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(02/13/03 5:00am)
On a day in which the imminent terror status at home was elevated to high, anything short of blood on the stage was going to seem irrelevant. That was precisely the presence of The Nicotones on the night of their release party for their newest EP, You Got It Raw. Though hardly a beacon of the populous, Saturday night at Rhino's was not a symbol of the new disenfranchised youth, it was of the blinded, non-involved and conservative suburbanites. \nFormerly Abercrombie Skins, The Nicotones looked the part of their former name. To focus on the Nicotones' look is necessary because of the incredible triteness they exuded. The bass player was a rather androgynous looking fellow, like a cross between David Bowie circa the Hunky Dory album and Gram Parsons. He had the look of a true rock star and was gorgeous in a manner usually reserved for that elite group. He towed the line of his clean-cut brethren in the band who were dirty only because of their thrift store clothes. \nThe lead singer and rhythm guitarist Dave Parker, who had an "Eraserhead" style haircut with red tips, shifted his eyes coyly, in that cute manner learned from sellout punks like Green Day or Blink-182. Parker's compatriot guitarist to his left looked sharp in his gray and black Sunday clothes and black tie. \nLooking like an expose from VH1, the crowd hopped along with the jolly sounds of pop-punk. Moody meant a minor chord tossed in amongst the barrage of power chord riffs, which could have been stolen from any one of the hundreds of similar bands on the radio, kiddy-scene and basement circuit around the Midwest. Exhausting their limitations, they sunk to lows of meandering merriment by playing tongue-in-cheek covers of Lita Ford's "Kiss Me Deadly" and "Daydream Believer." \nAs Robert Christgau always says, rock and roll is essentially an art of becoming, so what are the Nicotones becoming? Garage workers? People who quote rock critics? Liberal arts students? Journalists? Criminals? Probably somewhere in between these ghastly futures. Of course, it really isn't fair to hold this relatively immaterial group of Bloomington residents responsible for the outcome of their generation, but from a critical point of view it is polemical to hold so-called artists to higher standards of practices.\nAs young boys prepare to go off to be cannon fodder in strange nations for strange reasons, they may never fully understand that politics are an absolute necessity, or at least a display of raw emotion is. The Nicotones provided a contrived sense of reality on this night. Perhaps it was the best night of their lives, when they had their fifteen minutes and got the girl, but perhaps there is a little more to life then your friends and neighbors.
(02/06/03 5:00am)
Many times the question has been asked, just what would Phish sound like if they were a good band? Well, one option might be the Midstates, the band formed from the wake of Novasonic Down Hyperspace. Choosing to sound psychedelic through the studio rather than counting on constant melodic reiteration has always been and will always be a good idea. The Calumet City, Ill. band's debut is a glorious ode to orchestrated pop in the vain of Grandaddy and the infamous Flaming Lips. With the melodies always attempting to reach the perfect crescendo, Shadowing Ghosts certainly isn't loose. Singer Paul Heintz sings with a gentle inflection of recompense that recalls Trey Anastasio. That combined with the soft lyrics, listening to the Midstates can feel like a nice pat on the head. The lack of rhythm and the meticulously crafted melodies are perfect in their own tiny universe, though. The careful nature of the album doesn't take away from the fact that it is brilliant dope music. Nothing is messy or confusing and there are sing-a-long choruses too. Theramins, chimes, a choir of friends all ringing the rhymes of the deep in perfect harmony.
(02/06/03 5:00am)
In an interview done for personal reasons with Robert Christgau, the "dean" of American rock critics, I was told, "Michael, God doesn't say there's always going to be new bands. If you look back at the history of the arts, arts ebb and flow... maybe the fact you think they're a good group is a function of your age and your own limitations." So the Warlocks ebb? With a name stolen from the pre-economist Grateful Dead period and riffs just plain robbed from "Sister Ray"-era Velvet Underground, the Warlocks could fool a lot of people's mothers. When singer Bobby Hecksher gets to the imperative line of the opening chorus, "Shake, shake, shake the dope out," though, hearts melt like an abused wife's. Like good, little furry-faced hipsters, they know what their crowd wants to hear: wheezing guitars with high distortion, primitive beats and flat, bleak vocals. Well, this is a relatively new band, with a pretty old stack of party favors. It is in actuality, even further proof the economy is in good shape. Phoenix Album is simply product just like Shania, faith and Andrea Bocelli.
