CD Review

Edutainment: Jordan Selbo reviews El Guante

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El Guante's Haunted Studio Apartment
Review by Jordan Selbo

El Guante's Haunted Studio Apartment, the new disc being promoted at Friday's Blue Nile show and only available at shows until this summer, is a megaton bomb on local indie rap, bound to be the heaviest breath of fresh air hip hop heads will suck in all year. And it succeeds despite itself. Any other rapper who used such potentially pretentious setups as modeling their art conception on Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, dividing their album into three "sessions" (one of which is spoken word...usually a clear warning to stay away), and including about 80 minutes of lyrical and conceptual denseness would inevitably drown in surface-level coffee shop boho-isms.

Yet El Guante deftly swings from teacher to supreme lyricist to soul-searcher with aplomb and grace, creating KRS' beloved "edutainment" in the best sense of the word. The success is due in no small part to a number of crucial factors: first and foremost, the beats don't lose out to the lyrics, as several tracks are both melodic and thumping; second, the activist/rapper/poet/teacher has got so damn much to say that even this project's great length and density can hardly contain the wealth of fresh insight, emotion and information he seems capable of conveying; third, dude is nice on the mic, with superior flow and vocabulary; fourth, it's obvious that everything from song concepts to thematic tropes to sequencing has been carefully considered, so it isn't just a big bitter pill of truth telling but rather an intense but coherent journey through the mind of a sincere (and sincerely active) hip hopper (presently a rare species indeed).

Dispelling the empty platitudes of so-called revolutionary or progressive underground acts without falling for the same empty criticisms they also espouse, Guante goes further, revealing both the awesome responsibility an MC has to their listeners (all too often neglected entirely), as well as the potential power of a mic in the hands of someone with something to say. Which isn't to suggest that this will be enjoyable listening for all but the heaviest of rap fans (and perhaps the heaviest of urban strugglers/strivers) -- Guante's level of articulation and nuance will only be truly appreciated by those who understand and experience the conditions he's breaking down. “The rappers say he’s a poet/ he can’t rap, yo/ the poets say he’s a rapper/ he’s just an asshole.”

I’d say he’s a rare bird indeed, misunderstanding is a good sign of brilliance, and El Guante's Haunted Studio Apartment is just what these weary ears needed to get me through another spring and summer of otherwise (suddenly even more) inconsequential rap tunes.

As for the show itself:

El Guante's Haunted Release Party
March 14, 2008
The Blue Nile
Review by Jordan Selbo
Photo by Jeff Shaw

Better Than: Taking Jello shots with your gramma at your cousin's second prison release party

Rap shows around here have begun to feel like particularly-hostile fashion shows, with visiting MCs busting off their obligatory fix of four or five recognizable hits in rote succession and then fleeing the stage with a few tipsy Eden Prairie females, as the crowd struggles to regain hearing for the drive home. That's why Friday's low-key and familial jam down in the Seward area of Minneapolis felt both refreshing and unfamiliar. Refreshing to be sure, what with the Tru Ruts crew interacting warmly with each other and supporting their art with close fans (as well as not a small amount of Friday-night random bar crawlers); unfamiliar because the sense of community El Guante and his posse evoke, in everything from their crew-first attitude to their gentle pleadings to gather around stage to the catalog of songs regarding common struggle and suggestions for collective action. The small and casual but sonically well-equipped venue helped this feeling greatly, despite the fact that El Guante and his ilk have the star power and chemistry to fill a much larger forum.

El Guante at a November performance.

Opening acts Chantz and See More Perspective kept the mic warm nicely in between DJ Fundamentalist mixing some 90s crowd pleasers. While the former gave off an infectious energy and suggested his age with goofy asides while belying it with noticeable displays of versatility, See More's vibe was almost too intense for the only half-warm crowd to take in. Spitting classical flows with a quick angry tongue over crisp beats, it was hard to digest but I'd be ready to hear him again any day. Third act Truthmaze, the self-proclaimed "Bambaata of Minneapolis," happened to be celebrating his 40th birthday, which was apparent with his brief but enjoyable set of mostly structured freestyles. While being sprung off the Jameson is no excuse for sloppiness, thankfully Maze's off the head charisma and off the wall flow kept his set entertaining and light, especially in contrast to what preceded and followed. The dude deftly switched from booming Reggaeton to on point beatboxing to Mos Def croons without losing a step, suggesting far greater potential with the proper venue and audience.

El Guante, the inconspicuous, soft-spoken and completely talented MC emigre from Madison is a small and valuable secret to only a few locals at this point. His talent as both an MC and spoken word artist, as well as his nuanced, unpalatable wisdom and unmarketable stances makes him one of our most exceptional (and dare I say 'authentic') forms of the so-called "underground MC" (an archetype he himself can't help lambasting on more than one occasion, ironically). The beats from the latest platter, soothing mixes of fresh corners and ethereal melodies, translated well live as eerie and crisp, while the seemingly-meek E.L. became very big vocally, throwing carefully-crafted raps out with momentum, effortlessly segueing into spoken word bleed outs.

