I Have Something In My Eye

Bon Iver

Bon Iver

2011 Jagjaguwar

Goddamnit, Justin Vernon, don’t you do this to me again.

Look pal, I’m a grouchy, cynical, sarcastic curmudgeon and I’ve spent years sculpting this delicate mask of contempt and ennui to cover up my own insecurities and deep-seated emotional issues. Fuck you for trying to tear that all apart with your fucking beautiful music.

Here’s a quick science lesson for you, dear readers, on the phenomenon known as mechanical resonance. The premise is that most structures have an inherent resonant frequency and when an outside influence affects the structure with vibration at or near that frequency the structure will begin to oscillate and eventually break apart to release the stored energy. Think of the image of a wine glass breaking when someone sings a high-pitched note. The same principle can be applied to skyscrapers and bridges; once they start moving at a certain frequency they simply shake themselves apart.

Why do I bring this up? Well, because that’s what happened to me when I heard “For Emma, Forever Ago”; the whole of the album resonated with me at just the right place and it caught me unaware and honestly affected me. For a guy who can find something wrong with almost anything that’s a very rare occurrence. So rare in fact that I was certain it wouldn’t happen again in the near future, let alone 3 years later, let further alone from the same goddamn band. Yet here I am, listening to “Bon Iver” for what must literally be the 15th time and I’ve found myself looking around for things that could have potentially gotten in my eye to justify the puffiness in my face. It’s difficult to be objective about Bon Iver; when you’ve got a connection to a record the bias will always show through. There are things that I can pick apart, there are places where the album briefly dips below its stratospheric cruising altitude, but I can forgive them because of how this album makes me FEEL and for me that holds a lot of water.

If there was one theme to take away from the quiet sincerity of “For Emma, Forever Ago” it would be “patience” and that’s equally true here. Justin Vernon is in no rush to reveal these things he’s prepared and he has a master plan. There is nothing wasted on “Bon Iver”, and often it’s the places others may loiter that draw us in. An extra measure here and there between melodies and extended intros treat every sound as tiny gear in an immense but softly ticking clock; the words swim in the sound rather than drift above it and once again it’s the sound of his voice over his words that creates the binding fog filling the forest, trickling in around the trunks and leaves of expertly executed music. The extra few seconds of silence at the beginning of the album, where you have to check to make sure you actually hit Play, serve as a small signal to tell your mind to return to its seat before the warm, skipping notes of the main guitar theme of “Perth” begin. The opening track is a complex contrast to everything Bon Iver has produced thus far with the addition of distorted, chugging guitars, military marching beats, thunder and bombast it’s instantly implied that this is a whole new creature. The track is all galloping, clumsy energy chasing across the fields until it exhausts itself and crumbles to a close dripping seamlessly into “Minnesota, WI”. The album is full of little moments like this; surprising crests and comforting valleys, lingering pauses that let the mood ebb and flow like small tides pushing and pulling an anchored boat, always gently undulating while a current of drowsy strings and choral sigh slips silently underneath.

One high water mark, an ode to regret and distance called “Holocene” calls back fondly to the now legendary cabin where the mythology of “For Emma, Forever Ago” was birthed but bursts forth with weeping pedal steel, bumblebee saxophones the powerfully climactic confession “and at once I knew / I was not magnificent”.  Follow that with the low tide calm of “Hinnom, TX” and “Wash.”, two desolate, expansive twin tracks that drift slowly across dusky flats stretching the space between the sprinklings of instrumentation to near silence until you’re alone in dry air with a few piano keys and Justin Vernon’s distracted but pensive musings.  This quiet moment leads into the first single “Calgary”, a ghostly and driving number that imagines TV on the Radio if they’d come from Northern woodlands and the collected musicians of Bon Iver throw everything they’ve got at it.

Then there’s the album’s curveball closing number “Beth/Rest”, which may split fans as to whether Justin Vernon is taking Bon Iver in a frightening new direction or if he’s simply given in to some sort of reminiscent irony as the track is straight, un-winking Yacht Rock.  Like Steve Winwood, Bruce Hornsby style smooth-adult-contemporary-lite-rock. It’s guaranteed to leave the listener with a kind of “huh” experience and doubtless there will be some who cry foul and claim it’s cheesy (my wife included) but it has a certain sincerity sprinkled on top of what would otherwise be a very tongue-in-cheek dig on the Kenny G Era in music’s history. Personally it’s one of my favorite songs on the album and I’d defend it further but I fear it would expose my obsession with mid-tempo late 80’s piano rock. Oh wait, I think I just did.

Overall this “Bon Iver” is everything one could hope from a sophomore release; it builds on the foundation of its predecessor and improves as well as innovates. It explores itself while never straying too far from the overall tone and it really shows the range of Justin Vernon’s song writing skill. It stands up to repeated (and repeated) listens and I’m already securing it in my top 5 of 2011. Just a goddamn good record. That is all.

