2003
FluMist
By Lucky Tomaszek Many people are relieved to hear about the new FluMist vaccine. No one likes needles, and it seems the makers of FluMist are counting on that fact to convince consumers to buy. FluMist is the first influenza vaccine that is not a shot. It’s a nasal spray. One good dose up the nose and you’re protected for the whole winter. Or are you? Traditional flu shots are made from killed influenza virus, which cannot cause a case of influenza in either the recipient or anyone who comes in contact with the recipient. Killed viruses are considered safer, though shorter acting. In the case of the flu shot, this is not a disadvantage, because protection only needs to last for a year. By the following year, a new flu shot is available that is intended for whichever influenza strain is most prevalent. FluMist is a lot different from its first cousin, the annual flu shot. For starters, it’s not intended for use by the people who are normally urged to receive a flu vaccine, the elderly and the immuno-compromised. FluMist is being marketed for healthy people ages 5 to 49. That’s because it’s made from the live influenza virus, which could be harmful if given to someone who isn’t completely in the pink. Should you take it up the nose? As a matter of fact, the list of people who should not use FluMist is pretty long, and includes: toddlers; the elderly; anyone with eczema or asthma; people who are allergic to eggs; children and adolescents receiving aspirin therapy; people who have a history of Guillain-Barré syndrome; pregnant women, people with reactive airways disease, people on corticosteroids like Prednisone®, Medrol®; and obviously immuno-compomised people like cancer patients, people with HIV or AIDS, and organ recipients. There is additional concern about the FluMist vaccine precisely because it’s a nasal spray rather than an injection. Most people who have ever needed to take a nasal spray medication can tell you that it often leads to sneezing, sometimes repeated sneezing. When you’ve sprayed a live vaccine up your nose and you sneeze, the live vaccine is shot across the room at 100 miles per hour. This can be troublesome for anyone, but especially so for small children in school and people living with immuno-compromised family members. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, D.O., President and Medical Director of the OsteoMed II clinic in Strongsville, Ohio, shares this concern: “One of the most troubling concerns over [FluMist] is the potential for the viruses to enter directly into the brain… The olfactory tract has long been recognized as a direct pathway to the brain. Intranasal injection of certain viruses has resulted in a serious brain infection called encephalitis… Time will tell whether the live viruses in FluMist will become linked to cases of encephalitis.” IF IT WALKS AND TALKS LIKE A DUCK… The reported side effects of the vaccine are also interesting to note. According to the FluMist package insert, 72�f adult recipients reported side effects […]
Dec 1st, 2003 by Lucky Tomaszek
Measuring Mayor Norquist
By Raymond Johnson As the final term of Milwaukee Mayor Norquist comes to a close, it is time to assess his impact on the city. I’ll leave it to others more qualified to weigh his affect on property taxes or schools, on government efficiency or city services. Here, per the name, I will be concerned about the developing city. Perhaps nothing indicates the Mayor’s interest in these matters more than the next job he is taking. John O. Norquist will become the President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), a national advocacy organization dedicated to promoting good urban design. Mr. Norquist had served on the board of directors, and has shown supporters and skeptics alike the possibilities for using the principles of the CNU in existing cities. Perhaps the best way to understand the impact of his work is to look at some of the projects built on Mr. Norquist’s watch and assess their overall impact on the city. THE GOOD The Park East Freeway Demolition This has to be the apotheosis of Mr. Norquist’s tenure, bringing together key elements in his thesis on good urban design: freeways are bad for center cities because street grids are better movers of traffic; center cities are desirable because of their efficient access to people and markets; and government doesn’t need to subsidize private development. Sure, it will be a long time before it is ‘finished’, and we will probably get more than a few bad buildings, but if you love cities, this is about as good as it gets. The Riverwalk The Riverwalk is a close second to the Park East project. This is urbanism at its finest. Small-scale, pedestrian-oriented, and snaking through our city, the Riverwalk gives urban dwellers and visitors a different path through the city. Granted, its’ design, in places, is a bit pedestrian itself. The materials are sometimes