It's a shame much of the crowd was more social than attentive, as the denseness of some of his better lines ("our mass graves are fresh to death") were undoubtedly lost, and the hypest the crowd got was when E.L. started rapping over Nas' thumper "Made You Look." The intensity of his rapper's rapper delivery awarded the true heads the most but might have been lost on the others. So while this CD release party only hinted at the brilliance of his newest project El Guante's Haunted Studio Apartment, it did show the potential of E.L. and his whole teams steez--eschewing the broad platitudes and solid but unremarkable skills typically pushed by local rap, in favor of a complex but ultimately unifying belief in self-accountability -awareness and -actualization, the power of collective action, and the boldness to be doper and more profound than even your own idols. Next time I just hope you can bring a friend or three and we can really get this place to a hype-level befitting Tru Ruts creative energy.

Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: Having largely missed the boat on the brief period of raptivism's heyday ('88-'91?) due to being born too late, my views on the power of rap to change minds are probably too idyllic (jokingly based largely off Can't Stop Won't Stop's revisionist history and photo stills from the "Fight the Power" video shoot), but I still haven't given up on the expectation that the best music has the power (nay, the duty) to open some eyes. Therefore there's a chance El Guante is a false prophet seen through my rose-colored sun blockers, but I seriously doubt his passionate brand of informed b-boyism is anything less than remarkable, even if its less than whole-heartedly palatable to the Friday night bar crowd looking more for action than information.

Random Detail: Old people at a rap show. They must've stumbled in accidentally, but it still made me uneasy.

By the way: Look for this up-and-coming crew in April, as they play host to both the legendary KRS-ONE and recently retired all-time dope trio the Alkaholiks. Let's just hope they don't upstage either show (or that the Blastmaster doesn't figure out their also hosting PM Dawn a few weeks after him)--with this much passionate talent, things could get ugly.
-- Jordan Selbo

Posted by Jeff Shaw at March 24, 2008 4:30 PM | Comments (1)

 

The Brokedowns get out the sharp knives

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The Brokedowns: New Brains for Everyone
Thick Records

Angry, hurtling and relentlessly focused, this Chicago-area quartet attacks the usual targets—conservatives, hypocrites, meatheads and zealots—with abandon and aggression. The Brokedowns grumpily grind crayons and cigarette butts into the simple, loud and fast blueprint of bar-room punk, creating a glorious mess that's both fresh and familiar.

Text by Eryc Eyl

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 20, 2007 11:08 AM | Comments (0)

 

Solo Trucker delivers a smooth ride

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Jason Isbell: Sirens of the Ditch
New West

Despite having three songwriters, the Drive-By Truckers have made some remarkably cohesive music. But while songs by Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley are compelling, Jason Isbell's tunes cut to the core. The tunesmith left his indelible stamp on tracks such as "Goddamn Lonely Love" and "Outfit," in which he channels the spirit of "Simple Man" for the iPod generation. Earlier this year, Isbell split with the Truckers to focus on the outstanding material he's been working on for the past four years. The resulting solo debut, Sirens of the Ditch, is filled with his irresistible Southern charm and guitar-rock sensibilities, from the swampy, come-hither groove of "Try" to the easygoing, soul-kissed shuffle of "Hurricanes and Hand Grenades." The main draw, however, is the inscrutable sincerity in his voice on songs like "Dress Blues"—a wartime elegy to a schoolmate that avoids jingoistic grandstanding and partisan fist-shaking and simply focuses on the underlying humanity—and "Grown," in which he thoughtfully recalls a momentous coming-of-age crush. As expected, Isbell delivers the goods on Ditch.

Text by Dave Herrera

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 19, 2007 9:18 AM | Comments (0)

 

Spoon's latest release doesn't quite measure up

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Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Merge

Five years later, Spoon's 2002 release, Kill the Moonlight, still feels new. In fact, it still has the acute ability to make listeners pace from room to room, clapping their hands, attempting bad imitations of Britt Daniel's raspy croon, wishing there was a sweet party about to happen. It's almost as if the album was recorded in a vacuum, out of time and place. The opening song on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the act's sixth record, crowns with some off-putting digital distortion that lets you know exactly when and where it's coming from. It's no big deal, really, as the album is littered with great songs that connect on a totally gut level, but it lacks the head-to-tail gusto that made Moonlight truly epic. Back-to-back tracks "The Ghost of You Lingers" and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" are especially fetching reminders of the former's high points, but there are plenty of other moments where, well, if the remote is handy...