In Which the New Owl City Album is Mistaken for a My Little Pony Soundtrack

Owl City

All Things Bright and Beautiful

2011 Universal Republic

I have a feeling this review may unfairly paint me as a misogynist, which would be incorrect, and as an elitist, which may be less incorrect, for arriving at the conclusion that “All Things Bright and Beautiful” by Owl City is music for little girls. Most likely virgins, specifically mid-to-late teens who live in repressed, conservative religious households who are saving their first kiss for their wedding day and still unironically sleep with stuffed animals.

Here’s how I arrived at this odd and somewhat creepy diagnosis:

First, I listened to the record and felt my testicles tense up like they were about to get slapped; this typically happens when I hear something overly cloying and patronizing, but it also happens when someone threatens to slap my coin purse. By the end of my first excursion through this album I was assured in my assumption that this was not music for men. Now, let me be the first to swat down that volley of sneering from those who might think that by “men” I mean “guys”; I subscribe to the school of thought that celebrates all facets of emotionalism in masculinity rather than the limited and somewhat retarded view held by popular culture which pigeonholes “men” as giant wads of aggression, semen and sports statistics high-fiving their way down the street calling each other “bra” and “hoss”. In fact, I imagine that there would be more of those types who secretly cry to Owl City alone in their pickup truck then average men might. What I mean is that Owl City is not constructed for men in that it’s bubbly electro-pop music about dreams and flowers and starlight, and that’s not what men listen to. I don’t think I’m over-generalizing here.

Thus I deduced that it must be music for women. So, secondly, I held up to my idea of what “women” listen to. What I found there was either A) Sex, either implied implicitly or withheld, tucked behind a thin robe of innocence or weird father roles. B) Empowerment, or at least the idea of it since it’s usually tied in with sex and compensating for self-esteem issues rather than being empowered by working hard, being honest and treating people well. And C) actual good music.

Owl City featured none of those qualities either so that’s where I came up with this “unspoiled captive virgin” thing. Owl City is music for girls who still want to believe in unicorns and princes and the sweetness of nature and haven’t had that special tingle in their swimsuit area. Furthermore it’s for women who wear white sweatshirts with bears on them and have 9 lace covered throw pillows on their squishy corduroy loveseat. They have a favorite pillow that they hug when they’re watching ABC Family original programming and movies on Lifetime.

Owl City is for them and they can keep it. They can keep it on their corkboard next to the collage of meaningful images cut from old magazines and washed out photos of “The Gal-Pals” monthly romp at Applebee’s. “All Things Bright and Beautiful” is the music gay robots hear when they take mushrooms. It’s a face-puckering cocktail of persistent, blind optimism coupled with fantastical, Lisa Frank-ish descriptions of magical landscapes and love and hugs that seems dangerously close to mental illness.

Musically every Owl City track sounds like it could (and probably will) be featured in the trailer for the latest template “plucky girl makes it big and finds love along the way” romantic comedy, while lyrically… well, let’s just say “… I’m a chickadee in love with the sky / but that’s clearly not a lot to crow about…” and “…i swear, there’s lots of vegetables out there / that crop up for air / and yet I never thought we were two peas in a pod / until you suddenly bloomed…” sum it up nicely.  The album yearns to take the listener to a magical fluorescent foliage fantasy where seeing a dew drop on a rose petal causes such all-consuming joy that your entire being explodes into a shower of glitter and sunbeams. Instead it makes you want to eat your own face and carve the word “STOP” into your arm with a dirty bottle cap.

I didn’t think there could be a voice more saccharine and shrill than Adam Young’s but the butt-clenchingly twee performance by guest vocalist Breanne Düren in “Honey and the Bee” has shattered that notion. She sounds like a fucking Care Bear trying to flirt with a basket of baby rainbows. No, she sounds like a basket of baby rainbows doing baby talk to pocket-sized lavender elephants skipping through a field of singing, baby-headed daisies. And don’t even get me started on the RAP in “Alligator Sky”. Who the fuck is that for?! It lends about as much street-cred and edge as your mom knitting you a Crips bandana or inviting a biker gang to Chuck-e-Cheese for your birthday party.

