Local H - 12 Angry Months

Local H - 12 Angry Months (4.5/5)

Two Bands.

Both gained the public spotlight during the aftershocks of the nineties grunge earthquake. Both earned their success through unbearably catchy singles. Both bands appeared dead after their major label sequels failed to meet expectations. Both resurrected themselves in the new millennium after a lengthy hiatus where they lost and replaced a band mate.

That’s where the similarities end. One of these bands went on to recapture their mid-nineties songwriting skills and added a few new tricks while they survived playing small clubs and searching out independent labels for their newer albums. The other band sounded like a cheap knockoff but still managed to sell out stadiums and eat up internet chatter about their latest new release.

I’m talking about Local H and Weezer here. In my mind it is one of the great tragedies of our time that Weezer, a band who hasn’t been able to write a truly great song for well over a decade, has managed to coast on nostalgia selling millions of records while Local H, a band that is as strong, if not stronger, than they were in the alternative rock heyday, is remembered as a one hit wonder. Now that both acts are putting out new albums in the same year I wish I could claim that things are about to change and that a chiasmus shift will occur finding Local H on top and Weezer looking for a record deal. Instead, expect Weezer to put out a series of albums that sound as if they were recorded during a coke fueled all-nighter right before deadline (“Hey, remember that old Shaker song, we’ll just use that and people will think we’re being clever”), and Local H will continue to put out consistently good to great albums so long as they find a label willing to distribute them.

It’s a real shame too, because 12 Angry Months is the best Local H album since Pack Up the Cats. Not coincidently both albums emerge from the concept records of the 1970’s, but instead of the mystifying and campy sci-fi rock of Electric Light Orchestra or Styxx, Local H’s album long tales are of a more personal nature. Pack Up the Cats chronicled a band moving from the countryside to the big city and realizing that many of the same tribulations exist in both places. 12 Angry Months is a break up album that follows the despondent over a single post-break up year. As you might guess each song corresponds to a month.

What’s particularly powerful about Local H’s latest is the sheer honesty. This isn’t a collection of wistful songs about a lost love engineered to be perfect background music to sip one’s morning cup of joe. Instead, Scott Lucas realizes that most relationships end in an immolation that engulfs both participants. On “White Belt Boys” Lucas repeats “I hope you have a lonely life” and Lucas is his least sympathetic on “Jesus Christ! Did You See…” where he bluntly states, “to think I used to fuck you.” Sentiments like these are effective because of their honesty, and because Lucas realizes they emerge as much out of his hatred of another as they do out of self-loathing, as evinced by the mantra “only a groupie would ever want to love me.”

The transition from love burned to denouement backtracks from introspection to anger. Songs that hint at some sort of reconciliation, like “Simple Pleas’” acoustic guitar, are tempered by the anger evident in the industrial sounding percussion on “Machine Shed Wrestling.” The album accurately chronicles how hatred lies underneath the most sophisticated of sentiments. Lucas’s wit is underrated, and it is his sense of humor that also helps him recognize what the hell happened. On “The One With ‘Kid’” he describes the process of disentangling the couple’s integrated record collection, a task that leads him to accusatorily ask where his Kyuss records are, and to claim “you never liked them until you met me.” Later, in “Machine Shed Wrestling,” Lucas sings “As a product you would be great, and all the income you generate, but as a lover you’re just a bust, you’re not a service I can trust,” suggesting that the two first met comparing notes about their recently divorced record collection.

A rock band like Local H who openly confesses their love of Daft Punk is the kind of rock band who can write some great pop songs. This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Weezer/Local H comparisons. Despite being known as a power pop band, Weezer hasn’t written a truly memorable pop song since their second album. Skim the top four songs off of just this one Local H album and compare it to the top four songs from Weezer’s last four records and I guarantee you every Local H song will win the pop category.

But Local H doesn’t just stop at writing catchy songs, they also have a knack at writing final songs that sums up everything that came before. On “Hand to Mouth” Lucas repeats the lines “You’ll learn what really matters, you’ll know what really counts, you’ll hear the chitter-chatter, they say when you’re living hand to mouth,” with variation, on into infinity. Each intonation suggests a new and slightly different understanding of the phrase. Built upon tricks old and new, “Hand to Mouth” is possibly the best song in Local H has written to date, and possibly my favorite song so far this year.

The music industry has undergone some mighty peculiar changes since the 1990’s. I wish all of it was for the better. Despite the injustices that still exist in the marketplace, I’ll be happy if the long-tail provides enough room for a band like Local H to continue to write great albums without being forced to ride the wave of the inevitable 90’s nostalgia trend. I’ll end before you get me started on the Stone Temple Pilots’ reunion. That’s a whole other review.

Liars - Liars

Liars – Liars (5/5)

The best thing that ever happened to Liars was the one star review of They Were Wrong So We Drowned they received from Rolling Stone Magazine. What better way to promote yourself as the punk-rock-who-gives-a-fuck band of the new millennia than receive a devastatingly negative review from the magazine tailor made for the culturally shallow petit-bourgeois that choke our cities with the treeless wasteland of suburbia. Rolling Stone Magazine, who needs them. This is the same magazine that put The Eagles on the cover decades after they’re relevant, if they ever were relevant. This is the same magazine who, like most of its readers I’m sure, discovered itself during the culturally vibrant time of the sixties and has spent the last forty years skimming pop culture chum looking for the most shallow musical “artists.” This is the magazine that caters to Starbucks shopping masses who yearn for the convenience of picking up the latest Jasan Mraz, Carly Simon or Michael Bolton while simultaneously buying overpriced cappafrappalattes. When Rolling Stone published that review a very clear wall was erected and edict imposed. Play by our rules or else you don’t get in.