Text by Josh Tyson

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 18, 2007 9:39 AM | Comments (0)

 

Interpol channel R.E.M., the Cure, and Nick Cave on Our Love to Admire

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Interpol: Our Love to Admire
Capitol
Interpol's major-label debut isn't as monochromatic as its two predecessors. "Pioneer to the Falls," which channels the stormy textures of the Cure's Pornography, is possibly the richest song the act has ever recorded, with death-march piano and a giant quivering mass of strings adding counter-melodies that swell in the mid-section. In typical fashion, vocalist Paul Banks presides over the track like a stern preacher peering at his congregation. Elsewhere, though, the stentorian singer breaks a sweat on the forceful, R.E.M.-esque "Mammoth" and gets into creepy-boyfriend mode on the cinematic highlight "No I in Threesome." In fact, Admire itself often resembles a movie score. About three minutes into "Wrecking Ball," the song nearly stops dead, then continues as a quasi-instrumental. Mournful guitar, synths, horns and faint vocals slowly build and wind around each other like an Explosions in the Sky song. The understated "Lighthouse" is just as lush, recalling Nick Cave's somber sea songs and evoking the quiet peace of sleeping on a boat in the middle of a lake. Overall, Admire covers the entire black-through-white palette instead of just a few shades of gray.

Text by Annie Zaleski

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 16, 2007 1:24 PM | Comments (0)

 

CD Review: Super Cool California Soul 2

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Various Artists / Super Cool California Soul 2: Raw and Rare Soul from
the West Coast 1966-1982 / Ubiquity

Text by Dave Segal

In the '60s and '70s, nearly every major American city-and many minor ones-had thriving funk and soul scenes. And if they didn't have hotbeds, then these towns at least produced a handful of acts that could convincingly approximate the special sonic sauce of James Brown or the Meters. So it's unsurprising to discover that the state of California has warehouses full of obscure 45s that have been and are still being excavated for insatiable collectors and aficionados. In the past decade, Costa Mesa's Ubiquity Records has been among the foremost curators of soul and funk musicians who somehow slipped under radio's and print media's radars. Case in point is the Super Cool California Soul series. While this second volume boasts nobody with the marquee luster of such Golden State stars as Sly and the Family Stone or War, this 16-track disc radiates enough soular power to warm the coolest hipster's constricted heart.

Super Cool California Soul 2 delves deep for its riches. The dominant sound is a mellow, sensual glow and throb that falls somewhere between the Stax label's sinewy rhythmic punch and melodic finesse and Cadet Records' trippy, orchestral soul excursions. Gow Dow Experience light a sexy fire under the standard "Compared to What"-twice; Joey Jefferson Band's clavinet-and-vibes-enhanced "Revolution Rap" subverts its title with slyly seductive, loungey funkadelia; Spanky Wilson's adorable "Fancy" recalls Dusty Springfield's inspirational Memphis soul, melding gospel with estrus; LAPD (heh) find the golden mean between bliss and menace on the soul/jazz mood-elevator "Big Herm"; Darondo's silky sweet "Such a Night" is a slow romancer; and Rodney Trotter's "Space Nigga" disrupts the earthy flow with the compilation's nuttiest track, featuring Bernie Worrell-esque synth spritzes, helium-voiced alien chatter and strident piano vamping. These songs have aged remarkably well while still retaining their period charms.

Text by Dave Segal

Posted by Corey Anderson at June 11, 2007 3:39 PM | Comments (0)

 

Belle & Sebastian Too Heavy for You?

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Jose Gonzalez Stay in the Shade EP Hidden Agenda

Jose Gonzalez is 25-year-old Swedish singer of Argentine extraction who covers Kylie Minogue tunes and sounds like a '60s British folkie. His acoustic guitar picking, precise but not fussy, and his 2:00 a.m. singing, gentle but not precious, brooding but not dour, combine for bohemian easy-listening music worth hearing even if you already have Nick Drake and/or Bert Jansch records. This EP leads with an extended version of "Stay in the Shade," from Gonzalez's 2005 full-length, Veneer, and follows with a handful of generally tuneful B-sides. His version of Minogue's "Hand on Your Heart" recalls Aztec Camera's take on Van Halen's "Jump": an acoustic rendering of a pop hit that bypasses novelty entirely just by aiming for the vulnerable heart of a good song.

Posted by Dylan Hicks at January 6, 2006 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

 

Paglia on Madonna: A horse is a horse is a horse, of course

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Madonna's back. Camille Paglia's back. There's nothing we can do about that, but Paglia's overwrought Salon review of Madonna's underwrought record is a fine summation of why it's probably best to ignore both of them:

At a recent party in New York celebrating Salon's 10th anniversary, the formidable Cintra Wilson said mordantly to me (I scribbled all this down on a cocktail napkin at the bar), "Madonna is the Robo-Celebrity, calcified with discipline--religiously saintly, physically superhuman, in all ways faultless. She represents the unspoken desires of America--to be good at everything!"

Even allowing for the fact that she must strenuously maintain her hipness for a busy husband 10 years her junior, Madonna is starting to morph into the mature Joan Crawford of "Torch Song," still ferociously dancing but with her fascist willpower signaled by brute, staring eyes and fixed jawline. In cannibalizing her disco diva days, Madonna runs the risk of turning into a pasty powdered crumpet like the aging Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Will she become a whooping Charo shaking her geriatric hoochie-coochie hips on TV talk shows? Or should we expect a sudden, grisly collapse from glowing beauty to dust, like Ursula Andress as the 2000-year-old femme fatale in "She"?