HOWEVER. I have a weird thing about music being honest, in other words music created without the pretense of being cool, marketable or self-important. That’s a brief and summary explanation of a greater concept that I hope to go into more later. But, if there’s one thing nice I can say about Owl City it’s that it is honest music. No one would create music like this to be cool, it’s too odd to be bluntly mainstream and it does anything but take itself seriously. I mean there are songs about being in love with flowers and trees in here. Now, I don’t give music a pass for being bad simply for the argument that “some people might like it” or “it’s just fun music, what’s wrong with that?”; it’s that kind of thinking that leads to the stagnant middle where everyone stops trying and we all just ingest whatever we’re served by the marketing department. Believe me, it’s still all just awful but it’s awful in a very specific way. I know there will be people who love this record and I can’t fault them for enjoying music that somehow speaks to them, and in fact Owl City itself is actually doing minimal damage to “music” as a whole; I don’t predict many copycat acts and I don’t see a new scene of teenage fashion or hipsterism  popping up, revolving around love of nature and fascination with stars and birds – well, beyond the hippie crap that hipsters already subscribe to- so I think Owl City may just be a singular example of horrifying cartoon feel-good nonsense tossed into the swirling vortex of all the other shit about to gurgle out of culture’s toilet bowl.

Jim Carroll Joins Other People Who Died

Well fuck. Let’s do the math, shall we? Joey Ramone: 49 short years before dying of lymphoma. Joe Strummer: 50 years on this earth before his heart killed him. Jim Carroll: 60 years (many of them on drugs) before his heart killed him. Everyone in Fallout Boy: as of this writing, they’re still alive. Where’s your Intelligent Design now?

So yeah. I just read that Jim Carroll, author of The Basketball Diaries - yes, the book that is the basis for the Lenny DiCaprio drug flick – and writer/performer of Catholic Boy, (one of the best albums I’ve ever heard; it’s frequently hailed as the last great punk album. Conveniently, it came out in the U.S. the same year London Calling and I did) died on Friday. According to his ex-wife, it was a heart attack. No word yet on whether or not he looked like 65 when he died. But seriously, Carroll was, from the little I’ve read, a pretty awesome poet. And I’ve already pointed out this year that Catholic Boy, though a recent discovery, has had a profound effect on my musical life. Any way you slice it, this fucking sucks. I mean seriously: Death couldn’t pick off a Jonas Brother or something?

You can read an obituary here that’s pretty good, I suppose. Patti Smith pushed the dude towards music and I’m sure he didn’t disappoint her. There’s lots of jokes going around about “People Who Died” because it’s considered his big hit, and that’s cool, but you’re really missing out if you dig that song and don’t check out the rest of Catholic Boy. Carroll was an enormous creative talent and maybe his death will bring more attention to his writing and music. Dude even inspired the Hold Steady (regular Bollocks! readers will recognize the Hold Steady as my rarely-mentioned favorite band), an influence which is pretty obvious if you listen to Catholic Boy. Did I mention you should listen to Catholic Boy? Because you should. After all, it’s too late to fall in love with Sharon Tate, but not too late to fall in love with Jim Carroll’s thunderously badass music.

I’m really bummed here. I had just really gotten into the Clash in 2002 (the first year I heard London Calling) when Joe Strummer died and now that I’m really into Jim Carroll’s stuff, he’s kicked off. I also just recently listened to Black Flag for the first time and (naturally) loved it, so maybe Henry Rollins should take some extra care for the next couple of days, yeah? We can’t afford to lose any more awesome people.

I’m gonna raise a toast to Jim Carroll (say hi to St. Joe and Joey Ramone and George Carlin and Kurt Vonnegut) and leave you with this awesome pairing of (what else?) Dead Rising and “People Who Died.”

They were all my friends, why did they die?

Election Special: The Best Political Songs (I Can Think Of Right Now)

If you’re anything like me, you’re nervously frittering away the hours today until results (precious, precious results!) come in, telling you that our long national nightmare has either begun or ended, depending on your political leanings.

So waste some time on this: a list of the best political songs I think of at this particular moment (and one of the worst), in no particular order:

Leadbelly, “Bourgeois Blues”: First off, let’s get this outta the way quick – if you don’t know who Leadbelly was, you need to listen to him right now. Leadbelly inspired everyone from Tom Waits to CCR to Aerosmith to Nirvana and Mark Lanegan. Yes, Nirvana. “Bourgeois Blues” is a tune Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter by birth) co-wrote with Alan Lomax about how Leadbelly and his girl could only eat in certain restaurants when they were with the very white Mr. Lomax and his wife. If that’s not enticing enough, consider how hardcore Leadbelly was – three trips to jail in his life, shot down at least two dudes who crossed him. What I’m saying, so we’re clear, is there is not a single (studio)gangsta rapper out there who could last two minutes in a scrap with Huddie Ledbetter.

R.E.M., “Exhuming McCarthy”: If you listen to R.E.M.’s 80s output (and you should), one thing is crystal clear: R.E.M. fucking hated Ronald Reagan and his fuck-the-poor (aka “trickle down”) economic policies. “Exhuming McCarthy” nails Reagan to the Christian Right morality police who came to power during his administration with lines like “Vested interest, united ties/ landed gentry rationalize/ look who bought the myth/ By jingo, buy America”. This song also features Mike Mills’ best-ever backing vocal: he sings (with a poppy bounce) “Meet me at the book burning” as the song fades out. Not only is “Exhuming McCarthy” a killer pop song but, like many of R.E.M.’s 80s songs, it has enjoyed a frightening return to relevance in the last eight years.

