- Gettin' SAD: Keeping Your Chin Up In The Clutches Of Autumn
Fall is once again upon us (at least those of us up here in the Great Northeast), and I've only seemed to make that definitive the night before last, when I put the new album by Early Day Miners on the turntable and let that slow swell of mood once again creep over my very soul. Not bad, per se, just a sort of isolated loneliness that is hard to combat, no matter now much happiness and how many loved ones you surround yourself with.
I'm one of those guys that gets SAD (that's seasonal affective disorder, kids) like clockwork, and the fact that I've been off the Prozac for far too long is putting me in a very melancholic state of mind. Perusing the upcoming album release calendars tells me that, barring and huge surprises, the EDM record will probably be the last "great" album of the year in my book. I mean, the Tom Waits live album will be fun but not revelatory, the Nirvana set at Reading '92 will certainly be enjoyable, but I've had a bootleg of that for years. Where does that leave me... the abysmal new Weezer album? This time of year is usually the point where I tend to stop looking forward for a few minutes and just exist. Lately, that's meant a lot of Brian Eno and "comfort music" - perennial favorites that I know so well I don't really need to LISTEN to them, just have them there as a companion. Some dub reggae, the Clash, Stooges, and the aforementioned Nirvaner (Boston pronunciation).
So what now? There's a debate in my mind as to whether to make a concerted effort to uplift my mood with bright, jangly pop that could make even the heaviest heart step lighter, whether to compliment my mood with autumnal music to ponder the great questions, or whether to explode it all and start listening to things that are so unrelated and all-over-the-place in mood that I don't know what to think and I'll just find myself confused. The problem with the first option is that most of that jangly power pop is ultimately of the blues tradition of singing a happy melody to cheer yourself up. Seriously, Altered Beast or Bandwagonesque or even the first Gin Blossoms album is beautiful, but once you listen to the lyrics, you'll be reaching for the nearest razor blade. The problem with the second option is that if I lean too hard on the "complimentary" music, it could teeter things too far to that side and I'll end up worse off than I am now. When you have evocative music to be plaintive to, it's easy for that to snowball. And as far as the third option... well, The Residents alone cannot sustain a man.
So the big question is, what makes for good autumn music? Right now, I'm leaning toward some psych-flecked Mod pop from the mid-'60s - The Creation, The Smoke, Nuggets II - because it's peppy enough to keep me upbeat, but most of the lyrics are so evocative and impressionistic that they don't really SAY anything to me. It's too cold out to really rock out to some sweaty garage rock, so the Dirtbombs and their ilk are largely off the table. Is there anything that might speak to me but keep me from feeling completely bummed for the next couple of months?
We here at Central Target turn to you, Dear Reader, for your sage advice! - Punky Screams, Robot Rock, And Album-Cover Panties: Spinnerette Crosses The Radar
I used to have a couple of Distillers records, but then my hard drive crashed.
My friend Kevin is a big fan, and what with my casual interest in the punk rock, he thought I'd like them. So a couple of years ago, I picked up Coral Fang and (I think) the self-titled one, and liked them, more than most things I hear on Hellcat/Epitaph/whatever punk label they're on. I could never believe that it was actually a woman singing those songs, cause those were some gnarly, raspy, whiskey-and-razorblade vocals. But, they sounded good and I liked them, although I got most of my "gutter punk" love out in one concentrated burst in high school, I do enjoy it, and they were a lot more tuneful than their often too-grimy-for-my-ears bred'ren.
Point being, that I heard them, I liked them, and then I rarely bothered to walk over to the corner I kept them in, you know? Which is why I'm as surprised as anyone that Brody Dalle's new project, Spinnerette, just put out a record that's now in the running for my Top Ten of '09, a good year for my listening if there ever was one.
See, I went to Kevin's wedding last weekend, and he set me up with the Distillers discography, to replace the ones I ripped and sold. They came in MUCHO handy on our drive from Warsaw, IN to the Indy airport, because on the way up, we had no CDs in the rental car - just rural Indiana radio. Which is grim. Christian Country and Regular Country grim. "All-Skynyrd Weekend" grim. But listening to those Distillers records again in an isolated environment reminded me of just how (*ahem*) tuneful they are. Kevin had played me a little bit from frontwoman Brody's new project Spinnerette, which is to Queens of the Stone Age as the Distillers were to Rancid. Apparently, Brody's a gal who tends to shapeshift depending on her current beau (not true, but it's an easy analogy to make, and I'm feeling tired and lazy*), and while it's not a WILD departure, it certainly sounds more like current dude Josh Homme's band than her mush-mouthed ex's mohawk brigade.