(01/16/03 5:00am)
The fourth edition in Johnny Cash's collaborations with famed producer Rick Rubin belittles the whole Cash experience by making the dying singer a caricature of himself. Approach this album skeptically, the material is less than befitting -- Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," 70's schlock-soul ballad "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," the Eagles' "Desperado," "Danny Boy," Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," etc. Cash has always been somewhat of a one-trick pony, but it was always the combination of his words and minimalist music that resonated with fans. Guest turns and Rubin's ugly irony can't cover for the poor pre-production choices. As always though, Cash sounds saintly and superannuated. On American IV, along with his quivering bass voice, death rattles from his lungs, which suggests this may be his final statement. His reading of Sting's "I Hung My Head" is surprising, and almost worth the price of the album. In a death sentence story he's told a hundred times before, Cash howls as the gallows and judge close in, "I felt the power of death over life"
(01/16/03 5:00am)
Thirty years since it formed and 15 years after its departure, the legendary Senegalese group Orchestra Baobab reunited in 2002 to concoct another timeless album. In its day, the Baobab was the most famous and highly regarded group in Senegal. It blended native touches with Latin rhythms, to create something Westerners called Afro-pop. Easily, the star of the record is Barthelemy Attisso's guitar. His concise, melodic playing in each song seems to create perfect counter compositions to the material. The re-recording of the band's signature tune, "On Verra Ca," is a celebration of atmospheric proportions. As noted in the liner notes, all the original musicians present at the original recording were along for the ride 26 years later. Sounding like a cross between Paul Simon's Graceland and the Buena Vista Social Club, Specialist In All Styles is perfect for those who find the fatiguing wankers of Phish too unfocused or the Grateful Dead unmusical. 1982's Pirate's Choice still remains Baobab's masterpiece, but as an introduction, Specialist In All Styles is that and much more.
(12/05/02 5:00am)
New albums by Desaparecidos and Bright Eyes are two very different experiences masterminded by the same boy wonder, Conor Oberst of Omaha. Oberst has been drawing praise for years now and continues to do so with Desaparecidos' debut album and Bright Eyes' fourth album, Lifted. For the record, as of 2002 he is a veteran at the ripe old age of 22.\nBright Eyes is an emo-type outfit that Oberst fronts like a folk troubadour. On the band's latest album, his words and acoustic guitar are moved to the front. Instead of the usual rock band accompaniment, Lifted... is rounded out with old-world instruments and '60s pop arrangements. \nOberst is aching to hit on overreaching themes, social injustices and anything in general that is bigger than him, and on Lifted... the success of this can be extremely varied. His simple chord structures and ever-quivering vocals make him sound like he is just begging to be taken seriously. Yet, as he reaches the end of each line, he either lets out a curdling punk-rock screech or drops his tone a register à la Johnny Cash. In both cases the results seem contrived. \nThe lyrics from the Bright Eyes record are interesting, but they don't captivate the imagination the way Oberst is able to do with Desaparecidos. Read Music/Speak Spanish is a ruthless assault upon the listener and middle America.\nIf Bright Eyes is Oberst as a compromising nihilist, he is a gun-waving revolutionary with Desaparecidos. The name of the group was taken from a term given to political heretics who were kidnapped by South American governments and dropped out of airplanes over the ocean. With all the connotations the band name recalls, there can be no doubt that Oberst is going to be accusatory. Gone is the air of hesitation in his voice from Bright Eyes, and now he is backed by a loud and straight rock-and-roll group.\nRead Music/Speak Spanish begins with a soundbites of girls discussing their ideal man; one says, "I like a man that has money." The importance of money in American culture is the recurring theme. Along with other soundbites of infomercials and teens discussing corporate culture while smoking pot, which are interspersed with crunching guitars, it can make for a suffocating listening experience, but each song is highlighted by a simple guitar melody which allows for passive attention.
(12/05/02 5:00am)
In 1975, Bob Dylan toured the Northeastern states and parts of Canada in a medicine-show spectacle he called the Rolling Thunder Revue. Traveling like a circus with Dylan were such characters as T-Bone Burnett (producer of the "O Brother" soundtrack), Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Roger McGuinn and Allen Ginsberg. In retrospect, '75 was seen as a year Dylan returned to form; he released his heartbreaking Blood On the Tracks album, came back to protest with "Hurricane" and generally seemed happy and engaging on stage.\nThe Bootleg Series Vol. 5 is a fabulous Christmas-time product. The sound is absolutely pristine, the packaging is beautiful and it comes with informative liner notes by Larry Sloman and a bonus DVD to boot.\nThe material on Live 1975 presents Dylan in his most funky and playful mood. The all-star backup band is loose in a democratic fashion. Dylan sings with a tone of voice delivery, but the hero of this tour must have been Scarlet Rivera's violin.\nApparently, Dylan was riding around the streets of New York and saw Rivera, a young woman with long, jet-black hair walking around with a violin case, so he stopped and asked her if she wanted to play with him. \nIt's impossible to guess what was going on in Dylan's head, and Live 1975 is pleasant at worst. There are people out there who might find these performances transcendent, but it's the most domestic and mannered Dylan's ever sounded.\nUncle Bob seems as if he was in a nostalgic mood on the tour; he reaches back in his catalog for favorites like "Mr. Tambourine Man," "It Ain't Me, Babe," "Blowin' In the Wind" and "Just Like a Woman." The mid-'70s was a time when he was more of a populist artist; though the songs are lovely and comfortable, Dylan seems to be in awe of himself.