So naturally the Liars went on to record the equally confounding Drum’s Not Dead.

After giving Rolling Stone the middle finger twice, it appears that Liars are ready to play nice with their audience. Their fourth release, given the swanky title Liars, is their most accessible album since their debut. Of course, its accessibility is mixed with the confrontational personality of the band. One cannot help but imagine a grin on lead singer Angus Andrew’s face when he delivers the faux-metal line “sweet massacre of death” during the album opener “Plaster Casts of Everything.” This mischievous irony is heightened by the fact the momentum of the song hits a wall mid-song only to accelerate to full speed with an even more anthemic refrain. Liars make it clear that even though they’re writing actual songs this time they’re still not playing nice.

I’m tempted to dissect the album into pop songs (or at least pop songs by the Liar’s standards) and percussion experiments that recall their last two albums, kind of like how Bowie’s Berlin albums were divided between lyrical songs and instrumentals. About half of the songs are the experimental Liars where they treat every instrument as if it’s a drum. This push-pull tension works wonderfully thanks to some great sequencing. Unlike so many bands the Liars don’t frontload the album, and after the two requisite singles as album openers, there are three challenging tracks in a row. By evenly distributing the swag, they’ve made sure the listener doesn’t get bored by the half-hour mark.

Many of the catchier numbers sound like old favorites blown out through the Liar’s bullhorn. “Houseclouds” sounds like an electroclash Prince. The fuzz of “Freak Out” is reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr. The stabbing guitar and breathy vocals of “Pure Unevil” recalls New Order. Needless to say, the breadth of the sound coming from this album is impressive. At times Liars sounds like an album at a forked road. One direction is the murky swamp of experimentation obscured from the likes of lesser critics like Rolling Stone by a gripping canopy. The other path leads them out in the open with all the other indie-rock artists that have made their way onto soundtracks of quirky independent comedies. Or, perhaps the Liars are coming from the opposite direction, arriving at a point where both sides of their personality meet rather than diverge. I hope that this album is really a reconciliation between the inviting Liars and the Liars who don’t have a problem telling Rolling Stone to fuck off.

1000 Years in Hell With Mike Meyers

It has recently come to my attention that Mike Meyers is putting out another movie. After desecrating the corpse of Dr. Seuss he's gone ahead and offended an entire religion. Meyers's latest celluloid monstrosity is called The Love Guru where he plays a Hindu spiritual leader who is enlisted in a scheme to get a professional hockey player back together with his wife. Hockey? Oh, that's right, he's Canadian.

Some people are none too pleased with the movie. The Spiritual Science Research Foundation (an oxymoron on par with the organization, Jumbo Shrimp for Corporate Ethics), a group of conservative Hindus, have written letters in protest of the film. They have even created a chart illustrating how many years in hell you will receive for even watching the film. For example, if you watch the movie knowing about it's "spiritual significance" you receive five demerits and one-hundred years in the first level of Hell. However, if you are involved in making the film then you receive thirty demerits and one-thousand years in the second level of Hell. Don't worry, it's too late for Mike Meyers, he's already received at least ten-thousand years in Hell for The Cat and the Hat.

Act	Demerit	Means
Making the movie, 'The Love Guru'	30 units	2nd region of Hell for 1000 years
Watching it for entertainment without knowing the spiritual science/significance	2 units	Nether region (Bhuvaloka) for 100 yrs
Watching it for entertainment even after knowing the spiritual science/ significance	5 units	1st region of Hell for 100 yrs
Being a seeker of God/on the spiritual path, knowing about the Movie, but doing nothing to stop it	5 units	1st region of Hell for 100 yrs

I wonder how long until the studio uses this as a gimmick. "The movie that's so good they don't want you to see it." "Never before has ninety minutes been worth a hundred years in Hell." "It's sacri-larious!"

It's kind of nice to know that religious zealots exist everywhere. To be perfectly honest the hundred years of hell has me more curious about the movie than the actual preview. Is it really worth it? Not if during that hundred years I will be forced to watch Mike Meyers movies, that's for sure.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Is Is (4/5)

The latest release from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a mere five song E.P. that is somewhat reminiscent of their pre-Fever to Tell output. If while listening to Is Is you get the feeling that these songs sound like natural descendents to the YYYs early releases, like their self-titled debut and Machine, there’s a good reason for such suspicions: these songs were actually written around the same time as those early E.P.s. For their latest release the YYYs grabbed a bunch of older songs and re-recorded them. Unlike the rest of us, when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs look under their couch cushions instead of finding loose change they just happen to find a handful of unused songs.