The Clash, “Clampdown”: I could’ve populated this list with Clash tunes: “White Riot,” “Spanish Bombs,” “Rock the Casbah,” etc. But “Clampdown”, off of London Calling (best album ever), pretty much exemplifies the Clash’s political theory: “Kick over the wall/ cause governments to fall/ how can you refuse it?/ Let fury have the hour/ anger can be power/ do you know that you can use it?” This so perfectly encapsulated Joe Strummer’s poltics that Let Fury Have the Hour became the name of a book about (surprise) Joe Strummer’s politics. “Clampdown” is also a great political song because it’s timeless – it’s a general fuck-off to the daily grind and to the guys who profit off the sweat of your brow (“it’s the best years of your life they want to steal”). And of course, it has to be a good song which is guaranteed by the fact that it’s performed by The Clash at the absolute peak of their power.

Non-Prophets, “Hey Bobby” - I think Sage Francis eventually released this tune on one of his compilations before A Healthy Distrust came out and signaled the officially dropping of the ball that he would follow with the unwieldy Human the Death Dance. But Non-Prophets were definitely Sage Francis’s finest hour and this song was theirs: “It’s not a love it or leave it/ it’s a change it or lose it” is still one of the most powerful lines a person can write. “Hey Bobby” captures a man’s frustration with his country, a frustration ultimately born of love – why fight to change a nation you hate? You’d just let it rot, but “Hey Bobby” is Sage Francis saying that’s not gonna happen on his watch.

Ani DiFranco, “‘Tis of Thee” – Ah, Ani DiFranco. If you want a polarizing figure in American music, you can’t do much better than Ani. Ferociously independent and wonderfully opinionated, she has courageously refused to ever cave in to the desire to sell records (like, say, Liz Phair did) and she’s been rewarded by a loyal fanbase that scarfs up her albums and concert tickets like it’s their civic duty. “‘Tis of Thee” is not the loudest, most strident Ani song (like The Clash, she has plenty of political stuff to choose from); it’s soft, mournful, and yet still aggressive: “They caught the last poor man today… and they dragged his black ass down to the station” is followed later by “we’ll never live long enough/ to undo everything they’ve done to you”. Love her or hate her, you can never accuse DiFranco of having lost her will to fight, but “‘Tis of Thee” is her with her hope at rock bottom, a mournful anti-anthem.

Tom Waits, “Road to Peace” – Tom Waits usually eschews the directly political, but sometime in 2005, he got really really really pissed off about worldly affairs and spat out this masterpiece about the conflict between Israel and Palestine (with a healthy dose of vitriol reserved for W. and his utter lack of competence). The song welds Waits’ gift for storytelling to that little ticker that scrolls along the bottom of your screen on CNN. Not many singer/songwriters could get away with something like this, but Waits uses his unique voice and ear for percussive arrangements to deliver lines like, “The last thing he said on earth/ was ‘God is great and God is good’/ Then them all to kingdom come/ out along the road to peace”. Where’s your roadmap now, GWB?

Pulp, “Common People” – First off, I (dis)respectfully dedicate this song today to Sarah Palin, who talks a lot about the common man but clearly is not of his ilk, nor does she care much about him. The GOP nominee’s policies would not help Joe the fucking Plumber, but he doesn’t seem to know that. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. You probably missed Pulp among the Britpop heyday of the late 90s because Blur (cool) and Oasis (less cool, but usually tolerable) were the big names on the scene. So go to the YouTubes right now and look up “Common People.” Jarvis Cocker, a true hero, narrates a tale of  a wealthy daddy’s girl out slumming it among the common people (“I want to sleep with common people like you”, the most backhanded compliment ever). He takes her to the super market and says, “Now pretend you’ve got no money.” She laughs but Jarvis can’t see anyone else laughing in there. Best lines: “You’ll never fail like common people/ never watch your life slide out of view/ and dance/ and drink/ and screw/ ’cause there’s nothing else to do,” and, of course, “If you called your dad, he could stop it all.”  Which brings us to another reason to fucking love Jarvis Cocker:

Jarvis Cocker, “Running the World” – Years after writing “Common People,” and years after Pulp broke up, Jarvis released his first solo album, simply called Jarvis. It’s a dark, contrarian masterpiece that wraps up with “Running the World,” Cocker’s reflection on the state of things in 2007: “cunts are still running the world.” It’s worth quoting at length: “Did you hear there’s a natural order/ those most deserving will end up with the most/ that the cream cannot help/ but always rise up to the top/ well, I say:/ shit floats”. All this delivered with Cocker’s unmatched pop sensibilities. If today doesn’t go your way, kids, put this song on. It’ll help you laugh away those bitter tears.

