taste and a feel for the song. It’s a relief not to hear a track here without the addition of Al Kooper-style noodling, muddy horns, and backing vocals.

13. “Billy 1” – Los Lobos: These guys are real pros in the best sense of the word. This has a great, easy feel, like a well-worn catcher’s mitt, like something Doug Sahm would have done, like something Dylan himself would dig.
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Rush to Judgement: Steve Earle’s Washington Square Serenade

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 082007

Psssst…Hey kid, check out these beats!

Driving into work this morning I heard a couple of tracks off the new Steve Earle album, Washington Square Serenade. The DJ, perhaps my least-favorite local radio personality, provided the backstory that Earle and his fellow musician wife (I could look up this woman’s name and stick it in here, but I’d just be spitting out information insincerely and without regard to what’s really on my mind) now live in New York City and that the album was produced by Dust Brother John King. The two songs she was about to play were songs in which Earle was “looking back” on his life. I’ve noticed, since peeking around this morning, that one of the promotional themes of this album is that it’s more personal, less political. I can’t tell you if the “p” in personal is supposed to be upper or lower case, but the first song the DJ played was called “Oxycontin Blues”. It started with an Appalachian acoustic guitar hoedown that seemed ready made for Rene Zellwegger‘s character in that film with Nicole Kidman and Jude Law to take a swig from a bottle of moonshine, hike up her skirts, and do a little jig. It was promising alright until Mr. Dust Brother pressed Play on the drum machine. From that point forward, the ominous canned beat made a mockery of the song’s Southern setting. The almighty beats, in this song, these blessed beats that critics will point to as a feature of this album, are the equivalent of that 3-note riff that signifies an “Asian” setting in bad ’60s movies and the cartoon Hong Kong Phooey. No wonder a Southerner still has trouble catching a break up north.

Steve Earle, “Tennessee Blues”

The next song was “Tennessee Blues”, a very pleasant look back at the Steve Earle of Guitar Town. Not a difficult song to like, but there’s this nagging feeling that Dust Brother John King put about a 10th of the effort into the song’s beats as did the guy who pressed Play on Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” all those years ago. Come on, man, it’s 2007. You’re telling me this simple Steve Earle song needs the whitewash of a drum machine in the background? Are people incapable of hearing a song without the gentle stroke, stroke, stroke of a drum machine beat? Christ, were electronics also involved in the making of this album?

Steve Earle, “Way Down in the Hole”

Here’s another track from Washington Square Serenade, a cover of Tom Waits’ “Way Down in the Hole”. One quick question: Is this necessary?

If you go to Steve Earle’s MySpace page, you can hear a couple more songs, “City of Immigrants” and “Satellite Radio”. Two more songs wiped clean of any potential personality by the producer’s beats. Two more examples of a country boy getting dazzled and duped by his first extended taste of The Big Apple. Go ahead, Steve, bite the Big Apple. Don’t mind the maggots!

The Mekons, Natural: Mr. Mod’s Favorite Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros Album

Posted by KingEd

Oct 042007

A few weeks back I was drafting a review of the latest release by The Mekons, Natural. You may have heard of this album. It’s their Led Zeppelin III, their back-to-nature, mostly acoustic, British-folk hoedown in which they’re presently touring in support of with stools and slightly exotic folk instruments in tow.

“Dickie, Chalkie and Nobby”

“The Hope and The Anchor”

I had been featuring tracks like the charmingly rickety “Dickie, Chalkie and Nobby” and pretty “The Hope and The Anchor”. I had been trying to describe the rural punk-reggae of “Cockermouth”, thinking this album was an album only The Mekons could pull off. Then I received this note from Mr. Mod, who had caught site of my first draft and had already received a copy of the album in preparation for loading tracks onto the site:
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Bruce Springsteen Works His Magic