(12/05/02 5:00am)
1) The Thanksgiving Party and Dinner\nThanksgiving in my parents' house was spent in some ulterior time frame. A large portion of my family was there, and I avoided eye contact all night. Questions like, "So, when are you graduating?," etc...\n2) Faith Hill Special on ABC, Thursday Night\nAs Thanksgiving dinner broke and the fam exited to the living room, the television was turned on to this moronic schlock-fest. It was a surreal experience, in a way. I thought about how it might be funny to gut myself while sitting on the couch, replacing order with chaos and finally giving everyone a purpose.\n3-4) Eminem's "Lose Yourself," and Robert Christgau's "Consumer Guide"\nI bought the "8 Mile" soundtrack on the strength of Em's new single, which might just be his most successful ever. It is a moral tale, accessible to mom and dad as well as that racist rocker in your circle. The rest of the soundtrack was a profound disappointment, and I'm sure that Obie Trice is the dumbest person on the face of the planet.\nVillage Voice pop critic Christgau wrote in his monthly "Consumer Guide," "The worst thing I know about Eminem is the African Americans he chooses to hang with. And at least Dr. Dre serves a commercial function - these ill jockeys are just a two-inch ruler for Marshall Mathers to measure his dick against."\n5) Old Friends and Neighbors\nEventually, Thanksgiving break leads me to the local bars of my hometown. I had to mingle with the same people I've been saying I'll never see again for four years. One nice element of it was that I could use up some of my new material in my quasi-intellectual standup routine. I explained my theories of the reduction of all things to sex and death (borrowed from writer Nick Tosches), being dignified and old (confiscated from the Modern Lovers) and my personal colloquialisms on the Bible, fire and brimstone (stolen from Jerry Lee Lewis).\n6) The Roots - Phrenology (MCA)\nEmbarrassed to say, besides Jay-Z's "Unplugged" show on MTV, this is my introduction to the Roots. The album sounds like pure genius to someone who may not know any better, a combination of Afrocentricity, free jazz, psychedelic and post-punk rock music, with some hard funk-rap. It's kept me calm over the break, but I have no idea what this is about yet. Phrenology is a study of the shape of the skull as an indication of mental abilities and character traits, which I suppose implies some sort of racial dividing line, or at least it does to me. But the CD is mysterious like the best music is, like the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the music of Isaac Albéniz or any Pavement album. It's like part of the air of another country. It will always be unfamiliar, and yet it becomes comfortable. It can become home, but there is always that distance and the other.\n7) DMT\nFrom writer Terence McKenna, who proposed the theory that the birth of human consciousness came when the monkeys started to eat psychedelic mushrooms, comes the book "True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise." He talks about the drug DMT, which apparently puts you in touch with the elves that run the machine of the universe. If you're going to do drugs, why not meet the people who run the universe?\n8) Football\nI swear this is the most idiotic sport man has ever created, and Thanksgiving is usually a time when I must be forced to watch said monstrosity. Somehow I avoided it this year, though, which is no small feat and a cause for a meal and celebration itself.\n9) The Ridgewood Tap\nThe Homewood, Ill., bar I spent three nights in a row at. A cavernous place indeed, no windows, smoke clouds that reach to the floor and a few of my old high school teachers sitting drunk at the bar. It's the kind of burnout place that is marvelous in one way, but in another, back-to-reality way, it is a bad movie on a continuous loop. \n10.) DJ Shadow, "You Can't Go Home Again," from The Private Press (MCA)\nAs a melancholy, Asian guitar gives way to an announcement ("and now here's a story about being free"), the track turns into a bouncy lament. It suggests the drive away from your old home more than the actual visit, appreciative yet sad. Certainly, it is freedom.
(11/21/02 5:00am)
Kid Dakota (aka Darren Jackson) is the latest incarnation of Buddy Holly, the lanky white kid with black spectacles and an inability to escape himself. From the cards he has laid out for us, it doesn't appear that Jackson has had a very fun time with his life so far. Like so many others, he has embraced the proverbial hellhound on his trail as a viable muse. The songs on So Pretty seemingly lay out a well-bred character, erudite and snobby, fighting against and amongst lower-class issues.\nJackson and bandmate/drummer Christopher McGuire lean toward an experimental attitude of indie-rock. That particular genre of music has been weighed down by redundancy, which has made the lo-fi, guitar-based approach seem formulaic and highly stylized. \nKid Dakota is indie merely by coincidence; in lieu of big dollars for the recording process the band resorts to ad-hoc ideas (such as ice-cube-tray percussion). There is also quite a bit of double tracking of Jackson's vocals, which cements the Holly correlation by giving the album a "Words of Love"-like weirdness. \nThe key to the success of So Pretty, though, is the interplay between Jackson's words and his guitar. He plays a mock rhythm/lead style, never totally giving over to one or the other. His lyrics require some deciphering and hide somewhat literary pretensions.\n"Jesse and I were not looking so pretty / we hadn't been well in a while / we ran out of cash and we ran out of pity / our demeanor lacked what you call style," Jackson sings on the title track, presenting himself at once like an Oscar Wilde dandy and a troubled youth. Later in the song when he sings, "I'm scrapin' bags and double boilin' cottons / I'm looking around for my rig," the problem is clear.\nSo Pretty is a sign of the times, educated and prepared in all the right ways and having nothing to do with that education. Really, Jackson seems to be discovering what those in the lower classes have known for years: problems beget problems. Kid Dakota's debut album follows him down this trail, from inception to recovery.