Posted by Steve Perry at December 2, 2005 2:55 PM | Comments (10)

 

Jordis blogs, doesn't play Ascot Room

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This post was revised on November 29 (see above); the following represents the corrected version: Some news about Jordis (alternate site here), the Rock Star INXS breakout from St. Paul: She has a new blog (here's her old one), and she has left Liars Club (formerly Fighting Tongs), who have changed their name to the Payback, and play a show on New Year's Eve in Minneapolis. (Catch up on the entire Jordis saga via MNSpeak.) The breakup news arrives via a correction from Gingerjake's Ian Severson to this post, which previously (and erroneously) reported that Jordis would be performing with Liars Club on New Year's Eve. She will not. Instead, she's pursuing a solo career, with a Sony debut due in early 2006. (Jordis doesn't post many details about performing on November 20 at the opening celebration for the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, but turns up in photos with Bill Clinton, Jim Carrey, and Ali himself.) As for New Year's, it's only one show, not two, as previously published, in the Quest Ascot Room, with Gingerjake (more here), Crashing By Design, and the Lid: Doors at 5:00 p.m., and it's over before 10:00 p.m., so you can still make that New Year's Party. $8 under 21; $20 for 21+, which includes "2 top-shelf drink tickets at $14 value." Call 612.338.3383 for advance tickets or keep checking www.thequestclub.com (currently down).

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at November 22, 2005 8:48 PM | Comments (0)

 

Kenyan hip hop and Afrofuturism, plus a rap battle

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For a $25 entry fee, you can compete tonight in Freestyle Fridays at Digital City Music in North Minneapolis, where a grand prize of $1500 awaits the winner (if I have the rules straight). The rap battle is cheap to watch, in any case ($3), and I'll be there with a camera covering it for City Pages. 905 West Broadway, Minneapolis, MN 55411-2615, 612.588.2000. Registration is at 5:00 p.m., showtime 7:00 p.m. Click photo for more weekend hip hop as part of Saturday's local celebration of Kenyan independence (including a new Kenyan hip-hop documentary and a night of music at the Blue Nile). Also read more on Saturday's finale of the Soap Factory's essential Afrofuturism event, which kind of ties it all together.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at October 21, 2005 3:06 PM | Comments (0)

 

"Do they Know It's Halloween?"

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Watch the video for "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" and consider plunking down dough for the charity single, now in stores. Performed by "the North American Halloween Prevention Initiative," the parody track benefits UNICEF (as in "trick or treat for...") and features Beck, Sum 41, Les Savy Fav, the Arcade Fire, Sonic Youth, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Joey Waronker, Sloan, Peaches, Feist, Devendra Banhart (who performs Tuesday at the Fine Line, and is reviewed by Andy Beta in this week's City Pages), Wolf Parade, Postal Service, Buck 65, Elvira, Malcolm McLaren, Gino Washington (for more on him, see "Gino vs. Geno" at Complicatedfun.com), Roky Erickson, Rilo Kiley, Sparks, Tagaq, and producer Steven McDonald of Redd Kross, though I have to admit, the only voice talent I recognized on first listen was David Cross. (By the way, did you read his parody of Pitchfork reviews?) Here are the lyrics. Listen while you carve your own virtual jackolantern.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at October 19, 2005 8:07 PM | Comments (4)

 

Acid House Flashbacks

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Originally, the term "house music" was used simply to apply to the disco and discofied R&B spun by Frankie Knuckles at the Chicago nightclub the Warehouse. Starting in 1983, though, house developed into a distinct genre--or better put a distinct genre containing divergent subgenres. Some of house's architects (sorry) advanced a high-tech, economical variation on '70s-style disco and Philly soul. Others used the same technologies (the Roland 303 bass synthesizer, for instance, and the then-new digital synths) to create experimental, four-on-the-floor dance music with no use for traditional song structure and an open mind toward strange noises. Anyway, you can't fence house in (sorry): Deep house like that made by Ten City is some of the most soulful music of its era; acid and jack tracks like those found on the new double-CD collection, Can You Jack? Chicago Acid and Experimental House 1985-1995 (Soul Jazz Records), are often deliberately soulless. The compilation is partly a tribute to the late Ron Hardy, a DJ who spun at the legendarily intemperate Music Box and competed with Knuckles for house-DJ supremacy. Hardy was the more accessible and adventurous of the two spinners, favoring hard, abrasive music and often turning demos from aspiring house producers into underground hits. He was also the guy to first spin "acid house," tracks for which 303 tones were distorted and abused to sound like demonic bird chirps, Miro squiggles, and other odd things. Can You Jack? includes a few (relatively) famous singles, such as Phuture's archetypal "Acid Tracks" and Marshall "Sleezy D" Jefferson [pictured] epic "I've Lost Control," which is at once absurd and harrowing. Most of the other selections are obscure but not unworthy. Larry "Mr. Fingers" Heard's "Beyond the Clouds" just might take you there, and Tyree's "Acid Crash" is fabulously over the top and polyrhythmic. This is trashy, intense (also occasionally warm and sorta pretty) DIY music, recommended even to folks who'd just as soon hear it on a quiet night at home. --Dylan Hicks

