An Increasingly Not-Brief History of Awesome American Music Pt. 6: Here We are Now, Something Something

Let’s just get the obvious out of the way now: depending on what you choose to believe, Nirvana either did or did not kill hair metal. Sadly, hair metal is still alive and well here in Los Angeles, so they obviously didn’t nip the thing the bud. But once you get away from all the hyperbole, both from their ardent supporters and their snarkiest detractors, the fact remains that Nirvana made some damn good music – blending pop and punk in a way that was awesome, as opposed to the way Blink-182 does it (which is terrible). They only made three proper albums, all of them of sufficient quality to warrant their reputation – and Kurt Cobain made time to write the first Hole record for his lovely wife. You could argue that Cobain killed himself before Nirvana had a chance to nosedive like, say, the Foo Fighters have since the 1990s, but that’s all hypothetical. The defense offers three key pieces of evidence for their awesomeness: Bleach, Nevermind, and In Utero. You can throw in the Unplugged album too, if only for its dogged to only play soft-rock versions of their hits.

While alternative rock was taking off in the early 1990s, a couple young dudes from Illinois named Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy were blending their favorite country and folk sounds with the punk stylings of the Minutemen. Their band was called Uncle Tupelo and they’re largely credited with giving birth to “alternative country” music, or “alt.country” as it is more retardedly known. To the band’s credit, nobody who played in Uncle Tupelo thinks they invented alt.country, and Jay Farrar has helpfully pointed out that there was no difference between what Uncle Tupelo did and what is commonly referred to as roots rock. Whatever you call it, their debut album, No Depression (and the three that followed it), is a whirlwind of ramshackle excellence. The band broke up because of conflicts (personal and creative) between Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. Farrar went on to form Son Volt, whose debut, Trace, is a lost treasure of the 1990s. Tweedy went on to form a band you might’ve heard of named Wilco, although his ability to get along with guys named Jay never really improved – he kicked guitarist Jay Bennett out of Wilco shortly before the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

The thing about 1990s rock is that a lot of us still know the bands that were worth knowing and hopefully we’ve forgotten the ones that are forgettable. A band you might’ve forgotten (or never known in the first place) that was heavy, loud, and totally underrated, was Hum, another Illinois band that quietly dropped a  hit into the middle of alternative rock radio in 1995 with a little song called, “Stars.” The song has been featured in Cadillac commercials and, even better, in the video game Saints Row 2. But Hum don’t deserve to be considered one-hit wonders. You’d Prefer an Astronaut, the album that gave us “Stars” is one of the only down-tuned guitar albums I can tolerate. The music is murky, heavy, and melodic in a subtle sort of way. Sadly, you can probably find You’d Prefer an Astronaut in the 99 cent bin at your local used CD store, but that should give you the perfect excuse to pick up a copy. I know these guys didn’t ever make music history per se, but they’re worth knowing about and, like all popular historians, I’m perfectly willing to only tell you what I want you to know.

I know I’ve mentioned Tom Waits before, but I just wanna point out that he won two Grammies in the 1990s. Although Mr. Waits and I share a low opinion of that particular awards show, it’s worth noting that Tom Waits is the only guy to win a Grammy for Best Alternative Rock Album (for Bone Machine) and then win one for Best Contemporary Folk Album (for 1999′s amazing Mule Variations, which was my introduction to Waits).

Also, I should mention briefly that the Smashing Pumpkins were awesome throughout the 1990s, crafting some of the heaviest guitar tunes of the decade, including “Bury Me” and “Cherub Rock,” which rivals “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for album-opening awesomeness. I pretend that Billy Corgan quit music after the pretentiously-named (but still good) Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It’s just easier that way.

A band that probably should have blown the lid off the 1990s entirely (I still don’t understand why In the Aeroplane Over the Sea isn’t in the Smithsonian or something) is Neutral Milk Hotel, led by the reclusive (to say the least) Jeff Mangum. Part of the Elephant 6 Recording Company that spawned the Olivia Tremor Control and the Apples in Stereo (obscure enough for you?), Neutral Milk Hotel only ever released two full-length albums that were driven by Mangum’s nasally  yowl and often surreal lyrics. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, inspired by recurring dreams Mangum had about a Jewish family during World War 2 (some of the songs make reference to Anne Frank’s life; some songs make references to semen staining the mountaintops. That’s just how Mangum rolls), met with increasing critical praise that led to an ever-lengthening tour schedule which, naturally, led Jeff Mangum to have a nervous breakdown that forced Neutral Milk Hotel into a hiatus that continues to this day. Nowadays, Mangum is seen in public slightly less than Bigfoot, although he has appeared on a couple of tribute/charity albums in the last couple years, which keeps the hopes of a new Neutral Milk Hotel album burning bright for the optimists out there. Me, I think it’ll never happen. And part of me hopes not. At this point, any follow-up to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea will be expected to be the musical equivalent of endless orgasms brought on by the second coming of Christ during a hail storm of Milk Duds. Call me jaded, but there’s no way the next Neutral Milk Hotel album can be as good as we all think it will be. Although I welcome Jeff Mangum to come out of the woodwork and prove me wrong.

When can we talk about the Flaming Lips? In the early 1990s, they had a big radio hit called “She Don’t Use Jelly”, from Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, which is an underrated album as well (“Be My Head” is a tremendous song). The band actually got their start in the 1980s in Oklahoma but the 1990s saw them really get their shit together in a big way. Following the awesome four-disc social experiment Zaireeka, the Lips released the best album of the 1990s (sorry, Nirvana fans), The Soft Bulletin, in 1999. The best compliment I can give an album like The Soft Bulletin is to say I’ve never heard anything like it. Because I haven’t. And you haven’t either. The Flaming Lips are as weird as they’ve ever been, and they’re still going strong – last year’s Embryonic is a kickass rock record and they put on one of the all-time coolest concerts I’ve ever seen.

