Monthly Archives: January 2010

Break Up

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Band: Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson
Album: Break Up
Best song: “Relator” is really good.
Worst song: “I am the Cosmos” should remain Chris Bell’s, thank you very much.

As the Pitchfork review indicates, it’s tough to try and recreate the fantastic Brigitte Bardot/Serge Gainsbourg pairings of the 1960s. The Pitchfork review also compares it to She & Him record (an album I hope to tackle here at some point).

I don’t think either comparison is all that apt. The She & Him record comes from a totally different atmosphere, a Williamburg-meets-Silverlake hybrid. The Gainsbourg/Bardot records, of course, are of a completely different vintage and let’s forget ever comparing Pete Yorn to one of the great songwriters of the 1960s.

The back and forth between Scarlett Johansson and Yorn doesn’t compare to those, but it’s nevertheless charming. Count me as the one person who actually thinks Johansson is a passable singer and Yorn’s boring rock is perfectly suited for her voice. She makes it slightly more interesting — yes, her version of Chris Bell’s brilliant “I am the Cosmos” sucks” — on songs like “Clean.” And, again, while the interplay between the two isn’t great, it’s entirely fun as they both run through their smokey whisper voices on “Relator,” for example.

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I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for Mr. Yorn, as his Musicforthemorningafter record was the soundtrack of a birthday road trip my ex-girlfriend and I took in college. On its surface, it was probably a mixed bag; I was trying to get into a 21-and-over show, but was turned away (I would’ve litereally turned 21 at the show). We went to some museums, stayed at my friends’ house. I didn’t tell my family that I was going to Chicago and we broke down in St. Louis on the way back to Columbia.

(If you haven’t seen Up in the Air, please skip the next few paragraphs.)

There’s a whole thing in the film Up in the Air — one of the best movies I’ve seen in the last five years — about the notion of loneliness and the fact that so very many of our favorite moments are our most charished because not because of what happened, but mostly because of those involved. Our most memorable moments are seldom alone, good and bad.

I travel alone often and it’s great. But, I’m shy, so I don’t do a lot of meeting others and whooping it up. When I think of said solitary travels, it’s hard to to imagine how much more fun some of those trips would be with a companion. The trip to Chicago was great not because a bunch of good and bad shit happened.

It was great because I was young and in love and having fun. Goofing off in the car, eating silly food at the museum, that sort of thing. We listened to Pete Yorn in the car. And while I find this music unendingly boring, it’ll always remind me of that trip.

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For what it’s worth, count me among the people who find Scarlett Johansson outstandingly beautiful. She’s a terrifyingly bad actress (and a little pale for my specific tastes), but, goddamn, she is great-looking. She truly is.

Only By Night

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Band: Kings of Leon
Album: Only By Night
Best song: “Sex on Fire” is listenable.
Worst song: The rest of the album is ass.

I’m 28 years old — I turn 29 next month — and with my next birthday, I’ll be one more year closer to my mental age of, like, 40. I’m not an “old soul” in the “wise” sense. I’m an “old soul” in the “curmudgeon” sense.

Sure, I like whimsy and strange, kitschy shit. I have bobbleheadsand a plastic sauropod and a framed picture of a T-Rex wearing a cowboy hat (this lovely fellow) all on my desk at work. I wear little buttons on my jacket and I wear sneakers approximately 340 days of the year. My apartment is solely decorated with the work of a one Jay Ryan.

But, generally, I’m not the hypnotic, spontaeneous, drinking-fun type that would reflect my age. I don’t like getting intoxicated and falling down. Dancing doesn’t attract me. I’m just not goofy enough, I guess. I’m too pretentious, of course.

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So, let me tell you about my New Year’s Eve experience.

A friend of mine called me with the idea that he has a friend that was buying a table at a (as he described it, basically) fancy(ish) nightclub downtown. Lotus, the place is called. My friend described it as a place that would necessitate my wearing a suit; he was going to do the same.

Now.

I like wearing fancy clothes and I own a tuxedo. So, the prospect of wearing said tuxedo is always exciting for me. Yes, NYE is kind of a silly exercise, but I’d feel like a big loser for not going out. And between this offer and the offer of going to a house party, I chose the club.