Posted by Dylan Hicks at August 26, 2005 3:57 PM | Comments (1)

 

Little Big Man

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I'm kicking myself for not tuning in earlier to local saxophonist Doug Little's CD-release show, coming up this weekend at the Artists' Quarter. Little's new album, The Phoenix, sounds real good on first listen, and features more than able backing from pianist Giacomo Aula, bassist Jeff Bailey, and drummer Kevin Washington. The quartet will be playing Friday and Saturday at the AQ. Look for a review of one of the sets in the Aug. 31 "In Da Club."

Posted by Dylan Hicks at August 23, 2005 5:28 PM | Comments (0)

 

Bop Lives!

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A recently discovered concert recording finds Bird and Diz at their peaks

The story of how bebop was, and was not, documented on recordings is one of serendipity and missed opportunities, felicity and rotten luck. There were sides made with the right people but at the wrong time, others made with the right people at the wrong time, squeaky saxophones out to sabotage inspired solos, great bass players that one has to use some imagination to hear, plus labor disputes, technological limitations, heroin. The recording ban of '43 and '44 kept Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie from committing their initial bop essays to wax, and when things got going again the commercial records of the time still couldn't accommodate the seven-minute renditions Bird and Diz would present in concert. Then again, those last two factors were curses and blessings. We get an incomplete historical record of bop's evolution--and a marvelously realized form once it debuts in '45. We have few records of how the music was actually played and heard in clubs--and a lot of perfect, economical solos that might have given quarter to some second-rate ideas if allowed to go on for an extra minute. Well, it's a great story.
Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945, a newly uncovered recording just released by the tiny Uptown label, offers a new wrinkle.

The holy grail of live bebop albums has long been that of the concert recorded in 1953 at Toronto's Massey Hall with Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell, Charlie Mingus, and Max Roach. And for good reason: the music is wonderful, the personnel impeccable, and you get to hear everyone stretch out. But it was recorded in 1953. At which point "A Night in Tunisia," "Salt Peanuts," and the other new-jazz standards in the set had been around the block 28 or 30 times. The sense of upheaval, of ushering in a new epoch with a bag of lightening, was gone, naturally.
This Uptown album is all electricity, much of it from the music, some of it from the romance that the listener can't help bringing to the party. Town Hall was recorded only a few months after Gillespie and Parker's first commercial recordings together, just as they were starting to find their audience, right as they were in the midst of changing jazz forever. It features the trumpeter and alto saxophonist backed by pianist Al Haig, bassist Curley Russell, and the not yet famous but already great drummer Max Roach. All the tunes are either on the brisk side of mid-tempo or in the realm of Oh Christ, how do these guys play so fast? No ballads, no blues. Which is a minus in that one should always wish for more of prime Charlie Parker playing ballads and blues, but a plus in that, as master of ceremonies Symphony Sid puts it, things "jump like mad.'" (They'd jump even madder had Powell been in Haig's chair, though Haig performs well.) The concert even has narrative tension. As it starts, a nervous Sid announces that Bird hasn't shown up yet and tenorman Don Byas might be filling in. "Our alto sax player is probably shooting up somewhere," he says--No, of course not, but that's what you're thinking. But then Parker does show, during the opening number. Upon his arrival, the crowd stirs, some cheer. And right away he's on fire, navigating all of Gillespie's rapid changes and matching his rapid runs, responding to Roach's pistol accents. (Sidney Catlett replaces Roach for the final tracks, "Hot House" and "52nd Street Theme," which, all due respect to Catlett, brings the energy down a bit seems to move time back a few years.) Great improvisations abound, though for some loopy reason my favorite moment is the first turnaround of the "Groovin' High" theme. I've just never heard it sound quite as pretty before.
The fidelity is better than you'd think. As with almost all recordings made before the '50s, the upright bass is weak in the mix, though in contrast to the period norm, the bass drum is too loud (it is nice to catch each of Roach's kicks). Quibbles and the expected hiss aside, the sound is, well, not as vibrant as the music, but vibrant enough--Gillespie's trumpet in particular glimmers. Maybe the best part is that no one knew until recently that the concert had been recorded. A record dealer found the acetates in a junk shop, where they'd been sitting for decades, and sold them to Uptown's Robert E. Sunenblick, an internal physician who moonlights as an indie-label honcho. And you thought all that junk in junk shops actually was junk. --Dylan Hicks