The opener, "Ghetto Love", sets the tone, with robotic (yeah, I used it again) drums/claps, a fuzzed out Devo bassline, but downtuned, like the Network gone a little sexier and a little more badass. Brody reveals her inner Rachel Nagy, applying her rasp not to a punky yowl, but a snarling croon. I never listened to the Distillers for their sex appeal, but Spinnerette sounds like a sexy, amp-fuzzed assembly line. Brody's probably at her best here, as far as vocals are concerned. As much as I love a crazy-ass Australian punk woman screaming bloody murder at me, this record connects a little more with my hips. The mixing on the record, as well, pushes the Queens comparisions, but they're really comparisons that could be made to any of the projects in that Homme/Goss/Johannes axis - parts appear out of nowhere, set strangely in the stereo field, surprising you with dry, up-front backing vocals, or reverbing a bassline into near-oblivion. Its effect might be a straightforeward hard rock record, but none of the parts tell you that's where it's going... it might as well be a primer for psychedelic production with piledriving guitar riffs as the base, "just because".
The playing and production on this are all top notch, with far more apparent care into the actual sonics of the record than the Distillers (hey, that's not a knock, I just know what it's like to record punk rock), but this is clearly Brody's show. Her vocals go from dangerous to delicate, evidenced on the lovely and hauting "Distorting A Code". She sounds effortless, but clearly a lot of thought went into her musical and vocal performances. Delicate and thoughtful are not two adjectives I would have expected to apply to Dalle's vocals 3 years ago, but it's a very pleasant surprise. It's just as carefully-crafted as anything you've ever heard - the sound of a talented but pigeonholed artist wanting to show what she can do. And she is an artist, despite what some might think of the Distillers punk bashing, and this is her "no, really, I can do all KINDS of stuff" album. It's to her credit that she had a clear vision and knew which sympathetic sidemen to pick to acheive it. Does it belong in the Desert Rock family? Absolutely. But it certainly sounds like an original take on it. My love of punk rock girls and talented artists and bludgeoning riff-rock and robotic pop hooks all tell me I love this record, and I do. So there we go. Spinnerette is now in the running for one of the highly coveted spots on my Top Ten of '09 List.
[*Yeah, it's glib, and I shouldn't feel the need to justify a pithy comment in an otherwise flattering review, but upon review, her intentions certainly seem genuine, and the artists she's quoted as influences seem feasable. Brody deserves better, as a woman in rock, than for some douche like me to make a sexist comment like "she sounds like whatever man-rocker she hangs around", although I might make the same comparision if she were a guy in the bands, not dating the respective frontmen. If the shoe fits, right? But this is more Queens than Rancid.]Labels: Brody Dalle, Kevin, Spinnerette
- Today's Editorial Mistake: Brought To You By The Internet
If you've been here before, you most likely know my contempt for the hyping machinations of Pitchfork.com, which I won't even do the service of linking to. I've been thinking a lot about my own creative outlets recently, and while I was perusing the internet today, came across their review of former Queens Of The Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri's solo album, Death Acoustic. I heartily enjoy the Queens (to the surprise of many of my friends), but am certainly no diehard or historian, but today's reviewer states the following:
...when he offers up lines like, "I use crystal methane by the boatload/ I live off straight booze, I just don't fucking care," in "Outlaw Scumfuc", you don't really question the validity of that statement for a second. In some sense, it's effective songwriting, as the listener gets some insight into Oliveri's persona...
Without bothering to reference the fact that the song "Outlaw Scumfuc" (charming title, isn't it?) was originally written and recorded by one G.G. Allin, one of the most disgusting, depraved people to walk the earth. I have no real problem with the song, the cover, or Oliveri's choice, but nobody bothered to check the liner notes? Fuck this noise... I'm out. - The Treatment Is In The Medium, The Message Is The Cure
Just when things get boring and I can't seem to find a new band to thrill and swoon to, the universe will unveil for me a reason to keep on digging. I've been experimenting with guitar ambience and musical space for a while now, and just as it seems like my only options are shoegazer gravedigging or moving on to power pop, I get the opportunity to see one of the (unfortunately) secret prizes of the Midwest or any region - Early Day Miners.
