{"id":411,"date":"2007-03-22T22:57:29","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T02:57:29","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-03-22T23:01:45","modified_gmt":"2007-03-22T23:01:45","slug":"for-want-of-a-chill-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-want-of-a-chill-pill\/","title":{"rendered":"For Want of a Chill Pill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This idea may be related to the recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php?title=the_humble_album&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\" title=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php?title=the_humble_album&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\">Humble Album<\/a> thread. While visiting my friends at Phawker.com, I came across <a href=\"http:\/\/www.phawker.com\/?p=2590\" title=\"http:\/\/www.phawker.com\/?p=2590\" target=\"_blank\">Fiona Apple&#8217;s video<\/a> for her cover of <strong>&#8220;Across the Universe&#8221;<\/strong>. I&#8217;d forgotten about this cover. It wasn&#8217;t spectacular in and of itself, but what impressed me was that it was a rare time I got to hear Apple relaxed and, seemingly, not so tied to playing up to her troubled, precocious girl reputation. With the aid of a simple, direct <strong>John Lennon<\/strong> song, she took a rare chill pill.<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EiOmhOumh-w?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAs much as I like my rock &#8216;n roll of the <strong>high-octane<\/strong> variety, there are artists who don&#8217;t allow themselves to settle into a groove. These artists have something to offer, but they work through a smokescreen of anxieties, twitches, and whatnot. As a listener, I feel I feel anxious listening to their music. There&#8217;s enough to these artist that I wish they&#8217;d just chill and allow me to better enjoy what they have to offer.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nI felt this way about AC\/DC&#8217;s <strong>Bon Scott<\/strong>. He sang like he had firecrackers stuck up every orifice, or like Keanu Reeves keeping that bus running in <em>Speed<\/em>. As the band laid into each song&#8217;s groove <em>just so<\/em>, Scott sang like a man in need of a chill pill.<\/p>\n<p>Around the time of the generally strong <em>Blood and Chocolate<\/em> album, Elvis Costello began thinking of himself as a <strong><em>Vocalist<\/em><\/strong>. As a result, he began oversinging most of his songs, losing his cool and single-handedly ruining some songs (eg, &#8220;I Want You&#8221;) that might have been pretty good had he taken a chill pill.<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FYg5c9EL7s0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nFor 3 albums The Undertones&#8217; <strong>Feargal Sharkey<\/strong> managed to sing like a man with a firecracker up his butt <em>without<\/em> getting anywhere near the need for a chill pill prescription. Then came <em>The Sin of Pride<\/em>, a desparate-sounding bid for commercial acceptance led by a most-desparate-sounding Sharkey making a bid to be respected as a <strong><em>Vocalist<\/em><\/strong>. It goes without saying that The Undertones were soon to break up, and to this day Feargal refuses to play with the casually reunited band. In the inspiring Undertones documentary, <strong>Teenage Kicks<\/strong>, Sharkey proudly speaks of his lack of respect within the band. Don&#8217;t take it so hard, mate. Try this chill pill.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my last examples of bands in need of a chill pill: <strong>Clap Your Hands Say Yeah<\/strong> and <strong>Dr. Dog<\/strong>. Each of these bands plays with influences that I like. Each of these bands can&#8217;t calm the hell down and let the music do the talking. CYHSY singer <strong>Alec Ounsworth<\/strong> needs to down a bottle of chill pills. The guy&#8217;s nearly impervious to chill at the approved dosage. Load up, my brother, and let it flow once in a while.<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TskdA4CdMSs?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.drdogmusic.com\/site.shtml\" title=\"http:\/\/www.drdogmusic.com\/site.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Dr. Dog<\/a> works in a hippie-dippy\/<em>White Album<\/em> mode that I badly want to love. Despite their terrible Look I like some of what they stand for on a proctomusicologic level so much that I&#8217;m a bit jealous of them&#8230;<em>in concept<\/em>. I expect to love their records the way <a href=\"http:\/\/overlookedgems.blogspot.com\/2006\/11\/stephen-malkmus-face-truth.html\" title=\"http:\/\/overlookedgems.blogspot.com\/2006\/11\/stephen-malkmus-face-truth.html\" target=\"_blank\">I love Stephen Malkmus&#8217; <em>Face the Truth<\/em><\/a>, but unlike Malkmus, who&#8217;s blissfully hooked on chill pills, the guys in Dr. Dog can&#8217;t resist a &#8220;Look at me, Ma!&#8221; cry for attention. Chill, my brothers, chill.<\/p>\n<p>How &#8217;bout you, Townspeople? Are ther artists you&#8217;d like more if they could chill now and then?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This idea may be related to the recent Humble Album thread. While visiting my friends at Phawker.com, I came across Fiona Apple&#8217;s video for her cover of &#8220;Across the Universe&#8221;. I&#8217;d forgotten about this cover. It wasn&#8217;t spectacular in and of itself, but what impressed me was that it was a rare time I got <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-want-of-a-chill-pill\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}