cheap, the style retrograde, the details sloppy, and it often connects poorly with both the water and the city streets. But early mistakes lead to ongoing improvement. And really, the chief benefits of the Riverwalk are the improvements to our overall urban structure downtown: increased pedestrianism, new residences, shops and restaurants, and the reconnection of the city to its river. Third Ward Redevelopment The redevelopment of the Third Ward has been nothing short of amazing. Once an area of abandoned and underused storage buildings, the Third Ward is booming with loft conversions, new construction and restaurant and boutique openings. The overall street-scaping is of a decent muscular industrial style, in tune with the manufacturing history of the area. An amazing opportunity was missed when the area nixed a beautiful modern parking garage designed by Gastrau Furer Vogel Architects for the piece of junk you see standing on the corner of Water and Erie. This raises the question: as new construction pressures build, will the Third Ward build beautiful modern buildings to complement its beautiful existing ones? Time will tell. 6th Street Viaduct Until a few years […]
Dec 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Living Without Santa
By Lucky Tomaszek One night in December of 1978, when I was 6 years old, I stayed up very late watching a toy drive on TV. As I gazed longingly at all the dolls and drums and toy trains piled up for needy children, the host announced the arrival of Santa Claus — he was coming to pick up the toys! I was so excited that I sat straight up on the couch to get a better look. “Ho Ho Ho!” shouted a deep voice, and I got goosebumps. I could hear him stomping onto the set and suddenly, there he was! He was tall and round, dressed in a red velvet suit with black boots. And he was African American. I watched in bewilderment as this jolly Santa picked up the collected toys and thanked the viewing audience for their generosity. The Truth comes out. The next morning, I had a million questions for my mom about the toy drive. I started with questions about the toys I had seen and who would be getting them. Then I said, “Why was Santa on TV black, and Santa at the mall white? How can he change his skin like that?” Then and there, she told me the whole truth, straight out, with no holds barred. I was devastated. I felt like the adults were pulling off the biggest conspiracy ever. I told my mom I needed to get to school right away and tell all of my friends The Truth. We were being lied to, and it had to stop. Mom explained that I really shouldn’t tell the other kids, as it would make them sad. I didn’t understand it — I was taught not to lie. And in our radical house, I was also taught to stand up for injustice and help others in need. In my kindergarten mind, explaining The Truth to all of the other kids was merely fulfilling what I was already seeing as my role in life. Despite her advice, my mom was called to pick me up early that day, but not until I’d broken the hearts of four or five of my classmates. The true meaning of Santa. As I started planning my own family, I knew I wanted Christmas in my house to be different from what I felt it had become for most Americans. At the time, I was in the middle of spiritual crisis, unsure of my beliefs regarding Christianity and the role of the holiday in our culture. As a long-time retail professional, I detested the shopping and the spending and the consuming. But I didn’t have my own set of beliefs around which to build a “new” holiday celebration. I was a little lost. My first baby was born in July of 1995 and I spent the next 5 months pondering how I was going to present Christmas to her. My husband and I exhaustively discussed the holiday and what message we really wanted her to take with […]
Dec 1st, 2003 by Lucky Tomaszek
Iraq’s Catch-22
By Paul McLeary “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” Yossarian observed. “It’s the best thing there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed. — Joseph Heller, Catch 22 Like much else in the Iraq today, the number of unemployed Iraqis remains a subject of some speculation. The chaos that still reigns on the ground more than six months after the president famously declared “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” precludes a serious tallying of many things — the death toll, crime rates, and unemployment statistics are just a few. What we do know is that in late May, Presidential Envoy to Iraq Paul Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army, putting some 400,000 troops and support personnel out of work in one fell swoop. While some unofficial estimates claim that up to 60 percent of Iraqis are unemployed, many of these reports are of, as they say, suspect authenticity. The closest thing we have to an official figure was released in October by Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Sami