Rock
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 […]
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham
By Jeremy Saperstein Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham L’Avventura Jetset http://www.jetsetrecords.com There’s an old joke about a guy who passes on his review of a buffet to a friend. “The entrees all tasted the same, the desserts weren’t much better than Jell-O with fruit cocktail and the sodas were flat,” he says. “Sounds pretty awful. I bet you won’t be going back, huh?” asks his friend. “Oh, I’m going again tonight!” “But, I don’t understand. You said the food was awful.” “It was, but there’s so much of it!” This release from Luna frontman Dean Wareham and bass player Britta Phillips makes me think of that joke, with a major difference: this is good. It’s just not that substantially different from a Luna effort, which — if you like Luna — ain’t a bad thing. Arrangements are slightly quieter without Luna guitarist Sean Eden, but he’s nicely replaced here by lusher instrumentation, and Phillips’ lead turns at the microphone make me want to hear more. Nary a review of Dean Wareham’s work gets written without mentioning his clever songwriting, and this one can’t be different. Favorite couples include “In 1984/I was hospitalized for approaching perfection” and “They make it so you can’t shake hands/When they make your hands shake” (from “Random Rules”). The band gets additional points for including another cover The Doors “Indian Summer.”
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
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.
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Bishop Allen
By Jeremy Saperstein Bishop Allen Charm School The Champagne School www.bishopallen.com One of my favorite songs is from a thrift-store record made by a Midwestern high school choir in the mid-70s. The chorus, sounding so sincere that it almost makes my teeth hurt, is a peppy cover of “Kites Are Fun”, full of optimistic voices and youthful enthusiasm. Bishop Allen’s Charm School is sort of like that. Recorded entirely in the apartments of Christian Rudder and Justin Rice (on a single microphone, we’re told), the songs are simple and upbeat and the voices bouncy and ebullient, occasionally slipping into the mannered vocals of that high school choir. It would be easy to dismiss Bishop Allen amongst the horribly serious artistes of the alt-rock world today — the ones who deliver stern messages about our lives and failings — but it would be wrong. The songs on Charm School aren’t as much about particularly weighty topics as they are about pretty girls in sundresses and throwing couches from the roof (“Bishop Allen Drive” ). Even when lyrical expressions of angst or ennui slip in (“Sleeping on the subway in my interview tie/Wander through the rain, sit and wonder why/I haven’t got a plan, I haven’t got a clue/I’ve only got one lonely thing that’s gonna see me through” from “Little Black Ache” ), the surrounding music chases them away. Another favorite is “Busted Heart,” which uses spirited ensemble vocal interplay to soften the blow of lyrics like “Did you ever think, think/A lotta people everyday who will surely drown.”
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
William Parker Violin Trio
By Jeremy Saperstein William Parker Violin Trio Scrapbook ThirstyEar www.thirstyear.com There’s something so right about violinists playing jazz, especially when they can rock it like Billy Bang does on this CD. Evoking styles and songs as disparate as classical, jazz, old-time pop and blues, soundtrack and avant-garde skronk (sometimes all within the same song), the William Parker Violin Trio (Bang on violin, William Parker on bass, Hamid Drake on drums) delivers a solid collection of six songs ranging from the bluesy “Singing Spirits” to the spritely “Urban” to the reverent “Sunday Morning Church.” Bang’s violin freneticism may not be for everyone, but if the idea of a violin trio working in the jazz idiom makes you tingle for that groove, the William Parker violin trio brings it on.
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Jay Farrar
By Jeremy Saperstein Terroir Blues (“terroir” is French word, by the way, literally translated as “soil”) is a much more finished work than Farrar’s first solo effort Sebastapol (which was still a great record. The consistency probably is helped by the first consistent group of Farrar has had with him since the apparent splintering of Son Volt. Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges), Brian Henneman (Bottle Rockets) and Jon Wurster (Superchunk) are among thoses who function as Farrar’s band for this outing, and the reward is seen in a record that contains as much experimentalism as Sebastapol (as in the between tracks noise of parts I-VI of “Space Junk”). “Cahokian” is a perfect song for the mingling of cultures past and present. (“I will wait for you/in the green green spaces/wearing our post-industrial faces”) while “Fool King’s Crown” makes a fairly overt (for the traditionally oblique Farrar) political statement backed by Brian Henneman’s electric sitar. The name of this record is particularly apt — not like the dirt of the Stooges, say, but the earth a farmer might let slip hopefully through his fingers, dreaming of a fine harvest. Farrar is a man at the top of his game right now and seems able to grasp anything he reaches for. This record is a great display of mastery of American music. Act/Resist Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
The Mistreaters
By Jeremy Saperstein Some of Milwaukee’s favoritest sons travel off to the eastern metropolis of Detroit City and come back with an audio document that performs the improbable — it’s as raucous as a live show, but offers the tightness of polished radio fare. Which is not to say that this slab is genteel. Within thirty seconds of the tightly wound intro to “The Other Man” I was feeling my brain slide around in its pan as I rocked my head furiously with the beat. With a short break for the slow bluesy growl of “She’s My Witch”, that’s the way it went for the rest of the disc. Other favorites include the frantically rhyming “Hard On The Eyes” and the high-energy squall of “Brandon Takes It”, which makes me think of any number of other famous Detroit combos. The Mistreaters might only know three chords, but they know those chords cold. And they understand how to deliver them for maximum impact. Estrus Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
The Negro Problem