(11/14/02 5:00am)
For a long time, I assumed that forming relationships was a completely arbitrary action. It was the outgrowth of being thrust into a situation with a certain person and dependent on how impressive you were to them. After four years in college, it has become abundantly clear to me that this is true. \nForming relationships with the opposite sex seemed to be much more of a slippery slope. I would contend that it takes an amount of wile and subversion. The formative years of my life were spent chasing after girls whom I couldn't get and being disappointed with the ones I could. The common denominator in all these pursuits was the fact that I attempted to fool each one. \nIn each case, I was presented with the challenge of "making this girl mine." In order to do so, I assumed that each understood something about beauty, and if I could understand that beauty, I would be able to transform myself into the illustration of their belletristic fantasies. Eventually though, it came down to physical desire. As Oscar Wilde wrote, and I believed, "Woman are the decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals." \nAs could be expected, the girls whom I would win over were beautiful, but firmly dead in the head. To my complete exasperation, I would always be severely annoyed by them, until finally I fell under the suspicion that I needed to find a girl of more equal footing. Well, after years of searching, I don't think such a woman exists. I've given the subject long hours of study and careful observation, and here's what I know so far. \nIn an interview with musician Patti Smith, famous writer Nick Tosches asked, "Do you feel that girls want to get slapped around?" \n"Yeah," Smith replied, "it's not masochistic or nothing. I just think that women need help in getting their minds out of bed. It's the plight of women. It took me years to get over that, to be totally, physically involved." \nThis is not really a theory that I'm willing to test out, but I think it is true that women have a secret desire to be dominated. This comes more from the idea of the "feminine mystique," that, ideologically, women were prone to accept the roles as wife and mother as the only destiny, thus they had to live for and through their male counterparts. \nAlso, as Smith was beginning to assert, women are the intellectual sex. They chose their mates through a process of attaining goals, which has repercussions in every facet of their life. They deny themselves physical pleasure in order to have some purpose. \nRather than suggesting that women improve their state of mind, it is my secret desire to take advantage of their weaknesses. Unfortunately for you and me, all I could offer you here is banal clichés about the attraction of the bad boy and women's desire to have control over intimate situations and her man's life. The truth is, I don't think I have the energy it would take to dominate a woman; it seems exhausting to me to build up a relationship with someone by putting them down. \nAt the same time, I remain in utter fear of being dominated by a woman. In 1942, Philip Wylie wrote a book called "Generation of Vipers," in which he brought forth the theory of "momism" and claimed that "the women of America raped the men." Basically, he claimed that the housewife, in acceptance and perturbation about her position, consciously attempted to rule her husband and advocate the dependence of her son. \nNow, I'm not about to assert that women are evil and must be destroyed, but due to the feelings of jealousy and power, independence is lost when it comes to relationships. At the heart of this discussion has to be why. It seems that jealously and power evoke much stronger feelings than love and caring. \nIf this has seemed like a stream-of-conscience analysis, that's because it was and probably always will be. This is the known truth to a guy whose knowledge is half-baked, from half-learned ideas bequeathed from the ivory tower and a great rock-and-roll record collection.
(11/07/02 5:00am)
In the '70s and '80s there was a series of albums put out called Environments, which was recordings of things like "Country Thunder Storm" and "Wind in the Trees." Fundamentally, Icelandic band Sigur Rós is an extension of the sensibilities explored in these records. The band is attempting to create visceral experiences with its music by recalling tranquil images. \nThe group's 1999 album, Ágætis Byrjun, had a three-year odyssey in finding its public. It was finally released in the United States last year and has slowly picked up fans by word of mouth and critics' praises. Perhaps, knowing that the bulk of its new audience didn't understand the language, the band's new album is called ( ) and all eight tracks are officially untitled. \n( ) lacks a track with immediate recognition like "Svefn-G-Englar" from the band's last album, although that track had help by being included in Cameron Crowe's movie "Vanilla Sky." Yet, ( ) is a comfortable listening experience, the kind of album that sounds just as good when you're folding laundry as it does during those moments of deep pessimism.\nIf ( ) creeps dangerously close to Enya-style New Age, and Jon Thor Birgisson's falsetto vocals border on lilting, take solace that the group does have a certain amount of indie-cred. Also, where Enya can be glossy and uplifting, Sigur Rós is still just a band (bass, drums, keyboard and guitar) whose sound is more reminiscent of a symphony orchestra recording in a garage.\nAll eight tracks on ( ) sound like they could be the work of a collaboration between minimalist composer Terry Riley and Radiohead. Not only does Birgisson's voice recall Thom Yorke's balladry, but also the treated vocals and synthesizer squeals sound like samples from Kid A. \nSigur Rós is more background music, though, and if ambient music is supposed to reward close listening, this doesn't. The group's new album is onerous at best and pretentious at worst. The melodies are pretty, but a little guitar feedback amongst the pastoral soundscapes does not make a masterpiece.