That’s about it for the 1990s, I think. That pretty much catches us up to Modern Times, so I’ll conclude this increasingly not-brief history of awesome American music tomorrow by cluing you in on some stuff you might’ve missed in the last ten years. I won’t make any predictions about the future, though, ’cause that shit is always whack.

The Songs of Rocktober 80-71

The good times continue. I can’t remember the last time I posted something on a Saturday. If you’re just joining us, you can recap the first ten songs here and the next ten songs here. To keep the ball rolling:

80. Kaiser Chiefs – “I Predict a Riot” – This was a beguiling lead single from the first Kaiser Chiefs record, Employment. Why “beguiling”? Because, judging from this song, I expected that album to be awesome on a level no Brit had achieved since Pulp’s This is Hardcore album. Turns out “I Predict a Riot” was the Kaiser Chiefs’ one good tune. But it’s damn good, and should make a welcome addition to your Rocktoberfest play list.

79. Uncle Tupelo – “Nothing” – Back in the early 1990s, Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy were so good at welding country, rock, and folk together that someone named a magazine (No Depression, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about) after their first album as Uncle Tupelo. “Nothing” comes from their second album, Still Feel Gone, which is also awesome. This song is a broken-ass tune ostensibly about breaking up with a girl. It centers on the line, “Don’t/ call it nothin’/ this might be all/ we’ll ever have.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

78. Manic Street Preachers – “Jackie Collins Existential Question Time” – Okay, the title is a bit pretentious, but this song is the finest that Journal for Plague Lovers has to offer. Melodic and sacrilegious, this song is exactly what any good Rocktoberfest needs. If I ever have kids, I’m gonna get them little t-shirts that say, “Oh, Mommy, what’ s a Sex Pistol?”

77. Los Campesinos! – “My Year in Lists” – Sweet Zombie Jesus, I love this band. Every second of this not-quite-two-minute song is excellent: “Nothing says I miss you quite like war poetry carved in your door with a Stanley knife” leading up to “I cherish with fondness the day before I met you.” Few bands more capably prove that brevity is the soul of wit. If you haven’t heard Hold On Now, Youngster, we’ll hold up the rest of the countdown while you grab a copy and give it a listen.

Good shit, right?

76. The Hives – “Dead Quote Olympics” – This song could just be its chorus and I’d probably still love it. I knew what it was about just from the title, and Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist (that is possibly one of the most apt rock singer nicknames I’ve ever come across. Except for Fall Out Boy’s Crappy Pete Wentz, but I’m the only one who calls him that) and friends did not disappoint me, singing about being “showered in books and berets.” If you’ve ever met someone at a party who talks to you just to prove how smart or cool they are, this song is the perfect soundtrack for the moment when they tell you about something awesome they did and you point out that their story is eerily, sue-ably, close to the plot of some esoteric web comic.

75. Smashing Pumpkins – “Bury Me” – Remember when Billy Corgan wasn’t (as much of) a douchebag? You have to go back a ways, but there was a time when he made really amazing music and had one of the best guitar sounds of the 1990s. This track comes from Gish and features face-melting guitar work and the semi-pretentious (apparently, Corgan also had restraint back then) outro lyric “She will/ bury me.” But the guitar alone is worth it on this song. It’s really fucking great, hitting its peak right around three and a half minutes. Goddamn. That is beautiful.

74. Nine Inch Nails – “Dead Souls” – Since Trent Reznor is more or less retiring the Nine Inch Nails thing, I think now is a good time for him to release a covers album, for free or near-free, via the interwub. I’ll give him ten bucks for it. And some beers. So far, he’s the only person I can think of who should not be legally banned from covering Joy Division. This song comes to us courtesy of the soundtrack for The Crow. It builds all slow and broody, just the way Ian Curtis would want it to, and Reznor makes the most of the chorus, shrieking about how they keep calling him. Presumably, this song was written about those assholes who robo-call you and tell you your car warranty is about to expire and then try to sell you their bullshit. That’s what I heard, anyway.

73. My Morning Jacket – “Dancefloors” – If you can see the photo up there, you might surmise (as I have) that Jim James gets all his power from looking a like a fucking bear wrestling a guitar. Perhaps this is because Jim James’s father was a bear and his mother was awesome, ergo: bear + awesome = Jim James of My Morning Jacket. “Dancefloors” comes from their third album, It Still Moves (the cover of which features a giant fucking bear – possibly James’s father), and it does that whole Southern rock thing without waving any Confederate flags, dissing Neil Young, or banging Cher (your dad will get that joke). This is to be largely attributed to the awesome keyboard part and the even more awesome horn parts that take the song for a spin ’round the (ahem) dance floor for its final minute. When I’m an old man, this is what the classic rock stations will play and the world will be better for it.

72. The Who – “Baba O’Riley” – It’s important to know where you came from and the Who are a big reason for a lot of bands I really like now. They were, apparently, a huge influence on the Flaming Lips, for instance. I know a lot of people like “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” but that synth break is too long and boring for my taste (it’s still a great song, it just needs to be shorter). That’s why “Baba O’Riley” is awesome – the synthy intro gives way to a crisp, three-chord piano part which is carried on the (admittedly spastic) shoulders of Keith Moon’s insane drumming. And Roger Daltrey was one of the few singers of the so-called classic rock era who 1) had any balls and 2) could actually sing.

71. R.E.M. – “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” – Rumor has it that this song was written after Michael Stipe witnessed the caffeine-fueled spectacle that is cross-examination debate (“CX” debate, if you’re nasty). It sounds plausible. This song is so packed with verbiage, it could literally be about anything. We know it starts with an earthquake and ends somewhere after Leonard Bernstein (I actually know all the words to this song. Or I did at one time. I’d be quite keen to see if I can remember them again). In between, we feel fine. Drinking helps.

Whew. Ten more gone. The closer we get to number one, the closer we get to Rocktoberfest. The excitement continues tomorrow with the reason for all of your pop records, singing in German, and a handy party trick to impress and inebriate your friends.