Now, there is a bit of bias here. I used to work with their record label, as I lived in their hometown of Bloomington, IN. But that's where the bias ends. They might be a perfect fit for the wide-open spaces of southern Indiana, their haunted guitar lines echoing through a thousand cornfields, but Bloomington is too often a fickle mistress, and while it's nurtured them, it's never given them the due they deserve.
Their new album, The Treatment, is not so much a departure from their previous work as another angle. People (well, critics) too often mistake a consistent artistic vision for complacency, but I'm going to lay it down for you: while their records often don't sound dramatically different from one another, EDM explores variations of a theme, mining (ha!) the space between notes for as much drama and depth as the notes themselves. Sparse has practically been the raison d'être for this combo, but the new album adds an unexpected twist: pop songs.
As much as I love the band, I'd be hard pressed until yesterday to sing you one of their songs. There are tracks that I like, and the melody in those songs tends to bury itself in the whole movement and breathing of the song, almost as if each inhale and exhale were the melody. Beautiful and intricate, with songs gently shifting from one to the next, but "poppy" wouldn't be a word for it. Last night, the lineup was certainly stripped down from the 6 or 7 piece version that I've seen over the past few years, consisting of drummer Marty Sprowles, bassist Jonathan Richardson, guitarist John Dawson, and vocalist and guitarist Dan Burton, who doubles on keyboards. The first surprise was the rhythm section - what was previously a rumbling monster, all tom fills and powerful drama, is now focused, sharp and driven. Sprowles keeps things here tight, clipped, and snappy, propelling the band with a motorik sensibility, even if his playing is more complex. Richardson's bass, however, is the anchor of the band. Never dull, never calling immediate attention to itself, but holding the bulk of the clearest melodic aspects, these two click into a post-punk groove that wouldn't sound out of place on the first Comsat Angels record. A bass-and-drums combo this tight gives the guitarists room to move by remaining steady as a rock, but not steady at the expense of soul. Rarely do I find myself watching the bassist and drummer at a concert as much as I found myself last night, marvelling at the way things seemed to click perfectly into place.
But as a guitar player, it was the guitar that's always seduced me on their previous records. Although it's anyone's guess what transpired in the studio, in the live setting, it was Burton's textures that laid a bed for Dawson's stinging leads to rest on. While Burton had his work cut out for him (at one point he was playing his keyboard, his amp controls, and his effects board at the same time), while it only took some well-placed echo and reverb to make the ringing leads seem larger than life. I'm still amazed every time I see them that this few people are able to create the sounds coming out of the speakers. So we've got a tight, snapping, growling rhythm section, slicingly concise leads, and more spatial textures than you can shake a stick at. Now what was that about pop songs? Oh yeah, I found myself and others in the all-too-thin crowd singing along by the second or third go-round of most of the choruses. There was even a little dancing. In the same way that great bands like Codeine, Galaxie 500, and the aforementioned Comsat Angels were able to create amazing pop songs that almost shunned attention - the songs passing themselves off like obvious secrets, inherently understood - the Early Day Miners write anthems without being preening. Had U2 not desired to rule the world and remained an atmospheric pop band (and maybe traded in that blowhard singer), they would be lucky to be making albums that sounded like this.
So what does all this mean? It means that all the people who have accused Early Day Miners of having the sound but not the tunes need to ear their words. It might be a bit of a development, but listening back to the earlier albums, such as 2005's masterful All Harm Ends Here, all the ingredients are there, but the band merely seems like they were merely choosing to ignore the poppier side for the atmospheric until now, acknowledging it's presence but putting it on the shelf for later. Now that they've chosen to release it, it proves just how adept they are at crafting soundscapes: these ones actually sound pretty catchy. - Overlooked Classics: "Good God's Urge"
Sometimes, when exposed to something at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right set of circumstances, one becomes connected to that thing, no matter how your rational mind may tell you otherwise, and no matter how incorrect it may seem with the rest of your life, there are things that we love, for which we can offer little to no excuse. We like them. And there's nothing wrong with that.