By Jeremy Saperstein Let’s start with the name: it’s meant as a knowing jibe — something to make politically-correctoids bristle. It oughta make you feel better that leader Stew is, indeed, black — and he’s making some of the finest literate and culturally-aware power-psychedelic-pop I’ve ever heard. The disc is like some sort of hideous hybrid of the every unique artist you care to name (to namecheck: I hear echoes of Charles Mingus, Sly Stone, Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee, Ennio Morricone, Roy Wood, John Fred and Burt Bacharach – and that’s just in the two songs that close the album! [“Bong Song” and “Bermuda Love Triangle”]) Despite the name, race is no issue within the grooves of the record, which features tongue-in-cheek references to records that have come before (“If London calls/just say I’ve stepped away” from “Watering Hole”), obscure pop-culture icons (“I’m Sebastian Cabot in your dreams/I’m Sebastian Cabot — what’s that mean?” from “I’m Sebastian Cabot”) and so much more — all in meticulously clever lyrics that continue to unfold through repeated listenings. Smile Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
The Stratford 4
By Jeremy Saperstein An activist San Francisco who combine an echoey, distorted sound with tight songwriting and boy-girl vocals? Nah, it couldn’t be! The Stratford 4 formed from the same roots as fave rockers Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but give us a dreamier, poppier sound that’s reminiscent of the shoegazer bands of the 80s and 90s while never stooping to pure copying, gracefully entwining sinewy guitar leads with blast of fuzzed out rhythm. Others will hear suggestions of Hoboken’s sometime noise merchants in Yo La Tengo — probably owing more to the S4’s way with a pop tune and their lack of fear of atmospheric freakouts and loud, distorted guitars (the CD title is a good shorthand description of the contents). Jetset Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Richard Thompson
By John Hughes Richard Thompson’s new CD The Old Kit Bag advertises that it contains “unguents, fig leaves and tourniquets,” presumably for the listener’s soul. It actually delivers better than that; emollients for melancholy, curatives for the blues. It delivers nothing less than the pure healing joy of delectable music. Thompson has been breathing life into the decidedly uncool British folk tradition for 35 years, almost always to tremendous effect. This may be his best outing in all that time. He achieves this by stripping his sound down to the basics: his confident singing, in a voice which sounds as smokey and gladdening as a McEwan’s Scottish Ale tastes, and his guitar playing, which is spectacular. It is obvious here again that Richard Thompson is the real Slowhand. His dazzling guitar artistry is virtuosic, inventive, dancing, superior to the power blues of Eric Clapton because so much more nimble and versatile. He’s more fun to listen to than Clapton, and leaves you feeling exuberant. The songs are all richly detailed and thick with sound, and the backup singing of Judith Owen is a complementary highlight, but the guitar playing carries the day from beginning to end. At times it is so good that it hurts to listen. Richard Thompson, at his peak here, creates arresting beauty for your heart. SpinART Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Arab Strap
By Michael Seidel What I’ve always loved most about Arab Strap is their unapologeticness. Drinking, fucking and, well, just fucking up are all endlessly recurring themes throughout their oeuvre, but never, not once is there a ‘sorry’, nary a pinkie toe dipped in the stagnant pool of regret. Arab Strap understand and even embrace the concept of human fallibility, that missteps are the bedrock of experience and perspective. The band, who hail from Glasgow, Scotland, recently completed their second tour in support of Bright Eyes, whose influence on Monday at the Hug and Pint is undeniable (leadman Connor Oberst even lends backing vocals to a track called “Flirt”). Flourishes of vaguely esoteric instruments (esoteric in the scope of rock, that is) like lap steel, bagpipes, violin and accordion are liberally distributed, creating a record that’s fuller, more confident and even – gasp! – more American sounding than previous efforts. The record follows the black comedy protocol that the band established as far back as its first record – it’s the next chapter in Arab Strap’s continuing saga of closing times, betrayals, mutual deception and dirty weekends that transition effortlessly into filthy weeks. Monday at the Hug and Pint isn’t a good starting point for those unfamiliar with the band (Philophobia should play that role), but it is a nice little chap piece, essential for anyone set on assembling the entire Arab Strap puzzle. Matador Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Cherrywine
By Michael Seidel Bright Black marks Ishmael Butler’s emergence from musical hibernation. Butler used to lead Digable Planets – most known for the top 10 hit “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”, who released two stunning albums before snuffing itself out in 1996. That’s when Butler crawled into a cave of obscurity, shielded from even the wannest sliver of spotlight. He learned how to play guitar. Digable Planets’ sound was a highball of laid back jazz samples and lyrics so silkily delivered that, outwardly, their political slant appeared as an undercurrent. But any move beyond lyrical veneer will illume activism – black power, pro-choice, etc – as quintessentially Digable. It’s what they were all about. With Cherrywine, however, Butler rails against political expression. In Resonance magazine, Butler recently admitted, “It’s not that I didn’t believe what I was saying back then – it’s just that I wasn’t really being politically active in my own life. Now, I’m just trying to do something that represents who I am. I want to be more real.” So I guess that cocaine, bitches and gansta are the real Butler. References to those things stand in tall banks on the surface of every song. Machismo thematics and delivery expose such a deep political bankruptcy that I can’t help but wonder if it’s all, despite Butler’s contentions, cunningly masked social commentary. The departure from the Digables’ message is so unrealistically sharp that it must be tongue-in-cheek. Political intentions aside, it would be foolish to say that Butler’s lost his flow. His delivery is as slick as ever. The music is devoid of samples; it’s raw, organic, wah-wah infused funk that bores itself into your consciousness and takes unrelenting hold. Bright Black is excellent debut album, but still, I can’t stop myself from questioning its sincerity. DCide Records
Jul 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