Posted by Dylan Hicks at August 21, 2005 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

 

JIM WALSH on Melodious Owl's self-titled release

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THIS IS A GREAT DANCE RECORD AND I'M SORRY BUT YOU CAN'T WRITE ABOUT A GREAT DANCE RECORD WITHOUT BOLD CAPS! AND EXCLAMATION MARKS! SAY IT LOUD: IT'S FUNNY AND SEXY AND ITS ROOTS ARE IN THE CONTORTIONS AND THE WALLETS AND THE NEW PSYCHONAUTS BUT THEY ARE OLD. THIS IS THE SOUND OF THE NEW NO WAVE! THIS IS MELODIOUS OWL! THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR! SOMETHING TO FILL UP THE DANCE FLOORS OF OUR MINDS, HEARTS, HIPS. DIG THE JUNKYARD HORNS, THE SIMPY SYNTHESIZERS, THE FAKEY DRUMS. DIG IT WHEN CAPTAIN CAMPY HOOTS, "I'M WEARING STRIPES TONIGHT/SHE'S WEARING ME OUT TONIGHT," AND "HOT," AND "TOUCH ME" AND "LET ME FEEL YOUR FIRE." HE SOUNDS LIKE HE'S HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME! WE COULD USE MORE GOOD TIMES! OH YES! WIGGLE WIGGLE THRUST THRUST SWAY SWAY FUCKY FUCKY. --JIM WALSH

Posted by Diablo Cody at August 4, 2005 11:48 AM | Comments (1)

 

CD reviews in briefs and boxers

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Acid House Kings
Sing Along with Acid House Kings
Twentyseven Records

The Cardigans are Deep Purple next to this cheekily named Swedish outfit. The world, of course, isn't as soft as these folk-pop tunes, and neither are marshmallows wrapped in cashmere. Is music of so delicate and anachronistic dangerously hermetic, or is it a necessary counterweight to the more common escapism of dehumanization and violence? Do you like puppies? Over 12 songs--recalling Belle & Sebastian, Pet Clark, and Spanky & Our Gang--the co-ed foursome's well-wrought melodies can get oppressively anodyne, but several tunes, "That's Because You Drive Me" especially, are so sweet, so sincerely, romantically in search of beauty that shunning them might be a sign of grave emotional decay, the sort found in a great many successful people. Undoubtedly the group's members have wonderfully cozy apartments, and would open them up to you, were you being chased by a mugger or masher. --Dylan Hicks

Posted by Dylan Hicks at July 27, 2005 1:45 PM | Comments (1)

 

Snap Judgments

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In which I open some promo packages and, without looking at the CD cover, listen to one song (track one) and jot down my first impressions. After listening and writing, I check out who it is (noted in parenthesis).

1. Freak folk for hipsters or regular folk for hippies? Seems like the former. Singer, a man, very earnest, breathy, presumably under 30. Also a fan of vibrato. Singer doesn't know when he'll return, or so goes the lyric. Singer not likely to return to my CD player in a hurry. Not awful, though. (Syd Matters, "City Talks," from Someday We Will Foresee Obstacles.)

2. Mandolin intro. "At Last," as made famous by Etta James. Singer, a woman, overemoting, which is easy to do on this song. Singer accompanied by acoustic guitar and mando. Now the mando player is getting a solo--pretty good. A few sour notes, and all around overcooked and square. Might sound okay at an outdoor folk festival with a cold can of Bubble Up. Not particularly useful, though. (Monroe Crossing, "At Last," from Somebody Like You.)

3. Still more folksy stuff! Sounds pretty good. Singer authoritative, band loose. Reference to elephants. Dan Zanes? Song about going to see a traveling show that features elephants. Doesn't quite sound like Dan Zanes. If it's not Dan Zanes (guy from Del Fuegos who now makes hip kids' records), it might be someone taking cues from him. I should fact check this, but elephants must be one of the largest land mammals in the whole world. But what if this isn't kids' music, then how good is it? (James McMurtry, "See the Elephant," Childish Things.)

4. Slick cosmo beat-pop, the type played in tapas bars, perhaps. Female singer. Brazilian Girls do this stuff quite well. This is sub-rate, pointless. Must have taken a full eight minutes to compose, and way too long to record. Chorus features word "shake," but I'd rather not. (Kudu, "Hot Lava," from Death of the Party.)

5. Breathy male singer singing romantically but insincerely, presumably a power pop band is about to enter. No, maybe not. Yeah, here they are. Descending Beatles change. Lots of different part. No way will I remember any of them. (the City on Film, "Anticlimactic," from In Formal Introduction.)

6. Brazilian? Cool falsetto. Sprightly. Kind of a Nascimento vibe. Definitely Brazilian. Old-school MPB-meets-samba sound, probably someone older. Gravity of singer's rough-hewn-but-pretty voice nicely offsets effervescent rhythms. Cool backups. No rhythm section, but they're not missed. Yeah, this is pretty good! (Seu Jorge, "The Razao" ("I Was Right"), from Cru.)