Wilco (The Album) and a Mixed Bag of Sports Metaphors

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it’s 2002 and your band records one of the best albums of this decade (which means, at this point in time, you would be in the running for one of the best albums of the century and millennium so far – nice work). Your label rejects it, you tell them to get fucked, they drop you, and a few months later, one of their subsidiaries picks you up and releases your album to widespread critical acclaim. Your album helps me through a romantic rocky patch in my life and, along with the album you made before that and everything Tom Waits has ever done, your new album is part of a little musical cavern into which I would periodically crawl to lick my emotional wounds.

Congratulations, you’re Wilco, and the album in question is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Well done. Now let’s say you’re reading a Bollocks! review in 2009 and I’m talking about the new Wilco album, conveniently named Wilco (The Album). It’s easy to say that because – surprise! – that’s exactly what’s happening right now.

Wilco has entered what I’ll call the Can’t Win phase of their career. Since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco’s been trapped in a critical Catch-22 by people who thought YHF was an “experimental” masterpiece (masterpiece, yes, but it’s basically a Beatles album). They wanted more of that, please and thank you, but when Jeff Tweedy cranked up the guitars on A Ghost is Born, the critical panties grew a bit bunched. Not guitars, they said. They wanted blips and bleeps. So when Wilco released Sky Blue Sky, admittedly a great grower album (I owned it for a year before I realized, on a lazy drive back from the Bay Area, that it’s a gorgeous album in its own quiet way), the critics brought out the big guns – “dad rock,” they called it. How dare Wilco try to make 70s rock records? Those don’t have our beloved bleeps and blips. So now we have Wilco (The Album) and the critics seem to want to like it, though Pitchfork said it lacked the audacity of their other records (A.M. and Sky Blue Sky don’t strike me as particularly audacious, but maybe that’s because I know what “audacious” means. Of course, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was their most audacious album, but that’s because everyone thought they were a country-rock band and they wanted to be an awesome-rock band. Point goes to Wilco on that one) and the Onion A.V. Club dropped this critical turd nugget on the band, saying they’re capable of So Much More. They didn’t say what, exactly, that meant, which is irritating to me. I don’t know if I’ve ever used that phrase in a Bollocks! review, but if I do in the future, please call me on it. It’s lazy to say something like that without qualifying it. Saying a band is capable of So Much More isn’t saying you don’t like them – I don’t think you need to give a reason for simply not liking something (some people think you do, and I say “Fuck you” is reason enough. Sometimes you just know you don’t like something), but if you say a band is capable of more than what they’ve done on a given record, you’re implying knowledge of something they could’ve done and didn’t do. You fucking know-it-all.

Now, when I listen to an album, my primary concern is: does it consist of good songs? Wilco (The Album) consists not only of some good tunes but a few great ones. It’s a melting pot of everywhere Wilco has musically been in their career; “You Never Know” is worthy of Being There, “Sonny Feeling,” sounds like Summerteeth, “Country Disappeared” and “Deeper Down,” wouldn’t be out of place on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Maybe that’s the problem the critics have with Wilco (The Album), but I look it more like so: Wilco is capable of doing pretty much anything at this point and, with Wilco (The Album), they do a little of everything. And it sounds great. The more I listen to this album, the more I like it.

It opens, naturally, with “Wilco (The Song)” which is a literal love letter to the listener (“a sonic shoulder for your to cry on,” Tweedy sings before adding, in case you were unsure, that “Wilco will love you, baby”) and is one of the catchiest tunes Wilco has done since “The Late Greats.” “Wilco (The Song)” is followed by one of the two most beautiful tracks on the album, “Deeper Down,” (the song features a reference to triremes – you don’t hear a lot of people singing about Greco-Roman warships much these days. And, for all you critics out there, they didn’t fucking do that on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). The other super-beautiful track, perhaps the most beautiful on the album, is “Country Disappeared,” an  aching tune that has Tweedy singing, “every evening/ we can watch from above/ crushed cities like a bug”, describing the televised destruction of a once-great nation.

In 2006, I was discussing The Flaming Lips’ At War with the Mystics and I pointed out that the Lips got unfairly shit on for that record because their previous two albums were home runs and suddenly everyone was mad that they hit a triple. Most bands, it should be noted, don’t make it to first base much (for instance, bands like Nickelback dive in front of a pitch to get on base. You get the idea). I feel the same way about Wilco (The Album). Wilco has hit a couple of big home-runs in their career (their names are Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), and they usually manage at least a ground-rule double (I’ll quit with the baseball metaphors in a minute – I am talking about baseball, right?). Oh, and let’s not forget their 10th inning, 2 guys out, buzzer-beating grand slam collaboration with Billy Bragg, Mermaid Avenue.

Sure, Wilco (The Album) isn’t perfect, but perfect albums are hard to come by. Sgt. Pepper’s is perfect, London Calling is perfect, Ziggy Stardust is perfect – you see how stiff the competition is there. But who cares? I don’t only listen to perfect albums. YHF might be perfect (hell, I’m not finding much wrong on Summerteeth either) or it might not, but with Wilco (The Album), Jeff Tweedy and company have most certainly punted a double-bogie hat trick right over the net and out of the fucking park.

Goddammit, Elvis Costello

Musical ambition is, on the whole, a good thing. I much prefer artists who want to challenge themselves and expand their sound over artists who want to cash in on the same thing over and over again (is that understood, Coldplay?). However, proving the breadth and depth of your record collection doesn’t mean you’re going to make great music.

Elvis Costello is (was? is?) one of the greatest rock songwriters ever but the last twenty years have seen him attempt to prove that he’s So Much More. And I tend to agree with him in theory, but in practice he’s chosen to do so with a series of “genre” albums, the latest of which is Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane, Costello’s second country album (he released King of America in 1986 and it is a phenomenal album, perhaps the best genre exercise ever – but more on that in a minute).