Also worth mentioning: Uncle Tupelo: “We’ve Been Had”; Mac Lethal: “Pass the Ammo”; Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: “Army Bound”; anything by Public Enemy (pre 2000) and Billy Bragg; Black Sabbath: “War Pigs,” and The Flaming Lips’ entire At War with the Mystics album. Now get the fuck out there and vote!

Oh – and the worst political song ever: “Civil War” by Guns ‘n’ Roses: Seriously, this song only proves that Axl Rose doesn’t know shit about shit. What civil war is he talking about? The American one? He kinda did need it or his country wouldn’t exist as he knew it when he penned this shitpile of a song. Is he talking about goings-on in eastern Europe at the time? Doubtful. It’s more likely that he thought it’d be cool to be all political and try to sound smart. So he coughed up this chunk of epic failure and proved himself a fool by opening his mouth. As if we ever doubted him.

Douche Bagnetic

It’s Rocktober 1st. Rocktoberfest is coming up on the 18th (if you don’t know what that it is, consider it a pity you’re not invited). I’ve bided my time. I’ve read Tad’s “words” if you can call ‘em that and I’m ready to weigh in.

So what do I think of Metallica’s Death Magnetic?

Though the internet is frequently derided as the home of indie/hipster types (I’ve been called a hipster for voicing my opinion – also an objective fact – that Journey sucks; I include this just so you have some sort of criteria upon which to judge me), it is full of people who will gladly call you a fag in a tirade replete with misspelled words if you happen to suggest either of the following: 1) Metallica sucks or 2) Guns ‘n’ Roses sucks, and Chinese Democracy is more likely to end the world than the Large Hadron Collider (how, you ask? Why, it will create a massive black hole of Utter Suckitude that will pull the entirety of the universe into it; I think Stephen Hawking has published articles on this). Stop by any given music thread on Fark if you don’t believe me.

So I might be incurring the wrath of these internet Metallica-lovers by saying so, but the fact is, Death Magnetic is not only awful, it’s frequently unintentionally hilarious. These are grown men singing about “death,” “darkness,” “blackness,” and things shouting things like “We! Die! Hard!” (clearly a reference to the fact that you get a stiffy when Rigor Mortis sets in). It’s like watching a Wes Craven movie. No one with half a brain is frightened by Wes Craven movies, just as no one with half a brain believes the spolied millionaires in Metallica are really the tortured souls they’re trying to portray on Douche Bagnetic. This shit should be dark and broody, and all that, but the fact is, Metallica is less compelling as a metal band than Dethklok. When you’re getting your ass kicked by a joke cartoon band, it’s time to hang it up.

James Hetfield, as ever, is a histrionic mess on Death Magnetic. I’m guessing that’s supposed to be cathartic for metalheads or whatever, but it sounds ridiculous. When he shrieks “This I swear!” on “The Day That Never Comes”, I feel like he should be a villain in one of the Joel Schumacher Batman movies. Hetfield’s villain  name could be The Nightmare and he could make puns about death and blackness while singing about hunting Batman down “All Nightmare Long.” Sounds more than a little plausible, doesn’t it? Fortunately, the Batman movie franchise is now in the much safer hands of Christopher Nolan.

Unfortunately, Metallica is still a band. There’s a place for brooding on mortality in song, don’t get me wrong. I See a Darkness is one of the finest (and most cripplingly depressing) meditations on love and death (mostly death) I’ve ever heard. But the difference between Will Oldham and Metallica is that I See a Darkness convinces the listener that this is what was on Oldham’s mind at the time, that he’d actually sat down and thought about this shit. Death Magnetic convinces me that Metallica had a meeting where they pulled metal tropes out of hat and said, “Ooh… that would be cool in a song. Like, what if we badly paraphrase Nietzsche and then scream ‘We! Die! Hard! at the end? That would tight, dog.” You see the difference? It’s not merely the subject matter that’s the problem here – it’s the assholes delivering it.

Death Magnetic runs rampant with examples of Metallica’s painful suck – on “Cyanide,” Hetfield drops this turd nugget: “Suicide/ I’ve already died” See what he did there? He rhymed “Suicide” and “died.” And then says “Cynaide/ dead inside.” Point being, this fucker cannot write. There is not one song on Death Magnetic equal in awesomeness or quality to Lordi’s “Devil’s a Loser.” Not one. There is also not one song shorter than five minutes on this album; Metallica has to allow for Kirk Hammett’s noodly, wah-drenched solos (I was hanging out w/ Radio America after their gig at the Viper Room a couple of weeks ago and Tom Stuart brougth up a salient point. When it comes to using a wah-wah pedal, you have to ask yourself one question: “Are you Jimi Hendrix? If the answer is ‘yes,’ then you can use a wah-wah pedal.”). At a certain point, you have to admit Hammett is an accomplished musician, technically speaking. At a cetain other point, you realize that pretty much makes him the Kenny G of the guitar. Knowing a lot of notes and being awesome at playing notes are two drastically different things.

