The Bad Plus

By Jeremy Saperstein The Bad Plus These Are The Vistas Columbia www.thebadplus.com Although it could be easily dismissed as a calculated and cynical move, I find it hard to dislike any band that presents jazz-trio covers of Nirvana’s über-punk anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass”, especially one who does them as well The Bad Plus. Yep, it would be easy, but the Bad Plus have the audacity to be better than hack musicians trying to milk the last drops dry from alterna-madness. Really, all the trio (Reid Anderson on bass, Ethan Iverson on piano, David King on drums) is doing is to continue in the tradition of jazzbos from the 40s and 50s, who would put their own stamp on popular songs of the day (John Coltrane’s take on “My Favorite Things” comes to my mind, for example). Indeed, there are some other fine songs on this disc, like the airy “Keep The Bugs Off Your Glass And The Bears Of Your Ass” (which actually made me think of the open road even before I read the C.B.-inspired title) and “1972 Bronze Medalist” (which evokes weird visions of Peanuts characters competing in the Munich Olympics). The Bad Plus have made a daring bid. Time will tell if they can back it up. I’m hoping they can.

The Pernice Brothers, The Decemberists, The New Pornographers

By Jeremy Saperstein The Pernice Brothers Yours, Mine and Ours Ashmont Records www.pernicebrothers.com The Decemberists Castaways and Cutouts Kill Rock Stars www.decemberists.com The New Pornographers Electric Version Matador www.matadorrecords.com A long time ago, in a galaxy far away (well, suburban Chicago, anyway — which is like another galaxy), I bachelor-roomed in a worn old bungalow with this guy whose behind-his-back nickname was “Mr. Negativity.” Being as we were both single, disaffected twenty-somethings, our weekends usually revolved around thirty-packs of watery domestics and slices of pizza to go, consumed voraciously in front of a silent television. Ah, youth! We would listen to favored records while we ate and drank and watched the silent moving pictures. I was taking off a record, probably the Beatles, when he slurred, “That’s great stuff, but let’s face it — guitar-based rock is dead.” We were young and single and drunk, so this led to a lengthy and intricate argument, of which I can thankfully remember little but my housemate’s central point. Time has passed now, though, and I haven’t seen or spoken to said housemate since before Britney Spears came on the scene (or since Tiffany left it, for that matter). And the guitar-based hits just keep coming. Three records came across my desk this month, which I’d love an opportunity to use as evidence (or a blunt object) against Mr. Negativity if that argument is ever renewed. The first sneaks into the new release reviews section despite the fact that it was initially released back in summer of 2002 by the ultra-indie Hush label. Happily, it’s being re-released this summer by slightly larger and better-distributed Kill Rock Stars. If this was a just planet, Castaways and Cutouts by the Decemberists would be the sort of record that VH1 specials are made about — y’know, like “…the story behind the classic release that was the soundtrack to our lives…” I find myself waking up in the middle of the night with the lines from “Leslie Anne Levine” — easily one of the saddest lyrics I’ve ever heard, twisted up in a charming, accordion-fueled pop tune — going through my head. Lines like “My name is Leslie Anne Levine/My mother birthed me down a dry ravine/My mother birthed me far too soon/Born at nine, dead at noon.” Equally sad lyrically and utterly pop musically is Yours, Mine and Ours by the Pernice Brothers. Pernice’s previous band, the alt-country Scud Mountain Boys, performed their languid songs onstage while sitting around a kitchen table, as if performances were late-night song-swapping sessions that the audience had stumbled across. Songs from the Pernice Brothers (and Pernice’s solo releases, for that matter) tend more towards energetic and perfect guitar pop, with Pernice’s angelic vocals and sharp-tongued lyrics (“I hope that this letter finds you crying/It would feel so good to see you cry” from Number Two) rising above impeccable arrangements. Electric Version by The New Pornographers is the final entry in this triumvirate of exciting new guitar-based releases, a case of […]

Breast is not "best." It’s standard.