(10/31/02 5:00am)
For more than a decade, teenage angst has ruled the sphere of so-called "intelligent" pop music. As great as groups like Nirvana or R.E.M. were, they were alienating. They moved the crises of a person in their mid-20s into kid's music.\nSo, here are the Apples in Stereo, copping all that '60s pop music so ingrained and beloved by all and making music for the young people. The songs have lyrics that don't require thought and melodies that are undeniable.\nThe Apples in Stereo have always been confined by their affinity for the Beatles, but is there any better band to emulate? Not only have they taken the Beatles gift for melody to the hilt, they've also inherited the absolute joy of making music.\nVelocity of Sound races past the listener, leaving one mindless, like after watching a sitcom. It is instant gratification of the best sort -- this is a band that knows its limitations. The guitar tone never turns off the distortion, and the drums never vary from the 4/4 rhythm. \nSongwriter Robert Schneider's impossibly high voice moves all 10 songs along as one gleeful ride.\nLike Brian Wilson, who used to inject lyrics about his troubled youth into his teenage fantasies, Schneider is able to sneak in unsettling snippets into his songs. On "Do You Understand?" he sings, "If I had had my way / I'd tear down the memories / I'm chicken and I wanna run away." It makes one think that if Schneider got a little more personal, he could really be on to something.\nVelocity of Sound is such a slight album that one might be tempted to refuse its impact. While your typical pop stars whine about their success, the Apples are martyrs of the pop world. If you have a problem with it, the album is over in 29 minutes anyway.
(10/31/02 5:00am)
It was a surreal experience, interviewing the band Low as the musicians ate burritos at a restaurant on Kirkwood on homecoming eve. Singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk explained to me how he thought they should open a burrito shop in their hometown -- apparently the town was lacking. I had sought the band out to clear up a few questions I had. It turns out that they were as enigmatic and normal as I could have hoped.\nLow is a trio from Duluth, Minn., made up of Sparhawk, his wife Mimi Parker on drums and vocals, and Zak Sally on bass and vocals. Last month, they released their 10th full-length album, Trust.\nWriters often find themselves conjuring up tasty metaphors to describe Low's sound, often comparing the band to frozen lakes and black forests. Truth be told, Low is slow, methodical and deliberate to the extreme of those words' connotations. The band's melodies come around gradually and hypnotically in a way usually reserved for Icelandic techno groups.\nParker plays at her sparse drum set (a tom, snare and single cymbal) standing up. Her simple beats are indiscernibly intertwined with Sally's bass. Sparhawk plays his guitar in an open tuning like a Delta blues player minus the slide. Parker and Sparhawk's harmonies remain uncomfortably close (usually only a minor or major 3rd apart) as their voices plot arduously along.\nTrust features the group's hallmark sound, along with elegiac production flares. Coming on the heels of 2001's masterful Things We Lost in the Fire, Trust can become confusing compared to the former album's cohesive structure. The new album trades off sweeping, epic songs with unsubstantial mid-tempo numbers and ballads.\nI knew, though, that the album's opening track, "That's How We Sing Amazing Grace" was the group's capo lavoro when my friend was startled by its sound one night.\n"This is bullshit," she cried.\n"Speak for yourself, Ferdinand."\nIt was only later in my recoil that I found out she was awakened by the song and believed she was stuck in her nightmare.\nThe song starts out with a distant whistle, reminiscent of "Children of the Corn." The song then falls into a drumbeat that attempts to make the snare sound like a timpani by adding too much echo. Out of nowhere, Sparhawk and Parker sing the first lines, "I knew this girl when I was young / She took her spikes from everyone / One night she swallowed up the lake / That's how we sing 'Amazing Grace'." The song's mood recalls Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail" ("I can tell the wind is risin' / the leaves are tremblin' on the tree"), with its foreboding nature and doomsday calls.\n"It's about 'Amazing Grace'," Sparhawk says. "The first verse and the chorus kind of came at the same time, and I was trying to figure out what they meant together. You think of 'Amazing Grace,' you think immediately of somebody swallowing up a lake, so to speak, or dying. That's kind of what this record is about, coming to terms with things ending. I really don't think that death is as morbid a thing … it's part of life."\nIf you've listened to Low's records, you might wonder, as I did, what such a caliginous and cryptic band has on its mind.\n"Do you guys ever have the desire to not be so deliberate?" I ask.\nSally replies as if he were attacked, "Deliberate?"\n"Well, after a show, do you listen to metal or bebop?"\n"We listen to nothing," Parker chimes in for the first and only time.\n"We listen to nothing or everything," Sparhawk says politically. "I mean, we don't just play this kind of music and sit around in dark corners all day."\nSally adds, "Sometimes I think we could loosen up or lose some of our deliberateness. Actually, I think it took us quite a few years to realize that those two things don't mix."\nGreil Marcus once wrote of Low, "This notoriously unhurried trio captures the insignificance of human desire as opposed to the fact of a Minnesota winter even as they suggest they might prefer that the weather never change at all."\nIn a blink of an eye, the band was gone from the stage at Rhino's last weekend. Like the last time I had seen them in Chicago, I couldn't remember a thing about what happened at the concert -- it had all seemed like some filthy nightmare. I once heard a piece of paper hit the ground mid-song. The only thing that had brought me back down to earth was when Sally or Sparhawk spoke on stage. They didn't say anything of significance, it was merely banter, but its effect was like an air-raid siren.