Genre albums puzzle me; if you dig some style of music, why not synthesize it into your own sound and expand things that way rather than just choosing to write an album in particular genre (I don’t write individual songs in a particular genre, they just sort of end up how they end up)? You’ll still probably piss of the Pitchforkers and you can show everyone how you are more than the sum of your parts or whatever it is Elvis Costello is trying to prove. Or maybe he isn’t trying to prove anything; maybe he’s just doing what he likes. And that’s great too – for him. Just as I said about Condo Fucks, I don’t care that you record whatever you feel like, but I do care that I’m expected to shell out between twelve and twenty bucks for it. I know you think I can get the album cheaper if you make an exclusive deal with Target or Walmart or Best Buy, but fuck you if you do that: I’d rather pay more for an album at a real record store. You know, where they have selection? Also, I think I’m going to start openly encouraging people to pirate albums by artists that ink “exclusive” deals with non-record stores.

In case you can’t tell by my many digressions from the topic at hand, I’m not very impressed with Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane. It’s not just the unwieldy as hell title, nor is it that I generally have no regard for the genre album; I loved King of America, but there’s something organic about that album that is completely missing on Secret, Profane, and Billy Zane. Costello’s new country album smacks of what his ill-advised My Flame Burns Blue (Elvis singing with an orchestra and trying to be all pretty) smacked of a couple years ago – forced beauty. We’re supposed stand by and applaud Costello’s grasp of old-school country, especially since he hired some of that genre’s best living musicians to back him on the album. But Costello ruins the otherwise tolerable opener “Down Among the Wines and Spirits” by ending it with a Mariah Carey-esque attempt at a vocal flourish that is irritating, embarrassing, and hilarious all at once. The whole album feels like Costello really wants you to know that he gets old country music, and I don’t doubt that he gets it. But that don’t mean he should do it – I get hip-hop completely, but you won’t catch me attempting a collaboration with Mad Lib any time soon.

Throughout Secret, Profane, and Zombie John McCain, Costello seems to be lyrically imprisoned by his chosen style. Songs like “Hidden Shame” and “Complicated Shadows” (which is also actually kinda tolerable if you pretend Johnny Cash never lived and/or never recorded Live at Folsom Prison and why the fuck would you do that?), among many others, are country cliches about guns, gals, love, death, heartache, et cetera. Not the sort of thing I’m looking for from a guy who once wrote, “It’s the force of habit/ if it moves, then you fuck it/ if it doesn’t move, you stab it”, which comes from “Suit of Lights,” one of the many highlights of King of America. In case you haven’t gathered, I would recommend you check out King of America over Secret, Profane, and Searing Pain – it’s the first time Costello went down this road and it’s about forty times more satisfying.

The whole album isn’t awful, but I certainly don’t give a fuck about it either. There’s nothing wrong, as I said, with trying to broaden your musical horizons, but there’s better ways to go about it than by slapping together an overlong (the slow songs on Sneakers, Propane, and John Coltrane feel like they’re 90 minutes long, especially the plodding “She Handed Me a Mirror” which makes me wish she’d broken one over Costello’s obstinate head), pretty bad country record. Imagine if My Morning Jacket had just made a one-off R & B record instead of allowing their love of Curtis Mayfield, Smokey Robinson, and Marvin Gaye to inflect their awesome, guitar-rock sound. The result would’ve been far less satisfying than the exemplary Evil Urges, an album that pretty much frees MMJ from any genre tags you could apply to them. Also, Evil Urges just kicks ass. That’s the real point here. Got it? Good.

Or, to use a more classic example, The Clash were always a punk band in spirit, even as they blended rockabilly, reggae, and jazz into London Calling, an album that, admittedly, almost no one even listens to anymore, much less reveres as some sort of sacred blueprint of How to Do It Exactly Right. And, when Joe Strummer started working with the Mescaleros, he blended all of his favorite styles (all of them) into their sound, creating songs that were spiritually consistent with his status as The One True Punk but sonically, they were wonderfully varied. Perhaps, then, Elvis Costello needs to take a page from the Joe Strummer Guide to Aging Gracefully; it’s not that Costello shouldn’t find other genres to like and incorporate into his music, it’s that he needs to remember from whence he came.

And here’s the thing that galls me more than anything about Elvis Costello’s genre exercises (Pitchfork alluded to this in their review of Sucrets, Throat Pain, and The Hill of Dunsinane and I’m big enough to admit they were right) is that he’s awesome at rocking. If you like Elvis Costello, I guarantee you that your favorite of his albums is either Armed Forces, This Year’s Model, My Aim is True, or maybe When I Was Cruel (which is my favorite). And they’re all rock albums. Some of the best ones ever recorded, where Costello isn’t afraid to sneer a little and let his wonderfully snarky voice be a bit obnoxious. There’ s room to expand on that palette without abandoning it, but over the last few years, it’s as if Costello has morphed into one of the snobs who turned their noses up at his early shit – as if he’s ashamed to have bothered us with that so-called “pub-rock,” which includes classics like “Pump It Up”, “Radio, Radio,” and “Oliver’s Army,” among many others. I’m not usually given to telling musicians what to do, but: goddammit, Elvis Costello, go find an electric guitar, an amp, a drummer, and get back to doing something you kick ass at.

The Sing-Along Songs Will Be Our Scriptures

That image comes courtesy of a Google image search for “unprecedented awesomeness.” Can you guess what I’m talking about? Friends, Romans, people who only read this blog when I bash Axl Rose, I’m talking about the best band there is right now, period. I’m talking about The Hold Motherfucking Steady. When it comes to critical awesomeness, I can only be talking about The Hold Steady live.