One of the benefits to this blind appreciation (I won't call it devotion, as there ARE limits to an otherwise sane person), is that one can then find elements of excellence that others would have overlooked, not being willing to devote the time or energy that someone who was more inclined to enjoy it would. And that's where I stand on Porno For Pyros.
Jane's Addiction was one of those things for me. So, just as I'll buy anything that has "The Stooges" printed on it, I'm inclined to check out anything "Jane's Related", from bootlegs to side projects. Some of these are excellent (the post-JA Deconstruction album), and some are unspeakably awful (*cough* the Chili Peppers' One Hot Minute *cough*). But some of them are not only worthy of your time, they're better than they deserve to be. Jane's worked because of the balance between members. Without guitarist Dave Navarro, leader/vocalist Perry Farrell got too artsy and freaky and self-indulgent, and without Farrell, Navarro would mire down in a sea of hackneyed metal cliche, for instance.
So upon the breakup of Jane's Addiciton, Perry Farrell started Porno For Pyros, and no Navarro or bassist Eric Avery meant it was going to be far more wigged out than he has any right to make (Satellite Party, anyone?), right?
Nope. Porno For Pyros' self-titled first album has its moments, but it's by and large a tight, rocking band that strays into the oddball at times, but is ultimately pretty satisfying. Guitarist Peter DiStefano was a lot more textural than Navarro, the band was by-and-large less aggressive, it was a nice soundtrack for the early 90s: intellectual, artistic, hooky, bohemian. This was a time when Dee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart" was ruling the charts. People were ready for freaky boho rock. Grunge had cracked the listening public right open and the world was ready to hear anything.
By 1996, however, their second album sank like a lead-lined rock.
1996, buddy! Korn was happening! 311! Tool! Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was like quadruple-platinum! Alanis went huge and Metallica went alternative. The Fugees, No Doubt, and Rage Against The Machine all had number one records in 1996. You expect me to listen to your understated album full of acoustic guitars and tropical percussion? Freaky hippie stuff with soundscaping?
Well, yeah.
"Tahitian Moon" starts out with a crazy noise guitar and cuts loose into the sound of laying on a beach under the stars. Otherwise icky hippie hand drums and trippy songwriting is obscured with enough haze to make it absolutely delightful. I once spent a week canoeing to this album, and it somehow fits the outdoors, near the water. "Kimberley Austin", in particular, reminds me of a song that's been barely written, but caught on record in that magical period between songwriting and arranging, when something can sound fresh and spare at the same time. Could it, as a song, have benefited from a little more fine-tuning? Yep. No doubt about it. But the freshness of it completely overrides it - any more and it would be overcooked. I think that sums up this whole album, in fact. Despite the layers of overdubs on everyone's part, this album is absolutely a perfect example of being laid back.
The players, as well, deserve some credit here. Guitarist DiStefano is quite possibly more inventive than Navarro (who guests here) in a sonic way, and Mike Watt, possibly the greatest bassist in the past three decades, lays WAY back on the tracks he features on, avoiding his Minutemen-style bean jumping, preferring to slide into notes and let the lines breathe. Stephen Perkins brings the most intricate and well-placed percussion of his career to the table, and to Perry Farrell's credit, he keeps his ego in check, almost always coming across as just one of the group, never dominating the proceedings.
Good God's Urge had the misfortune of being released in one of the worst possible musical climates for what it is, and due to that, was largely overlooked, even by former Jane's Addiction fans. In this post-millenial musical world, the disc has enough variety for the iPod Shuffle generation, but stands as a remarkably solid piece of work as a whole.
In short, it's absolutely worth the $.99 it would cost you to pick it up out of any used CD bin in America. I love this country. - Two Faced: In A Silent Way
While I was a young man in college, I had a chip on my shoulder about jazz. You see, I was an outspoken proponent of the artistic merit of rock music. I worked in the rock and roll department of the Indiana University School Of Music. A prestigious music school to be sure. But we rockers in the staff were sneered at, belittled by the cultured classical divisions, as well as the jazz department, who felt that out music was often a blight on the school, a vulgar epithet that was better left unmentioned among the cultured musings of so many jazz historians.