(10/17/02 4:00am)
Tom Petty always had impeccable taste in music, designing himself after Elvis, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. However, he severely missed the point of his influences, whose eyes were always on creation and progression. Essentially, the Heartbreakers have been making the same, pretty good record for 25 years now.\nOn The Last DJ, though, Petty comes out swinging at the music business; the album is a lament, musically and lyrically. Usually every Petty album contains a track or two of inane brilliance, but The Last DJ gets seriously bogged down by its theme. Petty tries to cram lyrics into his three or four-chord songs, giving no room for the Heartbreakers to dig into the tracks. \nMike Campbell's guitar melodies were always the key to hooking in the listener (and if you don't think so, consider Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream" or the Wallflowers "One Headlight"). Here, Campbell is muted by Petty's ranting, although a surprise moment comes at the very end of the record, with Campbell interchanging dissonant and ambient timbres on "Can't Stop the Sun."\nPetty was never a lyrical mogul, but his writing for The Last DJ is so grossly literal that it leaves nothing to the imagination. At the beginning of "Joe," he calls out, "My name's Joe / I'm the CEO."\nA few tracks in, he starts to drag his feet and talks a little bit about love and childhood. By the album's end, Petty has clearly lost his muse, as he resorts to incoherent threats on "Can't Stop the Sun" ("Hey mister businessman / be sure to wash your hands / be careful where you stand").\nA record about the evils of the music industry is commendable, but Petty hardly seems like the right man for the job. He complains about the golden circles and having to watch your favorite star on a screen from the back of a stadium. Well, when was the last time the Heartbreakers didn't do a large arena tour? Petty's not dead yet, but he's starting to show his age.
(10/17/02 4:00am)
By now you are well aware that Indiana University offers a wide array of classes on rock and roll. Whatever your tastes are, you're bound to find it here - survey courses from the '50's through the '80's, courses on Captain Beefheart, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Zappa, Hendrix, hip hop, etc. While these classes are often a fun diversion from the student's normal studies, does rock and roll really belong in the classroom? To save suspense, I'll tell you that it does.\nI grapple with the way rock is taught at times, but for the most part, there are important lessons to be taught in the music's history. From how the beast of fame in America reveals itself in the self-destruction of Elvis to the atrocities committed against the Black Panthers and how it relates to hip hop, these are momentous and under-taught sociological issues of the latter-half of the 20th century. More often than not, they are best explained to a student group and most clearly manifested within the context of rock music.\nTo my knowledge, no one has yet significantly picked apart the music on a musical basis either. I remember being in Andy Hollinden's Beach Boys class when he was trying to explain the chord structure of "Warmth of the Sun." The class reaction ranged from boredom to confusion. A class that taught Brian Eno's studio methods or Brian Wilson's arrangements or the way Van Morrison and Frank Sinatra are able to string their vocals across the music seems every bit as interesting, relevant and studious as studying a Rachmaninoff score.\nCompared with the way that film is studied in the university, it is a shame that rock and roll is cast aside as a barbaric waste of time (a stinky aphrodisiac, somebody once said). In a film class I took at IU, each film we watched was accompanied with some piece of criticism. Students need to have rock music, which is around 50 years old now, put into perspective these days, too. Why not, while teaching Elvis, have students read Greil Marcus' chapter on the King in "Mystery Train," or teach Van Morrison's Astral Weeks with Lester Bangs' essay from "Stranded"?\nLike the film studies department, rock music should also be able to be studied without the certain chronological issues it is tied to now. Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot told me, "I think you could take the new Wilco album, study it for a semester, and people would come out of that class as better people or at least better music listeners." A class that could delve into Neil Young's unreleased On The Beach, then James Brown's Live at the Apollo and then Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" would be invaluable. How great would it be to have a term paper that was a critical analysis of Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted?\nFor all the strides that rock and roll has made, academia refuses to accept it as a valid art form. There can be a number of reasons for this. Fernando Orejuela, who teaches a hip-hop culture course, said people's conception of what art is has been the Western European ideology. This sentiment was confirmed when I asked my old humanities professor, Gary Casper, about studying hip hop. He answered, "There, I suppose, the sociological and anthropological elements would dominate discussion since the work fails on both poetic and musical grounds."\nDr. Glenn Gass, professor of the Beatles class, told me that each time he thinks about teaching a class on Bob Dylan, he backs down. He said he didn't want to bring him into the classroom and have discussions about what each line of his lyrics means. Kot also expressed fears of demystification, saying, "Rock is more of a feeling. What can you really get out of looking at a Beefheart or Bob Dylan score?" Hollinden said, "People have this idea that if it is fun, it's not good for you, that it's not a real class."\nThat aside, IU's rock studies program has been progressive. Orejuela's class is absolutely riveting, not only because of his lectures and his contiguous historical method, but also the students' discussions. Gass has the ability to get his students excited about something as insipid as James Taylor, and watching him get worked up about the Beatles is transcendent. Hollinden's cool, irreverent approach reflects his passion for the music, and he has a good revisionist view of the rock canon. \nWith this all said, one of my greatest fears and worst reoccurring nightmares is being in an area densely populated by rock critics. An IU full of pretentious rock snobs given a little bit of mellifluous speech would clearly not be a better IU.