Let me tell you how my last couple weeks has been. My band played a show. Pretty good, right? Yeah, then the drummer announced (literally at the next rehearsal) that he was moving to New York. On July 5th. July 5th is also the anniversary of my sister’s death and I found out on that day that the folks she lived with, who told me they’d find a place for her ashes, hadn’t done so yet. This is kinda important to me because 1) my sister wanted a physical place for her remains so that my niece would have a place to connect with her mom’s memory and 2) I was left in charge of all that shit (my sister’s last and perhaps finest prank on me) and I had to sign a form saying I wouldn’t abandon my sister’s remains at the funeral home (I will probably never do anything more fucking surreal than that again in my life unless Tom Waits shows up at my door randomly with a basket of home-made tacos). I’ve been staying with my boss’s dogs while my boss is out of town for a couple weeks, which means I get to occasionally visit my home, my fiance, and my dog. Oh yeah – my dog has had two fucking seizures in the last couple weeks, one of which was during the opening band’s set at last night’s Hold Steady show. The drummer who moved to NYC was supposed to go to the show with me, so I tried to hold a contest to give his ticket away in the spirit of Hold Steady-related charity. We all know how that went.

Point is, I really needed this show last night. And The Hold Steady did not disappoint me, oh no. No, they surpassed even the ass-breaking awesomeness of the first time I saw them at Lola’s Room in Portland.

The opening band was Mariachi El Bronx, which is the punkish band The Bronx doing their stuff Mariachi style. They were entertaining enough but gimmicky as fuck. Might want to hear those songs in their original forms, but I don’t care that you can dress up like a Mariachi band and rearrange all that stuff. Just. Don’t. Care.

As previously reported, I found out (via text message from my fiance) after Mariachi El Bronx left the stage that my dog had had another seizure. I also observed that a few of the 7 Obnoxious Assholes who show up at every concert were flocking near my position. As the show went on, I discovered whole groups of Set List Generators and one fat fucking alcoholic who spilled his beer on me – he was orbited by a couple smaller alcoholics who exhibited whirling dervish tendencies. You’d better read the Cracked article if you don’t know what I’m talking about here.

None of which, in the grand scheme of things, changes this simple fact: America’s best rock band, right now today, is The Hold Steady. I can see you about to suggest an alternative, but…just…don’t. There isn’t one.

They took the stage at 10:15 sharp, with Craig Finn walking up to the mic, giving a quick greeting and then launching right into “Hornets! Hornets!” from Separation Sunday. Wait. What? There are a ton of pretty obvious choices for opening song at a Hold Steady show (my money was on “Constructive Summer”), but Finn and company threw a delicious curveball with “Hornets,” starting a set that was dominated by Separation Sunday and Stay Positive.

You can, after every concert you go to, talk about all the shit that you wanted to hear that you didn’t hear. And I could devote some time to talking about how The Hold Steady didn’t even touch Almost Killed Me (not even their formerly customary closer “Killer Parties”) or how they didn’t play “Ask Her for Adderall,” which is one of their best songs. But the truth is, I don’t care. The SLGs in front of me kept calling for “Knuckles,” a song which I really love, but at the end of the day, you have to trust the bands you love to do the heavy lifting. That’s why they’re on the stage and you’re drunk in the audience. Sure, there was stuff I wanted to hear, but there wasn’t a weak spot in that show last night, so who cares if my preconceived notions weren’t met? Fuck preconceived notions! Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that the neck tattoo may be the new tramp stamp.

What The Hold Steady delivered last night, for nearly two hours, was pretty much the Platonic ideal of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Joe Strummer is dead, but the humanist spirit and generosity of his being and his music lives on in bands like The Hold Steady. They created a set that, by its very nature, lifted people into the air and forced shouts of joy from their throats. You think I’m making this shit up? Go see The Hold Steady live – and the only way to do it is to get down front and close with a bunch of strangers. One cannot have a personal space bubble at a Hold Steady show. Perhaps their finest pairing of last was playing the title track from Stay Positive (which is designed to make their fans jump up and down and shout at the top of our lungs) followed by “Constructive Summer”, at which point I was, in whatever spiritual sense there is, in ecstasy.  When the entire audience not only sang, “Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer,” but actually raised a toast to St. Joe, I realized something completely awesome: almost everyone there last night knew every word of every song. They were all sing-along songs and they will damn sure be our scriptures. At least they’ll be mine. Let’s face it: “Constructive Summer” is a helluva lot more compelling than, say, Leviticus.

Though I have not wavered in my belief that Tad Kubler is the best guitar player on Earth (I will fight you if you think John Mayer is better than Tad Kubler. I will fucking fight you), he made yet another compelling case last night, scorching through the solo on “Lord, I’m Discouraged,” and actually improving the solo from “Joke About Jamaica” by using a wah-wah pedal instead of a talk-box. Kubler flew around the stage and made it look much – much - easier than it was. The guy gave me chills.

Los Angeles audiences are not, in my (not so humble) opinion,  as awesome as Portland audiences. The L.A. kids started out okay but showed early signs of fading, not bouncing nearly as much as they should have for songs like “Constructive Summer” and “Banging Camp” (there were a few, myself included, who held up our end of the deal). And, when it came to the encore, a lot of the people just expected the band to come back out and didn’t make nearly enough noise to deserve an encore.

However, I’m glad the band is nicer than I am (I really wouldn’t have come back out if I was them) because the encore was instructive: “Stuck Between Stations” followed by “You Gotta Dance (with Who You Came With)”, “Southtown Girls,” and ending with “Slapped Actress,” which was a very effective closer. Last night was my fourth time seeing The Hold Steady live and it was the best time because they were still able to surprise me. They played stuff I didn’t think they’d play and they crafted a set that was designed for maximum cardiovascular benefit – I’m literally sore today, which is the best indicator of how hard The Hold Steady rocked last night.

Avoiding the Q-Word

I have a confession to make: I watched the first couple seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. It started out kinda interesting, kinda funny, kinda offbeat. I thought it was gonna fall between Ally McBeal and Boston Legal before numerous shark-jumps propelled the series really far up its own ass and into a morass of melodrama. Also, Grey’s has perpetrated the worst inaccuracy in the history of televsion. I know, plenty of medical shows are inaccurate (House would never be able to keep a job in a real hospital, but who cares? That show is fucking awesome) but none besides Grey’s Anatomy has committed the crime of having one of its whiniest, pussiest characters say that The Clash is his favorite band. Unlikely, Patrick Dempsey. No one who loves The Clash could be such a snivelling weiner.