Posted by KingEd

Oct 022007

Rock ‘n Roll Iwo Jima

I took a spin with a friend in his vintage 1980 Camaro Z28 — chromewheelfuelinjectedandheadingoutovertheline — the other day with an advance of Magic, The Boss’ new-and-about-to-drop album with the E-Street Band, in the back pocket of my best ripped jeans. “Radio Nowhere”, which sounds too close to Tommy Tutone mining one of Graham Parker’s 3rd-rate music industry rants for comfort, was no great shakes. The next song, “You’ll Be Comin’ Down”, was pretty cool. It’s anthemic but very poppy. I could see my girlfriend digging this one. And then there was The Big Man! Where’s this guy been all these years? What’s The Boss been doing keeping him relegated to tambourine. I got no beef with Patti and Little Steven, but we’re talkin’ The Big Man, Boss. Good to hear him wail again.

~~The Boss, “Livin’ in the Future”~~

And does The Big Man ever wail on “Livin’ in the Future”! “10th Avenue Freeze Out!” I yelled, and my buddy floored it. I like the way The Boss drops the “g” in song titles with gerunds and spells ‘em as he says ‘em. We almost got a speeding ticket for this one. (Which reminds me of that line from The Departed, where Matt Damon gets transferred into plainclothes and offers to help his State Trooper buddy get transferred to plainclothes as well. “You got any other clothes, or do you like coming to work looking like you just invaded Poland,” he says.) I haven’t been listening to The Boss’ albums closely for some time, but I haven’t heard The Big Man step forward and blow his patented scale like this in years. Damn, the song even features that heavy-handed tambourine, the glockenspiel, the Farfisa organ, and a “nah-nah-nah” chorus of Iwo Jima proportions. The Boss may not be healing the nation this time, but it was clear he’s back with a vengeance.

I wish it were still summer, because this album would sound real good at the shore. Man, I’d like to have “Gypsy Biker” playing in my head while I take in the girls on the Boardwalk. The Boss rips off one of those twangy Telecaster solos in this song, you know, the kind that make you wish he’d solo more often, the kind where he sets the body of the guitar on his right thigh, points the neck out to the crowd, then squats and grimaces. Remember when he put out those first two albums without the E-Street Band, when he was married to the soap opera chick and had some chunky guy with a bandana tied around his thigh playing guitar with him? I hated that shit.

I’ve also never warmed up to The Boss in his Hobo of the People mode, which began with Nebraska. I remember reading about that album when it came out and thinking it would be cool to hear The Boss recording his music on a 4-track. Then this same buddy played me the album, and fuck those mumbling, State Trooper/John Steinbeck odes! The Boss, to me, was all about rising above, rallying the troops, partying – but not too hard, no heavy drugs and shit. If a couple of beers won’t do you, you ain’t goin’ nowhere, you know what I mean?

~~The Boss, “Your Own Worst Enemy”~~

“Your Own Worst Enemy” features what I think critics call “plaintive strings.” This is a pretty song, especially so for The Boss. It sounds like something The Jayhawks might have done. (Man, they were a great band that never got their due.) But you know what’s cool about this song? As you’re bopping along, gettin’ horny thinkin’ about your girl, he’s holding a mirror right up to your face! This is The Boss at his best: lulling you into a false sense of security, and then shoving that spoonful of medicine down your throat. You’ll think twice before you vote Republican again!

“Girls in Their Summer Clothes” also features a lighter, prettier sound than we’ve ever heard from The Boss. He’s always had that Phil Spector Wall of Sound going for him, but the wall has never been so detailed and polished. You know what else is cool about this song? The Boss sings really low, but he doesn’t growl or do any of that Woody Guthrie stuff. He almost sounds like that Righteous Brothers guy, you know, the one who would sing in Dirty Dancing. This is the kind of song I could imagine The Boss wanting to record when he was a Jersey kid in high school, listening to his transistor radio, fighting with his Dad at the breakfast table before heading off to school.