(10/10/02 6:54am)
Sept. 11 has without a doubt produced some of the most tragically lame music in history. One would expect artists to explore the intricacies that make such crises exist. Instead, popular music has exploited the public with the most shamelessly jingoistic music ever.\nThe worst of it is coming from the Nashville country music factory. The main culprits are Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American)" ("Soon as we could see clearly / Through our big black eye / Man, we lit up your world / Like the Fourth of July") and Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" ("I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you / The difference in Iraq and Iran"), displaying the kind of arrogance and nihilism that propagates our cultural mess.\nSo, in comes historic Nashville outlaw Steve Earle with a song from his new album, Jerusalem, called "John Walker's Blues." A song that -- get this -- offers a different perspective, one from the side of the modern-day Benedict Arnold, not attempting to justify him, but merely telling a story. Surprise, surprise, conservatives around the country cry treason. Did people get this upset when Woody Guthrie wrote songs about Pretty Boy Floyd?\nThe truth is, "John Walker's Blues" is a beautiful song. Offsetting one man's tale is an Islamic prayer and the nastiest guitar tone you could hope to hear. \nJerusalem is truly a cross-section of Earle's life. From a man with six ex-wives, that means you get tales of heartbreak and the inability of men and women to communicate, along with the leftist politics that the times call for him to shout out. \nThe key to the album is that Earle offers no solutions for our problems. After all, this is not a campaign. At times, like on "Conspiracy Theory," Jerusalem's rebel stance can make you nervous, if not for yourself, than for Earle. In the final song, "Jerusalem," peace of mind is clearly made the objective -- "I believe that one fine day all the children of Abraham / Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem"
(10/10/02 4:00am)
Sept. 11 has without a doubt produced some of the most tragically lame music in history. One would expect artists to explore the intricacies that make such crises exist. Instead, popular music has exploited the public with the most shamelessly jingoistic music ever.\nThe worst of it is coming from the Nashville country music factory. The main culprits are Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American)" ("Soon as we could see clearly / Through our big black eye / Man, we lit up your world / Like the Fourth of July") and Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" ("I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you / The difference in Iraq and Iran"), displaying the kind of arrogance and nihilism that propagates our cultural mess.\nSo, in comes historic Nashville outlaw Steve Earle with a song from his new album, Jerusalem, called "John Walker's Blues." A song that -- get this -- offers a different perspective, one from the side of the modern-day Benedict Arnold, not attempting to justify him, but merely telling a story. Surprise, surprise, conservatives around the country cry treason. Did people get this upset when Woody Guthrie wrote songs about Pretty Boy Floyd?\nThe truth is, "John Walker's Blues" is a beautiful song. Offsetting one man's tale is an Islamic prayer and the nastiest guitar tone you could hope to hear. \nJerusalem is truly a cross-section of Earle's life. From a man with six ex-wives, that means you get tales of heartbreak and the inability of men and women to communicate, along with the leftist politics that the times call for him to shout out. \nThe key to the album is that Earle offers no solutions for our problems. After all, this is not a campaign. At times, like on "Conspiracy Theory," Jerusalem's rebel stance can make you nervous, if not for yourself, than for Earle. In the final song, "Jerusalem," peace of mind is clearly made the objective -- "I believe that one fine day all the children of Abraham / Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem"
(10/03/02 4:00am)
There was a time when I thought about Bob Dylan every day, all the time. It was like he was my father or my best friend, or my right hand. I used to walk around saying things like, "And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin', and the windows are rattlin' and breakin', and the roof tops a-shakin', and yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin', and yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm," with a straight face.\nThen I read "Positively 4th Street" by David Hadju and found out that Dylan was a liar. He had walked around tellin' people he had been Elvis Presley's piano player and that he had written a song when in actuality it was a 16th-century Scottish folk ballad. Then I watched D.A. Pennebaker's film "Don't Look Back" and found out that Bob was a paltry jerk, treating everyone around him like garbage.\nDon't get me wrong, I still think Dylan is great and I love his work, but that is it. I don't know the man. In fact, by putting up the altar as I had, I was betraying his directive: "don't follow leaders."\nIt's hard to say now what I even thought I had in common with Dylan during my formative years. In the early '60s, when he was singing protest songs, his themes held no social alliance to me, nor did I even have a social agenda. In the mid-'60s his songs were about speed as much as anything else, which was not a drug I knew about at that time. In the late '60s and early '70s he sung about comfort and dilettante when I was a nervous mess. In the mid-'70s, when his songs were about the inability of husband and wife to communicate, I wasn't communicating with any girls. In the late '70s he wrote about God; just then religion's holes were revealing themselves to me.\nThis past summer I was talking with my friend Rob over Budweisers late one night when I said to him, "I'm really tired of being seen as the eccentric one."