I bring up your girlfriend’s favorite TV show because one of the things that began to piss me off as the show got worse was that they still would feature really good music. I’ve heard TV on the Radio, Band of Horses, and Regina Spektor (a couple of times) on that show, in episodes that were subpar to say the least. I’m not sure how much having a lot of Begin to Hope featured on ABC’s biggest show (is it still their biggest? I don’t care; they cancelled Pushing Daisies so they can go fuck themselves) pushed Regina Spektor into the national spotlight, but I also don’t care. Regina Spektor deserves to be successful and if having her music featured on the shlockiest show ever helps, that’s  all right with me.

She’s successful enough now that the Pitchfork people have decided to stop liking her, though they used to find her… (I’m not going to use the q-word, because everyone does to describe Spektor’s music and it’s just lazy at this point) eccentric, Pitchfork has decided to find her new album, Far, annoying. Incidentally, if you’re ever arguing with a Pitchfork staffer, I think a good thing to say when they turn their nose up at something you like (and they will) is, “You like Wavves.” That should pretty much invalidate whatever they’re about to say. (Am I saying Wavves is objectively terrible? I guess so. And also, I’m glad that dumb fucking kid had a massive meltdown at that festival. Maybe now that “band” can go the fuck away.)

Their loss. Spektor’s lyrics are whimsical as ever, her particular gift being the ability to go from childlike innocence to a world-weary absence of innocence in the same song (kinda how life goes, yeah?). Far really isn’t much of a departure from Begin to Hope, which might turn off some people, but I find that it’s just a really catchy, well-crafted pop album. Spektor isn’t afraid to sound a little silly, and she has a penchant for taking syllables of lyrics and turning them into tiny refrains (“Eet” is a good example of this) which are infectious and goofy. God forbid the woman have fun while she’s performing.

The strength in any Regina Spektor song is her voice, an instrument that goes from low dolphin impersonations (on “Folding Chair,” she impersonates a dolphin. It’s just barely not-annoying) to lilting high notes (like on the album opener “The Calculation,” where, for some reason, she kinda reminds me of a young David Bowie) on a whim. It’s not enough to call Spektor “quirky,” (that’s the only time I’m using the q-word), especially because the people who do it seem to be doing it in place of calling her “good.” As if they want to look at Spektor and say, “Aw, isn’t the little girl with the piano cute?” It strikes me as an almost dismissive term. Yes, Regina Spektor plays with syntax and plays with her voice to a degree that many singers do not (by the way, Pitchfork loved Fever Ray’s album, and that chick manipulates the fuck out of her voice. How come that‘s not q-riffic?) and she chews up syllables and laughs and sputters her way through songs, but rather than focusing on the unusualness of all of that, why not talk about the musicality? Like all good singers, Spektor uses her voice as an instrument and any instrument used well is going to have a wide range of sounds.

There are several really choice cuts on Far, perhaps the best of which is “Dance Anthem of the 80s,” which features all the things that Pitchfork hates about Regina Spektor. It’s a little repetitive, but it’s fun and I like any song that talks about boys and girls at “a meat market down the street.” “Dance Anthem” indulges all of Spektor’s musical weirdness, with stops and starts and those syllable-refrains, and it all manages to work because Spektor’s voice is so compelling, singing in the middle of the tune, “I am one of your people,” and showcasing one Spektor’s other talents: finding the beautiful in the middle of the silly, the sad underneath the happy, the… oh fuck, I’m running out of comparisons. Point is, Spektor’s songs are all wonderfully human, often encompassing everything that can mean in one song. The q-word just doesn’t do for stuff like that. (By the way, earlier Spektor tunes that are examples of what I’m talking about: “Us” and “Poor Little Rich Boy” from Soviet Kitsch and “Samson” from Begin to Hope.)

The first single from Far, “Laughing With,” is probably my least favorite song on the album. It’s not a bad song, but it strikes me as a little too easy. Spektor says, “No one’s laughing at God in a hospital” and I get what she’s going for, but I should like to point out that some of us aren’t thinking about God at all in a hospital. The last time I was in a hospital, God was the furthest thing from my mind (in fact, God is usually the furthest thing from my mind, despite which fact, I’m a very happy person whose life is quite meaningful, okay-thanks-g’bye). A lot of people will dig the sentiment of the song (it ends on the line, “We’re all laughing with God”) and I bet you it makes it onto an episode of Grey’s Anatomy this season, but it’s far less fascinating to me than album closer “Man of a Thousand Faces” which shares its title with a biopic about Lon Chaney Sr. but – because I didn’t Google the title until this morning and an not familiar with Oscar-nominated pictures from 1957- the subject matter of the song reminds me of Joseph Campbell (author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, one of the best books ever written – I literally read it once a year) because it talks about a guy going to a place, “that no religion/ has a found a path to or a likeness” and looking at the moon “like he knows her.” Even if the song is not about Joe Campbell (I don’t think it is, but it’s not impossible), it always makes me smile when one awesome thing reminds me of another awesome thing – in this case, I can listen to Regina Spektor and read Joseph Campbell and not have to bottle either of them up into boxes labeled with single words that don’t really do justice to their respective talents.

In summary, some instructions for good living: read Joseph Campbell. Listen to Regina Spektor. Don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy. Do listen to The Clash. That should just about do it.

Oh, and, whatever you do, don’t listen to Wavves.

Your a Tool: Chinese Democracy Hate Mail Extravaganza!

For the most part, internet comment sections are the 21st century equivalent of the Letters to the Editor section from your local paper; that is, they are typically orgies of awful grammar, bad spelling, and utter fucking stupidity. For the most part, I can honestly say the Bollocks! comment sections have miraculously avoided that particular pitfall.