7. Muslim call to prayer, apparently. Field recording of muezzin or record in which beatmakers sample international folk musicians in hopes of being applauded for postmodern kitchen-sink aesthetic. The latter, of course. Monotone singer. Haven't made out many lyrics yet. Pretty boring and old hat. (Del Ray and the sun Kings, "Intro" and "Blood Doesn’t Like," from I Am the Light.)

8. Old-timey, early 20th century chord changes, tuba bass, banjo. Froggy singer. Might also remind folks of Mungo Jerry. Well, I don't know. Harmless and fun, I guess, but who gives a fuck. I take it all back if it's local. (Danny Barnes, "Get Myself Together," from Get Myself Together.)

9. Parody of "It Was a Very Good Year." Remembers hearing the Jackson 5 and deciding to be a singer. Not quite a parody after all. Must be an intro. Whispering. Yes, it's an intro, so I'll listen to the next one, too. Nice enough tenor, very Marvin Gaye influenced. "Caressing and undressing," oh brother, that's an old one. Singer so into woman he feels like he's on a drug. Another fresh idea! Telephone voice comes in. Snore. I have a feeling that nothing more is going to happen but the track is going to go on for another two minutes anyway. (The Revelation Is Now Televised, "Intro" and "Confess," from self-titled album.)

10. Industrial guitar or guitar-synth thing. Vocalist comes in screaming. Sounds like Ministry. Repetitive riff. Samples political speech or perhaps drill sergeant--I didn’t catch the words. Now faster. Tinny sound. Yeah, it's a drill sergeant. Possibly an anti-war song but I can't tell on first listen. Yeah, it is. Not really my bag, but I'm kind of in favor of it. (Ministry, "Thieves" [1990], from Murderball: Music from the Film.)

Posted by Dylan Hicks at July 25, 2005 5:33 PM | Comments (3)

 

Leftist punks unite

Filed under: CD Review

Hey, Suicide Machines has put out a new collection of hardcore and ska tunes. It's called War Profiteering Is Killing Us All, and on first listen it sounds pretty good. Check it out, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Posted by Dylan Hicks at July 20, 2005 5:06 PM | Comments (0)

 

Jottings about Missy Elliott's New Album

Filed under: CD Review

I've listened to Missy Elliott's The Cookbook twice now, and I don't love it but I like it a fair amount. Certainly if she were a new artist I'd be pretty damn excited. If I were the kind of fellow who throws parties and if I were hosting such an event this Friday, I'd put the album on and feel confident that it would do the job. I expect to get a lot of mileage out of individual tracks. As you may know, Timbaland is pretty much absent from the project, though he does produce two cuts. M.I.A. is a guest on the last song, which is hot. Slick Rick, Grand Puba, Mary J. Blige, and Johnny Paycheck also turn up. Not Johnny Paycheck after all. Rich Harrison ("1 Thing," "Crazy in Love") produces one of the cuts, "Can't Stop," more or less a rock tune with Harrison's loud snare sound in full effect. The skits are both offensive and unfunny. "Party Time" features the line "Forget about it like the world forget Sisqo," but I haven't forgotten Sisqo. Did you know that the two greatest inventions of the 20th century--thermoses and thong underwear--both start with "Th"? So I guess my list of Missy Elliott albums is now ranked as follows:

1. Supa Dupa Fly
2. This Is Not a Test!
3. Miss E...So Addictive
4. Under Construction
5. The Cookbook
6. The Real World

Posted by Dylan Hicks at July 13, 2005 4:03 PM | Comments (3)

 

CDs in Briefs and Boxers

Filed under: CD Review

R. Kelly TP.3 Reloaded Jive/Zomba

I was more than a little conflicted about hard I fell for 2003's Chocolate Factory and 2004's Happy People/U Saved Me, R. Kelly's one-two punch of flawed masterpieces. So in a way I'm relieved to report that his new one, TP.3, mostly ranges from dull to dire. "TP" refers to 12 Play, the title of R. Kelly's boudoir near-classic from 1993, when the R&B genius-jerk's bedroom jams weren't so inherently discomfiting. 12 Play's first follow-up, TP-2.Com, featured highlights such as I Wish" and "R&B Thing," but was otherwise Kelly's worst album. Until now. Volume three is full of pro forma sex jams (worst line, from the melodically pleasant "In the Kitchen": "Girl I'm ready to toss your salad!"), and tiresome cameos (Snoop, the Game, etc.--Wisin and Yandell, however, shine on the reggaeton-inspired "Burn It Up"). The album sounds very much like the work of a man struggling with impotence. It fails to climax with the admirably loopy and audacious five-part suite "Trapped in the Closet," the first half of Kelly's serialized, 10-part melodrama. A haplessly structured, implausible saga of interconnected infidelities, the musically underdeveloped song's storyline is at least occasionally amusing, though not always intentionally. --Dylan Hicks

Posted by Dylan Hicks at July 8, 2005 5:15 PM | Comments (0)

 

Radio Gaga

Filed under: CD Review

Will Smith, "Switch"

I'd be totally cool with Will Smith if he weren't so bland and smug and humorless and if I were 11. True, I sure enjoyed "Parents Just Don't Understand," which made some super points about generational conflict, and Six Degrees of Separation, which made some instructive points about the pronunciation of "bottle of beer," but for the past decade or more I've held that Smith's only artistically defensible career move would be retirement. And then I heard "Switch," which is...not bad! That giant kick drum and the handclaps and the ooh-la-la-las and the Prince synth--straight up jiggy.