Azara al-Majoun, who estimated 8.5 million jobless Iraqis. In a country of 23 million people, that’s nothing short of devastating. Adding to the problem is an estimate that more than 10,000 Iraqi plants and workshops are either out of service or working at a mere 10 percent of their prewar capacity. Given these facts, it’s easy enough to conclude that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), headed up by Bremer, needs to start making some serious headway in rebuilding the infrastructure and getting people back to work. The solution seems self-evident. Rebuild the economy along with the roads. With Iraq’s infrastructure literally having to be rebuilt from the ground up, the solution would seem self-evident. You have billions of dollars coming in for reconstruction projects, and a pool of millions of unemployed desperately in need of a job. In a well-coordinated effort, two proverbial birds could be killed with one stone. The money could be directly poured into kick starting the local economy by paying Iraqis to rebuild roads, utilities and schools. But it’s not playing out this way. Many U.S. subcontractors tasked with rebuilding Iraq are refusing to hire Iraqis to do the work, opting instead for cheaper migrant labor from South Asia. In a Financial Times article in October, Colonel Damon Walsh, head of the CPA’s procurement office, was quoted as saying “We don’t want to overlook Iraqis, but we want to protect ourselves. From a force protection standpoint, Iraqis are more vulnerable to a ‘bad guy’ influence.” The same piece also quoted a Pakistani manager in Baghdad for the Tamimi Company, which is contracted to cater for 60,000 soldiers in Iraq, as saying “Iraqis are a security threat. We cannot depend on them.” Costs could be reduced by up to 90�But that would be bad for the economy. Some in Congress are making noise about this potentially disastrous situation. This past September, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Ranking Minority Member of the Committee on Government Reform, sent a letter to director of the White […]
Dec 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Frizell Bailey understands the blues.
By Frizell Bailey 2003 has been dubbed the Year of the Blues, marking the 100th anniversary of W.C. Handy’s making some of the first blues recordings in 1903. I grew up in a Mississippi town so small that we had only one stoplight until they took it down in favor of stop signs a number of years ago. The town was small but the blues was large. At most gatherings, and in the hand full of bars in our tiny downtown, blues was what you expected to hear. There was a radio station in Jackson, the only real city in the state, that played all blues, except for a hip hop show late nights and gospel programming on Sundays. I hated the blues. For me it represented everything I wanted to separate myself from. Blues was the music of the downtrodden, the destitute and the uneducated. Desperately trying not to be the small town boy that I was, I turned away from the folksy sound that permeated my childhood. It wasn’t until moving to Jackson to attend college in ’91 that I began to appreciate the blues. It was a three-pronged process, beginning with a part-time job at the largest independent record shop in town, where I suddenly had all manner of music at my disposal. Then there was the influence of the store’s owners and my coworkers, who seemed to agree with Louis Armstrong. “If it sounds good, it is good.” So I gave everything I could a fair listening, from Aabba to Frank Zappa. The groundwork was laid. In 1997 I began teaching in the Mississippi Delta. For those unfamiliar, the Delta is the poorest region in the country. But it is also the birthplace of the blues. Many of the biggest names in the blues came out of this region, from B.B. King and Robert Johnson to Elvis Presley. He may be known as the king of rock and roll, but Elvis was first and foremost a blues man. It’s easy to see why the blues was born in this area. The land is rich, but the people are poor. Even today, most people work in agriculture or don’t work at all. It was amazing how much this land affected me. I finally began to get it. The final phase in the development of my appreciation of the blues occurred at the Subway. The Subway is a juke joint in Jackson offering some of the best live blues in America for a mere $5 cover. Located in the basement of a building that used to house the only hotel where black people could get reservations, Subway sells cans of beer on ice in a bucket and “blues” dogs at the house next door. Friday and Saturday nights, the joint is jumping. People crowd into the tiny space, black and white alike, and stand shoulder-to-shoulder, bodies gyrating, souls engulfed by the music. Whereas I once winced at the sound, today my heart swells, soaked to the core with […]
Dec 1st, 2003 by Frizell Bailey
Power is Paradise… ?