Here’s the problem: The club was not really a lounge-y place that I expected 30 Rock‘s Jack Donaghy to frequent. It was a disco, with crazy lights, thumping bad remixes/medlies of top 40 songs, fat chicks in tight pants, greasy Eurotrash-looking guys in ill-fitting sportcoats, super expensive drinks and, of course, the thing that is “table service.” This, needless to say, disappointed me. I was wildly overdressed — I could’ve come in a sweater and a sportcoat — and my personality could not been more out of place. This was the type of place that Diageo (one of the world’s biggest liquor distributors) visits, with photographers and waivers for patrons to sign, saying that they won’t sue if Diageo uses their image in an ad. I know this because I signed one of those waivers. The type of place where, you know, a woman tried to dance with me.

No question, I need to do stuff like this, largely to reinforce the fact that it’s not for me. I enjoy it, in the sense that I love people-watching and it’s, essentially, a safari for me. I might as well be on the Serengeti, watching a lioness eat an antelope. It’s really quite enjoyable.

Enjoyable to do, like, once a year, of course.

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Also: Despite my description above, I’m not a particularly evolved person. So, there were two facts that delighted me during the evening.

The first is that one of the bouncers to the club was a dwarf. I imagine this makes me a terrible person, one insensitive to those with disabilities, but… A dwarf bouncer is really awesome, right? I mean, aren’t bouncers required to be huge?

The second is that, among the weird photographers, fat chicks drinking $20 martinis and dudes with bad cologne was a woman, seemingly hired by the club, dancing in her underwear. It was epic. She was incredibly fit and gyrating. It was like something out of a movie with a stripper storyline and an actress that won’t do nudity (think Jessica Alba in Sin City). Underwar. Gyration. Ugg boots. It was insane.

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I’m wholly unqualified to write anything about Only by Night other than to say that I heard a remixed version of “Sex on Fire” on New Year’s Eve and it made me want to kill myself. It’s the only really passable song on the album — the melody is as infectious as H1N1 — and to put electronica beats under it… Awful, awful times.

I’m not really into the dude’s voice. If I’m going for rootsy almost-indie rock, I’ll take Band of Horses, thank you very much.

Live Phish Volume 13

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Band: Phish
Album: Live Phish Volume 13
Best song: Of course, it’s really hard to screw up the Beatles, right?
Worst song: Just about any of the band’s original material is kind of crappy.

I’ve never been a particular fan of jam bands, so I guess I’m particularly unsuited to write anything about Phish. I respect the hell out of the band’s musical ability; these guys can clearly play the hell out of their instruments.

But, like too much metal, a lot of the masturbatory soloing doesn’t strike me as much more than that. A near-15-minute version of band favorite “Harpua” doesn’t strike me as much more than annoying.

Nevertheless, I own three Phish albums. The first is Round Room, a studio album my ex-girlfriend left at my house and never asked for back. The other two are Phish live recordings, four-disc sets of the band doing its “musical costume” for Halloween shows. The one reviewed here and Live Phish Vol. 15, the band’s cover of Remain in Light. I bought both out of curiosity and don’t love either.

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It’s kind of cliche to consider cover songs a blasphemy; I don’t feel that way at all. I think cover songs are a wonderful homage. One of my favorite songs ever recorded is not only a cover, but a somewhat ironic one, with Bedhead and Macha covering Cher’s “Believe.” Seriously. Give it a listen.

I guess my worry about covering super-classic stuff — like the Beatles, Zep, Sabbath, the Velvets, etc. — is that it’s something of a cop out. It’s hard to make a crappy song good, it’s not super hard to make a really great song somewhat decent.

And that’s Live Phish Volume 13. It’s nice. It’s decent. It’s a bunch of talented musicians playing a really fucking classic group of songs. It’s kind of hard to fuck up “Glass Onion,” you know?

And that, to me, is Phish and Phish fandom. It’s safe, it feels good and it’s kind of easy, all told. They play mildly pleasant music masquerading as threatening (DRUGS! OH NO!). There’s no question, this is a talented group of people, but their Vermont-soft hippy bullshit doesn’t hit it for me.