Of course, the elephant in the room here (the bloated, corporate elephant of cock-rock excess) is “The Unforgiven 3.” On paper, this is just fucking stupid. On record, it’s shameless. Especially when Douche-tallica eases you into the song by ripping off Richard Wright’s (rest in peace) awesome keyboard lick from “Comfortably Numb.” Yes, Metallica has resorted to putting bits from great songs in their shitty songs. The result is an aneurysm-inducing failure of epic proportions. We find out in “The Unforgiven 3″ that, according to Hetfield “It’s me I can’t forgive.” I can’t forgive you either, James. Go fuck yourself.

At the end of the day, if you’re like Tad the K-ROQ intern (who was recently found dead, by the way, stabbed repeatly by a shiv made from what appears to have been a broken and/or twisted Red Bull can; contrary to popular belief, I was not at the scene of the crime but in my office listening to the new TV on the Radio album), you’re gonna love Death Magnetic and hate my guts for pointing out that it sucks so hard that it makes me laugh. If you’re like me (a devilishly handsome person with dignity and taste), you probably haven’t even trifled with Death Magnetic. In that case, you might be wondering why I even subjected myself to such torture; I can only answer that my best friend is paying me twenty bucks to sit through Beverly Hills Chihuahua next weekend, so it might have something to do with a masochistic streak buried none-too-deeply under the surface.  Whatever. Go look up “Devil’s a Loser” on YouTube.

Mission Control

Let me talk to you for a second about The Whigs. They’re from Athens, Georgia. There are three Whigs, and no Tories to oppose them (please, if you’re in a band called The Tories, please contact me here immediately. Best battle of the bands ever will follow shortly after): Parker Gispert handles guitars and singin’, Tim Deaux does the bass (according to their crapspace page), and Julian Dorio beats the shit out of the drums. That’s it. Three Whigs. Still, as of the end of this paragraph, they outnumber the Tories (I realize there’s a Tory party in the UK, but we’re talking about the good ol’ US of A here)

But for serious – if you like to plug your guitar in, turn the amp up real loud, and bash out notes to a pounding drum beat, it helps to have a certain understanding that 1) what you’re doing requires little or no pretension and 2) you are not the first person to ever do what you are doing. Where this understanding is in place, you get albums like Oasis made when they started out – albums that make other people want to play their guitars really loud. Where this understanding is lacking, you get albums like Oasis makes now. And nobody wants that. The Whigs possess this understanding in abundance and it has helped them to pick up the ball that the Foo Fighters dropped some time after recording The Colour and the Shape.

Gispert even sounds a little like a younger Dave Grohl, the key difference being that Parker Gispert has a cooler name (seriously – sounds like the secret identity of a superhero) and isn’t running around paying tribute to every band your alcoholic stepdad loves (in fairness to the Fighters of Foo, however, paying tribute to The Who is perfectly acceptable – they really rocked back in the day and if you doubt that, well, you must have suffered some sort of head trauma recently). Gispert also grasps a sense of dynamics that is a little more involved than Mr. Grohl’s soft verse/loud chorus shtick that is getting older by the minute. Mission Control is a meat-and-potatoes rock record with pounding drums (check out “Need You Need You” for a prime example of this – Dorio plays drums like he’s in war, the way rock drummers should play) and loud guitars galore.  Which means that, yeah, you’ve heard this stuff before. But you can’t dismiss Mission Control on those grounds – The Whigs are playing with a combination of earnestness and unassumingness that is nigh irrefutable.

The first time I heard of The Whigs, I was at this barbecue, ’round Memorial Day weekend. This dude got wicked drunk and started talking about everything “one musician to another” as if that meant that I had to agree with him because, hey, we both play music (I heard this same dude sing later that night and I dunno if it was the booze or not, but he fucking sucked). He kept talking about MGMT (he said that Oracular Spectacular is the album of the year; he’s wrong) and The Whigs. He said he thought the Whigs sounded like Nirvana. They sound like Nirvana the way Tom Waits sounds like Hillary Duff. Point is, this guy’s incessant bullshitting about bands I should be listening to chased me away from The Whigs for a long time. They don’t sound like Nirvana, but they are a good fucking band.