By Paul McLeary Earlier this year, political theorist Robert Kagan published a mostly harmless little book, Of Paradise and Power, that likely set neoconservative hearts aflutter. The thesis is pretty straightforward: After WWII, as the United States set about the task of becoming the global constable, Europe was given respite from its far-flung military adventures while it rebuilt its cities, repaired its economies and got to work rewiring its badly bruised psyche. As a newfound peace and prosperity took hold throughout Western Europe, Europeans became increasingly tied to a newfound pacifism, while the United States was forced to do the requisite military “heavy lifting” required to keep communism in check. The upshot of all this is that Europe and the United States cannot see eye to eye when it comes to matters of flexing some military muscle. Europe has cultivated a desire for diplomacy over conflict, while the American postwar experience was defined by a nuclear staredown with the Soviets and hot wars with Soviet-sponsored regimes and far-flung military outposts. The current disagreement over the need to go to war with Iraq is, according to Kagan’s reading of history, merely the latest example of the “Europe is from Venus, the United States is from Mars” point of view shared by the neoconservative movement. Embrace Democracy or We’ll Kill You. To grasp the full irony of Kagan’s thesis, one must understand where he is coming from. He’s a bright light in the neoconservative movement, which is mostly made up of disillusioned former leftists and Trotskyites who have moved sharply to the right and now call for a robust American military response to perceived threats throughout the world. Kagan feels that the United States has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign nations, to build democratic regimes and secure U.S. interests. Irving Kristol, often considered one of the founders of the neocon movement, defined, in part, the basic precepts of neoconservatism in the August 25, 2003 issue of The Weekly Standard: “[The concept of] world government is a terrible idea, since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion … for a great power, the ‘national interest’ is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from non-democratic forces, external or internal. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.” Sound familiar? This line of thought has come to epitomize the philosophy of the Bush […]
Nov 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
November 2003
Dear Readers, I’m always hesitant to hail new heroes, especially when all I have to go by is a single action. With that disclaimer, my new hero (not displacing Chief Tonasket out there in Washington) is Nathaniel Heatwole. If you’ve been living in a box, Heatwole is the 20-year old Massachusetts lad who loaded a couple of Southwest Airlines flights with dangerous contraband like boxcutters and bleach on several occasions from February to September without getting caught, then told the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) about it by email on September 15. A month later, when they finally got around to reading it, they contacted Heatwole at the phone number he left them. He was promptly arrested and now faces up to ten years in prison. He claims he committed an act of civil disobedience out of concern for a lack of real airport security. The Fed, naturally embarrassed, is dying to prosecute him to the full extent of the law. U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio has made his position perfectly clear. “This was not a prank. This is not poor judgment,” DiBiagio said. “This is a crime… ” Right he is. But what, exactly, is the nature of the crime? And, one could argue, who committed it? Also from the “scary but true file,” George Bush recently told Brit Hume in a Fox News interview that he doesn’t bother reading the news. It’s so bizarre that I have to print a portion of it here: HUME: How do you get your news? BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you’ve got a beautiful face and everything. I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves. But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage. HUME: Has that been your practice since day one, or is that a practice that you’ve… BUSH: Practice since day one. HUME: Really? BUSH: Yes. You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there’s opinions mixed in with news. And I… HUME: I won’t disagree with that, sir. BUSH: I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world. HUME: Mr. President, thank you very much. Indeed. I don’t even have anything to add to that. Except that the hair on the back of my neck won’t lay down. Maybe some gel or something would do the trick, I don’t know. By now you’ve probably heard that the letters […]
Nov 1st, 2003 by Jon Anne Willow
When the Leaves Fall from the Trees
By Ben Merens This month, SCP welcomes guest author Ben Merens. Lucky will return in December. If you are inspired by parenting and would like to contribute a future column, send Lucky an email at slightlycrunchymama@yahoo.com. My two-year-old daughter and I were talking recently about birthdays. Actually, the discussion began when she asked me to tell about the day she was born. I tell her about mom being in the hospital and calling dad in the middle of the night. (The doctor had planned to induce labor on Friday afternoon. But she fooled us and chose to leave the womb very early on that Friday morning). I tell her about holding her after she came out of mom’s tummy and how we put her under a warm lamp because she was kind of cold when she was born. And then I tell her how mom fed her and told her “I love you” right away. And I tell her about how it snowed on her birthday and we all spent the day in the quiet of the hospital room… just the three of us. We all took a nap together. And then she came home. She loves to hear the story. And I love to tell it. Then I ask her. Do you know when your birthday is? She surprised me by saying “Yes I do!” “Oh really, and when is it?” I asked, anxiously awaiting her response. She is smart enough to tell me when she doesn’t know the answer to a question. So when she said she knew when her birthday was, I knew she’d say something that made sense to her and maybe to me. But I couldn’t imagine what that would be. I was quite sure, however, that it wasn’t going to be November 10th (her actual date of birth). “When the leaves fall off the trees Dad,” she said triumphantly. She smiled with the pride and satisfaction of knowing the answer to such an important question. But how did she manage to come up with this? I wondered. Then I realized that last year during the weekend of her birthday I was raking leaves into several piles in the back yard. And when the day of her party turned out to be a balmy 50 degrees and sunny, she and her friends ran outside and jumped in the leaves until the piles had been completely dispersed, as if they’d never existed. So, that is why she knows her birthday is “when the leaves fall from the trees.” There is something so innocent about the answer. So pure and real that I marvel at the simplicity of it. For my daughter, the month of November doesn’t even exist. But the change of the seasons is as real as she is.