I’ll stick with Mastodon.

No Depression

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Band: Uncle Tupelo
Album: No Depression
Best song: “Whiskey Bottle” is a classic. The title track is amazing. “Factory Belt” is awesome. “Screen Door” is top-notch. Even with all those, “Graveyard Shift” is probably the best song on the record.
Worst song: “So Called Friend” isn’t great.

One of the things that surprised me so much about the Rolling Stone 500 list (to which I devoted an entire year, by the way) was the total and complete lack of respect the list gave to country music in all of its forms. I don’t say that as a fan of country music — I’m not — but rather as someone who knows a tiny bit about the history of rock and roll. To say country music has not influenced popular rock music is foolish, at best.

Still, country music forms are surpemely popular today. Taylor Swift, one of the most popular artists in 2009, sports a country pose often. Carrie Underwood and other such American Idol contestants have made their hay doing that genre of music. Christ, Garth Brooks was the most popular artist in the world for a bit.

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I don’t tend like country music — I’ve stopped saying I don’t like any country — for the same reasons I don’t tend to like blue collar rock. I’m not a street fightin’ man and I’ve never worked in a factory (it should be said that the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen didn’t, either). I’ve never rode the range. I grew up in the suburbs, crushing on girls with glasses and worrying about college. This is why I identify with, like, Pavement.

Uncle Tupelo, however, is a band I love. It’s a love that’s a little bit layered. The aesthetic notion of the band is the preeminent reason. Taking as much from Hank Williams as they did from the Minutemen and the Stooges, Tupelo had a punk attitude. They took Johnny Cash’s devil-may-care attitude and wrote songs about the dead-ends of the industrialized midwest. While not my deal — again, father a dentist, mother a court administrator, not exactly blue collar — I do have some bleeding heart tendencies, so the plight of the downtrodden interests me. Certainly, Farrar’s lyics paint a robust picture of that life.

Moreover, I’m a big Wilco fan, with Jeff Tweedy being a huge part of Uncle Tupelo before, they, uh, imploded (story here). Tupelo was from, basically, the same town as ex-girlfriend (the Collinsville/Edwardsville/Bellville area) and toured around there, so my college radio station was one of the first stations to play Tupelo. Famously — at KCOU, at least — Tupelo thanks KCOU on a few of their album liners and Farrar and Tweedy have consistently (with their respective bands) played Columbia. I saw Wilco twice in college and Son Volt once.

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Indeed, one of the famed songs — “Whiskey Bottle” — on No Depression references my college town (“Liquor and guns, the sign says quite plain” is a reference to the “liquor and guns” sign on Business Loop 70 in Columbia.). In addition to, essentially, being the pinnacle of indie outlaw country, No Depression is a lyrical revelation. Nearly every song sounds like Southern Illinois.

“Life Worth Livin'” has the existential dread of the area, with Farrar lamenting alcohol’s claming effect on a usesless life. “Screen Door” is a classic Tweedy composition, with him singing of the lack of a life outside the porch and the titular portal, as everyone is “equally poor.” “Whiskey Bottle” shows the ways people deal with life. “Factory Belt” laments and celebrates the opportunities of life. “Graveyard Shift” has the fantastic guitar riff, as Farrar mentions the “same old walls closing in” as the entire band opens up the punk rock fury.

Indeed, despite being recorded in a little over a week, the songs are artfully arranged. The punk rock elements of the band pepper “Outdone” as the cacophony of the breakdown leads to vocal interplay between Tweedy and Farrar. “Screen Door” is augmented by a great violin. The Carter Family cover — that’s the band showing some regard to history — works so well because it resonates on two levels. Before Kurt Cobain was recounting the depression of the suburbs, Farrar and Tweedy were arranging a song about the Great Depression into a modern retelling, implying the nature of boredom and depression in the modern age.

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I don’t think I’m overreaching in saying that No Depression spawned a genre. Indeed, alternative country is sometimes called “No Depression Country”. A perfect debut and one you should also own.