“I’ll Work for Love” sounds like the kind of Springsteen song that Steve Earle hears in his head when he’s rocking out in a Boss-like manner. Very catchy. I’m telling you, this album’s going to explode if it can hang on the charts until next summer!

The title track, “Magic”, is the first time he falls into his Hobo voice to any extent, but even this song has some pop polish, like one of the last singles on Born in the USA. It’s not all faux-Dustbowl sounding, if you know what I mean.

“Last to Die” is his fiery anti-war song. For a second I thought an Arcade Fire song accidentally slipped onto the album. The song is about as obvious as The Boss gets, but if it brings the troops home one day sooner, I’m cool with it.

The album mellows out a bit too much for my tastes toward the end, but it’s cool. The Boss even slips into his Fragile Hobo voice on “Devil’s Arcade”, possibly as a shoutout to his young friend, that Bright Eyes guy. Again, there’s a bit of that Arcade Fire majesty to the arrangement. A bonus track called “Terry’s Song” wraps it up in a stripped down manner that would make his age-appropriate buddy, Jackson Browne, proud.

It’s been a long time since I believed in magic, but if The Boss must record another album, this is the album I want to hear. I still believe, man, I still believe.

Body Count: Young Jeezy, Nas, and Ghostface Killah

Posted by KingEd

Jul 162007

Note: The following video is not recommended to be played at work, in an airport, in church, in the presence of children, and possibly in the privacy of your own home. It is presented here to allow you to hear the music of Young Jeezy, one of three hip-hop artists KingEd has become acquainted with over the past months.

A couple of months ago a friend dropped three then-recent hip-hop releases on me: Young Jeezy‘s The Inspiration, Nas‘ Hip Hop Is Dead, and Ghostface Killah‘s More Fish. “I’d like to get your take on this stuff,” he said. “This Young Jeezy guy is all the rage,” he continued, “it’s hardcore gangsta shit. Some of it’s actually scary.”

This would be some listening assignment, I figured. Just the thought of an artist naming himself Ghostface Killah had been bugging me. Isn’t the body count high enough already? But who am I to judge a rapper by his handle? I spent a few days spinning these CDs as I drove around, and here are my impressions.

Young Jeezy really is nasty. The fist song, “Hypnotize (Intro)”, drops 18 N-bombs. Coupled with the fact that the guy can’t pronounce his own lead-off song title (he repeatedly says “hypmotize”), I’m pretty clear this album will not offer much in the way of critical thought. (Thanks for that helpful, parenthetical hint in the title, by the way.) However, Young Jeezy offers much in the way of unself-conscious social criticism. “Still On It” drops a mere total of 11 N-bombs after a stunning half dozen in the song’s opening seconds. Track 3, “U Know What It Is” gets back on pace with 18 instances of self-hatred. And on and on. Contrary to the album’s title, The Inspiration is the most depressing and vacant music I’ve ever heard. Throw in a cynical mix of canned pop hooks for bad measure.
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Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Induces New Album Fever

Posted by kpdexter

Jul 102007

My music loving buddies and I have a term, I don’t know if we invented it or not, but we use it all the time, it’s called New Album Fever. New Album Fever can best be described as the instant love of a new album by a favorite band, the proclamation of it as the best album since… New Album Fever, like most fevers, eventually goes away, and you realize that actually, now that the initial excitement has worn off, the album really isn’t that good. Bands like Wilco, The White Stripes, and Radiohead, all are known to cause varying degrees of New Album Fever.

Spoon’s last album, Gimme Fiction, the follow-up to the massively critically acclaimed Kill the Moonlight, induced a huge case of the Fever with me. It pushed all the right pleasure buttons, but really didn’t hold up for me over the long haul. I know a few of you will remember that it was one of our early Thursday Selection albums, and it was under the really close scrutiny I gave it then, that I came to the realization that other than a handful of songs, it wasn’t a very good album.