Working against their more recent, more polished work, the latest YYYs release feels as if the whole affair was bound by a bunch of rusty bolts. While the songs have more of an edge than the YYYs’ indie-pop numbers, they’re hardly a retread of their early days. The stuttering pace of “Rockers to Swallow” sounds as if the drums and guitar would collapse if Karen O’s snarl didn’t whip them along all the way to the finish line. There’s a sense of space that wasn’t present in YYYs’ early fits of noise, which makes it even more important for the trio to play off one another. For his part, Brian Chase takes an opportunity for more complexity and drum fills, Nick Zinner expands his oeuvre with some psychadelia on “Isis,” and while avoiding any conventional melodies, Karen O showcases her strengths as a front woman. Is Is sounds like a sort of missing link between the YYYs’ early songs and their first album.

Considering that these songs were written long before this E.P. was recorded, I don’t think the YYYs are necessarily hinting at a new direction. From “Art Star” to “Cheated Hearts” the YYYs have already proven they shriek as well as they can sing, but it is comforting to know that they haven’t completely given up on shrieking. Here’s hoping that instead of plotting their songs along a pop/noise spectrum they realize there doesn’t have to be much of a difference between the two.

The Black Keys - Attack & Release

The Black Keys - Attack & Release (4/5)

The Black Keys’ latest release was originally intended as the collaborative product of DJ Dangermouse, Ike Turner, and the title band. The man responsible for “Crazy,” a couple of white Midwestern bluesmen, and the guy who almost sent Tina Turner rolling down the river was an unlikely grouping to say the least, and I for one was curious to hear the inevitable clusterfuck of an album. Unfortunately, before this marvelously disparate musical collision could get on its way Ike Turner passed away. Who knew decades of drug, alcohol, and spousal abuse could end a life so early? Ike left this plane of existence at the age of seventy-six.

I half expected a DJ Dangermouse mash up between The Black Keys and Li’l Bow Wow (or, does he go by Bow Wow now?), but thankfully Dangermouse decided to mostly stay out of the way and let the Keys do their thing. If you were to suck all the studio trickery out of Attack & Release you would still have a collection of some damn fine songs. What Dangermouse ends up doing best is accentuating the open space on the slower songs. He adds a psychedelic atmosphere that fits perfectly with the classic rock underpinnings of The Black Keys’ songwriting, which has always been a few steps closer to Cream and Hendrix than Robert Johnson.

“Same Old Thing” is perhaps the only song where it feels as if Dangermouse is unsure of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s songwriting and unleashes some unnecessary Gil Scot Heron inspired flutes just to gum up the works. The result is unfortunately more than a little distracting. Dangermouse is most effective on “Psychotic Girl,” an acid trip on the bayou that’s enhanced by wraithlike backing vocals and eerie piano notes. Auerbach provides appropriate paranoia-by-moonlight lyrics and infuses even the slower songs with a strong sense of melody, something that had been sorely missing on their previous record. While most Black Keys albums feel as if they just stop regardless of the whether the last song is an appropriate end point, here “Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be” is a note perfect closer. The slow-dance pace and female backing vocals add just the right amount of effervescent heartbreak.

I’ll put myself on record as being disappointed with The Black Keys’ previous album, Magic Potion. After their superb (and still best) album, Rubber Factory, The Keys sounded listless and without momentum. The Ohioans needed a new direction. Attack & Release sounds like a true follow up to Rubber Factory, and even though I can’t help but miss their minimalism, I fully welcome their rediscovered sense of adventure.

The Black Keys "Strange Times" Music Video

The Black Keys "Strange Times" Music Video

The Black Keys are preparing to unleash another midwest blues monstrosity on an unsuspecting public. Their newest album, Release & Attack, will be released April 1st, after which you can expect an eardrum assault. This album has an interesting origin. Originally The Black Keys were going to record an album as the backing band for Ike Turner and produced by Danger Mouse, but when Turner went rolling down the big river in the sky, The Black Keys converted most of those songs into a fifth album instead. Danger Mouse is still producing.

Here is the video for "Strange Times." It involves lasers, tag, and lasertag.

Strange Times


Danger Mouse isn't exactly the first name that comes to mind when I think of potential producers for The Black Keys. However, this might be a good thing. After their first truly disappointing album (Magic Potion had mediocre written all over it) they really needed to shake some things up. Let's hope all the keyboards don't get in the way of all the white boy blues.

Super Furry Animals & Times New Viking Concert

Super Furry Animals & Times New Viking Concert

Times New Viking’s live show is somewhat of a paradox in that they sound more clear than they do on their albums. This, of course, is by design. I would be hard pressed to find another band more dedicated to a lo lo fi aesthetic. I was surprised to discover that the male vocalist of the group was actually the drummer, Adam, and not the guitarist. In a live setting the simple drums seemed to propel the performance, thanks in part to Adam having the most active stage personality, even playing the drums while standing up towards the end of the set. Adam introduced the first four songs as pop song number… in ascending order: “pop song #1, pop song #2, etc.” And I suppose that’s exactly what they played: precise, concise pop songs. With most, if not all, of the songs under three minutes long, the set flew by, and if I didn’t have the albums in the back of my head, then I’m not sure how much of an impact the band would have made. Of course, I’m already a convert so I was ready to pray at the altar of Times New Viking.