The album opens with “Like A Vibration,” which establishes the tone for Mission Control: loud, short, and sweet. Gispert growls, “My reputation/ is hanging around my neck/ it’s hanging out in bars,” but doesn’t sweat it much. “Vibration” is followed by the awesome, funky “Production City,” which sounds like a cross between Franz Ferdinand and The J. Geils Band if The J. Geils Band didn’t suck monkey balls. “Production City” is among the standout tracks on Mission Control, probably second best behind “I’ve Got Ideas,” which is a melodic, horn-infused pop gem where Gispert is asking for and (apparently) receiving forgiveness because he “tangled up my tongue/ beneath a white lie”. To pick up the Grohl comparison one last time, the head Foo Fighter could benefit from studying Gispert’s grasp of pop (which is not a dirty word – like R&B, pop has been co-opted by charlatans out to make big money. If you want to know what pop should sound like, go back and listen to The Beatles and then, for a contemporary reference, check out The Whigs and The New Pornographers. “The Slow Descent into Alcoholism” by the New Pornos is as perfect a slice of pop music as we’re apt to get for a long while). In short, Mission Control is a good album by three guys who clearly enjoy what they do. It’s the kind of album I always think will grab a band a wider audience and some dubious accolades from the more mainstream music press – it almost never works that way, but don’t let it stop you. It’s been a good year for good rock music, and The Whigs are part of the reason why.

Kathleen Edwards Made Me Cry But I’m Not Going Emo On You

More people know of Alanis Morrissette and Avril Lavigne than Neko Case and Kathleen Edwards. If you’re a little out of step with me, here’s the thing: they’re all female vocalists (and, presumably songwriters) from Canada, eh? Obviously, the similarities end there. If you know your ass from a hole in the ground (and if you’re reading Bollocks!, I have to assume you do; unless you just come here for the abuse), you know that Neko Case and Kathleen Edwards are far superior songwriters, musicians, and vocalists than those other two Canucks. But again… the two inferior ones are better known. You and I both know that people who argue that a musician’s popularity (record sales, income levels, etc.) in any way speaks to their musical ability are people who lead lives utterly devoid of substance, adventure and – barring the occasional happy accident- taste. Their favorite band is the Beatles, their favorite playwright is Shakespeare, etc. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with digging the Beatles and Shakespeare, but you know what I mean – they’re defaults for a lot of people. These are the kind of people who will tell you Citizen Kane is the best movie ever, even if they’ve never seen it.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Kathleen Edwards has a new album. It’s called Asking for Flowers. If she’s asking for flowers, you should probably send her some. Go on, I’ll wait. You’re already reading this shitty blog while you should be working, so open a new tab (Ctrl-T, Dad), pop over to whatever flower delivery site you like best, and send some flowers to:

Kathleen Edwards, Care of Canada.

Include a note, will ya? “Dear Kathleen: Love your voice, love your songs. Here’s those flowers you asked for.”

Kathleen Edwards has one helluva voice, doesn’t she? Do yourselves a favor, aspiring female vocalists – don’t draw your inspiration from those breathless, synthesized teenagers. Listen to Kathleen Edwards telling you not to be like that on “Buffalo,” or -better yet – listen to her talk about “cold ambivalence” on “O Canada”. Follow that with heavy doses of the aforementioned Neko Case, Emma Pollock, and Regina Spektor.

Point is, Asking For Flowers is probably Ms. Edwards’ finest album yet. I didn’t think so the first time I heard it, but it has grown on me slow and sure, just like Failer did way back in the day. Back to Me was a little to FM-friendly for me (although “The Independent Thief” is a dope song) and it made me long for the lonesome, tired Failer. If you took the mood of Failer and dated it for a while, dumped it at a truckstop (sticking it with the bill, of course) with nothing but a name and a newspaper full of bad news and bullshit, you might end up with something like Asking For Flowers. Edwards taught herself to play the piano for this album and she shows off her new chops by opening the album with “Buffalo.” “Buffalo” lets you know what you’re in for; it’s a slow-burning, mostly depressing ride from Canada across the border (but she can’t go back, according to the customs guy in the song).

Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of piss-and-vinegar stuff on Asking for Flowers. “The Cheapest Key,” showcases Edwards’ ability to go from flirting to flipping you off in less than a second. “The Cheapest Key,” apart from being a music theory in-joke, is one of the better uptempo tunes on the album. “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory,” is really the only misstep on Asking for Flowers; it’s a little too gimmicky for Edwards and, while I get that there’s precious little room to laugh on this record, “I Make the Dough” just doesn’t fit. I want to curl up with the rest of this album and bawl. “I Make the Dough” only gets in the way of that.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but “I Make the Dough,” really ends up looking bad (it’s not awful, it’s just a mood killer in the middle of the album) sandwiched between the stellar “Alicia Ross” (about a real murder case in Canada; a young woman was abducted from her back porch by a neighbor and killed. Apparently, the guy who did it claimed that she called him “a loser,” which is what made him snap… proving that he’s a fucking loser) and “Oil Man’s War,” about a dude going AWOL to Ms. Edwards’ homeland (good luck with the customs guy, pal). Kathleen Edwards has plopped herself at her most gimmicky (“I Make the Dough”) in between two examples of her at her best.