Nov 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
The Twighlight Singers
THE TWILIGHT SINGERS Blackberry Belle Birdman Gore Vidal wrote it first: style forms the crux of art. Without it, an artist must fall back on his obsessions, which never adequately support his muse. As frontman for the much-missed Afghan Whigs, Greg Dulli freely intermingled his musical and thematic fixations — rock/decadence, rap/violence, Prince/sex — but the other band members kept his strut tight and tailored. As the center of a looser aggregation, the Twilight Singers, Dulli lets his pimp-suit wrinkle and his shuffle lurch. On the collective’s second full-length, Blackberry Belle, Dulli also tightens his hold on the creative reins. The 2000 debut, Twilight, featured the capable presence of Harold Chichester of Howlin’ Maggie; his near-falsetto provided a lilting counterpoint to Dulli’s hissing growl. Here, the growl is everywhere: other singers, including Apollonia Kotero and That Dog’s Petra Haden, serve as local color. Only in the final track, “Number Nine,” does Dulli give ground, and his duet with Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan suggests, in many (mostly good) ways, a showdown between Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. Against the constant shift of backing musicians, Dulli gives full play to his style. It’s the living embodiment of old-fashioned cool: the stray cat whose eyes are always narrowed, yet whose heart and soul never stop questing for the most potent high, the most thrilling fuck, the most lasting love. From the acoustic guitar drift of “St. Gregory” to the dripping of piano notes in “Follow You Down” and the hip-hop funk of “Feathers,” Dulli works his mojo until Blackberry Belle subverts a listener’s obsessions with his own.
Nov 1st, 2003 by Jon Gilbertson
Mojave 3
By Erin Wolf MOJAVE 3 Spoon and Rafter 4AD Mojave 3 has practically perfected the catchphrase, “quiet is the new loud.” With their exit from the shoegazing outfit Slowdive, we find them putting on the airs of alt-country, creating a sound rivaling bands like The Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star. Though select, these UK natives have built a very loyal following. Originally manned by Neil Halstead (vocals, guitars), Rachel Goswell (vocals, bass) and Ian McCutcheon (drums) in 1995, Mojave 3 later added the talents of Adam Forrester on keys and Simon Rowe on guitar creating one of the most pastoral sounds to be exported from England in recent times. Mojave 3 has continued in the vein of simplistic slo-core tinged with twang, and has created an introspective little album, Spoon and Rafter. More poignant and dreamy than 2001’s Excuses For Travelers with its’ upbeat tempo and orchestrations, the current effort shows Mojave 3 to be mellowing. This mellowing, however, may not necessarily be a wise decision when considering their original concept. At points, Spoon and Rafter seems almost too sleepy. Though their characteristic sound is soft and slow, sometimes too soft and too slow can be a recipe for record disaster when one song drones into the next. Aside from the departure into the more serene, the album is not a complete bust, and isquite brilliant in spots. The lovely, soft-but-twangy guitar sound once conjured up by the likes of Neil Young shows in the winsome track, “She’s All Up Above.” While “Too Many Mornings”, one of the record’s high points, calls the intro line from The Who’s “Love Ain’t For Keeping” their own. Hey guys, If you’re going to steal a line, at least make it more obscure… please. Overall, Spoon and Rafter is a nice collection of pretty, demure tunes; harmless and sweet — kind of like your kindergarten crush who brought you love notes on construction paper. At times, low key listening is a good breather for the soul, but, if you’re seeking the honesty and straight forward structure the band has become known for… you may not find it here.