About three-quarters of the way through Times New Viking’s set, the drummer told the audience that this was the point where they should drop their acid. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Times New Viking’s sound is light years away from rock music conducive for psychedelic drugs, also know as self-indulgent jam band wankering. There is a reason why certain kinds of bands are heavily associated with drugs: they’re too fucking boring to listen to with a clear head. I will admit I was a little afraid that Super Furry Animals, whose music seems intricately geared towards headphone listening, would fall into the “music to drop acid to” category. Thank the gods Super Furry Animals knew that when they show up live it’s time to bring the rock.

Only a handful of songs were chosen from their latest album, Hey Venus!, but more tellingly they chose only one song from Love Kraft, their most laid back studio work. Instead the set list was culled evenly from their entire discography, heavily relying on crowd pleasers and their more pop oriented productions. Lead singer Gruff Rhys came out on stage in a space helmet stolen straight from the set of “Out of this World.” Continuing this cosmic theme, the second song out was the undeniably catchy “Rings Around the World.” On no less than three occasions the band played three songs titled “Uuuuurth 1,” Uuuuurth 2,” and Uuuuurth 3” where they encouraged the audience to participate by placing their hands on their head and wiggling their fingers. Were they trying to call the Grays from behind Venus using us as some kind of antennae, or were they just trying to make us look really stupid. Probably the latter, but I didn’t particularly care. Among the highlights was “Receptacle for the Respectable” where lead singer Gruff Rhys ate a carrot as a part of the percussion section. Gruff even brought back the space helmet towards the end of the show. As they played the final song the band members held up two signs: one with the word Boston on it, in the font of the wonderfully cheesy band; the second, a sign stating “resist false encores.” True to their word it was their last song. Of course, I didn’t mind, it would have been greedy to ask for anything more.

Bizarro Bill Richardson

I don't claim to know who will win the 2008 presidential election, hell, at this point it's pretty tough to call who the Democratic nominee will be, but one thing is for certain: we have dodged what would assuredly be the end of the world thanks to one of the candidates who dropped out. This may be old news for the rest of you, but I have only recently been made aware of the terrible occurrence in New Mexico. It would seem that Bill Richardson has been replaced by Bizarro Bill Richardson.

Before:





















After:
















I can't even begin to imagine what would have happened if Bizarro Bill Richardson had won the presidency. Instead of letting all of Mexico into our country he would have allowed all of Canada to waltz across the boarders. Or maybe, instead of making it illegal for immigrants to stay here he would have forced Americans to move to Mexico. Only a Hispanic politician (with the strangely anglo name of Bill Richardson) replaced by his Bizarro counterpart from another dimension could devise such machinations. Perhaps, instead of universal health care he would implement a plan that would infect the country with the bubonic plague. Those who survived would presumably be tough enough, with enough immunities, to not need health care. Who knows what kind of evil lurks in that beard. All I know, is that he would rule with an iron fist.

In related news, here's an article about Hillary and Barack courting the endorsement of Bizarro Bill Richardson.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2/5)

In the original Elizabeth we saw the title character transform from an inexperienced twenty-something into a queen by hardening her heart and learning the ways of cutthroat politics. So, why in the sequel is she portrayed as a hysterical teenager? The filmmakers didn’t see fit to transfer any of what made the original character so great into the sequel. Instead of the assured queen at the end of Elizabeth, in Elizabeth: The Golden Age we are treated to an insecure monarch reacting to a midlife crisis by acting half her age.

King Philip of Spain is amassing an armada to invade England. He sees the Protestant queen as a spot of darkness in a Catholic world, even though, despite urgings to do so by her own counsel, she refuses to persecute Catholics in her own kingdom. If this wasn’t enough, her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, is planning to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and take the English throne. In the midst of these political machinations is a love triangle between the explorer Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth, and one of Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting.

For all of the intrigue and subplots, not much happens for the first half of the film and instead of political intrigue the audience is forced to endure another love scene where the two romantics ride horses in the countryside. Raleigh and Elizabeth’s relationship is utterly unconvincing. I cannot understand how anyone but the most naïve would be taken in on Raleigh’s “philosophical musings” about how when death closes in during a storm it only makes you want to live more, to which Elizabeth replies with wide eyes, “Yes, to live!” It sounds like the kind of life philosophy that would fit nicely in between sketches of unicorns and rainbows.

The looming threat of the Inquisition accompanies the Spanish armada, even though we are never shown the religious intolerance of the Inquisition. The menace would have loomed larger if the audience was aware of just exactly what was at stake. The first film had the tremendous opening where Protestant heretics were burnt at the stake, would it have been too much for a similar reminder that Europe still had one foot in the Dark Ages? Perhaps director Shekhar Kapur felt the dialogue was already enough torture for his audience.

In the film’s defense, it does fulfill the historical film’s need for extravagance in costume and cinematography. However, looking pretty just isn’t enough. After the extraordinary introduction to Elizabeth in the first film the last thing an audience wants to watch is a digression. If the film is about her rise to world dominance, then why does it feel as if Blanchett’s playing the role of a washed up actress, past her prime and unable to get her agent on the phone? It seems as if Elizabeth is more concerned with aging than she is with running her country. The central metaphor to the film is that of a storm, which is uttered from the lips of many characters, and to be sure when you finish watching Elizabeth: The Golden Age, you’ll feel as if you’ve weathered one yourself.