By Lucky Tomaszek The first week in August is World Breastfeeding Week, and several international organizations invest lots of time and money into raising the world community’s understanding of the importance of breastfeeding for mothers and babies all over the globe. The decision of how to feed your baby is a deeply personal one, and often starts heated debates. It’s one of the first decisions you will make for your baby and it’s one that most expectant moms spend quite a bit of time reading and thinking about. I want to be clear that it’s not ever my intention to hurt the feelings of any other mother out there, or to anger anyone who has made different choices. I hold the firm belief in my heart that each mother has made the best decision possible for her child with the information she had at the time and based on what she feels will work best for her and her family. Not “best,” standard. The statement “breast is best” is one we’ve all heard for years. It’s in every parenting book, every magazine article about infant feeding and every commercial for baby formula. It’s often accompanied by the statement, “breast milk is a perfect food.” These are very drastic overstatements of fact. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Breast isn’t best, it’s standard. We were designed as a species to feed our young milk from our breasts. It’s how we got our name, Mammal, from the mammary glands. There are other unique things about Mammals we could have been named for. For instance, we are the only species with hair, and the only species that gives birth to live babies. But it’s our mammaries for which we’re famous. That’s because universally, mammals nourish their babies with breast milk. When you say “breast is best” or “breast milk is a perfect food,” it leaves a lot of room for other things to be good or even great, because perfection is an unobtainable goal. Everyone knows the saying, ‘nobody’s perfect.’ But when we are honest and we say that breast milk is the standard food, it becomes obvious that artificial baby milk is substandard. It’s perfectly logical. The same logic follows for the other benefits of breastfeeding. We are often told that breastfed babies are healthier than their formula fed counterparts. This is another statement that should be turned around. If breastfeeding is the standard, then the babies who are breastfed are not healthier, but simply the standard of health. And so it follows that their formula-fed counterparts (like me) are not as healthy. Think of other, similar statements we hear all the time. Breastfed babies are smarter, talk earlier, need less orthodontic work and have fewer allergies. The list goes on. The logic is easy to follow. Obviously, breastfeeding is not just the standard for babies, but for their mothers as well. We have seen a marked increase in female cancers, heart disease in women, and osteoporosis since […]

August 2003

Dear Readers, As a community, we love the Harley. Probably more than any otherwise disparate group of mostly non-riders, Milwaukeeans appreciate the growl of the engine, the flash of the chrome and the signature emblem unique to one of our city’s greatest shared treasures. This month marks Harley Davidson’s 100th anniversary, and the party will be long-remembered. We chose to pick a little slice called the Riders Ranch, and tell you all about it. It’s pretty dang cool. Check out the story, and think about heading over. Good seats are still available. Hate has raised its ugly head in Riverwest, but the neighbors are brandishing olive branches and dancing in the streets in answer. See “Riverwest Rising,” this month’s We The People, for more about how this community has come together in the very face of division in its lowest form. This month’s Vital sports several shorter, light reading pieces. If you enjoyed our wine piece last month, check out “Morsels,” Cynthia Vasques’ quest for succulent softshell crabs in landlocked Wisconsin. There’s even a recipe. (We’re not afraid to break the mold that way…) We think you’ll also dig Bill Wandschneider’s piece on con artists, “Slicker than a snake on ice.” He joined a band of them for a weekend, living the life and learning about “the Quickness.” It’s a great story. As we go to press, I am on the way home to Iowa. On July 19th, my grandfather, Russell Rudolph Berard, passed away at the age of 83. The circumstances of his death were sudden and unfortunate, but his legacy to me, and the hundreds of people he quietly helped throughout his life, will live for a very long time. Russ was born to Italian immigrant parents in Des Moines, Iowa. He worked with his hands for the city for most of his life, eventually retiring as a supervisor. For him, this was the beginning of his “real” life in many ways. Uneducated and not exposed to “opportunity” as we know it today, Russ was keenly intelligent, political, and morally outraged at the lack of access to meaningful services suffered by the people with disabilities who fall through the cracks of social services. He spent countless hours — and thousands of his retirement dollars — in the garage workshop of his modest southside ranch home building contraptions to help folks live independently: winches for getting in and out of the shower, mouth-operated wheelchair controls, even a crazy electric leg framework so a young woman suddenly paralyzed from the waist down could walk upright. Some of his inventions were over the top, but all were greatly appreciated. His was a labor of love. He was always there for family and friends. He bailed me out of a number of jams as a rowdy teenager, never spilling the beans to the rest of the family, but “leaving it to me” to “do what (I) know is right” by telling my own parents, at least after the fact. He never judged […]

Sanut Gloria Tarrer

Enough

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