Nov 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Pretty Girls Make Graves
PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES The New Romance Matador In a ranking of best current band names, Pretty Girls Make Graves (also the best use, period, of a Smiths song title) would have to be up there with … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, but it proves to be a misdirection long before the 40 minutes of The New Romance have elapsed. Lead singer Andrea Zollo is among the most alive — that is, jittery and nerve-attuned — female vocalists in rock. She’s not digging a grave for herself or anyone else; she’s clawing and shouting her way out of one. It’s a mass exhumation, too: there are four guys in there with her, each using his instrument to shove aside crumbling dirt. Not unlike Sleater-Kinney, Pretty Girls Make Graves inhale the thin, trebly air of the era that straddled the blurry line between punk and New Wave, and when they exhale the air turns to crystalline mist in the cold and explodes into a kind of warmth. Which is a pretty good way to fight the numbness that Zollo obviously, passionately hates. The Morse-code guitar of “The Teeth Collector” communicates her response to dishonesty; the phased bass of “Blue Lights” provides the pulse inside her neuroses, and the urgent rhythm of “This Is Our Emergency” flashes like police lights accompanying her siren call to stay true. The New Romance often hints at burial, but only to remind you that you’re not dead yet.
Nov 1st, 2003 by Jon Gilbertson
Cheap Trick
By Rob McCuen CHEAP TRICK Special One Big 3 Records Mention Cheap Trick in some circles and brace yourself for the smug salvos that are sure to be flung your way. What can I tell the clueless dorks who think the Trick are an old and tired joke? Special One, Cheap’s first offering in six years (and dare I say it)? is better than Woke Up With a Monster, Robin’s hate-laden divorce record. While I’m at it, it’s damn near better than Revolver. Yep, Rockford’s lovable lads are back to span the globe and expand your mind with a flourish, and go see ’em, cuz they’re still the best live act in da biz when they wanna be. If shimmering power pop nuggets of love, loss and longing are your bag, run — (and don’t let me catch you downloading it) — don’t walk, to your fave retail outfit and purchase this gem like a man. You’re welcome, but I can’t waste all my energy pointing you into the right pop closets. Hell yeah they’re arrogant. They’re fabulous and the rat bastards have out-Beatled the Liverpool mop-tops themselves with this effort. Make no mistake, this is Robin’s record, and the thin man flexes the velvet of his million dollar voice on each and every number. He’s a street walking cheetah with a heart full o’ napalm, hate and menace on “Sorry Boy.” On the outstanding “Words,” “My Obsession,” “Pop Drone” and five other peerless instant classics, he is the perfect blend of Lennon, Bryan Ferry, Marc Bolan and Roy Orbison . “I Want You to Want Me” this ain’t. So yeah, so what if they only “rawk out” in two songs? This is a sad, melancholy soundtrack to lose your love to. I pace, I sing, I cry. For three days, I didn’t leave my house cuz I was obsessed with first “Words” and later “Too Much.” Robin never stops aching and yearning and the diminishing minor chords ala George Harrison guitars will saw your soul in half. The band basically lays back — mean, lean and pretty from top to back — and lets Robin’s voice carry the tunes. Robin Zander has simply become the finest white singer of anywhere or anytime. Living or dead, he’s the best there is. Tom and Zander carry their torches from song to song with the biggest and baddest choruses and middle eight bridges since Lennon and McCartney. So there. Oh yeah, Nielsen sings and plays brilliantly and Bun-man’s snare is a 12 pack of M-80’s going off all at once.
Nov 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