Seems silly, coming from guys whose music developed in brothels and bars, don't ya think?
Were I feeling more academic, I'd consider spouting off about the heirarchy of popular music, how jazz was derided by the upper class in the early part of the century, only to be replaced at the bottom of the ladder by rock and roll in the latter half of the 1900s. However, I'm not feeling that way.
You see, partially because of my youthful ignorance, and then magnified by my resentment of the superior attitudes of academic jazz fans, I've never been a big fan of jazz in practice. In principle, I have no problem with the genre, but in practice, I've never been a big fan of it. I've studied it under some wonderful luminaries, but never fully appreciated it, at least, not to the extent that most jazz fans seem to. I have my problems with the attitudes of many hardcore jazz fans, but this is not about the fans, this is about the music.
Much of the more "classical" jazz music follows a particular format: start out with a "head", which is the main theme of the piece, let each member solo, returning to the head at either the end, or between each solo. My problem is that the "widdly diddly" soloing, while technically proficient, and in the best cases, really beautiful and melodic, has always been a drag to me. I don't really even care for guitar soloing - I'd much rather hear lead lines played in service of the song, not as an excuse for showing off or for "getting down" in the heat of the moment.
I realize this is a serious oversimplification of a genre, and please forgive what may have come across as ignorance. There are, however, two large exceptions to my listening taste when it comes to jazz. The first is free jazz. Wild excursions into dissonance, arhythimc sounds skittering across the air, bleating raw and wild... it's essentially the spirit of punk music with the opposite approach: you have to be REAL good to make this primal noise, rather than the anyone can do it approach of punk rock. Nobody ever accused Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane of not being able to play.
The other exception, and the reason for all that wind-up, is when jazz players take themselves and their abilties out of the equation, and play for the moment that's in the air, not the next one. When the music sits and thinks and pulses and flows like a living organism. Miles Davis' The Complete In A Silent Way sessions is a perfect example of this.
Not strictly downtempo, the closest comparison I can make in the rock world is Can's Future Days, it's jazz without being strictly jazz, ambient without seeming motionless, and experimental without losing grounding. Mysterious and murky in ways that the more "rock world" lauded Bitches Brew isn't. Bitches Brew has cultural importance on its side, but the funky rhythms of that album have tainted most other "fusion" music for my ears. On the In A Silent Way sessions (which, I should point out for the cash-strapped, the official album is more than representative of this box set, on which both album tracks appear), it never loses its status as jazz music, but it is perhaps the most subtle and atmospheric jazz music I've ever heard. Electric pianos abound, but not quite in that "instantly dated" Fender Rhodes tone that a lot of Bitches Brew has, and every element is clearly within the jazz realm, but somehow, the whole is more avant-garde than the sum of its parts.
Of course, my other favorite Miles Davis album/sessions is The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, another dark, mysterious album that owes more to funk than jazz, but that's another story, and betrays what perspective I come at this music from. But the regard in which jazz fans hold In A Silent Way surprises me. While it has vague precedents in Miles' music, it stands as a major break to what he'd done before, while not quite ever sounding like anything he put out later. Sure, Filles de Kilimanjaro indicated, in hindsight, where things might be going, but Bitches Brew (released immediately after In A Silent Way) was a whole different creature, one that seemed to prove more influential on not only jazz fusion, but Davis' own future works. More percussion, more polyrhythm, and more creeping funk influence led to what is probably the pinnacle of that direction, 1972's willfully singular On The Corner, which seems like it's a descendent of a completely different lineage.
So what's so appealing about In A Silent Way? I dunno. And that's it. It's mysterious. I can only compare it to the moments BETWEEN lines in David Lynch's Blue Velvet, the moments of deep mystery, tension, danger, stillness... by removing the head/solo/head/solo format, as well as the aesthetic, Davis and the rest of the band have managed to create jazz without jazz, jazz as ambient soundscape. Ultimately standing on its own, it's a recording that neither gives ground nor takes it, daring you to come closer, luring you in, never letting you know what's on the other side. - Prove It. Just The Facts.
Sometimes I wonder if Television's Marquee Moon is ever going to stop giving.