Telecom Amnesty Redux

On Tuesday, February 12, the United States Senate passed the Protect American Act with telecom amnesty. You can get a more in depth analysis thanks to the invaluable Glenn Greenwald, here.

Since the last time I wrote the Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats struck a deal on all of the pending amendments. The amendments either needed the usual fifty votes to pass or in special occasions they required sixty votes to pass. So, for example, the Dodd amendment that would strip the bill of telecom amnesty only required fifty votes, since the Republicans figured they could get enough Democrats to go against the rule of law, but another amendment by Diane Feinstein that would have review of any illegal activity conducted by the FISA courts themselves behind closed doors, required sixty votes because Democrats might actually vote for it. Sure enough, the Feinstein amendment received over fifty but less than sixty votes. In other words, the Democrats agreed to a deal where they increased the number of necessary votes for certain amendments to make sure the bill passed the Senate in the shape the president wanted it.

Well, is that it, have the telephone companies gotten away with breaking the law? Not quite, thanks to a bicameral legislature it still has to pass the House.

Luckily, the House actually has a spine and allowed the Protect America Act to expire rather than pass a permanent law that included telecom amnesty. This means the U.S. can still gather intelligence under FISA and despite what the fear mongers in Washington like to say, we can still listen in on potential enemies even if we have to go through the pesky "judicial branch" and respect "separation of power."

If you are listening to the Republicans then you might think that Osama Bin Laden can waltz right across our boarders and steal the secret Bush's Baked Bean recipe (yes, that's right, Duke is a part of Al Qaeda). This is obvious fear mongering and it's a wonder it has not been called out as obvious fear mongering more often. Maybe this small amount of defiance from the House will teach other Democrats that all they have to do is make their case to the American people, and when they do the world will not explode. Maybe other Democrats will realize that you don't have to do everything Bush tells you to in order to look "tough on terror." Maybe? Or maybe it's too much to ask.

Kentucky Fights Ohio Over a Rock!

The New York Times has one of the greatest newspaper articles I've read in a long time. It concerns Ohio, Kentucky, and a rock. When all three converge you know that a' trouble's a' brewin'! I will summarize the article but you really need to get the information straight from the Times, if only because it's very well written.

In Postsmouth, Ohio, local historian Steve Shaffer had a lifelong obsession with a local landmark called Indian Head Rock. The rock is famous for a stick figure drawing of a face of unknown origins as well as the names of many Portsmouth families from yesteryear whose ancestors still reside there today (yes, this is in Southern Ohio). The stick figure head is thought to be a Native American petroglyph, hence the name Indian Head Rock. When the Ohio River's water line rose due to dam construction, the rock was lost to time. Shaffer, remembering the rock in his local history course in middle school, decided in his adult years to take a diving team into the Ohio River and after a difficult search recovered the rock from the river floor.

After raising the rock, however, Ohio's neighbors to the south became upset. That's right, Kentucky thought we were stealing their rock! Apparently there is a shortage of rocks in Kentucky just as there is a shortage of college degrees and family trees. There are, however, a plethora of mullets and racists. The Kentucky legislature passed a bill demanding that the rock be returned. One of their legislators even suggested a raiding party. Not to be outdone one of our House members declared that he would defend the rock with his shotgun if need be.

The NY Times also has a video of their Indian Head Rock story.

If all goes well this will lead to a new civil war. It's time to put these rebels in their place a second time. Oh, Kentucky was a part of the Union you say? Well, we'll redraw the Mason Dixon line. Ahhhh, I see, they were also a slave state. Now that makes sense.

Rockabye Baby!

Kids who listened to music in the 90's are having babies!

That's the impression I got when I saw this celebrity endorsement by Metallica's Kirk Hammett for the Rockabye Baby! collection. If you haven't heard, Rockabye Baby! is a collection of albums that takes rock music classics and rearranges them into lullabies for your kids. Remember, buy the album and don't download!




I don't know what's creepier, the music or when Kirk Hammett says "lullabies for baaaabies." Although, I will admit that I would rather listen to old Metallica reworked for children than their last few albums. Albeit, their newer stuff might be more effective in putting me to sleep.

I wonder how much control the artists have over stuff like this. Is this just the record companies selling out their artists or was it Courtney Love who gave Rockabye Baby! the right to cover Heart Shaped Box? I suppose legally it's not dissimilar to any old band covering a classic song on their latest album. Judging by Kirk Hammett's smile he's at least getting paid for his crappy music again.

And speaking of sleeping babies:



Hey, that baby wasn't just sleepy, that baby was drunk! In fact I finished off a keg with that baby last weekend. Poser passed out.

Times New Viking - Rip It Off

Times New Viking – Rip It Off (5/5)

Before Times New Viking released Rip It Off on Matador, their first album in the big little leagues, many were questioning whether they would stubbornly maintain their lo-lo-fi aesthetic. Would Times New Viking sell out by not recording on four tracks and maybe even hire a bass player? Maybe it was the punk rock in all of us that thought moving to another (admittedly still independent) label would have forced the band to clean up their sound. These days independents have been making great commercial strides, even getting their bands onto Billboard’s top ten. How long would it be for them to become the new majors? I’m here to say, don’t fear the four-track: all is well with Times New Viking’s latest opus.