So I came upon the new Spoon album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, with a feeling that they had to prove something to me as a listener. Would they continue in the vein of Gimme Fiction, which not only lacked cohesion, but also lacked a real identity? Would this album be a return of the experimentalism of Kill The Moonlight, or would it be a return of the Pixies meets GBV sound of their first two albums?

The answer is really none of the above. This album feels like their transitional third LP, Girls Can Tell, which coincidentally is also my second-favorite Spoon album. And like that album, it has a laid-back, confident, more mature feel. Don’t read too much into that, they’re still trying some new things, and they pull them off too, but more on that in a minute!

Don’t Make Me A Target
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God Save The Clientele; Lord Lighten The Polyphonic Spree

Posted by KingEd

Jun 292007

Lay some Bread on Davy!

I’m finding that one unexpected part of the aging process is reliving every half-decent pop culture trend of my youth. Musically, I feel stuck in some prepubescent summer of ’74 pool jukebox rut of pleasant mediocrity. It makes sense. This is the era when major label releases of surprisingly interesting material could fly under the radar, get tossed into the cheapest bins at used record stores – you know, the ones that sit on a table in the sun, dog-eared covers and missing inner sleeves be dammed – and await the adoption of a hopeful, budget-conscious rock nerd. A lot of great albums that otherwise would have been lost to the ages have been discovered through this process, such as Big Star’s #1 Record, which beginning in 1980 or so made its way from the sun-baked bargain bins of used record stores to the vaunted wall slot, reserved for overpriced collector’s items. Today, countless bands have sprouted from the hopes of stumbling across the next 25-cent copy of a forgotten late-period Association or Roy Wood album. This brings me to the latest from The Clientele and The Polyphonic Spree.

God Save The Clientele answers the question, What would The Monkees’ Davy Jones sound like fronting an indie pop band in 2007? The album-opening “Here Comes the Phantom” must buckle the knees of modern-day Marcia Bradys. The indie pop scene has been working toward the fulfilling the wish that Bread actually released more than three great soft-pop songs for years. Think of all the quarters that have been spent at used record stores in hopes of scoring that one great Bread album. The Clientele manage to turn out an album that sounds as consistently great over the course of an album as those scant great Bread songs that make only that band’s greatest hits album worth dropping a quarter on! “I Hope I Know You” and “Isn’t Life Strange” sound as if Elvis Costello spent a few weeks writing with David Gates himself to achieve this bargain-bin fantasy. Hell, I’m almost willing to think that Bread really were America’s answer to The Zombies all over again.

True believer!

The Polyphonic Spree, that 40-piece collective of brightly colored robes and Kool Aid-sipping marching band freaks, sets itself a tougher task on The Fragile Army, trying – once more – to marry the symphonic pop delights of ELO to the feel-better sentiments of landmark ‘70s self-help tome I’m OK, You’re OK. The results are as muddy and unsatisfying as the many Roy Wood and Wizzard albums I’ve dropped a quarter on in hopes of finding one more whacked-out gem like Boulders. Like the worst of George Harrison’s solo works, instrumental breaks are constructed not so much to highlight expressive flights of musicality but to allow for the shimmying and hand-raising of all those robed backing singers. Damn flutes flutter at every given opportunity! Some songs start out perfectly cool, like “Younger Yesterday”, before getting bogged down by their up-with-life platitudes. Hey, I love life as much as the guy in the chartreuse robe, but let how about giving the life of the song itself some space? Other tracks, like “We Crawl”, identify the depressingly fine line between Eno and Styx. I went back and listened to some ELO albums, a Queen album, and the one-man recordings of Wood and Todd Rundgren. Do 40 musicians really contribute to the sound and ideas of The Polyphonic Spree, or am I correct in thinking their records sound smaller and shorter on ideas than any of a half dozen Elephant 6 releases made by a 10th of musicians? “Too much of nothing,” sang Bob Dylan, “can make a man feel ill at ease.”

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