I didn’t start this here music blog (I love it when newspapers refer to “web blogs,” don’t you? Really shows you why print is dead) to whine about my personal shit; I started it to swear about my favorite (and least favorite) bands. But, as the six or so people (on average) who read Bollocks! know, my sister died earlier this summer. There are three albums that have helped me deal with this fact (I almost wrote that I “lost” my sister earlier this summer. She would, no doubt, appreciate me pointing out that I haven’t “lost” her; I know right where she is, it’s just not here.): the first is The Airing of Grievances by Titus Andronicus, the second is Stay Positive by The Hold Steady, and the third is Asking for Flowers. The Titus Andronicus record is for when I’m angry (and I think I’m within my rights to be mad that my sister only lived 31 years; there are far too many tossers in the world who will live twice that long on average; but I digress), the Hold Steady one is for when I’m happy and at peace (or trying to be) and Asking for Flowers, especially “Scared at Night” (fucking hell – she talks about watching her brother die in that song. Fucks me right up, but in a weird, cathartic way), is for when I just need to be tired and sad about it.  I realize that may be a slightly emo note to end on, but don’t worry; I’m not gonna start cutting myself or anything. Just saying – sometimes, you need to recognize that you feel like shit and Asking for Flowers helps with that. Thanks a lot, Kathleen Edwards.

Two Best Albums of 2007

The two best albums of 2007 are Cease to Begin by Band of Horses and Boxer by The National. Which one is number one and which one is number two? I’ve been arguing with myself on that note for a long time and the best I can do is that Band of Horses made my favorite album of ’07 and The National made the best album of ’07. Since such arguments are completely arbitrary, I’m pretty sure I can make my case.

Look: the first time I heard “Is There A Ghost?”, the lead-off track from Cease to Begin, I was seeing Band of Horses open for the Decemberists at The Hollywood Bowl. I was fully prepared to dismiss them if Ben Bridwell couldn’t pull off live what he does on their albums. As the band came on and he sang in that soaring-ass voice of his, “I could sleep… I could slee-eeep…”, I realized two things: 1) Bridwell most definitely can sing live like he does on his albums and 2) Those vocals, over those lazy arpeggios and whispering cymbals, were giving me fucking goosebumps. It was holyshitomigod good. Somewhere later in the same set, Band of Horses unveiled “The General Specific,” which is wrestling with LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” in my head for the honor of being the Best Song of 2007.

But consider The National’s offering. Boxer opens with an earnest meditation on American complacency called “Fake Empire,” and it features a chorus that is piercingly true, sung in a weary baritone by Matt Berninger: “We’re half awake/ in a fake empire.” And if Band of Horses and LCD Soundsystem’s aforementioned tunes are duking it out in my brain for song of the year, perhaps “Fake Empire” is standing back, watching the melee with amused detachment, waiting for the two songs to kill each other so that it can ride in and claim the victory for its own. Boxer doesn’t let up after its stellar opening, either. “Fake Empire” is followed by “Mistaken for Strangers,” which ruminates on “another uninnocent elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults.” “Mistaken for Strangers” has the uncanny ability of reminding me that I had a job, briefly, where I had to wear a suit and tie every day and was supposed to feel real grown up about it – I have an image of myself in a suit and tie, clean-shaven (gasp!), as Matt Berninger sings, “You wouldn’t want an angel watching over you/ Surprise, surprise, they wouldn’t wanna watch”.

In a head to head battle, you have to consider that Cease to Begin only has 9 real songs on it. Now, those 9 songs are pretty fucking effective. Bridwell has injected his jangly indie rock sound with some soul flavor and more than a little bit of that awesome sort of country rock that The Band imported for us from Canada. “Marry Song” is a prime example of this, complete with the beautiful harmonies and electric organ (a hard instrument to use without pissing me off, so kudos to Band of Horses for that achievement) you might find in, say, “Long Black Veil,” or “The Weight.” But Boxer is packing 12 tracks and here’s the kicker – I can’t find a bad one. “Slow Show” is probably my least favorite, but it’s like saying it’s a Newcastle Brown in my case of Guinness. Hardly a bad thing.

So I dunno. I love these albums and if you love awesome music, you will love them too. I think Band of Horses is put over the top by the three stellar live performances I saw them give (2 of them were opening gigs where they easily upstaged the headliners in my estimation) last year.

Incidentally, here’s a retread of my 10 best albums of 2007:

10. Emma Pollock, Watch the Fireworks

9. Pharoahe Monch, Desire

8. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Living With the Living

7. El-P, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

6. Soulsavers, It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land

5. Okkervil River, The Stage Names

4. Jesca Hoop, Kismet

3. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver

2. The National, Boxer and 1. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin

or

2. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin and 1. The National, Boxer

It’s a toss-up. It’s also worth mentioning that Grand Buffet released an awesome album in 2007 called King Vision, which I’ll review here later ’cause I just got it.