While Rip It Off sounds a lot like their last two records, that’s not to say that the band has been completely stagnant. Those who loved the songs of their last album, but hated the recording, will find even catchier pop snippets underneath the static, and those who also loved the high end static will find plenty of that as well. In other words, those who think Times New Viking’s lo-fi shtick is just a gimmick probably won’t be too happy about Rip It Off. One thing Rip It Off is not, is a please everybody album.

The album contains their cleanest song to date, “Drop-Out,” which sounds like it could possibly be played on the radio so long as the station was just barely in range and you had crappy reception to begin with. But that’s about as clear as it gets. “My Head” belies its friendly beats with the mantra “I need more money, because I need more drugs,” which also happens to be one of the few lyrics one can make out underneath the white noise. “The Wait” slows things down to mid-tempo and could conceivably be played at a high school dance in some alternate punk rock universe. “The End of All Things” has an acoustic outro that gives the static a rest for about twenty seconds or so.

I know there are plenty of people who will ask, if Times New Viking are writing pop songs, then what’s the point of obscuring them with a crappy recording? Perhaps the answer can be found in the same reaction some of us had to Times New Viking’s jump to Matador: punk rock guilt. If you start making songs lots of people like, eventually you’ll get people listening to your music who you would rather not show up at the show singing your lyrics. Or perhaps the answer isn’t quite as elitist. Maybe they just like the sound of static as much as the sound of a keyboard? There is a certain aura to lo-fi albums that recalls listening to a friend’s band in his parent’s garage back in high school. Just because technology has reached the stage where musicians can do just about anything, doesn’t mean they should actually do just about anything. There are those of us who think four tracks are plenty for a rock album. There’s a reason no one actually sits through an entire ELO record anymore.

Whenever a band makes a jump to a bigger label the speculation about where they’re headed begins. Rip It Off gives several clues. The band’s songwriting has been recalibrated for more hooks per song (although nothing tops “Teenagelust!” from their last album). Does this mean one day they might stop sounding like they recorded at the bottom of Lake Erie? Their most pertinent audio and geographical forebears, Guided By Voices, eventually succumbed to the sins of a big studio album. Will Times New Viking someday make their own Isolation Drills? Perhaps, but until then I’ll be perfectly happy for Times New Viking to bang out a couple more albums that pack sixteen songs into a sardine-can-sized half-hour.

Kids Trash Robert Frost's House

Several days ago the Vermont home of Robert Frost was desecrated by a gaggle of teenagers. About thirty kids trudged up to the now historical Robert Frost home with lots of beer and lots of liquor. After several hours of partying they broke windows, smashed antique furniture, and urinated and vomited where they pleased. Eventually the kids were found out and prosecuted (apparently trying to get thirty teenagers to keep a secret is more difficult than getting a cat to take a bath).

Why?

Well, obviously they thought Ezra Pound was, like, soooooooooo much better and that Robert Frost was a total freak, ya know?

I don't pretend to be terribly knowledgeable about Frost. I've read a few poems and I've even liked a few. At times his reputation seems almost too quintessentially rural American. At one point this down home reputation had to be swept under the rug by critics who wanted to save Robert Frost. They argued that he was just as dark and neurotic as any Modern poet.

It was probably this fallacious belief in the myth of the wholesome Frost that made his home such a tempting target. Who doesn't go through a phase where you want to tear down symbols of virtue? Here's one of my favorite Frost poems "Birches." It's about kids "swinging" trees. I used to do the same thing when I was younger, but back then we called it "parachuting" trees.

"Birches"

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I can't help but think that somehow the poem is relevant.

Here is a clip from one of my favorite video games of all time, Grim Fandango, which pays homage to one of America's most prestigious poets:



My favorite line from that game: "Run you pigeons, it's Robert Frost!"

Telecom Amnesty Again

Over the past several days the "Protect America Act" was the center of a contentious Senate debate. If you've been parsing through news sources you may have actually heard of this development (because most of the major news networks have essentially ignored the story; they're too worried about inaccurate polling to care about little things like The Constitution).

Here's an older story I wrote in 2007 and here's someone much smarter than myself explaining the outcome of the last several days. The following is a little overview.

As I mentioned before, attempts to update the purview of the FISA courts so that they can oversee new technological advances (e-mail, etc.) has been the subject of much back and forth over the past several months. Expanding the ability to monitor these new lines of communication with a court order is pretty uncontroversial in the Senate. Both Democrats and Republicans agree to updating the law to achieve this affect. The previous FISA bill that achieved monitoring of new technologies is about to expire in February which leaves the Senate with two options: 1) comprise on a bill now or 2) extend the previous FISA bill for another thirty days.

However, the Republicans have included in the bill telecom amnesty for those telephone companies who allowed Bush to spy on American citizens without a warrant. I have gone into the importance of denying phone companies telecom amnesty in my previous post on the subject.

For the past several days the Republicans have claimed that if the FISA bill is not updated then Al Qaeda will invade your home and sleep with your wife. Paradoxically, Bush has claimed that he will veto the FISA bill if it does not have telecom amnesty and will also veto a thirty day extension of the previous bill. What? So according to his own rhetoric, he would rather have Al Qaeda sleep with the wives of American citizens than wait another month for a compromise or let the courts decide (rather than the legislature) whether the telephone companies broke the law. Is that the kind of talk you would hear from someone who wants to protect America at all costs?