(Cue dramatic music)

Until now. Early this week, I had to zip off to Wyoming (Dick Cheney country – I’m still there as I write this and, if I find that son of a bitch, you had better believe that he is in for such a water boarding) for work. On my way out of L.A., as my weak-ass laptop battery died, I dropped by Bollocks! to start a draft or two of upcoming reviews and I happened to notice my stats were a little funny. First off, let me say that I thoroughly enjoy the fact that 6 to 9 people on average read Bollocks! with anything approaching regularity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million time until I die: I am humbled and amazed that anyone reads this shit. When we hit 75 views in one day toward the end of 2008, I thought to myself, “Yeah, that won’t be happening again.” Well, on Monday of this week, more than 200 motherfuckers checked out Bollocks! And that’s really cool. Thank you, whoever you are. If you like what you saw, spread the word. If you don’t like what you saw, well, don’t be surprised by my lack of remorse. If you’re Craig Finn, I’m buying you a beer on July 7th.

Some of you clearly didn’t like what you saw in my three part, drunken review of Chinese Democracy. In fact, some of you didn’t like what you saw so much that you decided to throw caution, any understanding of what the word “subjective” means, and grammar to the wind and drag the ol’ Bollocks! comment boards to depths somewhere between your typical Onion A.V. Club article and a Fark politics thread.

The most frequent flamer was a user named Your a Tool. I did not edit the user name. He or she either meant to imply that I am a tool, in which case he/she/Axl Rose should’ve pulled his/her head out of his/her ass long enough to stick a fucking apostrophe in there (the user name, not their ass) or they wanted to be called Your Tool and accidentally hit the “a” key. Guess which one I think it is? I know Mr. or Ms. YaT is apt to argue that I’m a dick for picking on their grammar, but the fact is, I spent a lot of time in that review harping on Axl Rose’s utterly embarrassing grasp of the English language. Why? 1) I’m smart and 2)I’m a fucking music and language snob! It’s a double-edged sword that I have to try really hard not to wield pretty much all the time. Read some of the other reviews on this site, for fuck’s sake. When I don’t like something, I – because 1) it’s fun and 2) I can – rip it to fucking pieces. Also, YaT’s first comment was “you are a waste of life”, which is grammatically correct, but lacks the capital letter that kindergarteners know belongs at the beginning of a fucking sentence. So right away, YaT, you’ve fatally shown me that you do grasp the whole “your/you’re” thing and are just lazy.

YaT posted many comments, one  of which helpfully pointed out that Chinese Democracy’s title track is a metaphor but less helpfully failed to explain for what, exactly, “Chinese Democracy” is a metaphor. Metaphors are only metaphors if they refer to something which they don’t literally denote in order to suggest a similarity. And even if YaT understood the meaning of the word “metaphor” it wouldn’t somehow prevent “Chinese Democracy” from being a musical abortion. YaT points out that “Shackler’s Revenge” is about the Columbine shootings, but explaining what the songs are about doesn’t stop them from being shitty songs. “Shackler’s Revenge” could be about how dumb Glenn Beck is and it would be accurate and yet still awful. YaT also says, “when he finallys tells his side of the story on this song and album…you complain…” The “he” there is Axl and the ellipses are not mine either. Not sure what they’re doing there, but YaT fails to understand that Axl Rose isn’t the only person I complain about on this site. I complain about fucking everything! YaT nonetheless tells me I should “just go drink your life away” to which I can only respond: why on earth would I drink myself to death when there are morons like you out there floating around in cyberspace with your shitty grammar, poor understanding of figurative language, and appallingly bad taste in music, just waiting to post the next dumb comment to a blog that very few people give a shit about? Do you realize how entertaining this is for me? I don’t wanna die, YaT. I want people like you to keep coming ’round and confirming how motherfucking awesome I am and validating my clearly superior taste in music.

Here’s one of my favorite things Your a Tool said: “Axl wasnt trying to please people like yourself who are stuck in 88.” I didn’t edit YaT’s post even a bit because I want you all to understand that this person is some kind of anti-apostrophe bigot. Anyone who has read more than one post on Bollocks! (thanks, close personal friends) knows that I am anything but stuck in “88″, which I assume meant the year 1988 (which would, again, properly be abbreviated with an apostrophe before the digits. Did apostrophes kill your parents, Your a Tool?). The only album from 1988 that I even like is Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth. If I’m stuck in any year, it’s 2008 because that’s when the last Hold Steady album came out. But, YaT was right – Axl Rose wasn’t trying to please people like me just as I wasn’t trying to please people (if Guns N’ Roses fanboys can be considered “people”)  like YaT or Ossi, who was at least firm in his or her grammar when he or she wrote, “Wow, you are really stupid.” That’s an opinion to which you’re entitled, Ossi, but when people who revere Chinese Democracy think I’m stupid, I can only interpret that to mean that I am doing something incredibly, deliciously right.

YaT, among many stupid shots, fired this winner across the bow: “so lets see if your as tough as your reviews indicate…or will you be a pussy and not allow these posts to go through?” Again, he/she/Axl Rose probably meant “let’s see”, a contraction of “let us,” which would be, you know, fucking English. Well, YaT, I did let these posts go through but not because I think I’m as tough as these reviews indicate. Tough doesn’t even enter into the equation (though I am tougher than these reviews indicate because Fuck You, which is the only reason I need to do anything, ever, end of story) – I relish the opportunity to rhetorically bitch-slap idiots. Does that make me an asshole? Yeah, but that’s only one facet of my personality, and one I never dreamed would come along whilst I ejaculated my silly little thoughts about silly little albums out into the interwub.