\n"It's just a comparison people make to themselves," he said. "It's hard for people to categorize you when they only know how to listen to you."\n"Is it because I want things to be perfect? I don't think it's that big of a deal. When I take a girl out, I like to have Scott Walker's Scott 2 playing in the car and a copy of Dubliners carelessly placed in the passenger's seat."\n"Well, I imagine she'll be impressed by that."\nIt's enough to make me wonder what I even see in a number of things. Idolatry, like a great many other encumbrances, can be status conscience. I suppose I loved Dylan for meter, melody and aesthetic as much as I ever said his songs meant something to me.\nDylan himself was given to bouts of finding the wrong leaders. As a young man, he worshiped Woody Guthrie. Bob reproduced the Guthrie act, and it broke him into fame. Only later did he realize that protest music meant nothing to him, and he 'fessed up that he had been faking it a bit. \nHe wrote in his notes to the always-appropriately-title album The Times They Are A-Changin', "Woody Guthrie was my last idol, he was my last idol because he was the first idol I'd ever met." After his next album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, people started vehemently calling him Judas. Two years later he would break off all comparisons by writing, "i would not want to be bach. mozart. tolstoy. joe hill. gertrude stein. or james dean / they are all dead."\nSo here I am, Bob, glaring back at you with tears in my eyes like a forsaken paramour. I'm calling it quits, not you, and you mean nothing to me now. When the tears pour down like molasses, empty fodder, it's all you and your head buried in the sand like pirate's treasure. You are no longer the Episcopate to me, and you've never written a song as pretty as "Moon River"
(09/19/02 4:00am)
Beck Hansen's last effort, 1999's Midnite Vultures, was a druggy mess of an album. It showed an artist in absolute limbo with his creative direction. Coming off such an anomaly, there was nowhere to go but up, and Beck went way up. Sea Change is the best album that he has ever made.\nIn the past, Beck attempted to form new lyrical theorems. It was a bold move, yet the music was never interesting enough and his lyrics lacked the goofy brilliance of Captain Beefheart (whose lyrical method Beck virtually stole). He came up with a few good, anthemic songs, but his albums always wanted direction and coherence. \nThe big surprise with Sea Change is that it is an album about "stuff." The lyrics express feelings in such an eloquent manner that it makes you wonder why he waited so long to tell us what was going on. They are nuggets of emotions from breakups, the pathos of sadness and obscure musical beauty, turning each song equally into a funeral march and an affirmation of life. \nAfter all, if one thing is true, breakups are not the end of anything physically. The saddest part of depression is the realization that you are not dying and you must consciously make the effort to move on. On the opening track, "The Golden Age," Beck sings, "Put your hands on the wheel, let the golden age begin / with the window down and the moonlight on your skin / the desert wind cool your aching head." \nThe sound of the album reflects Beck's increasing interest in contemporary country icon Gram Parsons and '70s folk artists Nick Drake and Skip Spence. Electronic sound effects, pedal-steel guitar and gorgeous string arrangements surround his voice and acoustic guitar. The strings borrow more than a little from Robert Kirby's arrangements on Drake's Five Leaves Left. The strings on Sea Change, though, take the seductive British-Indian qualities from Drake's album to an aching, American, bombastic conclusion.\nWhen such a private artist puts irrevocable personal sentiment into an album, the listener can't help but be fascinated. Sea Change is the first Beck album that you can say you hold unequivocal love for without lying.
(09/19/02 4:00am)
Ryan Adams has officially attained rock-star status. He's hanging out with Elton John, dating Winona Ryder and Bono is singing his songs on VH1. You can argue until the chickens come home to roost about whether or not he deserves the acclaim, but his talent is undeniable, no matter how nefarious his public presentation becomes.\nDemolition is a collection of demo recordings that were floating around his record company's office for the past several months. Therefore, the songs' production is kept simple, and the tracks highlight Adams' voice and acoustic guitar. The lyrical matter continues on the lovelorn themes that were displayed on his first two albums, Heartbreaker and Gold.\nThe acoustic ballads lack the lyrical presence to overstep the plainness of the music. A typical couplet like, "Two hearts fading, like a flower / And all this waiting, for the power," from "Desire," lacks the geography and personal predilection to get across a point. \nSongs like "Starting to Hurt," with its Replacements-style vocals, and "Nuclear" consolidate Adams' skills much better than other tracks since they are driven by a full-band setting. With the guitars on overdrive, Adams' voice has the push it needs to move beyond his usual stately delivery.\nDemolition is the up-and-down collection demo tapes should be. When the songs are not fleshed out by the band, the album becomes halcyon and tedious. Only when the gravel meets the dust is there the kind of rock and roll that keeps you at rapt attention, and that only happens two or three times here. \nSo far, Adams' career resembles Rod Stewart's: incredible voice, songwriting ranging from transcendent to monotonous and a passion for the roots of rock. Stewart, though, had the intelligence to cover a song when his craft failed him. Adams still remains the man for you if you find Garth Brooks a bit ungainly or haven't wised up to Gram Parsons yet. Adams' lack of progression proves that he'll probably remain like he is, at least until he moves on from marijuana, alcohol and authenticity to coke and sonics.