Most of the credit should go to Kwame, the former polka-dot-shirt wearing rapper (check out his 1989 debut, The Boy Genius) who's enjoying a healthy second career as a producer (Lloyd Banks's bluesy "On Fire," for instance, was his). Credit the star for picking the right friends. And for a while Smith sounds nothing like one of the vocal talents featured in A Shark?s Tale. Then he uses a verse to complain about celebrity and remind us, lest we question his cred, that he was a bona fide close-the-bar-down club rat way back when he was "amateur spittin'"--you know, before he had his first hit, in his late teens. --Dylan Hicks

Brad Paisley, "Alcohol"

Alcoholic poets are a dime a dozen, but poets of alcoholism, those are worth at least four bucks per six-pack. Country singer Brad Paisley had a hit last year with "Whiskey Lullaby," a duet with Alison Krauss in which a couple of hard-luck romantics slowly commit suicide by overboozing. In certain parts of Wisconsin, sources say, the song has become already become a wedding and prom-night standard. It wasn?t quite as haunting as it intended to be, but it wasn?t forgettable either. If "Whiskey Lullaby" was a drinking song for morticians sung from the vantage of a sympathetic observer, Paisley?s latest single, "Alcohol," is a drinking song for barkeeps sung by the sauce itself. "You had some of the best times you?ll never remember, with me, alcohol," sings Paisley, who notes common best-of-times results of dipsomania such as getting fired, unplanned excursions into amateur pornography, and the transformation of lampshades into hats. Surely no one but uninspired ironists ever does the lampshade-hat thing anymore, but then, uninspired ironists are a nickel a dozen.

"Helping white people dance" is another of the narrator/song?s noble missions, and Paisley and band?s amiable performance stands a good chance of starting some wobbly waltzes. But allow me to offer some sober complaints: Bringing in the obligatory "barroom chorus," a la Garth Brooks?s "Friends in Low Places," Toby Keith?s "I Love This Bar," and Gretchen Wilson?s "Redneck Woman," is a follower?s misstep; and the band--very good, mind you, especially the lead guitarist--might have done well to loosen up a bit before rolling tape. They sound like a bunch of professionals in a fancy air-conditioned recording studio at 3:00 p.m. playing music while drinking diet soda in moderation. Just a guess. Fun song, though. It should come fully into its own when plowed through during some cover band?s third set. --Dylan Hicks

Posted by Dylan Hicks at June 30, 2005 9:57 AM

 

The Best Novelty Record of the Year

Filed under: CD Review

And also just a plain good record, Parry Gripp's For Those About to Shop, We Salute You must be heard at least once. Fifty one fake jingles from the ex-leader of Nerf Herder, which wouldn't much entice me either, but I just slapped the CD* in [the CD player, in a state of] ignorance [about the nature of the project], and have been getting a large kick out of it ever since. You can hear some samples here.

*See comment. The text above in brackets reflects later modifications.

Posted by Dylan Hicks at June 20, 2005 6:28 PM | Comments (1)

 

My main complaint with the CD reissue of ZZ Top's...

Filed under: CD Review

Tres Hombres is that it sucks. My vinyl copy of ZZ Top's finest album (Deguello is a close second) is very beat up and in fact produces very little sound at all--like I have to turn the volume knob way, way up just to get it to hear it. Of course ZZ Top should always be played at a decent volume, so this means I'm cranking the way up there, about where it needs to be to play my copy of the Grass Roots' greatest-hits album, my copy of which is also anemic. So I finally decided to replace Tres Hombres (translation: Three Men) on CD. Do not make my mistake. Whereas the original recording has a lean, dry sound, the remastered CD version is hypercompressed and saturated with outsized, '80s-style reverb. The stupid idea, I guess, was to get Hombres to sound as much like Eliminator as possible. A travesty, much like those fake-stereo versions of '50s and early '60s rock, R&B, and country records they used to put out in the mid to late '60s. Good to get that off my chest, though. Whew. I feel much better.

Posted by Dylan Hicks at June 17, 2005 4:34 PM

 

Vicious Vicious

Filed under: CD Review

The new Vicious Vicious album, Don't Look So Surprised, sounds real good, funny and blanket-like. Consider going to the release party this coming Friday.

Posted by Dylan Hicks at June 13, 2005 4:23 PM