Thankfully, the Democrats decided to grow a vertebra and actually stood up to Bush. To prevent any amendments to the bill that would have potentially stripped the bill of telecom amnesty, the Republicans enacted a cloture vote. Cloture ends all debate and any potential amendments. In order to achieve cloture the Republicans would have had to get sixty votes. They lost by twelve votes. Even one of their own, Senator Arlen Specter, voted against cloture. In a tit-for-tat move the Republicans then prevented the Democrats from getting cloture on the thirty day extension.

Here is Chris Dodd arguing against cloture on the Senate floor:


So, where does this leave us? As far as I can tell, back at the beginning. The bill will expire in early February meaning that the new technology will be off limits to eavesdropping but regular phone communication will be fair game for FISA just like it has been since the FISA courts were created way back before September 11th 2001. Expect Republicans to take advantage of the confusing nature of this bill by claiming that we can no longer listen in on Al Qaeda. We can. We could before September 11th and we will be able to well into the future.

There's some real momentum against telecom amnesty. When the bill was introduced in 2007 Chris Dodd lead a successful campaign against it. Only about a dozen Democrats stood up with him. Now the vast majority of Democrats are at least ready to hear him out. In another month or so who knows, maybe we'll actually beat telecom amnesty. I'll close with another video of Dodd way back in 2007 when he placed a hold on the FISA bill that contained telecom amnesty. It's a great summation of how far gone the ideals of America have become over the last seven years.

Persepolis

Persepolis (5/5)

Persepolis is a kind of film rarely seen in America: an animated film for adults. When I say “adult” I’m not referring to the ultra-violent zaniness found in Japanese animation or the double entendres meant to go over children’s heads in movies like Shrek, I’m referring to a complicated protagonist attempting to simultaneously understand and manage overpowering change in the world around her. I don’t think Bugs Bunny had the same depth of problems that Marjane Satrapi has (of course, I supposed he was struggling with living in Hobbes’s nature during that whole rabbit season/duck season debacle). Even referencing Bugs seems a bit silly since animation has supposedly evolved to encompass many genres beyond children’s film. Or at least outside of the United States boarders it has, and I’m sure no one would be surprised to learn that Persepolis has French subtitles.

Persepolis is based on an autobiographical comic book by Marjane Satrapi about growing up in Iran, being sent to Europe during her adolescents, and returning as she transitions into an adult. Growing up during the Iranian revolution, Marjane has a sense of wonder about the chaos around her. She becomes particularly intrigued by her uncle, a communist who was jailed and was only recently released from prison. Fueled by her uncle’s stories and her parents political involvement she rallies a group of neighborhood kids to chase the son of an Iranian torturer so that they can gouge out his eyes with nails. They are stopped by an adult before the bloody deed is done. Marjane even begins talking back to her teacher in school, contradicting the Iranian status quo. After the Ayatollah comes to power Marjane’s family fears what will happen to their outspoken daughter and decide to send her with some friends in Europe.

Once in Europe Marjane wrestles with the travails of puberty while trying to reconcile her exotic Iranian heritage with her adolescent need to fit in. At first she stays at a Catholic boarding school, but when one of the nuns affronts Iranians Marjane makes the uncouth comment that all nuns were once prostitutes. This leads to her moving out into a series of living arrangements as well as a string of boyfriends. When she discovers one of her boyfriends in bed with another woman, Marjane becomes despondent and gets kicked out of her apartment and winds up living on the streets. It would be easy to shrug off Marjane’s self-destructive behavior as her being a self-involved teen. It would be easy except that when Marjane wakes up in a hospital from malnutrition she chastises herself for becoming upset over a relationship when her own uncle was subject to incarceration for merely speaking his mind. It’s this kind of self-reflection that prevents the film from falling into the kind of narcissism that plagues so many other coming of age stories. After her brush with death Marjane decides to return to Iran where she must confront the intolerance of a government run by a religion.

Like the comic book the animation is deceptively simple. The film is mostly black and white and the characters are drawn with thick lines. Anyone who’s read the comic book will wonder whether they fit in most of the original medium. While the filmmakers do a good job at referencing many of Marjane’s stories, many of the vignettes are necessarily truncated. However, this is hardly a downfall of the film which utilizes animation to communicate Marjane’s tale as succinctly as possible. When she falls in love with a boy, for example, we see her floating above the ground with him, which, for a teenage romance, is just about all the audience needs to know. Each moment of the film is, like the animation, told clearly and simply, but as the film moves forward the moments gather greater strength. It’s like the filmmakers are putting down one pebble after anther until, before you know it, they’ve constructed an entire wall.

The intellectual middle class nature of Marjane’s family seems so familiar that I often found myself wondering what I would do if suddenly transplanted in a country where you could be jailed for walking with someone of the opposite sex who wasn’t related to you and, worst of all, alcohol was banned. Persepolis is a needed reminder that small minded rulers too often rule over a more enlightened populace (it says something that the same sentence could describe the state of today’s America). For all the talk of cultural differences, it should be remembered that certain ideals can be disseminated by dialogue, even if they’re unsuccessfully translated through the barrel of a gun.