I purchased my first of several copies of it at J&R Music World when I went to NYC the summer after I turned 16. My incredibly cool aunt and uncle had to work, so they basically turned me loose on Manhattan, which would have made my mother worry her way into a coma. I hit every music and book store I could find. But Marquee Moon was the first disc I bought while I was there and spent most of the rest of the trip just wandering to the tunes of that and the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat. At the time, I figured "when in Rome, make sure you have an appropriate soundtrack". I'll admit to being both disappointed and confused with Television at the time, along with the fascination that kept me going back.
"It's a punk record!"
"Err... no it's not."
I was in about my second or third year of punk-dom. I'd read articles and books about the CBGB scene, and knew that Television wasn't standard issue punk, but was willing to give it a go. Even at the time I could tell it was important, but was a little disappointed in how measured, how polite, and how jammy it seemed. In hindsight, my blueprint of punk only included things like the Stooges, not Albert Ayler, so I didn't get how this was punk, how this was rebel music. Obviously, I came around as I got older. Having said that though, it's surprising that it didn't just go on the shelf for a few years. It was an active part of my listening diet all through the rest of high school and into college. One of my professors got me back into it from a different perspective, reminding me that this wasn't the "Marshall backline, Les Paul, epic stage show" sound that was so prevalent at the time. With that in mind, I could hear how, to a teen in 1977, this must have been a revelation. It SOUNDS like it was made with a reasonable drum kit, a few gutars, and a few little Fender combo amps. Realizing that gave the album a fresh meaning to me, and it was like a new record again.
After college, I was a little lost as to what to do with my life, and I found the extended soloing to be both comforting and inspiring to just THINK to, as people in their early-to-mid 20s are wont to do. Recently, after moving across the country, gaining some maturity and realizing the power in subtlety (i.e., not all music needs to be drenched in fuzz and sweat), I keep different meanings in the same notes that I almost know by heart these days.
Will this albunm ever get old?
I just realized that I've written about Television before, in a blog post for an old, now defunct, blog back in 2006, and while the tone is a bit less refined, it's not awful. It does, however, have a completely different perspective, even three years ago. I was thrilled at finding a bootleg called Portable Electricity, happy that it finally gave Television the low end I felt they were lacking, and because the recording quality is muddy, the whole thing seems heartier and deeper, making them sound more like the punk godfathers they've always been touted as. While I understand that point of view, I don't know if I still feel the same. They were a guitar band, supposed to sound like subway brakes and clattering cityscapes. They didn't need to sound like what I was predisposed to want. Granted, the boot (which came from has been released as Live At The Old Waldorf) does make a case for them being a rockin' band, but after finally meeting Marquee Moon on it's own terms, it's even more enjoyable that whatever predisposition you'd want to lay over it.
And that, I believe, is the brilliance of this record to me. No matter what mindset I bring to the table, the album stands up to it. Punk rock? Listen to that rhythm guitar that opens "See No Evil": it's that "Subway Sound" that everybody talks about the Velvets having. Rock and roll classicism? "Guiding Light" has your 6/8 ballad down pat. The guitar interplay between Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd predicts Luna by about 15 years, and most of the songs have a push/pull that pretty accurately lays some groundwork for post-punk. However you want to listen to this, it will deliver.
Their discography, ultimately, allows for a this same range, but it's not quite as tied together. Bootlegs of their pre-MM material show a rougher band working closer to the garage bands of the mid-60s; their second album, Adventure is the softer, nuanced side of the band; the live collection The Blow-Up shows them stretching songs to their tensile breaking point, adding improv to garage tunes, creating an almost free-jazz-and-garage-rock hybrid, and their reunion album is spare to the point of ghostliness, sounding like nothing so much as post-millennial indie rock. But the brilliance of Marquee Moon is that it's all there from the outset. Not to take away from the later records, which often fit a specific tone, you can listen to Marquee Moon to enjoy any of those. My iPod usually has two Television records on it: Marquee Moon and whichever other one I'm feeling in the mood for. In a punky mood? MM plus a bootleg of the Brian Eno demos. Feeling heady and volatile? MM and The Blow Up. Introspective and reserved? Marquee Moon and the self-titled reunion album. You get the idea.
It's a rare feat to find an album that applies to everything while always sounding just like, and ONLY like, itself. This is one of those. The reissue makes it even more beautiful, by including their first single, the magnificent "Little Johnny Jewel". Highly recommended.