YaT was the most prolific of the posters, but I wanted to share this tidbit with you from William Andrews: “…it is idiots like yourself that brainwash today’s young audience into liking flavour of the month music or should i say crap that is out there.” First off, Billy – can I call you Billy? I don’t care – before Monday, not nearly enough people read this blog for me to be capable of brainwashing audiences young, old, or otherwise. Second, some of the people who I know who read Bollocks! regularly either 1) disagree with me about the album (but with, you know, dignity and civility) or 2) don’t bother listening to the fucking thing. Also, people who have read more than one review on Bollocks! know that I’m definitely not shilling for the flavor of the month; I hate Wavves (indie flavor of the month) and every (every) teen-pop, emo, pop-country, et cetera act that you find on the radio. The only radio station I even listen to is 89.3 The Current which is in Minnesota. So I have to listen to them online and not on the actual radio.

I always appreciate feedback on the site and I approve any comments that don’t smell egregiously of spam, so people are welcome to respond as much as they like. Bear in mind however, that any and all attempts to convince me of the error of my ways will only have the opposite effect, amplified times infinity. Taste in music is subjective; in fact, hate to ruin the party for you, but 9/10 of life is subjective because humans are fallible creatures all of whom measure things (even the colors we see) differently. No one has to like what you like, you don’t have to like anyone, you don’t even have to use good grammar when you post stupid comments to a blog no one reads (until recently, I guess) and, most importantly, I don’t have to refrain from calling you an idiot when you do it. I will end this discussion in a way I’ve always wanted to end a public argument: futhermore, fuck you.

it is idiots like yourself that
brainwash today’s young audience into liking flavour
of the month music or should i say crap that is out
there.

The Best Albums of My Life #13: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Billy Corgan, America’s most defensive musician, once opined that nobody wakes up humming a Pavement song. This was in response to Pavement’s “Range Life,” wherein Pavement singer Stephen Malkmus says he “could really give a fuck” about The Smashing Pumpkins. Oh, and according to Wikipedia (they’re citing a biography of Pavement), Corgan threatened to yank Smashing Pumpkins from the headlining slot of Lollapalooza 1994 if Pavement was allowed to play. So Corgan has always been a good sport with a great sense of humor.

But enough about Billy Corgan – not just in this post, but in general. Enough about him. Let’s talk about Pavement, specifically Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. I have this habit with books, movies, and music where I take stock of shit that I’ve listened to/read/seen, and try to fill in the gaps,  i.e., I look at so-called “important” albums/books/films and try to judge them for myself. This yields terrific results sometimes (like with Citizen Kane - that movie is really fucking good) and horrific results other times (like with Lawrence of Arabia; it’s all right, I suppose, but it could be an hour and a half shorter and seeing Alec Guinness in olive-face to be an Arabian prince is really embarrassing), especially when it comes to music. Just the other day, I was checking out Black Flag and Minor Threat because they’re kinda important bands and I’ve never listened to them before. Let me tell you, if you’ve had a bad day, you can satisfactorily remedy it with Black Flag’s Damaged or Minor Threat’s Complete Discography.

So that’s how I found Pavement. A couple years ago, I was trying to satisfy my musical desires with an emusic account (an endeavor that ended in mega-frustration because I want a download service that lets me get whatever I want and Emusic wants to suggest shitty alternatives to bands I like) so I was trying to think of important bands I might’ve missed somewhere along the line. Behold, y’all, I found Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, one of the nicest slices of 90′s rock there is, though I’m pretty sure none of its stellar tunes made it on VH1′s 100 Best Songs of the 1990s. This could be an administrative oversight or (more likely) it could be VH1 actually knows fuckall about great music.

The album opens with the “Silence Kit,” which contains a line that is either “don’t take your grandmother’s advice about us” (I just looked that up) or “don’t take your grandmother’s advice about Usher” – it’s hard to tell and I prefer the latter interpretation because I like the idea that the world is populated with grandmothers who have lots of advice regarding Usher. Listen to the song and decide for yourself. But, either way, “Silence Kit” lets you know what you’re in for on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: loose and melodic guitar lines and catchy vocal melodies galore.

Oh, and an instrumental that is allegedly a tribute to Dave Brubeck. That’s what I like about this album, though – these guys were (and are) clearly capable musicians, despite being labeled as “slacker rock”, who could create catchy tunes that sounded a lot more effortless than they probably were.

And the lyrics are pretty good too. On “Elevate Me Later,” Malkmus sings, “I’d like to check out your public protest/ why you complaining?” and then later mentions that there’s “40 different shades of black”. “Stop Breathin’” features the line, “Write it on a postcard: ‘Dad, they broke me’” and of course, there’s “Range Life,” where he sings of Corgan’s band “I don’t understand what they mean/ and I could really give a fuck.” Apparently, that’s all it takes to get BC mad enough to risk disappointing thousands of his fans (as if his last few albums haven’t done that already – zing!). Although, lyrically, “Unfair,” might be my favorite song on the album because of this series of lines: “We got the hills of Beverly/ let’s burn the hills of Beverly/ Walk! with your credit card in the air/ swing it round just like you just don’t care/ this is the slow, sick sucking part of me”. For someone like me, there’s a lot to like about all of that.

I liked Crooked Rain a lot the first time I heard it and I only enjoy it more every time I listen to it. At the end of the day, that’s the criteria for any album to be considered one of the best released in my lifetime: how often do I really listen to it? Do I wake up wanting to listen to it? The reason London Calling is my favorite album ever is because I don’t pass a week without listening to it. That’s why some people might be irked by what’s absent from my list at the end of the year – there are a lot of “great” albums that came out in my lifetime that I never listen to (like Let It Be by The Replacements – it’s a good album, but I hardly ever listen to it). Since talking about the best anything is purely subjective to start with, I want to at least do people the favor of hyping albums that I really listen to; albums that form the soundtrack to my life, in a sense. I get songs from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain stuck in my head all the time (I guess that makes me nobody to a certain pretentious asshole Who Shall Remain Nameless), and I have days where I just want to listen to that album one or two times, and that ranks it pretty highly in my personal pantheon of awesome albums.