Someone Else's Headline, My Pictures

Gazans Knock Down Boarder, Flee to Egypt to Shop





























Headline comes from the January 24th Issue of the Boston Metro Free Newspaper.

Photos of day after thanksgiving from the internets.

Times New Viking's Broken Van Story

The whole "broken van" story has become a rock and roll staple. Every band has to have a story where their van breaks down and they have to mix with the local populace. Usually the bands come from some major city so it's really a play on the fish out of water tale. In this case the band in question is Columbus's Times New Viking who wind up in Montana. It's probably my favorite "broken van" story in quite some time.

I'm particularly partial to the deaf mechanics and the David Lynch references.

Here's Times New Viking performing a song from their debut album "Dance Walhalla" live. Their live sound varies differently from their "studio" sound, but unlike most bands they sound clearer live.



Here's another video of some dude dancing to the studio version of "Little Amps" off their second album The Paisley Reich:



Their newest album, Rip it Off, is their debut on Matador Records and rears its ugly head in record stores everywhere on January 22nd.

Juno

Juno (4.5/5)

The first question of importance about Juno is, why doesn’t the main character get an abortion? The obvious answer is that an abortion would have simply ended the plot. Sober reality does not mesh with wacky hijinks. It’s important to pause and think about the abortion issue for a minute since it was similarly passed over in Knocked Up. Is this some kind of right to life conspiracy? Hardly, I think it is the simple fact that abortion doesn’t have a place in comedy, while pregnancy is a regular comedic staple even if it’s a pregnant sixteen year-old. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, abortion is too complex an issue for a movie about a sardonic teenager. If you’re interested in that kind of a story it would be better to watch Lake of Fire or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days .

Juno is the title character of the film who winds up Knocked Up by the kid from Superbad, who under any other circumstances would have grown up to be a 40 Year-Old Virgin (where’s my check Judd Apatow!?). After a disastrous visit to a planned pregnancy agency (Juno decides to go to Women Now “because they help women now”) the sixteen year-old decides to carry the child to term. However, instead of keeping the child Juno decides to take responsibility by, conversely, giving the child away to a young yuppie couple who cannot have a child of their own. The issue of teenage pregnancy and premarital pregnancy is both all too common and at the same time commonly feared. Whether you know someone who has been in that situation, have children who could be in that situation, or could be in that situation yourself, it’s a pervasive problem at all levels of society, which in turn makes it perfectly suited for comedy. Too often these off-beat comedies with quirky characters come off as mean spirited or look down on their characters and by extension look down on their audience (*cough* Napoleon Dynamite *cough*). This is not the case with Juno which treats every character as simultaneously flawed and heroic. There is no villain, and even though Juno may fight with her stepmother, her stepmother is not the easy caricature of a joke she would have been in lesser hands, instead she too has her moment of heroics when she defends Juno from a snarky ultrasound technician.

Juno is also one of the few American films to include the subtext of economic class in America. Most movie jobs happen to be something ridiculously specific, like someone who's job is to provides seat fillers for celebrity weddings for when guests don't show up, and at the last minute the director decides a meta-cameo by Julia Roberts is the one thing the film really needs. By contrast Juno's father is an AC repairman. While Juno lives in a cluttered household somewhere in the lower range of middle class, the adopting couple lives in a pristine McMansion, complete with disgustingly cute pictures of themselves that line the staircase. Juno’s stepmother addresses this issue by claiming that the couple could actually be worse parents than Juno would be. There is something of a Brad and Angelina quality to a couple who would lift a child from its less well off roots into a life of means assuming that more money automatically means a better life, but at the same time it would be difficult to argue that a sixteen year old, without an education and whose family may not have the level of finances to provide for a grandchild, would necessarily be the best caretaker for her child. It would have been nice for these issues to be addressed directly by the script instead of quite literally being put into the background through set design, but they are nevertheless present in a film market where class is almost always invisible.

My one complaint is that of the soundtrack. While there are some nice selections like The Kinks, Buddy Holly, and in a pivotal scene Sonic Youth’s “Superstar,” the most common artist, Kimya Dawson, is a little too twee for my tastes. Supposedly Juno is a big fan of bands like The Runaways and The Stooges, but instead of a punk soundtrack we get self-consciously cute acoustic numbers. I will give credit to films like Juno that move beyond the cliché Forest Gump songs, which were obvious and too on the nose to be effective, and mine some previously uncovered gems from The KinksI will also give credit to films that highlight contemporary artists. At the same time, rock music did not die in 1969 and there is more to contemporary indie rock than middling acoustic pop.

Perhaps I’m being greedy, and the more that a filmmaker gives me the more I ask for. I suppose it should be enough to have a film with genuine characters, nuanced humor, and some good rather than great songs.

Song of the New Year

Almost everyone has a song of the Summer, and I'm no exception, but ever since college, and beyond, I've always had a song of the New Year. It's pretty much the song that defined my holiday break. I can still remember that during my Sophomore year of college it was The Clash's "Rudie Can't Fail." Well, during these holidays it was the inimitable "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes.

Here are a few highlights of the music video: it's wildly out of sync and watch out for the people venting their frustration while spinning on a merry go round (which I think was the same advice I received from the last fortune cookie I ate).




Hmmmmmm, I didn't know Jamiroquai sang that song.










Or was it that guy from the Counting Crows?